by Kim Newman
You have a feeling this is the life you’d have had if you hadn’t tried.
Whoever you are here, no one will miss you.
If you walk away, go to 191. If you stay, go to 196.
184
‘That would be telling,’ you say.
She prods, not sharply but enough for you to feel.
‘Who would you rather deny a warm bath, me or Councillor Hackwill?’
‘I don’t have favourites.’
That’s true. You remember Mary supervising the smashing-up of your home. And her terrifying monster fits at school. She’s earned her place on this course fair and square.
Mary puts her knife away. You swear she’ll never get that close again. You count off the minutes and tell Mary when the hour is up.
Near nightfall, Kay Shearer works out how the map fits together. Mary recognises a culvert they trudged through earlier. That’s where the treasure is.
They make their way down the valley. In the gathering gloom, you see Hackwill’s team ahead, spread out around the culvert, scratching with their hands at the dirt. James is enjoying a cigarette, watching the work.
‘They haven’t found it yet,’ Shearer deduces.
Mary’s team rush into the culvert. Shane tackles Sean, bringing him down. They scuffle.
Mary fixes on the spot where the case is buried, under a thin layer of shale. Hackwill is crouched over it. Mary tries to slam Hackwill aside but the councillor leans out of the way. Mary careers on and sprawls.
Hackwill pulls the case out of its shallow grave and holds it up in triumph. He bellows apeman victory. Mary won’t let it go easily. She stamps on Hackwill’s instep with her heavy boot. Hackwill clouts her with the suitcase. She stops fighting. You know she could take Hackwill but has calculated the long-term effects.
As Mary’s team huddles outside, sheltering in Colditz against the soft rain, Hackwill presides pompously over the dinner table, wolfing down extra helpings of stew.
‘I had my doubts last night,’ he says. ‘But I’m beginning to see how this course works. I think we’ll all come out of this stronger, better.’
You catch James’s eye, and try not to snicker.
‘What’s up for tomorrow?’ Hackwill asks.
‘All good things to those who wait,’ you say.
Just before dawn, you assemble the teams. Hackwill’s lot, a little smug, are more chipper. Sean and Shearer snipe at each other, and Mary is irritated with them. McKinnell says his bowels are in better shape. You almost hope so, because if not he’s going to have a really bad day and be extremely unpopular.
You get out the gear and start fixing it to the teams, while James explains.
‘Today’s game is called I Am a Fugitive from a Chain Gang. Keith is shackling you together into four-man coffles. Well, one four-man coffle and one three-man/one-lady coffle.’
You fix chains to ankles, allowing about three feet between team-members.
‘All you have to do is get to the top of the mountain over there—’ He waves at a peak emerging through dawn-haze — ‘and find the keys to the shackles.’
‘What do we win?’ Hackwill asks.
‘Each team gets to elect one among their number who can sleep inside Castle Dracula in a warm bed.’
Hackwill grins. He’s used to winning elections. Probably used to fixing them.
‘Let’s go, then,’ he says. ‘Unless we have to hum the theme to Wacky Races first.’
‘Not at all,’ James says. ‘You start level today. One team will be driven to the other side of the mountain. You’ll set off at the whistle.’
Hackwill is confident. Mary, shackled to Sean the wimp and McKinnell the potential shitter, is less pleased but a hell of a lot more determined. She’d chew off their legs to win this one.
‘There’s just one more thing,’ James says. ‘During the jail-break, you prisoners were heavily tear-gassed and raked with machine-gun fire.’
Hackwill is puzzled.
‘One member each of your team was blinded,’ James says, ‘and another badly wounded in the leg.’
You bring out two sleeves and fix one to Shearer’s leg and one to Warwick’s. They seem light at the moment, but half-way up a mountain will magically turn into a hundredweight of agony.
‘You’re not going to poke our eyes out,’ Hackwill sneers.
James nods.
