by Jude Hardin
“Hell no. It was me or him. And when did the fucking alarm for weapons sound? I could have put him away a lot faster if I’d been able to use my knife and chucks.”
So Number Seven had gotten the same weapons as me. The survival knife and the nunchucks. Quite a coincidence. But I had a third weapon now. I had the stun baton. Now that I’d seen it in action, how powerful it was, I was even more pleased that I’d taken the risk to steal it from Number Three.
“We were a split second away from zapping his heart with the defibrillator,” Freeze said, responding to Number Seven’s inquiry about the weapons alarm.
“When were you going to do it? After he broke my face with those brass knuckles?”
The screen faded to black.
The alarm sounded for play to cease. I figured that was it for the day.
Number Four was dead, which meant the game was down to me and three other players: Number Three, the radiologist from Quincy, Illinois, the six-foot-five-inch giant I’d stolen the stun gun from; Number Six, the ex-marine airline pilot with the high IQ; and Number Seven, the former Navy SEAL who’d just stomped the fuck out of Number Four.
Number Three was weaponless. He’d used all his pepper spray, and I had taken his stun baton. Number Seven had a survival knife and a pair of nunchucks, the same weapons I’d picked from the cart the night before the game started. Number Six I didn’t know about. He was the only player I hadn’t seen yet. Number Six was a wild card.
I wondered if the other players had seen me on video at some point. I wondered if they were sizing me up, analyzing my situation the way I was theirs. Probably so. There was no reason to believe they weren’t. Thinking about it sort of eroded any illusion I had of an edge.
Tomorrow was day three. I figured Freeze would stage two battles—me against one of the remaining players and the other two against each other. I’d wanted to go after Number Three, and with a little luck maybe Freeze would let it play out that way. Me against Number Three, and Number Six against Number Seven. I would probably win against Number Three, and Number Seven would probably win against Number Six. That would leave me and Number Seven to face each other on day four. Then the victor of that battle would face Number Nine in the finale on day five. That’s the way I figured it might go down, but it was just a guess. It would go down the way Freeze wanted it to go down. He had the power to capriciously manipulate the game to his heart’s content, and there wasn’t much I or the other players could do about it.
Something suddenly occurred to me. Number Nine was probably not one person waiting in the wings. Number Nine was probably going to be chosen from a pool of players, depending on which of the initial eight made it to the finale. If I made it to the finale, for example, it would have made sense for Number Nine to be Joe Crawford. And now that Joe was dead, it would make sense for me to face his killer. Javier Lorenzo. Leather Pants. On an emotional level, for everyone involved and for whatever depraved audience these videos were distributed to, it made sense for me to square off against Leather Pants. But if Number Seven made it to the finale, it would make more dramatic sense for him to face a player that meant something to him. That was my theory. Number Nine was going to be chosen based on who made it to the final battle.
I had a feeling it would be me and Leather Pants in the final battle. I had a feeling Freeze would rig it to go that way. That would be the ultimate dramatic conclusion. Me against the man who mutilated Joe Crawford. Me against the lowlife motherfucker who had butchered my best friend.
I walked out to the tree where I’d hung the snapping turtle. The blood had stopped dripping and the legs had stopped moving. The turtle was completely drained and completely dead. I cut the double strand of dental floss with my knife and the animal fell and landed in the sand with a thud. I carried it to the porch and picked up the skillet. I thought about trying to save the squirrel guts for fish bait, but they had started to smell bad already and it was too late to go fishing anyway so I tossed them into the ashes in the fire pit. I took the turtle inside and washed it off and lowered it upside down into the skillet and filled the skillet with water.
I set the skillet on the porch with the turtle in it and went out to gather some firewood. It was starting to get dark. The purple glow of sunset saturated the landscape. I hurried and made several trips and piled enough branches next to my pit to keep the fire going for a long time. I’d never cooked a turtle before, but I figured it would take quite a while to boil the shell off. Just seemed like it would. I didn’t want to go back in the woods after dark if I could avoid it. I had the flashlight, but I still hadn’t been given any replacement batteries. Freeze said I would have to earn them. I wondered what that would entail.
