by Ryder Stacy
McCaughlin mumbled a few choice things under his breath. “Well, I guess you’ve got a point,” the big Scotsman finally replied, folding his arms across his chest. “But nothing’s going to happen to you anyway. We’ll be ready to split the moment you get back.”
“Thanks, big man,” Rockson said, slapping the Freefighter on the shoulder. “Let’s go,” Rockson said, as his four men got onto the raft with him and the raftsmen began poling away. They all shuddered as it looked as if they were poling through a lake of just serpents. Rockson swore he’d never get used to this place or its inhabitants if he ended up living here a hundred years.
It took them only several minutes to reach the king’s mini-island and the large pagodalike structure set in the middle of it. There was the smell of several meat dishes being cooked. When they disembarked from the raft, and were led to one of the large outer rooms of the “royal castle,” Rock could see now what was happening. Breakfast.
“Ah, my favored guests are here,” King Bailey said as he ate from bowls of food on a large wooden table in front of him. “Pull up, please—and help me eat this overly large amount of hearty breakfast.”
“What is it?” Sheransky asked, as he seated himself.
“My favorite,” the king replied as he stuffed his mouth. “Fried snake-sausage, lizard eggs, and a vine-pudding. Come on now, it tastes as good as it looks.”
The Freefighters looked at each other, and then sat down around the table. Not one reached for the food.
“Actually,” Rockson said, coughing and glancing around to see just how many guards there were, almost in an unconscious fashion, “We hoped to discuss our leaving. You’ve been most kind—but we do have to move on. Our hometown is waiting for survival supplies—and we’re the suckers out here trying to get it.”
“How heroic,” the king said, polishing off the last of his breakfast. “And how truly inspiring to see men show such loyalty toward their community.” He wiped his mouth with a leaf napkin and motioned impatiently for the bowls and plates to be taken away. Two servants came rushing over and removed the leftovers in a flash. “Yes, of course you can make your exit today—by lunch, if you wish. I’ll have my men prepare some food to take with you.”
“Thank you. That is generous of you,” Rockson said as he let out a sigh of relief. The rest of the Freefighters as well relaxed, as you just never knew what was going to happen next.
“There is just one thing,” King Bailey added, licking his fingers.
“And that is?” Rockson asked.
“Oh, we have a little ritual for all those who pass through our lovely kingdom,” King Bailey went on. “Just a kind of purification process—so you don’t get left with our swamp energy—and we don’t have any of your outsider vibrations left with us.” He smiled benignly at them, and now Rock’s mutant sixth sense was buzzing inside him.
The king rose up from his breakfast nook and motioned around with his head. Nearly a dozen guards, each carrying the long spear probes, rose up as well and surrounded Rock and the rest. On all sides. “Come now, this will be most amusing—for all of us.”
Rockson looked around desperately, seeing if there was some escape. But the way they were surrounded, with all those hissing snakes dripping from everyone’s shoulders, he knew he had to bide his time until there was an opening.
They were led outside and over to the swamp, and once again loaded up onto one of the larger rafts, the king standing in the front, eyes focused ahead. His aides gave him a cloak covered with several highly colorful banded snakes, which slithered around his shoulders and neck.
They were poled to the north for a good five minutes, a long distance for the town which extended only a few hundred yards itself. The morning was alive with bird-caws and the howling of monkeys in the trees above. A regular cacophony of singing swamp-creatures.
At last they reached another island, this one larger and more barren than any they’d passed so far. The raft pulled up and the Freefighters were marched off the thing. They walked about a hundred feet and Rockson could see by the indentations in the hard dirt that something had gone on, recently too, though for the life of him he couldn’t figure out just what the hell it was.
The king seated himself on a log as the guards formed a line on each side. And several stood directly in front, so there would be no attempts of the Freefighters charging any of them.
“I must put on the circuses to amuse my people,” King Bailey said, folding his arms and leaning back. “Now, I would like a little entertainment for myself, a little circus just for me. And if you do well—then you may leave. You and all your men, just as I’ve promised.”
