THE PEACHPIT

Home

News
Daily news
Internet news
Business news
Sports news & results
Entertainment news
Discussion forum
Utilities
Freeware/Shareware
Bookstore
Web monitor
3 million hits for your site
Free homepage
Contact Saturn
Fun
Fun & Games
Free chat
Sign guestbook
Lottery randomizer
Clipart
InQuizitor
Information
Film & Cinema
Food & Drink
Weather forecast
TV listings
Shopping
Saturn - FAQ

Submit your short story via email to the Saturn editor. Please send stories as seperate attached text files of no more than 4000 words

The reception building was a one level red brick affair with varnished brown wooden frames around the doors and windows, friendly looking half-pipe terracotta tiles on the multi-faceted roof. Around the wide front terrace were small trees and a few neatly kept shrubbery’s. Offset in an unimposing manner was even a miniature fountain: a circular marble bowl with a stone fish as the centre-piece. Water was fonting from the fish’s open mouth and bubbling down its smooth carved back. The overall effect was, evidently, intended to seem welcoming while remaining sterile, in the same manner as many modern doctor surgeries or police stations are being deliberately fashioned these days. Yet still, as I walked across that unassuming terrace toward the double front doors of the CLR centre, listening to my footsteps on the hard flagstone concrete, I couldn’t help but notice a certain sinister something in the atmosphere. Perhaps the reputation of the place hanging over it and overwhelming its attempts to charm visitors like the smell of dead fish hangs around even the most well presented dish of smoked salmon. Or maybe, despite my attempts to remain neutral, my own apprehensions were infiltrating my imagination.
      It was November. The morning was cold and my breath condensed in front of my face, my fingers felt numb even though I wore thick woollen gloves. I silently cursed Don Mendover (my editor) for sending me on this assignment. He knew how much I hated being out of doors in the winter and this was his way of getting his own back for my recent disloyalties. I’d broken a cardinal rule of his, freelanced for another editor behind his back. Any lesser journalist might have lost her job, but - without wanting to sound too arrogant - Don considered me one of his best and I would get away with petty paybacks. Just like this.
      Outside the main door was a nervous looking man smoking the last few centimetres of a dying cigarette. He watched me approach with red-rimmed eyes and as he nodded in greeting his head trembled slightly. ‘Morning.’
      ‘You here for the course?’ I asked amiably.
      The man grinned boyishly and hunched his shoulders, ‘yeah. Got press ganged into it by my boss. I work for Castlerock.’ He extended a hand and I shook it, ‘my name’s Jack. Jack Dempsy.’
      ‘I’m Carla Jameson,’ I said.
      ‘You here for the course too then I take it?’
      ‘Actually I’m more covering the course,’ I replied, ‘I’m a reporter for the Gazetteer.’
      ‘Oh right,’ he raised his eyebrows. I thought he was probably feigning interest, being polite.
      ‘Look,’ I thought I’d let him off the hook, ‘I need to get inside. Too damn cold out here for me. I’ll see you later.’
      ‘Yes, nice to meet you.’
      If the outside of the building was designed to charm then the inside had been designed to bore. The decor of the reception area was cold and unlovely, all chrome and cream. The floor was tiled like the edge of a swimming pool, decorated here and there with diamond shaped mosaics, and the walls were bare, painted a spumey white. There was a wide reception desk directly opposite the entrance, behind which stood a male clerk in the hotel-like uniform of the CLR. As he spotted me he flashed me a false corporate smile and enthused, ‘hi there, how are you?’ For a moment I felt like a visitor to the Disney store.
      ‘Thankyou, I’m fine,’ I didn’t smile back. ‘I’m Carla Jameson, from the Gazetteer. I have an appointment with Mr Trevor Hill at ten.’
      ‘Ah yes,’ he bugged his eyes as if he were simply boiling over with joy at my arrival, scanned a big appointment ledger, ‘you’re booked in with the ten o clock briefing Miss Jameson, along with the rest of today’s third group. Mr Hill, your guide for the day, thought you’d prefer it if we didn’t bestow any special privileges on you so you’ll be taking the course in the usual way.’
      ‘That’s very thoughtful of him.’
      ‘A few people are here already, if you’d like to join them in the ready-room just down the hall on the left, Mr Hill will be along shortly to greet you himself.’
      The ready-room? The ten o clock briefing? Already the military aspects of the CLR were showing themselves which seemed weird when presented with such office-like surroundings. It was certainly not what I had anticipated.

There were five others in the ready-room. Three introduced themselves as employees of Castlerock, a local insurance firm, and two were there on a management self-assessment course with separate banking companies. It seemed the majority of CLR’s business was derived from the commercial sector and in particular the higher end. The Castlerock workers were mostly team leaders and the bankers were high earners judging by the way they power-dressed and passed aloof glances around the room.
      The ready-room itself was less polished than the reception. The chairs we sat on were plastic, similar to those you might find in a casualty waiting room, and the walls were in need of a fresh coat of paint. There were plastic potted plants in all four corners of the room and a window looked out over the entrance terrace.
      ‘I’m Carla Jameson,’ I said, ‘I’m a reporter with the Gazetteer. I’ll be taking the course with you and hopefully taking a subjective look at the CLR.’
      A young pretty executive named Jayne Burke, one of the Castlerock group, gave a wry smile, ‘have you taken the course before?’
      ‘No. You?’
      ‘Nobody here has. We were all kind of wondering what the thing entailed. For our part,’ she was referring to the other two of her party - three, I reminded myself, remembering Jack Dempsy outside - ‘we have little idea what this thing’s about.’
      ‘I heard its a kind of glorified paint-ball,’ a squat man named Paul Moon interjected. He wore a crumpled white shirt and unimpressive tie. His face seemed as crumpled as his clothes and he looked hard-done-by, ‘I had a crack at paint-ball two years ago. It was quite good fun.’
      ‘From what I hear,’ I said, ‘its a little more extravagant.’
