What do I fucking look like? Peter thought, a shudder running the length of his spine. An idiot? That loft had less chance of being opened than Susan Boyle’s legs.
12
“Did you see that?” Nev asked, pointing at the screens.
“See what?” Trev replied, for he hadn’t seen a damn thing.
“Something just happened to the screens. I saw something in the corner of that one” – he pointed to the one in which he’d apparently – though not likely – seen something – “and then there was a flash. Like a white flash, and then everything went back to normal.”
“Maybe it was a moth?” Trev said. He and his brother both knew that whenever something inexplicable was caught on camera, nine times out of ten it was a moth. A moth, or a bit of dust. Sometimes, you even get dusty moths, which are a paranormal investigator’s worst nightmare.
“It wasn’t a moth,” Nev said. “I know a moth when I see one, and I know an unexplainable black mass—”
“You can’t really say that you know an unexplainable black mass when you see one, Nev,” said Trev, “as they’re not as prevalent as moths, dusty or otherwise, and they are, by definition, unexplainable. Maybe what you saw was a rat – or several rats, even, stacked up on one another – and your mind did the rest.”
“Maybe,” Nev said, though deep down he knew what he saw. He also knew that rats didn’t stack so neatly. And he didn’t care how clever the rats they had released into the house were, it was highly unlikely they had the aptitude to form something so uncanny.
But there was nothing untoward occurring on the screens now. Images of sleeping celebrities were all that could be discerned through the green night-vision haze. Gone was the sinister black shape, if it had ever been there at all.
“Why don’t you get some sleep?” Trev said, sensing his brother was on the cusp of lassitude. It had been a long day, and it was going to be an even longer week. The brothers had decided to observe the monitors in shifts, for nothing much ever happened in these shows once the lights went out. You were lucky if one of the housemates accidentally farted themselves awake, and a painful fall from bed was almost as exciting as an eviction.
“You sure?” Nev said, removing his glasses and rubbing ferociously at his eyes. He had that look that people do when you see them without their specs; as if his eyes were not, in fact, eyes at all, but tiny holes bored into his face.
“Go ahead,” Trev said, pouring himself a cup of tea from the flask sitting upon the desk. The tea hadn’t been warm for hours but it was better than nothing. “And if your mystery mass returns, I’ll be sure to wake you.” He sniggered, though in truth, the thought terrified him. What if his brother was right? What if he had witnessed something aberrant upon the monitors?
Just a dusty moth, he assured himself.
“Promise me something,” Nev yawned, standing and arching his back.
“Sure.”
“If that Lorna woman wakes up and decides to give herself a little Round Two—”
“You really are a dirty little bar steward, aren’t you?” Trev shook his head and smiled. “I’ll give you a shout if anything happens.”
“Cheers.” Nev made his way to the back of the muddy tent, where a sleeping-bag waited for him. Once he’d checked it for dormice, spiders, and anything else that would decrease his sleeping pleasure, he climbed in – fully-clothed of course; this wasn’t Cub Scouts – and closed his eyes.
Back at the desk, Trev sipped cold tea from a plastic cup and stared up at the screens, mesmerised. It took a special kind of snowflake to do this job. Adrenaline junkies need not apply. And that went for anyone with a wife or husband, a life, cats to feed, and people with ADHD.
The Lovecraft brothers had been doing this since the first series of Celebrity STD Clinic aired back in 1999. They were accustomed to the unfair working hours, low pay, awful benefits, and lack of pension scheme. But, most importantly, they were used to one another. Neither would ever complain, for they enjoyed working together, spending time together. It was fun. There was nothing Jaime and Cersei Lannister about their relationship (although their mother had once caught them both masturbating to the same Grattan Catalogue – Winter/Spring 1985). They should have been twins, according to anyone that knew them, and would have been if it wasn’t for the three year age-gap.
“Have I got to sit here all bloody night?” a voice from the corner said. Trev, startled, almost fell from his chair.
“Fucking hell, Noddy! I didn’t know you were still here.”
“Nobody told me I could go,” said the former Slade frontman. “I mean, if yew ay gunna use me, I might as well piss off.”
