by Mark Tufo
“Deb, I had a dream last night,” and with that sentence the floodgates opened. Steph’s chest rose and fell with each gasping breath as her hot tears burned tiny rivulets into her cheeks. Terror began to surmount in Debbie.
“What is it?” she cried out as if in extreme pain or possibly fear or more than likely both.
“I dreamed that Mike was killed,” Stephanie choked out. “It was so real, I kept yelling to him to turn around, but, but, he wouldn’t listen.”
“Steph, it was just a dream,” Deb said as she tried to calm Stephanie and herself down.
But Stephanie just kept crying and wailing, so Deb did the only thing she could think of, she smacked her hard, right across the face. Both women stopped crying and could only stare at each other in surprised shock. And for the first time since they met, they shared more than negative feelings about their situation. Almost as if on cue they both took a step forward and embraced each other. The crying intensified. Leanna joined in more for the comfort than any true liking for either woman. But it still felt good anyway. They finally let go of each other after what seemed hours and turned to the screen to watch their own fates unfold.
“Oh GOD NO!” Stephanie shouted out.
“What, what’s the matter!” both girls turned to look at the color rapidly draining out of Stephanie’s face.
“That’s the terrain I saw in my dream!” Stephanie shouted with pain in her voice.
CHAPTER 23 – Journal Entry 18
The crowd, its usual reserved self, looked like something out of a Saturday afternoon baseball game in the Bronx. The Yankees versus the Red Sox, no less. They were going crazy. I again lost my lunch; it was the best I’d felt in the last two weeks. I was also hungry, but not in the food sense. I hungered, no I yearned for victory. These aliens liked me; true, it was mainly for the sport of it, but they still liked to watch me fight and I hoped preferably win. I wonder if they gambled on these things. Do they handicap? They must, I reasoned, why would they go through the trouble of having a ranking system in place? I reaffirmed my vow that if I survived these insane games I would do everything possible to kill all those responsible for this travesty. But it was time for NOW, not later. There would be no later if I did not get through the now. I felt very zen at that moment.
The arena floor had been laid out in a desert motif, how quaint. They even had small cactuses and Joshua trees covering small sand dunes. Actually some of the dunes weren’t quite so small, some appeared to be in the neighborhood of fifteen to twenty feet high, plenty of places to hide and lie in wait. It would be virtually impossible to hear somebody coming at you, but neither could they come upon you with any speed; the sand was soft and made all movement difficult. I could see my potential spoil from the spot where I stood; she was exactly mid-way between the two gladiator entrances but pushed back against the far wall. I knew that Beth had been watching me through all these battles. What did she think of me? Could she possibly still love me? If she ever even had. If anything, we had always been quasi-peace activists in school, not actively involved but we always supported their efforts. Thankfully, I was not given the time to pursue these debilitating thoughts any further. The battle was about to commence. My competitor was introduced first; they even had the custom of introducing the challenger first. How long had they been watching us? The door behind me closed as my introduction was being announced. I hoped whatever they were saying about me was flattering but I didn’t speak alien so I really had no idea why the crowd was going ape shit. I tried to block the noise out with images of tranquility and peace but the only views that kept popping up into my head were those of my own dismemberment and darkness closing in on me. I banished those thoughts as quickly as they came, and tried my best to focus on the task at hand. I grabbed the weapon that was closest to me; it was a small lightweight-throwing axe. I was actually happy; I figured it would do nicely. Axe in hand I started to run as fast as I could. The sand crust always breaking away at the last push making my progress seem frustratingly slow. The crowd began to whoop and clap or at least their own damn version of it.
Deb turned to Stephanie. “What the hell is he doing, he’s running to his death?”
“That’s what I saw,” Steph replied flatly.
