The Gulp

by Alan Baxter

  The drive had been only about ten minutes or so, smooth at first with a few turns Rich had quickly lost track of, then boneshakingly rough, an unsealed road that seemed to travel up quite steeply, switching back on itself a couple of times. As Stephen planted Rich on his feet he saw back down the long dirt road, white-fenced paddocks on either side, the town of Gulpepper a blanket of undulating lights down below. The view from so high was wild, over the paddocks and thick bushland the ocean glittered in the light of the half-moon. A naturally level area of land, it had the look of somewhere that had been farmed for generations. The bush rose steeply behind against the night sky thick with stars.

  Stephen turned him and pushed, made him stagger past the car which he’d parked in a car port next to a large federation-style farmhouse. White painted weatherboard, russet-painted metal roof, stained glass panels in the old-fashioned windows. A deck ran all around the building. Beyond it were a variety of sheds and barns, tractors and threshers and other equipment scattered about. A Toyota Hilux crew cab ute was parked just beside the car port. Carter climbed out, then opened the back door and dragged Daniel off the seat. The young man hit the dirt with a grunt and rolled up onto his hands and knees. Blood dripped heavily from his face.

  “I won’t tell anyone anything,” Rich said, appalled at the slur in his voice. The after-effects of the beers combined with the mighty slap from Stephen had left him thick-headed.

  “Course you won’t,” Carter said. “Bring him.” He dragged Daniel up with a hand under one arm and pushed him ahead as he walked past the Toyota.

  Stephen’s hand on Rich’s right shoulder was a painful clamp the big man used to guide him. Wearing nothing but cargo pants and t-shirt, the cool night air made his skin stipple with gooseflesh. He needed to find a way out of this, any way, it didn’t matter. Just get out. He’d make a bolt for the bush if the chance arose, take his shot there. The reassuring pressure of the phone in his pocket gave him some hope. With any luck they wouldn’t notice he had it, and maybe up here he’d catch a signal when he got the opportunity to try. Comply in the meantime, he told himself. Be compliant, let them concentrate on Daniel, the poor bastard.

  They walked past a double garage filled with a mystifying array of tools and an old ute up on blocks, then between two open-front hay sheds into a wide field with fencing in the distance. This seemed to be a pretty big property, the bush cleared for several acres in every direction. Cattle, black and white Fresians and a few Jerseys, stood around in the paddock off to the right and Rich thought he saw the silhouettes of horses far to the left. The field they walked across was empty, sloping gently upwards, with thick bush on the far side that rose steeply to a ridge line, black against the sky.

  The moonlight held back the darkness enough, Rich’s eyes adjusting to see where he walked. The stars were a thick blanket, not an artificial light source for kilometres around to dim them, just the speckles of light down in the town below.

  Then he saw the large hole in the dirt.

  Ice chilled his veins. The hole was about two metres long and one wide, a perfect black rectangle in the grass. A pile of dirt stood in a mound beside it with a shovel stuck in the top. A large wooden board lay beside the dirt.

  “Mr Carter, don’t, please,” Daniel said, voice half lost in sobs. He’d been quietly stumbling along until that moment, but now he became animated, struggled against Carter’s grip. “What do you want, Mr Carter? Hey? Anything you want, Mr Carter, I’ll do it. Anything!”

  “What I want, Daniel, is a more peaceful life. What I want is people I can rely on. What I want¸ you fucking cunt, is people who don’t blab and deal with the fucking Stinsons!”

  “Mr Carter, please, I–”

  Daniel’s sentence was lost in a cry of alarm as Carter shoved him forward and he staggered and fell into the hole. Stephen held Rich firmly, a few feet back. The hole wasn’t as deep as Rich had thought, Daniel finding his feet and standing up, the edge of the hole at his chest. He put both palms on the damp grass and made to push himself up, but Carter swung a booted foot and clipped him under the chin. Daniel yelped and went back down. He moaned weakly, out of sight.

  Carter walked around the hole and picked up the large piece of wood. Several planks fixed together with crossbars, Rich noticed. A lid. A coffin lid.

