The Thing/One Blade full fight

He held up a finger. A hand went to his pocket and came out with a thin black case. He unzipped it and opened it like a paperback. Inside were three syringes. He pulled out the first, held it up in front of me.

“Sodium amobarbital,” he said. “And a micro-dose of LSD.” I knew about that little cocktail. The amobarbital slowed the speed at which the spinal cord sent messages to your brain. The LSD skewed the messages altogether. The result was a total loss of inhibition. Truth serum.

One-Blade placed the needle on the webbing between my pinky and ring finger on my left hand. The palm down one. He looked at me, then sunk the needle deep into the meat of my hand and plunged in the liquid. It didn’t feel great. He extracted the needle and placed the empty syringe back in the case.

“Doesn’t matter,” I said. “I don’t know a *bleep* thing.” He smiled.

“You spied on the President,” he said. “That’s a big no-no. It’s my job to find out why.”

“He *bleep* knows why,” I said. “I found out he’s behind the *bleep* Labyrinth.” One-Blade squinted at me.

“We’ll get to that bit,” he said. He pulled out the second syringe. It was much larger than the first.

“Human Growth-Hormone,” One-Blade said. He stabbed the huge needle into the webbing between my ring and middle finger. I felt it slide three inches into the center of my hand. Something cold pumped into me. I had no idea why he’d given me a performance enhancer.

“Keeps you alive,” said One-Blade, answering the look on my face. “Can’t have you dying too quickly from all the acute trauma.”

Oh, I thought. *bleep*. The third needle went in between my middle and index finger.

“Haloperidol,” said One-Blade. I looked at him.

“What’s that one do?” I said. My words came a little slurry. The amobarbital was already hitting. “Let’s keep it a surprise,” he said, smiling.

...

He pinched the tip of the nail and placed it onto the back of my left hand, in line with my middle finger.

“The goal is to fracture the metacarpal,” he said, pressing down. “Obviously that causes the most pain, and maximizes trauma. When you go through the palm, the meat of the muscle sort of locks the nail in place, keeping it right in line with the bone. I can crack it damn near every time. But on the back of the hand . . . see how even though the bone is right there beneath the skin, the nail keeps slipping to the side? You just can’t get it to stay on track. I’ve only split the bone once. Maybe you’ll be lucky number two.”

He brought the hammer down fast and precise. Despite the brain fog, the pain was all-consuming. I screamed and jerked and roared and accomplished nothing but more pain. Maybe it was all in my head, but I swear I felt the jagged flakes of rust scraping off inside my hand, ripping their way down my veins, coursing into my blood stream. The nail jerked all the way through and jammed firmly into the maple arm plank.

...


“It’ll be interesting to see what happens when we get to your knee caps,” he said.

“You won’t be alive then,” I said.

“Oh yeah?” said One-Blade, a smile creasing his face. “Why not?”

“File say anything about my carpentry skills?”

Ever since he’d mentioned it, my swirling brain had been reliving the construction of the Adirondak chair. I’d run out of decking screws about three-quarters of the way through, but instead of heading in to Ace’s to buy more, I’d finished it off with a pack of brad nails I’d found in the garage. To secure the arm planks, I’d nailed the brads upward through the base so no nail heads showed. Gave it a nice clean look. As far as I could recall, the nail points only sunk in about half an inch.

“No,” said One-Blade, tilting his head up to meet my eyes. “Why?”

“They’re shit,” I said. I yanked my left arm upward. The steel cables’ incredible tensile strength held, of course. The brad nails’ thin points didn’t. With a high-pitched screech the arm plank ripped free. One-Blade’s eyes went wide. He jerked backward, but not before four-inches of raw iron stabbed into his right ear.


He died with a look of complete shock on his face.

With One-Blade’s head still fixed to the nail, I ripped the right arm plank off the chair in similar fashion and rose to my feet. My lower legs were still firmly attached to base of the chair. On each forearm I now had two hardwood shields with four-inch iron spikes sticking out the front. One-Blade’s head slid off the nail and his body thumped to the ground.

I turned toward The Thing. He emerged from the shadows . . . and smiled. Then the Haloperidol hit.

