Tales of Sin and Madness (22 page)

With a fearful frown, the large woman looked to the floor and sobbed. She shook her head.

“Hurry up. Only ten seconds left.”

There was a faint shout from the audience. The microphones barely picked it up, but the word, “Canberra”, was heard.

The man rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Canberra?” the woman said, looking up at the man with a hopeful stare.

The man looked past the camera and nodded.

A gunshot blasted and everybody in the audience screamed. The man stood up and raised his hands. “Silence! All be quiet or else you will suffer the same fate!”

The music stopped. It took a little while before the audience quieted down. With the sounds of many crying, the man sat down and said to the camera, “Turn around and show it.”

There was a whirl of motion until the camera rested on the dark audience.

“Lights!” shouted the man from behind.

The theatre illuminated to reveal the horrendous sight of a man whose head had been blown apart. Those around him were splattered with the man’s blood, as well as gooey bits of brain and tissue. As one woman vomited, the camera swiveled back to the man at the desk.

He had a large smile.

“We don’t allow cheating on this show, do we, Dave?”

A quick pan to Dave showed him with his head in his hands and crying. The camera went back to the man.

“Dave’s a little distraught at the moment. But we’ll continue. I’ll ask you another question, okay, Doris?” He looked at the audience. “And no more yelling out the answers.” He turned back to a shaking Doris. “Which one of Saturn’s moons resembles the Death Star from the movie
Star Wars
?”

Doris choked back tears. She looked as though she might throw up.

“Come on, only ten seconds left. Which one looks like the Death Star?”

“I don’t know!” Doris screamed. “The biggest,” she sobbed.

“No!” Stewart McGregor cried at his T.V. set. “It’s Mimas. Stupid woman.”

“Stewart,” his mother gasped. She stared at him, grimacing.

“Sorry,” Stewart said without turning his attention away from the TV.

“I’m afraid that’s incorrect,” the man behind the desk sighed. “The answer I was after was Mimas. Now, how would you like to die?”

It was all too much for the woman. She screamed a high-pitched wail and jumped out of the chair. The two men grabbed her again, this time pushing her back into the chair and pinning her with their gloved hands. She struggled and fought but had no luck in breaking free.

There was a shout from the audience and the cry of, “Nooooo.”

By order of the man at the desk, the camera turned and found an old man running up the aisle, hands waving in the air. Tears fell from his eyes. “Doris! Leave her alo…”

His cries were cut off when a gun was fired and the man fell to the theatre floor. From the shaking camera it was revealed that the man had been shot in the back, and as he gasped for life, the camera panned back to the front and showed a smiling bald man and a hysterical woman.

“Alfred!” she cried. “Al…freeeed.”

“How do you want to die!” the man shouted above the racket.

The woman continued to weep violently. The man looked over at the two bald men and nodded his head.

Raising their guns, two bullets were fired into the back of the woman’s head. Her face exploded and she plunged forward onto the floor.

Pam McGregor screamed and covered her eyes. “Why aren’t they stopping this?” After a quick hitched breath: “Why can’t they turn the cameras off?”

Luke leaned over and gave her a large hug. “I don’t know honey. I don’t know.”

“I think there’s about twenty or so in there,” Stewart said. “And they all have guns.”

“Probably holding the audience hostage,” Luke said. “Using them as a sort of shield so the cops can’t break in.”

“That’s what I figured,” Stewart said. “I mean, it’s better to kill a dozen people than two hundred. Right?”

His father nodded.

The McGregor family was drawn back to the screen when they heard the unmistakable voice of the leader of the cult.

“Come on. Any volunteers?”

The audience remained silent.

“How about you?” the man said, pointing towards the audience.

The camera swung around and showed a large man. He was sitting in the second row and was trying to look tough despite the obvious fear in his eyes.

“That was the guy that called out earlier,” Stewart informed his parents. “Wanting to know what was going on and what the man wanted.”

“Brave man,” Luke huffed.

“Or stupid,” Stewart said, looking over at his father. They both grinned quickly, then turned back to the television.

“Yeah you,” the man said. “You had a lot to say earlier. Come on up.”

The large man stood up and looked around sheepishly. The camera showed the horde of bald followers cradling guns and grinning. They were standing at two meter intervals around the perimeter of the theatre.

The large man walked out of his row and started up the aisle.

“Give the man a round of applause,” the man at the desk shouted. He started clapping, but, not surprisingly, the audience remained still and left the man to perform a solo.

“Dave, how about some music?” he called out. “Something jazzy.”

As the camera tracked the large man, a feeble rendition of “One” from
A Chorus Line
filled the theatre with sickening travesty. The man walked on to the stage and sat down in the chair that hadn’t been used by Doris.

The man at the desk motioned his hand for the music to stop.

“Well, what’s your name, big boy?”

The immense figure gazed at the bloody corpse of Doris. He closed his eyes, his face pale. “John,” he said.

“John! Welcome to my show. You know how the game works. I bet you have watched a lot of game shows in your time, being the mindless zombie that you are. You are programmed by the rich pigs on what to like, what to watch, and they send secret messages through the T.V shows that fuck with your brain. I know how they work, and so does my family!”

The man stood up and raised his arms as if joining in on a chorus of “Praise the Lord!” in his local church.

“This is the evil that must be destroyed! It was put on this earth as a test of our faith and conviction of our souls!”

The man closed his eyes and listened to his followers sing out his testimony. The camera remained on the sweating man. Finally he sat down and took a deep breath.

“We will convert you all and reveal the true evil.”

He opened his eyes and grinned at the large man. “Music please, Dave.”

