Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror Page 10

  ‘You even make a dent in that soil?’ I asked. ‘I think Vess chose a better spot.’

  She shrugged and handed me the spade.

  Why is it that in the movies digging always looks so easy? Because it’s not. We took turns for over half an hour in the hot sun. I wished for about the hundredth time that I was a manly male with lots of testosterone instead of a tiny little geek in glasses as the spade clashed against the drought-hard ground and clattered off rocks, jolting my arms and my head until I ached all over.

  Finally, Mum was satisfied and we stopped for drinks. Fizzy lemonade with slices of lemon, while Vanessa sorted through her ragged collection of flowers. Then it was time. Mum and I said a few words each about Sookie – how she had wormed her way around our legs, demanding food, attention, the door opened for her. How she hated pills, had claws sharper than razors and teeth fierce as knives. A ghost in the night, a shadow in the day.

  I lowered the box into the grave while Vanessa recited some old poem she’d heard somewhere. ‘To every thing there is a season, a time to every purpose under heaven. A time to be born, a time to die. A time to plant, and a time to pluck up that planted.’

  Which you have to admit is pretty odd for a three-year-old. But Vess is like that.

  Mum wiped away a tear. ‘Shall we put the flowers on?’

  Vanessa shook her head and clutched the ragged pile of daisies and buttercups in her lap. ‘Sookie doesn’t like flowers. She told me.’

  ‘Why don’t we put one on, anyway?’

  A flower was solemnly chosen and placed on top. Then the dirt. Vanessa looked on wide-eyed, before she too started pushing the dry soil into the hole.

  ‘Is this right, Mummy?’

  Mum nodded and looked over to where Vanessa had scratched the soil. I knew what she was thinking. ‘Vanessa is not quite right.’ And yeah, she was a little strange. Maybe all kids are strange. Mum sometimes says I’m not quite right either.

  Then, when we were almost finished, Vanessa dropped all her flowers into the dirt. ‘Will the flowers grow too, Mummy?’ she asked. ‘When will Daddy grow? It’s been ages.’

  We just ignored her; she says daft things about Dad sometimes. I don’t like to think of him. He shouldn’t have left us. It was sad enough Sookie being dead, without thinking about how much I miss him, too.

  Finally, we went inside, and I felt terrible. Like the cat was in my stomach, clawing her way out. Nothing would ever take Sookie’s place. She was a terror sometimes, and I had some scratches to prove it, but I loved that cat. She was always warm on the end of the bed. And liked to be stroked just under the chin.

  All I wanted to do was go to my room and play videos, and maybe cry a little, but Vanessa was demanding. ‘Mum, do you think Sookie will like the dark?’

  ‘What? Andy! Can you look after Vess for a moment?’

  Damn. And I was about to escape.

  ‘Can we go see Sookie?’ Vanessa asked. Mum had escaped to the kitchen, no doubt pouring herself some medicinal shots of brandy.

  ‘Not now,’ I said. ‘Tomorrow.’

  ‘But she’ll be lonely out there by herself. Don’t you think we should dig her up now?’

  ‘Vess, she’s dead.’

  ‘Yes, but when will she wake up?’

  ‘She’s not going to wake up.’

  ‘OK.’

  Still no tears. ‘Dad woke up.’

  ‘Dad didn’t die. He left us. Remember? Mum said he needed to find some new friends.’

  A little nod. A wooden castle was about to reach the sky when Mum came back, weaving, but only a little. ‘It’ll shoon be time for bed, darling. You want to get into your pyjamas?’

  ‘OK. But I need Sookie on my bed tonight.’

  ‘How about Ted sits on the end of your bed and looks after you?’

  ‘No. I want Sookie.’ She looked at Mum with a challenging glare and put her thumb in her mouth.

  ‘Yuck,’ Mum said, pulling it out, all covered in saliva and disgusting. ‘Get – changed – for – bed!’

  I could see Mum’s hand was itching. She would have hit me. But Vanessa’s a girl, or she’s too little, or something. Mum didn’t even hit her when she threw herself down on the floor and started kicking and screaming. I’d have joined her if it could bring Sookie back, but it doesn’t work that way.

