The Feral Peril

by Paul Stafford

  ‘You don’t need to see my face for me to win, you tool,’ snapped the masked assassin. ‘And when I beat you, then you’ll know true pain … like I have.’

  ‘I have the right to know your identity,’ demanded Tony. He turned to Grimsweather, who was busy honing his wickedness on a rusty hunting knife. ‘Don’t I, sir?’

  ‘Huh?’ replied Grimsweather, the glint of death in his red eyes.

  ‘Don’t I have the right to know the other player’s identity?’ repeated TBJ.

  Grimsweather didn’t care a hoot for the rules – he was curious to know the identity of the mystery player too. ‘Yes, I believe under rule 12, subsection 145, it’s imperative you reveal your identity – so reveal pronto or I’ll have you broken on the rack and fed to the school bush pigs.’

  Rule 12, subsection 145 actually pertained to the seven acceptable ways of frying a baby at a school barbeque. It had absolutely nothing to do with handball. The masked man didn’t care now; the secret identity bit had served its purpose. It was time for the unveiling.

  ‘Okay,’ he replied, slowly lifting the wide-brimmed hat to reveal a highly polished, ivory-white cranium. Up in the commentary booth Sirius Skull gaped, flabbergasted, totally lost for words. The chewed cigar stub fell from his wide-open mouth. He gawped like he’d seen a nude ghost.

  ‘Strike me fat!’ he shouted.

  ‘Criminy,’ whispered Bill Lickpenny.

  ‘Selina!’ gasped Tony Bones-Jones. ‘What the … how the…’

  ‘Surprised?’ sneered Selina. ‘Not as surprised as you’re going to be.’

  ‘You’re going down!’ snarled TBJ, recovering from the shock. ‘You’re going to be sorry you messed with the big boys…’

  ‘Enough talk,’ hissed Selina. ‘Let’s play!’

  ‘A brother versus sister grudge match,’ murmured Skull. ‘Dead serious.’

  ‘The grand final of the century,’ added Lickpenny, nodding furiously.

  Skull howled with glee. ‘Game on!’

  How did this inexplicable situation ever come to pass? If you give me a second to catch my breath, I’ll explain it to you.

  Everyone knew Selina Bones-Jones was no great handball player. Or did they? Certainly the old Selina was no talent on the court, but things had changed since then. She’d had her heart broken, her boyhound humiliated and run out of town like a junkyard mutt, her love-life trashed, her dog gone.

  Both victims swore a pact to revenge themselves on the one who’d caused them such heartache, and while it’s true to say Selina was no great shakes on the handball court, Barnaby Hangdog certainly was. What he lacked in finesse he more than made up for in pure, savage hate for Tony.

  Ah, hate. Where would these dodgy stories be without that noble emotion? I’d still be working the checkout, packing groceries at Horror Discount Supermart, that’s for certain.

  Barnaby was a class player. Last year he’d very nearly beaten the Bonester. The only thing Barnaby required to make his game plan watertight was an intimate knowledge of Tony’s signature shots and how to avert their disastrous effects. Last year he’d lacked that knowledge and it had cost him the championship, and his dignity. But this information was old news to Selina. She knew all Tony’s covert plays. After all, didn’t Tony devise, practise and perfect his most devilish shots right there in the Bones-Jones backyard, tirelessly playing against a brick wall?

  Yep.

  And didn’t secretive Selina rig up her camera-phone and film all those tricky new plays?

  Yo.

  And didn’t Selina send the footage to Barnaby so he could study and deconstruct all those fully gnarly, savage killer shots?

  Yah.

  They devised a savage plan to take their enemy down. Barnaby trained Selina in the finer arts of handball, got her match-fit (like in the Rocky movies) and intensively reinforced the rules, regs and rancid realities of playing in the Horror High championship. He taught her well … soon she was deadly.

  Barnaby Hangdog couldn’t do the deed himself. He was now enrolled in Death Valley High, living in a scungy doghouse 12 kilometres away from Horror. Selina, on the flimsy pretext of studying in the Horror City Library, caught the bus across to Death Valley every afternoon to practise, practise, practise. Her parents, figuring she’d learnt her lesson, didn’t suspect her motives or bother checking her story.

