by Paul Haines
Richey groaned, then Hazel giggled.
And then I saw them, naked, lying on the soft grass near the edge of the creek. Richey lay on his back, his chin thrust to the sky and his eyes closed. Hazel squatted over his stomach, her breasts full and swaying, long dark nipples taut and primed. She slowly raised and lowered herself upon him, rocking back and forth as she did so, a tangle of black pubic hair obscuring where the two of them joined. Richey groaned again, the cords in his neck thick and ready to burst. Hazel purred and a grin crept across her face, stretching her lips to burst. Her lips peeled back over teeth shining with spit. Her face seemed swollen and something animal screeched from her throat.
My dick was rock hard in my shorts and I felt sick and confused, though I could not look away. I realised my fingers were buried deep in the soil and the noise of sparrows and crickets and flies and fantails and tuis warred in my ears. I lowered myself to the ground and pushed my groin into the cool dirt beneath me.
Hazel lowered her mouth to Richey's. His chest arced upwards and his head lolled for a second, and then his mouth seemed to pull towards hers. Veins bulged blue against his skin and he began to convulse.
I gasped, suddenly afraid, my whole body shuddering. Hazel looked up then, her eyes pools of inky blackness trapping me like a dying possum. Her mouth had spread across her cheeks, a dark maw that threatened to consume everything that neared. She laughed, a sharp cawing sound that shattered around me. I sprang to my feet and ran back towards the house. Samuel stood on the deck, motionless, looking down at me. I ran past him, aware that his skin had a grey tinge to it. Pale fluid leaked from his nose.
'Where are you going?' His voice scraped in his throat, a broken fluctuation of notes and then a guttural, 'Sie müssen entkommen!' Samuel's head followed me, twisting on that fat neck, and I thought I heard it grind like stone. A little girl's voice, high and frightened, leapt from his mouth. 'Run! You have to get away!'
I ran down the driveway towards the safety of the road, glancing back once. Samuel still stood there, motionless, his head cocked sideways on his meaty shoulders. He hadn't moved. Once I made the road, I stopped, trying desperately to catch my breath. Stevie and James were still in there. So was Richey! She was killing him! I ran down the road towards our house. I'd tell Mum, she'd know what to do. A car approached, slowing as it neared, and I stopped running, my feet tumbling before me in a half-skip and walk. Nicole Wymer's face peered from the passenger window as they passed. Her cheeks were fatter than I remembered. In the back sat Annette Napier, who looked like she was chubbing up, too. They both pointed at me and laughed, and then the car driven by Mrs Wymer had passed and was heading down the Goldstein's driveway. The normalcy of the world came crashing back in. Birds sang, the sun shone, clouds wisped the sky.
Why had they laughed, I wondered? I looked down at my shorts and saw a wet muddy stain around my groin. My cheeks burned. By the time I reached our front door, my heart had stopped hammering and I was no longer out of breath. I felt like an idiot.
Richey sauntered in half an hour later, beer on his breath and a broad shit-eating grin on his face. He winked at me, flashed a ten-dollar note and said, 'I'll be mowing her lawns every weekend from now on.'
I felt like an embarrassed, jealous idiot.
I hid in my room until dinner, and then struggled through a bland meal of pork sausages, boiled potatoes and a garden salad.
Mum told Dad that the police had been around asking questions about Tony. He'd been missing for over a month now, more than twice as long as the last time he had run away. They were now investigating foul play.
I studied Richey as they talked about Tony. He seemed puffed up and aloof, and ate ravenously. He winked and grinned at me, meat stuck between his teeth.
I didn't know if I should say anything, and surely they'd been up to the Goldstein's about this. Surely they'd been everywhere.
I needed to talk to Samuel about everything that had happened, but I needed to get him away from the pleasures of the Goldstein house, to get him onto my territory.
Somewhere safe.
