The Feral Peril

by Paul Stafford

  No. Those H.E.L.L. members just rocked into the Horror Hilton, which they’d booked out for their conference. There was no security lockdown; the doormen didn’t search anyone, not even the new members, and thus Tony Bones-Jones smuggled in all the materials he needed to complete the tall-call – no probs.

  Tony prayed for probs. He’d begged the Creator to have his backpack searched at the door and have him discovered, exposed. When it didn’t happen, when he wasn’t troubled by even a rudimentary cavity search, he nearly opened his trap and confessed … but wussed out at the very last second.

  See a pattern emerging here?

  And now Tony was inside the convention hall. What followed was a half hour of loud backslapping and guffawing and stupidity like what routinely occurs at any Horror Rotary Club meeting, though these guys still had their own teeth and hair. Longstanding H.E.L.L. members hooted across the hall at old compadres, yelling good-hearted abuse, questioning their taste in Hawaiian shirts, passing scurrilous remarks about their girly boy-band haircuts or wussbag threads.

  Then, after an interminable period of this kind of rot, H.E.L.L. got down to business. The president called the meeting to order, and slowly people milled around and found their name tags adorning pre-allocated seats. Tony found himself sitting next to Barry Death, who immediately leant over and tapped Tony on the shoulder.

  ‘Check this out,’ he said, pointing out the black potion bottle on the table. ‘Stole it off my sister. It was an antidote given to her as an early wedding present. Now she can’t shake the ogre curse when she marries next month. Next full moon she’ll be uglier than Shrek’s butt with a veil on it. She’s doomed for eternity. How’s that for low?’

  Tony smiled wanly, nodding politely.

  Weirdo, thought Barry Death, turning to tap the bloke on his other side.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ boomed the voice of President Mike Mockley, ‘welcome! Welcome indeed to the annual meeting of H.E.L.L.! Welcome to our new members, all of whom have satisfied that one crucial requirement for entry into the world’s most prestigious club – making their sister’s life hell!’

  A great cheer racked the hall.

  ‘What a meeting we have today,’ continued President Mockley, ‘and a special guest speaker to die for. In fact, he went and died for us himself back in 1993. I refer to none other than Mr Horror Movie himself, the one, the only … Mr Vincent Price.’

  A huge round of applause echoed around the hall as Vincent Price stiffly stood at his table and inclined his head nobly towards the president. He sure didn’t look bad for his age, and death certainly hadn’t done his career any harm. A regular circuit of lunch-speaking gigs like this paid heaps.

  Tony didn’t hear any more of the president’s speech. On the flimsy pretence of going to the toilet, he went to the toilet. He sat there for a few minutes in a locked stall, shaking with fear, whimpering. Why did he have to go through with this? Why him?

  Why? Because he’d been tall-called.

  And so, with a final deep breath of remorse, the Bonester began to pay for his loss on the handball court. First, he hoisted the bag of cement out of his backpack and methodically poured five full measuring cups of the powder into each of the toilet bowls. Then, in place of the cement bag, he stuffed his backpack with every last toilet roll from every cubicle.

  Now to the kitchen. It was deserted; the chefs were watching Vincent Price from the back of the auditorium. It’s so freaky, they whispered to each other – Mr Price sounded just like all the spooky characters he played in all his movies. Who’d have thought?

  Lunch was bubbling away on the stove: a huge pot of beef ghoul-ash. Tony eased the lid off the pot and poured in the animal-strength laxatives. There were no other pots or pans in the kitchen, so all he had to do was steal the two rolls of paper towels and stuff them in his bag with the toilet rolls.

  Now to the cameras. Tony snuck into the hotel’s security office, which was deserted. The security guards also loved Vincent Price – no way were they missing his speech on the wages of death. Tony accessed the video coordinates for internal security cameras and altered the live-feed port so the footage fed straight into a live email hook-up. Now everything happening at the H.E.L.L. convention was being viewed by the outside world, online, in real time.

  Not that it was a big deal … yet. So far, all they’d have seen was a cool, clandestine meeting and a humorous, croaky speech from Vincent Price. But things were about to crank up.

  ‘Tony Bones-Jones! Tony Bones-Jones?’ The Bonester heard his name echoing around the hall as he crept back to his seat. ‘Where is that man? There he is!’

  Suddenly TBJ was pinned in a wicked glaring spotlight, and he freaked. He’d been busted!

  ‘Gentlemen, clearly our winner is a little shy,’ gushed the president. ‘Big round of applause for this year’s winner of the Poison Chalice for the greatest stroke of autonomous evil against a sister. Come on up, Mr Bones-Jones. Come on up, take a bow and accept your prize.’

  Not much choice, was there? Tony stumbled onto the stage and approached the podium shamefaced, but he came across as humble and the crowd cheered him like a legend. What a guy. Cool as a dead cat.

  The president reached behind the curtain and dragged out a massive silver trophy, the infamous Poison Chalice, the most prestigious award H.E.L.L. could confer on a member. Engraved across it in beautiful copperplate writing was H.E.L.L. raiser of the Year, and clustered around were the names of dozens of previous proud recipients.

