by John Bruni
“It wasn’t a big deal,” Toby said. He rolled Samuel out of the jet pack. “This thing looks pretty cool. I always wanted one, ever since I was a kid.” Of course, when he’d suggested it to his father as a possible Christmas gift, his father had slapped him around and pushed him down the stairs, muttering under his breath, something about money and ungrateful brats.
Only six years after that, Toby had slit the old man’s throat. Not out of some sense of revenge. It just felt pretty cool.
Wayne staggered to his feet. “It was a very big deal. If you hadn’t shown up, I’d be as dead as him.” He pointed to Samuel.
“He’s not dead yet.” Toby didn’t even look away from the jet pack when he spoke. “He whistles when he breathes.”
As soon as Samuel realized he hadn’t fooled anyone, he tried to stand, but he had no energy left in him. His legs didn’t want to respond to the suggestion of getting up, and he suspected Toby might have nicked his spinal cord.
Samuel crawled toward Toby, his hands stretching out to reach the young man’s legs. His lips moved, as if he cursed the killer who had done this to him, but only a wheezing sound came out of him.
Toby placed the jet pack on the concrete and casually grabbed a handful of Samuel’s hair, turning him so he could look in the hunter’s eyes. In Samuel, he found something he’d never seen in a victim before. Usually, the last emotion his victims felt—he knew this because he always looked them in the eyes—was fear. Samuel’s eyes were rock solid, marbles filled with fire and brimstone. Toby had no doubt that Samuel would have fought to the very last drop. Too bad he didn’t have anything left.
“Sorry, old man.” Toby tapped the tip of his knife against Samuel’s left eye, ever so gently, just enough to scrape his cornea a little. Samuel flinched, but he didn’t have the energy to scream.
Then, Toby eased the blade into Samuel’s iris. The eye punctured and deflated slightly as the knife dug deeper, slowly, into the orb. Samuel wheezed and tried to flail away from Toby’s grip. He didn’t have the strength, and Toby pushed the knife all the way back into Samuel’s brain, ending his life in an instant.
~
The room went dead silent. All eyes stared at Toby’s screen, filled with Samuel’s corpse, the hilt of a hunting knife sticking out of his head like a nail from a board. Blood eased slowly out of him, surrounding him like a chalk outline. Even in death, Samuel’s face remained twisted into a murderous scowl.
Charles finally broke the silence. “He did it. I can’t believe Toby actually did it.”
“It’s about time,” Edward said. A grin shone wetly from his face, lubricated with whiskey. Finally, Samuel was dead. He would no longer call Edward “Eddie” or “Ring-Piece,” and he would never belittle him again. Good fucking riddance.
Elizabeth sighed. “I’ll miss him.”
“In an odd way, so shall I,” Coppergate said. “I hated him, but I truly loved to hate him.”
“He could fuck like a beast,” Elizabeth said. “Had a big dick on him, too. Couldn’t get all of it in me.”
Coppergate ignored her. “He interested me a great deal. He could be annoying during these games, but I did enjoy his presence. He was made from an outdated mold, and therefore could always surprise me. I’ve seen a lot of this world, so surprising me is no easy task. He, and others like him, will be missed.”
“I hated him,” William said. “I found him downright detestable.”
“You chose your assassin well, Charles,” Coppergate said.
“To be honest,” Charles said, “I never would have thought young Toby, so small and ordinary, capable of killing a he-man like Samuel, no matter what my sources said.”
“That’s why he makes such an excellent serial killer,” Coppergate said.
“He’s worth every penny.”
Coppergate smiled. “The game’s not finished.”
~
Wayne felt like gagging as Toby pulled the blade from Samuel’s eye socket, letting blood and other viscous fluid flow freely from the wound. Toby got some on his hands, but he didn’t seem to mind. In fact, as strange as it seemed to Wayne, it appeared that Toby actually enjoyed having blood on him.
Still, no matter how unpleasant Toby seemed now, he’d been the last of the contestants, and Wayne knew he had to stick with Toby, if they were going to take on the rich fucks.
