DOOR part 1

This one is turning out to be longer than a short. Some of the characters are vile bigots. If you don't know English swearing, be prepared to learn a lot of new words. To be continued...

The door opened and the light behind it was a deep, warm pink. Shocking and inviting at the same time. For a second two figures were silhouetted, then the door closed. Johnny stood in the late-night drizzle, staring at the afterimage in the dark. The streetlight by the door was broken, casting shadow instead of a tarnished pool of silver like the rest of the lights along the road.

‘Oi, Johnny! You havin’ a wank?’ a voice shouted. ‘Get a fuckin’ wiggle on yer tosser, it’s startin’ to piss it down.’

Johnny pulled his jacket tighter round his shoulders and wished he had a raincoat, even if that would make him look like a prick. He hurried after his mates who jeered when he got to the corner.

‘Didn’t take you long, did it? Twenty second wanker, you’d blow yer load before you got it in an actual twat.’

‘Fuck off, Baz. Least she’d notice it was in. Your bird still thinks she’s a virgin cos she can’t fuckin’ feel it.’ The rest of the lads froze. For a second Johnny thought Baz was going to thump him, but he laughed instead and slapped him on the back and called him a cunt and everything went back to normal.

‘Come on,’ he said. ‘Let’s get to the fuckin’ club. I need more beer.’

They walked quickly through the city centre streets while Johnny wondered why he’d said that to Baz. He imagined a barrister in a wig talking up to a red-robed judge. ‘The deceased accused a known psycho of having a small penis, m’lud. A clear case of suicide.’ The barrister sounded like a right arsehole, but the judge agreed with him because anybody squaring up to a nutjob like Baz was asking to be left bleeding out in a gutter. The rest of the lads were talking about the footie but nobody said anything to Johnny, probably because they were worried what else might come out if he opened his gob.

Johnny’s train of thought was cut off by something shining bright ahead on the grimy street. The kebab shop. White light cast rainbows in the greasy puddles outside the window where doner meat turned, skewered in front of a grill. It dripped juices into the pan below. The man behind the counter waved at them. ‘Later, Ahmet,’ shouted Baz. ‘More beer first. Make sure you’ve got some bleedin’ chillis left for us, all right?’

Ahmet gave them a thumbs up as the five of them walked on.

‘Fuckin Turk,’ muttered Pete. ‘He’s getting cocky. Waving at us like we’re his mates.’

‘He knows his place, though,’ said Baz. ‘Which is feeding us, his superiors. And as long as he does that, we leave him alone.’

Pete looked pissed, although not pissed enough to start anything. Baz added ‘But if he forgets then you can just remind him one night, eh Peter?’

‘Yeah,’ said Pete, grinning. Then he let it drop because they got to the end of the road and saw the queue.

‘Ah, fuck it,’ said Lee and Si together. It was a twenty-minute queue, minimum, stretching half-way down the road from the club entrance. People huddled close to the dark buildings, away from the road and sprays of water a few passing cars threw up. They pressed into shop doorways out of the rain until they needed to shuffle forwards to keep their place, holding jackets and handbags over their heads.

‘Don’t worry, boys. Uncle Barry has it sorted for you.’ Baz sauntered past the people queuing and the rest of them followed. They went slowly, making sure people knew they were jumping the line, daring them to say something. Nobody made eye contact. Maybe it was the horns tattooed on Baz’s temples. Maybe it was the aura of barely restrained psychopathy he radiated. Maybe it was just that nobody fancied picking teeth off the pavement on a rainy night.

Baz’s cousin Gerry was on the door. He opened it wide for them and Johnny felt an unexpected thrill. But as soon as the shabby, yellow light and tinny music spilled out his excitement faded. He thought of the pink light behind the unmarked door. He wanted to get in there. He imagined sleek bodies dancing tight on a crowded dancefloor, rubbing against each other, pulsing to an insistent rhythm. Everyone moving in unison, boots and rubber and babes and boys. Bodies and—’

‘Move your fucking arse,’ Baz shouted in his ear. ‘Fucking Jesus, Johnny, are you tripping?’

‘No, it’s just… we always come here. Isn’t there anywhere different?’

‘What the fuck else do you want? There’s cheap beer and now Gerry works the door we’ll get straight in every time.’ Baz looked genuinely puzzled. He pushed Johnny in and the door shut behind them. The other lads were already heading for the bar. The dancefloor was packed with the usual Saturday night crowd jerking drunkenly to bad techno.

‘Is there a club back where we came past?’ shouted Johnny, ‘on Cank Street?’

‘A club on Wank Street? There’s nothing there at night, you twat.’

