Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror (6 page)

‘Malcolm, baby, have you seen your father?' Janice asked.

‘Yep,' Malcolm replied, settling into the chair, his hands on his knees.

‘OK, sweetie, where is he?'

Malcolm didn't say anything; he just stared at the overturned dirt before him.

‘Malcolm, where is your father?'

Malcolm slowly turned his head and looked into his mo-ther's eyes. ‘He'll be back soon. They always come back.'

Janice looked from her son to the dirt and back. Then she noticed the head of the shovel by Malcolm's feet. Peeking from under the layer of wet dirt were dark splotches that she had thought were rust stains.

The scream caught in her throat, while Malcolm sat in the chair, casually waiting for his father to come back.

Celine Murray

T
he first time I cheated on a test was when I was in intermediate. I know I wasn't the only one: I saw the others do it too. Now I think it's common practice, but back then it was new. The trouble was that two kids from my class, Cameron and Scott, were caught sneaking the answers to each other on bits of scrap paper. Our teacher hauled them out in front of the class to humiliate them and to set an example for the rest of us. She asked us why we thought a little test was worth sacrificing our morals for, her eyes narrowing as she looked us over one by one, the weak turning their eyes away like cowed dogs. I kept my eyes open wide. She didn't look at me for long – I don't think she expected such ‘deplorable behaviour' from someone who reads as many books as I do. In the end, she gave Cameron and Scott a detention and a disapproving note on their report cards, and that was that. But after that she took to stalking silently around the classroom whenever we did tests.

The thing is, I don't really know what the teacher expected. She wanted us to get good marks; she was always saying how important it was. She only had a problem when she figured out how we did it. It was fine up until then. Well, that year I swore I was never going to get caught, and I cheated on every test I could.

Because I could
.

It was a revealing year, that intermediate year. The summer came, and I buried myself in my novels while my sister got hooked on murder mystery shows. She watched them every night, and practically went mad drooling over the actors. The funny thing is, all her favourite characters seemed to be bad guys: Loki, Hannibal, Moriarty. The crazy ones, you know? One night she dragged me out of my room, bouncing like a puppy, and insisted I watch
Sherlock
with her. She told me if I looked closely I'd see that Moriarty had feelings; that he
cared
. He wasn't that different from anyone else. It's just that he was a genius. Brilliant and bored.
Couldn't I see it
?

I watched Moriarty carefully after that, and I could see what she meant. It was in the way his false identities were always so sweet, and how he liked to leave his adversaries a way to win, as if he wanted to lose. It was in his voice when he promised to burn Sherlock's heart out. And I guess I understood. I watched murder mysteries with my sister every night for the rest of the summer. I also spent a good part of that summer burning the hearts out of ants with a magnifying glass. I gave them a chance to run away, although none of them ever made it. It made me feel –
powerful
.

When the new year started, I read
A Clockwork Orange
during my lunch breaks. My teacher recommended it to me. He said it was great that I was reading such advanced literature; you don't usually study Anthony Burgess until high school. The author, Burgess, wanted to make us think about free choice and how it made you human, but the most remarkable thing was that his main character had done every evil thing you could do – even murder – by the time he was fifteen. In Alex's head, I learned that being bad is just as natural as being good. It's a choice. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you feel alive. And I liked him because he didn't have a reason for what he did – he just wanted to be evil.

Because he could
.

All that was last year. I'm nearly thirteen now, and I've moved on since then. I killed the dog next door the other day. Because I wanted to. It took me a while to make up my mind, but in the end I poisoned it – fed it all the chemicals I could find in the garage. There are plenty of ways a dog could die from poisoning, and half of them are natural. I'll think of something better next time. Dogs are just small and stupid anyway. But it's a start. I'm going to the library tomorrow, so I'll see what I can find. You know, books always make it sound like the act of killing would make you
feel
something. And it does – it's not cold and calculating at all, not even in the planning stages. It's burning hot and wild and fascinating.

I watched the dog die twitching and crying. And I felt alive.

