Toxic Sox

Once the room had stopped spinning, I pushed myself to a sitting position and looked around. The couch against the door had left behind a trail of beer cans and pizza boxes, and what looked to be a pair of socks dipped in blue paint. The only other furniture in the room was a compact hi-fi, sitting next to a pile of records that had seen better days. A couple of blankets wrestled in a corner, and the remains of a beer bottle lay shattered against the wall not two feet from where I had been laying. A collection of barbells intimidated me from next to the double doors.

“What did I miss?”

A new figure had appeared in another doorway, clutching precariously at the doorframe. It seemed I was not alone in my confusion.

“Fucked if I know. Looks like Mick’s left us in charge.”

Ian staggered back out of the doorway, returning in a minute or so with a Black Label grasped lovingly in each hand. He tossed one in my direction as he opened the other, and I caught it gratefully, holding the soothing metal against my pounding temples for a moment before pulling the tab.

“There’s a couple of ambulances outside”, came Ian’s voice from the balcony on the other side of the double doors. “Who did he kill?”

Using the wall as leverage, I joined him on the balcony, gulping down a good mouthful of medicine on the way. There was an ugly black smudge on my left wrist, and what looked like some kind of purple mutant spider squashed on my right.

“Last thing I remember is meeting you two at the Toxic Sox gig in Image last night. After that, anything’s possible.”

Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available on Amazon. Also available in paperback.

And on Amazon.co.uk.

Or you can find all my books at Curiosity, the new retail shop open from Wednesday to Sunday, 11am till late, at the Railways Cafe in Pretoria.

And at The Real Mackay in Blairgowrie. They also have a few hundred old books from my library going for as little as R10 each. And several other self-published books by various South African authors. Go stock up for the holiday season.

Catch me at the Writers 2000 writing event in Modderfontein from 9am on the 9th of November. And who knows where I’ll be after that? Certainly not me.

Remember to keep an eye out for one of my stories in the upcoming “25 Gates of Hell” anthology. And in The Great Void Books anthology “Black Veins”.

And you’ll find another couple of stories in the soon-to-be-published South African anthology “Flambé, Silk Tie Murder, and the Rooibos Baby.”

Till next time.

Cheers.