PayBack Week
Wednesday 15 July 2020
“Despite
my ghoulish reputation, I really have the heart of a small boy. I keep it in a
jar on my desk.”
Robert Bloch
The
Robert Bloch quote above always makes me smile because so many people believe a
fiction writer is indistinguishable from the content of their fiction. Many
readers believe crime writers spend hours in autopsy rooms, poring over
forensic evidence; romance writers compose their work at French windows
overlooking impressionist gardens; and horror writers, when they’re not attending
Satanic covens, live in an isolated house at the edge of a forgotten cemetery.
This,
of course, is not true.
Admittedly,
I’ve written a few stories whilst sitting in a cemetery, but this was done in
broad daylight on the lunchbreak I had from a tedious office job. I found it
quite relaxing to go there with a packet of sandwiches and a notebook and jot
down the ideas that had been buzzing inside my head. There are very few
distractions in a cemetery: no noisy children playing football and none of the
nuisances you find in an office staffroom. My wife always said it was creepy
for me to spend my lunchbreak in the cemetery but I argued it would only be
creepy if I went there with a shovel and a condom.
All
of which is my way of saying, below are the opening chapters from one of my novels:
Payback Week.
I’ve
included links to the title on Amazon so, if you fancy reading more, you can
click directly through to the title page and download the full e-book or order
a print copy. This books is available in print or as electronic downloads, so
you shouldn’t have to wait for too long to find out how the story progresses.
If
I was going to be artsy I’d cite my influences as Edgar Allan Poe, Stephen
King, James Herbert and HP Lovecraft. However, whilst I do like those writers,
and each of them has given me a reason to shudder, I think I’ve been more
inspired by the Hammer Horror films that starred Christopher Lee, Vincent Price
and Peter Cushing. These were the stories that kept me terrified as a child,
trapped beneath my sheets and scared of every creak and whisper that came from
the darkness. I hope this work reflects some of those influences and the
positive associations they’ve always held for me.
If
you’re a horror fan I genuinely hope there’s something in this material that works
for you. And, if you do enjoy any (or all) of these titles, I know that a
review from a genuine reader can often help others find stories that works for
them.
Thank
you. And enjoy.
PayBack Week
At the end of
each summer season, the staff at the Fun Park enjoy a private ritual called PayBack
Week. Every customer who ever upset them, every boss who ever crossed their
path, every person responsible for a grievance becomes eligible for payback.
This year, PayBack Week will be special because there's a homicidal killer
clown with a meat cleaver patrolling the Fun Park and a lot of debts have come
due.
One Year Ago
“It’s the last week of summer,” Gary called.
His ordinarily brash voice was, this time, raised to reach them all. “The last
week of summer. D’you guys know what that means?”
No
one responded.
David
tended a bonfire that blazed merrily on the beach.
It
was a clumsy construction, a combination of black logs and orange flames that
licked skyward toward the slowly brightening stars. A lazy breeze from the
oil-black sea urged fresh sparks to dance upward from the pyre. Bursting knots,
and other imperfections in the wood, crackled and popped from the heart of the
flames. The sounds were sharp and unpredictable. Those closest to the blaze
shifted uneasily away from its warmth.
Mike
and Maggie lay together, side by side, on a stretch of beach between the fire
and the seashore. The couple enjoyed the sort of intimate embrace that, if left
unchecked, would soon become pornographic. It was a clement evening. The heat
from David’s fire was enough to leave Maggie comfortable in a loose, unbuttoned
blouse and a micro-mini. Mike had one hand beneath the hem of Maggie’s short
skirt. As they touched and caressed, the couple grew more involved in sharing a
long and lingering kiss.
Andy,
Nicky, Shaun and Chloe sat facing the fire with their back to the dunes. Behind
them, beyond the dunes and a short walk inland, the brooding shadow of the Fun
Park was etched onto the darkening night sky. The quartet exchanged drags on
roll-ups and swigs from a bottle of JD. They laughed softly and secretively
together in a babble that rivalled the whispering waves.
