Dead Sea Games by J. Whitworth Hazzard

DEAD SEA GAMES Copyright Š 2014, 2017 J. Whitworth Hazzard

All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the publisher.

This book is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents, and dialogue are drawn from the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Published by Umbra an imprint of BHC Press Library of Congress Control Number: 2017956596 ISBN: 978-1-947727-03-8 Hardcover edition ISBN: 978-1-947727-04-5 Visit the publisher at: www.bhcpress.com Also available in hardcover & ebook

BOOK ONE

ADRIFT 9 BOOK TWO

EXILED 73 BOOK THREE

KIDNAPPED 157 BOOK FOUR

SCORCHED 263

chapter

one

I SAT ACROSS from my mother at breakfast and tried to act normal. It wasn’t working.

She eyeballed me and frowned, but kept her mouth shut. I could fool almost everyone, but she knew when I was nervous.

She claimed I did this thing with my mouth, but to this day, I deny it.

“What are you nervous about?”

Think of an excuse, I thought. Tell her anything, just get her out of the apartment.

“I’m thinking about asking Trina out,” I lied.

My mother’s scowl softened and she turned to wash the remains of her meager bowl of oats down the drain. “She’s not right for you.”

“Why’s that?” Besides the fact that Trina Sorenson was a whore, that is. I knew she wasn’t right for me, but my mother would never admit to me she knew a girl my age—fifteen—was selling her body to put food on the table.

That’s what we did these days. We lied to each other.

We’re not unique in that sense. Hell, everybody lies to everybody else around here. It’s the only way we keep the heavy veil of denial securely fastened around our heads. One look into the streets of Lower Manhattan threatened to blow it away and force terrible truths into our daily thoughts.

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“Trina has…problems. You should get to know Monique better. I know her parents, they’re a nice family,” she said.

“Everyone has problems, Mom. I’ll think about it,” I said.

“Monique seems nice.”

She wasn’t. Monique was a violent, crazy-ass bitch, but she hid it well. All the teenagers did.

“I’ve got to go work on the south side today. I don’t want you going to the Exchange today.” Mom looked at me intently for a reaction.

“I’ve got batteries to trade. How am I supposed to get more food?” I pushed away my bowl of oats to make the point.

Three scoops of cut oats with some lukewarm water and a sprinkle of powdered milk. It wasn’t appealing, or even that nutritious, but it’s what we had until drop day.

“I know what goes on down there on Fridays, and you’re not to be a part of it. I don’t want you anywhere near there.”

Her tone betrayed a deep anger she tried to stifle in her facial expression. “You can go tomorrow.”

Mom knew about the Game—most everyone who was still sane did—but she only knew half the story. She thought I bet on the games like the other teenagers. Wagering bits of reclaimed treasure, food, or booze on the outcome of the Game was the only real gambling left.

“I know to stay away from those guys.”

She frowned, but I knew she couldn’t spend any more time sheltering me today. She was going to be late for work if she stayed to interrogate her only surviving child.

“Fine. But I’m going to have Mrs. Jager come by later and check on you.”

Fuck!

“That crazy old bitch hates me. You know that,” I protested.

“Watch your language.” Her heart wasn’t in it to chastise me properly about something we all did. “And please be careful today.”

She grabbed her backpack, stuffed the 9mm in her holster and was out the door, gone for the next twelve hours.

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Mrs. Jager wouldn’t be a problem for a couple of hours yet.

She slept late, and she really was crazy. If she remembered to check on me at all, it would be a miracle. I knew it was Mom’s way of trying to keep me under watch. She meant well.

For all we’d been through, she still loved me and tried to show it. Mom was a hopeless romantic. She thought things would get better. I knew they wouldn’t.

The Game started at 12:00. On the dot, no excuses, no late entries, no bullshit.

That gave me just under two hours to get ready and get to the Exchange. I grabbed my backpack, with my ante of fresh packs of batteries, and headed out. While Mom took the door, I left by the fire escape.

A BRIGHT SUMMER sun shone down on my tanned skin, and I took a deep breath of New York City air. The stench of the Sea wasn’t so bad that day. I vaulted up the stairs, taking them two at a time, letting my body stretch out and warm up.

