Ian McGinn

Moonlight illuminated the green road sign, the white letters glittered through the dark. Fire Track 57. A woman stood, featureless and alone, a pale silhouette enveloped by the dark. She gestured, pointing down Fire Track 57.

He awoke, gasping. His mouth’s interior caked in sugary alcohol and cigarette ash. He was alone in the hotel room; he was alone everywhere. He checked his phone. 4:30am.

A dog barked outside. He sat up and rolled off the bed. He picked up his crumpled clothes and put them on his thin, middle-aged body. Pants, shirt then jacket. Homicide Squad was stamped in bold white blocks across the back. He picked up his badge. Detective Roger McIntosh.

He put on his equipment belt, the pistol heavy on his hip. The dog barked. He went to the fridge, fluorescent white digging into his eyes. He grabbed the milk and found a white plastic bowl in the cupboard. He poured the milk in and placed it on the bone-coloured bench. He scanned the room. The folder sat on the worn kitchen table. Homicide Squad: Missing Women was written on the cover.

He grabbed the folder and the milk and left the room. Phoebe, the barking Kelpie, was tied in the Ute’s tray. He put the bowl of milk down for her. Her tail wagged and pounded the tray. She grumbled as he patted her brown head. She drank the milk.

He went to the next room’s door. He knocked. He waited. The door opened and Johnstone stood there.

‘Get your shit,’ McIntosh said.

Johnstone’s jowly mouth was agape, spittle clustered in the corners. He was short, fat and had thinning hair. A white singlet stretched across his gut.

‘Now?’ said Johnstone.

‘Yeah, now,’ McIntosh replied.

‘Fuck, serious? You’ll need to approve my allowance. This is a change of shift. That’s as well as…’

McIntosh raised his hand in a stop gesture. ‘Yep, done. Get your stuff.’

‘Ok,’ said Johnstone as he turned to go back into the room.

‘Hey,’ McIntosh said.

‘What?’ said Johnstone.

‘Stop leaving her in the tray.’

‘Well, she’s not staying in here. I don’t get paid to look after a fuckin’ dog,’ Johnstone said.

‘Yep, just tell me next time. She can stay with me,’ he said.

‘Righto,’ said Johnstone, mumbling and swearing under his breath as he closed the door behind him.

McIntosh sat in the Ute, Phoebe asleep on his lap. Johnstone came out ten minutes later and clambered into the driver’s seat.

‘You can’t have her in the cabin, she’s a police dog, not a pet,’ said Johnstone.

‘Just get in,’ McIntosh said.

Johnstone started the Ute; the diesel engine made a growled moan, the dash glowing with greens and reds. The gauges swayed then settled. The police radio cackled violent stories.

‘We’re headed to Fire Track 57,’ McIntosh said.

‘Weren’t we there yesterday?’ said Johnstone.

‘Nah, we only went to 56,’ McIntosh said.

Johnstone sighed. ‘They aren’t there. This is bullshit. Is this some dream crap again? I can’t keep doing this shit.’

‘Then don’t. But it’s our job. A quick look. We’ll be back in town for breakfast,’ McIntosh said.

Johnstone complained, but if he was promised extra pay or food, he’d begrudgingly help. He huffed, then clicked the Ute into drive and steered them out of the hotel carpark. They drove through the town’s main street and out onto the highway.

Fence post reflectors replied to their headlights as they passed signs peppered with shotgun pellets, an ode to local boredom. Tea trees and gums twisted in the dark, their mangled limbs catching the moon’s reflection. Johnstone droned on. His wife, his effeminate son, everything. He hated policing, but it allowed him to travel. McIntosh envied his family but said nothing.

It appeared suddenly. Fire Track 57. ‘Here, turn,’ said McIntosh.

Johnstone slowed and made the turn, the wheels biting into the gravel road. The lights cut through the dense bush; red eyed nocturnal creatures stared back. McIntosh tried the radio. Silence. He checked his phone: no bars. It read 5:30am, an hour till sunrise.

They drove into darkness. The Ute jolted and bounced down the gravel track, swaying and bashing its way through the night.

Phoebe whined a low vibration, a fearful sound.

‘It’s alright,’ said McIntosh.

They came to a clearing, the trees parted, leaving a carpet of grey earth layered with dried leaves and gum nuts. The car lights and big moon sent lonely shadows to gyrate across the clearing.

‘Stop,’ said McIntosh. His heart thudded in his chest cavity, his mouth dry and his fingers sweaty. McIntosh got out and Phoebe followed. Darkness and eery silence enveloped them, the dull hum of cicadas the only sound. Johnstone lumbered his pudgy body from the driver’s side and walked to them.

‘Go on,’ said McIntosh. Phoebe started sniffing, her nose glued to the ground as she sucked up the odours. She jolted as if notified and started scrambling in an uncoordinated mess. She stopped, sat, and cocked her head and barked.