My biggest fear of running flat out and paying no attention to my surroundings was finding my opponent lying in wait, just waiting for me to crest a dune and chop my legs out from under me. But I felt that the potential reward was well worth the risk that I was taking. It might be my only chance. Besides, I reasoned, he would have to be running just as fast to catch up to me and then get into an advantageous place. I figured the threat to be relatively low. Although this was my life and the lives of four women that I was gambling with, I’m not sure the stakes could get any higher. The girl looked up in sheer terror as I approached her at full tilt. She had to think that I was mad. Here’s this friggen guy coming straight at me, running as fast as he can with an axe held high. I just kept thinking to myself, please whatever your name is, don’t pass out or everything that I am trying to do will be for naught. But I figured that I would have wet myself by now if the roles had been reversed. I couldn’t spare the breath to forewarn her and I didn’t want my competition to know what I was up to. That could spell instant disaster for both of us. And then she began to scream, a full-throated scream. Oh no, I thought to myself, I chose wrong. He had to have heard that even over the mob; my time was limited. I approached her, axe high in the air. She had added uncontrollable shaking to her repertoire. I swung, the girl slumped, no, don’t pass out!! I think I heard Beth scream. The crowd was silent, for once. The girl’s hands came down as I severed the rope that bound them over her head. Luckily she didn’t pass out. She picked up her head after realizing she wasn’t quite dead yet and looked me straight in the eyes. Hers were still wide with terror. The best I could do was to try to calm her down with a shushing sound and hold the axe down in a non-threatening manner. It seemed to me to take hours before it dawned on her that I wasn’t there to kill her. Her sobs wracked her body, it looked more to me like she had a killer set of hiccups than anything else. At any other time that thought might have seemed humorous. After a few tense moments of this I felt she was ready and motioned for her to follow me, and to grab short sword which hung on the wall near her station. She seemed surprised that I would allow her to be armed but she accepted it eagerly. Hopefully she wouldn’t have to use it, but if I got myself killed today at least she would have the opportunity to defend herself against Psycho Man. She was beginning to come more into her own and understand just what was going on here. She knew that I meant her no harm and that the odds of us getting out of this alive were greatly increased when it became two against one. My confidence increased. I was fairly certain she wasn’t a trained killer but her athletic body would do in a pinch even if for only diversionary tactics. For the first time during the games I was at an absolute loss as to what plan of action I should take now. I sincerely hoped my confusion wasn’t showing, I didn’t want my new ally to become unnerved by my indecision. At the moment anyway she appeared to be relatively calm, possibly because for the first time since she got on this strange trip she now carried her own destiny in her right hand. I hoped that her strange calmness would not leave her during the heat of battle. Utterly clueless as to my next move, I warily went forward, always on the alert for an attack. The girl followed closely, she was also ready.
We progressed forward for what seemed hours. I was beginning to think that he had somehow circled around us. But I reasoned that was impossible, there wasn’t really anything to completely cover him while circling past, we would have spotted him at some time. No, he’s laying low, we just need to be careful when we come up over the dunes, unless of course he’s buried himself… Too late!!! I screamed as the blade entered my leg just above my ankle. I felt it scrape against my bone; I could hear my muscle being cut as the blade exited right below my knee. He pulled the blade back and as he did so I could feel it scrapin
g against my shin. I fell like a stone. Blinding white spots shot across my eyes, I could see nothing except pain, and it was savage. He had used my own tactic against me. I barely made out his shape as he jumped out of the sand to complete his handiwork. I couldn’t even raise my axe, because number one I had dropped it, and number two both of my hands were clamped against the wound on my leg. I knew that this was the end; I just wished that I could have kissed Beth one last time.
“You’re a fuck!” I yelled, a moment before I passed out.
The next thing I consciously remember was waking up with Deb looking down at me. But how could that be, did that maggot kill her too? Am I dead? Do they have pain in Heaven? Oh no, I’m in Hell? I did my best to try to get up but the searing pain in my leg prevented that. My teeth were chattering uncontrollably. From across the room I could hear Stephanie’s voice. I couldn’t even begin to concentrate on the words, the pain had put me into another whiteout. It was many moments more before I was able to regain some semblance of consciousness. I was able to focus on objects even if the edges were blurry.
