The Hunter had considered. “Jack,” he’d finally said. “And you are?”
“Ha ha!” the man had said gleefully. “I thought you’d never ask! I, my good man, am none other than the Emperor Johnson, Lord of the Underground, King of the Mutants, Brother to Jesus Christ and the Savior of the World! Hail Emperor Johnson!”
Around him, most of the monsters had burbled and croaked, as if in response:
“Emperor Johnson! Emperor Johnson!”
But the effect had been nothing less than horrific. Either these things didn’t have vocal cords or the ones they did have were as twisted as they were. The Hunter hadn’t been able to suppress a shudder.
“Yes, yes,” the man, Johnson, had said, nodding to his companions. “That’s very good, my lovelies. Very nice.” He’d looked at the Hunter and made a conciliatory sort of face. “You’ll have to forgive my friends. They are not yet adept at speaking. So far, that’s all I’ve been able to get them to say, in fact, but no mind! After all, a friend is a friend!”
“Uh huh,” the Hunter had said. Obviously this guy was nuts, but how nuts? Delicately, he nodded and tried not to scowl. “But, uh, what is this place? Where am I?”
“This?” Johnson had said, waving his arms like he was showing off the Taj Mahal. “This, my new friend, is the Exalted Realm of Below! Here we live, here we love, and from here we issue forth to bring ever more subjects to the arms of Emperor Johnson!”
Again the dreadful gurgling, rasping, “Emperor Johnson!” from the peanut gallery of freaks. If he never heard that noise again, it would be too soon for the Hunter.
He’d been about to put a few more questions to the weird little man in the king suit when suddenly the man had waved grandly at the Hunter and told his “friends” to take him to the Funhouse. This hadn’t sounded so bad, and he’d gone along with the freaks, down some tunnels and up some stairs, but then they’d shoved him into a big chamber filled with things that didn’t look at all like they belonged in a funhouse and he’d begun to worry for real. Tables with restraints at the corners. Sharp things, knives and probes and pointy things. And a floor stained blackish-brown with dried blood.
“Hey, hold on now,” he’d tried, turning to the Emperor Johnson. “Let’s talk about this, huh? Emperor?”
But the Emperor had only grinned maniacally and gestured for his minions to bind the Hunter to a table. He’d resisted, of course, with every muscle in his body, but it had been no use; there were too many of the monsters and he was weak from hunger and drug-fatigue. In no time, he’d been strapped down and ready for the crazy bastard in the king outfit. And then things had gone seriously downhill.
Now, still on the table, almost lost in a haze of pain, anger, and confusion, fading in and out of consciousness, some part of him still had to ask why the lunatic Johnson was doing this. He hadn’t even asked the Hunter any questions! Why torture someone if you didn’t want information? To soften him up? Or just for fun? Yes, that was probably it. The little fucker was just a pain freak, a violent sadist. All he wanted from the Hunter was the thrill of making him hurt. And that wasn’t good. Very likely, his life was in danger.
Through a reddish fog, he saw Johnson’s face suddenly loom up in his field of vision. Flushed and excited, the man’s eyes were wild and somewhat crossed, making him look even crazier than ever.
“Well, that’s all for now, my new chum,” he said, stripping off a stained pair of surgical gloves. “I have a lot of important things to do and I’m afraid we can’t spend the whole day having fun. But don’t worry! We’ll have lots of time to play, later on. OK?”
“Fuck… you,” croaked the Hunter. Mere speaking was painful. “Crazy motherfucker.”
“Now, now,” the maniac cooed. “There’s no call for harsh language. So uncouth. But now, my friend, I have to go. My associates will see you back to your accommodations.”
And with that, he left. The monsters unstrapped him and carried him back to his cave cell, where they dumped him to the floor and left him in the dark. He considered trying to move, to even roll over, but then gave it up and let the darkness and pain take him down. Maybe if he was lucky, he’d die in his sleep, nice and peaceful-like.
But no such luck. He’d been asleep for no more than an hour or so (judging by his normally spot-on internal clock) when some loud noise woke him and he came to in a world of pain. Letting out a groan that went right down to his toes, he rolled his aching body over and blearily looked around, but there was nothing to see, just the cool darkness and the horrible stink, and he fell back and wondered what would become of him. It didn’t look too good.
He was falling back into a painful slumber when a new sound reached his ears and he forced himself to listen. It was him again, Johnson, and he was talking to someone, apparently in an adjacent cell or otherwise nearby.
“… new friends, don’t you?” the crazy man was saying. “I know I do! Now, don’t you want to be nice and come and play with me and my other friends?”
“Get bent, ya fuckin’ loony,” said another voice, one that he knew but couldn’t place at the moment. “Just get the fuck bent.”
“Oh my,” Johnson clucked. “Now that’s not very friendly. Not at all.”
There was some more, the Emperor lisping and cloying, the other voice gravelly and hoarse and maddeningly familiar, but the Hunter didn’t have the strength to stay awake any longer and finally just gave up and let himself fall back to sleep.
The next time he woke up, it was to someone coughing. He felt a tiny bit better, not quite so desirous of death anymore, and sat up on the floor of his cell and gave himself a cursory physical inspection and evaluation. Not so bad, really, he found. Oh, he felt like he’d fallen down a flight of stairs into a dumpster full of jagged rocks and he was bruised and sore from neck to feet, but the madman had fairly well dressed his wounds so that there was no bleeding or on-going injury.
Relieved a bit by this, the Hunter looked around and saw that someone had deposited some things in his celclass="underline" a ten-gallon plastic bucket, empty, a dirty old blanket, an ancient, rusted coffee can full of water, and another smaller can, opened, of what appeared to be lima beans. With a grunt, he crawled over to these items and drank some of the water and then made a sort of serape or robe out of the blanket.
Donning this crude garment, which was better than nothing, he couldn’t help wonder about his beloved n-suit. Over the last few months, he’d really come to rely on that crazy thing. It kept him warm in the cold, cool in the heat, and meant that he needed to eat and sleep about half as much as usual. Even more, it had been very expensive and even harder to get; he’d had to call in a lot of favors to procure it. Yes, even more than his weapons and gadgets, the suit was a bad thing to have lost. He was balefully eyeing the lima beans (why lima beans? He hated lima beans) when the coughing came again and he cocked his head to listen. After a while, though, the cougher, whoever he was, went silent and the only sound was a slow drip of water.
After another sip of the water (which was warm and tasted like old rust), he rose painfully, went over to the wall where he’d judged the sound to come from, and knocked on the wet stone with a rock.
“Hey!” he rasped, just above a whisper. “You there! Can you hear me?”
There was a short silence and then he heard some whispering, as of two or more people, and then came the familiar voice he’d heard earlier.
“Who’s that?” it asked. “Who’s there?”
“My name’s Shipman,” said the Hunter. “Jack Shipman. Who are you? And how many of you are there?”
There was some more whispering, a few coughs. “Just the two of us,” said the voice. “Just me an’ the nurse.”