The Bad Game

by Adam Millard

  Three seconds after the damage was done, the power went off, casting the arena into semi-darkness and utter silence.

  No, utter silence wasn’t quite right. The screaming mother had launched herself across the arena, followed closely by two other women. Aunties, perhaps. Or simply spectators who had children of their own. Children who hadn’t been squashed beneath the rubber bottom of a bumping car.

  Riders deserted their cars, gobsmacked by what they were witnessing. At the side of the arena, the boy responsible was tackled to the ground and vigilante justice was meted out in the form of head punches and body kicks. It was then that Marcus must have realised what had happened, that his son had been the one holding the baby, throwing the baby, because he rushed across the arena, dragged away those kicking the shit out of Barry.

  Jamie had managed to clamber out of the car. He saw the trail of blood leading away from the blanket, which was now a rusty colour, or so it had seemed in that semi-darkness. Liza had screamed something at him, something about 999, but he had been transfixed by that tiny package, lying there in the middle of the arena, three women screaming and crying around it. The mother had wanted to pick it up, but had been restrained by the two other women, who seemed to know better. Their Irish lilt suggested to Jamie that they were travellers, though perhaps they weren’t anything of the sort. When you’re a fifteen year-old kid, every Irish person is a gypsy—or a pikey, as Scottie calls them.

  Marcus had dragged Barry away, steering him toward the ticket-booth, where he had remained until the police arrived. People had been braying for his blood, forgetting, for a moment, that he was a child himself. An eye for an eye would have been acceptable in the moments which had followed. At least, that was the general consensus amongst those who had witnessed the terrible tragedy.

  As the ambulance crew did what they could right there beside the dodgems—which wasn’t a great deal, unfortunately—the police car drove away from the fairground with Barry Mills staring vacantly out through the rear window (his eyes weren’t black at all, not now, maybe never had been).

  Liza was a trembling mess, despite the relentless heat. Jamie guessed she had gone into shock—maybe it was a girl thing?—and was doing everything he could to calm her down and keep her there.

  “Why?” Liza said, motioning to the ambulance, which sat, engine idling, no more than twenty feet away. “I… I don’t understand how anyone could do something like that.”

  Jamie shook his head. He knew there were bad people in the world; there wasn’t a day which passed without some crazy fucker shooting up a school or blowing up a nursery. But Barry? You could line a million kids up, stick Barry in the middle of them holding a sign which said ‘I did it!’ and you would still choose the other kids first, because Barry… well, it didn’t make any sense.

  Jamie was about to offer his explanation—that Barry had become mentally unhinged as a result of his father’s constant abuse, though even that didn’t make sense—when Marcus Mills emerged from the ticket booth with a set of keys. He set about locking the place up for the day before walking across to his Vectra, which was parked in its usual spot next to the arena. He must have sensed he was being watched, for he turned and stared directly at Jamie. He shook his head once before unlocking the door to his car and climbing in.

  “Off to the station,” Jamie whispered.

  “Hmmm?” Liza was still in a daze, hadn’t even seen the father emerge from the ticket booth.

  “Look,” Jamie said, running a gentle hand up and down Liza’s arm. She was cold. He could feel the gooseflesh peppering her skin. No wonder she was shivering. “Do you want to get away from here?” The ambulance would be off soon. He doubted it would be in any rush to reach the hospital, though. The baby was dead; they had gathered that much from the mother’s reactions at the rear of the ambulance.

  “I should call my parents,” Liza said. Then she sighed and a sardonic smile curled up the corners of her lips. “Typical. The first time they trust me enough to leave me to my own devices and this shit happens.”

  “This would have happened regardless,” Jamie said, though he still couldn’t get his head around what had actually happened. And then he was bombarded with questions inside his own head: Would Barry do time for this? How old did you have to be to go to an adult prison? Would he be sent to some sort of mental institute instead? Why, Barry, why did you do this?

  “And you were a friend of his?” Liza said. It wasn’t an accusation, as such, just a very important question.

  “I wouldn’t say we were friends, but I knew the lad enough to know that he wasn’t capable of something like this.”

