The ground shook as the creatures pursuing him got closer, the snap and crack of twigs and trees responding to their heavy charge. The pair sounded like a demolition crew moving through the jungle, but Seb still couldn’t see them or Gurt when he looked behind.
A small device hung down from the track. Seb currently had a loose grip on the handles. It looked like a bike for his hands. Without any further pause, he tightened his stinging and sweaty grip, pulled his legs up so he hung in mid-air, and pedaled with everything he had.
“Don’t look down,” Seb said to himself as he turned the device forward, the smell of grease coming from the inverted bike’s movement. Racked with tiredness and his hands greasy, if he looked down now, it would only guarantee that he’d slip.
Seb’s upper body screamed at him as if the muscles tore with every rotation. Scaling the vine had already taken the strength from him, and now this weird bike thing seemed like it could finish him off.
With clenched teeth and pain tearing through his muscles, Seb screamed as he willed himself through every turn. Each full cycle moved slower and more stuttered than the last.
When the entire track shifted, Seb looked behind to see the brown beast had the metal track in its grip and it looked determined to rip it down. Gurt had traveled about halfway across the track next to him and his beast also seemed more concerned with encouraging Gurt to fall than with catching up to him. It banged its heavy fists against the rail and roared thunder.
Just a few metres to go and Seb dug deep as he continued to turn the handles of the device. Every muscle ached and bile burned in his throat.
At the other side, Seb jumped from the upside-down bike, fell to his knees, and vomited into the lush green undergrowth. Were it not for the creature behind him, he would have stayed there. But the beast followed him over, swinging like an ape as it moved hand over hand to get across the crevice.
A few seconds passed where Seb watched the brute, its stubby black legs swaying as it came after him. It snapped its sharp teeth as if it could taste the air between them.
Seb clambered to his feet again and stumbled off in the direction of the pit.
When Seb saw a ladder, he looked up to see the top of it and shook his head. Nothing had been this easy so far; this ladder surely had more to it than he could currently see. Although the fact that there was only one, and two people needed to escape …
Seb stretched his mouth wide while he ran to pull as much air into his tight lungs as he could. He’d easily get there before Gurt.
Having lost sight of the beast chasing him again, Seb still heard it as it closed the distance between them. With arms of jelly, he used his legs to climb the rungs.
At the top of the ladder, Seb stumbled and fell forward. Finally out of the undergrowth, he found himself on a hot black rock. The ledge stood about as high as the mountain he’d climbed previously and felt hot enough against his sweating face to fry an egg on.
Seb got to his feet and paused to recover. The treetops spread away from him as a carpet of green and he saw the birds he’d heard as they circled above the jungle. Were it not for the roars behind him, he would have stayed longer. A glance behind to where he’d come from and the back of his knees tingled. He’d been so occupied with his escape, he didn’t appreciate just how high he’d climbed. He then saw Gurt reach the ladder and scale it. A few seconds later, the two beasts burst from the dense jungle. Thick saliva fell from their gnashing teeth, and when they looked up, a single-minded intent glowed in their green eyes.
Seb turned his back on the trio again to see the pit jutting from the canopy like a jagged tooth. They’d nearly made it. Although, how he’d fight when he got there … “One thing at a time, Seb,” he muttered to himself.
Two zip wires had been set up side by side. They led back into the deep green lushness of the jungle ahead. Not that Seb wanted to return to the claustrophobic tightness of the overgrown space, but what other choice did he have?
If Gurt had gotten to the zip wires first, would he have sent them both down at the same time? Would he have left Seb stranded with the beasts on the rock plateau? Whatever Gurt would do didn’t matter. As much as he hated the creature, they would meet in the pits. Seb would finish him off without having to cheat.
The hanging bike had killed Seb’s upper body, but he’d managed to get some of his strength back. He wrapped as tight a grip as he could around the zip wire’s handlebars and, with one final breath, he fell forward. The metal cable whooshed as he hurtled back down into the dense forest, the wind billowing in his ears and tossing his hair.
