11 Students Dead - 29 Students Remaining
The sun continued to cross the sky and the day was becoming unseasonably hot. Ron paused, leaning against a tree for support and wiping sweat from his face. About half of the sweat was from the heat; the rest arose from the pain of every step he took. The Muggle pills Padma had given him helped a little with the bruises, but the bullet holes still ached. At least he was able to walk on his own, though he limped terribly and running was completely out of the question.
Padma stopped and looked back at him, concern etched in her face. He forced himself to smile.
"Just needed to rest a second," he assured her.
Padma frowned and stared at the bandage on his leg, apparently looking for signs of infection or renewed bleeding.
"I think we should have stayed," she said.
"Well it's too late now, let's keep going."
They had been heading back into town for the better part of an hour. They could have been there already, but of course Ron wasn't exactly in peak condition. Ron's scanner showed a group of five students in one of the buildings, just outside the forbidden starting area. That seemed as good a place as any to start looking for allies. It was just a matter of getting there.
There had been more shots - and someone screaming - nearby not long ago, so both were rather edgy. For her part, Padma wanted to get back inside as quickly as possible. She knew, of course, that they were no safer indoors than out, but nevertheless she had felt safer in the clinic than out here in the woods. Especially with Ron limping like that. If they were attacked, he would never be able to get away, and the idea of running and leaving him to die sickened her. Which left one option. If they were attacked, she would have to kill the attacker. Better that they get back into some semblance of safety before someone playing the game found them.
"It shouldn't be far now," Ron said.
Sure enough, the woods were thinning around them, giving way to rolling hills. A little past the edge of the woods was the 'downtown' area. Most of it was now forbidden, including the school, the municipal building where Ron had taken refuge at the beginning of the program, and most of the main street. But a few buildings lay outside the boundaries of the forbidden zone. It was in the smallest of these, a bookstore from the look of it, that Ron's tracker showed five students in a group.
Ron and Padma had discussed the situation when he first noticed the group and decided that any collection of students that large had to be made up of people who weren't willing to kill. They must have gathered together, relying on safety in numbers, or perhaps to form an escape plan. For Padma, there was also the chance that Parvati might be among the students in the bookstore - and Ron was hoping to meet Harry, Hermione, or both there.
Every time Padma got to thinking that her situation couldn't become any more terrifying, something new came along to raise the bar. If passing through the woods had been nerve-wracking, crossing open ground was terrifying. Ron didn't seem to be too disturbed. Maybe limping across a field with no cover wasn't as scary as descending into the Chamber of Secrets, or battling Death Eaters, but it was enough for Padma and it irked her that he didn't seem worried, just determined to follow his tracker until it led him to his friends. It was as infuriating as it was noble and endearing.
The attack came from in front of them, from the bookstore, wiping all thoughts of uncommonly brave redheaded Gryffindors from her mind. There was a rush of air in front of them and a sharp *thwack* as a long, gray arrow imbedded itself in the ground at Ron's feet. Ron dove to the ground, pulling Padma with him. He hissed in pain as a new patch of blood began to spread on the back of his shirt. He had torn open his stitches.
"Stop shooting!" Padma took the risk of yelling. "We don't want to fight!"
"Put the gun in your bag and zip it shut!" came the reply. It was a boy's voice, Padma thought she almost recognized it, but she couldn't make a positive ID. Looking up, she saw a figure perched on the top of the bookstore, wielding what looked like a bow and arrows. But she still couldn't see who it was.
"Who are you?"
"Put the gun away!" the boy shouted, drawing back another arrow. Padma quickly stuffed the CZ-75 into her bag and zipped it shut.
"Now stand up slowly."
Padma did as instructed, helping Ron to his feet. The stitches in his leg had also popped, releasing a thin stream of blood there as well. He gritted his teeth against the pain.
"Put your hands on your heads, and come in here very slowly."
