Reincarnage

by Ryan Harding

  And the cocksucking phone didn’t even work!

  Not his finest moment.

  He reached the nearest knife. It looked like Corporal Carnage tied it to the stake with boot laces. The bulging network of knotting resisted him at such a gnarly angle, but the black laces finally began to pull free from their hive. He didn’t have to pull it completely apart. The grip of the knife became mobile, and then he worked it down a little and twisted so the serrated blade sliced through the ties. He sawed it free in seconds. John Rambo used a knife like this to slice up about eighty Vietcong in those movies. Versus Soldier Grue it may as well be a flyswatter, but it was something, and it could help Lee in other ways besides an unlikely showdown scenario.

  “Got it,” he called over his shoulder. “Pull me up.”

  He slid up the wall of the pit as they backed up with a foot and leg in each hand. With the ease of his rescue, he felt kind of chickenshit not going for more knives. Not enough to get back in the pit, though. Long as he got past the wall, the world would call him a hero. Jack in the Box would be signed faster than you could say “noble survivor.” He thought the women were there before? It’d be like that carnival game where you aimed a water pistol at a clown head to fill up and burst a balloon, except the clown heads would be snatches and the water pistol would be his meat baton.

  Eliza and Sybil collapsed simultaneously once they had him safely on the ground. Funny that it took him this long to make the Sybil connection. He only knew the reference from JITB’s bass player, Murph, an older guy into King Crimson and ELP. He wrote a twelve minute song about her and all her personalities. It went over live about as well as the JFK assassination and they dropped it from the set list. They replaced it with more covers, including “Orange Mustangs.”

  “Good job,” he said. He displayed the knife. “Came away with this. Couldn’t get to the others without tearing open my sac. We should get moving.”

  Because of that MIFPA shit survivors of this place couldn’t profit from the experience through books or movies but that didn’t mean songs couldn’t be written. Lee could feed Murph enough details about this adventure and faster than you could say “Neil Peart” they’d have their own “Red Sector A.”

  “We need water,” Eliza said. She offered a hand to help Sybil to her feet.

  “I know.” Lee slid the knife into the belt of his red slacks, slightly dizzy as the blood drained from his head. “I haven’t had a drop since I got here.”

  Total lie, of course. He practically drained half a creek when he ditched the dopes from Morgan Manor.

  He wiped the blood on his nose with the headband and slid it back on. He’d lose the band the second they were safe. Lee wasn’t too proud to keep the sweat from stinging his eyes for now, but he probably looked like Reed Rothchild in Boogie Nights. That absolutely could not happen when CNN, TMZ, and the rest showed up with the cameras. Hopefully the military guys had a change of clothes because he looked like a total geek in this get-up.

  “With any luck,” he said, “we’ve found the last of his tricks on the way to home base.” And if we haven’t, let’s hope you bitches wind up in those, too.

  “God,” Eliza said shakily. “I came that close to dying.”

  “But you had me,” Sybil said, “and I’m not going to die here. Stay close to me and you’ll be safe. Screw those heads.”

  Lee rolled his eyes. She had a lot of confidence for someone who looked like she just pulled a train. It made him want to kill her himself, just to say, Yeah, what up now?

  “Oh, snap,” he said. “I think I see the wall.” It was a faint impression, so far on the horizon it could fall off the edge of the earth, but it was there. He’d never seriously said oh snap before today, but it was such a disarming thing to say and felt like the right play back when the Asian twat was on her high horse. Oh snap made somebody sound like a mark.

  “That’s half the battle right there,” he said, turning back to grin at them. The smile died on his face at the sight of a rushing blur on the opposite horizon.

  “Shit!” That was all the warning he cared to give Sybil and Eliza. They’d get the picture. He threw the stick aside and ran. The world bounced left and right, lingering vertigo from the pit, but he didn’t let it slow him. The wall was all that mattered. Colonel Kill could only watch him escape. The army guys would light that mug up like the Tet Offensive if he got close. That was how it worked, that was the lore, legend was fact, had to be.