Seb expected a soft landing, maybe even water. So when he broke the canopy and saw the rocky ground, panic ran ice through his veins. The crash sent him flying and ran a jarring pain through both of his knees. It felt like shards of glass had been wedged beneath his patellas.
Sprawled on the ground, Seb thought about staying there. Maybe he should just let the beasts win.
But he couldn’t. Seb got to his feet again.
As Seb burst through into another clearing, he saw what he hoped to be the final obstacle: two long escalators instead of steps to the pit. One must have been for him and one for Gurt. They crossed a deep ravine. Although he hadn’t looked around, it didn’t take a genius to know the escalator would be the only path across to the other side.
Two heavy thuds shook the ground beneath Seb’s feet. The creatures must have made it to the bottom of the zip wire.
The escalators ran quickly and in the wrong direction. Of course they did! One final deep breath into his weary body and Seb ran up the metal stairs.
The tok tok tok of Seb’s feet against the steps seemed like a ticking bomb. The explosion would be the complete collapse of his body.
Seb heard what he assumed to be Gurt jump onto the escalator next to him; a second later he heard the heavy thuds of the creatures join them.
The hanging bike had drained him, but Seb found an extra gear and screamed as he pounded against the escalator. Just a few metres until the top, he jumped for it and grabbed a large rock as the metal stairs raked against his legs, threatening to drag him back down again.
Seb pulled himself to the top of the escalator, snatching his legs free from the moving stairs. Exhausted from the obstacle course, he looked up to see a large red button just a few metres from him.
On his feet again, wobbling from where his body threatened to give out beneath him, Seb stumbled to the button and slammed his hand down on top of it.
A loud foghorn sounded. The escalator Seb had just climbed broke apart and fell into the crevice below it, beast and all. He rested on the plinth the button sat on top of and looked at the second red button in front of Gurt’s escalator. One press and he’d win. Moses hadn’t given them any rules to follow.
Seb waited instead.
A few seconds later Seb saw Gurt. Red-faced and sweating, the huge Mandulu looked close to beaten.
“Come on, Gurt, you can do it. Just a few more steps.”
Wincing, Gurt somehow managed to find the extra strength to get up the escalator. The beast that followed him ran just metres behind.
When Seb watched Gurt fall to the ground at the top, he looked at his red button. “If you don’t get up soon, Gurt … You know what, never mind.” He slapped Gurt’s button and a second foghorn sounded.
Gurt’s escalator broke apart, and just as the beast on Gurt’s tail looked ready to leap forward, it fell back down with it.
Gurt first looked behind him and then back at Seb. The grimace of exhaustion turned into one of malice and Gurt raised one side of his mouth in a snarl, exposing his thick teeth. “I didn’t ask you for your help.” He got to his feet, breathing hard, but seemingly able to find more strength.
Gurt pointed behind Seb at the fighting pit. “Let’s finish this,” he said, his entire body moving with his laboured breaths.
Seb filled his lungs with a deep inhale of the humid air around them, wiped some of the sweat from his brow and nodd
ed. “Okay.”
Chapter 12
From a distance, the fighting pit seemed to stand tall and resolute. Although when Seb got closer to it, he saw how nature had attacked the vast stone structure. Vines and branches grew along and through it. What should have been the smooth surface of a finely constructed pit had lumps and bumps from where nature’s inevitable growth had forced some of the huge stones out from the wall.
In spite of entropy, the pit remained an imposing sight. It still stood tall enough to block out the sun when the pair got close. Its shadow lay as a vast pool on the lush ground and offered enough shade to grant a welcome relief from the sweltering jungle.
The pair stared straight ahead as they strode side by side. Seb had never walked into an arena this way before. Usually his opponent either entered the ring from the opposite side or would be there waiting for him already.
The sun hid behind the pit, which allowed Seb to look up at the top of its walls without being dazzled. They had a jagged finish to them from the large rocks of the structure having crumbled away and fallen to the ground. They’d dropped so long ago, most of them now existed as moss-covered lumps. The rough top of the structure made him look across at the broken horns of his opponent. Both had the same craggy finish to them.
