Piercing the Darkness: A Charity Horror Anthology for the Children's Literacy Initiative Page 15

  The two women with him thanked me. I nodded my head by way of saying it was all right and Darby crossed his arms over his chest and looked the area over while the exchange took place. One of the assailants had recovered a bit and tried to get up. Darby walked over and stomped down on the man’s back with one of his scarred combat boots. The man let out a yelp and stayed still after that.

  When the women had said their thanks and I had accepted them—and even that was awkward at the time. I wish I could explain it better than to say civility was just making a comeback—Darby led them back to the car and helped them put their supplies away. As I was climbing into my own vehicle he came over and put a hand on my shoulder. The hand was heavy, callused and very strong.

  “Listen. Thanks.” That was all he said, all he intended to say.

  “I owed you.” I didn’t expect the words to come out of my mouth. They fairly jumped out on their own.

  Darby’s blue eyes looked into mine and studied me and I held my breath. I was in a uniform that gave me a certain amount of automatic respect, but the stories I’d heard in the past reminded me that the man in front of me didn’t have much need for authority.

  He shook his head. “Bullshit. Didn’t know I was the one that saved your house when you helped them. So thanks.”

  He walked away before I could say anything else.

  I thought about him a lot after that. Not because I wanted to, but because he was a puzzle. By all rights he should have been dead, or in charge of one of the gangs that still roamed around and took what they wanted. He managed a strange harmony with the new, violent system that came up after the Fall. He kept himself fed and safe and at the same time he meted out violence like a savage. He was a savage, but he’d figured out how to turn it off and on and believe me, that was almost unique. Half of the people I went up against were the ones who couldn’t manage to do that very thing and the other half were the ones who simply wouldn’t.

  We met again one final time, on the day when he came to the Magistrate’s office not to look for more work, but to ask for medical services. As with almost all cases for the Pit and the Abattoir, the Magistrate had the final say. Herlihy was far too busy to dictate prices.

  The Magistrate working that day was a man named Tate Rodriguez. Tate was a hard man, but considered himself fair. Most times I agreed with him.

  He was working as the Magistrate and I was working as one of his five assistants. Assistant Magistrates were basically bodyguards. A lot of people took the decisions made by Magistrates poorly and Herlihy wanted his business administrators protected. No one ever got too comfortable in the job. Sloppy work meant someone died. Let the wrong person die and you found out the hard way why Herlihy was in charge of Boston.

  Bryce Darby came into the room and walked to the right instead of to the left. The left doorway led to the room for Advocates. The right door led to the much longer lines where people waited to either press charges, accept charges or plead for medical assistance. The line was almost three hours long. I’d clocked it.

  Bryce Darby met up with the Magistrate after seven minutes. Tate lost the bet. He didn’t think Darby would cut in line. I knew better.

  Long story short, Darby needed medical assistance for three different people. The names meant almost nothing to me. Kate Sullivan, I learned, was the brunette I’d seen him with. Brittany Corin was the redhead. The third person was a man named Corin, either the redhead’s brother or husband. He could have paid for the medical assistance, but it would have cost him everything he had. Instead Darby chose to offer himself to the Abattoir, which made him the first person I’d ever heard of who was willing to fight to the death rather than fork over the goods to make his life easier.

  Less than five minutes after Darby made his decision, Tate closed down his office and had all of us escort him to Herlihy. Fame has its price, you see. It wasn’t just anyone asking for medical assistance and it wasn’t just for one person. Bryce Darby, who was as close to a celebrity as anyone in the Pit, had just offered himself up for a death match in the Abattoir. From a business sense, it was too big to ignore. Three people had to be treated and tended to, but in exchange the King of Boston got the equivalent of the first ever Super Bowl of Bloodshed.

  Three hours was how long they discussed exactly what they wanted to do. Normally the choice of who a man fought in the Abattoir was decided simply by random situation. This was different; this was huge. They wanted to make sure they got everything they could out of Bryce Darby’s death.

  The news was monumental. Everyone wanted to attend the Abattoir that night. Want to know how to make money? Take the very best you have and offer them up as a sacrifice in the name of entertainment.

  I knew what they had planned. I couldn’t very well go out of my way to tell Darby. It wasn’t technically against the rules, but it would be frowned on. Instead, I went to the hospital and found Brittany Corin.

  She hadn’t had her surgery yet, but she’d been prepped for it. Like all three of Darby’s friends, she was treated with care and respect. No one who went in for serious surgery was mistreated. It was well known that the rough cases cost dearly and sometimes cost lives. So, yes, the people were treated well. The friends of Bryce Darby? They were treated like royalty.

  She was a beautiful girl. Even lying in bed and being prepared for surgery—it was her appendix that was in danger of rupturing—she was lovely. I told her what I knew, and she in turn thanked me for that with a smile and a promise not to tell anyone where the information came from. I wished her luck with her surgery and left behind a teddy bear as a get well wish.

  Then I made sure I had my tickets for the greatest show the Abattoir had ever produced.

