Perfect Little Monsters and Other Stories Read online

  She watched his finger on the trigger, waiting for him to test her again. For a couple of minutes, she and the Governor sat in silence.

  Finally, slowly, the Governor got to his feet, letting his right hand drop to his side with the gun pointed down at the floor.

  “I can't,” he whispered, his voice still trembling. “I can't break the rules of the game, not even for...” He muttered something under his breath, something about staying focused. “There'll be another chance tomorrow. Round ten, nobody can...” Again his voice trailed off, and again he seemed to be talking to himself. “Tomorrow,” he said again, taking a step back. “Round ten, you can't... I mean, statistically speaking, it's possible but...”

  He looked down at the gun and ran a finger along the side, almost caressing the barrel.

  “No,” he said finally, firmly. “I won't break the rules. We're done here for today, Miss Roper. Round ten will take place tomorrow morning, as usual.”

  Once the guard had untied her arms, Gemma got to her feet and began to make her way to the door. Suddenly, however, the Governor aimed the gun at her face again.

  She stopped.

  Waiting.

  Her mind almost blank.

  “Please don't kill me,” she wanted to beg, but she also wanted to goad him, to make him do it. “Get it over with,” she imagined herself telling him.

  He shook his head, before aiming the gun at Lindsay's dead body and pulling the trigger. A blast rang out and one side of the corpse was blasted away, then he pulled the trigger again and shot the stump of her neck. He tried the trigger twice more, but these were just the empty chambers.

  Gemma paused, wondering whether she was free to go now, while realizing with a sense of shock that if he'd broken his rules and tested her again, she'd be dead now.

  “Get her out of here,” the Governor said finally, lowering the gun. He seemed exhausted suddenly, as if he desperately needed to rest. After a moment, he turned to the guard. “Get her out of here!” he shouted. “Get her -” Catching himself just in time, he slumped exhausted against the wall, turning away from Gemma as if he no longer wanted to see her. “Just get her out of my sight.”

  ***

  Cheers and roars of approval rang out through the prison's eastern wing as Gemma was escorted back to her cell. All around, inmates called out cries of encouragement, while banging their cups against the prison's pipes to create a calamitous din that filled the air. It was, by any standards, a hero's welcome.

  “Hey champ!” a voice shouted. “Luckiest girl in the world, eh?”

  “You beat him again!” another voice called out. “Keep driving that asshole crazy! Make him suffer!”

  “I'm not doing anything,” Gemma stammered. “Really...”

  “I heard the Governor's cracking up!” shouted yet another voice. “Push him over the edge!”

  Gemma flinched as she shuffled along. The cheers were getting louder and louder, as if everyone in the entire wing was on her side, and by the time she reached the door to her cell she felt as if she was about to collapse. Stepping inside, she climbed onto her bunk and then slumped against the wall, her whole body trembling with shock. She felt as if she could no longer get her thoughts together, as if her mind was filled with a growing sense of blind panic that superseded every other instinct.

  “This isn't possible,” she whispered, as she heard more cheers and shouts in the corridor outside. “How am I doing it?”

  ***

  “How is she doing it?”

  “Can I get up now?” Amanda asked. “Please?”

  “Just stay there for a moment,” he continued, watching the bloodied chair where just a few minutes earlier, Lindsay Calhoun had died. The girl's body was still tied in place, tilted forward slightly with congealed blood caked around the neck stump.

  Suddenly the Governor swung the gun toward Amanda.

  She let out a shriek of alarm and held her hands up in front of her face.

  “Maybe it's something to do with my movement,” he muttered, still aiming the gun at her. “When I turn toward Miss Roper, something about her makes me move my wrist differently, and in turn that somehow...”

  His voice trailed off as he tried to imagine an empty chamber inside the gun. An empty chamber would weigh less than one containing a bullet, so he figured that perhaps the way he moved the gun might affect the mechanism. He knew the idea was crazy, but he'd run out of better theories.

  “There has to be an explanation,” he continued, watching Amanda calmly. “Some invisible pattern that I'm not seeing yet.”

  “Unless she's just lucky,” Amanda suggested.

  He frowned.

  “Think about it,” she continued. “Some people are lucky, and some are unlucky. Like, my aunt, Gladys, was always unlucky. Her first husband was a conman, her second husband was a drunk, and her third husband turned out to be a perv. And then my other aunt, Hillary, was really lucky. She won five dollars on a scratchcard, two days in a row!”

  The Governor stared at her. “What?” he asked finally.

  “So maybe this Gemma Roper girl is just an extreme case,” Amanda continued. “Sooner or later her luck'll run out and she'll end up with a hole in her head, and then you can carry on with the other girls. And, like, you'll see that that's all it was. Sheer, blind, stupid luck.” She glanced at Lindsay's corpse and shuddered. “Can I please get out of this chair now? It's giving me the willies!”

  “Stay,” he replied, as if he was already contemplating some other idea. “Just for a moment.”

  He made his way over to the other chair and looked at what was left of Lindsay's head.

  “There's no such thing as luck,” he continued finally. “It's a primitive superstition designed to explain away the unseen factors that shape our world. Do you think this girl ended up here in this chair, in this room in this prison, with this bullet in her brain... because of bad luck?”

