Divine Madness

by Robert Muchamore

  Paul shrugged. ‘There’s no personal property here, James. We share everything, except things like trainers and toothbrushes where it isn’t hygienic.’

  James was gutted at the prospect of mixing his designer gear and three-week-old school uniform with the faded tat in the cupboards. But he didn’t have much choice and at least he’d had the sense not to bring his good watch or his PSP.

  ‘I forgot your welcome present,’ Paul said, reaching around to the back pocket of his shorts and sliding out a slim paperback entitled The Survivors’ Manual. There was a cellophane packet containing a white bead stuck to the cover.

  James did his best to sound happy. ‘Thanks, man.’ ‘Congratulations,’ Paul said cheerily. ‘You’re an angel now, mate.’

  *

  James had already read The Survivors’ Manual. The book sets out the major ideas behind Joel Regan’s cult. The first edition appeared in 1963 and over the years it has been revised a dozen times, with the date and cause of the apocalypse getting vaguer in each new edition.

  The manual sets out Regan’s theory on angels, devils and the impending nuclear holocaust that will wipe out humanity. He claims this will be the work of the Devil, and that God gave him a message, commanding him to build an Ark and save a small section of humanity by turning them into angels. The Devil loathes Survivors, because God has chosen them to defy his plot to wipe out humanity.

  The book claims that Survivors can only stay safe by living and worshipping in communes where God can watch them closely. They must avoid excessive exposure to the outside world, in particular to media such as television, radio and newspapers. Idleness and negativity encourage devils to enter the communes and anyone who leaves the Survivors will have turned their back on God, having already angered the Devil. To leave the Survivors, or make contact with a member who has already left, is to invite a torturous death followed by eternity in the lowest depths of hell.

  In her book on the Survivors, Miriam Longford notes that Regan’s ideas are designed to frighten cult members, while leaving them with little time to think for themselves and reconsider their devotion to the group:

  Survivors living inside communes are tightly scheduled to ensure that they are deprived of sleep and remain constantly active while awake. They eat a diet high in sugar and other stimulants such as caffeine. In combination, these factors create a buzz that one former Survivor described as, ‘Living in a cheerful fog’. Unfortunately, lack of sleep, poor diet and high activity levels can have a disastrous impact on a person’s long-term health. The most common reason given for leaving the Survivors by ex-members is that they burned out with exhaustion.

  *

  To avoid idleness and the lowest depths of hell, James was given a detailed timetable mapping out his entire life. By the time he’d thrown his possessions into the cupboards and slipped the white bead on to his necklace, it was 8:30 a.m. James quickly studied the Saturday timetable, as Paul urged him to run for morning service:

  SATURDAY

  6:45 Rise

  7:00 Morning Run/Physical Activity

  7:45 Shower and personal care time

  8:10 Breakfast

  8:35 Morning Service

  9:00 Work Assignment

  12:45 Lunch

  13:30 Afternoon Service

  14:00 Fundraising Activity

  17:40 Dinner

  18:20 Evening Service

  18:50 Sporting Activity

  20:30 Shower and personal care time

  20:50 Late Service

  21:15 Retire to dormitory

  23:00 Lights out

  The Survivors kept their services small, upbeat and fast. James sat beside Paul in the outer circle. The all-male congregation joined hands to form a barrier against the Devil, while a grey-haired woman known as Ween strode into the centre of the circle. She sat and placed a set of tom-toms on the floor between her legs. She called everyone to silence, then began energetically thumping her little drums.

  ‘We thank you God for choosing us to Survive. We thank you for our shelter. We thank you for protecting us from devils. The circle starts here.’

  Ween pointed out someone at random, who thanked God for forsaking his son Jesus Christ. Everyone chanted Thank you Our Lord. Then the next person thanked God for his beautiful children and everyone chanted, Thank you Our Lord again. Ween drummed madly, as each person in turn gave thanks.

  James couldn’t think what to say, and finally blurted, ‘We thank you god for making me an angel.’