      ‘Right,’ one of the bankers said enigmatically. He was a tall spindly man who’d introduced himself merely as Mr Jones. ‘The cost is quite astronomical. I know for a fact our management course has incurred an extra five thousand per head for including CLR as part of its program. A little more weighty than the cost of,’ he rolled his tongue around what he said next as if trying to convey how little he used the term, ‘paint-ball.’
      At that moment Jack Dempsy entered the room followed by another man wearing a CLR uniform. The second man sported a crew-cut and a face that would have looked at home in the Parkhurst high security wing. He was short but powerfully built and his very entrance seemed imbued with an air of restrained menace. When he spoke his gentle voice was a surprise, ‘hello there. I’m Trevor Hill, your guide for today’s course.’
      Hill ushered Dempsy to a chair and stepped confidently from person to person, shaking hands and flashing his ultra-white teeth. Despite his intimidating appearance he had a natural ability to put a person at ease and even managed to draw a genuine chuckle from Dempsy when he made some witty crack about the man’s chain-smoking habits.
      I liked him. And I have to admit, though it pains me to do so, I fancied him. Normally I never look twice at the doorman type but something about Mr Hill and his lived-in face, his iron-man handshake and his authentic warmth, made me tingle in a school girl kind of way. When he’d almost crushed my own hand in greeting he said, ‘ah, Miss Jameson. A pleasure to have you here. How is Mr Mendover?’
      ‘You know Don?’
      ‘We spoke on the telephone. He seemed keen to involve you in the course, said he thought you’d benefit from CLR’s services as well as write a cracking piece for the magazine.’
      I almost blushed, ‘I don’t know that my self-assurance needs bolstering, and I’m a little surprised that Don paid me a compliment, but I’m glad to be here.’
      Trevor stepped back and spread his arms. ‘We’ll spend thirty minutes in the ready-room. I’ll give you a quick briefing concerning CLR, the course and what we hope to achieve by sending you on the course, then we’ll move into the training area where you’ll be kited out and given some basic instructions on using your equipment.
      ‘To pick up on a point unintentionally raised by the lovely Miss Jameson,’ he grinned mischievously at me, ‘we should start by getting one thing straight. You’re not here because you have a problem with self-confidence. You are here as participants in a project that aims to do one thing. Can anyone tell me what that might be?’
      Mr Jones was quick to respond and as I would have expected from a man like him his reply was nothing like an answer. ‘I was lead to believe that our participation in this would improve our standing in both our profession and career. Quite frankly I find the ambiguity of the whole experience thus far a little distracting.’
      ‘Good,’ Trevor said unperturbed, ‘but not correct. Any other ideas?’
      Nobody else seemed ready to answer so Mr Jones chose to fill the silence again, ‘line the pockets of CLR as far as I can make out.’
      ‘OK,’ Trevor clapped his hands together, ignoring the obvious goad, ‘I’ll tell you. You are here, as the name of our good company suggests (Corporate Life Rediscovery) to rediscover yourselves, to renew your faith in life and make clear your value in society. By showing you how important you are to yourself and how important your lives are to the companies that employ you, we hope to make you more efficient workers, better employees and better human beings. Its a big claim, I know.’
      ‘How exactly do you propose to do all this?’ I asked.
      ‘I’ll not go into detail. I will explain to you what the course involves in general.’
      ‘I heard paint-ball,’ Pall Moon piped up.
      ‘Forget anything you’ve heard,’ Trevor shook his head, ‘the rumours are untrue and hopefully, once our roving reporter, Miss Jameson, has put the facts straight and true in the Gazetteer, there’ll be no more rumours to lead our clients astray.’
      He winked playfully at me, continued, ‘the CLR course you’ll be taking is known as Warzone. Its a fantasy. A role playing game in which you’ll become a soldier for the day. That’s where the similarity to paint-ball,’ he looked at Moon, ‘ends abruptly. Here at CLR we want to give you a glimpse into a lifestyle far less attractive than your own, that you may emerge at the end of the day with a new viewpoint on the world and your place in it. Its a simple premise. By showing you how life could be we hope you’ll realise that your current situation is far more attractive than you may ever have thought.’
      ‘But that sounds like an attempt to improve our self-esteem,’ the other Castlerock employee, a man called Geoff McIntyre, spoke up.
      ‘That will be a short-term effect,’ Trevor conceded, ‘but the long term effect and the one we’re setting out to achieve is that of offering you a different overview of life. By seeing things unclouded by the comfort one derives from living a singular life and seeing the world on a one track basis, you’ll realise how important you are in the scheme of things and this will ultimately make you better people, better employees, better investments for your respective companies.’
      ‘I’m confused,’ Jayne Burke lamented.
      ‘Best not to analyse at this stage,’ Trevor said, ‘better to just get on with the course. At the end of the day, I guarantee you’ll understand.’ 

From the ready-room we were led through a number of corridors to the training area. This was an ugly room, far less kept than any other part of the CLR building with unclean windows and uncomfortable plastic chairs that wobbled when you sat on them. The chairs were lined up in rows facing a low dais, on the wall behind which was a whiteboard covered in smudges of blue and black where marker-pen had been wiped away. Here and there were topographical maps and black and white satellite images of landscapes, giving the distinct impression that we had entered some form of pseudo-military briefing room and were being prepared, by the harshness of the decor, for a less luxurious experience than we had so far enjoyed.
      We were left alone for a few minutes, then Trevor returned, this time wearing a khaki outfit and accompanied by two similarly dressed men who looked as brusque in appearance as Hill himself.
      ‘There’re several different sizes of uniform,’ he indicated to a pile of identical outfits to his own in one of his helper’s arms, ‘you should be able to find one that fits. If not let me know and we’ll find you something.’
