... Die By The Sword
Rowan Davies

 

      Victor was very much the type of person that people imagine when the words ‘couch potato’ are mentioned. Put simply, he was a middle-aged slob. A fat, balding man whose teeth were black and broken as the result of too much late night snacking. He led a simple life, most of all because he found it too much trouble to lead anything other than a simple life. In the daytimes he worked in a ticket booth at the local cinema and, by 7 o’clock each evening, he would always be safe, warm and prepared for a marathon stint of television watching on his living room sofa.
      Victor’s house was dirty and dark. It hadn’t been redecorated since the late sixties and it had started to look a little worse for wear by the year 2010. Most of the brown, tobacco-stained wallpaper had begun to peel off at the top of the walls as gravity and the passage time started to get the better of it. The carpet in all the rooms was dirt-trodden and threadbare, stinking mightily of damp. But Victor didn’t mind. He was out most of the day and, when he was at home, all he cared about was television. And that was the only redeeming feature to the dirt-hole that he lived in.
      The Panasonic 28DK1 28" Widescreen Nicam Stereo TV was situated at the far end of his living room. In all its silver-plastic goodness, it helped to brighten up the place no end. It had cost Victor less than £700 and was probably the best investment he had ever made. It was all three things the shop assistant had said it would be - Sleek, sexy and sublime. He had subscriptions with every single channel on both Cable and Satellite and he was in love with all of them. It gave him more pleasure than his ex-wife ever had and, using the Internet chat system he had recently installed, it made better conversation too.
      The television was also the cleanest thing in Victor’s house. He dusted and wiped the screen every morning before he went to work, and then cleaned all the connecting leads thoroughly when he got home. It wasn’t just a hobby. It was his life. It was a routine that Victor had been in for five years now, updating the TV every six months with a new top-of-the-range model that would enhance his viewing pleasure even more.
      His electrical, silver friend was the most important thing in his life and it was never out of his thoughts. It would be the first thing to come into his mind when he awoke every morning and the last thing to leave when he bedded down each night. And then there were the dreams. Dreams so fantastic and colourful that if ever Victor told anyone about them they would probably scoff at him. And all the dreams were, of course, viewed in widescreen.
      Victor’s house was located just below the new Hartsham to Glinford bypass. A large, bleak motorway bridge raised high above the ground on numerous bulky pillars. Situated somewhere in the darkness beneath, Victor did find the noise irritating at times, but then that was what volume control was for. The surround sound sure did a wonderful job of blocking the constant blare of traffic.

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      Every Saturday night on the TV was Victor’s favourite program: Keep it out of the Community! A late night cops and robbers show that pulled in the viewers by displaying recordings of various crimes that had happened over the duration of the week, or, if the viewer was particularly lucky, even showing crimes as they happened on that particular Saturday night. Victor loved it. He loved watching bad-ass crooks having their crime-spree ended forcefully and, conversely, he loved watching cops and innocent bystanders being caught up in the villains’ escapades. It wasn’t exactly family entertainment but it gave him immense amounts of pleasure, mainly because it was a controlled dose of excitement and danger. While Victor was safe in his home, bad-ass criminals and plucky policeman were fighting somewhere near him. And that thought thrilled him no end.
      On a Saturday night in late January, Victor was settling comfortably into his tatty sofa with a can of cola in his hand, wiggling his buttocks into a position that suited them well. The television had already been on for a few hours and now the screen was glowing in a brilliant display of colours. It was the opening credits to his favourite show, Keep it out of the Community!, and it was accompanied by what Victor thought to be the best theme tune ever made. It was almost a cross between Thunderbirds and The A-Team, an action theme if ever there was one. Victor couldn’t help but tap his chubby feet contentedly as the music blessed his ears. The anticipation of what may be to come always delighted him.
      Eventually the title screen faded and the presenter of the show, the beautiful Sadie Griffiths, appeared on the screen. The camera was focused closely on her face, but it was obvious that she was outside somewhere. The big microphone she held up to her face gave that much away. Victor rubbed his hands in glee. The fact that she was out of the studio always meant that there was something happening live, that very Saturday night. Sadie’s face was deadly serious.
      "How much damage can one man in a car do?" she began, putting the question forward in her usual dramatic tone. "Killing a couple of harmless pedestrians? Destroying another driver and their car in head-on collision?" She paused for a second, building the suspense. "Or worse?"
      On that last word, from the top right corner of the TV screen, there zoomed an overhead video shoot of a police chase. It was presumably footage from a chase helicopter and the word ‘LIVE’ was flashing in the centre of the picture. In the darkness of the night a large black sports car could be seen racing down a dual carriageway with two siren-flashing police cars in tow. Sadie Griffiths continued her speech as the footage continued.
      "Tonight, viewers, we are proud to present the most incredible thing that has ever been seen on this show… A dangerous high-speed chase in your community… as it happens!"
      The picture changed back to Sadie’s grave but beautiful face and the camera slowly zoomed out to display her surroundings. She was standing on the edge of what seemed to be a motorway bridge. Her hair was flapping all about her shoulders as the breeze from passing cars played with it. She raised her voice to combat the noise.
      "In approximately five minutes the police will have driven the madman towards my current position… the middle of the Hartsham bypass bridge…" Victor dropped his cola. Blood rushed to his head and filled his cheeks in a glorious red. On the TV Sadie’s lips moved silently and hypnotically as Victor’s ears refused to take anything else in. A gleeful grin appeared on his face. It was an amazing coincidence, that was for sure. Right by his house! Victor shook his head in order to re-engage his senses. Sadie was still speaking.
      "… where they are planning to end his foolish escapade... and boy, will it be a fitting end! We have very little information on the suspect at the moment, but be assured, he is armed and highly dangerous." Sadie offered a little smile. "Of course, you can be certain that the …Out of the Community! team will brave life and limb to bring you the footage you want… and nothing else." She flicked her hair with her free hand. "Now over to Boss with the Profile Lowdown."
      Sadie disappeared completely from sight as a blue box filled the screen. On the right was a picture of the criminal’s face. It started to rotate in full 3D as the deep, exaggerated voice of Boss began to speak.
      "Well, Sadie, tonight’s live and loaded baddie is one that dedicated viewers may be kinda familiar with. We did a feature on him a while back and, wow, is he one sick monkey!" As Boss spoke, the left side of screen began to fill with information. "His name is Todd Winters and his previous list of crimes include armed robbery, several muggings and one smash and grab incident. Well, all I can say is that he’s sure gonna be smashed up when we grab him tonight!"
      The screen returned to the motorway bridge where Sadie still stood. She was looking away from the camera as she held her hand to one of her ears. Then she looked up and adopted her usual pose.
      "Thanks, Boss. I’ve just received word that Winters will be passing through here any second, so I’m going to stand to the side now while you guys at home sit back and enjoy the ride!"
      She left to the right of the screen and the camera zoomed in on the road ahead. Civilian cars were still cruising along all of the lanes, unaware of the mayhem that they would soon be a part of. Victor so loved watching innocent bystanders being caught up in the villains’ escapades.
      Then the camera switched to the overhead chopper view and Victor leaned forward to take in every detail of what was about to happen.

