by Amy Cross
"The game remains a closely-guarded secret," Alice adds, "known only to those who play. However, if one knows where to look, one can find small mentions of its players in the history books. One of Lady Red's jobs is to know and to record the history of the game, and to ensure that when it finally ends, there will be a document that explains what happened."
"I had other mothers, though," the old man continues. "The first one I remember was a kind woman named Elizabeth -"
"Don't use her real name!" Alice says firmly.
"Fine," the old man says, clearly a little annoyed. "She was one of the women who assumed the role of Lady Red. She was kind to me, but she was constantly asking me if I thought she was a monster. She never seemed happy with any of my answers. In fact, over time, she seemed to become more and more worried that I saw her in a negative light. I never understood the root of her worries, but no matter what I told her, she never accepted the answer. It wasn't until she was on her death-bed that she seemed happy."
"The details are all in the official record," Alice tells me.
"Lady Red herself is a persona," Thomas Pope continues. "Every woman who assumes the role starts out with her own ideas and her own personality, but they all become the same person in the end. It's the same with Mr. Blue and Mr. White. Over time, the Lady Red identity asserts itself like a ghost, forcing its occupant to accept the need for change. Eventually, the new Lady Red is basically the same as the old one, and it's in this way that the game proceeds. There are occasional blips, but for the most part, the pattern is preserved from one generation to the next."
"Why are you telling me this?" I ask.
"Because you need to know," Alice replies, with a hint of sadness in her voice. "You need to understand the history of the game."
"I need to see Mark," I tell her. "That's what I need to do."
"Patience," she says. "Your feelings for him are very strong, aren't they? Perhaps a little too strong, but there are ways to fix that. Are you aware, for instance, that Mark has been manipulating you for a very long time? Do you think that perhaps he's more dangerous than he appears? What, for instance, became of his previous lady friend? She's still missing, is she not?"
"Mark's not a killer," I reply firmly.
"Are you sure about that?" She pauses. "How do you know that he didn't slice her throat? How do you know that he didn't take your friend Jessica and wring her neck, before dropping her body into the river? How do you know that your mother is really on holiday?" She smiles. "How do you know that it was really a heart attack that killed your father?"
"Mark didn't do any of that," I say, trying to contain my anger.
"But how do you know?" she asks. "Chrissie Briggs. Jessica. Your mother. Your father. Four people. It might interest you to know that two of them were killed by Mark. I'd rather not say which two right now, but I'm sure you can work it out eventually." She pauses. "Mark has a dark side, Elly. The most dangerous men are those who are able to conceal their true feelings. Have you never noticed the way that Mark sometimes seems to drift away from a conversation, as if his mind has become focused on another matter? Whereas Mr. White is traditionally a very violent man, Mr. Blue is always more devious. Mark is no exception. He cuts through lives like the blade of a knife, and he leaves behind only blood and misery. He might have been a good person once, when I first met him, but as the persona of Mr. Blue has asserted himself, the real Mark Douglas has become lost. He's a ghost, rattling around in his own body."
"You're a liar," I tell her.
"Please," Thomas Pope says, interrupting us. "There isn't much time."
"We'll continue our discussion later," Alice says with a smile.
"You must listen to Lady Red," Pope says. "She speaks the truth. She has always acted as a balance to the other forces in the game, and her voice must be heard above the rest of the chaos. My own mother occupied this role once, and if she had not become weak and fallen for my father's charms, the game might very well have ended all those years ago. She was so close, but she didn't realize that the ultimate trap was closing around her. Instead of achieving victory, she gave birth to a child whose very existence stood as a permanent reminder of her failure. I don't blame her, but I pity her and I can't help but wish things had been different."
"Regrets are a part of the game," Alice says. "We all have them. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I hadn't allowed myself to be seduced into the game. I always wanted to have children, but such things are impossible now. All that's left now is the dust of shattered dreams."
