Last Ranger (15 page)

“What is the sound of a scream that no one hears?” the Dwarf asked, turning to Stone.

“Disgusting, Dwarf,” Stone whispered through gritted teeth, “it’s just all completely disgusting.”

“Wrong, Stone. The sound is your own heart beating in your chest. For you can hear that scream, can’t you Stone? We can all
hear it. The silent scream. It’s the name of the Game.”

Stone sat back in his metal seat, deciding that he would refuse to eat another bite of the diseased feast before him. He wouldn’t
join in their sick games any further. “Why do you get so much pleasure from inflicting pain?”

“Because we are diseased, Stone. Look at us. We are freaks. And we have been turned into this by a world that destroys all
that it touches. The rule of humanity has always been that the strongest live and the weaker die. How ironic, that we the
physically weaker, yet mentally stronger, shall live and shall become the dominant species. And just as our outer surfaces
are twisted, the inner ones as well are labyrinths of pain that are beyond a mere mortal’s understanding. We return to the
world what we received from it.”

“It’s not the whole fucking world I’m talking about,” Stone said, his voice rising in spite of himself. He addressed the suffering
the man inside the Plexiglas booth was undergoing as he was being eaten literally one scrap of flesh at a time. His entire
body was a blanket of ants now, only they were red and brown as blood covered their clawing mandibles. The victim scratched
at the sides of the booth, his hands leaving red trails that were like a child’s fingerpainting as they smeared around inside
the transparent surface. “It’s that poor bastard in there who you’re doing it to right now. It’s the electric shock you gave
to me. It’s God knows what you’re doing to my damned dog and my sister.” Stone glared hard at the Dwarf, his face burning
with rage.

“That’s entirely right,” the Dwarf replied, his own face shriveling up like a raisin too long in the sun. “We shall rule with
pain because pain is what humanity understands. You’ve been out there, Stone. They’re a bunch of worms, ready to be pushed
over by the first two-bit warlord who comes along. We shall unite the land again under our rule. There will be order. All
shall be quite peaceful, I assure you. Oh, some will have to die for various reasons, but most will live. And we shall ensure
a restructuring of America—a better one. Then the Game shall be won. And we shall see just who has won and who’s been left
behind.” He poked his stump at one of his handmaidens for another squirming bit of foulness from the table, which he gobbled
down so lustily that little moving legs fell from the corner of his mouth down to the satin and velveted fabrics that lay
beneath him.

“What game is that, Dwarf?” Stone asked, lying far-back in his seat. Even the scent of the “meal” was sickening to him now.
Forget where Jimmy Hoffa had disappeared. He was here on this table in the meatballs, Stone had no doubts about that.

“The Game we play down here in our little world. The Game of Go. You’ve heard of it, no doubt, a Japanese board game. But
we’ve added our own variations. We have immense electronic boards that show each of us just where and what our holdings are
around America. All is entered on computer. What each man’s power, his holdings, armies, assassins—whatever—is worth. We have
worked out an elaborate set of equations for the whole thing. It is all beyond your ability to fully fathom, I assure you.
There are many levels of the Game—from operations in the badlands—drugs, slaves, whores—to our own internal game that we play
on a hundred foot board here, using sets of rules that make chess look like bingo. This is because we play, Martin Stone,
with the very world.”

Stone was silent. He knew somehow the man wasn’t bullshitting. He meant those words. The very world.

This crew, with the weaponry and troops at their disposal, really did stand a chance of taking it all over. If not all, then
tremendous amounts anyway. Who was going to oppose them? He hadn’t seen a single force out there that even came close to matching
just what he’d seen since he’d been below ground.

“And you, Stone, are part of our game. Oh yes, you certainly are, you—and—” He looked up, stopping for a second, staring into
the Plexiglas cage. The man inside, though he was undoubtedly still alive as the ants couldn’t have penetrated to his inner
organs this fast, had fallen to the bottom of the cage and was no longer moving. Stone could see even from where he sat tied
up that the ants were already starting to work on the eyes and were crawling into the ears. They must have preferred those
parts, for they were battling violently over them, slashing at each other. The Dwarf squealed again with delight.

“I did so want to time everything perfectly. And now the best part of the evening, the reason in fact why we are gathered
together to celebrate,” he cackled, and now he was going full speed, his face a mass of twitches, his stumps waving wildly
in front of him like they were searching for the missing ends. “To celebrate my engagement and my betrothal. To—your sister,
Stone. And isn’t she a beautiful bride-to-be.” The Dwarf waved his arms at a greenshirt who was standing behind them and a
second Plexiglas square was lowered from the ceiling. The thing came down and stopped about a yard to the right of the now
completely ant-covered man whose outer layer of flesh was missing so that the muscle and gristle and everything that’s usually
hidden underneath could be seen oozing as the ants dug ever deeper with gusto.

The cover was ripped from the second box and Stone’s eyes widened in complete madness. April was inside wearing an obscene
bridal gown made of white satin. Only her breasts were poking through holes that had been cut into it, and other parts were
exposed as well. It was like a porno queen’s idea of a wedding dress. She was in a trance, her eyes open but staring unfocused
and straight ahead, her breathing slow and deliberate. They had drugged her out of her fucking mind. She hung there spinning
slowly before him and Stone felt his mind starting to go.

“She’s such a beautiful bride, isn’t she?” the Dwarf said almost tenderly.

“To the Dwarf,” the face fallen man across the table suddenly yelled out as they all looked on for a moment out of their drugged
revelries. “May this bitch bring him many worthy man children. And may every one of them be as ugly as he is.” He raised his
glass high and the others joined.

