. . .
The Las Cruces International Airport was in full swing today as people were scurrying about, eager to board their flights or meet up with loved ones that were ready to be picked up.
It was still a puny little airport compared to the main hub in Sydney, but Martha was quite relieved. At least she and Jonathan wouldn't get separated among the droves of crowds here like they always did at the latter one. Or that one time they went sightseeing around the world for a couple of years and ended up getting lost for hours at London International and La Guardia Airport. Still, Mick sending them money for those vacations had been worth it.
"Dear, where did the letter say we were to meet again?"
Martha looked at the document she anxiously clutched in her hands. "Terminal B, on the side of the main building."
"I can't believe this - Mick has one foot in the grave already. The doctors told us he's been diagnosed with colon, mouth, toe, prostrate, and eye cancer."
Martha began fretting. "My poor baby! I don't want them to cut off his gonads!" She was trying her best not to cry for the fifth time that day. "Or his tongue! Or his nose!"
"Just pray it hasn't spread that far," Jonathan tried to reassure. "At this rate, we'll only have 1/3 of our son left after all the surgeries."
"He's a fighter, Jon Bun," Martha opined. Or was she just in denial about the devastating news? "He'll kick cancer in the cajones."
"You're right, Boo," her husband agreed. "He's been a crazed gunman all this time fighting in Vietnam, he most certainly can go up against this insidious sonofabitch!"
Martha balled a fist, slamming it in her other hand. "He'll skin this bastard both ways."
"He'll put a boot up its gnarly ass!"
"And then he'll slice it into bloody, gory pieces!"
"Then he'll piss on it, spit on it, shit on it!"
"And then force it to drink the piss! Nobody fucks with our baby, not even cancer!"
Both paused, the fire of valiance burning in their expressions, ready to go to battle against one of the worst diseases to have ever inflicted humankind.
Then Jonathan's face dropped. "He's not gonna make it."
"He's a goner for sure," Martha agreed.
"If our own families couldn't beat it, what makes us think another Mundy could?"
Jonathan bawled in his wife's arms, while she hugged him for solace. "Yeah, he be at Death's door and there's no turning back."
"Me poor poor old man," Jonathan recalled, grief-stricken. "Saw him shriveled up like a prune on the bed. Told me to get him some pig skin chips, and when I came back, he was a corpse. Never got to enjoy his last junk food!" A few sniffles. "Cyril Everett Mundy. Rest in peace, pappy!"
"My aunt Gertrude went the same way. Leukemia, it was. I gave her a Drum magazine to read, and she croaked in the middle of ogling over Rock Hudson. Oh well, at least she went out happy seeing his hot body."
As they neared Terminal B, a woman was waiting for them. She had dark hair swooped up in a French bun and wore a white polo top and dress with a hospital insignia on it. She waved a hand to catch their attention. The senior couple maneuvered their way toward her.
"Mr. and Mrs. Mundy?" she kindly asked.
"That's us, ma'am," Jonathan replied. "Are you the concierge from Tuefort Hospital?"
"I am. My name is Sheri Tavros and I—"
Martha rushed up to her, grabbing her by the blouse. "How's our baby?! Is he howling in unimaginable agony?! Is he dead?! Is he undead?! Did they start hacking off his feet yet?!"
Sheri was speechless but managed to come to her senses. "Uh, yes. I mean—no, they didn't amputate his feet. He's in stable condition right now. The doctor has him on pain meds. I assure you, Mrs. Mundy, your son is hanging in there."
The older woman was relieved. "Oh, thank God! We have some more time. It isn't fair the man in the sky is taking him away from us this soon, why?!"
"My condolences, ma'am," Sheri offered, sympathetic. "I'm so sorry. The doctors are doing everything to save him. I too lost an uncle and several cousins to cancer."
She gestured over to the exit doors that lead to the loading curb. "Why don't we get in the taxi, and I'll explain the rest on the way? I'm sure Mick is eager to see you both."
Jonathan took his wife's hand. "Come along, cinnamon bun, we mustn't waste time."
Without another word, they followed their guide outside the building to the yellow cab that awaited them for the hospital.
