While she wouldn't call herself a coward, Alice Scoville had became frightened when she had heard the blast of the shotgun. Sure she had seen the bullet pass through the guy she had shot, but she had also seen that he had shoved someone out of the way. Not only that, but she had heard the other girl talk. So even though she had shot the guy, the girl could have easily grabbed the shotgun and went went after her. And she did not like her odds against a scatter gun.
Still, not much fazed her and she was still in the runnings for getting out of this place alive.
Still clutching onto her revolver as she jogged through the farmland, Alice thought of how The Program wasn't that much different from her life back in Virginia.
Being a street orphan, she had seen and been through hardships and seen the worst America had to offer. And with the Y.R.A in effect, it made her life harder as it became harder to survive without a home to go to.
She had to avoid cops and duck into hiding places at a moment's notice unless she wanted to find herself in a jail cell. Which she did not. She had been to juvenile prison before on a school trip and did not want to be in that environment. Sure it was safer than being on the outside and you got a guaranteed three meals a day, even if the food was shit, but with more and more kids being charged as adults and getting death sentences, Alice preferred to take her chances on the streets. Besides, she was pretty sure the correctional officers operated with police brutality within the walls, outside of the public eye.
With short brown hair and the body of a dirty brawler, Alice was someone that looked like she knew what she was doing. And because the streets of Virginia were mean, especially towards street youths, Alice had grown into a survivor and learned to fight. You had to defend your possessions unless you wanted to get beaten bloody and have your items taken from your home. If you could call a cardboard box that once contained a refrigerator with a plastic tarp over it a home.
And though she had enrolled in Crystal Rivers High School, she saw it only as a building to keep her warm and dry for eight hours a day for most of the days of the week. And while at first she thought of graduating and trying to make life better for herself, that plan quickly dissolved as she found it difficult to go through the lessons that were being taught.
Failing classes and not catching up quickly enough, Alice fell through the cracks and ended up repeating grades. And because she looked like a filthy street rat more times than not, jobs were unwilling to hire her. So she turned to armed robbery instead.
Who she robbed she didn't care, as long as it got her enough money to survive another day. her favorite robberies were drug dealers as they usually had cash and dope on them. Alice would celebrate those days by eating her favorite Korean BBQ and getting high. She'd sell the left over drugs to others and hope that some other drug dealer or gang member didn't kill and rob her.
There were a few close calls where she had to up and move out because of such a condition. The closest she had ever came to death was when she had been sleeping in a dumpster and had pissed off a gang member earlier that day. That gang member had thrown a molotov cocktail into the dumpster beside the one she had been sleeping in, burning the girl sleeping in that one. That gang member thought it had been her and walked away laughing about how she couldn't get away with disrespecting him.
Alice did feel some guilt that the other girl had suffered because of a mistake, but she also knew that out in the streets of Virginia, it was either her or someone else. And she preferred it to be someone else. She was a survivor, and learned to deal with situations like that.
So all things considered, she figured that she was the best candidate for winning The Program.
Would have liked that shotgun though. She thought. Could have torn through the competition with that weapon.
Alice spotted a barn and cautiously jogged towards it. She had been surprised by another person inside the previous house, and it had costed her precious seconds. That was not going to happen again. If she meet another person, she was going to be ready. She wasn't going to be like those wimpy kids that pissed their pants at the sight of a dangerous situation, she'd be the one doing the killing.
Alice got closer to the barn, and thought that the outside looked fairly typical from the pictures she had seen in books. Though unlike most places, it was out in the open with no animals or other equipment. She wondered if they had been taken away prior to her arrival.
Looking inside with caution, the street rat saw that there were bales of hay inside. There were several piles of hay scattered about in various locations, a stable looking set up, an upper level, and to her surprise, a young girl suspended in the air due to her ankle being tied up by a rope. To her feet was a combat knife and a shotgun. Alice's eyes lit up as she scanned the area and found nothing suspicious.
Smiling, the orphan walked into the barn as the blonde haired girl, obviously tired due to struggling, spun around slightly in time to see Alice.
"Hey," the younger girl said to her. Her voice full of hope. "Can you please help me get down from here?"
"I don't know about that," Alice said as she showed the upside down girl her revolver. "I mean, I wouldn't want you to try and escape and have me chase you around."
Hannah's eyes suddenly went wide when she saw the gun.
"Don't kill me," she pleaded. "Please."
"Now why the hell would I do that?" Alice asked as she pointed the Webley revolver at the blonde. "Only one of us can leave, and with you out of the runnings, that puts me one step closer to winning."
Alice aimed carefully, wanting to put a bullet through the girl's brain in one shot. Hannah struggled feebly, trying to get out of the trap, but she just couldn't reach. "Hold still bitch." Alice demanded before Hannah screamed.
Alice thought that it was because the dumb girl finally saw that there was a gun pointed at her face. But what Hannah could see that Alice couldn't, was that someone had risen up from one of the haystacks to Alice's right. A pile so thin that neither of the girls thought of as significant. Yet somehow, it hid a person that had been laying in wait.
