Authors: Charles E. Yallowitz
“No and I am not from outer space either,” Commodus replies with a chuckle. He blinks a few times to see a blurry figure stepping back into his path. “You are not much of a stalker, my friend. It is all about finding your prey and going in for the kill. Not a wise decision when facing a stronger and more experienced opponent.”
The serial killer wipes some plaster off his shirt and sighs at the tear along the sleeve. “Oh, I’ve done my time in the ring too. All death matches and I was the reigning champion until Cassidy broke me out. Not sure what you were before society took a bear trap to the dick, but shit like this is what I live for.”
“I was a freelance mercenary.”
“So military trained and you did jobs that you couldn’t talk about?”
“More or less.”
“Well . . . fuck me then.”
Commodus is about to attack when Lloyd kicks a rock at the shield and runs away. The retreating fighter skids around the corner, stepping back to slap his butt toward his incoming opponent. He leaps to the side of the spear, spins around the bigger man, and sprints back the way he came. The crowd laughs at the frantic chase that repeatedly sees Lloyd change direction and narrowly avoid an impalement. During one of his more colorful passes, he tries to slash Commodus up the back. The veteran dives forward as soon as he feels the touch of the machete and whirls around to deliver a stab that grazes the serial killer’s knee. It is enough to make Lloyd’s leg buckle and he leans around the next attack to catch the spear under his arm. With the polearm trapped, Commodus’s shield is used to smack the smaller man in the face before he manages to slice through the straps. The machete swings for the man’s unprotected side, but the champion’s longer reach allows him to catch the killer by the wrist. Lloyd can already feel himself losing the test of strength, so he considers releasing both weapons and taking his chances in hand-to-hand combat.
The crowd roars at the sight of Cassidy dropping down from one of the walkways and slamming the flat side of Commodus’s giant sword against his head. The decorative weapon snaps as she lands and crashes to the ground with a twisted ankle. As soon as the blonde gets up, she is backhanded in the face and slammed against the wall. With only the hilt of the sword in her hands, she slashes a thin wound across the thick limb before she falls. It is enough of a distraction for Lloyd to wrench the spear out of Commodus’s hand and jab the blunt end into the man’s groin. The weapon is tossed to Cassidy, who stabs the veteran in the calf and smacks him in the center of his lower back. She rolls away from the collapsing fighter and uses the spear to remain standing, her injured leg wobbling from even the smallest bit of pressure.
“I really want to kill you,” Lloyd growls while he straddles Commodus. The serial killer is practically drooling as he tries to force the machete toward the other man’s throat, his hands engulfed by his opponent’s meaty paw. “To see your blood flow onto the ground and hear your breathing stop. Been too long since I had a fun kill. Wait, there were the freaks in Wyoming, but this is different. You’re strong and gave me a really good fight. My blood is crackling with energy.”
“Then stop talking and finish the job,” Commodus says as he tries to get some leverage. A sharp pain in his shoulder weakens his grip, one of his strained muscles tearing. “Killing is frowned upon, but not illegal. The next leader will still give you the gold, so stop wasting time and strike.”
“Oh, I will. Don’t want to give you a chance to . . .” the killer replies, stopping and nervously licking his lips. “I forgot the word. It means to give up, but more official. Damn it. Right on the tip of my tongue.”
“Surrender?”
“Sorry. I couldn’t hear you. My ears are ringing from that shield shot.”
“I said surrender!”
“We win!”
Commodus is staring dumbfounded at Lloyd as the serial killer twists and releases the weapon, so that it drops harmlessly on the champion’s chin. Realizing that the fight is over, the crowd cheers while their leader and Cassidy try to figure out what is going on. With the announcer declaring Lloyd the winner by submission, Commodus begins laughing and sits up to watch the maniac celebrate with a variety of strange dance moves. The audience leaps to their feet at the sight of all three combatants standing, the fight being so exciting that they do not care about the odd ending.
“I think he likes you,” Cassidy says, handing the veteran his spear. She is surprised when he lifts her onto his good shoulder and uses the weapon to support both of their weight. “Think we could get fixed up before we leave? Maybe a day in the spa. Lloyd didn’t get to go there yet and it might be nice to revel in a little local fame. Maybe I can get my mom a nice polish from the local jewelers. She has to look her best for San Francisco.”
