Taking Back Fun Day

Ghoul woke slowly. He still ached in all his muscles and joints and burned where the electrodes had been attached to him. Opening his eyes, he felt relief to find himself still on the floor of his cell and not attached to some hellish machine as had happened so many times.

Drawing in his arms, he attempted to push himself upright. As expected, it proved to be a difficult manoeuvre; his limbs felt weak and as if he were only partly in control. Pressing his palms to the floor dragged a ragged cry from his lips as the tearing of his skin from the injections below his fingernails stung as though happening all over again. Pulling in breaths in quick and shallow gasps, he drew his hands in protectively close to his chest and allowing his half clenched fingers to recover. At the moment of concentrating on his damaged hands, he recalled seeing Harrison. His brow creased as he tried to remember what the context of the meeting had been. It took a few minutes, but eventually he remembered - the vials of blood, the chilling description of the drug they planned to test on him and… the slip of paper.

Looking up, he scanned the room for security cameras, finally spotting them in each corner of the room. Shuffling slowly and carefully, Ghoul edged closer to the wall, closing in on one of the corners. Curling into a protective ball, he pulled the paper from the inside of his jacket, grimacing as his fingers tried to open the folded paper. Allowing his hair to fall over his hand, he disguised it enough that he felt reasonably certain that no one would see what he was doing. Chewing his lip absently, he read the note.

“Huh,” he almost grunted before adding, to himself, in barely a whisper. “He’ll do anything to save his sorry ass.”

Having nowhere else to put it, he pushed the paper deep into the lining again, hoping that no one had observed him. It was only then that he realised that this room was not his cell. On waking previously, he had noticed that the only fitting in the room had been a toilet, but this room didn’t even have that. Clearly he had been moved, but to where, he had no idea. Deciding to remain huddled in the corner anyway, it seemed a safer option. But no sooner had he drawn that conclusion than he heard the door opening. Remaining unmoving, more out of wilful anger than any plan of attack or escape, Ghoul waited.

“Well now,” the man paused. “I thought you were going to kill me. You don’t appear to be that threatening. Given up, Frankie?”

Ghoul exhaled deeply; he hated this man. Not least for what he was doing to him, but for what he had done to Party, Kobra, Jet and hundreds of others, if not more.

“What do you want, Grant?” Ghoul sneered in response - two could play his game.
“You will address me as Chief Exterminator Korse, or sir.”

Ghoul gently pushed away from the wall so he rolled to face the opposite direction. Adopting a deeply disinterested expression, he smirked.

“Look around you, Korse. The room is packed wall to wall, floor to ceiling with all the fucks I give.”
“I suspect,” Korse continued, unmoved, “that you’ll change your mind shortly.”
“Why? Your torture monkey come up with something new, has he?”
“When you’re finished in here, that will be the end of your torture. I feel that you have taken sufficient for my needs.”
“You have really twisted needs,” Ghoul scowled.
“Perhaps but soon, so will you.”
“Really? I doubt that.”
“Doubt if you wish, but it doesn’t change anything. Your body, clearly apart from your mouth, has been weakened to the point that the drug will be effective and once it is, your wayward mind will follow.”

Ghoul stared back, uncertain what he meant and unwilling to ask. Did this mean that they had perfected the drug? Was he about to be subjected to it like a lab rat?

“You might well look concerned,” Korse offered a broad but unpleasant, self-satisfied smile. “Welcome to Sensory 5,” he added, waving an arm to indicate the room, “after all, I did promise.”

Ghoul’s brow creased as he wondered what was so special about this room. As he took a moment to consider, he yelped in pain and added an almost gargling sound as another scream tore through unexpectedly. Trying to roll out of the path of the steam jets that had scalded him only caused more agony, as did trying to use his hands to pull himself away. As he moved, so another series of jets sprung into action. This time his right cheek caught some of the blast and he screamed as his skin reddened and threatened to blister.

