“Good evening, ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to Lionize
Entertainment’s fiftieth anniversary of the Lion Cup Tournament! My name is
Andrea Lovell and I am the CEO of Lionize Entertainment! We’re going to have a
fucking fun night of blood and death tonight!”
Hearing his boss echo those words throughout a coliseum full
of roaring fans made Dargoth Destroyer sick to his stomach and set his aching
brain on fire. The barbarian warrior firmly believed Andrea only had her job
because she looked like a million bucks in a short skirt and high heels. She
was easy to fantasize about, but hard to love.
Dargoth was too busy loving his own wife and kids back home.
He loved them so much that he would rip the limbs off of any opponent who dared
stand in the way of a paycheck and beat them to death like little bitches. With
his wrecking ball muscles and volcanic temper, he could do just that to pretty
much anybody.
Then again, so could Dargoth’s opponent for the evening,
Zeal Cottonwood. The rotten-smelling, blue skinned zombie towered over the
barbarian with a skyscraper height and muscles that might as well be registered
as deadly weapons (even the small and insignificant ones). Zeal stared down
into Dargoth’s eyes with neon-colored madness and smiled with rusty-nail teeth.
The barbarian, having already had visions of blood and
brutality locked forever in his brain, refused to give even an inch of
trembling to this undead beast with greasy long hair. The two opponents were so
laser-focused into each other’s menacing eyeballs that they tuned out the crowd
and Andrea Lovell’s nails-on-a-chalkboard voice completely.
It wasn’t until Miss Lovell, who sat at her golden throne in
a skybox above the coliseum, snapped into the microphone, “HEY!” that the two
combatants gave her their undying attention with wicked glares. “Are you two
ready to put on a hell of a show for these rowdy animals?! Give ‘em hell!”
Rowdy animals became the understatement of the year when the beer-drinking,
T-shirt and jeans wearing crowd’s cheers bored into the combatants’ eardrums
like a power drill. Even Zeal Cottonwood couldn’t help but grunt lightly at the
sudden explosion of volume.
“Ready to get your ass whipped, little buddy?” growled Zeal
in a monstrous tone. He leaned his sour milk-fragranced face in closer and
whispered, “Between you and me, I wouldn’t worry too much about that wife of
yours. I hear she’s banging the shit out of a hotter version of you. That
lucrative contract of yours is going up her nose and in her G-spots!”
Zeal’s demonic cackle prompted the angrily trembling Dargoth
to head butt his opponent in the nose. Both men clutched their noggins in pain
and groaned minimally, but Dargoth was the only one between the two who
staggered after such a brutal move. Zeal chuckled, “Is that all you got, little
man? No wonder your wife’s sleeping around. That spaghetti dick of yours
couldn’t satisfy a bitch like her anyways!”
Dargoth’s fiery adrenaline was smothered in kerosene,
causing the hefty barbarian to spear tackle Zeal’s gut so hard that the
seven-foot zombie flipped in the air like a pancake and flattened to the ground
like one too. The barbarian’s muscles tightened as tough as steel with every
brick-like punch he threw at the zombie’s already decrepit face. Teeth flew
everywhere, pimples popped like grenades, blood splattered across the dirt
floor, but through it all, Zeal never lost his smile and Dargoth’s hands
reddened with electrified pain.
Zeal Cottonwood pushed
Dargoth Destroyer in the air with his booted feet and nipped up in time to
catch the smaller warrior in a military press. The audience “oooed” and “ahhed”
like a herd of sheep while Zeal did strength training repetitions with
Dargoth’s 300 lb. body. The barbarian tried to rake and punch at his opponent’s
eyes, but the zombie wouldn’t relent. He tossed the smaller opponent across the
dirt arena and caused him to bounce up and down along the way, forming bruises
the size and disgustingness of rotten tomatoes.
Everything in Dargoth’s body felt as though he had been
stepped on by Godzilla and rubbed across the asphalt. Yet the mental images of
his beautiful wife and his two sweethearted daughters sent a rush of hot lava
through his veins. This kind of money would keep them fed forever.
It would give the daughters an education they wouldn’t have
dreamed of having in the ghetto neighborhood. It would give his wife a life of
happiness and stability. If he didn’t get up and fight at this very moment,
they would think of him as a failure and they’d most likely die from hunger in such
a downtrodden economy. It was such a distasteful way to make money, but in
Dargoth’s mind, there was no such thing as too much hard work.
By the time the barbarian heaved his clumsy ass off the
ground, he peered up through bloodshot, dirt-covered eyes to find Zeal had a
live chainsaw roaring to life in his hands. There were weapons scattered
everywhere on the bloodstained ground from staves to swords to axes. Dargoth
picked up an axe in his sore hands and then in a surprise move broke it over
his knee to send a message: “Weapons are for pussies! If you want to fight like
a pussy, I’ll treat you like one, Zeal! Come on, bitch!”
The gargantuan zombie rushed towards Dargoth swinging his
power tool like a deranged samurai while Dargoth egged him on with a “come at
me” hand gesture. The chainsaw blazed and buzzed all around the barbarian while
the muscly warrior dodged and cartwheeled to safety despite losing a lock of
his own sweaty hair.
