by Burks, John
The medical examiner had tried to clean her up and had wiped much of the dried blood away, but it had been hard to hide the bones sticking through the skin at unnatural angles.
He’d been staring at the ground, unconcerned for traffic and other runners when he’d run right into her. They bumped, head first, and then both fell backwards to the cement sidewalk. She hadn’t apparently been watching out either.
Steven looked into her face, and she smiled. It was a good smile.
He felt himself smiling in return, something he hadn’t done since that night.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
“It’s okay,” he replied, the uncomfortable smile still present. “I wasn’t watching.”
A few moments of awkward silence followed until she finally stuck out her hand. “I’m Rebecca.”
He took the hand and noticed the little string of numbers tattooed between her thumb and forefinger, 12345. “I’m Steven. It’s nice to meet you.”
They stayed like that for a few more awkward moments, holding hands, looking into each other’s eyes. He felt something instant, some click between them, and then instantly felt guilty for feeling it, withdrawing his hand.
She sensed it, right away, like she’d sense his emotions in years to come. “Is everything all right?”
“I…” he wanted to tell her about Michelle, to talk to her about it for some reason, but he didn’t. “That’s an interesting tattoo. What’s the significance of the numbers?”
“They are significant,” she said, but offered no more about the tattoo, instead standing. “It was nice meeting you.”
They’d meet at the same spot many more times over the next year, sometimes talking, sometimes not, always jogging. They’d talked more once he finally asked her to dinner.
* * *
The light burned his eyes as he stepped out of the tunnel into the open air, and it took several seconds for him to adjust to the bright sunlight. The tunnel emptied into a large circular canyon, easily a football field across. The walls were un-scalable and as slick as the cliff face by the Cage. There were large windows along the southern side of the canyon—Steven only knowing the direction from the position of the sun—that immediately reminded him of the sky boxes at Minute Maid Park in Houston, boxes allowing the wealthy to observe the game without actually having to mingle with the unwashed masses. Above those, along the rim of the canyon, were nasty looking turrets, dark machine gun barrels aimed down at the crowd.
The crowd filed alongside the canyon walls, leaving the area in the middle clear, as well as a section to the south. They formed a rough U-shape around the canyon and all stared upwards. Beneath the windows set in stone was a large digital billboard like you’d see at any sports arena, perhaps when a batter hit a home run. It displayed a cartoon of two gladiators fighting, pounding on half shields with short swords. When one of the cartoon characters fell, the crowd cheered and the words “The Game” were displayed.
“What the hell is the Game?” Hussein asked aloud, though Steven could barely hear him over the roar of the crowd. The feeling of the place was not unlike a sports arena, Steven thought, thinking of the Astro’s baseball park back home.
“They kidnap us and bring us here to watch cartoons?” Darius asked. “What kind of sense does any of this make?”
It didn’t make sense, of course, nothing about the entire situation did. The cartoon, quickly replaced by numbers and one capitol letter, K, made no sense either. As soon as the numbers flashed, people began checking their forearms, and it took only a couple of seconds for Steven to make the connection along with Hussein.
“The numbers on our arms…but what does the K mean?”
Two men stepped forward from opposite signs of the cavern, and the crowd roared. They were dressed like any of the other citizens of the caverns, in either the blue ragged remains of the jumpsuits or clothing fashioned from garbage and what Steven was sure was leather produced from human skin. The only thing to distinguish the two men was that one was larger than the other. That didn’t matter much as both were emaciated, on the verge of starvation, obviously not part of the Samoan’s crowd. Neither had the marks the Samoan’s group had on their forehead, the same vertical slashes he was beginning to notice on many of the people of the Cave.
The crowd chanted and the two men first walked up to each other and hugged like long lost relatives. They then began circling each other like two angry pit bulls about to fight to the death. The smaller man looked nervous and sweaty, tiny rivulets of moisture cutting a path down his grime-covered face to his thick, black and gray beard. The other man lunged forward, catching his opponent by surprise, who only just managed to sidestep the larger man. The bigger man stumbled forward, tripped over a rock, and went crashing to the rubble-strewn floor. Cheering insanely, the crowd surged forward, those in the back trying to get a better view of the action.
“Gladiators?” Hussein asked of no one in particular. “We’re here to be fucking gladiators?”
Darius shrugged, unable to take his eyes from the match. Steven happened to glance at his wife, just for a second, and saw her in the same exact position, eyes locked on the battle of the emaciated men. She looked mesmerized, like she was seeing the best show Las Vegas had to offer, or something on Broadway. Her interest, and the small grin she hid when she noticed him watching, scared him.
The smaller man didn’t waste the opportunity to attack his stricken opponent, jumping and coming down hard, knees first, on the man’s back. He grabbed the other man’s head and pulled it back violently. Before the other man could react, he pushed it back down towards the stone surface, as hard as possible. Though impossible with the roar of the crowd, Steven imagined hearing the bigger man’s nose breaking. The head came up three more times and three more times he was driven down into the stone floor.
