My shoulders slump. Unless you’re at immediate risk. Which means her lips will be flappier than a sheet on a washing line.
The school makes me go see her a few more times, but each time I clamp my mouth shut, and after a while they give up.
Another day, I’m heading for the creek, when I find Henderson’s dog lying up beside the fence. Rolled over on its back like its expecting someone to rub its stomach, the dog’s ribs stick out under its ragged fur. Its head is lolled to one side, its tongue sagging from its mouth, covered in mucus. Looks like it ate some possum bait. Mr Henderson must’ve left it here to bury, away from the livestock. The flies haven’t wasted any time getting into the carcass; thick white filaments lick out from behind the dog’s eyes. I’ve seen maggots that got into a lamb once. Aaron and I found the wretched little thing in a ditch. It’d been dead a while because the maggots had eaten the entire body from the inside out. Its skin undulated in waves it was so full of the fat white worms. It was disgusting. Hopefully, Mr Henderson will come back and bury the dog soon. Poor thing. He barked a lot, but he was a good dog.
Backing away from the carcass, I swing my leg over the fence.
Mum’s in the bath for one of her long soaks when Uncle Bradley gets me up against the kitchen sink, his hand pressed against my mouth. I’d let my guard down. Mum was home so I thought I was safe. He hisses in my ear to keep quiet while he fumbles behind me.
The water goes off, but Uncle Bradley doesn’t stop. Mum’s soaks can take a while.
I see the butter knife lying on the bench. Slowly, I move my hand, closing my fingers around it.
Suddenly, Mum comes out of the bathroom, her bathrobe wrapped around her, heading for the linen cupboard. “Silly, I forgot to get a towel.” She stops, spying us through the kitchen. “What the hell?”
Hidden from her by the bench, Uncle Bradley flips up his track pants, flicks down my skirt and steps to one side. “I had to pin the little bitch down. She tried to attack me with a knife.”
I shudder. The butter knife is still clutched in my fist.
“Kayla? What’s going on?”
I stand up, my eyes pricking.
“I told you,” Uncle Bradley roars. “You wouldn’t listen. The kid has abandonment issues. Her daddy’s not here and she’s got it in her head that it’s my fault.”
“Shut up,” Mum says, pushing past him to get to me.
“Mum,” I say, warm tears welling. Gently, she takes the knife from me and drops it in the sink. A hand on each of my upper arms, she fixes me in the eye. “Look Kayla, honey, I know things are bad for you right now. I get that. Aaron leaving has brought up some things about your dad, but you have to understand, it has nothing, nothing to do with Bradley.”
“I just want him to go,” I whisper.
Uncle Bradley snorts. “What did I tell you? That kid is all kinds of crazy. Ever since I got here, she’s had it in for me.”
“Bradley, would you mind giving me a minute with my daughter?”
“Sure. No problem. See if you can talk some sense into her.” He grabs his cigarettes and goes outside, but not without giving me a look.
“Sweetheart,” Mum says, wrapping her arms around me. “This has to stop. You can’t go around lashing out at the world or people really are going to think you’re mad.”
I try to tell her that wasn’t like that, but she has to learn it for herself. It’s like in Beauty and the Beast, where Belle has to choose to love the beast if she’s going to rescue everyone from the witch’s curse. If I tell her the truth about Uncle Bradley, it won’t count.
“Mum please, just make him go,” I gibber.
But she doesn’t hear me, and after while I can’t hear her either.
The next day, I don’t go home. Instead, I get off the bus and go straight to the forest. Mr Henderson must have come and buried the dog because there’s no sign of it by the fence. I tuck my school backpack into a hollow where no one will see it, stamp my feet into the gaps in the wire and climb the fence. I suck in a breath, inhaling the ripe smell of soil and leaves. The lush of the trees beckons me in.
I have to go a long way into the brush to find the patu-paiarehe. I hear their music at the creek, but it’s an hour before I see them.
They hang back, lurking in the trees, laughing.
“I’ve come to see my father,” I tell them.
