by Mark Tufo
“Gladiator No. 812, follow the lit arrows to the stadium, do not stray or you will be shot.”
“I guess that means me.”
“Good luck Mike,” and then she kissed me, not one of those auntie kisses, but a full-fledged passionate kiss. My knees literally knocked together, another couple of seconds and I would’ve wobbled to my knees.
I had to be strong. I was not only fighting for my own survival but also for Beth and now Deb, the burden that was being laid upon my shoulders was almost too much to bear. If it wasn’t for the guards holding me up, I most likely would have collapsed on the floor.
“I’ll be watching Mike, and I’ll be praying for the both of us.”
“Thank you,” I said weakly. She wiped away a tear as I rounded the corner.
I stood in my familiar place awaiting my introduction and my competition. The crowd seemed to have worked themselves up into a frenzy, a shark feeding frenzy. Bloodlust was in the air. I tried my best to scan the arena stands where I thought Beth might be, but I couldn’t see through the lighting that was flooding the arena floor. We wouldn’t want those friggen aliens to miss any action in the shadows. No. 212 came in, he appeared to be about 5’10” or 11” and was extremely well built. And he did not have so much as a scratch on his entire body. A repeat of No. 310 would not happen this evening. The high, tight haircut he was sporting did little to calm my fears. He gave me the distinct impression that he was at some time or still was an active member of the armed services. ‘Please God.’ I thought to myself, let it be the Navy and not the Marines. He had that air of self-confidence about him that reeked of drill instructor. He didn’t seem to be concerned with me in the least.
The unceremonious shove from behind clued me in to the fact that it truly was time to do or die. Great, the arena motif this time was tropical jungle, I get to fight what appears to be a Marine on Vietnam territory; the odds seemed stacked worse than I thought. This day was not getting off to a good start.
I pondered using a bow and arrow. A long range weapon was something that I needed over someone who definitely had better training and better conditioning, my idea of a good workout was going a couple of rounds with the Nintendo. But long distance had been denied to me tonight. From where I was standing I figured that the longest shot I could probably get off would be in the neighborhood of ten yards due to the tropical foliage. Definitely too close, the memory of Mace Head was still too vivid to risk that avenue. I would never be able to swing the mace fast enough and I was afraid of a sword fight, he would overpower me entirely too easily. Another alternative was a knife but I had no desire to smell his breath with my last. So I grabbed a spear. It felt good in my hands, it was light and deadly, it was just what I hoped I needed. For the first time in three rounds I found myself on the defensive. I didn’t think that there was any sense to sticking my neck out any further than it already was. I gathered just from one look at him on the Jumbotron that Mr. 212 was going to go on the offensive, and why shouldn’t he? I didn’t appear to pose much of a threat to him. So I did what any scared kid would do, I climbed a tree. Unless he was using a bow and arrow this sort of put us on even terms.
It seemed like I was up in the tree for hours. Sweat poured off of me, I was concerned that he would see the moisture dripping own. I did not want to wipe the sweat away either though, I was more afraid of him seeing the movement. At last Mr. 212 found his way towards me. He was going through the jungle as one that was well versed in that area. He seemed a little perturbed that this was taking so long, but confidence still shone brightly through his gaze, always checking around himself and placing his feet where they would make the least audible sound. He even occasionally glanced up into the trees. If he wasn’t out to kill me I would have really been impressed with him. I hoped that the trunk of the tree and the branches would shield me from all but the most diligent of searches. Patently and patiently he made his way in my general direction. I knew when the time came I could not hesitate, he would not give me a second chance and neither would I in his position. The time had come; he was directly below me, fifteen feet directly below me. My heart raced, my mouth went dry, time slowed down. It was now or never… my leg cramped as I was about to spring, my fricken leg cramped, so what was to be a graceful death dive turned into a perilous plunge. The Marine must have felt something amiss for he looked up in time to notice my hurtling body and my poised spear ready to puncture his breast. He turned incredibly fast to avoid the majority of the thrust, but I still felt the unmistakable scraping of metal on bone as the spear plunged deep down the length of his left arm. He reacted with the speed of a cat; it appeared to me that he was oblivious to the pain. He swung his sword with full force and would most likely have cut me in half had I not been rolling away from him, the momentum of my ungraceful dive saving my life. How long could this kind of luck last? As it was I had shattered my left arm again, but I was definitely more in tune with the pain in my arm than old Mr. 212. I finally stopped rolling to notice he had recovered and was coming full tilt for me, sword raised and ready to strike. He had no fear. Groping with my right hand, I was trying to scamper away, back pedaling at a much slower rate than the jarhead was racing forward. Reaching back my hand fell upon a palm sized object, it was a rock and it was just what I needed. I stood up, trying desperately to block the pain of my arm out, and hurled the rock as hard as I could. I can’t say that I was truly aiming, I just threw it in the general direction of the death mass coming my way.
