Smitty
“I am so fucking dead!”
Leonard “Smitty” Smith ducked as the high-powered round exploded right next to his head. The bullet impacted against the freckled wall of the old chapel and sprayed him with stucco and paint. A razor sharp burn across his cheek. The patina would leave a tattoo for the rest of his life.
If he even lived out the day.
Smitty was so close to the end. Only one more kill and he would go home with $25 million dollars.
$25 million!
Chicken Dinner wasn’t just about the money, it was also about the immense fame and notoriety. He would spend months doing talk shows, late nights, and even the endless podcasts and streaming channels dedicated solely to the game.
Right now, Smitty had to focus on the task at hand, and stop dreaming of what could be, because what could happen involved a bullet to his head. Or worse, multiple bullets to his unprotected appendages that led to a slow death as he bled out on a live stream.
Months of work, exercise, training with weapons, learning everything there was to know about surviving in hostile situations. Smitty had been a United States Marine, Oorah, and had seen his share of action, but not the sort where forty-nine other people were out to kill him over a four hour period of time.
The echo arrived, but he was already on the move, following the shot, and he had only seconds if the shooter was halfway adequate. Rack the slide, slam it home, get the target in sight, and then squeeze the trigger. Smitty could do it in 1.2, but this shooter, in his opinion wasn’t as competent.
The next round took out part of the doorway as he dove inside the room. The boom, like thunder, came just as he rolled over in a puff of dust and debris. Christ! That one hurt. He had already been stabbed, shot, punched, and had a metal pan bashed against the side of his head, but he was still alive.
Alive!
There was just one more player out there, and he (or she) currently had Smitty practically dialed in. The only reason his brains weren’t on the side of the chapel were thanks to his quick movements. The shooter obviously had a scope and a high-powered rifle, however, they didn’t seem to know about things like adjusting for wind, or leading a target.
Lucky for Smitty, the round had gone wide instead of through his brain pan.
He groaned as his harness sent a warning shock that knocked him silly.
Oh god. Not now!
The zone had closed again and he hadn’t been able to check his tablet to find out which direction he needed to move. If he stayed here he would likely be disabled in the next minute. The one thing he had in common with the sniper was that they were most likely stuck outside of the zone as well. They would both have to move soon, or take increasingly powerful bolts of electricity that could leave them prone on the ground.
He lifted his watch and groaned yet again as the red circle flashed. An arrow indicated which direction he needed to move in order to stop the body harness shocks from rendering him helpless. He really needed to get out his tablet and verify the distance to the next free zone, but he was going to lose a lot of precious seconds if he stayed out here with his dick in the wind.
A stronger shock arrived and sent him reeling. He clenched his teeth and staggered to his feet. With his back to the wall he dropped his backpack, dug out a smoke grenade, and then a Mule Punch energy drink. Maybe the caffeine would give him an edge, even though he’d had enough of those things. He wondered, if he survived, would he need a kidney transplant when it was over? How many energy drinks could a man drink in an hour and not cause permanent harm?
He smiled grimly, popped the top, and chugged overly-sweet bubbles, caffeine, taurine, and whatever other shit the FDA had been bribed into allowing in the formula. He barely had time to let out a quiet belch before the next shock came. As the electricity raced across his body, Smitty involuntarily clenched his fists and crushed the can. When it was over he suspected he had pissed his pants.
“You all ready for the big finish?” he leaned over and asked.
His body cam had been beaten to hell, but the glass was nearly unbreakable, and even though it bore a few scratches, he knew from watching streams of past games that his image would be intact. He pulled the camera away from his body and verified the little green light deep within the device was still lit. He had to cup it with his hand, and peer inside. They made it difficult to detect because players would be sitting ducks with a big light on their chest.
Smitty pulled out a second smoke grenade, hustled to the doorframe, pulled the pin, and tossed the grenade. It let out a little pop and smoke rolled out a few seconds later.
Smitty used the distraction to look around the corner. His eyes roved across the open space as he considered where he could run to find cover. There wasn’t much. Trees that weren’t wide enough to obscure his frame. A boulder that was a quarter mile away. A truck and a motorcycle, but they were also too far.
Unless he could draw out the shooter.
He ducked back around the corner and considered what he had seen. If he had possessed a sniper rifle, and the location of the other remaining contestant, he would camp out and wait for either the zone to close, or for other guy to make a mistake.
