by Darcy Coates
Elena’s fingers were still scratching restlessly. “Okay. Okay. Who has a phone? We need to call the police.”
“I do.” Peta flipped over to dig through her bag.
“Great. We’ll call the police, and… and…” Her attention turned towards the water, where Todd and James were surfing.
“You think they’re in danger?” Lari asked.
“Well, fingers don’t just drop off, do they?” Elena snapped. She stood, dusted sand off her shorts, then jogged towards the water’s edge.
Marina followed. She’d heard there were sharks in the area, although that they normally didn’t come into the crescent beach. Once the idea had been suggested, it was impossible to forget.
“Oy!” Elena screamed across the waves. “Todd! James!”
The boys were a long way out, straddling their surfboards and facing the horizon. They didn’t respond to the calls. Elena swore.
“Come back!” Marina, feeling the first real sting of panic, screamed so loudly, her voice cracked. “Todd!”
“They can’t hear us.” Elena was running her fingers through her hair again and shivering, despite the warm night. “Crap, they shouldn’t have gone out so late—and they’re drunk.”
Lari shoved between them, dragging her own surfboard towards the waves. “I’ll get them back.”
“Crap, no, Lari—”
Elena’s objections fell on deaf ears. Lari waded out as far as she could, then leapt onto the board and began paddling. Marina squeezed her hands together, watching her friend set a course towards the waves, as Elena paced beside her.
“It’s probably fine,” Marina said, but her voice sounded faint in her own ears. “Like you said, it was probably an accident or something.”
“Peta’s still on the phone.” Elena folded her arms and shifted up onto her toes to watch Lari’s board, then she turned abruptly. “I’ll go see what they’re saying.”
Marina stayed by the ocean’s edge, her eyes glued on the three figures bobbing in and out of view on the swell. Part of her was starting to wish she’d left the finger on the shore; it had caused much panic, and probably for nothing. She was sure there were a hundred ways someone could lose a finger—it didn’t have to be sharks.
The two boys looked around as Lari neared them, and all three turned their surfboards back towards the beach. Marina began to breathe properly again. It would only take them a minute to reach shore, and then there would be nothing to worry about. She twisted towards the fire pit to call out the good news, but it was vacant. Frowning, she moved cautiously towards it, trying to pick out either Elena or Peta in the dim light. Their bags, their bottles, and the packets of chips sat where they’d been left. Even the severed finger lay near the fire, its nail picking up a glimmer of light from the flames. But her friends were gone. In their place were five small drops of blood quivering in the sand.
Marina dashed into the ocean. She was waist-deep when Todd, the nearest, reached her. “Pull me up!” She grabbed for his arm, begging to be let onto his board. “It’s the beach that’s dangerous, not the water. Pull me up!”
10
Those Who Live in the Woods
Tessa flipped her sleeping bag out of its holder and laid it beside Karin’s. They had only a two-person tent, with barely enough room for their bags. Once Fel arrived, they would be like sardines in a tin. Not that she minded. They’d been through worse on their annual long-weekend camping adventures, including one trip where their tent had been blown away and they’d had to sleep outdoors for two nights before making it back to civilisation.
She poked her head out of the tent to see Karin sitting beside the fire, turning sausages on the skillet. “How’re they doing?”
“Just about there.” Karin was leaning so close to the flame that the flickering light seemed to make her face glow. She had the excited, almost manic smile she always wore whenever they started on their hikes. Even though the car park was only twenty meters behind them, she was glad to be amongst nature again. “Should be done by the time Fel gets here.”
Tessa checked her watch. “She really should have been here by now. Unless her boss made her stay late.”
“That guy’s a jerk.”
“Oh, he totally is.”
Karin opened her mouth say something more, but fell silent as she heard what sounded like squealing tires in the distance. “You don’t think that’s—”
The screeching stopped abruptly, but then, a moment later, she heard what sounded like breaking glass. Karin dropped her fork and rose. They both faced towards the parking lot, which was hidden by the forest and the darkness. The two friends glanced at each other, then Karin said, “I’ll go check it out.”
“Want me to come?”
“Nah.” Karin grabbed the flashlight from where Tessa had left it beside the tent and switched it on. “I’ll be back in a moment. Watch the sausages.”
Tessa poked at the splitting sausage skins as she listened to her friend march through the forest. The torch’s light faded before the sound of her footsteps did. Then Karin started calling, “Fel? Fel! Fe-e-el!”
The night air was cooling rapidly, and Tessa snuggled closer to the fire as she waited. The logs, not quite dry enough for a calm blaze, spat and hissed as sap was cooked out of them. Karin had fallen quiet, which Tessa assumed meant she’d either found Fel or had given up.
The sounds of the woods were magnified in her friends’ absence. Tessa gazed at the trees as the isolation started to bite at her. The trunks, dark and rough, stretched high above their camping ground, the leaves blocking out almost all of the stars. She felt as though she’d been transported to another dimension—one without other humans. She hated the idea.
Karin should be back by now, shouldn’t she? Tessa checked her watch. Nearly fifteen minutes had passed since her friend had left. The parking lot was nowhere near far enough away for the trip to take that long. Tessa pulled the sausages—which were so overdone, they were drying out—off the fire and stood. “Karin?”
