Larry 2: The Squeequel

by Adam Millard

  “’I’m more likely to sit in that throne than you,’ you told him. And if I remember correctly, you offended his missus.”

  “Well,” said Chrystal. “She’s no Diana, is she?”

  “’Face like Rod Hull taking a shit’ was what you said,” said Debbie.

  “And I stand by it,” said Chrystal.

  Debbie, still waiting for the kettle to boil, rattled her fingers on the worktop. She was about to fetch the milk from the fridge when she swore she heard heavy breathing.

  “Is that you?” she called.

  “Is what me?” replied Chrystal.

  “Breathing heavy. Sounds like Darth Vader having a wank?”

  “Not me,” she said. “I can’t hear anything.”

  But Debbie could, and it appeared to be coming from the cupboard at the far end of the kitchen, next to the back door, which was wide open.

  “You left the back door wide open,” Debbie said.

  “Did I?” said Chrystal. “I swore I shut it. Maybe the wind blew it open.”

  There wasn’t a breath of wind outside, and that didn’t explain the heavy breathing emanating from the cupboard. “Chrystal, can you come in here for a minute?” said Debbie, nervously staring toward the cupboard.

  “I’d rather not,” said Chrystal. “Especially if there’s someone hiding in the cupboard, heavy breathing. Remember what the mayor said at that meeting?”

  “Something about us not being sandwiches,” said Debbie as she moved slowly toward the cupboard. “I wasn’t really paying attention.”

  “He said to remain vigilant,” said Chrystal. “And what better way to remain vigilant than by ignoring strange sounds coming from cupboards, at least until they go away.”

  Debbie, however, couldn’t ignore it. There was someone in there – having a stroke, perhaps, or several by the sounds of it. “Hello?” she said. “Who’s in the cupboard?”

  “You can’t ask who’s in the cupboard,” Chrystal said from the adjacent room. “You’ve got to build up to it. Start with ‘Is anyone there?’ and work your way up.”

  “Is anyone—”

  “Yes,” came the response from the cupboard. “There is most definitely someone here.” And then, under its breath, the voice said, “Well, she asked, didn’t she? What was I supposed to do? Ignore her? Pretend that we’re not here? For fuck’s sake, I can’t win with you, can I, you—”

  “Animal, vegetable, or mineral?” said Debbie.

  “What?” asked the voice. “What kind of a question is that? How many talking minerals do you know?”

  “Animal, vegetable, mineral?” Debbie said, more insistent this time.

  “For crying out…animal,” said the voice.

  “Ask him whether he’s a celebrity?” Chrystal said, appearing in the kitchen doorway with a chamois leather in one hand a half-eaten sausage roll in the other.

  “Are you a celebrity?” Debbie said, though quite why a celebrity would be hiding in their kitchen cupboard was beyond her.

  “Depends,” came the reply. “Am I well-known? Yes. Do I pose for photographs and hang around swanky nightclubs letting pretty girls lick my neck? Not on your nelly.”

  “Ooh,” said Chrystal, forcing the rest of the sausage-roll into her orange face. “This is tricky.”

  “Why are you hiding in our cupboard?” Debbie said.

  “—“ said the voice, followed by, “—”

  “’—‘ is not an acceptable answer,” said Chrystal. In the background, sirens grew louder.

  “Sorry,” said the voice. “I’m a mass murder/slasher and I’m lying low for a moment, just until those sirens piss off.”

  “Oh,” said Chrystal.

  “Oh,” concurred Debbie, taking small steps away from the cupboard. “We’ll leave you to it, then.”

  The door flew open, so hard that it splintered in its frame. Standing there, between shelves lined with food, waxing-strips, scented oils, and a million canned shades of undiluted orange, was a man in a pig mask. The axe in his right hand looked sharp enough to do some real damage; the tin of pork luncheon meat in his other hand looked only slightly less threatening. The man in the mask was reading the back of the tin, as if trying to tot up its calorie content. After a few seconds, he slowly looked in the direction of the gobsmacked orange ladies, one of which was still chewing frantically on a sausage-roll.

  “Like pig meat, do we?” he said.

  “You’re him!” gasped Debbie. “You’re the one who butchered all those people last night!”

