Trap - Part One

TRAP
PART 1

NAME: Marcus Pitt
Age: 26
Crime: 2 Counts of Arson

A young teenage boy, no older than sixteen, throws a stone at a car. It hits directly on the windshield, cracking the screen, distracting the driver. The driver swerves on the road and slams into another car. The other car contained a family of four. All of them killed instantly, along with the driver of the vehicle bombarded by the teen’s water bomb. Five deaths, just like that. What does the teen do after seeing the chaos he created right in front of him? He runs. He runs from accepting responsibility. He runs from getting into trouble. Is this acceptable? No. That’s why I’m here. People commit atrocious crimes every day and get away with it. That’s where I come in. These people need to pay. They need to be punished. My name is Gideon. Let the games begin.

* * * * *

The room that contained Marcus Pitt was cold and dark. Small, ten by eleven foot, the room seemed very cramped despite the fact that it contained only one thing, Marcus Pitt. Lying face down on the floor, unconscious, was Marcus. 26 years old, very tall with a head of dark brown hair and brown eyes. Wearing a blue T-shirt and beige cargo pants, with no shoes, Marcus wearily lifted his head off the ground. It was throbbing so hard, he felt like his head was about to explode. Then he realised something was wrong. He wasn’t in his house. He didn’t know where the hell he was.

Marcus sprung to his feet and looked around the darkened room. There was nothing in the entire room, just him and a door.
“Hello?” screamed Marcus at the top of his lungs, trying to get someone outside the room to hear him. “Hello?”
There was no reply. Feeling very uncomfortable, Marcus wanted to get out of here. Marcus moved towards the door only to stop suddenly a few steps later. Hanging from the top of the door was a chain. At the bottom of the chain was a small, handheld tape recorder, attached to the chain. Marcus examined the tape player, finding a small piece of white paper attached to it, the words: “Play Me”, spelt out in big letters. Curiosity getting the better of him, Marcus clicked play.

“Good morning Mr. Pitt,” a voice said over the tape. “You’ll find yourself locked inside a room with only one way out. I’m pretty sure you know what that way is, the door. You need to pay for what you’ve done, Marcus. You’ve burned down homes and watched them crumble away while smiling. Now it’s your turn to be burned. Your task is simple. Escape from this room and then the next room that follows. You’ll be on a long path to freedom. Oh, and Marcus, it won’t be pleasant. Have fun.”

The tape clicked off after it ended. Marcus had no idea who had just spoken to him. The voice was very deep, and it sounded as though someone older than forty years of age spoke it. Marcus pushed the thought aside and got back to the important issue, getting out of the room. Marcus put his hand on the doorknob and twisted, only to pull his hand off it immediately.
“ARRGH!!!! Fuck!” screamed Marcus loudly.
Clutching his hand, Marcus saw the palm of his hand horribly burned, a large circle shaped scald in his hand. Marcus blew on his hand, trying to take the pain away. It looked as though the very palm of his hand had melted away, the center of it turning blood red.

On the other side of the door, attached to the wall next to the door was a blowtorch, turned on, and aimed right at the doorknob. The blowtorch had been heating the knob the whole time Marcus had been in the room. His task was to escape the room, and that was the only way out. Gideon said it wasn’t going to be pleasant…


NAME: SARAH BUSH, EVA LILIA
AGE: 24, 28
CRIMES: DRUG ABUSERS

Sarah Bush breathed heavily as she woke up on a cold wooden floor. Her eyes were hurting as she opened them up. Suddenly, Sarah wondered what in the world was going on. Why was she on the floor? And where was she? She stood up, only to nearly fall back to the floor again. She looked at her hands and screamed.
“What the fuck is going on?” she screamed as she saw two metal clamps attached to her arms, just above her hands.

They were shackles on the ends of chains. The shackle on her right arm was chained to a wall just a foot from her. However, the shackle on her left arm was attached to another shackle, identical to her own, only on the sill unconscious Eva Lilia. Eva was also shackled to both Sarah and the wall.
“Hey! Wake up!” yelled Sarah to Eva.
Eva’s eyes opened weakly, then they sprang wide open as she saw where she was.
“What did you do to me?” screamed Eva as she saw Sarah.
“Hey! Calm down, I haven’t done anything, but I don’t know what’s going on either,” said Sarah, looking around the room.

