by Adam Millard
LARRY 2: THE SQUEEQUEL
Adam Millard is the author of twenty novels, ten novellas, and more than a hundred short stories, which can be found in various collections and anthologies. Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic fiction, Adam also writes fantasy/horror for children, as well as bizarro fiction for several publishers. His “Dead” series has been the filling in a Stephen King/Bram Stoker sandwich on Amazon’s bestsellers chart, and the translation rights have recently sold to German publisher, Voodoo Press.
LARRY 2: THE SQUEEQUEL
ADAM
MILLARD
Copyright © 2015 Adam Millard
This Edition Published 2015 by Crowded
Quarantine Publications
The moral right of the author has been asserted
All characters in this publication are fictitious
and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,
is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any
form or by any means without the prior
permission in writing of the publisher, nor be
otherwise circulated in any form of binding or
cover other than that in which it is published
and without a similar condition including this
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.
A CIP catalogue record for this book
is available from the British Library
ISBN 978-0-9932070-5-1
Printed and bound in Great Britain
Crowded Quarantine Publications Ltd.
For Kelly and Ahmet
“Is there any chance this shit will be a trilogy? Only I’ve always fancied being in 3D.” – Larry “Pigface” Travers
1
Camp Diamond Creek 2015
The sheriff trundled through the forest. Trundling had become the new walking, you see. If you weren’t trundling, you might as well have been standing still. Some people preferred to saunter, but not this sheriff. This sheriff was on a mission, and missions such as his required a little urgency, the kind of urgency that one could only get with a trundle. Of course, one could traipse, but there’s something pretentious about traipsing, and pretention, like millions of other words, was not in the sheriff’s vocabulary.
For almost a year Sheriff Tobin had been searching for a cabin. That wasn’t to say he was looking for a nice holiday home, a place in the woods in which he could vacation with his wife and dog. He was, but that’s another story entirely. You could probably read that story in Sheriff’s Shanties, or Cop Campsites. If you are really desperate, Marshall Lodges ran an article about Sheriff Tobin six years back in which he professed to enjoying jazz and eating enchiladas, though not at the same time, that’s just dangerous. Tobin didn’t like to do dangerous things, not unless it would progress his career, which was why he was now trundling – not traipsing or sauntering – through a dark forest in the middle of the night.
Sheriff Tobin was afraid of the dark. And forests petrified him; especially petrified forests. How could anyone feel comfortable setting foot in a wood which was equally afraid of you setting foot in it? No, petrified forests were a no-no, as were panicked plantations and horrifying holts. He could just about stomach a spine-chilling spinney, if the money was right, but you would have to catch him on a good day, and those were rare.
This was not a good day. Sure, he had won a dollar on a two-dollar scratch-card, and he’d managed to keep his handlebar moustache symmetrical, at least until lunchtime (two rounds of prawn sandwich and half a cucumber), but apart from that, much like the assassination of JFK or the time Billy Ray and Tish Cyrus decided to give parenthood another chance, the day was one to forget.
“Pigface,” Sheriff Tobin muttered. Muttering was the new mumbling. Of course, people sputtered, but sputtering involved spittle, and in that moment Sheriff Tobin’s mouth was like Gandhi’s flip-flop – dry, and beige. Very beige. If you were to put Sheriff Tobin’s tongue next to Gandhi’s flip-flop, well, you would be classed as insane, but on top of that, you would find it hard to differentiate between the two. It’s amazing how similes work, isn’t it?
Sheriff Tobin should have finished work at eight and, in fact, he did, inasmuch as he wasn’t being paid for this little detour on his way home. He had clocked out at the station along with all the other cops. All the other cops were already at home, eating TV dinners and supping from filthy beakers or fornicating with their fat wives and pretending it was okay to do so because life was life and their lives were awful. Those cops didn’t saunter, nor did they traipse or trundle; they limped. Several of them had hernias. One of them was missing an eye and at least three of them had breathing difficulties. It came with the job, if you were to replace the word ‘job’ with the words ‘philandering with an obese spouse’. Sheriff Tobin’s wife was not overweight. At least, not if he blew her up at regular intervals.
