Page 65 of Moonstruck
Once they walked up the steps, Asa nudged Zane to walk around the side of the house, listening to the faint squeak of hinges as Zane opened a gate to the backyard. Asa was a little disappointed when no shadow moved behind the curtains until he heard Zane let out a sort of cut-off yelp.
Asa forced himself to walk until he was out of sight of the passing cars, then bolted through the gate only to run directly into Zane’s back. He appeared to have found Eric enjoying the sunny weather by the pool. He was shirtless, wearing only a black and red bathing suit. He was also brandishing a barbeque fork.
“—here to hurt you,” Zane was saying, hands up where Eric can see them.
“Who the fuck sent you?” Eric asked in a stage whisper, poking the air with his makeshift weapon.
“Nobody sent us. We need your help,” Zane said, keeping his voice calm.
Asa didn’t intervene, but he did keep himself plastered against Zane’s back, ready to step in if he had to. But he wanted to see how Zane fared under pressure. Though, he’d had Jericho’s gun to his head and had been cold as a cucumber. Maybe it was an act, or maybe this was. Zane was a complicated guy.
“My help?” Eric asked. “Who are you?”
Zane glanced back at Asa, who nodded for him to keep going. Zane gave a stilted nod in return. “My name is Zane Scott. My brother played the game.”
There was no missing the shock of recognition in the boy’s there-and-gone wide-eyed response. It was quickly replaced with wariness. “What game?” he asked, clearly knowing the answer.
“Thegame. The game that ended his life,” Zane said.
Eric’s hand trembled at Zane’s words. “Why should I believe you?”
“Why would we lie? Do you think we’d just wander into your backyard in broad daylight if we were? My brother’s name was Gage. He wasn’t suicidal. He died anyway. I’m just looking for answers.”
Eric’s gaze darted back and forth between the two of them. Asa didn’t blame him for being nervous. The game master was enough to creep out anybody who had the ability to be uneasy. Asa just wasn’t one of those people. To him, this game master guy sounded desperate, like he was trying too hard to be the villain. But then, Asa never had to work hard to be the bad guy. He was born that way.
“You can keep the meat fork if it makes you feel safer,” Asa reasoned. “But nobody followed us. We won’t tell anybody where you are. If you help us, we can find the game master and you can get your life back,” Asa offered.
Eric’s face paled beneath his golden tan. “You can’t end the game. The game ends when you die.”
“How do you know that?” Zane asked, gesturing towards the chairs under the awning of the patio before pulling one out and carefully sitting down so as not to spook their host. Eric hesitantly did the same, white knuckling the meat fork as he sat. Asa opted to stand, leaning against the post so he had eyes on both the boys and the back gate. Just in case.
“How do you know the end of the game is your death?” Zane asked again.
“Other than my fellow students dropping like flies?” Eric asked bitterly.
Zane winced. “Yeah, other than that.”
“It started with my marketing class,” Eric said, as if that made perfect sense. “And this.”
He turned his forearm over to reveal faint lines from what were obviously healing cuts. Someone had carvedI’m already deadinto his skin. “I only vaguely remember doing it.”
“You did that to yourself?”
“Yeah, with a piece of glass. I puke at the sight of blood. I would have never done this to myself voluntarily.”
“You’re saying somebody made you do this to yourself?” Zane asked. “Like you were drugged? Or like hypnosis?”
Eric gripped the meat fork’s handle with both hands, like he needed something concrete to hold onto. “That’s what I thought at first, too. Drugs. Hypnosis. But then I remembered my marketing class. Lesson one: Advertising. Chapter one: Subliminal messaging.”
“Like splicing porn into kid’s movies inFight Club?” Asa asked, earning an exasperated look from Zane.
Eric nodded solemnly. “Theoretically, yeah. The videos my handler had me watch didn’t start out disturbing, but by the fourth one, I would get sick watching things that appeared perfectly innocent. I was depressed, distracted, paranoid. In between the videos were activities, some ridiculous, like drawing a purple cat on a piece of paper or drawing a red X on the back of your hand. But that was when I realized they were driving home that they could always see us. That they were always watching.”
“They had access to your camera?” Zane clarified.
“My webcam, my phone cam, but it went further than that. The seventh task was to go to a specific train track at a specific time and lie down on the tracks. We had to set a stopwatch and stay there until the alarm went off, even if the train was coming. I’d decided to blow it off and go to a party instead. That was when the messages started coming.”
Zane leaned in, expression equal parts fascinated and horrified. “What did they say?”
