Zoonami

by Adam Millard

  “This your new boyfriend?” Thad asked, scowling at Roger, warning him off. Roger half-expected Thad to whip out his Percy and start urinating around Brandie, marking his territory like the hound-dog he seemingly was.

  “Not that it’s any of your business,” Brandie said, drumming her beautifully-painted talons on the table, “but yes.”

  If I stand up now, Roger thought, tell the man I don’t know this woman, never seen her before in my life, that she just parked herself at my table while I was having a quiet pint, maybe he won’t punch me so hard that I’ll wake up in a chalk outline.

  “Well, good luck with this one,” Thad said, gesturing to Brandie. “She almost ate me alive, and look at me! I hate to think what state she’s going to leave you in.”

  “Bye, Thad,” Brandie said. She hadn’t made eye contact with the giant since his arrival. Maybe she knew something Roger didn’t. She was obviously aware of how good-looking her ex was and that gazing upon that magnificent frame of his might somehow cause her to fall for him all over again. Hell, Roger wasn’t even gay, but if Thad asked him to fuck, he doubted he’d be able to say no.

  “Cool, I’ll leave you guys in peace,” Thad said. “Got a four-hour shift at the gym tonight, then three hours with a Spanish waitress. Catch you on the flip-side.” With that, Thad was gone, bouncing across the pub like something you only saw in Looney Tunes cartoons.

  Once Roger’s heart rate dropped below 220, he sipped at his Guinness and waited for Brandie to speak first. After almost a minute, she did.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “Thad’s not a bad guy. Wouldn’t hurt a fly, really, unless that fly was wearing crotchless panties, in which case, more fool it.”

  “You never told me about Thad,” Roger said, trying not to sound disappointed. Now that he’d seen what he was up against, what Brandie’s basis of comparison was, he had no idea why he was still sitting there. There was a microwave dinner and a litre of turpentine back at the bedsit with his name on. If I leave now, the taxi won’t cost half as much. I could afford to treat myself to some new socks with the change.

  “Why would I tell you about him?” Brandie asked. “We were engaged a long time ago, like six months, or something.”

  Roger cast his mind back six months. That would have been right around the time Brandie started walking with a limp. Holy shit! Thad had fucked her so hard, she’d walked on tip-toes for three weeks!

  Why waste money on a taxi? Roger thought. The buses are still running. Be home in time for Xena.

  “Anyway,” Brandie said. “Like I said, I apologise.” She signalled to the bartender, who began preparing a third mojito. “Let’s have a nice night, huh? You hungry? I’m hungry.”

  Food was the furthest thing from Roger’s mind, but he wasn’t ready for the evening to end so soon and on such a bleak note. “I could eat,” he said. Whether I can keep it down is another matter entirely.

  They ate at a small bistro next to the beach. Roger ordered the lasagne. Brandie opted for the most phallic food on the menu. She must have known exactly what she was doing; nobody deepthroats a sausage before eating it. By the time Roger walked her back to her flat at a little before midnight, slightly inebriated and stiffer than an Irishman’s drink on payday night, he was gagging for some action. When Brandie halted at the steps to her flat and pecked Roger on the cheek, the way an aunt might after babysitting you for four hours, Roger’s heart sank in his chest.

  “Thanks for a lovely evening,” Brandie said. “I’ve really enjoyed myself.”

  Enjoyed yourself, have you? That fucking sausage enjoyed itself too. “Oh, it was nothing,” Roger said through gritted teeth. Should have caught the bus earlier. Now he had a three mile walk to look forward to. Three miles with what was now, apparently, a permanent erection.

  “Don’t forget to set out for work early in the morning,” Brandie said. “First day of the carnival is always a nightmare.”

  “I’ll be there early,” Roger said. “Wouldn’t want to piss off Mr. Chinn, now, would we?” He turned, began to walk away from the woman of his dreams, a woman who, up until two minutes ago, he’d believed he’d see naked by the end of the night.

