Flesh Worn Stone Read online

  And Steven knew it didn’t matter, one way or another. Even if these two men made it out of the Cave with a pile of the chits, there was no guarantee John’s father, fictional or otherwise, would pay them. After all, if he didn’t, what exactly would the two men do about it?

  He didn’t get to visit with them or ponder the situation any longer as, after the longest spell without a Game since he’d been in the Cave, the Game bell sounded.

  The two men very quickly became very excited. “All right,” Ernie said. “That’s what I’m talking about. Be sure to take some extra bags so we can get some more merchandise.”

  “Nobody will buy anything right after the Game. They’ll have their arms full of stuff they scavenged themselves,” Max told him. “We’ll be sitting on a lot of crap for no reason.”

  “But what if it’s longer, like this time, until the next Game? We’ll be rolling in it by then.”

  “Whatever, man,” Max said, gathering up some of the black plastic garbage bags. “Let’s go.”

  Steven followed them into the sunlight of the canyon, wondering if his number would, once again, be called.

  * * *

  Amanda winced at the sound of the alarm, and her heart began thumping nervously. She fully expected to be called at the next Game, and had been having nightmares about it for days. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she just did, and it was giving her fits. Unsure of what sort of Game she’d have to play, she dreaded the self-amputations the most. First off, she didn’t know if she could do it, and second, what would life be like if she ended up like the old hag with no hands? She’d seen the woman around the Caves, proudly displaying her two marks but having to beg the charity of others to eat or do just about anything. The woman stank more than the average Cave dweller, smelling strongly of urine and feces, and Amanda suspected she could do little to clean her private parts and that her fellow citizens simply weren’t willing to help her.

  Trying to shake the image of the woman wiping with the bloodied stump from her mind, she continued towards the canyon entrance, along with every other living soul in the Cave.

  The bright sunlight caught her off guard, and she had to, at least temporarily, shield her eyes. The sun was warm and felt good on her face. She knew that she hadn’t been getting enough of it. She was becoming as pale as the rest of the Cave dwellers who only went out into the sunshine during the Game. Living by torchlight in the great cavern, with no way to tell day from night besides when everyone was sleeping, just wasn't healthy.

  The gladiator cartoon was playing once more, and once more the crowd was cheering. It was sad, to her, that they would cheer the same death scene over and over again like someone might their favorite quarterback’s good pass. Each of the quarterback’s passes would be different, though. She couldn’t imagine him throwing the same one each and every time, the same guy catching it, and the crowd cheering in exactly the same way. She thought it must have something to do with the boredom of the Cave, those long days between Games when all there was to do was try and find something to eat and sleep. The Gladiators represented something different from the monotony of day-to-day living; they represented the Game.

  She held her breath as the gladiators faded, replaced by two numbers and the letter K. She knew, without looking at her arm, that the second number was hers, just as she’d feared.

  “It’s yours,” Rebecca told her, shuffling out of the crowd to her side, dragging Mia with her. “Yours and that old woman’s without the hands.”

  “How do you know?” she asked but already saw the old woman coming out of the crowd opposite them.

  “I keep up with numbers…I can remember them pretty easily,” Rebecca said flatly. “You’re going to have to go out and kill her.”

  “This isn’t fair,” she said, not because she was scared, but because she felt pity for the handless old woman. The Game hadn’t been fair to her in the least, taking both her hands and now her life.

  “Is anything fair?”

  Amanda nodded in agreement and took her first, hesitant steps out onto the field of battle. She wanted to tell the woman that she was sorry she was going to have to die and that she’d remember her name—something stoic and passionate. Yet the old woman came screaming at her, her stumps upraised like a wild woman, and caught her full in the face with the recently amputated wrist.

  She felt the spurt of blood and pus as the stump exploded across her face, driving her backwards and to the ground. The old woman leapt into the air with a strength that scared Amanda and came down hard on her gut, knocking the wind from her and clouding her vision. Panic gripped her as the old woman began pummeling her with her stumps and, though she tried to block her face with her arms, more blows landed then not. Her stump was gushing blood and pus and it rained down on Amanda in a polar opposite of the cleansing rain a few days back.

  Blow after blow landed, and Amanda felt her grip on consciousness slipping away. She saw her life before the Cave, Cassandra before the meal…everything she’d ever done, and realized she’d done nothing in her life. She’d accomplished no goals, and the ones she’d set as a college freshman didn’t mean anything. She hadn’t landed the big job and broken through the glass ceiling, she hadn’t found Mr. Perfect and settled down to have a passel of kids, easily balancing her profession and her family. She hadn’t done anything, and wondered who besides her parents would remember her.

  No one, she realized. Even Rebecca and the others wouldn’t remember her past the evening meal. The old woman might, reliving the glory of her third mark until she died, but no one else would. She couldn’t die. Not yet.

  Besides, she still had to kill Darius.

