Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror (15 page)

And now she was gone, leaving only the rat, the rain, the flood, the drowning. Time to sink or swim.

Adam's trike lay on its side beside the driveway. Knocking back the last of the whisky and stubbing out my smoke in a soggy ashtray, I set off across the lawn to retrieve the toy and carry it into the garage before it started to rust. Lowering the roller door behind me, I put the bike down without thinking too hard about where it might go – there was plenty of room in our double garage now. Just another empty space where something used to live.

I entered the house through the garage door and crept up the hall, in case Adam was already asleep. I poked my head around the door frame to check on him, expecting to see Margo there shushing him and rubbing his back like Ellena had always done. But she wasn't there. Adam, all alone, grinned up at me.

‘Time for sleep,' I whispered. ‘Close your eyes.'

‘But Nan hasn't come to find me yet.'

‘No fibbing.' I wagged a finger. ‘I heard her through the window, just now.'

The hall door cracked open, throwing a spear of light across the walls.

‘No, silly,' Adam giggled. ‘That wasn't Nan.'

Margo caught my eye as she came down the hall, as puzzled to see me as I was to see her. A cold knot twisted my stomach into a ball, because in that small broken moment as Adam laughed and took a breath, I knew what he was going to say. He, the child with the eyes that would not see the hole or what it means, but the digger that shouldn't be there.

Because he could never know that ‘Mummy's gone away' really meant ‘Mummy drank so much out at that hens party with the office girls, all of them ten years younger than her and
not
pregnant, none of
them
clinically depressed and so inconsolably desolate in the face of bringing another child into the world with a man she hadn't loved for years, that she, the sober driver but far from sober, had thrown herself behind the goddamned wheel and hit the gas and wrapped her car around a motorway flyover pillar that I have to drive past every fucking day and remember as the place where she brought an end to all the misery that was her life, that was
our
life.'

These were things he'd never understand, that he should never
have
to understand. But he understood the things he could see that we couldn't, the things that shouldn't be there.

‘Mummy says I won't have bad dreams, Daddy,' Adam smiled. ‘She said so. She promised.'

My fingers were numb as they gripped the door frame. ‘Mummy's gone away, darling,' I repeated, my voice as hollow as it was haunted. Margo slipped past me with a reproachful glare, hints of her daughter in her eyes.

‘No, Daddy, she said she'll
always
be here with me, to chase all the ghosts away. She
promised
.'

All the ghosts
, I thought,
except mine
.

All the ghosts except Mummy, who had promised she'd never leave us
. A promise that she hadn't had the strength to keep in life, but clearly intended to honour now that she was gone.

I backed away as Adam lay down and closed his eyes, and hoped that if Ellena was going to watch over our son in the night, that she wouldn't come looking for me once he was asleep.

But she would always be with me. She had
promised
.

Kevin G Maclean

T
he boy sat on the stone wall outside the school house, swinging his legs back and forth. As I approached, he removed the lollipop from his mouth, and stared at me with huge dark eyes.

‘You really don't want to go in there.'

‘Really?' I smiled condescendingly, but my smile vanished when I heard a loud pop. Gunfire! I scurried behind the patrol car, and called in on the cell phone – I was out of range for the radio.

Satisfied that backup was on its way, I fetched the firearms from the gun case in the car boot. With the Glock on my hip and the Bushmaster M4 in my hands, I can't say I felt any braver, but I certainly felt more prepared. Silently, I cursed the department for not issuing rural officers with the heavier armour of the Armed Offenders Squad – the nearest AOS armoury was more than four hours away by road. Then I went in.

It could have been worse, I suppose. No one shot at me – that shot had obviously been the suspect blowing his brains out – and none of the kids had been physically hurt, but what sort of monster chops up a primary school teacher in front of her class? I got the kids out of there, and then I threw up in the garden. (‘Never on the crime scene!') I fetched the class roll and called it. All present – and none of them had those huge dark eyes. I asked who he was. All the kids denied having ever seen such a boy, and the local doctor, when he arrived, swore there was no such child in the area.