As the driver was loading up their suitcases in the trunk, an evil smile formed on Sheri's lips…
. . .
Cyril didn't know how long he slept, but when he was roused out of his slumber with a kick in the ribs, it was quite a rude awakening. Groaning in pain, he glanced up at the two henchmen from earlier. A third one had now joined his original captors.
"Get up," one of them ordered.
Damn it, if only he had his weapons on him. His pistol was confiscated when the two thugs had kidnapped him last night. He didn't think to pack his Kukri or Bushwaka. He had no choice but to comply if he wanted to stay alive.
Two of them were pointing PPK glocks at him in a menacing display of power.
"Hands out," one of them instructed.
Reluctantly, he put them out and the new addition bound them together with cuffs.
"Move!"
They shoved him out of the cell, flanking his sides and holding his arms as they started down a corridor. Fluorescent lights lit up the ceiling every 15 feet or so, reminding him more of a dreary government facility. It was certainly a stark contrast to his medievalesque prison quarters.
The three men finally led him to a chamber, with several more barred cells visible along the hall. A sudden scream pierced the air. Startled, Cyril whipped his head towards the unsettling noise.
A child's cry.
It sounded like they were wailing and begging for someone to stop. Before he could discern the cause, he was brusquely shoved into the chamber from behind. Stumbling forwards, Cyril managed to catch his fall in time.
Glancing around, he saw the walls were a matte, palish gray. Just above seven feet set in the opposite wall from where they were standing was a wide, rectangular window. There was probably some type of control room on the other side. Though its interior was dark, Cyril could barely make out a figure standing inside, close to the window's edge.
Watching him.
He was then briefly uncuffed, while the lead henchman pointed a gun at his head in case he tried attacking them. The horrifying sounds of the child screaming still stayed with him, even as he was led over to a chair. Beside it was a mobile metal tray, most likely medical.
He was then securely strapped to the chair by both wrists. Well, this felt familiar…except, he wasn't tied down to a medical bed in BLU's infirmary.
What the hell is this place?
"Too bad this ain't an electric chair," one of the goons sneered. "I'd love to see the violent spasms and saliva pouring out his mouth as he's electrocuted to death."
"But then that would cut the fun short, Mal," another one pointed out, amused.
The first man that Cyril recognized with the little girl from earlier stood in front him, smirking. The mercenary glared back at him, feeling an old defiance rearing up from dealing with RED all the time. But that overt action seemed to set off a switch in his captor.
He was viciously struck across the face. Cyril tasted blood in his mouth…the man was a bit bigger than him, but he had a punch that was nearly as hard as Heavy's.
"What the hell—" the marksman started to protest before he was met with a rain of blows, each stamping their mark with bruises or cuts to his face. On the sixth punch, he felt a sickening crack in his nose.
The man beating him flared with rage. "That's the same dirty look he gave me before fucking up my hand and leg! My face!"
"Roughing him up to warm-up for the good stuff?" Mal spoke up with a derisive chuckle. "That's so gangster, so thuggish, Tarjack."
Tarjack maliciously grinned. "You'll have your turn."
He pulled out a Bowie knife, carefully running it along his hand stump that used to have fingers.
"Untie his left hand," he ordered.
Mal and the other cohort complied, unfastening the strap from Cyril's left wrist from the chair handle. They then placed it on the tray, holding it down in a vice-like grip. Cyril's eyes widened at the implication.
"No, what the hell are you doing?" he protested.
His tormentor's sinister eyes to flew him, reveling in the remnants of panic beginning to form on the marksman's face.
No, no, I shouldn't be feeling this fear! I've been through worse! I've been shot up, maimed, blown to pieces on the battlefield! That fucking psycho RED Medic cut me up!
But this was completely different (except for the enemy Medic's torture). There was no quick escape from the pain through dying and respawning. No health packs or the warm, soothing beams of his Medic's medigun to heal the mutilated injuries.
"You see this?" Tarjack held up his amputated hand. "The bastard took my left hand and carved it like THIS!" He pressed the razor-sharp blade along Cyril's pinky and ring fingers and started cutting into them.
