J. Ballard - Running Wild

He then returns to the garden. Beyond the tennis courts, the rear gate opens onto the pathway inside the perimeter fence, which Burnett will patrol in twenty minutes. Jasper sets off along the path until he sees the gatehouse on its grassy knoll, separated from the houses by a screen of ornamental trees. Jasper parts the hanging curtain of a weeping willow. Squatting against the tree trunk is Mark Sanger, the bamboo man-trap on the ground beside him.

_6:35 a.m._ Andrew Zest is moving through the trees at the bottom of The Avenue, near the pathway at the northern perimeter of the estate. This is the farthest point from the gatehouse, and the surveillance camera sweeps the lonely pathway for a full hundred yards on either side. Attached to the pylon is a telephone box and a miniaturized relay from the gatehouse of the camera picture.

Behind the pylon is a dense mass of rhododendrons, their dark leaves shutting out all signs of the houses. Graham crouches within the foliage and unpacks the crossbow from his canvas satchel. Using the spanner, he cranks back the powerful bow. His feet slip in the soft earth as he fits a steel bolt into the runnel. He carefully rearranges the foliage, satisfied that he is only six feet from the telephone box.

_6:48 a.m._ Mark and Jasper expose the telephone and TV cables. Over the past week they have excavated a rectangular pit in the damp soil, cut through the tar-paper housing and the yellow plastic tubing that contains the cables. Jasper lowers the steel cutters into the pit. Beside him Mark is setting the springs of the man-trap, bending the bamboo arms that will pinion Officer Turner and allow him to strangle himself.

_7:00 a.m._ The children's preparations are now complete. Graham Lymington has taken the bolt-action target rifle from beneath the floorboards in his bedroom. In the gray light he cuts his right thumb on the loosened nails (E 42). He sits on the bed, cleaning the weapon for the last time, then feeds the soft-nosed cartridges into the magazine.

Annabel and Gail Reade have completed the last exchange of messages on their computer screens. Annabel has loaded her small Remington and left the pistol within reach in the drawer of the bedside table. Gail has placed her weapon between the legs of her teddy bear. Sitting on the beds in their separate bedrooms, the two girls can see Jeremy Maxted at his window across The Avenue, reading an American comic that he has smuggled into the estate.

Composed now, the children wait in their rooms, computer screens glowing and blank, ready for the action to come.

_7:05 a.m._ The first parents begin to wake. Mrs. Sanger lies in bed for a few minutes, making notes for the day into the tape recorder of her bedside clock radio. "The TV people will be here at three. See the garage this morning about the spare car key. Ask Miss Neame to prepare the lobster dressing. Cancel riding lesson, and check with Mark about his weekend program…" (E 142).

_7:12 a.m._ Charles Ogilvy writes down a dream on the bedside telephone pad (E 159). He has dreamed of sailing down the Nile, a journey he and his wife made three years earlier, but in his dream the great temples and pyramids have been replaced by film sets.

_7:29 a.m._ Margot Winterton plays the radio in her bathroom and records an interesting film review on Radio 4's morning magazine program.

_7:45-8:00 a.m._ All the parents are now awake and up, with the exception of the Sterlings, who are still drugged by the powerful sleeping draught which Roger managed to steal during his visit to the London Clinic. The live-in tutors, Mr. Lodge and Mr. Wentworth, and the two au pairs, Krystal and Olga, have also risen. Several of the parents exercise in their bedrooms before bathing, while others don tracksuits and jog around their swimming pools.

_8:05 a.m._ Mrs. West, the first of the domestic staff to arrive, parks her small Honda in the rear drive of the Garfield house. Two more domestic staff appear, Miss Neame and Mrs. Mercier, both intrigued by the expected visit of the TV unit, as their relatives testify. They busy themselves taking the mail and newspapers which they have collected from Officer Turner at the gatehouse. They prepare breakfast and switch on the dishwashers.

_8:10 a.m._ The children wait. Weapons are loaded, and where necessary appliances have been boobytrapped, lethal electric cables plugged into their sockets. Hidden within the willow tree, Mark and Jasper kneel beside the exposed telephone and TV cables, cutters in hand. The children's attention is now on the Miller house.

_8:15 a.m._ At about this time Mrs. Miller, relaxed after ten minutes of t'ai chi, mounts the Exercycle in the family gymnasium. Overhead she can hear her husband running the water for his bath. Her children, as far as she knows, are still in bed, and she is tempted to prepare a little surprise for them. She settles herself on the well-sprung seat of the Exercycle. Its powerful electric motor will rotate the pedals while rocking the seat and handlebars, and she has to take care to stay on. She slips her feet into the pedal straps and sets her hands onto the metal grips with their leather cuffs. Cables run from the motor to the power socket on the wall. There are many electric cables in the gymnasium, to the scales, sunbed and rowing machine, and Mrs. Miller fails to notice the extra cable that runs from the positive terminal of the motor and is clipped to the steel frame of the cycle between her legs.

She reaches down and switches on. Immediately a thirty-two-amp charge surges through her body, galvanizing every muscle and almost throwing her from the machine, but she is held to the bucking seat by her ankle and wrist cuffs. Perhaps in the wall-length mirror she catches a last glimpse of Marion and Robin, watching quietly from the open door as her arms and legs, head and torso gyrate wildly on this last ride.

Three minutes later, the father lies in his bath, listening to the curious slapping sound from the gymnasium (his wife's right leg striking the floor). When his son and daughter enter the bathroom he asks them about the noise, but through the steam he sees his daughter plugging the hair dryer into its socket. She brushes her blond fringe from her eyes and walks up to the bath, looking at him with a strangely fixed smile.

_8:21 a.m._ Annabel Reade sees Marion and her brother waving from the Millers' study. The signal moves swiftly to Mark and Jasper, waiting with their cutters beside the exposed TV and telephone cables. In their bedrooms, the children sit quietly, each with a telephone receiver to the ear. Some ninety seconds later the lines go dead.

_8:23 a.m._ Within the next seven minutes all the remaining adults in Pangbourne Village meet their deaths.

Puzzled by the blank monitor screens in the gatehouse, Officer Turner goes out to inspect the camera mounted on the roof. Mark Sanger is waiting outside the door, with another of the box kites he is always building, but Turner is too busy to speak to him and waves him into the office. When Turner reenters the gatehouse Mark is standing by the lavatory door. Burnett is calling on his radio pager, reporting that the perimeter camera seems to be dead. Turner sits at his desk and looks down at his monitors, vaguely aware that Mark has stepped behind him, still talking about his kite. The boy raises it into the air, demonstrating how he will fly it. There is a sound of string snapping, and suddenly Turner is gripped around the throat and chest by a powerful vise. He has a glimpse of bamboo-green arms, as if he has been seized by a giant praying mantis.

_8:25 a.m._ Dr. Harold and Dr. Edwina Maxted are walking to their car, which is parked in the rear drive behind the garage. They have a busy day ahead of them. Dr. Edwina has a hair appointment in Reading, and Dr. Harold must collect the Super-8 camera with which he will record his conversation with the TV producer. They are pleased that Jeremy has reversed the black Porsche out of the garage for them before returning to his breakfast. Its engine ticks softly in the crisp morning air. Dr. Edwina notices that her son has left a magazine on the gravel by the garage doors. To her surprise it is a lurid American horror comic. She points it out to her husband, and Dr. Harold stands beside her, nodding thoughtfully as she lifts it in her well-manicured fingers. Neither sees their son sitting up in the driver's seat of the Porsche, and they barely hear its engine as it leaps across the gravel toward them.