  “But he was,” Liza said. “He did it, Jamie. We were both there.”

  You didn’t see his eyes, Jamie wanted to say. The way they had glistened, reflecting the disco lights flashing around the arena. Like black marbles wedged into his face. He had looked like a snowman, with pieces of coal for eyes. That hadn’t been Barry. That hadn’t been him at all.

  “Something’s not right about this,” Jamie said.

  “You can say that again,” Liza replied. “I’m supposed to be on holiday. If I’d wanted to witness a murder I could have stayed in Birmingham.”

  Jamie laughed, though it felt wrong considering what had just happened, and so didn’t last long. “I’m going to let Scottie know what’s going on,” he said. Would Scottie have seen or heard the boys in blue show up? He would want to know the situation, Jamie surmised. Scottie knew the Millses as well as he did; he, too, would be shocked by what had occurred there that afternoon. “Do you want to come with me?” He saw the way she was clinging to the cuddly Rugrats toy, as if it were the squashed baby, and he wondered what she was thinking.

  “Sure,” she said, stuffing the plushie into her handbag as best she could. It was too big, and the head of the thing poked out, as if it was afraid of missing something. “Thinking about it, there’s no real reason for my mom and dad to find out about this.”

  “They’ll probably hear about it,” Jamie said.

  “Yeah, but they don’t need to know that I was there. I saw it.” She looked concernedly at Jamie, as if he might have an opinion on the matter.

  Jamie knew what she meant. If her parents found out about what had happened, and that their daughter had been—if only in presence—somehow involved, it might undo all the trust she had built up. If they were loving parents (and Jamie thought that they were simply by the way Liza talked about them) they wouldn’t let their daughter out of their sight for months to come. It would be an embarrassing regression for Liza, and one that could be avoided simply by not mentioning their attendance at the dodgems at the time of the tragedy.

  “I won’t say anything if you don’t,” Jamie said. “You were in the arcade all afternoon, where you won that.” He pointed at the face of the stuffed doll protruding from the handbag.

  Liza smiled briefly. “Thanks, Jamie,” she said. And then quickly corrected herself. “Super Jamie.”

  FIFTEEN

  There must have been some sort of accident on the fairground, Pat Gurley figured as she crossed the road, little Spanner nervously shuffling along at her feet. An ambulance tore through the town, its sirens dopplering as it hurtled past. Of course, it didn’t surprise Pat in the slightest; some of those rides were terrifying, and knowing many of the guys who operated them, she was sure those death-traps hadn’t had a proper service in years. There had to be some kind of regulation, didn’t there? If there was, Pat wasn’t aware of it, and she hadn’t seen any official-looking bodies inspecting the rides. It was an accident waiting to happen, though not anymore, it seemed.

  “Come on, Spanner,” Pat cooed, leading the Jack Russell down the beachfront steps off the promenade. It was a beautiful day, if a little warm for Pat, and the beach at this end was packed with sunbathers and children. Some of the kids were digging holes (what was it with excavating when it came to the seaside?) while others ran in and out of the ocean, their shins wrapped in se
aweed and their mouths open in wide O’s as the unexpected iciness of the North Sea caught them unawares. Pat smiled at the sight of a young boy buried up to his waist in sand. “Do the top half!” he urged a young girl who looked so much like the half-buried boy that they had to be kin. The girl eagerly acquiesced and began to tip spadesful of sand onto the grinning boy’s torso.

  A little further along the beach, where it grew quieter, a young man perhaps in his twenties was flying one of those weird drone things, the ones with the four propellers. He seemed to be a proficient pilot, though Pat didn’t trust machinery of any kind and so made a point of not walking directly beneath the hovering aircraft. There had, it appeared, been enough accidents for one day. The last thing she wanted was a trip to Hemsby A&E with an RC drone embedded in her crown. Dick would be left to run the cafe on his own and for Lord knows how long. It simply didn’t bear thinking about.

