A man and a woman were fighting about their shared locker room down the aisle from his already! A stadium organizer appeared to quell the battle, and ended up in an argument with the more abrasive of the two. But the employee prevailed. If the manager wanted more than half the space in there, he should have paid for a single. And if he was going to keep hogging and quarreling, the organizer had the power to kick him out of the Games entirely. The guy decided that he wanted a single then, but everything was sold out. So he paid off the woman to have it to himself, and she moved her things out and set them up outside her zombie’s stall. Peace resumed.
The locker room wasn’t big enough for a cot, so Ink set it up outside Thor’s stall and climbed in. The lights would be on all night, shining through the zombies’ eyelids as they slept. They’d wake up still dazzled. But no human could sleep in these lights, so Ink put on his travel eye mask and entered a black out. Voices softened as people tucked themselves into cots, tents, air mattresses, and sleeping bags. Ink drifted away in the familiar sounds and scents that felt more like home to him than his actual home.
The morning began at five. He was up the instant the alarm on his phone went off, and several others in the aisle rose at the exact same instant. After visiting the restroom, he fed the zombies and received a text reminding him that pictures would be taken between six and nine. Contenders for the grand prize had to show up in the atrium at half-past nine in their Hawaiian tourist outfits. Food vendors raced around the aisles, all of them selling meals that could quickly be shoved into a mouth. They had loads of change and accepted cards, every card, just to make each transaction take as little time as possible. There was no small talk anywhere in the stables, no cheery visits. Just purpose.
Nadia came in yawning at a quarter to eight, and was annoyed that Ink hadn’t done anything but feed Scrapper. But the kid wasn’t Ink’s problem. He’d just finished up his work on Thor. The new zombie had pushed out a hearty morning log and that was awesome, since it was now less likely that Ink would find himself hurriedly picking shit out of the gladiator costume to get to pictures on time.
As proficient as the food vendors were the men and women who handled pictures. They had been awake all night to set up. A variety of backdrops stood at the far end of the stables, lights already adjusted and three employees handing out numbers. They also accepted payment as the cameras clicked and clicked. Each backdrop had its own photographer, which kept things moving speedily.
Ink gave over the money and took a pale blue slip that read Coliseum-123. Coliseum-119 was having his picture taken now, and even as Ink watched, the screen wiped out 119 and replaced it with 120. This wouldn’t take any time at all, the manager of 119 sweeping him away from the backdrop and calling out thank you to the photographer.
The photographer waved to him and called, “Coliseum-120! Step up!”
Next to the Coliseum backdrop was one of a grand white castle for the zombie children dressed up as princes and princesses. A man was fretting over there. “But can’t you get her eyes to drop down? The picture will look stupid with her staring up at nothing.” He was obviously a first-timer to a show. The castle photographer waved him off impatiently and an employee stepped over to explain that an even more brilliant light just beneath the camera would flip on before the picture was taken. His zombie child would stare at the lens when it was time.
Coliseum-120 wasn’t ready. The manager asked for just a minute to fix his zombie’s hair and the photographer shouted for Coliseum-121. A woman said, “Coming!”
“Hey!” protested the manager of 120. “I just need a lousy min-” He was given another pale blue slip that made him Coliseum-127. Pissed, he moved his zombie aside to let Coliseum-121 through. That one was ready. As was Coliseum-122, and Thor when 123 came up. Ink walked Thor over to the backdrop and hiked up his leg on a fake body upon the floor. Pressing a sword into his hand and tying a strap to hold it there, he repositioned Thor when the photographer called out directions. Then he backed away and let the man do his work.
After that, Ink could take a breather. The men’s melee didn’t start until one. Returning Thor to his stall, he stepped into his locker room to change into his Hawaiian clothing. Nadia was moving around in Scrapper’s stall hysterically, throwing out demands for this comb and that piece of the costume, and oh God, he had just pissed his pants! His new pants! And it was half-past eight now! Pictures only ran until nine and then she had to dress herself for her own picture and she hadn’t even had breakfast and she needed a towel . . . Innnnnnnkkkkk . . .
