Horror Day Anthology
Author: Martin Livings (ed)
Date: 2006-01-01 05:00:00+00:00
Description: Australian anthology edited by horror author Martin Livings, no info beyond 2006 date found.

Welcome to the Horror Day Anthology, otherwise known as the Fastest Anthology On Earth. Yesterday, I had the bright idea of putting a collection of short horror fiction online for the duration of Horror Day, for Friday the 13th of Octover 2006, as my small part in promoting horror on this day. Once I’d snared a co-editor in my good friend Stephanie Gunn, we put the word out as best we could, asking for submissions. There was no payment involved, and the notice couldn’t have been much shorter, less than twenty four hours. We thought we’d get a couple of stories, nothing more.

We were wrong.

There are fifteen, count them, fifteen short stories for your enjoyment on this Friday the 13th, from a wide range of authors. The stories involve monsters and magic, murderers and mothers. Some are funny, some are scary, and some are just downright weird. But hopefully all are enjoyable. If nothing else, it should give the reader some idea of just what is possible with a single day’s notice. The Australian horror community is always quick to give.

Speaking of giving, if you like the stories in this collection, and want to help keep small press alive in this country, you could do far worse than to visit the TiconderogaOnline/ASiF Donation Drive, two fine online publications that are struggling to stay afloat. You can donate as little as five dollars, and in return you’ll receive a PDF file packed with more short fiction, plus go into the draw to win some great prizes.

So, read on, and enjoy. I have to say thanks to all the authors who contributed, and of course to Steph, who did the lion’s share of the proof-reading, all in record time. And thanks to you, the reader, for taking the time today to check these stories out. If you do enjoy them, send the web address to a friend who may not normally read horror, and encourage them to check it out for themselves. We could double the world’s horror readership in a single blow!

Martin Livings

“untitled”
Brendan Carson

He should have known something was wrong when she met him at the door.

“Darling” she said. “I’ve got wonderful news!”

“Uh huh?” He put his briefcase down and hugged her.

“The doctor’s appointment? Today? Well, they did tests, and - “

“And?” he said. “And what? What is it?”

“Oh darling,” she squealed. “I’ve got an internal parasite!”

“A parasite?” he shrieked. “Like an infection? Where?”

She smiled impishly, took his hand and placed it on her lower belly. “Here. Growing inside me. Drinking my blood, eating my food, taking an ever-increasing proportion of my nutrients - “

“Good God” he said. For a moment he was unable to speak.

“What are they going to do about it? What can they do? Can they kill it?”

“Well, Dr Smith did say that was one of the options, but I told him we wanted to keep it, and he said a lot of couples did, and he seemed quite pleased. He said if we want to have a look at it we could just sit and wait. He said that if you just leave it for a few months - I think there’s only about seven or eight months to go - it comes out by itself.”

“What, dies?”

“Not really. Just sort of. comes out. Alive. Out of my belly. It squirms out. Or slides. “

He stared, silently for a few moments. “Out of your belly? But. how?”

“Well, you know that hole thing you like putting your thing into - “

“Yes, yes” he said dismissively. “But what’s got to do with - oh my God!!!”

“Yes. It slides out of there. Although he said slide isn’t really a good term, because in fact I have to push it out myself, and it’ll be one of the most painful experiences of my life. There’ll be screaming and crying and so forth - oh, and I think he mentioned faecal incontinence.”

He was speechless. She continued. “Of course, by that time it’s going to be pretty huge - three or four kilos, he said, with a head that’s about this big -” Here she held her hands up in a circle, the size of a large saucer, “- so it may cause some damage to… that part. The part you like so much.”

He felt weak, and had to grasp the edges of the chair. “Damage?”

“Tearing” she said, her head tilted on one side, attempting to recall the precise words spoken. “Tearing and bleeding and splitting. Possibly tearing of the lower bowel, I think he said. It may never be the same.”

“Oh. My. God.”

He stared at her, silent, as she regarded him with a fixed, joyous grin. He swallowed.

“Well” he said. “Well. I’m sure you - he - you both know best. Did he - did he happen to mention any good news? Like. I don’t know, what benefits you would get? From leaving the parasite in there, instead of doing the sensible thing?”

“Benefits?”

“Well, does it. make you healthy or something? Is it good for you?”

“God no!” she trilled, and laughed merrily. “Lower back pain, haemorrhoids, stretch marks, achy, veiny breasts. afterwards, my mind may be flooded with toxic chemicals that will make me suicidally depressed or maybe even floridly psychotic!”

“Great” he said slowly. “Something to look forward to. Still, I suppose,” and here he swallowed, “I suppose sharing things like this will make our relationship stronger.”

“Hardly” she tittered. “Fatigue, financial pressures, loss of privacy and independence. most relationships never recover. One or the other of us will probably have an affair - or wish we could. In the next few years it’s quite possible we’ll get a divorce.”

“Mmmm,” he said, even more slowly than before. “I see. So.” - and here he seemed to be searching for a suggestion - “I suppose there must be some kind of financial reward? For bringing these things into the world?”

She seemed to find this uproariously funny, and for a moment he had to wait while she wiped her eyes. “Oh dearest, you are funny. No, it will cost us vast amounts. When you add up foregone earnings, direct expenses - you know, they stay attached to my breasts by their little toothless mouths for quite a few months, and after that we have to drive them around in a car and give them a room in the house and special clothes and so on - well, it adds up. People quite commonly spend a million dollars over the next eighteen years.”

“Eighteen years?” he whispered.

“More often more. Nowadays it could be twenty or twenty five. We’ll never be alone again!”

He could only manage silence. He regarded her face, suffused with a beatific joy. Something had changed about her, her thoughts, her feelings, her priorities and her grasp on reality. She had already altered from the woman he knew. It was as if the person he had loved and did love had faded away, and this grinning, chirping thing had invaded her body instead. He decided to make one last attempt to understand the situation.

“So if this is all true,” he said slowly. “The pain and the damage and the cost and the risk and everything, why are you doing it? Why are we keeping it?”

“That’s the amazing part!” she laughed. “Chemicals! Chemicals released in my brain by the whole process are making me think this is something other than an unmitigated disaster!”

“Chemicals?”

“Oxytocin, dopamine, neuro-transmitters. I can’t really remember the names, because some studies suggest that my intelligence quotient is probably already dropping. But according to the chemicals this is going to be absolutely, wondrously, scrumpliciously, “ here she pirouetted in one spot, “wonderful!” As she turned, the light seemed to catch in her eyes, preternaturally bright.

“Dearest,” he said cautiously. “You look. flushed. Are you sure you’re not… did Dr Smith notice anything odd about how you look?’

“He certainly did!” she trilled, and smiled back at him. “He said I look positively radiant.”

Brendan Carson’s stories have appeared in Altair and Antipodean SF.

“Your Own Light-Hearted Friend”
Stephen Dedman

Don’t believe everything you may’ve heard. There wasn’t even a hint of fog, that night, and hardly a cloud: I could see Mars as clearly as you can see this page, a red pinprick like a first sign of some disease. It was September, and still quite warm; all the usual stenches were nourished by the heat, waiting for rain to wash them into the Thames and poison the rest of the world. A rat was eating a dead cat: his ancestors will rule the world in a thousand years, and welcome. What could be worse than this? The garbage, the pubs and abattoirs, the mouldy straw and gin, the brothels and alleys and gutters, all the sin and sickness. Poverty and despair and all the cheap substitutes for life. Music - real music - would be as foreign here as she.

Words failed me, sometimes, even when the music followed me, filling my ears like poison. I call her ‘she’, though she cannot be human, and I doubt that she could be a woman. A machine, maybe - no, probably, almost certainly. A machine crafted to look like a woman, as invisible as everyone else in the East End.

London is not my city either, and I would have left these streets to the rats and animals were it not for her, were it not for the certainty that she will not be satisfied with such refuse. She was... where is she from? Mars? Another planet? The future? Other times, other worlds; let us say another world. Does it matter? She can survive here, and learn...

I was stared at from dark corners, but not recognised: these people, these children born of children, they have a name for me that they sing in the daylight and in the reeking crowds, as though they were not afraid. They did not see the knife in my sleeve, stolen surgical steel. Taken from the bag of a doctor who flees from madness to drunkenness in a squalid surgery nearby surviving on abortions and stitching up rat-bites and knife-slashes, and has probably woken on several mornings with bloody hands wondering, How?

Perhaps they thought me a detective, delicious irony; there were many of them here, that September. They are looking for me and they do not know her; is she amused by their ignorance?

Can she laugh? Laughter is for humans.

I am an educated man, perhaps the only one for miles. I have read the works of Poe, and Shelley, and Verne, and Bierce. I have seen van Kempelen’s Machine. I know what can be done, what horrors the future will bring. I know that the universe does not belong to man, that the world will not be ours forever. I know what must be done; I will save you if I can. I know what she...

Who sent her here (the rats, maybe?) and what will follow her? An invading army of pseudo-humans? Fighting machines? Strange new plagues? Scientists? Missionaries?

She was waiting for a man, waiting for me, in the shadows, in a doorway in Mitre Square.

