by Spencer,Alan
"You each have three minutes before re-entering the arena. I hope a break has done you both well. This year, we've introduced new measures to keep the game not only fair for the competitors, but more interesting for the viewers.
"To your left, you will see a row of slots. Two will spring open at random by computerized selection. Each box will have a tool to help you in battle. These will open in five, four, three, two, one..."
Two slots from the walls extended themselves. Reggie was slow moving. He had injected too much morphine into his system.
"I'll grab both. You sit for another minute and try and get yourself together."
The first box had a flare gun.
The second box had a K-bar knife.
The flare gun had one round in the cylinder.
Reggie lost himself to a fit of laughs. "What are we going to do with a flare gun? Signal for help? Shit."
Reggie's bandage was soaked through and dripping down the rest of his face. He didn't care to notice. The morphine was a trick, David thought. It was morphine, sure, but it was a drug, and it would slow him down, and being slow was a deadly handicap in this game.
The automated voice continued giving instructions.
"You have ninety seconds to vacate the safe box. The entry door will open and stay open. It won't close until you leave. Once the door closes, you cannot access the same safe box twice in the same game. There are more safe boxes scattered about the arena.
"Killers have to stay back ninety feet for one minute before pursuing you again. Once those sixty seconds have expired, you are fair game. Watch the clock. You now have sixty seconds to decide your next move."
David thought he had increased his chances of battling on with Reggie. That had changed in the amount of time it took for the morphine to hit his friend's bloodstream. Reggie was a sloppy mess. He was laying on the cot doped up. He wanted to sleep.
He couldn't let him sleep.
"We have to get out of the safe box. We can't stay in here. Reggie, come on."
"Leave a do not disturb sign on the door knob and tell them to fuck off."
Reggie was laughing to himself.
"Come on, Reggie. Don't do this to me. I got two weapons. Take your pick."
Reggie was snoring on the cot.
David shook him. "Wake up. Please, wake up."
Reggie was soaking the pillow with more blood. He was muttering nonsense. The man wanted to sleep.
Maybe he has the right idea. Sleep. And don't wake up.
There are worse ways to go.
The front door opened.
The automated warning followed.
"You have sixty seconds before officially re-entering the game."
The seconds were ticking down. The clock was already down to twenty seconds. Reggie refused to move.
He tried to lift him up, but he was too heavy, or David was too nervous, weak, or all of the above, to do much of anything for his doped up friend.
He could hear stalking, killing, fighting, and a wild scream coming from the jungle gym area. He also spotted the woman standing exactly ninety feet from the safe box. She was the one who had eaten Reggie's eye. She was the one wearing intestines as an ensemble.
She drew a line in the dirt with a bare toe. Her smile was jagged and still branching into something malevolent.
She adjusted her intestine bikini top. She stuck her fat tongue out, ran it lasciviously around her lips, and lowered and raised the guts so her bloody eraser-pink nipples would appear and disappear.
The guts gleamed fresh down her body.
These were brand new guts, freshly ripped.
She had replaced them during the twenty minutes they were hidden in the safe box.
"Come on out," she beckoned with a curl of the finger. "I want to eat that other eyeball. I prefer my men blind and screaming."
The automated clock counted down the final seconds:
Three.
Two.
One.
The woman plucked her top from behind her neck. The intestines fell away from her breasts and dangled between her hands. She was swinging the guts like a lasso. David jumped to the side and barely dodged the hideous makeshift rope.
From inside the safe box, David heard a distinct, "Gaaak!"
Reggie was swiftly dragged out of the box. The guts were wound tight around his neck, constricting his ability to breathe. He was standing up and planting his feet on the dirt as if hitting the brakes. It did no good. The woman kept pulling him harder and harder. Reggie's face scrunched with intense pain. Tighter, and tighter, his skin kept changing shades of color, and then the intestine's tension snapped Reggie's neck in one clean break. Dead, the crazy woman didn't stop constricting the guts. Reggie's head trembled from the pressure. A full minute of tightening, and his one remaining eye popped out of the socket.
