by Jeff Strand
I wonder if there's a cash prize?
The men in jumpsuits drag Lady Doom out of the cage.
"And now, we know who's next!" the referee tells the crowd. They all turn to look at me. I've never felt so physically ill in my life, except for that whole long recent stretch where my wife was dying, but if you discount that, I've never felt so physically ill in my life.
I can't do a freakin' cage fight. That's madness.
I really feel like I should flee for the exit, even though it's almost definitely locked. But if I do, we've come here for nothing. Which may not be so bad, all things considered.
"No!" says Harriett. "I will fight in his place."
The referee laughs into the microphone. "This isn't the Hunger Games. You can't volunteer for somebody else."
"I insist."
"Insistence overruled. Everybody put your hands together for Evan the Accountant!"
Okay, I can do this. I've already proven on this trip that I can handle getting beat up a little. Worst-case scenario, I'll drop right to the floor and go motionless for ten seconds.
Harriett looks frantic and helpless as I very slowly walk toward the cage. Nobody actually said what kind of penalty there would be for flat-out refusing to participate. Will the audience descend upon me and tear me limb from limb? Will my picture go up on a Wall of Shame? Will the spectators cluck their tongues in disapproval?
I'll just get this over with. Hell, maybe I'll win.
I reach the cage door. I don't really want to expose my not-exactly-six-pack middle-aged abs, but I also don't want to mess up my shirt, so I take it off and toss it onto the floor. The crowd cheers as I walk into the cage.
"And his opponent, the ever-popular...Bloodlust Bernie!"
Bloodlust Bernie stands up. He is not, I'm thankful to note, as large as Maraud the Berserker. He is, however, much larger than I am, and at least ten years younger. He has approximately eighteen trillion tattoos and his fingernails are painted black.
He roars at the crowd, which goes crazy for him.
He jogs into the cage. God, he has a lot of muscles. This is not a fair fight. They should give me a crowbar or something.
I notice that I'm starting to breathe like somebody on the verge of having an all-out panic attack, which is not the image I want to convey to the audience. Deep, calming breaths. That's the key. Deep, calming breaths.
The referee slams the cage door shut.
"Dice-Man!"
The Dice-Man rolls his dice.
"Double sixes!" shouts the referee. The crowd gasps, and then goes absolutely batshit.
Bloodlust Bernie smiles at me, revealing three silver teeth.
"And you all know what that means!" says the referee. "This fight is...to the deaaaaaaaath!"
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
The referee's words were spoken clearly and amplified through the microphone, but surely I didn't hear him correctly. To the death? To the freaking death?
Bernie winks. It's not a wink that says, Ha ha, this is all a joke, so don't be concerned about your personal safety, but rather, I am going to kill you and be merry about it.
"Whoa!" I say. "Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I wave my arms to try to get the referee's attention, but he's not looking at me, and I can't be heard over the crowd. Bernie is standing by the door, so I don't want to walk over there. Instead, I rattle the cage wall on my side.
No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not what Harriett's five hundred dollars was supposed to purchase.
Harriett is looking all around the room. I think she's trying to figure out if she can successfully fight her way over to the cage, rescue me, and fight her way back out.
"Ladies and gentlemen, as you know, this match will not end until one of our competitors lies dead on the floor," says the referee. "If you are squeamish, flee for the exits now!"
The audience laughs. Nobody flees for the exits.
"Since one of these men will be dead very soon, it's tradition to give them the opportunity to say their last words." He pokes the microphone through the cage at Bernie. "Bloodlust Bernie, if these are your last words, what do you want to say?"
"I want to say, blood, blood, blood!"
"Magnificent last words! And though I'm completely impartial, I suspect that they won't be your last." He walks to the other side of the cage and pokes the microphone at me. "Evan the Accountant, if these are your last words, what do you want to say?"
"People know where I am. If anything happens to me, all of you are responsible."
The crowd laughs.
"I'm serious," I say. "We've got a friend waiting outside, and if I never come out, there will be a full investigation."
"Oooooooohhhhh!" says the referee, waving his hands in mock fear. "Well, you've definitely given us something to think about, Evan the Accountant. Fortunately for us, Mr. Tidy is on his way, and he is a master at making dead bodies disappear! My recommendation is to make sure it's not your body that's dead at the end of this fight!"
"Seriously," I say. "Let me out of here. You can't get away with this."
The crowd boos. Apparently I'm a whiner.
The referee steps away from the cage. He chuckles. "The fight begins...now!"
Bernie raises his fists.
They're not even going to give us weapons? Are we actually supposed to beat each other to death with our bare hands?
Harriett looks as if she's still trying to figure out a workable solution to our problem. I have very strong faith in her fighting abilities, but not against a bloodthirsty crowd of fifty people. There's got to be a way out of this that does not involve me getting beaten to death, or beating another human being to death, though nothing is coming to mind right now.
Bernie walks to the center of the cage, keeping his fists raised. Now that he's closer, I can see that his tattoos are a random assortment of images, including a rhinoceros, Willie Nelson, and a baby with an upside-down face.
"I'm not going to fight you," I tell him.
Bernie shrugs. "Easier for me. Come on. Get over here. Be a man."
