by Ian Woodhead
The man closed his eyes. “Get out of my head!” he screamed.
Kenny spun around and looked for a way out; his eyes settled on a large closed doorway on the other side of the hall. He ran to it and barged through the doors.
“Who the fuck are you?”
Kenny stopped dead. He saw two men dressed in dark blue overalls, both glaring at him, and both holding an arm of his sister, Diane.
“I’ll ask you one more time, you little bastard …”
Kenny didn’t give the man who barked out the question the chance to finish his sentence. He charged forward, sweeping the blade in a low arc. The knife cut through the man’s overall. Kenny shouted in triumph as the man fell back, clutching his stomach. The other man dropped the bludgeon he held in his other hand before running through the open doors.
Diane turned. “Oh my God!” she sobbed. “I thought I’d never see you again.” She spun around and launched a kick at the man on the floor. “You utter bastard!” she screamed. Then she turned back to Kenny and fell into his open arms. “You have no idea how glad I am to see you, Kenny.”
He held her tight, enjoying her warmth. He had a pretty good idea what those two clowns were about to do to Diane. “I’m just glad I got here in time.” Her shiver travelled through his arms.
“So am I,” she replied. Diane looked into his eyes. “But, this makes no sense. How come you’re not …”
“Why am I not dead? I have no idea.” He gently pushed her back and pointed at his leg. “I should be dead, Diane, considering I was bitten by a dead thing shortly after those bastards took you away.” He decided not to mention that it had been her duplicate that had done the deed. Somehow, he didn’t think that would go down too well.
The blood drained from her face. She staggered back. “Oh fuck! No, no way.”
He sighed. “Diane, it’s okay, really it is, I haven’t felt this great for ages.” He smiled. “I’m fine, really I am.”
She took one step towards him. “When, when did you say this happened?”
Kenny shrugged, watching the man on the floor lift his head. Judging from his expression, he expected Kenny to start craving raw human flesh as well. “Like I said, about twenty minutes ago.”
She crouched down and lifted his trouser leg. “This really is a day for the impossible.” Diane looked up. “And you feel okay?”
“Best I’ve felt for a long time. I’d forgotten what normal felt like, Diane.” He pulled her onto her feet. “Maybe it’s time to leave now?”
“Wait, Kenny.” She pointed over at another door in the corner of the room.
He hadn’t even noticed it. Unlike the rest of the doors, this one had three thick bars set into the thick wood. Another face stared out from behind the bars.
“They’ll be back, you know,” Diane whispered.
He nodded, keeping his eyes on the other man. “I know you.” Kenny sighed, like that meant anything now, considering how their little trip had blown away his sense of reality.
“I’m Tony,” the guy replied. “Can you get me out of here please?”
Diane pushed past Kenny and pulled back the heavy bolt. “Kenny, we really do need to move.” She looked at the door. “Those two were only supposed to lock me in here, but apparently they read more into that command.”
Tony stood directly in front of Kenny and looked him up and down. “Is it all true, I mean did you really survive a bite?” He grinned. “This must be providence.”
“Yeah, that’s so nice to hear,” hissed Diane. “How the hell do we get out of here?”
Kenny turned to see the two men framed in the open doorway, smiling. Behind them, he saw five rifles and two pistols pointed at their heads. Although he’d somehow survived a zombie bite, Kenny doubted that his body would survive half a dozen blasts. “Can we talk about this?”
“Tell me how you’re still living?” asked the blonde man.
Kenny felt Tony push something into the palm of his hand.
“Swallow these, Kenny,” whispered Tony. “This day of miracles isn’t over just yet.”
Kenny looked at the two tablets rolling about in the palm of his hands and resisted the urge to question the man. He saw the crowd part and saw another Tony push past them. Kenny threw the tablets down his throat, seeing his sister and Tony do the same. The room around them screamed into a medley of multi-colored water.
Chapter Twelve
Stephen Haney gripped his forefinger, grinning when the bones cracked.
“Do you have to do that?” hissed his wife. “You know how much that annoys me.” She shook her head, biting her bottom lip. “We won’t get them if you’re not quiet.”
He stared back at her, waiting for her to turn away. He wasn’t going to let the old bag beat him in another staring contest. Stephen gripped his index finger and pulled; it didn’t crack but the woman still glared. “You’re the one who’s talking,” he whispered.
“You’re pathetic,” she snapped, spinning around.
He didn’t bother biting. What was the point? He’d won this bout. As for being pathetic, Stephen believed that they both looked like complete idiots, dressed in these bright yellow jumpsuits. He resembled a banana while his wife looked more like a lemon. He resisted the urge to chuckle. The analogy suited her, the sour-faced old bitch. How the hell she’d managed to pour her fat ass into the costume was beyond him. He could only assume that the material must be super stretchy. He doubted that it would be of much use after she’d finished with it, except maybe for use as a car cover.
“What are you giggling at?”
“Nothing,” he replied, instinctively inching away from her fat arms. If she got too pissed, Natalie could easily knock him into next week with her deadly swipes. “Can you see the others yet?” he said, hoping that the change of subject would stop her from digging any further.
She leaned further out from the pretend rock outcropping; it took a tremendous amount of self-control not to chuckle when she almost toppled over. Just the thought of her spinning around and bashing him with the studded club gripped in her other hand was enough to keep his big mouth shut. His wife was obviously having the time of her life in here. Not that it showed. Natalie had gotten her outward dark glower down to a fine art; only he could tell how the woman truly felt. That came with being married to her for over twenty years. He silently sighed, wondering where the time had gone. It only seemed like a week since one of the most powerful women in the city took an instant shine to the shy office boy, working away in some forgotten area of the government records office.
