Arena

by Logan Jacobs

  I walked a few feet into the brush, the revving of the marauders' dirt-bikes muted behind the thick wall of foliage. I looked up and saw the scout marauder, his body bent backward over a tree limb so that the back of his head touched his ass, his body twitching and spasming as he tried to breathe. Apparently, his brain hadn't gotten the memo that his body was fucked up beyond all recognition.

  I smelled gas fumes and saw the extinguished chainsaw on a chain in a heap a few feet away. I picked it up and knocked the moss and dirt off it. For a chainsaw, it was surprisingly light, yet had just enough weight to carry the force of a swing. I grabbed the handle and looked at the buttons embedded in the polished wood. The top was obviously the motor, since it had a pictogram of the thing’s engine in the center of it, the middle was for the flame function, again a pictogram of the chainsaw on fire, and finally, the bottom button had a pictogram of the whole contraption but laid out in a rigid line. I pressed the button, and the chain snapped into place, the chainsaw pointing straight out, becoming more like a chainsaw sword. Like a demented maniac baseball player, I held it in a two-handed grip and took a few practice swings, testing the heft and balance, and getting used to how it carried through in a backswing.

  “Leatherface at bat,” I joked to the now lifeless body of the scout. While cool in a screwed up eighties post-apocalyptic movie sense, the chainsaw sword was cumbersome to carry. I didn’t know if I should pop it on my shoulder like Grizz or somehow try to slide the damn thing into my belt. I was in the process of testing out what shoulder it felt good on when it rattled the handle of one my Space Viking battle axes. That gave me an idea.

  I set the chainsaw sword down and removed the axes from their magnetic holders. I banged them together, and the axes blades popped out, I spun them in an awkward flourish in front of me; my brain knew the movements but my body sure as shit didn’t want to comply. Artemis and Grizz weren’t kidding about the whole mind-body disconnect with the nanochip. I swung the axes at a nearby tree, and they sank into the soft jungle wood like hot knives through butter. I picked up the chainsaw sword and held it across my back diagonally and sure enough, the magnets took hold and held the damn thing in place like a surreal lumberjack Aragorn.

  I had just pulled my axes from the tree when I saw that a few of the marauders were making their way through the dense underbrush of the jungle. If they got through that wall of vines, leaves, overgrown ferns, and wrist thick grass into the jungle proper, they would be able to hunt me down for sure, sheer numbers giving them an overwhelming advantage.

  The scout marauder’s souped-up dirt-bike hung in the jungle wall a hundred feet behind me. I turned and toggled my zoom. Fuel dripped from the bike's tanks and had spread out across the bed of dead leaves on the jungle floor. The vines that wrapped around the bike’s tires were slick with oil from the cracked engine casing, dark snakes of black crude had slithered from vine to vine.

  A war cry drew my attention, and I could see three or four marauders pushing through the brush. I attached one of the axes diagonally next to the chainsaw sword on my back, the handles about two inches apart. Yup, it was time to light this baby up, I thought as I tossed the other axe into the air where it flipped end over end before I caught it with my right hand, and the blade crackled with blue energy.

  I locked my sight on the gas tank of the motorcycle, watching as more and more marauders began pushing their bodies into the tangled vines and branches that made up the jungle wall. I gave it another thirty seconds, just long enough for the first few intrepid marauders to get a clean line of sight on me.

  One began to let out the beginnings of a feral howl, but when he smelled the pond of fuel that he and his buddies were playing patty cake in, the howl died in his throat. I grinned, took a deep breath, and threw the axe as hard as I could toward the bike.

  The perfectly balanced axe sailed through the air with a hum and landed just to the left of where I had been aiming. I was just happy the damn thing made it the whole way. Halfway there I was sure it was just going to fall out of the sky and land impotent just shy of the gas. But, the sound of ignited gas fumes let me know otherwise. Blue orange flames licked out from the epicenter of the bike like ravenous tendrils of destruction in every direction. The marauders screamed as they were turned into marauder barbecue by the conflagration. The flames gathered speed and sucked air toward them, rolling faster and faster across the wall of jungle. Thick smoke began to pour up from the motorcycle carcass and it pooled in the jungle canopy, blocking out the already sparse sunlight.

