Blood on Celluloid

by B. L. Morgan

  Candi’s quietness was worrying me. I knew she cared about Ron but she didn’t seem to be reacting to his death at all. I went to the bars that separated our cells and leaned on them with my hands. I spoke to her.

  “I’m sorry about Ron,” I told Candi. “I never should have let him get involved in this.”

  Candi was silent for a moment. Then she looked up at me from where she sat on her cot with burning eyes.

  “Ron was a man,” Candi said. “He lived the way he wanted to live. He did what he wanted to do. That’s why he was with me. He didn’t care what people thought about us. He was hunting Sherry’s killer because he wanted to. You couldn’t have stopped him.”

  “He was a good man,” I told her.

  “Yeah,” Candi answered. “I know I’ve lost the best man I’ll ever meet.”

  Candi was quiet, lost inside her own self for a few seconds then she said, “What Ron would want is for us to go on and complete what we started so I can’t talk about him anymore. We’ve got to be strong and make it through this. I can’t let myself even shed one tear, because if I start crying, I know I won’t be able to stop.”

  CHAPTER 46

  I figured it to be late afternoon or early evening when they took us to our cells because the day seemed to pass extremely fast. We were only just settling back on our cots when a guy came by and slid a bowl of something that looked like vegetable soup through a slot in the bars at floor level.

  The bowl that the soup was in was one of those semi-paper things that you use at picnics. The spoon was a plastic spoon. We wouldn’t be tunneling out of here anytime soon with this stuff.

  I ate the food, which was very bland but it was food, and lay down on the cot to get some rest. It was a little bit after that, that I heard footsteps in the hallway and the sound of two Oriental men laughing and talking back and forth.

  It was two of the hired guns. They stopped outside of Candi’s cell. Both of these guys were wearing camouflage fatigues and had pistols in holsters on their belts.

  One was around five foot nine and a hundred and seventy pounds. The other was a little smaller than he was.

  The larger man leered at Candi through the bars and grinned. He put his hand on his pistol.

  “Take your clothes off,” he barked at her.

  Candi got up off the cot she had been laying on and stood up. She locked eyes with the guard.

  “I don’t think so,” she told him in an even voice.

  The guard went a little red in the face then he laughed.

  “American bitch!” He spit at Candi. “Here, you will do as you are told!”

  They unlocked the door to Candi’s cell and stepped inside. The larger guard drew his pistol and, stepping forward, transferred it to his left hand.

  I went to the bars that separated our cells.

  “Leave her alone!” I yelled.

  The one advancing toward Candi glanced at me. “This entire building is sound proofed. Shout if you wish. It will make no difference.”

  The other guard moved into the cell with his back to me.

  Candi spoke to the guard again but this time her voice was smooth like flowing honey. “All right, I’ll do whatever you want. If I’m going to be here I might as well have some fun too. Come on big boy,” she said. “Let me see what you’ve got.”

  “Well, well, we’ve got a lively one this time,” the guard who was coming at Candi said to his buddy. “Maybe we found one who likes it rough.”

  “Oh yeah, now you’re speaking my language,” Candi told the two of them. “I like it rough. I can make it so rough you’ll cum like you’ve never cum before.”

  “Get you clothes off,” the guard told her again.

  “Take them off for me,” Candi told him and stepped forward.

  He put his right hand up to stop her and she slowly reached both her hands up and took his hand in hers. Then she put his hand on her chest and kneaded her own breast using his hand.

  “Oh yeah,” Candi breathed. “That’s good.”

  The guard still had his pistol in his left hand but his right hand started working overtime squeezing Candi’s breast.

  He was breathing heavy and she nuzzled into his neck and kept saying, “Oh yeah, oh yeah.”

  The other guard’s eyes were glued to Candi and his buddy. I was completely forgotten.

  Candi started moaning and groaning as the guy ran his hand up and down her body. He ran his hand down around her back then pulled her to him while clutching her ass. Then he slid his hand around the front of her and reached between her legs.

  I knew what was coming next.

  He shouted, “You got a dick!” and tried to pull away and Candi had his left hand clutched in her right hand.

  This was an uneven struggle. Candi was far stronger than the guy she was wrestling with. Keeping the guard between her and his buddy, she wrenched the gun from his left hand and kicked him off of her backward into the other guard.

  The other guard stumbled backward into the bars separating our cells. I grabbed him by the hair of the head, threw my left arm around his throat, then wrenched his head hard to the side.

  Vertebra snapped and he sank to the floor like the bones from his legs had vanished.

  The guy who had been feeling Candi up was now on the floor on his hands and knees. Candi had his gun in her hands and she was pointing it at his head.

  “Please,” he begged her. “Please, please don’t kill me. Please show me mercy.”

  “Not fucking likely,” Candi told him, and pulled the trigger, splashing his brains across the cement floor.

  CHAPTER 47

  Candi got the keys and unlocked my cell. We each took one of the pistols from each of the guards. We stepped out into the hallway between the two rows of cells.