#
That night I dreamed about Hazel again. Samuel ran around their house screaming, 'Fliehen! Huya! Fuggire! Flee!' as shards of his flesh slipped from his body and shattered like glass on the floor. Hazel, naked and swooping along the ceilings, her black hair tumbling from her head like searching twining limbs, a gigantic red raw mouth singing a siren's song from between her thighs, and the rest of us kids—James, Stevie, Nicole, Annette and me—yelling and flailing through screeds of corn chips and hotdogs and chocolate bars wet with cola as we were sucked inevitably towards that endless gaping hole in a real life version of Satan Gender Hell.
I woke up drenched, my chest heaving. Samuel's face stared at me from the other side of the window. I screamed, and my reflection screamed back.
#
The morning sat hot and humid as we made our way up the creek to the hut. I had taken off my t-shirt—it was too tight and must have shrunk in the wash—and stuffed it down the back of my shorts. I noticed I had little rolls of flab from my belly hanging over my shorts. Bloody hell, I was getting fat! Sweat slicked my bare skin and I could almost taste the wet summer in the air as I breathed. Samuel moved slowly and methodically, though the heat didn't seem to be affecting him. He carried a small bag slung over one shoulder in which he said he had some things I might like to see.
I tried to engage him in conversation, casual stuff, like who was better: Han Solo or Luke Skywalker? Or which was the best song on Rio, but Samuel's answers were short and curt. I assumed he was concentrating, not wanting to fall into the creek and amongst the eels that made their home in the muddy banks. I was really trying to find a way to ask him if Tony had been at his house. I had no idea how I was going to broach the subject of his mum and my brother doing it though.
As we trudged up through the shallow mud towards the hut, I realised I didn't know anything substantial about Samuel at all. All I knew was he was an American, he didn't have a dad anymore and he liked the same stuff as me. Though he also liked riding horses with Nicole and some of the other girls from school. That bit was weird, but he said they'd been on a ranch back in America and everyone there rode horses, so I guess I knew that about him.
I studied his round blank face. He had all the good shit and I didn't want that to end. If I pried too much about his mum, about Tony, would he no longer let me come over?
When we approached the rotting log that bridged the creek, Samuel paused. A high whine buzzed from the back of his throat.
'What's wrong?' I asked.
'Do we have to cross that?' His face, usually expressionless, had furrows in his brow. Small lines of worry etched away from the corners of his eyes and curled his mouth down.
'It's easy.' I leapt up onto the log, feeling it sag briefly beneath my weight. 'Just a couple of steps and you'll be over.'
'But ... the water ... I don't, I can't go ...'
With my arms outstretched to balance, I took three more steps then jumped onto the other side of the creek. Mud sloshed up hungrily around my ankles.
'Don't worry, Samuel. The water's not deep. Not even over your head.'
'John ...' Samuel's voice increased in pitch and suddenly the inside of my head stung. I clapped my hands to my ears to try and block out the sound.
On the other side of the creek, Samuel stood rooted to the spot with his shiny black gumboots spotted in fresh slick mud. Those usually slack muscles hidden beneath the fat on his face coiled like the eels hidden beneath the water. My eyesight blurred, or at least it appeared to blur, around Samuel, his form indistinct and wavering.
'Samuel! It's okay. What's wrong?'
He shimmered in the heat of the morning. Steam rose from around his feet as hot chunks of mud bobbled and spat. He took a step towards the log. One foot followed the other, slowly, ponderously.
'The elements ... binding is incom—'He started to cry then, large blubbering sobs that threatened
to make me cry, too.
I staggered back onto the log bridge, unsure of my footing, but reaching a hand out towards him. I didn't understand what was happening, but deep within me I knew that I was witnessing something of the real Samuel here, the boy that lay hidden beneath the fat and the lollies and the toys and the Yankee accent.
My hand touched his. His fingers were as cold and hard as stone. He gripped my hand. I winced and a whimper slipped from my lips.
'Samuel, you're hurting me.'
The log sagged alarmingly as Samuel stepped up onto it. The whine inside my head ceased and a rich waft of rotten fish floated over us. He squeezed my hand harder and tears came to my eyes.
'Don't let the water touch me,' he said, though the voice was accentless, ageless, something from within a dream. 'Not only will it break the spell, but it will destroy everything you know.'
