Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

“Okay,” Flag said.

The audience applauded and laughed. With two hundred ardent fans clapping and tittering, there was no need for canned laughter. The noise was so raucous, in fact, that the screams out in the corridor went unnoticed.

Marty Laffin grinned and waved for the audience to cease their ovation for a moment.

He waited until there was silence in the theatre, then pausing for just the right amount of time, quipped, “And that’s just this week.” The laughter went up a few notches with whistles and howling. He raised his arm and was just about to introduce Dave Morrison and the band, when the back double doors crashed open.

All heads turned and Marty chuckled.

“Well, what’s this?” he said, thinking perhaps this was a skit he had purposely been told nothing about. He looked over at the producer and expected to see his face trying hard to hide a sly smirk. Marty frowned to himself when he saw the producer looking just as baffled.

Marty guessed there must’ve been around twenty people. “Well, hey there kids,” he called. “A bit late aren’t we?”

Some of the audience chuckled, while others watched with interest.

Marty gazed down the camera and shrugged. “I knew I should’ve come to rehearsal.”

Some more nervous chuckles from the audience.

“Okay, take your seats,” Marty called, trying to reassure the audience.

A man came dashing down the theatre and up to the stage. Marty’s face dropped and he backed away.

“Hey, now. Just stay there, okay? We don’t want any trouble.”

Marty could hear, off to the side, the producer calling for security.

The scruffy man jogged onto the stage, carrying a shabby looking bag. The one thing that particularly unnerved Marty was the wild stare in the man’s eyes.

“Just stay calm, Marty.”

The man spoke with such coolness that chills prodded at Marty’s skin. Marty glanced over at the large cameras and saw red lights still glowing on all three.

Why haven’t they switched us off yet?

“Ah, we’ll be right back after these messages,” Marty said down the lens of camera one. But the cameras remained on.

The audience was restless. They muttered questions and most had confused looks on their otherwise unconcerned faces. They weren’t sure if this was part of the show.

Marty tried to get the attention of either of the cameramen, but stopped when the man brandished a large knife, one covered in blood.

On stage, under the lights, sweating and with nerves pulling at his gut, Marty Laffin realised then just how serious this situation was. He watched as the others in the group made their way to the entrances. He noticed they all carried similar bags.

Turning his eyes back to the madman on stage, Marty saw him wink.

“Just stay cool, okay?”

He then turned and faced the audience. “Good evening, television watchers. My name is Sam, although you all can call me Uncle Sam. If you all do as I say, you won’t get hurt. My family is currently presiding over all the exits, so if you wish to escape, I’m afraid you can’t. Not only are they locked, but if you do try, you will find yourselves on the wrong end of a bullet.”

All two hundred audience members gasped and turned to make sure he was telling the truth. Most began to cry when they saw the figures by the doors, bags by their feet, guns cradled in their hands.

Marty glanced up at the dark control room. He wondered why the hell the police hadn’t been called yet. And where in the hell were the security guards? He told himself he had to remain calm, do what these psychos wanted, and most of all, to try and save himself from these people.

“Ah… excuse me.” The meek voice came from the floor manager. He stepped away from the darkness. The plump man was wearing a fearful frown.

“Yes?” Sam said, smiling.

“I’ve, ah, got a message from… Shorty.”

“Is he on the headphones?”

The floor manager, Bill, nodded.

“Good. Tell him everything’s going to plan down here.”

Marty watched as Bill relayed the message.

“He said…same up here,” the floor manager said.

The man nodded.

“Hey! What’s going on here?” The call came from a man in the audience.

Marty wanted to shout to that man to shut up. But his mouth was so parched that, even if he did have the courage, he wouldn’t have been able to speak, anyway.

There was a long pause before the man said, “A cleansing.”

What does that mean? Marty wondered. And how did they get into the control room?

“Well, what do you want from us?”

Marty heard some of the audience whispering at him to keep quiet.

“That will all become clear soon,” the man answered. “But for now, let’s get this show back on the road. Shall we?”

He turned around and grinned broadly at Marty. “Shall we?”

Marty nodded slowly; he was having trouble breathing and he felt like he might faint.

“Ray! Slide!” the man called.

Two of the man’s cohorts came running up onto the stage. They looked young, perhaps in their late teens, and both were bald and carrying guns. That their faces looked so young and fresh was all the more frightening, considering the evil yet vacant gaze in their eyes.

The man still had his eyes fixed on Marty. “Do you keep your guests in the greenroom?”

Marty nodded.

“Where is that?”

“Ah, down there, through the back doors. Then go down the stairs and all the way to the end of the corridor. It’s the last door on your right.”

The man grinned a thank you.

Marty felt dismal for telling this man the location of the celebrities. But he figured that if he didn’t, they might very well kill him and find it anyway.

“Go,” the man ordered the two young followers.

They nodded and hurried off.

The man turned and faced the audience. “There’s nothing to fear. You are all in the hands of Uncle Sam now. Everything’s going to be all right.”

The man stopped talking. All became quiet. The theatre remained still until the faint popping of gunfire echoed up; four quick shots.

Shouts and cries spewed from the two hundred audience members. Disbelief hung in the air. That some of the most famous icons on this planet were dead, shot in a split moment, wasn’t fully comprehended by most people in the theatre. Included in those was Marty.

How can this be happening? Marty wondered.

But he told himself he had nothing to fear. He was one of the biggest talk show hosts in the world. His program was beamed to more countries than any other. He was so famous it was practically a protective shield.

I’m going to be all right , he thought.

That was why Marty Laffin wasn’t prepared for the sudden lunge by the man. In an instant, the man stabbed the knife into his jugular. Marty screamed from the intense pain. But the scream soon became gurgled as blood filled his throat.

He heard the screams of the audience and felt the blood pouring down his chest.

“Die you fucking pig. Die!”

Before Marty fell to the stage floor dead, he heard the shouts of the man’s posse. They cried out with joy, and Marty thought, amidst the whirl of suffering, that this was some sort of triumph. As if this was all a game to them.

The last passage Marty heard, as blood flowed from his throat, was the man crying out, “Death to television! Live in purity! Welcome to the game of survival!”

It was just an ordinary Friday night for George and Francis Murly. They had cooked up some popcorn, the old fashioned way in a pan with insalubrious amounts of oil, and were sitting on their old, tattered synthetic fiber couch with the tall electric fan blowing much needed air onto their aged faces. The T.V. was locked onto an umpteenth re-run of The Sound of Music .