by Travis Borne
48 The Underworld
Two months prior.
He dragged his bloody stump of a leg then lifted, replanting it again, then repeated over, and over, and over. The bone stabbed the ground like a pirate’s peg into a soft garden while his peripheral vision contained the fire of Hell, and his friends—including himself, all six were on the verge of collapse; at least the relative end was near. But his friend wasn’t doing well; Patrick’s back had been slashed to fringes of bacon and his one remaining arm hung loose. He’d fallen behind and was inches from getting the whole team disqualified.
They hadn’t won in four months and this week’s race was going to be close. Victories paid, and paid big—the grand prize, and the only currency with value: time, one extra day off.
“You move your fuckin’ ass, Patrick,” he roared. “Push, man. Push!” Besides verbal encouragement, no physical assistance was allowed between teammates.
SLASH! Madron’s whip came down. Chunks of flesh dehydrated into beef jerky and droplets of blood flash-dried like ash in the baking air. Each hit caused even the big man to cry out, adding to the constant moaning and nonstop shrills that had irritated his sanity since the work week began. Friday, nearing the end, almost there—just a little more. Push!
“I know you can do it, Pat!” he yelled. Pat looked up at him from behind, breathing harder than ever, then refocused his willpower. Nearly armless, he gave his all to catch up.
Jerry wanted her to win the extra day so didn’t let up on Pat; she needed it, especially after the targeted torment that had escalated on Wednesday, and, the incident. Jerry roared, “Push, we can do it, push, team!” And he had motivated his band of six before the race too. Now the time had come and this was the do-or-die moment. Only two other teams were close and they had the lead, but it was going to be close.
The Six-Sixty-Six. It was an all-out muddy trudge through blood-soaked soil tilled with competitors’ parts, yet only one segment of their quotidian hell. The last push, the final day. Humans were lined up in droves at the start, while sixty at a time were commanded by sadistic beasts: ten teams of six humans, forced to pull one monster in its chariot. Row after betting row went like waves across the field, driven forward by creatures who seemed to weigh two tons.
The race began at the foot of Undertown, a decaying Wild West crumble which sat atop a plateau a good quarter mile before the 666-meter-long field. Surrounded by fire and plumes of black smoke, as well the bonfire from Thursday’s cook-off, and like factories without regulation, the outskirts of Undertown still smoldered. Smoke from burning bodies and hair, tires and trash, and the unthinkable, sent fumes which seemed to drive themselves like royalty in the 130-degree air, and currently a hot breeze sent the noisome swirls down the hill toward the fields. The arriving, seemingly alive plague of pollution provided some spotty shade, blocking out the red blotch in the sky that seemed near enough to set the world-sized cavern ablaze, but was unwelcome by all.
The smoke besieged the stone-carved stadium to Jerry’s team’s far right, bleachers brimming with boisterous and betting beasts of all types, sizes, smells, and degrees of deformity. Grunts and complaints fanned out faster than the curling black stuff and visibility waned, interrupting the gamblers’ show. And the racers hacked as the smell of burnt rubber and flesh came their way, all the way to the center team, Jerry’s. It forced everyone in his group to slow down and hack up their lungs, which came with a heavy price tag: more punishing lashes.
Madron brought down the whip: whoop-pisssssh!
And the smoke continued on, swirling through and around the four teams on Jerry’s left and toward the cliff drop. The chasm was deep enough to reach the pit of Hell and its rising heat pushed on the flying black tar. The swirls rose up and went forward, straight ahead, swooping again, toward the bona-fide end of the work week, the finish line.
Whoop-pisssssh! Madron was on a roll.
In Jerry’s wave many of the initial sixty humans had survived. At least a quarter were going to pass the 555-meter line; they’d be given one extra day off, regardless of winning.
Whoop-pisssssh!
Teams not reaching the 300-meter line, only one in this wave, lost a day off—and they’d have to redo the race later, allowing the smaller, groveling beasts a chance at some action.
Whoop-pisssssh!
The first of the ten teams to cross the finish line, if any, was given a holy grail: a second day off.
Whoop-pisssssh! Whoop-pisssssh!
