The Killer Koala by Kenneth Cook Read Free Book Online

and reached for two more. He
couldn't get the tops off; the barman whipped them off for him.
Slowly, painfully, his eyeballs rolled deep into his head, his body
swaying in ever-increasing circles, Ivan drank each bottle.
    'Ninety-nine!'
It was a roar.
    Then
Ivan drank the ninety-ninth bottle. By then he was spinning quickly,
inclining his body at an impossible angle. Only the weight and size
of his legs can have kept him upright.
    Somebody
had to put the hundredth bottle into his hand. Obviously he couldn't
see it, or anything else for that matter, but somehow his hand found
his gyrating head and he got the bottle to his lips.
    Down
went the beer, slowly, terribly slowly. But down it went, all of it.
    'One
hundred!' It was a mighty animal scream. The empty bottle crashed to
the floor. Ivan had drunk one hundred stubbies in just under an hour.
    Three
or four men tried to stop Ivan spinning and there was a general
hubbub as bets were settled and fresh drinks ordered. Then Ivan
brought instant silence with a vast bellow.
    'Vodka!'
he shouted.
    The
word, as much as the level of Ivan's thunderous voice, brought the
silence.
    He
turned to the bar and thumped it.
    'Vodka!'
    Dazed,
the barman poured him a nip of vodka.
    Ivan
brushed the glass off the bar with a sweep of his hand that
demolished half a dozen other drinkers' glasses as well.
    'The
bottle!' he roared.
    There
was silence.
    Then
timidly, terrified in the presence of mystical greatness, the barman
put a bottle of vodka on the counter. It was open, but Ivan broke its
neck on the bar in a ritual
gesture. Apparently he could see again, although his eyes were still
just blank white.
    He
raised the vodka bottle until the jagged neck was a handspan from his
mouth, then poured a gush of the clear spirit down his throat. Half
the bottle gone, he slapped it down on the counter; it rolled on its
side and the vodka slopped onto the floor. Nobody noticed.
    Arms
by his side, eyes pure white, body rigid, Ivan made for the door of
the bar. A quick passage cleared for him and he went through in a
stumbling rush, like a train through a forest. He crashed into the
swinging door, the bright flash of late sunlight illuminating his
huge frame, and plunged headfirst out into the street, hitting the
dust with a thud that seemed to shake the building. Just once his
head moved, and then he was a motionless heap of sweat-sodden
humanity in the dust.
    'We'
d better get a truck to take the poor bastard home,' said somebody.
    'Yeah.'
And two of the drinkers, kindly men, wandered off to organise the
truck.
    'He's
forgotten his money,' said someone else.
    'I'll
keep it for him,' said the barman. 'He'll be back in the morning.
Probably have a head.'

     
    Vic the Snake Man
     
    Vic the Snake Man is probably the only
man ever to survive being attacked by a python and a taipan in rapid
succession.
    I
met him on the Butterfly Farm, a family picnic entertainment centre
on the banks of the Hawkesbury near Windsor, just out of Sydney. His
job was to look after the snakes on display and give lectures on them
to the farm patrons. I was doing some publicity work for the farm and
found both Vic and his snakes intriguing.
    Vic
(I never did know his other name) was very tall, very thin and very
dirty. He had spare yellow hair and two or three yellow teeth that,
possibly by association, looked like fangs. He possessed only one
pair of trousers, which were very tattered, and allowed it to be
apparent that he wore no underwear. He also had a shirt with no
buttons and several holes, and the remnants of a pair of sandshoes
which he wore without socks.
    He
seemed to eat nothing except patent headache powders and the handmade
cigarettes he held between two of his fangs until they disintegrated
or were swallowed. His voice was very nasal and he spoke very slowly.
His opaque yellow eyes were sunk deeply into his head, peering like
little animals from the grime-laden crevasses of his thin, craggy
face. He was never seen