Apocalypse Now Now Read online

  ‘I know,’ I say hoarsely. ‘I’m just –’

  ‘It’s OK,’ she says, sliding forward to kiss me softly on the lips.

  My heart cracks like a honeycomb splitting and drips thick gooey love into my chest. You know when you’re a little kid and you think clouds are soft and smooth and you dream of rolling around in the sky on them? That’s what making out with Esmé is like.

  The next day doesn’t exactly compete with the previous night in terms of excitement. My dad has fetched me from school at lunch break to take me to visit my grandfather, who lives in a depressing retirement home which is a fifteen-minute drive from Westridge. The tyres of my dad’s car crunch on the stones of the Shady Pines driveway and I look up at the old vine-covered building in despair. I have a thousand things to do and visiting old people is not on the agenda. I’m here because my grandfather is dying and I have been forced to come and pay my respects to the eldest of the Zevcenko lineage.

  ‘Come on, Bax,’ my dad says. ‘It won’t be that bad.’

  ‘Sure,’ I say sullenly.

  It will be that bad, not least because Grandpa Zevcenko is ‘different’. Which is a nice way of saying ‘totally insane’. I haven’t seen him since the Great Family Brawl of 2008 and that I’d really rather forget.

  To understand the Great Brawl you need to understand my uncle Roger. My father’s brother is a man who wears a wide-brimmed hat and speaks of the Devil as easily as other men speak about sport. Yes, Uncle Roger is a religious fanatic with burning eyes and a homoerotic love for the biggest Bearded One who patrols the clouds and your thoughts.

  When Grandpa Zevcenko brought up the giant crows, Roger would stir like a great monitor lizard poked with a sharp stick, and Christmas 2008 was one such time. Grandpa Zev had been enjoying the Johnnie Walker a little too much that day but nobody had minded at first. Food had been gluttoned, crackers had been cracked, family nostalgia had been indulged in, and everybody was sitting around in the soporific afterglow. An old, drunk grandfather was tolerable. That is until he started talking about the Crows.

  Grandpa Zev, a green plastic Christmas hat perched rakishly on his shaggy white hair, stood up unsteadily and addressed the room. Even at twelve I was the only one who guessed what was about to happen and I began to barricade myself into a corner with Christmas presents.

  ‘The thing about the Crows is that they’ll tear out your throat and then delicately drink your blood like they’re sipping goddamn Martinis,’ he said. As a mood-killer it was a winner on all counts. There was a long silence before everybody tried to divert attention to something different at the same time. In all the noise, only Grandpa Zevcenko’s voice could be clearly heard ringing out, ‘The Crows will gouge out your eyeballs, if you give them half a chance!’

  Uncle Roger stood up and faced my grandfather. ‘Dad, there are no such things as giant crows,’ he said, his voice tense and forced. Grandpa grinned the wild, ravenous grin of a madman. ‘The crows are more real than your imaginary friend in the sky, son.’

  At that my uncle had taken an angry step forward. This was a mistake. Roger is a tall and broad-shouldered man but Grandpa Zevcenko had been a champion boxer in the army and still had a solid right hook for an old guy. He dropped Uncle Roger easily. That’s when all hell broke loose. Roger’s wife Mariekie tried to intervene but she caught the eldest Zevcenko in the midst of the fog of war. He grabbed her by the perm and shoved her head into the granadilla trifle and possibly would have held it there until she’d stopped thrashing had he not been restrained by my father and Darryl, the disabled neighbour, who vaulted off his wheelchair, grabbed him around the waist and pulled him to the floor.

  As a twelve-year-old I learnt a lot from this experience. 1) If you’re gonna drown someone in trifle, it’s best to do it with no one else around. 2) My family are a bunch of circus freaks.

  ‘He’s not going to be around much longer,’ my dad says as I get out of the car. ‘Use this as a chance to say goodbye.’

  I navigate the lilac-coloured hallways, past care workers carrying bedpans and mumbling, shuffling old people, until I find his room at the end of a corridor lit by a single, bare bulb. I take a deep breath, knock once, and then enter.

  Grandpa’s room is sickly custard colour and it smells of urine smothered with fake lavender air-freshener. It’s furnished with a single bed, dumpy beige armchairs draped with standard-issue old-person mohair blankets, a circular table and a small wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. A familiar white-haired figure sits on a rattan bench on the balcony and stares out over the lawn. I walk slowly over and clear my throat. ‘I’m Baxter,’ I say in the voice I usually use for babies and small dogs.

