Correctional, page 18
The camera panned across the photo, this time settling on a short, fat kid who had Dax’s grey-blue eyes. “No one wanted to be my friend, y’know? And Harvey, he took advantage of that. It’s no exaggeration to say he made my life a living hell. It got so bad that there were days when I really felt like I didn’t even want to get out of bed.” He looked directly at the camera and swallowed hard, his voice cracking ever so slightly. “Some days I didn’t even want to be alive.”
The scene changed to a still photograph of a generic school field with children playing football in their PE kits. “So one day,” Dax continued, “I was playing football out on the field. All by myself, just kicking the ball against the fence. But I kicked it too hard and it went behind the science labs. I ran to get it back, and there was Harvey, crouching in the bushes with one of the hamsters from the reception class. He had his hand around its throat, really tight, and he was just… smiling. I could tell that it was dead straight away.”
“He turned around and saw me standing there and his face was just anger. Just pure rage. He told me if I ever told anyone what I’d seen he would cut me. I was scared, just so scared. I couldn’t understand why he would want to do something like that. But I never told. And I think, looking back, that’s one of the biggest regrets of my life. Maybe if I’d told someone what I’d seen, maybe then he would have been on the radar, you know?” A solitary tear ran down his cheek. “Maybe even he’d have got some help for whatever was going so wrong in his head.” His voice cracked and broke, and he grabbed a tissue from the table in front of him and dabbed at his eyes. “Maybe… maybe those beautiful little girls wouldn’t have had to die.”
They cut back to the stage, where the audience were silent and Mo Wilson looked respectfully sombre, keeping his excessively white teeth hidden for once. “Heartbreaking stuff,” he said after a brief pause. “I’m sure I speak for all of us when I say we all feel your pain, Dax.” The crowd gave a low rumble of agreement. “That had to be a tough story to tell, let’s show our support for the incredibly brave Dax Miller!”
Now the crowd roared with cheers and applause and shouts of “We love you, Dax!” and all thoughts of sadness were forgotten. Mo began his recap of the twelve inmates and their crimes, but by the time he’d read out the phone numbers to call to cast your vote, the ‘winner’ was already a foregone conclusion. I understood now why Reynolds had been so confident about the outcome. They couldn’t rig the vote itself, but they could steer the audience very strongly in the right direction.
4
There was a half hour interlude while the public jammed the phone lines voting in earnest. Justice Live handed over to their sister show Behind the Bars, which featured a young, bouncy aspiring comedian who used a multitude of terrible puns and interviewed so-called experts in order to ‘delve into the psyches of the inmates’. It was all fluff and filler and I couldn’t concentrate on any of it. I popped back to the staffroom to see if Squinty had any more info on the Felton brothers’ arrest, but there was nothing new to report.
“Older one’ll be here tomorrow, I expect,” Squinty said. “Can’t see ’em getting bail.”
“They wouldn’t have anyone who could pay it for them if they did,” I replied and Squinty frowned a little.
“How do you know?” he said.
I was going to have to say it sooner or later, I realised. Besides, keeping it in wasn’t doing me any favours, my head was a mess. “I know them,” I sighed. “From the youth centre I used to work at. Vincent’s a gang leader, but he’s not a bad guy.” Squinty raised his eyebrow at me. “Okay, he is a bad guy, but I never thought he was a killer. And Danny? Danny was always such a sweet kid, I can’t believe it was him.”
“Always the ones you don’t expect,” Squinty said sagely. “I mean it, think about it. Every time some bastard does something heinous and they interview his neighbours, they’re totally shocked, aren’t they? And they always, always say he was a quiet, polite man, kept himself to himself. You never hear ’em saying they’d suspected he was psychopath for years, do you?”
“I guess,” I said, but I still couldn’t bring myself to believe it. “But, Danny and I were close. He used to come every day after school, we’d play pool and chat about his day. I really thought he was going to be okay. I thought he’d stay clear of all that gang shit, maybe even get out of Hallow. I was coaching him for his exams, he was set to do really well. Shit, I feel terrible now. I should never have left.”