      The outfits were marked S, M, and L. It was clear they were the genuine thing, not designed to flatter the wearer. We were directed to changing rooms adjacent to the training room and given a few minutes to dress. When we emerged, each transformed suddenly from individuals to make-believe soldiers, we had a good laugh at each others expense. Even Mr Jones seemed amused by his new-found image and joined in the jokes.
      When we’d settled in our seats once more I noticed Trevor had distanced himself from us slightly. While we’d been giggling at ourselves he’d been busy at the front of the room, checking notes and ignoring our fun. I wondered if our change of surroundings from business-like to rough-and-ready, our change of attire from corporate to corporal would be matched by a change in Trevor’s attitude from friendly guide to indifferent trainer. When Trevor glanced up and flashed us another wide grin I realised I’d been premature in my assumptions.
      ‘Now you look the part, lets get you kited out so you can live the part,’ he nodded to one of his rugged looking partners, who promptly disappeared through a side door. When he returned he was carrying a large green bag from which came a distinct metallic rattling. Trevor reached into the bag and withdrew a frighteningly realistic-looking machine gun. ‘An AK47 assault rifle. One for each of you.’
      ‘Wow,’ Moon breathed, wide-eyed.
      The second banker, a podgy middle-aged woman whose name was Sonja Heart, gave the gun a disapproving look, ‘you’re not serious?’
      ‘Certainly,’ Trevor lifted the gun, butt snug against his shoulder, right arm bent and supporting the barrel, stock level with his eyes, ‘these are real weapons, modified for use in the Warzone.’
      I sensed a ripple of unease in the room. A couple, particularly Moon, seemed fascinated in a positive way by the prospect of handling a real machine gun. The rest, myself included, were wholly disturbed by the idea. I’d never even seen a gun. The thought that I may be expected to wield one and the massive responsibility that went with it was overwhelming. ‘Mr Hill,’ I employed my most journalistic tone of voice, ‘are you honestly proposing that we carry real guns with live ammunition?’
      ‘You’re nuts,’ Burke added quickly.
      ‘A quick demonstration is in order,’ Trevor announced, ignoring our frowns. He nodded wordlessly to the other helper and this man left through the same door. When he came back he was pushing something before him. At first I thought it was another whiteboard, this time a portable version on wheel based legs. Actually the thing was a wide slab of concrete-like material about a foot thick supported on a moveable stand. By the grimace on the man’s face as he manoeuvred it toward the dais, it was heavy and no easy thing to push around.
      ‘What’s that?’ Jack Dempsy shifted his chair back.
      The helper gave one last push and positioned the object against the side of the room, its wide blanched face toward Trevor who was now aiming his gun at the thing with the clear intention of firing. Insanely the helper turned to us and said, ‘put your hands over your ears people.’
      We obeyed without hesitation seconds before Trevor fired. The noise, even with our hands pressed hard over our ears, was terrifying. The fact that live ammunition was being unleashed just metres from where we sat was more terrifying still. But perhaps most frightening was the way the concrete slab disintegrated under the volley of rounds, clattering to the ground in a tumult of chalky dust and shattered stone while spent ammo jackets flew from the weapon itself and rolled around our feet. When Trevor was done a shocked silence filled the room.
      ‘You madman,’ Mr Jones exclaimed. He was standing and backing away.
      ‘Hold on,’ Trevor smiled crookedly, ‘demonstration’s not over yet.’ He turned the weapon on Mr Jones, lifted it a little closer to his squinting eyes then squeezed the trigger.
      Jayne Burke and I both screamed. Jack Dempsy actually fell off his chair. Mr Jones, to give him credit, made no sound at all. Only when we heard the faint clack clack of the trigger being pulled again and again, but nothing more, did we realise the gun was not firing.
      Trevor lowered the weapon, ‘these guns are real, and the ammo inside is live. But its impossible to fire on another human being. Here,’ he hefted the gun, pointed to a small attachment underneath that looked similar to a pencil torch, ‘is a sensor that detects heat. Anything that emits heat, such as Mr Jones’ body, causes the inner workings of the gun to deactivate.’
      ‘My God,’ Sonja Heart looked pale.
      Mr Jones sat back down, slumped forward slightly. For a minute I thought he might be suffering a heart attack, but then he looked up and the fierce glitter in his eyes reassured me he was fine, ‘very funny.’ There was anger in his voice, but something else, something more amicable, like the response of a man whose friend had just played a drunken prank on him. For the first time since meeting him, I liked Jones. He presented himself as hard, but he was no fake. Any lesser man might have run screaming from the room.
      ‘Quite,’ Trevor smiled. ‘Come and get your weapons. There’s a kit bag too for each person, which contains all your survival equipment. In the next thirty minutes I’ll go over the equipment and the basics you should know when using it and after that - we’ll be ready to go.’

At the end of the briefing Trevor gave us all an opportunity to back out of the course and Sonja Heart asked to leave. I myself had no choice but to see the thing through. Don was pissed at me, but he wasn’t about to sack me. If I’d thrown in the towel on this assignment that might have changed. Fortunately, despite Trevor’s worrying demonstration of the AK47, I didn’t want to leave. The prospect of the course was suddenly more interesting, particularly to the journalist inside me, and I could envisage - if the course continued in the same way as it had started - all kinds of possibly decrying articles that might put in question the already rumour-riddled CLR experience. It would be a shame, because I liked Trevor. But journalism had never been about making friends and besides, if there was something questionable about CLR, the public had every right to know.
      Nobody else backed out and presently we were led, our cumbersome kit bags on our backs, our heavy AK47s held across our chests in the manner we’d been taught, to the rear of the CLR building and the start of the outside course.
      As soon as we were outside I began to regret my decision to stay. The morning was freezing and our outfits were uselessly uninsulated. In seconds the steel of my gun had grown icy cold and my fingers were hurting.
      Before us was the legendary CLR training ground, the fifteen square mile landscape bought by the company back in 2015 for a weighty ten million, guarded by massive security forces from outside scrutiny ever since. I’d seen circumspect pictures of the place, taken by paparazzi who’d gotten no further than the first of the many outer walls before being intercepted and ejected from the premises, and these photographs had given the impression of a grim place, something akin to an army barracks combined with a desolate ghost town. In fact the reality was far more bleak.
