Books by Nick Spalding
Life… With No Breaks
Life… On A High
Life… The U.S Editions
Love… From Both Sides
The Cornerstone
Spine Slaughter
I, Zombie
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Copyright © Nick Spalding 2011
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by Racket Publishing
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Spine Slaughter
Nick Spalding
Racket Publishing
Author’s Note
In an early chapter of my first autobiography Life… With No Breaks I made passing reference to a short story about killer hedgehogs I’d written at the tender age of 18.
Several readers commented on this, prompting me to hunt the story down for a spot of light reminiscing.
To my surprise - and horror - I found it lurking in the loft, on some yellowing A4 paper under a pile of old magazines. It was as clichéd, humourless and badly written as I’d feared.
Still, always one for a bit of recycling, I thought I’d write a new version to see if the story could be salvaged with the injection of some much needed humour.
As an effective and chilling tale of horror it was beyond all hope.
As a very silly and preposterous comedy it stood a slim chance.
This may not be the best short story you’ll read today, but I guarantee it will be the most ridiculous.
Here it is then:
Spine Slaughter.
Written by Nick Spalding - aged 18.
Edited by Nick Spalding - aged 38.
Please don’t take it seriously…
Warm sun bathed the late afternoon in a cheery glow as Jenny Smithfield skipped into the garden to play with her dolls. She’s spent the day helping mummy with chores and was looking forward to some quality time with Hugs-a-Lot Bear and his friends.
At the bottom of the garden was Jenny’s playhouse. Built by her father six months ago, Jenny had more or less moved into the brightly painted wooden monstrosity - whiling away the hours by herself, or with the collection of sticky children that were her friends.
Jenny crawled into her favourite place in the whole wide world and started the important, complicated process of arranging yet another tea party for Hugs-a-Lot’s birthday.
Hug’s-a-Lot had been blessed with many birthdays in his life – he was about two hundred and thirty six at this point.
Jenny sat Hugs-a-Lot at the top of an imaginary table, with various glass-eyed dolls and fluffy teddy bears set at neat intervals around him - plastic cups and cutlery at the ready.
She was happily pouring out a cup of make believe tea for the birthday boy when a psychopathic hedgehog attacked her.
There was no pre-amble or build up. One minute the playhouse was completely hedgehog free, the next it was full of the bugger.
It came out from the undergrowth six feet in front of the playhouse. Not with the usual slow, laboured gait associated with the spiky creatures, but at a mad dash - its tiny legs flailing around at manic speed.
It was like someone had stuck a firework up its arse and retreated to a safe distance.
The hedgehog grunted and snarled as it sped through the long grass and into the playhouse, invading the tea party and making a bee line for the hostess.
Jenny screamed as the spiky little horror jumped into her lap, gave her a hungry look, and sprung towards her face - needle sharp teeth seeking her soft flesh.
As the hedgehog gained purchase, others came pouring in, growling and slobbering. They too jumped onto poor old Jenny, joining in the feeding frenzy.
To describe the scene of horror that took place next would be stomach churning in the extreme.
Words like ‘splatter’ and ‘arterial’ would have to be used.
We might even go so far as to employ ‘viscera’ and ‘gobbets’ - if we were feeling really descriptive.
Hell, chuck in ‘entrails’ and ‘brain matter’ and we’ve pretty much covered all the bases.
Needless to say, Hugs-a-Lot Bear fast became Covered In Guts-a-Lot Bear.
All in all, it wasn’t a pleasant five minute period and it’d take way more than one bucket of bleach and a pair of marigolds to clean the mess up.
Jenny Smithfield was the first victim of the unlikely creatures from Hell. She most certainly wouldn’t be the last.
In the three hours that followed, the pleasant leafy hamlet of Wincing On Thames was turned into a village of bloodshed - which is like a cowshed, only a great deal bloodier.
Where the maniacal hedgehogs came from, nobody knew.
In any other story of this type – one that isn’t this short and written by an author who enjoys attention to detail - you’d no doubt find out how the monsters came to be.
There would probably be some blather about hideous experiments gone awry, or an evil curse laid down by a fat gypsy woman.
…you know the type of thing. You’ve heard it a thousand times before, no doubt.
When you get right down to it though, what we’re talking about here is a horde of aggressive, mutated, maniacal hedgehogs. That’s all you really need to know, to be honest.
Any proper explanation probably wouldn’t cut the mustard anyway, so it’s best just to forget about it and move on to the next scene of death and destruction…
Which will take place in a rather lovely four bedroom detached house, isolated in the quiet wooded outskirts of the village - but still in easy reach of local shopping amenities by car.