Haloperidol's a hell of a drug. The Soviets were the first to administer it for pharmaceutical torture back in the eighties. It’s an antipsychotic used for treatment of acute psychosis, delirium, and alcohol withdrawal, amongst other things. But the real fun begins when you overdose someone who isn’t insane. It takes about twenty minutes to kick in, then your muscles begin to spasm violently. You look and feel like you have Parkinson’s. But that’s not the worst part. Not even close. After the shakes hit, your mind is slowly enveloped by an inescapable foreboding. Put simply, you quite literally quake with dread. Standing in a lake of blood, I began to scream. Not in pain. In fear. Somewhere far off, The Thing started laughing.

“Halo’s got you,” he said, his voice distorted into a demon’s snarl. “The Nightmare Juice.” I tried to run, forgetting that my legs were manacled to the chair, tripped, and fell face-first into the blood lake. It did nothing to improve my mood. Face down in sanguine hell, I screamed and thrashed and tried to flee the nightmare, but it was everywhere and all at once.

...

“That’s more or less true,” said The Thing. “You’re not getting out of here. I’m the guy they send when they need someone disappeared.”

“Figured,” I said.

It was about then that a funny thing happened. Slowly, gradually, I was becoming aware of myself again. The sticky blood on the floor beneath me, soaking into my beard. The wooden planks gripping excruciatingly to each forearm. The tight pain in my lower legs where the base of the chair was still connected. The nightmare was fading. No. Not fading. I was becoming aware of it. Like that moment of clarity in the bathroom mirror when you’re particularly high.

“Wha’ is this shit?” I said, my voice frayed. Full of panic. The Thing laughed.

“They use it for booze dependency,” he said. “And crazy fuckers. At about a tenth the dose.”

“How long,” I whimpered, “will it last?” The Thing chuckled.

“For the rest of your life,” he said.

“Make it stop!” I screamed. The Thing laughed some more.

“Sorry pal,” he said. “That’s not how this works. You fucked with the President. Inside his home. There’s no coming back from that.” I started screaming in earnest, as if caught in the deepest, darkest recesses of the nightmare. I thrashed my legs, flexing at the knees, smashing my manacled shins against the cabin floor over and over again. It hurt horrifically. The mass of maple chair base rattled and shook against my restraints. I heard a crack. Felt something give. Kept thrashing.

“You’re going to die now,” said The Thing, leaning in close to snarl in my ear.

“I got a better idea,” I screamed.

“Oh yeah?” said The Thing, chuckling his demon’s chuckle. “What’s that?”

“This.” I shot to my feet. The severely damaged chair was still attached to my lower legs. I raised a foot, heard another crack, then stomped at The Thing’s upturned, gaping face. He was down on all fours, leaning over his hands to whisper sweet nothings in my ear. He tried leaping back but his hands slipped in the coagulating blood. My heel bashed his cheekbone, knocking his chin into the floorboards. The chair base cracked in two. Mangled bits were still attached to each leg, but I had the use of both feet again. The steel cables cut unmercifully into the bone, but I went for The Thing again, a second brutal stomp. He rolled away, scrambling to his feet in the lake of blood. For someone so large, he moved incredibly fast. He backed away across the lake in a fighter’s crouch, eyes locked on mine. I stepped backward until my feet found dry footing.

“That was enough halo to kill an elephant,” he said, confused. “You should be dying.” I shrugged.

“Not your day,” I said. The Thing settled his eyes on me. I tried not to think about how he’d handled Gow without a scratch.

“Sure it is,” he said, grinning. And it began.

...

The Ka-bar came in low and fast. I had one foot in the air, mid-pivot, all my weight on my left leg. The Thing closed the distance between frames. Impossible to track in the dim light. I stuck out my left shield to deflect the flashing blade. The Thing watched me commit, then the Ka-bar changed direction, darting around the edge of the plank like a scorpion’s sting. A four inch gash appeared on my forearm. I was still waiting for the pain to hit when the tomahawk swooped down. I took it on the right shield. A savage blow. And there was the knife again, darting in from an impossible angle. A second slash materialized across my side.

*bleep* me. I’d never seen someone so skilled with a blade.