  Amanda paused for a moment. “Um... Yeah?”

  “No!” he shouted, turning to her. “It was a series of deliberate choices that led her here! Some were big, some were small. Some were so tiny, they went unnoticed and they weren't even seen as choices. Some were made by other people, by society, but every step of Lindsay Calhoun's journey from her mother's womb to this prison...” He paused, as if he was struggling to stay focused. “Every step was defined by a choice! Not luck, not chaos. A choice! Unseen gears and wheels turning! It could all have been predicted from the moment of her birth, if only someone had known how to read those gears and wheels!”

  “Okay,” Amanda replied, “if you say so, but... I don't see how that helps.”

  “So there are specific choices and events,” he continued, staring at the gun, “that decide each time whether a bullet or an empty chamber is aimed at Miss Roper. I just have to recognize those influences, and then I can see them at work. This is a remarkable opportunity to peel back the veil of reality and witness the hidden rules that drive the universe. And the first step...”

  Amanda waited, hoping that the first step would involve her getting up from the chair.

  Suddenly the Governor ran over to the table in the corner and grabbed a scalpel, before racing back to Lindsay's body and digging his hands into the bloody stump of her neck.

  “Are you...” Amanda watched for a moment, increasingly concerned about his behavior. “Are you okay, there?”

  “I need to analyze the bullet,” he muttered, cutting the side of the dead girl's neck stump and peeling it away before digging his fingers deeper into the meat. “I need to analyze all the bullets!”

  ***

  “No, that's all,” Amanda said a short while later as she sat at her desk, speaking into the phone's handset. “Just the usual delivery of -”

  She flinched as she heard a loud banging sound from the Governor's office.

  “That?” she continued. “Oh, that was just -”

  She flinched again as she heard something heavy hitting the floor in the next room, causing
the walls to shake.

  “You know what the Governor's like,” she added, forcing a smile. “He gets his little projects. Things to keep him busy during the days.”

  She waited, as she heard the sound of an electric drill starting in the next room.

  “Yeah,” she continued. “Yeah, you're right, he is an exceptional man.” Another pause. “Yeah, he's a real genius.”

  ***

  “Um... Sir? What are you doing?”

  Amanda stood in the doorway, watching as the Governor continued to drill through the ceramic tiles on the wall. He'd been holed up in his office for a while now, muttering something about an idea, but then she'd heard more drilling and more banging and she'd finally come to take a look, only to find that he seemed to be in the process of dismantling the walls.

  “Magnets,” he stammered, setting the drill aside before trying to tear down a section of tiling. “I think it's magnets! Somehow there's a magnetic charge in the walls, and it's affecting where the empty chambers stop in the gun! The idea's so simple, it's almost beautiful!”

  “Uh-huh?”

  “I haven't found the culprit yet,” he continued, straining to pull the tiles away before giving up and grabbing the drill again, “but I will. Mark my words, before Miss Roper's visit here tomorrow morning, I will have solved the mystery of her continued survival. She will no longer be able to cheat the experiment.”

  “Right,” Amanda muttered.

  She watched for a moment as he drilled several strategic spots on the wall, and then as he tried again to pull the section of tiling away, still with no luck.

  “So you think it's all to do with which chair she's sitting on?” she asked finally.

  “That's the working theory,” he stammered breathlessly.

  “Okay.” She paused, watching as he strained to pull the panels away. “So, like... Why don't you just get her to sit on the other chair tomorrow, instead of pulling everything apart like this?”

  Letting go of the panel, the Governor dropped down to the floor, landing hard. He sat completely still for a moment, before slowly turning to her with a hint of stunned realization in his eyes.

  Day Ten

  “No, Miss Roper,” the Governor said as Gemma approached her usual chair. “Not that one. I want you to sit on the other chair this morning.”

  Gemma turned to him, as if she wasn't quite sure that she'd heard him right.

  “The other chair,” he continued with a faint, satisfied smile, using the gun to point at the chair where all the other girls had died. “It's not a complicated instruction. Please, sit down so we can get on with round ten.” His left eye flickered. If anything, his squint was getting worse.

  Slowly, Gemma shuffled over to the other chair. She briefly glanced at the vast amount of blood on the wall behind, before sitting on the chair's still-damp seat.

  “And you, Miss Rose,” the Governor continued, gesturing for Natasha to take the other seat. “If you'd be so kind.”

  “This isn't fair,” Natasha replied, with tears in her eyes as she was led to the seat that was usually occupied by Gemma. “Everyone knows the game is fixed somehow! It's rigged!”

  “I assure you,” the Governor muttered as Natasha was tied in place, “nothing about the game is rigged.”

  “Then how does she keep winning?” Natasha sneered. “Everyone's talking about it, all through the prison!”

  “They are, are they?” he asked.

  “They all know that she's found some way to beat your game. They all know that she's cheating somehow, or that you're letting her win!”

  The Governor stared at her for a moment, and the smile had drained from his face now. “Is that really what people are saying?”

