Doomsday Warrior 02 - Red America (26 page)

“Can I help you?” a voice asked seductively at his shoulder. Perkins turned with a start, nearly falling over. Before him was one of the most beautiful women he had ever seen, stark naked. All that covered her flesh was a stripe of purple that ran from beneath her throat down between her ample breasts just to the top of her triangular patch of fine blond hair. The archaeologist swallowed hard three times and then spoke.

“Who are you?”

“The dweller of this cave, of course. I’m called the Contrary.”

“Why Contrary?” Perkins asked, rising to his feet, his face widening into a broad smile as he saw just how beautiful the woman before him was.

“Because contrary to whatever people expect, I do what I want.”

“And what do you want?” Perkins asked, growing more aroused by the moment as he looked at her firm red nipples perched like fruits on the ends of perfect fleshy melons.

“I want a strong man like you to make love to me,” she moaned softly, slipping to the floor of the cavern onto a thick white rug. She held her hands up toward him with a desperate sexual urgency. When in Rome . . . the archaeologist thought to himself. He dropped to his knees and then on top of this luscious vision of paradise. She took him in her silky arms and kissed him hard. They embraced passionately for several minutes as the Contrary helped him off with his clothing and took his stiff member in her warm hands, cradling it like a sacred sword. At last, the archaeologist went to enter her but she stopped him.

“I’m contrary, remember—we do it my way.” She pushed him on his back and, getting on top of him, facing away, she pressed the aroused organ into her spread lips. She slid up and down him for several minutes, moaning with delight and then came to a furious orgasm, collapsing in a heap on top of him. After several seconds she rose and lay on top of him, this time face to face. She kissed him deeply and thanked him.

“So good, so good,” she said with a big smile. “Now for your pleasure. I want you to close your eyes,” she said coyly, “for my sexual surprise.” She pushed him down onto a pillow, and Perkins closed his eyes, waiting in ecstatic anticipation. He felt her take hold of his enlarged member and kiss it and then . . . Oh my God, something was happening down there. So painful, so painful! He opened his eyes and tried to reach forward but the exquisite sensations of what she was doing knocked him back. He could feel the blood pouring from down there, as a silver fire ripped through his center. Then he passed out.

The Contrary stood up, looking at the dying man on the white rug below her now mottled with streams of bright red blood. She smiled a smile of inscrutable mystery and looked at her prize. In her left hand she held a foot long curved dagger as sharp as a razor still streaked with red. In her right she held the archaeologist’s manhood: stem, roots, and testicles high in the air. Hers! All hers! She would add it to her collection. She walked away from the freefighter who was already dead from shock. The rug was ruined but there were more, so many more.

That evening Rock prepared himself for his interview with the Ginsberg—the special fifteen minutes of teaching that all the monks had been vying for for years. He was concerned about Perkins who had been out nearly the entire day and usually returned for meals. He shouldn’t worry—the archaeologist was probably digging up some dinosaur bone or something in one of the pueblos to bring back to the Century City museum. Trickster came with five maidens of honor, their hair braided with flowers and they accompanied him to the sacred temple.

He entered through the large bronze doors of the Ginsberg’s private chamber and walked up to the Master. The Ginsberg stared at him for a long time as if looking at an extremely odd species of life. Finally he shrugged his shoulder and said, “Sit over there.” He joined Rockson on an adjoining chair and poured them both a cup of jasmine tea. As they drank he began speaking.

“You know how the world tried to ward off the great atomic doomsday?” the Ginsberg asked, taking a sip of the golden brew.

“Yes—the Mad policy,” Rock replied.

“Correct—you are well read, Rockson. The Mutually Assured Destruction Plan—whereby there was roughly a balance of power between the Russians and the Americans. Only when it became lopsided—with the killer satellite network of the Soviets did the war occur. So is the human body and mind like this—in balance, without which it will explode into annhilation. But in the body there are five elements to be balanced: earth, air, fire, water, and space. And the five colors red, blue, black, white, and gold as well; they must be in balance—in a single harmony of one of them will take over and destroy the others. Such is the way of all things.”

“I see,” Rock said, trying to understand the Ginsberg’s words.

