“Golden rule?” Tuesday repeated. His mind was going faster now than it ever had before.
“Yes. If you want to upset nasty, horrible people like Ernest Fell, don’t let them take you alive.” The Prince finally looked directly at Tuesday. His eyes were so blue they were almost clear, and when he slipped on his goggles they failed to diminish the intensity of that glance one bit. “My, you are skinny. Not been eating well? Perhaps not enough vegetables?”
“Don't eat them. Vile things.”
“I like them, personally. I especially adore Black Asparagus. If it isn't cooked perfectly, then a unique cocktail of naturally-occurring neurotoxins will inflict the most incredibly violent nerve spasms. You've never seen anything like it, I assure you! One wrong bite and the muscles in your neck will twist your entire head back to front, turn your face inside out, and whatever is left will explode all over the dinner table. Bang!”
Tuesday flinched. The Prince looked apologetic.
“Ah. Sorry about that. Don't want to trigger any pre-existing heart conditions, do I?” The Prince wasn't smiling anymore. He looked businesslike. “Silly. Could have killed somebody, yes? And while we're on the subject, have you been implanted with any form of pacemaker? Got any blocked arteries? Inherited faulty valves from either parent? Suffer from high blood pressure?”
“No,” Tuesday said shakily.
“Ah. Excellent. We should be able to manage two or three months, then. No use rushing things,” The Prince walked up to Tuesday and rudely pinched some skin beneath a freshly-waxed nipple. He seemed unimpressed. “You, sir, are like an old charcoal chicken! No elasticity, no firmness...no, this won't do. It simply won't do at all.”
“What?” Tuesday squeaked, tears forming in his eyes. “What?”
“I’m dreadfully sorry about all this.” The Prince said with finality. He pressed a button and all the cleaning products and torture implements retracted smoothly into the walls. “I'm going to have to kill you now. My apologies for not being able to draw it out any longer. Goodnight, Bob.”
Tuesday finally lost control. He blubbered, hiccupped and threw up a little. The Prince was unmoved by the display as he dispassionately pulled a tiny gun from his plastic waistband and aimed the weapon at Tuesday's abdomen. Getting shot in the guts would cause Tuesday's stomach acid to trickle agonisingly through his insides, slowly melting his organs to a formless slurry over a period of hours. Tuesday wasn't sure where he'd learned that little factoid, but it was very unwelcome knowledge at this point.
Tuesday screwed his eyes shut and waited for the bang, the searing sensation of a popped colon or a splattered bagful of ropey intestines pouring out like somebody had knocked over a plate of seafood linguine. His eyes were watering from the strain of latching them so tightly shut, and sweat was running down his forehead in rivulets.
“Bang,” The Prince said softly in Tuesday's ear. “You should be so lucky.”
Tuesday snapped his eyes open in time to see an amused Prince Charming put away the gun. Had he been capable of words at this point, Tuesday would have given the serial killer the tongue-lashing of a lifetime for playing such sick games.
Pressing a button on his organiser to unfurl the racks of torture implements again, The Prince spent a good twenty seconds regarding his arsenal of pain before touching something small: from a distance, it looked a lot like a tiny drill with no bit. Picking it up in a gloved hand, The Prince pressed a touchpad. A noise like an angle grinder dissecting an iron beam sounded out loud and clear.
Tuesday whimpered.
“This is a beautiful piece of military-grade interrogation tech,” The Prince seemed to visibly relax as he revved the device with a look of sick joy on his face. “When you press it against human skin it produces the sensation of an extremely hot flame, but this little darling has been guaranteed by nine-out-of-ten comfort reduction technicians to leave absolutely no burns or other marks. Sure, you have to be shaved and moisturised for it to work properly, which you...” The Prince inhaled luxuriously in Tuesday’s direction, then sighed out the breath in ecstasy, “...are.”
“Now, let's talk about this,” Tuesday said urgently, trying to walk backwards up the wall with his bare feet. They slid around within their manacles. “I'm a good guy, really! I do lots of charity work, I'm nice to old people, I don't torture small animals...”
