‘Hey, Amirul, why do you think it’s called Slaughterhouse Road?’ Zac says.
‘My mum says that there used to be a slaughterhouse up the end of the road,’ I say. ‘But it closed down fifty years ago.’
‘Then why is it still named that?’ Zac says. ‘Shouldn’t they change the name?’
Zac’s not the brightest kid in Year Six, but he has a point. ‘I feel sorry for the person who lives up there,’ I say.
‘Yeah . . .’ Zac says.
We both stare at the house on the hill. A shiver runs down my back.
‘Come on, let’s go,’ I say.
We ride back home without saying a word.
Everybody at Mayfield Primary has a theory about the man who lives on Slaughterhouse Road. It’s a popular subject at lunchtimes.
‘I reckon he’s a retired axe-murderer,’ Belle says, munching on her sandwich.
Tayla scoffs. ‘Nobody retires from axe murdering,’ she says.
‘I think Tayla’s right. My nan retired from being a librarian and she’s so bored,’ Zac says. ‘She told me that she’d kill for a little excitement in our town.’
Belle gulps. ‘I hope your nan doesn’t kill anybody for fun.’
‘Shut your mouths, all of you,’ Rohan says, with a grunt. ‘You scaredy cats don’t know anything about the man on Slaughterhouse Road.’
‘Well, if you’re so smart and brave, why don’t you tell us about him?’ Tayla says.
‘He’s a serial killer,’ Rohan says, chomping on an apple and showing us his jagged teeth.
If I had the guts, I’d call him Rohan the Rogue. I reckon it’d be pretty funny but I wouldn’t be alive long enough to hear other people laugh.
‘How is that different from being an axe-murderer?’ I ask.
‘Very different,’ Rohan says, chucking his mangled apple core in the bin. ‘He’s killed many people over the years, but he gets away with it because he mulches the bodies.’
‘How do you know?’ I say.
Rohan marches up to me. ‘He’s got piles of mulch around his house. My mates and I have ridden up to his front gate.’
‘Yeah, right. You couldn’t ride your bike up any hill, you’d be too puffed out,’ I say, my mouth running off before I can stop it.
Rohan’s head is shaped like a capsicum, and his face turns from a yellow to a red one. ‘Alright, Amirul, I dare you to knock on his door.’
It sounds more like a command than a dare. Rohan doesn’t like to give people options. ‘After school today, we’ll ride to Slaughterhouse Road,’ he growls. ‘If you don’t turn up, I’ll bring the slaughter straight to your own house.’
Rohan struts off like some Boxer dog who’s won first prize at a show. He may be a slacker in the classroom, but he keeps his promises when it comes to delivering pain.
The bell rings for the end of school. Rohan and his other mates are waiting for me and Zac.
‘You think I was joking?’ Rohan says.
‘Can I do this dare on the weekend?’ I say. ‘My mum closes the medical centre at 4pm today.’
Rohan checks his watch. ‘You can make it back in time if you survive,’ Rohan says.
We all ride to Slaughterhouse Road – and when I say we, I mean most of our Year Six class.
Tayla rides next to me. ‘If the man comes at you with an axe, he’ll aim for your head,’ she says. ‘Use your arm to protect yourself.’
‘Then my arm will get chopped off,’ I say.
Tayla shrugs. ‘Your mum’s a doctor, she can fix you up.’
Our bikes skid to a stop in front of the Slaughterhouse Road street sign, creating a dirt tornado.
‘Off you go,’ Rohan says.
‘Hang on, nobody’s coming with me?’ I ask. This might be the easiest dare ever. I can just pretend to –
‘Take a photo of you with the serial killer,’ Rohan says. ‘We need proof.’
‘Proof that Amirul got hacked to pieces,’ Tayla mutters.
‘I don’t have a phone,’ I say. I bet it’s the first time in history where not having a mobile phone is a lifesaver.
Rohan sighs. ‘Can someone lend their phone to Amirul?’
Zac digs in his bag for his phone. He hands it over to me. ‘Go on, Amirul. If you don’t make it, at least I’ll be able to get a new mobile.’
‘If I live, I may look for a new best friend.’ I put Zac’s phone in my pocket. ‘Thanks anyway.’
