Man of Ruin Read online

  OLIVER FRANKS

  Rocket Fuel Pee

  Book One: Man of Ruin

  First published by Darkside Fiction Press in 2018

  Copyright © Oliver Franks, 2018

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.

  This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Oliver Franks asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

  Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.

  Cover by Jake @ jcalebdesign.com

  Edited by Bodie Dykstra

  First edition

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Copyright

  About the Author

  A Note on the Text

  Foreword from Dave

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Final Word from Dave

  Notes from the Author

  Acknowledgements

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Oliver Franks is an author from Brighton, England. He writes a unique blend of science fiction, magic realism, dark comedy and fantastical tales - what might be called speculative misadventure. Embracing the magic of the strange, the dangerous and the vaguely possible, he fills his stories with intriguing settings, larger than life characters and amazing happenings. His mission is to enthrall and challenge readers with darkly comic entertainment whilst telling stories with a point, even if that point isn’t always immediately obvious. Otherwise, indeed, what is the point?

  Visit his website for more information and to subscribe to his newsletter list. It’s probably worth it for the free book alone.

  https://oliverfranksauthor.com/

  A NOTE ON THE TEXT

  Please note that this book has been written in British English, not American English.

  This made sense to the author for a number of reasons. Firstly, the author is himself English. Secondly, the main character and narrator of the story is English. So if it were not written in British English, that would be very strange now wouldn’t it.

  That said, several American characters feature in Book Two and Book Three, and the author, being a great lover of American culture, has tried to faithfully reproduce American speech patterns in those books.

  Right now though, you are reading Man of Ruin, which is Book One in the Rocket Fuel Pee series.

  And Book One is pure, 100%, unadulterated, cor-blimey-governor, fish-and-chip-shop, football-not-soccer, God-Save-the-Queen British English.

  And proud.

  FOREWORD FROM DAVE

  Firstly, I should tell you I’ve never written anything before. Or dictated, as I am doing now. Sure, I’ve written all kinds of bollocks for school and sent plenty of work-related emails in my time. But that’s not the same at all. So excuse me if my style is a little rough around the edges. That’s just me. I’m not a writer, okay?

  This is my story, my testament. What really happened and how I ended up who and where I am today. As much as I hate writing, I couldn’t let anyone else tell it for me. They’d only mess it up. Over-do it. Under-do it. Or make me look like a twat.

  Yes, by the way, I was a twat. Am a twat. But it all happened to me, so I figure I should be the one to tell it. You all need to know who the real Dave is. The legend is bollocks, mostly. Some details might be public record, but to be honest, no one has a clue what I’ve been through. Not really. How could they? But it’s all true. Everything I tell you here really happened to me.

  A little warning before I launch into it. I won’t be mincing words. I’ll be giving you the full picture. There are plenty of parts that aren’t pretty. This is definitely not the tidiest tale ever told. A lot of it is just gross. But I’ve promised to tell it like it was. How it was. So you’ll be getting all the gory details straight from the horse’s mouth.

  In a nutshell, this is your final warning. If you don’t think you can handle it, I suggest you stop reading now. If you’re game for it, cool. Listen up. Listen good.

  Signed: Dave Smith

  CHAPTER 1

  IT STARTED WITH THE MOTHER of all hangovers. A real stinker. Like when the world spins around you and it’s not real somehow, almost in black and white, and you don’t even know who or where you are but you don’t give a monkey’s either ’cos your head is thumping so hard, banging away, metal scratching on metal. All you want is to live, and to do that, you need liquid, lots of it, preferably cold and fizzy and sweet, and some pills, maybe a splash of water on your face. But more basically, firstly, you just need to stay still, very still, and horizontal, and just let it all spin around you. It could be the end of the world outside for all you care.

  Eventually, I opened my eyes. My face was kissing the pillow, my lips were parched, and my throat was dry and crinkly like scrunched paper, like ashtrays left out in the rain overnight and dried by the morning sun. My stomach rumbled with the toxic sludge of the previous night’s excesses. It was still just a blur to me, that night, not such an unusual position to find myself in on a Saturday morning. Yet somehow, this morning, it was different. Something niggled at me. Something bad. I couldn’t say what, why or how, yet I had the strong feeling things weren’t quite right. Alarm bells were ringing in my head.

  I dragged myself out of bed and opened the curtains. I did this purely on instinct, and though the sky was cloudy, it was still more than bright enough to stun my fragile eyes. I stood there rubbing them, wondering what the devil had happened the night before. That disturbing feeling gnawed. I sensed there had been some kind of anarchy, something of my causing. It wasn’t unusual for me to cause mayhem on a Friday night, but this felt different. Was it Alice, perhaps? Had I bumped into her again? Said something I shouldn’t have?