The Prince stopped, weapon raised. It was hissing.
“Really?”
Tuesday's faced cracked and he blubbered again.
“No! I'm lying! I suck!”
The Prince advanced further, his face manic with glee. Smiling so wide that the serial killer was showing the entirety of both rows of pink gums, Prince Charming put his lips next to Tuesday's ear.
“Now open wide, and say aaaargh...”
It was even worse than he could have feared. Tuesday screamed until his conscious mind contained nothing more than the howls of his own agony, every muscle from his hairline to his toes fitting under his skin as he thrashed like a wounded animal. Eventually, after what seemed like two-and-a-half forevers, Tuesday's stunned brain registered that his time in Hell had come to an end for now. The shock faded like blood sliding down the wall, and his senses slowly dribbled away from insanity and into comprehension.
Tuesday was still shaking as The Prince walked back to the shelves to replace the ScreamBox in its foam insert and fetch a different zero-impact device. This one was much bigger, and looked a lot like like a circular saw with no blade. Turning it on with a click, a glimmer of white light in the shape of a wafer-thin disc appeared from the base of the device. Tuesday recognised the tool immediately, and somehow managed to arrange his words into something that other humans could understand.
“Beam saw,” Tuesday breathed sharply, his heartbeat jerking in panic.
The Prince nodded, impressed. “Yes. How did you know?”
Tuesday's mouth twitched for almost ten seconds until his tongue finally managed to shape words again.
“Stole one at The Dream Factory one time. Nearly...nearly cut off me leg trying to work out what it was.”
Prince Charming turned off the white blade of light with a flick of his thumb. Another click immediately brought it back again.
“You see, Bob, what you might not know is that beam saws are one of the most useful tools you can own, especially in the fields of construction and mining. Depending on their setting, they can cut straight through just about anything in the known Universe, or...”
The Prince took four steps and swiped the blade through Tuesday's left knee in one expert motion. The disc of light went harmlessly through the flesh and bone without any sensation at all. Tuesday somehow started breathing again as he realised his leg was still where it belonged.
“...or it does nothing at all. But, you see, on very low, very precise settings, a beam saw can inflict the most horrendous pain, as though your very bones are eating themselves...or so I've been told by the few people who were coherent enough to tell me afterwards.”
Carefully adjusting the beam saw until its blade was the faintest of yellows, The Prince slowly brought it down on Tuesday's left shin. It felt as though the flesh was being stabbed with hot needles and pulled apart by fishing hooks at the same time. A scream rose from Tuesday’s throat and turned into the most horrific swearing he’d ever managed, which was a noteworthy event.
Prince Charming eventually clicked off the beam saw.
“Language, Bob.”
Tuesday's shin was now viciously streaked with bruises thanks to some delicate blood vessels rupturing beneath his skin, but the wound wasn't even remotely debilitating, let alone fatal. He briefly considered just how much endless torment The Prince was going to be able to inflict on him before he'd die from his injuries, but this was beyond comprehension and Tuesday's brain seized up just at the thought.
“So far, not a drop of blood. But we have just begun!” The Prince’s eyes slid down below the ankle line, and his expression got a bit odd when h
e tutted at the contagious, mossy green growths covering both of Tuesday’s feet. “Look, no offence Bob, but have you ever thought about getting that checked out? I’ve never seen feet like those before. Honestly, I thought you were wearing velvet slippers.”
Tuesday, shaking violently for a dozen separate reasons, was so amazed he gaped.
“You...you want to give me spugging podiatry advice now?”
Prince Charming shrugged.
“I’m just worried that you’ll get diseases all over my nice shiny manacles. Those feet, they’re, well, they're unappealing.” The Prince shuddered a little. “Slimy. Swamp-like. Gross.”
