Spinning Wheels

“There’s a moment when the wheels are turning, the rain’s falling, and the spider’s crawling across your windscreen—and you realise you’re not driving anymore. You’re just holding on.”

Feeling completely at ease behind the wheel, I found a strange, almost disconcerting sense of calm as we turned back onto the main road through Collinsvale. The tyres hummed beneath us, the car responding obediently to my every touch, as though it too understood the urgency of the mission. My gaze flicked upwards momentarily, drawn to the gathering storm clouds clawing across the sky — thick and bruised, their edges tinged with an electric promise. A slow, creeping dread slithered through me. The clouds were gaining ground, and their dark mass loomed like a warning: time was running out.

As I watched them roil behind us, my foot instinctively pressed harder on the accelerator. There was no room for hesitation. We had to catch Adrian before the rain hit — before his nerves, already frayed by whatever he'd smoked, unravelled completely.

The road ahead opened up, flanked by bushland and scattered farm fences, but I barely registered the scenery. My focus was razor-sharp. I manoeuvred the car through the trickle of midday traffic with a fluency that surprised even me, every decision quick and precise, as if my instincts had clicked into overdrive.

I spotted Adrian’s ute up ahead — the dark green silhouette moving steadily along. Despite the weed and the spectacle he'd just witnessed, he wasn’t driving recklessly. In fact, his caution seemed out of place. Maybe he was trying to process what he’d seen. Or maybe, I reconsidered as my eyes dropped briefly to the speedometer, I’m just driving like a maniac.

Well over the limit. A spike of concern jabbed at my chest — fleeting, quickly eclipsed by the sheer momentum of the chase.

"He's going left," Luke pointed out beside me, his voice tight with anticipation. He leaned forward in his seat, eyes glued to the ute as it approached the turnoff to the highway, its indicator blinking rhythmically. "Keep following him."

"Alright," I replied, my voice calm, controlled, as I eased into the left lane. The car responded instantly, the engine purring in anticipation, tyres gripping the curve like they were made for it.

Adrenaline bloomed within me, hot and sharp, as we picked up speed. We began weaving through the slower vehicles, the world narrowing to a tunnel of motion and purpose. Every car I overtook was a small victory. Each moment demanded complete attention, and I gave it willingly — my thoughts cleared, my body alive with purpose.

It was intoxicating. For a brief, exhilarating window, I forgot about spiders and police and portals. It was just me, the road, and the task at hand.

It’s a shame Beatrix isn’t here, I thought, a crooked smile tugging at my lips. This would really shut her up about my driving.

With every calculated swerve and tight overtake, I felt something rekindling inside me — a forgotten boldness, a taste of defiance. For once, I wasn’t waiting around for someone else to steer the story. I was behind the wheel — literally and figuratively — and I wasn’t slowing down.

Beside me, Luke remained quiet, hands gripping the edges of his seat. His silence felt like respect.

And as the clouds rumbled in our rear-view mirror and the wind began to pick up, I pressed harder on the pedal, chasing more than just Adrian.

I was chasing control. Chasing clarity. Chasing a moment where I finally — finally — felt like I wasn’t the one being hunted.

"Maybe we should stop," Luke suddenly suggested, his hand gripping the door tightly. His knuckles were white against the interior, betraying the calm his voice attempted to muster. It was clear—he was teetering on the edge of panic.

At his words, a sharp twang of disappointment struck low in my stomach. The thrill of the chase, the speed under my hands—it had awakened something in me, something fierce and free. The idea of ending it now, with no resolution, no answers, felt like a balloon popping inside my chest. Still, I couldn’t ignore the weight of his concern. He wasn’t built for chaos the way I seemed to be becoming. So, with an audible sigh, I eased my foot from the accelerator, the car beginning to slow, its eager hum tapering off.

But then—

"Wait!" Luke shouted, his voice bursting with urgency. The sudden alarm in his tone sent a jolt straight through me, bypassing logic and landing squarely in reflex.

My foot slammed back onto the accelerator. The car surged forward like a startled animal.

