by Jude Hardin
A personal trainer named Wade had started working with me on a stationary bike and some light dumbbells for about an hour every day, so at least I had that. It was something to look forward to. Wade was blond and muscular and spoke with a European accent. He looked and sounded like a personal trainer, like one in a movie or something. Nobody came to my room with an armed escort anymore. There was no need for it now that I had the defibrillator. All Freeze had to do was push a button and I was toast.
There was a bulge at the surgery site under my left collarbone and I could feel the device under my skin. It didn’t make any noise or anything, but I could feel it with my fingers and I could feel its weight against my pectoral muscle. I was always aware of its presence. It was about the size and shape of a pocket watch.
They’d pinned a calendar to the wall by the bathroom door so I could keep track of the days leading up to the game.
The game was to start Wednesday, October 26.
On Saturday, October 22, a man came to my room and introduced himself as Frederick. He had a mustache and curly black hair and a gold hoop in his left ear. Bushy eyebrows. He wore an Adidas warm-up suit and running shoes. He pulled a tape measure out of his pocket and used it to measure the circumference of my neck.
“Are you going to make me a suit?” I said. “I’ve always wanted a tailored suit.”
He laughed. “Not quite.”
He handed me a small package, a cardboard box the size of a paperback novel with G-29 printed on it in bold black lettering.
“What is it?” I said.
“Open it.”
I opened the box and pulled out a suede pouch. I loosened the drawstring on the pouch and extracted the device, the G-29. It resembled one of those Bluetooth headsets people use with their cell phones. You hang it on your ear and it looks like you’re walking around talking to yourself. Like some kind of mental patient. When I was a kid we had one phone in the house, a black rotarydial made in the USA by Western Electric and leased by Ma Bell. It was indestructible. Wherever it is now, I would lay odds it still works. When you wanted to talk to someone, you dialed their number and they either answered or they didn’t. If they didn’t, you tried again later or forgot about it. You weren’t tethered to the world twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. It was a saner way to live.
I held the stupid little headset in the palm of my hand. “What’s it for?” I said.
“We’ll need to communicate with you from time to time during the game. It works like a walkie-talkie, but it receives and transmits on a dedicated frequency. Nobody except the party on the other end—Freeze or myself or an assigned proctor—will hear what you hear or what you say. All the players have one. We want you to start wearing it today to get used to it.”
“And if I don’t start wearing it today you’re going to push a button on a remote control somewhere and fry my heart.”
“I won’t, personally, but Freeze might. Yes, that’s pretty much the deal.”
I wanted to ask him some questions. I wanted to know how Freeze got him and all the other guys to do the work they did for him. Did he pay them exorbitant sums of money? Were they coerced? Brainwashed? They all seemed pretty much normal, except for where they were and what they were doing. I wanted to ask him some questions, but I knew he wouldn’t answer. Whatever we said would be heard over the intercom in my room, so even if Frederick wanted to talk to me I knew he would not.
I hung the thing on my ear, feeling depressed about it already.
“There,” I said. “Happy?”
“I’m going to leave the room and go downstairs. In a few minutes, I’ll try to contact you through the G-twenty-nine.”
“OK,” I said. “I’ll wait here.”
As if I had a choice.
I sat on the sofa. Several minutes passed and I didn’t hear anything. I was starting to get worried. If Frederick was trying to talk to me and I wasn’t answering, he might think I was intentionally ignoring him. He might tell Freeze, and then Freeze might decide to punch my ticket. I wasn’t afraid to die, but I was afraid of what might happen to Juliet and Brittney if I didn’t cooperate. Or even if I was perceived as not cooperating. I was starting to get worried, and then something struck me. Freeze wasn’t going to kill me. At least not for some minor infraction like refusing to answer Frederick. I was an integral part of his demented little game. Without me, Snuff Tag 9 couldn’t go on as scheduled. Freeze wasn’t going to kill me. He needed me.
“Hello, Number Eight. Do you hear me?”
It was Frederick.
“Loud and clear,” I said.
“Good. I want to check something. I want you to get up and walk around the room and listen for a series of beeps.”
“I don’t feel like it.”
“Excuse me?”
“You didn’t say Simon says.”
“Number Eight, if you don’t—”
“Tell Freeze I want to talk to him. Right now. He can call me on the intercom or he can call me on this piece of shit hanging on my ear. Either way will be fine. Tell him.”
“Oh, I’ll tell him all right. I’ll tell him right away. In fact, I’ll—”
“Just shut up and do it,” I said.
I heard a click, and Frederick was gone. I sat there and twiddled my thumbs and whistled the theme song to the Andy Griffith Show. I sat there and waited and finally a voice came over the G-29.
But it was not the voice of Freeze, as I had requested.
It was the voice of my daughter, Brittney.
“Daddy?”
I couldn’t believe it was her. The fact they had gotten to her so quickly gave me a sinking feeling in my gut.
“It’s me,” I said.
“Where are you?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not sure where I am, and if I knew I couldn’t tell you. They’re listening to everything I say.”
