Some things had certainly changed.
After pondering the subject for a while, the thing in the pit realised it had two choices: it could attempt to go back to sleep; perhaps the anger would subside, and darkness would return in all its splendour, rendering it unconscious, once again, for another few centuries. Or – the much more tempting prospect – it could teach those little fuckers up there a lesson. They had unceremoniously awakened it, dumped a massive load of shit onto its head, and simply waltzed off into the night as if they hadn’t a care in the world.
Well, I suppose I could pop up there for a little bit, the Pit-Dweller thought, stretching its innumerable invisible limbs. And as it pushed upward, kicking off of its mausoleum and the forgotten city beneath, something strange and unexpected happened: a sound echoed through its mind. No, not a sound; music. A song, even. Something about… love… love… and how it’s all you need…
Whatever, the thing thought as it flew off into the night, dispersing, giving itself to the winds. Still, no matter how hard it tried, it just couldn’t get that blasted song out of its head.
6
Ted stared down at his plate in disbelief. Must be some sort of joke, he thought, nudging one of the sausages with his fork. Finally, he had to speak up.
“Mum, I thought it was fish-finger night? I’ve been telling everyone at work I was having fish-fingers and…” He jabbed a sausage and waved it in the air, as if signalling an aircraft. “…fucking sausages, Mum.”
“Don’t you talk to your mother like that,” said his father, Bill Butcher. “And there’s nothing wrong with those sausages. While you’re under our roof, you’ll eat what we put on the table. Did you talk to that ex-missus of yours like that?”
“She never lied about fish-finger night,” Ted said, dropping the fork onto his plate. “And anyway I don’t have much choice at the moment. I’ll be out of your hair as soon as I get some money together.”
“Money?” Edith Butcher spat. “You’ve never had money, Edward. Not even when you were married to that cheating whore of yours.”
Ted sighed. “Can we not call her names?”
“Says ‘em how I sees ‘em,” Edith said. “Would you prefer prostitute? Harlot? Streetwalker? H—“
“Hoe?” Bill offered.
“I was just about to say hoe,” Edith said, patting her husband’s head. He looked up from his plate and smiled at her.
“I would prefer if we didn’t talk about her at all,” Ted said, glancing down at the sausage and finding it even more disgusting, given the direction the conversation had taken.
“Bad day at work?” Bill asked, sucking gravy from a sausage as if it were a…
“You could say that,” Ted said, trying not to make eye contact with his deep-throating father. “Do you know how many people still have LPs?”
“I think it’s terrible,” Edith said, peppering her mashed potato as if it had somehow wronged her. “Throwing away good music like that just doesn’t make any sense to me. There would be uproar if people started doing that with books.”
“I think it’s a good idea,” said Bill. “Think about all the space they've cleared. All those lofts gasping, not knowing what to do with all that clean air. Did you know that you are now seventy percent less likely to die from a collapsing attic than you were before the LP harvest?”
“Where did you read that nonsense?” Edith said.
“It’s not nonsense,” Bill replied. “It’s science. And our boy here is on the front line, making Bellbrook a safer place for everyone. Sure, the townsfolk might think he’s a cunt, but he’s the cunt that saved their lives.”
“Thanks, Dad,” Ted said, failing to feign appreciation. “And we got most of them, I think,” he added. It was impossible to get every single LP in Bellbrook, but he’d given it his best. There would always be those sad, unfortunate souls, reluctant to move on, unable to allow technological advancements into their life, and good luck to them. You never saw them complaining about technology when they needed a pacemaker fitting…
“Well, I don’t like it,” Edith said, forking mash into her face. When she next spoke, a geyser of potato spewed forth. “This country’s gone mad. First it was the smoking ban, then the pissing-in-the-park ban, and now this.”
“What pissing-in-the-park ban?” Ted asked, incredulous.
“You know,” Edith said, “you can’t piss in the park anymore. Why, twice last week the police threatened to arrest me.”
