by John Bruni
“In twenty-four hours,” Coppergate continued, “if there is no clear winner, the survivors will be destroyed. I suggest you use your time wisely. Any questions?”
Wayne stood up. “Yeah. Is this how Eddie got his money out of the blue? He won this . . . this game of yours?”
“Yes,” Coppergate said.
“What about the rest of you?” Stacy asked.
“No,” Coppergate said. “The rest of us are old money, so to speak. In the past ten years, no one else has won.”
“The bomb got the others?”
Coppergate smiled again. “That would be telling. Now, in the interest of time, we’re going to have to bid each other adieu. Good luck, and may the festivities begin.”
He pressed a button, and the room filled with gas. A couple of screams rang out, and Skank flailed around, trying to hold her breath, but they were all out in a matter of seconds.
Chapter 3
Edward watched as a team of doctors entered the room—their faces obscured by masks—and hauled the unconscious contestants out of the room like they were moving furniture. He rubbed his eyes, remembering when he’d been in that position, and the acrid taste of gas seethed in the back of his throat. If felt like someone had wrapped a plunger handle in sandpaper and tried to ram it down his esophagus. He swallowed, trying to banish the sensation, to no avail.
Samuel clapped a hand down on Edward’s shoulder, causing him to jolt slightly. “Sweet memories, eh, Ring-Piece?”
“Fuck off.”
Samuel chuckled, but his humor sounded bitter and empty. “Time to get ready for the hunt. Have fun.”
He then turned his back on Edward, swaggering toward Martin. “I’ll kill your kid first. If you want me to, that is.”
Martin didn’t look up from his shoes. “It doesn’t matter to me.”
This time, Samuel howled with genuine laughter. “Nice attitude. I almost like you. I’ll catch you later, Marty.” Then, he went about his rounds, saying his goodbyes before heading to his limo outside.
Edward sighed, glad to watch Samuel leave. He looked through the glass into the other room, which now stood empty. The vents shuddered and pounded, hard at work clearing the air.
“Are you enjoying yourself thus far?”
Edward turned toward Coppergate, who had spoken, and nearly gagged when he saw the old man. Coppergate’s gnarled hands gripped the armrests of his wheelchair while his assistant held his dick in one hand and a bedpan in the other.
In complete contrast to Coppergate’s shriveled body, his dick stood out vibrantly, full of vim and vigor. He grew them from his stem cells and DNA from porn stars. The average life of one of his dicks was half a year. They tended to turn a bit greenish after three months, but he managed to keep them from rotting completely for a bit longer than that. The one his assistant now held looked fresh, the best of his transplants yet, despite the nest of scars where pubic hair should have been. The assistant had no trouble aiming ten inches of thick, flaccid cock at the porcelain pan. Red-tinted urine flowed from one to the other.
Edward didn’t know how she could stand doing that, but he figured she bathed him and wiped his ass, so it couldn’t be too bad. She kept a poker face, so at the very least, she was used to it.
Still, he averted his eyes to a painting on the wall. He thought it might be a Monet, but he didn’t know art that well. “It’s pretty good, being on this side of the game.”
“I suggest you enjoy it,” Coppergate said. “I don’t think it will last very long this year.”
“But Samuel—“
“It doesn’t matter. One way or another, the numbers will be whittled down rather quickly. It should only be a scant few hours.”
“If you say so.”
“Nevertheless,” Coppergate continued, “no matter how short this year’s game will be, I’m confident that it will be the most exciting we’ve had in a long time.” The urine stopped flowing, and his assistant shook him dry before covering up his nakedness.
Out of the corner of his eye, Edward saw that Elizabeth had been watching this whole grotesque display with a smile on her face, yet when Coppergate’s member was hidden, she looked away, almost disappointed.
“It would be a bit more exciting if we could gamble, like in the previous years,” Charles said. “I’m afraid that without money on the line, it will be dreadfully boring.”
“Why not bet?” William asked.
Charles looked at William as if he’d said something about giving his fortune to charity and then living off the land. “What good will it be to bet on a fixed game?”
“I know, I know,” William said, “but that still doesn’t take into account other factors.”
“Such as?”
“It’s altogether possible that the fix might not work. You know how nasty, resourceful and cunning Samuel can be.”
“The files he has have been doctored,” Charles said. “When a hunter like Samuel doesn’t have all the information, he can’t very well expect to succeed, can he?”
“Samuel’s smart, though.”
“Smart be damned! What, do you want to make a bet against the fix?”
William laughed, but his voice sounded broken, and he couldn’t meet Charles’s eyes. “Let’s not be hasty. All I mean to say is, maybe this won’t work. Maybe we can make a few wagers after all.”
Edward’s head pounded slightly as they continued the argument. He rubbed at his temples and barely noticed it when Elizabeth leaned toward him. “Remember what we were talking about?”
He sighed. “Look, I’m almost out. I only have a couple of vials, and one of them is almost empty. We have a long way to go before this game is over.”
“You’re full of shit,” she said.
He shrugged.
“Fine. I’ll let you see my tits.”
“What am I, in fucking high school? I’ve seen tits before.”