I pedal as hard as I can up the hill. My thighs are on fire by the time I reach the man’s cottage. It’s like something out of Hansel and Gretel – a house made out of bricks that look like Oreos. I leave my bike on the path, facing downhill for a quick getaway. I look at the red fence. It only comes up to my hips, so I’m tempted to jump over it, just so I don’t have to touch anything. But I don’t want to tumble into his rose bush. In fact, there are roses of all kinds along the inside of the fence. Maybe he needed to take up gardening because he’s got a ton of mulch . . . that may or may not be made of bodies.
Okay, Amirul. Think positive. I open the gate and it creaks so loudly that the crows nearby start squawking at me. Great. Maybe they can fly over to the police if something goes wrong.
I walk up the path to the front door. I stare at all the gnomes guarding the house. I knock on the door, hoping that the house’s owner is napping or not axe-murdering someone.
The door opens and it’s a man holding a hoe. Half of me is relieved. The other half is freaking out. It doesn’t matter if it’s an axe or hoe. They still hurt.
‘Yes?’ He aims the hoe at my head. I remember what Tayla said and I use my arm to protect my face, stumbling backwards. I fall over a gnome, which knocks into another gnome and another, and just like dominos, they all fall over.
The man drops his hoe and limps towards me. His face shrivels like a dried up rose. It looks like I’m the axe-murderer here. I stare at the crime scene that I’ve created before I turn to the man. ‘Um, do you mind if I take a photo?’
Later that afternoon, I’m in Mum’s office. There are still bits of gnome stuck to my shorts. She’s in the middle of one of her lectures. Sometimes her lectures work like medicine on older townsfolk, but this one is making me ill.
‘How could you harass Mr Ferris and vandalise his house?’
‘Someone dared me to knock on his door, and it was all an accident,’ I say, scrambling to defend myself.
‘I don’t care if the Pope told you to do it,’ Mum says. It’s one of the many sayings she’s picked up from her patients. We’ve been living in Mayfield for two years and this one still doesn’t make any sense to me.
Mr Ferris made me call my mum and she had to drive over to pick me up. When we passed the street sign, nobody was waiting for me. I can imagine Rohan spreading rumours about me being turned into mulch and Zac getting a new phone. At least it’s a good day for them.
The worst part about the whole thing is that Mum is making me go back to Mr Ferris’s house. ‘Do I really have to work to pay off his broken gnomes?’ I say, looking back up at Mum. ‘Can’t I just use my pocket money to buy him some new ones?’
Mum shakes her head. ‘No, we don’t take the easy way out. You’re lucky Mr Ferris didn’t call the police. Besides, Mr Ferris could do with the help and the company, and a few afternoons of gardening work will keep you out of trouble.’
I sigh. It could actually get me into more trouble if Mr Ferris is an axe-murderer. Maybe I should call the police and tell them that my parents are making me go to the house on Slaughterhouse Road. They would understand.
The next day at school, the Year Six kids surround me. Tayla checks the scrapes on my arm. ‘How did you survive the axe?’ she says.
‘It wasn’t an axe,’ I say. ‘This was from a gnome.’
‘He was throwing gnomes at you?’ Tayla asks.
‘No, I fell on a gnome.’ I give Zac his phone back. ‘At least I found out his name – it’s Mr Ferris.’
‘Mr Ferris?’ Zac says. ‘He sounds
pretty harmless.’
‘Yeah, I was the one who did all the damage,’ I say. ‘That’s why I have to go back to work for him . . .’
‘What kind of stuff will you do?’ Tayla asks.
Rohan walks past me. ‘You’ll be digging holes for the bodies.’ He laughs at his own joke. ‘Congratulations, Amirul, you’ve just become the accomplice of the Slaughterhouse Man.’
‘His name is Mr Ferris,’ I say. ‘He’s just an old guy who likes roses . . .’
‘That’s what you think,’ Rohan says. ‘That’s how he gets his victims: the mailperson, the door salesman . . . or a gullible kid.’
Rohan flashes his crooked teeth at me. He may be as dense as a rump steak but he could be right. Maybe going back to Slaughterhouse Road will be my last mistake.
On Saturday, Dad drives me to up to Mr Ferris’s house. ‘Can you come in with me?’ I plead.
Dad laughs. ‘What? And babysit you? Go on, Amirul.’ He squeezes my shoulder. ‘You need to work hard for Mr Ferris.’
I get out of Dad’s ute and wait until he disappears into a puff of dust. I knock on Mr Ferris’s door but nobody answers.
