by Russ Munson
Although relatively inexperienced at 19 and 0, every single one of Cushing’s matches had been a knockout. He was genetically superior to me. Every muscle in his body worked in concert. Me, I was just a dumb fighter who didn't get afraid. But Jon Cushing was the real deal. He was a born fighting machine. He had the athleticism of a god and could give Ares himself a run for the money.
There was no way I could take down Jon Cuching. Not if I was in the best condition of my life, and certainly not now, not after climbing thirteen floors of hell.
“How’d you get here?“
He stepped toward me. “I don’t know.”
His accent was English, low-class English, not the posh tongue of an Oxford scholar. I remembered one of his intro videos. His father had grown up in Ghana, emigrated to the UK, and married an English woman from Essex.
Down the hall, Suzie screamed again. I listened. But there was no infant crying. I thought of the YouTube videos I had seen. The series was called, “So You’re Gonna be a Dad.” A million things could be going wrong right now. The baby could be facing the wrong direction, like a tractor-trailer trying to back out of a tunnel. Or the cord could have been wrapped around its neck.
Suzie might need a C-section. I had to help her.
But this god of war was standing in my way.
I needed to get my heart pumping. I needed that adrenaline rush. I needed the fear to mask the bruises and the cuts and the fatigued muscles, so I could at least pretend to fight.
I got to my feet and put both hands in the air.
“We don’t have to do this,” I said.
He stepped closer. I should have known by now that a peace offering was a worthless gesture. Whatever entity was controlling him was here for one reason: to hurt.
I glanced at the nearest wall. A plastic box was was hanging there. Life-Touch. A defibrillator for emergencies.
What a bad idea.
Suzie screamed again.
Maybe not that bad.
“Shit,” I said.
I grabbed the box off the wall and opened the plastic latch. The display inside glowed red. A battery symbol was at full capacity. There were no paddles like the movies, only two plastic pads. I pulled off my shirt and peeled off the backing on the pads and stuck them on my chest. They were cool, like a cold compress for muscle aches.
That Cushing brute stepped closer.
I raised a hand. “Back off.”
He stopped. He cocked his head to the side like a confused puppy.
I jabbed the button that said “Push to Revive.” An electronic voice counted down from three. So did the display.
I took a deep breath.
The pads delivered a shock to my ribs. My whole body jolted. It was the same as that one time I had accidentally touched the prongs when plugging in a lamp in my father’s basement. My heart skipped a beat and then it ramped up. Faster, faster, faster. It pounded against my ribs. A tingle rushed through my arms. Down to my legs. My stomach did a somersault.
Adrenaline.
What a rush. I had never felt anything like it before. My heart thumped. It echoed in my ears. I was shaking, my heart beat unknown to me, like I had hijacked someone else’s body.
I was suddenly flushed with energy. My pain was gone. I wanted to spring past Cushing, to avoid the confrontation at all costs, to run like hell across the Savannah and never look back.
So this was fear.
I ripped the pads off my chest. They had left burn marks, like giant hickies.
I dropped the defibrillator. It crashed at my feet.
I channeled the fear. There would be no running. Not today.
I stepped forward and raised my fists.
Chapter Twenty-One
Cushing squatted. He planted his fingertips on the floor and then pushed through the balls of his feet, through his calves, and launched himself straight toward the ceiling. He was as graceful as a frog. He brought his knees to his chest, a vertical jump that would make Michael Jordan jealous, and landed lightly. It was his signature warm-up move.
“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “I’ll let you go. Easy enough. Turn around and walk out that door. We both go on our way.”
There was an awareness in his eyes. A fear. A constant blinking. “It’s not my choice.”
“Mine neither.”
My body took a step toward him, my right fist ready. The force had taken over again. I was outside myself, watching. I was trapped in the container of my own head.
He took another step toward me. There was no ref to start this fight, no ref to stop it neither. It would end when one of us was dead.
No amount of heart would get me through it. The only thing that mattered was the will of the player on the other end of the strings, the one who had usurped our bodies. It was that thing that needed the will and the stamina to win.
All I could do was watch, a spectator at my own death.
Another scream came from 1304. And then a grunt. I wanted to run and help her. My sudden disappearance from the room had probably confirmed her fears. That was exactly the reason why she hadn't told me she was pregnant. It was exactly the reason why I had heard about it through my parents six months later. Suzie's mother had been the one to call me at the arena. She must have told my father that Suzie had gone into labor and had gotten in her Jeep and was driving herself all the way to Arlington.
I thought about that long ride. I pictured Suzie squeezing the steering wheel and biting her tongue.
I should've been the one to drive her, but she never liked my profession. She was determined to keep her distance. I had once tried to teach her a sweep kick in the basement, but she had made her disdain for my sport perfectly clear:
“I am NOT taking out your legs,” she had said.
“It won’t hurt. I put down lots of pillows.”
Instead, Suzie had plopped on the couch and grabbed a controller, preferring a game of Double Dragon to the real thing. It seemed she had no interest in raising a child while tiptoeing around my spilled blood.
