Stag Hunt

By L. O. Boult

Stag Hunt follows a group of four barely functioning men at a stag party in a quiet cottage on the Gower Peninsula in Wales who, on a Friday night, get very drunk indeed and find something even worse than their hangovers the next morning: a dead clown in their bathtub. With no recollection of events and all seeming to have a motive or opportunity to kill the clown, they wonder how things can get any worse until there's a knock on their door and they are interrupted by a concerned neighbour, who happens to be an elderly retired detective walking his ex-cadaver dog.

Stag Hunt is a black comedy and the first novel by Welsh writer L.O. Boult, where not everything is as it seems.

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. O. Boult
• Release date: Jun 23, 2020
• ISBN: 9780463810637

L. O. Boult

L. O. Boult is a Welsh writer, editor, and Spanish, Japanese and French to English translator. Having worked as an editor and translator on several books, both fiction and non-fiction. Stag Hunt is his first independent novel, the story of four men on a stag party in a quiet cottage in Wales who get very drunk indeed and awake the next morning to find a dead clone in the bathtub.He is currently working on publishing his second novel Atom Man, the story of a young woman who joins a local cult band without realising it is an actual cult.He is the former editor of the Welsh arts and culture magazine Buzz and now works with several businesses as a proofreader, writer and translator while travelling the world with his fiancée Sam.

Book preview

Stag Hunt

L. O. Boult

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2020 Luke Owain Boult

All rights reserved.

Cover design by: Samantha Boddington

The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favourite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For Sam,

Thank you for always supporting me and for your help in making this book a reality. Diolch yn fawr a dw i'n dy garu di.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter One

‘Not the face, not the face!’ Kyle mumbled in a voice of half dreaming and half stirring panic, tossing and turning.

It was a particularly wet and windy autumnal Friday dawn in the quiet yellow-leafed streets of Cardiff. No one was awake, save the hangers-on from the various soirées in the city’s pubs, clubs and student house parties the night before, and even then, no one was sober enough to properly appreciate the quiet and cool beauty of the first light of day. Kyle, however, was now awake. Not because he was a stoic early riser, morning jogger, protein drinker or anything of the sort, but because he still hadn’t managed to quieten his mind from the night before. He’d had a nightmare about being viciously attacked by great black birds and could still recall the swooping wind of their wings crashing into his frightened face.

Kyle lay sweaty in bed, turned towards the venetian blinds that covered the tall windows to his right, which rudely invited the morning light inside. He looked over his shoulder. His fiancée Jen was lying on her back, softly snoring with a comforting trill.

They’d been together years now. They’d met while they were at university, at a mutual friend’s house party. She had hazel eyes, reddish-brown hair and sharp purposeful features. He’d proposed to her the previous year on a similarly windy day after climbing a small mountain in the Brecon Beacons, against the backdrop of a monochrome sky. He’d joked to his friends that there was less chance of her saying no if she was exhausted. It had evidently worked.

It’s no use. Kyle resigned himself to the inevitability of a sleepless night as he stared up at the high ceiling of their bedroom, which capped the cream walls – a triumph of minimalism. There was something troubling Kyle. Today was the day. His friends had been planning him a stag party.

He had no idea what they had planned. His best man, Geraint, had told him to leave it all to him. All he’d said was that he needed to be free from Friday 5 to Monday 8 October and that he had no need to worry - a phrase that when spoken by the likes of Geraint inspired a great need to worry indeed. The problem was that Geraint wasn’t a particularly well organised person, innocently inconsiderate, so the fact that Geraint himself wasn’t worried was grounds for suspecting that there was, in fact, some real cause for concern.

Kyle sighed and checked the time on his phone. 7.29am. The dazzling bright light of his screen woke Jen.

‘What are you faffing about with?’ she mumbled, half asleep, half irritated by Kyle’s constant tossing and turning the night before.

Kyle sighed again. ‘I got maybe three hours’ sleep last night at most.’

Jen tossed away from him. ‘You and me both.’

Kyle fought the urge to say ‘Really? Then how come you were snoring all night?! You liar!’ But he determined that it was too early in the morning for petty soap opera confrontation.

There was no use in trying to get back to sleep now. Geraint had said to expect him to call round at about nine o’clock. Kyle gave up on his sleep and crept out of bed, planting his feet on the cold wooden floor and putting on a dark blue fluffy dressing gown before making his way downstairs to the kitchen invaded by morning to make himself a monstrously large cup of tea. He stared out of his kitchen window at the dawn birds chirping away on a small fruit-bearing apple tree in the back garden, as if their happiness had been deliberately designed by a higher being to irritate him.

I bet they’d be less chirpy if they had to pay rent to use my garden.

A crow flew in from his neighbour’s garden and perched itself on the moss-ridden dry stone wall that separated them, staring up at the brightly coloured dawn birds. The beat of its wings made him shudder, reminding him of his dream the night before.

He heard Jen shuffling behind him to give him a hug. ‘What’s worrying you, chicken?’ she asked in a babyish voice.

‘It’s going to be shit isn’t it.’

‘What is?’

