Luck of the Draw
Luck of the Draw
The ultimate test. A gold door. A terrifying secret.
I reach the door to the staging bunker in the pre-dawn hours of the morning. The soaring skeleton of rusting metal bleachers built over the bunker stands empty. How many will make the trip to witness my run? Not that I care.
To the east, a soft glow peeks over the horizon, silhouetting the jagged skyline of the old city. It almost makes that rotting shithole look pretty, in a way. Innocent, even.
I stop in front of the door and realize that once I enter, I’ll never lay eyes on that skyline again. I’ll never see my home again.
There’s nothing there for me anymore.
The door to the bunker is unlocked, as Doc said it would be. The space is long and narrow, walled in by windowless, gray cinderblock. When I close the door behind me, the only light comes from a single, barred gate on the opposite wall that leads to the lawn.
I walk to the bars and stare out to see the cold night sky beginning its retreat from the advancing hues of the waking sun. A few defiant stars make their last stand.
I tug on the bars but the gate is locked. I squint as I try to see the far end of the lawn. Even in the relative darkness, I can make out a soft glint from the arched rectangle of gold at the top of the stairs. The Gilded Door. A doorway to dreams. The only entry point in the vast, monolithic wall surrounding the Pool of the Ancients. The towering ivory stone appears to hold up the very sky itself.
I’ve heard countless stories about what lies behind that wall. Some truth to be sure but mixed with the fantastical embellishments of legends and fairytales, most often told to young girls at bedtime. Today, I’m going to find out. I’m going to make it to that door, even if it kills me.
How many hours until game time? I wish I could have slept, at least a little. I can’t believe we don’t get drugs for this shit. For sleep, I mean.
It’s Monday. My day. Even before I drew the tile, I knew I was going to pull Monday. Just my luck. Old Betty said that everyone used to hate Mondays, back then.
Hate. Hate is easy. Fear is hard. Did they fear Mondays, back then? I’m sure some people did. I do. At least this one. I’m scared to death of this day. My day.
God, I hate Mondays.
Deep breath, Kell. Focus. Anything less than perfect out there and you’re fucked. Fini. Toast. Just another sprinkling of fertilizer on the lawn, another spatter of fresh paint on the ornaments. Like Billy.
It was Billy’s day yesterday. Sunday. The Lord’s Day, as some people used to call it. Sunday used to be a day of rest, is what Old Betty told me. I wish I had gotten some rest.
Billy got to rest.
Billy was magnificent. Machine perfection. We all thought she was going to make it. She made it to the apple trees that lined the final approach to the door. Who the fuck waters those trees?
Billy moved like water. I’ve never seen anyone move like that. She was magnificent. Until she stumbled. A moment of imbalance. Her final moment.
How? How did that happen? It could have been sweat in her eyes that screwed up a near-flawless performance. More likely, though, it was Doc. I saw the way Doc smirked when the machines were scooping up Billy’s intestines and sucking up the smaller pieces.
Rest in peace, Billy.
Doc hated Billy, mostly because of her looks and the attention she gave to everyone else but Doc.
Doc controlled the lucky charms. Superpowers in a pill. Poppers in a rainbow of colors that could give you the extra boost you need to make it to the Door.
You really could make it if you pulled the right one. Many girls have. The problem is, you never know what you’re going to get, and color don’t mean shit. Purple might give one girl super strength. Another girl gets purple and she might get speed, or maybe special eyes. I remember one of the girls got scales, like a snake. Point is, any color could give you almost anything you can imagine, and samesies are rare. It’s all luck of the draw.
I suppose there’s risk in not knowing, but we need every advantage we can get out there. Endless practice, lots of luck, and the poppers. Our lucky charms.
Everyone pops before a run. Everyone.
I remember the moments before Billy’s run. I remember Doc walking up to Billy and holding up her black leather bag full of lucky charms. Billy closed her eyes, reached in, and dug around, scrunching her face in mock determination to find the perfect one. She really hammed it up. She could be funny like that sometimes.
