Chad never made eye contact with Jake, or even acted as if he saw Hathaway. He briefly remained in the contestant’s area before returning to his front-row cage-side seat and sitting beside his companion for the evening.
Several minutes passed before four men in grey jumpsuits with helmets, masks, and gloves simultaneously entered Jake’s cube. Three of the men pointed their automatic rifles at Hathaway, and one carried a large syringe. This needle had been prepared specifically for Jake - one large final dose of the “Z serum” to turn him DEAD, once and for all.
“Oh hell, lookat his eyes.” the syringe holder said. “Someone already gave this one the juice. He’s already changed over.” Jake was now shackled around the ankles and wrists, barely able to move as the four jumpsuits put a leash on his dog-like collar. They began to remove him from the cage. They put the burlap sack over Jake’s head and led him, still at gunpoint, by pulling the leash and prodding him with large spears. They forced Jake from the backstage kennels and toward the large cagedin stage at the center of the packed arena.
Jake could see through the pin-sized holes in the burlap that the bright stage lights were becoming even more brilliant. He could hear the roar of a crowd and it became louder the further he walked. Jake was pushed through the steel cage door. Unable to stay on his feet because of the ankle chains restricting his motion, he smacked down hard face first onto the solid wooden floor. He tried to get to his feet but felt other bodies colliding with him, as if they had been thrown onto him.
A too-familiar voice then reverberated through the building as Daniel Camacho held the microphone to his mouth. “Ladies and gentlemen, now for the main event, the fight of the night! It’s the one we call the ‘King of the Cage’!”
Jake was forced to his feet, as were the other bodies in various stages between human and DEAD. Camacho’s jump-suited goons began to walk around, unmasking the contestants from their burlap bags. They were also removing the fighter’s handcuffs but leaving the leg chains in place.
Camacho continued: “Okay, people; here are tonight’s fighters. You have only five more minutes to place your bets, so get a good look at these contestants and pick a winner!” All but one of the combatants were revealed. For one of the forms was not like the other. That person or thing remained seated and was at the back of the pack- wearing a full-bodied green and brown warrior ghillie suit.
Camacho was enjoying his game show host role. He strolled past some of the other contestants, who tried to grab at him or bite him as he passed. He ignored their attacks and went straight to Jake, in the center of the cage.
Camacho snuck up behind the still-befuddled Hathaway and extended his arm to reach over and grab Jake’s shirt by the rear collar behind his neck. Camacho yanked downward, completely ripping the shirt off and revealing the former lawman’s upper torso and tattoos for all to see.
Sitting beside Chad T illinghast in the front row was none other than Jake’s last lady love, Amanda.
She had shown little interest in the happenings on stage until this point. She had no idea that the massive white man on stage was anyone she had ever known, never mind one she had loved and spent so much time with.
Amanda noticed the Catholic archangel Saint Michael tattoo on the left peck of the being who was on stage. She suddenly grew quite engrossed with the show. Her mind began to race: That fighter up there kind of resembles Jake. My mind is obviously playing tricks on me… I’m hallucinating. I mean, Jake is dead. Then again, the guy on the stage looks half dead himself - unshaven and pale with splotches of tan and brown all over his body. The hair on his head looks greasy and thin, his eyes look noticeably inhuman with dilated tiny pupils. And that putrid scent that I can detect from here….
Amanda turned away for a second, sure she was still imagining things. Then she looked back up on stage to do a double take, whichwas followed by an unanticipated outburst. “OH MY GOD!!! JAKE!!!”
Amanda jumped up from her chair, yelling his name repeatedly. “JAKE! JAKE! It’s me, Amanda! Down here! Look at me! You’re alive! What has happened to you?”
Hathaway heard a commotion from the front row and turned in that direction but was blinded by the spotlights luminating his face.
Amanda smacked her husband in the back of the head. “You knew he was here! That’s why you insisted I come along to this stupid thing. You knew he was alive and never told me!?” Mr. Tillinghast looked at Amanda and, appealing to her, said: “You needed to see what he really is, always has been. He’s a monster. He was when he killed his family, and he still is today. You are so fortunate that he is out of yourlife now and I am here to protect you from him.”
