The zombies have invaded the house; the living people in Gadsen Manor have destroyed the staircase, but it's only a matter of time before the dead rise up to take their vengeance. Can Chris and Jody work out who the murderer is before the zombies kill them all? As the clock ticks, they gather in the drawing room to see if they can save their own lives.
Cast[]
Transcript[]
SHEILA: It’s started raining.
KEITH: Maybe that’ll drive the zoms away.
MANISHA: If they don’t notice that both their arms have fallen off, I don’t think they care about rain, Keith. At least it’s safe up here.
GERI: They’ll climb up on each other.
JODY MARSH: How do you mean, Geri?
GERI: Well, one of them will fall, the others will trample it. Eventually, the pile will be big enough that they’ll reach the upper floor of the house. I’ve seen it happen. [sighs] I miss Lisa and the boys. I should never have come.
MANISHA: What else are we going to do? There’s nothing on telly.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Okay. I suppose you’re all wondering why I’ve called you here today.
KEITH: We’re not wondering though, are we? We can pretend.
CHRIS MCSHELL: It’s been a most perplexing case. Why would someone commit murder in the middle of the apocalypse? No one hopes to inherit money anymore, and there are very few ways to benefit from a death.
One clear answer suggested itself: an event in the past so terrible that vengeance had to be taken, and the person who took revenge wanted it to be them alone who did it. Our murderer wanted to kill Callum themselves. Nothing else would do.
JODY MARSH: There’s no shortage of people Callum had pissed off, though.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Pissed off, yes, but incensed to the point of murder? Callum’s stories weren’t in the business of ruining lives, just mocking them. Even with every story of his that you could remember, Manisha, I couldn’t find one that would incite this sort of hatred.
KEITH: I mean, in a way, he did me the power of good. I’d never have said this to him, but after there were all those pictures of me in the paper hitting that bloke, I started being offered all these tough guy roles.
GERI: Okay, well, Callum’s gossip columns probably didn’t get him killed. So what did?
CHRIS MCSHELL: For a while, I thought it must be his personal life. We know he slept with Manisha’s wife.
MANISHA: I didn’t care. Well, not really.
GERI: And as they said, if Manisha or Keith wanted to kill Callum, there was no need to wait until they were holed up in a house with a group of strangers.
CHRIS MCSHELL: They weren’t all strangers. Rose turned out to be Callum’s sister, so we all naturally thought she must have been the murderer.
SHEILA: Well, we all know she wasn’t now. May she rest in peace.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Well, that was odd, too. She seemed to go willingly to her death, as if she knew what the grievance was, or suspected it. We have the murder on tape. Listen to this again:
[recorder clicks]
ROSE: I see, yeah. What have you got there? [paper rustles] Ah. [laughs] Yeah, that’s what I thought. You’ve got the same way of moving she had.
[recorder clicks]
CHRIS MCSHELL: Did you all hear that?
MANISHA: It sounded like…
KEITH: Someone unfolding some paper. Well, that doesn’t get us very far, does it? We can’t read the paper through a tape recording.
CHRIS MCSHELL: I have an idea what it might be. We have come across some paper that someone tried to get rid of.
JODY MARSH: Oh, oh, that scrapbook we found burned in the boiler!
GERI: So it was about one of Callum’s stories.
CHRIS MCSHELL: But not his gossip column. The page torn out of the book was from very early on in that scrapbook.
MANISHA: But that’s from when he was working on really serious journalism. Exposing injustice, going after big corporations like Pandora Haze -
CHRIS MCSHELL: Like Pandora Haze, whose technological country retreat we’re sitting in right now. You were right, Sheila, when you raised the fireproof doors downstairs. It is a Pandora Haze property. I suspect that’s why it became irresistible to our murderer as a place to enact some poetic justice.
MANISHA: But Callum didn’t hurt anyone with that story about Pandora Haze. He didn’t even get the top brass in charge of the company. They poisoned thousands of people and even after everything he did, almost no one went to jail for it.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Hold that thought for a moment. I suspect that’s the motive, but we need to discuss means and opportunity.
