Got 'Em Read online

  Andrew replies defensively, “Ahh, no one, it is just an old mate I went to school with, that’s all.”

  As he lightly shrugs his shoulders, Amanda sits down on his nice leather couch and says ambivalently, “Oh, okay,” as she frowns in question.

  ---

  Upon my return to the warehouse with the truck, I notice the main gate swung open again. Shaking my head, I begin sighing as I continue to drive in the drive way and down the corrugated road to the warehouse. In all honesty, it is a bit more of a bumpy ride down to the warehouse in the truck compared to the Toyota.

  Reaching the warehouse, I park up the truck alongside the wall. Opening the truck door, I jump out to make my way to the entry of the warehouse. I notice as I unlock the door that there is damage, as if someone attempted to break in. And I bet it was those hooligans again! Unlocking the door, I proceed into the warehouse. Breathing heavily, I approach the electricity box to turn the lights on. Again, row by row for about 40 seconds the lights come on with a small ‘clank’.

  I walk in, rubbing my eyes. I notice to the left of the warehouse, about 150 metres down, there is a huge loading door. From what I can make out, about another 300 metres down, there is another huge loading door. I make my way over to the first loading door. I pull out my bundle of keys, as it has a huge padlock on it, and drop bolts. Unlocking the padlock, I lift the heavy drop bolts as metal screeches on metal. Bringing it up then twisting it to lock. I drag the door across, it slides alongside the inner wall down towards the far end of the warehouse. As I’m pushing it, I notice it is heavy, probably from not being used; the screeching is excruciating for my poor ears.

  Now that the door is open, I pop my head outside to look down at the far end to check if I could see anything. Walking out, I follow along the outside of the warehouse back up to where I have parked the truck. Reaching the truck, I undo the locking hitches that keep the trailer door closed. After giving it a few tugs, the bastard of a door open.

  It was now that it clicks to me; I don’t have a fucking forklift. So how on earth am I going to get all this heavy metal out without one? It’s going to take a lot of skill and days, and I have a fair bit of it. In fact ‘a truck load’ of it. With frustration, I start pondering, scratching my head on how I am going to work shit out. As I walk alongside the passenger side of the truck, I glance straight ahead at what looks like an old shed.

  Walking from the truck, the shed looks like a decent size as it is about 300 metres down from the truck, coming off the warehouse by about four metres. As I get to it, I have a decent look, it seems to be about seven metres long, going down against the warehouse. It has two opening pole-framed doors, with a massive chain going along it, and the padlock is on the inside of the shed. Grabbing out my keys again I try to manoeuvre the padlock to a more easily accessible spot to unlock.

  A little hard to do, I have to awkwardly move my hand inside this small, triangle looking hole. Holding the padlock up, I try to shove my second hand and arm into the other triangle hole on the second door. Sifting through and putting every small padlock key I can find in, only two of them fit all the way in, but it doesn’t unlock even after I almost break the key thinking it is just stiff. I put another key in that had a perfect fit. And then, bam, it unlocks with ease, luckily.

  Opening both the doors is proving to be a little problem though as they are jammed with rust in the hinges which acts like welds. Breaking the rusted lock free, I manage to wreath them open. Having a look inside, I can’t see much, reaching into my pocket, I bring out my phone and turn the phone torch on. There are a lot of tools, and to my surprise, a small, very old forklift. Jumping into the seat of the forklift, I notice there is a key in the ignition already. I try to start her up; it churns very slowly. Frustrated, I bump my fists onto the steering wheel, calling out, “Damn it! This always happens to me!” Hopping off the forklift, I make my way back to the truck.

  Getting to the back of the truck, I face myself towards the open trailer and think, If I can just bring out all the small bits, which, I so happen to put at the rear of the trailer. So, basically where I’m standing at the opening, I can remove them one by one. Then I think, Hold on… I’ll get the accessory battery out of the back of the truck and try and start the forklift… that might work. Luckily, I remembered that.

