Crazy Cornelius & the Magic Pills Ch. 04

Already worried that she hadn't heard from her brother, Lisa quickly grabbed her TV remote sized phone and raised the antenna. "Hello?" she asked anxiously.

Lisa felt relief at hearing her younger brother's voice on the other end of the phone. "Hi Lisa, it's Gavin, how are you?"

"Gavin, are you okay? You didn't call earlier like you said, I was worried."

"Sorry about that, got caught up at university, kind of forgot."

"So are you at university now?"

Gavin was about to answer, when a kookaburra in a nearby gum tree nearby set off a loud laughing. Hoping his sister wouldn't overhear the noisy bird, Gavin said casually. "Yeah, just finished a tutorial."

"Gavin, I can hear a kookaburra."

"A kookaburra? What kookaburra? Oh that kookaburra." Gavin let out an unconvincing laugh. "There's sometimes kookaburras around the campus, there's one up the tree nearby."

"Gavin, are you sure you're feeling okay? After this morning, I'm worried about you." Lisa looked up at the passing monorail, feeling most ill at ease.

"Yeah, although I think you're right, I have been feeling tired, nursing is a pretty full on course, plus I've been working a lot of shifts at the supermarket recently," said Gavin. "That's what I called you about actually, I've been so flat out I got the dates for the camping trip with the guys mixed up. It's actually this weekend, so when you get home from work I'll already be gone to the Colo River. I'll be back late on Sunday afternoon."

The pretty blonde's face showed suspicion and doubt. "The camping trip? I swear that wasn't for another two weeks."

"No, definitely this weekend. It will do me good, all that nice fresh air in the Blue Mountains, will help me relax a bit."

"So who are you going with?"

"Just the guys. Gino, Tony, Zach, Zach's cousin Luke and a couple of others."

"Is Erica going with you?"

Gavin shook his head. "No, it's a guys' weekend away, no girls. Anyway, Erica couldn't come even if girlfriends were coming. She's in Adelaide with her parents."

"Adelaide?" Lisa was disbelieving. "When did they go to South Australia?"

"Early this morning," said Gavin. "It was a last minute thing, Erica's Aunt Angela had a severe stroke so they jumped on a plane and took off. They'd be in Adelaide by now. Erica gave me the number where they're staying, so I'll call her later to make sure everything's okay."

"Well I hope that Erica's aunty is okay," said Lisa. "So it's just Cornelius and Danielle in the house then?"

"No," said Gavin. "They left this morning too, for the Gold Coast."

"The Gold Coast? What are they doing on the Gold Coast?"

Gavin again tried to sound casual. "Oh, a couple of weeks ago Cornelius applied for a job as a clown at a theme park. He didn't get it, but the guy who got the job apparently didn't work out, so they called Cornelius and asked him to come up for an interview. Danielle went with him as support, and to you know be his assistant when he shows them some magic tricks. They flew out to Queensland this morning."

"Well, I hope Cornelius gets the job," said Lisa. This was 100 percent genuine. A Cornelius-free existence was very appealing, and in this case New South Wales gain would be Queensland's loss if Cornelius relocated to the sunshine state to work at a theme park. His bitch of a wife Danielle would be no great loss either. Lisa would have preferred Cornelius to relocate somewhere much further away such as Warsaw in Poland, Nova Scotia in Canada, Philadelphia in the USA or Caracas in Venezuela, but this was better than nothing.

"How about you Lisa, how's work?" Gavin asked.

"Fine, busy as usual, but can't complain," said Lisa. "You take care on your camping trip."

"I will, so I'll see you on Sunday afternoon, and then Mum and Dad are back from their cruise on Monday. I can't wait to see them."

"Me either, so I'll see you Sunday then. Bye Gavin, have fun."

"Bye Lisa, have fun at work."

The siblings ended their respective calls, and in Sydney Lisa returned her phone to her bag, and walked to the sandwich shop to get her lunch. It was the same brand of sandwich shop where Gavin's girlfriend Erica worked, and by coincidence one of the attendants working behind the counter was a skinny, mousy, nervous girl with glasses just like Erica. Ordering her lunch, Lisa thought about the strange events this morning, and despite Gavin assuring her everything was okay, could not shake that feeling that things were far from fine, that something funny was going on with her brother and the dysfunctional family of his girlfriend.

