Cold, so cold

Cold, so cold. I have no recollection of the rest of the night. I’m missing time. My eyelids feel like they are frozen shut. I force them open. I can’t feel my fingers or toes. 

Bright, so bright. The celestial rays of morning sun embrace the frigid earth, a welcome visitor to my hoary appendages. The ground has a thin layer of frost atop it. I bask in the warmth from the heavens, hoping it is a harbinger for the better.

Sore, so sore. My muscles scream at my brain. I feel like a human pinata. 

What happened? How can I not remember a severe beating? Who beat me? Why?

How did I lose so much time? 

Our aureate orb of gas and stardust ascends above the horizon. Allowing my optical orbs of sinew and stardust to focus. I blink several times. I shake my head trying to get the spots in my vision to disappear. I reach to rub out the sleep.

Ku-chink.

That sound announces a different message. I am shackled. An iron manacle bracelet sheathes my left wrist. Attached to the new jewelry, one-inch-thick iron chain links rise to a circular iron ring. The ring spiked to a ten-foot-tall pole lathered in creosote and lard. I am not alone. To my left, another prisoner. I vaguely remember his face. Karl, Keith, some K name. He was one of the three leftover people from the death match battles. I forgot about them completely.

Man, I suck as a human being. 

Ku-chink.

From my right.

I crane my neck toward the sound. 

Ten feet over, Penny wearing the same clothes from last night, manacled like me.

She sits on the right side of her pole of imprisonment. I don’t know the woman on the opposite side. I never caught her name.

I didn’t care. Yup, shitty human.

Ku-chink.

Back to my left. 

Far left. 

I swivel my head to the rattle announcing a third captive.

Trixster looks ragged and disheveled. She looks how I feel. She cracks a small smile.

“Guess the party is over. Or maybe it is just getting good," she says.

Her smile widens as I shake my head at her comment.

“I knew you were a prude. Too rough for you, pretty boy?” 

“What is the last thing you remember?”

“Sitting back down to the champion’s table and chugging a flagon of mead”, Trixster says.

Same question directed at Penny, same answer. 

We were set up.

As I run through my head the possible culprits, I see movement on a rock outcropping on a nearby hillside. At the base of the hill, sits a dilapidated rectangular cabin severely listing to port.

Maybe he had too much mead as well.

The ramshackle outbuilding looks to be a cafeteria on a campground. A long-forgotten and abandoned campground. The gray, weathered cedar clapboards rot in numerous places. Hanging by a solitary nail here and there. Reminding me of Jenny’s first loose tooth. Gripping for dear life in her gum line. The decayed wood wiggles back and forth with the buffeting wind. A sagging roof line, bowing into a deep u, threatens to collapse the entire structure. Its corruption, a simper towards our plight.

A clatter of fallen shale echoes through the square. A voluptuous hare sits astride a vigorous jet-black stallion. Kerris, the Welsh goddess, our savior.

She lifts her mask. A halo of sunlight radiates from behind her, highlighting her crimson tresses.

Oh, thank God.  

A smile skulks across her face, unveiling the true Kerris. 

A deceiver. 

True beast underneath.

She raises an object to her mouth. 

A blood-curdling scream reverberates off of twelve eardrums. 

A banshee scream of absolute terror. 

A wailing of the damned.

A cry I recognize.

Six matching screams, as our brains boil inside our skulls.

Three bodies buck and strain, dancing marionettes, seized in a song of pain, of madness, of death. 

Three more tearing at their ears, begging for deafness.

One last chance.

***

Damn, my head hurts. 

Ka-chink.

What the?

This isn’t good. 

“What is the last thing you remember’, Thomas asks.

How did they… the…mead..it had to be. That is the last thing I remember.

“Drinking the mead.”

Ka-chink.

Well, I’m not alone. Trixster. Vicky from the battles is here, too. Jose and Geoffrey too. I was wondering where those three went.

Ahhhh! That sound…is…make…it….stop!

Thomas! Trix.. Jo..Vick.. Geof.. I have to help.. them. It’s no use, my powers don’t…

Who is that? The hare? Kerris. Please..please…make..it…sto…sto…stop

***

Ka-chink.

Mother fu-, who hit me with a hammer?

Thomas looks like shit, he looks worried.

“Guess the party is over or maybe it is just getting good?”

Nope, not with my luck

“I knew you were a prude, too rough for you, pretty boy?”

Tied to a pole. Who is that on the other side? Jose? I think that was his name. 

“What is the last thing you remember?” he says.

“Sitting back down at the champion’s table and gulping a flagon of mead.”

The mead

Ahh, mother of Hades what is that…. Son…of .... a…kill me please.

***

Something is wrong with Karl. That sound. The veins in his neck look ready to explode. Why are they purple…now black? What is happening? I need to get..out..of..this..

That woman by Penny, the short one, she is pulling her hair out in chunks. So much blood.

The latino kid, Jorge? Jose? His eyes….

***

Is this how dogs feel with a dog whistle? 