“I guess it’s you and me now,” Wayne said. “The others are dead. Just before this guy killed . . . killed Stacy.” He gulped, remembering. “He told us you were the last.”
“Yes.” Toby stooped down to pick up the jet pack. He slipped his arms through the straps and tightened them around his slender frame until they fit him. He tugged on them and smiled. “The other’s are gone.”
“Then we should come up with a plan,” Wayne said. “We can’t let these rich bastards get away with any of this. They’re just as good as murdering us for their amusement.”
“Great,” Toby said. His voice sounded as neutral as a machine’s. “Any ideas?”
“I hoped you might have some. We’ve been holed up at this mansion for the past few hours. Then, this bastard came along and killed us all.”
Toby wiped the blood from his knife off on Samuel’s coat. “You look like you’re in pain. Are you all right?”
Wayne looked down at his battered and torn body. It hurt, all right, and he could still see glass sticking into his flesh. But it didn’t hurt yet. It would probably cripple him later, when he had the chance to relax and let his body come down from the adrenaline high. “I’m fine, for now.”
Toby nodded as he checked his gleaming knife for spots of blood. “How do you suppose I’d go about killing someone like you with a knife?” His eyes never left the blade.
Wayne had gone through too much to let self-delusion lead him astray. He heard Toby’s words, and his soul clenched. “Come on, man. Don’t.”
Toby turned the knife over and over in his hands. “I saved you without really thinking. I thought it would be fun to rescue you and then surprise the hell out of you by killing you after. But I wasn’t thinking. I forgot about the Red Death. If I get your blood on me, I’ll get it, too, and the billion dollars wouldn’t do me any good.”
Not true, of course, but Wayne didn’t want to disabuse him of the notion. He slowly backed away, his hands up, palms out. “Wait. I’m not the bad guy here. The people who put us in this situation, they’re the bad guys. We should be thinking about taking them down, not killing each other.”
“Oh, I’m a bad guy,” Toby said. He advanced, matching Wayne step for step. “I’ve killed three hundred and twenty-three people—I’m sorry, Samuel is three hundred and twenty-four—and that includes women and children. Would a good guy do that?”
Wayne’s mouth dried up, and he tried to think of something to say. He tried to find a weapon to use. He tried to not trip over his own feet as he walked backwards. He saw the scattered guns around Samuel’s body, but he knew he’d never be able to reach them in time.
“Well?” Toby asked.
“No.” Wayne’s voice croaked so badly he could barely understand himself.
“I eat flesh and drink blood. Would a good guy do that?”
Wayne cleared his throat, and still his voice crawled out of his creaky throat. “No.”
“When I have a lot of time, I like to hone my torture skills on my victims. I can be pretty creative, too. I once tortured an old woman for three days with a sewing pin, a bunch of balloons, and a pair of dirty underwear. Would a good guy do that?”
“No.”
“I’m a bigger monster than any of those rich people could ever dream to be,” Toby said. “Bigger than Samuel Barnabas. Bigger than Richard Coppergate. Why should I kill any of them? Certainly not because they’re evil. Especially since they paid me to be here.”
Oh shit. Wayne stumbled and felt his back come up against a light post. He couldn’t talk Toby out of this. Suddenly, he wished that Samuel had blown his brains out, after all.
“You can’t kill me.” Wayne hated the sound of his own mewling voice. “You’ll get my blood all over you.”
“True,” Toby said. “I don’t want to live like you. I suppose I’ll have to be a little crafty.” He playfully flicked the blade at Wayne’s gut. Wayne sidestepped quickly, but it didn’t look like Toby had really tried to get him, just to scare him.
Wayne stumbled over his own legs, and he went down hard enough to feel a jolt go through his ass and up his spine. With horror, he realized that he couldn’t defend himself. Toby had him at his mercy. Nothing would stop him from killing Wayne.
3
On the way to Wingate’s mansion, Jack looked out the window of the cab and saw something interesting down the block. He nudged Jimmy’s shoulder. “Look.”
Jimmy, bored, glanced out the window. Then, his eyes sharpened, and he leaned forward. “Stop the cab.”
“Here?” the cabbie asked.
“Yes, here! Now!”
