Vinyl Destination

by Millard, Adam

  She nodded. Unfortunately, she heard him just fine. “Won’t happen again, Leroy,” she said. She checked her nose for blood, but she knew there wouldn’t be any; he would never beat her too hard, not if he expected her to keep working for him. And hardly anyone liked fucking girls that looked like they'd already been run over, anyway.

  “Aight, bitch, now get ya ass back to work. You’s working overtime tonight. Off da fuckin’ clock! To make up fo' dat free pussy you was handin' out before. Ya feel me?”

  “I feel you, Leroy,” Sonja said.

  “Good.” He slapped her on the arse and it was, she thought, the hardest of the four. “You can do two more punters before midnight, den come and find me. If I’s in good mood, I let you finish.”

  As he bounced off down the street, Sonja watched, praying that something terrible would befall him by the end of the night. If someone could just set his afro on fire, she thought, that would be great, or attack him for the sole purpose of stealing all his jewellery. There were fifteen Cash4Gold outlets in Bellbrook alone, after all.

  She hoped for another quake, one that would swallow the prick up for good.

  Sonja walked slowly along the sidewalk, surprised to find headlights flashing her before she’d even taken six steps. She made for the car as it slowed down and pulled over, feeling something whoosh past her as she did. The stench of rotting shit and musty paper filled her nostrils momentarily, but faded just as quickly as it came.

  Forgetting the strange occurrence almost immediately, she smiled, put on her best whore walk, and continued toward the punter who’d put her halfway to her nightly quota.

  13

  “You gots to be firm wid dem bitches,” Leroy muttered. He found his best conversations were those he had with himself. “Bitches like dat shit. Treat ‘em mean, keep ‘em fuckin’ fo' dat paper.”

  He’d been a pimp for most of his life. There had been a few months, back when he was twenty, when he’d attempted to clean up his act. He’d waited tables at Nando’s on weekends, stood in men’s toilets with a bottle of soap, a tray of condoms, and an array of cheap aftershaves to force upon patrons in exchange for paltry tips. He’d even worked as a telesales rep, flogging life insurance to people that were never going to die, not in his lifetime. In the end though, old tricks died hard, and by the age of twenty-one, he’d collected five new women and was making more money than he’d ever earned serving chicken or convincing teenagers that they’d most likely catch something terminal by age thirty.

  Pimping was his game, and the man had no shame. Leroy was so good at it that he had a waiting list longer than George Michael’s charge-sheet. Hoes were queuing up to become a part of his team, and not just because he offered a retirement plan and every second Sunday off.

  He kept the bad dogs at bay, and the one thing these bitches needed was security. They knew that if they went to him with a complaint – a punter going too far, putting things where they didn’t belong, refusing to pay, kissing on the lips, paying in Drachma – he’d take care of it. He was what they called in the trade: a bad motherfucker.

  It had been a nice night thus far, despite that passing rumble. The only thing that could possibly drag him down was an impromptu stop by the pigs. There were sirens in the distance, and as far as Leroy was concerned, that was the best place for them.

  “Dyam quake done shook up da town,” he mumbled, surveying the debris all around. A lamp-post had fallen over in his path. Stepping over it, he was just about to reach for his cigarettes when something very strange happened.

  His mind went completely blank. It was almost as if everything he’d learnt, from his humble birth to ascending the throne of Bellbrook’s top pimp, had been instantaneously expunged from his brain. He just stood there with his hand in his jacket pocket; Lord knows what he’d been reaching for. Whatever it was, it no longer seemed important. What was important, however, was the strange urge presently coursing through him; a desire he could no more control than he could suddenly will himself to perform brain surgery.

  What he felt was an overwhelming compulsion to dance.

  Now, Leroy just wasn’t a dancer. He’d avoided discos and bars with dance floors for the simple reason that people might mistake his spasmodic jiving for an extreme case of epilepsy.

  And yet, here he was, standing on a darkened street corner with dance surging through him like an itch that desperately needed to be scratched. And not just any dance, but something demanding, moves that were liable to put him in the hospital, an entire ballet of bone-breaking manoeuvres he had no idea how to perform properly.

