Arena 3 (Book #3 in the Survival Trilogy) Chapter 23

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

Each one of my footsteps echoes as I am prodded along the corridor by the guard. My mind is a frantic blur. It is so dark down here with only the emergency lights to illuminate the path I can hardly see my hand in front of my face. It makes everything stark. I feel like I am walking into hell.

Slaverunners walk ahead of me and behind me. They must have gotten the lowdown on me. They know what I did in Arena 1, how I killed the leader there, and they’re not taking any chances.

The corridor bends, taking me away from the path that leads to freedom, steering me in the opposite direction, toward the jaws of death. I can hear the crowd above stamping their feet, chanting my name. Everyone wants to see me fight, but no one wants to see me survive. They all want to bear witness to my death.

I dig my heels in, my body not letting me move. A slaverunner comes up behind me and kicks me in the small of my back, making me take a stumble forward. I almost lose my footing. Because my hands are bound so tightly, if I fall, there will be nothing I can do to stop myself hitting the floor. I have no choice but to let myself be shoved onward.

Finally, the corridor opens out into a circular room.

“Stand there,” one of the slaverunner says, pointing at the ground.

I can just about make out a metal shape on the floor in the middle of the room. It looks like some kind of trap door.

As I step on it, metal cuffs wrap around each of my boots, sticking me to the ground steadfast.

“What is this?” I ask, frustrated to hear my voice trembling. “What’s happening?”

The slaverunners don’t get a chance to respond, because in that moment a circular panel opens up directly above my head. Stark daylight pours in through the hole above me, blinding me. I turn my head to protect my eyes from the glare. Along with the light, a blast of sound comes down the hole, so loud it’s deafening. It’s the chanting, screaming, braying crowd. At the same time, I feel someone fiddling with the cuffs around my wrists. They’re unlocking me. And that can only mean one thing.

All at once, the ground moves beneath my feet. The metal thing I’m standing on is beginning to rise. My hands are free but my feet are locked into the ground, making sure I don’t go anywhere. I rise slowly, the light blinding me. I want to cover my eyes but I know that within a matter of seconds I’ll be in an arena where anything could happen to me. I have to be alert, ready for anything they might throw at me.

A voice booms over the loudspeakers as I rise.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please put your hands together for Brooke Moore!”

The crowd roars, the noise so loud it is deafening.

My head tips through the hole, just enough for me to be able to see the arena before me. It’s circular, built in an old sports stadium. The arena is like a desert, with dusty yellow sand covering every inch of the ground. It is completely open to the elements and the blue sky up above me.

The crowds stretch up in the bleachers as far as my eyes can see. I’m shocked to discover that none of them are biovictims. Whereas the spectators in the other cities had been deformed and mutated by radiation, their nuclear fried brains turning them into savage beasts, the people here have no such excuse. They’re humans, just like me, ordinary people who survived the war. But every single citizen of the city must be here—the elderly, the young, everyone’s turned out to watch my death. I wish I could find a way to empathize with them, to remind myself that they’re victims of a brutal society as well. But I just can’t do it. They had the same choice I was confronted with back in Arena 1: join them or fight them. They’ve chosen the path of least resistance and for that, I can never forgive them.

Any residue of shame I felt about blowing this place to smithereens dissipates. These people deserve to die. Now I just hope that I activated the GPS device, that the bombs are on their way. But it’s already been five minutes and nothing has happened yet. Whether something’s alerted them to my being in danger or not, there’s no way of knowing. All I know is that I’m still here, the arena is still standing, and there’s no sign of my dad’s army. I’m alone.

The platform finishes rising and clunks into place. But my metal cuffs keep me frozen to the spot. I look around, trying to work out what is happening and what I am supposed to do. I’m on high alert, my senses listening out for the smallest sound, my body feeling out for the smallest tremor. Anything that will tell me where my foe is coming from. I don’t know what to expect. Arena 1 was like a wrestling ring. Sumo, Shira, Malcolm—all my opponents were celebrity fighters in their own right. But Arena 2 was more like a sport or a game. All the competitors were children my age. They wanted us to die but they wanted to be creative with it. They wanted their crowds to be entertained. I wonder what Arena 3 will be like. It’s not giving away any of its secrets yet.