Up on the Central Coast Gavin put down the receiver. "How did I do?" he asked Alistair, who stood beside him as he made the call.

"Fine, I just hope you convinced her," said Alistair. "Because she will be in danger if the aliens think she knows more than she does."

"Yeah, I know," said Gavin, looking most worried. "What about work? Should I call them now too, let them know I can't come In tomorrow?"

Alistair shook his head. "No, best to call in sick tomorrow morning."

Walking over to his four wheel drive, Alistair opened the back and called Cornelius over. "I really don't want to give you a gun like this," he said, taking the hunting rifle and loading it, "But we need to have one gun in each car to properly protect ourselves if we need to."

With great reluctance, Alistair handed the high-powered firearm to Cornelius, who snatched the rifle from his father's grasp. Cornelius's crazy eyes went crazier still, and he aimed the gun in the direction of the Pacific Motorway. "Bang bang, bang, bang bang!" he shouted, before Alistair grabbed the rifle back.

"You bloody idiot!" he yelled, hitting Cornelius on the back of his head, Alistair looking anxiously to see if any passing vehicles had seen the debacle, which fortunately none of them appeared to have done.

"When will you ever fucking grow up Cornelius? I'll give this to your wife, at least she will be more sensible than you," growled Alistair, discretely handing the rifle to Danielle as well as the axe, which she hid in the back of her car, covering the weapons with a blanket.

While Cornelius sulked at his father taking the gun off him, Erica's attention was on a sign advertising a popular wildlife park in the New South Wales Central Coast area. It boasted an impressive collection of Australian native animals and a large display of reptiles, both from Australia as well as overseas.

Many of the animals at the wildlife park were displayed on the sign, and as Erica looked at it, she could have sworn the crocodile move. She blinked and it didn't seem to move again and Erica was confident she was seeing things. Her eyesight had never been any good, hence wearing glasses from early childhood.

She looked at the motorway and then back at the sign, and this time a frilled-neck lizard seemed to move. Again Erica blinked thinking it would stop, but it didn't. The lizard was moving around and now the crocodile was too. Not only were they moving on the sign, they were coming out of the sign.

With fear running down her digestive system from her stomach to her rectum, Erica broke out in a cold sweat and backed away, putting her fingers in her mouth as the crocodile and frill-neck lizard emerged from the sign, soon joined by a second large lizard -- a goanna -- and an American alligator. Before Erica could open her mouth, a kangaroo bounded out of the sign followed by a dingo, an emu and another flightless bird in the form of a cassowary -- which wasn't even on the sign.

Four venomous snakes -- a king brown, a taipan, a tiger snake and a red-bellied black snake -- all came through the sign and Erica managed to find her voice. "Mum, Dad, everyone -- I think we've got a problem!"

She pointed at the sign, and everyone looked in horror at the Australian animals and reptiles coming out of the sign and advancing towards them. A tortoise obviously didn't cause much anxiety to the group due to the slow pace, and a wallaby was probably too small to pose a threat as were several koalas and a wombat too fat and slow -- but a line of aggressive snakes, lizards, kangaroos, emus, cassowaries, komodo dragons and dingos coming at them were. And a crocodile and alligator were definitely dangerous.

"It's like that sign is some sort of portal," said Danielle, watching open-mouthed as a platypus and echidna came through it, followed by another crocodile and kangaroo, all advancing upon the Hawkins family.

"Let's go, now!" yelled Alistair, as the screeching of an angry Tasmanian Devil that leaped out of the sign filled the air. Everyone dashed for their cars and Alistair and Danielle drove away with a screeching of tires. The animals gave chase, and to the amazement of everyone the snakes were able to keep up with the faster animals, the serpents hissing menacingly as they pursued the cars. Finally though, Alistair and Danielle were able to accelerate away and Erica and Gavin looked as the faster animals -- the kangaroos, emus and cassowaries -- faded into the background.

"We'll need to take a different route, there's a chance they'll let the aliens and demons know and they'll set a trap for us further up the motorway," said Alistair.

He took an approaching exit, and Danielle followed her father-in-law into Gosford, both cars stopping in a park outside the entry to the city but leaving the engines running, Danielle getting out and coming over to the four wheel drive.

"So where are we going?" Danielle asked.

"Newcastle, then we can reassess it from there," said Alistair. "But on the way, we're going to get some binoculars, one set for each car, that way we can keep a watch out for danger."

