Little Dead Monsters (3 page)

Chapter Four.

When Dog awoke, he found himself in an old iron cell. The last thing he remembered, he was lying in the medical room, looking for a means of escape. But he was too tired, and his entire body ached and then sleep’s thievery came and stole away his consciousness.

He shivered as he grabbed the blanket in the corner of the tiny cell and wrapped himself in it. The smell of sweat and blood in conjunction with the antibiotics coursing through his body made him nauseous. His mouth was as dry as cotton and he regretted not drinking the glass of water the girl had offered him.

No. He couldn’t trust anything anyone gave him. That’s what got him imprisoned in the first place.

There were other cages in this dungeon. Some of them were empty, but for the most part, other boys of his age inhabited them. He heard the sounds of sobbing from a few of them.

Crying isn’t going to do you much good,
he wanted to say, but he held his mouth shut.

Most of the captives kept to themselves. Whether it was out of fear or the weariness from combat, he didn’t know, but no one here was making any effort to speak to one another, which served Dog just fine. He hated people anyways.

Dog looked at each and every one of them, but none bothered to lift their heads up to acknowledge him. It was as if the concrete floor had taken a hold of their eyes. Fear. That’s what it had to be — intense, authentic fear.

Dog had nothing so he was afraid of nothing.

He looked over all the boys with a scrutinizing eye. He would study each one of them and discover their weaknesses, and if they were thrown in the pit with him for another one of the fights, he would make damn sure to be the one standing at the end of it.

The city streets had taught him how to stay alive. Dog lived in a harsh reality where food and shelter were no longer basic needs but a luxury instead. His meals mainly consisted of anything still edible from the dumpsters supplemented with whatever he managed to steal from restaurants and early morning grocery deliveries.

Dog had learned to hide in shadows without being noticed. Getting caught was not an option, especially by the adults. He trusted none of them, especially after they took her, the only person he ever cared for, away from him.

He usually slept in the same dumpsters he ate from, and on some nights, in big empty cardboard boxes. There were times he was lucky and he successfully hid in the washrooms of stores or malls after closing. It was the one place that didn’t have security cameras and the guards often overlooked them. As long as he stayed in there, he wasn’t discovered. He could be warm for a night and there was an abundance of clean water and soap.

He had tried spending the night with other homeless people once in the makeshift town they built for themselves under the freeway underpass. Its community mainly consisted of other runaways like him, drug addicts, and people who had been unlucky in their fate. None of them were too threatening and mainly kept to themselves, guarding over their few possessions that they hoarded over the years. The way some of them were protecting their belongings, you’d think there were diamonds inside those piles of useless junk.

The odd time, Dog felt threatened by the way some of the men looked at him, and he always kept on his guard when they were around. It wasn’t until the bearded man in suspenders forced him up against a wall while attempting to tear off his pants that Dog knew he wasn’t just being paranoid. It was all too real.

No one had helped him. They all turned a blind eye while he was being assaulted. Luckily Dog found a broken beer bottle on the ground nearby and slashed the bearded man’s throat before anything could really happen. Dog had watched in fascination as the man died slowly before his eyes. Dog still had half his baby teeth at the time.

Since then Dog did his best to keep to himself and stay hidden. And then one unlucky day—two days ago—he made the terrible mistake of trusting adults again and now he found himself in the same predicament as a prisoner on death row.

Dog cursed himself for his weakness at the time and his stupidity. No hamburger in the world was worth this price. He vowed never to make the same mistake again. Dog would trust no one. Every person was now his enemy.

He counted seven others in the room with him. For the most part, they were underdeveloped and weak. They were also terrified. Violence and dying was a new concept for many of the others here and Dog saw that it scared the piss out of them. Meanwhile he had looked death in the eye every single day. And he lived.

Dog still had to maintain some level of caution and not have his confidence rule him. Dog had expected to finish Sunny from last night easily, but he underestimated his opponent’s will to survive. Dog was caught off guard and he paid for his mistakes with multiple knife wounds and a six-inch gash across his chest. It was going to scar, but then again, as long as he remained a prisoner here, there were many more of those to come.