Don’t believe everything you may’ve heard. She didn’t scream, or run: too drunk. All was still cold still cold steel colder still now

but it wasn’t her. For the second time that night, the fourth time in a month, it wasn’t her, and I became angry, slashing madly, and

cold steel cold steel steal away now cold she’s cold she’s still and it still isn’t her

* * *

The papers, next morning, tell me her name was Eddowes. Before that it was Stride. Chapman. Nicholls. None of them were her, but I didn’t stop didn’t stop until I was sure I cut I cut until I could see, could be sure, that there weren’t any wires.

They have a new name for me, too. Someone with a very strange sense of humour has sent Scotland Yard a letter in red ink, and signed himself ‘Jack the Ripper’.

Next time it will be her. I’d stake my life on it.

Stephen Dedman‘s first novel, The Art of Arrow Cutting, was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award. 24 of his best horror short stories can be found in his collection Never Seen by Waking Eyes. He lives in Australia, and likes startling people.

This story was previously published in Horrors! 365 Scary Stories.

“Daddy”
Stephanie Gunn

I heard you coming up the path, Daddy.

You still wear those old hard-soled shoes, beating their old staccato on the broken concrete. Your steps are so even, despite the condition of the sidewalk. The neighbourhood’s going to rot. The rest of the street has been empty for years.

Now, there is only me.

You remember this house, of course. How could you forget? You carried Mother across this very threshold, the lace of her veil catching at the splinters in the doorframe. There are still threads caught there; I watch them sway in the breeze in the long summer afternoons.

Come in Daddy, let me close the door behind you. The lock is broken, so I must lock it with a key lest it blow open in the wind. Some days it creeps up like a ghost, banging the door, setting the weeds in the garden rippling like water.

The grass in the back yard is as high as my waist, grown so high that you cannot see the stones any more.

That, at least, should be pleasing to you.

Come, sit in the parlour for me. See, the wallpaper is the same ivory that Mother chose, yellowed now by time. The sofa is still covered with the original fabric. I have worked hard to keep it perfect, though the once rich, deep red has faded to the colour of old, dried blood.

Some tea? Coffee? No, of course it would be whiskey. I keep the old decanter full. Your favourite brand, of course. There are cigars in the box by your hand. That noise upstairs? Just the floorboards settling. The bedrooms are still the same, of course. Mother’s room is still sealed, of course, the mirrors and windows draped with black lace.

It is lonely sometimes, yes. But this is what you wanted, Daddy. Unthinkable, to let this house pass to one not of the family. I have done as you wished, always.

No one else would understand, Daddy.

No one else could.

I have something to show you, Daddy. You can bring your whiskey. Of course I’ll help you up the stairs. It’s been a while since you’ve had to walk any stairs, hasn’t it, Daddy? Your hips still pain you, I see. Have some more whiskey, it will dull the pain. Take this pill.

That noise? Yes, it does sound as though it’s coming from within Mother’s room. You can see that the wax seal is still intact. I would never go in there. It may be mice. It may be the wind. I assure you, Mother rests easy underneath her stone in the garden where you planted her.

The room I want to show you is tucked away at the back of the house where the roof slopes down low.

This, too, is still the same. The small bed is still hung with white lace, the red-haired doll that Mother made me is still lying on the pillow. She had a little pink-stitched mouth once. I picked it out stitch by stitch with a needle, rendering her mute. The wind chimes that you hung are still outside the window, the painted bluebirds faded to grey from the sunlight. Amazing, that the sunlight still falls here.

The light stops at the window. It doesn’t fall on the polished floorboards, the white hooked rug that Mother made.

You remember that rug, don’t you, Daddy? Do you remember how I had to bleach it back to whiteness? How I had to hide it from Mother? The bucket is still tucked away in the back of the wardrobe, still carries the scent of bleach and old blood. I burned the skin from my hands bleaching that rug.

Yes, I see that you remember it. Here, let me take your whiskey, help you into the rocking chair. Remember Mother sitting here, holding that white bundle in her arms, singing? Remember later, that bundle gone, planted in the garden. She never sang after that.

Remember later, those nights when the winds whipped around the house? The wind chimes sounded like shattering glass. Remember the rug turned red, the screams you muffled with the red-haired doll between my teeth? She tasted like mould and death.

Here, Daddy, you look tired. Lie down on the bed. No, don’t try and open the door. I installed that lock myself, shining and new against the worn paint. I made a few other changes, come and see. Lie down, there, you look tired.

Don’t be frightened, Daddy. I only want to be sweet to you.

You remember those words, don’t you?

The cuffs are cold? I can show you colder still, Daddy. This knife had been lying outside for years, buried under snow and time. I cleaned it and sharpened it, just for you. You recognize it? Good. It’s here for you, all for you, Daddy.

Scream if you like, here, use my doll as a gag. Bite down, Daddy, bite down.

That noise? It’s Mother, bringing her daughter to meet you. Can you smell the earth on them, the rot? They’ve been waiting a long time, Daddy, just like I.

We only want to be sweet to you, Daddy. Only want to be sweet to you.

Stephanie Gunn is a Perth-based writer of dark urban fantasy and horror. She has been published in Shadowed Realms, AntipodeanSF and Blood-lust-UK, and also volunteers as a reviewer at Horrorscope.

“Inchoate: Night Memories”
Robert Hood

— pass by the window on his way to ... somewhere. Work? Yes, to an office, in a tall building where he didn’t know anybody and they didn’t know him. This happened every day, right? He was having trouble remembering. Seeing the window didn’t happen every day – he was sure of that. It was ... old-fashioned. Framed by solid wood, so weathered the peeling curls of colourless paint on it looked like fretwork. The glass was painted over. A wartime precaution perhaps. (Though that was in England long ago. Before his time, wasn’t it? He couldn’t recall.) The paint was black ... or maybe deep red, the way black hair sometimes had a red sheen in sunlight. It tempted him. To step closer, search myopically for a scratch that would let him see into the room beyond. The wall surrounding the window was otherwise featureless. Cement-rendered? It was very dirty. There didn’t seem to be a door. What was in the building? He didn’t know and knew better than to waste time trying to find out. Such idle curiosity was hallmark of a dangerous lack of ... what? Attention to the present. The phrase hung there. A memory. But he couldn’t remember from when. Was it something his mother had said? Or his father? He couldn’t fix his mind on either of them. Why hadn’t he seen the window before?

He went on.

But he got lost and was late for work. Nobody noticed. Nobody said good morning. Nobody threatened him with anything. He went to his desk ... But was it his desk? He wasn’t sure. Couldn’t quite remember. He hadn’t left it so tidy the night before, had he? He was never tidy. His spaces, like his mind, were a litter of unfinished business. Still, nobody sent him away from it ... ‘Excuse me?’ he said to a tall woman with dark red hair as she brushed by, unaware of him. He followed her, coming up behind. Nobody looked at him. ‘Excuse me?’ He touched her shoulder. She entered an office cubicle without stopping for him. Angry, he went in after her. ‘Look, Ms...’ He couldn’t bring her name to mind. She had very big eyes—deep green. A mane of hair framed her face in a lush burgundy texture. ‘You ignored me,’ he said, hurt. She frowned, as though she couldn’t quite hear him. ‘Do you want something?’ she said. ‘I just wanted to know if that was my desk ...’ he began, but her eyes glazed over, as though she’d thought of something else. He watched her smile to somebody who wasn’t there ... and unbutton her blouse. She took it off. Her breasts were full, their nipples like pink-brown fruit. Then her skirt and her underwear. He stared at the downy redness between her legs. Was she offering him something? He stepped closer. Reached out his hand. Felt the softness of her breast. He knelt; she leaned back against the desk. His hand probed within her thighs, parted the swollen lips of flesh, wetting his fingers, wanting to open her fully. He could smell her rich scent, but inside her, what was there? ... Something? He couldn’t see clearly. He looked up at her. She stared at him, unaware, and suddenly he thought she was like his mother (though he couldn’t remember what his mother was like) and he pulled back his fingers and moved away. Outside the door, he rubbed her moisture on his handkerchief.

Dealing with the files on his desk was impossible. He didn’t know what they were for. Anxiety and a peculiar tension made him fumble, sent his mind off into other places. He didn’t see the woman again, though he kept looking for her. His eyes searched for gaps in the slim venetians too. Glimpses of somebody or something walking by the building. No, he was five storeys up. Nothing could pass. He tried to catch the eye of other workers. No one met his gaze. The figures on the papers he had to process became more alien.

‘You!’ A shadow fell over him and he looked at its original ... a man, familiar, yet he couldn’t quite remember where he’d seen him before. ‘Day-dream and you’re done for,’ the man continued, his goatee beard pointing like a threat. He barely seemed to be looking at him. ‘You must pay attention to the present!’

He saw the red-haired woman again on his way ... somewhere. To where he slept? Yes, to a little place that wasn’t his ... that he rented. (Had he ever had a home of his own?) He followed her along the street. She’d disappeared when he rounded a corner ... but the window was there. In the blank wall. He realised he’d been anticipating seeing it, feeling eager to look through its impenetrable pane. Perhaps the woman was behind there. He shuffled close. Then away. Back again.

Something moved against the glass. He frowned, squinting at it. A fish emerged from the black surface. It swam into the air as though the world were a sea, flapped its fins and curved back into the window. Gone.

