Darwin's Game

Chapter Seven

            Shiloh frowned and leaned closer, “I can’t understand you. Light’s too dim,” she whispered.

            He leaned forward and whispered again,” What now?”

            “Right, it’s warmer down that way.”

            Carrick stuck his hand toward the right turn, and it met a slight area of warmth that grew the further he reached. 

            He nodded to Shiloh and they set off to the right. Soon light flickered and then slowly washed into the vent. It danced around the walls.

            Shiloh shivered and rubbed her hands together.   

            Both leaned forward peering as the door clicked open. Carrick pressed the glow stick to the entrance of the vent. A girl with red-brown hair walked in timidly. She looked around the room. She walked quickly and nervously to a book case, and they watched as she wondrously stroked the books.

            “It’s a library,” muttered Carrick.

            “No way,” Shiloh murmured under her breath.

            “Hmmm?” Carrick looked at her inquiringly.

            “Nothing,” she said, voice slightly annoyed.

            Another girl entered, from what the two could see she had black hair. They stood and looked at each other for a while. The black haired girl pulled something from behind her back. Carrick’s eyes widened as he looked to Shiloh. She gave him a look of dismay as they realized that the girl held a gun.

            “There goes your theory of everyone has a nonlethal weapon,” Shiloh told him, her voice fading. 

            “There’s no way that’s fair,” Carrick fingered his stun baton as he looked at the gun.

            A shot rang out, but the other girl smoothly pulled a book in front of her, managing to stop the bullet. Books cascaded down around her and she stumbled out of the self’s way as it teetered and crashed through the floor. The rotten boards crunched as they gave way and the shelf crashed to the floor below.

            The one with the gun checked her ammo, “Five left,” anger burned in her voice. The red head pulled another book. “Don’t. You. Dare,”  the one with the gun’s voice was dangerous. Opposite her the other girl’s lips seemed to move in a whisper, but maybe it was just a trick of the fire’s dancing shadows.

            She sucked in a breath and screamed, “Try me!” Shiloh observed her throwing the book just like she used to throw an illegal thrown-in at one of her old soccer games. The book, instead of hitting its dodging target, slammed into the wall. The girl wielding the gun ran stupidly at the other. Carrick looked over to Shiloh, questions in his eyes that were unsaid. Even the most amateur gun expert would know that firing a pistol doesn’t require charging at the victim. For though the only guns ever held by both Shiloh and Carrick had only been those of the virtual video game kind, they knew what a deadly mistake the girl had made.

            Shiloh started to mouth a silent word of understanding to Carrick when there was a scream of pain; from which girl, they no longer knew. The fight started to blur and Carrick pressed his glow stick closer to the vent grate as adrenaline wore off, giving way to fatigue. The sick’s light shone brighter into the room giving off a bright fluorescent, green glow, quite contrasting to the soft orange produced by the fire. Shiloh noticing the light’s radiance pulled Carrick back from the grate and grabbed the glow stick, hiding it in her hands. Carrick gasped and as Shiloh pulled him back his head jerked to the side hitting the thin metal wall with an echoing Whukk. Both girls looked up. Now a little more than annoyed with his companion, Carrick pulled the glow stick back with a scowl that startled Shiloh from her previous association with Carrick’s usually neutral features. Maybe that was the reason she didn’t take the glow stick back in time or for the argument that ensued. One girl, the red head, looked straight at them. Her eyes seemed to pierce past the vent and straight through them. Carrick froze, but Shiloh panicking because of the light, snatched his glow stick back and hid the beam. Quickly Carrick took it back.

            “She’ll see it,” Shiloh hissed, taking it back.

            Carrick reclaimed it, uncovered the light and hissed back, “She’s already seen it; it’ll look suspicious if it just goes out.”

            “No it won’t.”

            “Yes it will.”

            With every opposing sentence one would pull the glow stick back to them; Shiloh hiding it and Carrick exposing the beam. The girl watching was soon forgotten.

            The argument continued this way for a while until Shiloh, fed up and without anything particularly witty to say, referenced one of the comic books she was inclined to read whenever she could, “I’m not threatening you Carrick, I’m telling you—the next time you give away our position, glowing like a damn lightning bug—I’m going to put that glow stick where it won’t shine.”

            “Shut up,” was Carrick’s only response in a voice a little higher than normal speaking level. Both players in the vent winced at the large echo it made and looked down at the two others below.

            The girl with the gun became distracted with the sound of Carrick’s voice giving the other girl an advantage. The two watched in a sickening reverence as the red-headed girl did something to the other. She screamed, but was unable to stop the trance she was drawn into. She followed the red-head to the hole in the floor. They watched as she was pushed in screaming and as her killer laughed. She laughed still as she pushed a bookshelf through the floor with the girl. She only stopped when she had taken the dead girl’s shoes that had apparently flown off in the skirmish and left. It chilled the two to think that someone could be so cold.

            Where were they and who were they were? Killers?

            Shiloh pondered these questions to herself and was interrupted as Carrick’s hand waved in front of her face. Pushing it gently away she whispered an annoyed, “What?”

            He pointed to a set of two boys hidden away in the shadows of a shelf directly in front of them, evidently watching the scene unfold as they had. It was a wonder they had escaped notice in the first place. Shiloh leaned forward curiously. Carrick regarded her warily, unwilling to risk noise if he pulled her back.

            “We should leave. The girl’s dead, there’s no point in –“

            “Go if you want,” the confident boy replied annoyed.

            “Fine,” the slim boy said, his hair falling in his eyes as he turned away. Aaron turned back to take one last shot at the boy he’d come to despise, “How can I trust you? You're no better than anyone here. I don't even know your name.” His eyes accused Scott in the jumping firelight.

            “You can’t take a life. You won’t be able to see the advantage you give yourself, all you’ll feel is the guilt. When all hell breaks loose in this place, you won’t be able to survive alone. There are worse players here than me,” he nods to the hole where Monica broke through. “We’ve just seen one of the best fall in this game, not even 5 hours in. You yourself are nothing to even compare to her, just the next to die. I don’t need you to win, and when you fall victim to the odds, then I’ll just find someone to replace you. No one else will be able to take you as far as I will, and you know it. So leave me and go die.” Scott chuckled softly as Aaron stood rooted in place, helpless. “You need me.”

            Aaron’s shoulders shook gently as Shiloh watched. A sharp feeling of pity cut through her, if only for a second.

            Carrick whispered irritated, “I’m sure you’re so bad,” Carrick spat sarcastically. “Obnoxious idiots, it’s a wonder that anyone so cocky even exists.”

Shiloh watched the slim boy’s shoulders stiffen as he turned. He other was still chuckling to himself. It seemed that he had overheard Carrick. Shiloh shrank back quickly, a nasty feeling in her stomach telling her that he’d seen.