By Ashley Noel
Max hammered his thumbs on the steering wheel in time to the music. If there was a better song in the world than Highway to Hell, he was yet to hear it. He turned up the radio volume almost blasting AC/DC through the roof, then with adrenaline pumping through his veins, he pressed his foot down harder on the accelerator, exceeding the speed limit by forty kilometres in seconds flat. The road ahead was one long stretch, why take it easy?
Up ahead he saw a flash of blue on the road. Not a car, a person. Probably a copper, he shifted his foot to the brake. No good would come out of being pulled over, it might lead to a breath test, or worse a car search. He peeked over at the hand wrench on the passenger seat beside him... not altogether incriminating. The rubber gloves and handcuffs hidden in the glove compartment, however, told a different story.
As he drove further up the highway he saw the person was not law enforcement but a young girl. Dressed in a denim skirt and faded blue t-shirt, she stood on the side of the road with her thumb out, hitchhiking. Max exhaled, what a looker, long blond hair, big boobs, a tiny waist and legs like stilts. She couldn’t be more than fifteen. He turned down the radio, pulled his white Subaru over to the side of the road, then waved his hand out the window, indicating for her to hop in.
Anxious she not see the hand wrench he quickly snatched it up and stuffed it unseen between his legs. ‘Hi there, little lady,’ he said, as she opened the door, ‘you need a ride?’
‘I do.’ She clambered in beside him, shutting the door.
‘Where are you off to?’ Max pressed the power locking controls, blocking her escape path.
She planted her baby blue eyes on him and grinned. ‘The same place as you.’
No destination in mind, probably a runaway. Max idled back onto the highway and again took off, this time not going as fast.
‘What’s your name?’ she asked.
‘Max,’ He gave her a sideways glance, she sure was a pretty little thing. ‘What’s yours?’
She hesitated, ‘um Ella.’
Little liar he thought. Clearly, she was trying to hold back her identity. ‘Well hello Ella,’ he replied, ‘and how old are you.’ Such a pretty girl, he sucked in his breath, trying to control the throb in his pants. He placed his hand on her leg and began sliding it upwards, under her denim skirt.
She pushed him away, and inched closer to the door. ‘I’m 21.’
Max snorted, ‘like hell you are.’ With one hand on the steering wheel, he reached for his wrench then clobbered the top of her head, rendering her unconscious.
Two hours later, Ella lay awake, screaming on the floor of an old wooden cabin, totally naked, her hands and legs bound by rope.
Max knelt beside her, simultaneously fondling her breasts and holding a hunting knife to her neck. ‘You should have listened to your daddy when he warned you against hitchhiking,’ he said.
Ella panted in and out, in and out as though searching for control, then the corners of lips stretched into a smile. ‘And you, Maxwell Arthur Cooper, should have listened to yours when he told you not to rape and murder little girls.
Stunned, Max’s jaw dropped open. ‘How did you know my full name.’ Staring into her face, he saw her snigger. A sudden fiery pain shot up his arm. He yelped, struggling to pull it away, but it remained stuck on her breast.
‘Gee whiz,’ she said, don’t you know. ‘I’m not human, I am a weapon, a weapon made in a lab by ASIS science agents. I’ve been programmed in telekinesis and mind reading. The government is on a mission to rid the country of scum, murderers and rapists like you. Incarceration is no longer an option. It’s too expensive on the taxpayer, it’s better you’re dead, it’s my job to make the kill.’
The pain in Max’s arm surged to his chest, his heart beat erratically. He opened his mouth to speak. ‘W, w, w, what,’ he stammered.
‘Poor Max,’ Ella said, snapping her rope restraints in one swift movement. ‘Back on the road earlier you were singing Highway to Hell. Little did you know you were already on it.’ She stood up, kicked him to the ground, and made her way outside.
KABOOM. Inside the shed Max’s body exploded into a thousand bloody pieces.
About the Author
Ashley Noel
Ashley Noel is a writer from Sydney, Australia. She is currently employed in the Early Childhood sector.
As a keen reader, with a quirky imagination she turned her hand to writing ten years ago and is at present searching for an agent to represent her first novel.
Ashley connects with a wide audience on her social media accounts, Medium and Instagram.
She is excited about being published on AntipodeanSF and looks forward to submitting future work.
Ion Newcombe is the editor and publisher of AntipodeanSF, Australia’s longest running online speculative fiction magazine, regularly issued since January 1998, and conceived back around November 2007. He has been a zealous reader and occasional writer of SF since his childhood in the 1960s, and even sold a few stories here and there back in the '90s.
Mark Webb's midlife crisis came in the form of attempting to write speculative fiction at a very slow pace. His wife maintains this is a good outcome considering the more expensive and cliched alternatives. Evidence of Mark's attempts to procrastinate in his writing, including general musings and reviews of books he has been reading, can be found at www.markwebb.name.
Timothy Dwyer is an American science-fiction writer living in New Zealand.
Haneko Takayama is an award-winning Japanese writer. In 2009, her short story “Udon, Kitsune tsuki no” was a runner-up for the Sogen SF Short Story Award. 
Kerrie Noor was born in Melbourne Australia in 1960 but has spent most of her adult life in Scotland.
Amy Logan's first work was published on October 29, 1970. It has been a bit of a dry spell since, so she is very excited to have the opportunity to contribute to AntipodeanSF.
Keech has been writing fiction and poetry for 40 years, and is currently working on a speculative novel of the Afterlife, focusing on Victorian literature, though it is technically set in the near future.
Bruce is an older Australian, living in Adelaide, who enjoys reading and writing, especially short stories and flash fiction.
Myna Chang writes flash and short stories in a variety of genres.
Umiyuri Katsuyama is a multiple-award-winning writer of fantasy and horror, often based on Asian folklore motifs.
Laurie Bell lives in Melbourne, Australia. She was that girl you found with her nose always buried in a book. She has been writing ever since she was a little girl and first picked up a pen. From books to short stories, radio plays to snippets of ideas and reading them aloud to anyone who will listen.
Old enough to just remember the first manned Moon landing, Kevin was so impressed he made science his life.
Geraldine Borella writes adult short stories and stories for children and has been published in anthologies for both. In 2018, one of her children’s short stories placed second in The Buzz Words Short Story Prize and she won an ASA Emerging Writer’s Mentorship. She currently works part-time as a hospital pharmacist and as an online creative writing tutor.
Mark is an astrophysicist and space scientist who worked on the Cassini/Huygens mission to Saturn. Following this he worked in computer consultancy, engineering, and high energy research (with a stint at the JET Fusion Torus).
Margaret lives the good life on a small piece of rural New South Wales Australia, with an amazing man, a couple of pets, and several rambunctious wombats.
Sarah Pratt is an avid fiction writer and a Marketing Consultant.
Garry Dean lives on the Mid Coast of New South Wales Australia, and has been a fan of SF for most of his natural life. Being vision impaired, he makes good use of voice recognition and text to speech in order to write. Many of his stories have appeared in AntipodeanSF over the years, and his love of all things audio led him to join the narration team in 2017.
Tim Borella has never lost his childhood passion for SF and writing in general and has been lucky enough to have worked most of his life as a pilot — in other words, he’s never properly grown up.
Although a writer of the baby boom persuasion, Ed has not boomed for quite a while.
Pixie is a voice actor, cabaret performer & slam poet From the Blue Mountains in NSW.
