Slade was driving like a maniac cop.
“Set up,” was all he would tell Whitley as they hammered down the M4 towards the Malmesbury turn off. As soon as he’d tried to ring the production base on leaving the SOC and got a dead tone, he’d known the score. When none of his officers, including DC Nandu, responded to their HT sets, he was convinced of the worst.
“Fucking diversion, Trev,” he elaborated as the miles towards their destination continued to diminish—but still too slowly for Slade. Whitley had listened to him barking orders into the car radio. The nearest substantial force to Malmesbury was Swindon, and a squad was now mobilised. They would probably beat Slade to the film set, but not by much, judging from the speed the Bentley was doing.
Slade was going all out: “Scramble a copter,” he had barked at the Avon and Somerset Transport Department over the HT.
The walkie talkie squawked back at him. Some junior officer not knowing whose ass to stick his thumb up. “What d’you fucking mean it’s already mobilised? I don’t care how many chav joy riders are out enjoying themselves on the roads, get a fucking chopper over Malmesbury. Now!” He cut the connection, continued to glare straight ahead at the M4 vanishing point.
“Fucking bastard tipped us off to clear the way, Trev. We fucked up.”
“We’ve got several officers there already, guv. They can handle themselves.”
“They’re not expecting anything. They’ll have changed down a gear after we left. You know it, I know it.” He was doing 100 mph and it still wasn’t fast enough.
Jasmine was screaming. And Tommy was watching her through the window. She was out there with four killer freaks and he was watching the view.
Anthro dropped her casually on the grass. She struggled to get to her feet, and Anthro helped her, scooping her upright with one hand on her throat. He held her there half gasping, half screaming.
Then the lock broke on his courage and he made for the door.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Lana barred his way.
“She needs me! I can’t just watch them kill her!” He made to push her out of his way, but she stood firm. Tim the Third came up behind him, grabbed his shoulders. “She’s right, mate. You can’t go out there. They’ll kill you as well.”
“Let me through!” He shrugged Tim off, and pushed Lana roughly aside. He began tugging at the beds, trying to make a gap to slip through and open the door. Then a voice stopped him.
“It’s me who should go.”
It was Mark, and when Tommy swivelled to face him, his rival’s face had lost both its tan and its smugness. He approached Tommy slowly, and that confusion Tommy had noticed earlier was still there, along with the fear. “I know them.”
“What the fuck d’you mean?” This was from the sound engineer. Tommy didn’t have time for this. Jasmine was still screaming outside.
“You know those freaks?” Rona’s face was like a shocked child. Terror had made her a ten year-old again.
“It’s him, isn’t it?” Tommy said, staring out the window again. Anthro was still holding Jasmine upright and she was still struggling. Next to him Mr. Bland with the camera—and he was still too far away for Tommy to be able to distinguish what caricature that mask was supposed to represent—was filming the cabin patiently. “The director…”
“He promised me all the snuff footage would be faked. I never believed… I never believed he’d do this…” He followed Tommy’s gaze out of the window. “It was such a controversial idea, a faux snuff film with no credits, filmed in such a masterful way that everyone would believe it was real. A diatribe against our brutal, meaningless lives, he said. A horrific allegory for horrific times. Shock through Art.” Mark’s voice was wavering, his eyes lost in trauma. “He said he’d be the new Hitchcock, the new Kubrick. Beyond all those. He said—”
“It doesn’t matter what the fuck he said!” The sound engineer cut in. “If you know him, go out there and talk to him. Tell them to stop!”
Mark bent to continue tugging the beds free from the door. Tommy hesitated. “Did you know they killed Andy? And Graham the wrangler?” Before Mark could answer, Jasmine screamed again. There wasn’t time for this bullshit.
Mark pulled the beds free at last. He straightened, gasping, his face earnest with terror. “No! Of course not! The director said it was all an unfortunate coincidence, but it would make great publicity for us… Silver lining, he said.” His voice tailed away shamefully.
Tommy grabbed him by the scruff of his uniform and thrust his face into Mark’s. “Coincidence, my ass!! You must have guessed! With all your talk of nasties earlier on the dining bus… You must have suspected something!” Another memory clicked into place: “and then there’s your ring tone… Teddy Bear’s fucking Picnic. I remember hearing it on Arthur and wondering where I’d heard it before. Now it’s just come back to me… Funny it’s the theme tune to the film that inspired Andy’s death… Don’t you think?”
“No, I—” Mark looked down, faltering. “I couldn’t… I wouldn’t!” His face was ghost-white. “He said it was going to be used on the movie soundtrack. He wanted me to install it on my cell for…” his voice became a whisper, “advertising purposes.” He looked up again, like a schoolboy pleading his innocence. “I didn’t know… I…don’t know much about video nasties. I didn’t connect the dots…”
“Chuck the fucker out with his mates!” Sound Engineer again, and Tommy was getting sick of his voice.
Rona was weeping now, and surprisingly it was frosty old Hetty who took it upon herself to look after her, stroking her hair, hugging her soothingly.