  Heading to the truck’s cab, I open the door then pop the seat back. Unlatching the battery and grabbing the jump starter cables from next to the battery, I head back over to the forklift in the little shed. I connect the jumper cables to the accessory battery. Opening the catch on the forklift, I begin connecting the jumper cables to its battery. As I do so, it gives off a small spark, which makes me think I may have done something wrong, so I quickly pull them off and double-checked if I am putting them on right.

  After checking, I place them on right, I put them on again and a little spark comes out again. I think, Hmm this must be normal then. So I continue by getting into the forklift and turning it over. It churns a couple of times, then it turns over and fires. It is a bit rough, so I put my foot down a little but not too much, and linger for a little while to warm it up. After releasing my foot from the accelerator, it chugs a little but keeps its idle.

  Jumping down from the forklift, I remove the jumper cables from both batteries. Observing the forklift, I notice there is a little tray next to the small gas tank on the rear. Picking up the accessory battery and jumper cables, I place them onto the tray, and then hop into the forklift. Reversing the forklift out of the shed, I make my way back to the truck.

  Getting to the back of the truck, I raise the forks and guide my way into the first load. After adjusting it and getting it just perfect to pick up, I raise the load and bring it off the back of the truck. Then I make my way around the side to the open loading door of the warehouse and drop off my first load. I drive back to the truck and park up the forklift.

  Hopping out of the forklift, I jump into the truck and start it up. Carefully reversing down alongside the warehouse to the loading door. I jump out and go to grab the fork. Heading back in with the forklift, I continue to unload and get about six loads off before the fork stalls. I try to start it again; it sounds healthy but wouldn’t start. So, I think straight up, It’s out of gas. Hopping off, I walk to the gas tank and remove it. Placing it on the ground, I decide to test it, and yup, there is no gas.

  I head back to the tail of the truck’s trailer and close it up. Then I go to the driver’s side and hop into the truck and drive to the front of the warehouse. Now, I would’ve gone through the loading door to close it up, then head out, but the forklift is half in and half out of the doorway. I mean, it is in the middle of the doorway.

  I hop out of the truck near the front entry of the warehouse to close its door and lock it, then back into the truck. I make my way back to Pops’ house as he had gas cylinders at his place. Up the corrugated road I go and come to the fence and pull over on the outside of the property to close the fence. Using rope that I grabbed out of the truck which was sitting next to the jumper cables, I tie the fence closed.

  Jumping back into the truck, I mumble to myself in a hypothetically, condescending voice as I look out the windscreen of the truck, Those bastards better not try and get in now, they won’t know what to do if I catch them. Then I start driving off the property.

  As I get to my grandfather’s front gate, I hop out, as someone has closed his fence from when I took off last time. As I begin to open the fence, it hits me, as I imagine my Pop yelling out to me is his sarcastic voice, “Ah, it’s about time ya bloody rock up, ya bastard, you don’t like seeing your Pop anymore these days!” But instead, I open the gate, then drive the truck up into the driveway.

  Chapter Six

  Lost Recordings

  Pulling up in the driveway, I hop out of the truck to make my way to my grandfather’s shed. Entering the shed, I see the gas bottle just on the right side. Crawling under the kayak, which is still sitting on top of the toolboxes from when it fell
, I grab the gas cylinder and manoeuvre myself around as I lift and slightly drag it. Placing it on its side, I roll it under the kayak towards the front of the shed, then crawl back under it myself. As I make my way out, I put my hand onto something hard to help myself through.

  Picking it up as I get out, I stand up at the opening of the shed, and observe it; it looks like a camera… Unfortunately, I damaged it. Though, looking at it, I run my fingers down to what looks like a slot, opening the slot, there is an SD card in it. Removing the SD card I place it in my pocket, then grab the gas bottle to put into the truck.

  Since I can’t go back to the city with the truck, I have to park it up here and take Pops’ old beast. Luckily, he left the key with me on the bundle of keys I have. I make my way out the back to start her up. Surprisingly it starts up straight away! Hopping into it, I begin driving it out heading back towards my house.

