by Mike Kilroy
The girl, her skin wan, coughed a spray of blood that hit the carpet like cardinal raindrops. She let out a long exhale and died.
Just like that— poof—she was gone. Her lifeless eyes fixed hauntingly on Zack, who swallowed down crouton-laced vomit that had slithered up from his belly.
“Never seen anyone bite it before?” Harness said, laughing. “Well, get used to it.”
The Asian stared at her with compassion and wiped a stray tear that had trickled down her cheek. She was the only one who seemed to care. Then she and the others walked briskly into the kitchen. Harness laughed, clanged about and popped Hot Pockets into the microwave that their captors had provided.
Zill spoke softly. “One of these days we’re not going to come back.”
“What’s her name?” Zack asked.
“This was, well, is Jenai. She’s okay I guess. Kind of emo. She came just before you did. This is like the third time she’s died. Kind of the runt of the litter, you know.”
Zack lurched back and nearly lost his croutons again when Jenai began blinking wildly and coughed up more blood. She sat up, blinked even more rapidly and stared at a smirking Zill.
“Jesus, I died again?” Jenai seemed more frustrated than anything else. “Jesus. I can’t believe I died again. Grrrrr. I’m such a loser.”
Harness and the three others entered the room from the kitchen. Harness wiped his greasy lips with the back of his hand. “You’re damn right you’re a loser. Hey, we have a new guy. Maybe he’s more pathetic than you. He looks like he is. Damn. We got another loser. How are we going to compete when we keep getting losers like him and you, Jenai?”
“Shut up! Shut up!” Jenai yelled, stood and bolted down the hallway. Zack could hear the sound of a door slamming.
“Okay. Okay. Okay,” Zack kept repeating “Okay.” He repeated things when he was flustered and confused. He babbled. He was a babbler. It was perhaps his way of mentally processing the events around him. He wondered if it was even possible to mull these kinds of events. “What. What. What …” He was once again babbling, “is happening?”
He heard laughter; the laugh-at kind, not the laugh-with kind.
“Wha wha what’s happening,” Harness mocked. “Look around, noob. What do you think is happening? We’re royally and completely screwed.”
Harness was right. Zack didn’t know why he was here or where here was or who these people were or even if he was awake or alive or dead. He did know one thing: Yes, he was definitely royally and completely screwed.
“C’mon, Harness,” Cass said in a strong British accent. Zack knew she had to be Cass because she, well, did look ratchet with a short shirt, a tank top that displayed an ample amount of cleavage and a face so heavily caked with makeup that Zack wondered what was really under there. She had a ring on her bottom lip that she flicked with her tongue before she spoke. “Give the new bloke a break.”
“Seriously? Look at him.” Even when Harness spoke, his muscles flexed and he looked like a god. “He can’t help us. He’s just going to drag us down.”
“Help you do what?” Zack asked.
Harness drilled a hole in Zack with his eyes. “Win, stupid. When we win we get stuff. When we get stuff, we can forget for at least a little while that we’re in hell. When we lose, it sucks.”
Zack was curious. “Is that what this hunting is about?”
“Duh,” Harness taunted. “That’s all we do here. Compete against the others. It never ends. The places change. The weapons change. But that’s it. Over and over and over again. Now with, what, seven of us it’s gonna get even harder. And we get you. I bet you can’t even lift your own weight. Great. Just awesome.”
Harness took a final angry bite of his Hot Pocket and stalked off down the hallway.
Zill looked at Zack and shook her head. “He’s competitive. And he’s right. We need to win. You don’t want to lose. Losing is, like, really bad.”
Zack wondered just how bad.
“What happens when you lose?”
“You get put back in that room with just the cot and nothing to do but think. It’s awful.”
Zack could understand that. Just those few hours he had spent in that cell were enough. He couldn’t imagine being put back there again.
Jenai wandered back into the room, wiping wetness from her cheeks. Cass put her arms around her and hugged her. The African-American boy and Asian girl did the same, and then stared at Zack with curious looks.