The Dead Sea below me moved in ripples and waves of unpredictable motion. It covered the entire street on this side of the building, the low tireless moan rising up and echoing off the brick buildings. I stopped at the top of the fire escape and emptied my sinuses, spitting a giant wad of hatred into the Sea below.

“Does that help?” Mr. Renner asked.

“No,” I said. “But maybe someday it will.”

Mr. Renner tended the rooftop garden for our cell. He wore ratty old overalls and a big, floppy straw hat that made him look like an old farmer woman.

“Where’re you off to?” It was a pointed question. My mother had obviously talked to him.

“Going to Master Chueng’s.” I ran for the side of the building. “Sorry, can’t talk. I’m late already.”

I jumped the last planter in the row, much to Mr. Renner’s chagrin, and took the bridge between buildings to cell four

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at a dead run. Every child in the Colony was told over and over again never to run on the bridges. The slats were too far apart to be safe. If one broke, you slipped, or you twisted your ankle and fell—you’d fall into the Sea. And that would be the end of you.

Knowing the danger only made me want to run faster. My body knew the spacing of the slats on every bridge from here to cell sixteen by heart. The rooftops and bridges became a blur as I let my body loose, scattering gravel, and ignoring the scowls of adults hard at work making life bearable in the Colony.

I showed up at Master Chueng’s third-floor industrial flat ten minutes late.

“Nǐ shì yīgè yòu lǎn yòu chǔn de nán hái,” the old man screamed at me in Chinese as soon as I walked in the door.

Roughly translated: “You’re a worthless piece of shit.” I threw my backpack in the corner and grabbed some tape from the bench, trying to ignore him.

“He says, you’re a terrible boy. Very bad. Lazy and stupid.”

Shorty lectured me from a dilapidated La-Z-Boy in the corner of the gym. He was Master Chueng’s lazy, fat, and sleazy, forty-year-old son.

“I know, Shorty.” It took a minute to tape up my hands for practice. The entire time, Master Chueng, whose real name was Carlos, yelled at me in a mishmash of Filipino street slang and Mandarin. “You speak English, Master Chueng. Stop yelling at me in gibberish,” I said.

“Not gibberish! You bad boy. Twice around to warm up and one more for punish.” Master Chueng whacked his instructor’s baton across my back, sending a sharp sting down my spine into my legs. I was tempted to try to disarm him, but that never ended well for me. Even at the age of seventy-five, Master Chueng was a technically perfect fighter in Eskrima and Kali styles, which is probably why he survived—and definitely why his lazy-ass son survived.

Two other teens were already halfway through their circuits on the makeshift obstacle course spread around the

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edges of the empty warehouse. The very first day I met him I questioned what freerunning—parkour if you’re fancy—had to do with martial arts and gotten a baton to the backside for my skepticism.

Master Chueng simply said, “I teach survival, not martial art. You want be Bruce Lee, go somewhere else.” So we learned how to breach common obstacles and move in urban environments in a way that no zombie could ever hope to match.

“You go to game?” Master Chueng was upside down in my vision as I did inverted sit-ups curled over a steam pipe on obstacle four.

“Maybe,” I huffed.

Master Chueng whacked his baton across my abs. “You stupid boy. I train you all this time and you go get killed.”

“I’m training so I don’t get killed.”

“I bet on you,” Master Chueng said. “You win for me.”

“Yes, sir.” He wasn’t asking or being encouraging. It was our arrangement for payment. I could pay him with other loot, but this was the way he preferred it. And despite his screaming, I think he actually liked me…in some warped way.

Three times around the obstacle course and forty-five minutes of yantok forms later, my body felt fluid, fast, and indestructible. I was ready to play.

“See you tomorrow.” I folded my palms together and bowed to Master Chueng. I grabbed my pack and waited for the hanger-on to catch up with me. Shorty was coming to bet on me. Out of respect to Master Chueng, I waited patiently for his fat-ass son.

“What are you betting today?” Shorty tried his best to sound nonchalant about my upcoming battle.

“Batteries.” I tried to ignore him as we crossed the rooftops and bounced across the bridges to cell twelve. He bantered on, unhindered by my silence and grunts of response. He didn’t give a shit what I said. He just wanted to see it happen and collect his winnings.

