Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror (3 page)

The baby made Essie frown. The thing hadn't even been born yet and already it was taking them both away from her.

Soon enough Daddy had to go. He kissed Momma and stroked Essie's head. ‘Be a good girl,' he growled with mock seriousness. Essie beamed up at him and hugged his leg.

Then Essie and Momma were alone for another long night: Momma watching TV and Essie bringing a blanket and books from her room to the sofa and hiding from the bright light of the screen while reading the stories in her books.

‘Essie—' Momma moaned. Essie slithered out from under her blanket. The air had a scent of fear and sweat, tinged with blood. Essie licked her lips.

‘Momma?'

‘It's time, sweetheart ... It's –
ooh
– it's time ...' Momma squirmed in her seat, illuminated by the glow of the TV. Essie cinched her eyes shut and jabbed at the power button, shutting off the noise and the searing glow.

‘Essie. I need you to ... ohhh ... I need you to be a big girl. You gotta help Momma, honey.'

Essie nodded and stepped closer. The fabric of Momma's comfy chair was stained dark, and fluid dripped through the wicker frame, splattering on the floor in thick, viscous drops.

‘I'm here, Momma. Should I call Daddy?' Daddy had a cellphone. The number for it was on the fridge.

‘Daddy's working, baby. Leave him be – ohh ...' Momma shivered, her legs spreading, her knees drawing up. ‘Help me get my pants off, sweetie.' She spoke in rasping breaths. Essie leaned forward, plunging her face into the deep musk emanating from her mother's core. She pulled the soft fabric of the pants down, startled to realise that Momma had wet herself like a little kid.

‘What do I do, Momma?' Essie's senses tingled. The small amount of blood that had come from inside Momma made her teeth itch and her fingers flex.

‘Hold my hand! Ohh ...' Momma's back arched, her loose T-shirt sliding backwards off the pulsing lump of her belly. Essie gripped her mother's hand, feeling her mother squeeze tighter as a contraction rippled through her.

‘Ohhh –
shaka ... nyah ... rikaash
...' Momma moaned. Essie felt the hairs on the back of her neck rising at the old prayer. Essie watched with a mixture of fascination and disgust as more fluid wept from Momma down there.

Her mother panted between the regular contractions. ‘Hold the baby's head,' she gasped. Essie pressed her hands against the trembling flesh of her mother's thighs. The head emerged and she felt the weight of it resting in her palms.

‘I got the head, Momma,' she whispered.

‘One – more – puuuushhhhh ...' Momma bore down and Essie felt the small shape slide out into her hands. The cord that ran from the baby's stomach to inside Momma glistened purple and pulsed with a steady beat. Essie frowned at the grey-skinned thing that had come from inside Momma.

‘Clear his mouth. Make sure he can breathe,' Momma murmured in an exhausted whisper. The baby mewled a bubbling cry. Essie lifted it up and handed it to her mother, who pressed the naked thing against her bare breast and kissed its tiny head.

When Daddy came home his feet pounded as he rushed into the room. Essie was still up and Momma had delivered the afterbirth, a blood-filled, membranous sac that made Essie's nose twitch and her stomach rumble.

Dropping to his knees, Daddy hugged Momma and peered at the tiny face wrapped in a soft towel, cradled against its mother's breast.

‘He's perfect,' Momma whispered.

‘Yes, he is,' Daddy beamed.

‘He's not. He's a monster. We should bury him,' Essie said, emerging from the kitchen with a shovel in her hand. The fresh dirt clinging to it matched a dark streak on her cheek.

‘Of course,' Daddy said and Momma smiled.

‘You two go on ahead. I need to rest.' Momma let Daddy lift the tiny wrapped bundle. She sank back into her comfy chair.

Essie followed Daddy outside. She had dug a hole about the size of a shoe box and as deep as her arm was long. Daddy crouched and sniffed the soil. ‘It's good,' he growled.

Essie watched as he unwrapped the baby and laid him, naked and squirming under the pulsing sac of placenta, down into the cold, dark earth. Essie filled in the hole, the baby's squalls fading as he vanished under the dirt.

When the soil was packed down smooth with the flat of the shovel, Essie and her father stood looking at the small mound.