  “Everyone knows!” she said firmly, as the guard stepped away. “Everyone in the whole prison!” She turned to look over at Gemma. “Look at the self-satisfied bitch! Sitting there, knowing that there's no way she can lose! She thinks she's so smart, she thinks she's protected, but everyone knows something's not right here!” She turned to the Governor again. “What's she giving you in return? What's the set-up here? What the hell do you get out of this?”

  “It's an experiment,” he replied, aiming the gun at her face. “Fifty fifty, the rules are remarkably simple. It's purely an experiment designed to determine how seemingly random events are caused by hidden...” He paused, as if he couldn't quite remember the truth about his own experiment but then his smile returned. “Seemingly random... Hidden mechanisms... I have made a small change today, and I think we're back on track now.”

  “She's playing you for a fool!” Natasha hissed. “If you're really not saving her on purpose each day, then she's playing you for a goddamn fool!”

  Over on the other chair, Gemma stared at the blood-stained drain in the floor, waiting for the game to be over with.

  “Let's just get this done,” the Governor said firmly, with the gun still pointed at Natasha. “This time, I have a feeling the truth will start to emerge.”

  With that, he pulled the trigger.

  ***

  “How is she doing it?” he whispered later, sitting at his desk and staring out at the vast desert beyond the prison's walls. His left eye was flickering constantly now, as his squint worsened, and he hadn't even noticed a moment earlier when Amanda had delivered his mid-morning cup of tea, which now sat cooling on the desk behind him.

  He watched the horizon, trying to calm his mind, but after a moment his thoughts were once again filled with the sight of Natasha's head being blown apart, and the sight of Gemma sitting shocked and quiet in the other chair.

  “How is she doing it?” he screamed, turning and grabbing the coffee cup, then flinging it at the wall until it smashed. “How the hell is that bitch doing this?”

  ***

  “Champion!” a voice shouted, as someone slapped Gemma hard on the back. “Way to go! You're invincible!”

  Ignoring all the cheers from the other inmates, Gemma along the corridor like a zombie, barely able to put one foot in front of the other. Finally, she reached the door at the far end. Slipping inside, she was relieved to find Barbara sitting on one of the bunks.

  “I want to come with you,” she stammered.

  Barbara turned to her. “You what, girl?”

  “You're still planning to break out, right?”

  Barbara paused, as if she was worried about being overheard.

  “I know you are,” Gemma continued, stepping toward her. “You used to talk to me about it non-stop. You said you were working out the best route, and that the tunnel was -”

  “Quiet!” Barbara hissed, grabbing her arm and pulling her onto the bunk. Again she seemed worried that someone might hear them. “You've been spending a lotta time with the Governor lately, haven't you?”

  “You think I'd tell him your plans?”

  Barbara paused, eying her with suspicion for a moment, before slowly shaking her head. “No. No, honey, I don't think that at all. A couple of the others might be hard to talk around, but I believe you. Whatever's going on...” She paused again. “I don't wanna go into detail, honey, but let's just say that our plan is well advanced. Very well advanced, if you know what I mean. And frankly, we could use all the luck we can get. Maybe you could come along as our mascot.”

  “I just want to get out of here,” Gemma replied, as her right eye flickered slightly. “I'm losing my mind.”

  “You got a squint going on there?”

  “I don't know what's happening,” Gemma continued, trying not to panic despite the tightening sensation in her chest. “Every morning I go into that room and I feel in my gut that it's over. Like, I'm certain that this time I'm going to die. And then he aims the gun at me, and it clicks, and then I have to watch as the other girl...” Her voice trailed off, and for a moment she sat in stunned silence as her right eye opened and closed repeatedly. “Whatever it is,” she added finally, sounding a little breathless, “I want out. I don't even need to know how I've been surviving,
I just have to get out of this place.”

  “You know the odds are still against us, right?” Barbara replied. “Even if the tunnel works and we make it out beyond the wall, we'll be in the middle of the fucking desert.”

  “I know.”

  “And we'll have no water, no food. We'll have to walk.”

  “I know.”

  “When they realize we're gone, they'll send patrols.”

  “I know.”

  “The odds are -”

  “Don't tell me about the odds,” Gemma replied, interrupting her. “Just tell me where to be, and when.”

  Barbara paused. “Well, there won't be much warning. Don't worry, I'll come get you when the time comes, but until then just hold tight. Looks to me, girl, like you're damn near gonna shake apart.”

  “I'm sorry,” Gemma muttered, feeling a shiver pass through her chest. “I just... I can't do this. I can't keep going to that room, sitting in that chair...”

  “Beating the odds?” Barbara added.

  “You have to take me with you.”

  “We will, honey,” Barbara replied, putting an arm around Gemma's trembling shoulders and pulling her closer. “I promise. We will.”

  ***

  Gasping, Gemma sat up suddenly in the dark cell. Somehow she'd managed to fall asleep, but a nightmare had woken her again. Short of breath, she waited for a moment, trying to remember what she'd been dreaming about, before realizing that her mind was almost completely blank. She could hear Barbara snoring in the bunk below, and after a moment she felt the front of her own uniform and found that it was soaked with sweat.