by Kolin Wood
“It gave us glory…” More noise arose, growing steadily with Teddy’s voice, which had begun to increase in volume and intensity.
“It gave us the most sought after fights in the history of these blood-soaked, concrete walls…”
Tanner could see the wild-eyed excitement in the faces of those on the floor level. He guessed that these must be the cheap seats as he was sure that nobody down here would actually be able to see into the pit to view the fight.
“One fight… One winner… One prize… And once again proving that there is only one man… One WARRIOR strong enough to step down into those darkened depths… To stand firm and lay claim to those black and bloodied boards—no matter the competitor… Ladies and gentlemen… I give you… the breaker of backbones… the garrotter of giants and the guardian of our very own Bridgeway… The Capital’s very own marauding conqueror… KRRRAAAANE!”
With this skilful introduction, worked with such finesse by a man well practised in his art, the baying hoard exploded, lifting the non-existent roof high into the night sky and beyond. Drinks were thrown in the air, everybody soaking everybody else with reckless abandon. People spat and shouted, dancing and stamping on the booze and piss-soaked boards and planks in a cacophony of urgency and noise. It was truly quite the spectacle to witness.
From the other side of the pit, a door opened. A man stood with his hands on his hips, silhouetted like a boxer against the light. Drums from somewhere nearby, began to beat a heavy and hypnotic rhythm, which was quickly mimicked by the crowd. The man stepped out, walking steadily in time to the booming bass, arms raised aloft, soaking up the adoration and applause. Tanner snarled. Watching Krane, now strutting like an over-fed peacock, he hated him even more.
Krane walked closer; the lights from above struck and bounced off his oiled and pumped tight body. A thin vest covered nothing but his naval and rode purposefully high over his hips. A spiked jut of hair hung just below his creased and heavy brow, and his face was tattooed in tribal inks which resonated from one eye. He certainly looked the part.
The impact of his early encounter in the market place was suddenly realised. This was their champion, and Tanner was now the biggest underdog in the history of the pit.
He straightened, welcoming the dark as all four of the lights now focussed in on the odds-on favourite. Without their harsh glare, Tanner was able to properly assess his surroundings and look up farther than the bottom three rows that he had thus far been limited to. From what he could see, there was only one entrance into the arena; a barbed wire-topped gate, perhaps ten feet high and on roller wheels, insurmountable and guarded on both sides by two huge men in full riot clothing and carrying what appeared to be pump-action shotguns. Two large dogs sat obediently at their feet, seemingly oblivious to the noise and excitement erupting around them.
Tanner pulled again on his bindings, but they held firm. He knew what he had to do. There was no way up but down. There was no way out of here except by climbing down into the pit.
“AND THE CHALLENGER… Hailing from the wastelands outside of the walls…” the voice boomed once more.
The crowd suddenly changed tempo. Hisses and boos rang out from all angles as a fresh rain of rubbish and items smeared with human shit crashed and bounced all around him.
“A CONVICTED RAPER OF WOMEN…” Teddy’s voice lowered with clinical expertise as if to make a serious point of what he was saying. “A thief, so callous, that he would slit your throat in your sleep while he robs you blind.”
The anger in the crowd intensified. People pushed and shoved, screaming death threats and trying to climb the wire-link fences separating the fighters from the audience. Tanner remained stock still, unfazed by the madness around him, his eyes focused on Krane, who was now shadow boxing for the crowd. The drums boomed, taking on an ominous and eerie feeling like the beat of a funeral march to the gallows.
“A man SO inhuman, he has eaten the cooked flesh of a baby's back…”
In his mind, Tanner could see Teddy smiling as he spoke.
“The defiler of children… The executor of the innocent and the most immoral man to EVER set foot in the dark and deep confines of the pit… Ladies and gentlemen… I give you… TANNNNNNERRR!”
The lights turned back to him with a loud CLANK! Tanner took a step towards the edge, kicking bottles and other stray refuse out of his path. He watched Krane on the other side of the jagged hole as he danced and moved his hips. Unseen, he smiled.
