SHORT STORIES : Cannibalism

* * *

Kevin Hall's entire body went numb with fear as the Delectable Wheel came to a slow halt and the needle pointed firmly at his name. He was assailed by a sudden shortness of breath as he blinked and stared in disbelief at the Delectable Wheel, which now remained still, the needle not leaving his own name. To his chagrin, he was the unlucky victim. He was the one chosen, and while during the pursuit, he might be able to take out one of the other contestants, perhaps two, there was no way he would be able to take out all four of them. Especially not Melissa, whom he wasn't sure if he could bring himself to kill anyway, after all that had happened between the two of them these past few weeks.

It was over now, and Allison would continue to suffer, eventually dying at the tender age of eleven. I'm sorry, Allison, Hall thought bleakly. I hope you can forgive me for failing you...failing both you and your mother...oh God, I'm so sorry.

He wanted to cry, but somehow couldn't bring himself to do it. Not on national TV. He might be on the verge of death, but wanted to afford himself at least some dignity. Not that gettin' roasted and eaten is really a dignifying way to go, he reminded himself bleakly. But I won't beg and cry on national TV. I knew what I was getting myself into, so might as well take it like a man.

Shit, this can't be happening. I MUST be dreaming. It just can't be happening!

Hall had acknowledged this possibility when he had registered for and had been enlisted as part of the twelve-member roster for Cannibalism. The producers had drilled the idea into his and the rest of the contestant's heads that this was the real deal and that the possibility of his death was not only genuine, but also the most likely scenario. Before the season had begun, he and the others had spent hour after tedious hour reading and filling out forms and signing disclaimers holding the network completely harmless and immune to any and all criminal and civil charges for anything that might happen to the contestants, who indeed were participating in this twisted version of Russian Roulette completely of their own volition, with no coercion at all from anyone else.

Hall had come to terms with the possibility that he could be chosen, put to death, and cannibalized like on national TV, but only in an academic sense. Deep within his heart, while he had dreaded this night for weeks now, he had never thought that it could ever really come true. Hall had come into this expecting to win, expecting to walk away with the million-dollar prize while the other eleven contestants remained dead, with no legal recourse available to their friends and loved ones.

It was to be something he'd have to live with for the rest of his life, trading the lives of eleven strangers so his daughter could have a chance at life, a chance to have a future. It was sickening in its own right, but each of the participants would be here regardless, and if not killed by him, would die at the hands of another, Hall reasoned, though this didn't help much at quelling the nagging guilt which ate away at him for what he had to do, not only for his own survival, but because Allison's life hung in the balance as well. It was a dirty business, but he had to win for Allison's sake. The network would pay for the funeral arrangements for the eleven contestants who perished during the airing of the show, as well as give the families $1000 each to compensate them for their loss. But that wouldn't even come close to paying for Allison's treatment. Kevin Hall had to win, but now that one faint glimmer of hope his daughter held dwindled, seemed to extinguish the second that the needle had hit his name.

"This can't be happening," he murmured hopelessly.

His eyes wandered throughout the brightly lit auditorium. The host, Al Summers, remained expressionless, neutral, keeping a straight poker face behind his feigned excitement as he provoked roaring cheers of approval and applause from the audience and those watching at home. On the faces of his fellow contestants was that sense of eerie, grim, and morbid relief that he himself had experienced on previous episodes when others had been selected. That same response was how the others felt regarding his announced death sentence.

All of them felt that way except for Melissa.

She looked at him bleakly and in disbelief, her dark eyes glistening as tears began to spill down her face. Her mouth quivered, and she gazed ahead, speechless, and brushed a lock of her long, jet-black hair away from her face. She looked at him again, her pale features growing even more pallid; almost ghost white as she took Hall's hand, holding it tenderly. "This can't be happening," she said with a quiet sob.

"We both knew this would happen eventually," Hall whispered as he kissed the side of her neck and sighed despondently. "If I wasn't picked, then sooner or later, you would be."

