by JD Heath
My gaze goes back toward Gina. My heart flutters a bit in my chest. She’s so damn beautiful. Why is it I had to meet her in here, where there’s so little chance that either of us will even live long enough to know if there’s anything between us?
CHAPTER 9 GINA:
Morning comes but no breakfast appears. In fact the guards don’t even move. All of them look nervous as Norton comes through the door at the side of the room, smiling that smile of his.
He’s carrying a small bundle in one hand. He says, to the guards, “I’d like Tayne, Ally, and Brallen all in one cell, please. Then I need two guards for Mr. Baumer. Now.”
The guards head toward the cells. I can’t breathe. Horror crawls all over my skin, making it itch in a maddening way. Tayne doesn’t even look up when Ally and Brallen are thrust into the cells with him. Then Norton does something extraordinary. He opens the doors with some sort of remote. The guards hustle Brallen and Ally out of their cells and into the cell Tayne sits inside.
Just then the other guards step into the cell with Baumer, and it’s clear that they’re scared. They’re not armed either. They’re only defense is the thing that Norton holds, the thing that passes electricity through our bodies between the cuff and the implanted tag in our arms.
Baumer sits on his cot, smiling a sweet, violent smile. Ally fights and so hard they have to carry her into Tayne’s cell. Brallen has to be dragged into it. The guards have no sooner gotten the three of them inside and corralled then Norton hits the button again.
The cells lock.
A scream rises in my throat. One of the guards sees the trap and understands but it’s too late. All five guards are in the cells. Locked into the cells.
Ally’s on her feet, her face showing the contortions of rage and insanity. Brallen’s in a crouch, his hands already up in a defensive position. The guards in Baumer’s cell have backed away. One of them, his voice cracking, shouts, “Dammit Norton! Open up!”
Norton says, “Sadly I can’t. You’ve become a liability.”
What’s happening? Norton crosses to the cell Ally and the others are in. He opens the bag. Sharp steel glitters wickedly in his hand. His smile is the ultimate evil. He says, “Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Dying Game.”
The knives arc through the bars. Chaos erupts as guards and killers all struggle for those blades.
Baumer’s on his feet, smiling, smiling, smiling.
Paisley shouts, “What the fuck is this?”
And then her cell door bangs open. She doesn’t bother trying to ask any more questions. In Tayne’s cell Brallen has gotten a knife. Blood flies through the air, but I don’t know whose. From Baumer’s cell comes a low, animal-like scream of pain. I don’t want to look. I won’t look. But I am looking and what I see is something that ingrains itself on my mind and stays there, burning like a brand.
Baumer’s come up behind one of the guards—and his teeth are in the man’s neck, parting flesh and sending blood upward in a slim, scarlet fountain.
And Norton, he’s standing there, smiling that huckster’s smile of his. The cameras are on and rolling even if the screens aren’t down and all I can think is that we’ve been had, we’ve been betrayed. They’ll open my cell and the ones he releases into it will take me down before I even have a chance to defend myself. Blood pools into my cell. It’s coming from Tayne’s and there’s so much of it that it sweeps through Ally’s cell and into mine, staining the concrete floor.
Norton says nothing. He merely climbs the stairs and vanishes. I rush toward Morgan. Morgan, who’s the only person I trust in all of this. The only person I care about here.
That halts the spinning thoughts flashing past it.
I care about him.
I do.
There’s something about him, something sweet and pure and true that comes through everything else. My hand fumbles up and out and his fingers reach through the bars and grasp mine. His fingers, warm and solid and so real, anchor me into place for a moment.
It’s not the death unfolding all around me that has me so horrified.
Death and me are old acquaintances.
It’s the way of it.
It’s the betrayal that sickens me.
Part of me understands that this was planned. That the guards must die. That Norton’s feeding the frenzy of the crowd, bloating them on bloodlust just as he’s feeding the killers in the cells.
Literally feeding them, in the case of Baumer.
