by Adam Millard
“Can we just stand here in silence, please?” Larry said, for he had a terrible migraine from all the walking and, no doubt, his mother’s plaintive keening as he left. A small – infinitesimal – part of him had felt a pang of guilt at leaving his Ma alone in the cabin. You never knew what maniacs were out here in the woods, roaming about the place, looking for some harmless old woman to defile. Wilbur, though not much of a guard-pig, had been given strict instructions; ‘see anyone with a weapon who isn’t me, bite its fucking legs off.’
Listen, said the mask. You hear that?
Larry’s ears pricked up. He could hear the wind brushing past the trees, could hear the chittering of nocturnal insects and, if he listened really carefully, he could hear his mother, still wailing, because, if nothing else, Edie Travers was a cunning old minx.
“All I can hear is the wind brushing past the trees; the chittering of—”
Yes, yes, yes, said the mask. None of that matters. Can you hear that other noise?
Larry could hear it now. It sounded like the low growl of an engine, an engine in a car which had seen better days.
Stop picking your snout and hold your thumb out! said the mask.
Larry did just that. “Which way’s it coming from?” he said. “I can’t hear it properly over the wind brushing through the trees and the chittering of nocturnal insects. Not to mention MA! WILL YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!? TRYING TO LISTEN OUT FOR CARS HERE! Sheesh.”
Just then, the trees and road to his left lit up. Larry quickly pulled up his coat’s hood and zipped it up to his eyes.
What are you doing? asked the mask. Do you think they’re going to stop if they can’t see your face?
“Do you think they’re going to stop if they do see my face?” Larry said, and he had a bloody good point.
The sound of music – though not that of the Von Trapp menagerie – drifted along the road as two perfectly-round and incredibly bright headlights appeared, attached to which was the rest of the car.
Thumb out! Act normal!
The car was less than ten feet away when Larry stepped out in front of it. Well, the fucking thing wasn’t slowing down. Larry wasn’t sure that the driver, a scared-looking chap with wide eyes and a screaming mouth (though he might only look like that when a hooded stranger stepped out in front of his speeding car in the middle of the night), had seen him. This was a sure-fire way to get noticed, though not the most practical.
Larry bounced off the car’s bonnet, smashed the windshield with his body before somersaulting through the air and over the top of the spinning, screeching car. In hindsight, waiting for another car would have been far less painful.
He hit the tarmac at around the same time the swerving car fell off the side of the road, flipped once or twice, and came to a halt against a tree without a rudimentary penis scratched into it.
You’ve dropped your suitcase, said the mask.
“No shit!” Larry said, clambering to his feet. “Did you see that? That fucker almost killed me!” He made his way unsteadily toward his suitcase, which was twenty feet along the road, its contents spilled.
That’s why you’re only supposed to stick your thumb out! The mask sounded annoyed. Stepping in front of moving vehicles almost always ends the same way.
“Look at this mess.” Larry dropped to his knees – which may or may not have been broken, it was too early to tell – and began stuffing his belongings back in the case. It was while he was rearranging his luggage that a small, bloody, and angry-looking man staggered up the embankment.
“Oi! Prick!”
Larry turned just as the injured man made it onto the road.
“What the fuck was that?” said the man. He was, Larry saw, limping as if he’d shit himself and holding onto his arm, as if afraid it might fall off if he didn’t. “I mean, who steps in front of a moving car in the middle of the night? We’re going to have to exchange insurance details. What’s that? Is that a fucking axe?”
He’s sharp, innee? said the mask.
“Hang on a minute,” the injured man said. “You’re not…you’re not Larry Travers, are you?”
Larry stood, axe clenched tightly in his hand, and removed his hood. The injured man’s expression faltered, as one might expect it to when faced with certain death. He took a few steps back, whining something under his breath. He was, for want of a better word, fucked, and he knew it.
Larry rushed the man, axe already swinging in a wide arc. “Squeeeeeeeeeee!”
