Peter - Chapter Twenty

Peter - Chapter Twenty
No verbal description can communicate something that is entirely new, free from metaphor. 'God is love.' 'God is the light'. Reduced to such phraseology we are left only with words that find their meaning after another has shared the vision. 'I too see the light'. After a week spent listening to the only man known to have survived death. A man crucified for the anger of religious political fervour. The bible writes that God gave his only son for the love of man. Also true is that men and women, in display of their loyalty to God, offered up an innocent man for public torture and ritual execution. When Joseph of aramathea asked the Romans for his corpse, to take and place in his own tomb, having witnessed his dignity in death some of his Roman captors were converted and handed over his broken flesh. Two nights Christ spent among the dead. Walking the afterlife waiting for his father to send him back to shame those who had betrayed him. In white light he bathed patiently as other confused spirits explored what remained of them now their flesh was broken and they explored a new dimension.
Over two thousand years later his memories remained clear. Christ now stood, reassuring Peter, embracing his friend, instilling in him a faith that his being there was evidence that Peter too would return. Both knew, despite their optimistic words, that he may not. Lipton risked less but to lose his friend in this joint venture would leave his life empty. The two shaman held each other close as tears ran down their cheeks.
Lipton: "Go safe, my friend. Find her and get home to us. It seems much longer but when you found me in that patch of woodland, four weeks ago, noose around my neck, I was ready to go. But think of this last month? What we have achieved, who we have met. None of that would have been had you not saved me. Skree, Peter, my brother. It's always been just you and me. Death or glory. I love you. Don't leave me here on my own."
Peter: "It is not my day. See the breeze rippling through those leaves? The pair of buzzards there, circling overhead? That is life. It wants me here still. She's not done with me yet. When we bang up, as soon as we break open the veil, stand astride the portal. Keep one foot in life and one in death. Hold the opening for me. But if this construct starts to shimmer into nothing, or closes down, know that I'm done. Save yourself then. No heroics, eh? We both needn't die. The umbilical cord of ectoplasm linking us, naval to naval, cut it first sign the portal is crumbling. It's only death. Well all be going there one day. I'll be waiting for you. Besides, this last week, in my mind I've been running through some people I'll maybe meeting soon. I lost my mother young. It wasn't much later the reaper returned. Some demon cut through my generation like a scythe through wheat. Widd waits there, Animal, Martin, Turps, Richard, John; I've more mates over there than I have down here. I've not prayed since I was seven years old but Jesus has had me down on my knees every night, talking to them, asking them to help me do this. I heard no reply but, who knows? Do you remember last year when we were working with the 5-bromo-DMT? How we hit up four pipes a piece and were shot like cannon balls into Poseidons domain? I remember every second of our time there, the abundance of life on the sea bed, the beauty still can make me cry if I think of it too long, till I became entranced, forgot I was a land based mammal, I was close to drowning, felt myself going under. I woke with you pumping salt water from my lungs. You saved me that day, you dragged me back, I forgot myself, transfixed in wonder. So, death or glory, eh Lipton? Death of fucking glory! Let's do this fucking thing. For the Coven. For the planet. For the honour of saying we are Albions only shamans to have been beyond death!"
Lipton: "You owe me sixty quid for those lilac pills, don't forget. So I'm pulling you back here whether you like it or not, you tight cunt!"
Charlotte, Dianne and Stella had been sat around the circular table where the glass vials of human DMT sat alongside a small domed glass dish, a flask of sterile water, two 1ml barrel syringes, alcohol swabs and two tourniquets. They held hands linking the three as they repeated some lengthy incantation. In duration it lasted a full three minutes yet they'd repeated it in cycles, now for going close to an hour, building in volume. All three witches eyes firmly closed though trickles of sweat ran down all of their foreheads. Reaching conclusion they remained as a circle, hands held, eyes closed for a minute whilst their adrenalin lowered and they got their breath back.
Charlotte: "We've tried for you peter, that's as strong a hex as we know to sedate the spirits, stop them realising what we're up to for as long as possible. I can't guaruntee more than four or five minutes, but you may be lucky. Listen closely because once I blend the distillates of pineal DMT, some, at least will feel it. I'll blend it as swiftly as I can. Lipton? Your hit will be just short of a tenth of Peters. Let Dianne bang you up. She'll be going for the jugular, the big neck vein is nearest to the brain. Even your dose will take you out of this reality but if it's too strong just slump over the line. We'll be here for you to see you don't swallow your vomit or anything like that. And, as Peter says, if the portal fades, there's no heroics, right?"
Lipton: "Burst in to fucking heaven!"
Charlotte: "Peter, that's precisely what will happen. Your dose is massive. Stella will inject into your jugular simultaneously to Dianne on Lipton. The hit will be so strong you will be like a cannonball bursting through, no waiting room like when you pipe DMT. No one has done what you are about to do. Just try remember life here, who you are, what your objective is. I've written it down both your arms and hands. As you well know, the power of this psychedelic leap is unheralded. If Lipton yanks the umbilical then get back quick. Again, no heroics. It's taken a lot of hard work and twenty deaths to get here but we don't want another. We won't find a shaman as experienced as yourself without great difficulty."
Peter: "And I thought you liked me."
Charlotte: "I do." She blushed so fractionally, only Peter caught it but this more than anything gave him steel resolution. He would do this. He would see Charlotte again.
Charlotte: "By all accounts Boudicca is as hard a bitch as ever walked the Earth. I don't know how you're best to play it. Jesus reckons most there have forgotten their physical lives so don't get talking. How do you normally bring spirits back?"
