Cull

by Tanvir Bush

  Andre Is Unleashed

  Hobgoblin has stopped snoring and is standing alert, sniffing the air. From somewhere in the building comes the sound of another dog, barking its head off. Hobgoblin growls and Andre watches him, trying not to breathe too loudly. There is a loud clang at the far end of the kennels, footsteps and Hobgoblin barks, but joyfully, his stump of a tail flexing in a semblance of a wag.

  ‘Hey there, Hobby …’ A man with a spider’s web tattoo on his long ugly maw is unlocking the cage front.

  ‘Ronnie!’ squeaks Andre, for it is indeed Ronnie, Hobgoblin’s trainer. ‘Help me! Get me out of here!’

  Ronnie’s face is a picture. He has come through the thunder and rain to check on Hobgoblin, worried about the possible flooding down the road. He realises there is something bad happening here but is finding it very hard to follow Andre’s furious spluttering and is still unsure as to why his boss has lost his trousers. It becomes even more confusing to Ronnie when he opens up the store cupboard to get Andre a clean boiler suit and finds the Grassybanks manager, Mr Skinner, and two semi- conscious, fully armed H5 security men propped up against the far wall.

  The Good Doctor Saves the Day

  Meanwhile, on the shining tiled floor upstairs, Dr Binding is crawling forward, keeping low. He is in his vest, pants and socks and soaked from the floodwater in the basement and his own once hot, now chilly, piss; he is humiliated and boiling with a kind of rage that makes him itch all over.

  He is, in fact, unharmed. They never actually turned the Resomator on. At the time, he had thought they were really going to go through with it, though. All he could hear was the fake noise of pipes, the cacophony of screams and yells through the camera, and then the terrible silence, when the door at his feet slammed shut and he had thought … oh yes … that his goddamn goose was being calcified.

  In those minutes in the dark and the clanging silence, he had thought about Stella and Gloria, about his practice, his love of medicine, his wish for his work to be celebrated. He had never thought of dying before, but now he realised he desperately didn’t want to be rendered into chalk dust. He surprised himself by calling for his old mum. He had screwed up his eyes and waited for the terrible sensation of being cooked alive … part of his scientist’s brain asking … Hmmm, what will this feel like? … and then, with a fizzing bang, the light had come shining in on his face again, and he had been yanked from the tube, emerging feet first, like a baby in breech from a womb. And like a birth, there had been water. Lots of water, but the people handling him had not been kindly doulas, calming and gentle. His midwives hadn’t been speaking at all, just grunting. They handled him as if he were a sack of grain. A sack of shit.

  And now there are clowns with guns, and other lunatics in rubber face masks, and no one seems to care a jot about what he has just been through. In fact – and here The Good Doctor feels that ice-cold fury squeeze at his lungs – someone has just intoned that he and his daughter were ‘Nazis’!

  Nazis! How dare they! How fucking dare they? Dr Binding is more hurt by this than by anything that has previously occurred. Every decision he has ever made has been in the interest of his patients. When they suffered, he could offer comfort. My God, surely if a loved one was on life support and in agony, who would want to prolong the pain? It had been that way with his end-stage alcoholics, his addicts, his no-hopers. He had given them comfort. An easeful exit from an unkind world that could not support them. How could anyone say anything else but that he was a good man and a damn good doctor? No, this was insane. Where are the police?

  And what have they done to Stella? His darling girl looks terrified, and she seems unable to get out of her seat. But wait … a wheelchair? They have glued her into a wheelchair? The goddamn thugs! He almost calls out to Stella to say, as he always used to when she was little, ‘Daddy’s coming!’ but he doesn’t want to draw attention to himself. He has his eyes on the clown to his left, the one with the gun hanging from its arm. He slithers forward.

  When the crippled girl had come on the white screen, he had used the distraction to slide closer to the gun-toting clown. And now, when almost everyone has their eyes on that wet arse of a mayor, his final assault is underway. He is almost directly underneath the clown holding his daughter hostage in that wheelchair. Looking up, he can see the white paint streaking into the red paint of the clown’s mouth as it weeps. Pathetic.