  He walked, listened to the sound of Brandie’s footfall as she traversed the steps at the front of her building and then to the sound of the door closing. When he was certain she was gone, he adjusted his erection, sighed deeply, and said, “Fuck.”

  6

  The streets of Cromer were filled with people lining up early to witness the floats as they flowed through the town. On both sides of the road, throngs of men, women, and children stood waving flags, cheering as they waited for the mayor to step up onto the podium and give his annual speech.

  It was hot, too hot for some of the older Cromerites, who were already passing out on the deckchairs they’d set out an hour before. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, which meant that by the end of the day, hundreds of Norfolk residents would be laid out in hospital beds, whingeing and sobbing, telling the nurses that, “On your salary, I’m sure it’s fine, but us dole-dossers can’t afford sunblock.” For weeks to come, hordes of red people would be walking the streets of Cromer, occasionally stopping to pull a sheet of skin from their shoulders. Though things could change very quickly; this was Britain, after all. By midday, hailstones the size of Miley Cyrus’s wrecking-ball could be raining down on the unsuspecting crowds, in which case hundreds of Norfolk residents would be laid out in hospital beds, whingeing and sobbing, telling the nurses, “It was sunny when we left the house. Nobody wears their hard hat when it’s sunny.”

  The spectators lining the streets all began to shush one another as Mayor Donkadonk made his way toward the microphone. A small, hairless man, Donkadonk looked like something you could dip your toast in. If ever he fell off the stage, he was in serious trouble. There was a rumour going round about all the king’s horses and all the king’s men that should have deterred a man like him from climbing to high places.

  As he arrived at the microphone, a cheer went up around the street. Most of them didn’t have a clue who he was, but that big, gold medallion dangling from his neck was worth a few bob, so he must be important.

  The mayor hushed the crowd, smiled, waved, did a little curtsey, then hushed them again. He was loving every minute of it. These were his people, his citizens, his bread and butter. He’d spent three years as mayor of Wolverhampton, and so he knew, better than anyone else, how fortunate he was now. For one, there were a lot fewer bricks being hurled toward him from the people of Cromer, unlike at his farewell speech in Wolverhampton, in which he’d almost lost an eye.

  “Ladies, Gentlemen, children of Cromer,” Donkadonk said, wiping sweat from his head with a snotty hankie. “It is so good to see you all here on this most joyous of days.”

  The crowd muttered to one another. “Where else we gonna go? None of us have jobs. In fact, you haven’t created a single job in your three years in charge.” “I’m only here for the strip-show.” “It’s not a strip-show, Alan, it’s a Carnival Queen competition.” “But they still get wet, don’t they?”

  “Who would have thought we would make it to 2014, huh?” Donkadonk snorted, but when the majority of the crowd put their hands in the air, he decided to move on. “Yes, well, this is our hundred and fifty-something official carnival. I’m not sure of the actual number, but I think you’ll agree that there have been lots of the damn things. And let me tell you something: I have been looking forward to this one for months.” A cheer, a round of applause, a couple of boos from a group of unruly teenagers on the pier behind. “What a week we have in store for you!” Donkadonk pulled a sheet of paper from his jacket pocket and unfolded it. Reading, he said, “We’ve got the float parade, the mascot boxing tournament, the shepherd’s pie eating competition. Hell, The Red Arrows are going to be flying over on a daily basis. We’ve got clay pigeon shooting and the raft race. We’ve got the annual tug o’ war tournament. Then there’s the fancy-dress competition, and
I see some of you are already dressed for that.”

  The crowd all turned, looking for the early entrants, but they couldn’t see anyone dressed out of the ordinary.

  “There will be street performers,” Donkadonk continued. “And hopefully there won’t be a repeat of last year’s tragedy.”

  The more religious Cromerites in the crowd made the sign of the cross. What had happened to Terry Jones, the Magnificent Sword Swallower, the previous year was enough to give even the most staid person nightmares. Sales of corned beef had dropped severely in Cromer since the accident, and a lot of the people who had been present that day had expunged knives from their memories completely, opting to use a spoon and fork for dinner ever since.

