The Girls of Redgum Bay by Jypsi Bennett

THE ROARING OF THE wind and the crashing of the waves masked the sounds of her laboured breathing. Of her slipping in the sand, falling and crying out as hidden twigs stabbed at her tender feet. 

They also masked his footsteps. 

And his breathing.

The sand was ghostly white from the sliver of light that the crescent moon provided, the water an inky black. She couldn’t hear, and she could barely see, but she kept running. Her feet slipped in the dry, powdery dunes. 

She stopped again, falling to her hands this time. She was jabbed and cut and out of breath. But she could see the very faint glow from the top of the hill, behind the line of trees. Homes. Full of people. And a break from the wind, where her screams might be heard. 

She poised herself to leap up, to start running again. She was so, so close. 

The wind and waves were the last thing she heard. Not the sound of the hands being brought down, and of the heavy piece of granite splitting her skull. 

Her blood was as black as the night sea on the stark sand.