"Well as you know I'm from Newcastle," said Danielle. "My folks have got an acre or so out the back of their place. How about we stay there until this all dies down? They won't mind."

Alistair was horrified. "No, are you crazy? The aliens have probably already planned for that. They've probably already sent up agents there in disguise like telephone repairmen or a magazine sales team to check if you've been there or been in contact."

Danielle looked dismayed. "Are you sure? My name isn't Hawkins so maybe..."

"Trust me Danielle, they will know," said Faye. "We can't risk putting your parents in danger."

"Well, my brother knows this bloke and he..." Danielle began, before Alistair cut her off.

"No! No involving your family at all, is that clear Danielle?" he said. "You'll put them -- and us -- in very serious danger." He then thought about something. "You've got quite a big family, haven't you?"

Danielle nodded. "Yeah. I'm one of ten, four boys and six girls. My parents have got lots of brothers and sisters too, so shitloads of cousins."

"Jesus, haven't you Novocastrians ever heard of television? Or birth control?" grumbled Alistair. "I take it most of them are still in the area?"

"Yeah, one of my brothers and one of my sisters now live in Sydney like me, a few cousins have gone to Sydney and one to Wollongong too, but most of the family are around Newcastle," said Danielle.

"When we get there, you'll need to stay out of sight as much as possible," said Alistair.

"Come on Alistair, Newcastle's a big place," said Danielle.

"Just be careful," warned Alistair. "You too Cornelius, they might recognize you too. Let's get into Gosford and buy those binoculars, and get away from here. The animals that came out of the sign are probably still looking for us, and they've probably already called the aliens and demons."

Alistair and Danielle drove out of the park and into the main street of Gosford, the main city of the New South Wales Central Coast quite busy this Friday afternoon. Everyone waited in the cars as Alistair dashed into an outdoor supplies store that sold camping equipment, fishing gear and other similar items, returning with two sets of binoculars, one of which he gave to Erica and Gavin and the other to Danielle and Cornelius.

Then getting onto the Central Coast Highway, both cars departed Gosford via Erina, intending to travel up to the Hunter Region by the coast, not wanting to risk aliens having set a trap for them on the inland Pacific Motorway.

As they had back in Sydney, Gavin and Erica in the back of the four wheel drive acted as lookouts, and kept a close watch out for anything from outer space or of the supernatural on the drive north. The drive would take them up a scenic part of the coast, with the Pacific Ocean to the east, and to the west the waters of the enormous Tuggerah Lake.

So far, nothing untoward had happened but as the cars went through The Entrance and crossed the bridge near Terilbal Island, Gavin's eyes picked up some large white birds high in the sky.

"I think they might be a problem," he said.

Erica took off her glasses and put the binoculars to her eyes. She focused on the birds thinking that they might not be birds but pterodactyls like the ones they had seen back at Dee Why beach. After observing the birds more closely, she sighed in relief.

"They're just pelicans," she said, handing the binoculars to her boyfriend, Gavin focusing on the large white pelicans that were gliding on the air currents high up above the sparkling blue waters of Tuggerah Lake.

"Yeah, they are just pelicans," said the relieved Gavin. "Sorry about that, I didn't mean to alarm everyone."

"That's okay, better to be safe than sorry," said Faye from the front seat.

The drive north continued, and looking at Danielle's car following behind Erica noticed that her brother had clearly become bored during the long driving stretch through the Wyrrabalong National Park, and Cornelius had taken off his seatbelt, opened the window of his wife's car and was now leaning out the window, barking like a dog as the occupants of other passing vehicles wondered what the fuck was going on.

Erica cringed in embarrassment. Cornelius was a nightmare on road trips when they were kids because of this, and sometimes he would start acting up like this even on a short trip within the area of Sydney where they lived. Now Cornelius was a 23-year-old married man and still leaning out the car window barking like a dog.

Beside her, Gavin had also noticed but preferred to look anywhere else but behind him and Erica could see in the front of the car her mother was clearly pissed off at the antics of her son. While Danielle was often an enabler of her idiotic husband, Erica could see that this time her sister-in-law was anything but impressed, trying to concentrate on driving and get her husband to sit down and shut up at the same time.

One person who hadn't seemed to have noticed anything was Alistair, Mr. Hawkins' face a mask of concentration as he drove through the National Park. However, Erica nearly wet herself when her angry father abruptly rolled down his window and bellowed, "Cornelius you bloody idiot, fucking stop doing that or I'll stop the car and tan you!"

