Bloodalcohol

By Michael Botur

From the author of The Devil Took Her comes a collection of ten fresh tales of horror.

A South Island road trip turns murderous as a dangerous drifter smells a secret in her co-dependent pal.

Millionaire Kiwi conservationists learn too late how little Mother Nature cares for mankind.

A Far North teen confronts the terrifying truth about why Mum separated from Dad years ago.

In his most powerful collection yet, Botur challenges you to look at life through the lens of horror. Struggling to bond with a savage stepchild, losing your son to a gang of ghostly boys, doing desperate things to get famous, battling bullies, surviving school, chasing elite status in the medical world, and getting good with God.

With a unique flavour of New Zealand, the stories in BLOODALCOHOL are bittersweet, horrifying, tender – and astonishingly original.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Next Chapter
• Release date: Oct 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798890082343

Book preview

Bloodalcohol

BLOODALCOHOL

Ten Tales

MICHAEL BOTUR

Copyright (C) 2023 Michael Botur

Layout design and Copyright (C) 2023 by Next Chapter

Published 2023 by Next Chapter

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the author’s permission.

Dedication and Acknowledgements

In the second quarter of 2023, I realised that Bloodalcohol deserved an amazing cover, deserved expert dramaturg Gregory King to give me advice on how to maximise the drama in each story, and that I needed to find the money for printed copies to send to fans, reviewers and film-makers to get them interested in adaptation – cause it’s not as if publishers pay, these days.

It was a poor and pricey time of the year on our expensive islands– crazy Zimbabwe-style inflation, eight bucks for a supermarket lettuce – so I carefully budgeted how much it might cost to give the world a taste of Bloodalcohol.

I ran a crowdfunding campaign May-June 2023, and thanks to some lovely, generous people, it was completed ahead of schedule. I am deeply grateful to these fine folk for bringing the campaign to completion.

Please can we have halos and knighthoods for these wonderful donors and supporters:

Andrea McIntosh, Jennifer Harris, Miriam Larsen-Barr, Jade Williams, Jesse Who Came To My House That Time, Chevaun Nel, Bill Ruys, Sally Botur, Mere Teinaki, James Merry, Gary J Davies, Mark MacManus, Jenny Purchase, Rachael Botur, Scott Butler, Jamieson Milnes, Denver Grenell, Jared McDowell, Lauren Roche, Lauren Hawes (my Hillmorton Homegirl), and especially Kiri Mayers.

Thank you so much.

Love, Mike B

Praise for The Devil Took Her: Tales of Horror (2022)

"With The Devil Took Her, Michael Botur has created a series of wonderfully unsettling stories that fill the reader with ill-ease. Settle in for some energetic, evocative, jump-off-the-page writing and stories that do what all good horror should do - repulse and intrigue." - Kathryn Burnett - Award-winning Screenwriter/Playwright

Gritty, unsettling and utterly intoxicating. - Steffanie Holmes - USA Today bestselling author - speaker - heavy metal maiden

What I loved about this collection is that I didn’t know where I was being taken. Botur kept me guessing. The hem of the dress isn’t being lifted, he tears it off at every opportunity. It’s rare to read an author that puts it all out there, straying well and truly outside the boundaries of today’s PC societal views. Botur invites backlash in, and I respect that. There are so many great tales in here, all written with panache and a street cred that can only be garnered, I feel, from experience, which makes me like this guy even more. He trades grammar convention for a stream of consciousness that pulls you into each story, a rollercoaster with a fresh destination Botur hides in each telling with aplomb. - Scott Butler, Screenwriter, Shortland Street

Michael Botur’s debut collection of horror stories ‘The Devil Took Her’ takes the horror genre into the zeitgeist with verve and moxie. Botur has no qualms about being ‘woke’ in any shape or form in his writing and creates, embraces and elevates characters who are female, male, queer, Asian, Ethiopian and American with equal skill and respect. He spatters his stories with detail and layers of popular culture, social nuance and infuses the motivations of his characters with empathy no matter what bloodthirsty and dire scenarios play out. Botur’s energetic prose and clever and compelling storytelling deserves recognition and a wider audience. His visceral and visual tales could and should be successfully adapted for the screen and as a first time horror writer Botur is definitely a new New Zealand talent to keep an eyeball out for. - Linda Niccol, Award-winning screenwriter/director

Prolific, dope-as-tits writer Michael Botur is back, with a new collection. His writing in these twelve stories is pure, no-holds-barred revelry in the weird and genuinely scary. Each story is highly imaginative and, most importantly, fun to read.