Instantly, the marksman was met with an excruciating pain that was horribly familiar, yet he never could quite get used to. He tried not to cry out, gritting his teeth instead.
The criminal continued slicing through them, making him experience even more shocking agony. His hand was radiating from a searing-hot sensation, spreading a paralyzing numbness through his hand and arm when the nerves were being severed.
Unlike the battlefield where the injury was instant, this was slow and methodical torture. The knife was sawing back and forth, ripping into muscle, tendons, and bone.
"GYAAAHHH! STOP!" Cyril screamed.
He saw a terrifying flashback of RED Medic cutting open his wrists without any anesthesia. Grinning down at him with unbridled glee, as if he were some delectable dessert to be eaten.
No, no…don't think about it!
"And then, Mundy pounded the knife like this—" Tarjack hammered his fist over the top of the blade.
Cyril cried out, as both fingers detached from his hand. Blood spurted out from the injury, pooling all over the tray. There was an obscene delight in the bastard's eyes as he reveled in Cyril's pain and suffering.
Just…just pretend it's RED doing it and you'll die in a few minutes! His mind was frantically finding some way to cope with it. You'll be back in respawn…good as new…it'll be over soon…
He barely heard the raucous laughter coming from his three captors.
His middle finger was cut off next, ever so slowly and just as traumatic…as if he hadn't gone through enough trauma in the past few years.
His psychosis attack was partially coming back, as he was now seeing the RED team in place of the three strangers presiding over his abhorrent torture. The enemy Medic's image became superimposed on the lead criminal, followed by the Spy and Soldiers' images.
He even heard their voices – laughing and taunting him, calling him a 'weak little pussy.' He began to hyperventilate. He was back on the battlefield again, the clamorous sounds of explosions, screams, and gunshots ringing in his ears.
The third thug peered closer to him, in mock sympathy. "Ohhh, is your finger hurting? Here, I got you some Aspirin."
He brought over a glass of what looked to be juice and some Aspirin pills. He showed Cyril the pills. "Now, just open wide for me and swallow these, hmm?"
Cyril was too terrified to even spit out a retort; he just wanted this fucking pain to go away. Desperately, he opened his mouth. The man abruptly yanked his head back, shoving the glass inside, forcing the liquid down.
With horror, the marksman realized it was urine in his mouth. Overcome with revulsion, he spit it out. The thug had moved out of the way before the spray of bodily fluid could hit him. All three smugly laughed again at his vile reaction.
For some unknown reason, this was enough to snap Cyril back to reality as the visions of the RED team faded away.
"Ahhh, you were too nice, Sakim," Mal sneered. "You should've held his nose and forced him to swallow."
"Then I wouldn't have enjoyed the surprised look on his face!"
"Like I said, it's only a warm-up," Tarjack, who was seemingly their leader, reminded. "I'd love to see how you slowly writhe around like a worm when chlorine is ingested in controlled amounts, over a period of, say…a month?"
Cyril shot him an angry look, though not without a hint of fear as he anticipated more torture. At least on the battlefield, there was usually less time of enduring the pain. Some of the RED members were eager to attain a high kill score, so they often made quick work of his deaths.
Other times, it was deliberately slow and atrociously painful. Some of the REDs did it out of pure sadism, other times out of revenge for his previous actions towards them. So, how was this time any different?
Except, he hadn't done anything to wrong these criminals. The RED Sniper was to blame.
"Why—why are you doing this?" he gasped out. "I'm not the one you want!"
"You're close," Tarjack replied with a shrug. "Eventually, I'll do it again with Mundy. Twice the person, twice the revenge." He leaned into Cyril's paling face with a cold-blooded smile. "And frankly, I love it even more."
Those words were enough to send a chill down the marksman's spine.
"Hold his legs down."
The other two henchmen secured Cyril's thighs and calves so that he wouldn't be able to wriggle them or kick out in defense.
"That filthy, piss-loving Aussie tossed me down a long ravine. Because of that, I fucking broke my leg. MY. GODDAMN. LEG! So, let me show you a preview of how I'm going to pay him back."
Eyes widening, Cyril shook his head. "No, no…please don't!"
