by Burks, John
“You did well for someone only days here,” Block said, grinning. “And I’m honored to welcome you into the Cave.”
Steven nodded and stepped to the side as Darius stepped up. Just as Block was about to slash his mark into his forehead, Darius caught his hand. He could just barely hear the whisper, but he heard it all the same.
“I’m going to run this place,” Darius told the man. “And I’m going to kill you.”
He released the hand and let Block, visibly shaken, make the mark. He turned to the crowd and roared, hands above his head, and they ate up every bit of it. He stepped up to the cauldron and took a bowl from one of Block’s remaining men, scooped up a huge bowl full, and screamed again at the crowd, who screamed right back, cheering.
Steven didn’t like the look on Block’s face, thinking the dark man was turning pretty red, and tried to melt back into the crowd. Block stopped him by jerking back his jumpsuit.
“Don’t you want to eat?”
“No, I don’t want to eat the man you made me kill.”
“I didn’t make you kill him. You had a choice.”
“Kill or be killed? That’s not much of a choice.”
“It’s still a choice.”
Steven shrugged free, knowing that Block wouldn’t do anything to him while he was on the crowd’s good side. He walked away from the cauldron and back to where Rebecca and Mia waited.
* * *
Darius was riding high, higher than ever been before. The act of killing three people so quickly and so elegantly had been an adrenaline rush in itself, but the reaction of the people of the Cave when he’d murdered three of their friends was simply exhilarating. There hadn’t been animosity, as he’d expected from killing those who’d been there longer than he had. No, he was cheered equally as if he’d been there all his life. The Game was the great equalizer of the Cave, putting him on the same level as anyone else there, even Block. There was no racism, no judging of his past. In the Game, all men really where created equal. He’d never had such a rush, even with drugs or booze, like he’d had standing there, in front of what were soon to be his people, hands raised over his head and screaming bloody murder right back at them. He was sure that was how a rock star or a sports player standing in front of thousands of people had to feel. He fed off their energy and it was good.
Even afterwards, staring down Block at the Marking, he felt powerful and, for a moment as he felt Block’s wrist tremble and saw the look of fear on his face, he knew that he could beat the man. It wasn’t an issue of if, it was only a matter of when.
He sat at the edge of the elevated stone platform, eating the bowl of soup he’d snatched away to the cheers of the crowd. He’d made sure to get plenty of meat in it and wolfed it down greedily, half tempted to go and get another bowl. There was nothing Block could do about it, for tonight anyway, and there was plenty of meat.
Instead, he wandered to the back of Block’s royal area beneath the ship and pissed, letting the flow of the ad hoc band’s music flow over him and trying to forget where he was.
He didn’t get to forget for long as he saw John climbing the stage, whispering in Block’s ear, and then leading him to the rear of the area, where the throne was. The only thing separating him from them was the throne.
Darius stood still, listening to the conversation.
“And exactly how am I supposed to know you are who you say you are?” Block was saying. “Sure, you can come here and tell me that your father is one of the richest men on the planet, but it doesn’t actually mean much. Even if it were true, it means even less. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but money doesn’t do any good here. We had a few hundreds once years ago, but they were as scratchy as toilet paper. The bales of marijuana that washed up with the money were a million times more valuable.”
“But you will not always be here,” John said, using exactly the same argument he had with Darius. “One day you’ll be off this island, and, if you care to be, you could be very wealthy when you leave.”
“I will already be wealthy from winning the Game, and the wealth I’ll earn through rebirth is not something you can ever buy with mere money. You have to earn this, you have to earn five marks. Can you buy these?” Block said, lowering his head so that John could see the four marks.
“No, I cannot, nor can I buy my way out of here. I realize that, and I understand it. I even envy you to a certain extent, and your marks. But the old adage ‘money can’t buy you happiness’ is flawed. It can buy a lot of happiness.”
Block turned over the wooden chit in his hand, very similar to the one John had given Darius. “And you want to pay me to help you, huh?”
“Something like that. I know you’re about done here. I know that, when you leave, you’ll return to the real world. And I know that when you leave, you’ll need someone to replace you.”
Block laughed out loud. “Yeah, you think so? And you think you—a newcomer and not a marked one—will walk right in and take my position?”
“I have experience managing people, if nothing else. I assure you that my family has been doing it for generations. People are like cattle; they simply need to be herded.”
Block counted through the chits in his hand. “So you’ll give me a million dollars to find your dad, tell him your situation, and then put you in charge?”
“Yes.”
“Nope,” Block laughed. “It isn’t happening. I don’t care what you were before you got here. You’re not shit here, and your daddy can’t write checks to get you out of this place. That might have worked out there, in the other world, but not here. Only you can do that, with these,” he said, fingering the marks on his head. “And the only way to get these is to win.”