“Am I dead?” I managed to stammer, not really sure which answer I wanted to hear.
“No, but it was close,” Deb said gravely, tears now forming in her eyes. “Tanya saved your life.” She grabbed me and hugged me, luckily she didn’t shake me or I know that I would have passed out again from the pain.
“What happened to him?” I asked incredulously.
“Tanya stabbed him in the back as he was moving in to finish you off, he was so intent on killing you he never even noticed her.” A noticeable shudder ran through her body as she explained the details. I drew her close to try and drive away the demons that were bothering her.
“And I’d kill that bastard again if I had the chance!” Tanya yelled from across the room.
“He killed her best friend in the last round, talk about justice,” Deb said. “She still has nightmares.”
“Still? How long have I been out this time?” I moaned. At this rate I’d sleep the rest of my time on the ship. I felt bad for Tanya and her nightmares, but the fears of what might have been far outweighed the action she took.
“A week.”
“A week! When’s the next round start?”
“Another week.”
“Deb, I can barely move after a week of recovery, how am I possibly going to be in any type of fighting shape in another week?”
“That’s not your biggest worry,” she said softly, obviously seeing the strain on my face.
“What could possibly be worse?”
“There was a huge power struggle over you. The gladiator overseers, I guess that’s what you’d call them, some of them wanted to have you executed. They said that you violated the rules and received outside help. But a slim majority felt that you used extreme cleverness and improvisation and heralded your actions as very advanced tactics. The minority had to acquiesce on two points so as to not have any further arguments regarding you,” she said with a sigh.
“And just exactly what are those two points?” I felt that I already knew the answer to one of them; the pain in my leg was testament to that fact.
“One, they did the bare minimum to fix your wound, basically to just make sure that you didn’t die.”
“And the second?”
“They dropped your ranking down to 152nd, last place.”
“Death sentence,” I mumbled.
“What? Don’t say that!” Deb cried.
“Come on Debbie, they left me injured and dropped my ranking. I have only come out of one fight unscathed and I was healthy for all of them. I’m going in there now with one good leg against my toughest competition. What do you think is going to happen!?”
“Stop yelling at me. I don’t know the answers. I only know what I want, and that’s you. I don’t want to be on this god-forsaken ship playing the aliens’ god-forsaken game. I just want to go home.” She broke down in heart wrenching sobs.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to upset you any more than you are. I… I’m just not feeling too well at the moment. Could you please close the door on your way out, I would really like to get some sleep.”
“Of course,” she said as she wiped the few remaining tears away from her face.
But sleep was the last thing that happened that night. I thought about all the wondrous and glorious ways that I was going to die next week. It’s amazing how humans think, I mean I’ve always known I was going to die but when you put a date on it, it becomes almost insufferable. Death seemed to be all around me. The smell of it seeped through my bandages. If I tried hard enough I felt that I could catch a glimpse of him gleefully wisping around my room waiting for his opportunity to come. “Not yet you bastard!” I yelled. The women were probably huddling together in the adjacent room looking at each other in bewilderment. They would do their best to comfort each other, but they knew the score as well as anybody. If I died they died, plain and simple just like algebra, a=b.
The next day, or what I perceived to be the next day, I awoke and jumped out of bed. Oh crap! I thought to myself, I am going to pay dearly for that move. I waited for the blinding pain to sear the front of my brain, and then I waited a little more and then I waited just a little bit more. Ah there it was, but it certainly wasn’t the stampeding of wild stallions that I expected, it was more like a lone small donkey. The blinding pain had been replaced by a slow steady throb. I finally opened my eyes and unclenched my teeth; I must have been somewhat of a sight.
“What the hell is going on?” I yelled
“What do you mean?” Deb said as she entered the room with a huge smile.
“You know damn well what I mean, woman. Yesterday…”
“Three days ago,” she interjected.