All the while I stand there, I look around at every crevice and cranny in the whole building, praying that somewhere I’ll see a way out, an escape hatch. Other than the disc I stand on, I cannot see a single entryway. But my competitors will have to get in here somehow. Just as soon as they do, I’ll make a beeline for it and take my chance at escape.

That’s when I see movement from opposite me. Another person is coming out of the ground, rising on their own metal disc. I expect them to be my competitor, but once the disc clicks in place and the dust settles, I realize I am facing a child. She can’t be more than twelve years old. She stares at me, terrified, her face completely white.

Suddenly, all around me, children start rising up on discs, clicking into place, until we’re in a circle. There are ten in total.

I can feel my stomach roiling at the realization that they’re expecting us to fight each other to the death.

The announcer speaks.

“There can only be one survivor. Whoever is left standing will be crowned the winner. Let the games begin.”

Suddenly there’s a loud honking noise and the metal cuffs across my feet snap open. I’m free to move. To fight.

The crowd begins to cheer. I can feel the anticipation buzzing in the air.

No one moves. None of my fellow competitors prepared to fight one another. But that’s when the ground begins to rumble. I wobble on my platform, trying to keep my footing, but the shaking is too great. We begin to stumble from our discs, landing on the desert ground.

The second we do, the desert sand suddenly sifts away through a million pinprick holes in the ground. As it disappears, it reveals a huge metal framework on the floor, like a lattice. Then, out of each gap, a red laser beam bursts out, making a crisscross pattern above my head. The arena has been transformed in a matter of seconds from a barren desert into a strange, futuristic stadium. The crowd goes wild, delighted by what is unfolding before their eyes.

I crouch down, certain that the laser beams mean danger. I know that the electricity in the laser beams won’t be strong enough to kill us because that would make the game a huge disappointment. But they’re certainly designed to hurt and I don’t want to risk touching any of them. I have no idea what they’re for when I suddenly see a bright red light coming from one end of the stadium. I look over and see that a huge doorway has been illuminated. It’s the exit. They’re trying to tempt us toward it. But I’m not about to play their game. It’s like a magician, always trying to get you to look in a certain place so they can distract you from the real trick. I won’t fall for it. That exit is probably fake anyway. They just want to see my desperation.

Two of the kids race for the exit. The second they do, the laser beams begin moving, chasing them across the desert ground. They scream in pain and collapse to the floor, writhing around as though shocked by electricity.

The crowd is momentarily entertained by the sight, but they quickly grow frustrated at the lack of fighting. As though in response, the laser beams begin to move, rotating so that we have no choice but to move. They’re forcing us together. I duck and weave through them, like I’m dancing a horrible dance. I step and leap, crouch and spin, trying to get out of the path of the moving laser beams. I’m hit and the pain is excruciating, like barbed wire all over my body. At last the crowd begins to cheer, pleased to see some suffering for their entertainment. But I know this isn’t it. There is more to come. This is just the beginning. This is like the warm-up act, trying to pump up the crowd for the main show.

All at once, the ground begins to vibrate. I can hear the sound of grinding metal coming from somewhere beneath the floor of the stadium. Then two slits open up in the ground and rising from them are giant, twisting blades. The crowd simultaneously oohs, and I feel sick to my stomach.

At the same time, a platform like the one I rose into the arena on appears at the far end, opposite the neon, flashing exit. I can only just about see the silhouette of whatever it is being raised into the arena. All I can tell is that it isn’t human. It is some kind of beast, a disgusting, huge, spiny creature. A spotlight appears on the creature. It looks like a giant, spiky earwig covered in mucus. Its pincers click together.

So that’s how they’re going to play it. If we won’t fight each other, then they’ll pit man against beast, humans against the deformed creatures our radioactive world has produced. I swallow hard and try to psych myself up. If I can fight crazies and kill radiated wild dogs, I can do this. But none of my dad’s training has prepared me for this, and the creature is so revolting it takes every ounce of resolve in my body not to run away.