  A few hours pass as it is coming into the late morning now. Arriving at home I enter my house, closing the door behind me. Plonking myself on the couch, I pass out.

  A few hours later, after waking up, I remember the SD card I had taken out of the camera. I walk into my room to get my laptop. At this point I notice it wasn’t just my house that got trashed, the motherfuckers took my PS3 and games too. As I go through my top drawer, I also notice they took all of my jewellery. With mixed rage and curiosity, I grab my laptop then go to sit on the lounge, well, the only cushion on the lounge anyway.

  Setting up the laptop, I plug my charger in as it is reading almost flat. I punch in my password and gain access to it. I place the SD card into the SD card slot. It loads on my laptop with a few film clips. Curiosity gets to me as I click on one of the film clips; voices started playing. I can only see the road in front of the windscreen until a lady turned the camera around and began saying; “Heely Mr Camera! I’m Melanie and that’s Josh.”

  As the camera points away from this lady and towards the man driving, in an instant my blank mind woke up. Excitedly I say, “Oh, that’s Mum and Dad!”

  The video clip continues, “So this is my camera, and I want to record everything! Even my little baby boy, Davey!” She points the camera at me in the baby seat. I must have been two or something. The video continues, “Oh look, home sweet home—oh, and this battery’s about to die—Josh is this the charger?” as the battery dies on the cam-recorder.

  I continue to go through the videos one by one, seeing who my parents were and actually hearing their sweet voices. I begin to break down; I hold my shirt up to my mouth as I don’t like the sounds I make whilst I gasp for air as I begin to cry.

  This is the first real time I have gotten to see my parents alive. Only in a video showing how much they loved me as a baby—and that I was never left out. I continue to press play on all of the videos as I’m still in tears watching it all unravel in front of me. My parents were on my computer screen! I bring my hand to my computer screen to touch it, to touch my mother’s face. As it pops up, I pause it and just sit here touching the screen gasping for more air as I whimper, “I miss you, Mummy.”

  I sit in contemplation of being upset with my life because my parents weren’t in it. Then I play the rest of the videos. Until I come to the last video, as Mum figures out how to plug it in and have it play while they drive.

  Opening it, I hear the back door open and what sounds like me crying as Mum is already in the passenger seat. Then I hear a door slam and the car start, as my mother grabs the cam-recorder and faces it towards her and in fear she says;

  “Please forgive us for any wrong we have done, please don’t hurt my baby boy, please… please don’t hurt him. Take me… take us but don’t touch my boy, please,” as she gasps for air in anguish.

  As they pull out of the driveway and continue down the street, the streetlights are blowing out as they drive past them. From what I can see in the video, they turn left onto the main road that went back to Sydney, as my mother continues in a sad and distressed voice whilst crying, “I didn’t mean any of it. I’m sorry I contacted you. I know you told me not to when I was a young girl. And I didn’t mean to. Please don’t take me away from my baby please—” as a horrible aggravated deep voice says, “YOU’RE MINE!”

  Mum faces the camera towards the road, towards the windscreen, as a lanky looking dark thing about twice the size of a human, stands on the road, and the film continues as my mother and father scream in terror, “AHHHH!” The car crashes, tipping onto its side as the camera gets thrown around; there is the sound of the car turning onto its side with a loud cracking and screeching as it slides slightly off the road onto the little gravel pull over point.

  As the camera continues, its battery level reads low. As I find out through the other video clips, my mother can’t seem to keep her hands off of it. Before the battery dies, Mum continues in a drowning kind of voice, “No, no, not my baby.” Then suddenly stops. There is no noise from my father. Everything is dead quiet for a bit. Then a growl comes from near the camera, maybe it is outside of the car, I don’t know, because I can’t see.

  The car then sounds like it is being dragged or maybe pulled by something as a big bang sounds, as if something has jumped onto the car. Then a few seconds later, with what looks like a drop of saliva dropping in front of the camera, a fire is initiated almost straight away. The camera gets picked up and it blacks out. Pulling my head away from the screen, I close my laptop as I hear a knock on the door.

