Vile Things: Extreme Deviations of Horror

by et al. Ramsey Campbell

  And yet it was mussy-maned Lance that got the girls. Infuriating. Simply unjust. It took a tremendous display of willpower for Albert to keep from vomiting when he heard Lance’s girlfriend slobbering over his sloppy locks like some hair worshiping nymphomaniac. But thank God he hadn’t, because he would have given away his entire surveillance operation, and today his efforts had uncovered an invaluable nugget of information.

  He was looking down through Observation Hole Delta-Bravo over the kitchen phone, listening to the tapped line with his earpiece as Lance talked to his girlfriend, leaning back on a kitchen chair, holding the receiver with one hand, adjusting his crotch through his $300 jeans with the other.

  “Do you really mean it?” Sally-Ann squealed.

  “That’s right, baby,” Lance crooned. “Pack your bags. You’re moving in. End of this month.”

  “What about your roommate?”

  “He’s not my roommate, he’s my tenant.”

  “What about your tenant?”

  “Well, he’s gotta go. I don’t trust that freak—I think the guy’s half crazy and I don’t want him around you. I’m gonna miss the eight hundy his old man sends every month, but it’s all about you now, baby.”

  “We’re gonna have to tell Grammy and Gramp-Gramps.”

  “Fine. Dinner here this weekend. We’ll break the good news.”

  “They might not like me moving in with you, us not being married. You’re gonna have to make a good impression.”

  “How can I not? I’ll just make sure the freak keeps his pimply face in his room. Other than that, we’re golden.”

  So I’m out and that skinny little nympho’s in, huh? Albert thought, wanting to cough something up and spit it down the observation hole right in pretty boy’s hair. Keep my pimply face in my room, huh? I don’t think so, Mr. I’m-toocool-’cause-I’m-tall-and-got-a-square-jaw-and-a-cool-guy-patch-of-hair-under-mylip-and-I-wear-a-different-outfit-every-day-and-drive-a-convertible-sports-car. I don’t think so! I’ll keep my pimply face anywhere I choose.

  He looked around at the attic, all his hard work, the stealthways, observation points, secret hatches, video equipment. If he left here, he’d have to start his work all over again from another location. And he’d be leaving this area vulnerable. He may not be able to protect this entire nation from overseas threats, but by God, this 1,500 square foot region was secure. He knew with a soldier’s heart and a general’s wisdom that there were no terrorists or foreign invaders on these grounds. And he wasn’t going to let Lance change that.

  We’ll just have to see how good an impression you make at that little dinner of yours, Lance. We’ll just have to see if things don’t go quite as planned.

  “Well, look at Mr. Handsome—aren’t you just too sexy for words,” Lance said, winking at himself in the mirror. It really was amazing. He saw that face every day and was just a little surprised every time. Could that really be his face? Was it even possible to have a face that attractive? No prosthetics, no special effects, that is what it actually looked like! It was like standing across from a movie star. No, better than a movie star—a soap star, or an entertainment TV reporter. And he never got complacent about it, because year after year it always got just a little better. He was getting older, pushing up on thirty, but he was only looking more distinguished. Less boyish and more ruggedly handsome. More manly. His body continuing to fill out.

  He smiled his signature smile, flashing those big white beauties. He tried a few other smiles to see which was the most charming. There was a coy sideways number that had some possibilities. Probably keep that one on the back burner for awhile, see how it develops. Stick with the tried and true for now.

  He pointed his index fingers and raised his thumbs, shooting his reflection. “Pow, pow! I got you, good-lookin’.”

  Maybe he was too good looking for Sally-Ann? Maybe this was a mistake, letting her move in? Maybe he was selling himself short? She was about the best looking girl in this shit town, so what could he do? He could always move to the city, sell the house, find someone his caliber.

  Relax, Champ, he told himself. When you feel like moving on, those big-city broads will still be there. Go ahead and give a townie a shot for now.