  The killer dropped the tin of luncheon meat and straightened up, for he was a little hunched over, almost like a question mark. His back audibly cracked. “Got a body-count to think of,” he said. “This is a sequel, after all.”

  Chrystal began to wave the leather chamois about the place.

  “It’s Part Two,” said the killer.

  “Oh,” said Chrystal, and lowered the rag.

  “Shouldn’t we be running away?” said Debbie, calm as you like.

  “Are we major characters?” said Chrystal.

  “We’ve been in it for a bit,” said Debbie.

  “Yeah, but have we done anything to alter the course of the plot?”

  “Probably not.”

  “Then I don’t think running is going to do us much good.”

  “I don’t know,” said the killer. “I quite like the thrill of the chase, and all that bollocks. I’ll even give you a three second head-start.” He glanced at his watch. It wasn’t a man’s watch; in fact, it wasn’t a watch at all, but if he had a watch, that’s definitely where he would keep it. “Starting…now!”

  The orange women turned and rushed for the door as fast as their not-so-little orange legs could carry them. Behind them, the killer yelled, “Squeeeeee!” which meant that their three seconds were up. As those lovely Fugees once sang: Ready or not, here I come.

  Chrystal and Debbie were only halfway across the salon – next to the ironic buffet, to be exact – when Debbie pulled up and turned to her colleague. “Is there something in my back? Feels like there’s something in my back.”

  Chrystal turned her co-worker around and hissed. “You’ve got an axe in your back,” she said. “Fuck me, Debs, that’s got to hurt.”

  “Like nothing I’ve experienced before,” said Debbie. “And I went to a Catholic school.” She spun around and around, like a dog chasing its tail, trying to reach the axe handle.

  “Keep still,” Chrystal said. “I’ve got it.” She placed one knee at the base of Debbie’s spine, grabbed onto the handle, and pulled the axe free. Blood geysered into her face, turning her satsuma tan into a crimson mess. It didn’t matter, for she had the axe now, and though Debbie looked buggered—

  “Can I have my axe back,” said the killer, holding out his hand expectantly.

  “Since you asked so nicely,” Chrystal said, and held out the axe before snatching it back just before the killer could latch onto it. “What the hell am I thinking? No, you can’t have it. You’re only going to kill us with it. Look at what you’ve done to Debs. She hasn’t been that white since she was eight, have you Debs?”

  “There was that Goth convention in 2009,” Debbie said through a mouthful of blood. “I feel ever so woozy.” As if to demonstrate just how woozy she felt, she fell face-down onto the buffet-table, sending sausage-rolls and vol-au-vents into the air. When the pork products settled – it took a while, for sausage-rolls aren’t called sausage-stays for a reason – Chrystal glanced down at her dead colleague and sighed.

  “Un-be-fucking-lievable. Do you have any idea how hard it is to find decent, hard-working orange people?”

  “Willy Wonka didn’t have a problem,” said the killer, snatching the axe from the irate woman. Her mouth fell open in a terrified O. She looked like a sex-doll, if sex-dolls had fake tans.

  Chrystal turned and, well, made it one step closer to the door before her head came off. The killer Squeeeeeeeeed! and Chrystal would have screamed if she’d
been able to, but the fact of the matter is, and I believe it was Nietzsche who said it first, You can’t scream for shit if you don’t have your vocal cords, or something like that…

  The head thumped against the far wall, toppling a Channing Tatum calendar (2013 – a vintage year for Channing fans everywhere), before landing in a waste-paper basket, as severed heads are wont to do.

  Outside, the sirens howled through the streets, but at least they were howling in the right direction. That is to say they were going away, rather than the alternative.

  Why do people do that to themselves? asked the mask.

  “What?” said Larry. “Decapitate themselves with an axe?” As far as he was concerned, people tended not to do that to themselves. Something about getting the swing right. Of course, you could always rig up a whatchamacallit, let a machine do the severing, so to speak, but that takes knowledge in engineering, and the kind of people that want to lop off their own heads with an axe are not likely to be possessed of such ingenuity.

  Make themselves orange, said the mask, which made more sense. I just don’t see the appeal.

