Horror Sensation

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@ PEEPS HITS THE BIG TIME # By Andrew Campbell, early 1993 The cursor flashed repetitively as though demanding Mike to punch in some words. But today, his "Ideas Tap" was completely malfunctional. Not a single solitary plot would come to the surface. He yawned. It was half past eleven and he was still sat up in the loft with all the dusty old furniture. It was a warm summers night and the air was far too humid for Mike's liking. He could feel sweat speeding down his back and his armpits were beginning to smell. "Ah... shit." he whispered and began to tap the keys despite his lack of enthusiasm. # Jack Lomax lives just across the street. He lives with his wife, #Doris and I have the funny feeling that he is in my exact situation: #he's bored with life, he's nagged uncompromisingly by his horrible #fat lady twenty four hours-a-day and he's never made the Big Time #yet. Ha, I've never thought of him that way you know. Poor sod. I #guess he's as down in the dumps as me. Mike pondered, watching the cursor flash luringly on and off. He rubbed his chin (Christ he needed a shave) then he chuckled to himself: If he wrote about Jack, it would be like writing about his OWN life. But who's to say that in a fiction story things can't go right? Maybe he could give the poor guy a big break? Make him hit the Big Time? 'Yeah, lets do it,' Mike thought. 'No harm in fantasizing. Who wants to read a morbid novel about gloom and doom anyway? I'm gonna do this the happy way. Originality. That's what I like.' Mike attacked the keyboard: # Jack's life altered for the better. I guess it started when he met #Samantha, a beautiful model who owned an incredibly expensive white #Lambourghini. Who would have thought that? Jack Lomax, a loser born #and bred, happened to catch on with the fittest chick this side of #Hollywood? She had a figure lik- "Mike! Miiike!" Darn it, his wife Margret was calling (though she better fitted the description of Jabba the Hutt). Her voice was coming from the bedroom. Mike looked at the screen - and that flashing, tempting cursor. He quickly read through the text that he had punched in- "Mike! For God's sake it's almost midnight!-" "Coming love!" -and then used the SAVE option. He always backed up his work on two seperate floppies, just in case. The monitor snapped off, crackled for a few moments and then died. Mike sighed and ejected the disks from their drives and placed them into his lockable container. He jangled his keys back into his pocket and headed for the loft ladders. He decended them (down to hell) then went straight for the bathroom. After several other diversions the time came to sleep with his gargantuan wife. By the time Mike was ready to hit the sack, Margret was a mere bulk in the dark. She was not even middle-aged yet but she looked fifty (at least). When Mike had first met her she had been the most beautiful thing on two legs. Did it happen to ALL women? He wondered. Did ALL girls end up as fat tarts with arses as wide as wheel arches? 'Nope', he thought dully as he clambered into bed. 'It's just ME. I'm the only one with a fat, unromantic, loud-mouth, gossiping, generally- a-bitch wife. Just ME... and maybe Jack.' Mike was glad to have someone to relate to. Tommorow was Monday, school as per usual. Jack would be in the Staff Room in the morning, failing that he was bound to be in there at lunch time. 'Yeah,' Mike decided. 'I'll speak to the man. Maybe we can stick together in this getting-old and bored stuff. I need a friend. I need someone to help me hit the Big Time. We could do it together I'm sure. Somehow.' Margret farted, then began to snore. Mike clipped his nose, held his breath, and attempted to fall sleep. >< It was like waking up beneath ten sacks of raw meat. Mike took hold of Margret's arms and heaved her to one side. She moaned and protested and flopped onto her back like an over-grown jelly fish. Mike breathed out and snatched up his bedside clock. # 7:03 am. 'Must get up, Mr Peeps. Those little peckers of yours that attend Stone Bridge High will be waking up right now. If they can do it, you can, so come on big man, oh man oh man oh man...' He couldn't be bothered. What was the point? Life was so dull and repetitive there seemed to be little point in going any further. He glanced at the blob laying beside him. Her nightie was hanging down and one of her enormous breasts was poking out. Mike took hold of it and pushed it back inside. It felt like a punctured balloon. Mike could remember when he first saw Margret stark naked. She had been slim, sun-tanned... her breasts: perfect, her face: a delight. # What in the lord's name had happened? He put his suit on wearilly, listening to the birds chirping outside and the weak hisses coming from his wife's over-active bowels. 