Nigel,
as usual, sat away from the others, staring out toward the sea. His cheeks and
throat were pale with the memory of white make-up. His eyes were as faraway and
lifeless as the silver moon that shone on his face. He remained as still and
motionless as the sinister shadow of the Fun Park.
“The
last week of summer,” Gary repeated. “D’you remember what that means?”
“It’s
September?” David suggested.
“It’s
your time of the month?” tried Shaun.
Andy
laughed raucously and high-fived Shaun. The sound of their slapping hands was
harsh enough to be painful.
“Jesus,”
Gary grunted.
He
flopped heavily by the side of the fire, his shorts and sandals seeming, for
once, like appropriate attire. A tattoo of the England crest decorated his
calf. In daylight it looked badly drawn and poorly coloured. In the light of
the bonfire it looked like an ugly bruise, vaguely masked by the dense hairs
that covered his legs. Without ceremony, Gary produced his own bottle of cheap
whisky and spun the cap loose. Chugging a mouthful of raw scotch, trying hard
not to gasp as the tang bit his tongue and scrubbed the back of his throat, he
said, “Are we all up for doing it again this year? Are we all ready for payback
week?”
David
cast a glance toward Nigel.
Gary
followed David’s gaze.
The
Toilet continued staring toward the moon. His posture was now stiff and
attentive. Gary hid his excitement behind another mouthful of burning scotch.
He wanted to warn David to stop looking at the Toilet, sure that such a lack of
subtlety could spoil their plan. But it would have been impossible to make that
sort of comment without giving the whole game away.
“Mike,”
Gary called. “Mike. Can you take your mouth away from Mags long enough to
answer the question? Are you in for payback week?”
Mike
broke the kiss. Straining his neck, he glanced toward the Toilet’s back and
then nodded for Gary. “Go on then,” he agreed. “I’m in.”
“Me
too,” Maggie said quickly.
“Christ!”
Gary feigned surprise. “Did Mags really speak then, or are you doing your
ventriloquist act, Mike?”
Maggie
flipped a finger for Gary.
He
held his hands in a soothing gesture and said, “Chill, Mags. No need to take
offence. I only asked because Mike’s got his hand up your frock and it looks
like he’s making your lips move.”
Maggie
threw a half-empty tin of beer at Gary. It missed and bounced harmlessly on the
sand before rolling toward the Toilet. A froth of foam and piss-yellow lager
splashed across Gary’s shirt. He snorted laughter at Maggie’s outrage, his
ever-present grin growing broader. He called to David, Andy and Shaun,
confirming that they were also in for payback week. Each time he said those
words he resisted the urge to sneak a glance in the direction of the Toilet.
The impulse was strong. But he knew the trick in carrying out a convincing
deception was to make the whole thing appear subtle.
“What’s
payback week?” the Toilet asked.
Gary
tried not to show his shock. He had been deliberately not looking in the
Toilet’s direction but he was still surprised by the stealth with which the guy
had moved.
The
Toilet now sat by the side of the camp fire. His pale face was lit by dancing
orange flames. His shadowed eyes looked deeper and more haunted than ever. He
stared solemnly at Gary and asked again, “What’s payback week?”
Gary
grinned and offered his bottle of scotch.
The
Toilet shook his head.
“This
has been your first year working at the Fun Park, hasn’t it?”
The
Toilet nodded.
“We’ve
all done this gig before,” Gary admitted. With a nod of his head he included
the whole group. “It’s an easy job for uni students. The Fun Park is open May
to September. The time frame fits perfectly with the summer months between
terms when there’s no student grant to pay for beer.”
The
Toilet turned his head away. He glanced back toward the full moon. It was one
of the Toilet’s many annoying habits. As soon as any of them started to talk
about uni, lectures, course material or term times, the Toilet’s glassy-eyes
would gaze into the distance and he acted as though they were speaking a
foreign language.