The mysterious figure came up to Alice with a calm, but quick moving stroll, holding what appeared to be some sort of tool handle. The figure then moved her hand like she was flipping open a butterfly knife, but instead of a small blade, she was operating a folding shovel, the kind special forces soldiers used.
The orphan heard the snap, and turned towards the figure before she got hit in the face with the flat end of the shovel so hard that it flattened her nose with a gush of blood. Alice screamed as she collapsed onto the ground like a heavy sack of potatoes.
Dazed and in agony, but not out of commission, Alice pointed her revolver at the figure that seemed to appear like a ghost, but a black combat boot cruelly stepped on her hand, causing it to fire and miss the target by a mile.
Alice saw the figure in her blurred vision raise her entrenchment tool, so Alice raised her left arm in defense, not that it did her much good as the shovel struck her forearm so hard that broke with a wet crack. Alice screamed in pure agony as she felt the shovel tip press into her forehead. The shovel hadn't gone through her arm the entire way, but it damn near almost severed the arm with the tip penetrating the other side.
The figure raised up their right leg, and slammed it onto the shovel, severing Alice's arm completely an instant before it went through her skull horizontally. Alice's screams were silenced as the shovel had dug into her forehead, all the way down to the left side of her chin, with a wet crack. Blood and brain fluid pooled around around her split open head like a messily split open pomegranate while her arm sprayed out blood like a broken garden hose. Trails of blood ran down her face like an invisible spirit was painting on tribal ink.
Hannah screamed, having witnessed a murder taking place. Everything she thought about The Program had been shattered. When the brown haired girl had pointed the gun at her, she didn't think she was going to die, just be out of the game. But now she saw that when you got out of the game, you were out of your life either. She finally understood why the people on the TV were so scared.
Hannah looked at the murderer, and saw that they wore civilian hunting camouflage clothes with matching gloves, hunting vest, cap, and neck warmer covering her mouth and nose. The only things Hannah could see was the blonde hair, and from the length and shine of it, she knew that it was a girl. The tan skin. And there were the eyes, a menacing forest green. To add to the terrifying image, she was a good six foot two with broad shoulders.
Hannah had seen people like her on the airings of previous programs. Enforcers.
The enforcer left the shovel buried in Alice's head and picked up her revolver before checking to see what was inside before closing it. She then picked through the dead girl's pockets, taking the box of ammo before placing it in a jacket pocket. She then ignored Hannah and her struggles to pick up the Ka-Bar knife and scabbard, clipping it to her waist.
That was when Tia Buckland of the enforcers looked at Hannah, the person who had foolishly fallen into her trap. Tia had set up traps like this back in her home state of South Carolina and was quite good at it, being a hunter living in a rural part of her state.
"Please-" Hannah cried out before the barrel of the revolver was shoved into her mouth. The enforcer looking at her with deadly intent, and Hannah could see that she would think nothing of pulling the trigger. Still, Hannah begged for her life, whimpering into the gun barrel as she shook her head.
Hannah then saw the enforcer pulling the barrel out of her mouth before she placed the gun in her hunting vest. Hannah breathed a sigh of relief. But then the enforcer pulled out the marine corps knife and thrust it into Hannah's stomach just below her belly button. Hannah screamed as the enforcer yanked down on the knife, cutting skin until it reached the center of her chest and hit the beginning of her ribs. Hot blood poured out as well as a pile of red and purple entrails. The steaming guts slide out of their fleshy prison and slithered down Hannah's body and face, leaving a blood trail like grotesque snakes.
As Hannah's eyes rolled back with her mouth agape in pain and shock, Tia spun the girl around and wiped the knife on the back of Hannah's polo shirt until it was clean.
Tia found the process almost like skinning a deer, but easier. And while she could have killed the young girl the second she had came in, or the second she had gotten caught in her trap, she thought that she could get a two for one deal. And she had. Patience really paid off, and patience was something she had in spades.
Tia took her shotgun, loaded it, then placed it onto her back. She then fought to remove the shovel from the older girl's skull before cleaning off the blood and brain matter on the deceased's shirt.
The enforcer then exited the barn, leaving the bodies as they were, and looked out at the field, thinking of the thing as another hunting trip.
The sound of static squelching blared through the air as the speakers located throughout the closed off battle grounds came to life once again.
"Hello students and fellow patriots, it's been hours since you've awoken and things are going relatively smoothly, all things considered. Now, I'm here to tell you of the deaths that have occurred since you've awoken." The man could be heard clearing his throat before he continued. "In twentieth place is Leonard Duma. In nineteenth place is Hewil Dye. Eighteenth place goes to Hunter Boswell. Seventeenth place goes to Chris Mason. In sixtieth place goes to Alice Scoville. And finally, in fifteenth place goes to Hannah Kotlarz. Now, I'd normally go and announce the deaths every five student deaths, but Mrs. Scoville and Mrs. Kotlarz were killed so close together. Also biting the dust is enforcer boy number three, which is a damn shame. The rest of you students out there, go out and give us some kills and fight with gusto. The sooner you kill each other the sooner one of you can return to your friends and families."
And with that transmission ended, the speakers gave out another static squelch before they went silent.