“Yes, yes, we can take you to the place.” They urge me forward, flitting in and out between the tree trunks. I follow them further into the forest.
After another hour, I glance backwards. The forest is dense black. It closes about me. This time, I’ve got no light to hold back the shadows. I’m wearing my school polo and the torch is in my sweatshirt. Maybe I should turn back. Go home. But which way do I go? If I’m going to get back to the creek, the patu-paiarehe will have to guide me.
They are the faintest silhouettes now. I feel my way forward, sensing them in the soft squelch of mud and the brush of the branches.
“Hey, slow down.”
Out of reach, the mischievous fairies giggle like I’ve made a joke.
We keep going.
Finally, the trees part. Before us, moonlight glints off a limestone cliff. A dead end. Looks like we’ll have to go back. But the patu-paiarehe point upwards and smile. I look up. Above us is an earthy overhang, the roots of a massive tree tangled and coiled in its underbelly. Something’s moving up there.
I squint as spindly white vines spool from a slit between the roots, creeping outwards and waving to me the breeze.
My father came here?
The vines sway and undulate like the maggots in the lamb: disgusting but fascinating at the same time. Mesmerised, I watch the glutinous tendrils slide from the recess and curl towards me. Halfway, they strike out, a million barbed threads, grabbing me and pulling me upwards.
No! This isn’t right. Why did they bring me here? This isn’t where we’re supposed to be.
The patu-paiarehe reply, “Yes, yes, we’re here, we’re here!”
But all I see is the fleshy curtain opening. A beak! And slithering from its yawning depths, a slick white tongue. I thrash and kick: the cords only tighten around me, the barbs digging deeper, lifting me up to meet that beak.
“Help me!” I wail.
The patu-paiarehe shrink back into the trees.
Grey slime drops from the beak. It seeps into my clothes, burning them away, searing my skin. I scream. A stinging acid gob falls into my right eye. With one sightless eye, I’m paralysed, helpless. I can only stare in horror as the beak drops further and further, its tongue roiling outwards to meet me, and all the while I’m rising, the vines holding me so tight I can barely tremble.
More foul mucus gushes from the beak, the oily slime smothering my face, and ruining my eye. It’s a relief not to see it close over my face. My nose is left free. I breathe in bubbles of vile mucus and scream and scream into its insides, the sound going nowhere.
“We’re here,” the patu-paiarehe croon.
Yes, we’re here, and it’s feeding on me, its white coils reaching into my body, their barbed tips sinking through my skin to slurp up my insides.
The pain is searing white and endlessly slow. I can do nothing but endure it. I lay suspended and delirious while its ropey branches snake through my limbs, lifting my fingernails and burrowing into my bones.
For the first time in forever, I wish I’d gone home.
Slither
Jason Nahrung
The farmhouse sat, sagging on its stumps, its flaking weatherboards sun-bleached to the colour of bone. Rust seeped through the corrugated iron roof like bloodstains. The steps of the hand-hewn planks of the front veranda creaked under his boots.
He went through the homestead, room by room, but everything was as he remembered, pretty much. Someone had washed dishes and left them in the drainer. There was a stain on the living room floor near the telephone table. A heart attack, they said. His old man, stretched out there, still in jeans and b
utton-up shirt and socks, his RMs by the front door, one hand reaching for the phone. Fighting ‘til the end. Found, however many days later, by a neighbour, come to talk about a stray bullock.
He imagined tendrils, grasping the straining organ, squeezing. Reaching in through ears and nose and mouth, forcing their way down the throat, drilling through the chest cavity like hungry leeches.
Shaking, he retrieved a bottle of rum from the ‘medicine cabinet’ and poured himself a shot. Then he put the kettle on, seeking comfort in ritual.
He was still on the veranda when the neighbour pulled up in his battered ute, Red bouncing on a tether in the tray.
You sure you want him, the neighbour asked after the stilted condolences had been done with.
You bet.
Didn’t think you’d have room for him in the city.
No words for that, just a hand on that boxy head, another under the grey muzzle, feeling the vibration of the wagging tail, the wet licks on his fingers.
