Shards (4 page)

The crowd, whipped into a
frenzy well before Derek's first blow struck, are practically
baying for blood. The rancid alley is packed with them---their faces
sway and blur in his vision. A wavering, surrealist canvas of white
skin against sodden brown brick. The chant flooding his ears is
muted and distant.

"Fight. Fight!" they cry, a
bunch of dipshits carried on the fumes of schoolyard memories.
Derek knocked the crap outta the runts in school many times. So
many, the faces blur. His memory isn't that great. Still, these
nightclub dipshits gave him a crowd and he loves to please.

With the baying of drug-fucked
teenagers and sex-starved metrosexuals droning in his ears, he
drives a fist into the skinny nerd's gut. The air is languid, his
punch slow to connect.

The guy doubles over, bunched
around Derek's fist. Pulling his arm free of the flesh and bone
wrapping, he watches through bleary eyes as the skinny fucker drops
to his knees. The act takes forever, like the arsehole is milking
Father Time for every last second.

"Ya like that, faggot?" Derek
screams into his face.

The guy, huddled in a heap,
refuses to meet his eye. He's a bloody mess. Ragged cuts and
bruises cover his arms and face. His shirt is shredded, an early
victim of Derek's cyclonic assault.

"It wasn't meant to be this
way," the runt mutters.

"Look at me, dickhead!" Derek
screams, this time only an inch from the guy's pulped, downcast
face. Derek wrenches his head back by a fistful of hair, stares
into the lumpy remains of his face. The loser grimaces but still
refuses to meet Derek's eye.

Leaning in closer, Derek runs a
deliberate tongue along the weeping cut on the runt's cheek.
Trapped by the hair, he tries squirming away but lacks the strength
to resist.

"You look familiar, bitch,"
Derek savours the blood on his lips, before ramming an elbow into
the loser's head. This swing also takes a slow-motion eternity to
connect before it snaps the guy's head to the side.

"Try this shit again and I'll
beat you to a smear. A fucking smear!"

The fringes of the crowd drift
away, lured back to the club by the hypnotic thud of a techno beat.
Glancing around, Derek senses the bloodlust fade from his
audience.

He slams a departing boot into
the fallen nerd's bony ribcage, enjoying the simultaneous grunt and
snap of bones, followed by the foetal collapse. This time, the
fucker stays down. A little baby curled up, bleeding, in the
filth.

Derek drifts back to the club
with the last remnants of the crowd. Not even scratched and still
jacked up from his last hit. Cocksure, he reaches into his pocket
for another E. By the gleam in the eyes of some of the regulars,
he'll probably score a fuck or two.

The back door soon slams
closed, its boom echoes through the alley, leaving Derek's victim
half conscious and curled up in a quivering ball.

#

The minutes stretch on, as he
slowly uncurls and pulls his tattered shirt across the broken
landscape of his torso. Inundated by the pain, he ignores the grit
and mud staining his left side. Like the rest of the alley, he now
smells of piss, vomit, and blood.

Inch by agonised inch, he claws
his way from the alley to the carpark. A few of the club-goers flit
in and out of the front door, stepping around his crawl. Some stop
to laugh, a sea of blurred, over-made-up faces swimming in his
vision. Others nervously quicken their step within a few feet of
him.

After endless minutes---maybe
hours---he reaches his car. He drags himself to his knees, fumbles
with the key, and pops the boot.

"You... you said... I'd win.
You... said I'd beat him."

The cloud of smoke and shadow
in the boot coagulates into a leering grin.

"Master," the creature purrs,
"I obeyed your desires to the letter. You lasted much longer
against your childhood nemesis than in any of your previous
beatings."

Trembling and exhausted, he
glares at the creature.

"I ..." he begins, then
tightens his split mouth into a line. Instead, he thumps his fist
into the bumper.

With trembling arms, he pulls
himself up into the trunk, collapses inside, and sprawls next to
the amorphous darkness.

"Would you care for another
wish?" the darkness invites as it swirls about him.

He nods, slowly at first, and
then more animated. "An assault rifle. With a never ending ammo
clip. And a bayonet."

Two demented grins, one of mist
and void, the other punctured by crooked, blood-stained teeth, fill
the car boot as they wait for the nightclub to close, and a
blood-red dawn to crest.

