Kimberly's Capital Punishment

by Richard Milward

  Toot! Well, you’ll be pleased to know it’s over. That’s all from us here at the BBC. Thanks a lot for watching. See you for the replay. Sorry it’s been shit.

  I’ve done it! The silver screen turns black. The orchestra’s strings snap. The hops turn back into sawdust. I collapse in a heap of celebratory suffering, clutching my red kneecap.

  Pain is a strange experience in Hell. On Earth, when you’re hurt, your body sends out quick impulses, telling you whether to fight or take flight – in other words, your brain wants you to stay alive. In Hell, your brain’s not that fussed, because you’re already dead. Your brain pretends to be elsewhere, while you’re tortured beyond belief.

  ‘Ready for

  the next

  task?

  Lucifer booms, snatching back his blood-pocked trident.

  ‘Urrrrrrrhhhhhhh,’ I whine. ‘I’m knackered.’

  I sink my head into the pillows, torn between sleep and waking again.

  ‘This next

  one’ll perk

  you up!’

  the hamster explains, summoning Adolf to the cage. The Führer clambers onto a kind of zip-wire, connecting the mountaintops with the cage. I blink sadly, watching his side-parting flapping as he launches himself through the cyan sky, holding tight to the black pole.

  ‘You like

  wearing make-up,

  don’t you?’

  Lucifer asks me, helping Hitler aboard.

  ‘It’s alright,’ I reply, wondering what the catch is. Toxic facemask? Goldfinger reenactment? Fake tan?

  ‘Adolf, mate,

  paint her

  up for

  Humanseye,’

  the hamster says with a smirk, handing the Austrian a small palette of poster paints.

  Adolf Hitler, the famous, evil painter of watercolours, slaps back his oil-slick fringe and squints at me, sizing me up.

  ‘What’s Humanseye?’ I ask the ground.

  ‘It’s like Bullseye,’ one of the pterodactyls hisses, landing on top of the cage, ‘except instead of Jim Bowen, darts and a dartboard, it’s got Lucifer the Cerberean Hamster, Molotov cocktails and your face.’

  My fingers and toes tingle with torment. Fortunately, the tranx have long demolished the boundary between dream and reality, so the anxiety has blurry edges.

  ‘Can I sleep on it?’ I moan, as Hitler pastes white undercoat on my cheeks.

  ‘Nein!’ Adolf snaps, glancing proudly at Lucifer with an impish simper. Hitler – the poster boy of terrestrial evil – seems somehow pathetic down here, in the presence of Lucifer. He’s clearly worked his way up the Hellish ranks after topping himself in his Berlin Bunker in 1945, but in the netherworld he’s more of a glorified flunky than a fully-fledged Führer.

  I keep still, while Hitler paints an RAF roundel on my face. The innermost red ring around my nose is apparently worth 25 points, while the middle white ring (which includes my top lip, cheeks, and both eyes) is worth 15, and the outermost blue ring (encompassing my chin, temples, ears, and forehead) is worth 10. In spite of all the tragedy involved, Hitler asks me to smile, so he can etch BONUS 15 POINTS on my front teeth, with a saliva-resistant marker.

  My face feels cold and heavy in the warpaint. It takes a bit of strength to wrench my eyes open again, in time to see

  TASK TWO

  HUMANSEYE™

  SCORE 50 POINTS OR HIGHER

  WITH 3 THROWS

  TO PROCEED

  appear on the silver screen. I grimace, wondering if the paint is highly flammable, or water-based.

  ‘No grimacing!

  You’ll crack

  the paint!’

  Lucifer screams.

  With a swift crack of Lucifer’s WHIP!! the cyan sky dims into variety-theatre darkness again. Hitler scuttles up into the safety of the Death-Cap Mush-Room as the crowd edges closer to the cage bars. My stomach shifts.

  ‘Who’s throwing the Molotov cocktails?’ I ask, as a spotlight suddenly envelops me, like catching a bluebottle in a neon jamjar.

  ‘Please welcome back

  to the limelight:

  the blindest man

  in Hell!’

