by T M Caruana
This one would be trouble. I could already tell.
“Let’s have breakfast and then go and test all the different flavoured toothpastes.”
“I have always wondered what the difference is between the soft and the hard brush as well,” Tony added, excited about the experiment.
“Let’s test the mouthwash as well then, to make it an all-round experience.”
We made another fist-bump at my awesome idea.
“And then we could have a shower together.”
Tony held up his fist hopefully for me again.
“Shut up, you just made it sleazy. I’m not going to hit that.”
“Yes, you will,” Tony playfully mocked whilst he stood up and made rotating movements with his crotch.
“Tony! You are awful,” I clarified and finished my juice. “I don’t think Alfred appreciates that type of behaviour in here.”
Tony’s face dropped immediately. “Has he claimed you? I mean…I didn’t mean to disrespect him…You don’t smell like…I mean…”
“Claimed me? I’ll tell you, no one has a ‘claim’ on me, and no, we aren’t a couple. Although, I didn’t take you for someone who would give up so easily if I had been your prey.”
“Let’s not mention it again. You’re off limits until Alfred clears it.”
“What? Are you for real? Does he own you or something? I didn’t know you knew him.”
What most peculiar behaviour. Men.
“Let’s get a basket to put our experimental items in and head for the toilets,” I commanded instead.
Tony obeyed my instructions as if he were in a trance. I had never known anyone to change their mood so abruptly.
Being trapped in here for a long time would definitely take a toll on me.
On my way I peered into the café’s kitchen to look for a shower. Although I didn’t want Tony to join me in one, at some point I did want to have a wash. I found a tap with an extendable hand-spray function. If I could find a shower curtain and tape it up on the wall next to it, then I could use it as a shower.
As Tony and I picked up our experimental items, we could hear Jennifer, Connor, Jolie and Jaden still playing. They had moved onto ‘never have I ever’.
I could hear Jolie’s voice and wanted to eavesdrop, but couldn’t make out her words.
“Ready!” Tony bellowed and showed me a basket full of teeth cleaning items.
His shout, punctuated his completed task. I looked down into the basket. There was even dental floss and those little dental brushes that looked like mini-dishwashing brushes.
“Wait, I want to find a toothpaste with a green mark, for comparison,” I said and rummaged amongst the brands until I grabbed a tube and started walking with Tony for the toilets.
“Why the green mark?”
“Don’t you know about their coding?” I asked and pointed at the coloured mark at the bottom of the tube.
“That means something? How cool,” he said and looked even more excited.
“Yes, if it’s green it is completely natural, blue means it’s a combination of natural and medicinal, red means natural plus chemicals and black means it is all just chemicals.
“Really?”
“Well, maybe it’s a myth, but if we test them all, at least we can determine if the taste is any different.”
On our way to the toilets we encountered Joanne by the message cards’ display stand.
“Hiya Joanne,” I greeted.
“Hello. What are you two up to?”
“We’re going to clean our teeth,” I answered and pointed at the heavy basket Tony was carrying.
Joanne looked at us both, shaking her head. She obviously thought our games really weren’t appropriate in the situation we were in.
But what else was there to do?
“I’m going to write a letter to my daughter. If you have any letters I can pass them over the grills for you.”
“Thank you Joanne. I have no family I’m afraid.”
“No family?”
“No, they were murdered when I was eleven.”
“Murdered! How awful. I’m sorry to hear that.”
I shrugged my shoulders, pretending it was a while ago, truth be told it stung me the same then as it stung me now.
Tony and I carried on to the ladies toilets. One of the stalls was locked.
“Hello?” I called.
“It’s just me,” Sarah answered before she flushed and came out to wash her hands.
She looked at our basket. “Cool. You conducting an experiment?”
“Yes…” I replied shortly and hesitated, as I wasn’t sure of Sarah’s standpoint. “Don’t you need to hurry back to your cronies?”
Sarah snorted.
“I lost a dare.”
“Do you want to stay here with us and test the toothpastes then?”
“Sure.”
“What’s the matter Sarah? You look sad?”
“Nothing. It’s just that I didn’t tell my mother about the competition and she is going to be so worried about me. I was so angry with her, but she’s just trying to do her best. I wasn’t very nice to her before I left the house yesterday morning. She might be a jackal but…”
Tony violently shook his head and looked over at me.
Sarah glanced at me, “I don’t care. In here, I bet she will find out anyway. What did you think was going to happen at the next full moon? What are you, by the way?” she asked and looked at me up an down. “You smell really funny. Your scent isn’t human or wolf.”
“Sarah!” Tony shouted. “Telling a…whatever she is, about us is strictly forbidden. Blue Wolfprint Treaty, remember? Dacry will kill you.”
“Well, I suppose we’re both in this now so if you don’t kill her, Alfred will kill you, Red. And then he’ll kill her.”
“I don’t know. He seems to have a claim on her. I think we’d better be careful.”
“What is going on?” I asked and looked at both of them, feeling highly confused.
“Nothing, let’s start with the experiment,” Tony mumbled.
“No, I demand to know.”
