The Best Bad Dream

by Robert Ward

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Jack and Oscar awoke in a locked cell, their arms and legs bound by chains. Both of them had massive headaches.

  The room was cold and dark but when Jack’s eyes finally adjusted he realized they were in a basement cell of some kind. There was a shaft of light coming through a barred window on the door.

  “Oscar, you okay?”

  “Never better, hombre. You got any idea where we are?”

  “Hell, or just down the block from it.”

  Jack blinked and looked at the wall. He saw a patch of greenish-blue stone. Turquoise. The same color of dust he’d seen on the great hog and on Tommy. An old turquoise mine.

  From outside they heard a roar, like men watching a boxing match.

  “What the hell?”

  “I think the show is about to begin, Osc. We need to get out of these chains fast. You happen to bring a skeleton key with you?”

  “No,” Oscar said. “I left that at home with my decoder ring.”

  “Shit,” Jack said. “We need to check this place out.”

  Chained together, they shuffled their way across the room, tripping over a couple of cots and the charming open latrine.

  “The only weapon we have is the bed. If we could pull it apart we could use the legs to beat the guards’ heads in.”

  They both pulled on the steel legs. They didn’t budge.

  “Son of a bitch is welded together.”

  “You gotta give it to the boys,” Oscar said. “This is a well-made house of horrors. We could be fucked this time, hombre.”

  Jack smiled in the dark and to Oscar his shining teeth looked like the keys to an open accordion.

  “Before you write your will, I have another idea.”

  Outside, the huge, black-masked guard, Hans, waited by their door. His orders were not to let anything happen to them until he had word from the higher-ups.

  Hans stood with his mouth open and his tongue hanging out.

  “Fuckers,” he said to himself, over and over again.

  He shut his eyes and imagined all sorts of novel ways to kill the two chained-up fuckers inside the cell.

  Then he heard a scream, a cry of pain.

  And the words, “He’s dead! Dead!”

  Oh, no. If one of the guys was actually dead . . . shit. Lucky would hold him responsible for it and crack his head with a ball-peen hammer!

  He got his keys, ran inside, and saw the Mexican guy standing next to the white guy, who was balled up on the floor. His tongue was sticking out of his mouth at a grotesque angle.

  “He’s dead,” the Mexican guy said. “He tried to get away and I told him to stay put. But we fought and he’s strangled by my chains.”

  “What the fuck? You killed your partner?”

  “Not on purpose. It was an accident. Look.”

  “Bullshit. This is some kind of trick.”

  “I’m telling you, dude. And in case you don’t know it, we’re FBI. You kill an FBI agent and you end up with the serious lethal inject.”

  “Okay, I’ll check. But stand back,” Hans said. He held his nine-millimeter Glock out in front of him as he moved toward Jack.

  “We have a problem,” Oscar said. “I can’t stand back.”

  “Of course you can stand back,” Hans said. “And you better do it, too. Waaaay back.”

  “Senor, there is nothing I would rather do than stand back,” Oscar said. “But since you chained us together and he’s lying there dead I can only kneel back a couple of inches. ‘Cause if I stand back I drag him with me, and then we are over there but still together.”

  Hans thought that if the Mexican fucker didn’t stop explaining why he couldn’t stand back he would kill him right now.

  “Of course, if you wanted to unchain me, then I could stand back, anywhere you wanted. I could stand back over there, or over there, or over there. The whole world of “standing back” would have endless possibilities, but since I am chained . . .”

  “All right,” Hans screamed. “Shut the fuck up. You can stay here, but I don’t want you hovering over me. So kneel down.”

  “I will not hover,” Oscar said.

  “Fuckin’ A you won’t. A hovering prisoner will soon be a dead one.”

  Hans moved forward cautiously and then knelt down next to the prone figure, still aiming his gun at Oscar but now from the side.

  He looked down at Jack’s bent neck and saw scrape marks on it.

  “How the fuck did you do this?” he asked.

  “It was most unfortunate. He and I got into a little wrestling match . . . Here, I’ll show you.”

