The Meat Market (Jonathan Harkon Adventures Book 1)

by James Chalk

  Refocusing my mind on the present, I began to assess and analyze my predicament. I knew that I had been captured by Vic, but not why. Was Vic working with the Democs? Could he have handed me off to them? If so, why all the questions about Brenda? I realized that I really only knew that I was someone’s prisoner. Not whose, where, or why.

  But I did know I was blindfolded and restrained. I could feel that my mouth was free and exposed to the air. There seemed to be uniform pressure on the rest of my head and body. A restraining field? I didn’t think they had that tech on Sanctity. Then again, I wasn’t really sure whether I was even on Sanctity anymore. But it didn’t really feel like a restraining field. There was too much pressure, and the ring around my mouth was all wrong, like there was a hole. A breathing hole? A restraining field would have no need for such a thing. Could I be under a tarp, or perhaps plasticrete?

  “Oh shit,” I thought. “Buried alive!” Despair and panic suddenly surged in my system, overwhelming my chemical-calm and all coherent thought. The sound of my screams was hollow in my ears as I thrashed and twisted. Despite the tremendous pressure, my hands seemed to turn on their own volition. The ends of my fingers transformed into sharpened claws!

  I ripped and tore my way free of what turned out to be some kind of thick, rubber bag stretched out on a frame. Like a trampoline, but with a rubber envelope in the middle. As soon as my claws punctured the rubber, I heard a loud hiss and most of the pressure on my body was relieved. After that, it was only a matter of moments before my frantic rending and tearing secured my freedom.

  Coming back to myself, I found that I was standing stark naked in a small, cold room. The walls had the appearance of stone squares, but must have been plasticrete or some other mundane material. There was a single lighting fixture in an otherwise bare ceiling, also made from the faux-stone. A large drain was in the center of the floor with a chain hanging above it. There was a coiled hose attached to a spigot on the wall. Other than the shredded rubber vacuum bag, still hanging from its frame, there was no furniture in the room. The only door, made from synthetics fashioned to mimic natural materials, looked like heavy wood with big, metal hinges and locks. Locks that, I realized, I could easily pick or break.

  Assessment and analysis were preempted and I moved right into action. He who hesitates is lost! I rushed to the door just in time for it to slam open in my face. Knocked back and momentarily stunned, I offered no resistance to the three guards who walked into the room. Two of them grabbed me and slammed me into the wall while the third guy rammed a stun bar into my throat. Once again I was out for the count.

  *******

  My throat hurt like hell, my wrists were on fire, and my shoulders throbbed with an agony that was synchronized to my heartbeat. I opened bleary eyes to see that I was in the same room as before. Only now, I had a new perspective. I was hanging by my wrists, shackled to the chain in the ceiling. Oh, joy! Oh, fucking joy!

  Vic and the three guards were all in the room staring at me. What the fuck were they looking at? Hadn’t they all seen a naked man hanging from a chain before? Vic smiled, but it didn’t reach the coldness in his eyes, “Hello Johnny, so nice of you to join us. I just had some simple questions, but you didn’t want to play nice. Now, it won’t be so nice for you, my friend.”

  Vic leaned against the wall and said to his men, “Soften him up.” Then he watched while the guards started to work me over. They took turns using me as a punching bag until, after about five minutes, he told them to stop. “How’s that feel, Johnny?” he asked. When I didn’t answer, he seemed pleased. He kicked me in the balls and asked again.

  I gasped out one word, “Hurts.”

  Vic stepped in close and said, “Good, Johnny. That’s real good. I think you and me have an understanding. Now, tell me, how long have you been fucking her?”

  Through deep breaths I asked, “Who?”

  Vic kicked me in the balls again and stepped back, nodding to his men. They crowded in and resumed hammering me with their meaty fists. The truth is that my reinforced ribs and internal body armor can handle much more than that, but my skin and muscles still took a severe beating. It hurt like hell! I used my neurointerface to modify my brain chemistry and dull some of the pain. But I dared not go further than that. I tried to come up with an escape plan. I tried to tune out the sensation of fists tenderizing my flesh like meat-mallets.