That was why Ink’s day had started at five. Some managers started even earlier than that, especially if they were showing women with long hair that had to be styled, or several competitors who all needed pictures. Gorvich had an entire staff to fix the dozen zombies she brought to every show and she was in the thick of it herself from four o’clock as well, still dressed in her nightie and working furiously. Without sympathy for Nadia, without offering to pick up a burrito or a towel on her behalf, he went upstairs to see the Games.
A boom of noise hit him when he entered. Vendors were everywhere, free standing and in kiosks and tents, shouting out what they sold or leaving the announcement to marquees with bursting fireworks and exclamation points. Thousands of people had already come into the stadium grounds from the parking lots, and thousands more were in lines that stretched out as far as Ink could see. The swell of excitement caught him up, teenagers shouting about which competitions they wanted to watch, adults placing bets, tiny replicas of favorite fighters doing battles over tables at the restaurants while parents scolded their kids to put those toys away and eat. A vendor selling backstage passes had a long line at his kiosk. During certain hours, people would be able to walk the stables down below. It was an absolute chaos of thrill and happiness, music playing and names booming out over the speakers to cheers. MAENAD! HADES! DIOOOOOOOOOO-NYSUS!
“Which Hades?” someone yelled to the speaker.
“The only one that matters!” someone else shouted back.
The sky was blue and cloudless, a perfect day for fighting. It was promising to be very warm. Ink ambled around to take in the sights and thought he spied Adolfo at a back table in a breakfast joint. The man had no zombie to show at the Games, and maybe he’d wanted to make sure Ink had no zombie either. Ink put a smile on his face in case anyone was watching. He had Thor, mighty Thor, and his grief over Samson could only be expressed in private. A text came from the vet, just a reminder that she would meet him at Thor’s stall after the melee. It was going to be a short visit, since he would either be dead or need to be euthanized.
It was nine now. If Nadia hadn’t gotten Scrapper patched together and accepted a blue slip, she was out of luck. The photographers had to report to the stadium. They would race through the last pictures and be vanishing from the stables even now as Ink stood beside a toy vendor. And there beside him was a shelf full of little Samson figurines for five bucks each. He’d get a dollar off each sale, and this would be the last time any of them sold. Had Samson lived and won, there would have been Samson-related merchandise in every kiosk and shop at every show from then on. Ink would have raked in a fortune.
His smile faltered as he picked up one of the figurines. “You like him?” Ink asked a boy who was doing the same.
“He’s my favorite!” the boy exclaimed. “I got his poster in my bedroom. He wins all his matches and he trounced Ajax at the Sweep! I saw that one.”
That had been one of Samson’s first competitions, and Ajax had indeed been trounced. The boy said, “You like him, too?”
Ink put the figurine down. “No. He died. I like Thor.”
“He didn’t die!” the boy said in disbelief, and ran away to his parents in line at the cash register.
Someone, someone that was likely here at the Games, had done this. Done it and gotten away with it forever. Ink checked the time and realized he had to get to the stables for his luggage, and then over to the atrium for the picture. P
ushing through the crowds, he went back.
Nadia had gotten Scrapper’s picture done by the skin of her teeth. Now she was going at a more casual pace through her own ministrations. When Ink said there wasn’t time for that, she said, “Calm down. It won’t be taken right at nine-thirty.”
It would be. Competitions ran on a tight schedule, and if she could stop thinking about herself for even a moment, she would know that. He picked up his luggage and left her there. The crowds had doubled in the five minutes Ink was downstairs. The noise was so great that the voices through the speakers only penetrated as bleats. The atrium was a hike, clear on the other side, so he pushed his way through the crowds around the stadium and didn’t look back to apologize when people tripped over his rolling suitcase.
