by T M Caruana
“How can I help you?” she asked, and closed the book, although she kept a finger in-between the pages, seeming to believe the conversation wouldn’t last too long.
“I have a proposition for you. I’m looking for participants for a TV show.”
Her eyes now flew wide open and her head turned to search her surroundings, seemingly looking for crew members or cameras.
“Are you for real?” she blurted out in disbelief.
“The prize is five hundred thousand pounds.”
“You are joking! What’s the show?” she responded, now obviously more intrigued, and flicked her messy hair behind her back.
“It’s just one of those reality shows, showing human behaviour when twelve individuals are let into a stocked up supermarket.”
“A supermarket? Why? And how do you win the money?”
“You just stay inside the supermarket…and eat,” Sir John explained as briefly as he could and shrugged his shoulders to indicate there was nothing to it.
“I would be let inside a supermarket where I can consume or use any of the products? What’s the catch? Are there competitions?”
“No. Just not to be the one getting bored and giving up before the others…an endurance test.”
“Doesn’t seem hard. I would just read my book and stay until the others give up.”
“Yes, that is pretty much it.”
“For how long?” she asked, as if she was on a schedule and Sir John frowned not following. “I have school,” she confirmed shyly, not wanting to place any importance on it.
“It starts the first of July and runs for six weeks or until you give up.”
“Why would anyone give up?”
“You can eat the food in the supermarket and there are ovens and stoves to prepare it, however when it runs out it won’t be replenished.”
“I see. Well I don’t eat much anyway so I think I could have a good shot at it.”
“I thought so too,” Sir John murmured, staring at her slim waist and musing on his own agenda contentedly to himself.
“What’s your name?”
“I’m Sarah Johnson,” she introduced, stretching out her hand in a more confident manner than the drawn back posture had indicated from his first impression of her.
“Nice to meet you. Here’s my card,” Sir John said, and handed her his fictitious business card printed for the occasion. “Be at this address at ten in the morning on the 1stof July,” he clarified and pointed at the address line.” If you have any questions or need to cancel please call me.”
She looked at the card as if it was a five hundred thousand pound note.
“And remember,” Sir John urged as he stood up. “We film before any media sniffs out the outcome of the competition. We wouldn’t want them to find out about it and spoil the surprise in advance.”
“Of course, I understand. I won’t speak a word to anyone,” she promised, but then hesitated. “As I’m not yet eighteen, would I need my mother’s approval or something?”
Sir John was surprised to hear she was a minor and felt saddened in a way he hadn’t thought he would. He would have thought she had turned eighteen as she was at the University and pondered on the complications. However he had already mentioned it to her and the fewer who knew about it the better.
“No, that’s no problem. We can obtain her approval before we air it.”
She smiled widely and Sir John tried to match it so as not to let his evil intentions show.
4
CONNOR WHITEMORE
Sir John pressed the button to start his newly-acquired navy-blue Mercedes and steered it into the stream of traffic, heading for town. The thoughts of condemning a minor still daunted him. Although, he would soon have to let the thoughts go as he needed two more candidates. Perhaps recruiting the first one was the hardest, as it made the situation feel real and unstoppable. Although, the situation had actually been unstoppable from when it had been first uttered from Alfred’s mouth. He couldn’t back down now. That would show weakness towards the red wolf. He needed to focus on the task in hand.
He needed to find good, ethical people, who would do the right thing and not consider killing anyone. He knew where he was going to find his next candidate and turned down a narrow alleyway.
As he was venturing down a street in the town’s poorer district he parked his car at the beginning so he could still see it, and walked to where he knew there was a soup kitchen for homeless people. He wasn’t seeking out someone homeless, but a volunteer. If a person would be kind enough to volunteer, they probably weren’t going to be driven to the point of killing anyone else, he thought, as he entered the large and surprisingly empty food hall. There was a skinny young boy standing in the kitchen doing the dishes. He could smell the red wolf stench all the way to where he was standing. Perfect. He had no issues entering a red wolf into the fatal competition. That would put a spanner in the works. Although, entering a member of the rival pack into the competition would cause major issues with Alfred. But did he really care? One million pounds was worth the agony of having to endure some petty bickering. Hell, with that kind of money as compensation, he could even be persuaded to leave London.
“Excuse me? Are you a volunteer here?”
The young man leaned back to view him and gave a stare that seemed to pity the overweight man in front him, judging him to be a lost soul in this homeless environment.
“Yes,” the young man replied slowly, and pushed his crooked glasses up from the tip of his nose with the back of his hand, not to get them wet from his soapy fingers.
“What’s your name boy?” Sir John asked, and eyed the fluffy orange hair on top of his head, bouncing as the boy moved.
“Connor Whitemore,” he answered, stopping his washing up and staring back at Sir John.
“Great, just the man I was looking for,” Sir John lied and placed a firm grip over Connor’s shoulder.
“I am?” he asked and Sir John could detect the underlying surprise that a grey wolf would seek him out.
The boy’s voice was low and gave no sign of intelligence. He wasn’t an ideal candidate as he appeared easily influenced, but on the other hand, he would be an easy recruit. He was poor, bored and hopefully wished for something a bit more ambitious than washing dishes for the rest of his life.
