This time I grab Striker. I pull him to the edge of the ramp and point to the opening. We try running up the slope, but it is too steep. I can’t imagine how bikers stayed on it when they were racing. I would have wiped out and slid to the bottom.
“All right, all right, four minutes left!” Denny says. His voice comes out of the megaphone like a swarm of mutated, electric bees.
Striker flops down on the slope. He calls to me over his shoulder. “Use me as a ladder,” he says.
“What about you?”
“Do it unless you that want to have that runner latch onto you.”
I step onto Striker’s shoulders. He puts his hands under my boots and extends his arms. He is surprisingly strong for an older guy. I’m still an inch or two from the edge of the hole.
“I can’t reach it,” I shout down to Striker.
“Stretch. Crawl. Hook your finger tips over the edge.”
Striker stops yelling directions. All of a sudden I’m sliding down. I look behind me to see Striker struggling with the runner I kicked in the head. His arms are extended like the massive limbs of a tree. The runner turns its head back and forth. The mandibles unfolded from inside its mouth and snap at his wrists. Red, blistering hands have clamped over Striker’s wrists and the runner tries to yank his hands from its throat. Striker looks up at me.
“No! You get up there now,” he yells.
The third runner sticks her head through the interlocked, straight arms of Striker and the runner. She clamps her own red, pus-covered hands around Striker’s neck. There is a sickening crunch as her insect-like jaws clamp down onto his flesh. Striker’s arms buckle. There is a chorus of both elation and disappointment from above. The runner Striker had been struggling with ceases his attack. It stands there in that eerie, motionless stance, head down, as if it is plotting.
And then it looks up at me.
The runner crawls over Striker’s body the way I had. It’s on all fours, methodically making its way closer to me. I can’t watch him die with people cheering above me. My hand finds a slight rise in one of the sheets of plywood. It’s enough that I can use it to pull myself up away from the runner behind me. I swing my leg up and my foot finds the same little ledge. Now I can reach the edge of the opening in the track.
It is as I feared: The opening is a trap. Two four-by-eight sheets of plywood, probably the sheets that were removed to make the opening, lie below. There are rows and rows of nail tips sticking up. I’m about fifteen feet above them. If I’d jumped into the hole to escape the runner, I would have fallen on the boards and been impaled. I wouldn’t have been killed, but I would have been badly injured.
There is a thump behind me. When I look, I see the runner chasing me slapping its palms on the track. It is trying to crawl up to get me. The business suit it wears is dotted with black, oily stains as the juice seeps out of its body.
I stand on cautious legs. The world slants away before me. I’m close to the north side bleachers. A little higher and I can grab the rung of pipe of the track barrier. I see one of the female presenters from Gumm’s tribe. There’s hope in her eyes, I think. She’s hoping I make it. I reach for her, pleading to her with my eyes for help. Just when I think she’s going to do something for me, there is a loud crack of the wood next to me. Something has struck the warped plywood. There is a tiny hole in its place.
The crowd has started counting down the time.
Another shot strikes closer to my head. I turn around on my back. Shielding my eyes from the sun I see Aubrey standing on the bleachers. He’s shooting at me with my wrist rocket. His right hand pulls back on the tubing. Just as he takes aim, the crowd screams, “Time!”
Aubrey lowers the wrist rocket.
The Freedom House side of the stadium erupts in cheers. Because I have stayed alive, they have all won a basket of soap.
“All right, let’s get ready for Round Two!” Denny says. More cheers. There is no time to regroup in between rounds, I discover. I have ten minutes to survive, although given what awaits me, I don’t know if it is worth it.
The bugler blows his horn. Sledge releases two more fresh runners. Scarecrow Jimmy prods a reluctant Matt with the splintered end of the broken baseball bat. It takes two other men to bring Brent out of the cage. One of them draws a small revolver and points it at Brent. Brent raises his hands and steps forward. He and Matt stand on the edge of the lower platform. The man with the gun shoves Brent forward. As if on cue, Brent and Matt spin on these two new men.