  Mum walked off again, and I thought she was leaving me to it. But she came back with Ted. My Ted. And placed it on the end of Vanessa’s bed.

  I protested. Of course, I did.

  I protested even more when, in the morning, Ted was gone.

  Night after night, Mum placed a sacrificial toy on the end of Vanessa’s bed. Mostly mine. And night after night the toy disappeared, or came back battered, like it had been dragged about on the floor for hours.

  The drought finally broke in a downpour that turned afternoon into an eerie twilight, as the rain battered itself against our house. Vanessa stared out the window as if she’d forgotten what rain was like. ‘The rain is what makes things grow,’ she said.

  Then the power went out. We had cold beans for dinner and Mum sent us to bed early, muttering something about flooding.

  In the night, the wind and the rain and the thunder got worse. I rushed into Mum’s room – but she wasn’t there. A light was on in the kitchen, a candle propped up in a bowl of water. She was collapsed over the table, bottle in her hand still dripping.

  I checked on Vanessa, too. She was just a little lump curled up under the covers. I didn’t blame her. That’s where I wanted to be. So I went back to my room, pulled the pillow over my ears and did my best to ignore all the noise. Even when the house rattled, and the walls creaked.

  In the morning, I looked outside. Something was different. A slip had come down overnight. The rumbling hadn’t just been thunder. The whole retaining wall was gone. Sookie’s grave was gone too, and I realised I hadn’t visited it; not for ages.

  ‘Vanessa,’ Mum cried. ‘Vessy!’

  I rushed to her room, but she wasn’t there. ‘Vessy, Vessy, where are you?’

  Gone to the loo? ‘Vessy?!’

  No.

  Maybe she got her own breakfast again, and messed up the kitchen like she always does. ‘Vanessa! Vessy?!’

  No.

  ‘Stop playing hide and seek,’ Mum said. ‘You don’t have to go to kindy today.’ An excellent bribe – she hates kindy. She says the other kids all tease her for being different and having no friends. Probably because she listens to the nonsense the kindy teachers say, and remembers it all by heart, like the stuff about water and growing flowers.

  The strange poem went through my brain. It was from the Bible – I knew because I’d looked it up on the net. ‘To every thing there is a season – a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted.’ What? Really? Is that what she thought we were doing?

  I rushed outside. Mum was on my heels. Stumbling. ‘What are you doing – it’s still raining!’

  There on the path, right next to the slip, was a toy rabbit. I picked it up and Mum began to scream. ‘I gave her that. Vanessa! Vanessa!’ she hollered, but we had already looked everywhere else.

  Eventually rescue workers came. They stood and looked at the slip. Looked at it again with lots of stares and mumbled conversations.

  Mum started digging anyway. ‘Stop that, Mrs Hope. You’ll interfere with our readings.’

  A machine beeped over the surface. Long-handled brooms poked the fresh cliff.

  ‘It’s not a big slip,’ Mum yelled. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

  I rushed out to help her, and the rescue workers followed. Testosterone was probably what did it, because if Vess wasn’t my sister and just some strange girl then I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have risked my life like that.

  The foreman shook his head as we uncovered a giant rock. As if he knew she was dead, but wasn’t about to say so. Eventually the boulder was dragged away, and then there was movement in the lee of it – that means the she
ltered side – and the earth collapsed a little.

  Everyone jumped back as a dirt-encrusted hand clawed out of the earth.

  ‘Zombie!’ I screamed. My feet rooted to the spot.

  The thing writhed and pulled itself upright, a bundle of slime and fur clutched to its chest. ‘Mum, we planted Sookie, but she didn’t grow.’

  I’d never seen a zombie before. But I was pretty sure they shouldn’t speak, so I stepped a little closer. The smell was horrendous, like sick and vomit and rot and a garbage dump all piled into one as Vanessa blinked muddy eyelids and cuddled Sookie’s maggot-ridden corpse close.

  There was this eerie silence. I think people were struggling to believe it. Vanessa was alive. But it was very weird as she stayed there, playing in the mud. ‘I found Sookie,’ she said, poking at a maggot. It wriggled away blindly. ‘She didn’t grow like a flower. But look, she’s got lots of new friends.’