Pay dirt: a puckering sound erupted as the rock blew out his right eye. Blood flew everywhere and his eye dangled uselessly down by his chin. His forward progress had been stopped and this Goliath was on his knees. His one good eye burned at me. This man was by no stretch of the imagination out of the race yet. His left arm and right eye were useless but he still attempted to finish his mission. He carefully put his sword down, never taking his good eye off of me, and proceeded to rip strips of cloth off his shirt. He was making a patch. I ran. This guy was the Terminator, no matter what you did to him he just kept coming. I needed to patch myself up a bit and more importantly I needed to get rearmed. The pain in my arm ebbed somewhat but it was quite clear that I was now a one-armed warrior.
“Hey you little motherfucker, come out and playyyy!” He was taunting me. Could this be happening? I had inflicted wounds that would have killed 95% of the population and this guy was taunting me. I was scared shitless, what if this really was a Terminator, maybe the aliens were messing with me. No, get it together man, you saw him bleeding, get a weapon and get moving. I grabbed a sword and I ran as far from that voice as was possible in this jungle arena. I then proceeded to dig a hole in the ground, hoping that I wasn’t digging my own grave. The ground was soft, more like potting soil than a true forest floor, but I guess I couldn’t blame the aliens for their ignorance; maybe I’d thank them for the softness of the soil in some special way if I ever got off of this heap. I made the pit around a bend in the trail, trusting in the fact that he would not have enough time to notice my trap as he rounded the corner. When it was complete I backtracked about twenty yards and unwrapped my damaged arm; I wanted to make sure that he had a blood trail to follow. With any luck he would be so focused on finishing this job that he wouldn’t be able to tell that I had covered the same ground twice. I returned to the pit and crawled into what I hoped wasn’t my final resting place. I grabbed a thin reed and snapped it off so I could use it as a breathing tube, then covered myself as best I could with twigs, dirt and leaves. I could only hope that he hadn’t been watching any of this, because if that was the case I was a dead man. I was positive that the pounding of my heart would give me away, by either the noise or the unsettling of the dirt on top of me. But I could do nothing to calm myself, the thought of him plunging his sword into me at any moment was all I could think of. My breathing was getting ragged; I felt that I was suffocating. I didn’t think that I was getting enough air through my plant stalk. I was just about to exit my hole when I felt
him, yes, felt him coming in my direction. His steps were slower and they did not have the same subtleness as before. The small sliver of plant that I was using as a breathing hole was suddenly gone; he had trampled it with his foot. Dirt poured in. He had to be able to tell from the difference in his footing that I was under him. The advantage was his or mine for the taking. I panicked. I used every bit of strength I could muster and in a defensive gesture I thrust my sword straight up and luckily into my now suspecting victim. The sword entered him almost too easily. I had caught him in a manner that will haunt me and all mankind forever, directly in his scrotum. Even in what had to be total shock he still had the awareness to try and kill me. He tried desperately to drive his sword into my now exposed neck. I’m sure the only thing that saved me was his lack of dimensionality. With one eye completely useless his depth perception was off by a mere fraction, but it was still close enough to leave a substantial gash across the left side of my neck. Another quarter inch and he would have cut my carotid artery. His crumbling body shook, my sword twitched from his death spasms. But through it all, his one good eye never left mine. He was still pissed and if he hadn’t died just then he would have killed me.
