by Ryder Stacy
“Take them down,” General Hanover said. “No more torture—no whips. I don’t want them any more scarred up. Fix them up. Put salves and ointments on those gashes. And get them ready for the Blood Games.”
“Yes, my general,” the captain said, raising his arm in the Hitleresque palm up salute stiffly at the side of the head. But Hanover was already exiting the room slapping his swagger stick at his side, walking with a most pleased saunter. Everything was coming up roses, bloody roses.
Twenty
Good thing they had been given some weird-shit garments, for it was cold in their cell. Particularly since the bastards had thrown antibiotic salve and junk all over their bodies at General Hanover’s instructions. But they hadn’t wiped it off. The stuff felt freezing and sticky as the night temperature in the steel-cave city dropped into the teens in the torture warehouse. And warehouse it was, as tortures went on nonstop all around the place. They could hear screams echoing down to their cell, an ancient affair, outfitted like something from Devil’s Island. The walls were cracking, bugs and beetles crawling all over the damned thing, and trying to crawl down onto them. But when you’re dead-tired, these are of little import.
When Rockson woke up, he had no idea what time it was. He saw Chen sitting facing the wall in full lotus position. Meditating. His eyes were open, so he hadn’t been sleeping. The Doomsday Warrior sat up on the carved stone bed and then stood up. He began jumping quickly up and down to try to get some energy in his stiff arms and legs. “These outfits are absolutely darling, aren’t they?” Rockson laughed as he pirouetted in the middle of the cell, which sight looked pretty strange as his legs poked out down below the knee. The Roman gladiator style garb made out of potato sacks was not exactly high fashion. He made even the stoic martial arts master crack a grin and put his hand over his eyes.
“Rock, Rock,” he nodded, shaking his head back and forth, “enough!” They spent the morning doing exercises, first alone, and then working out with each other. They had fought in the Century City gymnasium so many times that each of them knew what the other would do by the slightest of motions. They sparred in at close range, the cell being only about eight by twelve feet, moving up and down the center of the thing at a blurring speed. A few of the guards who were stationed several yards down stared wide eyed through the barred window as the two went at it. They had never seen anything quite like it before.
It warmed the Freefighters up. Then Rockson began pacing the cell. Chen preferred the quieter approach, staring at the stone walls from about four inches away, as if the most profound ideas in the universe lay hidden within its cracks. At midmorning, a guard sidled up to the barred window in the center of the thick wooden door that sealed them in.
“Psst, Rockson,” a gruff voice spat out. Someone was putting a grizzled face up close to the opening. “They ain’t going to feed you, they want to keep you weak for the combat matches. But I—here.” He sneaked a few quick handfuls of something from beneath his robe and Rockson took them. Small loaves of bread, hard but not stale. “Me and some of my fellows,” the man said, looking nervously up and down the corridor. “We don’t necessarily hold to all that the general is doing, you know. We—remember what you did for America.”
“So let us out,” Rock said pressing his face to the bars.
“Can’t, can’t do that,” the man said with terror. “The general, you’ve seen what he can do. When he’s angry, it’s much worse.”
“I understand,” Rock said softly. “Thanks for this chow.” He pulled back away from the window and threw Chen two pumpernickel rolls. When they bit into them there were bits of fruit, raisins, berries, buried within. The things were bursting with raw nutritional power. The Freefighters slowly chewed on the food, feeling their cells fill with energy.
Rock and Chen made slow examinations of the cell, looking for a way out. But though the place was ramshackle and ancient, it appeared fairly escape-proof with stone slabs that were several feet thick on every side of them. The door might have been busted down, but with the number of guards all along the sides of the chamber, they didn’t stand a chance, being completely unarmed, and deep in an unfamiliar part of the city.
“Come on, scum,” a burly sergeant with huge arms and a submachine gun over his shoulder, snarled, as his face appeared at the bars. He was surrounded by a dozen troopers, all of them nasty looking, combat-hardened. They didn’t use raw recruits to guard the likes of Rockson and Chen.
