The Feral Peril Read online

  This awful world denies our love,

  But dog and bone fit like hand and glove.

  Man, this stuff was gold, and Tony Bones-Jones fully knew it. He didn’t waste any down time getting his red-hot recording to the school radio station, 2SH (2Shock-Horror), for his weekly blues show, ‘The Moaning Tones of Tony Bones-Jones’. Having first overdubbed some sample snatches of ‘Who Let the Dogs Out?’, Tony smirked gleefully and hit PLAY.

  Right across Horror the broadcast commenced.

  It was a ratings winner. A winner? Jeepers, the station switchboard lit up like an epileptic Christmas tree, and the recording played seven times in a row before Barnaby Hangdog shoulder-charged the deadlocked station door, tore the control panel free from the desk and snapped it in three pieces. Then he set about destroying the place, savagely mauled Tony Bones-Jones around the ankles and cocked his leg on the pot plants before he was sedated and muzzled by the council dog catcher.

  But the damage was done.

  All Horror knew the terrible truth.

  Word.

  Of course, there have been unnatural love trysts in Horror before this. There was that weird incident five years ago when a vampire turned vegetarian to seduce a sexy, vine-ripened killer tomato, and the affair was successful up to a point. Though the relationship ultimately soured, it did result in a nifty invention for injecting ketchup into meat pies.

  An even shiftier liaison was spawned at a monster hip-hop concert in Horror where, at a seamy after-show party, a groupie mummy hooked up with Puff Daddy. Same night Alicia Catgirl was reputed to have snogged Snoop Doggy Dogg, though that was never verified. Anyway, who hasn’t pashed Snoop Dogg? I know I have.

  What was I thinking?

  And there was the incident when a love-zonked Darryl Zombie made an unsuccessful bid to date a thrice-divorced compost creature who was ten years older and worked as a casual art teacher at the school. It was a thoroughly indecent carry-on that left Darryl with egg on his face – as well as lettuce, pumpkin skin and salad scraps – and although everyone remembers it, nobody decent talks about it.

  So I won’t either.

  Suffice to say, there have been unholy unions in Horror before. Love can do wonderful things, but in Horror it usually does outlandish and freaky things. The rendezvous between Selina Bones-Jones and Barnaby Hangdog was no exception. The whole town was chilled to ice, then went to water.

  Firstly, Mr and Mrs Bones-Jones flipped their parental and parietal lids. They were speechless with rage, which was infinitely preferable to the next stage when they became speechful with rage.

  Selina had attempted to stay concealed in her bedroom, camouflaged among her dead pot plants and posters of Horrorwood movie hunks Matt Deadmon, Brad Pit-trap and Ben Afflicted, listening to syrupy songs of heartbroken love on her iPod and weeping piteously. But, inevitably, she was dragged out to face the music and, perched sobbing on the sofa in the living room, her parents circled like hostile Indians attacking a wagon train. They whooped angrily and fired volleys of pointed questions at her.

  ‘Why?’ hollered Father.

  ‘How?’ bawled Mother.

  ‘Didn’t we give you everything?’ boomed Father.

  ‘You didn’t want for anything!’ cried Mother.

  ‘The boy’s fully feral!’ moaned Father.

  ‘He lives in a kennel!’ hissed Mother.

  There was a moment’s silence while Mr Bones-Jones chewed his finger-ends.

  ‘It’s a public relations disaster,’ ranted Mr Bones-Jones. ‘We’ll never be invited anywhere again. What will they say at the office? I was up for promotion to boneyard manager this year. Was. Not now. Not when I’m the father of a dog fancier. Think what you’ve done to your family, Selina…’

  ‘Think what you’ve done to yourself,’ added her mother. ‘The respect of the community, your peers, your family – gone. Your reputation – shot. Not to mention the personal physical danger you’ve put yourself in.’

  ‘Mum, he loves me,’ sobbed Selina. ‘He wouldn’t chew me.’

  ‘I’m not talking about chewing you,’ snapped Mrs Bones-Jones, looking distinctly uncomfortable. ‘He could have mange. Or worms. Kennel cough. And forget about STDs – he’s probably got fleas!’

  Over at the Hangdog house things were no better and might’ve even been a tiny bit worse. When it comes to a crisis like this, differentiating between nightmares is like counting hairs on a savage baboon’s butt – futile and dangerous.

