Day 1 7:00 AM
There was a particularly pungent – and suspiciously canine – aroma in the air when Ben Ackart (Boy #8) awakened. He hastily sat up, but quickly regretted it as he knocked his already aching head against what felt like a wooden ceiling. Startled and bewildered he looked around him, discovering that he was seated in what appeared to be a disagreeably musty and cramped shed, the only exit being the arch-shaped hole at the front. Oh shit, was this...
"Am I in a dog kennel?" Ben said aloud, aware of just how absurdly bizarre the sentence sounded as he uttered it.
"I'm afraid so, but don't worry; I'm fairly confident its previous owner won't be too bothered by your presence in it." The voice was female and rather prissy. An amiably grinning face appeared in the entranceway, "would you like a hand getting out?"
Ben looked inquisitively at the cute features of Cassandra Douglas (Girl #8) as she casually brushed back a handful of brunette curls from her pretty visage and willingly extended her hand to him. Carefully, Ben took it, dazzled by the gloriously bright azure of the sky as he was pulled out into the sunlight, the ocean-spray tinged air blissfully fresh and curiously intoxicating. He turned to speak to Cassandra, but she observantly anticipated this and quickly spoke first.
"Ok Ben, I'm guessing you've got a lot of questions you want to ask – let's sit down shall we, this could take awhile."
They stood in a circular clearing amidst the forest, a makeshift camp fire was rapidly dwindling in the ocean breeze and several large rocks had been set up to act as chairs. Ben and Cassandra uncomfortably seated themselves on these jaggedly shaped lumps of stone, Ben still feeling as though his fragile brain was being incessantly pummelled by countless pneumatic drills and bitterly wishing he'd not clumsily forgotten to bring some aspirin tablets along with him on this 'geography field trip'. Ben put a hand to his throbbing forehead and, to his surprise, discovered a recently applied plaster stuck pertly on the upper-right hand side of his brow.
"What..." he began, only to be interrupted by the excitable Cassandra.
"Well, Nicole and David Colville and I all united together outside the HQ and we ran off into the woods – we're all very pacifistic by the way so you needn't worry about your safety – and we...well it was really weird actually; we thought we saw you running through the woods and David insisted we follow – Nicole, I have to admit, wasn't too pleased about that – and eventually we found you sprawled on the ground, seriously concussed and really vulnerable. So David decided we should do the humane thing and take care of you; we found this dog kennel – which isn't marked on the map by the way – and laid you inside it. We've been doing guard shifts and that's...about it I suppose."
Ben smiled ever so slightly. Cassandra was a proud member of the 'Beauties', somewhat hyperactive, occasionally garrulous to the point of annoyance and, most fundamentally of all, a die-hard gossip. However – contradictory as it might sound – though Cassandra continuously jabbered away about every shred of rumour and potential scandal she'd come across with her preternatural ability to snuff out even the most recent of gossip, unlike most of her elitist compatriots, she never intended to utilise the information she garnered with malicious intent. She simply thought it made good conversation. She occupied the enviable position of Nicole Colville's 'lieutenant' (i.e. dependable partner-in-crime) and was even the trophy girlfriend of the most desired boy in the year; David Colville – Nicole's brother – with whom she was obviously besotted. Yes, she was a saccharine romantic, candy manifested in human form – ephemerally sweet and quickly disposable once the flavour had dulled; Ben wondered whether or not David actually felt anything for her or if it was simply primal animal lust and the need for keeping up appearances that had driven the two together. No that wasn't fair he realised; David was kind and decent and unlike most of the sport-playing Neanderthals he actually didn't beat his underlings and hence he was deservedly reputed to be something of a softie at heart.
"Where did this plaster come from?" asked Ben, gesturing to the said dressing.
"You've Nicole to thank for that – there's another one on your shoulder by the way – she recently bought some new shoes which look incredible, but unfortunately don't fit properly and have been giving her really bad blisters; so she's been wearing plasters on her heels for like a month to prevent this. You must have cut your head on a rock when you fell and – luckily for you – that bullet only scraped your shoulder's flesh, so these plasters will be good enough for now at any rate."