“Where are we?” muttered Sarah.
Eva noticed a small tape player on the floor next to the pair of them. She picked it up and pressed play.
“Drugs destroy people’s lives, wouldn’t you say Ms. Lilia, Ms. Bush?” said a mysterious voice, the same that had spoken on Marcus’ tape. “Drugs have driven people to go insane and commit murder. They wreck people, but not you two. You both give them out and use them yourselves. So I’m giving you a chance to right the wrongs in your lives. Well, in one of your lives. You’ll notice you’re shackled to the wall and the other person in the room. The key to the shackles that connect you to the wall is on the floor in the middle of the room. But you’d better hurry, that key is rusted and can only work once. The key to the shackles that connect you is behind where you see the world. Sarah, Eva, have fun.”
The tape clicked off. Both Sarah and Eva looked to the ground and saw the key that the voice had been talking about.
“Who gets the key?” asked Eva, eyeing off the key on the floor.
“What do you mean?” asked Sarah.
“The key can only be used once, which means only one of us can get out of here. So who gets it?” asked Eva again.
“There’s got to be another way out of this,” said Sarah, sitting herself down on the ground to think.
Eva did the same, but something caught her eye. Sarah’s right eye looked badly bruised, bloody even. Eva felt around her right eye, and it stung like all hell. Eva then remembered something that was said on the tape. The key to the shackles that connect you is behind where you see the world. The other key was behind their eyes.

Eva then saw something on the ground next to her, a knife. She looked towards Sarah and saw a knife next to her also. Deviously, Eva slipped the knife across the floor and behind her back.
So what’re we going to do?” asked Eva.
Sarah shook her head and scratched her bruised eye.
“I don’t know,” said Sarah quietly. “Let’s talk about this.”
“Yeah, let’s talk,” said Eva, clutching the knife tightly behind her.

* * * * *

NAME: CALLUM MORRIS
AGE: 27
CRIMES: ACCEPTING BRIBES

Agent Callum Morris of the FBI sat in his seat in his office, staring blankly at the computer screen in front of him. A knock on the door startled him and he nearly fell from his chair.
“Come in,” said Callum loudly.
A young, grubby man entered his office, wearing a large overcoat and long jeans. He had a baldhead and had many piercings on his face. His name was Cid Nexus, one of the local area’s major conmen. Mainly doing dirty card games that no one could win at and selling fraudulent watches and other merchandise. Cid was also one of the criminals that paid Callum to overlook his doings, paying him a monthly bribe of a few hundred bucks every two weeks.

“How much you got for me today, Cid?” asked Callum.
Cid sat down on the chair in front of Callum’s desk and pulled a scrunched up brown paper bag from his jacket pocket, handing it to Callum. Callum opened it up and looked inside at the $400 that lay inside.
“Pleasure doing business Cid, now get out of here before someone notices you,” said Callum, pointing to the door.
“Yeah, sure. See you around Snake,” said Cid, turning and leaving the office.
‘Snake’ was the name that Callum had earned on the streets, seeing as how he was deceiving the agency that employed him.

Callum’s phone rang. He picked it up and put the receiver to his ear.
“Agent Morris speaking,” answered Callum.
A deep, slightly distorted voice spoke back to him.
“152 Pinewood Street,” said the voice, and then they hung up.
Callum put the phone down, a confused look over his face. What was at 152 Pinewood? Callum got his things together, namely his jacket and gun, and then headed off to investigate just what was happening at 152 Pinewood.

