Shards Read online

  I just asked the genie for smouldering eyes.

  * * *

  Shadow of Revenge

  "Fight me, you skinny little fuck!"

  The muffled thud of dance music, filtering from the nearby club, Drakken, adds rhythm to Derek's step as he strides forward.

  "Go fuck y'self," the other guy spits. Flecks of blood and saliva fly from his mouth, landing on Derek's boots. Unintentional, but it pisses Derek off.

  "You're gonna pay for that, shitbag."

  The weary expression on the guy's face---he didn't catch his name---says everything that needs to be said. The skinny runt is afraid yet defiant.

  The crowd, whipped into a frenzy well before Derek's first blow struck, are practically baying for blood. The rancid alley is packed with them---their faces sway and blur in his vision. A wavering, surrealist canvas of white skin against sodden brown brick. The chant flooding his ears is muted and distant.

  "Fight. Fight!" they cry, a bunch of dipshits carried on the fumes of schoolyard memories. Derek knocked the crap outta the runts in school many times. So many, the faces blur. His memory isn't that great. Still, these nightclub dipshits gave him a crowd and he loves to please.

  With the baying of drug-fucked teenagers and sex-starved metrosexuals droning in his ears, he drives a fist into the skinny nerd's gut. The air is languid, his punch slow to connect.

  The guy doubles over, bunched around Derek's fist. Pulling his arm free of the flesh and bone wrapping, he watches through bleary eyes as the skinny fucker drops to his knees. The act takes forever, like the arsehole is milking Father Time for every last second.

  "Ya like that, faggot?" Derek screams into his face.

  The guy, huddled in a heap, refuses to meet his eye. He's a bloody mess. Ragged cuts and bruises cover his arms and face. His shirt is shredded, an early victim of Derek's cyclonic assault.

  "It wasn't meant to be this way," the runt mutters.

  "Look at me, dickhead!" Derek screams, this time only an inch from the guy's pulped, downcast face. Derek wrenches his head back by a fistful of hair, stares into the lumpy remains of his face. The loser grimaces but still refuses to meet Derek's eye.

  Leaning in closer, Derek runs a deliberate tongue along the weeping cut on the runt's cheek. Trapped by the hair, he tries squirming away but lacks the strength to resist.

  "You look familiar, bitch," Derek savours the blood on his lips, before ramming an elbow into the loser's head. This swing also takes a slow-motion eternity to connect before it snaps the guy's head to the side.

  "Try this shit again and I'll beat you to a smear. A fucking smear!"

  The fringes of the crowd drift away, lured back to the club by the hypnotic thud of a techno beat. Glancing around, Derek senses the bloodlust fade from his audience.

  He slams a departing boot into the fallen nerd's bony ribcage, enjoying the simultaneous grunt and snap of bones, followed by the foetal collapse. This time, the fucker stays down. A little baby curled up, bleeding, in the filth.

  Derek drifts back to the club with the last remnants of the crowd. Not even scratched and still jacked up from his last hit. Cocksure, he reaches into his pocket for another E. By the gleam in the eyes of some of the regulars, he'll probably score a fuck or two.

  The back door soon slams closed, its boom echoes through the alley, leaving Derek's victim half conscious and curled up in a quivering ball.

  #

  The minutes stretch on, as he slowly uncurls and pulls his tattered shirt across the broken landscape of his torso. Inundated by the pain, he ignores the grit and mud staining his left side. Like the rest of the alley, he now smells of piss, vomit, and blood.

  Inch by agonised inch, he claws his way from the alley to the carpark. A few of the club-goers flit in and out of the front door, stepping around his crawl. Some stop to laugh, a sea of blurred, over-made-up faces swimming in his vision. Others nervously quicken their step within a few feet of him.

  After endless minutes---maybe hours---he reaches his car. He drags himself to his knees, fumbles with the key, and pops the boot.

  "You... you said... I'd win. You... said I'd beat him."

  The cloud of smoke and shadow in the boot coagulates into a leering grin.

  "Master," the creature purrs, "I obeyed your desires to the letter. You lasted much longer against your childhood nemesis than in any of your previous beatings."

  Trembling and exhausted, he glares at the creature.