We’re in no rush, you take your time, the neighbour said, rotating his battered Akubra in his gnarled fingers.
He wanted to ask, did you see anything…anything out of the ordinary? But all he said was: A couple days should do it.
Keep an eye on that storm, though. Gonna be a beaut. You wouldn’t wanna get flooded in.
No, will do, thanks.
Good of them to give him a few days to say goodbye. Hard to believe it was finally over. He wondered what his mother would say about the SOLD sign on the gate. He wondered about those final days, those final moments, in the hospital, her lungs clogged with cancer. Had it been like drowning, like being pulled under? Or had the drugs eased her down, some kind of bath of unconsciousness from which she’d never climbed out?
And his old man here, clawing at the floorboards as he tried to call for help. Who would he have dialled? Not even the neighbour could’ve got here fast enough. Close enough to pick up the pieces, though.
He took Red out the back to his kennel and gave him tucker and fresh water, then went inside to get started. The sooner he was out of here, the better.
Tinder dry. Funny how words lose their meaning; though, to be fair, in his experience, the dryness rang true. Just another dating app waiting for the spark. A dry argument, indeed.
The grass crackled beneath his boots. The ground was cracked under the threadbare covering. Looked like it could tear open at any minute, an earthquake-style maw ready to swallow. He tried to avoid stepping on the worst of them, like cracks in the footpath; no point risking further bad luck. The creek was dry, too, reduced to a string of stagnant pools. It was a wonder the neighbour had taken the farm, even for the over-the-barrel price. But there were clouds on the horizon, a thick grey line of promise. The irony was not lost, laying his dad to rest in the face of the broken drought. It was the drought that had killed him, some said. Trying to fight all of nature by himself, they said. That rustle of whispers at the funeral, the old farmers and the next generation, not soft enough that he wouldn’t hear. How’s the city treating you, they wanted to know. Seeing right through the lies, that country BS detector turned up to full.
He hefted the rifle, the now unaccustomed weight dragging at his arms and shoulders, and pushed on.
Red jogged subdued by his side, nosing through the stubble. It was too hot for even the crows to give a flying fark, but something was watching. He could feel it, like the stares of the mourners over CWA teacups and pikelets. Penetrating through the drawling chat of weather and stock prices and government, banal fears for the future and wistful dreams of the rains of yesteryear. The gaze weighed on him now like the heat. Expectation, he thought. Anticipation.
It knows when you’re alone, his old man had told him.
Bullshit.
His old man had been full of it, stories of wild dogs and ghosts and monsters, followed by that shit-eating grin when he saw he’d hit the mark. But not this time. When his dad had spoken about the slither, his breath rum-scented, eyes red from farewelling Mum, there had been no smile. Just urgency, a slurp on the glass, and that line repeated, more resigned: it knows when you’re alone.
Something plopped in the creek. A lizard most likely, or maybe a turtle. The platypuses were long gone. He scrambled up the hill and sweat stuck his shirt to his back, his jeans to his thighs. His calves ached, his lungs burned, his face flushed boiling under the broad brim of his hat. Red’s tongue lolled, the dog puffing beside him, head slung low.
Almost there, he told the mutt through gusting breath, his throat as dry as dust.
Finally, they slumped, him and the dog, in the cool shade of the old fig tree. The green dome spread above them, the ground underneath dotted with granite boulders like some kind of pagan cemetery. Up here on the ridge, the tree had survived his family’s machetes and poison, fire and drought. It had seen their arrival and their departure. He found a flattish rock to sit on and drank, and poured water in his hat for the dog. He ate the lunch he’d brought and gave the leftovers to Red, who wolfed them down keenly enough.
From up here on the ridge, he could see all of his family’s holding. Dry, yes, but beautiful all the same. Pulled out of his hands now with all the burn of a broken rope. The pain stung, no doubt about that. But he had to admit; his grip had always been tenuous. He was a farmer’s son, but not much of a farmer. He traced the creek’s sinuous path from up here in the hills, down across the flats, into a loose coil around the house. Brown paddocks as far as he could see, from mountain to the distant storm clouds roiling higher and wider. A hint of breeze gusted in his face, chilling the sweat, making him shiver.
