Endz Casino & Resort

by Ben Larracey

  “Let me out!” DeLeo screamed, trying his best to fight out of the straps.

  “You have two choices,” Dr. Stone said, stonefaced, looking first at the syringe, then at the pistol.

  Suddenly the door burst open. Muzzle fire flashed through the room, followed by screams. DeLeo felt the warm spray of fresh blood across his face and heard the sound of what could only be bodies dropping to the floor.

  He looked down. Dr. Stone, Hector, and the other white coats were all lifeless on the floor, covered in blood.

  The soldier approached DeLeo, pulling out a massive survival knife and cutting the straps, freeing DeLeo. Wes slowly got off the hospital bed and inspected the bedlam around him.

  “We have you surrounded!” one of the security force team leaders yelled from outside the room.

  “What do we do?” DeLeo whispered, terrified, putting his gas mask back on. They were trapped. That door was their only way out.

  The soldier took a rope from his belt and tied it around one of the massive medical machines in the room. He then clipped DeLeo to him.

  “What are you doing?” DeLeo asked

  The soldier pointed in the opposite direction of the hallway from where the security force were waiting.

  “Are you serious?” DeLeo countered. “That’s a dead end!”

  “We’ll give you to the count of five,” the same voice yelled from across the ward. DeLeo looked at the soldier, who was busy unhooking grenades from his belt. DeLeo’s eyes widened. The soldier nodded his head, flipped off the ends of each projectile and tossed them out the door into the smoke-filled ward.

  After the explosion, the soldier grabbed DeLeo and ran out the door, both of them breathing heavily through the filters of their masks as they moved down the corridor toward the window at the dead end. Staring straight ahead, the soldier leveled his machine gun, shot the glass, and without hesitation, the two of them jumped through.

  DeLeo and the soldier free-fell from the window. Bricks and windows from the outside of the building moved past. Suddenly, the rope grabbed. DeLeo’s body snapped back and everything stopped.

  DeLeo and the soldier dangled off the side of the building. It was dark; so dark that he could barely see the yellow light streaming out of the shattered window above. Below, the ground was nowhere in sight.

  The soldier clicked something on his belt, and the two of them descended through the clouds.

  “Faster!” DeLeo implored. “They could cut the rope any minute!”

  The soldier remained steady as the two of them dropped down the side of the building. A colorful blur slowly came into focus as they neared the ground. DeLeo noticed, with as sinking feeling overcoming him, that the light came from the entrance to the casino. The bright Endz Casino & Resort sign illuminated the ground below. They were inside the set of the post-apocalyptic city.

  The solider unhooked DeLeo from the rope when they touched the ground. Wes walked toward the casino window, cupped his hands, and looked inside. It was dark and empty but DeLeo could see the outlines of slot machines and poker tables next to studio cameras.

  “Where is everyone?” DeLeo asked.

  The soldier ignored DeLeo. He was busy prying open a utility hole cover in the street. When he was finished, the soldier snapped his fingers and pointed to the hole.

  “In there?” DeLeo asked, more confused than ever.

  Soldier nodded and DeLeo entered the hole.

  The sewer was dark and wet and even more ominous as the soldier closed the manhole behind them. DeLeo’s feet were cold; the ward issued flip-flops didn’t protect against much in the ankle deep water.

  “So what do we do now, Batman?” DeLeo asked, half joking.

  As usual, the soldier said nothing, which was really beginning to annoy DeLeo, but he followed him none-the-less.

  The flashlight on the end of the soldier’s machine gun cut through the dark, bobbing up and down as they walked through the tunnel. They passed leaking pipes, corroded from years of neglect. Massive rats scurried along the ledge just above the water line.

  DeLeo was relieved to be free of Dr. Stone and the white coats, but he had never imagined an escape like this. The sewer felt like a tomb. Deteriorating brick mixed with rusted reinforced steel seemed to be the only thing providing any support from the whole apocalyptic city-set collapsing down on them from above.

