I’m a coward. Ask anyone who knows me and they’ll tell you the same. I avoid conflict, I don’t go after what I want, and I don’t take risks.
When they tell me to sit in the iron chair attached to the crane, I don’t ask questions, and not just because I’m afraid of what it could cost me. In this massive chamber of stone and shadow, I see the half-shapes of murals and men, all more powerful and…there…than I could ever be. I’m in the world, but I don’t really affect it. Weak men with nervous smiles and unfulfilled ambitions rarely do, and that’s a lesson the world has been happy to reteach me the few times I forgot it.
But I’m not stupid. I caught on eventually. The world is always hungry, and if you’re not the teeth, its easy to become the meat. I’ve found another option. I keep my head down, passing by the sharp edges, flowing around the obstacles and traps that catch the dimmer rabbits. Because I’m not a rabbit. I’m
“Smoke?”
I looked up at the man seated across from me, my eyes lighting on him, the offered cigarette, and then back to him before lowering my gaze to my lap. “No thank you.”
I saw him nod in my peripheral as he put the pack away. “You’re better off. It’s a filthy habit, but it does tend to settle my nerves.” He let out a laugh. “Listen at me. Talking about being nervous when you’re about to go into the room.”
Smiling slightly, I gave a nod as I glanced around the room we were already in. It was large and decorated with what looked like expensive furniture and art to my untrained eye. I guessed it was a waiting room of sorts, but I still wanted to know more about what I was waiting for. I stole another look at the man. He’d told me his name was Sergei Roman in the email, and aside from a pair of drivers and the flight attendant, he was the only person I’d met on my journey to…wherever this was. Whatever this was.
“Can you…can you give me any more details, Mr. Roman?”
He chucked, letting out twin jets of grey smoke from his nostrils as he shook his head. “I’m afraid not. That’s part of the game you see. If you know too much, it corrupts the process. People think it’s rigged. Very messy. All I can do is remind you of the rules. Would you like that?”
Rubbing my sweaty palms on my pants, I nodded. “Yeah, just to be safe. Sure.”
Sergei gave a small nod. “Better safe, yes. Okay. You will be brought into a chamber. In that chamber, is a chair. You will sit in the chair. You will be secured in the chair with straps. The chair will be lowered down into a lower room.” He licked his lips and glanced at the ceiling. “The lower room has walls and a floor made of tile. The tile on the floor is banded with color. Like a bullseye, yes? The outer ring is green. The next in is red. The third in is orange. And the circle in the center, where your chair will be, is black.”
I swallowed. “And people are going to bet on me?”
He chuckled again. “In a way, but not exactly. There are four players—aside from you, of course. Each one is assigned a color randomly before we lower the chair. If you call out you want to stop at any point after the game starts, whoever’s color is dominant at that point can hit their button. If they hit the button, the crane pulls you back up and they get a cash payout.” Sergei grinned at me. “And so do you, of course.”
“But…I get more money the longer I stay in, right?”
His smile widened. “Yes, generally. Red pays more than green, orange more than red, and black most of all. It will be up to you when you say you want to stop, and up to the corresponding wagerer to hit their button.”
I frowned. “What if they don’t hit their button when I yell?”
Sergei’s face grew serious. “Then the game continues on and you can try again with the next color. But rest assured, that is unlikely to happen. The minimum bid to wager in this game is ten million dollars, with higher winning payouts depending on the color they get.” He shrugged. “Besides, even the ones that don’t care about the money care about the game. No one likes to”
“lose. If you attempt to influence the Axle, you lose. If you attempt to influence each other, you lose. If the Axle is not retrieved prior to contact, all bets are forfeit. Are we all quite clear on the rules?”
These words were being uttered behind me with the clipped, machine precison of an old referee preparing a boxing match. The fact that they were being uttered by a small man wearing a black fez and sunglasses made everything seem more surreal than it already was. The metal of the chair was cold against my skin, and I could already feel the straps digging into my skin. My feet were hanging over the edge of an abyss—the negative space of the “lower room” Sergei had told me about. What was this place? Who were these people really? Was this really worth…
“Ow! Shit!” I looked around as the small man in the black hat drew a vial of my blood with the speed and effeciency of a mosquito. I almost said something, but held my tongue. It was fine. Whatever it was for, it was fine. Besides, I was more worried about what was going to be down in the room below.
“Lower the Axle.”
Before the man had finished speaking, the chair was already being lifted and swung out slowly over the black circle that made up the middle of the room. I swayed slightly when it stopped again, but barely noticed in my rising panic. They were lowering me into the darkness now.