“Well, bring out the juggling balls,” Rockson said with a failing grin. “Not that any of us know how to juggle.”
“Oh, but of course,” the king responded with a dark laugh. Rock’s mutant senses were on overdrive now. Somehow he knew it wasn’t juggling that they were about to face. Four of the guards, each holding one of the big horn gourds, blew hard on them. Then again. The sounds exploded in the air, sending the monkeys and other swamplife scurrying off around the north end of the football-field-sized island.
Suddenly, there was a deep furrowing in the swamp waters about a hundred feet out. And Rockson saw what it was that the monkeys and owls and God-knew-what were fleeing for their lives from: a huge head emerged from the black swamp surface as the horns kept blowing. A snake head that must have been the size of ten men emerged from the wetness and started up onto the island. The Doomsday Warrior’s throat suddenly constricted and his lips and tongue went dry. Suddenly he was jealous of the little, squealing monkeys high in the trees.
Twelve
Rock and his team all backed slowly away, keeping several feet apart as the immense serpent emerged dripping from the swamp. The snakemen kept blowing on their gourds, producing a most unearthly sound. It clearly kept the big brute under some sort of control. The black-and-brown-and-red-banded monster had scales the size of shields and a hideous, misshapen face. The way it flicked its tongue didn’t make any of the Freefighters all that cheered up either, as it wriggled out of the black swamp surface. It lifted its immense head up a good twenty feet off the island ground. It turned its great pumpkin-eyed face from side to side like some kind of nightmarish radar dome. It was clearly checking things out, in spite of its tremendous power.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything so ugly—” Detroit gulped as the Freefighters backed slowly away from the immense slithering beast.
“He looks pretty damn hungry,” Sheransky said, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down.
“Son-of-a-bitch looks like he could eat the whole island,” Chen muttered, feeling under the sleeve of his black ninja suit for the dozen star-knives.
“No, I think he wants us for appetizer,” Sheransky added, his face pale as white flour. It was one thing to fight men, but a whole different story to be staring into the hellish face of a gigantic monster.
“He’s a magnificent specimen, isn’t he?” King Bailey laughed as he clapped his hands together like an excited child. “We call him ‘No,’—because no one or no thing ever gets away. He was much harder to learn to control than most of our other swamplife here. But it’s all a question of melody—and once my trumpet-gourd blowers got it figured out—well, it’s all pretty simple, really. And he hasn’t had any humans to munch on for over a year. We don’t get that many visitors these days,” King Bailey went on, taking out some dried swamp grass and pressing it down into his makeshift carved pipe.
“You bastard—you set us up! All your hospitality, everything—just a load of bull,” Detroit said angrily, wishing he had more than two grenades—a whole lot more.
“Oh no, that was all real,” the king smirked. “We are hospitable. We just didn’t tell you the final outcome. There’s no dishonesty there.”
“And if we kill the thing,” Rockson interjected as he motioned for the men to spread out as the thing suddenly caught their hot human scent,
and started slithering slowly toward them from about a hundred feet off. “We get to leave—all my men, ’brids, everything?”
“If you kill it?” King Bailey laughed as the snakemen around him, holding their long spear-prongs, joined in, as if that was just about the most humorous thing they had ever heard. “Yes, of course, of course,” the king grinned, waving his hand like, “let’s get on with it. If you kill it, you can go. You and all your men. I swear that by the great Barnum himself!”
He clapped his hands several times and the horn blowers changed their tune, apparently signaling that it was okay for the mutant snake to strike. And he got the message. The creature made a long, hissing sound like air being let out of a tire a football-field long. Then its eyes quickly scanned the Freefighters. It apparently didn’t relate to King Bailey—or his guards.
“Circle him, break up and keep weaving,” Rockson yelled out at the elite team, “so he can’t take any of us with one bite. Any ideas you have—spit them out. I’ve got to be honest with you—I don’t have the slightest inkling of how to take on this overweight worm. Chen, you have some star-knives hidden away?” The guards had stripped them of their shotpistol weapons as they came onto the island. Rock could see his pearl-handled shotpistol lying on the grass near the king. But with all the guards, the weapon might as well have been a thousand miles away.
