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  Floundering, legs afire, he tried to paddle ashore. With his throat constricting and muscles convulsing, his last sight as he sank was of Jamie, swimming towards the weeds.

  * * *

  Dread Seasons Quartet: Pallid Wisps of Snow

  Sara muttered to herself as she trudged through the snow and plunged between sagging, ancient pines. "That bastard should be out here instead of me. Maybe the cold might shut down that ego of his."

  Like a vast collapsed spider web, the blanket of snow coated everything within its reach. Charcoal-grey clouds choked the sky with their pregnant burden of ice and water.

  Sara's jump suit and the matching mitts and boots were the best money could buy. Stylish and warm. Even so, the cold leached through into her bones. The angry trudging only kept the worst of the chill at bay.

  "How dare he fool around with that tramp. We've only been here two days! Two days!"

  The image of Paul and that slutty ski instructor together, naked, replayed ad nauseam through her mind. She marched blindly along the trail, beyond the highest ski field. The resort dwindled into the distance.

  "Getting old! Not as beautiful!" she spat, fighting his painful, lingering words. "We'll see, pig! Even after I've bled you dry, you'll be hit with the plastic surgery bills. I'll still be beautiful when that slut is old and grey!"

  She stumbled through a dense knot of primordial snow-locked pines. A small clearing opened up before her. In the centre, untouched by the falling snow, a circular plane of ice sparkled in the twilight gloom.

  She edged closer.

  A mini blizzard swirled through the clearing, picking up drifts of snow and stealing them away on the breeze. Huddled near the circle of ice, she bundled herself tight against the gale. For a few fleeting moments, her world was nothing but a white blur.

  Once the mini-blizzard abated, Sara glanced around the clearing. The sentinel pines were still blanketed in snow, but each was now armed with a thousand shards of ice, bristling from branches like warding blades.

  As she studied the clearing for the way back, she glanced down at the frosted tarn. Her breath caught in her throat.

  Gazing back at her was a perfect reflection. Shimmering golden hair, flawless lines. Even her puffy snow-clothes appeared to gleam in the ghostly reflection.

  Stunned, she crouched closer, leaning over the ice to stare and admire. All thoughts of Paul were forgotten.

  Fingers of arctic cold chilled the air around her. More snow spiralled to the earth but none fell upon the glass-like surface.

  Her reflection was everything she ever wanted. Faultless. Ideal. No wrinkles lining her eyes. No blemishes of age.

  Captivated by her beauty, she extended a hand toward the shimmering plane.

  She brushed the ice.

  Sudden, numbing cold infused her body. An intense white flash blinded her. An instant later she was enveloped by serenity. A flawless goddess entombed within the ice.

  Beauty was hers eternal, beneath pallid wisps of snow.

  * * *

  Cruel Summer: Shadow

  They had all deserted her.

  Jamie and Todd went off to body surf. Reuben had dragged Dad off to dig a hole. They all left at once, all promised they'd return soon.

  After hours of sandcastles and wading, they still hadn't returned.

  Stranded on the beach, sitting in her family's encampment of towels and bags, little Stacey watched the dusk shadows lengthen across the sand.

  The last clumps of beach-goers were trekking homeward. Only a solitary girl remained nearby, a girl staring skyward whom she didn't dare disturb.

  But Stacey wouldn't cry. Wrapped in her sandy towel, she welcomed the crowding shadows as they reached for her. They would be her new family tonight.

  * * *

  A Killer Smile

  Every girl needs a killer smile. White teeth like bleached bone, ruby lips the shade of blood. A neat slit in the face more precise than a deft blade twist. Every time you flash it, some hapless fool drops like a coal sack at your feet.

  Nothing wins your victim over, or is as persuasive, as a serial killer smile. Except a pair of razor-sharp stilettos. Or an axe.

  * * *

  Congo Jenga

  "Wriggly little shit." He stabbed the blade into his thigh. Stifled the scream. Withdrew the blade with clumsy palms amid a gush of blood.

  Stabbing himself had become a problem since his fingers had withered off.