Peter: "Closest I can describe it is I charge in before they've noticed you and bind with them, like inhaling or swallowing but not a physical binding. Drive my essence in like diving in to a lake then grip the bastards. Resist their struggling as though your crushing them in. When I'm back, get her out quick. Do you know shamanic extraction methodology?"
The Witches shook their heads. Jesus looked at the three girls.
Jesus: "One of you is going to have to carry her. If I can slap some sense in to Lipton he knows extraction better than me but I'll assist him in drawing her out of Peter. She'll try to stick inside him with all she's got but we have to get her out of him before she gets any tendrils of possession locked in. Whoever carries her shouldn't resist anything."
Charlotte :"Dianne has accepted to carry her. The large tank has eighteen octopuses. We're going to extract as much soul juice from them while you're over there, Peter. Me and Stella can hold out their selves for twenty minutes at least. Submerge Dianne in their tank. She will be deep in trance so Boudicca should be struggling like mad by then. The soul vacuum of each octopus should be too great a pull. In past demonology they can't hold their breath and find transmigration into the new flesh a relief. Stella, we're going to have to use a little stimulant ourselves. If any Boudicca is left in Peter we're going to have some serious gender issues in our shaman."
Peter: "A bit of Boudicca in me sounds quite exciting."
Charlotte: "Believe me, you'll have had your fill by then. There is little in the plan for contingency. If you or Dianne end up under possession I'm sure we can get her out. Peter, thank you for this. I can't express our gratitude. If you can't return I promise we will have a funeral party to make Bury Ditches look like afternoon tea. I might just come over there and get you back myself." She kissed Peters lips.
All readied themselves waiting for Peter to give the nod. Lipton and Peter sat back in reclining chairs, taking deep breaths. Stella alcoswabbed their jugular veins. Looking at Lipton, Peter nodded, "Death or glory. Let's fucking go!"
Charlotte took steady care in tipping each tiny amount of pineal gland distillate powder into the glass shallow dish before mixing it into a blend. Drawing up sterile water through the syringes accurately before spraying the powder. A little vitamin c added to ensure the human DMT breakdown. Then over a light flame she heated the mixture, stirring with a fine glass rod till the fluid was a consistent ruby colour. A fragment of filter dropped in settled to the bottom which she gently pressed down onto with the oval of the hyperdermic needle point. The larger axis of the needles eliptical tip cross the fibres of filter through which she drew up the fluid. Lipton syringe looked frighteningly low to Peter. Both sat back as the girls brought up the shamans jugulars, pierced, withdrew a plume of crimson ensuring they'd hit home, then simultaneously the Witches depressed the plungers, injecting the sacramental fluid into the shamans bloodstream.
Within seconds Peter felt himself boosted like a shell from a tank. Blasting clear through into another place altogether. A kaleidoscopic mandala twisted and folded, offering entry points that warped into shape, reached focus for a moment before warping out to a different proposition. By the third crystallisation Peter saw his chance and dived through. Racing at speed till its walled oft end raced toward him. Flexing up he saw similar doorways warping into focus and without choice nor thought he entered a parallel tube. Again a blockage zoomed up so Peter stepped through a side opening to a third light speed tube. Bursting through from tube to tube, Peter made progress till a last tunnel had no blockage, just an open end that spat him through to the dimension he sought. The blinding white light that excluded outer reality as completely as pitch darkness does in a mine. He found he had no gravitational baring, no up nor down, no spatial aspect of any kind. The purity of the light stripped him of form as his molecular structure underwent an explosion, the birth of a universe. Or an explosive dispersal of self to far corners of a ready existant one. Experienced enough in shamanic dimension leaping he knew to allow where he now was, time to reveal its nature. Or the inverse, fresh sensory testing to enable him to 'see' in new necessary ways. Three dimensional life animated by time is all most humans ever know but shamanic journeys had revealed some of the twenty seven dimensions Jesus had explained were accessible in the dimension he entered after his crucifixion. This did not mean conception nor sensory equipment would open them to Peter yet he was calm, safe in knowing they were around him. We can close our eyes yet still know we are in a cathedral. So it was for Peter. Loss of self had become familiar and the sensation of the particles of his being dispersed in an explosion outward always ran the risk of such severe ego loss his former life could make no sense. It had no relevance to where he now found himself. The version of self resonant to one bore no similarities to, nor often even an awareness of the others peculiarities of being. Yet particles now ranging across this dimension began to inform, to send data, a rudimentary self remained where sensations could combine to form meaning. The most primal and lost of presences felt close. "Mother?" Overwhelming warmth and love secured a point of baring. Not since he was a child had Peter seen his mother. She called his attention, impressed their reacquaintance was secure and knowledge of this certainty of his future allowed a focusing the job in hand. Such confusion felt as womb like as anything else he knew of to refer or compare it to. The awareness of being, yet knowing hisself hidden from something much greater, something that was inaccessible. Noises and sensations he felt through the muffled barrier. He remembered pop tunes he had known that must have played as his pregnant mother baked or sewed. Out of the whiteness light points and pattern could now be made out and from one of these coalescing light cathedral mists, Richard called, Peters best friend now eight years dead. Just as his mother had, again dismissing Peters impulsive sentimentality to urge him on. With a broad unveiling sweep, his lost friend provided direction. Pointing Peters attention toward a specific region. Albion, the mythological collective land of the souls of her children, steeped in essences, a construct of innumerable imaginations. Framed and contextualised by a myriad romantic notions. Searching this fog of fragmented dreams a hand reached out and gently took his. Someone, benevolent, anonymous, led him past innumerable distractions till he saw her. Queen Boudicca amongst her people. Peters mother