-Jeremy Roberts, Gingernuts of Horror (2022)

Aside from the incredible inventiveness of its plot, Botur’s writing sings at times with a fluency and vivacity. - Jenny Purchase, Kete NZ Books (2022)

"Don't expect your traditional creepy tales: Michael's use of modern concepts and topical themes puts his stories in a different class, and he knows about the pace of language. He has mastered the use of the accelerator, gears and brake in this engine of writing, and he takes corners at just the right line and speed […] The Devil Took Her: Tales of Horror is another strong string to a well-strung bow." - Paul Brooks, NZ Herald / Whanganui Chronicle

The author has such a unique and utterly phenomenal way of transferring human emotions, bizarre and disturbing situations into written words that transform superbly into cinematic and graphic motion picture nightmares not only for the tragic and wonderfully penned characters but mostly for you, dear reader. Probably the most terrifying collection of chilling fiction I've read in 2022. Trust me, you will not forget these stories before the end of the year. Pan Book Reviews (2022)

The tag line on the cover promises Tales of Horror and he truly delivers on that promise. The imagery is tough at times, with moments of disgust as much as lingering, visceral explorations of unsettling situations that stay long into the night. […] There is no denying the quality of the writing that Botur brings to the fore in this collection. Overall, the skill of the writing is undeniable. The content is heavy and at times hard to keep going because of its brutal, unsettling and overall horrific tendencies, but there is such a pull with the quality of the narrative. It’s a little like a car crash, you don’t want to look - but you just can’t help yourself. - Chris Reed, NZ Book Lovers

I loved this book. Horror with a side of rare clinical detachment. Great prose and a wonderful sense of just where to end a story. –Lauren Roche, Bestselling NZ novelist

Horror fans rejoice. Award-winning Kiwi horror author Michael Botur is back with this skin-crawling good collection of horror tales. Botur’s voicey style is filled with quintessential Kiwi flavour (and setting). The writing draws you in and doesn’t let you go, no matter what you think of the protagonist (of which many descend into hells of their own making—quite satisfyingly in some cases!) […] I still find myself thinking about these stories weeks after I turned the final page. – Nikky Lee, Award-winning sci-fi and horror novelist

Praise for Crimechurch and other books

"A brutal novel full of horrible people doing horrible things, leaving themselves no obvious path forward or out, Crimechurch isn't going to be to everyone's taste. So dark, so populated by downtrodden, desperate people I'm not even sure you could call this noir - there's something breathtaking, relentless, unapologetic […] It's a wild wild wild ride, and this reader found it utterly fascinating despite the confrontation, brutality, and dysfunction." – Karen Chisholm, Australia & NZ Crime Fiction Reviews

Botur has claimed for himself a piece of literary territory occupied by the desperate, downtrodden and damned. - Paul Little

I’m exhausted and overwhelmed reading this harsh tale of gang life in Christchurch, NZ, and I feel as if I have just emerged from a freakish carnival roller coaster ride. Moments of intense graphic violence, relieved sporadically when I uttered a laugh at unexpected, but totally appropriate, humour. The book is populated by inhumane and psychopathic gang leaders, and those who would do their bidding, who occasionally show a glimpse of sentiment. A bungee-cord ride from start to finish. Gritty, raw, and bleak don’t even begin to describe the general tone of this remarkable account given life by the author. […] This is not a book I will easily forget. Marty, Winston et al will lodge in my brain for a long time. – Jamie’s Reviews

If I had to sum up this novel in a few words, I’d say, intense from start to finish." Yes, there are a few darkly comical moments, but they only allow us to catch our breath. Author Michael Botur minces no words, respecting no boundaries of subject matter, no niceties of language in telling his tale of youthful rebellion in modern day Christchurch, New Zealand. From page one, the author dives below the peaceful and picturesque surface of the city into a rebellious nether world of alcohol, drugs, thievery and destructive—often self-destructive— violence. […] Overall, Crimechurch is a fast-paced page-turner, full of the kind of twists and turns—and surprise outcomes—readers of modern crime fiction relish." – John Timms

