Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

Zack’s eyebrows climbed into his hair. “Oh yeah! Nosey bastard was getting in his car.”

“You have to be more careful. If he saw her arrive, maybe others did. Are you sure no one saw you get into her car and drive it away?”

“Pretty sure, yeah.”

“Pretty sure?”

“I’m sure!” Zack’s eyebrows slammed back down, drawing together. “What are you, the fucking police?”

Maddy took a deep breath, decided to calm things down. “No, but they might come around. More importantly, we can’t say she never came here. We’ll have to say she came in, had a chat with Mum, then left again. That’s what I just told Parsons.”

“Okay. That’s what I was going to say in the first place. Easy as.”

She stared at him. Easy as. Was he really so blasé about the whole thing? Maybe it was a defence mechanism. The phone on the kitchen counter rang. Their mother’s phone. Maddy always left it plugged in there. She went over and looked at it, but didn’t recognise the number.

“Might be DoCS,” Zack said.

She glared at him.

He shrugged. “Might be. Answer it. You be Mum. Put them off.”

“Fuck!” She snatched up the phone and answered. “Hello?” She made her voice a little weak, a little croaky. This was far from the first time she’d impersonated her mother. But it was the first time she’d impersonated her dead mother.

“I’m after Mrs Claire Taylor.” The woman on the other end was kind-sounding, her voice soft with a slight accent Maddy couldn’t place.

“Speaking.”

“Ah, good morning, Mrs Taylor. I’m Hilary Wong from the Department of Communities and Justice.”

That’s right , Maddy thought. That’s what they’re calling the welfare these days. “We just saw you lot yesterday,” she said, in her mother’s snappy tone.

“That’s what I was ringing about, actually. You say you saw someone yesterday?”

Zack held up his phone, where he’d typed stefanee belcher into a text message.

“That’s right,” Maddy said. “Woman called Stephanie something-or-other. Beacher? Beacham?”

“Stephanie Belcher.”

“If you say so.”

“Yes, right. So she came to see you?”

“Yes. Unusual to come on a weekend, I thought.”

“Well, our staff tend to try to find times best suited to families,” Wong said. “So she came about what time?”

What time? Maddy mouthed at Zack.

“Lunchtime,” he whispered. “About twelve?”

“Sometime in the middle of the day,” Maddy croaked, then turned her head only slightly from the phone and coughed raucously. She imagined poor Hilary Wong wincing at the other end, but it was the kind of awful thing her mother did all the time. Zack grinned.

“And you all had a chat and then she left again?” Wong asked.

“Yes. I didn’t invite her to stay the night or anything. Honestly, why even send her when you can just email or call or something? It’s an invasion of privacy, you know!”

“What time did Ms Belcher leave, Mrs Taylor?”

“She was here half an hour or something before I was finally able to shoo her out.”

“Did she mention where she was going next?”

“No. Why would I care?”

There was a moment’s pause and then Wong said, “Okay, thank you, Mrs Taylor. Sorry to bother your morning.”

“Right-o.” Maddy hung up the call, then blew out a breath, leaning back against the counter.

“You do such a good Mum!” Zack said.

“Fuck, Zack, that was awful. I have to go to work. You know, it’s entirely possible they’ll report the woman missing now and then we’ll have the police around here too.”

“We’ll just tell them the same thing, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. And if anyone else does come asking about anything, Mum has gone to see her cousins in Bega and we don’t know when she’s coming back. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“I have to go to work.”

The whole timeMaddy was home, Zack had tried to ignore his mother’s wheedling voice. It drilled into his brain, but he managed to tune it out most of the time. When Maddy left again, finally going to work at last, he finished his breakfast, then went and got dressed. He put on his school uniform but had no intention of going to class yet. First he forged a note, signed by his mother, explaining he’d had a dental appointment. He’d use that at the office to get a late note when he finally went in. He tucked it into the side pocket of his backpack, then went around next door and rang Jack Parson’s bell.

His mother still cajoled in his ears, even from this far away, telling him what to do. It took a few minutes, but he finally saw movement behind the frosted glass panes in Parsons’s door. The door opened, then thunked against the chain. The old man scowled out at him.

“What?”

“Good morning, Mr Parsons.” Zack gave his warmest smile.

“Er… morning. What do you want?”

“Do you think you could come around? My mum wanted to have a chat with you. She said she knows you used to enjoy a chat over the fence, but she’s too scared to go out any more. Do you know what agoraphobia is?”

“Of course I do, I’m not an imbecile.” Parsons paused, brows creasing. “Is that it? Why I haven’t seen her for a while?”

“Yeah, she barely even leaves her room these days. But she was asking after you. I don’t know, I think she wants to give you something.”

“Give me something?”

“That’s what she said.”

Parsons stared a moment longer, then nodded once. “Wait a minute.”

He shuffled away and through the gap Zack saw him sit on chair by the door and grunt and wheeze as he pulled his shoes on. Then the door closed, the chain snicked free, and it opened again. Parsons gestured for Zack to lead the way.

They went into the house and Parsons looked around, eyes narrowed. He seemed to be assessing the place, maybe judging their cleanliness. Clearly he thought little enough of them that he’d called the welfare.

Bring him!

“Mum’s in her room,” Zack said, pointing. “This way.” He went along the hall and opened the door. “Hey, Mum. Mr Parsons from next door is here.” He stepped back and smiled at the old man.

Parsons nodded and turned into the room. “Good morn– What the hell is that?”

Zack stepped in behind and put one hand on the old man’s shoulder, the other on his opposite hip, and walked him hard into the bulging fungus. Parsons cried out as he staggered forward, then screamed as his hands and face planted into the soft white mass and began to immediately hiss and bubble. That acrid smoke rose up again and Parsons vibrated, his scuffed shoes rattling against the floor. His scream became a gargled, strangled sound, then a muffled coughing, then Zack had slammed the door and staggered back to lean against the opposite wall. He stood there, breathing hard, swallowing down bile, waiting for his hammering heart to calm.

Then he pushed himself up, grabbed his school bag, and went out, locking the front door behind himself.

“You did fucking WHAT ?” Maddy screamed. Her heart seemed to almost block her throat and her hands shook in rage.

“He would have called again! He would have called welfare again, that’s what Mum said!”

“And what about when people report him missing?” Maddy asked, trying to swallow her anger enough to talk. “What about when the police start asking the neighbours what happened?”