Monster Gauntlet Read online

  Monster Gauntlet

  A Supernatural Thriller

  by Paul Emil

  Summary

  Moving from her small hometown in Scotland to a massive city like London, Moira MacMillan is looking forward to new life of excitement and adventure. Unfortunately, she gets it.

  Moira’s world changes after new friends talk her into marching with them in a huge downtown parade that degenerates into a riot. In an uncharacteristic act of defiance, Moira resists arrest and becomes the unwitting face of protest against government oppression.

  Eager to make a public example of her, the government jails Moira and offers her one chance to earn her freedom – by running the Gauntlet. She will join a group of prisoners in the highlands of Scotland on Monster Gauntlet, a bizarre reality show where dangerous criminals attempt to survive 24 hours of terror in a natural area seeded with real monsters.

  Survival is possible, but the odds are very low, for almost everyone familiar with the show knows the same truth: Monster Gauntlet is a death sentence.

  Monster Gauntlet is fantasy adventure novel by Paul Emil, author of The Paradise Lie and The Spook House. Born and raised in Los Gatos, California, Paul currently resides in the nearby town of Campbell. To learn more about Paul Emil, his art, and his writing, visit his Web site at www.PaulEmil.com

  Copyright © 2014 by Paul Emil

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the copyright owner, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  For more information on Paul Emil, please visit his Web site at www.PaulEmil.com

  Cover design by Paul Emil

  1

  I believe in faeries, and if you’ve ever been in Scotland, you know why. You just look at the country and think, How could there not be faeries?

  I’m from the town of Portree on Isle of Skye. That’s an island at the northernmost tip of Scotland, for those of you who don’t know. I met some American who came through town once and called Scotland “beautiful desolation.” I think that was supposed to be a compliment. I can see why he’d say that. In the highlands, there are mist-enshrouded mountains with tops that disappear into clouds, like they’re the homes for giants. It’s a country where it’s easy to believe in faeries in fields and monsters in the lochs. A lot of people think those are just stories, meant to keep children from wandering alone in the woods or getting too close to the water. A lot of people are wrong.

  People in my town (and Scotland as a whole) are very superstitious. My parents had an iron horseshoe hanging over our front door. People associate horseshoes with luck. You see them in pubs and on lottery tickets and things like that. You might think that has something to do with gambling and horse races, but the lucky charm isn’t the horseshoe at all. It’s the iron. And it’s not about luck. It’s about protection.

  When I was a little girl, I lived in house at the edge of town. It had a window (with a horseshoe nailed over it) that looked out over a meadow with a big rock in the middle of it. Sometimes, I’d wake up in the morning when it was still dark. I’d go to the window and look out. In the blue gloom, the rock looked like a castle. More than once, I thought I saw fireflies in the field around the rock. My dad said that wasn’t possible. “There are no fireflies in Britain,” he said. “It’s too cold.”

  I always believed in faeries. If faeries lived anywhere in the world, surely it would be here. Skye, like Scotland in general, seems to exist in another time. It’s like it’s the same year for the whole planet, but in our country, time moves slower, like it’s hundreds of years in the past. The countryside looks almost medieval. We have villages that look similar to the way they did hundreds ago, and in the highlands, terrain that looked the same thousands of years ago. Of course, they are big cities. We have cars and cell phones and high-speed rail trains, but they seem to blend into the background.

  Like most people who grow up in small towns, when I got older, I had the simultaneous urges to stay and leave. Being seventeen, the urge to leave and see the world was strong. I wanted to go to America, but I couldn’t afford it and decided to go to a university in London. America would be later, I told myself.

  London wasn’t far away geographically, but believe me, it was a whole new world. It was a huge modern city. It was big, crazy, and exciting. I loved it.

  I think part of the appeal of Scotland to a lot of people is the timelessness, that slower pace of life. Honestly, I was done with that. It’s a high-tech world and I wanted to be part of it. I wanted to be an engineer and work with computers and robots and other cool high-tech stuff.

  I took engineering classes that were really hard. I wanted to be on the “cutting edge” and learn as much as I could about technology. Even in this day and age, I was still often the only girl in most of my engineering classes, to the point where I became known as “the girl engineer.”

  My roommate was assigned based on a survey I filled out. I was worried about who I was going to be paired off with. She turned out to be a tall Irish girl game Alysh. I saw her and instinctively hated her. I knew that whenever we stood next to each other, she would be “the hot one” and I would be “the other girl,” if anyone noticed me at all. Alysh had long red hair and green eyes. Her skin was pale and flawless. Her body was totally different than mine. She was tall and toned and athletic. I looked short and weak next to her. Most girls did, but that didn’t make me feel any better. Unlike so many other people (like me) who dye their hair (mine’s blue), she was one of the few who didn’t color her hair to make it more exciting. She didn’t need to.

  I soon learned that Alysh and I had very different dating preferences. She only seemed to be attracted to men who were as tall as she was or taller. She also liked guys who were built like rugby players. It didn’t matter how smart they were, as long as they were big and strong.

