“Personal items?” queried Sharon.
“Yeah. They were left behind when we vacated the house. Hadn’t realized before, but, you know, she’d made a note I... uh, they found when they went through her things -”
“Your mother -”
“I know, I know.” Sutherland’s look of weary sadness was like a bad stage performance. “She was crackers. Sad. Real sad. I’m sorry she bothered you folks. New house and all. Don’t need pesky old ladies around, eh?”
“She was no trouble -”
“They found her body over near the highway, you know, a few kilometres from here.” He shook his head theatrically. “Like she was hitch-hiking or something. Hit by a car, they reckon, three days ago or so. They haven’t found the driver.” He frowned, as though just thinking of something. “Friday night, they said. But you rang me about her on Saturday, so it had to be after you called. Fucking cops!” He narrowed his eyes at Gary. “You really should’ve called me when she pissed off again, you know.” Then he laughed. “Never mind though. Better you don’t get dragged into the inquest, eh?”
Gary and Sharon looked at each other, disorientation like noxious fumes making them dizzy. What was he talking about?
“But she’s not dead,” whispered Gary.
“‘Fraid so.” Sutherland glanced up the stairs. “Didn’t you know? Sorry. Point is, I realized we’d left something here ... small box ... when she moved out. In a sort of alcove behind the inbuilts apparently. Sentimental stuff, you know.” He wiped away a perfectly dry tear. “All I got left now.”
Gary frowned at him. “I think you’re mistaken -”
Sutherland suddenly loomed over him. Gary and Sharon both cringed away. “Tell you what, I’ll just go up and grab it and be on my way. No worries.”
Before they could say anything, he was off, loping up the stairs two at a time, in complete disregard of his apparent unfitness. He disappeared into what had been the old lady’s bedroom with a harsh bang of the door.
Gary and Sharon looked from each other to the upstairs shadows and back again, not knowing what to do.
“Maybe we should call the police,” Sharon said at last. “I think he’s gone mad.”
“No!”
They glanced up at the source of the voice. Emma had appeared at the top of the stairs. Her frail shadow hovered there, gesturing at them. She looked almost translucent in the gloom, like a figure in an old photo.
“Go out!” she said. “Go to the shops. Make sure you are seen.”
“But Emma, we can’t leave you -”
“Do what I say!” Her voice was hard and irresistible.
~ * ~
They’d expected the house to be grim and empty when they got back, but as they pulled into the drive, Emma appeared, wearing an apron and smiling happily.
“Did he change his mind?” Sharon asked, running up and hugging her.
The old lady patted both their cheeks. “I changed it for him.” She smiled sweetly. “He’s on the back verandah,” she said, “waiting for you.”
Gary’s heart sank. He’d gone away hoping to avoid any further interaction with the horrible Clive Sutherland, only to return to find his worst fears realized. What could he do? What could he say? Maybe the old lady’s son would hit him.
“He’s mad,” Gary said. “He claimed you were dead.”
Emma smiled. “He came for his inheritance, that’s all. An inheritance he hadn’t known was waiting for him.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I left a note for him. It said there was a box full of money in the alcove behind the cupboard.”
“But there wasn’t, was there?” asked Sharon.
“Oh, yes, dear.” She patted Sharon’s hair. “The box exists. Enough money to keep us in comfort for a long time to come. But it wasn’t his. No. That money is for my dearest children.”
“But-”
“We just have to get him out of our lives. Without his negativity, I can stay here forever.”
“And he’s on the back verandah?” Gary felt weak with nervous anxiety.
“I’ve done my bit. Now you must do yours.”
“But we can’t make him do anything.”
“I don’t think he’ll give you any trouble,” Emma commented as she led them out.
Gary expected Clive Sutherland to be standing arrogantly against the backdrop of the extensive and overgrown garden, hands on hips, face sneering. But at first Gary couldn’t even see him. Hope welled up. Maybe he’d left.
“He’s lying over there,” said Emma, pointing towards the top of the three-tiered stairs that led from the back yard. Sure enough, a big man was stretched out on the wooden planks, on his side, twisted slightly, his back toward them.
“Is he resting?” Sharon whispered, as though afraid to wake him. Emma said nothing. Clive Sutherland didn’t get up or acknowledge their presence, even when their shoes began clumping across the old boards. He seemed to have a towel over his head. Maybe he had a headache.
“Hello, Mr Sutherland.” Sharon did not approach him.
“He’s dead,” Emma said. The young woman looked around, puzzled, saw Emma’s hardened face and paled.
“What do you mean?” Gary went towards Clive Sutherland, peering at him as though he were a strange insect. “Are you all right, Mr Sutherland?”
The big, silent man said nothing. He didn’t seem to be breathing, but his coat was loose. Gary reached out and touched his hand, which was bent back over him. As Gary’s finger met Sutherland’s skin, the young man grimaced and pulled away quickly. Then he noticed a large patch of blood spreading from under the towel out across the old wood. It was dripping through the cracks. “What happened to him?”