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By the time we got to the rooftop of cell twelve the Exchange was in full swing. This is where all the deals went down. Trading, haggling, screaming, threatening—all the glamorous elements of capitalism boiled down to their fundamentals. The adults manned their respective booths: hawking food, liquor, ammo, clothes, electronics—you name it.

They scrutinized and agonized every single trade like it was the difference between life and death, each convinced the others’ merchandise was garbage. Small children hid under makeshift awnings, keeping out of the sun and away from the brutal language and wild gesticulations of the adults.

Only the teenagers weaved in and around the booths, seen but ignored. Adolescents were the true underclass in this new society. We didn’t count for shit. We ate up too many resources to be worth the effort we gave back. The constant lip and bad attitudes we almost universally sported only cemented the ‘responsible’ adults’ opinions of us.

I ignored the whispers and finger pointing of the other teens. They’d get their fill in a little while. We milled about for a few minutes then Shorty bought us two bowls of noodles and some tea to boost my strength and quell his rumbling stomach.

We sat on the side of the building watching the chaos of the Exchange, while I ate my noodles in silence. A small boy of about eight walked over from the middle of the bustle and stood a few feet away, watching me eat. The dark circles under his eyes, his shabby clothes, and his rail-thin frame made him look like something from a Dickens novel. His appearance was enough to make a bleeding-heart cry, especially if you knew him from before the Emergency, like I did.

“Lucas, right?” I dropped the chopsticks in the bowl, annoyed. “Isn’t your mom around here somewhere?”

Lucas looked absently over at one of the far stands where a curvy blonde was getting hysterical with a man selling trussed pigeons.

“She’s trying to get work. Are you going to fight today?”

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Shorty perked up and smiled. “Go tell your mom Miss Kitty is looking for girls to…”

“Hey, man.” I elbowed Shorty in the ribs. “Not cool. He’s just a kid.”

The indecent comment didn’t faze Lucas at all. He continued to stare at me like I was a gorilla in the zoo. I tried to ignore the eyeballing, but it got to me.

“Take it,” I said. “Less for me to puke up later, anyway.” I held out what was left of the bowl, and Lucas snatched it and started slurping down the noodles. It didn’t stop him from staring any less. I glared at him, made a shooing motion, and he wandered back to his mother.

“It’s time, dude.” Shorty tipped back the last of his tea and patted me on the back.

We made our way to the edge of the Exchange and descended three flights of stairs to an open floor that used to house office cubicles, where the Game waited.

The crowd of teenagers already waited in place around the spray-painted circle of red on the floor. They talked animatedly about today’s pot. Inside the red circle were three freshly skinned cat carcasses—fresh meat. Nearly a week’s worth between my mother and me.

“I want in!” I wasted no time in announcing my intention.

“Back for more? You’re a cocky one.” The Gamemaster smiled wickedly. “What’s your ante?”

I threw six packs of batteries from my backpack into the ring. “Unopened double As.” “I’ll take that.” A skinny Asian teen with a slicked-up black and green mohawk dropped a cardboard box into the ring— Scott Kim in a previous life, to us he was just Fauxhawk. One of the many orphans in the new world. “100 rounds, 9mm.”

I didn’t give a shit about ammo; I just wanted to play. No, scratch that. I needed to play.

The Gamemaster shouted, “Anyone else? Last call.”

The crowd quieted down to whispers as I faced-off across the circle from Fauxhawk.

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“No?” The Gamemaster scanned the crowd for takers.

Satisfied it was just the two of us, he got down to business.

“Start the bidding.”

“Two minutes,” Fauxhawk said.

“Five minutes.” I could see Fauxhawk visibly wince at the number. Etiquette on bidding was vague at best, but bidders weren’t supposed to up the ante so fast. I wasn’t going to let this chance to play get away. There wouldn’t be another game this week, and this would be my only chance for release.

“Damn, why you gotta be like that?” Fauxhawk stepped toward me until he was toe-to-toe. “Six minutes.”

“Ten.” Fauxhawk backed away from the circle with his hands up in surrender. “You’re crazy, motherfucker. I’m going to enjoy watching you die.”