SHEILA: Well, we all know what the means was, love. Even I know, and I wasn’t here. Callum was killed by the Prof’s poison.
GERI: The Prof who’s conveniently scarpered. I mean, it really seems like it was him, Chris!
CHRIS MCSHELL: Let’s go over all the evidence before we jump to conclusions.
SHEILA: Rose was strangled, no mystery there. Any of you could have grabbed the poison or the wire.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Do you remember, just before Callum died, the doorbell rang.
KEITH: No, wait… oh yeah! That was weird. I mean, there must have been one of the zombies pressing on it.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Zombies hadn’t gotten through the fence yet.
MANISHA: Short circuit?
CHRIS MCSHELL: Hmm, we seem to have it working perfectly now. Jody, press that button on the remote control.
[doorbell rings, zombies groan]
GERI: Ugh, that’s maddened the zombies. Great.
MANISHA: But the control panels weren’t working when we arrived, and we all got here together, or almost together. You’d have to be a tech genius to get that working in the few minutes before dinner.
CHRIS MCSHELL: To do it in a few minutes, yes. But remember, someone had been listening to Callum’s messages.
MANISHA: Oh God.
GERI: Someone heard all his plans.
CHRIS MCSHELL: We all seemed to arrive together, and we seemed to pick it by chance, but we found that note Rose had made of which day to get here. So Callum knew he was coming. So anyone who was intercepting his phone messages could have known where he was heading.
JODY MARSH: You mean one of us got here first?
CHRIS MCSHELL: That’s exactly what I mean. Someone got here first, set up the house, and then pretended to arrive with the rest of us, and looked at that way around, everything’s different.
[door collapses]
GERI: That’s the last door down on the ground floor. The zombies are through.
SHEILA: So, get to the point, Chris. Which of you do you think it was? Not Callum or Rose. Not Manisha and not Keith, by your logic. And we all agree it couldn’t have been you or Jody. By my reckoning, that leaves me, Geri, and the Prof.
KEITH: Not you, love. You were in that tree house when Callum died. We all saw you go up there.
MANISHA: Must be the Prof. Why else would he have run off?
CHRIS MCSHELL: And yet, it would have been a little clumsy to announce to use all that he was carrying poison and then use that very poison to kill Callum.
GERI: [laughs] Oh, right. All eyes in the room turn to me. Well, I didn’t kill him!
MANISHA: My money’s still on the Prof, Geri. Chris, you say that the murderer knew the house well. It had to be the Prof, then. He knew a secret way to get out of here. Why would he plan to come here and get trapped?
CHRIS MCSHELL: That’s a very good question, Manisha. If it wasn’t the Prof, then someone’s playing a very dangerous game. What stakes could possibly be that high?
KEITH: I thought you said. Revenge.
CHRIS MCSHELL: But remember, something was stolen from Callum’s body.
JODY MARSH: That silver engraved bangle he was wearing! Someone nicked it!
CHRIS MCSHELL: Yes. I rather suspect that if the thief went to all this trouble to get that bracelet, they’d keep it close at hand. Everyone, empty your pockets and bags. If I’m right, someone in this room has the bangle stolen from Callum’s corpse.
[bags unzip, belongings rustle]
JODY MARSH: Look. My bag’s all supplies. Food, and rope, and matches, and candles, and… Doctor Detector comics.
MANISHA: Keith, are you still walking around carrying foundation?
KEITH: It’s just really hard to find one that matches my skin tone, all right?
SHEILA: Mine’s just changes of clothes.
GERI: Ugh, fine. I’ve got the armlet. Here it is. I still didn’t kill him!
KEITH: Geri! Well, how can you expect us to believe that you didn’t kill him if you stole from him?
GERI: I don’t really expect it.
KEITH: So you did kill him!
GERI: [sighs] No. No, I didn’t. Callum was someone we – someone I – trusted.
MANISHA: So what is that weird arm cuff anyway? Looks old.
