Jason Frost - The cutthroat

"Move to the shallow1 end, Eric," Tracy advised, hollering over the hoots and catcalls of

the crowd.

Eric noticed the people clustered around the pool, more coming in all the time. Some were kneeling, shouting encouragement to the gladiator of their choice, keeping their throats moist with mugs of BeBop's Brew. No matter how desperate their own lives became, people needed distractions, needed to see the life and death struggles performed by others. Eric imagined the cavemen, after a hard day's hunting and fighting, returning home only to reenact it all with paintings on the wall. Now that TV, movies, theater, records, and professional sports were gone, what else was left but this kind of hideous combat.

BeBop watched the proceedings with an amused grin. To him it was a business strategy, nothing more. That his clients were entertained by it all was a bonus. Eric thought he even saw a glimmer of regret in BeBop's eyes that he hadn't thought of charging them all to watch the fight.

"The shallow end!" Tracy repeated.

Eric didn't have time to tell her he had more of an advantage in deeper water than a taller man. In shallow water, the bigger man could use his weight and height with more leverage. In the deeper water, that advantage was taken away. Eric waited until Rhino was almost on top of him before diving under the water and swimming toward the deep end. He didn't dare open his eyes in this poisoned mess, relying instead on his sense of direction. When his head popped out of the water again, his feet dangled

under him in deep water.

The crowd was booing, yelling "coward" and "chickenshit" at him.

Rhino was swimming toward him now, his huge legs kicking a geyser of water behind him with each stroke.

This time Eric was ready. He waited until Rhino was within three feet, the big man's small hands reaching out of the water for Eric's throat. Suddenly Eric ducked under the water, curling into a ball, then kicking out both feet at once. They struck Rhino's stomach, sinking a few inches into the blubbery flesh.

Rhino doubled over, his face slapping the water, air bubbling out of his mouth in a muffled grunt.

Eric coiled his legs again, sprang them out at Rhino. They caught him in the chest this time, propelling Rhino backward a little. Eric could hear the man's garbled groan even underwater. He started to coil his legs again for another kick.

But he was too slow.

Rhino snagged one of Eric's ankles and yanked him through the water like a hooked tuna. Eric was two feet under the surface on his back as he was dragged forward, water forcing itself up his nose. He tried to twist around, kicking at Rhino's hands with his free foot. But it was no use. Rhino's grip was too strong.

The power pulling him along was so fierce that some of the floating garbage from the surface was sucked down into the whirlpool, swirling around Eric's face. This is what it must

feel like to be flushed down a toilet, he thought.

Then he was no longer being pulled, and the hands around his ankle were now fastened like fat leeches around his neck, crushing his windpipe while holding him under the water. He had lost all his air seconds ago and was now functioning on pure adrenaline, fighting the sharp pain in his empty lungs. The arrow hole in his chest opened up and he could feel his blood oozing into the warm swampy pool. Absurdly he worried about his wound getting infected even as he tried to fight his way to the surface.

He pried at the fingers around his throat, but they didn't budge. It was as if they were nailed to his neck. His eyes were open now and he could see Rhino's gruesome face hovering just above the surface, hear Tracy and Blackjack screaming behind him, begging Eric to do something.

And Eric did.

His cupped hands shot up out of the water and clapped together on both of Rhino's ears, bursting the eardrums. Rhino's roar of pain vibrated through the water. But still Rhino squeezed tighter. Eric felt his chest heaving involuntarily, felt the rush of warm water through his nostrils, flushing down his throat. He had to try again.

This time he launched his thumbs straight up into Rhino's eyes, digging the thumbnails deep into the eyeballs. Rhino's good eye flattened under the pressure, but that black marble of an eye on the damaged side of his face didn't move. It was as hard as a pearl, petrified. Eric dug harder.

Rhino's grip eased a little, then a little more. Eric was floating to the top. He broke the surface, sucked his lungs full of air, and heaved his weight into his thumbs.

But Rhino clamped his hands around Eric's wrists and easily pried them away. The enormous strength of the man surprised Eric. He tried to yank his hands free, but Rhino pulled them apart as easily as snapping a wishbone.

With a loud growl, Rhino suddenly reached down, grabbed a handful of Eric's chest bandage and a handful of pants and plucked Eric out of the water, raising him over his head. He threw him straight at the blue tiled corner of the pool like a child trying to crack open a clam by hurling it at a sharp rock.

Eric twisted slightly in midair, allowing his muscular back to smash against the hard edge of the pool, absorbing most of the shock. His head grazed the corner, sending five hundred volts of pain into his skull, but there was no serious damage. Dazed, Eric slid from the edge under the water to the bottom of the pool. His left foot landed on a piece of glass that sliced through the callouses on the ball of his foot. The pain jangled his nerves and sent an icy eel slithering through his stomach.

He forced his eyes open, peered through the murky slush. Ten feet away he saw Rhino's tree stump legs churning toward him. Eric dropped his hands to the bottom of the pool, felt gingerly for the glass that had cut his foot. Maybe a weapon, he hoped. His fingers bumped a high-top Nike sneaker, Volume I of Webster's Third International Dictionary A-G, a broken amber globe that used to belong to the lights around the pool. Too unwieldy, he thought, brushing it aside. Then his hands touched something else. At first he thought it was some kind of electrical wire, but it was too rigid. Then he recognized it: a wire coat hanger.

The legs were almost on him now. He didn't want to be caught short of breath again, so he fished up the coat hanger and kicked off the side of the pool, swimming furiously to the deepest part. When his head bobbed up again, he saw Rhino doing an easy breaststroke toward him. Eric hooked the hanger in his waistband to keep it out of sight.

"Hey, Ravensmith," BeBop warned. "You can't keep running, man. We can't spend the rest of the day here settling this one dispute. I got a whole fucking castle to run here. You either fight or"-he nodded toward Tsetse- "my buddy here is gonna stick your face full of pins."

Tsetse pulled a pin from his fishing hat and thumbed it into the end of his blowgun.

BeBop grabbed Tsetse's wrist and turned it so he could read the boy's watch. "I'll give you both another five minutes. After that I'll have to award the match to my old buddy Rhino, based on aggressiveness. And you and your friends will be history. Understood?"

"Understood," Eric responded, but didn't move.

Rhino grinned as he paddled closer, speaking out of one side of his mouth. "Don't worry, Ravensmith. You don't even have five minutes."

Eric treaded water for the twenty seconds it took for Rhino to get within five feet of him. Then he dove under the water, stretching the hanger at the hook and the middle of the bottom bar into an elongated diamond, making an opening he hoped would be large enough. His eyes were stinging from the dirty water as he swam, barely able to make out his target through the haze.

Rhino swiveled his head around, whipping it from side to side as he searched for Eric while treading water. He couldn't see anything through the floating garbage. Viciously he brushed away a soggy TV Guide that was piggyback on a tree branch. He looked over his shoulder at BeBop. "He's running again, damn it. I want-"