  Everyone appreciated this and James received the loudest Thank you Our Lord of the whole ceremony. After going around the two circles and thanking God for thirty different things, Ween put aside her drums and told everyone to stand up and jiggle their hands and feet.

  ‘Breathe deep,’ Ween said softly. Then immediately afterwards, ‘Exhale.’

  James had read about breathing exercises, but this was his first encounter: the simple act of taking forced deep breaths for a few minutes raises the level of oxygen in the blood and produces a slight feeling of elation. Miriam had taught him to defeat the forced breathing technique by taking normal breaths, while making dramatic gestures to make it seem as if you are doing the same as everyone else. However, the technique was harmless in small doses, so James decided to see what it was like.

  The group breathed and exhaled rapidly for three minutes, while Ween soothed her congregation, urging them to relax their muscles and imagine God’s love warming their hearts.

  ‘Now,’ Ween said, returning to her normal voice. ‘Find somebody to hug.’

  James turned to Paul and the two boys wrapped their arms around each other.

  ‘You’re a beautiful human being and God loves you,’ Paul said, with complete sincerity.

  James couldn’t help smiling. ‘You’re pretty amazing yourself, dude. I’m sure god loves you too.’

  Ween picked her drums off the floor, stepped between the pairs of hugging men and left the room. James and Paul were two of the last out. James felt happy. It reminded him of the sensation you get after you’ve rocked out to a good tune, or pulled off some amazing feat in a Playstation game.

  As they headed along the mall corridor, James reflected upon how easily a skilled cult member like Ween could take a roomful of people and manipulate their emotions.

  ‘Do you like services?’ James asked.

  Paul smiled. ‘Yeah, they really make you feel alive, don’t they?’

  James nodded, before looking down at his timetable. ‘So,’ he said, ‘what’s Work Assignment?’

  A little of the post-service glow dropped out of Paul’s expression. ‘That’s the one thing I don’t like about weekends.’

  ‘What do we do exactly?’

  Paul smiled. ‘Let’s just say that after four hours as a picker, you’ll never want to see another Survivors book or DVD.’

  19. PICKING

  The Survivor warehouse was directly across the road from the mall. It was a giant, single-storey box built from corrugated aluminium. James and Paul headed out of the blistering sunlight, through a set of double doors and into a reception area that seemed dark until their eyes adjusted. A foreman with soggy patches under his arms sat behind a chipboard counter.

  ‘Hey, Joe,’ Paul said. ‘This is James, the new kid. I need a couple of stations next to one another so I can show him the ropes.’

  Joe reached under the counter and took out two plastic discs with numbers on, like the ones you get when you try on clothes in a shop.

  ‘You’ll want some water, James,’ Paul said, pointing to a wire rack stacked with clear plastic bottles.

  Both boys grabbed a bottle, before heading through another set of double doors and into the warehouse proper.

  The first thing that hit James was the heat; there was no air-conditioning. It was thirty-five degrees outside and hotter in. The lines of shelving were stacked five metres high with video tapes, CDs, DVDs and books. Some were on their own, others bundled into elaborate packages like
the one James had seen in Emily’s room the afternoon before.

  After passing between a hundred metres of shelving, the boys reached a line of twenty workstations at the front of the warehouse. They found stations eighteen and nineteen and Paul showed James what to do. Each station had a computer, which printed off orders for Survivor tapes and merchandise. The front sheet was a label and invoice for the customer, the back sheet was for the picker. The picker’s job was to head into the lines of numbered shelving and grab the correct items.

  Once you’d rounded the order up, you took an appropriately sized box from the flattened stacks alongside each station, placed the items inside and positioned it under a fat plastic tube that led up to the ceiling. There was a foot pedal on the floor, which unleashed a torrent of Styrofoam packaging chips to fill the box and stop the items getting damaged in transit. Once the goods were packed tight, you stuck on the address label, tucked the invoice inside and sealed it with either brown parcel tape or binding strips.

  After watching Paul complete his first order, followed by a couple of overenthusiastic stabs on the foot pedal that caused Styrofoam spillages, James had the job mastered. The computer timed each job and a red light flashed above your workstation if you were moving too slowly.

