Baby Teeth: Bite-sized tales of terror Read Free Page A

incredibly loud. He revved the chainsaw a couple of times and walked towards the tree.
    Something hit him low in the back. Paul stumbled forward. The chainsaw hit the side of the tree and glanced away, barely missing his foot. He slipped on the wet grass and fell to his knees before the tree.
    Something hit him again, high on his back this time, strong enough to knock him over.
    â€˜Maria!’ Susan ran from the back step, but she too slipped on the grass.
    â€˜Liar!’ Paul rolled onto his back. Maria aimed another kick. ‘Liar!’
    Susan climbed to her feet and wrapped her arms around her daughter. Maria kicked out backwards, catching Susan on the shin. ‘Liar!’
    Maria’s heels dug twin gouges from the lawn as Susan dragged her away.
    â€˜Sorry,’ Susan called. ‘She got away. I’ll lock the door.’
    Paul didn’t get up from the grass until he heard the click of the lock. Even when he put his earmuffs back on he could still hear his daughter’s screams.
    *
    T he original plan was to cut the wood up as he went and create a tidy pile. Paul still knew a few people with burners who would pay for a winter’s worth of firewood. But either the chain was blunt or the tree was tougher than it looked. He found himself pushing the blade down, which the man in the hire shop had specifically told him not to do. The branches didn’t cut clean; they broke away in ragged chunks with dangerous edges that would have sliced him if he hadn’t been wearing the gloves.
    And all the time Maria looking at him through the window like a ghost.
    Four hours later he stood, trembling. The shattered remnants of the tree covered the whole back yard.
    He went to the shed for the shovel, slipping on pine needles as he went. He’d cut the trunk as low as he could. Now he had to dig out the roots.
    The spade cut through the soil with a satisfying thunk. There’d been rain nearly every day the past couple of weeks. Hopefully, the soil had softened a little. Perhaps this wasn’t going to be as hard as he’d thought.
    He heard the click of the lock on the back door.
    â€˜Come in and have something to eat,’ Susan said. ‘It’s been hours.’
    â€˜Not yet,’ Paul panted. ‘Nearly done here.’ His arms and back complained with every spade of dirt. He’d be sore for days but if he stopped now he’d never get started again. Nothing to do but tough it out.
    He glanced back at the house. Maria was out now too, sitting on the steps. Her cheeks were wet. Had she been crying all this time?
    Something broke under the shovel with a crunch. Maria screamed at the same moment, a long, high howl.
    Paul peered into the hole. There was something white shining there in the dirt. He reached for it. An old teapot, perhaps, or ...
    He scrambled back, heels slipping, until his boots lost purchase altogether. As he fell he felt a branch leave a long scratch on his side, but it was a faraway feeling, as if it were happening to someone else.
    Paul lay on the ground, looking at what he’d pulled up, what had been beneath the tree for so long. It grinned at him. It was a small thing, white against the sodden earth. The child couldn’t have been more than five or six. The skull sat at an angle, its top shorn off by the spade. There were no other sounds in the world but his ragged breathing and the rushing of his own blood in his ears.
    That, and the sound of Maria, curled up on the back step, howling like a dog.

Burying Baby
    Paul Mannering
    M omma slept a lot in the nights before the baby came, leaving Essie to pace the dark and empty house alone, Daddy out doing his job.
    Essie would be asleep when he came home before dawn. She always woke up enough to feel his hairy face press against her cheek to give her a kiss, his hot breath wafting into her blanket nest, making her feel warm and safe.
    â€˜I love you, Daddy,’ Essie would mumble as Daddy tucked