  "I ..." he begins, then tightens his split mouth into a line. Instead, he thumps his fist into the bumper.

  With trembling arms, he pulls himself up into the trunk, collapses inside, and sprawls next to the amorphous darkness.

  "Would you care for another wish?" the darkness invites as it swirls about him.

  He nods, slowly at first, and then more animated. "An assault rifle. With a never ending ammo clip. And a bayonet."

  Two demented grins, one of mist and void, the other punctured by crooked, blood-stained teeth, fill the car boot as they wait for the nightclub to close, and a blood-red dawn to crest.

  * * *

  Spin the Witch Bottle

  "Up here, Joss?" Jeremy stretched as he positioned the bottle atop the bookcase, as close to the corner of the room as he could manage.

  "Looks great. And it's Jocelyn." Jocelyn barely spared a glance. She was engrossed in setting up the Ouija board. She repeatedly turned the plastic pointer over in her hands.

  "Since you'll be channelling the spirit, I'll need something of yours," said Jeremy, "something personal."

  Jocelyn shot him a look.

  He shrugged. "That's what the book said."

  The two locked eyes, until at last, Jeremy's non-chalance won out. Jocelyn removed her silver locket from her neck and waved it at him while she returned her attention to the Ouija board.

  Jeremy's mouth hardened into a line as he took the chain and locket. Jocelyn didn't notice, absorbed as she was in anything but him. The locket rattled on the glass as he stuffed it into the bottle.

  He stepped back to admire his handiwork. It was an old wine bottle, made of thick green glass. The symbols spanning its surface were painted on with white-out; they were designs straight from the book, Occult Rituals by Cornelius Malcolm, some old professor from NU. The book cost him thirteen bucks second hand --- the bottle and white-out, two dollars from the discount shop.

  "You ready?" asked Jocelyn.

  Jeremy patted the cork in his shirt pocket. "Yep. Let's do it."

  They settled cross-legged on Jeremy's bed, with the Ouija board between them.

  Aware of the length of her skirt, Jocelyn tugged the hem over her knees. "I came to you because people say you know about this stuff, that's all. No funny business, okay?"

  Jeremy nodded solemnly, more to look the part than out of respect for what they were doing. "I'm glad you asked me. I've always wanted to be friends. Maybe ..."

  Jocelyn rolled her eyes. "So how does this work?"

  Despite himself, Jeremy glanced from Jocelyn's bare throat, over her shoulder, to the bottle holding her locket. "After the séance begins, you know, when the pointer starts moving, I'll start a chant. The spirit will then be drawn into the Witch Bottle," he paused, "and then we get what we want."

  "And you're sure that thing will hold a ghost?"

  "Absolutely sure. I'm using Mexicatanian symbols."

  "Mesopotamian?"

  "Whatever. It'll work."

  "So I start by calling the spirit?"

  "Yeah."

  "Wait. What about your parents? What happens if the séance is interrupted?" A frown creased Jocelyn's brow.

  "It'll be fine. My parents won't be home for ages. Nothing can go wrong."

  The lines in Jocelyn's forehead smoothed as she clasped the plastic pointer --- the planchette, the booklet said --- with both hands.

  Jeremy placed his hands over hers. Together, their hands were firebrand-hot and sweaty. Jeremy savoured the contact, although Joc
elyn winced.

  "Before we start, why do you want to channel your sister?" he asked.

  "You don't need to know. Just make sure this works."

  Jeremy squeezed her hands as she moved the planchette around the board. It gained momentum, seeming to move of its own accord.

  "Call her now," he said, husky and urgent, sparing another glance at the Witch Bottle in the corner.

  "Deborah!" she called in a faux-spooky voice. "I call thee, Deborah. Come to me, I call thee!"

  The planchette moved about the Ouija board in crazy arcs, jumping to random letters.

  "Deborah!" Jocelyn called, again and again, as Jeremy began his own chant under his breath.

  He muttered the ritual words, tuning out Jocelyn's throaty calls and the slight heave of her chest as she was moved by the gravitas of the occasion.

  A breeze moved through the room.

  "Are you here, Deb?" Jocelyn asked.

