Peak hit him with another elbow shot, jumped, grabbed Richard’s hair, jerked his head down, brought his knee up fast and high. Richard turned his head and the knee hit him hard on the shoulder and the pain went all the way down Richard’s arm, such pain that Richard couldn’t maintain a fist. His hand flew open like a greedy child reaching for candy.
Richard swung his other arm outside and back and broke the grab on his hair, but lost some hair in the process. He kicked Peak in the knee, a glancing blow, but it got him in to use a double swinging elbow on either side of Peak’s head, and for a moment, he thought he was in good, but Peak took the shots and did a jumping knee lift, hit Richard on the elbow, and drove him back with a series of fast round kicks and punches.
Richard felt blood gushing from his nose and over his lips and down his chin. He had to be careful not to slip in the blood when it got on the floor. Damn, the man could hit, and he was fast. Richard already felt tired, and he could tell his nose was broken. It was hot and throbbing. He had been a fool to do this. This wasn’t any match. There wasn’t going to be any bell. He had to finish this or be finished.
Richard kicked twice to Peak’s legs. Once off the front leg, followed with a kick off the rear leg. Both landed, but Peak twisted so he took them on his shins. It was like kicking a tree. Richard began to see the outcome of this. He was going to manage to hit Peak a lot, but Peak was going to hit him a lot too, and in the long run, Peak would win because of the conditioning, because he could take full contact blows better to the body and the shins.
Richard faded back a bit, shook his injured arm. It felt a little better. He could make a solid fist again. The storm outside had gotten busy. The windows were starting to shake. The floor beneath them vibrated. Richard began to bob and weave. Peak held his hands up high, Thai boxer style, closed fists palm forward, set that way to throw devastating elbows.
Richard came in with a series of front kicks and punches, snapped his fingers to Peak’s eyes. Managed to flick them, make them water. That was his edge, a brief one, but he took it, and suddenly he was in with a grab to Peak’s ear. He got hold of it, jerked, heard it rip like rotten canvas. Blood flew all over Richard’s face.
Peak screamed and came in with a blitz of knees and elbows. Richard faded clockwise, away from the brunt of the attack. When Peak stopped, breathing hard, Richard opened his fist. He held Peak’s ear in his hand. He smiled at Peak. He put the ear between his teeth and held it there. He bobbed and weaved toward Peak. Richard understood something now. Thai boxers trained hard. They had hard bodies, and if you tried to work by their methods, fists and feet, and you weren’t in the same condition, they would wear you down, take you.
But that was the advantage that a system like karate had. He was trained to use his fingers, use specific points, not just areas you could slam with kicks and elbows. True, anywhere Peak kicked or hit him hurt, but no matter how tough Peak was, he had soft eyes, ears, and throat. The groin would normally be a soft target, but like himself, Richard figured he had on a cup. That wouldn’t make it so good to hit, and there was the fact a trained fighter could actually take a groin shot pretty well, and there was that rush of adrenaline a groin blow could give a foe, a few seconds of fired energy before the pain took over. It was like a shot of speed. Sometimes, that alone could whip you.
Okay, watch yourself–don’t get cocky. He can still take you out and finish you with one solid blow. Richard glanced toward Margo. She was just a shape in the shadows.
Richard spit the ear out and they came together again. A flurry. Richard didn’t have time to try anything sophisticated. He was too busy minimizing Peak’s attack. He tied Peak up, trapped his hands down, but Peak shot his head forward and caught Richard a meaty one in the upper lip. Richard’s lip exploded. Richard shifted, twisted his hip into Peak, turned and flipped him. Peak tumbled across the floor and came up on his feet.
And then Richard heard the great windows rattling like knucklebones in a plastic cup. He glanced out of the corner of his eye. The hurricane was raging. It was like the house was in a mixer. The glass cracked open in a couple of spots and rain blew in.
"None of that matters," Peak said. "This is the storm that matters." He moved toward Richard. The side of his head leaking blood, one of his eyes starting to close.
Richard thought, Okay, I do better when I don’t play his game. I’ll look as if I’m going to play his game, then I won’t. Then suddenly he remembered the ray. How it had leaped out of the water and flicked its tail. It was an image that came to him, and then he knew what to do. The ray’s tail reminded him of a flying reverse heel kick. In a real fight, the jump kick wasn’t something you actually used much. No matter what the movies showed, you tried to stay on the ground, and you kicked low, and Peak would know that. He would know it so strongly he might not expect what Richard could do.
Richard threw a low front kick off the front leg, followed with a jab as he closed, followed with a reverse punch, and then he threw his back leg forward, as if about to execute a leaping knee, but he used the knee to launch himself, twisted hard, took to the air, whipped his back leg around into a jump heel kick, whipped it hard and fast the way the ray had whipped its tail.
He caught Peak on the side of the head, above the temple, felt the bones in Peak’s skull give way to his heel. Peak fell sideways like a dipping second hand, hit the floor.
As Richard stepped in and kicked Peak with all he had in the throat, the windows blew in and shards of glass hit Richard, and a wall of water took the room and all its occupants, carried them through the other wall as if it were wet cardboard. Richard felt a blow to his head, a timber striking him, and then the water carried him away and everything was dark.
