Cash For The Desperate

"I’ve had nowt but rice for weeks, I had to wait for some smarmy government official to deem me poor enough for a blasted food bank ticket!" An old woman dressed in a thick winter coat and a headscarf piped up loudly, as though for the benefit of the other people queued behind her. "We barely had to use food banks when I was young and there certainly wasn't this ridiculous waiting!" She huffed and wrapped her coat tighter around herself with a dramatic shiver.

"Aye, but when you were young you probably voted for the bloody government that first put us in this fucking mess!" A short man a few places back called out to her and was instantly scolded for swearing by a young mother a few places back. Suddenly the shivering queue of angry, hungry people began to bicker and bitch amongst themselves in a hail of quintessentially British insults.

Zafira pulled her hood up and tried to avoid the quarrelling crowd around her, shrinking back without losing her place in the line. She fumbled in her pocket for her headphones and cranked up the volume as a crescendo of death metal blocked out the sounds of poverty. Her freezing fingers pulled her hood even tighter then retreated to the warmth of her pockets.

The older woman wasn't the only person merely surviving, Zafira and her family had been eating only beans for the past month and she was willing to bet that everyone around them was in the same boat. It was senseless to fight each other when the problems stemmed from higher up the chain of command, but the bitter mid-winter sky began to drizzle an icy rain and the despondent crowd turned on each other.

It took half an album for her to reach the front of the queue but when she did, three things washed over her: relief, warmth, and crappy fluorescent lighting. She showed the clerk her ticket and ID before ambling through the building’s main corridor to receive the pre-packed rations her family depended on to survive another month. Then she was directed out the back door like an over-laden packhorse. Waiting was the easy part, the real challenge still lay ahead: walking two miles home with three large boxes and two carrier bags that threatened to burst at the flimsy plastic seams.

Zafira didn't discover the little black book nestled in a bag until several hours later, after the gruelling walk home and the monumental task of stacking each box and can of food until the cupboards no longer looked like a death sentence. It was small and unassuming but when she picked it up, she noticed it had been used, puzzled, she cracked the book open to the first page and read the heavily scribbled pencil:

CASH FOR THE DESPERATE’

You’ll get lots of quick money with this book but it's not for the weak-hearted and truly only for those who are desperate enough to do anything. If this isn't you then please give this book to someone in need, if this is you then keep reading and adding until it's time to pass it along. Keep this book a secret because they are always watching.

The electric meter died and plunged the house into darkness as though God had chosen that exact moment to fuck with her. By the time she lit candles, tended to her family, and got to bed she had almost forgotten about the book. Zafira suspected she’d discovered a fictional manuscript jotted by a budding author, but as she flicked through the pages, she realised that the entries had been penned by many different hands. Placing a candle on her bedside table, she lay across her bed so that its weak light shone on the weathered pages.

Fiction or not, the series of journal entries and sketches compelled Zafira to keep reading. The anonymous authors described a private game hosted by the wealthy elite that allegedly takes place in a sprawling stately home named ‘Plutus Manor’, that has over 250 rooms each with a challenge and a £1k cash prize. Contestants could attempt as many challenges as they want and kept their prizes if they finish.

It sounded simple, but scanning the room descriptions Zafira saw challenges ranging from truly inane to hideously fatal. Some authors noted they found the book on the bodies of ex-players and it seemed the real challenge was getting out alive. Each winner had added their own meticulous notes, including the game rules and how someone can enter if they're desperate enough. Zafira was desperate. Half of the book was empty save for the inside of the back cover, which had a paper pocket containing a thin pencil and simple instructions to enter:

Call the number.

Give your details.

Wait 24 hours.

She went to sleep with an uneasy sense of excitement and when she woke, she felt a compelling urge to call the number. She expected it to be fake and was shocked when a man with a well-to-do accent answered after the third ring and asked for her name, age, address, and phone number before putting down the phone. Zafira sat for a few minutes, incredulous with what had just transpired but the call was soon pushed from her mind as the household began to stir.

She didn't think about Plutus Manor again until she lay down that night to sleep and she was clueless as to what would happen next, but if the book was to be believed, the game would commence at 7am the following morning. Now all she could do is wait. She tucked the notebook into her bra and went to sleep with her slippers on, just in case.

Zafira was still sound asleep when a hand grabbed and taped her mouth before a cloth bag was thrown over her head. She was bound quickly, quietly carried from her house, and placed in the back of a vehicle. It took about an hour and a half of driving and being man-handled before the cloth bag was finally removed and weak lights stung her eyes.

