The Romp was particularly slow for a Friday night. There were a few of the regulars, yeah, but overall, the club was serving crickets. Sapphire Black finished out her new routine with only a handful of twenties in her gray lace g-string, and fuck, a few singles too. She grabbed the wad of sweaty crumpled bills and stuffed them into her rhinestone bra as she grumpily climbed off stage, her six inch stiletto heels clacking like the hooves of a pissed off horse. With the blinding silvery lights obstructing her view, she wasn’t able to make out the features of the heavyset man in the corner booth, but Saphire already pegged him as a red flag from the moment he’d sat down. He wasn’t drinking anything, he was alone, and he hadn’t fished for his wallet once since she’d first gotten on stage to the club mix of AWOL Nation’s Sail four minutes ago.
Saphire Black, a.k.a. Genevieve LaRoe was a veteran dancer at The Romp. She’d worked here back when it was called Down Bad, before the renovations and the new owner classed up the place, upgrading it from a seedy strip club at the edge of town to a seedy strip club at the edge of town with new DJ equipment and a slightly less cockroach infested kitchen.
Her long wavy hair, falling to her waist in rivulets of raven black silk, high glass-cutter cheekbones, and large bedrooms eyes of cerelean blue had helped her come up with her stage name. A sheen of sweat glistened on her deeply tanned skin, and Saphire sashayed backstage to the dressing room. A quick peek at her phone told her that was all folks. It was nearly 3 AM, and her shift was over.
“Hey, Gen?”
It was the manager, Maxine, a fifty-ish woman with dark blonde hair and a thick figure. She was poking her head into the dressing room. “You got time for a Red Room request?”
“Fuck, yeah,” Genevieve replied, almost too enthusiastically. “I’m fucking dying tonight.”
“It’s been slow for all of us,” Another stripper called Frita offered from her post in front of the makeup mirror. “Go get ‘em, Sport.”
“Make that money!” Velvet’s high titter followed as Genevieve toweled off and headed right back out again, those stiletto heels punctuating every purposeful step.
She followed Maxine out into the bar again and sheilded her eyes against the blinding lights, following the gaze of her manager to the corner booth. Great. The weirdo newbie. Boundaries were going to be crossed for sure.
“Take good care of him,” Maxine whispered, “He paid double for you.”
“For me?” Genevieve, now rolling as Saphire queiried. “I’v never even seen him in here before.”
Maxine shrugged with one shoulder. “It’s not our job to know his reasons, just to get his money. Go to it.”
The older woman turned on her heel and left the nearly empty showroom. Saphire locked eyes with the man in the booth as he stood, his gut catching on the table end as he did so. Saphire forced a flirtatious smile and shimmied up to him, taking his arm.
“Follow me, handsome,” she purred, and led him towards the Red Room. “What’s your name?”
The man cleared a wad of phlegm grossly from his throat before he answered in a timid wheeze, “Mike.”
Sapphire tensed up at the sound of his voice. He sounded sick. She hoped he wouldn’t pass it along to her. After an already slim week, she couldn’t afford to miss work, and no one wanted to watch a stripper pause between dances to blow her nose.
“Take a seat, big boy.”
The man sank heavily onto the red leather couch, his bulk causing the air to slowly whoosh from the cushions as he sank down into it. The Weeknd started crackling through the speakers. Sapphire began to shimmy side to side, running her manicured fingers down the curves of her breasts, over her exposed and pierced belly button, across her hips and thighs, all the while keeping her blue eyes on Mike. She smiled seductively at him even when he uncomfortably rummaged around in his pocket, clearly jerking off. It wasn’t the first time, it certainly wouldn’t be the last. She just hoped he wouldn’t jizz in his pants before she’d even had a chance to get through one song. The longer she could tease them, the bigger the tips would be.
“Tell me, Mike,” Sapphire said huskily as she inched closer to him, rubbing her tits as she slung a dangerously pointy heel onto the section of booth beside him, giving him a good look at her long legs. “Where are you from?”
“Uh, Dallas,” the fat man said nervously. Sapphire caught a whiff of his body odor as she climbed over him like a dismissive cat, shoving her breasts into his face. She wrinkled her nose, but only for a second, not wanting to put him off.
As she’d expected, the newcomer started to get a little more brazen as Sapphire upped the ante with her strip tease and flung her bra to the floor. The bulge in his pants became more noticeable. His hand left his pocket just long enough to reach forward to caress one of her breasts. Sapphire Black gave his hand a gentle slap.
“Touching is extra,” she warned.
“I paid double,” Mike balked, frowning.
“That’s your problem, not mine.”