It seemed like this went on forever, but in all honesty, it was around forty feet. I let out a small scream as something bumped my chair underneath, only to realize after a moment that it was the legs coming to rest on the floor of that lower chamber. I had time to breath in a dozen panicked breaths before the room was flooded with lights from above.
I was at the center of what appeared to be an enormous circular room. As Sergei had predicted, the floor was made of bands of meticulously arranged colored tile. The curving wall was made of tile as well, though the individual pieces were all white and much larger. They were also punctuated at regular intervals with several rings of holes beginning a foot or so off the ground.
It was the holes that troubled me the most. They weren’t caused by damage or disrepair—they were all rounded and smooth, symetrical bores of darkness in that endless field of white. They were intentional. Part of whatever this was.
What had I done?
Looking up, I saw Sergei and the hat man on one side of the rim, and in the ambient glow from the tile, I could make out the dim shadows of the four other figures around the circle’s edge. The wagerers, I assumed. I felt a wave of nausea gripping my stomach and pushing up into my chest, making it hard to think or breathe. This was all wrong. I needed to
“get out more, big bro.” Brent smirked at me. “You’d see then that there’s more to life than hiding out like fucking Boo Radley and pining over some girl that doesn’t know you exist.”
I glared at him. I was fairly sure To Kill a Mockingbird was the only book that idiot had ever read, and that was only because he would have flunked high school English if he didn’t, but ever since he’d never missed a chance to compare me to Boo. “She does know I exist. I’ve talked to her.”
He rolled his eyes. “You mean your awkward patter when you pick up her trays? Dude, do you think she’s going to be impressed by the Uni Caf busboy? Girls like that, hell, all girls, they all want the same things. And those things…” Brent waved his hand at me dismissively. “It’s not that, bro.”
Clenching my teeth hard enough I felt like they might crack, I turned away. “You’re a fucking asshole.”
I heard him puff out a breath behind me. “You’re right. I am. And that’s one of the things girls like, unfortunately. Maybe if…shit, Marty. I’m not trying to be shitty. I’m trying to give you good advice. I love you, man. But you’re wasting your potential. You always have.”
I spun around, my eyes shining with tears. “No. You’ve always been there to take everything. To make fun of me. Push me down. I’ve always been the joke, you’re always the cool one. I’m a big pussy, you’re the daredevil. The big hero.” I felt my lips curling back as I smiled at him. “You knew I liked her. That’s why you went after her. I…I fucking hate you.”
Brent’s eyes widened in surprise. “Jesus, man. Get a grip. It’s just a bitch, okay? I’ll give her back to you, if it means that much. She’s only slightly used, and she doesn’t even know I have a brother, yeah? Hell, maybe you’ll have a shot.”
I just stared at him. I wanted to hit him. To hurt him. The things he was saying about me, I was used to. But talking about her like that, about anyone like that…I…
“You’re such a piece of shit, I should just fucking…”
His eyes narrowed. “What? You should just fucking what, Panty Marty? What the fuck are you going to do?”
I wanted to keep his gaze, but I couldn’t. So I just turned and left the apartment. My apartment, that he’d taken over as soon as he got to college with me. I heard him laughing even as I closed the door.
The next day I started the process of transferring schools even though I was already in the first month of my senior year. When I left town two weeks later, I promised I’d never speak to him again. Never have that poison in my life again.
I kept that promise to myself for six years. He’d try to call and write, to make his version of amends, but I’d grown wise to that long ago. It was only to make himself feel better. And he always felt best when the rabbit was in the trap, waiting for whatever sharp sticks he had ready. Well fuck that and fuck him.
To my shame, I still read the emails he sent. I just couldn’t help it. For the most part they were repetitive low-effort bullshit, but three months ago one piqued my interest. He was telling me he’d found an easy way to make a lot of money and he wanted me to do it with him. It was some weird, ultra-exclusive gambling game that was held a few times a year. He’d met a guy that could get him in as a contestant. All we had to do was sit in a chair, and depending on how long we sat there, we could get up to 100k.
I almost responded. Not because I was interested, but because I believed what Brent was saying. He was many things, but he’d never been a liar. He weirdly prided himself on his brutal honesty, in fact. And if he told me all this, it was either true or he thought it was, and either way, it sounded dangerous. I wrestled with the impulse to warn him, but I told myself it wouldn’t matter. He’d do it anyway, and probably mock me for being to scared to join him. Keep at me until I hated myself again. Fuck that. Fuck him.