“You’ve never been allowed to piss in the park!” Ted said, pinching his nose between his thumb and forefinger. All of a sudden, he had a terrible headache. “Mum, please tell me you’re joking.”
After a second or two of silence, Edith Butcher grinned. “Of course I am,” she lied. “Pissing in the park, indeed.” She made a mental note not to mention the shitting-at-the-zoo incident either.
“What your mother is trying to say,” Bill said, “is that she's too old and stubborn to accept that times, they are a-changing.”
Edith Butcher’s jaw dropped so far, it nearly landed in the mountain of spuds before her. “I'm not old,” she gasped, “I just think that—“
They never did find out what she thought, as the house began to tremble violently before she could finish her sentence. Cutlery clattered from the drawers; plates fell and shattered on the lino, forming a sea of porcelain shards that would have given a sadomasochist a raging erection. Edith rose from her seat – or at least that’s what she was going for when she toppled backwards, taking the tablecloth and all that sat upon it with her.
This wouldn’t be happening if we’d had fish-fingers, Ted thought as he hit the deck. An antique radio set – replete with dials and switches that no one knew how to work anymore – tipped over and landed on the back of his head, knocking his vision sideways.
Bill got up and launched himself at the door, not expecting the refrigerator to meet him halfway there. His body slammed into it with such force that his dentures flew from his mouth and landed somewhere behind the cooker.
The tremor lasted under a minute all told, but by the time it finally passed, the kitchen was in complete disarray. Most homes in Bellbrook had been built long before earthquakes ever became a concern, and the bombsite that had (up until a moment ago) been a perfectly respectable dining room proved that even its smallest shitholes were in desperate need of a universal upgrade.
“Wha da sham ell wash at?” Bill just about managed through slack, tremulous lips.
Ted clambered to his feet, glancing down at the radio that had almost bashed his skull in. “Quake?” he offered, rubbing the back of his head.
Edith, wearing three dinners and six rounds of bread and butter, appeared somewhat dazed and confused. “But we don’t have earthquakes in this country,” she countered. “The government banned them back in 2010.”
“Wall, tha wash defenly one,” Bill said. “Ya didin happena shee whar ma teesh wen, dijoo?”
7
Marcia Martin had just poured herself a large glass of rosé and was about to start editing a piece on local dog-grooming services when the quake suddenly struck, knocking her straight out of her chair. Picking herself up off the carpet, she sniffed at the air.
Something was burning…
It didn’t take long to determine what, however; her laptop lie beside her in a smoking heap, shooting sparks. The article she'd been working on, which had been titled ROOM FOR A GROOM BOOM, would unfortunately never see the light of day.
She was just about to call her mother, who lived across town in a residential home, when the phone suddenly rang. Thankfully it was still in the same room as her, judging by the sound of it, and after a few rings she was able to locate it and answer.
“Hello?”
“Marcia! Are you okay?”
Grimacing, she replied, “Clarence, why are you calling?”
“Well, at first I was going to call about the whole lesbian thing, and how we could work around it, but then everything started to s
hake, so I thought I’d better check on that fine ass of yours either way.” He was breathless, which was new; he was also tactless, which wasn’t.
“Clarence, do you have any idea how misogynistic you are?”
“Thanks,” he said.
“It wasn’t a compliment, and FYI,” she continued, “up until a moment ago, I was quite happily munching carpet…” – not a lie – “…and I sincerely doubt that even you, with all your charisma and film-star looks…” – Hatchet II – “…could make me straight.” She was almost starting to believe her own bullshit. Pretty soon she’d be hitting strip clubs and watching Loose Women.
“Whose rug were you munching?” asked Clarence, sounding positively depraved. “It’s Carol from advertising, isn’t it? She must be the butch—“
Marcia promptly hung up and dialled Sunnyville Residential Home.
Those poor people, she thought. They only had four good hips between them before the quake…
8
Gladys Moore snatched the phone from its cradle and blew the dust from the mouthpiece.