He blinked, his mind numbing. Was the windowpane solid, or just a shadow? Either way, what was beyond it? Nose almost touching it now, he sniffed, trembling, afraid something would come out at him. Nothing did. He could see only a dim reflection of himself. (He guessed it was himself, though the phantom shape looked like someone else ... he didn’t know who. Seemed familiar.) ‘Is there anyone there?’ he whispered. His fingers, still smelling of the red-haired woman’s sex, hovered against the glass. Touched. Entered through it. Black paint swept aside, the way the surface membrane of an algaed pond might, its tension broken by a stone. Blackness disappeared ... and suddenly he could see beyond it. For a moment, the images through the parting curtain were bulbous and featureless. Heaving shapes. Forming. He blinked.

It was not the interior of a building, but a park. Short picket fences defining landscaped edges. Icecream seller’s van, side flap open. War memorial. Crucifix. A bench. On the bench, a woman. A red-haired woman. It was his mother ... he knew that, though he could not quite remember what his mother looked like. Next to her was a stern, formally dressed gentleman with a goatee beard. He resembled ... whom? Someone ... sort of like Sigmund Freud. But he knew it was his father (though again memory of his father was formless). The woman was holding a baby. In the middle distance, a young boy ran past, yelling silently—the scene was utterly soundless. He felt a strong conviction that the boy was his own son. ‘Can you hear me?’ he said. The woman stood up. Aimlessly ambled forward, not looking at him. The baby squirmed and she glanced down at it. The baby was staring straight at him. Caught his eye. There was no question that the child saw him. That he saw the child. They stared at each other with intense recognition.

*

‘What’s he looking at?’ the red-haired woman said to her husband. She followed her child’s gaze. There was open sea, sweeping out from a rocky foreshore. It was restless with wind and marked by a pattern of undercurrents, so that the surface of the water was thick and broken.

‘Looking for fish perhaps?’ the man replied. Then added, glancing toward dark clouds forming across the horizon: ‘There’s bad weather on the way; we should head off home. We can come back tomorrow.’

The woman smiled at him, agreeing perhaps.

Robert Hood writes horror-fantasy, SF and crime stories. “Inchoate: Night Memories” was inspired by a series of works by artist Tony and was published in the exhibition catalogue in 1992. It may not be ordinary supernatural or gore horror, but it is rather psychologically disturbing, once you put the pieces together. Hood’s website is http://www.roberthood.net.

“Silence”
Martin Livings

We sit together on the log, he and I, both naked in the cold night air, and look out across the lake, still, dark, deep. There is no moon, just starlight. We’re miles from anywhere.

His arm is around my shoulders. One hand rests on my breast, the other high on my bare thigh. I ignore them.

Listen, I tell him, as we sit. Listen to the silence.

He doesn’t understand. All he hears are birds in the distance, the sound of us breathing, his own quick heartbeat. He has an erection. I ignore that too.

Listen, I say again.

Then I scream.

I scream high and loud, scream as if my life depends upon it. I scream until my lungs are empty. Then I stop.

Now the silence calls to me. The familiar high-pitched whine fills my head, surrounds me, makes me safe.

The doctors call it tinnitus, a ringing in the ears. They say, if it’s bad enough, it can drive people insane. Not me, though; I find its siren song a comfort, a constant friend. When everything else is gone, it’s still there with me, humming that same note, reliable, dependable.

I wish I could share it with someone.

He’s let me go now, and looks at me like I’m some crazy girl. What the hell was that for, he demands, angry, frustrated. His erection is gone now. The camping trip I invited him on has taken a surprising turn for the worse; he expected to have sex under the stars, climb aboard and cleave me in the chill night air, miles from anywhere, miles from anyone.

They all expect that. What I expect, of course, is to find a soulmate, someone to share the silent music with. But I never do.

Well, if he can’t share the song with me, perhaps he can help me hear it better.

I reach down beside the log, then plunge the hunting knife I hid there earlier into his thigh, all the way to its hilt.

He screams high and loud, screams as if his life depends upon it.

I’m careful not to hit the femoral artery. I want him to scream, not die. I twist the knife, and his scream hits a new pitch, almost as high as the music itself that he calls for. Then I yank it free, and he falls backwards off the log. Black blood spurts over the wood like redgum. I stand up, over him. The blade of my knife drips in the moonlight. He’s still screaming.

We’re miles from anywhere, miles from anyone.

He screams as I bend over and cut into his scrotum, and shell him like a peanut. He screams as I sever his penis. He screams until his lungs are empty.

Now, I whisper, now.

I swipe the knife across his arched neck. The blade slices deep into the flesh there, severs his veins, his arteries. His windpipe. His screams stop dead, replaced by a soft wet sigh, and his whole life pours out of him in a single gush of fluid. His eyes roll back in his head, and he stops struggling.

Then I straighten and turn, skin hot despite the cold night air, and look out across the lake, still, dark, deep. Deep enough to hide so many bodies already, and more. It comes to me now, comes in the newborn silence, lured once more by the bedlam that I offered it. I smile, safe, peaceful.

It sings to me.

Martin Livings‘s first book, the horror novel Carnies, was released in June 2006.
His webpage can be found at http://www.martinlivings.com.

“Chocolate”
Robbie Matthews

Tonight, Nathan wasn’t going to take no for an answer. He’d been watching her for weeks, and he was as prepared as he was going to get. He put the knife in one pocket and stuffed a handful of silk scarves in another; gags and bonds, all in the one convenient, compact, innocent looking package. He had a few stiff drinks to put him in the mood, and then walked upstairs and knocked on her door.

Monica opened it. She looked pale, but serene. She blinked at him for a few moments. She’d been drinking, he could smell the alcohol. Strange expressions crossed her face, before she finally smiled.

“Nathan. What a surprise. Come in. I was just having a late night treat, and it would be nice to have some company.”

Slightly bemused, Nathan allowed himself to be led into the lounge room. There, on a coffee table, was a fine spread of chocolates in many shapes and sizes. There was also a bottle of fine cognac on the table, about three quarters full.

“Just let me get you a glass. I’m in the mood for spoiling myself. Have you tried cognac before?”

“I dunno. Can’t remember.”

“If you had, you’d remember. This stuff is amazing. You don’t so much drink it as inhale it. Here, try some.”

He did, and it was. It was peculiar how friendly Monica was. He’d talked to her a few times before, and apart from that one time at another neighbour’s party, she acted as though she really didn’t want to have anything to do with him.

There was a loud hissing and gurgling from the kitchen.

“That’ll be the coffee”, she said, rising. “Just a minute. How do you like yours? I’ve spared no expense, and it complements the cognac and chocolate so well. Help yourself... I’ll be back in a minute.”

The chocolates where pretty good. Not as sweet as the stuff he was used to, but creamy and rich. He stuffed a few more in his mouth when she left.

He also sliced the cord on her phone. Just to be on the safe side. For all that she was acting nice now, women had been known to change their minds.

She returned, bearing a tray of coffee and cream and all the other makings.

“How do you like the chocolates?”

“Great, thanks. Umm... what’s the occasion?”

“Oh... nothing, really. Just that life is too short not to spoil yourself every now and again. I made the chocolates myself. Go on, have some more ... if you leave them, I’ll just eat them all myself, and I’ll regret it later. Perhaps.”

Nathan did have some more. This was definitely not turning out the way he had planned. On the other hand, this wasn’t so bad, either.

Then Monica sighed.

“Look, I may as well come clean. This is all because... well, I’m going to die.”

“...err...”

“The final tests confirmed it today. Lymphatic cancer. It’s going to be a very painful death, they tell me. I have perhaps three months to live.”

“Oh. That’s ... terrible.”

“I have all these pills to take, which might help things a bit. But I never could take pills, you know? Never could swallow them. Always have to grind them up and mix them with something, and they taste so vile...

“Anyway, I decided that if I don’t have long to live, then I’m going to damn well enjoy the time I’ve got left.”

“Bloody hell,” said Nathan, with feeling. No wonder the bitch was acting so strange. Not really knowing what else to say, he inhaled some more cognac.

“So, I’m glad you’re here. I ... really would like some company.”

“You know, I’ve ... always fancied you.”

He took her, then. Just stood over her, pushed her to the couch, and took her. She struggled a bit a first, but he could tell her heart wasn’t really in it. In the end, she just relaxed and let him do it. It didn’t take long.

Afterwards, she looked at him, a peculiar, languid smile on her face.

“Well, that was interesting. Different, anyway. Let me just straighten myself up. Have some more chocolate, enjoy the cognac.”

When she came back from the bathroom, she was swaying slightly.

“Whoops! I’m all giddy now. Too much cognac, I suppose. Still, no point in leaving it, is there?”

She spoke then, of all her plans, and how they’d come crumbling down. All her ambitions, her old loves, her hobbies, her hates.

Nathan sipped cognac between sips of coffee, ate the chocolates, and listened. He wasn’t really interested in what she said, but he’d drink her liquor and eat he chocolates while they were there. Maybe have another round later — she might not be conscious later, but that had never bothered Nathan.

“Oh! We’ve finished the chocolates,” she said. “How naughty!”

“Yeah, well... I guess I’d better be going...”

Not that he felt like going. The cognac was hitting him hard, and standing up and walking downstairs to his own flat seemed just too complicated.

Monica drained her glass.

“Well, that’s that.”

She threw it backwards over her shoulder, and it shattered on the kitchen door.

“You know, Nathan, I’ve always thought you were a slimy little shit.”

“What...?”