  Nori, my wife, was not much for the Abattoir. She had as little interest in it as I did, but on that occasion she made an exception. She wanted to see the man who had saved me before we were married. Four months pregnant with our daughter and I led her through the crowds and down to the seats I’d gotten us near the front. Rank has its privileges. The Magistrate who’d arranged the whole affair had extra seats and didn’t hold a grudge after losing his bet. He was there with his wife and his ten-year-old son. The very notion of taking a child to see the show was abhorrent to me, but the world had changed since I was born and I had to accept that.

  The Abattoir was filled to capacity and even Herlihy was there, along with his entourage. There was a live band to play between fights, and there were concession stands, complete with food, snacks and T-shirts with Darby’s likeness on them. I was amazed. The world had ended years ago and people starved on the streets, but we had T-shirts. If he could have managed it, I think Herlihy would have produced program books.

  There were other fights, of course, but they were precursory. A few moments of violence to whet appetites. The sky was red; I remember that. The fires that blazed around the place lit the clouds above us with a scarlet hue that perfectly suited the attitudes of the audience, myself included. Civility was pushed to the side for a few hours, and everyone wanted to see blood and death. Screw the warm-ups, and damn the musicians as failures; they merely delayed the fight that was still to come.

  And then it was time. The small feuds were done and the time for carnage was there and damn me with the musicians, I was thrilled to see it. My pulse raced and my limbs surged with adrenaline and I stood and cheered along with everyone else when the announcer called out that this was the fight to end all fights.

  Bryce Darby, the undefeated champion of dozens of contests in the Pit was going into the Abattoir for the first time ever. It’s one thing to know a man is capable of violence and another entirely to see him commit murder.

  Everyone was told the situation: Bryce Darby wanted medical assistance for three people in desperate need of that help. None of the situations were minor. In exchange for that assistance he would have to fight for the privilege against not one or even three opponents, but against six in unarmed combat to the death.

  Each of the men was
introduced. Each, as well we knew, also sought medical assistance for someone else. Each of them wanted to save someone dear to them. Life and death not for the fighters, but for the people who meant the most to them. Really, what better way to guarantee a show?

  The men were all formidable. A few of them had been in trouble with Herlihy before and that was what I knew that Darby wasn’t supposed to know. The public story was that they fought for their loved ones and that was true enough, but they also fought to get back in the King’s good graces. They were desperate and they were hungry.

  When they’d all been introduced, Darby stepped out from his entrance and stopped, allowing everyone to see him. The applause was riotous. People stood up and stomped their feet, they called out for blood and cheered for the redheaded brute who stood to get himself beaten to death by the other six men in the arena.

  Herlihy himself struck the gong that day. He rose from his spot and walked along the narrow walkway, grabbed the heavy club used to strike the seven foot wide metal disk and bashed it with all the force he could muster.

  Before the vibrations had ceased, Darby had killed the first of his opponents. In the past he had always let the aggressors come to him, but not that day. He charged at a muscular ape of a man whose wife had heart troubles and who had fought hard to get more medical attention than he could afford, and heaved the man out of the arena before he knew what was happening. The man screamed as he rose through the air and only stopped when the metal guard spike drove through his chest and neck.

  Half of the audience cheered even louder. The rest sat stunned. They were expecting combat, not slaughter.

  Bryce Darby didn’t care about showmanship. He cared about surviving the next few minutes.

  There was no organization. The men had not been given time to prepare for fighting against one opponent. Instead they simply charged, determined to kill their enemy as quickly as they could. The odds were still in their favor, five to one. It should have been an easy win for them, but like the audience, they weren’t as ready as they thought they were.

  I need to remind you that most of the people who were in the audience could have told you horror stories about their lives during and after the Fall. Nori had been attacked on several occasions—she was beautiful and exotic and more than one man tried to have his way with her—and she had been forced to do unpleasant things to a few men, up to and including castration, to make her point. And she was not a fighter. The men in the Abattoir were picked for their abilities. They were chosen by Herlihy himself to fight against Darby. They were brutes, powerful and deadly in their own rights and even as a seasoned fighter I’d have probably chosen a good Advocate rather than fight any one of them.

  Darby hit the second opponent in the throat with his left hand. I remember that, because the man was trying to dodge from the right hook he’d thrown and instead he took the blow that destroyed his windpipe and knocked his Adam’s apple into a new shape. The audience watched as the man fell flat and clutched at his throat, trying to somehow claw breaths from his ruined airway.

  Darby didn’t waste the time. He moved on to the next target and shifted his body enough to absorb the first few blows the man threw his way. The third opponent cheated. He intended to keep his life and to end Darby’s and to that end he wrapped his hands around rolls of quarters or maybe it was metal posts cut down to size, but either way, his fists were even deadlier than usual. He smashed himself into Darby with all the frenzy of a tidal wave ramming into the breakers. They traded blows with unsettling fury and even the most energetic members of the audience stopped to watch. I won’t claim the auditorium was silent, but it was definitely quieter, enough so that I could hear the slam of fists into flesh and the ragged breaths of the two men as they did battle.

