Penanggalan! An Aussie Vampire Tale Page 2

  She was somebody. She had plans.

  “Gotta find us a nice quiet spot,” said Rick, “so I can get my game on.”

  I’m so sorry, mum, she thought. Guess the stay at the reform centre wasn’t such a good idea.

  Through the canopy, the first stars blinked into existence in the Prussian sky.

  “Rick, how far are you going? It’s nearly night. We need wood.”

  “You said it yourself, babe. We ain’t shittin’ in the woods, nor are we sleepin’ on the ground under some branches. I’m sleepin’ on the bus.”

  “You wanna walk all the way back to the bus?”

  “Fuck yeah. You goin’ all Bindi the Jungle Girl on me now and wanna sleep in the great outdoors?”

  Angela huffed. “You didn’t have to come out here.”

  “Yeah. I did. They made me. Said it might be good for me.”

  I know what might be good for you. She climbed over a few stones that poked from the ground like rotten teeth. Learning you’re gonna be a dad. Might make you grow up.

  “Hey, check this out…” Rick ducked out of sight.

  Angela sighed and followed.

  The fading light of day barely penetrated the maw in the rocks. They’d stayed close to the base of Mount Banjarra, and Angela realised maybe Rick wasn’t as dumb as she thought. They had a simple route to follow back to camp. But now he’d been distracted, the big kid.

  “A cave!” he called.

  Angela twirled a finger in the air. “Whoopee. A cave. Who cares?”

  Rick crept over to the entrance and peered inside.

  “You aren’t seriously going in there?” said Angela. “You can’t see a thing. There might be snakes or bats or something.”

  “So? I’m just going to take a look. Might be something stashed inside.”

  “Bullshit, Rick.”

  Ignoring her, he took a few more steps into the shadows.

  Angela listened to his footsteps and muted breaths. She sat on a flat rock, idly picked up a thick, pointed stick and drew in the dirt with lazy strokes.

  “Get a move on,” she yelled. “Christ. It’s dark, Rick!”

  “Chill,” he said, appearing out of the dark.

  “Fuck!” Angela lifted the stick to eye level. “I could’ve stabbed you!”

  He nodded and stayed quiet. He shot a nervous glance over his shoulder in the direction of the cave.

  Angela took a deep breath. “What’s up?”

  Rick licked his lips. “There’s…someone in there.”

  Angela’s heart thumped harder. Suddenly she was conscious of every little sound she made. How far was camp?

  “There’s someone in there?” she whispered. “Did he see you?”

  Rick shook his head. “It’s a woman, but, you have to come see.”

  Angela stepped back, nearly tripping on the stones.

  “I don’t think so. Let’s go. Let’s go get Ken.”

  “Screw Ken,” said Rick. “This is my find.”

  Angela shushed him. “Quiet! What if she hears you?”

  Rick headed straight back to the cave.

  “Shit!” Angela hissed.

  Tiptoeing into the mouth of the small cavern, she paused, allowing her eyes to adjust the darkness. She saw Rick’s outline standing a few feet away. After a click, his face appeared in flickering orange light. It cast hollows around his eyes.

  “Didn’t know you had a lighter,” Angela whispered.

  “Kept it under wraps. Can’t have lighters, not allowed near Skye the teenage arsonist. Come on.”

  He ventured deeper into the cave, holding the lighter ahead.

  “Are you sure there’s someone in here?” Angela stayed close behind him. The entrance to cave was barely lit by the meagre moonlight. She didn’t intend crawling through a cave in pitch-blackness to be part of her weekend. “I can’t see a damn thing.”

  The cave stank of earth and mould. Angela realised they were inside the mountain now, a part of Mount Banjarra. She pictured the tonnes of rock above them and shivered, a reaction to the image and the cold. While refreshing from the lingering heat of the day, something about it felt wrong, like the chill of a morgue.

  She clutched her stick harder.

  “What are we doing, Rick? There’s no one in here.”

  He stopped, and Angela stared past him. The flickering light revealed nothing but rocks, dirt and more bleak darkness.

  “Here,” he said and lowered the lighter. “Check this shit out.”

  Angela gasped.

  A body lay on the floor of the cave, its legs together and arms neatly at its sides. Clearly a woman, she wore a simple dress and a few golden bracelets on her tanned wrists and ankles.