The crowd goes crazy, cheering and shouting.

There’s a split-second pause as the creature takes in the sight of its prey standing defenselessly in front of it, then it launches itself forward, racing toward me and the other children at a frighteningly fast pace.

My heart flies into my throat. The adrenaline pumping through me sharpens my faculties and helps me make sense of what I have to do. I understand how this arena is set up. I have opponents, obstacles, but no weapons, but they didn’t go to all this effort just to see us die in five seconds flat. They want to be entertained and that means watching us fight, having us die one by one. I’m supposed to want the other kids to get killed before me.

I spring forward, racing right at the creature. The crowd gasps, clearly not expecting me to make such a bold move. As though following my movements, the rotating saws crash down. I only just manage to leap out of the way. I fall on my side and go rolling across the hard metal grid floor.

But the creature manages to avoid the blades as well, and remains completely unscathed. It rears up like a centipede, showing off a thousand spindly teeth, then roars. Huge strings of spit hang between its teeth, and a fine mist of hot spit sprays the crowd. They squeal like children at Sea World. Don’t they realize they’re watching humans fighting for their lives? Have they become so desensitized to violence?

The creature zooms toward me again. I’m up on my feet quick as a flash, racing toward the spinning saws. It was too easy for the creature to duck out of the way of the last blade, so I get a different idea this time. Instead of trying to get one to crash down on it, I’m going to run straight through the middle.

It’s a risky maneuver and the crowd knows it. They start bouncing up and down in their seats as I make a beeline straight down the center of the groaning, rotating saws. As I go, they start crashing down, just inches from the place where I last stood. They’re so close, I can feel the rush of wind created by each slam.

The creature is right behind me, right on my tail. Just as its pincers reach out to snap me up, one of the blades crashes down. I’m thrown forward by the force and land chest down on the hard ground. The wind is knocked out of me and I wince. Then I look back and see that barely a foot behind me, the creature is twitching against the metal ground, a saw rammed right through its head and black, sticky, gooey blood oozing out of it.

Across the other side of the arena, a group of about five of the children are huddled together, staring at me wide-eyed as though in terror. I just have time to spin onto my back when a boy barrels into me.

“Don’t fight me, you idiot!” I scream as we roll across the ground.

He pins me down, grappling with me.

“I’m trying to keep you all alive!” I shout back.

As the boy wrestles with me, the ground begins to rumble and the saws start to disappear down into the slits in the grating, taking the disgusting earwig creature with them. The crowd chants my name but I know better than to fall for it. There will be another monster to fight. There always is. These games will only end when the humans die.

I managed to get my knee up and kick the boy in his stomach. He goes flying back and the ground starts to rumble and shake. I know something else is coming for us, that the arena is about to transform again, but I need a moment to catch my breath. As I take in a deep gasp, I’m suddenly aware of a pungent smell coming from behind me. Whatever is there, the crowd has already seen it, because they start to clap and squeal with excitement.

I flip onto my feet in a crouching stance and spin, coming face to face with three enormous rodent-like creatures. They’re completely furless, covered in painful-looking sores and boils, and their eyes glow red. They’re each at least six feet long, and the stench coming off them is unbearable. In the crowd, people cover their mouths, but it’s all part of the spectacle for them, all part of the evening’s entertainment.

The rats see the group of five children huddled in the corner. Within a second, they gobble them up. The boy next to me screams. I cover my mouth, trying to stop myself from retching, and glance around me desperately, searching for somewhere to run and hide. But all around me is nothing but the flat open arena ground.

Then the ground suddenly begins to shake and rumble. A series of walls burst up, so fast I’m knocked off my feet. The giant rats scurry to the far end of the stadium, seemingly afraid. I take my chance and run to the opposite side. Walls spring up all around me, blocking me in, forcing me to backtrack. At the very least, they provide a barrier between me and the boy who was trying to kill me. But when everything stops shaking, I realize what has happened. Surrounding me is a maze.