That was my first encounter with the Boy with Anime Eyes.

*

I
t was six years before I saw him again. I'd been transferred to South Auckland, and was in a park covering the fence backing on to a P lab. He was sitting on a park bench, with his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, staring at the lab. He hadn't grown at all, as far as I could tell. As I sat down beside him, I realised he was quivering, as if with anticipation.

‘You're too late,' he said, and then the lab blew.

Six dead – gloriously, none of them ours. By the time I turned my eyes back to the Boy, he was nowhere to be seen.

*

T
ime moves on, and so does technology. The next time I saw him was through security cameras at Auckland Inter-national Airport.

I turned to the operator. ‘See that boy? Get him into the system. Then lock the place down – the shit's about to hit the fan right where that kid is staring.'

As the Secret Service men reached for their guns and the shutters started slamming down, the Boy looked through the camera at me and snarled, ‘You! I will eat your soul!' And between one frame and the next, he was gone. They never found the Boy, but the would-be assassins didn't have a chance ...

*

T
ime moves on, and so does technology. The city-wide camera network goes live next week, and three months after that, I retire. People think the network will make the streets safer, and politicians think it will allow us to track criminals and terrorists, and yes, it will do all that. But from Day One, we will know within two seconds if the Boy appears within the area covered, and be able to respond. And if there are any more like him, we'll be able to work out what they look like, and add them to the watch list.

*

I
'm not sure I believe in souls, but if they exist, let me tell you about a policeman's soul. For every person he rescues, every crime he stops, every kid he sets straight, it grows a bit. And for every junkie he finds dead, every fatal car crash he attends, every bashed and abused person, it gets tougher. That Boy is going to choke on mine. And if I'm wrong, well, so be it. That's a price I'll gladly pay.

*

T
hey say that the eyes are the window to the soul, so let me tell you what I saw in those dark eyes when the Boy looked through that camera straight at me. No whites, no irises, no pupils, not a field of stars, nor the dark of interstellar space. No, I saw nothing. Nothing at all.

Paul Mannering

I
t began when Dina turned two and finally started talking. We'd been concerned; she had fine hearing, eyesight and cognitive ability, only her vocal development was delayed. Our GP and the staff at her childcare centre said kids develop in their own time. Dina had all the signs of being a smart girl, she just chose not to verbalise.

When she turned two, I began to understand why.

Dina's mum, Jess, is usually the light sleeper and gets up if Dina needs anything. But on this one night, I had been lying awake for an hour, going over tomorrow's meeting in my head.

I rolled over and there was Dina. Eyes open, the beloved Boo-Bear – her favourite sleeping companion –  clutched to her chest by his felt head. She stared at me for a long moment, and then opened her mouth.

‘Hold out for fifteen per cent, over five years,' she said.

‘Hey baby girl, you OK?' I mumbled, still half asleep.

‘Fifteen per cent. Five years,' Dina said again, and turned and went back to her room.

I lay there for a minute before grudgingly slipping out from under the covers and going to check on her. Dina was asleep, her covers askew. I carefully tucked her in and then, still thinking I'd had some kind of dream, went back to bed.

I didn't think about what Dina had said until I was in the meeting the next afternoon.

We were negotiating an investment return on some IP my business partner and I had been developing for the last three years. I was keen to sell our IP and we had a willing buyer, but the offer was for a lump sum, or a lesser lump sum plus royalty. We were keen on the royalty option, but the rate and time-frame for the contract was a sticking point.

Mark and I had a brief huddle during a toilet break. ‘Ten per cent is okay,' he said. ‘We can live with ten over three years.'

‘Hold out for fifteen per cent over five years,' I said.

‘What?' Mark was startled.

‘Just something I thought of last night.' I must have looked guilty, because Mark didn't seem convinced.

‘If we put that on the table, they'll walk.'