I nodded, terrified. The smell was coming from Samuel. His skin looked like porcelain shining in the sun. Black swirls swam through what used to be his eyes and a fine layer of grey soot lined his nostrils.
I turned clumsily, my hand trapped in his vice-like grip, and tentatively pulled him after me. Beneath us the water bubbled and hissed. It seemed in that crazy moment that it wanted to eat him, that the creek had somehow come alive. In the murky water, long sinewy shapes coiled and writhed. The eels had slipped from their hole in the muddy banks and waited for us, their mouths and slashing teeth ready to be used by the water below.
We took another step. The log sagged again and I felt, more than heard, the sound of rotting wood ripping like damp sheets. Words were tumbling from Samuel's mouth. I couldn't understand any of them, but I'd read enough war comics and seen enough films to know a lot of it was German. Hard and guttural.
'We need to jump, Samuel. Can you jump?'
The log ripped again. We leapt. The bridge tumbled into the water and I heard something scream, not in anguish but frustration. I hit the mud and rolled, wrapped in cold and soft and thick. I lay there, panting, staring up at the blue sky. Not a cloud to be seen. The silence, suddenly deafening, crashed into bird song, the warble of tuis and fantails, to the tune of the gurgling creek.
Samuel stood above me, near the edge of the creek where the pasture gave away to the mud. A grey mist lifted from his shoulders.
'Samuel?'
He stood motionless, mute. The mud leading from the bridge to his feet was cooked hard. I clambered to my knees and pressed my hand to the mud at his feet. It was still warm.
'Samuel? What just happened? Are you alright?'
His fat lips opened. The teeth inside looked like the ivory keys on a piano. A string of words, mostly German, spouted from his mouth. He turned those deep black pools of eyes upon me.
'We are alright. We are all here. We are unbroken. She will be pleased.'
I wanted to cry. 'You're scaring me. Why are you doing this?'
A little girl's voice fluted from his mouth. 'Help us.'
'What?' I struggled to my feet and took a step away.
He held out his hand. 'Whatever you want.' It was Samuel's voice again, twanged in America. His eyes were no longer black. 'What's wrong, John? Are we still going to the hut?'
I pointed at the collapsed log bridge now submerged beneath the surface of the water. I showed him the cooked mud before us.
He stared at me passionlessly. 'Where's the hut? I don't think we should come back this way.' Then he turned around and trudged along the edge of the creek. 'I don't like water. I don't know how to swim.'
I followed him and we said nothing more about it. In fact, we said nothing more about anything.
Eventually we came to the hut, me soaked in sweat and out of breath, Samuel calm and seemingly untouched by the heat or exertion. I drank quickly from the creek, though Samuel refused to, then we sat on the floor in the hut. It was as I had left it all those weeks ago. The yellowing Playboys, the empty beer bottle, lolly wrappers and toy soldiers. Tony hadn't been back.
Samuel opened his bag and pulled out several magazines. 'You like these, don't you?'
He spread them out on the floor, four small glossy magazines. I picked up one of them called The Learned Glans. The cover showed a woman with her eyes shut tight as a cock squirted spunk all over her face. I'd never seen a cock in any of the dirty magazines Richey had, let alone one shooting spunk. I flicked through the magazine. It was full of cum-shots and only cum-shots. Had Hazel known to give these to Samuel to give to me? Why would he suddenly be into porn now? Or did Samuel know what I had seen? Perhaps his mum did this all the time, rooted her son's friend's brothers and that's why they moved around a lot.
'This is pretty weird,' I said.
Samuel nodded. 'But you like them, yes?'
I picked up another. Neanderthal Legs. Women with hairy, muscly legs and hairier, musclier vaginas, sucking each other's toes.
'Yeah, I suppose. I like tits, too.'
Samuel grunted something I didn't understand. I looked up from the hairy legs and saw Samuel sitting there, a grey foam bubbling from the corner of his mouth. Clear fluid leaked from his nostrils and eyes. His eyes! They were now green, and as I watched they turned blue, then a muddy orange. He grunted again and the muscles in his throat rippled through the layers of fat. A stink worse than rotting fish filled the hut and I gagged. Samuel's mouth worked silently, the jaw clenching and snapping shut, only to slowly grind open again.
