by Cameron Jace
Okay. First the roses. Then the tomatoes. Then the bullets. I think I have had enough. Thank you very much. Can we switch the channel?
Leo shoves me to the floor. My eyes are wide and my neck is twisted. I wonder why he is driving down the slope with the teenagers screaming around us. I guess there is no use in trying to escape the games with thousands of military soldiers surrounding us. The car is going to be useful in the field. We have immunity from soldiers in the Playa battlefields. They are not allowed inside.
As the car slides down, pulled by gravity since Leo doesn’t have the keys, I try not to bump my head on the inside of the Jeep. Isn’t Leo supposed to be able to use the wires to turn the engine on? I’ve seen it in some old movie.
Instead of driving faster, Leo is using the brakes to slow down. Other students are trying to hop inside for a ride as I crawl back up in my seat. I see the battlefield from this high point. It is huge. A city of its own. I can’t see its end. There is an amusement park in the distance. I can see a rollercoaster. There is a forest, a lake, a huge glass dome, a monorail, an area full of industrial buildings, and a main street where the buses are lined up ready for the race.
Leo looks angrily at me. He doesn’t want anyone else riding along, which I find mean. If we’re all going to die, we might as well die together. I don’t see the difference, Jeep or no Jeep. We are all going down to the yellow buses.
The Jeep is full once we reach the end of the slope. Everyone runs to the buses, arguing about who is a better driver. Ironically, this game should be illegal since no one is old enough for a driver’s license yet — except Leo. Their parents must have taught them how to drive. Well, who am I kidding? I wouldn’t be surprised if many of them stole cars for a living.
Leo pushes the teens away from the Jeep. He takes no prisoners. I should be running toward a bus, but I feel that I am with him. In my head, I sound like we are going to the Prom. I am with him. I am with Leo, the mysterious, unethical, Nine-looking, outranked boy. King and queen of the Monsters.
He picks up a bag from the backseat, and fills it with items. Seeing Leo pack a flashlight makes me feel better. It means he has plans to survive until tomorrow morning. That’s a start.
“You need help?” I tap my foot against the ground. I am a goddamn volunteer, not one of those damsel-in-distress type girls. Should I explain to him that I am here to find Woo?
He throws the heavy backpack toward me. I let it slip through my fingers and it falls o my feet. He gives me that look. I feel guilty. What is wrong with me? I’ve never been a brat. Looking at him is just distracting. I pick up the backpack up off the ground.
“The best way to play the game is to play the game,” I hear a boy explaining to the other teens around him. It’s Roger This, educating the teens. “Think of it as a video game and just play along. Never think about dying. Just play. We’re Bad Kidz after all. We love to play,” he preaches.
Leo tucks the rifle under his jacket and picks up a strange instrument from the car. It is like a crowbar that closes full circle, and it has a bent edge that looks like it could pull something hooked to it. It looks pretty heavy, like a train chain that can be used to connect two trains together.
He grabs my arm with the other hand so tight it hurts. His fingers feel like wood. He stares at my body from top to bottom, looking at my legs. Is this boy a psycho or what? He might be a sex offender. Maybe that’s why he was banned. Does the iAm recognize sex offenders?
Leo turns me around like a doll, still checking me out as if Armageddon isn’t about to start. I am blinking, but I push him away. He smirks, almost parting his lips.
“Look. It’s flattering that a Nine is checking me out but could we make sure we live first?” I blurt out, trying to sound sarcastic.
He reaches for my black dress, an inch above my knees, and rips it apart with both hands, his crowbar set on the floor for the moment. I shriek in surprise, but I look down and find my dress is a lot shorter now. I will be able to run faster. I could not care less about my naked, mud-covered thighs. It’s naked or die right now.
Leo pushes me from behind, urging me to run for a certain bus, and then pantomimes a guy driving an invisible steering wheel. He wants me to drive the bus? I can’t drive that well. He doesn’t allow me to explain. He pushes me farther. I run.
Looking back while I run, I see him drive the Jeep again, park it right behind the bus and then chain the buss and the jeep with crowbar.
