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Messenger waited patiently as Barton denied with increasing vehemence and a lot of repetition, before saying, “I offer you a game. You must accept or reject the offer.”
“I don’t must do a damn thing!”
“If you do not answer, it will be assumed that you have rejected the game and are choosing to go ahead with punishment.” Messenger had, by this point in his life as a Messenger of Fear, encountered every kind of denial. He heard nothing unusual here. Barton started another round of angry denials and then Messenger said, “I give you seven seconds. Seven. Six.”
Barton looked imploringly at me. I suppose I looked less intimidating than Messenger. “What is this? You people have no right to go around—”
“Five. Four.”
“If you say yes, you may escape punishment,” I said. I don’t know why I urged him to play. I dreaded the appearance of the Master of the Game. And I harbored no goodwill toward Barton. He had been poorly used, abused indeed, exploited. But the punishment for molestation is not death. And if it were, then that punishment would have to come from a court of law.
Barton could have gone to his parents. He could have gone to a school counselor. He could have simply gone straight to the police by picking up a phone and calling 911.
He had done none of those things. Instead he had ruthlessly plotted murder.
“Three. Two.”
“I’ll play!” he shouted. Then, almost as an afterthought, “What is the punishment supposed to be?”
“The very worst thing you can imagine,” I said.
His eyes narrowed, and I knew he was running through a catalog of fears in his mind. But here is what I have learned: people are seldom consciously aware of their deepest fear. It is in the nature of most minds to avoid the worst fears, to wall them off, to ignore them and instead imagine that only more benign things can ever occur.
Barton did not know what he feared, but if he lost the game, I would know that fear. I would drag that fear into daylight.
“I summon the Master of the Game,” Messenger said.
He arrived preceded by a yellow mist, a mist the color of urine, a vile, sentient mist that can close around you, make it hard to breathe, and whisper wordlessly of dread. The mist blanketed the dozen students and the frozen teacher and formed a rough circle around the three of us. I could feel rather than see that the classroom was extending, spreading out to make room for the Master of the Game and whatever game he had brought with him.
He has a flair for the dramatic, the Game Master. And he did not disappoint.
I won’t go into describing the hideous guises in which I had previously seen this creature, but will confine myself to telling what I saw on this day at this time and place.
He did not so much emerge from the yellow mist as form himself from it. Tendrils of that diseased cloud swirled to the center, twisted around like a small tornado, and slowly solidified into something that might be flesh and was very definitely blood.
He was roughly human in shape—two arms, two legs, and a head—but was taller than any human outside of the NBA. And from the top of his head, blood flowed down to coat his entire body in red gore. It was as if he were a sort of volcano, with a caldera opening the crown of his head, with the viscous red slicking down across his face and down his neck, and spreading across every inch of him.
I had steeled myself; I thought I had prepared myself, yet I took a step back and turned my face away and cast my eyes to one side, seeking the reassurance of Messenger’s calm face. I had been prepared for a creature of horror, but the smell, that primal, salty smell of blood, massive quantities of human blood, that smell . . .
I did not faint. I did not vomit. Both threatened, but by looking away until the gag reflex was lessened, I avoided shaming myself.
Yet when I turned back, jaw set, muscles all clenched, I saw still worse, for the Master of the Game is never truly singular but comes with other creatures attached, an infestation almost, a sort of ant colony that crawled and swam against the eternal flow of blood.
Not ants of course, but tiny human creatures, men and women, young and old, all of the same race now, a red, red race.
I had avoided disgracing myself. Barton did not. I smelled urine and vomit and yes, indeed, young Barton Jones had collapsed on the floor and was whimpering. No trace of the cool, calculating killer could be seen on that tearstained, vomit-flecked face.
Those with tender hearts would probably imagine that mere exposure to the Master of the Game constituted punishment enough. But while Messengers of Fear may have their own individual emotions, including compassion, their duty is not to bend the world toward mercy, but to correct the balance that is harmed when terrible crimes go unpunished.
As for the Master of the Game, whether he is unique or one of several of his ilk, there is no pity within him.
Upon completing his dramatic and mind-shattering appearance, the Master of the Game asked in a voice like corpses speaking, “You summon me, Messenger?”
“This is Barton Jones, a murderer. He has chosen to play the game.”
Barton did not voice an objection to being called a murderer. I doubt very much he was capable of speech at all.
I heard tiny cries and choking sounds coming from the creatures that swam and crawled and drowned in the blood that flowed down the Game Master’s form.