  Sounds like a plan. And see that? Not only was he ridiculously handsome, he was also humble. But it was time to turn his mind to other matters. There was official business that needed his attention. He sat at his desk and took out a sheet of paper. This had to sound official, like it came from a lawyer. So he put himself in a lawyerly frame of mind and wrote:

  June 13th

  Dear Mr. Albert Flapp:

  It is with the deepest and most utmost regret that I must expunge our cohabitationary relationship. Situational changes have necessitated the need for you to relinquish residence in this domicile. Please cease and desist your tenancy no later than June 30th. At such time, any monies due to yourself (e.g., cleaning deposit, et. all) will be rended.

  Sincerely yours,

  Lance Masterson

  Lance was sweating and had a sharp, piercing headache when he was done writing, but the letter was perfect. With that taken care of, he spritzed his face and touched up his hair for awhile. He checked out the new smile one more time—not too bad, might be something there—and headed upstairs to Albert’s room. He knocked and the door flung open, the little freak jumping back into a karate stance, dressed head to toe in camouflage. When he saw it was Lance, he straightened up to his full five foot four and shook it out.

  “Sorry, Lance. Can’t be too careful.”

  “Yeah, that’s right,” Lance said, “I could have been a gang of ninjas. Look, Albert, I need you to take this and read it.”

  He gave Albert his notice. The freak opened the letter and stared, his bushy bottle-brush eyebrows scrunched together—for a twenty-year-old that couldn’t grow a mustache, he sure did have some dynamite eyebrows. He strained over the letter, concentrating like he was trying to light it on fire with his mind.

  “It says you have to leave by the end of the month,” Lance said patiently.

  “That’s what this says? Okay, I was expect … I mean, this really comes as a shock.”

  “Yeah, sorry for the short notice. But I’m sure a smooth operator like yourself won’t have any trouble hooking himself up with a swinging bachelor pad.” Saying that made Lance feel kind of dirty, but little creeps like Albert usually responded to flattery. “I’ve got my girlfriend, Sally-Ann, moving in. You know how it is, my man.”

  Albert stroked his small recessed chin and raised one of his eyebrows dramatically. It looked like a caterpillar trying to crawl up his forehead. “That’s too bad,” he said. “I really thought we had a good thing going on here.” He raised his index finger like a professor about to make a key point. “Say, Lance. Hypothetically, if Sally-Ann couldn’t move in for some reason—say, I don’t know, she joined the Marines and got deployed to Uzbekistan or maybe she was mauled to death by a giant Kodiak bear—would I still need to move out?”

  “You know, pal, there’s nothing I’d like more than to have you stay, you really have been a breath of fresh air around here, but with Sally-Ann coming on board it’s just going to be too crowded.” Maybe he was laying it on a bit too thick. The freak was buying the flattery, but Lance was starting to feel nauseous. “Oh yeah, I also wanted to tell you that I’m planning a dinner party for Sally-Ann and her grandparents tomorrow evening.”

  “Great, what time should I be there?”

  Lance felt his stomach lurch. He tried to smooth the repulsed look off his face. “I’m afraid it will just be the four of us.”

  Albert counted on his fingers. “No, I get five. Or, what, can one of the grandparents not make it? Does grandpa have a goiter? That’s all right. The four of us will have a good time.”

  “I mean it will just be Sally-Ann, the grandparents and myself.”

  “I don’t get it.”

  “I mean I was hoping you’d keep to your room that night so we c
an have some privacy.”

  “What kind of an invitation is this?”

  Lance thought his head might explode if he didn’t end this conversation. “It’s not an invitation. I don’t want you to come downstairs. I want you to stay in your room and not come out until everyone has left. Do you understand?”

  Albert’s upper lip, covered in a soft pubescent dusting of fur, quivered just a bit. “I understand.”

  “And don’t forget, I need you out by the end of the month,” Lance said as Albert shut the door.

  Jesus, Lance thought, thank God that freak will be gone soon. Now his shoulders were knotted with tension. This stress wasn’t good for his complexion. He should head down to the gym and hit the free weights. His deltoids needed some attention. And his pecs hadn’t exactly been setting the world on fire lately.

  Maybe when he was done he should get an exfoliating massage. Maybe a mani-pedi.