As the man’s head bounced off one tree, and then another, before landing in a pile of guano, Larry was overwhelmed with emotions. It felt so good to be killing again. Oddly, he didn’t get an erection, but it would have been even odder if he had, since his penis had been decimated in the conflagration up at Diamond Creek the previous year. There wasn’t much left of it, at all. It looked like something you could buy in hundred-gram bags at a pet-store.
The injured man’s body just stood there for a few seconds, as if confused. Where’s my head gone? I had it a moment ago. Then it toppled forward, blood spurting from the stump of its neck, spraying the road.
Great, moaned the mask. Drag that fucking mess off the road, before someone else comes along. And for God’s sake put your penis away.
“Does it look like a dog treat to you?”
It’s disgusting. Just pull up your pants and get rid of that. Oh, I’m sorry, I was pointing. I forget…just get rid of it.
Larry pulled up his pants and dragged the headless body off the road. Kicking it down the embankment, he regarded the crumpled wreck with optimism.
Don’t even think about it, said the mask. You wouldn’t know where to start. And besides, it’s fucked. We’ll just have to wait – probably forever – until another—
“You looking for a ride, little piggy?” said a voice.
Larry snapped his head across and almost fell down the hill when he saw, sitting there, a dark blue pick-up. So silent and new was this jeep that neither he nor the mask had heard its approach. A woman hung out of the window. Her curly blonde hair and cowboy hat meant she was either a) a fan of country music b) on her way to some fancy-dress party, or c) Crocodile Dundee in drag.
Larry’s inner monologue squeeeed, as was its wont.
Don’t kill this one, the mask reminded him. At least until we get to Haddon.
*
It transpired that the woman, whose name was Belle Boudoir – though that might have been a moniker, and not what was actually printed on her birth-certificate – was indeed on her way to a fancy-dress party. It also transpired that she had mistakenly assumed Larry was going to the same party. Why else would he be wearing a mask? Only people that went to fancy-dress parties wore masks. And gimps.
“D’you like Tammy Wynette, little piggy?” Belle asked, fiddling with the car’s CD player.
“Never met her,” Larry replied. “She local?”
“You’re funny,” Belle hooted as country music began to fill the pick-up. “Sure do like me a funny guy. D’ya think I’m pretty, little piggy.”
Watch her, Larry. She’s off her fucking tits.
Larry nodded. “I would,” he said. If I had anything remotely like a penis left to do it with, he thought.
“You know, that’s the sweetest thing a man has ever said to me,” said the raging nymph. Larry didn’t believe her, not for one minute. “So, how do you know Gerry and Jan?”
“Who?” Larry said.
The couple hosting this dress-up party, the mask reminded him. Gerry and Jan Mayflower. Gerry’s a doctor; Jan’s a teacher, though she wants to go into criminal psychology one day. Fuck, Larry, haven’t you been listening to a word this crazy broad’s been saying?
“I switched off,” replied Larry.
“Excuse me?” Belle said.
“I said I had a cough,” Larry said. “Gerry’s my doctor.”
“He’s great, ain’t he,” said Belle. “He was the first guy I ever let put more than one finger in me.” She burst out
laughing, as if this was the funniest thing she’d ever said. Larry had no idea what she was talking about. “So, little piggy—”
“Pigface,” Larry said, somewhat abruptly. “I prefer Pigface.”
“Hm, Pigface,” Belle said. “That sounds familiar.” And for a few seconds, she simply stared at the road while she tried to recall where she had heard that name before.
If she twigs, said the mask, you have my permission to put an axe in her head.
“That’s awfully kind of you,” Larry said.
“Excuse me?” said Belle.
“I said I do a lot of charity work. That might be why you’ve heard of me.”
“Maybe,” she said. What passed, an uncomfortable silence, would have been far more uncomfortable if the women on the stereo hadn’t been warbling on about how it wasn’t God that made honky tonk angels, whatever the fuck that meant. Larry watched the trees rush by outside his window; even though they were miles away from where the woman had picked him up, Larry was almost certain he could still hear his mother wailing.
