Russian Roulette

Russian Roulette

Thunder boomed over my head, and rain began to fall, I looked forward I was still ten feet away from the doors and the line wasn’t moving. A few people opened up umbrellas, but that wouldn’t buy them much time, I could feel the welts forming on my arms and legs as the burning acid rain hit them, leaving little red splotches wherever I had skin showing. I pulled my baseball cap out of my bag and put it over my shaggy blonde hair, I could last in this rain for a half hour before the rain caused any permanent damage and I could make it an hour before the pain became too great for me to bear.

The year was two thousand thirty-seven, and I was in line to become a contestant on Russian Roulette the hottest game show, hell the hottest show on TV. A man in a dark grey suit walked by looking at everyone in line with disgust, he did a double take as he saw me, and walked over, “Is your name Arnville?”

“Yeah, Robbie Arnville.”

“I thought so; you know you’re the spitting image of your brother.”

“Yeah if you don’t count his height or build, and the fact that I don’t have a hideous scar on half my face.”

He laughed, “Yeah of course,” he seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then took my arm, “Come with me.”

He led me up to the front doors passed about fifty people waiting in line. He took me inside and too a man who needed no introduction, Justin Danger, the host of Russian Roulette. Justin looked just as slimy in person as he did on TV, his face was orange with some cheap spray on tan, and his dark black hair was oily.

“Look who I found waiting out in line.”

Justin smiled as he looked at me, his teeth unnaturally white, I had seen that same smile on a shark. “Why lookee here, you’re Billy’s brother aren’t you?”

“Yes sir!”

“Can I ask why you’re interested in being a contestant?” He put his arm around me, and started walking me toward a big yellow door in the back of the room.

“I got fired from my job a couple of months ago, we, my wife and I that is, have been living off from her paycheck.”

He shook his head sympathetically, “Go on.”

“She doesn’t make a whole lot, and we’ve got four kids. Well the house payment is behind and if I can’t come up with two thousand dollars by the end of the week, we’ll be living on the streets.”

He turned toward the man in the suit who had apparently been following us, “See Andrew this is exactly why I say that only the rich people should be allowed to have children.” I saw Andrew nod in confirmation, Justin opened the door and walked me through, “Well Robbie, welcome to Russian Roulette.”

Justin turned and walked back out the door as I stood in amazement staring at the largest stage that I had ever seen. The audience cheered as they saw me, I must have shown up just in time because I could hear the familiar theme music starting up. All of a sudden a 3-d holographic image appeared saying Russian Roulette, I saw five other doors open and more contestants came walking out of four, the fifth brought Justin back out wearing a tux, how he changed so fast I’ll never know, and he was carrying a microphone. The audience became silent as he began to speak, “Welcome ladies and gentleman, to another exciting game of Russian Roulette. For those of you who do not know how our game works, let me fill you in each contestant on our game are given a gun containing five bullets and one empty cartridge. The last one left alive wins one hundred thousand dollars.” The crowd cheered, “Now let’s meet our contestants.”

I’m going to stop for a minute right here, because this is where most people get confused, I mean who would risk their lives for one hundred thousand dollars, in the old days I hear that you could win a million for picking the right briefcase or answering a few simple questions. At the turn of the millennium reality TV was just hitting its stride by twenty twenty-five, ratings were sinking. Nobody was paying much attention to reality TV, not even the cameramen, they claim that that’s how it happened the first death on reality TV, the network apologized, and paid some significant fines. After all the smoke cleared they realized that it was their highest ratings on the show ever, even the reruns were higher than most shows still on, then it became a weekly event until eventually the games centered around death. Russian Roulette was just the newest in a long line of sick live or die game shows that had been added to the network. Now back to our show.

The first contestant was a small guy not much build, he kept pushing his Clark Kent glasses up his nose. Quite frankly he looked like the quintessential geek, but all that could just be an act. Justin walked up to him mike in hand, “Our first contestant is Jason Wend.” The audience applauded, “Jason is a computer tech from Detroit, MI. He is playing tonight because…” Jason read further down on his little card, he shook his head, “Gambling Jason, in these hard economic times.”

Justin walked over to the next door a short, sexy redhead stood there. She was wearing jeans and a tight t-shirt showing off most of her cleavage. “Well hello.” Jason smiled at her, putting an arm around her, “Jenna here is a substitute teacher, and unfortunately her Mom is real sick and she can’t afford the hospital bills. That’s sad Jenna.”

