Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror (7 page)

The front garden was blanketed in shadow, but as his eyes grew accustomed to the dark, he could just pick out the real estate sign. Their bikes were well hidden behind the bushes. Even if someone did pass they'd have no idea anyone was in the house. Not unless they could see lights. Eric was an idiot. First thing he'd done when he climbed in the back window was try to switch on the kitchen light. Good job the electricity was off.

Bub patted the bike lamp in his pocket and settled down in the silence.

*

‘S
houldn't they be in alphabetical order?'

Mike had set out the cards in the rectangles, leaving four spaces at what he had described as ‘random intervals'.

‘It doesn't matter,' Mike said firmly, trying to convince himself. He couldn't actually remember.

‘It
won't
matter,' said Eric. The others looked at him. ‘If she's a witch she'll be able to spell anyway. Ow! What was that for?'

‘No more puns, right?' Glen, the oldest, had been quiet for some time.

‘Come on. We've got to take this seriously,' said Mike. ‘Jake, you take the notes. I'll be the medium. That's the person in charge of talking to the spirits.'

‘You can't,' said Eric. They all looked at him again. ‘You're way too fat. You're an extra large at least.' Glen shook his head.

‘Right. Everyone put a finger on the glass. Not you, Jake. You just record the letters. Now push or pull gently. Whatever seems right. Then the spirits take over. Once you start you've got to keep your finger on the glass. Otherwise they get angry. So if you're going to chicken out ...' Mike glanced round but nobody moved. ‘OK. You always start with a question to make contact. So – is there anybody there?'

They sat in silence until Eric giggled.

‘Quiet,' said Mike. ‘The spirits don't like you laughing at them.'

As if Mike's words were a cue, the glass started to move. It crept slowly but steadily over the board.

‘Who's pulling?'

‘Not me.'

‘Y – E—' —the glass drifted to one of the blank spaces— ‘—something,' said Jake.

‘
Yes
,' said Mike.

‘It might not be. It could be “yep”,' said Eric.

‘We've got a P, you egg.'

‘Well you were just pulling and pushing it anyway. This is ridiculous. It could be “yer”. We don't have an R.'

‘Shut up. Don't annoy the spirits. We've got to keep going now.' Mike paused. ‘What is your name?'

The glass started moving again.

‘You're doing that. I can feel you pushing it.'

‘It's not me!'

‘H – A – T – E.' The glass stopped. Jake's voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Hate. That's what that old lady must've called herself. It must be that witch.'

‘How did you die?' asked Mike quietly.

‘Something – U – I – C – I – D – E.'

‘This is stupid.' Eric was the only one still talking loudly. ‘Everyone knows the answers to these questions. We should ask something we don't know.'

‘Like what?'

‘I know. Hey, Hate, mate.' He smiled at his rhyme. ‘Make a prediction.'

This time the glass moved immediately.

‘Y – O – U – W – I' —the glass dipped twice to another of the blanks— ‘something, something,' Jake wrote fast as the glass moved back and forth. The others, even Eric, seemed stunned. At last, the glass stopped on the star in the centre, their fingers still resting on it.

Glen was first to speak. ‘Who did that?' No one replied. ‘Well, it wasn't me.'

‘That,' said Mike dramatically, ‘was Hate.'

‘Bullshit,' said Eric. ‘That was you, Mike. You were pulling ... Shhh!'

‘What?'

‘Shush, I said.' Sharper this time.

They held their breath, until Mike whispered ‘What?' again.

Eric let out a massive fart.

‘Oh gawd! That's disgusting!'

‘Keep your fingers on the glass,' Mike said, but no one heard him.

‘That stinks. I'm getting out of here. Before the fumes kill me.'

‘You've got to keep your fingers on the glass.' Mike's voice was frantic. The glass began to shake, rattling against the board. ‘Come back!'

The glass shattered. One candle went out. The boys raced to the kitchen and fought to be first through the open window.

Only Eric was taking his time. He wandered slowly after the others, and stopped to casually twiddle one of the knobs on the stove. ‘Hey. The gas still works,' he said.