  Lucifer bellows triumphantly, gesturing towards the WELCOME TO HELL banner. By the climbing frame, one of the hamster’s minions cuts Stevie down, chainsawing through the four pairs of shoelaces. Stevie hits the hard shards of play bark with a horrid thud, and instantly comes back to life. His blue face gently pinkens as his lungs ravenously suck up the sparse oxygen.

  The bug-eyed minion strongarms my boyfriend into a bright pink gondola, which carries him towards us, through the crowds, like a sacrificial lambkin. I bob from foot to foot, watching the murderers and paedophiles spit at him and jeer as he floats past. In the distance, a giant common seal bull glares at Stevie as it hangs bound to a tree, its belly pierced with bent javelins and knitting needles, like a blubbery St Sebastian. My blood runs cold, despite the choking, tropical heat. I want to be sick.

  I’m not sure which is worse – seeing your loved one in pain or being in pain yourself. Stevie looks petrified as the bug-eyed minion posts him through the door of the hamster cage. I can’t help focusing on his eye-sockets – the right one dark brown and scabbed over; the left one freshly picked, still glistening and leaking red tears. Welcoming him to the cage, Lucifer gives Stevie a firm slap, then explains the ‘game’ to him:

  ‘Get her in

  the face, or

  I’ll show Kimberly

  the video of

  you and Na—’

  ‘No, n-no, no,’ Stevie whimpers. I wonder which video they’re on about. ‘I’m I’m I’m s-so sorry,’ my boy carries on, clasping his redblush cheeks. I think he’s talking to me, though his dead eye-sockets are pointing towards redneck leatherface Ed Gein when he says it.

  I stress, ‘Don’t worry, it’s not y—’

  ‘No speaking!’

  Lucifer growls.

  ‘There’s no place

  for sentimentality here!

  And you’ll crack

  the fucking paint!’

  I sigh through my nose, straightfaced. In a way, part of me feels relieved Stevie’s blind now – mainly the part with the elephant hoof, and the size 22 belly.

  ‘Right, Stevie,

  old boy,’

  Lucifer says, handing him the first bottle,

  ‘do your worst!’

  A second spotlight twitches around Stevie, trying to keep up with his dithering movements. Gritting my teeth, I watch with part terror and part embarrassment as Stevie swivels robotically around the cage, like a drunkard at a Viennese waltz. At one point he trains the bottle on my forehead, but then he spins again, and loses me. He takes a stumbling step backwards, then conducts a sharp whisk to the left, and finally launches the Molotov cocktail – fzzzzzzzzz – straight into Lucifer’s toiletwaterbowl.

  The crowd cheers contemptuously. Despite having no eyes, Stevie clearly looks to the ground in anguish.

  ‘Oh dear,

  oh dear,’

  Lucifer snickers, lighting the second Molotov cocktail. When Stevie takes hold of the bottle, he whisks and spins around again, rejecting skill and spatial awareness in favour of pure chance. Perhaps he’s acting imbecilic on purpose, though. Perhaps he doesn’t want to hurt me. Perhaps he does still love me. Then again, the fact he doesn’t want to fling a flaming petrol bomb at my face means he’d rather see me condemned to infinite, infernal torture in Hell than see me work nine-to-five in the sweet service industries of Heaven. Perhaps he actually hates me.

  I raise my eyebrows and flare my nostrils, increasing the surface area of the RAF roundel. However, just as Stevie’s about to throw the bottle, an even better idea strikes me. Instead of just standing there on the spot, like a goalpost, I sway in tandem with Stevie, more like an overenthusiastic goalkeeper. They say a moving target is trickier to hit than something stationary – however, when the gunman’s blind and the target desperately wants to be shot, the rules of w
arfare change dramatically.

  Fzzzzzzzzz, remarks the Molotov cocktail excitedly.

  Stevie twists his hips, and launches the bottle shotput-like into the rafters. Taking a dive in its general direction, I watch the Molotov cocktail ricochet off the side of the Death-Cap Mush-Room (giving Hitler and the prisoners a bit of a start!), then wince as it lands a soft, glancing blow on my right temple.

  ‘Agh!’ I grunt, in semi-celebration. Stevie lets out a vague congratulatory cluck, with a dumb, lost expression on his face. Around the cage, the crowd hisses at us, more annoyed about the bottle not exploding than the 10 points gained.