‘But what if they don't?' I asked.

Mark shook his head. We returned to the table and before Mark could say anything, I put the fifteen-over-five offer on the table.

The group across the room circled their wagons. Lawyers were consulted, and someone was texted from an iPhone.

We sat for five minutes in awkward silence. I kept telling myself the old sales technique of making an offer and then sit schtum. The next person who speaks, loses.

After an eternity they turned back to us and nodded. Offer accepted. We shook hands, signed some paperwork and congratulated everyone present on a successful deal.

When I got home that night I wanted to tell Jess about the weird dream I'd had. Jess's sister, Helen, was there with her new baby, Levi, so I settled for sharing the news of the signed deal.

Helen's child-rearing philosophies differed from ours. She treated breast feeding in public as a challenge, daring anyone to be offended. I'm a fan of breast feeding. Jess did it with Dina till she was fully weaned on solid food. The health benefits are undeniable and the right of women and babies to feed when they need to is sacrosanct. Helen's way of thrusting her naked breasts at me in my own kitchen, however, made me uncomfortable.

I turned away when she started to expose herself, focusing on getting Dina's dinner on her plate while Jess chatted with her sister about this new guy (not the baby's father) that she was seeing.

Dina came strolling into the kitchen, which struck me as odd, because I thought Jess had put her in the high-chair. Our wee girl reached up a hand and gently stroked the baby's bald head as he fed vigorously. ‘Don't sleep with him,' Dina announced in a clear voice. Jess laughed and Helen looked surprised.

‘Dina,' Jess said. ‘Don't say that. Honestly, she just started talking today and I'm sure she's repeating random things she's heard at playgroup.'

Helen smiled. ‘That's an excellent philosophy to live by, Dina sweetheart. Don't sleep with anyone until you're sure they're a good person.'

I scooped up Dina and blew bubbles on her neck, which made her giggle. I put her in the high chair and we played helicopter spoons until all her mashed vegetables had landed safely in her grinning hangar.

That night as we lay in bed together, I told Jess about my weird dream. She just nuzzled close, whispering that I was a great negotiator and that I should try my skills on her, since she wanted us to have another baby.

*

J
ess called me at work the next day, one of those calls that sends ice-water down your spine. It took me several intolerably long seconds to realise that Dina was okay, and that it was Helen whom Jess was hysterical about.

Baby Levi had died overnight. Sudden Infant Death Syndrome – SIDS – what they used to call cot death.

Jess spent the rest of the week with Helen. She was shattered, and we all felt the terrible pain of her loss.

I found myself hugging Dina a lot during those dark days, and now she had started talking, she wouldn't shut up.

She sat on the floor, my old matchbox cars spread around her. Jess said she was too young, she might swallow something; but I lay on the floor, reading through some IT reports and keeping an eye on her.

Holding up a car, Dina announced, ‘Taxi driver, falls asleep at the wheel on the motorway. Three killed in head-on collision.'

‘Sounds bad,' I said, not really paying attention.

‘Weekend road toll will be the highest of any weekend since Easter,' Dina said, turning an old Ford Fairlane model over in her hands.

‘More books, less TV news for you, baby girl,' I said.

The phone rang. I answered, but didn't recognise the voice.

‘My name is Tony, I'm Helen's boyfriend,' he explained.

‘Oh. Hi Tony. I don't believe we've had the pleasure.'

‘Yeah.' He didn't sound like he was calling to invite himself round for a beer. ‘Helen said something to me, she said the night – well, before it
happened
,' Tony let the rest of his reason for calling come out in a rush. ‘She said your little girl, Diana? Helen said that the little girl told her that she shouldn't sleep with Levi.'

‘What? No way. Why would she say that?' I had a chilling flash of Dina standing by the bed telling me to hold out for fifteen per cent.

‘I don't know.' Tony sounded like he was biting down on a scream. ‘Helen is sure that Diana knew something was going to happen.'