by Travis Borne
“Who else is with you?” Rolfe demanded. Behind him, Jerry wheezed.
“Just me, man,” Jake said. “You’re gonna kill the poor guy.”
“Never mind him. That redneck has merely had a taste—” Rolfe snickered. “—and we’re just getting started. Now, tell me, what’s your name and who else came with you?”
Jake looked around. The red-suits were like the cylindrical wall of a silo, easily holding out the town of hundreds, thousands. Behind it stood people with somber, deflated faces. Impatiently, Jake replied, “Jake, my name is Jake Toll, and really, it is just me. They called it inprocessing, ran me through these scanners, like archways with glowing panes of light. A path spiraled toward the center of a dome-like movie room, and I went in. It was weird. I felt like I was walking, but not in control of my own muscles. Anyway, after a slippery ride through a tube everything went hazy, then pitch black and I found myself up there—” He pointed. “—up there, on that hill. Inside a dumpster sitting on a box of rotten bananas, wearing this, uh, fishing gear.”
Rolfe looked him up and down, then sent a nod along with a glare that said, “Continue.”
“That’s it, man. When I first got here things were weird for a bit, then stabilized—then an old man in a clown suit ran by and said, ‘Fight, Jerry’s fighting Rex,’ and I followed him. That’s it, really, nothing else.”
The news this Mr. Jake Toll had just spewed was something different. Eyebrows went up. Remembering an inprocessing event, such as he did, was a new idea, and surprising. Everybody in Midtown, including the officers and workers—although in different transports, denoting they came from different worlds—possessed memories of being brought to this world within various ships. They were all given roles and told didactically by loudspeakers—before being abandoned—that this land was one of the last holdouts in the galaxy, that it could sustain them peacefully—half of the time—if their duties were performed. This alternate possibility had obviously been hidden from everyone thus far.
“We’ll talk more with you later,” Rolfe said. “Now get him out of here, take him to my office.” Four officers escorted Jake away.
But Jake stopped before going through the inner perimeter; he asked, “What are you going to do to him?”
Rolfe replied, “That, Mr. Toll, is none of your business, but since you must know—” Rolfe swirled a finger in the air and his goons spun Jake around; and they pushed him to his knees. “Yes, you might as well know, since you are a new part of our special community. A front row seat for Mr. Toll.” Rolfe spun his finger again and several red-suits headed toward Jerry. Right away they started to pummel him. Jerry had already become swollen, enough to look indistinguishable—nothing like the winner he’d presented moments earlier. They kicked at his face with extraordinary speed. His head went like a punching bag and after several tense minutes the officers were ordered to stop.
“What do you think of that, Jake?” Rolfe said. A sinister smile was a scar below his nose, like a mouth that’d been created with one slit of a razor blade to an old, dried-up vampire’s ass cheek. “Still, just the beginning—yes, this is going to be great fun. Then we get her.” He aimed his widening slit of a mouth hole at Carmen.
Jake riled. He pushed up on the pressing force of the four holding him. He still felt wonderful, and strong. And still, his imagination was pumping like a factory with gears and whistles, with colorful stops along a conveyor belt—spinning, swirling, driving neat ideas into unique cubbyholes and chutes and into glass tubes: his newly energized neural network. He imagined himself: he was a superhero and no longer black. He was orange, and he blasted upward wearing a tight red suit. He had a cape too. The Blaze! He wore the yellow flag proudly—not this fishing gear. And he pictured himself giving it to these thin, pompous men in red suits with black shoes ’n button undershirts. The imagery flew through Jake’s vibrantly animated factory with extreme clarity, and detail, and he felt free to change things as he saw fit. He’d yet to experience any sensation like this within his mind, at least not since he was a kid—and life in Jewel City had always been so black and white…
Jerry’s destroyed head bobbed during the intermission. Across the way, his friends, Patrick, Andy, and many others, had the countenance of citizens defeated. Shoulders sagged once more, and they looked just like that last time—some sixty-odd years ago. But not Carmen; she remained undaunted. Angrily, with fists still clenched tight enough to go white, she held firm. She was a believer and she had her gaze locked onto only Jerry. Jerry kept his on her. Those around her noticed. She uttered, “Believe. Show them no more fear, ever.”