"Jesus, Gladys!" Luke exclaimed, his body thrown back into his seat. The force of the movement stole the breath from both of us for a moment. I caught the edge of his expression—a blend of shock, reprimand, and just the faintest trace of impressed disbelief.

"Sorry," I mumbled, my cheeks burning with embarrassment. I stole a brief glance at him, noting the tension in his jaw, the way his eyes were darting ahead, recalibrating. Then my eyes snapped back to the road, the reality of our situation reclaiming my full focus.

The engine thrummed beneath us, the car's tyres gripping the bitumen with a renewed determination. The tension inside the car rose, thickening with every metre we covered.

"He's pulling over," Luke observed, pointing with a sudden flick of his hand.

Sure enough, Adrian’s ute was drifting toward the verge, its indicator blinking lazily like an afterthought. My stomach tightened as I eased us into the gravel shoulder, tyres crunching roughly over loose stone. The shift in terrain sent a slight tremble through the wheel, and I adjusted my grip, grounding myself in the moment.

I brought the car to a halt just behind Adrian’s vehicle, the bonnet still gently humming in readiness. For a moment, we both stared ahead, watching as dust from the shoulder curled into the air, golden and ghostlike.

There was something final about this moment. The engines now quieting, the chase paused. Every part of me was on edge—unsure whether we were stepping into confrontation or collapse.

The gap between our car and Adrian’s ute might have been a few metres, but the tension that filled it stretched far wider. I could almost feel it buzzing on my skin, coiling around the steering wheel, pressing against the windows.

Whatever happened next would tip the scale.

And I had no idea which way it would fall.

"Stay in the car," Luke ordered, his tone firm and authoritative as he quickly unbuckled his seatbelt. There was no room for negotiation in his voice—only the unspoken command of someone who sensed a delicate balance was about to tip.

I stayed where I was, back pressed against the seat, every muscle drawn taut like a bowstring. The air inside the car was heavy, thick with apprehension. Outside, the world seemed to hold its breath. I rested my foot lightly on the accelerator, muscles coiled and ready to spring. I didn't know what would happen, only that if something did, it would happen fast.

A sudden, thunderous clap cracked overhead, the sound ricocheting through the valley like a cannon blast. I flinched, the vibrations rattling the windows and settling in my bones. The storm we’d seen brewing was no longer a distant threat—it was here, its arrival punctuated by nature’s own ominous prelude. The clouds above churned like smoke, dark and rolling, ready to split open and drown the land beneath.

My fingers clenched tighter around the steering wheel, knuckles paling as my focus narrowed to a single point: the scene unfolding just metres ahead. Through the speckled windscreen, I watched Luke approach Adrian’s ute, his pace measured, careful. Each step he took was slow, almost ceremonial, like walking toward a fuse with a flame in hand.

Then, without warning, the ute door swung open and Adrian stepped out.

No—marched out.

His body moved with a kind of volatile energy, fists clenched at his sides, shoulders set like stone. I sat forward instinctively, a jolt of alarm rippling through me. My heart thudded against my ribs in rapid, panicked beats. This wasn't just a continuation of the conversation—they were heading straight for a collision.

Adrian’s gait was aggressive, charging the few paces between him and Luke with the tense grace of a man not afraid to throw the first punch. I couldn’t hear what was being said, but I didn’t need to. Every part of their body language screamed escalation.

From where I sat, cocooned inside the car yet utterly exposed, it felt like watching a match hover over dry kindling. One wrong move, one misjudged word, and the whole thing could ignite.

I glanced at the gearstick, then back at the road ahead, calculating the distance I’d need to make a sharp U-turn if things went sideways. The car had become a strange kind of fortress—sealed, humming, ready to flee at a moment's notice. But it was also a prison of passivity, forcing me to witness whatever was about to unfold without intervening.

The wind picked up, rattling the trees lining the road. A few fat drops of rain began to splatter across the windscreen, each one like a countdown.

This was it.

Whatever was about to happen—words, fists, or worse—I could feel it looming just beyond the edge of the storm, as unavoidable as the rain now beginning to fall.