  With the monotonous whirr of the drone behind her, Pat let Spanner off his lead, and off he went, his tiny legs kicking up sand and shells as he disappeared into the dunes. Pat thought about calling after him, but Spanner knew his way around those dunes better than anyone, had been circumnavigating them for many years. Plus, Spanner had good recall. Whenever Pat yelled his name, he always made it back, often at a run. He was a clever boy indeed; part of the family. Perhaps the smartest part, Pat thought, picturing Dick in his long-johns, remote control in one hand and ready meal in the other. That was the thing about working in a café and preparing food for other people all day long—at the end of the day, you couldn’t be bothered to cook for yourself.

  First climbing and then descending the sandbanks, Pat knew she was out of view. She reached into her apron pocket—there was no point taking it off for this fifteen minute break—and retrieved a packet of cigarettes. She flipped the lid and pulled one from the pack. It wasn’t until the cigarette was between her lips that she felt a little guilty. Dick would be disappointed with her if he found out she was smoking again, especially after they had both gone through hell, quitting at the same time.

  It’s not me with a dicky heart, Pat thought somewhat selfishly. It wasn’t her the doctor had warned. It wasn’t her with blocked arteries. She had simply agreed to quit alongside her husband, who would die (or so the doctor said) if he didn’t kick the habit and soon.

  “Fuck it,” Pat said, lighting the cigarette. Dick wouldn’t smell the stale aroma of fags on her. They didn’t get close enough anymore, and even if they did, Dick had the olfactory sense of a dolphin. A couple of Tic-Tacs, just to be on the safe side, and Pat wouldn’t have anything to worry about.

  Though she was starting to worry about Spanner. He never usually strayed too far, especially if Pat was out of sight. She decided to call out to him, rein him back in. “Spanner!” She walked through the dunes, the cigarette dangling from her puckered lips, smoke trailing up into her eyes. “Spa-nner!”

  Overhead, the drone moved across the sky, its pilot grounded on the other side of the sandbanks. Pat wondered whether the drone was fitted with a camera; some of them were, she had seen them on the TV. She wondered whether the pilot was watching her on a little hand-held screen. Naughty, naughty, Pat. Smoking when you shouldn’t be. It was unnerving, and for no good reason, for Pat didn’t know the young pilot from Adam.

  “Spanner!” she cried once again, flicking her cigarette butt into the dunes and moving more quickly across the sand. Worst-case scenario, she could always ask the drone guy to search for the dog. If it was one of those camera ones, of course.

  She descended a gentle sand slope, and that was when she saw Spanner. The dog was licking at something—perhaps something which had washed up from the ocean?—but until Pat drew close, she hadn’t a clue what it was.

  And then she screamed. A few seconds later the drone dropped from the sky as its pilot came a-running.

  Pat dropped to her knees, could no longer look at the mass of busted flesh and tangled hair partially buried in the blood-drenched sand a few feet away. All she could think about was that ambulance tearing through the streets. Come back. There’s another one here for you.

  SIXTEEN

  Scottie reached into his drawer and pulled out a half-finished bottle of whiskey. It was still early in the day, but the confrontation with Marcus Mills had left him a little shaken. He checked his watch—as if what it revealed to him would make any difference—and, satisfied, he unscrewed the cap from the bottle and took a long swig.

  Out on the arcade floor, beyond the cage which separated him from the rest of the world, kids played the machines. A couple of young girls danced on a mat in front of a huge simulator; the two tiny avatars on the screen mimicked the girls’ moves. Over in the corner, a father and son tossed basketballs through a hoop as a digital display to the right of the hoop totted up the score. A couple of older lads played pool, while their mates smashed a puck around the air-hockey table next to them. But, surprisingly, the biggest draw was for the new game. There had been a line there for most of the afternoon; Scottie had never known a game to get so much attention. Perhaps these kids knew something he didn’t. Maybe they had been anticipating the release of Gēmuōbā, or whatever the fuck it was called, for some time. Scottie didn’t bother to keep up with new trends. He simply accepted the games the distributor delivered to him, and sent back the ones they asked for—usually the ones which were no longer making any money.