“You haven’t seen mine.”
“Tell you what. You let me fuck you, and I’ll give you a whole vial for yourself.”
She withdrew from him, her eyes aflame. “No deal.”
A part of him wondered if maybe he’d fumbled this one, but fuck it. If she wanted the coke badly enough, she’d come around. The two of them, along with Coppergate, watched William and Charles argue, while Martin sat in the corner, still looking at his shoes, and George sat next to him, polishing his greasy glasses with a sweat-stained shirt tail.
“Consider this,” William said. “Instead of betting on who will win, why don’t we bet on who dies first?”
“Samuel already said he’d kill Martin’s boy first,” Charles said. “What good is that?”
“Maybe one of the other contestants will find another of the group first.”
“And maybe Samuel will stay home tonight. William, that’s ridiculous.”
“It’ll give us something to do.”
“Fine. In that case, I’ll bet that the ni—the black boy gets killed first. I’ll be nice and make it a mere hundred thousand. Anyone want to take that bet?”
Martin didn’t even flinch.
“A hundred thousand?” William asked. “Why not make the first bet a gentleman’s wager? All things considered.”
Things started getting heated between them, and Edward closed his eyes, hoping the slight throbbing in his temples would go away. He remembered back to a year ago, when he’d been a contestant in this game, and he tried to remember the other people he’d been competing against. As with this year, there had been plenty of homeless people and fuckslingers, but no one really stood out except for the circus strongman.
Edward remembered that back then, it had come down to just him and the strongman. Samuel had been taken out of the picture by then, since he’d caught the hunter by surprise with the .22. He’d shot Samuel in the head, except he should have checked to make sure he’d done the job right.
At the final hour, the strongman had come lumbering out of an alleyway with murder in his eyes. Edward remem
bered his butthole clenching in terror, despite the fact that he still had almost all of his bullets for the gun. He’d fired every single one of them, and they’d all found their mark in the strongman’s chest . . . except the giant still staggered toward him.
In the end, the strongman had broken Edward’s right arm and three of his ribs before Edward managed to jam the barrel of the gun through one of the strongman’s eyes, where the sight scrambled enough of his brains to kill him.
Even though he’d been a finalist, Edward hadn’t killed anyone to get there. The strongman had been his first, but when he discovered that his act of murder had won him a billion dollars, his heart soared with elation. He hadn’t killed anyone since then, but he knew he could, if he needed to, especially if the financial stakes were high.
Charles and William came to an agreement. The wager would, indeed, be a hundred thousand. Charles had Barry, and William had an innocent bystander, which was a safe bet. Every game had its share of accidental deaths.
Before long, the dark screens on the wall flickered to life, one by one, and the rich fucks settled in to watch as the poor bastards started their journeys through their various filth-ridden worlds, meeting with pimps, fuckslingers, the homeless, and a cast of hundreds more.
Chapter 4
1
At first, Stacy couldn’t move, not even to open her eyes. The gas had rendered her completely motionless, but it hadn’t taken away her consciousness, not entirely. She knew she’d been dropped in the alley where the kidnappers had first picked her up. She could feel the cold pavement against her bare flesh. And she could hear two assholes talking as they stood over her.
“That’s a hot piece. Young, too.”
“Take those off.”
She felt their clammy hands yanking down her shorts, and the cool breeze of the evening air chilled her bare pussy. Hard pebbles bit into her buttocks as she tried to lift her arms up, to fight off her assailants.
“Dude! What the fuck are those?”
“I’ve never seen anything like that. What do you think they are?”
Ah. They’d seen the sores. Maybe she wouldn’t be violated after all. She found it shocking to think the only thing that would save her from being raped would be her disease.
“Well, I’m not fucking that, man. I like my dick too much.”
Silence. Then, the other guy said, “We don’t have to fuck her with our dicks. We could do other stuff.”
Oh fuck.
“Like what?”
Stacy heard metal scraping across the pavement. It stopped when it reached the area between her legs. One of the guys laughed. “Think this’ll fit?”
“No way. That’s . . . don’t do that.”
“Come on. I know this chick. She’s a fuckslinger. She don’t care what goes in her pussy.”
“I don’t know. That might kill her.”
Stacy strained to open her eyes, desperate and afraid to see whatever they were talking about. She thought if maybe she could see it, it wouldn’t be so bad. Just knowing would help. The vagueness made her sick.
“So what? She does nothing but take dick from dawn till dusk. No one’s going to miss her. Besides, I want to see how far I can get this thing in.”
She felt freezing metal touch her labia, and if she could, she would have shivered. She begged a god she didn’t think existed to stop them from doing this to her. Pain shot through her pussy as it started entering her, popping some of her sores as it went.
“Aw, man! That’s fucking gross! Stop.”
“Nah. The pus’ll help us get it in further. It’s, like, lubricant.”
The darkness of Stacy’s vision cracked slightly, and she could see two foggy forms standing over her. One of them held a very long piece of metal, but she still couldn’t tell what it was.
She tried to talk, but she could only manage a small squeak.
“Dude, I think she’s waking up. We should get the fuck out of here.”