  “You disappoint me greatly, Daniel,” Carter said and dropped the lid down into the hole. He took the spade and began shovelling dirt in. It thumped onto the wood, the sound more muffled each time. Then a banging started, Daniel yelling, calling out Carter’s name over and over again, begging please, please, please. But the dirt kept going in, the sounds more muted by the minute.

  Rich stood stock still, aware his mouth hung open in a gape, his knees weak. But he didn’t dare make a sound. Stephen’s vice-like grip never left his shoulder. It took about ten minutes for Carter to refill the hole completely, then he walked back and forth over the dirt, pressing it down, sweat sparkling on his brow. Daniel’s muffled cries still came faintly from below, punctuated by weak blows against the wood.

  Carter finally looked at Rich, for the first time. He smiled warmly, gestured back towards the farmhouse. “Shall we?”

  Stephen turned him and they walked back, Rich’s legs rubbery.

  “Did you enjoy what you saw at the motel?” Carter asked as they walked.

  “No, Sir, I did not.”

  “Why’s that?”

  Rich licked dry lips, lost for words. He shook his head. “I won’t tell a soul,” he said eventually. “I promise.”

  “You had so many choices,” Carter said. “So many chances. You could have ignored the light. You could have gone to bed. So many times you could have turned away, but you didn’t.”

  How did he know?

  “Why didn’t you turn your back, hmm?”

  “I... I didn’t know,” Rich said weakly. “I couldn’t believe it.”

  Carter sucked his teeth, let out a sigh. “Such is life, hey? So many don’t believe. Too many people have lost touch with the old ways. Everything so modern.” He turned and pinned Rich with his icy blue gaze. “No respect for the numinous any more.”

  Carter couldn’t have seen what Daniel saw. Someone in the pub saw, told him about it. He tortured Daniel to scare him. But why? He brought Daniel to the farm and obviously planned to let him die anyway.

  Carter led Rich back between the hay sheds as another car pulled up along the dirt road. A small hatchback. It parked, the engine went off and the headlights with it. A woman got out.

  “Hello, darling,” Carter said.

  Chrissy walked into the light of the car port, came to meet them. She wore the same clothes she’d had on in the pub, but her hair wasn’t tied back any more. It hung over her shoulders in a wave that shone with reflected light. “Worked out all right then?” she said.

  Carter laughed. “Yep. Donny put him in room six like you told him to, and the poor lad couldn’t help himself. Curious as the proverbial cat.”

  Chrissy smiled, wide and filled with teeth. “I thought it too good an opportunity to pass up.” She moved to Carter and they embraced, kissed long and deep. The man had to be at least twice her age, Rich thought numbly. He tried to swallow, but his throat was thick with fear.

  “Daniel?” Chrissy asked, once their sensuous kiss finally ended.

  “Dealt with,” Carter said. He turned his attention back to Rich. “You’re new here.” Statement, not a question or guess. “But why did you come, hmm? No one passes through The Gulp. You came here.”

  “I’m a truck driver. I deliver to Woollies. The truck broke down–”

  “It didn’t break down, your friend fucked it.”

  How did he know that?

  “But that’s not what I meant. Why did you come here, hmm? At this time? Wheels and machinations, son. There are reasons.”

  “It’s a new job, that’s all. I’m in training, to take over George’s routes. The last couple of weeks he’s been showing me the...” Rich�
�s voice petered out under Carter’s witheringly disdainful gaze.

  “You won’t let it in, will you.” Statement again.

  “Let what in?”

  “You dreamed of it. The before time. Everyone who sleeps in The Gulp dreams of when they fell at least once.” Carter moved to put an arm across Rich’s shoulders. Stephen let go at last, the skin burning where the pressure was finally released. Carter turned Rich to face out over the view of the town below. “You have to embrace The Gulp. You do what it wants or it swallows you. What’s your name?”

  “Rich. Richard Blake.”

  “You can call me Mr Carter. You’ve already met Chrissy.”

  “Let me go, please! I won’t tell anyone anything.”

  “You will though, won’t you?”

  “No! I won’t–”

  “Oh, you might not tell any authorities. But you’ll tell the story. People always tell stories.”

  “Fuck you, man! Let me go!”

  “Let’s not be unpleasant to each other. You’re with me now.”

  “What do you mean I’m with you? I’m not with you! You have to let me go!”

  Carter tipped his head to one side. “Do I though?”

