“Take your hand from around your cock and I’ll tell you,” said the voice.
Mark did as he was told; beside him, Crystal stirred slightly, moaned something about toenails, and went back to snoring.
Mark slowly swung his legs from the bed and pushed himself up. It was so cold, and Mark’s erection was peppered with gooseflesh, which made it look like one of those spiky sex toys women are so crazy about, much to the chagrin of their smooth-dicked husbands. “So,” Mark said, for he was intrigued by the sudden appearance of this new voice. “Where are you? I can’t see shit.”
“Try using your teeth,” said the voice. “I’m right here.”
Mark grinned, exposing his chemically whitened gnashers, and suddenly the room lit up as if he were wielding a torch. And there, standing just a few feet in front of him, was a beautiful, though slightly pallid, woman. She was glaring down at the protrusion between Mark’s legs while simultaneously shielding her eyes from the glow of his clearly radioactive teeth.
“Sorry about this,” Mark said, easing his erection down, tucking it between his legs like that freaky-deaky skin-seamstress from The Silence of the Lambs. “It’s always a nightmare to control, especially when it’s itchy.”
The woman huffed before turning her eyes toward Mark’s face. “You must leave this house immediately,” she said. “Very bad things are happening.”
“Why do you talk in italics?” Mark said. One of his ex-girlfriends – a lovely little minx by the name of Mandy D’Amour – had spoken only in capital letters, but this was something else.
The woman, shrugging, said, “I don’t know, really. It used to drive my husband mad. I think that might have been part of the reason why he killed me.”
“It is rather annoying,” Mark said. “Hang on a minute! Did you just say your husband killed you? As in murdered you dead?”
“I’m not this colour through choice,” said the woman. “And look at these clothes. I look like I just escaped one of those cult-caves after another failed apocalypse. Of course I’m bloody dead. That’s why it’s so cold in here.”
Mark looked the woman up and down, and slightly up again. A smile crept onto his face. “You’re no ghost,” he said, nodding knowingly. “You’re part of the show, intcha? Whoooooooo,” he made spooky gestures in the air with his fingers. “I might be a few Bradys short of a bunch, but I wasn’t born yesterday, love.”
“Listen to me,” she went on. “You must leave right now! My husband is on the warpath! He is going to kill each and every one of you!”
“Keep your voice down, love,” Mark said, pushing his erection back down between his legs. “If she wakes up” – he motioned to Crystal Cobb on the bed behind – “this is going to take a helluva lot of explaining.”
“He’s coming!” the woman said, only now she looked terrified. Either she was a fantastic actress – like Cynthia Rothrock fantastic – or she was truly scared.
“Would this be the same husband that murdered you?” Mark said. Humouring the actress seemed like the best approach. If he played along, the whole episode might feature on tomorrow’s show. More airtime for him meant a much higher chance of winning.
“How many bloody husbands do you think I’ve had?” gasped the woman. “Of course it’s the same one that murdered me. In my day, people only got married once, and that was to the first man that came along, whether you liked him or not.”
“Oh,” Mark said. “That’s fascinating. Perhaps if you’d been a bit more choosey you’d have found a guy that didn’t kill you to death.”
“We didn’t have time to be picky,” said the woman, searching the darkness with a panicked expression forming on her face. “Are you even listening to what I’m trying to tell you? You need to get out! Run! And take her with you!” She motioned to Crystal Cobb.
“Really?” said Mark. “Do you think I’m a complete idiot?”
The woman nodded.
“If I set one foot outside this house, that’s it. Game over. The whole point is to stay put for a week, and some…some alleged ghost isn’t going to frighten me off.” He crossed his arms defiantly. His hard-on sprung up like a charmed snake.
“I’m telling the truth!” the woman screeched. “He’s going to—“
A huge bang from behind startled Mark, and he spun around, expecting to find Crystal Cobb lying upon the floor, dazed and confused. What he wasn’t anticipating was that the bed would be levitating, with the girl still sleeping upon it, which was exactly why it came as such a shock.