You have to do this next move simultaneously, because previous team-leaders have fought back. You and James produce eyeless S&M hoods from your bum-bags and slip them over Hackwill’s and Mary’s heads. Any pretence that Shane leads his team is forgotten. You get close to Mary and feel her tense but she doesn’t resist. Hackwill complains but is cut off by leather. The hoods snap shut at the neck.
‘The keys to the hoods are with the keys to the shackles,’ you say. ‘Your comrades vote on whether you proceed with your mouth-zips opened or closed.’
Hackwill’s head bobs up and down. He mmm-mmm-mmms furiously.
Shearer unzips Mary’s mouth and she breathes in.
Reluctantly, it seems, Reg lets Hackwill talk.
‘This is insane,’ he says.
‘Yes,’ you admit. ‘But it’s equally insane for both of you.’
James herds Hackwill’s human charm bracelet into the minibus and drives off to the other side of the mountain.
Mary and Shearer huddle, making plans, roping Sean and McKinnell in on them. She knows how to delegate to a sighted person, which gives her an advantage. You’re sure Hackwill will shout orders and confuse his team-mates.
In her hood and body stocking, she looks like a Batman villainess, sexy in a pervo sort of way. You’d thought the Marion brothers’ shag-anything-female policy suspended this once, for the special Hackwill course, but start to reconsider.
James’s whistle sounds across the valley.
‘You can go now,’ you tell the team.
They hobble off, Sean guiding Mary, McKinnell ready to support Shearer when the weight begins to drag. Wishing them well, you sit back to watch the mountain.
Mary’s team wins. Her comrades vote that she gets to sleep in Castle Drac. You have a feeling gallantry has less to do with her win than a desire not to wake up with a knife through the scrotum.
You and James sleep in twin beds, leaving the other room — a prize that becomes even more hotly contested towards the end of the course — for lucky winners. It has a cosy four-poster left over from the Compound’s days as a dying farm.
You lie awake and think of Mary. You can’t help wondering. Would it be clever? She’s supposed to suffer like everyone else, but there’s nothing to say you can’t rip her off for a grudge fuck. You’re miles away from the world. The only rules here are the ones you’ve set.
You have the beginnings of a hard-on. From James’s breathing, you can tell he’s asleep. Tomorrow, it’s the assault course. Mary’s tough, but won’t win that: she hasn’t got the weight. You’d guess Shane was favourite, with Shearer — whose wiry strength and coolness in crisis surprise you — as an outside chance. One of those blokes will be in the four-poster tomorrow. Unless you go queer overnight, that won’t be any use to your currently intense sexual urge.
You imagine Mary next door, waiting.
If you go into Mary’s bedroom, go to 188. If you go to sleep and try to forget Mary, go to 201.
185
You get out of the car and follow Mary inside.
Sean pleads feebly. ‘Keith,’ he says. ‘Help.’
‘What are you doing?’ you ask Mary.
‘What you should have done.’
You agree. You take Sean’s other arm.
‘No,’ he says.
Mary is soothing to Sean as you take him upstairs.
The three of you squeeze into the room Laraine threw herself out of. It has a low ceiling. There’s an old spinning-wheel, like the one in Rumpelstiltskin, by the window. This is your sister’s special room.
You let go of Sean. He looks indignant.
‘Your move, Mr Marion,’ Mary says.
‘Keith,’ Sean pleads.
You have come this far. You push Sean in the chest. He tumbles back against the open window, arms flailing, and bends backwards. The low sill doesn’t come up to his knees.
You push him again. He disappears into the dark and crunches on to the driveway.
Cool night air blows against your face.
You turn to Mary.
‘I thought you’d just belt him,’ she says, open-mouthed.
You’ve misread her completely.
‘I didn’t think …’ she says.
You look down. Sean is a dark sprawl, a human swastika on crazy-paving.
‘Keith, what have you done? I can’t cover this up.’
You feel walls closing in.
Mary arrests you.
And so on.
Begin again?