  I laughed secretly. We’ve all heard about men who don’t care about a woman’s personality as long as she’s “hot,” but I guess it goes both ways. In any case, Alysh and I would not be competing for the attention of the same men.

  After I got to know her, I scolded myself for my shallowness. I liked Alysh. I also admired her. She was really smart. She had a brain as well as the body. She wanted to be a doctor – an emergency room surgeon, actually. I was impressed. I could never do that. I hate the sight of blood.

  –––––

  It was Alysh who almost talked me into watching Monster Gauntlet. Almost. Monster Gauntlet. It’s exactly what it sounds like. It’s an American show (of course). It’s big, loud, and exciting, kind of like everything in America (or at least that’s the impression we get).

  It’s like watching race cars crash. It’s horrible and tragic and all that, but at the same time, it’s spectacular and bizarre and you have to look. You can’t help it. You tell yourself you don’t want to see death and destruction, but secretly hope you will. You want to see a crash with fireball and pieces of metal and the driver flying out and scattering on to track. It’s biological. You just have to see the result. You have to know the end of the story.

  The bottom line is, I don’t like watching real people getting torn apart by monsters. If that makes me uncool, oh well.

  Alysh did her best to try to convince me to go.

  “I’m not interested,” I told her.

  “Oh, Moira. We’ve got to go! They’re showing it in the 3D-Dome.”

  “So?”

  “Have you seen the screen in there? It’s huge! It’ll be like we’re really there!”

  “Really there? Wonderful,” I groaned. “Do you
want to be ‘really there,’ in the arena?”

  Alysh looked momentarily confused. Then she perked up and said, “Moira, everyone’s going to be there.”

  “Who’s ‘everyone’?”

  Alysh shook her head and said, “Moira, this isn’t just about the show. It’s a social event. It’s like a rugby match. Everyone will be all fired up. Collin will be there.”

  Collin. So there it was. The truth came out. Collin was a big rugby player Alysh had her eye on. He’d be there with his buddies – a group of large guys hopped up on testosterone and adrenaline (and probably alcohol). Monster Gauntlet did appeal mainly to men as its target audience. I suddenly understood why Alysh was so eager to go.

  Alysh sighed. I thought she was going to give up, but she didn’t. She changed tactics.

  “Moira,” she said. “This is the Halloween episode.”

  “So?”

  “So?” Alysh echoed, staring at me in disbelief. “It’s Halloween! The show will be extra cool. Think about it. It just fits. They’ll probably break out all of the ghosts and goblins.”

  I was momentarily intrigued. The tagline of the show was “Real monsters. Real mayhem. Real justice.” I don’t know about the justice, but I can tell you the monsters and the mayhem were real – “real” being the operative word. Whatever the monsters really were was a carefully guarded secret. Most were bio-engineered, I thought. That was the most popular theory anyway, although there were a lot of religious people and conspiracy theorists who swore that the monsters were real. I mean, for real “real,” not manufactured. They claimed the MG scientists had captured actual specimens or cloned extinct ones back to life. I don’t know.

  Still, there was one episode that featured a ghost. I’m guessing it was some type of hologram or special effect or something. That was freaky. The Runners in that episode were totally screwed.

  I was wondering if they would bring out the ghost again for the Halloween episode. Like Alysh, I was certain they would. Also, growing up in Scotland, I was raised with ghost stories and faerie lore. I wondered, What does a goblin look like?

  I was tempted to go, but in the end, I stood my ground. Alysh would have to find another girl to be her co-pilot while she chased men. Besides, she didn’t need my help.

  On the day of the event, the campus seemed deserted. It’s like everyone who didn’t have to work or drive someplace had found a place to hole up and camp in front of a video screen. Alysh went off with another group of friends. I was momentarily jealous, then the feeling passed.

  I started to work on my computer. Engineering homework never ended. It seemed like I had barely gotten started when I heard keys rattling in the door. Alysh was back.

  “Back so soon? I thought ...”

  She looked pale, and her eyes were red and watery. I got to my feet. “Alysh, what happened? Are you OK? Did somebody ...”

  She shook her head and waved me back.

  “No, I’m OK,” she said. “I’m just ... You were right. That really is a cruel show. I wish I could have been strong like you, and just said no. But I just wanted to join in with everybody else.”

  “Alysh, what happened?”

  “Well, the Runners started out in this field. Then this big dog thing chased them into the woods. That was OK, because they all got away, but then, in the woods, there was this giant spider web ...”

  Suddenly, it all made sense. Alysh was terrified of spiders. Emergency room trauma? Alysh was cool and calm. Spiders? No. Part of me wanted to say, “It is the Halloween episode. What did you expect?” but I didn’t. I respect other people fears, even if they’re not my own.

  Plus, my mom always said, “Never kill a spider. It’s bad luck.”

  If they were in our house, we had to catch them in a cup and throw them out the door. Killing them was a last resort. That idea isn’t so odd, really. A lot of cultures respect spiders for how hardworking and patient they are. Then again, nobody likes spiders. It’s like there’s a trigger in our animal brains that tells us to be afraid of that shape.

