Miljan’s location turned out to be right smack dab on the edge of the safe zone. He knew this because the number of players had been on a steady decline, and his watch no longer indicated which direction he had to move. He hadn’t even bothered looking at his tablet’s screen. He hoped he wouldn’t have to move again until it came time to dispatch the last few players.

Not only had the zones finished closing for the time being, but luck had further kissed his ass by providing a spot that could be well defended from the ground, and had a pair of large rocks to use as cover. It was just a matter of sneaking around and gathering up branches and shrubbery so he could create a fortress of camouflage. He uprooted a batch of long-bladed grass, arranged them in a sort of crown, and secured it to his helmet with strands of hand-woven twine.

As long as he sat still, he would be practically invisible to a casual observer. Someone looking for him might have a chance at picking him out, provided they knew his precise location and they had a telescopic lens.

He kept a pair of tall trees between him and the man on the white tower across the field. His plan involved waiting it out, and this was the perfect location. As icing on the cake (Americans were so fond of their little sayings), if the guy on the tower managed to take out one or more players, it wouldn’t hurt Miljan’s feelings at all.

The guy had left his location once and seemed to have a stupid plan in mind. He had taken bags of goods down to the ground and then dumped them in piles. Miljan could barely make out the junk. As far as he was concerned, the man was an idiot.

Miljan had kept the moron in his sights the entire time. All it would have taken was a simple stroke of the trigger and the man would have dropped dead.

But he had time. Either someone would shoot the man, or Miljan would kill him when the time was right. For now, he put his back against the stone, and then double checked his holographic sights. He put his red dot on the man on top of the tower again. His finger touched the trigger, but he didn’t squeeze.

Let them all come.

His watch buzzed again.

There were ten left.

Then another sound arrived, something he hadn’t expected. A motor of some sort and it was heading toward his location.

Miljan got into position, press checked the AKM, brought the rifle up, and prepared to begin the end game.

Dale Furlough could no longer hear Albert in the earpiece, and that scared him. He had made it to the outskirts of the safe zone. The shocks had stopped before they got strong enough to render him helpless, but what he needed to complete the game was Albert.

There were now ten players left, and he had no idea where they were.

He perched behind a rusted hulk of a giant gas tank that looked vaguely familiar. Just up a small incline lay a church, but he wasn’t going near that place because it probably had a camper hanging out ready to blast his skull.

Dale found a little space under the tank and dug out a pit with his hand as he shot furtive looks over his shoulder. The hole wasn’t that deep but it didn’t need to be. He just had to be able to use it to conceal himself, and he could use some shrubs to further work on his camouflage. All in all, it could be a hell of a lot worse.

He tapped the side of his head but Albert’s voice did not come back.

Dale turned back to the task and as he pulled handfuls of dried dirt and clumps of rotted grass away from the big tank, he found a flat rock the size of his palm. That made the work go a little faster. He worked as quickly as he could, but he had to keep turning his head as he scanned for other players.

Why in the hell had Albert dropped off for so long? They had experienced a few hiccups, but nothing as bad as this, unless the organizers were onto him. If that was the case he was really screwed.

He pushed his way under the tank, grateful that it had been secured to the wall of the building and offered a little space beneath. It was also cooler, and the smell of dirt reassured him that he was still alive, although he couldn’t help but keep from feeling like it also smelled like a freshly dug grave.

Eleven minutes since his last contact with Albert.

He pushed himself deeper under the tank, and then stuck the barrel of the gun out. He had full range of his surroundings from here except for behind him, but that was okay, because his rear was protected by a thick wall.

Along the edge of the safe zone lay a wall of trees. He turned his attention in that direction as another player stumbled out of them, and then faded back inside.

Dales shifted position so he could put his foot against the wall, but it curiously wasn’t there. He kicked back and found space.

“What the hell?”

Dale worked his way around in the space until he found the rear wall. He felt along it with his hand until the space opened up.

Dale couldn’t help it. Curiosity drove him on as he explored the area. The hole was big enough to permit him entry under the house, but what fresh hell waited him inside?

As he stuck his head inside a sliver of light illuminated the corner of the space.

It had probably been a basement at one time, but dirt and growth had taken most of the floor and covered the windows. He waited for his eyes to adjust and as the room came into focus he realized what he was looking at.

“Oh my fucking god,” Dale said in complete and utter shock.

