by Lee Murray
Nathan’s clothes are damp from his fall into the creek earlier that morning. He is shivering, tapping both thumbs against the grip of his microphone and staring past Greg. He misses his cue. Greg elbows his sternum, setting off a coughing fit. He had to take a hit from his inhaler right after I stopped the camera. He gasps through his lines. ‘Uh. Over the years, farmers in the Halliken Valley area have contended with many predators worrying their livestock, from natural threats such as snakes, feral dogs and localised earth tremors to supernatural monstrosities such as werewolves, bunyips and UFOs. Though, of course, the existence of aliens has yet to be officially recognised.’
‘There’s no such thing,’ says Greg.
Nathan stands about a foot shorter than Greg. Every time Greg speaks, he flinches. ‘Um, well, there’s … with the damage we are seeing here, there’s no evidence of…’
‘UFOs?’
‘Um, well, of any of those things. I think we’re dealing with something else.’
*
‘Chupacabra,’ says Michelle after the cut. She’s standing with Jan and a bearded late-middle-aged white man wearing a rabbit-fur hat and dusty collared shirt. The Other Girl is standing behind them, eyes squeezed shut as if the green scrunchie in her hair is too tight, with her arms crossed over a Hypercolor Miami Dolphins t-shirt. Nobody pays her any attention.
Jan frowns at the off-script comment. ‘Excuse me?’ she says.
‘Puerto Rican goat-sucker,’ says Michelle.
‘I’ve never heard—’
‘Of course you haven’t. It’s an amphibious carnivore, lives in bodies of still water like canals, ponds and dams and exclusively preys on—’
Jan looms towards the camera with a fake smile that warns ‘no more side-tracks’.
‘Just this morning we were doing additional filming for our episode on the Dawn Spectre of Barramar National Park, when we discovered Farmer Bryan’s livestock in this dreadful state. Bryan, how do you respond to the police statement that your livestock was attacked by wild dogs?’
Bryan Ponsford’s face transforms from blank dismay to frustrated fury. He says, ‘Dogs! That’s bullshit.’ For the original webcast I bleeped that. This time it stays. ‘If it was dogs, my dogs would’ve barked their balls off.’ He adds another, ‘Dogs!’ and swipes his hat across his brow.
The Other Girl shakes with laughter that doesn’t register on the soundtrack. Her braces glint in the morning sun.
Michelle makes a distracted half-turn towards her before returning her attention to Jan. ‘Why not a chupacabra? Wouldn’t be the first time an overseas pest has been introduced to this ecosystem.’
Jan directs a throat-cutting gesture at me to end the take.
*
Half a dozen pig-hunting dogs are penned up in an enclosed wire cage near a collection of storage sheds. Michelle strides over with her recording gear, smirking with satisfaction. She whistles and hisses at the dogs, hoping to provoke some suitably ferocious barks to mix into the audio track. The dogs pace and fret in their cage. One even lunges at the wire and grabs hold with its teeth. None of them bark at her.
The Other Girl follows her for a few steps. Her face is flat and serious but as she looks back at me, I think I see a hint of something else. She’s almost skipping. She stops outside one of the sheds. She looks back at the camera and opens her mouth like she might say something.
Then someone yells, ‘Hey, get away from there! Leave – leave my dogs alone,’ and the camera swings to Farmer Bryan, huffing across the blood-soaked holding yard toward us. ‘I want you lot off my property.’ He’s waving his arms so hard, he almost rolls his ankle on a decapitated goat head.
That was the episode where Spook Hunters took off online.
Excerpt from Episode Four: ‘The Daugherty Theatre’
‘The Daugherty Theatre staged its first play in October 1902, a production of Boothby Chambers’ notoriously unlucky and subsequently banned play, The Light across the Billabong.’
Nathan’s glasses reflect like full moons rising over his lips. I borrowed a night vision attachment to compensate for the abandoned theatre’s poor lighting, but it was difficult to get the correct settings. I abandoned it after filming this background segment.