“Always looking at me, following me around, undressing me with your eyes. I just knew you were picturing me while jerking off. Some of the others warned me about you, you know.”

Nathan lurched to his feet.

“That’s not bloody true!” he yelled, knowing full well he was lying. “You’re just a bloody bitch!”

He lunged at her, but tripped over the coffee table, and rolled to the floor. It was getting really hard to concentrate, for some reason.

Monica hadn’t moved. Her head was lolling back, her eyes closed, her voice a mere whisper.

“So when I decided to kill myself, and you showed up at the door, I thought, why not? Do the world a favour.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“The chocolates. Choc-full-a-barbiturates. All different types. I couldn’t face trying to swallow them, so I mixed them into the chocolate. Worked pretty well, don’t you think?”

Panic struck, but it came from a long way away, and barely penetrated through the comfortable cottonwool feeling that was engulfing him.

Somehow, he managed to make it to the phone, dragging it off the table, and groping for the buttons.

It was 911 wasn’t it? No, that was American cop shows. 000. That was it.

He picked up the handset, and pushed the buttons, but there was no noise, and no dial-tone.

Some silly bastard had cut the cord.

He was still trying to work out what to do next when darkness swallowed him.

Robbie Mathews made his first paying sale early in 2000, and since then has been heavily involved in local writers group, the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild (CSFG) and the Critters on-line critiquing circle. He is also involved in editing and publishing Andromeda Spaceways Inflight Magazine.

“The New Religion”
Brett McBean

In the cavernous chapel, thick with the smell of blood and burning oil, Reverend Fred Barnett, in black felt hat and long black jacket, had already begun his sermon. The light from the gas lamps adorning the brick walls flickered over the congregation and as Nathan moved over the cobblestones that had only been laid last week – this church, like many around the country was still being remodelled – some of the converts stirred at the sound of his footsteps.

He knelt beside his best friend Joe in the back pew and they exchanged a nervous greeting.

“Late again,” mouthed Joe.

This was the fifth time in a row Nathan had been late – he was lucky the door hadn’t been locked, as was the norm after mass started. And he didn’t want to miss tonight’s mass – it was sacrifice night, to commemorate the death of Annie Chapman.

Nathan shrugged, bowed his head and listened to the reverend’s oration.

“…hundred years since our Lord graced this earth, two hundred years since the beginning of the new-world and in this bicentennial we pay tribute to the first and greatest of them all – his mystery, his fame, his legend – and pay homage to all who have followed in His footsteps. We honor the five apostles: Peter, Ted, Peter, Kenneth & Angelo and praise holy Not-Virgin Mary, for she sacrificed the most to the Lord. In the year two-hundred AR, at the dawn of the third century, we are fortunate enough to be closer to the truth than ever before; soon our true messiah will be named. Let us pray…”

Nathan took the bible from the back of the pew in front of him, ran a hand over the ominous visage of their cloaked god on the cover and watched Joe hesitate, a sheen of fear flash across his face before he picked up the small tome. Joe’s parents still believed in the old religion, a world that was rapidly dying, and Nathan understood the guilt Joe felt every time he stepped inside the White Chapel.

Clasping the holy knife he wore around his neck, Nathan glanced up at the walls; flanked by movie posters (everything from The Lodger to From Hell part 3) and artists renditions of the Lord and his five divine feats were the smiling effigies of Peter Kürten, Ted Bundy (Nathan’s favourite apostle), Peter Sutcliffe, Kenneth Bianchi & Angelo Buono; emblems of the new religion, a new passion that was sweeping the world. They were much cooler, in Nathan’s thirteen-year-old opinion, than the chipped and desecrated statue of the old-world god strung up on a cross, now locked away in the storage room waiting to be taken to the wreckers, merely a useless artefact because, as one newspaper proclaimed of their new Lord: he is now bigger than Jesus.

“Turn to chapter nine, verse twenty-five, line seven,” the reverend ordered.

And Nathan, along with the congregation, intoned: “I am down on whores and I shan’t quit ripping…”

Brett McBean is a Melbourne-based writer of horror fiction. He has had two novels published, The Last Motel and The Mother. “The New Religion” was the third place winner in the June/July ‘06 Jack the Ripper themed contest at The Red Light District.

“Chrysalis”
Chuck McKenzie

Blessed oblivion fled. He convulsed, thrashing against silk-lined pine, dislodging the lid of his casket. Soft, cool soil gushed into his eyes and mouth. And with it came the rapture, an overwhelming sense of belonging, of oneness; the soil, the rocks and himself, bound by a common state of being, crawling with life yet lifeless, unfettered by wear and tear and the wretched need to scratch, rub, defecate or breathe. No tics or aches, no pain or weariness; just the comforting throb of the earth, the whispering cycles of the soil. Joy overwhelmed him. He tried to cry out, but his shrunken, desiccated lungs allowed only a low moan to escape peeling lips.

He lay quiet for a while. Then, driven by an urge to immerse himself completely in the earth, he began to push aside the coffin lid. Soil cascaded over him, and he swam slowly upwards. Deep, rich loam caressed him, and he opened his mouth, allowing it to penetrate and fill him.

Without warning, he erupted from the earth and lay shocked and trembling upon the ground. So hot. So bright and harsh. He feebly tried to claw his way back into the dirt, to return to the refreshing coolness of the earth, but the sun-baked mud resisted his rotting fingers. He moaned again. Let me in. Please, let me back inside where it’s cool and safe and quiet…

But the ground refused to soften.

Eventually, he clambered to his feet and stood staring miserably at the world around him. Living things scuttled among the headstones and grasses, moving between the leaves and branches, whirring about overhead and underfoot. The very air pulsed with life. He moaned again, kicking angrily at the ground.

Why am I here? Why are you doing this to me?

Somewhere, a dog barked. Voices drifted between the tombs. The world pressed in upon him, and something inside suddenly clicked over. He began to run, long staggering strides propelling him jerkily across the graveyard.

Why am I here?

He stumbled over a weed-covered drain and fell, bursting from between the plots and diving headfirst onto a gravel-lined path. He lay still for a moment, savouring the sensation of cold, lifeless stone against his ruined face.

Someone screamed.

He raised his head. A little further up the path stood a woman, her face pale, a crumpled bouquet of flowers clutched between trembling hands. She stared at him, eyes wide and glistening. Delicate veins pulsed in her throat. Muscles shifted beneath her skin, her breath coming in ragged gasps.

So alive.

And, gazing upon her, self-pity was forgotten.

You poor, wretched creature. Your every moment must be agony. The constant fear of your own existence; the never-ending anticipation of bodily failure, of aneurysm, blindness, senility, entombing you forever in a cell of living flesh. If I could only do something for you, something to stop your suffering -

And abruptly, he understood.

Heaving himself to his feet, he staggered towards her. She backed away, screaming, then turned and fled. He pursued her, a new sense of purpose lending him speed.

Wait! Please! Come back! Let me help you!

She darted off the path, stumbling through uncut grass between ancient tombs. He quickened his pace. She turned, saw him closing the gap between them, and screamed again. Then her foot twisted beneath her, and she fell.

He was upon her in a moment, shuddering in revulsion as he caressed her warm flesh, covering her mouth, stifling her cries.

This is my purpose: to take you to a better place. That which I devour will be purified instantly. The rest will slowly turn, rising again to join me in my task. This is the greatest gift I can offer…

He tore open her neck with his teeth, gagging as living flesh slithered down his throat. Between mouthfuls he moaned softly, overcome with the joy of selfless giving. And she moaned too, for a while.

Chuck McKenzie enjoys being scared, and according spends many hours standing in front of his bedroom mirror muttering: ‘Boogie! Boogie! Boogie!’

“Nothing to Fear”
Nigel Read

Day One

I press myself against the glass door, heart straining, stomach clenching, and my hands, slick with sweat, fumbling at the latch. Through the glass I can see Sarah on the couch, a half-eaten block of chocolate in her lap. She’s watching a holofilm. I desperately want to be on the couch next to her.

Goddamn it! Why won’t it open?

“The door is not real,” a calm voice says behind me.

I want to strike out at it, but I daren’t turn around. It’s bad enough that I know I’m on a balcony on the twenty-sixth floor. But to turn and face it? To see all that emptiness beneath me?

“The door isn’t real,” the voice repeats. “It won’t open until I allow it to, until you turn and face your fear.”

I open my mouth to speak, but it is dry and my throat has constricted, and all that comes out is a squawk. I lick my lips and swallow a couple of times to ease the knot in my throat, then try again.

“I can’t,” I manage to say, my voice high-pitched and strained with the effort.

“Yes, you can,” the voice says sternly. “You just choose not to, because it’s unpleasant.” A pause. Then, “Perhaps it’s too early for you to choose.”

The balcony disappears. I’m face-to-face with a determined-looking man in army fatigues. Strong, gusty winds buffet me, and the floor lurches underneath me. The whistling of the wind and the drone of a nearby engine are deafening. I panic, as I realise where I am.

Before I can act, the man grabs me, turns me around, and shoves me out the door. Leaving my stomach behind me in the aeroplane, I plummet towards the Earth.

“Relax,” the voice says in my ear. “It’s not real. It’s just a simulation. Release your fear.”

I start to scream. It is primal, welling up from a place deep, deep inside me. I scream and I scream and I scream, as the ground rushes up to meet me.