For a second Jenna looked like she was going to cry, but then her face got serious and she said, “That’s why I’m going to win.”

“Good for you!” Justin went toward the third contestant, but I swear he grabbed Jenna’s boob as he walked away.

The third contestant was a beautiful, tall blond girl, looked like she had just recently turned eighteen, her skirt was too short and her boobs just about popped out of her shirt. “Wow aren’t you a sight?”

She smiled and I swear to God she actually bobbed her head, “Thank you Jason.”

“This is Rhonda, who is apparently here to kick start her modeling career. Like you need any help gorgeous.” Justin walked away toward the fourth contestant

The fourth contestant was huge, he must have been over six feet with broad shoulders, his whole body was muscles. “This is Gary from right here in town ladies and gentleman. Gary I don’t see a reason why you’re doing this listed on the card.”

Gary yanked the mike out of Justin’s hand, “It’s simple! I want to kill some losers!” Then he growled into the microphone, I kid you not.

Justin took back the microphone, and started walking quickly toward me, I think he just wanted to get away from the big guy as fast as possible, he stopped half way too me and turned toward the crowd. “Before I introduce our final contestant, I want to show you some special clips; these clips are from our very first episode.”

All the lights turned off, and a large screen seemed to lower from the ceiling. The screen showed a younger Jason interviewing a twenty year old male, with brown hair and brown eyes like mine. Then the young man spoke nervously, “My name is William Arnville.” It was my brother.

The Justin on the screen smiled, “May I call you Billie?” My brother nodded his accent. Then the picture changed, it showed my brother standing behind a young girl and slitting her throat with a knife, and then screaming out in triumph.

I could feel the rage inside me building as I watched the video, what happened to me, I swore that no matter how bad it got I would not go on this stupid game show.

The next shot showed my brother and another man facing each other, both had their guns drawn. The other man was the first to pull the trigger, but silence filled the whole theater and you could hear the audible click as he found the empty cartridge. Billie actually smiled, and everything on the video went into slow motion, he pulled the trigger. All you could see was an explosion, when the screen cleared half of Billie’s face was hanging off, the gun had backfired.

As blood poured down his face you could see the rage in his eyes, he jumped across the room, where the other guy was searching for his gun, apparently he had dropped it during the explosion. He never found it Billie had his hands around the contestant’s throat before he knew what was happening Billie had choked the life out of him.

The lights came back on and the screen disappeared back into the ceiling. Justin started speaking again, “As every fan of ours know, Billie wasn’t quite right after that. It took a week to pull him out of our jungle room; he killed two security guards in the process. Now all of the money he won is used to pay for the best psychiatric treatment in the world.”

He started walking toward me again, “But tonight only we have a special treat for all you die-hard fans out there. For tonight we have Billie’s brother Robbie Arnville!”

The crowd cheered louder than I have ever heard them cheer before, Gary the big guy started running across the stage toward me. Two security guards and Andrew, the guy who found me in line, were finally able to stop him about five feet away from me.

Gary was glaring at me, he was breathing heavily through clenched teeth, “I’m going to enjoy killing you Arnville.”



Gary almost made it passed one of the security guards then he stopped, and smiled at me. Andrew was standing two feet away from him, “This is you!” He grabbed Andrew around the neck and with one swift motion; he snapped it like a twig. Two more security guards came out and they pushed Gary back to his side of the stage.

Justin stared horrified at Andrew’s limp body lying on the stage, then he turned toward me, “Kill that psycho!”

After a moment to compose himself Justin turned back toward the audience, “With no further ado let’s start Russian Roulette.”

The doors behind each contestant opened back up, and we were urged through, each door now led to a special room, area, whatever you want to call it, and we needed to make it through to find the other contestants. Worse than that, a new part of the game was that they hid our guns somewhere in our first area, and of course they put me in the jungle. I don’t know if it was some kind of solid hologram or if they actually grew a jungle in this place, but it felt real. I wasn’t there for five minutes before I felt beads of sweat stinging my eyes.

I should have been watching for traps. I cursed as a vine tightened around my leg and lifted me up, hanging me upside down from a tree. I was at least ten feet off the ground, as I tried to work myself loose I heard a clinking sound and looked to find another tree ten feet away was opening up, and spears were inside ready to be fired at anybody walking by. Luckily I was too high to be hit, I cursed as I saw the spears move until they were pointing right at me. The bottom fired missing me by inches, I started swinging back and forth, using my body weight to keep in constant movement, then I got lucky one of the spears grazed the rope, causing it to break under the weight from my body.

