The Odds - Jeff Strand Page 0,56

you have all of your keys and have come back to the start, you’ve completed the challenge. Aside from that, all you have to worry about are all of the traps. Any questions?”

Nobody had any questions.

“Ethan, bad news for you, buddy. Because you had an unfair advantage in a previous challenge, we have to balance it out. You will be collecting four keys instead of three.”

“I’m sorry, what?” Ethan asked.

“Was I unclear? To win this challenge, you will have to collect four blue keys from inside the maze.”

Ethan wanted to protest. Yes, he’d escaped being shot by the fake drug dealers because he’d had inside information, but the penalty there was nowhere near as bad as being slowly lowered into a barrel of boiling oil. He would’ve taken the gunshots! However, it was very clear that arguing this would be a complete waste of breath.

He looked over at Rick again, hoping for a wink or a hand signal or something, anything to make him believe that things were under control. Instead, Rick averted his eyes.

That son of a bitch had completely screwed him over. Ethan should have thrown Jenny’s phone out the window as well and just kept driving.

“I asked you a question,” said The Claw Man. “Was I unclear?”

“No,” said Ethan.

“One last rule. This one’s important so everybody listen up. This is a competition, not a team-building exercise. However, if one of you dies inside the maze—and it’s entirely possible that this will happen—then the second-place finisher goes into the oil. So don’t try to kill each other while you’re in there. I wish it didn’t have to be said, but there was an incident earlier. Any questions?”

Kenny raised his hand.

“Yes?” The Claw Man asked.

“Can we injure each other?”

The Claw Man thought about that. “Knock yourself out. Or knock them out. You can try to stretch the rules if you want, but don’t let it bite you in the ass. Anybody else?”

Ethan and Lisa had no questions. Actually, Ethan had a million questions, but none that he should ask right now.

The Claw Man gestured to the maze. “Everybody step inside. Don’t start running yet.”

The three players walked into the maze. The walls on the inside were shorter than the fence, but Ethan couldn’t see over them. There were five different directions they could go, with the corridors wide enough that two (but not three) players could run side by side.

“Remember, it’s not enough to find all of your keys. You must exit the maze here.” He took out a gun. “On your mark...get set...go!”

He fired the gun into the air.

Kenny shoved Ethan against the wall.

“C’mon!” Kenny said to Lisa. “If we take him out now we can guarantee that we won’t lose!”

Lisa shook her head. “You do whatever you want,” she said, then she took off running down the far left path.

Kenny’s visible disappointment at her rejection of his plan was distraction enough for Ethan to punch him in the jaw. Kenny stumbled backwards and almost went out the open entrance to the maze. He looked as if he were going to lunge at Ethan, then changed his mind and ran down the far right path.

There was merit to the “incapacitate another player” scheme, but instead Ethan ran down the path next to the one Lisa had taken.

It went on for about ten feet, then split into a left or right turn. Ethan took the left one.

Was it safe to be running in a booby-trapped maze?

Possibly not. But surely they wouldn’t design it so that he could set off a tripwire that blew his legs off and ended the challenge. Unless the trick to winning was to just wait for the other two players to get killed.

For now, he’d assume that the key was to race through it as quickly as possible.

He took three more turns and continued to see only bare wooden walls.

The Claw Man spoke over a megaphone: “Lisa has just found her first key!”

Already?

Ethan picked up his pace...and then immediately stopped as he made a left turn and saw that the corridor had dozens of knife blades protruding from the walls and floor. This one was much more narrow than the other corridors—no way could two people get through side by side.

This went on for about ten feet. Past that, he thought he could see some multi-colored metallic objects hanging on the wall, which he assumed were the keys. Were the knives here to dissuade him from moving forward? He couldn’t tell if this hallway dead-ended