186
Shane is dead. Grebo, who turns out to have been called Dickie Kell, dies. Mary, who turns out to be a policewoman, loses her sight in one eye and gets fifteen years in Holloway. Robert Hackwill resigns from Sedgwater District Council and flees the country to escape charges. James is convicted of the murder of Reginald Jessup and gets life imprisonment. Chris has a nervous breakdown and goes through a thinking-of-divorce period but comes back to you. You never talk about it, but you both know now how far you’re prepared to go to protect your kids. After the police go away — any knowledge you might have had of James’s crimes is discreetly forgotten — you still have the press to contend with. And memories. You have to think of yourself as someone who has killed. But James must have killed in the Falklands. Whole generations who fought in wars killed with no comeback. You killed to save precious lives. You can’t afford to think of Shane and Grebo as people. They were Fury, invading your home, threatening your family. You resisted them. You have survived and are tempered. You just get on with it.
And so on.
Begin again?
187
You’re happy? With the wife, the kids, the house, the car, the travel, the ease, the luxury, the loot, the life? Is this what you want? What you really really want?
Lucky you.
Lucky, lucky, lucky.
And so on.
Begin again?
188
You step silently into Mary’s room and are surprised not to be in complete darkness. A night-light burns on a tiny bedside table. The candle is scented and the room smells strange, spicy.
Mary shifts in her sleep, unbound hair twisting on the pillow. She breathes through her nose, sharp little breaths. You wonder whether you should leave. Her eyes open.
Beside the candle on the table is her knife.
She sits up, duvet falling away from her breasts, and snatches up the knife. You back against the closed door.
Mary looks at you and beckons with the knife-point.
You worry that you must have woken James up with the sex. The bedposts creak, the canopy threatens to fall. It’s not a grudge fuck, but something stronger, stranger. You’ve not had such an animal episode since … well, since the first (illegal) time with Chris at university. You thought you’d grown sedate.
At the height of one round, Mary jams the hilt of her knife against your tight rectum, opening you as you open her, prompting a climax that makes you black out for seconds. When you come round, the knife-blade is drawing ice-lines down your chest.
Mary’s knife is an extension of her body, a sex organ, a she-penis. It makes her different from any other woman you’ve been with. She doesn’t bite but you’re bleeding when the dawn comes up. Mary is damp all over, hair sweat-matted, skin sheened.
This is one you’re going to feel for a long time.
‘There was something I was supposed to do last night,’ Mary says, running her tongue along the knife-edge, ‘but I’ve changed my mind.’
It’s the first non-sex thing she’s said since you joined her. You’re drowsy and don’t pick it up.
‘It’s not you,’ she says. ‘Not just you. But these last two days have shown me something.’
‘What?’ you ask.
‘Hackwill,’ she says. ‘He’s a loser. I don’t want to lose with him.’
‘You’re on opposite teams.’
‘I don’t mean this course. I mean everything.’
‘What were you supposed to do? For Hackwill?’
‘Not “what”. “Who”.’ She taps the knife-point against the pulse in your throat.
‘You were supposed to kill me?’
Mary laughs. It’s a weirdly girly tinkle. ‘You overestimate the importance you have for Councillor Hackwill, Keith. You may have fixated on him for years …’
How did she know that?
‘… but you’re a long way down his death list.’
She takes the knife away, kisses the dimple it made, and gets out of bed. ‘Unless you let me have a shower, I’ll cut your eyes out.’ Now she seems to be speaking literal truth. Utterly terrifying.
‘If you put it that way,’ you say, ‘go ahead.’
You lie on the bed and watch her gather her bath things. She wraps her knife in her towel.
You still feel her moving against you, a tidal wave in your bones. Fuck, you think.
You assemble everyone outside. Today, they are to be driven over to the assault course. It’s an individual event, not a team thing. Its placing is calculated to break up the cliques that have formed on the first two days. There’s only one winner.