"Reading Michael Botur’s books brings you face-to-face with characters you are unlikely to find anywhere else in contemporary NZ fiction. Fiction rooted in the world of multicultural Kiwi scuzbuckets and hobnockers. The lowlife crim’ element, if you’re struggling with those terms. Crimechurch is a story of redemption, though. The book is a vivid, wild piece of imagination – or is it? It’s so convincingly written that you can’t help but wonder – maybe Mr Botur was born with a criminal mind and should probably be behind bars, along with these Punks, runaways, bikers, and losers. […] Botur doesn’t waste a sentence. The reader is swept along, moment-by-moment – with fantastic, graphic descriptions of highly charged scenes, as the arc of the time-shifting story plays out, and all the characters meet Mr. Fate." – Jeremy Roberts, Award-winning NZ poet

"Crimechurch can be brutal, nasty, with moments of humour and some clever use of language. I read this book in one sitting, not daring to interrupt the flow or decrease the story’s speed by lifting my eyes from the page. No matter where you come from, or where you’re planning to end up, this book will have you thinking thoughts you never thought possible, and finding empathy with characters you’ll probably never want to meet." – Paul Brooks, Wanganui Midweek

"A fascinating book… the nearest thing you could compare it to would be Pulp Fiction. Michael is a very powerful author. He’s the type of guy that rolls up his sleeves and puts his heart and soul into it. He’s so involved in what he wants to say. … An excellent book…. He doesn’t conform to nobody for nothing." - In Brief Book & Film Reviews

Gritty, violent and captivating. A tense story of life on the seedier side of Christchurch. Botur writes with authority and humour.– Anna Willett, Author

Michael Botur’s work grabs you by the throat and won’t let you go. His stories throb with what feel like real people, real conversations, real moments of pain and hope, misunderstanding and reconciliation, remorse and surprise. —Maggie Trapp, New Zealand Listener, on True? (2019)

Written in unvarnished street language about the rougher side of life - drugs, jail and death, the book shows rare bravery and honesty […] The thing about Michael Botur is his voice is very much a street voice. His language is street language: it’s raw, it’s coarse, it’s obscene. It’s tough and it’s confronting […] There are gems– some of them are absolutely great. —Ian Telfer, Radio New Zealand on True? (2019)

"One of the most original story writers of his generation in New Zealand.

—Patricia Prime, Takahē 86, on Spitshine (2016)

As a former journalist he has perfected the skill of telling a story and evoking emotion. Botur is a clever writer. He has mastered the art of leaving things unsaid.

—Rebekah Fraser, New Zealand Book Lovers

Contents

Synopses

Bloodalcohol

We Created a Country

Weeks in the Woodshed

Butterfly Tongue

The Beast Released

Lossboys

Starving

Influencer

Racing Hearts

Luke’s Lesson

About the Author

Synopses

Bloodalcohol

A South Island road trip turns murderous as alcoholic drifter Tracey bullies her lover, the giant Adam, into killing for the ultimate drink – child blood – while Adam fights to keep a secret: his young son.

We Created a Country

Millionaire business owners Ross and Jennifer fall in love while trying to restore Northland to its pristine natural state through conservation and cleanups - but after borrowing billions to ban development from the Far North, the nature lovers learn what Mother Earth really thinks about mankind.

Weeks in the Woodshed

AJ was a young South Auckland teacher trying to provide for his wife and baby. Now, he’s had his privilege taken away, convicted of a crime while working at school – a crime he’s struggling to admit, a crime for which he’s been sentenced to complete Community Service in a remote countryside barn – and a crime which comes with unending punishment.

Butterfly Tongue

Lonely Kaitaia teen Venus asks her separated parents for the same simple birthday present every year. Venus just wants her hardened biker mum Marija to talk to her Dad again – and for Dad, a smooth-talking reporter, to be more sensitive with the women he romances. However, as 18 approaches and she counts down towards the end of school, Venus is forced to confront the terrifying truth about why Mum left Dad in the first place.

