Alan Baxter - The Gulp - Five Tales of Horror

Richard Blake’s dayhad been deceptively boring. Tall, pale gum trees lined either side of the road, and spread thickly back into shadow. Late afternoon sun occasionally lanced through a rare gap in the canopy that closed over high above. Rich sat quiet in the passenger seat as George Grayson drove the Woolworths big rig along the single lane highway.

“It’s like a tunnel,” Rich said eventually, leaning forward to peer out the windscreen. The road freaked him out. “Kinda claustrophobic.”

George laughed. “You haven’t seen anything yet. It’s like this for nearly twenty minutes from Enden until the Gulpepper turnoff. It’s another twenty minutes from the turnoff on the other side too, until you get to Monkton.”

“Nothing in between?”

“Only bush and Gulpepper. And that’s ten minutes from the turnoff through nothing but more bush until you reach the coast.” He nodded out the other side of the cab. “That way is thick all the way to the freeway that bypasses all of this.”

“It’s the only town there? No other villages or anything along the coast?”

“Not between Enden and Monkton, nah. Just Gulpepper. A kind of big, natural bay with high cliffs either side. It’s quite a big town, but there’s fuck all else for miles around except bush and ocean.” George frowned out the side window towards the lowering sun. “We’re running too late. That traffic jam in Enden fucked up our schedule.”

“Does it matter?” Rich asked the question despite George’s obvious discomfort. What was the problem, other than being a little late home?

George glanced at the young man beside him and sighed. “I don’t want to be in Gulpepper at night. Listen, there’s some stuff you should know. You’re a good kid, you’ll be a good driver. I’m just sorry you’re inheriting this fucken route offa me. I’m glad as hell to be retiring, I tell you that. Pretty much everything about this gig is just fine, except once a week when you hafta come to this freaky fucken town. There’s one road in and out of Gulpepper. I hate driving down it and can’t wait to come back the other way.”

Rich smiled. Old George reminded him of the conspiracy theory nuts who thought mobile phone towers were transmitting mind control. Rich didn’t buy into all that hokum.

“I see you fucken grinnin’,” George said. “Trust me, you get in, make your delivery, and get right back out again. Once I stopped for lunch there. Never again.”

“Why, what happened?”

George frowned, swallowed. “I don’t wanna talk about it. Gulpepper is just… different, that’s all. And only outsiders use that name. Everyone who lives there calls it The Gulp.” He shot a sideways look at Rich again. “The place has a habit of swallowing people.”

Rich laughed. “That what they tell you?” It’s not like Australia wasn’t riddled with remote towns. George was trying to scare him.

“Mark my words, son, make this stop your quickest of the week.”

They fell into silence as the gum trees blurred by on either side and the sun got lower. After the bustle of Enden, especially with the added excitement of the traffic accident, the empty, gloomy road seemed preternaturally quiet. It was ten minutes before another car passed them going the other way, the face behind the wheel a pale moon in the low light, staring dead ahead with intense concentration. Eventually George slowed, leaning forward over the big wheel.

“Junction’s coming up,” he said to Rich’s questioning look. “And nowhere to turn a truck, so if you miss it, you have to go all the way to the outskirts of Monkton to turn around, which adds nearly an hour to your trip by the time you’ve finished fucking around.”

“Seriously?”

“I told you, son, there’s nothing good about this place.”

George pointed ahead. “See the memorial?”

Rich saw a white cross at the side of the road, a faded wreathe of plastic flowers hanging on it. Painted on the crossbar was Wayno . Right behind the cross a large gum tree had a huge scar in its pale bark. His stomach soured. Memories of watching Grant’s last drive were still fresh after all these years. His old school friend had a memorial like this on a road heading out of Sydney. They’d been racing, Grant was winning, until he misjudged the bend. Rich thought he’d never shake off the guilt. The image of Grant’s car disintegrating as Rich stood on his car’s brakes would never fade. “Yeah, I see it.”

“It’s a good one to look out for. The turnoff is only a few hundred metres past.”

Rich nodded. “Okay, good to know.”

“Poor old Wayno. Probably aimed his car at a tree rather than have to go back to The Gulp.” Before Rich could address that particularly dark assessment, George pointed again. “See the sign?”

On the other side of the narrow highway was a small green sign, pointing across the road.

Gulpepper Road

(Gulpepper 11km)

“Is that a skull hanging off it?” Rich asked as George slowed to make the turn.

“Or a shrunken head. Kids, probably, mucking about with Halloween props. But with this town, you never know.”

Rich laughed. The old man was laying it on a bit thick. He realised this was probably like when Rich got his first job out of school, at a factory in Bankstown. First day, the foreman sent him to the office to ask the manager for a long weight. The manager smiled and nodded, said, Sit there, son , and Rich was left for an hour. Eventually the manager came back out and said, Long enough? Off you go then! Rich went back to the factory floor among gales of laughter. But fair enough, he’d play along.

The road into town was indistinguishable from the highway running between Enden and Monkton. One lane each way, thick bush either side. But even gloomier now, the sun behind them about to drop below the tree line.

“We’ve left this much too late,” George muttered, almost to himself.

Rich smiled.

After a while the gum trees began to thin and a few farms appeared on either side. The houses were old, tin roofs and weatherboard walls, a lot of them with peeling paint and rust encroaching from all sides above. Tractors and box-back trucks were parked around, most of them at least twenty years old. Dogs ran up dirt driveways, barking at the large green and white Woolworths 18-wheeler as it bulled past.

Another few minutes and regular houses began to dot the sides. Plenty of bush still around, but lawns with fences, trampolines and cubby houses, family cars. Then the side streets began, more houses with smaller plots of land. They passed a large building, lit up with neon, a big Tooheys New sign glowing out front. Illuminated letters above the double glass doors proclaimed, Gulpepper Bowlo .

“Is there a town anywhere in Australia without a lawn bowls club?” Rich asked with a grin.

“If there is, I haven’t been there,” George said, but his face was set. Normally the man had a good humour about him, crass and rough sometimes, but he was in his late 60s and that was only to be expected. Now though, he seemed entirely dour. Perhaps he really didn’t like this place.

Either that or he was playing his role in this particular hazing with great skill. The road opened out and they came to the main street leading into town. A roundabout at the top of a hill had three other exits, one to the right was signposted to a leisure centre, to the left went towards more housing, and one dead ahead. They went straight across. The road sloped downhill towards the ocean that lay dark and grey across the horizon. From their high vantage point the town lay to either side in undulating waves of steep hills, covered in houses and shops, an industrial looking set of units off to the left. Rich caught a glimpse of the harbour, a small forest of white masts and all manner of fishing and leisure boats, then the road led down and he lost perspective on it. Far to the north and south the land rose steeply to cliffs thickly covered with gum trees and banksia.