Perhaps that was the answer.
He pulled the pin on a smoke grenade, but held the lever. It would be a thirty-yard sprint and he would have the benefit of a little bit of cover.
Smitty lifted the backpack, held it in front of the doorway, and shook it.
The backpack flew out of his hand and the boom arrived a second later.
Clutching the AKM rifle in both hands, he slung the second smoke grenade as he ran.
The angle would give him his best chance because it lay fifteen degrees to his right and the shooter, if located in the house, would have a hard time picking him off.
The second grenade popped and smoke rolled out in a thick cloud.
Smitty counted, one, two, then he ducked and juked. Sure enough, another explosion sounded, but he remained on his feet and alive.
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As he threw himself down behind the old rusted pickup, the answer to his dilemma presented itself.
Like an ugly wart, the big propane gas tank next to the house bore almost as much rust as the truck he currently called cover.
The truck’s window above him exploded as another shot nearly ended his life. Five or six inches lower and the top of his head would have been gone. Safety glass created a shower as it tinkled down the side of the door. Pieces rolled off his helmet, and small shards found the back of his shirt.
At least the zapping had stopped. His watch’s display showed he would need to move again, and very soon.
Smitty went prone, and crept under the truck. He aimed the AK-74M and prayed the shadows obscured him. Another blast and the truck bounced from the bullet’s impact.
He inched forward until he could put the sights on the tank.
Smitty nearly pulled the trigger before remembering the selector switch. He thumbed it to burst fire and then unleashed three 7.62 rounds.
As he scooted back the shooter nearly zeroed in on him. Dirt from the next round blew into his face. He blinked rapidly but his left eye had something in it. Tears formed, but they weren’t enough to clear the debris. It make his eye feel like it was being rubbed with fucking sandpaper.
Worse still, the damn tank hadn’t exploded.
If it wasn’t a gas storage tank, then what in the hell was it?
Smitty rubbed his eyes as he backed up, and some of the dirt came out, but it still burned like hell.
The bruise on his side, where a pistol round had bounced off his body armor, throbbed. The stab wound in his hip made him woozy. His head ached from the run, and gun action of the last few hours, and now he was a sitting duck.
The energy drink made his head feel fuzzy and his body ached like he was coming down with a fever.
“Screw you.” He seethed with anger. “My body ain’t giving up the ghost just yet.”
Smitty leaned over, extended the barrel of the AKM out from under cover, and sent a furious stream of lead at the house. He couldn’t be sure where the shooter was firing from, but if he were up there, it would be from the broken window on the right side of the home. The left remained closed, and intact, so that was out. It was all guesswork now. The tank would have provided the perfect device to finish the game, but it simply refused to explode.
Another shot smacked into the tire, and the right side of the truck sank a few inches as air expelled. Smitty hustled back out from cover just before a second shot struck the fender. But this time the muzzle flash had given away the shooter’s position, and just as Smitty had suspected, it was indeed the broken window.
“Got ya,” Smitty muttered for those streaming his feed.
It would probably be about 50/50 out there. Half of the millions of game streamers would be glued to the sniper’s feed, while the other half would be watching Smitty’s.
The seconds ticked away as Smitty waited. He couldn’t make it back to the chapel if he wanted to try. He had sacrificed his backpack and all of his collected goods to make it this far. All that remained between him and the last contestant was almost certain death as soon as he stepped foot on open ground.
The truck bumped up and down as the other person unleashed hell. Probably an M4 or M16 from the sound, and it was on full auto. Thirty rounds kicked up dirt, punched through the truck, and made him pray as he put his back against the rear tire, and cursed. Something kicked him near his kidney and he let out a groan of pain. At least his body armor had deflected the bullet.
The firing stopped so Smitty sprang to his feet while the other player reloaded.
He emptied his own magazine into the side of the house. Multiple rounds punched through walls, the remaining glass shattered, and when he clicked on empty, Smitty ducked and slapped a fresh magazine into the gun.
Last one.
It was now or never.
Smitty switched to selective fire as a jolt of electricity woke him up.
No time to look at his watch or the tablet. This was it. The end game.
Smitty dashed around the truck and fired on the location. He ran, full out, as he exposed himself to direct fire. Shoot. Wait. Shoot!
Wait. Shift aim to the right a few degrees. Shoot! Wait. Now to the left.
He was down to three rounds when he must have scored a hit as a scream of pain answered his shots.
