Chapter 4

It was mid afternoon by the time Sharky and his entourage had left.  Wafting the still wet contracts that all four guys of the band had signed.
What none of them realised was that the ink in the contracts never dried and would shift at will, to form different clauses, usually on Mondays when the demons crept into their offices to sort out their paperwork for the week.  Striding along, Sharky was immensly cheerful.
"That, my friends, was a job superbly done, even if I say so myself" said Sharky.
"Yeah, well done boss" smirked Nigel.
"Yeah, whatever" replied Marc, his annoyance at not being allowed to sign the three girls to some kind of contract showed in his scowling face.  He'd even tried a "wench" clause, but Sharky was having none of it, Marc was beginning to have some serious worries about Sharkys orientation.  Maybe he likes guys mused Marc to himself, hell no, he likes money and power.  If it wasn't for his deal with the demons, Marc reasoned that he'd leave today, maybe find a nice wife, kids, pets etc, but having been hoodwinked into signing as the guys earlier he was stuck in his predicament for the time being.
Jolted out of his reverie, he noticed they had stopped at a huge deserted warehouse. Nervously he asked,
"Hey boss, should we be stopping here?"
"Marc!2 Sharky exclaimed, "why shouldn't we be?"
"It's not safe round here, everyone knows that" he staged whispered glancing furtively around.  Shaking his head sadly, Sharky replied,
"Marc, Marc, Marc"
Nigel snickered remembering a dog with a harelip joke from years ago, but a stern look soon silenced him.
"We are untouchable my friend, how long dead will it take you to realise that?"
"Can't help it" stammered Marc.
"Why should we fear anyone when we've got Belial and Beelzebub as our first contacts in our address book?" sighed Sharky.
"Sorry" mumbled Marc.
"Look son, I don't want to have to send you on a management training course again" said Sharky darkly.  Alarmed, remembering the assault course section which he had completed in record time due to the slavering many toothed demon on his tail, Marc frantically searched for a change of subject.  Feeling charitable, Nigel saved any further confrontations by saying,
"So boss, what have we here then?" as he swept his arm wide to encompass the warehouse.  Relenting, but not without a fierce look at Marc, Sharky replied,
"This my friends, is where our good friends Duran Duran will play"
Both Nigel and Marc shared a concerned look.
"I know what you're thinking" said Sharky as he wrapped his arms around both of them and led them into the building,
"It's a mess, it's dingy, but I ask you do ghosts and varioue ne-erdowells care, when there is a monumantal musical extravaganza to be had?"  expectantly he smiled thinly at his underlings.  Ignoring the low rumbling that had begun to shake the dust from the rafters, Marc asked with somewhat false enthusiasim,
"Monumental musical extravaganza?"
"Of course!" boomed Sharky as he twirled around the now vibrating building,
"Um boss..." interupted Nigel, he being the first to notice the huge chasm that had opened at the back of the warehouse.
"Shh, Nigel..." continued Sharky, "We'll have a stage here" he pointed with a flourish, "Amps and speakers here" he twirled again "..and here we'll have a couple of demons on the door.  Sell the tickest for £30 or something, or more preferably a soul or something"
"Um....Boss!" tried Marc, he too now spotting the black horns emerging from the swirling mist that emmanated from the hole.
"Sshh" mildly irritated Sharky continued,  "Just think of the power we'd have, we'd be so..." before he could finish, the demon that had erupted from the pit in the floor boomed,
"SO<POWER YOU'D HAVE EH?"
Startled Sharky spun round, gaining his composure quickly he addressed the demon,
"Ahhh Taralzebub, how nice of you to...ah...drop in....um....pop up?"
"SHUT UP UNDERLING!"  Taralzebub boomed, "WHAT MONUMENTAL MUSICAL EXTRAVAGANZA ARE YOU PLANNING? WHAT POWER? AND GIVE ME THOSE CONTRACTS!"
Taralzebub reached out a claw to take the contracts that Simon and Warren had signed without hesitation, John 4 minutes of persuasion and the promise of girls and a film career and Nick 3 hours only after being promised suits from Anthony Price, a ban on all things boaty, the newest synths that Korg and Yamaha had to offer, an unlimited supply of hair dye, parties, tacky girls, bananas and mineral water.
Reluctantly Sharky handed over the contracts, that at the current point were being rewritten on clause 4:1 which had stated that the undersigned had hereby given permission to be damned into hell after 50 days or 5% of the time, whichever came first to just 5 days, as an overzealous underwriter got a bit excited with his new demon equivalent of tippex.
"NOW, I WOULD THANK YOU, BUT I'M A DEMON AND I DON'T DO THANKS"
"That's quite all right" beamed Sharky.  He knew he'd emerge with some sort of bargain as Taralzebub was so easily bought.
"THEY AGREED?" asked Taralzebub incredulously as it scanned the contracts.
Clause 7:3 was currently being rewritten to include impalement.
"Yes of course, I am the best as you well know" said the still beaming Sharky.
"BEST GET ON THEN" said Taralzebub as it began to get slightly unnerved by Sharkys unfaling smile.
"YOU KNOW HOW TO GET EVRYTHING?"
Still Sharky beamed.
"UM.....DON'T FORGET, I WANT EVERYONES SOULS....UM....IF POSSIBLE...UM...."
Still Sharky beamed.
"UM......POWER IS MINE.....UM...ER..."  Taralzebub pursed its 'lips' and tapped a claw on its chin, still trying not to look at Sharky and his incessant beaming.
"JUST REMEMBER WHO'S THE BOSS"  it yelled, before disappearing back into hell, desperately trying to shift the horrible beaming image out of its head.  Giving a shudder, it folded in its wings and clicked back to its office, resolving to maybe go on a self improvement course soon.