"So, just exactly what were you going to do with me?"
Cassandra bit her lip as her face flushed red ever so slightly; when she spoke her formerly ebullient voice was sombre, "Well...to tell you the truth, we sort of agreed that if by midday you hadn't woken up we'd...umm, shoot you." Seeing Ben's expression of mortified revulsion, Cassandra quickly explained, "It's not that we wanted to or anything, but for all we knew, you could have been irretrievably comatose – in which case the best thing we could do for you would be to give you a quick death...and then we'd take your supplies. Look, none of us wanted to hurt you...but, well things are pretty frightening right now and we didn't know what to do."
"So tell me Cassandra, just what equipment have I been given?" Ben curtly enquired.
"I've no idea...we didn't want to see what weapon you'd been given, just in case we...got tempted, if you get my gist." Cassandra hesitantly explained.
"And where are the venerated Nicole and David now then? Did they leave because they were afraid that if they stayed too near me, they might get tempted?" Ben was still speaking in deadpan monotone.
"No, Nicole and David are patrolling the area; they said they also needed some time to themselves to 'discuss some private matters'." Cassandra answered simply.
"Private matters which aren't of concern to you then?" Ben coyly suggested.
"I trust them both completely. Come on Ben; be thankful we saved your life rather than moaning..."
"I'm sorry Cassandra, it's just that..." but Ben didn't finish his sentence, because at that moment, the elusive sense of pain and worry that had glided ethereally around the back of his mind since he had woken up, came roaring into the forefront of his psyche. The shots, the blood, the desperate grasp of his hand and the helplessly pleading look in his eyes. Nate. His name would forever be imprinted upon Ben's memory, ingrained, immovable and endless.
"Oh Jesus..." gasped Ben as he clutched his hands to his eyes.
In the all-encompassing darkness of his bedroom, only the TV's flickering picture provided any illumination, the blurred swirls of colour casting a single beam of subdued light across the bare wooden floor. Mr. Samuels carelessly flicked the ash from his cigar, concentrating on the image of Mrs. Siu Tung, her stony and emotionless stare having a curiously magnetic effect on his weary eyes.
A brunette news reporter - moderately attractive despite having a face pumped full of botox and collagen – held the microphone out towards the expressionless Mrs. Siu Tung, an insincere look of concern adorning her surgically enhanced face.
"Mrs. Siu Tung, obviously your only daughter, Jewel, is amongst the 27 remaining participants within the first Battle Royale. In this situation, where do your loyalties lie; do you accept the government's reasoning behind their justification for passing this severe law? Or have you chosen to align yourself with the raucous hooligans that purport to be the morally 'superior' opposition?" The news reporter asked in a soothingly dulcet and obviously contrived tone.
Mrs. Siu Tung glared at her with unconcealed disgust; a truly menacing glower that Jewel was very proud to have inherited, "Of course I oppose the government; what useless excuse of a parent wouldn't in this situation?" Mrs. Siu Tung's voice was clipped and disdainful, remnants of her Asian accent still audible despite her perfect English.
"But surely Mrs. Siu Tung, you wouldn't deny that there have been serious problems with the youth and that measures are needed to quell this pattern of Juvenile behavioural aberrancy?"
"Institutionalised slaughter is not the answer; how the government dares to condone this kind of program is quite beyond me – this is sick, the people who created it are sick, the depraved perverts that watch this are sick and..."
"Mrs. Siu Tung," the reporter quickly butted in, a slightly nervous look flashing across her face, "right now, do you have anything you'd like to say to Jewel?"
There was an unconscionable pause. Suddenly Mrs. Siu Tung lunged towards the camera, roughly pushing aside the gob smacked reporter who tumbled backward with a faint yelp of shock.