“How’d you mean?”
“I let him down. I said I’d be there for him through the exams, but I just left when a better offer came along. What if that was the last straw? What if he just thought fuck it and followed in his brother’s footsteps?”
“Beanie, be rational. If all that was standing between him and that bottle of petrol was you having a game of pool with him, then he was always a lost cause.”
The door squeaked a little as Bodie opened it and stuck his head round. “Sorry, Cal,” he said. “Erin wants you back, the lads are starting to get a bit rowdy.”
“Coming,” I said.
“Don’t dwell on it, mate,” Squinty called out as I left the staffroom. “It’s not your fault, right?”
* * *
“What was that about?” Bodie asked when we were out of earshot.
I explained what had happened, and about my relationship with the Felton brothers. He whistled and put a hand on my shoulder. “That’s rough,” he said. “I can see why it’s getting to you. But, you know Squinty’s right, yeah? It’s not your fault.”
“Yeah, I know,” I replied, but I wasn’t sure I meant it.
The finale of the first ever Justice Live was about to begin, and if the inmates of G wing were getting hyped up, it was nothing compared to the crowd around the stage. The whooping and excited screaming was audible from inside Whitefield, even with all the doors and windows closed. When Mo walked back onstage, it reached fever pitch.
“And now, ladies and gents.” His smile was so white the spotlights reflected off his teeth. “It’s the moment of truth! The votes are in, the results have been counted and verified, it’s time for me to announce the name of the very first criminal to experience justice – live!”
“Har-vey, Har-vey, Har-vey,” the crowd chanted, as though they were calling the name of a rock star, and G wing joined in. The camera cut to inside max, panning across the cells showing each inmate in the main area as they waited nervously for the result to be called. A heartbeat sound played subtly in the background to ramp up tension. When the scene cut to Harvey’s cell the whole crowd booed. He wasn’t waiting anxiously beside his bars like the rest of his counterparts. Instead, he was sitting on his bunk with his nose in a book, seemingly oblivious to all that was going on.
“Justice Live inmates,” Mo’s voice rang out inside max. “This is Mo. The public have voted, and the results are in.” Again the camera panned across the cells. Some of the inmates made faces, or stuck their middle fingers up at the camera. Others, like Eddie the Eater, looked more unsettled. “I can now tell you that the first monster to face public justice will be…” The pause went on so long as to be uncomfortable. “Harvey Stone!”
The crowd went wild. G wing jumped out of their seats, fists punching the air as they cheered.
But Harvey didn’t flinch. He simply put down his book, folded up his spectacles and placed them gently on the table beside him. He sat on the edge of his bunk, waiting patiently as if for a cab to arrive.
“Harvey Stone.” Mo spoke directly to him, but there was no acknowledgement in Harvey’s eyes. “The guards are coming to get you.”
Four unnamed guards entered Harvey’s cell along with Dax. They cuffed his hands behind his back and he was escorted past the other cells and out into a reinforced Perspex tunnel that had been erected after my visit to the compound. The tunnel led across the courtyard to the chamber rooms, and went right through the crowd.
The audience were almost feral in their bloodlust. They screamed obscenities, banged on the walls of the transparent tunnel, threw tomatoes and eggs that exploded against the Perspex and left red and yellow residue dripping down its sides. Dax swaggered a few steps ahead of Harvey and the four guards flanking him, blowing kisses to the women who shouted his name and winking at the camera every time he noticed it pointing in his direction. Stone just looked straight ahead, not even glancing at the baying mob. He didn’t so much as jump when their edible missiles hit the walls.
When they reached the chamber rooms Reynolds was there, wearing a white lab coat and a smug smile. He gave a slow nod to the four guards holding Harvey and they tightened their grip, intending to wrestle him into the VR chair. But Dax held his hand up to them. “No need, lads,” he said, giving them each a brotherly clap on their shoulders. “No need. He’ll play. Won’t you, Harvey?”
