The Death Match

by Christa Faust

  Mr. Dark.

  “I don’t know,” the voice continued, while Long cranked his hips back and forth. “Feels a little tight in the crotch.”

  He let Matt go and gave him a gentle nudge with the ax handle.

  Matt forced himself to stay calm, to breathe slowly and evenly through his nose and crush down the rising panic in his chest. If Mr. Dark was just going to flat-out murder him, he could have done it easily many times before. Chopping Matt to bits with his own ax while he was bound and helpless wasn’t Mr. Dark’s style.

  “When Long was a kid,” the voice said, “his mother was murdered by his father’s vengeful lover. Choked to death right in front of him. Can you believe that? He was eleven.”

  Long’s quivering body leaned in close to Matt.

  “Trauma is a zipper.”

  For a second, Matt didn’t have any idea what that was supposed to mean. It sounded like a weird, nonsensical riddle. Why is a raven like a writing desk? But Mr. Dark wasn’t waiting for Matt to catch up.

  Long’s body twitched and shuddered, then collapsed to the stone floor.

  “I don’t know how you stand it in there.”

  Matt twisted his head and shoulders to see the shadowy figure in the oversized Tapout T-shirt and baggy jeans standing beside him. In the wavering half-light, that person’s features were finally revealed. The thin, scraggly orange hair, sticking out in wiry tufts on either side of a large, bald pate. The maggot-pale grease paint crusted in the deep wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. The round red ball on the tip of his hooked nose. It was Mr. Dark, free now from his uncomfortable skin suit.

  He was wiping his hands against the legs of his pants as if he’d just touched something dirty, painted lips twisted back from his long yellow teeth in a broad parody of disgust.

  “I can’t believe you people actually spend eighty years trapped inside those nasty meat bags.” He shuddered dramatically. “They’re much more fun to drive by remote control.”

  Matt was only half listening, intensely focused on the rope around his wrists, testing, feeling for the knots.

  “Who do you like in the next bout?” Mr. Dark asked in an abrupt conversational swerve. “I know you have a soft spot for the plucky redhead, but my money’s on the Brazilian. You know, all this beta testing has been such a headache, but this girl. She’s the one. I can smell it.”

  Then he was gone.

  Long was beginning to stir on the stone floor, moaning softly and pressing his hand to his eyes like a man with an awful hangover. A pair of silent thugs padded in and helped the semiconscious Long to the couch, leaving Matt’s ax where it lay. Then a third man entered and stood between Matt and his ax, arms crossed and clearly less than thrilled to have been picked for guard duty.

  Matt took a second to size up his new guard. Sunburned, freckled skin. Thick, bristly blond hair mowed into a perfect flattop. Not tall, but bulky and muscular. Neck the size of Matt’s thigh. No visible gun, just a fat ring of keys clipped to his belt with a gaudy dangling chain decorated with skulls.

  Matt focused on his hands again, on trying to work his wrists free, millimeter by precious millimeter. When the light above the pit suddenly illuminated, he squinted against it, sore eyes assaulted by the harsh glow.

  The door opposite the couch opened, and Tanya entered, still nude, but the blood and dirt had been rinsed away and the stitches in her forehead completed. Behind her was Stacy, also nude and being ushered to the ring at the end of a pistol. She was already badly bruised and battered, her body language slumped and defeated. She didn’t make any attempt to cover herself. It was as if she’d already lost.

  Once both women had entered the ring, Long began to cheer, seeming none the worse for wear after Mr. Dark’s little joyride.

  “I won’t fight you!” Stacy said, turning her face away.

  Tanya didn’t give her any choice.

  Stacy kept on backing up, bobbing and weaving and stuffing takedown attempts, her face tense and tortured, pleading. Tanya was out for blood, but Stacy was so fast and agile, she was able to stay one step ahead. Until she spotted Matt.

  Matt saw her notice him dangling behind the couch and squint against the glaring light like she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Tanya took instant advantage of her opponent’s distraction and took her down to the stone floor.

  It made Matt crazy to be bound and helpless like this, utterly powerless to help Stacy. He had to concentrate on getting free. If he could just get one hand loose, he could swing himself hard enough to reach the ax, but the more he twisted and strained his wrists, the tighter his bondage became.

