And then she could also be as far as possible from Madison. Because this was another secret Jasmine had: she hated Madison Mason. Hated her guts, her soul, hated her right down to the cells that made up her marrow, her stupid red hair, her stupid voice, her stupid red smirk.
Jasmine felt Madison squeeze her arm affectionately, and she turned with a smile, patted Madison’s leg, snuggled closer. I hate you so much, bitch, she thought.
They were driving through the middle of town now, over the wide stone bridge across the namesake river of Limestone Creek. Built by convicts, the bridge was said to be haunted. One of Jasmine’s ex-boyfriends swore black and blue he’d seen the ghost before, a man wearing a straw hat.
There were many reported hauntings in Limestone Creek, most of them in the convict-era buildings in the town centre. In the summer there was a ghost tour that ran every weekend, but even now it was on every fortnight, for the tourists who flocked to Limestone Creek in unpredictable patterns. Theirs was ‘the third-most haunted town in Australia’.
It was all bullshit, as far as Jasmine was concerned. Mr Carswell, Jasmine’s Science teacher, a staunch sceptic, had shown their class a TED Talk about how certain frequencies of sound gave people ‘the creeps’ and caused them to see blurred figures out of the corner of their eyes. Mr Carswell then explained how the wind blowing through the rocks of the Tiers sometimes makes a heavy thrumming noise, which could be contributing to the dubious history of ‘hauntings’.
They were supposed to design an experiment to test this, but no one really put much effort into it: Mr Carswell was a pushover. And, as Madison pointed out whenever he brought it up, it didn’t explain the Min Min lights that used to be seen up on the Tiers. Mr Carswell would demand photographic evidence of the lights, and then run into a tangent on swamp gas and limestone methane, which Jasmine had googled and had to admit probably wasn’t a real thing.
But Madison believed in all that sort of stuff: one of the reasons her YouTube channel had grown so big, besides the fact she was drop-dead gorgeous, was that she uploaded her own ghost tours around town, as well as seances and overnight stakeouts. While Jasmine didn’t believe in that stuff, there was no denying that Madison’s ghost stories got views.
And what earned her the most views were videos on the Hungry Man Abductions – the mystery of the five girls who disappeared in 1985 and were never found. In Limestone Creek, those disappearances were never far from anyone’s mind.
Madison was a genius when it came to creating consumable content. When you combined her looks with her varied content: make-up and fashion tips, social issues, hauntings and ghost tours and Dark Tourism, it was no surprise her channel had grown so popular. But it was the Hungry Man stories and theories that had taken her to another level; all of Tasmania, all of Australia, was still hung up on that story.
But God help anyone who mentioned the Hungry Man or the 1985 disappearances at school. Kids had been suspended for just singing the rhyme in the corridor. The whole town shied away from the topic. Old ladies at the coffee shop would give you dirty looks if you joked about it to the barista.
The school bus began its ascent towards the expansive school grounds, which were nestled halfway up the escarpment. Jasmine rode the rest of the way in silence, looking out at the bushland that crowded the road, dense and thick, white gum and dogwood and ferns and scrub, a cliff on one side and a steep drop on the other.
Her dad had once made a joke about this road, how the bush in that gully was so thick you could just chuck a body from the side of the road and no one would ever find it: it could sit mere metres from the asphalt and never been seen again, especially since the scavenger Tasmanian devils with their wicked strong jaws would make short work of the body. Mum had hit Dad in the arm after that comment, made a scathing remark about how the girls from 1985 still hadn’t been found and reminding him that his own daughter was in the car, listening to his every word.
Of course years later, when Mum was dead and Dad was significantly more prone to getting drunk, he had rambled on about a guy he used to kick around with who had been desperate for money and so had taken on a hit from one of the gangs. It was only $3000, but he did it anyway. He brought the mark – a dog from a drug case – up here from Hobart, killed him, and rolled his body into the bush somewhere on this road. That was years ago, and as far as she knew, no one had ever found the body.
They came around the corner and the grassy grounds of the school opened up. The bus rolled down the school driveway, the sun disappearing behind the leafy branches of the conker trees that lined the way. Jasmine noticed that Yani was one of the first to leave the bus, fleeing across the car park before Madison could reach her.
The walk to Homegroup seemed to take no time at all. The four of them stuck together, Madison interviewing them about the coming trip, twirling her hair with one finger.
They passed the Year 7 area, and a few boys who worshipped Madison called out to her; they passed the Home Economics block, which smelled of concrete dust and mildew, closed off for renovations that had been happening for years; passed the weird alternative kids who sat out the front, hiding the cigarettes they were obviously smoking.
When they passed the library, and the staffroom beside it, Jasmine slowed. She caught the eye of Mr Michaels, one of the teacher’s assistants. He was only twenty-one, with a bit of scruff on a cinderblock jaw and dazed-looking brown eyes.
Those eyes were watching her as they passed, as she knew they would be. She returned his smile. He bared his crooked teeth, his joy infectious, his happiness at seeing her so genuine. The problem wasn’t that he was dopier than a sheep, it was that she’d recently found out he’d done wrong by her dad. It didn’t matter that he was hot and authentic and treated her right – she was loyal to her dad first. She had to break up with him. The thought made her sad, but she liked the buzz of vengeance.
When the Fab Four sat down in home group there was excitement in the air. The mountain camp was part of the compulsory Outdoor Education curriculum of Year 10 PE, although these days they split up the boys and girls as it had been too difficult to keep them out of each other’s tents. The boys had gone last week, so now they were sitting on the girls’ desks and telling them about the strange noises they’d heard in the dark up there.
‘Like a demon. Low, rasping. It whispered things to me . . .’ Tyler Cabot flicked back his hair.
‘Oh, really?’ said Cierra, eyebrows disappearing up into her blue fringe. ‘And what did it tell you?’
‘It said, “Cierra thinks you’re hot, and she’s thinking of you right now . . . in her bed . . . her lights off . . .”’
‘Ah, I get it, you were dreaming,’ said Cierra. ‘Did you wake up with something sticky in your Spider-Man undies?’
The boys hooted like monkeys. Tyler grinned. ‘Why don’t you check?’ He pulled out the front of his shorts.
‘Ewwww,’ Cierra squealed. Georgia dry-retched, hiding her face in Madison’s shoulder.
‘Nah, I’ll tell you what I heard,’ said Jye Calloway, his school shirt unbuttoned to bare his singlet. ‘Coming from Mr Michaels’ tent . . . it was Miss Ellis’s voice.’ He thudded his palm against Jasmine’s desk and started groaning. ‘Oh, Jack! Oh . . . JACK!’