SHARDS

Shane Jiraiya Cummings

Praise for Shards

"With Shards, Shane Jiraiya Cummings takes us on a guided tour of the darkest backroads of the imagination. It is wonderfully moody and creepy."

--- Jonathan Maberry, multiple Bram Stoker Award-winning author of Patient Zero.

"Shane Jiraiya Cummings with Shards shows he is not only a master of the flash fiction style of writing but has pretty much written the definitive statement on how it should work. The collection is a strong statement on the validity of an internet-driven writing style and is a must have for any collector of Australian dark fiction."

--- Jeff Ritchie, ScaryMinds

"Cummings' work possesses a Stephen King-like quality, creating rich and colourful characters in a handful of words ... Well worth the read."

--- Mark Smith-Briggs, HorrorScope

"This is how flash fiction should be written---sharp, brilliant images conjured by amazingly few words. Cummings' aptitude for flash fiction is evident in every carefully chosen phrase."

--- Stephanie Gunn, HorrorScope

"Shards cuts you right open and then sets about infecting the wound. Cummings' prose is as the title suggests: short, sharp, and deadly. The tales are relentless, battering you with their suggestive intensity or mocking with bleak humour."

--- Dr Marty Young, Founder, Australian Horror Writers Association.

"If flash fiction is the distinctive form of our internet age---and everything points that way---then I can't think of a better demonstration of the art than Shards."

--- Richard Harland, award-winning author of The Black Crusade and Worldshaker.

"Shards offers a worthy selection of short-short stories that reflects the author's prominence in the contemporary upsurge of flash fiction among Australian horror writers. It is varied, the stories sometimes giving a short sharp jolt, sometimes evoking a creeping dread, and at other times, suggesting a world that has already slipped over into darkness. Fans of the short-short form will welcome this darkly entertaining foray into a world gone subtly, and at times, unsubtly askew, from one of Australia's 'new bloods' of horror."

--- Robert Hood, the 'Godfather of Aussie Horror' and award-winning author of Creeping in Reptile Flesh.

* * *

Copyright © Shane Jiraiya Cummings 2011.

A print version, illustrated by Andrew J. McKiernan (Brimstone Press, 2009, ISBN: 9780980567724) is available from Brimstone Press: http://www.brimstonepress.com.au

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. Except in the case of short-term lending, if you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All characters in this book are fictitious.

No reference to any living person is intended.

* * *

CONTENTS

Introduction

Sacrifices

Prescience

Virgin in the Mist

Revision Is Murder

Personal Demons

Stealing Fire

Firewall

Smouldering Eyes

Shadow of Revenge

The Unnatural

Spin the Witch Bottle

Countdown Macabre

On Dark Clouds Borne

Practical Joke

Interlude, With Lavender

Dread Seasons

Cruel Summer: Sand

Dread Seasons Quartet: Rainbow-Speckled Field

Cruel Summer: Sun

Dread Seasons Quartet: Naked Azure Sky

Cruel Summer: Sky

Dread Seasons Quartet: The Rustle of Autumnal Leaves

Cruel Summer: Surf

Dread Seasons Quartet: Pallid Wisps of Snow

Cruel Summer: Shadow

Under The Skin

A Killer Smile

Congo Jenga

R U OK?

Itch

Obsessions

Stop

Postcard From Paris (A Reply)

Song of the Infernal Machine

Apocalyptic Visions

Burning a Hole in the Sky

Memoirs of a Teenage Antichrist

Love in the Land of the Dead

Wrack

Genesis Six

* * *

Introduction

When the short story appeared in the nineteenth century, it took people a long while to realise that the new form wasn't just anecdotal tale or cut-down novel. Edgar Allen Poe was one of the first to think through the distinctive principles. Now there's another new form, flash fiction, with different distinctive principles. Shane Jiraiya Cummings is a specialist in those principles.

Flash fictions aren't just ultra-short short stories because at this length there's no time for story in the usual sense. No full action, no trajectory of this-leads-to-that, no build up to a climax. There's only time for a snapshot, a frozen moment. What comes before and what comes after must be implicit in that moment.

The dynamic of the pieces in Shards is the dynamic of something-coming-clear. It's like a change in the quality of the light, a sharpening and deepening of shadows. Rarely are we given a huge twist of revelation, where a situation that looked one way turns out very different in the end. This is more a matter of mood.

Carl Dreyer, the great Danish film director, must have had this kind of effect in mind when he said: "think of a room, an ordinary domestic interior; then suppose that there's a dead body in the room next door---and see how everything changes."

Dreyer was talking about a horror that works by subtlety and suggestion. In Shards, there are a few pieces of out-and-out horror, but mostly the horror is delicate, the kind to make the hairs stand up on the back of your neck. I had an aunt who used to shiver and say that someone had just walked over her grave. That's the feeling I get from the pieces in Shards.

One of my favourite pieces is "Rainbow-Speckled Field". A happy scene ... overtaken by a nameless dread ... the uttered phrase 'the moles are hunting' ... and that's all. What does it mean, 'the moles are hunting'? Why is the phrase so chilling when it could so easily be comic? What's going on here?

If you insist on explanations, Shards probably isn't for you. Explanations are for novels or longer stories. The only explanation here is that fears come true: fears about disease, fears about fire, fears about dead leaves and sand. In "On Dark Clouds Borne", snakes start falling from the sky---but don't look for rational causes. The irrationality is the point.

The fears often spring out of the tiniest real-life moments. We all know the experience of being honked at repeatedly by the car behind as we wait for a break in the traffic. But what if it went one step further? ("Stop") Or---as a child---being left with the towels and beach paraphernalia, waiting for the family to return. But what if they never do? ("Cruel Summer: Shadow") In Shards, the ordinary safe world doesn't return. Those brief moments of dread are given free rein, spiralling out of control.

Some of the pieces are linked by title: the "Cruel Summer" series and the "Dread Seasons" series. But more than that, almost all the pieces are linked by an evenness of tone and similarity of vision. Across the whole volume, a particular sense of world accumulates. It's not a locatable world geographically; there are almost no place names. Rather, it's a world of free-floating anxiety and insecurity, a state of the soul. The individual pieces are like separate sections of a multi-sectioned poem.

I've tried my hand at writing flash fiction, but reading Shards has been a revelation. Now I realise I've never truly mastered the form, only a few special cases of ultra-shortness. By contrast, Shane Jiraiya Cummings can carry it off successfully time and time again. If flash fiction is the distinctive form of our internet age---and everything points that way---then I can't think of a better demonstration of the art than Shards.

--- Richard Harland

* * *

Prescience

The ghost of the wound itched and burned from deep within my side. It burned with greater intensity as I climbed the stairs to the Marynth branch of Savings and Equity. Marble and steel ushered me inside, where I met the long line to the teller. I pocketed my mobile phone with a sigh and took my place in the queue behind a broad man in a grey suit. My side throbbed.

Two more circles of pain burned in my chest---one close to my right shoulder, the other hovering over my heart. They were different to the pain in my side, just heat under the skin. They didn't belong to me, but I felt them anyway.

I smoothed my blouse and soon caught sight of the security guard. He was young and nervous-eyed, with a Brylcreem part. I left my place in the line to approach him. George, the name badge said, just as it should. My sneakers squeaked on the marble floor with each step towards him.

He tensed up at my approach, his shoulder a knotted ball of muscle as I lightly laid a hand on it. He took my whispered words with good grace, nodding not once but twice, before unholstering his pistol. A Smith and Wesson, just as it should be. I wondered then, as I did in my dreams, if they still made revolvers like his anymore.

I reached into my pocket just as the masked gunman stormed through the glass doors.

"Get down!" His scream was muffled by an over-tight balaclava. He shoved the man in the grey suit to the ground---he crashed like a felled walrus, taking an elderly couple down in his sprawl.

George stepped forward with both hands wrapped around his Smith and Wesson, his legs splayed wide. A classic pose of authority for a classic weapon. "Freeze," he yelled, playing it by the numbers.

My side radiated heat, the irritation and pain tunnelling right through me.

The gunman swivelled and fired. No warning, just a blast louder than thunder and deadlier by far. The gauze pad in my pocket was in my grasp and I wasn't letting go.

When the bullet struck, I don't know whether my side burst open to meet it or it made its own hole, as it should. In that moment, as the bullet tore through my soft insides, I knew why I'd had my appendix removed as a girl. Gunshots create all sorts of complications if you aren't prepared for them.

A potted hibiscus broke my fall, bruising my hip in the bargain. My hand worked on its own, trained by countless dreams of this moment in the weeks before. With the gauze pressed tight over the wound, I tilted my head to watch the gunman go down.

He seemed to drop simultaneously as two booms rocked the foyer. Good boy, George. Plumes of blood sprayed from the gunman's shoulder and chest. The phantom pains in my chest, overshadowed by the very real pain from the hole in my side, subsided as the would-be robber crashed to the floor.

I didn't need to take a closer look to know the man was dead. George's second shot had exploded his heart, just as it should have.

Everyone was huddled in clumps on the floor, still too afraid to rise. Most kept their eyes to the floor, with only furtive glances spared for me or the fallen gunman.

"George," I stammered, although it took two tries to get the name out right. The metallic tang of blood was already on my tongue. Not a good sign.

George was still frozen in his stand-off pose, the Smith and Wesson smoking from doing its duty. At the sound of his name, he holstered his gun and rushed to my side.

"You alright, Miss?" His words were as stammered as mine.

"No, George, I've been shot." This came out clear enough.

He pulled up my blouse to inspect the wound, careful to remove my hand, and the gauze pad, while doing so. The blood surged when the pad was taken away. He pressed his hand over mine as we reapplied the gauze to my side. Blood swallowed both sets of fingers and pooled along the floor. It soon encircled his shiny black shoe, just as it should.

"Sorry about the mess," I said, then choked back a cough.

"Where'd you get all these scars, Miss?" George was transfixed on the naked skin beneath my bra.

"Shootings, stabbings, that one's a cattle prod," I traced an ugly scar along my ribs with a limp finger. "I'm drawn to these things. A moth to a flame."

"What?" George's brow creased in concentration.

"I'm a sucker for punishment. Empathy and prescience. It's a sacrifice thing. Don't sweat it, you wouldn't get it anyway." I coughed again, much harder than before. The heat from the wound was subsiding. A chill was steadily creeping into my limbs.

"Don't worry, Miss---"

"Verity."

"Verity, then. Don't worry, we'll get an ambulance here pronto."

"I called one a few minutes ago."

George was puzzled but said nothing.

I closed my eyes, waiting for the wail of the ambulance to fill the silence. Responses were slow this time of year. I concentrated on the ebbing blood and George's fingers entwined with mine.

The warmth was reassuring as new phantom pains emerged to nag at my neck and left arm. Knife wounds, most likely. The tingle went deep enough.

The pain---the real and the imagined---was also reassuring. More work and more days left ahead. More sacrifices.

Just as it should be.

* * *

Virgin in the Mist

She appeared in the mist of my bathroom mirror, her eyes haloed by the light, her face on the cusp of a scream or a prayer. My faith was strong when I told Father Morales about her. His faith was stronger when he told the Vatican.

Now the queues of worshippers, with their candles and incurable diseases, have taken over my house. Poor as I was, I now live on the streets---pushed out by droves of fanatics. All desperate for a glimpse of their vision or clutching for 'holy relics' like my bathroom tiles. Anything to be close to her. The pilgrimage line to my bathroom fills the streets.

They run my hot water all day for a glimpse of the Virgin's face. And they get it---her eyes ablaze in the fluorescent light, reflecting their convictions, their need. Like Father Morales, and the Vatican Cardinals, they wonder at the expression on her face.

When I still cared and still had a home, I had asked the first pilgrims what they saw. They had offered only fervour, vagueness, and prayer.

But I know now. Life in the gutter has made it clear.

She's laughing.

At me.

* * *

Revision is Murder

I'd written many short stories, trying to break into the writing scene, but it was with this particular manuscript that I had a special affinity. It was my first, my masterpiece---the great unpublished novel.

Wedged between a dozen coffees and 3am, I struggled to focus. My eyes blurred as I banged away at the keyboard. Words and whole sentences formed almost unbidden, pouring from me with abandon---the product of trained hands running on automatic. The blurring intensified, forcing me to squint at the letters floating in pixelated clusters across the screen.As I typed, a whirl of colours filled my peripheral vision. Too tired to care, I continued typing. Chapter seventeen was drawing to a close, and the protagonist was headed for a cliff-hanger. The colours swirled and danced in my field of vision but never swam close enough to cloud my view of the screen.

Rounding off a page, my eyes committed their betrayal, whirling the spectrum of light and haze into a tunnel. Only the words on the screen existed, everything else was swallowed by the luminous fog. Within moments, even the white document background dropped away, disappearing into the depths of the screen and the abyss beyond. The words and letters were left hanging like baby spiders clinging to the smoky monitor glass.

I tapped away, flooding the glass with more black characters. I typed like a madman, the sentences forming from fragments only half-conceived in my fogged mind. Even as I continued to create, the individual letters were sucked from the glass, hurtling into the blurry abyss that had engulfed the rest of the computer screen. One at a time at first, and then in clumps. As the letters were drawn away, so too was my focus. In my weariness, I succumbed to that same black hole. It sucked my consciousness into a place beyond thought or reason, turning everything dark.

I snapped my eyes open again, pulling myself upright in my chair. The screen was there, as were my typing fingers, still performing admirably under their own steam. But filling the screen was a collage of the manuscript and a world beyond.

Blinking couldn't dispel the illusion, nor the fogging rainbows still swimming in the halo obscuring the study.

In the world within my screen, animated letters floated in a luminous void. An abstract realm of subtle consciousness, where angles and points, letters and numbers, coexisted in embryonic forms of life. Metallic clouds of gas undulated, gently propelling the fleshy letters through the dense atmosphere. In the distance, noises penetrated the void, akin to the rise and fall of a whale's song.

Through my twenty-one-inch window into this abstract plane, waves of empathy radiated into my core. Contentment, an innate peace with the universe, saturated my being.

I watched through blurry eyes as more of the letters I created, bunched into words, sprang into being on my screen. Simultaneously, fleshy simulacrums appeared amid the coppery-gold cloud. With my skewed perspective and tiny viewing frame, I had no idea whether these newborns were twelve pixels in size or mile-wide monoliths.

I typed and typed, lost to the joy of creating these passive life-forms. It was rapturous---my fingers hammered out line after line of prose, outlining the peril of the protagonist, while the souls of the letters appeared in the reality beyond, breaking apart from their parent word and floating unfettered, soaking in the glow and radiating contentment.

As my rational mind intruded, my hand drifted to the delete key to correct a misspelled word of my character's plight. Three letters were all I corrected, but the outcry from beyond nearly shattered my eardrums. The dirge, so much like a distressed whale, was heartbreaking. The newly birthed letters, the ones I deleted, faded from a rosy-flesh colour to a sullen grey. An instant later, they disintegrated to ash, their carcasses diffusing into a steely cloud.

I froze.

Beyond the line of words on my manuscript, the rise and fall of the alien whale-song haunted the void every few seconds. My gut was hollow as realisation dawned on me. This was the sound of dying letters.