The bigwigs had a clubroom at every stadium, the best place high up to watch the fights. Ink loved to be invited in there at post-competition parties, to sit in the cushioned seats and motion to the bartender behind the counter for a drink. The bathrooms were private to those in the club, one for men and one for women, and each one had an attendant to give out a towel at the sink. Because Ink had won at Filo, the pre-Games to the Games, he already had an invitation to the post-party here, Samson notwithstanding. That would be where he’d hit up Constanzo for a chat and determine the likelihood of his guilt.
The atrium was on the ground floor of the stadium, and semi-private. It had been cordoned off for the managers’ photo and celebratory champagne, and after that, anyone could walk in. Take a break from the screaming crowds and the heat to walk beneath the arches and rest on benches between vases full of flowers. Dozens upon dozens of managers were there when he arrived. It was five minutes to nine-thirty, and the photographer was already ordering them into a half-circle with tall people in the back and short ones in the front. Two stadium organizers raced around to prop up the suitcases before the shorter people. They put the last one in place at 9:28. Nadia had yet to show up. At 9:29, another manager ran in flustered, and almost leaped into the half-circle. Still no Nadia.
At 9:30 on the dot, the photographer got behind his camera. Then he told them to squeeze in closer, which they did. Ink watched the clock over the photographer’s head as everyone pushed together. At 9:30 and fifteen seconds, the photographer said, “Forget cheese! I want to hear aloha!”
“Aloha!” they all shouted, and he clicked. Then he took one more at 9:30 and twenty-five seconds, all of them crying aloha again.
“Perfect!” he said, and it was done. Nadia strolled in five minutes later. The photographer was gone and everyone had long disbanded to shake hands with each other, with the sponsor, and to accept flutes of champagne from smartly dressed busboys.
Anyone else would have learned by now that a competition was a machine. The machine didn’t stop for one person to blot her lipstick or fix his zombie’s hair. It ground on relentlessly, so you conformed to it or got crushed. Ink sipped his champagne and told his Thor versus Samson story over and over to those who hadn’t heard it in the stables. Then he changed the subject to Hawaii, which was what most people wanted to talk about anyway. The volcanoes! Zip-lining! Snorkeling! Giant turtles! Even those who had been to Hawaii before were very excited, because few of them had been there in style.
“I put a black henna hibiscus flower on my zombie for luck,” one man said, and another manager laughed because she had done the same with a rub-on tattoo.
“You got to be careful with black henna,” someone warned. “Looks exactly like a real tattoo, but it’s got coal tar in it. Nasty reactions, some of them will have to it. You can give them blisters and scars. I’ve had that problem in my stables and stopped using it.” No one answered the party pooper, and two men whispered to one another that they had been using black henna tattoos on their zombie fighters for years and never had a problem.
Constanzo Rolf was there, but he was in a tight discussion with Gareth Hodging that Ink didn’t feel confident about interrupting. And Cantine had brought his women along, three new ones and all having posed with him for the picture. Ink took one look at the blonde and was instantly sorry he had ever seen her. That was a woman whose beauty could drive a man to obsession. The other two had baby fat on their cheeks and a dizzy look in their eyes; the blonde was a little older, a little more angular in her face, and absolutely riveting. As the younger ones giggled mindlessly about their tight-fitting Hawaiian shirts, she was calm in a purple halter dress with hibiscus flowers on it. Leaning over Cantine, who was sitting upon a bench, she pressed a champagne flute in his hand and gave him an intimate smile. Stunning. Just stunning. If she ever looked at Ink that way, he would melt into a puddle on the floor.
Then the bigwigs reported to their clubroom, their big, beautiful clubroom where brunch was waiting, and Ink went to his seat among the commoners. It was eleven o’clock. They stood for the Pledge of Allegiance and sat for a patriotic song by some famous young singer he had never heard of who stumbled over the words and squinted at the teleprompter. Just as she wrapped it up, a protestor dropped over the wall and ran out into the ring. He bared his chest, where ZR was painted for Zombie Rights. Everyone booed, and then laughed as security took him down and dragged him off.
