The Monster Man of Horror House (21 page)

The
gang was all here, with rudy-faced morons harring and hawring against a
backdrop of good-natured bestiality accusations, while a rosy-cheeked barmaid giggled
from the pumps as if she didn’t quite understand, despite sporting an enormous
pair of community tits that looked as if they were on first-name terms with
every callous in the village.

Then
I stepped through the door.

Fourteen
faces looked at me as if I’d just climbed out of a spaceship, so I quickly
checked my reflection in the door to double-check a fence pole wasn’t still
sticking out of my face, before asking if it was okay if I came in and got a
drink.

“Of
course young ’un. You come in and make yourself right at home,” confirmed a
jovial old soak, as he stepped back to make room for me at the bar.

The
rest of the pub weren’t so convivial and welcomed me with open gobs, while the
rosy-cheeked barmaid simply juggled her tits in front of a trio of pumps to let
me know the specialties of the house.

“A
pint of Best?” I settled for, only to crash for a second time that day when I
reached into my pocket and pulled out nothing but a fluffy lining. “Bollocks!”

“Looks
like young ’un’s forgotten his brass,” the jovial old bandleader deduced.

“It
must have fallen out my pocket when I climbed out of the car,” I said.

The
old boy gave me a wink, then turned to the barmaid. “Can easily be done. Mary,
put the young man’s tipple on my slate.”

I
put up a token protest, but was ready to chin the first of them who tried to
take it back from me and instead supped deeply, sinking into its frothy head
until I’d drain all but a splash and wiped my eyebrows with malty satisfaction.

“Thirsty
huh?” the old boy concluded.

I
told the bar hangers about my crash and crummy afternoon in general, and so
they bought me another pint and urged Mary to make me a cheese sandwich in the
name of charity and prepare the guest room for the night. This shook a few
knowing chuckles from the locals and a mischievous smirk from Mary, telling me her
good deeds stretched to more than cheese sarnies but I tried not to notice.

“Don’t
bear thinking about,” one yokel commented.

I
relented to placing myself in my hostess’s capable hands, as I’m only human
(most of the month), and even a bed that bounced across the floorboards all
night long was preferable to the back seat of an upside down Ford Cortina, so I
lifted my glass and toasted my sponsors.

“Gentlemen,
your health.”

“You’d
best concern yourself with your own there, boy,” they advised me and as quickly
as that I was one of the gang, complete with slaps on the back and insinuations
about my sexual orientations. And all without having to stick my hand in my
pocket either. Oh yes, when I’d tumbled into that ditch, all things considered,
I’d fallen on my feet finding Long Fenton.

“You
from the big city are you?” one of the chaps asked.

“Lincoln?”
his mate qualified.

“Norfolk,”
I replied.

“Norfolk?”
they all cooed. “You’re a long way from home ain’t ya, chum?”

“Travelling
salesman,” I told them.

“I
see. We thought you might be one of them there scientists from the Ministry
like,” the old boy said.

“Not
unless it’s the Ministry of Sandpaper,” I reassured them, then thought, “What
scientists?”

“Up
here to open the new fertiliser plant, just over the back there. Finally
finished it last week, they did. Been buying up land all over the borough for
their roads and facilities. Bought my old barley field for a packet,” the old
boy smiled, like a magic bean vendor returning from market with four tons of
prize Friesians.

“Nope,
sorry, that ain’t me,” I shrugged, promising them I was no “scientist, minister
or shoveller of shit”.

“We’re
all shovellers of shit, my friend,” the old boy assured me with a wink. “We
just don’t all use a shovel, that’s all.”

“Too
true. Too true.”

Me
and my new pals chuckled the night away, Mary looking thinner as my liver grew fatter,
and I would’ve probably ended the evening happily falling off my bar stool and
into her bed if it hadn’t been for the arrival of a latecomer to our revelries.

“Why
hallo there young Brian, found some brass down the back of your sofa finally?”
the old boy chuckled.

Young
Brian didn’t look that young to me, he looked about forty, but then that’s so often
the way with these rural types, all that heavy lifting and toothpaste dodging
turns boys into men before the rest of us. Brian was probably nearer my age,
late twenties or early thirties, but he had twice the muscles I had, most of
them in his brain, and hands that could’ve sanded down a flight of banisters quicker
than my best sheet of extra coarse.
 

He
took one look at me leaning up against the bar of his local in my fancy big
city suit and bell bottoms, and he swallowed the wasp he’d come in chewing.

“Who’s
that?” he asked, not to me, but to the jovial old soak who’d been so
accommodating all evening.

“Chap
from out of town,” the old soak toyed, “here to sample our fine Mary’s wares.”

The
reaction this provoked, not least of all from me, when I brought half a pint of
Best up through my nose, triggered much amusement all around and was obviously
the intention. Brian stood there scratching his thoughts and scowling in all
directions before settling on me as the easy mark.

“That
right is it? You here to tap up my intended?” he asked, his voice deceptively
squeaky.

“No
no,” I spluttered, clearing the last of my pint from my airways so that I could
speak up as to my own intentions. “I just came in for a drink, that’s all.”

“A
drink is it?” Brian surmised. “Long way to come for a drink from Lincoln, ain’t
it?”

Fuck
me, did any of these bozos even notice the stars at night, or did they all just
assume they were Lincoln’s all-year-round Christmas decorations?

“From
Norfolk, actually young Brian,” the old soak corrected him, presumably because
the notion of Mary being banged by someone from Norfolk was even more heinous
than the notion of her being banged by someone from Lincoln. I decided to keep it
to myself the fact that I’d once visited London.

“Norfolk?
You’re a long way from home, boy,” Brian told me. “Best you were getting back
there before it gets dark I suggest.”

