Little Dead Monsters (7 page)

Chapter Twelve.

That night, two ghosts came to visit Dog. Both Cannibal and Pain were on their knees, heads bowed as if worshipping Dog like some false god.

“Leave me alone,” Dog said. The two remained unmoved. Blood flowed from Pain’s head like syrup from a cracked tree trunk while Cannibal bled from three symmetrical punctures in the chest.

“I’m sorry for what happened,” Dog said. “I had no choice.”

They looked at him with sorrowful eyes that read like words on a page.

But you had a choice,
they said.

“You killed people as well,” Dog said. “Don’t judge me.”

You’re better than us,
the ghosts echoed.
You can be different.

Dog turned away from them as he lay on the straw bed.

“I’m nothing,” Dog whispered to himself. “I’m just another animal in a cage.”

He fell asleep with his back turned to the apparitions, who watched and haunted him throughout the night.

Chapter Thirteen.

Ryker warmed up the crowd with a couple of preliminary matches before the grand conclusion of his tournament. Despite the gory happenings in the pit, Ryker seemed to have maintained a healthy appetite as he gorged on slices of sausages and cheese that Allegra brought to him. He ate them greedily with the point of his pocket knife.

Watching Ryker eat like a starving warthog made her stomach feel queasy and she choked down the bile that rose to the back of her throat.

The preliminary fights were over fairly quickly and on came the championship matches which drove the crowd into a real frenzy.

“Here we go,” Ryker said as he bit into the end of a greasy sausage, the juices bursting from it and running down his lips and chin.

Dog was up against Crush in the first fight, and like his previous matches, this one ended in a matter of seconds. Armed with an axe, Crush swung it around wildly and he missed — badly.

Dog was quick to spot an opening and countered with a knife to Crush’s heart. The boy fell to the ground like a heavy sack of flour while Dog watched him helplessly.

Ryker’s cheers were as loud as the others in the Arena.

“That little bastard,” the Goblin laughed. “He’s something special.”

Perhaps no fight she had ever seen was more heartbreaking than the one between Stink and Prophet, which followed immediately after. The gates opened and Stink wandered into the pit listlessly. He was still running a high fever and he could barely stand. Stink reached out into the empty space before him, grasping for the phantoms that the fever had created.

“Don’t leave me,” he cried out.

The Prophet watched the boy and bit his lip. Stink continued to saunter around the pit, hands outstretched as if reaching for some type of salvation. And then suddenly, Stink woke from whatever place the fever had taken him too and he realized where he was.

When Stink saw the Prophet standing there, ready to fight, he dropped to his knees and buried his face into his hands.

“I don’t want to be here anymore,” Stink said.

“Where do you want to be?” Prophet asked as he walked over to Stink and knelt down beside him.

“Will you kill me?” Stink shuddered as the tears took hold of him. Prophet shook his head.

“We’ll leave this place together,” he said as he embraced Stink in his arms. “I’m not going to fight anymore. It’s not His will.”

Allegra wanted to join the boys and hold them, tell them that everything was all right. She wanted to shield them from Ryker’s wrath or join them in death. But like all other times, she was frozen in her place. All she could do was pray that their fates were swift and painless.

Ryker glared at the two boys with disgust and spat as the crowd erupted in a chorus of profanities over the match results.

“If they won’t fight, then they die,” Ryker shouted. He made a gun gesture with his thumb and index finger towards the guards at the south gate, and they understood. Their weapons were drawn as they entered into the pit.

Allegra turned away as she knew what was to come. The sound of gunfire erupted and the crowd cheered in reaction to their deaths.

“Monsters,” she whispered.

“It’s over,” Ryker said as he stood at the edge of the balcony and addressed the audience. “There is no room for compassion in my Arena. Compassion is weakness and weakness is death.”

The crowd roared in acknowledgement.

“I give you your new champion, Dog!” Ryker proclaimed.