"How can you do this, you heartless fuckers? Because of scum like you, my daughter is probably going to die! Can you understand that? Can you get it through your thick skulls that beyond all this bureaucratic crap MY CHILD AND HER FRIENDS ARE BEING SENT TO THEIR DEATHS?" Mrs Siu Tung's voice had risen to hoarse screech; two security guards emerged from the sides, each seizing one of the now weeping Mrs. Siu Tung's arms and angrily dragging her away, the heels of her shoes creating a gratingly shrill sound as they skidded across the concrete floor.
Bored, Mr Samuels picked up the remote control and switched the television off. He took another small sip of his brandy, the dry heat of his sore throat cooling as the liquid ran down his gullet, a gentle river of momentary of revitalisation before the arid pain returned. He flicked the desk lamp switch on, pleased by the small scope of light it radiated in the pitch black of the room. He removed his wallet from his jacket pocket and hesitantly opened it; it'd been almost a week since he'd last looked at the photo and he felt a slight spasm of guilt as he unfurled the square of leather that contained the most important of his possessions.
That sweet and earnest smile, the hair that was done in pigtails despite her distaste for the style, because she so eagerly wanted to please him and those long woollen sleeves of her cardigan that hid the fine white marks from where she'd cut herself with a penknife. Mr. Samuels looked down at the static picture of his daughter, Suzanne - as his wife had insisted upon christening her; he'd have preferred Rose to have been her given name, but back in those days he'd been much more submissive and malleable to the demands of others.
But only two years after giving birth to Suzanne; Mr Samuels's wife lay dead on a mortuary slab, the victim of a hit and run driver. Of course there had been the interminable period of grieving, but Mr. Samuels was resolute that life would go on and he continued to jet around the world on an assortment of dull business trips, always leaving Suzanne in the care of a barely literate European au pair.
He'd showered Suzanne with gifts of course, sure that these would in some way compensate for his continual absence in her life. She'd graciously accepted them but never felt any way of talking to him about her sufferings at school. Perhaps it was her lack of a mother that had made her susceptible to hurt; she never felt as though there was a true anchor in her home life, just a series of chain-smoking nannies with slightly amusing accents. Though she was not beautiful (the good-looks gene didn't really run in Mr Samuels's line of the family), she was slim, small and fairly pretty but unequivocally shy and timid. With a frightening – almost primeval – instinct, her female classmates sensed her innate vulnerability and soon the torment had begun.
I haven't really the heart to recount the vile things they did to her; the tirade of abuse she endured, the public humiliations on the sports pitch, the dining hall and even the classrooms. She was normal but branded a 'freak', she was straight but stigmatised as a 'lesbian', she was quite cute but derided as 'ugly' and she was kind but damned as a 'bitch'. There was no logic in these slurs, but that wasn't an issue for those who perpetrated them.
He'd returned home from work at the usual time, the au pair now asleep in bed after imbibing her customary nightcap of two shots of vodka, and found her creakily swaying from left to right in the kitchen doorway; a tattered and tear-stained note beneath her, the noose still tight around her neck. The note may have been incomplete, but it still provided Mr. Samuels with a lucid account of her pain; the bottomless pit of anguish and despair that she'd refused to share with him until now. But now was too late.
From that moment on he'd felt an irrepressible hatred that could not be quashed; a hatred for the young. Now was his chance, perhaps his only one, to silence his demons and give Suzanne some vengeful closure; the selected class may not be the one who'd driven her over the edge and into the deep, but that was unimportant – all kids were the same; selfish and unruly scum.
He held the photo tightly, making no effort to wipe away the tear that rolled down his cheek with ghostly quiet.
"What did you get in the way of weapons then?" asked Ben, his surge of emotion having more or less rescinded by now.
"This," said Cassandra, picking up a silver plated Smith and Wesson 357. revolver, "David got the same model but his was coloured black – I mean how freakily cool; it's like we're a couple even in weapons! Nicole got given six grenades, which between you and me, I don't believe she was very pleased with – I think she quite fancied the idea of running around in a short skirt, toting a gun à la La Femme Nikita." Cassandra giggled with strangely inappropriate girly innocence and continued to ramble on, "I just can't wait to get off this island and get back to all the things I'll have missed - I'm going to have a nice bubble bath first and then indulge in some Belgian chocolates I think."