  So, unbeknownst to parents, brother, waste management officials and relevant local authorities, Selina practised and finetuned her handball skills on the public courts in Death Valley Park under the watchful and devoted eye of man’s best friend. They played, they practised, they perfected … but would they prevail?

  Remember the handball comp? Remember the ball-call? Remember the match-point scramble between Selina and Tony Bones-Jones? Remember how everyone said you’d never amount to anything?

  Well, at least your memory still works.

  The last point in that momentous match was the longest point played in the history of Horror High handball championships. It seemed it would never end. Shot for shot, slam for slam, the whole school watched, enthralled as the two sinister siblings vied for the title.

  ‘I’ll destroy you!’ snapped Tony, panting for breath.

  ‘You’re a dead man!’ wheezed Selina.

  ‘Ah,’ sighed Sirius Skull up in the smoky booth, all happy-families. ‘Sibling love.’

  ‘Yes, it looked like curtains for certain when Selina slipped on some loose gravel at the back of the court,’ said Bill, ‘and TBJ raced in close for a low line shot. But Selina regained her footing, dived forward and just tapped the ball back with the tip of her fingerbone.’

  ‘No!’ said Skull.

  ‘Then it looked like the Bonester would crumble when one of Selina’s shots knocked his arm off at the elbow,’ continued Bill. ‘He was winged, but it was his right arm and Tony’s a lefty, so he was able to play on, although in considerable pain.’

  ‘Nein!’ added Skull.

  ‘Then it looked like they’d both lose when Grimsweather threatened to have them ground into blood and bone fertiliser and sprinkled on the gardens if somebody didn’t damn well win match point and fast,’ said Bill. ‘But he lost interest when Geoff Dandyline accidentally trod on his big toe. Grimsweather grabbed a battleaxe from a nearby suit of armour and raced after Dandyline, swinging.’

  ‘Nyet!’ piped Skull.

  Selina and Tony were oblivious to the chaos unfolding around them. They were the only two people on Earth, locked in a death and death struggle … and it was about to be settled for good.

  Tony was out of dirty tricks, but Selina had a filthy one left. She began with a bodyline attack, hitting him shot after stinging shot, goading him into angry retaliation until he finally lost it. Really lost it. He angrily slammed the ball back at her, aiming to bounce it straight off her bonce and knock that stupid grinning death’s-head skull to dust.

  Mercy!

  Selina called it ‘the Headless Horseman’. It was the last trick shot she’d invented and perfected. As Tony attempted to thump the ball against her skull, she cracked her cranium right off like a dried flower head, lifting it clear off her body. The ball – meant to collide with her shiny dome – shot through the gap, through the air, out of the court. Out. The ball went out – as in, the opposite of in.

  Selina had won.

  Pandemonium! Bedlam! Mayhem!

  Loud? Things went supersonic!

  Everyone was shouting, shrieking, screaming, hollering. The teachers had lost their bets and now they howled, wept, roared, tore their betting slips, tore out their hair, rang their therapists, rang their hairdressers.

  This kicked chuds. This was the end.

  Selina Bones-Jones had won the Horror High Handball Championship. Barnaby Hangdog, disguised as a giant flea and watching the match intently from the middle of the crowd, now jumped all over Selina, licking her face, yapping, tail wagging.

  Down, boy!

  Let’s keep this train wreck moving along. I
f it slows down, someone might recognise me. After the chaos had died down and the bonedust had settled, the reality slowly began to sink in. Tony had had his fun meddling with the lovebirds, and now the bill had to be paid – but just how expensive would it be?

  The ball-call was the most popular part of the comp – that we know. So when Selina stood up on the podium in front of the cheering, adoring crowd, they anticipated some very juicy entertainment. Everyone knew what Tony had done to her.

  ‘Ball-call!’ chanted the monster crowd. ‘Ball-call!’

  Selina put her hands up for silence. ‘Thank you, thank you. Fellow students, handball fans, monsters of all persuasions, thank you for your support. I’ve thought hard about this, and it’s my solemn duty to inform you that I now invoke my right to impose … a tall-call. That is all.’ Selina leapt off the podium and rushed out of the premises.

  The crowd was struck dumb.

  Paralysis.