Despite the constant radiating contentment, I tore my eyes from the screen and wiped a hand across my brow. The sweat collected there was ice cold. Although the blur persisted, a legacy of the late hour, I could read my watch well enough to know 4am was approaching.

The euphoric feeling had faded, replaced by emptiness. When I refocussed my concentration on the screen, the bizarre realm of living letters had vanished. Instead, only the last page of my manuscript filled the screen. Most of it was riddled with typos.

I squinted hard at the screen, hoping for the dazzle of colours to return or the hint of a cloud to show through. Instead, nothing.

I composed myself with deep breaths and tried pushing the vision from my thoughts, concentrating instead on finishing the chapter before going to bed.

I started in on the typos, but with every correction---every deletion---the haunting call of the letters echoed through my mind. I couldn't do it.

Afraid to even turn off the computer, I sought refuge from the madness in sleep. While I slept, the screen purred and flickered in the darkness. Even in slumber, the metallic clouds, the bloated shapes of letters and numbers, and a haunting scream, played through the landscape of my dreams.

The next morning, I returned to the manuscript, still bleary-eyed, but again, couldn't bring myself to correct the mistakes. I soon turned to thinking of all the corrections I'd made in the novel, and then in the dozens of short stories I'd written. I paled when I remembered trashing the original versions of chapters three and four. Nearly nine thousand words. Murdered.

After much soul searching and guilt, I backed up every story of mine onto disks and locked them away in my study draw.

Since that night, I've never written another story. Not another word. Knowing the consequences, it's just too painful to make a mistake. My computer sits dormant, with my entire writing career dormant within.

I've now turned my hand to art---abstract art. With the indecipherable smattering of paint on canvas, I'll never be in danger of erasing my work ever again. The thought gives me comfort as I'm painting, imagining myself floating through a steel-brass cloud, feeling at one with the universe.

Never again will I have to endure the mournful call of letters lamenting the loss of their kind.

* * *

Stealing Fire

He glared into the campfire as though it were his bitter enemy. Tension lines---muscles taut and charged with adrenalin---were highlighted in the amber glow. Flickering shadows transformed his eyes into pits. Though hidden, they burned with an intensity greater than the coals.

The fire played along the twigs, delighting in its rampage as the wood charred beneath. The kindling popped and crackled, accompanied by the dirge of a cricket. The insect was lost in the trees beyond his campsite, beyond his battered Triumph Thunderbird.

Fire was capricious---an idiot child with a flair for destruction. Its dance sickened him to the core.

Memories stirred. The fire became a portal to his torment. He scowled, repeatedly clenching his gloved fists as the nightmare played through his mind.

The flailing arm was always first. Amy's. The tiny arm reached through the steel bars that entombed her inside the bedroom. Heat and irony assaulted him in waves as he fought to free his little girl. The bars he'd intended for her protection became her death sentence.

He wrenched at the bars with all his strength as Amy's pleas, then screams, tore the heart from his chest. His desperation wasn't enough. The bars never yielded, nor the flames. The fire was ever hungry.

Black, billowing smoke stung his eyes and raked his throat but couldn't drive him away. Despite the pain, the heat, and the stench, he held that tiny hand until the world faded to black.

His memories soon shifted to Sonya.

She survived that night, burnt beyond recognition and crippled by more than physical injuries. 'I should have done more', she had mumbled through ruined lips. Even after the bandages came off, Sonya tormented herself with the chant.

Those were the last words he had ever heard from his wife and they haunted him to this day. The fire had stolen her too. Without Amy, or a face, her spirit surrendered.

He saw it in her eyes that last day. That dancing flame. Where her light should have been. Dissatisfied that Sonya was spared the withering brutality of its embrace, the flame drove her to the hospital roof, and to her death.

In turn, it drove him to the road. To the life of a wanderer. An avenger.

He glared at the campfire, willing his demons to quieten. Clenching his fist again, to the sound of scrunching leather, he moved in closer to the flames. The heat surged in anticipation. Twigs popped like snapping bones. His face grew hot but he ignored the sensation. The heat barely registered. Not after this long.

His focus honed to a tiny black sphere, a pinpoint aimed directly at the heart of the fire. Flames licked the air, eager for a taste of the flesh suggested by his singed hairs. The fire flickered, darting to and fro in the hunt for combustibles to devour.

He rolled back the sleeve of his jacket, revealing a maze of burn scars along his forearm. It was time.

He thrust his hand into the centre of the fire. The hand that held Amy's till the very end. Flames took hold within a heartbeat. The stench of burning leather and flesh filled his senses, the familiarity bittersweet. Tapping into his ball of rage, he tightened his fist, then snatched it back out into the night air.

The fire squirmed and writhed in his hand. An animated yellow-white flame, fey, vaguely humanoid. A parody of life. The elemental spirit flailed in his grasp, desperate to return to its sheath of flames. Leather sizzled and smoked from its throes. Caught naked in the cold air, the flame quickly fizzled inside his fist.

Barely aware of the blistering and lingering heat, he rubbed the smouldering glove on jeans ingrained with soot. The smell of scorched skin wafted across the campsite.

He watched with feral delight as the campfire dulled. Despite the available fuel, it waned before his eyes. With its heart, its essence, stolen, the fire soon sputtered and died.

The scene was almost played out by rote now. He'd lost count of how many fires he'd stared down. Only the scars kept score.

Under the glow of moonlight fractured by the trees, he retrieved the sleeping bag stowed on his bike and unfurled it over the lumpy earth. He eyed the charred firewood, the dead coals, and then climbed inside his bedroll.

Carefully, he removed his glove. His nerve ends were long dead, the pain excised. Only the sight of raw skin and the stink of charcoal and burnt flesh remained.

His thoughts strayed back to his family and the happiness he'd lost. Too many fires raged out there in the darkness. Too many dancing flames to steal away people like Sonya and Amy.

It was cold comfort but one less fire would burn tonight.

* * *

Firewall

I'm a hacker. No, that's not quite right. I used to be a hacker. There was nothing better than invading the whole damn web with a made-to-order über virus. I was responsible for the tyck-tock virus, the one that brought down the World Bank and Microsoft servers for three days. Pulling down Microsoft gave me some serious cred. I was a freaking God-damn legend after that.

My latest virus was IcE Maiden. I was on top of the world when I released that little baby on the unsuspecting public. My main targets are always the big boys. The idea of shoving it up corporate America gets me off every time I think about it. I'd love to see their dopey faces when some dickless IT manager says "Yeah, we have a virus" and then has no friggin' idea what to do about it.

IcE Maiden was my greatest creation. A true masterpiece. Once that baby hit your hard drive, it was all over. Your computer would freeze and a little piece of my own personal wisdom would pop up on the screen. No matter how many times you rebooted, the damn message wouldn't go away. It then replicated, sending itself to everyone in your email address book. I've found out the virus was a mega-success. It took the world's best brains almost three weeks to come up with a workable patch to fix it. I heard my Maiden even messed up the anti-virus corporations. Home freakin' run.

I laughed as best I could when I heard that. I always target them first. If you take those guys down, it means your virus stays in circulation longer. A lot of the banks had trouble with it. I even heard the Japanese government crashed for a couple of days when IcE Maiden hit.

Sometimes I wonder, as I get to do a hell of a lot these days, what sorta stuff they say about my viruses in other countries. Do they even call it IcE Maiden in Japan? Maybe they translate it to something like 'Young woman standing in snow'? The thought cracks me up.

I saw some of the press clippings on the net shortly afterwards. I'm glad the Western world got the name right at least. I remember another freelancer, by the name of WackyDuck, released a kick-butt virus that did some major global damage.

His virus was called Big Boa. The media screwed up and some wise guy went all religious with it. They called it the Serpent virus, and started all sorts of fun and games with prophecies and finger-pointing. I thought it was a hoot. The apocalypse---now on your PC! WackyDuck never lived it down. Even those in our little community started calling him a religious freak. My point is, you're never the master of what you unleash. You just hope it goes the way you planned.

I think it was a reaction to WackyDuck's experience, cos I remember scouring the new age and religious newsgroups and mailing lists. I found as many emails as I could and then unleashed IcE Maiden on 'em. It was a long list, with emails from hundreds of lists from all over the world. They wanted apocalypse through the internet, I'd give it to 'em.

You know when you're looking at email addresses and some seem really familiar? It's almost like dejá-vu. Well, when going through the occult newsgroups, I came across an email address that practically burned itself into my eyes.

Hell, it wasn't even the address, it was the word.

Malephagia.

I didn't know what it meant. Yet I recognised it, like I'd seen it before but couldn't remember.

As I hovered my mouse over the email address, something in my head told me to delete it from the list. I even started to. Then sense kicked in and I moved on.

#

Long slender fingers, concealed within black velvet gloves, deftly played across the keyboard. The rhythmic tapping of keys formed a strangely melodic tune that filled the apartment. Arcane symbols, indecipherable to layman's eyes, lined the screen in an complex yet ornate arrangement.

Twin tanks flanked the computer---itself a sleek black machine that purred in accordance to its master's desires. The tanks were connected to the hard drive by serpentine plastic tubes. These tubes, filled with amber liquid pulsing from the nearby tanks, snaked into the hard drive case and circled back again, forming a closed circuit.

Floating at the centre of each tank, akin to monstrous test-tubes, were foetus-like creatures. They were vaguely human yet wrong, drifting in the cloudy ochre fluid---nine inches of wrinkled pink flesh bobbing in artificial wombs.

The melodic typing continued its song until a warning flashed up in bold, red letters, bordered on every side by an array of runic characters.

Virus Detected. Designation: IcE Maiden.

For seconds, the screen remained unresponsive, despite repeated tapping at the keyboard. Another message flashed on screen but only for an instant. It wavered and vanished before it could be read. The keyboard returned to life, as further keystrokes were converted to symbols in the on-screen document.

One of the foetuses convulsed as the hard drive whirred into automated life, sucking and recycling the greasy fluid from the tanks. The hybrid machine clicked over for long seconds, syphoning through the amber liquid. The symbiote foetuses drew more orange fluid in hungry, synchronised gulps, returning it in bubbles and dark ochre dribbles.

A final message appeared on-screen, surrounded by assorted runes.

Counter-measures initiated. Destination: 'Sabre' - IP 203.198.66.4.

A throaty laugh echoed through the apartment.

#

Nothing in my life could ever prepare me for what came next.

A few hours later, I get this weird message on my computer. That took me totally by surprise.

Doing what I do, by definition I have to have the very best filters and firewalls in the game. The community is pretty tight but wars between hackers can be deadly. Turning our virtual arsenals on each other is a nasty business, so protection comes in spades.

So on the screen was this freaky message. I don't know to this day how he did it, but the words were flaming. Not like your usual animation-type stuff, I mean like they were really on fire. The windows and icons on my desktop caught fire on screen. The desktop images inside the monitor---on the screen---were burning. It was awesome.

The message read: Your virus has been detected and destroyed on contact. You are now infected by Malephagia Firewall counter-protection.

I was stunned. In my years of hacking, I'd never seen anti-virus protection like this before. The whole damn screen was on fire, but the message burnt brightest, right in the centre.

I sat there hypnotised, watching my desktop image---a half-naked supermodel sunbathing next to a swimming pool---get slowly eaten by the flames. When the water in the pool started bubbling, I thought I was going crazy.

Before my eyes, the face of the burning girl twisted into a contorted scream.

I freaked.

I put my hands to the keyboard and was jolted by a flash of searing heat and pain in my fingers. I was thrown backwards. It was like a massive electrical shock. The smell of burnt flesh and plastic filled the room.

It took me a long time to recover. I just stood there watching the screen blaze.

The bikini model soon crumpled into a blackened skeleton. All my icons were now little squares of ash dotted around the screen. Yet the burning message remained.

Very carefully, I touched one of the keys, trying to make the message disappear. Heat welled up from my finger and the whole keyboard shot up in flames. Snatching my hand back, I then grabbed at the monitor, trying to move it out of the fire's path. The plastic under my hand smouldered for an instant then the monitor exploded in a fireball, showering glass fragments all over my room.

I panicked, reaching for my half-empty Coke to pour over the computer. The can melted with a loud pop, spilling scalding drink all over my desk. Despite the eruptions of heat and fire, my hands were mostly unscathed.

Downstairs, I heard my parents shout my name. They probably heard the monitor explode. Panicked and confused, I stumbled back, collapsing onto my bed. All I could do was sit on the edge of my bed and freak out, watching the flames rise out of what used to be my state-of-the-art computer.

Not knowing what to touch, I slumped into myself, cupping my head in my hands. That was my mistake.

The heat was excruciating. I screamed and flailed for what seemed hours. I clawed at myself, trying to put out the intense fire consuming my body. More pockets of fire erupted every time I touched the sheets. It was a nightmare. I was burning alive.

My parents barged through the door. I grabbed at Dad in desperation. His sleeve shot up in flames. The whole room became an inferno. Dad beat at his arm as he pulled away from me. Mum disappeared, leaving the two of us to burn.

She returned seconds later and smothered my body with a blanket. I screamed and screamed. It was unbearable. The last thing I saw was Dad ripping his jacket off and throwing it to the floor. At least he got off lightly.

#

The black keyboard stood temporarily abandoned as the entombed foetuses stared into nothingness. The amber fluid in their hooked-up tanks had clouded from the recent activity. Between them, the computer lay idle in stand-by mode---a predator at rest between kills.

Behind the carpet of darkness that served as screen saver, a data log automatically generated by the computer waited for the master's return.

At the top of the log, amid time, date, and server data, stood waiting to be read:

Target 'Sabre' (IP 203.198.66.4).

Malephagia Firewall v1.1 successfully uploaded.

Dozens of other nicknames and addresses trailed below.

#

I spent two months in Stratton Memorial following 'the incident'. They said I died during the first operation; that my heart stopped for thirteen seconds. I went through six more operations before they'd even considered releasing me. My body is a pathetic withered blister; one giant scab.

I've been in the rehabilitation wing of the Feldman centre now for about nine weeks. I wear a full body pressure suit that's supposed to be cutting edge medical technology. I hang by slings like a mummy on wires. They're trying to get me to move, in case my muscles atrophy. Hell, I didn't move much when I wasn't all burnt up, so I figure what's the difference. They say I was lucky to live. Can't see the difference there either.

I'll never be able to touch anything ever again. Ever.

Despite the rehab, despite the pain, despite everything, there is one thing that keeps me going.

I have the bastard's email address, and the hope to track him down. I also have those words, still seared into my mind.

You are now infected by Malephagia Firewall counter-protection.

* * *

Smouldering Eyes

I only ever wanted to be noticed. To feel attractive. It was a simple, heartfelt wish. To undo the misery of my bland face and stringy hair. To be beautiful.

Now, every guy who catches my eye ignites with desire. The acrid smells of burnt flesh and the agonised screams are seared into my memory.

I just asked the genie for smouldering eyes.

* * *

Shadow of Revenge

"Fight me, you skinny little fuck!"

The muffled thud of dance music, filtering from the nearby club, Drakken, adds rhythm to Derek's step as he strides forward.