"I never met my parents," Pope continues. "Not that I remember, anyway. They died when I was very young, and I was raised within the game. As you can no doubt imagine, it was a difficult childhood, and I struggled a great deal to understand my place in the world. Fortunately, I was looked after by successive generations of players, although I myself chose to never become a full participant in the game. I preferred to remain on the outside, watching and learning. You can't imagine how painful it has been, to see so many good people pass through the game and become bitter and twisted. Ultimately, they all died. But you..."
I wait for him to finish the sentence. "What about me?" I ask eventually. The truth is, I don't understand why I'm caught in the middle of all this. There's nothing special about me, and yet it's as if these people refuse to leave me alone.
"You're different," he says. "You're strong, and you make choices that others would consider to be utterly foolish. You should already have run screaming from this room. You should have grabbed a knife and defended yourself. You should never have agreed to keep throwing yourself into the game, but here you are, unable to tear yourself away. You saw a man get shot tonight, Elly. A man you claim to love."
"I do love him," I whisper.
"No," he replies, "you don't. You think you do. To your very core, you believe yourself to be in love, but it's simply not true. Your emotions have been twisted and contorted until they fit the pattern that you expect, but the effort must be very tiring. Would it not feel better if you just admitted that this supposed love is in fact hollow?" He waits for me to reply. "You don't love Mark Douglas," he adds eventually. "You never did, and you never can. You can't love anyone. It's one of the reasons that you're so perfect for the game. You play at love, but it'll never happen. Not now, and not ever."
"There's no way you can know that," I tell him. "I love Mark, and -"
"You don't act like a woman in love," he says firmly, interrupting me. "I can see it in your eyes, Elly. It's a role you're playing. You've spent so much time with Mark, you assume that you must be in love, but in truth he's merely an acquaintance. You're not the first person who has ever fooled themselves into believing that they're in love, and you won't be the last, but it's always a very sad thing to see."
"You don't know me," I reply. "You don't know what I feel, or who I love, or anything about me." I turn to walk away, but he grabs my hand with surprising force. "This conversation is over," I tell him.
"There are things you need to know," he continues, with an air of desperation in his voice. "I was told, many years ago, that one day I would meet a girl such as you. A girl who has the potential to win the game and to end the pain." He pauses. "The game is not played for enjoyment, Elly. It hurts everyone who passes across its threshold. There is not one person in history who hasn't been scarred or worse by their participation. The number of dead bodies is staggering, and there has been so much misery. If you can end the game and bring this madness to a conclusion, it's your duty to do so immediately. No-one can be brought back from the dead, but at least it might be possible to prevent future generations from suffering. The thought of the game stretching on and on for years to come..." He pauses, as tears start to roll down his cheeks. "Please, Elly. End the game."
"I can't," I reply, before looking over at Alice. "Why does he think I can help? There's nothing I can do for you! Why does he keep asking me? I'm just me! I'm not some special person who can fix the game for
you! I'm just me, and I think I've already shown pretty conclusively that I'm not good at this!" I wait for her to reply. "Why do you both keep pushing me?"
"Because it's possible," she says. "Not definite, not certain, but possible. This is the first time for at least a century that there has been a chance to end the game. You're the right kind of girl, Elly. You're strong, and you seem to have some kind of innate affinity for the rhythms of the game and the patterns that exist within the rules." She pauses for a moment. "You don't get it, do you?" she continues eventually. "You were born for this moment, Elly. You're going to be the one who ends the game. This moment has been coming for so long, but it's finally here and I'm absolutely certain that you'll be able to withstand the final waves of pain. You're the one. Thomas Pope knows it, Mark knew it, and I can't help thinking that perhaps you even know it yourself. All you have to do is face one final challenge."
Jonathan Pope
1901
"Thomas is sleeping," Lady Red says as she walks through to join me in one of the rooms beneath the Castleton. "I must say, he's a very well-behaved boy. He barely cries at all. Do you think he's just got a good character, or is he perhaps scared? After all, I heard that he had a somewhat traumatic entry into the world."