  For the next four hours, James moved frantically around the warehouse picking out orders for Joel Regan’s businesses. The items ranged from the A$19.95 CD Surviving Work – The Motivational Speeches of Joel Regan, through vending-machine service manuals to the heavyweight A$399 tome Building the Ark. Each copy of this glossy slab included a vial of sacred earth taken from around the Ark and blessed by Joel Regan.

  The biggest seller was employee motivation courses sold to big companies by a Survivors front company. According to the cover blurb they had been used by ‘hundreds of America’s largest corporations’. These giant orders caused James’ heart to sink when they spewed out of his printer, because they involved sending out hundreds of chunky coursework folders, booklets, tapes and videos at a time.

  *

  By the end of his shift, James had drunk two litres of water. Paul’s last order was gigantic and filling it took up the first third of the boys’ forty-five-minute lunch break. They rushed back to the mall, cooled off quickly in a set of shabby communal showers and sprinted up to their bedroom wrapped in towels, with soggy trainers hooked over their fingers.

  James opened up the clothes cupboard and realised that his stuff was already gone. He didn’t make a fuss, but it was depressing rummaging through crummy looking piles of laundered clothes trying to find something that fitted and didn’t look too disgusting. He ended up with a tight yellow T-shirt, boxers that were better not thought about, grey trainer socks and a pair of cut off jeans so battered and ripped that they actually looked cool.

  Once dressed, the boys – who’d already missed breakfast – had to bolt downstairs in time for lunch. The food was clearly made on a budget and smelled like the kind of stuff James had been eating in children’s homes and schools his whole life. He got macaroni cheese, with a jug of orange juice and chocolate ice-cream with sprinkles on it. At the end of the meal, Paul led him to take his dishes back to be washed up. James spotted Abigail and Dana on the other side of the counter. They wore hair nets and aprons and both looked stressed out as they unloaded crockery from a steaming dishwasher.

  They exchanged nods, but James and Paul were already late for their lunchtime service, where they found that the circles had already formed and the service was underway. It was being conducted by Mary, who stopped playing her guitar and smiled.

  ‘Join the circle,’ Mary urged, as a bunch of people in the outer circle shuffled backwards to make a space big enough for two bums to squeeze in.

  James sat on the floor and caught his breath as the service resumed. Mary clapped and everybody clapped back. Then she began a nonsense chant and everybody joined in. James was exhausted from the shift in the warehouse and high on the sugar from the orange juice and ice-cream. He came out of the service feeling happy and had to remind himself not to get carried away.

  The boys faced another run out to the parking lot when the service ended. James had never visited the commune in the daytime before and was surprised by the way everyone rushed around. Even adults routinely jogged in the mall corridors and a brisk walk seemed to be as laid back as things ever got.

  James and Paul piled into a white minibus and sat next to each other. It was already half full and within a couple of minutes another eight kids, including Eve and Lauren, had joined them. Elliot came bounding out of the mall and slid the door shut before getting in the driver’s seat and pulling out.

  ‘How’s our new recruit doing?’ Elliot asked, as he pulled the van out of the parking lot.

  ‘Not bad,’ James nodded. ‘Can’t say I exactly enjoyed four hours in the warehouse sweating my guts out.’

  The chatting kids suddenly went quiet and Paul dug James in the ribs.

  ‘What?’ James said, mystified.

  Paul didn’t answer, but Elliot did once he had the van up to speed.

  ‘That’s an exceptionally negative comment, James,’ Elliot said. ‘You learned how to work your station and how to package your products properly, didn’t you?’

  James nodded.

  ‘How many loads did you dispatch?’

  ‘It was a hundred and something,’ James said.

  Paul rattled off the statistic. ‘One hundred and twenty-six, only a few less than me.’

  ‘That’s excellent work, James,’ Elliot said. ‘The warehouse is very important. Every one of those products makes us money that goes towards building and maintaining the Ark. In a way, James, what you do in that warehouse is your contribution to building the Ark. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘OK,’ Elliot said. ‘So, next time you work a shift in the warehouse, try and imagine that each book and each DVD you carry is a brick for the Ark. And set yourself a target. Make it your goal to dispatch one hundred and fifty items next time. Some of our best people average more than fifty dispatches an hour.’

