The Valley

by Rick Jones

  Three Rexes stood just beyond the chokepoint, waiting. They lowered their heads to a few feet above the ground and opened their jaws.

  The area started to widen, giving Stan space to maneuver.

  The beasts were quick, but not quick enough. The Jeep was moving at seventy-four miles per hour, more than a hundred feet per second, much too fast as he maneuvered the Jeep beyond the snapping radius of their jaws, teeth coming down hard, nothing but open air, until he cleared the group and moved ahead to open fields.

  The second Jeep, however, didn’t fare so well.

  Chapter Forty

  Peter Haynes saw the creature burst forward from the jungle line with its eyes fixed on the first Jeep and gave chase, the creature lowering its head and widening its jaws as it took the angle, and rammed the vehicle with its skull on two separate occasions in an attempt to overturn it.

  But when the vehicle managed to stay upright and began to pull away, the Rex turned on them. It closed with incredible speed with its head lowered, the cry from deep in the back of its throat ear-shattering.

  When Haynes turned the wheel too sharply, the passenger side of the vehicle lifted off the ground, but barely, the action cutting the Jeep’s speed dramatically, which gave the Rex time to close in and smash the vehicle with its snout, the impact lifting it off the ground and into the air, the Jeep somersaulting before it came down.

  Haynes, Albright and the gofer girl were knocked free. The co-producer, however, remained pinned underneath the Jeep with his chest and head exposed. Anything below his stomach line was held underneath.

  He struggled to pull himself free, couldn’t, the man trying to bench-press the Jeep off him.

  The Rex circled the flipped vehicle and snapped at it, its jaws coming together feet from the co-producer, who hollered for help. Then the Rex closed in as any predator would and pinned the Jeep down with its foot, the massive tonnage coming down and crushing the Jeep, and struck at the tires, its powerful jaws ripping the rubber free.

  The co-producer screamed as the added weight pressing down on him crushed his lower extremities down to paste. The co-producer coughed a blood gout from his lips, laid his head against the grass, and saw the overhead sky as his pupils quickly contracted to pinprick points, the man summarily dying.

  Everyone else was running through the chokepoint, with Haynes in the lead and Albright behind him. The gofer girl was behind him, but closing, the girl fueled by an adrenaline rush.

  Albright removed his weapon, stopped, turned, and aimed it at the girl.

  Her mouth dropped. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t have to outrun the bear,” he said, and pulled the trigger.

  The bullet struck the girl in the leg below the knee, shattering the bone. She dropped to the ground, screaming. And Albright took flight.

  All he needed was a diversion.

  While Miguana was engaged with the overturned Jeep, the other three were occupied with Stan’s vehicle, which raced circles around them, confusing them. Then one heard the woman’s scream, easier game, and broke from the pack.

  Albright took to the jungle line for cover. Haynes did the same. Both running along its edges to the open field ahead.

  The beast approached the woman with its jaws widening and teeth glistening, then took a couple of whiffs of the woman through its peach-sized nostrils before it bit down and lifted her in the air, cocked its head back, and swallowed her whole by launching her body to the back of its gullet.

  Haynes and Albright kept moving, with Haynes crying and waving for Stan to return.

  But Stan’s Jeep kept moving forward.

  Chapter Forty-One

  As soon as Stan’s Jeep topped the hillside, he came to a skidding halt.

  Everyone had witnessed the Jeep being sent into its somersault roll before it came down, hard, the vehicle pinning someone underneath. As soon as the Rex restrained the vehicle with its leg, the man underneath was crushed.

  Then they saw the inexcusable. They watched Albright turn and fire his weapon at the girl, downing her so that he would have the advantage of pulling away while the young woman, having been crippled, served as an easier target, the prey of least resistance.

  “That son of a bitch,” Cheryl commented quite softly, almost breathlessly.

  Stan took his foot off the pedal and began to return to the chokepoint.