"Go fuck y'self," the other guy spits. Flecks of blood and saliva fly from his mouth, landing on Derek's boots. Unintentional, but it pisses Derek off.

"You're gonna pay for that, shitbag."

The weary expression on the guy's face---he didn't catch his name---says everything that needs to be said. The skinny runt is afraid yet defiant.

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.

A heavy thud struck the roof. Followed by another. And another ...

* * *

Practical Joke

Scrubbing hard, stretching muscles til they ached, Julie fought a losing battle with the toilet bowl. Decked out in leggings and Jim's old blue shirt, she had engaged in the monthly cleaning ritual with gusto. It was the bathroom's turn presently, a pristine space turned hovel by Wade and his friend Joel, who slept over the night before. Scouring the bowl, she struggled with the smell. Sewer, rubber, and chlorine incarnate.

#

"Mum's gonna be scared," Wade told Joel, breaking into a grin.

The cardboard face they'd drawn, all black Texta horns and fangs, looked sinister as they taped it to the broom handle.

"I don't know Wade, do you reckon it'll reach?" Joel glanced dubiously at the pole.

The front of the house was at street level, but beneath the bathroom window at the rear, the house was high, chocked up on brick foundations. The darkness beneath the house held Wade in thrall. He'd ventured under the house a few times before, borne on fool's courage, but his expeditions were always brief. Spiders and nameless things crawled in that darkness.

"It'll reach," he assured, his smile faltering.

#

A scraping sound drew Julie's attention. The sound came from behind her. From below.

A creeping tentacle, phosphorescent green, slithered up from the small circular drain in the centre of the floor.

It protruded a few inches and groped around the grate---a slimy tongue tasting at the fringes of rust.

With sick fascination, she observed the tentacle writhe and probe. The sight gnawed at the pit of her stomach.

In slow, deliberate motions, she retrieved a bold red can of flyspray from the cupboard. Within seconds, the hiss of insecticide filled the room.

The tentacle thrashed and retreated into the drain.

Gathering her nerve, she sidled forward on hands and knees until her face hovered above the grate, at a respectful distance. Beyond the little silvered bars, she found only empty darkness.

#

"Go for it," urged Joel, as Wade hefted the pole-and-mask toward the window.

A rumble, and the rattle of pipes, reverberated from somewhere beneath the house.

The boys looked at each other in bewilderment.

#

Something banged on the window. Julie whirled around. With her pulse racing, she looked closer.

A face, black, angular and misshapen, filled the window.

She yelped in surprise and stepped away on reflex. Her foot brushed something cold and wet.

#

Hearing mum's yelp, the boys exploded into giggles. An instant later, a crash echoed from the bathroom, followed by an ominous exhale sound, a hydraulic hiss.

"Mum!" Wade raced up the back stairs and into the house. Joel followed.

Reaching the bathroom, they found Julie standing stiffly in the centre of the room.

"Sorry about the joke, Mum. Are you okay?" Wade said.

"It was a good joke," she answered, atonally. "I have another." She motioned toward the drain, and stared at them with vacant eyes. "Come in boys, and close the door."

* * *

Interlude, With Lavender

The world spun. Grey lines of swirling chaos formed at the edge of vision as he opened his eyes. Like the jarring stop of an amusement ride, the room came into sudden, sharp focus.

Greyness---stainless steel and concrete---pervaded the room. A metal table rose in front of him, shrouded with a white cloth. The cloth concealed lumpiness in a vague, albeit hefty, human shape.

"Hey there," a man's voice called.

He turned at the sound of the voice. A humanoid silhouette, swirling with mist, black and ethereal, extended an arm-like appendage toward him.

He recoiled.

"Oh," the voice said, coming from the mist. "I forgot."

"What are you?" He tried to hold the quiver from his voice.

"The name's Blake. What's yours?"

"Daniel. Daniel Caruthers."

"Pleased to meet you."

"You too," he answered without thinking.

Daniel kept a wary distance while he studied the shape named Blake.

After moments, Blake broke the silence, "Umm, Dan, you might want to move."

"Why? What are you going to do?"

"Nothin' mate. It's just that ..." Blake pointed toward Daniel's legs.

He dreaded looking down but couldn't resist the urge. What passed for his hips disappeared through a white sheet identical to the one on the other table---yet he didn't feel a thing. His arms, legs, and body were as vague and ethereal as Blake's. He flinched and the world spun again, a crazy whirligig of greyness, to find himself in the centre of the room under the light of an overhanging lamp.

"How'd you do that?" Blake asked.

"What?"

"You blinked out for a sec."

Daniel fixated on the swirls that replaced his absent flesh. "What's happened to me?"

Blake glided forward across the concrete. "Well, the last thing I remember was eating dinner. Something was caught in my throat, and then ... and then I was here. You?"

"I ... was in the car. There was a light, just a flash really. I don't remember anything else." He studied the slab with which he'd just been merged. Small drying patches of brown saturated through its covering cloth. The shape beneath looked human, vaguely so, but he couldn't tell.

He grabbed for the cloth with a shadowy hand, only to pass through it, groping at nothingness.

"It's no good, mate. I tried that already," Blake said. "It's a safe bet that's us under those sheets though."

Despite a yearning to throw up or to shout to the heavens, Daniel felt nothing---except an itch. Like the feeling an amputee experiences after losing a limb, he struggled against a palpable loss. The absence of the physical ached, but only in his thoughts. That was all he had left.

From beyond the door, Daniel heard muffled voices approaching. "Someone's coming," he whispered, feeling strangely exposed.

"What do you want me to do, mate? Hide under the table?"

A face, dark with stubble and suntan, appeared in the glass window inset into the door. A second later, the door swung open, admitting the man and another trailing behind. Both men wore the aqua-coloured garb of hospital staff.

"I thought you said you heard voices," the stubbled man said.

His blonde-haired companion nodded. "Yeah, I swear I did."

"We're right here!" Daniel stepped in front of them and waved his arms.

They didn't react.

"Sorry, maybe it came from room four," said the blonde man. "You know the weird stuff that's gone down in there,"

"Yeah," the other replied, walking up to the table housing Daniel's body. "When did this one come in? There's no tag."

"Less than an hour ago," the blonde said, "paperwork's still upstairs."

"Hey, I'm right here!" Daniel moved to the other side of the slab and floated inches in front of the darker man's face.

"Save your breath, Dan. They won't hear us." Blake coasted around the room. "We're dead."

The man pulled back the sheet. Daniel's sheet. "Hey!" Daniel protested.

His face, his flesh and blood face, was crumpled. He wore a look of surprise, nearly lost amid the carnage inflicted by the metal and glass of the car accident.

The sense of finality overwhelmed him.

The room swirled again as he reeled from the table. Only the details of his ruined and very dead face remained constant as the world wavered.

"Sorry you had to see that, mate." Blake hovered close by.

"Oh God. I have a wife and kids. What's gonna happen to Sarah now I'm ..." Daniel trailed off into silence.

"Jeez," said the stubble-faced examiner. "That can't have been fun."

The blonde man nodded but said nothing.

At his shoulders, Daniel and Blake looked on as the examiner covered Daniel's corpse.

Suddenly sniffing, the blonde man raised his nose and looked around the room.

"What is it?" the other examiner asked.

"I can smell something. Something sweet."

"Yeah sure. You only get disinfectants and death down here," the darker man said. "I can't smell anything, except maybe porky over there." He pointed to Blake's remains.

"Hey! Screw you, dirtbag," said Blake.

"Come on, it's always cold in here. I hate this room," the blonde man said.

The other examiner nodded, then turned for the door.

The lights flicked off, followed by the door closing with a thud, which echoed through the room and into the corridor beyond. As the sound of footsteps retreated, a gentle draft wafted through the room, carrying the fragrances of lavender and roses.

"You smell that?" said Blake, a disembodied voice in the darkness.

"Flowers, a whole bouquet of them. Like the ones I brought home to Sarah last Valentines Day. She loved roses. Lavender too. The florist put a sprig in the bouquet for me."

"More like Eucalyptus to me. My ex used to burn it in those little oil burner things around the house. I loved that smell." Blake paused. "When things were bad between us, that smell was sometimes the only reason I'd come home."

"I'll miss Sarah---and the kids. It's going to break my heart to not see them grow up."

"I'll miss the Colonel's Three-Piece Feed, but what are you gonna do?" Blake laughed. "That's why I'm here in the first place."

"What do we do now, do you reckon?" asked Daniel.

"We wait for the light, I guess. Isn't that how it works?"

Together they waited in the darkness as a breeze swirled through the room. An interlude between death and something else, bearing lavender, eucalyptus, and aromas of lives left behind.

* * *

Cruel Summer: Sand

The hole was impressive, yawning---big enough to accommodate Dad. Rueben was pleased.

"Tuck your legs in, Daddy," he shovelled sand like an artisan, bathed in the midday sun.

In this corner of the beach, only wind-blown sand offered company. Reuben had chosen his spot carefully.

He was a little curious when Dad's eyes widened in surprise, his head then slumping sideways into the loose sand.

Waiting for Dad's ruse to end, Reuben piled and shaped more sand, creating a landmark around Dad's slumped head.

Finally losing patience, Reuben stomped off for an ice-cream, leaving Dad to sleep for awhile. Marching away, he didn't notice Dad sink steadily beneath the sand.

* * *

Dread Seasons Quartet: Rainbow-Speckled Field

The butterflies flittered between the flowers, caught in the euphoria of their sweet springtime feast. A million flowers bloomed in the meadow, a riotous explosion of colour.

The local kids frolicked among the long stems, enraptured by the living rainbow tapestry. A chest-high carpet of velvety grass was woven across the meadow, providing an intense green underlay. Wind rippled across the grass, eddying in complex currents.

Something rustled the undergrowth, just a few short metres from Mindy's feet.

"Jacqui! Something's over here!"

Nearby, Jacqui picked at a cluster of marigolds, inspecting them with the clinical eye of a scientist.

"Don't be such a wimp," she said, still fixated on the flowers. "It's probably just a rabbit. Or a rat."

"A rat!" Mindy shrank away.

A grey, floppy-eared hare emerged from the grass, bounded past her legs, and disappeared again.

"It was a hare!" Her heart pounded.

Engrossed in the flowers, Jacqui didn't bother replying.

Fevered shouting drew Mindy's attention to the boys. From the gentle knoll, she watched Mark and Josh chasing butterflies through the meadow. Becca trailed them, her head barely visible above the grass line.

"I caught one!" Josh shouted.

Carefully cupping his hands, he waited for Mark and Becca to inspect his prize.

Mindy tore her gaze from Josh and the others to watch the grass. The undergrowth around her buzzed with movement.

Flashes of brown and grey streaked past; dozens of rabbits swarmed around her. Clumps of colour quivered in their wake.

The last rabbit paused by her feet and looked up at her with solemn brown eyes.

"Get out of here," it whispered, in perfect English, before bouncing into the undergrowth after its kin.

She blinked, stifled a giggle, blinked again, and then shuddered against the chill prickling her skin.

A cold, heavy sensation sank through her stomach.

"Becca?" Josh called, stealing her attention.

Josh and Mark stood in the centre of the meadow, casting their eyes around for Becca.

She was gone.

"Bec!" Tension edged Josh's voice.

"Jacqui? You seen Becca?" Mindy kept a nervous eye on the foliage.

No answer came.

She turned to find no trace of Jacqui. Her cluster of marigolds fluttered in the breeze.

"Josh? Where's Jacqui?" she squeaked, verging on panic.

A tiger-striped butterfly drifted where Josh stood only moments before.

Everyone had vanished.

Waist-high grass, strewn with endless daffodils, tulips, and other garish flowers, encircled her. The colours danced and swayed, flirting with the morning sun.

Movement at her feet startled her.

The grey hare she spotted earlier approached with caution through the undergrowth.

Like the rabbit, it pinioned her with soulful eyes. "Don't move," it warned, in a British accent.

She gaped at the hare, unsure what to do. Tears loomed.

"Quiet," it whispered, "the moles are hunting. Just. Don't. Move."

The wind caressed the long grass, as she stood, rigid, alone, trapped amidst the ripples of a rainbow-speckled field.

* * *

Cruel Summer: Sun

Hopping from foot to foot, Reuben struggled against the sizzling carpark asphalt. The line to the ice-cream van was hot and humbling.

A pretty girl with pale eyes walked past, sensuously licking her cone. Beyond her, another ice-cream van painted garish red sat unattended.

Bounding over to it, he sought refuge from the battering sun beneath its canopy.

A clownish man appeared at the window, beckoning him inside. Maddened by the heat, Reuben eagerly complied. A blast of frost welcomed him as he entered through the back door.

The clown offered him a jagged smile and a melting maggot-white cone.

The van door slammed shut behind Reuben, muffling his scream.

* * *

Dread Seasons Quartet: Naked Azure Sky

"Not far now," Jake muttered to himself. "I'm gonna beat you yet, you arid son-of-a-bitch."

The sky overhead blazed a raw sapphire blue, fuelled by the bloated sun as it hovered at the edge of noon. Ahead, an expansive stretch of rock, sand, and cracking salt shimmered in the boiler-room heat. A ragged line of hills enclosed the valley, holding the green, temperate world forever at bay.

As he shook the diminishing bottle of water, a fuzzy sense of euphoria tingled through his head and down his arms until his hairs stood on end.

"Another two miles, maybe three." He pointed the water bottle toward the line of hills. "I'll be the first to conquer this damn valley."

The camera trembled in his hand, but faithfully recorded every step and spoken thought.

"That fool Dennison paid the price," he mused. "Didn't bring enough water. Dropped dead within sight of his car."

The camera captured everything for posterity.

Stepping onto the salt lake, he walked along the tracks he gouged this morning. His solo dawn expedition across the valley had been slow. The salt flats were treacherous, trapping him in stinging waist-deep sinkholes. The return wasn't much better.

"Gotta follow the tracks. No surprises now."

The heat battered down. Sweat saturated his khakis but was soon snatched away. Despite the lotion, the back of his neck burned like unquenched fire.

His original tracks were near-forgotten scars, a tattered line scored into the salt. Step after awkward step, he faithfully retraced them.

He squinted up at the swollen furnace cooking the sky. The sun refused to budge from its midday throne.

He clamped his eyes shut and carelessly splashed water across his face.

"Ah, that's good. Time for ... dessert," he stammered.

When he opened his eyes, a single line of tracks banked off to the right. Another to the left.

"What?"

In the haze, the hilly ranges were identical.

Waves of heat flushed through his body; his head a pressure-cooker, ready to burst.

"Gotta sit. Bearings. Bearings ... ummm ..."

The camera recorded a long pause.

He crouched over the burning ground, and in halting motions, unhooked his pack. He slung it off. He dropped the water bottle to wipe his face.

Blinking feverishly, he reached out for the bottle, but groped instead the course texture of salt.

"Shit!"

The bottle and pack were both sinking into the greedy earth. The ground beneath his knees sagged.

He crawled, struggling against the heat sandwiching him into the pliant earth. But the salt lake was too vast. An unremitting monolith.

Abrasive, desiccating salt flowed into his every pore.

