by Jude Hardin
But I needed to win the game first. I was determined to win the game.
Freeze came back over the G-29. “Hello, Number Eight.”
“Fuck you.”
“My, my. You’re so impolite, Number Eight. We do need to teach you some manners. Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that your friend Joe Crawford has expired. A shame. I expected to have much more fun with him. Javier should have been more careful. Javier deserves a good old-fashioned spanking, don’t you think?”
“I think he deserves a lot more than that,” I said. “How about you let me deliver his punishment?”
Silence, and then, “Well now, I hadn’t considered that. But it might actually be something to think about. I’ll get back to you, Number Eight. Interesting idea.”
And with that he was gone.
Joe Crawford had been more than a friend to me. I didn’t feel like a whole person anymore. I felt as though a piece of my own flesh had been ripped away and tossed into a wood chipper. I sat on the porch and grieved until there was nothing left.
Depleted, hollow, but determined more than ever now to find a way to win, I spent some time trying to think of strategies to eliminate the four remaining players. I figured I would start with Number Three tomorrow. I knew where he lived, and I knew about the trap he’d set for Number One. And he didn’t have any weapons. Taking him out would be a piece of cake, I thought. Maybe not a piece of cake, but pretty fucking easy.
It troubled me some that I was devising ways to kill innocent men. None of them had done anything wrong. They certainly hadn’t done anything to me. They’d been unlucky, that was all. They’d been chosen to play Snuff Tag 9, and now they were going to die at the hands of a rock star turned private investigator turned security consultant. Freeze had me right where he wanted me. He’d turned me into a malicious killer.
I walked over to the fire pit and lifted the squirrel from my makeshift grill. The fire had died and the meat was cool to the touch. I tore one of the hind legs off, walked back to the porch, and started gnawing on it. The flesh was tough and still a little pink next to the bone. It had a wild and gamey flavor. Could have used some salt and pepper and Tabasco sauce and a side of biscuits and gravy.
I should have been starving, but I wasn’t. I really didn’t even feel like eating, but I knew I needed to keep my strength up. One way or another I was going to win this game. One way or another I was going to avenge Joe’s brutal murder. I was going to kill Number Three and Number Four and Number Six and Number Seven. Come to think of it, I probably wouldn’t have to kill them all. Some of them would probably kill each other. At any rate, I was going to see that every one of them was eliminated.
And Number Nine. I wondered who it would be now. I had an idea, but I certainly wasn’t going to say anything this time. Didn’t want to jinx it. I had an idea it was going to be Javier Lorenzo. Leather Pants. I wanted it to be him. I’d planted the notion in Freeze’s mind, and I’d heard the enthusiasm in his voice. It would make a great finale for his reality show. Me against the guy who’d killed my best friend. Heavy drama. Freeze couldn’t have scripted it any better if he’d tried.
I sat on the porch and ate the whole squirrel and then tossed the bones into the dirt. I still had the rest of the day off from the game, and I needed to spend the time wisely. I needed to get more food. I fingered through the boiled organs and entrails in the skillet, picked out what I figured was the liver, and sliced it into two pieces. I nibbled a tiny corner off one of the pieces. It was liver. It tasted awful. I figured the catfish would eat it up.
I grabbed my fishing rig and headed for the pond. I still had my stun baton and the nunchucks in my pockets, and the survival knife was in its sheath on my belt. I didn’t anticipate needing any of the weapons, but I felt better having them. Sort of a security blanket. A false security blanket, if I wanted to be honest with myself. And really there was nothing stopping another player from coming by and stealing everything while I wasn’t home. So I took the weapons with me.