      We were on moorland. In the distance, obscured by drizzle and a wintry ground hugging mist, I could see the delineation of buildings, all concrete and featureless architecture. To the left, a mile or so away, was the dark silhouette of what could only be unnatural woodland and to the right lay wide open terrain broken here and there by what looked to be broken down vehicles and even the odd tank.
      Trevor marched out in front, turned to face us. In the cold November light he looked very harsh and I wondered if he had ever actually been in the army proper. I expected so but would find out for sure at the end of the day when I beefed up my notes with some interviews. ‘Before we start, you should know there are two other courses operating today. They began at six hundred hours and eight hundred hours. There is a distinct possibility we’ll run into either group and if so we may be mistaken for hostile forces. Don’t worry, however. Our weapons and their weapons will disarm in the event.’
      ‘Very reassuring,’ Dempsy groaned. He looked quite good in his uniform, the best of all the men apart from Hill himself who seemed made for khaki.
      ‘Let’s go. Follow me.’
      And that was that. We were off. We’d not been given a mission as I’d expected. We were not to capture an enemy flag or rendezvous at a certain checkpoint by a certain time, all things that I’d anticipated. We were simply to trudge off across that bleak countryside, a little soggy from the drizzle, a little bewildered by the strangeness of our situation and very cold.
      Minutes passed. Five, ten, fifteen. Nobody spoke, not even Trevor who only glanced back on the odd occasion to check we were all still there. Eventually, miserable with the ache in my frozen hands and the demoralising silence around me I ventured to talk with Jayne Burke. ‘What do you think so far?’
      ‘I think it sucks,’ she replied quietly, ‘what are we supposed to do? Where are we going? How does freezing to death in this place make us better people?’
      ‘My sentiments exactly,’ I agreed, ‘could do with some gloves too.’
      Burke smiled. She looked small in her uniform and her face appeared vulnerable under her oversized helmet. A housewife adrift. I liked that quip and made a mental note to add it somewhere in my article. ‘so, you married?’
      ‘Yup. Dave’s at home today with the flu. Wasn’t too impressed with me wandering off to play soldier.’
      ‘Kids?’
      ‘Two, Angela’s five and Danny’s six. What about you?’
      I was about to tell her how single and childless I was when Trevor glared over his shoulder, ‘you two - pipe down. This isn’t a mother’s day out.’
      His abruptness shocked me. I came close to answering back but realised I was playing a part and Trevor was probably merely acting out his own. Simmering a little I decided to keep my mouth shut and satisfied myself with a bemused glance at Jayne.
      We continued walking for a further five minutes before we passed the first break in the featureless landscape, a semi-destroyed jeep without wheels and pocked by bullet holes. ‘Nice touch,’ I whispered to Jayne who nodded and stared at the jeep uncertainly.
      A few minutes after this, Trevor stopped and crouched. As we’d been told to do in the training room we mimicked him, squatting against the dewy moorland grass, the earthy scent of turf and mud close in our nostrils. He seemed to be staring intently at something in the distance, where monolithic blocks of buildings stood like tombstones against the dreary November sky.
      ‘What is it?’ Dempsy asked, not directing his question at anyone in particular.
      ‘We have trouble,’ Trevor hissed, crouching lower. Unsure why, we all dipped our heads as well.
      ‘What sort of trouble?’ Mr Jones had moved close behind Trevor, ‘what are you talking about? When are we going to do something? All this walking is just wasting the day.’
      ‘Quiet,’ Trevor turned on Jones, then returned to whatever thing had grabbed his attention to start with. Mr Jones gazed back at us, incredulous.
      ‘I’m hungry,’ McIntyre said quietly after a few seconds pregnant silence, ‘when do we stop to eat?’
      ‘We need to reach the town, then we can find some shelter and eat. There’s alot of open land between there and here. Could be snipers.’
      ‘Yeah,’ Jayne giggled furtively, catching my eye, ‘right.’
      ‘Let’s move out,’ he waved his hand then jumped up and started jogging forward. We followed, but not without a few complaints. None of us were anywhere near as fit as Hill and it seemed unfair of him to make us run when he had to be aware of this fact. I was just thankful the overweight Sonja Heart had cut and run when she had.
      After a time we started slowing, dropping back. Jayne and I were the fittest of the bunch and kept up with Hill longer than anyone else, but soon even we were reducing our trot to a walk, then finally stopping dead, hands on our knees, puffing hard.
      Behind us the others were straggling, spread out over a couple of hundred metres. Jones was bringing up the rear, the smoker, Dempsy, was next, then McIntyre and lastly Moon. Jones looked red in the face and I cursed Hill’s irresponsibility for forcing us to exert ourselves so much so soon.
      It was at this point, as Jayne and I stood side by side catching our breath, that I glimpsed a group of people moving slowly across the horizon to our left. ‘Look there,’ I patted Jayne on the shoulder.
      ‘Must be one of the other groups.’
      ‘They’re heading back in by the looks of it,’ I observed.
      ‘Lucky old them.’
      There were only three or four of them and the more I watched the more I thought they looked exhausted. Their shoulders were hunched forward and their progress was slow. It was a queer sight, like a scene from an Oliver Stone movie where Dartmoor had replaced Cambodia.
      They stopped shortly and gathered together. Then swiftly, they dropped to the ground, disappearing from view. ‘What are they doing?’ Jayne puzzled.
      I shook my head, ‘maybe they’ve seen us.’
      I noticed a flash of light, then moments later came the resonant clatter of machine-gun fire, ‘They shooting?’ Jayne exclaimed.
      ‘I thought Hill said our weapons would deactivate in this event,’ I looked to where Trevor was, a good hundred metres ahead. He was facing our direction now, apparently alerted by the sound of gunfire. ‘He looks pissed off, probably thinks one of us is firing.’