David ran for his life while the woman hurried to pick up the man's rolling eyeball. He heard the eye pop when she ate it whole.
He turned around to see her fit back the intestines back onto her body. He didn't hang around long enough for her to catch up with him.
He already had a new set of problems stalking him.
Luke was standing in the famous pentagram room. Half the walls had been blown to pieces from the killers' first entrance into the game. This is where the blood, bones, and guts from the hundreds of people squashed in the chamber above him had been dumped previously. The giant pentagram soaked up the offering of death, and in return, hell spit forth its elite killers. A cameraman was currently filming him in this room. This was a live feed playing on all the television screens throughout each viewing room. Luke bent down on his haunches and ran his finger on the floor in the center of the pentagram.
"The floor is bone dry, folks. Hell has accepted what we have offered. We must respect and cherish this gift Satan has given us so generously. There's an energy about this room. I can smell traces of hell. If you listen hard enough, you can hear faint sounds. Screams. Laughter. The echoes of eternal oblivion.
"Why am I standing in this room talking to you? I wanted to take a moment to remind us of the great prize of tonight. The coveted trip to hell. The person who represents the last competitor standing gets a free trip to hell. Seven days of fun. It is an honor to even have a shot at such a prize. This year, we have a collection of photos from hell's hotspots. Roll that footage."
A prerecorded montage followed.
One of the camera crew had a monitor. Everybody watched the montage. Luke's voice narrated the collection of pictures.
"Tonight's lucky winner will enjoy seven days of hell. Hell is a big place. Some would say infinite. You need help experiencing the best and hottest places in the time allowed. Let hell's chosen guide take you to where you desire. This guide will customize your experience to match your interests. Hell's guides are well trained and come with a masterful knowledge of the terrain. They can answer any, and all, questions."
A picture of a man with a wrestler's build with six eyes on his face and one hideous wide mouth filled with broken glass for teeth was smiling and waving a hand at the camera. He carried a walking stick made of a human spine. Two visitors smiled big into the camera alongside their guide.
"Enjoy the burning sulfur pits of agony. Revel in the screams as sinners have their flesh melted off time and time again."
The picture showed a long stretch of what looked like a lake made of black tar. Bodies swam, drowned, melted, burned, and glowed various shades of red as they were downgraded to liquid. A stone path to the side showed two visitors point at the tar as they drank from the high end beverages and smoked cigars.
"When you're done smelling the stench of burning flesh on the open air, go downtown in Captivity Square. Those especially sadistic will get that special thrill only hell can deliver."
A different set of folks were standing in the middle of a courtyard. Cages made of steel housed hundreds of people wearing dog collars and expressions of sadness and torture.
"Poke a stick at our slave
prisoners. Piss on 'em. Shit on 'em. Jack off on them. Burn them with hot pokers. Cut them up. Anything you desire to do to people in captivity, have at it, friends."
The next picture showed a winding tunnel where people where hanging upside down, strapped to the wall with shackles, laying on metal tables, spread eagle on special seating, and generally bound and helpless. Monsters with leathery skin, pink foamy dog jowls, and wearing various leather BDSM get-ups posed for the picture taken of them while carrying whips, chains, bamboo shoots, and brass knuckles.
"Here at Rape Tunnels, get your fill of sexual thrills. Ask the man at the door what you're into, and you will be directed accordingly. If you don't know what you're into, tour the denizens until something tickles your fancy. Satisfaction is one hundred percent guaranteed."
A shot of a resort style building with swimming pools and bars came next.
"If you're into something a little more low key, wade in the blood pools, enjoy a sauna heated by burning heads, or take a dip in a hot tub of guts and human fat. Nothing cleans out the pores better than swimming in what's inside the human body.
