As they were forced closer to the slope, Flynn screwed his nose up at the stench. He looked to either side of him and noticed the other prisoners doing the same. The large and wide incline looked slick from a distance, but now he’d drawn closer to it, Flynn saw what he’d perceived as wet mud to be something entirely different. Not only would the sewage be hard to climb, but he’d have to stop himself vomiting on the way up.
At the bottom of the hill, pointing up in the direction of the slick slope, were a militant line of wooden stakes. Each one looked as sharp as an arrow and they were thick enough to withstand bodies sliding into them. Blood stained their shafts. Not everyone would make it up the slope without sliding back into the stakes. The audience above seemed to be counting on it.
None of the prisoners spoke as they all moved through the line of stakes to the bottom of the slick hill. Sewage pooled from where it had run down the slope, coating the bottom of Flynn’s shoes. A froth sat on the brown liquid, and the smell hung so heavy it damn near made his eyes water.
Another look at Rose and Flynn properly took in her form for the first time in the bright light. Skinny from where she’d spent the longest time of all the prisoners in the dungeon, she already looked weak. They must have fed her something, but it didn’t look like much. Many of the other prisoners appeared the same. Even the brute seemed less brutish in the sun’s strong glare. Where he’d come across as big and powerful in the shadows of the prison, he now looked overweight and unfit. If he needed more than strength, he’d surely find himself lacking.
Before Flynn could think on it any further, one of the guards shimmied through the filthy and bloody stakes. To see her tied a knot in his guts. Mistress!
She still wore her bloody leather apron as she walked up and down in front of the prisoners, a wide strut as if to accommodate her ample frame. She raised her voice, clearly for the large crowd who’d fallen silent above. “Ladies and gentlemen—and I ain’t talking to you dogs,” she said to the prisoners. “Please meet the newest line of hopefuls. We like to start with twenty, but as you all already know, number fifteen and seventeen didn’t make it out of the dungeon. Anyone with those numbers should have received new ones by now.”
When Flynn looked at the brute, he saw him straighten his back and lift his chin. He seemed proud that number fifteen hadn’t made it.
“And now, numbers one to twenty,” she said to the prisoners, “you’ve probably guessed what you need to do.”
Another look at the huge slick hill and Flynn gulped. He ran his eyes all the way up it to the onlookers at the top.
“And what if we say no?” a dark-skinned girl asked. She stood no taller than about five feet and looked so skinny she’d snap. Although why she felt the need to shout out baffled Flynn. She didn’t need to worry; she’d scoot up the hill like a lizard over hot sand.
Mistress looked at one of the guards behind the girl and nodded. The guard—a large man with powerful arms—raised his wooden baton and cracked her across the back of the head with a tonk. The sound echoed around the pit and the girl’s legs buckled beneath her. The guard then buried a large knife into the back of her skull.
Silence hung in the air for a few seconds before Mistress said, “Anyone else want to speak out?”
No one responded.
The guard who’d dropped the girl lifted her shirt up to reveal the infected number six.
“Number six is down,” he called at the people above. Groans and moans met his words, and paper ticker-taped down onto the slope and the prisoners.
The paper took an age to make it to Flynn, but when one landed nearby, he saw the number six on it.
“Now, as you can see,” Mistress said as she walked up to one of the stakes and pushed against the sharpened tip of it with her finger, “not everyone will make it past the first obstacle.”
The first obstacle? Flynn wanted to ask how many there were, but he kept his mouth shut and gulped, his throat dry from the heat.
“But for those who do,” Mistress continued, “you’ll be rewarded. The prize for the winner is a place in our community. You get to live like the rest of us. As for those who don’t make it”—she shrugged—“thanks for participating, and thanks for the entertainment.” For a few seconds, she focused on the dead number six, the pool of piss she lay in turning red as she bled into it.
Another look up and down the line and Flynn nodded to himself. He had the beating of most of the prisoners there. Unlike the others, he’d been well fed and well rested until that moment. Some of them looked on the verge of collapse already. Time in the prison hadn’t served any of them well.
“So,” Mistress said and clapped her hands together, “without further ado, let the contest begin.”
The spectators whooped and hollered, sending a deafening swirl of noise down into the pit. Someone threw a rock and it hit the slope with a wet squelch!
Mistress waved a finger up at the crowd. “Not yet! Wait for me to get out of the way first. Jesus.”
The rock sat as large as a football. After he’d looked at it for a few seconds, Flynn looked up at the crowd again. How many more would be thrown down while they climbed?
Mistress walked back through the spikes and past the prisoners to join the other guards. She removed a baton from her belt and stood in line with her peers. Blood stained the end of her bat and she seemed to take great pleasure in showing the prisoners that as she held it aloft. “Just in case you don’t feel like climbing, know we have ways to motivate you. Prisoners, get ready …
“Ten.”
Flynn shuffled forward with the others to the bottom of the hill.
“Nine.”
He looked at Rose, her face pale like she’d vomit at any moment.
“Eight.”
Flynn watched the brute glance from side to side as if looking for the weak ones to take down.
