Family Business

As Bill walked home he put his unease down to the fact that he had not been feeling right all day. The day itself had taken against him from the outset. Rising from the messy pit of his bed he’d paused in his half-arsed redistribution of his duvet. Dumped the forgotten duvet at the foot of the bed and patted at a spot on the sheet that looked about as wrong as it had any business looking.

The situation of this patch was embarrassing, being in the area where his crotch and backside vied for position as he tossed and turned in the grip of the oddest of dreams. Dreams that would have been nightmares if he could make head or tail of them. 

He patted some more, even in the face of a revulsion as to what the stain may be. He continued patting as the patch disintegrated and the bed protector and material of the mattress surface followed suit. He carried on patting the exposed springs. Then he lifted his hands and inspected the black smears on both palms. Looking down at the hole in his bed, he noticed the charring on the surface of the springs. Something had burnt through his bedding and mattress.

“Odd,” he said to himself before shrugging and padding to the bathroom. The only theory as to how the localised conflagration had come about related to the ingestion of spicy food the night before. But he’d had fish and chips with mushy peas, with not even a hint of chip shop curry sauce.

Staring down at his todger, he cast his mind back to the last time it had seen anything but toilet action. If he’d been more awake, he may have sobbed at the answer to that one. Memories of his last roll in the hay were sepia tinted, and so there was no need for him to Google sexually transmitted diseases and possible related cases of spontaneous combustion. Still he stared at his John Thomas and wondered whether it had dreamt of being a flame thrower during its slumber. He was not to know how close he was to the mark with this seemingly ridiculous thought.

He'd washed his hands in the sink and then scrabbled around for toothbrush and toothpaste. It was only then that he looked up at the mirror, catching an unflattering glimpse of himself fellating the toothbrush. Why he had to think in those terms was anyone’s guess, but it was likely that his indulging in a spot of man-sausage gazing had influenced his train of thought.

As he rolled his eyes, he swore he saw two spots on his forehead. Both corkers. He’d not had a spot on his face since his mid-teens. Back then he’d been a bubbling and popping wreck, but somehow gotten away without incurring any scars. He was considering the spots and a change from his greasy diet when the mirror exploded before him. Not a mere crack. The whole thing committed suicide and did an exceedingly good job of it.

Bill shrugged at the carnage, spat his toothpaste into the loo and stepped carefully out of the bathroom. He’d come back to that little lot once he’d fully woken up. Attending to a sea of broken glass without a coffee in him was a recipe for a blood bath.

Downstairs, Bill turned the coffee maker on and then opened the tin to spoon the coffee out. The tin yawned at him with coffeeless apathy. Bill mimicked it in open-mouthed disbelief. 

No coffee!

This was unprecedented. This was the end of days. Bill drew breath and composed himself. At least this was a Saturday. He could walk to the local shop and remedy this tragic absence and get his life back on track.

He left the house consoling himself with the twee saying that things came in threes; ruined bed, broken mirror and the absence of coffee. What more could possibly go wrong, he thought to himself before he considered his temptation of providence. Providence had not yet had its coffee either, but this was not to say that it would not address this temptation. Bill would not get off lightly this day.

The local shop had coffee. Bill secured a packet and left the shop for the short walk home, this was when he experienced a terrible feeling of unease. His discomfort had a stick and it poked him in the back with it. When Bill tried not to react, his discomfort found another stick and jabbed him in tandem with both sticks. Bill’s discomfort was in persistent form and wasn’t going to let Bill off lightly. The effect were as though Superman were using his eyes to bore holes in him, and so Bill looked over his shoulder.

This was a mistake, for in his line of sight was a round, middle aged woman who was smiling delightedly as she waddled towards him. Bill had never been followed before. He hadn’t even fantasised about being followed. But if he had, then OK, he’d have cast a woman in the role of follower and she would be smiling. But this was not the woman and that smile was a million miles from the sultry and seductive smile Bill had in mind. The smile currently being deployed was fanatical, and it was made more so by the manic sparkle in this woman’s eyes. The waddle made it even worse. The way she was moving reminded Bill of toy robots back in the heyday of sci-fi. The way they canted from side to side threatening to fall over, but always remaining on their feet and moving inexorably forth. 

“Yoo! Hoo!” the mad woman cooed, raising a hand to wave.

“Bloody hell,” Bill grunted.

This was not in direct response to the woman, but to the lamppost he’d crashed into as he remained looking over his shoulder. He dropped his coffee and was relieved to see the bag was intact as he picked it up.

“You’re him, aren’t you?!” she said from behind him as he bent over. 

Bill remained in this compromised position, with the woman peering over his arse at the back of his head. His hope of her leaving him alone was forlorn and half formed. He’d stared into those eyes of madness and he knew he wasn’t going to get rid of her that easily.

Straightening up, he turned to her, “I’m a him, but beyond that I can’t help you, I’m afraid.”

The woman clamped her hands together and held them in front of her heart, “he spoke to me!” she sighed. The smile she now sported was of the love struck sort and Bill began to panic. He’d heard of stalkers, but never expected to have one of his own. Sizing her up, he wondered whether he could escape her clutches. He’d heard stories of the immense strength of the criminally insane. Batman’s Joker never looked much of a threat, but what he lacked in stature he more than made up for in his insane intent.