The larger man screamed out in pain and rolled to his right, instantly dislodging his rider. The skinnier man tried to scramble away, but the larger man, face bloodied and broken and angry, grabbed his ankle and pulled him back. When the little man’s leg was extended at an awkward angle, the larger man brought his right elbow down hard on it, cracking it and bending it grotesquely the other way. He screamed, but tried to continue crawling.
The bigger man stood, wiping blood from his face and spitting out a couple of teeth. He turned to the crowd and raised his hands in victory, encouraging them to cheer, and cheer they did. Their roar was deafening, the very walls of the canyon reverberating. As the bigger man worked the crowd, the smaller man, destroyed knee and all, crawled towards him. The bigger man’s eyes went wide as the smaller one reached up between his legs, took hold of his genitalia, and pulled down hard. Roaring in pain and gushing blood from his groin, the larger guy stumbled forward and collapsed in a heap, rocking in pain in the fetal position. The smaller man, trailing blood, crawled to his opponent’s side and, with his thumbs, pushed his eyes in until the bigger man finally quit screaming.
He couldn’t stand to cheer and raise his arms in victory like his premature buddy had, but he raised his hand in glory anyway. Men rushed to his side and helped him up, carrying him back into the crowd.
“I was sure the other had it,” John commented to Darius as the crowd mulled about, watching the giant digital billboard as another gladiator cartoon displayed. “Especially after coming back from that face smashing.”
“Naw, I knew the little guy had it in him. I’ve seen his kind a million times. You back them into a corner and size doesn’t matter anymore. It’s just fight or die. I will admit that him ripping the man’s balls out was somewhat unexpected.”
“He killed him,” Amanda said, still in shock. “He killed him and you two are standing there like it was a football game. You should be disgusted with yourselves.”
“Ma’am,” John said politely, “it might not be long before we’re out there.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“You don’t get what’s going on yet?”
“Watch.”
The gladiator cartoon ended once again to the roar of the crowd. The people were simply euphoric now, dancing and screaming out.
Another prisoner number popped up, this time singly, with the letter H. Everyone checked their arms and it was several more minutes until a woman was identified. She didn’t go willingly, and several other women pushed her out. She twirled, looking nervously from the crowd to the billboard, shock and fear on her face. A very old scar ran from her right eyelid up her forehead in the shape of a 1.
“They’re going to fight old women?” Darius asked.
John nodded. “One-handed old women at that. What do you think the H could mean?”
The woman tried to make her way back into the crowd, but was shoved backwards. Seconds later, a rusty, bone handled cleaver was tossed to her feet and she scooped it up, holding it in front of her like a weapon.
The crowd began to chant, “Do it. Do it. Do it.”
“No,” she screamed through broken teeth. “I already gave one.” She thrust her scarred and handless right arm into the sky. “I already gave one.”
There was laughter in the crowd among the chanting.
“Do it, do it, do it, do it.”
“I can’t…” she cried, slumping to her knees. “I just can’t do it.”
The billboard flashed again, the H becoming bigger, flashing between red and white, and taking up the entire screen.
“No, please…” the old woman begged in tears. “I only have one left.”
The crowd’s screams became so loud that Steven had to cover his ears, along with Darius, John, and Amanda. Rebecca didn’t, however, and Steven thought he could see her mouthing “Do it, do it,” along with the crowd. She saw him watching and quickly stopped.
“Please,” the woman pleaded again. “How will I eat? How will I do anything?”
The H sign stopped flashing, replaced by number 30. A second later it counted down to 29.
“How do I even do it?” the woman screamed, looking at the billboard, which had already counted down to 20. “I can’t do it!”
The crowd was in a frenzy verging on orgasm. The coordinated chant fell away into random screams and they group surged forward as one, crowding around the old woman who’d dropped the cleaver to the ground. A man jumped out, scooped up the cleaver, and grabbed her arm, turning to watch the countdown. Once it reached zero, silence ensued throughout the cavern.
“Please,” the woman begged. “Please don’t.”
The man smiled. “The Game is the Game,” and brought the cleaver down, severing the woman’s hand at the wrist in one clean shot. The hand flopped down and he scooped it up while the crowd cheered.
The man with the cleaver helped her up while someone else tied off the stump with a piece of hemp rope. Steven watched as he gave the old woman some words of encouragement and offered her the hand. The woman, grinning now with the praise of her comrades, took her hand in her mouth.
“Was it good?” Steven heard several people murmuring and watched as the crowd, once again as one, turned to the digital sign.