  She arched her back upwards, dislodging the woman, and then scrambled out from under on her knees.

  “You have to die, missy,” the woman said. “I have to get out of here. James is waiting for me.”

  She didn’t know who James was but could see the rage and fear in the woman’s eyes, along with her hysterical insanity. Before she could get up off her knees, Amanda lashed out with her left foot, connecting with the woman’s face, breaking her nose, and sending her over onto her back.

  “I’m not going to die,” she said, walking up to the woman and stomping on the freshly amputated wrist. “At least, not at your hands.” She burst out in hysterical laughter. “Wait…you don’t have hands!”

  The old woman roared and rolled to her side as Amanda was going to pounce on her injured wrist once more. She was trailing blood as she did, and Amanda knew that if she didn’t kill her, the infection would soon enough. When her back was turned, Amanda kicked her hard there, causing the old woman to scream out in agony.

  She wondered, briefly, if she should feel some guilt, decided that she wouldn’t be guilty if she were the evening’s dinner, and kicked the woman once more.

  The hag rolled over, eyes pleading, and begged, “Please…I only need three more marks. James is out there…I know he is. He’s waiting for me.”

  Amanda, her energy completely built back up, kicked the woman in the face, sending blood and cartilage flying. The old woman passed out but Amanda could still see her chest rising and falling.

  “Kill her, kill her,” the crowd began to chant and as Amanda looked around, she could see Rebecca mouthing the words as well. She was, however, completely unsure of how to actually kill a person.

  So she kept kicking.

  With every kick, the crowd yelled louder and stronger, the old woman’s head quickly becoming a gooey lump of brains and blood. The splatter covered her body and face but with every kick, she felt that much closer to an orgasm. When she finally did experience one, feeling the wetness drip down between her legs, the old hag no longer had a head to speak of.

  She stood there numbed as adrenaline quickly faltered and the crowd rushed in and carried her away like the winning jockey at the Kentucky Grand Derby.

  I killed her, she thought, and tonight I’m going to eat her.

  * * *

 
Steven watched as Amanda kicked the old woman to death and thought that was a pretty nifty way to kill someone. Your legs were naturally going to be stronger, so if you could just get them on the ground…he then felt guilty for even thinking it. That he was thinking of better and easier ways to kill someone was ludicrous, he knew, but so was the Game.

  “She did well,” Rebecca said, beaming at Amanda’s victory like a proud parent, “I knew she would.”

  “You knew she’d make a good murderer?” he asked his wife, incredulous.

  “If you’d have had the chance to murder those people before they killed your sons”—there it was again, his wife intoning that the boys were his and not hers—“would you have?”

  “Of course.”

  “Wouldn’t that have been murder?”

  “It’s all semantics,” he said, knowing she was right. “We’re forced to kill here.”

  “At home we were forced to pay taxes.”

  “Are you equating the two?”

  Rebecca shrugged and Steven was dismayed by her apathy. But he didn’t have time to continue the debate as she said, “Well, I guess I’m up. Hold Mia’s hand while I’m gone.”

  Steven looked up in panic as Rebecca slid Mia’s hand into his, at the board displaying his wife’s number. His heart raced faster than when his own number had been displayed, but she’d reacted so coldly to it, so easily, as if it were nothing more than a trip to the tax preparer. In one instant, with one display of numbers on a board, he could lose his wife, lose everything he had left. After everything they’d been through and survived, this moment could be her last.

  She gave him a small smile, the same thought apparently not on her mind, and strolled out onto the canyon floor.

  “I’m sorry, man,” Darius said, slapping him on the back.

  “It’s not…” Steven stuttered, “…not your fault.”

  “That’s not what I’m sorry about,” Darius said, stepping forward behind Rebecca, and it hit Steven like a hurricane-force wind.

  The other number, along with the letter R, belonged to Darius.

  “You can’t do it!” Steven screamed, latching onto his arm and trying to drag him back, which amounted to an ant trying to drag a train. “I’ll kill you first.”

  Darius turned and stepped backwards, the arm Steven was attached to outstretched. With his free hand, he drew back and popped him in the face. It wasn’t a hard hit, certainly not with all the power he could muster, but it was enough. Steven let go and stumbled backwards, hands holding his bleeding nose.

  “It’s not what I want to do,” Darius said, “it’s what I have to do. At least I don’t have to kill her. You can take some solace in that.”

  “I’m going to kill you,” Steven said, but knew better than to step within arm’s reach of the big man.

  “You’re going to have to get in line first.”

  Steven watched, dismayed, as the man went out to rape his wife.

  * * *

  Darius strode through the crowd, not nearly as comfortable as he’d been when he reveled in the glory of his first Game. The three people before had been complete strangers to him. He hadn’t known them from Adam. But Rebecca was different. It wasn’t that he was close to her, but it was hard not to get to know someone when they all stayed in a shelter as small as they did. Darius like her husband. He was one of the few in the Cave who didn’t either expect something from him or judge him for some perceived past life. Steven just didn’t care, and though he tended to be a bit on the whiny side, he would sit and talk when Darius wanted someone to sit and talk with.

