Mungus: Book 1 (6 page)

             
Di stopped at Tom’s Grocery and Drug, tied up his horse and went inside.  Hank waited with the prisoners and we all stood in the street, handcuffed to one another.  People stared at us as if we were criminals.  I saw a woman staring through the blinds of an Ice Cream Parlor at us.  Little girls were sitting on a wooden bench outside of a flower shop and eating cups of ice cream and giggling as they stared.  When Di came out he was holding a rolled newspaper.  He swung onto his horse and we were about to walk off whenever another Salyer in a cowboy hat approached on a brown horse.

             
“Howdy, Di.”

             
“Hey, Claude.”

             
Claude pulled his horse closer and they both shook dusty hands.  Claude looked over at us and said to Di, loud enough for us to hear, “this is an ugly bunch you’ve got here.  A bunch of runts if you ask me.”  He pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and tossed it in the middle of the road.

             
“Grecos are nasty little creatures, aren’t they?” Di spat tobacco juice onto the dirt and wiped the excess saliva off with his shirtsleeve.

             
“Can’t fight worth a darn, either,” Claude said, nodding his pale head.

             
“How do you know?” Di asked.

             
“They had four or five of ‘em in the Theatre last month!”

             
Di shook his head and smiled.  “Oh, c’mon!  You’re lyin’, Claude.”

             
“It’s true,” Claude pressed.  “And they’re supposed to have a whole lot of ‘em there today,” he pulled out a rusty conductor’s watch from a leather pouch tied to his horse’s saddle.  He opened it up and squinted at the numbers, “in about 20 minutes, in fact.  Are you going?”

             
“I wish that I could, but I’ve got to watch these guys,” said Di, motioning behind him.

             
“Why don’t you just bring ‘em in?”

             
“I can do that?” Di spat in between the two horses.

             
“Sure you can.  It’s free.  And I think that it would be something good for them to see.  It’ll let them know a little bit about our culture.  I’ve got to be goin’, but I’ll see you later.”

             
Di said goodbye and Claude clunked off on his horse.  “Hank, come up here,” Di ordered.  He pointed to a spot beside him and Hank trotted up on his horse.

             
“Do you want to go to the Theatre today?” Di asked.

             
“Sure I do,” said Hank.  “But don’t we got to be back at a certain time?”

             
Di spat onto the dirt, hitting the same spot that he had last time.  “That’s what I’m thinking.  So I reason that it would be okay if we go, but we’re gonna have to walk late into the night tonight.  We’ve got those oil lamps so it should be fine.  Sound good?”

             
Hank nodded his head.  “Yeah, Di. Sure.”

             
Di put his fingers in his mouth and whistled.  He called us, his chain gang, over by saying, “come here, dogs.”

             
Mike Nelson led us over to the side of Di’s horse.

             
Di spat in the dirt at Mike’s feet, looked into the sun, and then looked at us.  “How would you guys like to see some live entertainment?”

             
We didn’t know what to say; we didn’t know if it was a joke or not, so we remained quiet.

             
“Well, answer,” said Di.

             
“I’d like to go,” said Saul.  “What kind?”

             
Di laughed and gave a sideways glance to Hank, “You’ll see.”  Di turned to us with a smirk on his face and said, “here’s the deal.  There’s a show today.  It’s a free show for all of Ramus.  Here’s what’s gonna happen.  I’m going to take you to that show, okay?  But it would be best if the boss man, Mr. Taylor, never knew that I took you to it, okay?  So you guys won’t ever mention it.  Do we have a deal?”

             
The chain gang gave out a halfhearted agreement.

             
“Or I can just kill you right here,” Di laughed and spat.  His face turned serious.  “If you tell, I’ll kill you, understood?”  He took out a knife from his hip and flashed it in the sunlight.

             
This time all of the prisoners let out a, “yes,” in unison.

             
“Good.  It’s good to hear that you guys aren’t too stupid to understand some simple directions.”  He spat and then turned on his horse and headed forward on Main Street.  “Follow me,” he called behind him.

             
We walked beneath the hot sun, following our new leader to something called the “Theatre.”  I had a sick feeling in my stomach and wanted to go home.

             
I could see the Theatre from half a mile away.  The structure stood tall above the others, spanning high into the sky.  It was made of white rock, distinct against the blue sky and city of clay buildings.  The building was a giant circle that only seemed to grow bigger as we got closer.  It was surrounded by big, open stone doorways that Salyers of all ages were pouring into.  Clowns were standing outside of the entryways making balloons and vendors were selling cotton candy and popcorn.  Whenever we got closer, I saw that there was a field of green grass beside the Theatre with hundreds of horses tied up on wooden poles that protruded from the ground.  Di and Hank gave a man some coins so that they could park their horses on two of the poles.

             
Di walked in front of us and Hank walked behind us, just as they had ridden.  As we got closer, I heard the cheering of a large crowd and agonized screaming.  I shook my head to make the hallucination stop, ‘surely no one is screaming.’  But the sound never went away.  Di strutted ahead of us under his cowboy hat and with each footprint that his boot left and with each swing of the chains I became more and more certain that I was hearing shrieking coming from the giant structure.

             
We passed by the popcorn and cotton candy vendors and entered under one of the stone arches.  It was much cooler under the shadows.  Di spat on the stone floor.  Salyers of all sizes and ages were working their way through the crowded halls.  The ceilings of the building were high and the air was filled with the scent of sawdust.  Di led his prisoners through the crowd of people down a big hallway, then up a wooden, spiral staircase.  The sound of people screaming was unmistakable now.  “Help me!  Please, God!”  Our chains rattled as we walked up the stairs and a hollow sound came after each step of Di’s boots.  When the staircase ended, we came out into the open air and I saw a circle of stone bleachers facing into an oval arena.  The arena appeared to be the size of a football field and circled around the edge of it, just off of the sand, were hundreds of locked jail cells with prisoners inside.  Some screamed to be let out, some stared at the crowd through the bars, and some lay down on the floor.  All of the prisoners had hair.  I looked up at our bald guards and then at all of the hairless men and women in the audience.  The Salyers seemed to be running the show.

