Rosa

Rosa Mullins made straight for a flight tower after she hit the ground. Somehow she had managed to land in an old airfield. An airfield without a single airplane, helicopter, or vehicle for that matter. The short runway had long gone to ruin as the pocked pavement wouldn’t support any kind of landing. If she didn’t know any better, she would have guessed that the large holes were man-made from explosives.

It made sense. Chicken Dinner kept the location of this place fiercely guarded, and having an available airfield made little sense in case someone actually sussed out the location. Technically, someone could fly another person to the area, kill them, and get away with it. Hell, they could even broadcast the murder for the world to see. It had been done enough already, so what difference would one more kill make?

The door hung on one hinge and the open entryway, in full sunlight, allowed Rosa the opportunity to see the entire room as soon as she drew near. Her stomach knotted up and her eyes opened wide as she tried to make out anyone waiting inside. She was on the ground now, and that meant she was fair game for anyone to put a bullet or knife in her chest.

Rosa entered and immediately spotted a wooden chest against the wall. The rest of the room had been long deserted. A pile of refuse lay in one corner. Boards, strips of cloth, and, if she wasn’t mistaken, someone’s sweater. But the garment, upon closer inspection, had been removed before or after taking a blood bath. She picked up the clothing and found a dark blue garment that featured one ripped sleeve and a pair of holes in the chest. Around those the crimson stains had spread outward.

Rosa dropped the sweater in disgust.

“Treasure or trash?” Rosa muttered as she opened the wooden crate.

She found a pair of guns, a number of boxes, and some military-style clothing, stuff that would blend in were she to be anywhere near something green.

She removed the pistol and studied the side.

Glock 17. It felt good in her hands. Like old times. Times she would rather forget, but memories kept intruding thanks to her lack of medication. They had stopped her pills four days before the event. The first day hadn’t been all that bad, but by the third her mind had become a mess. They said it was for her own good, that she would need to be sharp, but all it did was confuse the hell out of her. It made her feel like the fog had been lifted but it had been replaced by a dark blanket over her mind.

She had a gun once again, and was lovely. How many times over the years had she wished she had simply turned her old pistol on herself and ended it all before the police had arrived? They’d found her sitting in the center of her living room, rocking back and forth, revolver in a death grip as she’d tried to scrub partially-dried blood off her arm.

Weapons pointed. Men dressed in black tactical uniforms. They had swarmed in and shouted at her to drop the gun. Drop the gun! DROP THE FUCKING GUN!

The horrifying burn of pepper spray, a couple of shots from a taser, and the entire time Rosa had simply floated in a daze. Detached. Forlorn. Lost and afraid.

Blood on her hands hours later. Not her own. She had leaned over to look into Sarah Lansing’s face as she’d blown the top of the woman’s head off. Eyes filled with fear, pain, and the older woman begging for mercy. But Rosa had not been filled with mercy that day. She had come in to work at the FedEx office, fresh off being fired for something that wasn’t even her fault. No, that was all Sarah, the conniving bitch, and she had paid the ultimate price. The second and third bodies had belonged to people she had actually gotten along with, but in her rage, in her bleakness, she had lost herself.

Now, days after being taken off her meds, her mind teetered.

The pistol was lovely. All black, a magazine that— as she removed the magazine and verified it was full—could put an end to all of this. Just turn the barrel up, put it under her chin, and pull the trigger.

Rosa put the Glock in her lap and picked up the other weapon.

She was familiar with the gun from going skeet shooting once from the side of a cruise liner. It had been years ago and she had been happily married, long before the incident, as she liked to think of it.

Everything Rosa had done since departing the plane had been live. She knew she was being broadcast on big and small screens alike. The rules had been given over and over again. So much so that it felt like a kindergarten class where the teachers were on autorepeat.

Keep the camera attached to you at all times. Keep it pointed at the action at all times. Don’t do anything stupid to the camera. Don’t do anything stupid in general.