Still beaming, Sharky turned to Nigel and Marc and said, through gritted teeth,
"Give us a hand lads, I've got lockjaw!"



"Do you think I bargained enough?" asked Nick, pouting slightly as he tried to remember what he'd ask for.
"Yes" sighed Simon,he was slightly annoyed that he hadn't thought of asking for everything Nick had.  John was sat quietly, trying to rack his brain, he was sure he'd seen the words "damnation", "Hell", "eternity", and "spit roast", but he couldn't be sure.  Maybe it said "nutroast"he thought to himself.
After Sharky Inc had left, much to their surprise and Simons chagrin, all the cats left with them, even more bizarre was the exit of the three girls as well.
The cats stating that they were "goin' mousin'" and the girls that they were "Goin' cattin'"

That just left the guys, once again sat twiddling their thumbs and arguing with each other, with the exception of Warren who was mighty glad that the cats had left him alone.
"Now what?" humpfed Simon, he really wasn't cut out for this hanging around lark.
"We wait for Sharky to contact us about the gig" replied Warren, who was already planning his stage moves with his guitar, a thrust here, a pout there, wiggle wiggle there...
"Warren please stop doing that!" exclaimed John, he was really fed up with these prima donna guitar types.  Being slightly peeved at being lumped with bass again, after doing his own thing for the last few years, was not going down well with him, but with the promise of an Aston martin  he didn't want to complain.
"But do you think I could've got more?" asked Nick again, "An Andy Warhol original or something?"
"Damn!" he exclaimed, "I should've asked for an Andy Warhol!"
"Well I reckon I've got nutroast on mine" said John.
"What?" asked Warren, incredulous, stopping mid guitar thrust.
"I think my contract said nutroast" said John again.
"Nut roast?"
"Well, it said something roast, so I assumed it must be nut"
"You're the only bloody nut here" muttered Simon.
"Well, it's hardly going to be, I dunno...spit roast is it?" laughed John.
Nick stopped his muttering for an Andy Warhol painting, Simon stopped muttering about peoples obvious insanity and Warren stopped his guitar posing to look slowly at John.
"What now?" asked John uncomfortably.
"Spit roast?" asked Nick.
"Spit roast?" asked Simon.
"spi..." began Warren.
"STOP IT!"  yelled John, "What are you on about?"
"He did look kind of devilish" wondered Simon.
"Yeah, and I thought I'd imagined that in my contract" said Warren.
"Please, everyone, please tell me you didn't see the words "hell", "damnation" and "eternity" too?" worried John.
"Oh shit" muttered Nick.
"Do you think they have devil chicks?" asked Simon the eternal optimist.
"SIMON!!, any chance of you keeping your thoughts out of your pants, just once?" yelled Warren.
With all their attention on the chuckling Simon, no one noticed the odd rippling taking place in the walls.  One moment it was Warrens paint scheme, the next it looked suspiciously like rock, dank, dark, cavernous rock, with red in it.
It was Nick who first noticed the changes, having grown tired of the eternally optimistic Charley boy,
"Umm...ah...it's snowwink"
"What?" everyone span round to see what he was on about.
Chuckling to himself, Nick repleid,
"Ahh, not really, but um...ah....we seem to be somewhere a touch damper and cavernous than before.
Looking around they were shocked to see they were indeed now in a cave.  A lot of the furniture had travelled with them, including Warrens mixing deck, but all aspects of a normal room had gone.  Before any of them could speak, a door opened and in clicked a brisk business like demon, wearing horn rimmed glasses and clasping a clipboard and pen, it said,
"Right, hello people, my name is Amandalytee and I'm your chaperone and..." before it finished it plumped up a strange hair bump on its head and winked saying, "Hostess with the mostest!"
Simon shrieked, Warren watched agape, Nick fainted, and John said
"OH MY GOD!" before he too, fainted.



