The Year's Best Australian Fantasy and Horror 2014 (Volume 5)

by Kaaron Warren

  Then froze.

  The breath caught in her throat and her lungs refused to work, then suddenly she was gasping, like a diver breaking the surface.

  The grate in the middle of the room was twisting, moving, rising.

  She dialled up the sound, her eyes fixed on the tablet as the thick metal was pushed aside, and then someone—some thing—climbed out of the opening. Sue shrank back into her seat, small moaning sounds coming out of her mouth.

  “Good God. What is that?” she whispered.

  The creature blinked as though in bright sunlight, even though only shadowy moonlight filtered down through the basement’s high windows. It crouched low and swivelled about, as if checking out the room. It was well over six feet in height, with a dark, reptilian head and skin that glistened wetly.

  The dark figure made its way across the room, weaving between boxes and paints with practiced ease. It stopped by the bed, looming over Mel’s sleeping form and the car echoed with its low sibilant hiss.

  “Oh God. No! No!” Sue shoved the tablet back into its cradle and turned the ignition key. She had to save her sister.

  Sue floored the accelerator and her BMW leapt forwards. She watched the screen all the while, her jaw slack and a sick feeling growing in her stomach as the creature raised one clawed hand and drew the nightie up to Mel’s neck to reveal her pale flesh.

  Sue banged her hands against the steering wheel. “Wake up, Mel! Get out of there!”

  Then, the breath caught in her throat, as from the thin lipless mouth, a long prehensile tongue flicked in and out as the creature studied her sister’s naked form.

  “Get away from her, you bastard!” she screamed.

  The creature paused. Then turned and moved away. Sue felt a surge of relief. Had it heard her? She shook her head. No, impossible.

  Then, a horrible realization dawned on her, as she watched it pace over to the easel.

  The creature stared at the blank canvas, its reptilian head cocked to one side. The hisses grew louder. Then it began its work, dipping its tongue into the paint, and sliding the liquid colour onto the canvas.

  Sue’s eyes widened, as she watched the creature at work. “Oh, Mel. I’m so sorry. The paintings—they’re not yours. They never were.”

  The creature turned and glided back to the bed. It dipped its glistening tongue onto the palette and, as Sue watched in horror, began to mould the colours to her sister’s pale body, the gleaming, living brush caressing her flesh with each stroke.

  Sue gave a strangled cry, half fear, half nausea. She punched 1-1-1 into the iDrive controller, her car careering wildly across the lanes of the motorway as she headed for the Aotea Quay off ramp.

  “1-1-1 Operator. What’s the nature of your emergency?”

  Sue’s jaw hung open. How could she possibly explain?

  “Are you there?”

  “Police!” she screamed out, as she sent her BMW rocketing down the deserted streets. “My sister . . . there’s an intruder . . . ”

  * * *

  The blue and red lights of the police car were flashing like a disco ball in the dark street, as Sue screeched to a halt outside the Dougall-MacMillan Building. She threw the car door open and ran towards the entrance, where a police officer stood, speaking into his walkie-talkie.

  “Why are you just standing here?” she all but screamed, her eyes wide and wild. “Where’s my sister?”

  He looked up, his face impassive. “Are you the person who placed the emergency call?”

  Sue pointed at the door with a shaky hand. “Mel lives in the basement. Why are you up here?”

  “We’ve officers down there investigating.” He frowned. “But there’s no sign of . . . Melanie, was it?”

  Sue felt the pavement swoop beneath her and she grabbed his arm, her fingers digging into his flesh. “What do you mean she’s not there?”

  He shook her off. “Ma’am. I don’t think—”

  She pushed past him and flew down the spiralling staircase. “Mel! I’m coming!”

  The basement door stood open and the room was flooded with light.

  “Where is she?” she demanded, as a WPC stepped forwards. “Where’s my sister?”

  The policewoman frowned. “We can’t find any sign of the occupant—or any intruder. But the door was unlocked when we got here. He left the painting behind.” She shuddered. “Not that I blame him. Who’d want that hanging on their wall?”

