Death Sucks

by Andrew Mallen

  Stripped naked by unseen hands, the three contestants floated above the ring. Cinetti thrashed and raged. Linkov watched and waited. Rachkovsky hung as if from a noose.

  “Let’s get it on!” Jones roared and the would-be fighters dropped into the octagon.

  *

  Linkov landed on his feet and sprinted toward Cinetti, tackling her at full speed and slamming her into the razored fence.

  “Linkov isn’t wasting any time here people,” Jones said into the microphone, his words echoed from everywhere. “Those blades will make minced meat out of her!”

  Linkov sunk both hands deep into Cinetti’s thick hair and hauled her along the cage, the blades that decorated every curve of coiled wire ripped her flesh to shreds.

  “Well done sir, good show!”

  Drawing from the vast reserve of hate she harbored, Cinetti reached out and grabbed hold of Linkov’s balls. With his delicate organs squashed in her fist, the hitman’s resolved faded fast. Releasing her hair, grabbing her wrists, desperate to pry them apart, his face twisted nearly as much as his nuts, he stumbled. Feeling him falter, Cinetti spun. Linkov hobbled after her, trying to keep up with his cock. Cinetti slammed him into the wire and screamed in triumph as he did in pain. Tightening her grip, apparently dismembering him once hadn’t satisfied her, she heaved, her face uglied by the strain. Linkov’s balls pulled free of the tangle of veins that tethered them. He cried out, grasping himself, and collapsed.

  Moaning, Linkov writhed, cradling his balls, lost to the pain, the person responsible forgotten. Cinetti hadn’t forgotten him, and she hadn’t forgotten what he did. She spit on the bloodied killer, raised one foot then drove its heel down onto his temple, howling as she did. Linkov’s head bounced off the mat, his eyes rolled white, his moaning cut short. She did it again and again, over and over, her pace quickening, until the sharp crack of shattering bone echoed throughout the chamber.

  “It looks like it’s over for Mr. Linkov,” Jones announced but Cinetti wasn’t done.

  She kept driving her foot down and down and down again. Linkov’s head widened as his skull split. Cinetti kept at it. His scalp tore, his brain seeped from the jagged edges. Cinetti kept stomping. When Linkov’s head was nothing more than an oozing brain matter and gore, she raised her face to the flaming sky and roared as long and as loud as her voice would allow. Visceral and raw, it echoed and faded.

  “Well now folks, that’s what we call overkill! Fan-fucking-tastic!” Jones cried as Cinetti turned to find Rachkovsky.

  Coated in blood, her back crosshatched with pulsing gashes, she appeared unfazed. Rachkovsky knelt where she had landed, naked and seemingly oblivious to her predicament. Head low, her matted hair dangling in front of her face, she appeared as if she was waiting for the end. “You had my baby murdered,” Cinetti said, her words raw and ragged.

  Rachkovsky raised her face to answer but couldn’t, not without a tongue. Cinetti smirked, “Nothing to say bitch? It wouldn’t matter, I was gonna kill you anyway, you cunt.”

  Rachkovsky grimaced, the insult found a nerve.

  “What, you don’t like that word, cunt?”

  Rachkovsky’s eyes narrowed.

  “Too fucking bad cunt!” Cinetti roared and swung, meaning to slap the look off the cunt’s face.

  Rachkovsky grabbed her wrist, as quick as a feral cat, her eyes more deadly.

  “What the…” Cinetti began but Rachkovsky’s didn’t give her time to finish, driving her fist into her guts.

  Cinetti’s folded, her face kissing-close to Rachkovsky’s. She grabbed Cinetti behind the head and drove her forehead into the girl’s nose, crushing it. Cinetti stumbled backwards and flopped onto her naked ass, the surprise of the attack as shocking as the pain.

  “Lookie here folks, we got ourselves a fight after all! The always unpredictable Ms. Rachkovsky is having a go after all.” Jones was enjoying the show enough for everyone.

  “Fucking bitch!” Cinetti screamed, cupping the blood flowing from her shattered nose.

  Rachkovsky stood, her dark eyes never left Cinetti.

  “You think so, huh bitch?” Cinetti hissed, standing to face her.