"Do you know where we are?" questioned Carly hesitantly to Ali.
"Nope" she replied.
"Great, so we're lost?" yelled Sherry.
"Yep!" replied Ali again, almost cheerfully.
After leaving Warrens house, on the premis of following the talking cat hoardes, the girls had left, some more eagerly than others.  But after some nimble fence jumping from the cats, the girls had lost them and then had become increasingly lost themselves.  They'd stumbled into a run down part of town and although they were ghosts there still seemed to be some unsavoury characters, even in ghost land.
Carly was sure they were being followed by some extras from a George Romero or Wes Craven film, but the other two couldn't see anything and told her to stop here active imagination just the once.
"I reckon we should've stayed at Warrens" stated Sherry miserably.
"Why?" asked Ali.
"Well Simon was looking at me"
"He looked at us as well" said Ali.
"No, I mean LOOKED at me" emphasised Sherry.
"Yeah right, like he LOOKED at you at the concert with 15,000 other people last year!"
"No, No! he DID!"
"Hmmm" said Ali skeptically, "But whatever, what do we do now?"
Both Carly and Sherry looked at each other and shrugged.
"I dunno" said Carly.
"Me neither" said Sherry.
Before Ali could reply she suddenly found herself at foot level of the other two girls.
"Hey1" she shouted as both Carly and Sherry were again at eye level with her.
"Wha...?" they all shouted as they began a very long fall into a very long pit.

"Right, you three would be....?" a taloned claw flicked through a sheaf of papers on a clipboard.
"Ah, yes, the Duran groupies" the demon smiled smugly as it ticked a small box on the form.
"My name is Amandalytee, I'm here to make your stay as comfortable as possible, feel free to use the amenities, but please...don't try and leave."
Nonplussed, Ali, Sherry and Carly looked on agog at the demon.  They were now sat in what looked like a dormitory with three beds, although instead of wallpaper they had pulsing red walls.  Some joker, obviously expecting their arrival had put a Duran poster on the wall.
"well, laydeees...I shall leave you to settle in, if you wish, the band are situated in a room on corridor 66"
"What corridor are we on?" stuttered Ali.
"666 of course!" smiled Amandalytee as pleasantly as is possible with a mouthful of glinting razor sharp teeth.  With that, she turned tail, literally, and flounced out of their room.
"Ok, so NOW I'm scared" said Ali, "That did look like who I think it did didn't it?"



"Jeez, I can't stand red walls" wailed John.
"Lucky there's no windows then" said Simon dryly.
"Heh, yeah, it clashes with his pants!" laughed Nick.
"Ok, so this wasn't in the plan was it?" asked Warren.
Just then Sharky strode into the room, nursing a sore jaw that had made him slightly grouchy.
"Hello boys, how are you settling in?"
"Can't we change the walls?" grumbled John, "I hate red"
"I'm afraid this is the default colour, there are no options" said Sharky as he eased himself into a chair, "In fact most things are on default settings now"  he smiled broadly at Simon.
"Right, now we need to discuss your playlist" as he pulled out a notebook and began to list his dos and donts.  It was noted to perhaps avoid playing Wild boys and New moon on Monday due to excessive jumping and excitement might cause the zombie contingent to lose limbs, which created havoc afterwards at the lost and found.
Nightboat might again cause trouble with the zombies as they might take offense at the video they'd done, then the ghosts might get bolshy saying that it was ghosts and not zombies, best to avoid the confrontation altogether.
Union of the snake affects the Medusa girls too much making their snake hair go wild and get ideas above its station, so that had to go too.
Finally Rio, was also struck off the playlist as it was pointed out that some of the more elderly zombies would have trouble with all the 's's in the chorus, and sweeping up teeth afterwards always turned a few stomachs, seeing as the demons had a severe phobia of teeth.
"Teeth you say?" asked John, as an idea formed in his mind,maybe he could scare the demon Amandalytee, seeing as she looked scarliy like his first wife.
"Only loose ones" said Sharky, "Not ones in your head, plus they have to be real, not ghostly ones" he finished looking pointedly at John.
"Not even a tiny bit ghostly?" asked John.
"No, not even a tiny bit" Sharky replied.
"Awww, dammit!" pouted John, but still, a plan was forming.
"Anyway, on with the game plan eh?" said Sharky amiably as he spent the next six hours telling them what to do, where to do it and how.


The first thing the three girls did as soon as the scary Amanda lookalike demon left was to run out into the corridor to find an escape route, preferably via the bands room!.  The only problem was that if the floor where the guys were was 66 was that up or down?
"It's got to be up" said Sherry.
"Yeah ok, but where is up?" asked Ali looking around.
Just then a small demon that looked remarkably similar to Little Jimmy Osmond appeared from a lift at the end of the corridor.
"Quick! a lift!" shouted Ali as she made a run to catch it.
Fortunately the Jimmy Osmond demon held the lift for them.
"Are you from Liverpool?" it asked.
"what?" asked Ali
"Liverpool?" it asked.  sensing where the conversation was going Ali tried in vain to stop Carly from asking the next question.
"what do you mean? I'm from London myself?" with cringing dread Ali could only watch in disbelief as the little demon started to sing..
"Long haired lover from Liv-ER-pool...la-la-la-la-lalaaaaaaaaaa"
Covering their ears at the wailing all three girls ran to the lift, it was a heartstopping moment when it seemed the doors weren't going to close, when mercifully they did.
"Right, now which floor?" pondered Ali, before she could press any buttons the lift began to ascend.
"What? wait...where are we going?" wailed Sherry.
"I didn't press anything!" yelled Ali, as the lift hummed upwards all three girls hoped they were going somewhere nice.