by Alan Baxter
Zack was asleep in bed when she crept in about 1 a.m. and Maddy was soon pulling the covers over herself. She couldn’t have been asleep more than a few minutes it seemed, when something jerked her awake. Disoriented, in that place between states, brain circling looking for a landing spot, it took a moment to realise what had woken her.
She blinked when she saw light pouring in through her bedroom door. She normally closed it at night but had inadvertently left it half-open. Maybe a by-product of relaxing now her mother had died. The light came from across the hall. And she heard a soft voice, whispering.
Nerves rippled across Maddy’s skin and she moved silently along the bed. Kneeling on the end of it she leaned forward and looked through the small gap between door and frame, across the hallway to their mother’s room. She suppressed a gasp. The smooth white fungus had grown again, so bright, clean and rounded in the light from the bedroom fixture directly above the bed. It covered the whole mattress now and hung in pendulous bulges down either side. The bed had a wooden headboard and footboard, both of which stood a half metre or so above the mattress. Both were buried in rolls of pure white. The rounded centre of the thing bulged up more than a metre above the mattress.
She saw it all because her mother’s door was wide open and Zack stood at the foot of the bed, his head tipped to one side. Maddy had the impression he was listening.
“I don’t know, Mum,” he said softly. “But why?” He paused to listen again. “Are you sure?”
Maddy chewed her lower lip. This wasn’t good. Maybe he was sleepwalking, having some kind of weird lucid dream. Enough for him to get up, open their mother’s door, turn her light on, start a conversation? It seemed unlikely.
“I don’t want to, Mum!” He sounded more sad than defiant.
He took a step back and shook his head. “Let me think about it.”
He reached back for the light switch, starting to turn, and Maddy ducked back out of sight. The light clicked off as she pulled the covers over herself and heard Zack trudge back down the hallway, then his bedroom door thunked shut.
“What the fuck was that about?” she whispered to herself.
The next morning she woke a bit after nine and crawled from bed, but Zack had yet to emerge. It was more than an hour later when he slumped into the lounge, hair in disarray, carrying a bowl of cereal.
“Yo,” he said, and sat down, flicked on the TV.
Maddy looked up from her phone. “Yo yourself. Going all right?”
“Yeah, why?”
“No reason. Sleep okay?”
“Yeah.” He shovelled cereal.
Maddy sighed. She’d have to come right out with it. “You remember getting up in the night?”
“What do you mean?”
“What do you mean, what do I mean? You got up in the night, like 2 a.m. or something. You don’t remember?”
He looked at her over his bowl, eyebrows crunched together. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. He paused. Then, “No I didn’t.”
Was it worse if he didn’t remember or he was lying? Maybe he’d been sleepwalking after all. But he looked disturbed.
“Are you right?” he asked, sounding sarcastic. His eyes looked haunted, one squinted slightly like he was trying to remember something.
Maddy laughed it off, looked back at her phone. “Yeah, all good.”
Zack stared at the TV, partly enjoying the time alone, partly wanting to go to Josh’s house. Maddy was off with her mates again and it was a novelty to have the place to himself. No scratchy-throated mother calling out to him, or ringing that little fucking bell he’d given her when she got really weak. Calling him to give her water, to wipe where she’d shit herself, just to see him, her little man. He shuddered, thankful it was all over.
But it wasn’t over. She was still in there, under that stuff. He wanted to go to Josh’s, forget it all and play games, but was also cautious not to push his luck. He couldn’t spend every minute over there, even though he wanted to. Maybe sometime soon he could invite Josh over instead. If that fungus did get rid of the body he could call Josh, say his mum was at her cousins in Bega. Having a friend over to the house seemed both audacious and exotic. He’d never done it before.
Bring him to me.
Zack stiffened in the chair, refused to accept he’d heard her.
Bring him.
“No, Mum!”