About him, the pockmark-line of footsteps was swallowed. Every trace of his epic trek devoured by the invidious earth.

"Just two miles," he croaked, collapsing on his back. Salt crusted his lips and trickled free as he choked out his last breath.

Infused with salt and sand, he lay defeated, a victim of the unconquered valley. Another claimed prize, basking in the infinity of the naked azure sky.

* * *

Cruel Summer: Sky

Ashley reclaimed her spot on the towel, sprawling out to catch the sun's rays from every angle. She removed her sunglasses with fingers sticky from ice-cream, opening her face to the warmth of the sky.

An endless vortex of azure paling to indigo filled her vision. A contrast to the hectic bustle of bodies and mismatched colours, the sky was awesome. Breathtaking.

She continued to stare, captivated by the brilliant shades of blue as they swirled and danced. A majestic infinity.

Enveloping.

Invasive.

#

Headed for the surf, Todd nudged Jamie, pointing to a sunbathing girl with vacant eyes. Eyes the colour of the sky.

* * *

Dread Seasons Quartet: The Rustle of Autumnal Leaves

"Hold up, Brian!" Hayden called, as his friend tore off down the street.

"Catch up ya loser!" Brian slowed down anyway.

Rugged up against the constant drizzle, Hayden found it difficult to keep up with his friend's energy. He only gave up his computer and relented to go out into the bleak afternoon after hours of Brian's goading.

He soon caught up to Brian, but noticed a fine layer of mist had collected along the sleeves of his Parka. "We should head back soon."

Brian said nothing. Instead, he scanned the street for something to do.

The streets were wide, much wider than those of the city, and near-deserted. Every street in the town was lined with trees that stood naked against the grey autumn sky. The blanket of leaves covered the town in rich shades of auburn, amber, and brown.

"Hey, check that out," Brian pointed to a huge mass of leaves.

Where Brian pointed, Hayden saw a roughly circular clump of sodden leaves spilled out onto the road.

"Can you see that stuff above the leaves?" Brian asked.

"I don't get it. What stuff?"

"The black stuff," said Brian. "Like a whole swarm of flies or somethin'. They're jumping in and out of those leaves."

Hayden concentrated hard as he studied the clump of leaves; Brian had tricked him before. The leaves were darker than normal, almost the shade of rust, and wet-looking. The clump was especially dense and wide, having seeped from the gutter to cover about a third of the street in a ragged circular pattern.

"I just see some old leaves," he said.

"What about that?" Brian challenged, pointing at the leaves again.

"Stop foolin' around," Hayden eyed his friend suspiciously. A knot formed in his stomach.

"Come on!" said Brian. "You're tellin' me you can't see those gold bits? Could be coins. Might be worth somethin'."

"Sorry. I just see leaves," Hayden edged away. "Maybe we should get going."

"No. Not until you tell me you see it too!"

"Forget it. Let's go."

"But the flies look so weird. I'm gonna catch one to take home and scare my sister."

"Brian, let's go," Hayden grabbed him by the arm.

"No! I'm at least gonna get some of those coins," Brian shook off the restraining hand.

He stopped at the edge of the leaves and bent down. Awe was obvious on his face as he reached toward the rust-coloured mass.

"Don't!" Hayden called.

Brian's eyes widened as his fingers delved into the slimy leaves.

In a terrible blur, he disappeared, sucked by the arm into the clump of leaves. Barely a leaf rustled or fluttered to mark his passing.

"Brian!" Hayden screamed.

For long seconds he stood dumfounded, reaching a hand toward the leaves before snatching it back.

The wind funnelled through the street behind him. It swept up the crimson mass of leaves, scattering the pile to desolation. Only solid, naked road lay beneath. Hayden stared at the bare asphalt, trembling, amid the rustle of autumnal leaves.

* * *

Cruel Summer: Surf

"Come on!" called Todd.

Jamie paddled against the breaking white-water, struggling to reach him. He disappeared from view with the swell of every wave.

The safety flags were tiny, fluttering streamers in the distance. Colourful smudges marked the timid people as they clung to the shore. No one, except him and Jamie, was more than waist-deep in the water.

Then he saw it. Them. Seething masses of seaweed, flowing with the tide.

The first, careless brush burned like acid.

Floundering, legs afire, he tried to paddle ashore. With his throat constricting and muscles convulsing, his last sight as he sank was of Jamie, swimming towards the weeds.

* * *

Dread Seasons Quartet: Pallid Wisps of Snow

Sara muttered to herself as she trudged through the snow and plunged between sagging, ancient pines. "That bastard should be out here instead of me. Maybe the cold might shut down that ego of his."

Like a vast collapsed spider web, the blanket of snow coated everything within its reach. Charcoal-grey clouds choked the sky with their pregnant burden of ice and water.

Sara's jump suit and the matching mitts and boots were the best money could buy. Stylish and warm. Even so, the cold leached through into her bones. The angry trudging only kept the worst of the chill at bay.

"How dare he fool around with that tramp. We've only been here two days! Two days!"

The image of Paul and that slutty ski instructor together, naked, replayed ad nauseam through her mind. She marched blindly along the trail, beyond the highest ski field. The resort dwindled into the distance.

"Getting old! Not as beautiful!" she spat, fighting his painful, lingering words. "We'll see, pig! Even after I've bled you dry, you'll be hit with the plastic surgery bills. I'll still be beautiful when that slut is old and grey!"

She stumbled through a dense knot of primordial snow-locked pines. A small clearing opened up before her. In the centre, untouched by the falling snow, a circular plane of ice sparkled in the twilight gloom.

She edged closer.

A mini blizzard swirled through the clearing, picking up drifts of snow and stealing them away on the breeze. Huddled near the circle of ice, she bundled herself tight against the gale. For a few fleeting moments, her world was nothing but a white blur.

Once the mini-blizzard abated, Sara glanced around the clearing. The sentinel pines were still blanketed in snow, but each was now armed with a thousand shards of ice, bristling from branches like warding blades.

As she studied the clearing for the way back, she glanced down at the frosted tarn. Her breath caught in her throat.

Gazing back at her was a perfect reflection. Shimmering golden hair, flawless lines. Even her puffy snow-clothes appeared to gleam in the ghostly reflection.

Stunned, she crouched closer, leaning over the ice to stare and admire. All thoughts of Paul were forgotten.

Fingers of arctic cold chilled the air around her. More snow spiralled to the earth but none fell upon the glass-like surface.

Her reflection was everything she ever wanted. Faultless. Ideal. No wrinkles lining her eyes. No blemishes of age.

Captivated by her beauty, she extended a hand toward the shimmering plane.

She brushed the ice.

Sudden, numbing cold infused her body. An intense white flash blinded her. An instant later she was enveloped by serenity. A flawless goddess entombed within the ice.

Beauty was hers eternal, beneath pallid wisps of snow.

* * *

Cruel Summer: Shadow

They had all deserted her.

Jamie and Todd went off to body surf. Reuben had dragged Dad off to dig a hole. They all left at once, all promised they'd return soon.

After hours of sandcastles and wading, they still hadn't returned.

Stranded on the beach, sitting in her family's encampment of towels and bags, little Stacey watched the dusk shadows lengthen across the sand.

The last clumps of beach-goers were trekking homeward. Only a solitary girl remained nearby, a girl staring skyward whom she didn't dare disturb.

But Stacey wouldn't cry. Wrapped in her sandy towel, she welcomed the crowding shadows as they reached for her. They would be her new family tonight.

* * *

A Killer Smile

Every girl needs a killer smile. White teeth like bleached bone, ruby lips the shade of blood. A neat slit in the face more precise than a deft blade twist. Every time you flash it, some hapless fool drops like a coal sack at your feet.

Nothing wins your victim over, or is as persuasive, as a serial killer smile. Except a pair of razor-sharp stilettos. Or an axe.

* * *

Congo Jenga

"Wriggly little shit." He stabbed the blade into his thigh. Stifled the scream. Withdrew the blade with clumsy palms amid a gush of blood.

Stabbing himself had become a problem since his fingers had withered off.

The worm squirmed, just beneath his skin, toward his groin.

He fumbled the slick knife. Pressed it between his palms. Stabbed again into his thigh, inches above the first wound. Gritted teeth didn't silence his cry a second time.

The worm continued upwards. The blade missed yet again.

Tears trickled down his face as he slid the knife out. It clattered to the floor.

"Please God, no." He slumped to the ground, dizzy from blood loss. Again.

The worm burrowed towards his anus.

A fingerless hand swatted at it, the effort futile. His fingers, like his hair, nose, and toes, had withered and dropped off. All thanks to the fucking little worm crawling inside him.

His body was scabbed and scarred---desperate attempts to cut the little bastard out, time and again, dozens of times over.

It started on his return from Africa. After the loss of his hair, the doctors rationalised it as a parasite contracted in the Congo. It took six weeks, and just as many toes, for him to realise the worm was more than a parasite.

The boy in Lagos had been a diversion. A piece of arse, willing or otherwise. So were the ones in Kinshasa. And the little boy from the village near Kisangani. The worm whispered of those sins when it chewed through his ear canals.

He rolled onto his back, feeling the worm tunnel around his bowels and towards his stomach.

Its curses flowed like acid through his veins, declaring the next target. After weeks of hosting the prick, he'd learned how to tune into the creature's rage.

Its voice was that of the Congo boy's mother, the village shaman---the Bone Mother. It screamed her curses, from the day she had found him with her son's carcass. The worm now screamed of all the naked boys, the debauchery; the evils his eyes had seen.

His eyes. Next.

He knew it. His dick would be saved for last.

The worm wriggled along his stomach and into his chest. It bulged his skin, dipped below a rib, bulged again. A sliver of fire burning his chest.

He eased the bloodied knife to his side. Clumsily at first, he clasped it again between his palms. Ragged breaths punctured the room.

Blade poised below his eye, he waited for the worm to claim its prize.

He'd get the bastard this time.

* * *

R U OK?

I wake with my cheek pressed into the quilt. My chin is plastered with drool, but when I try to raise my head and brush it away, nothing happens. Inexplicably, I can smell peanuts, and there is a high-pitched whine in my ears. My world is reduced to three items that swim in my vision: the pathology referral letter from Dr McEvoy about the tumour, the tribal pattern of the quilt, and my mobile phone.

The mobile flashes in front of me. It takes a few moments for me to realise what's happened, but then the agony flares again above my left ear, and the world shudders and fades to black.

The flashing phone greets me when I wake. With effort, I can read a text message from Terry on it: R U OK?

Am I OK? Are you kidding? I don't think I can fucking move! I strain my head until the blood hammers in my ears, but I can't move a muscle. I strain to move until the strain itself becomes too great, and I black out.

When I return to consciousness, I spend what must be hours staring at the quilt's pattern. It's faux-African with swirls and sharp hexagonal lines, but from my perspective, the lines angle together to form a skull that grins at me.

Again, the phone flashes to life before me, with Terry's message still front and centre: R U OK?

Terry is on the first night of his week-long footy trip with his mates, so he'd be well and truly plastered by now. He wasn't much for checking in with me, anyway.

The quilt skull continues to grin as I struggle to call out to the neighbours. Fat lot of good that would do, though. With the exception of Terry, all my significant interactions are online: work, friends, even shopping. The one time I spoke to the neighbours, it was to tell them their son was a dickhead for revving his car too loudly.

Over the next hours, I drift in and out of consciousness. I mistake the stickiness on my lip as more spit, but when the coppery taste reaches the corner of my mouth, I realise what it is. Must be from my nose.

My phone drifts in and out with me. The power saver switches the screen black for half an hour and then powers back to life for 60 seconds, every time asking me: R U OK?

The quilt skull grins and stares at me with sightless eyes. It knows the time bomb finally went off in my head---a tumour nourished by all the radio waves spat out by that goddamn phone over the years. It knows no one will check on me for eight days.

The phone flashes again. R U OK?

Funny that the phone shows such concern after it's already doomed me.

My eyes mist and a tear meanders down my cheek.

R U OK?

No, I'm not. I don't want to die alone.

* * *

Itch

It begins as an idle rub. A calloused palm. Friction and hair. A lingering heat like a Chinese burn.

He sits on the sofa, tuning out the worries of another long day, instead tuning into the nagging itch on his forearm. The lump has reddened from his attention. He awoke this morning to find little more than a mosquito bite. Nine hours has seen it soufflé, with a reddish-purple moat of discolouration. A mass of dark hairs hide the full extent of its diameter.

It's now bigger than the lump of his wrist bone. He splays his fingers and holds his hand high. His hand suddenly seems alien as it floats in front of his face. It somehow doesn't belong.

Ochre light seeps in from the window, casting the coffee table and the papers spread across it in an orange sheen. The light darkens his already ruddy skin but catches in the webbing between his fingers. The webbing glows. The rest of his skin writhes with a thousand little hair shadows.

The lump has its own shadow.

It looks as though he's grown a second wrist further up his arm. There's a suggestion in the way his forearm now bends. Something. Beneath the skin and hair, he imagines new bones forming from the old. A new hand emerging from too high up. His old hand to be shed? A stumpy arm the trade-off? A knot of disgust twists his stomach as he struggles to push the thought aside. Instead, it's easier to look away. Unpaid bills and floating orange-tinted dust become his obsessions until the image is finally banished.

Scratching makes the lump bleed. He's already discovered that. It nags, this itch. It wants to be noticed. It wants to weep.

He scratches.

It bleeds.

It burns.

He scratches, until it bleeds and burns too much, until he grimaces from the pain, until his threshold is reached.

Then he waits, poised. Fingers clawed, nails dark and glistening from the furrow of skin pink and red and spreading.

He scratches a little more.

There's blood beneath his nails. Fresh slivers, too brown to the eye in the sunset light.

The lump is now a wound, raised and ragged at the centre of a bloody strip of skin. There's clear fluid, plasma maybe, which shines orange in the light. It pools with the blood. Mixes. Is swallowed.

He rubs once more. His palm is warm and rough, the sensation pleasant but not nearly satisfying enough. The rubbing spreads the itch. It diffuses along his forearm, subdued for the instant flesh presses on flesh. The burn and the itch flood back the moment he breaks contact.

With the rubbing comes the smear of blood. The smell is already up his nose, coppery and sharp. The blood is sticky and cooling on his skin in an unpleasant way. He doesn't mind it on his palm so much, except when he bumps his shirt and runs a smear across the cotton. A sigh is all he gives the inconvenience. Stains are the washing machine's concern.

The rest of the house is in silence. This allows him to concentrate as he rubs, willing the itching to subside. Silence is concentration music, he tells himself, while stroking his arm.

Soon his forearm, almost from elbow to wrist (his actual wrist, not the new one) has a red-brown coat of blood. As it cools with the sunset, it has the sensation of tightening, shrinking his skin. He frowns and rubs some more to generate warmth, spreading another layer of blood in the process.

Is it the cold that's numbing his arm or is the arm dying?

Dying, he decides, and scratches around the perimeter of the wound. The once purple skirt of skin is lost beneath a sticky coating. It regains its identity as his fingers probe, his nails tear, and the sting, the sensitivity, tells him he is crossing the moat and about the storm the castle.