  Rachkovsky waited. Wild with hate, Cinetti charged. Rachkovsky sidestepped and lashed out with one foot. Cinetti tripped and plunged awkwardly into the bladed fence, ripping herself open as she did. Rachkovsky strolled to the far side of the cage as Cinetti fumbled to untangle herself from the slippery blades. Blood poured from her shoulders, chest, arms and face. It didn’t slow her down, hate pumped through her veins, fueling her rage.

  “Cunt!” Cinetti roared and stalked toward her opponent.

  “Seems like Cinetti’s learned her lesson folks,” Jones announced, his words bubbling with excitement and anticipation. “This will be one for the ages, ladies and gents, one you’ll tell your grandkids about!”

  Cinetti swung, Rachkovsky ducked.

  Cinetti kicked, Rachkovsky dodged.

  Cinetti lunged, Rachkovsky stepped easily aside.

  “Come on cunt, you can’t dance all day!”

  Rachkovsky nodded.

  Cinetti swung again, Rachkovsky took the blow but countered with a stiff jab that landed on Cinetti’s already mangled nose and sent her backpedaling. Rachkovsky followed. Cinetti flailed like a drowning child, Rachkovsky avoided each wild attempt with ease until Cinetti was spent. Rachkovsky popped her again, her tight fist finding Cinetti’s already pulverized nose. Cinetti’s head snapped back, she swayed, legs wide to keep from falling. Rachkovsky drove one foot up into her groin then stepped quickly aside. Cinetti folded over, her face twisted in a silent scream. With her two fists knotted into a hard ball, Rachkovsky swung in a short powerful arc, hammering the back of Cinetti’s neck, driving her face first onto the floor. Rachkovsky kicked her hard in the ribs, rolling her onto her back. Straddling the young girl, studying her like a vulture would a carcass, she dropped roughly onto her chest

  Grabbing Cinetti’s face, one thumb over each eye, locking her elbows and her shoulders, using her weight as well as her strength, Rachkovsky drove them and the squirming girl’s eyeballs into her head. The gelatinous orbs ruptured, their contents mixing with the blood bubbling around Rachkovsky’s thumbs. Cinetti’s screaming filled the chamber, in harmony with Jones’s hooting and hollering. Rachkovsky pushed her once manicured nails deeper, twisting and turning, until Cinetti’s thrashings spasmed to an abrupt halt. Pulling her thumbs out with a sickening pop and wiping the gore into Cinetti’s hair, she rose to her feet, turned to Jones and waited for what came next.

  “Ladies and gentlemen, your champion, Ms. Rachkovsky!”

  Rachkovsky smiled a forced smile, and bowed.

  Bobby was dumbfounded. Cinetti had lost, even after killing the hitman her anger proved to much to control. All she had to do was shut up and kill the bitch but didn’t. She talked shit, pissed her off, gave her a reason to fight and died ugly.

  Stupid bitch.

  “An idiotic bitch, to say the least, Mr. Grant,” Jones agreed.

  Bobby froze, his thoughts had betrayed him yet again.

  “And you too are correct Mr. Tennen, her mouth lost her the fight.”

  Tennen nodded.

  “There’s a lesson here ladies and gents but this isn’t Sunday school so who gives a shit. We have a champion!”

  The razor wire fencing blinked out of existence and the huge chamber filled with dancing red and orange light as the floor beside the stage opened to the Flames. Two little beasts climbed from the flames and scurried toward the two losers. “Wait!” Jones commanded. “The Master will not be happy if I send them in such a state.”

  He snapped his fingers, Cinetti and Linkov began to squirm. As the class watched, Cinetti and Linkov filled every corner of the huge room with their suffering as their broken bodies became whole. Bobby knew the pain, he felt sorry for them but didn’t dare let it surface. Once the healing was complete, Jones nodded and the waiting creatures impaled their targets, unleas
hing another round of earsplitting cries. Jones giggled like a perverted child watching his sister shower. The creatures carried Cinetti and Linkov into the Flames, the door closed behind them, stifling their screams.

  Bobby couldn’t help but feel relieved, he didn’t want to, but he did. Cinetti was a liability, a big, crazy, loose cannon who would have gotten him a skewered and paraded off to the Flames long before she would have saved him.

  “We have no fancy belt for our champion I’m afraid but, as a gesture of my appreciation, I will replace her tongue instead. It seems a fair prize and, if I’m being honest, it’s a bit self-serving. A talented organ, if we are to enjoy each other’s company again, I’d be remiss if I left her without it.”