Revulsion rockets through my system. That, that’s the worst thing. It’s so beyond the boundaries, so…and Morgan.
Right now he’s trapped in a cell mere feet away from the monster that killed and ate his family and I can see it written all over his face. He’s right back in that nightmare, right there in that moment when his family died. Our fingers clutch and grip and I whisper, “Look at me. Morgan, look at me Just at me.”
His face isn’t pale. It’s a grayish hue. It’s the color of death, it’s the pallor of a corpse. His lips shake and his eyes, so big and wide that white rings his orbs, can’t focus. He’s not seeing the guard dying, he’s seeing his family die all over again. It’s their screams in his head.
Then Norton’s voice comes from the speakers. “Players, the game begins for you, now.”
The cell doors spring open. Paisley doesn’t wait. She’s gone like a flash toward the door on the opposite side if the room. Every muscle in my body tenses as I wait for that low thrum of sound and for her to disintegrate before my eyes. She doesn’t. She’s out the door and gone and Clark’s running too, he’s quick but not as fast as Hampton.
Baumer’s too busy feasting to care about the escapees from the charnel house. In the pen Tayne’s dancing, dancing ND singing and Brallen and Ally? Well they’re just killing.
I can’ breathe and I can’t speak. I can’t break the paralysis that’s settled over me.
Then Morgan croaks out, “Run.”
My fingers separate from his. We both make for the cell’s doors. As we careen into the narrow space between the rows of cells Morgan pauses, clearly torn. One side of his body angles toward Baumer’s cell but I shout, “No! That’s what they want!”
It is what they want. To see as many of us die as possible. I have no doubt that one of the others will try to charge up those stairs to take out Norton but I also have no doubt that that room is wholly unassailable.
Morgan turns to me and we run, our bodies going flat out and through the door
CHAPTER 10: MORGAN:
It all comes hurting back. Emily’s face peering down at me tears streaking her pale cheeks. The endless screaming from upstairs. My mother’s voice rising into an unending scream of sheer mortal agony and pain. Emily’s voice riding below my mother’s agony. “You stay here and you don’t cry. You don’t make a sound. Swear to God you won’t move and you won’t speak or make a sound. I love you. Be quiet now.”
Gina’s hand, her words, yank me back into the hellish now. I can’t breathe through the pain. I can’t speak in the face of the unspeakable act playing out in Baumer’s cage.
Then the doors open and we’re moving. I’m all instinct now, all rage, and that instinct and rage demands Baumer’s blood but Gina’s screaming at me, telling me not to do it and she’s right. Going after Baumer now’s a sucker’s bet.
And there’s Gina. I didn’t save my family. I have a chance to save Gina though, but not if I go after Baumer right now. I have no weapon and there’s no way to know when the others are going to stop their mauling of the dying guards long enough to figure out the cells are open.
We have to go and now.
We run through the door and enter into a low, sloping hallway, also concrete. The air is dry and very thin, it feels stale and flat in my lungs. I grab the door and yank it closed and try to shoot the bolt home but it doesn’t go. Norton’s controlling it then, from that room he stashed himself away in.
Time’s all we have and I grab her hand. We pelt down the hallway, running after the echoes of
footsteps. Where’s Clark? What direction did he go in?
I spot him up ahead. He’s losing speed but still moving. I cry out, “Clark!”
He slows and then stops. He’s not breathing heavily. He doesn’t look winded at all but his right hand goes to his leg and he rubs at it, a frown creasing his face. He says, “Hampton went left. No idea where Paisley’s gone.”
“Right here.” Her voice comes from a pool of shadow and then she steps out of that gloom. “I don’t know what you three got planned but I want in. I figure there’s better odds in four against five than one against nine.”
I look at Clark. Paisley catches that look and lets out a rusty chuckle. “Oh don’t worry sugar dumplin’. I won’t kill you unless you do somethin’ to make me. You need me, believe it or not. I got an eidetic memory, something they didn’t know. I got the map and the caches in my head. I just need to be able to draw it out. I never was any good at directions.”
