Flesh Worn Stone Read online

  Then her leg went up, wrapping around the man.

  And she caressed his face.

  And then she turned to Steven and smiled.

  He couldn’t watch anymore, turning away and heading to the back of the crowd in tears. He slumped down on the canyon wall, head in his hands. Only when he finally heard the crowd again, over the din of his own emotions, did he know it was finally over. John came to his side and kneeled down next to him.

  “Steven…I’m sorry about this.”

  “You didn’t have anything to do with it. It was those sick fucks in the Castle.” His hatred for whoever was running the Game was only building. He didn’t mention that the appearance of his wife enjoying the rape was what troubled him the most, but John had seen it. Everyone had seen it. Everyone knew.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about,” John told him, gesturing towards the sign. “It’s your turn.”

  Steven looked up, sadness and jealousy funneling to an outlet of rage. He wanted to kill someone. No, he corrected himself, he wanted to kill his wife and Darius, but someone would do. He stood, wiping the tears from his face, and looked up at the board. It was his number and one he didn’t recognize, but instead of the letter K, like he’d hoped, there was another R.

  “Fuck,” Steven said, knowing that he’d never be able to perform in front of the crowd. It wasn’t that they would make fun of him or some other childish ritual. That simply didn’t happen. There was always encouragement until there was failure and then, at that point, it didn’t matter anymore. The person was dead anyway. No, the crowd would cheer him on, but it wouldn’t matter. He just knew he couldn’t do it.

  “Yes,” John said. “I think that’s the idea.”

  He nodded in agreement and started forward. Rebecca, pulling her clothing together, stopped in front of him. “Steven…”

  “Save it,” he told her. “Save it for Darius.”

  She looked hurt but said nothing, taking Mia and heading back into the Cave. Steven tried to push her from his mind as he stepped into the arena, looking for the woman that was to be his opponent. He wondered if he let her win, and then let her rape him, if he would be aroused.

  Then he saw it wasn’t a woman at all, but a sickly old man who was missing one arm and his left leg below the knee. He waddled out on a homemade crutch, waving at Steven with his good arm, a warm smile across his face. Steven didn’t know what to do. If he failed to go out and rape the crippled old man, he’d die. He didn’t want to do it, but he didn’t want to die either.

  “Please,” the man said as Steven neared. “I know that I will not survive this. My heart is about to give out, and to be honest, I’m not sure why I’ve lived this long. I’m happy it’s finally going to be over.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Steven asked, still confused and still angry at his wife. He wanted to kill someone, but striking this crippled old man just didn’t feel right.

  “Because I’m going to die and I don’t give a rat’s ass what happens to me now. I just want to tell you something, something they told us if we did tell you, or any of the others…well, they said we’d end up in the pot, or worse, we’d never, ever be selected for a chance at the Game.”

  “Who is they?”

  The man pointed up to the one-way mirrors and the billboard. “The Castle.”

  Steven knew that the fear of not getting a chance at the Game was, for most of the Cavers, worse than the fear of death. At least in death they could become useful, fueling the people of the Cave for one more day from the pot. But without the chance of winning a Game, there was no chance at freedom. Whatever it was the old man wanted to tell him was drastic enough to warrant the greatest of all threats.

  “What?” he asked, not able to imagine what the man could say of importance to him.

  “Your wife isn’t who she appears to be,” the man said, and then coughed hard enough Steven thought he was going to see a lung any second. He pulled his hand back, covered in blood and mucus. “You shouldn’t trust her.”

  That embroiled Steven and, without waiting for the man to sayany more, he knocked the crutch out from under his amputated arm. The man stood there, for a few seconds hopping on one leg, his hand in front of his face and fear streaming from his eyes like water from a tap.

  “You don’t know my wife,” Steven raged, but the other voice in his head wondered if he even knew her.

  He pushed the man over, who was coughing. “But I do know her.”

  Steven didn’t care and whatever else the man said was drowned out by pain and anger. He kicked the man in the head, fracturing his skull, and then kicked him again. The man struggled to protect his face, blocking it with his arms, one handless, so Steven proceeded to kick his ribcage. He kicked over and over again until he heard the sickening crunch and felt the bones give way, his foot driving shards of bone into the old man’s lung and killing him. The man lay still, a pool of blood quickly forming around him, and Steven looked down in sudden sorrow.

  He’d taken his anger out on this man, and he knew it. In an instant, he felt guilty about it. He wanted to cry, to fall to his knees and hug the man, apologizing. This man was dead because of him. Still, the crowd roared, cheering him on and chanting, “Rape, rape, rape!”

  Steven wondered if they knew he was dead.

