Stu and Eldon were marched into the building, led down a long and empty hallway, and finally directed into a deep stairwell, which must have been sunk at least a hundred feet below ground. Their captors led them into a large room with white walls and a parquet floor; the Desert King's men were apparently using it as some kind of prison cell. The room was absolutely disgusting; there was blood and filth coating nearly every surface, and it smelled like a nightmare. Stu found himself wishing that he had not purchased the Sniffer skill, or that he could at least turn it off, because the smell alone was almost enough to make him gag.
Their captors used the butts of their rifles to shove them into the room, the door to which was then locked -- Stu heard the click. It was a sturdy steel door; he wasn't sure if he could kick it down. Probably he could.
There was a set of barred windows running along one of the room's walls. These looked out into another room -- a huge, cavernous room, which was the size of a very large gymnasium. Stu had no idea what purpose this room had served when it was a still a military base, but it had obviously been converted into some kind of cage-fighting arena in the years since -- in the center of the room was the cage, and all around it were makeshift bleachers. The cage rested upon a metal platform, which was covered with dried blood, bones, and viscera, and there was a decapitated corpse -- presumably that of a zombie -- lying right in the middle of it.
There was another man in the room with them -- a defeated-looking man wearing a Rider jacket and sitting on a bench. Eldon recognized him: "Carmine? Is that you?"
The man turned to look at them. He was an older gentleman, perhaps sixty years old, with a bristly gray beard, and he seemed to recognize Eldon as well, but there was no light in his eyes. He gave them a thousand-yard stare and said simply, "Eldon?"
"Carmine! What are you doing here?"
"Waiting to die," he said.
"I thought you were already dead. I'd heard you were killed at Sunflare."
"I wish I had been," he muttered. "Where'd they find you?"
"Delta. I was delivering a message to old man Hardy. How long have you been here? Since Sunflare?"
He nodded. "I wasn't the only one they captured. There were six of us, six Riders."
"What happened to them?"
"Dead." He pointed to the caged area, visible through the barred windows. "That corpse you see out there? That's what's left of Lionel. They haven't bothered to clean him up yet."
Eldon swallowed hard, refusing to look at the corpse. "Lionel? He'd dead?"
"They're all dead." He turned away from Eldon, his eyes fixing themselves on the filthy parquet floor. "But now you're here. You're going to die, too."
"How? How did they die?"
"They throw us in the cage," he said. "It's a show for them. They throw us in there, and then they get drunk and they shout and they carry on like savages as their pet zombies tear us apart."
"Zombies?"
"They've got all kinds. Ragers, speedies, jumbos. The Desert King's got quite a collection."
Even Stu, who had witnessed plenty of nasty things since he had first arrived in this world and was always ready to believe the worst of it, was a little taken aback by this. "Who the hell would want to see a fellow human being ripped apart by a zombie?"
"Lots of people," Eldon said sadly.
He was right, of course. Stu had never really given much thought to this darker side of humanity, but it obviously existed -- in ancient Rome the crowds had loved watching gladiators kill each other in the Colosseum, and only a few hundred years ago people used to treat public hangings as an excuse to throw a picnic. In modern times people watched gory internet videos. Stu had seen a few of these himself, and had found them disturbing, personally, but he knew other people who were not that bothered by them, who found them entertaining in fact. In a brutal world, starved for entertainment, execution by zombie, in front of a cheering crowd, was maybe not all that hard to understand.
"They hate us," Carmine added. "The Pale Riders, I mean. We're the only ones who get this treatment."
"I'm not a Rider," Stu said again.
"Then what are you doing here?"
"They made a mistake."
He snorted softly. "Too bad for you."
"So what happens now?" Eldon asked.
Carmine looked at him sadly, but said nothing, and merely shook his head.
* * *
Stu considered his options.
He was pretty sure he could break down the door and escape from this room, if he had to, but knocking down the steel door would make a lot of noise and almost certainly attract attention. From that point on, he would have to fight his way out of the building, and finding and rescuing Lucky and Luna would be very, very difficult if the Desert King's men were pursuing him. If he was going to escape, he was going to have to do it quietly.
