Dance with the Devil

By Callum Cordeaux

A selection of short stories that range from nice to downright nasty. Callum Cordeaux lets his mind roam from the feelgood coming of age story Lena Turns the Corner to the creepiness of Dance with the Devil and Glory Days. These stories are bound to make you cringe and bound to make you think.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Len Arthur Publishing
• Release date: Dec 2, 2015
• ISBN: 9781519943675

Callum Cordeaux

Callum Cordeaux is a part time writer, part time surveyor living in Toowoomba in southern Queensland. His writing passions involve a deep love affair with science fiction and good crime thrillers.  He can be contacted on facebook at www.facebook.com/callum.cordeaux or on twitter. 

Book preview

Dumping Ground

Hey, Dump. You want to come for a walk?

The boy who’d asked the question was leaning over the picket fence, looking into the yard where Dugald sat in his wheelchair. He was dark haired and lean.

Nah, sorry, Todd. Can’t. Fuckin’ battery’s gone flat and I still need a good hour to charge ‘er up. Dugald’s wasted hand shook as he pointed to the charge indicator next to the joystick on the armrest. An electric lead snaked away into the laundry door. There was no way Todd could see the meter from where he stood.

Oh, come on, Dump. Why don’t I push you in your old chair? he asked.

Doesn’t sound like much fuckin’ fun.

So, sitting in your chair waiting for it to recharge is? Where’s your mum? Why did she leave you out in the yard?

She’s gone to the shops, back in ten minutes. Said I needed some sun. Can you fuckin’ believe it? I’ll probably get fuckin’ skin cancer! Dugald held up an emaciated arm. His skin was pale and freckled with the translucent trace of blue at the elbow.

I doubt it, mate, Todd said with a touch of rough sadness in his voice, you’ll be dead before you get skin cancer.

Yeah, piss on that, Dugald said. Righto, you get the chair out. Might as well make the best of what I’ve got left.

***

Hey, Todd. What are you doing pushing the retard around? Joel Spackman shot past on his mountain bike and skidded to a stop in the road ahead.

You’re the fuckin’ retard, Spack, Dugald shot back.

Piss off, Spack, Todd told the other boy as another bike came up from behind. It was Sandy Latemore on her bike and she pinged the bell as she went past.

Hi, Sandy, Dugald yelled as he saw who it was.

Hi, Dump, she sang into the breeze as she went past Joel. Joel took one sneering look at Dugald and Todd and turned and followed Sandy as she headed down the hill.

What the fuck? Dugald asked as Todd started the wheelchair moving again. Are they together, do you suppose?

You wouldn’t think so, Todd replied. Their IQs wouldn’t be compatible to start with.

Moments later they watched in surprise as the pair on bikes turned off the bitumen and started down the narrow track into Worrell’s Gully. They both saw Joel Spackman look back up the rise toward them before he followed Sandy down the track. Even at that distance there was something furtive about the look.

Bullshit, Dugald snorted. They’re going canoodling. Can you believe it, a fuckwit like him? Let’s go and see what they’re doing.

The wheelchair won’t go down that track, Todd declared.

So! You can piggyback me. I don’t weigh much these days.

You can’t even hang on properly.

I’ll hang on. Let’s go, mate. Todd realised his friend was serious. Dump got like that sometimes; he had a dogged determination that wasn’t ever going to take a backseat to his disability.

It took them half an hour to get down into the gully. Todd could see the tire marks in the dust every so often but they lost them when they hit the hard rock in the gully bottom. Down there it was cool and green in the lush tropical wetness of the privet forest. The track led on and they followed it. Todd was starting to tire. Dugald was light but he was a dead weight and he didn’t have the muscle to hold himself together properly. Todd was continually hunching over and jumping his friend up his back to get a better grip.

As he was hitching up for another grip under Dugald’s thin legs Dugald let out a yelp of surprise.

What’s wrong? Todd asked, thinking he’d hurt him somehow.

I just saw a bare arse, he whispered hoarsely. Back up a bit. Look between those trees. Someone’s in there, and they’re going for it. Fuck, I don’t believe it.

Sure enough, the sunlight was in the right place and the bouncing bare bum was shining like a beacon in the darkness of the undergrowth. Whoever it was had gone well off the track but hadn’t realized that trees don’t always make an impenetrable screen.

You don’t think it’s Spack and Sandy, do you? Todd asked.

We have to find out, Dump declared in his most serious voice. For the good of our community.

Todd had trouble not laughing out loud but was giggling and chuckling as he started through the scrub toward the rapidly bobbing buttocks. They would have gotten much closer but a breaking twig underfoot sounded like a rifle shot. The buttocks stopped moving and someone swore. Then a voice like Sandy’s said, Get off me. Someone’s out there.

Come on, get closer, Dugald instructed as the buttocks rolled out of the light. They plainly saw Sandy sit up with a look of shock in her eyes, hands scrabbling madly for her clothes, and then she turned and was running for her bike.

Whew, nice bod, Todd declared as she disappeared into the forest.

You bastards, Joel screamed, he stood for a moment in plain view, face red with rage. When Dugald started laughing madly he turned and ran too, following Sandy.

Good to see you had the courtesy to wear a raincoat, Todd yelled after his receding shape. Dugald broke into another fit of laughter and Todd dropped him on the ground where he lay shaking and giggling. Todd dropped to the ground beside him and started laughing as well.

Shit, this is going to be the best story at school on Monday, Todd declared between laughs.

Dugald stopped his giggling almost immediately. "No way, Jose. We keep this one under our hats, Todd. While it’s lovely to know that Sandy is sexually active, it’s better to keep quiet about this. While we know about it, and no-one else does, we’ve got the best one on Spack, of all time. If he so much as steps out of line from now on, he knows what’s likely to go down."

You know something, Dump. You’re not as stupid as you look, Todd declared slapping him lightly on a thin shoulder. They both started laughing again.

Defender

Jack Fowler was a smelly, cranky and thoroughly miserable old man. He was also as crazy as a fruit bat and had been since they dropped the Agent Orange on him, tried to blow him up half a dozen times, shot him in the legs and then sent him home at the height of the Vietnam protests.

His wife Sally didn’t stay with him long even though she tried. Jack back from the war wasn’t the man she’d married and she was intelligent enough to realize he was never going to be that man again. When she left him, taking the two children and very little else, the farm was well on the way to ruin.

Thirty four years on and nothing much had changed. Nobody visited. In the early days, travellers often made the mistake of visiting the two hundred acres of eroded pastures, falling down sheds and rusting machinery but word soon spread and that regular flow died to a trickle, and then almost not at all.

Jack’s war pension had been deposited for years into an account he rarely accessed except to pay the council