Cull Page 24

  The screen flickers, blurs and then there is a whole face, blinking in the glare of a bright light, snot bubbling from a nostril, eyes wet with tears.

  ‘Daddy!’ screams Stella from her wheelchair.

  ‘Doctor!’ screams Robin from the family room.

  Alex grabs at Terry’s sleeve. ‘Is that an older man?’ she asks quickly. ‘Thick eyebrows … a moustache … ?’

  ‘Yep,’ says Terry. ‘It is that doctor.’

  ‘Dr Binding, I presume,’ The Mouth’s voice purrs from the speaker. ‘The Dr Barnabas Binding. We couldn’t have a Grassy- banks party without The Good Doctor Binding, now, could we? After all, it is him we have to thank for the unique design of the Chiller Beds. It is him we also have to thank for the swift disposal of the bodies who succumbed to the Chiller Beds! Hooray for Dr Binding, who did his research and found a scientific method for the eradication of the human detritus! Dr Binding, who designed the programme and brought Grassybanks the … da da DAAA … the Resomator. And here he is to demonstrate it.’

  The camera, shining a light onto the doctor’s face, moves swiftly backwards as if yanked on a thread and emerges to show a bunker-like room with no obvious windows. Now they can all see that the doctor is tied, hand and foot, lying in a container in the middle of the bunker, a coffin-shaped container that seems to be made from a thin, taut cloth. The transparent cloth is fitted to the inside of yet another larger metal barrel contraption, open at one end, the end the camera has just been pulled from.

  ‘Now, who knows how a Resomator works?’

  Clown-nurses jump up and down in front of The Mouth waving their gloved hands.

  ‘No, no … you little eager beavers. I think we should ask The Good Doctor himself. Go ahead, Camera Two.’

  Once again the camera in the bunker enters through the doorway at one end of the metal barrel and pushes up into the cloth container with the doctor’s trapped body. Once again his face is full on screen.

  ‘Can you hear me, Dr Binding?’ The Mouth smiles.

  The doctor is twisting his head to look down at the camera, mouth clenched shut.

  ‘Speak to me, Doctor. It is your only option.’

  ‘Daddy!’ screams Stella again, and on screen Binding flinches.

  ‘What do you want?’ he manages to spit. ‘You terrorists …’

  ‘Ahh, there you are, Doctor. Now we have an audience for your work, which I know you will be very pleased about. According to your colleague, Professor Pansy – you remember, up in Manchester with the “P Formula”? Well, he assures us you have been longing to boast about this project, and now here is your chance. Tell us about the Resomator!’

  ‘I will not engage with terrorists.’ Binding furiously shakes his head and snot smacks the camera lens.

  ‘Are you trying to play the hero, Doctor? Goodness … doesn’t really suit a mass-murderer now, does it? A leetle beetle hypofuckingcritical. Anyway, it doesn’t matter if you do or don’t want to join in. We have a diagram.’

  From behind the rubber-masked army, a clown pulls out a flip chart on a wheeled stand. There is a poster on it.

  ‘The poster says “Resomator”,’ whispers Terry. ‘“Alkaline” … err … “hydrolysis” … “body liquefaction”. What the fuck?’

  ‘Bring the camera close, son,’ says The Mouth, as if it has heard, and a clown tugs at Terry to move in to film the poster. ‘That’s right. Get a nice clean shot of the diagram. Now the family-room people can see it too. Look! You see where the doctor is? He is lying in a silk – how should we say? – “coffin”, I guess. Yes, Doctor. You are lying right now in the Resomator in a silk coffin. Above you is a spray bar that will, when activated, combine the necessary levels of water and alkali. The whole thing will then be heated to a hundred and fifty degrees centigrade and you will become, in about three hours, a mere mess of liquid and soft calcium. Blackboard chalk, in fact. It is a wonderfully efficient method of disposal. And even more importantly, it is very green. No nasties into the environment. No smoke up chimneys … such a dead giveaway. Ah ha ha. I am a riot,’ chortles The Mouth.

  ‘The thing is, we don’t think the diagram does the Resomator justice. As we have The Good Doctor all ready and waiting, what say we play our game?’ The clowns spin in circles of feigned delight, but a couple are staggering, looking exhausted. There is a crack of lightning and then almost immediately thunder shakes the building. The lights and screen blink off and on again. One of the clowns faints. Really faints. A couple of the rubber-masked people break ranks and pull the clown away, into their midst.

