by Jai Williams
“You’re going to tell them, a monster killed him and you’re not going to tell them that it’s your fault that you couldn’t save him because it ain’t your fault. It’s none of our fault, it’s a monster named Dwayne’s fault. That’s what you’ll tell them. So, wipe up that blood and stop punching walls. Ok?” said Jay as he tried to calm Captain Harris. Captain Harris used his shirt to clean up as much of the blood as he could from his hands and he sat down.
Ronnie turned to Stan. “I got it. I have a plan and if it doesn’t work then I should just give up on plans, deals and decisions because look at the last deal I did; it didn’t even work out,” he said with sorrow.
“It’s not your fault. We should stop blaming each other for things that aren’t out fault. We blame it on the person responsible, which is Dwayne, because ever since we came across Dwayne we have suffered so much. So, what is the plan?” asked Stan.
“Okay, so whoever gets picked for the next fight should quickly push away the guy grabbing them and pull that spear out of Alan and while that’s happening whoever’s in the same cell as that person should run out of the cell and help them. Do it quickly, so they don’t shut the cell door and do it so quick that none of them will call out for help,” replied Ronnie.
“That actually could work. They have guns but we have all learned how to disarm and counterattack people so that won’t be a hassle. Tell it the others,” said Jay. Ronnie looked over to the other cell with Roger in it and repeated the plan to the others. They were all on board with it so they were set and ready to fight.
One of the prisoners in the cell next to Roger’s cell interrupted, “Good plan man, but can I give you some advice?” said the mysterious prisoner.
“Yeah, what?” replied Ronnie rudely.
“Well, it ain’t gonna work. So, give up and just fight in the arena like Dwayne says,” replied the prisoner.
“Who the hell are you and why the fuck are you listening to other people’s conversations?” asked Stan with anger.
“My name is Lewis and let me tell you from experience, there is no way you can escape this place. Dwayne ain’t coming back, only four or so of his men will come back and the spear left in your friend’s body – my condolences, by the way. Anyway, the spear is a test; it’s to see if you would use it and try to escape which you won’t get far before his men would stop you or kill you, which is pretty much the same thing to them,” said Lewis.
“How do you know this?” asked Ronnie curiously.
“Because it happened to my friend. He thought he could use a weapon that was dropped on the ground to escape but he was wrong, and he died and if I went with him I could’ve died too. I told him that it was probably a trick but he didn’t care, so I try to warn others not to do the same thing. So, please don’t do it,” begged Lewis.
“He’s crazy. Why should we trust him? He probably wants to kill us in the arena, so he’s making up this story to convince us to stay. So, I ain’t listening to that guy; I’m going ahead with the plan you told us, Ronnie, and you better stick to it too” said Stan.
Ronnie looked at Lewis. “The last man I trusted brought us here and led us into a trap so I’m sorry if your story is true or not. But I’m sticking with this plan and getting the hell out of here and I don’t care that you gave up hope on escaping, because I won’t. And I don’t want you to give people your boo-hoo story anymore. People should choose for themselves. So, do me a favour and shut up, ok?” he said carelessly.
“Okay fine, but I warned you so have fun dying,” replied Lewis as he turned away from Ronnie.
They sat there in silence just waiting for Dwayne to come back and choose the people who were going to fight each other. A few minutes later the door from down the hallway opened and they could hear footsteps getting closer and closer. They finally approached the end and Ronnie and the others could see that there were only three of Dwayne’s men standing there; there was no sight of Dwayne.
“W-where’s Dwayne? He said he would be back,” said Ronnie.
“Looks like he lied, ha-ha. He told us who to pick and the person is…bingo. You – what’s your name?” said one of Dwayne’s men as he pointed to Luke.
“It’s ah, it’s Luke,” replied Luke.