It all happened so fast that Mark didn’t have time to think. The floating bed suddenly tilted, and Crystal Cobb’s one eye shot open as she realised something untoward was happening. Then she was rolling forwards, and Mark was rooted to the spot, unable to move, his face contorted into an expression of abject horror that could very well have made Gary Busey look normal. He knew what was going to happen before the girl had even slipped from the end of the bed, and yet there was nothing he could have done to prevent it (except perhaps think of his grandma).
Crystal Cobb whimpered once in mid-air, and then there came a terrible squelch as she face-planted Mark White’s massive erection. Her one good eye was forced to the back of her skull, blinding her instantly. Mark dropped to his knees to prevent the whole shaft breaking off; he didn’t know whether to cry or cum (or both).
Crystal’s dying body continued to twitch for a few seconds. Mark quickly withdrew his waning erection from her eye-socket and staggered backwards, unable to take his eyes off the poor dying girl in the middle of the room.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!”
The bed, which was still spinning in the air as if by some kind of magic, landed with a thump back in its place, and from underneath it crawled a dark figure, a terrible figure, the kind of figure that would make you go, “Eurgh’ and ‘Fucking shoot it!”
“What did I tell you!?” screeched the woman. “He’s going to kill you now!” She slapped a hand across her face, as if frightened of what was going to happen next. Mark did the same, then realised that he should have been running for it, not standing stock-still and hiding behind his fingers.
The man-thing/shadow moved like liquid as it clambered to its feet, and then a face appeared – a moustachioed face that reminded Mark of the spaghetti westerns he used to watch as a kid.
“You’re trespassing!” said the creature. “And now you must pay the price!” Something extended from its wrist; a dark sword, perhaps, though it wasn’t sharp enough to be a sword. It looked more like a double-ended dildo, a lesbian couple’s best friend.
“What’s going on!?” Mark gasped. He knew he wouldn’t make it to the door, not with the Lee Van Cleef shadow-monster standing in his way. “This is some kind of nightmare, right?”
The shape loomed large; Mark’s teeth could no longer illuminate the whole thing, which was incredibly unsettling. “A nightmare of the worst kind,” said the figure, swiping its dildo-arm through the air. There was an audible whoosh as it passed just inches from Mark’s face.
“You don’t have to kill this one,” said the woman, stepping between Mark and the dark shape. “Roger, this has gone far enough. You don’t have to murder any more people, not tonight, not ever!”
Roger lowered his weapon and placed both hands on his hips. “Darling, I really wish you wouldn’t talk in fucking italics. You know how much it irritates me.”
“I’m sorry, dear,” the ghostly woman said. “There’s nothing I can do about it, but there is something you can do about all this.” She stroked the shadowy dildo and motioned to the dead body on the bedroom floor. “These people haven’t done any harm to you. They’re just here to…” She trailed off before turning to Mark, who was still looking for a way out. “What are you doing here?”
Mark, stuttering, said, “We’re…f-f-filming …it’s… for a reali-t-t-y show.”
“I have no idea what that is,” said the woman, shaking her head. “But Roger is right. You have made a big mistake coming t
o Hathaway House. This place is not safe. You must leave immediately.”
“Over my dead body!” said Roger, and with that he arced the double-ended ghost-dildo through the air. The woman ducked and screamed simultaneously. Mark only had time to do one of those things, and as he screamed he couldn’t help but feel that he’d made the wrong choice.
Pain surged through his temple as the rubbery weapon connected. For a moment all he saw was stars, and then the floorboards as they came up to meet him. Then he was aware of more pain, though not as his head connected with the floor but as his erection punched through the wood, leaving his meat torn, tattered and bleeding like a mangled bratwurst.
“How dare you!” said Roger as he brought the flexible weapon down over and over. “Pay the price. How dare you! You must pay the price.”
Thwump!
Thwump!
Thwump!
18
Peter woke with a start. Across the room, Lorna Giffard lurched forwards, eyes wide, as if something had disturbed her sleep, too.
Thwump!
“Did you hear that?” Peter said.
