Geek Tragedy

by Nev Fountain

  ‘Yes. Vanity never turned up for it.’

  John the Stalker stood there blinking furiously. His brain was telling him that Something Must Be Done, but he wasn’t getting anything more specific than that.

  ‘So if there’s nothing else…’

  ‘No. I don’t think so.’

  ‘So if you could leave. Now? Please?’

  No movement from John the Stalker. Morris finally cracked. ‘Look, I’ll see if we can work something out. Give you a little something. We’ll not call it compensation, we can call it a little something for you being so understanding.’

  A brief silence while the proposal was downloaded and processed.

  ‘Okay.’

  ‘Great.’

  ‘What do I get?’

  Morris’s eyes cast desperately around for inspiration, finally alighting on the corner of the room.

  ‘Wait a minute…’ he went over to it.

  There was a photocopier in the corner of the room. On it was a large grey lump. It looked like a huge mouldy sandwich. He placed it in John’s meaty hands with great ceremony. ‘Here you go. A priceless item of memorabilia. A genuine piece of recently destroyed Styrax.’

  John the Stalker looked doubtfully at the crumbling piece of detritus. ‘It’s a bit of papier-mâché.’

  ‘But it’s a very special bit of papier-mâché. It used to be a Styrax. It’s a piece of history.’

  John still showed no signs of leaving.

  ‘Look, you just hold on to that, and we’ll get Vanity Mycroft to sign it for you. How about that?’ Morris said.

  ‘I got her autograph yesterday.’

  ‘All right, we’ll get her to put some lipstick on and kiss it. Mark it with a big smooch.’

  This seemed acceptable to John. He left, clutching his new prize.

  Morris let the air go from his lungs. ‘Finally.’ Barely seeming to register Mervyn’s presence, he took a pile of papers over to the photocopier and started to feed them in. Almost immediately, the photocopier jammed with a high-pitched squawk. Morris’s shoulders slumped in resignation. ‘Eight pence a copy, and they give us a photocopier that jams on every third sheet. I’ll just have to ask someone very nicely to print the revised schedules on their computer printer.’ It was only then he said. ‘Now, Mervyn. What can I do for you?’

  Mervyn was so surprised that he almost forgot his lines.

  ‘Oh. What? Oh yes. Morris, I don’t suppose you could help me—you’ll think me an old fool but do you know what? I seem to have lost my name tag.’

  Morris’s massive head swivelled up from the dead photocopier. ‘The spares are all packed up in Simon’s room, I’m afraid.’

  ‘Simon’s room? Really.’ Mervyn already knew this. He’d asked another steward about ten minutes before.

  ‘Yeah. I’ve left his room as it is for the moment. I’m going to clear it out on Sunday when we leave.’

  ‘So they’re in Simon’s room? Damn and botheration, that’s a bit inconvenient. I feel a bit naked without a name tag. People will think I’m not a guest. They might not let me into hospitality.’

  ‘Oh I’m sure the stewards will recognise you.’

  ‘Morris…I’m a writer. No one recognises me.’

  Morris digested the logic of this and found it made perfect sense. ‘I haven’t got his key. It’s with his personal effects, and I haven’t got them back from the police yet.’ Morris groped in his leather jacket. ‘I’ll tell you what, I’ll write you a letter.’

  ‘There’s really no need…’

  Morris was scribbling on the back of a leaflet now. ‘No, you’re dead right. If any of the stewards stop you, this letter will let them know that you’re famous.’

  ‘Look, why don’t I get a member of the hotel to go up with me, open the door and retrieve another name tag? It would only take a minute. I mean, it’s only on the third floor…’

  ‘Fourth floor. Best not really. There’s valuable props in there.’ He flicked a look at Mervyn as if to say, you are one known as Prop Killer, you must be kept away from the rare, the valuable and the breakable at all costs. He handed the scrap of paper to Mervyn. ‘There you go.’

  ‘Thanks so much.’ Mervyn wandered off, thrusting the paper into his pocket, where it nestled alongside Mervyn’s name tag.

  Fourth floor. Right.

  *

  Two minutes later, he was on the fourth floor, nodding awkwardly at the fans as they entered and left their rooms. He felt like a bit of an idiot, not knowing quite what he was doing there.

