The Gulp

by Alan Baxter

“A little off if I’m honest. Will you come with me?”

  She tipped her head to one side. “You really want me to? I’d like to stay and hear Edgar play.” Her eyes seemed more challenging than sympathetic.

  Patrick chewed his lower lip, uncertain. Should he insist on her coming? Would she, even if he did? And why was he so uncomfortable?

  “You go,” Ciara said. “I promise I’ll follow you up soon, okay? I’m tired too. Maybe half an hour, I’ll join you.”

  Patrick nodded. He could hardly insist she come now when she’d made such a seemingly reasonable offer. “Okay.”

  Edgar grinned and perched on the arm of a couch, put the guitar on his knee. Patrick almost ran up the stairs, so desperate was he not to hear the man’s song.

  He waited half an hour, and Ciara didn’t come. He thought about going back down, checking on her. But he’d looked like such a fool if he pulled a stunt like that. They were leaving the next day, he decided to focus on that. He got ready for bed, brushed his teeth, took a leak, then padded back across the hall to his room.

  He’d been in bed only a few minutes, still no sign of Ciara, when he heard a sound. He froze, listened hard. Something was moving above the ceiling. He remembered the high, A-frame roof of The Manor, imagined there must be quite an attic up there.

  The sound stopped for a moment, then resumed. Something moving, something quite large. Then definite footsteps. Was a person up there? One of the band?

  He heard Simone’s voice from next door. Something in German, and he caught Torsten’s name. He smiled. If Torsten was heading to bed, surely Ciara would be up any moment. He turned his ear back to the ceiling, wondering at the possibility of a person there, but was distracted again by another voice from the room next door.

  “Not Torsten. It’s Clarke.”

  Patrick sat up in bed, alarmed, then hurried to the adjoining door and put his ear to it. Clarke was so quiet and unassuming compared to the others in the band.

  “Clarke? What you want?”

  “Torsten is enjoying a drink and a song downstairs. You want some company?”

  “Clarke. I don’t know.”

  “I’ve seen the way you look at me. You like what you see, huh?”

  Patrick frowned. If he was honest, Clarke was probably the best looking of the guys. They were all lean, that hard-body rock star aesthetic. The three of them all had long hair, Edgar blond and the other two black, whether natural or dyed he couldn’t tell. But Clarke’s hair was thick and shining, his jaw square, strong cheekbones. And he had that quiet, brooding thing going on.

  “I’ve got a little drink for us,” Clarke said. His voice had moved into the room now, Patrick imagined him at the foot of Simone’s bed.

  “What is it? Not the moonshine?”

  Clarke laughed. “Of course the Blind Eye Moonshine. Come on, just a sip.”

  “I don’t know.”

  Patrick fought an urge to swing the door wide, confront Clarke, tell the bastard to leave Simone alone. That would be the worst white knighting. She was a grown-up, she didn’t need saving. Not yet anyway. If she tried to send Clarke away and he refused, then Patrick would get involved.

  Simone’s bed creaked. “Clarke, I don’t know.”

  “How about I try to convince you?”

  “Oh? How?”

  “Here, take this. Have a drink. Just a sip. That’s the way. Now lie back and spread these lovely long legs.”

  Simone gasped.

  “Good?” Clarke asked, a little muffled.

  “Oh... OH!”

  Patrick shook his head and moved away from the door. It was all their business now. And if Clarke was so certain Torsten wouldn’t disturb them, perhaps it was a safe bet that Ciara would stay for more drinks too. He felt at a loss, stranded on his own in a crowded house.

  The noises from the next room became more urgent, more excited. Patrick got back into bed and pressed the pillow over his head. Eventually, despite all his discomforts, he fell asleep. And dreamed.

  He stood on a beach surrounded by thick, verdant bush. Strangely ancient vegetation, thick trees with even thicker undergrowth. He couldn’t imagine being able to fight his way through it, but where was the town? A stench of rot filled his nose, made his bile rise. He looked down to see the gravelly black sand was slick with even blacker, oily slime. Rain fell, cold and stinging against his face, stuck his hair flat to his head. The wind was cold and heavy, pendulous clouds, arcing with streaks of purple lightning, filled the lowering sky. He almost felt as though he would be able to reach up and touch them. Gaping red wounds opened in the clouds and things fell, far out near the horizon. Things that writhed and flapped and flexed as they tumbled down. Then nearer, close enough to see some details, though most was lost to silhouette through the haze of rain and darkness. Was it night or a stormy day? Some creatures had seemingly too many limbs, certainly more than four. Some had appendages that whipped like tentacles in the wind of their falling. They hit the turbulent waves and sank away.