“Payback
week is the last week where the Fun Park’s open,” Gary said quickly. “On the
last week of the summer season, the last week that the park is open to
customers, we get to pay back some of the plebs for all the shite they’ve given
us throughout the summer.”
“Plebs?”
“Customers,”
David explained. “Punters. Tourists. The fuckwits who make our lives so
miserable on a daily basis.”
Slowly,
the Toilet nodded his understanding.
“Payback
week!” Nicky cried giddily. Her platinum blonde hair shone orange in the glow
of the flames. She raised a bottle of JD in a mock salute and then took a long
swallow. Still drinking, laughing and gasping from the taste, she fell back
into the sand between Andy and Shaun.
“Payback
week,” Gary repeated. He glanced around the camp fire. Nicky’s exclamation had
been loud and distracting but everyone – including the Toilet – now stared at
Gary with fixed attention. He could feel the moment swell with the weight of
its significance.
“Last
year,” Gary went on, “David got his nose busted by a drunk on the
rollercoaster. Nicky got felt up by a gang of skinheads. Shaun had kids puking
on him when he worked the dodgems. All of us had some shit from the tourists
and we were all getting pretty tired of the situation.” He took a sharp swig
from his bottle of scotch and added, “So we decided payback week would be a good
idea. We decided payback week would be a good way for us to give back some of
the crap we’d had to take over the summer.”
“You
still haven’t said what it is,” the Toilet pointed out. He stared expectantly
at Gary. “What is payback week?”
“Jesus,”
Gary sighed. He tried not to sound too impatient but, sometimes, it was difficult
not to get angry with the Toilet. “It’s exactly what it says on the tin. It’s
the week where we get our own back. It’s the week where we stop taking shit
from the punters and the bosses. It’s the week where we get our revenge.”
There
was a moment’s silence, broken only by the crackle of flames and the lull of
waves breaking against the shore. The night was not cold but a tickle of
gooseflesh prickled Gary’s bare forearms.
“What
happens?”
Gary
contemplated his bottle of scotch but resisted the urge to have another swig.
He turned his gaze from the brightness of the flames and stared at the waxy
shadows on the Toilet’s face. “Payback week is the last week of the summer for
several reasons. No matter what we do, the bosses aren’t going to fire us
because it’s too much hassle.”
“And,”
David interrupted, “even if anyone did get fired, they’d have to be paid a
week’s notice, so they’d get paid the same as if they worked the last week.”
“That’s
right,” Gary agreed. “So we’re in a no lose situation.”
The
Toilet stared at him with a glazed expression. His mouth hung slightly open.
Shadows and the flickering flames made it impossible to read the thoughts that
might be happening behind his vacant gaze.
“Last
year,” Gary went on, “Chloe got payback on the customers in the café by serving
half-and-half from the lemonade counter.”
“Half-and-half?”
“Half
lemonade. Half piss.”
The
Toilet chuckled. “Sweet.”
In
the shadows, behind the Toilet, Gary could see Chloe glaring murderously in his
direction. Andy had one hand over Chloe’s mouth, struggling to stop her from
refuting Gary’s allegation and potentially spoiling the whole ruse. Andy
silently pulled her away from the camp fire, toward the dunes and into the
deepening shadows that surrounded them.
“Mike
used to have your job in the ghost train,” Gary told the Toilet. “He locked
three kids in there overnight.” Spitting a wet cackle toward the fire he said,
“Those three little fuckers were so scared when the managers found them the
next morning I thought I was going to shit my pants from laughing.” He shook
his head and added, “I’ll bet they still have nightmares.”
“Sweet,”
the Toilet said again.
David
glanced in Gary’s direction. A knowing shine lit the smile in his eyes. The
expression was made malevolent by the reflection of the dancing flames.
“David
smacked a punter in the face,” Gary said quietly. “Put the poor bastard in
hospital.”
“Double
sweet,” the Toilet marvelled. He continued to stare at Gary as he asked, “What
did you do?”
“Me?”