Suddenly, I’m staring at the smiling, bearded face of Dr Ashley. My arms and legs and head are restrained, still connected to the simulator. My throat feels raw. I struggle against the restraints.

“Hold on,” he says, removing the catheter—I grunt from the discomfort—and the biomonitors over my heart and forehead, then unplugging the simulator from the neural interface in my neck. He steps around to my left side, and the restraints retract.

I collapse to my knees and vomit.

“Nurse!” Dr Ashley barks.

An air-hypo, metallic and cold, is pressed against my arm, and there is a brief, sharp pain. I retch a couple more times before the nausea begins to fade. Gentle hands pull me back until I’m laying on my side.

I ache all over.

Dr Ashley kneels down next to me. “How do you feel?”

I want to swear at him, to call him every name I can think of, but all that comes out is a croak.

He looks at me sympathetically. “Oh well, it was only your first treatment. It’ll get better over time.”

I croak again. With feeling.

#

Day Twenty-Three

The surf bellows beneath me. It’s almost deafening. I peer over the cliff edge. The ocean smashes and roils against the rocks at the base of the cliff. A wind, snap frozen from the Antarctic, tugs at me.

My stomach leaps. “It’s not real,” I mutter under my breath. “It’s only a simulation.”

“You’re doing well,” Dr Ashley’s voice yells behind me. I turn to face it, but there’s only an empty car park, and in the distance a couple of wind turbines spinning furiously.

“A couple of months ago,” the voice continues, “you couldn’t even bear to look at such a height, let alone approach it. Another couple of treatments, I think, and I’ll be able to report to your employer that your phobia has been cured.”

I smile with relief and turn back to the cliff’s edge. It’s exhilarating, facing my fear like this. I imagine it’s like the rush an exhibitionist feels when they expose themselves in public. A combination of fear and excitement.

“I’ve got a reward for you,” the voice says.

Sarah appears beside me, smiling, wearing the sundress she knows I like. She hugs me fiercely. “I’m so proud of you. I knew you could beat this.”

I can’t help it. Holding on for dear life, I start blubbering. Tears leave tracks down my cheeks. She strokes my head and whispers soothing words.

When it’s all over, I feel strangely empty and calm.

“Come on,” she says, releasing the hug but still holding my hand. She steps up to the cliff edge.

I meet her eyes. I know what she wants.

I smile, and we both jump.

#

Day Twenty-Nine

Leaning against the balcony’s guard rail, I stare down into the abyss. All I can see is a constant sea of movement, but no details.

It’s a long way down.

“It’s not real,” I chant, invoking my personal mantra. “It’s only a simulation.” My stomach flutters sporadically, but the reaction is nothing like it used to be. It’s manageable. Controllable, where once it used to control me. I’ll finally be able to take that promotion on the 132nd floor. All thanks to Dr Ashley’s treatments.

The door slides open behind me. “Honey, what are you doing out here?” Sarah asks.

“Facing my fear,” I reply, swinging a leg over the rail. Another flutter. My pulse starts to quicken.

“Don’t do that,” she says, a tremor in her voice. “Come back inside. Come back to bed.”

I shake my head and swing the other leg over so that I’m sitting on the rail. “I can’t do that. I can’t let it beat me.”

“I know, honey,” she says. “But this isn’t a simulation. What if you fall?”

A moment of doubt. Is there real danger? I freeze, my stomach lurching and my heart threatening to burst out of my chest.

Then, in the middle of my panic, I realise what is happening. It’s the last test, to see whether I’m fully cured of my altophobia. I cannot fail, or all the treatments will have been for nothing. Clenching my teeth, I force myself to release my grip on the rail.

“It isn’t real,” I chant. “It’s only a simulation.”

“No!” Sarah yells, her voice anguished.

I close my eyes and push off. I’m falling, and there’s no fear.

Laughter wells up irresistibly from deep inside me.

I’m finally free.

Nigel is a Perth writer who works for the government in his spare time. He’s had articles, short stories and poems published in a variety of places.

“Overheard on a train?”
Rhidian Rhead

‘Yeah! I always sit here’. The man said.

With a wave of his meaty middle aged hands he indicate the area of the end of the train carriage with its two long and facing bench seats on each side. He was speaking to Natalie, the young office worker who was sitting at the far end of the opposite bench seat. She was grateful for the width of the carriage between then, as the man’s hand gestures had spread but not to greatly dissipate the not unpleasant, and vaguely flowerlike smell of someone who been drinking heavily a fair few hours before. Natalie was dressed in a practical and drip-dry sort of office get up, suitable for the office and suitable for going out on a Friday night? Her arms were bare to the shoulder and she was wearing a dark red vinyl top and a short dark skirt of leather like material. The sort of getup that any messy office mishap could just be wiped off, without any fear of leaving a permanent stain. She was however wearing rubber gloves. Did this suggest an aversion to being touched, or to touching what other people had touched, or perhaps a desire for privacy? The talking man showed no sign of noticing this as he continued to speak.

She was sitting so quietly, avoiding eye contact and seemed to be desperately trying not to be noticed. Only a few more stops to go now, Natalie thought. ‘They call this the ‘Vestibule’. The man said to Natalie. He took every care to speak slowly and to correctly pronounce each of the word’s easy to slur syllables, as if to show he was a man of some education and not just a pissed passenger to be mutely endured on a Friday night.

He continued, in a more confidential tone, ‘From here you can see everyone who comes and goes’. ‘Who goes up and who goes down’.

The motion of his hands now seemed to mimic the path of the new passengers who had just joined the train, as they decided to go and try for a seat on the train’s upper or lower deck. ‘And If you don’t like the look of them’, He said, alcohol completely insulating him from any sense of irony, as his hands indicating the door to the passage between carriages. ‘You can get up and try the next carriage’.

Not waiting for any response from the woman he continued. ‘I always sit in the vestibule now, coz you never forget that first time’. ‘That time when you are tipped off first by the pale blood drained look on the faces of the passengers facing you’. ‘That silence’.

‘That silence but for the faint slow drip, drip, drip of someone else’s life blood that lets you know that there’s an Axe murderer on the train and he’s standing right close behind you’. ‘Axe in one hand and in the other probably a head held up by the hair and still bleeding. Blood and gore up to his elbows and plastered all over his face that stupid cock sucking mad grin.’

‘You don’t forget it’. He paused,

‘You don’t forget it, not the first time.’ The cleaver weighed heavily in Natalie’s open handbag. The Stainless Steel edge of the cleaver was honed Oh So sharp. So sharp that once a sleep-over boyfriend on finding it had playfully offered to help shave her with it, not knowing that it was The cleaver with the Oh So thirsty blade.

So thirsty, and, “One less stop to go now” she thought.

By now the carriage was nearly empty and the train only two stops away from the tunnel, the tunnel where passengers covered their ears at the volume of noise from the scream and shriek of the train’s wheels. Where the noise of steel on steel would blot out the sound made by any human throat. Whether made in agony or in exultation.

As she was thinking this, her hand undid the clasp and she reached into her handbag feeling past the make up and coins. Natalie could feel the chill of the stainless steel handle through the rubber of her gloves. Steel on flesh. It felt good.

Natalie thought, ‘It felt Oh So good’, ‘to be Jack’s daughter!’

Rhidian Rhead looks at the world through jaded green eyes and writes at night by the unearthly glow of the cathode ray tube. He writes to pass the time until his destiny is fulfilled. He does cast a shadow, but chooses to rarely ventures out into Sun light, preferring to remain amid the cool and ambiguous shadows of double meaning. He claims that this story is based on true events, but declines to state when and where or which when and which where the events happened.

“Touched”
David Schembri

The thunder of his heart pained his ears as he stepped back from the bed. Wiping the sweat from his brow with a trembling hand, he stared down at what he had done. Tears begun to fill his eyes.

“Kiana?...” he muttered.

“Why did I do that? What just happened?” he muttered again.

In an attempt to startle her from her lack of movement, he lowered a hand down toward her bare shoulder, but recoiled when he realised there was no use. He sighed with despair.

She was gone. He could feel the warmth that had radiated from her skin already beginning to fade.

Stepping back two more steps as the guilt weighed heavy on his shoulders, his hands slowly moved to his panting mouth.

“Three years of marriage! We were happy!...” he continued as the tears streamed down his face. He shook as the reality of what he had done sank into his mind.

He could not remove his stare from what lay before him. Through the gloom, Kiana lay motionless upon the bed. Her Asian eyes facing upward, her mouth wide open, and her arms dropped at her sides. The night’s gloom was pierced by the moon light that gleamed in through the white drapes of the large bedroom window.

The pale glow gave illuminance to her cold face, and Eric wept into his hands.

***

After endless moments, Eric slowly removed his trembling hands from his face, and stared at his spread fingers. The fingers that once tapped calculations into payroll software for over five years. The fingers that used to gently glide over Kiana’s face whenever she told him how much she loved him. The fingers that had gripped her throat and squeezed the life from out of her body. His knees began to shake beneath his weight, and his breathing grew even heavier as the seconds ticked by.

He could feel a strange presence behind him... It spoke.

“So, it is done then,” a strangers voice said softly.

Eric turned to the voice that came from the door way, but his eyes could not make out the strangers face. In he stepped. He casually brushed past Eric, and walked to the window side of the bed. The glow from the moon light silhouetted him, making it impossible for Eric to detain any detail of his intruders identity.