“Seven.”
A deep inhale of the shit-scented air.
“Six.”
A man burst into tears next to Flynn.
“Five.”
A girl no older than about fifteen threw up.
“Four.”
Flynn clenched his jaw, his frantic heart threatening to unsettle his stamina.
“Three.”
The crowd above seemed to lean over even further, every one of them gripped with silent anticipation.
“Two.”
The top of the hill mattered. Nothing else. Just get to the top.
Chapter 23
“One!”
A deep lungful of the heady reek around him and Flynn stepped onto the slope. He slipped off immediately.
Several of the lighter prisoners on either side of Flynn managed to stay on with their first attempt. Not that he carried a huge amount of extra weight, but like number six, they couldn’t have been any more than five stone dripping wet. Malnourished, they moved up the slope on their spindly limbs like spiders.
On Flynn’s second attempt, he leaned forward and planted his hands into the slope first. Shit oozed up between his fingers.
Flynn ignored the heave threatening to turn through him and brought his right foot up again. This time he stabbed his toe into the soft ground, made sure he had some purchase, and pushed off against it.
When he remained on the slope, Flynn repeated the process with his left foot.
The crowd above screamed and jeered, but Flynn kept his attention on the hill in front of him. The rancid and muddy reek of human waste smothered him. Not that he could do anything to change it. He shut it out as best as he could and pushed on.
A thud and squelch shook the ground above Flynn, a damp spray of sewage splattering the top of his head. When he looked up, he saw another rock had been hurled down from the crowd. Like the one thrown before it, the huge stone had fallen so far that its momentum buried half of it into the soggy slope.
Slow progress for the next few metres, Flynn got to the rock and reached up for it. He tested it by pulling to see if it came loose. His legs sh
ook from trying to hold his position with the strength in his toes. The rock remained in place.
Once he’d climbed up and had both of his feet on the rock, Flynn looked behind him to see Rose down to his left. Shit coated her forearms and she climbed with her mouth spread wide from where she clearly tried to catch her breath. She looked to be in pain from both the physical exertion of the climb and the overwhelming stench she had to endure.
When Flynn looked back up the hill, he flinched to see one of the front-running prisoners hurtling down towards him after having slipped. Legs and arms flailing, the prisoner screamed and looked set to crash straight into him.
The crowd followed his fall with a loud and unified, “Wooooooooooooooooooo …”
Fortunately for Rose, Flynn had checked her position beforehand. When the prisoner got close to him, he braced himself against the rock, took the impact of the man, and shoved him to his right, away from him and Rose.
The prisoner reached out to grab Flynn on his way past and missed, his ratty face twisted with rage and fear.
Flynn recognised him as the man who’d squared up to him in the dungeon. Any guilt vanished as he thought about the way he’d behaved. Better to see him fall than any of the others. Well, the brute could have gone first and then him.
The ratty man gathered momentum and spun as he slid, his arms and legs swinging away from him. He caught one prisoner with a loud clop, and then another a second later. All three slid down the hill towards the spikes.
The crowd’s shout increased in volume the closer they got to the bottom. “WooooooooOOOOOOO.”
The three prisoners crashed into the stakes one after the other and the crowd erupted into cheers.
The ratty man took a spear to the face. It protruded through the back of his head and he hung limp from it.
One of the prisoners took two spears through their torso.
The third prisoner took one through the chest.
The one with the two spears twisted and moaned while the other two remained motionless. Dead.
Flynn looked over his left shoulder to see Rose staring up at him. She dipped a nod at him. He returned the gesture, his legs shaking from adrenaline and the effort of perching on the rock.
Chapter 24
The crowd erupted again, but Flynn couldn’t see why. Someone must have said something to them because they’d been whipped up into a frenzy. A bunch of giddy primates, they threw a meteor shower of rocks down at the prisoners.
Each rock landed with a squelch and threw shit into the air. Flynn closed his mouth as he felt the mess of it patter his face.
One of the final rocks to be hurled down spun as it fell. Flynn watched it land on top of a prisoner no more than a metre away from him, the ground shaking with the impact of it.
The size of a car’s wheel, the rock pinned the prisoner’s head into the muddy slope and turned him instantly limp.
Flynn looked at Rose again, her wide eyes a reflection of his own disbelief. They needed to get off the slope as soon as possible.
Chapter 25
Still on his rock, the dead person still pinned to the slope next to him, Flynn remained stationary as he watched several of the prisoners pass him on their way up the steep hill. Although reluctance sat as a dead weight in his muscles, he couldn’t stay there all day. One last check behind him and he saw Mistress walk over to the impaled prisoners on the stakes.
A wide strut, her leather apron hanging down in front of her, and Mistress shouted out, “Eight, twelve, and nineteen.”
A section of the crowd booed and it snowed slips of paper for a second time.
The fierce dominatrix looked up the slope and at what Flynn assumed to be the body next to him. The sun must have been in her eyes because she squinted as she clearly tried to see better. When one of her guards handed her a pair of binoculars, she pressed them to her face. The shirt of the pinned prisoner had lifted at the back, revealing his number.