Gary took another swig from his bottle. He shook his head and then studied the
sand beneath his sandals. “I can’t talk about what I did. It’s probably safest
that way.”
“But
I won’t tell,” the Toilet promised. “I won’t tell anyone.”
“No,”
Gary said firmly. He stood up and took his bottle of scotch. Walking toward the
dunes he said, “I can’t talk about it.”
The
silence around the camp fire grew as intense as the burgeoning heat. The flames
crackled more loudly in the darkness. The moment seemed to drag out until Gary
was nothing more than a silhouette ensconced in shadows.
And
then he was gone.
David
broke the silence by whispering, “Gary killed one of the bosses.”
The
Toilet regarded him sceptically.
“One
of the bosses had been giving Gary a hard time,” David explained. “He’d docked
Gary’s wages. He’d bollocked him for turning up late. He’d warned him for being
rude to the plebs. He’d given him a hard time for generally not giving a fuck
about the job. If Gary made a date with one of the punters, this boss would put
Gary on overtime, so he couldn’t make the date. And, when it came to paying him
the proper rate for overtime, he always used to make mistakes with rates and
bonuses. In short, he’d been making Gary’s life a misery from the first week of
the season. But, as soon as payback week started, Gary got his revenge.”
“Gary
killed him?”
The
silence around the bonfire had grown more intense. It now seemed as though the
sea was holding its breath, waiting for David’s reply. David shot his gaze in
the direction where Gary had walked. Satisfied his friend was out of earshot,
lowering his voice to a conspiratorial whisper, David said, “Gary was working
maintenance on the main coaster.”
The
Toilet nodded eager encouragement. He glanced back, beyond the dunes, to where
the silhouette of the roller coaster stood black against the navy sky. With the
thin lines of its support structure and the steep, sloping curves of the track,
it looked like the remnants of a reconstructed dinosaur skeleton.
“Gary
told his boss that there was a problem on the peak before the first dip. You
know how high that one is, don’t you?”
“That’s
the highest one,” the Toilet agreed. He pointed beyond the dunes to the beacon
at the summit of the rollercoaster’s highest peak. “You can see it from here.”
The warning light at the top of the highest peak flashed a monotonous red, like
a portent from the grim night sky.
“Gary
got his boss up there,” David explained. His voice had fallen to a whisper
above the crackling flames. “The old bastard was cursing him and telling him he
was useless for needing help. And Gary just kept walking ahead of him. Taking
all the insults. Biding his time. Waiting for his moment.”
David
paused to take a swig from his bottle of beer. His cheeks were rouged with high
spots of colour. He waited a beat before carrying on, as though he was trying
to give the story its maximum impact. “They got to the top of the coaster and
the boss says, ‘So what’s the problem you
couldn’t handle on your own?’ And, instead of saying anything, Gary simply
lurched at him.”
To
emphasise his point, he lurched toward the Toilet.
The
Toilet scrabbled backward as though he was under attack.
Andy
and Shaun laughed but it was only a short sound that died as soon as David
glared at them. When he turned again to address the Toilet, David’s smile was
tight and humourless.
“The
way you just moved backwards…” he started softly.
The
Toilet nodded.
“…that’s
just what Gary’s boss did,” David whispered. “The old bastard knew he deserved
to have Gary try and hit him, and I think he’d been expecting it all summer.
But he’d forgotten he was at the top of a rollercoaster and he jumped
backwards. There was an expression of surprise on his face. Gary says he looked
like Wile E Coyote in those Road Runner cartoons. And then he plummeted. He landed
in the car park two hundred foot below. They say he spattered like a bag of
vomit.”
“Sweet.”
“Christ,
David,” Chloe muttered. She was wiping her mouth with the back of her hand and
glaring at Andy. “That’s a disgusting story.”
David
ignored Chloe. He fixed the Toilet with a gaze of solemn intensity. “Obviously
questions were asked,” he went on. “But it had happened late enough at night so
that no one had seen. When we were asked if we knew about it, we all said Gary
was a straight guy and we backed up his story that it must have been an
accident.”
