Learning the Hard Way 1

by H. P. Caledon

  “Don’t worry, when we’re finished here, I’ll place your nose again. It’s not entirely without merit I got the nickname the physician. I can go so much further compared to other trainers because I can patch you up again afterward and still get a very good price. Look at him!” The physician pointed at Mike who turned his face toward them, but not his gaze. “He’s still pretty, don’t you think? You have no idea what kind of offers I get on him, and his good looks are thanks to my abilities as a physician.”

  “What do you wanna know?” Jack asked nasally.

  “Nothing, ‘cause I only get you if the guards don’t get their answers. Deals with them are a bitch, you know. They are so unfair. But then again you sometimes need something that you can’t get behind the big doors.” The physician had changed to a chitchat tone of voice while he found a syringe and an ampoule from his bag. Jack writhed in his chaines and kicked about to get away from the physician. All hope had left his eyes—desperation had taken hold.

  “What do they want to know? I’ll tell them everything!” Jack yelled before he pissed himself.

  Mike felt physically ill as they were led back to the big doors.

  The physician glanced at him. “You asked me a question earlier today, Mike.”

  Mike glanced his way and swallowed, strained.

  “Would you like to rephrase that?” the physician asked.

  “Well, it wasn’t a spot as your slave I had in mind when I asked.” Mike noticed how small his voice sounded.

  “You said you grew up next to a trainer. Don’t tell me you haven’t seen or heard something like that before.”

  “I didn’t exactly watch.” For the first time since they’d entered the interrogation room, Mike looked the physician in the eye.

  The physician turned suddenly and bumped chests with Mike so he was pushed up against the wall. Mike managed to fight the instinct to push him off.

  “Now you know what I am. But you will never know the price for your two-week vacation from Rainer! Two weeks are expensive, my good friend. Can you even imagine how Rainer expects you to repay me?”

  “Actually, yeah.”

  “No, you can’t, because you’re not made that way, Mike. You just proved that when I was giving Jack Ripper singing lessons. When these two weeks are over, you have only a few options—Rainer’s rent-out toy, a fight in the arena to win your freedom, or you pray to your lucky stars... with bows and ribbons and everything.”

  The physician stepped back so suddenly that Mike stumbled forward. The physician walked away. The guards exchanged glances before one took Mike’s arm and guided him down the hall.

  “May I ask one thing?” Mike asked and increased his pace to catch up with the physician.

  “Ask.”

  “You said something about no one ever having gotten further than the dock,” Mike said. The physician looked at him expectantly. “They say that Keelan—”

  “Mike, forget everything you’ve heard about Keelan. There is much more to a human being than what you see in here. No one you see in here is real. Well, you are, and that’s the reason you belong to me. You lack a few very important lessons in life behind bars to survive here. Either you learn them, or you keep your virgin ass on the right side of the bars! Keelan is not your biggest problem!”

  They reached the big doors, and the guards opened them to let Mike and the Physician past. Several prisoners looked their way, and Mike hurried after the physician, who headed straight for the canteen. They got their food and sat at their usual empty table.

  There was a strange silence around them, and Mike chose to keep his attention on his food.

  “Put our trays in the rack and come back here,” the physician said once they’d finished eating.

  “Yes—” Mike managed to bite the last bit of the sentence back before he, as an obedient slave, took the trays and carried them to the rack. On his way back to the table, he saw what had caused the strange silence around them. Everybody around them was sneaking a peak at the physician, and at a distance Mike could now see the entire front of the Physicians coat.

  How appetizing!

  When Jack had begun to sing, as the physician called it, he hadn’t needed much encouraging to do so. Still, the coat was bloody and still damp down the left side.

  “Follow me.” The physician walked to the front of the food line. A door next to the hatch opened and a man placed two buckets on the ground. “Take the buckets.”

  “Yes.” Mike took the buckets with contents that did nothing to help Mike keep his lunch down. It looked like all the leftovers from yesterday’s menu poured into two buckets.

