The Game

The Game

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J. Thomasson, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages
for reviewing purposes.

This story is a work of fiction. Any
resemblance to any person, living or dead, any place, events, or
occurrences, is purely coincidental. The characters and storylines
are created from the author’s imagination or are used
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Dust chokes his throat. If there’s anything
about this country that he just can’t get used to, it’s the dust.
It never ends. Even in the heavily tree-lined mountains (if you can
call them trees—where he’s from, trees tower hundreds of feet above
the ground—here, they are barely taller than two men), the dust
materializes from thin air. It’s so bad he can’t leave the barracks
without a bandanna secured around his head to protect his mouth,
nose, and lungs. It’s not uncommon for the stuff to gather around
the openings of the eyes, nose, and mouth—to mix with the moisture
and solidify like concrete. He can only imagine the horrors the
stuff is doing inside his lungs.

But those are thoughts for another day—a day
when he can finally sit at home in an air conditioned house, maybe
with a loving wife and a few children. A dog would be nice. A good
loyal purebred...not like the mangy mongrels found here. These dogs
are so skittish he can’t get near them, even with a piece of dried
jerky in hand. Briefly, his thoughts turn to his childhood dog, a
beautiful Blue Heeler. She was loyal and the best companion a
teenager could have. He remembers scratching her ears and saying
goodbye to her before leaving for basic training. He remembers the
letter he received from his mother six months later, telling him
his dog had died.

Something moves through the scruff of
underbrush ahead and he puts a closed fist into the air. The men
behind him freeze in place then gracefully begin to fade into their
surroundings. In seconds, they disappear—all that gear, all that
equipment—it always surprises him at how silent they can be when
necessary.

Robert Daley holds his position, standing
motionless in the middle of the overgrown trail. It’s his
responsibility to keep his men safe, and that means determining if
the noises ahead are a threat. His eyes scan the shadows ahead, his
mind now focused on the task and not with those things of the past.
He slowly draws his rifle to his shoulder and sweeps the barrel to
the left, then back to the right. He can’t see anything threatening
but the rustling noises continue from a heavy clump of knotted
brush ahead and slightly to the right. The barrel of his rifle
automatically adjusts that direction—a product of his
training.

He moves forward, creeping closer to the source
of the noise. The brush rustles again as individual leaves and
branches move, seemingly of their own will. There is no wind.
Has to be a critter of some sort
, he thinks.
A chipmunk?
Maybe a bird building a nest?
He’s at the clump of bushes now.
Using the rifle’s barrel, he pushes the branches aside. A sudden
flutter of wings and feathers erupts in front of him as a bird
takes flight, barely missing his face in its haste to escape the
intrusion.

Rob doesn’t flinch—another product of his
training.

He turns to the rear and signals the sign for
all clear
. His fellow soldiers materialize from the
landscape. In the same way they blended into their surroundings a
few moments ago—watching them materialize never ceases to amaze
him. Seeing it reminds him these men are not just soldiers—they’re
magicians.

His sergeant signals for him to continue on
their mission but as Rob turns, the ground below him erupts in
golden flames. As quickly as the brain functions, his mind never
registers what is happening. In the space of a millisecond,
darkness converges on him and wraps him in its unfeeling cloak of
silence.

“
Hey everybody, come look at
this!”

Paul feels the crowd push closer and he fidgets
nervously. His eyes dart away from the screen—the distraction is
brief, but it’s almost enough to kill his virtual character. They
continue to press in and he finds it harder to breath. The odor
wafting from their bodies threatens to send him into an asthmatic
fit. He tries to ignore them and concentrate on the
game.

The arcade is noisy. Kids shriek in delight or
disgust at the games they are playing—sometimes it’s hard to tell
the two apart.

Other than the children, all the other noises
are artificial. To the right are the racing games—the kind where
the player can actually sit in a mockup of an actual racecar.
Revving engines, squealing tires, and wrecking vehicles add to the
mix of noise. To the left are the kiddie games with lots of
flashing lights, carnival music, and ringing bells. Here in the
center of the arcade, where Paul is currently playing, are all the
war games. Grenades explode, rifles pop, and machine guns clatter
in symphony to the artificial sound of dying men. As noisy as it
can be, Paul can barely hear any of it now. The slight distraction
he felt a few seconds ago is now gone, replaced by such a deep
concentration that the surrounding auditory flood barely registers
in his mind—like hearing the ocean in a sea shell.

Like gas fumes tickling an open flame, news of
Paul’s potential feat sparks an vague curiosity in those present.
Some leave their games unfinished, just to see what the commotion
is all about.

An Act of War
’s concave screen stretches
approximately eight feet from the floor and wraps 150 degrees
around Paul. Players stand in front of the screen using black
plastic, wireless sub-machine guns. While two players can play the
game simultaneously, Paul is playing alone, but in two-player
mode—holding a gun in each hand.

