It was Jackson, the leader of the white team. She'd met him earlier.
At the far end of the arena, a swirl of activity began near the large steel gate. People started running, climbing, and shouting orders. Ropes were raised and then pulled taut. Men ran along the tops of the cargo trailers, and the crowd again shifted as all eyes turned toward the gate. The fires inside the skulls rose in intensity until they spilled out through the mouth, nose, and eyeholes, licking the dark metal with orange tongues of flame. The gate slowly swung inward. Eve could not yet see what was inside and could only wonder what was to come.
Two men broke off from the assembled group and jogged toward the slowly opening gate. Neither man was armed with a weapon. She thought she heard muffled orders being shouted at them by Jackson, but she could not understand what was being said. Reluctantly, the two swiveled their heads between the group behind them and what lay inside the gates. With a you-first gesture, one of the men disappeared inside the gate. The other followed a few steps behind.
Something was strangely familiar about those two.
-30-
IT'S ALL FUN AND GAMES
EVE PUSHED UP from her chair and walked to the front of the raised platform.
“What is it?” Cyrus asked from behind.
Her amazement was quickly followed by the sharp shock of fear. Her actions had just let Cyrus know that she knew who those two men were. Folding her arms tightly against her chest, she returned to her seat.
“Sorry…just curious. That's all,” she lied. “I've never seen anything like this before. It's…it's…different.”
He cocked his head slightly but said nothing.
The two men came running back into the arena. Those they joined in the arena shifted positions, fanning out and giving each other space. She was certain now. Jesse had been the first to run inside the gate, then Cory. They were alive. How was that possible? She'd seen Cory shot dead. She assumed Jesse might have been shot dead too—or at least wounded—because the last time she'd seen him, he was limping and running after her as she was being driven away.
She thought she would never see either of them again, ever.
Cheers came from the crowd. Three raptors came running from inside the gate and into the arena. The cheers instantly turned to boos and mocking jeers. The three raptors stopped and scratched at the ground. Jesse raised his hands partway above his head. He waved at the raptors until one of them started chasing after him. He jogged on his heels, backpedaling, and kept encouraging the raptor to follow him. It did, and the two others joined it.
“Pathetic,” Cyrus said as it became clear that no more of the creatures were coming through.
The gate began to swing closed. Even from far away as she was, she felt the tiny vibrations through her feet as the wood scraped and keened and the gate banged closed against its stops. Cory and Jesse looped around behind the spread out men and waited. The group fell on the raptors. With a flurry of blows, the three raptors were quickly dispatched. One man pranced away from the group, flinging his arms in wild, exaggerated swings and yelling skyward. The boos rose in volume. Jackson dropped his baseball bat, raised both hands, and flipped off the crowd while his men gathered around him. The ladder was lowered back into the arena, and the group climbed out and gathered beneath the white flag. A man clutched a corner of the limp flag and lifted it. He pumped his fist in the air to the accompaniment of grumbling jeers.
Eve wasn't sure what to make of it all. She was too busy thinking of ways to explain away how she knew Cory and Jesse, if she somehow needed to. She had cycled through at least four different ideas already, rejecting each one. None of them would fool Cyrus.
“Disappointing way to start,” Cyrus said, snapping her from her daze.
Her mind reeled to catch up. She kept her mouth shut and nodded obediently. His tongue was visible on his cheek, creating a shifting bump. He pulled at his robe, tilted his head, and adjusted himself underneath the robe. To her relief, he looked away and nodded at David.
David spoke through the megaphone. “Three? Three? A pathetic start for Jackson and his white team tonight. Silver, do you think you will have any difficulty beating that?”
The men under the silver flag yelled back an affirmation, and the audience followed along, mixing laughter with mocking gestures cast in the direction of those beneath the white flag.
As before, the ladder was lowered, but this time for the men with silver armbands. They climbed down single file into the arena and made their way around the three mutilated raptor corpses. Two men broke off and made obscene thrusting gestures over the corpses, and then one grabbed a dead raptor by the tail and flung it at the wall behind him.
The crowd cheered.
Unlike the white team, once the silver team had gathered, they sent a single runner through the open gate. He remained there for some time, enough to raise a murmuring curiosity from the audience. Then, running like a man escaping death, he burst through the open gate hooting and hollering, bouncing and skipping. About thirty feet behind him were at least a dozen raptors.
Eve clenched the armrests of her chair. She scanned the crowd on top of the trailers. They cheered encouragements for the man to run faster. His teammates spread out in a crescent shape, raising their weapons.
“This is better,” Cyrus said.
“What?” Eve asked.
Cyrus stared forward, ignoring her.
As the man ran, he swiveled to check how much distance he had and adjusted his pace to stay barely ahead of them, but when he sped up again, the raptors closed two steps for every one he took. Eve's heart raced and she rooted for the man to make it to safety.
But it was becoming clear that he was not going to make it.
The lead raptor jumped. It landed on the running man's leg. The raptor attacked with its fore claws and biting jaws, but it missed and rolled harmlessly onto the pavement. Another raptor leapt and landed on the man's back. He tripped and somersaulted on the gray asphalt, only to find yet another raptor landing on him and pinning him to the ground. The man screamed and howled and fought to rise, a jumble of arms and legs. Then, before anyone from his team could move to save him, the entire pack attacked. Eve drew a breath in horror. A cry of excitement came from the crowd as the man tried desperately to escape.
