Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

There were more cages here, dozens of them, row upon row like supermarket shelves, cages stacked four deep. They were all weathered wood and half-rusted wire, had obviously been here for years. They were as packed with guinea pigs as the ones out front, there had to be hundreds of the small rodents, all kinds of size and colour. Most were still or sleeping, but some scuffled and nosed around. Another hay bale sat in one corner of the yard, and a large wooden shed filled the far back corner, its door slightly ajar.

Dace looked long and hard at the shed and wondered if maybe the Nikolovs would keep their money hidden in there. It would make things so much easier. He stayed in the shadows of the rows of cages and crept up to the shed. The last third or so of the garden, it turned out, was given over to vegie beds. He saw carrots and parsley and tomatoes and a variety of other things growing there. He slipped into the shed and stood in darkness, holding his breath, listening. Nothing except the scratching and whistling of the guinea pigs outside.

He took the Maglight from his pocket and twisted it on. The shed was crammed with tools for gardening, sacks and barrels of food. Some had vegetables no doubt harvested from the garden outside. A couple had pale brown cylindrical pellets, presumably a kind of feed for the animals. He dug an arm into each, carefully feeling around in case anything had been concealed under the food. Nothing. The shed smelled earthy and rich, paradoxically both enticing and slightly sickening. It only took a few minutes of searching to learn there was nothing for him there. He sighed, twisted off the Maglight, and moved cautiously back outside.

In moments he was standing on a cement step by the Nikolovs’ back door. Before he could second guess himself, he reached out and turned the doorknob. The door popped open with a soft scrape.

Dace jumped, hands up front of his chest as the door stood three inches open. He froze there, amazed it had been unlocked after all. Old school, he thought. Again, no sound but the animals behind him, so he pushed the door open a little wider. Just enough to slip through, then he closed it silently, twisted on his torch again.

He stood in a kitchen. Black and white vinyl flooring. Ancient Formica counters and table, the latter surrounded by three rickety wooden chairs. An electric cooker, shelves of crockery, drawers and cupboards under the counters. A bread bin and several storage jars stood against the wall on the counter beside the cooker, and an old Crosley Shelvador refrigerator filled one corner, all rounded edges and large chromed handle. The chrome had gone matt and grey. It whirred noisily.

But all that paled as his torchlight lit up a wooden rack against the far wall. The rack had dozens of little bodies hung on it. Guinea pigs, skinned and clearly roasted, all four limbs stretched out into a star on small metal braces presumably crafted for the purpose. Dace held his breath in disgust. There was a tub of thick metal wire pieces, a pair of pliers with orange rubber grips, a couple of half-finished frames, the metal twisted expertly together.

On the counter beside the rack was a plastic tub full of guinea pig corpses, pink and raw where they’d been skinned but not yet cooked. Piled beside the tub were twenty or so more dead animals, these still with their fur, half of them looking like they were simply sleeping there. A large plastic bin stood on the other side of the rack, a plastic liner in it and a rank smell rising up as Dace approached. He leaned over and gagged as the sight of animal guts half filling the bin.

“What the fuck?” he whispered. They bred the things to cook and then dry them out? Did they live on nothing but guinea pig meat and jerky? Maybe a few of the vegies they didn’t feed to the animals first? If the number they kept in their garden didn’t seal the eccentric label, this sight certainly did. He thought they had a crazy passion for pets, but this? Dace swallowed, desperate to be out of the place as quickly as possible.

“Okay,” he said under his breath, barely louder than an exhalation. He got right to work, checked every cupboard, drawer and vessel he could find, even looked in the oven and fridge. In the fridge he found some butter and milk, but more disturbing were dozens of small bottles of dark, purplish liquid. Each only about 50ml, every one had a label with a number, dates from the next day onwards. Future doses of something? Did one or other of the old couple need this medicine? There had to be fifty doses crammed onto the top shelf, maybe more.

On the lower shelves were plastic tubs, some containing young octopuses of a strange colour, with purple and yellow markings. He’d never seen any quite like them before. Other tubs contained muddy-coloured, feathery fronds. They appeared fleshy. Dace stared, trying to remember where he’d seen such things before. Then it came to him. The bit of the local Gulpepper Bug people said was poisonous. You had to make sure to remove them before cooking the Bug, but Dace would never know. He’d never eat one. The thought of them always gave him the creeps, but some locals loved them. He shook his head and closed the fridge. It wasn’t money, so it didn’t matter.

He was tempted to fish around under the rodent guts in the bin, but surely that wasn’t necessary. It took a good ten minutes, but he exhausted every possibility and hadn’t found a cent. Not really a surprise, he supposed. Time to move on.

One door led from the kitchen and he approached it cautiously, shining his Maglight ahead. The beam illuminated a room with polished wooden floorboards, a threadbare rug under a coffee table, a TV on a wooden cabinet beside a bookshelf crammed with paperbacks. A window with the curtains closed, a kind of roll-top dresser beside it. That was promising, the kind of place people might stash their money. A long, tatty sofa, black plastic faux-leather back and arms with rough textured orange seat cushions. Dace stepped into the room and shone his light around further. An armchair that matched the sofa, a plate on the wide plastic arm, piled with tiny bones, sucked clean. An old woman sat in the armchair in the dark, staring at him, the whites of her eyes huge in fear.

Dace sucked in a shocked breath as the woman’s mouth fell open, a toothless, wet O in the saggy, wrinkled skin of her emaciated face. Even covered by a blanket, feet raised on a leather ottoman, she was clearly skeletally thin, grey hair in wispy tufts on her pale, patchy head.

For a moment Dace stood frozen, then the woman screamed. Splittingly loud, an ululating wail like an air-raid siren. Dace tensed, danced foot to foot in panic. “No, stop! Quiet! Please, I won’t hurt you!” He realised his face, his mask, would be terrifying to her, the burn-scarred Freddie Kruger visage.

The scream seemed endless. A man’s voice, thick with sleep, from down the hall. “Elena? Dreams again?” He had a heavy accent.

“Stop, please!” Dace said, approaching the woman, one hand palm out, the other causing torchlight to dance hectically over her wailing face.

And the scream went on. She didn’t pause for breath, how could she scream continuously, so loud?

“Elena, enough. I’m coming, I’m coming!”

“Please!” Dace said, almost crying with the horror of it. “Stop it! Stop that noise!”

It got, impossibly, louder.

“No!” Dace shouted and struck out with his free hand to slap her cheek, desperate to stop that scream from drilling into his brain.

The woman’s face whipped to one side and a loud snap stopped the scream dead. She stilled, her head on her shoulder at an angle that made Dace’s stomach clench. No neck should allow that. No unbroken neck. Her wide, white eyes with pale grey irises stared ahead, seeing nothing.