The Survival Game

by Stavro Yianni

  Oncology? Isn’t that cancer, re?

  Yeah, onkos is Greek for tumour… so it must be something to do with cancer…

  Moleface/old man had by then made it to the end of the corridor. John put his head down and moved closer to the near wall, almost hugging it, wanting to stay low. When he reached the end of the corridor, he looked up. And when he did, what surrounded him hit him like he’d just been slapped with a wet fish. The corridor opened out into a much wider area, with chairs arranged around a big TV set that was showing some cookery skata. The chef—sporting a fat pair of horns—was tossing a pancake, the horned hosts giggling and jiggling around him like little devilish imps. Sitting on the chairs watching the TV were people, a lot of couples, mainly an older bunch. And there seemed to be a lot more haloes than horns here, in fact hardly any horns at all. But there was more to it than just that. John found himself staring trancelike at an old haloed woman who had a bulge in her neck the size of a tennis ball. It was a black, putrid mass of beetles that crawled and writhed, chewing away at the flesh on her neck. He tore his stare away to be met by a haloed middle-aged man who was slumped in his chair, with—John presumed—his wife next to him, wearing a red poncho. She held his hand with loving tenderness. Thin black lines branched up this man’s arms and neck like tattoos. When John looked again, he realised that he was staring at his veins. And that was the norm here. Black, pulsing tumours, and infected blood. Evil beetles and demonic flies eating people away like they were on today’s menu. And even behind his shades, John could see it all as clear as day.

  His eyes then flicked over to the middle-aged man’s wife, and he now noticed the same black lines but thinner and shorter, fusing around her left temple, branching out of a very small black spot the size of a penny. His instincts told him that he was the only person in the world who knew it was there.

  He couldn’t take any more. He closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead, his whole head suddenly feeling swimmy like he’d just had a hit of some kind of toxic gas.

  I can see it, gamota. I can see their illnesses. I can see their cancer. I’m a fucking walking X-Ray machine!

  He let out a scared, shaky sigh. He didn’t want to see it. Didn’t want to see this suffering. Why was this happening? Why am I seeing this skata?

  Then, a stern voice shouted at him from somewhere deep inside his core, the voice that had survived thirty-two years including philaki and a brief stint in the strato. Never mind that now, re, it said. Get your shit together! You’re here for Moleface, nothing else, so go after him!

  He took in a deep breath and opened his eyes again, nodding his head. It was true. Moleface was the reason he was here. And he had to be strong and just take whatever it was he could see like a man. He scanned the room, doing his best to ignore all the waiting patients. Moleface and the old man were standing by the square reception desk in the centre of the waiting room. They were speaking with the receptionist, but John was too far away to hear what they were saying. He made a beeline for the bookstand to the right of the reception area. He picked off a Stephen King paperback, opened it up, and stuck his nose in it, his attention though fixed firmly on Moleface.

  ‘If you take a seat, the doctor will see you soon,’ the receptionist said to him.

  ‘Thank you,’ said Moleface.

  John turned a page of the book he held while he waited for them to sit down. So, this old man’s got the big C, and Moleface brings him here for his treatment. But who was the old man? He slowly turned around, his head still stuck in the book. When he faced them fully, he flicked his eyes upwards. Cancer greeted him again in all its putrid grotesquerie. He tried his level best to ignore it all, scanning the area with quick eye movements. Moleface/old man had taken seats in the middle of the room, facing the TV. John wanted to be as close to them as possible. So he stuck his nose back in the book, acting like he was captivated by what he was reading, and walked inconspicuously around the perimeter of the room, not wanting them to notice him. Nurses and doctors walked by him, busily going about their daily routines. They disappeared and reappeared through doors embedded in all of the walls of the room. John got a sneaky peek into one of ’em, eyeing a horned and suited doctor sitting by a desk.