‘Leave the bloody gas,' shouted Mike. ‘We've got to get out.'

‘Whatever.'

Eric took a last look around then climbed over the sill and dropped onto the wet grass, bending his knees to break his fall. Standing up, he pushed the window closed, put his hands in his pockets and strolled round the corner of the house. He caught up with the others as they tried to untangle their bikes. ‘Chill out, you guys. What's the problem?'

‘You saw that glass break,' said Mike.

‘That was you, wasn't it?'

‘It was bloody not.' Mike was in Eric's face.

‘It must've been. You were the only one touching it.'

Glen stepped between them. ‘All right. All right. We're out now aren't we?'

‘What was that last message, anyway?' asked Josh.

Jake pulled out the scrap of paper. They gathered round and read by the light of Josh's lamp.

Y O U – W I _ _ – K I _ _ – Y O U _ – _ _ O T H E _

They all stared. Then Mike piped up. ‘Ha. You will kiss your mother! Must be for you, Eric! You're the mummy's boy.'

Jake looked serious. ‘Nah. That's two letters there.' He pointed. ‘And M wasn't missing anyway.'

‘Where's Bub?' said Eric.

*

B
ub watched them race for their bikes. Glen first, always the strongest and fittest, Josh and Jake following. Then Fat Mike. Eric last. Ambling along where the others had run. They didn't seem very happy with each other. Bub smiled. Served them right for forgetting him.

He stepped out from behind the curtain. The room seemed darker than ever. He could use his bike lamp, but ...

Four steps, round the coffee table, four more. He felt the door frame. Left, six steps, left again. He could just make out the white of the stove in the kitchen at the far end of the passage. No need to count now. As he passed the big room, he saw the burning candle.

Can't leave that.

The board is still on the table, bits of glass scattered over it and on the floor. There is a weird smell. He covers his nose and picks up the candle. Holding it ahead of him, he turns back.

Towards the kitchen.

Sally McLennan

M
y grandfather told me to practise and so I did. ‘Start small,' he said, and I listened. Mom says you should always listen to grown-ups. So I do.

The expression on my parents' faces is amazing. I love it. There are little ducks on my pyjamas. I don't like them. My room has ducks around the top of the walls too, even though I'm too old for it and boys shouldn't have stencils – Gary Langdon said so. The stencils and pyjamas are there because of my second ever pet. It was a duck until last night when I took it to bed. The duck had followed me ever since it had hatched – everywhere around the farm – if you can call it a farm. I think they say ‘hobby farm'. But I'm not sure what the hobby is.

‘They love each other so much,' Mom said once. Because the duck followed me and I let it.

The duck even comes to sleep with me sometimes and Mom pretends she's OK if it poops. It is soft and warm but annoying. Now the duck is just feathers and limpness. I held its beak shut and put my hands over its nostrils and lay on it. Then I called Mom and told her the truth: ‘Rocky won't move.'

She took one look and put her arms around me and held me against her. She called my dad and he slipped into the room while she held me. He took the not-Rocky, not-duck away. That night they made my favourite food and told me Rocky had gone to heaven. My favourite foods are macaroni and cheese and chocolate milkshake. I was still hungry and Mom asked what I wanted. She made pancakes. Pancakes are my next favourite food.

Rocky was a big success.

‘Go slow and build up,' Grandfather said, and so I did. I looked for something that was bigger than Rocky, and the neighbours had a cat. I waited more than two weeks. Because this time I needed help. I wanted some digging done but I don't like to touch the dirt. If I got caught I didn't want to be on my own. Not after Rocky. So I got my little brother and told him he had to dig a hole for me behind the shed. I told him we were looking for something buried, and if he didn't do it I would punch him. He cried but he dug the hole. I went and got the cat and it scratched me but not really bad. I put it in the hole and held it down with the shovel. Then I kicked dirt in with my foot.

‘You've got to help,' I told Matt. He just snivelled, so I told him to hold the shovel and he did. But he wouldn't stop crying. I didn't even punch him.