The whispering voice was muffled by the closed bedroom door, but still clear enough. He didn’t want to admit he’d known what Maddy was talking about earlier. He’d thought it was a dream. He’d dreamed that he’d been woken in the night by sounds of water, rain and waves, and by distant screams. He’d got up, looked out his bedroom window, and seen creatures falling from thick and pendulous clouds, limbs writhing as they tumbled through the rain to land with distant splashes in the ocean. Some far out near the horizon, others closer to the beach. What should have been sand was slick and shiny with some dark ooze. Between his bedroom window and the sea was nothing but thick, verdant bush, battered by incessant rain.
But he knew it was a dream. He couldn’t see the ocean from his window. He only saw the street outside, other houses, cars, whatever. Maybe if there were no houses between theirs and the beach he might catch a glimpse, but not this clear a view, as if from high above, looking out over the vast expanse of roiling sea as the creatures fell.
Then he’d heard a voice, whispering, calling him. It was still the dream, it had to be, because it was his mother’s voice. He went to her room, turned on the light, and the bulbous white fungus that covered her, bigger than ever, had shivered and her voice drifted from it.
Bring people to see me, she had said.
He told her he didn’t want to, but she begged him. She cajoled and whined and said it was so important, that she’d finally be able to be a proper mother to him. He’d told her to let him think about it, everything hyper-real in that dream state super-clarity. And he’d gone back to bed.
In the morning, he remembered the dream. When Maddy asked if he remembered being up in the night he said no, because it was a dream. Wasn’t it? So how did she know? But he definitely wasn’t dreaming now. And his mother was talking to him again.
He got up, knees trembling, and opened her bedroom door. The swollen whiteness reached the floor on either side of the bed, bulged up almost to touch the light fitting above.
Bring Joshy to me!
“No, Mum! No way.” How could she be talking to him? He was going mad, that had to be it. Was it guilt? Fear of being caught in their lie? Surely they deserved their shot at living alone. Living free.
Bring someone. Zacky, I need someone.
“What for?”
To help me.
“To help you what?”
Come back.
“You’re dead!” he shouted and slammed the door shut. He ran back to the lounge, fell onto the couch, and turned the TV up loud.
He decided he’d hold out through the morning, then call Josh after lunch. But not go over to the house, he didn’t want to lie to Mr and Mrs Brady again, not yet. He’d invite Josh to the skate park.
It was almost noon when a knock at the door startled him.
Standing on the porch was a middle-aged woman in jeans and a red jumper. She had long hair tied back and sneakers on, but they looked brand new, completely free of dirt. Behind her, Zack saw a small Volkswagen parked at the kerb.
“Yeah?”
“You must be Zachary Taylor?”
“Who are you?”
The woman smiled and held up a small plastic wallet hanging on a lanyard from a belt loop of her jeans. She said aloud what was written on it. “I’m Stephanie Belcher, from the Department of Communities and Justice.”
Zack’s heart hammered and his skin went cold. “DoCS?”
She smiled again. “That’s what we used to be called, yes. Is your mother home?”
“Why?”
“I’d just like to have a chat, that’s all.
” She looked over his shoulder into the house as she spoke. “Can I come in?”
Zack’s mind raced. Should he use the story about visiting her cousins now?
Bring her to me!
Zack jumped, looking quickly at the woman’s face. She gave no indication that she’d heard his mother’s voice.
“Are you okay?” Belcher asked.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
Bring her to me!
His mother’s voice was insistent. Desperate. Something dragged hard at Zack’s chest, seemed to haul at his insides.
Bring her! Let me fix it!
He stepped back from the door. “Come in. Mum’s in bed. She’s not been well.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“She’s agoraphobic. Never goes out.”
Belcher smiled. “Yes, that’s in your file. Must be tough on you, huh? And your sister?”
“I guess. We’re okay. You really don’t need to see her, we’re all just fine.”
“I’m sure that’s true, but this is standard procedure.”
Zack noticed their neighbour, Jack Parsons, standing on the far side of his car where it was parked on the driveway. He looked over the roof at them, ducked away and got into the car when he caught Zack’s eye. The man had to be ninety years old, a real busybody. He’d always been old and grumpy Zack’s whole life.