  He sensed eyes on him and turned. A tall, thin, pale figure stood just past the tree line, watching him. Its long arms hung at its sides, blood red nails pointing at the slime. Ribs and hips jutted from that too pale skeletal frame, red eyes in their black nests of cobwebbed veins never left his, never blinked. Another joined it. Then a third. Then a fourth, though this one was a little different, slightly altered in shape. Three male and a female he realised, his thoughts almost too slippery to lock down. Something roamed back and forth just behind the four, in the shadows of the trees. Something like them but taller, more bent and crooked. They raised their long-fingered hands, the four, and beckoned to him. He shivered, knowing that to go to them meant certain doom, but compelled to do just that. He tried to cry out a denial, but only managed a broken croak. He turned to run, slipping and sliding on the rotten ichor that covered the beach, washing up with the churning waves. Out there, the creatures continued to fall from rents in the heavy, lightning-struck clouds.

  He ran anyway, falling, hands slapping into the ooze that stank like rotten flesh. He staggered up, ran again, fell again. Over and over he climbed to his feet, ran, and fell, but he refused to look back towards the trees, refused to even acknowledge their presence, beckoning him. Over and over again he ran and fell until, exhausted, sobbing, he lay in the fetid slime and didn’t try to rise again.

  Patrick woke as the grey light of dawn smudged the windows where he’d neglected to draw the curtains. He felt more exhausted than when he’d gone to bed, his dreams fresh and frightening in his memory, but tattering and fluttering away even as he tried to hold onto them.

  He sat up, bereft. Ciara lay next to him, calm and relaxed in her sleep. In the low light, she seemed thinner, her cheeks hollowed by shadows. But he smiled, glad to see her there. She’d come to bed eventually, and today they could leave.

  He didn’t want to wake her even an hour later as the sun streamed in through the window. Another bright, clear, blue day, but cold outside, dew glittering on the grass below. Patrick trudged downstairs, found Howard and Edgar talking quietly in the kitchen as they worked on breakfast. A huge pan of scrambled eggs sat on the stove. If nothing else, the band were feeding them well.

  “Mornin’, champ,” Edgar said. “Sleep well?”

  “Not really, no.”

  “That’s a shame. After your early night and everything.”

  “I seem to have bad dreams here.”

  Howard laughed. “Everyone has bad dreams here.”

  Patrick frowned. They were still in makeup. Could he fool himself any longer? It clearly wasn’t makeup. But what the hell did that mean. The two stared at him with their dark, crimson eyes. Their red nails glittered. Patrick’s dreams skittered around the edges of his mind, details smudging even as he tried to hold onto them.

  “You can go whenever you want,” Howard said.

  “What?”

  “The Gulp has a habit of swallowing people,” Edgar said. “But sometimes it spits
one out.”

  “What?” Patrick said again.

  “Mornin’ all youse cunts.”

  They turned to see Clarke stroll in, grinning.

  “Seen a ghost, Patrick?” he asked.

  Patrick ran a hand through his hair, trying to get a grip on the morning’s proceedings. Leave, that’s all there was to it. They were leaving today. Concentrate on that.

  Shirley came in, went to the counter. “Morning, fuckers. I’ll get the toast on. Get your friends up, Pat, or the eggs will be cold.”

  “Fuck.” At a loss, he did as he was told. He knocked on the Germans’ door first, and Torsten grunted a query. “Breakfast is ready.”

  “Okay, be right there.”

  He went into his own room, sat on the edge of the bed. Ciara turned over and smiled up at him. “Morning.” She looked pale, and he thought she really had lost weight. Her cheeks were hollow, not just shadowed.

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. Just really tired, is all.”

  “Sleep well?”

