Howard Gilley prodded away at the congealed mess on the plate in front of him. Just when he thought his day couldn’t get any worse, here he was being expected to eat something that tasted more like a Kashmir sweater than Kashmiri Chicken. He picked up a small lump of glutinous rice on the edge of his fork and pushed it into his mouth. He grimaced as he forced it down.
On top of the dreadful food, there was an insistent thudding behind Howard’s temples that was gradually working its way up the Richter scale. As he forced down the bland curry, his headache seemed to pulsate in time to his chewing – boom, boom, boom. Howard rubbed his forehead. The waiter, the one who’d looked at him so suspiciously when he’d asked for a table for one, like there was something wrong with that, was watching him again now. He was taking orders from the people at the table just a few yards away, but although he should have been fully occupied with those other customers, he was continually glancing at Howard from the corner of his eye. Howard was of half a mind to jump up and ram a fork in his beady fucking eye – that’d teach him to keep staring. Fucking weasel.
Right on cue, the waiter finished with his new customers and, seeing Howard glaring at him, strode over.
“Is everything okay with your meal, sir?” he asked.
“This?” Howard said, jabbing his fork in the direction of the plate, “Do you mean is everything okay with this? Because I’m not sure I’d describe this as a meal.”
The pain in Howard’s head amplified as the waiter frowned down at him.
“Is there a problem, sir?”
“Well now since you ask – yes, there is a bloody problem. I ordered Kashmiri chicken. Now, I’m not sure what this is supposed to be, but it’s never been near Kashmir, or even a bloody chicken, I’m damn sure. I come in here, looking forward to a good curry, and I get served this crap. I wouldn’t feed this to a fucking farm animal!”
“There’s no need for that sort of language, sir,” said the waiter, stunned.
“You wouldn’t say that if you were being asked to fork out twelve quid for a plateful of glorified dog food. In fact, sod this – just get me the manager. Now.”
Howard was delighted to see that the waiter scuttled off toward the kitchen, jabbering away in Hindi or Urdu or whatever it was these people spoke nowadays. He wiped his mouth with the napkin, lifted his jacket off the back of the chair, and got ready to leave. He had one arm in his jacket when the waiter re-appeared. This time he was accompanied by a short and smartly-dressed Asian man in a grey suit and yellow tie. This man was older than the waiter – forty, maybe forty five – and had a definite managerial air about him. The organ grinder himself then; just what the customer ordered.
Howard glanced around the restaurant. There were a dozen or so other people there though most of them had stopped eating and were looking at Howard. The Bollywood music in the background was only at low volume – they’d all have heard his little tete-a-tete with the waiter. Well. Screw them.
“Sir? I understand there may be a problem with your meal?”
This was the manager. He didn’t look too happy, but Howard was going to tell him exactly who the pissed off one was here.
“Yes, there is a problem, and a big one. I’m starving. Why am I starving? Because I’ve just wasted my time coming to a so-called restaurant that doesn’t appear to serve edible food, that’s why. This is without doubt the worst curry I’ve ever tasted. It’s disgusting. I’ve a mind to call the environmental health on you because there is no way any kitchen that produced this garbage can be clean. In fact this tastes like it’s been scraped off the floor, to be honest.”
Howard took a deep breath, ready to start again with some more choice words. The restaurant was silent, the other customers watching the dispute unfold before them. The manager, who since his opening question had been totally impassive, suddenly looked more than a little irritated. There was a glimmer of anger in his eyes.
“Do you really expect me to pay for this shit?” Howard continued, feeling the heat in his cheeks as his face reddened with rage.
The manager looked at him, calm and cold. “No, sir. I do not. But I do expect you to leave my restaurant immediately. You are disturbing the other guests.”
“I’m doing them a fucking favour mate. They can’t be enjoying the food so you might as well lay on some entertainment, eh?” – Howard was in full flow now – “I mean, fucking hell – they might eat shit like this in the black hole of Calcutta but you’re in England now, know what I m-”
The manager grabbed Howard by the arm and hissed into his ear. “Do not make me ask you another time, sir. I have told you to leave my restaurant. I would suggest you go without any more... fuss.”
Howard turned to look at the man, ready to tell him to take his fucking hands off while he still could, but when he met the restaurant manager’s stare, something stopped him in his tracks. The manager glared right into his eyes, and that stare seemed to burrow into Howard’s brain, in behind the headache, pushing the pain harder against the temples. Boom, boom, boom.
They were walking towards the door, the manager still gripping Howard’s arm, when Howard got himself back into gear.
“Wait a bloody minute,” he said, shaking his arm free, “I think you’d better be careful who you lay your hands on!”