  I expected Mum to yell at her, but before she could, Vanessa asked with her usual straightforwardness, ‘Mummy? Can we dig up Daddy, and meet his new friends too?’

  Shadowed Halls

  Michael J Parry

  A soft thud of books tumbling from a desk to the floor jerked Jonathan Smythson from his doze. Raising his head, he noticed that he had almost pushed his laptop off the table. There was only one other person on the eerily quiet sixth floor of the library: a girl with a strange hairstyle and even stranger clothes, sitting two bays down from him. She bent from view, presumably picking up the books from the floor.

  The lights in the stacks next to him clicked and flickered before going out, casting the aisle between the tables and the shelves into darkness. Out of the rain-flecked window, the lights of Wellington blurred in the winter air.

  Jonathan pulled his laptop towards him and swiped a finger over the touchpad, bringing it back to life. The clock read 10:17 p.m.; nearly closing time. Filling the screen was the page he’d been reading, the one he’d found by Googling his own name. The library had recently digitised the back issues of the student magazine Salient and here, from 1946, was an article about him – or, more accurately, someone with his name.

  A photo of a dapper young man wearing a suit and a long scarf stared out of the screen. The digitising process had done its best but the quality still wasn’t great. Jonathan could barely make out the words under the image, but the library site, the New Zealand Electronic Text Collection, had helpfully included a transcription.

  Student Murdered, Safety Questioned

  Miss R Windsworth was found murdered in the Mount Street Cemetery next to her assailant, Mr Jonathan Smythson. Police have few leads as to why Mr Smythson attacked Miss Windsworth, who seems to have succumbed to her injuries after defending herself from her assailant. It is reported that Mr Smythson had, until recently, been courting Miss Windsworth. However Mr Smythson had called off the relationship due to private matters. Mr Smythson also died in the attack.

  There have been questions raised with the College council about the safety of students, especially ladies. College officials assure us that the College is safe.

  Jonathan rubbed his eyes and shut down his laptop. He wasn’t going to get anything more productive done this evening. He picked up his favourite red wool scarf, wrapped it loosely around his neck, and stood. Stuffing his laptop into his bag and hooking it over a shoulder, he headed for the stairs.

  The girl stood, catching his eye. She began to pack her bag, which looked to Jonathan like an antique satchel. The clothes she wore looked vintage yet new. He wondered briefly if she shopped at one of those trendy replica-retro style shops on Cuba Street his friends liked.

  Jonathan smiled at her as he drew level with her desk. She met his eyes and Jonathan was lost in gold-flecked green.

  ‘Evening,’ he said with a nervous cough.

  ‘Good evening,’ she said with perfect formality. The girl had a definite accent, very formal, and Jonathan thought it might be British.

  ‘Looks like the weather’s clearing.’ Jonathan nodded towards the window. ‘But it’ll be cold out.’

  The girl smiled and nodded.

  ‘I think you may be correct,’ she said.

  ‘Hi, I’m Jon.’

  ‘My name is Becca,’ she said as she moved toward the door and waited, looking at him expectantly.

  Jonathan pushed open the stairwell door and waited as she passed through.

  ‘What do you study?’ Jonathan asked as they waited for the lift.

  ‘I am reading the humanities,’ Becca said, as if it were obvious. It may have been, considering how she dressed. ‘And yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘I’m doing law and English, but I’m thinking of dropping law.’

  ‘Law seems quite stuffy.’

  ‘Yeah, it’s a bit boring.’ He shrugged.

  The doors to the lift slid open with a ding and Jonathan waited for Becca to enter before following her. He was suddenly conscious of how cold the air had become, how stale the lift smelled, and was worried that it might offend her. Why, he didn’t know. He hit the button for the first floor.

  ‘Are you heading home now?’

  Becca stood quite close to him, and he was aware of the sound of her breath escaping between slightly open lips. He admired the way her clothes both accentuated her curves and yet at the same time weren’t obvious. Despite the cold, he felt his cheeks flush.

