The End Games

by T. Michael Martin

  And what do you think will happen to Patrick, if it turns out Bellows really can hurt you two? What do you think will happen to him, inside?

  Michael sat back down.

  And his mind whispered: three Atipax left.

  The Game Master won’t come until you’re quiet.

  Michael stood up again, trying to lighten himself up, deciding to keep himself busy. Well, maybe he should hurry, ’cause some of us have class in the morning, ha-ha-ha.

  Michael rooted through the business desk, finding an ancient cell phone in the top drawer. Too bad reception ain’t happening in the backwoods mountains of good ol’ West “By God” Virginia. Anyhow, he doubted that he’d be able to reach anything except the constant Safe Zone advisory recordings that you got on the landlines, no matter what number you dialed. When Michael pressed the ON button, though, he was sort of amazed to watch the screen light up and show a blinking half-bar of charge left. The 9 button had an image of a little cassette tape on it. Voice recorder. Could be useful. He turned it off to save the battery.

  Newspapers in the trash can in the corner, but they were all pre-Halloween.

  Headlines about the war in Iran; a guy in Pittsburgh who won the Powerball; that awful, doesn’t-help-West-Virginia’s-public-image story about the little boy, Cady Gibson, who had snuck into a mine and been killed when he accidentally fell and hit his head—in Coalmount, actually. MOUNTAIN STATE IN MOURNING the headline said. Photos showed the entrance to the mine, and the kid himself: a blond boy, maybe a third grader, with crookedly cut bangs that might have been cute if they hadn’t made Michael realize that Cady’s family probably just couldn’t afford a real haircut.

  Sounds kinda familiar.

  In another drawer, alongside a can of nuts, was a plastic, bright-orange pistol. Michael laughed, picking up the surprisingly heavy toy from the otherwise I-am-a-serious-businessman desk. Man, Bub would love this.

  Michael went back over to check on Patrick again, the Bellows moaning outside in the shapeless night.

  But he hardly heard. Because Patrick—legs twisted, blond hair shagging his brow—looked so small, so sweet, that Michael thought, not for the first or final time, that he would shoot all the monsters in the world he had to, he would do anything to reach the Safe Zone in the capital city of Charleston, to win The Game for Patrick. And when breath came like cotton through Patrick’s tiny, chapped lips and he snorted, kind of hilariously, Michael felt he could decorate the floors of the world with Bellow brains. He felt it in his breath and blood. Yes, he could. Yes-yes, he would.

  ’Cause you, Bub, are the best half brother I’ve got—

  —and right then, Michael thought he heard something speak, and looked up.

  Through the gaps in the boarded window on this western side of the building, the snowstorm had momentarily cleared, allowing a view of the steeple of the church next door.

  It had been small and paint-chipped in the daylight. But at night the spire had become a great arrow arcing for the stars. For some reason, it gave Michael a breath of joy. Things have worked out so far. It’s like . . . sometimes it’s like there’s someone helping us. Besides the Game Master. Michael smiled a little, gazing at the eerily moving building—

  The moon sailed out from behind the clouds.

  Michael’s heart leapt to his throat, and he forced himself not to gasp.

  Eyes had flashed in the shattered windows across the alleyway: eyes, in the black of the church.

  People, Michael thought.

  He took a shaky step away from Patrick. For a second, his blood whamming, he stood unmoving in the streams of new moonlight. Then he moved to his window, peeking out through the gap between the boards.

  No. You don’t know it was people, he cautioned himself. Could just be Bellows.

  But Bellows’ eyes are black! Those were bright!

  The snow was falling, and the moon had retreated—but he thought he saw silhouettes in the church. Big silhouettes.

  People! He almost shouted it.

  But, no. Don’t wake Patrick and get him excited, not if this was a false alarm. And if the Bellows heard him and realized there were humans inside . . .

  But he felt a frighteningly powerful burst of longing.

  Michael went to the door and loosened the chain; it tumbled quietly. Snow spurled inside. Down the alley between the office and the church, Bellows roared and staggered.