“Fucking Pigface,” he said once again, stepping over a log and landing in a pile of wild boar shit. After that it was almost impossible to trundle. At best he could falter, though it was more of a hobble, and hobbling was not something he had prepared for. He had prepared for a waddle, if the worst came to the worst, but this…well, this was just a clusterfuck.
And then he saw it. The cabin in the woods. The thing he had been searching for, and it was more decrepit than he had imagined it would be. It was so run-down that renowned realtor, Brian Bosworth, would have taken one look at it, whistled, and then run off into the trees, screaming at the top of his lungs. Brian Bosworth wasn’t much of a traipser, nor a trundler. He knew a shithole when he saw one, and this, well, this was a shithole of epic proportions.
“Pigface’s house,” the sheriff said, slapping his lips together and slowing to an amble. Ambles were there for when trundling became a chore. You could amble all day, so long as you’d remembered to bring a picnic and a good book. “I don’t fucking believe it.”
And he didn’t! All this time he had been looking for it, and there it was, in plain sight. The house that Jack built. Jack didn’t build it. Larry ‘Pigface’ Travers built it; Jack just held the cement and, occasionally, ordered an unhealthy sandwich of a lunchtime. Jack has an entire backstory that deserves a book of its own, but this is Larry’s story, and Larry’s the one holding the bricks…
“I need backup.” Sheriff Tobin slowed to a halt a few yards from the front door of the decrepit cabin. Somewhere, not too far away, a pig souieeed, which was amazing really considering all the vowels. Reaching into his off-duty uniform – which was almost identical to his on-duty uniform, except for the gun and handcuffs – Tobin located his walkie-talkie and pulled it from his waistband.
Holding it to his mouth, he depressed the button on the walkie’s side (though not with tales of fat wives or petrified forests) and began to speak.
“Come in,” he said. “Come in, this is Sheriff Tobin. Might I have a cheeky word with you about something I’ve just trundled upon?”
It took a few seconds, but a voice responded, and Tobin recognised the voice as that of Desk-Sergeant Bradley. “Sheriff Tobin? Shouldn’t you be at home by now?”
“I came out for a trundle,” Tobin said. “Turned into an amble, but that’s beside the point. You’ll never believe where I am.”
There was a slight pause on the other end of the line as Desk-Sergeant Bradley had a jolly good think. “Is it Narnia?” he finally said, “because I would never believe you were in Narnia.”
Tobin made his way around the back of the cabin, being careful not to tread on anything that went crack! or snap!. It was a lot harder than it sounded.
The ground was peppered with objects whose sole purpose was to give away his position. “It’s not Narnia,” he whispered. “Have another go, but do it quietly. I’m in stealth mode.”
“Is it Mordor?” said Desk-Sergeant Bradley. “I only ask because my daughter is a huge fan, and she’d lose her shit if I could get her Christopher Lee’s autograph. Failing that, one of the hobbitses will do.”
“I’m not in Mordor,” Tobin whispered as he approached the rear entry of the cabin (not a euphemism). “Think a little closer to home.”
Another slight pause, and then, “You’re not in Mrs Palmer’s house, are you. She gets ever so funny about intruders, especially at this time of night.”
Mrs Palmer, Tobin knew, was Desk-Sergeant Bradley’s next-door neighbour. He knew this because they had been called to her address on many occasions, usually to sort out an intruder, normally in the middle of the night. “Why the bloody hell would I be in Mrs Palmer’s house?”
“Why would you be in Mordor?” replied Desk-Sergeant Bradley, with more than a soupcon of derision in his tone. “Look, we could be at this all night. Why don’t you just tell me where you are, and I can either believe you, or tell you to piss off before slamming down the phone in anger, and before you say anything, I know it’s not a phone. Let’s just pretend it is for argument’s sake.”
