by Aaron Dries
“Oh God,” she cried.
She turned back to the window, praying that what she feared was not true.
It was.
The monster in the window was her reflection. It came back to her in a blinding flash: the man grabbing her by the ankles and pulling her into the kitchen. He had the knife in his hand and drove it into her back. The sound of it puncturing through her flesh had filled her mind and echoed.
It can’t be true, she told herself. If I’ve been stabbed, I should be dead. I’m alive, aren’t I? I’m alive.
Darkness clouded over her—she felt weak and dropped to her knees. And saw the headless body of her daughter. She recognized her distinctive jawbone, the remains of her uniform.
“My baby!”
Reggie felt the blade push in farther, find her soul and tear it to shreds. She caught sight of something large and red in her periphery vision.
It was her son. The walls surrounding him near the bottom of the staircase were streaked in haphazard arcs of blood. His wrists had been cut.
Her mouth was open but no sound came out. Agony filled her, burning hot. Everything was falling away from her. The faster her heart beat, the darker it got.
And then she saw what was left of her husband lying on his side near the couch. His neck had been ripped open. False teeth shoved inside. Jeans around his ankles. Where his sphincter should have been there was a red rose of tender meat. His genitalia was not in the room.
She wanted to scream at him: You did this, you bastard. It was all you. You started this and now look what you have done to your family! She was angry, ashamed. And she regretted so much.
But above all, she felt alone.
As she fell backward through the air she thought of the day they met. How Wes had opened his umbrella to shield her from the rain. He had been so charming.
Reggie joined her family on the floor, lying on her side.
All was still in the Frost residence except for the movement on the television screen. It was highlights from the Grand Prix. Footage of Formula One cars was intercut with Bon Jovi singing to a screaming crowd, followed by shots of three men in colored suits sitting at a bench table, sipping Gatorade. They were smiling.
She looked up at the ceiling light. The moths continued to fly at it, as though within the glass something unobtainable, but forever desired, lurked and teased.
Three
Michael Delaney was born December 23, 1976, with his umbilical cord around his neck. The doctors feared he might have suffered mild hypoxia; a depreciation in his heart caused by a lack of oxygen to the brain. Because of this he was born by caesarean. He had been a fighter from the beginning.
Two
It was 5:37 am.
The morning was blue. Birds sung with the crickets. The trees were still and waited for the heat. That would come later. It always did.
Michael opened his eyes.
While unconscious, the police had arrived at the Frost residence. One officer had thrown up when he saw the carnage in the living room. Detectives struggled to put the pieces together and wondered if they ever would. The police were scouting the surrounding bushlands with sniffer dogs. They had Michael’s scent. A barricade at the top of the driveway held back coffee-toting reporters. In town the word was spreading, the nine o’clock church service was full of those praying for the lost, people drew together in small, mournful groups. At Michael’s home his parents wept with a counselor, who kindly prepared them for the news that their son might be dead. Every time the phone rang their hearts seized up. An officer unplugged it from the wall.
Pain had Michael pinned to the ground. The world swam into focus. Three feet from him there were shoes. Beyond were two gargantuan legs in blood-streaked jeans, an exposed torso and the bloated stomach. A pulled up shirt revealed twin nipples, hardened and speckled with dew. Above the neck there was what looked like a busted pomegranate with a large rock growing up out of it.
Jack.
The body crawled with insects. Slugs crept over his skin, tiny beetles taking shelter under his fingernails. Ants searched his skin for sugars, swam in his oils. In the middle of his torn-up hand a spider had spun its morning web. A murder of crows squawked above his head. Their black beaks were shiny from the gore as they dove into the mess.
Michael pushed himself upright.
As he stood a car passed above unseen. He spun towards the sound, tried to scream. He had no voice.
Murderer.
He looked at the sky. There were no clouds. Blood ran down his arms. A single black fly buzzed around him. The Beast tried to swoop into his head. Michael squeezed his eyes shut, pressed his hands hard against his ears. He ground his teeth together.
Murderer, it said.
“No.”
And then he heard it—soft at first but gaining power.
The ocean.
Michael looked down at his feet. His head thumped in sync with his heartbeat, bursting explosions of rhythmic pain.
His feet were no longer on the rocky, blood-splattered ground. They were buried in a bed of sand. He had no shoes on; he wiggled his toes in the sparkling, gold grains. It felt so soft. A moment passed. The oncoming tide, cold and beautiful, washed over his shins. It did not retract.
The Beast was nowhere to be seen.
He looked up. Michael did not remember wading farther out into the water, but the ocean was now up to his waist. He still wore his bloodied, torn clothes. Somewhere in front of him near the breakers there was the turbulent swell of a new wave. He smiled. The sound of the beach swallowed everything else. The wind blew against his lips. Michael could taste salt.
The wave drew closer, a rolling blessing rushed towards him against a blue backdrop. He was no longer just smiling, he was laughing.