“This limitless war against the Reds that you’re engaged in. Are you attached to it? Do you truly hate the Russians?”

“In a sense. At least as long as they are here. Once they leave, then I don’t know. I’d have to see,” Rock responded.

“Ah, so, you are not blinded by hate. Good. You are familiar to me, Rock-son. We have met in another time, another life.”

“Perhaps, but I have no such memory.”

“Ah yes, Rock-son—always straightforward. Good, very good. Life is a straight whiskey—without chaser. You Rock-son are a son of rock—hard and solidly founded upon the ground.” Rockson said nothing. “Ask more,” demanded the Ginsberg.

“What is the truth?” Rockson asked.

“Ah, Rock-son. The truth is that there is not any relative truth. All things which arise depend on the five elements. All phenomena is the mere display of secret-in-itself unobstructed mind. True mind. When we do not recognize that all things are the wisdom-display, we fall into the hell of clinging to this and that. With our mistaken concepts having arisen we then divide things into good and bad. Thus the wheel of greater-time spins on infinitely pushed on by misconception. Through unenlightened mind, ignorance through the eons has accumulated much karma. This is because people and animals in previous lives failed to recognize the essential truth. They commit wrong acts, furthering their misunderstandings and leading to even lower births on the wheel of life with even less chance of understanding. Rock-son, accumulate merit, work for peace, for the time when freedom is more possible for the human mind. Heed well brave Doomsday Warrior, for doomsday is everyday and all around us.”

“That’s a mouthful,” Rockson replied.

“Yes, it fills my mouth,” the Ginsberg replied smiling. “Now come on, you won the contest, you get to ask some more relative-truth questions.”

“Why did you hit me?”

“I felt like it,” the Ginsberg replied.

“Where is Perkins?”

“He is dead. Or rather he is not among the living.”

“What?” Rock jumped to his feet, his face chalk white. “What the hell are you talking about?”

“He ran afoul of the Law of the Contraries.”

“What’s that?” Rockson asked, hardly believing that Perkins, whom he had known for over ten years, could be dead.

“A maiden he had carnal knowledge of was a Contrary—a sacred dancer of the temple. This is blasphemy.”

“But Perkins wouldn’t rape anyone.”

“He didn’t—you see—she asked for it. The Contraries, as penance for their actions, take a pledge to say and do everything backwards. Your friend, by the laws of the Crazy Alligators, could not have sex with her, but he did.”

“Why didn’t she say no?”

“She did, by saying the opposite. And once he had slept with her, she carried out the law—castration.”

“Oh God,” Rockson said, putting his hand to his mouth. “I’ve had enough of all this insanity. Why can’t anyone speak or do anything straight around here? We’re leaving this Goddamn place tonight.” With that he tore out of the sacred temple, sending guards at the bronze doors flying in all directions.

“Wait, Rock-son, don’t leave yet. You must ask me more. We were just getting going. It’s been years. Goddamn it come back. I’m so bored.” The Ginsberg yelled out after the departing freefighter, who didn’t look back.

Twenty-One

R
ockson found McCaughlin and Kim back in their rooms and told them to pack immediately, that they were leaving right away.

“What the hell’s wrong, Rock?” McCaughlin asked. “I’ve never seen you like this?” The Doomsday Warrior looked down at the stone floor, his eyes misting over.

“Ah, damn it, they killed Perkins.” Rockson explained the story as the Ginsberg had told him.

“But we’ve got to do something, Rockson,” the big man said. “We can’t just let them get away with this.”

“There’s nothing to do,” Rock said bitterly. “It’s just their ways—their stupid crazy ways. We can’t take on a whole culture. I just wish we’d never stumbled onto these people, let them live out their lives and we, ours. But now Perkins is gone. A victim of cultural miscommunication.”

They got their few things together and headed out of the lodging temple and down the stone stairs that descended for an eternity. But they had hardly gone more than a hundred paces when they were surrounded by hordes of Crazy Alligators and by the fierce war paint on their faces they weren’t in the mood for any more peyote parties.

“Come with us,” Trickster said, his eyes as cold as the dark side of the moon. They were rudely dragged along in what seemed like some sort of torchlight lynching committee and taken before about twenty Indians wearing black hooded cloaks that covered every bit of their faces and bodies. With their lynch party holding spears and guns on the three freefighters, the leader of the judges addressed them.