  He was about to admit defeat and head back down when he noticed a folded newspaper on the floor, nestling against one of the doors.

  Mervyn looked up and down the corridor. It was the only one left. He looked at his watch. 12.20. There’s not many hotel guests who wouldn’t pick up their paper by midday—either the occupant was sleeping off a very heavy night…

  Or the occupant wouldn’t be picking up his paper again. Ever.

  He walked over. It was a copy of The Daily Mail. Well, Simon certainly seemed like a Daily Mail kind of guy. It must be his room. He pushed the door.

  To his surprise, it clicked open.

  It was Simon’s room, no doubt about it—it was the waste bin filled with Styrax fragments in the corner that gave it away. Mervyn felt a twinge of guilt when he saw the sad little heap of bits.

  As Mervyn expected, Simon had used it as a makeshift office and command centre rather than a place to sleep. Piles of papers were neatly stacked on the desk by the window. Plastic name cards, folders and props were bulging out of colour-coded boxes arranged on the bed.

  What Mervyn didn’t expect was the large wedge-shaped chunk of evil robot squatting in the corner by the wardrobe.

  Another Styrax.

  He foraged through the boxes on the bed. Nothing much of any interest. Certainly nothing suspicious. Well, there was plenty of stuff that looked suspicious—ray guns, laser rifles, large swords with exotic bejewelled handles and one large egg-timer-type device with the words ‘ELECTRON BOMB’ inscribed on it.

  …But nothing suspiciously suspicious.

  The desk was more promising. Lots of papers. There were receipts for expenses, invoices from caterers and printers and photocopies of gushing correspondence to the stars requesting their presence. It didn’t escape Mervyn’s attention that the wording on the flattering letter he’d been sent asking him to attend was virtually identical to everyone else’s. The phrases ‘legend in fan circles’, ‘incalculable contribution to the show’ and ‘constant requests for your reappearance’ were tellingly familiar.

  Lying on the corner of the table was a pile of artsy black-and-white photos; the type actors put in Spotlight. On the top was a brooding picture of man in his 70s using the bare amount of lighting and deep shadows to look like he was in his 40s. Mervyn could barely see a bit of nose and a cheekbone in the gloom, but he knew who it was.

  Samuel Johns. A fruity actor of the old school. He was a nice old cove, Mervyn remembered. He’d been the first Major Karn, way back in ‘86. He caused quite a headache after the first series when he suddenly upped and left the show and the part had to be recast as Roddy Burgess (Mervyn hated to admit it, but Roddy was an inferior replacement).Everyone assumed that Samuel, an actor with a distinctly average career, would have stuck with the show as long as possible. It irked the production team to change an actor midstream; but it was nothing compared to the annoyance of the fans at the time.

  Samuel Johns: now where had he heard his name recently?

  Oh yes. When he bumped into Simon in the corridor and sent his autographs flying. Simon said his autograph was very valuable…

  Mervyn had a thought. He picked up the photo. On the white panel below the picture there were four dog-eared adhesive corners, the type used to fix photos in albums. Whatever had been fixed there had been ripped out in a hurry.

  Mervyn pulled out the second suicide note, the one he’d found on the Styrax floor, and slotted it into pla
ce. It fitted perfectly.

  It’s when your memories are at their happiest that it’s time to say goodbye. S---—J---

  *

  So now he knew. The ‘suicide note’ was written by Samuel Johns. Someone had rushed in here and ripped the autograph from the photo, thinking it would serve as a suicide note from Simon Josh.

  For a suicide note, it was pretty rubbish. It was completely different from the elegent letter he’d found stuck to the dashboard. Why was one suicide note done so well and the other so crudely?

  ‘You don’t think searching his room might look a little…suspicious at all?’

  Mervyn’s body spasmed in shock. When he regained control of himself, he spun round. No one there. Whoever spoke wasn’t in the room.

  Not yet.

  ‘Who’s going to know? I’ll be quick,’ said another voice.

  The owners of both voices were in the corridor outside. Both near, and getting nearer all the time.

  The corridors of the hotel were long, straight and extremely overlit; there was no way he could leave the room without being seen. Mervyn gibbered. He tried to ask his brain what to do, but the ungrateful bastard seemed to have dived for cover already without so much as a thought as to what it was going to do with the rest of his body.