Mark looked up again at Tommy. His chin became firm, his eyes resolute. “I’m sorry. I know we’ve never got along, but please believe me now. You can see why it’s me who has to go out there and put this right.” Tommy said nothing for a second, then gave a quick nod.
Mark slipped through the gap they had made and yanked the door open. They all watched him step outside. Tommy made to follow him, but Tim and Lana restrained him.
They watched through the window as Mark approached the four grim figures. Jasmine quietened her screams a little as she saw him come.
Had Mark’s fear all been a ruse? It could well be that he knew a lot more about nasties and death than he had let on. Was he in actual fact going out to join his accomplices?
Mark held up his hand as if welcoming his pals. Tommy couldn’t see his face as his back was turned, but he seemed to be addressing the cameraman with the bland latex mask. The Director.
The cameraman was filming Mark, just as he had done in their “epic” snuff movie to end all snuff movies.
They all heard Mark’s voice clearly through the half-open doorway, carried on the spring night air. “What are you doing? This isn’t what you promised! You told me it was all going to be simulated. Have you lost your fucking mind?” More games? Tommy clenched with indecision. Should he rush out now, before anything happened to Jasmine?
The cameraman/director didn’t bother answering. He gestured to Bigfoot, and the brute with the cheap “fur” gave a gibbering roar and lumbered forward. It was a sound that embodied all video nasties. The growl was amped and muffled at the same time, like a deep electronic vibrato. One filthy hand seized Mark by the crotch, jagged nails tearing material and flesh. And squeezed. And ripped. Blood began to hose the grass before him. Mark was screeching and begging, but he’d overstepped the mark, his role was played out. With a final wrench, Bigfoot swung his hand up in the air, clutching its raw trophy, and Mark let out the most god-awful scream Tommy had ever heard. He spun, pissing blood from the root of his amputated cock, lurched away from the four killers. They let him go. They were done with him. Mark was clutching his groin, the front of his officer trousers wet and dark with blood. He made it two yards, then went down on his knees, and then his face.
Jasmine screamed. Oh boy, did she scream.
Behind Tommy, most of his companions joined in.
Ten miles to go till they reached the turn off to Malmesbury.
Whitley tried DC Nandu’s frequency again on the HT. Nothing. Same with the other officers. Swindon came on: they were in Malmesbury now, five miles from the TV location. Another car was on the way from Gloucester.
“We’ll get the fucker this time, Trev.” Slade’s face was set, his eyes concentrating on the road. They flew past a service station. Six miles.
The rookie from ASTD came over the radio. “A broken fuel pipe? I don’t fucking care! Fix it! I want it covering the unit base in ten minutes!” Slade slammed the steering wheel in rage. “Fucking amateurs.” He glared at Whitley in disbelief. “One chopper’s got a busted fuel line and the other’s deployed out past Gloucester. They seriously think I’m stretching my neck out over nothing here!”
Whitley continued to ineffectually press the HT button. Nothing but dead air answered him.
It happened very quickly then.
At a gesture from Mr. Bland, Anthro released Jasmine. She took a hesitant step forward, looked back once, then towards the cabin. Took another step.
Come on, Jasmine! Tommy struggled against Tim and Lana, but the latter was stronger than she looked. He watched Jasmine take another step, unable to stop himself recalling a similar scene in The Wild Bunch, where General Mapache releases the militant bandit, Angel, and he takes a step towards freedom, two steps, not believing he is actually going to make it—and then the blade in Mapache’s hand flashes and Angel’s throat opens. Red. All red.
Please don’t let this be an Angel moment. “Let me go!” He managed to pull free and made it to the door. Anthro’s hand swatted Jasmine’s head, almost gently, almost lovingly, and she went down. Tommy yelled inarticulately.
And the four killers began to move forward.
Anthro stepped over Jasmine’s slumped form as they came, Mr. Bland filming all the way.
Tim had him in a firmer grip this time, helped by the prop guy, and together they dragged him back around the beds, then let him go to concentrate on slamming the door shut and barricading it again.
“They’re coming!” This from Sally, the wardrobe girl. Her voice quavered on the brink of madness.
“We need weapons.” Lana was once again taking charge. She scanned the wooden cabin for anything they might be able to use to defend themselves with. A portable gas fire in one corner, period bed pans, blankets, chairs. Nothing particularly useful.
Rona, still reverted to childhood, was peeping out from Hetty’s starched bosom, her eyes impossibly wide. Hetty continued to stroke her hair. “It’s alright, dear,” she crooned repetitively. Tommy felt like screaming it’s not alright, it’s not fucking alright!—but he knew that wouldn’t help anyone. He took a peek through the window. The killers had closed the gap now. Ten yards from the door. Eight, seven—Tommy saw the latex mask on Mr. Bland clearly now.
He staggered back from the window.