Finally, she pulled one out and held it up in front of Doc like it was the find of the fucking century. “Well, would you look at that, Doc? Green. Green just happens to be my lucky color,” she declared and then tossed it into her big, dumb mouth.
That’s when I heard Doc say to Billy, “Good luck.”
Doc never says that. To anyone. Ever. Doc smiled, too. She never smiles.
If I make it to that door, Billy, I swear I’ll find a way to come back here and pop that bitch’s head off. I’ll do that for you. I just need to reach that Door. I need to make it across the lawn.
The lawn. One hundred yards of fresh-cut grass. A walled-in stretch of immaculate green, surrounded by the endless grays and browns of our dead world. It’s the only place you can see flowers. Poppies, mostly, but there are tulips and lilies, too. Old Betty showed me pictures in a book once and taught me all the names.
They change the flowers out every season, but they are always red. Easier to hide the blood, I suppose.
No sign of Billy’s guts. No fresh paint on the pink birds stuck in the lawn. In fact, there is no sign of any violence at all. Somehow, the day after a run, the lawn looks miraculously untouched. This morning, the lawn appears as it does every morning before a run — a meticulously manicured killing ground.
The sun is in the sky now, but still low enough that the shadow from the east wall blankets the lawn. The shadow still covers most of the west wall, too, save for a thin sliver of light running across the top edge. About an hour to go, maybe less.
What was that? Something in the shadows down by the poppies. A bird? No, probably not.
Much like the lawn, the walls look the same as they do every day. But they mess with the walls, too, somehow. For every run, the walls contain something new and surprising. Hidden things. Deadly things. Sometimes darts. Sometimes acid. Blades, always.
I’m not so worried about the gizmos in the walls. I always fly through that stuff without a scratch during practice runs. I’m much more worried about the gen-mod nightmares that will be waiting in the cages near the apple trees. I can do darts. I can do blades. But those fucking monsters, like the one that killed Billy? Gives me the creeps.
I tried giving the creatures names but it’s impossible to get a good look at them, I can’t tell them apart. From the bleachers, they always seem blurry, like they have some kind of optical distortion field around them. The field is always glitchy, though, so you can catch small glimpses, fleeting clarity of horrifying things. I’ve seen hints of claws, teeth, tongue, tissue, and exposed organs in reds, greens, and blues. Mostly reds. The beasts are massive. Giant demons walking the Earth.
How the fuck do they make those things?
I call them all Frankie now. I got it from one of the old books Betty reads to the girls at night when she wants to give them a good scare.
As if in response to my thoughts, a terrifying squeal pierces the still silence of the morning air, echoing down the long barrel of the field. It’s one of them for sure. The sound is like rusted steel being run across a grinding stone. It raises the hairs on the back of my neck and makes me feel sick. My hands are shaking. I need to get over it. No fear, Kell. Deep breath. In. Out. In. Out. Today is my day.
Can I take a sick day? Old Betty said people did that all the time, back then. Where the hell is Doc?
The sunlight is more than halfway down the west wall now. Not much time left before they open the gate. Not much time until it’s my time to shine.
I feel so tired. No lucky charms for sleep, though. You’d think a popper for sleep would be an easy thing to make, but Doc can’t give you shit to help you sleep.
Where is she? It’s almost time. I hope I don’t get a purple one.
I watch as the rising sun pushes the shadow on the west wall towards the ground, towards start time. As soon as sunlight touches the lawn, the fun begins.
The door to the bunker opens and a warm wash of light pours into the cold space. Doc stands in the doorway, her draping, white linen outfit billows in the light breeze. Her silvery gray hair is, as always, pulled into a single, perfect braid, every hair accounted for. Same braid, every day. The hair is woven so tight, it pulls her face taut and gives her a look of constant scorn.
“Good morning, Kell. Would you like a body enhancement for your run?” she asks, staring at me blankly through her round, black-framed spectacles.
Finally.