The two Freefighters had talked about whether they would take part in the “games,” whatever that meant. And had decided that they’d just keep playing it all by ear. The main thing was to try to survive until the “cavalry of two” arrived. General Hanover had made the promise of releasing the President and Kim in front of a number of his officers. Whether that meant a goddamn thing was another question. Could he have any honor? Unlikely.
They were led down the corridor past other cells, arms reaching out, voices begging for release. General Hanover had a lot of prisoners. That meant that the military madman wasn’t able to have the kind of total control over them all that he wanted. Even with the gas. There were, it seemed, brains that were resistant to it all, or just so stubborn that they wouldn’t go along with the gas-brainwashing.
They emerged into a large open room—football field was more like it, for it was as long as one. It was filled with all kinds of gear, from rope climbs to mini-bridges over water, even plastic trees, boulders. It was like a fake jungle, a manmade obstacle course. Rockson knew that terrible danger lay hidden there.
Chen and Rock walked a little further in under the prodding of the muzzles of submachine guns. Above them they heard sounds and both looked up startled. A roar of approval was bursting from the crowd arranged in seats all around the games area. And the place was packed, on two balconies that circumscribed the entire jungle-set.
Rock spotted Hanover, sitting back in a large leather chair sipping from a glass. Brandy no doubt. All these homicidal Napoleons always drink brandy.
But he didn’t have time to worry about aperitifs, for suddenly the doors were slammed shut behind them and Chen and Rock were alone, staring out into a madmade death-jungle.
“There are several dangers,” Hanover yelled. “The last one is named Death-breath. Kill him and you win!”
“Well, shall we?” Rockson glanced at Chen.
“Oh, but please, after you,” the Chinese Freefighter smirked. Rockson laughed, perhaps his last for all he knew, and headed down a low slope into the fake terrain. It was amazingly real as if it was real vegetation that had been moved here lock, stock, and barrel. Only it was wrong, several different types of terrain mixed together. From the looks of excitement on the troopers in the balconies above, and the money changing hands as they threw bet-chits at one another, this was how the general kept a lid on things. Games. Dictators, kings, and emperors alike had always provided one thing for their restless subjects—competitions—usually of the blood-letting variety. And Chen and Rockson just happened to be the clowns in this particular carnival of fun tonight.
The two Freefighters walked a few feet apart, Rockson slightly in the lead. The ground immediately ahead of them was marshy, like quicksand. Rock gingerly put his foot down and started across. It was rough going, he could see quickly, because although some sections were wet and giving, others were firm. You just couldn’t see which was which. He’d gone about fifty feet and had just reached the other side with Chen some ten-yards back traveling in his path when suddenly the sand bubbled up violently. Just where Chen was stepping, a figure came rising up out of the muck, like some sort of primordial swamp being.
But it was a man, screaming and lunging up with an immense combat knife sixteen inches long. Before Rockson could even make a move the knife was descending on Chen, whose right foot was caught in the sand, giving him limited mobility. The attacker was wearing combat fatigues with camouflage all over them in green and brown, now covered with sand. The bastard must have been breathing w
ith a straw from under water, Rock thought, as he watched the whole thing. It was as if it were taking place in slow motion.
The knife came down like a guillotine right at Chen’s chest. It seemed impossible that he could avoid it. Yet somehow at the last second both of the martial arts teacher’s hands shot up and he caught the wrist holding the knife and cracked it back hard. As the blade fell he grabbed it and ripped it up under the throat of the attacker. The man fell back with a gurgling scream, his combat-outfit coated with a gushing waterfall of red which dyed the watery sand around him a deep scarlet. Chen held onto the knife, hefting it from hand to hand.
“One down,” he whispered to Rockson a few yards ahead who made the thumbs-up sign. He looked up for a moment and saw Hanover leaning more forward in his chair, pouring another drink. “Good! Start to worry, asshole!” Rockson muttered darkly.
They moved cautiously now, eyeing every crevasse made of concrete, every tree with hard thorny plastic bark. Some of it was actually real, most cast of cement and plastic. It was like the fake materials on some kid’s miniature train set. Only this was lifesize.