Time off from work was the most precious commodity to be had whilst enduring the hell of a life they’d lived for hundreds of years. And there was no cheating the system, not in the underworld.
“Haw!” Madron’s voice was thunder. “Haw, skinnin’ time boys and sluts. Haw, ha, ha, ha, haaaaw!” He laughed and brought the whip down again, and again. The third snap hit Pat, who’d finally managed to catch up. And he went down, again. Jerry gave him the eye, but Pat was in no shape to continue on.
Pat had three fingers left on the arm that was dislocated, seemingly hanging by skin and tendons, his skinny surfer legs were spent matchsticks, one kneecap was busted off, and his back was a charred jail cell of ribs, most of its bars cracked. “I’m sorry, Jerry. Guys, I’m done for.”
“Pat, you get up and fight or I’m going to show you what real pain is when we get home. Do it for Carmen. I know you can, bro.”
Carmen had only one eye but it was passion filled with the equivalent of two, and she aimed it at Pat saying, “Get up, Patrick. Jerry’s right. We can do this. I need it, we all do.”
Pat threw his arm forward like a rake. It landed in the hot, over-fertilized soil and his three fingers took hold of a large mass of bone. He curled them around it, wrist and all, and pulled then released a howling moan. And his arm stretched like a stretch doll’s—it still had some pulling power! Pat’s thin face became turgid like an overripe tomato and he engaged his black matchsticks, releasing another howl that sent the cheering crowd into full frenzy. And the outcry reverberated into the skulls of his teammates like a cold poltergeist.
It was too familiar. The pain stabbed Jerry’s ears, the ghostly knife reaching his soul: what they’d been reduced to. Walking dead, gobs of flesh that somehow, kept on, kept on keeping on. Patrick just happened to be getting it worse this time; he was Jerry’s good friend, his best friend. Jerry nodded an earnest nod as Pat undeniably managed the impossible. Pat caught up and the team dug in as one, pulling Madron inch by inch, the chains wrapping about their waists going taut with a CLANG, and six individuals gritted in defiance, each of them looking no other direction than forward.
Luke, Andy, and Roger likewise had sent intense eyes toward Pat; it really wasn’t his fault, just a sadistic bully’s choice o’ the day. But now, back in, and actually, they were close to pulling it off: winning!
Madron meted the pain wisely and with skill. His aim, as always for the Six-Sixty-Six, was getting his team to give up just before the finish line, as well delivering a top-notch and creatively torturous performance. “Screw the 555,” Madron blustered, “you can have your one day, I want the gold!”
Most didn’t dare push it that far, but Madron wasn’t like most beasts, and he knew Jerry’s potential—if he manipulated the big man just right. The balance was a chess game: dealing the most pain and mutilation possible, but still, just barely winning the race—and, first! One of the largest beasts, and always choosing Jerry during the draft-pick session, he lurched over his crew of six like a blistering wall of red gloss. Boils ruptured in sync with his punishing whips. Puss-filled volcanoes on his back spit pungent musk, torturing nearby tongues like raw-persimmons, eyes like tear gas, and nostrils as if a little demon was repeatedly uppercutting two ice picks into each. Madron’s glossy horns were as long as his muscular arms, arcing out from his forehead and twisting upwards of six feet tall. He’d enwrapped his jet-black rack with lumpy gray innards and, whoop-pisssssh, delivered the whip—to Roger on the right. The drying bowels swung rou
nd like tassels. “Haw!” Then he brought the whip down onto Jerry, his go-to champ, front and center, spinning the bowels artfully about a fifteen-foot radius. “Now, time to slow you down, big man! Haw, ha, ha, ha, haaaaw!”
Jerry reared from the hit, sweat raining from his brow, and he clenched his teeth tight enough to crack the bones of his face. The whip met the jail-cell bars of his back, fomenting his rage; better after the flesh was gone. But he realized the whip’s beaded cat tails must’ve nicked the back of his skull. He jabbed his exposed leg bone into the ground like a crutch and reeled over. A crescendo of agony arrived late—and this time it was bad. The knock had cracked his skull and he could feel the blood, and possibly his brains, spilling onto his shoulders. In defiance of the hot lava sun, though, he savored the relative cooling for a split second. The juice—be it gray-matter goulash or blood—ran down his back, evaporating. His thoughts went weird as the greenish-yellow bile emptied from his skull, and just then he realized, this could be it. They’ll make us do it over again, the sick bastards—our whole team, and we’ll lose our Saturday. All for spite, to get back at me for what happened Wednesday. And Carmen. No! He pushed on his knee with both hands, forcing himself up.