A week later my parents called. They said they hadn’t heard from Brent, and they knew we didn’t talk, but had I heard anything from him? Did I have any idea where he might have gone?
My voice was steady when I told them no.
That phone call, the concern in their voice, the worry that their prize boy had run into something he couldn’t talk or bully or fuck his way out of, made lying easy. It also set me on the path to follow in his footsteps. I combed through past emails until I got a vague idea of the people in his life, and through a combination of deduction and process of elimination, I found the friend who’d told him about the game in the first place. He was reluctant to talk to me about it at first, but when I suggested I was trying to find Brent without involving the authorities first, he became a lot more forthcoming.
It took some time and effort, but I got an invite eventually. I kept expecting to get turned down or for them to confront me about my connection to Brent, but they never did. Either they didn’t know or they didn’t care. To my surprise, I realized neither did I.
Something was driving me forward. At first I thought it was curiosity, or maybe guilt for how I’d left things with Brent. Even boarding the plane, I’d wondered at my determination and nervous excitement. It wasn’t like me to take chances, particularly with something so obviously shady and potentially dangerous. But this was different. Somehow, it didn’t feel like I was risking my life. It felt like I was being
Born out the padded stick that was being rolled across the polished metal disc above. The padding was coated with something, something extra to bring out the sickly sweet ringing noise as it greased its way across the bronze. My eye caught motion as the stick dripped a little, a splash of crimson hitting the white tile wall and rolling down toward the floor.
Was that my blood? Had they soaked their weird gong stick thing in my fucking blood?
I felt a new thrill of fear, but it was short-lived as I caught more movement along the far wall. Something was behind the black of those holes. And it was coming.
The first of them fell from an upper hole on my right, an oblong bit of grey-black meat that glistened with a nauseating sheen that looked like a film of white mucus. My first thought was that someone was pushing rotten meat or organs out from the other side, and I had a moment where I almost laughed at how absurd it all was. This was a game? This was supposed to make me yell uncle before I hit maximum money? What were they going to do next? Throw pieces at me? Is this really all they did to…
That’s when the meat began to move.
It was just shy of a foot long, and when it raised up and turned toward me, I felt the dull buzz of animal panic set in. A slit opened near the top, and even from a distance of probably twenty yards I could see the pale outlines of the jagged teeth inside that void. And I could hear its cry, a tinny warble to accompany the whining tones of the metal plate being stroked over head.
New holes began to stir, birthing more of the dark slugs until there were over two dozen of them in a semi-circle, all rising together to make the same cry before easing back down and turning toward the center of the circle, the Axle of the Wheel. I could feel their hunger for me radiating like heat, and I felt a kind of estatic terror at it. This was it. Yes, this was it.
They began to crawl.
“Green! Green is in play!” I jumped slightly at Sergei’s booming voice above me, echoing down into the circle like the voice of God. I could feel tension and excitement above me, but only distantly. I wasn’t going to be distracted. I had to pay attention to this. To all of this.
“Green is out! Red! Red is in play!” I thought I heard a muffled curse above, but I couldn’t be sure. It didn’t matter. The slugs were picking up speed, and I hadn’t even noticed that one had crossed over into the red until it was announced. The orange band was wider, but I still need to be careful. I wasn’t sure what these things were, or what they were capable of, and
“Marty…”
I froze. It had been faint, and it hadn’t sounded right, but I still knew Brent’s voice when I heard it. Surely it was my imagination. He was long gone from this place, one way or the other. The best I could hope for was the ghost of what he must have…
“Marty…help, please…”
“Red is out! Orange! Orange is in play!”
I caught motion at one of the holes as something pushed its way through. Not another slug, but something smaller and paler. A finger, waggling at me from the hole. And at another hole nearby, was that an eye?
A surge of movement snapped me out of my staring, almost too late. Several of the creatures at the front were sliding forward fast now, almost to the black. It was time to go.
“Let me up!”
Immediately I heard a loud buzz as the crane’s motor whirred to life. I was lifted off the ground a second later, just as three of the slugs flung themselves toward the spot I’d been with angry hiss. I was searching desperately for the hole with the eye again. One up and over from the withered finger that was still protruding limply into the room. I found the eye even as Brent spoke again.
“God..help me, Marty…”
I leaned forward as best I could with my arms strapped to the chair, making sure I could meet his gaze for a moment longer before he sank out of view.
“No.”
Leaning back in my chair, I began to hum. Below me, Brent’s pleas had been replaced with screams. The first of the slugs had made their way home.
Comments