The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2010 (volume 1)

by Paul Haines

  She pulled out her carpet bag, and for the first time since she’d arrived at Green Gables she opened it up. Inside was a batch of tools, some of them not unlike those she was using to create Matthew’s milking machine, only finer in construction.

  Her delicate hand reached in and sorted through them until she felt the one she needed and pulled it out, looking at it for a long moment.

  She hesitated, then unlaced the top of her nightgown, looking down at the barely perceptible panel outlined on the left side of her chest. Her right hand hovered above it, implement in hand, knowing instinctively what she had to do, but unable to take the next step. Then she thought of the pain she saw in Matthew’s eyes when Marilla had decreed she had to be returned to the factory, and she steeled herself, placing the implement along one side of the panel and pressing it in, hearing a tiny whir as three micro-latches started turning. A section of her popped out, and she looked at it for a long moment before carefully hooking the brass nail of her thumb into the tiny crevice and pulling it open.

  I’m a machine.

  The realization struck her like a punch to the stomach as she stood staring at what she had revealed, unable to process anything for some time. Although deep down she had always known, it was still a shock to see tiny brass cogs, wheels, screws, and copper wires so intricately interconnected to a circuit board buried within her chest. It was a wonder to behold, even for the android.

  She realised how primitive the pocket watch was in comparison, and yet she also understood its importance to Matthew so her determination to repair it for him increased tenfold. She closed her eyes and tuned into the sounds her body made.

  Tick, tick, tick, tick . . .

  Her eyes sprung open, and she instinctively moved a bundle of copper wires that were covering the specific mechanism she needed to find. She analyzed the individual components, recognizing that some were similar to those in the pocket watch.

  Tick, tick, tick, tick . . .

  She rustled around in her carpet bag and pulled out a tiny toolbox, opening it to reveal delicate jewellery-grade tools. She selected one and used it to sever the connection between the tiny mechanism and her main circuit board without a second thought.

  The ticking stopped.

  The android’s hand froze. She felt a strong sense of loss, and she couldn’t focus. She had no idea how long it took her to adjust to the change in her body, because she literally lost track of time, but she finally was able to block out the feeling that she had lost something fundamental to her being when she realised how much more she’d lose if she had to leave Green Gables.

  She carefully placed the little mechanism on the table in front of her and used the firelight to study it more closely. At first she had thought she’d wasted her time, but when she put the pocket watch beside it, she was able to compare the components more easily, and she could see they were of similar composition and size; they were just finished off differently.

  Then she spotted it: the part she needed.

  Using the precision that only an android could command, Anne very carefully detached it and transplanted it into the pocket watch within minutes. When the last part was in place, the pocket watch sprang to life.

  Tick, tick, tick, tick . . .

  Anne clapped her hands together in delight, an affectation she’d picked up from Diana. She knew that what she achieved that night was more important than any work she’d ever done on the factory floor—or at least, it felt that way to her.

  She looked at the part of herself she’d transplanted into the pocket watch, studying her handiwork, unable to find it lacking. The new part stood out from the rest of the components because it was free of tarnish and more rose gold in colour than normal brass. It also appeared more refined in composition, and she wondered if Matthew would mind the discrepancy.

  She resealed her access panel and relaced the top of her nightgown before methodically packing her tools back into the carpet bag. She considered whether she should clean the brass and restore the pocket watch back to its original condition, but the cleaning agent she normally rinsed through her cop- per hair was in the bathroom upstairs, and she didn’t want to risk waking the Cuthberts.

  She picked up the pocket watch again to take it back to the kitchen where Matthew had usually kept it, and walked straight into someone.

  “Anne! Give that to me immediately!” Marilla barked, standing in the doorway with a lantern in her hand. “You have been told you are no longer welcome in our house, and that means you are definitely not allowed to touch our things.” She looked at the android pointedly. “Especially valuables you’ve already broken.”

  Anne didn’t trust herself to speak after the trouble her mouth had gotten her into earlier that day, so instead she simply held out her hand.

  Marilla was taken aback by the silent acquiesce. She looked down to see the pocket watch still open on the dainty little hand, and she wondered what other heirlooms the android had played with while she and Matthew had been asleep at night.

  She retrieved the time piece, inspecting it to see if it came to further damage—and her heart nearly stopped.

  The pocket watch was working again!

  She couldn’t tear her eyes away from it; she was so surprised. Then she spotted the gleaming new part at the heart of the clock mechanism, and her breath caught. “Where did you get that?” Marilla asked, looking up at Anne sharply.

  The android raised her hand and placed it on her chest where a human heart would be. “Here,” she said simply, her head tilting to the side.

  She had used a part of herself to repair the watch! Marilla realised what a huge gesture that was. “You didn’t break the watch yesterday by playing with the clock mechanism, did you?” she asked quietly.

  “No.”

  Marilla sighed. “Then why did you say you did when I asked?”

  “You told me I couldn’t go on the airship for Diana’s birthday celebration next month unless I confessed to breaking it,” Anne said, her big green eyes seeking Marilla’s out in entreaty. “So I confessed.”