All I hear instead is the faint sound of a chainsaw going off in the backyard.
I want to run, but I also want to find out if Mr Ferris is actually the Slaughterhouse Man. Should I be a curious cat or scaredy one? The curious cat purrs louder inside me, so I creep around the corner to see Mr Ferris. . . wielding an axe.
Okay, so it’s more of a hatchet, which is half the size of a normal axe. But it’s still part of the axe family and, seriously, size doesn’t matter if it can still kill you. Mr Ferris stares at me. ‘Oh, hello, Amirul.’
He might as well call me Victim number 99. I take a step back.
‘What are you doing?’ I ask.
‘Just some tidying up in the garden,’ Mr Ferris says. ‘Want to help? I have plenty of tools.’
Tools. Weapons. It’s all the same. ‘Sure,’ I say. I’d rather be armed with something than use my arm for protection.
Mr Ferris leads me to the shed where a stack of shiny metal tools hang neatly on the wall. My heart is jumping out of my chest. Rohan was right, you can never underestimate an axe-murderer.
Mr Ferris’s eyes sparkle as he gazes over the tools. ‘Mmmm, yes, that would be a good fit,’ he says, turning around without something shiny in his hands.
I find myself holding up my arm to block Mr Ferris and his . . . pruning shears.
‘Huh?’ I say.
‘You can help me snip some of the thorns from the roses,’ Mr Ferris says.
‘I thought I heard a chainsaw?’ I say.
Mr Ferris chuckles loudly and that answers my question. His laugh sounds like a chainsaw. An old chainsaw that requires someone to pull a chord.
‘I don’t use those dreadful things,’ he says. ‘I love my plants too much.’
I spend the next hour snipping off dead rose heads. It’s not exactly as gruesome as chopping up bodies, but it seems to be like torture to Mr Ferris. He walks over and squeezes each of the stems. ‘I’ll see you next spring, my rosy beauties.’
‘Why do you love roses so much?’ I ask.
Mr Ferris looks up at the sky, letting the sunshine rest on his cheeks. ‘My wife had the green thumbs,’ he says. ‘She said, Why pay for roses when you can grow them yourself?’ The chainsaw laugh start-stops a few times. His sunny face turns a little cloudy. ‘Would you like a drink, Amirul?’
‘Sure.’
I follow him into the kitchen and he opens up a cupboard. The shelves are stacked with containers of long-life milk, boxes of Weet-Bix and packets of digestive biscuits. Dr Mum would freak out if she saw this.
Mr Ferris catches me checking out his shelves. ‘Um, I like to eat certain foods until I get sick of them,’ he says.
‘If I could eat curried rice all day, I would,’ I say with a nervous laugh.
Mr Ferris pours me a mug of water from the tap. ‘Sorry, I don’t have any other drinks,’ he says. ‘I don’t get many visitors.’
‘It’s okay, sir.’
‘Please, just call me Mr Ferris,’ he says.
I finish my water and try to stack it on top of the tower of dirty bowls and plates. ‘Do you want me to wash these for you?’ I ask.
‘Oh no, it’s okay. I can do that later,’ he says.
‘It won’t take too long,’ I say. ‘This can be a bonus. It won’t come off my punishment time.’
‘Okay, that would be nice.’
Mr Ferris limps back outside. I open the cupboard under the sink and find a near-empty bottle of dish-washing detergent and a brush that has more dust than bristles. I think Mr Ferris puts all his effort and time into his garden.
After I wash up, I head back outside to help Mr Ferris. I lose count of all the times he laughs at something random like a bee that dances across his nose or a rose that looks like a sheep’s bum.
When Dad beeps his ute outside, I can’t believe how quickly the two hours have flown by.
‘See you next Saturday,’ I say, waving goodbye to Mr Ferris.
‘Thanks, Amirul.’ Mr Ferris turns around and goes back to his roses.
‘How was it?’ Dad says before I slam the door.
‘It was alright,’ I say.
‘I mean, how was he?’ Dad asks. ‘Nobody in Mayfield knows much about him.’
‘Um . . . he likes to laugh at his own jokes,’ I say.
‘Sounds like we would get along,’ Dad says, turning out of Slaughterhouse Road.
Dad’s not the only one who’s curious about Mr Ferris. When I get back to school on Monday, everyone’s begging me to tell the class about Mr Ferris. Even our teacher is curious.