* * * * *

Marcus Pitt sat in the corner of the room, his scarred hand held out, still causing him pain. Breathing heavily and staring at the door, Marcus could see no other way out of the room. He was going to have to open the door by putting his hand back on the knob long enough to open the door. Another option came into Marcus’ mind. Kick the door open. Marcus liked that idea and sprang to his feet in an instant, running towards the door. Despite having no shoes on, Marcus extended out his right foot and unleashed a powerful kick into the door. He jumped back in pain, screaming once again. Falling to the ground, Marcus clutched his foot, now bleeding from many small holes in it. Looking at the door, Marcus saw that the tips of nails were poking through it, just enough not to be seen from far away, but enough to cause some damage. He hadn’t noticed because he’d been so preoccupied with the hot doorknob.

Marcus, still clutching his foot, sat himself up and stared at the door again.
“This is bad,” he muttered to himself.
His foot hurt bad, bleeding all over the floor, painting it a dark red. His hand still felt like it was on fire. But he was going to have to push through the pain if he ever wanted to get out of here alive. Sucking up the pain, Marcus painfully got back on his feet and moved to the door, his hand trembling just above the knob. He gritted his teeth and closed his eyes as he slammed his hand onto the knob and twisted it open. His eyes watered, his hand burned and his voice was loud as he screamed from the pain. Finally, it was over. He was out of the godforsaken room. The palm of his right hand was nothing more than a large, red mess. The skin had melted away, only blood being left behind.

Marcus ripped a bit of his shirt apart and wrapped it around his wounded hand and foot. After his injuries were taken care of, for the time being, Marcus found himself in a long, empty hallway. Another door waited for him at the end of the hallway. Marcus knew that it wouldn’t be an exit to this hell he was in; after all, he recalled the voice on the tape saying, “You’ll be on a long path to freedom”.

Marcus limped down the hallway until he arrived at the door. He put his hand above the knob and left it there for several seconds, trying to feel any heat coming off it. He found none, so he went through the door.

* * * * *

Sarah and Eva sat on either side of the key to the shackles, both staring at it with desire.
“What do you say? What should we do to see who gets the key?” asked Sarah, still thinking about how to come to a conclusion on who should get the key to freedom.
Eva clutched the knife behind her back even tighter. Then, quick as lightning, Eva moved the knife out from behind her and slashed it towards Sarah, cutting a large slice down the side of her right arm.

“Ah! Shit! What the hell are you doing?” asked Sarah, rubbing the bloody slice on her arm.
“Getting the fuck out of here, that’s what,” Eva replied lunging for the key.
Sarah did the same, diving forward for the key. Both women landed near the key, their hands fighting over for the small object. Sarah pushed the key to the side, two feet from their reach.

Sarah yanked her hand back hard, pulling Eva down to the floor hard, her head knocking into the wood floor, cutting the top of her forehead. Sarah noticed the knife next to her and grabbed it. Eva had recovered and pulled herself to her feet, Sarah doing the same. The pair gripped their knives tightly and stared at each other with hatred. They were like two old warriors, circling each other in the arena, ready to kill the other in a second.

Eva lunged forward, knife swinging wildly towards Sarah. Sarah, doing as she did before, yanked the chains connecting them hard again, causing Eva to fall face first to the ground once again. Only this time, Sarah heard something else instead of the bang that occurred when she hit the ground before. This was more of a squishing sound. Sarah looked down at Eva lying on the floor, a large amount of blood starting to spill across the floor in a large red pool. Sarah knelt down to investigate and saw Eva’s knife sticking out of her own chest, directly into her heart. Her eyes were opened wide, but completely lifeless. She was dead.

Sarah threw down her own knife and started hyperventilating. This woman had just died because of her. She tripped her and made her fall on her knife. Then Sarah remembered the key. Reaching out for it, Sarah grabbed the key and unlocked the shackle attaching her to the wall. She could now move freely around the room, but having to drag Eva’s body with her if she wanted to move far. She still had to disconnect her from Eva. She remembered back to the tape. The key to the shackles that connect you is behind where you see the world. The words echoed in her head, then she saw the bruising on Eva’s eye, and felt it on her own eye.
“Oh shit,” she muttered.