  Hide! Under the bed? No. Too low, no room. Bathroom? Hardly. Wouldn’t want to get found there. The wardrobe! No. The damn Styrax was wedged up against it.

  Oh damn. Not there.

  *

  ‘Oh. The door’s already open.’

  Mervyn could hear the door thud against the wall as it was pushed open.

  ‘You sound disappointed.’

  ‘I needn’t have bothered getting the key-card out of his pocket, that’s all.’

  Bernard and Nicholas entered the room. Or so Mervyn gathered from the sound of their voices. As he was looking through the grille at the front of the Styrax, all he could see were two hazy black blobs.

  One of the blobs leaned against the wall and crossed its arms. ‘You stole his card? My goodness. Old habits die hard, don’t they?’

  ‘Look, don’t you have some pissing off to do?’

  ‘I’ll stay if it’s all the same to you. Believe it or not, I’m here to help.’

  ‘I don’t need any help.’

  ‘Yes you do, old stick, and we both know it.’

  Inside his fibreglass cocoon, Mervyn tried to relax. It wasn’t easy—the heat was unbearable. The papier-mâché plastered to the inside of the Styrax was designed so the operator wouldn’t bump and scrape himself against the sharp edges of the wooden framework. Unfortunately, it also acted as insulation. He’d only been in the thing three minutes and he was being roasted alive. He was in severe danger of blacking out. Heaven knows how Smurf and Sheldon coped after a day in one of these.

  The other blob came closer and morphed into Bernard. He was moving like a cat, keeping his back to the wall and flipping his little dark eyes around the room, as if he was expecting to be attacked by something in the mini-bar at any moment.

  ‘Well get on with it, if you’re going,’ sighed Nicholas.

  Bernard started searching the room. Papers cascaded from the desk and scooted along the carpet.

  ‘What’s this?’

  ‘It’s an envelope. It’s addressed to you.’

  ‘I can see that!’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Well go on, read it!’

  There was a sigh from Nicholas as he took it and read it. ‘It’s nothing. It’s just a letter confirming your appearance at StarCon next month, darling.’

  ‘I knew that!’

  ‘Of course you did.’

  Bernard threw the envelope on the bed, stood up…

  And looked directly at Mervyn.

  Oh no…

  Bernard’s eyes danced across the Styrax. Mervyn shrank down as low as he could. He counted his lucky stars that he habitually dressed in black; any other colour and Bernard would easily have spotted him.

  ‘Hey look, I made this.’

  ‘You made all of them, dear heart.’

  ‘Yeah, but this one’s in good nick. Perhaps I can buy it off Morris.’

  Bernard continued to stare into the Styrax. Behind him Nicholas looked through the papers on the bed.

  ‘I can’t see any evidence relating to your crime, dear heart,’ Nicholas sighed. ‘I think you’re in the clear.’

  ‘Good.’

  There was a metallic rattle on the side of the Styrax, as Bernard fiddled with the latch that opened the back. Mervyn tried his best to ooze out of the holes in the bottom, but his body stayed stubbornly corporeal.

  ‘Have we finished? Because of all people to be discovered with in a hotel room, your name comes slightly lower than bottom of my list.’

  There was more rustling and clattering as Bernard moved around the room. Mervyn was crazy with curiosity but he daren’t raise his face to the grille to see what was going on.

  ‘One thing left to do then,’ said Bernard.

  Mervyn couldn’t see what they were doing, but thankfully within seconds of doing whatever it was they were doing they left, their voices dribbling back down the corridor.

  The ‘ker-chunk’ of the door shutting was the sweetest thing Mervyn had ever heard.

  The ‘ker-thunk’ of Mervyn’s head hitting the back door of the Styrax was a less welcome sound.

  The hatch stubbornly stayed where it was. When Bernard fiddled with the latch he must have locked it. Mervyn considered smashing his way out, but that seemed far too drastic. He’d destroyed one of these things already, and the cringing writer within would rather suffer and sweat in silence than draw attention to himself. Long years of riding the Metropolitan Line had conditioned him for that.