  The physician led them back through the maze to his corridors. There he stopped by the small shower and filled a bucket with water which he carried to the end of the hall. There he placed the bucket on the floor and unlocked a door. If Mike hadn’t already put the buckets down, he would have dropped them in the attempt to cover his nose quickly enough. An indefinable stench of bodily fluids hit him, and he repeatedly swallowed to get his gag reflex under control. The physician glanced at him and entered the room with one of the buckets. The door was left ajar behind him.

  A scream cut through the silence in the hall, and Mike stumbled backward in shock. He tripped over a bucket and fell. Miraculously he didn’t knock it over.

  So, this is the Physician’s stable—where the unruly prisoners end up.

  The physician came out with an empty bucket in his hand. “What are you doing down there?”

  “Uhm.” Mike scrambled to get on his feet. He brushed his clothes off but was handed the empty bucket.

  “Fill this half way up with water and put it here.”

  “Yes.” Mike took the bucket and hurried off. His heart was hammering and the nausea didn’t seem to plan on going away anytime soon. As he filled the bucket, he drank some water himself and splashed his face before going back.

  The physician was waiting for him by another door.

  “Wait here.” The physician went in, but he left the door wide open. Mike strained to pick up any sounds that would indicate what was in the room, but all he heard were ruffling sounds. The physician came out with two empty buckets of different colors.

  So, that must be where he keeps the broken slaves.

  The physician closed and locked the door and took the bucket from Mike. He entered another foul-smelling room, and another pained scream sounded. Shortly after the physician exited the room again and locked the door behind him. Mike had trouble looking the physician in the eye.

  “Are you a slave, Mike?”

  “No,” Mike said, hesitantly.

  “Then look me in the eye.”

  Mike raised his eyes to him, but the new knowledge of the man made it so Mike couldn’t hold the eye contact for long.

  Rainer was a sadistic bastard, sure, but the physician? He was a professional sadistic bastard. For him to be able to get food from the kitchen, even the prisoners would have to know that he had slaves in his corridors. No wonder he had them to himself—who could stand listening to their screams? Other than the physician, that was.

  “In two days your vacation is over. I suggest you get some sleep. And mull over what I told you earlier.” The physician walked into his room and closed the door.

  Mike stood in the middle of the corridor, but didn’t think about what his options were when the vacation was over. Instead, he thought that the physician had forgotten to lock him in his room.

  Chapter Six

  Mike stared at the ceiling, hoping that willpower alone could make time stand still. Enough to keep the physician from knocking on the door and announcing that his vacation was over. The thought had him trembling and he tried to enjoy the last minutes of safety.

  It did not work as well as he’d hoped.

  The smile on Serge’s face the day they’d been at Rainer’s cell to put in the request for the vacation had etched itself onto Mike’s retina. Every time he closed his eyes he got a preview of what was waiti
ng for him.

  Mike shuddered violently and his stomach turned, but he got it under control.

  The door opened.

  “I don’t know where you’re planning on eating, but every seat at my table is usually empty,” the physician said and walked away. Mike jumped out of the bunk and ran after him.

  Mike kept his focus on the ground as he got in line behind the physician. From there he tried to keep a discreet eye on his surroundings.

  “You do know that I can’t step in if anything happens, right?” the physician asked.

  “Yeah.”

  The physician nodded and held his hand behind his back. Mike saw that he held a knife in it and gratefully accepted it. Now the only question in his mind was whether or not it would be smart to use it if it was Rainer who came for him. If Rainer were murdered, the whole prison would run amok, as all the stronger prisoners would fight to take over his domain. Mike certainly didn’t have the resources to take over Rainer’s position. Maybe the physician did.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Mike noticed movement and turned his head to look that way. Two of Serge’s men seemed to have something other than food on their mind. Mike turned a bit in the line so he could keep an eye on them. When one jumped from the line and ran for Mike, he too left the line to have room to move. The physician stayed in the line.