The cabbie pulled a lever, and the taxi came to a halt.
Jack held up his hand. “Come on. Hurry!”
The cabbie leaned back, presenting his left hand, and Jack made the transaction as quickly as he could. He and Jimmy then got out and started running toward the Drake mansion.
There, they found Samuel’s body, still warm with the fading remnants of his life.
“Motherfucker,” Jack said. “I wanted to kill him.”
“He killed my friend,” Jimmy said. “You would have had to wait until I’d killed him.”
“The fuck you say.”
Jimmy grunted. “Who do you think beat us to the punch?”
Jack looked down the block and saw two figures by a lamp post. “Could ask them.”
“Is that--?”
“Yeah, Wayne Richards. I think the other might be Toby Munger. It looks like Munger’s going to kill Richards.”
“What should we do? We didn’t plan for anything like this.”
“Well, considering Toby would kill someone to get that billion dollar prize, I’ve got to think he’s an evil son of a bitch. I don’t like evil sons of bitches.”
“I know.”
“On the other hand,” Jack continued, “that killing mind frame of his would do us good, considering how we plan to kill sons of bitches more evil than him.”
“It looks like Wayne Richards is too much of a pussy to fight back,” Jimmy said. “I don’t think he’ll fit in with the whole evil-sons-of-bitches thing. If we let Toby kill him, we might also be, well, you know.” He didn’t want to say it again.
“Good point. But who’s to say Wayne wants to help us out? What if he wants the billion for himself?”
“No, I don’t think so. He’s in the last stage of Red Death. I don’t think he’s going to need a billion dollars.”
Jack nodded. He watched as Wayne fell over, and Toby approached his fallen body, drawing his knife back for a killing blow.
“Hey you!” Jack shouted. “Stop that!”
Toby turned to look at them. “What do you want?”
In that moment, Jack knew he had to kill Toby. Wayne could have very easily taken the opportunity to attack Toby with his back turned, but he didn’t. “You shouldn’t kill that guy,” Jack said. He set down his duffle bag and started rummaging through it.
Toby held the knife by his side in a relaxed grip. “Why not? Do you know how much he’s worth to me dead?”
Jack’s hand fell on a shotgun, but he didn’t take it out yet. “A billion dollars.”
Toby’s eyebrows lifted, and Jack had a good idea that the guy couldn’t have been more surprised. “Did Coppergate send you? I wouldn’t be surprised, now that I’ve finished my part of the bargain.”
“The only one who sent me,” Jack said, “was that dead fuck over there.” He nodded to Samuel’s corpse. “If not for him, I’d be sitting at home right now, eating chips and watching TV.”
By now, Toby had gotten close enough to Jack to attack him, but he made no suspect move. He merely stood still. “Too bad. Maybe you should’ve stayed home.”
“Nope. I don’t have a home anymore—“
“No TV and chips, either,” Jimmy said.
“—and worse than that, Samuel Barnabas killed Steve McNeil.”
Toby smiled, but his eyes remained calm, as serene as a mud puddle. “I saw that. He never saw it coming. One minute, he was looking out across a field. The next, he was static. It brought me that much closer to the billion dollars.” And then he recalled what Jack’s house had looked like through Steve’s eyes. He knew the magic word that would throw this man off his game. “It’s all right, though. I wouldn’t expect a nigger like you to understand something as beautiful as that.”
Jack’s jaw muscles worked like twin pistons next to his ears. Toby saw the anger flow into Jack’s face, and he knew he had to make his move now, while emotions blinded his opponent. Toby whipped the knife up like a snake with one large fang jutting out from its front, and he aimed at Jack’s throat.
Jack’s body tensed as he pulled the shotgun out of the duffel bag. Quick, but not quickly enough. He knew that in the last second, but he still tried to defend himself, even though he knew it would do no good.
Jimmy still had his gun from Jack’s armory, and as Toby flashed forward with his knife, Jimmy drew down and pulled the trigger.
The bullet only grazed Toby’s shoulder, but it still knocked him off course. Instead of opening Jack’s throat from ear to ear, the knife scraped across the sidewalk, bringing up sparks. Yet even though he’d been shot, he rolled with it and came up on his feet, his knife at the ready.