Rosa had been in prison for almost a decade and while she had been aware of Chicken Dinner, it had never made it to the television screens in the big house. However, some of the other inmates knew about it and talked about how well they would do if cut loose in the game. Rosa had never thought much about it beyond the occasional morbid curiosity, but now that she was in the thick of it, she had no idea how to survive except to sit here with her guns and wait for someone to come along.

If she were going to blow her brains out, she didn’t want it broadcast. What if her family were watching? Her daughter, Jasmine, wherever she lived now.

Maybe the shotgun was the safer bet. Put it under her chin and there wouldn’t be enough of her head left to bury.

She rolled a cartridge in her fingers and then shoved it into the breach. Another one followed and then another. She reached five and the mag was full. She lifted the shotgun, found the long knob on the side, pulled it back, and a red shell fed into the gun’s receiver.

Rosa put her back against the wall. She placed the Glock next to her leg, hefted the shotgun, and considered doing it right now. A piece of cloth stuck out from under the chest. She pulled it out and found it was an old t-shirt that miraculously didn’t smell like puke or piss. Rosa wrapped the end around her vest and then covered the lens and tucked it in so her death wouldn’t be broadcast.

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What were they going to do if she kept her camera covered? What if someone in the control center was sitting behind a console feeding her location to other players?

Screw all of those jackasses sitting at home with their dicks in their hands! Getting off on watching people kill each other. Betting their life savings in Vegas over the outcome of the game. Messaging their friends about the latest death, and how awesome it had been.

Rosa had no other plans except to sit here for as long as she could. Let the others fight it out. She would move when she had to, but she would also find a place to hide each time. How long she would survive was anyone’s guess.

With the camera covered, she spun the barrel around and stared at the gaping hole. She put the butt against her foot and then drew her leg up so that she could lean back, and put the barrel under her chin. Then she closed her eyes and considered the end.

Rosa’s watch buzzed against her arm.

She had drifted away for a few seconds. Maybe it was the fading adrenaline rush or the aftereffects of the drugs. Maybe it was simply tiredness that dogged her. Whatever the case, she suddenly felt like she could sleep for twelve hours.

“Why can’t I pull the trigger?” she asked herself as she lowered the shotgun.

Maybe the answer was to go out there, walk around in the open, and let someone else take her down. It might be from a distance and she wouldn’t even see it coming. Or there was always the option of getting in the game.

What if she put her sad sack act aside and set a trap? Maybe something with her parachute. If she could lure in another player, she might be able to get the drop on them and take any supplies they had gathered, which reminded her that there was food, water, energy drinks, and painkillers scattered around the play area. What she wouldn’t give for three or four Oxycontins right about now. If she was going to be bored out of her skull for the next few hours it might as well be time well spent, and numb to the world.

Her watch buzzed again.

Rosa studied the display and found a flashing icon that looked like a tablet.

“Weirdest fucking Apple watch ever,” she said.

Rosa pulled the tablet out of the pouch at her side and lifted it to eye level. She found a button on the side and pressed until the display came to life.

Her eyes widened when she found a face staring at her.

“Hello?” she whispered.

“Please uncover your camera,” the man said.

“Piss off. I’m busy right now. You can get plenty of camera killing porn from the others,” she said.

Her back arched and her teeth clicked shut as her entire body lit up with intense pain. The shock raced along her arms and legs for what felt like an eternity. She had been hit with a taser before, but that had been a walk in the park compared to this overbearing pain.

Then it was gone and she found her breath.

“Uncover your camera,” the man said again.

Rosa was surprised that she hadn’t cracked the little tablet when they’d shocked her. Her hand had closed around the rubber-lined screen and clutched it hard enough to break one of her nails. She dragged her hand across the screen, leaving a trail of blood from a ripped fingernail.

Rosa snarled at the man as she pulled the cloth away from the lens. She tossed the shirt on the bed and then sat back again.

“If I get to see you face to face I’m going to ram this gun down your throat and pull the trigger,” she threatened.

