by Paul Haines
I reached the top of the Goldstein's driveway. The tuberculosic hiss of possums issued from the bushy branches of casuarinas lining the way to the house. Thin moonlight reflected off marsupial corneas.
'Richey!' I called, louder this time, fear lending its weight.
'Go home, Johnny,' came a faint reply in hushed tones, lost in the distant end of the driveway.
'Richey?' But there was no further reply.
I stood caught in indecision, hopping from one foot to another, too scared to venture into the possum gauntlet. I needed to piss badly. I had no idea how long I stood there, trapped in my fear, too scared to go forward, a crushing guilt on my shoulder if I went back home. She was going to kill him.
With the hoot of morepork and hiss of possum ringing in my ears, I sprinted down the driveway, the fastest kid in school. In that moment, the wind tearing though my hair, the loose gravel beneath my feet threatening to twist my ankles, I was the fastest kid in Franklin County, maybe even the North Island. And then I was through, chest heaving, paused before the balcony and the steps leading up to the front door. There were no lights in any of the windows and a silence hung over the house. I approached the door and tentatively tried the handle. Locked.
I made my way carefully around the balcony to the laundry. Standing on my tiptoes, my fingers grasped for purchase at the laundry window. It wobbled slightly, and I pulled it open, the hinges protesting with a screech. I grimaced, paused and listened. Nothing. I eased the window wider, and pulled myself over the sill and in. Grunting and panting, I lowered myself onto the washing machine, then dropped quietly to the floor.
The house creaked uncomfortably, its wooden skeleton respiring as weatherboards cooled in the evening air. I listened again, half expecting footsteps coming to inspect the noise I had made, but there was nothing. I made my way into the hall. Samuel's door was open. I thought a bulk lay beneath the blankets on his bed, but it was too dark to be sure. I crept to the end of the hallway and the flight of stairs that led up to Hazel's room and the spare bedroom. The floorboards shifted beneath my weight as I slunk up the stairs. A sharp moan sliced through the stillness inside the house and I froze. A shrill tearing sound followed, like bedsheets being ripped with claws and my bladder filled fit to burst. A whimper escaped my lips. I realised my whole body was trembling uncontrollably. Another moan, ending in a broken shrill, that suddenly ceased. A light, white and aching, glowed brightly beneath Hazel's bedroom door, then dulled. A tumble of clanking chains tore apart the deathly silence and made me spill the first drops of piss into my pants. For a second, I thought I saw the ghost of old Mr Stanford, arms outstretched in tattered rags coming for me.
And then a scream from the room, high and undulating. I flung my hands to my ears and winced. The edges of the door shone bright and the ripping sound roared throughout the house. I started to cry then and hot piss streamed down my legs.
The scream resumed, long and uninterrupted, a wail of pure pain, of a terror steeped deep in the soul. I ran to the door, sobbing my brother's name and grabbed the door handle. It burned like ice. I screamed, too, twisting and yanking at the handle. My hand tore free, leaving a thick layer of skin behind.
The door swung open slowly.
I tried to close my eyes, but I was unable to look away from the nightmare that writhed and slobbered before me. Hazel crouched in the centre of the room, breasts huge and heavy, nipples thick and hairy, her legs scaled and monstrous, arms muscled and long, far too long, as she dipped taloned fingers into a torn distended belly upon the floor. Her face was stunningly beautiful, her lips full and red, her eyes bright and wide and knowing. She pulled loops of grey intestines from the belly and raised them to those red lips. Her tongue, large and wet and pink, flicked out seductively, licking the steaming loops. I looked down at the belly upon which she fed. Nicole Wymer's eyes stared at me glassily, unseeing. She had a beatific smile on her lips and one of her budding breasts pointed a small pink nipple at me, accusingly. Upon the ceiling, Richey stretched wide like a canvas made of supple skin, an impossibly flat, squashed body, overseeing the proceedings. Fishing hooks splayed his skin to the ceiling, and from the wounds droplets of blood floated and swirled through the room. His eyeballs bulged, rolling constantly in what was left of his head, his nose now but a prominent beak, blood flowing in thin constant streams from each nostril. His mouth gaped wide and screaming. His cock hung stiff like a leaking pipe, its end wet and dribbling. Bones, gnawed and red, littered the floor. Upon the wall opposite me, a bright tear in reality bled a thick, bright light ill with yellow at its edges, swollen with crimsons and sickening greens that swallowed the darkness. From within, deformed shapes of inhuman origin twisted, a vista of tormented faces, of ancient stone edifices, burning desert sands and cold bleak mountains, monuments of long dead civilisations and histories of those yet to come.