Red lay, snout on paws, rheumy eyes fixed on him from under raised brows.
Let’s do it, but the dog didn’t move as he extricated the box from his backpack and pried open the lid with his pocket knife.
The ash came out in a cloud; much of it falling at his feet, but some the breeze took and wafted down the hillside. All the while he’d walked up, he’d been going over things to say, some fitting eulogy for the moment. But the dust came out and the words didn’t, and he simply stood with powder on his boots and tears in his eyes and an empty box in his hands.
Red barked.
He looked around. Nothing. The wind getting stronger pushed along in front of the storm, a hint of wet earth on it. Leaves whispered, a hushed choir in a foreign tongue more conspiratorial than comforting.
He picked up the rifle, looked at Red. On his haunches now, tongue out, looking at him. A whine, a bark of curiosity, the dog staring over its shoulder and then back at him.
He couldn’t take the dog to the city, back to his tiny apartment. Couldn’t stand to leave the old fella here with the neighbour, either, and all those fucking young heelers of his. Drive the old fella mental, they would. Couldn’t bear the thought of giving up his dog. His dad’s dog really, the farm dog. He’d thought they could stay here together, his dad and the dog, but looking down the barrel at those brown eyes, thinking of walking home alone, the smell and sound of the shot, the sight of the dog stretched out and still…later. There’d be time for that later.
C’mon, Red, let’s go home.
What a fucking lie. He had no home. They had no home.
Unseen eyes followed him all the way down the slope to the creek. From the scrub on the other side came the racket of cicadas, hacksawing into his ears. Red growled at every plop of puddle, at every crackle of falling branch; the grass whispered in the rising wind. And now a kookaburra mocked him, and it was too much. He and the hound all but ran that final stretch from the creek up the hill to the house, the storm wind biting at their heels.
The door slammed. He blinked himself awake, aware of his sweat-soaked shirt sticking to his arms. He gasped, his throat dry, his lips stretched thin. He sat up and ran his hands through his wet hair, pushing the fringe back from his clammy forehead.
Thump! He winced as the door slammed again. Grey light permeated the room, leaking in from the office doorway and the balcony beyond. A gu
st of wind chilled his legs, though he still wore jeans and socks. Something fluttered in the office. A bird? A snake? Or something else altogether, slithering across the floor?
Swearing, he stood, and tripped over an empty beer bottle that went spinning under the bed. The smell of spilled booze wafted up. Maybe that was why he had had the nightmare, that and the heat. Vague memories of a man on a horse, a bolt of shadow, the nag shying and the man falling clumsily, the crunch of head on rock, blood soaking into dry earth.
He grabbed the rifle from where it leaned against the wall and, peering into the murk of the office, worked the bolt. With the rifle at hip level, he hobbled to the door, looking for the source of the rustling. There. He sighed, uncocked the rifle and slid the safety catch forward, let the barrel tilt towards the ground. Papers scuttled across the floor as another gust rushed through, freezing the sweat on his body. Cursing, he limped through the office and pulled the swinging door shut with a firm whack. He leaned back against it, catching his breath as he scanned the shadows. Furniture, empty shelves, cartons, and the patchwork of loose papers still sliding listlessly in the breeze that sneaked through the cracks in the timbers. His hackles rose at the sound. Just papers, he told himself, blown from the desk because he hadn’t sorted them out yet, hadn’t shut the door. Christ, he hadn’t shut the door. Dread washed through him like an ice-cold shower. He could see the foot of the bed from here. He’d been lying there, dreaming, with the door wide open. He trembled and looked through the window onto the veranda and beyond. He could barely make out the pointed hulk of the mountain in the storm shadow. There was an empty bottle near his boots at the base of the rocking chair, where he’d slumped when he’d got home that afternoon. So he’d had more than one drink. That didn’t excuse his failure to make sure the door was locked. No, that was just stupid. He was lucky that nightmares were all that had visited him.
Cthulhu Deep Down Under Volume 2 Page 8