“It would be my honor to have you remain as my guests and friends,” Commodus admits, wincing at the aches and pains throughout his body. He breathes a sigh of relief when a group of doctors come around the far corner, two of them stopping to wait for Lloyd to stop waving his weapon around. “You will always be welcomed here. Though I sense both of you are too wild to contain for very long. I hope the rest of your journey is easy and Battle Mountain is soon graced with your presence again.”
“I won’t promise a fight during every stay, but I’m pretty sure we’ll find ourselves here again now and again,” the blonde claims with a smirk. One of the doctor’s helps her off the large man and sticks a pair of crutches under her arms. “So close to finishing this journey, mom. Just have to breeze through Reno and then off to California. Simple as that.”
“But we were supposed to breeze through Reno and then head off to California. Simple as that,” Cassidy mutters as she watches the jeep get towed away with most of their belongings still inside. She is numb to the sounds of the nearby casino, her eyes never shifting from the well-dressed man who has been guiding them through town. “What’s going on, Baxter?”
“As your designated Wallet, I have to inform you that we must take all of your supplies and belongings to pay off your debt. As a courtesy, you are allowed to keep the clothes on your back,” the calm man states while keeping his distance from Lloyd. He prepares to hit the button on his bracelet again, which will call the nearest guard to tranquilizer the hardy serial killer a second time. “The Midas Group thanks you for your patronage and future servitude. This casino has been chosen as your place of employment, so work hard and you may be able to afford passage to California. Please note that all meals, rooms, clothes, paperwork, medicine, toiletries, towels, pillows, tissues, and any miscellaneous items I fail to remember at this time will be deducted from your weekly wages. Here is your bill and welcome to Reno.”
Baxter hands a small packet to Cassidy before turning on his heel and walking across the street. The man swiftly climbs onto a bus that takes him away from the confused and angry travelers. With nowhere else to go, Lloyd guides Cassidy into the busy casino where they are greeted by a wall of bells and voices. A bouncer is about to stop them when he sees the bill in the young woman’s hand and nods in sympathy. The pair weave their way through the slot machines and poker tables, every set of eyes filled with understanding and broken spirits. Bright lights and tinted windows prevent people from figuring out if it is day or night, which Lloyd guesses is to screw with their sense of time.
“I need a drink,” Cassidy suddenly mumbles, slipping out of her friend’s grip. She heads for the bar and smacks the packet down in front of the bartender. “Give me what you’re most proud of. My friend will take a soda. Having both of us drunk might be a problem, so he’s going to make a sacrifice for the greater good. Pass that bowl of pretzels down here too and a small plate of olives with plastic swords in them. Bring up the cost and I’ll strangle you with that line of Christmas lights. Thanks.”
“What has you acting like . . . an angry me?” Lloyd asks, taking the bill and turning to face the rest of the casino. He holds up a finger to stop the conversation and takes a drink, which he promptly spits out in surprise. “This place is a debt trap. Baxter wasn’t kidding about charging for tissues, which makes me regret sneezing twice. Every door has a fee, there’s a charge for right turns on red, and . . . what the fuck is an inquiry cost? Why do I feel like I just cost us more money with that? I have this image of a group of top hat wearing bastards diving into a sea of gold bars and swimming around like dolphins. Now I’m thinking of them choking as I stuff their throats with coins. Fleshy, gurgling piggy banks.”
“We’ll have the spicy chicken wings too,” the young woman requests, noting the greedy smile of the bartender. She munches on a stale pretzel, which she is sure costs more than her shoes. “The journey is over without the jeep and our gear. Now we’ll fall more and more into debt. Reno probably has assassins or bounty hunters to recover runaway slaves, which is what we are now.”
“Greeter is definitely not the job for you, sunshine,” her friend states while scanning a list of positions on the back of the bill. All of them pay very little and depend highly on tips, which he notices are split between the employee and the establishment. “This mess brings up so many questions. Also I wonder if the jeep was built out of an Indian burial ground. That thing has been beaten up more than us and now it’s been stolen.”
“Think you mean Native American and our jeep is not cursed.”
“No, I really did mean a person from India.”
“Please stop because I have a headache.”
“What if we try to get forgiveness from Shiva?”
“We are not on a Hindu deity’s hit list.”
“How about we summon her and ask?”
“Pretty sure neither of us know what we’re talking about any more.”