The guards brought Dog back to the Arena by gunpoint and ordered him to wave to the crowd like some sort of circus freak.

Dog did as he was told and the audience gave him a standing ovation. The chants of “Dog! Dog! Dog!” were ceremonious and Ryker smiled at their reactions as he realized the dollar value his new champion potentially brought in.

And then Allegra noticed something. Despite being at the center of the glory and praise of being a champion, Dog’s attention was focused somewhere else. His eyes were fixated on the two boys gunned down in cold blood. They were still holding each other in their final embrace.

His heart is still there,
Allegra thought.
He still has his humanity. Please don’t take that away from him.

BOOK THREE: CHAMPION

Interlude:

From the Journal of Edmund Glaber:

December 8, 2007,

I can’t take it anymore. Everyday is another step down that winding staircase leading me to hell.

As long as I’ve known him, Ryker has always been sadistic and violence was his drug. During our time at Red Gate, he managed to orchestrate his own little combat arena where he paid prison inmates to fight each other while profiting on the bets. Somehow, he even got the prison guards (those corrupted pieces of shit) to buy into it. Ryker had a way of looking into the darkest regions of your soul, the places where even you didn’t want to visit, and dig out your taboo desires and wave it in front of  you with promises of making it a reality. You just had to pay for it.

Once outside of Red Gate, Ryker had created a full scale Arena where he could watch fights whenever he pleased. When I had asked him “why use children?” he shrugged and replied, “Because children are weak.”

Tonight, I witnessed a whole new level of sadism by Ryker. Before tossing three fourteen-year-olds into the pit, he had them lightly cut on the palms of their hands, their backs, and chest. They were superficial cuts, which wouldn’t prove threatening in anyway, and I was confused to as what Ryker was doing.

He smiled at me and said, “Just watch.”

A fourth entered into the Arena and I guessed him to be seventeen or eighteen. At first I thought Ryker was having the three younger ones fight the teen, but what was puzzling was that there were no weapons on the ground, and the older one had the same cuts as the kids. It was only when I heard the announcement that I understood what Ryker had done.

“Tonight, we have a special stipulation match. In one corner, we have Zombie, who has the unfortunate luck of being infected with HIV. In the other corner, we have three human pieces of meat. How long can they last before Zombie infects them too? Or can the meat find a way to stop Zombie without being infected?”

“Ryker, what did you do?” I had asked him.

“I was growing bored of the usual fights,” Ryker replied. “I thought this would make things more interesting.

“I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”

“Quit whining, and enjoy the show. I told Zombie that I have the cure for his HIV, which is a total lie, and if he could infect the other three, I’d give him the cure.”

I watched Zombie chase those kids around the pit for two minutes before I finally decided to leave. I needed some fresh air in order to clear my head and think.

Only Ryker, a handful of trusted guards, and myself had privileges to leave the underground Arena whenever we wished. Everyone else needed special permission to set foot on the surface. Despite having satellite dishes installed at the tallest buildings in order to block satellite images from peering into Bimini, Ryker was still paranoid of the Arena’s discovery by an outsider.

It was cloudy tonight, which was a shame. I rarely set foot outside and when I did, I enjoyed looking at the stars. The air had a smell to it too that reminded me of back home. God, I missed the world outside of this Arena. Everything seemed to make sense back in Jersey. Kids go to school, grow up, get jobs, get married, and have kids of their own.

Meanwhile in the Arena, kids get caged, tossed into a pit, fight, and if they survived, get caged again and the cycle repeats itself. It just didn’t make any sense to me.

I’ve been thinking about it for a long time now. It was only till after I saw the look in those children’s eyes as they tried to run away from Zombie that I decided it was time for me to go. I’m going to leave the Arena, and tell the world about the crap that’s going on in here.

They’ll throw me in jail, but I don’t care. I deserve to be locked up. God help me, but I need to do at least one thing right in my life, and nothing seems more important to me than ending Ryker’s insanity.