"Watch stock war footage at the Infernal Theatre Complex. Catch a live botched surgery ringside. Punch a man to death while a donkey rapes him. Watch a man eat himself and shit himself back out. Experience Satan's hookers give birth to the most vile abortions in history and take a picture with it. Visit hell's cemetery, and watch the "Midnight Show of the Undead". Anything and everything you can think of, hell's got you covered.
"Some things will stay secret in hell. You'll have to take the tour to truly find out what hell has to offer. Place your bets on the man you brought to the competition. Good luck to everybody in the competition. May all your wishes come true tonight."
Luke ended the feed.
He exited the pentagram room and went about the next piece of the evening's business.
David retreated into a dark hole. It's not that he wanted to crawl down into that unknown recess and face God knows what else. There was no better option. No choice either. He could turn around, but the intestine bikini chick was lurking nearby, as were the rest of the psychos.
Once he was down in the hole, he realized just how pitch black it really was down there. He wasn't on his hands and knees very long before the low ceiling above his head turned into a high one. Up on his feet and standing, he had no choice but to use his flare gun to light up the way. He extended the barrel, pulled the trigger, and released a bright green bullet.
The darkness turned into a moving neon green tunnel. The walls were solid concrete. Dead corpses dressed in the green fatigues were strewn on the ground. They had literal bites taken out of their bodies. Necks were gaping wide open. Breasts were chewed from chests in wild chomp marks. Torsos had lost chunks from their bellies. Genitals were reduced to jagged and serrated pink voids.
Between the bodies, there were many openings in the concrete. Places to run, crawl, hide, and escape. There was another long glass pane on the wall to his left. He could only see their faces. The width and length of the window was narrow. He wouldn't be able to stick more than his hand through if he decided to smash through it. Others had tried by using chunks of concrete. David supposed the Plexiglas window was strong enough to withstand the punishment.
A speaker crackled on from the ceiling.
"Get him, Chomps. I want to see you chew him up. Make him bleed and scream."
Who the fuck is Chomps?
The flare's light died out. A floodlight from two hallways down from him came on. It revealed a broad shouldered, muscular man dressed in a leather vest and blue jeans standing in place. He had long stringy hair. The guy could've been from a cheesy '80's metal band. David couldn't see his facial features yet.
When the imposing figure spoke, it sounded like a wild boar was talking. "What set of teeth should I use?"
New lights came on from the left and right of the man. The lights showcased a series of displays. They were glass boxes with golden plaques beneath them. It didn't take long for David to understand what was in those boxes.
They were sets of teeth. Like dentures, but bigger, with steel and machinery enhancing them. The teeth were now able to accomplish deadly feats of brutality.
He knew then running was his best option.
Running was always the best option.
"Grab him, Lizzy!"
His arm was twisted behind his back. The pain nearly drove him to his knees, but his attacker forced him to stay on his feet.
"Lizzy Borden's got you now." Her voice was soft and sweet. Her tongue grazed his earlobe. "He'll chew you up. But I'll finish you off. I'll fuck you good. If you can stay hard after Chomps is done with you, I promise I won't cut your head off with my axe until you're dead. That's if you kiss me like you love me and fuck me like I'm a whore."
A surge of anger crept into her words. "Everybody thinks I'm a prude. Trust me, I'm not. I'm not wearing those baggie old timey clothes anymore. I wear corsets and crotch-less panties. Blood's not the only thing I swallow. I'll have sex with anybody with blood in their veins."
More and more faces were peering through that long pane of glass. They were fighting each other to get the best view of two killers taking on one man.
Chomps growled. "He's mine, Lizzy. He came into my area, and I spotted him first."
"What do you care? You take one bite of them, and you leave them for dead. Surely you don't mind if I have some fun with him before dies?"
"You're a bottom feeding bitch. Get your own victims. Finish the kill from beginning to end. I'm not like you. I don't sneak up on my victim. I take them on face to face."
"Put your teeth in, dick wad," Lizzy laughed, "and then we'll decide who gets this body. You kill them the way you chose, and I'll go about my business to my liking. I've seen you lurking in the shadows. You watch me fuck the bodies before they die. You're into the kind of shit I'm into, so quit being a whiny bitch, and let's get to the slaughter."
