Vinyl Destination

by Millard, Adam

  How did it know these things? Who ARE these freaks? it thought, unable to resist its own curiosity. Alas, no time to dilly-dally. There were people in that building down there, people for it to devour, one way or t’other.

  Swooping low, it drifted between the pair of burly idiots guarding the door, slowly seeping inside. The pungent stench within was far worse than anything the Pit-Dweller had ever been exposed to in its centuries underground: a nauseating effluvium of beer, vomit, body-odour, and cheap eau-de-toilette (with the emphasis on toilet).

  Further it invaded, slathering patrons with its unseen ectoplasm, licking their bums and faces with its imperceptible tongue. By the time it hit the dance floor, it could have done with a nice cup of tea and a lie-down.

  “No rest for the wicked,” it said, soaring up to the house lights, which seemed confused as to which colour they ought to be.

  So many people, so many souls, and so many… terrible fashion choices…

  31

  “And now, ladies and gentlemen of Knickers Nightclub,” the DJ announced, “can the owner of the white Vauxhall Astra, registration DB2 4XY, kindly shift it before we have no choice but to set it afire?” He paused before continuing, “We have a very special treat for you tonight. If you’ll turn your attention to the stage, you will notice some guitars, a drum-kit, and one of those singing stick-things up there. Now, if you know your music – and I sure do – then you know this can mean only one thing…”

  A half-hearted cheer went up from the crowd.

  “That’s right, people. Put your hands together for our very special guest, Mrs. Marilyn… what? Oh, it’s a boy… I’ve just been told that Marilyn is, in fact, a boy, so please put your hands together for… it’s a bit of a daft name for a boy, though, isn’t it? I mean… what? Brian? So why doesn’t he just use… ladies and gentleman, would you please welcome to the stage, the boy with a girl’s name, Mr. Marilyn Manson!”

  The crowd applauded. In the VIP area, Stephen Hawking cried “BRAVO” in his monotone, robotic voice, and that guy from Scrubs put Tara Reid down long enough to fist-pump the air. Unfortunately, Michael J. Fox had had to leave early, as his parents forbade him from staying out after midnight, a little like one of those evil green critters you should never urinate on.

  The lights went down as Marilyn took to the stage, his band of misfits following just behind. They each took their places by their respective instruments, and Marilyn, of course, took the mic.

  “Knickers Nightclub!” he roared. It was, the DJ thought, definitely a boy. So confusing. “Are you ready to raaaaawwk!?”

  Everyone in the audience made devil-horns with their fingers; either that or a flash-mob had suddenly formed upon the dance floor, intent on teaching everyone how to count to two.

  From up in the rafters, the Pit-Dweller watched, silently pondering what had gone wrong with the world, and trying desperately to figure out the pasty-faced fuckers on stage, who were obviously trying to steal its thunder.

  “Boys and Ghouls, creatures of the night, you demonic little shits that crawled out of my anus when I wasn’t looking.” He was charming, this Marilyn. “We’re going to do something a little bit different tonight. Who here knows 'The Wheels on the Bus'?”

  The club-goers murmured amongst themselves, looking at each other in confusion. Gradually, they began to raise their hands, until everyone but the most stone-faced in attendance admitted to remembering the nursery rhyme.

  “Good, good, because we wanted to show you lovely little minions of darkness that we’re not just a metal band with songs about how the drugs love us, and the beautiful people. Tonight, we’ll be playing a selection of classic children’s songs – with our own distinct flavour, of course – starting with this little ditty.”

  Marilyn counted the band in, and suddenly they launched right into a shrieking, distorted rendition of 'Humpty Dumpty'. After a few moments of utter bewilderment, the audience got right behind them. A mosh-pit – not too violent, due to the whimsical nature of the song – formed in the centre of the dance floor. It was during the more up-tempo 'Incy Wincy Spider' that one man had to be stretchered out, and several others were ordered – by doormen dressed as The Blues Brothers – to “Calm down before you have someone’s eye out!”

  32

  “Now’s our chance!” Lee said, spotting Professor Hawking at the bar, alone. Someone had attached one of those helmets – a curly straw and space for four cans – to his bonce. “If we’re quick about it, we can reach him before his minders even notice.”

