by Pete Kahle
Something squealed in the scrub behind me and I accelerated, bumping over the track. I needed open country. I kept thinking I saw something moving with me, off under the mulga.
When the windmill came in sight, I was dripping with sweat. I pulled up in the clear area around it. There was another dead cow near the trough, the flies forming a thick black cloud around it.
I grabbed my rifle and the elephant gun and slid them up onto the roof. I slipped a handful of cartridges into my pocket, then I eased out the window and climbed up on top.
Around me the mulga stretched away in a grey-green sea. I heard rustling on my left side. Carefully I loaded the elephant gun. It was only a single barrel, so I had one shot.
Molly and Ozzie growled and then went crazy, snarling and yapping at something in the brush. I told them sternly to stay. When the pig slipped out of the mulga, the sheer size of it took my breath away.
It didn't rush, but paced slowly out into the open. Molly and Ozzie were belly down and growling, hackles up. The pig didn't even glance their way. I raised the gun to my shoulder.
I heard a sound behind me and spun around. Something heavy hit the side of the ute and the impact threw me off the roof.
Instinct told me to hold on to the gun and I hit the ground hard. Pain shot up my leg. I heard the thunder of hooves as the boar charged. I twisted, saw a dark body bearing down on me and fired. The gun slammed into my shoulder with a kick like a mule.
There was a squeal and the pig rolled over in the dirt. I tried to reload the gun with numb fingers. I heard a scream and then a second pig came around the front of the ute. I scrambled to shove the cartridge in as it charged.
Then Molly landed in the dust in front of it and grabbed it by the nose. Ozzie raced around and tore into it from behind. I managed to get the cartridge in and raised the gun to my aching shoulder.
The boar shook Molly off and grabbed her by the neck, forcing her down into the dirt with his tusks. Molly yelped once and I fired. Ozzie fled, tail between his legs.
In the silence, I could hear the cicadas start up again. My heart pounded and my shoulder felt like I had beaten it with a hammer. I pushed myself up.
Molly lay still under the boar. I pulled the rank carcass off her. Her eyes were glassy, and blood dripped down her neck.
"Poor old girl," I whispered. She had saved my life.
I lifted her onto the back of the ute. Ozzie crept up close to me and I rubbed his ears. "Good dog," I said. "Good boy." I turned to the other dead pig.
Steve lay on the ground, naked, his chest a great mess of blood and muscle and bone.
I sat down heavily. John had been right. I rubbed my eyes. I couldn't make sense of this. Steve had been just a boy. And according to the world, he was already dead.
# # #
Back at the house I put Molly's body in the shade under the verandah. Ozzie slunk inside the house with me, an event that would never have happened if Ellie was there. I leaned the elephant gun against the wall in the living room and went down the hall to the kitchen to pour myself a drink.
Ozzie whined as I upended the scotch bottle. "Good boy," I said. "It's okay." I turned to the table. Ozzie stepped in front of me. We tangled and fell to the floor in a heap, scotch and glass going everywhere.
"Damn dog!" I snapped. Ozzie cowered, the whites of his eyes showing. He whined and tried to crawl under my belly. I froze.
How stupid I had been to leave the gun at the other end of the house. I pushed Ozzie away and got to my feet. He stuck to my heels like glue as I edged to the door.
Something moved in the living room. I tensed to bolt out the back door to the ute where I had left the rifles. There was a creak of boards on the verandah out the back.
I wondered if pigs could climb stairs. I was about to find out.
I bolted across the hall and ran up the stairs. Hooves pounded behind me and something squealed. I dived into our bedroom, Ozzie right behind me, and slammed the door.
The door shook with the impact of a body and cracks appeared at the bottom. I ran to the window and threw it open. I grabbed Ozzie and shoved him onto the verandah roof, then crawled out after him. I ran in a crouch along the roof towards the ute.
There was a crash behind me and I turned. A pig shot out the window and landed on the roof, hooves scrabbling frantically, then it was over the edge. I heard the crash as it landed, and then it was screaming in pain. I hoped it had broken its legs.
The ute was below me. It was close enough to the verandah for me to jump onto the tray. Ozzie whined, claws out, ears down as he crept along the corrugated iron. I would have to leave him up there, but he was probably safer than I was about to be.
I tensed and leaped, heard a crash from the verandah but landed on the tray without falling. Another massive pig raced towards me. I reached into the cab for the rifle, hauled it out and emptied it into the animal. The pig rolled down the steps onto the grass.
Ozzie broke into hysterical barking. I jumped down from the tray and ran for the elephant gun. There was another pig at the end of the hall. It charged, and I dived through the first door I came to and slammed it behind me.
The door shook. I backed up, bumped into the laundry tubs. The door splintered and a great head pushed through. It was a sow, with no tusks, but I still didn't want to mess with those teeth. I jumped up onto the wash tubs, looking around for something solid to hit her with.
My eye fell on Matt's spear, tucked away behind the hot water system. As the pig forced her way in I pulled it out and buried it in her shoulder.
She screamed, an almost human sound. I pushed down with all my weight, held the spear down until the pig's struggles stopped.
I let go of the spear. Ozzie had stopped barking. I climbed down from the wash tubs, my hands shaking.
The pig carcass twisted, dark skin going pale, limbs elongating and then Ellie lay on the floor of the laundry with a spear through her chest.