Now not even aware that Korse had again left the room Ghoul tried to shuffle away from the source of his agony and push himself to his feet. It was difficult, but not impossible. Finally rising with a definite tremble in his entire body, Ghoul was suddenly knocked to the floor again as a wide, icy jet of water hit him in the chest. Immediately soaked, Ghoul’s clothes clung to him sending a feeling of being stung by small, ice cold needles. Gasping for breath at the shock, his breathing hitched again as a second jet, this time scalding water hit in the same spot. Pulling his shirt away from his body in an attempt to stop his chest blistering, his hands trembled under the pain already in his fingers being exacerbated by the temperature of the water. As he reeled from the attack, several intense and deafening klaxons began wailing in the room. All were at different pitches and patterns - sirens, beeps, fog horns, one even sounding like a jackhammer and each one vibrated in every cell of his body. Even the lighting in the room changed suddenly to display black and white swirling tunnel patterns on the walls, disorientating and confusing Ghoul to the point where he was no longer able to find his balance. Another jet of steam, followed by a blast of ice water, sent him spinning to the left. As he fell, what felt like a club hit him in the knees and chest simultaneously. Dazed, he looked around to see that sections of the floor had risen and poles with different lengths of wood or metal bars protruding from them where turning sharply and seemingly randomly in different directions. As he moved to avoid one, another crashed into him, the metal bar sending through him a spark of electricity powerful enough to throw him backwards, but only as far as another pole, the wooden clubs crashing across his back, knocking the air from his lungs and throwing him forward once more. Throwing his arms out for balance, his hands gripped one of the metal bars. Instead of an electric shock, this one had been heated to a high temperature. Pulling his hands away quickly, he could only hope they wouldn’t blister. Stumbling back and forth, trying desperately to find a safe spot, Ghoul felt like a ball in a deadly pinball game. Finally sinking to his knees as one of the wooden clubs caught the back of his head, Ghoul was claimed by blessed unconsciousness and was spared the awareness of any subsequent torture.

*

Red stared as she chewed her lower lip. Waiting for Dr Death Defying to begin to speak she held her breath; what could Party have been referring to?

“Okay, so bearing in mind we’re going back about twenty years now,” he finally began.

Red nodded in reply but said nothing.

“Right, so you know Korse is Party and Kobra’s uncle?” He asked, trying to work out the best starting position.
“Yeah,” she nodded again. “Still find that too weird to think about!”
“You and me, both!” Death agreed. “I don’t know what else you know, so I’ll just tell you everything.” Pausing briefly, he continued. “Okay, so Korse killed their dad in front of them and took them to BLI solely to raise his profile.”
“How would that raise his profile?” Red frowned, her brow furrowing as she tried to imagine how it would help him.
“BLI wanted to begin an advertising campaign, and this was all before Mousekat, you understand. They wanted someone the citizens could relate to, someone that would put them in a good, caring, family-style light. They were six and ten, cute kids who, at least he thought, had been fully indoctrinated into the BLI machine. They both, but Party in particular, became the faces of BLI and because he had brought them in, he found favour too. They advertised and endorsed everything. Their happy, angelic faces convincing the public that BLI had everyone’s interests at heart, but they really had no idea how their images were being used. Korse started to doubt Party’s loyalty to BLI and got him hooked on Kanslokal at age thirteen...” Death sighed at the memory. “He nearly killed him.”
“What happened?” She asked astonished but not surprised at Korse’s cruelty even then.
“A friend got him out and brought him to me to get him off it.”
“Did it work?” Red asked tentatively.

Death smiled at her uncertainty and nodded.

“Yeah, it did and he was all set to go back to Bat City.”
“Back? To Korse?” Red gasped.
“Yeah,” Death gave a half-smile, recalling the thirteen year old boy’s look of determination. “Brave as hell even then. He wanted to use his position to help people in the Zones.”
“Did he?” Red’s brow creased as she wondered if Party had kept his promise.
“He never got the chance,” Death shook his head, a wave of sadness covering his eyes. “Two of my men were taking him back part of the way, meeting up with the friend who’d got him out. They were ambushed by Korse and the then Chief Exterminator Vitkovski.”
“How did they know?” Red asked, puzzled.
“Oh, the usual,” Death sighed. “There’s always someone who wants carbons and a bit of luxury more than they want friends. One of the docs in our camp,” he added with almost a snarl. “Fresh out of med school, hated the desert and the rough conditions, but didn’t we all?”
“It’s worse when it’s a friend,” Red frowned, remembering how Candi and Ice had sold out the Killjoys for money.