‘This weekend. It’s going to be Geraint trying to organise some stereotypically awful stag thing. I bet he’s got us matching t-shirts and everything.’

‘I don’t know. He doesn’t seem himself lately...’

‘I’ll bloody kill him if there’s a stripper,’ Kyle grumbled as he took another gulp of tea, still hot enough to slightly scald the roof of his mouth as he continued to stare out at the birds with a slight wince.

‘Just think of it as traditional. Pretend you’re an investigative journalist or something. You’re all for tradition unless it involves social interaction,’ Jen joked as she pinched him on his sides. Kyle turned to her, putting his hands on her shoulders while a worried expression still haunted his face.

‘It’s not the social interaction I don’t like. Inviting someone to take their clothes off at a party to celebrate the fact that one of them is getting married is like inviting the child catcher from Chitty Chitty Bang Bang to a Christening.’

‘I don’t know why you aren’t doing what I’m doing for the hen, just get it over in one night if it’s that bad! Anyway,’ said Jen, moving the conversation on as she turned away to get a glass of water, ‘Geraint will be here in a bit. Go and get ready. I’ll get us some breakfast before I go to work.’

Kyle finished his cup of tea and made his way upstairs to the shower. He stared at his reflection in the bathroom mirror. When did I put on so much weight? he thought to himself. He was of average height but above average weight; fat by medical standards but not by western standards. He had neat blond hair and no facial hair. Despite being 29, he could only manage a wispy and scraggly bumfluff beard that made him look like a 17-year-old trying to buy vodka for his friends. He had pale skin that contrasted against his brown eyes and a roundish face to match. His body was also hairless, looking like that of a pedigree prize-winning pig.

He turned the shower on and moved in an awkward dance until it got to the temperature he liked, with the hot water and steam washing the sleep from his bones.

He heard a murmur and a creak from downstairs, with the bathroom being just at the top of the stairs not far from their bedroom. He suddenly turned off the shower and listened. There were two tones of murmurs. The higher and lilting one was Jen. The deeper, blunter one, wrapped in the Rhondda, was Geraint. As ever, he was irritatingly early.

Kyle hurriedly finished getting ready and dressed himself in beige chinos, a white shirt and a red cable-knit jumper. He rushed downstairs, his hair still a little wet, as the smell of bacon, eggs and sausages wafted into his nose.

‘Good morning sleepyhead!’ Geraint bellowed, beaming as he saw Kyle come down the stairs. He was slightly taller than Kyle with a more angular face and a buzzcut. He was 30 with a beer belly that he tried to hide under an ill-fitting t-shirt and a dark jumper with a chevron pattern. He had a sincere warmth to him and a smile to match, but still, like a very rich cheese, he was best in small doses. Too much and you’d feel quite unwell.

‘Morning,’ Kyle responded with a half-smile.

Geraint was walking into the kitchen next to Jen, who wore a forced smile. She wasn’t much of a fan of Geraint.

‘Geraint was just telling me about Sian. He says she’s not returning his calls…’

‘Oh, right.’

Sian was Geraint’s ex-wife. Their relationship hadn’t been a happy one but, nonetheless, Geraint was desperate to win her back. She was almost exactly the opposite of him in every way and had left him some time ago because, as Geraint had explained, ‘There was something on my phone that upset her’. He never explained what it was. Kyle didn’t think it had been another woman; he’d been devoted to Sian.

Kyle sat down at the table in his kitchen with Jen to eat breakfast, with a view into the back garden. The crow had gone. Geraint sat down too, looking at their plates like a wounded puppy.

‘No Geraint,’ barked Kyle.

‘What?!’

‘I know what you’re thinking. It’s my breakfast. Just because you turned up early doesn’t entitle you to it. If you wanted breakfast, you should have got some yourself.’

Jen rolled her eyes and picked up her plate and gave Geraint a couple of rashers of bacon and some egg. She then grabbed a sausage off of Kyle’s plate and put it on a new plate for Geraint, looking at Kyle as if to imply that this was some sort of friendship sausage tax.

I’m a baby gazelle. Geraint can sense my weakness. I’m not the sort of man to actually fight someone over a sausage. He thinks that my sausages are his to take. What does this mean for the future of my marriage? Is there some sort of phallic significance? I have to make a stand.

Kyle sighed.

‘So what have you guys got planned this weekend?’ asked Jen.

‘Ah ah ah! That’d be telling! It’s going to be fantastic though, just perfect for Kyle.’

Geraint looked at Kyle as he smiled, his victory bacon mashed between his teeth.

‘No strippers?’ asked Kyle with an accusatory tone.

‘My lips are sealed. What are you up to today then?’ Geraint said, motioning towards Jen with his pilfered sausage on the end of his fork, seeming to change the subject.

‘Well some of us have to work!’ she joked. Jen worked as an events manager at a nearby events planning firm. Kyle worked in the IT department of a car insurance company. He’d taken the day off, as well as Monday, so he could have a long weekend for his stag do, as per Geraint’s orders. Geraint worked in the sales department of the same insurance company, although he’d wantonly been taking days off recently, seeming to come and go as he pleased. He had no plans of going into work today or on Monday, not that he bothered to tell anyone at work about it.