Although I don’t fully get it, I admire the plan of having two vehicles. Enthusiasm is rushing through my spine. I think Roger This’s advice might help. Let’s play. I find myself getting on the bus, pushing away the teens fighting over the driver’s seat, and magically hug the wheel and marking it as mine.
This seat is mine!
I hug the big steering wheel with both of my arms, barely covering it. It looks like I am hugging my big pillow on my bed. Why did I get myself into this?
Leo jumps onto the bus, waving his rifle and signaling for everyone to take a seat. He is older, more serious, bigger, and doesn’t speak. You can’t argue with someone who is mute. All you can do is obey. He looks like a Terminator. A cute, swoon-worthy one.
We all get instant stand-by messages on our iAms.
“Are you ready, folks?” says Timmy in the iScreen, leaning against the wall and gorging on a carrot. If the carrot is referring to something or someone, I don’t know what it means, but the viewers go crazy, laughing and saying he looks like someone called Bugs Bunny. They say Bugs Bunny is a rabbit. No wonder that his name is Timothy Rabbit. “Nine minutes from now, this could be all, folks.” More carrot-biting, more laughs. “I will count down from five to one, and then the ride is on. Live or explode. Remember, at any moment in the next nine minutes you have to be on a moving vehicle, driving fifty miles per hour at the least. Anyone who falls, or walks down the street, not on a vehicle, will be…” Will be what? He doesn’t say. “Unless you can run fifty miles per hour for nine minutes straight. In case you want to risk that, use your iAm to keep track of your speed. Whoever breaks the rules will be electrocuted through his iAm.”
If I really want to scare myself, I’ll use my iAm to measure my heart rate. It’s shooting through the roof.
Leo snatches my iAm and sets it on stopwatch. I want to tell him to use his iAm instead. He waits for Timmy’s countdown, looking straight into my eyes.
“Those of you who stole the Jeep,” says Timmy. “Not a bad move. But don’t expect us not to blow it up three minutes after starting the engine. In the spirit of the game, I will not count a Jeep being pulled by a bus as a moving vehicle. I will start counting once you start its engine though, if you make it that far. Good luck with the endless number of Monsters who will want to kill you for that precious Jeep.”
I look up at Leo and smile. He nods but doesn’t smile.
So Leo’s plan is to jump from the bus back to the Jeep before the three minutes ends. Then we start the engine of the Jeep. That will buy us another three minutes. I can’t think about the last three minutes now. I am sure Leo has a plan. If he doesn’t, I don’t want to panic.
This is what I have to learn from now on, living life, appreciating it, a minute at a time. Well, in my case, three minutes at a time.
“Five,” Timmy counts.
I start the bus’s engine, making sure I have a tight grip on the wheel.
“Four,” says Timmy.
I look at Leo for reassurance. I can’t make anything of his serious posture. How long is this guy going to stay silent? Talk to me at least once before we die.
“Three.”
Leo starts the stopwatch already, buying us a second or two. He pushes my leg against the gas pedal, firing a shot through the ceiling. We are the first to go. We are cheating to stay alive. I’d rather cheat to pass an exam.
“Two.”
The bus shakes a little because of the weight of the Jeep we’re towing. Had we been towing another bus, it wouldn’t have worked. T
oo heavy. It’s such a smart idea, Leo stealing a Jeep, smaller and lighter.
“Cheaters!” says Timmy. “I am starting to like these guys.” Timmy either doesn’t know it’s us or is acting as if he doesn’t know us.
“One.”
Chapter 8
This Bus is Mine
The bus shakes. I can’t control it. It sways to the left, and to the right when I push the gas pedal faster. Leo puts his hands over mine on the steering wheel to maintain stability. I look in the rearview mirror. The boys and girls are on the edge of their seats, willing to help.
“Wow,” one of the game-loving boys says. “At least we’re not going to school.”
I don’t think any of us really understand that we might die any minute. Somehow, the spirit of play is still in us.