Dr Death Defying nodded grimly. “You’re thinking about Candi and Ice?”
“Yeah,” Red frowned. “Jet was so…” she reached mentally for the right word. “He was really affected by having to kill Candi.
Death nodded again. “How much do you know about that?” He asked with a curious tilt of his head.
“I was there,” she replied, surprised he didn’t know.
“No, I mean, Jet and killing people?”
“Oh!” She paused as she considered the question. “Not much. Kobra said it’s harder for Jet because he doesn’t have as much hate in him as the rest of them.”

Death raised an eyebrow and shrugged at the suggestion; it was certainly an aspect he had never considered.

“It’s definitely a possibility,” he agreed. “There have been times where I’m not sure Jet’s even capable of hate, but… well, that’s a whole different story. We’ll come back to that another time. Or… no, maybe ask Jet. It should come from him, at least at first.”
“You want to know what his take is, don’t you?” She smirked, reading his expression of curiosity.
“You’re observant, I’ll say that for you,” he smiled in return. “Not gonna sneak much past you?”
“I should hope not,” Red grinned at the exchange. “Anyway, sorry, we’ve gone off track.”

Death’s face morphed immediately into a serious, almost grim expression as he continued.

“Yeah, well, they killed my men and... Party... he’d got pretty close to them while he was with us and he grabbed one of the guns and tried to attack Vitkovski. It didn’t take much for him to overpower Party, he was just a kid and Vitkovski was a big guy, really strong,” Death puffed himself up and held his arms out to look bulky to give some indication of the man’s size. “He was about to kill him as a traitor but Korse intervened.”
“Korse stopped him killing Party?” Red asked, curious as to how he’d done it without raising alarm bells over his own loyalty.
“In a manner of speaking,” Death shrugged. “Shot him dead, right between the eyes.”
“Korse killed the Chief Exterminator to stop him killing Party?” Red was open-mouthed at the idea that Korse had protected his nephew despite everything. “So, he has got some feelings?”
“He might have had... once,” Death shrugged. “But I suggest you reserve judgement until you’ve heard the rest. You want my opinion? Korse set Vitkovski up, as much as my men were. With him dead, Korse dragged Party back to Bat City, and straight into the BLI cells. By that point he knew for sure that his indoctrination hadn’t worked and he was set to try again. With three years’ advances in technology, he was pretty confident it would work second time around.”
“But...” Red frowned. “It didn’t...? What happened?”
“Well,” Death sighed, “first of all, as far as BLI were concerned, he’d rescued a supposedly brainwashed Party from rebels and killed them but not before they,” he emphasised with air quotes, “tragically killed Vitkovski. So, he was hailed a hero and promoted to Chief Exterminator.”
“A hero!” Red gasped. “He’s nothing but a coward!”
“And that’s where he made a crucial mistake, because, of course Party knew the truth and if he couldn’t break him, he was in danger.”
“He couldn’t break him?” Red’s voice was almost a whisper by this point.
“No, so he had to get rid of him and, to cut a long story short, Party ended up back with me along with Kobra and Ghoul.”
“He sent them to you? But...?” Red frowned; it seemed unlikely somehow.
“Ah, no... not quite. Party was supposed to be taken out to the desert and shot. He wasn’t going to just let him go, he just wasn’t going to pull the trigger himself. The man who got Party out in the first place managed it again and got Kobra and Ghoul out too. A bit tricky, but he did it.”
“What happened to him?” Red asked quietly.
“He died some time back,” Death looked suddenly sad, staring down at nothing.
“I’m sorry,” Red whispered.
Death shrugged and smiled wistfully. “Natural causes. Not many of them in the Zones these days.”

Red took Death’s hand and squeezed it lightly as she stared up at him.

“Thank you for telling me. It sounds like it has some really sad memories for you.”

Death took a deep breath and met her gaze.

“Happy ones too,” he smiled and nodded. “Go on, I gotta sort a few things out back here. They’ll be wondering where you are.”

Red was hesitant; he seemed so subdued and melancholy that she found herself not wanting to leave.

“It’s okay... I’m fine. If there’s any coffee...” he added trying to lighten the mood.
“Sure, I’ll bring some through,” she smiled in return.

Notes

Hello lovely readers. I hope you like this one. I'm neck deep in deadlines at the moment so never quite know when I'm going to update. Hopefully I'll have time to work on BTWF over Easter if not before.

Take care and thanks for reading
Sas xx