Jerry’s vision returned. His warbled hearing distorted as if the little demon was back with his two ice picks, running them into his ears, then around as if he was mixing paint. Nightmarish sounds, voices calling him, telling him to get up, to push, push, push! And then he heard Carmen take it next. He saw her as if time was going on vacation along with his brains, and he desperately wanted to help, knowing that if he tried to give aid again, Madron would unleash the ax as he’d done to Pat’s arm at the start. Managing the race with no arm, and no nearby fire to cauterize the nub, no doubt they’d all be sent back for a second pass, and worse, be unable to finish even the 555.
Carmen’s shirt was a shredded lei-like necklace. She was nude, had been beaten within a half inch of her life, and sent her only remaining and very desperate brown eye to Jerry. A blink. It said, “I love you, no matter what.” Her jaw no longer had the energy to clench and her face was loosening as if she’d been hit with botulinum-filled balloon; she was fading out.
Jerry knew the pain was about to finish her off. Carmen was going down. Unlike he, having had chosen to lose the front halves of his feet from the myriad of demented hindrances, she’d chosen the swords. They’d been inserted into the tops of her narrow shoulders and protruded from her elbows. She still had both legs but had already used up her three painkillers; she’d won two in the lottery before the race and Jerry had given her the one he’d managed to barter for.
“Haw!” The whip came down followed by a standing ovation from the crowds, and Carmen went to her knees. Her swords dived deep into the soil. Madron knew how much he could push it. His ratings were surging and the crowds were his slurping sycophants. The ratio of maximum pain, plus nearing the line, sent his points soaring like artificial intelligence playing the stock market. And he carved Carmen like an ice sculptor, and had finally managed to separate a dangling layer of flesh she’d been dragging through the field like a charred red and black wedding dress. But, less drag would help her—and Madron well knew it; he wanted them to get just a little bit closer—then he’d massacre his crew for the grand finale.
Advantages: less skin, exposed bone rather than the soft, sensitive stuff, an osseous shield; now the hits were less of a dizzying sting. But Carmen was small, and although her muscles had been refilled by the midpoint energy drink, they were now giving out. Her eyes fell into her head and the skin of her normally tan Hispanic face went white as if a vacuum pump was sucking her dry. She had failed many a race. “I…can’t go on, Jerry.” Her head wobbled, daze-like, and she stopped and dropped. Madron raised the whip.
“No!” Jerry roared. “Too early, Madron!” He knew Madron was shooting for the 590. He turned to his woman and said, “Carmen, you can do this. Less than fifty feet and we are done, a week off plus the day. At the 590 I want you to run with everything you got. Use your inner strength. The rage. Remember what I told you last week. Now, get up. I love you.”
Madron hesitated. In his own way, like many of the other beasts, he respected Jerry. But for the show he continued to raise the whip and slashed at air to Carmen’s left, while Jerry did give Carmen a helping hand. Blocked from the cheering crowds by Andy, Luke, and Roger on her left, a point wasn’t deducted, the ratings continued to soar, and the crowd’s cheer was a sonic weapon. Jerry was spot on. Madron wanted to get right up to the line, the closer the better; he’d let that one slide.
Carmen pushed up with all she had as the snap hitting only air gave her a jolt. Her swords stabbed the soil like crutches and the skin holding them ripped some more. The barbs on the blades protruded from her arms like the spines of a dragon. And her eyes became wide. She took in a deep breath of the hot air. The heat singed her lungs, providing a vivifying sting and she planted a foot. Then Madron sent the whip again, this time striking Andy.
“I knew you had it in you,” Jerry said. She had the demeanor of someone who’d completely lost it and pushed through the boiling soil as if she’d just swallowed a load of roids. Jerry liked seeing her angry, the fight within her, and the power he knew she very well still had—she was still alive, hope remained. Their group of six was back—full force!
