“I was right, he’s coming straight for us! He’s going to kill us!” Mooney said.
“Bullshit.” Billy-Bob Boomer said, “Just cause he won the game one season don’t mean nothing. It’s all just luck, don’t hardly take no smarts.”
“Did you see the way he killed them, though? The guy’s an ex-marine! He knows all about urban warfare and traps, and shit!” Mooney said, “But he’s got one weakness, same weakness as all of the other contestants. Look, his partner, she’s down this end of the boat where the shipping crates are. He must have stashed her here where she’d be safe and now he’s coming after us.”
Mooney scrolled across the map. The screen showed the girl’s name and profile as well, Jeannie St Sunshine. She was short with big, frizzy hair, looking far too young to be imprisoned for life.
“So what?” Billy-Bob said.
“So, if they’re separated maybe that’s our best shot.” Mooney said, “They’re at different ends of the boat, he’s probably over our heads right now. Instead of waiting for him to come to us we’ll go take out the girl, and then get off the boat while the kill switch does its work.”
“Beats staying here waiting, holding on our dicks.” Billy-Bob said.
Taking their weapons, the two men moved into one of the ship’s metal corridors. They were dark and claustrophobic, filled with rust. As Billy-Bob’s finger hovered over his trigger the muzzle of his arm-mounted pulse cannon glowed and let out an ominous hum. It seemed likely that Church would be approaching from the nose of the ship. Mooney and Billy-Bob moved toward the storage deck instead. They emerged into the eerie grey sunlight of the ruined city. A couple of camera drones flitted over the carcass of the broken cargo ship like carrion flies.
Mooney and Billy-Bob’s footing was unsteady on the sloping deck. The massive, multicoloured shipping containers were unevenly scattered across the back of the ship. Still, it seemed like the perfect place to stash the girl given how uniform all the containers were, and how solid and safe they appeared. A smell of rot lingered in the air and broken boxes had spilled out of some of the containers. The two moved down the only obvious path.
“Over here.” Mooney studied the map, “Best guess she’s in one of these crates over here. Let’s get it done fast, no time to enjoy this with Church around somewhere.”
There were several crates sitting crooked at the back of the boat and Mooney forced one open. Several large stuffed rabbit toys spilled out of the opening, covered in mould and mildew. They had to remember Church was on board, hunting for them as well, and hurry. He’d killed alone during that first season too, it made sense he would stash his partner somewhere. Mooney gestured to the next shipping container. There were fresh footprints in the dust that covered the deck and an arc on the ground that showed the door of the container had been opened recently. Jeannie St Sunshine would be inside. They flanked the door with Billy-Bob’s cannon humming.
“Okay, sweetheart, let’s make this easy.” Mooney said.
Pulling the container open, Mooney led with his assault rifle. The shipping container was empty except for broken boxes spewing busted electronics. There was enough of a gap for someone to have hidden behind the door but no one was occupying it now. As the door was pulled open, something dropped away from the frame. A bent, spoon-shaped piece of metal bounced across the ground followed by a dull clunk. One of the grenades Jeannie had been given at the start of the game had been set up as a booby trap behind the door, a simpler and more effective trap than those that had been scattered across the cargo ship before Mooney and Billy-Bob came onboard.
“Grenade!” Mooney yelled.
In that split-second, Mooney realised how they’d been outplayed. He pushed away from the door and threw himself across the deck. Church must have gotten Jeannie to stay in the crate until the map updated and then hide somewhere else, leaving the grenade, knowing that Mooney and Billy-Bob would come for her.
The grenade bounced and then disintegrated with a thundering blast. Shrapnel sheared through the air and crashed into the surrounding crates. The shockwave bounced around the deck, deafeningly loud. Billy-Bob let out a harsh scream. He’d wheeled away from the trap as well but was too fat and clumsy to make it very far. One side of his face had been shredded. His left eye filled with blood and his left arm was injured and swinging off his shoulder loosely.
A shadow passed across one of the shipping containers. Tall and broad with a leather coat furling behind him, Church moved in for the kill. He was distracted, however, as one of the camera drones buzzed in overhead for a close-up and nearly hit him.
“Hey, you! Motherfucker!” Billy-Bob yelled.