Padma shot a questioning glance at Ron, who did his best to shrug. He seemed to be thinking the same thing she was. They could have been dead already. No reason to lure them inside just to kill them. The group was probably peaceful, just cautious. As slowly as they dared, keeping their hands firmly on their heads, they headed into the bookstore.
Four students greeted them inside, all ready to attack if provoked. Su Li (Female Student 4, Ravenclaw) held a kitchen knife with a blade that had to be about a foot long, Allison Moon (Female Student 15, Hufflepuff) pointed a gun much like Padma's - though smaller - at Ron, Michael Corner (Male Student 2, Ravenclaw) brandished a large revolver, and Megan Jones (Female Student 11, Hufflepuff) covered Padma with a gun so long she had to hold it with two hands.
As soon as they saw who it was, Su and Michael dropped their weapons. Su ran to Padma and hugged her. The others hesitated briefly, but finally lowered their weapons.
"Padma! You're all right!" Su said.
"Yeah," Padma said, smiling.
"You...heard about Susanna and Kevin?" Michael asked.
"What?" Padma asked. "What happened?"
"You didn't hear the announcement?" Su asked.
"They're not..."
Michael nodded gravely. "And that's not the worst of it. Zacharias found their bodies last night and..."
"Zacharais?" Ron interrupted him, "Zacharais Smith? He's the one up on the roof?" The others nodded.
"I should have know," Ron hissed, limping over to a chair and collapsing in it.
"Well he was wandering the island last night and he found them in a house near the eastern shore. He said...it looked like they killed each other."
"No..." Padma gasped.
"Suicide?" Ron asked.
Michael shook his head. "He didn't think so. He said Susanna shot Kevin and he killed her with some kind of poison gas. We don't know if they were fighting or..."
"Or if they just got jumpy and attacked before they saw who they were attacking." Megan said.
Padma sank into another chair, devastated by the news of her friends' deaths. After a moment, she began taking medical supplies out of her bag, intending to take her mind off the news by dressing Ron's wounds again. Ron dutifully rolled up his pants leg. The others cringed as Padma rubbed the bullet hole with alcohol and began to sew it closed again.
"Who shot you, Ron?" Allison asked, trying not to watch the needle going in and out of his leg.
"Malfoy," Ron said through clenched teeth. Tricked me into thinking he was scared, then shot me in the back. If that little bastard comes around here, kill him. He'd do the same to you."
"So Malfoy's playing," Su said, "But he can't be the only one. Goyle and Sally-Ann Perks were killed while he was still in the classroom. And someone attacked me last night, too. You see why we have to be careful."
Ron glared at her as he removed his second blood-soaked shirt in as many days to let Padma get at the other bullet hole. Careful or not, he wasn't about to cut Zacharais any slack for slinging arrows at him.
"How did you all wind up here?" Padma asked.
"When I first got out of the school, I just ran like hell," Michael said. "But after a while I calmed down and doubled back to the school. I thought if I could get the other Ravenclaws together, we could find a way out. I missed a bunch of us because I'd run so far, but I managed to get there just when Su was coming out."
"I didn't know what to think at first," Su Li took up the story. "I was terrified, and there was Michael trying to get me to come with him. I didn't know if it was true or if he just wanted to kill me. And then someone shot at me."
"Did you see who it was?" Ron asked.
Michael shook his head. "I couldn't see their face; it was too dark. I'm pretty sure it was a girl though. I'm guessing she was waiting to kill everybody who came out."
"God..." Padma whispered. Of course, she should have guessed from the bodies by the school that someone had laid ambush outside. But more than one of her classmates being so cruel as to think of waiting by the entrance to pick others off one by one was unthinkable. Yet according to Su and Michael, that was exactly the situation.
"Anyway, she was shooting at me," Su continued, "It sounded like maybe a shotgun. I hadn't even had a chance to get my weapon out, not that it would have helped much." She frowned at the kitchen knife in her hand. "I'm just lucky her first shot missed."