“Unappealing?” Tuesday exploded, saliva spraying from his lips like a territorial barking cat. A boiling anger had finally gotten the better of his normally astute sense of self preservation, as on some deep level he knew all hope was lost and he might as well relieve that emotional pressure in whatever tiny way he could. “You know what’s unappealing? Your Mum! Tell her to stop calling me up, you dickhead! Bitch has a face like a chainsaw vasectomy!”
The Prince looked fascinated by this display for a few seconds, but then he calmly turned to rummage through his tools for the next course of pain.
“Hey, I'm talking to you, Froot Loop!” Tuesday yelled, his words tasting metallic. His crude insults didn't seem to be having any sort of notable effect, but Tuesday stuck to what he knew: being offensive. “Or can't you stand the truth, Princess?”
The Prince froze on the spot, his back to Tuesday. It was clear Tuesday had struck a nerve when Prince Charming flicked a switch on the beam saw's casing all the way to the furthest setting. The harmless white blade was now a deep, arterial red, the red of an edge that could cut through diamond. Revving the beam saw, Prince Charming turned and gave a satisfied smile. Tuesday realised that his plan of deliberately upsetting one of history's greatest monsters wasn't the most tactically sound decision of his short life.
“For that, you owe me a foot.”
“Okay, touché!” Tuesday yammered as the red blade hummed closer, step by step. “Let's rationalise this like adults, yeah? Look, things were said, emotions got a bit high…”
Yelping and wriggling ineffectively as the sawing blade approached closer with each rapid beat of his heart, Tuesday knew that his hopes of getting away in one piece would finish here, The End, and he put all of his strength into trying to free a leg. Miraculously, Tuesday's mossy, slippery left foot made a slithering noise as it slipped out of its manacle, and his toes lashed up in an arcing kick that could have gotten a shot past Beckham. Tuesday struck The Prince right in his face, his toes smashing straight through The Prince’s thin goggles and wedging into the depths of the serial killer's eye socket.
“I'm blind!” The Prince shrieked.
The Prince staggered backwards, holding his bleeding face with one hand, and Tuesday saw with immense satisfaction that three of his jagged, diseased toenails had broken off in The Prince's eyeball. More than a little distracted, the heel of Prince Charming's plastic shoe splorched in the slimy puddle of foot-moss juice that had been dripping from Tuesday's dangling toes, and he slipped over backwards like something from a Charlie Chaplin movie. Slamming into the metal drain on his upper back, the breath pounded from his lungs, a stunned Prince Charming could only gape in shock as the beam saw went up, tumbled about in mid-air, and came down blade-first. Roger Prince, better known as the psychopathic serial spree-killer Prince Charming, put up both of his arms protectively, but the impossibly sharp crimson blade made a hist noise as it went through his left wrist and the fingers on his right hand without so much as slowing. The keening saw effortlessly bisected black plastic, meat and marrow, and detonated Prince Charming's organs like water balloons. Blood began to pour from his mouth, quickly becoming a waterfall-like gush as The Prince died messily.
Tuesday knew he needed to act fast. Ernest may have more friends nearby.
Tuesday considered breaking his thumbs to get out of the wrist manacles, but there was no way he had the guts to go through with such a plan. Seeing as though he'd already managed to get one foot free, Tuesday decided to work with what he had, and after a couple of minutes leg number two was out of its cuff. Yes, it took a lot of grinding, swearing and bleeding, but it was a start. For what good it did him, Tuesday was free from the waist down.
Kicking towards the ceiling with alternating legs, trying to get his toes as high as he could so he could splash the slippery moss juice over his wrists, Tuesday failed miserably at reaching either hand manacle with his feet. After another few tries Tuesday put all of his determination into one massive flick, and somehow managed to get two toes caught in the manacle around his left wrist. As a male, it went without saying that such a stretch was far outside of pleasant, but when placed in danger many rodents have proven to be capable of the most absurd feats of skill. Screaming in frustration and pain, performing the biggest splits of his life, a triangle-shaped Tuesday thoroughly lubricated his wrist with juicy foot-moss.
Pop.
