Chapter Seventy-Three

I struggle to regain my feet. My stomach feels like it's split inside, and all my organs have ruptured and the bits are mixing and reacting with each other. The pot-bellied little man who hit me laughs at my agony as I get myself together, slowly standing up. The other ninjas laugh and cheer. As I straighten up I feel like things are ripping inside my guts and I double over, choking and coughing. They laugh louder, but I gradually stand up straight.

Kimara raises her hand and the ninjas fall silent. "You may now strike Jinso," she says.

I look back to John. He's clenching one hand into a fist, and I know he's holding the bulletos, ready to pass them to me. Only, instead of being knocked back into him so he could slip them into my pocket, I fell straight to the floor when Jinso hit me in the stomach. Okay, so much for cheating.

Jinso stands with his hands on his hips, giggling through clenched teeth, ready for my best punch. I figure his fat gut gives him protection against body shots, so I step into it and throw a punch, clocking him straight on in the forehead.

The ninjas cheer and Jinso laughs, barely moving at all. Granted, taking that punch in the gut weakened me and I didn't throw my best shot, but he took it like he hadn't been hit at all. He starts rapping his knuckles against his head, shouting something in his guttural speech.

"What's he saying?" I ask Kimara.

"He says his head is made of wood. It is time to drink."

Kimara pours the shots. I lean forward with my hands on my knees, hoping and saying prayers to angry unknown gods that my organs will slither into their correct places so I can carry on this contest and live to see another day.

Jinso and I drink down the next three shots. He smiles and I gasp, and I steady myself for his next punch. I'm expecting the shot in the stomach this time, so when it comes I brace myself, absorb the impact and go down, making sure to sprawl backwards towards John and Sissy. I feel John slip the bulletos into my pocket. Sissy looks at me and I see the tears rolling down her face.

"Stop it, Bill," she says. "This is horrible."

"Don't worry," I tell her, and through my own tears I manage to give her a wink.

The second punch hurt just as much as the first time, but  I take the pain and regain my feet.

Kimara raises her hand again and I slip my hand into my pocket and grip in my fist the three metal bulletos. I pull my fist out. No one seems to notice. When she drops her hand I swing a big right across Jinso's jaw. With the weight of the bulletos adding momentum and power to the blow, his head snaps to the side and he drops to the floor. He squirms there for a moment, but gets back up. His smile is gone and he wobbles slightly from side to side.

We drink one more time. By the time I finish the third shot I'm feeling drunk and sick from the blows to my gut. Jinso throws his third punch but hits me on the breastbone this time, making me collapse and gasp for air, the wind knocked out of me. Tears roll down my face as I suck air on the floor, knowing that if I don't get up right now I'm going to die.

Although my lungs feel like they've collapsed, I get up, sucking in little ragged breaths, trying to get it together. I step forward and throw one final desperate punch, a wild upper cut that barely connects with his chin. I'm just too messed up to continue, and I stumble and fall.

From the floor I hear Jinso laugh, and I hear the sinister sound of a blade being drawn. That's it, I think. I've lost the contest. Now I'm going to die.

Chapter Seventy-Two

The female ninja steps toward me, coming close up to stare into my face. I'm a little taller than she is, and I can feel her breath on my neck as she comes in close. Her green eyes are hard and pure as crystal, and I can't look her in the eye. She comes very close, and then backs away.

"You will each drink three times. Then you will punch. Then you will drink and punch again. You will drink and punch until one of you cannot get up. Do you understand?"

I nod. The ninja drinker steps forward. He is much older than the other ninjas. I would easily mistake him for a homeless man, or possible the gardener at the ninja's mountain retreat. He is rough-skinned and leathery, with loose folds of skin at his neck and grey stubble on his face. He is wearing a loose blue work shirt, unbuttoned, and he stands with his legs spread and his pronounced potbelly jutting forward.

He looks at me with no sense of recognition. He spits on the floor. A ninja appears with a tray of shot glasses and a big bottle of amber booze. My opponent sees the bottle and his face transforms into a wide smile, laughing and cackling with glee at the sight of the booze. He has only a few teeth.

"I'm not worried about how hard he can hit you," John says, "but he can probably put away a good number of drinks."

I nod. "Right. Not a problem." I turn and whisper to him. "Take the bulletos out of your pistolo, would you?"

"Aye? What for? We still might need to fight."

"There are fifty ninjas in here. Are you going to shoot them all with what? Three? Four shots? Take the bulletos out of the gun. When he hits me, I'll fall back into you. Slip the bulletos into my pocket." I look down at Sissy. She looks frightened. I give her a wink.

The female ninja calls me forward. "What is your name?" she asks, and I tell her that it's Bill. She nods and introduces herself as Kimara. I think about how refreshing it is to simply exchange names with someone, even though my name is fake. "Your opponent is Jinso. You will drink at the same time, but he is your elder, so he will punch first."