“I do, Rock,” the Chinese-American martial arts master shouted back over the sounds of the gourd horns, which the snakemen kept playing apparently just to let the snake know whose side it was on. “I’m waiting to see how it moves at its most vulnerable points.”
“I’ve got two grenades, Rock,” Detroit bellowed out. “Like the karate man himself said—waiting to see what’s up! Those scales look as thick as King Arthur’s shield. Don’t want to waste what we don’t have.”
Archer let out a bellowing sound that sounded something like “KIIIIILLL!” and ripped a two-foot-long, Bowie-type blade from his leg holster, holding it up and waving it around like a steel baton. Rock took out his own flesh-slicer, smaller than the mountain man’s, but just as deadly. Sheransky slid an expanding steel rod he had been carrying sewn into the seam of his fatigues. Only twelve inches long, it expanded lengthwise when a button was pressed, to over a yard. Very effective against humans, since it could break a bone with a single strike.
The snake suddenly seemed to choose Archer, perhaps because he was the biggest of them, and caught his eye. Just like a fat man reaching for the huge slice of custard pie first, before turning to his vegetables. Archer’s macho indifference suddenly turned to real fear as the snake opened up in full undulation and came rapidly with a sideways kind of motion at the nearmute.
“Move, baby, move,” Rockson screamed out from his position about a hundred feet to the left.
“Zig-zag!” Detroit screamed out to Archer, who was already moving. There’s something about a creature you could live inside coming after you, with a tongue the size of a water main flapping in and out, and fangs like threshing-blades ready to take you down. Though the mountain man had wrestled down a few bears in his day—he couldn’t quite see where he would get a headlock on this son-of-a-bitch!
“Everyone!” Detroit yelled out as the snake passed by him about forty feet off, hot in pursuit of the mountain man, “Stay back.” He shouted to Rockson and Sheransky, who were on his side of the thing, “I’m going to try a grenade.” He pulled back his right arm and let loose with a speed ball pitch that tore toward the thing’s side. They all threw themselves to the ground as it hit. It exploded with a muffled roar and a little cloud of smoke.
But then they looked up; it hadn’t done a lot of damage, to say the least. A few of the gargantuan scales had been torn loose for a yard or so. But there were just more of the same scales underneath. The thing was built in layers composed of half-inch-thick leathery scales in rows set atop one another. They were going to need an H-bomb—or two.
But at least it brought Archer enough time to get another sixty or seventy feet ahead, as the snake turned to see what all the noise was about. It slowed down only for a second or two, quickly snapping its head back around, searching for the prey that had been so close to its jaws it could taste him. Then it revved up and started forward again.
The problem with being on an island with such an overgrown thing coming after you, Rockson was realizing with great insight, was that there was nowhere to go. Yet they had to do something, or they’d die a horrible death.
“Down, everyone,” Chen screamed, while the snake was just getting itself going again. They dropped without questioning the command and the Chinese master let loose with two shuriken from about eight feet off, right into the belly of the “No” creature. They spun through the air with a whistling sound and found their target. The plastique that was mixed right into the six-pointed blades went off with powerful snaps of mini-thunder, and they all looked on hopefully.
More scales had been blown off, and a small stream of greenish-hued blood oozed out from a foot-wide wound. But this time the snake didn’t even bother to stop and check it out.
“We’re in trouble,” Rockson said, as his brain frantically searched for some solution to this mess. But there was nowhere to go except into the swamps, where he was sure they’d meet up with something equally murderous, if not quite as big. The Doomsday Warrior knew they’d have to deal with “No,” here and now.
“Both of you,” Rock shouted out to Chen and Detroit. “We’ll have to try a frontal. A few grenades, some shuriken—maybe we can do some damage up there, take out an eye, rip its head off—anything.”