But he was torn to pieces in a bloody spray.
Eve shook her head. This was not right. She had seen plenty of gruesome deaths before, and seeing another one was nothing new. But seeing it played out as a spectacle for the entertainment of others was new. Even Noah would not have been so callous.
She wanted to be sick.
Fingertips touched her back.
She quivered at the touch and forced herself to still. She knew who it was, and what he wanted. She leaned away from his touch involuntarily.
Right now, it felt dirty, unclean.
Evil.
But she couldn't move away completely, so she swallowed her disgust and patted the back of his hand to say, you surprised me.
He squeezed her shoulder.
In the arena, the silver team ran to surround the fallen man. They engaged the raptors. With more men than raptors, the creatures were summarily eliminated. Cheers for the rapid slaughter turned into mockery as the men made their way back to the top of the truck trailers and under their own flag. They pulled what was left of their runner up the ladder then propped his corpse up next to the flagpole.
“Unfortunate,” Cyrus commented.
“Yes,” Eve answered in a monotone. “He wasn't fast enough.”
“No, not what I meant. So few raptors. There should have been three times that many. Truly disappointing.”
She began to reply, but Cyrus tapped her shoulder again and pointed, indicating a scoreboard next to the gate. The scoreboard had numbers mounted on green planks of wood. New planks were being set over the default 0's painted on the scoreboard, but she couldn't tell what they were just yet.
Then it became clear.
“Twenty-one?” Cyrus said. “Pitiful.” He frowned and slouched in his chair. “Ryder will have to get his boys to pick up the slack.”
She had met Ryder before. He was a bear of a man, but he was also competent and treated her with respect. She could almost say she liked him.
The gold team entered the arena. As soon as they had gathered, they banged their fists against their chests in unison and saluted Cyrus. Most of them wore makeshift armor, and some hid behind motorcycle helmets. Though, not all wore armor. A few remained bare-chested with their bodies oiled to a glistening sheen. Cheering, they raised their weapons above their heads in near perfect synchronization and chanted together until the crowd cheered along with them. Four men broke off the group and began clearing the arena by dragging the remaining raptor corpses into a single, neat pile.
Then all of the men went to the pile and urinated on it.
Ryder, the man leading the gold team, stepped up behind a urinating man and pushed him onto the corpses. He stepped on the man's neck and held him against the mutilated raptors while the others directed their urine streams toward the man.
The crowd cheered.
“I love that guy,” Cyrus said, chuckling. “Always puts on a good show.”
Ryder continued to hold the man down against the pile until the man submitted completely. He then removed his booted foot from the guy's neck and kicked him in the side. The man stood, bent over, and vomited on the raptor corpses.
The women on the platform nearby clapped and whistled, and the men on the gold team pointed back, each marking a woman as his own. Eve didn't see anyone forcing the women. They were cheering of their own accord. It sickened her to think that women could act that way and so debase themselves. She would never let herself end up like them.
Never.
Once the gold team had regrouped in the arena, a solitary man dressed in a red-feathered headdress made the long walk to the gate then disappeared through it. The crowd noise shrank to hushed mumbles. Everyone waited. Even Eve felt excitement overcoming her fear and loathing. She wanted to know what would come next.
She had her answer less than a minute later.
The man in the feathered headdress reemerged from inside the gate. He came out hopping, skipping, and whooping like a madman. Raptors chased after him, nipping at his heels. He ran, dodged, and spun, all while flapping his arms like a giant bird. Following him was a much larger group than the silver team had drawn. She counted dozens. Oddly, the man's crazed movements kept the raptors lined up behind him, but they did not charge him or attack. Instead, they acted like he was their leader.
“Much better numbers,” Cyrus said. “But those raptors look pathetic. Sick, wouldn't you say?”
“Yes,” Eve said absently.
“Yes,” David repeated, startling her. He had joined them without her noticing.
Cyrus grunted. “Odds?”
David answered by pointing to the gold flag and indicating two with his fingers then pointing to silver, indicating five, and finally to white, indicating thirty-three. Eve assumed they must be betting on these games, but she couldn't understand what David had meant, other than the white team was not expected to win.
“That bad?” Cyrus asked.
Before David could answer, Andrea emerged on the platform next to Eve. Kate was with her.
“Doctor,” Cyrus said, brightening, “and assistant. Nice you could finally join us. What do you think?”
“Think of what?” Andrea asked. Her voice was dry and hoarse. “I'll have to patch them up after all this, you know. A lot of work for us.”
Cyrus stifled a laugh. “But that's why you are here. You can observe firsthand how they received their injuries.”
Andrea said nothing.
Kate stepped next to Eve. One of Kate's lips ticked upward slightly, and she brushed her frayed hair over her ears and out of her face. Eve reached out and touched her on the arm. Kate did not immediately pull away. This was a large step for her. Eve wanted to ask her about what she had been doing, what she had learned in the week since she had last seen her, but Cyrus would overhear, so she remained silent, hoping the brief physical contact expressed how she felt.