“Yes, you are the Connor Whitemore who volunteers at the soup kitchen, right?”
“Yes, that’s me,” he said with glee, and shone at the attention.
“You entered a competition a couple of weeks ago,” Sir John started, and hoped he could wing a credible story.
“The one I sent a text on my phone to win a holiday?”
“Exactly that one,” Sir John said with delight, and filled in the gaps. “Well you didn’t win a holiday, but you won an invitation to a reality TV competition where the prize is five hundred thousand pounds.”
“Wow! I have never won anything ever in my life. That’s daft man?” he bellowed and his voice ended in a snort.
“Yes, super daft,” Sir John repeated humorously, and couldn’t believe the slang the youth used nowadays. “The show is about a group of people in a supermarket where you are allowed to consume everything in stock until it runs out and then you need to endure the longest.”
“Sounds awesome, man.”
“Great, here’s my card with the details. Ensure you are at the location on the 1stof July.”
“My mum’s going to shit her pants, man,” he hollered, and dried his hands on a towel hanging from the oven handle.
“Your mother is going to…” Sir John gasped, shocked at the young man’s poor language skills. “The show is within copyrighting legislation until the episodes are revealed so you can’t tell anyone,” Sir John carried on lying, hoping the ignorant looking boy didn’t understand the meaning of a word he said, but would think it important enough not to speak about it.
“Shit, yes, fuck. I won’t say a word to anyone. I swear it,” Connor assured him with a
fisted hand lightly tapping over his heart.
“Daft man,” Sir John affirmed sarcastically, as he suspect the mocking tone would go undetected by the simple boy, and made a salute with two fingers before he left.
Connor copied his motion and as he did, dropped the card into the dishwater.
<><><>
“Shit,” he spat in panic, fishing it up quickly and ran to the toilet to dry it with the hand-dryer.
As soon as the card’s structural integrity was saved he kissed the card and folded it into his wallet from his back pocket to keep it safe. He then left the soup-kitchen without informing his superiors. He walked straight to his gang’s scooter park, even though he knew he would be too early to find his friends there. The others didn’t arrive until after they had finished their community service tasks, completed their working day or managed to roll out of their doss houses, which was normally at about five in the afternoon. He watched a ten-year-old trying to impress his father by going down a medium-sized ramp for twenty minutes before his cronies started to roll in on their scooters and skateboards.
“I had some fat luck today, dudes,” he immediately blurted out as soon as they had taken off their helmets and sat down on the brick wall next to him.
“You don’t say, ‘fat luck’, dude. I thought we used ‘daft’ now,” his tallest friend Raymond remarked, looking for confirmation from the others.
The other two friends nodded their heads.
“Yeah, man, ‘daft’,” the man that went by the nickname ‘Pimple Pim’ commented.
“Shut up, you daft fat fucks. I’ll hold my dick with a fucking golden glove to piss on your graves by the fat luck that happened to me today. And I can use what fucking word I like when I buy you a golden scooter.”
“What the fuck man. Tell us,” Pimple Pim urged.
“No, it has all that copyright shit,” Connor said as he hesitated, thinking he might not be allowed to participate if he gossiped about it.
His three friends put their hands up and tickled their fingers together as they made a constant teasing noise before they shouted.
“Peer pressure!”
This was their group’s way to punch at each other to reveal a secret. They always did it.
“No secrets, hey!” the short and chubby fellow that they called ‘Smirkey’ urged as he pulled a face he thought was cool, but Connor always regarded as sleazy.
“If you attempt that ramp,” Connor said and pointed at the newest addition to the park, “I will tell you Smirkey.”
“The spines? No way, dude. I’ll land splitting my balls, man. I’d like to have Junior Smirkeys one day.”
“No girl will touch those sacks anyway. At least you’ll get a chance to get grabbed by inspecting nurses,” Raymond teased as he grabbed his own packet for comparison.
“Shut up Raymond. You do it,” he defended.
“I don’t mind, Bro. You’re good,” Connor confirmed amusedly, as he watched Raymond’s face drop.
“Too chicken?” Pimple Pin joined in and made a quacking sound, flapping with his elbows.
Raymond took a hard grip around the bars of his ‘Black Hovertron’, as he called it, and kicked the back tyre so that the scooter’s base spun around the handle before he pushed out to the spines ramp. He gathered plenty of speed, although not enough and hence the scooter ended up stuck at middle peak, sending Raymond flying. He managed to stay on his feet after having to run, slowing off the acceleration to brake to a halt. He then turned around, made a theatrical bow and picked up his scooter on the way back. He jumped up to sit on the wall again and leaned forward towards Connor.
“Spill it,” he ordered contentedly and smiled, apparently believing his efforts had been impressive.
“You have to promise you won’t tell another soul for as long as you live. Well, or until I’m rolling in with my Ferrari and people will notice I’m rich,” Connor murmured dreamingly. “After I have my flat in Mayfair and a bimbo willing to do anything,” he added with a cheeky grin.