If he maintains the assault, like a true and loyal crusader, maybe he'll liberate the royal family---King and Queen Puss. Questing nails tear up the outer walls and move inwards for the keep. Puss eludes him, but he finds a wellspring of that clear liquid. He keeps searching (in vain, he idly thinks, chuckling to himself; in vein indeed, if he's lucky). Like all true lords and ladies of the manor, the Pusses have a secret escape passage. Perhaps they've tunnelled deeper? His arm grows colder.

He closes his eyes and plunges the tip of his finger into the wound. Forget the royal family. He's after their treasure trove. If a hand is destined to erupt from his forearm, he'll find it first. Maybe even shake it with his other hand.

"How do you do," he says to the crater.

If there's bone hidden beneath the mound, he'll find it.

It stings. It is now a freezing burn.

He clenches his teeth as his fingernail quests deeper. His whole arm twitches for a moment.

Is that a good sign? Maybe, just maybe, there is a funny bone growing in there too.

Maybe.

His arm twitches again. A tingle jolts through the length of his arm and body, settling in his lower back. The fingers on that arm spasm in time with his scratching. The sight is mesmerising. He scratches a little harder, setting aside the pain as his fingers dance a jig. He is the puppet master, pulling his own string.

Scratch.

(Pull).

Twitch.

Scratch.

(Pull).

Twitch.

His new hand wouldn't be so compliant, no. They make them tougher these days, more independent. Maybe they could work two jobs, the hand and he. Maximise their income. Perhaps even start a relationship---if the new hand could reach low enough.

He is sure they'd find a way to make it work.

All the best relationships endure through adversity.

He stabs his nail deeper into the wound, which shoots bolts of agony into the top of his skull.

Damn sympathy pains. Damn nerve endings.

He is better than this.

A thought strikes.

He withdraws his nail. The pain dulls to an ache, but the itch returns once more. It takes more willpower than he'd care to admit to leave the crater alone, but he does it. He leans on the coffee table to stand, sliding on a piece of paper for a second as it bears his weight. Despite the slip, he stands without further incident and moves to the bookshelf.

It doesn't take too long to find the book he wants. A reflexology book he bought for ex number 3 or maybe number 4. She was really into that new age shit, but not enough to take the book when she left him.

The itch grows more insistent. The burning pain from earlier now becomes a burning itch. Is the mass getting bigger?

He stalks into the kitchen and ransacks the top drawer. He can't find what he's looking for, and as each second passes, the itch burns and prods him a little more.

Scratch me. Scratch me.

He yanks the drawer from the cupboard with the crash of colliding utensils. The crash lingers, ruining the silence until at last the ringing fades. With the drawer in hand, he carries it back to the sofa. It clatters in protest when dropped onto the cushion in front of him, but he doesn't care. The fall has unearthed his quarry---the metal skewers.

SCRATCH ME!

"Okay", he says, and scratches at the insistent wound in a coy way, gently, trying to re-establish the proper rhythm.

As he reaches for a skewer, his eye is drawn to the paper which slid under his palm when he stood. It is the electricity bill, $239 worth of unpaid juice overdue by a month. Five neat fingerprints and the heel of his palm, each a smear of his own blood, beckons to him. The hand print is almost artistic.

He blinks a few times to snap himself out of the trance. When he does, he finds the skewer in his grip, the sharp end poised over his knee.

He tries kicking off his boot against the arm of the sofa, but it won't budge. The time it takes to unlace is almost comically slow.

Scratch me.

With his foot exposed (boot and sock now random hazards on the carpet), he flicks through the reflexology book.

Scratch me! Scratch me!

In his scratching hand, he holds the metal skewer like a pen, nib in the air as if ready to sign an autograph. He continues searching the book.

SCRATCH ME!

And he does, raking the skewer across the ruined skin. It is sharp, intense, and immediately relieving. He runs the skewer in loping lines across his forearm. Its tip is ice, similar to the slicing torture of having a tattoo done. Pleasure in pain. When it passes across the wound, more jolts zap through his body. His neck, head, and back spasm in sympathy. His nerve connectors are having the time of their life.

He'd show them.

Found it!

The chart is toward the back of the book. It doesn't take long for him to find the reflexology spot on the sole of his foot that coincides with his forearm.

Taking the skewer in a full-handed grip, he hovers over his pale foot for only a few seconds before taking the plunge.

Red spots blaze before his eyes. He yelps, caught off guard by the agony that spears through his leg from his foot. A disturbingly fast stream of blood courses from the skewer jutting from his sole.

That did the trick!

His arm is a hell of a lot less demanding about being scratched now. Even better, when he does scratch, which he does, his nerves are much less enthusiastic about doing the jig.

Blood pools on the cushion and flows in little torrents into the cracks in between. The pain is still incredible, but rather than messing up the sofa further, he raises his injured foot over the back of the sofa and leans into the corner. The carpet can be cleaned. He laughs a little with his leg in the air. The temptation enters his mind to turn on the TV to see if his new flesh and steel aerial would help with the reception.

Of course, it won't.

He turns back to his itch.

He flexes his cold hand---his dying hand, he corrects---while he rakes his nails in slow arcs along his arm. If it wasn't for the skewer in his foot, he'd be able to luxuriate in the sensation.

As he passes directly over the ragged lump, he notices a subtle change. A new pain blossoms as he touches it. The lump is weeping once more. That clear stuff mostly, a little blood. But there's something different. It feels harder.

Maybe it is a wrist bone?

He clenches his cold hand but it continues to grow colder by the second. The blood covering his wrist and forearm has caked. It's crimson-brown in the failing light, sticky and irritating now. The warmth it once held is gone.

He squints to examine the condition of his hand, but the sunlight just isn't there. He'd get up to turn on the light, but ... Skewers in the fleshy part of the foot might help nerve sensitivities, but they suck when it comes to walking.

The dried blood feels like a coat of paint, stuck there for good, a scarlet bandage. He scratches at it, ignoring for a moment the hard raised lump. It does no good. The blood's there to stay.

Still scratching, still sprawled over the sofa, he spies the bloody handprint on the coffee table once more.

It's a nice handprint. Strong. Virile, even.

He studies his scratched-up forearm, the caked skin with hairs caught like bugs in tar. The hand at the end of it is growing stiffer, colder.

He ceases his scratching and prodding. He tunes into the silence. Concentration music. Silence.

At last, he notices a second lump, then a third, slowly pushing up through the skin.

Then his eyes come to rest on the kitchen drawer near his foot, and all the utensils therein. The knives, the scissors, the sharp and unfathomable things that belong to a kitchen.

He looks from the utensils to the handprint on the table to his own hand, and back again.

Sharp. Metal.

His hand. Dying. To be reborn.

(His old hand to be shed? A stumpy arm the trade-off?)

The bloody handprint. $239 overdue to the power company. Six elegant smears.

His hand. Dying.

Sharp. Metal.

He props himself up awkwardly, still careful to keep his dripping foot elevated off the sofa (carpet steam-cleaning from $39, same day service, gets all the niggly stains out), as he rummages through the drawer once more.

His fingers pass across the razor edges of the scissors, a cleaver, and several knives, before he decides. This time he retrieves two items---another skewer and the cheese grater (barely used, only a hint of rust).

He flicks through the reflexology book while doing his best to ignore the rising itch from the new lumps.

(Scratch me! Scratch me!)

The page found, he memorises the nerve point of the foot linked to his hand, his dying hand.

Before he does the deed a second time, he tests the weight of the grater against his skin. It's cold and prickly on the back of his hand, but not much colder than the skin itself. He lightly runs the grater along his hand and wrist, down to the newly formed lumps.

(SCRATCH ME!)

It feels good. The itch is appeased for the moment.

He smiles and wonders what life will be like with his magnificent new hand. "Lopsided" he says, and then chuckles.

He listens to the silence in the house as darkness completely takes hold. It's a good moment. Dark. Quiet.

There's just the matter of a stab to the foot and a little carving. Grating, to be precise. The new hand needs room to grow.

He nods and closes his eyes, and then begins the long task of scratching.

* * *

Stop

STOP.

The sign stood guardian to the intersection of Wedgewood Road and Joondalup Drive. A busy arterial feeding onto an even busier four-laner. This time of the morning, the peak-hour traffic was near-suicidal.

STOP.

Paul heeded the sign every day on his morning drive to work. It was the first marker of his daily drudgery. Every morning it was red and cheery in its way but always there to regulate. To safeguard and protect. He'd often nod his head to the STOP sign in those moments before a gap opened in the traffic that he could exploit. He'd sometimes mutter "hi" when he nodded, more to unrust his vocal chords than to greet the sign.

This morning, the sign appeared sombre as he approached the line of cars at the intersection. The red octagon appeared darker, sharper, more intense about stopping the Wedgewood Road traffic. Ahead, a white Mitsubishi waited for more than two minutes at the intersection before slipping free. Paul noted the traffic gaps appear but the dark red of the STOP sign held sway over car and driver. Not even the honking of the three cars ahead of him could overcome the sign's thrall.

STOP means STOP. In bold white letters. STOP.

As Paul crept forward, intent on the flow of traffic, he kept glancing at his watch. The blue Toyota that had pulled to the front of the queue in the Mitsubishi's wake was halted for nearly three minutes. Again, the gaps appeared as cars rumbled along Joondalup Drive. Again, the driver delayed a fraction too long each time, caught in the red glare of the STOP sign. The Toyota eventually escaped to a chorus of car horns.

Within a dozen metres of the sign, his pulse slowed and thickened. The "hi" and casual nod he'd mentally rehearsed faltered as much as the driver's nerve up ahead.

STOP. There was a message in that. STOP.

He glanced at his watch again. 7.44 am. With a three minute average wait time to break onto Joondalup Drive, two minutes to the freeway, and an unbroken thirty-five minute run into the city, he'd timed his morning to perfection.

Another car scraped into the flow of traffic. Its entry onto Joondalup Drive was sluggish and a minivan was forced to slow down to allow the car in.

"Hi," Paul muttered to the STOP sign. Ritual was important, even if mistimed. His jaunty nod was barely more than a twitch.

He looked up at the sign and stopped. It was crimson, as though flushed with blood.

STOP. An eye with a white pupil swimming in red. Its gaze, stern and uncompromising, anchored him in his driver's seat. His legs were dead weights. Pins and needles tingled along them. The sensation pulsed through his fingers, too, as he gripped the wheel tighter.

He blinked. The tradie's ute ahead of him had taken off. Brakes squealed as a passing sedan nearly slammed into the ute. To Paul, the ute moved like a sliding brick, seeming to lose momentum the further it pulled out onto Joondalup Drive. A crash was barely avoided when the braking sedan chopped into the inside lane, giving the ute a long horn blast as it went past.

His turn now. A lull in traffic loomed, enough for him to merge with seconds to spare. He tapped at the accelerator, stuttered forward, and then pumped the brake. The car rocked from the sudden halt. His heart rocked with the car, filling his chest to bursting.

A horn blasted from behind. He flinched at the sound, checked the rear-view mirror and saw an Asian woman scowling over the top of her too-big steering wheel. She blasted the horn, a staccato rumble from deep within the bowels of her Landcruiser, to dispel any doubt as to who was in the right.

Paul wrenched his gaze from her, took a second to study his own flushed face, calm his pounding heart, and then stared at the sign again.

It was just a sign. His sign: STOP. Holding him in place.

It had grown darker. The shade of congealed blood.

"Come on," Paul muttered at his dashboard, "no more."

The Landcruiser blasted its horn again. Another gap had opened in the traffic, but closed too quickly for him to move. Even if he'd been on the ball, it was too risky for him, too small a gap. Obviously, the woman behind him disagreed.

His heart thudded harder than before as the seconds ticked away. Cars and trucks thundered past. Their colours blurred and swam. His life---friends and deals and missed opportunities, the loves lost and gains never ventured---it all passed before him like the traffic. Fleeting, all of it. Moments of caution punctured by STOP signs.

Another car horn sounded from behind, joined by the now-familiar boom of the Landcruiser.

Paul flinched. He hit the accelerator and the car leapt forward into the stream of vehicles/memories flashing before his eyes.

A different horn blasted once, twice, much louder and coming from the side. He didn't see the bullbar expanding to fill his driver's side window. Instead, his eyes were still fixed on the STOP sign. His forward progress couldn't get him past its red face. The sign blazoned its white letters S T O P into his mind, its scarlet background filling his consciousness.

He didn't stop, though; he sped forward, heedless of the sign's warning, heedless of his instincts, and closed his eyes at the last, shutting STOP out of his thoughts for one fleeting moment.

For the first time in his life, he abandoned the comfort of the signs, his sign, STOP, and took a chance.

The bullbar slammed into his door, into Paul, but the sign had lost its sway.

STOP means STOP, but for the first time in his life, and the last, Paul chose not to.

* * *

Postcard from Paris (A Reply)

Dearest Chrissie,

Thank you for your postcard from Paris. I never imagined you could do that at the Louvre! Backpacking must be such a wonderful adventure. I'm glad you've found such good friends in Peta and Ulrik. Especially Ulrik, it seems.

I've framed your card, together with the ones from Amsterdam and Stockholm, and that picture of you I've always loved. You remember, the one where you're in the red hotpants? It's on the wall right now, one big collage of you staring at me, just above the picture of your parents and Nate.

I was heartbroken when I couldn't come up with the money to join you. Six months without you is gonna be hard. I've been missing you terribly and it's only been six weeks. You make me ache. Uni life has been even more demanding since you left and they cut back my hours at work, so it looks like I won't be able to join you at all.

However, I've enclosed little pieces of home so you'll always remember me. Yeah, I know you said you've "fallen in love" with Ulrik (and thanks for breaking the news via postcard, by the way) but I'll forgive you for that lapse. It's holiday romance gone to your head, that's all. You'll see that when you get home and the daily routine of life wraps its claws around you once more.

I'm sure of it.

I'll always be here.

The enclosed little green pouch is sand from where we strolled along Cottesloe beach. You remember? The night we met. The night we made love under the stars. You said it was the most romantic night of your life. At least, that's what you told me. What do you tell Ulrik? I bet he can't even speak English properly. His words probably come out like some retarded ABBA wannabe. No doubt it gets you hot, though. You were always into that exotic stuff.

Well, I can give you exotic---the red pouch is a surprise. I took it from Nate. Your little bro was a tad surprised when I did, but I thought you'd want a piece of your family or two, to remind you of your roots. What does he need two ears for anyway?

I hope you like what's in the black pouch. You and Ulrik should learn from it. Your parents were only too glad to offer help, particularly after I'd spent all those hours with them. It was kind of them to allow me to send you their wedding rings. Damn things were stuck on their fingers after so many years, but as you'll see, I found a way around that problem. Relationships are solemn things, Chrissie. Your parents know a good relationship is give and take and share and share alike. There's commitment---and there's sacrifice.

The rest of your Mum and Dad are here with me now. Nate too. We're all here, waiting for you to come home.

Come home soon. I think we can still make it, you and I. I can't say the same about your folks. You'd better hurry.

I love you, forever and always.

Marcus.

PS. I don't know if you've used my mittens yet, but Angelica, my tarantula, has been missing for a while. They were her favourite hiding spot. Enjoy the rest of your holiday.