She dropped her hand to her side and shifted positions to obscure Kate from Cyrus.
“The raptors, why do they look so sickly?” Cyrus asked Andrea.
She considered his question for a long second. “Can't say.”
He looked away from her and turned his attention to Kate. He frowned then motioned Eve to move out of his way. She did so reluctantly. He grinned at Kate while brushing a hand across his chest. His let his robe fall open, exposing his pale skin, which he petted in growing circles. Eve felt disgust mixed with fear. Subtly, she shifted again to block Kate from his view.
“Perhaps they all got a virus?” she said questioningly.
Cyrus pulled his head back and the smirk on his face vanished in an instant. He looked interested. “A virus? What, my dear, would make you say that?”
She opened her mouth to say something else, anything else. What she had proffered sounded crazy, and she needed time to fully explain what she'd meant. She again opened her mouth to speak. Before she could, a series of calls came from the arena. The cries recaptured Cyrus's attention and left her with her mouth hanging open and words lodged in her throat.
In the arena, the men with gold armbands shifted to encircle the raptors. The raptors stopped advancing and spread out. Some flicked their heads back to the gate as it banged closed. Tails raised and whipped back and forth as they spread out further into a ragged formation of their own. The man in the brightly colored feathers continued to mock the creatures. He hopped on one foot then the other, whooping like a crazy man. His efforts were generating excitement from the audience. They clapped, cheered, and whooped along with him.
The gold team shifted into a new formation where each man stood a few feet from his neighbor and closed their circle around the raptors. They each took one step forward, and the feathered man ran out and behind them.
As if released from a trance, the raptors attacked.
Blades flashed.
Axes chopped.
Spears stabbed.
Bats swung.
A few raptors tried to break free from the enclosing circle. The men held their positions and cut the creatures down with wild, exaggerated moves. Those who made kills, backed away into their original positions and thrust their arms into the air, or beat their weapons against their chests in triumph, waiting for another raptor to come near.
Soon, there were no more raptors left to kill.
The victorious team let out battle cries and broke ranks, kicking at the fallen corpses. Ryder whistled loudly, and all of his men instantly reformed and made their way back to the ladder. A few stopped to paint themselves with raptor blood before making the climb.
Eve was impressed by the gold team's precision and abilities. She could understand why they were part of Cyrus's personal guard. Ryder, she noted, was someone she would have to get to know better.
She swallowed. “Is it over? So soon?”
“No, my dear,” Cyrus said, “we are just beginning. White has another round coming up. They need to do something special, something impressive, or there will be some spots opening up on their team.”
“I see,” she said. It made sense in a sickening kind of way. She didn't even need to ask how those spots would become available.
“Of course you do,” he said. “This is important to us all. So, we must hope this is important to you. These games are what bond us together. They make us strong.” Elbow resting on his chair arm, he made a fist and slowly uncurled his fingers. “I hope, my dear, you are enjoying yourself.”
She paused, recognizing the rare moment for what it was. His tone had changed slightly, just enough she could tell he was genuinely concerned. He wanted to know how she felt.
She grinned back at him.
-31-
UNTIL SOMEBODY GETS HURT
&nbs
p; EVE REMAINED WITH Cyrus and watched with sadness as the only two male friends she had made since Adam's tragic death climbed down the ladder and into the arena. As they entered, the white team moved to form into a single, haphazard group. They looked about nervously. The crowd greeted the men with a chorus of loud boos.
The massive gate to the rear of the arena drew open, and the fires inside the metal skulls flickered wickedly. There was a commotion close to the men assembled in the arena. Pushing. Shoving. And, after an exchange of words with the group leader, Jesse and Cory were forced out of the larger group and left to stand on their own.
Together, they headed for the open gate.
Cory was no longer wearing his black jacket and was unarmed, as was Jesse. The sword that Cory so prized was now propped against a bookcase in the small apartment she shared with Cyrus. When he had first showed her the blade, she pretended it was simply another trophy taken from a dead man. He had marveled over it, telling her with excitement that he needed more time to study it, and that it seemed ancient, and was probably a relic. She had reacted with awe and shared wonder. Not for the blade itself, but for what it represented. Cory was dead, and that meant she had to move on with her life and abandon what Noah had asked her to do. She was certain she had seen Cory die weeks ago. So, seeing him alive now didn't reconcile with that mental snapshot. He had been struck in the head with a bullet. How could anyone have survived that? But he had. And there Jesse was, too. He was still alive. Since they were both not dead, they had to be working together, which was surprising given how different the two were from one another.
But the bigger question was—why were they here? And why now?
Her thoughts were interrupted when Cory emerged from the gate. He stopped, put a hand to his mouth, and yelled something then turned and skip-ran toward the main group. Jesse came blasting out through the gate, arms pumping, feet beating hard against the pavement. Behind him, a line of raptors streamed out. The line grew and grew and grew, not wanting to stop. It was like watching a freight train in motion. Thousands of boos from the crowd crumbled and became the sounds of confusion and astonishment.
Red Asphalt: Raptor Apocalypse Book 2 Page 25