  It is only Helen who notices that Dr Binding is no longer where her husband had discarded him, but the pain in her bones is winning. She sees him crawling across the floor with his stained white pants and his muscular hairy calves as if from a great distance. She wants to warn the others but her chest muscles have gone into a spasm, knocking the breath from her. Look out! she is trying to say. Jules! But there is no air in her lungs any more.

  It is Terry with his heavy HD camera on his shoulder who glances down and twists the camera just as The Good Doctor Binding pushes himself to his knees, reaches up and grabs the gun from the weeping clown.

  And now they all see. And some jump forward and some jump back, but it is too late. The clown topples backwards, pushed in the chest, landing hard on its arse with a whooomph, but this time there is no laughter because he has fallen without his gun. The Good Doctor Binding has the clown’s gun now. The Good Doctor Binding is King of the Hill, armed and ready.

  ‘Put down your weapon!’ His voice sounds funny to himself. Too high and warbling, like an old man.

  Surprised by its lightness, Dr Binding swings the gun but points it not at Helen, with her crumbling bones. That would just be doing her a favour. No. He is in control now. He is going to …

  ‘Doctor, no! You don’t understand!’ Another clown has run up and put themselves between the doctor and the rest of the crowd. The clown stands too close, blocking the doctor’s view, its ridiculous red nose and its stupid wig completely infuriating.

  ‘Put your fucking hands up!’ the doctor screams.

  But the clown does not.

  ‘Don’t shoot! Put your weapons down!

  And that is the H5 police. At last! At last, the police! They are finally inside, although they seem to be confused, uncoordinated as if a little drunk. A short, nasty-looking, fair-haired man, stinking of dog shit and sporting a boiler suit, is pushing the security men roughly forward, and people are yelling and shouting and the doctor is still screaming at the clown. ‘Get your goddamn hands up or I will shoot! I will shoot!’

  And Helen finds her voice, and together with her husband and a couple of others they cry out frantically, ‘She can’t, Doctor! She has no arms! Jules! Jules!’

  And yes, it is Jules, and of course she can’t raise her hands, but the doctor couldn’t know this and, enraged, his shaking finger hits the trigger. Shiny gold flakes shoot out across the reception in a twinkling spray that coats Jules, Alex, Helen and John Thorpe-Sinclair, Stella Binding and Henri Rennes. The gun is a glitter machine.

  Only the H5 security men don’t know this. And the H5 security men have real guns clutched in their clammy hands. In that same split second, half blinded by glitter, deafened by screaming and confused by Andre’s shouts of ‘Kill the fuckers!’, the H5 security men panic and let rip.

  24-HOUR BREAKING NEWS RBR NEWS

  Freak storm causes massive damage in Eastern Southern region

  Gusts of over 100 mph were recorded as Met Office ‘red warnings’ are issued. Sixteen severe flood warnings remain in place.

  Power and transport networks have been badly hit in what has been called an ‘almost unparalleled natural crisis’.

  The storm has left thousands of households without power, trees have been brought down, and there has been flooding and structural damage.

  More than a thousand 999 calls were made to the police and fire services over a 24-hour period – a ‘significantly’ higher number than normal.

  Residents in many parts of the UK have been warned not to go out.

  In an unrelated incident three people are feare
d dead and several more have been injured in a shooting incident at the Grassybanks Residential Home in Cambright. Rescue services were called to the scene when the opening ceremony of a new ward was allegedly hijacked by protesters during the storm. Due to flooding, Grassybanks has been evacuated and police are currently investigating.

  THE TONIGHT SHOW: TV TWENTY-TWENTY

  It has been confirmed that internationally renowned voice coach Helen Shandy, her husband Nicholas Shandy and her colleague Julia ‘Jules’ Kirkpatrick have died from gunshot wounds following an H5 security intervention into an alleged hostage situation at the Grassybanks Residential Home in Cambright earlier today.