I broke some branches into three-foot sections, put some twigs and dry leaves under them, and started the fire with the butane lighter. I’d used the lighter three times. According to Freeze, I had six more flicks of my Bic before the fuel ran dry. Plenty, I thought. Even if I made it to the finale, I would only be out here three more days. Two fires per day. Plenty.
When the fire got going good, I rested the skillet over it on the bedsprings and stood there and watched. The stainless steel skillet got hot right away, and amazingly the turtle’s legs started moving again. The poor son of a bitch still wasn’t dead yet. The decapitation wound must have clotted off. There must have still been enough blood circulating to keep him going. And going. And going. He was like the goddamn Energizer Bunny. Now he was going to be cooked alive in his own shell. I felt like the biggest asshole in the world. I felt very sorry for the turtle. I felt sorry for him until the steam started rising from the skillet. The wonderful aroma of the meat boiling reminded me of my hunger. As pitiful as the creature seemed, and as cruel as my deeds seemed, the turtle’s death would not be in vain. The turtle would not go to waste. He would live on inside me, and I would live to see Freeze strung up by his balls.
“Hello, Number Eight.”
Speak of the devil.
“What is it now, Freeze?”
It had been a long day, and I was getting annoyed. I just wanted to be left alone. I wanted to cook my turtle and eat it and go to bed.
“You sound a little irritable,” Freeze said. “What’s wrong? You didn’t enjoy your day off?”
“I was forced to watch the best friend I’ve ever known have his cock sliced off and shoved in his mouth. What do you think?”
I wanted to kill that bastard Freeze more than anything in the world.
“I think the night is still young,” he said. “Go inside. I have one more thing to show you.”
There was no point in arguing. I took the skillet off the fire and set it on the porch. I didn’t want it to boil dry and ruin the turtle. That would have been inexcusable. I walked inside, switched on the lamp, washed my hands and face at the sink.
I sat on the mattress, and a few seconds later the television monitor blinked on. The screen was black except for the game’s simple logo: SNUFF TAG 9 in bold white letters. The name said it all.
“All the remaining players are in their houses now,” Freeze said. “And all are watching this broadcast live as I speak. I trust you can all hear me. Hello, everyone.”
There was a brief pause, and then Freeze continued: “Congratulations, Number Three, Number Six, Number Seven, and Number Eight. All of you have made it to day three. Hump day, if you will. We’ve seen a lot of great action on day one and day two, and we got a lot of great footage. You all did an excellent job, and I thank you for that. Unfortunately, two more of you must die tomorrow. I will contact you individually to let you know who you’ll be fighting and where to go. That will be in the morning. But tonight, I have a nice surprise for you. Tonight, I’m going to introduce player Number Nine. I’m going to introduce him, but let me make it clear that he will not be participating in tomorrow’s battles. He will not enter the game until day four. At that time, Snuff Tag Nine will be down to three players: the two who win their battles tomorrow and Number Nine. Some of yo
u might have heard some rumors, and some of you might think you have everything figured out. You might think the game is rigged, that I choose who survives and who dies based on the players I think would make the best match for the finale. You might even think Number Nine is chosen for that reason, for the sake of the best possible dramatic conclusion. Let me assure you that is not the case. None of this is scripted. Number Nine will be put in the game on day four, so he might or might not even make it to the finale. The game is not rigged. Each and every one of you has the equal opportunity to win the game and live in luxury for the rest of your life.
