Grandma's Cookie Jar

GRANDMA’S COOKIE JAR

Terrence Edward Creek

Copyright © 2013 by Terrence Edward Creek.

Library of Congress Contorl Number   2013918657

ISBN:   Hardcover   978-1-4931-1675-1

             Softcover     978-1-4931-1674-4

         Ebook          978-1-4931-1676-8

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted

in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system,

without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the

product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance

to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Rev. date: 10/14/2013

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CONTENTS

PART 1

Hooked Up

PART 2

A Not So Peaceful Existence

Welldon

Charlotte

The Ferret

Revenge

The Trip

PART 3

An Unlikely Miner

Dedication

For Susan, Lisa, Kerry, Sam, Amber and James.

Ray Renshaw’s grandma always said that if you put your hand in the cookie jar, you take what comes out. She believed that life was like that; whatever happens, try to make the best of it.

Ray had always tried to live up to this motto, and when he took early retirement, he embarked on a journey to find what the cookie jar of life had for him now.

PART 1

HOOKED UP

Sometimes it just doesn’t pay to get out of bed in the morning. You just hate to open your eyes. I guess this is one of those times because as I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw was the snarling face of evil pointing a gun straight at my head. Am I dreaming, or is this for real or what?

As I finally started to adjust to reality, the aches and pains kicked in, and I knew this was no dream. I felt like I had been run over by a herd of elephants, and there was one trying to pull my left arm off. I could feel a slow trickle of something salty running into my mouth, and my head was pounding like a thrashing machine. As I tried to focus on the apparition before me, I could dimly make out that he was trying to tell me something. ‘Where’s the fucking keys?’ he was shouting over and over again. With my right hand, I wiped my eyes and was at last able to see a bit more clearly, and it was not a pretty sight.

The thing pointing the gun and yelling at me was like a monster from a horror movie. He had blood and gore all over him, and I realised he was half sitting, half standing on what was left of my good mate Jason. Then I could see where most of the gore had come from. Half of Jason’s head had been blown away, and he was very dead. ‘Where’s the fucking keys?’ again. ‘Come on, you bastard, or you’ll get what he got.’

‘There are no keys,’ I shouted back at him although the words came out as a strangled croak. ‘There are no bloody keys!’

‘You’re lying, you bastard. I want the keys, or you’re dead meat,’ the thing screamed at me again.

I struggled to sit up and make some sense of what and where I was, and this started Dracula waving the gun around and screaming at me, but with the way I felt, I didn’t care. I gradually began to piece together the cause of my predicament and the bloody mess I was in. I tried to pull my left arm but found it was jammed between two seats, and at the other end of the handcuffs attached to my wrist was a very dead body. Now I knew what he wanted because his happiness was also bound to Jason in the same way.

God, how do I get myself into these situations? I thought. ‘Just a leisurely flight’, the warden had said. ‘Really just an easy milk run. All you have to do is escort these felons to Darwin, spend a few days there, and be back in the Alice before the weekend.’ It had all sounded too easy. I thought the cookie jar had at last come good.

I guess I should have known it was too good to be true, and my present circumstances were pretty typical of the way my fortunes had been running. You could say that it was typical of my life and luck. It was just over a year and a half ago that I left Brisbane. After twenty-five years in the police force and a marriage in ruins, I sold up and decided to head for greener pastures. With $250,000 in the bank, a new four-wheel drive, and caravan, I intended to bum my way around Australia for the rest of my existence. Unfortunately, the first major stop I made was in Townsville, and the lure of the bloody casino and a busty pro named Bella was the start of my undoing.

After booking in to the local caravan park and looking the place over, I guess it was only natural that a lonely bloke like me would end up at the casino, looking for some fun and excitement. I must admit that for the first week or so I had things pretty much my own way. The blackjack tables were so kind to me, and I was over twenty grand in front and somehow or other I had become attached to this very attractive and exciting lady called Bella.

Of course it couldn’t last, and by the end of the first month, both the casino and Bella had most of my nest egg and were not as attractive as I first thought. Or at least I wasn’t as attractive to them as I was at the start.