The present moment came back to me. Cushing and I were dancing. Each of our players was trying to feel the other one out. Like driving someplace familiar, it was awful easy to let your mind wander while someone else was in your cockpit.
Cushing cracked his neck and bounced his shoulders. He was light on his feet, those stick-skinny legs with giant balls for calves making it seem like he was always strutting in a moon-bounce.
He raised a hand in my direction, extended his middle finger, and beckoned me toward him. But I didn’t go. I never made the first move. I was a counter striker. Always was, always would be. I used my opponent’s momentum against him. That’s what I did. And there was no ref here who could make us engage in the fight for the delight of the fans. There were no breaks, no bells, and no rules.
I could stand there as damn long as I damn wanted.
But then I saw myself stepping forward.
No, no, no. Don't do that. That's not how you fight. You wait for him to make the first move. You don’t initiate. You’re making a huge mistake.
Yet my body took another step forward. I was powerless to stop myself.
The voice returned.
“FIGHT!”
Then I leapt at him. I swung my foot around his side, aiming for his ribs. A dumb move. He brought an elbow down on my shin and deflected the kick. The pain ran straight up my leg and reverberated in my femur.
I hopped back and limped off the pain. There was nothing like paying in suffering for someone’s else’s rookie mistake.
“That wasn’t me,” I said. “I swear to God.”
Cushing didn’t care. He lunged. I watched him come at me in slow motion. I was unable to do anything to protect myself. I might as well have been standing on the railroad tracks, both feet tied, watching a freight train come at me. I knew exactly what he was doing. He was one of the best grapplers in the sport and he wanted to take me to the ground. He wanted to pin me down. He wanted to pummel my fa
ce. He wanted to turn his fists into pistons and turn my face inside out. He wanted to turn my head into a bloody melon and claw the pulp from my eyes. He wanted me to tap out.
But there was no referee to stop this fight.
Sure enough, he wrapped me up, a picture-perfect tackle. He took me off my feet, drove me toward the ceiling, and then took me straight to the ground. Then he straddled me and retracted his fists. They were cocked and ready to unleash fury on my face. The force of his tackle had shoved us back to the edge of the hole and the wailing side winds and airborne fallout tousled my hair.
My fists were still naked. The force controlling me raised them to protect my face, the only option, but doing so left my middle open, and Cushing countered and drove his knuckles into my ribs. He pounded and pounded. My ribs splintered and pain wormed up my throat.
I was nothing but a slab of meat and he was tenderizing me. I dropped my elbows to deflect his fists and he raised his right fist and drove it into my face. The blow struck my cheek bone and my eye socket broke and turned to mush. He pulled his fist back and got ready to deliver another.
I was gone. Limp. My mouth was full of blood, my eye swollen. I was trapped in darkness.
He held that fist above me, ready to end it all. If this were in the ring, the ref would have stopped the fight already. I was unresponsive.
But then Cushing stood up. He stepped back, his heels at the edge of the hole, and looked at me.
I just lay there trying to look at him.
“Get up,” he said.
My body didn’t move. I expected it to get up, to do something stupid again, but I didn’t move. My puppet master didn’t make me. I was myself again, defeated. Whoever had been controlling me had given up, walked away, dropped his controller and left my shell of a body lying there.
That pansy.
Cushing beckoned me with his middle finger. “I said get up.”
I was too easy. He wanted a challenge.
I forced myself to sit up. My ribs were screaming. I spat lumps of blood onto the floor. I looked at him through the swollen slit and raised my hands in surrender.
“I don’t want to fight anymore.”
“I’m just getting started.”
My eyes dropped to his legs. He was standing on the edge of the hole. I could lunge at him and try to push him off the edge, but a quick sidestep and a miss would send me over. What I had to do was immobilize him. I had to make it so that the force controlling him didn’t want his body any more.
I planted a hand on the floor and stood, hunched over. A long trail of bloody spit connected me to the linoleum.
“If you want to grapple, let’s grapple.”
I stepped toward him and he lunged at my middle. I spread my legs as he tackled me, lifted me up, and drove me to the ground. My tailbone took the brunt of both our weights, a bruise on top of a bruise. I wiggled out of his grip and offered my left arm as a sacrifice.
I knew he would go for it. An easy arm bar. But instead of grappling, he wound his fist back to deliver a finishing blow to my face. Whoever was controlling him wanted to strike, not grapple. With my legs around his, I rolled to the side and squeezed my thighs against his leg. I hooked my feet under his knee. He was off balance and missed his swing, and I grabbed his ankle, tucked his foot under my armpit, and secured his leg in a heel hook.
It was an illegal move. It would get me barred from the sport. Which was exactly why he hadn’t expected it. In practice, we avoided it like the devil. Besides, with all that swinging, it was obvious his co-pilot didn’t know how to grapple.
