CHAPTER ONE
I lay on my back and gasped while I struggled to breathe. The stench of the sand dusted ground beneath me filled my senses; a heady mix of sweat and blood so dense that I could almost taste it. Fuck … I opened my eyes or at least attempted to. The left one wasn’t budging, the swelling causing it to be sealed shut. My right opened, but my vision was blurred, everything tinted red. My guess? Either my blood or the other guys, hard to tell. How the fuck did my life fall so deep into the shitter?
***
I’d been deployed with the guys just a few days ago, some dick had drawn the golden ticket and found himself on Big A’s shit list. We had no idea what had put him there, and we didn’t care, it wasn’t our job to question. It was our job to follow orders. The usual suspects, Bucky, Diggler, KT and me along with the addition of an FNG (Fucking New Guy). The Serg had thrown him in, mumbled something about wanting him to ‘hit the ground running.’ It was his first time out of the cage. Couldn’t believe he had been tossed in with us, but I gotta say the kid was savage.
We were dropped off a few miles away and met up with one of our guys on scout. They had everything we needed in the trunk of an old beat up Cavalier. The thing looked like a gust of wind would be just enough pressure to have it fall apart. It looked like a piece of shit, but it was a reliable piece of shit. Our contact had HK416s, Mk 46 Machine Guns and M9 Berettas all ready to rock and roll. We stopped short of our target and grabbed the crap from the trunk. I glanced at each of the guys and smiled watching one strap a 9-inch jagged-toothed blade to their calf. Another tucked a Glock into the belt of his pants, and I held in my palm my old friend Mr. Hellbringer aka an HK45CT, good old .45 handgun used by the good ole boys back home.
The FNG had weapons placed everywhere on him, rookie mistake. But, when KT pointed it out the asshole just flipped him off and told him to, ‘suck it.’ KT looked like he wanted to rip the kids head off. But I gave a small shake of my head to let him know now wasn’t the time. Bring that shit home and sort it there, we had a job to do, and in-house fighting was not gonna happen, not on my watch.
We got back in the car and traveled the short distance to our target. The compound was out on its own. Even though dense forestry circled the enclosure, it had been cut back a good two hundred feet, my guess? It was so the bastards could see shit coming at them. A wall lined the boundary and on top of it stood some rough looking guys, mercenaries I guessed with AKs and fuck knew what else.
Our contact had been able to drive in with a brief nod and without being stopped. I was surprised, the dossier on the head asshole here indicated that they had tight security, we weren’t seeing that at all. My gut tightened, my Spidey Senses were telling me that they had been tipped off and that this was a trap. I dropped the code word into conversation to give the guys a heads up on what I was thinking. Diggler groaned, KT took it in his stride, Bucky let out a slow, low whistle and the FNG brought a whoop of ‘Yippie ki yay’ to the party.
They didn’t wait long; the guys and I had just climbed out of the car when hell broke loose. We all split and dove for cover, keeping in mind to have each of the team within sight, we readied ourselves for the slaughter. I could see four of the guards running towards KT, but as I was about to lay down cover fire to allow him to back away, the FNG stepped out and into the open. He riddled the fuck out of them, and they crumpled and fell. One guy took a hit to the neck, and a heavy spray of blood fanned out into the air and soaked the guy beside him. They were the first to fall, but sure as hell they weren’t the last.
A few minutes in I was beginning to think that the FNG must be hopped up on some illegal shit cause the guy was like a machine. The body count was piling up with most of the count going to him. I’d swear at one point I’d seen Diggler pull out a cigar and lean against the side of a building facing the chaos and smoke that cancer stick to the butt.
It was like letting a rabid dog off the leash and watching it tear through a schoolyard at recess. Normally that shit would need to be kept tidy, but orders were it was a free-fire zone. Which, in good ole everyday American, meant that the only ones to walk away from this, should be us. So, we just let the kid fly and moving along we picked up the strays.