  I scratched my neck, then my chest, thigh and, finally, my arse. I always get scratchy in the morning, especially on a hangover and especially when something’s bugging me.

  Whatever had happened, I desperately needed water, so I padded over to the box-like space that served as living-room-cum-dining-room-cum-kitchen in the small, ex-council flat I called home. I poured myself a glass, looking out the window over the dull suburban houses. My block stood out like a sore thumb from the outside but afforded nice little toy-box views from within. As I drank down the precious liquid, I watched a car wind its way up the road, a right old banger spewing out black smoke from its exhaust. Disgusted, I leaned against the counter and stared at the poster of the milky way on the wall above my telly. I wondered about the millions of little green men we’d yet to meet out there in that big wide galaxy. I bet they didn’t drive sooty old bangers. What were they doing right n
ow? Were any of them scratching, anxious, thirsty like me?

  When I’d finished the water, my bladder pinged me with that little tightening feeling. I needed to pee. Something flashed momentarily in my mind, a vague sense of danger. Perhaps I had pissed on the neighbour’s front door again. I groaned and tried to push that nasty little thought out of my mind as I headed to the loo.

  As I pulled the toilet seat up, the alarm bells in my head still hadn’t stopped. In fact, they grew louder. I knew there was something I desperately needed to figure out, yet the night before was still all just blurs and flashes.

  When my wee spurted out bright, luminous green, hitting the water and somehow causing it to fizz violently, when the bowl cracked from its impact and water started running over my feet, only then did it all start tumbling back. Then, of course, the whole memory stormed through my mind like the punching fist of some bastard I wished I’d never met.

  *****

  It was a Friday night, a classic mad one. I had a special routine on Fridays. A triple quarter pounder for lunch and, in the evening, a proper curry and beers with the lads. All the trimmings. What I call the “full-on works,” meaning too much food and pint after pint, shot after shot. Full tilt.

  The lads and I ended up in the Dog and Whistle, and as per usual I was more than a little bit pissed. That’s where it happened. The awful moment came back to me, hazy but clear enough.

  “Do you know what? Sod it!” I remembered saying with the intention of buying yet another round of Jäger bombs. Then my body shuddered, my bladder pushing on my scrotum like an overblown balloon. “Wait, do you know what? I’m bursting here!” I said before running to the bogs with the piss to end all pisses.

  I staggered and bumped my way to the urinal, my belly bouncing. When I unzipped my jeans, I could barely see my penis under that bulging hairy flab. That’s where the rocket fuel was churning and mixing, for this week had been a good one, a reckless one. McDonald’s followed by KFC followed by Burger King followed by full gut-buster English followed by . . . Well, let’s just say every day I did what I wanted, consumed all I wanted. And that day was a Friday, and I’ve already explained what that meant.

  When the pee finally came, it spewed out thickly and in vivid green, like a power hose or one of those water cannons the police use to batter down protesters, only this time shooting out some kind of noxious toxic waste. It smashed vigorously against the urinal, and when it impacted, I noticed it was making this fizzing, bubbling sound and there was this odd yellow-grey smoke where it was somehow going straight through the thick metal plating.

  It was a shock of course, but I was drunk and didn’t have time to think. The acid green pee just kept on coming. Not knowing what else to do, I wiggled left and right. The luminescent liquid cut deep lines all over the urinal. Soon, it had melted away entirely into a slimy and smoky mess, and the whole wall split apart. Before I knew it, I was looking directly onto the patio outside, where people were sitting, open-jawed—me watching them watching me standing there, just finished with my epic pee. The strangest of moments. It was only broken by a creaking sound above—the roof about to cave in!

  I jumped back just in time to see a cloud of dust and water squirting out from the now-exposed plumbing.

  Dusting myself off, I zipped up.

  People watched me in amazement from the patio. A woman giggled, and some guy said, “Mate, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I don’t know, mate,” I said, looking all around at the scene of destruction. “I’ve never had any beef with this wall before.”

  They laughed, but I knew I had caused serious damage. As soon as I could, I grabbed the lads from inside. Me, Martin, James, Tony, Brian. We legged it from the place.

  The lads seemed to think it was just made-up nonsense. They didn’t believe me when I told them how my pee had turned into some kind of super strong acid.

  “Davey, what are you on, mate?” they said. “More like you’ve taken acid!”

  Perhaps, if it had been any other night, I might have stopped, gone home, but it was still a Friday night and those were almost holy for me; I never wanted them to end.

  “Alright, buy me a couple more pints and I’ll show you!” I said.

  So we went to another pub and they did.

  Now, I was drunk, yes, but I wasn’t crazy. I knew something strange was up, so for my demonstration, I resolved on an empty playground rather than another pub. I thought of the swings and the slides and the climbing frame. No people, lots of metal, big fun!

  “Right, up you go.” I directed Tony onto the climbing frame.