“Double
sweet.”
“But
most of us knew it hadn’t been an accident,” Mike broke in. He glared across
the fire at the Toilet and said, “It had been payback week.”
2
“Why
do they call him the Toilet?” asked Nicky. “I mean, that’s not his real name is
it? His parents didn’t call him baby
Toilet when he was born, did they?”
The
Spooksville Café boasted an elevated view of the Fun Park. Set above Spooksville
Slots, one of the park’s many amusement arcades, the salt-spattered windows on
the west side of the café stared out of the amusement park toward the neglected
seashore and endless miles of unbroken sea. It was a desolate view that was
only ever made remarkable during sunset. Throughout the rest of the day it was
a vista of grey sands and grey sea beneath a grey, grey sky.
The
east facing windows overlooked a quadrant of the park labelled Spooksville.
Spooksville contained the ghost train and a haunted house, as well as a handful
of traditional rides that had been redesigned with a supernatural theme. The
tilt-a-whirl was called The Witch’s Hat,
and had been fashioned with a fibreglass dome to look like a pointed, witch’s
hat. The screaming swing was called The
Pit and the Pendulum with carriages fashioned to look like swinging blades.
From the windows of the Spooksville Café, Chloe could also see a selection of
smaller rides, attractions and stalls that had all been reinvented around the
idea of the supernatural and classic horror stories. Pictures of Frankenstein’s
monster and Dracula adorned the walls of otherwise utilitarian buildings.
Statues and mannequins, dressed and painted to look like vampires, zombies and
werewolves, stood motionless beside the stretch of the park’s main walkway. The
carriages on the nearby mini-coaster were painted black with grinning white
skulls at their fronts. A PA system, hidden behind one of the park’s many
pieces of plastic greenery, occasionally spat out a blood-curdling scream. And
yet, in the morning light, Spooksville appeared more comical than scary.
Making
herself a coffee, and preparing for another long day of graft and ingratitude
as she worked behind the counter of Spooksville Café, Chloe stared
incredulously at Nicky.
“You’re
asking me if the Toilet is his real
name?”
“Yeah.”
Chloe
rolled her eyes. “There are some days when you give blonde a bad name.”
Nicky
frowned. “It’s not his real name then?”
“It’s
just a nickname,” Chloe said stiffly. “Who would really call their child ‘the Toilet?’” She didn’t wait for
Nicky’s response. “I think it was either David or Gary who first called him
that. Most likely Gary. He said the guy was gullible and he took everything in:
like a toilet.”
Nicky
digested this with a nod. She was an attractive blonde and it was obvious she
knew she was attractive. Her hair was a baby-soft yellow and her skin was
tanned to a colour that she described as ‘Florida Sunburst.’ She wore
skin-tight short-shorts and a bright white T that emphasised her buxom chest.
When she grinned at Chloe her smile was so white it was almost fluorescent.
Chloe
fired up the espresso machine. There was a moment of deafening silence as the
café was filled with the reverberating hiss of steam from chrome pipes. The room’s
acoustics made the noise unbearable and overwhelming. For Chloe, still
recovering from too much alcohol at the previous evening’s impromptu beachside
party, the noise was like dental surgery without anaesthetic.
When
silence again descended, Nicky asked, “So what’s his real name?”
Chloe
opened her mouth to answer and then closed it quickly.
“I
don’t know.”
Pointing
through the window, Nicola aimed her finger at the familiar figure of a
menacing clown stamping along the main strip that ran through Spooksville. Six
foot tall, dressed in a garish rainbow coloured romper suit, the clown had a
chalk-white bald head surrounded by tufts of eccentric green hair. His face was
as ashen as a corpse, save for the lips which were blood red and painted into a
grimace of pained anguish. In his left hand he held a blood-besmeared meat
cleaver. His big floppy boots flapped against the asphalt of the main strip in
a comical, yet determined fashion.
