by Alan Baxter
“That’s your best friend’s dad! There’s too much connection. Does his mum know he came around here?”
Mr Brady rolled a little on the floor, groaning.
“I’ll explain everything. Maddy, they come back!”
“What?”
“Just help me!”
“Fuck!”
Zack moved around and got his hands under Mr Brady’s armpits and Maddy had no choice but to grab his legs. They hoisted him up, swung him once, then hefted him onto the fungus. It was much smaller again, Maddy noticed.
Brady immediately thrashed and screamed, but was already stuck, his face and hands bubbling and smoking. The bulbous fungus vibrated, almost like it was shivering with pleasure.
“Jesus!” Maddy said, voice choked like wire in her throat.
“Come on.” Zack pulled her from the room and closed the door as Brady’s screams became gargles.
They went into the lounge and Maddy collapsed onto the sofa, trembling. They’d blown it. Zack had blown it, there was no coming back from this. Zack sat in the armchair opposite and all she could do was stare at him in shock.
Zack grinned. “So, I remembered Josh was going to his grandparents with his mum. That’s all the way up near Cooma. His grandma has to get some minor surgery, so his mum went to help out, took Josh out of school for a visit. They’re away until the weekend. I pretended I got the day wrong, but I didn’t. I knew Mr Brady would be there alone, and no one saw me go and talk to him. I was really careful. And I told him my mum needed some help. He jumped at the chance.”
“Zack...”
He held up a hand to stop her. “No one saw, no one knows he came here. But it doesn’t matter anyway. Come and see this.”
He jumped up again and headed for the back door from the kitchen. Reluctantly she followed, thinking perhaps her numbness was a kind of shock. Zack led her into the garden and over to the fence. An old milk crate sat there, one his mother used to stand on to see over the fence for a chat. Maddy and Zack crowded onto it and Zack pointed at Jack Parsons’s house next door. “Look.”
She looked into Parsons’s side window. He sat in there, in his lounge room, staring at something. The TV maybe? She couldn’t tell from her vantage. “What the hell?”
She climbed down and looked at Zack.
“I don’t know exactly,” Zack said. “But I saw him earlier, coming back home. Just walking up the street like normal. And that’s when I came up with the plan to get Brady over. If they come back, it doesn’t matter who, right?”
Maddy shook her head, mind spinning. She couldn’t catch hold of a single thought.
“Did you see the thing in there was smaller again?” Zack asked. “Mum said one more, maybe two. Brady is one more. And look here.”
He led her over to their mother’s bedroom window, still open as it had been all along. There were footprints in the scrubby, patchy flower bed right below the window, and pale white marks on the sill. Maddy leaned forward to look but didn’t dare touch.
“They’ll remember,” she said weakly. “I mean, being pushed in. They’ll remember what we did to them.”
“I talked to Parsons this afternoon when I saw him. He doesn’t remember a thing.”
“Was he... I mean, was he normal?”
Zack laughed. “I don’t know. What’s normal for Parsons?”
The breeze shifted the curtains slightly and Maddy caught a glimpse of Brady, still, sunk half into the fungus. She gasped and looked away. “I can’t process this, Zack. I can’t... I just can’t.”
Zack hugged her. “It’s okay. I’ve got this. Brady might be the last. If not, Mum said just one more. We have to decide who.”
“Zack...”
“We’ll worry about it tomorrow, yeah? For now, it’s all done.”
Maddy nodded and walked away. She didn’t want to think about any of it. A weight of fatigue dragged at her and she wanted only to shut everything out. She went into her room, closed the door, and collapsed onto the bed. She let sleep take her.
The next morning Maddy felt a little better, the shock reduced to a dull sensation of surreality. If they were going to suffer for this, so be it. What was done, was done. But maybe damage control was an option. How the hell was Parsons back? That was the thought that kept circling her mind like a vulture looking for prey.
Zack was still asleep. She opened her mother’s door and looked in. The fungus on the bed was reduced again. Down to a small set of undulating white lumps, not much bigger than her mother’s body had been before all this madness started. And in a vaguely humanoid shape on the mattress. Would they really be shot of it soon?