She was terrified and discombobulated but still put on a brave façade, trying not to react or make a sound as her transporters untied her hands. Using every available second she observed her surroundings and tried to remember journal entries from the little black book still nestled in her bra.

She appeared to be in a well-lit reception area with a large, shining bar with a crowd of preened socialites in fancy clothes. She had read about this, players started in the attic where the rich and powerful spent the duration of the game watching events unfold on large screens. To her left, two more bedraggled contestants stood wide-eyed and reeking of fear and Zafira felt a momentary pang of guilt for having an unfair advantage.

Zafira smirked as a famous politician announced himself as the evening's benefactor to the hushed crowd and gave each contestant a brief introduction worthy of a prizefighter. The book had said the stairwells are the only areas without cameras, so she went last, quickly retrieved the notebook, and flicked through it as she descended. By the time she reached the bottom she had committed 28 room numbers to memory and had a general idea of the floor plan. The door pushed open easily and Zafira stepped out with confidence into a lavishly decorated hall to get her first look at Plutus Manor.

Zafira jogged and repeated the room numbers to herself. The Manor was like a hotel and each door was marked with gold numbers. The rooms contained only the challenges, with the instructions for each game painted neatly on the backs of the doors, only visible once the player had stepped inside. Sometimes the doors locked behind her and she had no choice but to complete the challenge. She knew the best plan would be to complete the easiest rooms that had already been mapped out, then hightail it out of there.

The first challenge was to win a game of Skeeball and in the next room she had to kill and pluck a chicken, easy tasks that won her £2k. Her third challenge was to fish her prize out of a piranha tank with a rod, which was easy compared to the rest of the top floor tasks. After eating cow shit, she was tasked with diving into raw sewerage, putting a cigarette out on a toddler, finding money inside a corpse, crushing baby mice barefoot, and providing hand relief to a hobo through a two-way mirror glory hole.

Zafira reached the second floor more than a little worse for wear but £9k richer, her strategy of disassociating from her actions was somehow holding her fractured pieces together. If she didn’t dwell on anything, she was able to keep moving.

She peeked at the book again in the second stairwell to refresh her memory. The challenges were just as cruel and unusual apart from two: choosing ‘truth or dare’ (she chose truth) and taking a pill marked cyanide (the book revealed it to be a sugar pill). After gassing a room full of caged animals, taking 50 lashes from a leather-bound whipmaster, receiving a genital piercing, and passing a vicious guard dog on a long chain she was getting ready to quit, each challenge weighing heavy on her soul.

Another stairwell offered another chance to read and scrawl some quick notes. There were a few easy rooms on the ground floor that she could defeat before exiting, Zafira weighed up the opportunity and decided to take the risk, realising she may not get another chance.

The ground floor was simple yet punishing but merely child’s play compared to the sins Zafira had already committed. She placed her fingers in mousetraps, took a punch to the face, licked sweat from a fat woman in a sauna, ate 15 hotdogs in two minutes, took nude selfies, played hook-a-duck with real ducks, and solved a word search that spanned an entire room.

Zafira turned into a corridor with the intent to visit more rooms when she noticed an open door. She thought she had found another player, then she saw blood pooling over the threshold. Edging closer to the pool of gore she tried to peek inside the room and she was almost there when she heard heavy, wet footsteps.

The murderous beast squeezed out into the corridor claws-first. Black, shaggy fur slick with blood framed equally dark eyes that instantly noticed her. The huge bear stood with a thunderous roar and towered over her, gore dripping from its snout. She managed to contain her screams and slowly backed down the corridor, turning to run as the bear crashed back down to give chase.

Everything passed in a blur as Zafira ran as though possessed by Hermes. She darted down corridors, hearing the bear crashing along behind her. The maze of corridors seemed endless and Zafira knew she couldn’t outrun the beast for long. Just as thoughts of death began to flood her brain, she glimpsed the mahogany and stained-glass doors lit up to signify the exit. With one final, thigh-burning burst of power, she sprinted for the door, barrelled through, and slammed it behind her seconds before the massive bear smashed into it, shaking the thick wood in its frame.

She hardly dared to believe it, but she was outside and £20k richer. A black SUV chariot was already waiting for her and she climbed inside, traumatised but still elated over her life-changing prize. Dawn broke over Plutus Manor as the uniformed chauffeur pulled away and began the long journey home.

The driver didn’t speak until the car turned into her street. “Congratulations on being the only winner and thank you for your participation tonight. The benefactors were highly entertained and would like to invite you to play as many times as you like. As long as you keep winning.”