The 17

by Mike Kilroy

  Zack carefully made his way down the steep embankment toward the building, his boots digging into the soggy hill. He nearly lost his footing a few times, but steadied himself with his hand.

  As he made it to level ground, he was startled by the rapid beeping coming from his watch. He peered at it and was dismayed by what blinked back at him.

  “33.”

  Zack prowled around the building and looked for an entrance. He passed windows that were too fogged to see through and others that looked to be spray painted black. Finally, he came to a red steel door. He reached slowly for the handle and pulled. The door creaked open.

  Tiny streams of outside light sneaked in through pin-sized holes in the grime and paint on the windows and provided just enough illumination for Zack to see a dusty hallway leading from one end of the building to another. As he walked, holding his makeshift walking stick up for protection, he could faintly see doors on both sides of him, some open, some closed.

  He tried to skulk as quietly as he could, but his boots made a slight thud as they hit the concrete hallway.

  Zack thought about calling out, but was either too prudent, or too afraid, to do so. Instead he came to an intersection in the hallway and peered to his left and then to his right.

  Each passageway looked identical.

  He decided to go right. He didn’t know exactly why he made that choice, but he made it. As he slinked down that hallway, he heard a banging come from one of the rooms.

  Zack walked more briskly, treading as lightly as possible. The banging became louder and seemed to be coming from behind a door to his right. The door was cracked open and he heard groans coming from inside.

  He swung the door open wider and slipped in, crouching as he walked.

  He heard more moaning coming from the back of the room, school desks and chairs turned over.

  Zack negotiated his way through the rubble, heading toward the mewl sounds, and saw an arm, bloody, poking out from under a desk. He knelt and levered the rubble off the body with the walking stick. It broke under the strain. He peered down and squinted.

  It was Valentina.

  She reached out with her quivering hand, grabbed him tightly by the wrist and pulled him down to her.

  Her voice was weak and gravelly. “Not … safe. Go … Get out.”

  “Who did this to you? Are there others in this building?”

  Valentina struggled to speak, blood rolling from the corner of her mouth. “This … not what it seems. Go. Get …”

  Her head tilted back, her eyes still open wide and her mouth slightly ajar. As he heard her last breath escape her lips, his watch beeped rapidly again.

  The display read “32.”

  He heard the faint wailing cries of other watches.

  He was not alone.

  One could belong to Mizuki or Caroline. Just as easily one could belong to any of the other thirty-two who were still in the game, perhaps the one who had killed Valentina.

  She lay there with bite marks made from small, sharp teeth in her stomach, left shoulder and neck.

  Zack was frozen, scared and indecisive. Their plan—his plan—had no hope of succeeding if he could not find the others. They needed to stay together and stay protected. They needed to hole up somewhere and simply survive.

  Zack, though, had no idea where to start.

  Valentina’s cryptic warning did little to inspire him.

  Zack closed his eyes, took a deep breath and stood. He walked slowly and carefully into the hallway and fish-eyed his surroundings fearfully; his heart thumped in his chest so quickly it hurt. He felt light-headed.

  Don’t pass out, you loser. Don’t pass out.

  He crept down the hall to where he thought he had heard the nearest beeping. His boots, wet with Valentina’s blood, squished and squeaked on the floor.

  Zack heard a crash from behind him and quickly spun around. He heard another crash and a long yelp coming from a room two doors down.

  Fight or flight? Zack usually chose flight. It was his go-to move in any conflict. But this was certainly not any conflict. He could hide and find a way to stay alive, but it would do him no good. At least eighteen of them had to keep breathing, keep moving, keep running or none of this would matter.

  Either they would die by a dagger yielded by another, or by the Ankhs themselves.

  His back pressed against the cold wall, Zack scooted until he reached the door. He reached out, grasped for the knob and with a turn and a push, the door swung open with a creepy creak. He heard loud, lumbering steps coming toward the entrance.

  Zack hunkered down and slid his back against the wall away from the door.

