Chapter - 21
From the expletive laden tirade Clive leveled upon their captors, Duke assumed the man would be loud and obnoxious the whole of their trip to wherever Shiro and Fred were taking them. It was soon apparent that Clive was like a stick of dynamite; he exploded and then left everything around him in an eerie calm. Clive was just as silent as Duke as they were helped out of the back of a van and taken to a wide but low cave opening about a mile into the forest. Duke attributed the tirade to Clive’s youth and all that he had seen over the past day. Age had a way of tempering a man. Duke’s wife liked to tell him that as he aged he was losing testosterone and getting an extra helping of estrogen. He was becoming more like a docile female every day. He didn’t believe her until he looked the information up for himself.
“I told you,” his wife said with a coy smile, which Duke returned in his own crooked-grinned way. Duke missed his wife terribly. Even though it hadn’t been that long since he had seen her, it felt like ages. Fred had his gun in his right hand, which hung easily at his hip. He tested his bonds; tie-down ropes kept his wrists tied firmly behind his back. He was well-trussed; maybe a little too well. Duke flexed his fingers to try and get some of the blood pumping back into them. Clive was looking around the forest in earnest. Duke wondered if the guy was planning on running off. One look at how Fred held the revolver told Duke that running would be a bad idea. He seemed very comfortable with the piece. If Clive ran, he would probably be dead after twenty paces.
Shiro had walked over to the mouth of the cave and pressed a large red button that was affixed to the left side of the opening. A loud buzzer sounded from somewhere below the earth.
“You boys aren’t claustrophobic, are you?” Fred asked. Neither Clive nor Duke answered him. Shiro gestured for them to join him at the mouth of the cave. Before they took three steps Clive kicked Fred in the knee and took off at a dead run for the trees. Fred cursed as he fell, swinging the revolver up and firing off six shots in succession. Duke stopped where he stood when the Clive took flight and watched. The first couple of bullets missed, but not all. A shot hit Clive in the back of the thigh and another caught him in the shoulder. His momentum took him face first into a large oak at the tree-line. The wet crunch of flesh and bone rupturing against the hard surface of the tree reverberated back to the men. All of them winced.
“Asshole kicked me,” Fred said, rubbing his abused shin. “I should have put all six into his spine.”
“Yeah, right,” Shiro said. “It didn’t look to me like you were aiming anywhere else but to kill him. He kicked you good.”
“Asshole,” Fred repeated. He stood up and loaded his gun.
“You going to run for it?” Shiro asked Duke. Duke shrugged. At that moment, a low vehicle rumbled its way out of the cave entrance. The ride had no frills, all industrial steel and belching exhaust which sat on four squat tires. The driver looked disinterested at the men, nodding to Shiro and Fred. Duke wondered just how many people this man saw trussed and ready to be taken below the earth. He swung his feet out to the side of the car and flexed his legs. Fred nudged Duke with the hot barrel of the revolver. Duke walked over to the car and sat down next to the driver. Fred got in next to him.
“You’re going to want to keep your head down for at least five hundred feet or so,” the driver said. “Don’t even think about sitting up until you’re told. A sore back from leaning down hurts a lot less than a busted head.”
“Okay,” Duke said. “I didn’t know this town was big on coal mining. That’s what this kind of vehicle is, isn’t it?”
“Yeah,” Fred said. “It’s a coal car.”
“Not a lot of coal here on the California coast,” Duke said.
“No,” Fred said, “There’s not.”
Shiro came up behind them, grunting from the weight of Clive’s bleeding body. Clive’s face was a white mask of pain. The only sounds he made were groans whenever he put weight on this injured leg. Shiro dumped him onto the back of the coal car.
“Keep your head down,” Shiro said, getting into the car next to him. They lay side by side. The driver leaned down, his fingers barely touching the wheel. Duke and Fred got down. The coal car went into the cave. All was black except for a single string of lights which barely illuminated the darkness. The ceiling was dangerously low. Even though the men lay as low as they could, every once and a while a low jutting rock would scrape them. Shiro cursed.
