Little Dead Monsters (5 page)

Chapter Eight.

It was another full house. The crowds came to watch the fights in swarms, like flies on feces, and they packed themselves tightly into the Arena, elbow-to-elbow, just to see kids beat each other to death. It was nights like these that made Allegra lose her faith in humanity and it made her want to scream, but she maintained her composure.

“Give me strength Lord,” she said aloud. She was quick to realize her mistake. Ryker hated God and religion. He was the only god allowed to exist in the Arena. Luckily he was busy going over the fight card with unbreakable concentration and he didn’t hear her.

“This card is going to absolutely bring the house down. It’s the best one yet,” Ryker said to Allegra as he showed her the names on the list. “The first fight will give the crowd some foreign flavour. I don’t want anyone mistaking me as a racist for only having American-born fighters.”

No, you’re not a racist. You’re something much worse,
Allegra thought. She read the two names, both Japanese.

“Hiroki and Tanaka, both fresh off the boat,” Ryker said. “My connections in the Yakuza sent them over. I’m tossing in some swords for their match. Hopefully they’re both little samurais in training.”

Not only was Ryker a child killer but he was a bigot too.

“I have the Dog fighting next. I’m setting him up against that black kid from Baltimore. You know, the one with all the attitude from the corners,” Ryker continued. “Both of them won their first matches in brutal fashion. I’m wetting my pants just thinking about it. To make things even more interesting, I’m giving them both a weapon to start. The barbed wire bat is a nice touch, don’t you think?”

Allegra grimaced. She hated that weapon more than any other. Not only was the bat adept at breaking bones, but with the barbed wire, it was good at mutilation as well.

The torn flesh caused by the razor wire always made Allegra feel queasy. It was a butcher’s mess and the wounds were extremely difficult to manage.

“And the final fight will be a grand one indeed. Tiberius will be fighting in his hundred-and-fiftieth match,” Ryker said. “I rarely get sentimental about these things. It seems like only yesterday that Ty had his first kill. I believe it was against that football star that ran away from home.”

“Tiberius has fought very well over the years,” she said automatically. It was programmed in her to agree with everything Ryker said.  

“Yes, he’s a deserving champion. A true force of nature in the Arena. If he wins tonight, I’m going to reward him.”

Allegra raised an eyebrow. It was rare that Ryker ever showed any generosity to any of the slaves.

“Oh?”

“Tiberius has made me more money than any other fighter. He’s one of the cornerstones of the Arena’s success,” Ryker said. “I want to show everyone that I am kind and benevolent. If Tiberius wins tonight, it’ll be his last match in the pits. I’ll grant him the honoured status as one of my personal bodyguards. He’ll no longer need to fight in the pits anymore.”

“Why don’t you grant him his freedom instead,” Allegra said. It wasn’t until Ryker gave her a wallop in the stomach that she realized her slip of the tongue. She was never allowed to give Ryker any suggestions. Never. After all, to him she was only a slave, and a slave had no opinion.

“You don’t tell me what to do,” Ryker said.

Allegra was on her knees, clutching her stomach. Tears streamed down her face as she gasped for breath.

“Did you hear what I just said?” Ryker barked. Allegra nodded weakly through the crippling pain.

“Now go and get me my drink,” he said. “Quickly, before the first fight begins.”

Allegra staggered at first but finally rose to one knee, and then to both feet. She hobbled over to the decanter full of whiskey. She filled the glass and returned with both the glass and the decanter. Ryker had his back turned to her as he sat in his usual throne on the balcony overlooking the pit. He watched the two Japanese boys with unparalleled focus as their fight began. Allegra had become an afterthought to him.

She gripped the decanter in her hands and stared at the back of Ryker’s head. He was open and exposed.

And then she felt the spark of an idea light her mind ablaze. It seemed so terrible and wonderful at the same time and it made her tremble.

She could hurt him. She could smash the glass decanter as hard as she could into that grotesque skull of his. Perhaps it wasn’t enough to kill him, but at least he’d bleed.

They’d kill her after, most likely torture her first. Maybe they would defile her. But all Allegra could think about was how fantastic and precious the look of pain on the Goblin’s face would be as he bled all over his Persian rug.