Great, Trev thought. Now I’m going to have to make a decision. I don’t get paid enough for this shit…
“Get yourself off,” Trev said. “I’m sure Callum will call you if one of the housemates is unceremoniously ejected or…dies, or something.”
Noddy Holder stood up. He was incredibly tall, but twelve-inch platforms have that effect on a person. “Do me a favour, will yer?”
“I’ll call you if Lorna Giffard starts flicking her bean again.” Honestly, did these people have no shame?
“Yaw’m a good ‘un,” Noddy said, in what appeared to be some strange Swahili dialect, but might actually have been Walsall. “Enjoy yer tea. I’ll be back in the morning.” And with that he was gone, clumping across the mud on platform shoes that meant his huge mirrored top hat brushed against the roof of the gazebo.
“Fucking celebrities,” Trev grunted, pouring another cup of tepid piss-water from his flask. Something flashed up on the monitors, but by the time Trev looked up, it was gone again.
Interference. Yeah, that’s what it was. Nothing to see here, move along, yada-yada-yada…
13
Victor Hoof woke suddenly; too suddenly for his liking. He’d been having a lovely little dream in which he was setting fire to George Lucas’s beard. George had been screaming at him, apologising for not doing more for him. “You could have been Willow!” he’d screeched. “I wanted you to be Willow, but that prick Warwick Davis had a sex-tape on me! I had no choice. Davis is a clever little fucker! You’ve got to believe me!” Victor had ignored the director’s pleas and set fire to his face-hair all the same. What had surprised Victor was how oddly the beard had burned, as if someone had pre-peppered it with strontium, calcium, and barium salts. The whole thing went off like a firework. Reds and greens and blues everywhere. It was a silly dream, really, but somewhat pleasing. It wasn’t every day you got to watch George Lucas’s head spin around on his neck like a Catherine Wheel.
But now he was awake and, sitting up, he became increasingly aware of something watching him from the shadows across the room.
“Hello?” he groaned into the darkness. “If you’re supposed to be a hidden cameraman, you’re not doing the best of jobs. I suggest you climb back into the wardrobe or something, just until I’ve gone back to sleep.”
The shadow moved, just a fraction, but it was enough for Victor to make his mind up that he wasn’t imagining the shape or the strange feeling that he was being watched. He squinted, and could just about discern the shape of a man – or an incredibly masculine woman – between the bed and the door.
“Look, I don’t know what kind of sick game you’re playing,” Victor said, “but you’re not going to frighten me tonight. For starters, I’m absolutely cream-crackered. Why don’t you go and try your creepy-ass nonsense out on that arsehole Mark White? I’m sure you’ll have more luck.”
He lay down, waiting, listening for the movement that confirmed the stooge had left the room. As far as he was concerned, the scares could wait until morning. This prick was clearly wasting his time. This prick was…well, he was still standing there, gawping at Victor as if he’d never seen a little person before, lying down or otherwise.
“Right, we’re going to do this the hard way, are we?” Victor said, leaping from the bed with incredible speed and agility. He would have rolled his sleeve
s up if he had any, for this muppet was about to taste his wrath. “Come on, then. You’re here to scare me, are you? Well, tell the producers that they’re going to have to do more than just send in some mute pervert to watch me while I sleep. I’m a little person, for Christ’s sake! We don’t scare so easily. In fact, we’re the ones that do the scaring, most of the time, so don’t come in here trying to teach your grandmother how to suck eggs, because I’m fucking awesome at…sucking eggs…look, will you just leave, please. I’ve got a banging headache, and I—”
Something ran over his bare foot, causing him to trail off.
“You’ve put bloody rats in here, haven’t you?” Victor said, trying not to lose his temper. He could hear them skittering along the floorboards, tiny claws scratching at anything and everything they could get a hold of. “You think I’m going to go all weak at the knees over a few furry fucking rodents?” Victor said, more determined than ever. “Well, you’ve got another thing coming. I don’t have a problem with rats, and I know that the ones in here are probably about as dangerous as a suicide bomber with death anxiety. Now piss off, before I OOOOOOOWWWW!”