  “But today’s main event is the annual Carnival Queen competition.” Whistles, cheers, the sound of wives slapping their husbands hard across the face. “And we have a lot of beauties for you this year—and a few boilers you might recognise from outside your house late at night. The competition begins at three o’clock this afternoon, which gives the entrants plenty of time to cake on their make-up and fill their brassieres with as many chicken fillets as the damn things’ll hold. In the meantime, we’ve got a special guest to entertain you. You know her best as ‘that girl from that program with those other girls where they’re all pretending it’s real, even though we know it’s scripted and they’re all horrible, horrible actresses.’ Here with her first—and possibly last—single, This Ho is Just fo’ Show, it’s Candy Caine!”

  Donkadonk left the stage, sweating like a blind lesbian in a fish market, making way for what appeared to be an orange lady with peroxide-blonde hair. The songstress burst into song, and the crowd began pushing anything they could find—litter, ponytails, beetles—into their ears.

  Cromer Carnival 2014 was just underway, and the people of Cromer had already had enough.

  7

  Roger Whipsnade had fed the caimans. That’s all that matters, he thought as he stepped out of the enclosure, counting his limbs as he went. The rest of the day would be plain sailing.

  It needed to be. He hadn’t slept a wink last night, despite placing a bag of frozen peas over the affected area for almost seven hours. You didn’t need Viagra when you had Brandie Stroman. He’d considered sorting himself out, booting up the internet and finding something deeply erotic to watch, like Sex and the City or Spartacus, but had decided against it. It wouldn’t have been right, not after Brandie had gone to all that trouble of seducing him with a nine-inch bratwurst. No, he would wait, bide his time, and when—if—the chance presented itself, Brandie Stroman wouldn’t know what hit her.

  Roger cleaned out the penguins and the Galapagos tortoises before lunch, then set about the reptile house. By the time he’d finished, it was half past two, and from what he could hear through the zoo's gates, the carnival was in full swing.

  “Sounds like a good turnout this year.”

  Roger turned to find Brandie walking toward him, carrying what looked like a bucket of shit. “Always is,” he said. “I hear they’ve got Judi Dench this year.”

  “Is she still alive?” Brandie said.

  “Knowing Mayor Donkadonk,” Roger said, “probably not.”

  Brandie set the shit-bucket down on the ground and gazed into it, as if she expected it to reveal her future. Roger stared into it too, amazed at how accurate it was about his.

  “I just wanted to thank you again for last night. I haven’t had fun like that since Margaret Thatcher died.”

  Roger smiled. Even though things hadn’t gone to plan last night, he was on the right track. Brandie was indeed falling for his—what did she call it?—Simple charm? “It was all my pleasure,” he said. Apart from the ten hours afterwards, which were about as pleasurable as a night in the sack with a wasp nest.

  Brandie nodded. “And look. I would have invited you in last night, but we both know what would have happened then, don’t we?”

  I was fucking counting on it! “Yeah, that would have been weird.” Not weird. Not weird at all. Why would I say weird? Hang on, am I saying this out loud?

  “And just so you know,” Brandie continued. “I saw the way you limped down the street.” She licked her lips, which would have been extremely erotic if there wasn’t a bucket of shit between them. “And I promise that next time we go out, you’ll be skipping all the way home.”

  I don’t know how to skip. Shit! Have I got to learn how to skip now, just to get laid?

  Brandie crouched and picked up the bucket before walking away. Her hips were doing something odd. Roger didn’t know whether she was teasing him or her pelvis had seized up on her.

  Once she was out of sight, Roger turned and tried skipping. “Dammit!” he said, tripping over himself. “Michael Flatley must have sold his soul to the devil!”

  8

  The trawler’s deck was teeming with cod. Neither Bobby nor Barry had ever seen so many fish.

  “Do you think last night’s earthquake sent ’em in our direction?” Bobby said, scooping a handful of still-twitching cod up and dumping them into the large bucket to his right.

  Barry frowned. “I don’t know,” he said, “but if this doesn’t put us in the Cromerites’ good books, nothing will.”

