The Monster You Don't

There was only one rule: don’t open the door. The premise of the game was simple. Contestants were placed in a colosseum with an unlocked exit door and a bloodthirsty monster for twenty-four hours.

Fight and you won a share of the pot of collected life years from your fellow contestants.

Flee and you forfeited everything.

It was Carte-Blanche for psychopathy, but Katie, a fifty something former slave who was already familiar with battling the monsters of her own species, had nothing left to lose.

Or so she had thought.

Katie's gaze followed the stream of blood from her ax in the man's cerebellum as the liquid pooled in hot ribbons across the icy snow.

Upon his death, the scoreboard lit up with the sounds of a slot machine as it counted the years contributed to the pot. The camera on the jumbotron zoomed in on his distraught widow in her hospital bed surrounded by their two small children.

The crowd jeered in anger. Not for the ailing widow, no — they were bemoaning their lost wagers. Ryan had been a sure bet.

His body twitched like a puppet as she wrenched the ax free. For a moment the world stalled and Katie thought she could actually see the microcrystals growing as the blood froze on her blade.

It was all so God damned pointless!

One way or another the rich always got richer.

2 choices. 24 hours. All profit.

Behind her the beast roared closer...

There was a third choice, however. One which the producers had been too short sighted to see, but a slave would never miss:

There was no lock on the door from which they had entered the stadium.

Katie flung it open and turned on the crowd.

And the beast followed.

~*~

Author's note:

I came squeaking in at 295 words.

Thank you Vocal for taking my suggestion for a horror piece for October. But jeez... did it have to be microfiction?? And it's not like I could sit it out with having been the one who asked for it, so no pressure! lol I may take another crack at a ghost story but for now this action-horror genre bender is all the terror this old noodle could cook up.

To my readers on and off Vocal, thank you so much for dropping in. Genuine feedback good and bad welcome. Please do point out typos! And by all means please share your own entry here in the comments (or another piece) so I can return the read and hopefully we all make new connections :)

~ Les xx

For G - thank you for the nudge and inspiration for the title. Once I had that the rest flowed out.

And hey, if this made you at all nostalgic for the Gladiator soundtrack, I highly recommend this violin cover by indie artist Taylor Davis.

Published October 2024 on Vocal Media by Call Me Les. All rights reserved.