by H. T. Night
I wrapped my shoulder good and tight, so that no one would know that I was butchered the night before. I would need to let them know I was wearing the bandage as a precautionary measure. A lie. I hated lies.
I got to the arena and I met with Mo in the training room. We were the first one up, so, I needed to get my head on straight. I told Mo I slept on my shoulder wrong and that’s why I bandaged it up. He wanted to look at it, but I told him it wasn’t a big deal. Little did he know how bad my shoulder ached and that I had 45 stitches in it.
My opponent was exactly my size, but I was younger and quicker. My ground game was one of the best in the business. Mo and I went over a few key points and soon it was time for my second professional fight.
Chapter Seven
I stepped out into the ring for a professional fight with a veteran fighter and could only use the left side of my upper body. The only strategy I had, considering the condition I was in, was to break him down and get him to the mat so that I could do a submission move. I was in for a painful night.
After the opening announcements, I went back to my corner and Mo was outside the cage yelling instructions. “Just like we ran it in practice Tommy, you got this.” Little did Mo know what I was truly dealing with.
Round one. I rushed out and Vasquez circled me. He knew he didn’t want me to shoot into his legs and have our fight on the ground.
I threw a left. He blocked it easily. I telegraphed it too much. Vasquez came into me and we began to pummel our arms, trying to gain control. I locked my arms around his head and shot underneath his legs with my left arm and got him in a fireman’s carry. There was a problem with that move; I was forced to use my right shoulder. Crap, the pain was intense! The pain only made me angrier. I slammed Vasquez to the floor of the ring and took control. I shifted my weight, trying to get my legs inside his legs. Vasquez was face down on the mat and I was riding him like a cowboy on a bull. Except, I had this bull under control! I dropped a series of elbows with my left arm.
“Use your right arm!” Mo yelled at me.
I was waiting for just the right moment where his neck would be left open so I could sink my arm in for a choke submission.
He was guarding it beautifully, and it was impossible for me to get my arm through. So, I continued to hammer down my left arm on the back of his head and neck.
I went into complete spastic mode. I unloaded 10-12 consecutive punches and elbows and I could see Vasquez weakening.
Just give me an opening, I thought. I’ll choke you out and then we can all go home. Then it happened—he used his arm to try to get position by placing them on the mat. And for a brief second, his neck was exposed and that’s all I needed. I got my left arm underneath his Adam’s apple in a blink of an eye. I yanked up and tightened it with my right arm which gave me an immense amount of pain.
He shifted his body, trying to get out. He was a veteran and he wouldn’t tap out lightly. He fought me off for a good 20 seconds, and then I saw the most beautiful thing in sports: my opponent tapped out. That only meant one thing. He gave up and threw in the white flag. I had my second first-round knockout.
I jumped up and I looked at my shoulder and I was bleeding through my shoulder wrap. I had torn out a number of my stitches. But it was worth it, I was still undefeated. Granted, I was only 2 and 0, but I’d take it.
Mo came into the ring and he hugged me and looked at my face. “I didn’t notice you were sporting a beard before.”
Huh? I never grew facial hair in my life. I had an easy routine where I shaved in the shower each day. That was an odd thing to say. I felt my face and felt stubble and hair. What the hell? I shaved before I came down here. That was odd.
The announcer said I was the winner by knockout and the referee raised my right arm and I nearly passed out from the pain.
I showered up after the fight and the arena doctor re-stitched my arm and warned me to never fight again without coming clean about an injury. He told me that would be my ticket out of MMA because I put the company in jeopardy with the state by fighting while injured. He told me that luckily, I was still ‘a nobody’ so it wouldn’t make ESPN. It was nice to be considered ‘a nobody’ by his own organization after my two consecutive first-round knockouts.