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      It was all over in just less than forty seconds. The rogue sports car entered the bypass on the wrong lane, which left it heading straight towards oncoming traffic. It wasn’t a choice that the driver made, though, as the police cars had already caught up with him and were barging him hard towards the side of the bridge. Harder and fiercer until he was scraping along the barriers. At that point it was clear to whoever was watching the action that the police were out to cause far more damage than the offender ever could. It was as clear as day now that the whole scene was staged by the police under the influence of however many little green pieces of paper the boys at Keep it out of the Community! had offered to pay them. It was clear to every one. Everyone except Victor.
      "Oh my God…" he whispered.
      Gripped with wonder at the TV screen in front of him, he leaned forward with a fixated glaze over his eyes. The chopper camera showed everything in crystal clear detail. With one police car behind and to the side of him, the culprit had nowhere to go, and no option but to keep his foot on the pedal. And he did just that, travelling another ten metres until the front of his car snagged on one of the barrier road signs. The tail end whipped around in a sweeping motion, flinging the police car at the side of him into the oncoming traffic. Unable to restart his engine the cop then fled from the vehicle, running across the open lanes and away from the destruction he had begun.
      However, civilian cars were by now careering all over the road. Every one of them attempting to avoid the police car and the spinning sports car. But it was impossible. Unable to stop in time, four oncoming cars found themselves turning hard into each other, involuntarily forming a formidable barrier of steel. The cop attempted a valiant dive but it was too late. Both he and his car were hit with head-on force. The policeman’s legs snapped backwards on impact as his upper body was flung onto the bonnet of one of the cars. His head exploded in a shower of blood that abruptly marked the end of his chase.
      Just metres away from this, the sports car had whipped around 180°, causing the protective barriers to crumble under the pressure. The car was suddenly in the air, tumbling wildly as the wheels spun helplessly, finding nothing to take grip on. It fell from the road like a brick, its fate laying in the hands of the law of gravity alone. In three seconds from that exact moment, the driver of the vehicle would be a dead man, and, due to a rather unfortunate twist of fate, so would Victor.

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      Ten minutes after the big event, Sadie was back in front of the camera, standing at the point in the road where the barrier had split. Paramedics were already arriving at the scene of the pile-up and could be seen just over her right shoulder. She looked as serious as ever.
      "So there you have it, folks. The scene of the crime. One policeman and several motorway drivers gave their lives in order to stop this criminal -Todd Winters- in his tracks. And that’s not all. Even in his dying moments Winters managed to claim another victim to add to his trail of mayhem."
      The camera turned away from Sadie and hung over the edge of the bridge. A raging fire could be seen far below. The houses that surrounded the blaze were illuminated in a sickly orange light.
      "The flames you see below are where, just minutes ago, an innocent man -Victor Pallins was sitting at home, enjoying a quiet evening to himself. Now both him and his home are left burning to ash… A seeming act of final vengeance by Winter on the people that led him to his pathetic doom."
      The camera returned to Sadie. She looked sorrowful and her eyes were moist with phoney upset.
      "After causing so much destruction it makes you wonder how such monsters are allowed to roam the streets of our community freely. And how much each and every one of us are at risk everyday from such people. Spare that a thought the next you leave your house. Or has it really got to the point where, like Victor, we are at risk in our own homes?"
      Sadie smiled.
      "Let’s take a look at our next big story and see."

 

 

Copyright © 2002 Rowan Davies
Published on the World Wide Web by "www.storymania.com"