David couldn't believe what he was hearing.
This conversation belonged in hell.
This was hell.
He saw various pentagrams painted on the walls. The pentagrams themselves slowly oozed blood. This place was charged with an unbelievable evil that allowed the dead to come back to life and to hack and slash the living.
"Have it your way," Chomps grunted. "What teeth should I use, fans?"
He pointed at the teeth set on display that had drill bits for actual teeth. He pointed at the next set that had steel shark's teeth. He pointed at yet another with razor blades, scalpel edges, and nails jutting from where the teeth would be. Each of the three were mechanical. Whenever he touched a button on the sides, the drills drilled, and the scalpels and razors pulsed with blender power.
Several voices shouted into the intercom: "Drills! The drills! We want the drills!"
"My fans have spoken."
Chomps removed his normal teeth, what were gangly and yellow. A few were dissolving like wet aspirin pills. A roach crawled from the rotten green gum tissue. He placed the teeth on an empty display.
He turned on the motor. The drills were spinning and issuing a sharp dentist drill's whine. Chomps shoved them into his mouth. He lowered the drills so the tips touched. Sparks lit up the man's mouth.
"You don't need this man to get off," Chomps joked. "I'll eat you out, Lizzy. I'll eat you out r-eeeeal good."
"Screw off. I only want what's left of him. I don't want to get to know the son-of-a-bitch. And I most certainly don't want you. You're a fucking dog-faced idiot."
"Then we'll see who gets what, huh?"
Chomps stepped into better light. He was a strange blue-grey color. The color of a morgue's resident. His eyes were overexposed because his eyelids sagged so far down. The flesh along his cheeks were stretched thin from the size of teeth he shoved into his mouth. His maw was gigantic.
David couldn't slip from Lizzy's hold.
He kept trying without success.
Chomps was closing in.
The sounds of the drill bits spinning were grating to his ears. What would this cretin do to him? Where would he take that deadly bite from his body?
Lizzy was sticking her tongue into his ear, probing. "He'll bite you, and the hard part will be over before you know it, big man. Then I'll make you feel so much better. My pussy will be the last thing you taste before you die. There's nothing sweeter."
The intercom blared with cheers and excitement.
"Chew out his throat."
"Rip out his heart."
"Take a big bite out of his skull."
"The dick! The dick! Get his dick!"
David was sweating in place. The heart the crowd wanted to be ripped out so badly was pounding a million beats a minute.
Chomps was in arm's reach of him. The beast tapped the drill heads together and shed more sparks. The inside of his head lit up a dull orange color. His head was the inside of a grinning jack-o-lantern.
The psycho's mouth opened wide. Too wide. The skins of his lips stretched unnaturally thin. His jaw lowered to reveal a gaping weapon for a mouth. He was overzealous with his extension, and the flesh of his cheeks tore down the sides like thin tissue paper.
The drills spun in the name of David's mutilation.
Lizzy tightened her hold on his arms. Her breath was hot against his neck. She kept saying offensively sexual things to him. She kept telling him how she wanted him to lick certain parts of her body, and fucking mean it.
Through all of this, he remembered one thing just in time.
He had the K-bar knife tucked under his belt from the safe box.
David managed to jerk one arm free of her grip. He grabbed the knife and jammed the thick blade down to the hilt into the soft fleshy part of her hip. Lizzy released his arm. She also released a piercing shrill of pain. Free, he dropped to the ground. The drill bits had come inches from his face.
He shot forward on all fours and was now behind Chomps. Chomps hadn't stopped himself from biting. He watched in gaping-eyed horror as those drills tore up Lizzy's nose, lips, and cheeks. He had ravaged all the way through her head. The top part of her curly black hair fell like a heavy toupee. The bottom part of her teeth was all that remained of her head. That, and a wild flapping tongue.
