by T J Payne
Mariko tried her bracelet on the pad.
Nothing.
“Step back,” Roger said.
He raised his foot and kicked hard at the door, right beneath the lock. The noise of the kick made them all jump, but the door absorbed the blow. He tried again. And then again.
Amy looked up and down the hallway. Did the sound of those kicks give away their position? The hallway had no place to hide if it did. They were completely exposed and vulnerable.
“We have to keep moving,” Amy said.
Her mind raced to think of where else they could possibly hide.
She ran back toward the grand staircase.
The staircase curved around on itself. Amy couldn’t see down to the ground floor, but she could hear it. There were screams and shouts. Footsteps thundering up the steps. Some people moaned in pain, apparently dragging themselves forward despite their injuries.
They were getting closer.
If she wanted to avoid them, there was only one direction to go. Up.
And so, she did. She ran up the staircase.
Her family followed at her heels.
They came to the third-floor landing. They took a left, toward the gym.
As Amy passed a window, she heard an explosion outside. Amy looked.
A man in a suit lay on the ground by the front entrance. He pulled himself down The Venue’s front path. His left arm hung in tatters behind him. It didn’t bleed out, though. Amy saw that the man had secured his necktie into a tourniquet over his arm, seemingly anticipating this moment.
He pulled himself back to his feet and stumbled forward a few yards before collapsing.
Amy wanted to keep watching. She wanted to see if the man could get to his feet once again and continue his escape. How hard could it be? Running down a mountain with one arm? Surely, it was possible.
But her family had rounded the corner on their sprint to the gym.
“Amy! Come on!” Mariko said as she disappeared around the bend.
Amy followed.
The door of the gym stood wide open.
It wasn’t so much a gym as a weight room. No treadmills, no exercise bikes, no ellipticals. Just iron weights. Racks and racks of weights and bars.
Mirrors encircled the room, leaving no place to hide.
Mariko tugged on the door, trying to close it behind them. It wouldn’t budge.
“Give me a hand,” she said.
They all gathered at the door, grabbing hold of it.
“On three,” Mariko said. “One, two… three!”
Together, they pulled and pushed at the door. They strained. Their feet slipped on the slick, polished floor. The veins bulged on Roger’s neck and Candice’s forehead. Mariko’s face turned red from the strain.
The door still didn’t move. It was as if it had been glued to the wall. Open for anyone and everyone.
“It’s locked in place,” Roger said, catching his breath.
Amy could hear banging out in the hallway. People were trying to get into their hotel rooms. They were trying to hide.
She reached out, grasped her parents’ hands and gave a gentle tug.
They backed away from the door, deeper into the open gym.
Mariko picked up the bar from the bench press and held it ready, as a staff. Roger picked up some of the smaller bench press weights, the five-pound iron discs. He stretched his arm, ready to hurl the heavy chunks of metal at whoever came through that door.
They stood and waited.
CHAPTER 15
There was no one left for Caleb to shoot.
Even those who crawled around on the floor, moaning and bleeding, were apparently off-limits.
His freshman college roommate, Alfredo, had tried to attack Lilith with a machete and had taken a blow to his spine from her warhammer in the process. As he lay on the ground, paralyzed, Caleb decided to do some target practice to put him out of his misery. Maybe he could pull off a headshot from fifty feet.
He missed.
As his arrow plunged into Alfredo’s chest, Lilith shot Caleb a glare. She stood in the center of the ballroom, shouting up at him that he was being weak by showing mercy.
Caleb swore he wasn’t, but Lilith just spit in his direction and marched off, stabbing some squirming girl Caleb didn’t know in the leg. Lilith wanted the deaths to be as slow as possible.
It made sense, Caleb supposed. They had paid for the night. May as well get their money’s worth.