  Alysh was looking at herself in the mirror and grooming her long red hair. She didn’t look bad. I think she just wanted to something with her hands.

  “I don’t get it,” she said. “A lot of people were freaked out, but a lot of them were laughing. Some of the guys were even cheering. For the monster.”

  “It’s like a horror movie to them,” I said.

  “Only it’s real,” said Alysh. “I tried to tell myself, ‘It’s only a movie.’ But it’s not.”

  Then she blurted out, “I can’t believe there are really things out there like that! I’m never going hiking again! I barely want to leave this room!”

  I wanted to remind her that the arena area was enclosed in an electronic perimeter, and that all monsters were retrieved, deactivated, or destroyed after an event. At least, that’s what they kept telling us.

  Those words didn’t help. Fortunately, I knew something that would.

  “You know what we need?” I said. “Ice cream. Or pizza. Or something.”

  Alysh looked at me. She was about to protest. She was in-shape. She had a body and an image to maintain. She was about to say something, but then laughed and wiped her eyes.

  “Oh, Moira. Let’s go.”

  –––––

  Alysh and I sat across the table from each other as we ate pizza at the campus café. We talked (well, mostly she talked and I listened) about who were the hottest guys, who was paired off with whom, what sexy Halloween costume she should wear to an upcoming party, politics, what was wrong with the world and what she was going to do about it.

  I watched Alysh as I ate, amused and impressed by how her hands moved as she talked and how much more furious they became as she spoke about things she was passionate about.

  I liked university life. I liked London. I thought about Alysh and myself. We were young and smart and good-looking (well, at least Alysh was) and our lives were just beginning. I love the line, “You don’t find yourself. You create yourself.” That was us. We had so much potential. We had bright futures ahead of us. Life was good.

  That was about to change.

  2

  About a week later, Alysh and I were eating at the same café with a friend named Eric. He was strong and athletic and totally gay. His constant smile gave him away. Alysh took a sip of her drink, looked at me and said, “So, what are you doing this weekend?”

  They waited for my answer like a courtroom waiting to hear a verdict. I looked from one to the other and said, “I don’t know. Why?”

  Alysh smiled and the mood lightened. “Well,” she said, “You should march with us in the parade.”

  “The parade?”

  Eric rolled his eyes. Alysh maintained herself and said, “The Equality Parade?”

  “Equality Parade?”

  My friends stared at me as if I were a child trying to understand a simple concept.

  “Oh, yeah,” I said. “I heard something about that.”

  It was true. I had heard there was going to be an Equality Parade, but that was all I heard. I just wasn’t into politics like Alysh was.

  “Well,” Alysh said, still smiling, “How’d you like to be in it?”

  “In it?”

  “That’s right! In it! I’m going to be in it. Eric is too.”

  Eric nodded approvingly.

  “What do you mean you’re going to be in it? Doing what?”

  “Showing pride,” Eric said.

  “Showing support for women’s rights,” said Alysh. “Showing strength. It’ll be fun.”

  “Fun?” I said, wondering if my friends were crazy. “Marching for a cause is your idea of fun? Alysh, it’s dangerous.”

  “Moira,” she said coldly. “This is London. We’re university students. And we’re women. It’s about equality.”

  “Look,” Eric said. “Where would gay people be without marching? It takes people willing to stand together to be heard.”

  I sighed and
said, “OK. Tell me more about it.”

  Alysh convinced me that the march wasn’t a “protest.” It was about “awareness.” The parade would be for any group that still felt they had to fight to be treated as equals. I started to sympathize.

  The event was supposed to be huge. There were going to be floats and everything. It was more of a PRIDE parade than a protest, they said. It sounded like something to see. I supported the cause. I agreed to go.

  “Great!” said Alysh. “You can help us hold the sign.”

  –––––

  The event was so big that it was both fun and frightening. The parade, or whatever it was, marched down The Mall – the long, straight, tree-lined street that goes through St. James Park and ends at Buckingham Palace. Spectators and tourists formed human walls on either side of us. Cops in standard uniforms that resembled riot gear stood guard. They were spaced out evenly like black posts in a human fence. The police presence was massive.

  Everything was fine at first. The sky was blue and uncharacteristically clear. The weather was warm and everyone seemed to be in a good mood because of it. It felt like we were walking through a parted sea of humanity. The “walls” of spectators on either side of us fluttered with small flags as people waved the Union Jack.

  I felt good. I was holding the corner of a banner while walking in the front of the “women’s march.” Alysh was at the other end of the sign. There were three girls holding up the middle of the banner between us.

  There were several groups in the long procession. I was in the women’s group, but there were also homosexuals, atheists, and, at the other end of the spectrum (and the parade, literally), creationists. It was, after all, an equal-opportunity parade. There was even a group of people protesting Monster Gauntlet. They shouted and waved signs with words like, “Abominations!” and “Blood Sport!” and could really see their point. I found that kind of ironic, since I saw the MG logo everywhere as one of the sponsors of the parade.