‘Fuck me,’ McIntosh whispered, his eyes adjusting. He saw a small grey dirt mound, withered fingers punctured through, a hand grasping skyward. McIntosh beamed his torch, accentuating the bruised yellows and purples that swirled along the decayed fingers. McIntosh was hit with a faint breeze, the waft of petrification hitting his senses. He gagged then looked beyond the mound. He saw another dirt bed rising from the earth. A half-buried face looked back at him, one squinting eye peering with no recognition.

Johnstone was standing near the graves when he broke McIntosh’s trance. ‘It’s them!’

McIntosh went to speak but was cut off by a man’s high-pitched yell. They turned and saw a shadow emerge from the hollow of a giant gum. It was a man. He stood, tall and hulking, his breath labouring as his shoulders thumped like a piston. A heinous apparition carved from the night, he wore a discoloured flannelette, jeans and weathered boots. His face was shadowed by the brim of a black Akubra, white long dead hair protruded from underneath.

‘Me darlings! What are you doing to me darlings?’ shouted the man.

McIntosh and Johnstone stared unmoving.

‘Me darlings! Me darlings! Keep away from me darlings!’ yelled the man.

Phoebe barked, baring her jagged teeth. The man stepped backed and hissed.

McIntosh jolted, neurons rejoining him with the present. He pulled his pistol from its holster, Johnstone mimicking in a fumbling display.

‘Police don’t move! Get on the ground!’ yelled McIntosh.

The man ignored McIntosh and chanted a rhythmic hymn, melding scripture and an unknown language. The man’s mumblings grew louder. His hands shot before him like an awakened hellish scarecrow. He reached towards the bush graves. The headlights of both cars started to flicker, dancing to his chanted melody. They turned from white to green, pulsating and strobing.

The man’s arms dropped and, for a moment, a blanket of deathly silence draped them. The man laughed. A quiet unsettling giggle under his breath. McIntosh felt gooseflesh envelop his body.

‘Me darlings!’ the man shouted.

Johnstone was standing amongst the graves. The grey dry earth erupted; a plume of silty smoke covered him. As the dust floated groundward, McIntosh could hear a muffled cry.

He saw Johnstone flaying, an uncoordinated oaf, a woman sat upright in the grave clutching at his leg. McIntosh shone his torch in her face. Hollow dead eyes stared back. Putrefied grey flesh clung to her cheeks, portions missing where subterrain creatures had fed. McIntosh’s nose burnt with the acrid stench of rot. Mud and insects fell into her lap as she clambered for Johnstone’s leg. Her mouth opened and a piercing shriek emanated from a pit of jagged white teeth. McIntosh recognised her. Heather Pluckford. Missing two weeks.

Another woman had Johnstone’s back. Jody Roberts. Missing three weeks. Johnstone tried to wrestle free. She writhed on his back, a misshapen doll, her skin pasty grey and eyes dead black. She dug long black nails into his back, a homicidal ballet unfolding in the clearing.

 ‘Help! Get these bitches off me!’ Johnstone screamed.

Johnstone still clutched his pistol. Roberts cranked her neck back and widened her mouth, white teeth glistened. Her head snapped forward. She sunk her teeth into Johnstone’s shoulder, a pink burst exploded from the wound. Johnstone cried. Heather Pluckford scrambled for Johnstone’s leg, lock-jawing onto his calf, violently shaking her head.

Johnstone raised his pistol and nestled the barrel in Roberts’ face. The gun roared; white sparks burst. The bullet ripped through Roberts’ undead face, putrefied meat erupting from the back of her head. She slumped to the ground.

‘No!’ shouted the man.

Johnstone continued to struggle against Pluckford. ‘Silence!’ shouted the man as he pointed at Johnstone. Johnstone went limp, his face gaunt and devoid of intellect. The man paced towards him. He grabbed Johnstone’s collar and lifted him from the earth, his mouth agape with rows of razor teeth. He craned his head back and snapped it forward, it crunched as if broken. His teeth thudded into the meat of Johnstone’s neck.

The man released Johnstone who dropped to the earth. Pluckford fell on him like a marauding beast. The man looked towards McIntosh, gore staining his face and chin. He pointed at Pluckford and hissed. She reared her head, snapping to attention, like a ghoulish soldier. The man clicked towards McIntosh who stood frozen.

Phoebe barked as Heather Pluckford walked towards them. Phoebe yelped then bit at McIntosh’s ankle, jolting him from his stupor. He turned and ran, dropping his torch.

He sprinted through the brush, Phoebe beside him. Sharp leaves and twigs clawed at them as they fled. Moonlight guided their path, bottomless black turning to grey as morning approached. They came to another clearing.