It wasn’t a bad day’s work, we were in and out in a few hours. Then we were in the air again and on our way back to base as it hit thirteen hundred hours local time. Each of us covered in all sorts of crap. I watched amused as KT noticed something on his shoulder and barked out a laugh when he leaned in for a closer look only to let out a loud “For fuck’s sake! DUDE!” He quickly swept off a hand-sized spider, it hit the floor, and he bounced to his feet stomping hard on it. The finger-like legs splayed out on the floor and around his boot, dark red, almost black goo oozed out. “Christ! I hate those things. Fucking hairy blood sucking bastards!”
“A bit like your Ex then, huh Big K?” Diggler choked out as he laughed.
“Go fuck yourself, Dig!”
“Many times, my friend, many, many times.” Diggler’s big cheesy grin had everyone laughing. Yup, it was great getting out with the guys.
Diggler suggested we hit Gracey’s for a few drinks in a couple of hours to wash off the dust, but only me and the FNG could make it. Bucky and KT were out for some reason known only to themselves, their loss.
When we got back, I grabbed a quick shower and changed. I had to stop by and give the Serg the rundown on how the FNG played when out with the team. Standing in front of his desk I spoke, he nodded, took notes and at the end without even looking up he lifted his hand and dismissed me. I toyed with the idea of stopping by Sonya’s but thought better of it. We had our arrangement for a reason. We had to keep it low key. Shit would fly if word of Sonya and I got out.
CHAPTER TWO
Forty minutes later I was at the bar and ordering my first drink while I waited for the others. Gracey’s was off base and on the edge of the town. Not many of the locals frequented it as the clientele was more Hells Angels than quiet townsfolk. That suited me to a T, even better was the fact that being so early there was only me and three others in the place.
I’d just been served, and the guy behind the bar went out back mumbling something about changing a keg, so there were only us customers in the room. I’d settled in to wait for the others and was about to put the glass to my lips when someone shoved me from behind. My beer splashed out and down over the front of my T-shirt. What the fuck?
As I turned to ask what limp dick jerk had just ruined my new Deadpool T, the first punch landed. It connected with my jaw causing my head to snap violently to the side. Son of a bitch! Anger began to bubble, but I fought to keep my cool, slowly I cocked my head to see who had thrown it.
Turns out the guys that had been sitting behind me at the table were now standing around me. Two of them my height and build. The other was the size of a fucking house, a big ugly muscular looking bastard, “Okay, so you don’t like the shirt.” I joked as I looked up and into the eyes of the man mountain stood now directly in front of me.
Christ this guy was built like a tank. Don’t get me wrong, I ain’t no skinny dude that would blow away on a gust of wind. I worked out and had muscle bulk that Arnie or Stallone would be proud of back in the day. This guy though made the Hulk look like he needed to beef up. I was about to try and talk my way out of whatever they thought I had done to them when the big dude lunged at me. His face, twisted and gnarly, his eyes … what the fuck? There was something weird with his eyes. They looked dark brown, almost black, but as he moved, the rays of light that shone in from the skylight hit his eyes, and they had taken on a fucked up thick yellow ring around the iris.
Aw shit, fucking great! Dude was jacked up on some shit, combine that with the meat suit he wore meant I was about to put in a hell of a workout. Maybe his size would slow him down. Ducking to the side, I dodged the next punch. I’d moved just out of his way, giving myself enough time and space to quickly assess the situation. My mind flipped through various scenarios. I could try and hold him off until the guys got here, which should be soon, but the way he was acting I’d say shit was about to get real and the party would be over by then. Naw, I never was, and never would be, anyone’s punch bag so if it was a fight he wanted, it was a fight he would get.
Balling my hands into fists I slowly edged around the heavy table between us, but that lasted only a second. With an animalistic snarl, the big bastard gripped it and tossed it to the side like it was nothing before charging at me again. A deep bellowing growl thundered in his chest as he steamed headfirst towards me. Pulling my arm back and with as much force as I could muster, I let my fist fly. The sound of the impact echoed sickeningly as it collided with his jaw. Yet, when the contact was made his head barely moved, but by fuck did the skin on my knuckles split. One of the other fuckwits that were with the big guy started to laugh which really pissed me off.
“Dude! What the fuck are you made of?” The only thing that I ever hit that was that hard as this guy’s face was a concrete wall in my apartment the night I found out my ex was shacking up with some dick from her work.
It was that moment the barman picked to walk back in. He took a quick look at the scene before him and mumbled a low, “Jesus Christ.”