This was true, and Hall had come to terms with it, but again, only in an academic sense. It was something that was supposed to happen. Eventually, Hall would be selected. Or Melissa would be selected. Either way, one lover would kill and eat the other, forced to betray the other for their own salvation. Even if both survived until the end of the season, on the final episode they would be pitted against each other in a fight to the death, one hunting the other down like an animal in whatever virtual environment Al Summers had in mind. All contestants were expendable, and only one out of twelve could survive.

"I know," Melissa lamented. "But nothing prepares you for it."

She was right, of course. And in the short time they had been a couple, Hall held out hope that there would be a loophole, some kind of technicality that they could use to allow both to survive and walk away winners, allowing Hall to pay for his daughter's cancer treatment and for Melissa to pay for her increasing and burdensome debts. Perhaps one of them would fall ill--nothing serious, of course, but enough to get him/her off the show. Or Melissa could discover that she was pregnant. Surely they would get her off the show ASAP if they found out that she had been carrying an unborn child, and Hall could pay off her debts with the money he had left after for paying for Allison's treatment with the money that he would inevitably win from the show.

"So what do we do now?"

Hall feigned a grin, which quickly faltered. "I guess you're gonna have to kill me." He sighed. "Or I'm gonna have to kill you."

Melissa opened her mouth but said nothing, and only looked into his eyes, weeping. Hall stared back, tears beginning to shed from his eyes as well as he held her tenderly and kissed her one last time.

* * *

Excerpts from a platform interview with Melissa Keese:

* * *

"There has to be another way," Beth had said three months ago, before Hall had gone off to sign up for that hit new reality show Cannibalism. Her eyes grew teary and she stifled a sob as she held his hand. They had been divorced for three years, but still remained close friends, and Beth had never set a campaign out against Hall, nor did she try and leech more money off of him than she needed through the divorce hearings. For that, Hall had been grateful, and was thankful that while their marriage had failed, at least it hadn’t ended bitterly.

"I don't have nearly enough money to pay for her treatment," Hall argued. "And neither do you. And the insurance won't cover for the treatment because it’s still experimental. I don't like the idea or the concept of the show anymore than you do. It’s completely despicable and immoral in every sense and the high ratings and support show only how heartless and bloodthirsty most people actually are. And believe me, if I could avoid it altogether, I would. But damn it, Beth, this is the only way. Its the only hope I have of saving her."

"You could take out a loan," Beth had suggested.

"Forget it," he answered. "I have lousy credit and had to file for bankruptcy two years ago. They'd never give me a loan."

"What about some kind of charity?"

"We'll never raise enough money on time and I'm not sure there are that many people that would even bother donating."

"Its worth a try."

"And while we sit there hoping that enough people donate to raise $20,000, Allison will continue to get sicker and sicker until she dies, while we stand around powerless, hoping someone might donate out of the kindness of their heart."

Beth frowned and sighed. They had argued the point further, but Beth eventually caved in, defeated, and near tears.

They both still loved each other deeply even after all that had happened, and perhaps had Hall been there for her and for Allison, instead of being away all the time struggling in vain to keep his failing business venture alive, their marriage could have worked. But Hall was too much of a workaholic, devoting most of his waking hours to his occupation rather than to his family. He tried years ago to open his own business up as a bartender, but that endeavor had drained even more of his time. While owning his own business, Hall had come home only to sleep, often going days, perhaps weeks without so much as looking at Beth or Allison. He was a failure as a husband and as a father, and the business he seemed to value over his family had been more of a financial drain than anything else, though he had only wanted what was best for his family. The development of a drinking problem of his own compounded upon his problems, and eventually his marriage could take no more. He lost his family and his business, and was left to work for someone else once more at the local Wal-Mart and at McDonald's (it was the best he could do, since he wasn't qualified for any decent careers out there), all the while receiving counseling and treatment for his drinking problem at Alcoholic's Anonymous. Even so, after the divorce, he grew better at managing his time and was able to see Allison over the weekends, and the two had had some fun together.

That was until Allison started getting sick.

At first it seemed mild. Headaches and dizziness, which grew steadily worse, followed by lapses in memory and cognition. Eventually, the news had arrived from the doctors that both Hall and his ex-wife dreaded. Allison had been diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumor, and given only six months to live. Her only hope was an experimental treatment that insurance wouldn't cover and neither Beth nor Peter Hall could afford to pay for.