“Yeah?” she answered
“It’s Marcia Martin.”
“That’s nice,” Gladys said. “Look, I’ve got a whole load of mangled old people here, and I don’t—”
“I’m ringing to check on my mother, Vera Martin?”
The home manager’s tone changed instantly – and unsurprisingly – once she realised who she was speaking to. “Oh! Erm, Vera’s fine. In fact, she slept through the whole thing!”
The voice on the line didn’t sound entirely convinced of its own story.
“Slept through… can I speak with her, please?”
Gladys rolled her eyes. “Ms. Martin, I can assure you that everything’s fine; there have been no deaths, at least not since the quake, and your mother will call you back in the morning, once we’ve got the place settled and untangled everyone.”
“Look, if you don’t put my mother on this minute, I’m going to write a strongly worded letter to my MP, and then write a nice article of defamation for the newspaper I work for. Do. I. Make. My. Self. Clear?”
Gladys gave the receiver the finger before replying, “I’ll just go fetch her then, Ms. Martin. Please bear with me.”
9
Marcia waited for the cantankerous old trout to return with her mother, listening closely as she did. A strange, steady rumble could be heard in the distance, interposed by the much louder noise of passing sirens. Whatever was causing this bedlam out there, it terrified Marcia to her very core.
Were there more quakes yet to come? Was this the end of the world? Had the Mayans been right, give or take a few years? Something wholly unnatural was happening; something, Marcia thought, big.
“Marcia?”
The voice was so unexpected that she almost dropped the phone. Following a brief juggle, she forced it to her ear once again. “Oh, mother, are you okay? Is everything alright? You’re not hurt, are you?”
“I’m alright, love,” her mother said. “Just a few bumps. We were just settling in to watch that nice man on the telly. You know; the orange man that does the antiques? What was it, dear; an earthquake?”
Marcia sighed as relief washed over her. “Yeah, I think so,” she said, though for all she knew some overzealous despot had finally dropped a bomb, and the faint roar she heard was, in fact, the subsequent fireball making its way toward Bellbrook.
There would have been a flash, she reminded herself, though what she knew about nuclear weapons she had learnt from When The Wind Blows and Stanley Kubrick films.
“And are you okay?” her mother asked. “You sound a bit upset.”
“I’m fine,” she lied. “I was just worried about you—”
A hearty, old-lady chuckle crackled through the receiver; Marcia smiled. “You don’t have to worry about me, love,” her mother said. “I’ve been on this Earth too long to let one of Mother Nature’s little farts frighten me. Look, I’ve got to go, dear. Mrs. Moore’s giving me funny looks through the window… now she’s rolling her eyes… yep, she wants me to hang up…”
“Okay, mother,” Marcia said. “And do me a favour, will you? If they’re not treating you right there, tell me.”
“Oh, dear, I like it here. Mrs. Moore’s okay, really, and we all like to play little tricks on her. Like yesterday, she confiscated Albert Matlock’s harmonica because he kept playing Al Jolson tunes over and over, so we covered her toilet seat with cling-film. It works both ways, dear.” She chortled.
“Give her hell,” Marcia laughed. “And Mum…”
“Yes dear?”
“I love you.”
“I love you too, dear.”
As Marcia hung up, sirens wailed past her flat outside. The ominous roar, which had initially terrified her, had already been reduced to little more than background noise by this point. She glanced around the room, which looked like the aftermath of a Czechoslovakian gang bang, and simply said, “Fuck.”
10
“Did you see his face?” Lee Jones asked, sipping cider from the can in his shoddily tattooed hand. “Do you need new pants, Alf?”
“Yeah, y-yeah, A-Alfie,” Calvin Broome added in his own inimitable way. “Your f-face was a p-picture.” His stutter was the icing on an already shitty cake: parrot-nose, wonky eyes, and breath so bad his doctor prescribed him tic-tacs.
