Little Dead Monsters Read online

  The Goblin was condescending as he spoke to her. “You haven’t watched enough fights to predict winners,” he said. “Your choice of Sunny is stupid. Just because he’s the one holding the knife doesn’t mean he knows how to use it. Knife combat is an art form. You need to bleed a man first before you can truly know how to wield it. Until you popped that cherry, it’s nothing more than a toy in a child’s hands. Watch the Dog. He will surprise you.”

  Allegra did as she was told and stared into the pits, but she forced her mind to drift far away from this place. She daydreamed of the world she remembered in her youth, before she even knew of the Arena’s existence. It was wonderful.

  She remembered the smells of summer, in particular the flowers that her mom planted in the family garden with their sweet and fresh scent. If pink and green had a smell, Allegra was sure it was that of the Japanese cherry blossoms that rained delicate pink petals.

  As a child, she spent most of her afternoons with her big beautiful collie dog Pineapple, who followed her everywhere, bathing her in slobbery kisses. And how could she forget her mom's freshly baked cookies? Their soft sweetness that melted inside her mouth was as warm as her dad's hugs and her mom's kisses.

  Allegra's daydream was interrupted by the cheers of the crowd and she glanced down into the pit where Sunny advanced towards Dog, knife in hand, his eyes a mix of fear and adrenaline. Blood oozed from his gashes like red lava flowing out of flesh coloured craters. He raised the knife and howled as he lunged at Dog.

  Before the knife could reach its target, Dog grabbed Sunny by the wrists and held him at bay, the point of the blade mere inches away from his left eye. They both howled like maimed beasts in the wild, fighting for their lives.

  Dog finally managed to wrench the knife out of Sunny’s hands and it dropped to the ground. While Sunny tried to reach for the weapon again, Dog took advantage of the opening and used his hands as weapons instead. The thud to the back of Sunny’s head from Dog’s fist was heard across the Arena.

  Allegra tried to tune out the horrors of the fight and thought of her Dad, who used to read to her every night. It didn’t take Allegra long to grow bored of all her picture books so he ended up reciting poetry instead. The Tyger by William Blake was always her favourite. It always calmed her.

  “Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright, in the forests of the night,” she found herself whispering, “What immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?”

  Sunny lay on the ground, face in the dirt, shuddering with each subsequent blow from Dog’s fists to the back of his head. He was defenceless to Dog’s vicious attacks.

  Ignore it, Allegra thought. Don't see the blood. Don't see the boy dying. Remember something else. Remember my brother, and what a brat he was, always picking on me and teasing me. But I loved him with all my heart, and he did the same. He always protected me and kept me away from harm except for one time…

  The roar of the crowd tore Allegra away from her memories and her thoughts returned to the Arena, like a carefree soul forced into a paralyzed body.

  Sunny lay dead in the dirt. His blood drained into the sand and amassed into a red pool that spread into a perfect crimson circle.

  “What did I tell you,” Ryker squealed with delight. “Dog is our winner. Those street boys, they know how to fight. What a show. Listen to the audience, they loved it.”

  The audience was as sick as he was. “It was...impressive,” Allegra said before adding, “Can I tend to his wounds now?”

  Ryker nodded and shooed her away. He stood up and took in the fervour of the crowd. It was another record setting attendance for the Arena. How sickening.

  If Allegra didn’t feel like such a coward, she would set fire to the damn place. She would gladly burn with it just to see the end of the fighting pits while watching the Goblin’s skin melt alongside her. There wasn’t much for Allegra to live for nowadays anyways.

  But like all the other slaves here, she was too afraid to do anything so she dreamed instead.

  She dreamed of freedom, a day when either Ryker, or she, was dead.

  Chapter Three.

  Ryker liked to call them paramedics, but in actuality, they were low-level guards who were too weak and too stupid to provide any real muscle. They brought Dog in on a stretcher and laid him on the old wooden surface, which served as her operating table.

  The table had seen far too much blood over the years. It used to be a light hickory colour but over time, the blood and gore seeped into its fibres and rotted into a dark and filthy red, reminding Allegra of a dying rosewood.

  She asked Ryker for a new table once but he scoffed at the idea and urinated on the table in front of her as if he were an animal, yet to be housebroken. She rarely asked him for anything anymore.

  Allegra had washed that table at least eight times before she managed to get rid of the Goblin’s stink. It was important to keep it as clean and sterile as possible for the children. She wouldn’t allow for any of them to die from infection due to an unsanitary operating table.

  By the time Dog was brought to her, he was unconscious. His wounds were deep and required a lot of mending but at least that was better than being dragged off the pit by the gravediggers. Underneath the layer of dirt that caked onto his face, Allegra could tell that Dog had handsome features. Black wavy hair covered most of his eyes and brow and she brushed it to the side to reveal an honest-looking face. He was pleasant to look at, despite the noticeable scar underneath his left eye. His cheeks were hollow from the lack of proper food over the years. In fact, his entire body was fairly thin. He was evidently malnourished.

