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  LARRY 3D

  Adam Millard is the author of twenty novels, ten novellas, and more than a hundred short stories, which can be found in various collections and anthologies. Probably best known for his post-apocalyptic fiction, Adam also writes fantasy/horror for children, as well as bizarro fiction for several publishers. His “Dead” series has been the filling in a Stephen King/Bram Stoker sandwich on Amazon’s bestsellers chart, and the translation rights have recently sold to German publisher, Voodoo Press.

  LARRY 3D

  ADAM MILLARD

  Copyright © 2016 Adam Millard

  This Edition Published 2017 by Crowded

  Quarantine Publications

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  All characters in this publication are fictitious

  and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead,

  is purely coincidental.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this publication may be reproduced,

  stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any

  form or by any means without the prior

  permission in writing of the publisher, nor be

  otherwise circulated in any form of binding or

  cover other than that in which it is published

  and without a similar condition including this

  condition being imposed on the subsequent purchase.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book

  is available from the British Library

  ISBN: 978-0-9954537-6-0

  Crowded Quarantine Publications

  34 Cheviot Road

  Wolverhampton

  West Midlands

  WV2 2HD

  For Kirstii Baxter. You know why.

  “Part Threes are usually shit. Good job I’m here to make sure this one is more Dream Warriors than Poltergeist III.”

  - Larry ‘Pigface’ Travers

  ONE

  “Pinhead, Freddy, Chucky and the Tall Man all walk into a bar. Sensing danger, the bartender skedaddles. Freddy turns to Chucky and says, ‘Fucking hell, you ginger midget, you could have toned it down a bit’.” Hank Pleasance laughed maniacally, as he always did at his own jokes. So heartily did he laugh that his cheeks reddened and he began to pass wind. Freya knew he was passing wind because he’d crossed his legs, as he always did when he passed wind. “You get it? It’s because he’s ginger, and also a midget.”

  Freya Lee Curtis nodded. “Yeah, Hank, I get it. I just don’t think it’s funny.” And it wasn’t. There was nothing funny about ginger people or midgets, even when you combined the two.

  “Shit, babe, lighten up,” Hank said, still chortling to himself. “Why do you always have to defend ginger midgets?”

  “I don’t,” Freya said, lighting a cigarette. “In fact, that was the first time.”

  “Look, if you want to fuck a ginger midget, that’s fine with me. Just say the word; I’ve got plenty of girls lined up for me. I had an email just the other day from a hot wife in my area. Horny as hell, she was, and experienced. All I need is a webcam and a credit card…” Hank trailed off there as the queue began to move forwards. When it came to a grinding halt three feet later, Hank continued. “What I’m trying to say, Freya, is that this boy’s got options. Granted, most of them are over fifty, and at least one of them I think has a dick, but they’re options all the same.”

  Freya sighed. This relationship was going nowhere—she had known it ever since Hank professed his love for Amityville Dollhouse—and at the end of the weekend they would, like Brad and Angelina before them and Adolf and Eva before them, be over. The only difference was, if Hank decided to shoot himself on Sunday, Freya wouldn’t be ingesting poison alongside him. There weren’t many things she wouldn’t put in her mouth, but Cyanide was certainly on the list. Cyanide and avocado.

  “Are we ever going to get inside?” Hank stepped out of line for a moment to get a better look at the theatre entrance. “There’s a guy up front dressed as Chucky. You want me to bring him back here so you can straddle him?”

  Just two more days, Freya thought. Two more days and she could shake free of this imbecile for good. It wasn’t fair for her to do it now, before FearFest 2017 had already begun. Hank had paid for the tickets. That would be like severing a dude’s head just in case he turned into a zombie at a later date. No, she would wait until the curtain fell for the final time on Sunday. Until then she would put up with his terrible jokes, his appalling flatulence, his propensity to use big words in order to sound smarter than he actually was, even though he didn’t know what they meant.

  “Ah, I think the queue’s about to start coagulating again,” Hank said. “Thank God for that. I thought we were going to die of preponderance out here.”