  I get up to answer it. Knocking on my door is my neighbour from across the road, Eric. Opening the door inquisitively, I greet him, “Hey buddy, what’s up?” He asks if he can come inside because he wants to show me something. Inviting him in, I ask him if he wants to sit. In a rush he replies, “Ah no, umm, I’d like to give you this.” As he hands me a USB then continues, “Watch it, there’s information on it about your robbery.” I hold the USB in my hand as he leaves my house and closes the door behind him.

  Immediately I think that it’s about what happened with the truck and things, but that wouldn’t have happened so quickly, so I pick up my laptop again and placed the USB in the side. I wait for it to load and click to play the video.

  It is a silent video of who came to my house and what they did. I can see the person had accessed my house with a key and was in there for about 15 minutes and came out with a whole heap of my stuff. He closed the door as if nothing happened, then took off as if this person visited me and I had given him these things—hmm?

  The only person I gave a key to is Amanda, and that was years ago—nah, she couldn’t have done it. Or could she have? Hmm—I bet Andrew had done it, or maybe, he got someone to do it—but then again that can’t be right, I don’t think he would do that. Would he?

  Stopping the video and closing my laptop again, I whisper to myself, “I’ll have a think about this one.” Getting up, I begin heading towards the door. Opening it, walking out, then pulling it closed as I continue walking towards the car. I hop in then make my way back up to my grandfather’s place where I had left the truck.

  After a little while of being on the road towards my pops’, I come across the spot where it looks like, according to the video, my parents had been taken. Pulling over to the side of the road, I get out of the car and walk across the road to where I think it had happened. It is almost 100 metres from the turn off to my grandfather’s place. As I look around, I find a tattered hair band. Having a flash back to the video of Mum and her beautiful slim face, that gorgeous smile! With her hair tied back with this band; I put it in my pocket as I continue walking to the car.

  After getting into the car, I begin driving to my grandfather’s house. Pulling up into the drive way and parking it up out of the way for me to get the truck out. I hop out and walk towards the truck and hop into it. Starting it up, as it is a truck, I have to let it warm up, so I go for a little trot back over to the shed to close it. As I proceed to close it, I notice in that box that the Ouija board is missing and there is a pack of Winfield blue cigarettes there. So, I pic
k them up. The packet is almost full.

  In the packet is an orange lighter, and after about a minute or so, looking at them and contemplating, I pull one out and put it to my mouth and use the lighter to light it up. And like before, it is like I have been smoking for a while. I then make my way back to the truck to hop in it. Reversing out of the driveway I make my way back to the warehouse.

  I get to the warehouse a couple of hours later. The gate to the property is once again open. Ignoring it, I proceed into the property and down to the warehouse. Pulling up just in front, I turn the truck off, take the gas bottle with me and start walking around the side where the forklift is. I see a man looking up my way from beside the forklift, as two other men step out from behind it. I approach carefully towards the forklift.

  One of them says in a dominant voice, “Aww yeah, what are you doing there, buddy?”

  I look up with a smile on my face and say politely, “Nothing, just fixing up my grandfather’s things.”

  He replies dominantly, “Aww yeah, you know there are three of us, and we want this warehouse?”

  I reply defensively, “Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen buddy.” One of the men start approaching me, then grab me by the shirt, saying aggressively, “You don’t say what we can or can’t have! You, my friend, are going to the torture chamber!” As one of the other men throws a closed fist right hook at my face, I duck, and knee the one that is holding me up in the groin; he had medium brown hair and a bulky build with a slim looking face.

  The other one that had light brown hair, is slightly built, in green shorts and white singlet with sunnies, misses my face by a millimetre. I feel the wind as it passes! Thinking quickly, I right hook him in the stomach which winds him. The third one, with blonde hair, scar on his face, surfie looking guy, also slightly built, tries to head butt me as I grab the gas cylinder and slam it over his head before he reaches to me.