He tried, not so subtly, to back out again. But, the dude was too late. One of the others that had been standing by the bar laughing at the prospect of me about to get my shit knocked in, seen him. After placing one hand on the bar, he bounded over and cleared it in one leap. He caught the poor SOB off guard. Poor guy didn’t have time to take a breath, let alone run.
The meathead grabbed him by the throat, and I watched in horror as his grip tightened. Fingers punctured the bare flesh of the man’s neck. Rich red blood oozed out and painted the forceful digits.
Bar dude would have a crushed larynx after this, scars too if the blood were anything to go by. The asshole then pulled his gaze from his captive to rest on me. He lifted the guy right off the ground, his toes barely touching the floor. At this stage, his face was purple from the lack of oxygen. The fingers digging further into his throat caused blood to bubble up and out of his mouth. Holding the barman, and with a weird fucked up grin on his face, he moved like lightening. His free hand shot forward and punctured the poor guy’s abdomen.
How he managed it with the choke hold on his neck, I don’t know, but his gurgled screams filled the room as his wide, fearful eyes latched onto the bastard holding him. Fear, panic, and pain filtered across his features all in a matter of seconds. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from the guy and neither could I. It didn’t matter that the big dude could make a go for me at any time. With horrid fascination, I watched while the bar dude wriggled as his attacker pushed further into his gut. Wrist deep, then elbow deep, all the while the fucked-up piece of shit kept his eyes on me as if gauging my response, his laugh which started low and skittish now growing manic.
As blood dripped to the ground around his feet, it turned the light wooden colored floor a dark red as it spread. The barman had taken a last agonizing breath before his heart was ripped violently from him. His body was let go and left to fall in a heap where it landed. His attacker stood, arm coated in the guy’s blood and holding his heart all pleased with himself. He held it out to me with a dumb smirk. He playfully pouted as if offended that I didn’t want his gift before that eerie fucked up laugh of his filled the room once more. Silenced only when he brought the blood-soaked muscle to his mouth and savagely ripped into the still warm organ. His teeth ripping and tearing at it, his face now like the rest of him coated in the guy’s blood. His eyes now showing the same luminous gold rings in them.
What the actual God damn fuck was going on here? If I was to get out of this messed up shit I really needed to shake the shock off. These bastards were fucked in the head, and I wasn’t gonna be like that sad fuck in a pool of his own blood.
“Hey, Colossus? Professor X called, he needs you back at the Mansion.” I just managed to get that quip out as he pulled back and let fly with another punch. Thankfully, this time I saw it coming so I was able to dodge it. His fist impacted with the column behind me taking a large chunk of mortar out of it, causing a small cloud of dust to rise and fall. I was about to make my move and take a swipe at the mutant when I sensed someone behind me. I was too slow to react, and some sort of sack was pulled tightly over my head, then milliseconds later I felt an immense weight hit me square on the back knocking me against the bar beside the bloody mess that lay on the floor. I felt the weight of someone pinning me.
“Don’t struggle, there’s no point.” a gruff voice rasped by my ear. Fuck that shit, I tried to force myself back, but a massive rough, calloused hand gripped the back of my neck and pinned me to the bar. Another pair of hands seized my wrists and pulled them back behind me and forced up my back long enough for a cable tie to be slapped and secured around them. The coarse plastic immediately began biting at my skin as I fought against it. Totally aware this had all went to shit in a daisy basket I knew that I needed to keep my wits about me if I was to get out of this fucked up situation I needed to use my head.
“You’re gonna want to let this shit go. My buddies will be here any minute, and if they walk in on this, shit will get messy. Whatever the fuck you think … Whatever it is that’s bugging ya spit it out.” I didn’t think they would go for it, but I had to give it one last try. Whatever the deal was with these guys they weren’t gonna just drop it. I had been on many missions, and it was always covert, so no one should know who I was or the shit I had done.
We had always been told in training that the name of the game was control, control your thoughts, your emotions, and your opinions. Right now, with this bag secured around my head and the air I was breathing getting warmer and denser, all I could think of was fuck control.