  “But that’s lying, Anne,” Marilla pointed out.

  “You wouldn’t believe the truth.”

  Marilla sighed again. “So you thought you were giving me the answer I wanted. You were trying to please me.” She looked back down at the repaired pocket watch. “Let us make a deal, Anne: I will forgive you for lying, if you will forgive me for not believing you.”

  “What is this about forgiveness?” Matthew asked, as he, too, walked into the room.

  Marilla ate some humble pie. “You were right,” she admitted, and without saying any more she handed over the pocket watch.

  Matthew brought the timepiece closer to his lantern to study it. That it worked again was no surprise to him. He had a feeling Anne would try to repair it after watching her dedication while building his milking machine. But what he didn’t expect to see was the glint of a new component in the clock mechanism that differed in colour from the rest of the watch. He looked over to Anne in shock when he recognised its construction was far more refined than the rest of the watch’s components.

  Anne’s green eyes twinkled. “I’ll never be on time for school again,” she said, and Matthew realised she’d used a component from her internal clock to bring his father’s beloved pocket watch back to life.

  He knew what a sacrifice that must have been for the android, and his heart reached out to her, knowing that in a way he held a piece of hers in his hand.

  He walked up to her and kissed her on the forehead, much to her and Marilla’s surprise. “You’ll just have to learn how to tell the time like us average folks,” he said as he stepped back, his voice a little gruff with emotion.

  “I’ll teach you, Anne,” Marilla stated. “If you learn from Matthew, you’ll never arrive anywhere on time.”

  * * *

  Anne had always thought that sailing on an airship would give her a sense of freedom unlike any other experience in the world.


  She was wrong.

  Yes, it was exhilarating. Yes, she felt on top of the world—quite literally—as she leaned over the bow of the ship, the wind lifting her copper hair as the vessel passed through another cloudbank. But she soon realised that she was just a spectator watching the world pass her by. There was some peace to be discovered in that, but she had no control over that journey; she just had to enjoy the ride.

  She knew now that her first true taste of freedom had been when the Station Master had released her from the cargo trunk at the train station three months ago—she just hadn’t been aware of it at the time. She had stepped out into a brand new world, with sensations she’d never even known had existed, let alone experienced, and for the first time in her brief life she had the opportunity to be accepted. Appreciated.

  Loved.

  No longer was she being told how to perform her every action like an automated machine. She had to learn and adapt to the ramifications of her actions like everyone else, and deal with any consequences that arose. There was a great sense of freedom in being in control of her own destiny that she’d previously been denied until she’d met the Cuthberts.

  Her keen android eyes searched the fields far below her until she spotted Green Gables nestled along the treeline. As she gazed at the house she felt a sense of belonging that she’d never experienced before.

  “We would like to adopt you,” Matthew said quietly when she had hopped off the airship not long after, halting her excited rambles about how the journey through the clouds had given her such scope for the imagination.

  “But you have already bought me,” Anne replied, perplexed, as she considered Matthew’s shy smile.

  “That’s true,” said Marilla, “and what an expensive girl you were, to say the least.” She brushed off her skirts briskly, and then looked directly at the android, who returned her gaze. “But we don’t want to own you,” she added, reaching over to take hold of Matthew’s hand. “We want to know if you would choose to become a part of this family as the child we never had, and never knew we’d even wanted until you came into our lives.”

  Anne stared at both of them, and for the first time since they met her she was speechless.

  In that moment she became Anne of Green Gables.

  She had finally come home.

  Ghia Likes Food

  Bill Congreve

  Oxenford, a family man and the local Member of Parliament, sat in his office and worked on a zoning application for a funeral parlour.

  It was past midnight. He yawned, slumped forward onto his desk, and slept.

  He dreamed of popcorn that popped in his throat and expanded out until his neck exploded.

  * * *

  Nick wore old army jungle green combat pants and a purple tie-die T-shirt with the word ‘celebrate’ printed in white on the front and ‘death’ in black on the back. He had a necklace draped about his neck which alternated glass beads and syringes with the needles removed.

  Whenever he went out on a special occasion, he drove a needle from the syringes through each ear, and hung a string of rosary beads on the right hand side.

  This was a special occasion.

  Nick smelt Oxenford’s dream, bashed the politician in the side of the head with an ashtray he found in the office, and took the man home with him.

  * * *

  “Here Ghia! A snack!”

  A muffled woof woke Oxenford. Pain made him wince and cry out, but no sound came from his lips. His neck felt like it was on fire. There was a terrible, yawning emptiness in his mouth. He tried to pull his hands down to feel his neck and realised he was manacled to a wall. He was laid out on a bed that leaned against the wall behind him at a forty-five degree angle. Manacles held his ankles to the feet of the bed.

  Beside the bed stood a table. On the table was a metal dish that held a syringe, a number of cotton wool pads, a scalpel, a needle, and cotton thread. Oxenford often used something similar to repair his daughter’s clothes. Beside the dish was a bottle of antibiotics, a 375 ml bottle of Polish vodka, a hacksaw, and a hammer.