  Idiot, Freya thought. And as if that wasn’t quite enough: Fucking idiot.

  *

  “This is going to be awesome!” Marcia Hodder said. “Do you have any idea how long I’ve waited for this convention? Do you? DO YOU?”

  “Calm your tits, Marcia,” said Cynthia Price. “I’m sure it’s going to be great, but you don’t have to go all Annie Wilkes on us.”

  “Leave her alone, Cynthia” said the final element of their trio, Aretha Cushing. To Marcia she said, “Go wild, girl. It’s going to be a great weekend. I hear there are going to be loads of special guests. That weird bug-eyed little fella from The Human Centipede 2 is supposed to be here.”

  “O-M-G!” Marcia said, enunciating each syllable for dramatic effect, and also to make sure she spelt is right. “I love that creepy little fucker. Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” She licked her lips seductively.

  “What?” Cynthia asked. “Try to get an autograph?”

  “Try to fuck him,” replied Marcia. This was met with various exaggerated sounds of disgust, but Marcia didn’t care. The guy was a film star; it didn’t matter if he looked like the bastard lovechild of Marty Feldman and a walrus. He was famous, and famous people are rich. “Besides, he’s kind of cute.”

  “In the same way the baby from Dead Alive is cute?” Cynthia said. “Seriously, girl, we need to find you a nice boy, before you end up popping your cherry to Michael Berryman.”

  Marcia didn’t have time for boys. The thought of being tied down to one for any longer than was necessary made bile rise in her throat. “Not interested,” she said, running a hand through her jet-black hair.

  “Oh, that’s right,” Cynthia said. “You’re saving yourself for Corey Haim.”

  “Corey Feldman,” Marcia corrected. Although, if Corey Haim were to somehow claw his way up to ground level, she wouldn’t say no. So long as he washed his penis first.

  “Whatever,” Cynthia went on. “Point being, you’re not gonna fuck anyone at FearFest because that’s not the kind of girl you are. You’re a Final Girl if ever I saw one. No sex, but at the end of the day you’ll still be walking around while the rest of us are decapitated and spread about the place like Halloween props.”

  Aretha nodded. “It’s nothing to be ashamed of, Marcia,” she said. “Final Girls are awesome. Laurie Strode? Marybeth Dunston? Sidney Prescott? I wish I had the self-discipline you do. Alas, like Cynthia, I’m far too slutty to be a Final Girl. I gave two blowjobs on the way over here.”

  “You only live two blocks away,” Marcia said.

  “Exactly. I’m not proud of myself, but these guys were so sweet. And grateful, too. They said they would prefer a BJ to a dollar. I don’t look at it as sucking two homeless guys off; I look at it as saving two dollars.” She picked something from between her teeth and sprinkled it onto the pavement.

  Marcia glanced down at the ticket in her hand. FearFest 2017 – Admit One. It was going to be an amazing weekend of gore and chills. She slipped the ticket into
her purse and took out a packet of mints. “Please have one of these,” she said to Aretha.

  *

  At the front of the line, Billy Englund’s heart raced. He was nervous, and with good reason. The convention organisers had been watching him for the last half-hour, dubious sideways glances that told Billy everything he needed to know.

  They were going to fuck with him.

  At four-foot-nothing, Billy Englund was by far the shortest person in the line. So short was Billy that the person behind him—a heavy-set guy dressed as Butterball from Hellraiser I and II—had taken to balancing his soda on top of Billy’s head. Billy had wanted to complain, but it simply wasn’t worth it. And besides, every now and then he would catch a whiff of Pineapple Fanta, so it was swings and roundabouts.

  “Next!” The woman blocking the theatre entrance was dressed in all black; black tee, Kevlar vest, utility-belt, as if she had a second job right after this one taking on shit that Snake Plissken was too pussy for. A semi-covert earpiece had been pushed into her lughole, and a microphone was wrapped around her face as if she might belt out a Britney song unannounced.