'Life's a bitch and then you marry one.' he thought and sniggered to himself unhappily. 'What a way to start Monday morning.' >< Toast and fresh orange juice was fine. Maz ('did I call her that? Yeah, hell I did! Man, that's going back a while'), his dear wife used to cook him all kinds of breakfast delights. Boiled eggs with toasted soldiers were perhaps the best. They used to share them. She'd bite one end and he'd bite the other (they'd meet in the middle and eventually end up doing it over the kitchen table). # Sex. What was that? Mike hadn't been laid for three years now. Maybe it was a good job, because Margret wouldn't half LAY him. Mike whipped on his coat, grabbed his brief case and headed for the outside door. He turned the handle and called, "I'm off, love!" "Mmmm." was the usual dreary answer. Mike rolled his eyes. 'Sex. Sex... three years since you ever had it? Surely not.' >< Outside it was cool and breezy and the sky was a clear blue. Mike walked down the driveway, passed his blue Skoda and turned down Manning Road. He was thinking of his fantasy idea that had surfaced last night up in the loft, when he clamped eyes on a sight that made him skid to a halt and drop his chin. There was a white Lamborghini parked outside number twenty four. # Jack Lomax' house. 'Hey, hey, hey, this is utter bullshit Mike. Turn around, go back into the house, take a tablet, rush back out - the car will be gone.' he thought, worried about his sanity. But no way. # NO WAY. He wasn't imagining this. This was real. This was happening. His feet began to work again. He headed towards the car. It was parked against the curb, gleaming, smooth metal, tinted windows, polished chrome bumper... exactly how he had imagined it to be. # Exactly. "Hey!" - a girl. Mike was afraid to turn around. "Mr Peeps!" that was Jack. No, it wasn't Jack at all. It was Mister Spawney Bastard Of The Year. Mike swung around quickly, smiling, "Hello Ja... er, Jack." He laid eyes on the model. She was utterly gorgeous: blonde, slim, small but perfect figure, bright eyes, pretty face... she was wearing a revealing black dress and fishnet tights, and she had her arm locked around Jack's. "Hello, Mike." Jack said and grinned. Jack was about Mike's age, thinning black hair, dark complexion, cleanly shaved. Nice man. Nice man indeed. Mike used to like him a lot. # Used to. "I was er, just admiring your car." Mike blabbered. "It's er, quite a nice piece of equipment." "Samantha's taking me for a spin." Jack boasted. "Right darling?" Samantha nodded and ran her eyes across Mike's suit as though deciding whether or not she approved of his presence. She smiled and winked. Mike swallowed, hard. She said softly, "We'd invite you but..." "Oh no, no." Mike grinned nervously and side stepped out of the way to allow Jack and his girl to get to their car. "I wouldn't want to intrude-" "Maybe another time then." Jack said and opened the car door. It slid upwards like some kind of futuristic space craft. Mike watched as Samantha slid across the dark leather seats to the driving wheel and Jack clambered in clumsily beside her. He waved out of the windshield. Mike, his tongue hanging out, vaguely waved back. The car started up with a quiet hum and Samantha tooted the horn before screeching away from the curb like a maniac and tearing down the road. Mike stood there, speechless, drenched in swirling blue smoke. He dropped his brief case and sprinted back towards his home. >< "Maz, I've got a headache." Mike said, heading for the loft ladders. Margret raised her flabby arm and said, "Maz? MAZ?" she giggled. "Oh Mike you haven't called me that for ages!" "I know." he muttered. Margret smiled. She was still dressed in her nightie, the one with the huge pink kitten on the front and the bold words "Hug me!" scribbled beneath. She looked down at herself sadly and breathed out. "Mike?" she said. He didn't hear her. "Honey?" Still no answer. Mike slid the metal ladders down noisilly and began to ascend them. He was a tall, handsome man of thirty five. A teacher of English, he was good with words, but his books didn't seem to attract the attention of the editors. He had tried every kind of book on the market : horror, fiction, thrillers, murder-mysteries, romance, kids books - none of them had been published. He switched the PC on at the plug and drummed his fingers along the desk as he waited for it to boot up. He loaded the word proccessor and inserted his disks into the twin-drives. He loaded up his previous night's work and paused, thinking intensely. He could ruin Lomax's life. He really could. All he had to write was something like: # "The lamborghini crashed and Jack and Samantha died." But why? Jack deserved his new life. Yet Mike, being the one that had given Jack this new luxury, surely deserved something as well... 