kissed his forehead, this returned him into the knowledge of who he had been in life, sadness for what complex beauty he had discovered himself within accompanied his self recognition. This also calmed his fear and directed him. A secondary explosion of DMT washed through the the blood brain barrier and plunged him deeper into time where her memory, her scent, the love of the thousands with who she had fought, saw his particles undergo inversion becoming precise replicas of vacuum, an antiPeter re amassing and hitting light speed he speared toward Boudicca, entering her as Peter coalesced into the same space she occupied. He felt her. He was her. He wore her, and he felt her their, an angered replicant armour. Peter and Boudicca flickered in the shock of harmonic duality, a shared astral vehicular body. This strangeness lingered for a fractured moment before self contemplation was ripped away by a sudden tug of pain hit from the umbilical at his naval. Liptons strength was immense reflecting the need to make haste. The portal had begun to disband, their exit must be immediate. Peter ignored everything to follow the umbilical cord and fortune found Boudicca unresistant as they shot through the whiteness toward a green memory. The portal now left a solitary entry option through which Peter dived, warping access doorways now flickering and few were taken in blind selection as blockages increased. Speeding down a final corridor terror flooded him as ahead its passage now curved away. A portal warping below took a desperate violent kick to enter as the corridor he'd dropped from plucked itself free to return to its spiritual owner. Clear green light ahead came as a relief. The opening back that Lipton stood braced, sweat pouring from his brow, wedging it open as it resisted violently. Together the AntiPeter Boudicca duality was reborn into the harsh reality that re clustered, white light dying out. The organic digital fractals of DMT dispersing revealing the Covens cavern. Scared and in pain peter felt the woman he loved, his mother? No, not mother, forces tore her from him, ripping her away. A loss like love or death of a parent crippled him in emotional pain. Vomiting hands steered his head from drowning.
Lipton had shaken off the fractal mandala patterning that had helped him wedge the portal. A single thread was plucked away so he tugged the umbilical viciously, flipping the body of Peter still shouting insanities and clawing at his skin. Christ held him down with Charlottes help as his thrashing and ranting distracted Lipton. Still charged on the DMT Lipton sat heavily on his friends stomach to hold him steady then clasped his temples in both palms. Smashing his forehead on to Peters he ripped with all he could summon, screaming incantations, violently tearing Boudicca free as psychic negotiations passed between them. Dianne lay spread eagled, her scalp touching Peters, deeply sedated, mumbling but barely aware. Liptons aggression stripped what spirit Peter had returned with and forcibly rammed it deep into the naked recumbent witch.
The hard work done all took a breather. Peter was placed in the recovery position where he continued to vomit and rant. Lipton, also exhausted curled into a position, in deep pain, tears steaming from his eyes and white drool trickling from his lips. The shamans were fucked. Recovery wouldn't be as quick as the soul extraction. Yet the witches now had to leave them to suffer as, assisted by Christ they carried Dianne carefully to the octopus tank. The creatures semi soul vacuous alighted like a predator sensing blood as they brought the naked and sedated witch to their tank. Some began climbing out before realising they needn't bother sa their need was coming. Diane's nose and mouth were sealed off with a plastic mask with clear polythene tube, before Christ and Charlotte dropped her into the tank. Immediately her body was lost to sight as the octopuses covered every part of her, hungrily refilling themselves with as much Boudican soul sludge as they could. Their mass punctuated only by the tube that led to the surface so Dianne could breath.
Moving over to the wounded shamans Stella had the sensitivity to have prepared two syringes of diazepam knowing neither would be likely to stomach anything. Peter still shivering violently had begun to enter seizures. Finding a vein the witch kindly slipped the hypodermic in, withdrew a plume of blood before plunging home the sedative. Instantly his convulsions reduced to periodic quiverings. Moving over to Lipton she did the same for Lipton who Christ laid out in the recovery position. Here the shaman drifted into an induced sleep. Returning to Peter, now also unconscious she brought over a bowl of clean water. Charlotte, though exhausted herself took the flannel cloth from her Druid sister and cleaned away the vomit and sweat from Peters still shivering form. Jesus brought both men blankets to cover their sedated bodies. Together with Charlotte they covered the boys. Letting them recover unconscious. They would remain in this state for some time.
Christ moved over to the octopus tank. Stood with Charlotte they studied the activity within in a silent mesmerised curiosity. After twenty minutes, in slow succession, the creatures pulled sea from Dianne, finding quiet places to digest their fresh occupation.
Stella prepared a bed for Dianne then two more. Once Dianne was free of tentacles the girls and Jesus gathered her unconscious body from the tank. Tenderly laying her and towelling her down before covering her with sheets and duvet. Finally Stella took up her bed positioned at the opposite end from the bed she offered the son of God. Despite the highest references given by the slappers she didn't want any resurrection, nor, indeed, any erection, jus sling in behind her while she slept. After a little negotiation he too took an intravenous hit of diazepam and slipped under the covers.
Charlotte alone on her own checked around the studio. Wiping up vomit. Cleaning down surfaces. It would take a few years for these demonic flesh spirit hybrids to develop into a collection from which the goddess Boudicca would emerge. That story would have to wait. She thought of this shaman who had risked all to let this happen. She had grown very fond of him. Mixing with the drulads she'd never found one she liked enough to consider anything other than a brother. The straight folk were as unlikely suitors as the sheep on the hills. Maybe he could be something. She liked his bold plans for Rupert Bunsen and the super rich. She would watch him. In all likely how he'd turn out to be a knobhead like all the rest, but who knew? Maybe, just maybe. Finally she studied the sleeping figures. Peter still shivered so she slipped in under his bedding to warm him, spooning close behind him, holding him close, she too fell into sleep.