Jerry was acquainted with the others; sometimes it was a different bunch but he, Patrick, Andy, and Carmen, stuck together whenever possible. He was best friends with Pat and much more with Carmen. She reminded him a lot of Valerie—a painful fact, but useful in a demented way. He wanted to protect her, although with the irrepressible powers of the underworld there was little he could actually do—so he had once thought.
49. TGIF
On Wednesday Jerry had stepped up to Carne, another beast even larger than Madron. The rape sessions were some of the hardest, most difficult parts of the work week, although over the centuries the humans had gotten used to them, as much as anyone could to such a sinister event. A memory, from long, long ago had made its way into Jerry’s mind while he watched her taking it from across the dusty street; her face was glossy with blood as if they’d poured a bucket of it on her. And he was helpless while Carne worked his rear end.
Carne thrust himself deep from behind, smearing Jerry’s own blood about his back with slaps and grabs and punches. Jerry’s hands and head were locked in the pillory and across the way he noticed the beasts had broken their usual rhythm. A clan of many had focused on Carmen.
She began screaming uncontrollably.
Laughing boisterously, they’d found a new target to pick on and this time Carmen was getting more than her usual share. For years, as if they’d found a new play toy, it had been getting progressively worse. Jerry was aware they were using her. His weakness was love and they had been pushing it over the years, finding new ways to inflame his torment. Eyes went his way while they worked her, as well taunting laughs.
Jerry became enraged like—like a previous time. Something had given him the long-lost memory just then. Vague, but something was returning. Fuzzy visions cleared. Then, memories piled onto memories like heaps of rags raining from the sky. He watched as they held her head with their monster claws. He watched them laugh and laugh, and again look his way. They beat her and pleasured themselves—and through his glassy, tear-stuffed eyes she changed. Carmen had become…
Valerie.
In his mind, he put a new face on the five twelve-foot-tall beasts assaulting her. The face of a man thrusting himself into her from behind, the man’s eyes became dark and beady, his hair short and black; he’d become human—and the tattoo. Jerry recognized it as if a lightning strike had just re-galvanized the event. He saw Valerie in the cave, pregnant and being forced against the rock by Lee. He saw the goons around her: garbage-bag-skin Dwayne and the lanky worm that was Ray. He remembered Amy, her arm, and the blood. He remembered Valerie’s childbirth which came only a half hour after they had taken care of the fi
lth, and her last, faint breath of air. He remembered how the air just fell out of her lungs after she saw the stillborn child she’d just birthed. He saw his old self again—and he raised his arms toward the orange sky and roared.
The memory gave him carte blanche against the pillory. He ripped his hands from the holes, shattering the wood and cracking bone, then pulled away from Carne who was all in, having his way and ready to blow. Carne stood up, cocked and loaded and enraged. He towered over Jerry. At sixteen feet tall Carne was the largest of the beasts, who always enjoyed the largest of the men. And although Jerry was the largest and most dominant human, Carne was a solid tower of muscle.
But in this moment, somehow, Jerry’s muscles had become supercharged. He spun round and leapt at Carne with the pillory still around his neck, and unleashed the hammers that were his broken fists. Time slowed; Jerry sped up like he’d been wound up. And his fists became steel, as hard as his now growing muscles. Other beasts pulled out from their victims along his line and rushed to aid Carne. But Jerry had become slippery, and after knocking the beast out cold, he leapt over the metal barriers. He said nothing, but his red, inflamed countenance said everything.
The creature—he knew them all after so many years—was bald with burnt-toast skin, an ugly hornless one named Baldarn. But to Jerry it had become Lee and Carmen was Valerie. Jerry’s size increased, his muscles bulged and the pillory surrounding his neck snapped. He tore across the way, unbridled and free from his shackles.
Humans waiting to receive their pounding were lined up, encircling the dried-up fountain at the center of town, a Minotaur statue standing twenty-five feet tall. Roaring erupted as the crowds cheered him on. And cries had stopped. It was the first time elation rather than tormented howls clogged the torrid air, air so hot breathing it too quickly could kill.