“Drive slower,” Shiro hissed. “We bounce and we’ll all be squished.”
“Not my fault you’ve got this thing laden so heavy,” the driver said. “It’s only supposed to take two people. Three at the most.”
“Just be careful,” Shiro said, his voice like ice, not wanting any dissent.
“You okay, Clive?” Duke said.
“The shoulder bullet went in and out,” Clive said, his voice hardly above a whisper and barely audible to any of the others as they thundered down below the ground. “The one in the leg hurts like a bitch. I can feel the bullet scraping against my femur. I’ve never felt anything like it.”
“We’re almost to where we can all sit up,” the driver said. “Don’t do it yet, even though it looks safe. There’s still some low parts down here.”
“Do you mind letting us know where the hell we’re going?” Duke said. “Isn’t it about that time?”
“You’ll see,” Shiro said. “You’ll be surprised to say the least.” The driver of the coal car seemed to have all he could handle in steering down the low tunnel. The single light strand hadn’t changed. Time seemed to stand still. Duke could feel himself going down, lower and lower below the ground.
“Hold on,” the driver said. “Here comes the tricky part.”
He swung the coal car hard to the right. Duke yelled as he thought they were going to run straight into the rock wall of the cave, but instead he felt his stomach drop as the coal car dipped into total darkness. Duke remembered one last glimpse of the single light strand heading downward. He knew they must have taken a secret tunnel; one that they didn’t want any outsiders to know anything about. The driver was saying a Hail Mary. This didn’t help Duke feel any better. He tried to lay lower in the car, which was impossible. He wanted to close his eyes, but in his fear he kept them open, lest he found a way to escape and have to claw his way out. This was futile, since the darkness was total. He tried, but couldn’t see his hands. He didn’t know how much time had passed when the ceiling came to life, lit by bright track lighting on both sides of the cave as well as the ceiling. The lights were low, but seemed to beam with the fury of a thousand suns after being kept in such total darkness. The driver slowed to a crawl and rubbed his eyes. He wiped away the sweat from his brow.
“Didn’t even hit the wall once that time,” the driver howled.
“I’ll alert the media,” Shiro said. “You can pick up the pace a little now. I’m tired of being bled on.”
“Oh, please forgive me,” Clive said. “Where are my manners?”
“Shut up or I’ll have Fred knock your teeth in,” Shiro said. “Ever since you took his daughter’s virginity, he’s had a hankering to beat the shit out of you.”
“She loved it,” Clive said. Fred reached over and punched Clive in the side of the head several times. Fred leaned back over and shook his hand, his knuckles were covered in blood. He looked over at Duke and grinned.
“I always thought it had been him,” Fred said. “She never told me who it was.” Shiro laughed. Duke kept his face impassive. He was watching the tunnel. It was widening every moment on all sides until they were in a large, long chasm which sloped ever downward.
“You can sit up now,” the driver said. The men did, with the exception of Clive, who was knocked out completely, his face looked much the worse for wear from the beating at the hands of the lawman. Duke felt his bones crack as he moved. He didn’t realize how tense he had been during the drive down into the caves. If his hands hurt before, they were hell now.
“
Do you mind loosening these up a little?” Duke asked Fred. “My hands are going to fall off from loss of blood.” Fred reached into his jacket pocket and got out a folding knife. He slit the ropes easily, snapped the knife closed and put it back into his pocket. Duke rubbed his wrists as they tingled vigorously while the blood rushed back into them.
“You sure you want to do that?” Shiro said.
“I don’t see why not,” Fred said. “Where the hell would he go?”
Duke had to agree. He tended to his throbbing extremities as he gazed in wonder at everything around him. The cave was so immense that it was a wonder to him that there was enough land to hold the forest above them aloft.
“Looks beautiful, doesn’t it?” Shiro said. “The caves don’t just run under the ocean floor. They head far and deep into the land. It’s like a whole other world down here. Just wait until you see it. You’ll be impressed.”