After a while, Cannibalism seemed the only hope the family had left.

* * *

New York City, as it had been in the twentieth century.

That had been the virtual environment that Summers had selected for tonight's episode of Cannibalism. Being here now, although it wasn't authentic, had brought back childhood memories for Hall from when he and his family had ventured in New York on a family vacation when Hall was only six years of age. He had been young, and it seemed his memories of the Big Apple had faded since then, though being here had brought back memories. It was just as it had been before the terrorist attacks started after the turn of the century. Up ahead, he could see the twin towers, untouched as they had been before September 11, 2001. The air had that stale smog-like quality to it, but there was no radiation from that atomic bomb that those terrorists had dropped a few years after the 9/11 attacks. All in all it was a near-perfect rendition of what New York City had once been as far as Hall could see, though since his childhood, he had seen only pictures of it in textbooks and on various historical websites on the Internet. Everything had been intact throughout this concrete jungle of skyscrapers that seemed to sprout off in every direction throughout the metropolitan maze that was the Big Apple of the late twentieth century.

Except that this virtual New York had been empty, desolate, and deathly silent. Even now, with New York being a radiation-soaked cinder with debris and ruins still scattered throughout, there were people living there. Some of them mutating, while others dying of terminal cancer. But even now as it was still being repaired, people walked the streets, drove around. Not here, in this virtual reality New York. Instead, it was empty, quiet, save for a few cars parked along the sides of the street. He looked about, in Times Square now. Venturing, walking further, but seeing not a person in sight. This in and of itself was not strange, for all of the virtual environments had been devoid of virtual people. The network had the capabilities to install people into their programs, but it didn't seem worth all the money they spent it and would probably prove too much of a distraction, so the areas remained desolate, save for the victim and those other predatory contestants chasing after him or her.

This gave him little comfort, of course. Even in the emptiness of this virtual environment from hell, he could still hear the others. They were lurking in the shadows, waiting to ambush them as they had ambushed the previous seven contestants in the previous seven episodes. As Hall himself had participated in the brutal ambush and barbaric act of cannibalism afterward. He now knew how the previous quarry had felt, those that he himself had helped to kill to further his own chances of survival and winning the prize. This time he was on the other end of the fence, a target himself of the wrath of the others. Perhaps they had split up, or stuck together. Either way, Hall was dead.

No, I can't give up, he thought, urging himself to move forward. If I can kill the other four, or if I can survive the sixty-minute duration of the episode, I can survive, and I'd still have a chance. Fuck, if I kill the others, I get the prize, and Allison will be saved. But of course, none of the others had been able to survive. Maybe I can be the first to put up a decent fight.

That was true, but the odds were stacked against him. Four people, who were all armed, were hunting him down, and he was unarmed. Perhaps if he could somehow divide them up (maybe they had already split up), he could ambush one and take their weapon, then take out the other three (even Melissa, as much as revolting as the thought was), then walk away a winner.

This can't be real, he thought himself in an attempt to quell his fears. He was covered in sweat now, his clothing matted to his back and his hair dampened like a sponge. He winced as the sweat stung his eyes, and pressed on down the road, the hot sun roasting him from above. No fucking way can it be real. I mean, a show where people ACTUALLY die and get eaten? Yeah, that's a good one. Tell me another. Come on, for one thing, there's no way in hell that the government would ever approve of such a concept, as corrupt and fucked up as those bastards might be. For another thing, there are all sorts of diseases people can get. What if one of the contestants had AIDS or hepatitis or some other unpleasant illness? Maybe someone has kuru. That's a rare disease, but possible, and spread from--that's right, kids, you guessed it: EATING PEOPLE! The act of cannibalism just ain't sanitary. This is all an elaborate hoax. It HAS to be.

That logic worked, except that everyone who registered to be on the show had been screened extensively for every known disease, and if someone had so much as a cold, they were rejected outright.