The bus next to me starts hitting the side of our bus, on purpose.
The outranked in my bus scream.
Why is the other bus hitting us? We are all in the same league.
Leo gets to the edge of the door and fires two shots into the air to scare them away.
“They want the Jeep,” a girl yells from the back of our bus. My bus!
Of course they want the Jeep. We are almost one minute in. I see others panicking from the other buses, getting out and running away. They are trying to keep up with the speed on their feet, trusting their own bodies better than any other plan. Fifty miles an hour non-stop, are you kidding me?
Some run away into the forest, thinking the Summit can’t see them there. Bad idea.
On your feet or not. After three minutes, you have to use a new transportation method. That’s the trick.
“You fools!” I scream out the window. The speed is detected by your iAm, not the vehicle you are on. If you are on a bus moving at fifty miles per hour, then your body’s speed is the same to the iAm. Uneducated, outranked, I think to myself. I am not here for them. I am here for Woo. But first, I have to stay alive.
Suddenly, I find out that some of those on foot are running toward our bus. Leo signals for me to close the doors.
I hesitate. I can’t. I won’t.
They deserve a chance. There is room enough in the bus. Leo challenges me with that daring look, and I dare to look back at him. I will not shut the door! This is my bus. I can let anyone I want on it!
He looks at me, frustrated, then he turns back and blocks the door himself, firing in the air again.
The back door is still open. A couple of runners jump inside. The others in the bus help them. I see some of them hanging over the edges of the open windows of the school bus in the rear-view mirror. Well, if this was the regular school bus taking us to school every day, I doubt students would be so eager to get on it.
“I know you wonder why we would want to explode the lovely buses that bring you to school,” I hear Timmy say on the iAm, talking to the viewers. “Are we about to end school forever?”
The audience says, “Yeaaaah. No school.”
“Sorry, my friends. Not going to happen. But we’re happy to announce a brand-new set of school buses, a present from Prophet Xitler, starting in the new semester.”
Audience praise. Audience hail. Audience boom.
Silly crowd. I swear if I outlive this, I will kick them in the loompas. Don’t ask. I don’t know what it means. I heard a girl say it to a boy in school. Still, I am afraid that if I kick them in loompas, they’ll still laugh.
Two minutes in.
I can a school bus dragging another bus in the rear view mirror. I guess they replicated the idea of the jeep. Why not? But they are barely keeping up with the minimum speed. Their bus could break down, hopefully not before the three minutes.
There is also a bus with faces glued to the window, watching us. They are all tattooed and ear-pierced with smirking faces as if waiting for something. Their tattoos are all the same, as if they belong to a gang. The tattoo is of someone riding something, maybe surfing. No, it’s the picture of girl riding a flying skateboard.
The tattooed boys and girls creep me out. Why are they so calm and silent?
Thirty seconds to explosion.
The world around me is a mess. Fights over buses, buses colliding, crazy outranked running in the streets of the Playa. I think I just drove over something. No!
A girl panics behind me and tries to choke me with her hands, pulling me back against the pole. I struggle to keep my hands on the wheel. This will mess up everything. What is she thinking?
“We are going to die!” she screams at me. I see her in the mirror, but I can’t speak. My throat hurts. She has big hands.
I am not going to take my hands off the wheel.
Leo is shooting at the other buses trying to crash us. He doesn’t see me, and I can’t talk. The other outranked are all fighting each other or counting.
“We are going to die. You hear me?” she screams in my ear.
I know. I know. We are going to die. What’s the point of killing me before we die? What’s the point of reminding me? This girl is so panicked.
I finally manage to push her away with one hand, keeping my other hand on the wheel. She falls back. I don’t know where, and I don’t care.
Back to driving position.
Leo looks back to me, giving me a sign that he is going to the back of the bus. He suggests I keep driving until he fires a shot or something. In the mirror, I see him walk the aisle to the back, pushing anyone who tries to stop him. He fires a shot to break the rear window open. He jumps out into the Jeep. I lose track of him, but there is a world war going on back there. Everyone is headed for the Jeep, even those who wanted to get on the bus earlier.
