FREE eBook: Respect
1980s Splatterpunk Short Story: On Halloween night in 1982, a debauched party in an East End funeral home turns into a bloodbath.
Greetings, my wicked darlings,
I’m fully recovered and back to writing full time. I’ve been pounding out a Roman murder mystery set in Britain around the time of Boudicca’s revolt. In between toga-wearing chapters, I wrote a small Halloween treat for you.
It’s called Respect and is about the very real consequences people face when they don’t show it.
While I was ill, I read two fantastic books last month, Beast of Burden by Judith Sonnet and Dead Girl Blues by David Sodergren. Beast of Burden was a heartwarming tribute to the joys of being in a heavy metal band, with some light horror in the third act. Dead Girl Blues was a wonderful noir-style investigative horror, that inspired me to write my own murder mystery. I have written one in the past with The Heir Apparent, but I’m eager to do another one, and Roman Britain is a time ripe with suspicion.
For those who are interested in a reader copy of Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3 it is available from BookSprout if you click HERE.
Newt xx
Contents
Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4 Pre-Order
Horror Story Compilations
FREE eBook: Respect
Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4 Pre-Order
Available in eBook and Paperback, hardback coming soon.
Horror Story Compilations
Fill Your Kindle for All Hallows’ Eve: 101 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’
The Fiction Giveaway Extravaganza!: 68 FREE horror stories, including ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’.
FREE Halloween Horror: 33 FREE horror stories, including: ‘The Doll House Killer’, ‘The Enigmatic Skeleton’, ‘The Spinster’, ‘12 Minutes’, and ‘Gomorrah’, and ‘Ain’t Nothin’ But The Blues’.
Spooktober Sales: 56 horror stories, including ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 1’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 2’, ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 3,’ ‘Tales of the Macabre, Vol. 4.’
FREE eBook: Respect
On Halloween night in 1982, a debauched party in an East End funeral home turns into a bloodbath.
31st October 1982. Bethnal Green.
The air had a bitter edge. Ted felt it on his ears as he hurried down the alley behind Blackwood & Sons Funeral Directors to the mortuary. Steam plumed from his mouth. He clutched a crate of Skol, the cans ice cold against his hands.
Why did I wear this?
The long coat over his He-Man costume did little to keep out the chill. The cold made his bare, hairy legs itch. He had looked forward to the party all week, ever since Jack mentioned it at The Rose and Crown. Jack’s parties were legendary.
Ted balanced the crate on his knee and freed a hand to ring the bell.
A woman in a witch costume appeared behind him. “I’ll get that.”
“Ah, thanks. I’ll repay you with a Skol.” Ted immediately regretted it when he saw the man beside her, a heavy-set figure in a werewolf mask and a denim jacket covered with Saxon and Iron Maiden patches. “How do you know Jack?”
She rang the bell. “Met him a few times when he was drunk. I’m Alice. This is my brother, Tony.”
Brother. Ted offered a silent prayer of thanks.
“I’m Ted. I’d shake your hand, but…” He gestured with the crate.
“We brought whisky. Easier to carry.” She produced a bottle from her corset.
Ted raised an eyebrow. “Nice trick.”
The side door opened. The bassline from Black Sabbath’s ‘Children of the Grave’ rolled out into the alley. Jack stood there, dressed as Lurch. “You rang?”
Ted pushed the crate into Jack’s arms and slipped inside. The hoped-for warmth was absent. The mortuary was as cold as the street.
“Turn the heating up, mate.” Ted took off his coat and hung it over a chair.
“No can do. You’ll see why soon. Come on.” Jack’s breath smelled of tobacco and mints. He hefted the crate onto one shoulder and led them towards the back. “We’ve got a special guest of honour tonight,” Jack called over his shoulder. “A real local celebrity.”
A single bare bulb lit a heavy steel door, propped open with a brick. Jack kicked the brick away and the door swung wide.
The smell hit Ted first. It was a chemical mix of formaldehyde, floral air freshener, and stale cigarettes. The air was thick with smoke. A fan blew across a deep steel pan of dry ice, sending fog across the floor. Through the haze, monstrous shapes danced to the music. A mummy swayed with a purple Catwoman. A vampire in a vicar’s cape slumped in a chair, smoking a Woodbine.
It was the funeral home’s preparation room. White tiled walls rose to a high ceiling. Stainless steel tables gleamed under the fluorescent lights.
Three of those tables held the party’s centrepiece. Three bodies covered in white sheets.
Mega.
The press of people warmed the room, but not enough to stop Ted’s teeth from chattering. He followed Jack to the bar, a steel trolley where surgical tools had been replaced with bottles of spirits. Jack set down the Skol.
Ted grabbed a can and opened it with his keys. The cold lager chilled him further. Alice appeared beside him with her whisky.
“Looks like you need this more than me.” She passed the open bottle to him.
He gratefully took a swallow, the fiery liquid warming his belly. The DJ started playing ‘Season of the Witch’ by Donovan. “It’s your song.”
“At last. That ghastly heavy metal is over.”
Ted almost corrected her, but she had the whisky, and the cold had sharpened the lines of her figure beneath the costume. He took another deep pull from the bottle instead.
Tony grabbed a drink from the bar. “Oi, Jack, where’s the celebrity?”
Jack pointed a clumsy, stitched glove towards the body in the centre.