Allegra gripped the decanter until her knuckles went white and quivered as she slowly raised it over her head. If she was lucky, some broken glass would find a way into his neck or penetrate through the bone and into his brain bringing him a swift death. 

The roar of the crowd erupted, signaling the end of the fight and Allegra abruptly brought the decanter back down to her side as she regained her senses. There were too many uncertainties in her plan.

Ryker turned around and grabbed the drink out of her hands.

“About time. I had to watch the first fight sober,” he hissed.

“I’m sorry,” Allegra said. She bit her lip and forced herself to stop shaking. Her eyes dampened but she refused to let herself cry. She would not allow the Goblin to see her weak from all this emotional torture that he put her through.

Allegra never forgot the first time the Goblin made her shed tears. She was still young. Still innocent.

It was her first experience with death and the grief seized her as the boy lay at her feet. His injuries were fatal and Allegra’s tears seemed endless that night. The Goblin watched her misery with sadistic pleasure. He had loved every second of it.

In one single moment, Ryker had stolen her dignity, her innocence, and the life of her brother. The last two things were gone forever, but what little dignity she had left, she preserved it as best as she could. With the exception of physical pain from the beatings, she vowed never to cry again in front of the Goblin. Never.

Ryker tried to break her though. He tried very hard.

He attacked her with vulgarity in the beginning as he rained insults down on her like a firestorm, many of them directed at her freshly deceased brother. Allegra absorbed them all with a deadpanned look on her face. It was only when she was alone that she grieved in silence.

The next thing the Goblin did was force her to look at the faces of all the dead children and clean the gore off their bodies. She did it without a blink of an eye and she prepared the bodies as best as she could, giving them a little dignity even after death. All the while, she felt
his
presence in the shadows, waiting for her. She almost begged for
him
to come, take her away from this place, but
he
wouldn’t. Not yet. It wasn’t time yet.

In order to see her cry again, the Goblin resorted to knocking her around and it worked. How could anyone not shed a tear when they were on the receiving end of a vicious beating? However these tears didn’t count in Allegra’s mind. It was her body betraying her heart.

For the next few years, Allegra controlled her emotions, refusing to let them get the best of her. Her heart was like stone when everyone was around her, especially the Goblin, but it was when she was alone that she became as brittle as eggshells.

The next time Allegra had cried in the open, since her brother’s death, was when Ryker assigned her a new task. After he sold one of his voluptuous medics to a European businessman (Ryker delved in sex slavery as a side business), he required a new medic and that responsibility fell onto Allegra’s lap.

The first boy she was assigned to look after, died from his injuries. Perhaps it wouldn’t have been so bad if the boy didn’t have the same eyes as her brother. She cried and cried while the Goblin laughed. A week later a second boy died on her operating table and she cried for him too.

As the weeks passed, Allegra forced herself to learn everything she needed to about medicine. She requested more medical books and better tools (both which the Goblin granted after she sold him on the idea that it was a better investment to keep his champions alive) and she buried herself in this work. It almost gave her a new purpose in this place; a small sense of accomplishment in this meaningless life that she lived.

There were fewer deaths under her watch and eventually she had the highest survival rate amongst all the other medics. There were occasions when a boy’s wounds were too serious and like all the other times, she wept. But these tears were not meant for Ryker’s pleasure. If no one else cried for these boys, then Allegra would.

And now one of the Japanese kids lay dead in the Arena and the other boy stood victorious and horrified.

“I’ll hand the Japanese kid over to Amanda to mend,” Ryker said. “You take care of the winner between Dog and Naymond.”

Allegra nodded and turned her back to the pit and walked over to the wall furthest away from its view. She had no desire to see Dog in another fight. He was a wild animal.

She closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds of the pit but it was overpowering. The speakers hissed as the announcer’s voice echoed throughout the building.

“The next fight is to the death!” he roared.

They were all fights to the death, Allegra thought. What was the point of telling everyone what was already known?

“Our first combatant was found on the streets, living like a mongrel. He fought his first battle three days ago and won, slaying his opponent with a ferocity that the Arena hasn’t seen in a long while. Raise your voices and welcome to the pit, Dog!”