“Prepare yourselves for a battle of unparalleled proportions… A showdown so fierce that blood will rain down on this good and fine city for a week… All this… right here… right now… in front of your very own eyes. Ladies and gentlemen… Place your bets and take your seats… The contest is about to begin!”
With that there was a sharp squeal as the microphone fed back on the large speakers before it popped and went completely dead, leaving just the noise of the crowd. People jostled and fought to reach the betting agents in order to stake their claims for the fight. Two of the huge lights were suddenly shut down, leaving the other two shining onto and into the pit, displaying it like he had seen it the night before, with the same mysterious ambiance.
Tanner turned, twisting his feet for grip and moving unseen onto his toes as two guards approached him on either side. Both wore body armour and carried guns. It seemed the guy with the broken nose had been replaced with two, and this time they weren’t taking any chances. They stopped a safe distance away. Even with his hands behind his back, Tanner portrayed a man of unmatched assurance, almost bordering on arrogance, and it was obviously unnerving them. Now, given the nature of his recent introduction, they probably thought that he truly was a monster.
The smaller of the two guards took a step forwards and opened his mouth to speak. Tanner strained to hear above the noise, noticing that the conversant was merely a boy. He had bright green eyes and a thick blonde beard which was patchy with adolescence at the sides of his face. He wore an ill-fitted black helmet that came down and protected his ears, and his jacket bore guards on the neck and elbows.
“Take it easy, friend” he said, almost shouting over the noise. “I’m just gonna cut your ties… you aren’t gonna do much good down there with your hands tied behind your back, are ya?”
The lad offered up a smile, which Tanner found both brave and oddly endearing at the same time. The genuineness of this small action relaxed him and he settled back down onto the flat soles of his feet. The boy was no threat, and he had a point. Tanner looked over at the lads accomplice; a mean-looking, middle-aged man with a protruding gut and a cocky sneer. The man smiled at him also, but there was anything but kindness coming from those yellow and decayed teeth. He could tell from the look in his eyes that this man wanted to watch him die. With no further thought, Tanner turned, offering the boy his back. Given the chance, the fat companion would probably throw him in there as was—trussed and ready for execution.
The lad reached into his belt, pulled a knife, and gently slid it between Tanner’s wrists, cutting through the plastic cable ties which had held him so easily enslaved. Tanner held his hands up in front of his face, studying them. The ties had been pulled so tight that the blood had stopped circulating hours ago, leaving his fingers with blue-purple tinge and an angry-looking black strip around the base of his palms. He shook hard, trying to restore feeling, tensing a little as the blood began to refill them, sending shocks and tingles down his arms. He nodded to the boy, who reciprocated before sheathing the knife and falling back into line beside his cocky-looking companion.
“Fighters… Make your way to the side of the pit.”
The crowd surged this way and that, as each and every one of them clambered and jostled back to their positions for the best possible view.
It was time.
Tanner clenched each fist in turn, ignoring the pins and needles that threatened to send his fingers into spasm. He moved confidently forward towards the closest ladder, stopping with the to
es of his boots on the very edge of the cracked edifice. Inside, the blood-stained boards told stories of pain and war, their cracked edges offering up dangerous looking splinters as if in salute to the coming battle. On the other side, Krane too approached. He had stopped dancing; now focusing all his concentration in Tanner’s direction. The joviality was gone from his face. The man meant to kill him here tonight.
“ENTER!”
Tanner took a firm hold of the ladder and stepped onto the closest rung. He then began to slowly descend into the Pit, and into the most important fight of his life.