Every seat was taken around Ink, except for the one that belonged to Nadia. She had gone to change out of her embarrassing Hawaiian outfit and inspect the vendors. The place looked like it had sold out. Two hundred and fifty thousand people burst into applause as the lights were turned on to shine into the ring. The beginning entertainments were nothing important, and only existed to keep the mood light and excited. Horses trotted around the ring, each mounted by a man or woman bearing a giant placard with a picture and name of a competitor. Everyone fell apart at the big names, pumping their fists into the air and shrieking. Maenad! Poseidon! Wrath of Neptune! The last was an adult male placed in the 36-50 age group. The zombie simply refused to bow down to time and accept its limits. He was the fine wine of aging fighters, only growing better and better with the years.
Vendors climbed up and down the steps with trays of popcorn, hot dogs, and racks of beer, soda, and bottled water. Another one had visors for people who wanted some eye protection from the sun, and the man behind that vendor had little packets of sunscreen. The smell of the hot dogs was so good that Ink almost bought one. Yet the prices were jacked up here twice above what he could get in the stables. He just wanted to buy one like everyone else, eat and yell with bits of bun and catsup escaping from his lips. But his hand never went to his wallet. He had self-control.
At noon, he left the exuberant crowd to fetch Thor for the adult male melee. The fad of destroying costumes in a melee was fortunately limited to children and elderly, although there had once been a fad among women competitors to do the same. But women were respected as fighters now, real fighters, leaving halftime for real-time. No one would be gussying up their females in princess gowns and cocktail dresses before the adult women’s melee at two. Both male and female fighters had similar garments. All of them wore tan trousers, and the women often had sports bras while the men were bare-chested. Tank tops were also acceptable for both men and women. There were no shoes or socks. If either sex had long hair, it was to be clipped back firmly so chasers didn’t have to run into the ring with tranquilizer guns and nets if the lights didn’t work on someone as a match ended. If a chaser died bringing down your zombie, you paid for it in spades. Even if the clips had been lost due to some other zombie ripping them out. When Ink fought Medusa, he was exceedingly careful with her hair.
He ferried Thor to the south funnel and left him with a Games stadium organizer. Hades was also there, that big fellow who was going to win easily without Samson. Then Ink got his binoculars and went back to his seat, which took so long that he was just sitting down when the one-minute countdown to the melee began. He felt rather silly in his parrot shirt, but it marked him as a manager trying for the top prize, and that was more important. It was proven to him when a guy in the row behind him clapped his back and s
aid, “So, who is your gent down there?”
“Mine is Thor,” Ink said as the crowd bellowed twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven!
The guy paused, trying to figure out who that was, and said, “I’m sure he’ll be great!”
Samson would have been great. Thor was just here to save Ink’s face. He shook the man’s hand and chanted nineteen eighteen seventeen at the top of his lungs. Then he turned his binoculars away from the ring. Up through the big windows of the circular clubroom were all the bigwigs, some in seats and others standing, all of them staring down to the ring with smiles. Ink was overcome with a fresh wave of determination to get up there one day for more than the post-parties. Those were his people. They just didn’t know it yet.
“Fifteen! Fourteen! Thirteen!”
The blonde in the purple dress leaned over Cantine’s chair and rested her arms upon his shoulders. The back of his balding head was nestled up to her breasts. Not a breast on any of the three of them was natural, but she had picked the right size for her curvy frame and the others had gone for inflated pillow cup size.
“Eleven!”
If Samson had won, and he would have won, Ink would have been able to afford that blonde from whatever escort agency she hailed from. If she were a hanger-on, he wouldn’t even have had to pay. She was just a woman who wanted to taste his success, and he’d let her sip as much as she wanted.
“Ten! Nine! Eight!”
Ink looked down to the ring. He had views of the east, west, and south funnels, but not the north. He could look to one of the giant screens up in the air for the last one. Stationed above each gate were chasers, and stadium security was sprinkled around the ground level aisle in bright blue shirts. At a show several years ago, a frustrated security guard had knocked a persistent protester into the melee and let her get ripped apart. She hadn’t been screaming that zombies were her brothers then.
Zombie Tales Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 51