Night Terrors: Death Game

Minutes after the slow drain of the vat had begun, Rafael wheeled Conrad in on a stretcher and began hooking him up to the treadmill system with the rest of us, then woke him up. We were back up to seven men with his addition.

“Jonathan is gone now?” Jason asked him.

“Yeah,” Conrad said quietly. Nothing more was said on the matter.

The lights on the energy tubes lit up. “If you need it, you can drink more of the fluid,” the Host said. “We're going to be running some more the next round, but with the vat empty, there won't be any more of the energy drink to keep you going.

Some of them actually started drinking. “Please, guys, just don't,” I said to them.  Everyone except the sprinter paused.

“What's the deal with that stuff?” Conrad asked.

“It's the liquefied remains of Billy and the others, mixed with our own.  The stuff flowing into our asses is just that, and we're absorbing it into ourselves.  What's coming through the drinking tubes is that stuff mixed with some sort of chemical that gives energy.  I don't trust it.”

“Gross,” Conrad said.  “No thank you.”

“It's not that bad,” Jason said. The runners had gone back to drinking, and Jason took another sip. “Besides, we haven't been fed in about a day now, so putting something in the belly makes that pain go away.”  I felt the growling in my stomach, but I still refused.  More and more, I felt like the energy stuff was a trap.

“I'd rather starve,” Conrad said. “Besides, I'm not that hungry.  Are you hungry, Cameron?”

“Yeah, but not insanely hungry,” I replied, but the other guys were really going at it how.  I could see the runner's belly distending to the point where he was starting to look pregnant.

The sprinter rubbed his stomach and began moaning as he drank.  He was starting to get horny.  As the feeling started taking him over, his dick started to spurt pink goo into the tube.  He drank even faster and rubbed his belly more.

“Stop drinking!” I yelled, but none of them would.  All of them, including Jason, were starting to inflate, though his was the least pronounced, since he had had less than the others.  “Jason, cut it out!” I cried.

He stopped for a second.  “I can't,” he said.  “It's like I need more in me.  I think it's drugged to be addictive.”  He held back and I watched him start to writhe in pain.  “I can't, man.  I'm sorry.”  He drank again and the pain turned back into pleasure.

While the sprinter was almost screaming in pleasure around his feeding tube, and the liquid coming out of him was flowing quickly, the tubes of the three other men I didn't really know started to flow as well.  Jason was the only one who hadn't started to discharge yet, though I knew it wasn't far off.

The sprinter cried out in pleasure as he finally let go of the tube in his mouth and shot his load through his tube, starting to deflate faster than any of the people I'd seen so far.  It took a minute, but soon all there was left was a tube sucking the last of some pink goo out of a pair of black rubber underwear.

Jason leaned onto the control panel of his treadmill.  His chest heaved as his belly reached visible pregnancy levels.  He was now discharging with the rest of them, and moaning as he rubbed his bulging stomach.  He stuck his ass out, thrusting, the movement causing the tube that was in his ass to fuck him instead of just sitting up there.  He let go of his tube to yell out “Fuck me!” before going back to sucking.

“That can be arranged,” the Host said, and the flow going into Jason's ass intensified.  The tube was now pounding him and he was discharging harder.  The other three men were gone, deposited back into the vat, leaving only Jason.  Since the flow into him had grown, he was staying alive longer.  What was coming out of him was going like a fire hose, and he was starting to go hoarse from all of his screaming.  I understood what the Host was doing with him.  He liked Jason, and was extending his final moments in a superlative climax as a sort of parting gift.

Unfortunately, like all good things, it has to come to an end.  Jason had started to cry as the orgasm turned to pain, and the Host shut off the flow going into him, letting the end run its course.  We watched Jason ejaculate himself into the vat, and Conrad and I were there alone.

“Round over,” the Host said, “unless you two are suddenly thirsty.  Self control was the key to surviving that round.  Only you two were able to resist the gluttony.”

“I hate you,” Conrad said.

“I know,” the Host sighed.  “It can't be helped.  I'm going to send Rafael in with some actual solid food to feed you with, since I'd been starving all of you prior to that challenge.  The final test isn't food or exercise related, so you can safely eat what he brings you.”

“I don't believe you,” Conrad said. “It's just going to be another trap.”

“I believe it,” I replied.  “I don't think he's going to pull the same trick twice.  The next test will be something completely different.”  Rafael punctuated my statement by walking into the room pushing a wheelchair.  His hood and veil were gone now, and I think this was Conrad's first time seeing what the construct looked like.

Popping it onto the treadmill behind me, he pushed it up to the back of my legs.  “There's a slit on your seat for the anal port,” Rafael told me.  “It will make things more comfortable.”  I sat slowly, and let Rafael guide the rear tube into the slit.  Because my wrists were still strapped to the treadmill's arms, my body was in a lunge position.  Rafael pushed the chair farther forward and I lifter up my feet, and soon I was sitting upright.

“Why are you cooperating?” Conrad asked.