  ‘Yes,’ Becca said as she stood looking at the door of the lift, her eyes seemingly fixed somewhere else. ‘It is past time I retired for the night.’

  The lift jerked as it descended and Becca almost reached for his arm to steady herself before catching herself and withdrawing her hand. A flash of hot and cold travelled up Jonathan’s arm and he found himself disappointed that she had caught herself in time.

  ‘First floor,’ came the voice from the lift speakers before the doors slid open.

  There were a few people still at the computers in the Info Commons on the first floor, but once they were out of the library, the echoing of the newly-finished Campus Hub building made it seem still and empty.

  They stopped in an awkward silence outside the library doors, the Hub building pressing around them. From the direction of the stairs towards Cotton came the steady sound of footsteps. Becca frowned in disappointment when a Campus Care guard came into view.

  ‘Are you waiting for someone?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘Yes. My friend Susan was meant to meet me an hour ago so we could walk home together.’ Becca peered through the large glass doors at the darkness between the library and Old Kirk. ‘It isn’t safe to walk at night alone, especially when one is a woman.’

  ‘Can you call or text her?’ Jonathan asked.

  ‘No, I haven’t a phone,’ Becca said with a shake of her head.

  ‘Would you like me to walk you home?’ Jonathan asked boldly, feeling his pulse quicken.

  ‘Would you?’ Becca said looking directly up into Jonathan’s eyes, lips pursed in thought. ‘I’m not sure.’

  ‘I assure you, my intentions are honourable,’ Jonathan said with a smile and holding a hand against his chest.

  Becca looked at him for a long moment before slowly nodding.

  ‘All right,’ she said, her lips curling in a gentle smile again, and Jonathan felt a chill of excitement tingle down his spine. ‘That would be gentlemanly.’

  ‘Where do you live?’ Jonathan asked while re-winding his scarf around his neck to make sure it was tight against the cold.

  ‘Downtown,’ Becca replied.

  They soon found themselves in the shadows between the library and the Adam Art Gallery. The chill air bit at Jonathan’s nose and he hunched into himself. Becca strode with a ramrod-straight back, and Jonathan found himself righting from his hunch, pushing his shoulders back in an unconscious mirror to her stance.

  The light from the lamps pooled between the Student Union building and the Mount Street Cemetery, with the trees reaching out to close over the path. The article Jonathan had been reading
earlier flashed across his mind, and he shivered.

  A path led off into the graveyard, and Becca stopped. She glanced nervously at Jonathan and then smiled again, this time widely, almost invitingly.

  ‘I live on the other side of the graveyard,’ Becca said. ‘It’s quicker if we head down this path.’

  Jonathan looked into the shadows beyond the light, the cold stinging his lips. He licked them.

  ‘Are you sure you want to go that way?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Becca said. ‘It’s cold and I need to be home.’

  She stepped onto the path, and looked back, her eyes capturing his again.

  ‘Are you coming?’ she said.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  Together they stepped into the darkness under the trees.

  A moment later, a red scarf blew out from the shadows and settled on the path like a pool of blood.

  If They Hadn’t Landed So Close

  Matt Cowens

  My dad is real strong. And funny, too. He’s not as tall as my mum but he can almost lift as much as her, and when there’s a spider blocking the door to our house he gets an axe or a sword and drives it away or kills it. Mum got back from a foraging mission into the ruins of Wellington one time and started to tell us about the giant wasps and ants and the weta as big as cars and how she avoided them and managed to break into a pharmacy, and Dad said, ‘Did you get any rubbers?’ and then Mum hit him on the arm but he didn’t even flinch.

  I like drawing and writing and Dad always asks Mum to bring back things for me, but he says it like it’s a joke.

  ‘Get plenty of rubbers,’ he always says.

  ‘I need to get some lead for your pencil first,’ Mum replies, and we all laugh.

  Last time she went I said, ‘Dad doesn’t use a pencil.’ Mum snorted and told me that was the problem.

  It’s hard to get pencils and rubbers and paper now that giant bugs have killed most of the people and the shops are shut. The plants have taken over most of everything.

  *

  It’s a month before my eighth birthday when the second meteor shower hits.