Mike frowned again, and slipped a hand into his other pocket, pulling out a stiff handful of twenties. Sapphire batted her eyes at him as she daintily plucked the bills from his hand and shoved them into her waistband.
“That’s a good boy,” she crooned, and then without warning, seized Mike by his hair, and shoved his face between her breasts. He tensed at first, then gave a muffled moan of ecstasy.
“You here on business?” Sapphire asked casually while she let him motorboat her.
Mike came up for air long enough to hiss, “At the lab.”
“The lab? You’re a scientist?”
Sapphire slid up against him, laughing haughtily as she felt the sporadic jerking motion from the bulge at his crotch, and then the following wetness that could only mean he’d come in his pants.
“Dallas, huh?” She continued, not wanting to encourage an early end to her private show. Depending on his stamina, she could probably encourage that wet spot to grow bigger, as well as the wad of cash in her g-string.
Mike gave a raspy groan from the depths of her cleavage, and suddenly Gevenive LaRoe came back full force as she felt a stab of pinching pain in her right breast. She jumped back, screeching as fresh blood began to roll down her bare belly.
“Did you just fucking bite me?” Gen demanded, her hand to her chest. She scowled angrily at the customer, and then her face fell as she noticed all of the color...ALL of it, had completely drained from Mike’s flesh.
The ruddy, feverish tone he had come in with was stark white, though sweat poured from him like he’d just spent a day in the sauna. Then, the smell hit her, unmistakably shit. Mike stood quickly, and fresh diarrhea ran down his pant legs onto the seat behind him. Genevieve gagged and covered her mouth. Jesus, this guy was sicker than she’d suspected. She’d seen some fucked up things in her last four years as a stripper, but this was the first time someone had actually crapped themselves in the middle of a lap dance.
Suddenly, Mike doubled over and gurgled as he exploded from the other end, spraying bloody vomit all over the carpet. Genevieve cried out and ran for the closed door, banging on it to get someone’s attention over the beat of the music.
“Get me outta here!” She called. “Maxine?”
A horrendous choking sound caused Genevieve to spin back around. Mike had gone to his knees into his own mess. He hands clutched at his face as blood erupted from his orafices. Then, he howled in agony as something black and fleshy dangled out of his mouth like a dead eel. It was his tongue. Gen screamed again and threw herself at the door, realizing with dismay that it was blocked from the outside. Someone had shut her in with this diseased freak.
Mike groaned, and this time the sound was less human than it was animal-like. With a wet rip, he reached up and yanked the blackened tongue straight out of his mouth, flinging it aside. More black blood oozed from his mouth, and then Genevieve noticed that his fingers were fusing together and darkening, hardening, almost like...hooves?
He roared and rose to his feet, tearing the clothing from his body. His skin rippled and twisted as he did so, ripping open at the shoulders as a lump of bone matter protruded from his back. He vomited again, projecting it across the room and splashing Genevieve before she could leap out of the way. She could see that several of his teeth had come with it, and gagged, scrambling away on her backside. She reached down and pulled off one of her stiletto heels, preparing to fight him off if she had to. He was coming for her, his voice a phlegmy squeal, his skin sallow, his face a melting nightmare. Long jagged tusks burst from the sides of his cheeks, tearing his mouth into a ragged joker grin. He lumbered over top of her with hands that were now black, misshapen hooves. Drool dripped copiously from his ruined mouth. The stench was overpowering.
“You fucking PIG!” Genevieve screamed as she swung her heel straight into the side of the Not-Mike thing gurgling over her. She felt the end plunge into weakened skull and burst through into gooey mush. It stuck there as the creature quailed in pain and clutched with it’s hoof-like paws at the heel imbedded in its skull.
Gen jumped to her feet, covered in splatters of blood, drool, and vomit as she rammed her shoulder into the door with al her might, cheering when she felt it give a little. There was a body propped up against the door. It was what was left of Maxine. Her face was just gone, mangled to the point that it resembled hamburger meat. Gallons of blood must have covered the woman.
“Maxine!” She cried, but she had no time to bend down and check on the obviously dead strip club manager. The Not-Mike thing behind her had wrenched the shoe from it’s head, and was now barreling toward her, snarling.
With a mighty heave, Gen shoved the door all the way open, toppling Maxine’s body over. And that’s when she got a good look at the pandemonium overwhelming The Romp.
The floor, walls, tables, stage were all splattered in blood. Customers and staff alike were screaming as they tried to fend off more malformed monstrosities resembling Mike in one way or another. Frita was crawling across the blood slicked stage, clutching at the remains of her right leg. One of the things was gnashing and scrambling toward her, unable to hike it’s bloated form up onto stage to finish her off. Genevieve watched in horror as the exposed muscle and tendon in her co-worker’s leg started to blacken before her eyes. The woman’s wails were cut off only by the gush of bloody vomit spurting from her mouth, and then, her skin began to ripple.