“Hell yeah, Doc, I’m feeling a little slow. I need a good one. Wish me luck?”
Doc doesn’t say a word as I reach into the bag. Even though I know it won’t make a difference, I carefully inspect each pill, rolling the small spheres between my fingertips. I try to detect the slightest variation, like maybe the right one will feel special somehow, like it will call out to me in some way. But no, they all feel the same. The only sensation I feel is the impatient stare Doc is giving me.
I close my eyes, pull my hand from the bag, and quickly put it behind my back. I don’t want to see it. I don’t want anyone to see it, especially Doc. Maybe I’ll just swallow it without looking at the color. I mean, color don’t mean shit, right?
“Kell?” Doc asks, demanding to see what I pulled.
I bring my left hand around and slowly open my fingers. Finally, I open my eyes and look down. There, in the center of my palm is a glossy black lucky charm.
Black? I don’t think I’ve ever seen a black one before.
“Doc?”
She’s already walking away. Is she smiling?
It’s so small. Is this tiny thing really going to get me all the way to the Door? What if I don’t take it? No, Kell, that’s stupid. Everyone pops, and sometimes they make it.
The first horn sounds. About ten minutes to start time. No time to think about it. Down the pipe, let’s hope it’s a good one.
I hear the pounding of feet on the bleachers above me. I wasn’t sure if anyone was going to show up. Everyone made the journey to watch Billy. Everyone loved her. We all cheered for her together as she made it past each challenge and outmaneuvered every trap. We all screamed in horror when she got skewered by Frankie. We all cried for her.
I’m crying for her.
No more of that. I can’t worry about that right now.
I think the popper is working. I definitely feel something. A tingle. Gotta be the popper. It feels good. I wonder what superpower I will get.
The light on the west wall is inches from the lawn. Very soon, now.
More feet above, but I know they’re only here to watch me die. Billy is the only one who would have cheered for me, who would have wanted me to make it. She would be here in the bunker with me right now. The rest are just here for the entertainment. Fuck them.
I’m at the gate now. Let’s do this. The bars feel like ice. Looking out at the lawn, I can see every blade of grass. I mean every fucking blade. My hands…my god, what is happening to my hands?
Sunlight brushes against the tips of the grass on the west edge of the lawn and the starting horn sounds. The gate opens and I step out onto the thick turf. I can feel every blade beneath my feet. There’s not a sound except for the crunching of the grass beneath my feet. What the fuck happened to my boots?
I look up and behind me to see who’s watching. So many faces. More than I thought would show up. Dozens and dozens of faces, all staring at me with shock and fear in their eyes. They don’t make a sound.
Deep breath. Focus, Kell. It’s game time. I feel really fucking good right now. I’m going to make it, I know I am.
I look towards the Gilded Door. I can see the apple trees as if they are right in front of me. They look taller from the ground. I can see every leaf from here—every single leaf. And the apples, so many apples, they all look so big. I’ve never seen an apple that big.
Snap out of it, Kell. Time is running out. The sun is expanding its claim on the lawn, creating a widening band of bright chartreuse that runs all the way to the steps. My path, illuminated. It’s decorated with poppies, tulips, and lilies. Time to hustle, Kell. I need to reach those steps before the sun touches the east wall.
Just as I’m about to take another step, I feel something pull at my insides. My body contracts. Pain. Unbelievable pain.
I blink and the universe explodes.
Sleep. Glorious sleep. I fall into the void, it wraps me in its thick, heavy folds. I dream about a fountain with water. So much water. I’m eating an apple by the fountain. There are fish. Real fish, with giant puffy heads, swimming in the fountain. The apple is bright red, the color of the poppies in the sunlight. The fish are white, red, orange, and black. They are beautiful.
But soon, one of the fish begins to eat the others. As it eats a fish, it gains another head, another mouth, another set of eyes. Five, six, and then seven fish are incorporated.
