The 17 (11 page)

“Yes, Zack,” Brock said, matter-of-factly. “They want you to fight.”

Cass slapped him on the back. “Well, Zack. Are ya gonna get off your arse or are you gonna keep cocking this up?”

It was an impossible question. He hadn’t the answer. He had wanted to fight when Jenai was getting bashed in the face by the German girl, but something stopped him. Something always stopped him from standing up for himself, for fighting for himself. He didn’t know why, but he shrunk away from conflict at all costs.

At times it was his strength. It appeared here it was his weakness.

It was the zit he could not pop, the boil he could not lance, the blemish he could not hide.

His captors were exploiting it. For some reason, they wanted to turn them into animals. For some reason, they wanted bloodlust from them.

Zack had no idea why they would want such a thing. He was going to give it to them, then.

Who am I to argue?

“The next time we fight,” Zack said, scanning the room and making eye contact with each and every one of them, “I will fight.”

Harness nodded. “Hell yeah. Kick some ass.”

Cass feigned a duck. Brock raised an eyebrow and Mizuki, who had been sitting quiet and pensive, simply frowned.

Zill, who had just returned from changing her bandage, gazed at Zack with disapproval. “Do you not remember the message? God!”

“It doesn’t matter. Kill or be killed, right?”

Zill threw up her hands and shook her head. “Why do I even bother?”

Every part of Zack screamed it was wrong, that Zill was right and he should heed Jenai’s words, except for the part that was broken inside of him.

Be true to yourself? That was all well and good. The price for being true had become too steep.

Part I

Chapter Nine

The Great War

Zack was hunched down in a trench, mud walls surrounding him. He held a rifle in his hands that looked to be very old and he had no clue how to use it. There was a bayonet that looked very sharp attached to the muzzle.

All six of them wore tunics, overcoats and trousers of drab olive wool. They also had steel helmets secured to their heads with a chin strap.

Cass stared at her rifle with amazement. “This is a British Lee-Enfeld. My great-grandpap used one just like this on the Western Front in World War I.”

“Awesome,” Zill muttered, fumbling with her rifle. “We’re in freakin’ World War I. Awesome.”

Harness smiled, raised his rifle to the sky and made fake shooting sounds like a five-year-old would with a squirt gun.

Brock flinched as he touched the sharp edge of his bayonet with his finger.

Mizuki examined her rifle closely, studying every inch of it with a blank expression.

Harness tapped Mizuki on the shoulder. She didn’t acknowledge him. “Hey, slanty-eyes. Shouldn’t you be fighting with the Nazis or something?”

“That’s World War II, you bloody moron,” Cass said. “How can you be so stupid?”

Zack grinned. Harness was not stupid. He was anything but. It was all an act, a superbly crafted alter-ego. Harness was deftly playing the buffoon because he knew the others would underestimate and dismiss him. It was a sound strategy. Zack once underestimated Harness, too. He wouldn’t anymore.

Zack peeked over the edge of the trench into a haze of fog and misty rain. All around them was desolation. “I can’t see anything.”

Brock peered over the other edge. “Nothing on this side, either.”

Mizuki set her rifle down. “I am curious to see what action you dullards will conjure in your tiny little minds.”

She’s losing it.

Zack peeked over the edge of the trench again and listened. He heard nothing. He put his finger on the tip of his bayonet and pressed on it. He pulled his finger away quickly with a wince as a red blot of blood oozed onto the tip.

The realization hit him. “We have to be cautious. We may not come back if we die. This is very real.”

That realization finally hit the rest of the group, too. It was easy to forget mortality when it hadn’t been a factor for so long. Now death was in play again and it changed the demeanor and tone of this experiment.

Cass’s hands trembled around her rifle. “My great-grandpap told stories about World War I when I was a little girl. My mum tried to keep him from telling me them, but I’d sneak into his room and he’d ramble on about the war. ‘Nasty business’ he would say, ‘but necessary business.’ He said they had to keep the world safe. At least he knew what he was fighting for. What are we fighting for? Bollocks, that’s what.”

Zill expressed what she was fighting for firmly. “We’re fighting to stay alive. This is real now. We can, like, really die!”

“So, then let’s not.” Harness interjected.

“Well, General Smarty Pants, what’s our next move?” Zill asked.