And it couldn't have been a hoax, because Hall had seen the people getting killed and then beheaded under a guillotine, their corpses carved over the mahogany table, their arms and legs hacked off with an ax. He had seen all the blood flowing over the table, soaking the mangled corpse. Then the head was disposed of, while the rest of the body was piled onto a huge pot and carried by two men into a hot oven to be roasted. He had seen it all, so knew full well that this was the real deal. Somehow, the Network had managed to get this show licensed and air it legally, though Hall had no idea how and almost didn't want to know, except that morbid curiosity beckoned him to ponder and speculate at least for a little while. So who in the government must you fuck to get a show like this to be legally aired and carried through? he asked himself and laughed humorlessly.

He stopped by a teal green Dodge Neon parked to the side of the road by a parking meter. Around the edges were a few spots of rust, some corrosion around the bumper, and the windows were slightly fogged, but the Neon was in otherwise decent condition. Hall glanced to the front and saw the license plate, which read TF-896. As fogged as the windows were, he could still see through them, and could see that the key of the Neon was still in the ignition. He pulled the handle on the door, but it was locked. "Shit," he muttered as he brought his right hand up, and then brought it down like a hammer against the driver's side window of the Neon. As his fist struck the glass, bolts of pain shot all the way up his elbow, as though someone had given him a light, but still painful shock of electricity, burning him internally, and he cried out in agony. The glass quivered, sparks radiating across the pain as it jarred and bounced along its frame like rippling water, then as quickly as it had started vibrating, it stopped, and remained still, without so much as a scratch along the pain.

"Holy shit!" Hall shouted as he shook his throbbing right hand hysterically, hot tears now flowing down his cheek.

The keys in the ignition of the Neon, with the doors all locked and the windows unbreakable had been the Network's way of taunting Hall. He could see that, could almost feel their malicious laughter sweeping over him as he walked away, wincing in pain. Their laughter and the laughter of the audience as well. No doubt they could see all of this taking place.

There were cameras all over the place, all focusing not on his "search party" but on him instead. He was the star of the show this episode, the one in the spotlight, which not only lit him up for the world to see, leaving him feeling naked in front of the entire country, but was burning him as well. He supposed it was to his advantage that the other contestants couldn't see what the cameras had seen, and instead had to rely solely on their wits to find him. But that wouldn't help him in the end, he realized, sighing in defeat. For although tonight he was the hero, he would soon be a dead hero, a martyr for the lost cause that was saving his daughter.

* * *

As he ventured into the dark alley, Hall hurried to the side of the dumpster, crouching and hiding as Tyler Smith stood further into the darkened alley, by the splintering wooden fence, his back to Hall. He was a trained police officer, so he would naturally be the hardest of all, since he would probably have better aim with his weapon than the other three. But he was also the closest, and so Hall would ambush him.

He thought of Tyler Smith and his reasons for being here. Smith had no noble motive; he wasn't here out of financial desperation, nor did he intend on saving anyone else in the process. Aside from Dennis Gilmore, who only wanted the money, Smith was the worst of all the contestants for he was here solely for the thrill of the chase, putting his own life at risk for the fun of it, but taking others down as well. It was as if putting his own life on the line was no longer enough, so he had to drag others into his twisted daredevil games, too, and the thought made Hall sick.

But who are you to judge? a voice spoke up in his head. You're here just like the others. It doesn't matter what the reason is--you have plenty of things in common with the cop who just wants the thrill whether you like it or not: Both your asses are on the line. You both got blood on your hands. You've both ingested human flesh. And you're both on the show completely of your own free will. Before you judge, how about looking at YOURSELF in the mirror.

Hall sighed, knowing that his "conscience" if that was what you wanted to call it, was right. He had to kill to survive and help Allison, but he was still in the same boat as the thrill-seeker. Still, he couldn't help but look poorly at the man. He was easy prey for projection, and it really did help to quell the nagging guilt for what Hall himself had to do, though didn't vanquish the guilt entirely.

He heard Smith turning around and slowly walking toward the dumpster, where Hall had been hidden. Perhaps he had heard something, or perhaps he had determined that Hall wasn't in the alley. Either way, he was coming closer, his footsteps slapping hard, echoing against the concrete surface. Hall froze, cold sweat forming over his brow and dripping down his face, stinging his eyes as his heart rate doubled, then tripled. He looked down, sweat raining onto the ground, as his feet swept over the cigarette butts and garbage that littered the alleyways. He could see a crushed Coca-Cola can lying on the other end, and above it was a piece of graffiti spay-painted in faded green letters:

Help save a cow and have some delicious man-beef instead.