‘How long will it take, Daddy?'

Daddy squatted next to her, his long arm curled around her shoulders, his razor-sharp claws caressing the rough skin of her throat. ‘Oh, a night or two. You were buried for three nights before you came up right.'

Essie blinked her yellow eyes, the moonlight sparkling off the dark scales that ran down her face and rose into twin lines of curved studs on her neck.

‘Gramma says babies are like meat: you gotta bury it to get it to age right.' Essie nodded solemnly.

‘Gramma knows the old ways are the best,' Daddy said and grinned, the moonlight sparkling like diamonds on his jagged teeth.

M Darusha Wehm

‘S
amantha!' Mum's voice was loud in the small room and I knew I'd been caught again. I pulled back from Matthew and looked at his face. He was red in the cheeks and his eyes were screwed shut. I could see a single tear squeezing out. That made me smile.

‘That's it,' Mum said, grabbing me roughly by the arm and pulling me away from my little brother. ‘Time out for you and no TV for a week. I don't know what's wrong with you, young lady. How would you like it if you had an older sister who hit you all the time, hmm? Not very much, I'll bet. Look at him, his arm's all red. What did you do, Sam?'

She went on, yelling at me and pointing at the ugly red welts on Matthew's arm. I knew exactly what I'd done – hit him over and over, until my fist started to hurt and I could tell that he was biting his lip to keep from crying. I knew Mum might catch me, figured I'd get in trouble, but it was worth it.

Matthew caught my eye and while Mum wasn't watching I saw him mouth ‘Thank you.'

This time he'd promised me his comic book collection, but I would have done it for nothing. I love my little brother, and even though I don't really like hitting him, it makes him happy. And I love making him happy.

Lee Murray

B
est friends since we were four, Xin and I have a lot in common: our music teacher, Mr Leung, for example. Every day after school, Xin and I walk fifteen minutes along the edge of the sports fields, cutting across the deep shadows of the trees on the eastern boundary to Mr Leung's studio where we have our violin lessons. Xin was a violinist before me, starting at just three years old. When I met her, the instrument's chin-rest was so bulky that it forced her tiny head back so the black silk of her hair fell to her waist.

‘It was just a little head start, Liu,' my mother says one day. ‘No more than six months. Over eight years, that's not so much. If you practised hard, if you set your mind to it, you could catch up to Xin. Then you could both play first violin and you and Xin could sit together in the orchestra.' Her teeth are on edge when she says this. I think practising my trills may have caused her a headache because she puts her fingers to her temples. Perhaps it's the smell of the yellow pine-tree rosin I rub on my bow to grip the strings.

My mother is right: it would be nice to sit by my friend. Xin sits on the left of the conductor, and I sit on the right. Since our orchestra is arranged in a semi-circle, if the piece is not too difficult, I can see her out of the corner of my eye while I play, her bow gliding up and down gracefully, like a swing in a playground if the piece is lilting, or agitating furiously, if the piece is to be played
con somma passione
. Xin is especially beautiful when she plays. I've heard it said that she has the sun-shy complexion of a courtesan, her face so expressive that it alone could tell the story of the music. They say she
embodies
the melody. Certainly when Xin plays, the strings captured under her fingers and the bow dancing in her hand, she doesn't care to glance across at me.

‘Beautiful, beautiful, Xin,' Mr Zhuang, our conductor, will say proudly. He keeps his eyes closed when he says this, reminding me of a cat waking from a long sleep on a warm windowsill.

When she grows up, Xin plans to play solo violinist for the National Orchestra. It's not just a dream; she's very determined.

‘You'll come with me, Liu,' she says with fervour as we walk to Mr Leung's. ‘We'll study music performance at the university and share an apartment in the city. After we graduate, we'll both play for the National Orchestra. I'll be the soloist and you can be my understudy.' I giggle at that. After all, it makes sense. She's been playing longer than me.

Then one day, the music master from the college came to hear our school orchestra perform at a matinee recital. We knew he was coming, as Mr Zhuang had been telling us for weeks. If he liked what he heard, the music master might offer a scholarship to the most promising and deserving amongst us. It was the kind of opportunity that could launch a young musician's career, Mr Zhuang said.

