The Challenge

by Tom Hoyle

  ‘I want to know why I’m here! I haven’t done anything to hurt you!’ Blake squealed. ‘My parents don’t have any money.’ He still hoped this was a straightforward kidnapping.

  The Twins looked down at Blake dismissively.

  My words came out as a growl. ‘Is this just for fun, or because of a Challenge?’

  ‘Ben.’ Sam shook his head. ‘You need to chill, man.’ (Yes – You need to chill: that’s exactly what he said.) ‘You’re only chained because we knew you wouldn’t be calm. We don’t want you to be uncomfortable.’

  ‘Spare me this shit,’ I said. ‘You’re just a couple of weirdos.’

  Jack draped his arm round his brother’s shoulders. ‘We’re chess players.’ He laughed.

  I spat on the floor. It was the first thing that came into my head as a way to show disgust. ‘Don’t be mental – I’m a human being, not some sort of play object.’ I swore at them.

  ‘Ben, Ben . . . you don’t get it, do you?’ Sam moved closer. ‘You don’t appreciate how my uncle has watched you – how we have all watched you. The Games Master studied you as a baby when you were looked after by your grandmother. He observed your first steps down your path; he saw the first time the stabilizers came off your bike. He saw you on the day that Will left. You’re the star of the show.’

  Blake screamed for help towards the open door. ‘Let me out of here,’ he yelled. ‘Let me out! Help!’

  As Jack put his hand round his throat, Blake’s voice became a gargle and then, as the squeezing intensified, a croak. I thought he was going to strangle him.

  ‘Blake – keep quiet!’ I shouted. ‘Jack, please let him go!’

  Jack slowly released his grip. ‘You need to be careful,’ he said into Blake’s ear. ‘You’re nothing – you’re just a prop. We could kill you and replace you with someone else, just like that!’ He snapped his fingers in front of Blake’s nose.

  Blake wheezed and put his free hand to his reddened neck. ‘You leave me alone, you bully!’

  ‘You’re complete psychos,’ I said. ‘Both of you.’

  Sam chuckled – not a crazy laugh, but the sound of water running over rocks. ‘We’re not idiots who’ve played too many first-person shooter games. We’re special. We’re supermen. We can do anything. We’re as different to the likes of him –’ he pointed at Blake – ‘as a lion is to a slug.’

  ‘And what about me?’ I asked.

  Sam came over and sat on the bed next to me. It happened quickly, before I could brace myself to resist. He put his arm around me, his hand on my head, and pulled me so that my cheek was against his chest. ‘You’re special,’ he said. ‘You’re one of us.’

  ‘I’m nothing like you,’ I said.

  Jack came to the other side of the bed. ‘You’re very much like us. You’re more like us than you believe.’

  I told him to f-off and let us go. The Twins had changed me: I wasn’t a timid boy to be cowed.

  ‘How much do you know about your mother?’ asked Sam.

  ‘You just keep her out of this,’ I growled. I swore in the strongest way I could, but hurling insults didn’t make me feel better.

  Sam ignored me and carried on. ‘She used to work at Lakeside House.’

  ‘Yeah . . .’ I didn’t like where this was going.

  ‘She was a bit of a babe,’ said Jack, standing up.

  ‘And the Games Master liked her,’ said Sam, also standing. ‘He liked her very much. And she liked him. And nine months later you came along.’

  ‘No, that’s total bollocks,’ I said despondently. I looked at The Twins’ eyes: slightly darker brown than mine. Their hair: lighter, just. Then I started to laugh: it was the weirdest thing, a sort of exaggerated, uncontrolled, hysterical giggling, even though I didn’t find anything remotely funny.

  Jack seemed annoyed. ‘We’re related. Pretty funny, eh?’ It was the first time I’d actually irritated him.

  My mind was like a runaway carriage struggling to stay on railway tracks. I thought of the mother I knew from pictures: a mother with striking blue eyes I hadn’t inherited. I wondered if my grandmother was aware. ‘It’s not true,’ I insisted. Stupidly, into my head came Star Wars and Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader.

  Blake’s breathing was fast and his eyes flitted around the room.