  Two government ministers, John Thorpe-Sinclair and Stella Binding, plus several other onlookers, were treated for minor injuries at the scene and later released.

  Helen Shandy was the mother of Laura Shandy, a young disabled student who killed herself three years ago. Shandy founded the activist disability rights movement, Boudicca, in honour of her daughter.

  RBR WORLD NEWS ROUND-UP

  with Hugh Jericho

  Last week’s film footage of the protest that turned into a tragedy at Grassybanks Residential Home has gone viral, eliciting a massive national and international response both for and against the activist group Boudicca. Over 70 charities in the UK have demanded an investigation into the accusations of state-sponsored euthanasia and the use of the so-called ‘Chiller Beds’.

  The two H5 security men involved in the shootings have been suspended from duty, pending further investigation into charges of disproportionate aggression.

  The authorities are still trying to track down several Boudicca supporters and a local news team who may have been present at the event, and they would like any information on possible sightings of a large vehicle, possibly a grey van or bus, that was seen in the area at the time of the incident.

  THE STATE OF PLAY INTERNATIONAL

  In a response to the allegations of state-sponsored euthanasia put forward by the welfare reform protest group Boudicca, Lord Justice Gallagher has been appointed to head an inquiry into the Grassybanks Residential Home.

  The inquiry has been widened to include several other similarly co-funded residential homes and hospitals across the country, including St Mark’s in Manchester.

  SHOCK BOUDICCA ACQUITTAL

  The Boudicca hearing was brought to a close today after Judge Margaret Gee ruled that there was no case for imprisonment. Judge Gee stated: ‘The Grassybanks opening ceremony had included the performance and film screening in its pre-approved schedule, and there had been no intent to cause bodily harm, merely to entertain.’ The judge therefore had no choice but to acquit the performers of all charges.

  As to the allegations of torture and restraint brought by Thorpe-Sinclair, Dyer, Rennes and Binding, Judge Gee concluded: ‘There was insufficient evidence and reason to pursue Boudicca, and the performers were not to be made scapegoats, given the subsequent exposure of the horrific practices perpetrated by the staff and management at Grassybanks.’

  The Judge went on to thank Mayor Bill Pearson for his invaluable input and support during this time.

  In Memoriam: Helen and Nicholas Shandy. Family, friends and colleagues are invited to attend a memorial service at St Dunstan’s Chapel, Cambright. No flowers, please. All donations to the Kitty Fox Foundation. No press allowed.

  TRANSCRIPTION: RBR RADIO 4 TODAY IN PARLIAMENT

  John Thorpe-Sinclair, the Minister for Work and Pensions, received a standing ovation in Parliament today as he returned to the front benches one month on from the Grassybanks protest incident. He thanked his colleagues for their support, saying that although being at the front line of the welfare crisis had made him a target for terrorists and bullies, he remained resolute in his stance on benefit reform.

  THORPE-SINCLAIR: ‘Our reforms are making sense. The results of our actions speak for themselves.’

  Thorpe-Sinclair revealed, in a direct response to the Grassybanks incident, plans for an immediate co-ordinated review into benefit fraud. Measures to be implemented will include enforced access to homes and bank accounts of any person claiming Incapable Benefit. Officials will from today be given the right to enter homes without warning, to interview the claimants and seize bank accounts in order to confirm that the person in receipt of the benefit is not cheating the system.

  THORPE-SINCLAIR: ‘If some of these so-called “disabled” people are able to protest, as seen recently at Grassybanks, they are clearly well enough to work. We can no longer idly stand aside while the hardworking British taxpayer is being cheated. If people are truly sick or crippled and in need of our assistance, the government will not let them down. In fact, this new initiative will protect the truly needy among us by exposing the fraudsters and bringing them to justice.’

  Thorpe-Sinclair has been accused of vengeful and ruthless tactics by the Shadow Home Secretary, Eve Barrellman, following these new welfare reform initiatives.