      ‘I quite liked him to start with,’ Jayne mused, ‘he’s becoming a bit of an asshole though.’
      Again came the rattle of gunfire. Now Trevor was hurrying back toward us.
      Something about the urgency in his pace worried me. I said, ‘let’s get down.’
      ‘What?’
      ‘Just a precaution. Let’s ‘hit the dirt’ as they say in the movies.’
      ‘Why? You don’t think they’re firing our way do you?’
      ‘I don’t know. I’d just feel more comfortable if I was out of sight. I know Trevor said its impossible to shoot these things at another person,’ I shook my own weapon, ‘but technology has this horrible way of going wrong.’
      We crouched down. Trevor was really sprinting. Out of the corner of my eye I noticed a flurry of movement and swivelled round in time to see Jones falling. There came more gunfire, the sound carried to our ears long after the shots had been fired. Jones was on the ground, lying still.
      ‘They shot him,’ Jayne’s voice trembled.
      ‘He just fell,’ I said, willing the man to get up, or at the very least move, let us know he was OK, ‘he shouldn’t be running anyway. Not at his age.’
      ‘No,’ Jayne shook her head slowly, ‘they shot him.’
      Moon, Dempsy and McIntyre had all turned to see the recumbent Jones. Moon was walking slowly back toward the man. The others were standing stock still, like rabbits caught in the headlight of an oncoming car. Why that comparison popped into my head I’ll never know, but as soon as it did I knew intuitively that Jayne was probably right. Jones had been shot. The others were in terrible danger.
      ‘Get down,’ I screamed, leaping to my feet and waving my arms at them.
      Trevor Hill pounded by us at that moment, yelling, ‘stay low girls. Whatever you do, don’t shoot back.’
      ‘Fuck,’ Jayne cried out.
      I fell onto my belly, dragged her down with me. My heart was hammering like a thing possessed and so much adrenaline was surging into my system I thought I might explode. All the time more gunfire cracked through the air.
      ‘We’re gonna die,’ Jayne started mumbling, ‘they’re trying to kill us.’
      ‘Its OK,’ I lied, reassuring myself as much as her, ‘its OK. Jones just tripped, that’s all. They’re not firing at you or me.’
      Suddenly, as if to belie my words, bullets were punching into the ground to our left, wads of turf and soil bursting into the air.
      Jayne’s panic quickly deteriorated, ‘I don’t want to die,’ she gripped my arm, pinched my skin making me yelp, ‘don’t let me die.’
      I raised my head, fighting back tears. Trevor was really moving. The others were watching him approach and he was shouting something at them. One by one, as his words reached them, they fell to the ground like stones. ‘To hell with this,’ I dragged my gun from under me, located the safety and switched it open, recalling the brief demonstration in the training room. That done I lifted the thing to my shoulder and aimed.
      I hadn’t been prepared for the massive power of the weapon, nor the bucking recoil that almost broke my shoulder when I squeezed the trigger. Jayne shrieked as I opened fire and it was all I could do to restrain my own cries. After a short burst in the general direction of what I now considered the enemy, I dropped the gun into the grass and buried my head in my hands, shaking uncontrollably. My shots were a warning, to let the other group know we were there, but there was always the possibility I might have hit someone unintentionally and that was scary.
      Trevor had stopped running. He was facing us, screaming at me to hold my fire. I looked up and as I did I saw three bullets strike him in the chest, three tiny crimson puffs. He toppled soundlessly backward and didn’t move again. 

The firing continued and every now and then more bullets strafed the ground nearby. Jayne was beyond hysterical, staring at me with glazed over eyes. She looked ridiculous now in her army outfit, like a child playing war. ‘We need to get out of here,’ I said in as soothing a voice as I could muster. I could see Moon and the others making their way toward us, dragging themselves along the ground on their bellies, their eyes large in their ashen faces.
      By the time Moon reached us the shooters had stopped shooting, but I was sure they were still out there, watching and waiting for us to show ourselves.
      ‘This is awful,’ Moon gasped as he joined us. He was talking quickly, overcome by adrenaline and fear, ‘I think Jones is dead, Hill too.’
      ‘No shit,’ I was in no mood for the obvious, ‘you think we missed that?’
      ‘But what do we do?’
      ‘You wait here with her, she’s terrified,’ I stroked Jayne’s back and she shuddered, ‘I’m going to try to reach Hill. He may not be dead.’
      ‘That’s madness,’ Moon stared maniacally over his shoulder, ‘the guy’s dead. We should get out of here.’
      Ignoring his protests I shuffled away on my stomach leaving Moon with Jayne. Progress was slow and the ground beneath me was boggy in places. By the time I met McIntyre coming the other way I was plastered in mud. ‘What’s happening?’ He grabbed me by the shoulder, ‘what in God’s name is happening?’
      ‘The others are back there,’ I shrugged his hand off, ‘I’m going to check on Hill. Go and look after Jayne.’
      He scowled at me, ‘look after Jayne? Whose gonna look after me?’
      I ignored him, continued on. Soon enough I made it to Hill just as Dempsy, looking surprisingly spry considering I’d judged him the most highly strung of the group, was reaching him as well.
      Hill’s chest was covered in blood, but not as much as I’d expected. There were three ragged tears in his clothes, ‘Trevor?’ I pressed my hand to his cheek.
      He opened his eyes, swallowed hard, ‘Miss Jameson. I hope you won’t include this in your article.’
      ‘Damn straight,’ I said, ‘I intend to get this place shut down. You’re using live ammo with civilians, what did you expect? I can’t believe this hasn’t happened before now. Just my luck I should visit when your luck runs out.’ To my amazement Hill smiled. He coughed and the smile disappeared, replaced by a pained expression. ‘Hill,’ I leaned in close to him, ‘what do we do?’