“I'm exhausted and I have no plan,” I replied.  “Besides, Rafael is a gentle creature.  I don't mind him touching me.”

“He looks like a corpse,” Conrad protested.

“I am a corpse,” Rafael corrected. “Don't be racist.”

I snorted.  I hadn't known that Rafael was capable of humor.  “Live a little,” I told Conrad.  “What's a little necrophilia between friends?”  It was definitely gallows humor.  With so much loss and danger, and knowing that I had a really good chance of dying, the part of my brain that had been grasping at life had shut off.  I was just ready for it all to be over, one way or another.

“He's dead?” Conrad asked.  “For real?”

“Yep, since the 80s,” I replied. “Our Host didn't want to let his lover be gone forever, so he reanimated Rafael.”

“That's why Rafael does what he's told,” Conrad surmised.  “He's just a lifeless puppet.”  Rafael linked a chain from my chair's arm to a ring on the wrist of the glove, then he unclasped the glove from the treadmill.

“He's awake and aware of what's happening,” I told Conrad as Rafael worked on my other wrist.  “The Host can pull his strings like a marionette, but Rafael hates it.  He wants to be free and not kill people.”  My other wrist was now linked to the chair and my arms had a bit more movement, but the gloves still kept my hands bound and unusable.  Still, I was free of the treadmill and I slumped back into the wheelchair.  “Did I miss anything?” I asked Rafael.

He wheeled me back, and we left the treadmill with a thump to the floor.  “I don't think so,” Rafael replied.  “Unless you want to add that I'm fiendishly attractive.”

“Ghoulishly attractive,” I agreed with a chuckle.

“That reminds me,” Rafael said. “Upstairs there's a folder with some of my head shots from when I was alive.  Do you guys want to see them?”

“He'll let you show us pictures, but you can't let us out?” Conrad asked.  “I call bullshit.”

“Anything related to releasing you is blocked in my head,” Rafael told him.  “If I try to act on any of those thoughts, my body freezes in place.  Right now, he's actually moving my body himself, but I have use of my mouth.”  He stopped me by a cheap folding table, then went through the curtain to retrieve a second wheelchair.  On the second seat was a syringe full of green liquid.

“What's in the syringe?” Conrad asked.

“Sedative,” Rafael said simply. “If you resist, he'll put it in you to knock you out.”

“Ah,” Conrad said.  “I'm curious. If you two are lovers, how's your love life?”

“There isn't one,” Rafael said. “The night he brought me back to life, he tried to have sex with me.  He didn't like it.  I think he regrets bringing me back sometimes, so I try to be as good a servant as I can be.”

“Do you still love him?” I asked.

“Before we started the events in this hotel, I would have said yes.  Now, he scares me too much.  Besides, I'm pretty sure he's trying to replace me with one of you two.  He could easily turn the winner into a living puppet assistant that he would actually want to have sex with.  I would be obsolete.”

“I wouldn't have sex with that man. Ever,” Conrad spat.  “He's a mass murderer.”

“It would be nothing for him to make a batch of something to wipe your memory of these games of his.  He could even take away the rest of your life and turn you into a complete slave, if he wanted to.  Or, he could make it so you have no control over your body as it has sex with him and you're awake through it all.  If he was feeling generous, he could make you think he was Jonathan.  Manipulating you after the competition would be as easy for him as manipulating you during the competition was.”

The expression on Conrad's face told me he was insulted, which only became clearer as he was wheeled to the table.  “Conrad, no anger,” I told him.  “Remember what happened to Billy and the others.”  He relaxed his shoulders and his face morphed into the most pleasant of smiles.  He was acting, of course.  I didn't think they would actually punish him for getting mad at this stage, but I couldn't take any chances.  Conrad was now the only person left I could save, if I could just figure out how.

Rafael brought out plates of food: nice steaks with roasted potatoes and asparagus spears, setting them down in front of us.  He cut off a square and brought it to my mouth, which I accepted gladly.  I really was insanely hungry, despite my earlier protestations to the contrary.  As I chewed, Rafael moved to the other side to do the same for Conrad, who didn't accept being fed.

“No,” he said.  “I don't want anything in my mouth this thing is touching.  I could get salmonella or botulism or something like that.”  The thought hadn't crossed my mind of actually picking up a disease from the dead body, and that made me ashamed.  Some nurse I was.

The Host came in over the loudspeaker system in response.  “Rafael is desiccated, but not rotting.  I have him quite well preserved, in fact, with a special coating on him to prevent anything getting in or out.  Food from him is safer than getting food from a living person.”

“Why should I believe you?” Conrad asked.  He was still speaking with a pleasant voice, even though the words were defiant.

“Ask Cameron what he thinks, if you don't believe me,” the Host replied.

Conrad looked across the table at me expectantly.  I shrugged my shoulders in response.  “I'm going to keep eating,” I told him.  “I'm too hungry to resist, and my gut instincts are telling me the food is safe.  It's your choice to do the same or not.”