"All right." I take off my jacket and hand it to John. I hop back and forth, limbering up like a boxer before a match. Kimara fills six glasses with the booze and Jinso and I step up to the table. The ninjas all crowd around to watch, but when Kimara raises her hand, they all fall silent.

"Hi!" she shouts, dropping her hand. Jinso reaches for his glass and I reach for mine. I slug back the first shot and gasp at the nasty, cheap-ass rotgut stuff. Jinso has finished his three shots already and is laughing at me. I shiver with revulsion and knock back the next two shots.

The ninjas let out a big cheer. Kimara raises her arm and they fall silent. She lowers her arm and Jinso steps forward, throwing an invisibly fast punch into my gut. I crumple to the floor gasping, choking, gagging and retching, my innards all twisted and damaged.

Chapter Seventy-One

I pull Sissy's arm and drag her through the panicking crowd of people, all scrambling to evade the rush of homicidal ninjas. John follows us, pistolo out, desperately trying to back away to a safe spot. There is none. The three of us end up backed into a corner.

John and I stand with the girl hidden behind us, pistolos ready to defend ourselves as the killers use their blades to finish off the last of their victims. At last they turn to us. One twists his neck, making a crack and pop noise, steps towards us and brandishes his bloody blade.

"I don't have many shots left," John whispers. "I don't think we're going to make it out of here."

"There are alternatives to fighting and dying," I tell him. "Just go with it." I step forward. The ninja stops and assumes a fighting stance, flexing his muscles, ready to respond to whatever move I might make, ready to separate my head from my body in the beat of a butterfly's wings.

"Wait," I say, holding up my hands. "No fighting. Drinking contest."

The ninja stands flexing, and then looks tentatively at his compatriots.

"Drinking contest," I repeat. "You drink." I stamp my foot on the floor with a sharp snap. "Drink! You drink!" I hold the gun up in the air and toss it to the floor. "No fight! Drink. You drink!"

He relaxes his pose, bringing the sword down. The others wipe their blades and sheathe them in their belts. "We drink," one responds in a guttural voice. "We drink, you drink. You no drink, you die."

"Bill, what the fuck have you gotten us into?" John asks.

"A ninja drinking contest," I reply. "Ninjas can't resist a drinking contest."

The ninjas lead the three of us out into the street. It is chaos outside. The crashing of explosions is constant. People run by, screaming, their hair on fire. Men in ill-fitting military uniforms stagger along, swilling out of bottles of rubbing alcohol. Squadrons of papery looking bi-planes drone overhead, while wolves dart through the blasted shells of homes and building. The ninjas walk calmly through the wacky combat-zone, leading us into another building and down into the basement where a temporary ninja headquarters has been established.

In the basement are countless ninjas in various states of undress, oiling their swords, practicing their deathblow punches on the concrete walls, or simply smoking cigarettes and chatting in the harsh ninja language.

The ninjas confer with their masters, and eventually one ninja pulls off his black mask and approaches me. "You will drink against our champion," he says. "You win, you can leave. You lose and we eat your hearts while they still beat. Yes?"

I shrug. "I don't have much of a choice, do I? What are the rules?"

Another ninja steps forward and pulls off the black ninja mask. A beauty, this ninja shakes free long jet-black hair, red lips and dazzling green eyes striking me in the heart. "I will explain the rules," she says.

Chapter Seventy

The girl is the key. We've got to keep the girl safe. I reverse the car and we back away from the barricade, as the sound of incoming artillery fire repeats itself again and again. Explosions rock the city all around us and panicked citizens scramble in all directions around the car. Other vehicle hem us in on all sides and in moments we're snarled in and impassable jam of traffic, with out of date trucks crashing into each other, people waving their arms and screaming, no way out, no way out.

We get out of the car, grabbing what we can: the pistols, the maps. Sissy takes her plastic bag that has her kid magazines and comic books. I pop open the trunk and John and I grab what we can. There is a box of food in there, bottles of water and two sleeping bags.

The streets are deadly chaos, but we work our way toward a big building made of sturdy-looking concrete. I push inside and see a long queue of people waving papers in the air and shouting at harried-looking government clerks behind a long polished wooden counter.

"What the shit is this?" John asks. "It looks like the post office on tax day."

A shell bursts in the street outside shaking dust from the ceiling, but the people in the lines don't move. "Shouldn't you run?" I ask a man standing in a line.

"And give up my place?" he says, twisting a thin moustache. "You're mad."

"But what are you waiting for?"

"Permits."

"Permits for what?"

"Look, if you want someone to answer your questions you'll just have to wait in line."

I look at John. "What should we do?" I ask him.

"I don't like the looks of the street," he says. "Let's see if we can find the basement of this place."