‘The opening night was a fiasco. The leading lady broke her leg and six patrons contracted cholera from drinking spoiled champagne. The theatre’s owner, John Abercroft Daugherty, was undeterred by the setback. Over the next eleven years, he produced some of Australia’s greatest theatrical works, making Ashburnham a prime location on Victoria’s cultural map. Daugherty was the rock-star producer of his day.’
Jan takes up the narrative. ‘That ended when John Daugherty and his brother George volunteered for the First Australian Imperial Force in November 1914. John was killed at Fromelles. George returned after the Great War and took over the theatre.’
Greg is standing so close to Jan that the weird illumination makes it look like two heads sharing one body. He takes a sneaky glance over her shoulder at her cleavage.
‘Nobody knows how or when George Daugherty got his secret taste for human blood, but we do know he was a full-on cannibal by the time he got home. Local historians reckon his interwar body count was eighteen, most of them day labourers.’
Michelle adds, ‘Only three murders were proven at his 1938 trial, which was enough to send George to the gallows. The Daugherty Theatre was declared hazardous by the town’s authorities and closed the same day England declared war on Germany.’
Jan says, ‘For a building that’s been condemned for over seventy years, the Daugherty Theatre is in good shape. That’s because the Ashburnham Historical Society raises funds to restore it every ten or fifteen years. Public-spirited carpentry is not without its risks. Nathan’s dad hurt himself falling from that catwalk back in 2007, right Nate?’
Nathan’s father spent nine months in traction and walks with a cane to this day. His injury forced him into early retirement. He is a kind man, but he tires easily.
Nathan does not reply. The Other Girl puts her hand on his shoulder.
Even though it’s a rare example of them all working as a team, I would cut this scene as irrelevant if not for where they are standing, in the side aisle of the partially restored auditorium. The Other Girl is in her usual position, unnoticed at the rear, shrouded by the hanging shreds of a long-ruined velvet curtain.
Nathan confusedly wanders back a couple of steps, giving voice to a small croak, until he bumps into the wall. Not noticing the Other Girl, I thought nothing of it at the time and paused the recording.
*
‘Come on, what do you say we give this a run? George is probably still here.’ Greg produces a plywood sheet painted with letters and numbers. He never holds it still long enough for it to be recognisable as a Ouija board. In the original episode, I inserted a still-frame image for the audience’s benefit but that doesn’t matter now.
With the introduction done, Michelle’s interest in cooperating evaporates. ‘Okay, two things about that. One, why would anyone want to talk to the spirit of a guy who murdered people and ate them? And two, what the hell is wrong with you?’ Greg’s look of surprise is understandable. They used to get on much better.
Nathan is pushing the curtain around and knocking on the wall through gaps torn in the fabric. He ignores the others. The Other Girl shows a glimpse of amusement at Michelle’s speech, but is more interested in Nathan’s investigation.
Jan scowls and pushes close to Michelle’s face. ‘What makes you think we’re not going to try to contact the dead? That’s what Spook Hunters is all about.’
‘As if you have any idea what this is all about, you pushy little show-off. You just read your palm cards and show some pasty white skin and try not to get any of your drool on him.’ Now it’s Jan’s turn to look shocked. I doubt anyone has ever stared her down like that before.
Greg steps between them before Jan thinks of a way to escalate. ‘Hey now, ladies,’ he says, and his grin suggests he might believe they are fighting over him.
‘…distasteful.’
‘What?’ Michelle turns around to the Other Girl with a frown like someone snuck up from behind and pinched her. The sound on the original recording was terrible. Michelle and I spent half a day trying to clean it up for the webcast. Nathan’s voice had some weird echo artefacts we just couldn’t isolate. In the end, we got him to record a voice-over.
‘What did you say?’
Nathan coughs. ‘I said, ghosts. They don’t like being summoned. They think it’s impolite and distasteful. Anyway, I found something.’
He’s standing in a doorway that wasn’t there before. ‘I think this is George Daugherty’s kill room. What say we give our viewers a first look inside?’
I slow the playback again. As he holds the door open for us all to clamber forward, it’s easy to miss the slight bulge of something long and flat stuffed into his shirt.