  He made it within hearing distance of Moleface/old man—but out of eyeshot—and took a seat. He put his head back in the book and waited while they sat there in silence, awaiting their turn with the oncologist. As the minutes passed, John felt a horrible twitchy urge overcoming him. Ignoring the better judgement of that stern voice from earlier on, he took a second to stare again at the patients around him. Their suffering twanged the chords of his heart. They were sick and he could see it, see what this disease was doing to them. It was eating them from the inside out, and from the mass of haloes that were in the room, it seemed that it mainly attacked angels, leaving the demons to roam the streets freely. Typical.

  A large, rotund woman then came along, the garish yellow rubber gloves on her hands contrasting the black horns on her head. She held a wide broom/mop thing that released a stink of disinfectant and bleach that nearly made his eyes water. John looked away to see a sign on the wall that read—this is a No Hope of Survival trust. He looked back at the cleaner to see there was now a gas mask plastered to her head like she was fresh back from WWI. All around her feet was a slimy patch of dark green. She wiped it with her broom and it melted away. A few seconds later and it started spreading again like live jelly.

  The woman stared at him for a few seconds from behind her mask before pointing at the green stuff on the floor. ‘Management’s Response to Suffering and Age,’ she said in a voice muffled by her mask.

  John looked down at the jelly on the floor. It was like The Blob, that slimy skata from the film that spread over people and digested them, and when he looked around, he suddenly realised it was everywhere—on the floor, up the walls, on the chairs. And it was closing in, swamping over everything, eating it alive. And it was getting closer, closer; he could hear slimy sucking sounds as it was growing, writhing, multiplying…

  He closed his eyes, put his hand over them, and took in a deep breath. Go away! Just fucking go away!

  When he opened them again, the woman was gone, and so was The Blob. He angrily shook his head. He wished he could ditch this X-Ray vision he’d developed since he was put to sleep. It was fucking him up, making him see things he didn’t want to. He had a feeling that he’d be getting no sleep tonight. Instead, he’d be lying awake, staring into the darkness, seeing nothing but black beetles and—

  Just then, a pretty, haloed Filipina nurse came out of a door his right, carrying a file. ‘Okay, Mister Kolovski,’ she said in her cute accent, and when she did it was like music to John’s ears. ‘Doctor Kaufmann will see you now.’

  Kolovski. Interesting. Very interesting…

  John glanced up from his book to see Moleface helping the old man to his feet. He watched them shuffle past, and enter the room from where the nurse emerged. John caught a glimpse of the doctor in there and he had not two, but three horns. The biggest, blackest horns he’d seen yet. When the doctor smiled at Moleface and the old man as they stepped into his domain, his eyes flashed a piercing lizardine-yellow. A forked tongue darted out of his mouth like he was some kind of fucking reptile, gamota. He then shut the door behind them and they were history. John shivered and took in a deep breath as he placed the Stephen King book down on the chair next to him. Beyond horns, beetles, The Blob, and reptilians, something else was now forming in his mind. It was a tree. A family tree. The Kolovski family tree. So far, he had twins and old man Kolovski. But it wasn’t yet clear how they were connected. He needed to know more. He cupped his hands and blew hot air into them as he contemplated his next move. Just then, the door to the office Moleface and old man Kolovski were in opened, and out came the Filipina nurse once more. John jumped out of his seat, took off his shades and folded them up in one movement.

  He darted over to her side in a flash. ‘It’s a real shame abou
t Mr. Kolovski, isn’t it?’ he asked, stopping her in her tracks.

  She looked up at him with wide, surprised eyes.

  ‘I mean lung cancer,’ John continued. ‘That’s a really bad one.’

  She stared at him for a few seconds, confused. ‘Mister Kolovski?’ she said, pointing to the door she just came out of. ‘He have cancer in his leg. You think of someone else.’

  ‘Ah, no. His leg yes, that’s right,’ blagged John. ‘But, it’s spreading, right?’

  The nurse’s brow then furrowed deeper ’cos all John was doing was making her more confused. ‘Are you friend of Mister Kolovski?’ she asked.