She half expected not to get a reply, but after a second, Karin returned her call. “Fel?”
She’s still looking for her, then. Has something happened?
“Fel! Fel! Fe-e-el!”
“Karin?” Tessa yelled, projecting her voice as far as she could. “What’s happening?”
“Fel! Fel!”
Tessa crossed her arms over her chest and waited. Karin’s voice didn’t resume, and she didn’t reappear through the trees. Minutes ticked by. Tessa’s anxiety rose with each passing second, until she couldn’t stand it any longer. She grabbed the spare torch from her bag and moved into the trees.
Karin was completely silent now, even when Tessa called to her. Tessa pushed through the thick bushes until she reached the open parking lot. Two cars sat neatly at the tree’s edge: Karin’s and her own. A third car, small and pink, sat in the centre of the clearing. Fel’s.
Skid marks ran from behind its wheels. Tessa rounded the vehicle to look in the front seat, and inhaled sharply. The windshield had been smashed. The safety glass hung together in fractured clumps, but a hole pierced it. Tessa cautiously stepped closer and angled her torch inside. Something dark stained the driver’s seat.
“Fel!” Karin called from the trees behind her, and Tessa jumped away from the car.
She swung around, her heart hammering, and pointed her shaking torch towards the trees. She thought she saw a figure about thirty paces away; the pale skin was barely visible in the darkness. She began stumbling towards it. “Karin?”
Karin said something in reply, but Tessa was too far away to hear. She began moving faster, staggering through the brush and tripping over fallen trees, to reach the figure. Twenty paces away, she pulled up abruptly.
The person in the trees wasn’t Karin—or Fel. It was far too tall and lean to be either of her companions.
She opened her mouth but couldn’t find any words. Then the figure, without moving a muscle, said, “What is this?”
/> It was the most surreal experience of Tessa’s life. The voice was Karin’s, but the body wasn’t. Tessa took a step backwards, and the figure said, this time in Fel’s voice, “Who are you? What are you doing?”
She took another step backwards and bumped into something hard and cold. Tessa turned too quickly and lost her balance. She landed amongst the bracken in the wood’s floor. Raising her head, she saw another of the shapes looming over her. It was taller than a human, and its skin was so pale, it almost glowed in the thin patches of moonlight that reached through the trees. Then Tessa caught sight of its face, and a scream boiled up inside her.
It had no eyes or nose. The skin stretched smoothly from its tangled hair until it reached the lips, thin and blue, that framed the mouth. Its teeth were blackened and pointed, sharp enough to tear cleanly through flesh.
The figure’s lips opened. “What is this?” it said, imitating Karin’s voice perfectly, as more of its companions melted out of the shadows to surround Tessa. “What is this?”
11
Music Box
Jackdaw, Jackdaw, how pretty you sing.
We’ll visit the duke, we’ll visit the king.
Colette opened her eyes. Her window’s curtains fluttered in the cool night air, allowing thin slices of moonlight to slink across her bed. It had been a long time since she’d last dreamed of the nursery rhyme she’d been forbidden to sing. It must be at least ten years now since I last heard it.
Colette sat up in bed and ran her fingers through her hair to untangle it. She couldn’t remember what she’d been dreaming about, but the song had been clear enough.
“Jackdaw, Jackdaw, how pretty you sing,” she whispered to herself. She couldn’t remember beyond the first two lines, though she’d once had the entire song memorised.
In the decade since she’d last heard it, Colette had almost forgotten the drama surrounding the tune. The dream had brought it all back, though the events were hazy and out of order. She dug her thumbs into the corners of her eyes as she struggled to remember.
She found the little music box on the front porch while letting her cat out before school. It was a small round container, the type that opened up when its key was twisted and had a tiny ballerina twirling on one leg. Colette wanted to know who had left it so she could thank them. Her mother guessed it was a friend or a neighbour.
Colette played with the box for a solid hour that afternoon, reciting the tinkling song. Jackdaw, Jackdaw, how pretty you sing. We’ll visit the duke, we’ll visit the king. At bedtime, she’d put it into her toy chest, carefully nestled amongst the stuffed bears and the worn building blocks.
She woke in the early hours of the morning to find the box on her dressing table, the little ballerina twirling as the eerie song echoed through the room. Her first thought was that her mother had put it there as a surprise. She turned it off, stuffed it inside her wardrobe, and went back to bed.
The following morning, a large black bird had hopped after her while she walked to school. Throughout the day, any time she looked out the classroom windows, she caught sight of the creature perched in a nearby tree.
Collette didn’t touch the music box that evening but left it in the bottom of her wardrobe. When it woke her, she was irritable enough to carry it to her mother’s room. “Stop turning it on,” she demanded, slamming the box onto the small bedside table as her mother sat up groggily. “I want to sleep!”
The following day, three black birds cawed to her as she walked through the park. Another five hovered in the carpark when she left school.