  His blond guard was utterly absorbed in the fight, his back to Matt.

  Matt had to come up with something, and fast. He focused on the keys and the tacky chain dangling from the guard’s belt. There was a slim red object the size of Matt’s thumb hanging between the keys. An object that might be a small folding knife. If Matt could swing himself close enough to grab the chain in his teeth, he could pull the keys off the guard’s belt. Of course, if and when he got the chain in his mouth, he’d need to figure a way to get the keys up into his bound hands while simultaneously dealing with the pissed-off guard they’d been lifted from.

  Maybe it wasn’t the worst plan of all time, but it was up there.

  Matt pushed all doubt out of his mind and narrowed his vision to block out everything but those keys. He began to swing his body, slightly at first, then harder, his face moving closer and closer to the keys with each swing. The guard shifted slightly, turning his hips away from Matt and moving the keys out of reach.

  Matt swore silently, frustration like barbed wire in the back of his throat. On his next swing forward, the guard reacted to something inside the pit, throwing air punches as if he could somehow control the action with his own hands. As he did this, he swiveled his hips back toward Matt. Matt realized at the last second that if he twisted his neck all the way to the left, he could reach the keys. There was no time to think.

  Mat gripped the chain in his teeth. There was a terrible moment on the backswing when Matt was sure the chain would be ripped out of his mouth by his own weight, so he clenched his teeth as hard as he could. But the slick metal offered nothing to grip. It slid painfully between his teeth until one of the gaudy little skulls acted like a brake, bringing the chain to an abrupt halt.

  When Matt was a kid, he’d been so eager to get a quarter from the tooth fairy that he’d tried tying a loose tooth to a doorknob and slamming the door. It hadn’t worked. It had felt almost as bad as this.

  The startled thug reacted to this turn of events with utter disbelief, as if a chandelier had suddenly goosed him. He turned and looked down at his belt and then back up at Matt.

  Matt let out a stifled grunt between his clenched teeth and cranked his neck, pulling harder. He could taste blood in his mouth. It seemed almost impossible, that he was going to lose a tooth before the snap on the end of the chain gave up its hold on the guard’s belt. Then the snap popped open and the chain smacked Matt in the face as his weight was suddenly released. He swung wildly backward and slammed into the pipe-covered wall behind him.

  He banged the back of his head on some kind of valve but managed to keep the chain between his teeth and grip a finger-thin pipe in his bound hands to prevent himself from careening wildly back into the angry guard.

  Before Matt could figure out his next move, the narrow pipe snapped with a sharp hissing sound. Matt swung away from the wall again, toward the surprised guard. The guard backed instinctively away, but not far enough. Matt’s head cracked the guard in the nuts like a medicine ball, doubling him over and then dropping him to one knee. Matt swung helplessly away and then back again, knocking heads with the kneeling guard but still clenching the swinging keys in his teeth.

  He had only seconds to free himself before the guard recovered, but he was also stunned from the impact. There was no time to clear his head. He had to act quickly.

  He swung the rin
g of keys on the end of the long chain up and to the right, twisting his bound hands around to the side of his body to try to catch the keys.

  Not even close.

  He made himself stay calm and try again, although he could see the guard slowly getting back to his feet and felt a trapped-animal kind of panic welling up inside his chest. He missed the keys again and a third time. The fourth time, the keys brushed his fingertips, but he still couldn’t catch them. He felt like screaming, but he forced himself to breathe slowly, ignore the wheezing guard, and try again.

  That time he got them.

  Gripping the keys in his tingling right hand, he felt for the little knife he thought he’d seen. Bingo. He thumbed out the blade and began sawing through the rope that bound his wrists.

  He managed to nick his rope-burned skin more than once, but he got himself free and did a tight upside-down crunch to disconnect the chain around his ankles from the hook that held him.

  Once unhooked, he landed hard on the stone, sending a painful jolt through his back and neck. But he recovered quickly and rolled behind the sofa. Now that the weight of his body was no longer keeping the chain around his ankles taut, it was no problem to free his legs. He wrapped the length of chain around his hand and prepared himself for the inevitable attention that the sound of his fall would bring.

