Even with his teeth chattering and his body screaming for heat, he managed to harvest enough phlegm and strength to spit at the device – his only form of rebellion at this point and so satisfying, even if it was only short term.
The radio sparked to life with static and muddled frequencies.
PARTICIPANT: SEVEN.
The Host began in what seemed like a live broadcast instead of the usual pre-recorded transmissions.
WE ARE DISAPPOINTED WITH YOUR ACTIONS TODAY.
THIS HAS BEEN THE WORST SET OF PARTICIPANTS IN BLOCK EIGHTEEN TO DATE.
ALL PARTICIPANTS HAVE BEEN UNSATISFACTORY AND, AS A RESULT, WE HAVE DROPPED VIEWERSHIP.
A long silence ensued and Richard didn’t know whether he was expected to respond or just sit there and shiver, the latter of which he decided was the best option, simply because it didn’t cause him added effort, and wouldn’t get him into more trouble.
HOWEVER. ALL IS NOT LOST.
OUR SPONSORS HAVE DECIDED BOTH YOU AND NUMBER FIVE WILL CONTEST THE NEXT OBJECTIVE.
IT IS LOCATED HERE AT THE CONTROL CENTRE AND WE ARE CONFIDENT YOUR PARTICIPATION WILL BOOST OUR VIEWERSHIP AGAIN.
More silence. Richard bowed his head. Fuck, I can’t take much more of these bastards. Once I’m out of this chair, I’m going to end it once and for all. They won’t win.
COMPLY OR PENALTY.
INFRACTIONS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
YOUR FAMILY DEPENDS ON YOUR SUCCESS.
“What?” Richard screamed, straining against his bonds. “What have you done with them?” With every word that escaped him, his fury built to an uncontrollable level.
The door swung open and a hooded man burst in with another ice shower, but Richard raged back, screaming and cursing until he was sure his head would explode. The man just waited until the tirade was over. Then he took the radio and left the room. As the door slammed shut, Richard could have sworn he heard laughter from the other side. When his trembling anger subsided, he noticed his wrists were bloody from his struggle against the straps. He didn’t care.
“My family!” he roared, but his words met nothing but solid wall. My family. The thoughts of being unable to protect them left him whimpering in the chair.
EIGHTEEN
The following day, masked men escorted Richard and Ian to a swimming pool in the middle of the compound, surrounded by a chain-link fence and with nothing but overcast sky above or beyond it. The misty air still reeking of burnt flesh and human decay. Richard figured they were miles from the forest, but couldn’t be certain. A thin line of snow topped the razor wire, and cameras whirred and zoomed, watching every move.
The masked men released their grip and stepped back, each arming their weapons and aiming at the participants. Richard, with Ian beside him, stared into the pool’s depths. An eye-opening aroma of bleach and chlorine stung the inside of his nostrils. An unnerving silence followed, broken by static from a speaker on the far side of the pool.
The Host welcomed their live audience, then proceeded to explain the trial both participants were about to embark on.
Ian, obviously terrified, kept looking to Richard for reassurance, but he had his game face on, his gaze focused on the murky bottom of the pool, trying to make sense of The Host’s instructions.
OBJECTIVE: AT THE BOTTOM OF THE POOL, THERE IS A LARGE PLASTIC MAZE WITH AIR POCKETS IN STRATEGIC LOCATIONS.
PARTICIPANTS: WILL MAKE THEIR WAY TO THE END WHERE THE FINAL PART OF THE OBJECTIVE WILL BE REVEALED TO OUR SUBSCRIBERS.
REWARD: THE WINNING PARTICIPANT WILL RETURN TO BLOCK EIGHTEEN TONIGHT.
THE LOSING PARTICIPANT WILL BE EXECUTED.
COMMENCE.
The guard’s rifle-butted them between their shoulder blades. Ian collapsed into the water, while Richard dove straight in and swam towards the bottom. It was only then he realised how deep the pool was – twenty-feet easy – and the pressure on his ears sent needlepoint pains through his head, but he forced himself to keep going. As he closed in on the maze, he scanned the structure and noticed an entrance. He kicked towards it, gripped its side and looked up, straining to contain air in his lungs.
