Chapter 36

The camp collapsed as the two remaining wolves sprung at them, and the memory started playing again.

“So tomorrow—you up for lunch?” Sarah asked, her arm still outstretched from trying to grab his arm.

Memory-Leon spun to face her. “Sarah, it’s really nice to see you again, but I won’t meet you. I’ll probably be cooped up in my cabin for most of the trip. Another time, maybe.”

“Alright, then.” She swallowed. “I guess I’ll head off to bed.”

“Take care.” Memory-Leon sucked in a breath as Sarah left.

Leon kicked out at the first wolf and hit the chest, while Hert bludgeoned the second. Leon shot a glance behind him, where Ava stood, biting her lip and fidgeting with her dress.

Slightly beside her, Memory-Leon ordered a shot of vodka, and as his copy tipped it into his mouth, Leon swung at the clubbed wolf, causing a long gash in its side. Hert raised his hammer toward the second one as it sprung at him, but missed by a hair. Leon stabbed forward and pierced its shoulder. It yelped as the first one attacked again, and Memory-Leon walked past Hert to the outside, where he approached the fence and checked his phone. The glass doors hissed shut behind him.

Leon stomped into the approaching wolf’s chest, and Hert banged the hammer on its head. Then Leon slashed at the second wolf. Hert slammed his weapon onto the side of its jaw, and it fell to the side. Leon stepped onto the wolf’s throat and pierced the chest while Hert kicked the dazed wolf. As Leon finished it, the three people that had stood outside stepped in. The wolves’ bodies dimmed and disappeared.

“Monsters done,” Hert said, and put the weapons away. “Twelve to go.”

Leon’s throat tightened as he watched his memory play.

“How did you die?” Ava asked and stepped beside Leon. “Who killed you?”

Memory-Leon put a foot on the first rung of the railing and held fast to the metal beam at his side, and his brown hair moved in the wind. The head leaned slightly up to smell the salty sea air.

Ava turned around, scanned the bar, then the corridor beside them, and the outside deck. “Who pushed you?”

Memory-Leon’s head tilted to watch the foaming sea while he climbed further up.

“You didn’t,” Hert said, his tone disbelieving. He stepped closer to the glass doors, and Leon followed on numb feet.

Leon wet his lips. “I didn’t have a choice.”

Memory-Leon stepped onto the highest rung, stared at the horizon for a moment, and stepped out. In the blink of an eye, he was gone. They didn’t even hear a splash.

“No way,” Ava whispered. She ran past Leon and Hert and almost crashed into the doors to the deck. She stopped an inch from the glass.

“Leon!”

Leon spun to the side. Sarah came at a run with an unlit cigarette in her hand. His heart sank as she leaned over the railing.

“Help! Somebody, help! Man overboard!”

The few people inside rushed through the doors to look into the sea, letting Ava out, and she climbed the railing to look at the waves, just beside the place where Sarah stood leaning to scout for a drifting body.

“Where?” the bartender asked as he joined her. “I can’t see anyone.”

“Oh my god, oh my god! We just spoke! I let him—” Sarah drew back and sank onto the deck, where she hyperventilated and pressed her hands over her face, kneading her fingers into her hair. “Why? He seemed off, but… We just talked! He can’t… Why did he…” She scrambled onto her feet and leaned over the railing again. “Leon!”

A woman pulled her back as the scene shifted around them, and the bartender hurried inside with a “I’ll call it up.”

Leon stood, frozen, his throat tight.

“You disgust me,” Hert said, as a darkness slowly formed around them. “How could you do that to someone else?”

“You…” Ava landed on her feet as the railing disappeared and she frowned. “You killed yourself?”

“It was our best chance,” Leon whispered. “The only choice I could make, really.”

“Why?” Ava asked. “I never thought that you, of all people—”

“To find a cure,” Leon said, not looking at either of them. “I met a survivor of this game. I had to do it.”

“So? Changed, have you?” Hert poked Leon in the chest. “If you’re here to find a cure, it’s for someone else. Did you ask what he or she thought about your plan?”

The text popped up.

‘11 of 12 CHESTS OPENED

67 of 80 MONSTERS SLAIN’

Leon didn’t answer, but listened as footsteps from heavy boots thudded onto the concrete floor. Seconds later, a light bulb flashed on in the ceiling, revealing a metal chair in the middle of a small, dark room. Leon took a step back at the sight of Memory-Hert. Blood sat caked over his face. One of his eyes had swollen shut, and a cheek was dark blue with an open slit, no longer bleeding. His swollen underlip had a deep cut, and the brush pattern of redness beneath it showed evidence of blood having been wiped away. The other eye was largely unharmed, but was only slightly open. His head swayed where he sat, and he clenched his fists within the handcuffs that held them to the chair.

“Let’s talk about it later,” Leon said into the silence.

“Ouch,” Ava said, stepping closer with a furrowed brow. “That looks nasty.”