I headed out to the parking lot by myself. I looked up in the sky and saw the full moon as huge as I had ever seen it. I stopped in my tracks and just stared at it. It was weird. I had never gazed at a full moon or any kind of moon for that matter. But for some reason, this particular moon on this particular night was almost giving me a religious experience. I felt this intense feeling and it was all directed at this moon that I was staring at in the middle of the Staples arena parking lot.
I got into my vehicle and drove home alone which seemed a bit sad, considering the night I’d just had. I didn’t have many friends and that was just the way it was. I didn’t party or celebrate that much. I was exhausted and I wanted to go home for a long winter’s nap. If I properly set the mood in my bedroom, I had a good 14 hours of sleep ahead of me.
When I got to my apartment, I checked on my stitches that were redone by the fight doctor. I knew I was going to be out of commission for a while. This sucked, but that’s what I got for getting involved with a girl who was trouble.
I got in my room, put on my favorite musical soundtrack, Les Miserables, London, on my CD player and went right to bed.
I laid still, listening to the greatest musical score of all time and tried to nod off. But I couldn’t fall asleep. I felt hot and itchy and it seemed like I could hear every single car on the freeway passing by, every car door shutting and every dog barking. It was starting to drive me nuts. One hour became two hours, and two hours became three hours. I had to face it, I couldn’t sleep.
I needed to do something that would tire me out. You would think after fighting an MMA match with one of the toughest motherfuckers in the world at my weight and with a bum shoulder, that would be enough to send me to sleepyland. But that wasn’t the case tonight. I needed a sleeping pill or some NyQuil. I decided to find a 24-hour drugstore. I also felt weary and I couldn’t quite make out what was wrong with me.
I began sweating profusely as I went out to my car. I got into my car and just sat there, staring at the full moon. What was it about this damn moon that seemed to be the only thing to make me feel right?
I looked at the spider-web crack in front of my windshield and it made me even more nauseous. I decided to head out. As I drove my body felt as hot as it has ever been. It was like I was having a fever and breaking one in the same moment. Then the weirdest thing happened: I didn’t feel like driving to the convenience store. I passed it and got on the freeway. Why? I had no idea. I felt sick and gross and the more I drove toward the moon it seemed to settle me down and made me feel better. I followed the moon all the way down to San Bernardino. Why? I had no idea. I took the 91 freeway east and went on the 15 to Bakersfield. Where was I going? I passed a couple more freeways and could tell I was heading in the direction of the San Bernardino Mountains. I didn’t know what possessed me to pull over to the side of the road, but I did.
The moon lit up the sky like a chandelier. I stepped out of my Mustang and made my way to the right, where there was nothing but desert for miles.
I could hear growling and snarling in the distance. What the hell was that? What could be out here in the middle of nowhere? I had a pair of binoculars in my glove compartment. I got them, got out and stood on my hood in about the same place where that asshole had put a dent into it the other night. I looked through the binoculars in the direction of the snarls and moans. I looked on and what I saw nearly made me pee my pants. I saw about a half a dozen bonfires, and surrounding the bonfires were the biggest wolves I had ever seen. I kept watching, trying to figure out what the hell I was looking at. There were black ones, white ones, brown ones and others that seemed to be calico-colored. They were all 6 to 7 feet in length. Some were howling and others were wrestling and growling.
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How did they find the bonfires? Did these beasts kill the humans who left the fires?
From above I heard a horrid sound—the sound of a thousand birds screeching across the sky. I looked up and I could barely make out what appeared to be a huge flock of black ravens circling the wolves below.
I looked on as if I was watching the most bizarre episode of Animal Planet ever aired. All the birds landed about 500 feet away from the wolves. Only sand and tumbleweeds separated the birds from the beasts.
Then I saw something that made me feel I had fallen asleep and was now dreaming. The birds seemed to be transforming into human beings. The hundreds of black birds became an army of humans. They were all dressed in black clothing and made up of all races. There was an exceptionally tall one that seemed to be the leader. I zoomed in and this guy looked eight feet tall and from this distance, he looked like the guy in that Crow movie.