‘But there was a door. It opened and people went in. And it looked like a club. A posh one. It had pink lights.’

‘Fucking pink lights?’ Baz sneered. ‘Sounds like a gay bondage bar to me. You want a gimp suit Johnny? You want a man called Tarquin to shove a dildo up your khyber while he sucks your tit? Is that it?’

‘No, Jesus. Lay off, Baz. It just looked, different. It was different, all right?’

‘Fuck’s sake, Johnny.’ Baz shook his head, eyeing Johnny up. ‘You need a beer. Then another five beers. Then a kebab.’

Johnny drank the beers with the rest of them. They tasted stale and flat. He watched Si pull on the dancefloor, like he did every Saturday night. Si went off to the shag zone with his girlfriend of the hour. The shag zone was the disabled loo, but seeing as nobody in a wheelchair ever came in the club shagging was all it got used for.

The light in the loo was blue when Si opened the door. Blue light meant junkies couldn’t see their veins to shoot up but Johnny thought it made it look cold and cheap. Who’d want to do it in there? He had a few times, but it was crap. He thought of the pink light, warm and dark and beckoning. He licked his lips and tasted salt sweat. Ten minutes later Si came back with a grin and then they went to Ahmet’s kebab place and everyone got a donner with chillis. Johnny didn’t really taste his, not even when he threw it back up as they got to the head of the taxi queue.

The driver looked at Johnny, then at the steaming pile of sick. He shook his head. Johnny saw Baz start to bristle. ‘It’s all right,’ he said. ‘I’ll walk it off. Walk home. The rest of you get in.’

Baz shrugged. He clearly wanted to be home now. ‘Yeah, all right,’ he said. The four of them piled in and the next group in the queue shoved past Johnny as the taxi pulled away. Johnny drifted off and began walking. He wasn’t surprised when he found himself back on Cank Street. He hadn’t exactly walked there, but it wasn’t like he’d forced himself to go straight home either.

Except for the dripping rain the street was quiet and empty. Johnny shivered. Hairs prickled on the back of his neck. He walked as casually as he could to the pool of darkness and put one finger on the door. There was nothing special about it. Black painted wood. No handle, keyhole or sign. No doorbell either. Johnny thought about knocking, but what if he was wrong and it was somebody’s house? He put one ear against the wet surface. He heard something rhythmic, but he couldn’t tell if it was a baseline or his heartbeat. The town hall clock tolled three times. That was real. He had a shift tomorrow afternoon.

Johnny walked back to his flat, gulped down a pint of water, and went to bed. He lay tossing and turning, sweaty under the covers. He stripped the bed to a single sheet but still felt tiny beads of sweat on his forehead. He got up and lifted the sash window, just a crack. The heat flowed out of the room and night air flooded in, cool and damp. Johny sighed and breathed it in deep. There was a scent on the air. Was it perfume? Sweet, almost cloying, but he liked it. He drew another breath in, holding the smell inside him as long as he could. Then he let it out and went to bed.

* * *

 When Johnny opened his eyes it was noon and the room was icy cold. His skin prickled with goosebumps and he was chilled to the bone under the thin sheet. The curtains flapped in a breeze. He pulled the duvet off the floor and tried to hide under it, but a squalling gust of wind lifted it off him. He got up and walked over to the window. Had he really opened it this wide when it was raining? A hint of the scent he’d smelled in the night crept in with the breeze and Johnny breathed it in again. It was so sweet it was almost rotten. Were there flowers outside? A flower that smelled like that would be like the light behind the door, a pink so dark it shaded on red. He poked his head out but there was nothing but an empty burger box blowing down the alley.

Outside was freezing and bright. Johnny squinted while clouds scudded across a wan blue sky in the wind, then he pushed the window down. The catch at the top of the window was broken. It had been broken when he moved in and he supposed the landlord might fix it before he moved out again. Probably not though. But it wasn’t like he had anything to steal. The only expensive thing he owned was his phone, and that was always in his pocket. No designer shoes or clothes on his wages. They went on rent, food, beer, and the rest on savings every month. His old man had told him renting was a mug’s game, and the only good thing the tosser had ever given his son was that advice. Johnny wanted his own place, and if he had to slum it to save up then that was fine by him.

He thought about breakfast, but the idea made him gag. He gulped a quick mug of instant coffee and walked to work.

Lee pulled into the staff car park in his modded Golf as Johnny arrived round the back of the supermarket. He nodded as he got out and blipped the key. ‘Didn’t get axe murdered and raped on the way home then?’

‘No,’ said Johnny. ‘Shouldn’t that be the other way round though?’