Dargoth saw his opening when he ducked a decapitation
attempt and went for a hard uppercut to the jaw. Zeal staggered backwards in
dizziness and dropped his weapon. The barbarian continued to pummel his
opponent with hard-hitting, rapid fire strikes that connected with thuds,
cracks, and explosions. The primitive warrior tucked his head underneath Zeal’s
crotch and hoisted the hefty warrior on his shoulders before slamming him down
on his back with a shotgun blast thud. Even more cracks and bursts echoed
throughout the arena as did the obnoxious cheers of both the audience and
Andrea Lovell, who sat at her throne mockingly clapping for her independent
contractor. “Finish him, Dargoth! Finish him now, you sick son of a bitch!”
The barbarian stared at the scantily clad, leggy CEO with cyanide
in his eyes and iron in his gritted teeth. Winning the Lion Cup Tournament
would guarantee him all the money he wanted for his family, but he would still
be locked in a contract that put him in danger with every match. His body ached
twenty-four-seven. He threw up his meals nightly. If he got the chance to go
home at all, he would look like a monster to his family and scare them off. Maybe
Zeal’s harsh rumors of infidelity would be completely justifiable at that point
(if they were true). Surely, there had to be other ways of making lucrative
money with his skills. Maybe there was…
Dargoth’s iron will wouldn’t be broken. One more death to
go. Just one more. His target was in plain sight. The Lion Cup and everything
that came with it would be his forever. He glanced at the live chainsaw and heaved
the heavy machinery over his head with the intent to rip and shred. The
audience roared and bellowed for Zeal’s bloody and disgusting death. He was
just laying there ready to be dissected. Dargoth smiled a sadistic smile and
approached Zeal with slow movements while the zombie rolled around and groaned
in horrific pain. And then…the barbarian tossed the chainsaw like a boomerang.
But instead of grinding zombie meat, he chucked the whirring
blade at Andrea Lovell so many feet in the air. The CEO gasped in horror before
tucking and rolling out of the blade’s path. The audience gasped as well at the
sight of the chainsaw embedded in the golden throne still buzzing.
After straightening her hair and fixing her skirt, Andrea
stood back up with a queen’s posture and glared with hellish hatred at the
menacing barbarian. She picked up the microphone and sneered, “So that’s how
you plan on getting out of your contract, huh? By killing me?” Dargoth nodded
and the audience booed him with plenty of bass in their voices.
The CEO scolded, “It’s a good thing your children are being
well-educated with all of this money, because their daddy is the biggest dumb
shit to step in my coliseum! Sure, you can kill me and rob me of the rest of
your earnings, but you won’t be solving a damn thing, my friend. Ever heard the
phrase power vacuum? Without me, all of your worst enemies will be gunning for
my position. If you thought fighting to the death for my entertainment was bad,
try fighting for the power I wield on a day-to-day basis. You already know what
ISIS looks like. Try and picture the Lionize
Entertainment version of ISIS! My corporation
will last until the end of time, but your misery will be forever, just like
your contract! You didn’t think this one through very well, did you?!”
Dargoth clenched his fists so tightly that his bloody
fingernails dug into his palms and he didn’t give a shit about the pain. He
didn’t want to admit it, but she was right: cutting off the head of the snake
would create a hydra, not a corpse. A contractual slave like him couldn’t even
dream of the power it took to run a whole corporation. What havoc had he
brought upon himself? What danger did he put his beloved family in?
As he contemplated the consequences of his “easy way out”,
Dargoth felt a tight presence squeeze around his torso until his body was
pencil thin. His head turned purple, his veins grew to the size of tunnels, and
his ribs were cracking like Rice Crispies. He peeked up and saw that Zeal
Cottonwood was the one squeezing like a motherfucker, much to Andrea’s laughing
delight. She even chimed in, “Squeeze harder! Pop him like a pimple! Make him
suffer!”
Listening to that wasp-like voice sent Dargoth into rampage
mode when he stomped on Zeal’s foot with the force of a jackhammer and head
butted him in the jaw. The barbarian staggered around in dizziness and rasped
for oxygen, but the zombie had released his grip and stumbled backwards
himself.
As soon as Dargoth’s lungs no longer felt like he swallowed
a battleaxe, Zeal went for an overhead strike. Dargoth ducked underneath and
transitioned behind the zombie with an arm choke. The barbarian squeezed with
enough force to pop more pimples and blood vessels on Zeal’s face. He even
loosened a few rotten teeth. But the minute the zombie’s eyeballs popped out of
his head, his brains leaked onto the floor and he was limp as Dargoth’s
“spaghetti dick”.
As soon as Zeal plopped over dead, Dargoth Destroyer raised
his fists to the sky to declare victory. The audience roared like jungle cats
in approval and high fived each other while chanting Dargoth’s name. Even
Andrea gave him a little golf clap while saying into the microphone, “I hope
your wife is watching!”
Indeed she was watching. From the comfort of her soft,
silky-sheeted bed, Mrs. Destroyer watched the violence with a satisfied,
teary-eyed smile on her face. “Thank you so much, my dear! Thank you!” The
other man who was grateful unwrapped the towel from his muscular waist and
climbed into bed with her with a silver tray of cocaine in his hands. The wife
smiled lovingly at her paramour before rolling up a dollar bill and snorting
sweet candy right up her slender nose. The paramour snorted some too before the
lovers got it on underneath the sheets.
Little did they know that from the crack of their bedroom
door, two teary-eyed girls watched the whole thing. The daughters hugged each
other tightly and smeared their salty eye fluids across their Winnie the Pooh
pajama sleeves. “I miss daddy,” one of them whispered to the other while a night
of hot cocaine-laced sex was unfolding before them.
