All he could feel was mud. He had been knocked over, and now a heavy boot was keeping his head pinned to the ground. Someone pulled at the tiny red and white checker flag he clutched tightly in his hand, and when he did not release it, the boot pushed his head even deeper into the mud. He choked on the stale earth, and tried to pull himself away, but to no avail. Muscles slackened and his hand fell limp, flag lying balanced between his thumb and his finger.
She knelt down and plucked it out of his hand, rolling up her trouser leg and tucking it into her thick woollen sock. She rolled his body over, placed a palm on his chest and sighed heavily.
“God, I’m so sorry.” She said, before getting up and running away as fast as her oxygen-starved legs would allow.
---
A sounding trumpet blared through speakers pinned to the trees, the cheery jingle sending chills into all that heard it, dreading the words which were about to follow.
“Attention players, blue-team have been rewarded for their success, please wait while scores are tallied.”
Tracey wondered what Ruth had been forced to do to get that flag; she was muddy, dirty, and hysterical, unable to do anything but throw the trinket onto the floor and curl up and cry. She hadn’t said a word since arriving back at the base, and there was no doubt she’d be a spectator in the next game. If that was a good thing or a bad thing, Tracey wasn’t sure. In reality, I guess neither option is any better than the other.
The trumpet came again.
“The next game is about to begin, please choose your next players.”
The team sat huddled in their twiggy shambles of a base, build by some school-children during an outdoor retreat. No-one dared speak, the silence only broken by Ruth’s sobs; no-one sure of how they could even being to attempt to comfort her.
“So, who’s going to play then?”
They all turned, in unison, to face their speaker. He was leaning against the trunk of a tree, the double barrels of his shot-gun balanced against his shoulder. He’d chosen a clown mask to cover his identity, made from cheap plastic and poorly painted, it looked too tacky and childish for this game they were playing.
He stepped forwards and brought the gun down, pointing it at the team.
“I said, who’s going to play?”
Still, no-one said anything.
He cocked the barrel at Ruth and took aim.
“Tell me, or I’ll shoot her.”
Some-one stood up next to Tracey, it was Dave from accounting. He’d been a player in the first game. Dried blood, not his own, was caked around his neck, and the gash across his cheek had only just dried over. He climbed out of the shelter, and stood to the left of Clownie. Cath, a two game veteran, soon followed suit, giving Ruth a tight hug before going up to join Dave.
“We need one more,” Clownie said, still pointing his gun at Ruth, “the other team are all ready, you don’t want them to win default do you?”
Those left under the shelter avoided looking at each other, none of them willing to go out and join their work-mates. Tracey stared at her hands. They were unbruised, and still clean, aside from where her pen had leaked on when she was signing in that morning. She closed her eyes and clenched them into fists, as if the action would somehow give her more strength or courage, and stood up to take her first game.
---
“Is it in a different place every time?” Dave asked as they walked down the well-worn path to the starting point. “I found mine on the fence by the sheep-field.”
“They might do, I don’t know. I found my first with Kyle, the second one was just lying on the path, I think some-one just dropped it.”
“It might be a good idea to check there first then?” Tracey suggested. Dave shrugged.
“We might as well, I don’t see the harm in checking.”
“Not unless the others find ours first.” Cath muttered lowly, but not quietly enough to hide it from the other.
Dave frowned and was about to retort with something, but Tracey took told of his arm and stopped it from coming out. Wolfie was looking at them, beckoning the trio to come closer.
“Find the flag, get back home. If you do before the other team, you win this game. They do it before you, they win. You have an hour. If no-one’s back after that, well,” he looked at Cath and Dave, plastic Wolfie grin jutting out from his head, “you know what happens.” Tracey wanted to know what, but kept her mouth shut; there was no way she wanted to hear the word from Wolfie. She asked Dave as they ran over to the sheep field.
“After an hour, there’s a draw right?”
Dave looked away from her and shook his head.
“No. After an hour, both teams loose.”
---
The flag was not at the fence, so they split up to try and cover more area. Tracey jogged down the road, plumes of dust billowing up behind her, and then saw a face she recognised. Someone from the office, and in any other situation she would have known who, registered the face and linked it to a name, but she couldn’t do that here, couldn’t think about birthday parties, gossiping sessions, and shoulders that had been there to cry on.
If they had the flag, she’d have to do anything to get it.
They paused, realising Tracey was there, and stood their ground, fingers twitching slightly. Stalemate. Neither had what the other wanted, and after realising this they both ran off in different directions, like opposite poles on a magnet.
“Players, you have thirty minutes.”
Tracey followed the line of the beck at the bottom of the sheep field, hoping it would lead her somewhere useful. But she’d nearly reached boarder of the play area, just over the next hedge she could see another masked man, a pig, guarding the road that lead away from that place. There was a flutter of red and white underneath the bush, it was a little too close to Piggie than she’d have liked to have gone, and was probably an empty packet of crisps, but Tracey just couldn’t turn away, so she dropped down onto the ground and crawled over.
“Where do you think you’re going?” Tracey felt her blood freeze, and slowly looked up to see Piggie, his gun, pointed at her over the top of the hedge. She said nothing, only holding out the tiny flag for him to see. He chuckled and stepped back.
“I see. Well, you’d better hurry back up, by my reckoning you’ve got quarter of an hour left.”
She nodded, unsure of if he was wanting her thanks, or for her to say anything at all, and ran back to the dusty road. On the way back to the base, she saw Todd, sprawled in tractor churned mud, and had to tear herself away. Todd had been a good friend of hers back at the office, and it was all she could do to stop herself from running over to see if he was still alive, but of course, she couldn’t. After all, Todd was on red-team.
---
“Attention players, blue-team are home with the flag.”
When Tracey returned there was no hero's welcome, no smiles, no thumbs-up. A few from under the shelter glanced up at her in acknowledgement of what she'd done for them, but that was all. Dave was already there, pale, shaking. There was no sign of Cath. Tracey passed the flag to Clownie, took hold of Dave's arm and led him back under the shelter.
"What happened?" She asked quietly.
"It was Cath, she ran into two of them and they, they..." He shook his head. "They tore her apart. I tried to help her but I was too far away, and by the time I got there..." He didn't finish, but then he didn't need to.
The trumpet came again.
"Congratulations on winning this game, blue-team. The player selected from your opponents team is Josh, he's the one who organised this delightful trip for you, isn't he?"
The sound of a single shot echoed through the trees.
“The next game is about to begin, please choose your next players.”
________________________________________________
I wonder if the fact I spend most of yesterday watching Battle Royale and reading Dilbert cartoons had anything to do with this...
I seems pretty different to the short stories and flash-fics I normally end up with. Hmm...