‘Depends on the perv, dunnit?’

They spent their shift fork-lifting pallets off the lorries that arrived in a steady stream, keeping the flow of food running for the hungry masses to pull off the shelves inside and gorge on. A delivery of frozen meat arrived at nine in the evening, right on clocking off time and they groaned together.

‘C’mon, it’s the last one,’ said Johnny.

‘Better fuckin’ be,’ said Lee. But they both knew it was. Supermarkets didn’t pay extra for night deliveries. Stuff came in the day then the night shift stacked the shelves, a zombie army of the otherwise unemployable. People too unreliable or stoned or just plain unpleasant to work in the light of day when they could be seen.

The lorry reversed up then shuddered to a stop, belching diesel smoke.

‘Jesus, no bastard’s serviced that fucker in twenty years,’ said Lee.

The driver got out and cracked the rear door open. As soon as he did, they both knew something was wrong. Instead of a cloud of condensation from the frosty interior a reeking gust of hot air blew into their faces. Lee and the driver both gagged, turning away and covering their noses. For a second the hot air smelled sweet to Johnny. He took a breath, but then the stench hit him in the back of the throat. He turned away and dry heaved, little white spots dancing hypnotically in front of his eyes.

‘Fuck’s sake, mate,’ said Lee to the driver when he could talk. ‘Didn’t you realise the fridge was knackered?’

The driver shrugged and said something foreign.

‘What’s your bleedin’ name?’ shouted Lee.

When the driver said something else foreign Lee walked to the cab and pulled the door open. The driver shouted, waving his hands, but Lee pulled his ID off the sun visor. He held it up by the driver’s face. The face in the photo was long, lean, and clean shaven. The driver was a little man with a goatee. He spat at Lee, then turned on his heel and sprinted off while Lee wiped his face.

‘I can catch him,’ Johnny said.

‘Nah, let the fucker go. If you catch him then he’s your problem. You want to wait and assist the filth with their enquiries?’ said Lee.

The warehouse floor manager wandered out to see what the hold up was. Johnny opened the lorry’s door wide. The meat was rotten and reeking, burst packets leaking rancid juices all over the floor. The refrigeration must have been out for a couple of days at least.

‘Yeah, I think we’re rejecting this load,’ the manager said. ‘Shut the bloody door now, please. Where’s the idiot who was driving it?’

‘Legged it, it’s not his truck anyway,’ said Lee.

‘Course it weren’t,’ said the manager. ‘You two piss off before you start claiming overtime then. I’ll phone the company to come and collect it. This is their fucking problem, not mine.’ He went back inside.

Johnny stood by the open lorry looking at the spoiled meat. He sniffed, cautiously. For just a second he smelled sweetness again, then the stench overwhelmed him and he gagged. Lee shut the door. He looked at Johnny strangely and shook his head.

‘You need to get your shit sorted before you come out with the lads again,’ he said. ‘If you set Baz off it’ll fuck it up for everybody. Keep in your fucking lane and keep your fucking mouth shut. Or stay at home. Either’s good for me.’ He turned and walked to his car before Johnny could think of an answer. Lee revved the Golf and screeched out of the car park.  

Johnny walked home. He drank a can of cheap beer and ate a microwaved lasagne while he listened to techno through his earbuds. Then he went to bed and thought about what Lee had said.

Johnny stood by the door. He ran a finger down the black wood and it came back glistening wet. He tried to find a handle, a crack, anything to slip his fingers into to gain a hold somehow. Down the street the lights went out one by one, until he was standing in darkness. A deep pink glow shone around the edge of the door, then slowly, slowly, the left side opened. The stairs behind ran down, the pink glow from the walls deepening to black as it went. Johnny felt dizzy. It was like standing on the edge of a cliff. He put a hand on the doorframe to steady himself then jerked back sharply. Beads of blood bloomed across his palm from a row of punctures in his skin. Around the edge of the door were sharp little teeth, gleaming in the light. Johnny opened his eyes.

He was standing in front of his bedroom window, naked and freezing. The window was wide open to the dark and the scent of rotting flowers was everywhere. Johnny breathed it in and shuddered. He pushed the window down and felt a sharp pain in his hand. A scratch ran across his left palm, still bleeding. Johnny swore. He went to the bathroom and turned the light on. Shadows fled to the corners of the room and vanished while he blinked. The scratch wasn’t deep and there were no splinters he could see. He ran it under the cold tap, then wadded up some toilet roll and held his fist closed around it. It would keep any blood off his sheets. He turned the light off and stumbled back to bed, his night vision lost. Before long he was asleep.

Read Part 2 here