Thread: Do Not Pass Go

The room was cramped and had the feel of a gambling den hidden deep in china town among the many other dens where sex, drugs, and money were all that mattered. Eight people sat quietly around one large table, two men in dark suits stood at the door, denying entrance and exit.
Their game was simple, roll the dice and move, where you landed you may either buy or pass the square you land on. Or on certain blocks you must pick up a card reaping the benefits or the consequences.
Except this game wasn’t really that simple as the stakes were millions of dollars and something much more.
The game was organized once every two years, its players selected by pocket size. Buy in rates were exceeding $6.5 million.
Hosted by the gregarious Franklin Bishop, to afraid to divorce Abigail, his wife who was a parasite to his billions so instead he let squander his money further. Bishop himself chose the players out of a narrowed list and supervised via cameras discreetly placed on his security men.
Tension danced in the air shrinking the walls and tinting everybody’s eyes with a little bit of hysteria, little bit of fear.
It was called Monopoly and played for fun around eight o’clock on Sunday’s by suburban families, killing time. Names didn’t change but the goal of the game did, beat everybody or a nameless consequence would be enforced.
A young Asian man rolled the dice, a seven; he thought it was a sign of luck until he reached his square. Chance—Go to jail, go directly to jail. Do not pass go.
Chang silently moved his piece, the car, to jail and, still silent, returned his wistful gaze to the others players.
Beautiful, young, rich or in others words Tiffany van der Bose, only child of the richest man in the world. You could tell she hadn’t seen a proper cleaning in many days, dirt stuck in her hair and vomit stained the front of her expensive silk dress.
She rolled a three, Baltic Avenue and purchased the property for $60,000.
Their game rolled on easily until Volkard Lowe, a German drug lord went bankrupt. The room sat in a more absolute silence than Chang had ever experienced. One of the security men walked easily to Volkard; calmly he drew something from within his suit and placed it on the base of his head.
The next moments took forever but when they passed, Volkard spoke the very last words he ever would, their meaning lost beyond his drawn out scream.
Frightened yet unable to leave the other players were ordered to continue, the only person who sat calmly was little Christie Bishop, sixteen. She knew the rules well, for she had seen this game played many times in the past and each time she watched her desire to play intensified as did her fascination with the bodies left behind.
This year she had begged her father to let her join and, in a moment of indulgence, he allowed her to enter. With a handicap of course.
Hour after hour the game went on until all the players except three were heaped on the ground, dead. Or in Joe Chang’s case, dying.
Young mister Chang landed on chance once again—Make general repairs on all your properties. Costing him his tightly guarded money and earning the special honor of a slow acting poison injected into his back.
Morris Emit, struggling to find reason in his life lived alone in a tiny apartment and each night visited a different woman. Long ago he had lost himself to lady cocaine along with his father. Smart enough to carry a gun into the tiny room sweat gathered on his brow, so much so that when he whirled around on the guards, sending his chair flying backwards, his hand almost slipped on the butt of the gun.
With beginner’s luck Morris found a target in the man who had shot Volkard, less lucky his third bullet lodged itself into the other suited man’s stomach.
On the ground, bleeding and nearer to death than Chang, the security guard returned fire and killed Morris within four wobbly shots.
“There’s no backing out.” Christie said to her opponent, a man about fifty with grayed hair, watery eyes, and nothing to lose.
Howard Geddies wore nothing but pinstriped suits and knew nothing but high stakes banking. If he died here, no one would miss him, he knew this. The girl across the table must know this too, which was why she had already won.
Howard had been a gentle man with a wife but no children, he expected to retire early and live quietly on some sunny beach forever with his wife. Karma had not seen his life that way, Karma saw that Ellie was killed in a freak car accident reducing Howard to little less than a man.
After tonight Howard was dead anyway; looking down his client roster would scare the bravest man if he intended on stealing their money.
“I’m sorry little girl but I have to win,” Howard mournfully told Christie, withdrawing a sleek six cylinder Smith & Wesson Model 686PP Revolver, “And even though I would like to take you home and knock you down a peg or two I can’t. Good bye.”
Christie stared down the gun smiling, “You won’t shoot me.” It was a statement of pure arrogance that Christie believed down to the very core of her little black heart. However, she screamed when Howard pulled the trigger.