Something sank its teeth into his heel. Instinctively he kicked out, sending whatever had been there flying back into the skirting-board. There was an audible thump, followed by a pained squeak. Victor could feel sticky, warm blood pooling around his foot. “Very funny!” he said, not amused in the slightest. “Put the rat in with the midget, huh? That’s a fair fight, right? You should be ashamed of yourselves, Hell House!”
The thing in the shadows sniggered.
“Oh, you think it’s funny, do you?” Victor folded his arms across his chest. “I’m bleeding, and you think it’s funny.”
“I do, actually,” the hidden shape said in what appeared to be a whole choir of voices. It was awfully unsettling, and for the first time, Victor felt a frisson of fear.
“Well…erm…it’s not funny,” Victor said, uncrossing his arms. The door seemed a terribly long way away, and the shadow-shrouded bastard stood between him and it. “And I shall be making a formal complaint to your superiors first thing in the morning. Now, if you could fetch me a plaster for my OUCH! For fuck’s sake, will you put some lights on in here? OW! There’s more than one of the little MOTHERFUCKING OUCH!”
“You’ve made a terrible error,” said the voice(s). “You should never have come to this house.”
“No shit!” said Victor, hoofing another rat across the room. “But we all need the money, and I’m hoping to get some pantomime work off the back of this SHIT! Will you call off these chuffing RATS!?”
The thing in the shadows laughed – a hundred voices combined to create a hellish death-rattle. “I can’t call them off,” it said. “Well, I could, but where would be the fun in that? You have a lesson to learn, little man—”
“Oh, so it’s ‘little man’ now, is it?” Victor removed a rat from his neck and dabbed at the blood seeping from the wound it had gnawed there. “Do you know how offensive that is? The RSPCT aren’t going to be happy about this…” He trailed off, peeling three huge rats from his back whilst keeping his man-sack protectively cupped. The last thing he wanted was to be stretchered out of Hathaway House minus his tackle.
“I, er, I apologise,” said the voice(s). And then a second later, added, “Hang on a jeffing minute! No I don’t. I’m evil personified. I’m your worst nightmare. I’m The One That Should Not Be. I’m—”
“About to get your arse kicked by a little person,” Victor said, cracking his knuckles. “I hope ITV7 have good insurance, because you’re going to need it, pal.” He took a step toward the shape, swinging maniacally, like some sort of malfunctioning tin toy, and he would have got at least one punch in had he not been suddenly swamped by tens and hundreds of furry wet bodies.
Down he went, flailing and kicking in an attempt to free himself of the rat-pack engulfing his body. “Arrrrggghhhh!” he said, which was understandable, given the circumstances. “Get ‘em off! Get ‘em offa me! They’re biting me bits off!”
“I would love to help,” said the shape, stepping from the shadows. Its features were indiscernible, hazy, as if someone had added a Gaussian Blur to its entire body. “However, I can’t turn back the clock. You and your friends should never have come here. I am the master of this house, and I will be respected as such, and you, my friend, are…ewwwww, those rats are really making a mess of you.” A blurred hand went up, covering a blurred mouth. “I don’t think I can watch, heeeeurgh…heeeeurgh…I’m okay, I’m okay. I’m just not very good with blood and guts.” The vague outline of a man turned around, for the sight of a half-devoured midget was more than its spectral stomach could take.
“Pleeeeeeeeaaaaase!” Victor sobbed. “It’s not…too late!”
“You’ve got no legs, mate,” said the wraithlike beast, still gagging. “I’d say it was late enough.”
“Who OUCH are you…FUCK!” The pain was unbearable as hundreds of razor-sharp incisors sank into his naked torso, and yet all Victor could think about was where his penis had gone.
“My name,” said the insubstantial shape, “is Hathaway, and you, my little friend, are trespassing.”
Victor tried to respond, but, Sod’s Law, a rat ran away with his larynx, leaving him capable of nothing more than gargled splutters.
Why was no one coming? Surely one of the cameras in his room was picking up his brutal demise, so where was the cavalry? Where were the alarms? Why was he still fucking alive when the rats had gnawed him into a quarter of the man he used to be?