  Wait a second before you go, he thought, looking back at Patrick. Just a freaking second. Feel your bl—

  Except Michael had already left the threshold of the Southern West Virginia Coal office, shutting the door behind him and traveling toward the side entrance of the church.

  “Hey,” he whispered.

  Michael lay his fingers on the church doorknob: he hadn’t been in a church in years, not since it had been one of Ron’s this-will-definitely-fix-my-life ideas.

  He crossed the threshold, rifle in his hand.

  “Hell—” he said, and the green smell hit the back of his mouth.

  Ahhhh no.

  The first thing he saw: the Bellow. A man, dead-eyed, wearing a blue coal-mining jumpsuit and gas mask and utility belt, secured by a rope to the raised wooden altar of the tiny house of worship. Michael stopped a couple feet outside of the Bellow’s reach, then whirled.

  People were clustered in the pews, watching the Bellow, as if awaiting the announcement of its deadly sermon.

  Michael immediately felt his blood, but before he could stop his thoughts: Why are these people looking at this?

  Because they weren’t people.

  The “people” stood utterly still, without breath, without flinch. The worshippers were mannequins. Their arms, reaching for the sky, were posed. In the eye sockets, shards of mirror glimmered and flashed: they looked like disciples eternally paused in the brilliance of an epiphany.

  The imitation of life, of safety, was somehow hideous—like biting into a hamburger that was fine on the outside, but in the crescent of your bite, maggots squirmed.

  “Stupid,” he said. His own voice sounded shaky.

  Fine—it’s fine, he told himself. Things are still going well. Hope is just getting some good laughs at me today, that’s all.

  “Stttuuuuupiiiiiddd!” said the muffled, bound Bellow.

  And out of the corner of his eye, Michael saw the Bellow lunge. For one incredible moment, the enormous altar the Bellow was tethered to tilted forward; the nails anchoring it to the ground screamed.

  The Bellow’s clawed fingers flew out and scraped the side of Michael’s neck.

  Michael recoiled at the frozen touch. He staggered back, nearly falling over a pew. He felt a sting that was mostly surprise. His hand went to his neck. The skin was tender, hot, and wet.

  Freaking thing scratched me, Michael thought, in something like wonder. I let it scratch me.

  He gulped twice, trying to regain control of himself, to push away the coppery adrenaline. He looked into the eyes of the Bellow that was attempting to lunge again from the moonlit altar—actually, just “eye,” he corrected himself. One eye was the normal all-black, but from the other socket, an eye hung from its stalk like a deflated water balloon.

  “STUUUUUUUPIIII—”

  And redness surged through Michael’s head.

  He raised his rifle . . . and swung the stock of it at the Bellow, cracking the creature in the side of the skull. A sound like a sweet spot–hit baseball. Its brain ruined, the Bellow collapsed.

  Didn’t ask you, Michael thought.

  Not bothering to shut the church up behind him, he went back to the office, chained the door.

  Michael felt shaky. Frakking hell, you know what “something” would help him? Getting out of this crap-hole in the morning.

  He thought of waking Patrick, just to tell jokes or something.

  He crouched down, reaching out to touch Patrick’s shoulder. But he stopped his hand. Brain-crud coated his fingers: his whole sleeve, in fact.

  Can’t
even hug my brother, he thought.

  You know what, Game? Sometimes I am so sick of you. Sometimes I just want to qui—

  But don’t think about that.

  Michael sat in his hard chair, feeling his blood slam in his temples.

  The Game Master arrived immediately.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “There’s someone outside.”

  Michael twitched, murmuring. He turned onto his other hip, pulling the sleeping bag up to his armpits. Good Lordy, did the cold suck: his bones felt hard and thick, like the cement floor underneath him. He swam slowly out from under sleep, his closed eyelids glowing a soft red. Day twenty-two, plus one day, equals—

  “Michael, there’s someone outside.”

  Michael’s eyes burst open.

  The burn of daylight through the semi-boarded windows hid his brother’s expression. Michael automatically locked his own emotions down, too.

  “Huh?” Michael whispered back calmly.