The officers waited, as if pushing it, testing him: what had happened? Jerry couldn’t come back from this—it was just a fluke. But Jerry had yet to fall; his head poised itself straight up with the tension needed to present a punch of defiance. Through the blood and swelling, Jerry smiled a truculent smile.
Rolfe shook his head and roared, “More!” And the goons began. While they beat him, Rolfe looked to Carmen. She smiled subtly, defiantly; it only infuriated Rolfe more. He commanded, “Harder!”
Something was happening around her. Andy first, then a few others, even pragmatic Pat, Jerry’s best friend, changed. Something had been transferred to them through Carmen’s newfound and unbreakable faith.
“No more fear,” Andy said.
“I believe,” Pat said. And he too stood tall once again. But the new hope wasn’t making the rounds fast enough, and it wasn’t stopping the beating. Jerry was getting it bad this time, really bad.
Patrick, calm and levelheaded, had saved Jerry and others from trouble many times, by evading, using his intellect to avoid trouble in not so courageous ways, perhaps. Jerry was more unpredictable and explosive—but not for himself, only for others. Whenever anyone was being bullied, only then would Jerry react, and it usually, no, always, turned out badly for him—he took many a beating and spent more time in the underworld than any human.
Occasionally a small win could be had, though, but the end result always proved his efforts to be futile, always bringing more hurt than worth it, and never, not once, was he able to salvage even a sliver of redemption. Over the years, most realized that even the toughest, those with utmost heart regardless of physical strength or speed, broke down. No one pushed back, not any longer—but Jerry was different and everyone knew it. For this reason, hearts cried, tears were blood, and they watched as he took the beating of all beatings. The well-known feeling of torture again stabbed the hearts of each and every one of the citizens and workers alike. Jerry, their last hope and final light, was going dim before their eyes.
“STOP!”
Ignoring Jake’s outburst, Rolfe said, “Harder! Now smash him into the street!”
“I said STOP—” And Jake pushed up to his feet. The officers had no ability to hold the truck down! “—or you will have to answer to me.” Jake’s voice was deep and his imagination was a nova. In his mind, he did have on the red suit and yellow cape, and a yellow mask covering his eyes, and orange-yellow skin, hot and glowing like that of the sun—and his already very large muscles were now twice the size. He hadn’t felt like this since—
“Mr. Toll,” Rolfe said; and to the officers beating Jerry into the pavement, “Halt!” He returned his attention to Jake. “I think you shall join your new friend here. And when we’re done, you’ll get to enjoy your first taste of the underworld.” Rolfe flicked two fingers and officers encircled the suspicious new fisherman.
“Bring it on,” Jake said, beginning to swell with rage. He hadn’t felt emotions like this since…since he was a child, before—before the cleansing. And something was different about this place in which he found himself. He made fists and pounded them together. As a blur of motion the officers moved in.
A kick hit Jake square in the chest.
He couldn’t believe it! Jim had told him about this shit, secretly and on the down low. He never believed any of it, mostly because Jim and Lion joked a lot, at
least before they were separated—and Lion found new employment as a weed puller. Seemingly overnight Jim was a completely different person. And Jim went deep inside his own thoughts, and more so, inside his apartment, never coming out. All saw it. Jim became a loner and a malcontent. All knew it. And Jim lost his beautiful girlfriend, Amanda, the beautiful physical trainer. But Jim had mentioned it many times before then. He said there’s a dream world in the facility, a place where you can kick ass—kick some serious motherfuckin’ ass, as he’d put it, and work out your demons. Jake just thought they were a sick and demented pair of best friends, joking as always.
He let the memories play over in his head as a red-suited, slicked-hair, white-faced prick jabbed his chest with a puny foot. And the feeling of the hit…well, it just didn’t feel right, and Jake knew he hadn’t felt like this since forever. His emotions were colors he’d never imagined existed, but right now rage-red was standing out among the rest. He’d pushed up on the goons holding him as if they were paper weights made of hollow, ersatz steel.
They came with all they had. Another punch. Two, three, a dozen fists hitting him all at once, crazy speeds.
But Jake’s new hyper-lucid senses kept telling him: DREAM! And nothing would hurt him. He knew, as they had discussed it on the ship during the long ride from Jewel City—it had to do with that strange purple light. He knew he was changed, and he knew, henceforth he would be powerful in this realm. And knowing, believing, was all it took.