  The worm squirmed, just beneath his skin, toward his groin.

  He fumbled the slick knife. Pressed it between his palms. Stabbed again into his thigh, inches above the first wound. Gritted teeth didn't silence his cry a second time.

  The worm continued upwards. The blade missed yet again.

  Tears trickled down his face as he slid the knife out. It clattered to the floor.

  "Please God, no." He slumped to the ground, dizzy from blood loss. Again.

  The worm burrowed towards his anus.

  A fingerless hand swatted at it, the effort futile. His fingers, like his hair, nose, and toes, had withered and dropped off. All thanks to the fucking little worm crawling inside him.

  His body was scabbed and scarred---desperate attempts to cut the little bastard out, time and again, dozens of times over.

  It started on his return from Africa. After the loss of his hair, the doctors rationalised it as a parasite contracted in the Congo. It took six weeks, and just as many toes, for him to realise the worm was more than a parasite.

  The boy in Lagos had been a diversion. A piece of arse, willing or otherwise. So were the ones in Kinshasa. And the little boy from the village near Kisangani. The worm whispered of those sins when it chewed through his ear canals.

  He rolled onto his back, feeling the worm tunnel around his bowels and towards his stomach.

  Its curses flowed like acid through his veins, declaring the next target. After weeks of hosting the prick, he'd learned how to tune into the creature's rage.

  Its voice was that of the Congo boy's mother, the village shaman---the Bone Mother. It screamed her curses, from the day she had found him with her son's carcass. The worm now screamed of all the naked boys, the debauchery; the evils his eyes had seen.

  His eyes. Next.

  He knew it. His dick would be saved for last.

  The worm wriggled along his stomach and into his chest. It bulged his skin, dipped below a rib, bulged again. A sliver of fire burning his chest.

  He eased the bloodied knife to his side. Clumsily at first, he clasped it again between his palms. Ragged breaths punctured the room.

  Blade poised below his eye, he waited for the worm to claim its prize.

  He'd get the bastard this time.

  * * *

  R U OK?

  I wake with my cheek pressed into the quilt. My chin is plastered with drool, but when I try to raise my head and brush it away, nothing happens. Inexplicably, I can smell peanuts, and there is a high-pitched whine in my ears. My world is reduced to three items that swim in my vision: the pathology referral letter from Dr McEvoy about the tumour, the tribal pattern of the quilt, and my mobile phone.

  The mobile flashes in front of me. It takes a few moments for me to realise what's happened, but then the agony flares again above my left ear, and the world shudders and fades to black.

  The flashing phone greets me when I wake. With effort, I can read a text message from Terry on it: R U OK?

  Am I OK? Are you kidding? I don't think I can fucking move! I strain my head until the blood hammers in my ears, but I can't move a muscle. I strain to move until the strain itself becomes too great, and I black out.

  When I return to consciousness, I spend what must be hours staring at the quilt's pattern. It's faux-African with swirls and sharp hexagonal lines, but from my perspective, the lines angle together to form a skull that grins at me.

  Again, the phone flashes to life before me, with Terry's message still front and centre: R U OK?

  Terry is on th
e first night of his week-long footy trip with his mates, so he'd be well and truly plastered by now. He wasn't much for checking in with me, anyway.

  The quilt skull continues to grin as I struggle to call out to the neighbours. Fat lot of good that would do, though. With the exception of Terry, all my significant interactions are online: work, friends, even shopping. The one time I spoke to the neighbours, it was to tell them their son was a dickhead for revving his car too loudly.

  Over the next hours, I drift in and out of consciousness. I mistake the stickiness on my lip as more spit, but when the coppery taste reaches the corner of my mouth, I realise what it is. Must be from my nose.

  My phone drifts in and out with me. The power saver switches the screen black for half an hour and then powers back to life for 60 seconds, every time asking me: R U OK?

  The quilt skull grins and stares at me with sightless eyes. It knows the time bomb finally went off in my head---a tumour nourished by all the radio waves spat out by that goddamn phone over the years. It knows no one will check on me for eight days.