Chapter Five.

Allegra treaded carefully through the winding corridors of the Arena complex, careful not to slip on the wet concrete caused by the humidity. In her hands, she cradled a tray of food.

One of the guards grinned and blew her a kiss. He was a degenerate. They all were.

She ignored the guard and walked past him, waiting until she was alone to let out a sigh of relief. Allegra knew the guards dared not touch her because of Ryker, but she still felt nervous around them, especially when she knew what they were thinking about.

Allegra was alone in the shadows now and she shuddered, but not because of the guards. She always felt
his
vivid eyes on her but when she turned around to look,
he
was never there. She quickened her pace.

Don’t spill anything,
Allegra thought. She was always careful when delivering food, making sure not to lose a single crumb. For some of the boys, she knew that this meal would be their very last and she wished she could offer them something more than stale bread and day old porridge. Meanwhile, Ryker ate greasy meats, rich breads, and fresh fruits. While Allegra served him, she would watch him gorge on dinner as if he were a bear preparing for hibernation, eating half portions of everything and throwing away the rest. She thought of smuggling out some of the food once, but when one of the other slave girls was caught red-handed, Allegra decided that the punishment was not worth the risk. Ryker made the slave girl eat the scraps of food on all fours while he caned her in the ass. The poor girl couldn’t sit for days.

She continued to walk at a brisk speed as the tunnel forked up ahead. Allegra took the left path towards her destination and stopped outside the entrance to the dungeon, where the guard skimmed her from head-to-toe before letting her in.

There was always a sadness that drowned Allegra every time she stepped foot in the holding cells. She felt as if she were in a zoo with malnourished children as the caged attractions. Some of the boys cried when they saw her while others were so tired that they could only sit and stare as they drew laboured breaths from their mouths.

She scooped fresh porridge into the empty bowls waiting at the foot of each cage. The sight and smell of food made many of the boys clamour to the bars and devour it in seconds. As Allegra broke off pieces of bread from the stiff loaf, she wondered when was the last time they had anything to eat or drink.

She noticed that Dog didn’t touch his bowl, though he did have his water. When he finished drinking, he sat back down in the corner of his cell and glared at her. He was a boneheaded mule, Allegra decided.

She walked over to his cage. “You should eat.”

“No,” he replied.

He was proving to be difficult, but Allegra was patient. No one deserved to live like a slave and die like livestock. He deserved better. They all did. Dignity was at a premium in this place.

“You’ll need your strength,” she said to Dog. “Eat the food.”

Dog remained adamant. “No.”

“It’s really not as bad as it looks.”

He shook his head. “The last time I took food from you people, I ended up here. I find the meals you offer me now a little hard to swallow.”

“I’m not one of them,” she promised.

Dog smirked. “You’re not in chains and you’re not in a cage. You’re not one of us either.”

Allegra took a deep breath. “I might not be physically imprisoned but believe me, I’m a prisoner here, just like you are,” she said.

“I thought I told you the next time I saw you, I would kill you.”

“Haven’t you had your fill of killing yet?”

Dog shook his head. “I do whatever I need to do to live.”

“Your survival isn’t dependent on my death,” Allegra said. “It’s the opposite. I’m the one that tends to your injuries and makes sure your wounds don’t fester. I’m the one that gives you antibiotics so a fever doesn’t take you because of infection. If it weren’t for me, you’d probably be dead.”

Dog laughed just before rising to his feet. He trudged over towards Allegra until only the iron bars and several inches of space separated them.

“You should just let me die then,” Dog said. “You’re keeping me alive just so I can go out there and kill another person. That doesn’t make much sense does it?”

Allegra shook her head. “You’re not to blame for any of this,” she said. “It’s an impossible situation. I will also never turn my back to anyone who needs medical help.”

“I enjoyed it,” Dog said. “I enjoyed killing Sunny.”

