Flesh Worn Stone (22 page)

John nodded solemnly and then worked his way to the front of the crowd to try and hear what the two men were saying to each other. He knew his life, as well as both of theirs, was on the line at this very moment.

“So what happens if you lose, Block?” Darius asked as the two men exchanged a few preliminary punches, feeling each other out. “Have you thought about that?”

Block avoided a quick punch, darting to the side like a boxer, and said, “A three-timer will take my place, and my men will make sure it isn’t you. It doesn’t matter, though. I won’t lose.”

Darius laughed out loud. “I like the confidence, I really do. But after I kill you, the men that are not already on my payroll will be. I will be in charge, and I can tell you, I’ll be making some changes around here.”

“I guess if I’m dead, I won’t care, will I?”

“I’m going to enjoy eating you, Block.”

“We’ll see about that.”

The crowd hushed in anticipation, expecting a brutal, no holds barred fight that they’d be talking about for weeks to come. But as Block stepped forward, Darius simply hit him in the nose, palm forward, and drove his nose into his brain. It was a simple way to kill, and Block fell backwards, dead before he even hit the ground. The crowd was absolutely silent as Darius turned to them, arms outstretched over his head in victory.

He smiled at John and winked. It was the most anticlimactic thing the Arab could think of after all the sudden anticipation. The crowd had expected a duel to the death, blood and tears, and it was over in the space of a few seconds. There was finally a person clapping, then another, and then, as the people felt the change that had just occurred, there was a violent outburst of applause and the people chanted
Darius, Darius, Darius
.

As the crowd recovered from their shock, John jogged to Darius’ side. “You could have at least made it interesting.”

“That was interesting,” Darius insisted. “I hit him and he died.”

“But what if they don’t approve of it?” John asked, pointing to the giant digital billboard and the box windows. “If the Cave goes hungry again, right now, it could go badly for us. They could select someone else besides you to lead the Cave.”

“Then I’ll kill him too,” Darius said, his adrenaline rush not yet spiked. “I’ll kill any motherfucker who gets in my way.”

They didn’t have long to wait for an answer as the billboard lit up, showing the outstretched thumb. John wondered who the person that sat in the stone throne was and what satisfaction they could get from governing over the Game.  He could see the power of it, the sensation of ruling other people’s lives, but the endless violence had to get tiring. The thumb turned up as the steel doors above the garbage chute opened and the crowd roared.

Darius was quick to beat the people to the pile of muck as it landed with a wet thud on the canyon floor. The few of Block’s men that they’d managed to hire were already there, and it was only a few more seconds before the rest stood next to them, forming a wall between the people and the food. Darius raised his hands, stopping them.

“No, people…that’s not how it’s going to work now. Not this time. You’re not just going to dig in and eat everything at once,” he said. “Who knows how long it will be before another Game, and how long we’ll have to survive on this.” He pointed to the pile of steaming garbage.

“What are we going to do now, then?” someone hollered. “We’re starving!”

“There will be a meal tonight, of course, and we will feast on our proud friend Block, but we will do it right and conserve what we have. You’ve waited this long to eat, you can wait a bit more.”

John didn’t want to burst out in laughter. What Darius wasn’t telling them was that each bowl of slop was going to cost them, and if they didn’t have any chits, they could come see John, the First National Bank of the Hellhole, for a little loan. It would have been cosmically funny if it weren’t so sick.

He thought at first that they were going to ignore him and rush the pile anyway. He wasn’t their leader, at least not officially, and at the moment had only two marks on his head. It wouldn’t take much, right here and now, for the citizens to end Darius’ coup, to assert themselves as their own masters. It could be done. He’d seen similar revolts on smaller scales. They could just trample him and take what they wanted, as was their way, leaving him without any real authority. He might still become the number one man, if one of the other three-timers didn’t object, but it would really just depend on the mood of the crowd. If he could hold him here, though, they had it made.

No one tried to step forward, and many moaned and groaned, but they retreated, heading for the entrance to the Cave, mostly wordlessly. John stepped forward and took Darius’ hand. “I can’t believe that worked. I seriously can’t believe that. They could have just run right over you, if they’d wanted to.”