Ian looked to be struggling near the top.
Richard pulled himself into the maze and raced against a growing panic until he found an air pocket at the end of the first tunnel, gasping for breath in a space not much bigger than his head. They couldn’t make the space any tighter, could they? Bastards.
Text etched into the wall instructed him to wait for the other participant before continuing. While he waited, it dawned on him that they weren’t the first people to have been put through this game.
The wait felt like an eternity, but he took the opportunity to catch his breath and compose himself. Each inhalation told him the air was depleting. Then Ian joined him, gasping and flailing.
“Take it easy, lad. Just breathe. Look, we don’t have time to talk. We have to make it through this. Once we do, we can figure out a way both of us can get out of it alive. Take a breath and let’s go.”
Ian glared at him, but did as he was told.
With Richard leading, they navigated their way through a twisting tunnel, until they came to a fork and he swam right, expecting Ian to follow. No time to look back – his lungs were screaming again.
About a dozen hard-fought meters on, his throat threatening to open and water already in his nostrils, he found himself in another air pocket, only this one was much bigger, enabling him to crawl into it. He coughed and spat water out and gawped in howling mouthfuls of air. Where is Ian? He was about to get back into the water to see where the lad was, but a speaker on the wall crackled.
PARTICIPANT: NUMBER SEVEN.
OBJECTIVE: FIND THE KEY TO UNLOCK THE DOOR AT THE OTHER END OF THE CHAMBER.
“But what about…?” That was as far as he got. The water hissed and bubbled and the space began to fill. He moved forward through the compartment, took a deep breath, and ducked under. No key in sight. He ran his hands over the floor and walls, but couldn’t find anything. Something clunked behind him and he turned to see a hatch in the roof open and a few electric knifefish slither through. What the…? A gush of air escaped his lungs and he kicked off the floor back to the much smaller air pocket, gawping in breaths to replenish his oxygen levels.
“Fuck!” What am I to do? The dark-brown fish swam around his torso, but didn’t seem to notice him too much as they fought among themselves. The water was up to his neck and rising. “Shit, shit, shit.” Then he noticed a glint at the far end of the compartment. The key! He took a deep breath and kicked off the wall, wincing at a glancing sting from one of the fish, the electric jolt reverberating through his system. Fuck, that’s all he needed – electrocuted instead of drowning.
He reached the key and untied it from the loop, then forced his way back up the tunnel towards the door, so focused that he didn’t see the knife fish come at him from the side. The eel nipped at his eyelid, sending blood into his eye and a shock through his head that made his throat spasm, allowing a gush of water into his lungs. Terrified he’d drown there and then, he batted the fish with the back of his hand and swam through a cloud of red, thankful there was no vicious marine life to smell his blood. Not yet, anyway.
Convinced he only had moments left before blacking out, he shot up and flattened himself against the ceiling, chest to the plastic, coughing water out and sucking in whatever air was trapped in the centimetre of space before the tunnel filled to capacity. With the key still in hand, he let himself sink, then kicked off the floor and made a charge for the door, waving the aquatic life out of his way before reaching his target.
The key slipped in easy enough, but it wouldn’t turn, and his grip on his lungs got the better of him and air bubbled out of his mouth and nose. But he held on, and when he tried turning the key anticlockwise, it worked and the lock clicked. Sneaky bastards! When the door opened, the tunnel shifted up and he manoeuvred himself through and located another air pocket.
As he gasped for breath, he nursed his injured eye, washing the blood off as much as he could. But it wouldn’t stop so he just kept the lid closed to stop the flooding. He couldn’t see anything worthwhile out of it, anyway, with everything blurred and shadowed. Damned eel must have scratched the eyeball.
A speaker on the wall crackled – a live feed from The Host.
PARTICIPANT: SEVEN.
CONGRATULATIONS.
WE DID NOT THINK YOU’D MAKE THAT ONE.
YOUR RIVAL PARTICIPANT WAITS FOR YOU AT THE END OF THE MAZE.