  Serge’s lackey raised a knife, and Mike swung his tray like a bat. He hit his opponent’s hand hard enough to disarm him, and the knife slid across the floor. Mike swung the tray again and hit the man clean on the jaw. Mike followed through and used the momentum of the swing to pivot and kick the man in the face. He went down, and Mike turned his attention to the other lackey.

  “Come on!” Mike yelled, feeling his confidence rise as he saw the man hesitate. Finally, the man attacked, and Mike waited for him. As the man reached him, Mike evaded in a circular motion, which gave him enough momentum in his spin to punch the guy’s kidney hard enough to make him go down with a howl.

  Mike kept his attention on his surroundings for more fighters, and as the lackey went down, Mike saw Serge running in from the side. Mike held the knife parallel to his forearm, turned suddenly, and roared at Serge.

  Serge almost stopped in shock, so Mike attacked him and a short series of blows were exchanged. With a sudden upward motion, Mike cut Serge across the chest. Serge halted in shock and Mike plunged the blade into his neck and twisted the blade. Spurts of arterial sprays hit Mike, but he just stared at Serge’s shocked expression as he fell to his knees and finally collapsed on the floor, where he bled out.

  You should remember that I actually do know how to fight, you bastard.

  A lonesome applause sounded, and Mike already knew from whom it came.

  “You’re not as weak as I thought,” Rainer said. “It makes me wonder why you never showed this side of yourself before. Is it because you want to hide the fact that you’re a bounty hunter?”

  At least twenty prisoners got up, but what shocked Mike the most was that he had no idea who any of them were.

  “I am not a bounty hunter!”

  “Mercenary then,” Rainer said, shrugging. Half the prisoners sat down again. “But you did work for the law, right?”

  “Unless the other side paid more,” Mike said, hoping the prisoners would then think he’d also been hired to keep the law off track. Three more sat down, and the few left standing looked around and apparently decided he wasn’t worth the trouble. Rainer’s smile faltered as he saw that.

  “Get him!” Rainer yelled.

  “Oh shit,” Mike muttered as he saw ten prisoners get up from Rainer’s table and come toward him. He glanced at the physician, who left the line and entered through the door they’d gotten the buckets with food from. Mike looked at the ten men, trying to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses. But they were all armed and with the pace they set it didn’t look like they intended on going at him one by one.

  The fear Mike had felt that morning was gone. Watching ten armed men coming at him erased the fear and made him stubborn. He acknowledged that within a half an hour, he’d be dead. But he was gonna make damn sure he wasn’t the only one.

  Mike raised the knife and smiled. Roaring the past months’ pent up pain, aggression, and humiliation, he attacked.

  A voice that seemed to come from far away registered. Mike noticed the darkness and that the many voices from the canteen were missing.

  He tried to blink.

  “If you claim to have expected to survive that fight, you’re full of shit,” a voice said.

  “What?” Mike squeezed his eyes shut to keep the light out a little while longer. He finally recognized the voice as belonging to the guard, Jameson.

  Once again Mike awoke to a battered body, and he wished he could fall back into the painless void of unconsciousness. But instead, he tried to open his eyes. Light flooded in and lit his brain on fire. He groaned and closed his eyes again and finally remembered what had happened.

  “Woah, lie still, we’re stitching you up,” said a voice Mike didn’t recognize. But he stopped fighting.

  “Stitches?”

  “Yeah, you don’t get through a fight like that and not need a few stitches. Or forty-something, in your case,” Jameson said.

  “But... why doesn’t it hurt?”

  “Because you’re in the hospital. We use anesthetics here,” said the unfamiliar voice.

  “Where’s the physician?”

  “Here—”

  “I don’t think he means you,” Jameson said. “Do you?” Mike shook his head. “You’re pretty banged up. Apparently, you weren’t in as deep a pile of shit as I thought when I saw you with the physician.”

