Brett McBean - Tales of Sin and Madness

“Here we have Doris. Welcome, Doris, to Who Wants To Be A Survivor!”

The only sounds were the blubbering of the woman and the clapping of the bald man.

“Doris hails from…where did you say?”

She responded with a loud and wet onslaught of crying.

“Let’s say Miami. She looks like she comes from Miami, doesn’t she, Dave?”

The camera panned wildly across to the bandleader. He gave a forlorn glance at the camera, then nodded ever so slightly. The camera just managed to catch some of the other band members. A few were crying. The camera lingered on Dave for a while before returning to the little man at the desk.

“Don’t talk much, do ya Dave?” He chuckled. “How are you doing up there, Shorty?”

The man looked beyond the camera. Somebody muttered. The man nodded then turned back to Doris.

“Shorty, Bobby and Flag are all going fine,” the man said with a grin.

Doris sniffled and wiped her nose and eyes.

“Now, here’s how we play the game. I’m gonna ask you ten questions. If you answer all of them correctly, you live, if you answer even one wrong, I’ll give you a choice on how you want to be killed. Understand?”

The woman, who was bawling uncontrollably, attempted to run away. She was stopped by two bald men who grabbed her and shoved her back into the chair.

One of the men leaned close and whispered something in her ear. She nodded and remained in the chair.

“We all settled down?” the man asked.

“Yes.” The woman spoke softly.

“Okay. First question. How…” He stopped and looked over at Dave. “Hey Dave, how about some music for Doris? Some thinking music.”

He grinned when Dave began playing a soft, moody arpeggio pattern.

“Perfect. Now, Doris. How many balls did Hitler have?”

The woman sniffed and looked at the man with a peculiar frown. “W…what?”

“How many testicles did Adolf Hitler have?”

The woman swallowed and whispered, “One?”

“Very good,” the man laughed. “That was an easy one to begin with. Next question. What’s the capital of Australia?”

With a fearful frown, the large woman looked to the floor and sobbed. She shook her head.

“Hurry up. Only ten seconds left.”

There was a faint shout from the audience. The microphones barely picked it up, but the word, “Canberra”, was heard.

The man rolled his eyes and shook his head.

“Canberra?” the woman said, looking up at the man with a hopeful stare.

The man looked past the camera and nodded.

A gunshot blasted and everybody in the audience screamed. The man stood up and raised his hands. “Silence! All be quiet or else you will suffer the same fate!”

The music stopped. It took a little while before the audience quieted down. With the sounds of many crying, the man sat down and said to the camera, “Turn around and show it.”

There was a whirl of motion until the camera rested on the dark audience.

“Lights!” shouted the man from behind.

The theatre illuminated to reveal the horrendous sight of a man whose head had been blown apart. Those around him were splattered with the man’s blood, as well as gooey bits of brain and tissue. As one woman vomited, the camera swiveled back to the man at the desk.

He had a large smile.

“We don’t allow cheating on this show, do we, Dave?”

A quick pan to Dave showed him with his head in his hands and crying. The camera went back to the man.

“Dave’s a little distraught at the moment. But we’ll continue. I’ll ask you another question, okay, Doris?” He looked at the audience. “And no more yelling out the answers.” He turned back to a shaking Doris. “Which one of Saturn’s moons resembles the Death Star from the movie Star Wars ?”

Doris choked back tears. She looked as though she might throw up.

“Come on, only ten seconds left. Which one looks like the Death Star?”

“I don’t know!” Doris screamed. “The biggest,” she sobbed.

“No!” Stewart McGregor cried at his T.V. set. “It’s Mimas. Stupid woman.”

“Stewart,” his mother gasped. She stared at him, grimacing.

“Sorry,” Stewart said without turning his attention away from the TV.

“I’m afraid that’s incorrect,” the man behind the desk sighed. “The answer I was after was Mimas. Now, how would you like to die?”

It was all too much for the woman. She screamed a high-pitched wail and jumped out of the chair. The two men grabbed her again, this time pushing her back into the chair and pinning her with their gloved hands. She struggled and fought but had no luck in breaking free.

There was a shout from the audience and the cry of, “Nooooo.”

By order of the man at the desk, the camera turned and found an old man running up the aisle, hands waving in the air. Tears fell from his eyes. “Doris! Leave her alo…”

His cries were cut off when a gun was fired and the man fell to the theatre floor. From the shaking camera it was revealed that the man had been shot in the back, and as he gasped for life, the camera panned back to the front and showed a smiling bald man and a hysterical woman.

“Alfred!” she cried. “Al…freeeed.”

“How do you want to die!” the man shouted above the racket.

The woman continued to weep violently. The man looked over at the two bald men and nodded his head.

Raising their guns, two bullets were fired into the back of the woman’s head. Her face exploded and she plunged forward onto the floor.

Pam McGregor screamed and covered her eyes. “Why aren’t they stopping this?” After a quick hitched breath: “Why can’t they turn the cameras off?”

Luke leaned over and gave her a large hug. “I don’t know honey. I don’t know.”

“I think there’s about twenty or so in there,” Stewart said. “And they all have guns.”

“Probably holding the audience hostage,” Luke said. “Using them as a sort of shield so the cops can’t break in.”

“That’s what I figured,” Stewart said. “I mean, it’s better to kill a dozen people than two hundred. Right?”

His father nodded.

The McGregor family was drawn back to the screen when they heard the unmistakable voice of the leader of the cult.

“Come on. Any volunteers?”

The audience remained silent.

“How about you?” the man said, pointing towards the audience.

The camera swung around and showed a large man. He was sitting in the second row and was trying to look tough despite the obvious fear in his eyes.

“That was the guy that called out earlier,” Stewart informed his parents. “Wanting to know what was going on and what the man wanted.”

“Brave man,” Luke huffed.

“Or stupid,” Stewart said, looking over at his father. They both grinned quickly, then turned back to the television.

“Yeah you,” the man said. “You had a lot to say earlier. Come on up.”

The large man stood up and looked around sheepishly. The camera showed the horde of bald followers cradling guns and grinning. They were standing at two meter intervals around the perimeter of the theatre.

The large man walked out of his row and started up the aisle.

“Give the man a round of applause,” the man at the desk shouted. He started clapping, but, not surprisingly, the audience remained still and left the man to perform a solo.

“Dave, how about some music?” he called out. “Something jazzy.”

As the camera tracked the large man, a feeble rendition of “One” from A Chorus Line filled the theatre with sickening travesty. The man walked on to the stage and sat down in the chair that hadn’t been used by Doris.

The man at the desk motioned his hand for the music to stop.