  Billy took a tentative step forwards, tripped over the bottoms of his Good Guy dungarees, and face-planted into the door supervisor’s crotch.

  “At least buy me a drink first,” said the lady, pushing Billy’s head away before appraising him once again. “You’re a little one, ain’t you.”

  “Especially in the trouser department,” Billy said, though for the life of him he didn’t know why. He was nervous, and when he was nervous he said stupid things.

  “You do know this convention is for grown-ups only?” said the lady. “The Pixar convention is next week.”

  Billy took a deep breath. He knew this was going to happen. It always happened. No matter where he went people mocked his height, or lack thereof. “I’m thirty-eight-years-old,” he said, pulling out his ID and showing it to her. She dismissed it with a wave of the hand.

  “Anyone can forge an ID these days, little man,” she said. “And by the way, did you know you have a can of Pineapple Fanta balancing on your head?”

  “It smells nice,” said Billy. “Look, how am I going to prove to you that I’m old enough to come in? I don’t have my birth certificate on me, and my chinchilla ate my passport.”

  “In that case, Willow, I’m going to have to ask you to step aside and let these regular-sized people past. This queue ain’t getting any shorter, and the first film starts in less than an hour.”

  “What about if I show you the colour of my pubes?” It was a long-shot, but needs must. “It’s like a mini Gandalf down there.”

  The lady shrugged. “Sure, why not. This introduction to your character has been going on for far too long already. Let’s get it over with.”

  Billy unclasped his Good Guys dungarees and pulled his Thundercats briefs to one side. “See? I’m probably older than you. Look at the state of it?”

  “It’s like Morgan Freeman got tangled up with Brian May,” said the lady, squinting at Billy’s crotch with no small amount of fascination. She straightened up, motioned for Billy to redo his dungarees. “Okay, well, I guess there’s no arguing with that. You’re clearly old enough to get in, and also in need of a good willy doctor.” She snatched the ticket from Billy’s hand and stepped aside. “May you have a wonderful weekend, and if you need anything—a step for the toilet, perhaps, or a periscope—come and find me and I’ll see what I can do. My name is Jackie Haig. If you can’t find me, find anyone wearing a red tee-shirt. They’re the convention redshirts, and it’s their job to make sure you have a good time.”

  “Thanks, Jackie,” Billy said, stepping past her.

  For a moment, Billy thought the security lady was going to pat him on the head (“Good little man!”) but she didn’t. She removed the Pineapple Fanta and handed it to its rightful owner, the next man in line.

  Into the convention Billy Englund went, beyond proud of his Chucky cosplay and the fact he’d made it past security without the organisers offering him a lollipop.

  *

  Towards the back of the queue stood a portly man dressed as Freddy Krueger, who looked more like a potato that had been left in the microwave for too long than the Springfield Slasher. The razors on his gloved fingers were floppy, made from plastic, purchased from a pop-up dollar Halloween store nine months prior to the event, because this Fat Freddy was nothing if not punctual.

  Todd Tony had been a fan of Freddy Krueger for as long as he could remember. There was something about Freddy which separated him from the ten-a-penny slashers ubiquitous in the eighties and nineties. Where Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees silently stalked their victims, Freddy wisecracked them to death. He was funny, and creepy as hell at the same time. Todd hoped that when he died, he would come back as a sleep demon, just like his idol.

  “Who’s you meant to be, then?” The voice startled Todd; he had been in world of his own. He turned around to find a short woman—older than time itself, or at least Clint Eastwood—staring back at him from beneath a dark hood. Her grin, Todd thought, might once have contained teeth, but not anymore. Black gums, like top-and-bottom slugs, glistened in the early morning sunlight.

  “I’m the bastard son of a hundred maniacs,” Todd said.

  “What, like Donald Trump?” The woman cackled. She would have made a pretty good Disney villain. Todd half-expected her to whip out a poisoned apple.