Ian, you sly one. He couldn’t blame him, though, not with the execution threat hanging over them. Time to get out. Too many close-quarter spaces to be dealing with, and these fuckers know I hate tight spaces. And they played on that. But he couldn’t let Ian win the objective – his family depended on him. He took another deep breath, went under, and swam through a series of tunnels and air pockets until he eventually reached the end of the maze.
The exit led him into a large steel room, reminding him of the inside of a submarine. He entered to find Ian waiting on the other side, blood dripping from his eye but also running down his body, though he couldn’t see a wound.
A pool in the centre of the room had a silver key hanging over it. A speaker suspended from the ceiling crackled.
PARTICIPANTS: FIVE AND SEVEN.
OBJECTIVE: SUBSCRIBER RATINGS ARE CLIMBING.
CONGRATULATIONS ON ACHIEVING THIS GOAL.
REWARD: WHOEVER RETRIEVES THE KEY WILL SURVIVE.
PENALTY: THE ONE WHO DOES NOT, WILL NOT.
AVOID THE POOL IF YOU VALUE YOUR LIFE.
ONLY THE KEY WILL LEAD YOU TO SALVATION…
The transmission ended and they looked from the key to each other.
“We don’t have to do this, Richie. We could protest and just drown. They’re going to kill us all, anyway.”
Richard agreed in principal with the young lad’s words, but at the same time he wanted out of the underwater maze so bad it was eating into him. His family meant more to him than any of his campmates.
“I’m sorry, Ian, we have to do this. I need to get the fuck out of this place.”
Ian tip-toed around the edge of the pond. “But, Richard, by sticking together here, we can send a message to The Host that we won’t go silent and die for his entertainment. No, fuck him. Look what his games did to my hand? I’m done, Richie.” He held out his good hand. “Come on, what do you say?”
Richard pondered it. He’d been through enough. His body burned from exhaustion and he wished for it all to be over. But his wife and child needed him. That’s if The Host was telling the truth about them. There was no way to be sure.
“Ian, maybe you’re right, but—”
The young lad sparked into action and thundered into a shocked Richard, knocking him to the floor with a sharp but effective shoulder charge. He pinned him to the ground and began throwing punches with his good hand.
Richard couldn’t believe it – the quiet lad from camp had burst into life with the aggression and precision of a professional MMA fighter. But after a few seconds, he realised this worked to his advantage. After he weathered a flurry of hits, most of which missed their target, Ian was all punched out.
Out of his good eye, he waited for the opening and, when Ian obliged, he swung an uppercut which caught the young lad nicely under the chin. Ian’s head rocked up and Richard flipped him to the side and took control, but there was no need to hit him – the lad had gone limp, his face wane and pale.
Then he noticed the pond was bubbling. What the…? Piranhas! Masses of them, and they were in a frenzy, roiling around in an effort to get the blood from both of their wounds that had run into the water. How the hell are we going to get out of here? He looked up at the dangling key. Can’t someone put a stop to this goddam charade?
Zooming and whirring cameras caught his attention – all watching and waiting for him to finish Ian. But instead, he lay the young man on the floor and got to his feet. “I’m not fucking doing this. You hear me, you sick bastards? I’m not doing it.”
He stood as strong as he could, still shaking but defiant and proud of his decision. Something shifted behind him and he caught movement in the corner of his good eye. Ian lunged at him, but that glimpse was enough and he sidestepped the lad’s reckless attack, helping him forward with a sweeping shove.
Ian entered the pond with a splash, and before Richard could register what had happened, the bubbles turned red and horrific screams filled the air.
The lad couldn’t be saved, and his screams soon stopped as the water continued to boil a dark red.
Well, Ian, you’ve finally escaped. He didn’t waste time, leaning over the horror and untangling the key from the hook. Then he got himself across the room to the door.
He knew what would come so he stood to the side and stretched over to unlock it, the door shooting open with a massive surge of water into the chamber. The pool burst upward from the pressure change. As the deluge swirled around the room, the level rose at a rapid pace – over his knees, then up to his waist, but the current was still far too strong to get through the door. He held on firmly to the frame and to his horror, he noticed the spread of blood from the centre, which meant one thing only – those fucking fish where coming for him.