“Jose, Jose you good, man? You don’t look so good.”

Understatement of the year.

Dude’s head looks like a cherry tomato about to pop in the summer heat.

“Thomas! Thomas! Your other girlfriend is trying to kill us!”

***

“Karl! Karl! What the, Karl, cover your ears!

Cover your damn ears!”

Karl doesn’t listen. 

The blackness has crept from his neck to his arms, legs, and face. 

Spreading its tendrils into every artery, vein, capillary.

His eyes.

Bloodshot.

Capillaries burst.

Weep blood.

Demonic.

He will die soon.

We all will.

Not today.

***

Geoffrey is dying. 

His veins pulsate. 

He is going to stroke out. 

Why are they black?

When will this end?

I watch Thomas break his thumb. 

I have no words. He slides the manacle off his wrist.

I can’t do that. I just can’t. I’m not strong enough.

He is free. 

Maybe he can get us all out.

It all happens so fast.

The only thing holding Geoffrey to the post was Thomas.

Chick-chick-chick.

The links skip off the iron post as Geoffrey pulls free.

A primal scream rips the morning air asunder.

Thomas makes two steps in my direction before…

It happens.

6’ 4”, 210 lb Geoffrey grabs Thomas by the scruff of his neck.

Head. Pole. Blood. Everywhere.

Thomas rag dolls. I think he is dead.

***

“Jose, shit man.

Get off me! What is your deal?”

A second scream, animal, bestial tears out of Jose. 

What was … Jose.

I punt his gonads into his throat. 

He doesn’t even flinch.

Nothing.

Fuck.

I’m going to die.

I can’t bear the pain. Maybe I should just give up.

Thomas is prone on the ground.

When did that happen? 

Geoffrey is free.

He looks like Jose.

A demon.

Except twice his size.

Fourteen years.

That’s it. That’s all I get.

Most of them sucked.

***

Thomas isn’t moving.

Trickster is screaming.

Vicki is changing. 

Into what I don’t know.

Wild.

Rabid.

I can’t hold out much longer.

She lunges for me.

Over and over.

Thank God, I outweigh her.

Thank you, late night nachos.

I’m leaning all my weight against the chains.

Getting tired.

She isn’t.

She looks possessed.

Blood pours from her eyeballs.

From her scalp.

From chunks of missing hair.

Her fingernails are shorn off. 

She scratches at the wooden post, digging her fingers into its grains maniacally.

No pain.

Her mangled finger bones poke out of her shredded flesh.

White limbs pumping crimson out of black veins.

Limbs turning cyanotic as they die.

Raging.

No longer human.

A beast. 

From the depths of hell.

This is it.

The end.

***

Jose is about my size.

5 foot nothing, 100 pounds soaking wet.

If he wasn’t…. feral.

He keeps coming at me.

I keep kicking him, punching him

Except he doesn’t feel it

Like his pain receptors are off.

His brain switched to primordial from civilized.

I broke his nose. Gave him two black eyes. Knocked out three teeth.

He keeps coming. He bit off half of my pinkie finger of my left hand. 

Every time he comes, I have to unblock my ears... the whistle

It screams.

It fills me with rage. I lose control. I just want to hurt, maim, kill.

***

The scream. 

It pulls me back. I’m seeing double. Definitely concussed.

I blink my eyes and shake my head side to side several times trying to reboot my brain.

It kind of works. My vision clears. I still have a constant ringing in my right ear. 

Nothing out of my left. No sound. That isn’t good.

I don’t know where the scream came from or from who it came.

I look right. Penny is keeping that woman distant from her by leaning away.

Digging her weight into the dirt. Lifting that wild thing into the air.

It claws at the post, the chain, its eyes, its hair. Anything it can destroy.

The scream.

I hear it again. I can’t properly pinpoint the direction. 

I look left. Trixster is bleeding from her left hand. 

She has both thumbs deep into the eye sockets of Jorge, Jose, whatever his name was. 

His teeth clack inches from her face. He is missing teeth. He has a broken nose.

Crimson streams from his ruined orbs.

The scream.

Is

behind

me.

I instinctively drop straight to the ground as Karl lunges at where I was.

Falling ass over teakettle over me. 

Something metal wallops me in the side of my head.

The chains.

They are still attached to him. I lunge for the end of it. With my good hand.

That was a mistake.

Karl, the beast man, reels me in like a professional angler. Tugging at the iron to bring in his prize catch. His carotid artery throbs under his taut skin. A blood balloon stretched to its limit. His eyes darted side to side. 

Let go, let go, let go

I release my grip on the chains thudding into a heap on the compacted soil. 

Karl seems confused as to why his fish got away.

He unleashes a roar from deep within his primal brain.

I would be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid. I’m terrified.

This is my chance. Make it a good one.

A matador, I am. Without a red cape or an estoque. 

Two hundred pounds of pure rage barrel down on me. 

White-hot unadulterated wrath.

Survive, just survive.

The beast races towards me. The ground shakes with each footfall. I kneel in the dirt.