One more!
The voice was sudden and harsh, and triggered the spikes behind Maddy’s eyes. She shut the door and hurried out. She rang Parsons’s doorbell and gripped her hands into fists to hide their shaking. It took a few minutes, but the old man eventually shuffled into view and opened the door.
“Madeleine?”
“Hello.”
“What can I do you for?”
He was never this friendly. She’d expected grumpiness from the outset. “I, er... Well, I just wanted to see if you were okay, that’s all. My mum said I ought to check on you, living alone as you do.”
“Very kind, but no need. I’m fine.”
“Okay, that’s good to hear.”
Parsons’s skin looked unnaturally pale, almost alabaster. His eyes were pale grey. She remembered his eyes as being rheumy and bloodshot, but not any more. They were pale, but clear. “So you’re feeling okay?”
“Perfectly.” He rubbed a hand along the other forearm and his thumbnail snagged a curl of something white off his skin. Without looking he pressed it back down. “What’s your mother worried about exactly?”
“Oh, I don’t know. You know how mothers are.” What did that even mean? She was rambling.
Parsons shook his head. “Not really, no.” He frowned a moment, like he was trying to remember something. “We used to talk over the fence, your mother and I. She would stand on something to see over. So would I.”
“That’s right.”
“I haven’t seen her in a long while.” He raised his eyebrows, almost as if he were challenging her to deny the assertion.
“She doesn’t really go out any more.”
“Maybe I should come and visit sometime? I’ve never been inside your house, have I.” It wasn’t a question.
“You haven’t?”
“No. Never.”
Maddy nodded. “Okay then. Well, as long as you’re okay.”
“Perfect. You don’t need to check on me any more.”
“Okay, sure. Have a good day.”
“You too.” He shut the door and Maddy stood staring at it for a moment, then turned away and went back home.
Zack was up when she went in. “One more then?” he said. “You okay to help me get it organised?”
“Yep. But I have to work.” Maddy paused, remembering some of the thoughts she’d had the previous day. “You leave this one to me, yeah?”
“Sure. You got a plan?”
“I have. Make sure you’re home by six for when I get back.”
“Okay.”
She went to work, steeling herself all the way. It took about twenty minutes at a fast clip to get from her house on the hill down to Woollies. In the staff room she saw Wendy Callow sipping a coffee. Mean Wendy Callow, always a bitch to everyone. And so sweet on Dylan’s mate, James.
“Morning, Wendy.”
“Maddy?”
“Yeah. You okay.”
Wendy frowned. “Why do you care?”
Maddy swallowed the retort that came first to mind and said. “Dylan and some mates are coming over to mine tonight, have a few drinks. Mum’s away. James asked me if I’d invite you.”
Wendy instantly brightened. “James asked you that?”
“Yeah. Don’t know why he didn’t just invite you himself. I told him to. Chicken, I suppose. You want to come?”
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“Sure, why not?” Wendy tried to play it cool, but her expression was an open book. The girl was gleeful.
Maddy nodded. “Cool. You can walk back with me after work. You’re finished at six too, yeah?”
“Yep.”
“Right.”
Conversation was awkward for the long walk home, but Maddy did her best to dissociate from it. Just doing a job, she kept telling herself. Securing our future. This is for me and Zack.
When they got to the house, Zack was watching YouTube on his phone. He looked up and nodded once, acting completely uninterested.
“Where is everyone then?” Wendy asked.
“They’ll be here soon. You want a drink?”
“Sure. You got gin?”
“Yeah. Have a seat.”
Wendy sat in the armchair, their mother’s armchair they never used any more, and that seemed strangely appropriate. As Maddy headed for the kitchen she caught Zack’s eye and he nodded, got up to follow.
“Let’s do it quick,” Maddy whispered as soon as they were out of the lounge. “Before I lose my nerve.”
“Okay. Who is that?”
“Doesn’t matter. How do we do it?”
“Get the drinks.”
