by AHWA
She ran through the history of the chain, told her new friend all about her part in its legacy. She’d always found the initial begging and screaming a little annoying, so it was a pleasant surprise that the dead woman went along so cheerfully. She even echoed the words as best she could, and Hazel had never laughed so much.
But then it all went wrong. The woman happily let her peel off the rotten skin, take off layer after layer of meat. But the pain was missing. There was no communion to this, no intimacy. The dead woman did nothing but gurgle happily, even after Hazel took her slimy tongue out by the roots.
“It doesn’t work!” Hazel cried. Wielding knife and saw, she broke the woman down into her individual parts, left with a neat stack of rank meat that continued to writhe. Normally this was a meditative time, a goodbye to a new friend. Hazel was shaken to the core, and hacked away messily. She’d never been lonelier, or more frustrated.
Empty.
Safe or not, it was time to leave Pigroot Flat.
She left the dead woman by the side of the dam. The stack of severed limbs continued to twitch and shiver. When Hazel limped back to the house, an arm rolled onto the ground, kept rolling until it was thrashing around in the dam.
Only then did Codger deem it safe enough to come out of hiding. He was canny enough to know that the pigs would be back, and they’d make short work of all that meat. He stole across the yard, wary of his mistress. In seconds he was back under the verandah, dragging the dead woman’s head by a hank of hair. Her jaw still worked, and the remaining eye regarded the half-starved dog with love.
“Doggy,” she mouthed, her blue lips curving up into a radiant smile.
* * *
Hazel spent a long time by the dam, bidding her friends goodbye. She made her final peace with Gilbo, and left Pigroot Flat, left her history slumbering beneath the earth. Codger trotted behind her but she threw stones and curses, drove him into the scrub. The dog had tasted people flesh now, would probably turn on her if she got too weak.
The township of Katherine was an open-aired graveyard, full of playful corpses. They splashed around in the Gorge, others wheezing rotten laughter as they kicked the footy. One even had a fishing line out, the hook dangling a good foot above the water.
The cars all sat on flats, batteries long dead. Gilbo might have got one working, but Hazel was no bush mechanic. Snatching a bicycle from a dead man’s hands, she ignored the invitations to play, dodged their skeletal fingers.
She pointed the bicycle down the cracked highway, and rode.
Every place was the same. The apocalypse had rolled over every farmhouse, every roadhouse, every sheep station and shit-shack. Numb, burnt to leather by the sun, Hazel passed through Tennant Creek, Davenport, Alice Springs. The dead, red heart of Australia.
By now the idiot dead were little more than skeletons in the sun, sinew holding bones together, skin drawn taut. They waved enthusiastically, shuffling after her bicycle.
On the day she saw the crude fort, she was walking like a dead thing herself. The chain on her bicycle had snapped, but she pushed it mindlessly, useless pedals clicking, busted tire dragging. An enclave, set almost a mile from the highway. Behind the barricades, a stand of trees. Perhaps a waterhole?
The gate opened. Figures rushed towards her. Hazel dropped the bicycle to the red earth, and shook with silent sobs.
People embraced her. Someone pressed a water bottle against her lips, and she gulped it gratefully, water running down her filthy face.
They led her into their compound, and she gazed around in wonder. Buildings, green gardens, livestock. Kids, playing in the street.
People, dozens of people.
The first she’d seen in years.
They closed the gate behind her, and Hazel clutched the old schoolbag close, the one marked KATHERINE AREA SCHOOL. Dangling from the open canvas flap, a loop of rusty old chain.
“You’re amongst friends now,” someone said to her, and she smiled.