There are endless levels of war playing out on
screen. Like most games of this nature, the objective is for the
player to shoot his or her way through the enemy and survive as
long as possible, thereby gaining the highest score. Since the
game’s arrival a few months before, Paul and several friends have
made it a personal challenge to knock
A.M.Y.
off the top of
the leaderboard. They have no idea who
A.M.Y.
is, but that
doesn’t deter them from wanting their own name at the top. So far,
Paul’s come the closest. His initials fill four of the top five
spots.

But he wants that
top
spot.

It might be a vicious rumor, but the word is
there’s a hidden contest associated with
An Act of War
.
Whoever beats
A.M.Y.
wins not only a copy of the game to
play at home, but a cash price too. How much? Nobody seems to know.
As far as Paul is concerned, the contest isn’t legit either. It
doesn’t matter to him one-way or the other, he just wants to see
his initials in that top spot. That, in itself, is satisfying
enough.

“
Level fifteen,” someone shouts
behind him, “He's made it to fifteen!”

“
Who cares,” says another voice,
some girl standing behind him and to his right. “It’s not about the
level, it’s about the score.”

A few seconds later, someone begins to chant,
“Paul, Paul, Paul, Paul...”

Near the front of the building is the main
counter. It’s full of stuffed animals and cheap plastic toys—and
each display has a large number written on a plastic card in front
of it—the bigger the toy, the larger the number. Many of the games
provide tickets based on scores and levels reached during gameplay.
The more tickets a person wins, the better the toy he or she can
trade.

Behind the counter, Mr. Ervin, the arcade’s
owner, steps into a small office. The chanting of Paul’s name gets
louder and louder each passing second. He plops down into a chair
behind the desk and stares at the telephone. He contemplates not
making this phone call, but if he doesn’t, they will still discover
what’s going on here. If he doesn’t make the call, he could lose
everything.

He reaches out a shaking hand and plucks the
handset from the cradle. Ordinarily, he would have discarded the
outdated phone years ago, but landlines are still the safest and
most secure method of holding a conversation. He dials slowly—from
memory, using a number that’s been imbedded in his mind for years
now.

Somebody picks up after the second
ring.

“
Yes.”

“
Mr. Singleton?” he asks, voice
shaking in time with his hands. He pulls the phone away and clears
his throat.

“
Ah, yes, Mr. Ervin. How may I help
you?”

Why with the stupid, rhetorical questions,
Ervin thinks. He knows why I’m calling.

“
I think I’ve got someone about to
beat the high score on
An Act of War
.” A chorus of amplified
cheers echo through the building. “Or maybe he just
did…”

“
Very interesting, Mr. Ervin. I'll
be there shortly.” Singleton terminates the call and Ervin replaces
his end of the phone in the cradle. Something about talking to
Singleton always makes him uneasy. The man has never been untoward
or rude in any form, but Ervin always gets the impression that the
man is hiding something. His eyes are always cold and never mirror
the polite, good-natured tone of voice.

Ervin exits the office and joins the crowd
surrounding Paul. He cheers and celebrates with everyone but
despite his outward, cheerful demeanor, he keeps a wary eye on the
front door for Mr. Singleton.

Paul has never heard such cheering in his life.
The game speakers still echo the last gunshots, but the cheering
crowd around him drowns out the sound. They’re cheering for
him...
for him
! Paul Gest, seventeen-year-old computer geek,
school nerd, voted most likely to never marry by the senior class,
never won a thing in his life, and now look at him. He’s the object
of all this attention.

Suddenly, George Ervin is standing in front of
him, violently pumping his hand up and down. He’s a short fellow
with thinning hair and a beard, once dark brown, but now sprinkled
with more white than anything. All the kids love him. The large gap
between his two front teeth causes him to whistle when he speaks,
making all the kids giggle. Paul’s known him since he was young.
Mr. Ervin (or, Whistling George as most of the kids call him) is
kind of like the hometown preacher, always been here, always will
be.

“
Congratulations, Paul.
Congratulations!” George leads him through the throng of people and
to the front counter.

Someone shouts, “Paul, you forgot to put your
name in the machine!”

“
Excuse me a second, will you, Mr.
Ervin?”

“
Sure, sure, go ahead.”

As Paul moves back through the crowd, Aaron
Singleton steps off the sidewalk and into the arcade. George sees
him enter and a feeling of foreboding settles in the pit of his
stomach. Singleton’s head swivels, taking in the room, his
artificial smile beaming false amusement. Ervin sees that grin from
across the room and he thinks it would look more appropriate on the
head of a demon than on Aaron Singleton.

Back at the game, Paul uses one of the plastic
guns to shoot at a large alphabet on screen. He can choose up to
six letters but he settles on just his name and an exclamation
point—the four letters written in all caps. He shoots the submit
selection and the screen immediately switches to the
leaderboard.