“That’s a bunch of hogwash, and you know it, Chad. His family were the ones who had turned into monsters. He was the brave one who faced them and ended them before they could hurt baby Carson or anyone else.
“You are nothing but a deceitful snake, hiding the truth from me so you could take me for yourself. I only married you because you said you had dirt on Jake. You said you had information that he was involved in the Marines coverup of that Al Anbar incident with the family that was injected with the Z serum. You said if I didn’t cooperate with you, that you would have released that information to have him court marshalled. And then, soon after that, you and everyone else led me to believe that he was dead. I never loved you. I never will. So, screw you, Chad I’m out of here!”
Amanda began to walk away from her new husband, but Tillinghast wrapped his hands over her shoulders and reeled her back in closely to him. “You’re not going anywhere. And don’t think that making a scene will get you any help. I’ve got friends here who will throw you in that cage if you really want to see HIM so badly.”
Jake was still unable to detect any one voice or see anyone in the audience due to the crowd noise and bright lights glaring in his eyes.
He had noticed, however, that Camacho had now freed the one still-disguised person in the ring. The one wearing the ghillie suit was no longer cuffed or ankle shackled.
Even in his haze and cloudy mind, Jake was suspicious that this could be someone he knew. It was possibly even someone close to him.
Why would Camacho release this one from his restraints but not the others? For some reason he wants me to fight that one first…
The ghillie-suited opponent was bumping into the hulking Hathaway, not in a hostile manner but more as if he was trying to get closer to the cage door to escape.
Jake lightly pushed him away to avoid a possible attack, but also to move the suited one a bit closer to the exit.
The lack of aggression on Jake’s part began to anger Camacho. “Fight him, Jake,” Camacho yelled. “What are you, a coward? Are you afraid of that one?”
Meanwhile, the other opponents all now had their hands and arms free. Only three-footlong leg shackle chains remained to restrict their motion.
These antagonists were clearly DEAD, unlike the ghillie-suited one.
Jake began to wake up, snapping out of his treacherous trance and realizing that he could beat these THINGS in one-on-one fights. He was twice their size and doubly strong. Hathaway began to approach the THINGS closest to him. He made mincemeat of the first creature and second, pummeling their heads in with precision punches to the heads. He then walked over to another and proceeded to utilize his steel-like fists to perform a frenzied skull- fucking on IT.
He began to destroy the next beast up, throwing punch after repeated punch to the face of this now ruptured, infected mass.
Jake moved on to start pounding another one. He pushed two others down to the floor when they tried to gang up on him. He grabbed one of those two by waste and lifted it straight up over his head. The ankle chains severed the beast at the shins, and the feet remained on the floor. Jake began swinging the rest of IT around full circle above his head for a couple of rotations. He then slammed ITs head into the face of another DEAD, causing both brains to explode and splash upon impact.
The irritable Camacho had seen en
ough. With his microphone in hand, he walked over to the ghillie-suited contestant and ripped off the face mace. “Look who we have here! Jake, do you know this young lad?”
Jake stopped mid-pummel and peered over at the face of the now unmasked subject. The young male’s cheekbones were swollen, his eyes were sunken, and his skin was colored in an unhealthy shade of decaying brown. But Jake knew who it was.
“Rafael! “Jake exhorted. “He’s just an innocent kid! What the fuck is wrong with you Camacho? Let him go!” Camacho said, “you know what Jake, I was just an innocent kid too. Until y ou turned me into one of THEM.
“I’ll tell you what I’m not gonna let the kid go. I’m gonna do something even better for him. “
Camacho promptly placed his hands on each side of Rafael’s jaw. Then, with extreme power and torque, he twisted the head counterclockwise, completely separating it from the neck, spinal cord and torso. Rafael’s decapitated body fell limp onto the floor.