His hat gone and with blood pouring down his left side, Billy-Bob staggered to his feet. A beam of heat, glowing in the grey twilight, fired past Church’s shoulder. It sheared through the camera drone hovering above Church and pieces of the rotors and outer casing sprayed into the air while the rest of it simply disintegrated.
Raising his auto-shotgun, Church fired off a couple of rapid blasts. They chewed through Billy-Bob’s body armour and threw him to the ground again. Meanwhile, Drake Mooney recovered and clumsily brought his assault rifle around. Church darted sideways as Mooney fired. He leapt off the top of a shipping container, tucking and rolling as he hit the deck. Mooney was dazed from the grenade blast, the echoes still ringing in his skull. Dizzy, he stood up and swept his gun’s barrel across the deck.
Blood was spraying from an injury above Billy-Bob’s collar where buckshot had torn into an artery. He clawed at it, trying to close the flapping wound. Mooney knew they’d been beaten but he opened up, spraying more bullets across the sloping deck of the beached cargo ship. A shotgun blast hit Mooney in the chest, picking the man up and hurling him backward. It failed to penetrate Mooney’s vest but knocked the wind out of him all the same. Mooney kept a hold of his weapon but it ended up twisted awkwardly in his grip.
Billy-Bob gurgled and raised his arm cannon, firing. Church moved around the blast easily and the beam blew a smoking hole through the open door of another shipping container. Calmly, Church shot Billy-Bob through the side of the head. Bits of skull and brain exploded across the deck, shreds splattering through the air as the shotgun turned Billy-Bob’s head into red mist.
Turning his assault rifle around, Mooney fired off a short burst as he crawled back toward cover. As he did his kill switch started to wail and Mooney felt the needles go into his skin. A fiery rush started in his arm and then screamed through his body, painful enough that he cried out in shock. New strength filled his muscles, however, and he started to climb to his feet.
“You think you’re smarter than me? I’ll fucking end you, Harper!” Mooney yelled.
There was a dull thud as another of Jeannie’s grenades hit the deck and rolled between Mooney’s legs. Even moving with enhanced speed and reflexes, Mooney only had a split-second to process what he was seeing before the grenade exploded. The blast ripped through Mooney’s less-protected legs and pitched the rest of him backward through a gap in the battered shipping containers. Like the first, the second eruption echoed across the ship and the vessel let out a fatigued groan as its metal vibrated. Landing in a bloody, shredded heap, Mooney died before the smoke could clear or before his kill switch’s drugs could finish the job.
“Alright, it’s done! Come out now.” Church said.
Emerging from a lifeboat hanging off the side of the cargo ship, Jeannie St Sunshine climbed back over the railing. She was holding only one of the grenades she’d been given. Terrified tears had cut rivers down the sides of her face.
“Are you-, oh, my God!” Jeannie said.
Jeannie spotted what was left of Billy-Bob Boomer. She staggered sideways and retched, leaning across the corner of a shipping crate to gag. Church calmly checked the load on his shotgun.
“Pretty squeamish for someone who killed her girlfriend’s entire family with an axe.” Church said.
“I told you, I don’t remember any of that
!” Jeannie said, “All I remember is waking up in that horrible room and then-, all this!”
“Here.” Church said, “You can leave most of the killing to me but you need a way to protect yourself.”
Church pulled the pulse cannon off of Billy-Bob’s right arm and held it out to the girl. The arm cannon was heavy and looked ridiculously oversized when fit over Jeannie’s skinny arm. She took it and wiped her mouth with her free hand as she deliberately avoided looking at the bodies. Church checked the map on his sleeve.
“What are we going to do now? Can’t we hide here for a little while, like they were doing?” Jeannie said.
“Next closest team is Santa Muerte and Priest.” Church said, “They’re too dangerous to leave unchecked.”
A cackling laugh from on top of one shipping container made both of them snap their heads up. Dressed in her still-wet white dress, Santa Muerte moved across the ship like a wraith. Her brightly coloured, sugar skull face was twisted in a sadistic grin as she opened up with both of her .45 Colts. The twin handguns were beautifully ornate with skeletal depictions of different saints on the grips. Even Church couldn’t understand how she’d moved so fast and managed to catch them by surprise. A bullet slammed Church in the shoulder but was stopped by his body armour. Santa Muerte fired wildly, both handguns thundering and spraying the area with ricocheting bullets. There was no sign of her partner, the scarred priest, but he couldn’t have been far away.