  The figure swings around and fixes me with the knowing-eye. I stand still as it scans me, prodding and probing deeply with its intrusive gaze. ‘I know who you are,’ the old man says. Grandpa Zev has aged a lot. His skin is pale, almost translucent, and he is much frailer than I remember, but his blue eyes still glint with pure, unadulterated craziness.

  ‘How are you, Grandpa?’ I ask.

  He shakes his head. ‘I’m not your grandfather,’ he says. ‘I need to tell you the hard truth about your birth before I die.’ He beckons me over with a withered hand and I sit on the bench next to him.

  My grandfather is clearly insane, but why would he make up something like this? He clears his throat with a wet, hacking cough. ‘Your father was the baby of a hooker I used to frequent. When she died of syphilis, your grandmother and I took him in and cared for him as our own.’ The words hit me like tiny hammers. ‘What …’ I choke. ‘But …’

  He looks at me seriously for a second and then breaks into a bout of coughing laughter.

  ‘I’m just fucking with you, Baxter,’ he says, wheezing with delight. ‘That’ll teach you to talk to me like I’m an invalid.’ Well, it turns out he would say something like that because he’s an asshole. Strangely that makes me like him more.

  I was worried that there’d be nothing to say, but Grandpa Zev and I talk for ages. Something in my chest stirs as I talk to him, a warm sensation that feels a little like indigestion. I ignore it. He tells me about his parents, his dad a Pole, and his mother an Afrikaner with strange religious tendencies. He tells me about growing up in Poland and being a lackey for organised crime as a teen. In a wave of spontaneity I tell him about the Spider and the porn business.

  He nods thoughtfully. ‘Good business to be in. If we’d have had something like that when I was your age the war would have been a lot more fun.’ He laughs. ‘Growing up in Poland before the war we had our own Sprawl. Gangs, small-time thugs, political youth groups; everybody was trying to control the neighbourhood. And you know the most important thing I learnt?’

  I lean in closer, eager to hear pearls of wisdom from the eldest, weirdest Zevcenko.

  ‘None of it means shit,’ he says with a phlegmy laugh. ‘The Nazis came in and took it all. And then they got their ass kicked and then it was the Russians. No matter how powerful you think you are there’s always a bigger fish in the sea.’ He bursts into a riot of coughing and waves a trembling hand at the small wooden cabinet in the corner of the room. ‘Black bottle,’ he splutters.

  I walk over to the cabinet, open it and survey the vast quantities of medical supplies therein. I locate the large black medicinal bottle and carry it over to Grandpa Zev. He takes it with a shaky hand, unstops it, and takes a swig. ‘Gin,’ he says. ‘These fascists won’t let me have a drop of alcohol so I have to secrete it away.’ He hands me the bottle and I take a swig. The liquid burns brightly in my throat like a welding iron.

  ‘What about women?’ he says. ‘Are you going steady with anyone?’

  ‘There is a girl,’ I say.

  ‘Do you love her?’ I want to say no. I want to tell him that a large part of me thinks that love is an unnecessary complication. That no matter what combination of dopamine and serotonin floods my brain when I see Esmé, she’s just a piece of the board like everybody
else. But I can’t.

  ‘Maybe,’ I whisper.

  He nods. ‘We Zevcenkos are strange creatures. We don’t find love easily. But when we do we imprint for life and nothing can keep us away from the object of our affections.’ He grimaces and takes another swig of the gin. ‘Well, almost nothing.’

  ‘You and Grandma?’ I say.

  He chuckles. ‘I’m afraid not, my boy. Oh, your grandmother and I had our moments but I had already found and lost the love of my life by the time she came around. Nothing she could have done would have changed that.’

  ‘What happened?’ I ask.

  ‘Crows happened,’ he spits out viciously, gripping the neck of the bottle like it’s the hilt of a sword. ‘And when Crows happen there’s not much you can do to stop it.’

  That cold, uneasy feeling slides down my neck again but I try to shake it off. My grandfather’s delusions are the result of a decaying brain. Nothing to get worked up about.