“There
he is,” Nicky sounded excited. She stood on her tiptoes and clapped her hands.
“We could go and ask him.”
Chloe
closed her eyes. “Cool idea, Nicks. We could go down there and say, ‘Hi,
Toilet. We’ve worked alongside you for the past four months and we don’t know
your real name yet. We only ever refer to you by the insulting and unflattering
nickname Toilet. What’s your real
name?’ That would sound lovely, wouldn’t it?”
“It
would show we’re taking an interest.” Nicky sounded defensive.
“Somehow,”
Chloe said, watching the clown stamp away from the ghost train, “I think he’d
be a lot better off without our interest.”
“I’m
not so sure,” Nicky argued. “I think he could use someone’s help.”
“What
do you mean?”
“I
mean, right now, he’s heading away from the ghost train, even though the park
is two minutes away from opening. That’s not right, is it?”
Chloe
considered this and realised, maddeningly, Nicky was right. Instead of assuming
his usual position, standing inside the dark shadows of the covered ghost
train, and waiting to leap out and frighten passengers on the sharpest bends in
the ride, the clown was walking toward the ticket booth at the main entrance.
“Where’s
he going?”
Nicky
giggled. “Maybe the Toilet is going to the toilet?” Her giggles developed into
a stream of shrill laughter that jarred against the remnants of Chloe’s
hangover. If Chloe had been asked to make a choice she would have said the
sound of cappuccino machine was preferable to the manic timbre of Nicky’s
giggling.
“Toilet,
going to the toilet. Do you get it?”
Watching
the clown march through Spooksville, Chloe said nothing. She had taken little
interest in the Toilet since the start of the holiday season and, even though
she didn’t really know him, she thought he had made a change to his costume or
his make-up. There was something different about his appearance today that she
tried to pinpoint.
If
pushed, she would have said it was something to do with the meat cleaver but
Chloe felt fairly sure she had seen the Toilet holding the implement
previously. What self-respecting
murderous caricature of a psychotic clown, she wondered, would be caught without a meat cleaver?
Dismissing
him from her thoughts, she decided it was probably something to do with his
determined step and his obvious sense of purpose as he marched toward the
ticket booth.
3
Spooksville
Slots was a nightmare of noise and flashing lights. The slot machines and video
games were a constant flash of sirens, shrieks, cheerfully overloud tunes and
ringing alarm bells. A fragrance of furniture polish over dirt and sweat made
every breath taste like grimy plastic. Two east facing doors, designed to look
like the entranceway to a haunted mansion, opened up to overlook the heart of
Spooksville. The open doorways allowed the arcade its only glimpse of natural
light. Against the brilliance of flashing neon, the natural light looked
somehow inferior and jaded.
“Did
you end up with Nicky last night?” Shaun asked.
Andy
was propped against a one-armed bandit and rolling a cigarette. His eyes were
rimmed with the red circles of the morning-after-the-night-before. His cheeks
and chin were stubbled as though he had missed the chance to shave that
morning. On him, because he was annoyingly good-looking, the designer stubble
made him appear ruggedly handsome. Having checked his own reflection that
morning, Shaun knew his own razor stubble made his chubby features look
unwashed and seedy.
“Yeah.
Well, no. Yeah.” Andy frowned and puzzled for a moment. “Does a wrist-job
count?”
Shaun
grunted grudging admiration. “She gave you a wrist-job?”
“She’s
on the blob this week,” Andy shrugged. “And I couldn’t talk her into giving me
a BJ.”
“So
she just tugged you off?”
“She’s
trying to keep me sweet,” Andy murmured. He paused to lick the gummed paper on
his cigarette. The silence between them was washed in the gaudy noise of
Spooksville Slots.
“What
was that crap Gary was spouting last night?” Shaun asked.
“Gary’s always spouting crap,” Andy said
eventually. “You’ll have to be more specific.”
“Payback
week,” Shaun said. “You remember. Gary started on about payback week and
suddenly Mike and Dave were singing the same dumb song. What was that about?”