  “What are you doing?” Yakamoto asked him.

  “There’re two people down there,” he told him. “They wouldn’t stand a chance.”

  He sped down the incline, the rear tires swerving a moment before catching the terrain.

  The two forward Rexes took position and began to swing their tails behind them, viewing the Jeep as a threat.

  Stan drew close, the Jeep quick, its maneuverability phenomenal, and took a wide berth, the vehicle taking a wide berth, which confused the beasts. The other two were deeper toward the chokepoint, no issues with them. So Stan straightened the vehicle and made a beeline toward the jungle fringe where Haynes and Albright were racing for their lives.

  The two rexes gave chase, closing the gap as Stan had to slow, then, stop, the vehicle.

  “Get in!” he shouted.

  The tremors of the Rexes footfalls were getting louder, the beasts moving in for the kill as they lowered their heads and opened their jaws, the creatures giving view of what lie behind rows of teeth, something awful.

  “Hurry up!”

  Haynes jumped in the back with Cheryl and Yakamoto. Albright jumped on the wheel well of a spare tire and hung on for dear life as Stan punched the pedal to the floor, causing the Jeep’s tires to spin, no traction, the rear of the vehicle starting to swerve.

  The Rexes were close as one tilted its head and opened its jaws wide. Albright could feel its hot breath pressing down against him, could smell its breath of decayed meat, and could see strips of morsels caught between its teeth from earlier kills, as he brought up his arm in defense.

  The rear wheels caught, finally, the Jeep straightening out and driving forward.

  The Rex reached forward and snapped, missing Albright by less than two feet, the sound of teeth coming together sounding like a gunshot.

  The Jeep began to pull away. First by the inches, then by the feet, and then by yards and lots of them.

  They managed the hills and the dips.

  And no one spoke.

  They had lost two in the journey.

  With one having been contributed to Albright, who sacrificed the young woman in order to save his own miserable life.

  Cheryl wanted to say something to him, to berate him by calling him a gutless, spineless creature with no sympathies. But people like Albright wouldn’t care because people like Albright knew who and what they were in the scheme of things: they were the balances of the scale. For there to be good, then there had to be evil. For light, darkness. For compassion, indifference. And Albright was all of these—he was the evil, the darkness and the indifference. He was everything they weren’t.

  He was creating a necessary balance.

  And balance was a necessity for longevity.

  They drove on, the mountain wall getting closer. The end of a long journey.

  They had been strangers from all walks of life. But it was their humanity that drew them together. They aided one another, fought for one another, saved one another physically, spiritually, and mentally.

  Even Peter Haynes sat quietly.

  And Ben could tell that the man’s conscience was at war with itself as Haynes self-deliberated.

  Then they saw it. Words that were crisp and clear. Words of hope.

  YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT A FEW STEPS AWAY.

  Stan brought the Jeep to a stop.

  And everyone got out, eyes lifted to read the words over the final gate.

  Ben turned to Haynes. “We won,” he told him. “We beat your little game.”

  Haynes didn’t respond sarcastically, not like he would normally do. Instead, he nodded. “That you
did,” he told him.

  To Ben, Haynes appeared completely humbled now that he had lived life on both sides of the track.

  A moment later, Yakamoto joined Ben’s side, as did Cheryl, and read the words above the door once again and the hope they brought.

  “We’re alive,” she said.

  Ben nodded. “Humanity will always find a way. Even during the darkest moments.”

  And the Gates of Freedom started to open.

  Chapter Forty-Two

  The Spinosaurus had felt the approach of the Jeep on its territory, and could smell the scent of its prey on the leading edge of a slight breeze.

  It had taken many of its kind at this location, small insignificant creatures.

  Easy prey.

  So it made its way through the jungle forestation, taking down trees and shrubs.

  And made its way to the Gates of Freedom.

  #

  The doors were less than a hundred feet away. And they opened teasingly slow as metal scraped along the concrete flooring.