  After an interminable time, Vic stopped them again. Smiling, he asked, “How long have you been fucking Brenda?”

  Sometimes I’m an idiot. A real dumbfuck. I gave him my automatic response. “A gentleman doesn’t kiss and tell.”

  Vic’s grin grew large as he reached over grabbed my balls and squeezed. I screamed and screamed until he let go. “How long have you been fucking the bitch, Johnny? What did she give you? Where is it now?”

  Overwhelmed by the pain, and despairing about my chances for survival, I chose defiance. “Fuck you Vic!” My words spat out along with a wad of saliva that caught him square in the eye.

  The smile faded from his lips as he wiped my spittle from his face. His features flushed red and he grabbed his crotch, shaking it twice while he yelled and spit back in my face, “YOU FUCKING DISRESPECTED ME IN MY OWN HOUSE, YOU LITTLE PUNK. YOU FUCKING THINK YOU CAN GET AWAY WITH THAT? YOU DON’T KNOW WHO THE FUCK YOU’RE DEALING WITH PUNK ASS!” Then he whispered, “You’re about to find out,” and sauntered out of the room.

  With renewed vigor, the guards went back to their punching bag workout. Every once in a while they would pause and one would ask, “Where is it?” I hadn’t a clue what “it” was and I kept telling them so. They would just shrug and go back to pounding me. Desperate for relief, I used my medical nanobots to setup nerve blocks that kept me from suffering too much. I had been reluctant to do this earlier because once in place, the nerve blocks cannot be quickly reversed and they leave me incapacitated.

  Eventually, the guards grew tired and stopped. I pretended to be unconscious, hoping they would leave me alone. No such luck. Instead, Vic came back into the room and they hosed me down with cold water. I opened my eyes and stared at Vic. He had changed his clothes and was now shirtless, with tight, black pants and matching boots that laced up his calf. His heavy, gold chains gleamed in the light from the fixture above my head. He had a whip in his hand and the smile was back on his face. The guards were smiling too as they walked out of the room, leaving me at Vic’s mercy.

  He didn’t ask me any more questions. Just kept whipping and whipping. The nerve blocks had failed about halfway thru, leaving me unable to suppress the pain without losing consciousness. I knew that I was in big trouble. I was afraid that if I passed out, I would never awaken.

  My blood drenched the floor, running down the strategically placed drain. Through half closed eyes and a haze of pain, I watched him. His torso was drenched in sweat, an orgasmic expression on his reddening face. His breathing was coming faster as he increased the pace of the whipping. Each strike was now accompanied by his deep, guttural grunts. I’m sure it contrasted nicely for him with my higher pitched screams and rasping gasps.

  As my mind finally gave up and I spiraled into blessed oblivion, I thought I saw him grinning, erect penis in hand, as he spilled his seed on the bloody drain beneath my feet.

  Chapter 6

  A Foul Undertaking

  “Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.” - William Blake

  “Without cruelty there is no festival.” - Friedrich Nietzsche

  “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people’s bones and all uncleanness.” - Matthew 23:27 ESV

  *******

  I awakened much sooner than my captors would have anticipated. My medical nanobots were working overtime, knitting my skin back together. It itched like hell everywhere. I almost would have preferred the pain of the whip…almost. Luckily, by the time I opened my eye
s, the nanobots had already repaired most of the muscle and nerve damage. In a few hours more I would be fully recovered and ready for action.

  Meanwhile, I observed that I was in a long room with two rows of medical beds. Most of the beds had unconscious women in them. As best as I could see, in addition to being the only male patient, I was also the only one handcuffed to his bed. There were two men, who appeared to be nurses, tending to the patients. They didn’t notice that I had awakened. Through slitted eyes, I observed them as they made their rounds.

  One was tall and thin, with sandy brown hair pulled back into a ponytail. The other was short and pudgy, his round face and bald head shiny with sweat. Each wore a brown monk’s robe with a beaded crucifix necklace. They had stopped next to the bed across from mine.

  Tall and Thin was saying something to Short and Pudgy. I listened in, while feigning sleep. Tall and Thin said, “Here’s another one over the damage threshold.”