“Smitty. We got a bunch of activity,” Trevor said.

“I’m seeing it,” Smitty said. “Looks like at least three motherfuckers hiding in the same area to the east. I recognize that place from my second game. Is that really the final zone?”

“Yeah. It was chosen to commemorate the tenth game. At the time, we had no idea you’d be heading back there,” Trevor said.

Smitty slowed the motorcycle as he came to a cross street. Someone moving fast appeared on his HUD, a red dot over a holographic representation of the immediate area. He picked out the last nine players, and even as he began to compartmentalize them, one of the dots flickered and faded.

“Another one down?”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

“Yeah. Guy named Eddie. No one thought he’d even make it this far,” Trevor said.

“Crazy stuff happens when you have twenty-five million dollars on the line. Hey, has Millhouse fucked up the feed yet?”

“Nah. He’s doing okay,” Trevor said. “I have Dale’s location. He’s going to appear with a white halo around his dot. Be aware that the Serb hasn’t moved in about twenty minutes. He’s got a killer spot to pick off targets from, but he’s been playing it cool.”

“I see that,” Smitty said as he pushed the motorcycle next to the three-story home.

“Weird. Dale’s signal is going in and out.”

“What?” Smitty asked as he checked the HUD.

Sure enough. Dale’s location had been displayed with a little white circle around the oblong target, but now it was completely gone.

Smitty walked into the building without any challengers. When he had played the game he had been on edge the entire time. Going into rooms with his adrenaline ringing in his ears. The rush of catching someone before they could shoot at him. The thrill of getting a kill when he thought he would be dead.

“I’m sure it’s a bug. I’ll boost the signal,” Trevor said.

The halo came back but Dale had moved into a house. The only thing was that the house didn’t have a way to get in. The entry points all had X’s over them.

“What’s going on with Dale?”

“I wouldn’t worry about it. We got a satellite feed and found that he had burrowed under some kind of big storage tank. You should be able to root him out without issue.” Trevor reassured him.

If it’s so easy why aren’t you here?

Smitty had no concerns about this location. It had already been raided, and if he remembered correctly there was a body on the second floor, but the cleanup crew could take care of that. All he needed to do was get to the third floor, get out the rifle, and then take out Dale with a single shot.

The body armor, helmet, legs in kevlar, and neck protected by something like a modern day version of a chainmail gorget, created a huge drag on his frame as he took the stairs.

His feed would be howling for blood, and for Smitty to get down there and get his hands dirty, but he was having none of that. Not with such skilled and competent players left in the game.

The location was perfect. The bedroom contained one rotted mattress and a metal bed frame that had long ago rusted almost to a heap, thanks to a gaping hole in the ceiling. But a busted out window allowed him near perfect field of view over the final zone.

He was safe here, because any players wearing a harness would be getting their shit shocked if they were nearby.

A large caliber gun echoed around the buildings. Smitty thought it might have come from the north, but sounds sometimes carried in a strange way here.

“That’s another one down. Looks like a couple of players were converging on the final zone when they ran into each other,” Trevor said.

“Damn that was loud.”

“Yeah. Not sure what kind of rifle but I suspect it could take out an elephant.”

Smitty aimed in the direction of Dale’s location, and put his eye to the telescopic sight.

“Well, fuck me running,” Smitty muttered.

“What’s wrong?”

“There’s a water tower in the way. I thought for sure I’d be able to sniff out his location from here,” Smitty said.

“Guess you’ll have to get closer.”

“Guess so. I’m mobile,” Smitty said as he dusted off his clothes and went back down the stairs.

“What’s your next plan?”

“Shit if I know. I’m winging it at this point,” Smitty said as he got back on the motorcycle and fired up the engine.

Mathew had decided to wait it out as long as possible. He squatted inside of a railroad car that sat, mysteriously, twenty feet away from a paved road. How had it gotten here if there were no rails? It didn’t really matter, after all, he had a secure location, and only one entry way to guard. He had pushed the back door closed and if anyone tried to open it, they would get a bullet to the head.

He backed up until he was in complete darkness and and then slid along the wall until he was at an angle that would allow him to shoot anyone who wandered by. His watch hadn’t buzzed in a few minutes. Maybe he was in the final zone.