“I think he told us that, I can’t remember but he said it was the old guy. So, step forward so I can grab you,” replied one of Dwayne’s men. Luke stepped forward and gave Ronnie a nod to signal that the plan was a go and Ronnie nodded to Roger and the others in Luke’s cell to signal them to get ready. Luke was pulled out of the cell and he quickly elbowed the guy in the face who was grabbing him and ran over to the spear that was in Alan’s body. Luke pulled the spear out as quickly as he could. One of Dwayne’s men slammed the cell door shut so that Roger and the others couldn’t help Luke. Luke turned around holding the spear and saw that the cell door was shut and all three of Dwayne’s men were pointing their guns at him. Everyone in the two cells near Luke looked scared and worried because the plan didn’t go the way it was supposed to go. Luke charged at the three armed men, trying to kill at least one of them, but he was too slow and the men fired their bullets at him until they emptied their mags. Luke fell straight to the ground right near Alan’s dead body and more blood covered the floor. One of Dwayne’s men walked up and grabbed the spear from the ground and looked to Captain Harris. “Now he fucked up. The spear left in the body was left there because the boss wanted to see if you guys could be trusted and go ahead with the deal you guys had. But looks like you planned to try to kill us, which we were prepared for just in case, and now that you know that it was a trick, it makes you think wow, I don’t think we can escape. So, Dwayne’s going to be upset, obviously, and maybe he will cancel the deal. So, you guys fucked up big time, and it’s your entire fault. Well, you can blame the one who came up with the plan to escape,” he said smiling. The guy stepped back from Captain Harris. “Now the boss is going to be heading down here soon and he will be pissed and you’ll get to see him in fury mode,” he said still smiling.
The door from down the hall opened and a thump of footsteps followed it all the way till it came to a stop next to Dwayne’s men and yes, it was Dwayne and he looked furious. Dwayne was clenching his fist and grinding his teeth and did all the things you do when you’re at your angriest. So, he instantly knew that Ronnie and the others tried to escape. “You fuckin’ cunts. You fuckin’ think you can trust someone and give them a fair fuckin’ deal but then the minute you are gone the cunts fuck it up and it’s all the way back to square one. So, tell me cunts, was it worth it to fuck with me, to fuck around with my trust? I mean, you are a bunch of stupid cunts; you didn’t think for a second that maybe you should just not fuck up? So, who had the big brains here and came up with the plan to escape?” he said furiously. Dwayne waited for an answer but no one answered; they were in fact quite frightened to even cough. “WHO FUCKIN’ WAS IT?” yelled Dwayne in anger. No one replied again, so Dwayne pulled out his handgun and pointed it to Dean’s face. “If no one comes clean then I’ll just blow this motherfucker’s brains everywhere,” he said with wide unblinking eyes. Ronnie was about to come clean but Captain Harris jumped in and took the blame.
“It was me,” he said.
Dwayne stepped over to Captain Harris. “Why?” he asked.
“We want to get out of here, of course. So, I saw the spear there and I came up with the plan,” replied Captain Harris as he tried to lie his best.
“But it didn’t work so, joke’s on you fuck-face,” replied Dwayne angrily. “Grab this fucker because he’s going to fight the Judge,” said Dwayne demandingly.
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Judge
A few years ago
Joshua McCoy, AKA the Judge, was once a normal guy back in the days where criminals hadn’t yet ruled the world. He was twenty years old when the world was taken over and he feared that he would die among the rest of the innocent people but he survived and hid away from the world. Joshua survived the only way he kn
ew how to, and that was to scavenge and keep clear from those who would cause him harm. So, he was a lonely guy; he’d been lonely his whole life. In fact, his parents died when he was a baby so he’d been an orphan his whole life and he never really got along with his adoptive parents. Joshua always kept to himself. He was quite shy and always seemed sad, as anyone who lost their parents at a young age would be. He was no killer or rapist or anything bad but that soon was going to change for him; after all, there were no happy endings in the world now, and he would soon come to terms with that. For twelve years, in this crazy, messed-up world Joshua survived and stayed innocent. He didn’t want to harm anybody but one day, he was walking through an empty town and came across two men harming a woman and he recognized this woman. This woman was the girl he had a crush on back in school years ago but he was too shy to ask her out. When he saw these men harming her, he thought to himself that it was time to stop avoiding things like this; it was time to help people who can be helped, so he walked over to these men. “HEY, STOP THAT!” he yelled, shaking with fear. These men turned and saw Joshua, who was this tall and large guy.