"I love it when they beg," Sakim cooed.
Tarjack grabbed his left calf and started twisting it into an unnatural angle. Cyril's desperate, unnerving screams reverberated through the room and seeped out to echo across the corridors of the facility. Sure, he had broken his legs in battle, whether it was falling from a high camping position or getting them beaten in by the enemy Scout. There were all sorts of gruesome ways he ended up with mangled legs during the fights.
So, this mindless fear that came out of nowhere took him by surprise. Fucking hell, he should be able to handle this!
But a niggling voice in the back of his mind told him otherwise; it was the Radatine drug that had provided a barrier – a safeguard in preventing him from associating prolonged, extreme panic and horror with raw, visceral pain or the sight of his own gore.
And now that the drug was no longer effective, Cyril's emotions reigned free. As normal as a civilian's. The professional, unfeeling façade in the Gravel Wars was crumbling and he knew it.
His attacker continued twisting until it he dislocated the knee with a loud pop. The force was so violent that it broke part of his patella bone in half. At this point, tears seeped from the far corners of his eyes…the pain. It was too much.
"STOP!" Cyril shouted. "Please…no more…!"
"Alright Tarjack, playtime is over," a voice stated over the speakers, which were fitted on two upper corners of the room. All three turned their attention toward the figure in the window.
"Ah, can't I just break his tibia next?" the henchman asked.
"Patience," the voice replied, sounding somewhat bored. "You'll get that opportunity. For now, we must start working on our other guests."
Even through his hellish ordeal, Cyril recognized that he spoke with an Australian accent. Reluctantly, the one called Tarjack complied.
"Fine. We'll get him ready and dolled up for the next phase."
"Excellent. Have the little slaves come in and clean up all this mess."
"You got it." As Tarjack walked past Cyril, he uttered under his breath, "That old prick. Being a buzzkill, cutting short my fun." He then turned around, smirking at Cyril before punching him in the stomach. The wind was immediately knocked out of him, and the tortured marksman let out painful groan.
. . .
After bandaging his bloody hand stump (to Tarjack's objection, but their boss overruled that decision, claiming he didn't want his captive bleeding to death before he finished with him), the jailers dragged Cyril back into the corridor. The child that Cyril heard earlier had stopped screaming. He was beginning to wonder if they had also subjected the poor boy/girl to a similar, horrific torture. As they dragged him past a cell, he saw several children settled on the floor against the bars. They glanced at him and the other men, somewhat cautious.
"What the fuck are you looking at, you little shits?" Tarjack spat.
He grinned evilly when they looked away in fear. He then turned back and yelled, "Clean up time in a couple of minutes!"
Instead of taking Cyril back to the original cell, they lead him to a slightly larger one. There were piles of mildewed hay on the floor. Not a bed in sight though. At least there was a toilet and sink in a smaller room to the left side.
Cyril noticed there was another person in the far corner, curled up and facing away from them. They callously threw him on the floor; he cried out, cringing from the overwhelming pain shooting all over his broken leg.
"Don't worry, baby," Sakim sneered at the other prisoner. "We ain't gonna be done with you for a long while."
"She's already a bore, we should just give her over to the Hydra Ring," Mal complained.
"The boss isn't having it yet," Tarjack stated. "Besides, Calder wants to have his turn at torturing her, especially in front of the old hag when we capture her."
As they were leaving, and laughing over the morbid 'fun' they had with Cyril, the marksman turned his attention towards the woman.
"Please…please…no more," she quietly begged.
She had her arms wrapped tightly around her body and shivered. Her clothing was ripped in several places; Cyril recognized it was professional attire that most likely was worn in an office . Her dark hair was messy and matted, indicating she'd been through horrible abuse.
She spared a glance at Cyril. It took a few seconds to recognize who she was.
"A—Athene?"
It was none other than the Mann Co. employee whom he met at the hotel in Las Vegas, during BLU team's trip to the Labor Day company party. She had helped him carry a passed-out Demoman to their suite; she even complimented him on his eyes.
Unknown to him, he was staring right at a younger version of The Administrator. Her own clone.
. . .