Harness began to speak, but stopped. Zack could tell he had an idea, probably a brilliant one, but he kept up his charade.

Brock offered up a plan as only Brock could. “We fire a shot and hope they return fire. Then we can tell which direction they are located at least.”

“Well, Sherlock, that’ll give our location away, too,” Cass mocked.

Mizuki jeered. “So feeble of mind.”

She was really losing it.

“I’ll do it.” Harness pointed his rifle into the air and squeezed the trigger. A rapid fire of three shots rang out.

They held their breath and listened. Finally, they heard shots coming from behind Brock, who peered over the lip of the trench toward the direction of fire. “They’re that way, and not very far, most likely in a trench like this. I’m not well versed on trench warfare. Cass, did your great-grandpap tell you anything about how they fought?”

Cass closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “He told me there is no winning a trench fight. It’s the ultimate stalemate. And that few survive in no-man’s land.”

Zack found it ironic. This battle was a microcosm of their fate so far: neither side winning, only gridlock.

He was determined to end the impasse.

So was Harness. “I’m so tired of this crap. They’re bluffing, just trying to make us piss our pants. They’ll bring us back. I’m going over. Screw this.”

Before anyone could stop him, Harness flew over the parapet. Zack peeked and watched him sprint, and then stop suddenly, snagged on a line of barbed wire. He fired his rifle in a strafe and yelled, “Got one!” just as a hail of bullets riddled him. He slumped dead and limp, dangling there, snagged on the wire.

“Oh, God. Oh, God, Oh, God,” Zill repeated over and over again.

“Shut up. At least it is over for him and at least he got one,” Cass barked.

Even Brock’s usual monotone voice crackled with fear. “We’re going to be stuck here unless they charge at us, or we charge at them.”

The only question was: Who was going to blink first?

†††

It had been at least twelve hours, Zack thought, and there was not so much as a shot fired. They—whoever
they
were fighting in this scenario—weren’t making a move. Zack pulled the silver alloy chain, popped the cap off his aluminum canteen and took a sip of his dwindling water supply.

Zack shoved the cork back into his canteen in frustration. “We can’t stay here forever.”

“Neither can they,” Brock answered. “It’s a game of chicken.”

Their opponent lost.

Zack could hear yells coming from the other trench. Quickly, Brock fired a spray in their direction and Zack ducked as bullets kicked mud up around him.

Zill wasn’t so lucky. She took a bullet to the neck. Her quivering hand pressed on her wound, but the blood seeped between her fingers. In just a few seconds, she was dead.

Brock climbed out of the trench and squeezed off more rounds, then was felled.

Mizuki watched it all unfold, her face vacant.

She climbed over the parapet, pointed her rifle slowly and squeezed the trigger. The sound of rapid fire echoed and the kickback staggered her. “How absolutely fascinating,” she muttered, just before she was hit in the chest with a spray of bullets. She grabbed her chest, laughed, and fell backward into the trench.

Zack peered at Cass, who gave him a nod as she crawled out of the trench on her stomach. Zack followed closely behind as he heard bullets whistle by his ear and smack into the muck.

Cass yelled out and grabbed her shoulder, her hand covered in blood. She held her rifle high and fired shots off, and Zack could hear a groan and the sound of a body hitting the ground.

It had happened so fast: hours of waiting followed by mere minutes of terror. Zack covered his head and lay on the ground, listening for activity, but he heard nothing. Finally, he stood and crept forward despite Cass’ yell of, “What are you doing?”

Zack pushed his way through the fog and under the barbed wire. He saw a boy hunched over a girl, weeping and muttering something in German. The boy wore a spiked pickelhaub helmet, gray trousers and a gray jacket. He rubbed the back of his fallen friend.

Zack sprung to his feet and yelled “Stand up!” The German boy stood quickly and stared down at his weapon, lying next to the girl. “Come over here!”

The German boy walked slowly toward him, his hands raised.

“Can you understand me? Do you speak English?”

The boy nodded.

“What’s your name?” Zack asked as he pointed his rifle at the German boy’s chest.

“Gottfried.”

“Well, Gottfried, it’s not your lucky day.”

“Shoot me! Finish me!” Gottfried said in a heavy accent. Zack’s finger quivered on the trigger. “Do it! It must be done!”