  I touch the side of my cheek, stemming a trickle of blood. As I ready myself for the final bottle, I wonder why people thrive so much off watching violence. Everyone hates being on the end of it, after all, and yet there’s nothing more entertaining than seeing someone else having their face ripped off.

  The spectators are on the edges of their gondolas, as Lucifer sparks up the last Molotov cocktail. He seems annoyed about my lucky 10-pointer, but Heaven knows where I’ll get the other 40 from.

  ‘Come on th—’ I start, before the hamster interjects:

  ‘DON’T FUCKING

  CRACK THE

  PAINT!!’

  The intention wasn’t to crack the paint. The intention was to give Stevie an idea of my whereabouts, subtly disguised as exasperation. Instantly, Stevie’s ears prick up. He takes one measured step forward and two steps back, then catapults the last bottle in a beautiful trajectory towards my skull. The cocktail sprinkles sparkles as it spins through the air. I grit my teeth together, just before the bottle crashes neck-first into my gums, then, in a moment of reckless reflex, I headbutt the main body of the bottle into my shoulder. There’s a sharp explosion, which takes half my nose off. My two front teeth fall into the sawdust. My face caramelises. I drop to the ground.

  The crowd goes silent. For a minute or so, I’m the only one making a sound: a cross between hellish screaming and heavenly cheering. I dunk my head into the toiletwaterbowl, leaving behind chunks of chargrilled flesh. Through molten eyelashes, I see

  FOREHEAD + FRONT TEETH BONUS + NOSE =

  10 + 15 + 25 =

  50 POINTS!!

  flash on the silver screen, in a gaudy fluorescent star.

  ‘This

  isn’t

  fair!’

  Lucifer screams. Obviously, he’s a man who prides himself on his integrity.

  The hamster’s heads glance at each other with nervous expressions. Meanwhile, Stevie shuffles in the corner, not sure how to celebrate. He starts off by clapping his hands together twice, but then he becomes subdued, in a concerned, boyfriendly manner. I want to tell him I’m alright, but it’s difficult getting the words out.

  I roll around in the sawdust, weeping at the chilli-pepper sting under my skin. I inadvertently tar-and-feather myself, gluing shavings to my melted cheeks and chin. After a bit more rolling and weeping, I finally wrench myself from the ground, leaving behind a bloody, brown silhouette. I brush myself down gently, and glare at Lucifer through puffed-up eye-slits.

  ‘Ready for

  your next

  task?’

  he drawls, while his minions extinguish the last few flames around the cage.

  ‘Aye,’ I answer. I sound like I’ve got seven golf balls in my mouth.

  After sitting through a goalless draw and a pyrotechnic facial, nothing scares me now. I can already imagine myself clocking-on at the Pearly Gates in angelic overalls. I might have to wear factor-1000 sunblock now my face has been torn off, but the perks of Heaven should far outweigh the pain. I might find myself a new boyfriend up there. Or, better still, Stevie Wallace might have a doppelgänger in Heaven.

  After some hushed deliberation, Lucifer puffs his chest out and barks:

  ‘Alright then, smart

  arse, give this

  one a whirl!’

  I want to sneer, but my skin’s far too tender. As it turns out, though, the last task’s laughably simple. I split myself five new smiles when I see the words

  TASK THREE

  DON’T MAKE A SOUND

  FOR HALF AN HOUR

  appear on the screen.

  ‘Are

  you

  ready?’

  Lucifer snarls, watching me closely.

  I say nothing.

  On the silver screen, the number 30:00 appears. As it counts down, I clasp my hands over my mouth, silently breathing through my new nostrils. Around the cage, the crowd goes quiet as well, placing their various ears – elfin, pig’s, cauliflower – up to the bars. Even the lava outside stops burping, holding its breath.

  I pick at my cheek, silently peeling away a dangling, irritating bit. I attempt to look nonchalant, rolling my eyes disinterestedly as the clock ticks past 29:00.

  At 28:21, Lucifer announces:

  ‘Now, please welcome

  our second

  special guest!’

