The Table.

Just a few hours ago there had been six men at this table all waiting for they’re destiny to be sealed but that was exactly what HAD happened. Now there was only Jack and me.

The four other men still sat around the table smelling and rotting, mere shadows of their former selves. Now they were dead. Suicide. They had all blown there own heads off for the chance of becoming a millionaire.

Now it was my turn and now it was getting VERY dangerous. It was down to only a 50/50 chance of survival. All six of the men at the table had been wealthy men at one time and had brought they’re last $500,000 as entry fee to the game. As a result the wining man would take $3,000,000 home with him at the end of the night.

I was in real trouble I had borrowed 1.5 million from a loan shark to get my business up and running a couple of years ago and the business went belly up last month. Now he was threatening to kill me and once he’d finished with me he was going to go after my family for the money.

Jack had come to me and offered me a way out. If I died he would keep my family safe from the loan shark and if I won I would be able to pay the loan shark. It was a win/win situation.

There was one bullet in this gun. That meant 5 empty chambers. Simple good luck had chosen me to go first in this round.

I picked the gun up from the table and looked at it with fear. This thing would either make me a millionaire or worm food.

I closed my eyes and tilted my head back. I knew that if this gun went off in my head there was no chance of me surviving this thing could put a large hole in an elephant it could take my head right off.

*CLICK*

Nothing…

I placed the gun back on the table with a sigh of relief.

“Your turn Jack.” I said as I stared into his eyes.

He looked so calm. I suddenly felt as though I had been set up. I was getting paranoid.
Jack had arranged this game. His men were loading the gun at each round. Perhaps they had rigged it so that Jack would win.

*CLICK*

He dropped the gun on the table and smiled at me.

It was my turn again and the odds of it gun being empty had been reduced to 3 in 4 which might sound like good odds but when your playing with your life those are small.

I felt my hand shake as I raised the gun to my head one more time. I thought of my wife and my son and how happy they had been when I last saw them.

I pulled the trigger again and suddenly the fear was gone.

*CLICK*

It had been empty.

A huge smile spread across my face as I clumsily dropped the gun onto the table.

I looked Jack in the eye and I could see he was beginning to get afraid. The fear in his eyes made me feel better because I knew it wasn’t a set up and that perhaps I was going to win this game.

Jack looked around us at the men standing I the corners of the room. All hidden by the shadow cast down by the lamp over this small, round, blood stained table.

*CLICK*

Once again the chamber had been empty.

The gun slid across the table prompted by Jacks fat hand. He glanced up and me as I reached for the gun and made eye contact before letting his grip on the gun loosen.

The game was getting really dangerous now. There were only 2 chambers left and one of them contained the bullet. I considered turning the gun on Jack and making a run with the money. It would be so easy. I could blow his brains pout and grab the suitcase then go back to my family, pay off the loan shark and live happily ever after.

I began to turn the gun around when I remembered about the men in the shadows.

I would have to take this turn like a man. I raised the gun to my head and stared blankly into Jacks eyes. I could now see something, which I never noticed before. I never knew a man like Jack was capable of feeling such fear. His eyes were beginning to flood out with tears. I cocked back the firing pin in the old cannon and closed my eyes. As I tilted my head backwards I said a small prayer to the lord then pulled the trigger again.

I could feel shock around the room as for the fifth time the gun clicked to the next chamber.

I was still alive but Jack was horrified. He was going to die and he knew it. I wondered to myself why a man with such a great fear of death would arrange a game of Russian roulette. I thought better of asking him since I could see he was in no fit state to answer anyway.
I gave him a final glance of sympathy before placing the gun into his hand one last time.

I put on a face of sympathy and understanding but deep down inside I was desperate to jump around a scream with happiness and joy.

I felt guilty because I found such happiness in another mans death but I couldn’t help it.

All of my problems were solved. I was a millionaire. I could pay off all of my debts and still have enough left over to start to live happily with my wife and my son.

“I’m sorry.” Mumbled Jack as he put the gun to his head

*BANG*

He sprayed bits of his skull all over the back of the room. And as he did so I let out a huge sob of laughter.

I was so happy. Nothing could bring me down. At that moment the lights in the room came on and for the first time I was allowed to see the men standing around the room.

I recognised one of the faces. He had been working for the same man as the loan shark who I borrowed the money from. He clicked his fingers and a couple of the other men disappeared out of the door of the room. They returned a moment later with my wife and my son.

The largest of the men in the shadows took the money from the side of the table and left the room. Next one of them grabbed me and bound my hand behind my back.

“You screwed us over.” He said to me.
“I didn…”
“SHHH!” he interrupted. “The boss wasn’t happy when he found out about your adventures. With his money.”

He picked up my son and snapped his neck.

“NOOOO!!” I cried as the child’s body slumped to the floor. “You monster.”

“You brought this on yourself.” He said to me as he approached my wife.

He grabbed my wife’s head in the same way that he had grabbed my sons. Only he slid his hands down to her breasts and gave them a squeeze.

“Do you like that?” he asked me.

I grunted and spat at him.

“How about this then.” He said as he moved his hands further down and thrust his fingers into her cunt.

She was squirming and trying to break free but the men were too strong for her.

I jumped forward and broke the grasp the man had on me but before I could reach my wife I had been punched in the gut.

The pain sent me to my knees instantly.

He pulled out a large knife and thrust it deep into my wife’s stomach. I could hear her begin to choke on her own blood and then she too dropped to the floor in a lifeless pile next to my son.

Then he turned on me.

“Pick him up.” He ordered a couple of the other men.

They pushed me against the wall and spread my arms.

“Look at this…” he said as he brought a nail gun from the bag he was carrying. “Now were gonna use you as an example not to mess with us.”

They nailed through my wrists and through my ankles to the wall. I had been essentially crucified and I was slowly bleeding to death.

“Now for the finishing touches. You PRICK!” he scowled as he thrust the huge knife up under my ribs.

I was almost unconscious from the pain. But he continued to take the knife and write one the wall with my blood.

“What do you think?” he said to me but I couldn’t find the energy to reply.

“DON’T FUCK WITH MICKY CORLIONE!”

He turned round and left the room. The other men followed and I was left hanging from the all to slowly die in peace.

I looked down at my wife and at my son then looked over at the table and the 5 dead men sitting around it. Then I closed my eyes and waited for them to become too heavy to open ever again.