Lee Battersby - Author

The following interview is with Lee Battersby, author of Claws of Native Ghosts in The Beast Within.

Hi, Lee. Could you start us off with a little info about yourself? We here on the forums are so used to seeing text and avatars that it can be easy to forget there are human beings behind the words. What’s a day-in-the-life-of-Lee Battersby like?

A: Depressingly normal, I’m sorry to say. I’m a day-jobbing father of two, stepfather of three with a mortgage and a love of stand up comedy and documentaries about serial killers. My wife is a writer, so I’m lucky in that she understands my writer boy needs, and that helps. But like everyone else my week is a constant juggling act- family, job, paying the bills, keeping the house maintained, and if I’m lucky, getting some words down.

What initiated your interest in writing?

A: Good old fashioned high school laziness. I discovered that I could write a story pretty quickly, get a good mark in my English class, and appear smarter than I really was. In my final year of high school I was lucky to have an English teacher who really believed I had a talent, and it changed my thinking? I had actually accepted a place in our Defence Force Academy, and was all set for a life in the Army? I ended up studying writing at University, spending a few years working as a stand-up comic, and investing in a growing passion for writing.

As a writer, what do you find is the most challenging part about crafting fiction, and how do you overcome it?

A: The most challenging part for anyone, I think, isn’t so much technical as psychological. Given all the pressures that life throws at you, it can be difficult to maintain the passion for the art. I try to keep hold of the feeling that writing is something special, some part of how I define myself. I also spend a lot of time doing other life-affirming activities: I read a lot, and widely, spend a lot of time with my wife and kids, I’d rather spend money than save it? when I sit down in front of my keyboard I want it to be something I want to do instead of all the other things I can do with my time, and the best way to do that is to live my days as fully as I can.

Any personal experiences where you might’ve felt like a character in a horror novel?

A: As far as horrific experiences go, I haven’t had one worse than having to tell doctors to turn off my first wife’s life support and let her die. She was infected during a caesarian section due to doctor error, and died four days after the birth of our only child together. Emotionally I was ruined for a good, long time, and it was only meeting Lyn, who is now my wife, that stopped me from self-destructing. If a good horror story relies on the reader engaging emotionally with the protagonist, well, that’s as engaged as it gets.

Your fiction has won multiple awards. Are there any words of wisdom you could pass along?

A: To aspiring writers? Nothing more complex than: be original. No matter what you do, set out to subvert the readers intentions. They may love you or hate you for it, but they’ll remember you far more than if you’re just another pale Fat Fantasy imitator.

Writer’s block strikes sooner or later; are there any home remedies or writing exercises you use to stave off the dreaded curse?

A: I usually have several things on the go at any one time, so if one story grinds to a halt I can jump onto another one for a while. But I’m also an avid reader and documentary junkie, so there’s a constant stream of nicely-packaged in factoids streaming towards me: it doesn’t take long for a few to hit in the right order, and there’s the next idea, ready to go.

Where can we see more of your work?

A: I have a collection out through Prime Books (www.primebooks.net) called Through Soft Air, and my bibliography at http://battbilio.blogspot.com lists all my published stories with links to where you can purchase the magazines/anthologies, as well as to the stuff that’s available on the net.

When the submission call went out for Beast Within, what was the first idea that came to mind? What made you choose the were-creature in your story?

A: I’m a paleontology geek. The Western Australian museum had recently exhibited the first full skeleton ever recovered of the thylacoleo carnifex, an ancient ‘marsupial lion’ which inhabited our part of the world, so I was geeking out on that, and a writer friend had been talking about wanting to put out an anthology of horror stories set throughout Western Australian history, so the two ideas were floating around each other like twin suns. All I needed was that third element, and the lycanthropy angle was the perfect fit.

Could you give us a non-spoiler synopsis of your story Claws of Native Ghosts?

A: ‘Claws’ takes place in the early days of European colonization of Western Australia. It’s based around a real life event, a slaughter of Aboriginal families by settlers that has become known as ‘The Battle of Pinjarra’. Apart from my protagonist, all the human characters in the story are based on real people. All I did was add a loony and a lycanthrope ?

