The Tetradome Run

by Spencer Baum

  Kyle was the first one to break. One minute they were talking about a clarinet recital Jenna gave her senior year of high school, the next Kyle was leaning forward in his chair, weeping.

  “Oh God,” he moaned. “I can’t believe this is happening!”

  Jenna didn’t want to look at the clock on the wall, but she couldn’t help herself.

  1:48. Twelve minutes until they poked her with a needle of deadly poison.

  “Kyle, it’s okay,” she said. “It’s hard. It’s hard and unfair and-”

  “There are things I could have done to prevent this.”

  “Don’t start thinking like that,” said Jenna. “If we could do it over again, knowing what we know now, we’d all do it differently.”

  “There were things I should have known. Things I should have done.”

  “Stop it,” said Jenna. “I want us to focus on good times during this visit. Give me another happy memory to think about.”

  “What I want to give you is a confession,” said Kyle.

  “A confession?”

  Kyle took a deep breath. “You know what? Forget it,” he said. “I’m sorry. I’m being selfish.”

  “No, it’s okay. Is there something you want to tell me?”

  “Are you really going through with this, Jenna? When the representative from the show comes in here, are you really going to tell him that you’d rather…”

  He groaned where the end of the sentence should have been. Finishing the sentence would have meant speaking the phrase you’d rather die.

  “Yes, I’m really going through with this,” Jenna said, “and even if I didn’t, even if I went on the show, this is it for us. This is the last chance I’ll ever have to talk to you.”

  “Not if you go on the show and win.”

  “Let’s not talk about that. Might as well talk about winning the lottery.”

  “Sometimes they take people back to their hometowns. Sometimes they do pregame segments where they take contestants, popular contestants-”

  “I’m not doing the show, Kyle. I’d rather die here in private than die in the Tetradome on national television.”

  Kyle exhaled and his whole body deflated.

  “Alright,” he said, quietly. “So this is the end.”

  Jenna nodded. “They’re going to give you a box of my possessions,” she said. “You know, after…”

  Now she couldn’t finish a sentence either. And that clock! She felt like the second hand was beating her on the head with each tick.

  She started again. “When you open the box, the first thing you’ll see is an envelope stuffed with pages. I’ve been working on a memoir. But it’s not finished. I didn’t have time to say everything I wanted to say.”

  Kyle covered his face with his hands, crouched forward, and sobbed. Jenna tried to reach out and touch him. Her chains rattled. She couldn’t reach him. She tried comforting him with her voice instead.

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Everything’s going to be okay.”

  Still hunched over, his voice muffled by his hands, Kyle said something that sounded like sex with Sunny.

  “What?”

  Kyle sat up.

  “I’m sorry, Jenna.”

  “What did you say?”

  It sounded like he said he had “sex with Sunny,” but there was no way he could have said that.

  And then he did.

  “I had sex with Sunny.”

  The second hand ticked four times.

  “What the hell?” said Jenna.

  *****

  Little white fuzzballs, somewhere between simian and rodent—they had mouths that opened wide when they cackled, they had surprisingly agile arms and legs, slim tails they used to whip at the contestants who ran, orbular eyes of solid black. They came up from the chasm in the arena floor. She could sense them looking at her, showing off their jagged needle teeth. No sooner had the creatures appeared than they were already making a kill, taking out the runner to Jenna’s immediate left, a man named Thomas Dorchester.

  The loudest cheer of the night came when Thomas Dorchester died. The fuzzballs yanked at his ankles until he fell face-first on his pathway across the chasm, then they worked together to push him over the side.

  Jenna kept going. She could see the end of her path. Make it there before the fuzzballs make it to you. Faster, Jenna, can you go a little faster?

  She could smell their rancid breath as they closed in from underneath. They were reaching for her ankles now. She high-stepped through them, and when she was close enough, she leaped for the end of the path.

  *****

  “It was your freshman year at Hillerman. You had a bunch of people over at the house for a party. It was right before Christmas.”