***

I am losing. 

Vicky’s skeleton wants to shed her skin. A husk, an empty shell. That is her now. Only rage consumes her.

I’ve wrapped my shirt around my ears to try to mute the scream. 

The scream that turns you…into…this.

She paws at the air, the post, her hair, her eyes, the chain.

Rending bits of her humanity to the ground with each assault.

I can’t hold on much longer.

***

My left ear is broken. I can’t hear anything out of it. Thank God for all those ear infections as a kid. My hearing was fifty percent at best, vanity has saved my life.

I wouldn’t get hearing aids because I didn’t want to look old, broken, less than.

I’d be that now. A thing. A beast. 

He comes. All rage, no thought.

My thumb doesn’t hurt anymore. I feel the anger well up in me. Slowly.

I claw at the loose soil. 

I spring up as he nears, a sprinter out of the blocks.

A clod of earth in my left hand. Thrown in his eyes. My right hand grabs the chains. I wrap it around my wrist as I jump over his shoulder. I yank with all my weight. Bones crack. His shoulder pops out of the socket as I wrench it in an unnatural angle. I roll over his head and jump back over him. Hitting the ground briefly, I jumped back over his shoulder. Effectively, wrapping the iron garrote across his throat and pinning his arm behind his head. I hold on for dear life. 

Like riding a great white shark

He bucks and writhes trying to untangle my snare.

More bones crack. They aren’t his. My wrist distorts at an odd angle. I hold on.

I feel no pain. 

I’m running out of time.

I will be him, soon. 

Lost to the tempest of anger swirling in my head.

I pull with every fiber of my being. A liquid pop greets my one good ear.

It sucks in short, ragged breaths. A new whistle emanates from its busted windpipe. 

Reminding me of recorder practice in the fifth grade.

Discordant squeals batter my hearing. 

Sounds like someone strangling a goose

It claws at the iron with its free hand. The chain lodged firmly, covered in blood in its throat. Grasping wildly for release. Not able to gain it. I plant my feet firmly on its back.

Arching with everything I have left. It squirms. A maggot on hot tar. Not from the pain, but from the asphyxia.

Until there is no more. No more struggle. No more life. No more.

***

“Thomas, help!”

***

Flat on my back, exhausted, I hear Penny’s plea as I wad tissue in my ear canal. The rage subsides. A bubbling cauldron dissipating as the heat is removed. Still my senses prickle, my body vibrates from an overdose of adrenaline. I look down at my disfigured hand. Broken thumb, broken wrist. A tidal wave of pain drowns me as the adrenaline ebbs and flows away. 

I look to either side of me as I rise. Penny is losing ground. Trixster is… almost gone.

I rush towards her.

***

“NOOO!” 

She wails. 

Part human, part animal. 

“Go to her!”

I stand still, flabbergasted by her choice. 

“Tricia, my real name is Tricia. 

Thanks for the good time, Thomas tell Penny I’m sorry. 

Go, before it is too late!”

I watch her humanity die. 

A scream rooted in darkness erupts. 

Trixster, no Tricia is gone.

A rager wearing her face remains.

***

The whistling stops. What felt like hours was a minute or two at most.

I wheel on the balls of my feet and run.

Hoping I’m not too late.

Penny.

Please, not her too.

One is enough. 

Don’t be greedy. 

I implore the fates.

It is too late. I watch as she pummels the remains of a face. Just mauled meat left over.

She is one too.

All my remaining energy melts away, I care no more. 

Let them do what they want. 

What is the point in this life?

“What are you doing? Help me you idiot!”

Never have I been happier to be berated for my stupidity.

I reach her and punch the battered animal at the other end of the chain. It goes slack, knocked unconscious temporarily.

She stares at my mangled hand.

“Does it hurt?”, Penny asks.

“Immensely. This is going to hurt. Sorry, it is the only way I know to free you.”

She stares into my eyes. 

“Do it.”

I stare into hers and break her thumb. 

Her scream joins a chorus across the square. Jose and Tricia thrash against their manacles. 

“We need to go. Now.”

We flee the campground area in the direction opposite of where Kerris emerged. There is a dirt path leading to a wood thick with old growth. A forest that swallows light, not a path we want to follow. The alternative is back towards the campground with those inhuman creatures. Into the darkening grove, our weary twosome forges ahead. 

Better to make some distance from the known danger than worry about a new one. I don’t think those chains will hold them long.  

My left hand is useless.

Penny’s right hand is the same.  

We tie our busted thumbs to our pointer fingers hoping that it will give us some limited use.  

It is only midday. The sun high in the sky as we enter the forest.  

Its lush canopy creates a twilight illusion. 

A weathered wooden sign comes into view as our duo rounds a bend in the path.  

Two words: IL MOB.  

Scrawled in a hurry with a blade.  

Inside my head, couplets populate my brain. 

Turn back.

Run away.

Dead end.

We hear it first. 

A howl. 

Followed by another.

And a third.

Chills run down my spine.

They are free.