Chapter Fourteen.

The burlap sack smelled like rotten potatoes and Dog wanted nothing more than to get the damn thing off his head. The stench was nauseating.

Minutes ago, Dallas and a couple other guards entered into Dog’s cell and bound his hands and feet with chains. At first, Dog thought he was scheduled for another fight but when the nasty sack went over his head, he realized that there was something else in store for him. They grabbed him by the arms — blind and helpless — and escorted him through the tunnels.

“Watch your step,” Dallas said as they shoved him onto a platform. As he felt the ground beneath him move, Dog realized they were in an elevator. They were going up.

When the elevator finally stopped, they shoved him out of it and dragged him through a hollow corridor; every footstep they took echoed. They eventually stopped while one of the guards fiddled with a mechanical panel, which was followed by the sounds of gears turning in some sort of machine.

The sudden gust of wind against his skin was a pleasant surprise. The cold air was refreshing and it invigorated him. It was ironic that while living on the street, Dog struggled to be indoors as much as possible, and now that he was a prisoner inside the Arena, it was the opposite. He longed to be outside and roaming free once again.

He was forced into a vehicle and he almost cringed when he heard the sounds of the metal doors slide close. It reminded him of the first time these people forced him into a van. At least he had a hamburger to eat then, instead of a moldy bag on his head. The ride was a quick one and the vehicle soon pulled over and Dog was instructed to get out.

As soon as his feet touched the ground, the bag was removed from his head and he inhaled a deep breath of clean air. It was euphoric.

“Welcome to Ryker’s home,” Dallas said as he pushed Dog along the gravel pathway to a beautiful two-storey home. “Nice house isn’t it? Ryker had it built to look like one of those plantation homes, the ones the white masters lived in while their black slaves picked cotton in the fields. Not a style I would choose for myself but Ryker mentioned something about honouring his ancestors.”

Dog stared at the extravagant house and was puzzled.

“What am I doing here?”

“You’re lucky,” Dallas said. “Because of your recent status as champion, you get to dine with Ryker tonight.”

Dog shrugged. “Whatever,” he replied, despite the fact that his stomach was rumbling. He ignored the hunger pains. Dog was used to them.

Dallas led him, still bound in chains, into the lavish home. The first thing Dog noticed were the tall oil paintings that decorated the walls. Many of them were of ugly looking people that bared resemblance to Ryker and Dog figured them to be his relatives or ancestors. The one piece of art that stood out in particular was an old oil painting of gladiators from ancient times. A gladiator in a metal helmet stood victoriously over two foes; one of them was dead, and the other was wounded, reaching up towards a balcony and begging for mercy from a group of Roman spectators. The spectators wore white shawls and their thumbs were pointed down with looks of contempt on their faces.

“That’s a favourite of mine,” Ryker said, sneaking up behind Dog.  “Jean-Léon Gérôme painted this inspiring piece called
Pollice Verso
which translates to
Thumbs Down
. It captures the essence of everything I believe the Arena should be: the raw barbaric power of the gladiators, the helplessness of the weak, and the absolute ruthlessness in the spectators’s lack of mercy. Beautiful.”

Dog said nothing.

“As my new champion, you get two gifts,” Ryker said as he gestured for the guards to escort Dog to the dining room, where a feast was laid out on a large oak dining room table. The sight and smell of roasted chicken, grilled vegetables, hot gravy, and fresh baked bread made Dog’s mouth water. “The first is a hot meal,” Ryker said as he took a seat at the table.

Dog was reluctant to sit at first, but Dallas jammed the barrel of the gun into his back and whispered into his ear. “Look, don’t make this difficult kid. You can either sit down and eat the chicken, or get a rifle jammed up an orifice. There’s not much of a decision here.”

Dog took a seat opposite to Ryker and stared at the empty white plate in front of him.

