The Game

by Scollins, Shane

  Candice shook her head. “Whatever it is, it can’t be good.”

  The monitor on the wall blinked to life, and the animated man was onscreen again. “Welcome to the Circle of Pain Bonus Round. Please choose a contestant.”

  They looked around at each other. Candice stepped forward. She put her chin in the air and strode confidently into the red circle. She raised her arms in the air, and yelled, “C’mon, asshole. Bring it.” Something inside her just snapped. Her slight anger had turned to complete rage. Her adrenaline was churning like a blender, whirling in her gut with the power to crush ice. If he wanted her to be the leader, so be it.

  She met the eyes of the other girls. Their faces were wide with fear. Candice left her fear somewhere back in the hallway. She was itching for a fight now. They’d pushed her one step too far.

  The television monitor showed a clock next to the animated man’s head. He said, “You must stay in the circle for one minute, or someone dies. If you leave the circle for any reason, one random girl dies immediately. If you make it, you are immune from death for today and no one dies. They will only be abducted and tortured before they rejoin the game tomorrow. It’s up to you, Candice, to save a life tonight.”

  Candice took a deep breath. Now she was afraid. It was up to her to save a life, this wasn’t what she expected. Now if she was unable to stand up to whatever this psycho was about to dish out, she would be racked with guilt. This had become a crushing weight of responsibility.

  A timer started counting down. “The game will begin in five-four-three-two” a beep emitted.

  An explosion of flames erupted in a circle around her, coming up from the floor and reaching into the air about two feet off the ground. The heat was intense. She tried to stay in the center as close to the middle of the twelve-foot ring as possible, away from the burning fire.

  From above her head, a huge hanging rack started to spin. A cannon dropped down on a telescoping arm. A high-pitched whine grew in volume and pitch, until a fiery projectile erupted from the barrel and flew at her.

  Candice thought this was it, the death-blow. The tiny ball of fire missed her, but the second one didn’t.

  The burning projectile slammed into her shoulder with a hot sting. She screamed in pain, stumbling backwards, but the flames behind her drove her back to the center of the ring. She was able to slap the sticky ball of fire off her collarbone. It left a mark, but didn’t burn through her tee shirt or melt her skin.

  Another shot whizzed by her face. She watched the spinning rack, trying to guess when the tiny cannon would be coming around again. The shot came and she was able to dodge it, but she stepped too far to the side and burned her leg in the flames on the edge of the circle. She had to fight the urge to dodge them with sharp movements. If she left the circle, someone was going to die. There was no need to be reminded of that, but her mind couldn’t stop.

  She was dripping with sweat, burning hot. It must have been well over one-hundred-twenty degrees in the circle. Now that water soaking they got earlier was welcome.

  The fireballs came again. She was able to bat it away with an open palm before it hit her face.

  Glancing up at the clock, she saw there were still forty seconds left. This was the longest minute of her life. Another fireball flew at her. She dodged it, but then another one followed it and slammed into her left thigh. She reached down quickly and pushed the sticky ball off her leg.

  A barrage of shots started coming, there was no way to dodge them. She just covered her face with her open hands and reacted to the impacts when they hit her, brushing them off with a yelp of pain for each one. She took one in the chest, one off her exposed stomach, and another off her knee. One hit her upper right arm and yet another hit her crotch. She’d lost count how many landed.

  The pain was intense but she remained strong and didn’t give in to the urge to run.

  Finally, the flames on the edge of the ring extinguished and no more fireballs flew from the rack above.

  Candice staggered from the ring, looking at her red welts. Sweat poured down her face, but she wasn’t seriously wounded that she could tell. She finally collapsed onto her hands and knees, gasping for cooler air to quench the heat in her lungs.

  Alexis crouched down beside her. “Oh, my God, are you okay?”

  Candice nodded. “I think so.”

  The animated man on the screen appeared again. “Congratulations, Candice. You’ve survived the Ring of Fire. The next round will be harder. The fireballs will be larger and stickier, with more wax base.” He laughed. “Caleb is in the maze, and thanks to the fans, a new target has been chosen. You will have twenty minutes to navigate back to your cells before the abduction.”

  Candice got to her feet. “C’mon, we need to get moving. We’re dead ducks sitting here.”

  They ventured back into the hallway, following the only path available until they came to an intersection.

  “Which way?” Alexis asked.

  “Left,” Candice replied.

  “No, right!” Sienna offered.

  Candice shook her head. “No, he said we had to make our way back to the cells.”

  “Yeah, and right is the shortest route.” Sienna insisted.

  “Do you really think he’d want us to go the shortest route?” Candice was certain she was right. But Sienna looked defiant and her twin was backing her.

  “You go whatever the hell the way you want.” Sophia waved a hand.

  Candice knew she had to be the leader. “We have to stick together here. If we separate, we become vulnerable.”

  Alexis said, “We’re vulnerable, anyway.”

  “Yeah,” agreed Missy.

  Candice sighed. “I know, but we need to be smart here. We need to stick together at all costs. And I think we’d be better off going to the left, because these halls intersect that way. If we go right, we run into the exterior wall and it will be easier to box us in.”