Excerpt from Episode Five: ‘The Ghost of Clarice’
‘Jan, some of the feedback from our regular viewers has been a bit critical.’
‘How so, Greg?’
They are flushed and keep exchanging furtive smiles they must imagine are invisible to the camera.
We waited for them for an hour, making uncomfortable small talk with the old woman whose lounge room we had invaded. Jan assured us she had called ahead to make arrangements. It transpired that she left a message on an answering machine that has not been checked since 1996.
‘A few commenters have complained that the Spook Hunters project is a failure.’
‘A failure?’
‘Right. Because so far’—she glares what must be intended as daggers penetrating through the camera to its operator— ‘we haven’t captured a single spectre, cryptid or otherworldly horror live on film.’
Little do they know.
‘Well then, tonight they’re in for a treat.’ Jan steps back with a ringmaster’s expansive wave.
The old woman, Mrs Gretel Stone, tries to rise too quickly from her armchair. Nathan and Michelle take an arm each to prevent her toppling. I hold the shot on her countenance of confused gratitude. She really had no idea why we were there, but she didn’t complain. Manners are paramount and at least we were interesting company.
‘Vanh! Camera!’ For the webcast, I cut Greg’s deep-throated stage whisper out. I feel no obligation to make him look good this time.
The picture veers to Jan by an old-fashioned fireplace, where fading photographs in tarnished silver frames sit atop a faintly scorched mantle. ‘This,’ she announces, gesturing with both hands at the stuffed and mounted remains of a tortoiseshell cat, ‘is Clarice.’
‘And this,’ she says, reaching out to steer the camera towards a window, as if nobody else has read her very detailed running sheet, ‘is also Clarice.’
A cat – the same cat, though warmed through with a translucent amber glow – is sitting on the window sill. It considers the camera with thoughtful disdain for a moment. Then it raises its head to accept a stroke from Jan’s hand, which passes straight through to stop with a gentle slap on the windowsill. The cat’s ears flick. It rises, arches its back, and slips out the closed window, disturbing neither dusty glass nor lacy curtains.
Jan swears loud enough for our inadvertent host to hear. As she begins to react, Greg asks, ‘How did Clarice die, Grandmother Stone?’
Our host’s baffled cordiality freezes on her face. ‘I won’t talk about that while she’s here.’
We all turn to look at Jan, even Greg. ‘Not her. Her!’ The old woman is pointing into her own little galley kitchen. The camera pans slowly. I didn’t want a wobbling shot.
Nathan is carefully pouring the contents of a steaming kettle into a porcelain tea service, while the Other Girl watches, drumming her hands on the table. Startled, he spills hot tea on his fingers as he looks up. Her mouth drops open and she flaps her hand like a bird taking flight.
‘Who?’ says Greg. ‘I don’t—’
‘Mum? What’s going on? What are they doing here?’
I happened to be by the front door at the time so I didn’t need to move. Mrs Lautner walked straight into the shot. The camera is so close up on her ear that you can see it turn red. She says, ‘Jan, why are you all in my mother’s house?’
Count one, two and there is Jan, in the shot with Mrs Lautner. Whatever else you can say about Jan Parry, she has fine spatial awareness. ‘Fans, you remember Naomi Lautner, don’t you? She’s the clubs coordinator at Wattle Park High and she was just indispensable in helping us set up the Spook Hunters Club in the first place. Mrs Lautner – well, no it’s out of school hours so I guess we should call you Naomi, right? So, Naomi, what can you tell us about your mother’s spectral pet?’
‘Jan Parry, I told you about Clarice in confidence.’ Mrs Lautner turns to look to the camera. Her disappointment still feels worse than a punch to the stomach. ‘This is an invasion of my family’s privacy, not to mention a breach of trust. I would like you all to leave immediately. I will discuss this with you after school on Monday.’
Jan persists, putting a hand on Mrs Lautner’s shoulder to angle her slightly towards the camera. ‘Do you think it’s possible your mother poisoned her own cat in order to—’
There’s no more footage. That’s when I stopped filming.
