Collier's Bend

By Craig Anderson

More than a century ago, a curse was placed on the town formerly known as Collier’s Bend, remaining dormant for decades. Now it is 1994 as university student, John Smith, opens a cemetery gate to retrieve an errant cricket ball and unwittingly awakens the curse.
The Australian outback holds many secrets. From its early beginnings as a Cobb and Co. stopping point, Collier’s Bend has been shrouded in a dark cloud under the control of its founder, Edmund Collier, and a much darker force behind him. Now three men must join forces in a challenge between dark and light. Paul Hutton is an English ghost hunter who has arrived to research the curse. Duncan Miller is a twenty-something former resident who has lost something precious and is now on a vengeful journey to punish those who took it from him. William Turner, the town’s oldest resident, is destined to carry out his family’s legacy. Will the three men find the answers they seek before the challenge decides the fate of Collier’s Bend and the world beyond its borders?
In this gripping horror novel, three unlikely partners must decode and defeat an ancient Australian outback curse before it is released on an unsuspecting town.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jul 14, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665725385

Craig Anderson

Craig lives just north of Brisbane in Queensland, Australia with his wife, Jean. Collier’s Bend is his first novel.

Book preview

Collier’s Bend

Craig Anderson

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Copyright © 2022 Craig Anderson.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means,

graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by

any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author

except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents,

organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products

of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in

this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views

expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the

views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are

models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.

Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission

of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The

NIV and New International Version are trademarks registered in

the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.®

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2537-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-2538-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022911307

Archway Publishing rev. date:  07/08/2022

CONTENTS

PART I

The Transformation

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

PART II

Night People

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

PART III

Visitors

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

PART IV

The Return

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

To Jean

For her patience and understanding.

PART I

The Transformation

1

K NOCK!

The cracking sound of leather on willow wafted over the town. The old men smiled knowingly as, on the waves of that noise, familiarity reaffirmed its foothold on the day. Dog or no dog. After all, what else would you expect to hear in the middle of an Australian summer besides the chirping of crickets in the pleasant twilight?

Knock! Four!

A group of teenagers and young men were performing the summer ritual of invading an empty paddock or someone’s back field as long as it had one piece of land that could be classed flat enough to be transformed into a pitch. There they embedded some old stumps in the hardened ground to play a game of cricket, trying as they might to emulate their heroes from the national team.

Billy Nevin supplied the stumps, and Troy Robinson had brought along the battle-worn bat and ball. The match was being played out in a paddock just outside town, next to the cemetery. A strange place to be playing games of any kind, you may say, but it was the last alternative after countless broken windows, teased dogs, and frightened stock. The only other place to play was out by Old Man Turner’s, and nobody was prepared to play there because he was as mad as a cut snake. Or so their parents kept on reminding them. Don’t go out by the Old Town Road or the crazy man’ll get ya.

Knock!

This was summer in rural Australia. Grasshopper plagues. Thin sheep shorn of all covering. Dead kangaroos on the verges of highways, highways that passed through small- and medium-sized towns that materialized out of the dry, flat red soil like an oasis appeared to the weary long-haul truck driver, the roadhouse being the spring in the middle of that haven.

In the middle of the day, temperatures reached a hundred in the shade. In the dead of night, it could drop below zero. Foxes, dingoes, and other animals hunted at night in the cool.

People also hunted at night, in the air-conditioned comfort of the local bars. These towns always hosted more than one of these watering holes. They were usually overflowing with human flotsam and jetsam, drinking hard, playing harder, and then finally stumbling home in the wee hours of the morning. Most of the publicans also had a special arrangement with the local constabulary; while the locals were merrily and noisily holed up in the pubs, they weren’t causing any undue trouble on the streets. By the time they left the pubs, they were able to catch a few hours’ sleep before a six-o’clock start back on the homestead.

One of these bars was called Boot Hill, nestled in the center of a medium-sized outback town called Main Hill.

Main Hill rose from the red soil three hours south of Dubbo in central New South Wales.

Boot Hill was full every night, fuller on Friday and Saturday nights, when the remotest homestead workers made their way to the Big Smoke to unwind.

At night it was a hive of activity. During the day it took on the revered look of a quaint outback pub complete with the obligatory pair of wizened old locals shooting the breeze and playing spot the tourist under the shade of a wide bull-nosed veranda. A round table, their table, sat between them. Condensation circles from many glasses of ice-cold beer stained the old wooden top. A blue cattle dog normally lazed in front of either man, depending on where it deigned to drop itself on any given day, its eyelids closed against the bright sun and the swirling dust.