Come, child, my fatted calf.' Hazel's voice drained any fear coursing through my body. My feet took an involuntary step towards her. 'Come.'
'NO!' Samuel clasped a meaty hand on my shoulder and pulled me backwards. His face rippled. Sweat poured from his skin with the stench of long-dead carrion. He threw me to the floor behind him. 'Brand hexe brand!'
Hazel laughed, standing slowly, the muscles in her massive thighs flexing. Long red tendrils hung from her cunt, swaying and searching, then twisting around those Neanderthal thighs. 'Samuel. You naughty boy.'
He stepped into the light and slammed the door behind him. The edges of the door flared and the screaming intensified. I smelt petrol. Near my head was the can of petrol Richey used for the lawnmower. Samuel must have put it there. I sat up, fumbling in my pocket. My fingers closed around Tony's Zippo lighter. I stumbled to my feet, grabbed the petrol can and staggered to the door. I twisted off the cap and doused the door with petrol, then ran down the stairs, pouring a trail of petrol behind me. I splashed the rest over the staircase, then tossed the can halfway up the steps. I retrieved the lighter from my pocket and thumbed the flint. A blue flame sparked into existence. As screams echoed throughout the house, I tossed the lighter onto the staircase. It caught and went up with a hot whumph. Flames raced up the petrol trail, then bloomed around the door. The heat forced me to step back, one hand shielding my face. Suddenly the staircase crackled and exploded into flames, as fire roared along the banisters. The Stanford's old wooden house was ready to give up the ghost and if I didn't get out of there pronto, I'd be one of those ghosts. I turned and ran towards the front door as the upper landing was consumed in flames. A roaring heat scorched the hairs on the back of my head.
And then I saw it, sitting there, plugged into the TV. The Atari 2600 and a box of video game cartridges. I could do it, I could get the games and get out of here before the house burned down around me. I knew I could. I pulled the plugs from the back of the TV and yanked the power supply from the wall. Scooping up the box of games, I tucked the console under one arm, joysticks dangling from its ports and ran to the front door. The top of the landing was now a furnace and flames licked across the ceiling above me. Something huge and misshapen weaved through the heat and smoke, impossibly long arms reaching through the flames. A massive thigh, crisp and blackened planted itself at the top of the landing, and Hazel screeched down at me.
I slammed the front door behind me and sprinted down towards where I thought the driveway started, but the trees had shifted, the path no longer clear. Branches hissed with creatures of the night. There was no escape that way. I ran in the opposite direction, over the lawns and stumbled as the ground sloped away towards the creek's edge. The mud glistened with firelight, the old Stanford house behind me now fully ablaze. I renewed my hold on the console and ran haphazardly up the creek to the hut, the mud sucking at my feet, oozing between my toes. I was vaguely aware I had lost my shoes. Eventually, I made the safety of the hut and collapsed onto the floor, cold and shaking. I couldn't stop crying. Richey was dead. Nicole. I curled into a ball and started screaming, as the night clamoured wit
h the sound of sirens.
#
The police woke me before dawn. They found me curled around Samuel's box of game cartridges.
I remember them taking me home, my parents crying, being hugged. I remember babbling incoherently about witches and golems and video games and corn chips and Twinkies and hairy vaginas and portals to another time and dimension. I was treated for shock and later charged with arson and the murders of Hazel and Samuel Goldstein, Richard 'Richey' Mollet, Nicole Wymer and Annette Napier, who had been 'having a sleepover' at the time. Hazel Goldstein, a respected Equestrian trainer from the USA, had been training the girls for the Franklin County championships.