  “Jesus,” Angela moaned, her hand over her mouth.

  “You ain’t seen the best part yet,” said Rick. He extinguished the lighter, and Angela listened to him blowing on the hot metal. After a moment, he sparked it once more, now holding the lighter over the chest of the body.

  Its head was missing, leaving a gaping hole the size of a large fist at the neck.

  Angela gagged and turned the other way, recoiling from the sight like she’d been slapped. The entrance to the cave, a marginally brighter circle within the shadows, seemed an age away.

  “There’s no blood,” said Rick. “Surely if some psycho had chopped off her head, there’d be a trail leading out. But there’s nothing. Not a drop.”

  Angela breathed deep, trying to control her retches. The dank odours of the cave invaded her, forcing pictures of mould-coated lungs into her head.

  “We need to get out,” she said slowly. “Get Ken and Samara.”

  “What can they do?” Rick laughed. “This chick hasn’t even got a head. How can they do mouth to mouth? She’s dead. We found a dead body. How cool is that?”

  Angela shook her head. How could this ghoul be the father of her baby?

  “I’m going,” she said. “With or without you.”

  She staggered a few steps away from the body.

  “This…this is weird,” said Rick.

  Angela sighed. “Yes! It is! Let’s go. Please?”

  She glanced back.

  Rick crouched at the open end of the woman, holding the lighter close to the gratuitous wound. “Here. Give me that stick.”

  Angela quickly handed it over. Anything to hasten their departure.

  Rick took it from her and poked it inside the wide neck cavity.

  “Shit, Rick…”

  “I thought so,” he said, jerking the stick back and forth.

  Angela closed her eyes, but could still hear the slick noise of the stick scraping at the woman’s innards.

  “There’s nothing here,” said Rick, sounding intrigued. “There’s nothing all the way into the chest. Jesus, bro, he must have chopped off her head and pulled out the spine, heart, everything through the neck…”

  Angela bent over and suddenly vomited, spilling what remained of her lunch on the cave floor.

  Leaving the sharp stick poking out of the body, Rick stood.

  “Man, that’s gross, babe. Come on. Let’s go. Paul gonna shit himself when he hears about this.”

  Ken glanced at his watch and then at the black sky. Through the trees, stars glistened within a clear, dusty haze, the cosmos undisturbed by the lights of men.

  “Bloody kids,” he grunted and continued building the shelter. Rick and Angela had, of course, snuck off for some fun. Rather than have them sleep in the dirt, Ken had begun to make their lean-to, well, Rick and Paul’s lean-to. The lust-struck couple would not be sleeping in the same shelter.

  And I’ll stay up all night if I have to, thought Ken, to make sure that doesn’t happen!

  He’d placed long and slender sticks against a heavy fallen log, creating a snug space underneath. Now he covered the frame work with smaller branches, dry leaves and other detritus from the bush. Simple and effective, the shelter would keep them warm and dry until morning.

  Their shelt
ers finished, Samara, Paul and Skye busied themselves by collecting rocks for the circle and building a campfire within.

  Ken sighed and wiped his face. The heat lingered into the night, and building two shelters had winded him. He pressed on, knowing that soon, they’d be sat around the fire, swapping stories and roasting marshmallows. Every year the campfire burned away the egos and reputations. Ken couldn’t wait to see the real kids emerge from behind their masks.

  That is, if they ever turn up.

  He checked the time again.

  Something dropped onto his face.

  Ken flinched and raised his hand. Despite the time spent in the bush, spiders still bothered him.

  He clasped a thin, brittle thing in his palm. Opening his fingers, he found a leaf. Another couple fell down around him.

  Ken stared up into the canopy. Seemed they had an uninvited guest, probably a possum. Behind the blanket of trees and shadows, the furry fella remained hidden.

  “Nearly done?” Samara called.

  “Almost,” said Ken, returning his attention to the task at hand. “Any sign of Angela and Rick?”

  “Nothing. How long until we go looking for them?”

  Ken shook his head in disappointment. “Half an hour. There’s flashlights in my pack.”

  Samara headed for it. “You ever had runners before?”

  “No one’s had the bottle to try. Where they goin’ to go?”