The sudden appearance of a dark, furry critter scurrying onto the windscreen made my heart leap into my throat. One moment I was transfixed by the tense standoff between Luke and Adrian, and the next, I was lurching forward with a jolt that snapped me back to the immediacy of the car.

In a flash of instinct and horror, my foot slammed down hard on the accelerator. The car bucked forward with a sickening thud. "Bloody bastard," I hissed under my breath, my voice shaking with fear and fury. My hands gripped the wheel with white-knuckled desperation as the bonnet shook beneath Adrian’s collapsing form. His long limbs sprawled awkwardly across the front of the car, his body briefly silhouetted in my field of view like some ragdoll thrown by fate.

And there it was again.

The spider.

The hideous huntsman—surely the same one—bold as ever, had returned for a final curtain call. Its grotesque, hairy body loomed large against the glass, each twitching limb moving with dreadful intent. My stomach churned as it crawled slowly toward the centre of the windscreen, undeterred by speed, fury, or revulsion. A chill swept down my spine like icy fingers tracing my vertebrae.

Tearing my eyes from the arachnid menace, I glanced towards Adrian, praying I hadn't done him real harm. "He's not dead," I muttered, my eyes scanning his body for movement. Relief fluttered in my chest as I saw him begin to stir, awkwardly peeling himself from the bonnet like a man waking from a bad dream.

Still, the spider demanded vengeance.

A bolt of resolve surged through me, spurred by fear and fury. I flicked the lever—windscreen spray hissed to life, arcing water across the glass in smooth, glistening fans. With a flick of my wrist, I summoned the wipers, expecting immediate salvation.

But it didn’t go that way.

The wipers caught the spider—dragged it—smothered it—twisted it across the now smeared windscreen in a terrible dance of death. I stared, horrified and mesmerised, as legs tore away and segments of its body clung wetly to the glass. Its destruction was slow and agonising. I winced with every sweep, the squeal of rubber against glass echoing the spider’s imagined screams.

By the time it was done, only pulp and silence remained. I let out a shaky breath, the image of its shredded form burnt into my vision. A grim satisfaction coiled in my stomach, tempered by guilt. I’d wanted it gone—but this? This was brutality. Necessary, perhaps, but still grotesque.

Before I could dwell further, movement to my left snatched my attention.

Luke.

He was moving—fast—slipping like smoke past Adrian and suddenly throwing himself into the driver’s seat of the ute. My jaw dropped. It was the kind of mad, impulsive act you’d expect in a film, not real life. And yet, there it was—real, undeniable, unfolding in front of me.

Adrian’s expression shifted from stunned to furious in the blink of an eye. He pounded on the glass with both fists, his shouts muffled but unmistakable. Scrambling, swearing, he yanked open the passenger door and half-fell inside. I could barely breathe as the two men tangled—Luke gripping the wheel, Adrian fighting for control.

"Get the fuck out of my ute!" Adrian's voice boomed, muffled by the vehicle but still shaking the air around us. He was practically climbing over the gearstick, legs askew, trying to find balance as the engine growled beneath them.

And then the ute surged forward.

I gasped, watching as Adrian was dragged briefly, feet scrabbling against the gravel, before managing to hurl himself fully inside. The door slammed shut with a deafening finality, locking them into whatever chaos came next.

That was my cue.

Still rattled, I gave the windscreen one final spray, clearing away the remnants of the spider—like wiping the slate clean after some ancient omen had been dealt with. Then I shifted into gear. The car growled to life once more beneath me.

As I merged into the stream of traffic, the reality of what had just happened began to seep in. My pulse still raced. My fingers trembled faintly against the steering wheel. What had started as an awkward delivery on a quiet Collinsvale property had turned into a pursuit, a carjacking, and an act of reckless bravado that could land us all in very serious trouble.

Luke’s boldness had been unexpected—almost admirable. But as I followed the twin red taillights of the ute ahead, one thought echoed louder than the rest: This is spiralling. And I had no idea where the hell it would end.