  On the other side, freedom. A place where no legal jurisdiction could touch them.

  So they started to take their final steps.

  And then all Hell broke loose as the surrounding jungle foliage suddenly exploded with white-hot fury.

  #

  The Spinosaurus first saw the Jeep, saw that it was idle, and attacked it. It brought a colossal foot down against the hood, crushing it flat to the ground, the Jeep’s rear end rising. The great lizard responded by smashing its snout continuously on the vehicle’s back end, hammering it down to twisted metal and useless composite, the Jeep no longer recognizable.

  Then it turned on the living.

  The Spinosaurus took heavy steps toward the group, measured them, reared its head back, and roared, the air rumbling to such a degree that everyone could feel their chest rattle.

  Everyone backed up since the creature was between them and the gates, and marching forward.

  They were so close.

  YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT A FEW STEPS AWAY.

  But Albright was not about to be denied. He reached behind the small of his back, drew his firearm, and set its sights on the back of Ben Peyton’s leg, right behind the patella. There was nothing worse than the pain of a shattered kneecap, he thought. His cries would draw the Spino right to him.

  When Albright’s finger started to pull back on the trigger, Peyton turned to run, but fell right into Albright’s line of fire instead.

  “What are you doing?” Peyton asked him. But Peyton knew what he was doing—knew it the moment he saw the gun pointed at his direction. Albright was a killer who readily sacrificed the lives of others in order to appease his needs. To him, it was something delicious.

  The creature was getting closer.

  Albright’s finger pulled back on the trigger, slowly. “Good-bye, Peyton, this has been a long time—”

  The point of Yakamoto’s machete tore through the front of Albright’s chest, the blade glistening red. And Albright appeared completely surprised by this. There was no pain, not yet, but was surprised to see the machete sticking a good ten inches out at a point below the heart.

  The creature was drawing near, its jaw gaping.

  Peyton was gone, having disappeared in the brush along the others. Even Yakamoto was gone, disappeared, everyone gone like magic as the world suddenly moved with the slowness of a bad dream, everything so surreal.

  The Spinosaurus stopped over him and threw a great shadow, casting him in darkness.

  Albright went to his knees, dropped the gun, and felt a tightening within his lungs as they filled with blood. He looked up at the creature, who seemed to look down at him quizzically, its head cocking to the left, then to the right in examination.

  Albright coughed a thick wad of blood, the smell of copper enticing the creature to bend its head forward.

  And in the distance, Albright could see the others race through the Gates of Freedom. They had beaten him at his own game. They crippled him, took deep to the foliage, made their way through the thicket and around the creature, and then to freedom.

  Son of a bitch!

  When the door started to close, Albright looked beyond the Spinosaurus and read the words above the gate’s door.

  YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT A FEW STEPS AWAY.

  To Albright it was a lie.

  His freedom would come not by the salvation of the journey, but by death.

  He looked up, saw the widening jaws and the long threads of saliva that connected them, and closed his eyes.

  Behind his lids he could see the imprint of the words in his mind, so he reread them.

  YOUR FREEDOM IS BUT –

  He never got a chance to finish.

  Chapter Forty-Three

  When the door closed behind them, it did so with a wonderful finality.

  Yakamoto had saved Ben’s life, the man coming to his aid when it mattered most. It was something Cheryl had predicted because to her humanity wasn’t quite dead, at least not yet.

  In appreciation, Ben leaned into the Asian and pressed him with a hug. At first Yakamoto felt this measure somewhat vulgar, a show of weakness. But he quickly came to realize that one man’s tradition was as sacred as another’s, though they may differ greatly, and returned his embrace.

  After they parted, Yakamoto disappeared into the brush, never to be seen again.

  Haynes was different as well. The man appeared to have been brought down by this experience, more solemn and not his relentlessly happy self. As he stood there, he squinted and narrowed his eyes as if to focus his line of sight on something in the distance.