  The president thrust the cup into one of Tony’s hands and warmly shook him by the other. ‘Congratulations! You’ve done us all proud. Hearty congratulations!’

  There stood the Bonester, clasping the Poison Chalice to his chest in full and thorough disgrace, a shame to his species, having treacherously betrayed all the fine and admirable principles of the club he’d dishonoured. And they were clapping him for it!

  Inconceivable.

  By now Selina had locked the doors of the Horror Hilton from the outside with chains and padlocks, and superglued the locks. And at that precise moment, lunch was served.

  Chow down.

  Like most things in this type of book, the above chapter heading is utterly erroneous, egregious and egg-and-lettuce. Nothing bad happened at all. Everything turned out for the best. Honest.

  Can I go home now?

  Okay, so maybe things didn’t go precisely as planned, at least not for everyone. Well, not for anyone really, except maybe Vincent Price who got paid handsomely for his ugliness. Everyone else got it in the neck. They all wished they’d been born slaves on another planet by the end.

  No, that’s not strictly true either. Selina and Barnaby Hangdog got their revenge and kept courting each other on the sly. Nobody even cared about their scandalous liaison by then. People in Horror have got an even shorter attention span than you, and their meagre concentration was focused on all H.E.L.L. breaking loose.

  The press from around the world were waiting at the door as the SAS arc welders sizzled through the chains, padlocks and superglued locks of the Horror Hilton. Wave after wave of crying, shell-shocked, stinky boys poured from the hall, howling for their mothers and racing for the public toilets.

  Of course it was much too late. The deed was done. The job had long been resting in the out-tray. And it was all over for the world’s most infamous secret society, too, bar the paperwork. H.E.L.L. had hosted their last meeting. The organisation disbanded overnight. Nobody wanted to join such a pack of soiled losers, not after the footage was beamed around the world and featured on all the news bulletins, making a mockery of everything brothers stood for.

  As the boys poured out, the police and riot squad poured in. All they found was a coffin containing Vincent Price (dead movie stars tend to sleep a lot), and the Poison Chalice, overflowing with nastiness.

  Selina dashed in, and whistled loudly. ‘Hey Tony, aren’t you forgetting something?’ She stood there grinning, a peg jammed into the place where her nose onc
e was, brandishing his once beautiful trophy, now soiled beyond recognition.

  Tony shot her a glare of pure hate. ‘Whatever.’ Then he turned and stalked towards home.

  All I know about what happened in there is what I heard from later accounts. All the toilets cemented, all the toilet paper gone, and the lunch lavishly laxatived. Doors bolted, nowhere to go, pressure rising. Lunch leaching through, lubing the tubes (as they say in the trade), and lunging for the finish line.

  Unsavoury.

  The grainy footage that was viewed live by millions worldwide will never be aired again, not even on Horror’s Hinkiest Home Videos. There’s no adequate ratings classification that could protect innocent viewers from this brand of infamy, this kind of iniquity, this level of lowness. Plus, Selina Bones-Jones and Barnaby Hangdog had copyrighted the footage and made more money selling the DVDs than H.E.L.L. even knew existed.

  Tony Bones-Jones’s name was never mentioned, but everyone saw his face clearly in the footage, doing the do, doctoring these degenerates by doping their delicious dinner.

  He had a contract out on his skull from that day on, but he got off lightly. Those poor, poor boys from H.E.L.L. Nowhere to go, nothing to wipe with once they got there … and then they’d clapped eyes on the revered Poison Chalice. Its funnel-like body and chamber-pot mouth seemed tailor made, almost calling out to them. Calling? It was screaming, scatologically speaking.

  Do I have to paint you a picture?

  No, painting is not my thing. I’m a writer. Not that I ever wanted to be. You think I actually like writing this rubbish? You think I enjoy this? This writing lark is for the birds – it’s enough to send you bats.

  So why do it? I don’t have a choice. Tony Bones-Jones was the second person in the history of the Horror High Handball Championship to suffer from a tall-call – so who do you think was the first?

  Not that hard, even for you …

  Paul Stafford is a literacy consultant working in schools across Australia, and the author of more than eleven books of teenage fiction. He grew up in Kurrajong Heights and now lives outside Bathurst, NSW. He studied print journalism at Mitchell CAE, graduating in 1989, but renounced the make-believe world of journalism for the hard and gritty reality of teenage fiction. Although a career in writing has meant abandoning his childhood dreams of wealth and respectability, he now gets to sleep late, dress scruffy and gnaw on the skulls of his enemies. It’s a trade-off he’s learnt to live with.

  Find out more about Paul and the world of Horror High at www.horrorhighbooks.com

  Special thanks to Helen Sykes and Bev Pennell for their guidance and advice, and to web-wizard and Horror Uni student Ben Lynch for all his hard work and lunatic notions. And finally thanks to Judy Parker of Mitchell CAE circa 1988, who first lit the fuse …

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  Available at all good retailers.