'Stop making excuses, just re-write your life! Come on! Don't be so scared! Look at the cursor! LOOK at it!' Mike looked at the cursor. It was flashing on and off, on and off, waiting for him to turn his destiny one way or the other. It was all crazy, yes, and maybe Jack's little sinario was a coincidence, yes, but then again, maybe it wasn't. # And there was no harm in fantasizing. Mike began to tap the keys. # Michael Peeps recieved a cheque in the post for six thousand pounds. #It was royalty money for his latest novel, "Peeps Hits The Big Time". He glanced at his watch. 8:35 am. # It arrived through the letter box at eight thirty six, Monday the #31st of May, nineteen ninety three. Mike listened, his heart thumping. When the letter box rattled down- stairs, he almost fell off his chair. He heard Maz scoop up the post and shuffle through it. "Mike! Post for ya!" she yelled distantly. A bead of sweat dripped from Mike's forehead. He rushed down the ladders, almost ran into his wife- "Hey! Watchit!" -and snatched the envelope from her. He tore it open, panting. Sure enough, inside was a cheque issued by Giro Bank for six thousand pounds. There was also a note of congratulations on achieving his ultimate goal. Without showing his wife, Mike wooshed around, ran to the ladders and scuttled back up into the loft. "What is it! Show meeee!" Maz wailed. Mike dragged the ladders up into the loft and slammed the hinged roof closed : "Miiike! Don't you da-" # SLAM! Mike grinned broadly and wiped his runny nose. "Hah, you fat bitch!" he hissed and scrambled across to his computer. He tripped up, bruised his head, dropped the cheque, lost it (who gives a toss), then dragged himself into his swivel chair. He stared at the monitor. The cursor was flashing, on/off, on/off - just like his heart beat. The world was at his fingertips. He could have what he wanted - but more importantly, he could have WHO he wanted. And that had to come first. He just had to change things... # Mike hit it lucky that Monday Morning. When he went outside at nine #o'clock, there was a beautiful girl waiting for him. She fell in love #with him instantly and drove away with him to the countryside. # She was called Sophie. That was all he needed to know. She didn't #have a very expensive car, but that didn't bother Mike. She drove him #away from Stone Bridge, into the countryside, and there, she made #love to him in the long grass. # The day remained sunny and warm and no one disturbed them. Is that enough? he wondered, shivering with excitement. He glanced at his watch - 8:50 - (just TEN MINUTES MAN!!!!) then saved his work. He knew there were many other things he could have added, but this was just a test run. He could return home tonight and fix up something else for tommorow. 'Yeah, take it easy dude. Don't rush this.' he assured himself calmly. He ejected the disks, switched off the machine and waited. >< "Where are you going?" Margret asked, following him around like a giant slug. "Out! Just OUT OK?" Mike snapped. "But-" "But nothing! I'm just going out. I'll be back tonight." "Mike, tell me-" "Oh go to bed or something!" he waved his hand in the air, discarding her from his life. "Please tell me!" she wailed as he opened the front door. "Pleeease!" "Goodbye Margret." he said briefly and then stopped, one foot on the doorstep. He looked at the time: one minute left. # Had he locked the disk-box up? Did Maz have the brains to figure #out his magic secret? No way. She was as thick as she was wide. "I'll be back soon, so don't leave the house." he warned her. She was sobbing, "Why not? What have you been doing up in that loft-" "Nothing!" Mike yelled at her furiously. "And if you go up there I'll kill you! Do you hear me? I'll KILL you!" He ran down the driveway. Sophie was there, waiting for him. >< Another woman? Another bloody woman? Yes, so it seemed. When her husband had driven away with that pretty young girl, Margret slid the curtains back into place and sat down on the sofa. 