Zill noticed the inquisitive stare-down. “Guess I should introduce the rest of us to you. Brock is the black guy. Pretty handy with a weapon. He’s not a bad dude.”
Brock held out his hand and Zack shook it, wincing as his fingers closed around his like a vice.
“This is Mizuki. She’s a tough chica, can fight just as good as Harness.”
Mizuki’s handshake was even stronger than Brock’s, but she had a soft glint in her eye. “I know it’s a lot to take in, but you have to get yourself together,” she said in a perfect American accent. “Who knows what the ‘liens will throw at us tomorrow?”
Zack was confused.
“’Liens?”
“Aliens,” Mizuki said. The others laughed.
“We don’t know they are aliens.” Brock said.
“Then how do you explain what’s been going on, the changing climates,” Mizuki said with a firm, calm voice. “The changing accommodations?”
“We’re dead.” Brock answered, bluntly.
Zill rolled her eyes. “And you’ve met Cass and, well, you sorta met Jenai.”
Harness sauntered into the room, tightening his belt. “And me. Don’t forget me. Let’s have a little powwow, get oriented with the nerd.”
They sat in a circle on the plush couch and chairs and told stories of their young lives before they ended up here.
Harness was a classic jock, the star of his high school football team in New York. He was also the star on his basketball and baseball teams and won two state javelin titles with throws in excess of two-hundred feet. He got poor grades, but not because he was dumb, but because he didn’t apply himself to the material.
Zack thought him cliché.
Mizuki lived in the United States all her life, her parents moving to San Francisco from Japan when she was just in her mother’s womb. She, too, was all too stereotypical for Zack. An honor student. Captain of the debate team and blunt in her opinions almost to a fault.
Cass was London born and raised and walled up inside. It was the broken home, Zack, thought. Or maybe it was just because she was British.
Jenai was quite a bit like Zack: A loner, average in almost every way. She was short—maybe five-foot-one and very dainty. Got good grades, but wasn’t exceptional in anything.
And then there was Brock, who had the typical back story of a young black man trying to rise out of the projects and make something out of his life. He was often overlooked and underestimated, but he was well-spoken, smart and capable. He could have fallen into gang life growing up in the bad part of Detroit—Zack wondered if there was a good part—but he resisted, ignoring peer pressure.
His older brother was gunned down in a gang fight when Brock was just a boy and he swore to not follow the same path.
Zack found all of their stories contrived and too perfect. It was as if they were plucked out of one of a billion teen movies and plopped into this situation. None of them were special; quite the contrary.
There was something wrong with each of them. They were all flawed. They all had a zit they couldn’t pop, a boil they couldn’t lance, a blemish they couldn’t hide.
What could their captors possibly want or need with them?
Part I
Chapter Two
The Struggle is Real
Zack gripped a katana tightly his hands. He had no idea how it had gotten there.
Light, wispy snowflakes fell and footprints led away from his position under a large pine tree. It was cold, but not frigidly so. And there was nary
a breeze, the large flakes floated straight down to the ground.
“C’mon, noob,” Harness poked out from behind a tree ahead of Zack and waved his arm. “We got some killing to do.”
The katana trembled in Zack’s hands. He had seen samurai movies before and often wondered what it would be like to wield such a sword. But now it was all too real.
Zack sprinted ahead and caught up with the others. Everyone was there except Mizuki.
“Of course the Jap chick would not be here with us when we have these slanty-eyed swords,” Harness spoke with ignorance.
Jenai shook and cowered against a tree. “Jesus. I hope I don’t die again.”
“You probably will,” Cass said. “I don’t like the looks of the bloody… things we’re gonna fight.”
Zack looked ahead through the trees and over a clearing. He could make out six figures near another crop of trees in the distance, milling about and no doubt planning their attack.
“Is this it?” Zack asked. He tried to calm his voice, but that was utterly unsuccessful. “Is this the hunt?”
“Man, noobs,” Harness said, shaking his head.