“Okay three days ago you were all depressed and I was in a great deal of pain.”
“Well from what I can gather,” she started, “is that large amounts of drakka…”
“Huh?” I asked
“Money,” she continued. “Drakka is money on this ship.” I nodded in understanding, barely. “It is wagered on these events and apparently there is a fairly significant amount of drakka or money riding on you. So an alien doctor was paid off.”
“They have corruption too? It’s good to know that that’s not just a human condition.”
“So you feel better?” she asked hopefully.
“I’m almost perfect,” I said as I grabbed her in my arms and twirled her around, and was regretfully rewarded with a doubling of the pain. I tried my best not to let her see me wince.
I felt curious enough or possibly morbid enough to sneak a peek at my wound. I unwound the bandage that had this incredibly sticky feeling to it, but stuck to nothing but itself. Man, would the doctors on Earth love to get a hold of this stuff. When I was done I could only stare in disbelief. What had been a life threatening gash and at best a handicap making wound now appeared to be no more than a briar scratch. My skin didn’t even look as if it was going to scar in any way. As I reapplied the bandage, I was convinced that within another day the throb and scratch would cease to exist. My mood healed almost as quickly as my wound. As long as I was mobile I still had a fighting chance, and I was oh so close to seeing Beth again.
I knew it had to be done but I was having the hardest time convincing myself to do it. I walked into the adjoining room where the women were. Stephanie appeared to be about to speak. I shot her a glance that could have frozen a glass of mercury from twenty-five yards away. Needless to say she got the hint and let whatever she was about to say drop off her lips. I made a beeline for the huge screen. I soon discovered that in these advanced rounds the competitors could do more than just watch reruns; we were also given short snippets of information on each contestant. Lord knew I could use all the help I could get. But to be honest, all I was concerned with was Durgan’s last match. The terrain had been similar to my last bout. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Even though they say seeing is believing it was still diffi
cult for me to grasp. Durgan was even bigger than when I last saw him. Schwarzenegger at his prime was never this big. I had hoped that possibly the added bulk would make him slower and less agile. But almost as if he heard my thoughts he did a standing back somersault for the benefit of the crowd. Obviously this was his new signature move before every fight. The aliens had to be feeding him straight steroids, there could be no other explanation for his massive increase in size, strength and speed. What was even more surprising was his nonchalant attitude. He looked like he was going out to get some lunch, not kill another fellow human being. He couldn’t even be bothered with getting a weapon. No. 254, one Derek Sanderson (a formidable looking character himself), opted for the two handed sword.
I was not under the impression that something as unwieldy as a two-handed sword was a good idea against an opponent so fast. But I think that he was also under the false impression that all that bulk was going to make Durgan a lot slower and more vulnerable. Big mistake, one that I personally wasn’t going to make. Durgan had no fear, he just strolled up the middle of the arena like he owned the place. Sanderson, upon seeing that Durgan had no weapons, decided to take advantage of the fact. He came running at Durgan as fast as the sand would let him, sword raised and poised to strike. Mistake number two, upon approaching closing distance Sanderson lowered his weapon. With lightning quick speed Durgan stepped to the side and avoided the strike, leaving one foot behind and with his right hand pushed the flailing Sanderson to the ground with a resounding thud. His sword unfortunately went flying through the air and landed some fifteen feet away. Durgan deftly placed himself between Sanderson and the sword. With what seemed like considerable effort, Sanderson raised his body from the sand. Blood oozed down both of his knees and dripped from his hands. Warily approaching Durgan, he never saw what hit him. If I hadn’t had the luxury of rewind I wouldn’t have caught it either. With blinding speed Durgan did a roundhouse kick that would have easily broken the neck of a less statuesque man. As it was, Sanderson’s jaw was clearly broken and some of the bone had even protruded from the right side of his face. I thought that if he were to live he was going to have a hell of a time eating, but I don’t think that was his biggest concern at the moment. He went down faster than a hooker at a convention.