The old men always raised a thin, wrinkled hand to passers-by—whether they knew them or not—and talked in circles around subjects that neither had any significant knowledge of.

Most of these towns were planned in a similar manner: one major thoroughfare, usually a highway—in this case, the Newell—with smaller side streets leading to quieter parts of town, sleazier motels, local shopping centers, churches, and residential enclaves. The highway supported garages, pubs, at least one major shopping center, various parks and gardens, and tourist attractions. Some of these enticements were of historical significance; others were the stuff of myth and legend that ensured a percentage of the tourist dollar remained within the town. Main Hill’s major street also possessed something usually hidden from tourist eyes, other than those who specifically searched for it—a cemetery.

Sited on the side of the hill to the north of town, its headstones peppered the rise, highlighted by twelve large gray mausoleums.

Below the cemetery, the town stretched out in its crisscross pattern of streets. Locals moved about the backstreets as tourists and drifters thronged over the highway and stopped to see the sights, some losing their way to the backstreets to be accompanied by the disturbed stares of the locals, who resented the invasion of their privacy, the trespass into their reality.

This interaction occurred at its greatest degree on weekends, even though a lot of Hillers headed to the bright lights of Dubbo. During the week the locals were left pretty much to their own devices, tending the farms and shops and repairing broken items in tourist shops that visiting children had placed their ever-so-gentle fingers upon.

It was on a Friday of one such week, the mercury having hit ninety-seven by nine o’clock in the morning, that the old men had assumed their positions in front of the Boot but were unaccompanied by the otherwise ever-present blue cattle dog. They didn’t know its name, so they did not know what to call out to see if it was nearby. They assumed it was the Boot’s owner’s dog, but they could not recall the owner feeding or watering the creature. Each day though, without fail—till now it seemed—the dog had appeared soon after the men settled in to greet the visitors and discuss the issues of the day. But today the dog did not appear. Perhaps it was this single incident, a deviation from the norm, that was to be the precursor of future events. Or maybe it was just meant to happen. The old men commented briefly on the missing pooch, shrugged their shoulders, and returned to their highway vigil.

Knock!

And each year, a ritual as ancient as the gathering at the Boot was resurrected along with Billy Nevin’s battered stumps. The young men of Main Hill gathered for their own version of Australia versus England, complete with the tongue-in-cheek banter that occurred at all levels of competition, both now in the late 1990s and for many years before.

Billy Nevin’s team was batting. Billy had been appointed captain on the sole justification that he’d brought the stumps, so it was only fair that he and Troy should be opposing skippers. Nobody minded this delegation, but most tried to get on Troy’s team as Billy was quite useless at cricket, and at any sport for that matter, although he tried hard.

Billy had opened the batting with his brother Glenn and had gone out without scoring. Glenn had made fifty before he was caught near the boundary by one of the Bell brothers. The batting team was doing well with Glenn and Billy’s other brother, Tony, scoring into double figures. Tony was still batting when it was Cameron Feige’s turn to bowl.

The field spread.

Cameron was not good at cricket, probably something to do with his French background. But he tried hard, much in the same manner as Billy Nevin. Everybody knew when Cameron came on to bowl, it was time to head for the boundary and hope to cut off some balls before they went sailing over their heads for six runs. Everyone was pepping everybody else up as Cameron moved in to bowl his first ball.

He shuffled toward the pitch, gathering momentum as he closed on the stumps. The purpose in Cameron’s stride depicted the determination that had been set in his mind, namely, not to be the laughingstock of the township with tales of his dismal performance sweeping along the streets until the whole community knew of his inability to master such a simple game.

He reached the stumps and hurled the leather-cased ball at the waiting Tony Nevin. The ball left his hand and sailed through the air on a majestic flight path. It looked magnificent as it worked its way through the air. The stitched seam traveled on a straight line from hand to bat, not its usual wavering course so often depicted in previous games. Cameron was glad. He finally wasn’t going to be the butt of harmless jibes, at least until the next game. He wasn’t going to be the last one chosen in organized games at school. He wasn’t going to be that useless piece of French shit who couldn’t catch a ball if you shoved it down his throat. He was simply going to be Cameron, and for this he was very glad.