Psychic damage incurred by such shamanics can lead to months, years, lifetimes spent in disturbed units of mental hospitals. What condition anyone involved would wake up in none knew. There was no precedent, nothing from which to refer.


Rupert Bunsen sat in the living room of the largest residence on Bunsen Island. After the humiliating police treatment following his arrest in Shropshire he had made straight for London. Barely had he relaxed behind his office desk before he heard reports of two deaths at Bury Ditches Hill Fort party. He was beyond British naval waters in under two hours, his super yacht headed for the Caribbean. Given the circumstances under which he had purchased the marque and sound system, the police case against his organising the event were quite weak. What was of greater concern was the dead boy's parents campaign to find someone responsible for their sons deaths. Each year Glastonbury averages two deaths. With that number of people partying in one place sleeping in camping conditions reminiscent of disaster zones, the organisers accept a few casualties are the unfortunate consequence of making such vast sums of money. Michael Eavis has never been brought to account. Yet the press conference that all four parents gave caught the public imagination. If criminals were organising illegal events with no proper security or medical professionals on hand, they were making a lot of quick, untaxed earnings, surely they must have a duty of care? You could twist it and turn it how you want but whoever organised that party had murdered their children. Compensation figures were mentioned and dismissed as insulting. You can't put a price on a life, not less than seven figures all four parents agreed. Even to mention money insulted them yet practicalities of funeral costs etc were sadly acknowledged as the least that could be done. Police had not named the main organiser but rumour had it he was loaded. Through solidarity in this reasoning they had found something to hold on to. Their grief found an outlet in standing together against drug parties. It could have easily and just as mistakenly have been a united campaign to level all Hill Forts so confused, deep and without focus was their pain. It suited the police who helped to play down the fact that only the sleeping drug zopiclone and a trace of cannabis was found in the blood of the boys. Neither boy had, to their parents knowledge, used any drugs before. Outstanding throughout their schooling and both creatively blessed, the careers looked glorious for their exceptional boys. Both had been mediocre students in truth. Both had been smoking weed for over four years. Speed and ecstasy, for the last two. Gombo and Reeny, Simon Gompton and Paul Green had been mates since middle school. Not long after meeting their grades slowly fell as, together they found other activities, outside of school to focus on. An abandoned 125cc Yamaha found out on the waste ground where the new Wimpey estate was planned to be built soon became a project that changed their lives. They spent a summer restoring the wreck, borrowing tools and advice from a local mechanic. Resurrecting the heap had been liberating. Breathing life into a rusted write off. The magic that was possible if determination and collaboration refused to give in.
The lads grew bigger. The bikes grew bigger and both left school before taking their exams to work in garages. Wolverhampton had a small anarcho punk scene and both developed rudimentary guitar skills. Their tearful parents described the loss of the talented musicians, their lyrical genius raised in their memories the angry chants to poetry. The world had also lost two soon to be ground breaking engineers. These lives lost as collateral damage as the organisers and their drug pushing associates grew rich. Simon Gomptons mother broke into tears, her husband held her close. "These scum are no more than murderers! How many more lives like our boys will it take before these raves are taken seriously! As lads we all enjoy a time I youth when we stretch the boundaries. And I'm no different! I hold my hands up. As young Teds we'd get a little rough when we'd go to Brum, but never did we take drugs! Beer was enough! But the evil of this ecstasy the kids are being pushed into taking is a whole new dimension. Beer and cigs never hurt anyone."
At this point the police chief intervened to bring the televised spectacle to a controlled close. "We would like to appeal to anybody who may have heard anything, however small it may seem to come forward. There is a suggestion that drugs may have played only one part in these deaths, though autopsy reports show both were on drugs. At this stage the specifics of the drugs taken are of no relevance to the investigation. There was something vital missing from both victims of drug use. It seems that in their drug fuelled psychosis, the two lads decapitated each other before hiding the heads. Our officers have arrested and charged the organiser. The bodies were not found for forty eight hours after his release. He is instructed to make contact with me or his local police station to help with enquiries though he is not a suspect, I repeat not a suspect. So he need have no concerns regarding coming forward. His whereabouts are however currently unknown so any information from the public is welcome and can be made anonymously on our special grassline 021275008900. There is a reward for information should this lead to a conviction. Further, 'Parents against Drugs', a group formed from parents whose children have been affected by drugs, are also offering cash incentives to any who has information on the drug pushers involved. Again anonymity is assured for grasses whose brave snitching can often lead to them being battered or incrementally manipulated by their operatives until they have support from neither side. Treated by their handlers as weak and disloyal, a reflection on the feelings of those who they grass up. Operating two faces, lying and smiling to those whose trust they broke whilst hoping to please a copper whose only aim is to use their duplicitous nature, can be a hard carry. Indeed, suicide is a sad but common end for these invaluable and unrespected two faced heroes. Police work, as you know is 75% informants, 20% luck and a lot of hard work. In our war against drugs the police will stop at nothing to bring both suppliers taking advantage of prohibition and also on users who's intent to enjoy themselves in ways that society on the whole finds weird, provides the market. As Mr Gompton said, ciggies and booze are harmless pleasures that all can share. These are enough for the linear mind. Other stuff maybe statistically safe but they are weird. Their menacing properties attract the crusty, the stretch head and the expando brain. You tube footage of Bury Ditches Hill Fort party shows thousands dancing together in a shared empathic joy. Don't allow seeing such joy fool you into the hidden dark side. We are studying such footage and will be prosecuting those we identify for possession with intent to enjoy. Last year over twelve people died from ecstasy alone, over two hundred on other drugs, none died on lysergamides or, indeed tryptamines. Many, however, had transcendent, numinous, mystical and first hand religious experiences. Experiences we aim to stamp out! Achieving this by classifying these substances alongside crack and heroin. Two drugs that ruin lives. Indeed supply of LSD invariably incurs sentences much greater than supply of heroin and crack. No one wants their children experiencing these head states. By denial of the existence of any spiritual dimension to life, such experiences fall into the category of serious mental illnesses. Through this two pronged approach, by draconian sentencing for their supply and the subjugation of the mystical experience through psychiatric professionals we are able to keep this danger contained."