  ‘Yes,’ says The Mouth, now sounding a little gravelly, a little tired. ‘Let’s play! Time is a tick-tick-ticking … You can answer “true” or you can answer “false”. Only one is right. If you get the answer wrong, then we shall begin – now what do they call it here? – “processing” The Good Doctor. If you get it right, Dr Binding will not end up as chalk dust. It’s that simple.’ The Mouth grins. There is a tiny spot of lipstick on its brilliant-white incisor.

  The three clowns push the wheelchairs closer and then, with a magician’s flourish, one of them pulls out from under its oversized nurse’s bib what looks like a huge, ancient machine gun.

  ‘Holy shit!’ Terry spits, shocked, clapping a hand over his mouth. The camera wobbles.

  ‘Stop this!’ shouts Alex furiously, pulling off her stupid tinted specs and glaring around, scanning the room desperately, trying to source the person with the voice of The Mouth. Where is the fucking Wizard of Oz, eh? Where are you, Helen? Everything has changed now. With Dr Binding’s appearance on screen it has become absolutely up-in-your-face obvious to every last person in the two rooms that this is not going to end well. And now guns?

  The penny has dropped even for the denser of the trio in their wheelchairs. John Thorpe-Sinclair’s face has drained of all colour and is almost translucent, his cheeks shuddering with tension. Stella’s eyes are wide, glistening, her mascara smudged. Only Henri Rennes hasn’t yet seen the gun. He has just managed to yank one arm free and is bent over trying to pull his trousers from the glue and shouting something foul and French, spittle dashing like Braille across his shiny shoes. A clown prods him with the oversized semi-automatic and shakes a finger. Oh, no no no, naughty Frenchie.

  Henri straightens slowly in the chair and sees the gun barrel pointed at his chest. His jaw drops and, apart from a short sharp fart, he becomes quiet and still.

  ‘Come on! Question time for our celebrity welfare reform panel!’ says The Mouth. ‘Monsieur Rennes has now told us a great deal about Grassybanks. Let’s hear it from the other horse’s mouth, shall we? Thorpe-Sinclair, true or false? Is Grassybanks actually a front for government-sponsored euthanasia?’

  ‘Wow,’ whispers Terry. ‘I have never seen anyone literally “quake” before.’

  John Thorpe-Sinclair looks like he might vomit. Rennes can’t keep his eyes off the gun; Thorpe-Sinclair can’t bear to look at them. ‘I don’t know what …’ he mumbles, his eyes flicking back and forth.

  ‘A simple yes or no, sir. A man’s life is at risk here. You know what euthanasia is. Killing off people deemed to be of no value. You know what the government is. You are part of it. You know what sponsorship is. You did the fun run for Children in Need last November. Now answer the fucking question. Are you and Grassybanks a front for state-sponsored euthanasia?’

  ‘No!’ Thorpe-Sinclair’s voice is too fast and too high. ‘I know nothing about this!’

  ‘Ding, wrong answer! Poor old Dr Binding.’

  A horrible klaxon noise goes off somewhere outside. ‘That is a flood alarm,’ Terry hisses to Alex. ‘The river must be rising.’ There is another peal of thunder and the rain rat-tat-tats at the windows, reminding everyone, as if they needed reminding, of the semi-automatic weapon being brandished by one smiling, red-nosed clown.

  A sudden high-pitched whistling comes from the sound system. It isn’t feedback.

  ‘That noise is the noise of the Reso
mator,’ shares The Mouth. ‘The Resomator has now been activated! Water is being sucked into the pipes. Fun, fun, fun! Looks like we are going to be able to write on a blackboard with Dr Binding after all.’

  Another whine adds to the whistling noise. ‘Ahh … I believe that is the sound of the alkali flooding into the pipe to mix with the water. The Resomator is so efficient.’

  A choking screech from Dr Binding.

  ‘You better pull out of there, Camera Two,’ says The Mouth. ‘The alkali will sting like a bitch.’

  The camera pulls back again and emerges in the bunker. The doctor’s feet can be seen vainly kicking up and down on the silk coffin floor. A hand reaches in front of the camera and swings the metal tube door shut. It makes a terrible clanging sound, and the doctor’s voice is silenced. On the screen now the Resomator hulks alone. It is beginning to shudder slightly.