“We are wolf-shifters,” Tony said, but twisting and turning as he did, made me think he was fighting an internal battle, not wanting to tell me.
“Tony? You told her?” Sarah said with disbelief filling her voice.
“It was as if I couldn’t stop myself. I don’t know what happened. I’ve never told anyone before. I swear. I just felt I had to.”
“Well, you’ll be in trouble now. Alfred will rip your throat out,” Sarah warned.
What did he mean by wolf-shifters? And what did Alfred have to do with this?
Tony squeezed a toothbrush full of transparent toothpaste with small blue particles in it. “I wouldn’t want my mother to know what I was doing,” he carried on from our last conversation in what I concluded was a deliberate change in subject.
“That would be a cool game. ‘I wouldn’t want my mother to…’ date a biker,” Sarah started and chose a bright pink toothbrush with a flexible head before watching Tony carry on with the game.
He spat and rinsed his mouth.
“I wouldn’t want my mother to…fuck any of my friends.”
“Fair point,” Sarah agreed and laughed.
“Your turn, Tasha.”
“Okay, perhaps we shouldn’t play that game then,” Tony said quickly as he obviously remembered that my family had been murdered. “What about hide and seek?”
“Sure,” I sighed, but didn’t really feel like it as the wolf conversation had confused me, and the other one had made me remember my dead parents.
“Supercool. I know exactly where to hide,” Tony flared up like a boy again and stretched out both his fists for us to bump them.
“That’s so childish and stupid,” Sarah said, looking unimpressed and refusing to meet Tony’s eyes.
Sarah stormed off to join the others. I shrugged and gave a ‘whatever’ look. He made one back.
�
��What did you mean about the wolf-shifting thing?” I asked.
“I’m not allowed to talk about it.”
“So…what? You turn into a wolf when there is a full moon?”
Tony shook his head. “I don’t even know what is safe to tell you. I don’t know what you are, but human you are not.”
“You mean that I will turn into something at full moon too?” I asked sarcastically.
“I don’t know. But we really shouldn’t talk about this.”
“I want to know. Although, I do think you are playing me for a fool.”
He still tried to brush me off and just shook his head, indicating he wouldn’t speak of it again.
“Please, you have to tell me. What are you then?”
“I’m a red wolf with the red wolf pack,” he said and then spat out the toothpaste. “Damn,” he cursed. “It’s like I can’t refuse to comply to your demands. Really, Tasha, we can’t talk about this. It wouldn’t be the first time Alfred has to clean up his cub’s mess.”
“What do you mean by that? Why Alfred?”
“Don’t!” he shouted. “Stop. No more.”
His tone was harsher this time. I held up my hands in surrender. “Okay, okay. Let’s go see what the others are doing. Just tell me if all the others are wolves too.”
“Alex, Simon and Nagu are humans. Jennie is a dingo. Dingoes are lawless and don’t belong to any of the grey wolf or the red wolf packs.”
This was too bizarre to believe.
“No more questions,” he prompted.
I nodded. We had planned to walk back to the butcher’s, but stopped to hide behind a shelf, seeing Joanne speaking to someone behind the grills on the back door.
“How’re things going?” A voice from the other side queried.
“As expected. They’ve already started bickering,” Joanne replied.
“Good, good.”
“Good?”
“Well, good TV I mean. Viewers like disputes, sex and scandals.”
“I suppose you are right.”
“I believe Alfred has a sore spot for Tasha so if you could push her closer to Tony, that would annoy the hell out of him. And it would give me pleasure to watch that.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
Joanne pushed through an envelope and then headed down the freezer section.
We both stared at the closed back door. This changed the game entirely and I had a feeling that I needed to befriend Joanne and find out why she was sneaking around giving reports to the outsider. Every time anyone else had knocked on that door, there hadn’t been any reply.
Why her? What was that all about?
18
SUDDEN DEATH
Weeks went by and the alliances and rivalry grew stronger between the two groups. The reality hit all the contestants as soon as hunger struck and we realised that no one was going to come and replenish the food, and no one came to let us out. Some had already tried to shout for surrender, but we had been imprisoned.
How could Alfred do this to me? He hadn’t said anything about these being the rules of the game.
As we all tried to look for ways out, we soon noticed that the windows were actually bricked up and all the side doors were bolted shut.
The two groups had built their own camps at either end of the supermarket, with cardboard boxes, metal racks from the shelves and anything else that could be useful to protect their own stockpile of food. Alexandre had stuck yellow tape in a square around his kitchen and had, together with Wallace, declared a truce within its borders. Inside the kitchen, it was no-man’s-land. No one was allowed to bicker, fight or even swear at each other when they were in his territory and in return Alexandre and Wallace did all the cooking and washing up for everyone in exchange for a small ration of food.
Jolie, Sarah, Jennifer, Simon and Nagu had camped next to the savoury aisle having obtained a mobile fridge where they kept some butter, cheese and hams.
Connor, Tony, Joanne, Jaden and I had our camp in the drinks section next to the freezer aisle where patio furniture boxes now served as a protective wall from the main aisle.