D I Briggs had drifted off target. He had hit the main points though. Try get Rupert Bunsen to hand himself in expecting no trouble. Blame the murders on drug use. Tempt the grass types with money. Allow the parents to try elevate any compensation claims should they be able to hold Bunsen accountable. Briggs hadn't liked the man. A life spent keeping his type safe. Never being thanked more than a bus conductor. Meeting the man had affected Briggs. Class had never upset him. He knew his station. Police are on the whole, upper working class. Turning against their own kind to accept pay levels that ought to find them stepping over the kids they grew up around. The thatcher years had pitched police against miner. But class can no more be hidden than colour of skin. They never found middle class acceptance. They married other coppers. Socialised with other coppers. Some were of more noble creed. Vocationally drawn to right wrongs. Others were drawn to adventure, tearing down motorways to arrive first at some grisly accident. Briggs had a little of each. He hoped to make a better world, yet Indeed, school bullying had begun his journey, to be in the toughest gang. To be the bully, never again the bulied. But Bunsen reminded him of all the times he'd pulled over a drunk ex public school boy, thinking his posh car may be driven by a criminal or a black, only to have to apologise to one of his betters, knowing their reach in the craft lay beyond his. Freemasonry meant he had to let certain people go. When he first was asked his pride in being accepted into the secret social club that ran society thrilled him. Over the years it became clear the inclusion of police ensured the higher craft were beyond the law. Necessary members but unloved. Yew Tree had undermined the old ways. Saville died before the unassailable began to be prosecuted. Beyond this, the unspoken hierarchy. Plebs. To their betters they would always be plebs. The way he'd been spoken down to despite having been, theoretically in the position of power. The socially aspirant lower middle class are in transition. Escaping their parents shameful habits of poor taste and ignorance. Hiding their vowels. A hunger to know the names, the labels, the correct styles that marked inclusion, yet never quite sure. Prone to the embarrassing fau pas. Unable to escape submission to the superior. The journey never completed, their shameful origins denied, their aspirations never quite reached. Despite himself he had found himself calling Bunsen 'sir'. Providing a glass of water when asked. He hated the man he had become. Subservient. Rupert Bunsen merely crystallised this self disgust. More crime takes place in poor areas, poor on poor, black on black. This was barely recorded. Reporting such crimes received no response. The police role is to deliver a sense of security to those above property owning level. Those without property have nothing to protect. Only themselves, and once damaged they can't be returned. To preserve the status quo. Changing culture may have seen better educated blacks now come under the umbrella. He'd rejected his parents, his culture, his mates, to keep these arrogant and secure strangers safe. And they thought him pathetic for doing so. He would catch Bunsen. A final act. He no longer cared for justice for the boy's parents. He hardly cared about himself. Putting away this snob would return him. The person he had hoped to become. Why should two ordinary lads, lads like he'd grown up with, just get killed, why could their deaths go unresolved, just because the organiser of an illegal party incurred fewer overheads in providing no security? After the hill top battle, after the failure of his team, after a stage managed piece of theatre for the media, Briggs felt every value he had clung to had been debased. He had failed as a man. Yet he retained a final chance. Ignore his superiors. Stand tall and bring down Bunsen. Swearing this personal oath Briggs lost all fear, stress, worry. If he failed, he would die in trying.


Rupert would have to give Eavis a call. It had been years since he'd seen the ill chosen facial haired rustic bumpkin. They'd orbited the same social circuit at one time. Longleat had been a never ending party for a time in the late sixties. Arrabella Churchill, Peter Gabriel, even Mike Oldpastures before their collaboration in marketing the Tuberous Bellend. He could almost smell the incense, the eastern oils the girls used as repulsive perfume, no doubt in defence against the free love ethos the boys had read about over in Berkley, Woodstock, and tried induct their females in. Emerging from fifties prudery their parents had adopted in a Victorian revival that omitted the teenager, their older sisters married mid twenties as virgins. Emerging also from girls only schools, their social class had been seperated throughout schooling, playing as prepubescent children only reblending in their late teens. The gender understanding was negligible in direct reverse balance to the yearning sexual desperation. They wore their hair long, eastern clothing, kaftans, beads and flowers. Frigid straights, collaborators with the man, many were the insults and psychological belittling of girls unprepared for the Free Love. Cripes! Lord Bath had a hundred odd wifelets! Bunsen chuckled at the fond memories of their sexual manipulation. Eavis was just the fellow. Two or three deaths at Glastonbury each year barely got a mention. One had to marvel at the elegance of the deception. A celebration of motor travel, three days of land destruction, stealing the Travellers idea, cloaked in the moral certitude of the day; CND, greenpeace, sold at exclusive ticket prices ensuring only the comfortably off could attend. A fence inspired by the Berlin Wall. And the rich punters get shanty town treatment. Literally allocated puddles feet deep, to camp in. Surprised there weren't more deaths. Clearly Eavis shared Bunsens moral outlook. I bet he'd like an Ark ticket, the old crook! Thought Rupert. Near certainty. Two calls and he had the farmers mobile number. Answer phone. Milking the cows, no doubt. Walking to the vast window frontage he looked down on the harbour, the lines of yachts, the camouflage that hid his greatest work. Humanity's greatest work.