* * * * *

Agent Callum Morris got out of his car outside 152 Pinewood. It was a large wooden house, and very old. It was dark and most of the wood was rotted, termite infested and falling away. Callum moved up to the front door and knocked loudly. The door flung open under the force of his knocks. Something told Callum that someone wanted that to happen. Drawing his gun, Callum carefully moved inside the house.

Stepping through the front door, Callum looked around where he was. A long hallway was before him. At the end of it was a large digital clock, the time 2:00 displayed in large red numbers. Callum moved further into the hallway. Suddenly, the front door slammed shut behind him. Callum spun, his gun raised. A soft click was heard as the door locked. Not thinking anything of it, Callum continued on.

Moving slowly and cautiously further into the hallway, Callum failed to see a small tripwire on the ground in front of him. The wire snapped and all of a sudden, two wooden floorboards were pulled away from under his feet. In an instant, Callum started to fall into the floor, only to be violently stopped as the two floorboards slid back into place, level with Callum’s thighs, crushing them completely.
“Jesus Christ!” screamed Callum in pain, his legs going completely numb.
He was now stuck in the floor, his legs from the thighs down trapped beneath the wooden floor.

Callum had dropped his gun; it lay several feet in front of him, out of reach. Callum then noticed two things. The digital clock started to change. Its numbers were counting down.
1:50…1:49…1:48
IT wasn’t a clock, it was a timer realised Callum. The second thing he noticed was a small tape player lying on the floor in front of him. He picked it up and pressed play.

“Hello Agent Morris, or as others call you, Snake. For years you’ve deceived others by receiving bribes from the criminals of the city. You are a Snake. One of the worst there is. You sit back while the scum of the city preys on the innocent and you get richer. You need to learn right from your wrongdoings. You’ll notice that you’re trapped in the floor. The only way out is to insert a key into a small keyhole in the wall to your right. The key will be appearing once the timer in front of you reaches zero. You’ll like what is carrying the key Callum. After all, you’re one of them. Have fun.”

The same voice that had given messages to Marcus, Sarah and Eva played over the tape. Callum looked at the timer. Thirty seconds to go. What in the hell could be carrying a key? The timer reached zero and a small door, the size of a doggy door opened up in the wall below the timer. At first nothing happened, nothing emerged from the door. Then something moved out slowly. Then a second thing moved out, followed by a third and a fourth. Pretty soon, there were dozens of little things moving out of the door. Slithering out of the door.

In front of Callum were fifty, very poisonous Cobras. Each was long, two feet being the shortest, the largest around five. Each of them slithered around, getting closer and closer to Callum who was desperately reaching for his gun. Fifty cobras, and only one of them held his key to freedom. One.

* * * * *


NAME: SEAN THREIN
AGE: 31
CRIMES: ASSAULT & ARMED ROBBERY

Standing alone in a small, dark room was Sean Threin. 31 years old and very short and stubby, Sean made a living by robbing small shops, mainly gas stations and corner shops. Now justice was being served. Sean had an odd-looking metal contraption strapped to his head. It was like a metal football helmet without the domed top. The guards, which would protect Sean’s face if it were a helmet, had an extra piece attached to it, a very sharp knife. Two metal arms held the knife in place. The arms had small gears had the ends of them that were set to start spinning once Sean pressed play on a small tape recorder in his hands.

The knife lay only three inches from Sean’s eyes. Preparing to press play, hoping the tape would tell him to escape, Sean braced himself. A split second before Sean could press the button, the door to his room opened and a man came inside. Sean spun quickly to face the man, which turned out to be none other than Marcus Pitt.
“Whoa! Who are you? What the hell is that thing?” asked Marcus, staring at the contraption connected to Sean.
“Sean Threin. I don’t know what it is man, but you gotta help me, please,” pleaded Sean, tears streaming down his face.
Marcus shook his head. “I don’t know. You have to listen to the tape I’m guessing.”

Sean shook his head too. “I can’t do that, if I do, the knife starts to move towards me.”
Sean pointed to the wall, where in large red letters, put on the wall in red paint, the words: PRESS PLAY TO MOVE YOUR BLADE.
“You’re going to have to do it sooner or later dude,” said Marcus.
“Aww shit!” cursed Sean as he pressed play.