But he didn’t feel that Alfredo, of all people, needed to be excessively punished. Not like the others. He used to like Alfredo. Being randomly assigned freshmen roommates meant that Alfredo had been Caleb’s first attempt at reinventing himself. They drank together, they went to parties together, they watched TV and porn together. Alfredo definitely had a charisma that drew in other dormmates. Caleb found himself going to parties and making friends, all because he was Alfredo’s roommate.
There was no one moment when things changed. Eventually, Caleb realized that the people he assumed were his friends and Alfredo’s friends started to hang out only with Alfredo. When Caleb packed up for winter break, no one swung by his room to say goodbye.
By spring, Caleb was spending his Friday nights eating pizza and playing games by himself. Except for the nights when he’d come back from class and find a sock on his door knob — the universal sign that Alfredo was busy hooking up with someone and was not to be disturbed.
Caleb and Alfredo kind of kept in touch after that. Throughout college, they’d wave to each other if they passed on the Quad. They were friends on Facebook and later Instagram. Alfredo had gotten married and become a special needs teacher in Ann Arbor.
His wife seemed nice. Caleb had met her for the first time the other day.
Alfredo and his wife had attacked Lilith together. It was a nice display of teamwork. Lilith bashed in her knee with the flat end of her warhammer and then struck her through the temple with the spike.
Caleb was glad Alfredo’s wife died quickly. He bore her no ill will.
That was the sucky thing about letting people bring a plus-one.
Caleb wasn’t even sure if he had ill will toward Alfredo anymore either. In their brief interactions that weekend, Alfredo had seemed friendly and earnest; maybe being lower-middle class and working with special needs kids had softened the brash lacrosse player.
Or maybe that was the kind of sociopathic act that guys like Alfredo pulled to get away with all their bullshit. He was probably the type of teacher who made fun of his mentally challenged students the same way Caleb was sure he made fun of him behind his back. Caleb could faintly recall that Alfredo did a mean “disabled” voice as a joke, complete with thumping his hand against his chest.
The guy probably cheated on his wife too. A sweet, trusting, mousey girl like that? How could he not? Sure, she was attractive, but guys like Alfredo were never satisfied with one attractive thing to bang. Oh, hey, hon. Sorry I’m home late. Had some faculty development to take care of with Charlene. What’s that? You think Charlene is pretty? Hadn’t noticed. Anyway, I’m spent. Goodnight.
What an asshole.
As Caleb reached the bottom of the spiral staircase and set foot on the floor of the ballroom, he made a point of walking past Alfredo’s prone body. He stepped on his old roomie’s neck, feeling the tendons slide and pop under the weight of his heel.
Alfredo didn’t move or react. Must be dead.
Pity, Caleb thought. Lilith was right. Guys like Alfredo deserved to suffer more. He shouldn’t have given him a quick end with an arrow. It was a mistake that Caleb didn’t plan on making again.
After rolling his foot around Alfredo’s neck a bit more, Caleb wandered around the ballroom, trying to avoid the pools of blood.
He felt tired. Drained.
He convinced himself that the empty feeling, like some sort of black hole spreading out through his chest, was wedding-related stress. He needed to perk himself up. This was supposed to be a fun day. There wa
s a lot of wedding left to celebrate.
He pivoted and walked back across the ballroom toward the bar. The DJ had transitioned to some funk song that Caleb had heard before but didn’t know the title of. It brought a bounce to Caleb’s step. A little bit of swagger and sway.
Ordinarily, Caleb was too self-conscious to dance in public. He was even too self-conscious to provide the DJ with a list of his favorite songs; he didn’t want to be judged on his taste in music. The DJ had settled on a generic list of wedding songs instead.
But today Caleb found himself cutting loose, swinging his hips and twisting his arms to the beat.
His shoes tracked through the blood oozing out of someone’s stomach wound. It was slick. Caleb twirled around in that blood and used it to aid his feet in what he assumed was some sort of electric slide.
He glanced over to Lilith to make sure that she wasn’t judging him.
No. She was busy dragging Hazel around the room by the hair. Lilith paused only to bash one of Hazel’s legs and then started throwing the screaming, bawling woman around again.