* * *

Song of the Infernal Machine

The machine dominated the warehouse. It was a vast collection of black titanium boxes and cylinders flooding the space with an insidious hum. Between towering tanks, bunches of steel tubes criss-crossed in a labyrinthine tangle. Every so often, steam hissed into the stuffy air. The contents, hidden behind the polished case, buzzed with electricity. Sometimes, muffled noises---clawing, scratching, moaning---escaped from behind the metal plates.

Life pulsed from the abyssal bowels of the machine.

Standing at face level to display screen D5, one of dozens glowing with ghostly light, Forrester inspected the readouts from behind plastic safety glasses. His glasses shone with a purple tint in the beam from the spotlights above.

Satisfied with the energy outputs, he shuffled over to screen D3 to check on the input levels before taking a break. The display glowed green across his pallid skin. Unlike the techs, such as Forrester, the machine never rested. It was inexorable and single-minded.

"Jacobs!" Forrester called out. The words boomed throughout the warehouse.

He pulled his attention away from the display to scan the vault for signs of the other technician.

Except for the myriad of dark shapes and interconnected tubes that comprised the machine, the warehouse stood empty. Reinforced concrete surrounded him---and the machine---on four sides. A single cable, much thicker than the rest, snaked from the centre of the machine and along a wall until it disappeared into the shadowed ceiling above.

He traced the cable's length with his gaze, squinting as his eyes met the network of interweaving girders supporting dozens of high-powered spotlights. In the absence of windows, the spotlights provided the only source of light. Centred on the sprawl of the machine, the lights cast pools of darkness outside their direct beams.

"Jacobs!" he called again.

Two doors accessed the warehouse. The main door was a monstrosity---twin titanium monoliths that allowed admittance to the outside world. The other, inconsequential in comparison and set well away from the main entry, was a regular timber door that opened onto the staff area.

The swish of his lab coat contrasted to the machine's hum as he strode toward that door. In the coat, Forrester, now the senior technician, almost felt the scientist his dress suggested. It was all a charade, of course, designed to impress the bureaucrats on their quarterly inspections. In his heart, he was nothing more than a glorified sparky. The pretence sat well enough with him.

"Jacobs, where the hell are you?" He reached the staff door.

Every word and every step was magnified by the immense space.

The click of the knob echoed through the warehouse, announcing his entry into the staff area.

The common room opened up before him. The duty roster was only ever two people, yet somehow the place had been trashed.

"Jacobs?" He picked at the papers and rubbish strewn about.

Several of the chairs were knocked over and the table had been rammed against the wall at an awkward angle. Soundproofing must have prevented him from hearing the commotion while he was out with the machine.

The small television was propped on the counter next to the microwave. The volume was down, the screen filled with actors he vaguely recalled. He didn't have much time for TV these days. It was Jacobs who insisted on bringing it in---to relieve the boredom, he had said. A cracked pair of goggles lay on the floor nearby.

"Great." He planted hands on hips and shook his head.

Forrester retrieved an overturned chair, returned the table to its rightful place, and sat down. The purple tint to his goggles was disorienting when he glanced sideways. Maintaining his composure, he held his eyes straight ahead, watching the door to the bathroom."Jacobs." He slid his hands into his coat pockets. "I know you're in there. We need to talk."

Cursing rose from the far side of the bathroom door.

A bead of sweat formed on Forrester's brow, rolling into a bushy eyebrow.

"Come on, Jacobs, let's talk," he coaxed.

Porcelain smashed inside the bathroom.

Sighing, Forrester dabbed at his forehead with a handkerchief from his pocket.

The door opened inwards, awkward on its splintered timber frame.

Standing in the doorway, with one leg saturated, was the disheveled form of Jacobs. His stringy hair was plastered to his head.

"Pissed yourself," Forrester muttered.

Jacobs' lab coat splayed when he stepped into the common room, revealing a ripped shirt. His chest was scratched. The smell of faeces clogged the air.

"Soiled yourself, too," said Forrester.

Edging closer to the table, Jacobs met his gaze with frantic, blood-shot eyes. His hands were hidden behind his back.

"What happened?" Forrester looked him up and down.

"You know what happened!" Jacobs spat.

Forrester studied him, fresh beads of perspiration on his face the only sign of his concern.

Jacobs' lip twisted into a snarl, betrayed by the slight quiver of his chin. Like Forrester, his face had broken out in sweat.

"That damn buzzing!" Jacobs pressed his palm over an ear and screwed up his face, leaving his other arm behind his back. Something metal scraped on the ground. "I've gotta get outta here!"

"Were you watching TV again?"

Something wavered in Jacobs' eyes but was snuffed out. He nodded and looked away. When his gaze fixed again on Forrester, the snarl returned.

"Mr. Morgenstern isn't going to be happy about this mess, Jacobs," Forrester lectured, as if to a child. "You've met the people he sends to clean up messes."

Jacob's didn't even flinch, clearly too far under the machine's influence to care.

"Why did you watch the TV when I told you not to?" Forrester asked, almost rhetorically. "Where were your glasses?"

"Why do you care?"

"Fool! You've been here a few weeks! You know what the machine does."

Jacobs muttered something, a guttural word that never made it to Forrester' ear.

"How does it feel?" Forrester leaned forward. "With the selective targeting, I never see the results."

"Can't you hear the humming? Make it shut up! Shut up shut up shut up!" Jacobs grimaced and balled his fist over his ear again.

Oblivious to Jacobs's rant, Forrester fancied he really could hear the humming, despite the soundproofing in the staff room. Jacobs was right. Everywhere he went, the hum, or its phantom, was his constant companion: the legacy of such close proximity to the machine.

"Yes." Forrester closed his eyes and strained for the hum. "That's how it gets into your system. The resonance built up through the TV. Tell me, were you watching Channel Four?"

Jacobs didn't reply. He just stood there, lost in his own inner world, scowling and staring though him from across the table.

Forrester felt calm settle on him as he, in turn, studied the younger man, even when Jacobs revealed the fire-axe from behind his back.

"I bet you didn't know," Forrester said, "the machine has a one hundred percent success rate with the test subjects. Within an hour of watching certain channels, usually Four, every subject, every single one of them, murdered their friends and loved ones in the most barbaric ways imaginable. It has other side-effects as---"

The axe whistled through the air, biting into the tabletop mere inches in front of Forrester. He flinched but remained seated, searching the frenzied eyes of his colleague for any signs of redemption. Watching Jacobs rip the axe from the table with violent force, eyeing him like a snack, he knew nothing human remained.

"Stop!" Forrester produced a tiny remote control from his coat. "One press of this button and the guards will be here in ten seconds."

"That's a pencil, you psycho!" Jacobs screamed, in the throes of delusion. Leering like an untamed beast, he raised the axe again.

An explosion rocked the room from beneath the table, driving Jacobs back mid-swing. He thumped to the ground, losing his grip on the axe. It clattered along the floor.

A powdered hole was obvious in Forrester's coat pocket when he rose from his seat. Removing the gun, he walked in solemn procession over to the prone body of his colleague. A pool of dark blood seeped onto the floor from the hole in Jacobs' side.

Jacobs clutched at Forrester's leg, wrapping vice-like fingers around his ankle and squeezing. Forrester kicked out in pain but was unable to shake the man's grip.

"It's not too late," Jacobs stammered through gritted teeth. "Fight it."

Glazing over, Forrester absently dropped the pencil from his trembling hand. It rattled on the floor before rolling into the expanding tide of blood.

Forrester blinked. His purpose was clear once more.

Two more shots boomed through the common room. Rocked by a series of spasms, Jacobs relaxed his grip. Blood ebbed from the bullet wounds in his chest, soon mingling with the original pool of blood by his hip. The room had filled with the smell of gunpowder.

Forrester shook off the twitching hand and stepped away before the blood could touch his shoe. He stared at the body, all the while pocketing the gun and circling well clear until he reached the door.

In moments, he was free of the staff room and standing in front of the machine. Caressing the finish of the sleek central hub, he was surprised to find it warm to the touch.

"That was number six. They're going to be asking more questions before they send the next tech." He stroked the black metal. "One of these days, my sweet, it will just be the two of us."

The machine hummed to him as Jacob's said it would, corrupting every corner of the complex with its sinister song.

* * *

Burning a Hole in the Sky

"Mr President, the vampires have turned back our assault on Sydney."

"Turned back?" President Smythe raised pupilless eyes to his aide. It was a sight Darren Robilliard would never get used to.

"Massacred," Darren murmured. His thoughts turned to his sister Valerie, still trapped in a camp to be bled like an animal. A fate the President had shared before his escape.

"What happened?" The President's voice was atonal, emotionless.

"137th regiment pushed toward the CBD from Campbelltown, distracting the vamps from our main thrust down the Western Motorway."

"Did the army make it to Parramatta?"

"Yes." Darren wiped his brow. The humidity in the executive bunker below Capital Hill was almost unbearable. "They liberated the camp there but met heavy resistance."

"How far did the 137th get?"

"They made it to the Bankstown complex, where they were pinned down. Without their support, our main mechanised infantry column didn't last long when the vamps sprung their trap."

The President reclined in his chair, lost in thought as he steepled his fingers together. Whatever those thoughts were, they didn't touch his eyes. Nothing did.

"Mr President?" Darren prompted.

"What's the status of their feeding camps?"

"The army didn't make it to Homebush." Darren shook his head. "Reconnaissance flights confirm the camps at the SCG, North Sydney, Chatswood, Newtown, and Cronulla are still in operation. We suspect they're holding thousands more in the CBD, concentrated around Martin Place."

"And the fighter sweep?"

"We cleansed twelve city blocks and most of Redfern in the strafing run."

"Losses?"

"We gave them everything, but when the vamps' magnetic arrays and missile defences kicked in, they took out the entire wing. By all reports, it was a swift and brutal fire-fight."

"Yes, fire ... that's the key ..." President Smythe trailed off and stared at the concrete ceiling. The Australian flag hung limp behind him, its spirit as defeated as Darren's.

"What do we do now?" Darren gripped the edge of the desk in an uncharacteristic display of emotion. They'd rolled the dice and lost. The defeat and the emotional vacuum surrounding the President had all but sucked him dry.

President Smythe tapped out rapid-fire commands on the keyboard embedded in his desk. The low-slung monitor flashed the instructions up too fast for Darren to read. Lines of light cast the President in a ghostly data mask.

"Sir?"

"Today will be great day in the history of the Australasian republic." President Smythe wove his fingers together and resumed his meditative pose.

"How do you mean?"

"A new dawn will break over Sydney at midnight tonight. Our last remaining strike bomber will drop its nuclear payload on the city."

"You can't! There's more than a million people still trapped there! My sister ..."

President Smyth eased his collar open to reveal twin red moons on his neck surrounded by a web of puckered veins. "They're already dead. She's already dead. All cattle now, like I was."

"But you escaped! Maybe we can free the rest?" Darren tightened his grip on the desk.

"Did I?"

Darren edged away. The flag, the phoney bookcase, and all the trappings of presidential power stood mute to his turmoil. "What are you saying?"

The President stared at his aide with those unreadable black beads. He tapped at a single key in compulsive repetitions. Within seconds, the metal door slid open, admitting two Kevlar-suited soldiers. Both brandished compact sub-machineguns. Vials of holy water were slung around their necks.

"Remove him." Smythe waved a hand at Darren.

The soldiers complied, clutching Darren by the arms before he could react. He thrashed as they dragged him through the door. The scuffle resounded to the echo of stomping boots.

"Don't do this!" Darren's cry reverberated through the bunker. "Don't ... Valerie ..."

His final glimpse as he was dragged away was of President Smythe's dead eyes staring back at him and the Australian flag standing wilted in the glow of Smythe's computer screen.

In that moment, the inevitable became clear to Darren: monsters beget monsters. The vampires that terrorised Sydney would be vaporised, but in the instant Smythe burned a hole in the sky, all hope for rebuilding Australia's future would burn along with it.

* * *

Memoirs of A Teenage Antichrist

January 28

Crows gather at my window, especially at night.

It's a full moon tonight. Thirteen crows are there, staring in at me from the tree. One of them scratches and pecks at the glass. The rest caw amongst themselves. Sometimes, just sometimes, I think I know what they're saying.

February 14

I've started having nightmares. Not your usual naked-at-school dreams. These are so vivid, I can practically hear the screams and smell the burning flesh when I wake.

April 2

Aunt Lucia believes I'll be ushering in the apocalypse in exactly 66 days. She told me so at dinner this evening. At first I thought it was some belated April Fool's gag, but no, she was deadly serious. She doesn't have a sense of humour. However, she did have a whole bunch of mouldy old scrolls and prophecies and mystical doo-dads to prove her point.

Word for word, she said, "ushering in the apocalypse". That's too much shit for a sixteen-year-old to take. A thousand years of Hell on Earth for Christ's sake! That's what she said. A thousand freakin' years.

April 3

I lied. I'm not sixteen. Not yet, anyway. It'll be my birthday in soon. June 6. I've been told all I'm getting is my birthright: fire and brimstone and the sum total of human sin. Nothing special.

All I want is to get laid. Is that too much to ask?

April 5

I call the crow at my window Abigail. The name just fits, somehow. She visits every night now. Her twelve brothers and sisters lurk in the tree, cawing at each other.

Abigail sang me to sleep last night. For the first time in a long time, the nightmare didn't return.

April 6

Aunt Lucia caught me praying in my bedroom tonight. She flogged me, the old witch, flogged me till I bled and couldn't sit down properly. She was scowling while she did it, but it looked like grinning to me, like she took pleasure in it. Then she lectured me for an hour about my "place" in the scheme of things. If there's gonna be a thousand years of Hell on Earth, I've got a nice little lake of fire in mind with her name on it.

April 9

I'm seeing things that aren't there. Black things, shadows, wandering the halls at school, moving between the crowds. Sometimes they pass through people, and when they do, that person faints or dry-reaches.

I thought I saw these things when I was younger, but it's happening all the time now. It doesn't freak me out as much as it probably should.

I hear things, too, like people's inner thoughts. Their 'soul murmurings' Abigail told me. I hear other sounds, too, but the less said about them, the better.

April 12

I still pray, usually in the dead of night, when Lucia should be deep in her hag sleep. Abigail watches over me, but I'm not sure about the other crows. If they hear me, and they must because their ears are damn sharp, then Lucia comes barging in to check up on me. Never in time to catch me but often enough to keep me on my toes.

April 13

People bruise when I touch them, skin on skin. Aunt Lucia and the nannies wear gloves and long sleeves. I remind myself of this because Brendan Amery, the new kid at school, grabbed me. He must have been trying to score points with the popular crowd by beating up on the weird kid. The moment he grabbed my arm, he recoiled as if he'd been bitten by a snake. The bruise sprouted from right beneath his fingers and leached out to the back of his hand.

He spat at me and said a few things I won't repeat (but I've memorised for later use), which made me do a stupid thing. I pushed him. By the face. He tumbled backwards, holding his face and screaming. I won't ever forget his puffy purple cheek bloating under his puffy purple fingers, and especially the way his eye drooped because of it. And the screaming. There's always the screaming.