“I’m impressed now,” Duke said, and he was. “It’s too bad that I’m about to die in a little while.”
“Yeah,” Shiro said. “But you have no idea how yet. I guarantee that you’ll be surprised.”
“I can’t wait,” Duke said.
Chapter - 22
The tank glass had to be a foot thick, given the wavy appearance of the monstrosity inside. The tank was braced every three feet with a vertical metal, which was shot through with heavy bracing bolts. Each bolt was hollow, connecting to the outside by a long plastic tubes which were filled with different colored liquids making the area outside the tank look like an art instillation of industrial rainbows. These tubes went out from the hollow bolts into the tank and connected to an enormous crab. The crustacean was larger again by half of the one Shiro and Clive encountered in the sea cave. The crab floated in the middle of the tank, held up by the tubes stuck into its body from all directions. The crab’s claws and legs had been removed, but it was still very much alive. Its mandibles flexed and twitched at intermittent times. Its eye stalks moved around continuously. The crab, of course, had no discernable expression, but it seemed very much pissed off to be in its current circumstance.
The cavern the tank was in was immense. Its ceiling rose high and domed like roman architecture of old. There were many people in that cavern. All of them were busy at work. Several were at a computer terminal which sat above the tank on a metal platform. Others were milling to and fro. Some were pushing large stacks of chests on black carts. Others were sitting at a long line of benches along the walls. These people wore yellow suits made of plastic which were covered in green and brown slime. Some were eating, others smoking and some even had their heads down on the table in sleep.
Duke and Clive were helped towards the benches and sat down. They were ignored by the workers. Duke didn’t like how prisoners didn’t seem out of place here. He looked over at Clive who was staring at the giant clawless crab in awe. Duke didn’t enjoy looking at the creature, but it was difficult since the crab dominated the room. Its skin was grey with an underlying yellowish tinge. It looked unhealthy to Duke. Fred sat down on the bench next to Duke with a sigh.
“She’s not much to look at, but she’s worth more money than you’ll ever see in your lifetime,” Fred said.
“I thought it was a he,” Duke said.
“No, that’s a girl, but I don’t know how the hell you’d know it. I wouldn’t even know it if one of those scientists hadn’t told me. She’s a big one too. Biggest one I’ve ever seen.”
“Why do you keep her here?”
“We keep her here for pheromones. She just pumps out that magical natural love potion twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. That’s not so natural, but as you can see we have her rigged up chemically just how we need her. She brings on the crabs.”
“She looks sick,” Duke said.
“She is sick,” Fred said. “It’s a miracle that she’s still alive. I knew about her when I was just a child. I don’t know much about crabs, but I don’t think they’re supposed to live this long.” Fred took a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket. He took two out of the pack, lit them both and handed one to Duke.
“You got one of those for me?” Clive asked. Fred took the one out of his mouth and gave it to Clive. Fred took another cigarette, the last one in the pack, out and lit it. He crumpled the pack and put in on the table. The three of them smoked thoughtfully for a bit.
“How long until you kill us?” Duke asked.
“That’s on your mind, is it?” Fred said.
“It would be on yours.”
“I guess you’re right,” Fred said. “I don’t think it will be too much longer now. It’s getting close to feeding time.”
“You’re going to feed us to that?” Clive said, the cigarette dropping from his mouth to fall neglected on the floor below.
“Yeah,” Fred said. “She eats just like the rest of us. We feed her any kind of meat really, this just helps us get rid of any problems we encounter in the process of our operation.”
“She’s got no claws,” Duke said.
“We’ll make do,” Fred said. He dropped his cigarette to the cave floor and ground it into the dirt with his heel. “She can’t have claws. She would be too much trouble for us if she did. I heard they used to cut them off of her regularly, because she would just grow them back. I don’t know when it was, but they decided that it would be better if they just burned off the stumps. I don’t blame them. I wouldn’t want to get in that tank to saw those things off.”
“I don’t want to get in that tank either,” Duke said.