“Then give me the chits back.” Darius couldn’t hear the anger in John’s voice, but he knew it was lurking just beneath the calm facade.
“No, I don’t think so. The boys will think they’re hilarious. Hell, I might pass them out as party favors. We’re always in need of a good laugh around here.”
“I’m going to kill you,” John said coldly and calmly, shocking Darius with an air of aggression he hadn’t heard before. “I’m going to kill you and I’m going to run this place. And when I do, you won’t be remembered fondly. I’ll punish the mere mention of your name with the pot.”
Block’s laugher filled the Cave. “That is rich, but I like it. Keep that thought and hold it…let it burn right through your heart. It’s the only way you’ll survive here.”
Darius tried not to laugh aloud and be heard by the two. He couldn’t blame John for hedging his bets. He would have done similar in his situation, but the absolute rejection was hilarious. And he knew why Block was keeping the chits. If John was being honest and was who he said he was, they could be very valuable for someone that was one mark away from leaving the Cave. Still, he felt a little hurt. After all the buttering up the man had done, he had still offered Block nine-hundred-thousand more dollars than he had offered Darius.
No big deal, he thought, waiting for Block to move away before exiting. The price of John’s insurance and Darius’ cooperation had just gone up
* * *
Amanda sat near Rebecca and Mia with her haul of three half-eaten, black and slimy bananas, a half a medium-cooked steak, and two apples that didn’t look bad at all, and shoved the food into her mouth as fast as she could. And still her stomach screamed for more.
“You need to slow down,” Rebecca told her. “Or you’re going to make yourself sick.”
She couldn’t respond as her mouth was full of food, and she knew the older woman was right, but she didn’t care. She’d be sick, if that’s what it took, and deal with the rest later.
Mia sat picking dirt and gunk out of a plastic bowl with a Carnival Cruise lines log on the side as if were normal. She looked up at Rebecca much like a child would a mother, and smile.
“Be sure to get all that mold, honey. It will make you sick but the oatmeal is good for you.”
; Finally having gorged herself to the point she wasn’t, for the moment, starving, she looked at Rebecca and said. “You seem to be adjusting to all this okay.”
“What choice do I have?”
She was right, of course. None of them had a choice, but still, in the span of a few days, Rebecca had gone from a grieving mother to a stoic, stereotypical strong female. The transformation was amazing, and the care and love that she lavished on the little girl was amazing. Amanda thought, much like Steven, that the relationship with Mia was a proxy for the loss of her boys.
“What’s that tattoo on your hand?” Amanda asked. She could make out the string of numbers, but the grime and dirt caked on Rebecca’s hand, just like the rest of them, made it hard to read.
“It’s nothing.” she replied. “A silly number that meant something when I was in college.”
“I have one of those,” she told her, turning around and showing her the ‘tramp stamp’ butterfly that she’d gotten after a night of too much drinking on Spring Break in Cancun. “My mother hates it. She says it’s going to be all wrinkled and faded when I’m old…” She let the thought drift, wondering if she would ever be old. There was a distinct possibility, here in this hellhole, that not only would she not grow old, she’d be someone else’s meal.
Rebecca tried a smile, not really wanting to talk, but Amanda ignored her. Amanda needed to talk. She wanted to talk to a friendly person who was in the same situation. No one else in the Cave would talk to her, and if Rebecca didn’t like it, she and Mia were just going to have to get over it.
“Where are her parents?” Amanda asked, curious.
“Who?”
“Mia.”
“Oh,” Rebecca said, looking confused. “You mean Mia’s parents?”
“Yes.” Amanda didn’t understand Rebecca’s confusion or hesitation. It was like she was afraid to even talk about the subject.
“I don’t know,” Rebecca said, looking at the girl with what Amanda thought was some guilt. “I don’t know where they are or what happened to them. For now it’s just me and her.”
“And Steven.”
“Yes,” she said quickly. “And Steven.”
“What about Steven?” he asked, stepping into the small camp. He carried an armful of cardboard boxed and plastic bags, dumping them in the center.
“We were just talking about how good you did in the Game, weren’t we, Mia?” Rebecca said like Amanda wasn’t even there.
“I didn’t do anything,” he said, averting eye contact with any of them. “I was just lucky.”
“Take the luck where you can get it,” Rebecca ordered. “Because we can use all the luck we can get.”
“Well,” he said, trying to change the subject, and Amanda could see the guilt he felt for taking another man’s life, “I found some stuff that we can try to use to make some sort of walls and something to sleep on. I think I can string these bags between the rocks…we can make a mattress.”
“Shouldn’t we be more concerned about finding a way out of here instead of how to make our lives more comfortable?” Amanda blurted out. She didn’t want a comfy bed, she wanted out of the Cave and away from the Game and Darius. Well, she thought, she really wanted Darius dead first, but that was a bump on the way to escape.
