Last Ranger (19 page)

Before he knew it the weapon was flying from his hands and both remaining arms of the beastman were around him. The thing
lifted him in a bear hug, the ripped ugly face only inches from his own. The breath alone made Stone want to surrender. But
it was his own breath he was more concerned about as it was being squeezed out of him as if in the grip of a python. There
was no way in hell he could break the hold. Stone could feel the vertebrae along his back bending in and threatening to crack
in the not too distant future as the pressure grew tremendous.

Stone felt something digging hard into his neck. He reached over and touched the pen gun that he’d bought. It was a gun—you
just had to turn it. Turn it, turn it! His brain was already going out from lack of oxygen, everything gray and strange with
a blue outline around it all. Stone knew he had less than a second or two. He lifted his hand up so the tip of the mini-gun
slammed right up against the mess of scarred flesh that was the forehead. Then he turned the thing hard.

There was a sharp crack, and for a second or two the arms didn’t release around him but seemed to grow even tighter. Stone
slipped into blackness for an instant. But just as quickly the arms loosened slowly like a mother releasing her child against
her will. Stone’s eyes opened and he saw a tiny red hole dead center of the giant’s head with pink stuff leaking out of front
and back. Then the arms fell away completely and the fighter staggered backwards, did a pirouette and then fell over, slamming
his face into a pulp as he hit the concrete. He never felt it.

Stone wearily picked himself up off the floor and took a look over at three-legs. He wasn’t doing too hot either. He didn’t
seem to be exactly dead, but just rolling around on the floor making sounds like a hyena in heat. Stone walked over to Excaliber,
who was sitting bone-tired with a little pool of blood collecting below his chest where the sliced neck was still flowing
freely. The dog’s eyes were bright and as Stone approached it, it looked up at him and managed a weak bark as if to say, “We
kicked bukanky today, Chow Boy, and I’ll be expecting something special tonight on the dinner table.” Stone didn’t have the
heart to tell the dog that if he knew the Dwarf at all there was a fair chance they wouldn’t be having dinner at all tonight.
They wouldn’t be having dinner ever.

S
TONE stood in the center of the steel-walled arena with the dead lying around him and raised his fist up at the Dwarf.

“I won, now give me my fucking sister and let me out of here.” The Dwarf at last came out of his trance, his eyes opening
wide, his stumps starting to move around frantically like they always did when he was thinking hard.

“I never said you would win anything,” the eggman laughed into a microphone in front of him so that his voice echoed throughout
the metal room. “That was in your own mind. But I must say that I’m not all that surprised that you won. I’ve always known
you were my greatest adversary since the first time we met. And in a way, I’m actually pleased. For now you can attend my
wedding, be my best man—as I’d hoped. After all, I want to give the blushing bride away, Stone. It will be the core of the
ceremony.”

Stone rushed at the wall in a maddened rage and tried to scale its seamless side. It was ridiculous, he couldn’t get up higher
than he could jump and then just drop down again. High above the Dwarf stabbed at the buttons of his wheelchair and the motorized
war machine turned and headed out. He motioned for his underlings who milled around him like bees to get Stone prepared. Below,
Stone walked back to the dog just as the door slid open and four greenshirts came in. But Stone was in no mood for any more
bullshit. He reached down and grabbed hold of one of the dead fighter’s machetes and hefted it in his hand.

“Okay assholes, who’s first?” he snarled as they came up to him in a semicircle.

“You,” the head man smirked and whipped up a can of something. He sprayed it right into Stone’s face, who headed into bye-bye
land before he could even get off a single blow. He saw the steel floor coming up at him fast and then—darkness.

When he came to God knew how many hours later he was instantly inundated with sound and light. Stone opened his eyes, wincing
as the bright light was painful. His head throbbed badly and it was hard to see anything at first. Then he did. The Dwarf
was up on a platform—with April sitting just a few feet away from him with the same dazed expression she’d had the last time
he saw her. The Dwarf was decked out in full tuxedo, with the arms and legs cut off so his stumps poked through. April was
dressed in— Stone could hardly bear to look. It was obscene—the virginal white wedding gown that had been turned into a mockery
of the institution of marriage with the chest cut open so both her breasts were pushing out. And the same around her pelvic
area, and Stone was sure—the backside as well. The guy was a real joker.

Stone stifled the impulse to start screaming his lungs out as it hadn’t done too much good the last few times other than hurt
his throat. He was in the Tribunal Chamber, only instead of its dark and judgmental tones, it was lit up and decorated with
streamers and ornaments all over the walls. The rest of the freaks sat in various chairs and couches in a circle around the
stage which had been erected for the event. Tables were filled with food and drink, the usual retinue of unclothed and semi-clothed
women were there. Stone was clearly in the “in” crowd. He looked down and saw that he was wearing a tux as well. They’d stripped
him down and gotten him totally reclothed in full wedding regalia. And he was strapped as usual to a metal chair feet, arms,
chest, everything. He couldn’t move an inch, other than his head.

“Ah, Stone,” the Dwarf said from the platform as he turned away from gazing on the stoned beauty of April, who gazed ahead,
clearly on another planet.

“Dwarf, you’re not really going through with this— wedding, are you?” Stone asked, knowing full well the answer, but not being
able to stomach it.

“Go through with it?” the Dwarf shrieked. “We’ve been waiting for you to become conscious, they gave you a little too much
gas. Why look, half my guests are already asleep.” Stone saw that indeed six of the freaks were already stoned out of their
minds, lying in their recliners with mouths open and drool and slime dripping on everything.

“And now you are back among the living, so we may proceed. Priest, please,” the Dwarf motioned. A frazzled-looking old man
with hair white as snow all tousled up on top of his head came stumbling out from behind a curtain. He wore a religious frock,
only this one had studs, obscene writing and graffiti all over it. The “priest” looked at the Dwarf and appeared about ready
to faint.