The cat only yowled for a short time. It was a horrible noise. I wouldn't practise on a cat again unless I could keep it quiet. Pretty soon though I had covered it and you couldn't hear anything. I took the shovel off Matt, in case. The cat didn't come up. Matt ran away, but I watched the hole a long time to make sure the cat never dug its way out. Nothing happened and nobody noticed the hole. So that worked.

Every Sunday we go to St Andrews Church. It's hot this summer and that makes the church feel crowded even though there are only forty families in our church. The babies cry and the preacher talks and then they all do it some more. When church is finished, everyone stands outside looking tidy and uncomfortable in the heat.

I'm always happy to get in the car. I've been hot, still, and bored long enough.

‘What now?' my dad asks as he turns the key in the ignition.

‘I thought we might go see Granddad,' Mom says.

I smile. I like Grandfather's place. It's quiet and sunny and nobody bothers you. I get to be with him and hang out. He listens to the stuff I don't tell anyone else and most often he agrees.

We pull in at the gate and Dad opens the car doors and as usual everyone scatters. Matt heads off to look at the flowers. Dad trails after me to see Grandfather. Sometimes, after church, there are other grown-ups around the gate and he stops to talk with them. Today is one of those times. So I get to say hi to Grandfather on my own.

‘I did what you told me,' I say, squatting on the grass beside him. Even though I don't like the dirt, I dig my fingers into the ground like I can reach after him. I want to get closer to him.

I lean against the stone that marks his place, shifting plastic flowers out of my way, and I can tell he approves. At the other end of the cemetery, Mom is still chasing after Matt.

Little kids are so annoying.

Matt Cowens

M
y step-mother's cooking gave me a taste for human flesh. We dined on placenta for weeks after I was born, and she taught me to shave rashers off my family while they slept.

I grew up fast, the first time.

My step-mother collected me from the hospital the day I was born, swapping me for her own daughter, while my mother was asleep. My step-mother doesn't want to teach me how to change size yet. All I know is that she shrunk me, twisted and grew her own baby to look just like me, and placed her in the incubator. The next day we left the hospital in my father's coat pocket, the stolen placenta in a knapsack.

I grew fast on my step-mother's milk; nearly three inches in a week. I learned to walk and talk before my birth-mother was discharged from the hospital. When she got home my brother Timothy asked, ‘Mummy, where's my sister?'

‘Right here, sweetie,' my birth-mother replied, showing him the little changeling bundled in a pink blanket.

‘That's not my sister! That's a monster, like the little fairy woman who tried to kill me.'

My birth-mother laughed, but it was true. My step-mother didn't like Timothy. She'd tried to smother him once while he was sleeping, but he woke up.

My step-sister nuzzles my real mother's breast, growing at tedious human speed. It will be months before she can even roll over. My step-mother says we aren't to shave rashers off her, as eating fairy-flesh is taboo. She smells odd anyway, milky and sweet and nectar-laced. It's a wonder my real parents don't notice.

‘Why did you swap us?' I asked my step-mother one night, as we were scraping skin from my father's arm. We were careful to only harvest a couple of layers of skin, though he was so tired from caring for the changeling we could have taken a finger without waking him.

‘Good girls don't ask questions,' my step-mother replied. ‘Bad girls never grow wings.'

She was always like that.

‘Will I grow wings, Mother? Even though my parents were big people?' I hoped calling her ‘mother' would soften her up. It was an obvious ploy but it worked sometimes.

‘If you eat all your dinner, and help me arrange an accident for that oaf of a boy, then maybe. Mind what you're doing, girl. You've got a bit of his arm hair in with the skin shavings.'

I pretended it was an accident. I reached into the bag and plucked out the hair, then slipped it into my sleeve when mother wasn't watching.

The next day I stabbed it into the changeling's eye.

She cried, and rubbed at it, but I twisted it and pushed hard, wedging it into the creamy white orb. It wouldn't blind her, but it would bring my parents running. My step-mother was asleep, hiding from the daylight. I didn't have long.

‘What are you doing?'

My brother's voice. He'd been shifted out of the nursery when the changeling arrived, though he still seemed drawn to the room. I was sure he'd been out in the garden when I came in.