The water kept rising and he decided it was now or never. He took a deep breath and ducked under, fighting with all his might against the flow, all too aware of the rising red cloud blooming behind him. All he had to do was get through, then kick off the floor towards the surface. Lucky for him the current was keeping what was left of Ian in the chamber, so the piranha hadn’t yet caught on to his escape. He pulled himself through and pushed off, his lungs screeching again for air as he struggled upward.
The light looked to be miles away, and he feared he wouldn’t make it. To die at this stage, after all he’d gone through, would be nothing short of ironic. Whatever energy was left in his body had faded. The surface was close, but too far – he wasn’t going to reach it. He kicked one last time, into darkness.
Then hands grasped his and he was hoisted out by masked men. He gasped for breath and lay motionless on his back, looking up at the sky. Fuck, what now?
NINETEEN
Tom paced the camp like a caged animal. “What’s taking so long? Those two should have been back by now?” His agitation wasn’t helping the anxious minds huddled around the fire.
“Shut up,” Tiff snapped. “You’re wrecking my head.”
Tom stopped and glared at her.
“Don’t you understand, Tom? Nabil’s dead. And Ian and Richard probably are, too. They didn’t make it. We’re all fucked!”
Tom snorted and turned away, shaking his head.
Tiff lay back on her bed, sobbing. Everyone was wrecked, battling fatigue and hunger.
“Keep your chin up, Tiffany,” Charles said, doing his best to keep his own spirits up as he offered her a bowl of soup. It was so difficult maintaining any sort of positivity. The daily ration just about kept them ticking over, but the mundane task of eating such a bland meal was becoming a gruelling chore. Moral had suffered a near-fatal blow with the absence of the departed campmates, and the isolation and unknowing only compounded the negativity among those remaining.
Tom, however, seemed to be dealing with it the best out of the four of them, even with his obvious frustrations surfacing every so often. He’d come over and shared some of his thoughts earlier, convinced this was all part of a test – a mental task between the remaining participants now that everyone else was gone. It wasn’t over by a longshot, according to him, and he was determined not to end up like the others. He was going to make it out of the forest if it was the last thing he did.
Charles sighed and stared into the campfire. “Perhaps this is it, Thomas, my boy? Maybe it’s just us four left.”
“Maybe, Chuck. But it doesn’t make sense. If the little eyes in these fucking trees are watching us, then it must be one hell of a boring show.
Let’s all tune in to watch four people sit around and starve to death? Bollocks, mate, I’m not buying it.”
“Maybe the others have escaped?” Carol said, sitting up.
Tom snorted again. “And maybe pigs will fly, darling. And maybe one will fall into our laps and we’ll have rasher soup over a nice cup of hot water.”
Everyone sat in silence after that, until the earth cracked and the silver post rose from the ground. The Host issued another objective to the remaining participants – this time targeting Carol and, more specifically, her fear of heights. At first light, she was to be summoned towards the mountainous region beyond Block 18.
COMPLY OR PENALTY. INFRACTIONS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED.
She held her head in both hands. “I can’t take much more of this, I just can’t. I need to get out of this place.”
“You’re not facing this one alone,” Tiff said.
Tom sniggered. “Oh, yeah, what are you going to do, love? Build her a set of wings.”
“Oh, do shut up, Tom,” Charles snapped, unable to hold himself back. “Tiffany is right, the Host is dragging us off one at a time. It is torture, and we need to work together.” He looked around and shook his head. “Maybe that is the whole point of this place.”
“The point of this place is redundant, Chuck. It’s a sick game. Nothing more. What, you think you’re in some sort of purgatory? Eh? Is this your final test before the big pearly white gates open up for you?”
“We all have to believe in something,” Charles replied.
“Ha, whatever you say, old ma—”
Tiffany silenced Tom with a slap. “Enough! Seriously. Look at Carol. She’s a nervous wreck. We have to support her. Help her.”
Tom, rubbing his cheek, got up and walked towards the woods. “That’s the second time you’ve done that. There won’t be a third. You three go do whatever you want. I’m done with all of this nonsense.”
Weeping Season Page 10