All the boys watched in amazement as the ball reached the apex of its flight, then began its descent toward the grinning batsmen.

Crack!

Actually, it was more like Keeraaack!

The ball smacked off the face of the bat and headed toward the area of the boundary where John Smith was positioned. Cameron threw his hands up and yelled for the catch to be taken, but that would have been almost impossible. Even if John hadn’t been rolling around on the ground, holding his stomach and laughing, he still would have had to be close on thirty feet tall even to get close to the ball—that with a jump.

Instead, the ball cleared the old wrought iron fence that enveloped the graveyard and cannoned off a couple of headstones before coming to rest about a quarter of the way into the cemetery.

John, still with a firm hold on his stomach, pushed open one of the iron gates at the front of the property and made his way to where the ball appeared to land.

He shifted tufts of yellowed grass away from weather-beaten memorials to deceased loved ones, searching for the elusive ball. There is surely nothing more frustrating than looking for a ball after not seeing exactly where it finished up. Ask any weekend golfer. John swore to himself as he searched deeper and deeper into the graveyard for the hidden ball. The other boys were now lined along the fence, calling for him to move left or right, farther in or closer to the fence. None of them had seen where the ball went either, but it was easier to stand and direct than to wait for one person to search in vain.

John had passed row after row of headstones when he saw something glint through the corner of his eye. He moved toward it as the boys called out that he was going the wrong way.

The thing, whatever it was, glinted again as John neared a large concrete headstone of one Kevin Brown, a leading wheat farmer who’d owned nearly a hundred thousand acres west of the town. Opposite stood the garish crypt of the Collier family. As John crouched down to see what had caught his attention, the sunlight was blocked by the body of the crypt. The other boys’ yells had softened to a whisper in the distance as John moved grass around the base of the Brown monument.

The rough, dry grass pressed against the palms of John’s hands. Some blades pressed little grooves into his skin. The crypt loomed large above him although it was at least twenty feet away from where he crouched, its heavy darkness mingling with the shadow of the Brown tombstone. The blackness stretched across the ground until it swamped John. The headstone, the crypt, and the yellowed grass all blended into the total blackness, which seemed ready to engulf him. The Collier tomb hovered above him like a malevolent spirit. He swooned as the light flickered again, then something brushed against his body, giving him the feeling that it was seeping into his skin. John thought he heard something whispered into his ear just as he slid forward and fell unconscious.

Where ees he goin’? Cameron asked in his Parisian Australian accent.

Dunno, Robert Clifford replied. Oi, Johnno, where ya goin’? Ball’s de other way.

Each boy’s face turned from sly mischief to worrying concern as their friend seemed drawn toward a spot near a rounded marble headstone.

Hey, Johnny. You got a girl in there. Maybe Kathy Roberts is hidin’ there waitin’ to give him somethin’ special, Christopher Nicholls said, laughing. This thought brought some levity to the situation, but the levity was quickly replaced by gloom as John disappeared behind the headstone.

Jimmy Catchpole said that they should go in after him. Colin Craven said that John was probably just playing a trick on them. But when he hadn’t appeared after a couple of minutes, they felt that the joke had worn off. David Howell thought that they should find another ball and continue the game if John was going to be so petty. The others yelled him down. David stepped back from the main group.

They had just decided to send three of them in when John stepped out from behind the headstone, shielding his eyes. He produced the accursed ball and tossed it back over the fence before slowly walking out of the cemetery and rejoining the game. Cameron finished his over. There was little merriment for the remaining five balls as the strange incident with John was playing on the minds of the other boys. At the completion of Cameron’s over, the ball was thrown to John, who shuffled over to his run-up, then yawned and lazily bowled the ball, where it was dispatched for four.

At the end of his own over, John sleepily announced that he was feeling tired and was going to head off home. A number of the boys complained that he was only leaving because they had ragged him about Kathy, but he assured them that it had nothing to do with that; it was just that he felt tired. The whole time he was bowling and talking to the others, he had to keep blinking and shielding his eyes, even though the sun was behind him.

John left the field and very slowly made his way home. Passing the Ampol garage on the highway, he stopped to buy a pair of ten-dollar sunglasses with cheap reflector lens. These made the trip home a bit easier by protecting his eyes a little from the burning rays of the sun.

You’re home early. I thought you’d be another couple of hours yet. John’s mother, Karen, sat in front of the ancient television set that featured in their barren lounge room. She passed a concerned eye over her only son. John turned a pallid face in her direction.