Maddy stared at him for a moment, then turned to the counter. She made three strong gin and tonics, then went back towards the lounge.
“I’ll be there in a sec,” Zack said.
Maddy handed over the drink, then lifted hers. “Cheers.”
Wendy grinned crookedly. “Cheers.” She took a big gulp. “Damn, that’s strong!”
“Only way to drink ’em, right?”
“I suppose so.”
Maddy took another sip, and Wendy matched her, then put the glass down on the small table beside the chair. As Maddy stepped backwards to sit on the sofa, Zack walked back in. He strode directly to Wendy and punched her clean across the point of the jaw.
Maddy yelped in shock as Wendy slumped loosely in the chair. She groaned weakly.
“Let’s go,” Zack said, grabbing one arm and one leg.
Maddy hurried over, grabbing the other arm and leg, saying, “Fuck, fuck, fuck,” over and over again.
Zack had opened their mother’s bedroom door and they carried Wendy right in, one either side of the bed, straining under the girl’s weight as they had to reach out, dragging her over the remaining fungus. They manoeuvred her into position and then dropped her directly onto it. Wendy cried out in pain and writhed as the skin of her neck, arms and legs below her shorts hissed and smoked.
Zack put one knee on the bed and planted his hands against her shoulders. “Hold her down!” he shouted.
“Fuck!” Maddy said again, and grabbed Wendy’s legs, palms over her shins, and pressed them back into the whiteness. The smoke that rose was sharp and acrid, vaguely like a barbecue burning, but thick with something else as well, a cloying, earthy sweetness.
Wendy’s eyes opened and rolled, the whites showing all around. “What are you doing?” she cried. “Please, stop! It hurts!”
“Hold her down!” Zack yelled, leaning his weight harder.
Maddy gritted her teeth, clambered onto the bed and pressed as hard as she could, being careful her fingers got nowhere near the fungus. Wendy thrashed and screamed, the bed shook with her efforts. She bucked up, trying to arch her back, but her clothes and skin had already become stuck to the remaining fungus and it stretched as she rose, then she collapsed back down. She howled and sobbed, tipped her head up to look beseechingly at Maddy, and Maddy knew she would never forget the sight of that gaze as long as she lived. The back of Wendy’s head stretched like taffy, her hair and skin smoking, bubbling into blisters around the backs of her ears. She sobbed and wailed but her thrashing weakened. Her head fell back, her neck smoking. She gurgled, twitching but no longer fighting.
Zack climbed off the bed and staggered away, face twisted in horror. Maddy stumbled away too. They stood either side of the bed watching as Wendy slowly stilled. Maddy gasped as Wendy’s eyes popped open once more, staring crazily, her mouth worked silently, then she fell still.
There was no sound except Zack and Maddy’s ragged breathing and a soft hissing from the bed. Without a word, the siblings turned and left, Zack shutting the door. They went into the lounge and swallowed down their drinks, then to the kitchen, made more drinks, and silently swallowed them down too. Then another, and another.
They began to chat quietly about nothing in particular, the booze loosening their shock. By a little after nine they were both thoroughly drunk. Zack passed out on the sofa in the lounge and Maddy crawled to bed.
Sometime in the early hours, head pounding, mouth dry, she woke to sounds of scratching and scraping. Then a clunk. All from her mother’s room. She ignored it all.
In the morning, she and Zack stood looking at her mother’s bed. It was empty, no trace of anything having been there except the rumpled bedclothes. Even the stains of their mother’s illness were gone. They called in sick to work and school, then got busy.
They stripped the bed and rolled up the sheets and doona into garbage bags. Zack got a sledgehammer from the small tin shed and smashed the wooden bedframe to pieces. They dragged the pieces out into the back garden, doused the pile with petrol from the can kept for the mower, and lit it. When the wood was burning well, they dragged the mattress on top and watched that go up. They threw the bedclothes on too. Black, oily smoke from the artificial materials clouded up and they stood downwind and watched until they were sure it was all ignited and burning well.