The tomahawk had lodged itself in my right shield, the apex of its blade penetrating my forearm to the bone. I pivoted, wrenched down, hoping to twist the axe from The Thing’s grip. He yanked back savagely. The tomahawk dislodged from wood and bone. The sudden shift in momentum made him stagger. I lunged, slapping at his throat with the crooked nail protruding from my right hand. He dodged, looking bored, and the tomahawk came up in a vertical arc into my exposed groin. I chopped down with my left shield. The axe cleaved three inches into the edge of the maple plank, biting into my forearm. Then the Ka-bar flashed over the top. At my heart.

I was dead.

I let go of my legs and dropped knee-first to the lake of blood. The knife plunged between my ribs. A kill shot. But I was falling, my hardened ribs chopping down on the face of the blade as it slid inside me, pulling it down with me. The Thing leaned in over his front leg, desperate to sink the killing blow. And four-inches of rising iron nail met his exposed crotch.

“NO!” he grunted.

“Yes,” I growled.

The knife retracted. Blood gouted. I might already be dead. I met The Thing’s eyes. Saw no fear. Only rage. My right-hand nail was still sunk deep in his groin. The Ka-bar spun in his palm, fingers locking it into place, blade down. I closed my right fist and yanked myself forward using the crotch-sunk nail, knees sliding atop the slick coagulating blood, left arm slipping between The Thing’s legs, nail-side up. Then The Thing roared and stabbed down. I looked up. Saw the blade descend. Watched, as four inches of hardened steel penetrated my forehead.

...

“How’d you get him?” The Thing, who’s name we’d yet to learn, was in an induced coma in the next room.

“Slapped him on the back,” I said. Gow raised an eyebrow. “Helped that I had a six-inch nail pounded through my hand,” I said, holding up my bandaged palm. “From the way he convulsed, I’m pretty sure I nicked his spinal cord.”

“Ouch.”

“Can’t say I feel too bad about it.” Gow didn’t reply. He was still looking at me funny.

“What?” I said.

“You still haven’t told me how you’re not dead.” The edges of my mouth curled.

“He stabbed me exactly in-line with my scar,” I said, holding an index finger up between my eyes.

“I know,” said Gow. “I’m looking down the hole.”

“Great shot,” I said. “Takes incredible strength. But he didn’t know his cerebrum anatomy.” Gow cocked his head.

“What on earth are you talking about?”

“I looked down the blade,” I said. Gow blinked a few times.

“Come again?”

“Story Code told me,” I said. “Guy came into the ER in Pretoria with a machete hacked through the top of his skull. Blade was sunk in four inches. Damn near cleaved his skull in half. Code figured the guy was already dead, just didn’t know it yet. But when they removed the blade . . . .” I shrugged. “Guy was fine.”

“What?” said Gow.

“The great longitudinal fissure.” Gow blinked a couple more times, said nothing. “There’s a groove between the hemispheres of your brain,” I said. “A big cleft right down in the middle, maybe half an inch wide, about three inches deep. Just wide and deep enough for a blade to slide through without doing any serious damage.” Gow’s stared at me for a while with his mouth open.

“Are you saying you let him stab you on purpose?” he said. If I could have shaken my head, I would have.

“He was going to stab me anyway,” I said. “He was too damn good with that blade. But I knew from my old x-rays that my scar was right in line with the fissure. Figured it’d make a good target. All I had to do was tilt my face and help him line it up. It gave me the opening I needed.” Gow stared at me.

“How’d you get the blade out?” he said.

“Yanked it,” I said. “Code nearly feinted. Then rushed me to surgery and tied off the blood vessels. Pretty gnarly. I was awake the hole time.” Gow’s mouth was hanging open. “I should be fine,” I said.

“Should?” said Gow. “With a fucking hole in your head?”

“Code’s been ominously vague about long term side effects.” Gow shook his head, letting out a little laugh.

“What about the drugs?” he said. “Why didn’t they work?”

“They did,” I said. Gow scrunched his brow.

“Too low a dose?” he said. I did another invisible head shake.

“Code’s got a theory,” I said.

“Something to do with my inhibitor pathways. Same reason I can drink ten whiskeys and still kick your ass. Stuff hits me, it just wears off quick.”

“What the actual *bleep*,” said Gow, marvelling. “You’re lucky they didn’t have that in your file.”
-Sledge vs. The Labyrinth pg. 249-269