They ran alongside the thing, staying about sixty feet off in case the snake suddenly made a sharp turn. “Archer,” Rock yelled out as the big man turned his head, trying not to slow down even an inch. The snake was slowly catching up again, now about a hundred feet from its quarry. “We’re coming with more boom-boom,” Rock screamed. “When I shout ‘Down!’ hit the dirt. Got it?”
“MEEEEE GOOOTT!” the near-mute howled back, not needing a hell of a lot of persuasion on any score that held out the slightest chance of rescue. Rock, Chen, and Detroit tore as fast as their legs could carry them and managed to come up alongside the creature as it was closing in on Archer.
“Now!” Rockson shouted out. The big man came flying to the side in a mighty dive. Chen and Detroit pulled back their arms and let loose with a grenade and two shuriken as the snake slowed and scanned to its right to see what was going on. The two pieces of explosive ripped through the dank air and both went off in the thing’s face.
As the smoke cleared, they could see a big gash below its right eye, and another smaller one on the side of its mouth. But if anything, they had just made it angry—not wounded or particularly slowed down. It raised its huge head and let out with a howl that sounded like a whole pack of wolves, perhaps an elephant or two, letting out with love-calls.
“Shit on a stick,” Rock said as they quickly pulled Archer from the ground and the men looked at each other with confusion and the realization that they were all going to die within minutes at most. “What’s left to hit it with?” Rock asked the others. Sheransky held up his steel stick, which looked pitiful to do anything against the monster.
“I’m out,” Detroit replied, looking depressed.
“I’ve got four shuriken left,” Chen said in a calm, neutral tone. “But they haven’t done anything, as you’ve seen, except maybe give it a good cleaning on some of its outer scales.”
“Then maybe we shouldn’t use them directly,” Rock said, with a sudden brainstorm which filled his mind with clarity. “Hey, see that small tree over there?” he pointed toward a four-inch-thick, perhaps twelve-foot-high, black-barked tree about seventy feet ahead of them. “Chen, send out a few of your star-knives—down near the base. Remember the Cyclops story? Well, we’re about to add a few details.”
“We’d better move if we’re going to do much of anything,” Detroit whispered, “because our overblown friend is on hi
s way. And he ain’t looking for the 8:05 to Baltimore.” They tore away from the thing again as Rockson heard King Bailey clapping and making various comments to his guards. Apparently he thought this was more fun than a barrel of circus monkeys. They moved hard and fast and came to about twenty feet from the tree, puffing from the exertion now.
“Do it,” Rockson ordered as he motioned for the others to drop down. Chen released two more explosive shuriken. There were two more puffs of mini-thunder and, when the smoke cleared almost instantly, they could see that the star-knives had nearly blown the whole bottom out of the tree. Nevertheless, it was still standing shakily. They rushed over, as the snake came barreling toward them, and the five Freefighters grabbed hold of the tree. They pushed, but the tree didn’t move. But Archer, without a word, just ripped out his oversized blade and with two sharp slashes, the tree was felled.
“Keep it low,” Rock shouted to them, as they grabbed hold. “Hold it low, so that hell worm doesn’t know what we have in mind—until it’s too late.”
“Got you, Rock!” they replied, and got a firm grip as they started forward like knights in a joust against some mythical death creature.
“Aim for the head—the eyes if we can. Once it’s blinded, it’s ours, the biggest link of breakfast sausage ever seen on the planet Earth!” They started rushing toward the thing as it came right at them with a look of confusion on its snake-face. It couldn’t remember any creature coming toward it in all its murderous days. But that was fine. The creature opened its mouth in anticipation.
Suddenly it was upon them, and Rockson screamed out for the men all to drive it in past the fangs dripping saliva and poison. The Freefighters peered into that voluminous mouth and throat and sheer fear gave them extra strength. The tree-spear slid right up inside past the tongue and glanced up at a sharp angle, as it hit something hard inside. In a flash the tip of the black tree came tearing out of the top of the skull, as brain and all kinds of green muck came exploding out with it.