  “And you?” Ben asked him.

  For a long moment Haynes hesitated. Then: “I have enough money to last me several lifetimes,” he said. “A long time ago someone asked me ‘how much was too much?’ And my answer was ‘never.’ It’s never too much. But I was wrong. So I think it’s time to retire and enjoy life as much as I can since it can be too short. You know the saying: here today, gone tomorrow.” He turned to Ben. “That sort of thing.”

  “No more shows?”

  Haynes nodded. “Not for me. Not anymore. You won’t be seeing Peter Haynes on the screen ever again. At least not that Peter Haynes. But maybe one that’s more subdued, more composed, perhaps dealing with pertinent issues. We’ll have to see. But reality shows—” He let his words hang a moment before speaking. “They’re a thing of the past.”

  Somehow Ben picked up a ring of truth with what he was saying, believed him. “Good luck, Mr. Haynes. I hope you find what you’re looking for.”

  “Finding a new way of life won’t be easy,” he said. “Reality shows are all I’ve ever done. It’s the only thing I know how to do, to create and produce.”

  Haynes added nothing more. Instead, he walked into the thicket and disappeared, moving east toward Rio, as the wide leaves swung back into place after he pushed them aside, the foliage covering his movements. Some would say that he’d been spotted in Switzerland; others claim to have spotted him on a small island in the Caribbean, an estate; others say Denmark. But the truth was nobody really knew what happened to Peter Haynes. He simply disappeared.

  Stan Tremblay started to follow in Haynes’ path. “Head toward Rio,” he told Ben and Cheryl. “You’re free now.” And then he stopped and looked up at the wall that corralled the creatures he helped bring into the world, creatures that were not meant to be. Then he thought about how nature was rectifying his mistake with a simple bacterial microbe. “It just wasn’t meant to be,” he commented. And like Haynes, he too was gone, disappearing into the bush.

  Cheryl grabbed Ben’s hand and brought it to her cheek. “We’re free.”

  Were they? Ben asked himself. There would always be memories to contend with, horrible ones with images playing constantly through their mind’s eye, sometimes waking them in the middle of the night, their bodies cold and clammy with sweat.

  He pulled her close, kissed the crown of her head.

&
nbsp; As much as he wanted to battle the corruptness of the judicial system, he knew that the fight would be a futile one. People’s taste for onscreen violence was too great. They would never accept an alternate way of life, certainly when one already appeased their entertainment appetite. There would be more shows, ones that were more grisly, and more violent — reality shows that would sweep audiences off their feet and carry them into a new realm of bloodshed.

  That’s what they wanted.

  That’s what they craved.

  The reality of violence.

  Ben turned, looked at the stone wall that climbed dozens of feet into the air, and thought how lucky he was—how lucky they were. They had done the impossible. But as someone once said: the word ‘impossible’ doesn’t mean that something can’t be done, it simply measures the degree of difficulty.

  “Let’s go,” Cheryl told him softly.

  Ben agreed, the two heading for the main road that would take them to Rio.

  EPILOGUE

  Rio de Janeiro

  Two Weeks Later

  In the two weeks they resided in Rio, they had put on weight and looked good, looked healthy. TV personalities wanted to interview them, to speak about their experiences inside the valley. They both refused. However, Peyton did make a single comment about the corruption of the judicial system. When asked what he meant, he wouldn’t expound on it, only that the press should look deep into the Burroughs deeds, where they’ll find their answers.

  So the press did, calling into question the persecution of certain crimes and how judges were able to command as to why some people were sent to Prime Time based on minimal, and sometimes misdemeanor, convictions. A deeper look went into Prime Time Studios, the press turning the thumb screws on studio execs asking why they trumped up charges to foster a belief within the public that the crimes of contestants were much more heinous than what they actually were. Their answer: Our attorneys will get back to you. But they never did, the issue eventually dying off the moment The Wheel of Torture aired.