  Friends and neighbours were driving past the Hangdog joint, howling with laughter, barking their derision, yapping abuse and pitching half-chewed bones onto the front yard.

  Go fetch!

  Inside, the Hangdog pack hunkered down. Barnaby was chained in the corner, looking shamefaced and suitably hangdog. Since the incident exploded four days ago, he’d had all his rubber bones and chew-toys confiscated, and had only been let off the chain to go to the sandbox. He’d been yanked out of Horror High, Mrs Hangdog had quit her job at the security office, and the only reason Mr Hangdog left the house at all was to trawl real estate agencies hunting for a suitable new doghouse in another county. When he found one, the family packed their meagre belongings – blankets, bowls, collars and leashes – and unceremoniously left Horror, never to return.

  Doggone.

  So there you have it. Doomed dalliances, broken hearts, love gone wrong, shonky radio broadcasts, hated brothers … and a deep, deep lust for revenge.

  Which brings us nicely back to handball, the ball-call and the tall-call. That kind of stylish segue, linking background info to the main plot, is a sure sign of a top-quality writer with flair, panache, skill and talent, so if you meet any, send them round to the publisher. I’m sick of warming their seat.

  Handball – the game they play in Hell. And things were heating up at the championship.

  The scene: courtside.

  The crowd: mesmerised.

  The mood: tenser than a stolen guitar string, more expectant than a heavily pregnant elephant and suffused with that regrettable vibe you often get with defectively mixed metaphors.

  The weather: lovely day, rows of single-cell monsters catchin’ some rays, photosynthesising in the sun like ragged lines of deformed carrots.

  The smell: a mix of fear, stress, anticipation and B.O., because you’re standing too close. Back off, whiffy.

  The players: Mick Living-Dead versus Frankie J. Mummy.

  The action: extreme. Fifteen rounds down with the sixteenth just finishing.

  We’ll let the Skull full of bull do the talking …

  ‘Bill, sixteenth round just ended amid mad controversy with Mick Living-Dead – normally a very lively player for a dead guy – beaten by Frankie J. Mummy, who’s rubbish. Dead serious.’

  ‘You’re right, Sirius, though I should point out that F.J. Mummy isn’t made of rubbish; that’s the garbage monster, Anton Grunge-Debris, created by a mad professor living at the Horror dump with too much time on his hands.’

  Skull nodded. ‘Yes, Frankie J., a rubbish player, though not made of rubbish, just beat Mick Living-Dead, a hot fave. Frankie’s mummy wrapping worked loose during play and started whipping about like a long crepe fly-fishing line. It wrapped around Living-Dead’s deadhead and blinded him at a crucial moment.’

  ‘Crucial?’ shouted Bill. ‘It was match point!’

  Sirius Skull took a long pull on his stogie. Long moments of dead air on the live broadcast followed, but the Skull knew how to play a crowd – what he lacked in facial features, he more than made up for in showmanship.

  Slowly, like an automaton, he recounted the scene: ‘Mick tried to tear the bandages loose. Too late. He hit out wildly, attempting to harness the blind laws of physics and calculate the ball’s position in time and space. Maybe that kind of astronaut logic works in Star Trek, but it doesn’t cut any ice with me. Dead serious. Okay, Bill, it was a valiant effort – he succeeded in hitting the ball, despite his handicap. He hit it, sure, but it landed
two millimetres outside the court’s baseline. Two millimetres!’

  ‘Yes, folks,’ growled Lickpenny slowly. ‘He struck out big-time.’

  ‘Big-time!’ howled Skull delightedly. ‘And the crowd went mental!’

  It seems astonishing that the umpire would allow it, but Frankie J. made it through round sixteen thanks to his flapping bandage trick, and it became the most controversial wardrobe malfunction in Horror history. It made Janet Jackson look straight. The championship’s generous sponsors were outraged and threatened to pull out if Frankie J. wasn’t disqualified and forced to make some lame-o public apology.

  Forget that. Frankie J. flipped the sponsors the bird with extra plumage; the sponsors stormed off in a huff, and nobody missed them. Who really wants to be sponsored by Slime & Sons, Secondhand Suppository Sellers and School Sandwich Makers, whose business motto is, ‘We try to remember to wash our hands, but nobody’s perfect’?