  It was getting stifling in this thing. The heat wouldn’t usually be this bad, surely? He was becoming drowsy. His eyes fluttered and closed, and his head nodded down on to the Styrax panel that operated the guns, lights and arms.

  He barely heard the ‘whumf’ that became a strange crackling that sounded like toffees being unwrapped. He didn’t see the orange fingers of flame that tickled the rim of the waste basket.

  There was only one of his senses that realised anything was wrong.

  Could he smell… Was that smoke?

  That was his last thought. Things got blurry; coloured shapes swam across his eyes, and then the world buggered off and left him in blackness.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  He’d died and gone to hell, obviously. There was smoke, and flames, and shouting. All the usual hell stuff.

  He should never have written that episode where the Vixens whipped men who were tied to crucifixes. Too late now.

  An angel was talking. He could hear her quite distinctly.

  Did they have angels in hell? She obviously didn’t like it in hell. She was coughing. She didn’t sound happy.

  ‘Bloody hell, what’s happened in here?’

  ‘The bin’s on fire!’

  There was a clanking and thudding as someone stamped on the fire in the bin. Then a ‘swoosh’ as the taps in the bathroom were turned on.

  ‘Get that thing outside!’

  Mervyn woke up. His head had been knocked against the casing. He was being moved! Quite roughly, in fact. Mervyn looked out and saw three stewards inside the room grappling with him and shoving him towards the door. He was wrestled outside. The cold air blasted into the little holes in the Styrax, and he realised just how hot it had got in that room.

  There was a limp hiss as the bin was doused.

  ‘Who the bloody hell’s done this?’

  ‘God knows.’

  ‘I’ll let Morris know what’s happened.’ One moved off to the lift. The other two proceeded to shove Mervyn along the corridor.

  ‘I don’t know. First Simon kills himself, and then someone sets fire to his room.’

  ‘Just not his day, is it?’

  A bubble of laughter floated around the corridor. Mervyn almost joined
in. He was feeling quite giggly.

  The second voice sounded familiar. He peered out. It was Minnie. She was right above him, exerting herself sweatily, as she manhandled the prop towards the door. He could see from the way she was swaying alarmingly under her sweater that she still hadn’t managed to replace her bra. If he died now, the last thing he would ever see were her unfettered breasts hanging over him, swaying and thwacking together like an adult-oriented executive toy.

  This all added to his otherworldly state of mind. Not only was he woozy from oxygen starvation, his blood chose that moment to leave his head and charge down his body to power a raging erection. His head was soon swimming like a frantic dog in a pond.

  Down the corridor he hurtled, and Mervyn found himself on his own personal acid trip. He marvelled at the carpet whizzing by underneath him; the many small ugly patterns blurring into one extremely fat ugly pattern. It was most exhilarating.

  ‘Did you hear something?’ said Minnie.

  ‘What?’ said the other steward.

  ‘I thought I heard someone going “Wheeeeeeee!”’

  They wheeled him into the main hall, in front of the stage on the extreme left—exactly where his descending backside had destroyed the other Styrax. He was recovering his wits fast, and tried to hiss at Minnie for help, but she and the other stewards scampered away before he could make himself heard.

  He was alone again. Everyone had gone to lunch. The only company he had were rows of empty chairs, the tackily ostentatious décor (plastic chandeliers and silver flock wallpaper), and a strange-looking robot creature about ten feet to his left.

  A Maaganoid. That was new—it hadn’t been there before.

  The Maaganoids were a race of robots they’d introduced in the final season as a nemesis for the Styrax. It wasn’t one of Mervyn’s better ideas. He reasoned that, just as the Styrax were a type of supercar that had got out of control, the Maaganoids were a form of robot traffic control from the same planet, and that they had also developed their own intelligence. Speed cameras were a novelty in 1992, and the logic of making such a hated new device into a race to combat the Styrax seemed to make sense.

  Unfortunately, the idea had two major drawbacks. First, the concept was just too comical for the audience to swallow. It conjured up memories of the Monty Python sketch with vicious ‘Keep Left’ signs. Second, and more importantly, there was a problem with the design. The Maaganoid had a huge triangular head, on which was mounted a telescopic eye like a camera lens. The head was perched on a tall column, which tapered down to large round base on which there were two round, stubby apertures from which guns or grasping claws could emerge.