Last Ranger (20 page)

“Promise to protect April Stone from all others who try to use her ovaries for reproductive purposes,” the Dwarf replied,
looking with lovesick eyes into the dilated pupils of April.

“And I promise to give her a full two years to produce a freak boy child.”

“And shall give her a full two years to produce a freak boy child.”

“I now—pronounce you,” the priest said, going slower and slower as if he couldn’t stand to say the final words on the page.
“Man and—wife. You may ki—kk-kkiss the bride.” The priest let his hand holding the paper fall to his side and his head fell
down to his chest with a look of utter shame.

The Dwarf leaned over in the wheelchair and held out his puckered white lips. Stone felt himself gag but held it all back
as he knew if he puked with a cloth around his mouth, he’d drown in the stuff. April turned her face under the Dwarf’s hypnotic
gaze and will and their lips met. Stone could see the Dwarf’s little reptile-like tongue digging around to get between her
lips, but she was so drugged out that her teeth remained closed as she stared straight at the Dwarf’s forehead. She didn’t
know where she was; this was some consolation for her. But not for Martin Stone, who struggled furiously within his bounds,
not even caring that he was ripping his legs and arms and wrists to shreds against the metal cables that held him down.

“Come,” the Dwarf said, pulling his face back from his bride’s and sweeping his stump around the room. “Time to eat and drink.
Time to celebrate the greatest moment of the twentieth century—and the woman who shall bear the future emperor of the world.”

W
HEN all the smooching had been done and toasts raised, Dwarf poked at the panel of his wheelchair with April walking alongside
him, her hand resting on the back rest of the chair. The eggman headed off the prefab stage and down a ramp along one side
to join his fellow freaks. They were sloshing down everything in sight into misshapen mouths, scaled and burned hands squeezing
tight on glasses and young breasts. The priest remained standing there alone on the stage not sure what he was supposed to
do next. He could hardly bear to look at the mob of freaks below him or at the woman he had just hitched to the mini-monster.

“Priestie,” the Dwarf shouted up from the floor below. “It was decreed in my dream vision that the priest who married me to
my anointed one was not to ever perform another ceremony. This is to be the last.” The priest got a nervous look on his already
heavily sweating face.

“You mean I can’t perform marriages, or funerals or—”

“Exactly,” the Dwarf said, letting a nasty smile dance across his face. Stone, who watched it all from across the room, had
never seen the Dwarf so happy. Clearly, marrying his sister had done wonders for the monster’s mood. “And though I’m sure
you could promise me that you wouldn’t—and you might even try not to,” the Dwarf went on, “somewhere along the line you would
fail, being only human like all of us. Therefore,” the eggman continued as he leaned over in the wheelchair and poised him
left stump above a red button, “although I surely do appreciate the long distance and the many dangers you underwent to get
here—I must terminate you. Goodbye.” The goodbye was said almost sweetly, for the Dwarf did appreciate this day, would always
remember it and treasure it in his heart. But the dream demanded it.

He stabbed down at the button and a great white arc of electricity shot down from the ceiling and ripped through the priest’s
head, down through his body and into the floor. Stone’s eyes grew wide, and for the first time in the last hour he stopped
struggling within the steel chair as he watched the bolts of megawatts rip into the body. The man was instantly dancing around
wildly like a puppet attached to a jackhammer. His mouth was horribly contorted in a wide scream but no sound came out as
his arms flung out and around like a boxer who can’t decide what to hit.

But he only pogo-sticked around for about ten seconds. Then plumes of smoke began rising up from his mouth and ears, all the
orifices of his body, thick and nauseating, filling the air above him with a cloud of his own smoldering flesh. Suddenly flames
appeared all over him and the priest continued to dance around, only on fire now. Within seconds every square inch of him
was rippling with blue flames. Even the electric chair didn’t burn its occupants into something left in a broiler all afternoon.

The flaming thing just kept burning and lurching around a few square feet, unable to escape the clutching pull of the supercurrent.
It burned until there was nothing to consume anymore and then the charred bones of the corpse crumbled like old charcoal down
onto the floor. The electric bolts shot into the pile of what had been a man for another few seconds, grinding even that up
into finer dust. When Dwarf pushed his stump at the off button there was nothing left except an ink black powder almost as
fine as sand spread out all around the stage atop a burnt rug, which had covered the steel plating beneath.

The other freaks applauded and lauded the Dwarf from out of their drunkenness, screaming out their compliments at the afternoon’s
entertainment. Once again the Dwarf hadn’t failed them. Stone glared at the eggman through itching eyes as some of the smoke
of the dead man had wafted into his face and irritated his eyes, which were watering up like little geysers now.

The festivities went on for nearly four hours. The Dwarf left the dust on the stage, feeling it was part of the day’s aesthetic.
At last as nearly all of the freaks had passed out or vomited so many times that they had to be taken off to the medical section,
Dwarf appeared to tire as well.

“Well, I guess that even the happiest of occasions must end,” he said, addressing the assemblage though only two of the freaks
were still there or able to listen, and they waved glasses back and forth in front of their hideous faces. “So adieu, adieu
old friends and now I shall retire with—my bride.”

“Yeah,” a reptile face screamed out, throwing his scaled hand down over his groin area. “Give it to her good, Dwarf. Make
her scream.”

“Oh, you’ll be hearing us tonight,” the jaundice-faced groom said, throwing his brandy glass toward the stage and the still
smoldering ashes of the priest. He flung it with both stumps like a seal trying to dump a rotten fish. It flew out from the
purple appendages only a foot or so where it smashed into pieces on the concrete. “Come dear,” he said slurring as he leaned
over and addressed April. “Let us retire to our—honeymoon suite.”