Once again I was wounded to the point of unconsciousness. I awoke to the careful ministrations of Deb. Oh how my head ached, didn’t the damn aliens have pain medication? While Deb was tending to my mending arm a stunningly beautiful brunette was placing a new bandage on my neck. At first I looked at her in bewilderment and then it dawned on me she was my newest spoil. Unfortunately No. 212 must have killed his first spoil so I would not able to liberate another, at least for the time being. But was all this false hope, how many times could I dance with death and not have to take a bow?
“I think he’s waking up,” the brunette said.
“Mike, Mike, can you hear me?” Deb said, her voice laced with concern.
“Yeah I’m here, any chance of some water, my throat tastes like dirt,” I managed to croak out.
“I was so scared, you fought so bravely but I still thought that you were going to be ki…” she cried, tears welling up in her eyes before she could finish.
“Me too, but the fact remains I’m still alive and I’ve got the thirst to prove it.”
“Oh I’m sorry, I’ll get it right now.”
“And what’s your name,” I managed to say to the brunette.
“I’m Stephanie,” she said somewhat nervously.
“You’ve no doubt talked to Deb?”
“Yes.”
“So you know that you have nothing to fear here?”
“After talking to Deb it’s not you I fear, it’s what happens if you…”
“Yeah, die, I know.”
“That’s not what I meant!”
“Sure it is. Don’t get me wrong, I understand your concern. Your fate is directly tied into my own and you have no control over it whatsoever.”
“Before this,” she stammered, “I was just a groupie that toured with Widespread Panic. I’ve never hurt anybody, all I wanted to do was have a good time.”
“Listen, Steph,” I said. “We’re all in the same boat, mere weeks ago I was attending college, not going to classes, partying my brains out and in the process, falling in love. But now we have to do all that we can to help each other out through this mess. I have no desire to die for those croc-aliens.”
“Me neither,” she sniffed.
“Good, now if you could please hurry Deb up with that water, otherwise I’m going to die of thirst.”
When Deb returned with the water I grabbed her with my good arm and planted a kiss on her that the gods would be envious of.
“Oh, Mike I was so afraid for you!” and then she began to cry in earnest. “I think the stress of this place has intensified my feelings. I mean, I just lost my fiancée and I find myself already caring for you. What the hell is wrong with me?”
I don’t know if I would have wanted to reply or not, but either way the point was moot, I succumbed to my exhaustion and fell fast asleep. I awoke hours, possibly days later. I was so disorientated that I was unsure of which. Deb was next to me spooning my body; Stephanie had taken a blanket and was fast asleep on my couch. My couch!? I really was moving up in the world. I got up as carefully as possible so as to not disturb either of my guests. I needed to know how my last outing had placed me. I wanted, no, I needed to know my ranking. I knew at most there could only be in the vicinity of 600 men left and any ranking over 300 in my present condition would in all likelihood be the end of me. But I was in no way prepared for what the screen showed me, I was ranked No. 33. I had to pull a chair out from the table to keep myself from toppling over. The scrappy kid from downtown Boston was now considered a contender. I was lost in my own world when I felt the hand on my shoulder. Surely it can’t be time for another fight. But it wasn’t time for fighting. It was Deb’s hand and she had something else in mind. She gently guided me back to the bed. Kissing me softly on my mouth and down my chest, she half pushed me down onto the bed and proceeded to kiss me from the top of my head to the bottom of my belly. I started to protest as she began to pull my boxers off, but she was having none of it and shushed me with her finger over my mouth. She slowly removed her blouse and panties and I was lost in her. I tried my best to not wake Stephanie, but unless she slept like the dead there was no way she wasn’t awakened by our lovemaking.
It must have been embarrassing for her. And I’m sure it was even more embarrassing the next morning when she attempted to wake us up in the most unobtrusive way possible, because we had fallen asleep in a heap of tangled arms and legs and we were both as naked as jaybirds. Deb upon awaking visibly flushed.
“Steph, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean for you to see this,” she said as she pulled her blanket up over her breasts, leaving me all that much more exposed. Unfortunately for me I couldn’t move quite as fast with the damaged arm and various aches and pains; it took me a good thirty seconds to get my boxers on, and I felt the flush in my face as I had two sets of eyes on me the entire time.
“Come on you guys, give me a break,” as I almost fell over when I got my leg caught in the shorts. After I had finally got myself into somewhat of a presentable manner, Stephanie replied to Deb.