Thanks, Lee!

And now, here’s an excerpt of Claws of Native Ghosts from The Beast Within:

CLAWS OF NATIVE GHOSTS, BY LEE BATTERSBY

My name is George Dawson. I am a soldier in the 21st Regiment of the Royal North British Fusiliers, stationed in the town of Mandurah on the estate of Thomas Peel. I believe in the Lord God Almighty. Should it be his will, I will burn in hell for all eternity. For I have come to believe in savage gods, and such a fate is the greatest blessing He could bestow upon me. He has to, otherwise it shall all come to naught, and everything I have done in his name is wasted.

***

It was Captain Ellis who stopped the flour ration, and Captain Ellis who set off after the darkies when a group attacked the Swan River flour mill and stole a thousand pounds of the stuff in January. I went along for the ride, partly because I was stationed at the mill, but mostly because Ellis had a daughter. Rose was her name. She was slight, and frail, and if the sun had created heat one degree more damning she would have folded over like a broken flower. Her skin did not deserve the wind and the light, and her hair should have bathed in milk, not the hard, frothless acid that passed for water in the accursed colony.
I had courted her for six months, ever since my transfer from the 63rd. Slowly at first, in silence, leaving small gifts at her doorstep after she went to sleep. She never spoke of them, at least not to me, but I knew my love was breaking down her distance. After two months, we assembled in the forecourt while a notice was read to us by our Sergeant. I do not recall the words, only the message: the gifts had been collected. She had received them. She wished them to stop. I understood. They were not enough. They insulted her. A woman of her beauty and grace could not be won over by trinkets. A bigger prize was merited. I would watch, and wait, and find something worthy of her attention.
Then came the order to cease handing out flour to the natives, and the raid. When Rose’s father called for volunteers to track down those responsible, I stepped forward before any other. Captain Ellis stared down at me, squinting in the sun.
“Name?”
“Private Dawson, sir!” No salute could have been more crisp, no spine more straight. This was my future father-in-law. I needed him to view me with pride.
“Thank you, Private.” He made a scratch in his notebook and moved on to the other volunteers. But I had made my mark. When it came time to fall in, it was me he spoke to first, me he called upon to gather the others from their barracks. And if I was lost amongst the traveling party, it did not matter. I had impressed Rose’s father. It was only a matter of time before I would have a gift with which to win Rose herself.

******

His name was Galyute, and he was no more washed and fit for civilized company than any other blackie. But he had something most savages lacked: cunning, and a rude form of intelligence. Not to mention a thousand pounds of the colony’s flour. It took our hunting party the better part of a week to track him into Mister Peel’s estate, a week spent trudging through flyblown countryside so dry and brown it was as if someone had burned all memory of English fields from our thoughts. But we caught him, and three of his cronies, and hauled them all the way back to Perth. When the morning of the flogging they had so long deserved dawned, I saw my opportunity. I would present Rose with a prize worthy of her love.
The other three received their measure, but Galyute still stood at the post. I smelled the sweat crawling down his back; saw the ripple of muscles anticipating the blows. There had been no call for volunteers. Even so, I had requested the duty. The whip was slick in my hand. I bent to whisper in his ear.
“Don’t be upset,” I said, smiling as he flinched from my voice. “All animals look better as a rug.”
I stepped back, looked up to my Captain. He nodded, and I made my first swing.
When I was a boy, my father was posted to Africa. It is a skill, to lay open an animal with as few cuts as possible, so it can be presented with no damage to the hide. The whip is an unwieldy cutting instrument, no match for a skinning knife. But I had sixty strokes to complete my goal. The darkie screamed from the first. I swung again, and again, grinning as the skin of his back folded and peeled away. Father would have been proud. A man is nothing like a lion. My love would have a pelt, from the finest animal this country had to offer. How wide her smile, how tight her embrace, when presented with such a gift? The beast shrieked, and writhed against his restraints, twisting away from the edge of my stroke. I knew his movement better then he did, and my blows fell in space to match his body. Five more strokes to complete the job, then four. Three more, and the hide would fall away from his body, to be cleansed and cured?
I never reached the final strike. My hand was stopped, held fast by a grip that crushed the bones of my wrist together. I gasped and tried in vain to free myself. The grip tightened, and were I not such a strong man, I would have crumpled from the pain.
“Enough!” bellowed a voice near enough to shock me back to knowledge of my surroundings. Captain Ellis stood above me, his face a red mask of rage. “What the hell are you doing?”
“I ?” Galyute lay on the ground, his back so close to completion I felt my fingers twitch. Ellis tore the whip from my grasp and raised it as if to strike me.
“Sixty strokes, God damn it.” He threw the whip away. “What kind of animal are you?”
“But, I ?”
“Quiet.”
I ceased my protest. My future father-in-law was angry with me, furious. I had done something wrong. I looked from him to the blackie, searching for some sign of my transgression. The Captain pointed toward the assembled soldiers.