With her husband and John’s father, Jeffrey, having passed on, these last three years she was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain the modest accommodation they were living in. The generous insurance policy Jeff had taken out covered the hospital bills and treatment costs but did not leave much in the way of future building for his wife and heir. Karen had taken a job cleaning up each night and packing the shelves at the 727 store over on Joseph Road, but the income from that barely kept them in essentials, with enough remaining to pay for some food and bills. John had taken a paper run to go with the milk run he was already helping on. It looked as though one of those jobs would soon be lost as the milkman had decided to give up his run and leave it to people to purchase their milk from the corner convenience stores or the 727. Another bridge for Karen and John to cross.

But things could be worse, she had said, her favorite saying.

John was everything to Karen. Ever since he was born, she had devoted every possible moment to him, cooking and caring for him, washing and ironing, and encouraging any interests he developed, whether those interests were of an expensive nature, such as the time John wanted to become a writer. His parents purchased a computer complete with a word processing package, a printer, and enough paper to copy five full-length novels onto. After six months, the whole system was sold for less than half of what they had paid for it. Then there were simple things like a new pair of runners because his others were damaged after he’d worn them outside during a storm.

Karen was firm in the resolve that her son was going to make something of himself, and if that something cost every cent they had, then that was what they would pay.

Jeffrey at first had tried to dissuade Karen from her train of thought, but after innumerable arguments, he figured it might be best to leave it alone until she tired of paying out for John’s whims of fancy.

When Jeff died of bowel cancer, Karen’s resolve to give only the best to John became stronger—almost fanatical, the gossip hinted. She’d decided to use the money from the insurance to pay for his life’s ambition.

Then the bills started to appear.

First the hospital costs arrived for Jeff’s accommodation while he whittled away to nothing in that cold antiseptic room. The surgeon’s expenses closely followed, although the operation was a complete waste of time as all it succeeded in doing was prolonging Jeff’s tortured life a few more days. This was followed by the anesthesiologist’s charges and the laboratory expenses that confirmed that Jeff had bowel cancer, a fact they had known for some time, thank you very much. So, out of a total of nearly two hundred thousand dollars, Karen and John ended up with the very grand sum of thirty thousand, out of which house repayments, funeral expenses, and their future had to be funded. Karen lost hope and reverted to the one thing that made everything seem worthwhile: John.

Are you all right? You look a bit green around the gills.

Yeah, fine, Mom. I just felt a bit woozy standing in the sun, that’s all.

Well, make sure you cool yourself down. Don’t want you suffering from heatstroke.

Okay, Mom. I think I’ll go and lie down for a while.

Righto. I’ll come and check on you in a little bit.

John slowly climbed the stairs to the top floor and made his way to his bedroom. The curtains were open, and the sun’s rays poured through the window, filling the room with a deep yellow glow. He shuffled over and drew the drapes, blocking out the burning rays, then slid between the bedclothes, pulling them up and around his cooling neck. Despite the heat, his body was shivering with cold.

He’d started to feel colder as he walked home and passed it off as the coming of night, but as he lay under the blankets, he could feel his skin becoming clammy, not with sweat but with a cool dampness like that found in mangroves.

His mother came into the room about half an hour later to check on his progress, turning on the overhead light as she walked through the doorway. She was shocked to find her son curled up into a ball under three blankets. The only visible sign that it was her son beneath this mound of wool-knit blend was a tuft of brown hair poking out of a gap in the blankets near his pillow.

Johnny, are you all right, dear? You shouldn’t have all these blankets on.

She moved closer and saw that his hair was dripping wet and lying plastered to the exposed skull.

Come on, John, you’ll sweat yourself to death like this, she said, pulling the blankets off his curled body. Oh. My. God.

That was all Karen Smith could manage: Oh. My. God.

Her only son turned a shining face to her, shining from the covering of cold sweat that was running down it in torrents. Her body shadowed his but didn’t hide the fact that John’s once ruddy and lively complexion had been replaced by a drawn shapeless face that had lost all its previous color, being replaced by the gray color of ashes.

Karen Smith fell to the floor beside her son and cradled him in her arms, grimacing at the slimy touch of his skin against hers, but holding on just the same.

Oh, baby, she crooned. What’s the matter? What’s the matter?

