Serial Killer Chapter 37
In which a jealous Dave gets Greg drunk to extract his writing secrets. And there's more Feral Meryl...
The next day, back in his office, the Liquorice Detective tried to absorb what he had discovered from his psyche merger with his mother, as well as the advice Marjorie Rayner had given him. In truth, he was overwhelmed by it all. He now had all the information on his mother’s past, apart from her early life, when she was a hostess in wartime London, married and went to Nigeria.
He glanced across at Greg; they were still not speaking, but he could see Greg was feeling rather good about himself, as he looked at his final episode of Feral Meryl in Shandy.
Dave could barely conceal his jealousy. How did Greg do it? Why was he so successful with Joy, who was still rejecting his offerings? It’s not like they were having sex anymore. Dave desperately needed to sell her a story to pay Cooper.
‘Read it and weep,’ said Greg arrogantly. ‘Here. See how it’s done.’ And passed Shandy across.
Reluctantly, Dave sat down to read Feral Meryl. There was the familiar introduction:
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‘Feral Meryl was a wild girl, brought up by wolves in the wilds of Berkshire. She was rescued by her friend Mandy who tried to pass her off as an ordinary schoolgirl. But she was caught by the Dog Catchers and taken to a Special School.’
The opening scene showed Feral Meryl at the Special School where a harsh, tweedy, Barbara Woodhouse-look alike teacher, Miss Thripp, was teaching her obedience. She was retraining Meryl as a seeing eye for blind people.
This included telling her to ‘Sit!’
She smacked a growling Meryl on the nose when she refused, and blew up her nostrils.
Meanwhile, Mandy wanted to get into the school to rescue her friend. So she pretended to be a ‘special girl’ to the guards on the school gate. She messed up her hair, let her tongue hang out, stared vacantly ahead of her and talked meaningless gobbledeygook to them.
‘Don’t know what your special power is, love’ said a guard, scowling at the drooling, gibbering schoolgirl. ‘But you’ve definitely come to the right place.’
‘Yeah,’ laughed the other guard. ‘Normally you special girls are trying to get out.’ And they let her through the checkpoint.
Staring through a window, Mandy was horrified to see just what Miss Thripp was doing to her best friend.
Then she turned and realised two other special girls were looking strangely at her. At first, Mandy thought they were going to betray her and take her to Miss Thripp, but, instead, they introduced themselves as Jemima and Zara.
Mandy started to explain why she was here, but Jemima held up a hand. ‘There’s no need. I already know who you are, Mandy. You’re here to save Meryl, aren’t you?’
‘How did you know?’ gasped Mandy.
‘I was sent to a Special School because I can read minds,’ explained Jemima.
Mandy turned to Zara. ‘Do you read minds, too, Zara?’
‘No. I can bend and move metal,’ added Zara, bending a spoon, like Uri Geller.
That night, Meryl was locked in a dormitory with the other two special girls. She was having to sleep on a bed, rather than in a nest on the floor made from Mandy’s old clothes. Mandy knew just how upsetting this would be to her friend.
Jemima and Zara were also being experimented on by Miss Thripp and wanted to escape. So Zara used her powers to unbolt the dormitory door. The girls then all raced down the stairs and out into the school grounds where Mandy was waiting for them.
An excited Meryl bounded into Mandy’s arms. Mandy was overjoyed to be reunited with her feral friend again. The plan was now for Zara to bend back the railings around the school so they could get away.
But, as Zara went to work, Jemima suddenly warned the others that it was too late. She could sense Miss Thripp was coming. ‘And she has a weapon!’ she alerted them.
Zara was using her strange power to bend the railings, but it was taking so long and it was almost too much for her. The stern headmistress appeared and she did, indeed, have a gun in her hand.
‘I have orders to ensure you special girls do not escape into the community. You’re all far too dangerous,’ she snarled.
She was about to open fire, and now it was Mandy’s turn to act. She realised that Miss Thripp was going to shoot Meryl first.
‘A wolf girl is the most dangerous,’ Miss Thripp snapped. ‘You’re filthy vermin! You cannot be allowed to live.’
‘I’ve no power left,’ screamed an exhausted Zara. ‘I can’t redirect her bullets!’
As the teacher fired at Meryl, Mandy leapt in the way and took the bullet for her friend.
Mandy staggered back in pain, blood streaming from her arm.
‘Foolish child,’ scowled Miss Thripp, showing Mandy no pity. ‘That’s what comes of befriending wild animals.’
Next moment, Meryl leapt upon the woman, her fangs bared, ready to tear out her throat.
‘No. Please, please don’t hurt me,’ cowered the teacher.
‘No, Meryl!’ cried Mandy. ‘Stay! Stay! She’s not worth it.’
Growling menacingly, Meryl reluctantly backed away.
Then the three special girls and Mandy ran off into the night.
Zara and Jemima said their goodbyes to Mandy and Meryl. They knew they could never go home again, the authorities would be watching. So they had decided to join a circus instead.
‘And what is to become of us, Meryl?’ asked Mandy. She was using the wolf girl’s old muzzle, made from satchel straps, to strap up her arm.
Meryl whimpered at the sight of her wounded friend, but had no answers for her.
‘I know,’ said Mandy. ‘We could stay at my Aunt Violet’s. She’s a dog-lover and a nurse. She’ll be able to deal with my wound. We’ll be free there.’
