Free Flesh Worn Stone by John Burks

and going to her side. She shied away from him, standing and taking Mia away. He watched them go and felt a wall of tears threatening to crumble over him. “You see?”

    “There is always revenge,” John said calmly and seriously.

    “What?”

    “If nothing else,” he repeated, “live for revenge.”

    * * *

    Steven wandered the Cave, watching the people go through their daily motions. Had he not seen the Game, not seen these people eat the girl who’d arrived with them, he’d have thought they were normal, despite the conditions. It would have been easy to maintain that illusion. Children played between the shelters, danced naked in the small pools of water, and generally were as mischievous as children were. Adults cleaned what they could, which wasn’t much, washed clothing, and prepared what little food they’d managed to scavenge from the food drop. Life went on, despite the Game.

    It all could have been normal, even happy, and he might have maintained that silly notion had he not stumbled upon the tannery. An old man and woman, maybe husband and wife the way they argued, worked the human skin from the meals. Racks of it were strewn around their area, along with clothing and shoes produced from it. The area stank even worse than the rest of the Cave, a byproduct of the vats of boiling skin and bones.

    The old woman was smoothing out a section of tanned human skin on a table made from wooden planks and plastic buckets. The old man hovered above her like an angry Catholic school nun.

    “Damn it, Erma, you’re doing it wrong. Twenty-five years and you still muck it up every time you do it.”

    “Why am I doing it at all? This is your job.”

    “My job is telling you what my job is. Your job is to obey. Remember, that’s what the vows said. Love and obey and obey and obey.”

    “I don’t think that’s what the vows said,” the woman said, letting the section of skin drop to the stone floor. “I’m pretty sure they did say, however, that you need to piss off.”

    “Piss off? Really?” the man said. “You’ve been spending too much time with the Englishmen again.”

    “The Englishmen, at least, are polite when someone is trying to help them out.”

    “I don’t need your help.”

    “Then why did you ask for it?”

    “Hello?” Steven asked meekly, not really wanting to get involved in the conversation, but wondering, as he stared down at his filthy bare feet, what he’d have to do to get a pair of shoes.

    “Oh, hello there,” the woman beamed. “You’re one of the newcomers!”

    “I guess the jumpsuit gives me away.”

    “Every single time,” the older man said, coming around the table and sticking his hand out. “I’m Glenn and this is my longtime, eternally happy wife, Erma.” He pointed to the woman, who stuck her tongue out at him. “What can we do for you?”

    “I…you’re talking to me. Hardly anyone will talk to us.”

    “The Rules are the Rules,” Glenn said, agreeing. “Not a lot you can do about it, but not actually a lot they can do to me. Who else is going to make their stinkin’ shoes?”

    “You don’t participate in the Game?”

    “No, I’ve never had the honor of being called,” Glenn told him. “I have to be happy with just knowing that more winners wear our clothing and shoes than anyone else.”

    “You’re the only ones who make clothing?” Steven asked, perplexed.

    “Yep,” the old man laughed. “I guess you could say we have a monopoly, if such a thing exists in the Cave.”

    “Well, what do I have to do to get a pair?”

    “Nothing, nothing at all.” Glenn told him. “We make them for free.”

    Steven picked one up to look at it. The sole of the shoe was tire tread glued and sewn to the human leather top. As he turned it over, he could make out the slightest remains of a tattoo, a heart surrounding the word ‘Mom’. He shivered involuntarily, but knew if he didn’t find something to cover his feet they were going