“You, and you. To the infirmary with him. Get him patched up.” They scurried to obey, lifting the unconscious savage from his restraints and dragging him from the square. I watched my gift disappear into the barracks, barely able to stop myself from racing after them to retrieve it. Ellis must have noticed my twitch, for he rounded on me.

“And you. I do not repeat myself. When I say stop, you stop.” He raised himself to his full height, and viewed me down the length of his nose. “Gross insubordination. One month’s kitchen duty, one month’s stable duty. To be performed simultaneously.”
“Sir, I ? Yes, sir.” No salute was more despairing, no spine more bowed with defeat. He turned his back on me and strode away, barking orders for the cleaning up of the square. I noticed my love, standing at the door of her father’s office, her eyes fixed upon me. I smiled, but she slipped inside, slamming the door behind her. The look on her face was one I had seen before, every time I was a filthy little boy and my mother had to scold me.

They released Galyute after a month, along with his darkie friends, flogged them again and sent them on their way. I returned to my squad, stinking of horse manure and sweat. No more was said. No further punishment was meted out. I was sent away on some other duty when Galyute and his cronies walked out the door of the barracks. Rose, my love, was sent to Mandurah to stay at the estate of Mister Thomas Peel. I had no way to be sure, but I knew it was because of me. I had failed her. She wished to punish me, to give me time to reflect upon my mistake and earn her favour once more. I threw myself into my duties and waited. Captain Ellis stayed at the barracks. I made it my mission to win back his respect. We were going to spend the rest of his life as family. I had to earn his approval as a soldier before I could hope to regain my position as his son. No regulation was more strictly followed, no duty completed with more diligence. And when the blackies caused such trouble that a column was ordered to march to Peel’s estate and recover them, no soldier was more proud to find himself included in the traveling party.
I never knew Private Nesbitt. But were I an angel I would have sung his name in Heaven for his stupidity in getting himself killed. The local savages released some of Mister Peel’s horses. Peel wouldn’t go out to look for them. He sent his friend Barron, accompanied by a soldier. Nesbitt. Any fool could have seen a trap. Any fool, as soon as he recognised the native who led them into the clearing. Galyute. Always Galyute. At the head of the trouble. Luring the men out into the bush. Leaving them to be attacked by the waiting blacks. Galyute. Driving the spear into poor Nesbitt’s back, piercing his flesh, impaling his organs. Galyute, prompting Captain Ellis to round up his most trustworthy men and instruct us to leave the barracks in small groups, to reassemble along the road to Mandurah. Poor, stupid, dead Nesbitt. I could have danced for joy.
I left with the first group. Nobody was to know of our journey, least of all the tribes who lived along our path. We decamped in secret, spread out over the better part of a week. Any blackie might be watching, ready to run before us and spread the word to the Murray River tribes. Small parties are always travelling the roads. Nothing to see here. Move along. I could have cared less. Let them run; let them hide in whatever crevices and cracks the earth might open up for their dirty, smelling bodies. I would sniff them out. I would do my Captain proud. The days were hot and the travel hard, but I would make him remember me. I would be a creditable soldier for my father. When the time came again, he would know me as a worthy suitor for my fianc?. She would welcome me into her arms. I would present her with the greatest gift a man can bestow upon a woman: the chance to reflect in the glory of a hero. Had the journey taken seven years, I would have whistled as I walked. Destiny stands outside of time. It would be waiting for me when I arrived, with hair that smelled of the English spring and skin so soft it would bruise under my embrace.
We arrived at Mandurah on the evening of the 26th of October, a force of thirty men, my father-in-law at its head. Royalty rode with us down the driveway of Peel’s mansion. The Governor himself had joined our company, trotting past with the last group, taking over command from Captain Ellis with the assured air of one for whom right and wrong were daily playthings. I marched a little straighter the day he joined. God and England and me, together on a holy pilgrimage to win the heart of true love and capture a beast. We crunched down the path to Peel’s front door, formed up in ranks to receive the Governor’s blessing, and were dismissed.