  The flames quickly spread in every direction and consumed everything in their path like a ravenous great white.

  “Oh, boy,” I muttered to my deceased antagonist, “time for me to head for the volcano.”

  I took one last look at the inferno, saw the flames undulating across the jungle wall as if alive, and started to jog toward the volcano.

  Thankfully, once inside the jungle proper, the brush thinned out, and I was able to make good time to the base of the volcano. I toggled my zoom once again and scanned the surface, looking for anything that might give a clue as to what the hell I was supposed to do next. I couldn’t find anything and began to walk around the base.

  About halfway around the three thousand foot diameter volcano, I came across a section of hanging vines that just didn’t seem to fit the rest. I grabbed a handful and pulled, and sure enough, a section of wall slid inward enough for me to squeeze my body through.

  I was definitely not prepared for the sight that greeted me once inside the volcano.

  The little passageway I shimmied through emptied into a large cave made of volcanic glass. Stalactites of pure black obsidian hung like heavy guardians from the roof of the cave. Sunlight shone through several vents that had been cut in the stone, the glass-like sheen on the volcanic rock reflected the light and bounced around the cave to give the whole space an otherworldly glow.

  There was a bubbling hot spring in the center of the room, and the steam caused the condensation on the polished smooth support beams to spread throughout the room.

  But the really weird part that had me standing there, as sweat dripped off my face, mouth agape in dumbfounded confusion was that in the sauna were fifteen, almost completely naked, alien women.

  They all had light purple skin with dark violet markings that ran down their arms and legs in lines that seemed to begin at an odd looking symbol in the small of their backs. Their lilac blue hair was all done up in the same ponytail at the top of their head, and the rest cascaded down their backs like trains on a dress. Their bodies were the stuff of pure fantasy, with hourglass figures harkening back to the days of centerfolds and pin-ups, large, full, heavy breasts barely held at bay by the thin triangles of metallic fabric that made up their string bikinis. Toned yet still smooth and soft stomachs sloped in languid S’s toward hips that could hypnotize when they walked away from their sway from side to side, and asses that were the inspiration for every song from “Fat Bottomed Girls” to “Baby Got Back.”

  The moment I walked into the room, fifteen pairs of ruby colored eyes turned in my direction began to glow rhythmically. The light from within them was warm and inviting, and I was greeted with fifteen gorgeously seductive smiles. I couldn’t turn away, almost like I was being compelled to meet their gaze and dream about lying amid a sea of purple bodies, writhing and twisting as I got lost in the nubile pleasures of gasps and moans. Their seductive current pulled me under, and I got lost in the wilds of my lust.

  Part of me knew something was very wrong, even though everything felt so right, and that part was screaming its ever-loving head off. All the other parts of me were telling that killjoy part to shut the hell up and sit the hell down.

  Killjoy just kept on yelling and that’s when I noticed that I had walked closer to the steam bath without even realizing my legs were moving. I also realized it had gotten hot, and my shirt was soaked. I used the sleeve to wipe the sweat from my eyes and accidentally triggered my zoom vis
ion. The optics shot my gaze forward forty feet so that I now looked past the gorgeous, seductive, sexually alluring women and saw a staircase carved into the wall that led up and out of the room.

  Suddenly, I wasn’t nearly as turned on as I had been a second ago. Was it because I wasn’t looking at them? That I wasn’t enthralled by the light of their seductive ruby eyes? I wasn’t sure, but the more I stared at the far wall, the better I felt, and as I sucked in a quick breath to clear my head, I noticed a sickly sweet smell that was almost choking in its offensiveness. I tried to keep from dry heaving on the rancid smell as it clung to me like cloying cobwebs.

