by Platt, Sean
End it now.
Please.
I’ve got nothing.
My family is gone. My mother is dead. Please, God, just kill me before they do.
The laughter was followed by spitting, and then, the unmistakable warm stream and stench of urine. One, or maybe all — he couldn’t tell — were pissing on him.
Adam struggled to get up but was kicked hard again, this time in the back.
He screamed out, this time loud enough to bring a counselor. He didn’t even care if a knife followed.
“Let’s go!” Morgan said to the others, and they left the stall.
Adam stayed perfectly still, afraid of moving until they were gone.
He heard them leave the bathroom and was about to sit up and turn around when he felt Tommy’s blade back at his throat and his other hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Just so you know,” Tommy whispered in his ear. “You even think about ratting us out ever again, we’ll fucking END you. Got it, freak?”
Adam whimpered yes, and then Tommy retreated.
He waited until he heard the bathroom door shut and then turned around and stood up. He shuffled slowly to the sink, hoping both that someone would come and that nobody would. He didn’t know which would be worse.
He turned on a sink and began to wash the blood and piss from himself, one eye on the mirror in shame.
Suddenly the bathroom door opened.
Adam gulped as Brian Bob, the heavyset counselor with the goatee, who was sometimes nice and oftentimes not, met his gaze in the mirror.
“What the hell? Is that you, Lovecraft?” he said.
“Yes, Mr. Brian.”
“What happened?” Mr. Bob said, moving toward him and looking around the bathroom. His eyes caught the piss and vomit on the floor and then came back up to Adam’s many bruises and cuts. “Who did this?”
“I can’t say. They’ll kill me.”
“Come on, we’re going to the nurse’s office.”
Adam was allowed to shower and sleep in the nurse’s office after she put ointments on his wounds and gave him some pills to ease the pain.
Mr. Bob, who had been extra kind to Adam following the ordeal, continued to ask questions. Adam felt bad that he couldn’t say anything. But if his “friends” had nearly killed him over something as small as ratting them out for stealing food, what would they do if he ratted on them for this?
This was serious shit. But Adam didn’t know if it rose to the occasion of being serious enough to get the kids put in prison, and that was the only way he could ensure his safety. Without knowing that, he didn’t dare say a word.
After a breakfast of a hot roll and meat links that Mr. Bob brought to him, Mr. Bob returned and asked Adam to go with him to the schoolmaster’s office.
Adam walked down the hall, telling himself over and over that no matter what, he’d have to stay strong and keep quiet to the schoolmaster, also.
Tell no one.
But when the door opened to schoolmaster’s office, it wasn’t Barnum sitting behind the desk.
Once again it was Mr. Keller.
“Good morning, young Lovecraft,” he said. “I hear you’ve been having some trouble.”
CHAPTER 26 — Anastasia Lovecraft
Ana woke up to confusion as Kirkman’s voice was piped into the box surrounding her. In a monitor above her, she saw Liam and the child in their own separate boxes.
When Kirkman announced that they were in a new mini-game, Ana knew only one thing — someone was about to die.
The barn doors opened, and Ana was momentarily blinded by sudden beams of brilliant light interrupted by shuffling shadows which gave way to the influx of zombies.
No!
Liam’s screams over the monitor in the roof of her plastic cell pulled her attention up to it rather than over to his box. On the center screen, Kirkman smiled from ear to ear. The other two showed Liam and the child. Liam was still screaming, now mostly obscenities. The girl was screaming too, backing from one corner into another as zombies surrounded her.
Zombies poured into the barn, splintering into three clusters, each headed straight for the boxes. Ana lost herself to the first scream as a pair of zombies slammed the plastic cell, jostling it. Surprised by the sudden sway, she made a small, involuntarily jump into the air, like a cat on coals, screaming without wanting to.
Zombies were everywhere, so thick Ana no longer saw the barn door. They clawed at all three boxes. The girl’s screams were so loud that they crackled in the speakers, twisting a blade into Ana’s guts. Liam stopped screaming and was instead silently glaring at the swarm of undead outside his plastic wall, likely thinking he was safe — though Ana had to assume Liam was smart enough to know the mini-game was only beginning.