“Looks like it’s going to rain,” Belle said.
Larry was about to tell her he didn’t give a shit about the weather when his entire body went into spasm and his head buzzed so hard, it put his Ma’s moonshine to shame. And then…
*
There he was. That prick who had been up at the camp the previous year. The final girl’s boyfriend, perhaps? In his hand was a shotgun. He obviously didn’t know much about guns, for he was staring down the barrel of this one, turning it over and over as if looking for the on switch.
“You’re going to shoot your own face off,” said a voice, and Larry recognised it immediately.
The final girl.
“Don’t be silly,” said the boy. A moment later there was a flash and an almighty bang. When the debris settled, the boy said, “You’d better hold this. I’m going to shoot my own face off.”
And then…
*
“…finished the night with a rim-job and a packet of Skittles.”
“Huh?” Larry shook his head rapidly from side to side in an attempt to disperse the confusion. It didn’t work.
Welcome back, numbnuts, said the mask.
“Then there was Barry Cletus,” said Belle, without taking her eyes off the road. “Barry the Length, I liked to call him, on account that—”
“He had a massive cock?” Larry ventured.
“He liked to swim,” said Belle. “So anyway, Barry booked us into this hotel for the weekend, you know? Fancy place it was, too, with the free biscuits and those dwarf shampoos. So anyway…”
And on and on she went, but Larry was no longer listening. He was running through his plan, which had consisted of killing the final girl, and maybe a couple of nonentities along the way – the Statute of Sequels Act 1981 demands that the body-count is higher, the kills more grisly, and the amount of breasticles on show doubled, or preferably tripled.
But now he had the boy to consider, too.
A smile curled up the corner of his lips.
And Belle concluded her story, another in a long line, with: “…and then we finished off with a blow-job and a cheese-and-tomato sandwich.”
11
Elm Street
Amanda finished duct-taping the ceiling back into place (she liked the attic, but not enough to leave the thing open-plan) and climbed down from the ladder. Freddy, feeling somewhat sorry for himself, had settled in the corner of the room, browsing Amanda’s small library with an expression of incredulity upon his countenance.
“Why do all of your books have topless men on them?” he said.
“They’re romance,” Amanda said, dusting off her bed. “All good romance books have topless men on the cover; it’s how you know they’re good.”
They’re filth, Freddy thought, sliding a particularly filthy one – kilt, sledgehammer, gasoline – back into its rightful place on the shelf.
“You’re not jealous, are you?” Amanda said. “I mean, you and I...we had some fun, but that’s all it was, you know?”
Freddy knew. Oh, he knew just fine. It’s amazing how quickly a girl will throw herself at you in the woods when there’s a raging psychopath in a pig-mask hacking people to death, but get her back to the city, where the chances of being hacked to death by anyone, let alone a psychopath in a pig-mask, are severely reduced, and you’re immediately bumped down to the Friendzone, where you’d better reacquaint yourself with palm and her five sisters if you don’t want to end up with a backlog…
“I know that,” Freddy said. “We were scared, we needed comfort, one of us might have soiled ourselves, blah, blah, blah.”
“Exactly,” Amanda said. “So, we cool?”
Freddy nodded; inside, a little piece of him had died. “Yup,” he lied.
“So where did you say you got the gun again?”
Freddy eased himself back in the chair – and it was one of those annoying teenager chairs, piled high with an array of cuddly toys that said teen had amassed over the years. It was a wonder Freddy wasn’t on his ass on the floor. “I know a guy,” he said, trying to sound mysterious but coming across as a bit of a cunt. “He’s my uncle.”
“And Uncle Peckinpah just handed it over?” Amanda said, examining the gun.
“He won’t notice it’s missing, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“Holy shit, Freddy! You took your uncle’s gun without telling him? That’s…that’s…”
“That’s the only way we were going to get a gun,” Freddy finished for her. “You said we needed weapons. I’m not Rutger Hauer, but I’m pretty sure that thing in your hand would blow a donkey’s dick off from fifty yards.”