I had given up trying to see anything through the sack. It pretty much screwed with my sense of smell too cause all I could get was the rancid scent of whatever the fuck was stored in this thing before my head. Touch was gone with my hands secured behind me unless you included my face squashed against the wooden bar top. All that left me was sound. In the few short minutes, I had been pinned here I had been able to work out, as well as the guy holding me in place, there were on estimation two others in the room.
“What the fuc…” anything I was gonna say was cut short. I felt a sharp searing pain in my shoulder, right between my neck and the top of my arm. I felt my skin tear open as one of these bastards sank their teeth into the flesh. I couldn’t hold it back, I let out a roar as the teeth sink deeper into sinew and muscle. The pain upped intensity and melted into a blistering heat. It felt like lava was being poured into the wound. It was scorching through my veins and working its way down my shoulder into my chest.
I began to break out into a cold sweat as my pain threshold quickly approached. That had never happened before. I’d been shot in combat, stabbed and even tortured once when I had been caught south of the border. I’d taken a job on the side to get a bit of extra cash while scouting a big drug kingpin. I’d been captured and tortured. Never had I never felt such ungodly pain, but they had a guy that had a knack for it.
I could feel my knees begin to buckle, good thing someone was holding me in place or I would be on the ground. As hard as I fought to hold onto consciousness, the pain was relentlessly chipping away at my efforts, each second that passed, bringing me closer to darkness until I eventually passed out. The last thought in my head … where the fuck was Diggler and the FNG?
CHAPTER THREE
I couldn’t be sure how long I was out, it could have been hours, or maybe days. When I came to, it was hard to tell. I’d woken with a blinding headache, and even something as simple as placing my hands on the ground before pushing myself up to a sitting position made my head swim. Slowly and with effort, I craned my head side to side so that I could look around the place. I could see jack shit, my vision was blurry, and all I could make out was that I was in some sort of cage. It was metal bars for walls on all four sides.
The coldness of the concrete floor under me had made my movements stiff, “Don’t stress it friend. Your vision will clear in a short while, after that you will get a better view of the place.” My head shot round following the sound of the deep male voice. Squinting, I tried to focus, but I could only make out the outline of someone in what appeared to be another cage beside mine.
“Where the fuck am I?” Had we fucked up and left someone alive on our last mission. Was this the result … the payback? Had my screwing around with the Serg’s wife got my ass whipped and set up here for some recompense? I knew the Serg was a sick son of a bitch, his wife had the cigarette burns all over her body to prove it, but was he fucked off enough to pull this shit? I mean, let’s face it, he was sticking it to half the females on the base, why the fuck would he care? Bruised ego?
A quiet laugh filtered through from the other cage, “Friend, you is in hell. And if this ain’t it, then I sure as fuck don’t know what is. You’re a dog soldier now man.” Again, he laughed. Though judging by his tone, it wasn’t because he found the whole thing funny. “Don’t sweat it though, they won’t touch you for another day yet. Takes a while for that shit to take hold and although you are able to fight now, your strength will be up and down until it fully infiltrates your system.”
Was I hearing right, or had that punch from Colossus caused brain shake? “What the fuck are you talking about? Dog soldiers?”
He scoffed at the obvious disbelief in my voice. I shuffled across the floor trying my best to ignore the pounding in my head. I positioned myself at the back of the cage so that I could rest against the bars, their coolness felt refreshing against the heat of my skin. My vision was quickly beginning to clear, and I could now see what looked like a large room. The facing wall was lined left to right with cages, some of them seemed occupied others empty. There was one door into the room and no windows. Looking to my left, then my right, I confirmed a suspicion that this side of the room was pretty much the same.
Turning my head back in the direction of where the voice had come from. I could see a guy about late twenties through the bars, his dark brown hair was matted and dirty. He had the sharpest, piercing green eyes, I had ever seen. He was watching something across the way which gave me the opportunity to look at him and get more info on who he was. He had sharply chiseled features, and even though the room was dark there was no mistaking it, I could still make out that he was grunt like me. He had dark rings under his eyes, and the dude looked as shit as I felt.
