Last Ranger (14 page)

S
TONE saw what the “doctor” had meant about it being a better thing to know—or at least believe— that you would soon die, for
he surely wanted to die as the electric jolts seared ceaselessly through him. And the knowledge that he wouldn’t, that they
had it all gauged so well that they could take a man to the edge of death and hold him there for hours, was in many ways the
worst part of the torture. Marquis de Sade with high-tech toys.

But at last the current ceased and his body dropped back to the operating table rippling with fire. The helmet was again removed
from his head and Stone’s ears and eyes felt like they had been put through a car wash of acid. He blinked hard, looking around,
wondering what the hell they had in store for him next. A man was standing at the foot of the table staring at him. A freak
with a dark grin across his ugly mug. The guy reminded Stone of the Dwarf in a way, same bald head, but this one had legs—and
arms, though the hands on the ends of each arm, which ended about where the elbow was on most people, were two claw-like appendages
that opened and closed as Stone watched.

“Feeling better, are we?” the little freak asked as he rubbed his claws together like a stockbroker at an all-widows party.
“First the torture—then we eat,” the man laughed. “I am Hans, the Dwarf’s personal manservant. He has sent me to invite you
to be his guest at his pre-wed-ding feast tonight. You’re to be the guest of honor.” The man freak motioned for the greenshirt
to undo Stone’s attachments to the table. “We’ve got some new clothes for you, as your others were so dirty.” Stone was pulled
up. He could hardly stand, his legs were like rotted matchsticks wobbling around in all directions. But again, they seemed
to know what they were doing. The pain hadn’t actually damaged him—after a minute or two he found, almost against his will,
that he could walk and move.

Stone was allowed to put on the freshly cleaned and pressed greenshirt uniform and then his hands were cuffed again and he
was quickly hustled out of the place under armed guard with Hans in the lead down the hall ahead of them. He led Stone to
the elevator bank, into one and down a few levels. When the doors bingbonged open Stone swore he was back in Imperial decadent
Rome.

Freaks, male and female, were everywhere, many unclothed or nearly so, running around drinking, eating, chasing one another.
This was an anarchy of debauchery and excess in a world that was starving to death. Stone was led across the floor and he
saw that some of the couples were actually banging away at each other right on the floor. He was taken to an immense round
table covered with food and bottles of liquor and wine. Around it were seated the Ten freaks of the Tribunal, supported by
pillows all around them while nubile and scantily clad young women, these not freaks, tended to their every need.

“Stone, you’re here,” the Dwarf said from his place at the table. He was squashed down between a number of huge pillows with
two nude women who couldn’t have been older than sixteen on each side of him holding food ready to pop it into his mouth.
“The festivities have already begun, but they’re not real for me until you’ve arrived. After all, you’re the man of honor.
But we’ll save that little surprise for later. Please be seated.” Stone was slammed down into a metal seat with low legs so
he was almost sitting at floor level just a yard or so from the Dwarf. His hands were kept free, but his body was strapped
into the bolted chair at three places, making him able to reach out to the table but not escape. The greenshirts stood back
and waited their arms folded a few yards behind him.

“There, isn’t that comfy?” the Dwarf laughed. Sitting so close to the little egg-shaped creature, Stone could see that the
scum was even more repulsive than he had quite realized. Perhaps it was the jaundiced color of his skin, or the face itself,
which was all swollen like something that had been waterlogged and then dried out again. The Dwarf poked his stump into the
face of the teen on his right and she slid a wet, red slimy-looking thing into his mouth. He let it roll around inside a few
times and swallowed hard with a look of sheer ecstasy crossing his face. “Goddamn, they’re good. You’ve got to try one.”

When Stone let his eyes fall to the bowls filled with pink and yellow and green things in front of him, he felt like puking.
They were slugs and larvae, worms and beetles. The thing the Dwarf was eating looked like it was red and round and dripping
with a sticky coating. The whole table was covered with such fare and the other freaks were grabbing it up in their hands
and claws.

“I don’t think I’m all that hungry,” Stone said, looking full into the black rat eyes of the little murderer. “Your electroshock
therapy didn’t do wonders for my appetite.”

