The Honourable MP for Gloucester South was still talking from the screens, although the figure with his face that emerged beneath them was silent.
The latex mask was terrifying in its impassiveness, the suit conservative and grey. The man’s hands lifted as if orchestrating the pompous words from the speakers.
“In 1983 the English middle class were appalled by the thought of incendiary material being viewed by the great unwashed—the working class; centuries previously, the gentry were similarly threatened by the invention of the printing press making penny dreadfuls available to the barely literate masses. This film is my printing press. And I am going to make you a part of it in a very special way.”
The man approached Tommy slowly until he was barely five feet away. Tommy focussed all his hatred and revulsion and the burning need for revenge on that one insignificant figure and the urge to squeeze the flamethrower trigger was almost uncontrollable. Yet the man seemed unafraid, and the words that detailed Tommy’s destiny continued to spill from the screens all around him. His finger tensed, but did not squeeze.
“Clips of death and depravity from all the choicest of the nasties have already been inserted into my film to compliment the real deaths your friends so kindly provided for me. The brutal Mother of all Nasties is almost complete. Just one more act of processing before the DVD is mastered and released into stores. And yes, the orders have already been placed. Advertising hype and false credentials have prompted contracts with major distributors. Nobody will know it’s the same film that caused the deaths of fifteen people up north in its festival test run. This is the next big thing, Thomas Wallace. All the terror, all the hideous violence that attended the work print premiere—amplified a thousand-fold by the unexpurgated DVD, complete and primed with its final encoding. Can you guess what that encoding is, Thomas?”
Tommy didn’t want to guess. He wanted to burn. He would start with that mask. The symbol of repression throughout his life. He’d burn that mask right off. But yet again he stayed his hand, as the words from the speakers continued to burrow into his brain.
“Human encoding is the answer… Your personal fear programmed into the master tape—the son of the Repressor, the stultifying moral crusader of the 80’s—what symbolic irony… Not only will you endure unbearable agony and terror in your starring role as the victim in an endless Video Nasty Greatest Hits—you will physically experience every drilling, stabbing, burning and eye-gouging on repeat mode—but your horror encoded into the film will stimulate the essence of evil dormant in each frame. When the DVD is viewed, its malevolent influence will be amplified because of your contribution and reach out to the minds of all those who watch it. Like you, they will be mentally conditioned to believe they are actually experiencing the scenes in the film and the resultant madness will induce homicidal urges on an unparalleled scale.”
The voice stopped.
The nozzle of the flamethrower lifted. Tommy grimaced. It was not a smile. The flame dribbled from the barrel. His finger tensed, ready to propel ignited propane at the instigator of all his woes.
And a huge hand closed on his arm from behind, forcing the barrel down.
Another hand clamped around his face.
The giant began to lift him off his feet. Tommy could smell the sweat and blood on the killer as he struggled in his massive arms. His finger closed on the flamethrower trigger and a gout of fire streamed out, engulfing Absurd’s right leg.
The giant released him with a roar of pain and fury. Tommy hit the floor and rolled, the fuel pack falling off his shoulder as he did so. He depressed the trigger again, and held it there, giving Absurd another pulse of flame that took him in his bearded face. A rhino screech and the monster flailed, beating at the flames. Tommy regained his feet, swinging the barrel to face the Director, the attached fuel pack clanging along the floor as he turned.
He pressed the trigger. A hollow click. The dribble of flame dwindled and died. Tommy dropped the flamethrower, quickly scooped up the tank and swung it by the attached hose. It smashed heavily into the Director’s mask.
A rent appeared in the latex. The Director reeled back. He reached up, clasped the mask by the fake haircut and tugged. The face Tommy had seen on the screens earlier was revealed. The pasty face was even pastier now, liquefying with rot. The pock marks were filled with mould. As Tommy watched, one of the eyes slopped out of its socket and rolled down the cheek, dislodged by the blow. The Director idly plucked the other free too, dropped it to the floor along with the mask. A video spool was exposed where each eye had been, protected by grimy transparent screens. Tommy could even see the fingerprints smeared on the plastic—just to add to the horrible verisimilitude. Mister Nasty was a VHS man through and through. Tommy didn’t scream or laugh, although he felt tipped towards both reactions. The Director’s mouth opened and a loop of video tape drooled out. Tommy flinched back. The conservative shirt beneath the suit was bursting open now as the Director’s belly ruptured, and a seething coil of magnetic tape tumbled over his belt, questing, snaking, imbued with slithery life.
Life really does imitate film, Tommy thought as the loops reached for him.
Absurd came up behind him, his burned face smouldering, breathing like his lungs were on fire too. His massive hands pushed Tommy towards the jungle of tape, and the tape embraced him in its coils.
He was dragged towards the editing suite beyond the inner door and his thoughts were no longer fuelled by rage. His anger was done. There was no more. His heart was the colour of sadness. He saw Trish: it was their first date all over again. Summer evening in the beer garden of a country pub. He remembered the ale he had drunk (she had gone for a glass of red). She had laughed when he called his bag of crisps moon flakes, and his pot of cockles Sea Beasts. Her hair so dark, her face sensual, eyes kind. Her features fading now.
I’m sorry.
He saw his father’s face (but never his mother’s, dead when he was six). They were sharing a glum supper. His father buried in the newspaper. He remembered staring at the conservative side-parting of his hair, flecked with grey. He remembered wanting his attention, and always failing to get it. But now his father was looking up at him and he was smiling. Tommy saw the smile crumble to soil and a tear down his cheek became a worm dribbling from the socket. Tommy’s Dad was sitting up in his grave to beg for forgiveness. They had failed each other for the last time.
I’m sorry too, Dad.
He saw Jasmine, and the night of passion in her flat. He looked into those mild brown eyes as he thrust, as he thrust into the dark, and her face blew away in a shower of ash.
Tommy’s cell phone clattered to the floor as he was dragged, unresisting now, through the door. The fall activated the screen and revealed a text had just been received. Tommy could see the sender’s name at the top of the screen. BlondeVenus. Tommy started to laugh. Slowly and quietly.
The Director and the giant placed Tommy in a chair in the editing suite and fixed a metal helmet over his head. The reels of tape dangled from the Director’s torn belly, and twitched from his mouth.
This is MY film, Tommy thought, and the world turned red.