Cassidy takes a long drink from the giant margarita that is placed in front of her, the tequila making her feel giddy and borderline predatory. She growls at the sensation of a firm grip on her hip, the blonde swinging a punch without looking. A middle-aged man stumbles away with his hands clutching his nose, which is broken and bleeding. Turning on her seat, the blonde cracks her knuckles, licks her lips, and starts to slide off. She pauses when the man runs away and leaves a trail of gold coins that other patrons violently fight over.
“Fucking moron. I’m not even dressed like a whore,” Cassidy says while she watches the ensuing brawl. She enjoys the show that ends with a person getting slammed onto a craps table, which breaks in half. “Just let me mope, get drunk, and see where tequila takes me. Always get into the wrong kind of trouble when I drink this stuff. At least they didn’t take my mom, but that might still happen. Not that it matters. I should have paid attention to what Baxter was doing or told him to go fuck a neon light. All we had to do was drive through town and pay the people at the California border.”
Lloyd snacks on a few olives, the plastic toothpicks already tucked into his pocket. “I guess you feel like you failed. Don’t forget to blame me too. The man was obnoxious from the beginning. All I had to do was hit the gas when he was in front of the jeep or slip with one of my knives. By the time I tried anything, he had those guards around him and his alarm bracelet was active. We both got sloppy, so let’s bash our way out of this. What’s the worst they can do to us?”
“The Midas Group would charge you for the damages and funeral costs,” the bartender interjects, failing to realize that Lloyd did not want an answer. He shies away from the angry glares he receives and hurries to help a paying customer.
“He has a point. They won’t let us back through here if we cause a scene,” Cassidy points out. She leans over the bar and grabs a handful of maraschino cherries, which she stuffs into her mouth before she is caught. “That means it’ll be harder to travel back east. Not unless we find a way to makes amends with the Midas Group, but I doubt that. These people sound like greedy bastards who are clinging to the wealth of the old world. Gold and jewels are prized more than food and water here. There’s no way for people trapped at the bottom to work within this outdated system.”
Bored with his companion’s whining, Lloyd faces the rest of the casino and memorizes the terrain. He can see uniformed guards patrolling the floor as well as a few suspicious people at the slot machines. Smiles are on the faces of the winning patrons while those falling into debt look like they are about to cry. It strikes the serial killer as odd that there are so many gamblers, his previous assumption being that most of Reno’s population are debt-ridden servants. His eyes fall on a young woman dressed in flannel and muddy boots, which does nothing to dissuade the rich man from offering to pay her for sex. A similar situation is happening to an older man being propositioned by a drunken lady who obviously has an obsession with pearls. The longer Lloyd watches the locals, the more he sees that people get out of debut by doing whatever they can. He takes some comfort from seeing a young man being treated kindly by an elderly woman, her hands quivering as she pulls the slot machine’s arm.
“Our luck wouldn’t lead to that,” Cassidy whispers, her breath reeking of tequila. She rests her chin on Lloyd’s shoulder and purrs at the heart-warming scene. “Guess there are some positions Baxter didn’t put on the list. That could clear our debt, but that wouldn’t help us recover the jeep and supplies. Walking into California isn’t appealing to me. Maybe it’s just pride, but I want my stuff back.”
“Me too, so we can do a few of the unsavory things to buy everything back,” Lloyd suggests before taking a sip of his soda. He cringes at the flatness of the drink and dumps it in the beer of the distracted man sitting next to him. “Probably a way to use my killing expertise like a hitman or violent messenger. The easiest solution is to sleep our way to success, but I don’t think I’ll be popular with the ladies. Worst case scenario is that I wake up with a dead woman in the bed and have to rampage my way to the real killer. That’d be fun, but it wouldn’t get us to where we want to be.”
“If only we had some weapons and gear to steal our stuff back,” Cassidy slurs as she stares at her locket. She gives the necklace a kiss and wipes a few tears from her eyes. “My mom would know what to do. She always did whatever she had to. I’m nothing like her. Can’t even get her ashes across the country with a jeep full of weapons and a crazy serial killer as my only friend. Trapped myself in debt and now I’m drinking tequila, which can make me either homicidal or horny. Depends on the brand and my mood. How the fuck did I get tripped up by something as fucking ridiculous as debt?”
“Because you’re letting it stop you.”
“Well, what am I supposed to fucking do?”