“And here’s another thing. I’ve learned through the years that the winner is not always the physically strongest of the bunch. In fact, that’s rarely the case. What happened to Number Four today is a prime example. He had a history of going to the gym six days a week. He had a body like Conan the Barbarian. Yet he lost. Congratulations to Number Seven, by the way. In all the years I’ve been producing Snuff Tag Nine, that was one of the finest battles I’ve ever had the pleasure to have witnessed. But no, it’s usually not one of the big muscular guys who wins. It’s usually someone with great endurance and great mental fortitude. High powers of concentration. That’s why I choose players with a variety of backgrounds, players from vastly different walks of life. Throwing a bunch of stupid gladiators in a ring would seem boring to me. It’s much more interesting when someone wins through wit and cunning rather than brute strength. I remember one time, three years ago I think, when...”
Freeze was rambling on and on and on, and it was driving me nuts. I was tired and hungry and desperately in need of some downtime.
I interrupted him in midsentence. “Get on with it, Freeze,” I said. “Are you going to show us Number Nine or not? I’m sure he wants to eat and get to bed as much as the rest of us.”
There was a long pause. “Did I say he?” Freeze said. “Whoops. My mistake.”
The Snuff Tag 9 logo dissolved and a face slowly faded in on top of it.
A face very familiar to me.
Number Nine wasn’t Leather Pants, and it wasn’t someone who meant something to one of the other players.
Number Nine was my wife.
Number Nine was Juliet.
I tried to stand, but my legs wouldn’t cooperate. They buckled and I fell to my knees.
I fell to my knees and covered my face with my hands and wept. I lost it. I cried like a baby.
This couldn’t be happening.
I thought nothing could surprise me after what I’d seen happen to Joe Crawford. I thought nothing could shock me, but I was wrong. Seeing Juliet’s face appear on that television screen was like...it was like nothing I could think of. There were no words to describe my thoughts and feelings at that moment. I broke down. I couldn’t take it anymore.
I shouted hysterically: “I swear to God, Freeze, if she’s harmed in any way—”
“What will you do?” he said. “Nothing, that’s what. You can only do what I allow you to do. That’s the deal, Number Eight, even if you win the game. That’s the deal for the rest of your life. Now listen up, gentlemen. The woman you see on your monitor is Number Nine. If you make it through to day four, you’ll definitely be seeing her again. She’s a player, just like the rest of you. Don’t treat her any differently because she’s a woman. She’s smart and she has weapons and she will kill you in a heartbeat. She wants to survive every bit as much as the rest of you. OK? Treat her the same as any other player. Treat her with the same respect and fear you would a man. That’s all for tonight. I will talk to you all in the morning. Good night and pleasant dreams.”
My heart sank. Freeze was right. There was nothing I could do.
Only one person could win the game. Only one person could walk away alive. Either Juliet would have to die or I would have to die. Or we would both have to die. That was always a possibility. But both of us living was not a possibility. At least one of us was going to die on day four or day five. That’s the way it was, and there was nothing we could do to change it.
I decided then and there that if it came down to Juliet and me in the finale, I would commit suicide. I would fall on my knife and end it so she could live. As much as I wanted to exact revenge on Freeze, there was no way I could kill my wife. I loved her too much. I loved her more than I loved myself.
The fact that we’d been separated for a long time didn’t matter. She was my soul mate, and I knew it was only a matter of time before we got back together.
Juliet’s heart had been broken when she found out I’d slept with another woman in Los Angeles. I slept with another woman, it happened, but I had been drugged and brainwashed by the leader of a white supremacist cult called the Harvest Angels. I didn’t even know my own name at the time. I had no recollection of my past, no memory of being married.
I knew in time Juliet would get over it and take me back.
But now there was no time. In two days, one of us would be dead.
I felt ill. Nauseated. I had no interest in food anymore. I walked out to the porch and lifted the turtle from the skillet and heaved it like a shot put into the darkness. Fuck that turtle. The fire ants could feast on it. I no longer had any feelings about it. I no longer had any feelings about anything. Life was over for me. I was defeated.