The Beast Released

Lonely Whangarei computer technician Christopher takes the bratty 11-year-old son of a woman he’s trying to impress on a hiking expedition through Northland jungle to bond with the boy as they explore an old plane crash site – until the lads learn that a plane crash isn’t the worst thing that can happen in remote forest.

Lossboys

Busy Bay of Islands teacher Āwhina struggles to stop her son Nick sneaking out at night to join a gang of suicidal schoolboys who have discovered the ultimate thrill: killing oneself and frolicking as a ‘Lossboy.’ However, once the Lossboys take everything from her – including her son – Āwhina starts standing up against her untouchable tormentors.

Starving

Twentysomething singer-songwriter Anna Shrupali is desperate to make it to the top of Auckland’s performing arts world and escape the K Road rat race. But when husband-and-wife patrons offer to make Anna and her twin brother rich and famous, the deal takes Anna far outside her comfort zone and threatens to turn her into something monstrous.

Influencer

13-year-old Christchurch vandals Richie and Sammy learn the limits of their friendship after they are influenced on weekend missions by the mysterious Jacob, who seems to never leave school. After Jacob takes a prank way too far, the boys part ways and Richard denies what he did until years later Jacob reappears, reminding Richie if he doesn’t play, he’s going to pay.

Racing Hearts

We call it the Airing Cupboard: the South Auckland chapel where I counsel former doctors suspended for breaking down on the job.

You see, I'm a screw-up just like them. I'm on probation from the hospital’s Review Board and I don't know if I'll ever be allowed to walk the wards as an anaesthesiologist again.

It’s because I raced too hard and I fell. Fell in love with a doctor as competitive as me. And we both fell in love with danger – until one of us fell in too deep.

Luke’s Lesson

Life is hard for Hamilton brothers Luke and Danny, whose father is a former addict trying to go straight. After Luke and Danny are inspired by a charismatic carnival pastor who gives them Bible comics warning of eternal damnation, Luke tries to improve his favour with God by brutally cleansing the sins of everyone he can reach – beginning with his family.

Bloodalcohol

1. MOTUEKA

Smiling apple postcard. Smiling apple-pickers.

‘If you dicks won’t let me party then FUCK THIS PLACE.’

The bony tornado biffed her wine bottle at the counsellor and knocked her folding chair over. Everyone in the hall went silent. ‘By the way, this party SUCKS.’

All that force packed into a tiny body in a skimpy singlet. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. A quarter of my size; completely in charge.

Her rage-out happened in the First Presbyterian, Main Street, Motueka, 30 minutes into one of the AA meetings Probation made us go to every week. We were sweaty and agitated, peeling and unpeeling our nametag-stickers, trying to not think about tangy bourbon and party ice. January, hottest month of the year, hottest end of the South Island. The sun was pressing on all sides and the room was punishing us for being desperate alcoholics. This chick was the only one with the guts to actually pull a bottle from her handbag– which is what’d got her told off by the counsellor.

‘WHO’S COMIN WITH ME FOR A ACTUAL PARTY?’ the angry little woman bellowed, kicking her way to the exit, pausing to sneer at the sticker on my chest reading Hi! My name is ___Big Adam___ and I’m an alcoholic.

She chucked her handbag on her shoulder, stormed out. Didn’t even get her attendance sheet signed. Leader of the resistance, for real.

She had one foot still inside the church hall when she spotted me, spoke at me, pretty much adopted my giant arse.

‘You’re coming, eh big boy. You don’t want these boring fucks slowing your shit down.’

I’m a fairly solid unit, six-six, 130 kilos, and I could’ve wrapped her in a bear hug, hauled her back in. Instead, I grabbed my keys and followed her out to the parking lot. Crazy little whitegirl was going to have a fast life. I wanted to protect her. Maybe have me an adventure too.

She fetched this black convertible from the parking lot, screeched to a stop one foot in front of me. I squeezed in, finding a place for my big python-arms, seatbelt battling to get across my belly. Wild Woman got me to hold the wheel while she gulped shots of Jim Beam from the bottle, me shaking my head, laughing ‘Jeeeez, man, if Probation finds out I skipped AA I’m in so much shit.’

‘So?’ she went, hooning through an orange light, ‘Stay ahead of the haters, Big Adam.’