GERI: I can’t tell you that. Sorry. Look, believe me when I tell you that your lives could be at risk if I did.
JODY MARSH: Our lives are already at risk. Zombie apocalypse?
GERI: [sighs] I’m sorry! I know how it looks. Look, please don’t throw me to the zombie hordes, but I didn’t kill him, and I can’t tell you what this is!
CHRIS MCSHELL: But it’s because of you that we’re here, isn’t it?
GERI: [laughs] Yeah, I suppose in a way, it is. All right, I can tell you this much without putting you in danger: Callum suggested we meet here and I agreed. He wanted to look for information that might clear someone he’d written a story about, he said.
We’ve – I’ve – been working on something since before the apocalypse. One of my associates got hold of this armlet and gave it to Callum to give to me. This meetings been arranged since, uh, the day before the apocalypse.
MANISHA: He was always very insistent we keep heading in this direction.
CHRIS MCSHELL: So Geri, you and Callum arranged to meet here. He brought Keith and Manisha, and told Rose. Did you tell Sheila and the Prof to come with you?
GERI: Well yeah, I… wait a minute. I knew I was heading here, but I kept quiet about it. The four of us hid in that barn. Someone said there was a house here and we should make a break for it.
SHEILA: It was Rose who said it.
GERI: No, it wasn’t.
SHEILA: I think it was, my love.
GERI: No, it wasn’t. It was you, Sheila. You told us to come here!
CHRIS MCSHELL: When you arrived, chased by zombies, you were just too slow, Sheila. We all saw you take shelter up in the tree house. That’s where you were when Callum was murdered. You had a perfect alibi.
SHEILA: You can’t call me a murderer because my alibi’s too perfect!
CHRIS MCSHELL: Consider this: the Prof found a secret way out of this house, so there must be a way in. Do you remember, Manisha, you couldn’t quite see the Prof because the way he left the house -
MANISHA: - was perfectly in line with the tree house!
KEITH: I don’t get it.
JODY MARSH: Secret passage! There’s a secret passage leading out of the house!
CHRIS MCSHELL: Through the tree house. That tree’s a fake. That’s why it still has its leaves so late in the year.
GERI: That’s why the Prof was pulling up all the floorboards downstairs! He was looking for a secret passage!
CHRIS MCSHELL: And he found it, and he used it to escape, just as you used it to sneak into the kitchen and dose Callum’s food while we were all answering the door after you’d made the bell ring!
KEITH: Everything you’ve said just makes the Prof look more guilty! His poison, his passage. He knew this place was Pandora Haze. Maybe he was tied up in all this.
CHRIS MCSHELL: But the Prof had no reason to hate Callum, as far as I can tell.
KEITH: Nor does Sheila!
CHRIS MCSHELL: You know, Sheila, I did think it was odd that you arrived when you did – just as we discovered Callum’s laptop, and just before it broke.
SHEILA: I didn’t know that.
CHRIS MCSHELL: You worked out how to use those control panels very quickly when we needed to raise the fire doors. Perhaps because you were already familiar with them? It occurred to me as soon as we saw the technology in this house that there might be a way to listen in on conversations in other rooms, and I wondered if you wanted to stop us finding out what was on that laptop. Perhaps that early story Callum worked on about Pandora Haze itself?
JODY MARSH: Oh! Was that the story that was torn out of the scrapbook?
CHRIS MCSHELL: Yes, I think so. Interesting, that. Why not just burn the whole thing? Perhaps because there was a picture on one of the pages that you couldn’t bear to destroy.
SHEILA: I don’t know what you mean.
CHRIS MCSHELL: When we asked you if you had children, Sheila, you hesitated, then said no, no, definitely not. People who don’t have kids are usually pretty sure about it. But then, you’d seen that TV show Jody liked – Doctor Detector. It’s unusual for an adult with no children to have a working knowledge of recent kid’s TV.
KEITH: She said she didn’t have kids, she doesn’t have kids!
CHRIS MCSHELL: Did you take a picture from that scrapbook, Sheila? Was it a picture of your child? Was their name Billie?