The manager grinned, baring a set of crooked teeth as he did so. “Careful, sir? No. You leave now or this will turn nasty.”
Howard had read in the Mail about foreign restaurants that were fronts for violent criminals – the Mafia, the Triads, all that imported crime that should be sent back where it came from. This place was obviously one of them. Well, Howard wasn’t scared of anyone, especially not some Asian gangster with a bad attitude.
“I’m going, I’m going. But just you hear this. I’m not somebody you can just push around. I’m an important man. You’ll be hearing from my solicitor about this – if you want to come and live in our country, you play by our rules, see? The customer is always right! Fit in or fuck off!”
The manager took a pace forward as Howard bolted out of the door. Howard raised his middle finger. “Fuck off back to India, you robbing bastards!”
For the second time the manager smiled, and laughed as he said to Howard, “Goodbye, Sir...” Then he said something else Howard couldn’t understand, some repetitive word or phrase, presumably in a foreign language, and then he laughed again, pointing his finger at Howard as he muttered his strange mantra.
Howard turned around to look for a cab and get away from this god-awful restaurant, hoping to be able to get a sandwich or something back at the hotel, and as he turned he saw a flash of something from the corner of his eye, a bright light, two of them, and then – BANG.
Howard flipped over the top of the car as it mounted the pavement, bouncing off the windscreen and then the roof like a ragdoll. He hit the concrete on the other side with a thud, and then there was just a low humming sound somewhere in the background of his mind, and nothing else.
2.
“You want me to do what?” said Howard to the piece of paper in his hands. It was a letter from his boss, informing him that he would be required to attend a management skills course. Two days, an overnight job, doubtless in some crappy London hotel surrounded by prostitutes and Africans. That was usually the case when the company sent you away on business. You’d end up in some cheap fleapit and there’d always be some unsavoury characters hanging about, probably drug dealers half of them, or pimps. Always foreigners, of course.
He screwed the letter up and threw it in the waste paper bin. He knew why they were picking on him. That slip of a girl from Accounts, the one he’d sacked last month – she’d been whining to the top brass about the way he’d spoken to her. He knew it was that. They’d said something last week, just a hint, but he knew something was wrong. The girl had secured a decent payout when she finally went, and now Howard knew why. They were stopping her from taking it further by paying her off. Should have told her to stick it, and see her in court, the snotty little bitch.
As much as he hated having to dance to someone else’s tune, Howard had no choice but to go along with it. He’d have to do the course. It would be interminable, naturally – these things were usually conducted by some over-qualified University-type who’d never done a proper day’s work in their life. It would be two days of sheer hell.
3.
As the first day of the course approached its end, Howard glanced back through the notes he had taken. Most were nonsense – he’d just wanted to keep his hands occupied, so he’d been writing down odd snippets such as “Communication skills – corner stones”. He couldn’t recall what he’d written that for, but it was largely irrelevant anyway – he had no intention of ever looking at these notes once he left the room.
He’d spent most of the day being as awkward as possible and asking the course tutor – a nauseating dullard by the name of Ewen – as many stupid questions as he could think of. He’d agreed to come on the course; he hadn’t agreed to make any effort once he was here. Ewen had been getting increasingly riled by Howard and as the day wore on, he finally snapped.
Howard had just outlined a hypothetical scenario whereby an employee is caught looking at pornography in the workplace. What, Howard had asked, should one do – wait for him to put his cock away or just sack him immediately? He’d thought it a fairly witty question actually, but the tutor obviously had a different view.
“Howard... if you don’t want to learn anything today then I’d suggest that not only are you wasting my time and yours, but you’re also wasting your employer’s money. They paid for you to be here – is this how you repay them, by asking me inane question after inane question?”
“Not at all... I was genuinely interested in your opinion. I mean, it could happen, couldn’t it?”
Howard stared at Ewen, unblinking. Come on you little cunt, he thought, take me on if you dare.
“I think we’ll break there for today,” said Ewen, staring back at Howard. “It’s been a long day and we’ve covered a lot. We’ll reconvene tomorrow morning, same time. Thank you.”
Howard and the rest of the attendees immediately jumped up and began packing away their notebooks and belongings like schoolchildren at the final bell. As they filed out of the room, Howard heard Ewen calling his name.
“Howard? Could I have a quick word please?”
He turned to find Ewen almost beside him, looking more irritated than ever.
“Yes?”
“Look Howard... I can see you don’t want to be here. That much is obvious, and to be honest you’re not the first person to try it on – and you won’t be the last either. But some of your fellow attendees actually do want to learn something from this course. I have a suggestion.”