“Set ten minutes on the clock!” The Gamemaster announced. “You’re it, kid.”

I walked down five flights of stairs with the crowd at my back cheering and chanting “Deathwish!” Shorty had his greasy fingers on my shoulders, rubbing me like a prizefighter.

We reached the balcony on the second floor and the unruly mob pushed their way out onto the terrace. The crowd parted before me as I walked to the makeshift crane that would lower me to the street. I grabbed hold of the rope and swung up and over the deserted lane. They dropped me the last five feet and I watched as the rope swung up toward the balcony.

My lifeline was gone.

I pulled the two gore-stained lead pipes from my pack and waited for my first victim to appear.

“Begin,” the Gamemaster shouted.

I took a deep breath and let the anger build in me. It was always there, just below the surface; anger so deep and pervasive that it threatened everything in my life. The older I got, the harder it was to control, the final gift from my dead father.

It didn’t take long before I spotted the first zombie coming to investigate all the noise from the balcony.

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“Game on,” I whispered.

The first instinct for anyone who saw a walking corpse, agent of infectious death, was to run. Anyone who said otherwise was a lying sack of shit.

Within a few seconds that instinct turned violent and the desire to kill the abomination grew with each breath. Deep inside I knew that the gaping wounds, black maw, and stilted gait were things that belonged to something with no soul, no humanity, no worth. I hadn’t met a zombie I didn’t want to smash into a pulpy mass of black goo.

This one was no different.

I took my time, spinning the lead pipes back and forth across my hands while the zombie lumbered toward me. The crowd had a better vantage point of both sides of the street, and Shorty—among others—called out advice on where I should go.

But really, after a few minutes, the deadheads would be coming from everywhere. It wouldn’t matter where I stood.

The first zombie lost part of his Wall Street business suit somewhere along the way. Its four-thousand dollar suit was missing a sleeve…and the arm that once filled it. I let it get close. It was good to remind myself what was out there lurking in the streets, never resting, always searching for the hot blood-filled flesh of the living.

Its once-blue eyes probably charmed the debutantes and bar sluts down on 5th avenue, but now the milky-white covering of cataracts and scratches made his world a blurry mess.

His nose and cheeks were sunken in death, hollowed out by the wasting of time. He had no circulatory system to replenish the healthy pink flesh that he would now seek eternally. The mouth was the worst: rotting teeth in a sea of black pus, thick putrescent fluid that was once the blood of a victim, but now swam with billions of zombie-creating bacteria.

One drop of that ichor against an open wound, even the tiniest scratch, and I was a goner.

Unfortunately for Mr. Wall-Street, I didn’t have any open wounds, and he was in big, big trouble. I stepped inside his

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grasping hand and kicked his knee out, causing him to spin and drop to the pavement. This simple trick exposed one of the zombie’s three weak spots.

I swung and smashed through the soft spot on the base of his skull with the lead pipe. I felt the bone crunch and the soft resistance of the rotting brain beneath. Somewhere between the scrambling of brain and crushing of spine, the zombie lost its connection to the universe and fell over in the street, unmoving…dead—again.

“Nine minutes!” The Gamemaster announced. It was his unofficial duty to count down the minutes until I’d be allowed back to the safety of the balcony. One minute down.

The first two were always the easiest. Even a six-yearold could survive out here for the first two minutes. We’ve all learned how to anticipate their movements and trip them up.

We knew the evasion tactics for the single or duo of occasional wandering deadheads by heart.

There were about a dozen more deadheads at each intersection of the short street, coming my way. The tide was rolling in, slowly but surely. The game depended on the predictability of the zombie’s response, and they’d never let us down.

The closest were two young ladies with vacant eyes and ruined sundresses. In another life I would’ve blushed at seeing their semi-exposed flesh through the tatters of fabric. One of them had had enough sense to put on underwear the day she died, frilly white lace, now ruined with dirt and dried blood.

The other had one exposed tit and crooked landing strip pubes were visible to the world for all eternity. It would’ve been masturbation material for a horny fifteen-year-old—before the Emergency. But there was nothing erotic or even salvageable from the dead, gray flesh of those once-beautiful girls. The only instinct my brain rendered at seeing the open rotting crotch of the zombie-girl was ‘destroy.’