“Ha, you. Why don’t you fuck off? This ain’t ya business,” said one of the men.
Joshua stomped over. “Yes, it is,” he replied, so without thinking Joshua picked up one of the guys with both his hands and slammed him into the other guy. The men were both on the ground and Joshua slammed his fist into both of them repeatedly until he stopped and choked them both to death. Joshua got up and turned to the woman, who looked at him with fear.
“Please, j-just don’t hurt me. Just leave me,” she said with a scared voice, so she ran away before Joshua could say anything. Joshua thought to himself why didn’t she recognize me and why did she run away, I mean I saved her from these guys. He turned around to look at the men he just killed and he started to panic because he thought he just hurt them, not killed them. So, he looked for a pulse on both the men but couldn’t find one. “No-no-no-no-no, please no. I-I didn’t mean to…I, why did I kill them? Why?” he said to himself with fear.
Joshua could hear someone clapping from the distance, so he looked up to see where it was coming from and there he saw a man walking towards him clapping with a couple of men behind him. The guy clapping, stood in front of Joshua and he introduced himself. “Hi there, killer. That was impressive. I mean you choked those guys to death, one with each hand. Wow, just wow. Oh right, I should introduce myself. My name is Dwayne and these are some of my men. What’s your name?” asked Dwayne with a smile.
“Well ah, I’m J-J-Joshua,” replied Joshua, still trembling with fear.
“Well Joshua, I think you’re a lean, mean fucking them up machine and I want you. No wait, I need you,” said Dwayne, happily.
“W-what do you mean?” asked Joshua, curiously.
“Oh, not in a sexual way like I need your cock; no like I need you on my team. So, what do you say Joshua, you with me?” asked Dwayne with a smile.
Joshua stood up. “I just killed two men. Why would you trust a killer?” he asked.
Dwayne and his men laughed. “Ha-ha-ha-ha, Joshua, you crack me up. It doesn’t matter how many people you’ve killed because we’ve killed people too and after a while, it gets fun. So, you in?” replied Dwayne.
“Y-y-your all killers? W-why would you kill people?” asked Joshua in a scared tone.
“Wow, Mr. hypocritical over here. Tell me why you killed these guys and I’ll tell you why we kill,” replied Dwayne.
“Well I-I saw them harming a woman so I stopped them. I didn’t know that I would kill them,” replied Joshua.
“Doing it for pussy, respect. Now where is the lucky lady?” asked Dwayne.
“Well she um ran away because she was scared that I would kill her next,” replied Joshua as he was thinking how much of a monster he is.
“Ah, forget about her. Back at my place we have tons of pussy. So, who cares about the one that got away,” said Dwayne with a smile. Joshua finally agreed to go with Dwayne and his men, so they headed to Dwayne’s place, which was the stadium but at this stage the extended parts were still getting built so the fights weren’t fully up and ready.
When they stopped and got out of the car they were driving in, Joshua looked up at the building. “Wow, this is a big place. How many people live here?” he asked.
“Well, a fair few men and women,” replied Dwayne.
“What about children?” asked Joshua.
“I gave up on children. They aren’t strong enough to live in this world.” replied Dwayne.
“Well w-who’s the leader here?” asked Joshua.
“He’s standing right next to you,” replied Dwayne, smiling.
“Oh, cool,” replied Joshua.
“Yeah, it’s fuckin’ cool,” replied Dwayne.
They headed inside and Dwayne showed Joshua around the place and showed Joshua where he was sleeping. The room was small with one bed and drawers for clothes. Dwayne seemed nice, not the angry violent man that Ronnie and the others experienced in the present; maybe that’s because the arena hadn’t fully been built yet so the brutal bloody fights hadn’t gone to his head yet and turned him into a monster, but he still had killed people so he was still a monster. It took Joshua weeks to fit in. He finally accepted the place with all of its chaos that followed it, and he had to accept that chaos to move on. He went from being that lonely and shy guy to a more open, happy guy. Dwayne didn’t bring Joshua back to this place because he saw a sad man kneeling on the ground; it was because he saw a future for this guy, a future full of blood and killing, and he wanted to turn Joshua from this nice shy guy to this monster he imagined. It took time but Dwayne finally convinced Joshua to go on searching and scavenging trips, which is what he told him, but Dwayne had other plans like forcing Joshua to kill.
