Free Little Dead Monsters by Kieran Song Page A

with his thumb and index finger towards the guards at the south gate, and they understood. Their weapons were drawn as they entered into the pit.
    Allegra turned away as she knew what was to come. The sound of gunfire erupted and the crowd cheered in reaction to their deaths.
    “Monsters,” she whispered.
    “It’s over,” Ryker said as he stood at the edge of the balcony and addressed the audience. “There is no room for compassion in my Arena. Compassion is weakness and weakness is death.”
    The crowd roared in acknowledgement.
    “I give you your new champion, Dog!” Ryker proclaimed.
    The guards brought Dog back to the Arena by gunpoint and ordered him to wave to the crowd like some sort of circus freak.
    Dog did as he was told and the audience gave him a standing ovation. The chants of “Dog! Dog! Dog!” were ceremonious and Ryker smiled at their reactions as he realized the dollar value his new champion potentially brought in.
    And then Allegra noticed something. Despite being at the center of the glory and praise of being a champion, Dog’s attention was focused somewhere else. His eyes were fixated on the two boys gunned down in cold blood. They were still holding each other in their final embrace.
    His heart is still there, Allegra thought. He still has his humanity. Please don’t take that away from him.
     

 
     
     
    BOOK THREE: CHAMPION

Interlude:
     
     
     
    From the Journal of Edmund Glaber:
     
    December 8, 2007,
     
    I can’t take it anymore. Everyday is another step down that winding staircase leading me to hell.
    As long as I’ve known him, Ryker has always been sadistic and violence was his drug. During our time at Red Gate, he managed to orchestrate his own little combat arena where he paid prison inmates to fight each other while profiting on the bets. Somehow, he even got the prison guards (those corrupted pieces of shit) to buy into it. Ryker had a way of looking into the darkest regions of your soul, the places where even you didn’t want to visit, and dig out your taboo desires and wave it in front of  you with promises of making it a reality. You just had to pay for it.
    Once outside of Red Gate, Ryker had created a full scale Arena where he could watch fights whenever he pleased. When I had asked him “why use children?” he shrugged and replied, “Because children are weak.”
    Tonight, I witnessed a whole new level of sadism by Ryker. Before tossing three fourteen-year-olds into the pit, he had them lightly cut on the palms of their hands, their backs, and chest. They were superficial cuts, which wouldn’t prove threatening in anyway, and I was confused to as what Ryker was doing.
    He smiled at me and said, “Just watch.”
    A fourth entered into the Arena and I guessed him to be seventeen or eighteen. At first I thought Ryker was having the three younger ones fight the teen, but what was puzzling was that there were no weapons on the ground, and the older one had the same cuts as the kids. It was only when I heard the announcement that I understood what Ryker had done.
    “Tonight, we have a special stipulation match. In one corner, we have Zombie, who has the unfortunate luck of being infected with HIV. In the other corner, we have three human pieces of meat. How long can they last before Zombie infects them too? Or can the meat find a way to stop Zombie without being infected?”
    “Ryker, what did you do?” I had asked him.
    “I was growing bored of the usual fights,” Ryker replied. “I thought this would make things more interesting.
    “I can’t believe I’m seeing this.”
    “Quit whining, and enjoy the show. I told Zombie that I have the cure for his HIV, which is a total lie, and if he could infect the other three, I’d give him the cure.”
    I watched Zombie chase those kids around the pit for two minutes before I finally decided to leave. I needed some fresh air in order to clear my head and think.
    Only Ryker, a handful of trusted guards, and myself