One of Tuesday’s hands slid out of their bindings, but the lack of circulation meant that the poor git was left to swing hopelessly like a half-paralysed monkey. When sensation finally returned a minute later Tuesday was able to grease up his other trapped wrist with more moss juice, and tumbled to the cell floor in a messy pile of numb limbs. A wet warmth told him that Prince Charming's blood was continuing to spread across the chrome like a liquid blanket, and Tuesday could clearly hear claret trickling down the tiny drain.
This would have been a good time to celebrate getting free from his bonds, but Tuesday decided that he'd prefer to vomit up everything in his stomach with extreme violence for the better part of ten minutes, then lay shaking on the steel floor for a time. When Tuesday finally pushed himself upright he experienced a terrible pain through his hands. Looking down at them, Tuesday finally noticed that the thumb of his left hands and the index and middle fingers on his right hand were dislocated, and all his knuckles and both wrists had been worn down into angry crimson stripes. While all these wounds may seem like pretty enormous things to miss, the last five minutes of Tuesday's life had been fuelled by so much adrenalin that he might as well have been off his face on Angel Dust.
Carefully getting to his feet by putting all his weight on the fingers that still worked, Tuesday attempted to stomp his dislocated thumb back into place with a well-placed heel. Although he was successful, he decided to never, ever, ever do that again.
Limping over the to the cooling body of Prince Charming, Tuesday searched through the serial killer's waistband. In a handful of seconds Tuesday found a tiny pistol that had more than a passing resemblance to a child's potato gun, a cannister of InstaDeath capsules, a collection of PainCo warranties and helpline details that had been arranged in alphabetical order in a plastic wallet, and a paper-thin organiser the size of a playing card. Awkwardly holding the device, Tuesday knew it was his key out of this place. Using the classic brute force technique known as process of elimination, Tuesday tapped at the icons one after another and just hoped that the organiser didn't have a well-disguised self-destruct option that he might stumble into. The racks of torture implements revolved around and around on their hinges, the lights brightened and dimmed, the temperature of the cell went all the way from from testicle-retracting Arctic knives to a face-melting Sahara heatwave and back again, but the door didn't budge. Swearing under his breath as some sort of self-cleaning setting erupted from the ceiling in a deluge of soapy water, Tuesday hit the second last icon on the Liquid Organic Screen and finally heard a familiar pneumatic hiss.
The door was open!
After a brief stagger Tuesday found himself in a chrome hallway lit with Perspex-mounted bulbs. Looking back and forth, the passageway initially seemed to be devoid of doors, but Tuesday already knew better. Getting so close to the opposite wall that he had to squash his nose a bit, when Tuesday tilted his head at just the right angle he could barely make out a seam. He smiled for the fi
rst time all day.
Thankfully, all Tuesday had to do to get through was point the stolen organiser and tap the same icon as before, and the system did the rest. To Tuesday's disappointment, rather than discovering an exit he found another cell identical to his own. It was equipped with the same racks of torture implements, and housed a shaved, moisturised captive wearing nothing but boxer shorts and fear. The prisoner was cowering against his manacles in abject terror as the steel door slid open, but the moment the nameless prisoner realised that Tuesday wasn't Prince Charming his face switched to eye-bulging, screaming hysteria.
“Get me down! Get me down!”
Disappointed, Tuesday turned his back on the captive, stomped out into the hallway and began to click at each square metre of the chrome walls one section at a time. The prisoner continued to yell and carry on, and Tuesday mentally kicked the stranger for the amount of unnecessary noise.
“Where are you going?!” the captive screamed at top volume. “Help me! Help me! Help me before he comes back!”
The next prisoner Tuesday accidentally uncovered was much older guy, but despite his advanced years he also started to yell at top volume. Tuesday pinched the bridge of his nose with two bruised fingers as the din began to give him a headache. Couldn't they see he was busy trying to get out of here and save his own skin? So bloody inconsiderate, some people...
Scum of the Universe Page 21