Winding our way back in the direction of Collinsvale, I had assumed—naively, it seemed—that Luke was circling us back to the Owens’ property. Perhaps to regroup. Perhaps because it was the only place that felt marginally familiar in the mayhem. But that sense of predictability was shattered when I caught sight of it: a sleek, dark chopper slicing through the sky above, a mechanical predator stalking us with relentless precision.

My stomach dropped. The thudding rotors seemed to echo in my chest, each beat a grim reminder that our world was no longer private, no longer ours. The helicopter wasn’t just in the sky—it was on our tail, weaving with us, tracking our path like a hawk tracking prey.

And then my phone rang.

The sudden burst of sound in the quiet car made me jump. I fumbled to answer it, my fingers clumsy with adrenaline. "Beatrix," I called into the phone, my voice cracking slightly.

"Gladys, listen to me." Beatrix’s voice came through sharp and urgent, frayed with panic in a way I rarely heard. "The police know that it is you in one of those cars. And they are at the Owens' property now."

Her words landed with the dull, sickening thud of inevitability. I stared at the road ahead, unseeing, the landscape blurring at the edges as my mind tried to keep pace with the new reality she’d just dropped on me. The chopper. The tracking. Of course they knew.

"How do you know that?" I asked, forcing the question through a tightening throat.

"I have a contact that has an informant in the Hobart Police, and they've just called to warn me," Beatrix said.

I blinked. Beatrix—my maddening, always-practical sister—had a contact with an informant in the police? My mind caught on that detail, tried to make sense of it, failed. I didn’t even know where to file that information emotionally. Shock, betrayal, relief?

There was a pause on her end. It lasted only a second or two, but in that suspended breath, the world tilted.

"I'm at the property now. Don't come here," she said, the line cutting dead before I could even ask what she meant by at the property. What are you doing there, Bea? Why would you be there now?

The abrupt end of the call left me staring at the phone, my thumb hovering over the screen as if by sheer will I could pull her voice back from the ether.

I tapped her name. Once. Twice. The ringing barely made it through a single cycle before her voicemail picked up. Her calm, pre-recorded voice felt like a stranger’s now.

I hung up, my chest tight with worry. The wine in my stomach had turned sour. I cast a quick glance at the bottle of Shiraz in the footwell, then at the sky above us. The chopper was still there. Watching. Listening. Closing in.

The walls were closing in.

And Beatrix—my sister, my history, my sometimes-enemy—was now, somehow, entangled in all of it.

With the alarming news from Beatrix fresh in my mind, I hastily dialled Luke's number, my fingers trembling slightly, the screen smeared with sweat from my palms. Each ring pulsed like a heartbeat in my ear, and I clung to a desperate, silent hope that he would pick up. That he'd have an answer. That someone—anyone—would know what to do next.

"Gladys," Luke's voice boomed through the phone, loud and clear, but edged with an unmistakable tone of distress.

"We can't go back to the Owens'," I blurted out quickly, the urgency slicing my words into sharp fragments. There wasn’t time for pleasantries or explanations. Not now.

"Why not?"

"Police are there," I said succinctly.

"Shit! Where do we go then?" Luke’s voice rose in pitch, cracking with a mixture of frustration and panic. I could hear his breathing pick up on the other end, ragged and shallow. He was spiralling, and I was barely holding on myself.

Then it happened.

The sudden explosion of flashing lights in the rearview mirror lit up the inside of the car like a lightning strike—red, blue, red again, pulsing like the beat of a war drum. My stomach dropped. My heart lodged itself somewhere between my throat and chest.

"Shit! The police are behind us!" I screamed into the phone, my eyes locked on the mirror as the cruiser closed the gap between us. The siren cut through the storm like a banshee wail, a howling signal of authority and inevitability.

This wasn’t hypothetical anymore.

This was happening.

Adrenaline surged like a current beneath my skin, setting every nerve alight. I felt as though I’d been plunged into a dream—one of those horrible, slow-motion nightmares where you’re always running but never getting away.

For the briefest moment, a thought flickered in the chaos—Call Beatrix. Maybe she could work some kind of back-channel miracle. Her contact in the police department... maybe they had sway. Maybe they could call off the pursuit. Maybe she could buy us time.