The room was mostly empty, except for the chair, a steel table with various tools, and a clothing rack fastened to the wall. The space had a smell of moist dirt and iron, and it was cold. There was a door on the left side of the room that stood half ajar, but there were no windows, and the naked light bulb was the only light source.

The heavy-booted man stepped into the room from behind them, together with the light steps of a short, brown-haired woman in a black dress, who clenched a black folder under her arm. Instead of approaching Memory-Hert, the slim woman walked to the right-hand wall and put on an apron and gloves. She corrected her round glasses and glided toward him while waving the folder for her companion to come closer. She stopped just an inch from his arm.

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“Oh Hert, it breaks my heart seeing you like this. What did you do to yourself?” she cooed and placed a gentle gloved hand around his cheek. “You know that we only want information. So why won’t you just tell us?” She brushed a finger over the cut in his lips, and Hert sucked in a shuddering breath. “It would be less painful.”

Memory-Hert’s uninjured eye snapped open, and he flung his head away from her touch, but failed since his constraints only allowed minor movement.

Leon looked from the captive memory version of the man to the current one. He’d paled and gnawed on his lips. Then, thuds on the cement floor drew Leon’s attention. The twelve remaining monsters were coming.

“What’s behind the door?” Leon asked.

“I… I don’t know,” Hert said, his voice distant. “I didn’t know there was one.”

Leon grabbed his and Avas arm and pulled them toward the space.

“You’re with the police. What made you turn?” Hert asked in a calm voice, betrayed by a slight tremor.

She kneeled beside him. “That doesn’t concern you. What does concern you is the information you’ve gathered. Brave, thinking you could get away with the journalist card. Or stupid; I haven’t really decided.”

Memory-Hert just stared at her.

Leon flung the door open as the twelve level six wolves entered the room, and shoved Ava forward, and then Hert. It was a small closet, with an almost full cleaning cart and a couple of shelves full of bottles. Ava clambered up on it and then continued up on a shelf. The bottles didn’t move even when she tried to shove them aside, so she couldn’t get on the shelf completely. Still, she pressed her back against them, and tried to make herself as small as possible. Hert jumped up on the cart and tried to balance between the supplies on top, and as the wolves spotted them, he grabbed Leon’s arm to help him up.

“You were such a good informant, too.” The woman said. “You’ll be sorely missed at the department.”

“They’ll catch onto you.”

The wolves ran toward them, but only two fit in the opening. Leon struck down his short sword at them and slashed into one’s shoulder. Hert looked at the memory scene with gritted teeth and madness in his eyes.

The woman smiled and patted Memory-Hert’s knee, making him wince. “No. I’ve covered my tracks well, just like you did. You never told anyone at the station about everything you found, or that you wrote a reportage about it. A reportage on that would make your career.” She squeezed his thigh, and he screamed. Red started staining the fabric. “Where is it?”

“No! There isn’t one!” Memory-Hert screamed.

Leon slashed out, again and again, making the wolves move back, but none to fall down. “Hert, use your hammer!”

The woman gave Memory-Hert a stiff smile and pressed her thumb harder into the concealed wound. “Where?”

Memory-Hert huffed, and then whispered, “Nowhere. It’s nowhere.”

The woman clicked her tongue, straightened her back, and wiped her hand on the apron. She nodded at the henchman. “Start with the leg again. Just don’t nick any veins this time.”

Hert sank down on the cart, and he pushed his hands into his face, rocking back and forth.

“Hert, I need you,” Leon said as two wolves jumped at them. Their front paws landed on the cleaning cart, and Leon swung the sword and dagger at one, making it fall back, and planted a foot on the other’s muzzle. “They’re going to come up here!”

Behind the wolves, the silent, broad man in heavy boots nodded and walked to the table, where he took a small, sharp blade and a pair of metal pliers.

He approached the chair while the woman leaned her back against the wall. The man ripped down Memory-Hert’s pants, revealing a stapled hole in his thigh.

Memory-Hert screamed as the closed pliers pressed on it and more red escaped.

“No good, chief. If I open this, he’ll bleed out.”

She waved with the folder. “He has two legs, doesn’t he?”

Leon tried not to think about the woman’s words or the man’s actions as the wolves launched toward them again.

“Ava, can you do something?”

She didn’t answer. Leon kicked another wolf and slammed the short sword into its neck. Even though it displayed a critical hit, it wasn’t enough to kill it. Seconds before the wolves launched again, Leon turned his head to look at Ava. She stared with wide eyes at the scene beyond the wolves, her mouth slightly open, with some kind of horrid fascination. Leon turned his head forward, just in time to block a wolf snapping its jaw at his leg. It bit into the sword and yelped before it backed off.

The broad man nodded as Memory-Hert strained in the chair, yet the movements were feeble. The man rested the plier on Hert’s injured leg, pushed the other leg to the side, and held the blade in front of Hert’s eye.