The crowd broke out into a chorus of both cheers and obscenities and suddenly, Allegra’s heart dropped and she felt sorry for the boy. He had lived a life of abandonment. No one had taught him how to love, so how could he cherish his own life or anyone else’s for that matter? Living in cold and hunger was all he knew. Dog had lost his innocence long ago, just like her.

The voice of the announcer silenced the mob as he introduced the other boy, and he too was both praised and vilified by the spectators.

When the fight began, a hush fell over the crowd as they were drawn into the action in the pit. Allegra closed her eyes and tried to block out the sounds of the fight, but what seemed like seconds later, the crowd was already cheering in a frenzy. The fight was over.

Ryker practically leapt out of his seat and applauded with joy, like a child on Christmas morning.

“He killed him already,” Ryker exclaimed. “Dog killed him in fifteen seconds.”

The Goblin rose from his throne and went to his computer. He sat behind the monitor, his ugly face illuminated by the blue light, and he clicked on the mouse while staring at the screen. Finally he raised his hands in the air triumphantly and laughed.

“It’s a new record,” Ryker said. “Unbelievable.”

The fact that Ryker was celebrating on how quickly it was to end a life made Allegra feel sick.

“You’re in luck as well,” Ryker said. “Looks like you’ll have it easy tonight. Dog suffered no injuries. Take him to see Jacob instead. I’ll have him decorated for his third fight.”

The final card of the night had Tiberius ending his career in the Arena undefeated. His opponent never stood a chance. The crowd savoured Tiberius’s victory and worshipped him with praise. He was a god to them.

Ryker was so pleased with the outcome that he addressed the audience himself, something he did on rare occasions. He spoke of how Tiberius was the greatest fighter that the Arena had ever seen and as a reward for his one hundred and fiftieth victory, he was elevated to the status of Ryker’s own personal bodyguard. Only the most elite were given this honour.

Tiberius nodded respectfully to both the crowd and Ryker before making his way to the iron gates. His body was decorated with many tattoos, each one symbolizing one of his victories over the years and tonight, he would add the final one to his collection. The crowd chanted his name ceremoniously. He was a lion in Ryker’s Kingdom of Shit.

Chapter Nine.

She found Dog sitting on the cold, damp ground outside the pit’s gate. He was shackled and there was blood on his chest and face, none of it his. Two guards stood over him with guns drawn and pointed.

“Are you hurt?” Allegra asked. Dog looked up at her with eyes that were glassy. He blinked and his gaze was distant, as if he were a world away.

“He was weak,” he finally said. The guilt was splattered on his face along with the blood. At that moment, Allegra saw Dog for what he truly was: A sad, hopeless boy.

She knelt down and took a cloth from her medical kit. Allegra showed him the smiling moon on the front of the bag and saw the tension slowly melt away from his body as he relaxed.

“I’m going to clean up some of the blood,” she said. He nodded. Allegra brought the white cloth up to his head and removed some of the gore from his cheek. She was careful to be gentle as she eased the cloth along the side of his face. Dog closed his eyes and exhaled slowly, as if he were feeling every sensation of that cloth, and sat there peacefully as she stroked the wet fabric across his brow.

When Allegra was done she took a bottle of water and poured it over his head and he breathed in deeply and allowed the wet beads to drip down the contours of his face. His eyes remained closed and his breathing became rhythmic, like a slow beating drum. The wildness left him and he sat there in a peaceful bliss, ignorant of the blood that stained his body and the guns pointed at his head.

She let him rest for a minute, but only a minute. The guards were impatient and just as cruel, if not crueler than the Goblin. They wouldn’t stand around waiting forever.

Allegra touched him delicately on the shoulder and he snapped out of his waking dream.

“I’m going to take you to see Jacob. You won’t be hurt. I promise,” she said. Dog looked at her with suspicion, but finally nodded.

The door to Jacob’s chamber was locked. A high-pitched buzzing that came from inside the room made Dog grimace.

“Don’t worry,” Allegra assured him.

He stared at her with paranoia at first but perhaps Dog saw the honesty on her face and he eventually agreed. “Okay.”

After some time, the noise of the drill ceased and the doors to the room opened. Tiberius stepped out. Like a giant colossus, he towered over everyone. His skin was the colour of dark rust while his arms were thick-corded muscle and his body, bearing as many scars as tattoos, was like hard iron. He had additional scars across his left brow and on his right cheek, but that didn’t detract from his striking features. His hair was dark water—black, flowing, and exhaustive—and his beard was neat and trim. He looked at them with dark grey eyes that were both hardened and inquisitive.