'He's left me. That bastard has left me for another woman. No, he's deserted me for a GIRL, not a woman, she was a teenie, yes ma'am, did you see those breasts? She wasn't even fully into womanhood yet! Why that dirty, rrrrotten, cheeeeating...' Margret started to cry, but abruptly stopped. Was she going to let him get away with this? Was she? No way hosey, she had to fix him up for when he came home tonight ('IF, darling, IF he bothers to come home'). She waded into the hall and stared up at the door that led to the loft. "What have you bin' doing?" she whispered and wiped tears from her eyes. She shuffled forwards and reached for the latch. >< She was utterly the most amazing girl in the world. Mike leaned over from the passenger seat and kissed her soft, warm cheek. She smiled, glanced at him and pulled him closer. "You're Mike, right?" she asked. They had been on the road half an hour and he had forgotten to tell her his name. She may have been here for his pleasure, but she certainly deserved to be treated with a bit more respect. "Sorry. Yes, my name's Mike. Mike Peeps. Silly eh?" "No." she grinned. "It's a cute name. I'm Sophie." "Yeah." Mike said cheerfully. "I know." "I hope you know I'm thinking of making love to you." she said. Mike bit his lips. "Is that okay by you?" He grinned broadly. "Oh yes indeed. Perfectly okay." >< Margret stared at the PC, wondering if this was the thing her husband was trying to keep a secret. It was just a standard machine, Margret knew that much. She had used a computer before at the supermarket when they were first introduced. Yeah, and she had been pretty smart with it too, unlike most of her working colleagues. "Mmm." she muttered and flicked the plug behind the PC to ON. She fired the machine into action, then sat down on Mike's swivel chair. It was just a cheap plastic thing and it cracked under Margret's weight. A menu-system booted up and, using the arrow keys as she had learned a few years back, Margret began to flick through Mike's files. It took her ten minutes to find the word proccessor. Even then she didn't think it would be much good... But the locked floppy disk container caught her eye. "Aha." she whispered cunningly and took hold of the eighty-disk- capacity holder. She rattled it, fiddled with it, tried to pick-lock it with her sharpened fingernails, then said, "Oh balls to it," and rammed it continuously on the floor. It cracked, splintered then exploded into a shower of plastic and the disks spilled out. She sifted through each one: "CHILDREN'S BOOK PROJECT : FULL!"... no use, she threw it away. "HORROR NOVEL IDEA : STILL WORKING ON"... she laughed. "ROMANCE - A FAILURE"... she snapped this one. "NEW PROJECT : MAY 93" - now that could be interesting. She slipped the disk into the drive (it wouldn't fit... shit, wrong way around!) then listed a directory. She loaded up Mike's latest work and browsed through it. Her anger soared and her eyes sparkled with amazement. "What the hell?" she whispered. She finished reading the last paragraph and grinned broadly, understanding everything, despite it's apparent impossibility. 'I'll write you a novel, Mike baby!' she thought and began type away at the keyboard, continuing her husband's little fantasy. She had no idea of whether it was actually going to do anything, but hell... # There was no harm in fantasizing. >< Sophie switched off the ignition. They had pulled over into a small clearing beside a deep, thick wood somewhere in the middle of the Yorkshire Dales. Sophie unclipped her seat belt and climbed across to Mike. She positioned herself ontop of him and they began to kiss, whisper, laugh and undress. Before long, they were quite happily bonking away in the front seat. The car was bouncing up and down and a couple of cross-country walkers who happened to be passing stared at it with perplexion. They spotted the couple shagging in the front seat and stopped for a while to watch the show, laughing to themselves cheerfully. Quite surprising really, considering they were both elderly ladies. >< Mike and Sophie finished having sex and relaxed. "Mike?" the naked young girl whispered in Mike's ear. "Mmm?" he said softly, eyes closed. He was savouring the moment, enjoying the feel of Sophie against his bare skin. She was such a pleasant change from the blabbery bulk of Margret's body. Yeah, Sophie felt like a real girl, not some horrible beached whale. "Mike," she whispered softly. "I must tell you something." "Go ahead." he answered in an equally dreamy voice. "Tell me, what is it darling?" "I've got AIDS." Sophie said. Mike's eyes opened, wide. >< Margret giggled hysterically. "Oh boy!" she wiped away tears of laughter. "Thats good! Oh yes!" She pondered for a moment, thinking, then sniggered and began to rap the keys. She was enjoying this. Oh yes, she was enjoying this very much. >< "Why didn't you tell me!" Mike whimpered. "I'm sorry." Sophie bowed her head. "I was desperate for it." "Desperate?" Mike yelled. "But I'll be infected!" "Not neccessarily-" "But-" he paused, thinking deeply. "Hey, this is impossible." he announced after a few moments. "This is totally bonkers. I never wrote anything about..." Mike's words drifted away and the car came alive with pattering raindrops. He peered up into the sky and saw thick, black clouds forming. # There was a storm coming for Christs sake. "...what