  “Dyam shizzle,” he grunted. It took all he had just to say those words, and they weren’t even words inasmuch as you wouldn’t find them in the Scrabble dictionary, no matter how hard you looked.

  His right leg suddenly popped out, and before he knew what was happening, the left went in the opposite direction.

  And then…

  …he was dancing; thrashing about the pavement as if he were under attack by a swarm of invisible wasps. His arms flailed all around, seemingly independent of his body. He was like a marionette sans strings, and if he wasn’t careful, he was liable to do some serious damage to himself and his immediate surroundings.

  “Da fuck?” he said, legs performing a little two-step without warning. He then began to twirl around in a circle, and even as his stomach threatened to expel the hotdogs he’d consumed for dinner, he twirled and twirled some more. His mind reeled and his entire body ached, and he finally understood why Michael Flatley had ultimately gone insane.

  A car drifted slowly past the dancing lunatic; its driver honked the horn, turned up the stereo, as if the music would somehow help him. “You GO, you crazy sonofabitch!” the motorist yelled through his open window.

  “CRACKA-ASS HONKY, FUCK YOU!!!” Leroy shrilled. Even the words weren’t his own, or the voice for that matter. His deep, sonorous tone was completely gone, replaced by a high-pitched, nasally whine that would’ve had Prince reaching for his junk to check that everything was present and accounted for.

  As the car drove off, taking with it the screeching dubstep that sounded like two Transformers fucking, Leroy dropped to his knees.

  What’s happening to me? asked the terrified voice inside his head, the one he still recognised as his own. “I’m a slave to the rhythm, a slave to the rhythm, a slave to the rhythm of looooooove!” the shrill imposter belted out, just before Leroy finally lost his lunch.

  14

  “Sharon Conker reports from outside Knickers Nightclub. Sharon, what can you tell us about the earthquake Bellbrook experienced mere moments ago?”

  Marcia turned to face the telly; she hated Sharon Conker with a passion, but there was always the chance she might fuck up live on air. Let this be it, she thought. If there is a God, now’s the time to prove it and give that belligerent, venomous young twat a stroke.

  “We’ve got reports coming in from all over the town,” the alleged reporter began, flipping her hair like she was auditioning for a Pantene advert. “It’s still too early to tell just how much damage this quake has caused, but it’s been confirmed that several people were squashed to death when the statue of William Bellbrook, our town’s founder, fell from its plinth. We also have one reported death from Sunnyville Residential Home…”

  Marcia’s heart leapt into her mouth.

  “…but it appears that the body belonging to Mabel Perry had been dead for almost a week already, and had simply been overlooked by staff.”

  Marcia relaxed, somewhat.

  “Have we learned the epicentre of this particular quake?” the invisible anchor asked. “I mean, earthquakes are not usually our sort of thing, are they? We’re lucky to get a nice flood; maybe a forty-mph wind in October.”

  “That’s right,” Sharon said. “Bellbrook is not known for its earth-shakers, but let us not forget that we’re only five thousand or so miles from Los Angeles, and six thousand from Fukushima. It may be that one of their quakes fa
ncied a change of scenery. I mean, let’s face it, we’re all connected, aren’t we? Who decides where these things happen?”

  “Tectonic plates?” Marcia offered, incredulous.

  “Indeed,” the anchor said. “I can see you have your hands full there, Sharon. Is there any particular reason why you’re outside Knickers Nightclub?”

  On the screen, a group of unruly revellers were leaping all about behind the reporter, pulling their pants down to expose arse-cracks and shouting things in a language that could only be described as drunkenese.

  “Tonight, Knickers is hosting a very special party,” Sharon said. “And we have it on good authority that several celebs are already inside, nestled in the VIP area.”

  The invisible anchor chortled in response. “Boy, they’ve sure picked the wrong night to sample the delights Bellbrook has to offer.”

  “They certainly have,” Sharon said, following up with a laugh marginally faker than her tan. Marcia reached for the remote; if this was the embodiment of inspired reporting, she wanted nothing more to do with it. “Michael J. Fox, Tara Reid, Professor Stephen Hawking, that guy from Scrubs, and Marilyn Monroe, they’re all inside Knickers right now, drinking the place dry…”

  “Sharon, I’m pretty sure Marilyn Monroe died a while back?” the anchor said, making his statement sound like a question. God forbid he make her look like a complete ass on live TV.