So, this trip started in the morning. Joshua was actually quite pumped; he hadn’t left the stadium in weeks and he thought a bit of fresh air would do him good. They headed out of the city they were in and headed to a small town and searched around. Dwayne set up an attack; he forced some people he found a couple of days earlier to attack them. Dwayne thought that Joshua would see them and kill them but when it went down with these people holding knives, bats and swords, Joshua panicked and ran.
“JOSHUA, STOP!” yelled Dwayne, feeling disappointed, Joshua stopped and turned around.
“What the fuck are you doing? You don’t just run away and leave your men behind. What type of bravery is that? You come back here and fight with us. We will kill these assholes for trying to ambush us, ok?” said Dwayne demandingly.
“But I ah, I can’t kill,” replied Joshua as his heart rate was increasing.
“I brought you back to my place, I fed you, I put a roof over your head and gave you a place to sleep and you say you can’t kill. Then what, then? How are you supposed to repay me – by running? I want you to help me like everyone else I’ve saved. So, do what I say and help us kill these people, or you can join them,” said Dwayne, angrily.
Joshua ran back to Dwayne and charged at the people that were about to kill them. Joshua slammed the first guy in front of him to the ground and snapped his neck. He picked up the bat the guy had and started swinging it at the next guy’s face until his head was cracked open. Joshua grabbed a knife from the guy he just killed and threw it at another guy’s head and with the one guy left Joshua charged at him and choked him to death after he slammed him to the ground. Dwayne started clapping. “That was fuckin’ sick. So, fuckin’ crazy, I love it,” he said cheerfully. Joshua turned to Dwayne. Joshua was covered in blood and deeply breathing.
“Wait, what? You guys just stood back and watched me kill them all,” he said, confused.
“Well, that’s because I wanted you to do it,” replied Dwayne.
“Nah-nah, this is…there’s something fishy about this. It seems like they weren’t fighting back,” said Joshua, feeling suspicious.
“Well ah, let me tell you something, I don’t e
at fish, ha-ha. Jokes aside, the truth is, it was a set up, but before you go full berserk on me, let me explain,” replied Dwayne.
“You better,” replied Joshua, clenching his fists.
“See, when I saw you weeks ago when you killed those two men I thought to myself hey this guy is a monster and I need a monster. You may have noticed around the field part of the stadium that there’s something being built there and spoiler alert: it’s a gladiator arena. So, what I want to do, is force people I capture to fight to the death and the part you’re going to play is being the ultimate weapon. See, you’re only a tiny bit of the way there. You’ve got the body; I see you’ve been working out in our gym and that’s cool, but you need to get rid of the emotions and you need to learn how to kill, without hesitation because when people come face to face with you, they ain’t gonna stand in one place and wait for you to kill them. They’re going to try and kill you first. So, you’ll have to learn some skills,” replied Dwayne.
“So, that’s what I am to you, just a weapon,” said Joshua.
“Oh no-no, you’re not a weapon, you’re a valuable member to my team and I just want to use you in the arena to kill people who disrespect me and are disloyal to me. You can show people what happens if they cross me,” replied Dwayne.
“I don’t know, I um…” replied Joshua.
“Think of it like this: you will be doing me and my men a favour because no one likes to sleep in the same place an untrustworthy person is sleeping, because what happens if they kill you, huh? What then? Do we just ignore it? No, we kill them or to put it correctly, you kill them,” said Dwayne, butting in. Joshua started rubbing his chin and thinking about Dwayne’s plan for him.
“How about we go back home and I’ll show you the renovations that we’ve done; they finished today, I’m pretty sure,” said Dwayne.