“Oh my god, Dad. Everybody’s looking for you. The FBI and everybody. What’s going on? I was so worried. I haven’t been able to sleep or eat or anything.”
I started to respond, but I heard a click and the line went dead. Then another voice came on.
“Hello, Number Eight.”
It was Freeze.
“Listen, motherfucker. If you touch a hair on her head—”
“Why were you rude to Frederick?” he said.
“Where is she? Where’s my daughter?”
“Don’t worry. She’s at school, where she should be. We called her cell phone and patched her in to the G-twenty-nine. I just wanted you to know we have a bead on her should the need arise. All you have to do is make sure it doesn’t. Again, why were you rude to Frederick?”
“I wanted to talk to you.”
“You could have asked politely. Let me guess. You’ve gotten it into your head that I need you for the game, so you think you can behave any way you want. I’ve been doing this for a while, Number Eight. I’ve seen this kind of thing before, in varying degrees. I call it the Star Syndrome. You see it in the real world sometimes with upper-echelon musicians and professional ball players and other celebrities. They start believing their own hype, start thinking they’re indispensable. Do you think you’re indispensable? Let me assure you that you’re not. One more display like the one with Frederick and you’ll be watching your little girl get hurt. Real bad.”
I clenched my fists and gritted my teeth and fought the urge to say what I wanted to say. The only person who’s going to get hurt real bad is you, you rotten motherfucker...
I held my tongue. Maybe there was still hope. At least the FBI was looking for me. That was something. Maybe they had talked to Joe Crawford. I’d told Joe about the letter to Nathan Broadway, but I couldn’t remember if I’d told him the location of the meeting place. I didn’t think so. I’d been so sure the whole thing was a scam from a theft ring. So Joe wouldn’t be able to tell the FBI much. They wouldn’t have much to go on. Freeze had said that forty-five thousand people go missing every year in the United States alone. I
guessed the FBI was looking for all of them. No, they were never going to find me. I was screwed and at the complete mercy of a madman. And at the moment, the only prudent thing to do was to tell him what he wanted to hear.
“I won’t give you any more trouble,” I said. “I apologize.”
“There. That’s better. Now what was it you wanted to talk to me about?”
“I would like to have some books and magazines and some movies. I’m bored out of my fucking mind in here. I’m going stir-crazy.”
“It’s all part of the regimen,” he said. “No outside media. The game starts in four days. Believe me, you won’t be bored then.”
“I need something to pass the time. A crossword puzzle. Anything.”
“Pass the time by planning your strategy to kill the eight other players. I don’t know if you’ve wrapped your head around that yet or not, but that’s what you’re going to have to do. Kill. Eight. Other. People. It’s the only way you yourself can possibly survive. If I were in your position, I would be riding that bike more and lifting the weights more. I would be praying and meditating, the way certain Native American tribesmen used to do before going into battle. I would be eating all of the food brought to me, not only half or three-quarters. I would—”
“All right. I see your point. I should be preparing myself for the game instead of whining about not having anything to do.”
“Exactly. Now, are you ready to help Frederick calibrate the G-twenty-nine?”
“Sure. Whatever you say.”
“Good. By the way, are you ever going to tell me about those scars on your hand?”
It was none of his business, but I figured what the hell. “I did some work in Tennessee a while back,” I said. “A guy stomped my hand with the heel of his boot. Broke it all to shit. I’ve had six surgeries on it so far, but it’s never going to work right again. As soon as it happened, I knew I wouldn’t be able to play the guitar anymore.”
“That must be tough. Does it hurt?”
“Constantly.”
“That’s good. Pain is good. A wounded animal is always more dangerous than a healthy one. Channel that pain into some fierceness, and maybe you won’t be slaughtered the first day.”
“Yeah. I might just surprise you.”
“I hope so.”
He disconnected. A few minutes later Frederick came back on and we did the tests on the G-29.
I exercised, and then dinner came. Filet mignon and a salad and a baked potato. I ate all of it, even the skin of the potato, which I usually throw away. Freeze was right. I hated to admit it, but he was right. I needed to gather as much strength as I could before the game started. All of the other players were younger than me, and they all had some kind of athletic talent. Soccer, basketball, tae kwon do. They were all college graduates, and I could tell by their photographs that they were all under the age of forty. The only thing I had on them, the only possible edge, was experience. I had faced death before, and I had killed before. Maybe the experience counted for something, but I wasn’t sure how much. And the ex-military guys might have had some experiences of their own that matched or even exceeded mine. They might have seen combat, especially the SEAL. I figured he was probably the most dangerous of the bunch, the one to take out first if possible. I didn’t have anything against any of these guys, but we’d all been dealt a nasty hand. If it came down to me or them, it was going to be them. I was sure they all felt the same way. It wasn’t like any of us had much of a choice.
I took the chair from the desk and sat by the window for a while. It was dark outside, and there was some kind of frog clinging to the upper pane. His toes had suction cups on them. The light from the window attracted flying insects, and when one of them came within range the frog would open its mouth and lurch forward and in one swift motion devour its prey. It seemed like a clever ploy, but I wondered what that particular species did for meals millions of years ago before interior lighting and glass windows.