I went inside and gulped some water from the faucet and turned the lamp off and collapsed on my mattress. It was a little after ten o’clock. I lay there on my back with my eyes open and stared at the blackness. I was exhausted, but I knew I would never be able to sleep. I didn’t care. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
I thought about everything I’d been through since this ordeal started. I should have taken that letter more seriously, the letter Nathan Broadway received from The Sexy Bastards. I never should have assumed it was just a ruse to get him out of the house for the evening. A death threat is a death threat. I should have insisted he take it to the police. Maybe he would still be alive now if I had. Instead, he was tortured and decapitated and his head was slung at my windshield. In my mind I could still see the smear it left when it bounced off. Nathan Broadway was dead, and it was my fault. Epic fail, as my daughter, Brittney, would say. That was the fatal error, the one that led to everything else in this fucked-up scenario. My abduction. Joe’s murder. And now Juliet. All because of one rich, fat son of a bitch’s obsession with a video game.
But why me? Why did Nathan Broadway call me in the first place? He said I was third in the phone book. Why couldn’t PI number one or PI number two meet him somewhere on a Sunday to discuss his problem? It’s not like private investigators keep bankers’ hours. You meet when it’s convenient for your client. If it’s a Sunday, it’s a Sunday. That’s how you make your living, by being available all day every day. If PI number one or PI number two had met him that Sunday, it would be one of them lying on this thin mattress out in the middle of nowhere shivering now and thinking about all this shit. So why me?
Because. That’s why. Because I’m an unlucky person. Because sometimes I take jobs that nobody else wants. Because I’m a loser. Just fucking because.
I was lying there feeling sorry for myself and wondering how everything could have possibly gotten so fucked up when, somehow, I fell asleep. It was like someone hit a switch. I fell asleep and immediately went spinning into the strangest dream I’d ever had in my life.
Joe Crawford was in my dream, but he was wearing blue coveralls and a red ball cap and his face kept changing. It kept changing to the guy I saw in the woods messing with one of the cameras, the guy I thought I recognized but couldn’t remember from where. Joe and I were adults in the dream, but suddenly we were back in sixth grade in the boys’ restroom at Hallows Cove Elementary.
Kenny and Calvin had taken my milk money and forced me into one of the stalls and they had shoved my head into the toilet bowl. In my dream, just as it had been in real life, the bowl wasn’t clean. It was full of Calvin’s smelly urine, and they shoved my face right down into it. I thought t
hose stupid pricks were going to drown me, and then a voice from outside the stall said, “Let him go.”
Kenny and Calvin turned around. Through the water dripping from my forehead I saw Joe Crawford standing there outside the stall with his fists clenched. Only it wasn’t Joe Crawford. His face had changed. It was the guy in blue coveralls and a red ball cap. The guy I knew I’d seen before but couldn’t remember when or where.
“Get out of here, Crawford,” Kenny said. He called him Crawford, although in my dream it really wasn’t Joe anymore. “This ain’t none of your business.”
“I’m making it my business,” the guy wearing the blue coveralls and red ball cap said. “Now let him go before I kick your ass.”
Calvin bolted out of the stall, cocked his fist, and swung at Red Ball Cap’s head, but Red Ball Cap ducked and punched Calvin in the stomach and pushed him into the urine trough.
“You’re dead, Crawford,” Kenny said. He went for Red Ball Cap, but I grabbed his foot and tripped him and he fell face-first into the stall’s metal doorframe. I pushed him to the floor and straddled him and slugged his face repeatedly. The bell rang and Red Ball Cap and I walked out of the boys’ restroom together.
“Who are you?” I asked.
“You can call me Red,” he said.
“Do I know you?”
“You watched me die.”
“I watched Joe die,” I said. “You’re not Joe.”
“You watched me die,” he said again.
As we walked an endless hallway lined with lockers on both sides, The Potato Man darted by and said, “The change on the aloe fence.”
That ridiculous phrase again. The change on the aloe fence.
I looked at Red. “What does that mean?” I said.
“The chains on the elephants?” he said. “I think it’s pretty obvious what it means.”
The dream dissolved and I sat up straight in bed gasping for air. I shook it off and took a few deep breaths.