  The water was up to their shins now and getting deeper. A few steps later, it was at waist level. DeLeo considered asking the soldier where they were going but he knew it wouldn’t help. He slipped on something disgusting under his flip flops, grabbed for a slimy pipe, but caught himself before he went down.

  They rounded a corner where DeLeo saw a red bulb in the distance and a doorway underneath. It looked like the end of the tunnel. Could it be? DeLeo breathed a sigh of relief when the water returned to knee level and then to ankle level. By the time they reached the red light they were back on dry ground. DeLeo was cold and soaking wet, but he felt as though maybe, just maybe, the worst part was over.

  They passed through the doorway and continued. DeLeo was confused and lost in this maze of underground tunnels. He would never be able to find his way back, not that he planned to return.

  They reached a dead end and the soldier rotated a rusted hand crank on the wall, revealing a high-tech glowing green keypad.

  The soldier typed a code in the keypad and the wall moved, revealing a secret passageway. The sound of voices and commotion was close. There were people just up ahead.

  The soldier unbuckled his mask and pulled if off, shaking his head. A clump of red hair tumbled out of the mask. DeLeo couldn’t believe what he saw. Ethel, or whatever her real name was, was the soldier. The religious fundamentalist. The actor. She stood right in front of him holding a machine gun and smiling. Her skin was like porcelain, her hair blood red. She had been the one who rescued him.

  “Surprised?” Ethel grinned.

  “Kind of,” DeLeo managed to spit out, utterly shocked.

  “Come on Wes. You’re safe now. There are some people I want you to meet. I’ll explain everything once we’re inside.”

  DeLeo forced the old image of Ethel out of his mind, intrigued by this new version and somewhat stunned by her natural beauty. He followed her inside toward the voices.

  13

  The secret tunnel opened up into a vast, two-level underground cave. It looked like a command center, a bunker, for some massive operation. Despite his best efforts, DeLeo couldn’t process what he was witnessing.

  On the bottom level, there had to be at least twenty or thirty soldiers, some preparing military-style weapons and studying maps, others sparring in preparation for some future combat operation. On the top level, the blue glow of state-of-the-art computers lit the faces of young men and women staring intently at screens.

  Ethel pointed at one of the large LCD monitors hanging on the wall in front of them. The screen consisted of a bunch of small squares showing video footage from multiple locations, many of which DeLeo immediately recognized. There was footage of the empty casino studio as well as from the post-apocalyptic city-set, the sewer tunnels, the courtyard ballroom, and the hospital ward room.

  “We hacked into their video feed. We’ve been monitoring you since you arrived in the ward,” Ethel said. “We knew we had to act when we saw Tim Sherman lose himself to madness. We couldn’t let that happen to you too.”

  “Wait,” DeLeo said stopping in the middle of the bunker. “First I thought you were a zealot, then you were an actor, now you’re...what?”

  “She’s a freedom fighter,” a gruff, bearded man answered, walking toward them. “A member of the resistance like the rest of us.” The man was dressed in similar green military fatigues and wore a beret.

  “That’s right,” Ethel said. “The acting gig was a cover. My way in. I’m sorry I couldn’t ha
ve been honest with you from the start. I had to be careful. If they ever found out who I really was the whole operation would have been in jeopardy.”

  “Operation? What the hell is this, and who are you, really?”

  “We are the MLA,” Ethel said.

  “What the hell is the MLA?”

  “Media Liberation Army. I’m Raul Cortez,” the bearded man continued. “We are dedicated to the overthrow of media conglomerates: CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, New York Times, Facebook, Google, you get the idea. The list goes on.”

  “Are you serious?” DeLeo with a hint of sarcasm.

  Ethel nodded her head.

  “I don’t get it. Who are you fighting for?’

  Cortez stroked his jet-black beard. “We’re for the people. They are being poisoned by what is being fed to them online, through the mainstream media, whether print or on TV. Once the left and right get to the elite levels of government, universities, media, they all spout the same dogma. Control and obedience. The tone of the various media groups may be different, or the way they manipulate their constituencies, but it’s all the same in the end. That’s why we need a complete revolution.”