I made it to the pond and cast my baited hook into the water. I got a hit almost immediately. Something big. I pulled it in slowly, thinking the line was surely going to break, but it didn’t. The line held and I landed the catch on the bank. It wasn’t a catfish. It was a snapping turtle. As big around as a salad bowl. The bent nail was hooked through the back of its jaw on the left side. It was a powerful animal, and it was angry as hell. I wasn’t about to put my fingers anywhere near its mouth to remove the hook. It was fierce and furious and its jaw was made for clamping down on things and not letting go. I carefully picked it up by the tail and held it at arm’s length, away from my body. I didn’t know what to do with it. It probably weighed ten pounds or more. It represented quite a bit of food, but it was going to be trouble to deal with. I knew there were people who ate turtles, but I’d never cleaned and cooked one myself. I didn’t know how to handle it. I thought about letting it go, but I knew it would die anyway now with the nail in its jaw. I decided I would keep it and try to eat it. I cut the line with my knife a few feet from the end and tied it to a cypress stump near the water. The snapper could stay moist there, but it was on a short leash. It couldn’t go anywhere. It tried. It struggled to get away, but it couldn’t.
I tied my other hook to the line and baited it with the other piece of liver. I walked thirty feet or so and cast into a different spot. I didn’t want any more turtles. I wanted a catfish. I waited about fifteen minutes and then sat on the bank and waited some more. No bites. I sat in the same spot for over an hour without a hit. That’s the way it is with fishing. Sometimes you can go all day without a nibble. Other times you get lucky and they swallow the hook as soon as it hits the water. Today was not a lucky day. I pulled the line in and wrapped it around the pole. Untied the turtle and picked it up by the tail again and headed home.
On the way, the alarm sounded for play to resume. I ignored it. It didn’t affect me. I had the day off.
When I got to the house I went ahead and dealt with the turtle first thing. I used some dental floss to hang it by its tail from a tree branch, and then I cut its head off with my knife. It was a sorrowful thing to watch, because it didn’t die right away. Its legs moved for several long minutes while the blood drained from its neck. Like it was trying to run to safety. It finally died and hung there limp while the last of its blood dripped to the ground. I felt sorry that I’d killed it. It had clung to life so fiercely. It seemed to have been pleading for mercy right before I sawed through its tough, gristly neck. I could have granted it a pardon. I could have wrestled the nail from its jaw and set it free back at the pond, where it would have lived happily ever after. Of course it hadn’t been pleading for mercy. I was attributing human emotions to another species. There’s a word for that, but I couldn’t think of it. I was attributing human emotions to an animal with a brain the size of a pea. It didn’t think. It didn’t have feelings. All it had was an instinct to survive. Its sole purpose in life was to eat and make baby turtles. I was higher on the food chain than it was. That’s the way it worked. Something had to die so I could live. Today it was the turtle. Tomorrow it would be something else. That’s the way it worked.
But I still felt bad about it.
For some reason I felt worse about slaughtering that goddamn snapping turtle than I did about the human being I’d killed yesterday. Number Five. The architect from Bainbridge, Georgia. The marathon runner. But with Number Five, it was eventually going to come down to me or him. That wasn’t the case with the turtle. I wished I hadn’t killed it, but I had. I had killed it, and there was nothing I could do now to take it back.
I wondered if I was losing my mind.
I shouted at the sky. “Fuck it,” I said.
“Hello, Number Eight.”
It was Charles on the G-29.
“Fuck it,” I said.
“Fuck it?”
“Yeah. Fuck it.”
“OK. Well, I just wanted to let you know there’s going to be a ba
ttle soon. Should be a good one. I want you to walk inside so you can see it on your monitor.”
“I’ve seen enough for one day. Don’t you think?”
“Sorry, but it’s mandatory viewing. Go inside the house now, Number Eight. Freeze’s orders.”
“Fuck it,” I said.
But I followed the orders. I went inside. Sat on my mattress and looked at the screen. It was blank. The show hadn’t started yet. I sat there and looked at my own reflection. My cheeks looked sunken and haggard. Bruised and scabbed and unshaven. I pulled my shirt up. My ribs were showing. I’d lost weight. Maybe ten pounds since the last genuine meal I’d eaten. If I made it out of the swamp alive, maybe I would market the experience as a weight loss program. The Snuff Tag 9 Diet. Slim and trim in just five days! Five days of starving in the wilderness with eight people determined to kill you and an insane demigod orchestrating everything and watching from afar. It would be a huge success. I would make millions.
