Game On Page 7

  Once all four were through the door, the lights turned off behind them and the door closed. This was the smallest room they have been in so far. Kevin headed to the corner furthest away from anyone and sat down. His head buried in his hands as he cried with an occasional violent outburst and slam of his fist into the wall.

  Michelle asked, “Kevin what happened?”

  Kevin didn’t even acknowledge her.

  She pressed him further, “Kevin, what happened to them?”

  “You don’t want to know. None of you want to know.”

  “I do. That is why I asked.”

  Kevin jumped to his feet and ran over to Michelle. He stopped inches from her and screamed, “You want to know what happened, Michelle! You want to know what happened to our friends? The cubes they were in turned over, trapping them below the water and they drowned. They all drowned! They are dead, just like we will all be. It is just a matter of time and how. This is a big game to ‘Christopher’ or whoever he is. It’s a game. We are all dead, nothing we can do will change that.”

  Michelle stumbled backwards until she hit the wall. Sliding down the wall to the floor, she sat expressionless, unable to process what she just heard, but had already realized. It was a common feeling in the room. Each of them held on to a hope that they would find a way out of this; a way to survive. What Kevin said was the unavoidable truth. They are all going to die, it was only a question of when and how.

  11

  No one had spoken since Kevin told them what had happened to the others. They hadn’t looked at each other either. Robert was lost in thought, thoughts that ran continuously in his head. He was in a room with three others, but he might as well be the only person on the planet as he felt a level of loneliness and despondency that isolated and trapped him in his own mind; ignoring the surroundings. Locked within himself, his thoughts moved like a movie from scene to scene documenting all the moments in life he will never be able to experience and the people he will never see again. He saw Amy’s face, then how their first-born child would look, and then a Christmas morning all together with his family. He hadn’t cried; he hadn’t done anything. Just stood there in thought; mentally, physically, and emotionally exhausted. He was not the only one. The other three were as well. Lost in those thoughts almost forgetting where they were, not worried about what was next but more resigned to what fate had dealt them.

  A quick but violent jerk shook the room send Michelle running to the center of the room to join the others. All four stood huddled in the dead-center of the room looking out for the source of the shaking. A light emerged from the corners of the room and where the walls meet both the floor and ceiling. The light got brighter and exposed gaps along the edge of the wall that constantly increased in size, slowly opening the small room up into another larger room. The ceiling lifted away and exposing the lights hanging from the rafters of the warehouse. The walls retreated into the vastness that was the larger room. The refuge and seclusion they provided was gone and, they were once again exposed and on display.

  The familiar murmur of the crowd and arrival of the spotlight did not surprise them, instead it announced the start of the next challenge in the fight to stay alive. Still numb, there was no sense of adrenaline ran through them. No sense of confusion or terror either. Their fate had been accepted. Robert heard the pop and hum of a speaker above him and took a deep breath, his mind was empty now. Nothing mattered; the end was already settled.

  “Wow. Wow is all I can say. This is great, isn’t it everyone?” The master of ceremonies worked the crowd and they respond to every prompt. “This has been an exciting night, but the best is yet to come. We have one more game, just one more contest to find our winners. Are you ready?”

  Right on cue, the crowd roared to life in a ferocity that caused the ground itself to rumble under their feet. The vibration in the floor pulled Robert from the self-imposed solitary confinement. “Kevin, the floor is hollow. Can you feel it moving?”

  Kevin looked at Robert and then at the floor, then back at Robert. Kevin raised his leg up almost waist high and then sent it crashing down into the floor with all his might. It created a deep thunderous boom that sent waves through the floor. A slight glimmer of hope crept in. If this floor was some sort of platform, then there was a space underneath and there may be a way out. They needed to break through. He yelled to the others and pointed down, “The floor is hollow, we need to break through!”

  Jill looked at Robert like he had gone insane. “Why?”