  Frankie J. Mummy was unceremoniously beaten in the next round ’cause he was crap and, having been stomped out of the comp by Handy Bigfoot, he sulkily sloped off home. Nobody missed him either. Fact is, nobody missed anybody at Horror High for any reason, because they’re all undead, which tends to negate the finer, higher emotions.

  Or it did, until Selina Bones-Jones and Barnaby Hangdog’s gig was ruined. Things changed then. That incident ignited the finer, higher emotions of revenge, retaliation, reprisal and retribution. I know there’s loads more crackajack synonyms with which to flag their fully evil intentions, but somebody’s stolen my thesaurus.

  Suffice to say, they planned to break bad on Tony Bones-Jones, and first-rate writers don’t need a thesaurus to have bags of good words for ‘bad’ – badder, bad-o, e-Bad (online baddery), Bad-en Powell (a scout badge for being totally heaps bad), Sinbad (extra bad with a pinch of sin, traditionally practised by sailors but still illegal onshore).

  I know words. Don’t be telling me my job.

  The rest of the competitors folded in due order. Handy Bigfoot was blown away by Jeremiah Jefferson, an American Civil War ghost blasted in half by cannon fire at Valley Forge, and Jefferson was in turn broken by Tony Bones-Jones.

  Come to Papa … and bring the pieces with you.

  Tony Bones-Jones, TBJ, or the Bonester as he was commonly known around Horror High, was the molten-hot favourite. The bookies burnt their tongues just talking about him, were giving him odds on, and the teachers bet their entire holiday pay.

  TBJ had scorched the courts all year, and everyone knew he was The Man with the Plan on the handball court. He walked tall, dominating the scene. He savaged, mangled, hammered and hurt, without fear or favour. He gorged himself on all food groups – mummies, vampires, werewolves, wraiths, wights, grave trolls and fire demons – and his condiment of choice was blood. (When he couldn’t get blood he’d settle for sweet chilli sauce, though he only liked one obscure brand available nowhere except a tiny supermarket in Chinatown, so he had to trek right across town to buy it and …)

  What? Oh, right. Sorry.

  Confident? Yeah, Tony Bones-Jones was confident. He knew he’d win. He banked on winning, literally. The teachers promised him a cut of their winnings. He’d been training hard all year and could taste victory. Well, he could taste something. Might’ve been the remains of his peanut butter toast lodged somewhere back in his jawbone.

  And the spectators expected the Bonester to win, too. They expected victory like they expected the Horror High canteen to serve lethal, inedible food. They expected it like they expected the school morgue to be full to overflowing by the end of every day. They expected it like they expected F’s on their exams and handwritten death threats from teachers on their assignments.

  What they didn’t expect was the identity of the Bonester’s opponent in the grand final clash. An unidentified maestro had worked his way through the ranks. Wearing a black mask, wide-brimmed hat, jodhpurs, boots and cape, he only lacked the sword to be the exact double of Zorro. The crowd mocked the unknown challenger when he first took the court, calling him ‘Zero’, until he started to slowly, methodically carve up the masses. And as he kept winning, a more respectful attitude overtook the onlookers.

  This masked man meant business.

  Ordinarily the Bonester took care of business, stomping and chomping and whomping any player who had the audacity to inhabit the square opposite him. No doubt there’re bulk other dumb words ending in ‘omping’, but like I said, stolen thesaurus.

  There was no reason to suspect any other outcome than a total Bonester victory, until the final round when time and tide and the inexorable intricacies of this frayed and laggardly plot meant Tony Bones-Jones and ‘Zorro’ finally met face to face, or skull to mask.

  Feel the tension? Pick up on the pressure? You could cook your breakfast egg off the hatewaves, or stir the wrath into your oatmeal mash. (Frankly I don’t care what you have for breakfast, so long as you consume it at least three suburbs away from me.)

  The Bonester wasn’t worried by this masked muppet. He’d dispatched the best Horror High had thrown at him, and they’d all limped off the court savagely beaten. Hadn’t the school ambulance burnt out its gearbox ferrying casualties off to the hospital? Hadn’t the critical-care ward exhausted all supplies of A, O, MA, R18+ and XXX–type blood? Hadn’t they run out of toe tags by lunchtime? Hadn’t the overworked school morticians gone on strike?

