Scott Connor

By Jeremy Z. Y. Chan

Teenager Scott Connors world is about to change, and hes not even close to being prepared for what awaits. All he wants to do is win a skateboarding competitionbut all is not what it seems. He signed up for the chance to win a trophy, but now hes fighting for his very life. The games are much more sinister and scary than anything he could have imagined, and now he is one of ten teenagers trapped within the Death Game.

The creation of an evil puppet master named France Odio, the game pits teenagers against each other in a fight to the death. Scott must call on every skill hes ever learned to overcome the deadly challenges set before him. Ten will enter the competition, but only one will survive it.

With two challenges behind him, Scott is at a breaking pointa side effect of staring death in the face. He thought he was incapable of more, but the worst is yet to come. Trapped in a desert that reeks of death and terror, he has two weeks to make it to the safe haven before the unthinkable happens. Monsters hide in ambush everywhere he tries to hide. Is anyplace truly safe?

Can he make it to next roundor will be fall victim to the horrors of the desert? Is his fate to survive or die alone and forgotten in the desert? Fortunately for Scott, he has one thing the others dont: the luck of the devil.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Feb 18, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490702261

Jeremy Z. Y. Chan

Jeremy Z. Y. Chan has won national and international honors as a short-story writer and classical pianist. A student at the Diocesan Boys’ School in Hong Kong, he is an enthusiastic reader with a zeal for the written word.

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© Copyright 2014 Jeremy Z. Y. Chan.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN: 978-1-4907-0224-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-0225-4 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4907-0226-1 (e)

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Contents

Trapped with Creatures of Hell

The Real Battle

The Dunes of Monsters

Back on Track

Last Day of Survival

Going Home

Trapped with Creatures of Hell

M y eyelids opened a fraction and I squinted. I could make out the blurred images of dark, sleek shapes, but that was enough to make me remember where I was.

Of course, inside a huge monster’s stomach! Worse, I was trapped with a pack of wolf-like creatures.

I was fighting to open my eyes. But they were just too heavy, as if they weighed a hundred tons. Finally, with effort, my eyes snapped open. I took in my surroundings. They looked horrible. I was in the monster’s guts—that was for sure. It was the most slimy, dirty, and sticky place. The ceiling was full of saliva, and it was dripping down. Vomit and crap littered the whole place.

I raised my head slightly, a bit dazed. My hair stuck uncomfortably. My T-shirt was covered in strands of thick, slimy saliva.

Wait a minute—the creatures! Where were they? Suddenly a triumphant howl from behind me shattered the sound of dripping. I heard the rumbling of the creatures’ paws getting louder and closer. Devastated, I swivelled my head back and found myself staring at the ugly, twisted, grotesque face of one of the black creatures. Its skull-shaped head and glowing, fiery red eyes were unmistakable. But the legs were the most recognizable. They were abnormally long and muscular. I could almost feel the muscles ripple beneath the mass of black fur.

The beast had a stink of sewage water and the smell of rubbish in the rubbish dump. It snarled at me, nostrils flaring and closing. I cried out. I had to remind myself that I wasn’t a newborn baby. I had to be strong.

There was a question hanging in my brain: Why hadn’t they eaten me yet? When I’d fainted, I’d been sure I would be a slab of dead meat. But now that they knew I had woken up, I was sure they would do something.

I tried to pick myself up and make a run for it, but that was impossible. The creature just pinned me down with a foot on the chest, and I could feel the strength coursing through its paws and almost cracking my bones. I closed my eyes and suppressed a scream as the pain gripped me. I gasped as the creature released me.

Suddenly, I felt myself being picked up and hoisted. I looked down. Three of the creatures had hefted me onto their backs. Wow, they sure were strong! The leader was at the front. It was the one who had defeated me. It was the one I was targeting. I remembered the Swiss army knife that was in my pocket. I was planning to use it again. I knew I couldn’t struggle with them, so I decided I’d better lie down and wait to see where they were going.

They halted abruptly and dropped me onto the ground. It wasn’t that painful because it was slimy. I rubbed my back and stood up. I took a step forward… and quickly backed away. The ground of guts suddenly dropped into an endless pit of bubbling lava. I looked farther. In the middle of the lava river stood a single platform. It was much cleaner than our place. On the dead centre stood a throne.

Made of stone, it wasn’t majestic, but it stood out among the land of guts. A huge, but thin, creature sat on it. Immediately, by instinct, I recognized that it was a he. He was the same as the other creatures behind me, but much, much taller. He was about four to five metres tall, with unusually long legs, and he could sit!

I mean, you don’t see sitting wolf-like creatures every day. He held a wooden stick with a cobra curled around it. One look at it, and I knew that he was the leader of all.

He stood up steadily and hissed, Well done, my servants—especially you, Ithkus. You fought well and took care of the boy. What the—? He could speak English! I was stunned, utterly stunned. Then the creature turned its beyond-beastly face to me.

So, a human boy, his voice drawled sinisterly. France told me about the whole lot of you. He paused and looked me up with his fiery, flame-red eyes. Do you really know what you’re here for, eh?

I flinched, sensing something bad was about to come. N-n-n-no. That was the first thing I’d managed to say since being aroused from my sleep of unconsciousness, and already it was a negative answer.

I focused my gaze on the creature as he continued. "Every year, France sends more than one hundred unfortunate humans to us. We not only eat them, but we sacrifice them to the god and eat them bit by bit. The god, you see, is the monster you are now inside. It is called Plastus. Not a lot of people make it up to here. They probably were already bitten in half by Plastus himself. The halves of them sometimes float down here.