Emma pulled away the towel. Gary could see the problem then. Mr Sutherland had an axe buried in the front of his skull. There were little nodules of reddish brain matter gathered around the blade.
Sharon screamed, even though she’d stayed away and couldn’t get the full effect of the sight. Gary nearly threw up. He staggered back.
“I thought a little tap on the head might calm him down,” said the old lady. “He was getting hysterical.”
Sharon, teetering on the edge of a precipice, made a little gasping noise. “Oh, my god,” she said.
“It was merciful,” Emma continued. “He was far too miserable to live.”
Gary and Sharon glanced at each other, aghast and trembling. “Oh, Gary,” the young woman whispered, her face white and sickly. “What are we going to do?”
“We’ll have to tell the police.”
“The police?”
“Yes,” said Emma. “You will.”
Gary glanced toward her. The old lady had that hard look on her face again - a look that plainly said It’s simple, my boy. She no longer seemed frail. She’d filled out, wrinkles disappearing like ripples on a pond. “He would’ve ruined everything. This way, everyone wins. Even his wife will be glad to be rid of him.”
“But ...” spluttered Gary, sinking into a weather-beaten deckchair. “But ... they’ll arrest you.”
Again the old lady smiled. Her teeth seemed whiter than they’d been this morning. “Not me. They can’t arrest me.”
“But you killed him.” A sudden thought struck Gary hard. “Or us. They might arrest us.”
“They wouldn’t arrest you. You two are so sweet... and you were seen this afternoon at the shops at the time he was killed. You were at the shops, weren’t you?”
They both nodded.
“And you were seen?”
“We talked to Mrs Grahame from the Dentist’s.”
“There you are then. No, they won’t arrest us.” She lifted her hand and pointed with one bent, skeletal finger in the direction of their neighbour. “They might arrest Mr Blewett,” she said. “He’s a loud, violent man. They might arrest him.”
Gary felt lightheaded. “But... why would they do that?”
The old lady nodded, wistful acknowledgement of a deeper cunn
ing. “Oh, if they found out that the victim had been killed with Mr Blewett’s axe. And if they found that he’d earlier gone over to Mr Blewett’s house to complain about that annoying dog. Maybe someone heard them arguing.”
“Who?” asked Sharon.
“Passersby. What if passersby heard them shouting at each other ... just before -?” She gestured at the dead body.
“You mean Mr Sutherland and Mr Blewett had an argument?”
“No, dear, but what if it sounded as though they did? It must have been them arguing. After all, you were away. And there was no one else here at the time.” She nodded calmly. “Clearly Mr Blewett followed this gentleman in a temper and used his axe. Only Mr Blewett’s fingerprints are on the handle.” The lady of the house smiled at them lovingly as the two young people huddled together, their spirits trembling under the gentle timbre of her voice. “But don’t you worry about the details, dears. You’re my children now, my good children. I won’t let anything happen to you. Just do what I say, tell them what I tell you, and there’ll be no more trouble. We can stay together forever.” She smiled. “You understand?”
Gary and Sharon nodded slowly.
“That’s good,” she said, and Gary felt like one of the nocturnal creatures Emma could always subdue. He wanted to go and hide in a crevasse.
“After all,” the old lady added. “I wouldn’t want to think you didn’t love me.”
The dead man merely looked on.
* * * *
Robert Hood is one of Australia’s leading horror/fantasy/ SF writers, with over 120 short stories to his name. His novels include the haunted drama Backstreets (2000), the YA supernatural thriller series Shades (2001), and assorted kids’ comic-horror books, such as the Creepers series (1996-7). His stories have appeared in the collections Day-Dreaming on Company Time (1988), Immaterial: Ghost Stories (2002), and Creeping in Reptile Flesh (2008), as well as in magazines and anthologies worldwide. Upcoming is a novella in The Mammoth Book of Zombie Apocalypse! (created by Stephen Jones) and short stories in Scenes from the Second Storey (Morrigan Books), In the Footsteps of Gilgamesh (Gilgamesh Press) and Anywhere But Earth (coeur de lion publishing). A YA SF novel, Robot War Espresso, is due out from Twelfth Planet Press. He is also an award-winning writer of film commentary and has edited various anthologies, including the award-winning Daikaiju! Giant Monster Tales (with Robin Pen). His website is www.roberthood.net.
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* * * *
* * *
The Last Deflowerer
KAREN MARIC
Behind a desk in an office sits one of the last practising Deflowerers; straight-backed as a church pew, he pens reports in an elegant hand. He is a tall man, cadaverous of frame and grey of hair. A tombstone-shaped nose separates two ink-black eyes buried deep within ravines of grey flesh. There are streets named after this man. His visage graces bronze busts and etchings in every office window in this great city of grey brick and slate. His statue erected by the Grey Man himself, no less dominates Gloriae Parade.