  5,000 Miles as the Crow Flies

  In Mozambique, in the heart of the raucous city of Maputo, sunlight pings off the pane of window glass as it is carefully carried across the newly painted office building by two workmen. The light briefly blinds Alex. Blinking, she looks away to allow her retinas to recover. White dots shimmy and skate away and she has a momentary flashback to the pandemonium of eighteen months previously.

  Grassybanks … she shivers in spite of the tropical heat. Alex had been chivvying the evacuees along the corridor with one arm and hugging a soggy, deliriously happy Chris with the other when the shots had rung out and the screaming back in reception had begun. Everyone still in the corridor froze, Chris flattening himself down to the floor, tail tucked under his belly. And like that, the combat training Alex had received when embedded with the troops all those years ago had switched on.

  ‘Go, go, go!’ she had screamed at the last few terrified Boudicca witnesses, pushing them forward towards the exit and the waiting bus.

  ‘What the hell was that?’ Mr Parnell was shouting from the garage door.

  ‘Get out of here!’ Alex had screamed again, waving at him. ‘Something’s gone wrong. Get this lot out and take Chris!’

  Bending low, she had taken Chris’s snout and kissed it hard three times, looked him in those golden eyes and ordered him to go with Parnell. He had hesitated a mere second, then whirled and sped back out of the building.

  Leaving Parnell hoisting the last wheelchair up into the bus, Alex had turned round and quickly felt her way back down the corridor towards the high-pitched sounds of panic in the main reception. Terry was still in there, filming, and she must join him. She was the reporter, after all. She had gone back into the fray, back into the noise, the harsh lights, back to where the blood was pooling on the antiseptic, white-tiled floor, and she had done her job.

  Later, there had been the Boudicca hearings, the shock acquittal and the opening of the Gallagher Inquiry, all of which Alex remembered only vaguely, even though she had been allowed to remain as the leading local journalist. Gerald had offered her a full-time position at the paper, a good salary. Instead, she had consulted, in her own way, with Chris and Chris’s vet and, after those heartbreaking funerals of Helen, Nicholas and Jules, she had gone to see Kitty Fox.

  ‘This,’ she had said, and handed Kitty a project file she had put together, marked ‘Kitty Fox Foundation: Sub-Saharan African Outreach Programme’. ‘You need to let me do this for you.’

  And now … Alex stretches, feeling the sunburnt skin on her shoulders prickle a little under her blouse, then reaches down to feel Chris’s cool wet nose nuzzling her palm. Nearly eighteen months and three sub-Saharan countries on, and Alex is almost herself again. Here, in the fearsome African heat, she is overseeing the setting-up of the third ‘Women United’ project; each project funded by the Kitty Fox Foundation and a mishmash of other charities to bring together local disabled people’s organisations and provide advice on microfinance, basic human rights and sexual hea
lth. She, as the silent partner, has already earned Kitty Fox two UNESCO awards for humanitarian entrepreneurship.

  Chris has taken to Africa with aplomb. It is more dangerous for dogs, of course – poisonous bugs, ticks, snakes, rabies, and more to watch out for – but his joy is in the layer upon layer of wonderful stenches that coat every moment of his day. There is such space. The mammoth sky canoodles luxuriously with endless sweet red earth, chock-full of curious, exciting new pongs. He gets more time off work now too, free just to run and run around gardens, especially here. The city is often too dangerous for him to guide Alex, traffic is crazy, pavements are haphazard and people don’t know about assistance dogs, only guard dogs and farm dogs, pet dogs and feral ones. They are frightened by dogs, even ones as handsome and charming as Chris, so often Chris gets to stay on the beautiful chilli farm where Alex is renting a little cottage. He has been friended by the farm dogs, Pavlov and Eusebio, who are teaching him to guard chickens.

  Alex’s strong hand ruffles his ears and he gives a contented groan before dipping down to scratch a flea bite. He is always itchy here. Alex’s phone beeps and she glances at it then grins, pulling out her magnifying glasses to look at the photo that has appeared on the screen. An adorable toddler sits, eyes wide, huge smile, in front of a cake with ‘Happy Birthday Serena!’ written in green icing on the top. Mosh, Jenny and the Parnells beam in the background.