by Peter Ness
‘Take care, and if you need any help just holler,’ Tom smiled and waved as they drove off. ‘You have our contact numbers.’
#
Earlier that day. Gulapinga Point light house. Town we call a city:
Several men clambered over the slippery grey-black granite gneiss rocks below the white outline of the Gulapinga Point light house. The white bands of the gneiss shone in the bright sunlight. Arnold Truffle couldn’t even see the Golf Club or the main city jetty from his vantage point half way around the point. The wheat and barley loading docks obscured his view of the city center and the main drag of the town we call a city. The surf rolled sloshing in onto the rocks, splashing white foamy spray up at their faces.
‘Did you bring the camera?’ Arnold asked Jerry Cox. Jerry held it up. He flicked his tan jacket over his shoulder and gingerly stepped down the wet slimy rocks.
‘Watch out Arnold, it’s a bit—,’ he began. And then he cringed as he watched Arnolds legs slide out from beneath him. ‘— slippery.’ Arnold groaned. Sitting up now Arnold rubbed the bruises on his knees. Then he collected his dark-rimmed glasses from on the rocks and slid them on. Now Senior Detective Arnold Truffle crawled to his feet.
‘Over here!’ the fat podgy policeman yelled, arms waving at them.
‘What have you found that is so important that we had to come right now?’ Arnold Truffle called back, clearly annoyed. Then he stopped abruptly. ‘So what, it’s just an old 44-gallon drum. Some ass-wipe’s been illegally dumping trash again.’
‘Yes,’ Detective Jerry Cox agreed. ‘It’s a job for the City Council, not for the CIB.’
‘Why not take peek from this side, before you jump to any rash conclusions.’ Art moved out of the way, and beckoned Arnold and Jerry to take a look.
‘What the?’ A grimace formed on Arnold’s face. He glanced down at the skeletal remains of a hand and bones of another arm protruding from the hardened cement. ‘Do we know who it is?’
‘We have no idea,’ Art replied. ‘No-one’s put in a missing person’s report. And the sharks ate most of the evidence.’
‘Just a minute, don’t turn it over yet,’ Jerry Cox said. ‘Here comes the coroner.’
The coroner analyzed the protruding parts of the body. Jerry snapped several photos as he waited patiently for the coroner to give an opinion.
‘Okay. Can you blokes rotate the drum for me?’ the coroner ordered. ‘The bottom side has rusted away. Okay. That’s enough. Half of the body and cement are missing, so we only have part of the upper torso at most. Well, we will have to break him out of the cement, and the head appears to have been removed as well. There’s not much hope but I’ll see what I can do to identify the remains.’
‘So, the serial killer strikes again,’ Jerry said.
‘Nope. It’s a different killer. This is one’s an adult, not a little kid,’ the coroner replied.
‘What’s the sex?’ Arnold asked stepping back as a wave slammed into the rock below them.
‘It’s hard to say, but I can tell you that the victim was buried alive,’ the coroner replied. ‘The way the cement has set shows that the person was struggling at the time. And look. The body’s been handcuffed at some stage. The cuffs sliced through the skin and cut into the bone, here.’
‘Another murder, and it looks like we’re never going to catch the blasted serial killer anytime soon,’ Jerry sighed, squatting now, placing his hands over his head.
‘Art. The tide’s coming in real fast. You’d better arrange a crane,’ Arnold sighed. ‘It looks like it’s going to be another long day. No rest for the wicked.’
#
Sunset, Same day. Cassiopeia Farm.
Just after dusk, strange flashing white and blue lights appeared over the distant hills. Blackie began whimpering, so after peering at them out of the kitchen sink window Father went outside to investigate. He returned a few minutes later, talking about strange eerie Min Min lights wavering over the Gullabilly National Park hills in the distance. They were moving back and forth in a grid formation, shooting down vertical beams of sharp blue laser light.
Jo asked whether those bad spot-lighters had come back to shoot up the place yet again. Before Dad could answer the 32-volt generator engine spluttered and the lights faded. I handed out torches. Mother lit the candles. Dad lit the kerosene lamps, fumbling in the faint light. He then took the unusual step of telling Mother to stay in the bedroom with us children.
‘And—,’ he added, cautioning with his hand, ‘lock the door behind me.’
‘Lock the door?’ Mother said, with a look of total surprise. ‘That’d be a first.’