“I hope you like my home,” Ryker said. “Some days I find the Arena a little bit suffocating and I need to get out of there and enjoy all the expensive things I own. This property used to belong to the CEO of the Blackwater Corporation. After the entire Pearls of Life poisoning debacle, she abandoned the place. The land was perfect. I tore down her cute little home and built a house that would make my ancestors proud.”

He barked orders into the kitchen and soon, a couple of female slaves came out of the kitchen with utensils, which they set in front of the two. Dog noticed that his fork and knife were plastic and it was telling of the level of trust Ryker had for his so-called Champion. Ryker was being smart though, after all, Dog had silently vowed to stick a knife in Ryker’s heart at some point.

The serving girls, under the watchful eye of Ryker and Dallas, carved out slabs of chicken and placed them onto the empty white plates and filled the rest of it with stuffing, vegetables, and warm bread. Ryker was satisfied and he sent them back into the kitchen with a wave of his hand, leaving the two alone to dine, while Dallas stood watching over them.

Dog was hesitant to eat the food at first, weary of being drugged again. However he saw Ryker dig into his food, shoveling forkfuls of chicken into his mouth so he did the same, poking at the meat with his plastic fork. It was awkward to eat with the chains around his wrist.

“Am I supposed to eat with these on?” he asked, gesturing to the metal links.

“Yes,” Ryker said. Dog shrugged and made do with what he had. The first morsel of tender meat was delicious. It had been so long since he had something hot to eat and the taste of the salt and grease of the savoury chicken was a welcome departure from the bland gruel that they served to him in his cell.

“I’ve watched your fights pretty closely,” Ryker said, attempting to make conversation, “and I’ve noticed that you fight without any fear. Why is that?”

“I have nothing to be afraid of,” Dog replied, in between bites.

“What about death?”

Dog shrugged. “If I die, then that’s it. In the meantime, I’ll try to survive. That’s the way it’s always been for me.”

Ryker smiled. “I think you’re going to do very well as our champion. You remind me a lot of Tiberius — your confidence and the way you manhandle your opponents. You still have a long way to go to be the champion he was, but I have high hopes for you. Who knows? Maybe one day, you can join him and be at my side as a personal bodyguard. It’s a great reward.”

“Here’s what I don’t get,” Dog said as he put down the plastic fork. “If Tiberius is such a great warrior and has the capabilities to beat down everyone, why the hell does he stick around? What’s to stop him from breaking your neck and leaving this place? And don’t tell me it’s because of loyalty, because that’s a lie.”

“I’ll let you in on a little secret,” Ryker said with grin. “Tiberius is afraid of me.”

“I find that hard to believe. The guy is twice your size. Hell he can probably poke a hole through your head with his pinky finger.”

“You’re still too young to know about what fear really is,” Ryker said. “It’s not just about physical intimidation. Men like Tiberius, and yourself, are not afraid to die.”

“So what’s he scared of then?”

“Like all weak-minded individuals, he’s a slave to someone he loves,” Ryker said. “When Tiberius was first brought to the pits long ago, he had his sister with him. After watching his first fight, I was immediately addicted to his style of fighting. I’ve never seen a man so large move with such quickness and speed. I wanted to see more, so I took his sister and promised to keep her safe and well-treated as long as he kept fighting for me in the pits. He destroyed all his opponents, fuelled with the hopes that one day I’d deliver her back to him.”

“And is she safe?” Dog asked him.

Ryker laughed. “That’s a question Tiberius should be asking me. I can see that pathetic look on his face sometimes, when he goes all teary-eyed, wanting to know the truth about his sister but too afraid to ask the question because he’s afraid of the answer. He lives on blind hope.”

“You didn’t answer my question. Is she safe?”

“I said she was, didn’t I?” Ryker said. Dog found that hard to believe.

“And what about your other guards? What prevents them from putting a bullet through your head?”

Ryker seemed surprised by the question, as if the thought never crossed his mind. “Why would any of my guards wish to harm me? I’m the best thing that has happened to them.”