  Once he’d climbed to the top, I called out. “Now hold on tight, mate, and be prepared to jump the moment this baby goes down!”

  He laughed at me.

  I peed all over that thing. Once again, there was that luminous green liquid, that fizz and the yellowish-grey smoke, and then there was this creaking and shuddering and, soon enough, the juddering sharp slippage of metal bars disconnecting and sliding into each other as the structure lost its shape and fell in on itself.

  Tony jumped off just in time.

  “Shit, Dave, you’re a freak!” he cried. “What’ve you been drinking? What’ve you been doing with your knob?”

  They all laughed, but it was half-heartedly, confused.

  And that was pretty much it. It was late already and we were drunk as skunks, so we all just decided to head home, swearing each other to secrecy. I think. The memory got sketchier the deeper I tried to probe. I did remember passing out in a flop on my bed. It was shocking, to be sure, but booze can take the edge off anything. At that point, it all just seemed like some kind of silly dream.

  *****

  Picture the moment now. There I was, all of this nonsense running through my head, my brain aching like buggery anyway, what with all the hangover and everything. The toilet before me was completely broken, falling apart like some kind of plastic toy. Without even thinking, I continued to pee into what was left of it, lines of my lurid green liquid slicing it up like it was papier mâché, the plumbing underneath squirting up streams of water with God knows what else floating in there.

  I was stunned. My jaw dropped. My legs wobbled. My whole body shook.

  I finished my wee and stumbled backwards in a daze, back to the living room.

  I leaned against the sofa and just breathed.

  “What the hell? What the absolute hell?”

  I said these words out loud to no one in particular.

  “What the bastard is going on?”

  I went to the window and looked down to the frosty street.

  “What has happened to my member?”

  Todge! Knob! Weiner! All the silly words in the universe for that little organ streamed through my mind. I stared down at the little bump in my underpants, where he was, shaking my head again and again. It was as if he was looking back, shrugging his shoulders and saying, “Be damned if I’ve got a clue, mate.”

  It was crazy. Insane. Bonkers. The whole room spun around me in fractals of this madness. I kept running through the previous night in my mind, all the terrible details. The pub, the playground. Serious damage I’d caused. And the lads were there to witness it, weren’t they?

  A loud crack from the bathroom jolted me. The sink had given way now, smashing down onto the tiles, widening the gaping hole in the floor.

  Christ, I thought. The neighbours’ll be getting up in a mo’, and then how will I explain things?

  All the while, I had this horrid little voice barking at me, sort of like my dad when he was in a mood, telling me to sort myself out. But there was no sorting this bugger out. I was pissing what appeared to be acid. Not just any acid, but some kind of super strong acid that could cut through stuff. Even metal. It was like one of those alien movies. Somehow, I was the alien.

  Yet everything else about me was perfectly normal. Fat, pudgy, soft, round. Stupid. The chubby lad everyone loved or maybe just tolerated. Only now there was this incy wincy te
eny weeny difference that could wreck your toilet. And God knows what else besides.

  What the bloody hell would I do?

  CHAPTER 2

  “MATE,” I CROAKED DOWN the mobile to Martin.

  “Davey?” he said.

  “Yeah, it’s me.”

  “You alright?”

  He sounded just as croaky as me and I took some comfort in that. Good old Martin. He’d help me get my head together. It was early morning, but this was an emergency.

  “No, mate, not really,” I said.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Not sure exactly. You remember last night, don’t you?”

  I could hear him yawning. “It’s all a bit of a blur to be honest, mate. A bit of a mad one, wasn’t it?”

  He chuckled in that laddish way of his, yet his laughter was tainted by what I suspected to be the same uneasy niggling suspicion I’d felt earlier.

  “Can I come over, mate?” I said.

  “Wot? Now?” he said, not sounding overly keen.

  “Yeah. I need to get out. Got some issues in the flat here. It’d be easier to talk about it face to face.”

  “Alright, whatever,” he said.

  He sounded tired and thoroughly unenthusiastic, and I didn’t blame him, really.

  *****

  I chucked on some easy-wear clothes, tracky bottoms and a sweater and that, and banged a pizza in the microwave for a slap-up brekkie. To be honest, I was in a bit of a panic, and panicking is one of the things I hate most in the world, after being hungry and not having enough sleep. I imagined the footsteps of people in the flat beneath me, the neighbours—a middle-aged couple, readers of the Daily Mail who hated the world outside of their small horizons and did so with little sense of humour. They’d be banging on my door any minute now, expecting reasonable explanations for the unjustifiable ruining of their lav.

  Throat dry, hungry stomach ripping at my insides, I took the bubbling pizza from the microwave and grabbed a half-finished litre of Coke from the fridge. I drank the lovely brown stuff down in one go, burped away the bubbles and guzzled the greasy pizza in a few monster bites.