S. Davis - 900 Miles

It wasn’t the slide or the swings that Gordon led us to. It was the prominently oversized monkey bars set in the shape of a large dome sitting just to the right of them. The dome was made up of bars painted red, white, and blue, and it had small chips of rust spread across its cage-like structure. It reminded me of a spider web in the shape of an upside down bowl.

My heart was beating out of my chest as we approached the structure. Kyle marched next to me. I saw him looking around shrewdly, clearly trying to find a way out of this mess. The Three Amigos were standing next to each other, and the Hulk was dragging Mr. Mullet along across the grass, the life nearly drained from his body.

“This will be where we’ll have our little competition,” Gordon said as he pointed toward the dome of bars. “Yes, this will be perfect!” he continued, looking back at us as if looking for some sort of approval.

“OK, here is what I’d like to do. First, I want the three of you to crawl into there,” he said, pointing his cane over toward the Three Amigos.

The Amigo with the gash went wide-eyed and let out a slur of words in Spanish. I’ll never know exactly what he said, but clearly, it was some serious shit. Not even when Gordon’s crew raised their guns at the Three Amigos’ chests did they take a step forward. They clearly had no intention of willingly entering that pseudo cage… until one of Gordon’s men lunged forward and stuck a knife through the arm of one of the Amigos. That seemed to clear things up for them.

When the Three Amigos crawled under the bars and entered the cage, it was immediately clear just how little space the three of them had in there. They were short but still had to duck down. There was elbowroom for them, but it was tight.

The Hulk slid the near-lifeless body of Mr. Mullet under the bars and into the dome as well, and then gave the dog-wrangling collar a shake, unhooking it from his neck. Looking back at Gordon for approval, he then pulled one of the knives that had been confiscated from the Amigos from a small bag.

Gordon nodded as the Hulk took the knife and squeezed it, along with one giant arm, in through the bars. Kyle tried to step forward, letting out a yell in protest just as the Hulk lifted the knife up and drove it down into the center of Mr. Mullet’s back. Mr. Mullet didn’t make a sound. I’m not sure if he was already dead, or just didn’t have the energy left to fight.

The Hulk, then stood, leaving the knife protruding from Mr. Mullet’s back, puncturing what I imagined was his heart. Towering over Kyle, who had been held back by a few of Gordon’s men, the Hulk’s face remained unchanged as he sidestepped him. I got the sense that he really didn’t have an understanding of what he’d just done.

The ignorant bliss of a giant.

Gordon then raised his voice in the most magnificent tone he could pull off while looking at the terrified faces of the Three Amigos. “There are three of you, one knife, and a creature that is getting ready to spring to life.” Pausing for effect… “The last man standing will be set free.”

Grabbing the bars above them, the Three Amigos swung their heads from side to side, looking at each other. None of them said a word as their eyes landed on the knife. Aside from the rising and lowering of their chests, not one of them moved…

That is until Mr. Mullet started to twitch wildly on the ground. Just before the Amigo that had been stabbed in the arm dove forward to pull the knife out, I heard him cry out in Spanish. To me, it looked like they were trying to kill the creature, up until the point where I heard a scream as one of the Amigo’s legs took a set of teeth into its flesh.

Instantly all three of them dove down into the mix, all fighting to kill the creature, twisted together in that upside down bowl of human spaghetti. I cringed as the low grumble of the Amigo that had been bitten turned into a primordial scream. Its blood-red eyes locked on its former brothers.

I watched one arm shoot up from the pile and start swinging wildly with the knife, bringing it down into the mix and stabbing anything that moved. There was no stopping it. At that point, it was to the death… and they all knew it.

Gordon motioned us over as if he had a secret to tell us. His men nudged Jarvis, Kyle, Rodgers, and me over to him. Screams and banging against the metal bars were deafening right before us, but still Gordon chose this moment to explain why he was here.

“I want Avalon back,” he started out with a bold statement. “But you probably already knew that. Don’t you see, Jarvis, you took it from me, and I don’t like it when my friends don’t play nice in the sandbox.”

Remaining silent, I couldn’t help but look over Gordon’s shoulder to see the battle to the death just feet from where we stood.

“However, I don’t want to just roll in, tearing the place down if I don’t have to. I’d hate to have to eradicate the entire population there. After all, we’ll need those people to get Avalon up and running the way it was supposed to be. Every society needs the worker bees.”

An ear-piercing scream in Spanish rang out as a gush of blood flowed out across the sand.

“Jarvis, this is where you and your good friends here come into play. Like I said earlier, you have a unique opportunity to save all of them. Before you respond to any of this, I want it to be clear that I have my army massing as we speak. Be assured, we are going to take Avalon with or without your help.”

The knife clanged against the metal bars loudly. I still couldn’t make out who was winning, or if there were going to be a winner at all.

“Why Avalon, you may be asking? I probably have my own digs at this point, right? Well, yes, this is true. However, Avalon has something that I don’t—the underground bunker. I trust that you have come across the mega-hordes at this point?”

My attention was pulled to Gordon’s gleaming eyes at the mention of a mega-horde. I hung on his next words, having no idea what the hell he was talking about.

“Ohh, I’ll take your silence and the looks on your faces as a no. As I’m sure you know, these damn creatures are pack animals. Over time, what’s happened is that small packs pull together, forming large packs. Large packs formed together creating larger packs. So on and so forth. You get the pict…”

Another scream from that playground of dead was so crazed that it pulled all of our attention toward the fight. One of the Amigos was trying to escape from the cage. The Z inside was grabbing at his leg while one of Gordon’s men pushed him back in with the blunt side of the spear that Jarvis had been carrying earlier.

I took the chance to look back and forth from Jarvis to Kyle. With the smell of blood in the air, and Gordon’s madness playing out all around us, the tension was mounting. While he tried to hide it, I could see it in Jarvis’s eyes. He was truly scared.

Looking back from the monkey bars with that same now irritating smile, Gordon continued. “There are three of what we affectionately refer to as mega-hordes that my people have been tracking. They are tens of thousands of creatures large, and are working their way across the southeast decimating anything in their path. Miles wide, they take down buildings, bust through fences, walls, whatever is in their path.”

Pausing, once again, to relish in the fear on our faces and to look back at the battle to the death behind him, Gordon finally continued. “If you haven’t connected the dots just yet, let me help you out, my friends. As I’m sure you can imagine, this makes Avalon’s underground walls a hell of a hot commodity… and I want it back.”

The hairs on my neck were at full attention, and my hands were clasped together, twisting the wedding ring around my finger. We’d hardly had a chance to digest what we’d just learned when we heard one of the Amigos whispering out from the bars. Peering past Gordon, it was clear he was the winner. Standing there holding a bloody blade, he was hunched over, dripping in gore from the three fallen bodies lying at his boots. His free arm was resting on his side, and a steady stream of blood was rolling down into his jeans.