Shadow King might help with that -- the skill allowed him to disappear into and cloak himself with shadows. Combined with his Silence skill, which would mask any sounds he made, he ought to be able to sneak around the Vroom and the buildings surrounding it without much trouble.
In order to make use of these skills, however, he had to find a way out of this room. He worried about Eldon and Carmine as well -- he didn't want to leave them behind, if they really were destined to be thrown to the zombies.
He spent most of the day locked up in the filthy room, unsure of how to proceed, but sure that he needed to wait until nightfall, at least, to carry out any sort of plan.
He wondered about Millie. What had happened to her? Was she still in Delta? He wondered about the crashed alien ship, too -- the Vroom. What did it look like inside? He would have liked to have had the opportunity to explore it -- with the possible exception of the portal that had brought him to this world, the alien vessel was the most incredible, most awe-inspiring thing he had ever seen. Saving Lucky and Luna was more important than satisfying his curiosity, however, and the ship was likely full of the Desert King's men.
Finally, after perhaps six or seven hours of imprisonment, the door was unlocked and three men strode into the room. One of them was the tall, dour man in the black hat, who had evaluated the prisoners earlier; the other two appeared to be guards of some kind. Both were six-footers, and both were armed with heavy-looking clubs.
The tall man pointed at Eldon. "That one."
The two guards started for him, smacking their clubs into the palms of their hands. Stu intercepted them. "What's going on? Where are you taking him?"
"Out of the way," one of the men grunted, and he swung his club at Stu's head.
Stu caught it, and held it. The man's eyes widened in surprise, and he tried to pry it out of Stu's grip, but he refused to let go. "I asked you a question. Where are you taking him?"
"Where do you think they're taking him?" Carmine muttered morosely. "He's tonight's entertainment."
Eldon was terrified. "N-no," he stammered. "No, please!"
Stu released his grip on the club, pushing the man to one side. "Take me instead."
The tall man, totally unimpressed by this feat of strength, frowned at him. "Why should I?"
"I'll give you a better show."
He snorted. "You mean to sacrifice yourself for you friend? You're only delaying the inevitable. You'll die tonight, he'll die tomorrow, and the old man will die the day after that. What's one more day?"
"I don't care. Take me instead."
He shrugged. "As you wish."
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Eldon grabbed him by the sleeve. "You don't have to do this. I don't want to die, but...but..." The fear was all over his face, but he was doing his best to face up to it. Stu gave him a little grin.
"Trust me." He removed Eldon's hand from his sleeve and allowed the men to lead him out of the room. They closed the door and locked it behind them.
Stu followed them into the hallway. He thought about taking the club away from the man who had swung it at him, and using it to batter his way out of the compound, but there were a number of people in the corridor -- they were filing into the large, gymnasium-sized room with the cage and the corpse -- and he wasn't sure if escape was possible under the circumstances. And if he ran away now, how could he save Eldon and Carmine?
He was marched into the big room. The cage was opened for him, and he was pushed inside. The floor, a corrugated metal platform, was even more disgusting up close -- busted teeth, blobs of flesh, and even a couple of severed limbs were strewn about. Before coming to this world, he would have been appalled at the sight, but he must have been getting used to it now, because all he did was wrinkle his nose.
Looking up, he saw that the cage was open at the top, but there wasn't enough room between the top of the cage and the high ceiling for a person to squeeze through, which meant the only way out was through one of the two gates situated at either end of the cage.
More and more people began entering the room, either climbing up on the makeshift bleachers or simply milling around outside the cage. Some of them jeered when they saw Stu, booing him and throwing bits of garbage at him. All appeared to be having a pretty good time; many were drunk and many more were on their way there. The crowd soon grew quite large; there must have been at least a hundred people present, men and women both.
Stu endured the abuse, focusing on himself and his situation. They were going to put a zombie in here with him, apparently, but what kind? He could probably handle an ordinary zombie, even up to a Level 8 or Level 9, but he wasn't sure he could kill a rager or a speedy with just his bare hands, or without being bitten.