  Alfie shrugged. If they got kicked out of the club, it wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing as far as he was concerned. He preferred his music with no guitars, and definitely no baa baa-ing black sheep. “Come on, then. Let’s get this over with…”

  “H-have you a-asked yourself why H-Hawking is at the b-bar on his o-own?” Calvin asked, sidestepping a woman who could have moonlighted as a Russian shot-putter when she wasn’t chugging from a keg.

  “He probably just wants a break from this lot,” Lee offered. “I mean, every day he has people telling him what to do, where to go, when to poop, when not to poop. This is like a vacation for him.”

  “A vacation at the bar of Knickers Nightclub?” Alfie said. “Cancel my fortnight in Barbados, there’s a stool with my name on it.”

  “Look,” Lee said, “once we get his autograph, we can leave.” He was now standing within just a few feet of the professor’s minders, and for the first time that night he became flummoxed. “What should I say to him?”

  Alfie groaned, and Calvin was just C-Ca-Calvin.

  “You need to ask about life, the universe, and everything in it; question him on the formation of black holes and the continuing expansion of the universe, and then, you know, once you’ve built the foundations for a lifelong friendship with a man possessed of an IQ higher than your top score in Tomb Raider, see if he’ll sign your little black book for you?”

  “Is all that necessary? I mean, I just want his sig—”

  “Just ask for his fucking autograph so we can get the hell out of here!”

  “Alright, I’m going in…”

  Lee made his move for the bar, where Professor Hawking had lined up a neat little row of colourful, luminous shots for himself. But how is he going to do them on his own? Lee wondered, considering the man’s paralysing neurodegenerative disease.

  Hawking’s minders were so entranced by Manson’s screaming rendition of 'Ten Green Bottles', they didn’t even notice Lee slip by.

  “Professor Hawking. Do you mind if I call you Professor, or do you prefer Mister? Or Steve?”

  Professor Hawking glanced over at him with something like distaste, although it wasn’t all that easy to guess what he was thinking from his eyes alone.

  “I’M GETTING ABSOLUTELY BLASTED,” he replied. “ALONE. IF YOU DON'T MIND.” There was something about his staccato, automaton voice that made the dismissal even more potent; it was like being reproached by a Dalek, or severely reprimanded by R2D2.

  Unperturbed, Lee continued, “Yeah, I can see that, Steve. The thing is, my Mum’s a huge fan of yours. She’s seen everything you’ve ever done, and read all your books as well. I hate to say it, but I’ve watched her face when you’re on the telly, and she’s licking her lips and pouting the whole time. I don’t suppose you’d want her phone num—”

  “I WANT TO BE LEFT ALONE,” Hawking interrupted.

  Lee was getting a bit perturbed himself by this point, but there were laws against slapping disabled people with autograph books, so he held it out gently instead. “Can I just ask a quick favour, Steve. It would mean the world to my dear old mother if you could put your scribble – or just a bit of spit – on this here page.”

  Hawking’s voice modulator almost seemed to sigh. “CAN’T A GUY GET BLADDERED IN PEACE ANYMORE.”

  Lee held the book just below the professor’s chin, waiting for some sign of salivation. “Just a spec of drool, please? Don’t want it smearing Pr
ofessor Brian Cox’s entry, or worse, Brian Blessed’s…”

  And then – just as Hawking was about to give up the goods, as Marcia and Clarence were about to approach him for an interview, as Sharon Conker and her cameraman were about to tackle them first, and as that guy from Scrubs was leading a thoroughly inebriated Tara Reid into the toilets – something incredibly odd happened.

  Marilyn Manson and his band abruptly stopped playing; the revellers, who’d been enjoying a much heavier version of 'Old King Cole' only moments ago, had ceased dancing and were now trying to fathom just who the man moonwalking onto the stage thought he was.

  “It’s Jacko!” one man shouted. “Jacko’s back! Lock up your daughters!”

  “And sons!” said another.

  “And chimps!”

  Marilyn Manson regarded the interloper with bemused derision. Into the microphone, he sniggered and said, “Well, well, well; we’ve got a joker joining us on stage tonight. What’s your name, freak?”