  “Huh?”

  Too late. Oscar took the chain that bound Jack and himself together, quickly wrapped it around Hans’s neck, and pulled. Hans made serious sounds of agony and managed to shoot off his Glock. The bullet passed through Oscar’s right arm and Oscar groaned and fell backward, but suddenly Jack was awake and together they strangled the giant.

  Hans lay on the stone floor with his tongue hanging out.

  “You hit?” Jack asked.

  “Not too bad.”

  “Just a flesh wound?”

  “Fuck you. I always wondered what that meant. A flesh wound. Is that better than, say, a bone wound?”

  “I think that’s the idea. Nobody says it anymore. They always used it in old cowboy movies. My dad still says it.”

  Jack took Hans’s keys and unlocked their chains, then used Hans’s shirt to make a tourniquet for Oscar.

  “Why does he say it?” Oscar asked.

  “Usually about relationships,” like “‘That last woman thought she had my heart in her teeth but it was only a flesh wound.’”

  As he talked, Jack gently helped his partner get his shirt off and looked at the bullet hole. It was high up in Oscar’s biceps and there was a good deal of bleeding, but it looked as though it had passed through cleanly. Indeed, only a flesh wound.

  Jack tied the tourniquet tight and Oscar got up but had to put his hand on the wall for balance.

  “You dizzy?”

  “Not as much as you, bro.”

  “You should get out of here. Get to an ER.”

  “Bullshit. We got to get in there and break up that meeting.”

  Then someone knocked on the cell door.

  “Who is it?” Jack said, using a low, growling voice, which he hoped would fool whoever it was at the door.

  “It’s Lucky,” a voice responded. “I want to see the Feds.”

  Oscar put on the giant’s leather mask and went to the door while Jack waited behind it.

  Oscar opened the door.

  “Where are the assholes?” Lucky asked, walking in, one of his boys behind him. They were both wearing shiny metallic gray robes and white masks. They looked ridiculous, but still, somehow, frightening.

  Oscar pointed at the cot.

  Lucky saw a foot sticking out from beside the cot.

  “I hope you didn’t ice them for good.”

  “He didn’t,” Jack said, smashing his gun into Lucky’s shoulder, a glancing blow that knocked him off balance as he reached down into his robe for something. A pistol, Jack thought. But instead, Lucky unzipped his robe and pulled out what looked at first glance to be some kind of gun from an old Buck Rogers movie. Jack recognized the Super Soaker as Lucky slid away from him and started to pump the rifle.

  “It’s dinnertime,” Lucky said. “And tonight we’re having fried fuzz!”

  He was still pumping the gun when Jack rolled to the right. A slash of fire went by him. Jack didn’t wait for Lucky to shoot again. Instead he rushed him and knocked the gun from his hand.

  Lucky crawled after it but Jack grabbed him by the neck and slammed his forehead into the floor. Twice.

  Meanwhile, Oscar reached out and grabbed Lucky’s boy and kicked him in the balls. The man went down with a terrified squeak.

  The two FBI agents looked at one another and shook their heads.

  “What the fuck is that t
hing?” Oscar asked. “It looks like a freaking toy.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said, smelling it. “It’s a kids’ toy turned into a flame-thrower. Man, a couple of inches to the left and I’d be a crispy critter.”

  Jack smiled.

  “Nice of them to bring our costumes with them,” Jack said as they set to stuffing rags in their prisoners’ mouths, taking off their clothes, and chaining their arms behind their backs.

  “That gun might come in handy,” Jack said.

  He looked down at the unconscious biker and saw a clip on his belt. Jack took it off and attached it to his own belt.

  “In the twenty-first century, the well-dressed FBI agent is always equipped with a toy flamethrower,” he said.

  He closed his robe. There was a bulge but not much of one.

  “Time to check out the scene,” he said as he and Oscar donned their masks and headed out into the hall.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Jennifer had screamed until she could scream no more. Then she had fallen down at the foot of the bars, too exhausted to even make it across the tiny cell to her bed.