“Who the hell are you?” Eric asked through his tears, feeling the massive lump that had grown in his throat.

“I forgive you, Eric. I didn’t expect you to remember me,” Jason replied.

There was an odd familiarity to the stranger’s voice that puzzled Eric. His crazed mind tried to remember where he had heard the voice before. It sounded like it came from someone in their middle age, yet he felt something odd beneath the words. Something...old.

He examined the movements of his past day, but found it difficult due to the events that had taken shape in the evening. His mind managed to trace back to the early hours of that morning.

‘The bus stop?’ he thought to himself. ‘The man at the bus stop? The one with the magazine? He sat next to me? Spoke to me briefly?’ he thought again biting at his knuckles.

“That’s right, Eric. You do remember,” Jason said.

Eric felt a tremor of chill up his back as he realised that his mind had just been read.

“What the hell are you?” he wept.

“Something that had followed you for some time.” Jason replied before turning his head towards Kiana. “Something that had followed her,” he continued, but in whisper.

“What?” Eric muttered, ready to collapse.

“Don’t worry, Eric. You were only doing what I had commanded you to do,” Jason explained.

“You made me do this?” Eric accused as his tears intensified to the point where they had began to disturb his breathing.

“When I touched you. This morning. A single finger tip on your hand was enough for me to infiltrate your mind. To bend you to my will. All has happened this evening according to my desire,” Jason explained.

“Why?” Eric cried.

“I have searched many years for a vessel, Eric. I am in the possession of a soul that is in desperate need for one. I had almost given up, until the day I first saw your wife. Her walk. The way she held herself... She is perfect.”

A glossy shine began to develop in Jason’s eyes, as if he were about to shed his own tears.

“Perhaps more so,” Jason muttered holding back emotion.

“Why did you make me kill her? Why couldn’t you do it yourself? And in doing that, you could have killed me too!” Eric yelled as his anger had found strength.

Jason sighed. “I am many things, Eric, but there are some deeds I just can not carry out. It is not what I am. That’s why I need the weak minded to do deeds for me. People like you...And things like him.”

Eric felt yet another presence behind him, and turned to face it. Appearing in the doorway was another dark figure. It entered the room slowly with light steps, giving the impression that if it were to run, it could do so at an enormous speed.

The hairs on the back of Eric’s neck stood to attention when he realised that what entered the room was far from human. Although the light was dull, Eric was able to make out some detail of what gazed back at him eagerly. His eyes twitched as he stared into a distorted face.

Its eyes were unaligned, sunken, and shadowed completely by the overhang of its fleshy brow. Its nose was nothing but a pair of seeping nostrils that were smeared downwards, following the patterned sag of its deep wrinkles. The ears, which dominated the outline of its head, were huge as they covered each side of the skull, and pointed outward, thinly skinned and veined. Its mouth, from which came a wheezing inhale and exhale that spoke of its ancient origins, was spread to each side of its jaw. Its lips were thin and dark, which pierced through the gloom with a sickly grin, and behind that, was its set of jagged teeth. They over lapped each other in a tangle of pointing spikes, and dripped with a think and stringy saliva.

The creature inched toward Eric, and he instinctively stepped back, lifting his arms defensively. “Please don’t fight it, Eric,” Jason suggested.

“I promise you... It will be quick.”

After first appearing on the 14 days of Halloween in 2005, David Schembri has since written several short stories, and has been working hard on his manuscript, “Mercy’s End”, which is near the end of its first draft. All of his writing projects are also juggled with his animation filmmaking.

The strong sense of community of Australian Horror Writers has enabled David gain experience and inspiration for his own work. David has also been able to make small contributions to the Australian Horror Writers Association, and will also on the judging panel at the 2006 Australian Shadows.

David lives in the mountains of Victoria with his lovely wife and son, his greatest achievements.

“The Angler”
Mark Smith

The Guardian watched as the angler stood knee deep in the murky morning waters of Pine Cove Lake and cast his lure into the shadows. Dawn was breaking and a thick mist clung to the lake’s surface, creating a dreamlike haze that shimmered in the morning light. At first it thought the mist was playing tricks with its mind, but when it rubbed its eyes and peered back through the fog the angler remained lazily casting, then recasting his rod into the shallow waters by the far shore. Stunned, the Guardian stewed in silence. How long had it been since someone had dared to intrude on the shores of the lake? How long since someone had attempted to poach fish from its clutches?

The angler’s rod bowed and he jerked it upwards. The lake’s surface rippled and a glimmer of silver flashed by the man’s feet. The angler bent down and snatched his line from the water. A golden perch flapped helplessly from the lure. The angler splashed his way to the shore and plucked the fish from the hook. Drawing a knife from his belt he split the perch’s belly. Innards spilled from the gaping wound. The perch convulsed and was still. The angler dropped the dead perch into a bucket. Whistling, he made his way back into the water.

A burst of rage bubbled up inside the Guardian, rage it had not felt for years. “Murderer,’’ it snarled, stepping forward from the bushes to the water’s edge. It slipped into the cool waters as the angler’s lure landed a distance away.

Its underwater trip across the lake was swift and silent. Around it silver fish darted excitedly. It had been a long time since the Guardian had joined them in the dark, watery depths. It spoke to them quickly and quietly in an ancient tongue; warned them to steer clear of the far shore. Fear swept through the schools. Obediently they turned and headed to the safety of the deep.

The Guardian was alone by the time it reached the centre of the lake. Rage consumed its every pore. It wanted to spring from the waters and tear the thief to pieces, to rip his tender flesh as the angler had done to one of its own. Yet it waited. It had been a long time since it had played the game, and it wanted to do it right.

#

The Guardian paused in the watery depths, watching as the angler continued to cast his rod into the shallow waters under the shadows of the trees. With each unsuccessful attempt the angler’s excitement waned, his casts landing closer and closer to shore. The Guardian grew uneasy, fearing it had missed its chance. The angler reeled in his line and stared searchingly across the lake. Was he done? He picked up the tackle box and turned to go. The Guardian panicked. It had to take action. It shot upwards out of the water, skimmed across the surface and dove back into the depths. The angler saw the ripples from the shore and paused. He dropped the tackle box and unhooked his line. The game was back on.

The angler’s aim was good. His lure splashed down into the water directly above the Guardian’s head. The Guardian grinned. It had been patient despite its fury, but now its time had come. It closed in quickly on the glistening lure and grabbed it above the sharp, curved hooks. The line jerked forward and the lure bit into the Guardian’s palm. It wailed and clawed at the hooks, fighting every urge to swim ahead of the line. The angler had made the first move - and it was a good one - but it no cause for alarm. It never lost a game.

It relaxed and fell into the rhythm of the game. It swam along with the pull of the line, then gripped it and dove back into the depths. The game was a delicate art and it only tugged long enough and dove deep enough to excite the angler. In the depths it gauged the angler’s strength, learned his rhythms; sized up its prey.

#

Slowly the Guardian sapped the angler’s strength. The line’s pull waned, then reduced to a feeble tug. The Guardian stopped its periodic dives and voluntarily swam along with the line. It was time.

The memory of the perch was far from the angler’s mind as he watched the dark shadow emerge from the belly of the lake. He was exhausted, but he didn’t care. This was the catch of his life. Had he been watching the shadow more closely, he would have realised it was moving faster than he was reeling. It wasn’t until the Guardian emerged from the lake seething in anger that he realised it was the last catch he’d ever make.

The Guardian moved slower once it was above water. It was covered in silver scales like a fish, yet rose on two legs like a man. It reached for the angler with giant webbed hands which ended in dirty claws. Hooked through its left hand was the angler’s shining lure. The angler stumbled backwards towards the shore. His heel caught a submerged stone and he sprawled onto the bank.

The Guardian snarled in repulsion and lunged. Slimy gills flapped loosely at the side of its head. Its eyes burned with hatred from behind a thick film of watery skin. The angler kicked wildly at the creature with his left leg. His boot connected with its soft underbelly with a thud. The Guardian shrieked and fell backwards into the water. The angler scrambled up the bank on all fours before turning and fleeing into the woods.

The Guardian sprang from the water and followed with long, heavy strides. Wracked by fear, the angler searched for the path which led through the woods to his car. His confusion favoured the Guardian and it quickly closed on its prey. It hit the angler at full speed and both the hunter and hunted crashed through the forest’s thick undergrowth. The angler smashed into the ground, winded, and rolled feebly onto his back. He gasped for air and stared into the Guardian’s watery eyes. The Guardian raised a clawed hand. “No,” the angler pleaded as it tore into his chest.

#

The Guardian rested peacefully against the trunk of a pine tree as it gnawed on the angler’s liver. It had been a long time since it had played the game and it had forgotten how much it loved it. The angler had even put up a fight, an unexpected bonus that made the victory feast taste even sweeter. Relaxing under the warmth of the midday sun the Guardian wished it could play the game more often. Admiring its catch it noticed a wet, pink slip of paper in the angler’s shirt pocket. Intrigued, the Guardian pulled it out and stared at the strange images and words. It smiled as it recognised one of the drawings. The sketch was of a boat, with a man holding a rod similar to the anglers. In his hands he held up a golden cup. The Guardian had seen this drawing once, years before and soon after many more like the angler had come. The Guardian smiled at the angler’s mangled corpse. There would be no shortage of games this summer.