“People are cowards, at heart, and sheep. They want to be led, they want to be told what to do. Why should they complain much if there’s the promise of more food on a regular basis?”

“But when they find out what they have to do in order to get that food? All hell could break loose.”

“It will be fine. They’re not going to do shit but what I tell them. Welcome to the new reality.” Darius smiled. “And welcome to power.”

Chapter Ten

The fifth night in the Cage Steven woke, his side throbbing, but recovered enough from his self-surgery to stand. The water had long evaporated out of the sand, but he’d discovered that if he dug far enough down there was salt water. He took it sparingly, only enough to quench his thirst, knowing that otherwise it would kill him. When the moon was full in the sky and he was sure that the people of the Cave were sleeping, he took his first tentative steps outside the gate.

All sorts of things could go wrong, he knew. There could be a second device in him somewhere, there could be someone watching somewhere up the slick cliff face. But when he stepped out of the gate, nothing happened. There was no alarm, no rush of people coming to punish him for breaking the rules. It was as quiet as the beach and ocean at night could be.

He stepped all the way out and walked down towards the water’s edge, confidence in his plan building. Putting a tentative foot in the ocean, the water still warm from the day, he flung himself into it and floated there for a few moments, face down in the water, letting the saltwater carry away his pain. It burned at the newly opened wound in his abdomen, but maybe the salt would be good for killing any infection that might be setting in.

Bringing his head back out of the water, he turned and looked at the Cage. Still no one had come to stop him, and it looked like no one even knew he was out of the Cage. He went back to the Cage and stripped off his wet jumpsuit, stuffing the arms, torso, and legs with sand and then trying to arrange it so it looked like he was lying down, asleep. It wouldn’t pass anything but a cursory glance, but he was hoping no one would check on him until his seven days were up.

Rebecca hadn’t, and he was pretty sure she wouldn’t. He tried desperately to ignore the implications of that but couldn’t put the image of Darius screwing his wife out of his mind.

He tore the remains of Amanda’s suit in two and wrapped them around his feet. Then, naked, he stepped back out of the Cage and, picking the direction randomly, headed south. He could see down the beach in either direction for miles, but he was sure that the cliff face didn’t go that far. He prodded along, enjoying the freedom more than anything else. There were no stone walls here, no bamboo cage—no one to force him to do something, or, if he refused, become dinner. It was just him and the open air.

He didn’t know how many miles he’d walked until the mountain started trending downhill along the beach. He was exhausted, but he knew he had limited time before someone came to check on him. Steven was half tempted to just find a way off the island, and to escape the insanity, but he wanted to give Rebecca one more shot. A lot of what was happening was pure survival instinct, he knew, and he could, on a certain level, accept her behavior. She was clinging to the strongest there was, Darius. And in that, she was hoping to survive another day. Now that Steven had something to offer, a possible escape from the Cave, maybe his wife would come back to him.

Just a few miles from the Cage, the slope of the mountain finally turned from rocks to jungle, and just in the area illuminated by the moon’s light, there were enough coconut and banana trees to feed the entire population of the Cave. He set to work cracking a coconut that had fallen to the ground open on a rock and then drank the warm milk. He then followed that up with half a dozen green bananas shoved into his mouth like the champ at a hot dog eating competition.

Before he threw it up it was the best meal he’d ever had.

He went slowly the next time, gathering up a few bananas and sipping at the cracked coconut, and after thirty minutes, he felt like he was mostly whole again. He needed fresh water, but the meal had gone a long way to strengthening his body and resolve.

He wandered away from the beach and into the jungle, finding trails and paths that he knew weren’t made by animals. There were boot prints in the sand, and he’d occasionally find a discarded candy wrapper or soda can. Seeing the evidence of human occupation put him on alarm, and he slowed his pace, trying to listen to the sounds of the jungle. The paths lead inward in meandering fits and eventually led to a freshwater creek. Steven knelt and drank, throwing up again because he’d done it too quickly and it was a shock to his body. He went more slowly the next time, savoring the unpolluted water in his mouth.