  It’s probably not people, he told himself. Probably Bellows who couldn’t find someplace to hide when the sun came up. Bub’s just confused. Michael remembered another confusing wake-up, the one that had come only a couple days before Halloween. Patrick had shaken Michael awake, saying, What’s a “impatient picnic”? The fist-sized bruises on Michael’s arms were still spectacular that morning: even in the confusion of waking, he hid them under the cover from Patrick. Patrick continued: Daddy came back. He said, “Patrick’s goin’ back to the impatient picnic this weekend. They have a openin’ first of November.” Mom’s sad. She’s cryin’ in the garage. Why’s she cryin’? Patrick said, but from the gathering dread on his face, Michael thought a part of Patrick already knew. And the truth shimmered up to Michael, too, like something hideous breaching in a nightmare.

  “Inpatient clinic,” Michael thought.

  Even after everything he did, Mom let Ron come back. And she’s letting him take Patrick back to the psych hospital.

  But, now?

  Now: Michael didn’t hear any Bellows.

  If someone’s out there, they can take us to the Safe Zone.

  “I was making dinner,” Patrick whispered.

  Dinner? What the hell time is it? Did I sleep all day? “I didn’t wake you up. You snored loud. I . . . I was trying to be a good Gamer.” In his hands, Patrick held their crappy multi-tool can opener and a can of tomato soup. The top of the can was gnawed and frayed.

  And when Patrick pointed out the mostly boarded window, on the far wall maybe twenty feet away, Michael had to bite the meat of his cheek to make himself not shout in joy. Because in the daylight outside that window, for the first time in three weeks, he saw a living human, not his brother, walk past.

  “Oh my God.” He pawed his sleeping bag off, still whispering “A million billion points for you.”

  The Campbell’s soup can dropped out of Patrick’s hands, striking Michael’s left shin.

  “Bub, be carefu—!”

  But Michael stopped. Patrick could read Michael, yes, but the reading went both ways. Patrick wasn’t screaming—was not giving any huge, obvious sign that things were wrong—but his mouth was twitching.

  He’s scared. He’s trying not to be, not in front of me. But he is.

  “What’s up?” Michael made himself smile.

  Patrick’s small tongue came out and licked his chapped lips. “The people sound . . . mad.”

  Michael stood up.

  Mad, he thought. Which meant . . . what? Probably nothing. They’re just mad because . . . because they’re a search party, and they haven’t found anybody in the coal towns yet. Like we haven’t. But Michael heard a squeaking door open outside—the living human apparently entering a nearby building—and as Michael looked out the window, he thought: the person went into the church. And he felt his stomach go cold.

  The stained-glass windows of the church across the alley were mostly busted. When Michael was two paces away from his own mostly boarded window, he caught his first glimpse of the church’s interior: more shapes in the pews, shapes looking at something at the front of the church. The altar, Michael thought. He froze.

  And heard this scream:

  “Do you know what God has asked me to do?”

  Nearly magical lines of shock traveling up Michael’s arms; Patrick’s hand clamping down on his; Michael, barely aware of it, spinning to a crouch, yanking Patrick closer to him, hiding against the wall underneath the window.

  The voice sounded again and Michael had to stuff his hand over Patrick’s mouth.

  “DO YOU KNOW—”

  “Please,” a female voice answered. “Rulon, I did not do this.”

  Patrick’s eyes were big and bright with a question: How does Michael feel about this?

  Michael just half smiled and shrugged, like: I know, little weird, right?

  But he really thought, his pulse flying, What the fug is going on?

  Michael attempted to peek outside. For a moment, all he could see was the wet-warped wood that planked the window. Then he craned up farther and saw across the alley to the church.

  The mannequins still stood among the pews, yes, but they’d been joined by perhaps fifty people, standing and kneeling amidst them. Their faces were dust-slashed, solemn, worn. Some had slightly yellowed skin. Their winter coats were ragged and bled out dirty insulation. Most of the people were so viciously thin that they nearly vanished even within the thin tatters. Two or three were obese; they wore only T-shirts, despite the cold. One such man—kneeling in the pews, his thick combed-back hair as black as coal— openly wept.