“Move!” Church said.
Church snatched Jeannie around the waist as he broke into a run. There was no time to find cover and return fire. Church kept running and lunged over the railing into the old lifeboat where Jeannie had been hiding. The rotted canvas cover of the boat flapped around them. Bullets rang off the railing just inches behind them as Santa Muerte kept laughing and firing.
Church’s hand shot out and slammed into the rusty release for the lifeboat crane. A bullet sang past his head as it ricocheted off the railing. There was nothing but hard ground under the boat, covered in wreckage, but the lifeboat dropped with terrifying speed. Jeannie let out a short scream before her breath caught in her throat. Whipping out its cords, the lifeboat slammed into the ground. Dust billowed from under the boat. Groaning, Church quickly climbed out of the boat and swept the area above them. The side of the beached cargo ship stretched over them. Santa Muerte, however, had disappeared and Priest was still nowhere to be seen. He pulled Jeannie out of the runed lifeboat as well.
“Come on, we’ve got to keep moving.” Church said.
Chapter Six.
“Want to escape the daily rat race, but just can’t find the time for a real vacation? Have you ever wanted to be somewhere else? Someone else?”
A man in a rumpled suit looks forlornly at his desk, surrounded by towering stacks of paper. After work, he heads to a building covered in bright neon lighting. Several smiling men and women strap him into an enormous chair and attach electrodes to his face.
“It’s time for a visit to Complete Recollection, where we can upload the memories of a dream vacation directly into your cerebral cortex!”
“Travel to an untouched tropical paradise like bright, sunny Antarctica. Paris, the legendary city of lights before it was extinguished forever, or the surface of the planet Mars! Be anyone you want to be, a celebrity, a secret agent, a sex-god, or just another tourist! Be anything, do anyone, and see anywhere you want! The upload takes only minutes but the memories will last a lifetime!”
Eyes closed, the man jolts upright in his chair and thrashes around for several moments, mouth frothing. As the technicians remove the electrodes, the man looks down and sees a postcard of a tropical island in his hand reading ‘Wish You Were Here?’
“Complete Recollection is not responsible for any lingering light sensitivity, headaches or delusions about the nature of reality. Complete Recollection, the vacation of your dreams!”
“Stop that fucking crying or I’ll give you something to cry about.” Reaper said.
Reaper’s partner, Baxter Webley the former Wall St banker, was kneeling in the dirt and snivelling. After emerging from the lake Reaper had built them a small fire in the shell of a collapsed parking structure so they could get dry faster. Mounds of concrete and crushed cars were heaped around them. The structure's single remaining wall covered them from the street. Reaper stalked around the outskirts of the firelight with his hulking assault rifle.
“This isn’t right, I’m not supposed to be here!” Baxter said.
Baxter had continued to make the same kind of complaints he’d been yelling when the guards dragged him into the game’s starting area. Dressed in his wet suit, Baxter had his twin vibroblade wakizashi swords laid out in front of him.
“Nah, that’s right, you’re supposed to be on the other side from all this.” Reaper said, “Hunting people like me and some poor assholes from total safety. Don’t feel too good when you’re the one being hunted, does it? Shit, if we weren’t tagged together I’d shove the barrel of this gun up your soft white ass until you called me daddy and blow your brains out myself.”
“We need to cover this fire or they’ll come for us! They’ll see it!” Baxter said.
Baxter moved as if to smother the campfire with dirt. Reaper rounded on him and forced Baxter to stumble back. The man was more than a head taller than Baxter, muscular and dark-skinned, with hoops dangling from his ears and nose. Their two camera drones flitting through the smoke overhead in the dim twilight.
“That’s the idea.” Reaper said, “They see the smoke, come creeping, and I’ll put a couple of holes through whoever it is.”
“You’re going to get us killed!” Baxter said, “I’m not meant to be here!”
“Bitch, I’m the only thing that’s going to keep you alive. Now shut your fucking mouth before I find a better use for it.” Reaper said.