What the hell was I watching? I pinched my arm, and my shoulder moved, so I knew I was wide awake. Then I saw something that looked like a scene out of Braveheart. The hundreds of men charged the wolves.
The wolves caught a glimpse of these crazed people and charged at them also. It looked like a battlefield scene from every gladiator movie ever shown on the silver screen. The only difference was that it was humans versus wolves. I noticed that all the humans seemed to be holding silver spears in their hands. They were shorter than spears; they were the size of daggers or stakes.
What I saw next nearly made me get in my car and pray to God. As the humans and wolves battled, the wolves were biting into the necks of these guys and the humans were piercing the wolves in their hearts with their silver weapons. Then what I saw made me clearly think I had lost my mind. As each wolf and each human apparently died—they just disappeared into thin air. As I looked on, I noticed that they weren’t all men fighting the wolves. In fact, there was a red-headed woman doing a lot of damage. She literally walked to injured wolf after wolf, stabbing them in their hearts to finish them off. She was merciless about it, too. No expression on her face, at all.
There was an exceptionally large wolf that was fighting the eight foot, bean-pole giant. They were having an epic battle. It reminded me of a MMA match. The tall motherfucker wouldn’t allow the beast to get a hold of him. The beast would claw and grab at him. The tall man did a series of kicks and punches to keep the wolf at bay. He still had the silver stake in his hand. I could tell he was waiting for an opening.
The wolf leaped on top of the statuesque man and then he found his opening and pierced the animal right in the chest. Then, the wolf was gone. Poof. Vanished.
In a matter of minutes, half of the wolves had disappeared and the humans seemed to have only lost a couple of soldiers. The remaining wolves all took off running. The black-clothed humans all jumped up and cheered.
Who the hell were these people and why did they feel the need to attack these animals minding their own business in the desert?
I got back into my Mustang. I couldn’t get over the fact that I could have sworn the humans were birds before they fought. My mind was playing tricks on me. I was tired and had lost a lot of blood in the last 24 hours. That had to be it. None of this was real this was a hallucination. That had to be it. I started my car and flicked on my lights. Right in front of me stood two black birds. I honked at them to get out of the way. The birds flew on top of my hood. I tried to shake them off by reversing and getting right on the freeway. I headed down the 215 and went from lane to lane, trying to shake the birds off my Mustang. Those little fuckers wouldn’t fly off, even though my speed got up to 90 miles per hour.
I pulled off the freeway and went into a Union 76 station. I opened my door and jumped out.
“Where are you going?” said a voice on top of my hood. The birds were gone and two men were sitting on the hood of my car. I was obviously losing my mind. I needed to get home and get to bed. I ignored the illusion and began to walk into the service station to buy a bottle of water.
Within seconds, both men stood before me. I decided to just continue to walk, after all they here just a figment of my imagination. Or so I thought. I walked right into one of them.
“Hey, watch where you’re going,” the man said.
Great, these fuckers were real. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”
“You most certainly did. You made direct eye contact with me and you gave me and my friend a nice little ride on the hood of your car for the last 10 miles.”
I have surely lost my mind. I was now communicating with an imaginary person. A man walking out of the station looked over at me. “Sir!” I yelled. The man looked up at me. “How many people are over here?” He shook his head and continued walking. “No, I’m being really serious, please tell me.”
The man said, “There’s three, counting your crazy ass.”
I nodded and knew I was fucked.
The man across from me then said, “Oh, we’re most definitely real.”
I looked at him perplexed. How did he know that was what I was thinking? I decided to treat this like any kind of street fight. I needed to forget what I’d seen and get to the bottom of what these assholes want.
“So, what do you need?” I asked
“Need?” the man laughed. He was a light-skinned, black man that had bleached-white hair and two hooped earrings. The other guy was about an inch or two shorter and seemed to be this guy’s sidekick. He had black hair and very pale skin. Both seemed in pretty good shape. “I don’t need anything,” he continued. “I just want to know if you enjoyed our party?”