This
was almost comical, and if it weren’t for the fact he could hang me up by the
horse brasses if he so desired (although only on moonless evenings) I would’ve
told him to go stick his head in a cowpat. But two things quickly became
obvious; firstly, that Brian was a man to act first and think never. And
secondly, that far from being one of the gang as I’d so foolishly assumed, I
was actually the gang’s sport and they’d hung bells and whistles all over me
knowing full well the village baby would be popping in for his dream feed
before chucking out time.

“I
crashed my car on the main road at the end of the track. It’s upside down in a
ditch back there. I’ll not get it out tonight,” I explained.

“How
very convenient,” Brian postulated.

“Well,
not really (you great fuckwit),” I half replied (and half thought).

“So
you reckon to be staying the night do you?” Brian growled.

“Mary’s
got the guest bed all made up for him,” the old soak laughed, twisting the
knife in both our guts further still.

“What
guest bed? She ain’t got but one bed in the place!” Brian fumed, and the whole
pub duly fell about, none more so than Mary, who I now saw was the sort of
woman who liked to keep her fiancé on his toes – perched outside her
bedroom window while a succession of dirty salesmen hung out of the back of her.

“Wait,
they’re all winding you up,” I tried in vain, but Brian was beyond reason and
probably rarely needed one in the first place.

“Out
you go, my beauty,” he snarled, grabbing me by the lapels and bundling me
through the front door and out into the street.

Behind
me, I heard the old bastard who’d started all this off laugh with delight and
call, “Time gentlemen, please!” to universal merriment, before Brian hurled me into
the dust. I curled up into a ball of expectation, but to my surprise Brian didn’t
follow my tumble up with his hobnail boots. Instead, he simply tottered over me
in triumph and advised me to let that be a lesson to me.

I
cautiously uncovered my head and looked up at him.

“What,
when I crash my car in a ditch in future, I should just bleeding well stay
there rather than go looking for help? Is that the lesson you’re talking about?”

“You
know ’ee only too well,” he confirmed, making about as much sense as cutlery at
his and Mary’s wedding breakfast.

I
clambered to my feet when I decided it was safe to do so and looked around at
the lengthening shadows. We were bang smack in the middle of dusk and the sun
was barely visible through the trees. It wouldn’t be long before the thick
blanket of night had settled across the entire village to secrete the track
back to the main road. “How far is the next village?” I asked, sensing Brian might
have less of a problem with this question than most.

“Four
mile, just follow the lane through the village and keep to the left and you’ll
get to West Ullerton af’er a while,” he said, bidding me a fond faredy-well and
heading back into the Fox to reclaim his prize.

I
knew it could go either way, but I couldn’t resist getting in one final dig
about Lincolnshire’s famous northern hospitality and sure enough it pickled
Brian’s ears enough to get him backing out of the pub again.

“I’d
watch what you say about Lincolnshire, my friend. You’re a long way from
Norfolk up here, you’d be advised to remember that,” he said.

“I’m
a long way from fucking West Ullerton too in case you hadn’t noticed. And I’ve
had a crash today. But don’t you worry about that, mate. I’ll just head off and
try to find some village I’ve never been to in the middle of nowhere before it
turns pitch black, in the hope there might be someone
there
who can help me in my hour of need. But you enjoy your pint,
mate. Nice one. Cheers.”

I
don’t know what I was expecting from Brian – a pricking of the conscience
or a swinging of the fists so that I could justify whacking him over the head
with the brickbat I had secreted behind my back, but my dig provoked an
altogether more unexpected reaction.

Brian
reached into his pocket and dug around for some keys, then nodded down the
street to a battered old truck parked next to the church and said:

“Okay
then chum, I’ll give ’ee a lift.”

iii

I guess Brian had a soggier side to him than I’d given him credit for. Or
perhaps deep down, inside that throbbing T-bone he kept between his ears, he
knew he was Long Fenton’s dancing bear to everyone else’s pointed sticks. He
knew it. But he couldn’t help it. Maybe he even knew there was nothing between
me and Mary, but simple face meant he had to run me out of town all the same.
After all he was “young Brian” to the rest of the gang. And what
self-respecting barnyard brawler liked to be patted on the head by their
respected elders?

“I
appreciate this,” I conceded, as we weaved our way through the wooded lanes and
out towards the wide-open fields that spanned the countryside between Long
Fenton and West Ullerton.

“Don’t
mention it,” Brian mumbled and coughed, clearly uncomfortable to find himself
on speaking terms with a man he was more accustomed to launching into streets.

“Seem
like a lot of wankers back in that place,” I tossed into the conversation.
Brian glanced my way but said nothing. He simply changed gear in agreement and
pushed on into the setting sun.

A
minute or two out of the village, we came to a shiny new wire fence that
circled a huge industrial eyesore every bit as shiny and new as the fence was,
but in all the worst possible ways. Silos and towers stretched away from the
plant across the open fields, connected to each other by a series of gleaming
pipes, and a wide concrete access road cut across the lane we were travelling
as if it hadn’t even noticed it was here, to head up the hill towards where I
assumed the main road would be.

“The
fertilizer plant?” I deduced.

“Damned
thing,” Brian confirmed with a scowl, making me wonder just how many scientists
one barmaid could bang anyway. “I dunno why it had to come here. Why us? Why
now?”

“Got
to go somewhere I guess,” I told him, not really caring, just heartened by the
fact that there was pain in young Brian’s life.

“Then
why didn’t it go elsewhere?” Albert Einstein ruminated, scarcely watching the
lane in front of him, so fixated was he on the county’s newest fertiliser
plant.

“What’s
so bad about it? I mean, it might be a bit of an monstrosity for sure, but
it’ll mean jobs.”