  Short and Pudgy replied, “So mark her for incineration and move along. If we don’t pick up the pace, we’ll be late for evening services!”

  “Okay, should I beef up her sedation? She must be suffering.” asked Tall and Thin.

  Looking at him like he had just grown another head, Short and Pudgy said, “Nah, that’s a waste of good drugs. They’re just meat dolls and the bishop would not approve. Now stop fucking around and get moving. I’m not going to miss Father Timothy’s sermon. He is going to read from the ‘Book Of The Wisdom Of Solomon’ the topic is sin in the ‘Cities Of The Plain!’”

  “Fine, fine, I’m done here, then,” said Tall and Thin, “except for the prisoner. He’s way past the damage threshold. Should I mark him too?”

  “Nah, he’s a Special. Leave him for the priests,” chuckled Short and Pudgy. They both pulled the hoods of their robes over their heads and walked out of the room.

  After they left, I sat up a little and looked around. The woman in the bed next to me had been badly beaten. Her face was a mass of dark purples and reds, and both of her eyes were swollen shut. Her nose was a flattened and bloody mess, and appeared shifted to one side above her mouth. A mouth I recognized, despite the swelling of her split lips. Angel!

  “What the fuck!” I wondered. “What is this place? What happened to Angel? Who did this? A customer? Vic?”

  I sat up further so that I could better see the woman in the bed across from mine, the one the nurses had marked for incineration. I wondered what that meant? I had a sick feeling about it! Were they going to let her die and then burn her body? I had thought that Angel looked bad, but it was nothing compared to what this women looked like. Her face was barely recognizable as a person. Only the swell of her breasts under the sheet gave away her gender.

  Distracted by the infernal itching, I collapsed back on the bed. The more I tried to ignore it, the more I ached to scratch. Afraid I would give in to the urge and ruin the repairs to my skin, I dosed myself with neuro-inhibitors and fell asleep.

  I was awakened by a loud clanging noise as two big guys in grey coveralls wheeled a huge metal bin into the room. I noticed that the itching had stopped and that I was feeling much better. Pretending that I was still asleep, I watched the workers as they made their way through the room. When they passed a patient, they checked the chart hanging from the end of the bed. Some of the time they just moved on, but for about a third of the beds they stopped. Each time they stopped, they lifted the woman from the bed and dumped her body into the bin.

  Clearly these men were undertakers. “What a horrid, disrespectful way to treat the dead!” I thought. “And why so many dead women? Where the fuck am I? Are they all dancers?”

  Then the men reached my end of the room and my shock deepened to outrage. They were lifting the woman across from me out of her bed. I heard her moan of pain as they tossed her into that bloody body-bin. The men were collecting living women! Women who needed urgent medical care were being tossed away as if they were bags of trash for the incinerator. My mind filled with rage and horror. I was no longer the master of my own actions.

  I think I left most of the flesh of my right hand in the shackle. I know I broke all the bones leading to my thumb, and several of my major knuckles. I was free of my restraint and exploding out of my bed. I’m not proud of what I did, but then again, those fuckers deserved it. They both died gasping, clutching windpipes that had been smashed by my elbows.

  I stood and stared into the body-bin for a long time. There had to be a dozen women in there. Many of them were clearly alive and suffering. I felt hopeless. How could I help those women? I had no medical expertise; I couldn’t even lift them out of the bin with only one good hand. My eyes filled with tears as I came to the realization that I could do nothing for them. I knew that I had to escape before I joined them. I vowed to come back someday and right this wrong. Somehow.

  I managed to relieve one of the garbage-men, undertakers, of his jump suit, and slipped into it. Not an easy task with the one good hand, but it beat the shit out of escaping bare-assed. I thought about trying to take the women with me by pushing the bin, but it wasn’t really a viable option. I headed for the door.

  On the way out, I got my next shock. Out of the two women lying on the cots to the left of the door, one had been whipped like me, (albeit much less severely,) and the other had burn marks covering her stomach and breasts. Both had uninjured faces, however, faces with that incredibly sexy mouth I could never forget. It seemed impossible, but there were two more Angels in the room.