The cage isn't tall enough for me to climb to the top and just hang there until the audience gets bored and leaves, so I guess I really do have to fight this guy.
I raise my fists. I try to walk to the center of the cage, but my feet are uncooperative, and I kind of stumble forward a couple of steps instead.
The audience, understanding that I have been placed in a difficult position, is polite and considerate and does not express amusement at me being a klutz, except for the part where they're all pointing and laughing hysterically.
I'm actually starting to get kind of pissed off, which is probably a good thing. Anger is very useful if I can harness it properly. I walk forward, stopping when I'm close enough to Bernie that it doesn't look like I'm chickening out, but more than an arm's length away.
"Can I have one free punch?" I ask.
"No," Bloodlust Bernie says.
I come up with a plan where I'll start sobbing like a baby, and then when Bernie is distracted by his sense of disgust, I'll punch him in the face. It's not a virtuous plan, but I'm not all that concerned with fair fighting right now.
Before I can enact my plan, Bernie punches me in the face.
I don't think it's the exact same spot where Reggie punched me, but it's close enough, I'm sure, to restore the bruise to its former glory. I let out a cry of pain; not an all-out wail, but enough to let the audience know that this did not feel good.
Bernie punches me on the other side of the face, so at least now my bruises will be symmetrical.
I don't fall. I want to fall, but I can't control my legs even when all I'm asking them to do is stop supporting my torso.
I take a swing of my own. Bernie easily steps out of the way. I swing with the other fist, and he dodges that one, too. Then Bernie steps forward and throws a punch that I fail to dodge.
Now I hit the floor. Based on the audience's reaction, I can't help but feel that they're rooting for
Bernie over me.
"Get up!" Bernie says.
This would be a wonderful time to glance out of the cage and see that Harriett has already subdued about eighty percent of the audience members. Though my vision is kind of a blur, it does not look as if this is the case.
"I said, get up!"
I suppose I should get up. I don't really want to.
Bernie is considerate enough to move away as I stand back up. Then he lunges forward, throwing a punch that I somehow block with my fist.
It turns out that blocking a punch with my fist hurts more than getting punched in the face.
It didn't feel so great for Bernie, either. He lowers his hand and groans in pain. I seize this opportunity to swing at his face with my non-hurting fist. I miss, but the crowd at least cheers me on for doing my best.
Bernie kicks me in the thigh, which I didn't realize was permitted. If I survive the night, this is going to make sitting in a car for long stretches really unbearable.
He kicks me again, in the same thigh. I lose my footing and land hard on my back, knocking the wind out of me. I lie there, gasping for breath.
Bernie walks over to me, and raises his foot above my neck. Unless I'm mistaken, he plans to slam it down upon my throat. My desire not to have my trachea crushed surpasses my desire to focus on being able to breathe again. Before he even stomps, I reach up, wrap both hands around his ankle, and yank his foot away from me.
I wasn't trying to break anything. However, I think I accidentally twisted while I was yanking, and Bernie lets out a scream unworthy of a fighting champion as he crashes down onto the cement. His legs land on my chest.
Since the rules of good sportsmanship apparently do not apply here, I punch him in the ankle. A harsher stream of profanity I have never heard. I hope Harriett isn't offended.
I punch him in the side, hitting his tattoo of a wiener dog right in the pointy snout. I pull myself out from underneath him.
Bernie clutches his ankle with both hands and continues to use language that you would not hear in church. The crowd is not impressed by his reaction to the pain, and the booing starts in full force.
I take a couple of seconds to massage my neck. It's hard to breathe, but I don't think I'm going to choke to death.
I grab a handful of Bernie's hair, lift his head, and then completely wuss out. I can't bash his skull against cement. Not even if I'm just trying to knock him unconscious. I can't really call myself a pacifist after the move where I punched his ankle, but I'm not about to expose anybody's brain matter.
I let go of his hair.
Bernie tries to take a big bite out of my arm.
I grab his hair again, and bonk him gently against the cement.
Bernie bellows in rage.
I bonk him again, still gently.
The crowd begins to chant. "Kill him! Kill him! Kill him!"
Were I so inclined, I could give him a few solid cracks against the floor and end this fight. But I am not even remotely inclined to do that. I'm not a murderer, even under duress. I just need for Bernie to stop thrashing around.
He makes another attempt to bite my arm. It would be a lame way to try to kill me even if he were rabid. I lose my grip on his hair, but I grab his nose and give it a great big twist. Bernie responds negatively.
"My nobe!" he shouts. "My nobe! You broke mah nobe!"
I didn't break his nose. I just reshaped it a little. I regain my grip on his hair, give him another gentle bonk, and ask him to quit moving. Since he refuses, I punch him in the chest, hitting a tattoo of a naked Wilma from The Flintstones.
I'm not a violent person, I swear, but what else am I supposed to do?
I give him another bonk. Then another. Then another. Though it may seem like I've regressed into savagery, these are all still gentle bonks. However, their cumulative effect is making Bernie a lot mellower.
Finally, he closes his eyes. I think he's faking it, but that's okay with me. I stand up and move away from him.