He put his back to cold metal, and then panned the gun around the small area that the sliding door afforded. After a few minutes of this something outside created a stir. He poked his head out and then gasped. A raccoon, of all things, raced across his field of view. In all of the feeds he had watched, he couldn’t remember seeing a live animal. Rumor had it the site sat on some kind of nuclear disaster that had been long covered up, and that’s why nothing else lived here.

Mathew exhaled a breath of relief. He ducked back inside of the railroad car and took up station again.

As he waited the sound of a motor caught his attention. He leaned out again, and found a peculiar sight. An old American car picked its way through the line of trees a few hundred yards away. As he watched, something even wilder came into view. The man was good, damn good. He had set up some kind of encampment between a pair of large rocks, but he swung around and lifted a rifle.

Mathew extended his own gun, put the man in his sights, and then squeezed the trigger.

It was sheer luck that the round didn’t take Miljan’s head off, and by the time the report arrived, he had already hit the deck, even though his left arm hurt like a bitch. More rounds plinked off his cover and spun away. How the fuck had anyone seen him?

It had to be the car. He’d spun to check out whoever was approaching, and that’s when something had knocked him flat.

Miljan gasped in shock then reached back and felt along his exposed arm until he found his shoulder blade and the damage. Hot blood pulsed around the wound, and now that he was aware the pain hit. He cursed and went flat.

Miljan pawed through his supplies until he located a hemostatic bandage and ripped it free. He slapped the cloth on his wound and hoped it would hold long enough.

Had to be the fucking railroad car. How had he missed someone hiding in there? It was because he was cocky, and after sitting in place for twenty minutes, he had committed the sin of getting too comfortable.

He wasn’t going out like this.

Miljan stretched out and pulled the AKM to his shoulder. He stayed prone, and stuck the barrel into the brush camouflage he had build. He shifted a leaf to the side so he could peer into the holographic sights.

Then another blast, this time from a different direction, came.

Kathryn rolled over and ran her fingers behind her back and felt for blood. Her frantic fingers worked around the body armor until she located the round that had struck her and thankfully been stopped by the body armor. Her body felt like she had been hit by a bus and it was hard to catch her breath. But she was still alive and that was all that counted, even if she was going to have a mother of a bruise.

Kathryn froze in place. After being chased and shot in the back, which thankfully had struck her body armor, she was barely able to crawl. If the shooter came to find her she had to be ready. She pulled the handgun from her waistband, rolled over, and aimed the gun between her knees.

Moments ago, a car engine had roared in from out of nowhere and then slowed. Something thumped, and then a single gunshot had rang out. What the hell had happened up there?

For the next few minutes, Kathryn hadn’t moved. Finally, she rolled onto her stomach and slid toward the road, and her downed motorcycle. She found the guy who had shot at her and he wasn’t going anywhere. Not only that, but whoever had shot at the guy had left a pair of tire tracks as he had sped away.

“Glad that’s not me,” she muttered as she studied the corpse.

Kathryn headed back to where she had fallen. Ahead of her rose a really tall white tower, and a shape sat crouched behind a barrier of metal. Now that she was sure no one was waiting to put a bullet in her brain, she could take her time and figure out how to properly use her weapon.

She slowly bought her rifle around, and then went prone next to a fallen tree that had been shattered by lighting or an explosion. She double-checked the gun to make sure it was loaded. Thanks to the hard lesson at the farm, she doubted she would ever shoot a weapon again before checking.

Kathryn found a pair of rocks and dragged them under the barrel to create a kind of tripod.

It was time to get in the game if she were to survive.

Off in the distance a gun fired in rapid succession. More guns sounded in a furious exchange. She put her head down and covered it with her arms.

A scream, but it was far away. Thankfully it was followed by silence once again. Her watch thumped and suddenly the number decreased to seven. A few seconds later it decreased once again.

She looked around to make sure no one had closed in on her location.

Only five to go, and she would actually come out the winner.

But that meant she had to outlive five very smart players if she hoped to survive.

Kathryn wasn’t an expert with long guns. She would have preferred something like an assault rifle, but this was what she had at her disposal. The guy on top of the tower had moved around up there, and as her watch buzzed one more time, Kathryn realized that another player had gone down.

She triple-checked to make sure there was a round in the chamber, then stared into the telescopic lens. She messed with a dial until the top of the tower came into view, then she moved the gun around as she figured out how to put a target in the middle.

She’d once watched a movie about a sniper in Iraq and she remembered one fact.

She let out a gentle breath, and then fired.