When Richard awoke he was in darkness, and he was choking to death. He was in the sea. Under it. He swam up, hard, but he couldn’t seem to make it. The water kept pushing him down. He continued kicking, fighting, and finally, when he thought his lungs would explode, he broke up and got a gulp of air and went under again. But not so far this time. A long, dark, beam of wood hit him in the head, and he got hold of it. It had been an overhead beam in the gym. It was thick, but it floated just fine. He realized the storm had struck and moved on, like a hit-and-run driver, leaving in its wake stormy seas, but an oddly clear sky lit up by a cool, full moon that looked like a smudgy spotlight.
Richard looked down the length of the beam and shuddered. The beam had broken off to a point down there, and the point was stuck through Margo’s chest, dead center, had her pinned like an insect to a mounting board. Her head was nodding to one side, and as the water jumped and the wind lashed, her head rolled on her neck as if on a ball bearing, rolled way too far and high to the left, then back to the right. It was like one of those bobbing, toy dog heads you see in the back of cars. Her tongue hung out of her mouth as if trying to lick the last drop of something sweet. Her hair was washed back from her bruised face. A shard of glass was punched deep into her cheek. Her arms washed back and forth and up and down, as if she might be frantically signaling.
The beam rolled and Richard rolled with it. When he came out of the water and got a grip on it again, Margo’s head was under the waves and her legs were sticking up, spread wide, bent at the knees, flopping, showing her panties to the moonlight.
Richard looked for the island, but didn’t see it. The waves were too high and choppy. Maybe the damn island was underwater. Maybe he was washed way away from it. He had probably gone down below and fought his way up a dozen times, but just didn’t remember. All reflex action. God, he hated the sea.
And then he saw Peak. Peak was clinging to a door. He was hanging on the door with one hand, gripping the doorknob. The door was tilted toward him, and Peak looked weak. His other arm hung by his side, floated and thrashed in the water, obviously broken. He didn’t see Richard. His back was to him. He was about ten feet away. Or he was every few seconds. Waves would wash him a little farther away, then bring him back.
Richard tim
ed it. When the waves washed Peak away, Richard let go of the beam and swam toward him, then when the waves washed him back, Richard was there. He came up behind Peak, slipped an arm around Peak’s neck, and used his other to tighten the choke. It was the kind of choke that cut the blood off to the brain, didn’t affect the wind.
Peak tried to hang on to the door, but he let go to grab Richard’s arm. The waves took them under, but still Richard clung. They washed up into the moonlight and Richard rolled onto his back, keeping Peak on top of him. He held his head out of the water with effort. Peak’s hand fluttered weakly against Richard’s arm.
"You know what Hemingway said about death," Richard said. "That it’s a gift. Well, I give it to you."
In a moment, Peak’s hand no longer fluttered, and Richard let him go. Peak went directly beneath the waves and out of sight.
Richard swam, got on top of the door, clung to the knob, and bucked with the waves. He looked for the beam with Margo on it. He spotted it far out, on the rise of a wave, Margo’s legs dangling like a broken peace symbol. The beam rolled and Margo’s head came up, then it rolled again, went down into a valley of waves and out of sight. Nearby, Richard saw the check Peak had written ride up on a wavelike a little flat fish, shine for a moment in the moonlight, then go down, and not come up.
Richard laughed. He no longer felt frightened of the sea, of anything. The waves rolled over him with great pressure, the door cracked and shifted, started to break up, then the knob came away in his hand.
"Master of Misery" was originally published in Warriors of Blood and Dream [Avon/Nova Books]. It was later included in the Lansdale short-stories collection, A Fist Full of Stories [and Articles], published by CD Publications. It is currently available in Bumper Crop, a collection published 2004 by Golden Gryphon Press. "Master of Misery" © 1995 Joe R. Lansdale.
THE MUMMY BUYER
Nayland Jones wondered, as he picked his way through the Cairo streets, if he was wearing the proper clothes for purchasing a mummy. He felt certain that he looked like an escapee from one of those sweat-and-gin movies that Sidney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre and Humphrey Bogart had appeared in so often. He was even wearing a pith helmet, the crowning touch to his uniform.
Through the Muski he strolled, long legs carrying him over streets mercilessly baked and cracked by the sun. Past peddlers, beggars and merchants.
One beggar squatted at the edge of the street, his back against a crumbly clay wall. As Nayland passed, the beggar plucked his milky dead eyeball from its socket, let it descend on well-worn tendons and dangle on his cheek. It looked like some sort of long-tentacled jellyfish reaching out and groping for the edge of a small, dark cavern, preparing to pull itself up into the black interior.
The beggar held out a hard, dirty palm.
More out of disgust than charity, Nayland put a coin in the beggar’s palm. The beggar put the coin in his pouch, and his eye in its socket.
Nayland thought: "Disgusting country." He remembered what he had been told about such beggars. From birth the man had probably been prepared for his "profession." He had been taught to massage the eyeball daily, until the sight died and it became nothing more than a rubbery pulp that could be pulled from its socket and dangled on the cheek at will.