“Allegra,” he greeted her. Tiberius was always pleasant to everyone. On nights before the fights, he wished his competitors well and treated them with respect. That was until he killed them with his bare hands in the pit. There was a controlled dignity about him that could just as easily turn into a dangerous savagery. It seemed like his emotions operated on a switch that was easily flipped back and forth.

“Congratulations on your success,” Allegra said. Tiberius grunted.

“Success…” he lingered on that word. “An interesting way to see it.” He glanced over at Dog for a brief moment before speaking to Allegra again.

“Jacob’s given me my final tattoo,” Tiberius said showing Allegra the mark on his hand. The symbol was a circle with four intersecting lines drawn through the centre of it. At the tail end of each line were three horizontal lines and a ‘U’, which resembled a pitchfork at the tips.

“What does it mean?” Allegra asked.

“Invincible.”

“I suppose it’s well deserved isn’t it?”

He looked at the black ink, still fresh on the top of his hand, and nodded. “I suppose it is.” The two guards escorting Tiberius gestured for him to move on.

“I have to meet with Ryker and prepare for my new role,” he said. He eyed Dog one more time. “Good luck,” he said. “The pits have a way of taking both your life and sanity. Don’t let either happen.”

Tiberius walked away as the two guards trailed behind him, guns by their sides, as if escorting a dangerous convict in a prison.

“How long has he been here?” Dog asked.

“He’s been fighting for eight years,” Allegra replied. “He was brought in at sixteen but Ryker had him fight the nineteen-year-olds on the account of his size. He beat them all. And then when Ty turned nineteen, Ryker raised the odds against him. Two people were sent in to take him on at a time, followed by three and sometimes even four.”

“Why?” Dog asked. “If he was his champion, why try so hard to kill him?”

“Ryker doesn’t like keeping anyone older than nineteen here,” Allegra replied. “I think he’s afraid that older and wiser men would find a way to -” but she stopped herself from finishing the sentence. The guards were listening.

“Ty found a way to keep winning and the crowds loved him,” she continued. “He made a lot of money for Ryker and he realized it was far more profitable keeping him alive than dead. He’s the reluctant poster boy of this place.”

“So why retire him now?”

Allegra shrugged. “Who knows? Perhaps Ryker was grateful for all Tiberius did for him. Or maybe he wanted to give the other slaves in the Arena a fighting chance?”

One of the guards heard enough and waved his gun at them. “No more talking,” he ordered. “Bring him inside already.”

Allegra walked through the door and motioned for Dog to follow. “Come.”

He hesitated at first, but eventually followed her inside.

Jacob greeted Allegra with a smile, the only genuine one she ever received in this place. Though they were different in every possible way (he loved piercings, heavy metal, and was a night owl while she dressed conservatively, enjoyed classical music, and slept like a rock).  There were two common bonds that they shared, forming the roots of their friendship — they both loved art and they both hated Ryker.

Allegra was ashamed to admit that when she first met Jacob, she was a bit judgemental of his appearance. He had piercings on his eyebrows, nose, lower lip and a colourful red phoenix tattoo displayed on the back of his head. His look was a bit shocking at first glance. She wondered how Ryker even allowed for Jacob to walk around the Arena with such a radical appearance.

“Ryker loves tattoos and artwork, and I’m the best he’s got,” Jacob had said. “My talents as an artist allows me a bit of leeway with what I can get away with. I don’t make any trouble for Ryker and I give his fighters the coolest tattoos possible. I guess I’m protected because my talent, just like you are with your beauty.”

Along with being a wonderful person, Jacob was a wonderful illustrator. In fact one of his childhood dreams was to be a professional artist. With every visit, Allegra always found new drawings up on the wall of Jacob’s room. Most his pictures had fantastical elements: dragons, fairies, and unicorns. But every so often there was one of a boy who had died in combat. Their faces were always so sad, but Jacob managed to bring out their humanity in his drawings and he gave them an identity that never existed for them here.

Allegra asked him once why he drew pictures of the dead.

