Flesh Worn Stone Read online

  He started out of the cabin and paused, looking to the rear. There was a small corral with a couple of small pigs and a goat. He smiled, looking at the pig.

  “Hey, porky, how’s it going?”

  * * *

  “People are hungry,” John told Darius near the throne. A day had passed since he and his men had commandeered the food, only parceling it out to those who were willing to take a loan from John and then use that money to pay for the food from Ernie and Max. The couple had fallen right into line after Block had been killed, and even proposed ways to make the whole operation more efficient. They weren’t stupid, John thought, and knew which way the wind was blowing.

  Which was more than he could say for himself.

  Darius’ attitude had changed so much in the few days since he’d taken over. John always knew the man was driven, but since his victory he’d turned dark and violent. He was prone to wild mood swings, and John watched everything he said around him. He didn’t want to tell him that the people were hungry, he should know that himself, but the matter was growing to the point that something was going to have to be done. The scheme they’d created to keep the people of the Cave under their thumb was going to collapse before it ever got started.

  “So feed them. They all got loans, didn’t they?”

  They had, of course, gotten loans, and if his father ever saw the millions of dollars of his money that his son had fictitiously loaned out, he wouldn’t want to survive the Game. “Yes.”

  “Then have the boys whip up some soup. Start a line.”

  “I don’t know that the people will submit to it, Darius. There’s already been quite of bit of grumbling about the pile,” he said, pointing to the remains of the reward from the last Game behind the throne. “And I’m afraid if I charge them to eat then there might be…well, there might be problems.”

  Darius grabbed him by the front of his jumpsuit and jerked him forward. “I don’t actually give a shit if there are problems. They can eat if they pay for it. What the fuck are you so worried about? You set the system up. This is your baby.”

  John regretted having done so now. He feared that he’d raised the ire of the Castle, through Jackson, and with that, he’d never participate in a Game and never earn his way out of the Cave. The system they devised wasn’t going to make it a week, much less the rest of his life, and he knew that once it collapsed, the people’s anger would be directed at Darius and John. The Cavers would be justified in adding both he and Darius to the pot.

  “Just do it, John. If they get worked up we’ll kill a few of them in the name of the Rules to make examples, okay?”

  John nodded, and then went to where the women waited at the cauldrons, ordering them to go ahead and fire them up. He sat down near them as the line formed, with his improvised ledger, just waiting for the jeers and threats to start. He could actually deal with the insults and taunts easily enough—after all, they were just words. It was the look on the hungry children’s faces that bothered him more.

  * * *

  Hauling the backpack, the shotgun, and the small pig back to the Cave had been a chore, but stopping and drinking from the stream and then gorging on bananas and coconuts along the way had been a big help. Steven regretted killing the pig now, thinking what he planned would be a vagrant flag to Jackson that he knew of the cabin, and of Jackson’s dual life, but he was already committed. The pig was his ticket back into the good graces of the people of the Cave, and hopefully his wife. It had been a spur of the moment decision, one that, with a little more thought, he wouldn’t have done. Still, it might be good to let the Castle know he knew. It might shake things up a bit.

  He buried the shotgun and backpack in the sand near the Cage and made sure to remember exactly how many steps it took to get to the edge of the bamboo and wire cell. He retraced his steps a dozen times until he had it down enough that he could find it in the dark without the light of the moon. Steven then returned to the Cage, as the sun was starting to set, and cleaned up the jumpsuit and the piles of sand. He slid back into the suit, noticing how bad it stunk, and leaned back against the bars of the Cage, the pig at his side.

  When one of Block’s men came to release him that night, he was surprised to see the pig.

  “How the hell did you end up with that?”

  “It wandered into the Cage and I killed it. I figure we can eat it tonight,” he said, hoping to gain at least a little support on his return.

  “Well, I don’t know what Darius will say about that. He’s got the whole food thing on lockdown right now.”

  “Darius?” he asked, his mind racing. “What does Darius have to do with anything? Who cares what he’d have to say about it?”

  “Oh, you wouldn’t know, would you? Darius went up against Block in the last Game and won. It was a real disappointment too,” he said, quickly looking over his shoulder to see if someone had heard him or not. “Not that Darius won, mind you.”

  He could sense the fear in the man’s voice, and couldn’t believe in that short of time Darius was already stirring such vivid emotions. “I understand.”

  “It was disappointing because it was over so fast. One minute they were there and everyone was all pumped up about the fight of the century, or some such crap. The next, Block was lying on the ground dead, his nose all smashed to shit. Darius doesn’t fight fair, but I don’t guess that’s a requirement in the Game.”

  “No, I don’t guess so,” Steven said, standing and hauling the pig up over his shoulder. “But how did that put Darius in charge?”

