Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

“We tell them we have no idea, haven’t seen him for a few days.”

“Jesus, Zack.”

“I would have told you last night, but you didn’t come home.”

“I went to Dylan’s. I texted you.”

“I know, but I wanted to tell you in person.”

Maddy nodded, swallowed. “You were already in bed when I got back.”

“Come and see.”

Zack pulled at Maddy’s arm where she sat at the kitchen table. To think she’d been feeling a little better about things. She finished work, Dylan was waiting outside and she’d given in. Went to his place, smoked some weed, had a shag, it was all pretty good. She’d got home and Zack was sleeping, and it felt like they were moving forward. Then he gets up and tells her he fed the old neighbour to the mother-fungus whatever the fuck it was thing in there? “Come and see what?” she asked.

“Just come.”

She trailed him down the hall and looked in when he opened their mother’s bedroom door. The great swollen thing, pale in the bed, had shrunk again.

“It’s going down, see?”

Maddy nodded. “Thank fuck for that. Zack, this has to stop. We need to leave it, let it disappear, whatever. Can you do that?”

“No, you don’t understand.”

“What don’t I understand?”

“She needs more. Just one or two, she says.”

“What?” Maddy stared at him, her stomach water.

“Just one or two more and that’ll be it, she’ll have finished her cycle.”

“Zack. Fuck, no. You’ve killed two people! You can’t kill any more!”

Zack licked his lips, looked at the white fungus, then back at Maddy. “We have to. I promised. This is how it works. Then she’ll be gone. It will be gone, all of it. And the house will be ours.”

Maddy ran shaking hands through her hair. “You’ll get caught. We’ll get caught!”

“I promised Mum.”

“It’s not Mum!” Maddy yelled. “Whatever the fuck is going on, whatever you think you’re hearing, it’s not Mum! How can it be? You saw her die. You saw her body.”

Zack stared at her, tears in his eyes. He looked lost, haunted.

“We got away with the Belcher woman, for now, at least. Parsons next door was just some shrivelled old cunt. His sister might miss him or something, but whatever. He was close to dead anyway, I expect. But who’s next, Zack? Hmm? Who are you planning to give to it?”

“I don’t know. That’s what we need to talk about.”

“There’s no we in this, bro! It’s you. It’s all you.”

Zack shook his head and his eyes hardened. “You’re in on it too. If something happens to me, you think anyone will believe you knew nothing about it? You may not have pushed them, but you’re part of this too.”

“Oh, Zack, what the hell is going on?”

“One or two more, that’s all. That what she said. Then it’s done. We have to figure out who.”

Maddy’s head spun, dizziness edging her vision. She pulled the bedroom door closed and pushed Zack back towards the kitchen. “Go to school. I have to go to work. We need to think about this.”

Zack picked up his school bag and headed for the front door. “What about Dylan?”

“Jesus, Zack! Go to school! We’ll talk when I get back from work. I’ll be home by six.”

After he left, Maddy went and sat at the kitchen table and drank coffee. She had to end this. By the time the mug was empty, she’d decided to kill the thing. She went out into the back garden and the small tin shed in the corner, and then came back with a square-bladed shovel.

She pushed open the bedroom door and stepped into the room, raised the shovel high overhead, planning to chop it to mincemeat. The fungus began vibrating violently, shaking the whole bed, making it skitter slightly against the floor.

“Fuck!” Maddy brought the shovel down hard into the nearest swollen curve of the thing.

It split open and hissed, and it screamed. Dark brown ichor leaked thickly from the slash she’d put in its tough skin, and the thing wailed in her mind. It seemed to bypass her ears completely, and drill deep into her brain. Maddy dropped the shovel and clapped both palms to either side of her head, crying out in pain. She felt as though her eyes were about to burst. The thing shook and screamed and Maddy’s knees weakened. She staggered back from the room and then half ran, half fell down the hallway. The noise from the bedroom slowly eased until the house had sunk back into a tense, eerie silence.

Don’t do that again , her mother’s voice said, directly into her mind. Feed me and it’ll be done.

“You’re not her!” Maddy shouted back down the hall.

Just feed me!

There was no way Maddy ever wanted to feel pain like that again. Her head throbbed, her muscles were weak, her eyes had sharp spikes of sensation through them, repeating every few seconds.

“Okay,” she said at last. “You’ll really go? Really leave us be?”

If you feed me.

“One more.”

Maybe two.

Maddy began to cry, despite herself. She hated being reduced to tears for any reason but couldn’t stop it. “Okay,” she said again. She grabbed her bag and left for work.

When Maddy gothome, her nerves were frayed. She’d spent all day with her head buzzing about who they could give to the white thing in the bed. How could they make a choice like that? It was straight up murder. She’d considered a few options, like the homeless guy who always hung around near the beach. Or that weird guy without a nose she saw around town all the time. There was the old woman at the harbour everyone called the sea witch, but Maddy kind of liked her. Maybe someone from work, plenty of choices there. Wendy Callow, perhaps, no one liked her anyway. She even thought about Dylan or one of his stoner mates. But every time she considered anyone, the thought would progress to how she would entice the person around, and how she would give them to the fungus, and at that point her bile rose and panic gripped her chest. She derailed the thought again and again, tried to work, until the same process rose in her mind and repeated. Over and over, all day.

The house was still and quiet when she got in. Suspiciously so. Where was Zack? She badly needed a shower and decided if he wasn’t back by the time she got out, she’d call him. Ten minutes later she was towelling herself off when the front door clicked and she heard voices.

“Thanks so much for coming over, Mr Brady.”

That was Zack’s voice. Mr Brady? Josh’s dad? Why the hell had Zack brought him over?

“It’s no problem,” Brady said. “I can’t believe you forgot Josh was going to his grandparents for a couple of nights though.”

“Oh, I remembered, only I thought it was tomorrow, not today. And I promised Mum I’d help shift this furniture and figured Josh could help. But I really appreciate you stepping in.”

“I’m glad you feel you can ask us for help, Zack. This way, is it?”

Maddy had stood frozen in panic for a moment, then she lunged for the door. She had to stop him. Then she realised she was naked, holding a towel. She dragged on her work pants and shirt again and pulled open the bathroom door just as Mr Brady said, “What the hell is that?”

Then a metallic clang rang out. Maddy ran down the hall to see Zack in the doorway to their mother’s room, the shovel she’d dropped earlier in his hands. Mr Brady was face down on the floor, blood pooling from his ear and a gash on the back of his head.

“What the fuck, Zack!”

“Help me get him up. Onto Mum.”