  The voice of The Mouth continues from the speakers. ‘Stella Binding, dear lady and proud daughter of the poor doctor. You have the last word. True or false: Homeless Action!, the CDD, Chiller Beds, Resomators, disappearing human detritus? Is this all about state-sponsored euthanasia?’

  Stella’s eyes slide desperately from side to side. She wriggles and jiggles, trying to get unstuck. Her hair has come loose and hangs down, a thick blonde curl now also glued to the back of the chair. She sees Terry, sees the camera and has a flash of what it will mean if she, Minister for Health, admits to any of this. It may save her father, but she will be thrown to the dogs. She’ll end up in … my God … in prison.

  ‘I have no idea what you are talking about,’ she spits. ‘If you do this, then YOU are the murderers!’

  ‘You would let your father be Resomated alive? Goodness. What a nasty child. Well, OK then.’ The Mouth smiles. ‘You said “false” and that was the … wrong answer!’

  Now a deep glottal groaning sound mixes in with the whine and the whistle.

  ‘And that is the Resomator doing what it does best. Cooking your old man to soft calcium.’

  ‘You are insane!’ screams Stella. ‘You are sick! Murderers!’

  Murderers! Stella’s scream makes Alex wince. Her own eyes prickle with tears, not of fear, but of sadness. This isn’t the way … no, please … this will just get us all killed … they will hate us more. They will hate us forever.

  The screen flickers, goes blank, flickers again. Outside, the thunder booms, a mammoth boot slamming down on the earth, several miles away. The storm is moving off. The klaxon goes again. The wind howls.

  And then, there is a small dark-haired woman in the room. She has appeared right next to Alex, in fact brushes past her, with a light pat on her arm. The woman is in a motorised wheelchair, unmasked. There are several Mouths on the screen, but there is only one Helen.

  ‘You call us murderers,’ she says, placing her wheelchair directly in front of the swooning Stella. She is still wearing a microphone clipped to the collar of her black jumper, and her words, although delivered quietly, can be heard everywhere. She moves closer to Stella, and now they are wheel-hub to wheel-hub, eye to eye.

  ‘You call us murderers?’ she repeats, and Stella sobs, cannot keep her gaze and drops her head as far as she can, given her hair is glued into the back of her chair. Helen raises her working arm slowly and points back up to the white screen.

  The Wheels on the Bus

  Chris is the first to hear the pounding, but he is loath to leave his vigil by the TV, and this tears at him deeply given that he can already smell the person on the other side of the door. He turns his head to the hallway, and his ears flare as he tries to source where Jenny is. Upstairs with strawberry yoghurt baby. The pounding comes again. A muffled yell and another waft of man at door. Damn it! thinks Chris. He has caught the scent of tobacco and dog, burnt buttered toast and leather. He turns on his stiff haunches, dashes to the front door and barks for Jenny.

  ‘Jenny!! Get your arse down here and let in Mr Parnell!’

  As soon as he sees her appear at the top of the stairs, he dashes back to the TV to check his beloved is still there. Thunder, like a bomb blast, rocks the house, and Chris whines and flinches as the lights flicker. There is crackling and static coming from the picture box but no picture. Noooooo! Has he lost her?

  He is about to howl in distress when the sound and picture fizz on again, and he can hear Alex once more. Her voice is tempered, sounds calm, but Chris can hear the stress in her body, without having to be close enough to smell her.

  He dashes back to the front door just as Jenny opens it, and Parnell, rain crackling off his umbrella, steps into the hallway. His stench of dog and pipe-smoke, deep warm browns and clear blues, is immediately reassuring to Chris. He holds his snout gently over the sodden shoelaces, takes a long toke. Parnell’s hand rubs Chris’s ears.

  ‘Hey there, boy? How are we doing?’

  ‘Thanks for coming, Euan. Have you seen it?’ Jenny’s voice is high and anxious. ‘It’s insane, and Alex is bang in the middle of it.’

  ‘Caught it on the website, and now it’s on local TV. And been listening on the radio in the bus. It’s on national RBR now and rolling news.’ Parnell takes off his coat, apologising at the amount of water now pooling on the floor. ‘Where’s Mosh?’

  ‘The river’s flooded. All the emergency services have been called out.’

  Chris can’t stay politely still while they chat. He tries to herd them both into the living room. Gives up and zaps back to his seat in front of the TV. Barks sharply at them to be quiet.

  Jenny and Parnell are behind him.