So I took off and went first to Mount Isa, and then I finally ended up in Alice Springs with little money but hoping for something good. I turned up at Centrelink, looking for some type of work to replenish the bank balance. I was directed to the local gaol where they were looking for casual guards, and I managed to get a couple of days a week taking prisoners from the gaol to court and back. This is where I met Jason who, although a permanent screw, was also on the milk run as we called it, and we became pretty good mates after a while.

Jason was a bit younger than me, but we got on really well. He had brought his family up from Victoria a few years ago and was now a confirmed Territorian. Jason had a lovely wife and two small kids and a nice home in the Alice and wouldn’t want to live anywhere else. After a while we became pretty close, and Jason convinced me to park my van in his backyard, and I was treated just like one of the family. This arrangement suited me at the time as the only work I was able to get was the few days a week at the gaol and funds were not unlimited. Anyway about six months after I arrived at the Alice, the feds had nabbed a plane load of drugs that had landed at a deserted airstrip about twenty miles from town, and they arrested the pilot and three Asians who were on the plane. The crims were a pretty tight-mouthed bunch of guys, and the cops weren’t able to get much out of them, so after about a month in Alice, it was decided to transfer the crims to Darwin for trial.

This was a regular trip that normally occurred about once a month with other felons, but it was decided to make a special trip with the druggies as there had been a lot of threats and interest from a number of places, and at least one of the Asians was regarded as one of the kingpins of the drug trade. So you guessed it, I was seconded to look after one of the baddies on the flight to Darwin. Jason was hooked up to the big boy, and three other temporary screws and I locked on to the others.

We took off from Alice on a Monday morning at 8 a.m. and settled back for a routine flight to the capital. I was sort of dozing, and the crim hooked to me was asleep about an hour or so into the flight, when all of a sudden I realised that it had suddenly got very quiet. The bloody engines had stopped, and we were gently starting to lose altitude. Now the plane was a small twin-engined twelve-seater, and there were no flight attendants on board, so we had no way of knowing what was going on. Jason looked over at me and said something like, ‘This is not supposed to happen’ and started to get up when all of a sudden there was an almighty bang, and the next thing I knew was when I woke up and the face of evil was pointing the bloody gun at me.

I began to take stock of what was going on, and looking around, it was pretty plain to see that Ugly Face and me were the only survivors of the crash. Call it luck or whatever, but somehow the plane had not caught fire, but boy was it a mess. From where we were, I could see that the front half of the plane had disintegrated, and I could look out on to a very desolate scene. We had come down in semi-desert country amongst a field of giant anthills and shit. It was stinking hot. The flies had found the fresh blood and buzzed around like a swarm of locusts. Ugly Face had calmed down a bit but was still pointing the bloody gun my way. As it seemed that we were the only survivors, I reckoned we would have to try and find some way out of the mess we were in.

I started trying to get up but found it so painful that I didn’t get very far, and the dead weight on my arm didn’t help. I managed to pull the crim over to me, and this took some of the pressure off my wrist but also allowed me to see that this one wasn’t going anywhere. It looked like his neck had been broken because his head lolled around and his bloody eyes kept staring at me. By some miracle of luck, I eventually found that I wasn’t too badly hurt, nothing seemed to be broken, and the blood from the gash on my forehead had stopped. Ugly Face looked over at me and said, ‘Looks like just you and me now, screw, so how the fuck are we going to get out of here? You must know how to get these things off.’

‘Sorry, old boy,’ I replied, ‘but there is no way you or I can do it. These are those new electronic bracelets. When they put them on in Alice, the combination is sent to Darwin, and they can only be taken off there. We’re going to be stuck with them until the rescue party arrives.’

‘There ain’t going to be no rescue party, smart boy. My mates have seen to that.’

‘What the hell do you mean your mates? This is a government plane, and as soon as they realise we are missing, there’ll be helicopters and planes all over the place,’ I shouted at the grinning monkey opposite.

‘That’s where you’re wrong,’ he replied. ‘My boys did something to the electrics to ensure that even the pilot wouldn’t know he was miles off course. It looks like they also siphoned off some fuel. It seems they didn’t want any of us to get to Darwin, and I guess they made sure of it.’