Jenni Sands

J
onny's feet hurt. His sandal straps were cutting in and the soles were hard on the undersides of his feet. It was much colder than when he'd set out from the back garden. He stopped and looked back. There was nothing behind him but rocky grey path. He had long ago lost sight of his house. Jonny sighed; there was nothing for it, but to keep walking.

He hoped that he'd reach the end of the rainbow soon and the leprechaun, or the unicorn, or whatever was supposed to be waiting there would zoom him home. The mystery of what exactly he would find at the end of the rainbow had got him this far; it could get him further. 

When Jonny had told his father where he was going, he'd laughed at him, and said something like ‘philosophy killed the cat', but Jonny didn't believe that. A car had killed the cat. Jonny had found the body in the gutter one morning, cold and still and stiff. Mum had put it in a shoebox and buried it in the back yard. Besides, with all the conviction his eight years on Earth could muster, he knew there were real magical creatures out there. There was
actual magic
that you couldn't explain with wires and mirrors like the man on TV. The real trick was you had to be in the right place when the magic happened.

The trees that bordered the path were getting taller and darker as he walked on. They loomed over him, blocking out the late afternoon sunshine and making the air even colder. He stuck his hands in his pockets to let the trees know that he didn't care what they did.

Jonny heard a noise. He whistled to show the noise just how very much it didn't bother him, but he hadn't quite got the hang of whistling yet so he just made little half ‘whoo' sounds. The noise continued, a rustling from the trees, following behind him on the left hand side. He looked over his shoulder but he still couldn't see anything but path. The noise was keeping pace with his steps.

Jonny stopped walking and glared at the trees.

‘I don't know who you are and I don't care! Don't follow me!'

The rustling stopped. There was a sound like a twig breaking. The silence was slightly offended.

‘I mean it,' Jonny said. ‘I'm cold and tired and I'm in no mood to be followed. If you keep following me where I can't see you, I'll hit you.' The threat was scary to say. He knew hitting was something you mustn't do. Jonny swallowed, hoping he didn't really have to hit anyone.

Something moved in the corner of Jonny's vision, and then there was a dog-like thing on the path, looking at him with big, wild eyes. Jonny backed away. His sandal caught on a rock and he fell. The dog-like thing came closer.

‘Go home!' Jonny shouted, as loud as he could. It was something he'd heard his mother shout at dogs before. The dog-like thing cocked its head to the side.

‘I don't want you to hit me,' it said.

‘I don't want you to bite me,' said Jonny.

‘Biting people is scary,' the dog-like thing said. ‘It's all hard and painful and then they hit you. I don't bite people anymore.'

‘All right, then, why were you following me?' Jonny picked himself up. The thing definitely wasn't a dog. It was taller than Jonny and its fur had a feathery quality to it. Its eyes were big and green like new spring leaves on the tree outside Jonny's bedroom. Its feet were big too, and round like plates.

‘I haven't seen anyone like you on this path for a long time,' it said, and Jonny nodded. He rubbed his muddy hands off on his shorts and shivered, because it really was cold.

‘I'm going to the end of the rainbow,' Jonny said, but it was very dark now, and there was no rainbow left in the sky. ‘I'm Jonny. What's your name?'

The thing made a woofing noise, which to Jonny sounded a bit like ‘ruff' so he made that its name, and together Jonny and Ruff walked the path for what felt like hours. Ruff stayed close to Jonny's side and he wasn't so cold any more, and when the twig goblins jumped out and tried to scratch him, Ruff growled and barked impressively, and they ran away.

Jonny was so tired, and his feet were sore and his legs were cold and he was wishing very hard for his bed and a warm cuddle from Mum. He stumbled and fell, skinning his knee, and he couldn't stop the tears from coming.

‘We're almost there,' Ruff said, leaning against Jonny a little to share some heat, and Jonny nodded and pulled himself up again, one hand in Ruff's feathery hair as they walked because it was comforting, like a teddy bear's fur.

The trees seemed to lighten, become less scary, less dark and twisty and more leafy-green-friendly, and Jonny's tears stopped flowing. A spring came back into his step. There was a glowing light, like the branches were full of glow worms or fireflies, and Jonny heard soft singing.