  Yes on all counts. So why would this masked man be any different? Death and despair awaited him, and the only choice Masky had was whether it was fast or slow.

  TBJ had closely observed players at school all year and knew all their exceptionally dirty dodge shots and pesky lobs. Actually, I should clarify that statement: he’d observed the best players all year. He hadn’t wasted his time watching the fringe players. Maybe he should have.

  The game started off well enough, the Bonester dominating the opening set and winning service. From there he played according to his standard strategy, pushing the ball to the back of the court – deep baseline shots designed to force his masked opponent to play off the back foot, traditionally a weak spot for all but the very best.

  But this opponent was different, as if he’d stolen and studied Tony’s bony mind-map. He anticipated Tony’s every play, appearing at the baseline even before the ball arrived. And when TBJ initiated his alternative game plan, playing the ball in close with low dribbling shots, the masked man was already there too.

  Shot for shot, play for play, stroke for stroke, the two players grappled and gouged and goggled over every desperate point in that momentous grand final.

  Two players, two champions, two destinies.

  Too right.

  It was a titanic clash. Spectators could hardly follow the competitors, they moved so fast. Grimsweather, already half-blind from long-term evility, was having trouble keeping score as one player prevailed, then the other, and back again.

  One thing was starting to worry the Bonester, and it was a big one thing. Whoever this opponent was, they clearly hated the empty cavity behind his ribcage that would’ve contained his guts. Masky anticipated his every move. Kinda disturbing – like his innermosts were being monitored by X–ray machine. Even his deepest, darkest, top-secret plays were dealt with and handed back like yesterday’s rubbish wrappings.

  What was it about this opponent? Where had he trained? Why was he impervious to the Bonester’s best shots?

  Tony Bones-Jones was in danger of being buried and didn’t dig it one bit. He tried to unhinge the masked stranger with a textbook sample of ‘the Boneshaker’, a class shot, though basically a diversionary tactic, wherein he would hit the ball low and deep and simultaneously start clanking his bones and rattling his frame like hand grenades in a cement mixer.

  Most players lost concentration with this overwhelming background racket and took their eyes off the ball for a crucial second, but not the masked man. He ignored the cacophony and played the Boneshaker ball straight back. When the Bonester couldn’t get
his juddering bones back into place in time, the Mask took the point as easy as munching manure with a mulch monster.

  Heinous.

  TBJ tried another known-to-be-nasty shot – ‘the Haymaker’ – but it might’ve been made of straw for all the damage it did. Another shot, another failure. He swept in with his patented ‘Sleep with the Fishes’, a backspin ball with an evil undertow that crashed over opponents like a killer tsunami and plunged them headlong into a tide of terror. Not this time – his opponent whipped it back with a wave of the wrist and the point was a wash, swept away like last week’s seaweed.

  Grevious.

  So the masked mop bucket wanted to play rough, eh? The Bonester knew a thing or two about rough. He won service and sliced the ball cross-court with his infamous low-humming ‘Guts & Gizzards’ – a thoroughly offal shot that sizzled along the surface of the court, barely bouncing more than a millimetre. No joy. The Mask turned the ‘Guts & Gizzards’ into sausage meat and ate it for dinner.

  This championship was suddenly getting hectic. In desperation TBJ sent in three successive waves of pure evil: ‘the Assassin’, ‘the Gravedigger’ and ‘the Pacifier’. All three shots were professional killers designed to leave the victim requiring critical care nursing, a souped-up pacemaker and a lifetime on a valium drip to make it through the daytime soaps … and all three shots were returned with interest.

  Tony struggled through to match point, 20–20.

  Crisis! This was a totally devastating experience for TBJ – nobody had ever handled his balls like this.

  ‘Who are you?’ Tony blurted nervously.

  ‘You know who I am,’ hissed his masked enemy, and the snarling voice certainly sounded familiar. But whose was it?

  ‘Who?’ repeated TBJ, bleating like a lamb about to lose its lamb marbles. ‘Take your mask off so I can see your face.’

  The crowd took up the refrain like oafs at a strip joint. ‘Take it off! Take it off! Take it off!’