  Albert prepared for his next mission with renewed zeal. He was wavering there for a moment. Lance had been apologetic and so full of kind, appreciative words that Albert nearly thought he should move out after all. Then Lance played that cruel trick of inviting him to the dinner but telling him he couldn’t leave his room. Well, he may keep to his room, but his presence would most certainly be felt at that dinner.

  Albert removed his camo jacket and pulled on his long black trench coat. He had sewn pockets and secret pouches inside for his weapons, spy equipment and ninja gear. What he needed was a better utility belt. He had a grappling hook attached to a launcher on the buckle, but it only threw the line about five feet before it thudded to the floor. And when he did manage to get the hook over a ledge and tried to climb up, it pulled his pants up to his chest, crushing his testicles. But he wouldn’t need any of that for this mission.

  Albert climbed onto the shelf in his closet and lifted the hatch to the attic. He scanned his immediate surroundings for terrorists and spiders. Clear. He hoisted himself up and crawled along the stealthway to the lockbox hidden under the insulation in Sector Alpha. He removed a small baggie and a vial of liquid, slid them into a secret pouch in the left arm of his trench coat and returned to his room.

  He dumped the contents of the baggie into a silver alchemist’s mixing bowl (they said it was a dog’s water dish at the pawn shop, but that seemed unlikely). It was a fine brown flaky powder, like silt and dried skin. He looked closely and thought he could detect a slight movement, which made sense, because down there at a microscopic level were millions of tiny insects. Itching power, the professional kind. Those little bugs crawled under the skin and caused unbearable itching. Albert had to have it mailed in from Mexico—it was illegal in the United States. And when Lance showed up at dinner tomorrow, itching like a mangy dog, not able to stop scratching throughout the meal, there was no way Sally-Ann’s grandparents would want her living in this unsanitary, vermin-ridden hovel with that disease-carrying hobo.

  And just to make sure it was effective, Albert implemented the next phase of his plan. He poured the clear liquid from the vial into the silver bowl, creating an even more powerful concoction. He was like an evil scientist—but an evil scientist for good! But he supposed if he was for good, then he really wasn’t an evil scientist at all. He was a good scientist. But he supposed most scientists were pretty good already, so that wasn’t really a distinctive title. It didn’t matter, he could think of a proper title later. What mattered now was gently stirring in the growth agent.

  Albert got the vial from his friend Doug from ninja class. Doug’s older brother was studying chemistry at the community college but dropped out to start a meth lab in his trailer in the woods. One of his side projects was trying to mutate a bovine growth hormone. He was hoping to make something he could use on his marijuana plants to make the buds swell to gigantic proportions. It didn’t work on the “reefer,” but it did work on a fly that landed in the solution. Doug said the next day that fly started growing, and before long it was the size of a softball. It fluttered lazily around the trailer, barely able to lift its own bulk, buzzing like it was breaking wind. They had to swat it with a tennis racket, and Doug said it was like popping a fuzzy black balloon filled with chunky red and yellow yogurt.

  And now that Albert had the mutated growth hormone, he’d do to this itching powder what had been done to that fly—and Lance was in for a long, uncomfortable dinner party tomorrow.

  Once the concoction was thoroughly blended, Albert blow-dried it until it was light and flaky and put it into the baggie. He returned to the attic and crept to Sector Omega over Lance’s room, opened Ceiling Hatch Enduring Freedom and lowered the rope ladder. He climbed down and pulled back the silk sheets on Lance’s king-sized bed, then changed his mind. If Lance started itching too early, he’d have time to cancel the dinner. So instead Albert went to Lance’s underpants drawer, which was filled with fancy little bikini briefs. He sprinkled the powder into the crotch of each pair. Lance was the kind of guy who changed his underpants every single day, so tomorrow when he put on a new pair he’d start getting an itch right where he’d least want it.

  Albert returned to his room and undressed for bed. He checked out his physique in the mirror. Not bad. He was skinny—he barely weighed a hundred pounds—but he was pretty cut. When he flexed his arm, it was very clear where the bicep was. There was a distinct line indicating where the muscle started. No one could mistake it.