“Yup,” Zill said, patting Zack on the back. “This is it.”
They were all wearing black leather armor and metal helmets. Zack was surprised by how heavy it all felt on his gangly frame.
“What’s the plan?” Zack asked.
“The plan?” Harness answered in a chiding tone. “We kill ‘em. That’s the plan. I’m not going back to that crappy cell again for days and days. There are no freakin’ toilets in there. I have to piss like an animal in the corner.”
Harness slashed the air with his sword and began to run, screaming as he did. The others followed like well-trained drones, screaming as they punched the snow down behind Harness. The figures in the distance, startled, pulled their swords and rushed toward them, meeting in a mass in the middle of the snowy field. Zack watched as they fell, one by one, to the frozen ground, sprays of blood coloring the snow red. He couldn’t tell if his side was winning or not.
He heard the crunching of snow behind him. He turned to see a figure dressed in black with a helmet obscuring the face, sword drawn and pointed at him. The figure must have been eight feet tall with long arms, disproportionate to the body.
Then he heard a sound that could have been words, but sounding like none he knew.
“I don’t want to fight,” Zack said as he dropped the sword. It sunk into the freshly fallen snow. “Maybe if we don’t fight, they will let us go.”
The figure paused and lowered his sword for a moment. He heard more sounds that could have been words escape from behind the helmet.
“Can you understand me?” Zack asked.
It wasn’t long after he finished his query that the tip of the figure’s sword punctured his stomach. Zack didn’t even feel it slide into his gut, but he watched the blood spill out of him like water through a hole in a garden hose. It ran out of the wound and pooled on top of the snow, forming what looked like a red apple.
Zack slumped to his knees, and then fell onto his side, the figure standing over him, trembling. His vision was starting to fade when he heard the deep, bellowing voice of Harness before a sword slammed through the torso of the shaking figure before him. The figure fell to the snow right in front of Zack.
Zack could see through the mask into the eyes of the being that had killed him. His eyes were very much like his, welling with water and gazing with remorse and fear.
“Got’em!” Harness’ callous words were the last thing Zack heard.
†††
Zack sprang to a seated position, coughing up a mixture of saliva and blood. The blood on his stomach was dry and there was no opening from where it had spilled. Zack rubbed his hands over his chest and stomach and was relieved.
“I didn’t die this time.” Jenai excitedly exclaimed. Zack thought it a small victory for her.
He was glad he could help.
“What was that back there?” Harness said, pointing a thick finger at Zack’s face “Jesus, noob. We could have lost because of you. What are you? Some kind of pacifist or something?”
Zack tried to speak, but couldn’t. He surmised dying had a way of shrinking one’s vocabulary. He peered about the room, at the faces who stared down at him, some with concern, some with contempt, and wondered if it were real.
It couldn’t be real. This couldn’t be happening.
He knew it was, however. Brock nodded at him and patted him on the shoulder. Cass shook her head and departed—probably to put on more makeup—and Mizuki sat beside him and wiped his forehead with a warm wash cloth.
“The first time is always the hardest,” she said. “We’ve all been through it.”
“Not me,” Harness blurted.
“No, Harness. Not you. You are awesome and the bomb.” Mizuki smiled at Zack and winked. “He needs to get knocked down a peg or two.”
“Whatever.” Harness beat a rapid retreat into the kitchen.
Zack guessed they had won. They were in a house again, but a different one. The sun roof above him was covered with snow and flames flickered and danced in a hearth on the far wall. The couch was comfortable, with throw pillows made of satin and lace and the floor was a rich mahogany.
“Where are we now?” Zack asked.
Zill, who had taken a seat beside Mizuki, shook her head. “I’ve given up trying to figure that out.”
“You need to rest.” Mizuki stood and disappeared down a hallway.
Zack and Zill sat on the couch, listening to the din of conversation coming from the kitchen. Zack could make out a few words like “loser” and “noob” and “waste” and knew the topic of conversation was about him.
“What the heck were you doing? Dropping your sword? Like, really?” Zill asked.
