Flesh Worn Stone

by Burks, John

  “I don’t like this,” Block said, circumventing the argument altogether. “And I don’t like you. You will not survive here, if I have anything to say about it. You will not prosper, you will not participate in the Game.”

  “I don’t think you have the power to do that,” John said. But what if Block did have that power?

  The big Samoan laughed heartily. “I’m the only four-timer here. I have more power than you know.”

  He left John and the last few bites of his cereal. John looked down at the cereal and wondered if it had all been worth it.

  * * *

  Amanda didn’t dwell on the murder of the old hag. There just wasn’t a point. She’d done it, and if she ever managed to get out of the Cave and away from the insanity, then maybe she’d reflect on her wrongs. Maybe then, in some coffee shop in an urban nowhere, she’d have the opportunity to philosophize. Maybe then she could look back and reflect on what it took to survive the Game. But now, like Rebecca continued to say, survival was the name of the game, and there simply wasn’t anything else.

  She was starving. Despite winning her Game, she’d gained none of the rewards because of Steven’s failure. Oh, she had her mark and the adulation of the people of the Cave, but she didn’t have anything to eat. She watched as they sliced up the corpse of the man from the Cage and nearly threw up at the thought of eating the resulting stew. Maggots crawled around the body, and the women preparing the meal weren’t going to do anything about it. She’d seen many people in the Cave eating insects, and most thought they were perfectly healthy to eat. She’d even heard Rebecca talking about eating the maggots, as well as using them for cleaning away dead flesh from open wounds, but she still couldn’t get her mind around it. The mushrooms that Steven had spirited away from wherever they grew in the Cave had helped, but they were gone now, along with Steven.

  There was no more food in their shelter, and she couldn’t find John, who, for certain favors—favors that were among the things she didn’t want to think about—would usually get her something other than people to eat. She just had to pay the capitalist. Rebecca and Mia were hanging out with Darius, which was just plain strange to her, considering the man had raped her too, but she didn’t say anything about it to the woman. The two seemed closer, in many respects, than Steven and Rebecca had, as if the Game had done something to bond them. Darius even played with the mute girl Mia, tossing her up in the air like a rag doll and catching her, the little girl giggling in the weird way she had. Steven wouldn’t be of any help for a while as he was on everyone’s shit list for losing and was locked away in the Cage.

  The only choice she had were Ernie and Max, with their little shop. She didn’t actually have anything to trade but her body, and had traded it with John on a regular basis. Unlike Block, who chose to save his sexual stores for the Game, John hadn’t quite learned that lesson. He wasn’t a good lover by any stretch of the imagination, and was rougher than she liked, but it had kept her fed. She’d participated in threesomes before, with both men and women, and she hoped Ernie and Max would approve.

  Their stand was overflowing with food, and there was a line several people long. They were mostly trading John’s chits, but some were trading things they’d made, clothing, necklaces and jewelry made from junk and seashells, as well as all sorts of eating utensils. There were several stacks of wooden and plastic bowls, along with all sorts of improvised cutlery. Amanda waited patiently, trying to push her hair back and straighten her jumpsuit. She knew she wasn’t quite what one would consider attractive, at least at the moment and in this places, but she also knew she was more attractive than most in the Cave.

  When it was her turn, she stepped up and smiled, “hi.”

  “Hello,” Ernie told her and then recognized her. “Hey, you won the Game today. Congratulations.”

  “Thanks,” she said, trying her best smile, despite being congratulated for murdering another human being. She’d never get used to that aspect of the Cave, the completely opposing pulls of community and the macabre. “But a fat lot of good it did me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “We didn’t get anything to eat and I’m starving.”

  Ernie beamed. “Well, you’ve come to the right place, then. What do you want? And what do you have to trade?”

  “Trade? Well…”

  “We’ll take just about anything of value. You never know when something you have will appeal to someone else, and we like to facilitate that trading. It…it reminds us of life outside of here.”

  Max smile at the memories. “Me and Ernie used to run a pawn shop. It wasn’t the most lucrative of businesses, but it kept us fed. And it was fun. You wouldn’t believe the stuff that came through there.”

  She was unused to anyone being so open with her in the Cave and supposed it had to do with her finally having a mark. People had been, before the mark, standoffish and had acted like she and the other newcomers didn’t exist. She could see, under different circumstances, enjoying the two beaming and happy men’s company.

  “So,” Ernie said, “if you want to show us what you have to trade, we can start from there.”

  “I don’t have anything, except…” she said, unzipping the front of her jumpsuit.

  Ernie and Max burst out in laughter. “Well, anything besides that, sweetie.”

  “She has a nice perky set, too,” Max said. “Too bad they wouldn’t do us any good.”

  “You’re gay.”

  “You nailed it. Quick even.”