  The strange man moonwalked all the way across the stage before spinning around and snatching the mic right out of Marilyn’s skinny, pale hands. The crowd began to boo and hiss, as if this were all part of some twisted Christmas pantomime. From the safety of his booth, the DJ cried, “He’s behind you!” but nobody laughed. Such was the life of a DJ.

  “Y’all havin’ a good time?” the party-pooper asked in an effeminate voice, holding out the microphone for the crowd to respond. Unfortunately, they didn’t quite grasp the concept. “Heee-hee!” the man suddenly squealed, popping up onto his toes and grabbing his crotch.

  “Shit, that’s my pimp,” one woman whispered into her husband’s ear. It wasn’t the kind of thing he’d expected to hear, and at first he thought his missus was joking, but when she thought to add, “He’ll fucking kill me if he sees me here! Honey, we have to leave. Leroy’s a vicious bastard. There’s no telling what he might do to the kids,” a feeling in the pit of his stomach told him she was telling the truth. As the soon-to-be-divorced couple headed for the exits, the man on stage continued:

  “Y’all dancing the motherfucking night away, huh? Us too, us too. In fact… Shamone… Shamone… Shamone…” He performed a few spastic moves until his shoulder popped out of its socket, leaving his arm dangling listlessly at his side. “I brought a few friends to meet y’all!”

  A chorus of guttural moans erupted from backstage, prompting Marilyn Manson to leap into the arms of his bassist, who gently stroked his head.

  “I brought my motherfucking Thriller zombies!”

  Right on queue, hundreds of snarling, groaning dead people tore through the curtains, spilling out across the stage and down onto the dance floor. Women screamed, men screamed, and the Russian shot-putter grunted in dismay. People stampeded for the exits, but the shit thing about Knickers was its single-file policy; an orderly queue had to be formed first, providing a convenient buffet line for the ravenous undead monstrosities.

  Whenever a zombie took down one of the panicked patrons, ripping their flesh to shreds, it did a little dance or a body-pop. One of them was spinning on its head in the middle of the now thoroughly vacated dance floor. With the sheer amount of blood and guts that had already been slicked across it, the advanced breakdancing move was actually quite easy to pull off.

  The only trouble was stopping. When the zombie’s whirling legs finally reached a high enough velocity to lift it airborne, it wished it had stuck with simple splits and leg-kicks, like its mates down below, as it flew off across the club.

  Meanwhile, by the toilets, that guy from Scrubs and Tara Reid were desperately fighting off the encroaching ghouls. Where’s Michael J. Fox when you need him? that guy from Scrubs thought as a zombie lunged at him, all claws and teeth. It was like being savaged by Janet Street-Porter.

  “No, that guy from Scrubs!” Tara Reid screamed. She’d worked with him on several episodes of the hospital-based comedy, and even she couldn’t remember his name. Several zombies overpowered her as she dove for the bag of coke in his pocket, dragging her down onto the floor with them. Eagerly devouring her flesh, they abruptly lost their appetites after hitting her breast implants, scraping their rotten tongues off and picking shreds of silicone from their teeth. It was like discovering your grandma had forgotten to take the giblets out of the Christmas turkey.

  Up onstage, Marilyn Manson’s bandmates were fending off the creatures with their respective instruments, swinging guitars, keyboards and mic stands at the advancing horde. The drummer had taken to using his symbols as makeshift shields, deflecting choreographed claw attacks. As for Marilyn himself, he’d dug his long, black nails into the backstage curtains, scaling them like a terrified cat as he screamed at the top of his lungs.

  “Are you getting all this!” Sharon Conker said, dodging one zombie and kicking another in the lady-parts.

  “You didn’t say shoot!” Clive the Cameraman protested. “You specifically said—”

  “I know what I said, you remedial buffoon, but surely you can see that this is newsworthy!”

  Clive stopped to take in the carnage all around them; it was like something out of a really bad horror film, one of those Italian jobs with Play-Doh special effects and subtitles that made about as much sense as a drunken David Hasselhoff. “So do you want me to film or not?” he asked, still a bit uncertain. “I—”

  Just then, a decapitated head flew across the room, knocking the camera from his hands and smashing it on the floor.