  She woke in the dark and started to whisper to Gerri but then remembered that Gerri wasn’t there anymore. The leather-clad man had taken her away. God only knew where.

  She took seven deep breaths and tried to focus her mind on the darkness.

  It was dark, and dark was terrifying, which is exactly what her tormentors, whoever they were, meant it to be.

  They were counting on her fear to paralyze her. She pulled herself up and stumbled to her bed.

  Then she nearly jumped three feet into the air.

  Something moved in the bed.

  Someone was there, sleeping.

  She trembled in fear, then breathed in deeply and was finally able to say, “Who the hell is that?”

  She heard someone clear her throat, saw the shape move, then heard a voice, a very familiar voice.

  “Hi, Sis. You okay?”

  Jennifer couldn’t believe it.

  “Michelle?”

  “Yeah, guess we ended up in it this time, huh?”

  Jennifer moved toward her.

  “We? We got in this together?”

  “Well. . .”

  “No,” Jennifer said, moving closer. “Notwe, Sis. You! You got me into this, and now we are both going to end up being organ donors to some rich bastards!”

  Michelle stood up and rubbed her neck.

  “It’s actually worse than that,” she said. “The way I understand it, parts of us may be . . . on the menu.”

  Jennifer hauled off and smacked her sister in the face. The blow was so hard she knocked Michelle to the floor.

  “Goddamn. I didn’t know you could hit like that,” Michelle said.

  “There’s plenty you don’t know about me, Sis,” Jennifer said. “I’ve spent my whole life cleaning up your messes and now you’ve gotten us into this. Well, they aren’t taking me without a fight. And when we get out of here I’m going to settle up with you!”

  Michelle got up and hugged her, and in spite of herself Jennifer hugged her back.

  “You know what?” Michelle said. “I’m starting to really like you. We got a lot of living to do before it’s all over. Now tell me what the guard is like.”

  “Shit,” Jennifer said. “You don’t want to know.”

  Wearing their ridiculous costumes and armed with three pistols and the makeshift flamethrower, Jack and Oscar made their way down the hall. Jack’s mask was too narrow for his face, so the eyeholes didn’t quite line up with his eyes. This caused him to stagger behind Oscar, whose mask fit neatly. Jack walked into the wall two or three times, and he thought about how he would excise these failings in his memoirs. If he lived to write them.

  They weren’t sure if they were going toward the human sacrifice or away from it when they heard a commotion a couple of doors in front of them.

  It sounded like . . . but it couldn’t be.

  Jack and Oscar arrived at the door and were extremely surprised at the sounds of sex.

  “Ohhh, I want it. I want your big cock in me.”

  Jack looked inside and saw what could only be a naked Jennifer Wu writhing on a bed, pleasuring herself.

  “Hey there,” he said, so stunned that he half forgot that he was wearing his white mask and robe.

  “Hey look . . .”

  He reached down for Hans’s keys and quickly opened the cell door.

  Then he and Oscar, still masked, walked inside and tried to sound reassuring.

  “Girls, whatever you’re trying to pull off here isn’t really necessary, cause—”

  He never finished the sentence, because from behind the bed came a leaping, screaming, and clawing Michelle Wu. Jack was usually able to handle two men at once, but there was no way he could ever have been ready for this howling, maniacal tomcat who scratched at his eyes and aimed a killer karate kick at his knee.

  Meanwhile, the woman on the bed had quickly pulled up her Levi’s and was attacking Oscar with all she had.

  Both Oscar and Jack fell to the cell floor, rolling around in their metallic white robes and pointed masks as the girls rained pain down upon them.

  Finally, Jack managed to scream, “Michelle, stop. It's Jack and Oscar! And you're fucking killing us!”

  She let loose a banshee howl and hit Jack with about ten thousand more punches.

  “Jack and Oscar, here to the rescue,” Oscar said.

  The punches and war cries stopped. The boys sucked in air.

  “It's about fucking time,” Michelle said.