Brent struggles with the gun wielding man. Matt elbows the other man in the gut. When the man doubles over, Matt turns and slams his palms into the man’s shoulders, knocking him down onto the infield. Before the fallen man can scramble to his feet, one of the fresh runners latches onto him. The runner holds the man from the back by the shoulders. Its mandibles have clamped deeply into the man’s neck. For several moments the man flops about like a fish out of water, and then he goes still.
My heart skips a bunch of beats. The runners here aren’t just latching, they are killing.
A gun fires. The bullet strikes the female bearer above me. The crowd on Gumm’s side scatters. There are loud cheers from the Freedom House tribe. I’m living in a madhouse.
The girl looks to me for help, but there is nothing I can do. She holds a hand over her chest. The blood seeps through her fingers. She holds a trembling hand up to her face and turns her bloody palm to me to show me.
“My name is Anna,” she says. She coughs out a small laugh. “I’d almost forgotten it.”
I don’t have time to say anything to her. There is a second shot. Matt comes from behind and kicks the man struggling with Brent. The man weakens and Matt wraps his elbow around the man’s throat. Brent gets the gun. Instead of using it on any of the runners, he spins, drops to a knee, and takes aim at Denny.
That’s when the pellet hits Brent in the head. He drops instantly. The gun falls from the platform. Brent never moves again.
A runner stands at the foot of the platform. Matt releases the choke hold on the man he’s been holding. The man drops to the platform, gasping for breath. The runner’s hands drag the man off the platform. There is a single scream.
Matt jumps down and falls on the gun. When he stands up, he’s got it trapped between his palms. His middle fingers try to find the trigger. He can’t control the weapon. The crowd laughs. Both sides. We are nothing more to them than the clowns in an old-fashioned traveling circus.
I make my move. I run on the sides of my feet as best I can around the sloping embankment of the west curve. The track coming out of the bend straightens out somewhat, but it’s still a bit bowed. I am screaming at Matt to throw the gun up to me.
Matt stumbles back up the ramp to the platform where we were caged. The runners haven’t quite figured out how to get up to him. Matt flattens his back again the cage’s fence, trying to keep as much out of the runners’ grasps as possible. Scarecrow Jimmy smacks the broken handle of the bat against the fence. It isn’t until he begins prodding Matt’s back with it that it has any effect on Matt.
“Why are you doing this, Jimmy?” Matt screams. “We’re all in danger. They’re coming.”
“Shut up, pussy,” Scarecrow Jimmy says. He jabs Matt in the kidney area.
I am almost directly behind Matt and I am screaming for him to throw me the gun. I take another step closer to him, and that’s when the floor opens under me. I teeter on the edge. My arms pinwheel as I try to keep my balance. From the hole I hear a loud bark, and I look down into the frightened eyes of a large, golden beast.
It’s Yuki.
Thirteen
I waste no time. This is a shorter drop than the one into the pit of nails. As long as I don’t land on her, I should be okay. It still stings my bruised leg when I drop, though, and I have to roll around on my back a few times to get my mind off the pain. Yuki licks my face.
I’m not sure how she wound up here, but it is apparent she didn’t get here on her own. Denny must have had men from Freedom House out all night trying to trap Scarecrow Jimmy’s mountain lion.
Outside of our little den I can hear the crowd counting down the end of the second heat. Not that time matters in this bat-house crazy arena. I can hear the multitudes chanting and every so often I hear a solid ping coming from the cage. It’s Aubrey, I think. He’s firing warning shots at Matt.
Still on my back, I look at my surroundings. Denny has rigged this place with all sorts of trapdoors. All of the doors have hinges and are released when a latch is slid open.
I have a pretty good eye in my head, and when I see a trapdoor that would be right around where our holding pen would have been, I get an idea. It was probably put there as an escape route for the handlers. The locking mechanism isn’t engaged on my side, but there could be one out front.