As he was drinking, he noticed a pipe running down a hill and feeding into the stream just down from him. Soapsuds flowed out, along with brackish, gray water smelling of laundry detergent and sewage. He decided to get off the path and follow the pipe, open on the ground and not buried, up the hill. Several minutes later, he squatted at the tree line overlooking a clearing with a small cabin at its center. It wasn’t ancient, but it hadn’t been built in the last ten years, either. The white paint was faded and chipped, the glass at the windows dingy from never having been cleaned. Anywhere else, it would be a dump, nothing at all special, but here it was like looking at the White House. It was the epitome of luxury. Solar panels dotted the roof, along with a satellite dish, and he could see the flickering of a television inside. He wanted to run to the house, to scream for help like the proverbial blonde girl who always died in the horror movies, but he resisted the temptation. He knew there was no way the person or persons who lived in the house could not know about the Game. They were more than likely connected to it. He sat and watched the house instead.

The sun was peaking over the eastern horizon before he actually saw anyone moving in the cabin, and when he did, he was glad he hadn’t rushed to the door. Jackson moved about the interior, naked with a coffee cup in his hand, reading a newspaper. Steven watched as the man proceeded to work out on a treadmill and then lift weights. Jackson was amazingly wealthy, by Steven’s new standard of measurement. The fact that he was exercising on a treadmill, when just miles away people were starving on a regular basis, was the ultimate injustice. He added Jackson to the ever growing list of people who just plain needed to die.

After a quick breakfast, Jackson donned the purple robe—Steven now understood how it was always so clean—and set out the front door, walking up a path Steven hadn’t noticed before that lead into jungle away from him and towards the mountain, circumventing the long walk down the beach. He figured it was a path up to where the Castle was, and soon enough, he thought, he’d explore up there as well. But for now, he wanted to see the inside of Jackson’s cabin.

He waited for an hour or better, to make sure the man didn’t return, and then walked into his cabin.

* * *

The interior of the suspended pirate ship was awe-inspiring. He didn’t think there was that much wealth in all of the Cave, but the ship was packed, starboard to port, with objects accumulated over hundreds of years. There were swords and muskets along with armor from Conquistadors stacked neatly in one corner. There was treasure, from cold coins and ingots to necklaces and bracelets, gold plates and cups, and even a crown. There were tons and tons of books, from ancient, leather-clad tomes to new, modern paperbacks. Block’s bedroom had a real, honest-to-god bed as well as tons of clothing. Much of it would fit Darius, he knew, he and Block being of similar proportions. John walked with him as they explored in a kind of daze.

“Some of this stuff has to be worth millions,” he said, fingering a gold chalice encrusted with diamonds and rubies. “And most of it looks vaguely Aztec. I remember seeing this,” he picked up a golden rendition of the Aztec calendar, “on a trip to Cancun.”

Darius fingered one of the long cutlasses, admiring the workmanship in the blade and the still sharp edge. “That stuff is worthless, here. This…this is the real power. Do you know anything about muskets?”

“No,” John said. “But I think you’re wrong. With this stuff, you could actually back the chits. You could actually make them worth something for real.”

“Instead of a worthless promise for your father to pay later?”

“He’ll pay,” John insisted, though Darius knew he didn’t even believe himself. “But yeah, sort of. You could have an actual gold-based economy with this. Money would be worth more than the wood I’ve carved the numbers into.”

“Why?” Darius asked. “What exactly would the point be?”

“I…”

“The point would be your worst nightmare, right? What if someone actually showed up at daddy’s door with a story and a handful of chits? Would he actually come here to kill you or would he wait, figuring the Game would?”

“No,” John said, staring at his dirty feet. “He’d probably kill the person with the chits.”

“He wouldn’t have someone else do it?”

“He’s always done his own…” John paused, shuffling, “…dirty work.”

“My kind of man. Well, you still don’t get the point. These wooden chits have nothing to do with the outside, nothing to do with real value. This is just another method for keeping these people in line. This is to subjugate them, to control their behavior, and to make me more comfortable than they are.”