Armies may march on their stomachs, but the mark of a true soldier is his ability to sleep in any position, in any situation. My troop mates found their beds and were snoring within half an hour. Perhaps I was not yet the warrior I should be, for I could only lie awake in the darkness, staring at the sliver of night outside the dormitory window. Somewhere on this estate, my wife-to-be lay. Did she also stare at a patch of sky, wondering whether I had made the journey, and whether I still had the strength of character to win her affections again? Surely her father had told her that we had journeyed together. But if he hadn’t, what torture my sweet love must be experiencing, seeing so many men arrive and yet not knowing whether I were to be counted amongst their number. Sleep would not claim me, not until I had laid her worries to rest. I rose without sound, sliding past my companions without disturbing a second of their slumber. Within half a minute I stood outside, boots in hand, turning my head to make sure of my directions. The homestead crouched at the far side of the open ground, beyond the courtyard where we had paraded less than an hour previous. Lights showed in the upper windows. There my love must wait. A princess must be kept in a tower. In the absence of one, any high room would suffice.
The grass was well tended, and soft between my feet. I put on my boots, and snuck toward the back door, feverish with fairytale plans for rescue and reward. A kiss, surely, one single kiss for the man who had walked the length of a country for a sight of his true love. Would that be too much to ask or to bestow upon one so favoured in her eyes? I had no strategy with which to arm myself against discovery, but that did not worry me. Fairytale princes prevail, no matter the odds.
I gained the door without discovery. The crunch of boots on gravel reached me from around the corner. The night patrols were vigilant, but here I was, a soldier in full uniform. What would they ask that I could not explain? They held no fear for me. I grasped the doorknob. A rustling of branches caught my attention, off to my right, at the deepest part of the gardens. No light fell upon the area this late at night. Still, something was moving through the bushes. Native attacks were the reason I was here, and why I had brought my comrades with me. I bent low and abandoned my pursuit of love, pushing away from the door and racing to the cover of a nearby hedge. The sound moved farther down the row of bushes. Not an attacker then, unless he planned to leave the sanctuary of darkness and rush two heavily armed soldiers across thirty yards of well-lit courtyard. The blackies may not be smart, but even beasts weren’t stupid to the point of suicide. So an animal, then. I relaxed. The creatures of this country could be large, and even aggressive if cornered, but they were not predatory. I was about to return my attention to my crusade, when the undergrowth crackled again, and I caught an unmistakably feminine giggle.
Curiosity engaged, I snuck towards the sound. No woman should be out after dark. Natives abounded, else why would I have been summoned? It was my duty as an Englishman to apprehend this wayward girl and bring her back to safety and the light. I crept forward, shielded by the nobility of my purpose, tracking the sound of movement deeper into the garden. I heard a second voice, a guttural murmur in stark counterpoint to the giggling. The words rolled just underneath the crest of understanding, but the voice was, without a doubt, masculine. So it was a liaison, and an illicit one, judging by the circumstances. Now my purpose stood clear. I must break up this stupid couple and return the girl to the safety of the house. The man would be punished. As her rescuer, that right would fall to me. I would stand before my peers as a man of righteous morality. I would recover my place within my future family’s affections.
The movement stopped. Both voices ceased their playful murmurings. Animal moans reached me. I inhaled once. Gathering my courage, I burst through the veil of branches.
