Wicked’ – Chapter 1
Wayne sat up, dismissed his customary aches and pains and ran his fingers through the faded, red, straggly peaks of his once beloved Mohican. He had long since abandoned any hope of it standing up, sharp, spiky and proud as it had before, but there was comfort in the action. He brushed the pale dust of the cavern floor from his trousers as he always did, knowing that if he didn’t, if he woke up one day and thought, oh what the fuck? that would quite probably be the beginning of the end.
He checked his leather jacket for signs of further wear, but the old thing was still hanging on in there despite being used for bedding as well as everything else. Throwing it over one shoulder, he squeezed his way through the stacks of boxes to the front of the cavern and out into the Great Hall. He walked across to the reception area and decided to avoid doing very much until he had mastered the new and impossibly complicated destination codes. They seemed to have been introduced solely to pander to somebody’s vanity and confuse everyone else, especially those who had to interpret them. However, it was the first shift of the week and shouldn’t be too busy, so if he could just keep out of Mary’s way he might be O.K.
The reception area was another huge cavern, entered by a low, wide arch and, as Wayne ducked to avoid hitting his head, his dreams of an easy start to his shift vanished. There was a substantial group of new entrants waiting to be processed, far more than was usual. Sighing, he grabbed a pad of blank forms and motioned to them to place their papers on the stone plinth which ran the length of the cavern and served as a form of counter, but the handwriting of the entry clerk was almost illegible. This, together with the fact that new destination codes seemed to have no logic, internal or otherwise, led to a good deal of confusion and delay. For example, A52 had always stood for Architects/Sector 5/ Level 2 which was perfectly logical and gave the location guards exactly the information they needed. Now, A52 seemed to have disappeared altogether and architects had been subsumed into some larger amorphous grouping, BDC5/2-4, which included everyone from the architect to the work experience boy who made the tea for the bricklayers. It was a recipe for disaster. Ten minutes later the unfortunate new entrants were still hanging around looking dazed and lost, no-one knew where to send them and then, to make Wayne’s life complete, Mary came lumbering along to investigate the delay.
‘Tempers are fraying,’ she intoned. Her face showed no emotion, but her lips were a little too wet for Wayne’s liking.
‘Sorry, I’m doing my best, but it’s these new destination codes. I can’t make head nor tail of them.’
‘Head nor tail?’ Mary appeared to be showing a glint of interest in what could be seen of her eyes under the heavy brows.
‘It’s just an expression,’ said Wayne, quickly choosing codes which seemed to have some relevance and writing them on the forms.
‘Here you are, this will do, let’s just get them moving.’
Mary waited until the first four entrants had been processed then herded them off to find some location guards. They were no trouble, a couple of middle aged men, an elderly woman and a girl, and Wayne barely gave them a second look before turning to his next client. Oh dear. This one was not going to be so easy. He was a large, balding man, dressed in nothing but a pair of baggy y-fronts, and most of his more than adequate covering of flesh was quivering, probably with rage to judge by his expression. Throwing his documentation to the ground, he marched towards Wayne gesticulating and apparently oblivious to how ridiculous he looked.
‘What’s going on here? What is this place?’ he demanded, grabbing Wayne by the arm and jerking him round so their faces were just inches apart. From the corner of his eye, Wayne could see from the stiffening of their bodies that this behaviour was beginning to draw the attention of a couple of guards, but he had no desire to consign his charge to their tender mercies.
‘Come on, mate, just come and stand over here and we’ll sort it out.’
He gathered up the man’s documents and managed to guide him back to the plinth and the pile of admission forms before another outburst could seal his fate. He scanned the documents, trying to think of a suitable approach. It was always difficult, dealing with the ones who had no idea what had happened to them.
‘Right, let’s see then. You’re Brian Dickinson, you’re, well you were …’ he broke off for a brief mental calculation, ’57, you were a director of a Time Share Company, you were …’
‘What do you mean, “were”? Why do you keep saying “were”? I demand to know what is going on here. Who’s in charge? I am not used to being treated like this and when this is sorted out, as you put it, and I can assure you it will be, heads will roll, I can tell you!”
Wayne took a deep breath.
‘I’m sorry, mate, there’s no easy way to tell you this, but I’ve got some bad news for you. You’re dead. You appear to have tripped over something on the way to the bathroom, and cracked your head. That’s the bad news. The really bad news is that you’ve just been through the judgement sector and this is the reception area of Hell. So, if you’ve got any complaints about this I should keep them to yourself, ‘cos I’m telling you, things could get a lot worse.’
‘Oh, ha, bloody ha,’ sneered the man, ‘I suppose Brenda put you up to this, did she? What is it, some bloody set up show? ITV, I suppose, or is it Sky? OK, let’s get it over with then - and I demand to see the tape before it goes out. I don’t suppose there’ll be a little something in it for me?’ he added, brightening a little.
Wayne’s heart sank. One of them. He had heard Mary speak of the occasional new entrant who simply refused to believe the truth of the situation no matter how clearly it was explained and despite the fact that all alternative explanations were even less likely. She had her own inimitable ways of enlightening them, but Wayne preferred not to ask for her help, however effective her strategies might be.