  Sue turned to the easel, where the final nightmarish picture squatted. It showed the same reptilian creature she had seen on her tablet earlier. It stood by the open grate and was holding Mel in his arms, staring into her face with glittering avarice, like some horrific parody of a groom with his white-draped bride. Her sister’s face was a rictus of fear and her terrified eyes stared out of the painting at Sue as if pleading with her.

  “No! Please, no!” Sue raised her hands to her mouth and ran to the centre of the room, where the heavy grill still lay cast to one side. She peered over the rim, into the well going down, down, down.

  A flash of white caught her eye and she gasped, hope surging through her.

  “Mel? Hang on, chick!” She turned to the WPC. “Give me your torch!”

  Sue pointed the beam of light down the shaft. But then the air whooshed out of her lungs. Half way down the well hung her sister’s white cotton nightie. It was caught on a nail and fluttered in the fetid air like a banner. While beyond lay only the stygian darkness of that chiaroscuro world below.

  Vox

  Lisa L. Hannett and Angela Slatter

  Kate often spoke to grains of rice, flakes of cereal, pistachios waiting to be shelled. She talked to grapes and cherries. Sunflower seeds. M&Ms. Sometimes she’d whisper before she ate them, often she wouldn’t. Most days, she simply thought conversations at them and imagined their mute responses. They never replied using words, only emotions. She felt their personalities as a fluttering in her belly. A sensation of warmth beneath her ribs.

  This morning, sitting in the waiting room outside Dr Goodman’s office, she was muttering to the last pink Tic Tac stuck on the bottom of its plastic case.

  ‘All your friends are already inside me,’ she said. The packet had been new—she’d bought it at the corner shop across the road on the way in—but her mouth had been so dry . . . She’d been here, stomach churning, for almost an hour. The mints hadn’t stood a chance. ‘Don’t you want to join them? Won’t they miss you if you don’t?’

  Beside her, Nick chuckled and patted her knee. Giving it a quick squeeze, he went back to the copy of People he’d plucked from a glossy heap on the melamine coffee table, smile lingering on his broad face. Kate knew he thought of her as a kook—a loveable kook, but still. She’d never explained to her husband the sympathy she felt for these stupid, inanimate things. How she’d invent stories for the family of Enoki mushrooms about to go into her ramen (they loved to swim, and the tall parents encouraged their skinny kids to stick together when noodle-diving). How the lonely cracked egg, glued by the yolk to its carton, would feel like it’d let the team down. How every kernel of corn on the cob had been raised to burst—so if she missed even one, she’d be stealing its only goal, its only dream. How the banana peel she’d accidentally thrown in the garbage bin would be separated, forever, from his wife, who was slowly decaying in the compost, waiting to turn into soil. How the giant strawberry they’d bought at the market had become special, somehow, by being big enough to fill her palm. She couldn’t possibly eat it because its red was so bold, so friendly. She’d felt much happier giving it a long life, seeing it age and eventually rot in the fruit bowl, before finally letting Nick chuck it out.

  Kate couldn’t explain why she cared so much, but she cared.

  “Come on,” she hissed, whacking the little rectangular box against the arm of her chair. The candy didn’t budge. She began digging in her purse for something to jam through the hole in the lid—the pens were too fat, but she had a long hairpin in there somewhere—w
hen a soft-shoed nurse stepped, VoiceWorks™ tablet first, into the room.

  “Mrs Conway?”

  “Yes,” Kate said, clutching the container and handbag with sweat-slick fingers. Standing quickly, she fidgeted with her hem to make sure her skirt hadn’t ridden up, and grabbed her coat off the seat to her left. Around the low table other women, alone or with partners—husbands, girlfriends, wives—slumped, their names as yet uncalled. With eyes as red-rimmed as her own, they watched Kate inhale deeply, steeling herself. Bundling her belongings and holding them protectively in front of her, she looked to the nurse for guidance.

  “Right this way,” she said, gaze flicking between Kate’s file and her face. Without turning to see if Nick was with her, Kate followed the retreating white leather shoes, white stockings, white polyester dress. Down a brightly-lit corridor, carpeted and painted industrial grey. Past over a dozen closed doors, most with voices murmuring behind them, and into an examination room. All the while, the nurse’s tablet had been speaking as the woman reminded herself of who Kate was, of the information she’d given over the phone. The device’s volume was low so it couldn’t be heard by all and sundry, droning sotto voce name, address, age, medical history.