Mark Smith is an emerging horror writer from Melbourne, Australia. His fiction has appeared in publications such as Shadow Box, Demon Minds, FlashSpec, and The Horror Library. Check out his new stories in SpaceJock Magazine’s Halloween Edition (out Oct 31) and the Champagne Shivers Anthology (out Jan, 2007).

“The Ice Bride”
Cat Sparks

The women cried the day the Ice Bride came to Brakenfall and chose their beloved Artaniel as her husband. Would that she had taken Laris, or Parmoday: anyone except Artaniel. But the Ice Bride was not merely deadly- beautiful; she was smart, smarter than the village girls who dreamt of claiming him as their own.

They wailed and wept as the Ice Bride made her way along the cobbled path, her gown of snowflake and icicle lace dragging on the polished stones, a stain of dampness marking her passage. Some threw handfuls of sad little winter flowers, delicate, trembling things that did not last long on the ground once the chill embraced them.

Artaniel stood firm with all the bravery so characteristic of him, but all could see his terror. He’d been one of three brothers who’d discovered the corpse of the Ice Bride’s last husband abandoned in a stony field, black and bruised with frostbite, frozen blood pooled below the surface of his skin.

The marriage ceremony was brief. Father Harker spoke the words softly, as if he feared the anger of his god on learning that such a fine young man was being sent to his grave. The young girls threw handfuls of their precious winter grain into the air as Artaniel pushed back the veil of snow and kissed his wife’s translucent lips.

The Ice Bride did not speak, but it was well known that she wanted a child, and that this was why she harvested the village men. She had grown addicted to the heat of their seed, even though her touch was deadly and she burned them with her frigid skin. She crushed the fire from them between her thighs, pressed their shuddering forms down into her niveous marriage bed. Sometimes one survived the night. Most did not, and in the weak light of early dawn she would mourn the child that might have been as she sprinkled the naked carcass of her husband with frost oil, a rare mineral found only in the core of ancient glaciers. Once ignited, the oil burnt blue and sent great coils of aqua-tinted smoke skywards. With this sign, the villagers would grieve, knowing that their sons were lost forever.

There was no smoke on the morning following Artaniel’s wedding, nor on the day after that. On the third day Dartaine and Tirin, who had stood as their brother’s groomsmen, set out into the forest to see what had become of him. Perhaps an Arctic vesper had blown the smoke away? Perhaps his body was too cold to burn?

The brothers found no carcass in the snow. All they discovered was an empty cottage that they knew had been the Ice Bride’s home for a century at least.

The brothers followed a trail of crystalline footprints in the snow, two sets walking side by side, first through the deadwood forest, and then across a frozen lake that looked to be hewn of blue glass. On the far side of the lake rose the Halbradian Mountains, their peaks obscured by rumbling storm clouds which threw forth spears of electric indigo.

Two figures moved along a craggy ridge. Tirin cried out his brother’s name, and the figures paused as ‘Artaniel-aniel-aniel’ echoed loudly from peak to peak.

Dartaine pulled his spyglass from his pack, focused the lens first on the bride’s shimmering form, and then on the shadowy shape of his brother by her side.

Tirin waved both arms in a sweeping arc above his head. Artaniel did not wave back. The couple turned away, continuing their journey upwards along the slender mountain pass.

Tirin snatched the glass from his brother to see for himself. ‘Is he in chains?’

Dartaine shook his head. ‘Artaniel has only to push her from the edge and she will shatter like crystal on the rocks below. Perhaps our brother has fallen in love with his bride?’

They watched the couple ascend until they were nothing more than grey specks in the distance, indistinguishable from the snowflakes that had begun to swirl about their heads.

The Ice Palace gleamed in the weak winter light, its coiled crystal spires reflecting the pale pink embers in the sky. Artaniel’s breath stilled, for it was beautiful. Almost as beautiful as she was.

There were no servants waiting to greet them, no sounds at all save for the distant cry of an albatross, and the steady dripping of snow melt from the rose hedge’s razor-sharp leaves.

The Ice Bride turned to face her husband, cupped his frost-burned chin in her hands. He stared deeply into her sapphire eyes and saw the love in them, despite the fact that her heart was made of compacted snow and glacial meltwater trickled in her veins.

Artaniel kissed her numb lips, embraced her trembling form in his arms. When at last she pulled away, he looked down and saw a weak light beginning to form in her belly. It wasn’t much, just a soft red glow giving off no heat at all, only light.

The baby grew a little bigger and brighter each day, and with each night, the Ice Bride grew a little weaker and less substantial. In time, she was little more than a skeleton of ice supporting the gelid womb in which her warm pink daughter slept.

One dawn, when Artaniel awoke, there was no more Ice Bride, just a squalling infant lying in a puddle of tepid water. Her eyes, when they eventually opened, were the same sapphire-blue as her mother’s.

Artaniel hugged the child tightly against his chest. How could he care for his daughter? The warmth of his skin comforted her, and she fell back into an easy slumber. It was then that he heard a commotion on the palace steps. Shielding the child inside his coat, he walked outside to discover a gathering of people, some he recognised from his home village, others complete strangers. Both his brothers were there. As they ran forward to greet him, someone shouted ‘Look!’

Artaniel turned. Behind him the ice palace had begun to melt, reveal another structure underneath. A solid fortress of stone and wood, large enough to house them all and shield them from the thousand winters to come.

Cat Sparks lives in Wollongong, NSW and is a writer, editor and illustrator of speculative fiction.

“The Ice Bride” was first published in Shadowed Realms, Issue 9.

http://www.catsparks.net

“Skating on Thin Ice”
Matthew Tait

1

No stranger to blood, Jordon Hofsta wiped his mouth with one huge gloved hand. The goalie in the net was eyeing him fearfully, as if he might take sudden revenge for the knock he’d just taken from the Czech opposition. As he tried to assess the damage, cherry droplets spattered the front of his jersey and the ice rink below.

If one could call this a rink...

Even from his position underneath the digital scoreboard (it was missing corners of numerous digits), Jordon could see the overall dilapidated structure of the Thornton Theatre rink like something that mirrored his aching tendons. Surrounded by a moat of cheap wood paneling painted a brazen green and gold, the ice-hockey players of Australia and the Czech Republic were figurines cavorting on a dirty puddle of ice with limited shatterglass.

Jordon spat the rest of the blood out and skated back toward the centre of the rink. A nameless Czech player – number twenty-three – gave a half-hearted effort to trip him on the way. Jordon side-stepped his stick and pushed on, taking up position on the left wing to form the line. He lowered his head so the blood wouldn’t be too apparent to the other players.

The rules in this fucked up competition are as screwed up as the venue, he thought. All regulations have well and truly been thrown out the door.

The umpire blew his whistle and dropped the puck down onto the blue line, quickly moving out of the way before the face-off of clashing sticks could castrate him. Almost immediately, an attacking Czech player gained a foothold on it and motioned it through the centerline. No Australian knew what the hell was happening, and before Jordon could even think to move his skates, the opposition had already passed it once and maneuvered the puck beyond the crease and into the mesh. Their goalie, Pete Lester, slid on a peg trying to catch it and the net was knocked askew for the second time in the match.

‘Come on, boy’s! Let’s pick it up! We can’t let them get away from us again!’

This came from Bert Hanuman, an auspicious old fool who lived in a myopic bubble of foolhardy optimism. Jordon thought it might be possible the old codger was going the way of Alzheimer’s already.

We probably all are. I mean... look at us?

Indeed. The old timer’s league, although talented for their age, resembled nothing so much as floating husks on the ice. Average age here was about sixty: old fools whose dreams of playing professional ice-hockey had gone the way of the dinosaurs. There was, however, a robustness and energy about the disciplined Czech players that took ten years off their physical appearance. Jordon looked over toward their bench, and saw on their interchange the one player he had come to see today.

You’ve been in my dreams, buddy, and today one old man is going to make sure that you never have any dreams again.

The players lined up in formation again, and the whole process was repeated; this time Jordon managed to get a little stick on puck and he forechecked to the other end before being crunched against the shatterglass in a spray of ice. He quickly took off his right glove to massage the numbness there and for a moment caught the look of astonishment from the opposition as a player noticed his three missing digits.

Smiling, Jordon re-gloved his mangled hand and skated over to the Australian net. The puck was in the hands of his team but being passed around like it was a hot coal. Gliding to a stop, he looked down at their goalie Pete Lester. He looked forbidding in his Jason Voorhees ice-hokey mask.

‘Do you see him?’ he asked.

‘I see him. Number forty-two, isn’t it? He hasn’t aged one goddamn bit, has he?’

‘And he doesn’t seem to recognize me.’

‘Figures. They’re like fucking robots, aren’t they?’

Jordon didn’t answer him but looked at the scoreboard instead. It read twelve to one in favor of the fucking robots. The Australians had managed to lose the puck yet again while the opposition negotiated the traffic back toward their goal.

‘Better skedaddle,’ Peter informed him. ‘And be careful.’

He took off and manned-up, making small figure-eights around his quarry. He did pretty well; his divergent opponent never had a turn before the Czech’s eventually scored another goal. This time Pete Lester had nothing to do with it – these foreigners were just too damn talented.