My heart pounds. I can hear the rats scurrying around at the other end of the stadium. The sound of their claws on the metal grating makes my stomach turn, as does the screaming of the children they are catching and eating. I can smell their odor as it wafts through the maze toward me, but the walls are so high there’s no way I can see where they’re approaching from. I’m completely blind.

I start running, disorientated and panicked. I’ve always been a fighter, not a runner. This is completely out of my comfort zone. And it’s made worse by the way the ground suddenly rises and falls, by the way the walls suddenly grind and begin to move. I feel frantic, like I’m trapped in a nightmare.

I can hear the pounding feet of the rats from just the other side of the wall and smell their putrid flesh. They are so close. A wall is starting to move and I launch myself at it. It’s just low enough for me to pull myself up on top. It springs back up to its full height, and I’m just a few yards above the rats. Their disgusting noses sniff me, but I’m just out of their reach. I run along the top of the wall away from them. While being able to see where they are is useful, it won’t help me in any way if I don’t find a way to kill them.

I race along the top of the wall, searching for anything that I might be able to use as a weapon. As I go, I wrack my brains, trying to think of a way to defeat them. It’s when I see one of the rats nip the other that I get a brilliant idea. In the last fight, I used the obstacle against the opponent. What about if in this fight, I pit the opponents against one another?

I notice ahead a place where the walls move in and out, forming a block like a prison cell. I know then what I have to do.

“HEY!” I shout at the stinking creatures, trying to get their attention. “I’M UP HERE!”

All three of them turn their disgusting faces up to me, twitching their crusty noses. Revolted by the sight of them, I start to run. My feet slap against the hard wall. The rats are right behind me, chasing so fast, getting so close. I have to time this perfectly or it won’t come off at all.

I take a running leap just as one of the walls is starting to rise and manage to grip it by my fingertips. I hang there, dangling helplessly as it continues its slow rise. I try to heave myself up but I can’t quite get purchase on the wall. Gritting my teeth, I begin to scrabble and kick, searching for a nick in the wall where I can get my footing. The rats are racing toward me; I can hear them, smell them, can feel the crowd on the edge of their seats with anticipation. Finally, I get my foot onto a rough part of the wall and start to scramble, heaving with all my might. Then, in the nick of time, I’m crouching on the top of the wall.

The rats congregate beneath me, snarling, snapping their teeth. I stand there, trying to catch my breath. I need to time this perfectly.

I turn on top of the wall and watch the one opposite as it begins to lower. Then I jump, right into the enclosed space. It’s a complete dead end. The audience has no idea what I’m doing and must think I’ve chosen suicide, because they all gasp in unison.

I back away, my heart hammering, prepared for the wall ahead of me to lower and my opponents to race in and devour me. The screeching, grinding noise of the walls begins to sound out, and it starts to lower. The rats are clambering over one another, trying to be the first into the small space. Then, just as I hoped, the wall my back is pressed against begins to rotate. I barely have a second to press myself through the gap before it slams shut with a humongous crunching noise. The rats are locked up inside the tiny room on the other side. Within a matter of seconds, I hear the sounds of them tearing one another to pieces. The crowd erupts with applause, thrilled by the spectacle I’m giving them.

But of course, it’s not over. There will be more deformed creatures to fight. More races to run and hoops to leap through. I’m their entertainment for the evening. My only chance of survival is if I can draw the game out long into the evening, long enough for the troops back at the compound to realize I’m in trouble. Right now, I don’t care if I die in their bomb blasts. Anything would be preferable to playing this disgusting death game. Right now, a bomb strike would feel like mercy.

As the ground shakes and the maze disappears, I get my first look at the other competitors. Only three of them remain. The boy who attacked me is gone, swallowed by one of the putrid rodents. The sight makes me feel hollow, but the crowd loves it. They roar their approval, loving the entertainment and the way we are being slowly tortured to death. Of all the arenas I’ve fought, of all the crowds I’ve faced, these are by far the worst because they know better but have adopted a “rather you than me” attitude. The hatred I feel for them is all consuming.