  He ran like his ass was on fire, zero concern for traps. Dude wouldn’t be gunning hell bent for leather if he thought he had something else to hold them up. The wall drew no closer as Lee pumped his hands and feet, though. He held the knife like a baton he would never pass to anybody else. The only relay to this race was the message: Lee Gifford is getting the hell out of here, bitches. How you like me now?

  He could blame the vertigo on why it took him a moment to make sense of the figure in the corner of his eye.

  The hell?

  Eliza, her afterburners on full blast. He was impressed she had it in her, but also that she didn’t let Sybil slow her down. Eliza would have wrenched her arm off if they were still holding hands. She left her in the dust instead.

  “Come on, Annette!” she shouted, never looking back.

  So Sybil was Annette. Good to know. It would make a more compelling story if he could provide the media a name, re: the tragic last leg of the escape. If we just got there a few minutes sooner, Annette and Eliza might have…

  Eliza’s ponytail bounced side to side across her shoulders. She was pulling away. Now he had to chance a backward glance to verify distance and pecking order, afraid Annette might overtake him too.

  No, he still had at least fifteen yards on her. She clutched her side, teeth clenched in pain.

  Guess the talking heads knew their shit after all.

  General Genocide had a visible form now, blazing through the field, about to blow past the gas station. He took a step toward the Chicken Exit as though noting its desecration, then resumed his bullet trajectory. He held something with both hands that shifted back and forth even faster when he saw the fallen heads, like the crank of a handcar. Lee’s eyes bugged.

  Holy shit, that’s a freaking axe, son!

  Annette grunted as she stumbled over something in the high grass and plunged headlong. Lee didn’t bother to hide a little smile as he turned his attention forward again. It slipped when he saw Eliza farther away from him now. Not good. Annette might have bought them enough time to reach the wall, but a second appetizer would seal the deal on a checkpoint arrival for the lead runner. Lee had to be the one in front.

  He pushed himself hard until he closed the distance to Eliza, and launched himself at her feet. A huge risk, but fortunately he got a hand on her shoe and held it long enough to trip her. He scraped his elbow on the ground.

  Move, move, move!

  He didn’t bother trying to pull up the leg of her pants, just grabbed her heel, set the blade on her calf and ripped it across as hard as he could.

  Eliza screamed at ear-ringing velocity.

  Lee winced at the cacophony. It was a guestimate whether he’d managed to slice her Achilles, but she sure as hell couldn’t beat him to the wall now.

  She clutched her leg and writhed as if she could seal the pain back inside. She saw him with the blade, knew he’d done it. Even within her agony, there was a tinge of bafflement.

  “He has an axe,” Lee said as he lurched to his feet. “You know how it is.”

  She shouted something incomprehensible. “Bastard” might have featured. He’d heard worse.

  We now rejoin our regularly scheduled programming of Yeah, How You Like Me Now?

  He meant to bolt right then—and slip around Eliza wide enough so she couldn’t do something petty like reach out and trip him—but he heard something that made him turn back.

  “Oh—” His mind blanked before he decided what he meant to say (but probably shit). The axe split the air as it
whirled across the field like a helicopter blade. He saw its shadow before he spotted the curves of its splitting ends, headed right at his face. The maniac launched it all the way from where Annette sprawled, not even taking the time to treat her to a taste.

  Lee didn’t try to dive away, just dropped straight down like someone pulled a chair out from under him. Fire exploded across his scalp.

  I didn’t make it down in time, he realized. But you still didn’t take my head off, so suck on that, jarhead.

  Blood pooled down his head. Good thing he kept the sweatband or he’d be blind now. He tried to hold off the rising panic. Head wounds bled profusely and it didn’t mean anything, but damn, this felt like a lot. He touched his fingers to his hair. They came back instantly wet, and more alarmingly, blood sluiced across the nails and knuckles in the second he dared to hold them there.

  There was pressure on the back of his head too. He was scared to make sense of it, but it was hard to come up with theories while Eliza caterwauled a few feet away.

  Damn, girl, I’m the one who got hit with an axe.

  The realization struck. Oh snap…mine now.