  ‘And that brings us to our Challenge,’ said Sam. ‘And it’s also a test.’

  ‘What?’ I said. ‘I don’t get it.’ I glanced at Blake. ‘Why is he here?’

  Jack looked at Blake dismissively and said: ‘Sorry, mate. It had to be someone.’

  The Twins returned about three or four hours later with pasta and water. I was frantically thirsty and gulped down nearly all the water in one go. But I didn’t finish the bottle – I wanted it in case the cap was useful to turn the screws that held down the bed. Next time, a full bottle might be used to smash the light or, possibly, disable the video camera. Anything was worth a try.

  I thanked The Twins for bringing the food. They were clever – but not so clever that they knew what was going on in my head. Their trust might gain me a tiny advantage. ‘No one else needs to get hurt,’ I said.

  ‘This isn’t about Blake, and it wasn’t about Mike, or even Will,’ Sam said. ‘Don’t you understand? This is about you!’ He waved his hands towards me as if he were introducing the star of the show.

  Sam said: ‘The Games Master said: “I Challenge you to make an innocent person kill an innocent person.” We had to tease it out, like a game of chess.’

  Jack added: ‘We thought it was the ultimate Challenge, especially when we decided to involve our innocent cousin, the one that the Games Master had carefully watched grow up. It was more than a Challenge. It was a chance to bring you into the family.’

  ‘What the hell are you talking about?’ said Blake. ‘You’re sick in the head. All of you!’ He glared at me as well. ‘Including you!’ For a few seconds the only sound was the clanking of Blake tugging on his handcuff chain.

  ‘I still don’t understand why we’re here now,’ I said, searching for the twisted logic.

  Sam went down on his haunches on the side of my bed away from Blake. ‘Ben, you can walk out of here any time you like.’ He pointed at the open door. ‘There you go: you can fly out, free as a bird. The Games Master is desperate to see you. He has said that one day you could become the Challenge Setter. You can live in Timberline or Lakeside House as one of the family, as soon as you prove that you’re one of us.’

  ‘You know I want to leave right now.’ I didn’t break his gaze.

  ‘In that case,’ said Sam. ‘You just have to inject Blake with this.’ He stepped outside and returned with a syringe held up as if it were a sacred sword. He placed it on the floor next to my bed, stepped back, and smiled.

  ‘What’s in the syringe?’ I asked.

  ‘Already tempted?’ chuckled Sam. Everything was a Game.

  Blake spoke quickly through tears in a high pitched voice: ‘We-want-to-know-what’s-in-the-bloody-syringe!’

  ‘Tetrodotoxin,’ said Jack. ‘From the blue-ringed octopus. Probably the fastest poison around. Just that little bit will paralyse you, stop your breathing and heart, quick as a flash. Simple. Painless. Easy. There’s enough for one.’ He pointed his index finger and winked, first at me, then at Blake.

  Blake pulled his knees to him as far away from me as possible and repeated, ‘Oh no! Oh no!’

  For a time I didn’t say anything. I considered grabbing the syringe and trying to drive it into Sam’s neck – but I would never have been able to pick it up and lunge at him quickly enough, even if I could reach, and I certainly didn’t have the strength to overwhelm him, even without his brother getting involved.

  I stared at the long hypodermic needle. ‘Are you kidding? And if I don’t? What if I just spray the contents over the wall?’

  ‘If you don’t co-operate,’ said Jack, ‘you’re not worthy to join the family, and you’ll both stay in this room, for ever and ever an
d ever . . . Of course, if anything should happen to the Thatchers, then you would be in trouble . . .’ He shrugged. ‘No one would ever find you here.’

  ‘You can’t keep us chained to a bed,’ Blake whined.

  Sam spat: ‘This isn’t a hotel. You’re just a piece on a chessboard that will get enough food and water to stay alive. You’ll have to piss and shit in a bucket and be grateful that we’ll empty it.’

  Jack: ‘There’ll be no luxuries. Nothing at all. Ever.’

  I stared at the needle. ‘And what if I inject myself?’