“Which is your mum’s room?”
Zack jumped slightly, and quickly closed the front door.
Bring her! Bring her!
Zack’s whole body shook, his mouth was dry. He walked around Belcher and pointed to the bedroom door, then stood slightly aside. He knocked, hoped the woman couldn’t see his hand trembling. “Mum, someone to see you.” His voice wavered and he cursed it.
Belcher didn’t seem to notice. She smiled, raised her eyebrows.
Zack shrugged, gestured to the door. “After you?”
Belcher turned the handle and pushed open the door. “Mrs Taylor, I’m sorry to disturb you... What the hell?”
The social worker had taken one step into the room and stood staring in shock at the voluminous white fungus that obscured the entire bed. The light was pushed slightly to one side by its highest bulge.
Give her to me!
His mother’s voice was high, desperate, commanding. With a cry of fear and revulsion, Zack stepped forward, put both hands against Stephanie Belcher’s upper back, and shoved. She yelped in surprise and staggered forward, raising her hands to stop her fall. Her palms hit the front of the pure white curve and immediately hissed, smoke pouring up off them. Belcher screamed as her hands sank in, her arms swallowed into the stuff up to her elbows. More smoke roiled up, Belcher’s throat tearing with the pitch of her cries, her eyes wide in agony. Nothing could stop her forward motion as her arms went deeper and she managed a high, terrified, “NO!” which cut off instantly as her face slammed into the fungal mass. She twisted her head to the side and Zack caught for an instant her mouth stretched in horror, her eyes desperate and beseeching, as her skin bubbled and smoke obscured her.
The smoke reached him and it had a terrible smell, both earthy and like burning meat. Belcher’s entire upper body sank into the fungal mass, bending forward at the hip, until just her butt and legs showed, feet still flat on the floor. Where the front of her legs touched the stuff, the jeans seemed to fuse and sink slowly. Only where the fungus touched bare skin did the sizzling and melting occur. But Zack thought maybe the material protection wouldn’t last long.
He turned and ran for the bathroom where he vomited noisily. Again. It seemed not so long ago that he’d done the same thing, but then he could never have imagined things progressing to this.
He came back to close the bedroom door, saw the social worker sinking slowly into the mass covering his mother’s body. He saw something in her back pocket and gasped, a series of realisations flooding over him. He darted forward, holding his breath, and plucked the keyring from her pocket. A bunch with a variety of different keys on it, but one clearly for her car. The VW logo glittered silver.
He closed the bedroom door and stood in the hallway, taking deep breaths to compose himself. His mind raced, making plans. After a moment he nodded to himself, went to the front door. Peeking out he saw Jack Parsons’s car had gone. How the ancient old fart was still driving was a mystery, but it served his purposes now.
Zack unlocked Belcher’s car and got in, started it up. He saw her bag on the passenger seat, a phone in the front pocket. The edge of a wallet poked up too. Ignore it all, he told himself. He saw a pack of wet wipes in the centre console and smiled. Good, he could use those.
He pulled the hood of his sweater up and low over his eyes, started the car and drove away from his house. He wasn’t a great driver, but he knew the basics. All he lacked was experience, really. He’d driven enough to safely stick to the limits, obey the traffic signs, and thirty minutes later he pulled up on a quiet back street on the outskirts of Monkton. He grabbed the wipes and judiciously cleaned everything he’d touched – wheel, gear shift, handbrake, door handle. He wiped the keys and left them in the ignition, then got out and surreptitiously wiped the handle on the outside too. He pocketed the wipes, kept his head down and his hood up, and walked quickly away.
He was pretty certain there were no cameras anywhere around this part of Monkton, but he took no chances and stayed hidden inside his hood until he was all the way inside Monkton Plaza, a few kilometres from the abandoned car. He checked the time on his phone. Nearly 1 p.m. He was reluctant to go home. Who knew what might be happening in his mother’s bedroom.