  James really hated Elliot and his upbeat attitude, but he was supposed to be fitting in with the cult and all its gobbledegook.

  ‘I’m glad I’m an angel,’ James said. ‘I’ll try not to be negative.’

  ‘Good stuff,’ Elliot smiled. ‘That’s what I like to hear.’

  *

  They headed to an arts and leisure complex on the Brisbane river known as South Bank. The area had galleries, a market, restaurants, parks, playgrounds and a manmade beach. The kids piled out of the minibus and Elliot began handing out plastic tubs with coin slots in the top.

  ‘OK,’ he yelled. ‘Good luck. There’s a lot of people around, so get out there and start earning. Let’s see if the twelve of you can raise a thousand dollars this afternoon. I’ll be picking up from here at quarter to six. Do not be late. I’m on an exceptionally tight schedule today.’

  James strolled over to say hello to Lauren, Eve and a couple of the other girls.

  James looked at Eve. ‘I was expecting to see you this morning.’

  ‘I’m glad you became an angel,’ Eve said flatly.

  James spoke to a couple of other girls, but they all seemed reluctant to answer. Eve organised the twelve kids into four teams of three and sent them off to cover different areas of the South Bank complex. Lauren got the nod when she asked to fundraise with James and Paul.

  ‘So what’s the cause?’ one of Lauren’s pals asked.

  Eve smiled. ‘Cancer research. That’s a good money-maker and we haven’t used it for a while.’

  Paul headed off with Lauren and James in tow. Whenever James passed someone, he’d smile and shake his coin box. ‘Australian Cancer Research.’

  About every third person found some coins to stick in the box.

  ‘I thought we were raising money to build the Ark,’ Lauren said, when nobody was nearby.

  ‘We are,’ Paul said. ‘But there’s a lot o
f prejudice against the Survivors. If we say it’s for the Ark, we don’t make a cent and get a load of abuse to boot.’

  Lauren’s mouth dropped open, ‘But that’s lying …’

  Paul shook his head confidently. ‘You can lie to devils, Lauren, they don’t really count.’

  They ended up in a park a kilometre from where the van had dropped them off. Paul stood by a gate and told James and Lauren to head for the other entrance.

  James shook his box at a passing family. ‘Australian Cancer Research,’ he grinned.

  The man handed a bunch of dollar coins to his toddler son, who reached up and put them in the box.

  ‘Thank you,’ James said enthusiastically.

  Lauren shuddered and looked back over her shoulder to make sure Paul was out of earshot. ‘This is so nasty,’ she whispered. ‘It’s the lowest thing ever by about a million per cent.’

  ‘Australian Cancer Research,’ James said to a passing pensioner, who ignored him. He turned and looked at Lauren. ‘I know, sis. Just grit your teeth and remember that it’s for the mission.’

  ‘And this cult is totally sexist: girls get all the domestic stuff. If you think four hours filling up boxes is bad, you should see what I’ve got. I spent this morning polishing floors. Tomorrow I’ve got four hours in the laundry.’

  James shrugged. ‘What can I say, Lauren? We knew this mission was going to be tough. At least we know the evenings are a bit mellower and there’s school Monday to Friday.’

  ‘I know,’ Lauren said, shaking her head slowly. ‘I’m just having a little rant to get it out of my system.’ She rattled her tin at a passer-by, ‘Australian Cancer Research,’ and got a few cents for her trouble.

  James grinned, trying to cheer Lauren up. ‘When I’ve got a few more dollars, I’m gonna crack this baby open and buy an ice-cream. You want one?’

  20. HORROR

  Following an afternoon walking around fundraising and an enjoyable evening playing soccer with the lads, James was exhausted. When the late service ended at quarter past nine he walked up the escalators to the second floor and found a couple of pillows and some frayed sheets to cover his mattress. Twenty-six boys lived in the room, their ages evenly spread between eight and eighteen.