‘No, I’m sorry, it’s not a wind up. It’s true. I mean, just look out there –‘ he led the man to the entrance which looked out on the Great Hall to the left and an apparently endless rocky pathway to the right.
‘Can you imagine what it would cost to build a set like that? And anyway, how do you think we could get you here without you knowing? I don’t know what Sky is, but unless they go in for drugging TV contestants these days …. You’ve got to face it, it’s the truth, and I’ve got to complete those forms, so can we get on with it?’
A little later, the man stood in an extremely tasteless and ill-fitting track suit and worn, brown sandals, clutching his documentation and sporting a glazed expression similar to that of his fellow new arrivals. Looking at him, robbed of his bluster and his self-respect, Wayne could not help feeling a little sorry for him and wondered what it was he had done to be sent here. Wayne was not supposed to look at this information, hidden away on the final page of the forms. and he had learned not to spend too much time thinking about it, but sometimes …. well, it was all a bit surreal and depressing, and if he wasn’t careful he could end up thinking about himself and that was not a good idea either.
Later, when his shift was over, he was passing the time quietly in the filing area, keeping well out of the way of everybody but especially Mary, when pandemonium broke out. He could see figures struggling and fighting in the Great Hall, and the shouts and screams which followed as the guards piled in to restore order echoed wildly off the rocky walls. Wayne’s first response was to try to get a closer look, but this rash thought was replaced with the much more prudent idea of retiring to his hide-out at the very back of the cavern and lying low until all was quiet. Unfortunately, this plan was thwarted by the unmistakable form of Mary, silhouetted against the dull red glow of the Great Hall and moving inexorably in his direction with one finger raised accusingly.
Wayne’s mouth became very dry as he walked slowly towards her but he forced himself not to lick his lips. The mere sight of bodily fluids could be enough to awaken some of her more alarming peccadilloes and her anger seemed preferable to the other possibilities. Mary stood still until Wayne was directly in front of her, grunting gently to herself with the exertion of climbing the half dozen steps which led up from the Great Hall, and shaking her head slowly. The lank matted locks of her hair rolled backwards and forwards over her shoulders like huge, hairy sausages.
‘Head nor tail?’
Wayne decided to ignore what he took to be an unwholesome attempt at a chat-up line.
‘Well, I made a right mess of that, didn’t I?’ he said, hoping that she would be sufficiently annoyed with his flippancy to forget any designs upon his person. But he need not have worried about this, for Mary was quite annoyed enough already.
‘Mess? More than a mess! Waddya think you’re doing mixing up them fucking politicians? Been quiet for years, they had, and you go and get them all wound up. Beats me.’
Wayne held out his hands, palms up, and tried to look apologetic.
‘I know, I’m sorry, but I told you I couldn’t work out the new codes. In fact, I was just about to go back and study them a bit more when you came.’ He side-stepped Mary, skipped down the steps in a couple of easy movements and put a reasonable distance between them before turning round. She did not appear to be following, so he sloped off to one of the neutral areas to seek a little peace and quiet there.
As usual, there was no-one else around in the neutral area. The acrid smoke from the dying fires, which hung around in a heavy cloud about three feet from the ground, was generally enough to put most people off and even Wayne could not stand it for long today. Eyes smarting, he was returning to the filing area when he heard footsteps behind him. They were too quick and light to belong to Mary or one of the guards, so he was not unduly concerned until he was grabbed by the arm. Turning swiftly, he was about to raise his hand but the figure before him was small and slight, with a mane of shoulder length hair hiding a pale but striking face. It was dominated by unusually dark almost almond-shaped eyes, bright with fear. She spoke so quietly Wayne could hardly hear what she said.
‘Can you show me the way, please? I don’t know where I am, or where I should be, but the weirdos I was put with kicked me out. I just need to know what’s happening to me.’
Wayne felt a hot flush of embarrassment and guilt creep across his face, but had no idea whether it would be visible to her, as everyone here seemed to become tinged with grey after a while and he had not seen his own face for years. What was certain was that this poor girl had been one of last night’s new arrivals, was the victim of his inefficiency and that she had quite likely had a lucky escape. Being scared witless was a lesser evil than some he could think of, anyway, and he decided he would have to help, even if only to get her out of her immediate predicament.
‘Come with me, but don’t walk too close, we don’t do that here. And try to look as if you know what you’re doing.’
She nodded her reply and Wayne set off towards the filing area as casually as he could, his ears straining to detect the sound of her footsteps behind him.
As soon as she reached the entrance, he beckoned her to join him and guided her to a space between the boxes, which were stacked precariously almost to the high, arched roof of the cavern. She leaned on one of the stacks, but was shaking so violently that Wayne was obliged to grab her and hold her to him to avoid the whole lot crashing down on them and almost certainly drawing the attention of the guards to their position. Physical contact of any kind was strictly forbidden, and although the situation could have been happier, Wayne could not help noting some subtle changes in what he had come to know as his body. This shell, which neither grew nor changed and which existed only to enable him to feel cold, hunger, discomfort and pain, appeared to be experiencing something unknown for a very long time – a small pleasurable tingle. He marvelled at it, and held her quivering body closer still.