His mobile buzzed alive. Eavis returning his call, no doubt, eager to catch up, offer his old friend the stars.
Bunsen: "Michael, my old chum! Bunsen here! Long time no speak though I've marvelled from afar at the masterful and elegant deception you've developed over the years. You urinate from such a height upon their heads whilst your meteorological rain reports see their eyes blessed with your rural Avalonion baptism!"
Briggs: "Rupert Bunsen? This is DI Briggs from South Shropshire Police. I have a number of questions for you following our last interview. Two bodies were discovered during the clear up operation following Bury Ditches Hill Fort party that you have been charged with organising. Are you able to report to a Police station of mutual convenience in the next twenty four hours? Attending voluntarily would be in your legal interests however I have sufficient information to authorise your arrest should you choose to be uncooperative."
Bunsen thought quickly. Telephone connection for much longer would clarify he wasn't in London, yet his whereabouts would be deducted swiftly even by a simple irritant like Briggs. Best show no concern. If the British government itself were to try bring him back it would take at least a month. Fuck! Should have checked the phones screen, Eavis advice would have been handy to have. Still, if he couldn't trick a monkey like Briggs he really had lost his touch.
Bunsen: "Ah! The little rural uniform fellow. The line is crackle some. Your rustic connection no doubt. Railway guard weren't you? Sorry! Got it! Bobby, right?"
Briggs: "The line is quite clear. Though I see there is no triangulation suggesting you aren't in London, as I hoped. Will you be able to report to a British Police Station within twenty four hours?"
Bunsen: "I'm unlikely to be in England for several weeks, can I help you in any other way? I assumed the court dates over your mistaken and slanderous charges over the countryside party you failed to bring under control, should you fail to be dismissed for gross incompetence by connections of mine for whom you are an obscure, misguided underling, would be the next time my legal team would have any contact with you. Perhaps I can help? 'What Tractor' may be more helpful."
Briggs: "There maybe further charges, Mr Bunsen. If the courts find you legally responsible for the party, there are two possibilities. A judge may dictate you had a duty of care for your guests. By not providing either security nor medical services it may be you are tried in connection with the two deaths. However, more likely is the families bringing a private case against you. Do you wish to say anything at this stage?"
Bunsen: "Mr Biggs! It appears that you have called not simply to interview me over some terribly sad deaths that happened within a mile of where I was amongst five thousand others. Indeed I would like to express my deepest sympathies with the families and their unfortunate dependence on an incompetent village Bobby to investigate these awful losses. Rather than doing his job he chooses to pester me, star struck by my fame and wealth.
As for you, Briggs. Expect to hear very soon from your superiors over your wild allegations. I will not be taking any legal steps against you as yet as I feel certain my connections within your organisation will be reallocating you to a position more suited to your skills. The public bemoan the demise of beet bobbies. Clearly budget cuts may not stretch to pairs, like In the old days, but many inner city areas could benefit by your solitary patrol. Brixton, Tottenham, Hackney, Leeds has Chapeltown, Gipton, Manchesters Hume, Moss Side, most of our major cities have such opportunities. Perhaps Northern Ireland where there remains animosity despite the peace process. I could see you posted to keep an eye on IRA funerals, maybe, your bravery could find the more progressive few seeing beyond the uniform, then again, they may just see an unforgivable insult. Or you could choose to never think of me again and look for the killers, like a good little copper, eh?"
Bored of this silly oink, Rupert hung up. Clueless idiot! Had he no idea what Bunsen could do? Yet something had changed in the coppers manner. Their interactions following his arrest had complied to the familiar servile respect those of Ruperts birth expected. Steering clear of names, always using sir, providing telephones, water, generally fulfilling their service roll to keep their betters happy. This interaction contained impudence, insolence, threat almost. The smoothly removing of misunderstandings when the upper echelons found accidental entwinement with the criminal classes could usually relied upon. Many a rich society girl had played amongst the bad boys but if ever the doors burst in, even if they'd been manipulated into buying the cocaine heaped on the table, the police could always be relied upon to pluck the poor thing free, perhaps sneaking a little personal to help the criminal out. Few will argue to the judge they had three ounces, not just the one. But they'd get the bad guys. Briggs sounded on a mission. As though he'd abandoned his duty to the rich and stable, in pursuit of technicalities. As though he sought not to preserve the status quo, but to ignore the big picture. The kind of chap who'd refuse logic, press the charges on the society girl due to technical ownership of the cocaine. Briggs wasn't police, he was a madman! This private case of the boys families. Worth his concern?
Flipping open the Mac book Rupert googled the case. Several websites sprung up. Opening the official families one was horrific. The you tube press conference had two million views. Forum threads had thousands making financial commitments. This site had legal advice as no direct reference to Bunsen was made though the allusions were clear.
Other sites, set up by angry outsiders were less restrained. Some were calling for Rupert Bunsen to be charged with man slaughter. Public enquiries. Politicians, largely from the wreck less Corbinite left openly called for Bunsen to explain how an illegal event, all but proven to be the work of his organisation, leaked copies of the crude documents he'd signed with Anthone under G Mans advice revealed this was an event using Bunsen owned Marque and sound system. Politicians were clear, no one is saying Bunsen fed these youths drugs and be headed them unaided, far from it. Yet his event, organised without respect for law, had led to these deaths.