  Sirius Skull lost his cigar a second time. ‘Fritter my wig!’ he shouted. ‘A tall-call! Bill, the crowd wasn’t expecting this. The crowd sure doesn’t like this. Only once in Horror High history has anyone defied the crowd’s expectations and imposed a tall-call. Bill, this is gruesome – dead serious.’

  ‘You’re right, Sirius,’ agreed Bill. ‘This is dead serious.’

  The same cheering, adoring crowd was suddenly surly and sneery, hissing their displeasure. Did Selina care? This punishment had been a long time in the planning, and she wasn’t worried about a few monsters getting ugly because she’d robbed them of a free sideshow.

  Let them eat corpses.

  She had revenge to initiate.

  Whenever legendary tales of softness are told, the sorry saga of Tony Bones-Jones will always top the telling. How could he wuss out so monumentally? How could this loser tolerate the shame of being whupped by his sister? How could he sleep at night?

  Don’t ask me – I sleep fine.

  A period of supreme nervousness commenced for the Bonester. He knew things were going to get grisly but was unaware just how grisly. It’s our innermost secrets that make us most vulnerable. Just how much did Selina know of Tony’s secret life?

  Enough. She knew enough. She knew the one big secret that Tony Bones-Jones thought nobody knew, the one secret he’d sworn on his skull to protect.

  When Tony’s radio broadcast of the Selina/Barnaby love poem had attracted widespread acclaim, he’d been the toast of the town and the hero of all brothers in Horror. He’d subdued his sister in one slick manoeuvre, humiliating her and her daggy doggy, busting up their little love-in and making them the butt of every dog/bone joke for years to come. And in doing so, he’d come to the attention of an international secret organisation devoted to the downfall of sisters worldwide.

  The history of H.E.L.L. was shrouded in mystery. We knew the name was an acronym for Heroically Evil Legends League, and that the sect was devoted to wreaking havoc on sisters and possessed bucket-loads of money to achieve its stated aim. But a veil of secrecy lay over the dark details of becoming a member.

  You couldn’t just join. No. H.E.L.L. came to you, and the invitation only arrived when a brother laid big-time dastardly bastardry on his sister and hit the headlines. H.E.L.L.’s membership base was super selective, and a brother had to do a whole heap more than just pay his annual subs and say his sister sucked.

  Nothing this sick was that easy. H.E.L.L. was established back in the 1930s when gangsterism was just starting to flex its muscle. The secret society was the brainchild of Terry ‘The Barber’ Barberello, who at fifteen had already made millions from his wig factory. He’d started small, hacking his sister’s beautiful, long blonde locks off one night while she slept and selling them to a rich bald neighbour. That transaction gave him his break and his great idea.

  He began paying a bounty to brothers all over the country for their sisters’ curls. Soon Terry the Barber was receiving thousands of hair parcels every week, making more dollars than he had hairs on his own head. Brothers all over the city approached him in the street and congratulated him on the misery he was causing sisters all over the nation, and it was then he realised his sinister gift for spreading torment and the dark arts. He decided to formalise it and H.E.L.L. was officially born.

  Unfortunately Terry the Barber did not live long enough to see his organisation become an international terror with its tentacles everywhere. Two short years after establishing the sect, Terry was ambushed by an enraged troop of bald Girl Guides, beaten shirtless and crushed in a garbage compacter.

  But his legacy lived on. The money the wig factory generated was also invested in hair-care products just as hair was getting big and blown out, and the well-coiffured investment now quadrupled every year. With more money than it knew what to do with, H.E.L.L. could afford to employ experts in every field of sister abuse, causing misery, nastery, evilry and rascalry. No expense was spared. Every year newspapers, online zines, television and radio were closely monitored for potential recruits, and every year those recruits were initiated at the big annual meeting.

  The process of becoming a member of H.E.L.L. was pretty much exactly the opposite of being made a saint. A saint was beatified after death if credited with a series of heart-warming miracles. A H.E.L.L. member – whilst living – had to perform a series of bloodcurdlingly evil deeds against his sister or, in lieu of a ‘series’ of deeds, pull off one genuine whopper act of gruesome deep-dyed rottenness.

  Like TBJ’s radical radio broadcast.

  The first Tony Bones-Jones knew of the secret society was the note stuck inside his school locker: See you in H.E.L.L. How it got in the locker was anyone’s guess – TBJ kept it padlocked and wore the only key around his neck.