It was also located for convenient access to the motorway and main arterial routes into London - proving that when it comes to attention to detail, this author really needs to make his mind up.
It’s been three hours since Jenny Smithfield’s last few moments on Earth and the hedgehogs have subsequently run rampant through Wincing On Thames, in an orgy of destruction that would cost millions to recreate in a movie adaptation.
The house belongs to Peter Bracken and his wife Lesley.
They’re both on holiday in the Seychelles, leaving the place in the care of their teenage daughter Tiffany.
Now, in a story like this you’d expect Tiffany to be a right stunner.
…and you’d be absolutely right.
She’s nubile.
She’s pert.
She’s bubbly.
She’s the type of nineteen year old girl that only exists in stories like this - and in the imaginations of forty two year old men who spend way to much time playing World of Warcraft, and have no idea how to spell clitoris, let alone know what to do with one.
Tiffany always dresses in a tiny pleated mini-skirt and a tight t-shirt.
…yes, her hair is inexplicably tied up in schoolgirl bunches, how did you guess?
She’s currently curled up on the sofa with her boyfriend, a tree trunk of a boy called Darren, who couldn’t produce an original thought in his head if you dangled him over a pit of exploding scorpions and threatened to cut the rope.
For the ladies who might be reading - and for the sake of balance - Darren looks a bit like George Clooney, crossed with the good looking guy you saw in that aftershave advert a couple of weeks ago.
His nickname is ‘horse’. For reasons which should be fairly obvious.
Darren is wearing whatever the hell you think shows off his physique nicely.
The two lovebirds are currently watching a romantic comedy featuring Jennifer Aniston.
In it, she plays a woman who learns that love can appear in the most unexpected places.
This plot is more or less the same for every Jennifer Aniston film ever made.
Not that Tiffany and Darren have really been following the story…
She’s been practising how to suck a golf ball through a hose, and he’s been learning to breathe through his ears.
Interrupting this romantic interlude is the doorbell, which plays a surprisingly faithful rendition of It’s Hip To be Square by Huey Lewis And The News.
‘Who’s that?’ said Tiffany, wiping off what was left of her lipstick.
‘The doorbell,’ replied Darren – which for him was actually quite an intelligent statement.
Tiffany stood and walked out of the lounge to the front door.
She made sure a shaft of moonlight ran across her naked body in a tantalising fashion, before reluctantly slipping on her robe.
Darren just lay glistening on the couch flexing his pectoral muscles.
The doorbell rang again… and again.
Whoever was on the other side wanted Tiffany’s attention urgently.
The girl ran her hand provocatively through her glorious honey blonde hair and with a frown creasing her perfect alabaster looks, she opened the front door.
‘You took your fucking time, didn’t you?’ said a blood splattered teenage boy standing on the porch.
‘Who are you?’ Tiffany asked, her warm, sensual voice full of concern.
‘I’m the twat who’s spent the last three hours killing hedgehogs with this,’ the boy replied, waggling a gore streaked hockey stick at her. ‘You gonna let us in before more of the bastards turn up, or am I going to have to fight them off on your porch?’
‘Us?’ Tiffany said.
Three people appeared from behind a large bush to the left of the house: A teenage girl dressed like a punk, a middle aged man sporting a thin moustache dressed in a cheap suit, and a pregnant woman.
‘Jase? She going to let us in?’ the punk girl said.
‘Dunno yet Scab. I’m in the middle of negotiations.’
‘Why are you covered in blood?’ Tiffany said to the boy.
He looked incredulous. ‘Where the hell have you been for the past few hours?’
‘Here in my house with Darren. We’ve been… busy.’
‘Really? So you haven’t noticed the hoard of killer hedgehogs then?’
‘Killer hedgehogs?’ Tiffany may have had the IQ of a halibut, but even she could tell this was an unlikely story.
‘Yes… killer hedgehogs. They started leaping on everyone this afternoon.’
Tiffany frowned. ‘You’re having me on. That’s stupid, that is. There’s no such thing as killer hedgehogs.’
At that precise moment, six killer hedgehogs came running into the front garden and raced up the path, their little legs making a horrible scrabbling sound on the concrete.
‘On no?’ screamed Scab the punk, ‘then what the fuck are those?’
‘Get in the house!’ the boy shouted.
Scab and the pregnant woman scuttled in through the door, barging past Tiffany.
Moustache gave the hedgehogs a wild look before following them across the threshold. ‘Best of luck, Jason!’ he said, disappearing into the house.