  ‘Oh, no, no, no. I’m with my father.’ He pointed to where he’d been sitting. The nurse looked past him to see just the Stephen King paperback he’d been ‘reading’ sitting there on its Jack Jones. John put on a fake smile. ‘He’s in the toilet at the moment…’

  The nurse’s eyes opened wide again and her halo glowed. ‘Oh…’

  ‘I know Mr. Kolovski’s kids,’ John said. ‘You know, the twins. Brother and sister. Well, they’re twins but they look nothing like each other…’ He chuckled as he spoke. ‘In fact they could be anything but twins. Me and you may as well be twins!’ He chuckled again, but the nurse didn’t laugh ’cos she either didn’t get the joke or thought it was just plain crap.

  ‘Mister Kolovski have daughter, yes,’ the nurse said. ‘I saw her. Only one time.’

  ‘Short red hair? Spiky? Ring in her nose?’ John asked and as he did, the nurse began nodding her head.

  ‘Yes. Yes. That’s her! But, twin brother? Hmmm… I haven’t seen.’

  ‘No. He doesn’t get out much,’ John said, smiling wryly.

  ‘Oh.’

  There was a lull in the conversation; John thought it was the perfect time to split, he had the info he wanted. ‘Listen—I better go and check on my dad,’ he said. ‘He might have locked himself in!’

  The nurse nodded, an unsure look on her face. ‘Oh-kay.’

  ‘Nice talking to you,’ John said as he began to back away from her.

  She gave him a friendly smile, and went back on her journey. Soon she was through the double doors ahead of her and out of sight.

  John stood and stared at his shades for a few seconds. So, this malaka is the bastard who introduced the twins to planet Earth, eh?

  Yeah, their father, re, and that is collateral in anyone’s language.

  He began nodding his head. Yeah, that is what is known in the hardline game of extortion as a ‘bargaining chip.’ He puckered his lips as he sized up the situation, feeling like he’d just found himself some very shrewd odds at the bookies. In that room behind him was a bargaining chip that he was about to throw into the pot for the twins to chew over. And John knew they’d have no choice but to fold. He placed his shades on again, now getting used to this Terminator look. Through the darkness, he could still see living, breathing tumours. Suddenly, he wanted to get out of there for a cigarro. ASAP.

  He didn’t hang around any longer. He stormed back up the corridor towards the Outpatients entrance. On the way, he grabbed the first nurse he saw by the arm. Her shocked eyes flicked upwards to meet his shades.

  ‘The woman in the red poncho sitting next to the man with the beard is ill,’ he said to her before she had a chance to speak. ‘Some kind of brain tumour I think. I don’t think she or anyone knows it’s there, so please, please check her out…’

  The nurse stared at him for a second, her brow furrowing in deep confusion before he let her go. While she turned her head to look for the woman in the red poncho, he carried on marching back out to the car park where his car was waiting.

  All the way out of the building, he didn’t dare take a single look back.

  *****

  About a half hour later, Moleface and Kolovski Snr emerged from Outpatients looking like some kind of bizarre Siamese twin where one half was aging at a crazy rate compared to the other. The old man’s leg was being eaten away by this horrible disease and he couldn’t move freely, meaning that Moleface had to wrap himself around him and guide him slowly along. John sighed. He sympathised with the old man. He must be going through hell, but the cold fact was that his son and daughter had stirred up a fucking beehive and the resident killer bees were about to put the record straight.

  John chucked his cigarro butt out of the window and then checked the time on his mobile phone: 14:26. He guessed that the old man must’ve just had some kind of check up appointment with that demon doc inside. That was good for John. It meant that Moleface would be taking him back home now, which in turn meant that John could play his hand and still get back home in time to avoid a rant from Alisha.