  She grimaced. “Ugh. Nightmares, I tell you. These tall creatures with black and red eyes, chasing me.”

  A shiver passed through Patrick. “They catch you?”

  “Every time! And they kinda suck something out of me, like they’re draining me, then I wake up. Then it starts over again.”

  Patrick shook his head. “Fuck this place. We’re leaving today, heading on towards Sydney, yeah?”

  “Sure, if you want.”

  “I do want.”

  “Okay. You all right?”

  She looked suddenly scared. Was she taking his lead? If he seemed scared, did she take that seriously? Perhaps, and if so, that was okay with him. “Yeah, I’m all right. I just want to get on, that’s all.”

  They sat around the big kitchen table and tucked into the eggs. For a couple of minutes it was a companionable silence, then Edgar said, “So what’s the plan for today?”

  “Heading off,” Patrick said quickly. “On up the coast towards Sydney.”

  “You don’t fancy staying a bit longer? You’re welcome, you know.”

  “Thanks, but I think–”

  “I want to stay,” Simone said. She glanced at Clarke and gave him a sly smile. He winked at her.

  Ciara looked from Simone to Clarke and back again. “Oh! That’s where you went last night?”

  Clarke shrugged, grinned at his breakfast.

  “We need to get on,” Patrick said.

  “Stick around for the week,” Edgar said. “We’re playing in Enden on Friday, you could head off from there.”

  “It’s only Monday,” Patrick said, and hated the edge of panic in his voice.

  “Farmer’s Markets today,” Shirley said. “This afternoon. You should check them out, down at Carlton Beach.”

  “Oh, hey, get me some bugs!” Howard said. “I’ll make a special dinner.”

  “Fucking bugs?” Patrick said.

  Howard laughed. “You heard of Moreton Bay Bugs? No? Sometimes they’re called slipper lobsters or flathead lobsters. Anyway, they’re a kinda of lobster, obviously. There’s a variety you can only get right here, around this part of the coast. Go north of Enden or south of Monkton and you don’t get them any more. A few of the local fisherman always have them for sale at the markets. Get a bunch and I’ll make this amazing chili pasta dish with them for dinner.”

  “Sounds amazing,” Ciara said.

  “It’s to die for,” Edgar said with a grin. He looked at Patrick as he said it.

  “Okay,” Torsten said. “Let’s stick around a bit longer, yeah?”

  “Sure,” Ciara said.

  “I want to,” Simone said, and shifted her chair nearer to Clarke’s. He leaned over and kissed her. The other band members laughed.

  Edgar still held Patrick’s gaze.

  Patrick tore his eyes away. “I thought we agreed to leave today.”

  “Does it matter?” Torsten said. “We have no real agenda.” He rubbed under his eyes and Patrick thought the German looked a little pale and drawn too. All three of his friends did.

  “I want to hear the band play again,” Ciara said. “You really don’t mind us staying here the week?” She looked at Patrick. “It’s free accommodation too!” She quickly turned back to Edgar. “We’ll buy some food and booze, of course! We don’t expect you to keep us.”

  Edgar shrugged. “I already told ya, me cassa, you cassa.”

  “Tell you what,” Patrick said. “We’ll stay if you four wash off your makeup!”

  Edgar laughed, the other three grinned.

  “Patrick, don’t be rude!” Ciara said. She looked at him with a shocked expression.

  “How is that rude?”

  “Excuse him,” Ciara said to the band.

  “Don’t excuse me!” Patrick looked around the group and they all looked back, every one of them with some kind of surprise or pity in their eyes. How was he the odd one out here? “You won’t take it off? Or you can’t?”

  “Patrick!”

  Edgar raised his palms. “We are who we are, mate.”

  “And who are you, exactly?”

  “You want to change us?” Shirley asked. “We would never ask you to change.”

  “Patrick, please,” Ciara said. “What’s got into you?”

  “Nothing! I’m not the one under their fucking spell.”

  “Chill out, yeah?” Ciara said, laying a hand on Patrick’s forearm. “It’s cool here, is it not? Hanging out with a rock band, immersing ourselves in local culture.”

  “I’m not really a fan of this culture, Ciara.”