  ‘Then we will have misjudged the power of the blood that runs through your veins,’ said Sam. ‘And we will have no use for Blake.’

  ‘Either way, I’m dead!’ wailed Blake. He stuck his hand in his mouth in an attempt to stop his own noise.

  ‘We’ll make sure that the rules of the Game are followed,’ said Jack. ‘Don’t underestimate us. Our family has been playing Games and Challenges for centuries.’ He pointed at the camera. ‘We’ll be watching.’

  Jack then held me down, my face buried in my mattress. I tried to struggle, but couldn’t move an inch. To begin with, I had no idea why, but then heard the jangling of a chain. When I was allowed to raise my head, I saw that I was now handcuffed to a chain that was about six feet long. They had given me enough room to reach Blake.

  Without another word, Sam stood up and walked out, and Jack closed the door behind him. There was the scrape of bolts being drawn across.

  ‘I’ve heard of tetrodotoxin,’ wittered Blake. ‘I reckon it does come from an octopus.’ He was pale and shaking. ‘You’re going to kill me eventually, aren’t you? You’re going to end up just like them.’

  I turned my back to the camera and spoke quietly. I hardly recognized my own voice: ‘You need to calm down and do what I say. Otherwise I really will stick this needle up your arse.’ I tried to look as sincere as I could. ‘They may not get this, but I’ll never hurt you, I promise.’ I looked at the syringe. ‘I’m not like that.’

  Attachment

  NOVEMBER 2011

  DEATH

  I doubted that we could play the long game and hope The Twins became slack captors over time. Even without the massive limitations imposed by twenty-four-hour surveillance, we wouldn’t be tunnelling out behind a poster of Rita Hayworth. It was more likely that the rules of the Challenge would change against us. Somehow, we would have to leave through the door.

  ‘Don’t say anything,’ I whispered. I tugged at my ear on the far side of the camera to suggest we were being listened to. ‘Don’t look at that camera – or that.’ I shot my eyes towards the syringe.

  ‘OK, OK, you’re in charge,’ said Blake.

  He had to understand. ‘Whenever we talk, look at my face and try to forget where we are,’ I insisted.

  He nodded and forced out the flicker of a smile. ‘OK.’

  I had never known The Twins make a mistake before. But they had made two.

  Without cutting, there was no way to remove the chain from the metal structure of the bed; and it’s impossible to slide a tight handcuff over your hand (even dislocating your thumb doesn’t work). But with a flat piece of metal, a shim, it’s easy to get out of regulation handcuffs: I’d done it a hundred times. A paperclip could do the job – or, in theory, though I’d never tried it, the needle of a syringe.

  The Twins’ Mistake Number One: giving me the tools.

  And their second mistake?

  Never give a magician something to work behind. A curtain, a box – any sort of shield. Even a bed. And the syringe had been placed on the side of the bed nearest Blake, away from the camera.

  The Twins were human. I shuddered to think that some of their blood might run through me.

  If I’d stopped to think, it might have taken me days to find the courage to act. But I wasn’t ‘Will’s shadow’ any more.

  I pressed my finger to my lips and sat on the side of the bed facing Blake, the camera behind me, and quickly scooped the syringe off the floor with my left hand as I adjusted my position.

  Blake hissed, ‘No! Don’t—’

  I tapped my finger to my lips and stared at him. ‘I need to have a conversation with you,’ I said. ‘You need to talk to me. Look straight at me.’ I moved my right hand in rhythm with my words, aware that I might be being watched – and with my left hand tried to remove the needle from the syringe. ‘Blake, tell me how you feel.’

  Blake chuntered away about how terrified he was, how I was going to get fed up and kill him, how his body would be buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in a forest.

  I worked on the needle. I imagined it sliding out or unclipping, but it was welded to the plastic and I had to twist and turn in a way that would have made Uri Geller proud. I couldn’t risk more than a very occasional glance at what I was doing. A few times I nicked my finger or the palm of my hand with the end of the needle and resisted the burning temptation to stop and have a look . . .

  Eventually I held in my left hand one plastic syringe and one metal needle.

  Now it was a race against time to act before The Twins returned.