“Hello Sean. What makes you think you have the right to take money from others that they’ve earned? You have no right to do this, Sean. That’s why you are here, to pay for your actions. By clicking play you’ve activated the knife gears. That knife will be in your eyes in just minutes, unless you can find the key to remove the contraption. Your key is inside another man’s sole. To narrow it down, his name is Marcus. Have fun, Sean.”

Sean looked at Marcus, realizing who he was.
“You’ve got my key! Give it to me!” he screamed, as the knife started moving slowly towards his eyes.
“I don’t have it,” said Marcus, knowing for a fact that he didn’t possess a key on him.
How would he have a key in his soul? Then it hit him. It wasn’t his soul; it was the sole of his foot. Marcus pulled his foot off the ground and looked at it. It was still bloody from kicking the nail door. He felt around for the key but couldn’t feel anything. He checked his other foot and felt something small and hard underneath the skin of his sole.
“Oh shit,” muttered Marcus.

Sean saw Marcus find the key in his sole. “Give me it!”
Sean lunged at Marcus, reaching for his foot to get the key, the knife only two inches away. Marcus retaliated, pushing Sean backwards into the wall.
“Stay the fuck away from me! You aren’t cutting open my fucking foot!” screamed Marcus.
Sean got back to his feet and ran full belt at Marcus, fist swinging. Marcus waited until he was close enough and then pushed as hard as he could…on the handle of the knife.

The knife sprang forward in Sean’s eyes, bursting them both, rendering Sean completely blind.
“AH! You motherfucker!” screamed Sean, swinging blindly at Marcus, trying to hit him.
Blood sprayed out everywhere from Sean’s eyes, Marcus copping most in his face. Sean screamed and cursed loudly, blindly stumbling around. Marcus grabbed the knife from Sean’s eyes and redirected it at his throat. With another strong push, Marcus drove the blade into Sean’s throat. The screaming ceased immediately and Sean stumbled on the spot for a second before falling to the ground in a crumpled, bloody heap.

* * * * *

Sarah crouched over Eva’s body, her knife gripped tightly in her hand. Rolling Eva’s body over so she could see her face, Sarah grasped the knife and moved it towards Eva’s severely bruised eye. Sarah closed her eyes and then forced the knife into Eva’s eye. The sound was sickening, like a squishing, gurgling sound as Sarah cut and mashed Eva’s eye, hoping to get it out of the way to get the key.

Sarah removed the knife from the body’s eye and looked inside. Little pieces of white eyeball was scattered around the place. Sarah could only gag and then vomit. Spitting up the last of her sickness, Sarah looked into the eye socket again and saw a small silver key lying inside. Slowly, with her shaking hands, Sarah pulled the key out with two of her fingers and undid the shackles that attached her to Eva.

She was now free from both restraints. Sarah got up from the floor and ran to the door, wanting to get the hell out of this place.

* * * * *

The cobras slithered in closer and closer to the still trapped Agent Morris. Panicking wildly, Callum outstretched his arm as far as he could, reaching for his gun. But he was an inch short from grabbing it.
“Shit, shit, shit,” he muttered as several of the snakes came within two foot of him.
Callum’s fingertips touched the gun. Flicking his fingers backwards, Callum moved the gun closer towards him, scooping it up and aiming at the oncoming snakes.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Eight snakes now dead, but another forty-two of the bastards severely aggravated from the shots. The dead snakes were in reach of Callum, so he scooped one up in his hands and searched the outside of the snake for the key but found nothing but bleeding snake skin. Then Callum saw it: a large cobra. Easily seven foot long, obviously a King Cobra, and atop its head, held by what looked to be a small chain cut into the snakes head was his key. The only problem was that the King lay behind all of the other snakes, far out of reach, and Callum knew he didn’t have enough bullets for all of the snakes. Callum shot dead two more snakes that came too close to him, leaving him only six more bullets.