Refusing to answer, I sit completely still on the wooden chair that has been provided for me. When we arrived at the hotel, I was carried through the back door and brought down here. Mr. Blue and Mr. White quickly left, and Lady Red soon departed with Thomas, claiming that she needed to find somewhere safe for him to rest. I was forced to wait here, alone, and for the past hour I've been unable to stop thinking about the consequences of my failure. If Thomas is raised by these three grotesque monsters, I can't imagine how he'll turn out. My son is in danger of becoming yet another monster, and I am the only person who can possibly save him.
"Do you want to see something fun?" Lady Red asks after a moment. She lowers the front of her dress to reveal her breasts. "They're quite small, aren't they?" she continues. "Little more than two faint mounds. I'm twenty-five years old, Mr. Pope, and yet I have barely a bosom. Still, I suppose I can't complain." She smiles. "The game excites me," she says eventually. "I daren't admit it to the others, but I'm in a constant state of arousal. Would you like me to demonstrate this to you? I'd be happy to -"
"Go to hell," I say firmly.
"You sound so angry," she replies, running her hands over her breasts. "Do I make you angry, Mr. Pope? Or is it the world in general? Do you feel as if, through no fault of your own, you've been delivered to a dark and dangerous place?" She pauses. "I've checked the records. You've been Mr. Blue for five years, and Lady Henrietta deHavilland was Lady Red for thirty-one. That's quite some achievement. I hope to match her, but for now, I can only assume that you, Mr. Pope, allowed yourself to be lured into the game against your better judgment. How else can you explain the fact that you played along with such a macabre group of people?"
"Go to hell," I say again.
"Fair enough," she replies, re-covering her chest. "I'll find someone else to pleasure. For now, I fear that we've reached something of an endgame. I trust that you're not foolish enough to think that you can ever escape. This is the room in which you're going to die, and there's nothing you can do about it. It's also the room in which your body will be kept. I've arranged for Mr. Blue and Mr. White to prepare a cozy little nook where your remains can be bricked up forever. I suppose they might be found one day, but not for many years, and by then we'll all be long gone." She pauses. "Can you accept this fate, Mr. Pope, or do you still cling to the belief that some miracle might deliver you from this room?"
Instead of answering, I focus on trying to get free from the rope. Unfortunately, the knot is proving to be far too tight, so I'm starting to wonder if there might be some other way to escape. Time is running out, however, and for the first time I feel as if perhaps I might not be able to get free before these monsters decide to finish me off. The specter of death is passing over me, and for the first time in my life, I can't see a way to get out of a tight spot. It pains me to think that this monstrous harridan might be the one who puts me in my grave, and the thought of Thomas being in her clutches is too much to handle. That child deserves something better. He needs a fresh start, free from the mistakes that Henrietta and I made. Instead, it seems that we've delivered him into the arms of the Devil, in which case I can only hope that by some miracle he is eventually saved.
"I'd like to think," Lady Red continues, "that if we had met in other circumstances, we might have been friends. There's something about you, Mr. Pope, that attracts my attention. Do you think that I might have fallen in love with you, if I had been Lady Red to your Mr. Blue? Do you think I'd have made the same mistake as Lady Henrietta? It's so easy for me now, to see the errors she made, but I have the benefit of hindsight. I suppose I shall face certain challenges of my own as the game progresses. I can only hope that I deal with them effectively, and without hurting anyone. Poor Thomas deserves to have someone to look up to, does he not?"
"Every time you say his name," I reply bitterly, "you seem more and more grotesque. You're nothing but a vile serpent, spreading poison throughout the world. If you think God will allow you to influence this child -"
"God?" she replies, unable to hide her amusement. "Are you bringing God into this now? Do you think God is going to intervene and save you, Mr. Pope? I know enough about you to be absolutely certain that you're not a man who has ever given a damn what God thinks. Are you planning a death-bed conversion, and hoping that maybe you'll be saved? Is that the final, cynical act of your godless, soulless life? Have you fallen so low that in your craven desperation, you appeal for help to God, having never once given a damn about Him before?"