But Luke was still on the line. Still shouting something I could barely make out over the rain and sirens. And he wasn’t slowing down.

Outside, the rain pummelled the windscreen in thick, furious sheets, the wipers thrashing back and forth like a frantic heartbeat. Water splashed violently beneath the tyres, the road a blur of greys and motion.

I stared at the phone, torn. Do I stay with Luke? He was counting on me, tethered to our shared insanity by this fragile call. Or do I hang up and gamble everything on Beatrix’s help—on a hope she might answer, and even more improbably, that she might help?

The steering wheel vibrated in my grip, my knuckles bleached of colour from how tightly I held on. My foot hovered between the brake and accelerator, caught in the tug-of-war between surrender and escape.

Every option was a risk. Every choice had consequences. But in that second, it wasn’t logic that made the decision—it was instinct.

And my instincts were screaming that no one was coming to save us.

Not Luke.

Not Beatrix.

Not anyone.

Only me. Only now.

As we continued winding along the lush green hillside of Collinsvale Road and onto Collins Cap Road, the storm outside mirrored the chaos unfurling inside my mind. The roads glistened with rain, slick and treacherous, curling like a serpent through the landscape. Tension coiled tight in my chest, my thoughts scrambled, desperate to find a way out of this madness.

Then, like lightning cracking through the dark, a sudden idea struck me.

"Myrtle Forest!" I exclaimed, barely aware of the thrill that surged through me with the realisation. My fingers tightened around the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. "Go to Myrtle Forest, now!"

"Oh, hell no!" Adrian’s voice shot out in protest, his panic vibrating through the phone’s speaker, unmistakably edged with dread. His objection wasn’t just fear—it was disbelief that things had come this far.

The slick roads blurred as we reached Springdale Road. Luke’s ute ahead of me made a sharp, unexpected turn, whipping back around in the direction we’d just come. I veered after him, tyres skidding slightly through a curve, the sudden change leaving me momentarily disoriented.

Luke’s voice came next, laced with confusion and pressure. "What am I going to do at Myrtle Forest?"

My mind whirled, clinging to the desperation of a half-formed idea. "There's a large toilet block there. You can drive the ute through," I explained quickly, praying he’d understand. It was risky. Completely insane. But if we could get Adrian and the ute through the Portal, it would buy us time—create distance. The police wouldn’t follow into Clivilius. Not yet. Maybe not ever.

Even if Beatrix’s mysterious contact was genuine, they’d need to be miraculously well-connected to pull this one back from the brink.

"And what about you?" Luke’s question cut through the static on the line, an edge of something raw in his voice. "Are you coming too?"

I hesitated. My throat clenched. The answer felt impossible. Everything in me wanted to say yes—but logic screamed the opposite.

"You can't go back now," Luke interjected quickly, reading the silence between us. His voice, strained and rising with urgency, "There's no time. You'll get caught."

"Shit!" The word tore from me as the car bucked beneath me, the wheels sliding dangerously on the mud-slicked track leading into Myrtle Forest. I yanked the steering wheel with instinctive control, managing to keep the car from fishtailing. The carpark loomed ahead, drenched in rain and anxiety, the trees around it bent by the rising wind like silent witnesses to this unfolding drama.

Up ahead, the ute faltered, then surged forward. My breath caught in my throat.

"Fuck!" Luke cried out through the phone. The sound of pain cut through me like a blade. My heart leapt into my mouth.

I strained through the glass, the world outside distorted into an impressionist blur of rain, mud, and silhouettes. Thunder rolled overhead like the sky itself was caving in.

Then—light.

A kaleidoscope of colour erupted against the solid structure of the toilet block. The Portal. That impossible, brilliant gateway that had already changed everything. It shimmered and spun in defiance of the storm, the glowing swirl of colours striking a chord somewhere deep in my chest—a mix of dread and awe.

"I'm going in!" Luke shouted over the roar of wind, his voice barely intelligible through the gale and the crackling phone line.

The ute’s rear wheels spun wildly, flinging thick gouts of mud high into the air before finding grip. The vehicle surged forward, hurtling toward the glowing wall.