  The phone flashes again. R U OK?

  Funny that the phone shows such concern after it's already doomed me.

  My eyes mist and a tear meanders down my cheek.

  R U OK?

  No, I'm not. I don't want to die alone.

  * * *

  Itch

  It begins as an idle rub. A calloused palm. Friction and hair. A lingering heat like a Chinese burn.

  He sits on the sofa, tuning out the worries of another long day, instead tuning into the nagging itch on his forearm. The lump has reddened from his attention. He awoke this morning to find little more than a mosquito bite. Nine hours has seen it soufflé, with a reddish-purple moat of discolouration. A mass of dark hairs hide the full extent of its diameter.

  It's now bigger than the lump of his wrist bone. He splays his fingers and holds his hand high. His hand suddenly seems alien as it floats in front of his face. It somehow doesn't belong.

  Ochre light seeps in from the window, casting the coffee table and the papers spread across it in an orange sheen. The light darkens his already ruddy skin but catches in the webbing between his fingers. The webbing glows. The rest of his skin writhes with a thousand little hair shadows.

  The lump has its own shadow.

  It looks as though he's grown a second wrist further up his arm. There's a suggestion in the way his forearm now bends. Something. Beneath the skin and hair, he imagines new bones forming from the old. A new hand emerging from too high up. His old hand to be shed? A stumpy arm the trade-off? A knot of disgust twists his stomach as he struggles to push the thought aside. Instead, it's easier to look away. Unpaid bills and floating orange-tinted dust become his obsessions until the image is finally banished.

  Scratching makes the lump bleed. He's already discovered that. It nags, this itch. It wants to be noticed. It wants to weep.

  He scratches.

  It bleeds.

  It burns.

  He scratches, until it bleeds and burns too much, until he grimaces from the pain, until his threshold is reached.

  Then he waits, poised. Fingers clawed, nails dark and glistening from the furrow of skin pink and red and spreading.

  He scratches a little more.

  There's blood beneath his nails. Fresh slivers, too brown to the eye in the sunset light.

  The lump is now a wound, raised and ragged at the centre of a bloody strip of skin. There's clear fluid, plasma maybe, which shines orange in the light. It pools with the blood. Mixes. Is swallowed.

  He rubs once more. His palm is warm and rough, the sensation pleasant but not nearly satisfying enough. The rubbing spreads the itch. It diffuses along his forearm, subdued for the instant flesh presses on flesh. The burn and the itch flood back the moment he breaks contact.

  With the rubbing comes the smear of blood. The smell is already up his nose, coppery and sharp. The blood is sticky and cooling on his skin in an unpleasant way. He doesn't mind it on his palm so much, except when he bumps his shirt and runs a smear across the cotton. A sigh is all he gives the inconvenience. Stains are the washing machine's concern.

  The rest of the house is in silence. This allows him to concentrate as he rubs, willing the itching to subside. Silence is concentration music, he tells himself, while stroking his arm.

  Soon his forearm, almost from elbow to wrist (his actual wrist, not the new one) has a red-brown coat of blood. As it cools with the sunset, it has the sensation of tightening, shrinking his skin. He frowns and rubs some more to generate warmth, spreading another layer of blood in the process.

  Is it the cold that's numbing his arm or is the arm dying?

  Dying, he decides, and scratches around the perimeter of the wound. The once purple skirt of skin is lost beneath a sticky coating. It regains its identity as his fingers probe, his nails tear, and the sting, the sensitivity, tells him he is crossing the moat and about the storm the castle.

  If he maintains the assault, like a true and loyal crusader, maybe he'll liberate the royal family---King and Queen Puss. Questing nails tear up the outer walls and move inwards for the keep. Puss eludes him, but he finds a wellspring of that clear liquid. He keeps searching (in vain, he idly thinks, chuckling to himself; in vein indeed, if he's lucky). Like all true lords and ladies of the manor, the Pusses have a secret escape passage. Perhaps they've tunnelled deeper? His arm grows colder.