Biographies
The Writers
Andrew Alford lives in beautiful green New Jersey, with many yellowing and incomplete manuscripts. When he can’t quite get a grip on a short story or poem, he puts off writing by practicing classical guitar. And recently, failing to get a grip on Albeñiz, he procrastinated practicing by shopping for new and better strings, and even a new and better guitar, which has since informed him: “It’s not your guitars; it’s you …”
Joanne Anderton lives in Sydney with her husband and too many pets. By day she is a mild-mannered marketing coordinator for an Australian book distributor. By night, weekends and lunchtimes she writes science fiction, fantasy and horror. Her short fiction has recently appeared in Light Touch Paper, Stand Clear and Epilogue. Her debut novel, Debris was published by Angry Robot Books in 2011, followed by Suited in 2012. Debris was shortlisted for an Aurealis award and a Ditmar. Joanne won the 2012 Ditmar for Best New Talent. Visit her online at joanneanderton.com and on Twitter @joanneanderton
Sandy DeLuca has been a painter since 1985, and she has been a writer since the late 80s. Two of her poetic chants were published in the popular New Age book To Ride a Silver Broomstick, under the pen name Autumn Raindancer. In recent years, she has contributed numerous poems, stories and novels to the horror genre. She was a finalist for the Bram Stoker for poetry award in 2001. She created Goddess of the Bay publishing in the late 90s, and edited and owned December Girl Press. At present, she is a full-time writer and painter.
Australian writer Felicity Dowker is a multiple finalist and/or winner of various awards for her short stories and reviews, including the Ditmar, Chronos, Aurealis, and Australian Shadows. Around 30 of Felicity’s stories have been published in Australia and internationally. Felicity’s debut short story collection, Bread and Circuses, was released by Ticonderoga Publications this year. She has stories in Circus: Fantasy Under the Big Top (Prime Books, edited by Ekaterina Sedia); and The Year’s Best Australian Fantasy and Horror Volume 2 (Ticonderoga Publications, edited by Liz Grzyb and Talie Helene). Felicity runs Thirteen O’Clock (www.thirteenoclock.com.au) with Alan Baxter and Andrew McKiernan.
Jason Fischer lives near Adelaide, South Australia, with his wife and son. He has a passion for godawful puns, and is known to sing karaoke until the small hours. He is the author of over thirty short stories, with his first collection appearing soon from Ticonderoga Publications. Jason attended the Clarion South writers workshop in 2007, and has been shortlisted in the Aurealis Awards, the Ditmar Awards, and the Australian Shadows Awards. He won the 2009 AHWA Short Story and the 2010 AHWA Flash Fiction Competitions, and is a winner of the Writers of the Future contest.
Kathryn Hore is a writer and photographer with a love of dark and speculative fiction. As a fiction writer her short stories have been published in several anthologies, while in her other life as a business writer she has produced a number of business publications. When not writing, she dabbles in research and information organisation in the corporate world, and runs a wedding photography business. She lives among the gum trees on the outskirts of Melbourne.
Michelle Jager is currently undertaking a Master of Philosophy in creative writing at the University of Adelaide. In her spare time she likes to watch Doctor Who and come up with zombie apocalypse contingency plans with her sister. She takes the latter very seriously.
Jack Ketchum’s first novel, Off Season, prompted the Village Voice to criticise its publisher for publishing violent pornography. His short story ‘The Box’ won a 1994 Bram Stoker Award, his story ‘Gone’ won again in 2000—and in 2003 he won Stokers for Best Collection for Peaceable Kingdom and Best Long Fiction for Closing Time. Recently The Woman and I’m Not Sam, both written with director Lucky McKee, were published. His novella The Crossings was cited by Stephen King in his speech at the 2003 National Book Awards. In 2011 he was elected Grand Master by the
World Horror Convention.