  Another week, another note: H.E.L.L. hath no fury like a sister scorned – but we’re working on it. Details to follow.

  On Monday of the next week the details arrived in a third note, including a toll-free number and member PIN. Tony read it breathlessly. At first he suspected a trick; he rang the number, quoted the secret PIN they’d allocated him and all was confirmed. Then the excitement hit him in the pit of his stomach.

  This was proper cool. This was sick. Sick? It was better than sick. It was well.

  Finally, in the fourth week, the documentation had arrived in a plain brown envelope. A plain brown envelope that would change the Bonester’s life. A plain brown envelope containing the world’s best-kept secret. A plain brown envelope that had been rudely intercepted, steamed open by Selina, photocopied, resealed and placed back in the postbox.

  And that was how Selina came to know that Tony had been invited to join H.E.L.L., that the organisation’s annual meeting was coming up and that it would be hosted right there in Horror.

  A H.E.L.L. meeting hosted in Horror? Yeah, right. What were the chances of that? Zero. Zip. Zilch. As if. It’s super tedious but the publishers knock on my door at all hours, peddling ridiculous, off-the-hook coincidences like that one, insisting the details are true and that I incorporate them into the story.

  Like hell H.E.L.L. would choose Horror as their venue location. Of all the cities in all the world, why would an organisation with unlimited funds and a reputation for style and panache choose the scabby, whacked-out city of Horror to host its prestigious annual meeting? Not Paris. Not London. Not New York City. H.E.L.L. chose Horror.

  Nobody smart would believe a ridiculous coincidence like that … but you might, so let’s move right along.

  Knowledge is power, and Selina had the knowledge of H.E.L.L.’s exclusive invite for Tony to be initiated at their annual meeting. And now, having beaten him in the handball championship and invoked the right to impose a tall-call, she had the power to destroy him … and them. And she fully intended to use it.

  Callous.

  Selina took Tony Bones-Jones aside and sat him down like a geriatric. She handed him a glass of water and told him to take a deep breath. Then, very calmly and precisely, she informed him of her tall-call.

&
nbsp; Tony blanched. ‘No way!’ he shouted angrily. ‘Never!’

  Selina smiled serenely. ‘You have no choice. For one thing, it’s the law. You lost – you pay. And secondly, if you refuse, I’ll be forced to reveal the details of the punishment. That will completely expose your secret society, and you’ll have broken its cardinal rule. It was your responsibility to protect their secret, and you failed. If H.E.L.L. learns about this breach of trust, you’re toast.’

  Tony was trapped worse than a monkey’s uncle at a gibbon family reunion. What his sister said was true: there was no way out.

  ‘But why?’ he wailed, breaking down. ‘Why? Why do it this way? Why not something that’ll just hurt me? Why must an innocent organisation suffer?’

  ‘Innocent?’ scoffed Selina. ‘Innocent! You’re insane. H.E.L.L. has caused more grief to sisters than any single group in the history of the world. Wake up to yourself, bozo. I’m a sister. And, as such, I’m going to punish them on behalf of the Sisterhood in a way they’ll never recover from.’

  ‘But why this?’ sniffed Tony. ‘Why not just grind me into chalk dust? Kill them. Be decent. Be reasonable.’

  ‘Decent? Reasonable? Don’t make me laugh!’ Selina shook her head gravely. ‘There’s only one way to deal with H.E.L.L., and it’s not by killing them. Even if I killed all the members, there’d be new ones lining up to take their places. I have to destroy them, and the only way is to destroy their reputation. This plan will do it.’

  With that final vow she marched away, leaving Tony set in stone.

  Hardcore.

  According to Horror statisticians, curiosity is the single biggest killer of suburban cats, and that’s no bad thing – I hate cats. In my experience a little curiosity goes a long way, not only in ridding the streets of unwanted cats but also in averting many unsavoury incidents.

  Those bad boys from H.E.L.L. would’ve done well to be a little more curious. Their powerful sense of righteous wrongness meant they didn’t even take the sort of basic security measures that dodgy schools like Horror High have in place as a standard protocol for just entering the classroom – full-body shakedowns, sniffer dogs, CC surveillance, bugging device detectors.