“There’s no need to explain, you both obviously care for each other. And it’s great that you can share that.”
“Thank you,” Deb said, sighing. “Do you have anybody special on this ship?” Obviously that hit a sour note with Stephanie, she recoiled as if she had been slapped, and not wanting to push any further Deb let it go.
After a few moments of awkwardness, Stephanie went to the kitchenette area and made some lunch. Dinner? Hell, breakfast, I don’t know. We sat and ate and idly chatted for a while when out of nowhere Stephanie blurted out that she had gone to the concert with Durgan. Deb dropped her cup, juice sprayed everywhere. I could have caught bugs with my mouth, my jaw had dropped that far.
“We’ve been going out for three years and he’s always been somewhat of a bully,” and she added hastily “but he’s never acted anything like this, not even anything close. He’s always been extra protective of me and treated me like royalty. I don’t know who that person out there is. I can’t even imagine that we were once intimate, he disgusts me beyond words, I feel as if he has violated me every time he rapes and kills those other girls.” The anger mounted in her voice, she was nearly shouting. Deb went to comfort Stephanie as the shouting suddenly turned into sobbing.
“You know Stephanie, if by some small miracle I ever reach him. I will have to do everything in my power to kill him. It’ll be the only chance any of us has.”
“I know,” she said with a clear tremor in her voice “The man I loved is no longer here, he is already dead to me. What happened to him?” she implored.
That was a question none of us knew the answer to, nor in all actuality wanted to find out. With the field of competitors getting smaller I guess the aliens felt the need to draw things out so as to add to the su
spense and tension. We were given more time off each subsequent round. I was not complaining, because even with the advanced medical attention I was getting I still ached from head to toe. I was lucky I didn’t break my neck when I fell out of that tree. It was going to take all the careful ministrations of Deb and Steph to get me back to full health, and who was I to complain.
Most of my waking time, which was beginning to increase, was spent either on the weight bench which the aliens had supplied or watching “reruns” of the past gladiator battles. I wanted to learn all that I could about my opponents. The tendency of more violence among the victors was an alarmingly increasing occurrence. A woman’s chance at survival stood at a mere 40%. Six out of every ten women were killed right there on the arena floor, and who knows what happened to the ones that lived when they got back to their champion’s room. I’d be surprised if more than half of those lived to see the next day. The disease of violence had hit hard. It was unimaginable that these hippy wannabe concert goers could turn into such violent creatures. I guess given the circumstances and the stresses we were under that it wasn’t that far-fetched of a notion. We were all turning back to our baser instincts, but if our predecessors on Earth had killed off the fairer sex in the fashion and rate that was going on now, we would all be extinct. That I had the tenacity or will to kill another human being still left me weak-kneed if I thought about it too much.
My next battle was against No. 579, Andrew Jenkins. By watching his tapes it seemed to me that this man won more by luck than by skill, he sort of reminded me of myself. He was smaller than I was, but definitely more agile. It seemed that lightning quick hand speed was another of his virtues. This man had an uncanny ability to detect where his competitor was coming from and would thus lie in wait. One thing I noted with interest was that his preferred weapon was a knife. And every victim he faced, well, faced wasn’t a good word. Stabbed in the back would be a better description. He never saw any of his competitors’ faces as he killed them. And for some reason or other the killing blow was always delivered in the small of the back. He looked well practiced at this routine; I could picture him in a dark alley at night lying in wait for some unsuspecting victim. Man, I thought to myself, Widespread Panic drew out all sorts. The little Mouse Man, as I affectionately began to coin him, seemed to like the shrieks and throes of pain that ensued from this type of blow, it was not a quick mortal strike, but it was a death hit nonetheless. The camera zoomed in towards Mouse Man’s face and caught a smile of sheer delight; he looked like a kid that was about to get an ice cream cone. He took great pleasure in watching his victims flail about and try futilely to reach behind their backs and take out his weapon, which was slowly draining their life away. As his foe dropped to the ground to conserve what little life force he still contained, the Mouse Man would finally make his frontal assault. That was, of course, if they had dropped their weapon first. He would step in front of the person and just start mad kicking them in the face. Truly a little shit if I ever did see one.