“Whatever,” Alfie said, brushing the dirt off his jeans. “Dudes, you’ve gotta admit, that was one pretty bad quake.”
Lee shook his head and pulled another can from its plastic ring. “That was nothing,” he said, trying to sound insightful and brave, and failing with aplomb.
“N-nothing,” Calvin agreed, sipping nervously from his 3% lager and hopping from one foot to the other as if the ground beneath him might suddenly open and swallow him whole. “Th-that was n-nothing, A-Alf.”
Surprisingly, the bus stop had retained all its window panes. Crudely doodled penises and vaginas rattled upon the glass as the tremor dissipated, but somehow they had not shattered in the quake.
“Look, I’ve got work in the morning,” Alfie said, thinking about the landfill site. “I’m not staying out much longer.”
“He's scared,” Lee snorted, laughing. “It was only a fucking earthquake, ya pussy.”
“Y-yeah, ya p-pussy.”
“I’m not scared,” Alfie protested. “I know what it was. I’ve just got to be up early is all, and standing around a bus stop all night isn’t exactly my idea of fun.”
Lee emptied the contents of his can into his mouth, crushed it with his gnarly fingers, and said, “We’re not standing here all night; I’ve got an idea.”
“H-he’s got a f-fucking g-great i-idea,” Calvin added, hopping up and down in place. His uncharacteristic excitement worried Alfie.
“Come on, scaredy-cat,” Lee said, stepping out into the night. “We’re not gonna let a little earthquake stop us from having a bit of fun.”
Alfie sighed, lit a cigarette – which his mother would smell on him later and berate him for – and followed his mates along Barker Street, all the time staring at the ground, watching for cracks that weren’t there.
11
The Pit-Dweller hadn’t meant to fart, and it certainly hadn’t expected its flatulence to be forceful enough to knock the whole town off its feet. Still, better out than in; that’s what happens when you’re cooped up underground for several centuries.
Soaring up into the atmosphere, the vengeful entity grew more and more intent on wreaking as much havoc as inhumanly possible. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot; the thing remembered the passage from Exodus. But there was another line in its ethereal mind, a piece certainly not from the Bible:
…Fuck that shit, ‘cause I ain’t the one, for a punk motherfucker with a badge and a gun…
What could it mean? Where did it come from? The thing was utterly perplexed, so much so that it took all its focus just to keep floating upward, reaching an altitude where it c
ould properly unleash upon the townsfolk far below. It hadn't meant to kill anyone initially; simply teach them a little respect for their world, their planet, and the things that dwelt within it. But now, somehow, something had changed. It wanted to kill them, and it was going to have a bloody fun time doing it.
Yes. Fun. A concept it didn’t understand, yet there it was. Girls just wanna have it; it’s good in the summertime. Fun, Fun, Fun; a word so nice The Beach Boys used it thrice…
What the hell is wrong with me? the Pit-Dweller thought. And who the fuck are The Beach Boys?
Without any further ado, the thing glanced down at the town of Bellbrook and grinned – at least it would have had it been a physical entity, and not a wraith-like ball of sheer malevolence.
Goodness gracious great balls of fire, it thought, having no idea why.
It spread itself out, an otherworldly miasma descending upon the town, infusing its environs with evil spirit. No one would escape its touch, and all would suffer…
Suffer little children…
The thing sniggered sinisterly on its way down.
12
Leroy slapped her again, and again, and one last time, just in case the first two had been too soft. She didn’t cry – they never did – but he could see that she was angry, with him, and with herself for letting him get away with it.
“What do you say, bitch?” he said, raising his hand as if to strike her a fourth time.
“I’m sorry,” she sighed. “It won’t happen again.”
Leroy lowered his hand which, if he was honest, stung like a sonofabitch. “That’s what I’m sayin'. I like you, bitch, but don’t let me catch you fuckin' off da clock again. Ya feel me?”
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