Back inside, they washed and cleaned the floor, walls, ceiling, like they had the rest of the house before, only with twice the vigour. The stain under the bed took some extra elbow grease, but they scoured it eventually. They packed up half of their mum’s clothes and possessions, which was a sadly small collection, into two suitcases and put them in the boot of the car. Maddy knew there were big bins out the back of the industrial area on the south side of town. Mechanics and some kind of metal workshop, a few other businesses, all occupied large metal warehouses up there. The bins were never locked.
They backed the car up, making sure no one was paying much attention, and dumped the suitcases in, dragging cardboard and industrial waste over the top of it all. When they got back home, the bed was nothing more than a scorched mark on the grass with ash and blackened, twisted metal springs atop it. They decided to leave that as it was. Worry about it later. Maddy ordered a new double bed online, to be delivered. Their mother’s room would soon look like she’d gone away for a while, expecting to come back. It could stay like that indefinitely.
They went back inside and made more drinks.
“The house is ours now,” Zack said, lifting his glass in a toast.
“To the future,” Maddy said. Her hands still shook.
“Dad’s been acting really weird ever since we got back,” Josh said on Monday after school.
“Weird how?” Zack asked.
“Dunno. Just not his normal self, you know? He doesn’t look well, either. He’s so pale.”
“Maybe he’s sick?”
“He goes out a lot at night. Mum’s really upset about it.”
“I’m sure he’ll be fine. You want to come over to mine instead? My mum’s gone to see her cousins in Bega.”
Maddy was high from some good weed Dylan had. Maybe he wasn’t such a bad guy after all. She might stay with him for a while yet. She was enjoying her walk home in the moonlight, the cool air of approaching autumn invigorating. The streets were quiet. After midnight, The Gulp seemed to slip into a coma. A poster on a telegraph pole caught her eye, photocopied black and white with a picture of a straggly-haired young man. Have you seen Daniel? in bold letters across the top. She turned up Tanning Street past the post office and made her way up the shallow hill, then down the other side. She paused as she came by the playground on the opposite side of the street behind the beach. A figure stood just past the park, staring out to sea. They were motionle
ss. Uncannily so.
Maddy frowned, recognising Jack Parsons. As she watched, someone else came wandering up and stood beside him. Wendy Callow. They didn’t speak, didn’t even acknowledge each other. Just stood there. A moment later, Mr Brady joined them. Maddy walked on, slowly, watching from the corner of her eye, glad of the street and the park between them. The three just stood there, staring at the ocean.
When she reached a patch of deep shade under a fig tree, Maddy paused again. There should be one more. Sure enough, after a moment more, a woman walked slowly across the grass past the play equipment and joined the others. Stephanie Belcher, Maddy presumed. The social worker.
When Belcher reached the group, they all turned as one and walked back across the park and onto Tanning Street. Lurking in the shadows, Maddy watched them head towards the harbour. They walked out of sight, never having said a word to each other.
Part of Maddy wanted to follow, see what they did, but she didn’t dare. Her role in all this, whatever it was, had ended. She hoped the promise to leave her and Zack alone would be kept.
The Band Plays On
Blind Eye Moon were playing and Patrick had no idea if they were any good. The Monkton Tavern was packed for the Friday night gig, and so many locals had said to check them out it seemed like a necessary part of the trip. Backpacking was all about immersion in the local culture, after all. In Thailand they’d gone trekking into the jungles of the north and visited the Karen hill people. In Malaysia they’d developed a taste for hawker street food. In Darwin they’d been mesmerised by the vast splendour of Kakadu and were keen to learn about the local folks who showed them around there. It was all so far removed from Dublin. Leaving for a one-year trip around the world had been the best decision of his twenty-four-year life. Ciara had needed to cajole and badger him about it for months, sure. He was a creature of habit and took some convincing, but she had been right. He’d told her so and would tell her again. That they travelled so well together was also good evidence a life together would be long and fruitful. But he needed to wait until they got home to Ireland to put that to her. A proposal on the trip would fundamentally change the nature of what they were doing.