  He let his jumpsuit drop to the ground and stood there, his penis in his hand, completely oblivious to whether the crowd saw his nakedness or not. They wanted rape and he was bound and determined to give it to them. If this was what his life was about now, then he’d just get used to it. He wasn’t going to die here, in this hellhole, and end up in the pot. Besides…too many more people needed to die, people responsible for this situation. Steven shook with rage as he tried to get his penis erect and, out of the corner of his eye, saw Block signal two women over to him. In this Steven was as equal as everyone else in the Cave. Block would help anyone he could, he realized, within the confines of the Game.

  Vaguely sensing them at his penis, one working it with her mouth and the other concentrating on his testicles, panic started to set in as he still didn’t feel an erection starting. He looked over at where Rebecca stood, still half naked. He was mesmerized as he watched her. With one hand she rubbed at her crotch and with the other, her left breast. All thoughts of what she and Darius had just done drifted away as his cock slowly began to rise, the warmth of the woman’s mouth on it and the allure of his wife acting like a slut on the sidelines driving him mad.

  When it was hard enough, he ordered the two women, “Hold the old fucker up so I can get at him.”

  The two women obliged and Steven felt his cock absolutely pulsing. That the man was dead didn’t deter him in the least. He was about to earn his second mark.

  “Oh, fuck, man,” one of the girls said, looking up at him. He noticed she had no teeth and wondered for a second if she’d been the one sucking his cock. “He’s dead.”

  “Hold him the fuck up,” Steven ordered again, dropping to his knees and positioning himself behind the man. His ass was covered in feces where he’d lost control of himself as he’d died, but Steven didn’t care. He was going to win. Inserting himself into the dead man’s anus, he pumped wildly, his arms raised above his head in victory like a wild man. It only took a few moments for him to achieve ejaculation, and when he did, he fell backwards on the stone, his energy spent along with his sperm.

  The two girls rushed to Block and told him what had happened. The big man came to Steven and frowned. “Good going, fuckwad. You probably cost us dinner.”

  “What do you mean? I raped him. Isn’t that what you fuckers wanted?”

  “You were supposed to rape him, sure,” Block said. “But there was no K. You weren’t supposed to kill him.”

  Steven looked up at where the live display on the bulletin board wavered, thumb outstretched. The crowd held their collective breath, and as it finally turned down, started booing Steven.

  “Welcome to hell, motherfucker,” Block s
aid, kicking him in the face and knocking him out cold.

  Chapter Eight

  Steven awoke to the throbbing of his head, feeling much like a stuck oil rig trying to pull a stubborn pipe out of the wellbore. His vision was blurry and there was dried blood around his face. His crotch itched horribly as well, covered in dried dead-guy feces and ejaculate, and he remembered raping the corpse, the feeling of elation and victory at winning the Game completely wiped out by the fear of his punishment for failing the details.

  He was on the raised stone podium, beneath the ancient wooden ship hung suspended in the air and the evening meals were cooked, and could feel that he’d already been awarded a mark, the new one burning next to the old one his forehead. He tried to stand but was jerked violently to his feet by several of Block’s men.

  “We had such high hopes for you, Steven,” Block told him. “And while you did technically win your Game, you exceeded the rules.”

  Steven croaked, trying to find his voice. “He said he was going to die anyway. He knew he wasn’t going to survive the Game.”

  “And that means what?” Block asked. “I’ll tell you what it means. Jack and shit. You, my friend, for exceeding the limits of the Game and costing the Cave a meal, are going to spend a week in the Cage. Get him out of here.”

  At least they aren’t going to kill me, he thought. How bad could a week in the Cage be? At least he’d be away from the madness inside the Cave. As they dragged him through the crowd, the people who were angry attempted to slap and hit him. He saw Rebecca standing next to Darius, his hand over her shoulder. She turned away from him, not making eye contact, and Darius smiled. It wasn’t a ‘Hey, I banged your wife’ smile, but a genuine, heartfelt sort of affair. Or so Steven thought. There really wasn’t any way to tell.

  They passed another group of men dragging a corpse along the tunnel, and Steven figured it had to be the man who’d been sentenced to the Cage a week ago. His eyes were open, but the orbs were gone, and, judging by the multiple tears and lacerations on his face, Steven guessed that birds had torn him apart once he’d died. Obviously, no one had gone to help the man, and he’d starved to death or died from dehydration out there alone as the people of the Cave forgot about him. He couldn’t imagine a worse way of dying, alone and that close to freedom but unable to even step out of the open gate. It was the ultimate fuck you on the part of the Castle.

  The dumped Steven in the Cage, and one kicked him in the back for good measure. “You are a sick fuck,” the man spat. “Fucking a corpse.”

  “Would it have changed anything if I hadn’t?” Steven asked through bruised and broken lips.

  “What do you mean?” the big man asked, apparently curious as to why someone in Steven’s predicament would question him.

  “If I had refused to, what would have happened?”

  “You’d have been dinner.”

  “No winning with you guys, is there?”

  “No, I suppose not,” the big man said, but was less rough in handling Steven the rest of the way to the Cage.