Harvey gave no response to Dax, but when the guards let go their grip on him he duly walked to the chair and sat himself down, leaving the viewers to coo in awe over Dax Miller – the man who could control the monster. The four guards attached the restraints and wires slowly and silently, each movement exaggerated for the camera. Reynolds flicked a large wall switch (another dramatisation, the simulation could easily be started by a simple keyboard press) and the program began.
The split-screen view began with Harvey on the right and the first-person perspective of the simulation on the left. Harvey’s expression was blank, his eyes closed and facial muscles relaxed as though he were asleep. The tunnel came on-screen, and as it had in the run-through the creature emerged from the darkness ahead.
The live audience gasped at the sight of it and even some of the hardened crims of G wing looked a little freaked out when the tiny hands began to protrude from its distended stomach, until Fuller broke the tension by shouting to Erin, “Hey miss, look. It’s your boyfriend!” causing them all to erupt into guffaws.
“Well, at least he’s better-looking than you, Fuller,” Erin retorted with a wry smile and the laughter among the inmates continued.
“Ha ha, she got you, mate,” Greavsie said. “Proper mugged you off there!”
I half-expected Fuller to fly at Greavsie, it was well known he couldn’t stand him, but he took it in good humour for once.
The creature moved closer and closer, until you could even make out the fingers on each flesh-wrapped hand, but Harvey’s expression didn’t change, and the camera didn’t move. By now, the first-person view should have been hurtling through the tunnel away from Reynolds’ nightmarish creation. But Dax was right – he wasn’t scared.
“He’s not running,” I whispered to Bodie. “He’s supposed to run.”
There was a slight flicker on the screen. Harvey’s face disappeared, leaving just a full-screen view of the simulation, and the creature was suddenly a few feet further away than it had been before. Nobody else seemed to notice, but I knew what had happened. They’d cut to a pre-recorded run-through because Harvey wasn’t playing ball. Now the camera spun around, and the simulation continued with a shaky run down the moss-covered tunnel into red-tinged darkness.
On and on through the brown, rat-filled sludge, round bends and past the rotting corpses of what I could only presume were the creature’s previous victims, all the while the heartbeat in the tunnel grew louder and the monster’s rattling breath seemed to come from every direction.
Eventually, the tunnel opened out into a large stone-walled room. Rusted, blood-covered hooks were suspended from the ceiling and the floor was littered with lumps of bloody flesh. The camera spun around, revealing that the way back out of this dead end was blocked by the fast approach of the creature, its spindly limbs outstretched as it reached for its victim.
Yet still, no shots of Harvey’s face. I could only conclude he remained completely unperturbed by the experience, and was mocking them with his serene expression. I wondered if Reynolds would now accept defeat and do what Dax had implored him to – crank up the juice to elicit some screams and save the show from disaster.
The creature had Harvey cornered now, trapped with his back to the wall and surrounded by the ominous metal hooks that swayed and creaked despite the absence of any fresh air. A sound like ripping fabric rang out as two scaly, clawed hands burst from the ground beneath him and tightened around his feet, holding him fast.
The creature reached forward, maggots dripping from every facial orifice, and leisurely took hold of the jagged, curved hook to Harvey’s right. Reaching around the avatar’s body, everyone watching winced as it became obvious what it was about to do.
Finally, the split-screen returned just in time for the world to witness the Playground Slasher’s face as he was penetrated through his shoulder by the cold, serrated steel of the meathook. His expressionless face at last broke into a grimace, and he let out a guttural yell as the tip was pushed slowly through bone and sinew. To the viewers, he was reacting to the horrific torture being inflicted via VR, but I saw something different.
He was shaking, but not with terror. His body tensed and then juddered, his neck muscles taut as his jaw clenched and his hands balled into fists. The second hook speared his left shoulder blade, and again his body stiffened and convulsed. It wasn’t the contents of the simulation causing his reactions, it was just the electric shocks. And I betted Reynolds had had to crank them much higher than he’d anticipated.