“Must dash,” said the voice(s), as Victor slipped in and out of consciousness and the rats continued to devour him alive. “It’s going to be a very busy night, and I’m developing an awful headache.”
“Schhhhh-ggggle-pfffft,” said Victor as his mangled heart was carried off to a darkened corner, its carrier looking rather smug with itself.
And then came darkness, and Victor’s final thought before dying was, “About bloody time!”
14
Peter handed Lorna a cup filled with lukewarm tea and they headed into the sitting room for a night of inane conversation and, when that failed, awkward silences. Peter wasn’t great with women, for they were complex creatures. The majority of the protagonists in his books were male, though he wasn’t sexist, not at all. He just didn’t know enough about women to feel comfortable writing one as a main character.
He had never been married or engaged. The closest he’d ever come to a meaningful relationship was with Dotty Dixon, the barmaid down at The Sheep’s Quim, and even that had petered out after three or four dates thanks to Dotty’s insistence that Dickens’ A Christmas Carol was based on a true story. How could you maintain a courtship with a woman who claimed that the ghost of Christmas past was an actual person? Quick answer, you couldn’t, and so Peter had done what any noble man would have done in his place; he moved house, changed his phone, and picked another local pub in which to drown his sorrows.
“Thanks for staying up with me,” Lorna said, easing herself back into an armchair that was older than all of the housemates combined. “I…well, I just think this whole thing has overwhelmed me. Silly, really, isn’t it?”
“It’s not silly at all,” Peter lied, for it seemed the right thing to do under the circumstances. “We’ve all had a long day. I’m just glad we got through it without Dawn’s weird dress slipping down around her cankles.”
Lorna sniggered. “Yeah, what’s that all about? Is that one of her own designs? Fashion’s really gone down the shitter, hasn’t it?”
Peter sipped anxiously at his tea. It was weaker than puppy piss, and he slowly dribbled it back into the cup and placed it at the foot of his chair. “I think Dawn’s at that age where she just doesn’t give a shit, you know?” he said. “Once you hit ninety, it’s perfectly acceptable to shit in the cheese aisle of the supermarket, because no one’s going to shout at you for doing it. In fact, they’re going to mop that turd up and give you your taxi f
are home, because you’re old.”
“I’ve never thought of it like that before,” Lorna said, spitting her own tea back from whence it came. “I thought she was doing it for shock value. Maybe get the viewers’ attention early on, so that by the time the first eviction rolls around, everyone’ll be like, ‘No, we can’t vote Dawn out! She’s off her tits, and therefore entertaining’. I’ve seen enough of these programmes to know that the eccentric ones always makes the semis at least.”
“You’re pretty eccentric yourself,” Peter said, glancing around the room, hoping to discover a decanter of brandy, or anything to get the taste of that god-awful tea out of his mouth.
“How so?” Lorna said, though she was smiling and not in the least bit offended.
“Well, you’re terrified of midgets and rats,” Peter said. “Plus you’re an ex-professional swimmer, and I’ve seen those caps you people wear. Don’t tell me that’s normal.” It was all in good spirits, and she took it as such.
“You can hardly talk, Mr I-Write-Books-And-So-Therefore-I’m-A-Celebrity.” As she spoke, she hit the keys on an invisible air-typewriter, and Peter couldn’t help but feel slightly jealous, for even though they were invisible words, it was more than he had committed to paper that day. “What are the names of some of your books again?”
“Djinn and Tonic?” Peter said. He had no idea why there was a question mark at the end of it. Perhaps he was hoping she’d read it at some point, maybe between lengths at the local swimming pool. “Razorface Aquarium?”
“Oooh, I like the sound of that one,” said Lorna.
“You just like the sound of strange words.” God, I can’t believe there isn’t a bottle of something warm and wet in this fucking room!
“No, I like the sound of great titles. Catch-22, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Where Oh Where is Huggle Buggle Bear?—”
“What?” Peter said, frowning. “Is that a thing?”
Celebrity Hell House Page 9