That would keep Lilith busy for a while.
Caleb danced his way up to the bar.
The bartended smiled from behind his glass wall. “What can I getcha?”
“Do you serve coffee?”
“Of course.”
“Can I get a latte with a triple-shot espresso?”
“Comin’ right up.”
Caleb thought for a moment. “And how about cocaine?”
“I got powdered, freebase, crack, and speedball. Pick your poison.”
“Uh, just powder. Two lines, please.”
“Right away, sir.”
Caleb stood and idly watched the bartender get the espresso running while he cut two perfect lines of coke on a small mirrored tray. The bartender went back to the espresso, frothed up some milk, and then poured it into the mug. The espresso and foam settled into a heart formation.
The bartender put the whole order into a small booth in the glass wall — the type of two-doored compartment that Caleb assumed one would find at the banks in poorer neighborhoods.
Caleb opened the door and took his coffee and cocaine. He didn’t know which one he wanted to do first, but he definitely felt he needed a pick-me-up.
“Will that be all?”
“Honey?” Caleb called out. “You need anything?”
He looked across the ballroom. Hazel seemed to be clinging to her last moments of life, and Lilith seemed to sense it. Lilith picked her off the ground and slammed her onto one of the tables. She pulled Hazel’s hair until her head hung over the edge of the table, then she picked up one of the abandoned steak knives and began to saw through the woman’s neck.
Lilith’s expression never changed. She didn’t smile or even grin. Her mouth just kind of hung limply open, catching her breath from the strain of her task. Caleb knew she hated to be distracted when she was concentrating on a physical activity.
And so, he watched her for a moment, not interrupting her.
Some strands of her hair had worn loose and hung around her face, held down by a fine layer of sweat that also glistened on the tip of her nose. Her wedding dress had stayed surprisingly clean. Only the bottom hem, as well as the cuffs near her wrists, were tinged with blood. It accented the white. He didn’t know how, but Lilith had kept the splatter to a minimum.
Because Lilith was perfect.
Always perfect.
And beautiful.
And strong.
Caleb felt his heart beat faster.
“Sweetie? Can I get you anything?” he asked again, sensing that she was at a good stopping place.
“Another quiver of arrows,” she said.
He turned back to the bartender. “A quiver of arrows. Make that two quivers of arrows.”
“Two quivers of arrows, comin’ right up!”
Caleb reached into his pocket and pulled out a roll of cash. He knew that the gratuity would be handled at the end, but he didn’t care. He always believed in tipping well. These guys deserved it.
He laid a thousand dollars into the doored compartment.
Then he sipped his espresso, leaned against the bar, and took in the beautiful sights of the room. Some slow dance from the 80s was now playing. In high school, the slow dances were the only dances Caleb felt comfortable doing. You just sway.
Too bad he never had anyone to sway with.
But tonight was his night. And so, he stood alongside the bar and swayed to the smooth rhythm of the music.
And the smooth rhythm of blood gushing from Hazel’s throat.
CHAPTER 16
The Event Planner was glad to be back in the Control Room.
She kept a pair of flats in there and always relished the opportunity to slip out of her heels and plop down into a chair.
In front of her, the two control operators transitioned the screens between the various camera feeds. There were a few hundred cameras positioned throughout The Venue and since they only had eight screens to monitor everyone, it was an intricate dance of scrolling through feeds to land on the most entertaining bits.
They had started with sixty-four guests.
Three guests had won immunity and were being held in the green room.
Nine guests were confirmed dead.
Another ten or so had sustained injuries that were probably life-ending.
But those were still low numbers. The night would be long.
She found that the parties that were primarily composed of Americans were hit-and-miss in terms of bloodshed. But at least they weren’t causing much damage to the facilities. She had been keeping an unofficial list of all the windows and furniture that would need to be replaced, as well as all the holes that would need to be patched. This was nothing.