  “Have a seat,” the nurse said, directing them to a pair of padded swivel chairs next to an oak-veneered desk. Its in-trays were filled with neatly stacked papers, a few more of which lay on the ink-blotter next to a tortoise-shell pen. A coffee mug with cartoon pills dancing around the lip sat empty next to the keyboard. On the double-sized monitor, carefully angled so clients could see it, a single round cell bobbed around in the black, glowing while it split. Within seconds, it subdivided countless times; soon the bubble was filled with hundreds of smaller bubbles, a solid blob forming in the middle. In a blink, the fleshy lump stretched, grew bulbous at one end, grew fronds that became arms and legs, grew an umbilical cord. As the embryo morphed into a foetus, Kate looked away. Pulse racing, she dug her nails into her palms and did her best not to hope.

  On shelves hung between cupboards on the walls, colonies of tongue depressors and shrink-wrapped Q-tips sprouted from stainless steel beakers. A single cotton ball sat patiently in the bottom of a round-bellied glass jar. Kate hoped they’d use that last woolly fluff before refilling the pot, otherwise the poor thing would be smothered. And when the new cotton balls discovered him there, a solitary outsider, they might not accept him into the fold.

  “Dr Goodman will be with you in a moment,” the nurse said, before briskly smoothing the sheet of table paper on the exam bench and draping a crisp blue gown across the pillow. She placed the tablet precisely in the left corner of the blotter on the desk, her thin fingers making sure all edges aligned.

  “Thank you,” Nick replied. Once the nurse had gone, he leaned over and poked at the tablet, but the screen stayed dark, the voice silent, ID locked. Nick turned to Kate and grinned. ‘What’s one more minute, after this long?’

  * * *

  They’d tried everything. Monitoring Kate’s basal body temperature. Using the rhythm method. Taking Chasteberry, Black Cohosh and Siberian Ginseng tablets. Making love in the morning, at night, at noon. Once, then twice a day. They’d played out each other’s fantasies. They’d used the Kama Sutra. To keep Nick going, after their excitement had petered, Kate bought a few XXX porn mags. On elbows and knees, she read the articles while Nick entered her from behind, skimming the pictures, failing to stifle his yawns.

  It had been more than a year—closer to two, if Kate was being honest—and still they’d produced nothing. Not a blip in her cycle. Not even a miscarriage.

  They’d found Dr Goodman through a friend of a friend. Not even a friend, really, just a work mate of Nick’s who invited them to a BBQ. In the kitchen, trying to find a place on the bench for the quinoa salad she’d so painstakingly made beside all the other quinoa salads, Kate’s jealous eye had been caught by the baby bump of a woman in a floaty peach kaftan. The woman noticed and started talking—gushing, actually, about how hard they’d tried and for how long, and wasn’t it wonderful they’d found Dr Goodman? Which had, of course, stoked Kate’s interest and she’d spent the rest of the afternoon quizzing her new-found friend as intently as a prosecutor.

  Kindness was etched into Dr Goodman’s face; laugh lines bracketing his wide mouth, crinkles beside his Bassett hound eyes. As he spoke his smile came easily, frequently. There was no pressure, no sense they’d failed more dramatically than anyone else had, no promise he was here to save them from barrenness. Soft-spoken, he let the truth flow out in palatable increments, his pauses filled by auxiliary information provided by the tablet, which had responded to his fingerprint touch, its mellifluous voice no longer dampened, but clearly projected. The moderate, though not discouraging, success rates: ‘17.6% for women your age, Mrs Conway.’ The chance of her developing OHSS: ‘Ovarian hyper-stimulation syndrome—quite unusual, nowadays, but you should be aware of the possibility. Not overly worried, mind you, simply aware. At worst, it’s an outside chance.’ Last, with lullaby tones hardening ever so slightly, he discussed the rate of multiple births.