The sign made Hall shudder in revulsion, and he could see just how sick those bastards who produced this show actually were. Not only were they willing to put people on the line and kill them and have them eaten to get ratings, but seemed to take a perverse delight in doing so as well, almost a sexually exquisite thrill, Hall deduced. He could almost imagine the producers watching the show naked while masturbating to the finale of each episode, in which the poor victim was captured and eaten, all the while laughing at the way they managed to taunt him, their malicious, cruel laughter echoing painfully through Hall's head.

Smith grew closer still, his elongated shadow now blanketing the road as his footfalls grew louder, and Hall could almost here the man breathing.

As Smith finally came into light, Hall sprang to his feet and lunged forward, pouncing over Smith. Smith had enough time to cry out in surprise and fire off a stray round from his .22 caliber revolver, which thundered and echoed throughout the alleyway as the bright flash dispelled the all murky shadows for that one split second as the round whizzed into the sky and ricocheted off the brick wall. The back of Smith's head struck against the brick wall behind him and his feet buckled and he went down and was now in a sitting position as his weapon slipped from his hands. He had just enough time to shoot a dazed stare at Hall before Hall wrapped his arms tightly around Smith's neck, holding him, strangling him. He could feel Smith thrusting his legs upward, his entire body squirming and wriggling, trying to free himself as he thrust his head forward, then back, which was then followed by a loud cracking sound that chilled Hall.

Hall released his hold from Smith's neck and Smith fell to the ground, completely motionless now, staring up at Hall with a blank, glassy gaze over his eyes, his mouth hanging open. I killed him, Hall thought. This left him with a sense of ambivalence. He felt horrible for what he had done as he had when he had killed and eaten the other contestants on previous episodes, live on national TV. There were fewer more sobering experiences than that of taking a life even if it had been inadvertent, which it most certainly wasn't in this case. On the other hand, it was justified, for it was in self-defense, and being on this type of show gave one the license to kill, for better or for worse.

One down, three to go, Hall thought listlessly as he scooped Smith's weapon into his hand and pressed further down into the alley. He could hear another set of footsteps. No doubt the others had heard the gunshot and would be here shortly, but Hall now had an edge. His chances at survival had increased, at least by a small amount.

Another gunshot thundered from behind, and what felt like a bee sting erupted, burning his leg in fiery agony as the bullet whizzed by, grazing the side of his thigh and pealing off a large chunk of flesh. The sudden blow threw Hall off balance, and his right leg, now feeling as though it were set afire, gave way under his weight, followed by the quivering collapse of his left leg. Hall cried out as his arms flailed uncontrollably in an attempt to break his fall. The stale air rushed across his face and he closed his eyes just as his cheek smacked against the hardened cement surface. He groaned as his leg started to bleed profusely, feeling dizzy, his vision jarred, though starting to regain focus. He lifted his head, feeling a stick resin-like residue cling to his face from the ground, and peered behind, his eyes swiveling, his field of vision dancing a little before it stilled and he was able to make out a faint, but clearing outline of the person that had shot him.

It was Melissa Keese standing before him with a smoking gun.

In his bleak excitement, Hall had blissfully forgotten all about Melissa, but now thoughts of her invaded him, her face overtaking his mind's eye, and he realized that in order to survive, he would have to kill her as well. His heart sank further when he realized that she now had the gun on him, and that when he had been taken down, the gun had slipped just out of his reach. She aimed the gun toward between his eyes. Had it been one of the others who killed him, then the fates or powers-that-be or whoever would have shown him mercy. But being killed by the woman he loved (or had come as close to falling in love as one could get in a short time frame as two to three months) had been the ultimate travesty, shredding his heart then incinerating the tattered pieces of tissue as he realized that on top of everything else, he had failed his daughter as well.

The billowing smoke from the gun thinned a bit as Melissa held it firmly to his face, her arm quivering. She tried to remain strong, to appear emotionless, but failed. Her mouth, quivering in a futile struggle to remain straight, curved into a sorrowful frown as her eyes grew teary and an errant teardrop scrolled down her face. "I'm sorry," she whispered.