The only sound the pair made came from the crunch of the brush beneath their feet.
A large tunnel—big enough to ride a horse and cart through—gave them access to the ancient arena. Maybe in the old days they’d done chariot racing inside it too; it certainly had the space for it.
The pair’s footsteps echoed in the tight tunnel and Seb noticed the slight irregularity of Gurt’s stride. Since he’d become aware of the Mandulu’s limp, he couldn’t ignore it. Not that he would mention it to him, regardless of how tempted he felt to do so.
The lush greenery gave way to a sandy floor, which the strong wind picked up and threw at the pair. It stuck to Seb’s sweating skin and burned his eyes. It clogged his nostrils—dampening his sense of smell—and dried his mouth. Every time he clenched his jaw, the pop of grit snapped through his skull.
When Seb stepped into the arena, he gasped and his mouth fell wide. The sun hung high in the sky, beaming down through the open roof like a spotlight. The ancients on many planets had treated their suns like gods. Most buildings of importance incorporated them into their designs.
With the heat soaking into his already sweating skin—the humidity slightly eased because of the dust surrounding him—Seb spun on the spot and looked up at the seats that would have once been packed with spectators. They currently sat empty, but he could almost hear the raucous crowd calling and jeering in anticipation of the fight. In its day, the pit must have been a sight to behold. He’d never been in one as large.
Four huge towers stood around the edge of the arena. Although the pit had been circular in its design, they gave the space corners. At least, they used to. Now just two remained fully erected while the other two stood half-formed, snapped off like broken and craggy twigs.
A deep inhale caused Seb’s nostrils to clog with even more sand. Another heavy gust of wind ran through the place, tossing his hair back, cooling the sweat on his body, and throwing another wave of grit at him. He covered his eyes with his forearm and felt the sandblast against his skin.
The pair’s near-silent journey culminated with them arriving in the middle of the arena, and Seb turned to the Mandulu beside him. For a moment he looked at the brute and his dark scowl. “Are you sure you want to do this?”
The response came back as a phlegmy growl. “Don’t flatter yourself, human. You won’t last two seconds.”
Hard to suppress his smile, Seb shrugged. In some way, the grandeur of the place had given him a boost. It felt almost as if the spirits of warriors from a bygone age walked into the arena with him. Where he’d been drained from the assault course, he now felt ready to go again. “I’ll see if I can break a bit more off those damaged horns, shall I? Leave something to remember me by long after I knock you out.”
The right side of Gurt’s leathered lip lifted.
Seb dropped into his fighting stance, stepped a few paces away, and raised his fists.
“Three,” Seb said and Gurt tensed up as he too readied himself for the fight.
“Two.” The pair stared at one another, Gurt’s red eyes on fire with rage and resentment. He knew Seb had saved him on the obstacle course and, knowing Gurt, he’d want to reclaim his pride.
“One.” As always, Seb’s world slipped into slow motion and he watched the large Mandulu rush him. The limp he’d heard in the tunnel now stood out as a weak spot on Gurt’s thick frame. His right knee and his chin; both would drop him to the dusty ground if hit hard enough. Not that he would go for the knee. He only needed to beat him, not cripple him. Maybe if Gurt had been a fighter, his bad knee would be a problem for future missions, but he’d been put on the team because of his aim. So deadly with a blaster, Gurt’s knee wouldn’t come into question when he got deployed in the field.
The heavy beat of Gurt’s footsteps ran through the dusty ground. Nothing compared to the monsters that had chased them in the jungle, but enough to remind Seb that the brute closing in on him weighed easily twice as much as he did. No doubt one of his punches would reflect that.
Seb stepped to one side and avoided Gurt’s wild swing. The beast’s large fist flew past his face, dragging a gust of wind with it as it nearly scraped his nose. One thing he’d learned the hard way; if he got hit when his world had slowed down, it still bloody hurt.