Suddenly the branches of the plastic tree above Rock opened up somehow and two figures came hurtling down, one with a thin loop of piano wire in both hands, the other carrying a long machete. Because Rock’s attention had been caught by something else—a ripple in the water—for a moment, the attacker managed to get the piano wire halfway around his throat. But Rockson was fast, and able to throw up his hand and block the wire from closing around his neck. The piano string tore into the side of his hand, gouging down a good half inch as the Doomsday Warrior winced.
Then he turned sideways and swung his knee up right into the attacker’s testicles. It worked every time. The piano wire loosened as Rock’s fist slammed up into the assassin’s face three times. The attacker went flying backward gasping like he’d just swallowed the prize in the crackerjack box. Rock rubbed his neck to make sure no windpipes or anything vital was ripped up and then started toward Chen and the second assailant.
The man had managed to inflict a gash along the martial arts master’s right arm. But instantly Chen’s blade came slashing up as he turned and parried. The whole knife-hand of the attacker had been severed. It went flying off into the swampy muck behind them. The killer screamed as a spray of red stuff came exploding out the opening where his right hand had just been.
Chen ripped the blade up from underneath the man’s chest, up to where his heart was, and then stepped back. The whole front of the killer seemed to send out a curtain of innards as he stumbled and then flopped down face first into the dirt.
“Let’s move, man,” Rock shouted as he felt the pace of the whole thing quickening. They had only been inside the jungle-maze a minute or two and already bodies lay around them. Suddenly Chen threw his arms out, stopping Rockson at the last second from stepping onto a leaf-covered patch of ground.
“Look Rock,” the Chinese Freefighter said as he kicked out and down into the covering. It collapsed beneath his foot and Rockson looked down, gulping hard. It was a punji-stick trap, dozens of the sharp tipped poles aiming straight up at whoever was unlucky enough to fall though.
“Thanks, pal,” Rock said as they started on again. They moved through obstacle after obstacle: falling spears from trees, boulders that were set rolling at them, nets that were dropped from branches. And more crazed-eyed attackers. But they survived it all, and left more bodies.
They came through a grove of plastic palm trees, starting to feel that perhaps they would actually survive this course of a hundred deaths, when both men stopped dead in their tracks.
For standing ahead of them, arms folded, with a most foul expression on his face, was another of the assassins. Only this one was huge. He made Archer look like he could use elevator lifts in his shoes. The man must have stood at least eight feet tall. He was covered with the same camouflage getup that the others had worn. But as big as the fabric they had covered him in was, it was barely big enough to keep from ripping all over him. For the man was just a mass of muscle, like mega-sardines packed into a tin. Rock had fought many men in his time but none with the size and muscle mass of this freak of nature. And when the mouth opened and laughed, to reveal filed down mottled black stumps of teeth that came to vampire points, the Doomsday Warrior wished he’d never gotten out of bed that morning—not that he’d had a bed.
“I am Death-breath,” the giant said. “Slay me, and you are home free.” His breath was pretty awful, but it was his arms and legs and teeth that were the real problem!
Twenty-One
“I think they gave this dude too many steroids,” Chen commented to Rockson as the two Freefighters stood side by side, cut and bleeding from their ordeals and stared at the monstrosity that awaited them at the far end of the course. With shoulders as wide as a table, a quite ugly face, shorn of hair except for an almost unnoticeable flattop, huge chest, and arms that could have been used as supports in a mall, Rockson wondered if they had the slightest chance to get past him to the end of the death course.
He glanced up and saw Hanover was pouring himself another drink, this time clearly a celebratory one, as he had a big smile on his face. The other officers stood around their general and pointed down, commenting to one another about the man-beast, laughing as they knew their killer was about to send two more souls into oblivion. The scarred giant made a sound that wasn’t particularly human and then jumped up and down a few times like a wrestler readying himself for a match. A grin twisted its way across the mangled face and a big dark tongue rolled out and then snapped back in. “Your move,” he snarled. “I will wait.”
“I think we need a plan,” Rock muttered to Chen, who rolled his eyes skyward.