  Even though I needed to get out of there before someone returned, I couldn’t help stopping by the bed of the Angel immediately on my left. Her poor little body had been badly abused. It tore me up, looking at the burns on her torso. My good hand took hers and I gave a small squeeze. Her eyes opened. She serenely stared at me, empty of all recognition. I whispered her name and she smiled at me. She moved my hand to her mouth and began kissing and licking my fingers. Surprised, and a little shocked, by her strange, inappropriate reaction, I withdrew my hand. She whimpered in pain as she tried to sit up, her hand reaching for my crotch.

  Pushing her hand away, I cried, “Angel, stop that! What happened to you?”

  She immediately lay back on the bed and just stared at me. She didn’t reply to that, or to anything else during several wasted minutes of questioning. So, I tried the second Angel on the left. She had angry welts, arranged in horizontal lines, covering her body from her thighs to her breasts. The harsh reds and purples contrasted with a kind of sick beauty against her smooth white skin. Many of the welts oozed blood where they had split and torn. This Angel appeared to be heavily sedated and she didn’t respond to my voice or touch. I knew it would be the same with the original Angel near my bed, so I decided it was time to leave.

  The blood had stopped running from my fucked up hand, but it was still a useless mess, and my coverall was splattered red. The nanobots must have been working furiously to repair the hand, because it was itching like a bitch. Also, despite the emergency situation, I was really getting hungry!

  Banishing that thought, I peeked out into the hall, slightly opening one of the double swinging doors. I was at one end of a long hall with grey walls. The dingy beige floor was covered with black skid marks. No one was in sight, so I slipped quietly through the doors. The plan was, if I ran into anyone, I would bluff it out. Blood was probably a common sight on these asshole’s uniforms anyway! Plan B was … Well, you know my plan B by now.

  One wall of the hallway was bare, but the other featured regularly spaced doors. Each door was closed. I could tell that they opened into the hall because of the hinges. The doors had no latches or knobs. Instead, each door had a box with a little red light that was mounted to the wall. I examined one more closely, discovering that, other than a strangely shaped opening in the top, the box had no visible means of operation. I even tried waving at it. Like that was going to work. Fat, fucking chance!

  I was trying to get a better look inside the opening in the box, when I
noticed the noises. They were coming from behind the sealed door. I heard grunts and slaps. I heard a woman groaning and screaming. The screams were strange and confusing, a bizarre mix of sexual gratification and hysterical pain. Like nothing I had ever heard before. Like nothing I ever wanted to hear again!

  “What the fuck are these sick, twisted religiopricks up to?” I thought, as my gut twisted in a knot of hatred. I was starting to get disgusting ideas about the the bikini-bar’s VIP Lounge, about why it was shrouded in secrecy and had so much security. My horrified musings were cut short when the light on a wall box in the middle of the hall turned green! Quickly, I slipped back into the infirmary and peeked through a slit I left between the doors.

  A door swung open and two new men in brown monk’s robes entered the hall. Their hoods were thrown back and I recognized them from the bar’s longterm security team. This pretty much confirmed my suspicion that I was in the back hall of the VIP Lounge. Luckily, they turned and headed away from me. Deep in conversation, they never even looked up as they made their way to the end of the hall and through another set of double swinging doors.

  Reentering the hall, I jogged to the other end and stopped to listen by the double doors. I heard voices talking and laughing. I couldn’t make out what they were saying, but I could tell that there were more than just the two security guys out there. I went back down the hall to the door that the security guys had come from. Its little light had turned back to red and the door was sealed shut. I listened, but I didn’t hear any noises from the other side of the door. With no time for finesse, I ripped the electronic box off the wall, pulling loose a cable with five wires: three in one bundle and two in the other. I twisted the ends of the two wires together and was rewarded by the soft sound of the door swinging open.

  Quickly, I stepped through the opening and looked around. I was in a room that looked like the set from a sensodrama depicting a medieval torture chamber! Across from me, there was a heavy synthwood door with a small barred window. Above the high synthstone ceiling, there were dark beams with various chains and attachment points. To my right was Brenda, naked, and chained spread-eagle to the synthstone wall.