“Go on...”
“Don’t come back tomorrow. Just don’t bother. It just makes it impossible for anybody to concentrate when we have someone who is... unwilling. Stay in bed. Don’t bother turning up. I’ll still sign off your attendance for your employers.”
“Well now... I suppose if you insist, I could always find something useful to do instead... very good of you, Ewen!”
“Think nothing of it.”
Howard moved to continue his flight out of the door when Ewen once again stopped him.
“Howard! One more thing... are you a curry man?”
“Come again?”
“Sorry, I mean do you like a good curry?”
“Well yes,” said Howard, “I do, as it happens.”
The tutor thrust a small business card into Howard’s hand, advertising somewhere called Indian Spice. “Check this place out. It’s excellent, the best for miles. Tell them I sent you and they’ll get you a quiet table. No hard feelings?”
Howard had to concede, maybe this Ewen guy wasn’t all that bad after all.
“No hard feelings, “ he said, shaking the tutor’s hand, “See you tomorrow – or rather, not!”
Howard winked, and scuttled out of the room as fast as he could.
4.
Howard opened his eyes. He was laid on his back, the ground beneath him hard and cold. He looked up. Sky, dark clouds and distant stars. What happened? The car – he’d been hit by the car, he could remember that much. Why wasn’t he in hospital? Was he dead?
He turned his head, feeling pain but not the screaming agony he was half expecting. He was on the pavement outside the restaurant. The lights in the restaurant were off. Aside from the street lights, almost everything was in darkness, in fact. Howard lifted his arm to look at his watch. The watch face was cracked and beneath the crack, the watch said the time was four in the morning, just gone. Good God. Had nobody called an ambulance? What the hell was going on?
He tried to sit up and to his surprise, managed it. His clothes were wet and filthy, presumably as a result of having been hit by the car and then left to lie on the path. Those bloody Asians had left him here to die. He wiggled his fingers, amazed that nothing seemed to be broken. He gingerly moved his head from side to side. He moved onto his knees and then slowly rose to his feet. He was unsteady but he was essentially unhurt apart from a few cuts and bruises. There was a nasty-looking graze on the palm of his left hand that had already turned purple but apart from that he seemed to have had God on his side. He couldn’t believe how well he had come out of it.
Howard looked toward the Indian restaurant. It was closed now. He hadn’t noticed earlier but the windows were painted out with whitewash. It looked a real mess; no wonder the food was so awful. He staggered closer, peering through the front door. The place looked closed down.
Howard was sure he’d been looking through the window while he was waiting for his food to come. He’d been sat only a few yards from the window. Yes, now he thought about it – there was a young girl who walked past not long after Howard had sat down and he’d clocked her straight away, all short skirt and cleavage. There was no whitewash on the windows then, he was sure of it.
But there was now. Howard walked right up to the window, pressing his face up close. Through the whitewash he could barely make out the dark interior. What he could see was alarming to say the least. There were no tables in the restaurant. All that he could see was a toolbox and a workbench, beside a stack of timber on the floor. There were electrical wires dangling down from the ceiling. It looked to all the world like a closed down building ready for refurbishment. But it couldn’t be – he’d eaten there that very night.
Howard’s headache was coming back with a vengeance – hardly surprising given that he’d been hit by a car. There was blood on his shirt and his teeth felt like he’d been punched in the mouth.
There was a sharp pain in his stomach which kept rising up and then abating, a cramping sensation that brought nausea and imbalance.
I’m concussed, he thought, seeing things. I need a hospital. No, not a hospital – sleep. I need sleep.
5.
It had taken what seemed like hours to find a black cab to take him back to his hotel. The driver had looked alarmed when he’d seen the state Howard was in, and at one point had looked like he was going to refuse the fare. In the end he’d relented and allowed Howard to climb into the back of the taxi. The ride back to the hotel felt to Howard like an off-road rally, every bump and pothole setting off fireworks behind his aching temples. The sight of his hotel was like a vision from God when it finally came.
He paid the driver and scurried into the hotel, grunting at the night porter as he passed, waving his room pass to let them know he was actually resident there, and not just some passing lunatic looking for somewhere to pass out.
As he reached the door to his room, the stomach cramps came back again, fierce this time, and Howard had to hang on to the door handle to steady himself. If those fuckers at the curry house had given him food poisoning, that would just top it all off.
He swiped the key card, turned the handle, and as he crashed into the room a huge griping pain sliced through his stomach, making him cry out in pain. He flopped onto the bed, clutching his stomach as another wave of cramps hit him.
“AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH!”