She glanced at the screen. The bride certainly seemed to be enjoying herself, although she wasn’t exactly smiling or laughing. If anything, she seemed almost robotic as she hacked through some woman’s neck with a steak knife.
That’ll take a while, the Event Planner thought.
The bride paused to catch her breath. She was a little less than halfway through the neck now and all the cartilage had started to clog up the serrated blade. There were plenty of other objects in the room that could cleave that head off with a single swipe, but the bride seemed to be the type of woman who liked to finish the tasks she started, even if that task involved sawing through a human neck with a five-inch steak knife.
The Event Planner didn’t quite know how the bride planned to cut through the bones of the neck, but that was her problem. At some point, she would probably have to pull the whole head off.
That might be fun to watch, the Event Planner thought.
The groom, on the other hand, tried to find something to do to keep busy. He was sipping a latte, which the Event Planner actually thought sounded really good about now. She could go a shot of caffeine.
But otherwise, the groom’s energy seemed to be sagging. The Event Planner made note that she might need to push some of the other events earlier to accommodate.
“The guests in the gymnasium may be attempting to remove their control devices,” one of the operators said.
The four guests who were hiding in the gymnasium — three Holgates and one Yamazaki — had been the first to run out of the ballroom. Since then, two other groups had also gone to the gymnasium for refuge, but when they saw it was occupied, they left without so much as a word. No shouting, no pleading, no fighting.
They hadn’t needed to smash anyone’s head with a barbell to defend their territory. They got to keep the entire gymnasium to themselves without spilling an ounce of blood.
It was going to be that kind of night. The finishing crew was going to have their work cut out for them sweeping the building and disposing of the stragglers who didn’t die from their control bracelet detonations.
Right now, the gymnasium group huddled together near the bench press machine. They were examining the control bracelet o
n one of the younger women. The Event Planner recalled her name started with an M.
“Turn on the sound. Let’s listen in,” the Event Planner said to her operators. “Be prepared to issue a warning.”
***
Amy peered over her dad’s shoulder.
He was busy studying Mariko’s bracelet, holding her wrist in one hand while moving his glasses forward and back with the other in an attempt to create some sort of magnifying effect.
Candice, meanwhile, watched the door.
Part of Amy wanted to chuckle at the sight of her sweet mother with her teeth bared and a bench press bar in her hands. Candice hadn’t wanted to be the one to scare away anyone who walked through the door. If Candice had her way, she would have welcomed everyone in so that they could all hide together. Hell, she would have brewed them coffee and baked cookies if she had the supplies.
It was Amy who forced her to be a mean, threatening bitch.
The only people Amy trusted were all within arm’s reach.
Everyone else might seem nice, but Caleb and Lilith obviously chose their guests for a particular purpose. “Murderous tendencies and cruelty” might not have been written on the RSVP, but it must be a unifying characteristic among the guests. If Caleb — sweet, awkward Caleb — could be such a snake, then certainly, his parents, cousins, coworkers, and college friends could too.
And no matter how much these friends and family pleaded their decency now, once the clock inched toward midnight, all bets were off.
Mariko and Roger agreed with Amy.
Despite her objections, Candice was ultimately a team player and went along with the majority vote. When it was clear that her family had no interest in forming alliances with strangers, she took quickly to her role of mama bear, protecting the den from all intruders.
This allowed the rest of them to focus on getting the bracelets off.
Because if they couldn’t…
Well…
According to the announced rules (if those were to be believed) there was only one other way out:
Kill somebody.
Anybody.
Amy had started mentally compiling a list of the four people they could sacrifice. At the top were Caleb’s parents. They were partly responsible for this anyway. Next would be Lilith’s sister Trina, as anyone who shared a bloodline with that psycho must have problems of her own. And then, maybe Mrs. Big O. She had pushed Lilith’s dad out from under the table to his certain doom. She didn’t deserve any sympathies, despite her own husband having just been killed.