‘Who the hell are you?’ I wanted to know. ‘And what’s so important that your mates didn’t want us to get to Darwin?’

‘You don’t know nothing, do you? What the cops found was only a small bit of the heroin we brought in on that plane. We offloaded a heap before they got us, and I know where the rest is. I reckon my partners would want me to help them get it. They for sure would not be leaving anybody else around to squeal on them, would they?’

I didn’t know what to say, and Ugly Face went quiet as he no doubt was thinking about what he had just said as I was. The heat was getting unbearable, and my throat felt like a dry sponge. I knew there had to be water and even some food somewhere, but the big problem was, how the hell was I able to find it? My companion must have been thinking along the same lines because he looked over at me and said, ‘We’ve got to get rid of these two, or we are going to end up just like them.’

‘Did you kill Jason?’ I asked even though I was fairly certain he had.

‘He was going to die anyway, but I just helped him along a bit.’ He smiled. ‘And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll start thinking about getting us out of here.’

‘You’ll probably kill me as well when I am no use to you, so why should I help you?’

He grinned evilly at me. ‘It looks like you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t, but we haven’t got all day, so for the time being we are going to have to help each other.’

As much as I hated to admit it, I knew he was right, but I also knew that as soon as I got the chance, I would kill the bastard. Jason was a good friend to me, and he didn’t deserve to die at the hands of a drug-running maniac. I squirmed around a bit and found that I could get up as long as I put my arm around my partner. Thankfully, he was not a big guy, and as long as I didn’t look into those staring, accusing eyes, I was able to move towards the gaping hole not far in front of me.

‘Come on,’ I said to Ugly. ‘Do what I’m doing, and see if you can get out too.’

‘No way, screw,’ he replied. ‘Can’t you see where your mate’s legs are?’

For the first time, I took a good look at Jason and saw the reason why Ugly had not moved and realised that the reason he had not finished me off too was that he needed me. Jason’s legs were twisted back behind him and were caught under a big piece of wreckage effectively trapping the pair of them. There was no way that I could do anything about it attached as I was to my mate, and even if I was free, there didn’t seem as if I had a hope in hell of moving the thing holding them in place.

‘It looks like you’re stuck, mate,’ I said. ‘You’ll just have to wait for the rescue boys to arrive, but me and my friend here are getting out. I’ll try and find some food and water.’

Now Ugly Face didn’t like that idea at all and started cursing and shouting. ‘I told you there ain’t going to be no rescue, you bastard. You’ll have to get me out, or I’ll put a bullet in you right here and now.’

‘Yeah well, that will really fix your problem, won’t it?’ I yelled back at him. ‘How the fucking hell do you think I’m going to get you out especially hooked up like this?’

‘That’s for you to work out, smart boy, and you better do it real soon or else.’

‘You’re not really in a situation to be giving threats,’ I said. ‘How do you expect me to get you out?’

Old Ugly went quiet, and I could see he was thinking about what I had said. I looked around to try and find a way to help him. I at least could get up and move around a bit as long as I cuddled up to my tethered friend and didn’t look into those accusing eyes. Grabbing hold of my buddy, I slowly inched my way forward to the gaping hole at the front of the plane.

Trying not to look at the other bodies strewn around, I began rummaging for anything to drink or eat. I knew that there were bottles of water on the plane as we had all been having a sip or two before the crash. I eventually found a half empty bottle under some wreckage and took a grateful drink. I began to make my way back to Ugly Face to offer him a drink.

As I got there I could see he had moved Jason a bit, but he was still firmly held by his legs. I found a coat that had come from somewhere and put it over Jason’s head and gave Ugly the water bottle. ‘Go easy,’ I said. ‘I don’t know how much more there is around, and it’s bloody hard to look with my buddy here hanging on.’

‘We’ll have to get rid of them,’ Ugly replied, ‘and I think I know how to do it.’ I didn’t like the look on his face, but I just had to ask him what he meant as I was getting pretty tired of my hanger-on. ‘It’s not really difficult when you think about it. I’m sure one of youse screws has a knife somewhere. We’ll just cut their arms off