Jesus. It was like digesting razor blades. His stomach was churning and rumbling and he needed to go to the toilet, the urge stronger than he could ever have imagined possible.
Howard got to his feet and staggered to the bathroom, the cramps coming on almost constantly now, like someone hammering a screwdriver into his abdomen. He gritted his teeth, scrabbling for his belt, yanking his trousers down, dropping down onto the toilet so hard he almost slipped off sideways.
“FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK!”
The pain was unbearable, now reaching down from his stomach, down his bowels and into his rectum, forcing him open as the sickness inside his gut followed gravity and went to make its escape. He could hear a horrendous noise as the toilet bowl filled up beneath him, an endless stream of filth spewing out of his anus, and still that vicious cramping pain ripping his insides apart, horrific and unrelenting. His eyes were watering as the stench began to make him gag. It was a smell like raw sewage, the worst stink that Howard had ever known. He could feel himself beginning to panic as the pain refused to abate and more and more waste poured out of him and into the toilet.
The horror went on for almost fifteen minutes, stream after stream of diarrhoea forcing itself out through his sore and bleeding anus, until finally, mercifully, it stopped.
Howard gasped for air, breathing in more of the foul smell and feeling vomit rising up at the back of his throat. He willed himself to breath slowly, trying his best to ignore the smell, and trying just as hard not to panic about whatever had happened to his digestive tract.
Through sheer willpower, Howard brought his body back under control. He stayed on the toilet, afraid to move in case the cramps came back again. After another ten minutes without any stomach pain, he took one more large breath and hauled himself up from the toilet. He was almost afraid to look in the bowl.
He would wish he hadn’t. When he looked down, what he saw in the toilet bowl brought up a real live scream from the depths of his racked body. Something in the bowl was writhing around, wriggling like a live animal, like a nightmare creature shaped from human waste. The water was splashing up the sides of the bowl, brown and filthy.
“What the fuck? WHAT THE FUCK?”
He shoved one knuckle into his mouth and bit down on it, stifling another scream. The thing in the toilet bowl seemed to be expanding, filling the bowl. Howard couldn’t take his eyes off it, panic rising, and as he bent over to look closer at whatever it was, the whole mass seemed to move as one, upwards and out of the toilet, leaping at Howard’s face.
He shrieked as his head was engulfed by the foul-smelling beast, unable to breath, suffocated by a sentient mass of his own shit that had somehow become something evil. It was crushing his head, grinding his brain in on itself. This thing, Howard thought as his skull began to cave in under the pressure, came out of me. Out of my b-
6.
The night porter placed the telephone back on the cradle. He’d received three different calls from residents on the ground floor all reporting the sound of screaming coming from room 23. He would have to go and see what was going on. He’d seen the man from that room arrive back in the early hours of the morning looking like he’d been in a fight. The porter figured that either the man had got a bump to the head and was now having nightmares, or he was on drugs, or both. He hated this part of the job. Most of the time he loved his work but every now and then something like this happened and he would have to go and confront a problem customer.
When he got to the door of Room 23, he listened intently, but there was no noise coming from the room as far as he could tell. Certainly nobody was screaming. The people ringing from the neighbouring rooms had all been sincere though – one of them sounded utterly spooked.
He rapped on the door and waited. Nothing. He knocked again. Still nothing. Shrugging, he took out his master key and opened the door.
He stepped inside. The smell was appalling. The porter pinched his nose closed.
“Hello? Is everything alright in here?”
No answer. The lights were on and there was nobody in the bed. He called again – “Hello?” – and again got only silence in reply.
The light switch outside the bathroom door was in the ‘On’ position. He tapped lightly on the bathroom door. “Hello? Sir? Are you okay?”
When no-one answered, the porter pushed open the bathroom door and almost fell backwards when a fresh wave of that dreadful stench slapped him in the face.
There was nobody in the bathroom either, but in the toilet was a huge mass of what looked like human faeces.
“Oh, for God’s sake! These people are bloody disgusting.” The porter was used to such base behaviour. He often thought that human beings reverted to an animal-like state once they stepped through the doors of a hotel. He’d seen it all – an unflushed toilet was nothing. The porter reached over and pressed the flush button. He had to do it twice more before the mess in the toilet was completely flushed away.
He didn’t know what had happened to the man from Room 23. Perhaps he really was on drugs and he’d gone wandering off somewhere after his weird screaming fit. Whatever had happened, he clearly wasn’t here anymore.
The porter looked at the toilet again, and then flushed it once more, just to be thorough. The shit in the toilet, noxious as it had been, was now gone for good.
(c) N Boldock 2010