Yet hanging over his office like an odourless smell lurks an atmosphere of imminent decay. Many a visitor to this office has imagined a swipe of their finger along the dark wood surfaces shall stir up clouds of dust and desiccated spiders. Or that a fingertip pressed to the wainscoted walls shall reveal the spongy texture of things decomposing, rather than the hard smooth feel of oak. Yet neither dust nor things decomposing mar the neatness of the office. And so its visitors are left to gaze about and wonder: what on Altus convinced them there was?
The man behind the desk once believed himself all that stands between order and utter, bacchanalian mayhem. His name is Salus Sententiae.
The smell of decay comes from his dying beliefs.
~ * ~
Salus Sententiae’s credocom rings with the melancholy yet graceful notes of his once-favourite tune - Paene Obliviscor’s magnum opus, Ode to an Uprooted Flower.
Salus freezes. How he dreads news of another sprouting!
Before answering the call, he slides a sheet of paper under the grey baize blotter on his desk, hiding it. Sketches of bell-shaped flowers cover the paper. Interspersed with the flowers are arrow-shot hearts encircling the initials ‘SS + VM’.
Salus reaches for his credocom. The device renders his secretary Miss Monitus’s voice tinny, yet cannot disguise her coarse accent. That throaty, nonchalant voice arouses flutters in Salus’s belly - a sensation that is delicious and disturbing in equal amounts.
“There’s been another sprouting, Sir,” his secretary reports.
Salus’s long, manicured fingers drum a fierce rhythm upon the blotter. “An upright woman should report that with fear, Miss Monitus. Not nonchalance.”
“My apologies, Sir,” she says, sounding anything but apologetic, “but I an’t upright, an’ we both know it.”
“Indeed.” Salus sighs wistfully. He feels breathless. He struggles to concentrate on the matter at hand. “Where was the weed found?”
“At 66 Liberum Street, Sir. Inside one o’ them albinizing factories. Sprouted up through a crack in the floor, they say.”
“Just the one seedling?”
“Ay, Sir.”
“Victims?”
“Victims?” says Miss Monitus. “One fellow did sniff it, Sir, if that’s what ye mean.”
“I see.” He sighs again. “Well, sharpen my secateurs and ready my kit, shall you? And tell them I shall be on my way immediately.”
Despite that assurance, Salus makes no attempt to hurry. With slow, reluctant movements, he replaces his credocom earpiece, his ink bottle and reports on the appropriate outlines inscribed on his desk. Eleven months have passed since first he traced those lines around his personal possessions, soon after Miss Monitus began working for him. She has an unsettling habit of rearranging his belongings when she dusts, and the outlines ensure she replaces everything where it belongs.
Still dallying, Salus strides to the window, where he stands with his hands clasped behind his back. Before him spreads the city of Vendo. Beneath a lead-grey sky, the city’s manufactories and foundries, workhouses and slaughterhouses lie in serried grey ranks, hemmed into the north by the steely-grey strip of the River Doloris.
“Somewhere amidst all that orderly greyness a single brilliant splash of vegetative colour exists - danger of the most pernicious and dastardly kind,” murmurs Salus, rehearsing lines he shall soon repeat to hordes of eager journalists. “And against it, I shall prevail.” A distinct lack of conviction taints his tone.
Studying his bone-thin reflection in the mirror, Salus draws on his grey-and-black pinstripe frockcoat, smooths his powdered grey ringlets, and positions his top hat on his head so the brim is exactly horizontal. Then, having no further excuses for delaying the inevitable, he steps into the foyer -
- and, spying Miss Monitus, is gripped by paralysis.
Salus stares at her, speechless.
Enamel earrings in a forbidden red-and-gold hue dangle from Miss Monitus’s petal-pink ears. Flower-shaped earrings. The lurid jewels accentuate her dramatic colouring till her night-black hair, her fine pale skin, her eyes of jet seem to fill Salus’s entire field of vision. The musky scent of her cheap perfume dizzies him. It occurs to him she would look even more bewitching in a gown of crimson, rather than her grey worker’s pantaloons and smock.
What a wicked thought!
“I must insist you remove those baubles before stepping outside, Miss Monitus,” he says, recovering his poise. “For your own safety - you do understand.”
Miss Monitus fingers the earrings, but makes no move to unclip them. Nor does she try to defend her transgression. She says only: “I know how t’ avoid the Constabulary, Sir.”
Salus has no wish to discover how she knows that.
He hefts his iron-bound leather Deflowerer’s kit from her desk. “All packed?” he asks.
“‘Course, Sir.” She lowers her voice. “Sir - forgive me fer prying, but ... but I were wondering - d’ye t
ruly believe a bit o’ brightness in our lives would be such a crime?”
Not for the first time, Salus wonders if Miss Monitus might be an agent for the underground Rainbow Leftist Party. Strange, how she appeared on his doorstep the very same day his previous secretary, the withered and taciturn Miss Durus, succumbed to old age. Salus supposes he should report his suspicions about her to the Grey Shirts, yet he knows he never shall.
“Actually, I -” Salus stops, clears his throat, looks away.
He must never voice his doubts to her, he tells himself.
The Year's Best Australian SF & Fantasy - vol 05 Page 31