  Killjoy told me to keep the zoom on and to keep looking ahead so I haphazardly made my way to the stairs. Trying to walk with the optical zoom engaged proved to be more than a bit tricky. Turns out peripheral vision is really important for little things like spatial awareness and depth perception. As I walked, blurry, purple shapes faded in and out of my field of view, the rancid smell would dissipate slightly, and I would find myself wanting to take one more un-zoomed look at the gorgeous creatures who were eager for a touch, a kiss, a thrust, a lick, a bite, a swallow, or a bit of a devour.

  I stopped and shook my head to dislodge the feeling of desolate arousal that had gotten its hooks into me. I felt that my thumb and middle finger were only centimeters apart, just shy of disengaging the optical zoom. I didn’t know what the fuck was going on, but I wanted out of the cave immediately.

  I focused on the stairs again, and as soon as I did, the smell assaulted me with fresh decay, and the blurry shapes became frantic as they fluttered in and out of my vision. I started to get a feeling of claustrophobia even though the cave was gigantic. It was like I was being corralled or engulfed. Panic like an itch I couldn’t scratch started to tickle the base of my determination. And, much like an itch you couldn’t scratch, once I was aware of the slowly growing panic, I couldn’t ignore it.

  I was only about ten feet from the base of the stairs and knew deep down that if I faltered now, I was going to die a very painful and horrific death. I felt my hands clench into fists as I brought them up to a fighter’s stance almost reflexively. I held my left arm close to my face as if to shield it from unseen blows, my right cocked near my chin, coiled and tight, ready to strike. This was fight or flight personified. With my right hand clenched tight, at least I didn’t have to worry about unintentionally disengaging the zoom.

  I pushed forward in an agonizing slow motion, each step an effort in concentration as if the room were full of some thick, viscous liquid. Three more strides and I would be on the steps. I could hear the rustling sound of bodies rubbing together, skin on skin like a nest of snakes, in frantic urgency and the slow steady drip of water falling from the stalactites.

  I could hear their desperate pleas like a soft breath on the back of my neck as they begged me to look at them. It was words without words, an unintelligible murmur just barely misunderstood. Even though I couldn’t make out any words, I could feel their longing, their hunger to be filled, and I wanted to gaze on them forever.

  “Need. Want. Beg.” They whispered inside my head. “Please. Beg. Take.”

  The urge to look back at the women was almost all-consuming, every fiber of my being screamed at me to look, but whatever part of my lizard brain that was responsible for survival had the wheel and there was no way in hell it was letting go of it. The muscles in my arms clenched tighter, fists white, and my shoulders shook like overloaded springs.

  After what seemed like an eternity, I managed to cross the remaining three feet and felt my right foot land on the first step of the stairs. It was as if I’d been wrapped in ropes, unseen hands trying to pull me backward, and several of them had just been cut. I lurched forward, nearly stumbled, and placed my left foot on the next step. More invisible strands snapped, and I started climbing the stairs faster and faster until I’d reached the top landing. As both my feet planted on the top, the last of the unseen ropes faded away, and I pitched forward on to the small landing.

  I landed on my hands and knees, my chest heaving and arms shaking from the effort I only had a vague memory of expending. I took a deep breath and exhaled forcefully as I tried to expel the charnel stench of the cave. The air on the stairway landing wasn’t fresh by any standard, but it didn’t smell like old, rotted death, so it may as well have been fresh mountain air for all I cared. I pushed myself up to one knee, my senses still on high alert. My lizard brain wasn’t steering at the moment, but he sure as hell still had a hand on the wheel. I unslung the chainsaw sword from my back and held it in both hands as I stood and walked slowly back to the top of the stairs.

  I toggled my optical zoom back one level to get a better view of the cave. I edged the corner of the landing wall and peered inside.

  What I had thought was a sexy alien grotto was actually a dank cavern. The floor was littered with old bones and carcasses of aliens who’d entered the cave just as I had, but they hadn't been as lucky. Piles of viscera in all stages of decomposition were scattered about the cave amidst the bones and discarded skin. What I had initially seen as a natural steam bath was a broiling, misshapen pond of brackish water with an oily surface that a thin layer of steam-like fog clung to. The fog concealed most of the cavern floor. Wondering if I had anything that would help, I checked each of the pouches on my belt.