At lunchtime, Rohan keeps bugging me. ‘How many bodies did you help to bury?’ he asks.
I shoo him away. Rohan’s like one of those pesky flies that hovers around your ear. Just for once, I’d like to squash his wings flat.
‘Did he make you chop up any limbs?’ Rohan says. ‘Or did Mr Ferris threaten you not to tell anyone?’
I get up close to his nostrils. ‘He just got me to snip . . . their fingernails.’
‘Fingernails?!’ Zac yells.
He draws in the other Year Six kids. They all crowd around me.
‘Er, yeah,’ I say to everyone. ‘He likes to trim the victim’s nails before he turns them into mulch.’
‘Really? Tayla says. ‘How can someone be so gross and neat?’
Rohan hasn’t flinched. He just keeps his arms folded as if he expects me to say it’s a joke. But I keep on going.
‘He hides the bones of his victims inside his gnomes,’ I say. ‘And he gives them human eyeballs. That’s why some of them look so real.’
Tayla begins to shiver. ‘You’re joking.’
I look at Rohan and shake my head. ‘He also doesn’t use an axe. He has tons of sharp tools though in his death shed.’
‘Death shed?’ Rohan snorts. ‘Okay, Amirul the comedian, you’ve had your fun. Do you really expect us to believe that?’
‘No,’ I say. ‘But you will once you see the photos.’
On the following Saturday, I ransack our pantry at home. I load up a packet of gingernut biscuits and one of choc-chip cookies into my tote bag.
‘What are you doing?’ Mum says.
‘They’re for Mr Ferris,’ I say. ‘We have a tea break in-between our gardening work.’
Mum fetches some oranges and apples from our basket. ‘These can be for you then,’ she says. ‘You can’t be snacking on those things all the time.’
If only Mum knew about Mr Ferris’s diet of biscuits and Weet-Bix. She’d give him a prescription of three lectures.
Dad drives me to Mr Ferris’s house, where I have a new mission to wipe Rohan’s smirk off his face.
‘Hello, Amirul. Let’s start with feeding the roses,’ Mr Ferris says.
‘What does that mean?’ I say. ‘Don’t they just drink . . . um water?’
‘Not quit
e.’ Mr Ferris takes out a sack of rose food. ‘They need this to help them grow.’
‘Kinda like Weet-Bix for the roses?’ I say.
Mr Ferris does his signature chainsaw laugh. ‘Something like that.’
He shows me how to sprinkle the food around the roses.
‘Can I get some gloves from the dea –, I mean, shed?’ I say.
Mr Ferris smiles. ‘Good idea, safety first.’
‘I can get them myself.’ I walk over to the shed, and take out Zac’s phone, which I’ve borrowed again. I take a few shots of Mr Ferris’s shed, including one of his shiny tools. I twist the phone and try to take angle shots to make the tools look razor sharp. I feel kinda bad, roping Mr Ferris into this axe-murderer thing, but this joke won’t hurt Mr Ferris. The only thing that is going to get hacked is Rohan’s smile when he sees these pics.
‘You alright in here, Amirul?’ Mr Ferris asks.
I jump, banging my head on a hanging pot. ‘Ow! Um . . .’
‘Are you taking photos?’ Mr Ferris says.
‘Er . . . yeah,’ I say, showing him the phone. ‘I wanted to show my friends . . . how cool your roses are.’
Mr Ferris’s face blooms into a rosy smile. ‘Oh my! Why didn’t you say so?’ He leads me outside. ‘Once you feed the roses, we can take some nice photos.’
‘Sure.’ I play along and take shots of all his roses. Then I notice Mr Ferris has his hatchet in his hand.
‘Um, can I take a funny photo of you with the hatchet?’ I ask, hoping that he doesn’t think I’m weird.
Mr Ferris chuckles. ‘Anything for a fan.’
‘Okay, hold the hatchet up high,’ I say. ‘Now grit your teeth, like you’re . . . Jack about to cut down the beanstalk.’
Mr Ferris growls at the screen.
‘Perfect!’ I say, chuckling.
‘Anything else you’d like me to do?’ Mr Ferris says, having a bit of a chainsaw laugh himself.
‘Well, actually . . .’
I spend the next few minutes, getting Mr Ferris to hold his axe like a sword, with one foot on his mulch pile. I even manage to sneak in a scrap of rag poking out of the pile. It’s like icing on the cake.
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