And then, suddenly, the crowd started cheering uproariously, as a handsome, black-bearded man, perhaps thirty years old, entered the room, flanked by a pair of very attractive young women. He was dressed in a blue officer's jacket festooned with pins and medals, and he was wearing something that looked like a black gauntlet on his left hand. The expression he wore, as he walked into the room, was one of bored disinterest, but he acknowledged the crowd, giving them a little wave before climbing up into the bleachers. He sat down, with the women on either side of him, in a special area that was positioned a little higher than the other seats -- evidently a place of honor.
This man could only be Eco Steckler, the Desert King. Stu frowned at him.
The crowd broke into another cheer when the zombie was led into the room. It was a Level 4 Jumbo, according to the ICON system -- a huge, corpulent monster, six and a half feet tall and at least five hundred pounds, with a bloated belly and thoroughly rotted skin. It was wearing ragged pants, but no shoes and no shirt, and it appeared dazed; to Stu's surprise, it made no attempt to attack its handlers, but allowed itself to be dragged into the cage by a thin chain that had been fastened around its neck. Eldon had mentioned that the Desert King had some kind of device which could stun or hypnotize a zombie for a few moments; apparently this had been done to the jumbo.
The zombie's handlers pushed it into the cage. They didn't bother to remove the monster's collar or chain, but simply released it, so that it stumbled into the cage dragging the chain across the metal platform. After a moment it stopped, shook its head, and seemed to come to its senses -- it started growling at the crowd, and rushed up to the chain-link fence, trying to get at the people on the other side of it. Some in the crowd threw beer and rubbish at it, while others pointed at Stu, trying to get the zombie to notice him: "He's over there!" they shouted. "Go get him!"
The jumbo finally turned its head and spotted Stu, standing alone in the enclosure. It wasted no time -- it made a sort of bellowing noise, lowered its head, and charged him like a bull, its loose chain whipping behind it.
Stu could already tell that he was faster than this thing, and would have no trouble avoiding it. As it came forward, he slipped to one side, and it surged past him, colliding with and bouncing off the cage. By the time it recovered, whirling around to grab him and envelop him within its huge, flabby arms, Stu was already a dozen feet away. The crowd booed.
How was he going to kill this thing? If he had his Midnighter, or Excalibur, it would be a simple matter of shooting it, or smashing its skull in, but without a weapon...
Was he strong enough to rip the monster's head off with his bare hands? Possibly, but that would be very, very messy, and it might bite him in the meantime. He didn't really want to get close to the jumbo's slavering, bloody mouth.
What about the chain it was dragging around, however? He might find some use for that.
The monster charged him again, and again, Stu avoided it. The last thing he wanted was for the zombie to land on him, to smother him beneath its body. Stu might be able to use his strength to dislodge it, if he were to find himself in such a position, but he didn't want to take the chance.
When it came at him a third time, however, Stu ducked beneath its arms, seized the chain, and pulled on it with all his strength. The jumbo, which had been rushing forward, was caught by its own momentum and yanked off its feet; it landed flat on its back, producing a huge reverberant sound as it hit the metal platform.
It started to get up. Quickly, Stu got behind it and looped the chain around its neck several times. Then, placing one foot on its back to give himself leverage, he gave the chain several sharp tugs. It was no use trying to strangle a zombie, but if he could break its neck...
He tugged at the chain three more times. This didn't do much, but when he looped the chain around the jumbo's head once more, it caught in its mouth. This allowed him to twist the monster's whole head around by the jaw, and with one final tug of the chain he broke its neck cleanly. It made a gurgling sound and fell backward, but its limbs were still twitching, so just to be on the safe side Stu stomped on its head with his boot. Level 4 Jumbo defeated!Critical Bonus!Gained 2 SP! The crowd was screaming with excitement, although it was hard to tell whether they were infuriated by the fact that Stu had killed the zombie or thrilled by the fact that he had defeated it. Their feelings, however, soon became clear, as he began to hear shouts of "Let's see some more!" and "Give 'em another one!"
The zombie-wranglers looked to the Desert King for approval. He gave them an affirming nod, so they went back into the other room and dragged another zonked zombie into the cage -- this one, according to the ICON system, was a Level 3 Rager.
Stu swore. He hated ragers.