There were anarchist sites that weren't worth reading. Yet curious Rupert peeped. Photoshop graphics showed Bunsen grinning out, a severed head in each hand. One final creation had Bunsen animated in endless repetition, kicking human heads like rugby balls from a hill top.
This had gone viral. A hideous misrepresentation of the truth. Then he saw it. The footage began shaky but clarified. Only up on you tube eight hours yet a million and a half views saw G Man moving first, his gold chain swaying, till he slips out of picture to reveal clearly Rupert Bunsen, Savile row suited, leading in a naked cave creature covered in shit, by a neck manacle and chain, Rupert grinning at his broken reduction of a man. It looked evil.
Slamming closed the laptop Rupert had seen enough to know this would stick. Blamed. And why? Flipping open the laptop Bunsen searched to see if the sales figures G Man predicted from the DJ sets could soothe this wound. The official full Tuberous Bellend drum and bass remix had sold quickly at first, then plummeted. From then sales grew like a tree. Some branches now had vastly outgrown the trunk. Tuberous Bellend was undoubtedly peaking in popularity yet the crude remixes had swiftly been superseded with far greater works. The Tuberous Bellend decapitation overdub was selling far faster. Darker blends of video works that synchronous visuals articulated strange directions, journeys of sounds plucked, sampled and looped that soundtracked imagery of the chained man led by Ruperts grin. The highest definition footage had been taken by someone laid on the floor as the trio entered. G Man s comic entry saw him towering above, gold chain swaying before he steps aside, here first the crabbed scuttle of the cave man, unaware of the camera his fear shows like a wild animal, matted dreads swing as he tries to grasp his situation, fingernails fill the screen as realisation hits him that someone is filming. Curled claws four inches in length cross the screen then scuttling away the caked dried excrement stuck fast to his skinny form horrifying the viewer before the lens pans up. The neck brace rattles as Olpastures tries to run free, chain snaps taught preventing escape. Finally the upward sweep follows the chain over expensive fabric, a tie, a beard then Rupert grins demonically down. His cruelty becomes theatrical as he rears in the terrified creature. A chance three minute film carrying more power than any directorial planning could achieve. This in raw you tube form had been clipped and energised. Numerous versions explored in hi def slo mo, the yanked chain, the grotesque finger nails, the eyes in terror, the cloth slipping unchecked from the mans over sized genitals revealing malformed potato like bellend, root veg still speckled with soil, tuberous helmet.
Desperate now Bunsen checked sales. The work had been stolen and improved. His own theft returned to him a hundred fold. Tuberous Bellend two heads of grime was a fast selling complication of several top names, one head took a smooth edged journey as artists span their take across its restructured beats, two head took a deeper journey, Grimes harder edge that took the rural event into the urban jungle of myth. Further garage versions took a two step stripped back acoustic angle. Deep trance Tuberous Bellend lose your head, parts one and two. Speed Garage Bellend headless mix reignited a largely forgotten genre.
Further in were new hybrids, Anarcho Punk Tuberous Bellend severed heads of bankers. Darker industrial versions sounded like a horror factory of Tuberous Bellend heavy steel works, grunted vocals listing the instrument like Oldpastures listed on his original masterwork. Folk singers had written ballads of the chained man. Oldpastures had undergone complete deification. His back catalogue was selling to new generations. The volume of spin off work was immense.
The story simple. A parable that caught the public mood. A callous ogre of greed beyond human imagination had driven an angelic vulnerable artist to a broken animal, the monster had entered a place of shared joy and displayed his captor with evil glee. Yet the artists music had destroyed the evil ones hold and freed the chained man as a wave of beauty spread. As if in anger at the triumph of good over bad, a hideous discovery was made. Two boys had been beheaded. Only one suspect could be so cruel. The architect of this horror was now free. But his images were global icons.
The truth no longer mattered. Bunsen boiled, pacing his deck, thinking of some way out. His mobile brought him round. Checking this time. Eavis! Thank god!
Rupert: "Oh Michael! Have you seen? An hour ago I was content. Calling you to offer you a chance of a lifetime, and ask a little advice. Then I checked out the Internet!"
Eavis: "Remain calm! These people mean nothing. Picture your land. A green Eden. Then imagine a fifty foot high steel fence all the way around. Are you following? A walled garden. A city where only the civilised are admitted. You own a police force, private security to ensure no low life enters. Relax. Are you feeling me, Rupert?"
Rupert: "Michael, thank you. My imagination took hold. It's been a while since those hippy days, eh? But I've admired your work. Observing the lower orders, selecting their gems, plucking them free of context. The elegant move of taking in Stonehenge refugees. This legitimised a festival. So what if it's not exactly solstice. Nor at the nations temple. These are banned. But for a reasonable fee join us. The acts grew bigger, the CND bollocks grew less. The travellers were turned away once their purpose was served. Their religious festival, now stripped of the mystical, restrictive price cut out the riff raff. Higher prices. Higher fences. No traveller would live in such squalor but a week in a tent in a puddle could be sold to guardian readers. I loved to see you on the news as rain fell, how the Glastonbury spirit was enhanced by hardship. Then they all drove home. Genius! You truly made the middle class liberals buy mud and feel they'd got their money's worth."