  Orange wouldn’t let him get to the wall, and thanks to Lee’s impromptu surgery with Eliza, he didn’t have to. He had Annette right where he wanted her and Eliza wasn’t going anywhere but into a state of shock.

  Orange approached with an unhurried gait. Lee had to grab the axe and cripple him or they were all dead, himself most tragically.

  He whirled around to find the best line of defense, and frowned deeply at that sensation of pressure on the back of his head again. Maybe it was the John C. Reilly headband. He hooked in a finger to yank it off. The band caught on something and as he pulled it up, the something came with it.

  He reached back and felt a large patch of his hair about six inches away from where it was supposed to be. He poked it. It slipped back onto his head unevenly. Frantic, he pawed it, aware of steady streams of blood seeping from places where his scalp no longer adhered to his skull. It was like someone crushed an egg and let the yolk ooze through his hair. His fingertips found something soft, too mushy to be skin.

  That’s my fucking brain!

  “Christ Jesus!” He pushed the scalp back in place as best as he could without being able to see where the large flap of skin should go, and angled the headband to try to hold it in place.

  He crawled to the axe, not trusting himself to walk. Hack one of those legs off and he could get away if he didn’t pass out. Wet trickles raced down his ears in a steady rush. Ideally he’d waste the fucker outright, but as he wrapped his fingers around the handle, he told himself he only needed to injure one leg. Too bad so sad for Eliza, who might still be in a jam (and could vouch for the efficacy of one wounded limb), but what would he do to Lee? Crawl him down?

  One swing, one leg, one escape.

  Brigadier Bloodbath walked calmly and carried a big knife. Lee’s axe was bigger, but quick mental calculus led to the conclusion an axe in his possession was far less deadly than a knife in the hands of Agent Orange. Could he incapacitate him before Commander Kill landed a fatal strike? Lee didn’t like his odds.

  Panicked, he turned around too quickly and blood sloshed from his scalp. A wave of nausea threatened his new plan, but he sucked it up and ran. He carried the axe in his right hand, the left atop his head to keep the scalp from flapping. It was like trying to keep a hat from blowing away. He misjudged the pressure and heard a bubbling squirt before a warm glob jumped the headband and raced down his forehead. He smeared it with the back of his hand before it dripped into his eye. His mouth throbbed like the bass at a rave but the top of his head was just a dull ache. That had to signify the wound wasn’t so bad, right?

  With Annette and Eliza in meltdown, Lee’s mobility made him the snowball with the best chance in hell. If he made it to the wall it wouldn’t guarantee immediate safety—the National Guard wasn’t posted at every square inch. He might have to face his pursuer before he got within screaming distance of a checkpoint.

  Daylight had ebbed unnoticed, as though Orange brought the darkness with him. Lee checked to make sure Field Marshal Mayhem busied himself with the defiant Eliza. He hoped the snooty little bitch put up a hell of a struggle and hampered the decapitation process like a champ.

  What the fuck?

  Lee jerked rigid when he saw Orange throw the knife, but not at him—he’d tossed it up where it rotated blade over hilt to fall into the palm of his waiting hand. He kept doing it as he approached, nary a glance at Eliza.

  “You sexist prick!” Lee yelled.

  Commodore Cliché was saving the girls for last.

  He pushed on faster. The axe grew heavier and heavier, his arms rubbery. Oddly enough, he didn’t have a splitting headache, but his body was slow and lethargic like the day’s manic running had finally taken its toll. Had he really increased his speed? He seemed to be in slow motion while the world around him moved 2X. Not a good sign. His head felt lighter than air. Worse sign.

  Gotta make a last stand, brah. Now.

  Lee turned and hefted the axe with both hands. Sweat and blood glued the shirt uncomfortably to his back and seemed to restrict his movements. Still tossing the knife into the air, Private Pursuit closed the distance with the same nonchalant pace, ten yards away if Lee judged the distance correctly.

  You can do this. Be a hero. Take this bastard out.

  Lee reared back with the axe.

  Wait for it, wait for it.