“I like you,” Conrad told me.  “I trust that you feel it's safe, but I think I'm going to start trusting my own instincts over yours now.  Your gut instincts haven't saved anyone here except for yourself.”  With the way I was feeling, defeated and exhausted, I could see his point.

“That's pretty unfair,” Rafael chimed in.  “Cameron made all the right choices, and everyone who followed his lead survived.  Only the people who went a different way than he did ended up dying.  Every choice he's made has moved him, and everyone with him, forward.”

“Forward to their deaths,” Conrad pointed out.

Rafael glared at Conrad.  I didn't know he was able to get angry.  “You just completely disregarded my argument and looped back to yours,” Rafael growled.  “I already said that they only died when they stopped following Cameron's advice.  Why did you choose to completely ignore that?”

Conrad returned the glare.  “Because, in the end, it didn't matter.  Everyone's still dead.”

“You obstinate...,” Rafael began, but his body froze.

“It seems Rafael doesn't like you, Mr. James,” the Host said.  “You have three choices in front of you now.  I'm not going to cook a different meal for you, as what is in front of you is perfectly edible and quite delicious.  First, you could let Rafael feed you.  Second, you could lean forward and eat with your face in the plate like a dog, which would certainly amuse me.  Third, you could skip the meal, though, as you've seen, hunger gives people poor decision making skills.

“I fully understand that you are under a lot of pressure and are mired in a tremendous amount of grief over the loss of Jonathan.  Losing someone as the romance is just starting to blossom is like a knife to the gut.”

Rafael started moving again, but this time toward the hanging vat in the center of the room, still full from the last competition.  He took two tubes from the vat and pulled them over to us.  He hooked one up to each of our anal intake ports under the chairs.

“There is no challenge happening right now,” the Host continued.  “In all of the excitement, I had forgotten that all of that life essence was just sitting over there, when it needed to be going into you.  I need to have you both absorb it all before we start the next challenge.  Everything will be much easier if we don't ave to keep hauling that thing around.”

The flow started back up and soon the familiar sensation of fluids entering my ass returned to me.  It was slow this time, and not unpleasant.  Rafael returned to me and resumed the feeding, which I accepted gladly.

Rafael crossed back to Conrad.  “Would you like to eat?” he asked.  I could see the dead man bristling and knew he wasn't the one in control of his body at the moment.

“No, thank you,” Conrad replied sullenly.

“I still have the sedative,” the Host said through Rafael.  “I could let you sleep until it's time to continue, if you'd like.”

Conrad weighed the option in his head for a minute.  “You know what?  Yeah.  Just knock me out until it's time to do the next part.  I need a break from this.”

Rafael nodded.  He added the syringe to Conrad's anal intake, and soon the man started to slowly drift off. Rafael went through the curtain and came back with a pillow.  He moved Conrad's plate and placed the pillow in its place, then lowered Conrad's head onto it.

“I was beginning to think you didn't like him,” I said to Rafael when he returned to me.

“He's hurting, tired, and hungry, which was keeping him from thinking clearly,” Rafael replied, his tone gentle.  “The whole time Jonathan was alive, Conrad was a nice guy, and that will come back in time.” He was absently cutting up my food as he spoke.

“You were starting to get heated there for a little bit,” I pointed out.

“It happens,” Rafael said.  “I'm still human in here, even though my body is dead.”  He fed me a bite.  “I was getting frustrated that he was throwing out the facts because they didn't fit his argument.”  He fed me another bite. “Besides, I think it was the fact that he was insulting you that really set me off.  I'm starting to really like you.”

I swallowed.  “I like you too, Rafael.  I'm sorry you have to go through this with us.”

Another bite.  “Right now,” he said, “these moments with you...it's the only thing keeping me sane during this whole ordeal.  You're a really special man, Cameron.”

“Are you allowed to play favorites?” I asked him.

“I doubt my opinion matters.  I still can't shake the feeling that one of you is going to be my replacement.  Whichever one of you wins, you'll have the life force of 127 other men inside of you.  That's 127 extra lifetimes you'll live, once your own life span is used up.  Over a millennium.  I can't think of any other reason for him to give that to someone other than to make a servant who will last a long time.

“So yes, I am playing favorites.  I don't want you dead.  You have so much more to give the world than he does.  You're brilliant, charming, caring, and the world is a better place with you in it.”

I could feel heat rising to my face and I knew I was blushing.  He grinned at me.  “Did I mention that you're absolutely adorable, with an ass just begging to be filled by a huge dick?”  While they shouldn't have, coming from a walking corpse, his words were making me rock hard.

I looked down at the now empty plate with a bit of a giggle escaping me.  It didn't make sense, these feelings, directed at a dead man.  “Was there an aphrodisiac in that food?” I asked.  “I feel funny.”

“I don't think so,” Rafael began.

“No,” the Host interrupted. “Everything you're feeling right now is your natural reaction to Rafael.  You're seeing the same things in him that I did twenty years ago.”

“Why don't you see them any more?” Rafael asked him, his tone cold.

There was a period of silence.  “Go to the tube station in the next room, Rafael.  I've sent you something.”