But she was talking to a blank screen because the man had disappeared, and a map of the surrounding area, complete with a circle indicating her zone, snapped into view. A timer in the corner of the screen indicated when she would have to move. She was relieved to see she had almost half an hour to kill.

“Jesus,” Rosa muttered to herself.

The darkened room was easier to see since her eyes had adjusted. Against the far wall lay a desk missing one of its legs, leaving the furniture sitting at an odd angle.

She rose, and pointed the shotgun at the ground as she went to inspect her find. A partially opened drawer revealed a nest that had probably been occupied by mice. She opened the drawer below and let out a squeal when she found the remains of the dead mouse family.

The desk wobbled and then fell over with an enormous crash that would surely be heard by anyone in the immediate vicinity. Rosa went still and waited in the dark with the gun pointed at the doorway.

Outside, the wind picked up, and whistled as it rushed over the tall fence. A rustle as leaves fell from trees, but so far no sound of footsteps. She decided to take her chances by continuing to explore.

Rosa moved deeper into the building until she found a set of stairs leading up. She took the first one with a light step because she was sure someone else had already hidden in the house, even though she hadn’t seen another parachute come down near her.

The first three steps were nice and quiet but the third one groaned like an old man. She spun, lifted the shotgun, and prepared for the worst. After a few seconds she calmed down, rose to her feet, and then continued up.

The first room had a toilet and a rusted-out metal sink, and it smelled like someone had died there. She glanced at the grimy, tiled floor and found a large red stain, probably from blood. She’d bet money that a player had died here, and bled out while the rest of the game had proceeded.

Rosa moved on to the next room. The striped blue wallpaper had faded with age, and someone had painted a smiley face on the west wall in red. The rest of the location had been completely stripped.

“Getting all of this, you fucking pervs?” Rosa spoke loud enough for her body camera to pick up her words.

Light poured in from the upstairs window and when she moved through the room to look outside, she went stock still.

A man stood below.

Christ. Had he seen her?

He was a big man with a large gun of some kind. A machine-gun, if she wasn’t mistaken, and he wore a pair of black overalls. His body cam pointed out from his chest, and he had obtained a dark ball cap from somewhere, which left his features in shadow. He wasn’t even being smart about his moves. He strolled around and looked inside of a jeep that had been old a decade ago, judging by the faded orange paint and rust.

Then she realized why he was acting so weird. He had a head wound, and blood streamed down one side of his face.

Rosa didn’t recognize the man from the plane, but there had been forty-nine other people and it wasn’t like they had all attended a mixer beforehand. The only thing she had met on the trip had been dour looks and ridiculous, dark humor from that guy, Smitty. How he had ever become a celebrity was beyond her. As far as Rosa was concerned, Smitty had a big head, and a bigger ego.

The man disappeared from view as he rounded the tower, and then the door creaked opened below.

Footsteps as the guy stumbled around made Rosa clench her teeth in dread. Not that he was going to come after her, more that she was going to have to go after him. Then she spotted the green sack on the floor. It had been partially hidden by a pillow, but her rummaging around had dislodged the bag. The zipper on top had been left half-open and she spotted a small brown pill bottle.

“Oh, snap,” she breathed before she could catch herself.

The man downstairs stumbled into something and then it sounded like he fell down. Something clattered across the floor.

Rosa moved quietly to the bag and extracted the pills. She lifted the bottle and let out a grin. Pain pills, and some damn good ones.

Downstairs, the big man continued to stumble around. All she had to do was take this guy out and then she would have a little peace, and bliss, thanks to powerful drugs. Maybe she could do it, then. Pop a half dozen of these bad boys, wait for the buzz to begin to fade, and pull the trigger. There were worse ways to die.

“You’d like to see that, wouldn’t you?” Rosa muttered to her audience. “Me with a gun barrel in my mouth. Like I said. You’re all a bunch of fucking pervs.”

She had to deal with this. Or she could wait him out. She could hide and hope she wasn’t found out. Rosa stepped away from the door and lifted the shotgun. The minute he came upstairs she was going to blow his head off.