“You. It’s what you are now. Well, when they need you to be, other times you’ll be entertainment and something for them to make money on.” This guy was off his meds, and I needed to get the hell away from him and this shithole. He laughed again, and I have to say I was finding that real fucking annoying, but he continued, “Let me take a stab in the dark here. You, my friend, are or should I say were, in the army. Hmmm, let’s see, they never go below Corporal and going by the ink on your shoulder I’d say Special Forces too.” He let out a long, low whistle, “Fuckers picked a good one this time, huh.” Stupidly enough, it wasn’t until he pointed out my tattoo that I realized I was stripped to the waist. Even though this place looked dark, dank, and cold, I couldn’t feel it. As a matter of fact, it felt quite warm.
With my vision almost clear, I threw a quick eye over what I could of my body. It was at that point that the memory of being bitten came flooding back. Whipping around, I sprang to my feet, my hand going up and settling over where it had been. I was pretty damn sure I’d find a lump of flesh missing, and possibly a shit load of blood along with God knows what else, but after gingerly feeling over the area I quickly realized there was nothing there. The bite was gone. Running my finger over the section again, I pressed on it, then frowned. I could feel two rows of swollen flesh, like a scar of sorts where the bite would have been and it sure as fuck hadn’t been there before, “You didn’t answer my question, where the fuck are we?”
“No, I didn’t, did I? If you are looking for the bite mark, expecting blood and bits of skin and shit gone, then sorry friend you’re gonna be disappointed. The wound heals quickly, or should I say, you now heal quickly. In a day or so that slight scarring on your shoulder will be gone too. This crap has its advantages, few of them … true. But they are there still.” Slowly he turned to face me. It was then I caught a glimpse of a yellow halo around the iris of his eyes.
He was one of them!
CHAPTER FOUR
I lunged forward. My arms slid through the rails as I reached for him, face pressed hard against the metal bars, “You are one of them!” He didn’t move, didn’t even flinch, he just sat watching me.
“Dude, you need to chill, or they will come in and taze your ass. Yes – I’m one of them and like I said, so are you. Now I know you’re a smart guy, they aren’t bottom feeders. These guys only go for the cream of the crop, so if you want to get through this, then you need to stay smart. One way to do that is to sit back, shut the fuck up, and listen,” he jerked his head towards the wall and indicated for me to move back.
I did as he suggested, but not because he asked, it was because I wanted to find out what was going on. “Right talk, what exactly do you know.”
He shrugged and made a face, “Well firstly, you are here because someone you know has sold your ass to them. You have fucked someone off enough for them to want you gone, but they only would have agreed if they thought you were worth the effort. Next, they will be looking for family. Whether that be wife, kids, parents or siblings and as soon as they find them, they will take them out. Whoever gave you to them not only condemned you but your family too. You are their commodity now, and they won’t risk someone looking for you. They’ll make it look like you did it, disgrace your name so that not even the military will want their hands dirtied by you.”
I had no kin, the only person I had was my ex, and in reality, I didn’t even have that. Growing up I was trailed around foster home after foster home until I hit eighteen. At that time, I had nowhere to go other than into the military. I always wanted that sense of family, craved it, and after signing up, it was the first time I had felt it.
“They will keep you here and use you in the pits for a while, if you survive that, then you will be taken up to the next level, that’s where I hear the real fun starts. They start fucking with your head until you are like the assholes that brought you in. Down here in the pits you are nothing more than a dog to them. Up there, if you make it out of here, you become one of them, a dog soldier.”
CHAPTER FIVE
A Day or so passed, at least going by the lights on, lights off crap. During that time, I sat and watched everything that played out around me. Feeding happened three times a day, and it was signaled by the sound of a bell ringing. I guessed the timing was breakfast, lunch, and dinner, though it was hard to tell seeing as it was the same shit at each serving.
Every few hours, four guys would be taken from their cages. Some would go peacefully without a struggle; these my talkative neighbor called sensible. The ones that kicked up a fuss would be tazered until unconscious, the offending weapon a cattle prod of some kind that was juiced up with major voltage.
When the door opened again hours later only one of the four would be returned, usually covered in blood and slashes over their bodies along with what looked like bites. They would be tossed into their cage once more and left there.
Every few hours, an average of two fresh faces would be brought in and put into the cages the others once occupied.