I watched the frog for over an hour, and then a second one showed up and, after that, a third. There didn’t seem to be any competition over the food. There was plenty for everyone.
I shaved and took a shower and brushed my teeth. When I went back to the window the frogs were gone so I turned the light off and went to bed.
Tuesday night, the night before the game started, Frederick returned with another gadget. It was a plastic collar with cameras on it, like the one I’d seen in the video. It had a hinge on one side and a locking connector on the other. It was black and there were four lenses, front and back and left and right.
“Have a seat,” Frederick said.
I sat on the desk chair and he gently wrapped the collar around my neck. I heard the plastic parts lock together with a click. It fit perfectly. Snugly enough that it wasn’t going to move around a lot when I walked or ran, but not tight enough to choke me. The inside, the part next to my skin, was covered with soft fabric to prevent blisters.
“This is why you measured my neck the other night,” I said.
“Yes.”
“Seems like it might not be real comfortable to sleep in. How do I take it off?”
“You don’t,” he said. “And if you try, an alarm will go off in the central monitoring room. No, you’ll be wearing the collar for the duration. I’m sure you’ll get used to it.”
“Do the cameras broadcast live during the game?”
“They do. Video only, but there are enough ambient microphones placed throughout the playing area to pick up audio from virtually any location. The cam-collars come on automatically, based on lighting conditions. They use the three-G network, same as cell phones, and they all run simultaneously. Nine players, four cameras each, so that’s thirty-six live video feeds going to thirty-six LCD monitors. Plus, there are forty stationary cameras mounted at strategic locations around the field of play. Those go to forty more monitors, so seventy-six cameras and seventy-six monitors in all. We’re able to capture all the action all the time. It’s really quite remarkable.”
“And all this is for Freeze’s amusement?” I said.
“You know, boys and their toys.”
“So do these collars run on batteries or what?”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s what I need to show you next.”
He left the room for a minute and returned with a backpack and a shopping bag. The backpack was black and had a big white 8 painted on it. He unzipped it and showed me an inside compartment containing a rectangular steel box the size of a deck of cards. Another pocket contained a set of cables.
“This is the battery?” I said, pointing toward the steel box.
“This is the external battery pack. The internal battery in your unit lasts a long time, but if it ever starts running low, this is your backup. This cable is used to charge the internal battery while you sleep, and this one charges the external battery should the need arise.” He pulled out a third cable. “And this one charges your G-twenty-nine. Like I said, the cameras are light-activated, which helps conserve power. There are nine little houses on the field—they’re nothing more than garden sheds, really, with an army cot and a water spigot—and inside every house is a power outlet. Every player is assigned to a house.”
“What’s going to stop one of the other players from coming into my house and bashing my skull in with a rock while I sleep?”
“The game usually commences at sunrise and then stops at sunset. I thought Freeze would have told you all this by now.”
“He didn’t.”
Frederick pulled a pamphlet out of the backpack. “Here’s the complete set of rules, along with bios on all the players. You’ll need to study this tonight. Anyone who deviates from the rules is punished immediately. The severity of the punishment depends on the severity of the infringement; but, needless to say, termination is always a possibility. Termination, that is, death, is always a possibility, as is watching someone you care about suffer.”
“What’s in the bag?”
�
��This is your uniform,” he said.
He opened the shopping bag and pulled out a pair of black fatigue pants, a pair of black combat boots, and a red football jersey with the number 8 printed on the chest. There were three pairs of boxer briefs, three pairs of heavy cotton socks, and three undershirts.
“No jacket?” I said. “It’s likely to get chilly out there in the swamp, especially early in the morning and at night.”
I was half joking. I didn’t figure Freeze gave a damn about our comfort, but Frederick responded with, “There will be a sleeping bag in your house, a down-filled mummy bag, so you’ll be warm enough at night. And you will have the opportunity to obtain a jacket, but it’s one of the things you’ll have to earn along the way.”
“What other things will we have the opportunity to earn?”
“Well, I don’t want to tell you everything tonight. We like to keep some things a surprise. Makes it more interesting, don’t you think?”
“Sure.”
“You’ll need to get a good night’s sleep tonight, Number Eight. Tomorrow is going to be a long day. Let’s hope it’s long, anyway. If you don’t watch yourself, it could be a very short day.”
“I only get one shirt and one pair of pants?” I said, looking at the pile of clothes on the bed.
“Yes, so you need to take care of them best you can. They’ll have to last the whole five days, if you make it to the finale. And if you don’t, they’ll be the clothes you’re buried in. Farewell, Number Eight, and best of luck.”
“Thanks,” I said.
Frederick left the room and I tried on the uniform. Everything fit, even the boots.
Freeze had previously mentioned the possibility of obtaining weapons. I was wondering about that when another man came to my room, a man I hadn’t met before. He wheeled in a metal cabinet with drawers labeled one to ten.