  “Kyle, do you really need to tell me this? Jesus. I’m going to die in…” She looked at the clock. “…six minutes!”

  “There’s more.”

  “I don’t know if I want to hear more.”

  “It wasn’t just that night.”

  “What do you mean? What are you telling me?”

  “Me and Sunny. We had this…relationship.”

  “Oh wow. Okay, wow.”

  “I’m sorry, Jenna. I can’t keep this to myself anymore. Do you know how lonely it’s been to have this secret and-”

  “Lonely? You’re going to tell me you’ve been lonely? Try solitary confinement for two years before you tell me you’ve been lonely!”

  “There’s more that I have to tell you.”

  “No. This is not how I’m going to spend the final minutes of my life. It’s over, Kyle. Whatever happened between you and Sunny, it’s not your fault. You were a kid in high school. How old were you when we had that party? Sixteen?”

  Kyle nodded.

  “She took advantage of you. You were too young and she shouldn’t have-”

  “I’m the one who showed her the gun.”

  The clock ticked three times.

  “Oh Jesus,” Jenna said. “What are you doing to me, Kyle?”

  She felt like the air was getting thin, like the room was full of Kyle’s expelled breath and she couldn’t catch her own.

  “I knew where Dad left the gun. I’d known about it for years.”

  “Please, just stop.”

  “I showed it to Sunny one day when no one else was at home.”

  “Okay, so you showed her the gun. It doesn’t change anything. I can understand why this secret was hard for you, but it doesn’t change anything.”

  “It does, though. It’s my fault, Jenna. What happened to you is my fault.”

  “Would you please stop? I forgive you, alright? All the things that are weighing on your mind, I forgive you, but you’ve got to quit this. Enough with the confessions. This isn’t what I wanted. We’ve only got a few minutes left.”

  “There’s even more. I haven’t told you about-”

  A click. The door at the back of the room. The handle was turning.

  “Oh my God, it’s time,” Jenna said.

  Kyle looked at the clock. “No, we still have five minutes.”

  The door opened. The warden stepped inside.

  Kyle jumped up from his chair. “We still have five minutes!”

  *****

  She was across. Quickly to her feet—the fuzzballs had not relented—and on towards the final stage. A prisoner named Horace was ahead of her. For all she knew, she and Horace might be the only two left.

  Were they the only two left? No, there had to be more. They’re ahead of you, or behind you, or somewhere, and no, you may not look back.

  The final stage was a giant cargo net that hung over a floor of steel spikes. The devilish rat-monkey fur balls that emerged from the chasm in stage two followed Jenna into stage three. It was no surprise to her that the creatures were skilled at climbing, and were on her back and in her face before she was halfway up the net.

  They covered her eyes with their hands. They pulled at her feet and her fingers. One of them bit her in
the arm.

  And that sound—the fuzzballs made a screeching, brain-cracking sound. She wanted so badly to plug her ears. Between handholds she swatted at them. The animal inside her, the instinctual knowledge of the law of the jungle, took a perverse pleasure whenever she jarred one loose and it squealed all the way down. But they came at her faster than she could swat them away. They piled onto her back, doubling her weight as she moved.

  Horace was two handholds from the end of the net when he fell. Before completely losing his grip, he got a hand on Jenna’s arm, and nearly took her with him. Fortunately, a few of the creatures, too playful for their own good, jumped from her back to his, speeding his downfall and preventing him from grabbing hold of her.

  Jenna closed her eyes when Horace hit the spikes. The sound of a human getting impaled was one she’d never heard before.

  *****

  A second man came in after the warden. Tall with blonde hair, bronze skin, an expensive suit—it wasn’t the nameless rep from the company Jenna expected to see. It was Bart Devlin himself. Bart Motherfucking Devlin had come to offer Jenna a spot on his show.

  “It’s time,” the warden said.

  “No it’s not!” Kyle shrieked. “Look at the clock!”