“Oh!
That.” Andy tucked the cigarette into the corner of his mouth and patted his
pockets in search of a lighter. Glaring sullenly at the NO SMOKING signs that
decorated the walls of the arcade, he started toward the doorway. “That’s a bet
between Dave and Gary. Bastards.”
Intrigued,
Shaun followed him.
“A
bet?”
“Gary
reckons he can get the Toilet fired before the park closes for the year. Dave’s
said he’ll give him two hundred notes if he can do it.”
“Fired?
That’s a bit harsh, isn’t it?”
Andy
shrugged. “It’s the last week of the season. The park closes in six days. This
time next week the Toilet is going to be out of a job regardless of who wins
the bet.” He stepped outside the arcade and, seeing the clown march through the
centre of Spooksville, motioned for Shaun to be silent. Lighting his cigarette,
blowing a plume of smoke into the air, he stared at the clown’s back for a
moment without saying a word. His eyes narrowed.
The
mechanical scream from the Spooksville PA system cackled loudly. The sound was
enough to make Shaun and Andy start with surprise.
“Where’s
he going?” Shaun whispered.
“Have
you got Gary’s mobile number in your phone?”
“Yeah.
Why?”
“Give
him a call.”
Obedient,
Shaun was already fumbling for his mobile. As soon as he had it in his hand he
started scrolling through the contacts in search of Gary’s number. It was only
after he’d pressed the button to make the call that he thought to ask, “Why am
I phoning him?”
“Tell
him to get his arse down here,” Andy said quietly. “Tell him to get his arse
down here quick, because it looks like he’s about to win his bet. I think the
Toilet is about to hand in his notice.”
4
“I
liked Gary’s idea last night,” Maggie decided.
She
always found her mood lifted after a night’s drinking. Whilst most of her
friends – especially those she worked with at the Fun Park – groaned their way
through hangovers, Maggie was invariably smiling and whistling and still
touched with the previous evening’s sense of fun. Her mother described it as a
fortuitous disposition. Her father said she shouldn’t be drinking. Her friends
said it was the most hateful facet of her personality and every one of them, at
some point, had told her that it did not make her an easy person to like.
“I
think we really should have a payback week.”
“Gary’s
a wanker,” Mike grunted.
Mike,
Maggie knew, did not share her ability to bounce back on a morning. He looked
tired. His eyes were bloodshot and he smelled like he’d slept on the floor of a
distillery. His dark hair, naturally curly, looked unkempt and dishevelled.
“Yes,”
Maggie agreed. “Gary is a wanker. But his idea was sound.”
They
sat side-by-side in the ticket booth at the park’s main entrance. The threat of
a sunny day blossomed from behind slowly separating clouds. A crowd of noisy
and bustling tourists – thinner than usual but still large enough to be
daunting – stood outside the slatted glass windows of the ticket booth. Maggie
served another grim-faced holidaymaker, inwardly noting that the transaction
was completed without the woman saying please or thank you. It was not the
first time she had suffered the brunt of such rudeness but she never found it
easy to tolerate such an absence of manners.
“Would
you like a Ride-All-Day-Wristband?” Maggie asked cheerfully.
“Did
I ask for a fucking wristband?”
“No.
But I-”
“Then
I obviously don’t fucking want one, do I?”
Maggie’s
smile turned into a grimace of civility. Her good mood curdled. For the first
time since waking that morning, she felt weary and nauseous. “Have a nice day,” she said with brittle
stiffness.
The
tourist considered her with a sour smile of triumph. She sauntered slowly away
from the ticket booth and into the Fun Park, walking backwards and glaring at Maggie
as she went.
The
small consolation at the back of Maggie’s thoughts was that the woman couldn’t
see she was backing towards the Toilet in his rainbow-coloured clown suit.
Maggie’s smile was touched with sadistic amusement as the clown raised his meat
cleaver ready to surprise the tourist when she did turn around and noticed him.