That’s strange. I take a bite of the apple. In my periphery, I notice a pulse, concentric rings ripple out across the water. I pause mid-bite and stare at the glassy surface. There it is again, another tremor. More rings. The fish scatter.
Just a few more minutes, that’s all I need. I sure would love to finish this apple. It’s so juicy and sweet, I’ve never tasted anything so good.
A violent bump, now. The fountain vanishes.
“Oh, muh fockin hed,” the words tumble drunkenly from my mouth as I rub my eyes. Everything is blurry and my brain feels like mush.
As my vision and mind slowly come into focus, I realize I’m sitting on the ground. Dappled light dances on my outstretched legs. Two large apples lay in the grass beside me and there is one in my hand. It’s so red.
Apples? I let my head fall back and stare up into the leafy branches of the large apple tree I’m leaning against. One of the apples in the tree suddenly drops from its branch and lands near my feet with a dull thud.
I try to stand up too fast. The world spins and tips at odd angles. I brace against the tree until I’m confident I can stay on my feet. Next, a full body check. My clothes are shredded and burned in places. I’m covered in dirt and blood. A serious-looking gash runs the full length of my left arm. I try to pull my fingers through my hair, but it’s caked in blood. What the fuck happened?
I look again at the apple in my hand and then to my left. There, just a few feet away are a series of steps. Twelve steps leading up to a door. A gold door. The Gilded Door.
I can’t help but laugh out loud, even though it makes my side hurt. “How about that, Billy? I fucking made it. You couldn’t even do this. You! But I did. I made it.”
For you.
I look back at the lawn I don’t remember crossing. My eyes go immediately to a large plume of smoke rolling off blackened bleachers above the bunker gate. Bodies are strewn everywhere. Several are draped over the wall. I see two down on the lawn. The smoke rises from a mass of bodies piled near the exit stairs. Was that me? Did I do that?
The sun, now directly above, shines down upon a hellish scene. I am reminded of the old city. Large sections of the walls are toppled. Much of the once-green lawn is scorched and pocked with smoking craters. Thick smoke blankets the ground and gives off a foul odor. I look to the spot where the red poppies grew. They are nothing but black ash now.
One of the holding pens near the trees is open. About a dozen feet from the pen are the remains of one of the creatures. It looks like a fleshy, bloody stew, like the goulash Old Betty makes from time to time. A few large chunks are floating in the goop. Singed, pale-blue flesh is stretched across a shattered rack of rib bones. A lower jaw the size of my torso sports several rows of pointed teeth. And there, at the edge of the sludge, looking as if it had attempted to crawl out of the muck is a torn limb ending in a tangle of twisted, clawed fingers.
I look at my own hands. They look like hands again. How could I have done all of this?
My lucky charm, that’s how. I pulled a good one. A really good one. I wonder if all the blacks are special. Maybe Doc juiced the bag, as she did with Billy, but in my favor this time. Maybe she felt bad about Billy.
This doesn’t fix anything, though. I’m still going to pop her fucking head off.
I hear a click behind me and turn to see the Gilded Door is ajar. I guess that’s my cue to enter.
Okay, Kell, let’s go.
I never thought I would be this nervous. We all dream about reaching the door. We train for this from the second we can hold a knife.
I count each step as I walk up the stairs.
“One.” What is behind the door?
“Two.” Who is behind the door?
“Three.” Will they hate me?
“Four.” Will they be disappointed?
“Five.” I hope they love me. I want them all to love me.
“Six.” I feel lighter. The weight of my old life is falling away.
“Seven.” Like shedding skin.
“Eight.” I will walk naked into the Pool of the Ancients and be baptized in the waters of miracles.
“Nine.” At least that’s how Old Betty tells it. I’m not sure what it means, though.
“Ten.” I just want to wash this shit out of my hair. Clean my arm.
“Eleven.” I could use a drink right now.
“Twelve.” I think I’ve earned it. I bet they have the good stuff in there.
I grab the edge of the tall door, its thickness roughly half the length of my hand. It feels smooth and the sun has made it warm to the touch. The surface is completely devoid of any ornamentation and there is no pull of any kind.