  “I’m aware of the clock and I’m telling you that your visit is over.”

  “No! Please!” said Kyle. “Just five more-”

  “It’s always hard,” said the warden. “Say your goodbyes.”

  Kyle was frozen in place for a second, then he jumped at Jenna and threw his arms around her. She tried to hug him with her body, a final loving gesture before she died, but everything went awkward. Kyle pressed his lips close to her ear and started whispering at a manic pace.

  “I gave her the gun and I gave her the chemicals, I helped her rob Carson Supply—the chemicals—I think she gave them-”

  If there was an end to that sentence she didn’t hear it. At that moment, the warden grabbed the back of Kyle’s jacket, saying, “That’s enough. Time to go.”

  The warden pulled Kyle back until he was face to face with Jenna. He had a crazed look in his eyes. Puffy and red and wild—the look in Kyle’s eyes was familiar to Jenna, and terrifying.

  “Kyle, what are you saying to me? Something about chemicals?”

  He looked like time had stopped for him, like he was lost inside his mind.

  She couldn’t leave him like this.

  “Kyle?” she said.

  “I did it for her, Jenna,” he whispered. “I wasn’t right in my head. I didn’t mean to do it.”

  “Do what? What are you trying to tell me?”

  He was wobbly on his feet now, his eyes consumed with a mania that was straight out of Jenna’s childhood. It was the same look that came over their father right before one of his episodes. Seeing that look on her brother’s face, Jenna realized she’d been in denial all this time. Her entire stay in prison, visit after visit, she’d told herself Kyle would be okay, that after she was gone and the media madness was over he’d get his life on track and he’d be okay.

  Why did Jenna Duvall, a known antidomer activist, change her mind about The Tetradome Run?

  Because in what was supposed to be the final minute of her life, her brother began but didn’t finish a curious confession that left her so baffled she couldn’t possibly end it there.

  Because he did it with madness in his eyes.

  Because she was frightened of death, like everyone.

  And angry about what her brother told her.

  About Sunny.

  The warden called in the guards from outside. “Help me get him out of here,” he said.

  “Wait!” Jenna yelled. “We can’t end it like this!”

  Two guards grabbed Kyle’s arms, began pulling him out of the room.

  “I’m sorry, Jenna,” Kyle whimpered. “I’m so, so sorry.”

  It had taken three years for Jenna to make peace with the way Sunny had taken everything. Three years in solitary cells ruminating on all she lost, gradually reaching a place of acceptance that her life was over, that the worst had come to pass and there was nothing she could do about it.

  But when she looked in Kyle’s eyes, saw the mania that resided there, she knew that the worst hadn’t come to pass.

  She hadn’t lost everything.

  I did it for her, Jenna.

  Confusing as Kyle’s harried attempt at confession was, those words were quite clear.

  Jenna too had once been in a place where she was willing to do things, horrible things, for Sunny.

  They pulled him through the door.

  “Goodbye, Kyle,” she said. “I love you.”

  The warden had his hand on the doorknob, but he didn’t move yet. In a final show of mercy, the warden left a clear line of sight open between Kyle and Jenna. He left the door open long enough for Kyle to say, “I love you too.”

  After the door was closed, Bart Devlin, shiny and polished Bart Devlin, director of The Tetradome Run, stepped forward.

  “Hello Jenna,” he said.

  She said nothing.

  “I expect you know who I am, and why I’m here.”

  Why did Jenna Duvall decide to enter The Tetradome Run?

  Because she couldn’t possibly acquiesce to a peaceful death immediately after learning about yet another of Sunny’s betrayals.

  Because she couldn’t just agree to die when she felt angry enough to kill.

  *****

  After she crossed the Finish Line, Jenna looked into the stands of the Tetradome and made eye contact with people in the crowd.

  So many of them had hoped to see her die tonight. Listening to them jeer, Jenna allowed herself to indulge a crazy thought.

  I can win this thing.