Smitty slammed into the side of the house and went right for the side entrance.
He kicked in the door and aimed down the iron sights, but the other player must have stayed upstairs, which left him in a terrible position. Battling upwards, instead of from cover, or at a target struggling to reach him. He could wait it out, let the shocks take them both, and see who was the strongest.
“The blue knuckle fuck I will,” Smitty swore, just as he became aware that he was completely delirious. “It’s now or never.”
Smitty dropped to a crouch, guessed at the shooter’s location, and fired his last three rounds at the ceiling.
He tossed the now empty AKM aside, pulled the M&P .45 from his holster, and hit the first step at a run.
The lower part of the house was nothing more than old carpet, mostly ripped up to expose hardwood slats underneath. No furniture to speak of, and the kitchen, thanks to the walls being blasted half to hell, had revealed a kitchen with a sad and abandoned old lead refrigerator. Talk about an open concept first floor gone wrong. There was no longer a sink, and the pipes, hanging out of the walls, had been busted and rusted long ago.
A gunshot blasted in the small room above, and a chunk of wall disappeared. Smitty leaned around the corner and emptied half of his magazine into the area he thought the shot had come from.
His heart felt like it was about to jump out of his chest as it pounded out a frightening rhythm. He went prone again at the sound of shells sliding into a tube. The action snapping into place.
His eyes widened at the unmistakable sound of a shotgun being brought into play, and fled the stairs as a hole the size of an old vinyl record appeared where his head had been.
Back on the first floor, Smitty backed into the room, took in the shooter’s location, aimed his .45 at the ceiling again, and finished off the magazine.
“Ah!” Another cry of pain.
He ejected the mag, slammed his last one home, pulled back slightly on the slide, and let it glide home. As he pounded back up the stairs he threw the empty magazine into the room ahead. The shotgun boomed again and another chunk of wall flew into his face. Then he was in there!
Fear and elation rode his emotions as he found the last player in a pool of blood. The man looked familiar; he’d seen him on the plane ride. Clean shaven, young, no more than twenty-five, and dressed in a full set of dark fatigues, military vest with body armor, and a helmet. But the armor hadn’t protected the guy’s lower appendages.
“Wait,” the man gasped as he tried to slide a pair of shells into the sawed-off. “Just wait.”
For a split second Smitty saw the man as not just another target, but as a human being begging for his life. Had Smitty been in the same position, he may have begged as well.
On the other hand, a half minute ago, the shooter had tried to kill Smitty. Smitty aimed, put the guy’s face in his sights, and fired a pair of rounds. Now that son of a bitch was dead.
“Fucking dead!” Smitty screamed in elation.
Then he got a look at what he had done to the man, and realized that what was left would need a miracle worker of a mortician. He had killed, and not for the first time today. Everyone in the game knew what they had signed up for. So why did he suddenly feel like keeling over and puking? Why did he suddenly feel like he had committed a crime?
Why did he feel guilty?
Smitty dropped to his knees, all too aware that his last kill had been broadcast in all its bloody glory from the camera attached to his chest.
The guy’s leg kicked, and before Smitty could think about it he finished the magazine off in the player.
The man’s body bounced up and down, and as smoke rose from the barrel of Smitty’s .45 the last sound the man gave was as his bowels released and he shit himself.
Smitty turned away, moved back a few feet, and let out an exhausted sigh of relief.
The pressure around his chest released as the harness deactivated.
He sat on the floor and tried to focus on his breathing. It was the easiest thing in the world. In and out. In and out. His hands shook as he stared at his blood and dirt crusted fingers.
He had just won $25 million dollars and all he’d had to do was kill nine other people. The rest had taken each other out in the course of three hours and forty-five minutes.
Smitty covered his body cam with his hand as he leaned forward and spewed a stream of energy drink, half digested crackers, and stomach acid in a pile at his feet. Then he uncovered the lens, pulled if off the harness, and lifted it so the lens focused on his bloodied, bruised, and battered face.
“This is Smitty coming to you live,” he said. “I guess I did it.”
Smitty turned off the video replay and kicked back in a dark brown plush Italian leather chair. That had been five years ago, and now his job had morphed into something completely different. In just a few more minutes they were going to come for him.
It was time to start his hosting duties on Chicken Dinner, and with the surprises in store, Smitty wondered if this wouldn’t be the biggest audience draw yet.