I open my mouth to argue with her, but finally I realize that there's no point. After all, on this one topic, she's right. I've lived a cruel and wicked life, and if God exists, there's no way that He would ever choose to save me. I've killed people, sometimes with good reason and sometimes simply as a means of saving myself; I've caused heartache and misery throughout the city, and I've helped thieves and murderers to continue their dark trajectories. There's nothing redeemable about me, nothing worth saving, and it would be a travesty if God were to decide that I should be spared. But Thomas is another matter, and I fail to see why my innocent son should be punished simply because he had the misfortune to be born to such a terrible father. It's for the sake of my son, and him alone, that I now find myself desperately hoping that some divine force might choose to intervene. Otherwise, the world seems to be an utterly dark and desolate place.
"God has intervened," Lady Red says after a moment. "He saw that this child would lead a miserable life with you, and He chose to prevent you from achieving your goals. He moved the child to my arms, so that I can raise dear little Thomas and help him avoid your influence. If you ever wanted proof that God exists, Mr. Pope, I would argue that your death serves the purpose rather well. I'm sorry if that sounds harsh, but it's the truth." She pauses. "I have a confession to make. I'm not sure how this is going to go down with you. At first, I thought you might be pleased, but then I realized that you might think it's rather macabre."
"Nothing could shock me anymore," I say bitterly, still trying to untie the ropes behind my back.
"Are you sure about that?" she asks, staring at me with a steely gaze.
"The game breeds monsters," I tell her. "The game -"
"I know," she says quietly. "The thing is, sometimes a monster tries to do a good deed, and it ends up... not being appreciated. I thought you'd like your final resting place to be comforting, so I had Mr. White gather up the pieces of Henrietta's body from the King's Arms before the fire began. We laid the pieces in concrete. In my naivety, I assumed that we'd be able to put her back together and make her look peaceful, but it wasn't possible. I'm afraid we ended up making a terrible mess. I won't show you the result, but rest assured that once you're dead, you'll be placed next to her." She waits
for me to say something. "Does it give you some small comfort to know that you'll be with the woman you claim to have loved? It won't be consecrated ground, of course, but it's something, isn't it?" She pauses. "Isn't it, Mr. Pope? I genuinely don't know. Have we given you any comfort at all?"
Slowly, I shake my head.
She frowns. "I've always been bad at this kind of thing. I can never quite judge how people are going to react to things. It's a real problem for me. Still, I shall work on it. Could you perhaps explain why this gesture hasn't made you feel better?"
I stare at her, and finally I realize that she's an utter psychopath. She's completely unable to understand how another person might feel, even when she tries to imagine the emotions of others. "You're a monster," I say eventually. "A monster in human form. You're dangerous when you're trying to be bad, and you're dangerous when you're trying to be good. You're psychopathic, and you have no way of changing. The only way you can truly help other people would be to remove yourself from the human race entirely. Just take a knife and cut your wrists, because other than that, you're a monster. You can bring nothing but hatred and fear into the world."
"I see," she says calmly. "Do you really believe that to be the case?"
"It's self-evident," I tell her.
"Oh," she replies, seemingly lost in thought for a moment. "Then I imagine that you're very upset that I'm going to be raising your son, aren't you?"
I open my mouth to tell her to go to hell, but suddenly I realize that she's smiling at me. It's as if all those pain and misery is amusing her, and anything I say now will simply give her more pleasure. Instead of arguing, I try to stay calm, and I focus on working out how I can get out of this situation. I'm still working on the knot behind my back, but I need a better plan. With Mr. White and Mr. Blue out of the room, this might be my best opportunity yet to strike out at Lady Red and incapacitate her in some way; at the same time, unless I can get free, I don't see what I can do. It's as if I can feel every second ticking past, and I know with absolute certainty that if I don't find a way out in the next few minutes, I'm doomed.