  The man shrugged. “I don’t know how it all went down. All I know is that he’s paying us in wooden chits, and then making us buy our food back from him, food we helped him take, like the rest of the people. Hell, he’s making people take loans from that Arab guy so they can pay for their meals. I…” The guard paused, apparently unsure of how much to tell Steven. “I don’t know how it’s all going to go down.”

  A lot had changed in the week since Steven’s isolation. He was going to have to relearn the Cave all over again. Fortunately, the pig worked just as he thought it would. Gone were the insults and threats about him killing the man during his last Game, costing the Cave a meal, replaced by cheers and congratulations at not just living, but on thriving. He knew his few days in the jungle and the masses of fruit he’d managed to find, along with good clean water, had done a lot to improve his appearance, but he was still sunburned, and hopefully still looked the part of a recently released prisoner.

  The crowd split like Moses parting the Red Sea as he made his way to the podium. There was a long line of people waiting to get food in their little bowls, but each had to stop and talk to John before they did. Steven walked up to the podium like a hunter returning with his game and dumped the pig off on the podium.

  “Soup is served,” he said with a smile and the crowd that could hear him cheered.

  “Glad to see you’re still alive,” Darius said, but somehow Steven doubted that, especially with his wife at his side. She looked at him sullenly and then wouldn’t make eye contact again. His heart fell through the floor. His relationship with Darius had started out fine, the man supportive of the weaker Steven, but things had quickly changed. “And I’m glad you brought us some more food. If you want to deposit over there, in that pile,” he said, pointing behind the throne, “I’ll make sure John credits you for it.”

  “No,” Steven said defiantly yet quietly, and a hush fell over the crowd.

  “Excuse me?”

  “I said no. I won’t be selling it to you. This is for everyone, right here, right now.”

  Darius stepped down off the dais and slapped Steven hard across the face, sending the pig flying in one direction and him the other. He hit the ground hard. Darius started to advance on him, but the people around him stepped between them. “You’ll do what you’re told, Steven, or you’ll go in the pot. This isn’t some joke, man. You will contribute to the well-being of the Cave one way or another, be it by actua
lly helping or be it by the pot. I don’t care.”

  “So you’re helping the people here, huh?” Steven said, getting to his feet and rubbing at his throbbing face. Darius, once again, had pulled his punch, not hitting him nearly as hard as he could have. Was there some guilt there?

  “Everything I do, I do for the people,” Darius replied to the groan of the actual people who, apparently, didn’t agree with him. “For too long this place has been run in anarchy, and out of that chaos I’ve brought order.”

  “You’re still not getting the pig, Darius,” Steven replied calmly, trying to keep the anxiety he felt out of his voice. “It’s for everybody.”

  Darius moved to slap him again when several of the Cavers stepped in between the two men.

  “He said it’s for us,” one man said.

  “And he’s not charging for it,” another replied.

  Steven felt a mix of fear and pride, and then guilt at manipulating these people. They didn’t deserve to be pawns, yet if his actions and their reactions helped protect him from Darius, then he just didn’t care. Darius stared back and forth between his men, armed with spears and clubs, to the crowd, then to Steven. It was so quiet in the Cave that Steven could hear the water dripping off the stalagmites. He waited for Darius to blink, to slap him again…to do anything.

  Darius laughed. “Fine…if that’s the way you want it. See how long the pig lasts. The price of the soup just tripled.”

  There was a collective moan and the men who’d spoken up for him helped him up. “You are doing a dangerous thing.”

  “I’m just trying to get by.”

  “Well, thank you,” Steven told him as they carried off the pig to be cleaned and prepared. As he made for their shelter, wondering if it was still there after a week of so much change, he could feel Darius’ eyes boring a hole into his back.

  What he didn’t see, however, was Jackson watching a very familiar pig being carried away.

  Chapter Eleven

  Steven couldn’t sleep, knowing there was a whole world to explore outside the Cave and the Game, and that now, without his chip, he could do it if he wanted to. Rebecca hadn’t returned to the shelter and he was alone in it with John. He’d watched, through the garbage bags, as Rebecca hung around Darius. The man treated her as he would a wife, with simple pats on the ass, an occasional kiss…he treated the girl Mia even better, tossing her in the air and playing with her as if she were his own child. He closed the flap in disgust and thought that he’d have been better off just finding a way away from the Cave. Then he felt guilty for giving up on his wife and wondered if he told her he had a way out if she’d follow.

  She wouldn’t even have to go through the agony of removing her chip, he thought. With the shotgun he could hold them back easily as they made their escape, though he still didn’t know what the Castle contained. For all he knew there could be armed troops up there, just waiting for someone to escape. And even if there weren’t bloodthirsty Third World troops with AK-47s, he still didn’t have a clue how to actually escape the place and return home. He sure didn’t want to spend the rest of his life hiding in the jungle and living off bananas and coconuts.