CHAPTER TWENTY
The staircase snaked down into the darkness. The crimson red of the step edges looked shiny, like the blade of a wet knife from a freshly cut finger. Juliana looked over her shoulder at Sarah following behind her. She had her arm around the man’s waist and was trying badly to help support some of his hefty weight so that he could walk. The man’s name was Bennet. From what Juliana could make out, he had been kidnapped with his family, the same brutal memo as herself and the rest of them. However, instead of killing him like they had her own husband, they had kept him alive to play the part of some sort of human guinea pig in the child-doctor’s sick laboratory experiments. Juliana hated herself for admitting it, but she could not help but think that Bennet would have been better off being killed outright like Mike had been rather than be tortured like he had. When they cut him down, it had taken a few minutes of almost incoherent babbling to realise that the bloody corpse on the table behind them had once been the man’s son. A shiver ran down her spine like cold, strumming fingers, bringing goose-bumps to her over-sensitive flesh. It seemed the horrors of the prison knew no bounds.
Uncomfortably, the three of them continued. Farther down the staircase wound until the light was virtually non-existent. Juliana was forced to light one of the candles that she had snatched from Doyle earlier. It made them a moving target, and she took a deep swallow, praying internally that there would be none of the evil little bastards down there to see it.
At the bottom of the staircase, she turned, lighting the way for the other two who came hobbling behind, maintaining a slow and careful pace. The stench of death tinged roughly assaulted her nostrils, and she pulled the bottom of her gown up to cover her nose and mouth, uncaring of her own humility. There was no shame left to affect her now.
Bennet yelped as he came heavily off the bottom step, gripping Sarah hard in the process and almost causing the pair of them to topple over. He was obviously in some real pain. Juliana was no real doctor, but she knew a serious wound when she saw one. His entire stomach, from the ribcage down, had turned black and the colour was draining from his face with every pain-laden step. The skin on his cheeks was sallow, an almost-yellow colour, and deep, dark rings surrounded his eyes. With the cuts and bruises now scabbing around his nose and mouth, he looked like a zombie—a real, walking, talking vision of the apocalypse. It was a wonder that he was still managing to move at all.
If someone as physically capable as Bennet cannot overpower these little demons then what chance do you think you have?
The thoughts were plaguing Juliana now, setting traps of doubt at every turn. But she had come too far to stop. There was no turning back. Live or die, there was no going back to the way things had been.
Before them stretched a short corridor; five single-cell doors, barely visible on one side, poked through the all-penetrating gloom. There was not a sound to be heard.
“This is it,” Juliana said. She dropped the makeshift mask from her face and slipped her free arm under Bennet’s waist so that she was supporting the other side to Sarah.
“Are you… sure,” Bennet struggled, each word obviously painful through his labouring breaths, “that this… is the only way?”
Juliana looked quickly at Sarah and then back into Bennet’s drawn and tired eyes, nodding slowly. Of course she was not sure, not in the slightest. In fact, the plan reeked of failure, almost brimming on suicide. Having scouted as far into the darkness as she could without detection, she had come to the conclusion that to walk out undetected would be impossible.
“This is it, Bennet… the only way,” Juliana said, trying to sound confident but failing as her voice betrayed her.
Onwards they stumbled. The whole place reeked like a dog food factory. The smell of rotting meat and death, thick in the air, clogged up their sinuses. The floor was greasy, and several times one of them would slip, much to the distress of Bennet, whose large frame bore the brunt of the weight and pain.
Juliana stretched the candle out in front of her as far as she could manage. Her hand was shaking. Sweat drops fell freely from her tightly tied hair line. Visions plagued her as she remembered how she was dragged by her feet down that same stretch of corridor all those years ago, her hands and fingers scraping on the smooth linoleum. She shivered, reliving that initial fear. The cell doors each bore a number on a plaque, which she read as they passed. ONE SIXTY… ONE SIX ONE… ONE SIX TWO… ONE SIX THREE…
The far wall loomed into sight. A dark bloody handprint had smeared down the painted facade like a ghostly flag, a gruesome emblem of death marking the end of the line. They stopped outside the final door. A rickety, old, wooden chair stood facing it, dirty bindings hanging limply from its sidearms.
Bennet let go of the two women, relieving them of their burden. He shuffled with slow and painful steps around the chair and sat heavily with a grunt and followed with a sigh. He breathed deeply, wincing as each breath rattled in his chest.