Whatever you want.
'There are ... too ... many ...' he muttered.
I dropped the magazine, holding my hand to my nose, trying to block out the stench.
' ... of us now ... she ... can't ... keep ... ungh ...'
Fluid streamed from his nostrils, teemed from his eyes. Samuel began to piss his pants.
'Samuel? What's going on?'
'She ... ugh ... she ...'
His arm jerked and spasmed, thumping up and down on the wooden floor of the hut, splinters gouging at his clenched fist. Grey fluid seeped from the wound. He raised his fist in front of my face and I flinched, waiting for him to strike me.
He dropped Tony's Zippo lighter into my lap. The smell abruptly disappeared. As I watched, the fluid dried from his body, with only a small stain left around his pants. His eyes were again brown.
'You want me to jerk you off?' he said, his voice again that steady, nasal, Yank twang. 'I don't mind.'
In that moment, I knew in the marrow of my bones that there was no Samuel, that the fat boy sitting next to me tucked away in my hideout was animated by the souls of dead children, of Tony, of God knew who else, and the words spilling from those fat lips were Hazel's.
'No, Samuel,' I said, very carefully, terrified. 'Maybe you do that in America, but that'd be gay here.'
I pocketed the Zippo lighter. Samuel didn't seem to notice.
I wanted to leave, but I was scared the thing in front of me might figure something out. It didn't know what had just happened. So we studied the photos in the magazines and Samuel talked about pornography like it talked about Mad Magazines. Authoritatively, factually, passionless.
Samuel really wasn't there at all.
#
I studied myself in the bathroom that night before my shower. I was no longer that skinny streak of snot, as my uncle liked to call me. My chest had filled out, not with muscle, but soft, flabby tissue, and a little round belly had developed. My cheeks had also rounded out and more pimples dotted my forehead. Others were appearing on the crest of my cheeks.
Even scarier, almost as scary as Hazel, were the fine blond hairs growing around my dick and on my balls. I lifted my ball sac and plucked at them gently, watching the skin of the scrotum pucker and pull with the hair. It hurt, though not enough to stop doing it.
There was a knock at the door. 'Hurry up, fuckhead,' Richey hissed. 'You having a wank in there, little man?'
'Piss off!' Angry and embarrassed, I turned on the shower, waited for the water to warm up, then stepped in. The water hit me, hot and fresh and I stood beneat
h the shower rose as it cascaded over my face. How could I tell Richey? He wouldn't believe me, and anyway he was already under her spell.
I was on my own.
#
A week later as I lay in my bed deliberating on how to plan my attack, I heard something rustling outside in the dark. Nervously I stole a peek out my window. Richey had clambered down into the bushes outside his bedroom window. He put a finger to his lips and glared at me. Dark hollows haunted the space beneath his eyes, and in this light, his cheeks appeared gaunt.
'Richey,' I whispered. 'What are—'
'Sshhh.' His raised finger turned into a fist. Sinew corded his wrists. 'You say anything I'll kill you.' He trotted off into the darkness.
I lay back on my bed, my mind racing. A nervous apprehension crept into the muscles of my arms and legs. My stomach felt like a tight ball of sick, ready to explode. While the rest of us kids were slowly churning to fat, Richey was wasting quickly away. Hazel was sucking his life force away to feed herself, I just knew it. I had to save him. I leapt out of bed and quickly threw some clothes over my summer pyjamas. I lowered myself carefully out of the window and ran into the night after my brother.
A crescent moon leaked a wan light into the darkened sky. I could barely see a thing. Somewhere in front of me, I thought I saw a shape running up the road towards the Goldstein's. It had to be Richey. Where else would he be going, except to the lure between that witch's thighs? I ran on, stumbling twice in the dark and nearly falling over onto the tarmac.
'Richey!' I called, my voice hitched somewhere between a shout and a whisper. 'Wait!'
Morepork owls hooted replies. Night creatures rustled in the long grass lining the road. The air felt clammy against my skin, the heat of the day leached by the coastal winds. I pressed on, unsure whether I was imagining the shape running further ahead in the darkness.