  The old man squeezes my hand absently. ‘Before I met your grandmother I was in love with another woman. A girl, really, with pale white skin, slanted green eyes and the strangest ears you’ve ever seen.’ He smiles wistfully at the memory. ‘She was beautiful, like a strange animal, and just as skittish. She said she was the last of her kind, the last of a lineage of royalty that had been hunted down. We fell in love.’

  ‘You’re not screwing with me again, are you, Grandpa?’ I say.

  ‘I know it sounds ridiculous,’ he says. ‘Like a fairy tale. Sometimes I do think I just made the whole thing up.’

  ‘So what happened. To you and the … princess?’

  ‘They came for her.’ He looks at me and his eyes are wide, almost hysterical. ‘Terrible, Baxter, like nothing you’ve ever seen before.’ He fumbles for the edge of his shirt and pulls it up to show me his wrinkled, hairy old torso. ‘I tried to fight them,’ he says pleadingly. ‘But there were too many of them. I couldn’t have stopped them, I couldn’t have saved her.’ His finger absently traces a thick, jagged scar that runs from his left nipple down to his belly button. ‘Promise me, Baxter,’ he says, wheezing now, and clutching at my hand.

  ‘Promise you what, Grandpa?’ I say softly.

  ‘Promise me that if you love someone like I loved her, you’ll fight for them. Promise me.’

  ‘I promise, Grandpa,’ I say.

  He nods. ‘I regret what’s happened with my family but I can’t pretend I didn’t see what I saw.’ He sighs and the weight of the world seems to slip from his shoulders. ‘You ever get caught by Crows, kid, this is what you do …’

  IndieFilm Magazine

  Is Monster Porn the Next Big Thing?

  By Joni Stewart

  Stilted dialogue, bedroom eyes and werewolves, goblins and vampires; when you start watching a Glamorex film you may be forgiven for thinking you’re watching the latest teenage supernatural romance.

  It’s only when the hot and heavy action begins that you realise this is no chaste foray into the paranormal. Hollywood has been doing big business with franchises involving wizards, angels and vampires, and the porn industry has been quick to follow suit.

  With titles such as Tokoloshe Money Shot, Anansi Zombie Chamber and Dwarven Ass Patrol, Glamorex Films has shot to the forefront of this eldritch porn revolution, combining cutting-edge special effects and high production values with the top names in pornography to create films that go way beyond the average pool boy and bored housewife routines.

  ‘There definitely is a trend toward the supernatural,’ says Toni McBain, Head of Marketing at Glamorex Films. ‘Glamorex was the first to realise that people wanted to see vampires and werewolves swapping more than just smouldering looks.’ This realisation has led to Glamorex transforming from a backyard porn outfit into a multimillion-dollar business – all in the space of three years. This rise has partly been fuelled by conspiracy websites claiming that the weird and wonderful monsters in Glamorex’s cinematic orgies are the real deal.

  McBain laughs at the suggestion. ‘Sure they’re real. We’ve got real dwarves, faeries and goblins going at it 24/7. It’s a real circus.’

  They may not be hiding a menagerie of supernatural porn stars but Glamorex’s business is notoriously secretive. Their performers are not be real monsters but the company trades on the aura of authenticity, never revealing the true identities of the porn stars beneath the elaborate costumes. The whereabouts of the Flesh Palace, the location where most of their movies are shot, is known only to a select few, those lucky enough to be invited when the establishment opens its doors to offer the city’s elite a taste of its delights.

  The mysterious Flesh Palace has become the Playboy mansion of the Cape, and the parties thrown for Cape Town’s VIPs are rumoured to include strange and forbidden pleasures.

  McBain says all the secrecy is just a precaution. ‘We’ve had to keep everything secret to protect our performers. If it’s not obsessed fans, it’s religious protesters; they’re prime targets for crazies.’

  However, not everybody is enamoured by this new wave of pornography. The Cape Feminist League is vehement in their criticism of Glamorex’s business. ‘Creature porn represents a new step in the systematic dehumanisation of those involved in the sex industry,’ says Claire Fulton, media liaison officer for the League. ‘How can “creatures” be afforded any kind of respect?’

  Glamorex’s reputation is not helped by the involvement of an alleged member of an organised crime syndicate. Yuri ‘the Russian’ Belkin is a part-owner of Glamorex and is currently under investigation over allegations that he has kidnapped underage girls to appear in his movies.