  Within two yards, Orange caught the knife and readied it to strike. Lee swung the axe with a primal scream. Orange kicked faster and the bottom of the boot snagged the axe handle below the blade. The sudden stop nearly popped Lee’s shoulders from their sockets. He didn’t let go of the axe but involuntarily let go of an “Ugh!”

  Orange slashed with the knife. The blade hit his face and his scream rose several octaves as his lower jaw dropped wide enough to fit a cantaloupe. Lee abruptly stopped screaming but couldn’t close his mouth. His tongue tasted night air before hot liquid sprayed over the exposed muscle. The downward pressure of his jaw tugged his tongue and triggered his gag reflex.

  Lee tried to swing the axe again, but his left shoulder struck his dangling chin, knocked it sideways, unleashed a pain so debilitating his legs went weak. He shuffled to his right and tripped over lumpy ground. He got a mouthful of weeds as he fell.

  He had to face downward to breathe or blood would fill the back of his throat. Black droplets spattered across his hands as he pushed himself upright again. Vaguely aware this was his blood and he had little to spare before unconsciousness, Lee staggered forward several steps and looked over his shoulder, fully expecting to see the delivery of a death blow.

  Orange held the axe above his head but was too far away to swing and hit Lee, who backpedaled for distance in case blood loss created an illusion of relative safety—maniacs are closer than they appear.

  Lee underestimated how badly Orange wanted to nail him with an axe throw. He had no time to dodge. The blade slammed into his left shoulder, shattering the collar bone and knocking him off balance. The flap atop his head swung backward before he even hit the ground and folded under the base of his skull like a little pillow of skin. His unhinged jaw dropped against his neck and blood filled his mouth.

  It felt like the axe blade pinned him to the earth. He tried to breathe but it wasn’t air he desperately sucked into his lungs.

  Lee heard the tinkling of a distant bell, a curious herald of the oncoming darkness.

  Thirteen

  Eliza stared at the outside world from the relative comfort of the stiff reclining chair. She had doubled back to the gas station in a hopping/crawling lurch, thanks to that bastard Lee. The pain in her leg had receded but any movement ignited it again. Not that it mattered. Orange knew exactly where she was. A bell above the door jingled at her entry, like he needed any man-made help to find her. She left a handy trail of blood, too.

  Thanks, Lee, you prick.
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br />   Hell of a lot of good his chickenshit measure did him, too. He still died first, or she assumed so anyway. He wasn’t the fastest runner and also had looked a little wobbly on his feet as she escaped.

  Sitting here with the blood-covered shards of glass on the desk in front of her, she had a lot of questions for herself. Could she have done things differently? It didn’t take long to rule out herself as a factor in Lee’s attack. He’d have slashed her leg no matter what for self-preservation. He only caught her because she’d had nothing to eat or drink today.

  Served me right for abandoning Annette.

  No, no, no. No guilt. She stayed with Annette far longer than anyone else would have. She owed her nothing and sticking around wouldn’t have helped anyway. The stress and drug withdrawal finally did its worst. Eliza assumed it was a seizure. She passed Annette amongst the weeds, foam and blood dribbling from her mouth, and if she wasn’t dead, Eliza was in no shape to drag her to safety.

  Why am I even here? Who did this to us? Why?

  Questions she’d never have answered. Patrick thought it was the government. Maybe it was. If so, everyone simply lived an illusion outside the walls of this place anyway. If the government threw people in here as cannon fodder for some psycho, what kind of country had America become? She didn’t want to live in that kind of place, although she knew she’d lived in “that kind of place” for a while now. In the name of increased security and safety, individuals gave up their privacy and a certain degree of liberty because a bunch of terrorists got lucky. Once a government started making decisions based on the “greater good” to maintain the public’s safety, wasn’t it bound to lead to an extreme like this? Maybe a few people had to be sacrificed for “the greater good” to keep Agent Orange contained. She would have never given any of this a second thought, kind of like you rarely give the starving kids in Africa or India or Haiti much thought when you’re living your busy life—your busy, safe life—because the government supposedly kept the terrorists or Agent Orange at bay.