Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

“Jesus, I hope not.”

“Trust me! Anyway, all I’m saying is we need to decide. We can’t leave it much longer.”

Maddy stood. She needed to be out of the house. Away from… all this. “Until morning, Zack, okay? Let’s decide in the morning.”

“We have to make a decision, Sis. We’ve been going around and around this subject for weeks now. It’s the one thing you’ll never make a choice about. Everything else is done, why is this the one thing?”

“I don’t know. It’s too big, too weird. The rest is fucking admin, you know? It’s stories and lies, and we’re good at that. This part, it’s physical. In the morning, I promise. Before you go to school we’ll decide. When you’re home from school, we’ll do whatever we decide. Yeah?”

Zack nodded. “Okay.”

“I might stay out. You okay for dinner?”

“Yeah. Probably go over to Josh’s anyway, play Xbox. Charm his mum into letting me stay for dinner.”

Maddy drew in a deep breath, then blew it out. “Okay, good. I’m working tomorrow, so I’ll wake you when I get up. We’ll decide over breakfast.”

Zack nodded, lips a flat line. His eyes were wet, red underneath. Maddy swallowed. He was just a kid. They were both just kids, no matter how grown up they’d had to become. They would take care of each other, but she resented the need. No wonder Zack hung out with Josh so much. Josh was everything Zack wished for – loved, cared for, he had a mum and dad who were around plenty, a nice clean house. She went over and leaned down, kissed the top of his head.

“Love you, Zackattack.”

He smiled up at her. “Love you too, Mad As Hell.”

They grinned at each other. “We’ll be okay,” she said at last.

He nodded. “We will now.”

“If I don’t see you later, I’ll wake you tomorrow.”

She left the house, the late summer air fresh and fragrant with the salt of the ocean only a few blocks over from their place. “We’ll be okay,” she said again, to herself.

“Let’s go tothe Vic,” Dylan said. “Get pissed.”

Maddy pursed her lips, shook her head. “Can’t afford it. What about some takeaway grog from Clooney’s drive-through and come back here?”

They sat on a bench on the footpath, looking out over Carlton Beach, The Gulp’s only easily accessible beach, just south of the harbour, all blackened volcanic sand and gravel. The dilapidated surf lifesaving club off to their right, the playground quiet, devoid of activity, behind them. They had the whole park and beach to themselves. For the moment, at least. Maddy was enjoying the fresh air, salt spray, quiet of the night, though it was barely eight o’clock. She didn’t want to go home. Didn’t want to go to the pub. They knew she was underage, but didn’t care. Dylan was twenty-two and he always went to the bar, whether it was to spend his own money or hers. But she just didn’t want the people.

“Come on,” Dylan said. “Just for a couple, game of pool, see who’s there? We can get takeout beers and come back here later.”

Mum’s dead. Really dead. It kept going around and around in her mind. It filled her thoughts, pushed against her brain like it needed to get out. The massive relief. The fear of what came next. The immediate concerns of what to do with the bitch’s carcass.

“Maddy?”

He’d been talking again, she realised. “Sorry, what?”

“You’re not yourself tonight. You okay?”

She looked up at Dylan’s kind eyes. He was a funny-looking fucker, everyone said so. Gangly and tall, wide apart eyes, a pointed chin. Far from classically handsome, but he had an intriguing look as far as Maddy was concerned. But more than that, he was kind, respectful. That went a long way beyond what someone looked like.

“I’m okay,” she said. “Bit distracted, sorry.”

“Home stuff? Your mum?”

“Yeah, the usual.” She forced a smile. Maybe distraction was what she needed after all. “Let’s go the Vic.”

He grinned and took her hand. They walked the few hundred metres down Tanning Street to the Victorian Hotel. It was bustling inside, busy for a weeknight. Maddy frowned as they went in and Dylan pointed to a sign by the door.

New Wednesday Special – Trivia Night!

How smart are you?

Register a team now.

Starts 7pm

Maddy groaned. “Sounds awful.”

“Right? They must be between rounds. Let’s get a beer and head out the back before they start again.”

One end of the main bar had a stage where bands sometimes played and a drop-down screen in front of it, where they often showed boxing matches, the UFC, some of the bigger footy games. A middle-aged woman Maddy didn’t recognise had a table set up there with a laptop, the big screen showing a PUB TRIVIA logo. The woman had a microphone in hand and stood grinning out at the busy room.

“Five minutes!” she said, as Maddy and Dylan reached the bar.

He bought the drinks, she took hers and followed him out the back into the bistro and pool area. Two big rooms, one with tables and chairs and the kitchen where food could be ordered and collected, the other with two tatty pool tables, surrounded by the usual motley array of patrons. A door behind the second table led out to the courtyard and several picnic bench and table combos dotted with smokers.

Dylan looked around the pool room, spotted a couple of mates. They headed over, raising their glasses in greeting. Three burley bearded guys with denim and leather, arms full of tattoos, long beards and hard eyes, had colonised the nearest pool table and their friends looked a bit pissed off about it.

Maddy glanced over, saw Desert Ghost MC patches on their backs. Arseholes , she thought, but didn’t say aloud. They always made trouble when they came into town. Their bikes would be parked around the side, big Harleys with ape-hanger bars and fancy airbrushed paintwork of flames and skulls.

“They’ll only play for money,” Dave said, nodding at the bikers. “And they’re bloody good, so always win.”

“Hustlers,” Dylan said, as if this were some pearl of wisdom.

“Exactly.” Dave reached out and clinked glasses with Dylan, then Maddy.

They fell to chatting and drinking, ignoring the bikers and their pool table dominion, not bothering to move around to the other table where people scowled and muttered about the interlopers. The bikers loved it, of course, half the reason they stuck around was to annoy the locals. The other reason was to fleece them, and they’d probably round out the night by picking a fight.

The distraction worked partially, but Maddy still couldn’t get the image of her mother’s wasted body from her mind, finally devoid of life. Dylan’s brother worked on one of the farms out on the Gulpepper Road leading to the highway. Did they have pigs? She’d seen shows where gangsters got rid of bodies by feeding them to pigs. Maybe she and Zack could cut up their mother, take her bit by bit to the farm and drop the bits in the pig pen.

She shuddered. What the hell was she thinking? Apart from trying to conceal body parts from the farmers, as if she would be able to chop up her mother. Maybe Zack’s idea of the harbour was a good one. But she had another thought. They could rent a dinghy for the day, say they were going out fishing. If they could somehow get the body into the dinghy, wrapped up and weighed down with rocks or something, they could dump it much further out than the harbour. But how would she get it there?

Her mum’s car sat in the garage at home. Maddy had been learning to drive, was still on her Ls, but could do all that was required. If they put the body in the back of the car, then backed it up to the harbour as if they were loading supplies for a day’s fishing… It could work. Especially if they started really early before many people were about. And there were never cops in The Gulp, so no one would pull her over if she only drove around town. Hell, if you needed cops and rang triple-0 it was always at least an hour before someone came from Enden or Monkton. If they came at all.