Leaning back in his leather seat, Bill rested his hands on the steering wheel and stared balefully at the cars banked up around him. Northbound traffic was hardly moving, and irate drivers were beginning to lean on their horns as annoyance mounted and tempers flared. Gympie Road near Kedron was normally pretty awful at this time of the day, yet today’s traffic jam seemed to be a magnitude higher in density and frustration.
Bill’s mobile phone rang just as the traffic surged ahead. Cursing, he went to pick it up, and then had to brake when an impatient driver swung into the suddenly opened space ahead of Bill’s car, almost sideswiping Bill on the way through. Bill swore, slamming his hand on the horn, only to be rewarded by the sight of the other driver’s middle finger slowly raised in his direction. The phone rang yet again and muttering angrily, he turned it off mid-ring – he did not want to deal with the phone or the caller. The traffic again jerked forward and he lightly tapped the accelerator allowing his elderly BMW to inch ahead.
Ten minutes later, the traffic was almost entirely at a standstill with scarcely any progress made. At this rate, he reckoned it would be nightfall before he reached his home in Bridgeman Downs. Suddenly he heard sirens, and saw the intermittent flash of emergency lights up ahead of him.
‘Car accident,’ he thought to himself, ‘Damn!’
He flicked the radio on, searching through the stations until he found a program with a regular road report. He listened intently to the announcer, as around him the traffic jam solidified into one unmoving, almost solid, inert mass. Finally, the news came on and the first item was a special report – a group of people killed and injured when a bus had ploughed into them at a pedestrian crossing at Chermside.
Bill visibly flinched when he heard that, ‘Poor devils,’ he thought, immediately contrite with himself for his earlier frustrated thoughts. He wound down the window and peered ahead, although he could see little through the densely packed cars, but could hear the escalating wail of sirens, and in the far distance, the discordant flash of emergency lights.
Sitting back, he listened to the radio. At least two dead, and three injured, one critically. Not a council bus, but one owned by a private firm had somehow lost control and slammed into people walking across on a green walk signal. There had been no one in the bus other than the driver. His skin crawled as he thought about the report.
As a journalist, Bill’s bulldust meter was finely tuned and he suspected that there was something hidden in the report, something was unsaid, and something was wrong. Traffic usually crawled along this part of Gympie Road during peak hour; a bus driver would surely have had time to break – that is unless the act was deliberate? He frowned as that unbidden thought crossed his mind. Was it suicide, murder, or an accident? After dealing with all the so-called ‘accidental’ deaths in Emerald Hills last year, Bill was not sure what to believe now, especially from the media, and he was part of that same clique!
After about twenty minutes of painful, almost shuddering movement, traffic suddenly began to flow again, and Bill thankfully pressed down on the accelerator allowing the BMW to ease forward. The accident scene was a kilometre or two further north, and as he drove slowly by, navigating around the taped and cordoned off area, he saw at least three ambulances present, and a half dozen police cars and vans of all four of the major Brisbane television networks, including his previous employer and the national broadcaster. He drove past the accident scene, trying not to look, but it was hard to ignore the flashing lights, the emergency vehicles, the gathered, ghoulish almost voyeuristic crowds. His skin crawled too, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose in sympathy. There definitely was something innately wrong here, it was not just the accident, but there seemed to be something more going on. His instincts as a reporter were still flashing warning signals to him. Bill did not understand why, after all it was just an accident - or was it, in the end he was glad to get past it and put time and kilometres between it and himself.
Death sold, he thought grimly - grief, pain, despair; he had been part of that world once, it had consumed him, but no more, not since he glimpsed something else, something beyond the mortal coil. He still traded in death, one had to in the business of paranormal reporting, but now he did so with the knowledge that life went on, and that life existed beyond human perception. He had proof of that, startling proof. Even if no one else believed it, he did, and that was enough for him to set his feet to this new path.
Remembering the phone and the calls, Bill finally pulled off onto the side of the road, and turned on his mobile phone, to check to see who had rung before. Both calls had come from Trent, so he rang back.
“Trent, what’s up?” he asked.
“Bill, what took you so long?”
“There was a bus accident on Gympie Road,” he replied, “I was caught up in the snarl, and I couldn’t answer the phone before now.”
“Yeah, I heard on the radio, it’s a bad business.”
“So what’s up,” Bill said again.
“What are we doing this Friday?” Trent asked.
Bill racked his mind, “Nothing that I can remember, was thinking of heading off to the pub for a few coldies after work then, but nothing beyond that – why?”
“Remember Emerald Hills?” Trent asked.
“Of course, it’s hard to forget it. Why, are there new developments?”
“You could say that, do you remember Jennifer McDonald?”
“For sure, we all do – Trent, none of this is news to me. I thought Emerald Hills was done and dusted, at least our association with the place was finished after our documentary was panned.”
Trent paused, “Well, Fiona Delany rang before - you remember she was the young woman who inherited Jennifer McDonald’s house.”
“Yeah, I remember,” Bill harrumphed, “I also remember that she gave me short shift on the phone when I rang a few months back to do a follow-up.”
“She must have changed her mind,” Trent replied, “Because she wants us to come up this Friday – she has something important to tell us.”
Bill gazed out at the stream of traffic sliding past him, “The Hinterlands are a bit of a hike, why can’t I call her?”
“Nah, she said she wants us there in person, all three of us in fact.”
“What time?”
“Five in the afternoon...”
Bill snorted, “Five, damn, we’ll need to arrange overnight accommodation. Can you get Olivia onto that, something other than The Royal, because I remember Samantha gave us the bum steer on that last time we were in Emerald Hills? I reckon where we stayed last time should be fine.” He paused, “What did Mark say about it?”
Trent chucked, “Mark doesn’t know about it yet, want me to drop him an email?”
Bill choked, “Email? Our producer still thinks he’s in the paper age, Trent. Don’t worry, I’ll phone him tonight and let him know. Emerald Hills eh, might be life in the old dog yet. Make sure Deven packs all the special gear, just in case.”
“I’ll tell him,” and Trent rang off.
Bill checked his rear view mirror and eased his car back into the flowing traffic. They were returning to Emerald Hills, perhaps there was more to tell with that story. He also wondered what else could be happening there that hadn’t already been investigated and probed. After a few minutes of puzzling about it, he gave up. They still had almost three days and a heap of work ahead of them, so he consigned all thoughts of Emerald Hills to the back of his mind.
*