  Larry wiped the bloody axe-blade on his apron. “Haven’t the foggiest,” he said. “Would it be cannibalism if I noshed a cocktail sausage?”

  21

  RadioShack

  Elegant Victorian buildings lined the street, replete with detailed fretwork, ornamental brickwork, terracotta panelling, stunning swirls, volutes, and so on. Each building had its own beautiful style, from the vernacular to the Italianate. Pity, then, that the whole thing was buggered over by satellite dishes and graffiti, not to mention shuttered shops and boarded-up soup-kitchens.

  “Haddoners, friends, and people who are just here for the free food,” began the mayor, whose headache was starting to play merry hell with his facial features. “We are gathered here today, on Neve Campbell Street, to witness the birth of yet another RadioShack, because, let’s be honest, where else are we going to be able to buy miniature lightbulbs from?”

  “Fry’s Electronics!” yelled John Fry from the circle-pit. “Home of Fast, Friendly, Courteous Service. Your Best Buys are always at Fry's!”

  Someone – a man possessed by the demon of Charles D. Tandy – donked John Fry on the head with a cricket bat and carried him off to an awaiting ambulance, where he would be resuscitated at a later date, or not at all.

  “It brings me great joy,” continued the mayor, “to pronounce this RadioShack open to the general public.” And with that, he cut the ribbon stretching across the store’s doorway, and fifty potential customers turned around and went home.

  “Can we go now?” Amanda said. “You sure you haven’t got a Wendy’s to open, or a Krispy Kreme to bless, or a Best Buy to throw eggs at?” Her sarcasm was duly noted, though not by Mayor Johnnie Ketchum, who just didn’t get sarcasm at the best of times.

  “Not this week,” said the mayor. “So what’s the plan? Any more visions?”

  Amanda shook her head. “Not for a while, but we need to put our thinking caps on.”

  Freddy did just that. “Wait, I’m not wearing mine if none of you are going to bother.” He took it off, scrunched it up, and thrust it back whence it came.

  “You’re a killer,” said Amanda.

  “No I’m not,” said the mayor.

  “Hypothetically, you’re a killer—”

  “Who told you that?” said the mayor. “Have you been talking to my ex-wife? Because what happened with Tiggles wasn’t my fault. It was the lawnmower…it…it got away from me.”

  “No, I’m trying to put you into Pigface’s shoes,” said Amanda.

  “I’m a nine-and-a-quarter,” said the mayor.

  “Would anyone take offence if I punched the mayor on the snotter?” asked Sister Geoff, balling her fists. Her knuckle-tattoos really stood out in this light.

  “Hypothetically, you’re a killer,” Amanda went on, “and you’re new in town. Hungry for blood, and yet trying to keep a low profile, where do you go?”

  “Probably to a shoe-shop,” said the mayor. “For some nine-and-a-quarters.”

  Freddy held the nun back by her habit. “Can we take this seriously,” said he. “There are lives at stake.”

  “If I was him,” said the mayor, “I’d probably go to the busiest place in the city. Slashers don’t tend to keep a low profile. At least, that hockey guy over in Manhattan never worried about it.”

  “He’s right,” Amanda said. “Pigface won’t give a shit if he’s spotted, especially if he’s semi-immortal. So where’s the busiest place in the city on a Thursday afternoon?”

  The mayor turned to Freddy, and Freddy turned to the nun, and the nun lit a tailor made, because this whole thing was more stress than it was worth.

  “You mentioned something about a party?” Amanda said to Sister Geoff.

  The nun shrugged. “Which I’m going to be late for, at this rate.”

  “What party?” asked the mayor.

  “Fuck,” said Freddy. “That’s where he’ll go.”

  And Sister Geoff frowned. “Well, bugger me,” she said.

  “If you think it will help,” said the mayor.

  “He’s going to Harry Hunter’s,” said the nun.

  “How quickly can we get there?” said Amanda.

  “Half-an-hour,” said Sister Geoff, checking her watch. It wasn’t a man’s watch, unless said man was a big fan of Mother Teresa’s wizened face. The big hand was pointing at her forehead, while the little hand was hovering just shy of her right eye. Sister Geoff knew what that meant. “It’s two o’clock. The party starts any time now, if it hasn’t already.”