  “What now?” Candi asked.

  I looked down the long rows of bars on both sides of the hall. A few of the children had taken an interest in what we were doing and were standing up next to the bars watching us.

  They all had the same kind of dead eyes, like all the fight had been beaten out of them. They wanted to do something to get out of here but they were just too scared to even ask us to unlock their cages.

  A voice came to me from inside my head. It was Sherry’s voice. It said, “Save the children!”

  How the hell am I supposed to do that? I shot the thought back at her.

  She didn’t answer my question.

  I looked at Candi. “Let’s let these kids out,” I told her. “We’ll figure out our next step after that.”

  We went down the long hallway unlocking the cells and swinging the doors open. Most of the kids just looked at us and didn’t move. They were too shell shocked to even consider the possibility of escaping this hellish life that they were trapped in.

  When we had all the doors unlocked a few of the older kids had come out into the hallway and were now looking to us to tell them what to do.

  There were eight kids that were standing around us waiting for us to do something.

  I turned to Candi, “Do you remember that helicopter outside?”

  “Yeah,” she answered.

  “That’s the only way we’re getting these kids out of here. Do you think you can fly it?” I asked.

  She snorted a laugh. “I ain’t never even been in anything like that.”

  “Shit!” I said.

  The kids all looked at me. They wanted … no, needed somebody to help them.

  “All right, fuck-it,” I told Candi. “I’ve ridden in a few of those things in my time. I’ve even ridden in the co-pilots seat bullshitting with the pilot. If we can make it to that chopper, I’ll see if I can get it off the ground.

  “I get it in the air and follow the first road I see to the first town. We land there and drop these kids off, and then we come back for some serious payback.”

  Candi said, “So that’s the only plan we got, right? That seems pretty much off the wall.”

  “It is,” I told her. “If you
got a better one let me know, because I know we don’t have a chance in hell of making this one work.”

  * * *

  I had one of the kids run and latch the door at the north end of the building. I had another kid go and start dragging the other children out of their cells. I knew it was a suicide mission to try and take all the kids in these cells with us in one mad dash to that helicopter but we had to at least try. Besides, how would you ever decide which ones you would leave behind?

  Me and Candi, trailed by an ever growing crowd of children, went to the door on the south end of the building. I opened the door and looked out.

  Directly south, about thirty yards away, was the hotel where the guests and the staff stay. To the west were two bushes and a small tree that formed a border between where the guards patrolled the fence line and the guests walked inside the complex. To the east were a couple more decorative bushes, trees, and a walkway, and about fifty yards past that was the helicopter landing pad where the chopper sat.

  The thought hit me that since they used that chopper exclusively to haul in their high paying guests for security they probably kept some weapons stored in the helicopter at all times.

  If we were to get in a gunfight on the way out, which was highly likely, the two of us needed something better than just these two pistols we were packing.

  “I’m going to have to go scout out the best way to get these kids to the chopper,” I told Candi. “I need you to stay here and don’t let anybody come in through this door.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that,” Candi told me. “I am not going back in that cage again. Anyone tries to come through this door and he ain’t someone I know, he’s dead.”

  * * *

  I slipped out the door and flattened myself against the building.

  Evening was falling. It was that in between time, between when it was bright daylight and full night darkness. The bright greens of the day were now starting to look like dull dark grays. All the colors were losing their vibrancy. All the colors were slowly darkening and blending together.

  I was hoping the changing of colors from day to night would help me blend in with the surroundings.

  Stepping out to the halfway point between the slave quarters where we’d been locked up and the guest hotel, I stopped beside a bush and took a good look. Nobody was moving around that I could see. As I scanned the distance between the slave quarters and the helicopter, looking for the most direct route, that chopper seemed like it was at least fifty miles away.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw movement. Without thinking I dropped to the ground beside the bush.

  The two guards walked over the fence. From where I was crouched down I could see everything they did. One spit through the fence. The other one took a deep drag on his cigarette and threw it away. He pulled his pack out of his pocket and made a disgusted sound when he saw that it was empty, then wadded up the empty pack and tossed it over the fence.

  I could see all the way across the complex past the edge of the helicopter to the building to where the guards lived. It came to me in a flash. He’s going to come right through here to cut across to go get some cigarettes from his room.

  I glanced at the door into the guest hotel. It was open just a small crack, but it was open.

  The guards were still talking and even though it was in a language I didn’t understand, I knew as sure as I know the moon was going to shine somewhere on that night that as soon as they stopped talking, one of those guards was going to come right through the bushes where I was crouched down.

  On hands and knees I scurried over to the side door into the guest hotel and pushed it open.

  I stepped inside and stood up.

  CHAPTER 48

  There was no one in the hallway and, except for a maid’s cart piled high with towels, linen, and cleaning supplies sitting a few doors from this end of the corridor, the hallway was deserted.

  I heard a door about midway down creak as it was pulled open. I ran to the maid’s cart and crouched down behind it.