  DeLeo shook his head. What this wanna-be Che Guevara was spouting, was crazy “Media Liberation Army?” He responded in disbelief, “Who came up with that name? It’s ridiculous.”

  “Is it?” Cortez adjusted his beret. “If it wasn’t for us they would have pumped you so full of drugs you might as well be dead.”

  DeLeo looked toward Ethel, “Is this real or is this just another part of this stupid show?”

  “Did those bullets fired at our heads seem real?” Ethel responded “What about the blood? What about Tim Sherman?”

  There was no doubt what he just witnessed seemed real. “It did,” DeLeo conceded. “It’s just a lot to wrap my head around at the moment.”

  “I understand,” Cortez said. “It was tough for all of us once we realized the truth.”

  Wes noticed Ethel’s eyes begin to water. “I’ve had a personal vendetta to go after Chip Johnson since my brother disappeared in their custody ten years ago.” Her mouth quivered, but her tears never fell. “Believe me this is serious. They used him because they thought he didn’t have any family left, but they were wrong.” Ethel loaded a fresh magazine into her gun, then motioned toward the soldiers training. “We need you, Wes. You’re the only one who can help us bring them down.”

  “How did you find me?” DeLeo asked, still skeptical.

  Cortez showed DeLeo a tablet of all the video feeds.“Our eyes are everywhere.” He enlarged one of the camera feeds and live footage of the ward appeared. Chip Johnson stepped over the dead security force bodies as he surveyed the chaos and death in the ward.

  Cortez activated the sound. “This was a bloodbath,” Chip said to one of the surviving members of the security force next to him. “He must have had help and I have a pretty good idea who is behind this.”

  The footage changed camera angles. Chip Johnson peered out the shattered building window where DeLeo and Ethel had jumped. He kicked some of the remaining glass and watched it fall into the darkness. Sadie entered the frame and joined Chip at his side.

  “She a friend of yours too?” DeLeo asked Ethel and Cortez, pointing to Sadie.

  “God no,” Ethel said. “Just an actor like the others. However, now that she is with Chip Johnson it seems like she is getting more involved with the whole operation.”

  DeLeo watched the massive screen showing Chip and Sadie standing at the edge of the window like the finale to a love story and muttered,“If I was there right now, I would push her out the window.”

  Ethel chucked. “Stick with us, and you just might get your chance.”

  When they finished watching the footage of Sadie and Chip surveying the ruins of the ward, DeLeo followed Ethel through the underground command center. It was like the structure had been built in right from the ground. They passed old industrial pipes and steel until they reached a door that looked like it belonged on a submarine.

  “You can get cleaned up in here,” Ethel opened the door.

  The chamber looked like an old boiler room transformed into a living space. “The water isn’t warm,” she added, “but it’s clean. There are fresh clothes on the bed.”

  DeLeo felt grateful for what she had done. Two hours ago he had watched Tim Sherman jam a shank into his own neck and thought they were going to lock him away forever or worse, kill him. Now he was free.

  “Ethel,” DeLeo said. “I appreciate everything you’ve done for me.”

  She smiled. “My real name is Liz. Rest up. We need you strong and ready. After the mess I made getting you out, there’s no doubt they’ll try and find us. And when they do, they’ll hit us with everything they got.”

  DeLeo sat on the corner of the bed. “It’s hard to wrap my head around all this. The show, the hospital ward, the MLA. My mind is spinning.”

  “Well, you’ve been through a lot,” Ethel said, comforting DeLeo. “I can understand how this can be confusing. I mean the last time you saw me I wasn’t too nice,” she smiled. He face now warm and trusting, like an old friend.

  DeLeo laughed. “That’s an understatement.”

  “It was hard watching you go through all that. I wanted to help you from the beginning, but I couldn’t risk it. At least not then.” DeLeo saw Ethel glance down at the track marks on his arms. “No matter what happens in life there’s always so much left unfinished. Do you know what I mean Wes?”