“So we remember them as people,” he had said, “and not as sacrificial lambs to be killed for sport.”

There was a day that Ryker had discovered Jacob’s pictures. Allegra feared of the punishment that was to come for him. Surely he was going to be beaten. However the Goblin looked at the pictures with an inquisitive eye and merely shrugged. She wondered if Jacob’s drawings stirred something human inside of Ryker, perhaps some type of compassion for the lives of these children. But the following day, Ryker tossed two nine year olds into the pit with a pair of hedge clippers and Allegra retracted any thoughts of the Goblin having a soul.

Allegra gestured for Dog to sit on the steel table covered in towels that formed a bed of sorts.

She introduced them. “Jacob, this is Dog.”

“That’s not much of a name,” Jacob said as he tossed an old needle out and opened a fresh one from the package.

“It works for me,” Dog replied as he stared at the needle in Jacob’s hand uncomfortably. “What’s that for?”

“We’re going to put some art on you,” Jacob replied.

“Why?”

Allegra sensed Dog’s suspicions and was worried he would retaliate with violence if Jacob brought the needle anywhere near him. She walked over to Dog and laid a hand on his shoulder, hoping to calm him.

It did.

“Ryker likes ink on his fighters,” she said. “He wants winners decorated so it gives them a unique personality and a reason to cheer for them. It also makes you look more menacing.”

“All for the crowd,” Jacob said with disdain.

“And you’re going to be the one drawing on me?” Dog asked as he gave Jacob an uneasy look. The tattooist nodded and showed him the needle and hand machine he used.

“I’ll make it look good, I promise,” Jacob replied.

“I don’t trust anybody with metal on their face,” Dog said as he glared at the piercings on Jacob’s lips, nose, and eyebrow.

For a second, Jacob looked to be taken aback by the comment, but he answered with a smile.

“That’s fair. Not everyone does,” he said with warmth. “But you can trust me Dog. You get one tattoo for every victory and I promise I’ll make it look cool.”

“Fine.”

“What do you want me to draw,” Jacob asked.

“Draw whatever you want.”

“How about barbed wire? I can draw it around your bicep.”

“That’s just stupid,” Dog replied.

“Okay then. I can do a butterfly on the ankle,” Jacob teased. Dog glared at him and the hand by his side began to coil into a fist. Allegra had to hold him in order to ease his tension.

“Tough crowd,” Jacob muttered. “I can do Japanese characters. Ryker likes those.”

“I’m not Japanese,” Dog said. “You could be writing nonsense for all I know.”

“Well give me a suggestion then,” Jacob said.

Dog thought about it for a moment and then replied, “Draw a smiling moon. Like the one on her medical bag.” He pointed to her med kit, which she left on the table by the door.

Jacob smirked. “You’re kidding right?”

Dog was serious. “Draw me that smiling moon.”

“I can’t do that,” Jacob said. “Ryker has an approved list of things I can draw. I can’t do anything cute or anything that insults the competitiveness of the Arena.”

“Do it,” Dog insisted.

“Jacob’s right,” Allegra said. “If he were to draw that on your body, we’ll all be skinned alive.”

Dog looked disappointed. “Fine,” he said. “Give me barbed wire then.”

Jacob set to work, pushing the needle gently into the skin of his arm, breaking it and filling it with little black beads of ink. When he was finally done, Dog looked at it and scoffed.

“This is stupid,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” Jacob replied. “But seriously, think of something for next time and I’ll draw it with the exception of flowers and smiling moons.”

Dog stood up from the table and headed for the door. “Whatever,” he said.

Allegra called out to him. “Don’t you want to see what it looks like?” She pointed to the mirror resting in the corner of the room. Dog shook his head.

“Come on, it actually looks pretty neat. Come look in the mirror,” Allegra urged.

“No!” Dog snapped and without another word, he stepped out of the room and into the custody of the guards, who were waiting to escort him back to his cell.

“He’s an angry fellow,” Jacob said when the two were alone. “Maybe in another life he was happy.”

Allegra watched as Dog treaded down the tunnels, a guard on each side. His head hung low and his hands and feet were bound together. He walked with shoulders slumped. Allegra felt so sorry for him.

“Maybe in another life we’re all happy,” she said.