Actually it wasn’t, he’d done the same thing the other day. Yet, we had no reason to lock the door. We lived on a farm in the middle of nowhere, miles from civilization.
Dad took his torch and went outside to ‘sort out the commotion.’
In the distance, we heard Ashton’s dogs yelping with fright. They whined in tandem with Blackie, terrified of something, ratcheting their haunting whines up to a new level of fear every now and then. The cows and sheep also started to churn out a ruckus by stampeding in the paddocks. Dad headed straight for the Dodge utility, pulled out the shotgun and loaded it in the light of a torch. Tossing a handful of cartridges in his pocket he snatched up a second torch off the seat as back-up, sliding it into a pocket.
‘Hen. Phone the Thomas’s and let them know what’s happening.’ Mom began to fidget in the cutlery drawer distractedly.
After being connected by the switchboard operator, I spoke with Amanda.
‘Hi Charlie, what’s wrong?’ she asked.
‘Charlie? Huh? Sorry, but this is Heni,’ I replied.
‘Oh, it’s you Heni? Sorry. Isn’t that what I said? What’s wrong? Why’re you ringing?’
Then I explained what Dad had seen.
‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘We have the same problem with strange lights and odd noises. What are those things?’ She meant the vertical blue lights.
‘I’ve no idea. I never saw them. Dad did,’ I replied.
‘Thanks for ringing Hen. Promise not to go outside tonight. Okay?’ she asked.
Mother headed into the main bedroom, ripped the phone from out of my grasp before I plonked it down, spoke briefly with Sandra and then promptly called Aunt Rosa. It was one of those old black dial phones that no-one uses anymore, or wants to.
‘That’s odd. Why’d Amanda think I was Charlie Henton?’ I asked Jo, scratching my head.
‘If you ask me, she definitely has the hots for you Heni,’ Jo replied.
‘Well, I didn’t. So there!’ I replied angrily, biting down at my lip.
#
‘Hi Jodi, yes, we have the same problem,’ Rosa said. ‘Ashton and Brian are outside now. They just got back. Brian! You get back inside now this very minute. Ashton! Make him come inside. Brian! If you don’t, I swear to god I will kick your $#@%&$ and cut off your %@#&!’ Rosa screamed at Brian, hurling him a malicious scowl.
Muffled voices echoed through the phone, fading in and out.
‘You heard your mother. Frigging well get back inside!’ Ashton ordered Brian.
‘But—, Dad! I just want to kick some ass too,’ Brian implored as he flayed his cricket bat in the air.
‘Not tonight Brian. Get back inside. Now!’ Ashton replied in irritation, rubbing and then scratching at a swollen red lump on the back of his twitching and throbbing neck.
#
Mother clicked the phone back onto the hook, wandered back into the kitchen, and sat down with a groan on a chair next to me. Her stomach grew larger by the day. We were expecting the baby to pop out a month to six weeks from now. I placed a gentle soothing hand onto Mother’s stomach.
‘Look! He’s kicking again Mom,’ I said. ‘Did you feel that?’
‘Yes. I can feel it,’ Mother winced. ‘How do you know it’s a he?’
‘The clowns told me in my dream that they’re sure we’re going to get a baby boy
. At any rate, no girl baby could make such a huge tummy.’ I smiled, rubbing her stomach in a circular motion.
‘Yeah sure,’ Mother snorted in disbelief. Ruffling my hair now, she stood up to move the whistling kettle to the edge of the combustion stove. ‘Sue Melon read the tea leaves and said it was going to be a girl.’ Mother winced as the baby kicked again. ‘But, yes. You’re right Heni, it kicks like a boy.’
We huddled in the bedroom now Mom, Jo and I. Jumping onto her bed, Jo sat down and began reading a Marty Mouse comic in the dull flickering light of the kerosene lantern. Mother left and then wandered back into the bedroom, holding a cup of coffee. She handed Jo a plate of Rocky-road chocolate. We moved about nervously as gunshots cracked in the night air, echoing from in the direction of the Henton’s. Much closer to home a cow bellowed ominously, followed a few minutes later by a series of loud screams of people panicking and a cow mooing in the distance.
Crack! Whistle! A stray bullet whizzed over the house, too close for comfort.
A scathing voice pierced the deathly silence.
‘And—, don’t come back you scum! Kill my cows I’ll give you what-o. Yes! You — you scum bags.’