  She smiled, shook her head. “Chill out. It’ll be a nice week, then we can get a room in Enden, watch the gig, crash there, and hit the road again on Saturday. No real plans, remember? Let the trip take us where it will, isn’t that what you said?”

  “Yes, but–”

  “But nothing. We made new friends, we’re seeing new things. It’s just a week, we have months more ahead of us.”

  Patrick ground his teeth, looked around the group. They band smiled, patient and relaxed. Edgar seemed a little more smug than the others. Torsten and Simone wouldn’t meet his eye. He turned back to Ciara, but her eyes had hardened a little, daring him to challenge her further. He knew the look.

  “Fuck it, I need some fresh air.”

  Outside was still winter cool, but the sun warm as he walked across the grass. Patrick felt untethered, lost.

  The Gulp has a habit of swallowing people. But sometimes it spits one out.

  Patrick took a ragged breath, glancing back at the house. As he started to turn away, movement caught his eye. Something up above. He turned back and saw a window high on the house he hadn’t noticed before. Above the second storey, in the apex under a heavy chimney, a round window with a wooden cross in it making four even quarters of glass. An attic window. Someone looked out of it. Patrick frowned. It was an old man, pale, with long white hair. A moment of recognition tickled Patrick’s mind, but slipped away. He’d heard those footsteps the night before... The man snapped his head around and pinned Patrick with his gaze. Patrick gasped and took an involuntary step backwards, tripping on the edge of a flowerbed. He staggered but managed to regain his balance. When he looked back up, the round attic window was empty.

  The Farmer’s Markets transformed the park behind Carlton Beach into bustling activity. Dozens of stalls under Easy-Up canopies were selling pretty much everything imaginable. Fruits and vegetables of every kind, nuts, herbs, mushrooms. Some of the mushrooms on sale looked decidedly weird to Patrick, but he chose not to mention it. There were arts and crafts too. Beeswax candles, watercolours, wooden carvings, leather belts.

  “Here’s a seafood stand,” Ciara said, dragging on his hand.

  Patrick was still smarting from the earlier shutdown of his concerns, but he tried to play along for now. If nothing else, he needed Ciara to trust him, not start hating him.

  They went over, Torsten and Simone with them.
The seller had several polystyrene boxes filled with ice, various fish and shellfish laid out on top.

  “You have any bugs?” Ciara asked.

  The man behind the table was short and squat, with a wide face and eyes too far apart. Looks like a bug himself, Patrick thought uncharitably.

  But the man smiled warmly. “Gulpepper Bugs, eh? Keen to try the local cuisine? I can tell from your accent you’re not from around here.”

  “We’re told they’re really good.”

  “They are, but you have to know how to prepare them safely.”

  “Safely?” Patrick asked.

  “Yeah, they have a poisonous bit, like some crabs do. You know what to do with them?”

  “A friend is doing the cooking,” Ciara said. “A local.”

  “Ah, you’ll be right then. How many?”

  “Eight, I guess?”

  “All right.” The man stepped back and slid a large plastic tub out from under his table. It sloshed with water and he popped the lid off. Dozens of large shellfish, like wide, flat, shortened lobsters hunched and jetted over each other inside.

  “Oh, they’re alive?” Ciara said.

  The man looked up. “Yeah. You gotta cook ’em fresh. I’ll box ’em for ya, though, make it easy to carry.”

  “Can you keep eight aside for us, so we can pick them up later when we’re ready to go back?”

  “Sure, if you pay me now.”

  “How much?”

  The fisherman eyed Ciara for a moment, then smiled. “Let’s say ten bucks each, as you’re new to this.”

  “Eighty bucks,” Patrick said. “We’re on a budget.” Ten bucks each for something like lobster actually seemed pretty reasonable, but he didn’t like the idea of eating anything so specifically local to this weird place.

  “You’d pay three times that for lobster tails at the supermarket,” Ciara said. “Besides, we’re saving a lot staying with the band and they’ve been giving us loads of food and booze. This is a steal!”

  Patrick kept his mouth closed, teeth clenched, as Ciara counted out the eighty dollars. She was right, after all, they’d had a free ride so far. Torsten handed her forty and she smiled at him, slipped some of her money away again.

  “We’ll be back in an hour or so, okay?”