“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” Jake yelled and lunged toward Camacho who effortlessly pushed the weaker Jake away. Camacho inserted his indexand middle fingers into the now severed head’s eye sockets then pulled backwards. He completely ripped the top of the scalp from the head, and then squeezed the skull to pop the top open.
“OHHHHH, look at the brain on this kid!” Camacho yelled distastefu lly. There was an initial roar from the crowd. An audience that may or may not have realized what they were witnessing was real, not some staged act.
Camacho spiked the freshly plucked cranium to the canvas. The audience slowly began to realize what they had just witnessed was an actual and bitter dissection. Done with revolting and savage annihilation, to an innocent youth.
The crowd began to voice their distaste of his actions by booing loudly. Individuals began throwing bottles and trash at the caged-in Camacho. Camacho paused, enjoying the crowd’s bilious reaction. He was now basking in the bloodbath of his victim, the black blood had sprayed all over his face, covering his teeth and lips. The life liquid was dripping down his chin and onto the floor.
“There. That was excruciatingly entertaining!” Camacho said laughingly. “BOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! BOOOOOOOOOO!!” The crowd was in an uproar. “And now he’s free,” Camacho continued. “That’s what you should have done for the kid
when you had the chance. Why do I always have to be the bad guy, Jake?
“That was just your warmup, Captain Jake. You and I are going to have the rematch that I
have deserved all along. This will be the title fight of a lifetime! The winner will get the title,
riches, fame and glory that go along with being the champion.”
“They will also win their freedom” Camacho said. “But the loser, on the other hand, will be given a final extreme dose of your precious serum. Enough to make that person turn once and for all. This will make them a mindless unliving creature forever, or at least until someone hurls a fucking spear through your grey matter. Pretty large stakes, I must say...”
The self-deemed DEMIGOD began to battle his counterpart. Meanwhile, now assembling in the lower depths of the arena, were the team of Mack, Megan, Duy, Anthony and Roscoe. Alongside them were Humberto, Felipe and two other cartel members who had been tracking Jake and his captors.
The gang soon encountered a squad of security minded militia, who were quick to commencefiring their AK’s at Mack’s crew and the cartel guys. Meanwhile, several mega sized wall-mounted monitors showed a live video feed of the events in the center ring.
Anthony had taken cover behind a bar and eyeballed the big screen to see Jake clashing with Camacho. Behind them, the remaining DEAD were still leg-restricted but attempting to break free and nibble on Jake’s loins. “Guys!!! It’s Jake! He’s in trouble! We need to get to the arena!”
J ake’s intellect began to waver as this present-day reality was beginning to blur with his past. In a muddled confusion he flashed back to his childhood, training with Grandpa Bill. Suddenly, Jake was the new and improved, heavy weight version of Vinny Paz.
Announcers: On our left is the Evil Incarnate, Daniel Camacho, with long black hair and blood running down his face.
And across the ring in the blue trunks is his opponent, six foot three and weighing in at 235 pounds, it’s Jake Hathawayyyyyy!!
He’s the way maker with the haymaker
Okay, we are underway…
Camacho throws and lands the opening blow, there’s another uppercut
Good left hand to the midsection by Jake, he’s right in front of him now
He doesn’t have to use his jabs to be creative, he can afford to throw power shots
He’s trying to load up with that left now
Another right by Camacho scores, and a left as well
Good right hand by the evil one again, and a left follows it up, but Jake is still there
Lack of strength may be costing Hathaway a little bit there
He doesn’t appear to be as strong as we have seen him in the past
Maybe he’s starting to feel that, slow down a little bit
Now Camacho is taking his time, placing his shots, stepping to the side
He’s looking for an opening that he might not see in front
He has the liberty to do that with no jabs coming back at him
Camacho’s flying off the ropes, ripping off his left hand
He comes at you from odd angles you don’t expect
Jake’s doing a nice job of slipping punches -that kid has plenty of heart, but he’s not fighting the smartest fight
He’s fighting back but really doesn’t have the power to do anything significant Jake needs to be busy all the way thru because he is behind
Now Grandpa Bill was yelling at Jake from his corner. “Get your hands up! Move your head!”