  His friends laughed and Steven fully expected more abuse, but they left him, alone, in the Cage as the sun set on the beach. He suddenly realized it was the first time he’d been alone, really and truly alone, and not separated by cardboard and garbage bags, since they’d arrived. It was an awkward sensation, one that was, at the same time, exhilarating and frightening.

  The sun setting on the horizon would have been a beautiful thing in another place and another time. He remembered sitting on the beach with Rebecca in Cancun, watching the sun set with a bottle of red wine. They’d made love on the beach that night, and never in a thousand years would he have suspected his wife of her current behavior. Of course, never in a thousand years would he have dreamed he’d be here, a slave for the entertainment of others, his sons dead, and watching as slowly he and his wife drifted apart. Michelle’s horrible death at the hands of a drunk driver had actually been less painful than this. At least that had been quickly over with… finished. Here the separation was a lingering death as he watched his wife, day in and day out, slowly drift away.

  What did he actually know about her? he wondered, watching the reddish orange sun finally set, replaced by the clearest sky and brightest stars he’d ever seen. He tried not to imagine the worst, but other than their relationship of the last few years, he didn’t know her. Rebecca was an orphan, and didn’t know anything about her birth family. She’d been raised in one foster home after another until finally becoming an adult and going out on her own. She didn’t talk a lot about those years, and Steven had never pushed. He’d just assumed she’d been telling the truth, and had never questioned her. He was starting to have doubts about who his wife was, and the old man’s warning didn’t do anything to help.

  Had the old man he’d killed and then raped actually known his wife? Was it possible that he’d known her in the outside world somewhere, before their confinement to the island? Was there a shred of truth to anything in this place? It was a long shot, but the idea suited him better than thinking his wife had been to the Cave before.

  And then he thought about the numbers tattooed on her hand…

  * * *

  John was eating despite there being no reward after the Game, but he was lying low in doing it. He sat behind a stalagmite far away from the centers of activity in the Cave and nibbled at a soggy single-serve box of Fruit Loops. He didn’t want the others, many who’d voiced their hunger, to see what he had and they didn’t. It just wouldn’t do for the masses to know their better had more than they did. And since he hadn’t shared what he had when the call went out to contribute to the pot, he figured the ramifications of doing so would be, at the very least, grim. So he leaned against the rock that had taken eons of dripping water to form and ate.

  He wondered why he hadn’t been called to the Game when each of the other people he’d arrived with had. Steven and Darius both had two marks, Amanda one, and Rebecca one loss. He wondered how long it would be before he got the opportunity to get one. On the other hand, he thought, he was doing just fine as is.

  Shocked at how easily the people of the Cave took to his system of chits, he’d amassed many items that, if they weren’t quite necessary to his survival, then would go a long way to making life more tolerable. His father would have him beheaded, he knew, if he found out about the scheme, but John was sure there was little likelihood of that happening. Who among these people had a chance of getting out of this place? Well, John had a plan for the few that did, like Block and Darius. They simply could not live long enough to get out, he thought, and began planning ways to make sure they didn’t.

  “I see you’re not going without,” Block said, towering above him like a total eclipse of the sun.

  “I had this saved.”

  “Not likely. What is likely is that you bought it off some unsuspecting idiot with one of your wooden chits. I wonder how those taste, right at the moment?”

  “There is no rule against bartering,” John insisted, though he didn’t actually know. The Rules weren’t written anywhere and seemed to be exercised by Block at will, which could lead to changes in the middle of the Game. Some were clear-cut and written in proverbial stone, like do no harm outside the Game, but others, like bartering, were a bit more complicated. Block was consistent, though, and John would give him that. He had yet to see the man manipulating the unwritten rules in his favor, and was, by all accounts, as fair a leader as anyone could ask for in the Cave. He figured if trading were illegal in the Cave, Block would have done something about it long before now, especially considering the shop that had sprung up already, and the few people who were trying to produce something, be it seashell necklaces or clothing fashioned from the haul.

  “No, you’re right. It isn’t illegal and people have always traded. But no one has ever gone hungry when there is food available. People never withheld food for something else of value. When there’s been a drought of the Game, or multiple losses, people have alwa
ys donated what they had to the whole. It is our way.”

  “There is food,” he replied. “There’s the soup.”

  “And a brother had to die for that. Could a child have eaten that cereal instead? Or could that cereal, added to the soup, made the difference between starvation and not?”

  “I don’t know what you’re getting at, Block. I traded for this fair and square, as the saying goes.”

  “Did you really?” he said, picking up one of the chits that John had been carving on. “With this, did you?”

  “What else?”

  “So you’re trading worthless pieces of wood for actual, valuable objects and food. Do you not see the irony in that?”

  He did but didn’t say anything. “Why shouldn’t I use my personal resources to survive this place? Why shouldn’t I do everything within my power to stay alive?”