Panic Button - A Psychological Thriller

by Frazer Lee

  Nothing.

  “Please return to your seat Dave,” Alligator boomed.

  Dave tried more random numbers, little keys beeping as he pressed them with his sweaty fingers. Still nothing. He took a step back from the door, then raised one foot and kicked at it, hard.

  “Return to your seat Dave,” repeated Alligator. “This is your final warning.”

  “Who’s in there? Open this door!”

  He kicked again, but the door would not budge.

  Gwen watched from her seat. “Why won’t they answer?” she asked, concerned.

  The monitor screens flickered with digital noise as Dave stormed back into the cabin.

  “It’s fucking locked,” he fumed, “no-one will answer me.”

  Jo shook her head. “They’re not going to answer with you banging on the door like that are they?”

  The on-screen digital noise flickered and bent, distorted, before eventually clearing to reveal the Alligator’s face. His voice followed, as cold as ice.

  “As Dave has broken the rules and ignored my clear instructions, I have no choice but to initiate a forfeit.”

  “A forfeit? Oh no!” Dave exclaimed in mock terror, “Do I look like I give a crap? I’m not playing your little game anymore...”

  Alligator continued, oblivious. “One of Dave’s friends will now be selected from his All2gethr friend list.”

  Dave’s profile appeared on all their screens, his list of friends in the familiar sidebar to the left of the page. A lot of little faces and names, scrolling up across the screen. Panting, Dave watched as the scrolling stopped. The name of one of his friends was highlighted - RORY. A window popped up, opening Rory’s profile page.

  “What the hell is he doing?” Dave muttered under his breath.

  The others looked on in silence as the screens filled with flickering digital glitches. A ghost-image of the Alligator’s yapping face flashed in and out of view. Then a video window appeared, a cursor blinking in the top left corner next to the words ‘LIVE FEED’.

  Shaky video camera footage revealed an image of a suburban house. Whoever was operating the camera walked up the path to the rear of the house, panning the lens into a side window for a quick view of the living room. The room was lit by a large flat-screen television, muffled sounds of incendiary warfare coming from the speakers. Rory sat in front of the screen, his back to the window. He was wearing an online gaming headset, engrossed in a violent first-person shooter game and blissfully unaware of the camera-wielding intruder. The camera sailed past the window and arrived at the back door.

  Alligator spoke again. “Let’s pay your friend Rory a little visit, shall we Dave?”

  Dave laughed in disbelief. “Whatever, go ahead mate, knock yourself out.”

  “Very well then,” Alligator said.

  The long, thick double barrels of a shotgun came into view on the screen, held by the black leather-gloved hand of the cameraman. The gloved hand pushed at the door handle. It was unlocked. The intruder pushed the gun against the door and it swung open.

  The sounds of video game carnage grew louder as the gunman entered the house, still filming. A pizza box lay open on the kitchen table, empty. Following the sound of the videogame gunfire and explosions, the gunman exited the kitchen into a small hallway. The living room door was on the left, ajar.

  Smash. Rory looked up at the camera, stunned, as his assailant burst into the room. He raised a hand, defensively, still clutching the game controller.

  Slam. The shotgun butt came down hard on his forehead, blood spurting from the impact wound.

  “Oh God,” Jo whispered, inches from her monitor screen.

  The assailant placed a booted foot into Rory’s chest, pinioning him to the sofa, then rammed the shotgun barrels into his gaping mouth. The camera lens whirred, joining the hellish cacophony of Rory’s video game. Rory’s terrified eyes filled the screen as the camera zoomed in on his face. He tried to scream.

  Bang! Both barrels fired. What was left of Rory’s head slumped sickly onto the headrest of the sofa, his blood spattered all over the wall.

  Gwen shrieked in horror.

  The camera footage skittered, turned to digital noise, then snuffed out.

  Dave looked stunned for a moment. Then, perversely, he laughed - a dry guttural sound.

  “Bollocks! That wasn’t real.”

  “Looked pretty real to me mate...” Max said, his face drained of colour.

  “It’s a wind-up,” Dave countered, “Rory is in on it. That was pretty well done though, fair play.”

  Jo watched Dave from her seat. He didn’t look entirely convinced by his own words.

  He started slow clapping, looking around the cabin as though the alligator was an invisible presence enveloping them.

  “Bravo!” he laughed, “What is this? Some reality TV rubbish?”