2

N ESTLED IN THE back seat of an XB Falcon on top of Main Hill were Daryl Bell and Shelley Robinson. They were admiring the sights of downtown Main Hill, as well as the sights they had to offer each other. Daryl had bought the secondhand Falcon only two weeks earlier in Dubbo and had set up this little rendezvous as soon as he arrived back in town. After all, Shelley was his main squeeze, and it didn’t seem right that he should christen the back seat with someone else. So here they were.

Daryl.

Hmm?

What’s that light?

What light? Daryl was finding it very hard to concentrate on her questions with his mind firmly fixed on more pressing matters.

That light over by the cemetery.

With a grunt and a sigh, Daryl lifted himself up to look through the front window toward the cemetery.

Don’t see no light there, baby. Don’t you worry your pretty little head about it. Let’s get back to it, eh?

No. I saw this light sort of hovering over the graveyard. Shelley sat up, covered her bare breasts, and looked worriedly at the cemetery. Daryl, pissed off, roughly sat up beside her and stared angrily towards the cemetery. They sat that way for the next five minutes.

Look! Shelley yelled excitedly. There it is again. She pointed at a spot in roughly the center of the graveyard; her finger was shaking because of her glee and a certain amount of fright.

Daryl followed her wavering digit and stared in amazement at the small white light suspended above the cemetery grounds. It didn’t move; it just seemed to hang there. It reminded Daryl of the way the beam from a torch hung in the air when kids played spotlight among the trees behind his parents’ house.

What is it? Shelley asked, slightly scared.

Don’t know. Could be a UFO come to take you away for tests to see how an earth woman reproduces. With that he grabbed hold of Shelley and dragged her, giggling, down to the seat.

3

T HE REST OF the weekend passed with John gradually sliding further into a sickness with symptoms such as delirium and an unusual thirst for thick syrupy liquids. Karen had thrown away three one-liter cans of tomato juice by Saturday night. Watching helplessly as her son grew weaker by the minute from not eating anything solid, she was becoming increasingly concerned for his life.

Monday dawned a bright hot day. John lay in bed with the curtains drawn to block any sunlight that might try to infiltrate his inner sanctum.

His mother opened the door. How are you this morning, John?

Not so good, Mom. I think I might stay home and try to shake this off.

Okay, I’ll ring the university. A look of strong concern passed over her face, then was gone. What’s happened to your voice? It sounds like you’re talking with a mouth full of water.

Don’t know. It’s been like this since I came down with this. Must be something to do with all the liquids I’ve been taking, I guess.

Yes, I suppose so.

Monday passed with John lying in his darkened room drinking his liquids, refusing the food his mother brought up to him, vomiting any that he accepted to please her. Huge black bags had formed under his eyes, making them look as if they were sitting in a deep pit. His thinning body was perpetually covered in a thin sheen of perspiration. Karen bathed him twice daily to try to keep him clean, but to no avail. Not five minutes after she finished, he would begin shivering and sweating. His pallor had faded from ashen to an almost transparent texture with a yellow tinge. Karen often thought she could see his muscles working his jaw when he spoke to her, but then she shook the feeling off, blaming the effect on the shaded light. Darkness always plays tricks with your mind, she told herself as she sat watching the blank television screen while her son lay in the room above her, sweating and shivering and, perhaps, dying. Yes, maybe even that. She sobbed into her palms.

How is John doing, Karen?

Okay, I guess, Jan. He just seems to be so weak, Karen confided to her neighbor. I’ve had to keep him out of uni all this week.

So I noticed, Jan Cameron replied a little sarcastically. It didn’t go unnoticed by Karen.

Many a time over backyard fence gossip sessions, Jan Cameron had shown her contempt for Karen and the way she had squandered Jeff’s insurance money, or so Jean insisted on telling everyone. Not that Mrs. J. Cameron was any sort of saint herself, oh no.

It was quite well-known within the tight-knit community of Main Hill that Jan had some dangerous liaisons of her own. One in particular concerned the local womanizer, respected chemist Michael McCaul. That one provided many a happy half hour under the blow-dryer at the hair salon.

Well, he has been very sick, and I don’t think that it’s right to send an ill child someplace where the cold can spread so easily. It wouldn’t be very responsible of me, would it?

No, I suppose not. So, it’s just a cold, is it?

I don’t know.

Hasn’t Doctor Hart been consulted yet?

No.

Whyever not?