Excerpt from Episode Six: ‘Wisdom Street’
‘This green marker shows where Robert O’Reilly fell after he was stabbed twice in the neck, and the orange one is where Mrs Katherine Morris bled out after Constable Ernhardt emptied his pistol into her chest.’ Nathan is speaking very quickly and will not hold still while he speaks to camera.
He was still upset after the meeting with all our parents. His father asked him to stop making the documentaries. Nathan argued with his father, which I don’t think he had ever done before.
Despite his nerves, he completes his recounting of the details of each murder without pause. The camera follows him on a wayward route down the street, checking in on a series of numbered plastic markers. Each is a memorial to an unlucky bystander picked off in Lidija Hummel’s branch of the 1893 rampage.
Michelle falls in step alongside him. Her glance to camera, no more than a blink, is heavy with emotion. The rebuke that followed Jan’s stunt was still fresh in our minds, as was the implied threat that our grade would be withheld. Michelle does not care to hide her anger.
*
Nathan arrives at a patch of dappled shade beneath a stand of thin white gum trees. In two upturned palms, he raises a flat, curved blade covered in wriggling marks like the scribbled bark patterns behind him.
The Other Girl stands beside him, her tied-back hair and oversized shirt unaffected by a light breeze that ruffles Nathan and Michelle. She frowns and often glances away to one side as though she is waiting for a late bus.
‘What sparked the Wisdom Street massacre, we don’t know for sure,’ Michelle says. ‘When Lidija Hummel hanged herself from the branches just above us, she took the answers with her. None of the other participants in the bloody all-in brawl outlived her by more than an hour.’
‘Eyewitness accounts agree that a strangely shaped blade changed possession several times among the Wisdom Street killers. Some historians hold that an argument broke out over its ownership. The suggestion remains unconfirmed and no such weapon was ever found. Until now.’ Nathan holds a knife, which I believed until that moment to be a replica.
As Michelle takes over to recount the bizarre circumstances that drew seven previously unconnected townsfolk into unexplained mutual butchery, a man in a grey suit with an emerald-green tie joins them in the shot.
He listens to their presentation with an expectant look. He does not appear perturbed that neither has a
cknowledged him.
The Other Girl’s pinched face registers hostility. She pulls at her hair with some ferocity, retwisting her scrunchie like a sailor securing loose ropes in a storm. The man in the grey suit ignores her.
As the historical presentation ends, the man in the grey suit leans towards Nathan and whispers something in his ear.
Nathan looks at the knife and runs his finger along the edge, where a dark red smear appears. The man in the grey suit smiles like an encouraging teacher.
Nathan raises his eyes and looks into Michelle’s as if he sees her for the first time. Michelle is looking at the knife and at the blood dripping from Nathan’s fingers.
The Other Girl touches the man in the grey suit on the shoulder. He reacts, shaking his head at her without turning, a disdainful dismissal.
The Other Girl squeezes, the coil of bangles on her wrist shivering against one another. Smoke or perhaps steam curls from the collar and cuffs of the grey suit.
Michelle swears and snatches the audio bud from her ear. She slaps a hand against the side of her head, grinding her palm against her ear.
The man in the grey suit disappears. The Other Girl falls to her knees and coughs. Michelle’s equipment does not pick up the sound of her coughing.
Nathan puts the knife down. He looks at his hand and squeals in pain. ‘Oh hell. I need stitches.’
Jan and Greg never showed up for the recording. When they recorded their introductions at school the next week, Greg told Michelle that they had been grounded by their parents. Jan told me that they lost the address details.
I don’t know why they bothered lying to us.
Excerpt from Episode Eight: ‘The Farm’ (episode not broadcast)
I have tried every trick I know to clean up the footage from the hay shed. I have run a stabilisation filter. I have cut the worst bits. I even tried centring each image frame by hand. It’s no good. I couldn’t stop my hands from shaking when we recorded.
The cut on Greg’s forehead is deep but the flow has stopped. Except for the bite on his shoulder, his clothes are more torn up than his skin. He is sitting on the hay-strewn floor of the shed, legs folded, holding his foot with both hands. He stares at everything with a bewildered fury held in check by shock. He says nothing. He does not understand what has happened.