KEITH: You don’t have to say anything.
CHRIS MCSHELL: You don’t have to, but we’ve probably got another two, three hours of life left. If I’m right, you’ve done what you set out to do, and for whatever reason, you hadn’t escaped by the route the Prof found. Do you want to die denying Billie’s life?
GERI: Chris… might you -
SHEILA: Billie was my daughter. Look, I’ve got her picture in my bra.
[paper rustles]
JODY MARSH: It’s a newspaper article, Chris. The headline is, “Pandora Haze Murderer Found Dead.”
SHEILA: She was such a sweet girl. Always wanted to do the right thing. She didn’t deserve any of the things that happened to her.
CHRIS MCSHELL: No. No, I expect she didn’t.
MANISHA: Sheila, are you saying that you did it? You killed Callum?
SHEILA: She didn’t do bad in school. She was fast with languages. Got into the Pandora Haze training scheme straight out of sixth form. Me and her dad were so proud. They sent her all over the world doing logistics. I didn’t even know what that was. Hong Kong for six months, then to Venezuela -
CHRIS MCSHELL: Then to Somalia, where there was a spill of poisonous chemicals that killed thousands of people.
SHEILA: That wasn’t her! She only arrived three weeks before. They pinned it on her to protect her bosses and their bosses. They faked an e-mail from her authorizing the shipment in a rusty lorry. I’ve looked into it. You can fake e-mails if you know how.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Was it a magnet in your coat you used to wipe Callum’s hard drive? Was that why your coat got stuck to that metal sculpture when we were fighting the zoms?
SHEILA: You can learn these things if you’ve got a reason. And I had a reason, after what Callum did to her.
MANISHA: But you just said it was the company, not Callum. He felt terrible about that story! He wanted to get the Pandora Haze bigwigs sent to prison. He was so angry it didn’t happen.
SHEILA: And he took his anger out on her. Believe me, I tracked the bosses down, too. Went to another one of their corporate hideouts, but three of them had already turned zombie. I realized I didn’t just want to see them die. I wanted to be the one who did it.
It was your friend Callum and his sister who stuck the knife into Billie and gave it a good twist. He wrote all those stories about her, how it was her responsibility that the lorry went out in that condition, that if he was her, he’d be ashamed to be alive when all those kids were dead.
She went to prison for 20 years. “It’ll be fine,” I told her. “Good behavior, you’ll be out in 10. You’re still young, you’ll be 33 when you’re out, you can make a fresh start.” They even changed her name. Prison can be hard for a woman if you’ve killed children.
For a little bit, I thought she’d be okay. But then she started to have dark circles under her eyes. Every time I visited, she was thinner and thinner. I got it out of her in the end. She was being bullied.
They put her in the same prison as Callum’s sister, and Rose had worked out who my Billie was. That kind of story gets you respect in prison. She was worse than him, Rose. Billie hanged herself in her cell. Bedsheets. She’d been inside for four months. She was 24.
JODY MARSH: Oh God! Oh, Sheila, that’s awful!
GERI: If something like that happened to either of Lisa’s kids…
CHRIS MCSHELL: Both Rose and Callum knew they’d done a terrible thing. She went willingly to her death for it. And it wasn’t his willy that Callum used to wake up shouting about in his sleep. It was her, Billie. Callum came here to try to find evidence to clear her name, but the Pandora Haze records were already wiped. You destroyed all the files, Sheila, to stop us using the tech in this house to find out what you were doing, and who you were. That’s ironic, really.
MANISHA: Just a sec. Sheila killed Callum and Rose. Sheila’s killed people! Callum was my best friend!
GERI: And you left your wife to die, so…
SHEILA: It’s like you said, Chris. We’re all going to die. I just wanted it to be me.
CHRIS MCSHELL: You hacked Callum’s voice mail. You heard the message from Geri agreeing to this rendezvous and deleted it, along with the joke message pretending to be from Pandora Haze.
SHEILA: I thought it was real. It made me so angry.