For long moments my mind refused to understand what I was seeing. A shape, blanketed by shadow. It writhed upon the ground, wrestling with a slick spectre of bark and dirt. Then the vision cleared, and I saw the face of my beloved Rose. Rose, my fianc?e, attacked by some creature of the deep ground. I jumped into the clearing, a sound of shock escaping unbidden. Immediately, the combat ceased. A face peered up at me from the top end of the creature. It leapt away from Rose, uncovering her body to my gaze.
She lay on her back, her eyes staring at me with a mixture of shock and anger, arms flung behind her as she scrabbled for purchase on the soil. Her nightdress had rucked up around her throat. Her flesh lay exposed to my gaze, forbidden curves and rises spread before me, moist and shining where the press of bodies had created sweat. Her nipples erect, the spray of hair at her groin wet and open as she pulled her knees up to push herself away. Her bubbies jiggled with the effort. I screamed again. This was no assault. Rose, my Rose, was not being attacked. Instead she had ? they were ? consorting. With a creature of the ground, a nightmare beast, a ? I turned upon the monster where it crouched a dozen steps away from my beloved’s nakedness. It smiled up at me, a cruel knowledge played across its features. And they were features I recognised, a face I had seen contorted in fear and agony as I had plied the whip across its back. My Rose, naked in the bush, lying underneath the filthy black skin of Galyute. For a moment I saw the apparition I had encountered as I stepped through the bushes. My mind filled in the blanks it had not recognised the first time. I began to harden within my pants, and shook my head in revulsion.
“No.” I fell backward a single step, and he jumped for a gap in the bush. I leapt after him without thinking, my future wife’s nakedness forgotten in the sudden urge for revenge. I was unarmed, not having wanted to alarm my darling with a fearsome appearance when I entered her room. That did not matter to me now. My hands would be enough, curled into claws around Galyute’s neck, squeezing until the skin beneath them turned white and cold. I screeched at his retreating back as he dodged between trees just ahead of me. He glanced over his shoulder at me, his teeth showing white. I bent my head, ignoring the branches that whipped at my face, drawing deep breaths as I forced a burst of speed into my legs. He skirted a gum just in front of me, and my foot caught a root as I adjusted to follow him. I went over, rolling down a short incline and fetching up hard against a rock. Something crunched in my wrist, and I howled with pain. His laugh sounded off to one side. I hauled myself up once more, clambering one-handed up the bank. I took a moment to regain my bearings then set off in the direction from which his laughter had come, moving more slowly now, using my good hand to clear the undergrowth from my path.
The bush was thick. I had long since lost sight of the house and gardens. I did not care. It was all Peel’s territory. Sooner or later I would drag the rebellious darkie’s body to some source of civilization. All I had to do was locate him, and the work was half done. I outweighed the scrawny native by a good thirty pounds. Even wounded, I would snap him in half like stale bread. My rage was righteous, and God has always been on my side. Rose was mine, only mine. What I would do to flense his unclean touch from her did not bear consideration, but she would thank me for it once it was done.
A black skin rug would decorate her floor. Black skin gloves would adorn her hands. Black bones would feed her dogs.
The track forked, one path heading into deeper bush, the other coming up short against a sudden rise in the ground. I heard a muffled crack in that direction and crept up the slope. I lowered myself to the ground and peered over the top of the bank.
A small clearing opened up some twenty yards down the other side of the rise. Galyute stood in the centre, his back to me, bent over with his hands on his knees. I smiled, my teeth sharp against my bottom lip. The chase had tired him out, his underfed body unable to stand the pursuit of a well bred Englishman. My task would be easy. I pushed up, ignoring the scream from my wrist, and raced the two dozen steps to the clearing. He did not move. I was less than ten paces away when I realised he was not knelt over in exhaustion. His head was tilted upwards, his attention captured by something in the lower branches of a massive gum tree at the far end of the clearing. He chanted in a low, deep voice, words that carried the taint of a language older than time. The words pushed against me, thickening the air. My headlong rush slowed. My hands fell to my side. By the time I reached him I had no more will for murder than a child. He stood erect and stepped backwards, turning until he faced me with the tree at his back.