  That he was about to rape his wife bothered him a bit, but it was only a bit.

  Rebecca stood in the middle of the arena, cracking her neck side-to-side and stretching. She jogged in place for a few moments and shadowboxed like she was getting ready for a boxing match.

  “I’m sorry about this,” he told her.

  “I know it’s nothing personal,” she told him. “Like that.” She pointed away.

  When he turned his head to look, she executed a perfect roundhouse kick and took him in the face. She simply didn’t have enough power, though, to knock him over and just drove him back a few steps.

  “That wasn’t fair,” he told her, rubbing his chin and smiling. This might actually amount to something.

  “Why do I have to keep telling people this place isn’t fair?” she said as she popped him in the face. The punch wasn’t hard, as she just didn’t have the upper body strength, but she was quick.

  “I know it’s not fair,” he said, as she popped him several more times. He tried to reach out and grab her but she was just too quick, dancing around like a ballerina.

  “Stand still so I can knock you down and fuck you,” he growled, advancing again but missing, and then tripping over her outstretched leg.

  “Oh, someone is going to fuck, I’m sure,” she said, skipping by and kicking him in the face. “I’m just curious what the boys are going to do when you can’t get it up for me to rape you.”

  He nearly grabbed her ankle but she danced by, actually laughing. Any hesitation he’d had in the beginning was gone completely. This was as much a game for her as anyone else, he realized. She knew the consequences of failure, understood the dinner pot. He told himself he would not feel guilt because he knew, were the situations somehow reversed, she wouldn’t. He scrambled after her.

  She turned and stood her ground. “I’m guessing you probably can’t get it up anyway.”

  “Fuck you,” he spat, trying to maintain his composure and trying to clothes hanger her as she snaked to his right, missed, and got several quick jabs in his ribs as a reward. From behind him, before he could turn, she executed another textbook roundhouse kick, catching him in the face and sending him staggering backwards again.

  “Seriously, that’s all you can say? Fuck you. That’s not very creative.”

  He rushed her again, and this time she went to her knees, then her back, and then, when he couldn’t change the flow of his own momentum, she punched upwards into his testicles. Pain flared through his body, fighting for position with the rage. He tumbled forward, face first, into the stone and mud ground.

  “I’d also guess that if you could get it up, it would have to be rape, wouldn’t? A big man like you—you probably couldn’t get it up unless the poor little girl was struggling, could you?”

  “I’m going to kill you,” he roared, holding his testicles with one hand while pushing himself up with the other.

  “I’m sure you wanted to kill Amanda when she resisted, didn’t you?”

  “Why would she resist?” he said, watching in slow motion as she jumped forward with one foot outstretched and connected squarely with his nose. He felt the bones break and the blood flow as he fell over onto his back.

  “Ah…” Rebecca said, pausing to rub her chin dramatically, “maybe because girls don’t really like rape?”

  “Sure they do,” Darius replied as they circled. “Most just won’t admit it. But fuck you anyway, little miss. You don’t know shit.”

  “Sure I do,” she said from the other side of him. “I know you raped her. What I don’t know is why you hid behind a mask. Are you a coward as well as a rapist?”

  As she lunged forward once more, he managed to catch her in midair and then slam her to the ground, driving the wind from her. He scrambled on top of her and leaned in close. “It’s not rape when they make you do it.”

  “Like here?”

  “Like here,” he said, nodding.

  He had her now, and there was no amount of fancy martial arts or quickness that was going to save her. The rage and anger, despite the blow to his midsection, was fueling a powerful erection.

  “Just do me a favor,” she said, the struggling ended.

  “What’s that?”

  “Make me like it.”

  * * *

  Steven watched in amazement as his wife danced around the big man like a prizefighter. He had no idea where she’d learn
ed the martial arts-type moves she was using, but she was executing them flawlessly. Darius, unlike his first Game, looked like a big rhinoceros floundering around, and for a few moments Steven was hopeful. His wife just might wear the big man down and beat him.

  But then he realized she’d still have to rape him, to meet the terms of the Game, and he was unsure of how that would work in this situation. Jealousy wasn’t an emotion he was used to, but he was rapidly learning it.

  Rebecca danced around more, giving the man licks when she could, and he could tell Darius was becoming angry. He feared for her, but when he finally caught her, after they spoke for a few seconds, it was like a slow car wreck. He couldn’t pull his eyes away from the big black man tearing at his wife’s clothing, ripping her pants right up the middle. The roars of the crowd were silence to him as he watched Darius enter her, pounding frantically. He wanted her to resist, to do something to dislodge the man from her, but she just lay there.