I don’t think it is that serious. Nothing that a few days in bed won’t fix, she lied.

Must be more serious than a cold, though, for you not to let him out of the house. I’d have thought sunshine would have helped his recovery—sped it up. Her prying was getting to the point where Karen felt like telling her to shut up and mind her own business.

Darren Cameron, Jan and Roger’s eldest son, walked out of the house, jogged along the path to the front gate, and announced that he was going in to see John.

Don’t you catch his cold, Jan called after her son while passing a sidelong glance at Karen. It went unnoticed as Karen watched Darren enter her own yard.

Trepidation filled her heart. She sensed something was not quite right with her son, but she didn’t know what it could possibly be. She sat up late at night worrying over this problem and also the problem of whether she should ring Doctor Hart. God knows she couldn’t afford to pay the bill if he had to go to the hospital or something like that, but it was her son’s health she was playing with here. Not one of his whims or fantasies; this was the real thing—a matter of life and death, if you like.

When do you think— Jan was cut off midsentence as Karen turned quickly on her heels and returned to the house to check on John and Darren. Something was definitely happening; she could feel it in the air, on the ground, under her very skin. Something big was on its way. Or was it already here?

A light knocking on his bedroom door made John instinctively draw the covers higher over his thinning body. The door squeaked on its hinges as Darren pushed it open.

Hey, how you doin’, bro?

John pulled the covers up further when he realized the person entering the room was not his mother. His eyes appeared as large yellow saucers from under the bedclothes. Darren walked straight toward the window and flicked back the curtains.

Why you got these closed, man? Haven’t you heard? It’s summer out there. Darren turned to face his friend and was pushed hard against the far wall as the bedroom door was slammed shut by invisible hands. Something was holding him pinned against the plasterboard. He squirmed around, unable to break the grip. John watched him from over the top of the blankets. His eyes twitched between Darren hanging prone against the wall and the rest of the bedroom, which appeared to be empty. Something in Darren’s stomach, however, told him that someone or something was in the room with them.

Hey, Jo … John. What’s going on?

John sat up, letting the blankets fall to his waist, his yellowed eyes staring blankly at his friend. For one fleeting moment Darren thought Smeagol from Lord of the Rings was sitting there, then something moved in Darren’s peripheral vision, something not quite solid, a misty shape. Darren turned to look at the something, but it had disappeared; only the closed door leading to the hallway and to freedom filled his sight. John had started to giggle; this turned into a laugh. Darren looked at his friend and tried to scream as John’s eyes rolled back into his head, showing the whites, but nothing escaped.

Something scraped against Darren’s legs, moving the jeans he was wearing. His scrotum constricted. John continued to stare at him with blank white eyes. The scraping sensation moved upward along his legs and stretched across his stomach before working its way around his neck, where it gripped him and began to squeeze. Darren’s eyes bulged as the thing tightened its grip, restricting his breath. John’s laughter grew louder and louder until it reverberated off the walls. Surely somebody would hear, Darren thought. The thing again strengthened its hold. John laughed and laughed, manic, rocking back and forth on his bed.

Darren saw a black curtain drawing in front of his eyes as his brain registered that his body couldn’t survive on 0 percent oxygen. Just before the curtain fell completely, Darren saw someone standing in front of him—someone with one eye missing and with something crawling over his red face. This individual’s hand was stretched around Darren’s throat. The curtain dropped.

Karen ran up the stairs, worried about the lack of noise coming from John’s bedroom. Not in the least usual for two young boys, not even when one was ill. She knocked on her son’s bedroom door and entered before being asked in.

Darren was sitting at the end of John’s bed, whispering something to him. Both boys turned to Karen, not surprised by her sudden entrance.

Oh, hi, Mom, John said. He appeared to be slightly brighter than he had been for the past few days. Darren must have been having some sort of positive effect on him after all. Good, she thought.

How’re you going, John?

I seem to be a little better, thank you.

Darren must have helped.

Very much so.

Karen turned her attention to her son’s friend, the apparent savior of her son’s descending lifeline.

What did you do? she quizzed him. I’ve been trying to get him up for ages, but he never responded.

Oh, nothing really. Just talked.

Well, I love the job you’ve done. Would you like to stay for dinner?

A quick glance passed between the friends, a flick of eyes, a glance Karen wasn’t sure she’d seen or not, before Darren answered, No.

Okay, maybe some other time.