  “There may be a way out in the space below us. Everyone jump. Let’s see if we can break through.” Not waiting for anyone else, Robert started to jump up and down. Each jump produced a muffled and explosive boom accompanied by a noticeable rise and drop of the floor. After the first few jumps, Kevin joined in. Their efforts did not go unnoticed.

  “Oh, I wouldn’t do that. In this room, the only way to go is up. Down is not where you want to go, now is it?” The ever-obedient audience responded to the puppet master’s strings with a combined chuckle. “Shall we show them what awaits them?” A cargo net unfurled from the roof with the bottom end landing in front of them. Strapped to the bottom edge are two other ropes, with what looked like belts connected to either end. “There it is. The path to victory. All you must do is climb up to the top. Reach the top first then you win your freedom. Come in second? Well, you don’t win.”

  Spotlights moved up and down the net. Robert tried to guess how tall the climb was. He thought back to his days of playing high school football and the distances on a football field. He saw two ten-yard segments making it twenty yards, about sixty feet tall. He could climb that easily. The only question in his mind was does he trust what Christopher said. The person who made it to the top would win and be free. The little bit of hope he felt when he thought they might be able to escape through the floor was cautiously growing.

  He sized-up the competition. He was younger than the others, and obviously in better shape. Jill and Kevin should be tired after struggling in the pool. He thought he could easily beat Michelle up the net. He stepped forward and grabbed the net.

  “Not yet. Not that way. First, we need to set the teams. All events are a team event.”

  How do you make climbing up a net a team event? Robert was about to ask, when Christopher continued.

  “You guys know how much I enjoy teams and remember we always let the game determine the teams in random. So here we go. I will toss a coin. Heads: Jill and you are teamed with Robert, tails: you are teamed with Michelle. It is…” there was a pause for dramatic effect that seemed to last forever. They each want to climb and get this over with.

  “HEADS! Jill, you are teamed with Robert. Michelle, you are teamed with Kevin. If you look at the net in front of you, you will see something attached to the net. Those two ropes attached to the net have belts on either end. Each team is to pick and remove one of the ropes from the net and strap in. Once both are strapped in, you will start climbing the net as a team. If one person moves slower, then the entire team will be slowed down. As the saying goes: ‘a team is only as strong as its weakest link’.” Christopher laughed again, and Robert thought about the opportunity to see him again and give him something to laugh about. “To win, both of you must be at the top before the other team. One member of the team reaching the top first does not count. The entire team must reach the top before the other team to win. Now if the four of you will go ahead and pair up and strap in, we can start.”

  Michelle stepped forward and unfastened one rope from the net. She handed the other end to Kevin and then strapped herself in. Kevin followed her lead and strapped in. Robert retrieved the remaining rope. Jill was frozen where she stood. Robert walked over to her with the rope and tried to hand her a belt, but Jill did not take it. Robert looked at the glazed look in her eyes and said, “Jill, come on take it. We can get to the top and get out of here, but I can’t do it without your help. Let’s go.” There was no response, only a frozen expression. R
obert pleaded to Jill again, “Jill come on! This is our only way. We can take them easily, but I need your help. Take the belt.” Nothing.

  Christopher noticed Jill’s refusal to participate and encouraged her in a rather pouty British accent, “Aww, looks like Jill does not want to play anymore. What a shame. Guess we have to call her and Robert out of this game, right now. What do you all think?” A chorus of boos and jeers filled the open space.

  Robert felt desperate and did not want to lose the chance to survive. He considered strapping Jill in himself and dragging her up the net, but was not sure if he would have the strength.

  “Jill! Come on. I don’t want to die!” Finally, she snapped out of it. She said nothing, just reached and yanked the belt out of Robert’s hands and strapped in. Robert strapped in and walked to the net; Jill followed.

  Both teams stood at the base of the net. They are participants in a race toed up to the start line. The spotlights raced up and down the net, which appeared to be the star of this sport, not the participants themselves.