Allegra was in shock and she recoiled from him.

“Now leave me alone.”

She did as he requested but not before putting a final word in.

“You really are a dog.”

Chapter Six.

The next visitor Dog received was a man named Ryker. He walked and talked with an air of importance to him that made Dog realize that he was the one in charge. Dog vowed to stick a knife into this man’s heart given the first opportunity.

“You’re a savage,” Ryker grinned. He held a cigarette to his mouth and inhaled it with euphoric pleasure. Dog wanted to shove the thing through Ryker’s nostril.

“The way you killed the other boy, it was…” Ryker began. “It was beautiful.”

“It wasn’t intended to be,” Dog replied. Ryker took another drag from his cigarette before tossing it onto the floor. He extinguished it with the tip of his pointy leather boot and took a step closer to the iron cage.

“You stirred something in me,” Ryker said. “I felt this overwhelming excitement watching you take the life out of that boy. It was like watching a lion cub stalking its prey for the first time. You fight with this ferocity that I haven’t seen in a long while.”

Dog was not amused by Ryker’s words and he ignored him, hoping that this greasy man would leave him in peace. No such luck.

“You are a curious one,” Ryker thought aloud, his eyes narrowing on Dog. “You could have killed your opponent easily, but you allowed him to come back in the fight. You practically gave him the knife.” Dog could tell that the fights were a passion to him.

“No,” Dog replied. “He took me by surprise. He was stronger than I thought.”

Ryker laughed and shook his head. “You’re just fooling yourself kid. You had him, but you hesitated. Those scars on your arms and chest are your own doing.”

Dog frowned at what Ryker was implying. He had spent his whole life surviving, and if it meant taking another life in order to do so, he had no qualms over it. He was not weak.

“Was Sunny the first person you ever killed?” Ryker asked.

Dog met him with silence.

“No, you’ve done it before,” Ryker said. “The first time is always the hardest. They normally cry after they do it, but for some reason you stood there like some dumb oaf, staring at Sunny while he bled out in front of you. You’ve killed before.”

“I don’t like crying.”

Ryker smiled. “Spoken like a true tough guy. I have high hopes for you in the pits.”

“I’m just surviving this shit you brought me into,” Dog replied.

Ryker chuckled. “You have another fight coming up in three days. Eat your fill and rest up,” Ryker said. “This time your opponent won’t be easy. He has blood on his hands too.”

Dog shrugged his shoulders and walked away from the cage. He sat down in the corner of his cell and stared at the ceiling while Ryker crammed in one last word before he left.

“Savage.”

When Dog was finally alone, he began thinking about the next fight. If it were against any of the others in this room, Dog had little to worry about.

You had him but you hesitated,
were Ryker’s words.

“Maybe I did after all,” Dog whispered to himself.

In the middle of the night, a third visitor came to see Dog. Sunny stood within the confines of Dog’s cell and stared at him with bloody eyes.

He was still bleeding profusely, though his body was translucent instead of a lively flesh color. He did not speak, but his eyes said everything Dog needed to hear.

I’m dead.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t have a choice,” Dog said. “One of us had to die.”

But why me?

Dog rose to his feet and looked Sunny in his pale eyes.

“We were both at the wrong place at the wrong time,” he said.

I had a life.

“So did I.”

I had a family. Someone loved me.

“Someone loved me once too.”

But not anymore?

“No. Not anymore.”

Then you see, I should have been the one to live.

Dog shook his head. “Don’t you see? We’ll all die here anyways.”

Sunny nodded in agreement.

“Are you at peace where you are?” Dog asked. Sunny shook his head.

Not until we’re all free. Until then I can’t leave. None of us can.

“You going to spook me every night? That is until I die and end up like you?” Dog asked. The apparition shook his head.

Others will come.

Dog thought for a moment, before replying thoughtfully. “For what it’s worth I’m sorry. I really am.”

But Sunny was gone and Dog was alone again in his cell. He wondered if it was only a matter of time before he too ended up as a ghost in this hellish place.