I guess that's something extra to add to the nightmares.

April 14

If I'm supposed to be this big bad Antichrist guy, then why I can't I speak to God or the Devil? God must be too aloof to chat. Too cool for school to chat to his opposite number's brat.

"Dad" ... well, I never had a Dad, but he's flying under the radar, too. I've never had a father-figure (unless you count that sleazy old Brit who keeps sniffing around Aunt Lucia). If Satan is evil incarnate, I guess being a deadbeat Dad is something he has to do. It's part of his nature, right?

Anyway, it's Good Friday today. Nothing much good about it in my book---I've been sick all day. Speaking of books, I wonder if people will write a bible about me? It would be a pretty thin book!

April 16

Easter was a massive disappointment. I had to steal my only Easter egg. School organised a Sunday church service but I weaselled out of it. It's like they're trying to overcompensate for something.

My palms bled, just a little bit, at lunchtime. Lucia saw me wiping my hands on a napkin at lunch and smiled that tight, smug smile of hers.

April 20

I read the Book of Revelations tonight. I had to sneak the bible in from school and hide it from Aunt Lucia. She stared at me like I'd been wicked when I came home, but she didn't say anything.

Abigail sat on the window sill and watched me read---and what a load of shit it was! Revelations my arse! Dragons. Lakes of fire. False prophets. Plagues. That stuff is so last millennia. If I have my way, my apocalypse will be like all the horror movies come to life. Zombies, vampires (scratch that, vampires are pussies and can't hang in my apocalypse!), and that guy with the hockey mask from Friday the 13th.

I threw the stupid book into the wastepaper basket in my room. It caught fire the moment it left my hand. I scorched one of my pillows putting that damn fire out! Despite the smoke, Lucia didn't charge in. She never even mentioned it at dinner. I think all those robed loonies she calls friends are distracting her.

April 29

God's still not answering me. I stopped trying to talk to the other guy (my "Dad") a while ago.

May 3

I don't want to be the Antichrist, not after what Lucia and her friends told me. Bunch of robed freaks. I threw up and couldn't seem to stop. I think I fell asleep on the bathroom floor but I woke on my bed. I don't remember being carried. Abigail was there on my window as always. She sang me back to sleep.

May 7

With all Lucia's talk of New World Orders and smiting and punishing the do-gooders, I feel like a pawn in someone else's chess game.

If I ever have a say in these things, here's a note to self: robes are uncool. Seriously.

May 12

Christianity is shitting me. They tried to spring it on us at school today, some lunchtime prayer thing.

The visiting reverend started praying, but I think he could tell I was annoyed. In fact, he couldn't help but keep eyeing me off suspiciously. Beady little eyes he had, like coals. He ran screaming from the room shortly thereafter, clawing at those coal-like eyes. I think I saw smoke between his fingers. Seems appropriate, doesn't it?

Abigail was there, looking in, watching out for me.

We were all allowed to go home early. God really is forgiving.

May 17

It's not just the crows that hang around me like a bad smell. A pair of big black dogs (Dobermans, I think) are keeping tabs on me. When I first stumbled across them and they began growling, I thought they were going tear my throat out. They charged at me and I just froze. The world stood still. I mean really stood still, the drizzle shimmering in front of my nose suspended in the air. But the dogs didn't attack me---they ran past me and chased down a nearby guy in a robe. More goddamned robed freaks! A dagger clattered to the ground when this guy bolted.

I don't know how it turned out for the dude who dropped the dagger, but the dogs padded back to me with blood on their muzzles. They kind of looked content.

If I'm supposed to be this Antichrist guy, I want some danger money. Or at least some fringe benefits, you know, like getting laid. I think God's having a good chuckle to himself/herself/itself.

May 18

God must be a woman a lot like Aunt Lucia. A man couldn't have come up with such a convoluted scheme to screw my life over. Well, not any man I've ever met. At least I didn't see any robed freaks today. There were the dogs, of course, and the crows, always the crows.

May 22

I don't know whether I'm supposed to be AN Antichrist or THE Antichrist. Seems like a lot of work for just one person.

May 24

There's so much sin in the world. Wicked thoughts. Murderers. Rapists. Thieves. So much hate, I can feel it welling up, soaking into me so much I have to put my hands over my ears to shut the world out. People are seriously screwed up.

My birthday is in a couple of weeks. I just want to get laid.

May 26

I call the dogs Max and Rex. They let me pat them now. Lucia even allows them to sleep outside my door. I guess things aren't so bad.

May 27

Every time I walk past a piece of glass, whether it's a mirror or window, it shatters. Always inwards, too, like I'm some cosmic glass magnet. After the third or fourth time this happened, I stopped to count the pieces while waiting for an adult to come and tell me off.

666 shards exactly. Coincidence? I think not!

I wonder if this shit happened to Jesus?

May 28

I thought about killing myself tonight. I cradled the pills for what seemed like hours. Abigail was watching me the whole time, her yellow eyes boring through me. And the dogs! They wouldn't stop growling the whole time! It made it hard to focus any kind of resolve.

Does the world really need an Antichrist? It's doing a fine enough job killing itself without some supernatural power twisting the knife.

I couldn't do it---the pill thing, I mean. Not with Abigail watching. Not with Max and Rex carrying on. As I was taking the pills back to the bathroom, Lucia caught me with them and gave me one hell of a thrashing. I think she drew blood. I can look forward to another night lying on my stomach and side. Bitch. Definitely a lake of fire for her. Or something with maggots. Everyone hates maggots.

May 29

A girl was waiting in my room when I came home from school today. Sexy-looking private school type. Long dark hair. She said her name was Abigail and that she was my half-sister. We talked all night and Aunt Lucia didn't barge in on me once. Hooray for small mercies.

June 1

Abigail (the girl, not the bird) visited again tonight. She was waiting for me after dinner, perched on the window sill. The window was permanently open because of the glass thing.

We talked for a bit, but then, oh my god (should I say "oh my god"?), the things we did! Tonight has been the best night of my life! She didn't even bruise when we touched!

I don't care if she's a bird, or my sister, or whatever. She's mine.

June 4

The way she moves is like magic. The starlight shimmers in her hair. We walked the gardens tonight and the crows circled above. I thought it was a bit creepy at first, but it was kind of romantic.

If the world is going to Hell, at least I'll have her here with me.

June 5 - 6.06pm

It's my birthday at midnight. The end of days. The big A. I'm not a bad person. I don't want to be. But the world is a sick place. It's in my blood like a disease. It needs to be cleansed. I need to be cleansed. I feel like I'm dying.

If I'm a deadbeat like my Dad, remember it's in my nature.

I hope the world forgives me. What will be left of it, anyway. It's all pre-destined, right? It has to go down this way? I'm not a monster, but if I turn into one, I'll always remember the few good things about life.

I hope people remember the good things about me.

June 5 - 11.53pm

This will probably be my last entry for a while. Abigail is waiting down stairs with Max and Rex. Lucia's there too, with a whole bunch of those robed loonies.

Maybe I can use them to practice on? The thought's only crossed my mind a million times since all this shit was laid on me. Finally, I think there might be some justice in the world!

If there's work to be done, then I guess I'll have to step up to the plate, right? I figure the first wave will be the horror movie monsters. Freddy. Jason. Pinhead. The dude from Chainsaw Massacre---Leatherface? They'll spread the message, good and proper. Then comes the zombies, not those wack-job sprinting ones but the shambling kind. Then there's the maggots. Maybe zombies with maggots for eyes? Everyone hates maggots.

Midnight approaches. I can feel it.

The crows are gathering.

* * *

Love in the Land of the Dead

I ate her brains out of love, but there was more to it than that.

For months, it was just the two of us, along with the zombie hordes. Apocalypse was a bastard like that, a great gore-spattered lottery. When the city, then the suburb, and then the mall survivors dwindled down to just Laura and I, I felt like I'd won that lottery. Laura was a babe---sassy and a bullseye with a shotgun.

Life became a blur of eating out of tins, running hand-in-hand, and adrenalin-charged sex. I came to love Laura, and she me, but we hit tough times when the ammo ran out.

There were so few safe places to hide, and so many zombies. Knots of them clogged every street. As Laura and I eked out a life in the cracks and shadows, I had my realisation.

We were rushing around, exhausted, in a state somewhere between life and death. But the zombies were different, well, except for the life and death thing. Sure, some of their limbs were missing, and they stunk to high heaven, but by God they were serene. They had such a laid-back lifestyle---never in a hurry, never needing to be anywhere.

In the end, I really dug their Zen attitude.

Laura wasn't as supportive of my change of heart as I'd hoped.

We fought repeatedly; she wanted to look for survivors, while I found myself increasingly fascinated by the zombies lurking at our every turn. Soon enough, our arguments led to carelessness. The zombies found a way into the warehouse where we were holed up.

Their shambling line encircled us. True to her nature, Laura took to them with a chunk of wood. Her last stand was beautiful to watch---a flurry of bludgeoning and desperation. I loved her more in that moment than I ever had before.

But even that wasn't enough. The zombies were inexorable---a groaning, stinking tide of arms and teeth. Laura was thrown to the ground, bleeding and unconscious.

Fascination held me as the zombies moved in. I knew they were hungry but with typical suave they took their time.

But I got to her first. I had to.

That's when I ate Laura's brain. Her skull was already cracked, her life already ebbing, and I'd seen enough blood and gore not to get all skittish about it. She tasted salty, like jelly with a hint of chicken. I found out why the zombies hankered for the taste so much. Laura's brain was ambrosia, food for the soul.

I ate her brains out of love, but there was more to it than that. I'd been feeling it build for weeks. All those eyes watching me, all that expectation. Peer pressure was a bitch.

I didn't know how else to show my zombie brothers and sisters I really did belong.

They left me alone from then on. It's a Zen thing, I guess. Zombies are cool like that.

* * *

Wrack

I'll never forget the moment: Louise's eyes widened, a look I first took as wounded pride. Her eyes, though, they stayed wide, her irises dilating, her nostrils flaring, her expression crossing the threshold into panic. A whimper caught in her throat. An instant later, her cheeks bulged. She pressed her palm over her lips, acting a fraction of a second too late. A dribble of brown vomit escaped the corner of her mouth and trickled down the side of her chin.

Her face had never looked paler. Pale, like her sister Bella.

That moment, that's when the wrack took hold of our lives.

Louise ran to the bathroom. The sound of her emptying her guts for what seemed hours is another of those things that will linger with me, although she never seemed to stop after that. Once the wrack took hold, she could barely keep her own spit down for long.

At least it had interrupted our argument. It was ironic, really, because we'd been arguing about what to do if the wrack claimed one of us. The warnings had been on the TV for a week. Forget bird flu or SARS, this one was the plague to end them all. No cure. No explanations. No good news.

Louise's bag was half-packed when the wrack overtook her. She wanted to drive out to her Uncle Gary's shack in the bush, hoping to escape the madness---and maybe even me. She was convinced the wrack was God's punishment for the world's wicked ways. She saw no redemption.

Well, life sucker-punched her, and me not long after.

She'd been laid up in bed for days, all pale and tinged with green. The vomit had darkened to burgundy and the pain had long set in. That's why it was called the wrack. The body shook, the nerve ends burned, and every second of life became one painful son-of-a-bitch. I'd heard most people died because their bodies just gave up, the way torture victims died in the pauses between atrocities. With that sort of pain, everybody has a time limit.

I nursed Louise for all those days, despite my own wrack. I'd had the better of the vomiting and the painkillers were still able to soothe me. Louise's screams started on the second day. They trailed off into whimpers by the fourth. Me, I held most of it back behind gritted teeth. When the painkillers stopped working, the cheap tequila and my cache of weed took over.

That day, day four, through my gritted teeth, enduring bleeding gums, the screaming muscles, and acid-fire piss, was when the epiphanies struck, one after the other.

We'd been together for fourteen months now, Louise and I, shared some great times, too, but that was a long time to put up with her turn-the-other-cheek mentality, her passivity that, at times, drove me mad. With her religious leanings and prudishness, she was no Bella. Her sister, my Belladonna, that dirty-sick bitch, my first. When Bella dumped me to screw some gym-junkie, we both knew it had nothing to do with some other guy. It was about control---her control over me. Dating her kid sister Louise had been the closest thing I could call revenge, but Louise's pretty eyes and soft looks, so unlike her sister, had drawn me in. Revenge dating became pleasant, a routine. That Bella refused to attend family gatherings with Louise and I was a sweetener. It meant I was inside both sisters, under their skin, one way or another.

But now, with Louise's pretty eyes sunken in bruised caverns, her skin translucent, vomit and spit crusting the side of her face, I realised my love for her was eclipsed by my desire to survive, to live.

That I still burned for Bella wasn't a surprise, but the realisation that I could abandon Louise for my self-preservation left me retching for half an hour. With my insides scoured and nothing but pain filling my mind, the rest fell into place almost by itself.

At first I didn't know where my course was leading. Pain makes the mind play strange, strange tricks, so when I hauled myself, legs and arms afire, to the linen cupboard, I fumbled with the blanket, befuddled, struggling to comprehend its purpose, when the spare pillow fell free. As my hand clutched the pillow, the clench a fresh knot of pain, that epiphany I'd had earlier raised its ugly head, and slowly, inexorably, guided me to the bed.

Louise watched me every step of the way. Her body had doubled up, pinwheeling in pain beneath a sheet stained with her fluids. Through her little whimpers of pain, hoarse and subtly abrasive like over-rubbed sandpaper, her eyes tracked my progress to her. She stared at me, bruised and dirty-eyed, no longer pretty, barely human at all.

I like to think she welcomed the end of our relationship, especially the way her hand relaxed over mine a minute or two after I clamped the pillow onto her face. She was too wracked to cry out or scream, too weak to resist, too dry and empty to retch any further. My hand shook as I continued press the pillow over her face, every breath a trial of fire and aches. In the haze of my own pain, I had no idea how long I stood rigid-limbed over her. I think I heard a snap but my ears were so dulled by inflammation, for all I knew it could have been a bird striking the balcony window or my own sense of self-worth breaking.

The vitality fled my body when I eventually released my grip on the pillow. With my grip eased, black stars played in my peripheral vision and a high-pitch whined through my ears. As I slumped to the floor, my vision clouded by the black stars, I distinctly remember hearing an ambulance wailing through the streets. It was the first sound in days I'd heard from the world outside our apartment.

I woke in an awkward huddle, staring up into Louise's dead eyes as she peek-a-booed from beneath the pillow that claimed her life. I jumped at the sight, banging my elbow on the dresser. It was painful, jarring, but not the waves of pain that filled the previous days. I stood and felt strength in my legs that I barely remembered. A few days of the wrack felt like a lifetime. Flexing fingers, rotating my elbows and shoulders, I could scarcely believe the wrack was losing its grip.

Something inside me had changed.

Troubled by merely stiff muscles, I crouched by Louise and removed the pillow from her face. Death had given her serenity but the wrack had taken an ugly toll---the bruises, the pinpricks on her cheeks and neck where blood vessels had burst, red fading to black, and those once-pretty but now sunken eyes. Her lips were blue and her skin was finally as pale as Bella's. Matted hair obscured part of her face, which I brushed free. I felt a tear rise but rubbed it away, kissed my tear-stained finger and then applied it to those blue lips of hers. It was a small gesture, a meek gesture, but enough. It was all I would spare for her. I kept any remaining tears to myself.