  Allegra prayed as she always did before she worked. “Please Lord, give me the strength to treat him so he may live another day.”

  She examined the knife wounds on Dog’s body. There were lacerations on his arms and legs and a large one across his chest. Luckily, they were flesh wounds and no major arteries or veins were sliced. The bleeding was controllable.

  Last week a boy had bled to death on her table. Everything was drowned in red as the blood flowed as freely as her tears. She would not allow that to happen tonight.

  Allegra opened the medical bag and set to work. She strapped on the latex gloves and applied pressure on his chest and waited until it stopped bleeding. She cleaned the wound to prevent infection caused by the dirt and filth from the Arena.

  Ryker refused to sanitize the combat grounds and the weapons. He told her the dried blood, caked on the sand and smeared against the walls, gave the pits character and as for the weapons, it made them look more dangerous. Ryker used this to create a medieval-like atmosphere. A marketing tactic as he liked to call it.

  Allegra frowned and focused her thoughts back on mending the wounded boy on her table. She was a nimble seamstress as she sewed up his gashes with delicate precision and dressed them with clean bandages. Finally she administered antibiotics and allowed him to sleep while she cleaned up the mess and sterilized her tools.

  Allegra worked in silence, her back turned to Dog, so she was startled when she discovered that he was watching her with his chestnut-coloured eyes.

  “Do you want some water?” Allegra asked as she grabbed a clean glass from the cupboard and filled it from a bottle. She brought it over to Dog, who ignored it and stared at her with the same look on his face as she saw in the pit.

  “Take it,” Allegra said, holding the glass for him with an outstretched arm. He made no effort to reach for it.

  Instead he turned his head away from her. “Get lost. I don’t need anything from you.”

  The resentment he felt was as clear as the water in the glass, but she didn’t fault him for it. How could any of the boys not feel fear or distrust after going through what they just did?

  No, it wasn’t the boy’s fault that he was full of venom. The Goblin was the one to blame — he, his cronies, and the damn crowd that watched these fights. Ryker had created a kingdom of misery, ruled by his tyranny, and his loyal subjects gathered around to w
atch the suffering he delivered to his slaves.

  She placed the glass on the stool beside the table. “I’ll leave it here then,” she said as she picked up the worn, black medical bag that displayed a small graphic of a moon on it with a smiling face. A brownish-red stain smeared its left side.

  The image seemed to calm Dog as his eyes softened into a child’s and he stared at it with a youthful innocence.

  “Do you like the bag?” Allegra asked. “It’s supposed to be the man on the moon. It was quite a popular cartoon character when I was younger. They gave me this bag to use for my medical tools.”

  Allegra’s voice had disrupted whatever trance Dog was in and he looked away and ignored her. She could feel the distance he was creating between them.

  “I can leave the bag here if you want? I just need my tools,” she said.

  “Leave me alone,” Dog spat.

  She shrugged and zipped up the bag and walked towards the door. His voice stopped Allegra in her tracks.

  “The next time I see you again, I’ll kill you,” he threatened.

  “No you won’t,” she replied before leaving him alone to his silent rage. He would be asleep soon. The needle she gave him made sure of that.

  The smell of death clung to the air like maggots on dead flesh, and what she wouldn’t give to smell those sweet cherry blossoms again.

  Chapter Four.

  When Dog awoke, he found himself in an old iron cell. The last thing he remembered, he was lying in the medical room, looking for a means of escape. But he was too tired, and his entire body ached and then sleep’s thievery came and stole away his consciousness.

  He shivered as he grabbed the blanket in the corner of the tiny cell and wrapped himself in it. The smell of sweat and blood in conjunction with the antibiotics coursing through his body made him nauseous. His mouth was as dry as cotton and he regretted not drinking the glass of water the girl had offered him.

  No. He couldn’t trust anything anyone gave him. That’s what got him imprisoned in the first place.

  There were other cages in this dungeon. Some of them were empty, but for the most part, other boys of his age inhabited them. He heard the sounds of sobbing from a few of them.

  Crying isn’t going to do you much good, he wanted to say, but he held his mouth shut.

  Most of the captives kept to themselves. Whether it was out of fear or the weariness from combat, he didn’t know, but no one here was making any effort to speak to one another, which served Dog just fine. He hated people anyways.

  Dog looked at each and every one of them, but none bothered to lift their heads up to acknowledge him. It was as if the concrete floor had taken a hold of their eyes. Fear. That’s what it had to be — intense, authentic fear.

  Dog had nothing so he was afraid of nothing.

  He looked over all the boys with a scrutinizing eye. He would study each one of them and discover their weaknesses, and if they were thrown in the pit with him for another one of the fights, he would make damn sure to be the one standing at the end of it.

  The city streets had taught him how to stay alive. Dog lived in a harsh reality where food and shelter were no longer basic needs but a luxury instead. His meals mainly consisted of anything still edible from the dumpsters supplemented with whatever he managed to steal from restaurants and early morning grocery deliveries.