  The planchette slid to YES on the board.

  With the fifth recital of Jeremy's murmured chant, Jocelyn fell backwards, limp, mid-sentence. The Witch Bottle rattled on its base, twirling until it threatened to topple.

  Jeremy was quicker than the spiralling bottle --- leaping from the bed and withdrawing the cork from his pocket in one practised motion, he stoppered it. He stilled the Witch Bottle in two hands, staring into the nebulous swirl caught within, a whisper given form but not voice. It hovered about the locket.

  "How does it feel in there, Joss?" He smiled. "Don't worry, I'll let you out when my folks get home, which should be hours from now." The smile grew predatory. "It'll be like having a blackout, the book said. You won't remember a thing."

  After a moment, he left the bottle, and the spirit caught within, to sit on the bed with the prone form of Jocelyn. Even unconscious, she was breathtaking. Her chest fluttered delicately like a dreaming butterfly, although he knew she wasn't dreaming.

  "I'm afraid your sister won't be joining us as planned," he breathed into her ear. Fruity perfume and shampoo, her smell was divine. As he slid a hand along her knee and under her skirt, probing the warm pliancy of her thigh, a zephyr chilled the back of his neck. "But she can watch us if she likes."

  * * *

  Countdown Macabre

  One-hundred beats per minute. The heart races for fear of stalking darkness.

  Eighty-eight panicked strides. Tripping, stumbling across broken ground.

  Eighty headstones passed. A desperate, headlong flight.

  Seventy-three pairs of eyes. Uncaring witnesses of rough grey stone.

  Sixty-three miles an hour. The midnight gale snatches leaves, cloth, and hair.

  Fifty-one fevered seconds. Diminishing minute of frantic, fraught existence.

  Forty-two fleeting images. Despairing memories of a life cut short.

  Thirty-two jumbled thoughts. Forsaken escapes, survival plans mislaid.

  Twenty-four feet, crawled through damp graveyard dirt.

  Seventeen pleading words, fallen on deaf ears.

  Ten final breaths, punctured by sobs.

  Four frenzied slashes.

  One scream.

  * * *

  On Dark Clouds Borne

  "Eileen, have a look at this, love." Charlie twisted in his chair but remaining fixed on the TV.

  "In a second," she said, engrossed by the brooding storm clouds outside. Through the kitchen window, the clouds beyond the back fence looked darker than anything she'd seen before.

  "There's a nasty storm on its way," she paused, "my eyes are playing tricks on me." She rubbed at her glasses. "The clouds, they look a bit ... green."

  "What's that, love?" asked Charlie. "Clouds? Come quick, there's something about it on the news."

  She shuffled into the lounge room and propped herself on the arm of Charlie's chair. A line of green bars rose along the bottom of the screen as Charlie thumbed the remote control. Within seconds, the manicured voice of Robert Brennan, the Channel Four news man, flooded the room.

  "... confirmed reports of severe storms lashing the city. Eyewitnesses describe long slivers of hail causing untold damage throughout the suburbs. Authorities are urging people to remain indoors and take precautions."

  The presenter's lined face gave way to a graphic filling the screen.

  "Precautions include," continued Brennan, as a checklist of advice filled the TV. "Securing all windows. Bringing pets and animals inside. Placing cars under---"

  The graphic faded away, revealing Brennan's face in deep concentration. His head inclined, he held two fingers to his earpiece.

  "This doesn't look good," said Charlie.

  "Shhhhh!"

  A rolling wave of thunder rocked the house, dimming the lights and fuzzing the screen for an instant.

  Robert Brennan abruptly turned square to the camera, his face the picture of solemnity.

  "We've received news just to hand. It seems snakes are falling from the sky. That's right. Snakes. In a dramatic turn of events, eyewitnesses report snakes in their thousands are being dumped by the storm."

  "Snakes?" Charlie looked to Eileen. Her puzzled look matched her husband's as they held each other's gaze.

  On screen, the camera panned in on Brennan's face. The corner of his mouth twitched. Suddenly, he broke into laughter.

  "I'm sorry folks," he stammered. "It's April Fools Day."

  "April Fools..." Charlie looked at the wall calendar. "He's right."