  Into the hallway spilled a hulking figure; its chest heaved and blood dripped from its long, yellowish nails.

  Zack craned his neck to get a better look and was shocked to see it was Splifkin. Even in the dim light his skin was a bright red. He swung his head around and glared at Zack, his chest still heaved and his eyes were full of bloodlust.

  Foam spilled from the corners of his mouth, which was open and displayed his pointy teeth. Small drops of blood dripped from them.

  “Go!” He screamed, and then growled, his hands squeezed into fists. “They have done something to me and I cannot control myself. Go!”

  Zack turned and ran. He stopped midway down the corridor and looked back at Splifkin, who pounded his wide chest viciously three times and growled again, more for a release of pain, he thought, than intimidation.

  Splifkin was in agony—either from the physical transformation he was experiencing, or the mental one.

  “Go, Zack! I don’t want to kill you.”

  Zack had heard enough—there was nothing he could do for him. Zack sprinted as fast as he could, lowered his shoulder and slammed into the door. It gave way and Zack spilled out into the baking sun.

  Now Zack understood Valentina’s warning.

  All was definitely not as it seemed.

  †††

  In the time it took for Zack to frantically climb the slope up to the ridge, his watch began its ominous tone.

  “31.”

  Zack collapsed to the grass, stared up at the beryl sky and wheezed. His grand plan was falling apart around him.

  As failures go, this one was epic.

  He closed his eyes and tried to calm himself, but when he opened them, a figure stood over him and cast a shadow across his face. Zack scooted away frantically.

  “Easy, Zack. It’s just me.” Waldan’s deep voice was reassuring.

  He wore the same clothing as Zack and the same bulky watch around his wrist. Waldan grabbed Zack’s hand and pulled him to his feet with uncommon ease.

  “Waldan, have you seen anyone else?”

  Waldan cupped his hand over his large eyes and scanned the horizon. “Afraid not. There is a lot of ground to cover. They must have scattered us to the four winds. It’s going to be quite a task to locate everyone. I suggest we go to that central building and wait.”

  Zack shook his head in panic. “Not a good idea. I was just there. Splifkin is slaughtering people in there.”

  The sun was dipping rapidly. Who knows the peril that would be unleashed in the darkness?

  Zack gazed at his watch. “We have to find Mizuki and the others as soon as we can or this plan is going to fail.”

  “We will, Zack. We will, but it’s going to be dark soon. We should find a secure place for the night.”

  They marched deep into the woods. Waldan gathered branches and broke them over his rather thick thigh while Zack collected small rocks that he piled up in a circle. Waldan placed the broken branches carefully in the middle of the stone oval and started a small fire.

  Waldan whispered, “We should keep it small so as not to attract the wrong kind of attention.”

  Zack ate an energy bar and Waldan chewed on some unknown jerky he had discovered in his backpack as they stared somberly at the flames that licked at the darkness.

  At least their watches hadn�
�t beeped in quite some time.

  Zack yawned, prompting a small smile from Waldan. “I’ll take the first watch. Get some sleep.”

  “That’s okay. Couldn’t if I tried.”

  Waldan grinned and nodded. “At first light we should set out for the central building anyway. That’s where everyone will flock.”

  “But Splifkin is there. Well, he’s sort of Splifkin.”

  “That is where they will go. You went there. I was heading there. The others will surely try to go there as well.”

  Zack feared for Mizuki and the others. He particularly feared for Mizuki, even though he found that callous and selfish. Why should he care for her more than any other in this macabre show?

  Because Caroline is right; she’s my bae.

  Zack and Waldan were broken from their silence by the loud beeps of their watches. Zack prayed it didn’t toll for Mizuki. He looked down at his watch and squinted to make out the number in the light cast by the fire.

  “30.”

  They sat solemn and quiet and stared at the fire and the embers that zipped and streaked from it like shooting stars. They heard no other sounds other than the crackling of the wood and, occasionally, their worried sighs.