  “We need to hurry the fuck up,” said Freddy.

  And hurry the fuck up they did, which was why, fifteen minutes later, they were standing at a bus-stop, tapping their respective feet and praying to God they weren’t going to be too late.

  22

  Harry Hunter’s Mansion

  There are no two ways about it; porn is a huge industry. With more than $15bn in revenue generated annually, it’s on a par with Hollywood’s box office and the amount of cocaine snorted at a Lindsay Lohan bash. You don’t need to be a great actor to star in porn…you just need to be there, and with at least one piece of genitalia, not necessarily in the right order. One of the greatest pornstars of the last twenty years, Ivana Bucketflaps, had nary an acting credit to her name when she made her first film, Breakfast in Tiffany. By the time her hundredth film was released (and what a corker In Diana Jones: The Temple of Poon was!) she had more money in the bank than the First Lady – not Eve, the other one. By the time her thousandth film came out – Up Her Majesty’s Secret Cervix, by which point she was starting to get a little bit sore – she was richer than Oprah, Gina Rinehart, and the woman who does the voices in Fifi and the Flowertots combined. Within a quarter of a century, she had gone from strip-bar dancer to multi-billionaire, and along the way she had fallen in love.

  With Harry Hunter.

  To fans of porn (not me, I just work here), Harry Hunter is a God. A seventy-year old man with a forty-year-old ex-pornstar wife, Harry’s had his fair share of Notorious VAG. He was one of the first producers to combine shemales with transsexuals, confusing porn fans worldwide. There is not a sexual position on earth that Harry hasn’t seen. In fact, over the years he’s discovered at least fifty new ones, put them all in a nice book (laminated, of course) and sold it to the mass-market, because if Harry Hunter knows anything about porn, it’s that people will buy anything if it means emptying their sacks.

  His mansion was testament to just how well he and Ivana had done over the years. With more staircases than your average staircase convention, The Hunter Mansion was the kind of building gangster rappers only dreamed about. Everything was white. The carpets were white, the tiles were white, the ceilings and walls were white, the sofas…well, they were champagne, because too much white can be counterproductive.

  Out by the pool – and what a gigantic, full-of-clean-water, turdless,
deep pool it was, too – guests stood around, sipping champagne from tall glasses, mumbling at one another in that way they always do in such scenes: Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb, and so on and so forth. Occasionally, someone would say something hilarious, eliciting a haughty laugh from whomever heard it, but those incidents were few and far between, and thusly not worthy of mention.

  A tinkle upon the side of a glass suggested someone wanted to make a speech, and so all those people going, “Rhubarb, rhubarb, rhubarb,” stopped what they were doing for a moment and turned to face the glass-tinkler. One man mustn’t have got the message, and so continued to say “Rhubarb” until someone donked him on the head with a cricket-bat and carried him outside, to where there should have been a waiting ambulance but wasn’t, as it was still parked outside the new RadioShack in the high-street.

  “Ladies and Gentlemen,” said the tinkler of the glass, none other than Harry Hunter himself. He looked good for his age, as most people married to former porn-stars do. That wasn’t to say he hadn’t heard of Viagra; he just didn’t need as much of it to wake the wee beastie as most geriatric gents. “I want to thank you all for making this party a huge success.”

  Cheers went up around the mansion, and the people partaking in an orgy in the master bedroom stopped what they were doing for a moment, had a little breather, and patted one another on the bare backs, before continuing.

  “I see a lot of familiar faces here today,” said Hunter. “I’ve had the pleasure of working with many of you, and some of you have even had a go on Ivana, though not since we married, I’m pleased to say.”

  The crowd laughed heartily. A handsome, well-groomed man slipped sheepishly out the back door.

  “Ah, Miss Treat!” Hunter said, spotting the supermodel in the middle of the room, nursing a large cocktail. “You look…healthy.” And by ‘healthy’ he meant ‘orange a fuck’. “And how nice it was of you to bring a handicapped person to such a lavish affair. You’re such a darling.”

  Martha Blankenship didn’t know where to look as all eyes fell upon her, so she settled upon the floor. Handicapped, indeed!