“Be like your mom and do whatever it takes to win.”
“How?”
“Think up a crazy plan and be the adult Cassidy instead of the kid who is cowering in her mother’s shadow,” Lloyd whispers with a wolfish grin. He reaches out to tap on the locket and then poke his friend’s forehead. “You’ve been strong this entire journey. The audience and I would hate to see you crumble now. This is a bump in the road caused by insects that need a really good smashing. Not with a flyswatter, but with a brightly colored sledgehammer that says ‘Fuck You’ on all sides. Now get your brain in gear and give me a plan worthy of a maniac. I’ll even wear red and black while you have white and black. Forget that idea. That’s a romantic psychotic couple and we’re more like siblings of slaughter. Oh, we so have to remember that name if we go to Battle Mountain again.”
Cassidy smiles at her companion’s words and devours a few pretzels while thinking of the perfect way to recover their belongings. Tapping her finger on the bar, she also decides that getting some revenge would be fun too. It is only a vague idea thanks to the alcohol in her system, but it is enough to push her desires toward violence than sex. A wide grin crosses her face when a middle-aged man enters the casino with a satchel, a brief glint of gold beneath the loose flap. The way he greets the bouncer and smacks a passing waitress on the butt shows that he is a regular. Cassidy swivels to put her back to the man before he notices her staring, his reflection in a mirror allowing her to track him.
“Hold my stuff and wait outside for me,” she says, taking off her pea coat and tearing the neckline of her simple t-shirt. Stealing an ice cube from behind the bar, the blonde rolls it around her lips and exposed skin. “We’ll be back on the road by morning. Though we might have to avoid Reno for the rest of our lives. Small sacrifice, but I’d say it’s for their own good.”
“Not sure you have it in you to be a prostitute,” Lloyd states, giggling at the bad joke in his head. His amusement fades when he watches his friend adjust her clothes for maximum cleavage and straighten her hair. “I know I said do whatever it takes, but this seems like a strange deviation from your usual plans. Come on! You haven’t had that much tequila and I’m pretty sure the bartender skimped on it. I’m still pushing for the killing option since you seem fine with us never coming back here. That would be a lot more fun and pleasurable.”
Cassidy pats Lloyd on the cheek before handing him her shoes and gulping down the rest of her margarita. “Don’t worry. This will be extremely pleasurable for me. Maybe for him if he’s into that kind of stuff or my plan backfires. Steal that guy’s shot of vodka for me because I think I’m going to need it.”
*****
Hidden by the moonless night, Cassidy stares at the installation that is across the road from the high ridge they are hiding on. There are a few blue-roofed buildings behind the tall fence, which has guard towers at every corner. Most of the area is taken up by acquired vehicles and portable storage units, which will either go back to their owners or be auctioned off if not claimed after a year. Armed guards and a few dogs patrol the installation, but all of them are inside the perimeter. With so much open space around the fence, there is no way for a person to approach without being seen. Even under the cover of darkness there are searchlights that glide across the ground and threaten to expose the enemy. This is why Cassidy’s plan stems from the firm belief that they are going to be seen no matter what, so it is better to start things off with a loud bang.
“I don’t like this,” Lloyd says over the walkie-talkie. His voice is hard to hear over a loud rumble and occasional screeches of metal on metal. “Not the whole destruction and death thing, but this doesn’t feel right. The rules of a story is one adventure in every location. We’ve been following that until now. Why two incidents in Nevada? Let’s give ourselves a day to see if anything else is going on, kid.”
“Not the time for your issues. Besides, it’s the perfect night for this, so we have to do it now,” Cassidy replies, settling in to aim the sniper rifle at one of the northern searchlights. After a few gentle breaths, she shatters the bulb and grins at how the guards begin yelling. “I’ll cover you from here and all you have to do is get the jeep. From what that local told me, they don’t unload newly acquired vehicles until a week has passed. Probably has to do with red tape or something. Honestly, you have the easier part. There are scorpions and rattlesnakes out here. Not to mention the ground is cold.”
“Uh, there are dogs and guns over there,” her companion points out before his voice is drowned out by a loud horn. “All I’m saying is that it’s endgame after this. Maybe we should work with a little caution in case there’s a wrinkle. You know how a lot of stories have a last minute disaster to increase tension. This could be it with one of us dying or the locket getting lost in the desert or your father appearing in your scope.”