“If you have some idea that I’m not exploring, some plan, let me know. Because right now, I’m lost. All I know how to do is protect my wife.”
“And Mia,” Rebecca interrupted.
“And Mia,” Steven said, and Amanda could see the discomfort in his face as he continued. “Sure, I want to escape. But I don’t just want to escape…I want to punish the people who put me here.” Amanda wondered if he caught the sidelong glance from Rebecca. “I want to kill the men who killed my sons. I want to see those men in the pot, I want to smell the boiling of their skin, see their eyeballs floating like potatoes. I want all those things, like you do, maybe more than you do, but right now I can’t have them. All I can have, for now, is living here by the rules they’ve set up.”
“That’s too much like giving up,” Amanda said. “I think our priority has to be finding a way out of here.”
“Go ahead,” Rebecca told her. “Go exploring. I’m sure that they won’t kill and eat you like they did your friend if you go outside the Cave.” She said it with no small amount of sarcasm. “The gate isn’t locked.”
“Fuck you,” she replied vehemently without thinking. She didn’t want to ruin the one relationship she had, and as Rebecca’s eyebrows rose and she turned away from her, she added, “I’m sorry, Rebecca. I just want to get out of here.”
“We all do. But as Steven said, we have to survive until we do. Until you have a better idea, I suggest you get your mind wrapped around that.”
Rebecca, always the practical one, was right. Amanda was here, and it didn’t look like the cavalry was coming anytime soon. She had to make the best of it, along with the people she’d been stranded with, and ultimately survive. She’d never escape if she was dead and resting in the pit of someone else’s stomach. Instead of bitching more, she went to help Steven spread out the cardboard and plastic as best they could, forming small sections of privacy.
“It’s raining!” someone screamed from the entrance to the Canyon and the crowd, much like with a Game, rushed outside.
Chapter Six
Steven had never seen so many naked people in one place before in his life.
People were streaming into the canyon, beneath the gaze of the Castle, taking off their clothes as the torrents of rain cascaded down. He stood in the rain, staring up at the dark clouds, letting the water wash over him, taking with it the blood, the dirt, and the guilt. The guilt, like grime and blood, would return, but for the moment, he just stood in the rain, mouth open, the fresh rainwater tasting as glorious as anything he could ever remember.
Children frolicked naked in the puddles formed by the quick rain while adults washed themselves and rinsed out their clothing as best as they could. Rebecca stripped down so quickly it shocked Steven, and she showed no modesty as she hastily began washing her and Mia’s bodies off. There was no modesty anywhere in the canyon, and Steven felt a bit guilty for admiring all the naked women about.
There were the amputees, of course, along with the other disfigurements from the Game, that immediately turned his stomach, but there was also so much beauty in the Cave. There were people of every ethnicity, every color, from all over the world, dancing and laughing and bathing.
Steven wandered through the crowd, looking for Jackson and hoping to ask the man some more questions. He seemed like he had more to say and knew more of what was going on than he’d said earlier. He stopped near a couple of men who were talking, discussing what looked like wooden poker chips.
“It’s bullshit, man,” one said to the other. “How would you know if he’s telling the truth or not?”
“But what if he isn’t lying?” the first man asked. “I mean, come on. Wouldn’t it be nice to have some money when you got out of here?”
“If you get out of here.”
“I’m an optimist,” the man said, and Steven noticed he had two marks cut into his forehead. “And I know that once I get the chance, I’m getting the hell out of here.”
“You don’t want to live in the Castle?” the other said, pointing to where the glass one-way windows were set into the cliff high above.
“I could care less about the Castle. I’m for Cali, man,” he said.
“Well, I still think it’s bullshit. Your traded a wooden chip for what, two apples and a banana?”
“Yeah, but it’s a wooden chip worth five thousand dollars. Five thousand dollars for two rotten apples and a banana that I wouldn’t even eat.”
“Five thousand dollars if you get out of here and,” he said, emphasizing and, “if his story is true. Say his story is true…what if his father doesn’t agree to his end of the deal?”
“I guess that’s a bridge I’ll have to cross when I get to it. Like I
said, man, I’m an optimist, and right now, I’m an optimist who’s five-thousand dollars richer.”
“No, you’re an optimist that’s out two apples and a banana.”
“Rotten apples, man, rotten apples.”
Steven knew the men could only be talking about John, who’d claimed to be wealthy to their small group. That he was buying things with that supposed wealth wasn’t so unusual. People were creative about surviving, and John was no different, using the one thing he knew to make a go of it. He couldn’t blame the man. Maybe he’d have an easier time of it here than Steven would.