A sudden burst of an elongated “ooo” echoes from outside. I’m not sure what it means, but my stomach feels kind of squishy. I worry that Matt has been dropped by a pellet the way Brent was. Above me, I hear feet scuffling. I have to risk it, I realize. I stay low and go to the door I think is behind the cage. I give it a slight push and it pops open lifting up. Crouched down, with the door barely open, I am looking at Matt’s feet on the platform in front of me. I throw the door back.
Matt has the gun dangling off his middle finger. I don’t see Scarecrow Jimmy at first. It isn’t until I push the door open all the way and Matt comes running towards me that I see Scarecrow Jimmy. He’s sitting on the floor of the platform, holding his cheek. There is blood all over his hand.
Matt comes through the trapdoor and I slam it down behind us. He stops when he sees Yuki and tries to raise the gun on her. I put a hand on his wrist and take the gun.
“She’s with me,” I say. “She’s what I was trying to hide at the Get Gas.”
Neither one of them are certain about the other. Yuki alternates between growls and whimpers. Matt, exhausted from his struggles outside in the arena, breathes in large gulps and stares at the dog.
“What happened out there?” I ask.
“Aubrey shot Jimmy with your slingshot. I don’t know if his aim was off or if he was trying to hit him. He’d shot a couple of times and hit the fence before one of them went through and got Jimmy in the face.” Matt laughs absently. “That guy has really had it rough since you and your mountain lion got here.”
We can hear shouts. Feet are running along the track, coming towards us.
Matt and I are in the bowels of corridors, storage closets, and locker rooms beneath the stadium. I can see where our hallway T-bones at the end. An accordion style gate in front of us is closed with a chain and a padlock. I step in front of Matt and point the gun at the catch. I fire once. The lock breaks away. I barely hear it clink on the concrete ground; the echo of the shot reverberates in my ears. I pull the chain away and push open the gate. Neither Matt nor Yuki moves until I say, “Go!” We run to the end of the hall.
There are doors at either end of the intersection. Each door has a window that the light of the afternoon spills through. It must have cost the community a lot in vandalism. It would explain the ten-foot-tall fence they put up around the stadium. Once we leave the Velodrome we’ll have to get pass that fence.
We’re being chased. I lead Matt and Yuki to the east door. Outside the stadium the fence is ten feet away. I think the main entrance is on the north side where we came in through the tunnel. It doesn’t matter where we go or if we flatten ourselves against the cinder block foundation. There are people all over the place. They are running and screaming. It isn’t until they pass us that I realize they aren’t running at us.
They’re running away. They don’t get far. Popping up out of the field and from behind trees is an army of soldiers wearing camouflage uniforms. These soldiers open fire on the fleeing civilians.
Matt wraps his arm around mine. We both look up at the sky. Hovering over the stadium is a pair of black helicopters. On the bottom they have an emblem similar to the one Brent wore on his arm.
It’s the elite forces. They’ve arrived, albeit too late for Striker or Brent. Men in black body armor holding sniper rifles lean out of the open doors on the sides of the helicopters. They take aim. These soldiers fire at the camo warriors. More body armor wearing soldiers arrive in large trucks. They swarm out of the beds and confront the camo wearing warriors. An all-out war is now raging in the fields behind Freedom House. Although we can’t hear the rapport of the rifles, I can tell from the recoil that they are shooting into the infield. Probably taking out the runners.
But then I see Sledge appear atop the east end bleachers. He raises his double barrel over and under shotgun. He fires twice and racks in two more slugs. Before he can squeeze off a third shot, his chest explodes; a sniper in a helicopter has shot Sledge. He topples backwards and disappears down the bleachers.
Who is fighting whom?
“We have to go back in,” Matt says. I don’t disagree. We turn around and go inside. Yuki barks at the helicopters and then runs full throttle away from us. It pains me to lose her again, but she has better survival instincts than I do.
We are not alone in the corridor. I have the gun out in front of me and it’s pointed at Aubrey’s back. Leslie hears us, and she screams when she sees the gun. Aubrey still has my sling shot on his wrist. Behind him Tessa holds my hand axe. Dirks is with them. So is Shannon. I don’t see the baby.