  He got into bed and thought that if this mission went well, if his planning and stealthwork resulted in him being able to stay in the house, then maybe he should consider being a mercenary. The Marines wouldn’t take him, but being a mercenary was freelance. No one would know if he was asthmatic, anemic, and had a pilonidal cyst on his coccyx. He liked the idea of being a sniper, but he didn’t know how much he’d like running around the jungles of South America. He assumed he probably couldn’t get any mercenary jobs here in the house. But maybe he could get an assignment in the neighborhood. Maybe he should get a subscription to Soldier of Fortune.

  Lance woke up late the next morning. He took a long, hot shower and tried out his new shampoo. Mangos—nice! When he got out, he carefully shaved his face, chest, shoulders and upper arms. He applied a layer of lotion—Lancôme Aqua Fusion, very refreshing, fragrant but not unmasculine. He slid on some festive red bikini briefs, a pair of vintage jeans and a crisp white long-sleeve shirt. He was also excited to try out the new French cologne he found—J. Cousteau, the smell of adventure! A squirt on the neck and another down the pants, just in case Sally-Ann was staying over. Now it was time to get to work on that hair.

  An hour and twelve minutes later he’d achieved perfection. He checked himself out in the full-length next to his bed. Perfect. He took another look on the second full-length on the inside bathroom door. Different lighting. He took a third pass on the full-length on his closet door. Still perfect. Grammy would be creaming her Depends.

  It was already after noon, and he told Sally-Ann to bring the fossils over at three. He figured that’s about when old people ate dinner. So he started vacuuming, and as he did, he started getting a tingling sensation in his crotch. It felt like his foot when he sits on it too long. When this happened to his foot, he’d stomp on it until the circulation came back, so he squeezed his Johnson, pulled on it, punched it a few times, but the tingling didn’t stop. Maybe his briefs had shrunk in the wash and were cutting off the blood to Stretch Armstrong.

  He tossed out the red pair and slipped on some tiger-stripes. This was a party, right? He went back to vacuuming. The tingling didn’t stop, and now it was starting to itch. He went to the bathroom to look. It was red, but that could be from scratching it.

  It was getting late and he had to go pick up the food. He drove to the restaurant with one hand on the wheel and the other stuffed down his pants, raking at his sack. The whole area felt like it was on fire. A horrible itchy fire. It had to be that new cologne he’d sprayed down there. If he ever found out who that J.

  Cousteau was, he’d t
rack his French ass down and stab him in the nuts with a fork.

  Lance picked up the food—a cream of asparagus soup, mashed potatoes, a creamed white fish and tapioca pudding for desert. He wanted to get soft food because he didn’t know if the dinosaurs still had their teeth or not. As the zit face at the counter got his order together, Lance had to stuff both hands down his pants, scraping at his crotch like a rototiller. Zit face wasn’t too thrilled to take Lance’s money when he handed it to him.

  Back at the house, Lance threw the food in the oven and ran to the bathroom to see what sort of cooling salve he could slop on his knob. He pulled down his pants, and the whole area was hot and bright red. It had spread a few inches down his thigh and up his lower belly, and there seemed to be some blisters or welts rising on his skin. He really needed to make an emergency appointment with one of his dermatologists, but it was almost three. He smothered the area in calamine lotion until it looked like it had been formed from clay, then turned the blow-dryer on it until it was hard, dry and cracking.

  The doorbell rang. Lance zipped up his pants and rushed out into the living room. He gave his package one last good squeeze and opened the door. Sally-Ann was smiling, looking good in a tight white dress. “Hey, baby! This is Grammy and Gramp-Gramps!” she said, presenting a pair of stubby prune-like creatures who only came up to her shoulders.

  Gramp-Gramps was wearing an oversized brown suit with an orange tie as wide as his head. The lower half of his face was mostly covered with a whopper of a pushbroom mustache, and he wore a toupee so bad Lance honestly thought for a moment that it was some sort of fur hat. It was matted flat and wide, so it stuck out on the sides of his head. And the dull salt and pepper color was in stark contrast to the wispy silver that grew naturally around the sides of his scalp.

  “So you must be Gramp-Gramps,” Lance said, displaying a warm smile and extending his hand.

  “Gramp-Gramps?” the old man harrumphed behind his mustache. “What are you, a child, for Chrissake? My name’s Eugene. Call me Mr. Makeweather.”