  Jack felt bruises and bumps appearing all over his body. He was a giant purple plum of a man.

  A plum in pain.

  A few minutes later the four of them—Jack, Oscar, Michelle, and Jennifer—were out in the hall.

  “We heard something coming from that way,” Jack said, pointing at two steel doors. “I think that's where they're having their warm-up pot roast. But you two have to wait here until we deal with it.”

  “We'll be back for you,” Oscar said.

  “Yeah, right,” Michelle said. “You want to go down there to the picnic, that's fine. But I know another way out of here. Down the back way. There are steps there and the exit comes out just across from the Red Sombrero.”

  “I'll be damned,” Jack said. “That's where Tommy met us, Oscar. This place must be the cave right below the ledge.”

  Jack looked at the green walls. He should have known that's why Tommy met him there. If he had only seen it then.

  “So you guys go ahead and we'll meet you outside,” Michelle said.

  Jack nodded.

  “Thanks for saving me,” Jennifer said. “I'm sorry we attacked you.”

  “No problem,” Jack said. “Michelle hits like a girl anyway.”

  They all looked at the huge lump on his forehead and no one said a word.

  “Listen,” Jack said. “When you get out call the FBI and the local cops and get them out here. Right away. Okay?”

  Michelle looked away and Jack grabbed her arm.

  “I should have let them take you. Maybe I would have if your sister wasn't in here with you.”

  “Jack, I can explain. It's not like you think.”

  “Stop,” Jack said. “Don't say another word. I get it. I see the whole scam. We'll deal with all that after this is over.”

  “I wish you'd—”

  “Shut up, Michelle,” Jack said. “I got the picture and I don't want to hear your bullshit ever again.”

  “Okay, Jack,” Michelle said, lowering her eyes as though she were heartbroken. “If you say so, Jackie. But I still love you.”

  Jack slapped her in the face, hard.

  “Now go,” he said. “Before I change my mind and arrest you.”

  She didn't look at him again, but grabbed her sister and the two girls headed down the hall toward the back steps.

  Jack and Oscar moved forward toward the two steel doors.

  As they
got closer they heard another round of wild cheering and applause.

  “The party's getting wilder,” Jack said. “I think we better move along.”

  Chapter Thirty-five

  Jack used Hans's key ring and he and Oscar passed through two steel doors. He'd half expected to see a mob of people, but what faced them was a darkened room.

  Oscar reached out, fumbled with the light switch, and flicked it on.

  And heard a bone-chilling, high-pitched chatter and screams he could never have imagined. It was like being in a pit where everyone was yelling at once but not in English. In fact, he realized, not in any human language at all.

  He and Oscar looked around and saw them. Hundreds of animals: baby chimpanzees, dogs of all sizes, pigs—huge, ugly, spotted pigs—mice, and rabbits, most of them trussed up in ways beyond imagining. It was like something out of Bosch, Jack thought, but worse, far worse. For all his horror, Bosch was only painting images from his twisted mind.

  These nightmares were real.

  Rabbits with steel bolts shoved through their heads, dogs with horrible, bloody scabs on their backs where their fur should have been. Pigs covered in running sores and screaming monstrous, agonized squeals.

  “Madre de Dios,” Oscar said.

  Then, as they walked down past the endless row of cages, they saw trays with dead animals on them.

  But not whole dead animals. More like pieces of dead animals: guts and ears and noses and piles of intestines.

  And the smell of the place! At first Jack hadn't noticed how foul the odor was. He'd been so surprised by the hideous visual tableau and maniacal sound level that the smell hadn't quite reached down and strangled him. But it did now. The smell of suffering beyond belief. The smell of rotting corpses and chemicals. There were no words to describe it. A sweet, foul smell that made both men dizzy and nauseous.

  “We should let them all out, compadre. Let them be free.”

  “Yeah,” Jack said. “But God knows what they would do to us if they got loose.”

  “You think an animal wants to take revenge?”

  They stared at baboons with electrified caps on their heads looking out of their cages at them with what seemed to be a fury that knew no end.