  Sharon pushed a perfectly manicured finger into her ear, pretending there was something wrong with the connection. “Haha,” she said. “You mustn’t have heard me correctly. Marilyn Manson is inside Knickers tonight; Marilyn Monroe is most certainly still dead.”

  “She sure is,” the anchor replied. “I'm sure you’ll be keeping us up to date with news about this mysterious earthquake as it comes in.”

  “Well,” Sharon said, gesturing to the Knickers entrance in the background, “as I said, Professor Stephen Hawking is inside right now, downing shots with Tara Reid. I’m hoping to get a few words from him as to what might have caused this anomaly. I mean, if anyone knows about science-y stuff, it’s him. Don’t let that Dalek voice fool you, people.” She then proceeded to mimic the good professor, very badly, which was, the network decided, the perfect time to pull the plug.

  “Sharon Conker, reporting from Knickers Nightclub, Bellbrook,” the nervous-looking anchor said.

  Marcia switched off the telly and poured herself a fifth glass of wine. She simply couldn’t believe that anyone – executives so high up, they suffered perpetual nosebleeds – deemed Sharon Conker a competent reporter. While she was in front of the camera, covering real stories about things that mattered, Marcia was stuck writing articles about snowboarding squirrels and women in Africa with two vaginas.

  It just wasn’t fair.

  Marcia had never wanted to be on TV; there was something about having her face splashed all over the tabloids – and splashed over by those high-up execs – that just didn’t appeal to her. But that didn’t mean she couldn’t report on real stories, too.

  Setting down her untouched glass of wine on the coffee table, Marcia got up and got dressed. Reluctantly, she dialled Clarence’s number. When he answered, she gave him no time to speak any further than “hello.”

  “Meet me on High Street in half an hour,” she said, then quickly hung up.

  There was a story here somewhere; she could feel it in her uterus. Necking the entire glass of wine – Dutch courage – she promptly hit the door, leaving her apartment in the same shit state it would likely remain for quite some time.

  15

  Sonja had seen some grotesque penises in her time – the oak tree, the mini-mollusc, and the two-headed purple tarantula all came to mind – but as she stared down at the thing protruding from O’Brian’s zipper, she felt the sudden urge to quit whoring, move to Scotland, and become a manicurist.

  “Something the matter?” O’Brian asked. “It ain’t gonna suck itself.”

  Sonja swallowed something that hadn’t been there a moment ago, composed herself as best she could, and said, “Do you mind if I don’t?”

  “Well, actually,” O’Brian said, looking slightly miffed, “I would mind, since coin has already changed hands. How would you like it if, say, you came to me and said, ‘Hey, Mr. O’Brian, I’m aware that you’re one of the best builders in Bellbrook. I need a conservatory knocking up in my back garden, and there’s no-one else I’d rather do it than you,’ and then, I show up, after you’ve already paid the reasonably priced invoice, and decide I’d much rather just plonk down a garden shed instead?”

  Sonja thought about it for a second; he made a good point. As she considered it, the fleshy thing in her hand seemed to wink at her. “Yeah, I just can’t go through with it,” she said. “Anything else, though, should be fine.” She reached into her bra and produced a small square of paper, unfolding it until it was roughly the size of an ordnance survey map of Russia. She handed it to O’Brian, who now wore the expression of someone not entirely impressed. “Pick any two things from the menu, and I’ll do the cheapest one for free. Sound good to you?”

  “This is bullshit!” he said, glancing down at the exhaustive list. “All I wanted was a good ol’ fashioned bl… ooh, I’ll accept your offer,” he said, jabbing an excited finger at – and through – the prostitute’s carte du jour. “I’ll have a number 26, and a 47. The 26 is free?”

  “Totally free,” she said, sighing with relief – a 26 required minimal touching. Plus, he’d be facing the other way.

  “Do you even have a deck of cards?” he asked. “I mean, it’s not exactly the kind of thing you’d expect a lady of the night to be carrying around in her handbag.”