             
We found our seats up high in the stadium and I sat with my handcuffs on top of my lap and my chains drooping off to both sides.   I looked around and noticed another race of people.  They were short, stocky, and most of them had beards and hairy arms.  I determined that these people must be the Beardsleys.

Di and Hank sat on either side of the chain gang.  There was no shade except for when a stray cloud would drift in front of the sun.  “What do you think this is?” Saul asked.  He was smiling and hadn’t picked up on the clues that I had.  “Do you think that it’s a play?”

              A prisoner reached out of his cell and screamed, “God will judge you for this!”

             
Saul heard this and laughed.  “They sure are getting into it.”

             
I looked up at Saul and shook my head.  “I don’t know, Saul.”

             
“What’s wrong?” Saul asked.  He tilted his head and didn’t understand why I was sad when I was about to see a show.

             
“I just don’t think that I’m going to like this play.”

The T
heatre’s seats were nearly full on each level when a clown walked out onto the sand.  Applause erupted around the stadium and thousands of citizens of Ramus clapped as he made his way to the center.  The clown was tall, I could see even at a distance.  His pronounced cheekbones, small lips and nose indicated that he was a Salyer.  His shoulders were wide and thick under his red, blue and yellow jumpsuit.  The outfit stopped at his shoulders in frilly bunches of color and thick veiny arms hung on either side of his body.  His face was painted a sick white—not the white of a cloud or of a dove, but the kind of white that can be found on a fish’s belly.  It was the color that a man turns when he is drained of all of his blood.  The clown had about thirty thin strands of black hair hanging off of his scalp and falling all about his head.  His lips and nose were painted a crimson red that speckled onto his cheeks as if he had just got done eating straight from a carcass.  His eyes were deep purples and swollen blacks.  His irises were a washed out blue that made him look blind.

“Welcome, welcome, welcome!  Good morning to all!” the clown said.  His voice echoed through speakers around the Theatre.  The crowd hushed.  “As many of you know, my name is
Georgie the Clown.”

The crowd again erupted in applause and whistles as
Georgie turned and took animated bows towards each section.  The clown was flexible and with his knees locked he bowed so low that his black hair touched the sand.  “Thank you!”  Georgie licked his lips all the way around his mouth.  “We have a great show at the Theatre today.  You know, one of the things that I think we need to do here is to lighten up.  We need to laugh more.”  Georgie’s eyes opened wide and he fell into hysterical cackles.  Scattered people in the crowd laughed along.  The clown was scaring Saul, so he buried his eyes in his hands.  Georgie wiped his eyes and after laughing a little more he said, “So, without further
adieu
, I present to
you
, a little game of cat and mouse…or something like it.”  Georgie opened his hands up to indicate the prison cells underneath me that I couldn’t see and then scooted to the side of the arena.

People on the other side of the sand began to laugh before I could see what was going on.  Men, women, and children—all naked except for black half circle costume ears on their heads, long black tails, and white gloves—began to run out onto the sand.  They were the mice, and fifty of them scattered all over the arena, some screaming as they went.  I noticed that all but one of them had hair.  This mice man was clearly a Salyer and I wondered what he had done to get thrown in with the
Grecos and Beardsleys.

“Don’t look, Saul,” I told him.  For some reason though, I wasn’t able to obey my own advice.  I heard Saul weeping beside
me and my eyes seemed to not be able to move from the sand.

Dogs began barking from the side of the stadium and then I saw them rush out over the sand.  They were huge dogs, bigger than I had ever seen in any film, and their muscular backs flexed and stretched as they glided across the ground.  One of the mice turned and began to run where I could see his face.  I saw his ponytail flopping behind him and recognized the naked teen; it was
Blaine Trotter, the boy who I had scrubbed the floors with.  My heart ached at this recognition and I saw fear flash in his eyes.  He looked up into the crowd and for a moment I was sure that he saw me.  Why was this happening?  He was a good guy!

The dogs overcame the mice—every single
one.  They brought them down with sharp teeth and claws and blood and intestines were spilled onto the ground.  I watched Blaine die.  I watched them all die.  The crowd cheered and the dogs ripped at throats and even the fastest of prisoners were soon dead bodies lying in the sand.  After ten minutes all that was on the arena floor were dead carcasses and dogs filling their bellies with flesh.

It didn’t stop after that.  They removed the bodies and the dogs from the sand and brought out a new death game.  Prisoners with their hands tied behind their backs ran over the sand as archers shot arrows through their hearts and faces.  And for the final act there was a giant brawl where hundreds of prisoners were given swords, bats, and other weapons and forced to kill each other.  Archers from the crowd shot at the prisoners who refused to fight and eventually everyone was fighting and the sand was crimson red.  No one won any of the games.

“Is it over?” Saul said from his hands.  His voice was muffled.

“Don’t look, Saul.”

              As they were clearing away the bodies a man in a black suit and tie walked out over the bloody sand to the middle of the arena.  He smiled and turned around to look at everyone in the audience before saying, “I hope that you all enjoyed the show!”  The crowd cheered and whooped and yelled praises at the man.  Hank stood up and whistled and clapped.  He had been overcome by ecstasy at seeing so much violence.