The pig, off in the distance, soueeeeed again. There was no other word for the noise which escaped Sheriff Tobin in reply. That word was fart. “You remember all those murders last year up at Camp Diamond Creek?”
“Oh, yeah. That guy in the pig mask, and all that nonsense. I found the whole thing very difficult to believe. I mean, if that were a book, and I could read, I’d have probably given up on it by the third act.”
“Chapter,” Tobin said.
“What?”
“In books you don’t have acts. You have chapters. In posh books you have Roman numerals, and if you’re reading The Bible, you have a whole heap of numbers and letters, so that those schooled in the art of Bible-recitation can toss the chapter code back at you when they’ve finished spouting religious doctrine. Acts are for plays.”
“But I don’t like plays,” Desk-Sergeant Bradley said. “I like porn. Do you know anything about porn?”
“Look, I’m standing outside a ramshackle cabin in the middle of the fucking woods here,” Tobin said. “It’s got to be his!”
“Whose?”
“The Pigface!”
“I think it’s just Pigface,” said Desk-Sergeant Bradley with a hearty sigh. “The ‘The’ makes him sound like a supervillain, like The Joker, or The Bin Laden.”
Sheriff Tobin stopped just short of the rear entry (still not a euphemism) and drew his weapon, which happened to be a set of keys, and not keys to something cool like a Lamborghini or a penthouse suite at The Ritz. They were keys to his beat-up Volvo. The keyring hanging from the loop (a stainless steel Mickey Mouse head) was probably worth more than the car. The loop was probably worth more than the car. “I’m about to go in,” he whispered.
“Don’t do that,” Desk-Sergeant Bradley said, eschewing the whisper for a much more useful holler. Tobin held the walkie to his chest to stifle the racket. “I’ll send backup. Where are you?”
Tobin looked around. “I’m standing in the woods in front of a rundown cabin.”
“You’re going to have to be more specific,” said Desk-Sergeant Bradley. “Have a good look around. Can you see anything distinguishing?”
“What, like a rabbit in a waistcoat?” Tobin replied. “There’s nothing but trees.”
The sound of keys clacking emerged from the walkie-talkie. Sheriff Tobin sighed with relief. “Thank God,” he said. “You’re trying to fathom my location.”
“Erm, yes, that’s precisely what I’m doing. I’m not searching for porn, no, not on your nelly.”
“You’re searching for porn, aren’t you?” Tobin shook his head and closed his eyes, which was a terrible thing to do if you were standing on the front porch – or the ramshackle equivalent – of a renowned serial killer. When he opened his eyes again, he found himself face to face with a hunched figure wearing a pig-mask. He could just about make out the eyes through the thin slits of the mask. Rheumy eyes, they were. The kind of eyes that had seen stuff. They say that eyes are the windows to the soul, but these eyes weren’t. These eyes were the windows to hell.
“Is that an axe?” Tobin said, pointing to the axe in the maniac’s hand and answering his own question in the process. “Are you going to kill me now?”
The Pigface, or just Pigface according to Desk-Sergeant Bradley, shrugged: You’ve not left me much of a choice, have you? Rocking up here in the dead of night.
“Are you still there, Tobin?” Desk-Sergeant Bradley said. His voice might as well have been a million miles away, for all the good it did. “Do you know anything about hermaphrodites, only I’m on this website and the place is teeming with them?”
Now, Sheriff Tobin knew a thing or two about hermaphrodites, such as you should never tell one to go fuck itself as they’re always happy to oblige, but there were more important things afoot.
Like death.
Death was afoot.
And Sheriff Tobin did what any sane man would do when faced with his own demise. He shat his pants, made a strange noise right at the back of his throat, and hoped there was an afterlife, with or without virgins for him to defile.
“Tobin?” Desk-Sergeant Bradley sounded uneasy, which was amazing, really, as he wasn’t the one about to be chopped up into small pieces and fed to the pig.