“Number three,” Mistress called out.
A slightly quieter “Boo”, and more slips of paper rained down.
At no more than five metres up the slope and with over four times that amount to go, Flynn looked up the hill again. No one in front of him looked like they’d slip. Not that he could predict it; he could only react when it happened. He had to keep going. Fuck knew what they’d do to him if he ended up as the last one to reach the top.
A mixture of exhaustion and fear shook Flynn’s legs as he climbed. Sweat ran into his eyes, but he dared not wipe it away. Better to have eyes stinging from his sweat than rubbing the disease from a stranger’s waste into them.
Every step Flynn took could be the one where he slipped. If that happened, the spikes would be the only things to stop him. He couldn’t think like that though. Instead, he watched the slick ground and continued his climb. One step at a time, he stabbed his right toe into the mud, paused, and then repeated the process with his left.
The brute climbed on Flynn’s right. Red-faced and sweating, he pulled himself up at a slow and steady pace.
A woman who looked to be in her thirties climbed just ahead of the thickset alpha male. Despite the size difference, he gained on her with each step. Where she had a slight frame and little body weight as her advantage, she looked like she struggled for stamina.
When the brute grabbed her ankle, Flynn gasped to watch him pull on it and drag her back.
The woman screamed on her way down and spun in circles. She flapped and slapped her hands against the ground as if it would slow her down. It sprayed up a wave of muddy water, but did little else.
Like the ratty man had, she clattered into a prisoner on her way to the bottom. The collision drove an “oomph” from one of them and they both hurtled towards the stakes.
Flynn flinched at each wet pop as the stakes impaled the two prisoners.
The crowd erupted again and Flynn saw the slightest smile on the brute’s face.
“Ten and fourteen,” Mistress called out and more paper fluttered down onto the slick hill as Flynn continued to climb.
Chapter 26
By the time he’d reached the halfway point, Flynn’s muscles were on fire. It felt like he’d been climbing for hours and he had to cover the same distance again before he reached the top. The heat had turned his throat dry, and every time he gulped, he tasted shit. Either the thick stench had flavoured the air, or some had gotten into his mouth during the climb. Probably the latter, not that it bore thinking about.
No one had slipped since the brute had dragged the woman back.
A look up the slope, the bright sun bouncing off the slick surface, and Flynn saw Rose about three-quarters of the way up.
But he had to focus on his own progress. A jab of his right toe into the muddy ground and he checked it for purchase. When satisfied, he pushed up, his leg shaking from the effort, and jabbed his left toe into the ground. Each push farther up the hill robbed a little more of his strength, but he kept going. He had to.
The first Flynn heard of the next person sliding down the hill came just a little bit too late. When he heard a wet whoosh, he looked up to see a spinning mess of limbs. A second later, it clattered into him.
The collision sent a sharp pain through Flynn’s forearms first and then his shins as they wiped him out.
Just as Flynn lost control, he looked up to see Rose staring down the hill at him, anxiety twisting her features.
Chapter 27
Flynn lost sight of Rose’s worried face as he joined the momentum of the sliding prisoner. He moved down the slope like a tea tray over ice, the slick surface rushing past him.
In the split second he had, Flynn quickly shoved away from the man who’d knocked into him. It altered his course slightly and pushed the man away too.
Flynn spun out of control, his arms and legs flailing away from his body with the momentum of his spin.
The wet rushing sound of the sewage grew louder and surrounded Flynn while the ground shook. Fuck knew how many rocks had been
launched down at him, but they were still coming. Over the sound of the wet slope, he heard the crowd going crazy.
In an attempt to control the spin, Flynn tried to sit up. He lifted his head just about enough to see him: the prisoner who’d been crushed beneath the rock. He remained pinned to the slope like a dead butterfly in a glass case.
The sloppy ground kicked up from Flynn’s feet and hit him as if fired from a muck spreader. The spatter of wet clumps clopped into his face and he pressed his mouth tightly closed. Even with the onslaught of fecal matter, he kept his attention on his intended target. One chance. One chance to save his life.
Flynn reached out for the rock. He caught it, but only with his fingertips. Slick with shit, they slid straight from the rock’s abrasive surface, the jagged stone sending streaks of fire where he made contact. It felt as if he’d sheared the tips of his fingers clean off.
However, it slowed him down just enough to give him time to grab the dangling legs of the pinned corpse.
His damp hands slid down the dead man’s wet trousers, his fingertips throbbing from the pain of catching the rock.
Flynn squeezed harder, gripping on with all he had.
Just before he slipped from the bottom of the corpse’s legs, he stopped with a jolt at the man’s ankles.
Flynn exhaled hard and held on so tightly his arms ached.
Confident he wouldn’t slip, Flynn looked down over his left shoulder to see the prisoner who’d clattered into him slide from the slope into the sharp stakes at the bottom.
The crowd cheered again as a stake popped through the man. It sounded like it shattered his ribcage.
While still holding on, Flynn listened to Mistress at the bottom of the slope. “Number thirteen!”
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 111