I lay on the ground dazed, I had landed on my back, and quite frankly it hurt, then I heard the rest of the spears shoot out at once, I jumped behind the tree that I had been hanging from. One of the spears tips made it all the way through the tree scraping my legs. I fell to the ground trying to catch my breath, that’s when Justin’s voice came over the loudspeaker.

“One contestant down.” A panel slid open in the tree and a monitor was under it. On it was Jason, the computer nerd, it was surreal because in front of Jason was another monitor, and on it was me hanging from the tree. The nerd had hacked into the live feed and was using the traps to kill me, too bad he wasn’t paying attention to anything else; on the monitor you could see Gary walk up behind him and just slam Jason’s head into the screen where he had been watching me. Gary slammed him into it again and again, until all that was left was a bloody pulp where Jason’s face had been.

Gary looked into the camera, “That’s one bitches!”

The screen changed now showing me watching the screen I put my hand up and the me on the screen put his hand up, I turned watching the screen until I was facing whatever camera was taping me. I scoured the area then I saw it about twenty feet up a tree across from me, was a camera, and underneath it was my gun. Justin had shown me where it was, I climbed the tree and retrieved my gun. Then began the long trek to the end of this God forsaken jungle.

“Contestant two is down.” I stopped as a monitor opened up in a tree to my left. It showed Rhonda and the redhead, Jenna I think, fighting on what looked like the edge of a cliff, Jenna had gotten the upper hand she was sitting on Rhonda’s upper body and had her gun pointed right at Rhonda’s face. When all of a sudden Rhonda used all her strength to throw Jenna off, causing her to fall down the cliff, the camera followed her body falling until she was impaled on spikes at the bottom. Justin’s voice came back on, “Two down. Ladies and gentleman, a little surprise for you, we have a special guest contestant who has just arrived. So that means that there are still four contestants.”

I shook my head, “Great.” The monitor closed and I began back on my way, heading toward what I hoped was a way out of here, I didn’t want to meet any of the other contestants in this fricking jungle.

Justin came back on, “And good-bye to contestant three.” A monitor opened up in what looked like the air right in front of me. It showed Rhonda kissing Gary, apparently he wasn’t thinking with Big Gary at that moment. I could see Rhonda lift a knife over his back bringing it down toward his neck, but at the last minute he shifted and the knife got lodged in his shoulder. His face filled with rage and I swear he grabbed her around the neck, and broke it with one hand. As the screen went black the air in front of me flickered and I could see a wall, and sure enough the door was only a few feet away.

Unfortunately no sooner had I opened the door, then Gary grabbed me, he threw me against the wall, forcing me to expel all the oxygen in my lungs. He smiled at me, “I’m going to enjoy this.”

Apparently he thought it would be more fun to choke the life out of me, I flailed against him but to no avail. I couldn’t even reach my gun that I had tucked into the waist band of my jeans. Then I saw Rhonda’s knife still sticking out of his shoulder, I yanked it out causing him to loosen his grip enough for me to take a quick breath, but as I sent it toward his neck, he let go of mine with one hand to stop the knifes downward descent. He slammed my wrist into the wall, and I dropped the knife, I gave up, I don’t know how else to put it I let my arms slump to my sides. I could feel all the energy leaving my body. I looked into his eyes and I could see how happy he was, he really was enjoying this.

I heard a deafening bang and all of a sudden Gary’s head was gone. It was just gone, his fingers loosened from around my neck, and his headless body fell to the ground. I took a second trying to catch my breath, then I looked up.

Standing a few feet away was my brother, his face still horribly scarred, a tear streaking down the side of his face that still looked human? “Billie?”

He turned the gun toward me, and I drew mine, “Billie you don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do this. Let’s just walk out.”

Everything seemed to go into slow motion, as I saw Billie start to pull the trigger, my ears were still ringing from the shot he had fired to kill Gary, but I still heard the click as my brother’s gun moved past the empty cartridge slot. I pulled my trigger hitting him right in the middle of his forehead, for just a second he seemed to look at me disbelievingly, then his body dropped to his knees finally falling down face first, showing the gaping hole in the back of his head.

Finally it was over; I fell to my knees weeping.