Jimmy didn’t give him another chance. He fired again, this time nailing Toby in the upper chest. The bullet passed through him and punctured the gas tank of the jet pack. It erupted, sending flames up so high they lit the top of Elizabeth Drake’s mansion. The explosion blew Jack and Jimmy back, and when they looked up, all that remained of Toby were two legs standing, their tops cauterized and smoking, leaning against each other for a split second before they toppled over.
~
Toby’s screen fizzled out, and after a moment of static, it went dark. All eyes shifted to the final screen, Wayne’s.
“Two years in a row,” Elizabeth said. “Not bad.”
“It’s good to have a winner for a change,” William said.
“Not a bad game this year,” Charles said. “A bit quick for my likes. We still had thirteen hours left, you know.”
“It was still pretty entertaining,” William said.
“Speaking of, I believe you owe me a good twenty million.” Charles held out his left hand.
“Hold on, Charles,” William said. “Wayne Richards didn’t kill Toby Munger.”
“It doesn’t matter,” Charles said. “We didn’t bet on who would do the killing. We bet on who would win.”
“William, give him his money and be silent,” Coppergate said. When they stopped bickering, he reached to the microphone on the control panel.
~
“That was fucking close,” Jack said. He looked down at Toby’s remains, and he couldn’t believe the little guy had almost gotten him. “Thanks, Jimmy.”
“I was point blank, and I still almost missed,” Jimmy said. “I’m a lousy shot.”
Jack clapped his friend on the shoulder and squeezed. “It was good enough. You saved my life, Monaghan.”
In a near echo, Wayne said, “You guys saved my life. Thank you.”
Both of them watched as Wayne limped toward them, covered in blood and shards of glass.
“I really hope you’re not here to kill me,” Wayne said. “I don’t think I could take that again.”
“Just don’t be an asshole, Wayne, and we’ll get along fine.”
Wayne looked at Jack. “How did you know my name?”
“We’re friends of Steve McNeil,” Jimmy said. “We did some research on this whole . . . game, I guess you could call it.”
“That’s a good
sign,” Wayne said. “It sounds like you guys might have a plan.”
“Hell yeah,” Jack said. “First, though, we need to patch you up. You look like you swam in a pool full of broken glass.”
Wayne didn’t hear that last part. A sudden, loud flare of static exploded in his right ear, enough to drop him to his knees with a scream. He slapped a hand to his throbbing ear, and his palm felt wet. He didn’t need to look at it to know it was blood.
A voice boomed inside his head loud enough to rattle his teeth. “Congratulations. You are this year’s winner, Mr. Richards.”
Wayne screamed again as everything in his head vibrated. “Stop! Please!”
Jack and Jimmy exchanged a glance. They would have thought Wayne crazy if not for the tiny sound of a voice—almost like a radio transmission—coming from Wayne.
“In a moment,” Coppergate said. “I want you to wait where you are, and I will have someone pick you up and bring you back so we can remove the explosive from your neck. It should not take long. Then, you’ll be awarded your prize.”
Finally, the voice ceased, leaving what sounded like a bell ringing in his head. After a moment, the ringing faded into a deafening silence.
“You okay?” Jack asked. He offered his hand.
Wayne checked to make sure his right hand didn’t have any blood on it before he let Jack pull him to his feet.
“What happened?” Jimmy asked. “You’re bleeding from your ear.”
“I heard some kind of transmission,” Jack said. “Was that Coppergate? What did he say?”
It took Wayne a moment to get his bearings, but when he did, he explained everything.
Then, Jack said, “Cover your right eye and ear. I’ve got to tell you something.”
“Uh . . . why?”
“That’s how they’ve been watching you,” Jack said. “I don’t want them to hear what I’m saying. They probably can’t read lips, but just to be safe, I need to cut off their visual, too.”
“Okay.” Wayne put his left hand over his right eye, and then he jammed his index finger from his right hand into that ear. It mellowed the pain, a little.
“We can’t have anyone pick you up,” Jack said. “We need to come up with a plan first.”