That settles it. We have to take her along, if we can believe her. There’s no time to think that though. The screams have fallen away behind us but that doesn’t mean much. Either the killing in that room’s done and the others are sizing each other up, or they’re coming after us.
They could be forming an unholy alliance of their own as we speak.
Clark says, “There’s a spur about six hundred feet down that way.” His head jerks toward the right. “Off that T-intersection. We need to get as much distance between us and them as possible and we need a cache. Let’s go.”
It’s settled them. Paisley’s with us. We move, all of us jogging lightly. The hall is tight and constrictive and the air gets flatter and less oxygenated it seems. We come to the intersection and then head for the spur Clark mentioned. I’m trying to put the map in my head into this situation but I’m finding it impossible. That alone worries me.
We hit that spur, it’s a thin spidery leg off the main hallway. The dimness here’s thick and that’s a good thing. The hallway splinters into several dead in, running like a maze. Doors line the hall and I stare at them. All of them are solid steel, and locked with some sort of keypad setup.
What’s behind those doors?
No time to find out. We can’t get into the rooms so they offer us no sanctuary either. We spill out into a wider hallway and then we come to yet another intersection. Clark points to a cluster of shadows and we head for it. The shadows prove to be good cover for a narrow opening, a small boxed-in section that’s open on the front.
It also proves to be the location of the first cache. We look at the weapons: it’s all knives. It figures. No way were they going to make it easy and give us guns. Clark rummages through the blades and takes two. Paisley grabs a large, heavy hunting knife and the sheath it rests in. Gina takes a blade and I take the last two, strapping them across my hips.
There’s two backpacks. Inside are bottles of water and MREs. Clark mutters. “MRE. Meals ready to eat. Three lies in one sentence.”
I remember then that before he was a contract killer he was a highly-trained Navy SEAL. I say, “I’ll take your word for it. But I think we’ll eat them anyway.”
He grins at me. “You will. You might not be happy about it, but you will.”
Paisley finds a coil of wire and asks, “What’s this for?”
Clark says, “They’re probably hoping we’ll use it to set some sort of trap. But it would make a better garrote.” He looks her right in the eye and asks, “May I have it please?’
Paisley’s lips purse. Her head inclines. Her eyes narrow. Then she nods. “Since you asked all nice, sure.” Clark extends is hand and she drops the wire into his palm.
We huddle. Paisley uses the tip of the blade she took to rough draw out the map for us in the dust in the corners. Clark studies it closely. He indicates a small xxx-ed out section of her map. “The caches are here, and here now. We’re here. To get here they’d have to take the same route we did. The map showed all the little nooks and crannies but there’s so many dead ends and cross-cuts that it’ll take them a while. The only way in or out of this particular hall is the way we came. There’s no cross-cut that leads to it.”
“That also means we have but one way out.” Paisley presses her thumbs into her the flesh right above the bridge of her nose and rubs, hard.
Gina says, “For right now it’s the safest place we can be. We need to get a plan together.”
Paisley asks, “You’re not trying to just get away from the others, are you? You little sweetlings are trying to find a way outta here.”
I nod. “Yeah.”
Paisley said, “I knew I liked you. So, how do we do it?”
Clark studies the map. His fingers run along the perimeter of the sections. “There’s a reason they gave us the maps. Not just so we’d know where we each might have gone, but so we’d know where the dividing line is, how far we can go before the cuffs blow. But if we could get past that line, we’d find the way out.”
I look down. The cuff’s hidden below my coveralls but I feel its weight. “No way can we get them off. Tug at it and you blow. Try to open it and you blow.”
Clark scratches at his chin with a long finger. “You remember when they were shocking us in the cells?”
Gina speaks. “The tag and the cuffs are somehow connected.”
Clark nods. “Yeah. I’m thinking if we can get the tags out we can get the cuffs off. We’ll have to try that but not now. I’m just guessing but I’d say if we do it too early in the game they’ll be onto us.”
