Flesh Worn Stone (16 page)

“I bought it,” John said simply, looking back and forth from his haul to Darius, a bit of fear on his face as if he thought the big man was going to take it.

“You bought it with your wooden chits?” Darius said angrily. “Like the ones you gave Block?”

John looked suddenly afraid. “Hey, I was only…”

“You’re hedging,” Darius said. “I know what you’re doing, and, quite frankly, I don’t give a shit. I guess if I was in your situation, I might do the same thing. I’m just a little disappointed I’m only worth a tenth of what Block is.” He wasn’t being serious. He thought the wooden chits were silly, and didn’t actually believe that John was worth that much. Even if he was there would need to be an extraordinary turn of events for anyone to actually claim their prize. The whole thing was just another tool to use, another shovel added to the digging of the man’s grave.

“He’s a four-timer and that much closer to leaving this place. He’s also in a position of power that, while I think you might attain one day, you’re not in now. Block simply has more leeway on what could happen to me right now than you do.”

“What happened to us working together and running this place?” Darius asked, amused by the flimflam.

“I think we’ll get there,” John said seriously. “But like you said, I need to hedge my bets.”

He reached into the container, pulled out a half-eaten apple, and smiled. “Well, I’m glad you’re taking one for the team. What did this cost you? Ten, twenty grand?”

John’s emotionless brick wall cracked for a moment, but Darius didn’t really care. He chomped on the apple in silence, listening to the sounds of the Cave

Chapter Seven

Days passed without a Game, and the small group settled into something of a routine. Rebecca and Mia, first thing in the morning, would take plastic water bottles and fill them up at trickling stream that ran down the stalagmite. Darius and John would wake up, and, after arguing with Amanda about their situation for awhile, wander off in search of food. Amanda disappeared early every day, after the morning argument and accusations about Darius, and every evening she returned with, at the very least, some amount of information that they didn’t have before. Sometimes she’d return with a moldy hunk of break, and once even brought Mia the remains of a chocolate bar, which the little girl shared with the group, after picking off the dirt and grime.

As the days drifted on, the meager meals in the evening became even more meager. There was more and more water and less anything of substance. After the second night, Block once more asked for donations to the pot, and, once again, the Cave came through. But even then, it wasn’t much. Two days later, it was only broth, and then just water. Steven didn’t eat from it until he was sure there wasn’t any people flesh in it. Unfortunately, he could, with every passing hour, feel himself becoming weaker. He wasn’t going to be able to fight in another Game at this rate, not that he had any confidence that he’d be able to win without some sort of divine intervention. But he’d face that hurdle when it came up, he decided, and there simply wasn’t any point to worrying about what could happen now.

Steven spent the days exploring and gathering more material, when he could, for their shelter. Their first few puny walls had expanded, becoming taller, and taking up a bit more space. Now they had the basis of a floor, mostly of cardboard and scrap wood, but it was enough that Rebecca made them clean their feet before they came in. The Cave was much more massive than he’d first guessed, with multiple passages leading off in all directions, some leading up to the balconies, as the Cavers called them. The few flat places looked out high above the Cave, on nearly the same level as the ship, and were home to multiple Game winners. One set of tunnels, leading down and below the main cavern, interested him the most. He thought maybe one of them might lead to a way out, but one of special interest to him ended at dark, salty seawater and, though he was tempted to find out where it led, he didn’t want to dive down and see how far it went. It didn’t help to try and bathe in the water, either, as it left a slimy residue that wouldn’t wipe away when he got out. There were, however, thousands upon thousands of mushrooms, and, for a bit, his diet improved.

He spent many of his days looking for the elusive Jackson, who never seemed to be where he was looking in the Cave. When he’d asked someone about the man, they’d say they hadn’t seen him since the last Game, or that they heard he was somewhere else. The Cave was huge and there were hundreds of people inhabiting it, but he wondered how hard it could be to find one gray-haired old man wearing a bright purple and usually clean robe. Steven was sure that Jackson was the key to getting out of the Cave, whether he knew it or not. The man had forgotten more about the place than Steven would ever know, and hopefully, if he could ask enough questions, he’d shake some little piece of information loose that could help his struggle to escape.

But the man was simply nowhere to be found. He was a ghost among a ghost people, hiding in shadows.