  The dish also held a lump of flesh.

  Oxenford smelt alcohol on himself, but he wasn’t drunk. He opened his mouth to shout and realised he had no tongue.

  He fainted, and dreamed of cattle.

  * * *

  Oxenford woke again to find a long wooden plank strapped to the bed under him. A young man with long, straggling, unwashed hair bent over his legs and tied them very securely to the board. The man was naked from the waist up and wore a string of rosary beads from a metal pin stabbed through one ear. An uncured pelt loincloth was knotted around his waist. The man looked up at him. A single wet trail of snot ran from his left nostril, over his lips, and onto his chin.

  “I’m Nick. I grok your parts,” the man said, and licked his lips.

  Oxenford struggled then. He bounced and fought, fighting for his life. Blood ran down his arms as the chains tore into his wrists.

  His bonds held.

  “Left or right, Ghia?”

  A massive Rottweiler stirred on the floor. It was a young dog, not yet a year old, and Oxenford thought it had more growing in it. It barked once.

  “Left it is!”

  Oxenford struggled again. Nick picked up a hammer and bashed him on the shins.

  “Be still.”

  Pain flashed up Oxenford’s legs and he threw his head back against the mattress. He wished it was a wall there, or something else hard, so that he could knock himself out.

  Oxenford then realised he could do nothing to save his own life. That shocked him to stillness. He needed charity from this fruitcake, or he needed help from outside. He couldn’t shout. He couldn’t bash on the wall. Nobody knew where he was. He didn’t know where he was. He thought of his daughter who would soon be old enough to go out with boys like this.

  The crazy man tied a tourniquet around a pressure point in his upper left thigh. The crazy man then picked up a scalpel and began on his left leg just above the ankle. Oxenford tried to scream, tried to fight, tried to pull his leg away. He finally managed to turn his head away until he could bite on his own right arm. He thrashed and chewed at his arm until torn strings of flesh caught between his teeth and blood ran down his throat, but he only fainted when Nick began on his tibia with the hacksaw.

  * * *

  Oxenford regained consciousness to see Nick standing some metres away from him in thick gloom. A pale patch of grey sky showed through a single window close to the roof. The dog sat next to the crazy man, on a leash. The crazy man saw him come awake, stood absolutely still facing him, and just barely perceptibly tightened his hold on the leash.

  The dog took its cue and came to its feet, growling. Oxenford had never seen a look of such naked hostility on the face of any beast. The dog pulled at its leash, drew back its lips, snapped its teeth, and threw its head about in hate. Foam gathered in the corners of its mouth and dripped to the floor.

  God! Oxenford wanted to die.

  The crazy man reached down to the dog’s collar. The dog sensed it was about to be set free and went absolutely wild. Nick snapped the leash of the collar. The dog trotted forward, snarling. It reached the end of the bed and sprang.

  He wanted to die, but Oxenford still couldn’t stop himself turning his head away and pulling his chin. The weight of the animal struck him and drove the air from his chest in an explosive gasp. The dog’s paws dug into his shoulders. The dog whined. Oxenford opened his eyes and found the giant head of the animal, foam-flecked lips and all, only inches from his own. Hostility forgotten, it panted with its tongue lolling out the side of its mouth. Oxenford closed his eyes again as the animal licked his face.

  “Father never liked that trick,” Nick the crazy man said and then walked forwards.

  The crazy man’s Doc Marten’s echoed off the bare concrete floor. Oxenford noticed every detail about him with fatal crystal clarity.

  He wondered if his daughter loved him at all. He hoped so.


  The dog jumped off the bed, leaned lazily forward, sniffed Oxenford’s stump, and licked at a trickle of blood that seeped from between the neat row of stitches.

  “Good Ghia. Ghia likes food.”

  Lovers In Caeli-Amur

  Rjurik Davidson

  Anton Moreau stepped from his carriage, dressed in his finest suit, his long sleeves puffing out from beneath his jacket, and held his breath in anticipation. House Arbor had always held the most famous balls in Caeli-Amur. The Directors constantly tried to outdo each other with opulent decoration, sumptuousness food, and extravagant entertainment. And this would be the night of Anton’s greatest triumph.

  He passed along the wide street, where bulb-trees lined the sides like marshals standing to attention, and drifted with other guests through the gates of Director Lefebvre’s mansion. Like most House Arbor buildings, the walls were covered with Toxicodendron didion, which reached out ominously towards the passersby, green fronds waving, hoping to wrap the guests up in their deadly embrace. Sometimes when the toxicodendron was cut back, the skeletons of thieves were found hanging within the vine’s wiry branches.

  The gardens of Lefebvre’s mansion were immaculately sculpted, with olive trees lining the walls. On the front lawns the guests—men in bright red coats, women in grandiose dresses—watched as jugglers tossed burning sticks in the air, contortionists squeezed their way through impossible frames, and sleight-of-hand magicians sat next to thaumaturgists, daring the crowd to decide who was the real and who the fake. Arbor was obsessed with appearances, with fronts, with displays.