  The shriveled tongue flew like a bullet from the aisle and into Rachkovsky’s mouth. She dropped to her knees, suffering, as it rooted itself in place. “Good as new,” Jones decreed. “Come on love, let’s hear something.”

  Rachkovsky turned slowly to face him, Jones waited, hands clasped and wrestling. “Thank you,” she whispered.

  “Very good my dear, very good. Now, we have a great deal to do and you’ve wasted enough of our time.”

  He shooed her off the stage like a bad dog. Rachkovsky scurried in front of him, head down and mouth shut, if she had a tail, it would’ve been tucked firmly between her legs. She was a lot of things, a fool wasn’t one of them.

  6.

  “When last we met we covered the basic rules and regulations.” Jones replaced his commentator persona with the more professional instructional one from the earlier lesson. His ringside table had morphed into a podium, he stood behind it, chin high and chest puffed, a tenured Ivy League professor instead of a madman. “This time you will learn about your one and only tool, the scythe.”

  The old-fashioned farm tool appeared above him. As black as if immune to the flickering light of the flames high above, its curved blade pointed threateningly. Coarse and thick, its long wooden handle looked as if it housed a million hungry splinters waiting to pierce the palms of anyone foolish enough to take hold.

  “This is your everything, ladies and gents, make no mistake. It brings you where you need to be and, just as crucial if not more so, offers a means of return when your work is complete. Wielded properly, and you will all learn to do just that, it can cut an Angel in two with one smooth stroke.”

  The scythe, and Jones’s obvious fascination with the antiquated tool, fascinated and befuddled Bobby.

  It ain’t no iPhone and he’s no Steve Jobs, that’s for sure.

  “Can an iPhone do this?”

  Shit.

  Jones plucked the scythe from the air, murmured something, and then slashed the air in front of him with the blade. Reality parted before it, a swirling vortex appeared beyond the frayed edges of the wound. Jones dove inside, the rip closed behind him. Bobby felt the air tingle beside him and turned. Another portal, identical to the first, opened. Jones flew head first from the void, curled, rolled and sprung to stand over Bobby.

  “Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!” Jones cried and rapped Bobby on the forehead with the thick handle of his scythe.

  Bobby swooned, his knees buckled, his vision blurred, and he fell.

  Not again.

  “You deserve it Mr. Grant, but we have too much to get through and you’re becoming a bore. Don’t bore me, you won’t like the result.”

  Bobby nodded, his vision blurred with the pain once again.

  Jones turned, skipped back to the stage, set the scythe to hang on an unseen hook, and cleared his throat. Bobby’s pushed himself to his feet, wobbled as his head pounded in protest, found his balance, and looked up to where Jones stood waiting.

  “As I was saying before being so rudely interrupted, this unique tool is your weapon, your lover, your best friend, your partner, your everything.” He stared out over the class and waited, letting his words sink in, words that made not a shred of sense to anyone else in the room.

  “You must learn how to use it. You must become a part of it. It must become a part of you. It is a gift from our Master! You must honor it, worship it, and protect it above all else. Never let it go. I will say it again for those fools that require it, never let it go! Never! Let! It! Go!”

  Bobby heard the words, and the warning.

  “Do we understand?” Jones roared.

  Silence was the only response, the wrong one.

  Jones shook his head, pain erupted once again.

  “Do we understand?”

  “Yes,” the class moaned, groaned and cried out.

  “Very good. You will now follow your guides to the forge where you will take part in something spectacular. We will create a scythe for each of you, a customized tool only you can wield. Forged from the steel of weapons used to kill the innocent, blackened by its history and haunted by immeasurable sorrow, it will become far greater because of your sacrifice.”

  Sacrifice?

  “Blood is required to quench the blade, nothing else will do. Admittedly, a great deal is required to ensure the blade is true. It will hurt, a great deal if I’m being honest, but you will never forget the experience, the thrill, the satisfaction of giving of yourself in service of the Master.”

  Jones stood, arms wide, face uplifted, a true showman and a madman. Fear welled in Bobby’s and he struggled to squash it. His mind ran through the many possibilities of what came next, none of them good, there’d be no cute candy-stripers with big smiles and small needles.