  The sky began to brighten quickly. Waldan peered up, a confounded look on his face.

  Zack, too, was unsettled by the early dawn.

  “Must be because this outer ring is moving,” Waldan said.

  It had also become much colder. Zack could see his breath even as the fire cast off heat in his direction.

  Then, it began to snow. Large fluffy flakes floated down, and then hard frozen pellets that quickly doused the flames.

  “I think that’s our cue to leave,” Zack said.

  They quickly gathered themselves and briskly walked the narrow path back toward the center ring. It became warmer with every step until they emerged into a sundrenched field again.

  The habitats on the horizon had changed markedly. Zack could see a large marshland, a mountainous desert and an island set in the middle of clear blue water. The urban sprawl he had seen nearly dead ahead just hours before was on his right.

  Waldan was agitated by the sight. “How can this be? If we are spinning on an outer ring, everything should look the same. This is not right.”

  The central ring and its lone structure still sat at the bottom of the slope. Zack eyed Waldan, who pointed toward the building with a webbed finger and said, “Let’s go.”

  †††

  The inside of the building reeked of rancid death. Blood smears trailed out of rooms and into others. There was the thrumming of a generator echoing through the halls. Zack had not heard that purr the last time he was here and he told Waldan as such.

  Waldan whispered “A trap?”

  They tried to head upstairs, but each staircase was blocked by solid cement.

  The Ankhs wanted them only on this level.

  As they padded down the hallway, almost in a crouch, Zack saw slight movement through an open door to his left. He peered in and held his hand up for to Waldan to stop.

  The thick Gorn—he couldn’t stop thinking of him as that—halted and also peeked into the room. All they could see under the rubble of chairs and desks were two legs covered in the same gray material they wore, only with teal accents. They were startled when the legs began to twitch wildly.

  Zack entered the room as he felt a groping webbed hand try to stop him.

  It was too late.

  Zack carefully removed a desk and a pair of chairs. A boy with a wisp of whiskers on his chin and dark eyes looked up at him.

  It was the German.

  The boy coughed, which made Zack flinch and backpedal into Waldan.

  The boy groaned and whimpered as Waldan knelt to examine him. “He has clean bite marks on his neck. He will be dead soon.”

  Zack got on his knees and pressed his ear to the German’s chest. His heart beat weakly The German flinched and raised his arm, a dagger, dripping of blood, clenched in his hand. He waved it weakly at Zack and spat at him, before his arm dropped limp.

  Zack and Waldan’s watches began wailing. They cupped it in their hands to try to dull the sound, but that was futile. Zack listened for an echo of other beeps, but heard none.

  “29”

  Zack sprang to his feet. “Let’s get out of here.”

  They made their way to the end of the hall and stood in front of another door, this one blue. Zack pushed on the bar and swung it open and they spilled into a dense fog.

  Waldan was even more flustered than before. “This … is madness.”

  Zack was loath to agree.

  They were both startled to hear moaning coming from the fog and then loud cries and anguish. Their watches beeped again.

  “28.”

  Waldan pulled a short sword from his pack and held it up in defense. “We need to get to higher ground, maybe above this fog.”

  Waldan disappeared into the murk, Zack slow to follow. He stumbled around in the dense mist, and then stopped when he heard the clanking of metal on metal mere feet away.

  Zack heard grunts and squawks from inside the fog, and then he heard a long gurgling whimper and a thud.

  Zack cautiously cut through the fog toward the source of the sounds and emerged in front of Waldan, who lay on the concrete with blood seeping from a wound to his chest.

  Waldan’s mouth filled with blood as he tried to speak and he reached out with a webbed hand to Zack, but his arm fell limp. Zack’s watch wailed again.

  “27”

  He heard the wailing of another watch from nearby and bolted away from it, stumbling up the hill. As he crested the rim and emerged from the gloom, he looked back toward the building and saw a gray cloud hang over the valley. It obscured all but just the very top of the structure. He heard more fighting and more whimpers—the sounds of death—and then more dinging from his watch.