Kirkman’s voice blared through the speaker in her box, as if to answer her immediate fear. “Are you all ready to play The Killing Choice? I hope SO, because the members in our studio audience are hanging by the edges of their seats! Let’s go over the rules, both for you and the fine folks watching at home. First, the good news, Anastasia. You’re gonna live through this game. Isn’t that GREAT?”
Kirkman laughed as if the planet spun on an axis made of his ego. Ana stared at the monitor, narrowing her eyes and letting Kirkman know how much she hated him, as she waited for the other shoe to drop.
“But,” Kirkman said, about to drop said shoe, “and you just KNEW there’d be a BIG but, now didn’t ya, Ana? BUT…one of your friends will NEVER make it out of the barn — at least not alive.”
Kirkman cackled again.
Liam screamed, “You fuck–” getting his audio cut before he finished his tirade.
“Such filthy language,” Kirkman tutted. “Good LORD, young man, don’t you know there are children watching back in The City? Now,” he said, as The Darwin Game’s sweeping score swelled behind him. “On with the rules! Ana, you’re responsible for choosing who lives and who dies. In a few minutes you’ll be asked to push the monitor above you — either Liam’s or Charlotte’s.”
So, that’s her name.
“The choice is yours, but the killing is theirs!” Kirkman laughed, and Ana wondered if he actually thought that was funny. “The box you choose will be opened and exposed to the 3o zombies swarming in the barn! That unlucky ‘winner’ isn’t likely to make it, though we suppose anything is possible. However, you and whoever you spare will then be escorted under the barn to an escape tunnel leading straight to safety!”
The score crescendoed, and Ana stared at the screen. Charlotte’s eyes welled with tears, knowing her odds were slim. Charlotte wasn’t only new to their group, but she was young and couldn’t protect her like Liam, even if she’d already saved her life once.
“This isn’t fair!” Ana screamed. “She’s only a child.”
Kirkman said, “Awwww, such compassion from a murderer’s little girl. Well, let’s see how compassionate you truly are, Anastasia Lovecraft. Because there IS a third option.”
Yes, what is it? Give me another option.
Ana dared to hope, though she knew a tease when she heard it.
“Not picking either box within the 60 seconds given means automatically selecting your own box. This will instantly spare your opponents, taking them down to the tunnel below the barn while you stay topside and earn your survival from more than two dozen zombies!”
Ana didn’t want Kirkman to have the joy of breaking her, and didn’t want the audience to see it. She tried everything to keep from crying, screaming, or showing any expression at all, but another zombie ran at her box, forgetting about the translucent wall between her and the rest of the world. The zombie slammed hard enough against the plastic to splatter it with a bloody smear. She swallowed her rising bile as the box swayed, making her wonder how much longer she had before it fell, or worse, broke apart.
She wondered if her cell would even sustain 60 seconds of zombies smashing into it.
“Now,” Kirkman said, “I’m going to give each player a chance to
beg for their life. First, your City 6 mate and secret Underground lover boy, Liam!”
Ana was already crying out as his monitor went live. “I don’t know what to do, Liam.”
His face was serious, eyes meeting hers. “I know it’s a tough call, Ana, but you’ve gotta open the girl’s box. I’m not saying this to spare my life; believe me, I don’t give a fuck. I’m dead anyway. Until that happens, I’m the best chance you have at staying alive. Choose the girl and you’re both dead.”
Kirkman interrupted. “And they say chivalry is dead, ladies and gentleman. ‘Kill the child, spare me instead.’ Ah, Liam Harrow is a knight in shining armor!” Kirkman cackled. “Do you kiss the ladies with those slippery lips? I tell ya, folks, these Underground scum have NO decency!”
The audience, being the eager sheep they were, booed. The camera panned across the crowd, and Ana saw the rage etched in their faces. She wondered how people could feel so much hate and rage toward strangers.