  “Freddy Krueger,” Todd said. “You know? The Springfield Slasher, AKA Frederick Charles Krueger, AKA pizza-face, AKA—”

  “You’s a virgin, aintcha?” hissed the woman, shaking her head. “Bastard son of a hundred maniacs, indeed. When I was your age I was working sixty-hour weeks, trying not to get blowed up by the Germans. And I’d also shagged a dozen men, some of ‘em German. That’s how you don’t get blowed up by ‘em.”

  Todd didn’t know what to say to that, so he changed the subject. “Who have you come as?”

  “What? You don’t recognise me? I’m Edie Travers, mother to Larry ‘Pigface’ Travers. My Larry would give your Freddy nightmares any day of the week.”

  Now that the woman had said it, Todd realised how good her cosplay was. She looked just like the woman who had given birth to Pigface. It was uncanny. If he didn’t know any better, he would have said it really was her. “Is that the film you’re here to see?” he said. “I hear it’s in 3D, which is cool, so long as it’s that good 3D, and not the one where they occasionally jab something out at the audience like they did in Friday the 13th Part Three.”

  The woman grinned, flashing her blackjack gums once again. “It’s certainly going to be… an experience,” she said. “My Larry would have loved to see himself on the big screen.”

  Does this woman actually believe she’s Edie Travers? Todd thought. Maybe she was senile. Or perhaps she just liked to get into the character once the hood was on. A method cosplayer.

  “I’ll bet your Larry never contemplated being portrayed by Willem Dafoe, though,” Todd said, playing along.

  “Who?”

  “The actor playing Larry in the film,” Todd said. “He’s Willem Dafoe, one of the greatest actors never to win an Academy Award. Also, he gets his knob out more often than should be allowed. Maybe that’s why he’s not yet won an Oscar.”

  “This Willem Dafoe?” said the old woman. “He’s not one of these crazy actors, is he? Like Nicolas Cage or Dennis Hopper?”

  Todd laughed. “Dafoe is the king of OTT!” he said. “He’s chewed more scenery than Cage, Hopper, and Pacino combined.”

  The woman visibly deflated. “I ‘ope he don’t fuck up my Larry’s reputation. It took him ages to get the respect he deserved as a much-feared backwoods slasher. I’d ‘ate it for some thespian to come in and put the mockers on ‘im.”

  “I’m sure he will do your Larry justice,” Todd said. The queue had begun moving forwards. “He was good in Antichrist… got his knob out in that one… and Body of Evidence with Madonna… got
his knob out in that one… and…”

  TWO

  Inside the theatre, people ambled back and forth across the foyer, spilling popcorn as they tried to grab a quick chat with the directors and producers in attendance or the stars of the films themselves.

  “This is madness,” Freya said. “I thought it would be busy, but I didn’t expect it to be this busy.”

  “They’re showing a previously unreleased cut of The Shining,” Hank said, motioning to a twenty-foot poster suspended from wires above them. “It’s a 90-minute Director’s Cut in which Shelley Duvall’s character has been completely edited out and Jack Torrance, who only gets custody of Danny on the second and fourth weekends of the month, decides to whip the kid up to the Overlook for a bit of father-son time.”

  “Sounds a bit far-fetched,” Freya said. “But if all evidence of Wendy has been edited out, I’m up for it. What time’s that one showing?”

  “All day in Screen 237,” Hank said. “It’s normally just Screen 2, but they’re getting in the spirit of things.”

  Freya took out her purse and began riffling for change. She was already hungry, and she’d be positively skeletal by the end of the day if she waited for Hank to buy her a hotdog. He didn’t like it when she ate junk food but, come Monday, she would be able to eat whatever she liked. A life of tacos and burgers and cheese awaited her. She didn’t care if she got fat. As far as she was concerned, she was losing a hundred-and-eighty-two pounds in one day on Monday. Not a bad start.

  She set off for the concessions counter without saying a word.

  “Hey, where you going?” Hank called after her.

  She pretended she didn’t hear him, made her way past what she assumed was not a genuine killer leprechaun, and got in line behind three girls who couldn’t seem to make their minds up about which flavour of ice cream to get.