  “I do,” DeLeo said, tears coming to his eyes. “I spent all my time running from the things that were the most important to me. The things that really mattered – my family. My wife and daughter. Now all that’s gone.”

  “It isn’t over yet,” Ethel smiled. “We’re going to get you out of here. Now get some rest.”

  Ethel left the room. DeLeo showered and crawled into bed. The mattress was soft and comforting. He felt like he could sleep for days. He shut his eyes and drifted off.

  14

  Suddenly, he woken by a thundering explosion. He didn’t know how long he was asleep, and hour maybe two. Groggy and unaware of his surroundings, he jumped out of bed.

  Cortez and Ethel ran in, shouting warnings to hurry. DeLeo quickly put on the clothes and military grade boots Ethel had given him and, at her signal, cautiously cracked open the door.

  Smoke and fire filled the bunker. It was a war zone. Without warning, another explosion ripped through the command center spraying brick and debris everywhere.

  “They’re inside! They found us!” DeLeo heard someone yell through the dust and smoke filling the room. The sound of gunfire tore through the cave.

  Cortez and Ethel emerged from the cloud of smoke and debris. “How did they get in?” Cortez yelled.

  “Move!” Ethel yelled, pushing Cortez out of the way. She raised her machine gun and fired at the heavily armed security force spilling into the large hole that had been blasted into the wall.

  White muzzle flash exploded from the tip of her weapon, cutting the blue uniforms down.

  “We have to get upstairs. It’s our only chance!” Cortez yelled.

  Keeping his head down, DeLeo followed Ethel and Cortez to the second level of the bunker, pausing and ducking for cover as they laid down machine fire. He watched as soldiers on both sides were mutilated from the high-powered weapons. No one was safe. The security force seemed better armed and more prepared this time than they had been before. They carried riot shields, stronger body armor and larger weapons.

  When DeLeo, Cortez, and Ethel made it to the top level of the bunker, DeLeo dove under one of the computer consoles for cover. More explosions and gunfire filled the underground cavern, followed by screams and the ever-present sound of grown men wailing in agony.

  Every few moments DeLeo would look through a crack in the console to see Ethel
or Cortez spraying machine gun fire over the railing.

  Blue uniforms fell to the ground, snapping like guitar strings, peppered with bullets. Screams of atrocious pain and sprays of blood covered the bunker. There was no way this was staged. What DeLeo was witnessing was the closest thing to all-out war he could possibly imagine. Bullets hitting the steel desk next to him left indents. The sound from the explosion still rang in his ears.

  “Get him out of here!” Cortez yelled to Ethel. “The extraction team will be here in twenty minutes.”

  Ethel’s machine gun roared, picking off different security forces below. She stopped to reload, looked at her watch, and ran over to DeLeo.

  Before either of them could speak, a bullet hit Cortez right between the eyes. His head snapped back, chunks of flesh sprayed against the wall, and he collapsed to the ground. DeLeo was speechless.

  It was a massacre. The resistance had been caught off guard. Bodies were scattered everywhere. Other than Ethel and DeLeo, it seemed that no one was left alive. Ethel grabbed DeLeo by the shirt. “We’re out of time. We have to go now.”

  DeLeo could hear what he assumed were the blue uniformed security forces ascending the stairs to the second level of the bunker.

  “This way,” Ethel pulled DeLeo to the back, where a catwalk led down a narrow corridor.

  “It’s a dead end!” DeLeo yelled, seeing no way out.

  “Not for you it isn’t,” Ethel yelled, firing at the first soldiers up the stairs.

  The further down the corridor they went, DeLeo and Ethel took cover from the fire in small nooks. DeLeo looked around for any way out but saw nothing. The only way out was back the way they came.

  Ethel kicked out a nearby grate in the wall revealing a small two by two opening. “Get in!” she yelled.

  DeLeo didn’t hesitate, didn’t stop to consider his alternative. He scurried into the small hole feet first while Ethel laid down, covering fire.