* * *

Spin the Witch
Bottle

"Up here, Joss?" Jeremy
stretched as he positioned the bottle atop the bookcase, as close
to the corner of the room as he could manage.

"Looks great.
And it's
Jocelyn
." Jocelyn barely spared a glance. She was engrossed in
setting up the Ouija board. She repeatedly turned the plastic
pointer over in her hands.

"Since you'll be channelling
the spirit, I'll need something of yours," said Jeremy, "something
personal."

Jocelyn shot him a look.

He shrugged. "That's what the
book said."

The two locked eyes, until at
last, Jeremy's non-chalance won out. Jocelyn removed her silver
locket from her neck and waved it at him while she returned her
attention to the Ouija board.

Jeremy's mouth hardened into a
line as he took the chain and locket. Jocelyn didn't notice,
absorbed as she was in anything but him. The locket rattled on the
glass as he stuffed it into the bottle.

He stepped
back to admire his handiwork. It was an old wine bottle, made of
thick green glass. The symbols spanning its surface were painted on
with white-out; they were designs straight from the book,
Occult Rituals
by
Cornelius Malcolm, some old professor from NU. The book cost him
thirteen bucks second hand --- the bottle and white-out, two dollars
from the discount shop.

"You ready?" asked Jocelyn.

Jeremy patted the cork in his
shirt pocket. "Yep. Let's do it."

They settled cross-legged on
Jeremy's bed, with the Ouija board between them.

Aware of the length of her
skirt, Jocelyn tugged the hem over her knees. "I came to you
because people say you know about this stuff, that's all. No funny
business, okay?"

Jeremy nodded solemnly, more to
look the part than out of respect for what they were doing. "I'm
glad you asked me. I've always wanted to be friends. Maybe ..."

Jocelyn rolled her eyes. "So
how does this work?"

Despite himself, Jeremy glanced
from Jocelyn's bare throat, over her shoulder, to the bottle
holding her locket. "After the séance begins, you know, when the
pointer starts moving, I'll start a chant. The spirit will then be
drawn into the Witch Bottle," he paused, "and then we get what we
want."

"And you're sure that thing
will hold a ghost?"

"Absolutely sure. I'm using
Mexicatanian symbols."

"Mesopotamian?"

"Whatever. It'll work."

"So I start by calling the
spirit?"

"Yeah."

"Wait. What about your parents?
What happens if the séance is interrupted?" A frown creased
Jocelyn's brow.

"It'll be fine. My parents
won't be home for ages. Nothing can go wrong."

The lines in Jocelyn's forehead
smoothed as she clasped the plastic pointer --- the planchette, the
booklet said --- with both hands.

Jeremy placed his hands over
hers. Together, their hands were firebrand-hot and sweaty. Jeremy
savoured the contact, although Jocelyn winced.

"Before we start, why do you
want to channel your sister?" he asked.

"You don't need to know. Just
make sure this works."

Jeremy squeezed her hands as
she moved the planchette around the board. It gained momentum,
seeming to move of its own accord.

"Call her now," he said, husky
and urgent, sparing another glance at the Witch Bottle in the
corner.

"Deborah!" she called in a
faux-spooky voice. "I call thee, Deborah. Come to me, I call
thee!"

The planchette moved about the
Ouija board in crazy arcs, jumping to random letters.

"Deborah!" Jocelyn called,
again and again, as Jeremy began his own chant under his
breath.

He muttered the ritual words,
tuning out Jocelyn's throaty calls and the slight heave of her
chest as she was moved by the gravitas of the occasion.

A breeze moved through the
room.

"Are you here, Deb?" Jocelyn
asked.

The planchette slid to YES on
the board.

With the fifth recital of
Jeremy's murmured chant, Jocelyn fell backwards, limp,
mid-sentence. The Witch Bottle rattled on its base, twirling until
it threatened to topple.

Jeremy was quicker than the
spiralling bottle --- leaping from the bed and withdrawing the cork
from his pocket in one practised motion, he stoppered it. He
stilled the Witch Bottle in two hands, staring into the nebulous
swirl caught within, a whisper given form but not voice. It hovered
about the locket.