“Stop being such a faggot. I almost have the tip in.”
Finally, Stacy felt a scream painfully crawl from her throat as her eyes popped wide open. She sat up, blinking the blur from her vision.
“Oh shit! Run!”
She heard the metal object clank to the ground as the two would-be rapists ran as fast as they could away from her. Only then did she see what they’d been trying to stick into her, and she shuddered.
Between her legs rested a forgotten damaged piece of the road track. It was about six feet long and as thick as the average forearm with a curved, hooked end, which rested almost against her pussy lips. She didn’t want to think about what would have happened if they’d succeeded in getting the hook into her.
Dazed, she looked around for her shorts and found them in a pile of garbage. She took a moment to evaluate her dripping sores before pulling the shorts up. Casting her mind back to before she’d been kidnapped, she remembered her last john of the evening. He’d been a fat mouth-breather with a pigtail dick. She’d insisted on fucking with the lights out, so he wouldn’t notice the sores. Now, she didn’t think anyone could miss them, not even a blind man.
Fuck. That old bastard hit the nail on the head. She needed money to deal with this shit. She had no doubt that her pussy would rot and fall out if she didn’t get this taken care of. She didn’t want to think of that.
Instead, she had to figure out how she could find the others and kill them as quickly as possible. She flicked her vision to the side and saw the time. She also saw a countdown clock, which she assumed those rich fuckers had put in her. According to this, she had about twenty-two hours and change to go.
She felt a sudden anger come over her. Not at the rich people who had kidnapped her, or even at the guys who had tried to rape her with a piece of road track. No, she suddenly hated the others, the ones who had been kidnapped with her. She felt hungry for their blood and wanted to hunt them down so she could get her prize . . . but she had no idea on how to do it.
She tried to access her social media, but then she remembered what the old guy had said. Some programs were back, but others wouldn’t open. She couldn’t even access her online map.
Did she know anyone who could help her? She certainly didn’t have friends, unless you counted Susie, a cross-dresser from the Sleaze Strip, or maybe Don, the guy who had dicks for fingers and liked to fuck himself with them for money. But they were more like acquaintances.
Well, there was King James, but he would demand a hefty price for his aid and succor. Maybe, just maybe, it would be worth it, though.
Stacy stepped forward, but when her open sores scraped up against the rough material of her shorts, she felt a nearly crippling pain. She pressed her hand against her crotch, and this helped out a bit as she made her way home.
2
Once Stacy made it to her apartment, she went to her bathroom and cleaned herself up. She didn’t have much by way of medical supplies, but she had enough to stop her sores from dripping, and she used a couple of pads to cover up the worst patch, so she’d be able to walk without hurting too much.
She took a moment to look around her apartment, a studio with a bathroom small enough to be a closet. The paint curled and cracked on the walls. Every time she turned on the lights, roaches scattered for their hiding places. Even though she’d lived here three years, the urine-stink of the previous owner still lingered. She thought about the billion dollars again, and it only solidified her desire to murder the other contestants.
She dressed in her most provocative outfit—but one that wouldn’t betray her health issues—and set out for King James’s place, bracing herself for whatever she’d have to put up with in order to get what she wanted.
When she’d first started working the streets on her own, King James had wanted to take her under his wing. She didn’t want to work for a pimp, so she told him to fuck off. He didn’t take rejection well, so he beat her ass and threatened to cut off her whore nose, but when she let him fuck her a few times, he figured they w
ere even.
King James ran fuckslingers and drugs, but she figured it wouldn’t be out of the question for him to be able to get a hold of a gun on short notice.
She arrived at the hotel King James owned, and when she tried to get past the front desk, a couple of guards stopped her.
“I need to see the King.”
“So do a lot of other folks,” one of them said. “Get your skanky ass out of here.”
She’d expected as much from this guy, so much so that she didn’t feel offended in the slightest. “Tell him Stacy Bartlett’s here. He’ll want to talk to me.”
The guards exchanged a glance. The first seemed bewildered, but the other one must have recognized her. He nodded, and the first one said, “I’ll tell him. He says no, I’m booting your booty to the gutter.”
He left, and the other guard kept an eye on her. They didn’t speak as they waited. Stacy saw the blue circle on the guy’s face and his ID, and she felt grateful for the return of that particular program.
The first one came back and said, “You in luck, girl. Follow me.”
The two of them went into a service elevator and took it to the top floor. After that, they went down a long hallway to the door at the end. Just before they entered, the guard gave her a pat-down. His hands lingered a bit too long on her tits, giving them a gratuitous squeeze, in case she’d hidden a gun behind her nipples, but she didn’t mention it.
Only then did he let her into the King’s chambers. As she entered, she saw King James hanging upside down like a bat from a bar attached to a wide doorframe. Straps around his ankles held him in place as he swayed back and forth, his tiny dick jutting stoutly out from a patch of thick pubic hair. A woman stood on each side of the threshold. The one at his back—a horned girl with demon wings and three tits—massaged his entire body with careful precision, and the one at his front—who had fangs and three snake eyes—recited poetry from a big black book while jabbing her long fingers into three of her four pussies right next to his face.