Ransom X

by I.B. Holder

  *****

  Blade didn’t plunge into the darkness at his normal death wish pace. He knew that if the sled flipped, he’d lose the cargo, and there was no time to reload. There was no reason to have an insurance policy that had expired. His wit was so delightful, it roused his boundless mind into life, a feeling he had every time he felt the power of death coursing through his blood. Like the explosive power of the fuel that charged spitfire into the chambers beneath him, warming his loins and pushing him forward. This was the place where he created his own mythology with him at the center, a monster in a theology that served only his needs and damned all those around him. Sometimes, just for the sin of looking at him.

  A light flashed in his side mirror, Mac was pulling in front. He always wanted to take the bridge first, its rickety slats were ready to pop and crackle into dust and the fat man liked to practically fly over them. Normally he would have chased him down and run him off the road for the insult – but tonight in this black garden, revenge could be cooled, saved for later.

  Another light flashed across the road, and at first glance, it looked like a different one entirely.

  The full weight of Mac’s cycle crashed into his, and the angle of contact was the most unfortunate decision of what would prove to be the very short life of the instigator. If Mac had chosen an angle less sharp, their fuel tanks would have collided, BOOM, if he’d approached from the back the force would have shifted into Blade’s bike like a pool cue knocking into a ball, and they would have found Blade’s bike on the valley floor far below. Perhaps because he’d never listened during the two-day physics course that made up his remedial science course that he failed before leaving reform school, he’d played crossing guard unintentionally, coming in at almost a right angle and, in effect, having Blade crash into him.

  The concussion knocked the wind out of Blade and dug so deep into the layers of Mac’s protective blubber that three of Mac’s ribs cracked inward with the blow, then split outward as the wheel rim withdrew, leaving a powerful tissue explosion away from the body that carried the bones like the hinge on saloon doors. The world spun, colors traced every light and soon every star was the tip of a radiant fireworks explosion, every twig was the crackle of the dying flame.

  The sled holding Wagner and Darci came to rest on Mac’s legs, and as he pushed himself upward it was like Darci had just bounced jubilantly into his lap. The violent jolt had pulled the handcuffs off of her wrists leaving raw, red skin circling her pale white hands like bracelets. Mac grabbed Darci into his arms, her head bobbing with what looked to be sobs – but he didn’t seem to notice. It was as if, in his head, Mac had somehow turned sad into happy, sobs into gurgles of laughter. There she was, in his arms like the end of some kind of romantic movie, moonlight cradling their embrace from a lover’s lazy crescent.

  Blade stirred, stood, smiled. He’d thought that he’d emptied the fat man of everything that was his. There was something left, what a nice surprise. Blade couldn’t resist the opportunity to inflict more than just the brief pain of death. He approached slowly, letting the embrace warm them before his cold deadly fingers descended. He felt the anger in him rise up with each fresh wave of pain planting on his left leg. It wasn’t broken, but it was bent. He scuffed the trail kicking at the gravel. The texture of the road bothered him, but what of it? He couldn’t control everything, only life and death, the two least unique properties of any creature on earth.

  He swung his arm in a wide arc across his body. When he pulled it back to his side, a dagger rested comfortably in his palm, he did the second arm with less flair. He had garnered everyone’s attention with the first blade drawn. The pain of Blade’s wound punctuated his words.

  “Your fucking bitch just GOT you killed Mac,” Mac didn’t look up, still staring with delight into Darci’s eyes, and Blade clicked his teeth, “maybe I should kill her first.”

  Blade watched as Darci’s pale blue eyes flashed with the color of steel and her skin flushed. He continued in a mock country twang “THAT got someone’s fuckin‘ at-TEN-tion.”

  He was only steps away when Mac somehow lifted the sled off of his legs and brought it up to his chest. It looked for a moment like he was going to use it as a weapon. Blade backed up a step, planting firmly on his injured leg and almost tumbling to the ground.

  Mac pulled the sled up onto his chest, and leaned in and gave Darci a kiss on the forehead. He either couldn’t speak or he had nothing to say, abruptly the sled dropped to the ground. Mac slouched, all of his strength gone.

  Blade sprang forward, with his arm raised high. He saw that look on Darci’s face as his knee pushed into her stomach – it was a delightful mix of hatred and fear. Somehow she engaged every muscle in her body and rolled Blade’s knee from her sternum. Clank. The knife came down glancing off of the sled, inches from her throat. He was impressed. He’d been in the presence of many grown men unable to come up with that kind of strength, even in defense of their own lives. Blade let his eyebrows find a sarcastic arch, “I’m so disappointed in you. Look at the mess you’ve made, and here I am trying to clean it up – tisk tisk tisk.” The finger he used to gesture for shame then raised to his lips, “Shhhhh.

  Blade let the tip of his knife wander over all of Darci’s piercings. Nose, ear, eyebrow, lip then lower to the nipples, he tapped on her shirt. The clink of metal confirmed it. “Why didn’t you let me do those? Or are there more prizes down below?”

  The tip of his knife went down past her belly button and skidded along the zipper of Darci’s pants. “Zzzzzip.” Blade watched her eyes widen thinking it was his effect on her until he felt the blow to his forehead. An open-handed blow from Mac sent Blade reeling, he back-pedaled several paces until his footing became more steady. A little more force might have sent him over the edge. He retaliated instantly throwing the blade in his left hand at Darci.

  Mac again came to the rescue rolling his frame over Darci, basically becoming a shield for her. The point planted in Mac’s back, and then Blade walked deliberately over to retrieve it. “It’s like the first kiss isn’t it? Let’s make out, you slut.”

  Mac’s skin was pierced again and again, but he did not move. Blade’s arms swung in efficient quick strokes, but he was getting tired. Sweat beaded on his brow. Every time he tried to move Mac, he met resistance, even though there were incisions clustered around every main organ accessible from four inches beneath the skin of his back.

  Blade turned away and paced in the misshapen light of a headlight now ajar, partially masked by the chrome blinder, shining more upward and to the side than forward. Blade didn’t need this detour, felt like leaving them. He knew he couldn’t pull the extra weight that Mac added to the sled, especially with the dubious looking back wheel, which spun with the spokes moving closer, then farther away in a single rotation. Blade looked back at the man clutching the girl beneath him. He began to wonder if the anatomy of grotesque obesity somehow protected Mac by shifting all of his organs forward into his belly when attacked from behind. It was the only plausible way that Mac was still breathing. This whole situation was unacceptable. He glared at Vorest, who straddled his bike ten yards down the trail, waiting for whoever won to join him. Blade picked up a heavy rock with the intention of lowering the deathblow onto his dear friend. Then, suddenly, his problem was solved.

  Mac must have stored up all that he had left in the short break from being a human pincushion. One might say he did it, but they’d be wrong, it must have been adrenaline that heaved his body from the sled and set it into motion. He and Darci simply began to roll. They rolled until they reached the place where the road fell sharply off and the slope continued all the way down to a valley of trees below. Mac made the edge on the bottom and then unhesitatingly dropped off the world. Darci disappeared from view an instant later. Her eyes, pressed close, stubbornly fixed on Mac’s – knowing that her final image of the world was coming soon, and she’d be damned if that last iris movement were only filled
with her tears. The breath that she expelled so close to his lips would be mixed with his.

  “Saved me the fucking trouble.” Blade shouted after them, it was a fitting eulogy. Vorest nodded from his bike.

  Blade looked around the glittering carnage that comprised the wreck and the blood soaked killing zone and made a painful observation. “Where is the agent?”