Jake raised an arm to block a punch; it zipped up with lightning speed. The man who’d kicked him was still flying away, backward through the air as if he’d kicked a tight trampoline.
Rolfe, his face was metamorphosing, from that of a grinning joker to a mime displaying every other emotion, those he’d never practiced or portrayed before.
The punches didn’t hurt and Jake smiled amid his anger. They didn’t even budge him in space, nudge him this way or that. Gee, he thought, thinking faster than the speed of light, I really am a superhero! The Blaze!
Jake sprang into action, pelting the officers as if he was some sort of giant, flinging ants. On the inside, he was the yellow, orange, and red superhero—one he’d loved watching as a kid—and on the outside he appeared as a black Belgian-Blue Bull, ripped and 275 pounds, wearing fishing gear; he meted the punishment like a moving wall. He flung some up and over the crowd, others under like bowling balls to pins that were red-suited perimeter guards. Some hit the crowds of humans and workers, and with restored hope, optimism overload—they pushed back. Jake flicked all subsequent incomers aside like paper wads firing from a rubber-band slingshot—and he strode toward Rolfe.
58. Flushed
He accomplished a superhuman feat! The short, bulky fisherman held his arms high, slowly spinning around amid cheering thousands. The look on countless faces was that of being able to breathe again, and Jake breathed in the excitement surrounding him. Still hopped up on adrenaline and imagination, he felt like the winner of some unworldly boxing tournament.
Rolfe was out cold. The officers had been utterly decimated, some near the level to which Jerry had been pummeled—yet with only one punch! Many littered the ground while some had bolted, running up the hill or into the woods. Carmen, Andy, and Bart helped Jerry to his feet while everyone awaited answers; the question: What in the world just happened? The cheering lasted for about two minutes before curiosity won over. Then Patrick stepped forward.
“We’ve waited for this day for what must be hundreds and hundreds of years,” Pat said. “We stopped counting the days. But finally, it has happened. You, sir…on behalf of the 6,122 humans in Midtown, thank you.”
Jerry managed to stabilize his stance and Bart stepped forward. “On behalf of the 2,671 workers residing in Midtown,” Bart said, “thank you. While we’ve never gone down, we do share in the humans’ anguish and pain.”
“Hey, I don’t know what’s going on,” Jake replied, squinting at the sight of the weird one, “just wanted to help, I saw him and—”
“Jake,” Luke said, “now please, it is our turn. Please, kill us.”
“Kill us,” another woman said.
“Quickly,” said the man in the clown suit.
In his low, deep voice, one bald eyebrow lump down, one up, Jake replied, “What in the hell—kill you?”
“We’re ready,” Roger said, “kill each of us, flat-out, just like you did to the officers.”
“What the fuck?”
“You see, every time we die they throw us down there,” Patrick said, pointing at what appeared to be a huge, one hundred-foot-round well of sorts. Above it were pulleys and a massive steel framework. “Let me explain.” The masses made way and Jake followed Patrick; as well Jerry, hobbling, and Carmen and a few other close friends. The structure incongruently occupied the vacant lot beside Marti’s Place. Surrounding the well was gray-white marble, and looking in revealed a circular platform, like that of an elevator; it had guard rails and some basic controls where a single entrance gap allowed a way in. Far behind was a building full of motors, twenty-foot-diameter spooling gears, and cables, similar to those used at a ski resort for the lift. And it appeared as if the lift station was sharing its motors. An immense spool of cable was wound, obviously ready to lower the platform. Beyond the lift station, and following the chairlift up the lush mountainside, there looked to be a restaurant destination with more shops and the beginning of a sinuating white slide. Jake recalled eerily similar memories: attractions from a childhood vacation he’d taken with his parents, before the war; he’d hop in a cart and shove the lever forward then zip down the mountain—he still had the scar on his hand to prove he’d experienced such fun…
“Jake, you there?” Patrick asked.
“Yeah, just blowing my mind, all of this.”
“The regenerators are down there, with them. This is why we cannot die, but with you here—well, you stopped the officers from tossing us down and now we can finally end this nightmare.”