‘A scream is a scream,’ Dax had said. But he was wrong. There was something missing. The screams that eventually came from Harvey when he was hoisted into the air by his impaled shoulders and the creature set about slicing slowly into his flesh with a variety of serrated blades were enough to please the crowd, but they weren’t the screams Reynolds had been hoping to invoke. There was no terror, only pain. The same result could have been achieved without the VR at all, and at a fraction of the cost and effort. Harvey Stone wailed, and writhed, and cried, but as Dax had predicted it was all just a biological response to physical stimuli. They hadn’t broken him psychologically in the way they had intended.
Not that the audience cared, or even noticed. As his screams rang out, the crowd became rabid in their frenzy. Grown men jumped up and down hugging each other, as though their team had just scored the winning goal. Women shrieked themselves hoarse, clapping and dancing in primal exaltation. A grey-haired lady dressed in a long, pastel pink dress raised her hands in the air and gently sang hallelujah, tears of pure joy running down her wrinkled cheeks. I can’t have been alone in finding the scenes of celebration more disturbing than the images of Harvey’s torture.
5
When the whole horror show finally ended, we had quite a job getting an overstimulated G wing back to their cells and settled for the night. Erin suggested we should all go for a pint or two, and we readily agreed. There was no escaping Justice Live, though, it was the only topic of conversation among the other pub goers, and even the taxi driver that dropped me home at almost 1am could talk of nothing else.
I crept into the apartment, expecting Mel to be sound asleep and wanting nothing more than to slink into bed, close my eyes, and forget about the show, and about Vincent and Danny, for a few hours. But she was waiting for me in the lounge, her hands wrapped around a mug of hot chocolate.
“Oh, thank God,” she said, putting down her drink and heading toward me, arms outstretched. “I’ve been waiting for you. How was your night?”
I shrugged. I was exhausted and didn’t want to get into it all. “Alright, I guess.” I replied.
“Did you manage to watch it?” she asked. “Wasn’t it awful? And all the people going mental in the crowd – God, it makes me feel sick. It was even worse at the party, they were all congratulating each other, and I had to pretend to be happy about it too. There were press everywhere, I swear I spent my whole night with a camera in my face.”
“Must have been tough for you.” I tried to sound sincere, but it came out as sarcastic and Mel slowly withdrew her arms, looking hurt.
“I know it’s probably nothing compared to what your night was like,” she said, “but I’m just saying – I missed you. I wish you’d been there with me.”
“From the sounds of it, I’m glad I wasn’t,” I replied. “Anyway, I’m knackered. I’m going to bed.”
I knew I’d upset her. When I turned from her and headed for the bedroom I knew she was struggling not to cry. I knew she would likely be awake most of the night, wondering what on earth had turned me so cold. I knew, but I didn’t care. Looking back now, I realise I hadn’t cared in quite a while, at least not like I should.
I don’t know if she came to bed that night, but when I got up the next morning she was busy making scrambled eggs and coffee. She smiled and wished me good morning but I could tell from the blotches on her face and the swelling around her eyes that she’d been crying. I pretended not to notice, I was too consumed with what might happen in the day ahead to address the problems between us. I ate my breakfast, picked up my bag and keys and kissed her on the head as I left for work as though nothing was wrong, and she let it happen.
I arrived at Whitefield to hear the news I’d been expecting: Vincent Felton had been ghosted into the VPs overnight. Woken from his bed in the holding cells at the police station at 3am, loaded into a van with no warning or explanation, and ushered on to the wing at Whitefield under cover of darkness, and while everyone’s attention was still focused on Justice Live. It was standard practice for prisoners whose arrival, or departure, might cause a stir.
Squinty must have already told the others about my connection to the Feltons before I arrived, because everyone stayed conspicuously silent on the subject of Whitefield’s new high-profile arrival. I was grateful not to have to hear judgements and aspersions over morning coffee, but I struggled to keep my mind on the job that morning, watching the minutes tick by until lunchtime.