  The man was good and he was fighting for his life and in the end, it didn’t matter. He slipped up first, and Bryce Darby wrecked him for his weakness. Darby ducked a hard swing at his face and as he moved out of the way of the blow he slashed his fingers across his enemy’s eyes, blinding him. To this day I don’t know if he was lucky, cheating or just amazingly good, but his fingers came back bloodied and the man stopped fighting and screamed as he cried crimson tears.

  Darby didn’t give him a chance to recover. He knocked the man sprawling and stomped down in his neck, grinding the heel of his boot into flesh until something deep inside broke and the wound bled black.

  The fourth man tried to run. That’s maybe what I remember the very best. He tried to escape from Darby and without so much as hesitating the redhead drove him down to his knees and then flattened him. By the time the poor bastard’s face hit the ground he was already dead.

  Darby’s face was a bloody mess by then. His lips were swollen and busted by the last man he’d fought, and trails of blood ran from his nose as well. His cheek was swelling, his jaw was bloodied and his body was already reddening. He looked like a monster. He acted the part, too.

  The fifth man tried to plead. He opened his mouth to speak, and Darby twisted his head to the left until his neck broke. Do you have any idea how hard that must be to accomplish?

  There was one man left. I watched. I cheered along with everyone else as he grabbed the last of his enemies and ruined him. There was no showmanship, nor any finesse. Every move he made was slower than before and he was aching. Even with most of his opponents killed quickly the fight had taken its toll and the last man died the same as the first, screaming as he was thrown into the spikes that surrounded the Abattoir.

  I watched and so did everyone else. That was the last time Nori ever asked to go to the Pit and the last time I went as well.

  I wish I could give this a happier ending. In the end, Bryce Darby got what he came for. His friends, his family, whatever they were to him, they got their medical attention. Three people were given another chance at life, and in exchange six were murdered and six more were turned away from the aid they needed.

  Bryce Darby was hailed as a hero, and I suppose he was in some ways. And at the same time something changed in Boston. I don’t even think anyone was conscious of it at first, but something vital was stolen away by the fight.

  Herlihy lost favor among his people. He’d fought to keep Boston intact and had done an amazing job when all around him the country fell into chaos. To be sure, there was death and violence in Boston during the Fall, but next to the other big cities the worst events could almost been seen as minor. Still, something changed. The people stopped thinking of their leader as benevolent and realized that he was less than perfect.

  He held on for a while, but his powerful grip started slipping. Change was painful, and I’d be lying if I said I was proud of everything I did in the name of the king. In time I and most of my peers were called on to kill, and we did it in an effort to keep the peace.

  I heard about it when Bryce Darby was killed. He was shot down by men in uniforms exactly like the one I wore until the day I retired. He was killed over nothing, really. He chose not to listen to suggestions that he might prefer to lose a pit fight. Nothing fatal, just a skirmish in a court of law. A few people wanted to place bets, and he was stubborn and foolish to the very end.

  You see, bullets were harder to come by, but they weren’t impossible to find. He won his last fight and as he headed for his house and the people he cared for, three men in uniforms took aim and fired.

  I understand he actually killed two of them before he dropped, but that might just be a rumor. I like to think maybe it’s the truth though. It seems fitting that he died in combat, which was the way he lived most of the time.

  Is there a moral here? No. Just a reminder of a different time, when lives weren’t worth much except as entertainment. These days the hospitals run again across the country, and there’s food enough to let people eat and in some cases grow fat. The gladiatorial pits are gone, mostly, or used for different forms of entertainment.

  You know all of that, of course. You live here, after all.

  I don’t miss the
Abattoir. I could never feel bad for the loss of that sort of hell pit. But these days I find I miss the likes of Bryce Darby. He was not kind and he was not a good man, but he was honest. I think that’s missing a lot more than most folks understand.

  I hear he has a son that strongly resembles him. I understand he’s one of the men who took down Herlihy and replaced the old government. Somehow I find that fitting.

  — | — | —

  CANNONBALL LYCANTHROPE

  JANET JOYCE HOLDEN

  “That’s a nice ride.”

  “Thanks.”

  He gestured toward the unleaded pump. “You get the heads redone?”

  “Yep.”

  “Some other modifications, too, I bet. You traveling across country?”

  “Yep.”

  “It’s a cool car, man.”

  He left it at that. He figured he’d gotten what he needed and he’d already spotted the girl in the passenger seat, fast asleep, her head propped up on a huge bed pillow. As for her companion, sure—they could take him, no problem. And they’d follow the original plan, keep going until it was dark and they all had to pull in for gas once more. In this surreptitious chase across country the timing couldn’t have been better. They were stronger come nightfall, while she was at her weakest.

  He walked across the forecourt, passed by the front of a Hostess delivery truck and approached the silver 5 Series BMW hiding in its shadow. Cally had finished at the pump and was already in the driver’s seat, fingers rapping on the steering wheel while Ed was walking back from the store, loaded up with chips and cola. Dan shook his head and saw indigestion in his future. He climbed inside and buckled up.

  “So?” Cally was leaning forward, staring at the delivery truck as if he could see through it.

  “Relax. He’s just a guy.”