“What’s wrong, padre?” the Dwarf asked, standing tall on his stumps in the wheelchair. “You look tired.”

“Sorry, Mr. Dwarf, I’m not feeling well—the trip from Colbranch was hard and long. We were attacked and—”

“My men did not treat you well?” the Dwarf asked, the color starting to redden in his corpse-like pasty cheeks.

“Oh no, Mr. Dwarf, I mean yes, Mr. Dwarf,” the priest stuttered, terrified by the eggman and the rest of the freaks. “They
treated me very well, very well.”

“Good, good,” Dwarf said. “Then we may begin. Now, first you definitely are a priest, I mean ordained and all that?” Dwarf
asked.

“Well, I was once, before the collapse and—”

“Before the collapse, that’s all I want to know,” the Dwarf said. “That in the eyes of the dead laws of the U.S. means that
it’s all legal. For my forebears will rule and I don’t want any problems with any contenders challenging the legality of my
marriage or the birth of my children down the line. You understand?”

“Uh yes, I—understand. So you’re going to marry the girl sitting here?” the priest asked, hardly able to believe his eyes.
Why had he let the slime talk him into coming? The money they had offered—twenty pieces of silver. It was a fortune. But now
it hardly seemed enough.

“Yes I’m going to marry the girl,” the Dwarf shrieked back. “Any problems with that? Who the hell else did you think was going
to marry her?”

“Oh sorry, sorry, sorry Mr. Dwarf.” The priest looked around to see just what his chances were of fleeing right out of the
place. None. Guards stood at every wall, in full honor guard at the Dwarf’s wedding. He was here for the duration. The priest
suddenly smiled his widest, most forced fake smile at the Dwarf, an expression he had used successfully many times before
in dealing with the general public.

“Ah good, good, now everything is all straightened out, is it?” the Dwarf laughed, motioning with his right stump for an underling
to hand the priest some papers. “These are the words you will read,” the Dwarf said. “And then I will give her this ring.”
He held up an immense diamond between his two stumps and spun it around. The priest pitied the poor girl sitting there drugged
like a zombie. But he wasn’t going to sacrifice his life. There was nothing he could do.

“Yes of course,” the priest said, taking the papers. He took out some spectacles from his chest pocket and put them on, reading
the words down the page. “Oh, I don’t think—”

“Of course you can,” the Dwarf said quickly. “Of course you can. Not let’s get on with it.”

“I… I…” the priest’s hand shook, holding the paper in it. He still believed somewhere inside of him in God, even though he
was a charlatan. It frightened him in his very soul to commit the sacrilege that the Dwarf wanted him to by reading the blasphemous
words. The Dwarf motioned with his head and one of his elite bodyguards who were always near him walked the two yards to the
priest, who stood in the middle of the stage and held his 9mm up against the man’s temple. He took off the safety with a loud
click. The priest gulped hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down like a plumber’s plunger.

“All right, I’ll do it, I’ll do it,” he choked out, seeing his wife and children dead without him—or very happy with the twenty
silver pieces he would bring home. Conscience could only go so far in the new world.

“Good. Excellent,” the Dwarf said, holding out his stump. “Hold my hand, dear,” he smiled sweetly at April, whose head turned
slowly like a robot, on rusty gears.

“Yes dear, I will hold your hand,” she echoed, reaching out and taking hold of the purple red stump. Then she turned her head
back again, looking straight ahead.

“Dearly ugly and diseased,” the priest began, halting on every word that came from his mouth. “We are gathered here today
to give Dwarf a breeding bitch. One who will bring him a boy child into this world who will someday rule over all the lands,
from sea to burning sea.” The Dwarf had a wide smile on his squashed face and Stone suddenly started screaming again in spite
of himself. He couldn’t stand to see this happening. It was worse than his worse nightmare. He had failed her, had failed
his whole family. And now was being forced to watch the final humiliation. But even as he screamed and the priest stopped
and looked up startled, one of the greenshirts rushed over and slammed a gag around Stone’s mouth, cutting the sound off.

Once order had been restored the priest continued on. “Let it hereforth be known that April Stone shall have two years to
produce a freak man child. All female children shall be destroyed at birth. As will all normal male children. Only a freak
boy like Dwarf himself shall live. He shall be the Dwarf’s only legitimate offspring with there being no other claims to the
leadership of the NAUASC council.” The Dwarf’s smile seemed to grow even wider as he sat in his wheelchair like the cat who
had just swallowed the rat. “If April Stone does not produce the required freak child, this marriage shall be considered null
and void and Dwarf shall be free to choose another breeding bitch.”

The priest paused and seemed to look up at the metal ceiling as if begging God for forgiveness for his reading of the black
ceremony. But he went on.

“And now—will the bride please recite the following words.”

“Dear,” the Dwarf said, shaking his stump within her hand. “The man wants you to say some words.”

“Yes, I shall say some words,” she said, turning toward the priest with a dead expression.

“I, April Stone do hereby swear—”

“I, April Stone do hereby square,” she said, not quite getting it right as she slurred her words from the effects of the tranquilizer
that had been pumped into her for two weeks now.

“To serve the Dwarf and only the Dwarf.”

“To serve the Dwarf and honly the Dwarf.”

“And carry out his every command, even the death of my own child.”

“And carry out his every rommand, even the death of my own ch-hild.”

“And do all that I can to make the Dwarf satisfied.”

“And do all that I can to make the Dwarf sad is filed.”

“And I, Dwarf,” the priest said, turning to the armless, legless monster.

“And I, Dwarf.”

“Promise to protect and obey April Stone from all others who would try to use her ovaries for reproductive purposes.”