  “In recent years,” said Dr Goodman, “surrogates—DGUs, Delayed Gestation Units—have effectively carried up to five embryos at once. A combination of genetics and pharmaceuticals has allowed these gifted, temporary mothers to revitalise the population—but surely you’ve seen the broadcasts. I mention this only as an option; you could certainly employ one of these proxies. Let her bear the burden, save yourself the risk . . . ” Dr Goodman stopped, cleared his throat. After sipping his green tea, he continued. “Our facility could make appropriate referrals, get you an appointment within the year. The costs could be offset by health cover—you do have insurance, don’t you?”

  Insurance wasn’t the problem. Turning to look at her husband, Kate saw her own thoughts reflected in his slouch, his pinched brows, his subtle frown. Mixing their ingredients in someone else’s pot just wouldn’t be the same—the baby wouldn’t be the same. It wouldn’t feel like theirs, would it? They’d never know, not for sure, that the creature this stranger gave birth to was the one they’d planted inside her. Would they?

  Nick reached over, took Kate’s hand, and held tight. We’ve waited this long . . . While Dr Goodman went on, outlining the process involved in engaging a DGU, she lifted her gaze. Focused on the lonely cotton ball. Started to shake her head.

  “Sorry to interrupt,” she said, too loud, too quickly. “But we’d prefer to do this ourselves. I mean, can’t we even try before dismissing the idea altogether?”

  Half a heartbeat, no more, and Dr Goodman relented. “Of course,” he said. “Of course. It was merely a suggestion. Only,” he slurped at his tea, “you must be prepared. For either outcome—in some cases, success can be as difficult to accept as failure . . . ”

  “We’re listening,” Nick said, his cold fingers squeezing the blood from Kate’s too-warm ones. Attention turned inward as the doctor brought up charts on his computer screen—the number of fertilised eggs she’d have implanted, the placement of needles and injections, legal definitions of when ‘life-proper’ began, the probable outcomes, the sentences for soul sacrifices—Kate knew they’d be parents soon. Sitting up straighter, she bent her left arm slightly and imagined cradling their newborn. Adding a crook to her right arm, she pictured another child there. With their poor luck at conceiving, it seemed unlikely they’d have more than two. Two would be nice, she thought. Two we could afford. They’d have each other, friends from birth, and we—she couldn’t control her grin—we’d be a family.

  * * *

  It wasn’t as easy as Kate had hoped, not as easy as Dr Goodman’s soothing tone had made it seem. The procedures and treatments chewed through their savings (fees for consultations, fees for preparation and storage, fees for preservation, fees for scans, fees for pathology and, finally, fees for every cycle of fertilisation, every cycle of injection) and by their fourth attempt, their bank account was stretched further than their ner
ves.

  They’d been given a tablet of their own—well, loaned—to record the ins and outs of their attempts: Kate’s temperature, Nick’s temperature, duration of coitus, position, the combination of vitamins she’d taken that day, how active she was, what she’d eaten. Every morning, and twice nightly, she answered an endless series of invasive questions so Dr Goodman could keep track of their progress. And each time Kate logged in she couldn’t help but tap the Results tab; and each time her heart fractured a little more when she heard the machine’s voice, sweet yet neutral, kind but uncaring, tell her there was ‘no change, no success.’

  Ground down, their pockets almost picked clean, there was one last attempt left to them before they were broke, and broken.

  But this time, somehow, it worked, though eight weeks had to pass before they would know anything for sure. Eight tense weeks, which Kate spent reconciling herself to a life without children, doing her best to convince herself it was better this way; she could only care for so many things at once. With kids, what love would she have left over for Nick? How could she continue to dote on the objects around her? She’d almost persuaded herself, was almost quite sure she believed, when the little voice on the tablet changed its tune and instructed her to make an appointment with the doctor at her earliest possible convenience.

  Dr Goodman finally—finally—gave them the good news, and they were stunned. Quietly disbelieving, they smiled dumb smiles, each waiting for the other to say something first. At last, Nick whooped and hugged Kate while she giggled, covering her face with her hands. So happy, they listened with only half an ear to the tablet in Goodman’s office as it fairly sang the legal terms for their pregnancy, their rights, responsibilities and obligations. Immediately, Kate loved the cheerful voice, and marvelled at what wonderful things technology could do, imagining how the girl who pronounced those guidelines so carefully and clearly could’ve been an opera singer one day if . . .