Like Rona, he had reverted to childhood. He was being driven to school by his truculent father. It was a memory as clear and pristine as if it were a scene restored for a blu ray remastering. His father turned to him and said, “Behave at school. I can’t afford for you to let me down. My reputation depends upon it.” The twelve year-old Tommy was staring at his father’s profile in the car, and the thirty-seven year-old Tommy was staring at his father’s features moulded into a latex head mask and worn by a psychopathic killer.
The world had tipped. Helter-skelter madness. This was the moment when Tommy felt sure it could be just one big bad trip after all.
Until Bigfoot crashed through the door, all video nasty growls, red eyes and brute Neanderthal rage.
He shoved the beds aside like they were made of balsa wood, seized the sound engineer, held him by the throat with his furry left hand, while opening up his belly with his right. The claw punched through leather jacket, plaid shirt and flesh and came out clutching loops of filthy intestine. The sound engineer shut up for the first time since the siege began.
Bigfoot dropped the guy, and stooped to unravel those grey slimy guts, like a deranged kid playing with a string of grubby sausages. He slung them round the room in a welter of blood while good people screamed and screamed again. Tommy saw Rona’s face red with a blood splash-back; Hetty had let her go, was backed into a corner. Cropsy followed his murderous mate inside the ward, molten face a burn scar from hell. Lana swung a chair at him. Cropsy parried it with his shears, then closed the blades and lunged them through Lana’s throat. Blood frothed and bubbled around the steel, Lana’s eyes locked on those of her killer, sadness mixed with agony.
Anthropophagous was in now. He’d found his prize: Rona. He snatched her with lecherous glee, peeling down the nurse uniform with one huge hand. Hetty ran forward to protect her friend. Cropsy, his toasted marshmallow face grimacing horrifically, snipped at her out-flung right hand, clipping her fingers neatly, leaving just a thumb and four pulsing stumps. Hetty dropped in a faint. Cropsy gouged her chest with the shears, stabbing manically.
Bigfoot had Tim up against the wooden wall, was sliding him towards the window. The pane shattered beneath the force, and the killer pushed the AD’s head through the broken gap, rubbing his neck against a particularly jagged piece of glass that jutted downward. Flesh parted. Blood came.
Cropsy snipped here, deadheaded there, like a maniac gardener. Sally was down, Juliette too, missing limbs, gouting from various wounds.
Bigfoot scooped the grip up by his neck. Swung him towards the gas fire that his greedy little eyes had spotted in the corner. He pressed the side of the grip’s face against the super hot surface of the cylindrical heater. The well-built young man struggled gamely, but no cigar. Bigfoot was so much more macho. The grip’s face turned orange under the heat, sizzling, searing, flesh patching, popping.
Anthro had exposed Rona’s considerable breasts. He held her up with one hand, admired her nakedness for a second while she sobbed and dribbled and beat at him ineffectually. His other hand, huge and dirty, began to desecrate her. First stroking her right breast, then pawing at it, animal like, then ripping, wrenching.
The ward was red.
And Tommy?
Tommy saw it all happen, but Tommy was in a bad dream. His father had come into the cabin, only his father’s face was false somehow, and he looked thirty years younger. But of course it wasn’t his Dad…
That would be impossible.
As impossible as three monsters from video nastyland taking on life and breathing, killing form?
His Dad was filming the carnage. The Red One swung smoothly in his hands, and Tommy could see the eyeholes in the latex mask, and behind those: real eyes, blue eyes, and that was wrong, wasn’t it? Because his father’s eyes had been brown.
That was when reality kicked in, and Tommy’s mind cleared. He was the last one standing. He saw what Anthro had done, he saw what Bigfoot had done. He saw Cropsy with his shears, and suddenly Tommy knew what he had to do.
His hand delved into his jacket pocket, came out clutching the little gold WWI lighter. He flicked the wheel and the flame came. He spun, tore one of the old white sheets from an overturned bed, thrust the flame against its starchy material.
Cropsy watched him, shears open wide but making no threatening move towards him. Flames erupted from the sheet in Tommy’s hand, spreading quickly. He tossed it over Cropsy’s head. The killer spun aside, but the sheet settled on his right arm, and flame rolled up it in a blazing stream.
Cropsy thrashed wildly, and the flames engulfed him in fast forward time.
He made no sound as he burned.
Tommy’s father (no, not his father, it was not his father) filmed that too, then signalled to the others. They were leaving.
Tommy let them go, pressed back against one wall, breath pumping in and out, watching Cropsy burn.
The flames popped out one by one, and a charred corpse lay on the ground. The face was burned undeniably, but the exaggeratedly melted features had disappeared. The face of a normal man was revealed, blackened, blistered, dark hair half-seared away. But normal. Tommy knew the mask hadn’t dissolved under the heat, it had simply gone.
Tommy swivelled his head to the left, so he could see out of the broken window. The three killers were striding across the grass. Anthro stooped, pulled the slumped form of Jasmine up on his way. Tommy stumbled towards the door. This time he would save her. The doorway telescoped away from him. Blackness wanted him.
He made it out onto the outside step and then dropped like a sack of bolts.