Gary Kemble’s award-winning short fiction has been published in magazines and anthologies in Australia and abroad—most recently in Midnight Echo Issue 7. His journalistic career has included stints with local newspapers, national magazines and online publications in Australia and the UK. He lives in Brisbane’s inner west with his wife, two kids, and a family of determined scrub turkeys. You can find him on Twitter: http://twitter.com/garykemble
Joe R Lansdale is the author of over thirty-five novels, and numerous short stories. He has received numerous awards, including The Edgar, Nine Bram Stokers, of which one is The Lifetime Achievement Award. He has received the Grandmaster of Horror Award, Texas Literary Hall of Fame, British Fantasy Award, and many others. His novella Bubba Hotep was filmed by Don Coscarelli. He has written for Batman the Animated series, numerous comics, essays, and so on.
Lucky McKee has always been a bit of a strange one. It’s a point he’s explored as a filmmaker and as a writer. His films revolve around unique characters and situations. I’m Not Sam is his fourth collaborative effort with Jack Ketchum, and their second full-length book. Their first, The Woman, was made as a film which won Best Horror Film at the Toronto After Dark Film Festival and won him and Jack Ketchum the Best Screenplay Award at the Sitges Film Festival in Spain. Lucky lives deep in the wilds of Oklahoma with his vicious lesbian guard dog, Veronica.
Andrew J McKiernan is a writer and illustrator living and working on the Central Coast of NSW. His stories have been shortlisted for multiple Aurealis, Ditmar and Australian Shadows Awards and have appeared in a number of Year’s Best anthologies. andrewmckiernan.com
Jason Nahrung grew up on a Queensland cattle property and now lives in Melbourne with his wife, the writer Kirstyn McDermott. He works as an editor and journalist to support his travel addiction. His fiction is invariably darkly themed, perhaps reflecting his passion for classic B-grade horror films and 80s goth rock. The co-author of the novel The Darkness Within (Hachette Australia), his most recent long fiction title is the seaside Gothic Salvage (Twelfth Planet Press). Outback vampire tale Blood and Dust (Xoum) is on the digital horizon. He lurks online at jasonnahrung.com
Stuart Olver credits his father taking him to see the first Alien movie as the start of his love affair with all things dark and sinister. Although he has published some coffee-table books completely unrelated to horror, he still harbours delusions of one day becoming the new Richard Laymon. Born in South Africa, he is ‘Greek by marriage’, and lives with his wife Afrodite and sons Con and John in Brisbane.
Shauna O’Meara is an artist and writer based in Canberra, Australia. She writes science-fiction and horror and recently placed second in the 2012 Conflux 8 Short Story Competition and first in the 2012 AHWA flash fiction competition. Her artwork has appeared in Winds of Change (CSFG publications) and Masques (CSFG publications). She is currently working on her first science-fiction novel.
Marge Simon is a past president of the SFPA and editor of Star*Line. A former 1995 Best Long Poem Rhysling winner, she won the 2008 Bram Stoker Award for Superior Achievement in Poetry, and the 2010 Strange Horizons Readers Award. She does other stuff too, like write and publish short fictions and artify for various genre publications and herself, for sanity’s sake.
Caysey Sloan is an undergraduate writing student from Adelaide. Her interest in writing horror, tragedy and the darkly supernatural stems from a happy lack of personal trauma. She has found that to maintain real world positivity, there is no harm in spilling fictional blood. She would read a lot more in transit if not for her horrid car sickness.
Matt Wedge is a writer and filmmaker. His previous short story ‘Frankie’ was published in the anthology Read by Dawn Volume One. He was the co-founder and managing editor of www.theparallaxreview.com, a gloriously misguided (and short-lived) attempt to bring class to film criticism on the web. He is currently working on his first novel and mentally preparing himself for the numerous rejection notices this will lead to. He lives in Chicago, IL with his harshest critic: a cat named Storm.
The Artists
Glenn Chadbourne is a freelance artist specializing in the horror/dark fantasy genres. His artwork has appeared in over fifty books as well as numerous magazines and comics. Chadbourne’s trademark pen and ink illustrations have accompanied the works of horrors top authors, most notably Stephen King where the artist illustrated two volumes of King’s The Secretary of Dreams. Other King projects include a series of paintings created for PS Publishing’s edition of King’s Colorado Kid. Chadbourne lives and works in mid-coast Maine with his wife Sheila and their Boston terrier Evan.