  Sexual revolutionaries or sickos, whatever your take on Glamorex’s business, one thing is for certain: supernatural romance has never been this NSFW.

  4

  THE UNBEARABLE INCONVENIENCE OF HAVING A HEART

  MY DAD DROPS me back at school later that afternoon and tries to give me an awkward hug which I manage to dodge. I don’t know what it is about school gates that brings out the emotional sides of parents. It’s like the gates elicit some kind of Pavlovian response for inappropriate emotional gestures. Thankfully, he didn’t want to know much about my conversation with Grandpa Zev. Because I wouldn’t even know where to begin to explain the crazy stuff the old man was talking about.

  Back in class we’re learning about the reproductive system of the earthworm for a third straight week. Mr Roddick relishes each detail, almost pleading with us to see the beauty, the complexity and the elegance of Nature’s most unappreciated dirt-dweller. It’s like a guitar enthusiast trying to share his passion for Steve Vai with a group of deaf people.

  There’s an air of chaos in the class, as if the NPCs can smell the trouble that’s brewing at the top of the food chain. Denton de Jaager sits at the back of the class and confers with some of his lieutenants. He glances over in my direction every now and again, as if to remind me that I’m not forgotten. That’s a good thing. I’m just about to casually move over to his desk when the Bearded One appears in the classroom doorway and stands fidgeting while Mr Roddick finishes a particularly dull anecdote about how his enthusiasm for earthworms was first ignited.

  The story concludes and the Bearded One leans over to whisper in Mr Roddick’s ear. Roddick turns to look directly at me and my heart doesn’t just skip a beat, it hurdles over it. Roddick listens carefully to the Bearded One for a few seconds and then nods.

  ‘Baxter Zevcenko,’ he says grimly. ‘The headmaster wishes to speak to you privately.’

  The entire class turns as a single entity to look at me. I stand and make my way to the front of the class. I feel strangely calm, as if I’m in a car crash and I’m watching the glass and metal explode around me. They’ve linked porn back to me. My mind immediately goes to the worst-case scenario: Dennis Brown, the school’s only Jehovah’s Witness, plagued by a fit of guilt at the Big Latino Mamma’s Compilation I sold him, told his real mamma about the porn and where he got it from. Mrs Brown’s religi
ous zeal is terrifying and when she decides that something is the work of the Devil she’ll destroy it completely. I have no doubt that Mrs Brown thinks I’m the spawn of Satan. I’m going to be expelled. Maybe Mrs Brown will force the school to call the cops. Maybe they’ll comply. Maybe they won’t. Whatever happens, it’s out of my hands now.

  ‘Baxter,’ the Bearded One says in the corridor outside the class, ‘I’m afraid I have some very bad news. Esmé van der Westhuizen has been missing since last night.’ The car crash pauses in mid-air and I blink furiously trying to make sense of it.

  ‘Esmé?’ I say. ‘She’s probably at her dad’s. Or at a friend’s.’

  The Bearded One shakes his head. ‘She’s not, Baxter. I don’t mean to alarm you but the police believe she may have been taken by the Mountain Killer.’

  The car crash unpauses and turns in a nuclear conflagration. Things explode in my head. Whole cities vanish.

  ‘But I saw her two nights ago,’ I say dumbly.

  ‘I’m sorry, Baxter,’ the Bearded One says, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘The police are doing everything they can.’

  I stumble back into class. The class-herd tries to elicit information from me but I barely register their presence.

  ‘What’s up?’ Kyle whispers. ‘Bax?’

  I ignore him. All I can see is the image of Esmé with her throat cut and an eye carved on her forehead.

  I walk the hallways in a daze. It seems everybody now knows about Esmé’s disappearance and I have to dodge well-wishers and gloaters in equal amounts. I lean against the cool granite wall in the quad and take a few deep breaths. I have a searing headache and my breathing is shallow and ragged. I feel like I can’t draw in enough oxygen to survive.

  Then something bizarre happens. I can’t exactly explain it so I’m going to try and express it in an equation. If I were to mathematically express what is going on in my head it would look a little like: (d)reams + (g)eneral weirdness + (k)idnapped girlfriend = (m)ultiple personalities. I’m not exactly Jekyll and Hyde but two distinct voices emerge within my head, battling it out for ultimate supremacy of my cranium.