  You might think that the clever part was to twist the needle into shape – or to know how to insert it, key-like, into the handcuffs and make them pop open. That was just knowledge. The real sweat was to be able to do this calmly and quickly, and in short bursts so that my arms weren’t ever behind my back for long. I had to keep my breathing steady. It’s the best bit of magic I have ever done in my life.

  Blake had to remain chained. Even if I could have invisibly crossed the room, I had to think like a magician. Deception and distraction. Make the audience look the wrong way.

  There was a terrifying, exhilarating moment when the handcuff popped open.

  Annoyingly, the needle was so bent that there was no way I could put it back into the syringe to make a weapon. Perhaps Blake could somehow drive the blunt syringe into one of The Twins while I grappled with the other. Maybe I could get out and . . . No. I would have to lock both of The Twins in the room with Blake and dash for help.

  ‘Do you have a plan?’ Blake asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Just grab hold of the nearest Twin and don’t let go.’

  For several hours, we sat in silence. There was nothing to say. No grand speeches for fear of being overheard. I just went over and over it all in my head, wondering if there were any little advantages we could gain.

  Eventually, we heard bolts slide back . . .

  I quickly threw Blake the syringe. ‘Threaten to stab yourself,’ I hissed.

  . . . and the door opened.

  I had been desperately hoping that only one of The Twins would arrive – but they were both there. Sam came in first, taking the keys out of the door as he did.

  Jack followed with two lasagnes in black-plastic microwave containers: ‘Sorry, guys, no cutlery,’ were his first words. Sorry, guys, no cutlery – as if we were all mates together on a camping trip. He really didn’t understand that we were normal human beings who didn’t want to play this evil game. It was the desensitized mind-set of the prison camp guard.

  I stared at Blake and shouted: ‘No – don’t do it! Give it back!’

  Blake started screaming: ‘I can’t bear this any longer – I’ve had enough! I’ve had enough!’ The stress of the situation produced a terrifyingly realistic performance. The syringe was held to his stomach, apparently with the needle already in, but the plunger not pressed.

  The Twins were unlike anyone else I have ever known, but they responded for a split second in the way that anyone would: they looked towards the action. Maybe they didn’t really care if Blake stabbed himself – but they looked. There isn’t a magician in the world that doesn’t rely on this impulse.

  Sam went over to him and Jack bent down to put the lasagnes on the floor. It was a natural response – and exactly what I needed.

  I leaped up and was pulling the door closed – as hard as I could – in a second. Had it been anyone else,
I would have had it shut, held it, and pulled the bolt across, but Jack thrust his arm in the way. It was another instant of remarkable quick thinking. With the force I was using to pull metal into metal, with sharp right angles on both, I would have snapped his fingers off, but the door rebounded off his arm.

  Then a moment that changed everything: Jack’s left hand went to his right arm, midway between elbow and wrist, and he looked down for a second. My fist arrived with all the force that I could muster. It was Desperation multiplied by Anger multiplied by Revenge.

  Fear returned as I ran away down an unknown passageway.

  I saw blood explode at right angles from Sam’s face and, for a split second, Jack’s leg being held on to by Blake, who may have been a stick-man but held on for precious, vital, desperate seconds until he was knocked unconscious. (I have to add that Blake now only has 20 per cent hearing in his left ear after the battering he took.)

  I was determined to hurtle down the passageway with the risk that I would spiral out of control if I slipped. I passed two rooms; then there were stone steps to the left with a door at the top.

  I emerged into another room that was like an underground shed. I saw an old motor and small blue barrels and wooden slats from a rowing boat. Possibly a weapon? No – I couldn’t risk a direct fight.

  The only way out seemed to be a metal ladder that rose vertically in the far right-hand corner of the room, and I ran over and started climbing, forcing my hands and legs to work methodically and quickly, unaware whether the ceiling hatch above would open.

  There was a trapdoor that swung up and I clambered out into a large shed, next to a trailer that held Evening Cloud. I glanced down and saw one of the Twins, from the blood on his face I presume it was Sam, about to ascend the metal ladder.