“Your powers of perception amaze me,” the Chinese Freefighter smirked as both of them began slowly circling in opposite directions, hoping to confuse the thing. But he didn’t seem very confused, taking off immediately after Chen. He ran with amazing speed for a creature so huge. The immense arms flailed out at the air as the baseball mitt sized hands snapped open and closed searching for his victim’s flesh. Chen ducked just below the arms as he suddenly found himself cut off against a grove of plastic trees. He got just under the arms, able to feel the breeze as the fists slammed together just over him, and take in the dank odors of the thing’s breath, which smelled more swamp-animal than human.
Suddenly the Chinese master whipped out his right foot hard into the groin of the thing. Either it didn’t have one, or it was covered with rocks, for the blow hurt Chen more than the recipient. He pulled back and snapped out again against a well-known pressure point on the hip. The blow should have dropped a hippo, but again it was like kicking at the side of a mountain. The thing looked down with a grin of violent intention as saliva dribbled down over Chen’s head. “That the best you do, little one?”
Even as he winced in disgust and pushed off his legs to get the hell out of there fast, the giant reached down with one of its immense hands and caught Chen at the shoulder. It squeezed and for the first time Rock could recall the Chinese Freefighter made an expression of pain. The other arm descended and wrapped around his throat. Chen, who was never at a loss for a move, was completely wrapped up by the grizzly-sized assassin. He tried every trick in the book, ripping at the thumbs, kicking down to the instep and knee. But none of it mattered an iota.
He had never felt so powerless in his life. It was like trying to wrestle Godzilla. And suddenly he felt even more humiliated, as the bad-breathed giant lifted him right up off the plastic grass and held him in the air as if examining a strange insect he’d caught. Then he leaned forward and opened his huge jaws at the back of Chen’s neck, preparing, apparently, to take a rather large bite.
Rockson suddenly came flying out from behind an artificial bush and leaped up with everything he had. He rose up as if trying to set a new high jump record. Suddenly his right foot snapped out hard with all the momentum of his hurtling body behind it. The blow caugh
t the giant right on the ear just as he was about to snap down on Chen’s spinal cord.
And this one, he felt. Rock could see that even as he soared past the thing. The huge head shook like a punchdrunk fighter and the eyes rolled around in their sockets. The killer opened his arms and staggered sideways.
Chen seized the opportunity and dove, making a ten foot arc through the air before he landed in a roll on the ground. The giant kept going sideways, like he was seasick and then suddenly toppled over. Rock’s kick had done some real damage.
“Hey! I really owe you on that one,” Chen grinned over.
“It’s not over ’til the Fat Lady dies,” Rock said as he noticed the creature rising up again. “And now he’s really mad.” Both Freefighters gulped hard. It had previously looked positively beneficent compared to its snarling, red-faced rage now. Blood flowed down the ear onto the neck but it didn’t touch it or seem to notice. Just animal rage that they had dared hurt it. Like a flea inflicting a painful bite.
“Now die!” it screamed the words as it rushed forward.
“Circle again, all the way around,” Rock shouted. “We’ll use our speed and—” And what, he had no idea. It came in flying like a tackle of the old Chicago Bears, this time pursuing Rockson, as he’d had the balls to hurt its head.
Rock just tried to stay one jump ahead of it, jumping over logs, sliding atop boulders set in the ground all around them. But the damned thing was always right behind him, fast, and keeping up the pace. Whoever said that weighing over 500 lbs. made you slow hadn’t been around the gym when this boy was doing his laps.
Suddenly he felt the hot foul-breath of the thing on him just as he was jumping from one boulder to another across a concrete-encased stream. The giant was all over him as he tackled him in mid-air. They both went flying to the ground, with Rockson being sandwiched to the cement by the entire weight of the thing. He heard a few bones crack in his ribcage, and felt a tremendous pain. Even more when the red face looked down and when steel-like fat fingers began to choke him. He tried to force the hands off any way he could but it was all useless. Every trick, every pressure jab, weren’t even noticed by this son-of-a-bitch.