Dallas nodded. “It’s true.”

“I treat everyone of my guards like gold. Whereas the rest of the world turned their collective backs on them, I took them in and gave them a second chance at life,” Ryker explained. “Take Dallas here for example. He came out of prison with a record of manslaughter and armed robbery. No one gave him a chance, so he ended up sleeping on the streets, much like yourself. However I found him, took him in, and gave him work that best suited his qualities. He makes good money now with his fair share of perks. The same goes for all the other guards. They are loyal to me because in return, I treat them as important members of this society I’ve created.”

“What about the slaves?” Dog asked. “They’re treated like crap.”

“In every society, someone will always get shit on and it’s usually the weak,” Ryker said. “This
great
country of ours, we built it by shitting on the natives that originally inhabited our land. We spent the following century shitting on the rest of the world. We build empires on the backs of the weak.”

Dog had no argument for Ryker, so instead, he went back to eating the delicious food on his plate.

“I’ve revealed a lot about myself to you Dog. Now, I want to know more about you. Tell me what you want out of life,” Ryker said.

“I want a metal fork and these chains off,” Dog said.

Ryker chuckled. “Not yet. I want to know more about you first.”

“There’s nothing to know,” Dog said, his mouth full of warm crusty bread.

“There’s plenty,” Ryker said. “I’ve been trying to understand you and I think I have most of it figured out. Whereas Tiberius’s success in the pits was out of love—poetic but pathetic in my opinion—your success is because of your animal instincts. Your fights are raw and savage; such a joy to watch. If you strip away all of life’s clutter: love, friendships, money; you’re left with the true meaning of life — Survival.” Ryker tore off a piece of meat with his teeth and smiled while he chewed, taking pride in his own philosophical ranting. “You’re the embodiment of what I envisioned the pits to be —  a twisted version of Darwinism where it’s kill or be killed.”

“Did you invite me here just to eat chicken while you play therapist?”

“I want to know what makes you afraid,” Ryker said.

“Nothing.”

Ryker looked at Dog with a scrutinizing eye before agreeing. “I can see that, but it’s only a matter of time. In the Arena, everyone learns to fear something.”

“I doubt it,” Dog replied as he finished the last scraps of his meal.

When they were both done, Ryker had the slaves clear the plates and he motioned for them to follow him to the rear entrance. “I want to show you something Dog,” he said as he opened the back door in the kitchen leading to the yard. Once again Dallas’s gun jammed Dog in the back and he had no choice but to see what Ryker was up to.

In the center of the yard was a haggard looking man on his knees and tied to a wooden post. His face was bruised and swollen while tears and snot dribbled down his face. At the sight of Ryker, he began to beg.

“I’m sorry, please, don’t do this.”

Ryker walked over to his prisoner and crouched down so he could look into his red, wet eyes. “Tears are so useless at this point,” he said.

“I didn’t mean to hurt him,” the man said. “It was an accident. It just happened.”

“Consider all this an accident too,” Ryker said as he walked back to Dog. “I trusted that man there. I paid him well to be one of my guards. That job didn’t last very long. Do you know what he did?”

Dog shook his head.

“He betrayed my trust,” Ryker spat. “I gave him a job when no one else did. You know how hard it is for a child molester to get work these days? That was a mistake on my part, allowing him to work in a place filled with children. I’m sure you can fill in the blanks as to what this man did.”

“Sick,” Dallas chimed in. “Absolutely sick.”

“How’s what he did any different from us kids dying in the pits?” Dog asked.

“I paid for those kids,” Ryker cried out. “I paid for them to fight and die an honourable death. Instead, this selfish prick ruined my merchandise.”

Ryker walked over to the porch and picked up a red jerry can and lugged it back and handed it to Dallas. Dog smelled the gasoline from where he stood.

“Dallas, would you mind doing the honours?”