  There was bound to be a catch. I stare silently, with lips wobbling, as my dead daddy waddles out of the Death-Cap Mush-Room. Instead of a striped prisoner’s uniform, Barry Clark wears a floral pinny and platform heels. The audience makes a loud farting sound, unable to hold back their laughter. Barry carries a feather duster, made from the tickliest tailfeathers of the rare Raggiana bird of paradise. Lucifer claims he made the bird extinct, just so Barry could have that duster.

  Barry hardly acknowledges me as he trudges through the singed sawdust. I don’t know if he’s more ashamed about his cleaning-lady costume, or my obese nakedness. I want to say something. I wish I could blink ‘Don’t worry’ in Morse code, but my pesky, evil eyes have never been good at relaying niceties.

  ‘Take it

  away, Mrs

  Tickle!’

  Lucifer says, giving my dad a WHIP!!

  Grudgingly, with his head down, my dad goes at me with the feather duster, tickling me under my armpits and around my midriff. I bite hard into my tongue. After more vicious WHIP!!s from Lucifer, my dad becomes more inventive with the duster, poking me in those famous, nameless places behind my elbows and knees. I lock my molars together, wincing and writhing about in silence. The only way to survive the ticklish torture is to adopt some kind of meditational displacement – for instance, imagining the feathers are in fact maggots, tucking into my corpse above ground. The idea of decomposing is enough to stop anyone giggling. Thousands of other dismal thoughts spiral from the maggot one – for instance, whether the Necropolitan Police found The Last Will and Testament of Kimberly Clark in my handbag; whether anyone cried at my funeral; whether anyone still visits my grave to lay flowers.

  ‘USELESS!’ Lucifer’s three heads chorus, WHIP!!ing my dad again. Barry grunts, stumbling backwards. He picks anxiously at his pinny, and asks, ‘You want me to stop?’

  ‘FUCK

  HER!’

  Lucifer yells. I presume he’s being rhetorical.

  ‘Should I go back in the thing?’ Barry enquires, edging back towards the groaning Death-Cap Mush-Room.

  ‘You heard

  me!

  FUCK HER!!’

  the hamster booms, much to the delight of the crowd. I feel all my internal organs shrink, sucking the blood from my head. I think I’m going to pass out. Hopefully, I can do it silently.

  For all the good it’ll do him, Barry squares up to the hamster and spouts, ‘You’re disgusting. Juvenile and disgusting.’

  It’s unnerving, seeing your dad in a rage. Barry was never the most authoritative of people but, like any parent, he has a natural knack of sticking up for his spawn in times of crisis. And he’s got a natural aversion to shagging his spawn, too.

  ‘Fuck her,

  or I’ll chop

  her into a

  million pieces!’

  Barry shudders, but manages to remain composed. I’m proud of him. For a few seconds, Barry’s eyes keep flicking up to the top-left region of his skull, like he’s got an excuse not to shag m
e up there. Finally, he finds it: ‘I can’t get it up, with her face all … like that. I don’t do burns victims.’

  His dry, deadpan delivery almost makes me splutter. Like most comedians – successful or not – Barry has a quickness of tongue that’s helped him out of many sticky situations in the past. It’s just a shame it couldn’t help him against his heart attack in 2002.

  ‘Very well,’

  Lucifer spits.

  ‘Bring on the

  back-up head

  and Viagra!’

  Barry crumbles.

  Lucifer yanks open the cage door, where a demonic monk in a black habit is waiting with a silver platter. On the platter, there’s a decapitated human head and a syringe filled with blue goo. The head looks freshly plucked, with blood still glistening around the serrated stump. I don’t recognise her at first, what with her not squealing abuse at me. However, there’s no mistaking her noose ponytail and depressive expression. Kimberley Clarke stares back at me, lazy-eyed and slack-jawed.

  Lucifer takes the syringe from the platter and orders more of his minions to pin my father to the floor. I avert my eyes as two turkey-headed henchmen strip the pinny off him and restrain him. I don’t see Lucifer stick the spike into my dad, but it sounds like it hits him somewhere sensitive. I’ve never heard my dad scream before, except during sports events and general elections. I blink away more tears, focusing on an empty section of cyan sky. Barry makes an ashamedly erotic ‘Aaah’ as the Viagra kicks in, then he screams again, when one of the turkeys comes at his daughter with a machete. I catch a glimpse of my stunned reflection in the blade, microseconds before it swings swiftly through my neck.