  “Probably should have done this a lot earlier, genius,” I whispered quietly to myself as my fingers probed the predominantly empty pouches. One pouch had an inexplicable pack of bubble gum in it. Other than that, they seemed empty. I opened the last one near the top buckle and in it were two translucent plastic tubes.

  “Freaking sweet!” I said in hushed excitement, as I took the tubes out, bent them until I heard a snap, and shook them vigorously. They began to glow with bright fluorescent light as the chemicals inside them mixed together. I loved Glo-Sticks. When they were completely mixed, I ducked out from behind the landing wall and sidearmed them out toward the lake.

  Instead of sinking into the water, they bounced and slid across the surface as if it were a solid. As they twirled to a stop, the green light illuminated a small sphere where it seemed to burn the fog away. Dark, ominous creatures moved beneath the surface of the water, or glass, or whatever the hell it was.

  I almost fell to my knees, my legs wobbly with disbelief, when I realized what the beautiful women were. I didn’t know if the fog in the room was some kind of narcotic or what, but I did not see fifteen sexy as hell women anymore. I saw nightmare incarnate.

  The women were not women at all but biological fishing lures. They were facades made up of violet skin in the vague shape of a woman, connected to a segmented insect-like appendage that rose out of the back of large dog-sized spiders that skittered under the surface of the water, as if it were their floor, like a glass insect cage. One of the women moving in slow, sultry circles, got pulled under the water without a splash.

  I watched in disgust as the spider thing brought the ‘lure’ to its mandibled mouth, vomited some kind of dissolvent on it, then devoured whatever trace material had been on the ‘skin’ of the lure. It then plunged the lure back through the water and began to sway it back and forth. After a moment, the lure’s mouth opened up, and it expelled rank waste onto one of the existing piles of excrement.

  I didn’t know how it all worked, but I assumed the spiders would hypnotize anything that came through the passage, get them to walk into the embrace of the lure, and then drag them through the barrier that separated them from the rest of the room. Whatever it was wouldn’t let the spiders in or us out unless wrapped up in the disgusting folds of the lure. In order to walk willingly into one of those things, you’d have to be suicidal or hypnotized. The upside down spider-dogs must have to mesmerize prey with the amber gaze of the lure-women for them to work, that’s the only reason I could think of to explain why I had managed to get across the room to the stairs.

  Geez, no wonder you’d been terrified beyond the capacity fo
r all rational thought.

  I pulled my face away from the corner, turned away from the aquarium of horror, and glanced around the landing. There was a doorway on the far end that led to a well-illuminated hallway.

  I wasn’t thrilled with the prospect of a small enclosed space, but anything was better than where I had just been. I tightened my grip on the chainsaw sword and walked through the doorway.

  The hall was shorter than I expected and led to some kind of carved out antechamber. A raised dais sat in the middle of the room illuminated from a hole in the ceiling that let a shaft of bright sunlight in. There were strange alien hieroglyphs covering the walls and the base of the roughly ten-foot high dais.

  On top of the pedestal was a stone altar that held a disk-shaped object that looked like an oversized Frisbee made out of aluminum and ringed with lights that pulsed like a heartbeat.

  I once again toggled my trusty optical zoom and did a thorough scan of the room. I did not want to find myself at the mercy of some mutant angler cockroach with a penchant for human flesh or some other god awful monster that my brain couldn’t even hope to comprehend.

  Not seeing anything out of the ordinary, I walked cautiously into the antechamber and up to the dais. I looked around for a way onto the pedestal and couldn’t find any. I hoped I could still do a pull-up, as I reslung the chainsaw sword and reached up to grab the top of the platform.

  Thankfully there was a small lip on the edge of the dais for my fingers to grab on to, otherwise, I didn’t think I’d be able to get enough purchase to force my way up. I initially tried to do a strict pull-up, got about halfway, and had to drop back down. Pull-ups suck.