"I saw her shoot and miss, but all I had was these," Michael reached into his bag and pulled out a pair of wooden clubs attached by a short length of chain, Nunchucks.
"So what did you do?" Ron asked.
"The only thing I could think of," Michael replied. "I threw my flashlight at her."
"You hit her?"
"Right on the head," Michael nodded. "She went down, whoever she was, and Su and I got the hell out of there."
"You didn't check who it was?" Ron asked.
"I didn't know how long she'd be out," Michael said. "Didn't seem worth the risk, you know."
"So that's how you two got together," Ron said. "Where do the rest of you come in?"
Before anyone had a chance to finish the story, Zacharias Smith (Male Student 13, Hufflepuff) came down the stairs from the roof.
"11:58," he said. "Time for the announcement." He seemed to notice the new arrivals for the first time. "Ron, you're bleeding."
Given the circumstances, Ron thought he deserved some degree of praise for not strangling Zacharais right then.
A few minutes later, Professor Phalanx's magically amplified voice rang out.
"Hello again boys and girls! Let's get down to business. We only had a few deaths this morning. Ladies first, No. 10, Blaise Zabini and No. 6, Millicent Bulstrode. For the boys, No. 7, Theodore Nott. You kids seem to have lost that killing edge you had last night. Six hours and only three dead? I expect better performance in the future. After all, the sooner someone wins the sooner we can all go home. Well...except for the losers of course. Well in any case, here are the next three forbidden zones. B=10 from 1300, C=7 from 1500, and F=6 from 1700. That's it for now. Now get your little bums in gear and make this a game worth watching!"
29 Students Remaining
Vincent Crabbe (Male Student 6, Slytherin) put away his map and crept to the door of the shack he had been hiding in. The road that ran past the shack looked empty. He had been heading west, back toward the town, when the announcement started, and had ducked into the first building he found to mark his map in relative safety. Now he was a little nervous about coming out, but he had no choice. According to the map, he was in Sector B=10. In an hour, this would be a forbidden zone. He had no choice but to move.
Vincent had no real strategy, and hadn't had one since the early hours of the morning, when he had stumbled out of the school to find Goyle already dead. The closest thing to a plan that he did have was to find Draco Malfoy. Draco was, after all, the smartest and most capable guy Vincent had ever known. Surely he'd be able to find a way out of this mess. Unfortunately he had no way of finding Draco, except to wander from one end of the island to another and hope they bumped into each other before he had to use his one bullet.
He had received a gun in his bag, but it was a tiny little thing, made to fit in the palm of a person's hand, meaning that Vincent could have held two in his palm. Worse, it only held one bullet and his bag contained no extra ammunition. This 'derringer' had to be the single most useless weapon in the entire game. (Of course, if he could have talked to Hannah Abbot, or the dead Millicent Bulstrode he might have reconsidered that assessment.)
He moved cautiously out onto the road and resumed his course west, moving at a somewhat quicker pace than before. Sure, he had an hour to get to safety, but in his mind, the zone border (which of course wasn't marked anywhere on the actual island, just the map) kept moving farther away. He couldn't shake the feeling that any second now, B=10 would go forbidden with him still inside it. The collar around his neck seemed to be shrinking, cutting off his air. He picked up his pace, trying to breath as he felt the collar grow tighter and heavier. Maybe this was how the collars killed stragglers, by constricting until the offender's head just popped off or they suffocated. But hadn't the professor said they exploded?
Without realizing it, he was running full out down the road, gasping for breath. He didn't slow down until he burst out of the trees into an open field. Dimly, he remembered that sector B=10 was made up entirely of forest. If he was out in the open, that meant he was out of the danger zone. He fell to the ground. The pressure on his neck went away (or perhaps the collar had never really been shrinking at all) and he drew huge breaths of sweet, cool air.