I sank to my knees. Ellie. Which meant… I couldn't think of that. I closed my eyes, reached a hand out and touched her hair. How far had they gotten, before Matt had found them and sent them back? Had they stumbled out of the car, in pain, already turning?
When I could move again, I pushed myself up, picked up the spear and stumbled outside. I knew what I would find there.
Ashley lay at the bottom of the verandah steps. Which just left Chris.
I went around the side of the house, found the torn up ground where the boar had fallen from the roof. I followed the bloody trail down the hill.
I found him under the Wandoo. White bones stuck out of his leg. His limbs paddled weakly as I approached, and he dug his tusks into the dirt.
I kneeled down beside him, looked for something of my son in those mad red eyes.
# # #
Some small movement warned me and I swung around and thrust with the spear.
It went through Matt's chest like a knife through butter. I leaned on it, shoved him to the ground. "You bastard." Tears flowed down my cheeks. "You bastard. Why did you come here?"
"Paul-" Matt writhed under the spear.
"Why did you come? Why did you kill my family?"
"I didn't. You did."
I pulled the spear out and slammed it into him again.
"Paul-"
"Shut up and die!"
"Paul." He grabbed the spear in one hand, and pushed, hardly at all, and I flew backwards and landed in the dirt.
He stood, and pulled the spear out of his chest and dropped it. No blood welled from the wound. He fingered the tear in his shirt. "Steve already killed me with this. You can't do it twice."
He'd grown in the weeks since I had last seen him. The limbs had strengthened, filled out to match the bulk of the chest. The jaw was heavier, with a line of stubble like boar bristles on his chin. The pale blue eyes held thunder in their depths.
He bent down to pick up the spear, stood with it held easily in one hand. I looked up at him, waited for the spear to hit. "What ar
e you?"
“I am Waste. I am Ruin. I am the foot rotting from the limb. I am the blisters bursting on your lips.”
I shuddered. I had a sudden, sharp memory of watching the aftermath of foot and mouth outbreak in Britain on TV. The staggering animals, the piles of burning corpses. Eighteen years ago.
He shrugged, looked around at the station. "I liked it here." He turned back to face me. "But you had to ruin it. You took away my horse. You took away my spear, then you took away my lover."
I glanced across at Chris. The boar’s frantic feet had stilled, but he panted, his eyes vacant. "He’s not-"
"You have no idea what Chris is to me. And no power to tell me what to do."
I did not. But I did have some power. I lunged for the spear, brought it up. Matt didn’t move, calm, his head on one side, a thin smile on his lips.
I slammed the spear down into Chris’s chest. The boar jerked once, then was still. The body shuddered, then shifted until my son lay naked and broken on the dirt.
I struggled to my feet and faced Matt. “You can’t have him. He’s mine. This land is mine.”
"So you said." He reached down, picked up a handful of red dust and let it sift from his hand, to be blown away by the wind. "And it protects you. You're lucky." He turned and walked away. There was a whisper, like wind through the grass. I thought I saw Chris, pale as winter fog, walking after him. I whirled around. Chris’s body was gone.
"Get back here!" I shouted. "Don't you walk away from me!" But they slipped into the mulga and were gone.
Matt had returned for what was his.
# # #
I went back to the homestead and gathered Ashley's body in my arms. I sat on the steps and cradled her, until the setting sun and Ozzie's whining brought me back to myself.
I dragged Ozzie off the roof. He ran inside and crawled under the kitchen table. I didn't call the police, though I would have to soon. Ellie and Ashley I picked up and lay on their beds. When I kissed their cold cheeks I left salty marks on their skin.
The bush made boys into men. Maybe it also made boys into gods, or whatever Matt was.
I packed the ute. Ozzie came when I whistled, and jumped onto the tray. The spear lay where it had fallen. I strapped it to the back of the ute. It was the only connection I had.
My cheeks were dry by the time I drove out the gate, my rifle on the seat beside me.
Meryl Stenhouse lives in subtropical Queensland where she curates an extensive notebook collection and fights a running battle with the Lego models trying to take over the house. When not avoiding stealth bricks she can be found at the computer, avoiding writing.
HAVE YOU READ VOLUME 1?
22 monstrosities gestated in the nightmares of:
Kya Aliana * D. Morgan Ballmer*Rose Blackthorn
John Bruni * The Behrg * Jeff Carlson * Mark Carroll
Adrian Chamberlin*Adrian Cole*Richard Dansky
Jeremy Hepler * Beau Johnson*Pete Kahle
Rob Lammle*Esther M. Leiper-Estabrooks * Marc Lyth
Christine Morgan * Billie Sue Mosiman*Megan Neumann * Jason Parent * Joshua Rex * Seth Skorkowsky
Available in paperback or Kindle on Amazon.com
ISBN – 0692567933
ALSO FROM
BLOODSHOT BOOKS
The Specimen (The Riders Saga, Book 1)
Available in paperback or Kindle on Amazon.com
ISBN– 1495230007
ON THE HORIZON FROM BLOODSHOT BOOKS
2016
Blood Mother: A Novel of Terror – Pete Kahle
The Awakening – Brett McBean
2017*
Not Your Average Monster, Volume 3
The Abomination (The Riders Saga, Book 2) – Pete Kahle
2018*
The Horsemen (The Riders Saga, Book 3) – Pete Kahle
* other titles to be added when confirmed
READ UNTIL YOU BLEED
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