“Fu — ” Liam started to say before his audio went dead.
“Charlotte Gray,” Kirkman commanded, “plead your case!”
The girl looked up to her monitor, staring into the tiny green dot at the top that would capture her voice and broadcast her words, if only she could make them. Between her river of tears, her missing tongue, and the shrill, sudden scream as another zombie slammed into the side of her box, every one of her sounds was further proof she was not fit for The Games.
“Oh yeah,” Kirkman cackled, “I’m afraid the kitty’s been playing with Charlotte’s tongue for far too long! Let’s all imagine together: If she could speak, surely she would say something like, ‘Please, please, not me! Anyone but me! I’m just a little girl!’”
The audience laughed, fueling Ana to almost uncontrollable anger. She had to stay measured. Her father had told Kirkman to fuck himself, but with the Network pulling strings and three lives in the balance, the bastards wouldn’t need much of an excuse to end the mini-game with all of them dead.
She glared at the monitor, biting her tongue.
Kirkman said, “OK, Ana, have you made your decision? Will it be your boyfriend or the poor, innocent child?”
Ana continued to stare at the monitors. Liam was speaking, likely with no clue that she couldn’t hear a word. The girl stared at Ana from her monitor, hands cupped as if in prayer, pleading with her eyes.
Ana’s guilt rose into full bloom as she remembered scaring the girl away when she first encountered her in the woods. Ana hadn’t meant to be so cruel. She’d only wanted to scare the girl away, to protect her. And now, ironically, after the girl saved her and Liam’s lives, her own was on the line. In a just world, Ana would save the girl and leave Liam — the man who got her into this whole mess — to fend for himself.
But nobody ever claimed this was a just world. And if Ana died, who would be there for Adam?
Still, Ana couldn’t imagine opening the child’s door. There was no way the girl could survive a zombie attack. At least if she opened Liam’s door, he might stand a chance of making it out of the barn alive.
Kirkman’s voice cut through Ana’s thoughts. “One more thing, Little Miss Lovecraft. In order to make such an important decision, you need all the information available.” His bright tone went brighter as he said, “Which is why I think you need to see this!”
The screen broadcasting Liam in his box went black, then back to bright as it played a recording of him marching into a City Watch office. He was refusing to spy on The Underground any longer.
He had been a traitor!
To The Underground and — to her father.
Ana stared at the screen in openmouthed shock.
The screen cut back to Liam in the box, silence screaming from his mouth as he protested.
“Yes,” Kirkman said. “Seems your sexy lover Liam was really a spy working against The Underground. How’s that for a WOW moment, ladies and gentleman?”
The audience oohed.
Ana wasn’t sure if Liam heard her, but she stared not at the monitor above, but right at him, glaring through the plastic. “How could you?”
She didn’t finish with “betray my father?” since The Games had never announced Jonah as an Underground rebel, and Ana didn’t want to risk anything happening to her father in City 7 if word got out.
If Liam was a spy for City Watch, maybe he was responsible for her father’s framing. Perhaps it was he, not she, who was to blame for those deaths at Duncan’s church. Perhaps — Ana shuddered at the thought — he was also responsible for her mother’s death.
Ana swallowed, blinking back tears as she continued to glare at Liam.
You did this!
Liam kept screaming, punching the plastic, his face red and raging.
Ana repeated: “How could you?”
Kirkman said, “So, Anastasia, are you READY to decide? Remember, you’ve only got 60 seconds, which we’ll be counting down on the center monitor. You can open Charlotte’s box at any time by simply pressing her screen and sending the itty bitty girl from City 2 into the zombies’ mauling arms, or…you can punish your lover for his shocking betrayal by pressing his screen and feeding The Underground scum to the starving zombies! The choice is yours, Lovely Lovecraft.”
Large white numbers appeared against a black screen on the center screen.
“The time is on the clock, and we’re starting…NOW!”