We cruised past professional-looking wankers on the porch of a swank restaurant, enjoying a single Golden Bay Chardonnay.

Up ahead, the Vicar of Liquor sign arose.

I’d never seen anyone use a trolley at a liquor store before, or seen anyone pack the car boot with 400 bucks worth of piss and drive back to Happy Apple Campground, rear axle sagging, slowing for speed bumps. I’d definitely never seen anybody hand out free bottles of Woodstock to a grateful mob like Santa.

But that was us. A year in hell with a woman whose nametag said Hi! My name is ____Tracey____ and I’m an alcoholic.

Shoulda slapped a second sticker on her.

And I’m about to soak your life in booze and blood.

Reason I was up Motueka-way was I was trying to give some space to Karla the ex and Wallace, my boy; well, I’d been ordered to give ‘em space, actually. Each day at the orchard that Jan I’d pluck around thirty apple trees, guide the fruit down, not chucking it too hard so the supe wouldn’t dock my pay. Get a sweat up during the day; come down feeling less fat, feeling appreciated when the bosses came round to collect our bins. Tracey started staying at the campground too and we’d all cool down each night after work with a smoke and a box of Canadian Clubs and there would be Crazey Trazey, shitfaced, dancing on tables, mis-hearing people, starting fights, retarded laugh. Life of the party. If we filled a hundred two-tonne bins per week together, everybody got paid pretty decent money. Paid more than being a Southland signwriter at any rate, plus it was less stress-y, like I could stand up among the shining leaves, toke, sip liquor, eat decent apples, rock out to tunes.

I’s spending the season in Mot figurin out how to get my train back on the tracks cause my baby mama and her Nan had got a protection order meaning I wasn’t allowed down south in Invercargill else I’d get in trouble. It was supposedly about my car crash on Christmas Eve, rollin’ the Holden while I was liquored up, injuring Karla, endangering our son and shit. Truth be told, her family had wanted me gone before the crash anyway, cause of my drinkin. Dead, if possible. After the crash Uncle Wiremu had pulled me into the hospital café and poured out my flask into a trash can and told me either I had to leave town or he was gonna get the Road Knights to kneecap me. Didn’t matter that I’d paid for a decent house, three-ply toilet paper, a heated towel rail, automatic door opener so Karla could cram the garage with Wally’s basketballs and skipping ropes and whatnot. Uncle Wiremu emailed me a bus ticket from his phone and told me to go before sundown and that was us. House given to Karla. Me, sent away to the naughty north end of the island with no one to love me.

Cept Tracey, that was.

This Tracey chick was a leader in the campground cause of two things, I found out: Rage and riches. As in, Tracey pays for everyone’s piss to buy influence and anyone that wasn’t on the Tracey Train got a growling, didn’t matter how staunch – team leaders, Noise Control, Samoan chiefs, prickly Mobsters, stabby skinheads. She mentioned a couple times, when we were on a sandbar in the middle of the booze-ocean, that after she’d partied her way through Happy Apple, she had a plan to go on the epic-est South Island road trip in history and I should totally come with. If I helped her out, I’d get free piss, parties, pills and someone to occasionally hug. Seemed like a sweet deal. Maybe I’d even walk away with a bit of coin to buy Wallace some decent prezzies. Maybe Karla would respect me again and drop the protection order.

The Tracey Tap, campground people called her – cause alcohol flowed from her and peeps were itching for a drink between paydays. The Tracey Tap had an account at Vicar of Liquor – thanks to this allowance from some old father who people said they’d seen visiting her, gripping her over in the woods or something – and twice a week she’d fetch a trunkload of Cody’s and Cruisers, Steiny, Stella, Smirnoff, giving her enough power to be loose with anyone, grabbing smokes out of Island boys’ mouths, aggravating the Israelis, cussing out the campground manager, taking the Indians’ chicken from their barbecue.

She gave more than she took, which was why she narrowly avoided getting smashed over. Trace would use Daddy’s Dollars to put on these Happy Apple parties and every cunt would come, big fuck-off rental sound system, people moshing in the swamp, bonfire, pig-on-a-spit, DOOFDOOFDOOF, backpackers and Islanders shaking their dreadlocks. Tracey made those broke-arse summer nights slide by, did she what.