“Oh you still don’t understand, Stone,” the Dwarf laughed as he leaned forward toward a small box set onto the edge of the
table. “I’m not
asking
you to try some— I’m
telling
you to.” He lunged out at the button with the tip of his swollen stump and Stone felt another surge of current shoot into
him. He had the damn chair wired—that’s why it was metal—to conduct the electricity. Stone jerked around within the confines
of the thing. The jolt lasted only about four seconds but it was plenty. Stone had had enough of the hot juice back in the
Surgery Department.

“Maybe I’ll try one of these,” he said after letting his brain and mouth fall back into place. He reached forward and took
hold of one of the red slime balls and lifted it as slowly as a condemned man’s feet down the final execution hall.

“Ah, wonderful,” the Dwarf commented, pulling back from the controls on the hotbox and clapping his stumps together with fleshy
sounds. “They’re really quite tasty. I planned everything so carefully. I do want you to be pleased.”

“I’m touched,” Stone said as he put the “delicacy” against his lips. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying not to
taste it. It was wet and musky and extremely unpleasant, and Stone could feel its mucousy tendrils all the way down his throat.

“They’re iguana testicles. They’re terrible plain—but marinated in garlic and chives for at least a week—well, I tell you.”
The Dwarf squealed like a punctured pig. Oh, he was clearly in fine fettle tonight. They all were, Stone could hear from the
constant backdrop of laughter, moans and wet slurping sounds. He made a quick perusal of the table as the Dwarf tapped at
one of his female companions and she slipped another one of the veined grapelike appetizers into the eggman’s narrow jaws.
They were all here, all ten of the freaks. Nature’s gift to mankind. Right.

He hadn’t been able to see them all that clearly in the darker Tribunal chamber but here close-up with the harsh lighting
everywhere, he could see it all. Every burn boil, every scale, every misshappen jello mold of a face. He could see the extra
arms on one, the thick red tumor growing like a horn from another head. Every one of them was a nightmare. Stone wondered
how they could look in the mirror. Maybe there were no mirrors around here. But the one that got to him the most for some
reason in the midst of the feast of horror was the man whose face was falling. It was as if all his features were just dripping
down, unable to hold their correct position anymore. The nose was down at lip level, while the lips had fallen almost to his
chin. Both eyes had migrated a good three inches, and had drifted closer together so they almost appeared to be one big eye.
The head had lost all its hair but had instead a thick spider web of dark purple veins that stood out and throbbed violently
like worms. Yet he too was laughing, fondling the normal human girl next to him. They knew how to have their fun. Stone had
to give them that.

“Now do try one of those,” the Dwarf pointed toward a bowl of crawling white maggots that were half floating in ginger sauce
with a parsley topping.

“I really don’t think—” Stone began, turning his head away in disgust. He had a thing about maggots. He didn’t even like to
be near them—let alone eat one.

“Electricity is man’s best friend—don’t you agree?”

Stone reached forward before the Dwarf could poke his stump at the button. Stone just couldn’t handle any more of that tonight.
If he did puke, it would be their fault, though considering the kind of fare on the table, he doubted anyone would notice.
He looked down into the bowl of squirming maggots. They wriggled around, swimming through the sauce as if looking for maggot
heaven. Stone saw one of the little fuckers who looked stunned, motionless, and reached for the thing only to have it go wild
on him the instant he lifted it up. He squeezed the white maggot hard and managed to get the head off of it before he brought
it to his lips, which the Dwarf didn’t notice. Stone slid the thing in and swallowed it whole, trying to pretend it was a
clam on the half shell. Only clams didn’t wriggle as they slid down your throat, trying to find a way to crawl out.