  Jenna narrowed her focus from the mass of people to a single woman in the front row. Red hair, early thirties, short—the woman was incensed, looking right at Jenna as she screamed a string of epithets that ended with the words you fucking bitch.

  Jenna looked the woman in the eyes, and for a few seconds, the two of them were caught in a staredown.

  The woman quit yelling.

  CHAPTER 3

  Getting Rid of Childish Things

  An Excerpt from A Victim of Circumstance: The Memoir of Jenna Duvall

  I’m writing this with a stubby, eraserless golf pencil on loose-leaf paper at a wobbly desk in the corner of the prison library.

  I get one hour a week.

  One hour a week, every week, until I die, which, if the courts keep to the schedule they made after my last appeal, will happen eighteen weeks from tomorrow.

  A golf pencil and eighteen hours total to counter years of lies on social media and cable news.

  I don’t know where to begin.

  The narrative—I should begin with the false narrative that pundits like Tammy Flanigan have created about me. This story about a privileged white girl from a broken home who goes to an expensive private college and finds a disaffected group of spoiled brats who can all be petulant together and then she becomes an assassin—it’s just not true. Everything about that narrative is distorted and wrong.

  Take the “broken home” part. The media accounts of my life before I was arrested make me out to be some 90s movie about the disaffected child of hedonistic parents, you know, “Her dad left, her mom died, and then she and her brother lived ‘unsupervised’ in what was once the family home…”

  Never once do the talking heads on TV and Twitter mention my grandmother.

  Let me tell you about Grandma.

  She moved in a week after Dad moved out. She found a house full of depressed, solitary individuals who didn’t know how to deal with the storm that had just passed through their lives. Grandma could have coddled us. Me, my mom, Kyle—we were all in the mood to feel sorry for ourselves after Dad left. But Grandma, who had lived through troubles far worse than anything my well-fed suburban family ever dealt with, was having none of it.

  Grandma helped Mom go back to work. She
helped me learn how to cook. She made Kyle learn his way around the shed. Grandma lorded over our schooling and homework all the way down to the cleanliness of our backpacks. She was our in-house philosopher, provider of wisdom, final arbiter in all disputes, and organizer of nightly Scrabble games.

  She was also a ceaseless crusader against and evangelizer about the dangers of all the glowing screens that, in her words, “kids these days love to look at.” Grandma created a long list of activities that had to be completed every day before anyone in the house was allowed to look at a screen. Chores and homework and practice and, my favorite, “Do something nice.”

  Yes, every day, before Kyle and I were allowed to look at a screen, we had to do something nice for someone, and if you weren’t careful, do something nice could fill up your whole afternoon, making you feel impossibly cheerful in the process. Over the years, in the name of doing something nice, Grandma, Kyle, and I knit blankets for homeless people, planted tulip bulbs in the neighbor’s yard, painted over graffiti in the alley behind the house, and wrote boxes full of letters.

  Grandma was a firm believer in the life-giving power of a handwritten letter. If you were in a pinch for time, or there just wasn’t an opportunity to do something nice presenting itself that day, Grandma allowed you to check the final item off your list if you wrote somebody a letter.

  I used to write letters to my friends at school. It was funny. None of my friends knew what to do with these relics from another era, these handwritten letters. They would get the letter in the mail and send me a Facebook message in response, which, of course, missed the point (and made Grandma crazy). I can hear Grandma now, explaining why my friends didn’t know the value of a handwritten letter. “America’s kids are turning into Twitter-dee and Twitter-dumb!” she would say.

  God, I’m so thankful she was in my life.

  One afternoon, following one of her twice weekly meetings of the knitting club, Grandma gave me a crinkly grocery store receipt with a name and address written on the back.

  “Write a letter to this girl,” Grandma said.

  The address on that paper was in…

  Editor’s note: on Jenna’s original handwritten document, the remainder of the preceding sentence was blacked out with vigorous pencil shading.