"Remember. No talking," a woman's voice called through the speaker.

  We all stared at each other, still as statues. Funny how telling people not to talk also freezes them in place.

  A man came forward from the shadows. He approached Dirty Blonde's dead body, unclasping the chains on her ankles, and then he dragged her to the center over the metal grate. I was hoping it would open and she would disappear down the hole.

  "Hot potato soup," the man said, laughing.

  It would have been better if the center of the playing area was shaped like a bowl, but I understood the concept. As we died, our bodies would be piled in the middle like a warm soup. Gross.

  "Would the gentleman in Wedge 2 please pick up the potato so we can resume play?"

  I didn't catch on at first. I was busy staring at Dirty Blonde's dead eyes.

  "Five ... four ... three ..."

  Oh shit! That's me!

  If I didn't have the potato ready, they were probably going to blow me up next. I grabbed it off the floor from in front of me, holding it firmly as she reached the end of her countdown. I was ecstatic when the music started again.

  Round 2 was easy. I needed a break from the first round, so I chose the obvious target. I targeted Jacket Man. He was the most restricted in his movement with the vest over his jacket, and he and Buzz Cut got to just observe in the first round. It was time they played too.

  By targeting someone else, it offered a sort of truce to Bun Bun and Stocky. Our bond from participating in round 1 made it easy to gang up on Jacket Man. That gave us a 50-50 chance of winning, slightly higher in my opinion since he had more restrictive movement.

  Bun Bun dealt the final blow. She tossed it to him as the lyric a penny for a spool of thread, a penny for a needle played through the speakers. Jacket Man made a decent catch to his left, but it wasn't completely clean. Those extra moments did him in. The music stopped as he was gathering for the throw.

  His death didn't include a boom or a flash.

  Instead, from the vest he wore, a needle-like shiv shot upward and deep into his neck. Jacket Man grabbed at the shiv with his hands as blood dripped from the opening, but that only served to slice his hands. It wasn't the cuts that killed him though. The shiv was poisoned. As he bled from the throat, he started to cough and foam at the mouth, his eyes boiling until one finally popped, sending a gross spray out from his eye socket.

  I looked away and waited for his screaming to stop, for his body to go limp on Wedge 4.

  The man came out again and dumped Jacket Man's body atop Dirty Blonde's in the center, the two of them forming an X.

  Jacket Man lost round 2.

  When someone dies with the potato, the person who threw it starts the next round, so Bun Bun kicked off round 3. The man handed her the potato after he was done with Jacket Man's body.

  With Dirty Blonde and Jacket Man out, it left the three of us from round 1 plus Buzz Cut. Guess who we targeted next?

  Buzz Cut knew this was going to happen. He looked dignified in his black dress pants and gray shirt. He was calm and collected. He caught the potato easily each time, with a regular rhythm to his movements. He would be a strong contender in most any situation, but we were all against him. Buzz Cut had to hope that either the music stopped at just the right time or one of us would make a mistake. Despite being the one we targeted, he didn't appear to lose his confidence.

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  He tested each of us out, throwing to me, then to Stocky, then to Bun Bun, with each of us returning the scalding potato right back at him. At that point, he decided to target Bun Bun.

  The two of them began tossing it back and forth between them as the creepy music played, while we tried to ignore the dead bodies in the middle.

  I started to wonder if the burns from the potato would wear him down to the point where it was too painful to catch, but this was life or death. Pain was inevitable. He didn't appear to waver.

  Both of them knew the same strategy. Throw to the least dominant hand. Make it difficult to catch but still a good throw. Aim for the gap if you dare, but make it a good toss. On and on they went.

  Half a pound of tuppenny rice,

  Half a pound of treacle,

  That's the way the money goes,

  Pop goes the weasel!

  It was Bun Bun who made the first real mistake of the game. Buzz Cut changed tactics on her. He had been aiming for her left side over and over. She was expecting that pattern from him. He was so methodical that he had lulled her to sleep. He didn't rush it. He kept on going after her on the left side until suddenly he switched. He tossed it to her far right.

  She wasn't ready for it. They both had to be getting nervous as the music played on and on. Stocky and I were relieved. To be honest, I had to focus to stay ready because either one of them might fire a potato my way just to catch me off guard.

  Bun Bun tried to recover. She had rotated as far left as the chains would allow. Now she had to take two full, careful steps, dragging her chains, to get to the far right side where he had tossed the potato.

  It was a clever move. Bun Bun should have seen it coming.

  She didn't get there in time. She reached out for it, her hair finally unraveling from the bun atop her head as she stretched out. She had long straight hair that fell all the way to her lower back. It sprayed out to the sides.

  At the last minute, she gave up. She pulled her hands away and let the potato drop to the floor.

  When the potato thumped to the ground, a saw popped up behind Buzz Cut, half his own size in diameter. He was still smiling, thinking he had survived the round, when ...

  Ziiipppp!

  Before I could even taken in what I was seeing, the saw disappeared back into the floor, leaving Buzz Cut cut in half down the middle, with his head dangling off to one side.

  As clever as his move was, Buzz Cut had tossed it too far to her right. The potato had landed in the gap area, marking it an illegal toss. The second mistake of the game was Buzz Cut's throw.

  He dropped to the ground like a banana peal, the chains on his legs clinking along with the flump flump of his two halves.

  Buzz Cut lost round 3.

  As much as I hated Stocky, I needed to get to the finals. Bun Bun didn't have time to fix her hair, putting her at a disadvantage. We could toss it left, then right, then left, then right, to get her hair swaying, hopefully into her line of sight.

  Moreover, she had just gone back and forth with Buzz Cut, so her hands would be suffering from more painful burns, whereas mine were doing fine.

  Stocky knew this as well. The two of us would wear her down or she would drop the potato.

  She stuck with it, tossing the potato over the three dead bodies as best she could, but luck favored us. She mostly threw to Stocky, maybe because he was slightly closer, but she varied it to try to catch us off guard.

  All around the mulberry bush,

  The monkey chased the weasel,

  The monkey thought it was all in fun,

  Pop goes the weasel!

  Bun Bun was maybe expecting the music to stop at that last line. We had tossed for several rounds. The anticipation always builds. I knew I wasn't safe, but I was always ready, and fortune favored me. She was getting tired, getting more anxious. The word weasel sounded right when she made her catch, but her left hand came up too strong, knocking the potato out of her right hand. She tried to recover, her hair flapping in front of her face as she bent over and crouched down to try to save the catch.

  She couldn't.

  Before she could stand back up, a set of short metal spikes attached to what looked like a crusher, a large retractable plate designed to smash rocks, came down from the ceiling. The spikes rammed through her, piercing through her body first. She barely had time to shriek. Little splashes of blood sprayed out, while the force of the metal plate finished her off, smashing her.

  The crusher retracted back up, leaving her mangled form struggling to move. She wasn't dead yet. The crusher came flying back down, smashing her again. And then again. The sound pounded through the air, a steady rhythm drowning out cries of agony with its repeated boom, boom, boom.

  After several pulverizing drops of the spiked plate, Bun Bun was no more than a mess of blood, bone, and clothing under a mop of blood caked hair.

  Bun Bun lost, but after watching that, did anyone win? I tried not to vomit as the man cleared up the mess, using a push broom to slide her gooey body into the hot potato soup in the middle.

  Bun Bun lost round 4.