I had him now. I applied torsion to his ankle. It sheered his tibia. Knees don’t bend that way and there was a loud pop as the ligament snapped. His faced opened in agony. I went farther, tearing the meniscus, and he screamed.
“It was the only way,” I said.
I let him go. He scooted away from me. He was a snake now, his leg useless. I could have grabbed him right there and flung him off the edge, but I had done enough damage. He would never walk right again.
He cradled his leg. “You bastard.”
“You’re back again,” I said.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “But I think you’re safe now. If you can’t walk, that puppet master won’t come back to use you. You’re useless to him.”
“What puppet master?”
“I don’t know. Someone is controlling us. Someone who likes to fight. He’s using us as a vessel or something.”
The whole building groaned.
Cushing tried to stand, but the leg wouldn’t bear his weight and he fell in a heap.
"Wait here," I said. I ran down the hallway and grabbed a wheelchair and helped him climb into it. “I’m gonna help you get out of here, but I need to help Suzie first. Deal?”
I extended my hand.
He gave me the finger.
“I’ll take that as a yes.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
I entered the darkness of her room.
"Suzie?"
She was stiff-arming the reclining chair. She was doubled over, her eyes bulging, her face flushed, as if she was about to vomit. Her cheeks were streaked with glitter, the crystallized remains of concentrated tears. She was breathing as hard as finishing a marathon.
But still there were no baby screams.
“You need to lie down. That’s how they do it in the movies. The woman’s always lying down.”
“That’s for the doctor, not the woman,” she said.
“What can I do to help the baby?”
"You can leave me alone,” she said.
I just stood there. The adrenaline faded from my system and all the pain came at once. The cut on my shoulder. The bruised tailbone. The broken ribs. The smashed face. The swollen eye.
I wilted. She was right. I had no business here. I hadn’t come for her. I had come for me. I wanted to see my child brought into the world. I wanted to be the best father I could be.
She was an afterthought.
“You’re right. I should have been there to help you. From the beginning. But c’mon. You’re complicit too. You never told me you were pregnant. I had to find out from my father for Chrissake.”
Her face twisted up and she gripped the edge of that chair.
“The world is a mess out there. You need me. Both of you.”
She pushed. She squatted lower and there was a spatter of blood on the floor between her bare feet. She grunted.
I stepped toward her, but she raised a hand for me to stop. I did. Then she gnashed her teeth and wrinkled her nose and reached between her legs.
A moment later, she pulled the baby out from underneath her gown.
Her grimace melted. She smiled.
The baby cried. In the gray light from the window, it was a lumpy, bruised little thing, nothing like those newborns in the movies.
"It looks like he just went 13 rounds," I said.
I took her arm and helped her sit on that pullout chair. She closed her eyes, gave another push, and the second birth happened. A bloody whoopie-cushion slipped out and splatted on the floor.
“It’s okay,” I said and kicked the slimy thing out of the way.
She cradled the bloody infant in her arms. I grabbed a small blanket from the counter and wrapped him up. From the duffle bag, I pulled out the pair of scissors I had taken from the drug store and I tried to cut the umbilical cord. My hand was shaking and she grabbed it and steadied it.
“Make a wish,” I said.
“It’s not a birthday cake.”
I waved the bloody cord. “We might need to save this. The placenta too.”
“For what?”
“It’s pretty bad out there.”
“Gross. No,” she said.
“You’ll see how bad it is.”
The cushions turned red beneath her. “I’m bleeding.”
“We need to get you stitched up, but all the nurses are gone.”
“All of the
m?”
“Yes.”
Her eyes went to the duffle bag.
"Give me the gauze and tape," she said. “I’ll take care of it. Hold your son for me.”
She held out the child. I took him in my arms.
“Hey buddy,” I said.
He was so light it was as if he didn’t exist.
“I don’t usually look like this,” I said. “I swear. If mommy wants me to stop fighting, I’ll stop fighting.”
The little boy stared up at me, his eyes unable to focus.
Suzie dug through the duffel bag, opened her legs, and plugged the bleeding hole with a wad of gauze.
I suddenly had a thought that made my heart tremble. I wanted to love this child, to feel like I would do anything for him, but I felt empty inside.
“Am I supposed to feel something?” I said.
“I don’t know,” she said.
“Do you feel something?”
“Not yet,” she said. “I guess that comes later.”
I looked at my reflection in that gray window. I was so beat up, I looked like some kind of monster who had stolen a child. Then past the reflection of my eyes, I saw something hovering above the horizon, something I hadn’t seen before.
I stared at it.
It was a giant organ. There were coils and veins, all heaving and pulsing, like a brain floating above the smoke.
Suzie followed my stare.
“I saw it earlier,” she said. “When I first got here.”
“Aliens?”
“I don’t know. If that’s a spaceship, it’s something biological. Like their technology is made from tissue or something. Like those nasty aliens in Contra.”
I smiled. She was always doing that, always making connections between real life and video games. To tell the truth, I wasn't sure if she knew the difference anymore.
I took a tentative step backward.
"Where you going?” she said.