They lumbered within my reach, opening their moaning mouths for flesh, and I put them down with fury. I smashed through their young, lifeless faces with the metal pipes, spar-

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ing no hesitation for lost beauty or youth. I’ve killed other girls, younger and more naked than these two. That they could have been a crush, a girlfriend, or even a future wife before the Emergency didn’t upset me. It made me angry, and their deaths did not faze me in the least.

“Eight minutes!”

The crowd of zombies was closing in now. At the corners of the streets, their numbers were impossible to count. It seemed like more were coming in from the north, faster and in thicker droves, so I moved south, stopping only to line up the three bodies I’d accumulated so far. Creating stumbling blocks was important in the Game. Zombies had limited eyesight and dexterity, so every obstacle put in their path bought precious time.

I picked out the closest two on the north side and took them out with one blow to the top of their skulls then placed them between the stripped shells of cars. With stumbling blocks on all sides, all I could do was wait.

“Seven minutes!”

Several zombies stumbled over the bodies of their compatriots, and I put them down as soon as they hit the concrete.

The barriers were stacking up now. One, here. Two, there. My lead pipes dripped with black gore, bits of hair and flesh clinging to the sticky mess.

“Six minutes!”

The masses closed in. In another minute, there would be no place to go.

“Behind you! Two under the cars…” Shorty’s voice carried over the din of the crowd roaring and chanting for my blood.

He wouldn’t mind seeing me die either, but he had beer and cigarettes riding on the outcome, as well as his father’s payment.

Two zombies crawled out from under the burnt-out SUVs and grabbed at my ankles from behind. I dropped the heel of my boot on one and cracked open its skull. The other had me in its filthy grasp and pulled itself in for the bite.

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“No you don’t, creeper.” I dropped the butt of the lead pipe and slammed the deadhead to the concrete, face-first. I could feel its teeth and jaw shatter under the impact, rending it impotent for the time being.

“Five minutes!”

There was no more time to think or listen to the warnings from the crowd. The deadheads attacked from every angle.

Every cranny and crevice they could fit through in the wall of bodies showed a new, dripping maw. I stopped thinking about it and let the rage escape.

I was angry. Angry about everything. Angry my dad and sister were out there, wandering with the deadheads. Angry my future was gone. Angry that my life sucked. But mostly, I was angry that I was still alive. I’d tried every risky stunt and taken every stupid chance I could in the last year.

But God kept saving me.

Somewhere in the flying gore, and over my own screams of fury, I heard the Gamemaster.

“One minute! Get the rope ready.”

Sixty seconds.

Cold fingers clawed at me from every direction. Only my makeshift barricades kept them from dog piling me. I kicked, punched, and smashed with abandon, destroying everything I could see. One grabbed hold of my shirt at the back and wouldn’t let go. I broke the arm, but the fingers held tight. Another zombie rolled over the pile and landed curled around my feet. It twisted and writhed to get purchase on my flesh.

“Time! Holy shit, he did it,” the Gamemaster yelled. “Get him out of there.”

A braided rope fell over my shoulder, and I grabbed on.

I kicked my feet to get away from the deadhead wrapped around me, but it wasn’t letting go.

“Pull,” the Gamemaster shouted, and the crowd pulled the rope now wound around my arm. I shot ten feet above the pile of bodies, but the zombie attached to my foot rode up with

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me. She gnawed at my boot, looking for flesh. Her rotten teeth and black mouth were going to sink into me before I could get back to the balcony.

I’d finally pushed my luck too far.

CRACK. A bullet tore through a half-inch of my leg and blew the zombie’s brains all over the street in a spray of black spatters.

“Ow! Motherfucker,” I screamed. The rope swung me over the balcony, as the swing arm came about. I landed hard on the tile of the balcony and rolled, getting tangled in the rope as the recovery crew let go.

“Who the fuck shot me?” I growled through gritted teeth.

My leg burned in agony and all I could do was rock back and forth, too tired to stand or kneel.

“I did.” The Gamemaster’s head blotted out the sun above me. “You’d be dead if I hadn’t. That zombie cunt was about to bite you.”