  Gēmuōbā was definitely making money, and yet for the life of him Scottie couldn’t see why. The game looked… boring. More like a maths test than an entertaining arcade blockbuster, and yet the queue stretched all the way back to the vending machine. It was very strange indeed, though Scottie was just glad he had a full house, that the weather outside was beautiful, and that—he checked his watch once more—he only had three hours to go before he could lock up for the day and head over to The Lacon Arms for a couple of swift ones.

  He tried to convince himself that he wasn’t going simply to see Angela, though he did want to thank her once again for returning his wallet. No, he wanted to take a little walk around the pub, ask a few of the locals if they had been in last night. It would all be done in a respectful manner, and any information leading to the return of the photograph of Jake would be met with a reward; he would make that abundantly clear to those questioned.

  He took another long pull on the whiskey bottle before recapping it, placing it in the drawer, and sliding the drawer shut. He felt better, now, ready to face the afternoon and the little shits who came with it. Standing, he stretched, his considerable bulk almost filling the cage.

  As he stepped out onto the arcade floor, the children regarded him warily. He was an intimidating figure to those who didn’t know him, and none of these little saps were local kids. These were all holidaymakers—here one minute, gone the next—so Scottie wasn’t surprised by their reactions as he moved amongst them, the way they stepped out of his way, the way they muttered amongst themselves once he was out of earshot. He felt like a PE teacher. A heavily-tattooed PE teacher with a drink problem.

  “Scottie!”

  Scottie turned to find Jamie and his new girlfriend (Lisa? Linda? Liza?) standing there looking all flustered. The bridge of the girl’s nose was already bright red, sunburnt and sore-looking, though Scottie didn’t want to draw attention to it. She knew. How could she not?

  “You do know that you don’t have to report in to me every five minutes?” Scottie said, his tone playful. To the girl he said, “And you don’t have to follow this kid around all day. He’ll turn you into a Pac-Man fan, and before you know it, you’ll be up to your arse in Donkey Kong.”

  The girl—he was pretty sure it was Liza now—grinned and shrugged. “I quite like the classics.”

  “Shit, Jamie!” Scottie said. “I think this one’s a keeper! You didn’t happen to build her in your computer, did you? Like in that film, what was it?”

  “Weird Science,” Jamie said. “And when you’re done trying to embarrass me, we just saw one of
the most fucked up things ever.”

  Scottie could see that Jamie was telling the truth. Something terrible had happened. Did he really want to know what it was? You bet your ass he did. Gossip was how Scottie made it through the day. “Go on,” he urged.

  Jamie calmed himself a little, as if he had suddenly realised that this story required a more sombre tone, and not the overexcited babble that had almost spewed from his mouth in an electrifying torrent.

  Scottie stood there, listening intently as Jamie told him what had happened over at the dodgems, how Barry Mills had murdered a baby, how Marcus had followed the cop car to the station while the ambulance went in the opposite direction, possibly bypassing the hospital altogether in favour of the morgue. Throughout, the girl Liza stared at the carpet, occasionally shaking her head disgustedly. Scottie could see it had affected her. Of course it had. It would have affected him, too. It wasn’t every day you saw another human being wiped from the face of the earth, and so damn young, too…

  When Jamie finished, Scottie frowned. Judging from Jamie’s expression, it was pretty much the reaction he had expected from Scottie. “I don’t get it,” Scottie said. “He was in here this afternoon looking for you, and he seemed fine. Barry did that?”

  “That’s what I said.” Jamie motioned to Liza, as if he was about to say something but changed his mind.

  “And the police took him in?” Scottie clicked his tongue. “Damn, that boy’s going to be fucking terrified right about now.”

  “Will he go to jail?” Jamie asked. “For what he did?” He looked genuinely concerned, though Liza wore an expression which suggested the murderous prick deserved everything he got, plus nightly visits from the distraught mother and an aluminium baseball bat. Her face said: It’s a pity we’re not in Alabama or Virginia. They would fry the fucking baby-killer, serve him up in the prison canteen with liver and onions.