Hours turned to days and each day would pass just like the day before, but I was beginning to pick up on more the longer I was here. My sight was beyond 50/50, I could see better than ever, especially in the dark and as for my hearing, fuck I could hear a flea fart from a mile away it was so sharp.
I’d just awakened when the bell went, like clockwork in two guys came pushing a cart stacked with trays, and a massive pot of what I could only assume was the usual revolting crap. One by one they went around us serving gloop on a tray and slipping it through a well-crafted trap in the cage door. Hunger makes you do strange things and the saying one of my foster moms would say came to mind, ‘If you were hungry you would eat shit!’ Well, it may not have been shit but steak or good ole home cooking it sure as fuck wasn’t.
I watched as they bypassed the guy brought in the same day as me. He called out to the goons who were giving us our food, but they ignored him. In the end, everyone in the room had been fed except for four of us, and I was one of them, as was Mr. Talkative. “Hey, Asshole! You missed mine!” I called after them, but other than a deep chuckle, they didn’t react.
“No point looks like we are next.”
The voice to the side of me cut in, “Haven’t you noticed the way shit happens here?” He shook his head and smirked as if he was the holder of some great secret, “Those that don’t get fed are the ones who are taken out later to the pits.” He moved back and away from the bars and settled on the ground, “I would advise you to rest, you are gonna need every piece of strength you have to get through this … at some point, it could come down to a fight between us. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will bud if that’s what it takes to get out of this hell hole.”
***
I was the last. They had taken the guy next to me a while back. Unlike most I had observed over the days, he went quietly, no struggle, no fight. He just walked out beside them. As he passed my cage, he winked, “Good luck, you’ll need it.”
Then he was gone.
The others, the ones that had been here before I had gotten the pleasure, began to mumble, “Hey you! Best you bend over and kiss your ass goodbye.”
My head whipped to the left, and I glared down at the guy three cages away, “What the fuck is your problem dude?” Even here … there was always one person that no matter how crappy the situation was, they still had to be a dick.
“Just saying, looks like there is gonna be three new faces in here over the next day or two cause only one of you is coming back tonight and hate to tell ya, but it ain’t gonna be you.”
I could feel my muscles tense up as my temper rose, the urge to rip that cheeky fucks throat out was blinding, “Yeah, yeah, whatever dickhead.”
He laughed … his head thrown back and full-hearted belly laughed, “I ain’t got nothing against you bro, don’t need to be so wired. I’ve been watching you and him. Getting all chatty and shit, not once did he tell you that he’s been in the pit, hell he’s the longest here. That means that there has been a lot of guys, like you, taken down by him. He’s the best in here … you? You’re just a rung on the ladder he’s gonna step on to get the fuck out of this shithole. So, like I said, kiss that ass goodbye.”
Jesus … fucking … Christ! If that wasn’t the biggest kick in the balls, then I don’t know what was. I was beginning to trust the guy, and all along he was most likely noting my reactions, how I behaved and all the stuff I should have done.
He had given me a clue, he said that no one in here was a civilian, everyone one was military, which meant that we all had training in surveillance and I had dropped the ball on that shit. But I had no time to stew over it, the door opened and in came Goliath, the man mountain who had brought me in.
“You,” he pointed at me as he approached, “Your turn, now you gonna behave or am I gonna get the pleasure of beating your ass all the way?”
If what the dude in the corner said was right then I needed to keep my energy, no point wasting it on this POS. I pushed myself up off the floor and moved to the door. I already felt my adrenaline pumping, and as much as I would love to knock this SOB on his ass, I wouldn’t. “Shut the fuck up and just get me to where I need to be,” I smirked as he bristled, gotta get your kicks in when you can.
***
I hoped to find some sort of way to escape, but there was none. When we left the holding room, we crossed the hall and walked in through another door that was guarded by two dudes like the mountain beside me. The door was shut behind me, and the place was swallowed by darkness. That lasted mere seconds and almost like someone had flipped a switch, the room lit up. It appeared I had built in night vision. How handy that would have been out on assignment. I turned to make a witty remark to Colossus and found that he was gone, I was alone. Pivoting slowly on my heel I turned around, my eyes narrowed as my brain went into overdrive attempting to process what was at play here. I turned to the left and over my shoulder up on the wall by the door was a small red dot … a camera.