  Long turned to see Matt free from his bondage and waved an annoyed hand at the flanking thugs, more irritated at the interruption than worried by Matt’s escape.

  Matt dove for his ax as the two men closed in on him. He was able to grab it and scuttle, crablike, half backward and half sideways until he felt the pipe-covered wall behind him.

  He stood, chain in one hand and ax in the other, watching the thugs with one eye and the action in the pit with the other.

  There was a tense stalemate inside the pit, both women locked up tight and neither willing to give an inch. From Matt’s angle, he could see Tanya’s lips moving, whispering something to Stacy.

  Whatever she said, it galvanized Stacy like a cattle prod. She went totally ballistic, unleashing a furious offensive assault against Tanya. Up until that point, it seemed like Stacy had been all defense, not wanting to hurt Tanya. Whatever Tanya had just said to her obviously changed that.

  The fish-pale guy with lank, dust-colored hair on the far left was reaching for a holstered pistol. Matt flinched, grip going sweaty on the ax handle, knowing that if they all pulled guns he was fucked. He was starting to feel a little light-headed, and there was a fierce hissing sound like a hundred snakes so close to his ear that he almost thought he might be imagining it. And a smell, a thick, sulfurous stink, like…

  Like gas.

  Matt turned toward the skinny, busted pipe and then back to the pale guy with the gun. The armed guy was about to shoot when his fat buddy noticed the pipe and the horrified look on Matt’s face and knocked the gun out of the pale thug’s hand.

  “Are you crazy?” the pale guy spat.

  His fat buddy smacked him in the back of the head and gestured at the pipe.

  “Gas, asshole!”

  The pale guy realized what had almost happened and went white.

  Matt took that moment of distraction to attack. He lunged at the pale guy and cracked him in the temple with the flat back of the ax head. The pale guy went down but not out, and the fat guy grabbed the ax handle, struggling with Matt over possession of the weapon.

  In the pit, Stacy had the upper hand and Tanya seemed to have completely changed her attitude, as if all her aggressive evil had drained away. She lay almost passive beneath Stacy, not defending, not covering up. Unconscious, maybe, but from Matt’s angle it was hard to tell.

  The pale guy got his feet back under him and grabbed Matt from behind, wrenching his arms back and allowing the fat guy to gain control of the ax. Matt responded instinctively by raising both feet up off the floor and mule-kicking the fat guy in the center of his padded chest, causing him to drop the ax and stagger back, gasping. Matt planted his feet back on the stone floor and slammed the back of his head into the pale guy’s face, breaking his grip.

  As Matt dove for the ax, an awful, keening wail spiraled up out of the pit. It was Stacy. She was cradling Tanya’s lifeless body in her arms, Tanya’s head lolling too far backward on a broken neck.

  Matt grabbed the ax and backed up and away, surrounded by more of Long’s corrupt henchmen. There was no way out and no way he could take on all five guys alone, but Stacy was in no shape to help him.

  They were fucked.

  As the circle of thugs closed in around Matt, he gripped the ax handle tighter, determined not to go down without a fight. Between the broad backs of the advancing henchmen, he could see Long get up from the couch and come up behind Stacy. He leaned over her, sliding his hands over her bare, bloody breasts and whispering to her.

  She stayed tense and frozen for a moment, then exploded into action, turning on Long and taking him down like a speeding truck. He let out a comical yelp that quickly cranked up into a shriek of pain, turning the heads of the thugs surrounding Matt.

  “Boss is down!” the guy on the far left hollered, gesturing with his chin toward the pit.

  Four of the five fell back and ran to their boss’s aid, while a single man stood his ground with Matt.

  Matt faked a high swing with the ax, then swiftly reversed it, ducking low and shattering a kneecap. The thug howled and dropped to the stone floor, but Matt didn’t stick around to watch his reaction. He had to save Stacy.