  “But…how do you get through the Game? If you have to take a woman…”

  “You do what you have to,” Ernie said. “But now, if you don’t have anything to trade, could you please move along?”

  “Ernie…” Max began. “Poor girl…she’s just hungry. You remember being hungry, don’t you?”

  “No more charity, Max. We won’t stay in business long if we’re nothing but the alternative soup kitchen.”

  “We don’t have to be in business now.”

  “No,” Ernie said flatly. “I can’t help you, miss. Please move along.”

  Amanda was flabbergasted and embarrassed, and a woman behind her giggled as if it was the most hysterical thing she’d ever seen. Embarrassment turned to anger and she fumed, “Well, fuck you. This belongs to everybody here,” she said, picking up an apple core. “You don’t get to parcel it out like some kind of king. You don’t have the right to keep us from eating.”

  There were a couple supportive cheers from behind her, and she could tell Ernie and Max were becoming nervous, squirming in their seats. Good, she thought, serves the gay bastards right. She scooped up a few other oddball pieces of rotted fruit and vegetables and turned to leave when Ernie screamed out, “Thief!”

  The few people gathered around her gasped, and she turned back to the gay duo. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  “You’ve stolen from us,” Ernie said simply.

  Max shook his head sadly. “You’ve stolen from the Cave.”

  “Ernie…” his lover pleaded, “please don’t do this.”

  “Don’t do what?” Amanda asked. “You aren’t the Cave. You don’t make the rules.”

  “No, I didn’t make the rules,” Ernie told her. “But there are rules. You don’t steal from the Cave, not ever, and you’ve stolen from us.”

  It only took several moments for a couple of Block’s men, carrying spears, to show up. The larger one, the Hispanic man with tattoos covering his face, demanded, “What’s going on here?”

  “She stole from us,” Ernie said, pointing to Amanda. “Look, she has the evidence right there in her hand.”

  “What’s the big deal?” Amanda asked. “I got something to eat. We all have to eat, right? I didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “We don’t tolerate thieves here,” the man said simply. “You’ll have to come with us.”

  “What? Over these bullshit fags? I’ll give it back. They can have it.”

  “I’m afrai
d it’s too late for that.”

  Amanda tried to turn and run, but one of the men tripped her with his spear. She fell face first into the mud and screamed for help as the two men scooped her up. The people around her turned away from her, not wanting to make eye contact, leaving her alone.

  And when it came right down to it, she knew, she was absolutely alone in this place.

  * * *

  Darius was sitting with Rebecca and Mia in the shelter when John came through the opening made from overlapping black garbage sacks. He looked the man up and down and realized something was troubling him. His eyes darted too quickly and he kept looking back out the flap to see if someone was following him. He was trembling slightly and sweating profusely, though it was always cool in the Cave.

  “What’s wrong with you?” he asked the Arab man as he sat down.

  “Nothing.”

  “Bullshit. You’re shaking like a leaf.”

  “Block isn’t happy with me.”

  “The chits?” Darius asked. He knew this was coming. John had upset the apple cart, and there was no way, now that everyone in the Cave was trading chits like they were actual money, that the apples could be put back.

  “Yes. He’s apparently not a free market capitalist. He’s also unhappy with the shop and the two men selling things.”

  “I don’t blame him,” Darius said.

  John looked at him, eyes pleading. “I’m just trying to get by…”

  Darius sensed weakness, and while he didn’t really think any of the wooden chits would pay off at the end, even if they did escape this place, but in time they would become money here. And Darius knew money was power. The power here was subtle, it represented not starving more than anything else, but even that was something. A plan began to formulate.

  “I can help you with that,” Darius told him.

  “How?”

  “We’ll work out the details later, but for now, let’s just say all your chits go through me. We have to control the supply of them. And in controlling the supply of them, we can control the people who are using them. It’s pretty simple, really.”

  “I tried that,” John said, staring at the ceiling, “but I can’t do it. I don’t have the popular support among the people.” His eyes went wide with the proverbial light bulb, “but you’re starting to…”

  “Yes, I am. I’ve got two marks now, but I don’t think it will be long before I have three. People like change, and a lot of them are starting to like me,” he told John, rubbing Rebecca on the leg.

  “Okay, I see what you’re saying and I’m sorry,” he said, looking Darius in the eyes. “For doubting you. It seems my initial impression of you was right on.”

  “I’m not worried about it,” Darius replied and did his best to keep from laughing. Had the Arab not started his chit game, he’d have no use for him at all. But with those chits, and how people treated them, he remained useful. “And it will take some time to sway some of Block’s men away from him, but it can be done.”

  “With enough chits,” John added.

  “Yup.”

  The man looked sullenly at the top of the Cave again. “This isn’t how this was supposed to be. This isn’t anything like my father described it.”