But suddenly, from far away, they heard a long, strange howl.
Meryl and Mandy exchanged glances. The Berkshire wolves were calling. Meryl howled at the moon, answering their call.
She turned back to Mandy. It was clear faithful Meryl would do whatever her friend wanted her to do.
‘Oh, Meryl,’ said Mandy, ‘if we went to Aunt Violet’s, I know we’d be safe. But I’m just not being fair to you. You have to answer the call of the wild.’
Even though she knew it meant the end of their friendship, Mandy had to let Meryl go.
Meryl licked the tears off Mandy’s face and the girls embraced for the last time. Her heart breaking, Mandy told her friend, ‘Go on, Meryl. Go. You must be free.’
Then the wolf girl ran off back into the wild, leaving a tearful Mandy all alone.
But then Mandy looked down at Meryl’s old muzzle and smiled. At least she had something to remember her by. She would never forget Meryl, her very special friend.
The End.
The story left Dave cold. He just didn’t understand why girls liked it so much. But he figured this must be because there was some deficiency in his own character. A deficiency he needed to overcome if he was ever to sell a serial to Joy.
‘Joy has just commissioned me to write The Return of Feral Meryl,’ grinned Greg. ‘Oh, yes, the wolf girl’s coming back. It’s going to be even more emotional.’
Greg was on a roll. The third story he had devised for Aaagh! had also worked out well. Greg’s ex-army father was a barman at the officers’ mess in Colchester, and he’d overheard them talking about a possible military coup and mentioned it to his son.
Theoretically, they were talking about Northern Ireland, but it was obvious, to Greg’s cynical dad, at least, that the army was preparing for a military takeover in Britain. In fact, it was common talk in the media and the seats of power at the time. General Walker, recently Commander-in-Chief of Allied forces in Europe, had said openly that, ‘the country might choose rule by the gun in preference to anarchy’. Private armies, 100,000-strong, were recruited, ready to ‘restore order’. Military members of the aristocratic clubs of Mayfair were ready to seize power.
This had incensed Greg, so he had come up with a serial about Britain after a military coup. The title, supplied by Dave, was Street: a shotgun-carrying lorry driver who leads the British resistance against the ‘traitors who stole my country’.
There were a remarkable number of British officers being blasted by the brutal Street. He wore an old flying jacket, just like the one Greg often wore.
Dave had used all his devious skills to get the story past the board, telling them that Street was the villain and, as the serial proceeded, it would be clear the military take-over was actually for the good of the country. Colonel Horsfield thought it was an excellent idea.
Pretending that he’d gotten over his latest quarrel with Greg, and to show there were no hard feelings, Dave took him over the road to The Hoop and Grapes and bought him a drink. Several drinks. He needed to get Greg drunk, so he could find out what made him tick.
Over his fifth pint, Greg started to tell all. ‘Dad served his country, but we can never go back to Belfast. He doesn’t deserve that, Dave. That’s not right. That’s not right, is it, Dave?’
‘No, Greg, it’s definitely not right. But why can’t you go back?’
‘‘Cos he’d be seen as a traitor. He’d be shot.’
‘Shot!’
‘Shot. My dad. Dear God.’ Greg swayed unsteadily on his feet and Dave helped him onto a bar stool. ‘So we’re stuck. Stuck in bloody Colchester.’ He sighed. ‘He’s a servant to all those Hooray Henries he hates. He hates them, Dave.’
‘Why? Why does he hate them?’
‘‘Cos they’re useless Sandhurst gits, of course. Haven’t got a clue what they’re doing. And that’s why …that’s why … Oh, it doesn’t matter.’
‘What? What doesn’t matter?’
‘It doesn’t matter. Never mind. I should be going. Got to get my train.’
‘No, it does matter, Greg. Come on. You can tell me. Have another drink.’
Dave ordered another pint for Greg and a coke for himself. ‘And that’s why …’ continued Greg. ‘Why … I need a cigarette. You got a cigarette, Dave?’
‘Only Caning Commando sweet cigarettes, I’m afraid.’
‘That’s why I had German heroes in my comic. To say that to them.’ Greg made an angry V sign. ’Cos of what they did to my dad. ’Cos they don’t care. They don’t fucking care, Dave. About my dad.’
‘No. They don’t care,’ agreed Dave.
‘And that’s why you’ll never see any officers in my stories, Dave. ’Cos I know what they’re really like. That’s why Longest Day Logan was a sergeant,’ Greg slurred proudly. ‘Like my dad.’
Later, after seeing an unsteady Greg off onto the Underground, Dave considered what he had discovered about his assistant. So the answer to his writing problems was emotion and identification. That’s what was missing from his stories. Greg was writing with so much passion because he cared about his dad.
So what about Joy’s dad? He knew she was really angry with him because he was ‘too busy to see his own daughter’, preferring to spend time with his second wife (‘that fuckin’ bitch’). And, even though he was an ardent socialist, he didn’t approve of Joy ‘wasting her life and her education’ working in comics.
That was it, realised Dave. He would write a serial about fathers who had disappointed their daughters. It would have lots of emotion and Joy would identify with it. It would be his breakthrough story. She would love it.
He had the perfect title for it already: Pop is a Weasel.
Serial Killer by Pat Mills & Kevin O’Neill is the first book in the Read Em And Weep series and is on sale digitally or as paperback.