The ground begins to shake again and when I look down, I see hot, boiling water bubbling up through the grid at my feet. It’s so hot, steam curls up with it, and bubbles pop on the surface. Then platforms rise up.

I have no choice. My instinct to survive is stronger than anything inside of me that wants to give up. I grab hold of a rope attached to a podium and start to swing across the burning water. I’m moving like a pendulum, back and forth, the whole time looking down to see what hybrid creature will be sent up to terrorize me. But instead of a creature, the water keeps on rising. My muscles scream in protest as I force myself to climb up the rope, inching myself away from the water that just keeps on rising.

At the other end of the arena, one of the boys loses his grip on the rope. He slips into the boiling water and lets out a bloodcurdling scream. I climb even quicker and manage to pull myself, stomach first, onto the platform. When I look down, I realize that the water is filled with giant, wriggling maggots, at least fifty foot long and completely see-through. Clearly, these animals evolved in hot, radiated, toxic waters.

The crowd squeals as though they find the sight squeamish. I’m so angry with them, with the way they’re treating us and the pleasure they’re deriding from our fear and misery. But the fight is leaving me. I have no energy to spare to scream at them. All that’s left in me will have to go into fighting the maggot-like creatures.

In the water beneath me, they writhe and wriggle around. More keep appearing, squirming, their disgusting transparent bodies making me feel sick. If the audience is expecting me to kill them, they’re going to be sorely disappointed. There’s no way I’ll be able to fight all those disgusting creatures; there are literally hundreds of them.

But the waters are rising, bringing them closer and closer, and there’s nowhere left to climb. I can’t get any higher.

That’s when I realize I’m not supposed to climb or fight. This is the end of the line. For the crowd, the enjoyment comes with the toe-curling anticipation of knowing one of us is about to die, of watching the terror on our faces. I have no choice but to delight them by cowering back from the platform edge.

The water begins lapping at the side of the platform. The maggoty worms are so close to me now I can see their bulbous eyes. They have rows of perforated teeth, like needles. The crowd squeals with delight as another quake begins to shake the podiums. I hear the shrill scream of a girl and know another one of the competitors has fallen into the deathly waters.

I cling on for dear life, praying that I make it out of here alive. But I know it’s futile. The end has come.

All at once, the platform tips. My grip on it tightens but I can’t hold on forever. My muscles fail me and I let go. I hit the boiling water and scream in time to the gasping crowd of thrill seekers. It feels more like fire than water. I thrash around, screaming at the top of my lungs. But something is changing in the crowd. No one wants to see me die this way; not because it’s vicious and brutal, but because it’s too cheap. Whoever is controlling the game gets the hint, because suddenly the water that had been filling the stadium suddenly begins to drain away, and before the worm creatures even have a chance to bite me, I’m plummeting down, swirling as the water is sucked away.

I hit the metal grid of the arena ground once more. The worm creatures lie all around me, flapping and gasping in the air, drowning in oxygen, no longer a threat.

The crowd bursts into applause.

I look over and see there’s just one other competitor left alive. A boy of roughly eighteen. He’s lying on the floor too, his skin red and scalded like mine.

I realize then that there will be no more creatures to fight. It’s down to the final two. They want us to kill each other.

With a clunking noise, two swords are dropped into the arena. But I can’t even move. I’m exhausted, completely spent. My body feels like it’s on fire, the scalding water making every part of me hurt. It feels like I’m back in the desert again, when my body gave up and I just couldn’t carry on. My limbs are heavy, and my mind whirring.

I can see the boy rising to his feet, picking up his sword, and, for the first time, I admit to myself that no one is coming to save me. My GPS device failed. The bombs weren’t triggered and I will die before anyone realizes too much time has passed. No one was expecting me to be hauled into the arena so soon. As far as they know, I’m still a prisoner within the compound, plotting out my plan of escape. But in reality, I’ve failed in the one thing I had to do. I will die in this place and the world will keep on turning, just as brutal as before. Children will keep being stolen and survivors will keep fighting to the death in arenas until there’s nothing left of the old human race, nothing to show for all our accomplishments. I will die and there will be hell on earth.