The music changed to Judas Priest’s ‘Breaking the Law’. Tony swaggered over to the central table, holding a bottle of Newcastle Brown Ale. “Let’s have a look then.”
“Not yet. Wait till more people are here,” Jack protested, trying to get between the werewolf and the table.
“Please tell me that is a real body,” Alice said.
Ted looked at her. His brief attraction cooled to match the room’s temperature.
Tony pulled back the sheet from the corpse’s face. It was an elderly woman with fine, pale features and neatly styled grey hair. He prized her lips open and poured ale into her mouth. “Thirsty old bird, isn’t she?”
Alice laughed and pulled a lipstick from her bag.
Jack stepped back. “Guys, please. Just look, hey? If it gets damaged, I’ll get in trouble.”
A ripple of cruel, drunken laughter went through the room. Alice leaned over the body and applied bright red lipstick to the woman’s thin lips.
“That is enough,” Ted said. “You heard Jack.” He tried to pull Alice away. She shrugged him off.
Tony squared up to him. “Oi. Leave my sister alone.”
“We are just having some fun,” Alice said. The other revellers pressed around the body. Someone pulled the sheet completely away, exposing the woman’s naked form.
“Urgh, that is so gross,” Alice giggled.
Jack opened his mouth, then closed it. His eyes darted around the room, looking for support that was not there.
“That is enough.” Ted picked up the sheet and made to cover the woman.
Tony ripped it from his hands.
Ted gritted his teeth. “I am warning you.”
He never finished. Tony’s fist hit his jaw. Ted blinked and found himself on the floor. He touched the back of his head and his fingers came away bloody where he had hit the tiles. His He-Man wig lay a few feet away.
“She is dead,” Tony loomed over him. “Who the fuck cares?”
There was a click.
“Guess I do, mate.”
Everyone turned. A man in a suit stood by the door. He pulled the key from the lock and dropped it into his pocket. He sniffed. “People in London used to have respect. Know what I mean?”
“Who the hell are you?” Tony cracked his neck and swaggered towards the man.
Tony’s head snapped back. Even with Alice Cooper’s ‘I Love the Dead’ blasting from the speakers, the sharp sound of the pistol shot was unmistakable. The back of Tony’s skull vanished, spraying blood and grey matter over the partygoers behind him.
“I’m the man with the gun.”
Alice screamed.
“Now then.” The man took a position by the door.
Jack approached, his hands outstretched. “I work here. We are just having a few drinks. We won’t tell anyone.”
“Don’t suppose you will.” The man raised his pistol and opened fire into the crowd. Ted cried out as boots stamped over him. He tried to crawl as bodies dropped around him. A stiletto heel crushed his left hand, snapping the small bones. He scrambled over the body of a ghost, the sharp smell of voided bowels filling his nostrils. The shooting paused only for the time it took the man to reload.
Ted slithered through blood until he found a cabinet to hide behind.
The music stopped.
He peeked out. The man walked through the charnel house, putting a bullet into the head of anyone still moving. Ted flinched at every shot. Tears ran down his face. His furry pants grew warm as his bladder failed.
Silence filled the room.
Ted looked across the floor and saw Jack, the only other survivor, huddled under a table.
The man with the gun walked towards the dead woman. His polished shoes clacked on the tiles. He gently replaced the sheet over her body. He took a clean white handkerchief from his breast pocket and carefully wiped the lipstick from her mouth.
He stood for a full minute, just looking at her face. The silence stretched. Ted felt his heart hammering his ribs.
Finally, the man turned. He had known where Ted was hiding all along.
“Do either of you donkeys know who this is?”
Neither of them answered. Jack stared at the floor.
“You do then,“ the man said, his voice dropping. “This is Violet Kray.”
Ted’s blood ran cold. Violet Kray. Mother of Ronnie and Reggie. The Queen Mother of the East End’s most feared firm.
“I didn’t know,” Ted mumbled.
“They weren’t supposed to do anything,” Jack said. “It was just for Halloween. To set the scene. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
The man in the suit smiled. It was a horrible sight, all teeth and no warmth. “No disrespect,” he repeated softly. “You hold a piss-up. You lay your filthy hands all over her, douse her in your cheap beer, and paint her like a whore. Is that what you call no disrespect?”
He stepped over the bodies.
“Come here.” He ejected the magazine from his pistol, then worked the slide to check a bullet was in the chamber.
Neither Ted nor Jack moved.
“If you don’t come and kneel before me right now, this is going to go proper wrong for you,” he barked. “Now!”
Ted stumbled from his hiding place and knelt before the man, head down, expecting the bullet. Beside him, Jack knelt, babbling.
“You. He-Man. Look up.”
Ted forced his gaze upwards. The man was offering him the pistol, grip first.
“Go on. I ain’t waiting all day. Take it.”
Nursing his injured left hand, Ted reached out with his right hand. His trembling fingers closed around the cold metal.
“I saw you trying to stop this. I reckon you might be alright.” The man stepped back. “So, by the power of Greyskull, you have the pistol.” He looked at Jack. “One bullet. One of you dies tonight, the other lives. You choose.”
Ted looked at the pistol, then at Jack, who was praying. He looked back at the man and raised the gun, aiming it at his chest.
“Well, you could try that, I guess.” The man looked unconcerned. “See how the dice roll.”
Ted’s finger tightened on the trigger.
There was only one choice, really.
THE END
Sweet screams, my dears!
‘till next time.
Newt xx