James looks at you askance, but doesn’t pass comment. He must know where you were last night, and what you did. The cottage is stoutly built, but the walls aren’t thick enough to be soundproof. And you and Mary made a lot of noise.
Someone is missing.
‘Where’s Tris?’ Shearer asks.
Warwick isn’t among the slightly ragged-looking group gathered by the pens. Everyone looks at Shearer.
‘He wasn’t here first thing,’ Shearer says.
‘Probably wandered off looking for a place to pee,’ Hackwill snaps. ‘Flaming faggot.’
Shearer looks as if he’s been slapped. If he gets a chance to drop Councillor Hackwill in a shit-pit, he will.
Back home, these people could ignore the things about one another that annoy, irritate or inculcate contempt. Out here, those things are rubbed in faces.
‘Homophobic cunt,’ Shearer says, evenly.
Now Hackwill looks as if he’s been shot.
If there’s a fight, it’s your policy to let it play out. Sometimes, it’s better than tormenting the guests yourselves, letting them have at each other.
Hackwill huffs and puffs and pretends to ignore the remark. He has seen over the last two days how much better Shearer is than he is at the physical stuff. If there’s going to be a fight, he’ll order Shane to have it.
Warwick doesn’t come back.
‘Has he given up and tried to walk home?’ Sean suggests.
Shearer doesn’t like the thought. You can see him thinking, indignantly, ‘Without me?’
‘That’d be very foolish,’ you say. ‘Walking off at night, in this wet weather. It’s two days to the village, and that’s if you know the way.’
‘In Wales?’ Mary says. ‘Nothing’s two days’ walk away.’
‘It’s up and down mountains. We bought the place because it was the arse-end of nowhere.’
‘It looks like Warwick’s buggered the schedule for today,’ says James. ‘We’ll give him half an hour to come back, then send out a search party.’
The guests look at each other.
‘What’ll we do till then?’ Sean asks.
‘I’m glad you asked,’ James says, smiling. ‘Push-ups.’
Hackwill snorts.
‘Yes, Robbo,’ James says. ‘Drop and give me a hundred. Or no brekky.’
Shearer and Mary find dry-ish patches and go to it, pounding the ground with practised ease. You’re astonished Mary can manage it after her exertions, and are disturbed by the sti
rrings you have watching her bottom push up and down, her elbows kink and unkink.
‘Hungry, Councillor?’
Hackwill grumbles and gives in. He gets down on his knees and lies flat out. Shane, Jessup and McKinnell follow. James does push-ups himself, to pace them, to show off his physical ease. Sean is the last to get down.
It’s a special struggle for Jessup and McKinnell, who carry extra stomach weight. Hackwill determinedly raises and lowers himself, not showing weakness. You mustn’t underestimate his bully toughness.
You watch James and wonder whether he’s doing the exercises to show you up. After a night of Mary, you couldn’t do ten push-ups without flopping face down in the dirt.
You had hoped to find an excuse to take a nap in the van while the guests were doing the assault course.
Jessup is the last to finish his hundred.
Warwick hasn’t come back.
James hands out Mars bars.
‘This is breakfast?’ Hackwill asks, red-faced.
‘Helps you work, rest and play. There’s coffee to come.’
‘What about Tris?’ Shearer is determined not to be worried, but obviously can’t let the absence go.
‘Keith,’ James says, ‘take Kay and Shane and scout around.’
You wonder why James has made you three the party.
Shearer asks questions about the landscape. Shane is sullen, only along on the expedition because Hackwill gave him the nod. Mary as good as told you Hackwill had ordered her to kill someone last night. If she didn’t do it, would Shane be second choice hit-person? And does (did) the councillor have anything against Tristram Warwick?
At the lip of a culvert, you find a pair of boots, knotted together by the laces, balled socks shoved into the toes.
‘Are these Tristram’s?’ you ask Shearer.
He looks at the boots and you see something odd — bewilderment, fear? — in his eyes.
‘No,’ he says, ‘they’re mine.’
You look down at his feet.