  Michael’s gaze trailed up the aisle. At the altar, there stood a man in rubbish brown robes, his back to Michael. Priest, he thought wildly.

  In front of the priest, a blonde girl, no older than twenty, pretty in a malnourished way, was on her knees.

  “Rulon,” she said, voice so heavy with a hill-country accent that it sounded almost unreal, “please. I swear to you, I didn’t touch it. I protected it all day, in the basement.”

  “Then how did he die, Mattie?” said the priest. He was speaking softly now, nearly whispering, but his voice still carried. “How, when we protected him for so long? How, when we left you alone only for a single day? Did one of our mannequins come to life, is that what you believe?”

  The girl—Mattie?—shook her head. “Someone . . . someone else . . .” she said.

  “Yes, child. We found footprints in the grocer’s. We know this, Mattie. Go on.”

  Grocery store. That’s us, me and Bub. Michael suddenly became aware of him and his brother as two small people in the fragile shell of the coal office.

  “The other person, they must’ve come in last night . . .”

  Me, Michael thought again, and felt an almost dizzying gratitude for the last night’s snowstorm, which must have filled in their other prints.

  “Of course,” said the priest gently. “Never thought you woulda killed it, child. I s’pose you must be right: the killer must have come in last night, when you brought it up to the altar, when it was late. . . .”

  “Yes!” Mattie agreed relievedly. “They came in when I—”

  “When you . . . ?”

  “When I was asleep!” she finished enthusiastically.

  Michael didn’t know what was going on, not exactly, but from the girl’s face he understood everything he needed to know: Mattie looked like a girl who had been caught with her hand in a cookie jar . . . and the cookie jar turned out to have jaws like a bear trap.

  “From the mouth of babes.” The priest—his back still to Michael—looked to the crowd in the pews. Some smiled. Some frowned. But they all nodded in agreement.

  “Oh, Mattie. No, your hand would never put harm upon any Chosen. Certainly not one so special, so precious. Certainly not one that we trusted you to protect while we were gone. I know you would not betray your God like that. Or betray me like that, Mattie.”

  The girl’s forehead made a wrinkle-work of emotion, and for one moment, s
omething terrible shone in her eyes:

  Hope.

  “R-really?” she said.

  “Of course,” said the priest. “But . . . you know, Mattie, God judges the sinner the same as the one who fails to stop the sin. And, child?”

  “Yes?”

  “I do, too.”

  And Michael knew what was going to happen even before it had begun.

  The priest reached into his robes, and from its dirty tangles a hunter’s knife materialized. The blade sang cleanly across Mattie’s throat, a bright silver slash trailed by a spray of red.

  Michael felt a sympathetic flash of heat across his own throat.

  He can’t do that, Michael thought desperately.

  The girl’s limp body twisted to the floor.

  Patrick’s mouth moved under Michael’s hand, as if to ask what was happening.

  It’s—you can’t kill people, Michael thought. That’s against the Rules. People don’t hurt people in The Game!

  But these people in the church didn’t seem to care. While the priest stood over the body, a man came forward from the pews, his heavy boots clunking. He was the weeping man with the coal-black hair, but he was the smiling man now. The priest said to him: “We’ll feed her to them tonight. But this girl does not deserve resurrection. Cut off her head first, please, Samuel.” And as Samuel scooped the girl’s body from the floor—like it was his everyday job—Michael saw him mouth: hallelujah.

  CHAPTER SIX

  The people were filing calmly down the aisle of the church, now, out the front door to the street.

  Patrick pushed Michael’s hand off his mouth, sucking air, coughing. Some distant part of Michael understood that he should shush him, but the world grayed out momentarily before his eyes.

  What the hell just happened? he thought. Why did those people do that? Who the hell are they?

  The Game Master had told them a lot of things. You’re quick, and so you’re safe, he’d said. You’re not really lost, just on your way. And if you will only do what I tell you, Michael, you will be saved, and you will save your brother.