After Seb’s successful evasion, he watched Gurt stumble past him, his face scrunched up with the rage he’d tried to channel into his punch. He cuffed the brute around the back of the head. He might have decided to go easy on Gurt’s knee, but that didn’t mean he’d miss the opportunity to humiliate him.
Gurt spun around—his wide frame hunched, his fat jaw hanging open with his ragged breaths—and Seb winked at him. “Come on, sweetheart, you can do better than that.”
Gurt screamed and rushed at Seb again.
It played out in the same way as before; Seb avoided Gurt’s swing and clipped him around the back of his head on his way past.
The second time Gurt turned to face him, Seb laughed. “Where’s the warrior you’d pretended to be? I thought you knew how to fight?”
Gurt rushed forward, but this time he didn’t get as far as Seb. Instead he collided with what seemed to be an invisible barrier between them. A loud tonk sounded and he fell backwards, landing on his arse on the dusty ground.
Seb put his hands out in front of him. When he felt the barrier, he pushed against it. It stood cold and resolute like a thick sheet of reinforced glass. “What the …?”
The impact seemed to have dazed Gurt, who lay on the ground, holding his head. Although Seb took a breath to speak, words flashed up on the barrier between them. They read YOU NEED TO GO OUTSIDE THE PIT TO FINISH THIS BATTLE.
Gurt must have received the same message, because he went from being dazed to getting to his feet and sprinting off toward the exit on his side of the arena. He seemed to realise he’d been given a lifeline.
Chapter 13
Seb followed Gurt’s lead and sprinted off in the opposite direction to the limping Mandulu. An exit on both sides of the pit—and a seemingly immovable barrier between them—he had to go back the way he’d come from.
The world had returned to normal speed and the hard ground ran shocks up Seb’s body as his tiredness flooded back into his system. Adrenaline from entering the pit had spurred him on, but now the opportunity to fight had passed, his fatigue returned with a vengeance. Had he not been such an egotistical prick more focused on humiliating Gurt than beating him, then he could have knocked the Mandulu out cold in the arena and he wouldn’t have to deal with this crap.
The slap of Seb’s clumsy feet echoed in the tunnel as he ran back through it. The wind whipped across the front of the space, sending out a deep and continuous tone like someone blo
wing across the top of a large bottle. When he burst out into the vibrancy of the jungle, he stopped dead.
As Seb stared at the small ship in front of him, he shook his head. Sparks flew the ships, not him. All the time he’d had to end Gurt, and it came to this. A battle in a thing he couldn’t even pilot.
Robbed of his motivation, Seb trudged toward the ship.
Once in the cockpit, Seb sat in the padded pilot’s seat. It smelled of leather and had been made from the hide of a hairy yellow-skinned creature. He looked at the console, hoping to be struck by inspiration. Nothing. An array of buttons—all of them in different shapes and sizes—Seb didn’t have the first clue on which one to press.
Lost as he stared at the cockpit, Seb reached out to touch one of the buttons but stopped dead when he looked out of the windscreen. A ship, identical to the one he occupied, hovered above him, its engines whining. Close enough for him to see the broken-tusked grin of the Mandulu in the cockpit, he muttered, “Damnit,” as two thick red beams hurtled toward him.
Seeing the world in normal speed, Seb barely drew a breath before the beams connected with his ship and white light exploded around him.
The bright flash of the explosion morphed into the stark and clinical glare of the simulator room as the pair were pulled from their virtual confrontation. Numb and exhausted from the experience, Seb looked across at Gurt, who stood panting as he stared out of the glass room at the spectators.
Now Seb had been dragged from the illusion, he remembered the crowd that had watched him go in. It seemed to have doubled in size. It looked like everyone in the complex had found their way there. All of them would have seen him toying with Gurt in the arena. An arrogant prick, he could have knocked him out and been done with it. Instead—
The Alpha Plague - Books 1 - 8: A Post-Apocalyptic Action Thriller Page 171