"We both knew this would be a possibility," Hall told her.

That fact made this situation no easier for either party.

"Kevin, turn around, please."

"Why?"

"Turn around and close your eyes," she said, and began to cry again. "I don't want you to see it coming. I--I'll shoot you in the back of the head. You won't feel anything. It’s the best way, I think...for you...for both of us maybe."

Her voice trailed off and Hall did as he had been asked.

He lay on his stomach, his leg hurt too badly, still bleeding profusely, to be able to get on his knees, and squeezed his eyes tightly closed. Teardrops seeped through the closed lids and he laid there, his heart jack hammering against his rib cage.

Melissa Keese pulled the trigger, and the sound of thunder clashed from above.

Hall's body jolted and began to convulse. He cried out in fear as he looked up only to see one of the other contestants—Mitch Hills—falling backward, blood spurting from his forehead as he toppled to the ground and died.

Hall raised his head and looked behind, wanting to rise to his feet, but another bolt of hot pain shot through his thigh, and he could only sit there, propped over one elbow. He looked back at Melissa, who stood there, with fresh smoke billowing from the barrel of her gun, her mouth hanging open, and fresh tears scrolling down her cheeks, smudging her mascara.

"I couldn't do it," she whimpered, and her body began to convulse.

It started with muscle spasms in her arms and legs that quickly grew severe and spread to the rest of her body. Melissa cried out in terror as her entire body shook uncontrollably, as though she were having a seizure. Her mouth snapped shut, her teeth clamping down against her tongue hard enough to snip it off, and the severed appendage flew to Hall's side. As the blood seeped through Melissa's welded mouth, her eyes ruptured and sprayed twinjets of blood from the sockets. Melissa jerked and thrust backward so hard her spine snapped and she fell to the ground and lay there, still shaking. Her convulsive spasms slowed to a halt, and for a second the horror was over. Then her olive complexion quickly grew transparent as her dark hair turned white almost instantaneously, and you could see her veins and arteries blackening through the skin. Melissa let out a hoarse moan through lips sealed from a locked jaw, her eyes translucent red orbs crying blood. She then uttered a horrible gagging noise, as her throat seemed to close, suffocating her.

Hall watched helplessly as all of this took place in a matter of about three minutes. He wanted to rush to her side, to help her, but couldn't move fast enough. His right leg, now swelling painfully, held him back, and he could do nothing but sit back, powerless, as Melissa's body was mangled from the inside out.

It was too late for her anyway, for Melissa had broken the rules.

Before the season had begun, the Network's concern had been that some of the contestants—after having been selected as the victim—might try to flee the set or escape from the virtual environment somehow. Or someone in the "hunting party" might kill one or more of their fellow hunters to increase his or her chances of winning. To prevent this from happening, a team of scientists developed a virus that would attack the nervous system--the entire brain, in fact. When activated, it would induce massive seizures and convulsions throughout the body, all while applying tremendous pressure to the eyes until they burst or ruptured, and locking the jaw. Afterward, the virus would attack the pituitary gland, essentially sucking out every last ounce of pigment in the body and turning the subject into an albino. While it did that, it messed with the chemical structure of the blood, turning it black and toxic. Finally, the respiratory system would be shut down entirely, and the poor subject would mercifully be put to death. The virus would be encased in a tiny microchip--known to the network as the Precaution Chip. The Precaution Chip would then be surgically implanted into the backs of the necks—along the base of the skull—of each of the twelve contestants before the season began. The Precaution Chip kept the virus dormant and harmless to the subject. It was only when the contestant broke one of the rules that the chip would open and the virus would be activated at a push of the button at the hands of one of the producers, and the poor bastard would then suffer the same fate that Melissa Keese had just now.

"I'm sorry, Melissa," Hall whimpered as rage filled him and nausea and guilt overwhelmed him. He laid there, on his back, his body now drenched in perspiration. He could feel the remains of his last meal scaling the back of his throat. He thought of Melissa and the horrific image of her death, her violent convulsions, and her cries of pain and terror echoed and flashed through his mind.