As the food supplies became thin, thefts and fights interrupted the previously civilised microenvironment. Even objects such as knives, scissors and meat hammers became desired items for protection.
Everyone’s health had also started to deteriorate and Simon was suffering the most.
“How are you feeling?” I took the opportunity to ask as I sat down next to Simon on the two ‘waiting’ chairs, placed within the chef’s area. I secretly handed him a painkiller, even though it was on a strictly rationed basis.
Being from two different teams, I shouldn’t have wasted our team’s resources on him, however it seemed inhumane to just leave him to endure the pains of his cancer. Simon was also one of the only ones from the other group I could stand.
“Thank you, Tasha,” he whispered gratefully. “I’m not doing too well, but I don’t think we have a choice,” he said and put on a forced smile. “The good news is that I think the wheelchair we found for Jennifer at the back of the café’s kitchen, will soon be available.”
“Simon!” I huffed at his morbid sarcasm.
That’s so morbid, yet so funny.
We both laughed.
“What are you having today?”
“Well, you see, I’m on a diet today,” I said jokingly. “A mini spring-roll, a handful of peas and a fried onion.”
“Yummy.”
“And you?”
“Nothing today.”
“Nothing?”
“No, it’s all gone and I gave my last tin of kidney beans to Jolie after having offered them to Jennifer. She doesn’t look alive, but yet she refused to take them.”
Apparently she was a dingo with dignity, and not such a diva after all.
“I’m scared, Simon.”
“If I wasn’t already dying I would be too.”
“So you think that we will all die in here.”
“Try not to think like that Tasha.”
“But you think we will die?”
“It doesn’t look good.”
My anger boiled to a crescendo of screams. “Let us out! This isn’t legal! We give up! I demand that you free us!”
My voice diminished down to a frustrated sob and Simon put his hand up to rub my back.
Jolie came running over to us from a distance and I dried my tears and sat up straight. Jolie had a kitchen knife strapped to her leg with tape, which she placed her hand on, preparing for an attack as she saw me. Simon made a signalling gesture with his eyes that we were in the ‘yellow Alexandre chef’s zone’ and no violence was allowed here.
“It’s Jennifer. I think she’s dead.”
Jolie, Simon, Wallace, Alexandre and I, all looked at each other in silence. All probably thinking the same thing.
This had just become serious and very real.
The game-masters had actually let an individual die in the games.
Holy cow!
“I’ll go and tell my group,” I confirmed and ensured I first collected every single last green pea from Alexandre, although he complained that they were still undercooked.
As I was on my way back to the group, I saw Simon collapse on the floor and Jolie calling Nagu to help him to their camp. Alexandre and Wallace also helped carry him. I shook my head.
This can’t be happening.
Back at my own camp, I informed them of Jennifer’s death and Simon’s weak condition. Joanne made the sign of the cross over her face, which made me wonder how involved she really was.
“We need to steal food from the other camp. That’s our only chance. We need to survive,” urged Jaden, and peered out onto the main aisle.
“They don’t have any either,” I lashed out at him for such a distasteful comment. “Simon told me.”
“They are lying. Look at all the water they have.”
“We should kill them,” Tony suggested, and nervously scratched his beard,
grown over days with no opportunity to shave.
“Are you out of your mind? We need to help each other, not kill each other,” cried Joanne.
“If we kill them, they will stop consuming the food and water,” Jaden joined in Tony’s argument.
“There isn’t anything else to consume!” I screamed in an effort to make the boys understand. “We are all going to die no matter what, unless the game-makers have another plan for us.”
“I wonder what they will do with Jennifer’s body? We should probably offer to keep it in one of our freezers so it doesn’t start to stink the place out,” Joanne suggested as she dried her feet from a foot-bath with water that had been poured in weeks ago and that contained a whole jar of pink bath salts.
She stretched her back that looked as if it had started to ache from sitting on her provisional bed of a pillow and a duvet on top of the hard speckled grey tiled floor. Jaden nodded in agreement.
“Connor and I can go and retrieve it,” he offered and gave Connor a helping hand up from the floor.
“We need to do something. We need to start growing things or we’ll not survive another week.”
The situation was at last triggering the fighting spirit in me.
I walked over to Alexandre with my group following after me.
“Alexandre, you must know. How can we create food? Could we make a greenhouse?”
“We have-a plastic from-a packaging. And these lamps,” he said and knocked with the knife he was holding against three low hanging lamps over the workbench. “We should prepare-a a corner where we can make-a a greenhouse. I have-a the soil just-a here,” he instructed and pointed at the pile of sacks of compost that he would have retrieved from the entrance area.
“What about water? They have turned off the taps,” Joanne advised, obviously still sour about the cold water in her foot-bath.
“The electricity still works. We can defrost a freezer at a time to get water. We can fill the empty plastic water bottles.”
“Good idea, Wallace!” I praised and felt excited.
This could work. We could do it.
“What can we grow that grows fast, Alexandre?”
Joanne, Tony, Jade and Connor, Wallace and I all watched him pondering.
“We need-a radish. They take about-a twenty-five days to grow.”