Whether or not Cornelius heard the shouting or whether his father's voice was lost in the wind and noise of traffic coming the other way could not be ascertained, but Erica noticed that her brother literally pulled his head in after this, getting back in his seat, closing the window and putting his seatbelt back on.

Exiting the National Park, the journey continued up the coast, nothing odd happened, whether from extraterrestrial or supernatural influences or Cornelius acting like a cretin, and things went smoothly. Erica relaxed a little and beside her she noticed Gavin kept drifting off to sleep.

Around Lake Munmorah, Erica began to feel the need to pee. Obviously she hadn't been to the toilet since the toilet demon frightened her when she was on the loo this morning back at home, but this wasn't the time to ask to stop the car so she could relieve herself, so Erica crossed her legs and tried to think about other things.

Gavin awoke when the cars approached Moonee and appeared relaxed, but Erica felt a pang of worry when she saw a sign indicating the distance of the turn off for Ghosties Beach. Was this name auspicious and a sign of trouble to come? Of course it wasn't, it was a beach called Ghosties Beach filled with caves and caverns and wild surf, nothing to do with ghosts at all.

However, despite Erica's attempts to reassure herself there were no dangers, Erica felt more nervous the closer they got to Ghosties Beach, and the young girl's fears proved well-founded. From behind a tree emerged a shadowy grey and ill-defined figure that leaped out in front of the four wheel drive.

"Dad, ghost!" screamed Erica.

In the front of the car, Alistair and Faye Hawkins also saw the ghost as did Gavin. The ghost floated in the air and over the four wheel drive, Danielle and Cornelius seeing it too as it floated over their car making evil and eerie ghost noises, then turned back to chase them.

"Alistair, look out!" yelled Faye as more ghosts, shadowy and ill-defined like the first one approached both cars, some white, some black some grey, floating alongside them making scary supernatural noises, moaning, screaming and banshee-like wailing.

In the back of the car, Erica was close to tears, rocking back and forth in terror, Gavin holding her hand to try and reassure her despite his own fear of the ghosts which looked like spirits of deceased members of the Ku Klux Klan. The ghost she had seen at the house this morning plus the poltergeist-like noises on the doors and windows had terrified her, and this was worse.

Much of Erica's terror of ghosts came from an incident when she was in her early years of high school. Gavin had been away for the week with chicken pox as had his older sister, and without the only kids at the high school who stood up for her there, she had been suffering terrible bullying, and things were pretty bad at home too. Cornelius was causing no end of trouble, Brendan was off his head on drugs and her parents were fighting, her father and grandmother even more so. So when the already highly stressed Erica got up early to get a glass of water and Cornelius leaped out at her from behind a corner with a sheet over his head and making ghost noises, young Erica ended up on the floor in the fetal positon in a state of terror, Faye having to put her severely traumatized daughter to bed with a bucket, Erica vomiting in stress most of the day.

Erica felt close to vomiting now as the ghosts continued their antics by banging on the outside of both of the cars, but as they cleared the Ghosties Beach area the ghosts stopped their attack, and the sadistic spirits simply faded away, to the relief of the occupants of both cars.

The drive to the Hunter Region continued along the coast, now with Lake Macquarie to the left and the Pacific Ocean to the right. At one stage Gavin was concerned to see what might be a UFO, but it was at some distance away right on the other side of Lake Macquarie, and could possibly be a light aircraft.

Erica was busting to pee, and was hoping her father would soon stop the car for fuel as they crossed the Swansea Bridge and over into Belmont, the southernmost suburbs of the steel city of Newcastle. If they had taken the Pacific Motorway up from the Central Coast the journey would have been less than an hour, but the coastal route they had taken was far longer, plus the stop and the busy traffic in Gosford added much time to the journey, and by now it was late afternoon.

Each time Erica saw a service station she hoped her father would stop there, but he did not, driving all the way up to the Newcastle CBD and the main street, Hunter Street, where he pulled into a large service station and to a pump, Danielle behind him.

Everyone got out of the cars, Alistair and Cornelius getting the nozzles out of the petrol bowsers to re-fuel the cars. As was often the case, Cornelius could not resist the opportunity to make an exhibition of himself, and put the petrol hose between his legs to simulate a penis, pretending to masturbate and laughing.