  "I think we've both been had, ladies and gentleman," soothed Brennan around a chuckle.

  Eileen squeezed her husband on the shoulder and then left him in front of the TV. A lead weight felt lodged in her chest as she glanced at the kitchen window and the ominous clouds beyond.

  Only a grim, grey twilight separated the clouds from the landscape.

  Another jolt of thunder rattled the window in its frame.

  Unsettled, she returned to her husband and the flush-faced newsreader on TV. She sat beside Charlie, slipping her hand beneath his gnarled fingers. He looked at her, squeezed her hand, but said nothing.

  A heavy thud struck the roof. Followed by another. And another ...

  * * *

  Practical Joke

  Scrubbing hard, stretching muscles til they ached, Julie fought a losing battle with the toilet bowl. Decked out in leggings and Jim's old blue shirt, she had engaged in the monthly cleaning ritual with gusto. It was the bathroom's turn presently, a pristine space turned hovel by Wade and his friend Joel, who slept over the night before. Scouring the bowl, she struggled with the smell. Sewer, rubber, and chlorine incarnate.

  #

  "Mum's gonna be scared," Wade told Joel, breaking into a grin.

  The cardboard face they'd drawn, all black Texta horns and fangs, looked sinister as they taped it to the broom handle.

  "I don't know Wade, do you reckon it'll reach?" Joel glanced dubiously at the pole.

  The front of the house was at street level, but beneath the bathroom window at the rear, the house was high, chocked up on brick foundations. The darkness beneath the house held Wade in thrall. He'd ventured under the house a few times before, borne on fool's courage, but his expeditions were always brief. Spiders and nameless things crawled in that darkness.

  "It'll reach," he assured, his smile faltering.

  #

  A scraping sound drew Julie's attention. The sound came from behind her. From below.

  A creeping tentacle, phosphorescent green, slithered up from the small circular drain in the centre of the floor.

  It protruded a few inches and groped around the grate---a slimy tongue tasting at the fringes of rust.

  With sick fascination, she observed the tentacle writhe and probe. The sight gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

  In slow, deliberate motions, she retrieved a bold red can of flyspray from the cupboard. Within seconds, the hiss of insecticide filled the room.

  The tentacle thrashed and retreated into the drain.

  Gathering her nerve, she sidled for
ward on hands and knees until her face hovered above the grate, at a respectful distance. Beyond the little silvered bars, she found only empty darkness.

  #

  "Go for it," urged Joel, as Wade hefted the pole-and-mask toward the window.

  A rumble, and the rattle of pipes, reverberated from somewhere beneath the house.

  The boys looked at each other in bewilderment.

  #

  Something banged on the window. Julie whirled around. With her pulse racing, she looked closer.

  A face, black, angular and misshapen, filled the window.

  She yelped in surprise and stepped away on reflex. Her foot brushed something cold and wet.

  #

  Hearing mum's yelp, the boys exploded into giggles. An instant later, a crash echoed from the bathroom, followed by an ominous exhale sound, a hydraulic hiss.

  "Mum!" Wade raced up the back stairs and into the house. Joel followed.

  Reaching the bathroom, they found Julie standing stiffly in the centre of the room.

  "Sorry about the joke, Mum. Are you okay?" Wade said.

  "It was a good joke," she answered, atonally. "I have another." She motioned toward the drain, and stared at them with vacant eyes. "Come in boys, and close the door."

  * * *

  Interlude, With Lavender

  The world spun. Grey lines of swirling chaos formed at the edge of vision as he opened his eyes. Like the jarring stop of an amusement ride, the room came into sudden, sharp focus.

  Greyness---stainless steel and concrete---pervaded the room. A metal table rose in front of him, shrouded with a white cloth. The cloth concealed lumpiness in a vague, albeit hefty, human shape.

  "Hey there," a man's voice called.

  He turned at the sound of the voice. A humanoid silhouette, swirling with mist, black and ethereal, extended an arm-like appendage toward him.

  He recoiled.

  "Oh," the voice said, coming from the mist. "I forgot."

  "What are you?" He tried to hold the quiver from his voice.

  "The name's Blake. What's yours?"