  “26”

  He felt a cold hand on his neck and flinched. He reached out blindly for it, grabbed a wrist firmly and twisted. He heard an “ow” and felt the figure drop to one knee before he saw who it was.

  Mizuki pulled away and fell backward. She peered up at him in shock. “Nice to see you, too.”

  Zack smiled, blurted out a string of I’m sorrys, and helped her to her feet. He embraced her tightly enough to feel her heart pounding away on his. She was cold—she was always cold—and she rubbed his back tenderly.

  “I’m so glad to see you,” he said.

  “I figured I’d find you here. It wasn’t easy getting here, you know.”

  They clasped tattooed hands and for the first time since he had arrived in this barbaric circus he felt safe and calm.

  Zack squeezed her hand. “Are you alone?”

  “Yes. About a dozen of us are gathered in a building in the city. Caroline found me. She’s a feisty one. Have you seen Waldan?”

  Zack closed his eyes and lowered his head. He didn’t need to say it, but he muttered the words anyway. “He’s dead.”

  Mizuki peered down at the display on her watch. “We can only lose eight more. And there’s so much land to cover. I don’t think this is going to work. There are others here—a lot of others—not just thirty-four of us. It’s a slaughterhouse. We’re getting cut down.”

  “How do we get back?”

  “That’s the thing. You can be walking toward something, then a fog rolls in and when you finally emerge from it, you are someplace else and the horizon has changed. It’s like the laws don’t apply here.”

  It was as if this area were off-kilter, a funhouse reflecting mayhem. Little had made sense since Zack had been abducted by the Ankhs. This place had proved to be an even bigger riddle.

  They headed out toward where the city once loomed, a thick fog forming around them. They realized the urban sprawl may very well be gone when this cloud lifted. They had no choice, really, a theme of their existence in this world the Ankhs had created.

  As they trudged along, barely able
to see mere feet in front of them, they listened intently for sounds—any sounds. They heard none.

  Mizuki held his hand, the moons together again.

  At least they had that.

  Finally, the fog dispersed almost as quickly as it had formed and they stood in a clearing with flowers of all colors rising to their knees in a field that looked like a painter’s palate.

  Zack wondered what world contained such splendor. He could tell as Mizuki gazed out with a broad smile that she wondered the same.

  The sun was warm on their backs and a soft breeze hit their faces. Zack reached out and felt the softness of the flowers in his fingers.

  Mizuki scanned the horizon. “I don’t see the city.”

  Zack looked, too. All he saw was a mash of colors from the motley crop of flowers.

  “Where do we go now?” Mizuki asked, panicked. She looked down at her watch. “At least no one has croaked in awhile.”

  Zack pointed to a gathering of trees in the distance to their right. “We should head over there. We’ll have shelter. It’ll be getting dark soon.”

  “It’s always getting dark soon,” Mizuki grumbled.

  By the time they had reached the trees, the sun was already dipping. It was a bright red oval and the sky around it a burnt amber.

  They sat, backs resting against the trunk of a tree that seemed as old as the Ankhs themselves, and stared wistfully at the setting sun.

  “If we get out of this,” Mizuki said and then paused. Zack waited expectantly for her to continue. “Can I go home with you?”

  Zack smiled. “You’d have to eat our food.”

  Mizuki made a fake gagging sound. “Ugh. It’ll be worth it, though, to be with you.”

  “I’d like nothing more.”

  Zack was exhausted and he could tell Mizuki was as well as their shoulders slumped.

  Zack’s eyes were heavy and he had trouble focusing them on anything for more than a few seconds.

  Mizuki placed her hand on his cheek and caressed it. “Go on. Go to sleep. I’m okay. I can stay awake.” She smiled and pecked him on the forehead. “My people don’t need as much sleep as you lazy humans.”

  Zack had barely seen the end of her wink before he drifted off.

  †††

  Zack's head snapped up and banged against the rough bark of the tree.