  ‘I don’t know what the hell to do. Chris is going nuts listening to Alex’s voice on the TV, but I daren’t turn it off.’ Jenny is finding it hard not to be a teeny bit afraid of Chris. He is completely focused. Although sitting so still, he looks tense, poised, as if he might jump, snarl, whirl around at any second.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, Jenny,’ says Parnell, his voice low and urgent, ‘when we did the tour I saw the place they had stocked the stuff for that godawful thing … what did they call it … the body liquefier?’

  ‘The Resomator.’

  ‘Yes. That. There was a separate entrance and access to Grassy- banks way around the back. Along the ridge.’

  ‘What are you thinking?’

  ‘I am thinking that it is all going to kick off in there, and some people – Alex, maybe some of Alex’s friends – would appreciate a pickup.’

  It takes a mere second for the penny to drop. ‘You can’t take the school bus into that place! What happens if you get arrested? What about the flooding?’ Jenny feels hysteria rising.

  ‘Storm’s moving off … and the flooding is never as bad as they think. The water’s already draining away. I don’t reckon I’ll have any trouble, and if I do I’ll just say I got lost, is all … in the storm. They don’t look like terrorists to me. They look exhausted and scared and … well, we can get at least six wheelchairs in the back of the bus at a push. I just think …’ He trails off.

  There is a short, breathy silence.

  ‘I can’t leave them there, Jenny. Did you know my wife was put on the list for Grassybanks when they diagnosed her MS? Just in case, they said.’

  Chris senses Parnell’s intention, the vibration of action and of ‘collecting’, ‘hunting’. He comes to Parnell’s feet, looks up at him, places a paw on his knee.

  ‘We’ll be very careful, won’t we, boy,’ says Parnell, resting a large hand on Chris’s head. Chris gives an abrupt, encouraging bark.

  Jenny sighs. ‘That’s decided, then,’ she says, hefting Serena up to her shoulder. ‘Drop me at the school, and I will open up the back classrooms and the first-aid room. They are going to need somewhere to hide out until the storm passes.’

  In Which Mayor Pearson Stands Tall

  The sirens are faint but becoming louder, although it is hard to tell how far off, given the way the storm wind plucks the sounds of traffic and klaxon, shouts and thunder, and whirls them around and around.


  ‘We ask for your patience.’ Helen uses her stronger hand to manipulate the wheelchair’s control and moves to the windows of the family room. ‘We are going to ask everyone to come out and join us. But please, the police are coming. There is no need for hysterics. Our clown is weary and angry, and that makes it trigger-happy. Do you understand?’

  The mayor pushes himself to the front of the sweating mass of people behind the glass. He seems a little taller, a little straighter. He holds up his arms and says something to the frightened people behind him. He nods at Helen.

  ‘Thank you, Mayor Pearson,’ says Helen. In Helen’s voice Alex can hear the scissor of pain snipping at her muscles and watches Helen take a long drag on her oxygen. The clown, with the gun hanging at its side, opens the family-room doors, and the rubber- masked people move at last in formation, carefully, slowly, some limping, some wheeling, some clicking with canes and crutches. As the mayor leads his entourage, the guests and press out of the family room and into reception, they are each handed a rubber mask by a couple of clowns. Eventually everyone is clustered uneasily around Helen, Terry, Alex and the three dishevelled VIPs. Those not yet wearing masks hold them in sweating hands waiting to hear what comes next.

  ‘We want to show you something,’ says Helen. Her voice cracks, and her face contorts. A spasm. Just the one. She swallows. Shit, she is brave, thinks Alex. She is so fragile it would take just one of these big clumsy people to knock her down, kick the wheelchair over, break her in pieces, take control, but no one does. The onlookers are like pigeons watching a cat, eyes bright, ready to flap away on unoiled squeaky wings off to the rafters.

  ‘OK, Boudicca.’ The mayor, Bill Pearson, is pale but his hands, no longer clenched, are not shaking. ‘You have already made your protest. You have frightened these—’ he isn’t sure what to call them, but gestures with his head to the three glued into their seats ‘—people. You have killed a man. Surely, enough now.’

  ‘Yes, Mayor Pearson. We are so nearly there. Please understand, we will never have another opportunity like this. I hope we won’t need it. I ask you to watch this one crucial last compilation of footage. All of you. I am asking for a final five minutes, in honour of the dead.’