Jake was more than perplexed, made apparent by the severe elevation of his right, bald eyebrow. And his recently vivified imagination was a loony cartoon factory. It didn’t take more than a second for him to arrive at the wildest of speculations. “It can’t be,” he uttered. And then he realized, Lion’s and Jim’s jokes were true; his mind was incapable of fathoming it back then. He mixed old and new thoughts in the stew of his mushrooming mind. “It’s, it must be…a dream world. This is not, it cannot be…Hell.”
“Hell?” Patrick objected. “Dream world, Jake? We were brought here on a ship, the last survivors on Earth, after the war, and it’s been a long time since we’ve had anyone new. We’d fill you in on the details but I think it might be better if you act now, before—” Pat motioned toward Rolfe and the pile of red-suits. “—before they wake up.”
“Look, I’m not killing anyone,” Jake said. “And I don’t know about you, but I am getting out of here, alive. I think it’s best if we exchange some information and find out what in the dang world—”
“But, the officers…” someone from the crowd interrupted.
“Hey, lady, I can deal with them. If they touch anyone else, ever again, you just let me know about it.” He slammed a fist into his palm, twice.
“All right,” Pat said, “we can talk about it in the bar. Let’s head over.” Then Pat said louder, “Everyone, go enjoy your week—weeks, months, years, we don’t have to go down anymore!” Sighs of relief fluttered throughout those still around and the crowd further dispersed—some running, others hugging or crying joyous cries.
Others still, workers and humans alike, decided upon themselves—they’d already begun to drag the passed-out, or dead, officers to the platform. Rex first, then Rolfe, and they hustled to get them loaded. Rex was dead but as Rolfe was carried by those heading back toward the bar he lifted his lids. His eyes rotated about; in seeing the truck of a black man send him a glare, he passed out again. In the distance Andy grinned.
Pat called out, �
��Andy, what are you—” He cut himself off. Then to his close company, “I bet this was Andy’s idea.”
“Good,” Carmen said, and Jerry could only nod. The officers were going to get a taste—not Jake. Screw balance.
“The fuckers deserve it,” an older woman said, reiterating mutual thoughts which seemed thick in the air. And there was no shortage of help.
Many sent a solemn nod toward Jerry as he hobbled by, as well as a bowing thank you to Jake. Jerry limped into Marti’s with Carmen faithfully by his side, as well many other friends. They took seats at a large wooden table to the far right by the windows; the platform was clearly in view. And it was being loaded all right—a red heaping of bodies.
Above their table were dozens of animal trophies, animals unlike any found on Earth, although some looked vaguely familiar. Jake took a seat, still in awe of the new world, and the highly ornate bar: oddities were mounted, stuffed, and hung everywhere. And pelts, and there were photo walls, dart boards, video games, and wooden carvings like totem poles, as tall as a standing grizzly bear. And quickly the conversing began.
“We should get you to a regenerator, Jerry.” Pat said. “We can sneak down, then up and out. You’re messed up, man.”
“So, what exactly are these regenerators?” Jake asked, his attention ensnared from another carving: a man and a woman upright, making love.
“If we are going to change our plan and stay alive, it is the only way.” Pat turned to Jake. “Jake, the regenerators reside in the underworld. When anyone dies or becomes injured in any way, the officers toss them into the well, even if they’re merely a pile of guts or a hard gob of ash. Did you see the line dividing the circular platform?”
“Yeah.”
“They load bodies onto it and press a button. Actually—” Pat pointed out the window. “—look.” A worker hit the button and the heap of officers went away as if sucked into the ground. “That platform, Jake, is also a trapdoor and it’s a long fall into—well, like you mentioned earlier, and probably the best way to describe it simply—Hell. Anyway, we can be regenerated by this technology, technology proprietary to the underworld. The bad part—the beasts will have their way: gambling, slashing, mocking, even raping, devouring pleasure from our pain in any way fathomable. Then, always after one week, we humans get to come back up. Although sometimes, such as in the case of Jerry, how they’d beaten him and declared a sentence of a year in the underworld, the officers who hold positions at the well would send the sentenced person back down. In Jerry’s case they’d likely beat him to death, then toss him back. Jerry has taken by far, more beatings than any human has ever had to endure. He’s strong and they know it, and he pays terribly.”
