The Quorum (59 page)
Authors: Kim Newman
Re:
It’s a Madhouse!
The shriek is real. I’ve got that from three sources. Probably why she got the assignment. No one can stand to have her in the office.
MEMO
From:
Tiny Chiselhurst, producer/creator
To:
April Treece, co-producer
Re:
It’s a Madhouse!
If the giggle’s real, the girl’s in. Have Mr Q disable any mobile phone or computer up-link she might contrive to get to our island (that goes for the others too, BTW). Miss Lark considers someone genuinely hiding her name will be a shoo-in to get tagged as the ‘plant’. If the scenario runs as expected, I doubt Judy the Journo will ever file copy.
REQUEST FORM No. 69
Re:
It’s a Madhouse!
From:
Constant Drache, Production Designer
To:
April Treece, producer
It is vital that my team be supplied with the following as soon as possible.
1:
A set of Sabatier kitchen knives. The sharpest in the world, and the most stylish. The full set runs to eighty-five pieces, and includes special blades for paring apricots, shelling crabs, etc.
2:
Traditional tools for the shed. Nothing electric or rubber-gripped, just plain old wooden-handled hammers, screwdrivers, saws, awls and axes. I want that rough, honest-work,
Waltons
feel for this location.
3:
Matches (books, boxes, art deco containers), cigarette lighters, flints, candles, magnifying glasses, tapers. Every room, almost every surface, will be fully equipped with little temptations. Also: fire-lighters, paraffin, brandy.
4:
Paintings. We’re concealing the video com-link behind a print of Edvard Munch’s
The Scream.
It’s a cliché touch, perhaps, but effective. Miss Lark and Dr Wendel have come up with a list of artworks appropriate for every participant, and we can make sure their rooms are designed to reflect, intensify or provoke their particular quirks. Bennett’s room, for instance, will be furnished with erotic prints of male nudes.
5:
Ill-hanging doors. The villa is being refitted from the ground up. It is appropriate, given the title and the intent of the show, that none of the doors or windows be fitted properly. Every angle will be a few degrees out of right, every oblong almost imperceptibly a parallelogram. The house is almost an eighth player in our game, and it gets billing on the title so I’m sure even the tightwads at the top of the Pyramid will be pleased to allow the expenditure.
MEMO
From:
April Treece, meister producer
To:
Claire Bates, senior researcher
Re:
It’s a Madhouse!
Much as I like the idea of Donger Bennett being woken up at three in the morning every night by an hour of Barry White played full blast through the speakers in his room, I think you’re missing the point.
Madhouse!
is not about what we do to them, but what they do to each other. Ideally, we should be able to sit back and let them get on with it. That was what all the psycho-babble was about, to harp on Dr Wendel’s favourite tune, ‘to get the right mix of personalities’. However, thanks very much for the contribution: Tiny does see potential in the music. What we’ve decided to do is, in effect, put JOSHUA BREW in charge of the entertainment. The CD library will be equipped with every recording Cliff ever made and the player will be set up so that it can only sound out full blast and in every room in the house plus outside speakers that cover the whole island. If JOSHUA wants to listen to his favourite God Bothering chart-topper, then the rest of them have to as well. That should be an interesting frill, and comes out of the personality mix rather than being imposed on it.
PRODUCTION SUB-MEETING, No. 109
PRESENT, for MYTHWRHN PRODUCTIONS:
April Treece (Next to God), Claire Bates (Senior Researcher), Davinda Paquignet (Researcher).
PAQUIGNET: So, Ape, who’s your fave?
TREECE: Fabu fave or urgh fave?
PAQUIGNET: Fabu, first.
TREECE: Weirdly, it’s Petra the Pyro.
BATES: Me too.
PAQUIGNET: Why?
BATES: She’s the human one. If it weren’t for her kink, she’d be just like us. I hope she comes out of it.
TREECE: So do I. She should be the one who surprises the others. I’m betting on her as the star-in-the-making. She could have a scourge-of-God thing going for her.
PAQUIGNET: And as for the urgh fave? Donger Bennett?
TREECE: At first, but after a while he just gets to seem sad. Probably something about his childhood.
BATES: That’s just a strategy, Ape. Donger Bennett is filth in a human skin, a dinosaur penis dragging a walnut brain around.
TREECE: Claire, you
didn’t...
BATES: Give me a break, Ape. I’m not that desperate to rise in the industry.
PAQUIGNET: Easy for you to say. You’re out of minion class now, darling.
TREECE: I’m with Claire now. It’s Andrea I hate most. I remember girls like her from school. Always taking things away from you. BATES: I’ve switched too. The real monster is Wyke. The more they dig into his past, the worse he gets. Lark says he’s the true sociopath in the pack. Do you know he ran a bogus charity marathon for Eritrea? Organised it, rather. Couldn’t run for a bus, if you ask me. And he’s the one who picked up the initial flyer in the VD clinic.
TREECE: No, that was Leigh. Wyke came from the Young Conservatives. He’s never voted in his life, because he doesn’t like to give a fixed address. He was buttering up some Andrea clone, trying to get her to invest in a bogus Internet service for dimbo debs. Bastard.
PAQUIGNET: Petra the Pyro is coming for them all, retribution with a flick-lighter.
BATES: Ape, would you watch this show?
TREECE: I don’t want to think about that. In the end, I don’t think I could resist it. You’re still an anti, though?
BATES: No. I cracked when you sent me after Donger. I hate myself for this, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world.
PAQUIGNET: It’s going to be very popular. I think we’re all going to do very well out of it.
TREECE: So, Claire, do you want to change your mind about the credit? After the Donger Affair, Tiny said you could go from Senior Researcher to Junior Producer if you want. It’s a Hell of a way to get it, but...
BATES: Ape, I’ll take it. Where do I sign, and in what?
CONTINUITY ANNOUNCER SCRIPT, CLOUD 9 TELEVISION.
Seven very special people. One very unusual house. An island paradise.
What happens?
You can find out
tonight,
exclusively on Cloud 9 TV, the Derek Leech Channel. To subscribe to this pay-per-view premiere, call our numbers now!
The show everyone will be talking about tomorrow!
It’s people. It’s real. It’s raw. It’s struggle. It’s surprise. It’s life. It’s Something Else.
It’s a Madhouse!
Coming up next...
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by KIM NEWMAN
In the tiny English village of Alder, dreams and nightmares are beginning to come true. Creatures from local legend, science fiction and the dark side of the human mind prowl the town.
Paul, a young academic composing a thesis about the end of the world, and his girlfriend Hazel, a potter, have come to Alder for the summer. Their idea of a rural retreat gradually sours as the laws of nature begin to break down around them. Paul and Hazel are soon drawn into a vortex of fear as violent chaos engulfs the community and the village prepares to reap a harvest of horror.
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