  Reaching into her own purse, Sonja produced two decks of cards. “A 26 requires an unopened, unshuffled deck of cards; therefore, by law, we have to carry one at all times. As you can see, I carry not one but two, just in case I get a couple of perverts in the same night.”

  “Ever happened before?” O’Brian asked.

  “Never. In fact, I’ve carried both decks in my bag for nearly ten years. The 26 isn’t as popular as you’d think; I think the chance of paper-cuts puts most punters off.”

  “Not me,” O’Brian said with conviction, “let’s get cracking.” Without another word, he turned his back to her, bared his ass, and buried his head down in the foot-well of his Ford Capri. With his disgusting cock finally out of sight, Sonja relaxed and began to peel the cellophane wrapping from the deck of cards.

  It was then that her phone rang. She reached into her bra – yes, prostitutes use these for extra storage; make-up, money, packed lunches (only small things, though, like scotch eggs and brownies) – and pulled out her cell, which (while not the very first to roll off the line) looked more like something you’d throw through an enemy’s window with a threatening note taped to it than an actual device of communication.

  She answered swiftly, cutting off the Pussycat Dolls ringtone before it became too embarrassing. “Hello?”

  O’Brian heaved a dramatic sigh. “Is this gonna take long?” he asked. “My ass is getting cold…”

  Sonja shushed him as the voice on the line began to speak.

  “Yo, bitch! Check dis! Be at da muthafuckin’ cemetery in fifteen minutes, or yo ass is freelancin’, feel me?”

  It was Leroy all right, but it sure didn’t sound like the Leroy she knew. His voice was much higher now, as if he’d plaited his balls with elastic bands.

  “I’m with a client,” she said, studying the flabby, pasty ass beside her. “And what do you mean, the cemetery?”

  “Did I stutter, Billie Jean? Fifteen, or you’ll be fuckin’ wid da man in da mirror!” He hung up abruptly, but not before adding, “OOOWWW!!!”

  Sonja dropped the phone back into her cleavage. “Well this is certainly awkward,” she said. For a moment, she considered giving O’Brian’s ass a consolatory pat, but quickly thought better of it and drew her hand away. “Sorry, but I’ve got to go,” she said, snatching
up her handbag. “I’ll leave the cards though, and you can sort yourself out, if you like.”

  By the time O’Brian had extracted his head from the foot-well, the passenger-side door was swinging on its hinges, and the sound of Sonja’s heels had already faded to a distant echo.

  “Fucking hell!” he cried. Then he picked up the half-unwrapped deck of cards and smiled. “Ah well, got me a date with four queens…”

  16

  Meanwhile, the Pit-Dweller had spread itself out across the entirety of Bellbrook, blanketing the town with pure, unadulterated evil. In the back of its mind (though not by choice), a choirboy kept warbling on about walking in the air.

  If only I could find the mute button, it thought, having no idea what a mute button even was. A stealthy clothes fastener?

  Meanwhile, some townsfolk had taken to the streets down below, apparently intrigued by the earth-shaking anomaly that had just ripped through their sleepy little hamlet about an hour ago.

  Look at them, the thing thought, with their silly pyjamas and unkempt hair. From high above, it looked like a swarm of wild toupees flitting about. I’ll teach them to fuck with me…

  Wisps of its unholy essence tore away and streamed back down to Earth. It watched, laughed, and almost choked as the residents of Bellbrook began to spasm and shake; infected and impregnated by its evil. The thing felt like a modern-day Santa Claus, though instead of delivering presents, it delivered hell, and instead of eating their cookies and drinking their milk, it… well, that was where the comparison ended.

  When the choirboy in its head finally stopped singing, the Pit-Dweller heaved a massive sigh of relief. But then Enya came on, and it found itself in two minds whether to aim for the nearest river.

  17

  Kavannah stood outside his house, wind whipping his face, the strange smell of burnt something-or-other stinging his nostrils. He was still dressed in his workwear; there was really no point in changing, as he’d only have to put it all back on again in the morning. To his mind, he was saving time, effort, and bathwater by simply keeping his overalls on all night. He wasn’t a complete scruff, though; the cats would usually lick off a portion of the dirt and grime whenever he returned home.