“Yes—our honeymoon,” April echoed as she walked along behind the Dwarf, who aimed his chair toward one of the exits, where
his private elevator was waiting to whisk them to his full-level living quarters.

“What about Stone?” his chief of internal security asked as Dwarf passed him at the door.

“I’ve no more need for him,” the Dwarf hiccupped drunkenly. “Give him to Dr. Kerhausen, he wants him for some crazy experiment.”
Then the Dwarf was gone from Stone’s view—and his sister as well.

“Come on scum, it’s the end of the road for you,” a greenshirt said pushing the chair, which had wheels beneath it, along
down the corridor. He chuckled as he wheeled it, apparently amused by the day’s events—and what was about to befall Stone.
“He’s a brilliant man, Dr. Kerhausen is,” the greenshirt said. “You’re going to be a very lucky man to be part of such a—”
Again he began laughing, and then managed to sputter out the words, “medical experiment.” He wheeled Stone into one of the
freight elevators and then up several levels and into the doctor’s medical facilities.

Stone could see straight ahead, and he didn’t like this room at all—with men cut up and sewn together again lying on stretchers
all over the place like discarded dolls. Then he saw an empty operating table with equipment all around it, and life support
machines beeping. Two medical techs were standing by with white gowns already on. And next to the bed—already unconscious
and strapped down to a second table—was Excaliber. Stone’s eyes really filled with tears now. Had they had already killed
the dog? It wasn’t moving at all.

“Here, here now,” Dr. Kerhausen said as he stepped from behind a blinking contraption. “I told you we would meet again, that
our fates were intertwined. And that time is now. I want you to know that I am honored to share this moment with you and shall
always think fondly of you.” Stone sputtered but with a gag in his mouth not a hell of a lot came out.

“Yes, yes, I know you have so much to say before you go. But unfortunately there is no time for words, just for cutting. All
the facilities are ready. Let us begin.” Dr. Kerhausen tied on his surgical gown and then slid on rubber gloves. As he put
them on, two of the dozen gowned assistants took Stone’s chair and fiddled with it. Stone prepared himself to come out fighting
were there the slightest opportunity. But they didn’t give him one, pushing a button so the chair straightened out flat beneath
him and then lifting it up onto the operating table with him now stretched out on it. And for the first time Stone had to
really be honest with himself—that there was no way out. He couldn’t do a fucking thing to stop this maniac from cutting him
to ribbons. Two of them began slicing his clothes right from his body, careful not to cut the skin. Within seconds he was
stark naked on the table and shivering with cold metal beneath his back and legs.

“Is the video camera and the recorder on?” Kerhausen asked one of the already masked assistants who stood waiting around the
table. “I want this to be recorded for all posterity—no hitches. This operation will be as history making—as the Wright Brothers
flight. For with men and beasts mixed together as one, new kinds of workers will be able to be created. Man/Beasts with the
intelligence of homo sapiens—but the brute strength of the animal.” He was ranting louder as if acting out a scene in front
of an audience of thousands. The video was checked several times, camera mounted on a clamp on the ceiling looking straight
down so it could note every little slice.

“Take off his gag,” Dr. Kerhausen said, donning his own mask. “He needs full breathing facilities—or it will kill him.” One
of the assistants cut the gag from Stone’s mouth with a scalpel and it fell away. “Now you can scream all you want Mr. Stone,”
Kerhausen said softly. “Down here—it is fine to scream. Your anger will oxygenate your blood, it will give you strength to
survive.”

“Survive what?” Stone asked, “the mutilation of me and my dog?”

“Mutilation—oh no, something far above that. It’s true we shall cut off pieces of your dog—but only to reattach them to you.
And take your pieces—and put them on the animal. It is really quite a daring undertaking.”

“Jesus God,” Stone muttered under his breath. “You and Hitler must have been great friends,” he snarled.

“Oh, we had our moments,” Kerhausen laughed from within his operating mask. “What I wouldn’t give to have his body here now.
I know I could resurrect him, clone him somehow. Ah—but that is not to be. So I must settle for the first dog-man.”

“Now gather around,” Dr. Kerhausen said, cutting off Stone’s talking as his assistants all came in close around the table
Stone was lying on. The doctor took a magic marker and began drawing along Stone’s shoulder all the way around, then at the
top of both thighs. “We shall cut here,” he said. “I want to give him the dog’s legs—but keep one human arm. It will be interesting
to see the advantages of having such a mixture. Quite interesting.”

While they drew their lines and circles and made sure everyone understood just what their function would be in the complex
four-hour double back-and-forth transplant—with a second team working just on the dog. Stone managed to turn his head a few
inches the other way to see what was on the far side. Kerhausen’s last experiment, the half man/half woman. It didn’t look
like it was doing too good, with both breasts that had been sewn onto its chest rotting right off so that bone was exposed
beneath. One of its arms was much smaller than the other, but that too was shriveling up, turning a deep purple and green
color, giving off a foul odor. Stone felt himself shudder deep inside for he was about to become something like that—worse.
And as he looked at the pain-wracked face, the eyes opened and caught Stone unprepared.

“Kill me,” the lips mouthed silently, though not a word came out. “Please kill me.” The mouth and lips of a woman had been
transplanted as well, and not very well, so two small fleshy lines barely covered the teeth, giving the whole face a skeletal
smile. Stone ripped his head away, unable to look at the pitiful creature. Never had he felt so alone, so desperate. If only
he could have gone down fighting, shooting, punching, anything. He had expected to go out that way. And in a dark way had
been prepared for it. But not this, not like this, oh please God not like this.

“Scalpel, nurse,” Dr. Kerhausen said, holding his gloved hand out.