Because I was only 12 years old, I was charged as an offending child and placed into custodial care at a Boy's Borstal out in the hills near Hunua Gorge. The newspapers went to town, focusing largely on 'Hazel's illicit affair with the teenaged Mollet, and the jealousy of his younger brother, who, it was noted, had become reclusive, overweight, and withdrawn from his family in the past few months due to an addiction to video gaming.'
I tried to tell my parents what had happened, but the pity written over their faces said it all. They were simply wondering where it had all gone wrong. I heard them arguing late into the night when I was supposed to be asleep, just before I was removed into custodianship. My father blamed it squarely on the moment I started hanging out with Tony Barnaby.
What could I say to convince them? To convince anyone? Even to me it sounded like some sort of crazy horror movie or grim fairytale.
I was sentenced to five years out in the Gorge. I'd be seventeen when I got out, a year older than my dead brother. Mum and Dad visited me every Sunday, after our Church lessons. Once a month, Mum would bring me the latest issue of Mad Magazine, but she refused to bring me any copies of Electronic Games. Every now and then, they brought me letters from friends at school, but as time went by, the number of letters dropped off and I rarely received anything at all.
Eight months into my sentence, I received a letter in the mail, not brought by my parents. It had come all the way from Christchurch in the South Island. I recognised the handwriting straight away and had to sit down to catch my breath in case I threw up. I began to sweat and feel faint. With trembling fingers, I tore open the envelope and removed the single piece of paper inside. It was dated from two weeks before.
Dear John-Boy,
Don't know if this will get to you, but here goes nothing. I hope you're feeling better now and that things are alright with you. I heard you did some pretty bad things. What happened, bro?
I've been doing good, living down here in Christchurch with my real dad. It's a long story and I'll write you about it if you want. I always liked getting letters when I was in the boy's home so I wrote you this one. You don't have to write back if you don't want to, I'll understand. But it'd be cool if you did.
Your best mate always,
Tony B.
I had the janitor burn the letter for me, but only after I had torn it into little pieces.
***
Afterword: Her Gallant Needs
I had been reading Maria Tatar's excellent The Annotated Brothers Grimm with the intention of producing a series of Haines-ruined fairy tales and myths, much along the same lines as I had already done with the Pied Piper ("Hamlyn"), The Three Little Pigs, Red Riding Hood, and The Big Bad Wolf ("Doof Doof Doof") and Cinderella ("Failed Experiments From The Frontier: The Pumpkin"). I wanted the resulting story to be true to a lot of the core elements of the tale I was basing it on, but I also wanted the story to be so far removed from its source that it was not immediately obvious what I was paying homage to.
Parts of my childhood are displayed here. Mad Magazine, Atari, Star Wars, Magnum PI., new wave early 80s music, and dirty magazines—I loved these things, as did all of my friends. As for junk food? That was much harder to come by and seemed like a waste of money for something so fleeting.
After being diagnosed with cancer, I became an extremely strict vegan, and though I have relaxed my diet somewhat, at least eighty-percent of what I eat is vegan, organic, non-processed, preservative free. The rates of diabetes, obesity, heart attacks, and cancer in this free glorious Western world in which we live are skyrocketing. Environmental pollution? Put your money where your mouth is, sucker. There is so much sugar and salt and shit and poison in our food these days that we are killing ourselves and our children with every single mouthful. You don't believe me? Am I passionate about this?
If you follow the standards of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), you may be led to believe we're doing okay with our diets, that this level of salt is okay, that you need this much protein every day, that this saturation of fat and sugar is quite acceptable, and you go back to burying your head in the sand and thinking what you're eating is fine, just fine. Australia takes its lead from the FDA. And just like the USA and the UK, Australia is fast becoming a land of the obese. Keep eating, folks, keep believing. Addiction is much easier to kick after you're addicted.
Continuing on from that multiple ideas thing I mentioned a while back, you can see at least two of the ideas (which loosely begin to equate to themes) running through this modern-day retro fairy-tale. And if you haven't managed to figure out the original source for this story, here's a clue: "Her Gallant Needs"; "Satan Gender Hell"; "Neanderthal Legs"; "The Learned Glans". They all share the same letters.