End of Feb we had the party to end all parties. Peeps were celebrating filling our 500th bin of the season and we’d started on the piss and pills and pipes just after lunch so by dinner time most people were fairly sozzled, and when it actually got dark people started coma’ing out. Round 11 or so Tracey was dancing on the roof of this Mustang belonging to these Mongrel Mobsters who we mostly hadn’t had a problem with, two old blokes and a nineteen-ish grandson, winner of some amateur MMA/kickboxing title who wore his thick gold belt round the campground to psych people out. They told Trace to get the fuck off their ride and Tracey laughed right into their Ray-Bans, You softcocks don’t have the balls to smack a woman, hopping down and disappearing while the gangsters muttered about revenge and loaded a sawnoff with a red bandana wrapped round it and Kickboxer Boy pulled me aside and asked me if I wanted a one-out, telling me as I walked away that I was a pussy for letting my missus represent.

Epic night, that, lotta wild behaviour, but the fire had winked out by 4am and everyone was sleeping.

Everyone cept Tracey and me, that was.

I was taking a piss under the full moon when I looked up and there she was, in the tree. Legs wrapped around a bough. Perched. Plotting.

She glided down while I frantically zipped up my cock. Gave me a look that said I Want You Inside Me.

‘Hurry up,’ she went, tugging me towards her tent.

After she bit my neck and I came, we pulled our undies on and Trace became all business. Stuck a spear-tipped finger under my chin. Kaleidoscope eyes. Swirling gold.

‘Come. Get mama something to eat.’

My nervous balls floated up into my throat as I followed Trace through the moonlit blue campground, prowling between caravans and tents, arriving at the Mustang.

Fuck. Tent of the Mongrel Mobs. All three of them packed in there like possums, wearing their sunglasses as they snored.

We could hear a weed whacker revving in one granddad’s throat. The other one, mumbling. Kickboxer Boy hugged his gold belt like a teddy bear. Their boots stuck out the end of the tent.

Tracey hefted a thick rattling block into my arms. I was too woozy to make it out. A car engine?

‘Crush the cunt.’ Tracey had given me a 36-pack of beer bottles, so heavy I swooned a little.

‘TRACE, WHAT THE FU- ’

‘OI. Crush his fuckin head or I’ll crush yours.’

The box had to weigh nearly 20 kilos. Pointy cardboard corners. Could pop a man’s eye out. I tried to peer through the tent-fabric at where the guys’ heads were. Saw the shape of a man’s face. One of the grandfathers. No helmet.

I gave Tracey a look that said I seriously don’t wanna do this.

She met me with golden swirling eyes. Seized my arms for me. Threw the weight down.

Slammed the box on his watermelon-skull.

The tent jerked and shivered. Something oily oozed through the nylon, into the blue-black grass.

‘Move. I’ll show you how it’s done.’

Tracey hefted a cinderblock the Mongrels had used to hold down the lid of their ice chest. She dropped it on the head of a second man. Wet crunch, like a dropped tray of eggs.

Tracey moved around the front of the tent, next. Unzipped the opening. Kneeled on the shoulders of the youngster, Mister Kickboxer. Strangled him in his sleep while he pawed her with useless seal flippers, puke oozing out his nostrils.

Tracey emerged from the tent, panting.

‘Take their shit, c’mon.’

‘Eh?’

‘Wanna end up like that cunt, Adam?’

I tried to swallow. Felt Tracey sticking sharpness into my throat. The campground silent as ice.

I took their wallets and money-rolls. Tracey stole their weed, their booze, tobacco. She toed their shotgun with a smirk, tipping it over like it was a useless hunk of scrap. We didn’t talk. We’d both ripped off people before.

Stamps. Stamps tucked in wallets. That was what I really cared about. I pulled those wallets inside-out. Managed to score three postage stamps. Three postcards home to my son. I wasn’t allowed to ring or visit, but there was no law against sending mail.

I moved metres away, calling her name, desperate to disappear. But Trace had one last thing to do.

Kickboxer Boy wasn’t fully dead, just spasming, quivering. She straddled his chest like she was riding him.

Tracey leaned in. I watched, arms full of loot. Tracey was giving him mouth-to-mouth, it looked like.

Then she tossed her head back, lips toward the moon.