  “Now that the forfeit is completed, let’s get back to the game shall we?” Alligator said, his voice bone dry.

  Jo glanced at Max, who was tapping at his touch screen intently.

  “What are you doing?” she asked, her voice loaded with worry.

  Max gestured at her to be quiet, tapping at his screen.

  Jo got up from her seat and crept over to his side, peering into his monitor. He had loaded up his profile page and was trying to log in to All2gethr Chat.

  Each attempt was met with a pop-up error message, which read ‘ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS ONLY’.

  Alligator’s reproachful voice boomed through the cabin. “Having fun Max?”

  Max abandoned the Chat button, tapping the All2gethr E-mail button instead.

  ‘ADMINISTRATOR ACCESS ONLY’ appeared once again on Max’s screen.

  He growled in frustration, hitting the screen with his fist.

  “Chat, mail, everything - it’s all blocked!”

  Gwen tapped at the All2gethr logo on her touch screen, loaded up her profile page, trying her email. The same admin error message popped up, blocking her.

  “No, don’t,” Jo pleaded, “You’ll just piss him off!”

  This was a red rag to a bull for Dave, who swivelled his monitor around and, still standing up, tried to access his mail. Just as he was about to tap the email log-in button, all their screens went blank.

  “Max has breached the rules by attempting to contact people regarding the game.”

  Max leapt to his feet, pleading skyward. “How can using All2gethr be breaking the rules mate? That’s insane!”

  “It was in the Terms and Conditions,” Alligator replied, his voice laden with officiousness.

  Jo groaned and rolled her eyes.

  “To make amends I’m going to have to initiate another forfeit.”

  The winners glanced at each other nervously.

  “Max,” Alligator continued, “is going to have to lose a friend.”

  Max spluttered and ruffled his hair with his fingers in frustration. His All2gethr friend list appeared on the monitor screens, scrolling up the screen rapidly.

  “My, you’ve got quite a few to choose from haven’t you Max? You probably wouldn’t notice if a trimmed a few of these people off the list...”

  The list stopped scrolling at the name of one of his friends. A profile photo was there for all the passengers to see. It showed a smiling man in his twenties, not much older than Max.

  “Alan Williams. He’ll do. Bear with us.”

  The monitors snapped off again, black screens reflecting the taught faces of the passengers.

  They all turned to Max, looking tense.

  Max tried to explain. “Look I had to try something, didn’t I? Thought I could contact someone at All2gethr...”

  “And what, exactly? Lodge a formal complaint?” Dave said, incredulous.

  “Can’t really blame him - after what they did to your friend Rory...” Jo said.

  Dave looked at her blankly. “Come on love! They’re filming this for some reality TV show, it’s just a colossal wind-up! Hello Mum!” He waved into th
e tiny webcam embedded in the top of the touch screen’s casing then turned back to Jo. “Listen, there are probably a million people out there, laughing their arses off at us right now!”

  Jo shook her head. “Dave, shut up! It looked real to me. Really real. I think we’re in serious trouble!”

  “‘Serious trouble’?” he mocked, “He’s a bloody cartoon alligator!”

  Right on cue, the Alligator’s voice oozed from the speakers again.

  “I’d listen to Jo if I were you. She’s the expert. She likes to watch people put to death...”

  Dave snorted. “He’s got your number, love...”

  Jo lowered her eyes guiltily. “Don’t you start, and if you call me ‘love’ one more time...”

  “You’ll what?” Dave said.

  “You’re not even worth it. We’ve all heard about the kind of filth you get off on.”

  Dave’s eyes glowered at her. For a moment he looked like he might actually raise a fist, then he turned away.

  “Gwen thinks it’s real, don’t you Gwen?” Alligator countered.

  Gwen remained in shocked silence, body stiffly upright in her seat.

  “But still you watched didn’t you?” he went on, “Turned the other cheek like a good God-fearing girl...”

  “What the hell is your problem?” Max spat.

  Alligator rounded on him again.

  “Max. You broke the rules. It is time to catch up with your friend Alan...”

  Nine

  Max and the other passengers watched as their screens pulled up a video-cam feed.

  This time, the cameraman was in the corridor of an office building. Drab utilitarian decor was swamped in cold light from overhead fluorescents. The intruder peered around a corner, giving the passengers a camera-eye view of the corridor ahead. He must have been wearing the device on a headset.