  After the events of the previous night, neither of the fishermen had been able to sleep. Every time the boat hit a wave, they’d jumped up, panicking, grabbing on to something, usually one another, for support. They had both seen Titanic, and even though it was only a film, couldn’t possibly happen in real life, it was hard to think about anything else: Bobby floating on a plank of wood, Barry singing Celine Dion at the top of his lungs. It was a horrible thought; nobody likes Celine Dion.

  “I never thought I’d say this,” Bobby said, “but I’ll be glad to be back on dry land.”

  Barry nodded. “I know what you mean. I’ve been a fisherman since I was old enough to hold a rod, and I’ve never experienced anything like what happened last night.” Probably because there weren’t that many earthquakes in the pond in seven-year-old Barry’s back garden.

  “Do you think we could, I don’t know, go in early?” Bobby shuddered. “The freezers are almost full anyway, and it’ll do us good to get off the sea for a few days.”

  Barry walked along the deck, knocking cod out the way with his bare feet. He heaved open the freezer lid and stared in. “There ain’t no point in us staying out here if we’ve got nowhere to put the fish.” He shut the lid. “Plus, we’re almost out of moonshine, and you know what I get like when I’m fishing sober.”

  “So is that a yes, then?” Bobby smiled. “We can head back to Cromer?”

  “We can head back to Cro—”

  Suddenly, there was an almighty growl, as if the sea were as homophobic as the Cromerites. It was ten times louder than anything they had heard the previous night, not coming from just beneath them but from everywhere. In the distance, the North Sea seemed to be disappearing, sucking in on itself momentarily. Neither fisherman had the ability to scream at first, but that wasn’t for want of trying.

  “OHMYGOD WE’RE GOING TO DIE, AREN’T WE!?” Bobby howled as his unfinished bucket list sped through his mind. I haven’t met Madonna! I haven’t been to Peru! I haven’t eaten sushi out of an oriental man’s belly-button! I can’t die! I have so much left to—

  Barry slapped him hard across the face. It would have hurt a lot less if he wasn’t wearing three gold rings. “Calm down, man! Get into the cabin and point this thing toward the shore! We’re not going to die!” We probably are. “And even if we do—” We will. “At least we’re going to go together!”

  Bobby, still shocked from the backhand his lover had administered, nodded. Barry was right. They had always wanted to go together. Not today, though. I’m not even wearing clean pants!

  As Bobby headed down into the cabin, trying to remember the frequency he’d called last night, Barry turned his attention to the ocean. Something terrible was happening out there. From where Barry stood, he could
see the water on either side of the horizon separating and clashing, slamming together so forcefully that it geysered upwards. The sunlight was momentarily blotted out as tonnes and tonnes of North Sea reached for the sky. It was mesmerising to watch. Also shit-your-pants terrifying when you realised it was heading your way.

  “Erm, Bobby?” Barry called out. “We’ve got ourselves a situation up here!”

  Bobby clattered up the stairs, tripped up as he reached the deck, and thumped against the side of the trawler. Must be a side-effect of knowing you’re going to die, he thought. Inability to walk in a fucking straight line.

  “What?” Bobby said, imploring his lover to answer.

  Barry pointed out across the sea to something moving in the distance, and as Bobby squinted, his mouth fell open. His heart leapt into his throat, and all manner of stuff that was safely tucked away in his bowels a second ago simply fell out.

  A tidal wave, huge and deadly, stretched up as far as the eye could see. There was no Godzilla surfing toward them on the Marie Rose, just Mother Nature, and boy was she pissed.

  “Shit, Barry, we’re going to need a bigger boat.”

  9

  The people of Cromer applauded as the potential carnival queens made their way onto the stage. It was a stifling hot afternoon, and now it was going to get even hotter. Mayor Donkadonk had done his best to keep the crowds satisfied between events, but he could see they were growing steadily frustrated as the afternoon wore on. The impossible heat wasn’t helping, nor was the fact that the fleet of ice-cream trucks he’d commissioned for the event had failed to show, meaning the crowds had had to make do with barbecue.