  “What are you talking about?” Mike shook his head while trying to remember something in particular, but his brain was very uncooperative at the moment. He sighed and fell asleep before Jameson answered his question.

  Mike jerked awake and felt a burning pain down his left flank and chest.

  “Easy now, you’ll just rip the stitches,” a voice said, and Mike felt a hand on his chest, pushing him back gently. If it hadn’t hurt so much to resist, he would have. Instead, he opened his eyes and saw a blurry silhouette standing over him.

  “Who are you?” Mike asked.

  “I’m a medic here. A guard told me of your fight in the canteen. You must have some watchful angels who really like you.”

  Mike wasn’t in the mood for chitchat, so he relaxed against the pillow. It wasn’t as easy, as it turned out since the medic was there to change the dressing.

  “How long have I been here?” Mike asked as the dryness of his mouth registered.

  “Three days, and healing nicely.”

  “Can I have some water?”

  The medic found a canteen with a straw and held it to Mike’s mouth, but to Mike’s dismay, he wasn’t allowed to empty the contents.

  “Easy now, you need to eat, too.”

  “Yeah, like that’s an option,” Mike muttered.

  “You have to. Your stomach is shrinking if you just get energy in an IV. We got soup. Chicken or veal?”

  “Whatever, it tastes the same.”

  The medic chuckled and raised the headrest on the bed. It wasn’t until then Mike had the opportunity to look down his body, and he gasped at the amount of gauze used.

  “Don’t worry, you’re all patched up. Bandages make it look worse than it really is.” The medic sat down next to him. Mike looked at him as he scooped a spoon full of soup up and held it up. “It’s not too hot. With the sore you have on your lip there, I thought you might appreciate lukewarm soup.”

  “Sore?” Mike asked, irritated.

  “Yeah, you split your lip.”

  “Okay. I can see bandages. Could you try to get me up to speed on my injuries instead of telling me the temperature of the damn soup?”

  “Hey, hey. No need to rip my head off.”

  “No, sorry. But I didn’t exactly expect to survive that fight. Right now, I don’t
know how injured I am. I don’t even know if the forty stitches someone talked about are clear across my face.”

  The medic thought for a second. “Would you like me to get you a mirror?”

  “Yes, please.” Mike held back a sarcastic remark about the man’s intelligence and career opportunities. Mike didn’t hesitate to look in the mirror and was positively surprised. The swelling and bruising wasn’t any worse than the first time after Keelan had abandoned him. “And the rest here?” Mike asked and pointed to the bandages on his body. “I’m not missing a kidney or a spleen or something, am I?”

  The medic shook his head, smiling.

  Fantastic, now I’m up to speed.

  “Shall we try the food?” The medic raised the bowl. Mike nodded, grateful for a little more vacation.

  The days were long and boring, but to Mike the visit to the hospital wing was still heaven.

  A short bald doctor came in with his nose buried in the information on his memo-pad. “Well, everything looks fine,” the doctor mumbled as he stopped at the foot of the bed.

  Mike felt fear build. Going up against Rainer’s lackeys and killing Serge would definitely mean payback.

  Mike sighed. “Okay.”

  “Tomorrow before noon, you’ll be let back into the prison.” The doctor looked up at Mike with his freakishly large eyes, then averted his gaze to the memo-pad again and left the room.

  “Okay,” Mike whispered and leaned back. Once again he focused on trying to enjoy the remaining time. Actually, he didn’t understand why they even bothered patching him up. As soon as he was let back into the prison, he would die... again. It was that second chance that most people wanted, but not Mike. This was merely the postponing of the execution of his death sentence which could end up even longer and much more painful than the last.

  The door opened, and Mike jumped. But why? He tried to suppress a yawn, feeling disoriented.

  “Good morning, I have your clothes for you here,” the medic said.

  “Morning? But the doctor was just here.”