”You know we will hurt you, so why don’t you just tell us? You’ll only lose more and more pieces of muscle. You might not even walk again after we’re through with you.”

Leon kicked toward the wolf and stabbed at another one again. Finally, one sank down. Eleven to go.

Memory-Hert clenched his jaw and pressed his lips together so hard that he started bleeding from the cut. The woman sighed and opened the folder. The man pressed the edge slowly into the flesh of Hert’s thigh.

“Not too far up this time,” the woman warned.

“Yeah, yeah,” the man muttered, drew the blade back, and moved down an inch.

Memory-Hert screamed as it cut into the skin, and the current Hert echoed the noise.

A wolf sprung up on its fallen comrade and launched toward them.

“Hert, shield,” Leon shouted, but his voice drowned with the screams. Leon slashed out at the wolf coming toward them as another bit into his ankle, ripping him off his feet. Leon landed on his legs, and sucked in a breath as the corks of them pushed into the muscles. The wolf he’d swung at landed beside him and yelped when it, too, crashed into the hard things. The fangs around his ankle loosened as the boot slid off Leon’s foot.

“Ava, I need your help!” Leon said as he stabbed at the creature by his feet. The blade sunk into its chest, and as Leon kicked it off the table, it stayed fallen. The one with the boot spat it out and launched with another.

“What can I do? I don’t have a staff!”

“Kick them, punch them—whatever you can. If they grab me, there’s no getting out of here.”

“Y-yeah, okay!”

Leon kicked at one wolf and slashed down on the next. The two fallen ones acted as a step for the live ones, and sooner or later, they’d overtake them. He stabbed the short sword through a paw and the creature yelped.

“Ah!” Hert said, and Leon risked a peek behind his shoulder.

Ava stood with her hand raised over his head. “Snap out of it!”

Leon turned back to slash out at the coming two wolves as the woman walked up to Memory-Hert’s ear.

“Tell us. Where is it?”

Blood dripped from his lip.

The woman sighed. “Pinch a piece.”

The henchman opened the wound with two fingers and pressed the pliers in. Memory-Hert screamed through gritted teeth.

“We’ve been over your arms, stomach, and now legs. If you don’t start talking, you’ll soon lose a finger or toe. Is that what you want?”

Another wolf fell lifeless as something soft fell onto Leon’s back, almost making him stumble off the cart.

“You don’t need to shove me!” Ava screamed.

“Back off!” Leon shouted and planted his bare foot on an approaching wolf. He hit the jaw, and a fang ripped into his skin. Still, it tumbled back into the crowd of beasts.

“Sorry, Leon,” Ava said.

Leon sliced a wolf’s shoulder as another one launched up on the cart. It bit into Leon’s leg and pushed with its hind legs. He fell. Ava grabbed his arm, but the tugging match was no match at all against Ava’s small strength. Yet, it gave enough time for Leon to beat down with both weapons, and released him from the grip. Another wolf jumped up beside him and launched, jaws wide, at Hert. Leon let go of the dagger and grabbed the fur at its neck.

“Shield!” Leon screamed, and Hert looked at him with glassy eyes. Still, something must have come through, because a shield materialized in front of him, and Hert cowered behind it as the wolf slid from Leon’s grasp. It pushed against Leon’s leg, but even though it filled the cart, more wolves came at them. Leon grabbed the dagger, cutting the wolf’s belly as he stood. The enemies launched from the dead wolves’ backs and slammed into Leon’s crossed sword and dagger. Finding nowhere to stand, they fell back.

“Can’t we lure them away with something?” Ava shouted, kicking at the wolf between Leon and Hert.

“Don’t think so,” Leon grunted as he pushed another pair off. This was no good. If he couldn’t strike out, he’d deplete his energy far earlier than he’d counted on. Ava gave another kick, and finally, it fell off.

“Use the rabbit.” Ava pulled at his backpack.

“No!” Leon tugged at his bag, and the two launching wolves pummeled into him, sending him into Ava. She screamed.

Leon kneed the wolves on top of him as they bit into his shoulder and chest, and one let go.

Ava’s foot came at the one left, hitting its head, and then fangs bit into Leon’s ankles, tugging at him. His heart thundered in his chest, and he struck the dagger into the beast on top of him over and over.

The man’s voice reached them even though he whispered. “No good, chief. I think he’s going into shock.”

“He’ll snap out of it.”

“Hert!” Ava said from behind Leon’s chest. “Help him! They’re going to kill him!”

The beast on top of Leon fell down, and he pushed it off, trying to ignore the pain radiating through his body. The wolves at his feet tugged, and he almost fell. Then the shirt snagged on one of the cleaning bottles. He grabbed one of them with a hand and tried to pull himself up, but the wolves’ strength was too much. The shirt creaked, and the fabric ripped. Leon landed on the fallen wolves, and the two on his legs jumped toward his chest and head. Leon tried turning around, but slipped on the fur, and his hand sank between the bodies of the monsters under him.