Michael: "Rupert, it's refreshing to speak to a man like yourself. I've taken others culture, stripped its dignity and made millions. A few bob to Africa, a fiver to Greenpeace. A rainbow hat, a smile. No one seems to notice the destruction, pollution, waste it uses up."
Rupert: "Indeed! Nor the annual deaths. I was most curious on how you spin that one?"
Michael: "How can I be expected to ensure every single person behaves responsibly? Some idiots will always drink my cider and drown in the vast puddles. With such basic toilets the odd disabled type is going to fall in. And drugs! Police bust as many as they can so mostly Glastonbury is used as a place to offload all the shite. In a city or town you can't get away selling bad shit for long without being found out. So, dealers from all cities who buy a duff batch of poison pills, shit coke, any crap batch of drugs all gets saved up and brought to the biggest market for drugs with the least knowledgeable or discerning customers. Selling to strangers the dealers can get their money back. Some travel from Germany, France , Spain with shit batches. Mostly they're just weak or twisted. Fake ecstasy that makes you go mental. But the odd poisonous batch gets in. Glastonbury is world famous as the clearing ground for crap drugs. If you ever come, here's my advice. Bring your own. Or travellers. They're banned but some always get in. They're the sole source of decent gear. Without them were fucked. So, when the clear ups underway I clear off till the bodies have been discovered. Then blame others. It's the size of Bath. I tell people, look at the logistics. If a city the size of Bath all took the combined mass of dodgy otherwise unsaleable drugs, what do you expect? I don't give a toss, Rupert. If I'm prepared to sell you a bed in a puddle of mud, and you are daft enough to pay, do you think I care what happens? Of course someone will die! Give Bear Grills enough shit pills and lay him in a puddle and there's one likely result."
Rupert: "Did you hear about my misfortune? Great party, bought the recordings then some upstart copper pins the whole deal on me. I could cope with that but they found two bodies. Nothing to do with me but the internet has woven it together. How do I clean that mess up?"
Eavis: "Ride it out. Show no concern as that denotes responsibility, I'm close to a hundred festival deaths, myself. But I have a fortune. Or disappear!"
Rupert: "No ones let slip my project, have they?"
Eavis: "What project? Disappear to Columbia to study powders for a year, that sort of thing. Amazonian timber exploitation. Something quiet, eh?"
Rupert: "Fuck them all! I'm bringing it forward. I was hoping to bleed off a little more, see a little more of the environmental change, two years I'd said. But now? Four weeks and we fly!"
Eavis: "What's your game, Bunsen! I'd caught a sniff. I haven't heard details but I'm in certain circles. We've creamed off the money. Most of it is owned by only a hundred people. We've achieved that but what now? We can gate off communities, islands like yours I guess, but soon they're going to click."
Rupert: "Exactly! What I am going to offer you, should you choose to hear, is non refusable. Once I tell you either you join us or I have duty to the others involved. Some would say a Devils deal but I prefer to see ourselves as stepping up to godliness. Do you want to hear? I understand if not."
Eavis thought things over. He was old. His daughter now ran Glastonbury mainly. All the greenpeace rubbish had failed. The planet was done. Or entering a period of change. He'd scammed the lot and told them it was for their good. Scum. Ruperts elite were his type.
Eavis: "Ok! I'm in. Our elite few, we've taken the lot. Harvested the Earth. What's your idea, Bunsen? You sneaky chap, you!"
Rupert: "We have successfully gathered most of the earths wealth between our small elite number. This is the culmination of the western project. Which in itself concludes evolution. History led to our small number. You must know of my space tourism? Well, this served to test out technologies. Beneath Bunsen Island I have gathered the planets greatest scientific minds unhindered by emotion or ethics. CERN sapped a few but together, through investors like you might choose to be, we have created the pinnacle of human technology. Some see divine planning, others the natural order. Whatever, having used up the Earths resources we have a depleted husk. It served its function. The vehicle now completed is beyond anything previously dreamed up or made. The technicalities will go over your head. But we are leaving this used up old planet behind. We are the seeds of humanities next step. The planets elite. We are leaving to populate a new, Virgin Eden. As the distillation or refinement of life on Earth, we are the chosen. The party is over now, the game is done. The winners now step onward. Michael? Are you coming?"
Eavis: "The concept is brilliant! Of course I would love to, yet my daughter, the farm. In two years, perhaps I could have, but now?"
Rupert felt the refusal disheartening. He took no pleasure in what he must do. A second chance he'd never before offered but he wasn't certain Chivers was in position yet
Rupert: "Are you certain? This isn't something to allow sentiment or emotion affect. This is humanity's greatest leap! Michael, please join us?"
Chivers had arrived three hours earlier in chance of such a refusal. Bracing himself he spoke in latin to ready himself. Shuffling through the lines of Friesians, stood, submissive, being electronically milked. Just as Eavis had milked his clients. Michael felt someone near but saw no one around. Just his beloved cattle.
Eavis: "You see, I am honoured to be offered even, and of course I shan't say a dicky bird. But I like this farm. It's my life." Chivers was now close enough for Eavis to smell. Michael realised now, he just hadn't guessed Rupert could have a man here prior to their chat. This kind of forethought was their difference. "There is nothing I can say, nor offer, is there?"
This was more a statement of acceptance than a question. "Quickly, I ask that, please."
Rupert: "Of course, Michael. I am disappointed and sorry. And thank you for the advice over the dead bodies. Goodbye, my friend,"
Two bullets in swift succession to the brain saw the farmer crumble. Chivers looked at the odd tacheless beard as the Crimson puddle spread. He'd never liked the cunt. The facial hair marked him as a pretentious twat.





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