CHRIS MCSHELL: You arrived early, familiarized yourself with the house, disabled the controls panels and erased the files, then faked arriving with the rest of us, but taking shelter in the tree house so we’d never suspect you.
GERI: Why did you care if we suspected you?
CHRIS MCSHELL: I think you hoped for some poetic justice for Rose, didn’t you? To frame her, so we’d all gang up on her, so she could feel what it was like to be bullied to death.
SHEILA: By the time Callum was dead, I think Rose started to suspect why he’d been killed.
CHRIS MCSHELL: She believed she’d die anyway, and so she didn’t try to save herself. You both had me fooled, for a while. But I wasn’t fully convinced that she was the murderer, so you took matters into your own hands.
There’s just one thing I don’t understand: why didn’t you leave? You had a secret way in here. Why didn’t you use it to get out?
SHEILA: [laughs] The Prof locked the passage behind him, the cheeky beggar. Must have thought we’d come after him. After all this planning, I’m stuck here because of a stupid lock.
GERI: Well, at least we’re all in this together, eh? Murderers and all.
SHEILA: I’ve been thinking about that. Maybe we’re not all stuck here.
[recorder fast forwards]
KEITH: Oh God, you were right, Geri. They’re crawling on top of each other, they’ll be up onto this floor in a few hours!
JODY MARSH: Are you sure about this, Sheila?
SHEILA: I’ve done what I meant to, lass. I’ve no more plans for my life. You’re all good people, more or less. If I can save you, maybe that makes my account right with the world.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Well, there’s no other way. This might not even work.
MANISHA: Thanks, Chris, that’s very comforting. Sheila, are you ready?
SHEILA: I am. Be careful lowering me on this rope, though. If I break a leg, I’ll be of no help to you.
GERI: And that thing makes enough noise?
[noisemaker rings, zombies growl]
SHEILA: The zombies certainly seem to think so. Ready?
KEITH: Ready.
MANISHA: I just wanted to say, Sheila, you did kill my friend, but I… I think this makes us even.
GERI: Yeah. Thank you, Sheila. We’d all have died without you anyway, Callum and Rose as well.
SHEILA: I wish you luck, all of you. I hope your lives work out better than mine has. And I hope this works! Come on, get this window open. [window opens] Now, lower me down. [rope creaks] That’s it! I might see my Billie soon, you never know. Come on, zombies, come and get me! [noisemaker rings]
GERI: It’s working, all right. They’re chasing her.
JODY MARSH: Aw, she’s faster than she looked when she was running for the tree house.
MANISHA: This is it. We’ve only got a few minutes. Everyone, down the rope ladder on the back stairs. Bring the guns. The horde’s thinned enough that we might have some chance. Come on, let’s go!
[recorder fast forwards]
[fence rattles]
KEITH: Okay, that’s me through the fence. All safe. Nish, look at that. There’s a note tied to a tree with your name on it in big letters.
[paper rustles]
MANISHA: [laughs] It’s from the Prof. “Sorry for my sharp exit, Doctor Plassard. I couldn’t risk all of you deciding I was the murderer and pursuing me through the secret passage so I locked it. Forgive me. I do hope you and the others find another way out. And if you would ever like to be part of something truly revolutionary, please do visit my labs. We always have use for surgical skills.” He’s put the address.
KEITH: Don’t think much of that job offer. He just ran off and left us to die!
GERI: It’s surprising how often people do that in the apocalypse.
[SHEILA screams]
JODY MARSH: They’re almost on her!
KEITH: No, no, I can’t watch, I can’t! Manisha!
MANISHA: It’s all right, Keith. I can. I feel like we should, somehow.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Jody, what’s happening?
JODY MARSH: The zombies are almost on her. She’s climbing a tree to give herself some time, and… no. No, they’ve got her. She’s gone.
MANISHA: Do you feel like that wipes out what she did?
KEITH: Must do, mustn’t it? Killed two people, saved five.