“And miss everything you aim at from a hundred yards,” Amanda said. “We’re going to have to get up close and personal with Pigface to do him any real damage with this thing. Have you ever shot before?”
Freddy pointed up at the duct-taped ceiling. “You watched me do it,” he said.
“Besides adding an extension to my bedroom?”
Freddy shook his head. “No, have you?”
“What do I look like, Grace Jones? Of course I haven’t fired a gun before. I sit around in my bedroom all day reading softcore por…romance novels.”
“So neither of us has experience with guns,” Freddy said. “It doesn’t matter. We don’t even know if we can kill him to death with that thing. What if he’s one of those relentless bastards? We already hacked him up and burnt him; even that wasn’t enough. We might be barking up the wrong tree with weapons.”
Amanda placed the shotgun gently on the bed and walked across the room. “What are you saying? That he might be immortal?”
Freddy sighed. “There’s immortal, and then there’s just persistent. If Pigface is going to keep coming back, no matter how many times we kill him, no matter how many bullets we put in him or how many limbs we chop off, then we need to think of something else. Think outside the box. Find a way to kill him once and for all, so that there’s no chance of the franchise becoming stagnant.”
“Hate when that happens,” said Amanda.
“Yeah, like, know when to stop, assholes,” Freddy snorted. “You can’t just reboot the whole thing by putting your antagonist in outer space.”
“Yeah.”
“Ha, yeah.”
“We sound like Beavis and Butthead now,” Amanda said. “Let’s get back on track.”
“M’kay.”
“So how do we kill him for good?” Amanda began rearranging her bookcase, for Freddy had made right pig’s ear of it.
“Well, if Pigface is already dead, and after what happened to him up at Diamond Creek, it’s safe to assume he is, then we need to rid his reanimated body of the soul. Without the soul, the body can’t function. We send his soul to Hell—”
“If there is such a place,” Amanda said, for she liked nothing more than provoking the pious.
“—there’s no way he can come back.”
�
�So we need a priest?” Amanda turned to face Freddy. “One that’s not destined for Hell, himself?”
“Let’s go with a nun,” Freddy said. “You never hear bad things about nuns.”
“And where are we going to find a nun in Haddon?”
“—” said Freddy.
Amanda sighed and was about to head off in search of her copy of The Yellow Pages when…
“OH MY GOD!” she cried. Freddy almost fell off the cuddly-toy infested chair. “He’s in a car! I can see everything through his eyes!”
“What can you see?” Freddy said, trying to ignore the fact that only the whites of Amanda’s eyes were visible and that she looked as scary as shit.
“I see a road,” she said.
“That figures,” Freddy said. “What else can you see?”
“There’s a woman! Oh, Freddy, he’s in a car with a woman! She’s blonde, and wearing a cowboy hat! And she seems…seems to be simulating a blow-job on thin air!”
“Are you sure you’re in Pigface’s head?” Freddy said. “Is there any chance you’ve taken a wrong turn and ended up in the mind of Rob Zombie?”
“It’s him!” Amanda squawked. “I’m looking out through the mask! I can see the edge of the eyeholes! Why’s he not killing her right about now?”
“Maybe he knows her,” Freddy said. “Ooh, ooh, I know. He needs a ride, right? If he’s coming to Haddon, he needs a ride, and I’m guessing, living up there in the woods with nothing but an axe for company, he never took time out of his day to apply for driving lessons.”
“GET OUT OF THERE!” Amanda screamed. Freddy stood, walked across the room, and pressed himself up against a wardrobe. The white-eyed stare of his former-girlfriend-cum-fuckbuddy had finally gotten to him. She looked possessed, or blind, or both. “He’s going to kill her!” she went on. “When he gets to Haddon, he’s going to kill her. I can feel his hatred for her, and she’s not doing herself any favours, either, jabbering on like that.”
“Can’t you do something?” Freddy said from the edge of the room. “You’re in his mind, aren’t you? Convince him to open the door and toss himself out.”
