Signs of Life by Amy Head

Author:Amy Head
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Victoria University Press
Published: 2023-03-15T00:00:00+00:00

Self-Defence

The car park was almost full but the forest had absorbed most of the people. Flick parked near the no-entry sign at the end of the ranger’s driveway and took the path around the visitors’ centre. It was late summer, thistledown season, and soft spheres floated past as though someone had applied a wistful filter. A stand of eucalyptus trees, warmed by the sun, offered up their scent. Two kids stood astride their bikes on the tallest hump of dirt in the circuit track. Under their gaze she broke from a walk into a jog.

Walking, running and cycling routes crazed across the blocks of the plantation that were set aside for public use. She was jogging the blue and green routes, which were marked by plastic tags nailed to posts, with stick figures of walkers on them. Between her and the first marker was 22nd Avenue, a straight, stony road that stretched for at least a kilometre towards a wall of pines. She settled in under the burden of this scale and the heavier demand on her lungs. On her right was a section of younger growth that looked like a forest of Christmas trees. A pair of mountain bikers passed her, stirring up the gravel. She tried to land lightly on the stones, not to commit, like a Mario brother or scree runner, but beside their wheels and gears her pace was plodding. She scanned the road for larger stones that might twist her ankle. A quail, fleet and upright, scooted across ahead of her. Riroriro trilled near and far.

She arrived at the junction of 22nd Avenue and Hotel Road. In one direction Hotel met up with a larger, tar-sealed access road that was used to carry the logs out, in the other it continued further into the forest. Diagonally opposite, where a track tunnelled into the trees, was the first post with a green marker.

The first time she’d run here, she’d returned along Hotel. Somewhat exhausted, somewhat relieved—she’d turned her head and seen a vast staging area for stacked logs, vehicles and the type of prefabs that were used as offices. At the far end of the clearing, across the expanse of dust and dirt, a logging truck had been describing a broad circle that had brought it, as she’d watched, to face the road and proceed in her direction.

She’d continued on. She might reach the intersection before the truck caught up to her, she’d thought. She would turn right towards the visitors’ centre and the truck would veer off to meet up with the access road. The edge of the forest beside the road was patchy—clogged up with gorse and broom in some places, airy in others, where there was ample space between the pine trunks. Either way, it would be possible to step off the road if she needed to. Still. A hollow had formed in her abdomen. Apprehension had leaked into it steadily.

She’d been halfway between the staging area and the intersection when she’d heard the truck’s gears shift and pick up.

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