Leo has a war to fight on his own back there.
I don’t know what to do. Ten seconds to detonation. This bus is going to explode. This is not my bus anymore!
What should I do? The other buses are too close. Any explosion could affect me as well.
Suddenly, I hear many shots. Did Leo kill anyone? I wash the thought away.
“It’s heating up,” says Timmy. “Seven.” He is counting down. He is certainly entertaining the viewers.
Something bumps against the bus’s door.
It’s Leo with the Jeep. The Jeep looks like it is in a zombie movie. Outranked on top, biting each other, hitting each other, some of them dragged to the tail, hanging from a rail. Everyone is protecting Leo though, so he can drive. I wonder what is happening to the other buses. I get closer to the door of the bus, leaving the wheel behind. Leo is barely keeping up with the speed. He can’t lend me a hand, both busy, one driving and the other shooting into the air.
As I stand at the edge of the bus’s door we hit a bump in the road. The uncontrolled steering wheel shifts. The bus sways to the left, increasing the distance between me and the Jeep. I can see the hot asphalt underneath. I can’t jump. The Jeep is too far now.
“Four.” Timmy’s voice echoes in my head.
I am going to die, just as the girl predicted. I can’t jump and even worse, the bus I am on is slowing down since no one is pushing the gas pedal.
Leo steers the wheel to the left, tangent to the bus, looking at me with that intensity in his eyes, almost parting his lips.
“Jump, for God’s sake,” they scream from the Jeep.
I close my eyes and jump.
“One.” Timmy is happy.
I land over Leo’s lap. Leo pushes the gas pedal to the maximum as the bus explodes. The heat of the explosion burns the back of my neck. A couple of the outranked on the jeep fall to the ground. Leo is a mess, looking like he’s come out of a coal mine. The air against our faces cools us a little while we’re speeding up. I look back over Leo’s shoulder. There is a huge irregular foam of black smoke reaching up for the sky behind us. This looks worse than in the movies. This isn’t a game. This is war.
“Boom!” Timmy celebrates. “I love explosions.”
Slowly, a bus appears out of the smoke behind us. Okay. They made it too. We have about ten teenagers on the Jeep. With that
bus, I guess maybe twenty or so others made it. Did anyone else survive?
Did all those other kids just die? Is this mass murder or what? All in the name of the Burning Man.
The floating smoke starts to clear away slowly. I see glimpses of the scene behind us. I close my eyes immediately. It’s unbelievable. Is this what my brother watches on TV and loves so much?
I hear the sound of motorcycles approaching from behind the smoke. I wait until whatever is behind the smoke shows through.
It’s not motorcycles. These are like skateboards floating above the ground, with some kind of fire engine underneath every board. Riding them the calm tattooed guys from the other bus. Riding on the flying boards, they are smirking at us.
Who are they? Are they trained for this?
“Hoverboardz,” Roger This says. So he made it after all in the same Jeep? “Awesome!” he says as if this is virtual reality. Somehow, this death game doesn’t bother him at all.
I don’t want to be sitting on Leo’s lap, so I crawl over to the passenger seat, sharing it with two other boys, but on no one’s lap. The boys keep staring at my ripped dress though. What’s wrong with these boys? Doesn’t anyone here get it that we’re about to die?
Leo smirks in the mirror, lips sealed as usual.
“Well. Well. Well,” says Timmy. “We have about a hundred survivors. That’s a lot, and that’s fun. I see that none of them are following the rules though, should we blow’em up, do you think?”
“What does he mean?” I ask around me. Everyone is perplexed. What are we doing wrong?
It suddenly hits me. I press the red button on my iAm and scream:
“I. AM. ALIVE.”
Everyone in the Jeep says it after me, “I am alive.”
I hear those in the other surviving bus saying it too.
The tattoo gang with the Hoverboardz push the button on their iAms. They say “I am alive” in a tone suggesting they are confident and sarcastic, as if they’re used to all this killing. Who are they?