  Alexis nodded. “She’s right, we need options. I say we go with Candice.”

  Sienna rolled her eyes, but agreed.

  They moved towards the cells, they’d made it almost to the final hallway. Then the lights went out. The lights came back on, then flicked back off. They continued to flash. It was disorienting, but Candice tried to lead them into the last hallway.

  They scurried down the long corridor. The floor became so slick they could hardly even stand. They clutched at anything they could grasp, trying to stay upright. The lights went out and stayed out.

  Candice felt the impact to her head as she went down hard. A few screams erupted from the group. She tried to get her feet under her but slid forward and fell.

  There were a few minutes of complete chaos in the darkness. The lights came back on. Missy was on the ground, bleeding from a head wound. Julia was gone.

  Candice got to her feet as the pain from the hit to her head faded. She tasted bile in her mouth. She bent down to Missy. “Are you okay?” Missy groaned, barely conscious.

  The television monitor on the wall in the hallway blinked on and the animated man appeared. “And then there were five.” The fake crowed started chanting — show us more, show us more. “The voters have spoken.”

  The feed switched to a live shot of Julia, as Caleb strapped her to a rack. She struggled to break free.

  The animated man spoke again. “Thanks to Candice’s stellar play in the game, Julia will not die this round. But she’ll wish she was dead.”

  Caleb, dressed in all black with a white stocking mask covering his face, walked around her. He had a large knife in one hand and an electric taser in the other.

  “Oh God,” Candice said.

  They watched Caleb tase Julia three times. Her body jumped and convulsed, rattling the rack and chains that bound her. He then took the knife and cut her c
lothes off, leaving her in just her underwear.

  “I can’t watch this,” Candice said turning away, but a cryptic desire to know what was happening twisted her around. She turned around just in time to see Caleb holding a small butane torch to a branding iron.

  Once the one-inch A at the end of the iron was glowing hot, Caleb stuck it onto Julia’s thigh. She screamed in agony as Caleb kept the pressure on.

  Candice couldn’t take it, nausea overcame her. She wanted to throw something at the screen, but there was nothing, no way to stop it. Julia’s screams filled the air and tore at her gut like the fangs of a crocodile, biting and thrashing, twisting and turning.

  Sienna turned away, crying; so did her twin. After what felt like an eternity, Julia’s screams turned into a whimper.

  The animated man came back on the screen. “One might wonder who had the worse fate. Was it Missy, who was spared this agony because of the voters, but may face an even worse one soon enough? Is it Julia, who will now have to live through hours of agony? I guess that’s up to you to decide. Please make your way back to the cells before Caleb gets down there. Because after the clock runs out, all bets are off and Caleb is free to do what he wants.”

  Candice and Alexis helped get Missy to her feet. She was barely awake.

  A large garage type door cranked up, revealing the path back to their cells. Candice stood. Her confidence, so high just a few minutes ago, felt crushed. But slowly with each step, her resolve returned. She wasn’t going out like that.

  Chapter 30

  The news reports were disturbing, to say the least. Lukas cringed at the fact they were making a spectacle of this. While everyone else was wondering how it was possible this was going on, how it was possible the police and FBI couldn’t find out where the transmission was coming from, Lukas cursed himself for not being able to find a way into the facility. He got there in time, but without some tools, there was no way in.

  Spinning away from the television in the storefront, he headed back to the Nissan truck that came with his new identity. “C’mon, buddy!” he said to Orion as the dog jumped into the backseat.

  He carried the tools and threw them in the bed, being careful not to drop the lithium battery pack for the plasma cutter. Luckily, Craig Easton had a good credit card. He was able to buy what he needed.

  By the time he got back to Iron Stone, the full moon had risen. He briefly thought about calling the police first, but there were several problems with that, the biggest one being that if they captured Angus while he was still Craig Easton, he didn’t know what the outcome would be. A part of him knew he had to kill Angus, or at least try. It might be the only way.

  There were so many unknowns at play. The best plan was just to follow his instincts. The police would need warrants and things like that. They wouldn’t just take his word for it without investigation. It would be several hours before Angus was in custody or dead. He was here now and he could save them.

  “Orion, I hope you’re one of those German Shepherds that likes to kick ass.” The dog barked in affirmation. “Excellent.”

  Lukas slung the duffle bag over his shoulder and took hold of the cutter. He had never used a plasma cutter before, but the salesman at the store was helpful and gave a great ten minute tutorial. It wasn’t rocket science to cut things up. All he needed was a set of dark goggles, some leather gloves, and some point-and-shoot ability.

  He walked confidently to the side door that faced the valley. There were no lights on outside Iron Stone Mountain, the place was, after all, abandoned long ago. Although there was a strange familiarity to it, he didn’t recall being here before yesterday.

  Sometimes he wondered if the people he became bled some memories of their own into his mind. There was no way to know for sure.

  After slipping on the gloves and goggles, he clicked the igniter and the white-hot arrow of plasma glowed bright with a whoosh.