“That’s bullshit, man.” I recognized Fauxhawk’s voice, but I couldn’t see him in the crowd of faces. “He was still on the ground when she grabbed him. He would’ve been bit if you hadn’t helped him.”

“Time was up,” the Gamemaster said.

“It’s cheating. He’d be fucking dead…”

“Shut up, you zit-faced punk. I make the goddamn rules.”

The Gamemaster held the pistol out over my body pointed at someone to my left. “And I say he wins—this time.”

chapter

two

“YOU HAD ME worried there for a second.” Shorty took a deep

pull on a cigarette from his new pack of Pall Malls while I taped up the bullet hole above my ankle.

“That’s real sweet of you to worry about my safety.”

“I was worried I’d have to pay off my bets, punk, not about your sorry hide.” Shorty blew a stream of smoke across the sunlight streaming in from the windows in the stairwell. “If that guy looked too closely at those porno mags, I was going to be in trouble. They were old issues of People with porno covers stapled on.”

I shook my head. Honesty was not Shorty’s strong suit. He was always trying to pull something over on someone. I realized I was going to be on the wrong end of one of his deals some day and have to beat him senseless. But that was a problem for a day when I didn’t have blood oozing all over my shoe.

“How am I going to hide this?” I muttered mostly to myself. Shorty didn’t care if my mother found out I was today’s contestant in the world’s most messed-up game.

“Just tell her you scraped it on a fire escape. Those things have sharp, rusty edges,” he said. “Anyway, I don’t really give a shit. I got beer and cigs and I’m about thirty minutes from being shit-faced for the first time in weeks.”

“Well, as long as you’re living for the important things, right?”

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“Fuck you,” he said. “Come on. I’ll walk you home, kid.”

I knew that was a lie too. I was walking him home. With a six-pack of beer out in the open, he’d be a target for getting jacked in a dark hallway. I wasn’t much protection in the shape I was in, but at least one of the gangs left me, and anyone I was walking with, alone. One gang didn’t come out in the daylight, and that left only one group for Shorty to worry about. If the punks were smart, they’d stay away from Shorty too. Master Chueng was not above whooping a couple of teenagers for messing with his son.

With a couple of gauze pads and some duct tape, the bullet graze on my leg was as good as it was going to get. It hurt like hell, but the oozing blood slowed to a manageable level. I’d survived worse.

I pulled a handful of pills from my backpack and downed them with a swig of bottled water.

Shorty pulled me to my feet and I chucked the bottle back in my pack. “I didn’t take you for a pill hound, Deathwish.

Vicodin? You know we could make some serious trades with that shit.”

“Advil.”

“Oh.” Shorty looked disappointed. “Know where we could get some Vicodin?”

“No.” We walked—I hobbled—in silence back up the long staircases to the rooftops that made up our new society. The summer sun was beating down mercilessly on the roofs, but it felt good on my skin. It helped me ignore the scrapes, bruises, and fatigue that screamed in my muscles from bashing a hundred zombies.

I would’ve preferred to avoid the Exchange—there were too many sets of prying eyes—but it was the quickest way home and I had to drop off the cat carcasses at the smoker’s shack.

Smoking meat was pretty much the only option if you didn’t want to get food poisoning. Plus, going around the Exchange on

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cell four would take me into Fauxhawk’s home turf—a far worse option than someone tattling to my mom.

“Aren’t you going to buy me lunch?” I asked. The Exchange was quiet at this time of the day. Most of the vendors moved indoors to the shade or went home to sleep through the heat.

They would be back out at dusk when things cooled off, and the adults came off work shifts.

“I’m drinking my lunch,” Shorty said. “You’re on your own.”

He kept walking when I sat on the edge of the wall. My leg hurt like hell and the five Advil were just barely starting to make a dent. I needed a rest.

“I thought you were going to walk me home?”

Shorty held up his six-pack and spoke over his shoulder, “This is pretty close. See you later, kid.”

His cell was just across the bridge, and my apartment was still four cells away. I knew when I was being dismissed.

“Thanks,” I shouted. “Asshole,” I whispered at his back.

I tilted my head back and let the sun bake my face for a few minutes. Still alive, I thought. Damn. I was never sure if that was a success or failure, but it was a fact. The hunger eventually overpowered the pain and lethargy, and I left the wall to finish the trek home.