So, open it, Kell. What are you waiting for?
Do I really need to find out what’s behind this door? I could turn around and just walk away. Go home, back to Shithole City.
I look again at the bodies in the stands. They don’t seem to be laughing now. I could start over, be somebody else.
Fuck it.
I pull the door open wide enough to slip through. After my eyes adjust to the darkness, I find myself in a narrow corridor. The only light is the sun coming in through the open door, extending several feet until it tapers off into complete darkness. In the center of that darkness, no telling how far, I see a small rectangle of light.
As soon as I take my first step, the darkness rushes at me as I hear the door slam shut behind me.
I run back and lean into it but it doesn’t budge, not even an inch.
“Fuck.”
Standing in the dark, I’m reminded of one of Old Betty’s books, the one about a man who gets swallowed by a whale. Like me now, except I’m a girl. Some of the girls think this is the last city of men. I wonder if I’ll see a man in here.
“Hello?”
No man replies. Nothing replies.
Well, no use standing here. There’s only one way to go, Kell, so let’s go. Into the belly of the beast, as Old Betty likes to say.
The corridor is narrow enough that I’m able to run my fingertips along each wall as I walk toward the light. It’s closer than I thought and soon, I can see more detail of the ground and walls surrounding me. I hear a low hum, that seems to be coming from behind the walls.
I enter a large, circular chamber and peer up into blinding bright lights. Looks like a dead end.
“Welcome, Kell. Congratulations on your impressive achievement,” a cold, machine voice speaks to me, its source completely undetectable. “Please proceed to the center of the room to receive further instructions.”
Something feels off.
Where is the Pool of the Ancients? I haven’t seen a single drop of water much less a fucking pool. I ignore the screaming voice telling me to run.
Suddenly, the low hum becomes a loud rumble. The floor shakes and my stomach sinks. The room is moving. I’m moving up.
I continue rising for a long time before the smooth stone walls give way to glass. Now I’m rising through a tower of glass, surrounded by water. So much fucking water. The Pool of the Ancients.
If this truly is a pool of miracles, the miracles don’t look very clean. I cup my hands against the glass and peer into the greenish-brown water, dimly lit from somewhere above.
Staring into the depths of the water is like staring at the clouds in the sky. The light and shadows begin to suggest something recognizable. Objects, people, faces. Then, in the murky shadows, something moves. Something massive. Old Betty would claim it’s a whale, but it doesn’t look like any of the pictures she showed me. Too many parts. Much darker, much scarier.
Whatever it is, it stirs up a cloud of silt and debris that reduces my visibility to near zero. The thick billow of detritus swirls around the glass. I see something round made of yellowed bone tumble into view and then quickly disappear, back into the cloud. It looked like a skull. A human skull.
Calm down, Kell. It could have been anything. The popper is still messing with your head, that’s all. Playing tricks on your eyes. Nothing to fear.
The floor shakes. A few feet above my head, a divide between water and air descends into view. Just above the waterline, the rim of the glass tower I’ve been traveling through descends into view. I continue my ascent until finally, my head crests the rim and I’m almost overwhelmed by the warm, humid air thick with the smell of salt.
The floor comes to a jerking halt, level with the top of the glass. The platform I’m on is a small island surrounded by water that reaches easily twice the length of the lawn in any direction, all contained by black stone walls. There is a single ring of lights circling the entire perimeter, all pointed down into the water. Directly above me, I see nothing but unyielding darkness.
Time passes. I’m met with nothing but the soft sound of the water against the glass. Am I supposed to do something? Say something? I don’t remember this part in any of the stories.
“Hello? I’m…umm…I’m here? I made it. Is someone there?”
“Hello, Kell.”
An answer from the darkness. A familiar voice.
Then, I see a figure coming towards me. They’re walking on water. This has to be one of the miracles. But then a strip of lights runs down the path built out over the water. The lights overtake the figure and continue towards me until they get to a point about 20 yards short of the island.