Having finished her two-thirds of a breakfast, Jen got up from the table to get ready to leave for work.

Kyle watched Jen move out of earshot. ‘Okay Geraint, please. What have you got planned?’

‘Don’t you worry! Don’t you worry!’ he said with a grin, ‘I wouldn’t organise anything you wouldn’t like. It’s going to be a nice surprise. I promise you’ll like it.’

‘No strippers?’ Kyle’s eyebrow lifted.

‘No! And stop looking at me like that. You’re not Poirot.’

‘Nothing else like that?’

Geraint hesitated, and a wave of panic washed over Kyle.

‘No.’

‘You hesitated! What have you done?!’

‘Nothing like that! It’ll be fun, just don’t worry!’

Kyle looked up at the kitchen’s cream ceiling in an exasperated way. ‘Fine. Fine. On your head be it,’ he said curtly. Geraint inspired a sense of guilt that was hard to say no to. Especially with this stag party. Geraint had said that Sian hadn’t allowed him to have one before their short stint of a marriage, so with her no longer being a factor in the equation, Geraint had free rein to organise the most god-awful stereotypical Hollywood stag party imaginable. The kind of forced fun that sent cold sweats down Kyle’s back. ‘Why are you so early anyway?’ he asked with a fake yawn.

‘I wanted to go and see Sian to sort things out before the weekend. Get some valuable things of mine back. But she didn’t want to see me. So I thought, seeing as you’re only a few minutes away…’

‘That you’d steal my breakfast?’

‘Jen offered!’

He had him there. Kyle couldn’t think of a comeback and thought that a cold judging stare over a glass of orange juice was punishment enough.

‘Would you just cheer up Kyle! You’ll have the best weekend of your life, I promise.’

Kyle continued to eye him but was distracted by Jen rushing down the stairs after getting ready for work. She put on her high heeled shoes by the door with an expression of pain and annoyance before clomping on the hard corridor floor to walk over to Kyle.

‘Right, I’ve got to head off now. Have a lovely time!’ Kyle got up from the table to give her a kiss goodbye before she left. ‘Behave yourselves!’ she shouted, fumbling around for her keys in her bag.

She opened the door and rushed over to her car – a blue, spotless Audi – waving as she drove off. Kyle stood in the doorway and waved. Something then caught his eye. A white van parked in front of his house that he’d never seen before. Geraint walked up behind him, licking breakfast remnants from his fingers.

‘I rented it for the weekend. Managed to get a discount from work,’ he said, motioning towards it with his recently licked digits.

The discovery worried Kyle even more. He felt butterflies breeding in the pit of his stomach.

‘What’s wrong with your car?’ he asked with a pinch of panic, walking out of the front door in his socks to inspect it.

‘Not enough room…’

Kyle froze and swivelled back towards Geraint. ‘Room? For what?!’

‘Just supplies and things.’

‘Oh, that’s nice and not vague at all. Supplies and things. Supplies for what? Have you got us a job as roadmen this weekend or something?’

‘The term is roadies, Kyle. Roadmen are something else. And it’s just stag essentials! Anyway. All in good time, my friend.’ He checked his watch, leaning against the Edwardian terraced house doorway. ‘Are you ready to go? We don’t want to be late for the others…’

So you can invite yourself in for their breakfasts like some mad cat, thought Kyle, still irritated by the sausage. He was proud of himself for not saying it as he didn’t want to come across as petty, which was, in itself, a rather petty thing to be proud of. ‘Erm, I still need to grab my bag and coat,’ he said, patting his trouser pockets for his phone, wallet and keys. He quickly ran upstairs to his room to get the bag he’d packed last night and rushed back downstairs, checking that all the lights and plugs were off along the way, putting his coat on – a navy parka – by the front door.

‘Okay, ready,’ he said, motioning for Geraint to get out so that he could lock the door.

‘What the hell is that?!’ said Geraint, gesturing towards Kyle’s bag. It was a grey duffel bag, full to the brim with various changes of clothes, books, snacks and miscellaneous gubbins.

‘What?’

‘You’ve packed enough for a month! We’re going to a stag, not the Somme, Kyle.’

‘Well I like to be prepared. You can hardly talk. May I remind you that you’ve got a van large enough for a family of four to live in,’ he said with his back to Geraint, locking the front door, giving it a shake to make sure it was locked.

‘Or a group of four to party in,’ said Geraint as he walked with Kyle towards the van, doing a strange little half-jig below the yellowing trees on the narrow road’s pavement. Kyle rolled his eyes.

Geraint opened the van door for Kyle to climb inside. It had a strange smell of stale paint and week-old pasties to it. Kyle couldn’t help but curl up his nose. It was rather shabby inside. It had three small, squished together seats at the front, divided from the driver seat by a partition of just a couple of inches. They were uncomfortable, while the windshield was grubby, apart from a few patches that had to be clear to look out of the vehicle. An evidently useless pine tree air freshener hung down from the rear-view mirror, as well as a Cardiff City F.C. charm and an obligatory pair of purple fuzzy car dice. There was a plain white plastic bag on the left seat of the three; Kyle sat closest to the driver seat. Behind,