I looked at the screen and shook my head. I looked like shit. Another battle was coming on, Charles had said. Another player was going to die, and I didn’t give a damn. I was happy about it. One less for me to kill. I didn’t want to watch, but I was numb to it now. After seeing what they’d done to Joe, I was desensitized to any other horrors they could conjure up.
It had been over ten minutes since I’d walked into the house and sat on my mattress, and the screen was still blank. For some reason I started thinking about what The Potato Man had said in my dream. The change on the aloe fence. Maybe it meant something, but I couldn’t figure it out. Maybe it meant something, or maybe it was just some nonsense manufactured by my subconscious. It felt like some sort of profound knowledge was just beyond my grasp, but my rational mind told me that was probably not the case. It was probably just bullshit. The change on the aloe fence. I was still thinking about it when the flat screen buzzed to life.
There was an aerial shot of an open field. One player was chasing another. I could see the red jerseys, but not the numbers on them. The camera was too far away. They must have been tracking the players with a helicopter. The gap was narrowing. The chaser was gaining ground on the one being chased. It reminded me of National Geographic footage. A lion running after a zebra or something. The camera zoomed in closer. Now I could see the numbers. Number Seven was chasing Number Four. Number Four was the electrical engineer from Indianapolis. The gym rat. Five nine, one seventy, tested positive for steroids. Freeze said he was aggressive and unpredictable, but right now he was running like a scared bunny. Number Seven was the diving instructor from Palatka, Florida. The former Navy SEAL. Five ten, one sixty. Freeze said he knew a hundred ways to kill a man with his bare hands, and I had a feeling I was fixing to witness one of them.
Number Seven was gaining on Number Four, slowly but surely. Both of the men were obviously in top physical condition, but Number Seven was a little faster. A little swifter on his feet. As the gap narrowed, the camera zoomed in even closer. Then the video cut to a point-of-view shot, from the front camera on Number Seven’s collar. I could hear Number Seven’s rhythmic huffing as he ran at top speed, and I could see the back of Number Four’s jersey. Number Four zigzagged, trying to avoid capture, but it was no use. Number Seven tackled him to the ground. For a minute I wondered why neither of them was brandishing weapons, and then I remembered that the alarm to resume the game had sounded but not the alarm for weapons. This battle was going to be hand-to-hand, mano a mano. Like a UFC cage fight, only there was no referee and only one man would walk away alive.
Number Four and Number Seven wrestled around in the sandy scrub grass for a few seconds, and then Number Four actually ended up on top. It surprised me. I thought Number Seven, the Navy SEAL, would dispose of his opponent in quick order, but so far Number Four was holding his own. He was doing more than holding his own. He was winning. He straddled Number Seven’s chest and pummeled his face with closed fists. All those hours in the gym were paying off. Even with his clothes on, you could tell Number Four was built like a brick shithouse. He was all sloped shoulders and broad chest and biceps like tree trunks. He kept beating Number Seven mercilessly. He was beating him to a pulp. Blood gushed from Number Seven’s nose, and when he opened his mouth I could see that some of his front teeth had been knocked out. How he remained conscious I didn’t know, but he did. He not only remained conscious, he started rallying. He bucked and grabbed Number Four by the throat and squeezed with all his might until Number Four was forced to roll away to break the hold.
Multiple cameras showed the scene from a variety of angles as the two men stood and faced each other, circled each other, hands at the ready. They did their little dance for a while, each looking for one small opening that might lead to an advantage.