Again the arpeggio piece was heard in the background.

“First question, Little John. What is the evil which we are trying to dispel?”

The large man looked to the audience, then back at the little bald madman.

“Ah, television,” he said.

“That is correct!” the man proclaimed. “There is hope for humanity yet!”

He wiped a stream of sweat from his brow and sighed. “Next question, Little John. Who won at the end of the first
Rocky
movie, and how?”

John frowned. It was a frown that could’ve suggested he was confused as to why this man had asked him a relatively simple question. He cleared his throat.

“Ah, Apollo Creed won. By, the, ah, he had the most points?”

“Very good.” The man clapped. “You must be a
Rocky
fan?”

“Yes.”

“Me too. Brilliantly made films. You’re doing very well, Little John. Isn’t he, Dave?”

The camera swung around.

“If you say so,” Dave said, his fingers moving rapidly up and down the keyboard.

Panning back to the man, he sat smirking, nodding his head. “That’s right, Dave. If I say so. Next question. How many people did Andrei Chikatilo kill?”

John gazed down at the lifeless body of Doris and began to sob.

“Do you know?” Luke asked his son.

“Fifty-three. I’m pretty sure he has the record.”

“I don’t think John knows,” Luke sighed.

“I can’t watch,” Pam McGregor cried and stood up. “This is horrible.”

She stormed out of the lounge. A moment later she popped her weeping head around the corner of the doorway. “But let me know if he gets the question right, okay?”

3: (
from the dorm room of Mike Barry and Lou Montgomery
)

“Hurry up, Little John. Time’s running out. How many people did Andrei Chikatilo brutally murder?”

Lou Montgomery threw a handful of potato chips at the television screen. “Come on, John! Take a guess for Christ’s sake!”

“Do you know?” Phillip Adams said, kicking Lou in the back.

Lou turned his head and stuck up his finger. “No. Do you?”

The other guys in the room laughed.

“Face it, both of you are morons,” Jay Waterhouse said. “If either of you were up there, you would be killed. He killed fifty-three. You see, he was allowed to murder so many and remain undetected for so long because of the bullshit Russian totalitarian system…”

“Shut the fuck up,” James Gardiner said. “John’s time’s up.”

With the room falling to complete silence, all men gazed at the television screen.

“…but I’ll give you a guess,” the bald man said. “Because I’m such a nice guy.”

The blubbering man wiped his eyes. “Please don’t kill me,” he bawled. “Please!”

The man behind the desk sighed. “Take a guess.”

“Thirty-five,” John cried.

The man shook his head deliberately. “Uh-uh. Soooryyyy,” he sung. “Guess you should’ve been paying more attention to world issues instead of watching the evil brainwashing machine. Now, how will you like to die?” He turned and looked directly down the camera.

“Fucking creepy guy,” Phillip Adams muttered.

The men in the room murmured in agreement.

“I hope you are all enjoying my show at home. I bet most homes in the country are switched on to me tonight.”

He turned to the hysterical man. “John! Choose your fate!”

Into the frame walked the two bald henchmen. They grabbed John’s arms and pulled them away from his face.

“Answer our leader!” one of them cried. “Answer or we’ll choose it for you!”

The door of the dorm room opened and Mike Barry walked in. He glanced over at the group of friends sitting on the floor and on the bed, his bed, and closed the door.

“Hey, Mike,” Lou called over his shoulder. “You wouldn’t believe what the fuck is going on.”

“Yeah, I heard,” he said, throwing his bag onto the floor. “Some guy came rushing into the library and told us that some psycho cult had broken into the Marty Laffin show and was killing people. I though it was a joke at first, but…”

“Choose to be shot!” Phillip Adams yelled.

“Really,” Jay Waterhouse huffed. “I would choose to be stabbed in my groin until I died of blood loss.”

All but Mike laughed.

“You all are sick,” he said. “How can you get enjoyment from watching people get killed?”

An uncomfortable hush blanketed the room.

“We’re not enjoying it,” Lou finally said. “It is horrible. You’re right. But it’s real. This is really happening, right now.”

“Yeah, it’s reality,” Jay added. “Like watching the news, or one of them reality shows. Only this ain’t censored. Hey Lou, can you pass me the chips.”

A gunshot, loud and authentic, blasted through the small dorm room.

“Holy shit,” Phillip muttered.

“Damn, I missed it,” Jay sighed. “What happened?”

“John chose to be shot. In the back of the head.”

“Best way to go,” Jay said, nodding.

“This is fucking unbelievable,” Mike groaned.

“Take a seat,” Lou called. “Come on, Mikey. We’re not making fun of the situation. It’s all just so… unbelievably horrible.”

“Yeah, well, I’m gonna take a shower,” Mike said.

Phillip shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

Mike glanced over at the screen. What he saw mortified him. The camera was lingering on the dead body of the man. The way he had fallen to the floor, right next to some woman, his face, or what was left of it, was staring straight at the camera.

“Disgusting,” James Gardiner said.

The camera panned back to the host. The bald man with the long beard was grinning. He looked across at Dave Morrison. “How do you think the show’s going so far?”

The camera swung to a very pale and puffy eyed Dave. “You’re sick,” he breathed. “Killing innocent people.”

The camera remained on a tearful but angry Dave. There was a murmur from off to the side, presumably where the bald man was.

“Why do you people listen to this psycho?” Dave cried, looking towards the audience. “He’s talking about television brainwashing people, but that’s what he’s doing to you! He’s using you people! He’s preying on your vulnerability and brainwashing you all!”