“Congratulations. That was quite a performance, Kell. I have never witnessed its equal. Bravo.” Doc claps slowly.
“Doc? What’s going on? What is this?”
“Your destiny, Kell. And our salvation.”
Something terrifying breaks the water. Its spine is lined with flailing limbs. Arms, legs, and other unrecognizable appendages. There are faces, too, in the crevices of the bloated, black flesh. But what makes my blood run cold is that I can hear them scream. Dear god, the faces are screaming. Girls are screaming, suddenly silenced as the behemoth submerges back into the dark waters.
“What the fuck is that?” My heart is pounding. My field of vision contracts and I feel like I’m going to vomit.
“As I said, it’s your destiny, Kell. Your body’s chemistry just happens to respond in a very specific way to the stimulants — the lucky charms, as you girls like to call them. That reaction combined with your extraordinary performance are markers for a very special genetic coding we look for.”
“Okay, I’m special. So what? What happens now?”
“You will be assimilated into one of the creatures,” she points to the water. “These specimens, however, are nothing like the ones you faced on the lawn. Those are experiments, our way to improve the assimilation process if we can. These are larger. Much larger. Ten times as strong and a hundred times more vicious. We have found a way to grow gods, Kell. But growing a god takes time. Some of the creatures in this tank were started long before the collapse, long before you were born. Now you will join with them, just as many others who have come before you.”
I can’t breathe.
“What…what do you mean? Why are you doing this?”
“Men. Men are coming, Kell, as they have done so many times before.
They come to enslave us, to take us from our homes, to force us into bearing their doomed offspring before they slaughter us for food. They come from the West, a brutal, barren place where there is no kindness and no warmth. They will bring gods of their own. Creatures much like ours, grown using only the strongest of their kind. And they are strong, Kell, so very strong.
Believe me when I say this is our only chance of stopping them. You’ll be a hero. Everyone will love you.”
“What about Billy?” I ask and reach my hand behind me feeling for the small pocket sewn into the back of my belt.
“What about Billy?”
“You killed her, didn’t you? I know how much you hated her.”
My fingers slide into the belt pocket and locate the second popper I hid there this morning, slipped out of Doc’s bag without her knowing a thing.
“You think I killed her?” Doc laughed. “Don’t be stupid, girl. You saw her die. I had nothing to do with Billy’s death. The simple answer is that Billy, in all her perfection, was fatally flawed. She was not nearly as perfect as you, Kell. I’ve never seen anyone respond to the stimulants like you did. You are one-of-a-kind.
A very special girl, indeed, which is surprising, really, considering your mother was such a forgettable woman. I honestly can’t remember her name. Your father, however, oh I remember your father. I was very fond of him.
Benjamin was the only man of a handful of peaceful men to join us over the years. He came to us from the East. It’s different there. You and Billy were his only children before he died.
He understood. Benjamin understood what needed to be done. You were his gift to us. He wanted you to save us, don’t you see?”
Her words hit me like an earthquake. The shock sends me stumbling back and knocks the air out of my lungs. My mouth doesn’t wait for my brain to untangle itself. “Sister?” I hear myself speak. “Billy is my sister? Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep us apart?”
Doc responds to my yelling with a cold stare and a calm, matter-of-fact voice, “Because girls are stronger when they grow up alone. Tougher. They learn how to stand up for themselves. How to survive. It activates more of your special qualities. Also, because sisters have too many secrets. Especially twins.”
It’s true. We had many secrets. My twin sister. Somehow, I always knew.
“Enough questions. I need to prepare the creature for assimilation. There is nothing to fear, Kell, I promise you won’t feel a thing.” Doc smiles, turns, and walks back down the path.
Fear is hard, but hate? Hate is strength. I look down and open my clenched fist. Well, would you look at that, Doc? A green one. My lucky color.
Recognition
This story was awarded an Honorable Mention by the judges of the L. Ron Hubbard Writers of the Future Contest.