  “Well, that’s fucked,” Sharon said, kicking the chunks of busted plastic and circuitry that could have been her ticket to winning Newscaster of the Year. She’d always wanted one of those little trophies on her mantel, the one with the busty lady holding a microphone, and now, she would never get one. “We need to get out of here!” she screamed, starting to panic. “Over there!” She pointed to a side door near the stage, which several other club-goers were already escaping through.

  Suddenly, though, Sharon couldn’t move. She felt… violated, somehow, as if the entire world had suddenly started talking about her behind her back, saying nasty things about her hair, her make-up, her haemorrhoids…

  “You okay?” Clive asked. “Come on, we’ve got to go!”

  She just stood there, blank, all the colour drained from her face. If Clive had been a gambling man, he would have put his house, its contents, and his Ford Tranny Van on Sharon upchucking within the next ten seconds. Luckily for him, though, all the other patrons were too busy getting killed at the moment to take his bet, because she abruptly snapped out of it in roughly half that time. “Come on then, what are we waiting for!?” she yelled at him, grabbling his arm as she ran for the door.

  With Clive loping along beside her, she had the strangest feeling that something terrible, and hopelessly irreversible, had just happened to her. If she could have seen the moustache forming on her upper lip, like a freakish black caterpillar, she would have lost her shit completely.

  33

  “What the hell is going on!?” Marcia screamed, cowering behind the bar with Stephen Hawking and several strangers. “Oh, Professor, what are those things?! And why has Michael Jackson risen from the dead?!”

  Hawking did everything in his power to tell the crazed woman he had no idea, but, having been relieved of his chair and its built-in voice unit by some opportunistic hooligans shortly after the rioting began, he was literally left speechless.

  “Well, this is awkward,” Marcia said, scanning the petrified faces of those around her. “Does anyone know what’s going on out there?”

  “Shombiesh,” one rather sloshed teenager suggested. “Lotsha shombiesh…”

  “Thanks for that,” said Marcia. “Anyone else?” She felt like that strict History teacher, the one who would put you in the stationary cupboard if you couldn’t tell them the name of every Tudor since records began.

  “Like I said earlier,” came a voice from behind her. “It’s the aliens.”

  “Oh, Clarence, how long have you been there?
” It was a serious question; she hadn’t noticed him a moment ago.

  “I was the one who dragged you behind the bar,” he said, astounded by Marcia’s sudden amnesia. “Anyway, it’s got to be aliens. I always knew they’d taken Jackson, back in the eighties. It was all a bit… convenient, wasn’t it? I mean, one minute he was fine, and next…”

  “That man out there is not the real Michael Jackson,” Marcia said. “For one, he’s black.”

  “Yeah, I thought that was a bit strange,” Clarence admitted, “but I put it down to the lighting.”

  “Did you see what happened to Manson?” said a girl wearing more kohl than Robert Smith on a night out. Her tears had left long black streaks down her face; Marcia didn’t know whether to comfort the poor thing or give her tips on proper eyeliner application.

  “Tha shombiesh got 'im,” said the drunken boy. “He wash almosht to tha rafters when he shlipped.”

  “It’s what he would have wanted,” said the gothic girl, crossing herself over her ample exposed cleavage.

  Marcia rolled her eyes. “We need to get the hell out of here,” she said. “Did anybody see where the professor’s chair went?”

  “Last I saw it, some zombies were using it as a dance prop,” Clarence said. “To be honest, the choreography was a bit jerky, and one of them was missing a leg, which, for me, basically ruined the whole routine.”

  “Ish tha door clear yet?” Drunk Boy asked.

  Marcia climbed up onto her haunches, took a deep breath, and snuck a quick peek over the top of the bar.

  The place had cleared out quite a bit by that point, but the club was still thick with freestyle-dancing freaks, cleaning up the remains of those who’d been too slow to escape. Up onstage, a zombie was eyeing up Marilyn Manson's corpse, but quickly lost interest after realising there was more meat on a chicken wing. The rest of the band had been completely torn apart, their broken and blood-spattered instruments left strewn across the stage. Apart from the Blues Brothers lookalikes, still holding their own against the zombies out on the dance floor, there wasn’t another living soul in sight.