‘Don't let me down,' he said. ‘And more importantly, don't let yourselves down.'

We were playing ‘Czardas' by Monti. It wasn't my favourite piece and the bowing was technical. In the days leading up to the performance, I practised hard. I practised and practised. I worked with the orchestra. I worked with Mr Leung. I worked so long and with such zeal that the music began to blur before my eyes. It was as if a beetle had knocked over an inkpot and then scurried away, leaving blotchy footprints on the stave. Worse than that, my arm froze into a death grip, so that near the end, I couldn't practise at all.

The school invited our families to see the performance – what better way to ensure an appreciative audience? As usual, Xin sat opposite me. I could see that she'd been practising too, because her eyes were tired. Laying her violin across her lap, she kneaded the muscles at her neck, warming them for what was to come. She gave me a quick smile and nodded in the direction of my parents seated alongside her own. Then the recital started.

I was like a toy soldier, jerky and tense. The more I tried to relax, the more my arm clenched, my jaw set and my thumb cramped. By the time we got to the recap, the death grip had overcome me and I stuffed up the
sautille
. It was relief to finish. I stood with the others and took a bow, knowing that for me the scholarship had slipped away. It wasn't the worst performance, but it wasn't as good as Xin's. In the audience, my mother massaged the pressure point between her thumb and forefinger, a sign her headache was back.

Xin practically skipped out the school gates on the way to Mr Leung's that afternoon. Mr Zhuang said she'd played well. She wouldn't hear straight away, he said, but she might expect some excellent news very soon. Xin's porcelain skin glowed with excitement. She swung her violin case jauntily, flicking her hair and going on about college and the wonderful opportunities it would offer. This time, she made no mention of the shared apartment in the city.

Afternoon shadows cast by the trees flashed across the path, like my mother's knife slicing through roast pork, and suddenly I knew what I had to do. When I saw the plastic shopping bag on the side of the path, I realised fate intended it too. It wasn't even that difficult. I was a few paces behind her. I used my death grip. It was quick, a staccato moment, her frantic breaths dying away softly,
a nessuna cosa
, against the plastic. Afterwards, the body tumbled conveniently down the slope and into the ditch. I left her violin case where it was, hidden amongst the trees.

‘Where is Xin?' Mr Leung asks when I arrive at his studio.

‘She went home,' I tell Mr Leung as I remove my violin from its case. ‘She said she's too excited to practise today. The college is going to offer her a scholarship.'

Mr Leung claps his hands in delight, then remembers himself.

‘I'm sorry,' he says.

I shake my head. ‘Xin played better. She deserved to win.'

‘Well, maybe one day in the future ...' Mr Leung says kindly, and I nod.

I rosin my bow. We begin the lesson. As I go through the warm-up exercises, I consider Mr Leung's comment about it being my turn one day.

The bow dancing in my hand, I smile.

Jack Newhouse

T
hey met in the park, of course.

John was careful when he lifted Kathy. She seemed so fragile to him, his hands wrapping around her ribcage as he lifted her to shoulder height.

‘Weehehehehee!' she whooped, grabbing his hair with chubby fingers. He didn't mind.

‘Wow!' his sister said, smiling up at her daughter. ‘You're up high! Can you see a long way?'

‘Yeeeah,' Kathy said. ‘Uncle John, will you push me on the swings?' He smiled at her, happy to help, fitting the chain in front of her for safety. Erin fretted, but he gave his sister a comforting smile.

‘Don't worry. I'm not that clumsy.'

He pushed with two fingers, almost idly, as his niece swung higher and higher. He might have worried that she'd be scared by the height, if he couldn't hear her high-pitched laughter.

‘How are you?' his sister asked him, distractedly.

‘Well enough,' he rumbled, giving Kathy another light push. There seemed to be hardly any weight to her at all. ‘I haven't found work yet, but I get by.'

‘That's good ... Not so high!'

He obliged, using his hand to absorb momentum rather than impart it, keeping his niece below chest height.

‘She's growing fast,' he said, smiling at the little girl.

‘Don't say it like that. She's growing at just the right rate for a girl her age.'