I left her there, choosing to remember our time together and not the ending of it, choosing instead to discover how the rest of the world was coping.

Information was in short supply. As I stuffed my backpack with food, I flicked on the TV and found only one station still on the air. A newsreader wearing a face mask mumbled progress reports from around the globe, all of it inconclusive, but the look on his face told me all I needed to know. The fear there, the uncertainty, told me a cure was yet to be found. The way things were going, there soon wouldn't be enough people left with the know-how to cook up a cure.

With my newfound strength, I hefted my pack and pocketed the keys to Louise's car.

I was never religious and glad of it, but looking in on Louise one last time, at her tiny, ravaged frame, and that Bible she always kept on the dresser on her side of the bed, it left me wondering.

They say at the end times, the faithful will be tested and the meek will inherit the earth.

As I headed downstairs to an empty street, listening to screams and agonies that tormented the neighbours, and distant gunshots, clear as church bells, I came to believe that the faithful were being tested. The clarity of thought at that moment was like a burden lifted, like awakening from a dream.

Bella's apartment was across town. I started the car, leaving my girlfriend dead and cold in our bed, believing Bella, my Bella, would welcome me back. The price of her cure wouldn't bother her, I was sure. I couldn't even remember his name.

Redemption was only ever for the worthy. For those willing to make sacrifices. Louise never understood but Bella would, my nasty-beautiful Bella. I would show her how to find redemption, how to pass the testing of the faithful and overcome the wrack.

No, the meek would not inherit the earth.

* * *

Genesis Six

"And the LORD said, I will destroy Man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both Man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I hath made them." --- Genesis 6:7

"I can hear the ocean, Mummy."

A roar shuddered across the city like waves pitched onto the shore at the height of summer.

"Are we going to the beach?" Jessica asked, excited by the abrupt change of routine. She shifted in her seat and fidgeted with the white veil covering her head.

"No, honey," Libby's voice was taut. "We're just going for a drive."

Libby scanned for signs of traffic as she gunned the car along the freeway, pushing it beyond the limits of safety. Barely a soul could be seen in either direction. An aura of abandonment hung in the air.

The people were ignorant as they toiled at work.

A stale, dusty breeze forced its way through the dashboard vents. The tiniest flecks of grey settled on Libby's sleeve as she jammed the vents closed. The cabin became a mausoleum, entombing them with stagnant air.

"Mummy, I wanna take this off." Jessica fiddled with the veil.

"No, sweetie. Leave it on for now. I'll tell you when you can take it off." Libby strained to keep the sharpness from her tone.

She threw the car into a loping turn as she banked up the off-ramp. Skidding onto the adjunct highway, she blew clear of the slip-lane and weaved through the narrow lanes. The traffic was minimal.

The roar grew louder as each second passed.

"We are going to the beach!" Jessica wriggled against her seatbelt. "I wanna see the ocean."

"No, Jess," Libby snapped, "leave the cloth on."

As she glanced back at Jess, the car wavered for an instant and threatened to fishtail out of control.

Libby tugged the steering wheel back to centre and regained control. A more cautious glance confirmed Jess was still wearing the veil, much to her relief. At least she'd be spared the worst. Hopefully no one would notice her face when push came to shove.

A tense silence engulfed them as Libby braved the narrow highway at speed. The road snaked upward, climbing steadily into the city's suburban foothills.

Knots of confused people gathered by parked cars, many more clumped into crowds by the side of the road. All eyes were fixed on the cityscape and the coast beyond.

Chancing a look in the mirror, Libby's stomach clenched tight. Her view, like the crowd's, was uninterrupted.

Dozens of cars from the nearby suburbs scrambled onto the serpentine double lane, ignoring the dazed crowds in their desperation. More and more vehicles joined Libby's flight from the city, forming slow-moving obstacles ahead. She weaved through the erratic traffic as best she could.

"Where are we going?" Jess's voice was tiny and distant, smothered by the roar as it gathered strength

"We're going to see your dad."

"Daddy Sean?"

"No honey. Your real dad." Her voice cracked. "Not Sean. He's at work."

Libby's eyes drifted to the revolver on the passenger seat. An expedient death within easy reach. She searched the rear-view mirror; her eyes drifted between her veiled daughter and the horizon behind.

The rumble reverberated through her skull and rattled the windows.

Her thoughts lingered on Sean, his gentle touch, his reassuring embrace. With tearful eyes, she ran the car through a flashing orange traffic light, oblivious to the chorus of car horns.

A glimmer of light beckoned from the hill's summit.

Her chest tightened at the sight.

She floored the accelerator, throwing the car around plodding vehicles, mounting the curb in her flight.

The sky ahead was cloudless. The corona of white light that capped the hill bled into the azure horizon. The blue sky behind her had darkened to black.

"Who's my real daddy?" Jess asked, ignorant of the people swarming the streets and their panic-stricken faces.

Libby closed her eyes for a heartbeat, struggling against the weight of Jess' question. The memories lurked behind her eyes. The painful light. Her skin afire under his touch. The cycle of mistreatment, and finally, the abandonment. In so many ways, Jess' true father was a pale shadow compared to the love and support provided by Sean.

The growing roar ate the sounds of crunched metal and screeching rubber as vehicles splayed across the road and crashed into one another.

"Hold on, Jess."

Every fibre of Libby's being was invested into negotiating the road ahead.

Within sight of the huge sphere of brilliant light, a jumble of cars choked the road to a standstill. Libby screeched to an ungainly halt, nudging into the rear of a stranded sedan. People crawled and clambered across the vehicles, a swarm of ants desperately fleeing a doomed colony.

The wind carried screams from afar. Agonized screams.

Libby kicked the door open and dived from the car. The pistol tucked into the back of her jeans was clearly visible. She raced around to Jess, wrenched the door wide and pulled her from the vehicle.

"Don't look, honey." She thrust a hand over Jessica's veiled face.

Libby looked up and paused, surveying the cityscape one last time.

The darkness swallowing the sea had struck the coast.

The horizon was unravelling as far as the eye could see. The spires of the city shook apart as the darkness surged forth on an endless front.

The mounting rumble shook the earth, reverberating through her until it threatened to shake her apart before the darkness arrived.

A black void now existed where once the ocean swelled. The sky too had soured to black, sucked into the insatiable void. Strands of the city---buildings, trees, streets, and people---broke apart, trailing long lines of chaos into the void as an immeasurable cosmic force ripped the world asunder. As the line of oblivion advanced, more of the physical world unravelled like innumerable threads pulled taut.

Libby's heart tore in sympathy as she watched the city sunder beneath the darkness. "Sean," she whispered.

Somewhere in that swirl of carnage, her husband was lost. The attempted phone call, an anguished effort to warn him, was dashed by a busy signal and an insane compulsion to get Jess away. She rued the compulsion and her impatience. Sean was forever beyond her help and her love.

The darkness pressed on in a relentless tide. Cries of terror merged with the roar and keening screams as flesh and bone were ripped apart. Like the earth around them, man and woman alike were shredded by the void as it engulfed all.

Libby snatched Jess' hand and yanked her up the hill. Scrambling over the jumble of vehicles congesting the road, they struggled toward the light---and hope.

Dozens of others, from every class and culture, merged together in their escape. The elderly, the young, and the infirm were pushed aside, left to fend for themselves as the crowd surged forward.

Libby and Jess were suffocated by the throng as they battled through the maze of car wrecks and elbows.

"You've gotta run, Jess! Run hard!"

"I can't, Mummy. I can't see."

Their escape slowed to a crawl. Hundreds of people clogged the street, clambered over cars, and poured from nearby houses. The rank odour of fear and sweat filled their noses.

With their escape slipping away, Libby pulled the gun free and fired into the air.

Two loud booms, piercing enough to penetrate the encroaching rumble, rocked the crowd. On instinct, most paused or ducked for cover. Libby bolted forward, dragging Jess with her to the forefront of the mob.

She snatched a fevered glance behind. The line of darkness had swallowed most of the city and was unravelling the first suburbs of the foothills.

Few people, if any, behind her would beat the advancing void.

The immense curtain of light scythed across streets and houses. It loomed just a short sprint ahead.

Knots of people ran, screamed, and clumped together, some running from the darkness, some running from the light. Many more stood agape, staring vacant-eyed as the world crumbled around them. Screams, shouts, and the overwhelming roar of oblivion echoed in Libby's ears.

A few steps ahead, a line elderly men and women stumbled forward---delaying their escape into the light.

The shrieks from behind intensified. The void swallowed the hill's base, wrenching the crowds into jigsaws of mist and pulp.

No time left. Libby checked Jess. Her veil was slipping off.

Libby levelled the gun and blasted away. An old couple, hand in hand, collapsed to the ground in front of her. Others hesitated at the fallen, but continued their frantic escape regardless.

Libby dragged Jess over the gunned-down bodies. They scrambled clear and dived through the radiant wall.

The terrible rumble peaked into an all-consuming shriek, only to vanish in an instant.

Silence.

The white light plunged Libby into blindness. The sting in her eyes contrasted with the pleasant warmth on her skin.

Tall, intensely bright figures loomed in her hampered vision---their cores brighter than the brilliant white background. Libby struggled to define them as they approached.

As her eyes adjusted to the intensity of the light, she noticed others---scores of wandering, lost people, perhaps even a few hundred.

The last remnant of the city.

The last remnant of humanity.

She fumbled for Jess. Her veil had slipped free. Luminous spheres of light shone from her daughter's face in place of her once enchanting green eyes. In this sanctuary of light, her glowing eyes seemed to belong.

"It doesn't matter what you see now or who sees you. The worst is over." Libby ran trembling fingers through her daughter's hair. Gunshots and death played through her mind.

Jess looked up at her but said nothing.

An impossibly tall figure appeared in front of them. Perhaps humanoid, parts of it merged with the light, others shimmered into random shapes. Its core was brighter than all else in this menagerie of light. Meeting its gaze stung Libby's eyes.

"Sammael," Libby said.

Closing her eyes, the memory fragments played through her mind. The visitations, the burning inside her, the fleeting euphoria and the lingering sense of exploitation.

Sammael declared in ultra-sonic tones that were more understood than heard, "You have brought my daughter."

Libby cradled Jess, unsure what to say or do. The desperate compulsion which had summoned her here burned away under the scrutiny of Sammael's glare.

Jess stared up at her father with intense nova eyes, evenly meeting his alien gaze. Their eyes locked for long seconds, burning brighter for the briefest of moments.

Dozens of other children stood apart from the frightened crowd. All possessed the fey lines and glowing eyes of their fathers.

"Come," Sammael motioned.

A shimmering, multi-hued portal appeared, framed by the formless light.

Stunned, Libby held Jess tight. Angels ushered children through the rainbow gate.

Jess disentangled herself from her mother's arms and drifted towards the glowing aura of her father.

"Jess, come here, baby," Libby said.

Her daughter looked over her shoulder. Jess wavered, Sammael crept closer.

"Jess." Libby extended her arms.

Sammael's eyes flared, matched by Jess' a moment later.

Jess turned from her mother a second time and wandered toward the portal.

Tears trickled down Libby's face, warm and unpleasant in the light. Her despair focussed into a ball of rage as Jess, the final shred of meaning in her life, began to slip away.

Aware of the weight in her trembling hand, Libby instinctively raised the gun.

"No!" she screamed, and fired at Sammael's luminous form.

Jess stopped. All eyes turned to face Libby. Everything stilled as she stood mute, not daring to move or breathe.

Sammael's aura blazed an intense white-red, imprinting flare stains on her eyes. Pain and heat seared her fingers, forcing her to drop the gun. It fell to the ground, the sound echoless and distant.

Libby's scream caught in her throat, escaping as a choked sob. Her legs, hollow, numb, failed her at the last. She collapsed to her knees.

Other people hovered around her. Grief-stricken mothers, having lost everything, abandoned and left to wander. Exiled by the darkness, forsaken by the light.

Jess and the other half-angels were guided through the portal by angelic hands.

"A second time the tyrant, Yahweh, has sought to destroy our offspring, the Nephilim," intoned Sammael. "This unmaking of creation has proven futile."

The angel's words echoed across the pocket of light and into the empty void beyond. "Our children shall take up arms against the tyrant-lord and walk the fields of Heaven once more."

* * *

About the author:

Shane Jiraiya Cummings lives in Perth, Western Australia. He has been acknowledged as "one of Australia's leading voices in dark fantasy", had more than sixty short stories published in Australia, USA, and Europe, and his work has been translated in Spanish, French, and Polish. Shane has won two Ditmar Awards, and he has been nominated for more than twenty other major awards including Spain's Premios Ignotus.

Shane is an Active Member of the Horror Writers Association and former Vice President of the Australian Horror Writers Association. When he is not writing, Shane is an editor and journalist by day and sword fighting instructor by night.

In his youth, Shane was trained in the deadly arts of the ninja, and the name Jiraiya (lit. "Young Thunder", after the legendary ninja Jiraiya) was bestowed upon him by his sensei.

More information on Shane (including his free fiction) can be found online at http://www.jiraiya.com.au.

Interact with Shane on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/pages/Shane-Jiraiya-Cummings/401910315831) or rate and review his books on Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/jiraiyac).

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You can find Shane's other e-books at all good online retailers:

Novellas:

Phoenix and the Darkness of Wolves (Damnation Books). ISBN: 9781615720552

Requiem for the Burning God. ISBN: 9780987076809

The Smoke Dragon. ISBN: 9780987076823

Collections:

Apocrypha Sequence: Deviance. ISBN: 9780987076830

Apocrypha Sequence: Divinity. ISBN: 9780987076847

Apocrypha Sequence: Inferno. ISBN: 9780987076854

Apocrypha Sequence: Insanity. ISBN: 9780987076861

Chapbooks:

Shards: Damned and Burning, illustrated by Andrew J. McKiernan (Brimstone Press). Free download from Brimstone Press: http://www.brimstonepress.com.au

Table of Contents

CONTENTS

Introduction

Prescience

Virgin in the Mist

Revision Is Murder

Stealing Fire

Firewall

Smouldering Eyes

Shadow of Revenge

Spin the Witch Bottle

Countdown Macabre

On Dark Clouds Borne

Practical Joke

Interlude, With Lavender

Cruel Summer: Sand

Dread Seasons Quartet: Rainbow-Speckled Field

Cruel Summer: Sun

Dread Seasons Quartet: Naked Azure Sky

Cruel Summer: Sky

Dread Seasons Quartet: The Rustle of Autumnal Leaves

Cruel Summer: Surf

Dread Seasons Quartet: Pallid Wisps of Snow

Cruel Summer: Shadow

A Killer Smile

Congo Jenga

R U OK?

Itch

Stop

Postcard From Paris (A Reply)

Song of the Infernal Machine

Burning a Hole in the Sky

Memoirs of a Teenage Antichrist

Love in the Land of the Dead

Wrack

Genesis Six