"Her Gallant Needs" was nominated for the 2010 Aurealis Award for Best Horror Short Story, the Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Novella/Novelette, and the Ditmar Award for Best Novella/Novelette.
***
Wives
Part I: Greetings
The red needle on the speedometer crept towards the victory target. If it gets to forty kilometres, I'll ask her. Jimbo pedalled faster down Old Dookie Road, away from the stench of the fruit cannery on the outskirts of town.
He swerved through a potholed section of bitumen, avoiding the larger weeds that kept the road together. The needle dipped below thirty-five. He pushed his muscles harder, relishing the slow burn. The pedals took a life of their own, spinning faster and faster, whirling his legs along with them. Come on, forty, forty, forty, and Niki is mine. He imagined her saying yes then kissing him, with the tongue, like they had done when they were kids playing Wives in the tree hut. A long, slow, wet kiss. Not like the reserved peck on the cheek, followed by the quick embrace appropriate for cousins in their late teens. Jimbo would hold her tight, her breasts squashing against his chest, until she pulled away. She always pulled away. He longed to see how those breasts looked now Niki was a woman.
Sweat slicked his bare back in the early evening sun. Though the summer's burn was not so fierce this year, the breeze from the speed he was travelling barely cooled his skin. Once his Old Man would've beaten him for riding bare back, but the Old Man was too weak to administer much of a hiding these days. Cancer had tamed that bastard.
Jimbo pumped the pedals harder. The spokes whined as the needle approached thirty-nine. Forty and you ask her to marry you. Forty, forty.
A klaxon blared behind him. The sound tore up Jimbo's spine. The front bicycle wheel wobbled. A vintage truck roared past, engulfing him in dust and gravel. Someone shouted from the cab window. Jimbo eased on the back brakes, fighting to bring the bike under control. The front wheel hit a chunk of cracked cement, twisted sideways and locked. The bike jack-knifed and spun. Jimbo hugged the handlebars, staring at the receding truck through the dissipating cloud of dust. Turn of the century, maybe sixty years old, I reckon. Nnnghhhnn ...
The bike crunched into the road. The handlebars bucked, whacking Jimbo in the jaw. He bounced upwards, spun head over tit, and crashed back onto the side of the bike frame. It scraped to a halt with a screech of bruised metal.
He lay there as the dust settled, his chest heaving, waiting for his mind to climb back into his skull. In the distance the klaxon blared again.
That's fucken Wazza's truck! What's that cunt doin' back in town
for Christmas?
#
It took forty minutes to drag the broken bicycle the last five kilometres into town. Jimbo's back initially stung with sweat, until the sun cooked the scabs shut. He'd been lucky not to break anything.
By the time he got home, the sun had almost called it a day, though it still seemed reluctant to leave the horizon. Jimbo was going to be late for the pub. He dumped the bicycle in the shed against the wheel blocks supporting the Old Man's prize Ford Commodore. The bastard would never get round to restoring that piece of shit, especially not now. As soon as the Old Man carked it, Jimbo was going to sell the car to one of them collectors in the City.
He snuck round to the back door, edging past the homebrew kit he was supposed to clean out this weekend. He didn't want to get in a row with the Old Man about the bike getting bust up. Be no good heading down to The Aussie late for happy hour with that buzzing round my brain.
The flyscreen door was locked.
'James? Is that you?' his mother called from the lounge.
'Fuck,' he said under his breath. Payday was supposed to be a good day. Not this. 'Yeah, Mum. It's okay, I'll come round the front.'
'No, no, no, I'm up anyway. I was about to get your father another beer.'
Jimbo listened to her slippers shuffling on the kitchen lino as she limped to the back door. She fumbled at the latch. Her mouth dropped open when she saw him.
'James! What happened to you?'
'Ssshhh.' He nodded in the direction of the lounge before giving her a kiss on the cheek. 'Came off the bike's all. I'm okay.'