the hell is going on?" Mike whispered. Sophie climbed back into the driving seat, still naked. "I think we should go." Mike told her. The rain turned to hail. The windscreen blotched over with swirling, glistening droplets, blurring away the countryside... taking with it Mike's fantasy. "I'll start up." Sophie said and turned on the ignition. The car choked, spluttered, whined and then died. Mike cursed. Then the handbrake snapped off. # Just like that. The car's handbrake literally snapped off. Neither Mike or Sophie touched it, it just broke with a loud crack. The car began to roll backwards. "What the hell?" Mike whimpered. The car was picking up speed. Sophie was slamming her foot down on the brake pedal, trying to grind the car to a halt. But the darn thing was totally buggered. Mike wished he had typed in something about an expensive car after all, because this kind of thing would NOT have happened to a white Lambourghini. "Jump out!" Sophie screamed when the car was travelling speedily downhill. Mike stared at her, grabbed his blazer, then paused, listening to Sophie's screams: "Jump!"Just jump for God's sake!" With out further ado, Mike opened the car door and leaped out onto the side of the road. He landed awkwardly, bruising his head and twisting both of his ankles. He recovered just in time to see the car buckle up from the side of the road, Sophie still inside, and crash into a tree. It exploded. "NOOOOO!" Mike screamed. >< Margret wiped her eyes and calmed down. She read through her last few words and nodded. "That's good. And now..." She worked away once more, eager to get the story finished. # After the car exploded, the rain turned into hail, and the wind #began to howl. It was ice cold and Mike was stark naked. He knew it #was too far to the burned out wreck of the vehicle, so he turned and #headed into the woods in the hope of finding shelter. # That was when... >< Mike heard a wolf howl. He was sure of it. It was loud, close and threatening and he shivered with fright. The wind was tortuous, the hail stones were whipping and beating at his bare skin and he felt sick with the horror of having seen Sophie die. He clutched the blazer that he had rescued from the back seat and pulled it around him. It was too short to cover much of his skin, but it acted as a wind-shield for his shoulders and back. "Help meee!" he cried. "Somebody help me!" The woods were dark, cold and eternal. There was nothing but thick trees in every direction. Wearily, Mike fell to the ground beneath a large oak tree and huddled up into a ball. He began to shiver and moan. Soon, it all came into focus. Someone must have laid their hands on his story. Some bastard must be making this load of rubbish up right now. Some bastard... Or some bitch. # Margret! Mike fumbled around in his blazer pocket. He brought out a leaky biro and a scrap of paper (he always carried a writer's note book around with him, you never know where you might find ideas) and began to scribble with his shaking hands. "Alright Muh-Maz." he stuttered, hiding away from the hail, "Tuh-two can play at this game, suh-sweet huh-heart." He began to write. >< 'Shall I let the wolf eat him alive?' Margret wondered. 'or perhaps make it rip off his arms or something... make him suffer some more?' The arms, she decided eventually and reached out for the keys. Before her fingertips touched them, the chair collapsed beneath her and she tumbled to the floor like a clumsy, circus hippopotamus. She didn't scream: she knew she had been asking for that. As she got up, the floor boards squeaked and squealed. Margret shifted her weight from one foot to the other, a little worried now. Just a little. She looked at the computer screen and froze. It had gone blank, apart from a small line of text in the middle which read: # "FAREWELL YOU NOSEY BITCH!" The floorboards snapped cleanly in two. Margret issued a loud, high pitched scream as she sank briskly through the loft, shattered out of the bedroom roof and bounced onto the bed. Dust, plaster, cobwebs, woodlice - the whole lot rained down over her and she yelled and coughed with fright. She waded to the edge of the bed, sobbing and whimpering, then fell over the edge. Once again, the floor exploded beneath her and she dropped down into the livingroom, this time she didn't land very softly. Her bulk missed the sofa by a full metre and she crashed into the carpet with a dull thud. She heard her pelvis snap like a brittle twig and felt the pain soar up from her thighs to her brain. The dust and the ruins from the previous floors splattered down over her face, cutting and bruising her badly. One of the largest fragments of chipped wood sheared down through the air from the ceiling of the livingroom and sliced