“Seriously man? Fucking Houdini now?”
“Quit your yapping asshole, walk down to the bottom of the hall and wait. A door will open, when it does it’s party time, and I get to watch as you get your throat ripped out. Now move!” The voice echoed down the hallway from a speaker embedded in the wall, and by his tone I could tell the bastard was convinced that I was about to do the ‘dead man walking’ routine.
All this time, deep inside, my rage was on a low boil. My training had slid to the wayside when I had first gotten here, I wasn’t gonna make that mistake again. If I lost my shit here, I would waste energy, and that was precious right now, no I had to keep a lid on it. Instead of reacting I took a deep breath and took one step, then another and another until I had gone as far as I physically could.
The hallway was narrow and long, the ceiling and walls sloped into each other to give a tunnel effect. As I approached the end, I could hear a slight din grow from a low hum to an audible hiss of sound. I couldn’t make out distinct words, but I could tell it was the sound of lots of people talking and shouting … lots of them. Taking another deep breath, I swallowed thickly as I heard the clank of a lock being lifted on the door … I guess it was show time.
The door steadily lifted, and as it did light cut a sharp angle into the darkness I had been standing in. It crept its way up over me, as it did, the dull noises I heard moments before became a thundering roar. There were cheers and jeers, men and women alike were there and each as vocal as the other. It wasn’t until the door was fully lifted that I could get a clear view at the carnage in front of me. My years of training and military service, doing what I do, could never have prepared me for this, and I had seen some fucked up shit in my time.
I took a few steps into the circular walled pit, my eyes devouring the sight before me. My mind quickly processing the image it was seeing. Behind me sounded a metallic swish of the door being dropped and the thud of it hitting the ground shook me out of my head and into what was soon to go down. They weren’t kidding when they called it a pit, it wasn’t that big, maybe twenty feet or so in diameter, rimmed with concrete walls. I tilted my head back and let my eyes travel its height. It towered above me, but I could see faces, there were about thirty to forty all gawping over, and the fuckers yelled and cheered.
I let my gaze drop and once again survey the carnage before me, body parts lay strewn around the sand and sawdust covered ground, patches of dark red soaked into it in places. As my eyes drank it all in, I picked out the head of one of the guys that had been taken out first. Well, at best guess I would say it was him going on the carrot red hair now matted in blood and brain matter. There was fuck all left of the guy’s face, it looked like it had repeatedly been slashed until it was just mush. But that wasn’t his only issue, he was missing an arm, a bloody stump was all that was showing and the blood, Jesus the blood around him was unreal.
Suddenly there was movement to my left. I turned, and there was the other guy, again on his back, his face sprayed with blood, a look of sheer terror on his face which was now a mask of his last moments. His throat was ripped out, shreds of skin and spinal cord hung from it. Someone was hunched over him, hands sunken into his torn open chest cavity, ripping and tearing at what was inside until they found what they were looking for. Recognition began to dawn on me.
Turning slowly with the guy’s heart in his hand was my cage buddy, the first person I had spoken to when I got to this God forsaken shithole. “Sorry buddy, I had hoped that it would be a while before this would have to go down. I kinda liked you, but …” he lifted the guy’s heart to his mouth and bit into it, blood oozed and bubbled from the torn arteries that had once pumped life into the guy now in a bloody mess on the ground, “It’s dog eat dog here … literally. If it’s not you goin’ down here today, then it’s me, and we both know that ain’t never gonna happen.” He took one more chunk out of the thing he held before letting it drop over his shoulder were ironically it fell into the cavity it came from.
Wiping his mouth with the back of his hand his lips pulled into a sly grin, “Did you know some tribes would eat the heart of their enemies after they had slain them? They believed that they gained their strength.” He jerked his head to the guy behind him, “For us, it’s not lore nor is it myth, for us it feeds our beast and gives it strength.”
Jeers from the crowd above broke his attention, and he roared, not the sound of a man but the sound of a predator, and it caused those gathered to fill the place with cheers and shouts of ‘Fucking kill him!’ and ‘Gut the bastard.’