  Moleface helped the old man into his Volvo and then started up the engine. Soon enough, they were all going along the same roads they came by, heading for the North Circ. A fine drizzle had started up, spattering John’s windscreen with rain that was rearranging and reforming into patterns before his eyes—faces; complex, impossible shapes; ancient, arcane hieroglyphs. He flicked on the wipers and they vanished from existence in an instant. The Volvo turned out onto the North Circ and John followed, keeping a car or two behind. All the way back, he was working out how he was gonna play this, what exactly he was gonna do. This was an opportunity that couldn’t be missed. He had to make this work or he could find himself back at square one. And that would be bad. Aziz’s deadline was looming on the horizon like a raised guillotine ready to come down hard and it was his neck that was on the block beneath it.

  First things first; get back to the house.

  When they finally reached it, Moleface pulled up in the exact same spot as before. And so did John. He watched trough his wing mirror as Moleface went and helped the old man out of the car. John reached into the inner pocket of his jacket and removed his shades. He glanced in his rear view. He suddenly noticed that his halo had dimmed and taken on a few black flecks like interference on a TV screen. As he stared at it, he went over the plan in his mind. He’d already decided to hold ’em hostage inside the house and offer Marek a deal—hostages for Aziz’s delivery.

  Armatia, re! he suddenly heard Yiayia shout at him from beyond.

  He sighed. Ksero einai armatia, Yiayia. But what the fuck can I do?

  He didn’t like what he was about to do one bit, but as usual in his life, he felt like he had no other choice. He put his shades on and grabbed his gun from the glovebox. He stuffed it in his belt, thinking about how much he wanted a cigarro. When he looked over his shoulder, he saw that Moleface and the old man were halfway up the garden path to the front door of the house.

  It was time.

  John crossed himself and muttered a capricious prayer for both help and forgiveness. Then, he got out of the car.

  His Reeboks touched the pavement just as a black cat darted by his feet, making him flinch. John watched it with beady eyes as it raced off and vanished beneath a parked car further up. He puffed his cheeks and took a nervous look around. Traffic hummed, but the pavement was empty both ways, which was perfect. He didn’t hesitate, darting over to the house. He made it to the front garden before they managed to get inside. Moleface had one arm around the old man’s waist and was putting the key in the lock with his free hand. John grabbed his gun, held it by his side, and quietly stepped up behind them, his head low.

  Moleface pushed the door open. John coolly placed the barrel of his gun on the back of Moleface’s head. Moleface flinched.

  ‘Keep going,’ John ordered in a stern but steady voice.

  The old man’s head stirred; he went to turn around. John nudged him softly in the back with his free hand and the old man groaned, making his head stop turning.

  ‘I said keep going,’ John repeated. Moleface responded by tightening his grip on the old man and saying something to him in Polish. Following that, they began walking again. John looked around him. The coast was still clear. Moleface/old man finally stepped into the house, John swiftly following, more than happy t
o be closing the door shut behind him and blocking out all those eyes and ears in the cars going along the North Circ.

  Once inside, he checked the place out. In front of him were some stairs. ‘Is there anyone else in here?’ he then asked. Moleface hesitated. John poked him in the back of his head with the barrel of his gun. ‘Huh?’

  Moleface then began briskly shaking his head. ‘No. No one,’ he replied.

  The old man then groaned again. ‘Co się stało?’ he asked Moleface.

  ‘Nie martw się, Wujka,’ Moleface replied in a soft voice.

  ‘Go in the front room,’ John ordered, not knowing what these two malakes were saying to each other and not liking it either. ‘Go!’

  Moleface started up again, slowly shuffling along with his temporary Siamese twin.

  ‘Quick!’ John snapped.

  Moleface huffed, and tried pushing the old man along the corridor faster. The old man groaned.

  ‘Don’t worry, old man, this will all be over soon,’ John told him as they entered the lounge. ‘Sit him down over there,’ he said, pointing at the cushioned armchair near the TV. Moleface did as he was told, and the old man collapsed into the chair like a demolished building. His chest deflated; he relaxed into his seat with a sigh of relief.

  ‘Good. Now you…’ John said, looking around. He pointed his gun at the sofa on his left. ‘You put your arse there.’

  Moleface obediently went and sat down. John moved past him to the window. He looked outside. The traffic just droned past as normal, and the pavement in both directions was empty.