"Gladys... run!" he cried, and then—just like that—the line went dead.

I stared, frozen, as the Portal vanished in an instant. The colours dissolved like ink in water, swallowed by the mundane grey of the toilet block’s rain-slicked exterior. One moment it was there. The next, nothing.

Gone.

The storm howled in the trees. Thunder cracked again, louder this time, directly overhead. Rain lashed against the bonnet of my car in stinging sheets, a curtain of water falling between me and the now-empty carpark.

And just like that, I was alone.

Abandoned on the edge of the forest, the storm swirling around me like a living thing. My chest tightened with the crushing knowledge that the police—likely already en route—would arrive any moment now. My car. My presence. My fingerprints, my name—everything tied to this. The panic rose like floodwater in my chest.

Luke was gone. Adrian was gone. The Portal had closed.

And I was stranded on the wrong side of everything.

Sitting there, in the aftermath of the Portal’s abrupt disappearance, a raw sense of isolation pressed in on me from all sides. It was a suffocating kind of aloneness—one that wrapped around my ribcage like barbed wire. The rain continued its relentless assault, hammering the roof of the car and streaking down the windscreen in thick, distorting rivulets. Each drop was a cold, insistent tap on the shoulder from reality, reminding me of how far I'd fallen into a situation I no longer understood, let alone controlled.

The storm howled overhead, the trees bending like nervous spectators. It felt as though the world itself had turned against me, the wind a chorus of whispers asking what the hell I thought I was doing.

Then came the pulsing light.

Red and blue, flashing intermittently in the distance like the heartbeat of something inevitable. The moment I saw them—those too-familiar police lights—I knew it was only seconds before everything unravelled completely.

"Fuck!" The word tore out of me, primal and loud, lost instantly in the storm but no less real for it. I slammed my foot down on the accelerator in a frantic bid to create some semblance of a plan—any plan. The engine roared in protest as I yanked the steering wheel and guided the car around the rear of the toilet block. It was a blind move, born of pure desperation, but it got me out of their direct line of sight. For now.

I killed the engine and threw the door open. A blast of freezing rain hit me like a slap to the face, instantly soaking my jumper until it clung to my skin like wet tissue. The cold reached my bones, and the wind shoved me hard enough to make me stumble sideways into the car frame. My hands, already trembling from adrenaline, slipped slightly as I pushed off and began clambering up the slope beside the building.

The ground was a treacherous mess of sodden leaves and slick, sucking mud. My trainers squelched miserably as they fought for traction, the slight incline working against me. Each step was a battle, arms flailing like a tightrope walker’s to keep balance. I had barely made it a few metres from the car when a foolish, entirely inappropriate thought entered my mind.

The shiraz.

My steps faltered. Somewhere beneath the panic and rain and pounding heart, I heard it—You can’t just leave me, the bottle seemed to whisper from where it lay on the passenger footwell.

It was ridiculous. I knew that. But the thought of that wine being left behind, of something—anything—from this morning being abandoned to the chaos we’d wrought… it was too much. That bottle had become a strange, steadfast companion in a day where nothing else had made sense.

I glanced back at the car. The flashing lights were nearer now, growing brighter with each pulse. I had seconds at best. Grimacing, I skidded my way back down the slope, flung the door open, and reached across with a shaky hand.

My fingers closed around the familiar, cool glass neck of the bottle. "I'm not leaving you," I whispered to it, half-laughing, half-crying, the absurdity of the moment not lost on me. There was no time to drink, not even a quick swig. I didn't even manage to shut the door again.

Clutching the bottle against my chest like a prized artefact, I turned and ran—no, hurled myself—into the only direction that offered hope. Into the forest. Into the mud and the shadows and the cold. Into the unknown.

Branches whipped against my legs, snagging at my soaked clothing. The trees swallowed me quickly, their towering trunks closing ranks behind me like sentries. The wind shrieked above the canopy, and the mud tried to eat my shoes with every step.

But I was desperate for escape.

Because the police were coming.

Because Luke was gone.

Because I had no other choice.

And because, through it all, I still had the bloody shiraz.