      Dempsy was resting alongside me, watching the horizon where the enemy were still concealed. Hill stared at him for a moment, as if trying to concentrate. When he spoke his voice was strangled, ‘don’t try to go back. The other group are heading toward the CLR building. If you go back you’ll be pacing them, taking a parallel course. Ultimately you’ll run into them again.’
      ‘So, what else can we do?’
      ‘Get to the town and hide up in one of the buildings. You’ll be safe there. When you don’t return to HQ on time you’ll be missed, a rescue party will come get you. You have ground-flares in your kit, use those to mark your position in the town.’
      I nodded, ‘We’ll take you with us.’
      ‘Don’t be stupid. I can’t move an inch.’
      ‘But you’ll die,’ Dempsy said plaintively.
      ‘I might make it long enough to be picked up by the rescue party. They’ll need to come this way to reach you. If you try to take me you won’t get very far and the other group may be tracking you now, coming in to see how many of us they hit.’
      ‘That’s what I don’t understand,’ Dempsy said, ‘what are they doing? Why are they attacking us? They must know we’re on the course.’
      ‘We use mannequins,’ Hill’s voice was growing quieter, ‘they move on runners. Look quite realistic from a distance. Its an easy mistake to make, but the guns’ safeties should have kicked in, deactivated their weapons and ours.’ He closed his eyes then and his head lolled to the side.
      ‘Shit,’ Dempsy pressed two fingers to Hill’s blood caked throat, ‘he isn’t dead yet.’
      ‘He’s right though,’ I lifted Dempsy’s hand away, ‘we can’t save him. He might last till the rescue party reach him, if not its too bad. We need to save ourselves.’ 

Dempsy and I shuffled back to join the others. The two men seemed to have settled a little since I’d last seen them and Jayne too appeared less strained. Moon looked hopefully at me, ‘Hill?’
      ‘As good as dead,’ I replied. ‘He said we need to get to the town. We’ll be safe there and once we’re missed they’ll send out a rescue party.’
      ‘What about Jones?’ Jayne asked.
      ‘He’s too far away to reach. Hill thinks the people doing the shooting may come closer so we need to get going. Once they get here and find they shot real people they’ll get the picture. But if they get in range and see us from any kind of distance they may open fire again.’ I explained as concisely as I could, aware that we may have little time, about the mannequins.
      Nobody was in any mood to offer an alternative plan so we set off as Hill had recommended. At first we travelled on our stomachs, then, after this became intolerably slow and uncomfortable, on our hands and knees. Finally, after watching our rear for a good fifteen minutes without noticing any sign of a pursuit, we dared to return to our feet, half crouching half jogging.
      The town, more a collection of concrete edifices designed to look like buildings, was a long time coming, particularly since we spent half the journey there wriggling on our stomachs. By the time we finally arrived we were completely drained.
      The first thing I noticed, as we approached the fake road leading into the place, was an ominous silence. The second was a man squatting close by, hiding from us behind the burned out shell of a car.
      ‘There’s someone there,’ I pointed. A true soldier, on reflection, would have scattered our group, dropped behind the nearest available cover and drawn their weapon in readiness for another fight. But I was a journalist. The others were insurance clerks. We simply stood in the open, gazing at the man anxiously, some of us with our hands in our pockets, some of us scratching our heads like idiots.
      Eventually the man ventured from his hiding place and held his hands in the air. He was dressed as a soldier, like us, but his face betrayed his innocence. He was just a regular guy. ‘Don’t shoot,’ he called out.
      I could have laughed. Nobody had even considered the notion until he reminded us of the guns in our hands. I noticed Moon raise his weapon in response, ‘stay where you are. Who are you?’
      ‘I’m Roger Backwell,’ the man shouted back, standing still, swaying slightly as a strong easterly wind whistled between two nearby buildings and out across the road. ‘I was with a group of people doing a course. I got separated from them when we were attacked.’
      McIntyre frowned, ‘what the hell’s going on around here?’
      Moon, who’d assumed the part of inquisitor, called out, ‘are you armed?’
      ‘No. I lost my gun.’
      ‘Who attacked you?’ I asked, pushing the barrel of Moon’s gun down gently.
      Sensing our acceptance of his story the man continued walking toward us, ‘I don’t know. We were walking through the town and someone shot our guide. Then everyone started running in opposite directions and next thing you know, I’m here on my own.’ He reached us and extended a hand which we shook in turn, ‘you have no idea how glad I am to see you.’
      ‘We’re not the rescue committee I’m afraid,’ Moon warned him, ‘our own guide’s been shot and we’re in pretty much the same boat.’
      ‘Was it just your guide you lost?’ Dempsy asked.
      Backwell nodded, ‘he said he thought there was a sniper in one of the buildings in there,’ he motioned toward the town, ‘told us to be careful. Next thing there’s a bang and he’s on the floor.’
      ‘Do you think its safe in there?’ I asked, appraising the bleak high-rises and concrete blocks.
      ‘Who knows.’
      Moon looked at me, ‘Hill said we’d be safe.’
      I agreed, ‘I’m pretty sure he knew what he was talking about.’
      ‘Damn it, I’m not going in there if there’s some nutter with a gun running around,’ McIntyre said.
      ‘We can’t stay out here,’ Jayne cried, ‘its not safe.’
      ‘Right,’ I nodded, holding Jayne’s hand reassuringly, ‘Hill’s the expert. I say we do what he said.’
      Eventually Moon agreed. Backwell seemed only too keen to join us regardless of whether we led him back into the town or out onto the moorlands. As we walked cautiously between the buildings Dempsy asked Backwell, ‘you were with one of this morning’s course then?’
      Backwell looked bemused, ‘if only mate. I’ve been out here since the beginning of the week.’
      ‘What?’ I stared at him, ‘but its Thursday today. How long have you been here?’
      ‘Four days,’ He seemed apathetic, ‘I’ve been here four days, since Monday morning. Our guide was shot Monday afternoon.’