“You mean the battle of humans versus wild animals out in the desert?”
“Humans?” the man laughed again.
“Hey, Patrick. You hear that? We’re Tandra.”
“He obviously has no clue, Nero,” Patrick answered.
“Huh?” I asked, surprised. “What are you then, aliens?”
“He’s cute,” Nero said, “It’s a shame he knows too much and we have to kill him.”
My heart sank. I had never heard that phrase come out anyone’s mouth before in my life. Kill him.
“Look, man. I saw nothing and I know nothing so if you have a piece, just put it away.”
“A piece? This guy is a crack-up. We don’t need guns to kill you, silly rabbit.” He then leaped on top of me, opening his mouth. That was when I saw two little fangs protruding from his mouth. HOLY SHIT! I threw a left cross and caught him in his right temple and he went flying to the left. The other guy leaped on me and tried to bite me also with his fanged teeth. I smacked him in the head and he slid across the pavement. As I did so, Nero jumped on me and bit into my arm. What the fuck? What the hell is going on with all this biting?
I got a hold on Nero and clamped down on his neck and began choking him out. I clamped down harder than I had ever done in my life. This would have killed anyone else. At least I made him pass out. He gasped for air. But I cranked harder on his neck.
Patrick then jumped on my back and tried to bite into the back of my neck. Holy Shit! I got up still holding Nero in my vice-grip choke hold and swung him around; his legs belted Patrick in the face. I dropped Nero on contact and watched as he slid across the pavement and a silver stake flew out of his pocket. I grabbed the stake off the ground before he could get to it. As I did so, the white-haired devil jumped on top of me, grabbing the stake from my hand. This guy was trying to kill me with the fucking stake! I did the only thing I could. With all I had, I turned the stake around as we both had our hands around it and crammed that motherfucking piece of metal into the guy’s neck. He instantly let go of me and rolled over with his face in the pavement.
I jumped up and looked down. He gasped for air and rolled to his back, trying to breathe. But the stake was all the way through his neck. His eyes locked into mine.
“You’re not a Tandra,” he said. “I should have known.” Then poof! He was gone. He just disappeared into thin air and I had no clue what had just transpired. The second guy was waki
ng up and gasping for air.
I jumped on top of him. “Who are you guys?” I screamed in his face.
“Please don’t kill me,” he said. “I’ve only been a Mani for a week. I don’t know what I’m doing. I didn’t ask for this.”
“Mani? What is a Mani?”
“I’m a Mani! It’s what I’ve become.”
“Are you okay?”
“No,” he said. “I think I ruptured my larynx.”
“Sorry about that,” I said, helping the guy up. “Patrick? Is it?”
“Yes.”
“Well, Patrick, you shouldn’t attack people if you don’t want to get hurt yourself!”
He put both his hands around his neck. How he was still alive, I didn’t know.
“What’s your name?” he coughed out.
I looked over at the empty ground where his friend once laid. All that was left was the stake that was once lodged in his neck. “I guess my name is Killer,” I mumbled.
“Kyro?” he asked.
“Yeah, I said. “My name is Kyro.”
Chapter Eight
I don’t know why but I trusted Patrick, considering he had just tried to kill me. I knew in my gut he was being real and not conning me. This poor guy had obviously gotten caught up in something he couldn’t handle. I was still questioning if any of this was real, but at this point, my safety was more important than my sanity.
I helped Patrick into my car. He was pretty jacked up, but then again, this asshole had tried to kill me. What was I supposed to do? I shut the passenger door and went behind my vehicle, staring at the silver stake that still laid in the middle of the 76 station’s parking lot. I decided to pick it up. After all, it did have my fingerprints all over it. I jumped into my Mustang and felt as much pain as I could ever remember experiencing. My shoulder was killing me, I’m pretty sure I had busted out a few more stitches. And now, compliments of Nero, my arm was killing me. I backed my Mustang out at the driveway and headed back to the freeway.