The monitor ticked life away for either Liam or Charlotte, demanding that a decision be made.
60…59…58…
Ana went back and forth in her mind, waffling between Charlotte and Liam.
No straight line; no right, wrong, or easy decision.
She had to decide.
Who to kill? Man or child? Friend or stranger?
New friend or traitor?
45…44…43…
A broth of rage bubbled inside her as Ana turned her head from one screen to the other, hating Kirkman, The Games and the universe for thrusting the awful choice upon her.
Liam had betrayed her father. But he had saved her as well. It also seemed that he had purposely surrendered his freedom at the exact moment she was losing hers, thrusting himself into The Games.
Why would he do that?
Did he do it for me?
34…33…32…
Would a traitor do that?
29…28…27…
She stared at Charlotte’s monitor and the girl’s sad eyes. She’d been through so much in her short life.
How can I do this to her?
She’s so young. So innocent.
And Liam is so guilty.
17…16…15…
Maybe there’s more to the story than what Kirkman is showing?
10…9…8…
There has to be some logical explanation. Maybe it’s what Liam is trying to scream, and that’s why they’re silencing his monitor.
But The Games left few seconds for details.
5…4…3…2…
Ana swallowed hard as she slammed her hand onto Charlotte’s monitor, collapsing to her knees in a flood of tears and staring up at the screen rather than at the little girl’s box, unable to look directly into her decision, but unwilling to grant herself full pardon from the horror.
Her speaker screamed and crackled as Charlotte curdled her lungs at the zombies bursting into the safety of her cell.
Most of the carnage was buried beneath a sea of undead bodies, swarming in front of the lens as Charlotte drowned in their waves. Ana heard every sound and imagined what was happening under the ripping flesh as it echoed against the plastic walls, one zombie after another reaching into her twitching body — as evidenced by her visible and still shaking feet — and pulling handfuls of gore from the little girl’s body before shoving her pieces into their mouths, groaning and growling and moaning from their bloody maws as blood painted the inside of the plastic box.
One zombie pawed at another, tearing Charlotte’s intestines from its hands, then violently stuffing the
pile into its mouth. Ana lost her vomit. She turned, splattering plastic with green-and-yellow paint as she held her side and retched again.
Charlotte’s box disappeared on the monitor above, along with Liam’s and the expired countdown, then Kirkman’s face filled every screen, along with his cackling voice.
“Ah, folks, we’ve got a coldhearted killer here — no mercy from this one! Look out, players, the apple does NOT fall far from the murdering tree! Anastasia Lovecraft will kill anyone in her way, including teeny tiny little girls, and even after they saved her miserable life! I’d boo if this Game wasn’t SO MUCH FUN!”
The audience laughed, then Kirkman grew mock serious: “Can Ana kill her lover when she must? Will she be able to forgive him before one of them dies, or are things between them different forever?”
Ana looked over to Liam’s box. He was staring down at the ground, away from the camera.
Good, hide your face in shame. Asshole.
Both of their boxes began to descend into the tunnels below.
Ana forced herself to look back at the carnage that had been a child 60 seconds before.
Oh God, what have I done?
CHAPTER 27 — Jonah Lovecraft
Jonah had no idea how long he was alone before Calla finally came into his room with food and water. Like before, she shoved bites into his mouth, chasing each swallow with a roughly poured stream of water, more of which got onto Jonah’s coveralls than down his throat. He noticed almost immediately, however, that something was different.
Calla seemed gentler. More than that, there seemed to be a new and odd understanding in her eyes. He said nothing as she fed him, but once finished, Jonah asked Calla if she had seen The Games. After two minutes of awkward small talk, he followed his first question with the one on his mind, almost painful as he pushed it from his throat.
“Is Ana still alive?”
“Yes,” Calla nodded. “For now. She was put into a barn with her lover, Liam, and a lil’ girl, Charlotte.”
“Lover? Liam Harrow? From City 6?”
“Yes, they’re workin’ together. They’re lovers, both workin’ in The City 6 Underground.”