Brisneyland by Night – Part Three

by Angela Slatter

Ziggi dropped me home. I handed him a wad of the notes Bela had given me. Somehow it didn’t feel like my money. ‘Same time tonight.’

He nodded; drove off. I limped up the path. The jasmine was thick on the front fence, overpoweringly sweet.

‘Verity? Can you get my ball?’ Between the fence palings a small hand appeared.

I picked up the ball. ‘Birthday present?’

‘Uh-huh. But I like yours best.’ I’d given her a book of fairytales – the proper ones, where little children are eaten by wolves with no hope of rescue. Her mother had frowned, but Lizzie ate the stories up.

I dropped the ball over the fence.

‘Thanks, Verity. Can I come over?’

‘Not today, my friend. Maybe on the weekend.’

‘Mmmmm-huh.’

Inside, the hot air almost smothered me, so I quickly opened all the windows. The breeze did its thing and soon the place was bearable. I sat in one of the faded green chairs on the back deck and waited.

I stretched my leg out and rested it on the top of the table. I looked at the jacaranda tree in the backyard and nodded to the extremely fat kookaburra perched on one of its limbs. A movement caught at the edge of my vision.

‘It’s rude not to knock. It’s also rude to keep my house key since we broke up.’

Bela sat. ‘Someone might need to help you.’

‘Your kind of help, I can do without.’

‘And a big hello to you, too.’ He nodded at my leg. ‘Sore? I can fix it, you know.’

I touched his face. ‘Your price is too high.’

‘So, answers?’

‘Plenty of ideas. No answers.’

‘Why am I paying you?’

‘No idea.’ I told him about last night’s tour.

He sighed. ‘There hasn’t been activity like this since your father.’

I closed my eyes.

There’s a market for everything.

My mother was Normal and gone before I knew her. My father was Weyrd. For a long time I didn’t know there was a difference. The everyday things were salt in corners to soak up curses; bake blood into the bread to keep ghosts away; sweep towards your front door, chanting for wealth.

My father. Twenty years ago he was jailed as a kidnapper and killer, but that didn’t even begin to touch the skin of what he was.

Kinderfresser. Child-eater. Butcher to the Weyrd.

Fish Food

by Jonathan Wood

Quite frankly, I’m getting sick of this Lovecraft shit.

It started with these marine biologists and their new species of octopus. Two weeks later all the staff at London zoo look like over-sized scampi and are sacrificing the tourists to elder gods.

My government-sanctioned holy bullets do bugger all. Apparently shrimp-scientists are secular. So I leg it and take refuge in a cleaning closet near the chimp enclosure, which I admit isn’t very James Bond of me. Still, I come across an aerosol can in there, and two seconds later I’m out of there with my lighter flambé-ing a couple of the bastards. Zookeepers dissolve into masses of thrashing tentacles. Enough to put me off shrimp cocktails for the rest of my life.

Lighter in hand I manage to torch a path to the aquarium, but when I get a look at the bugger residing there, I don’t think Pledge and a Zippo are going to cut it. It’s about the size of a double decker, all jelly-like flesh and claws reaching for me. The glass of the aquarium shatters and I’m swept out with the water.

When I catch my breath it’s tottering massively towards me through the ruins of the building. Gas tanks blow. Everything in the aviary squawking at once.

I leg it again.

See the trouble with Lovecraft is he only really gives you running gibbering into the night as an option, and I’ve got plans this Friday…

I smack into the wall of the polar bear enclosure and that’s when, along with the concrete, the idea hits me. The thing behind me is getting close as I blow the lock of the enclosure. We’re talking meters. I’m through the door and then it’s smashing down the wall. I’m roll clear and come up staring into eight white faces. Not happy either. You wake up polar bears, you better do it nicely.

After that I let nature take its course. The elder god is a big bugger, but its still just an overgrown fish to these guys. Some mundanes can take care of themselves. Still sushi’s gonna be off the menu for a while now too.