For a third night running, the mournful tune woke her shortly after two in the morning. The box stood open on her dresser, the ballerina spinning tirelessly. When Colette took it to her mother, demanding an explanation, her mother retorted with questions of her own. Had Colette taken it out of the garbage? How had she known it had been thrown away? It didn’t take long for the line of questioning to change. Had Colette been talking to strangers? Did she let anyone into the house? The night ended with Colette’s mother taking the music box to the pond two streets down from their house and throwing it in.
That morning, when Colette opened the door to go to school, she found her front lawn filled with black birds. They fluttered and cawed as they saw her. Sitting on the front porch was the music box. It popped open as she looked at it, and the tinny tune surrounded her. Jackdaw, Jackdaw, how pretty you sing. We’ll visit the duke, we’ll visit the king.
She wasn’t allowed to go to school that day. Instead, she and her mother stayed indoors and watched the music box burn in the fireplace. That had been the last of the song and the last of the black birds. Colette had been forbidden from repeating the tune, and gradually, the memories had faded.
Colette sat with her knees pulled up in front of her chest, just like she had that day. The memory had been so lost that it felt like digging a time capsule out of her mind. True to her promise, she had not sung the song since the music box had been burnt.
Three brief, twanging notes cut through the silent night. Colette drew a breath and turned towards the window. A small twirling silhouette was visible behind the gauzy curtains.
Slowly, cautiously, she moved towards it and pulled the fabric aside. The music box waited on her windowsill, charred and partially melted. The ballerina’s sweet face had been distorted so that she looked as though she were screaming. Her raised leg was bent at an odd angle, but she continued to move in small, sharp jerks as the song twanged out of the long-dormant player.
Colette raised her eyes towards the trees outside her window. Hundreds of beady eyes stared back. One of the birds shuffled, and its movement spurred the others into motion until the swarm of black creatures were flapping, cawing, and cackling at her.
She took a step back from the window. The birds swooped. They moved as one mass, pouring through the open window, enveloping her, and muffling her scream.
In an instant, the room was emptied. All that was left behind was a scattering of black feathers and the charred music box that continued to play its broken song.
Jackdaw, Jackdaw, how pretty you sing.
We’ll visit the duke, we’ll visit the king.
Jackdaw, Jackdaw, sing over my bed,
But break my sleep, and I’ll wake up dead.
12
Ghost Town
“Here she is.” Gary slowed the van to a crawl as it entered the cluster of buildings that comprised Preyor Town. He leaned forward, straining his bulk against the seatbelt, to get a better look at the stone and wood houses. “So this is what a ghost town looks like.”
Beth was huddled deep into her seat, as though pulling back could physically move her away from the deserted buildings. She glared at the dashboard resolutely. “Great. You’ve seen it. Let’s move on.”
“Not just yet,” Gary said in the most placating tone he could manage.
Beth shot him a glare.
“We’ve taken a two-hour detour to get here. We may as well enjoy it.”
“Two hours?” Beth gasped. “I only agreed because you said it was virtually on our path!”
“Ehhh.” Gary pulled up in the middle of the town and parked the car. “Yes, well, either way, it would be a damn shame not to have a poke around.”
“I swear.” Beth’s voice was dangerously low. “If this makes us late for Sarah’s christening…”
“Course it won’t, love.” Gary risked giving his wife’s cheek a peck then opened the door and got out. The streets, filled with dust and long-dead weeds, stretched away to either side. He rubbed his hands together and moved towards one of the closer buildings, which he guessed must have been either a large house or a small hotel.
The door opened without protest. Inside was cool and dark, and the air smelt faintly mildewy. Gary paused in the foyer to appreciate the wooden ceiling and stained plaster on the walls. Like many pioneering towns, Preyor had been built in a rush, and it showed. The rough-hewn wood was mostly unpainted, and the carpet was shab
by.
Gary moved deeper into the building, glancing through doorways and trying to guess the rooms’ purposes. Much of the furniture had been taken, but larger fixtures such as the desks and shelves had been left behind. It wasn’t until he pushed into a particularly large room and saw a saloon’s bar against one wall that he realised it must have been the town’s hotel. Gary approached the bar and wiped a finger through the thick reddish dust blanketing it, then he turned quickly as a chuckle from somewhere deeper in the building disturbed him. It had sounded like a child, but the noise had been so faint that Gary wasn’t entirely sure he’d even heard it.
Probably another holidaying family stopping off. Gary returned to the foyer. A staircase rose to his right, the fabric on the steps well-worn and faded. Gary cast a final glance towards the front doors, where he knew his irritable wife would be waiting with the car, then hurried up the stairs. She won’t mind another minute or two.
Halfway to the second floor, Gary froze. He’d heard it again: children’s voices, too faint to make out their words. Only this time, they’d come from the upstairs rooms…
The stairs opened onto a long, narrow hallway. To the left, a window overlooked the main street. He could see Beth, forced out of the car by the heat, leaning on their van’s hood. She still had her arms crossed, and he could picture her chewing at her lip like she did every time things didn’t go her way.
He turned back to the hallway and tried the first door. It opened into a classic hotel room and, to his surprise, much of the furniture was still intact. The bed, the mattress, and even the bedside table were still in place. If someone wanted to come in here and haul away the furniture, they could make a small fortune pawning it at a second-hand store.