“I’ll bet,” Fred said. “She’ll take care of you fast. Maybe not as fast as she used to. She is an old one. I really don’t know how they’ve kept her alive this long, but what is life really? Maybe she’s nothing but a beating heart and gnashing mandibles. Who knows?”
“If I get out of here,” Duke said, “I’m going to kill the fuck out of you.”
“I get that a lot,” Fred said, a wry smile spread over his yellow teeth.
Shiro, who had changed his clothing and was covered afresh with a body covering yellow jumpsuit, walked up and greeted them. Clive wouldn’t even look at him. Duke ground his teeth together so hard that he thought they would crack.
“It’s feeding time,” Shiro said. “Who would like to go first?” Neither man spoke. Shiro pointed to Clive. “It will be you. Duke is still smoking and I don’t think it would be Christian to kill a man before he finished his last smoke. Call your guys over, Fred. Let’s get this over with.” Fred got up, groaning and stretching his back. He winked at Duke and walked off. Shiro pointed at the gunmen at the mouth of the cave.
“Run and they’ll shoot. I have a couple things to attend to. Enjoy the last minutes of your life.”
Chapter - 23
The order had been given. Duke and Clive watched as Shiro walked over to the men and women at the tables, interrupting their lunches. They couldn’t hear what he was saying to them but they knew it meant they were in deep shit. The men laughed, some pounding the table, at something that Shiro had said. A couple of the women blushed. Duke finished his cigarette and spit out the butt. The men got up from the table and stretched. The women stayed where they were. Only a couple of them glanced at the captives, but there was no humanity in their eyes. Duke felt like he was a non-person and didn’t enjoy the feeling at all. He reasoned that it was never a good thing to be dead in the eyes of another human being. Especially if you were still living.
“Those assholes are coming over here,” Clive said. “I’m going to fucking bite their throats out.”
“We’re pretty much fucked,” Duke said.
“I know,” Clive said, his eyes were downcast. It was the first time that Duke saw the man lose some of his spit-and-vinegar personality. “If I’m going to die, I want to at least take one of them with me.”
“Good luck.”
“Luck doesn’t mean shit,” Clive said. “I might as well say, since I’m going to die, that I don’t believe in God either. All that shit
about him knowing the number of your days before you even live them. That’s bullshit. That would mean that he knew that one day I would die in some hick town’s cave system by being fed to a giant Japanese spider crab. If that’s God, then he’s got an awfully warped sense of humor.”
“There are a lot of more boring ways you could go,” Duke said. The workers were all standing now, but they were still at the table. Duke wondered if they didn’t enjoy the task they were about to partake in, or if, like any other working slob, they just wanted a few precious moments more before they got back to the grind.
“True,” Clive said, becoming more loquacious now that death was staring him in the face, “but give me a boring death any day of the week. Getting fed to a crab is going to suck. This is a fucking nightmare.” The men turned their backs to the women and the scattered remains of their lunches and walked over to Duke and Clive.
“See you in the next life,” Duke said.
“Later,” Clive said. Duke scooted his chair around with his feet to face the men.
“You don’t want to do this,” Duke said. The men smiled. Duke figured they were used to begging. He didn’t think he would get anywhere pleading for humanity among those that had none. He felt it was worth a try at any rate. He didn’t have many options otherwise. The men surrounded Duke. They were in a circle around his chair. Nobody touched him. They just looked at him. Some of them were finishing up their cigarettes. Duke felt his breath begin to quicken. His heart raced in his chest. He wanted to shout to them that it was Clive that Shiro told them to take first. He didn’t enjoy the swell of panic that erupted through his being. Shiro was his buffer for life. He didn’t know it at the time, but he was happy that he wasn’t first on the chopping block.
“You assholes were supposed to kill me first,” Clive said. A couple of the men turned a cursory glance his way. One flicked a cigarette at him, bouncing the butt off Clive’s forehead. “What’s the matter?” Clive said. “You guys afraid to kill me first? Afraid I might break out of these bonds, beat the shit out of you, and feed you to the damn crab in instead of me?”
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