Water exploded around him and all sound disappeared. He was safe. There was only sweet nothingness and the frigid ocean cleaning his wounds.
One
The town was never the same again. The funerals were conducted two at a time, and once the dead were buried in either Railway Street or Bowen Road cemeteries, a candlelit vigil was held on the town’s Catholic School grounds. The flames illuminated thousands of faces. Among them were the families of the victims, the media and those who came out of curiosity and respect. Articles and books were written about the massacre and each speculated about how the dominoes had fallen. People wondered where the evil began.
Michael did not accept a single interview, despite handsome offers from both print and television tabloids. He moved with his parents to Evans Head in northern New South Wales, a beachside town of similar proportions and prejudices as James Bridge. In their house, a letter of sympathy from the newly elected prime minister, John Howard, and his wife, Janette, was tucked away in a filing cabinet somewhere.
A year after the James Bridge massacre, 28-year-old Martin Bryant murdered 35 people and injured a further 21 at the historical Port Arthur colony site in Tasmania. The accumulation of both massacres prompted Howard to adopt gun law proposals initially developed from the 1988 National Report on Violence, and urged the states to accept said proposals under a National Firearms Agreement, necessary because the Australian Constitution did not allow the government to enact gun laws.
Although there was never another James Bridge, or Port Arthur, people still died, in various creative and violent ways. In 2000, middle-aged housewife Katherine Knight murdered her husband 68 miles from James Bridge. She stabbed him 37 times in his sleep, then skinned and hung his remains on a meat hook in the architrave of a door to the lounge room. She decapitated him and cooked parts of his body, with the intention of her making her children consume the remains.
The Australian Institute of Criminology released a study stating that 74 homicides in New South Wales alone, over a twenty-year period, were directly linked to gay hate crimes. Some of the weapons of choice included saws, spades, claw hammers, a car-wheel brace, fire extinguishers and crossbows and arrows. But most were simply beaten to death.
> James Bridge became a footnote in Australian history and the town had no choice but to move on. Shops opened and closed, just like the foundation opened in Diana and Julia’s memory. Couples married and people separated. At one of the football ovals a bench was erected to commemorate the Frost family. It now sits forgotten, covered in graffiti.
On Combi-Chance-Road, a white crucifix can still be found stabbed into the earth beside the footpath. Donna Marten replaced the flowers whenever she was in town. Like many others, she has relocated, but still works at the hospital. Around the crux of the crucifix she places unread notes, birthday and Christmas cards in ziplock bags. There is also a single ballerina slipper.
Zero
Michael came to a road at the top of the hill.
Exhausted, he looked to the left. There were no cars. Nothing on the right either, just an endless stretch of road surrounded by open fields and flowers. On the horizon was James Bridge. Helicopters swarmed above the town, their distant thudding lost to his ears.
All was still.
Overhead a crow flew.
Time ticked by. He wouldn’t be found for another 37 minutes.
Michael Delaney felt a shadow on his face. He watched the crow swoop down. It lit upon a metal rectangle, silhouetted against the sun. The bird spread its wings, claws scratching at the dented sign. Michael read the words printed on its surface.
BUS STOPS HERE
About the Author
Former pizza boy, retail clerk, kitchen hand, aged care worker, video director and copywriter, Aaron Dries was born and raised in New South Wales, Australia. When asked why he writes horror, his standard reply is that when it comes to scaring people, writing pays slightly better than jumping out from behind doors. His second novel, The Fallen Boys, is just as—if not more—twisted than his debut. He is currently hard at work on a third book, a collection of short stories and numerous paintings. Feel free to drop him a line at www.aarondries.com. He won’t bite. Much.
Look for these titles by Aaron Dries
Coming Soon:
The Fallen Boys
The road to forgiveness is covered in blood.
The Fallen Boys
© 2012 Aaron Dries
Marshall Deakins has tried to come to terms with the tragic suicide of his young son. But it still tortures him. His search for answers will lead him down a twisted path paved with secrets and grotesque lies. Instead of peace he finds madness, held captive as part of a deranged plan filled with suffering…and blood. As the nature of his captors’ insanity is revealed, Marshall will need to confront the truth about his son and his own past if he hopes to have a future.
Enjoy the following excerpt for The Fallen Boys:
The house was a moonlit carving in the dark. There were no chirping crickets, no birdsong–just winter silence. The sigh of trees. Stacy Norman slept inside, unaware of her role in The Forgiveness. She'd been chosen because she appeared innocent, but she would suffer because she'd committed the crime of kindness.
Her murderer had appeared at her doorstep two months earlier, asking if a particular family lived there. Stacy had smiled at him and told the tall, deep-voiced man no. “Not much help to you, am I? Good luck, though,” she said, and closed the door, catching a glimpse of his smile.
This was the first of three visits he would pay to her house. The second was to scout for hiding places, surveying turns and locating the stairs, accumulating all the information he would need to make the third visit a problem-free affair.