Vincent didn't know how long he lay there, completely exposed, unable to move. Eventually, he forced himself to calm down. Professor Phalanx's warning echoed in his mind; if twenty-four hours pass without a death, or if there is more than one student left alive seventy-two hours after the start of the game, all of your collars will detonate automatically. The collar weighed less than a pound, but it may as well have been a hundred-pound weight around his neck. He had to get out; he had to get this collar off. And there was only one way to do that...
Kill them.
No mercy.
Kill or die.
Kill them all.
He had no choice. If he wanted to live the others would have to die. And despite his less than favorable weapon, he would have to make sure they died soon.
Two days left.
Kill them.
No mercy.
No time to find Draco now. Draco would only kill him anyway. They all would. Everyone in the game was his enemy and if he didn't kill them one of them would kill him, or his head would explode when the time ran out!
Kill or be killed!
No mercy!
Two days left!
Kill!
KILL!
KILL THEM ALL!
His mind completely lost, the mantra of kill or be killed running through his head, Vincent Crabbe picked up his gear and went out hunting.
29 Students Remaining
Neville Longbottom couldn't hide anymore. He had been huddled in a utility shed at the edge of the woods since last night. He kept hearing guns go off. Now and then, people would pass by his hiding place. Every time, he was terrified that whoever it was would come inside. Another confrontation was the last thing Neville wanted.
He had tried so hard to be brave for once in his life. When he found the so-called 'bulletproof' vest in his bag, he had actually believed he could make a difference. That he could be a hero like Harry always did. So he had tried to make contact with Susan Bones when he ran into her on the cliff, hoping that she would join him and together they could recruit others and maybe find a way out of this game. Instead, she shot him. The vest did stop the bullets, but each shot felt like a kick in the chest from an exceptionally large horse. To his embarrassment, he passed out. When he woke, Susan was dead, with a giant hole in the back of her head, and her weapon was gone along with his bag. With no map, he had no way to keep track of the forbidden zones; he could wander into one and never know it...until his head blew up.
So he stayed put. But that was no better as strategies went. For all he knew, he might be in one of the zones about to go forbidden. He needed to find someone who wouldn't try to kill him. But he was too scared to try contacting anyone else.
Stay or go? He took a chance either way. As far as forbidden zones went, he was no safer huddled in here than walking around out there. And out there he had the vest to protect him from bullets, as long as any attackers aimed for his chest. Wait to die here, or take a chance at dying out there. It didn't look good either way. At least outside he had the chance of running into someone friendly. In here all he could do was wait to die.
Nodding to himself, Neville stood up, feeling pins and needles in his legs. He had been huddled in the same position all night. Outside the shed was an intersection where two of the island's dirt roads crossed each other. He took the road that led south; no particular reason except that the episode with Susan and...whoever had happened on the northern side of the island.
After traveling south for a few minutes, Neville stopped. He had heard a rustling in the bushes ahead of him. It might just be a squirrel... Or it might be another student.
Now Neville was in a real quandary. Calling to the student in the bushes that he was unarmed and non-combatant didn't seem like too smart an idea. But if he ran, he would be turning his back on someone who might very well be a killer. And he bore no illusions that there was anybody on the island who he could outrun. The best he could do was pull his school robes closed to cover the bullet holes in his shirt (no sense letting everyone know a shot in the chest wouldn't work) and continue walking. No one had leapt out yet, so maybe it was just an animal moving around in there.
And then again, maybe not! Neville jumped back as Wayne Hopkins (Male Student 12, Hufflepuff) stood up out of the bushes. He held a gun remarkably similar to what Susan had carried, not the exact same model, but definitely the same basic type. But the gun wasn't what caused Neville's fear; it was the look in Wayne's eyes. He had a wild look in his eyes, accompanied by a manic grin and slight twitch in the face.
"Neville..." he said, a slight giggle in his voice. Neville was struck by the horrible thought that Wayne had lost it.
"Wayne, put down the gun," Neville said urgently.
"Should have known..." Wayne went on as if he hadn't even heard Neville. "Should have known we'd end up like this..."