  “Please!” Rich said, hating the plaintive tone in his voice.

  “There’s some better manners already.” Carter took out a cigar, lit it from a brass Zippo, then slipped the lighter away into his shirt pocket as he puffed acrid smoke into the air. “Now then, let me give you your choices. For one, I can dig another hole next to Daniel. He’ll go quiet soon. So that’s one choice. The other is that you work for me. You do as I say, and make yourself useful. Accept the fact you’re in The Gulp now. We could develop a wonderful working relationship together, you and I. There is great potential in you, I see it. You came here for a reason. And I am, as you know, in need of a new employee.”

  “I don’t want to!” Rich internally cursed the tears rolling over his cheeks, but he couldn’t stop them. “I want to go home. I’ll never come here again, I won’t tell a soul anything. I’ll quit the job, never drive another truck for the rest of my life! Please, just let me go.”

  Carter sighed, shook his head. “I gave you your choices.” He puffed on the cigar, then smiled again. “Your personal life, family situation, it’s suited to The Gulp finding you, no?”

  Rich swallowed, mind adrift, desperate for purchase. “What?” he managed.

  “You have your choices. I’ll give you some time to think about it.” Carter smiled. “Welcome to The Gulp, Richard Blake.”

  Rich flinched as something sharp scratched his neck. He looked to the side to see Chrissy step away, a syringe in one hand. She wiggled the fingers of her other hand in a wave as Rich’s vision closed in from all sides. His tongue felt suddenly swollen, then everything went black.

  George’s head pounded from lack of sleep. He’d maybe caught an hour or two of fitful dozing here and there, but it amounted to nothing really. He was too damn old to stay up all night any more. He remembered the long benders of his youth, all that drinking, carousing, womanising. He didn’t miss those days, if he was honest. They had been where he’d found his wife. He couldn’t wait to see her again.

  The day was bright, harsh against his gritty eyes as he sipped the coffee and ate a croissant from the bakers. The Woollies precinct opened at eight, allowing him a leisurely piss into an actual urinal, rather than the debacle of the night before. His body ached in every place he put his mind to, but the night had passed. That was the main thing. Still no sign of Rich though. Until ten, he’d told the kid. He intended to stick to his promise. He would wait, but he’d leave without Rich if necessary. A big tow truck pulled into the loading bay, gleaming chrome and bright decals. The driver gave George a wave.

  It took over an hour, disengaging the trailer, jacking up the cab, changing the wheel, putting it all back together again. But it was finally done by 9.15. George went inside for another coffee and then sat in the cab drinking it. The minutes ticked slowly by.

  “Come on, kid,” he muttered aloud.

  It was ten minutes past ten when he finally called it time to keep his promise. He rang in the problem, told the office the new driver had gone out on the town and not come back. They told him to try ringing the kid, which he had about nine o’clock, then again at nine-thirty, but it went straight to voicemail.

  “He said he had no signal in this arse-end-a-nowhere town,” George told his supervisor.

  “Can you wait for him?”

  “Already did. I told him last night I’d wait until ten, he said he’d be here by eight. Still no sign, though.”

  “Give it a bit longer?”

  “And then what?”

  There was a pause, muffled conversation, then the supervisor came back on. “Look, we’ll try to raise him too, see if he catches some reception. Can you wait a little longer? If he’s not there by eleven, head out and the fool will have to hitch out to Monkton or Enden or something when he wakes up.”

  George looked at his watch. Forty-five minutes more in The Gulp. He sighed. “Okay, I’ll give it until eleven, then I’m out.”

  He stayed in the cab until a few minutes past eleven, then started up the truck. Still no sign of Rich. George shook his head, easing the big rig out of the loading bay and turning right to head for the main road back to Enden.

  “What the hell did you get up to, kid?” he said as he went around the roundabout by the leisure centre. “Or what the hell got to you, eh?”

  He didn’t look in the rear view mirror once until he turned right onto the highway, thankful to be leaving The Gulp for the last time.

  Mother in Bloom

  “We need to air this place out,” Maddy said, face scrunched in disgust under her strawberry blonde hair.

  Zack turned from the bed to look back at her. “You gonna finally come in?”

  “Nah.”

  “She’s dead now. You can come in.”