The snakes suddenly grew even more provoked by Callum, a dozen of them launching themselves towards him at breakneck speed. Firing wildly, Callum killed only six, dozens more surrounding him. Then they attacked. A cobra leapt up and bit Callum in the chest, another in his right arm, followed by another in his left. Several cobras attacked the man’s back, biting furiously, injecting his body with loads of deadly venom. A large cobra vaulted itself up and bit Callum’s chin. Callum screamed and yanked the snake off, throwing it hard against the wall.

“ARRGH!!!” he screamed as the bites became faster and more aggressive. “Help me!”
Shaking from the numerous bites, Callum’s body fell forward, landing hard on the floor, bleeding from the bite wounds and cuts. It had been over in ninety seconds from the first bite. From multiple snakebites combined with shock, Agent Callum Morris was now dead.

* * * * *

Sarah moved through a long hallway, the bloody knife still in her hand. The long hallway had two doors at either end, in the middle of the hallway on the floor sat two small silver tape players. Sarah looked at the two players; each had a small white piece of paper attached to it. The first had ‘SARAH, PLAY ME’ on it, while the second had ‘MARCUS, PLAY ME’ on it. Sarah picked up her tape player and pressed play.

“Hello Sarah. I suppose congratulations are in order for winning at your game. You’re one step closer to freedom, but first a question. Do you remember why you turned to using drugs, Sarah? It was the robbery. The night you were held up by a desperate criminal, whose actions that night traumatized you, yes? Do you remember his name? It was Sean Threin. Ask Marcus about him when he arrives. Your next game, Sarah, will be arriving soon. Have fun.”

The tape ended. Sarah remembered back to the night of the robbery. She was working late at a small gas station when a guy burst in, Sean, and held up the place. He pointed a gun right in Sarah’s face and said he would kill her. She gave him the money and he got out of there, no harm done. But Sarah would never fully recover, severely traumatized by that night; she turned to drugs to get her through the days.

The door on the other side of the hallway opened, and out came Marcus. Marcus stumbled down the hallway and saw his tape player on the ground. Marcus looked to Sarah.
“Who are you?” he asked curiously.
“Sarah Bush, you?” asked Sarah.
“Marcus Pitt,” he replied quietly, picking up his tape and examining it, clicking play.

“Hello Marcus. You survived your test by getting through the door. You then saved yourself from more harm by not helping a man in need, Sean Threin. His blood is on your hands now. There should be a woman in front of you, Sarah Bush. She’s undergone tests like you. I’m sure you two will have lots to talk about. Your next game will appear shortly. Oh, and Marcus, how’s the girlfriend? Have fun.”

The tape finished speaking and Marcus had a confused look on his face.
“How does he know I have a girlfriend?” he muttered.
“I don’t know, but tell me. Did you kill someone called Sean Threin?” asked Sarah curiously.
“Yeah, I had to. Or he was going to cut my foot off,” Marcus answered.
Sarah nodded with a smile. “Thank You. That son of a bitch robbed me a while back, scared the living shit out of me thinking he was going to show up again one day. So who’s your girlfriend?”

“Girl called Eva Lilia. She’s great,” answered Marcus.
Sarah went absolutely silent and still. The girl she’d killed not long ago was this man’s girlfriend! If he ever found out, he’d kill her in an instant. Jesus Christ, thought Sarah.

Suddenly, a small panel in the sidewall opened up, sort of like a laundry chute. Inside was a small tape player. Marcus moved over to it and pressed play.
“Marcus, Sarah. You’ve both made it this far, one step closer to reaching freedom. I’m going to give one of you the chance to call for help, the police. To gain access to a phone to call for help, you’re going to have to play a game. It’s very simple; kill the other person, before they kill you. If you, Marcus, kill Sarah, you’ll gain the phone. If you, Sarah, kill Marcus, you will gain the phone. This could be your only chance of getting out of here, and you’ve both killed before, so it should be easy to duplicate. After all Sarah, that knife you’re holding killed Eva Lilia, didn’t it?”

Marcus immediately stared at Sarah, his eyes burning with hatred. Sarah looked back at him nervously, clutching the knife a little bit harder.

“Sarah, Marcus, let the games begin.”