"What are you talking about?" Neville asked. "How could you know?"
"It's just like in the real world," Wayne said. "Once you get out of school. This is what they mean when they say dog-eat-dog. Every man for himself." He frowned slightly. "Never wanted to believe that... No choice now..."
"Don't do this Wayne..."
"Got no choice!" he snapped. "Don't you see? No choice! No rules! No escape! No choice! No choice!"
"Wayne no!"
But Wayne had already lifted his gun; he was going to fire. And the way his hands were shaking, Neville couldn't count on the bullets hitting the protected area of his chest. There was only one thing he could do. He ran forward, catching Wayne off-guard, and tried to tackle him. What Neville couldn't see through the foliage - especially with all his attention focused on the gun - was the twelve-foot drop behind Wayne. Some might have called it a hill, though it was nearly vertical. They went over the edge, half-falling half-rolling to the bottom.
Thanks to his armor cushioning his fall, Neville managed to be the first one up. Wayne's gun lay at his feet. He grabbed it just as the other boy got to his feet. Now there was terror mixed with the madness in Wayne's expression. Neville aimed the gun at Wayne, but kept his finger off the trigger. Now that he had the upper hand, there was a chance for the situation to end peacefully, if he could just talk Wayne down.
But he never got the chance. Seeing the gun in Neville's hands, Wayne reached into his school robes and pulled out a huge folding knife, flicking it open with one swift motion.
"Think you got me unarmed?" he cried, an edge of mad laughter in his voice. "Found this in a little shop last night! Always be prepared, right Neville?"
"Wayne don't!"
"I told you! I TOLD YOU ALREADY! I GOT NO CHOICE!"
"Wayne! NO!" But before he even said that much, Wayne was charging him, raising the knife over his head.
There are times when, despite all good intentions, contrary to all common sense, instinct takes over. Standing there at the bottom of the hill, with a knife about to be driven into his head, Neville Longbottom began operating on instinct for just one second. But one second was all it took. With his eyes squeezed shut, he brought up the gun and pulled the trigger. A half-dozen lead slugs flew from the gun and buried themselves in Wayne Hopkins' chest and abdomen. Wayne gasped in shock, somehow unable to believe what had just happened. Neville opened his eyes and saw the knife fall from Wayne's hand and he staggered backward, and then collapsed.
A moment later, Neville dropped the gun and fell to his knees. Something horrible was rising up in his mind, trying to push every rational thought away.
I killed him! I killed him! I killed him!
He wanted to scream, cry, do anything other than sit there in silence. But he had the feeling that if he screamed or anything like that, he could end up just as crazy as Wayne had been. Neville clung to that thought. It was the game, the game had done this to them. The game and the people behind it. Wayne was right about one thing; they didn't have a choice. Or at least, Professor Phalanx and the others didn't want them to. They wanted him to go crazy; either sit here whimpering until someone picked him off, or take the gun and mow down as many more of his classmates as he could.
Neville looked at the body of Wayne Hopkins. Just yesterday, Wayne had been a normal kid, a nice guy, good at herbology, a huge Quidditch fan who could barely ride a broomstick, but he cheered at every match. Now he was dead. Someone had to pay. The panicked voice was gone, but a new voice was telling Neville to get out of there. Anyone who was trying to win the game would come to the sound of gunfire, hoping to take down the weakened survivor of a fight. Besides, with the time limit hanging over their heads it only made sense to go where you knew people were. That meant someone was probably on their way here already. He had to act fast. But first, he went to where Wayne lay and gently closed the dead boy's eyes.
"I'm sorry Wayne. You didn't give me a choice."
He folded the knife Wayne had dropped and shoved it into his pocket before picking up the gun. He found Wayne's bag at the top of the hill, with all the forbidden zones marked on the map. Feeling at once a little better about his situation and a lot worse, Neville resumed his course south.
28 Students Remaining