Free Time & Space (Short Fiction Collection Vol. 2) by Gord Rollo, Gene O'Neill, Everette Bell Page A

the surface and gulped a few mouthfuls of air; hadn’t even had time to wipe the water out of his stinging eyes, when amazingly, the attacker was back on top of him pushing him beneath the water again. What kind of a man could take a .44 caliber slug point blank to the chest, then get back up to continue fighting? He should have been dead instantly, floating downstream with a six-inch hole shredding his back. Unlikely as it seemed, maybe the shot had missed.
    Before Carson could fire again, the man drove a fist into Carson’s face. The powerful blow stunned him enough that he fumbled and lost his grip on the gun. He was making a feeble attempt at recovering it when the next blow landed solidly on the left side of his jaw. The world exploded in a star burst behind Carson’s eyes, and then everything went black. For the next minute, he faded in and out of consciousness, wondering how he seemed able to breathe underwater all of a sudden. He was too dazed to realize he’d been lifted from the shallow stream and was now being dragged by his heels up the sloping path toward the entrance to the cave.
    Through unfocused eyes, Carson managed to finally catch a glimpse of his adversary, and realized how this psycho might possibly have been able to stand up after the direct hit from the Magnum. For some unfathomable reason, the huge man dragging Carson into the darkness of the cave was wearing what appeared to be a suit of polished golden armor. Carson tried to make some sense of what he’d seen, but his eyes rolled up into their sockets and his mind drifted into the blissful arms of darkness.
     
    ***
     
    Carson awakened drenched in sweat, in the grip of the worst headache of his life. His jaw also hurt like hell. The rest of him felt relatively okay, with nothing more serious than a few cuts and bruises. Carson had no way of knowing how long he’d been unconscious, or what had become of the man in the golden armor.
    He was lying on his back inside of a crudely constructed steel cage. Through the bars, he could see the rough limestone walls and ceiling, and realized he was inside of the cavern. He felt a blistering heat beneath his back and when he rolled over to check out the source, he was shocked.
    The cage he was in was suspended fifteen feet in the air by a steel cable that disappeared into the shadow shrouded ceiling. Below Carson, and obviously the source of all the light and heat in the cavern, was the lake of liquid gold.
    With the exception of one small area near a bolted wooden door, the entire cavern appeared to be submerged in this decadent sea of unimaginable wealth. The gold glowed with a bright, ominous aura that could only be described as heavenly. Great geysers of the precious metal rolled on the surface, then shot into the air on currents of super-heated steam and venting gases. It was a breathtaking sight, and Carson had never witnessed anything like it.
    With a loud thump, the only door into the chamber was thrown wide open and in walked the man Carson had fought with. When he came into full view, and Carson finally had a chance to really take a good look, he let out a scream of horror and amazement. This man, if that was in fact what Carson was looking at, wasn’t wearing a suit of armor after all – in fact, he wasn’t wearing anything whatsoever. He was completely sealed in a cocoon of gold. No, that wasn’t right either, because there were no breathing holes or cut out apertures to see from. Carson couldn’t believe his eyes. This wasn’t simply a man covered in gold, but a living statue of a man, made entirely of gold.
    He was nearly as impressive of a sight as the lake he guarded over, his sculpted image shining with the same inner brilliance. He turned and looked up at his captive, smiling a large toothy grin, which Carson would have thought impossible. How could a creature made of solid gold, have the ability to perform a flexible maneuver such as smiling?
    “You have many questions, I’m