Lorna nodded. “What is it?” She pulled the sheet tight around her body, cocooning herself.
Peter stood up slowly, listening for the noise again. When it didn’t come, he said, “It sounded like somebody being beaten repeatedly around the head with a double-ended dildo.” But that was a ridiculous thing to say, and so added, “But it probably wasn’t.”
“This place gives me the creeps,” Lorna said as she climbed to her feet. “I’m starting to wish I hadn’t come here. It’s not as if I need the money.” That was true. She had only recently signed a lucrative deal with Head & Shoulders to front their latest campaign; a new shampoo designed specifically for ferrets, of which she had three. For Flake-Free Ferrets, Favour Ferret-Fluid™. It wasn’t much of a slogan, but the money was good.
“It’s probably just someone moving about upstairs,” Peter said. He picked up the torch and made his way out onto the hallway. Lorna was right behind him; he could feel her breath on the nape of his neck.
Thwump!
“That doesn’t sound like someone moving about,” Lorna said. “It sounds like someone hammering something into the floorboards.”
Peter nodded. “I’m going to take a look,” he said. “Stay here, okay? There’s no point us both going up there.” Did he think for one minute that she would allow him to leave her, to investigate unaccompanied while she stood at the bottom of the stairs, shaking like a shitting dog? Not really, but what he didn’t expect was for her to latch onto his arm and start sobbing and drooling like a child that couldn’t get its own way.
“Okay, okay,” Peter said, loosening her grip, peeling her fingers away from his flesh before she drew blood. “I’m not going to leave you, okay?”
Thwump!
“Just stay real close, and remember everything we do is being recorded, so let’s not make giant twunts of ourselves, yeah? This is probably all part of the game. I doubt there’s anything to worry about. We just need to stay focused, and not lose sight of the fact that we’re on the TV, that this whole place has probably been rigged with things designed to shit us up or freak us out.”
Lorna nodded and dried her eyes. The way her make-up was now smudged, Peter wondered if he should start worrying about a vengeful crow flapping about the place.
Thwump!
“Come on, then. Let’s go see what the fuck is going on.” Peter turned and began to climb the stairs. Creaaaaaaak! Creeeeeaaaaaaaaaak! “Can you stop making that noise, Lorna,” Peter whispered. “The stairs will creak on their own accord if you give them time.”
“Sorry,” said Lorna. “I didn’t realise I was doing it.”
And the stairs did indeed creak without any encouragement, and Lorna remained so close to Peter that one of them, at the end of the day, should perhaps consider a pregnancy test.
Thwump! “Gurgh!”
“That’s new,” said Peter, for the previous thwumps hadn’t been accompanied by a pained grunt. It sounded like a man…a man being beaten around the head with a double-ended dildo, but again Peter reproached himself for such a ridiculous thought.
“How long is this staircase?” Lorna whispered. “We’ve been on it for bloody ages.”
Peter nodded. “I was hoping that the noise stopped by the time we reached the top.” Though that was becoming increasingly unlikely, especially now the noise had a voice of its own.
Thwump! “Fuck off you absolute bastard!”
“That sounds like Mark,” Lorna said, slapping a hand across her mouth to prevent her from either screaming or vomiting with fear.
Using what he’d learnt from Basil Rathbone – Frank Henry had a lisp, and Victor Hoof had one of those weird voices only dwarves have – Peter deduced that Lorna was right; it was Mark White.
Peter trained the torchlight upon the head of the staircase, and almost toppled backwards when the painting hanging there suddenly came into view. There was the master of the house, flanked by his family; none of them looked happy. In fact it looked as if they had just turned up at Disneyland ten minutes after the gates had shut. It was one of the creepiest paintings Peter had ever seen, and he’d been to a Rolf Harris installation.
But then the painting wasn’t the creepiest thing at the top of the stairs as a shape crawled across the landing; bloody face, unnaturally contorting limbs, drool seeping from the corner of its mouth. It was horrific.
“Oh my God!” Lorna screeched as she latched on to Peter’s arm once again. This time nails embedded in his flesh, and Peter did some screeching of his own. “What the fuck is it!?”