“What’s the matter, wadjella?” he asked, spreading his arms wide to show he was unarmed. “Wanna kill me? I’m here.”
I tried to raise my hands, tried to step forward and throw my weight against his stick-thin body. But my resolve deserted me as quickly as I formed the notion. I stood still, mouth hanging open. Drool rose up and over my lip, slowly coating my chin. Galyute stepped forward with dainty steps, reached out with one finger, and tipped my unresisting head backwards until my gaze rested upon the branches to which he had been praying.
“See him?” he whispered in my ear. “See him, there?”
A shape took form on the stoutest of the lower branches. A large cat, hunched over, gripping the branch with claws that resembled extended thumbs more than feline pads. The soldier in me noted and measured. It was well over four feet in length, its hide a mess of tawny spots that I struggled to track amidst the leaves. The cat must have weighed thirty or forty pounds, yet the branch bowed not one inch under it. Its ears lay flat against its head, and the light in its eyes came from no human sun. When it yawned, I saw the length of its fangs and shuddered.
“He a powerful jennok, wadjella,” the native at my shoulder said. “He been dead a long time, this one, before the bindjareb come to this place, before people come at all, before dreamtime. He got ideas for all you white ones. He sees inside you. And he hungry for you.” He patted me on the shoulder as a father would an adoring son. I still did not want to fight him. All I wanted was to gaze at the wondrous creature on display before me. It yawned once more and tensed hind legs under its flanks.
Galyute stepped in front of me and turned his back, offering the easiest of strikes. My hands stayed at my side. He raised his arms and leaned towards the beast. He began to chant, a song of obeisance and all-encompassing love. The cat hunkered down, and so quick I could not see, leapt from the branch. I caught a flash of its underside and the marsupial pouch that hung there. Then the spell left me. The creature struck Galyute on the shoulder, barging him out of the way like a furred cannonball. I had time to throw my hands over my face before the full mass of the cat hit me. I screamed, expecting claws to rend my exposed stomach and teeth to sink deep into my neck. Instead of pain, I was hit by a moment of pure ecstasy, a strumming of my muscles like an angel’s hand running along the strings of a harp. The bulky animal passed into me, slipping inside my flesh as if diving into a pool, making as much noise as a ghost through shadows. I blinked: once; twice; half expecting to hear it thrashing about inside me like the kittens we used to bag back home, just before walking to the river and throwing them in. Nothing happened. I laughed, shaking my head at my own stupidity, and turned toward the blackie, lying stunned on the ground.
“Almost had me there,” I said, stepping over him. “Magic tricks won’t stop me from ?” I paused, and the memory of why I pursued him rushed back to me. “Time to pay, you filth.”
I managed one more step before the pain hit me, exploding up from my stomach, along my bones, twisting me until I crouched on all fours, head pressed against the earth. From somewhere distant I heard a howl, and a voice speaking a language I had never heard but which I understood like a second tongue.
“He was meant to choose me.” Something hard struck my face, and again. I slipped to my belly, and Galyute brought his feet into play. “I can’t kill you now.” He laughed, and it was the sound of death. “You part of the spirit world now, wadjella,” he said. “You food for the spirits.” He grabbed my hair and pulled my head up until his yellow eyes filled all the vision I had left.
“What you going to do in there, huh?” he cried. I realized that he spoke, not to me, but to something he saw deep behind my eyes. “I offered you my flesh, my hunt. Now all that death will be for me alone. I will hunt them all, all the white spirits. You picked the wrong way to survive, old one.”
He let go of my head, and it cracked against the ground as I fell. My sight filled with black. Footsteps receded through the bush, moving away from me without care. My strength went with it, and I closed my eyes against the world.

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