  The cart that I crouched down beside had shelves that ran all the way through. Most of the shelves were filled with bleaches and detergents and sprays to make everything look spotlessly clean. One of the shelves had an empty space all the way through and with my face bathed on deep shadows I could see who stepped out of the door.

  He was a small man. He was Oriental and he had on a Hawaiian shirt. That bastard must love those Hawaiian shirts. He wears them enough.

  It was Tian Kham, the man who cut Sherry’s throat.

  He walked directly toward the cart that I hid behind. One door before he got to where I was, he unlocked the door and entered that room.

  He left the door open behind him.

  * * *

  I went to the open doorway. I stood beside it and listened. No voices came from inside. He must be alone.

  There was no way I was letting this opportunity pass me by. The main reason I came over here was to kill this one man. He wasn’t going to leave that room alive.

  I slipped inside the door and closed it behind me.

  It was a typical hotel room with a large bed, a TV, and a dresser with a mirror.

  Tian Kham was standing at the dresser. A drawer was open. The drawer was filled with Hawaiian shirts. He was fingering through the shirts looking for a change.

  With the click of the latch as the door shut, Tian Kham spun around and faced me. He saw the gun in me right hand. He smiled.

  “I should have expected that you would come for me,” he said. “A motivated man is difficult to stop. This was predictable and yet I did not prepare for this.”

  “Yeah, too fucking bad for you,” I told him.

  Now that I had a moment, I took a good long look at Tian Kham. He was smaller than me and, with a touch of gray on his temples, looked to be a few years older than I was. He was thin built and his hard ripped arms told me that he was in good shape.

  He had also imperceptibly edged close to me as we had talked. The way he moved was so smooth I hadn’t even noticed the two steps he’d taken toward me.

  I raised the pistol and he snapped out a kick. The kick was hard and fast. I’d only seen a gun kicked out of someone’s hand in an old movie and never figured it would work in reality.

  It worked this time.

  The pistol was knocked from my hand and bounced to the carpet.

  I drew back my fist and threw a good straight hard right cross. It would have knocked his teeth out if that punch had landed. The problem was it didn’t.

  Tian Kham slapped my fist to the side as it traveled toward his face, redirecting the force past him. When my fist was past his head he grabbed my wrist, twisted it, then tossed me through the air using my own forward momentum. I hit the carpet on my back, did a roll-out and came back up to my feet.

  Taking a step toward Tian Kham I saw that he was between me and the pistol. He must have known where the gun was too, but there was no way he was going to turn his back on me to go for it.

  If Tan Kham had turned his back on me I’d have kicked him so hard in the ass he would have been wearing his anus for a collar and his balls for a necktie. As it was, Tian Kham just assumed a casual looking fighting stance and waited for me to come at him.

  I recognized the stance and now understood that reason why he’d been able to throw me so easily. Tian Kham was a master of Aikido.

  Aikido is a martial art that depends on small joint manipulation and throws. The bastard had already thrown me once like I was his personal rag doll. I couldn’t afford to let him get a good hold on my fingers or my wrists or elbows. If I did, Tian Kham was likely to twist any of those joints out of their sockets.

  I came at Tian Kham hard snapping out a front kick then threw a straight right followed by a left hook.

  He threw me again, and when I landed this time I came down on something hard lying on the carpet.

  Tian Kham realized his mistake instantly, and as I rolled and grabbed the pistol he ran a
nd jumped at me to come down with a killing stomp.

  The stomp never landed. Tian Kham was still in the air when I fired blindly up at him. The cry that Tian Kham made as the bullet hit him was something like a wounded bird would make. Tian Kham crashed to the carpet beside me and whimpered.

  I rolled away and stood up over him. I didn’t have any fear that Tian Kham would be kicking up at me. He wouldn’t be kicking anybody ever again.

  My blind shot had hit him right in the crotch.

  I told him, “It’s too bad I don’t have the time to enjoy watching you die like this, but I got things to do.”

  I put a bullet through his head.

  CHAPTER 49

  When I stuck my head back out in the hallway everything was quiet. I waited for a few seconds to see if anyone was going to open a door or raise an alarm.

  No one did.

  I stepped out of the room and walked down to the door at the end of the hall that I’d entered through, and eased it open.

  The two guards were gone.

  After sticking my head out and taking a look around, I went outside.

  It was dark out and the lights of the compound were coming on.

  The moon was up and could be seen through the opening of the foliage roof directly over where the helicopter sat.

  I knew I had to get moving pretty damned fast. With evening in full bloom these freaks would want to start their partying soon. Since we were supposed to be the entertainment for their celebrations it could be any moment that they’d be coming for us.

  I ran back over to the building where the slaves were held and flattened myself against the wall. I was back where I had started from.

  After edging over to where the corner of the building was, I decided that this was no good. Anyone seeing me from a distance standing like I was would know something was wrong. So I strolled as nonchalantly as I could over to a walkway and took a good survey of my surroundings.

  I was about thirty yards from where the helicopter sat. Only open grass separated me from it.