Three's Up - Paul Saunders (any book recommendations .TXT) 📗

a leaping pitbull, who rearranged his paws into the back-peddle that dogs use to skid clumsily to a halt. Unfortunately, the clumsy halt didn’t come soon enough. Jezzer clattered into the back of Casey’s legs. The wine jumped out of the glass as Casey threw up his right arm in a knee-jerk reaction.

All eyes watched Casey’s destiny fly high up into the air...

...and then down…

…and then splash over Jezzer’s head. The dog licked his chops, then sniffed and licked the fresh claret stains that were rapidly soaking into the carpet.

There was no explosion, no plumes of smoke jetting from his ears. Just a deathly silence…

…and then his tail began to wag. Slowly at first, then faster…

...Jezzer lunged

.

***

“I - err - I’ll get you a cloth.”

***

Casey desperately held back the tears as he sponged Jezzer’s contribution off the front of his trousers. His ears pricked as he heard a calamitous scrambling in the hallway. The lounge door burst open.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, not again!”

END

The Morning After The Night Before

Jack ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth as he opened his eyes. It felt like he’d licked the terminal of a battery, or at least drank the bottom of a pickled onion jar. These two analogies proved to be wrong as he forced up his waist and pulled from beneath it an empty Gin bottle. He tossed it aside and let his head relax back, closing his eyes again. A marching band was mid parade somewhere between his ears, there was a perpetual gushing and…and…water?

He sat up with a jolt and scanned his surroundings. A bathroom. Someone’s bathroom. There were bare floorboards submerged beneath an inch of water, his back was drenched from the night’s unconsciousness. A rubber duck spiralled past him as it drifted with the flood’s flow, stopping as the water slipped beneath the gap at the foot of the door. He strained his bleary eyes, desperately trying to make sense of where he was.

Now, your average person has watched enough films to know that if a murderer is in your house, you hide in the attic, or corner yourself in some other cul-de-sac of a room; if you wake up in a strange place, you say (if only for dramatic effect):

“Where am I?”

“I think we might be dead…”

Jack jumped at the shock reply, and traced it to an overflowing bathtub; a wall of water was tumbling over the side as the taps still pumped at full speed, he rushed toward them with a belated haste. Water was still piling overboard as a hairy arm reached out. Jack took hold, and fished out what appeared to be a very unconvincing transvestite.

“…Or a least I

am anyway. This is my wife’s corset.” He struggled a hand into his leather hotpants and with the care of a surgeon, extracted a hairbrush. He gestured it to Jack “No wonder I couldn’t feel my toes.”

Jack eyed him quizzically from his single stiletto, past the fishnet stockings, right up to his Afro wig. A cold panic burst inside of his chest.

“Oh God, tell me we didn’t…you know

?”

The transvestite reached into the bust of his wife’s corset and pulled out a box of sopping wet cigarettes. After wrecking two, he managed to get a whole, if not slightly droopy one into his mouth.

“To be honest…what’s your name?”

“Jack.”

“To be honest, Jack. If we did, you must’ve been a gentleman to help me back into these hotpants.” He tugged at the bottom of his shorts as if to gain space, “Only, I don’t think I could’ve managed on my own.”

“Well, you must have done, to…” Jack watched as his acquaintance failed to light three wet matches, “Look, I don’t even know who you are. I don’t even know where we

are and my head’s spinning round so fast, it’d have an Astronaut projectile vomitting. Oh, for God’s sake! You can see the water dripping off those matches.”


“Shhhhh, it’s alright Jack. I’ve got a lighter in ‘ere somewhere.”

He fumbled somewhere inside the corset once more; with no luck, he squeezed a hand back down the front of his hotpants. Jack studied him worriedly, a tongue flicked out the side of the cross-dresser’s mouth with concentration. His hand reappeared after a prolonged moment clutching a lighter. He held it up to Jack, looking somewhat boastful and then slightly embarrassed. He passed the lighter to his other hand and hurriedly offered the free one to Jack.

“I’m Rich by the way. Call me Richard if it makes you happy.”

Jack’s eyes flicked to the hand that was, moments ago, rummaging around a man’s crotch inside of women’s underwear and groaned. Richard withdrew the hand, wiped it on his thigh and re-offered it, pleadingly. Jack shook it tentatively. Somehow, the salvaged lighter lit first time and Richard brought the flame to the tip of the dishevelled cigarette, which fell to pieces.


"So then, Jack.” Richard took a step backwards and sat on the edge of the bath; he did a double-take behind him and fished out a can of beer from the still brimming tub. “D’ya smoke?”

“No.”

"Never?"

"Never."

"Not even after sex?"

"Look, I..."

“'Cause if you do, you go too fast my friend.” Richard bounced around on the spot momentarily in response to own his zinger, Jack didn't even flinch. Richard straightened his back, cleared his throat and attacked the ring-pull on his beer can with a crudely painted fingernail. As it opened, the froth rose from the can and ran down the side, “So seriously then, no cigarettes?”