Yes. Darren got shakily to his feet. Karen took two brisk steps toward him in fear that he might fall over. Then he regained his balance. He looked at John. See ya, man.

John nodded weakly before sliding back under the cover of the blankets.

How was John? Jan asked Darren as he reentered the house through the kitchen door.

Much better now, thanks.

Good. You must have cheered him up. All that fussing his mother does over him would be enough to depress anybody.

Darren headed toward the stairs leading upstairs to his bedroom. I suppose so, Mom.

I guess John will be back at university soon? She waited for an answer, but when none was forthcoming, curiosity guided her upstairs to see what her boy was up to.

Jan found Darren’s bedroom door pulled almost all the way closed, only a thin sliver of space between door and jamb indicating it was still open. She pushed it open slowly, opening onto his darkened room.

Why is your room so dark? Darren, where are you? She squinted against the gloom, with the bed, desk, and chest of drawers merging into one black mass with no specific shape, only a kind of lumpy substance that seemed to move before her eyes. Darren was nowhere to be seen. A trick of the light, she thought, moving to open the curtains. As she was nearing the drawn drapes, something moved to her left. She turned to face the shape that was Darren’s bed. Jan moved cautiously toward the place where a large hump lifted the bedclothes to resemble the knoll out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

Darren?

No answer came from the lump.

Jan thought of the scene from the movie where the scientists played a series of notes to communicate with the aliens. Perhaps there was an alien sitting in Darren’s bed, chewing on what was left of her son. Don’t be so stupid. He’s only teasing you because he knows you’re afraid of strange things. It’s not as if he hasn’t done it before.

Darren, this is not funny! Come out right now, Darren!

But I am out, Mom.

Jan spun around on her heels to find her son standing not two feet behind her, smiling strangely. She stepped back, her legs touching the end of the mattress.

What are you doing, Darren? Why did you sneak up on me like that? Where did you come from?

Been here all the time.

Is this one of your sick jokes?

No, Mom. I’ve got someone I’d like you to meet. He raised an open hand, palm up, toward the bed behind his mother.

Stop it, Darren. It’s gone far enough. She looked over her shoulder at the mound under the bedclothes. Had the bedclothes moved, sort of sliding back and forth. Yes, she thought they had. She ordered her mind to stop playing around. It was only one of Darren’s stupid practical jokes. She faced her son. I know you’ve only got pillows under there. Now let me go, and get ready to come down for your dinner.

Darren stared at his mother, and that was when she began to get scared. Darren was never like this; even his most diabolical jokes could be called off if he was told they weren’t going to work or had gone too far. Especially if it looked like they might hurt or upset somebody. But this time was different. He seemed intent on carrying the charade through even though she had made it clear she wasn’t impressed. Something was definitely wrong. Then his eyes changed color, their normal hazelnut brown being replaced by a milky whiteness. Huge cataracts appeared to grow even as the two of them stood there arguing. Jan felt a scream building in her chest, but before it could work its way free, Darren had reached out and pushed her backward onto the bed.

Her arms windmilled in the air as she toppled over, her legs buckling at the knees. A scream was sucked back into her chest as Jan gasped for air. Then she hit the bed; the mattress cushioned her fall as her upper torso cannoned into the lump. It gave way with a soft sponginess similar to that of a pile of cushions.

As she suspected, the lump was pillows. Her demeanor lightened as she realized her son had stuffed the mound with pillows after all.

Now that was hardly worth it, was it, Darren?

Yes it was. The joke hasn’t finished yet.

What do you mean?

You haven’t met my friend, my guest, yet.

Jan’s heart gained fifty pounds as it plummeted to the bottom of her stomach. Your guest?

Mom, I’d like you to meet Corrine Black, he said, beckoning toward the mound.

Jan scrambled as far away from the lump as possible, but in doing so she dragged the covers off the thing—Corrine—hiding beneath it.

Corrine, as named by her son, was exposed by the shifting blankets as a squat woman dressed in white satin. Corrine sat calmly smiling at Jan, the same smile her son had displayed not long before. Corrine’s hair was matted and damp and held together with a mold-spotted red ribbon. Her eyes were puffy and were the same milky color as Darren’s. Jan stared stupidly at the guest, wondering how on earth Darren had managed to get her up here when Jan had been inside the house all day. Except for when she was talking to Karen. Yes, that must be it. While she was talking to Karen, Darren must have brought Corrine in through