Red Spikes

"Well, at least it's a fine night," said Mum. She looked enormous, but that was mostly the bedding she'd gathered as she hurried out of the hut. Her hair, coming undone from its nighttime tail, was a shock of silver on her shoulders. "Though how we'll sleep with this moon I don't know. It's like the floodlights at the Cricket Ground. We need to find a place in the shade. Not under these gums, thoughif they drop a branch, we're dead. Down by the creek there, among the casuarinas" A bellow interrupted her. Everyone looked up at the hut. Mum walked away down the hill, trailing a corner of the quilt across the moon-white grass. "And a good distance fromthat.That could go on for hours. Days. Come on, everyone, let's get settled." Dylan followed her slowly. She wasn't acting right. Anything to do with babies and births, Mum usually took over. She became queenly herself, moving differently, spreading a radiant peacefulness all around. She paused the world so the baby could land on it safely. Yet here she was,walking awayfrom a woman in labor. "I think we should get thepolice," grumbled Ella, lumbering down the slope. She was pregnant, too; she was what Mum described asabout ready to drop."It's outrageous. Whoever heard of it? Where did those people escape fromsome kind of costume party?" Todd gave an enormous yawn. "Dunno what you're moaning aboutyou weren't asleep anyway. Younever sleep,remember? 'S what you're always saying." "Idonever sleep," said Ella. "Not these days. Or nights." The family moved down the slope ahead, in among the darker trees. They weren't nearly alarmed enough; that must be part of the magic. Dylan was panting, as if his body were trying to pump out the strong, wet-grass smell of bear and replace it with the proper bush smells of eucalypt and pine. "Check for sleeping snakes," Mum said when they reached the creek side, where the ground was flatter. "Bang about a bit." So everyone stamped around in their pajamas. It would have been funny if Dylan hadn't been so frightened. Weren't theyworriedabout that bear? Weren't theyupsetabout what had happened? It was eerie that they were positioning air mattresses and spreading blankets and plumping pillows. Titch and Edwin were already asleeplook at them. They hadn't even cried. It was all a dream to them. Dylan pinched the inside of his elbow hard; he rubbed his arm roughly against a tree trunk; he breathed in and stared at the frills of white water along the creek, at the shadow people and the shadow trees, at the millions of stars above among the needly casuarina twigs. He smelled the smoke from the hut chimney. That funny man must be building up the fire. You needed boiling water when a baby was coming. What for? Dylan couldn't remember. "Come on, Dylan. Come and settle down between Dad and me. We'll protect you against jibber-jabbers." Her smile was the only part of her face that was moonlit. "Jibber-jabbers," said Dad dozily. "That's going back a long way. What were those things, anyway, Dyl? You never told us properly; you were too scared even to talk about that nightmare." Dylan crawled up the valley between them, laid his head in the pillow cleft, and shuddered. "They were these horrible creatures, hundreds of them, about up to my shoulders. They had big heads, big jaws, lots of teeth.Jibbrah-jibbrah,they said,jibbrah-jibbrah-jibbrah-jibbrah.Lanagan, Margo is the author of 'Red Spikes ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780375945779 and ISBN 0375945776.