‘Scum bags?’ Jo queried. I bit my nails. Whack! Mom slapped Jo’s hand. ‘Ouch! What’s that for?’
‘You know your father hates to swear, Jo,’ Mom said, covering for him. Smack! ‘And you can stop biting your nails Hen!’
A few minutes later, the generator lights flashed back to life. Dad’s boots crunched on the gravel. He slammed open the door now, scurrying inside. Splashes of blood dribbled off one arm. We all rushed to greet him. Seeing Mom’s anxious expression Dad claimed it was nothing, just a scratch. Biting down on his lip in pain, Dad tried to conceal his hand which shook in spasms.
‘Look it’s nothing. It’s just a scratch. I just cut my arm on the barbed wire fence when I chased the cows back into the lucerne patch,’ he explained, downplaying the incident. I could imagine that, so I did. It just looked like more than a scratch to me.
‘So, who are these scumbags anyway? Anyone we know?’ Mom queried. Father looked at us now embarrassed. Then turning away he grimaced sheepishly.
A few minutes later, his wound washed and bound up, Dad firstly phoned Ashton, then Denny, and then the police. Silence haunted us at supper as we sat in a quiet group in the half-light around the table wolfing down the food. Father switched off the 32-volt engine and cut the power early. Ashton soon appeared, rapping hard at the door. He rushed inside, sat down and began chatting excitedly with Father in the flickering light of the kerosene lanterns.
‘Okay. This is parent’s talk. It’s almost 9:30 p.m.,’ Father pointed to the bedroom. ‘Off to bed you two.’ Jo and I headed off to bed. No sound came from outside. The wind was still, all so deathly quiet.
At around 10:00 p.m. the ringing phone abruptly pierced the cold silence, waking us with a start. Mom rolled over in bed, leaning over and pressing the button to remote-start the generator. The lights flickered on. Dad sat on the side of the bed and picked up the phone.
Ashton still lay on the couch snoring loudly. A bottle of Port wine had denied the Vietnam War demons, helping him fall asleep. He felt safer sleeping on our couch, more secure in the knowledge that Dad would watch over him. The ringing phone woke Ashton, who sat up yawning. He sluggishly dragged himself across to pour a cup of tea.
‘Yes. Yes. Okay. Ashton and I’ll come straight away.’ Dad turned to Mom. ‘Jodi. It is the neighbors — the Henton’s. Denny says she needs our help. Lock all the windows and doors and don’t open them to anyone bar us.’
‘Huh — but—?’ Mother’s face grew anxious now.
‘No buts about it. We don’t know what we’re dealing with, so just do it.’ Dad’s reply was blunt.
Still yawning, Ashton followed Dad outside. Their boots crunched on the gravel. Metal scraped on metal as the door of Ashton’s Datsun creaked opened. Snatching shotguns off racks from behind the seat of the utility, they climbed in slamming their respective doors. The engine spluttered, choked and then hummed loudly. Ashton turned on the roof spotlight. They drove, at an almost geriatric pace, down the narrow dirt track. The spotlight bounced around as the beam of light panned the paddock. It flashed briefly over a few cows which stared across at the light, shuffling and mooing restlessly on their feet. The sheep stomped about bleating nervously, the ewes listlessly protecting their bleating lambs. No kangaroos or rabbits were out that night. Only humans were that stupid.
#
Rodney Vance, Guy Porter and Jeremy O’Neil gathered above the cow they had lassoed in the darkness, peering down at it. They had managed to shove it over onto its side. Guy smiled callously as he cut a narrow slit in its throat while the others watched, intrigued. Blood sprayed out, forming a dark pool on the ground. Eventually the cow stopped its kicking and its legs stiffened. The young three men bent over the dead cow deciding on the best place to make the incision.
‘Around here looks fine. To be convincing it has to look like a surgical incision,’ Guy said as he began to cut into the cow hide with his sharp butcher’s knife. He skinned cow hide away from meat with several deft slices, and laid the knife down onto the carcass. Taking a sharp scalpel now, he made a long neat incision. Guy sat back and marveled at his work. It looked convincing. Blood oozed out of the incision, onto cow hide.
The light of the full moon draped over their backs, shadows dancing over the cow. Jeremy O’Neil, with an IQ of 65, counted the shadows out loud like a small child.