Zack knew that was true. It was simple, really. Pull the trigger and it would all be over. He closed his eyes and said a silent prayer for forgiveness and squeezed his index finger, flinching in anticipation of the bullets firing.

They didn’t. The rifle had either jammed or was unloaded.

Zack lowered the rifle in surrender, not to the German boy who stood, wide-eyed and shocked before him, but out of surrender to a force he did not understand, a force that would not allow him to take the life of another.

He dropped the rifle to the soggy ground, and slipped his helmet off his head and tossed it angrily to the muck. He took off his overcoat and tunic. He was shocked to see he was wearing a white T-shirt with YOLO written on it. He howled at the irony.

Gottfried stood with his mouth wide open. His eyes were so big, Zack thought his eyeballs would just pop right out of his head.

“What are you doing?” Cass asked as she tried to crawl to her feet, but slumped back down again as blood oozed out of her wound. “You’re gonna do it again. You’re gonna cock this up.”

“No I’m not,” Zack snapped. “I’m done playing. This is ridiculous. World War I? Really? This is pathetic.”

“Who are you talking to?” Gottfried asked, looking around in confusion.

“The beings that have brought us here. I thought they’d punish me if I didn’t fight, if we didn’t win. I thought if I just played along, everything would be okay. But it won’t be okay. It will never be okay. They bring us here, terrorize us, place us in these games, and for what purpose? There isn’t one. There is no purpose. No winner. I refuse to participate in a game with no purpose and no winner.”

Zack tossed the rifle at Gottfried, who flinched as it fell in front of him.

Zack looked up to the cold grey sky. “Did you hear me? I’m done. Do with me what you will. I see through your little game. It’s beneath you.”

Cass yelled, “Zack, you bloody idiot.”

“It’s okay, Cass. Don’t you see?” Zack walked toward Gottfried, who quickly knelt and scooped up the rifle. “They are playing us. They are playing me. They are playing you, Gottfried. They are manipulating us for their own amusement. Join me. Don’t play this game anymore.”

Gottfried scowled. “You coward. You’d give up?”

“No. I’m not giving in.”

Gottfried lowered the rifle as Zack smiled, but then raised it and pushed the bayonet through his stomach. Zack could feel the blade run through his back and a warm gush of blood spill over his hands as he grasped the muzzle of the rifle.

Zack threw his head back and laughed, and then toppled backward, the bayonet sinking into the soft ground and the rifle rising up out of his chest like a planted flag. Gottfried stood over him, his lips curled in a snarl. “You find this funny? There is nothing funny about this.”

On that, he and Zack could agree. As Zack felt the life draining out of him, he felt at peace for the first time in a long time.

Maybe ever.

†††

Zack forced his eyes open, the dimly lit room spinning. The blood from yet another wound that had killed him was dried on his YOLO t-shirt.

You Only Live Once. Not here, anyway. Not in this hell. Not in this never-ending nightmare.

Zack was glad to be in this cell, though. It meant the safeties were on again. The uncomfortable cot was oddly comforting. There were no people to disappoint, no Jenai to morn. No Harness to belittle and tease him. No Gottfried to ignore the cold facts staring him in the face. He was very much in his own element now.

Alone. Like it was meant to be.

But he wasn’t alone. He heard the clicking and clacking coming from the darkness beyond the swirling aurora of light. It was the same click-clacking he heard when he first arrived.

“Hello? Hello?” Zack said in a hush.

“Hello? Hello?” Zack raised his voice.
Jesus, I sound like Sam now.

“Hello, Zack.” It was a male voice, a deep, rich one, a voice much like the ones he heard while listening to talk radio on his iPhone before he went to sleep each night.

Zack had wanted so desperately to talk to someone other than The Six. Now that he had his chance, he found himself at a loss for words.

“Who are you?”

Silence.

“Please,” Zack begged. “Please talk to me. Help me understand why I am here.”

“I am not supposed to be conversing with you, Zack,” the voice answered. “Call me George.”

Zack thought it odd that the alien, or God, or the devil would have a name such as George. Then again, he had been killed multiple times, watched some of the others die and resurrect and been submitted to torturous conditions one minute and joy the next. Anything was possible.