  “Fucking stinks, Zack.”

  Her brother shrugged. “That’s death for you.”

  “Just open the window at least.”

  Zack sighed and moved around the bed, pulled open the curtains and unlatched the window, swung it wide. As daylight flooded in, the cadaver that was their mother took on super-real details.

  “Doesn’t even look like her any more,” Maddy said. She leaned a little into the room, wincing against the stench. It was sickly and thick, sweet and harsh at the same time, laced with shit and antiseptic. She’d only been dead a few hours. It would get worse quickly.

  “You’re a year older than me,” Zack said. “You’re supposed to be the responsible one.”

  “Am I really?”

  “You’re eighteen soon!”

  “Another six months. Zack, I’m no more an adult than you are. Don’t try to pull that shit. I’m the one said we should shut the bedroom door and leave her to it. You insisted on caring for her. Just cos she died now, doesn’t make it suddenly my problem.”

  “She cared for us–”

  Maddy shot one hand up, palm out. “When did she ever fucking care for us? She kept us alive when we were babies, that’s it. I been taking care of myself and you since I was five. You looked after yourself enough too. Daddy helped until he disappeared, and I was only nine then. We been on our own our whole lives, Zack. Fuck her. I’m glad she’s finally dead.”

  “You think he really left us?” Zack asked. “You always say disappeared and vanished and shit. Never left.”

  “I’m not having this conversation again. Who knows? This town, anything is possible.”

  Zack looked down at the skeletal woman in the foul, stained bed. Maddy couldn’t help looking too. Their mother’s skin was patched ochre and pale browns where it had once been creamy, her lips cracked, eyes and cheekbones bulging from a sallow face that was mostly skull. Her mouth hung slightly open, tips of yellowed teeth showing. Zack sniffed, wincing against the smell, then nodded. “Yeah, me too.”

  “What?”
/>   “I’m glad she’s dead.”

  “Yeah.”

  “But we owe her something.”

  “Do we?”

  Zack looked up, eyes flashing anger. “What do we do with her?”

  “Harbour?”

  Zack pursed his lips, shook his head. “I’m worried she’ll float or something. Be found.”

  “We can’t risk the house, Zack.” Maddy looked around, glanced back over her shoulder. “I mean, shitty as it is, it’s finally ours. We get to relax and enjoy it at last.”

  “I know. That’s all okay. I have the login details for Centrelink, all the benefits and pensions and shit. We’re well-prepared. We just need to make sure no one knows she’s dead. But every time I bring up what to do with her, you change the subject. Well, time’s up. Now we have to decide. So what do we do with her?”

  “Dump her in the bush?”

  “What if someone finds her? Or an animal drags her back or some shit?”

  “Bury her in the bush?”

  Zack stared at his mother, lips pursed. “Would take a bit of effort, and we’d have to park up somewhere on the road out of town, then carry her in. Might get seen at any point. We have to be absolutely safe, Maddy. No one can know.”

  “Whatever we do with her is going to be risky.” Maddy took a step back. “I can’t stand this stench any more, Zack. Leave the window open but shut the door. Let’s talk about this somewhere else.”

  They sat in the lounge room, Zack on the threadbare couch, Maddy in one of the armchairs. The other armchair, their mother’s spot, hadn’t been sat in since she’d gone to bed about three months prior and stayed put. She’d lay there, making demands of Zack, getting sicker and sicker, wasting away, wallowing in her own filth. How Zack stood to go in Maddy would never know. They should have let her die weeks ago, but Zack kept her going until last night.

  For months before that, she’d shuffled around the house, getting sicker and sicker, refusing to accept help. She knew she was dying and welcomed it, was Maddy’s opinion. Happy to waste away right in front of her kids. On a good day, when Maddy was feeling charitable, she wondered if perhaps their mother recognised the benefit of her dying in secrecy so Zack and Maddy would have the best chance on their own. No interference from DoCS, or the Department of Communities and Justice, as the fuckers called themselves now. Busybodies is what they were. But with the welfare still coming in, Zack and Maddy had a chance at a peaceful life. It was their grandfather’s house, after all, bought and paid for, the only thing of any value the family had ever owned, now in their mother’s name. Of course, it was in The Gulp, so what was it really worth? But it was a home.