MANISHA: I don’t know if it works like that. All of those things still happened. One can’t wipe out another. Callum and Rose still destroyed Billie.
GERI: They were destroyed by their dad. We’re all pursued by the dead. Sometimes more literally than other times. [sighs] We’ve got to get moving. That horde won’t be distracted for long.
JODY MARSH: Yeah. We’ll head down to the main road together, then. Which direction are you heading?
MANISHA: Maybe I’ll take the Prof up on his offer?
KEITH: No! My mate Vinny had a cottage in Cornwall he reckoned would be magic in an apocalypse. It’s got its own well and everything. Let’s go there.
MANISHA: Together?
KEITH: If you want to.
MANISHA: It’d feel weird splitting up after all this time. Oh, I suppose I’ve got a type. Come on, pretty and stupid young person. We’ll get to the crossroads and toss a coin, all right? Heads, we go to the Prof. Tails is Cornwall.
KEITH: Together?
MANISHA: Yeah, all right.
KEITH: Bye, guys! Keep safe from the zoms.
OTHERS: Bye.
KEITH: You know, I was thinking this would make an amazing movie, don’t you think? And I could play me. [imitates movie preview voice-over tone] “In a world torn apart, one man stands for truth…”
GERI: Think those crazy kids’ll make it?
JODY MARSH: They’ve got as much of a chance as anyone. What about you, Geri?
GERI: Oh, I’ll strike out across country. I have things to be seeing to.
JODY MARSH: Geri, you never did tell us why you were meeting up with Callum, or what that bangle’s supposed to be.
GERI: No, but I expect you’ll find out in time. I’ll keep an eye out for you.
JODY MARSH: Oh, you are so mysterious! Are you a spy? Or… or a jewel thief? Or a spy who’s pretending to be a jewel thief, but you’ve fallen in love with jewels, and now you don’t want to go back to being a spy?
GERI: [laughs] I couldn’t possibly comment.
JODY MARSH: Wait. You wanted to meet up with Callum to talk about Pandora Haze, and you’re a crack shot because of uni. I’ve been thinking about all that cybercrime – hacking, infiltration – that happened before the apocalypse. Who’d get trained in weapons? Who’d have journalist contacts? Geri, are you Netrophil?
CHRIS MCSHELL: Jody! She’s not a terrorist.
GERI: [laughs] After everything we’ve been through. Yes, I’m Netrophil. But we’re not what they say we are. Don’t believe everything you hear. We’ve been working since before the apocalypse, trying to stop what’s happened. You don’t know it, but my organization is really the only thing standing between humanity and some pretty dark stuff.
JODY MARSH: Darker than the zombie apocalypse?
GERI: We’ll meet again. Abel Township’s of interest to us. Be seeing you.
CHRIS MCSHELL: And then there were two. What do you reckon, Jody? Can you lead me home?
JODY MARSH: Yeah. I was just thinking, we could turn our headsets on again now we’re away from the house.
CHRIS MCSHELL: Oh yeah! Well, I don’t expect that anyone at Abel’s been listening, though. Still, be nice to hear a friendly voice. [headset clicks] Sam Yao, come in. Are you there, Sam?
[static]
SAM YAO: Oh my God! I’ve been waiting hours for you to do that! Well, minutes. Me and Alice have been going spare in the comms booth. Well, she claims I was going spare, but she was fine. [laughs] You were not fine! When we heard Rose’s story, you were definitely crying. And then when Sheila said about Billie – [sighs] Listen, seriously, though. Did you see if there was any lead piping? Or a candlestick?
JODY MARSH: Hi, Sam.
SAM YAO: I mean, did none of you want to shout, “There’s a body in the library!”
CHRIS MCSHELL: There were no bodies in the library.
SAM YAO: It’s just that… I mean, neither of you at any point talked about your “little gray cells” or told a story from St. Mary Mead?
JODY MARSH: We’ll try to do better next time. We’ve missed you, Sam. Come on, Chris. Take my hand. There are a few zombies on the horizon, but we can outpace them. Let’s run.
[recorder fast forwards]
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