Paisley asks, “How do you know they aren’t listening and watching right now?”
I say, “The cuff and tag. That’s how they track us. There are cameras, but I’m guessing they can’t watch every part of the place. I’d also guess that that’s why they did what they did in the cell room. So those watching could see plenty of blood.”
Clark nods, “All roads lead back to the room Norton went into. I’m sure we have to go through it to get out. This,” his hand indicates the map, “All of this is just a maze designed to get us all face to face eventually, and within camera range.”
Paisley leans against the wall. Gina’s fingers find mine and squeeze. I look over at her. Her face shows exhaustion but she’s holding it together. I try for a smile but it doesn’t quite come up.
She has to live. Has to.
Clark says, “The question now is how do we get through that security that keeps Norton safe?”
I say, “The glass that makes the observation windows up there has to be bulletproof and able to withstand heavy blows. Norton wouldn’t trust his life to regular glass.”
Gina says, “I saw, when we came back from the showers I looked up, and there’s solid steel and concrete on the other sides, no windows.”
I nod. “I saw that too.”
Clark said, “So did I. But there has to be a way out. A back door, so to speak, in case someone ever crashed into the room. So there has to be a way first into it and then out of it. Norton wouldn’t trust that the glass would hold, not if he’s smart, and he is. He’d make sure to have an exit strategy and I think that’s going to have to be ours.”
I nod. “You’re right. That means we have to go through the rest of them.”
Gina says, “Do you think there’s a chance we can get into the cell room while they’re all out here hunting?”
Clark chuckles. “Nope. I think the minute we try that Norton will call them all in and before we can get into the control room they’ll all be in there with us, and there’ll be a new bloodbath for the betting pool to witness.”
Paisley says, “So we pick them off, one by one or however we can, get into the cell room and try to get into the control room so we can find the ext. But what stops Norton from blowing us up?”
I say, “We have to either take him out first or we have to take off the cuffs.”
Clark says, “I don’t know that taking him out would deactivate the cuffs.”
I admit, “Probably not.”
Gina sa
ys, “We need to try to get them off but Clark’s right. The whole maze is set up so that eventually we wind back in the cell room. There’s just nowhere else to go.”
A faint shout comes from somewhere. I look behind me. Clark says, “We have to move. Our best bet, right now, is to get as many of the caches as we can. They’ve already got blades and they’re probably joining up too. Baumer’s gonna go it alone. He’s not a joiner. No idea where Hampton is right now. But the way I see it, for the now, it’s us four against those three plus two solo players. I’ll take those odds and our odds would be better if we had more weapons.”
Paisley said, “I don’t think Baumer needs anything but his teeth and nails.”
I say, “I want as many weapons as we can get, and water and food too.”
Gina wipes the dust away with one hand, clearing away the map Paisley had in her head so the others can’t use it if they happen into this corner. We set out. There’s nothing to do but try for another cache and to stay alive. We set off with Clark in the lead because he’s good at mapping things out.
There’s no sound from anywhere. The shout died and stayed dead. We all walk softly, keeping our feet as quiet as possible. Gina’s right beside me. Paisley brings up the rear. None of us speak. Silence may be our best defense at the moment.
The second cache is intact. We take it, all of it. There’s more of the MRE packs, more of the water and backpacks. We don’t even try to figure out what all there is, we just grab it and go. We end up in another blind ell, taking cover and resting.
Gina whispers, “Something’s wrong with the air. It tastes funny.”
I nod. “I know.”
Clark sniffs and whispers back “I think it’s recirculated.”
Paisley asks, “Does it feel a little dank to you?”
“Yeah.” It does. There’s a little bit of clamminess growing along my skin and I know part of it has to do with our surroundings.
Gina says, “I think we’re underground.”
Clark nods, “Yeah, me too. It would make sense. I mean we’re somewhere that they don’t have to worry about people, so underground is reasonable. Maybe it’s the bottom floors of an old prison. But which one?”
