Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

Wendy frowned. “Why do you care?”

Maddy swallowed the retort that came first to mind and said. “Dylan and some mates are coming over to mine tonight, have a few drinks. Mum’s away. James asked me if I’d invite you.”

Wendy instantly brightened. “James asked you that?”

“Yeah. Don’t know why he didn’t just invite you himself. I told him to. Chicken, I suppose. You want to come?”

“Sure, why not?” Wendy tried to play it cool, but her expression was an open book. The girl was gleeful.

Maddy nodded. “Cool. You can walk back with me after work. You’re finished at six too, yeah?”

“Yep.”

“Right.”

Conversation was awkwardfor the long walk home, but Maddy did her best to dissociate from it. Just doing a job , she kept telling herself. Securing our future. This is for me and Zack .

When they got to the house, Zack was watching YouTube on his phone. He looked up and nodded once, acting completely uninterested.

“Where is everyone then?” Wendy asked.

“They’ll be here soon. You want a drink?”

“Sure. You got gin?”

“Yeah. Have a seat.”

Wendy sat in the armchair, their mother’s armchair they never used any more, and that seemed strangely appropriate. As Maddy headed for the kitchen she caught Zack’s eye and he nodded, got up to follow.

“Let’s do it quick,” Maddy whispered as soon as they were out of the lounge. “Before I lose my nerve.”

“Okay. Who is that?”

“Doesn’t matter. How do we do it?”

“Get the drinks.”

Maddy stared at him for a moment, then turned to the counter. She made three strong gin and tonics, then went back towards the lounge.

“I’ll be there in a sec,” Zack said.

Maddy handed over the drink, then lifted hers. “Cheers.”

Wendy grinned crookedly. “Cheers.” She took a big gulp. “Damn, that’s strong!”

“Only way to drink ’em, right?”

“I suppose so.”

Maddy took another sip, and Wendy matched her, then put the glass down on the small table beside the chair. As Maddy stepped backwards to sit on the sofa, Zack walked back in. He strode directly to Wendy and punched her clean across the point of the jaw.

Maddy yelped in shock as Wendy slumped loosely in the chair. She groaned weakly.

“Let’s go,” Zack said, grabbing one arm and one leg.

Maddy hurried over, grabbing the other arm and leg, saying, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over again.

Zack had opened their mother’s bedroom door and they carried Wendy right in, one either side of the bed, straining under the girl’s weight as they had to reach out, dragging her over the remaining fungus. They manoeuvred her into position and then dropped her directly onto it. Wendy cried out in pain and writhed as the skin of her neck, arms and legs below her shorts hissed and smoked.

Zack put one knee on the bed and planted his hands against her shoulders. “Hold her down!” he shouted.

“Fuck!” Maddy said again, and grabbed Wendy’s legs, palms over her shins, and pressed them back into the whiteness. The smoke that rose was sharp and acrid, vaguely like a barbecue burning, but thick with something else as well, a cloying, earthy sweetness.

Wendy’s eyes opened and rolled, the whites showing all around. “What are you doing?” she cried. “Please, stop! It hurts!”

“Hold her down!” Zack yelled, leaning his weight harder.

Maddy gritted her teeth, clambered onto the bed and pressed as hard as she could, being careful her fingers got nowhere near the fungus. Wendy thrashed and screamed, the bed shook with her efforts. She bucked up, trying to arch her back, but her clothes and skin had already become stuck to the remaining fungus and it stretched as she rose, then she collapsed back down. She howled and sobbed, tipped her head up to look beseechingly at Maddy, and Maddy knew she would never forget the sight of that gaze as long as she lived. The back of Wendy’s head stretched like taffy, her hair and skin smoking, bubbling into blisters around the backs of her ears. She sobbed and wailed but her thrashing weakened. Her head fell back, her neck smoking. She gurgled, twitching but no longer fighting.

Zack climbed off the bed and staggered away, face twisted in horror. Maddy stumbled away too. They stood either side of the bed watching as Wendy slowly stilled. Maddy gasped as Wendy’s eyes popped open once more, staring crazily, her mouth worked silently, then she fell still.

There was no sound except Zack and Maddy’s ragged breathing and a soft hissing from the bed. Without a word, the siblings turned and left, Zack shutting the door. They went into the lounge and swallowed down their drinks, then to the kitchen, made more drinks, and silently swallowed them down too. Then another, and another.

They began to chat quietly about nothing in particular, the booze loosening their shock. By a little after nine they were both thoroughly drunk. Zack passed out on the sofa in the lounge and Maddy crawled to bed.

Sometime in the early hours, head pounding, mouth dry, she woke to sounds of scratching and scraping. Then a clunk. All from her mother’s room. She ignored it all.

In the morning,she and Zack stood looking at her mother’s bed. It was empty, no trace of anything having been there except the rumpled bedclothes. Even the stains of their mother’s illness were gone. They called in sick to work and school, then got busy.

They stripped the bed and rolled up the sheets and doona into garbage bags. Zack got a sledgehammer from the small tin shed and smashed the wooden bedframe to pieces. They dragged the pieces out into the back garden, doused the pile with petrol from the can kept for the mower, and lit it. When the wood was burning well, they dragged the mattress on top and watched that go up. They threw the bedclothes on too. Black, oily smoke from the artificial materials clouded up and they stood downwind and watched until they were sure it was all ignited and burning well.

Back inside, they washed and cleaned the floor, walls, ceiling, like they had the rest of the house before, only with twice the vigour. The stain under the bed took some extra elbow grease, but they scoured it eventually. They packed up half of their mum’s clothes and possessions, which was a sadly small collection, into two suitcases and put them in the boot of the car. Maddy knew there were big bins out the back of the industrial area on the south side of town. Mechanics and some kind of metal workshop, a few other businesses, all occupied large metal warehouses up there. The bins were never locked.

They backed the car up, making sure no one was paying much attention, and dumped the suitcases in, dragging cardboard and industrial waste over the top of it all. When they got back home, the bed was nothing more than a scorched mark on the grass with ash and blackened, twisted metal springs atop it. They decided to leave that as it was. Worry about it later. Maddy ordered a new double bed online, to be delivered. Their mother’s room would soon look like she’d gone away for a while, expecting to come back. It could stay like that indefinitely.

They went back inside and made more drinks.

“The house is ours now,” Zack said, lifting his glass in a toast.

“To the future,” Maddy said. Her hands still shook.

“Dad’s been actingreally weird ever since we got back,” Josh said on Monday after school.