  The steel door looked formidable, but the plasma cutter sliced through easily. After working the hot stream around the doorknob in a C-shape until the entire lock system was separated from the door, he pried the door away from the handle and opened it. The deadbolt remained stuck into the sill, so he slid it out and tossed it aside.

  The corridor was dark, but the LED flashlight lit it up in full detail. The dog stayed by his side the entire way. “Let me know when you smell the bad guys, okay?” The dog chuffed in response.

  He came to a four-way intersection. “Which way, Orion?”

  The dog tipped his nose into the air, but didn’t indicate which direction they should proceed. “You’re no help.” He knew partly which way to go since he had walked the entire facility earlier when he could still penetrate walls with just a breath-hold.

  Lukas moved straight across, but came to a steel roll up fire door. He went back to check the other two options back at the intersection. They all had the same roll up door. “Guess we’re cutting again.”

  He used the plasma cutter to carve out a hole big enough to crawl through. Once on the other side, he saw another small door to his right. He twisted the knob and knew he’d found his way to the right place. She was strapped to the bed, spread eagled in her underwear.

  The room appeared empty but the camera could see him. He quickly slid his back to the wall to stay out of view, and shimmied directly under it. Then he reached up and pulled the video cable.

  He went to the bed and pulled the gag from her mouth. “Zyanna,” he said.

  “Who the hell are you?” she replied as he undid the nylon ropes that held her to the steel bed frame.

  “My name is Lukas. I’m a friend of Candice.”

  “What’s happening?”

  “It’s a long story.”

  “Where’s Candice? Is she okay?” She rubbed her wrists and ankles, ringed raw from the binding.

  “She’s in here somewhere.”

  Zee stood up and flexed her legs. “Why should I trust you?”

  “You have no reason not to.”

  She rolled her shoulders and stretched her neck. “I don’t trust anyone.”

  “You trust Candice.”

  Zee looked at him. “I love her, she’s my best friend.”

  “She came into this place to save you. She needs you now more than ever.”

  Zee’s face hardened. “I’d kill for her.”

  “You may have to.” Lukas spotted a pair of jeans and a red tee shirt balled up on a wire shelf near the door. He assumed they were Zyanna’s, so he tossed them to her. She didn’t hesitate slipping into them.

  They headed out into the hallway.

  “What’s the plan?” Zee whispered.

  “Get everyone out of here before he can broadcast.”

  She raised her brow. “What do you mean, broadcast?”

  Lukas didn’t answer and just moved forward. They slid slowly past some security lights. The darkness was thick between the far-spaced dim fluorescents, but the flashlight filled the gaps.

  Orion barked and stopped in front of a door. Lukas twisted the knob but it was locked. “Turn your back, look away.” He fired up the shoulder-mounted plasma cutter. In a matter of seconds, the knob was reduced to nothing.

  They entered the room. Buzzing exposed fluorescent lights flickered overhead. A girl on the cot cowered and curled into a fetal position.

  “Jesus,” Lukas said as Zee shimmed past him to the girl.

  “Hey, you okay?” Zee asked as the girl unfolded and sat up.

  “Who are you?”

  “I’m Zyanna, this is Lukas. What’s your name?”

  She didn’t answer right away but then she said, “Julia.”

  “What are you doing here, Julia?”

  Tears welled up in her eyes, but she steeled her lips. “I guess I lost the game today.”
r />   Lukas nodded. “You’re the one that was on television.”

  She held up her shirt, pointed to her legs. There were capital A’s burned into her flesh all over, probably six in all. “This was on television?”

  “What’s going on here is all over the news. It was broadcast all over the Internet.”

  Zee stood upright, facing him. “Then why in the hell aren’t the police here?”

  “They can’t find it.”

  Zee narrowed he stare. “But you found us?”

  Julia stood. “Why didn’t you bring the police?”

  “Because they would take too long. They’d have to get warrants, they’d have to sit me down and listen to my story for ten hours before they believed it. By then, someone would be dead.”

  Zee looked at him suspiciously.

  “Look, you guys can leave right now. Head out to the gate and call the cops. But by then this whole thing will be over.” He pulled a small backup pistol he bought from the guy at the hardware store. “Take this.” He held it out to Zee. “And get out of here the way I came in.” He handed her a small flashlight. “It’s a safe exit. Call the police and tell them what’s going on.”

  Zee looked at him, then at Julia. “You ready?”

  Julia nodded. Zee handed her the pistol and flashlight. “You go.”

  “No, Zee, you go with her,” Lukas insisted.

  “I’m not leaving here until I know Candice is safe.”

  “Candice?” Julia said.

  “You saw her?” Zee asked.

  “Yes, she’s in the game.”

  Zee looked at Lukas and nodded. “I’m going with you.”

  Julia said, “I’ll be fine, you two go.”

  Lukas stepped in front of her and put his hand on her shoulder. “Follow through the doors. When you get outside, go straight into the wooded area. There’s a trail that leads about a quarter-mile. You’ll find a blue pickup. The keys are in it and there’s a cell phone in the glove box. Lock the doors and call the cops.” He called the dog. “Orion, take her back to the truck and protect her with your life.” The dog chuffed. “Just follow him, you’ll be fine.”