“You know I won’t go down easy, right?” I knew that the longer we stood here talking the better he would be at working me out. This bitch had never seen me fight, he had never seen what I was capable of, but he was going to. To the glee of the crowd, I launched myself at him catching him off guard, guessing that given the state of the others on the ground that to do damage he had to be up close and personal. I had to be sure that after delivering each strike I got out of swiping range. My kick to his torso knocked him back and he stumbled a few steps almost tripping over his last victory. His head whipped up to show the unadulterated rage embedded on his face. His brows were drawn, and lips pulled back in a snarl, it was then I noticed the teeth. They were pointed, all of them, like daggers ready for ripping at flesh and they still had the smear of blood on them from his last snack.
He got the memo. Talking was over. It was time for me to take the title from this bastard. I kept my eyes on him as he crouched, his hands fisted and bracing his weight readying to launch himself. He didn’t hesitate, moments later he came at me. I had never witnessed speed like it though I managed to dodge him and as he passed, I instinctively clawed at him. My fingers ripped into the skin on his back, and he roared out in what I would say was a mix of pain and wounded ego.
First blood was mine. We fought until my body ached, but I couldn’t stop. If I stop, I die, and if I died, I wouldn’t get out of this fucked up place and hunt down the bastard who put me here.
The freaks above were screaming down at us, baying for blood. Whose? They didn’t care, they just wanted it spilled and lots of it. I took my eyes off him for a split second to glance up and paid for it. Razor sharp nails slice across my face, biting through my flesh. One just missing my eye as I intuitively pulled away. That was followed quickly by a swiping blow to my gut forcing me to stumble back and out of his reach. He swayed on his feet from exhaustion as I staggered back. We were both tired, but both wanting to live, that was as good as an incentive as any to carry on.
My body was covered in slashes, and I didn’t need to guess the amount of blood loss was bad due to the feeling of weakness that was rapidly washing over me. One of my eyes was swollen so much that it was like looking through a slit. My body was coated in blood, a union of his and mine. My chest rose and fell as I took deep breaths, my lungs screaming for rest. I knew we couldn’t go on like this indefinitely. Looking over at him, I concentrated on tuning out the crowds above. After that last attack, my fault for letting my focus slip, all there was in this world right now was him and me.
He was panting as much as I was, I guess he underestimated his new friend, and that had cost him. I had torn a lump from his chest and slashed where I could in the frenzied attacks. We were even stevens now, it could go either way, but I needed to tip the scales tip in my favor. When I hit the deck moments before I’d fisted a handful of blood-soaked mix and now, as he came charging at me once more. I waited until he was close enough and threw it, blinding him and at that moment taking my chance to end it.
His hands went to his eyes as mine shot out. My fingers punctured his chest, fracturing bone. It took a second or two for him to realize what was about to go down, his face flushed in a bewildering kaleidoscope of pain, anger, and surprise. I pushed further as the shock pinned him, my hand found its prize, and as I had watched the dude at the bar days ago, I found myself mirroring his actions. I cradled his heart in the palm of my hand, even felt its steady beats. I locked eyes with him.
“Time to relinquish the title … bro,” and with that, my fingers pierced his beating heart, and I squeezed it tightly. I watched his face while I ripped it from his body. A moment before his life ended and his soul left him he stopped struggling. It was almost like he was accepting his fate and was almost welcoming it. His eyes widened, his life’s light faded, and I watched him take his last gasp of breath. His life slipped ungraciously away. I had never been a religious man, more a believer of luck, but someone must have been watching over me. Had I not used that very moment to make my move, and had he not fucked up, then I would be the one knocking on death’s door, not him. That was it, the last of my energy spent, I sank to my knees before falling forward, the pits surroundings began to dim, and darkness quickly swallowed me. My last thought … Hello, darkness, my old friend.
THE END …?
[bctt tweet=”OCTOBER TERROR 2018 Short Story Award – Entry #42 ‘Dog Soldiers’ by K. A. Denver – Enjoy all this terrific, disturbing material you have in your hands, lots of horror stories at your disposal for your dark delight and vote!” username=”theboldmom”]
On October 23rd we’ll close submissions and open a poll for the readers to choose their favourite one! You’ll have a week to make your choice and on October 31st we’ll announce the winner!!!