  “Here we go. We have a great match up here. The winning team is the first one to come up and meet me here at the top. Win and be free. Lose and, well…we all know what will happen, don’t we?” Another prompt for the crowd’s benefit, and they showed their appreciation with a reaction. “Okay, everyone set? All bets in. Let’s get this started!”

  The spotlights stopped, and overhead red lights casted eerie, red shadows down through the net for a few seconds then bright white lights flooded the entire room from above simultaneously with the order: “GO!”

  Ignoring the watering of his eyes caused by the instantaneous flash of the bright white lights violating his irises, Robert reached up as high as he can on the cargo net and climbed. First hands and then feet. He reached up again and grabbed next rung and then stepped up again. He continued this for four rungs on the net before the rope attached to him went taut. Jill was just taking her first steps on the net. The rope made sure he had to wait for her. To his right, he saw both Michelle and Kevin on the net below him, but above Jill. The rope slackened-up and he moved up another rung.

  Focused on the net, he felt a slight movement in the net followed by a cheer in the crowd. He looked down toward Jill, hoping to see a good bit of progress. Instead of noticing that she had only progressed one rung since the last time he looked, he noticed the floor beneath her has fallen away and the net hangs over a dark open void with water running down the sides into nothingness. Before this, Robert felt secure on the net at this height, but the fear of falling now crept into his mind. What was at the bottom of the hole? Sharp blades? Rocks? Or are there other objects to impart unbearable pain on any soul unlucky enough to fall?

  His grip tightened on the rung and the rope connecting him to Jill felt like it weighed one thousand pounds. Deliberately, he loosened the grip with his right hand and reached up to the next rung, being careful to make sure he got a firm grasp before he made another move. With his right hand hanging onto the rope on the next rung, he moved his right foot up and stepped into that hole in the net. He repeated the maneuver with his left and felt the rope connecting him to Jill tighten, reminding him she was moving slower than he was.

  To move up one single rung in the net took almost a minute, at this rate it would take almost an hour to reach the top. He checked on Michelle and Kevin to his right, they were still below him, but they are next to one another moving together at the same pace. Jill must speed up for them to win. It won’t matter if he reaches the top first; if Kevin and Michelle beat Jill up the net, they lose.

  “Come on Jill. We can do this!” Robert became her own personal cheerleader, but she did not respond. Her pace stayed as slow as it was before. He watched her and let her move up a few rungs on the net before he made any moves. He felt the frustration build. His life depended on her. After everything they have seen, he did not want to be on the losing end of this. She should realize the same thing and dig down deep for whatever it took to win, but she appeared frozen and disconnected from the situation. He yelled down at her, “Come on Jill. We need to move. We must beat them. If we don’t, we die!”

  Jill looked up at him with a blank expression on her face and then back at the net before she took another slow step. The muscles in his body tensed, as a renewed flood of adrenaline and stress built up to the point of wanting to explode. He wanted to climb as fast as he could to release the pent up aggression, but he couldn’t because of the dead weight strapped to him at the end of a rope.

  Robert’s mental attitude didn’t need any help to turn to anger at this point, but when Michelle and Kevin pulled even to him on the net, that was the last straw. He gave the rope quick tug and yelled down at Jill, “I am not going to die because of you. I’m going to live even if I have to drag your ass up this net!” He gave her another tug. They were only a few feet up at this point, there was such a long way to go. He scaled up two rungs, locked his feet into the net and wrapped his right hand in the net to secure himself. While he yelled at Jill to move, he used every ounce of muscle-strength he had in his body and pulled the rope up causing her to increase her pace. He dropped the rope and raced up again as far as he could go until there he was out of slack.

  Once again, he locked himself in place with his feet and right hand and used his left side to yank Jill up. When she stopped, she glared up at him and said, “Stop it. You are going to make me fall!”