      We all exchanged looks of disbelief, stopped walking. ‘But the others,’ Moon said, ‘the others in your course. They must have reported you missing when they got out.’
      ‘I think they’re still here,’ he replied, ‘I saw one of them wandering out there yesterday,’ he pointed toward the open countryside, ‘but I was too scared to go after him. I’ve heard alot of gunfire out there over the past week.’
      Jayne was crying, rivulets of tears streaming down her cheeks. I felt like crying myself. Somehow I fought the urge, ‘you’re telling us you’ve been hiding out here for four days and the rest of your group are still out here too? Why the hell didn’t you try to make it back to the CLR?’
      ‘I told you. Its a warzone out there. They never stop shooting. At night you can see the guns firing in the distance between here and the lights of the CLR building. There’s no way through.’
      ‘I don’t believe this,’ McIntyre was shaking, staring into space, ‘we’re fucked. We’ve been tricked.’
      ‘Why?’ I yelled at him, losing my restraint, feeling tears prick at my eyes, ‘why would they trick us?’
      ‘I had assumed,’ Backwell said, apparently oblivious to our raised voices, ‘that due to some odd twist of fate, war had broken out while I was on the course.’
      ‘That’s ridiculous,’ Moon laughed humourlessly, ‘you’ve gotta be nuts.’
      ‘Shouting won’t help,’ Dempsy reasoned.
      Moon turned on him, ‘shut up. I’ll shout if I want you bastard.’
      ‘Don’t call me a bastard!’
      ‘Shut up, all of you,’ Jayne screamed, gripping her head and screwing her eyes shut, ‘just shut up, shut up, shut up.’
      ‘Jayne,’ I grabbed her, pulled her close to me. This seemed to have the desired effect and she fell silent, trembling in my arms. The others also fell silent, shuffling around one another ashamedly. ‘God what a nightmare,’ I muttered, ‘what a nightmare.’ 

We found a doorway that led into the bottom floor of one of the buildings. The interior was similar to an inner city car park, wide and spacious, lined with rows of uniform concrete pillars. Large rectangular openings in the walls allowed some light to infiltrate but for the most part the place was depressingly dark and dank. Shattered glass was strewn across parts of the floor and most of the inner walls were riddled with bullet holes suggesting some massive gun-battle had taken place there at some time.
      One corner of the room was clear enough of glass and debris for us to sit on the floor. Though the area was far from desirable we hardly cared, grateful enough for a chance to rest and escape from the open air where the constant chill and threat of attack had worn us to exhaustion.
      Backwell was the only one who found little solace in the shelter. He refused to sit down and paced nervously back and forth, his incessant footsteps amplified in the vast chamber like the dull beat of a drummer boy, a befitting sound to accompany our battle weary quietude.
      Jayne and I huddled together. For once I was glad of my femininity. None of the men would have dreamed of cuddling up to each other in search of comfort. For us girls it seemed only natural to do so. Jayne whispered to me, ‘I’m scared Carla.’
      ‘Me too.’
      ‘Do you think they’ll send a rescue party?’
      I wanted to say yes, reassure her, but I decided she deserved more than a patronising white lie, ‘they didn’t send one for Backwell and his group. I think we need to get ourselves out of this place. But first we should rest and eat.’
      We rummaged through our kit bags and found the packed lunches allocated to us before leaving the training room. At the sight of food Backwell almost collapsed with joy and each of us split away some of our rations so that he could eat. Evidently he hadn’t seen a meal in almost a week. I wondered where he’d been finding water, as surely it had to be impossible to last as long as he had without so much as a drop. He certainly didn’t appear dehydrated.
      After some lunch I felt surprisingly revived. Jayne remained torpid however and the others also seemed less than revitalised. Backwell, on the other hand maintained his edgy tension and took to patrolling the window on the far side of the room, eyeing the area outside the building cautiously, gripping McIntyre’s rifle which had been loaned in good faith.
      His self-imposed sentry duty was fine by the rest of us and offered some respite from the sound of pacing feet on concrete. The knowledge that someone had enough survival-sense to even think to watch for signs of danger was also reassuring. By our standards Backwell was a virtual veteran of the Warzone. Anything he chose to do would not be questioned in a hurry by any of us.
      I was almost drifting off to sleep, soothed by the sanctuary of the building, the sounds of breathing all around me and the close warmth of Jayne when I was yanked back to the waking world by Backwell’s voice. He was shouting, ‘there, there,’ and pointing enthusiastically through the window at something high up. ‘Its the sniper. I saw him.’
      Those were his last words. I heard an odd popping sound then watched, horrified, as Backwell slumped to the ground. A millisecond later the sound of a gunshot split the air.
      Moon and Dempsy were quick to react, on their feet in a moment and rushing to where Backwell lay, grabbing him and dragging him unceremoniously away from the window. McIntyre sat dumbfounded and watched. Jayne grabbed me and started to cry again. I wanted to join Moon and Dempsy but somehow my connection with Jayne as a fellow female in a dangerously masculine situation seemed all the more important. She needed me to stay with her.
      ‘He’s dead,’ Moon said, studying the wound in the man’s chest with unconcealed disgust, ‘Jesus.’
      ‘He said something about a sniper,’ Dempsy bobbed down so he could see through the window and up to where the hapless Backwell had been pointing, ‘must be the same son of a bitch who killed their guide.’
      ‘Shit,’ Moon was crying now, his face red, his nose running, ‘I liked Backwell, poor guy. Now he’s dead. They killed him too.’
      ‘Get away from the window,’ McIntyre scrambled over to the two men and pulled them back.
      ‘This is hell,’ Moon sobbed, ‘I’m in hell.’
      ‘If so we’re all there with you,’ Dempsy said, gazing at his colleague with sympathy. ‘We’ll get out of here old boy. Take it easy.’
      ‘We’re not going to get out,’ Jayne shrieked, approaching hysteria again, ‘we’re going to die. They want to shoot us.’