B
UT if Stone had thought larvae and sauteed centi-pedes were bad, when the Dwarf slapped his stumps together a minute later
and servants began carrying in the
big
stuff, he saw that he had only just begun to eat. Loaded onto an entire spit with six men holding up each end was an entire
cow. It wasn’t the biggest cow in the world, somewhat stunted in fact, but what it lacked in mass it more than made up for
in physical accoutrements. This cow had two heads and six legs and it was nicely seared on the outside. The servants dragged
the whole steaming carcass to the table and suddenly lost control of it, sending it careening down the middle of the round
dining table, which then sent bowls flying in all directions. The freaks let out with uproarious laughter. They were apparently
in their element with whole cows flying. They dug in at the steaming beef, the extra legs and head being the most sought after
parts. Those that couldn’t move had their girls hack them pieces with long carving knives and hand-feed it to them.

Stone figured cow, even a mutated one, couldn’t be that bad, so he avoided a shock by leaning forward and grabbing a slab
of meat that had flown off the thing in the manic cutting. He lifted it in one hand, seeing that this was not exactly the
fork and knife crowd, and took a chew. The meat tasted strange, almost hot. And Stone knew it was radioactive. These bastards
didn’t care, they were all already mutated beyond recognition. They had nothing to lose. But Stone didn’t feel like going
out with a radioactive stomach, holes burned right through his abdomen with digestive fluids leaking out onto the floor.

He tried to pretend to eat the piece, each time making sure that no one was noticing. And beyond the Dwarf not one of them
was paying any attention to Stone. He let his pieces fall to the floor just beneath the table. With all the meat and juices
flying around there was no way in hell anyone would tell. They had barely gotten going on the cow when another crew came through
the door hauling in something that looked like a fish, only it was huge, a good eight feet long, weighing at least two hundred
pounds. And it was white, completely albino with no eyes. Stone had seen pictures of things like this caught from the bottom
of the ocean, ugly deep-sea dwellers that were blind all their days. And good thing, for even this dumb overtoothed water
thing would have had heart palpitations had it been able to see the crowd that salivated over it.

They heaved the fish right down onto the table and it flopped around a few times, landing alongside the cow, so that some
of its protruding teeth sank into the lower charred hindquarters.

“Good shot, good shot,” one of the freaks yelled out. They ripped chunks of the fish with their bare fingers. Stone could
see that aside from being psychotic mutations they were all drunk and drugged out of their minds, eyes rolling around in their
misshapen heads like balls in a roulette wheel. Suddenly the Dwarf rose up on his lower stumps, hopping around on his thick
satin cushions as he held a cup of blood red wine between his stumps.

“And now for our evening entertainment,” he squealed, spilling the cup as he lost control. “I present my theatrical piece:
‘Death of the Ten Thousand Bites.’ With the word “bite,” one of his servants pressed a button and a pulley system hidden in
the ceiling was suddenly activated. A box attached to a cable was about thirty feet up at ceiling level. The pulleys quickly
lowered it down so that within a few seconds it was hovering right over one upraised leg of the cow just a few inches above
it. The motor stopped and the draped box just hung there slowly revolving around. A greenshirt jumped up on the table, making
sure not to get anywhere near hands of the slurping freaks and pulled the canvas cover from the box.

Stone gasped. A man was inside a plastic square about the size of a telephone booth. He was naked and looked terrified as
he beat with his fists at every side of the box trying to find a way out. But even as all eyes rose from their debauched carrying
on around the table it got a lot worse for the poor bastard inside. A second section of the booth, just above his head, suddenly
opened up and gallons of insects, what looked like ants from where Stone was sitting, poured out all over the man’s body.
Within seconds they nearly coated him and the man was screaming his lungs out, going mad inside the plastic cage. Though he
banged and slammed on the sides of the thing the Plexiglas must have been at least three inches thick, for it didn’t budge
an inch. His screams as well were completely absorbed within the thick material. It was strange to see a man moving his mouth
with such vigor, his lips so wide it looked like they would crack—and not hear a bit of sound coming out. The ants were huge,
red ants as big as a man’s finger. They tore into the imprisoned man with a violent hunger. Within seconds hundreds of little
trickles of blood erupted all over the man’s flesh and a pool of the liquid began collecting at his feet. It was clearly going
to take a long time for this particular “theatrical” event to be completed. Stone turned his head away in disgust and fury
at the way these bastards used human beings as toys to be shattered and ripped apart for sheer sadistic pleasure.