“Come Stone, drink, for you are to have a place of honor at the ceremony.” The Dwarf raised his stumps and poured the drink
down, half of it spilling down his chin and chest.

“You bastard, you fucking slime-coated bastard,” Stone screamed. And then he was screaming nonstop at the egg man and all
his pals and writhing around in the metal chair like a madman in a straitjacket. And they were all laughing and pointing at
the Dwarf who raised his glass high as if to signal victory. And Stone somehow knew that in this insane Game of theirs, the
more he screamed the more fucking brownie points the little bastard got.

S
TONE screamed all the way back to his cell and then screamed some more. He cracked. Between the food, the ants, his sister
and every other goddamned thing, he just let the walls go and it all came out in insane curses and threats, none of which
could be carried out. Then he tucked himself into a corner of the square steel cell they had thrown him in and at last fell
asleep, his body shaking even in dreams from the aftereffects of the electric treatment. When he awoke at God knew what hour
of the night, he tried to lift his snoring head from his chest where he had passed out. He felt like shit, with drool coming
out of his mouth and a terrible smell in the room. He remembered last night and suddenly a flood of rage went tearing through
his chest. But even as his heart speeded up from the charge of adrenaline he heard a sound, a bark in the grayness of the
room and turned with a sudden surging hope in his heart.

It was Excaliber. The dog had been nosing around the far corner of the twenty foot square they were in. The animal came flying
down the steel floor when it saw that Stone was awake but slightly misjudged its trajectory as it came hydroplaning in and
slid right past him, slamming into the metal wall about five feet behind Stone. Same old mutt, fearless but not quite getting
his angles right. It was incredible—the bastards had actually fixed him up. The dog seemed good as new.

“Good dog, I thought you were finito, for Christ’s sake. What the hell have you been up to? Your wound, let me see it.” Stone
got down on one tired knee and pushed the animal’s fur aside around the chest area. The wound looked much better now, the
stitching had been replaced with tight catgut stitches. Already it looked like the dog’s hide was growing together in places.
Excaliber barked hard and licked Stone with a great swipe across the face and then another fast. Stone smiled for the first
time in days. With the dog by his side, somehow, he inexplicably felt like he had a chance in all this.

“Amazing, isn’t it,” a voice said from behind him and Stone turned around. Dr. Kerhausen’s face was peering through a small
opening in the door. “What a few stitches here and there will do. His aorta had been cut slightly you know. Whoever did the
original stitching did a good job, but not quite good enough. There was blockage in the passageway that was allowing only
about a tenth of normal blood supply to get through. So the canine went into an unconscious hibernation. A typical reaction,
actually, for many creatures that aren’t getting enough blood flow.”

“Well, I thank you for helping my dog,” Stone said, holding onto the animal’s neck like he didn’t want to let go of it again.
“But you’re still a fucking butcher.”

“Oh please, such an old-fashioned word. I am a scientist. All that I do is for and in the name of science. All. And in that
regard I’m going to need a few samples of you and your dog’s tissue and blood,” the doctor said, pressing a button in the
outer wall. “But I’m sure both of you would put up a most ferocious fight if I tried to bring you out—we’ll just use a little
of this NX7 gas here—and presto.” There was a hissing sound and Stone got the whiff of something sour and very chemical smelling.
And almost the instant he smelled it he was falling into blackness.

When he awoke, his head was splitting. This time he was strapped down to a medical chair, his head and arms, everything firmly
locked in place. He could see Excaliber as well out of the corner of one eye, and another figure under a sheet on the other
side of him, this one stretched out on an operating table.

“Ah, I see you’re awake,” Kerhausen said with a grim, tight smile. “Not to worry. I’m not going to be cutting you up or anything
like that—today. Just taking some samples so I’ll be prepared when I do get to you. I’m sure the Dwarf will let me have what’s
left of you after the Games—and the dog too. I have such an ambitious idea for you both. I’m quite excited about it.” He
reached down and took a scalpel and cut into Stone’s arm before he could even move it, not that he could jerk the thing more
than a half inch in any direction.

“There, just a little blood and tissue sample,” he said, taking the surgical blade and slicing out a little half inch patch
of skin right off the arm. Stone gritted his teeth hard, but he wasn’t going to give this bastard the satisfaction of showing
him any pain. He knew they got their kicks out of it, all of them.

“There, not so bad, was it?” He patted Stone on the shoulder and then walked over and did the same to Excaliber, who put up
much more of a response than Stone had and wriggled furiously, twisting his head wildly at the air as his jaws were muzzled.

“There we go, all done,” Kerhausen said cheerfully as he took both samples and put them in frozen storage, into a bin from
which steam rose. “Liquid nitrogen,” he said from across the room. “Will keep it perfectly preserved until I get a chance
to cross-culture it and do all the other boring things that go into every surgical experiment. In fact you might be wondering
just what I have in mind, Mr. Stone. I’ll show you.” He ripped the sheet back on the figure to the side of Stone. There were
two figures, a man and a woman, both of them conscious, apparently, as their eyes were open—both were totally immobilized.
Some kind of muscle relaxant must have been pumped into them because they weren’t moving an inch. Both were all primed up
for operations, with lines drawn over their bodies in bright red ink.

“You see before you the man/woman transplant. I’m going to put all the woman’s parts into the man. Create a new being, something
that has never existed before. And then, Stone, it will be you—and your dog’s turn. For I shall implant parts of him onto
you. My boldest project yet. The first animal/human transplant. They’re freaks here, Mr. Stone. And they want only other freaks
around them. And soon, soon you shall be the biggest freak of all. Half man and half dog. Oh, I can’t guarantee that you’ll
live very long. But while you do, it will be a most historic and interesting occasion, I’m sure.”