      I wrapped my arms round her and squeezed tight, ‘are you sure he’s dead?’ I asked Dempsy.
      ‘What do you think,’ Dempsy glowered at me, waved a hand at the flattened body beneath the window, ‘he look alive to you?’
      ‘They killed him,’ Moon muttered again, ‘why’d they do that?’
      A second shot sounded and Jayne screamed. This time I screamed too. The men rushed over to us, huddled in close. I wasn’t sure if they were looking to protect us or looking for protection from us, but either way I was glad of the extra company. At that moment we seemed to need each others proximity to stave off panic.
      I stared at the walls around me, seeing, as if for the first time, the multitude of bullet holes and realising, with horror, that the building was not safe, could not be safe, and there was the evidence, plain as day.
      More shots came. Now we could hear the snap, crack of rounds punching the walls outside. I remembered poor Trevor Hill’s almost portentous words in the ready room before we embarked on the course, ‘Here at CLR we want to give you a glimpse into a lifestyle far less attractive than your own, that you may emerge at the end of the day with a new viewpoint on the world and your place in it.’
      ‘Oh God, I don’t want to die,’ Moon wailed.
      The gunshots stopped. A silence, almost as frightening, ensued.
      Seconds later we heard footsteps outside. Then the outlines of five heavy-set figures appeared in the doorway. The figures were soldiers. They were carrying machine guns. I whimpered as I watched them enter the room, resigned to the unthinkable fact that I would soon know what it felt like to be shot; I would soon find out what lay beyond death, what waited for me in the unknown obscurity beyond existence as I knew it; I would soon find out what it meant to leave everything I had ever known, loved, hated, seen, remembered, been and hoped to be, behind for eternity.
      The soldiers approached us slowly and one stepped forward, apart from the rest. As he came closer he emerged from shadow and we saw his face for the first time. It was Trevor Hill, ‘its OK,’ he said in as soft a voice as I think I ever heard, ‘its over.’ 

Outside a van was waiting to drive us back to the CLR building. We were taken into a new room and given sedatives, offered beds, warm sweet tea and hot water bottles. The walls of this new room were decorated with paintings by Monet, in the background classical music played on a low volume and everywhere was the attractive scent of roasting coffee. The decor was unobtrusive but extremely beautiful and the attendants who fussed around us were dressed casually. All of them spoke in the most sympathetic and soothing way.
      Trevor Hill appeared minutes after our return to the building. I was buzzing with all manner of mixed emotions by the time he arrived: joy that I was alive; disbelief at what had occurred; fear that the whole thing might begin again at any moment and above all else, confusion, complete and utter confusion.
      ‘Welcome home,’ Trevor smiled encouragingly. ‘I know you feel confused right now and that’s normal. Hopefully I can clear up some of your questions in the next few minutes. Firstly I’d like to introduce Mr Jones, one of our resident actors,’ he stood aside to reveal Mr Jones, now dressed in CLR uniform, standing nonchalantly and completely unharmed, in the doorway.
      ‘Hi,’ Mr Jones waved casually, ‘welcome home. We’re all glad you’re back and we’re really proud of you. You did a cracking job.’
      I opened my mouth to speak but Trevor raised a hand, ‘please, not yet. Let it all wash over you for a few minutes. Let the confusion work itself out of your system. There’ll be plenty of time for questions later.’
      Mr Jones stepped into the room and another man followed. This time it was Backwell. He was smiling warmly. Hill said, ‘Roger, another of our actors.
      Backwell nodded, ‘you guys did great. The whole team’s proud of your efforts. A really rewarding day.’
      ‘There were other actors of course. You’ll have ample opportunity to meet them, but since Roger and Jones worked so closely with you they wanted to introduce themselves as soon as possible,’ Trevor moved between us, examining our faces closely as if he were some kind of doctor doing the rounds. ‘The special effects were just that. A little pyrotechnics and stage blood. And the guns you were issued were never active, they contained blanks, so you were never in the slightest danger.’
      I could hold my tongue no longer, ‘but why?’
      Trevor smiled knowingly, ‘if you want to see life from any perspective other than your own, you must be placed in a real situation, presented with genuine dilemmas, problems and fears. Now you have something very few people have, a true understanding of suffering, a real sense of the fragility of life and the importance of what you may previously have taken for granted. You were never in real danger, but you thought you were. You were never going to die, but you were convinced you would. The insights these experiences will give you once you begin to understand them, will change your lives forever.’
      Moon, stretched out on a bed by the window, sipping a mug of tea, his hands shaking madly, spoke for us all when he said, ‘you bastards.’ 

Extract from an article published in the Gazetteer, [Corporate Life Rediscovery - the Jayne Burke interview by Carla Jameson]
"At first, yes, I was seething. So angry I could literally have killed. As I saw it we were humiliated, put in an abusive situation and used like pawns in some sick stage show."
"And now?"
"Now, of course, I understand. Your readers can never know the full details. That would be like divulging the end of a great film to someone who hasn’t seen it - pointless. What I can say, as I would say to anyone who was yet to see one of my favourite movies, is I can highly recommend it."
"And finally, what changes have you noticed?"
"What changes haven’t I noticed. What they say is true: you can’t appreciate the good life, and believe me most of us have that, unless you’ve experienced the bad. I used to hate trudging to work every day, trying to motivate myself on a Monday morning, attending endless meetings, discussing pointless subjects. I’d spend my weekends lounging around watching TV, wasting my time, my evenings doing the same. Now I make sure I put one hundred percent into my work and my social life because I know how lucky I am to have them. I appreciate and love my life, and in so many ways it hasn’t even changed that much. I’ve changed."
"And CLR? Last time we spoke you were considering suing"
(Laughs)"I suppose I’ve come round to their way of thinking since then."

TOP

Warzone by David Hampton
(Contains language that some may find offensive)
The fiction contained on this page is © David Hampton 1999