A breath of air through the house, coming from an open window somewhere– it had nothing to do with their entry. Stacy's murderers had used the key under the doormat, which they had discovered on visit number two. Stacy would suffer because she was kind, but she would die because she was trusting.
The tinkle of ladles, suspended from the kitchen range.
It was a small, rented house on the outskirts of Preston–redbrick exterior and shingled roof that trembled when the winds blew hard. It was a lengthy commute to work at the architecture firm in Seattle, but Stacy knew it was worth it. There in Preston she had privacy and silence; that was enough for her.
She used to be afraid of living alone but not any more. The solitary life grew more inviting with each passing year. Her loneliness wore thin and soon, her rented redbrick house became a home she was proud of. She didn't own it– but that was okay. Renting taught her the value of patience, of working towards what you want. One day she would live in a house that she herself had designed and paid for. It, too, would be on the fringe of a city surrounded by trees. And silence. Just the way she liked it.
Clocks ticked in the living room. Photographs of Stacy's family from Maine lined the walls, faces trapped under glass. A dog-eared copy of Even Cowgirls Get the Blues was bent over the arm of a chair. She was fifty pages from finishing.
Her diary sat on the desk in the study, an eagle feather marking her place. Her father had slipped it into her suitcase the day she had left home to study in Seattle. That had been six years ago.
James stayed over last night, read one entry. At first I didn't want him to, but I gave in. Not to him, but to my damn hunger. I know that sounds stupid. Hunger. But I don't know any other word for it. I'm not making excuses– it was nice. He was rougher than I like but what the hell, right? He made me coffee in the morning. I think I'm falling hard. I don't know if I want that.
Stacy Norman, the pretty architect who walked the homes of others in her mind, who no longer feared the dark. Stacy who knew that time was short but life was long– that it was okay to be in love, but dangerous to fall. Stacy Norman slept with the knowledge that the world would be the same tomorrow. Hard and lonely. She could live with that.
The two men were under her bed. They knew what time Stacy returned from work, what time to hide.
Once her breathing had grown labored, they crawled out from under their hiding spot, Stacy's gentle snores the soundtrack to their achievement. Their hearts were beating fast, excited. A little frightened. Stacy was their first.
Not a fingerprint was left behind; there were no stray hairs curled up in the carpet fibers to be found. Not a trace. Just their heavy imprints on the carpet, disappearing in slow motion. They were careful. The musk of sweat-on-dried-sweat radiated from them. They both needed to piss.
Their breathing in the dark.
The man who had knocked on Stacy's door and asked about the family was tall and thin, but full of wiry strength. His comrade was short and solid, a little overweight. Fitting under the bed had been a struggle. The tall man straightened up, looking enormous below the room's low ceiling, stepped forward and flinched when his kneecap popped. The sound shattered the silence. Whatever control they thought they had, disappeared.
Stacy opened her eyes, bolted upright, the mattress creaking under her weight. She wasn't afraid. The old house groaned at night and the trees outside often played music against the gutters. When she'd first moved in, such sounds would send her room to room, armed with frying pan and cell phone, searching for intruders who were not there. True, Maine had its fair share of trees, gutters, old redbrick houses –and intruders too– but this was the city. Her parents had cautioned her about home invasions and suburban drug crime in their thick, New England drawls. So when she heard those sounds in the night she often heard their voices too.
Stace, you got to keep the house bolted tight. Tight as a robin's asshole.
“Jesus, Dad!” They had laughed.
Yessum, always ask who's knocking before you go and open up that door.
“Okay, Mom.”
Maybe we should get you a gun for Christmas.
“Ha, yeah right. There's a spirited idea. No thanks, I think I'll settle for the usual Sears socks and Barnes & Noble gift cards if that's okay with you.”
Once Stacy had learned the noises of her new home, her decision to not get that gun and to leave a spare key under the back door mat was a deliberate one. She refused to live in fear any more.
Stac
y Norman would die because she was proud.
In the dim light she saw two white faces bleed out of the darkness. One smiled and the other looked sad. In the fleeting moment between seeing them and the pinprick stab of the needle in her neck, she recognized the faces for what they were. Greek dramaturgical masks.
Comedy and Tragedy.
House of Sighs
Aaron Dries
A busload of captives on an express ride to terror!
It’s the summer of 1995, and the passengers of the Sunday bus into town have realized that something is very, very wrong with their driver. They don’t know that she began her day planning to kill herself. But they know that she’s threatening to kill them. They began the ride as her passengers, but now they’re her captives. She’s already shown she won’t hesitate to use that gun in her hand, and no one wants to be the next to die. They have no idea where she’s taking them, who will be left alive when they get there, or what‘s in store for the survivors. With a madwoman at the wheel, the bus has gone far off its route, deep into insanity. And for most of the passengers, the next stop will be their last.
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