Peter snatched his arm away and motioned to the bottom of the stairs. “GO!” he said. “Get to da chopper!” There was a time and place for quoting Schwarzenegger, and this probably wasn’t it.
Lorna frowned, for she wasn’t a great fan of action movies, but she knew what Peter was telling her: get your ass down the jeffing stairs!
The crawling, bleeding mess at the top of the stairs gawped down at them, eyes wide, one ear mangled and hanging on by the merest of threads. He looked, Peter thought, as if he’d been beaten around the head with a double-ended dildo, but of course that was ridic—
“H-h-help!” said the thing, and it was then that Peter realised he was looking into the battered face of Mark White, star of bullshit reality show The Only Way is Dudley. It had been such a handsome face only a few hours ago – so handsome that even Peter, who hadn’t touched another man’s penis since his Uncle Trevor slept over in the Christmas of ’71, could understand why the women went wild for him. Now he looked like something you could order at an Italian restaurant.
“Mark?” Peter said. “What the hell is going on?”
He didn’t expect the poor kid to be able to answer, not with one lip hanging from his face as if it had been attached with a Pritt-Stick by a drunken toddler, but somehow Mark managed a few words, a few of which Peter recognised.
“L-curgh-leave…we…mon…stergh…got…get… out…fleurgh.” He pulled himself forward using the top step, and Peter had just enough time to realise what was going to happen next.
“Mark, wait!”
But Mark wasn’t waiting for anything. He wanted down, and the quickest way down was on his belly, his head, his back, and to hell with the consequences. Something up there had terrified him so much that he’d rather take his chances with a barrel roll down an ancient wooden staircase.
Peter turned and, without pause, leapt toward the bottom of the staircase. Lorna’s eyes widened as she saw the author’s terrified face in the beam from his own torch. Everything seemed to move in slow motion; if she’d been into action movies, she might have appreciated that moment a little more than she did.
It was then that she realised Peter was yelling at her to get out of the fucking way, which just went to show how long he was up in the air for. Lorna dodged to the right, which was annoying as the right was what Peter was aiming for, and mom
entum’s not the kind of thing you can just change.
He clattered into Lorna, and they both went back, clattering into some weird organ that had brown and yellow keys instead of white and black.
Thump!
Creaaaaaaak!
Thump!
Creeeeeeaaaaaaaaak!
And so on and so forth until Mark White appeared at the foot of the stairs in the beam of Peter’s torch, which had miraculously not only survived the leap from the stairs, but had also landed so perfectly on the floor a few feet away that it couldn’t have been placed any better.
Despite being bloodied and battered, totally naked, and nowhere near as handsome as he had been when he’d gone to bed a few hours ago, Mark managed to clamber to his feet, and on jellied legs he staggered along the hallway, bumping into things that weren’t there, peeling the stipple off the wall with his shoulder (or peeling his shoulder off his body with the stipple).
“Mark! What the hell is going on!?” Peter was terrified. This wasn’t how he’d imagined the show to be at all. Eat a few bugs, sleep in a dark cellar, sure, but not this. This was going too far.
“LEAAAAVE!” Mark said as he reached the front door. “Have to…have to LEAVE!” He reached down and wrapped his hand around the brass doorknob. He turned it.
“Mark, this is what they want!” Peter said, meaning the producers of the show. “You set one foot outside and—“
Mark opened the door and stepped outside.
There was a blinding white light, a sonorous growl from deep within the house, and Mark White, owner of the whitest teeth in Dudley, simply vanished into thin air.
19
“This has to be the most boring show I’ve ever worked on,” said Nev. “I mean, all they’re doing is fucking sleeping.”
“Can yaw keep it dahn,” Noddy grumbled from the corner of the room. “Some of us are trying to sleep, ya know?”
Nev apologised and returned to the screens. Eight housemates, all in the land of nod, where nothing exciting ever happened, apparently. What had happened to all the rats? Massive waste of time that had been. They would have been better off putting spiders in there. Or scorpions. Or the Chuckle Brothers.
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