“I’m not meant to be in here.” Baxter repeated to himself.
Crying, Baxter picked up one of his short, katana-shaped swords and hugged it to his chest. Baxter’s slightly flabby body was bunched up like a fist. His wispy blonde hair stuck out in all different directions, still damp. Suddenly, as Reaper circled around the fire, Baxter struck. Lunging forward on all fours, Baxter pulled his short sword back like a dagger and stabbed it downward through Reaper’s foot. The vibroblade hummed as it sliced through Reaper’s boot and foot with ease and then buried itself in the cracked concrete under his sole.
“What the shit?” Reaper yelled.
“I’m not even meant to be here! I’ve got to get out of here!” Baxter said.
Reaper was too shocked to feel the pain at first. Baxter scurried backward leaving the sword’s hilt sticking upward through Reaper’s boot. Blood pooled on the ground. While Reaper was still stunned, Baxter picked up the second sword and dashed across the ruins of the parking structure. Reaching a large, waist-high slab of concrete, Baxter stopped. He braced his right arm with its metal sleeve on the rough surface.
“M-motherfuck!” Reaper said, “Hey, don’t you be doing what I think you’re doing!”
Reaper’s deep voice had started to tremor. He knelt down to tug the short sword out but the nerves in his foot screamed in pain and stopped him. Across the ruins, Baxter lifted the second humming sword high and then brought it down. Vibrating imperceptibly along its razor-sharp edge it severed his arm cleanly below the elbow, slicing easily through flesh and bone.
Blood sprayed immediately from the wound, coating the concrete slab. Staggering back, Baxter dropped the sword and reached for his necktie. Undoing it clumsily with his remaining hand, Baxter managed to ball what was left of his sleeve over the wound and then tied it off as tight as he could with the tie. Severed from the body, his right hand and forearm rocked gently back and forth. The kill switch on its sleeve started to wail.
“Oh, you chickenshit, fucking-, motherfucker!” Reaper said.
Reaper’s kill switch began to sing as well as the needles hit flesh. Reaper bellowed, muscles bulging, a
nd his eyes seemed to cloud over with bloodlust. Grabbing the hilt of Baxter’s sword again, Reaper ripped it free from the concrete and from his foot without hesitation. He tossed it across the ruins. Bloody footprints were left behind Reaper as he started toward Baxter and raised his gun.
Baxter grabbed the second sword off the ground again and started to run. He tucked his bleeding arm against his jacket. Overhead, the drones still followed his progress even as he left his severed arm behind. The man’s own natural adrenaline seemed to give him a burst of much-needed speed. Reaper fired wildly, bullets tearing holes in the shell of the parking garage above Baxter’s head. Like a rabbit, Baxter fled through a large crack in the wall and kept running. Shouting and roaring, his betrayed partner tried to follow but lost track of Baxter before the drugs overtook him and he expired.
xXx
“Things are heating up fast in the arena, Rick!” One of the commentators said, “Maybe too quick! At this rate we’re going to be through all our contestants and into the endgame before you and I even have a chance to earn our paychecks!”
“They do say a fast game’s a good game, Fred.” The second man said, “Not so good though for the teams of Blight-Chun and Mooney-Boomer though, as both got taken out in some fast and brutal surprise attacks!”
“Our thoughts go out to the Boomer clan, Rick, I know Billy-Bob had a lot of family watching tonight. Family by blood and by marriage, and sometimes by both. A few Kentucky girls are going to be feeling extra blue tonight.” The first man said.
“Of course, all our contestants are competing and dying for a worthy cause, Fred, and that is in the name of some really first class entertainment.” The second commentator said, “But how about that move from Baxter Webley? There’s a twist I didn’t see coming!”
“That’s right, Rick! I didn’t think he had it in him but it seems Baxter was taking some tips from our last season champion, who got rid of his partner the same way!” The first commentator said, “A word to both our audience and remaining contestants, that trick only works once! This season the kill switches have been rigged with an extra level of protection to stop them being removed, and that protection is now active. Try to saw, blow or shoot off your right arm to remove the sleeve and you’ll receive an electric shock that will paralyse you for several seconds! Try too many times and your kill switch will become active!”
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