He texted Maddy.
if docs call say yeah the woman saw mum then left again all good. explain later
Maddy messaged right back.
What?
docs came, saw mum, all good. you weren’t home i was. explain later
His phone started to ring immediately, Maddy calling...
The last thing he wanted to do was talk about it over the phone. He rejected the call then messaged.
TALK LATER! when you home?
I don’t know. Should I come now?
nah come later
About 6 then?
okay
He switched his phone off and went to watch a movie. It was rubbish, but took his mind off stuff. About four he started walking the main road out of Monkton, thumbing for a lift. He walked a good twenty minutes, then a truck picked him up and dropped him at the Gulpepper turnoff. He thought he’d end up walking all the way back from there, but about halfway along a car slowed. It was a local he’d seen around but had no idea who it was. They were kind enough, didn’t talk much, and that suited him. They dropped him by the harbour just after five and he walked home. He slumped onto the couch, turned on the TV and waited for Maddy. He didn’t dare even look at his mother’s bedroom door, let alone open it.
Maddy stared at a pair of pristine blue and white Nike sneakers sticking out of the massive, bulbous whiteness. The soles were barely even scuffed. Every other part of the woman was consumed. Vomit threatened to burst forth at any moment. “What the fuck, Zack?”
“Mum told me to.”
“What do you mean? Mum’s dead!”
“But she talks to me, I think maybe she’s in there, like, transforming or something?”
“Into what, Zack, Optimus fucking Prime? She’s dead, this is fucked up. You killed that woman!”
“No, I didn’t. Mum told me to give the woman to her, so I did. It’s okay, it’s all good now.”
Maddy took a deep breath, swallowed down bile. “All good? Are you insane? What about when she doesn’t report back? What about when they send someone else?”
Zack pushed gently against her, moved her out of the room and shut the door. “Come on, I’ll explain all that happened.”
By the time he’d finished his story, as they sat across from each other at the kitchen table, Maddy’s hands had mostly stopped shaking. “Did anyone see you leave the car in Monkton?”
&nb
sp; “Nope. And if they did, they wouldn’t have seen my face. And that hoodie I had on was an old one, I’ve already thrown it away.”
Maddy nodded, thinking, chewing her lower lip. “So no one saw anything? If they call or send someone else around, we can tell them the woman never even came here?”
“Yeah, we could, actually. And when they find her car in Monkton, they’ll assume that’s as far as she went and the search will be focused all the way over there.”
“So we just need some plan for when the next one comes around.”
“By then, the fungus will hopefully be done,” Zack said.
“What do you mean, done?”
“I don’t know, finished its lifecycle kinda thing? And Mum’s body will be gone and we can use the story about visiting her cousins. It’s only another year, less than a year, until you’re a legal adult. Not much longer for me. Then we’re free. We claim the house, say Mum fucked off to Bega and we’ve lost touch, whatever. They can search all they like, but they’ll never prove anything, right?”
“Why did you push her in, Zack? Why didn’t you use the cousins story today?”
Zack looked down at the table, at his hands, picking at his nails. “Partly I panicked. But also, Mum said to give the woman to her.”
“It’s not really Mum, you know that, right? I can’t be.”
Zack nodded, picking at his thumbnail until a bead of blood sprang up.
Maddy reached over, put her hand over his. “Zack? It’s okay. We’ll be okay. But we have to be smarter.”
The next morning, Maddy got up early because sleep had been elusive since dawn. She made coffee, tried to eat breakfast, but had no appetite. At seven she opened Zack’s door and called in.
“Monday morning, school.”
He made muffled noises of annoyance and consent and turned over. Maddy stared at the lump of doona for a while, then left. She’d give him another ten minutes. Poor kid, all this was pretty tough. Kid! Why did she have to be the responsible one all the time? She remembered being five when Zack was four and her mother going out and saying, “Watch your brother. Any trouble when I get back and you’ll get the hiding of your life!”