The fact that the Toilet was going to exact a revenge that she had hoped to see
happen made Maggie wonder why she had bothered to participate in the prank that
Gary and David were hatching for him. For an instant she thought of rushing out
of the booth to tell him that it had all been a cruel hoax.
“Excuse
me, Miss?”
Reluctantly,
Maggie turned away from the anticipated pleasure of watching the rude tourist
being startled. She flashed her fake smile for another of the plebs – a fat man
wearing a garish Hawaiian shirt – and went through the hatefully familiar
process of taking money and serving tickets.
It
wasn’t even five past nine and, already, she was filled with loathing for the
tourists visiting the park. Her good mood had been effectively murdered and a
long day of misery loomed ahead.
“How
much shit do we have to take from these plebs?” she asked Mike. “How much
rudeness and ignorance are we supposed to tolerate for minimum wage and all the
salmonella we can eat at the Spooksville Café?”
The
customer outside the booth took his tickets. His words of thanks were either
unspoken or unheard. He started to enter the Fun Park, and then stopped
abruptly.
“Means
to an end,” Mike said absently. He spoke as he punched buttons on the console
in front of him and served a customer at his own window. A metal slit on the
counter spewed out a stream of tickets. “The job is shit. The people are shit.
But it’s a way of earning money in the summer. It’s also a way of getting a
semi-decent reference at the end of the year.” He lowered his voice to a
whisper and said, “It also means, whatever career I get after I’ve finished
uni, it’s going to be a vast improvement on this shit.”
Maggie
realised the customer she had just served was simply standing and gawping at
the park. Taking advantage of the unexpected reprieve from the morning rush,
she turned in her seat and spoke to the back of Mike’s head.
“I
still think payback week would be a good idea,” she told him. The concept held
a genuine appeal and she thought, if she could get Mike onside, it might be
possible to have everyone in the park doing the same thing. “If we had payback
week I could tell some of these bastards to go and fuck themselves. You could
back me up and say you were listening to the whole exchange and you never heard
any such thing.”
“Gary
was just saying that because he’s trying to set up the Toilet for a fall.”
“I
know that,” Maggie admitted.
“From
what Andy tells me,” Mike went on, “Gary’s also trying to milk two hundred
notes out of Dave as blood money.” Mike spoke quickly and with undisguised
impatience. He briefly changed his tone to cheesy insincerity for the benefit
of a customer. “Have a nice day.”
Then he was speaking with his regular cynical disgust. “I’ve got enough to be
thinking about with starting back at uni next week. I don’t have time to mess
with people’s heads as part of payback week. I’d have thought you were in the
same situation since this is your final year.”
The
light in the booth seemed to have been coloured dark pink.
Maggie
turned around as a hand thumped on her counter. She was momentarily puzzled to
see that a film of thin red liquid now covered the glass slats of their shared
booth.
“What
the-?”
She
tried to work out if someone was playing a practical joke. At the same time she
tried to decide if the liquid was paint, which would mean she had to get
someone from maintenance and janitorial to clean it up, or if it was simply
some sort of cherry drink or ketchup, which would mean she would have to clean
it herself with the small collection of rags and spray-cleaners she kept in the
booth.
“What’s
wrong?” Mike asked.
She
ignored him.
Staring
at the hand that had thumped on the counter, Maggie tried to work out why
something struck her as horribly wrong about the image she was seeing. Every
day that she worked in the booth, customers slapped their hands down on the
counter of the ticket booth. They were either passing her money, or coupons
from newspapers and magazines, or debit cards. And it happened so often she
considered herself something of an expert on hands in all their varying shapes,
sizes and conditions.
But
this hand was different.
This
hand was severed at the wrist.
Maggie
screamed.
To continue
enjoying PayBack Week: the story of a killer clown, you can order your
copy at: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Payback-Week-Story-Killer-Clown-ebook/dp/B088R9B5J4/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=payback+week&qid=1593771562&s=digital-text&sr=1-1
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