McIntosh stopped and scanned the surrounds. He used the pistol’s tactical light to assess the night. Phoebe scanned with him, her primal senses cutting through the dark into edges McIntosh could not see. She growled, low and guttural.

‘Come to me,’ a voice hissed from the dark.

McIntosh flinched, scanning the jagged trees and brush. The voice laughed.

Phoebe looked upwards, snarling. McIntosh raised the gun to the trees, the light cinematically displaying the top branches. He saw her. Pluckford squatted on a branch, a gum tree gargoyle. She held something bulbus and circular in her right hand, Johnstone’s head. The head’s eyes moved left to right, the mouth appeared to talk. Pluckford laughed then flung the head at McIntosh. It thudded into his chest and fell to the dirt, leaving a smudge of congealed blood on McIntosh’s shirtfront. He looked at Johnstone’s head which stared back.

‘McIntosh?’ said Johnstone’s head. ‘McIntosh, seriously, you’ll need to pay me an extra allowance for this.’ Johnstone’s head laughed then said ‘Hey. They don’t like the sun and they don’t like your dog. Woof. Woof.’ The eyes in Johnstone’s head rolled back and the mouth closed. Johnstone’s head was dead. McIntosh shuddered and looked up. Pluckford sprang from the tree, darting towards him, claw hands outstretched and her mouth a bloody snarl.

McIntosh fired. Whack! Her shoulder ripped backwards as she fell on him. Her attack continued and she clenched his right hand, which held the pistol, her strength greater than his. He dug his free forearm into her blood-soaked neck. She drew her face closer, her snapping mouth emitting a rotten gas—the smell of decay.

He felt his arm weakening, her unnatural strength overpowering him. Phoebe darted from the dark like an apparition. She sunk her teeth into Pluckford’s leg, who shrieked and swatted, letting go of McIntosh.

McIntosh raised his pistol, aimed at her head and fired. Flame burst from her mouth, sharp teeth flung skyward, a morbid firework. He looked into her eyes, the black eternal hatred momentarily dissipated. He saw a brief glimpse of who she was, her essence peacefully escaping. She slumped and fell.

The man screamed from the surrounding dark.

McIntosh picked himself up. He could see the headlights through the trees, gums reaching skyward like skeletal sentinels. He needed to get to the car. He called Phoebe. They tentatively walked back towards the supernatural headlights. They reached the clearing, the Ute idled like a growling hound as they approached.

‘Me darlings! You killed them!’ the man’s voice said from the dark. Light was slowly creeping across the clearing as morning colonised the night.

McIntosh grabbed Phoebe and got into the driver’s side of the Ute. He threw her on the passenger seat then slammed the door. He put it in reverse and backed up. Morning was close, Kookaburras laughed at the horizon as they awoke.

Thud! The man was on the bonnet. His face peered at McIntosh, a white bulb, smooth without facial hair, an indifferent mannequin. He bared his fangs and hissed.

He punched at the windscreen, his fist a ball of swollen knuckle. The windscreen cracked as McIntosh reversed. The man’s fist punctured through, he reached in and grabbed McIntosh’s throat. He began to squeeze. McIntosh reached for his pistol and fired into the man. Nothing. He kept reversing up Fire Track 57. His consciousness faded. Phoebe jumped from the passenger seat, biting into the man’s wrist. He hissed and let go, falling from the bonnet. The man ran for the gum from which he had appeared. The sun was peering over the horizon, a hot yoke assessing the morning.

McIntosh stopped the car. He could see the man huddled in the gum’s hollow.

McIntosh walked towards him, pistol in hand. He snapped his fingers towards Phoebe, who jumped from the car and walked in tune with him.

The man was pushed inside the tree, looking at the creeping light like it was a tide of death.

‘What are you?’ asked McIntosh.

‘The abolisher of death,’ said the man.

‘What did you do to them?’

‘I gave eternal life. I can offer you the same. Give me darkness and I’ll give you forever. Join me. You will never be alone.’

The man extended his gnarled hand in offering. McIntosh walked forward. He took the man’s hand in his, one step into the dark. McIntosh looked back at Phoebe.

‘I’m not alone anymore.’

He yanked the man into the light. The man screamed as he was engulfed by the sun’ He writhed then fell, bursting into flame. He crawled forward as red, yellow and fluorescent blue flames danced across him. He slumped face first sizzling and cracking, a black doll on the ground. McIntosh watched for a while, Phoebe sitting at his feet.

Full morning swept across the clearing, magpies warbled their morning songs and insects started their symphonies.

‘Come on, dog,’ said McIntosh. Phoebe jumped into the Ute and McIntosh followed. They drove back along Fire Track 57 towards the highway.

---

Ian enjoys horror fiction and thought he would try his hand at creating his own monsters! He lives with his wife and dog who both prefer rom-coms.

More amazing stories are waiting for you…
Return to Issue 2