“Jesus Christ!” Genevieve shrieked, “She’s turning into one of them!”
The floor dropped out of her stomach as Genevieve touched the bite wound on her bare breast. Was this about to happen to her? How fast did this disease take over? No time to worry about that now. One of the things, one that looked like it used to be Velvet based on the tattered remain of the sequin romper clinging to the boil-infested twisted flesh, was half-running, half-stumbling towards her. It’s left leg was a mound of blue-black tumors spiraling down from shreds of what was once a toned thigh. It reached for her with spindly arms that were too long, and fingers that were fused together, but sprouted long dangerous looking curved black claws. Her face, if you could even call it a face anymore, had eyes sunken so far back into the malformed skull they almost weren’t there. One ear hung on shreds of gristle from the side of her head. It threw it’s head back and squealed like a demented pig as it came for her.
Genevieve had to think fast. She lifted her foot and kicked at it with her remaining stiletto, and the heel drove into the protruding roll of sickly white flesh that was the Velvet pig beast’s belly. She pulled back, and found that her foot was now stuck in it’s flesh. The Velvet pig snorted in a manner that sounded almost like laughter. It seized her leg in one of its horrendous claws, sinking the razor ends into her calf. Genevieve screamed as she wrenched leg leg back as hard as she could. Her foot came free of the shoe, and the claws raked down her skin as she pulled out of it’s grasp. The stiletto remained imbedded in it’s stomach, looking like an oversized belly ring.
The nearly naked Genevieve spun on her heel and began to run for the door to the club, the screams and garbled wet splattering sounds thundering in her ears. Two of the piggish monstrosities were fighting over a corpse, blocking the front door. One of them had the remains of the poor sap’s feet in its hideous protruding maw, and was shaking its head like a dog with a squeak toy. The other had the man’s throat between it’s jaws, and its massive blocky head lowered. Three deformed tusks jutted from one side of it’s torn mouth. It’s wrinkled, runny snout oozed green mucus as it snorted its displeasure back at the other. The two growled and snarled through their visceral tug of war match until finally, the corpse’s head separated from its neck in a flood of gore and blood. The first beast roared in triumph as it dragged the bulk of it’s kill backwards, leaving a small opening by the door. Gen decided to risk it.
She bolted for the door and seized the bloody handle, twisting it hurriedly as the loser of the tug of war match screeched and flung the head at her. She felt it bounce sickeningly off her back as she flung the door open and burst into the cold night air in nothing but a pair of lace panties.
The streets were alight with frantic headlights as cars screeched out of control amongst the lumbering pig monsters clamoring toward them. An SUV headed right toward one of the monsters, and the beast lowered its head like a bull and charged at it, connecting with the front end. Metal and glass exploded around it, and the right headlight went out as the creature’s tusk went right through it. The horn blared angrily, but the pig monster had not been harmed, and was now clamoring over the hood and smashing through the windshield with one gnarled rock of a hand. Genevieve heard the driver’s screams cut off suddenly when the deformed maw closed over his head, and then there was another crunch, and she looked away, eyes squeezed shut.
“Hey! Over here!”
The voice snapped her to attention. Genevieve opened her eyes and spun around, seein what looked like a beat up version of the Mystery Machine rolling up over the curb. The window was rolled down, and a middle aged man with a scraggly goatee and a blood streaked Hawaiian shirt was waving to her. Without thinking, Genevieve bolted down the street toward it, not caring who this guy was or what his intentions were. He was human, he was alive, and he was her only chance.
As she got closer, the street lights illuminated the faded gray paint job and sliding side door that was already opening for her. A woman waved to her from the back.
“Hurry!”
Genevieve didn’t have to be told twice. She reached for the woman’s outstretched hand and leaped inside, and before her bare feet even connected with the van’s metal floor, the driver stepped on it, and they careened off the curb, slamming into another piggish monstrosity as it did. The thing shrieked and went down head first, it’s ass end pointed to the moon, a remnent of backbone curling out of its hindquarters in a bloody ringlet of a tail.
The woman and Genevieve worked together to slide the door shut again as the driver maneuvered them through the nightmare. The neon sign of The Romp became smaller and smaller as they sped down the blood streaked road.
“I’m Reby,” the woman finally said, sticking out a slender hand for Gen to shake. She nodded towards the driver. “That’s Alberto.”
“What the fuck is going on?” Genevieve demanded, ignoring the hand.
“The end of the world, sweetheart,” Alberto called from the front. “Welcome to the resistance.”
“First,” Reby added, “We’re getting the fuck out of here.”