  Alan, his face recognisable from his All2gethr profile, was a few metres away, dragging a cleaning trolley up to the closed doors of an elevator. Bottles of cleaning fluid jostled next to cloths and refuse sacks on the trolley. He yawned, scratching his head as he pushed the call button. Without warning, the assailant sped towards Alan, camera-view shaking with each stride.

  Whack! The intruder swung his weapon, a heavy baseball bat, into the backs of Alan’s legs. His victim fell to the floor, crying out in agony.

  “No! No!” Alan cried, as the attacker stabbed the end of the bat hard into his face, shattering his nose.

  Blood gushed from the wound and Alan wiped at it pathetically as the intruder lifted the bat again. His cries were ignored again as his assailant rained heavy blows down on his legs, sharp cracks echoing across the empty corridor.

  Alan lay on the floor, writhing in agony, his face stunned and his body contorted. He tried to move, but his limbs wouldn’t work. His attacker stomped on his shoulder before shaking an object in his free hand. It rattled loudly. An aerosol can - spray paint. He then bent over Alan and sprayed something across Alan’s chest, before roughly dragging him to his feet and shoving him through an emergency exit door to the side of the elevator doors.

  The door smashed open, rebounding off the wall loudly as the attacker frogmarched Alan over to a metal railing atop a stairwell. His legs now broken and useless, Alan tried helplessly to beat at his attacker with his fists as the man behind the camera shoved him against the railing, hard. Alan’s throat emitted a terrified yelping sound as the attacker grabbed his broken legs painfully and flipped him clean over the railing. There was a hideous snapping sound and the attacker peered over the edge of the railing, still filming. The gentle whir of the zoom lens accompanied the cameraman’s sharp breaths as he zoomed in on the motionless form several floors below.

  Alan’s body was like a broken doll, legs splayed out either side of him, bent back on themselves in a grotesque mockery of the human form. His smashed and contorted limbs were slowly being engulfed in the growing stain of his blood. The camera whirred again as the killer zoomed in on Alan’s chest - the letters ‘ROFL’ spray-painted there.

  The video feed clicked off.

  Max sat in brooding silence. Dave wiped a film of sweat from his furrowed brow. Gwen made a little heaving sound from behind her hand - she looked like she might throw up.

  “How could they...?” Jo struggled to find the words. “You... sick bastards!”

  Grabbing the champagne bucket just in time Gwen wretched and vomited, on the rocks.

  “Now I assure you that what you just witnessed is very real. Breach the rules again and I will just kill someone else. It’s time to play the game.”

  Dave reached out, trying to comfort Gwen.

  “Don’t touch me!” She shrugged off his hand angrily, still clutching onto the ice bucket.

  “I was just trying...” Dave’s voice was like an open wound.

  “Well don’t. Keep your dirty hands to yourself.”

  Jo watched Dave as he retreated to the rear of the aircraft; disturbed by the violence she sensed bubbling just beneath his surface.

  Max stood up, pacing the aisle and looking up at the ceiling lights.

  “You just killed an innocent man in cold blood for no fucking reason,” he snarled, barely suppressing his anger.

  “I disagree,” Alligator replied, as calm and matter-of-fact as ever, “You implicated your friend when you broke the rules. And I will kill plenty more ‘innocent’ people if you don’t follow them - to the letter.”

  His green face grinned from the monitors. “Thank you for your kind co-operation.”

  Alligator’s words hung heavy in the air as the computer displays blinked off again.

  Jo took a napkin from the bar and handed it to Gwen who took it and wiped bile from her mouth. Turning to face Dave, Jo narrowed her eyes angrily.

  “So you think that was faked too?”

  Dave shook his head, eyes vacant. “I don’t know what to believe anymore...”

  Jo approached Max, who was glancing around the cabin with an expression of pure paranoia.

  “Why are they doing this... to us?” she asked. “What’s going on here?”

  Max shook his head, taking deep breaths and drowning his anger in recycled oxygen. He glanced over Jo’s shoulder at the others. Gwen looked dreadful, her face pale and drawn after her ablutions. Dave seemed more on edge than ever - his clown’s facade had slipped and gone.

  “Got to keep our heads...” Max whispered.

  Jo nodded her silent agreement.

  Blink, blink, flash. Something beyond the darkened porthole window nearest Max caught her eye.

  Jo moved toward the glass, zombie-like and numb, peering outside. Her quick breath fogged the window. Through the haze she saw distant lights, glittering in the dark beyond the clouds.