“Let go of me! Let go!” The young man struggled against his captors. “This is bullshit! I didn’t do…”
“Shut it, Low-Class!” The man on his left cuffed him hard in the head.
They reached the end of the hallway. The man on the prisoner’s right swung the prisoner around and slammed him hard into the wall. “Stay.” He dug his elbow into the young man’s spine to drive the point home.
The other man unlocked a door at the end of the hall. The light from the area beyond blinded the young man at first. His face slowly contorted in fear as his eyes focused. “NO! OH GOD!”
The large concrete room beyond was splattered with blood and gore from previous, unsuccessful combatants. The young man began struggling again. “I don’t DESERVE THIS!”
“SHUT UP!” The man holding him punched him hard in the side of the head.
“Hey man, take it easy. You don’t want to piss off the Premiers.”
“He’ll survive.” He grinned at the prisoner. “For now.”
“Right…” The man at the door returned his attention to the prisoner. “You broke the law, you pay the price, Low-Class.” He nodded to the other man.
The other man nodded back and peeled the young man off of the wall. The prisoner walked quietly the first couple of steps, then wrenched around and popped the guard in the face. “You son of a bitch!“
The man by the door pulled out a handheld device and aimed it at the escaping prisoner. A pair of weighted balls rocketed out the front. They separated in flight, tethered together by a thin wire.
That wire struck the back of the prisoner’s ankles. The balls swung around his legs. He dropped to the ground, screaming.
The assaulted guard ran up to him and kicked him hard in the side. “That’s enough, scumbag!” The young man glared at the guard, but held his tongue.
The other man joined the first. They roughly picked the prisoner back up and forced him towards the door. The guard on the right shook his head. “You shouldn’t have done that, kid. You’re going to get shit for a weapon.”
“Maybe literally.” The other guard grinned sadistically.
The guards gave the prisoner one last mighty shove. The young man tumbled into the immense room. The steel door slammed shut behind him.
He tried to find his feet, but they slipped out from underneath him. He thudded back to the ground, knocking the wind out of him. He was in a congealed puddle of blood.
The young man backpedaled furiously. The stench of rancid blood and rotting flesh threatened to overwhelm him. He retched violently.
He pushed himself to his feet using the wall beside the door. The guard on the other side waved gleefully before walking away. The prisoner turned back around and observed his surroundings.
He was in a large, open concrete room about two stories tall. The far wall was about ten yards away from where he stood. Another steel door was installed in it.
Up above on one wall was a series of windows. Two old men were peering down at him. The Premiers. Directly below their observation deck was a steel panel.
The room was otherwise featureless, save for the abundant blood and gore. He picked his way around it to stand in front of the Premiers. “I’m innocent! Let me out!”
The two men looked at each other and laughed heartily. One leaned forward. He spoke with an English accent, his voice booming in the enclosed space. “So say they all, young man!”
The steel panel slid down. “You are extra guilty! You attacked your guards.” A baseball bat slid out of the new opening and clattered to the ground. “Bad show… and a bad weapon! HAW!”
The audio cut out. Both men laughed in their booth. The door across the way clicked. The young man gasped and stared. The door began to open.
The prisoner scrambled to where the baseball bat had fallen and hastily picked it up. The sound of an inhuman moan brought his attention back to the door.
A deathly pale man slithered out into the room. He lurched with a heavy limp. He regarded the prisoner with clouded eyes. His stare was vacant.
Brownish-black blood oozed from numerous open wounds, though a gash in one of his arms appeared bloodless. A block of steel was stuck in the side of his head. A small antenna emerged from it. A small red light on the end began to blink.
“Let’s begin, shall we?” The Premier allowed his laugh to ring through the cavernous room before cutting it off.
The zombie-like man suddenly stood straight up. He then relaxed into a martial arts pose. “I suppose you don’t know any Kung Fu?” The ghoulish figure burst towards the prisoner with frightening speed.
The young man cried in fright. He hefted the baseball bat and crashed it into the ghoul. The weapon caved in the ghoul’s chest where it hit.
The creature looked down at the new wound, then back at the prisoner. The ghoul snapped his teeth and hissed. Brownish blood oozed out of his mouth.
The prisoner swung at the ghoul. The creature grabbed the bat mid-swing and ripped it from the prisoner’s hands. It clattered across the floor, far from his reach.
The young man punched at the thing’s chest and stomach. The ghoul did not flinch or react. His eyes darted from the device on the ghoul’s head to the Premiers and back.
He grabbed the antenna on the device and wrenched it sideways. There was a loud electrical pop as the antenna came free in his hand. The ghoul shook violently and collapsed on the ground.
“Good show, old boy! You broke our toy. But it will still break you…”
The ghoulish man groaned and slowly rose from the ground. His clouded eyes fixed on the young man. The ghoul rocketed forward and seized the prisoner.
Man and ghoul howled and screamed as they rolled across the bloody floor. The ghoul cut the man’s screams short with a vicious bite to the throat.
“Such silliness!” The Premier turned to his partner. “The one thing restraining the creature and he disables it. Ah, well…”
“Yes, yes… Quite.” The other Premier toggled a switch on the instrument panel before him. “Bigsby, come clean up the arena, please. Also, prepare another Undead, would you? Blimey fool prisoner frenzied the last one.”
“I get the next one, Nigel.”
“Naturally.”
The Premier peered down into the room below. “Think they’ll ever learn? Obey?”
“Well I certainly hope not!” Nigel grinned devilishly.
The Premier returned the grin. “Quite.”
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