‘One, two, three — no, four shadows. Three people—, four shadows,’ he said scratching his crutch. ‘Weird that—,’ he counted them again and then a third time. Jeremy pivoted his head to his left and shone his torch onto the face of Rodney Vance and Guy Porter. Guy still knelt down over the dead cow. Irritated, Rodney thrust the blinding torch away from his face.
‘Turn off your torch you dumb nut,’ he said. ‘We don’t wanna be seen.’
A fourth face peered down at the stiff carcass of the cow and then a fifth shadow flickered down over its head as well. Jeremy slowly turned his head to his right.
The alien Cydroid avatar face peered back gleefully at Jeremy from just centimeters away. It sniffed loudly, snorted and then grunted. Petrified, immobilized now and unable to move or talk Jeremy O’Neil’s jaw clattered and legs shook as he trembled. A dribble of yellowish fluid oozed out of the base of his jeans, forming a puddle which reflected the full light of the moon.
‘You need to clean your teeth. Your breath stinks, putrid, like rotten sulfur,’ Guy Porter complained to Rodney, still focused on the cow. Jeremy eventually summoned the courage to quietly tap Rodney on the shoulder, his hand shaking violently.
‘This incision is convincing don’t you think? Hey — fellows — what’s up?’ Guy Porter said. His head pivoted. He glanced up for an answer, mouth dropping open and the whites of his eyes widening in fear.
The Cydroid avatar gurgled loudly with pleasure. All three men recoiled backwards sharply. They screamed, turning now, dashing away in all directions. A second avatar gurgled, followed by another piercing scream and then deathly silence.
A single shadow flickered over the dead carcass. A Cydroid avatar snorted. It peered down at the pool of blood perplexed, then at the hole gouged into the side of the neck of the cow. Gurgling loudly now it waved an angry arm at the dead cow. In a flash of light the cow disappeared into thin air enclosed in a clear bubble structure. And then seconds later it reappeared in the exact same location. The wound on the dead cow’s neck had miraculously healed. The avatar nodded and gave a satisfied grunt, slapping the cow hard on its rear. And then it carefully stepped over the pool of blood, and began striding towards the distant lights of our house. The re-animated cow, which was supposed to be dead, clambered to its feet and began to moo. Trotting off towards the safety of the other cattle now, a flap of cow hide bounced, dangling loosely off its side.
In the distance, from in the direction of the
Henton camp, a series of sharp cracks from gunshots rang out, echoing overhead. Much closer to home a cow bellowed loudly. A few minutes later loud piercing screams of people panicking cut the air, and then a cow mooed. Crack! A shot rang out from closer to the house. A man’s voice yelled.
‘And, don’t come back you scum! Kill my cows you snot balls and I’ll give you what-o. Yes! You — you scum bags.’
To be Continued …
#
London: Mid-August 2012
‘To be continued? Huh? To be continued? — Peter, take a look in Uncle Heni’s bag. We’re missing the end of the story,’ Andrea said, rather annoyed.
‘Yeah! I wanna know what happens next,’ Peter pouted.
‘Maybe he hasn’t completed it yet?’ Andrea shrugged her shoulders. She turned the page in resignation. ‘That’s it. There are no more pages in the book.’
The book suddenly lit up with a flash, bounced out of Andrea’s hands landing on the floor with a clatter. The children jerked backwards in surprise.
‘What was that?’ Andrea gasped, leaning down to pick the book up.
‘Wow! How exciting!’ Peter jumped up and down. ‘I wanna hear more!’
‘Well, you can’t! We finished the book. And I don’t see another book lying around here, do you?’ Andrea said in annoyance, scanning the room. A creaking sound came from in the corner of the attic.
‘What’s that Andrea?’ Peter nervously clutched at Andrea’s arm. She jumped with fright. Standing now Andrea picked up a broom leaning against the wall and edged forward nervously to look behind a group of boxes. Peter followed her holding to the safety of her shirt.
‘Nothing. There’s just a dusty green rucksack here,’ she replied poking at the rucksack tentatively. ‘Maybe we have rats? I’ll tell Dad. He’ll know what to do about it.’ The book vibrated on the floor behind them. Suddenly, it began flipping through the pages by itself. It flashed once more, and then it abruptly snapped shut. Snap! With a puff of smoke it vanished.
Both children jumped in the air, startled, turning around.