A penalty was suddenly called by the umpire, but most of the players were lingering around their captains, discussing in heated tones an attempted tripping just before the goal. Jordon ignored them and skated past the bench... skated right past it to the waiting throng of sweaty, gurnseyed Czech players blowing white plumes of body heat and swigging massive bottles of water.

He entered their field of vision, but they barely registered his presence.

Number forty-two never even glanced his way; he just stared out at the action with his European designer stubble and vacant eyes... exactly the demeanor he’d had when running over Jordon’s fingers more than five years ago on his shitty native homeland.

Am I really going through with this?

The melee in the centre was breaking up, sweat-logged players returning to their respective zones. The blood on Jordon’s lips was drying into a hardened crust, and the reality was there was never anybody in the penalty box to pay for his grievances.

2

For Jordon, it was over very quickly.

For most of his team-mates, it would never be over.

The buzzer had just sounded for the end of the second twenty-minute period and the players to regroup at their individual benches. Forty-two, as expected, had to skate a short distance past the centerline – this was due to the fact that he also served as an assistant to the Czech coach and had to motivate the players as they returned.

He’d no sooner taken at least three and a half skate-strokes before Jordon slammed his graphite stick into the small vacant niche of his steel skate-blades. For a brief, almost surreal moment, he was carried with foreword momentum that matched the velocity of the man who’d released him of his fingers five years ago... then gravity took centre stage and he was jerked backwards and involuntarily spat out his mouth-guard.

Next, an explosion of blood downpoured on the ice as his face came down and Jordon heard a loud satisfying crunch as the nose unfettered from gristle and bone. Teeth – shiny like porcelain but mottled with gore – blew like shards out from under him and scattered to the four winds. Jordon’s stick was still wedged through his skate, the black tape ripping away to expose the fresh graphite. Unbelievably, they were still up in the air; his knees had bent backwards and were flopping uncontrollably.

It was no surprise when the players at first didn’t respond; ice-hockey was one hell of a violent sport, and it probably looked like nothing more than a bit of rough-and-tumble.

Jordan quelled that notion in a hurry.

Using his stick as a harness, he carried himself forward. He was eerily reminded of first learning to skate as a child; hugging the banisters and inching himself along a bit at a time. Then, upon reaching the Czech’s grappling form he kicked his left leg to the ice and stamped sharp skates through the flesh and muscle that attached the man’s ankle to his foot.

‘Yeeeooooowwwww!’

The foreign bastard had finally found his voice, and Jordon saw his team-mates were finally getting a heads-up on all the action. As forty-two made squelching noises with his encumbered voice-box (his severed skate and foot was jetting blood and spinning in a small circle), Bert Hanuman dropped his stick and gave an audible gasp. Then he started smiling, not getting the joke. Not getting it wasn’t a joke.

With all his remaining strength, Jordon pried open the guy’s legs even further and shoved his blood-clad skate into the cleft between the Czech’s legs. The fabric of his padded pants tore easily with the blood acting as a lubricant to make the tear. This time he squealed - a sound Jordon didn’t think was possible coming from a man with a pulverized face.

A few muted shouts now, this time with more urgency. As the gelatinous sack of his testicles came free, the umpire blew his whistle and even people from the crowd had turned their attention to them. No matter. He still had a few moments to see this through. All the planning over the months leading up to this match wasn’t going in vain.

And so, after detangling his skate from the mess of his crotch, Jordon side-stepped the body then knelt down and flipped it over so that it was facing him. The face was worse than he could’ve imagined, thick rivulets of exposed muscle flapping obscenely, but the eyes were strangely clear. Jordon took off his glove and showed his gangly, protruding stub of a hand, hoping for a bit of recognition.

And there was.

It was too bad ice-hokey was such a violent sport. Jordon was an old man now, and if he didn’t have his fingers, what the hell did he have?

In such an arena as this, a little vigilante action was the only penalty that taught a player justice.

Matthew Tait was born in Adelaide, Australia in 1977. Like many authors, he has held far too many jobs for any man to admit to. These include selling electronics, working in kitchens, and co-managing a video store (one of the few vocations he actually enjoyed) – to name just a few. And although it seems a pre-requisite for any writer, he’s not ashamed to admit he’s played in a few rock bands as well.

Currently, he is one of the Associate Editors of HorrorScope and divides his time reading the horror and fantasy genre, playing with his Siamese cat Oscar and writing stories. The current Magnum Opus is the books of Reunion, of which Meridian, Olearia, and The Hope of Kinfold make over a thousand page trilogy.

Matt’s Web Presence can be found at: http://www.matthewtait.com

“Dirty Washing”
Marty Young

The fly-screen door opened on its rusty hinges and its drawn out squeal was loud in the quiet morning. Almost immediately, it slammed shut again, bouncing once, as it was prone to do. Then a loud thud came from the laundry, as if something heavy had been dropped.

Samuel looked up from the text book and waited for his mother to come through into the kitchen. He needed a break from his study - there was only so much maths you could take in at any one time before your brain started to hurt. He looked at the clock on the wall in front of him as he yawned, and was surprised to see that he had been studying for nearly an hour already, and it wasn’t yet ten o’clock. It was definitely time for a break.

When she did not enter, and no further noises were forthcoming from the laundry, Sammy looked out of the dining room window into the backyard. He couldn’t see his mum or the washing basket by the clothesline anymore, and it looked as though all of the sheets had been hung out, too.

Maybe dad had come home from work, he thought, and his mum had dropped the empty basket inside before going out to meet him. His dad had been acting a little strange lately, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if he had come home early.

Only the basket – if that was what the noise had been - hadn’t sounded empty.

Outside, the sheets flapped and billowed in the wind, tugging at their pegs.

Suddenly, there was a sliding, scraping sound from the laundry. Samuel spun around, but as he did, the noise stopped.

“Mum?”

It had sounded like something heavy being dragged or pushed along the linoleum floor.

As he went to stand to go see what was going on, the sound scraped through the kitchen and into dining room again.

Like someone with a broken ankle dragging their foot, the bone grinding against the ground.

The sound made his scalp tingle. “Dad?” He called, hesitantly. He waited, but now only the steady ticking of the clock disturbed the house.

Suddenly, the fridge started humming, and he flinched.

A dog barked from somewhere nearby – old Mr. Thompson’s, Sammy knew, from three house down, the little terrier that yapped every time he walked past. One day he was going to throw a rock at that mutt, and he hoped he got it square between the eyes when he did.

The noise came again, and this time he knew for certain what it was; it was the washing basket, being pushed along the floor. It came into view now, a tantalizing slither visible from the doorway between the kitchen and laundry.

Sammy licked his lips. “What are you guys doing?”

There was no answer.

However bad his maths was, he wanted to return to those calculations and let his parents play their game without him. Neither of them had been very happy lately, so whatever game they were playing wasn’t bound to be much fun.

But he couldn’t take his eyes from the basket, which, even now, slid further into view with another loud scrape.

He felt his face flush.

The world reeled, spun, yet somehow the basket, the blue washing basket that had held the sheets earlier this morning, stayed in focus, the basket and its contents that were leaking onto the floor.

There was so much glistening blood.

The sliding sound came once more as the basket was pushed into view completely, and Sammy gaped.

One of his mother’s arms hung over the side, with scarlet pearl droplets beading on the fingertips. A knee rose like a mountain from the centre, and through the sides of the basket, Samuel could see his mother’s face, glaring at him, her eyes wide and stunned.

‘Why didn’t you help?’ That accusing look demanded. ‘Why didn’t you save me?’

But he hadn’t heard a thing – nothing! Not a scream or cry, nor a howl of fright. Not even the swing of the axe that had done all of the damage.

‘You should’ve stopped him, Samuel!’ His mother’s dead eyes condemned through the basket.

The blood flowed slowly across the floor, seeking him out and snaking towards him. He watched it come, mesmerised yet knowing it would never reach him; already it was slowing as it congealed.

Then his father limped into view, the shining wet axe held in one hand, his right eye still twitching like it had started doing last week and hadn’t stopped since. He stared at Samuel, and for a moment, he did not seem to recognise him. Then, slowly, his eyes focused.

“Sam, Sammy,” He said, a terrible look distorting his face. “I’ve taken care of the dirty washing.”

He swung his other arm and Samuel suddenly noticed the head his father had been holding by its hair. He saw the goatee and instantly knew who it was; his mum’s new friend, the man who always smiled at her when his dad wasn’t watching.

The head landed in the basket, on top of his mother, but there was no longer any smile.

“I’ve taken care of it all,” His dad said in a terrible flat voice.

Marty Young is the founder and current president of the Australian Horror Writers Association (http://www.australianhorror.com), and is co-editor of Macabre - The New Era in Australian Horror, a new anthology seeking to capture the best of the past, present and future of Australian Horror.

Table of Contents

- “untitled” Brendan Carson

- “Your Own Light-Hearted Friend” Stephen Dedman

- “Daddy” Stephanie Gunn
- “Inchoate: Night Memories” Robert Hood
- “Silence” Martin Livings
- “Chocolate” Robbie Matthews
- “The New Religion” Brett McBean
- “Chrysalis” Chuck McKenzie
- “Nothing to Fear” Nigel Read
- “Overheard on a train?” Rhidian Rhead
- “Touched” David Schembri
- “The Angler” Mark Smith
- “The Ice Bride” Cat Sparks

- “Skating on Thin Ice” Matthew Tait

- 1

- 2

- “Dirty Washing” Marty Young