  Dog had learned to hide in shadows without being noticed. Getting caught was not an option, especially by the adults. He trusted none of them, especially after they took her, the only person he ever cared for, away from him.

  He usually slept in the same dumpsters he ate from, and on some nights, in big empty cardboard boxes. There were times he was lucky and he successfully hid in the washrooms of stores or malls after closing. It was the one place that didn’t have security cameras and the guards often overlooked them. As long as he stayed in there, he wasn’t discovered. He could be warm for a night and there was an abundance of clean water and soap.

  He had tried spending the night with other homeless people once in the makeshift town they built for themselves under the freeway underpass. Its community mainly consisted of other runaways like him, drug addicts, and people who had been unlucky in their fate. None of them were too threatening and mainly kept to themselves, guarding over their few possessions that they hoarded over the years. The way some of them were protecting their belongings, you’d think there were diamonds inside those piles of useless junk.

  The odd time, Dog felt threatened by the way some of the men looked at him, and he always kept on his guard when they were around. It wasn’t until the bearded man in suspenders forced him up against a wall while attempting to tear off his pants that Dog knew he wasn’t just being paranoid. It was all too real.

  No one had helped him. They all turned a blind eye while he was being assaulted. Luckily Dog found a broken beer bottle on the ground nearby and slashed the bearded man’s throat before anything could really happen. Dog had watched in fascination as the man died slowly before his eyes. Dog still had half his baby teeth at the time.

  Since then Dog did his best to keep to himself and stay hidden. And then one unlucky day—two days ago—he made the terrible mistake of trusting adults again and now he found himself in the same predicament as a prisoner on death row.

  Dog cursed himself for his weakness at the time and his stupidity. No hamburger in the world was worth this price. He vowed never to make the same mistake again. Dog would trust no one. Every person was now his enemy.

  He counted seven others in the room with him. For the most part, they were underdeveloped and weak. They were also terrified. Violence and dying was a new concept for many of the others here and Dog saw that it scared the piss out of them. Meanwhile he had looked death in the eye every single day. And he lived.

  Dog still had to maintain some level of caution and not have his confidence rule him. Dog had expected to finish Sunny from last night easily, but he underestimated his opponent’s will to survive. Dog was caught off guard and he paid for his mistakes with multiple knife wounds and a six-inch gash across his chest. It was going to scar, but then again, as long as he remained a prisoner here, there were many more of those to come.

  Chapter Five.

  Allegra treaded carefully through the winding corridors of the Arena complex, careful not to slip on the wet concrete caused by the humidity. In her hands, she cradled a tray of food.

  One of the guards grinned and blew her a kiss. He was a degenerate. They all were.

  She ignored the guard and walked past him, waiting until she was alone to let out a sigh of relief. Allegra knew the guards dared not touch her because of Ryker, but she still felt nervous around them, especially when she knew what they were thinking about.

  Allegra was alone in the shadows now and she shuddered, but not because of the guards. She always felt his vivid eyes on her but when she turned around to look, he was never there. She quickened her pace.

  Don’t spill anything, Allegra thought. She was always careful when delivering food, making sure not to lose a single crumb. For some of the boys, she knew that this meal would be their very last and she wished she could offer them something more than stale bread and day old porridge. Meanwhile, Ryker ate greasy meats, rich breads, and fresh fruits. While Allegra served him, she would watch him gorge on dinner as if he were a bear preparing for hibernation, eating half portions of everything and throwing away the rest. She thought of smuggling out some of the food once, but when one of the other slave girls was caught red-handed, Allegra decided that the punishment was not worth the risk. Ryker made the slave girl eat the scraps of food on all fours while he caned her in the ass. The poor girl couldn’t sit for days.

  She continued to walk at a brisk speed as the tunnel forked up ahead. Allegra took the left path towards her destination and stopped outside the entrance to the dungeon, where the guard skimmed her from head-to-toe before letting her in.

  There was always a sadness that drowned Allegra e
very time she stepped foot in the holding cells. She felt as if she were in a zoo with malnourished children as the caged attractions. Some of the boys cried when they saw her while others were so tired that they could only sit and stare as they drew laboured breaths from their mouths.

  She scooped fresh porridge into the empty bowls waiting at the foot of each cage. The sight and smell of food made many of the boys clamour to the bars and devour it in seconds. As Allegra broke off pieces of bread from the stiff loaf, she wondered when was the last time they had anything to eat or drink.

  She noticed that Dog didn’t touch his bowl, though he did have his water. When he finished drinking, he sat back down in the corner of his cell and glared at her. He was a boneheaded mule, Allegra decided.

  She walked over to his cage. “You should eat.”

  “No,” he replied.

  He was proving to be difficult, but Allegra was patient. No one deserved to live like a slave and die like livestock. He deserved better. They all did. Dignity was at a premium in this place.

  “You’ll need your strength,” she said to Dog. “Eat the food.”

  Dog remained adamant. “No.”

  “It’s really not as bad as it looks.”

  He shook his head. “The last time I took food from you people, I ended up here. I find the meals you offer me now a little hard to swallow.”