  Paul grinned. “I know where Rick’s going right now.” He grinded his hips back and forth. “Oh yeah!”

  “Very mature,” said Skye.

  Paul shrugged and joined Ken. “Need a hand?”

  The older man slapped him on the back. “That’s the spirit! Glad we got one fella here with his head on. We need more branches for this lean-to.”

  A handful of leaves drifted down.

  Paul looked up. “Whoa. You think something’s up there?”

  “Probably. This is the wilds you know. They have more right to be here than us.”

  They stopped work and listened for a moment.

  The odd twig snapped several metres above them, and more leaves fell to the ground. A cluster of branches rustled.

  “Something’s up there, bro,” said Paul. “Think it could be a snake? Sure I heard it slithering…”

  The thing tumbled from the tree, all glistening tubes, sacs and muscle hanging beneath a head.

  Paul cried out.

  The thing landed on his face and coiled a wet tail around his throat.

  “Jesus!” Ken welded the branch he held like a baseball bat and swung. The small beast had a head that bobbed over Paul, like a King Cobra ready to strike, but yet, this was no snake.

  The length of wood smacked into the side of the face. The head swayed a little, but refused to budge.

  Paul released a choke and scratched frantically at the binding coils.

  The thing hissed.

  “Ken!” shouted a panicked voice. Two beams of light crisscrossed the slight clearing. Samara and Skye sprinted towards them, flashlights in hand.

  Ken swung the branch a second time with no better result.

  The creature made the sound of a scalded cat.

  Samara skidded to a stop and grabbed Skye’s shoulder. Together, they aimed the flashlights at the grisly scene.

  Paul’s face and hands were streaked with gore, like he’d spent the day showering in abattoir run off. Vertebrae glistened within the coils around his neck, coated in blood and tangled in strands of muscle and thin, blue veins. A gelatinous scarlet blob hung uselessly from it.

  A heart?

  The creature glowered at them; startlingly beautiful eyes leering back and forth between Ken and the girls. Clearly a young Asian woman, its striking features ended below its chin. The head nodded, riding the rough waves of violence below it.

  “Help…” Paul croaked, his face crimson. “Please…”

  Ken stared into that face, that deceptively stunning and peaceful face, and impotently gripped the branch.

  “Ken!” Samara screamed. “Hit it!”

  The creature, after a curt smile, parted its lips, revealing too many teeth for such a tiny mouth. They sprang out, protruding from the pale pink gums like transparent needles from a cactus.

  “Streuth,” Ken muttered and altered his hold. Hitting it did nothing, but maybe a good, hard poke in eye might shift it.

  The thing struck, clamping its vicious teeth into the flesh at the side of Paul’s throat.

  The young man’s eyes bulged, and his mouth opened to scream. A mere gurgle escaped. His body spoke of its pain in blood; the thick liquid jetted from his neck, black as ink in the jerking beams of the flashlights.

  Skye screeched, and Samara wailed one word: “Penanggalan!”

  Ken hit, driving the branch down towards the creature’s face.

  Its head whipped away, avoiding the blow and exposing Paul’s wound.

  Paul fell on his front, unconscious, and before Ken could follow up with another solid jab, the creature released the boy and slithered under a bush. Two sacs of thin red membrane pulsated either side of the heart: twin lungs pushing against the ground. The thing’s hanging stomach scraped in the dirt. In a second, it had vanished.

  Ken swept the branch through the dry leaves of the bush, hoping he could drive the demon away.

  The girls rushed to Paul’s side, Skye holding her flashlight over him while Samara examined.

  “He’s dead,” she said after a moment, wiping her blood-soiled hands on her beige shorts. “Fuck!” She rubbed tears from her cheeks.

  The light trembled from Skye’s hands as she wept.

  Out of breath, Ken circled on the spot, branch raised.

  “Stay close. That thing could be anywhere.”

  Seconds of silence passed. No crickets chirped. All the birds had either retired for the night or held their songs in fear. Even the breeze seemed afraid of the thing that slithered and bit. The leaves and branches hung motionless.

  A twig snapped.

  Ken spun around, seeking out the source.

  “Fuck,” said an angry voice. “Thought you’d at least have the fire goin’. Know how hard it was to find you guys?”

  Samara snatched up her flashlight. The golden beacon found Rick’s face. He squinted.