  “Don’t be such a pussy Mr. Van Holt.” Jones roared. “Haven’t you embarrassed your Aryan brothers enough?”

  Van Holt lowered his head, not wanting to reveal the fear Jones heard in his thoughts. Jones shook his head, “Pathetic. Now off you go, I’ll be waiting so don’t dillydally.”

  *

  The doors in the back wall opened, Delroy and the other guides stepped inside, everyone turned in unwilling unison to follow them. They didn’t lead the fidgeting, frantic group back into the corridor, escorting them instead, in one long line, along the back wall to a door that appeared in the far corner of the hushed chamber.

  As soon as the door opened to greet them the hammering of metal filled the room, and the temperature soared even higher.

  “Holy shit,” Tennen whispered.

  “Nothing holy about it,” Delroy snapped. “Now shut the fuck up kid killer or I’ll take another layer of skin from your feet.”

  Tennen shut up.

  Good choice. Kid killer though? Fuck him, take it all.

  “Now, now Grant.” Delroy was listening. “You can’t exactly judge others now can you boy, glass houses and all that.”

  Bobby couldn’t argue, he’d have to assume Delroy had a point.

  “Good boy.”

  *

  The first group disappeared through the doorway, another waited ahead of Bobby’s, blocking the horrors waiting on the other side. There were flames, and huge dark figures moving around between them, but he couldn’t make out their purpose. The screaming started. Visceral cries and pointless pleading joined the clanging metal, filling the room. As suddenly as it started, the wailing stopped, a momentarily reprieve, another voice took its place almost at once. One after the next, those ahead of Bobby fell prey to whatever atrocity drew their blood along with their squealing. The sizzling of submerged hot metal followed each one.

  If Bobby could shit, a trail of his own making would mark his path.

  “Settle down folks,” the guide responsible for the group at the door tried to keep them in check. “No need to worry, you’ll all get your turn.”

  Shu giggled, the guide smiled. “That’s the spirit Chinaman, enjoy the ride.”

  The failed Jihad, began to pray, the guide didn’t appreciate the sentiment. The guide lashed out, slapping her hard across the face. “I told you about that shit. Do it again and I’ll roast your cunt until it looks like two strips of extra crispy bacon.”

  Haneef went silent, her thoughts did not.

&nbs
p; “You must’ve been the stupidest twat in whatever sand box you came from.” She slapped her again. “Now shut the fuck up!”

  Haneef whimpered but stood tall despite the abuse. Her guide stared, waiting, listening and hungry for more. She didn’t get any, Haneef learned her lesson. “Good, now get up there in front, no more waiting for you, I can’t stand all that jibber-jabber, hackity-hack talk.”

  Haneef rose above the floor, floated to the doorway and into the forge.

  Her guide smiled at Delroy, Delroy nodded his approval. “Some of them just don’t get it Leslie.”

  “How come I always get the towel heads, slant eyes, jungle bunnies and the like?” Leslie asked, clearly annoyed by the diversity of her group.

  “Probably because you’re a racist Les.”

  “And you ain’t?”

  “I hate ’em all,” Delroy boasted.

  “Even white folk?”

  “Even white folk.” Delroy enjoyed taunting his colleagues as much as his wards. “Maybe if you did you’d have more of them to play with.”

  “Shit, never thought of it like that.” Leslie shook her head and smiled, “Thanks Del.”

  Delroy winked and nodded.

  Leslie led her crew inside and Delroy took his place at the threshold. “We’re next y’all.”

  Screaming echoed, sizzling answered, hammering filled the spaces in between.

  Please no, please no, please no, please…

  “Ain’t nobody listening boy,” Delroy said without turning.

  Screaming, sizzling, hammering.

  Screaming, sizzling, hammering.

  “Let’s go,” Delroy called and Bobby’s feet shuffled him into the forge, no matter how hard he tried to run the other way.

  *

  Thirteen heavily muscled blacksmiths, each with their own massive ebony anvil, stood in a circle surrounding a bubbling pool of molten steel. Naked and scorched, their skin shed not a single drop of sweat despite the stifling heat. Whether ruptured by heat or gouged by blades, pus oozed from where their eyes once lived. They didn’t need them. Huge squared hammers, each chained a wrist, rose and fell with skill and purpose, crafting molten globs into the wicked curves with each mighty blow.