This time one of the handlers removed the rager's collar, along with the chain, before pushing it into the cage. As with the jumbo, it took a few moments for the zombie to become aware of its surroundings, and when it did, it charged Stu, fists flying. For a zombie, it was unusually intact, perhaps only recently infected; there were no lesions on its arms and legs and it still had its hair and nails. The rager was about six inches taller than him, and about fifty pounds heavier, and its fists were enormous.
Stu's only weapon was the thin length of chain he had used to kill the jumbo. Quickly, he untangled it from the jumbo's twisted, broken skull and held it taut before him. If he could get the chain around the rager's neck, as he had with the jumbo, maybe he could kill it in the same way.
But the rager was much, much faster than the jumbo, and it was too smart to let itself get caught by the chain. When Stu tried to maneuver himself around it, it pivoted on its heel and swung one of those huge fists in his face. It caught him right on the jaw, and staggered him for just a second, which was all the time the rager needed -- it pounced on him, tackling him to the floor.
The crowd cheered.
Stu was still holding the chain, however, and, holding it taut, he was able to push it in the rager's face, preventing it from biting him. All he could do in this position was hold the zombie off, however, so he finally released the chain, freeing one of his hands. He jammed two fingers into the zombie's silver-tinted eyes.
A human would have howled in pain, but the zombie merely snarled at this. It did loosen its grip on him for a split-second, though, which allowed him to grab it by the hair and hurl it away. It rolled off of him, to one side.
Stu jumped back on his feet. He had ripped off part of the zombie's scalp when he had pulled its hair; it was still in his hand. He tossed it aside.
The rager, blood gushing out of it head, got to its feet as well. Stu had blinded it, however, and so instead of charging him, it snapped and snarled, flailing at nothing, trying to find him. Stu discarded the chain and approached the zombie. It sensed him coming and grabbed for him, but Stu caught it by the wrist and snapped its forearm like a twig. He then used that arm to fling it to the ground. When it tried to get up, Stu pinned it down with one foot, took hold of the sides of its head, and twisted it until he felt the vertebrae crack.
Level 3 Rager defeated!
The crowd didn't seem to know how to react to this second killing. Some were so amazed that they had gone silent, while others were baying for more blood, calling for more zombies. Stu rose to his full height and gave the zombie handlers a defiant glare, as if daring them to send in another monster.
How many more of these things could he kill, though? He wasn't exactly tired, but both of these fights had been at least somewhat challenging and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep this up.
In the end, they sent in four more zombies, none of which were irregulars, and all of which were either Level 1's or Level 2's. He killed them all fairly easily, but he was drenched in silver-stained blood now and the cage looked like a killing floor; he was surrounded by corpses.
The zombie handlers didn't seem to know how to proceed, after he successfully killed the fourth one. Once again, they looked to the Desert King, whose expression had changed over the course of the evening's entertainment -- his bored disinterest had turned into thoughtful curiosity. He cocked his head to one side, considering Stu, and called out to the tall man in the black hat, who had been supervising the proceedings: "That's enough for tonight. Have one of my girls clean him up, and send him up to the compartments."
The man balked at the order. "Clean him up?"
"This one intrigues me. I want to talk to him."
The crowd didn't like it, but the men carried out the Desert King's orders regardless -- they entered the cage, took custody of Stu, and marched him out of the room. He dripped blood all over the tiled floor.
They led him up a flight of stairs, and then through a strange black tube which reminded him of a jet bridge in an airport. He realized, after a moment, that he was no longer in the military-style building, but in the Vroom itself -- the black tube was a kind of umbilicus connecting the building to the ship.
They directed him down a dark corridor, with smooth, gray-graphite walls, and into a dull, featureless, perfectly square room. There was nothing particularly alien about it; in fact the room contained quite a lot of ordinary earthly furniture, including a mattress, a mirror, a lamp, and a large red rug. His escorts shoved him inside the room and left; the door slid closed behind them.
Stu thought this might be a good opportunity to escape -- they seemed to have left him unattended -- but he couldn't figure out how to open the strange sliding door. He was still struggling with it when the door opened of its own accord, and he found himself face-to-face with a blonde woman carrying a basin of water and a set of folded clothes. She looked up at him, surprised.
Stu, however, was even more surprised. He stared at the woman, his mouth falling open.
It was Berly.