  He closes his eyes and plunges the tip of his finger into the wound. Forget the royal family. He's after their treasure trove. If a hand is destined to erupt from his forearm, he'll find it first. Maybe even shake it with his other hand.

  "How do you do," he says to the crater.

  If there's bone hidden beneath the mound, he'll find it.

  It stings. It is now a freezing burn.

  He clenches his teeth as his fingernail quests deeper. His whole arm twitches for a moment.

  Is that a good sign? Maybe, just maybe, there is a funny bone growing in there too.

  Maybe.

  His arm twitches again. A tingle jolts through the length of his arm and body, settling in his lower back. The fingers on that arm spasm in time with his scratching. The sight is mesmerising. He scratches a little harder, setting aside the pain as his fingers dance a jig. He is the puppet master, pulling his own string.

  Scratch.

  (Pull).

  Twitch.

  Scratch.

  (Pull).

  Twitch.

  His new hand wouldn't be so compliant, no. They make them tougher these days, more independent. Maybe they could work two jobs, the hand and he. Maximise their income. Perhaps even start a relationship---if the new hand could reach low enough.

  He is sure they'd find a way to make it work.

  All the best relationships endure through adversity.

  He stabs his nail deeper into the wound, which shoots bolts of agony into the top of his skull.

  Damn sympathy pains. Damn nerve endings.

  He is better than this.

  A thought strikes.

  He withdraws his nail. The pain dulls to an ache, but the itch returns once more. It takes more willpower than he'd care to admit to leave the crater alone, but he does it. He leans on the coffee table to stand, sliding on a piece of paper for a second as it bears his weight. Despite the slip, he stands without further incident and moves to the bookshelf.

  It doesn't take too long to find the book he wants. A reflexology book he bought for ex number 3 or maybe number 4. She was really into that new age shit, but not enough to take the book when she left him.

  The itch grows more insistent. The burning pain from earlier now becomes a burning itch. Is the mass getting bigger?

  He stalks into the kitchen and ransacks the top drawer. He can't find what he's looking for, and as each second passes, the itch burns and prods him a little more.

  Scratch me. Scratch me.

  He yanks the drawer from the cupboard with the crash of collid
ing utensils. The crash lingers, ruining the silence until at last the ringing fades. With the drawer in hand, he carries it back to the sofa. It clatters in protest when dropped onto the cushion in front of him, but he doesn't care. The fall has unearthed his quarry---the metal skewers.

  SCRATCH ME!

  "Okay", he says, and scratches at the insistent wound in a coy way, gently, trying to re-establish the proper rhythm.

  As he reaches for a skewer, his eye is drawn to the paper which slid under his palm when he stood. It is the electricity bill, $239 worth of unpaid juice overdue by a month. Five neat fingerprints and the heel of his palm, each a smear of his own blood, beckons to him. The hand print is almost artistic.

  He blinks a few times to snap himself out of the trance. When he does, he finds the skewer in his grip, the sharp end poised over his knee.

  He tries kicking off his boot against the arm of the sofa, but it won't budge. The time it takes to unlace is almost comically slow.

  Scratch me.

  With his foot exposed (boot and sock now random hazards on the carpet), he flicks through the reflexology book.

  Scratch me! Scratch me!

  In his scratching hand, he holds the metal skewer like a pen, nib in the air as if ready to sign an autograph. He continues searching the book.

  SCRATCH ME!

  And he does, raking the skewer across the ruined skin. It is sharp, intense, and immediately relieving. He runs the skewer in loping lines across his forearm. Its tip is ice, similar to the slicing torture of having a tattoo done. Pleasure in pain. When it passes across the wound, more jolts zap through his body. His neck, head, and back spasm in sympathy. His nerve connectors are having the time of their life.

  He'd show them.

  Found it!

  The chart is toward the back of the book. It doesn't take long for him to find the reflexology spot on the sole of his foot that coincides with his forearm.

  Taking the skewer in a full-handed grip, he hovers over his pale foot for only a few seconds before taking the plunge.