“Is this… the… place?” he managed, one arm clutching his side, looking up with morbid interest at the large metal door in front of him. It was badly painted in battleship grey with metallic paint flaking along the opening edge, and obvious heavy rust at the hinges. The plaque above shone cleaner than the others. It looked as though it had been recently cleaned. The numbers on it read ONE SIX FOUR.
Juliana said nothing. She gripped the wooden balustrade at the back of the chair, turning her knuckles white with the pressure. Sarah, sensing her friend’s discomfort, put an arm around her shoulders and gave her an uncommitted squeeze. It did little, but Juliana appreciated the sentiment. She looked down at Bennet, whose creased face told of both physical and emotional pain.
Watching him now, she found herself thinking about her own father again. Bennet bore a very faint resemblance to him, and it was more in build and mannerism than in facial features or expressions. His accent too—a rough dialect with a hint of cockney, deep and bearing the battle scars of experience in tone—triggered… something. She wondered if he was still alive. Would he help her? Even after everything that had gone on with the two of them, surely he would; his little girl, his ‘princess’ as he had always called her. For all his mislaid promises, drinking and the violence which surrounded him like bad cologne, he had never laid so much as a finger on her. When she stopped seeing him, it had been a mother’s instinct to protect her children that had primarily driven the decision. Teddy Braydon was a fighter; one of life’s born scrappers, part rogue and gent in equal measure, but it was that very survival instinct which had also fuelled the kinds of ruthless behaviour that made the man so untrustworthy. He would do anything to survive, and that… well, that made him dangerous. And she had not wanted John exposed to it; it was that simple.
But things were different now. She had already decided, that if by some miracle she was to escape, she would go and try and find him. Maybe she could even persuade him to come back with her and make these fuckers pay; make some proper use his skill set for once. The thought of vengeance warmed her a bit and made her smile, but Juliana pushed it down into her gut. There were still too many variables… if he was alive… and if she managed to escape.
Juliana stepped forwards, away from Sarah’s reassuring grip. It was time. She gave Bennet’s shoulder a small squeeze from behind then stepped to his side and reached down for his hand. He turned up his face to look at her. His eyes were wide open and almost opaque yet clea
r. Sadness swam there in a sea of determination.
“Are you sure?” she said.
Bennet simply nodded. With a groan, he shifted in the seat and nodded at her to help him to his feet. It took both women to pull him up.
“Give me the keys,” he said.
Juliana unclipped the ring five keys from the larger bunch and handed them to him. He hobbled to the door.
“Remember what you promised,” he said.
“I promise,” Juliana replied.
“Now go; get out of here.”
With a final look that showed that she understood, Juliana turned and grabbed Sarah by the arm. She began pulling her down the corridor away from the cell, leaving Bennet watching after them, falling into darkness as the candle light left him. As if a switch had been flicked on, the surrounding cells suddenly came to life. Howls and screams slammed into them as they walked towards the stairs. The monsters in the cells pummelled the doors like monkeys in a zoo. In amongst the unintelligible shouting, vile obscenities flew.
Up ahead, the stairs loomed out of the gloom. From behind, an agonising scream took the lead in the sick chorus… Bennet.
“Run,” Juliana said.
***
“We have to go back!” Sarah shrieked as her naked feet slipped on the smooth floor, toppling her and causing her to pull hard on the sleeve of Juliana’s smock, stopping them dead in their tracks. She was sobbing almost uncontrollably, her blonde hair lank around her thin and shaking shoulders.
“We have to go back… Please!”
Juliana jolted to a stop next to her, angrily. She reached down and grabbed hard on her arm, feeling the tightness of her skin over the bone and sinew.
Sarah cried out in pain.
With wild eyes, Juliana glanced back down the corridor. The dark doorway leading to the blood-tinged staircase loomed large in the gloom. Her body felt empty and sick with nerves. She knelt down and shook her friend violently. The wailing intensified.