Number Four had drawn first blood, but now it was Number Seven’s turn to shine. With lightning speed, seeming to defy gravity, he jumped up and kicked Number Four in the face with the heel of his boot. He’d obviously had some martial arts training. Probably tae kwon do. At least a first-degree black belt, I guessed. After the kick he came down hard on the bridge of Number Four’s nose with his right elbow. There was a loud crunch, the sound of bone shattering. It was a devastating blow. Number Four staggered backward, covered his face with his hands in an effort to prevent further assault, but Number Seven was like a predatory cat now moving in for the kill. He kicked Number Four’s left knee, kicked it so hard it bent backward. It was painful to watch and even more painful to hear. The sight of the joint being wrenched in the wrong direction was accompanied by the sickening sound of ligaments and tendons being torn apart, followed immediately by a series of agonizing guttural yawps from somewhere deep in Number Four’s massive chest. He fell. He was done. His leg was destroyed. There was no way he was getting back up. Number Seven started kicking him in the ribs. More bone crunching. All he had to do was fall on Number Four’s throat with one knee, but Number Seven seemed intent on inflicting as much pain as possible before delivering the fatal blow. The game had turned him into something not quite human. Even with all his physical and mental training as a SEAL, Freeze’s idea of a sport had turned Number Seven into a monster.
But Number Four wasn’t quite finished yet. He reached down and grabbed something from one of his flap pockets on his pants. The camera zoomed in. It was the stun baton. Number Four pulled the trigger and delivered an eight-hundred-thousand-volt arc of electricity to the leg Number Seven was kicking him with. Number Seven went stiff and then fell to the ground.
It seemed the tables had turned again.
Number Four writhed in agony. He had a lot of injuries. The most severe were the crushed nose and the ruined knee and the broken ribs. They were severe, but not life-threatening. All the king’s horses and all the king’s men could have put Number Four back together again. A good team of surgeons and a few months of convalescence and Number Four would be back in business, back in the gym doing squats and presses and curls eight hours a day and drinking protein shakes. He scooted toward Number Seven with his elbows. Grunting. Moaning. Every millimeter a gut-wrenching mile.
Number Seven was on his back and completely unconscious. The high-voltage stun gun had knocked him out cold. But had I missed something? Had the alarm for weapons sounded? It must have. I never heard it, but it must have gone off. Otherwise Number Four would have been terminated immediately. That was the rule. If you used a weapon during a period when weapons weren’t allowed, your defibrillator would discharge and your heart would stop beating. No questions asked. Number Four was still alive, so the alarm for weapons must have sounded. It must have sounded without me hearing it. That was the only plausible explanation.
Number Four inched closer and closer to where Number Seven lay on the ground. There was a momentary dissolve, and then the camera showed a close-up of Number Four’s right hand. He’d tossed the stun baton and replaced it with his second weapon, a set of brass knuckles. All he needed to do was get in the right position and he could easily bash Number
Seven’s head in. He grunted and scooted and moaned and heaved, and he was about two feet from certain victory when Number Seven started to stir.
“Motherfucker,” Number Seven said. He opened his eyes and the camera switched to his point of view. Number Four’s brass-wrapped fist was above him and coming down fast. Number Seven rolled right, and Number Four’s fist slammed into the sand.
Number Four was practically helpless now. He had the brass knuckles, but he couldn’t get up. His knee was shredded. He turned on his back and said, “Please, I don’t want to die.”
Number Seven stood. Wobbly. Breathing hard. He didn’t say anything. He was a SEAL. A professional killer. Professional killers don’t usually say anything. They just kill you. He staggered over and stomped Number Four’s face with his boot. He stomped it again and again and again, until Number Four’s skull crumbled like a walnut shell.
“Nobody wants to die,” Number Seven said. “But today it was your turn, bitch.”
The camera moved to a close-up of Number Seven’s face. A voice from offstage said, “What does it feel like to stomp a man’s skull in like that?”
It was Freeze. I recognized the voice.
Number Seven was still breathing hard. “It doesn’t feel like anything. What do you mean?”
“Do you feel any remorse?”