It cut to a live feed showing a simple stone room that Steven assumed was behind one of the one-way mirrors that dotted the southern side of the canyon. There was a man sitting there, though the camera only showed him from the nipples down, relaxing in a cheap yellow lawn chair. His hand was outstretched, thumb to the side, like Caesar watching at the Colosseum. The crowd watched breathlessly until the thumb turned upwards, and then they cheered again. Steven didn’t think it was possible, but the cheer seemed even louder than before.
The crowd moved like a school of fish towards the southern end of the canyon, all looking upwards. A set of metal doors that Steven hadn’t noticed before opened and a six-foot-wide shoot that was twenty or more feet long extended. There was a rumbling sound, like a diesel engine, and seconds later, a river of garbage and slop poured out, raining down on the stone floor with the sort of wet sound only liquefied garbage could make. The smell overwhelmed Steven, making him dry heave, and the crowd went crazy, diving into the mounds of garbage as if manna had rained down from heaven.
The feasting seemed to go on for an hour or more, but Steven wasn’t sure. His mind swirled with the implications of the Game, and again, and he wondered desperately how he’d come to be involved in any of this. His life had been simple and uncomplicated. The life of a network administrator generally was. Besides the occasional DNS attack or virus outbreak, life usually consisted of fixing seat to keyboard interface issues. Home was just as simple. There were the boys and there was Rebecca.
Were.
When the crowd finally faded away, back into the cave complex, Steven dredged through the remaining garbage. Aluminum beer cans and broken bottles were intertwined with shredded black garbage bags, soaked and stinking paper towels, empty food containers licked clean by the people, and lumps of unidentifiable foodstuffs. Nothing looked appealing, despite his stomach threatening to start a revolution with his lungs and kidneys if he didn’t eat something soon.
“It’s a reward,” John observed. “A reward for good behavior, for obeying the covenants of this Game.”
“Like Pavlov’s dog,” Darius added.
“Yes, exactly. I’ll hazard a guess that not complying with the rules, or getting a thumb down, probably means the slop is withheld.”
“There’s nothing left,” Amanda said, sounding mad. “Nothing left for us to eat. We’ll have to be quicker next time.”
The woman who’d cut her arm off had been here a long time, Steven thought. She had that feel to her, one of familiarity with the situation. They all did. This was life to them, like the life of a network administrator was to Steven. This was their life.
“Rebecca…” he said, turning to his wife, but she was already ducking back into the tunnels.
* * *
He was worried about her. In fact, he was more than worried. She was so late coming home from work that he was tempted to call the police. Rebecca had never been this late without calling. Repeated attempts to call her cell phone led to her voice mail every single time. Four rings and then it was “Hello, this is Rebecca, I’m away from the phone and you know what to do.”
Steven didn’t know what to do. She’d just never been this late. It was too much like the night Michelle died.
As he picked up the phone to call the police, headlights pierced the darkness from the driveway and he heard the familiar click of her car’s door. He met her at the back door, hugging her tightly before actually looking at her.
“I was worried about you,” he said, never wanting to let go of his wife again. He couldn’t lose another…
“I’m fine, silly,” she said, and as he looked at her, he had to wonder.
Her face was bruised and bloodied, purple splashes like flowers across her cheek. There was a large cut on her left cheek, her eyes were puffy and black, and she was missing a tooth.
“My god, Rebecca…”
“It’s nothing,” she said, showing her broken smile, “you should see the other guy.”
“What happened to you? Where have you been?”
“I was attacked.”
“I’ll call the cops…”
“I didn’t need them.”
There was something in the way his wife looked, something that he hadn’t seen before. Something he wouldn’t, for many years, see again. It was something feral, something primal. She was smiling.
“What happened?”
“I was coming out of the office and walking through the parking garage when this little punk,” she nearly spat the word out, the adrenaline and vitriol in her voice still present, “comes up to me with a knife demanding my purse. You should have seen him, Steven. He was huge. I thought if he was going to rape me, it was going to be like getting raped by a horse.”
She was smiling, as if she’d made a joke, and the smile made him very uncomfortable.
“I told him to fuck off. Jus
t like that. Can you imagine? I told him to fuck off and die, and he stabbed me.” She raised her shirt, showing a small puncture to her left side. He wouldn’t remember that she’d managed to lose her bra, her breast standing pertly at attention, until much later. “I thought I was going to die.”
Steven was as close to panic as he’d ever been, even more so than on the night Michelle died. His wife had been attacked, she was here, wounded and to hear her tell it, it had been a grand adventure.
“Oh my god, Rebecca, we have to get you to a hospital.”
“No, it’s fine. It wasn’t a big knife. Anyway, I don’t know what came over me. When he stood over me, I managed to kick him in the nuts and he fell down like a big ol’ sack of rice. I must have kicked him hard enough to shatter something because he laid there and cried. I started kicking him Steven, I mean kicking him really hard. It was like sex, almost, you know?”