  “I’m sorry Steven,” John told him, lying back on his ragged sleeping bag and staring at the ceiling. “Most of this is my fault.”

  “I don’t know how my wife being with another man could be your fault.”

  “Well…” John stammered, “I’m sure it’s related. Darius wouldn’t be where he is if it weren’t for my stupid idea, and she wouldn’t be with him if he wasn’t where he is.”

  His logic made sense in a twisted sort of way, but Steven couldn’t find it in himself to blame the man for it. “It’s not your fault, John. Don’t worry about it.”

  “It’s not just that I’m worried about it. Darius is out of control. I didn’t know, when I got involved with him, that he’d be this unstable. I thought he was intelligent and rational, but he’s not. He’s a monster. Hell, even the people are starting to see it. I don’t see any of this ending well.”

  Steven wasn’t exactly comfortable in the philosophical talk with John. The man was right. His chit scheme had, in large part, helped ruin whatever stability there was in the Cave. The money had turned people against one another outside of the Canyon and the Game. But it was hard to be angry with John, as with his wife, when he knew that the motive of everything they did was simple survival. How could you fault a person for the most basic of instincts?

  “I don’t know what to do about Darius,” Steven admitted. “Or if anything needs to be done. You’d think that the people that run the place would do something about him if they felt like it needed to happen.”

  “They will. We met one yesterday.”

  “Really? You met someone from the Castle?”

  “His name is Jackson. You’ve probably seen him around. He’s an old man in purple robes, and he doesn’t have a number,” John said, holding his tattooed arm up. “He said they weren’t pleased with Darius’ activities since he became leader, but I don’t know that there’s anything they can do about it.”

  “How can they not do anything about it? They run this place.”

  “They run the Game. They control who comes to the Cave, but they don’t control what happens in the Cave. I guess they could send a troop of armed goons and just enforce what they want, but I think the people would go for that even less than dealing with Darius.”

  “And how are the people?” Steven asked, wondering what the overall reaction to Darius’ iron-fisted ruling was. There’d been the small revolt of the previous evening, people standing up to Darius over the pig, but that was a far cry from actually dethroning him.

  “People are nervous and scared and confused,” John said. “They don’t understand why they have to borrow mythical money in order to buy food and then pay the mythical money back. I,” the sadness was so evident in his voice, “don’t understand it either. I don’t actually understand why they have put up with the system at all. If they’d snip it in the bud now, things could go back to normal.”

  Steven almost laughed at the use of the word normal in relation to anything in the Cave.

  “I don’t care what Darius says, or what the people in the Castle think…the real power lies with the residents of this Cave.”

  “What do you mean?” Steven asked. “They’re trapped here just like the rest of us. They either obey or die.”

  “They don’t have to obey. We don’t have to obey.”

  “John, they’ll kill us if we don’t. Remember the machine guns above the Canyon? I doubt they’re for show and tell. There are ruthless murders that run this place, evil men who find joy in the torment of others. They have demonstrated time and time again their capacity for evil.”

  “But it’s because we let them. We let them do this to us. How long did it take you, after you got here, to realize that surviving the place was the most important thing? How long did it take you to resign yourself to the fact that you were here and that was that, that you had to win the Game at all cost?”

  John was right, of course, but there wasn’t any other way. The people in the Castle had all the cards. “I know what you mean, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have to do this. We’re forced to do it.”

  “We’re not forced to do anything. We have free will, and everything we do, we choose to do. Darius chose to rape Amanda and Cassandra in order to come here. The people of this Cave choose to obey the commands of the Castle, choose to participate in the Game. They could, as one, stand up and refuse. They might die, of course, but they would ultimately be free, wouldn’t they?” The man’s passion was obvious, as though he’d been thinking about the subject matter a long, long time, but he still lay on his back, staring up at the ceiling. “Steven…your wife chose to murder your sons in order to return to this place.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” Steven asked, his tone turning to a scream. “My wife didn’t kill my sons.”

  Joh
n sat up, cross-legged, and then faced him. “Yes, Steven, your wife killed your sons as payment to return to the Game, a Game she’d already won freedom from, to save her daughter, that little girl who was fathered by Block. My father paid millions so that I could come here and become a man. Cassandra volunteered Amanda, without her consent, for the Contract, and Darius raped both women as payment for his. You see, they are all choices. I didn’t have to agree to my father’s terms, nor did your wife have to volunteer you.”

  Steven reached out, full of rage and confusion and hatred, and slapped John. “Shut up.”

  John rubbed at his chin calmly. “You know, I’ve accumulated enough power in this place, right now, that I could probably convince Darius to have you executed for assault. That’s the penalty, you know, for just about any crime. And we choose to accept that penalty. The people of this Cave, like all men, choose to be governed like this.”