The boy’s face appears above me, the sword glinting. He looks mournful, like he doesn’t want to kill me but knows he has to. I lie there, unable to move. But something catches his eye. There’s something coming toward us, floating as lightly as a feather on the wind. It’s coming from the audience. Someone has thrown a piece of white cloth, or a feather, in our direction. We watch it float down. Is it some kind of peace offering? I look up and scan the crowd, trying to see the person who threw it. When I do, my heart stops beating.

There, in the crowd amongst the other spectators, are Ben and Ryan.

I don’t think I’ve ever been more happy to see them in my life. They leap over the barriers and start running for me.

“Intruders!” the commentator cries.

I try to rise to my feet, finding my legs weak beneath me. Then suddenly their arms loop beneath mine and I’m wrenched to my feet.

“What are you doing here?” I cry to Ben and Ryan.

“We’re your plan B,” Ryan says.

“We’re getting you out of here,” Ben says, holding me close.

I wince, my scalded flesh sending bolts of pain through my body where he touches me. I notice Ryan is holding a GPS device and he hits it, turning the blinking red light into a solid one. The army has been mobilized. We have five minutes to get out of here before the whole place blows.

The crowd erupts into pandemonium. Half of them seem to be loving the abrupt change in course; the other half are angry to have been cheated out of seeing me and the boy fight to death.

But the boy doesn’t seem to understand what’s happening. He must think Ben and Ryan have been sent to help me kill him. He charges us, his sword raised.

Ryan snatches up the sword that was dropped for me and turns. Their swords clang together.

Ben gets to the metal disc that delivered me into the stadium and uses some kind of device in his hand, a tool of some sort, to ram the edge of the disc. It opens.

“RYAN!” I scream behind me. “COME ON!”

“GO!” he shouts. “While you still can!”

Ben tugs my arm and all at once we plummet downward, through the hole.

We hit the ground hard, winded. I feel one of my ribs crack on impact and take a sharp breath. The hole above closes over, plunging us into darkness. We’re back underground, and Ryan is trapped up in the arena.

“NO!” I scream, my voice tearing from my lungs.

But Ben keeps on tugging me, pulling me, forcing me to move on. We only have a matter of minutes to get out of the arena before the whole thing blows.

I’m hardly in a fit enough state to run. Ben has to hold me close to him to keep me on my feet. Numb with grief, I’m somehow able to trace my steps back through the twisting, labyrinthine underground. From above, the audience is roaring, the commentator desperately trying to quell the chaos. It sounds like we’ve started a riot.

I’m hardly able to stand. I wince with every step. But we reach the very last corridor and race up the very last staircase. Then all at once, we burst out into the desert heat, into the abyss of nothing. We’re free from the arena.

We start running full speed, knowing we only have a few minutes before the arena blows up. Even from outside we can hear the angry crowd. Shots start ringing out and it occurs to me that the slaverunners have opened fire on their own people.

As we race across the expanse, away from the arena, I hear the whining sound of bombs flying through the air.

The bombs hit and explode, the force so strong Ben and I are both flung forward. Heat blasts my face, singeing my hair. I land with a hard thud on my back and my head slams against the asphalt, making me bite down hard on my tongue.

I taste blood in my mouth. There’s a ringing in my ears that’s beyond painful. I’m completely dazed, unable to move or think or get my thoughts in any kind of order. Acrid smoke billows above me. I manage to roll over onto my chest. A little way behind me, I can see Ben lying face down on the ground. He’s completely still and I pray that he’s just been knocked unconscious. Behind him, I can see a scene of utter carnage. Enormous flames are leaping into the air, and bits of metal and body parts rain down. I duck as pieces of the arena grating thud just an inch to the side of my head.

I look back and see that where the arena stood is now nothing more than a smoldering crater. The bomb obliterated everything. It wiped out thousands of people in one blast.

There is no arena. There is no Ryan.

Then the world turns black.