No, as much as it pained me to give it up, I had to pretend I’d never found the card. I set it on the floor, under the bed but poking out enough that anyone walking into the room would be able to locate it easily. I’d have to find another way.

I took a quick hot shower, toweled off, and got in bed. I was absolutely exhausted, and wasn’t going to get anywhere if I started keeling over from lack of rest.

I fell asleep right away. It was a deep sleep, the kind I used to enjoy in study hall. My unconscious mind was generous enough to give me pleasant dreams out of deference to my conscious nightmare.

I AWOKE several hours later to a knocking at my door. It opened, and Josie stuck her head in.

“Rise and shine. You don’t want to miss the fun.”

I rolled over, groggily, and noticed that a fresh new set of clothes rested on the dresser, folded neatly. The old ones had been removed. I leaned over the side of the bed and saw that the card was gone. Since I wasn’t presently dead, I guessed that they didn’t think I’d noticed it.

I got up, stumbled into the bathroom, and took another shower. The hot water seemed to help a bit.

Then I jumped as if somebody had snapped a bullwhip right by my ear. Every last remnant of grogginess I felt vanished as I realized that I’d left the fax in my jeans pocket.

Chapter 14

I WASN’T going to panic.

I wasn’t going to drop dead of a heart attack.

I was going to be fine. Perfectly fine.

I washed clothes with stuff in the pockets all the time. Almost every time I do laundry I wash some paper currency (this is but one reason Helen rarely asks me to do laundry). One time I ruined several of Helen’s favorite shirts by washing them with a pair of Kyle’s pants that had two full packs of bubble gum in the pockets.

They’d have no reason to check.

They probably weren’t even going to wash the jeans yet.

I probably wasn’t dead meat.

Yeah, right.

I shaved, got dressed, and paced around the room while I waited for somebody to show up. Five minutes later, Josie did.

“I really want to apologize,” I told her as we walked out of the room and down the hallway. “I was a total jerk last night.”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said. Her voice didn’t sound completely like I shouldn’t worry about it, but at least she was trying to be friendly.

We entered the dining room just as Daniel was stepping out of the kitchen, wearing a “Kiss the Chef” apron and holding a plate with an omelet on it, which he set in front of Stan. “Hi there!” he said. “I’m just making my world-famous ham and cheese omelets, without fingers this time, since the cannibal in our group has moved on to bigger and better things. Have a seat!”

I have to admit, it was an incredible ham and cheese omelet. If Daniel ever got bored with torturing and murdering he and Josie could open up a fantastic gourmet restaurant.

Conversation was relaxed, or at least as relaxed as it can be when you’re in a room with five sadistic killers. Well, kidnappers anyway. I had yet to witness a murder. And I hoped I hadn’t jinxed myself by thinking that.

There didn’t seem to be any hint that they’d found the note or noticed the tracks in the yard. And I wondered if perhaps Josie had been the one to bring me new clothes, had discovered her card under the bed in the process of delivering them, and hadn’t said anything to anyone for fear of pissing off Daniel. It was possible.

So where was Thomas?

Maybe dead under that same tree.

We finished our meal, and Daniel stood up. “All right, everyone, last night we had a successful Initiation, so now it’s time to let the games begin!”

“‘Bout time,” said Stan, breaking the hook off of a candy cane and popping the long end into his mouth.

Daniel ignored his comment. “And guess what we’re starting with?”

“Darts?” Mortimer asked, hopefully.

“Darts is correct! Let’s go!”

IT WAS STILL snowing as we stepped outside. I wanted to look over and see if there was any sign of my tracks, but I didn’t want anyone to follow my gaze. We entered the metal structure, and after Daniel punched in a code we went through the door to the right.

Daniel, wearing a lightweight leather jacket, broke into a jog, and the rest of us followed as we headed down a corridor past the gladiator ring. We passed through a crossway, and then he opened another door and we entered a large room.

An immense clear plastic cube took up most of it, about thirty feet square and ten feet high. Inside it looked like a playground jam-packed with equipment: a slide, hanging bars, a climbing rope, and a tire swing. There were also about five large punching bags hanging from the ceiling. Several blue flags and several red ones were randomly placed throughout the cube. The side facing us had a clear plastic door with a sliding lock.

A man, about twenty-five years old with glasses and a black goatee, sat on the bottom of the slide, wearing a blue shirt. A blonde woman who was a few years older was standing in the corner, sliding her hands along the plastic as if searching for a weak spot. She wore a red shirt.

Each side of the cube had what looked like two cannons mounted on it, like the kind in carnivals where you spray the stream of water to make your horse win the race. Each cannon was about ten feet from the nearest corner, with about fifteen feet separating the cannons that shared a side. Beneath each cannon was a small cardboard box. Daniel stepped ahead of us, and then turned around to face us and gestured for us to stop.

“And here we are at our first event, darts. The rest of you know how the game works, but I’ll explain it for Andrew’s benefit. We’re divided into two teams. Josie, Foster, and I will be the red team, and you, Stan, and Mortimer will be the blue team.”

He approached one of the cardboard boxes and reached inside, pulling out a thin metal spike, about three inches long and half an inch thick. “These are the darts. You load them into the shooter as so.” He slid the spike into a hole in the back of the cannon. “To fire, pull the trigger.”

He pulled the trigger, and with a loud snap the spike shot across the cube, striking the far wall and dropping to the floor. “Nice and simple. The people inside, who can’t hear us, by the way, have been told that the first one of them to collect all ten of their flags will be set free. They won’t, of course. That’s just to keep them moving. The game gets pretty boring if they just sit there.”

“And, what, the object is to kill them before they can get the flags?” I asked, wondering how I could possibly put a stop to this.

“Of course not. That would be way too easy. As long as your person is still moving, you get a point every time you hit them. The object is to rack up the most points, which means you have to shred your person bit-by-bit. Hit a vital organ too soon and that’ll cost you the game.”

“Cool,” I said, nodding my understanding. That nod was one of the hardest things I’d ever had to do in my life.

“Everyone grab a spot!” said Daniel. The others hurried to their places, Foster on the far side of the cube across from me, Josie and Mortimer to the left, Stan to the right. I took the spot next to Daniel. “It works like this,” said Daniel, swiveling his cannon up and down, left and right. “Since you only have enough maneuverability to cover about half of the cube, you need to use teamwork.”

I swiveled the cannon. If only it weren’t fixed to the cube. “What if you hit the wrong person?” I asked.

“You no longer get to shoot, and your team loses five points. Don’t do it.”

I had to do something to stop this, but once again I was stuck with no options. At least no good ones. I did have a box full of the darts, but Daniel was fifteen feet away, and I didn’t see any reason why he wouldn’t still have his gun. Could I stroll on over to him before I got shot?