His abdominal wound began to improve, and the infection, which never had spread from the area, began to heal and the scabs finally fell off the numbers on his arm. They were a rich black in a blocky style, deep and textured. He knew, though, that in another ten or twenty years they’d looks just like the wrinkled and shriveled numbers on the older people he’d seen.

Life in the Cave, though not normal for the newcomers, was normal for everyone else. Steven was constantly amazed at just how life went on. There were births and deaths, funerals and weddings. Children celebrated birthdays, of sorts, when their parents managed to track the passing of the days by scratches on the walls, or sticks collected, one for each day. He didn’t have any idea how much time had passed since his sons had been murdered, but it seemed like an eternity. He was beginning to feel as if he’d been in the Cave all his life.

He couldn’t begin to imagine how those, like Jackson, who had actually been in the Cave all their life, felt.

Wandering, he stumbled on the two men he’d first heard debating the merits of John’s IOUs in the form of the wooden chits. They sat behind a display stand made from wooden plank stretched between two rocks. On it, they displayed several pieces of rotted fruit, a couple hunks of spoiled meat, a stack of empty plastic garbage bin liners, and the real prize…a steak knife. They two men looked up at him and Ernie, the one who’d originally taken wooden chits from John for food, smiled.

“Good morning,” he said with a smile. “Can I interest you in something to eat?”

This was odd to Steven. Every night he and the rest of their group lined up in the communal food line, bowls in hand, waiting for the meal to start. You couldn’t have two bowls and if someone was not able to actually stand in line with their bowl, they didn’t eat. Steven had taken the people soup when it had been available, still made from the remains of the four dead people from the last game, and dug out the scraps of meat, giving them to John and Darius, who ate human with a passion. He hadn’t seen his wife or Mia eating the meat, but he hadn’t seen them giving it away either. He didn’t know about Amanda, who never ate with them but never seemed hungry. But there was never a charge for the soup, of any sort, and one never had to perform any tricks or special services for Block’s men to get it. It was the one thing he’d grown to respect about the big Samoan man. If there was food available, everyone was getting it. He and his men did eat better, of course, but so did he, now that he had a mark. He got more than someone without simply because of his rank.

Two men with a vegetable stand in the Cave was odd, to say the least. “And what would I have to give you for something to eat?” he asked, genuinely curious.

“Well, if you have a ‘JIOU,’ that would be best,” he said, holding up one of the wooden chits. “But we’ll trade for something else of value as well.”

Steven was hungry, yes, but he’d fallen into the routine with the rest of their group of eating once a day, at the evening meal. Even if he was inclined to buying a piece of the rotting fruit, he didn’t have anything to trade. The only actual possession he had was his blue jump suit, now grimy and just as torn as everyone else’s. He couldn’t imagine what people were trading with these two men.

“No, but thanks. What are people trading?”

“Well, like I said, we prefer the chits,” he said, again holding up one of John’s makers. “They are actually something of value, but people trade all sorts of stuff. Clothing, bags, other food. I had someone come in yesterday and traded seashells. Now, I normally wouldn’t give two shits about seashells, but he had them arranged on a piece of yarn as a necklace. I said what the hell, and traded him an apple, and it wasn’t twenty minutes later that someone else came in and traded three quarters of a roasted chicken for it. I guess they just wanted something of beauty here.”

“Well, that’s interesting,” Steven said. He could imagine the though process of the person who bought it. He could see himself doing the same for Rebecca, just to break up the gray monotony of the Cave. He could imagine her smiling again.

“It’s something different, anyway,” Ernie told him as his partner, Max, counted chits. “Hey, you live with John, right? You guys showed up together?”

Showed up
was an interesting way to term their violent kidnapping. “Yes.”

“Then maybe you have some sort of access that we don’t. We could make it worth your time and effort, once we’re all out of the Cave, if you could hook us up with him directly.”

“Why don’t you approach him yourself?” Steven replied. “He seems to be giving those things out fairly freely.”

“We did, actually. We wanted to go into business together, and offered him a hell of a deal, but he seemed kind of hesitant.”

“I don’t know why, that’s his background. His family is all businessmen, pretty successful ones at that, as far as I know.”

“If he isn’t lying,” Max said, expressing his doubts to his partner, “and all this isn’t for shit.”

“Who cares if it is, Max?” Ernie asked. “At least we’re doing something different. At least we’re eating better because of all this.”

“There is that.”

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.