Hall raised his head dizzily, rotated so he was on his stomach, and crawled painfully toward the left. Then—leaning against the rugged and grimy brick wall for support—slowly and shakily rose to his feet, standing with all his weight over his left leg (his good leg), while the right one swelled some more and spurt out a few more drops of congealing blood. He looked ahead, feeling queasy, dizzy, and light-headed, and sighed, squinting as the (virtual) sun burned his eyes.

Bastards, he thought, embittered by what had happened.

He hated the Network for what they had done to Melissa. They were inhumane monsters, worse than Hitler.

Yet they were Allison's one and only hope.

Hall looked once more at Melissa's dead corpse, now lying motionless near the mouth of the alley, then caressed his fingers over the back of his own neck, shuddering at the feel of the rough texture of scar tissue that had been left behind from the incision that was made to implant the Precaution Chip in the back of his own neck.

I have to win, Hall declared in his own mind, both for Allison's sake, and now for Melissa as well.

Hall's eyes swiveled throughout the dark alley as a renewed sense of determination rose from within. He had to find a gun. Dennis Gilmore was the only contestant left. If Hall could find a gun, perhaps he could find Gilmore, or Gilmore might find him, and at least Hall would stand a chance. He peered down and saw that Melissa was still holding a gun in her dead hand. Her gun was closer than the one he had lost, so that would be the one he'd use.

He lurched and lunged forward just as his right leg finally gave way and he lost his footing. Hall fell forward, his face slapping against that of Melissa, and he could feel her silky, whitened hair caressing his cheek, as he lay face-to-face with her, the blood from her eye and her sealed mouth—still moist and warm—dampening his lower lip.

Hall and the other contestants had been told what would happen to the poor unfortunate soul that broke one of the rules. What hadn't been disclosed to the contestants, nor anywhere in the contract, not even in fine print (perhaps the scientists hadn't realized this) was that the virus encased in the Precaution Chip was indeed communicable. It wasn't airborne, but it could be passed from person to person through bodily fluids, such as blood.

Hall had just realized this fact now, as his body began to shake and tremble uncontrollably. He could feel his jaw locking shut just as Melissa's had, and he was convulsing, having a seizure of his own. Lying on the ground, as he shook and spasmed, his back arched painfully inward, and the back of Hall's head smashed against concrete surface, fracturing his skull just as his eyes ruptured, and he could see nothing but liquid red sluicing before his field of vision. His body ached as painful tremors pulsated through each of his joints. He had no time to think of anything, as his back arched painfully inward once more, and his spine snapped apart. The tremors cursing through his body slowed to a halt, and he was breathing heavily through his nose. His lungs became painfully swollen. He couldn't feel his pigments being drained, nor had any sense that his hair was turning white and his skin was becoming transparent. All he was aware of now aside from his pounding headache that left him in a disoriented haze from his fractured skull was the feel of warm liquid over his face and the compounding nausea that assailed him. Then his lungs burst wide open and collapsed, and Hall felt himself drowning in his own bodily fluids.

* * *

Twenty-nine-year-old Dennis Gilmore was, of course, the winner of Season One of Cannibalism, by default. The producers hadn't made him eat the corpse of Kevin Hall because, as Hall had found out the hard way, the virus that had killed him was indeed contagious, thus his and Melissa Keese's bodies had to be taken out by men in Level Four Biohazard suits and burned. Gilmore had gotten his Precaution Chip surgically removed from the back of his neck when the episode was over—now that the season had prematurely ended—and recovered from the surgery in the local hospital for a few days before he was awarded the $100,000,000 prize, thus living the rest of his life with the utmost in elegance and luxury.

As per the policies of the Network, Beth Hall was awarded $1000 to compensate for her ex-husband's death--and the Network had paid for his funeral arrangements. Unfortunately, the compensation prize did not come anywhere close to paying for the experimental treatment for Allison's brain tumor, and thus, Allison Hall died three months later, leaving Beth Hall utterly devastated, having to lose not just her ex-husband, but her daughter as well.

As for the hit series Cannibalism, despite heavy and angry protests, the show's success would continue to flourish, and Cannibalism would successfully continue its run with an increasing range of fans for many years to come.

The end.

April 17, 2003
April 21, 2003