  Darius knew a part of the Contract was to not talk about it, even after they arrived at the Cave, but he was curious about John’s feelings on the matter. Hell, he was even more curious about how Rebecca and Steven arrived, but he was sure she’d tell him in her own time.

  “What did you have to pay?” Darius asked flat out and hoped no one was near enough to the shelter to hear the conversation. He wasn’t sure what the punishment for breaking that portion of the Contract was, but considering most punishments included death and consumption, he didn’t particularly want to find out. He wasn’t at the point where he could stop something like that. Yet.

  John looked back at him, distrust written across his face. “We’re really not supposed to talk about it.”

  “And yet here we are, talking about it. We’re going to have to trust each other to get through this, John,” he told him, doing his best to sound honest and concerned. “If we can’t trust each other, then we can’t trust anyone.”

  “It was just money, nothing dramatic. My father paid it gladly. He was here once.”

  Darius nodded in agreement. He’d figured it was something along those lines. John hadn’t come to the Cave as someone else’s payment, and he couldn’t figure out why he’d volunteer.

  “He won five. I can’t really believe it, now that I’m here, but I see why he is the way he is now. He told me that if I ever wanted to inherit the business, I’d have to come here and win five Games. He was sure it was the only way I’d ever become a man.”

  “I take it you two didn’t get along all that well?” Darius asked, savoring the flow of information.

  “No, not really. I was always too weak in his eyes, too much of a pansy to be any good for the company. He wanted me to come here to toughen up.” John was on the verge of tears.

  “Well, this place will do that. So how much did he have to pay?” Darius knew money could be used as payment for the Contract, but he was curious how much.

  “It was in the millions.”

  “Jesus,” Darius said, then whistled. “That’s a lot of money. You, ah…you didn’t want to take one of the other methods?”

  “I couldn’t kill someone for them. I just didn’t have it in me. I think, though, had I, Father would have let me stay home and skip this nightmare.”

  “It wouldn’t have mattered,” Rebecca said, finally entering the conversation. “They would have come for you anyway. The Contract is the Contract,” she said, like the Contract was a bible to be followed. “Once you agree to it you’re going to fulfill it, one way or another.”

  Rebecca had always seemed to know more about the Game than anyone else. He suspected there was more to the woman than she showed to any of them, even her husband.

  “What did you pay, Darius?” John asked.

  Darius knew he had to reciprocate. If he expected John to trust him, even though he was using and manipulating him, he had to tell him. “I think you already know.”

  “You raped Cassandra and Amanda,” Rebecca answered for him. “After luring them outside of the club in Houston.”

  John’s eyes went wide. “But you were so adamant in your denial…I…”

  “I had to be, John. That’s part of the Contract. I had no idea they’d be here when we got here, and I was just as surprised to see them as they were me. I didn’t want to do it. Don’t get me wrong. I’ve done bad things—evil things in life that I’ll have to settle up with my Creator someday—but I’d never harm a woman. I think that’s what these bastards do from the onset. They set you up to fail yourself, like basic training in the Army.”

  “They want to tear us down and rebuild us, better and stronger,” John agreed. “It all sounds so promising when the salesman pitches it. But why would you want to come here in the first place? You seem a pretty confident guy already.”

  “The prize money is pretty significant.”

  “That’s it, you’re here for money?”

  Darius shrugged. Of course, he was fighting his own demons and fears. The salesman’s pitch that cold December morning when he stepped out of prison had been too good to pass up. He’d often made a living in fighting, and that’s what the Game sounded like to him. He thought he’d win five fights and be home in a week, and he, like the rest of them, had no idea what the place would actually be like. Visions of the Ultimate Fighting Championship wafted in his head, and he thought, having seen the show a few times, he could take the majority of those guys. Fighting, as he’d once told John, couldn’t be learned in a class; it had to be learned on the street. And Darius had spent the majority of his life in Houston fighting for one thing or another. He was good at it, and he liked to do it. But this…this wasn’t what he’d expected. The rape part should have been his first clue, he knew, but the off
er of the money had been too great to turn down. He’d been just as scared as the others that day they awoke here, but he wasn’t going to tell John that. He couldn’t lay all his cards on the table.

  “So either Amanda nominated Cassandra or vice versa,” John said. “I don’t think they would have had the money to pay the fee. They seemed to be simple college students.”

  Another option in fulfilling payment to the Contract was to bring someone else with you. It had to be a close personal friend or a relative, no strangers off the street, and the person absolutely could not be told. Whomever it was had to be someone that would hurt you to see harmed. It just demonstrated the sick nature of the people in the Castle. They had their own charity program to gain access to the Game, you just had to provide another victim. Darius had agreed, but he was sure Cassandra was the one who’d brought Amanda. “I think it was Cassandra. Don’t you remember her saying this wasn’t supposed to be like this before they hauled her away?”