Everyone had the same smug grin on their faces; none of them having ever seen a woman naked in all their lives.
“Bros forever,” they all chanted, boxing their fists together, implying that if he ever got that rich, he would have to share.
“I’m gonna be on reality TV shit, a competition.”
“Dope!” Raymond shouted so loudly, another gang that also used the skate park regularly, came walking over, curiously to see what was happening.
“My pal here will be famous y’all,” he carried on bellowing.
“Copyright shit,” Connor hushed, although it was too late to contain the damage and he spent the remainder of the afternoon bragging to the boys on the block.
5
WALLACE LOWMAN
On his way back to his car Sir John walked past a football pitch and noticed a middle-aged man tidying up footballs into a net and stacking some cones on top of each other. Every time he bent his back, he moaned. He looked fed up with life; as if he couldn’t sink any lower. Sir John contemplated the man’s profile. He could have a family with children. He wasn’t the right candidate. People with children would do anything to survive, and a family would make a huge fuss if a father went missing. But there was something about him that made him ideal for the task. He looked as if he had gone through hell and back. Apart from the sadness in his miserable eyes, he was strong and tall. Sir John needed someone like that. Sarah and Connor weren’t the ones to win in a physical fight, but this one would stand a chance if it came to that. He couldn’t place all his eggs in one basket.
Sir John’s assessment appeared to be confirmed as accurate when the man sat down to regard the pitch after he had finished tidying up rather than rushing back to a family. Sir John entered the premises and plonked himself down next to him to go for the kill. In the same moment, Sir John realised why the man had appeared so ideal yet so strange. He was a coyote. They were strays, lawless. They kept to themselves and didn’t get involved with the pack rivalry.
“One good player is all that’s needed to feel like you have a purpose,” Sir John mumbled, and looked out on the pitch, as if he had done so for every day of his life.
The man looked up at Sir John as if he had read his mind. “You’re a coach?”
“Of sorts. I’m a manager – Sir John,” he introduced.
“Wallace. Tell me about it, right,” the man agreed. “Today, kids don’t want to put in the effort. They’ve got all those gadgets. It wouldn’t surprise me if they didn’t ever go outside in a few years’ time.”
“You used to be a player?” Sir John asked, just to make the man talk about himself rather than because he cared.
“Used to be good,” he answered with pulled up eyebrows and a disappointed gaze as if to say that those were the good old days.
“What happened?”
“When you hit forty they replace you with the younger lads,” he answered and fiddled with the net that held the balls.
Sir John looked him up and down as if to say that he still looked in good shape.
“I twisted my back in the world cup games against Croatia. Was never fit again after that.”
“What a shame.”
“Mmm…” Wallace agreed.
“So you’re coaching your kids now?”
“I have a severely autistic boy. He doesn’t play.”
“Sorry to hear that. That must be hard for you and your wife.”
“Thanks. My wife died in childbirth with him. I have to get by with two jobs. Mickey is with his nan.”
Sir John could tell it was a sore subject and it sounded as if the lifestyle he had wasn’t ideal. Something was up. Either he didn’t cope or the nan was getting too old. He wanted to find out more about this and kept his subtle interrogation going.
“He’s lucky he has such a great nan then,” Sir John said and gave a false smile.
“Yes, her, and social services who want to ‘help’ us by placing him permanently in the home he goe
s to temporarily every fortnight to give me a respite.”
“You feel it’s a bad idea?”
“He’s my son. I don’t want to give him up. Although, with the low wages I’m earning for babysitting these kids I can’t see it being sustainable for much longer.”
“Perhaps it was fate that brought us together today,” Sir John stated, but didn’t look at Wallace.
Somehow Sir John couldn’t look him in the eye as he proposed his death game. It didn’t seem right somehow, even though he’d decided Wallace was a better candidate than many others he would find. The boy would be placed in a home and nobody would miss him.
“How come?”
“I have just the thing for you.”
“You do?”
“I’m investing in a television show, survival type of thing. Cash prize.”
“How much?”
“Five hundred grand.”
There was a silence and Wallace had paused for reflection. Perhaps he was even contemplating whether to trust a grey wolf.
“You just need to stay in a supermarket for some time. Could your boy stay anywhere?”
“I don’t know. He could stay in the home for the time being I guess, but I don’t think he would be happy there for very long.”
“Well, perhaps not then,” Sir John lured him in by withdrawing the offer as he stood up. “Here’s my card. If you change your mind let me know by the end of this week so that I can send you the information, or know if to make other arrangements. It was good to meet you Wallace.”
“Yes, you too. Thank you Sir John.”
<><><>
“Mickey, I’m home!” Wallace called as soon as he had entered through the door.
He knew he would never receive any response, yet it was a routine he thought was necessary for Mickey. Mickey was standing in the living room under the clock that was ticking noticeably in the otherwise quiet home. The boy could have been stood there for the entire day without Nana being able to convince him otherwise. He walked over to him to give him a gentle rub, not trying to touch him so much. Mickey let off a squawking sound and shrugged his shoulder. He didn’t like to be touched. Not even by his father. Wallace sighed, feeling unloved.