  When Matt made it to the edge of the pit, Stacy was fighting like a trapped wildcat, far too much white visible around the irises of her eyes. Two men had her arms, but her feet were loose and kicking, preventing anyone from getting close enough to hit her. Matt didn’t hesitate to let the guy holding Stacy’s right arm have it in the back of the head with the ax. As soon as he let go of her arm, Stacy used it to knock out the guy on the left. Free now, she lunged at the man on the right, locking him up in a vicious choke hold. The last man standing tried to pull her off his blue-faced buddy, but Matt’s ax had other ideas.

  Once the final man was down, Matt turned toward Stacy to make sure she was okay. She stood alone in the center of the pit, breath harsh between her teeth, eyes narrow and flint hard. Matt unbuttoned his shirt and was about to remove it and drape it over her quivering shoulders when she launched herself at Long’s lifeless body, pounding his already broken and bloody face into unrecognizable meat.

  Matt tried to pull her away from Long’s corpse, but she shook him off and renewed her mindless attack, an unhinged howl of bottomless agony spiraling up out of her and echoing through the stone arena.

  “Stacy,” Matt said, wrapping his arms around her from behind again. “Stacy, it’s over. He’s dead. He’s dead. Let it go. We need to get out of here.”

  She paused and looked back at Matt with anguished eyes.

  “Leave me,” she whispered, balling up and covering her face with her hands.

  “Stacy, no…”

  Stacy pounded her fist against the floor, hitting and jarring the mesh cover of a large, blood-clotted drain in the center of the pit.

  “I won’t go,” she said. “Let me die here with her. I don’t deserve to live after what I’ve done.”

  Matt ignored her for a moment, peering down into the drain. He could hear a trickle of running water down there, like some kind of primitive sewage system. The manhole-sized grate was easy to remove, and the slimy, stinking drainage pipe beneath would be a tight squeeze, but they could both fit. It could be a way out. Or a claustrophobic death trap.

  A new group of corrupt thugs burst through the distant door into the arena, guns drawn. An electric spike of adrenaline shot though Matt’s chest, galvanizing him into action.

  He grabbed both of Stacy’s ankles and jumped feet first into the drainage pipe, dragging her down with him as a gunshot shattered the stillness inside the arena.

  Like the flint on a Zippo lighter, the gunshot ignited the gas from
the broken pipe, sending a roiling wave of cleansing blue-and-white flame down the pipe behind them. When Matt and Stacy hit the foul water below, he sucked in a deep breath and pulled her under with him, less than half a second before the flames hit the surface.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The drive back to Long Beach seemed endless. They were both cold, wet, and filthy from the crawl through the sewer to the storm drain grate beneath Long’s burning mansion, Matt bare-chested and Stacy dressed only in his oversized shirt. Stacy didn’t speak, and Matt didn’t push her.

  When she finally pulled into the driveway of her small, forgettable house, she killed the ignition but made no move to get out of the car.

  “Come on,” Matt said softly, his hand on Stacy’s arm.

  She just sat there in the driver’s seat, staring down at her hands.

  “Let me have your keys,” he said.

  She looked at him as if she’d just realized that he was there but had no idea what he was talking about. Her eyes were all cried out. Empty.

  “Keys,” Matt said again. “To your house.”

  Stacy pulled the key from the ignition and handed over a jumbled ring with a tiny silver boxing glove dangling off it. Matt took the keys, got out of the car, and went around to the driver’s side to open the door and help Stacy up, but she shoved him away.

  “I’m fine,” she spat.

  “Fine,” Matt replied. “Come on.”

  Matt unlocked the door to her house and guided her inside. For a moment the two of them just stood there in the cluttered living room.

  “You gonna be okay?” Matt asked.

  She didn’t answer.

  A pink-and-black short-sleeved Fight Chix rash guard had been thoughtlessly discarded in a crumpled heap near the door. She took a single step toward the shirt, stopped for a moment as if swaying on the deck of a ship, and then sank to her knees, gathering the discarded rash guard up against her chest and pressing her face into the fabric.

  “I’m so sorry, baby,” she whispered.

  Matt backed away, feeling awkward and uncomfortable. He wanted to say something supportive to help her through her anguish, guilt, and grief, but the words just wouldn’t come.