"But how are you going to get off the island unless you..."
"Well I'm sure Nicole will think of something," Cassandra brusquely interrupted, "she's very enterprising and always has a plan whenever there's trouble. Anyway; aren't you going to check your bag?"
Keen to divert attention away from the prospect of probably having to kill others, Ben acquiesced to Cassandra's demand and withdrew his weapon from the satchel he'd been given. It was plastic and rectangular, with a plasma screen and a large number of small and densely packed buttons.
""GPS Globular positional interface, model C57 hand-held palmtop"" Ben read aloud from the manual's cover page, "pity they tore out most of the pages from the operating manual; I'll just have figure out how to use it by guesswork I suppose."
"Did you really expect them to be anything other than total fuckers?" Cassandra muttered to herself.
Ben ignored this jibe and continued to press away on the palmtop's array of buttons, trying to activate it and figure out the location of Simon and Joanna. There was a rustling amongst the bushes beyond the circle of the clearing; Cassandra raised her revolver and held it tautly in her arms.
"We need to give him more time, he could still recover," said a voice in the distance. Cassandra slackened her aim and relaxed onto one of the rocks, reassured by the sound of David Colville's (Boy #12) gruffly charming voice.
"Look, he's probably in gaga-land having really sordid bacchanalian orgies and has no chance of ever waking up again. If you're too pussy; I'll do it, but what's really bugging...Oh, hi Ben." Nicole Colville (Girl #7) quickly changed tact and smiled sweetly, "how are you feeling?"
"Fine thank you, though sadly when I was in 'gaga-land', I didn't get the opportunity to fuck anybody – but hey there's still time for that, or is there?" Ben tartly answered, Nicole didn't bat an eyelid but Cassandra and David looked slightly perturbed.
"So you're feeling ok mate?" David asked with, as far as Ben could tell, authentic empathy.
Ben nodded slightly. Though there was a strong resemblance between the two, David and Nicole were allegedly not actual twins, one of them having been adopted by the Colville parents as an infant. Despite their reticence on the subject, Ben was fairly convinced that David was the adoptee; whilst Nicole spoke with a finely-tuned, plummy English accent, David's vocal intonations were more northern and working class. For this reason Liz Dunn had gossiped that David was the child of a broken home and though these rumours were never confirmed, speculation about David's history obstinately refused to cease. They were attractive kids; Nicole's shoulder length brunette hair and fuller body shape were her principal physical features that differentiated her from Frankie, otherwise they looked remarkably similar; same perfect bone structure, same luscious lips and same angular facial shape – though Frankie's eyes were larger and more striking. These similarities went unacknowledged by the two divas; it wasn't as though it was difficult to tell them apart, but their beauty was of a comparable genre though it was an unwise gaff to point this out to either of them. David's rugged looks could generally be relied upon to cause multitudes of females to swoon with yearning, whilst his talent for sports and remarkable brain gave him an air of all-round perfection. Ben continued to tap away on the keys of his GPS tracker, presciently predicting that the discovery he was edging ever closer to would be one of seismic importance.
"Have a good chat?" asked Cassandra, a hint of bitterness detectable in her voice.
"Very stimulating," Nicole said dryly, "we're trying to figure out our options, or lack of them to be more exact."
"You must be able to think of something?" Cassandra said with unmasked desperation.
"Unfortunately not – and neither can David, despite his claims to the contrary." There was such bite in her voice that even Ben promptly looked up from his palmtop, suspecting that the 'conversation' the two had earlier was more akin to an argument than an agreeable discourse.
"I'll think of something...there's always something that can be undermined to your benefit. Have you conjured up any good ideas Ben?" there was faint sarcasm in the question, but Ben looked up and answered with complete seriousness,
"Yes, but we need to go to the temple to get things started," seeing their bemusement, Ben cogently asserted, "now."
27 Students Remaining