“I don’t suppose you’d take a bribe?” said the Sheriff, appealing to the better nature of the maniac standing before him, but that was the thing with murderous butchers; they never seemed to possess a better nature.
“Souuuueeeeeee!” said Pigface, and brought the axe around in a wide arc. There was a meaty thud, and then things seemed to move over and over for Sheriff Tobin, as if he was cartwheeling through the woods like an overjoyed gazelle.
Souuuueeee? he thought as his decapitated head thunked against a tree-trunk and came to a rolling-stop in the undergrowth. Surely that should have been ‘squeeeeeee’, he thought, frowning.
As final thoughts went, it wasn’t great, and so he quickly flicked through his wank-bank and arrived at a rather gratuitous image of pre-muscle dysmorphia Madonna. Needless to say, Sheriff Tobin still died with a frown upon his face.
2
The Travers Cabin
The man sat shivering in the semi-dark of the cabin, wandering what the hell was going on, and how long it would be before the old dear with the strange smell offered him a cup of something warm. In the corner of the room, a fireplace lay empty. What’s the bleeding point of it? the man thought. It’s not as if she’s short of wood; she fucking lives in one, for starters.
“Sorry about that,” said the woman, returning from whatever it was she had been doing. “I ain’t kiddin’ you, that’s about the third Sheriff I’ve ‘ad to deal with this week. We’re only on Tuesday!” She slapped a bloody axe and a strange, half-melted pig mask down on the table next to the pile of severed limbs, and turned to the man with an expectant look upon her wizened face. “So what d’ya reckon?”
The man, whose name shall be revealed shortly, shrugged. “About what?” he said. “You haven’t asked me anything yet.”
“Oh, that’s right,” said the woman. “Honestly, I think I’d forget my ass if it wasn’t nailed to my pussy.” She cackled, and as she did, her eyes seemed to roll around in their sockets as if they were independent of her. The man turned his attention to the fireplace until the woman had composed herself. “So what d’ya reckon?” she said.
“I reckon you should get some wood for that fire,” said the man, whose name shall be revealed shortly. “It’s colder than an Eskimo’s chuff in here.”
“’Ere, you ain’t from the gas-board, is ya?” said the woman, whose name shall be revealed in the following sentence. “’cause Edi
e Travers don’t take kindly to utilities and those what peddle ‘em.” Told you.
“You know I’m not from the gas-board,” said the man. “You called me, remember?”
“But what if you was a wrong number?” said Edie.
“Look, this joke’s gone on for far too long. Can we just get to the meat of the matter?” he said, waving his hands frantically in the air for no good reason.
Edie rolled a cigarette between fingers that looked like twiglets, and very well might have been, before saying, “You’s that voodoo-man, ain’tcha? The one what brought back that serial killer in a ginger midget’s body over in Chicago?”
The man, whose name will be revealed extremely soon, leaned back in his chair and sighed. How could this keep happening? “Dr. Death?” said the man. “You wanted Dr. Death, and it wasn’t a ginger midget, it was a child’s plaything, and from what I understand, that little dungaree-bastard’s still out there.” He waved his hands again, this time finishing off with a couple of jabs in Edie’s direction.
Edie frowned. “Why’d’ya keep doing that?” she said.
“Doing what?” said the man. He stood from the table, kicked out at the air a couple of times, and then sat back down again.
“That!” said Edie. “Doing all that nonsense!”
“This is the third one, isn’t it?” the man said, whipping out an elbow. “The third ones are always in 3D.”
“This is the second one!” Edie said, shaking her head. “I should imagine the third ‘un will foller this ‘un.”
“Oh,” said the man, sheepishly.
“Anyway, never mind all that!” Edie said, gnawing nervously on her roll-yer-own. “If you’re not Dr. Death, who the hell are you, then? You better not be from the gas-board—”
“I’m Roger Death!” said Roger Death. “Dr. Death was my little brother, God rest his soul.”