  Her warning did not deter Robert. One more time he scurried up as far as he could go; locked in and looked down at Jill. She made progress, but not fast enough. He gave the rope a pull to encourage her to pick up the pace again. Robert was ahead in the lead, but Jill was next to the other team. They had to beat them up to the as a team. With a good bit of slack in the rope he made a quick move up, this time covering almost ten feet of the net. They were probably twenty feet up in total and if he had to guess another forty or so to go.

  He felt the rope slacken and made his move and then locked in again. Instead of reaching down to pull Jill, he took a moment to recover from the exertion. In these few moments he took in his surroundings. The cheering and screaming crowd was barely audible over the roar of the falling water below him. Spotlights followed their progress up the net. Being almost halfway up the net when he looked down into the dark void below them, he felt a sense of the height and the dizzying sensation of vertigo. Robert gripped the net with both hands to steady his senses and balance. Heights had never bothered him before but dangling above something that resembled a bottomless pit was a little different.

  Jill moved at a steady pace now and had gained on Robert. His mind argued with itself. He knew know he needed to move but his instincts of survival wanted to stay firmly attached to the net. It was not until Jill yelled down at him from above that he broke the stalemate and took another step. He was now the lowest of all of them on the net.

  Seeing her up there restored his hope and helped him forget about his minor moment of height related panic. He rushed up and pulled even with Jill, about twenty-five feet up. Michelle and Kevin were yelling at each other, they knew they were behind and tried to force each other to pick up the pace. The net started to sway and, at first, Robert thought the increased pace and movement of all four of them in the same area of the net caused it, but as the movement became larger, it formed waves that start at the top and moved down. Christopher had added a new challenge.

  The waves slowed the progress of both teams. Everyone was careful to ensure they had a firm grip with one hand or foot before letting go with the other. The movement made it more difficult to grab the ropes that crisscrossed through the net. As you reached for one, the movement moved it out of your grasp.

  One hand and one foot at a time, Jill and Robert climbed the net. Fatigue set into both causing their hands and forearms to burn and their legs to shake. Robert assessed where they are. Only ten feet away from the top, but the closer they are, the faster the waves came. Jill had wrapped the net in her arms and hung on with everyth
ing she has. They cannot stop now, they were almost to the top.

  “Jill, we’re almost there. Just a few more steps and we can grab the top edge.” Robert’s encouragement caused Jill to look up and see it too. She reached up with her right hand and grabbed the next horizontal rope going across the net. When she tried to pull herself up, the peak of a wave hit her and threw her off the net. Robert watched in slow motion as Jill tumbled from above him and off the net. Before he realized what he saw, all of Jill’s weight ripped at Robert’s lower back and torso through the rope. His feet were pulled from the net, but his heavily fatigued arms and hands hung on. As her momentum yanked to a stop, she swayed back to the net. This allowed Robert to get one foot back on the net. The waves and strain kept him from getting a solid foothold with the other. His forearms burned, and he felt the tearing of the individual strands of muscle and tendons connecting his chest to his shoulder.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he helplessly watched Michelle and Kevin move up the net. They were within six feet or so of grabbing the top edge. He was unable to move up, Jill’s weight at the end of a ten-foot rope and gravity pulled him backwards and down. Jill fought to turn herself around and grab the net. Her struggle put even more strain on Robert making the entire situation more perilous. She needed to stop, but if she did, she would only dangle at the end of the rope and Robert knew he couldn’t drag them both up. He had an idea, an act of desperation brought on by the sight of Kevin and Michelle moving further up the net. He could use one hand to turn Jill around and swing her back to the net, but it was risky to try to support both of their weight with one arm. He took his right hand and forearm and wrapped it around, first a vertical rope and then a horizontal rope. He pulled on it several times to make sure it was secure and then let go with his left hand. Their combined weight was instantly routed through his right shoulder down into his chest. He felt muscles strain and burn and an unbearable pain in his shoulder joint.