“It seemed like the right thing to do. He, or whatever, was scared. I could tell.”
“It doesn’t matter. God! We could have lost.”
Zack took a deep breath, grabbed a clean shirt and slung it over his head. “I’m sorry.”
“Well, don’t do that again. K?”
Zack couldn’t make any promises. They were trapped in a vicious cycle, like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill only to watch it roll back down again. This was purgatory, a no man’s land of death, rebirth and death.
Zack couldn’t see the purpose behind it. Maybe that was the point. Whoever they were, whoever had brought them here to this place, to do these things, were watching, grading, evaluating.
Maybe they were failing the test.
Part I
Chapter Three
Just Like Us
Zack blew gently on the steaming Hot Pocket, and then carefully took a bite. The reduced fat mozzarella cheese, signature pepperoni and tomato paste that oozed out of the garlic buttery seasoned unbleached enriched flour crust burned his tongue.
“Argh argh argh,” Zack mumbled. It was difficult to speak with his tongue sticking out. He waved his hand in front of it with great vigor in an attempt to cool it. The others, who were also seated around the rich mahogany dining table, laughed.
Except for Harness, who just glared coldly at Zack.
“Jesus Christ. He can’t even handle a damn Hot Pocket.”
Mizuki, who looked pale and ill, slapped Harness on the arm. “Give him a break. He’s only been here a couple of days. I thought what he did was brave.”
“It was bloody stupid,” Cass said as she cut her hot pocket with a fork and knife.
“It was …” Brock spoke and paused. Zack could tell he was thoughtfully searching for the proper adjective, “a unique tactic.”
Jenai, who had already eaten her Hot Pocket in what Zack estimated was two solid bites and a smaller nibble, added, “I’m just happy I didn’t die.”
Zill was curiously quiet. She poked at her hot pocket with a fork.
“What? You don’t want to give your opinion on Zacky Goody Two-Shoes?” Harness barked.
Zil
l glanced up at him from her pokes of her Hot Pocket sandwich, then back down. “What does it matter?”
“What does it matter?” Harness was livid.
“Oh boy, here it comes,” Mizuki muttered.
“Yeah, you’re goddamned right it’s coming. Oh, it’s coming. What a band of losers. What a crappy bunch of losers you all are. Jesus. Don’t you know we’re never getting out of here, that these stupid Hot Pockets are the best things ever? We won! We win, we get Hot Pockets and a TV and a warm, soft place to sleep. We gotta win. We gotta … we gotta … goddammit.” Harness slammed both of his muscular, thick hands onto the table. The force of his thrust rattled the dishes and the glasses of assorted colas and sports drinks.
It also startled Zill.
She looked at him through slit, angry eyes and she displayed a very intimidating flare of her nostrils. “Harness, you are not helping. God!”
Harness’ face was turning red and a vein was popping and pulsating on his forehead. Zack would have chuckled if he wasn’t so fearful of his wrath.
“If I didn’t need you guys … if I could do it by myself. … goddammit!” Harness bellowed, stormed out of the dining room and disappeared down the hallway.
“Well, it wouldn’t be another day in paradise without a Harness outburst,” Mizuki quipped. “Hey, at least we have Hot Pockets, right?”
Zack giggled. Mizuki glanced at Zack and chuckled, too, giving him a wink.
It appeared Zack had made at least one friend in this hell or purgatory or alien world—wherever he and The Six, as he had begun to think of them, were. And he was grateful. He hoped he could be a friend to Mizuki as well.
Zill pushed air out of her mouth loudly, Zack thought it an attempt to make sure everyone who remained around the table heard her. It was so loud, Zack thought sure it would rattle the crystal chandelier that hung above them.
“Yes, Zill, we know. We know,” Cass jeered, taking a drag from her e-cigarette. “Everything is bullocks. Everything sucks. Whaaaa.”
Zill waved her hand in front of her face and let out an exaggerated cough. “Do you have to smoke? Can you not?! God! It’s so disgusting.”