I wandered the remnants of the Exchange until I found Mr. Renner, hiding in the deep shade of a canvas awning.

“Did you win?” he asked. He was slung down real low in his lawn chair with his eyes hid behind a dirty Amish hat. If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was asleep. Or dead.

I tried to figure out how to respond without being a smart ass. I’m alive, aren’t I? “Can I get a bowl of soup, please?” Avoidance was a decent strategy. I didn’t want to give any assurances that I had even played the Game today. I pulled a hundred dollar bill out of my front pocket and held it out in my fingertips.

“You mom’s going to be pissed, Jeremy.” Mr. Renner took the hundred and unfolded it.

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He checked the special stamp twice to be sure it wasn’t counterfeit. Our new currency left a lot to be desired, but for basic rations and living space the Triumvirate Council had to come up with something. The honor system turned into the asshole/anarchy system after the first couple of months, and a few murders convinced everyone to go back to a central bank model.

“It’s real. I got it from Mom yesterday. She got paid on Monday.”

He tucked the bill away in his pocket and moved under the tarp, where a big pot of spiced gazpacho chilled in a cooler.

He dipped out a big helping and handed me the ceramic bowl and a plastic spoon.

“You’re not going to answer me, are you?”

“No, sir,” I said, “you have the best gazpacho in the Colony.

I’m not going to do anything to piss you off.”

“You’re a smart boy.” He saw the duct tape and bloody shoe and asked, “You didn’t get bit, did you?”

The concerned look was genuine. He and my mom were good friends, a very rare commodity these days, and to have to report me would kill him.

“Nope, caught it on the edge of a fire escape over in cell eight.”

“You kids and your damn parkour. You’re going to get killed doing that flipping around,” he said.

I shoved big spoonfuls of the cool vegetables in my mouth to hide the guilty smirk on my face at his remark.

“This is so good,” I mumbled, my head titled to keep the juice from running out of my mouth. “What’s your secret?”

“I don’t use those flavorless better-boy tomatoes like Mrs. Jackson. And fresh mint is always…”

I tuned him out after that. I stopped mid-slurp when I saw the kid watching me from across the roof. He was peeking out from behind one of the clothes vendor’s awnings. I averted my eyes before he caught me staring at him. I couldn’t be sure he knew that I knew who he was.

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“Hey, that’s great, Mr. R. Thanks a lot.” I scooped the last of the soup into my mouth and handed him the bowl.

“We’re you listening to anything I said?”

“Yeah. Of course. Fresh mint.” The kid moved from his spying place and headed for the bridge to cell six. I’m not sure what the squirt’s real name was, but he was a snitch and a runner for the Yakuza.

They weren’t real Yakuza. They weren’t even Japanese.

They just thought the name sounded cool because Fauxhawk, their self-elected leader, was Asian. Lucky for them, there probably weren’t any real Yakuza left in the world to complain about them stinking up the name. Deep tradition and history, tarnished and worn as a T-shirt slogan by New York City teenagers who thought they were tough because they still survived.

“Hey, do me a favor and forget I was here today. Mom wanted me to stay home, but I was so hungry.”

Mr. Renner scowled at me. “Alright, but get that leg looked at or I’ll tell your mom you stopped by.”

“Deal.” I limped toward the bridge, trying to keep sight of the runner. He was only eight years old—nine tops. I should’ve been able to keep up with him, but by the time I got to the wall, he was gone. Why was he spying on me?

It could only mean that Fauxhawk was keeping an eye on me. He was still pissed about losing today and he wasn’t going to let it go.

Damn.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR J. Whitworth Hazzard lives in the vast cornfields of Illinois with his wife, and four nearly-perfect children. Trained in science and critical thinking, J. Whitworth spends his leisure time writing fiction that would make his former professors cringe. Dr. Hazzard’s PhD in molecular biophysics is used to figure out how to scientifically justify the existence of mythical creatures. His dream of writing started in the 5th grade when his five-page story “The Blood and Guts 500” entranced and thrilled his classmates. His passionate prosody received a standing ovation and from that day forward he was hooked on the art of storytelling.

Visit the author at his publisher: www.bhcpress.com