Voices

• Alex Brinkworth, Grade 9
• Short Story
• 2011

They close around me, watching my every move. They are always there pouncing when you least expect it, when you think they are gone, when you think you are safe.
I’ve been running from them my whole life, I could tell you straight what they are but you won’t believe me so I’ll tell you a story.
They started coming the day I killed him. Well technically it wasn’t him. I killed, the thing that over took him, took control of his body. That was what I killed. If I didn’t shoot I would be dead, and I have to stay alive because what good is it if I’m dead and I don’t know what I am. He was my life line, my father, my teacher, he understood everything and now he was gone he knew how to stop them, he taught me how to get rid of them, and now he is gone and I’m all alone, against them.
We called them screamers, but I guess you would call them monsters or nightmares. you know those nightmares you have and wish they never happened because they are that bad? Well, times them by ten. The monsters that you think hide in your closet; well you are probably right.
They attacked not long after I had gotten in dad’s blue Ford pick-up and driven towards the outback. I lived on the edge of civilisation, the house backed onto a huge farm that contained nothing but screamers in the dark corners and wild animals elsewhere. I was heading in to Nan’s house when they nearly killed me. It all happened so fast I didn’t really have time to react.
The slow rumble of the engine was the only thing that kept me awake. It was 12 in the morning and I hadn’t slept for days. The scream only gave me a couple of seconds of warning, but I needed longer. The scream paralyses you if you let it, if you don’t know how to block it. Luckily Dad taught me how. I pushed the accelerator so far it dented the metal underneath, I didn’t notice though; I was too busy swerving into the screamers, careful not to directly hit them because it would hurt the truck more than them. I jumped out of the truck because it wouldn’t help me and I faced them. They came at me in a blur of bodies and fangs. They were all boys, all muscular and they looked under 18, you know the saying “appearances mean everything”, it is wrong. The boys are most likely over 100. They all stepped back, black blood pouring from their mouth. All of a sudden I heard Dad’s voice in my head ‘You are special, you repel them,’ I didn’t know what he meant then, I was only seven, but now I know, I’m one of them. Only better, somehow my mother must have been the last female screamer.
Now you know what I am. It scares you I know, but how do you think I feel? Being one of the things I despise the most.