"That was ten," I tell the referee. "I won."
"What part of 'to the death' didn't you understand?" asks the referee, speaking into the microphone so everybody can hear. "The 'death' part? That's a pretty important part." He turns to the audience and does something (possibly an exaggerated eye-roll) that amuses them. Credit where it's due: he's a fine showman.
"I'm not going to murder him," I say.
"That's a problem."
"I've clearly won the fight."
"Technically, no."
Bernie sits up, holding the back of his head with one hand and his nose with the other.
"Let me talk to the audience," I say. "If I can convince them to let me go, you'll do it, right?"
The referee chuckles. "If you can convince this crowd to overrule the roll of the dice, then you went into the wrong line of business, because you are the greatest lawyer who ever lived."
I gesture frantically. "Give me the mic."
The referee doesn't give it to me, but he does poke it through the cage.
"Maraud!" I say. "Maraud the Berserker! We're here to take you to kill a Cyclops!"
The audience looks perplexed, as you might expect after hearing such a thing out of context. The referee pulls the microphone away, which surprises me because if I were in his position of hosting the entertainment, I'd want to know what other weird shit the guy in the cage was going to say.
Bernie has stood back up, so I get to deal with that. Joy.
He runs at me. I move out of the way, extend my arm, and clothesline him. He lands on the cement again. I'm genuinely astonished to be winning this fight. I should be laughably inept. Maybe simply spending quality time with Harriett is enough to transform me into a fighting machine.
Again, I could walk on Bernie's neck and give them what they want, but that option is far, far down the list, below even "try to squeeze my way out through the holes in the cage like meat going through a grinder."
Maraud emerges from behind the curtain.
"What did you say?" he hollers.
Harriett stands up. "I have a scroll. I know your destiny."
I have never seen somebody look quite so flummoxed. It's as if Maraud's entire world has changed, but he's not sure if it's good or bad. He furrows his brow. His mouth drops open.
Dammit. Bernie is getting back up.
Maraud walks toward the cage door. The referee steps in front of him.
"Open it," says Maraud. The cage is, to the best of my knowledge, not actually locked, so having the referee open it would be a mere formality.
"No can do. You know that."
"Step out of the way."
"I'll ask the audience, but it has to be unanimous." The referee turns to the crowd. "What do you say? Should we let them out of the fight to the death?"
The crowd, overwhelmingly, boos and gives thumbs-down signs.
"Sorry, Maraud," says the referee with an exaggerated shrug. "I did my best."
Maraud shoves him out of the way.
It takes so little for everybody to start fighting that I have to believe that they were just waiting for an excuse, any excuse. Suddenly the whole room is in chaos. Punches are thrown, chairs are smashed against bodies, and battle cries are emitted.
Maraud opens the cage door just as Bernie grabs me from behind. The Berserker walks inside, and a moment later Bernie is hurtling toward the other side of the cage. I hear the impact as Maraud pulls me to safety.
Well, not safety, or even safer. Harriett seems to be holding her own, and Maraud is helpful to have on our side, but we're still just a wee tiny little bit outnumbered. I really don't know how we're going to—
A folding chair bashes into the side of my head and I stop worrying about it.
* * *
When I open my eyes, the first thing I see is Harriett's face, gazing at me with concern.
Is she really surrounded by dozens of unconscious bodies?
No. That's just me not being quite awake yet. The only other body around is
Maraud, who is crouched next to me. He has to crouch, because we're in a very small metal cage and he can't raise his head any higher.
The cage itself is in a tiny room that seems to have no other purpose than to store this cage.
"Are you okay?" Harriett asks. She's got several cuts and bruises of her own, and she's popped the stitches in her upper arm.
"Yeah," I lie. Actually, my head feels like there's a pinball bouncing around in it, except that the pinball explodes whenever it bounces against something, and it's covered in spikes, which should impede its ability to roll around but for some reason does not. "You?"
"I'm not feeling perfect," she says.
"I can't help but think we're in a worse situation now than we were before I went to sleep," I say.
Harriett nods. "It's not a good one."
"What are they going to do with us?"
"Mr. Tidy is on his way," says Maraud. "His job is to clean up messes. He's going to kill us and make us disappear."
"Excuse me?"
"Kill us. Make us disappear."
"We've still got our ace in the hole, though," I say. "Our friend Seth will have done something by now. All we have to do is stay alive until help gets here."
The door opens. Seth walks into the room.
There's a gun to his head.
The first man in the now mostly red jumpsuit holds the gun while the second unlocks our cage. Harriett, Maraud, and I scoot over to give Seth some room as he climbs into the cage with us. The man shuts the cage door, snaps shut the padlock, and they leave.
This is now way more cramped than being in my car.
"Well," says Maraud. "Pretty dismal way to meet, isn't it?"
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
"I've dreamt about a Cyclops every night for the past two weeks," Maraud tells us. "Didn't tell anybody about it. Didn't even think much of it. Just an odd recurring dream."
"Had you thought about Cyclopses before that?" I ask.
"Not any more than any normal person thinks about them. I think about them as much as I think about Medusa. That's not very much."
"So you haven't always felt like it's your destiny to slay one?"