"How does it feel in there,
Joss?" He smiled. "Don't worry, I'll let you out when my folks get
home, which should be hours from now." The smile grew predatory.
"It'll be like having a blackout, the book said. You won't remember
a thing."

After a moment, he left the
bottle, and the spirit caught within, to sit on the bed with the
prone form of Jocelyn. Even unconscious, she was breathtaking. Her
chest fluttered delicately like a dreaming butterfly, although he
knew she wasn't dreaming.

"I'm afraid your sister won't
be joining us as planned," he breathed into her ear. Fruity perfume
and shampoo, her smell was divine. As he slid a hand along her knee
and under her skirt, probing the warm pliancy of her thigh, a
zephyr chilled the back of his neck. "But she can watch us if she
likes."

* * *

Countdown Macabre

One-hundred beats per minute. The heart
races for fear of stalking darkness.

Eighty-eight panicked strides. Tripping,
stumbling across broken ground.

Eighty headstones passed. A desperate,
headlong flight.

Seventy-three pairs of eyes. Uncaring
witnesses of rough grey stone.

Sixty-three miles an hour. The midnight gale
snatches leaves, cloth, and hair.

Fifty-one fevered seconds. Diminishing
minute of frantic, fraught existence.

Forty-two fleeting images. Despairing
memories of a life cut short.

Thirty-two jumbled thoughts. Forsaken
escapes, survival plans mislaid.

Twenty-four feet, crawled through damp
graveyard dirt.

Seventeen pleading words, fallen on deaf
ears.

Ten final breaths, punctured by sobs.

Four frenzied slashes.

One scream.

* * *

On Dark Clouds Borne

"Eileen, have a look at this,
love." Charlie twisted in his chair but remaining fixed on the
TV.

"In a second," she said,
engrossed by the brooding storm clouds outside. Through the kitchen
window, the clouds beyond the back fence looked darker than
anything she'd seen before.

"There's a nasty storm on its
way," she paused, "my eyes are playing tricks on me." She rubbed at
her glasses. "The clouds, they look a bit ... green."

"What's that, love?" asked
Charlie. "Clouds? Come quick, there's something about it on the
news."

She shuffled into the lounge
room and propped herself on the arm of Charlie's chair. A line of
green bars rose along the bottom of the screen as Charlie thumbed
the remote control. Within seconds, the manicured voice of Robert
Brennan, the Channel Four news man, flooded the room.

"... confirmed reports of
severe storms lashing the city. Eyewitnesses describe long slivers
of hail causing untold damage throughout the suburbs. Authorities
are urging people to remain indoors and take precautions."

The presenter's lined face gave
way to a graphic filling the screen.

"Precautions include,"
continued Brennan, as a checklist of advice filled the TV.
"Securing all windows. Bringing pets and animals inside. Placing
cars under---"

The graphic faded away,
revealing Brennan's face in deep concentration. His head inclined,
he held two fingers to his earpiece.

"This doesn't look good," said
Charlie.

"Shhhhh!"

A rolling wave of thunder
rocked the house, dimming the lights and fuzzing the screen for an
instant.

Robert Brennan abruptly turned
square to the camera, his face the picture of solemnity.

"We've received news just to
hand. It seems snakes are falling from the sky. That's right.
Snakes. In a dramatic turn of events, eyewitnesses report snakes in
their thousands are being dumped by the storm."

"Snakes?" Charlie looked to
Eileen. Her puzzled look matched her husband's as they held each
other's gaze.

On screen, the camera panned in
on Brennan's face. The corner of his mouth twitched. Suddenly, he
broke into laughter.

"I'm sorry folks," he
stammered. "It's April Fools Day."

"April Fools..." Charlie looked
at the wall calendar. "He's right."

"I think we've both been had,
ladies and gentleman," soothed Brennan around a chuckle.

Eileen squeezed her husband on
the shoulder and then left him in front of the TV. A lead weight
felt lodged in her chest as she glanced at the kitchen window and
the ominous clouds beyond.

Only a grim, grey twilight
separated the clouds from the landscape.

Another jolt of thunder rattled
the window in its frame.

Unsettled, she returned to her
husband and the flush-faced newsreader on TV. She sat beside
Charlie, slipping her hand beneath his gnarled fingers. He looked
at her, squeezed her hand, but said nothing.