The announcer continued to call the fight.
Camacho has been the aggressor so far- look at the punch numbers. He landed 30 punches to 17
About 85% of his punches are power shots
The kid from Little Rhody is a little bit close right there He wants to be on the outside
He needs to use that six-three height of his and his long reach to his advantage Jake has too much heart to go dead for a whole round
He’s punching at the wrong time
“Come on, kid!!” Pops yelled. Announcer.
Now there’s the left hook and the left uppercut from Jake!
He’s going to fight in spots
Camacho’s covering up. Some pretty good offense from both men in this round. He’s trying
to use that jab.
OHHHH!! That looping right hand of Jake’s was very effective
Some guys can catch them, but Camacho could not
You can see how this bout has turned
Hathaway’s pretty smart in there now
He still has hand speed, maybe not like he did in the past, but you would expect that He’s looking to pick his spots, to pace himself
Experienced fighters will do that, especially when they’re in there with someone who has
dynamite in their gloves
Now Jake delivers body punches
Very brisk pace
Uppercut right behind it!
Camacho may be wearing down a bit
He has to pick it up
Oh, here are the antics you expect from him
Camacho’s doing some clowning, and he’s not having any luck with those power shots More Hathaway! One punch at a time. Now he’s throwing combinations, being more
effective.
Camacho should have jumped on him when he had the chance
Now he’s trying to turn it on but it’s too late
You can see it- normally he likes to stand up straight, statuesque
But now you notice, when he’s showing signs of wearing down and fatigue, one of the
things that goes first is the chin, then the legs
BAMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!!!!! One final right bare-fisted battering ram from Jak e pulverized the evil on
e’s left cheek. Camacho’s blood-percolating brainpan lead his body in a downward tailspin, sending it on a collision course straight into the cold canvas.
Jake had knocked Camacho down and nearly OUT. The frenzied crowd was pleased as punch. With chants of “JAKE!! JAKE!!” blasting through the arena, Jake began to talk as he walked away from the defeated one. “It’s over. You wanted your rematch, there it is. You lost fair and square. Don’t let me ever see you around me or my family again, asshole.”
Camacho, now seated on the floor, managed to get on his knees. He replied, “No, it’s not over.” The long-maned one pulled a large Ka-Bar carbon steel-bladed Marine Corps knife from his pants leg. He walked over to the back of the cage and severed one rope, which had held eight more cannibalistic mutants secured in place.
Now freed, the zombies began to walk about the cage as Jake was attempting to open the steel pen’s door. A couple of THEM approached Camacho and sniffed at him but quickly lost interest. They continue to drag onward, seemingly now more interested in Jake.
“You see that, Jake? They have no interest in me, because I’m no longer human. I’m more like them than I am like you. They fearme! I’m the Big Dog, the Big Bad Wolf. No, I’m more than that - I am immortal! A divine being! A GOD!
“You created me, Jake, the way you gave me and Blackhoof and Fiedler those small portions continuously over time, slowly allowing our bodies to absorb the poison. What amazing attributes we received, power like none could ever imagine. But you also are responsible for these wretched creatures as well. How fitting is it now that you should be devoured by the very poor souls that you destroyed? And all while the immortal ME that you also created, stands by watching every square inch of your flesh being chewed and torn from your skeletal system!”
Jake walked over to the nearest zombie and put his neck right in front of its mouth. The zombie inhaled a face full of Hathaway scent and then turned its head away in disgust and disinterest.
Jake approached two more DEAD and placed his arms in front of them, but they obviously lacked interest and turned away.
Camacho was stunned. “WHAT THE FUCK?! Wait - no way. You - you took it too! You drank the Zeus juice all along? You’re just like me, Fiedler and Blackhoof!?” “Not quite. Because the truth of the matter is, I started to take those supplements weeks before you guys were even selected to participate. But I did it for completely different reasons than you guys did. I went first to see what I was getting my troops into. That’s what leaders do. They don’t ask their men to do something that they wouldn’t or haven’t done themselves.
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