“One of you has screwed a Contrary. That means that you are all guilty by the laws of contrariness and must suffer the same fate as the sadly recently deceased.” The other judges echoed in a shrill chorus, “the recently deceased, the recently deceased.” The Ginsberg, Rock noticed, sat off to one side, looking quite perturbed about the whole affair.

“So get ready to dig a whole heap of death,” the leader of the judges said, his face totally hidden beneath the hood. The warriors pressed forward, their spears digging into soft flesh.

“Is there any way out?” Rock yelled out to the Ginsberg.

“Yes,” he answered. “You may challenge the gods.”

“May challenge, but not win,” the lead hooded judge said angrily.

“Then I challenge!” Rockson said, standing tall, thrusting his chest at the proffered spears. The Doomsday Warrior was taken away by six Indians while Kim and McCaughlin were kept prisoner. The judges followed closely behind. They walked for about half a mile through glowing cave walls as albino bats, white as flour, cheeped high-pitched screams as they flew overhead. At last they came to a second underground lake, this one lit with a green-shaded phosphorescence from beneath the waters.

“Mean Motherfucker,” one of the Indian guards yelled out at the edge of the lake. On a small island some two hundred feet away a huge man stepped out—one of the Crazy Alligators or one of their gods, Rock thought when he saw it. The thing stood nearly nine feet tall with legs like trees and arms as thick as Rockson’s chest. He had never seen a man that big in all his travels across America.

One of the guards looked at Rock and pointed to the giant standing on the island. “Kill
him,” he
said with a smirk, “and you go free.”

“Do I get a weapon?” he asked, looking around at the judges who remained hidden beneath their robes, except for the Ginsberg who looked at Rockson with sadness in his eyes.

“No, Rock. The challenge of the gods means one fights with only that which one possesses. It is the pure spirit that wins or loses.” The giant started forward. It had been a long time since there had been a challenger. A long time since he had killed. It would feel good. He walked slowly toward Rock, stepping with his long legs from rock to rock which poked up through the green water every three or four feet. The creature looked at the challenger. The man was bigger than usual, but still a mere mite compared to him. They both hopped from rock to rock and within thirty seconds the two men stood facing each other only yards apart.

“Why do you challenge me?” the giant roared.

“To live,” Rockson said softly.

“Then die,” the creature laughed. He leaped at Rockson with pantherlike speed. Rock spun out of the way but still received part of the blow on his shoulder. He knew the Indian giant was strong but he could hardly believe the man could move so fast. With two long slashes of red on his face it looked as if the Mean Mother had jagged scars running ear to chin. He opened his mouth when he charged, revealing elephant-sized, cavity-mottled teeth.

The creature charged again and again and it was all that Rock could do to just keep retreating, ducking, leaping out of the way of the giant’s attacks. Somehow he had to figure out the weakness in the tough man of the tribe. He waited on a wide flat rock for the Mother to charge again. Just as the nine foot thing jumped toward him from a nearby stone foothold, Rock also flew into the air, swinging his foot around into the Indian’s stomach. The Mother landed on his stomach on the rock ahead, half in, half out of the water. He rose to his feet and laughed, turning around to Rockson who waited about ten feet away.

“You smart boy, huh?” the giant said smiling. “Good, more fun this time. They all die so quick, it’s a shame.” Rock’s kick hadn’t even fazed him. A kick that most men wouldn’t have risen from had been a stomach massage to this overgrown hunk of flesh. The giant started at him again and Rock retreated, looking for an opening. The immense killer didn’t seem to have any particular style of fighting. His strength was so overwhelming he had never had to rely on skill. He just came at you until you were dead. He charged Rockson reaching, grabbing, punching, smashing. Rock kept jumping backwards, glancing behind him every few seconds to see where the next stepping stone was. As he glanced around once again the Mean Mother charged. Rock heard the heavy breath of the giant at the last second. He threw himself down and forward, landing in the lake between two rocks. The Mother flew over him and slammed into the boulder Rockson had just been standing on. The Doomsday Warrior swam three feet to the next foothold and crawled on as the giant stood up.