Greg Chapman is a horror author and artist from Central Queensland. His novellas Torment and The Noctuary were published by Damnation Books in 2011. His latest, Vaudeville, was just published by Dark Prints Press. His fiction has appeared in Eclecticism, Trembles, Morpheus Tales and Bete Noire. His comic book illustrations have appeared in Midnight Echo, Decay and Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine. He also illustrated the graphic novel Witch-Hunts: A Graphic History of the Burning Times, written by Bram Stoker Award winners Rocky Wood and Lisa Morton, published by McFarland in May 2012. Find Greg on the web at www.darkscrybe.blogspot.com
Chris Mars is a self-taught artist living in Minnesota. His works are held by The Erie Art Museum, Fredrick R. Weisman Art Museum, Tweed Museum of Art, Longview Museum of Fine Arts, The Minnesota History Center, American Visionary Art Museum, Mesa Contemporary Arts and Minneapolis Institute of Art. Mars’ work has featured at Steensland Art Museum, The Laguna Museum of Art, Art Center South Florida, Grand Central Art Center, Ruby Green Contemporary Art Space, Paris’s famed Halle St. Pierre. An awarded filmmaker, Mars’ narratives have screened at many festivals and prestigious museums including New York’s Museum of Modern Art. www.chrismarspublishing.com
The artwork of David Schembri has appeared in: Midnight Echo, Andromeda Spaceways, Black, and on the AHWA website. On the literary side, his first novelette ‘The Unforgiving Court’, will appear shortly in the Chaosium anthology Undead & Unbound. David is also the author of ‘The Black Father of the Night’, which will be published in the Horror World Anthology, Eulogies II. David’s forthcoming graphic collection, Unearthly Fables, edited by Paula B. of The Writing Show, will be published soon. The book will feature his prose fiction and macabre artwork. He lives in Australia with his lovely wife and children.
The Editors
Mark Farrugia is the author of the vampire comic series The Key to His Kingdom and the short story series ‘Seeds’. Mark’s other writing credits include the dragon fantasy ‘A Bag Full of Arrows’ (honorably mentioned by Ellen Datlow), and the horror short story ‘Single Mother of None’. His fiction has appeared in Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), Midnight Echo, Borderlands, Eclecticism and AntiopdeanSF. His story ‘Emu in the Sky’ is scheduled to appear in Horror Library Volume 5. Mark has also edited ASIM Issue 46 and ASIM Best of Horror Volume 2 with Juliet Bathory.
Amanda J Spedding is a freelance editor, proofreader, and award-winning author. Her stories explore the darkness of the human soul, earning honourable mentions and recommended reads both locally and internationally. Her steampunk-horror ‘Shovel-Man Joe’ won the Australian Shadows Award for short fiction (2011), and her publishing credits include: Dark Prints Press, Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine (ASIM), Award Winning Australian Writing, Shades of Sentience, Tasmaniac Publications and Pill Hill Press. Amanda is a committee member for the Australian Horror Writers Association, and Innsmouth Free Press contributor. You can contact her at Phoenix Editing, and follow her machinations at Screaming Ink.
Marty Young is a Bram Stoker nominated editor and writer. He was the founding President of the Australian Horror Writers Association (AHWA) from 2005-2010, and one of the creative minds behind Midnight Echo magazine. His horror fiction has been reprinted in Australian Dark Fantasy and Horror the B
est of 2008, repeatedly included in Ellen Datlow’s year’s best recommended reading list, and nominated for both the Australian Shadows and Ditmar awards. Marty’s essays on horror literature have been published in journals and university textbooks in Australia and India, and he was co-editor of the Australian Shadows Award-winning Macabre; a Journey through Australia’s Darkest Fears.