Before he knew what was happening the woman had her phone out. In one fluid, balletic movement she span around, held her arm aloft and took a selfie, “The coven will never believe this!” she gasped. Then she said Bill’s name. His full name.

“How do you know my name?” he said sternly to the woman. Suddenly he was all business. She’d stepped firmly into stalker territory now she’d used his name. This wasn’t random. She knew her business. Worse still, she knew his name. There was an awful power to her knowing his name and he felt it now. She had a weird hold over him. One he could not deny.

The woman looked uncertain. Her smile slipping off her face like spoiled blancmange, “my apologies, lord. I did not mean to anger you. It’s just. I didn’t ever expect to meet you until after.”

“After what?” Bill asked automatically, immediately ruing his further engagement with this strange woman.

“The end of days!” she said, her smile returning and her hands clapping excitedly, “I mean I’ve experienced your presence during the ceremonies and I’ve thoroughly enjoyed your presence during the Carnal Demonica, but out shopping? This is a nightmare come true!”

Bill felt himself blushing. The woman’s familiarity was just too much.

“Ooh!” said the woman as she noticed Bill’s colour rising, and she swiftly took two more photos.

“Can you stop that!” Bill bellowed.

Suitably chastened, the woman nodded, “sorry, I got carried away. I will obey.” She waved her phone at Bill, “I can delete them if you wish, lord?”

“Yes,” said Bill, “I think that would be wise.”

The woman looked crestfallen, but opened her phone all the same. Her look of disappointment was seismic and Bill’s curiosity drew him closer to afford him a look at the screen of her phone. There on the screen was a photo of the woman grinning gormlessly, but of Bill, there was no sign. She was about to scroll to the next photo when the screen shattered, “ow!” she cried. She’d torn the pad of her thumb on the ragged glass. 

Sucking on her thumb, she eyed Bill with a craven hunger, “you punished me, lord!” she removed her thumb and grinned at him with bloodied teeth. 

This was too much for Bill, he turned on his heel and walked away without uttering another word. He didn’t even look back as he trotted off. He didn’t break into a run though despite feeling the woman’s eyes upon his back. He would not give her the satisfaction. Besides, he didn’t think he’d lose her. If she knew his name, then she most likely knew where he lived.

Safely through the door. He leaned his back against it and lifted the precious bag of coffee up to his eyeline, “I hope you’re bloody worth it,” he warned the bag.

The bag looked back him balefully and spelt out why it most certainly was not worth it, and it spelt it out in one pointless and awful word…

Decaffeinated.

“No!” cried Bill and he cast the bag asunder, sliding down the door in his caffeine deprived despair. 

As he sat there, head in hands, he heard the letterbox open with an awkward squeak and the woman whisper conspiratorially, “we will serve, lord!”

We?

We?!

Bill scrabbled to his hands and knees and peered through the still open aperture, but all he saw was the maniac he’d encountered in the street. Or rather her strange, mad eyes. It took him a moment to register what he was seeing in those eyes, for reflected in her madness was a disconcerting image of Bill. It was him, and yet it really was not him.

Bill hadn’t felt right since he’d awoken that very morning. He really wasn’t feeling himself. But the puce hue of his face was terrible to behold. He looked down at his hands and they were no better. Unbuttoning the cuffs of his shirt he rolled his sleeves up and the deep redness of his skin was shocking to him. He even dropped his trousers to see a further worrying expanse of crimson skin.

“I think I’m coming down with something,” he whispered to himself.

What made him pull his pants down and inspect his tummy banana was anyone’s guess, but now there was no banananess to that appendage, it was very much chorizo.

“Oh gawd!” Bill exclaimed as, still half naked, he raised his hands in tandem and felt for the spots where he’d earlier espied two spots. Only now he had the horn. Two horns. Glorious horns sprouting from his head and pointing to the heavens. Which was quite ironic indeed.

He stalked down the hallway, but tripped and had to paw at the wall in order to prevent his falling over. His trousers, underwear and shoes were the conspiratorial problem here. They’d slipped and gotten caught up underfoot. Bill looked down at the offending clothing and footwear, but it wasn’t his shoes, trousers and pants that caught his eye. It was his cloven hooves.

Now this was the final straw. This as far as Bill was concerned was all that bloody woman’s fault. He would go out there and have it out with her and send her packing. Angry beyond belief, Bill kicked his trousers and underwear away with his hooves, as he bowled back to the front door. Throwing it aside he stood framed in his doorway, barely aware of the woman sprawled half in and half out of the threshold of his abode, having fallen inwards as she watched Bill through the letterbox.

“Now look you lot!” Bill began, but he trailed off as he saw the sizeable crowd assembled in his front garden and in the street beyond.

“All hail Bill Z Bubb!” cried a wizened only man in a red cloak.

Bill was going to ask him how he knew his name, but the crowd all took up the chant and the moment was lost and so was Bill, for it wasn’t quite his name that they were chanting.

Beelzebub! 

Beelzebub!

Beelzebub!

“And his magnificent appendage!” said the prone woman from beneath Bill’s undercarriage.

Bill looked down at the source of the voice, but he could not see the woman, not beyond the wonderous appendage he was now sporting.

“Bloody hell!” bellowed Bill at the monstrous size of the thing that rose up from his crotch.

Bloody Hell!

Bloody Hell!

Bloody Hell!

The burgeoning crowd now began chanting.

Bill rolled his eyes. It was going to be one of those days. 

And he still hadn’t had his coffee…