Nayland shivered. The whole country was full of crazies. Civilization had touched the place, but just barely. It was still a country of backward savages as far as he was concerned.
But he hadn’t come to Cairo to study the people. He had come to purchase items for his unusual collection. Already he had compiled such rare things as a supposed Yeti’s scalp from Tibet; shrunken heads from the wilds of New Guinea; spears and shields from Africa; and a number of other rare articles.
He kept all of these locked away in his private museum for his own personal pleasure. No one was allowed to see his goodies. They were his and his alone. And at night, he gloated over them.
But one thing of importance was missing from his collection: a mummy. Well, he intended to remedy that. He had obtained a very substantial lead concerning a man who would sell him a mummy–a mummy from a Pharaoh’s tomb.
The address he was seeking was off the main street–what was main about the street, Nayland failed to see–and down a dark alley bordered by leaning buildings that cast shadows on the cobbles below.
Nayland didn’t like the idea of the dark doorways that bordered the alley on either side like hungry mouths, but he was determined to get his mummy.
He walked along the alleyway counting doors. He was looking for the fifteenth on the right. On either side of him, partially hidden by shadow, were rows of beggars, cripples, eye-pluckers, and a few (Nayland couldn’t honestly tell if they were male or female) so infested and pocked with sores they churned his breakfast, which he nearly lost.
But he came to the fifteenth door and his repulsion faded to enthusiasm as he entered the dark, foul smelling shop. It contained all manner of jarred and bagged items; a sort of apothecary shop. But from the looks of things, Nayland doubted if he’d buy anything for a headache here.
A little man who seemed very much a part of the place shuffled forward from a corner, hands clasped together, head tilted to one side. The man’s face was very aged, or perhaps ravaged by some exotic disease. The flesh looked leathery. No, actually it looked wooden. The little man seemed to move with great difficulty, as if the old legs were too stiff or the bones too dry.
"Might I help you," the man said in perfect English, recognizing Nayland for an American immediately. The little man’s voice was very deep, as if brought up from the insides of a hollow log.
"Why... why, yes... I was told by a man named Jauhur that I could find someone here who would sell me... " His voice got very low as the purchasing of such an item was illegal, "... a mummy."
"That is correct," the little man said. "For a price," he smiled his blackened stubs, "we can get you almost anything."
"A mummy for my collection, that will do."
"Yes. Shall we talk money... American dollars?"
"I’m willing to pay a proper price, but not be cheated, mind you."
"Of course, but a mummy is... shall we say, a rarity. They are scarce. Most of the tombs have long since been robbed... "
"But you have one for sale?"
The little man nodded his head.
"I would like to see it first, before we discuss price."
"Very well." The little man turned, shuffled toward the back of the shop, stopped and beckoned Nayland to follow.
They went through a dark, curtained doorway and into a large room where half a dozen sarcophagi rested against the wall.
Nayland licked his lips. The little man clutched the corner of one sarcophagus and opened it. "Inspect, but do not touch too much," the little man said. "They are fragile, very fragile."
Nayland nodded, unable to speak. He walked carefully to the case and inspected the wrapped figure inside. The cloth that bound the mummy was yellowed with age, even black in places.
"If it were unwrapped," the little man warned, "the air would soon crumble it. It would be advisable to put it in a glass case of some sort, and never move it or touch it."
"Yes," Nayland said absently. He looked the mummy up and down, greedily. A mummy for his collection; for him to feast his eyes on alone. No one would ever know...
Hello! Nayland thought. What’s this?
On the left hand of the mummy, where the arms were pulled across its chest, was a break in the cloth, a slight bulge on the left ring finger.
Nayland looked over his shoulder at the little man who was watching him with patient, black, bird eyes.
"Perhaps you would rather be alone," the little man offered, sensing Nayland’s nervousness.
"Yes... yes, if you don’t mind."
"No problem." The little man turned and shuffled away.
When Nayland was alone with the mummy, he returned his attention to the bulge on the mummy’s finger. Perhaps he had found something of importance, lik
e a ring; a ring of priceless gold and jewels; a ring that had resided on a dead man’s finger for centuries. If the proprietor became aware of it, he might drive the price up; if not, Nayland felt certain he could make a nice purchase. He’d have the mummy for his collection, and the ring to sell for no telling how much.
Carefully, he reached up and touched the bulge. It was very hard. He saw through the break in the wrappings that something glinted. Yes, by golly, he’d found a mummy equipped with a ring. Of course, it could be bone, nothing more.
Nayland leaned forward and peered at the rent in the wrapping. Still uncertain, he carefully reached up and began to peel back the wrappings from a finger, and then he saw it.
Yes, a ring... a... He looked closely. God! No! But there was no denying it. It was a ring all right, and on it he read: SENIOR, ‘69, GLADEWATERHIGH SCHOOL.
Nayland, suddenly aware that someone was behind him, turned.
Too late.
Nayland saw the little man s arm and the hatchet descend in a blur, and then he saw no more.