“No! Look, stupid question, I know, but is this your house?”

Richard splashed a stockinged foot around the floor; the puddle was still disappearing through the gaps between the floorboards. He swigged his beer.

“I hope not." He smiled at Jack, "Let’s find out!”

***

The door bounced on its hinges under the strain of three rhythmatic thuds. There was silence, and then a scratching noise, followed by a muffled argument on the other side, then a shuffling. The door calmly opened inwards.

“See, I told you to pull.”

Three feet and one stiletto emerged from the bathroom and squelched onto the drenched carpet.

“I thought it was locked.”

“You said, but why would there be a key down your hotpants?”

“Everything else seems to be.”

Richard reached again into the corset and reproduced the dogged cigarette box. With a rigid hand he managed to pluck another out in one piece and offer it to his lips. It lit. He took a long drag and pulled it away from his mouth. Smoke escaped from his nose and mouth as he spoke.

“So then, Jackyboy. You don’t remember anything?”

He brought the cigarette back to his lips and took a confused drag. He inspected the filter between his fingers and looked down at the rest sizzling on the wet carpet.

“I don’t know. I have…recollections, like pieces of a jigsaw; or more like a shattered vase.” Jack looked around. Richard was on his knees, desperately trying to reassemble the soggy cigarette.

“Ha! You got it easy; at least you’re

dressed as the right gender. These shorts are as accommodating as they look.”

“You mean, that’s not your usual…I just assumed you were…” He forced a smile, “Well, you do carry it well.”


For the first time, Richard started to look agitated. He held his makeshift cigarette at both ends, which collapsed as he took another puff. He gave Jack a prolonged stare.

“That’s alright coming from you, is it? At least I haven’t got TWAT

written across my forehead in lipstick.”

“Yeah, I’m not falling for that one.”

Jack adjusted his footing on the carpet, it was saturated. The wallpaper was ripped in places, a picture hung crooked on the wall with its frame smashed. His eyes followed the trail of destruction to a bundle halfway down the stairs…it was…carpet

. Carpet, with a couple of legs sticking out the bottom, he turned to silently gesture to Richard, who was staring out the window.

“Hey Jack, I haven’t seen a single person go by. Do you think this is like one of those end-of-the-world type things, where everyone died over night an’ we’re the only survivors?”


Jack heard a car pass outside, Richard seemed somewhat disappointed. He shrugged his shoulders.

“Maybe not.”

“Richard?”

“What?”

“Shhhhhhh.”

“Shhhhhhh, what?”

“Be quiet.”

“I can’t hear what you’re saying. Stop whispering.”

“There’s someone on the stairs.”

“Sorry?”

Jack seemed to shout without raising his voice above a whisper,

“There’s someone on the stairs!”

The two of them tiptoed to the head of the staircase and peered at the pile of human carpet. It wasn't moving. Suddenly, a pang of memory hit Jack like an electric shock. A vision pulsed across his brain: him, an extremely ugly woman…Richard...tearing up the bathroom carpet.

“Richard. What can you remember about last night?”

“Err, I think I remember you saying he looked cold…and could do with a blanket.”

The tangled body remained still, there was no rise where the chest should be, no sound. It was lifeless.

“Yeah, he’s cold alright.” Jack swallowed as the fear began to claw its way up his throat, “Dead

cold.”

“Do you think so? Should we get him another carpet?”

"With emphasis on the dead"

"Oh. Are you sure?"


“Well, he’s hardly cooking breakfast is he? He’s not breathing.” Jack and Richard stared at each other. “How did we get here?”

“Do you think he smokes?”

“Not anymore. Look, I don’t even remember meeting you. I don't...Richard, come back here!”

Richard began a covert descent down the staircase, half hunched with an arm outstretched. His buttocks didn't so much slip out the bottom of the hotpants as he crept, more performed a mass exodus…it forced some kind of memory…

“Richard. I remember!”

“Hang on.”

“I was walking home from the pub. You were being sick in an alley, bent over. I grabbed your arse…I thought you were…a hooker…even afterwards, I thought you were just a bit ugly.”

“You’re right, he ain’t movin’…”

“I was almost home, you walked with me…there was a party going on in this house, we thought we’d have a look…I still thought you were a…although the stubble was cause for concern.”

Richard was over the body now; Jack ran down the stairs and grabbed him.

“Richard…he was there! Everyone else had already gone, he was already there. It must be his house, they killed him! Richard, we’ve got to go…”

“But he might smo…”

Richard made a grab for the body, Jack made a grab for Richard; and with the combined stability of a newborn deer, they tumbled down the last two stairs. Jack, Richard, the bathroom carpet and a dead body.

The first thing the dead body saw as it jolted awake was a startlingly ugly transvestite; he screamed, Richard screamed louder, Jack scrambled himself to his feet and bolted out of the front door. The dead body kicked, frantically trying to get an extra stair between him and Richard.

“Not again! Oh please God, not again

!”

“It’s OK. Look, I’m sorry about