A door opened in the path in front of him, and the light from it was as comforting as the nightlight he was too big to use anymore, except when there was a storm. Together, he and Ruff went through the door. Surely now, they were at the end of the rainbow.

There was a bed for him, certainly, and a beautiful lady wrapped him in the softest blanket and he got warm again very fast. Ruff curled in a circle at the foot of the bed. Fairies gathered to tell him how strong and brave he'd been.

‘You can rest now,' the voices said, rasping and quiet. ‘You're safe, you'll have gold.' Jonny caught one last glimpse of the world his parents inhabited before the door to the path closed forever, and he fell asleep.

Alan Lindsay

‘T
here! Right there. That's where she hung herself.'

This was the last room, the largest, and the only one with a high ceiling. For all the anticipation of sneaking into the empty ‘hanging house', the boys were getting bored. Then this. Six pairs of eyes watched as Bub's bike lamp played on the beam above their heads.

‘How do you know?' asked Eric, annoyed at being trumped by his little brother.

‘Look,' said Bub. ‘All along the beam. Dust, dust, dust – no dust – dust. The rope must've knocked the dust off.'

The other boys followed the light.

‘Jeez, I reckon you're right.'

‘That means she must've used one of these chairs,' said Jake.

‘Wha' d'you mean?'

‘You've got to stand on something and kick it away. Then your feet can't reach the ground and you're gone!'

‘Awesome.'

There was a sudden crash and a gargling croak. Everyone turned.

The face hung in mid-air, tongue lolling, eyes bulging. The light shining upwards from the torch made it look pink, almost transparent.

‘Eric! You scared the shit out of me!'

Eric straightened his head and laughed. ‘You should've seen your faces!' He picked up the chair and put it back by the table.

‘Hey. Look at this.' Josh pointed. Leaning against a cabinet at the far end of the room was a circular board. They cocked their heads to look at the five-pointed star scraped in the centre of its wooden surface. In a ring around the star were the numbers zero to nine. Around that, small rectangles were marked at regular intervals.

‘What is it?'

‘Dunno.'

‘Let's put it on the table.'

‘Shit, it's heavy!'

‘We shouldn't move things,' said Bub.

‘Well, they're not going to fingerprint anyone for shifting furniture, are they?'

‘We shouldn't even be here. Mum says we're not to cross the highway on our bikes.'

‘Mum's not going to find out,' said Eric. ‘Not unless you blub, Bub.'

‘Shut up, you two.'

Mike's face lit up. ‘I know what this is. It's one of those ouija boards.' Blank looks all round. ‘For contacting the spirits and stuff. I saw one on YouTube. There must be some letter cards around, as well.' His beam danced wildly before settling on the cabinet. ‘Here.' He took down a small black tin. In it were a deck of cards, two candles and a glass.

‘My mum always reckoned that old lady was a witch,' said Josh.

‘Hey. Light those candles, eh. My batteries are nearly gone.'

Mike counted the cards in the flickering light. ‘Twenty-two. Should be twenty-six. Four missing.'

‘No kidding, Einstein,' said Eric.

‘What do you do with them?' asked Josh.

A siren sounded in the distance. They stood still, each holding his breath while it approached, then let out a collective sigh as the note changed and the vehicle went on its way.

‘I don't like this,' said Bub. ‘We should go.'

‘Go and watch the front then, if you're scared,' said Eric. ‘Let us know if anyone comes.' As Bub left, Eric muttered ‘Wuss' behind his back.

*

A
lways know your way back. That's what their dad had taught them on their hunting trips. Bub switched off his lamp and counted the paces down the corridor. Five steps, turn right, six steps, right again through the next door. They'd been in this lounge earlier, the first room they'd explored. Four steps straight ahead, round the coffee table, feeling his way. Four more paces in the pitch dark. He reached out his hand and took hold of the curtain, proud to have calculated correctly. He pulled it towards himself and slipped past it to the window. He let the heavy material fall behind him, cutting off the voices from the other room.