cleanly into her left arm. She screamed and yelled but her sounds were warbled by a huge, living centipede which dropped all the way from the loft like a coat's zip, and clogged up her thoat. It wriggled and squirmed but it's head had come first, and instead of escaping out of Margret's mouth, the insect tricked down her food pipe. Margret coughed and spluttered... but the creature just wouldn't come back out. >< Mike's pen ran out. He shook it and said, "Bastard! Come on! Work you piece of shit!" but it was drained. Cursing, he lifted the blazer from his head and glanced around. The wind was non-existant and the hail had stopped. The clouds were drifting away overhead and the sun was at last heating up the icey cold air. He could see the road again. "Darn it!" he hissed and shook the biro once more. It was a cheap job, perhaps one of the crappest pens ever made. He twiddled it and licked at the nib, then the ink came out in a rush. "SHHHHHIT!" he yelled and flicked to a new page in his jotter: # Mike found a Farrari with the keys still in the ignition not far #down the road. He reached it without any problems. He folded the paper up and staggered towards the narrow country road. >< Margret plucked the blade of wood from her arm. It came free with a squelch and blood began to ooze from the resulting hole. It was obvious to her she was limited to the livingroom (she'd never be able to get back to the computer in the loft)... she had to make use of the bits and pieces around her. Pulling herself along the carpet like an over-grown, pregnant catapillar, Margret slithered towards the sofa, both hands reaching out. She dragged off the nearest cushion and bounced it across the room. Underneath was a pile of old newspapers, most very faded. Mike had used them to help give the ageing furniture some extra support. # 'Good one Mike.' Margret whipped the first one to her chest. She was wheezing. The blood was flowing quite freely from the gaping hole in her left arm. She dabbed her little finger (which was as wide as a normal person's index) into the sticky redness and let it ooze down to the tip of her fingernail. She began to write slowly and thoughtfully for a while, realising Mike could be anywhere now... "I'll teach you." she croaked, feeling the centipede writhing around trying to escape her stomach. "I'll teach you husband dear." >< Mike drove towards Stone Bridge in the Farrari. He glanced at his watch as he burned towards home: it was half past eleven - time had gone very quickly. Mike had just started to relax when he felt a burning sensation in his stomach. It was like sulphuric acid washing around his guts, melting his organs and churning his intestines. He yelled out loud, "Maz you bitch!" and sped the car even faster. Then the pain became just too great and he lost his concentration. The car slowed gracefully down to a halt, then stalled. Mike lifted the driver's door upwards and waded out into the side of the road. He threw up. The pain eased a little, then he vomited once more. This time the pain filtered down to nothing more than severe stomach ache but he knew now that Maz was still alive. He had to finish the bitch off. # He just had to. He fished out the cheap biro from his blazer pocket, found his writer's note book, and set to work once more. >< Margret had was just finishing the last letter in her sentence when she heard the roof creaking and squealing high above her. There was a loud smash and a shower of dust rained down through the two enormous holes in the floors. She panicked - realising that Mike was intending to bury her alive - and began to draw the last few lines that would create the letter "K". The blood was sloppy and messy now, and it used all her energy to daub it across the newspaper. Above her, the house was shattering into pieces. Mike's PC, monitor and all, came thundering down through the gap in the roof, sparking and banging. It landed across Margret's legs, breaking them both in two, and she shrieked in pain. Her hands flopped just as she was painting the last line on her final letter. The sentence remained unfinished. The house moaned and groaned, then imploded like a savaged doll's house, killing Margret instantly. There was a crowd outside the ruined place not long after, including the police and an ambulance. But they were all too late. The Peep's home had been reduced to rubble in less than five minutes, and no one would ever discover how it had all come about. >< Under the east livingroom wall, Margret Peeps was still. Her head had jolted forwards across the newspaper and a bead of blood was now hovering from her lips. Eventually, the blood oozed onto the paper, clumsily finishing off Margret's simple, finalising words: # "MIKE DIED FROM A HEART ATTACK"