The door behind us bursts open and ninjas flood in, swords out and swinging. I grab Sissy's arm and pull her with me, as the three of us rush into the crowd to avoid their flashing steel. The ninjas chop the arms, legs and heads off everyone in their way. John squeezes off a few shots at one, dropping him dead, but they don't stop, hacking and slashing until the floor of the room is slick with blood.

Chapter Sixty-Nine (Dude!)

The wizard stalks away on a killing rampage, seeking more ninjas to destroy. He leaves us lying on the street. We are no concern of his. It is Sissy who frees herself from the ninja's bonds, and using a blade dropped by a now-dead ninja, she cuts John and me free.

We run for the car, hoping to get out of this madness. The sounds of explosions continue to rock from the next street. I presume the wizard is unleashing his blasts of blue energy on new opponents. I have no desire to cross paths with him again, and as soon as we are in the car we start heading away from the combat area.

"I don't know how the hell we're going to get out of here," John says, digging through the glove compartment. "We haven't got a map of this town."

"As long as we go in a direction with no ninjas and no freaks like that guy. Where does he get that power? It's like out of a comic book."

"I thought it was neat," Sissy says. "I like him."

I take the long way around but eventually get us back near the coast, going the same direction as when we arrived. "Maybe we can just keep going," I say hopefully.

That hope turns out to be in vain as we reach the edge of the city. City officials in shabby brown coats occupy the road leading out of town, erecting a clumsy barricade of cars, rubble and furniture across the street. I stop the car and with my pistol in my pocket, I get out to talk to them.

"What's going on fellas?" I ask the workers. "Can we pass, or what?"

"You loco, man?" the worker says, and he spits on the ground with disgust at my question. "There an army out there. We under siege. You wanna go out? You die quick."

"Army? What army?"

He tugs at a thin black moustache. "Who know? Army here, army there. Whole crazy damn world at war. Crazy in here, crazy out there. You wanna stay alive, you hide, you wait." He turns his attention back to working on the barricade.

"Damn." I return to the car and report what I've heard.

"Army out there, ninjas and wizards in here?" John gives a sarcastic snort. "Great. Take your pick."

There's a strange noise in the distance and I roll down the car window to listen. It's a whistling noise. It's followed by a crashing explosion. The city is under attack.

Chapter Sixty-Eight

I try to hustle John and Sissy off towards the car, but we barely move before I hear the commotion behind us. It is the terrifyingly familiar cry: the "Hi! Hi! Hi!" battle cries of the ninjas that have plagued me, both as friend and foe, since I came to find myself in this nightmare land.

A quick look over my shoulder tells me everything I need to know. A gang of the black-costumed killers has dropped from the rooftops and surrounded the wizard and his henchmen. There is the sound of combat, the clash of steel and the crack of fists against flesh. There are screams as people cry out in fear and shock at the spectacle.

I pull the pistol from my pocket and push my friends forward, shouting, imploring them to run, run as fast as they can to the car so we can get out of this hell-hole city by the sea. We get around the corner and stop short. A second gang of ninjas stands waiting for us, their hands resting on the swords in their red sash belts. The ninja in the center of the line points at us, and with a single "HI!" he gives his command. The gang of ninjas swarms at us.

I squeeze off a few shots at them, but they are ninja-quick and before we can defend ourselves we are grabbed and dragged to the ground, where they proceed to bind our hands and feet.

There are explosions in the main street, back the way we came. There is the sound of blazing fire. Suddenly the ninjas tying us step away, and there is the swishing sounds of swords being drawn. I roll over to see what is happening.

The wizard has come around the corner. His cloak and shirt are gone, and his torso, bronzed and iron-hard with muscle, is covered in bloody wounds. His hands glow with blue-white energy. As the ninjas rush at him he holds his hands up, and the blue-white energy bursts forth with the sound of thunder, and the ninjas are torn apart.

Chapter Sixty-Seven

Sissy is a young girl who doesn't know where she came from. She doesn't know her mother's face and she doesn't know if she likes to read or ride a bicycle or play with other kids. But she knows a bad man when she sees one.

The wizard (I know he's a wizard; I can see he's a wizard) approaches, flanked by thugs in long coats. They look like a blend of henchmen from medieval days to black-hat villains of the old west, or the mute goons of the gangster movies. There is a palpable sense of wrongness coming up the street at you and Sissy bristles like an animal catching wind of a predator.

I stop John and hold Sissy by the shoulder, pulling us out of the way of the oncoming group. We're not going to flee. We have no reason to fear these men. But there is a feeling of great danger. We will just step aside and let them pass. And if there's any trouble I have a loaded semi-automatic pistol in my jacket pocket.

They pass by, too close for my comfort, and the wizard looks me in the eye. Blue eyes like knife-points dig into me and I hold the look, not backing down. He looks angry and sinister, like a man raising an army to overthrow a king. But they do pass, and I try and hustle John and Sissy towards the car.