Stephen’s boss frightened the crap out of everybody, with good reason. Natalie’s family had connections right to the very top of the government. On his first day of employment, his supervisor and his new friend Edverd Rossini had taken pains to educate him on the proper etiquette whenever the woman paid a visit down to the records office. Rossini had mentioned, in passing, that it hardly ever happened though; she didn’t care what happened down in the bowels of the building, and had only come down there twice in the two years he’d been working there.
It took the entire workforce of thirty by utter surprise when the feared woman plus her gaggle of executives entered the records office a few hours later. Stephen remembered how the tall, dark-haired woman just stood there, like a tall marble statue, pinning the workers down with her huge brown eyes. Thankfully, he was standing behind Rossini when she’d appeared, so Stephen believed that she wouldn’t notice him. Blending into the background had always been his speciality. Being unnoticed gave him the advantage of observing how other people reacted; his other talent was the ability to usually guess what other people were thinking. He had little problem in seeing how everybody was terrified of this beautiful woman and how she patently played up to the image of the hard-faced boss. Behind that steely exterior, Stephen saw something else, a softer side. He had sighed, wondering why he was trying to get beneath her image. It wasn’t as if she’d be back down here anytime soon.
Like a bird of prey detecting a mouse scurrying through a field, Natalie Devonshire’s head had jerked away from his supervisor’s terrified face, her hard eyes gazing past Rossini and settling on Stephen. She then did something that obviously shocked everyone else in the room. Natalie smiled at the new boy. Stephen’s instincts told him immediately that the woman was flirting. He took a risk and smiled back at her, watching the woman walk towards him, parting the assembled workers like Moses parting the Red Sea.
From the body language screaming from every one of his fellow workers, Stephen had obviously broken some kind of cardinal rule about not mixing with the ones who ruled the floors above. He guessed that he should have just dropped his eyes to the floor and waited for her to scrutinize another poor worker. Stephen kept his gaze on her eyes, trying his best not to let his eyes wander down to the woman’s large breasts. This was so stupid, he was actually fantasizing about screwing her. Well maybe not that dumb, Natalie Devonshire was a deeply attractive woman, Certainly not a wafer-thin girl like his girlfriend. This woman towered over Stephen by at least a good foot and probably outweighed him by a few pounds as well.
He felt his heat deflate when she abruptly turned around and walked back towards the outer door with her followers trailing after her. He felt the whole room breathe a collective sigh of relief before they all turned to glare at the apprentice who had dared to look their main boss in the eye without showing a trace of fear. Stephen had taken all the remarks and put downs for the rest of the day with a pinch of salt, not really caring what the others thought. The only one who had treated him with an ounce of respect had been Rossini, who had advised him to be careful and to try to fit in with the rest of the crowd. He’d taken him to one side and carefully explained that he fully intended to rise to the top of the game, and that he would accomplish this with knowledge. He stood behind Stephen, grabbed his shoulders and slowly turned him around, explaining that every sordid detail of all the top players in the city were kept here. You just needed to know where to look. Rossini had then winked at him before hurrying off to join the others.
Rossini’s disclosure had taken him completely by surprise. Stephen had actually met one person who had been able to fool his senses. He’d had the youth down as just another drone, but it turned out that Rossini had a fire burning in his heart. He believed that Rossini would go places too, as long as he was very careful. People who tried to play the system usually ended up against the execution wall.
His surprises hadn’t stopped with the discovery that his friend wanted to rule the city. Just as Stephen was leaving the office, he found himself surrounded by three security personnel who had escorted him right to the top of Government House and into the room of one very powerful woman. Stephen stared aghast at the sight of Natalie Devonshire advancing on him, then pulling his trembling body over to her bed before stripping the pair of them.
Stephen turned away from his wife’s yellow-coated body and gazed back towards the contestants’ entry arch on the other side of the game zone. Oh, he had certainly gone places, thanks to this woman. Even after the plague of the dead had turned the planet into one huge human abattoir, the rulers in the city had still been able to keep the reins tight on their inhabitants.
Strange to think that from all those lowly workers down in the depths of Government House, only he and Rossini were still alive. His old friend had certainly upheld his promise to rise to the top, although, looking back, Stephen believed that the overambitious man really would had been machine-gunned.
If it hadn’t been for the minor inconvenience of the dead rising to feast on the living, Stephen knew that Rossini wouldn’t have lasted more than a couple of years. Despite his promise to be careful, Rossini’s overzealous application of the information available had pissed off a lot of the important people. It had only been Stephen’s intervention that had stopped the execution orders been signed on more than one occasion.
“It doesn’t look that strenuous from the comfort of my armchair,” complained Natalie. She twisted around and glared at him. “I really don’t know how you talked me into taking part in this foolishness.”
Stephen smiled his reassuring smile and gently took her hand. “Because, my sweet. The viewers will flock back in their droves to watch their beloved leader take out a pair of dirty deviants.” He nodded to himself, happy to see even her outer shell soften just a little. After all these years, Stephen had not lost the talent to play his loving wife like a fiddle. He knew exactly which string to pull. “Honey, think about the ratings, think about the sponsorship. After this show is broadcast, our competitors will be dead in the water, I can guarantee it.”
Her outer shell almost collapsed when she stood up and shifted her gaze from him to her body. “But, just look at me!” she cried. “I look ridiculous in this. I can see the headlines right now and every one of them will be less than flattering. They won’t care about what happens tonight, all they’ll focus on will be how I look in this stupid costume.”
That part would be true, well, it would be if, by some miracle, the bitch managed to get out of the game zone in one piece. In fact, it surprised him that Natalie hadn’t commented on his insistence to dress like normal contestants as soon as they’d entered the dressing room. “Honey, don’t you worry. This isn’t going out live. I promise you. Rossini is going to personally edit the program. Although you are just as beautiful as the day we first met. Rossini has promised to refine your actions and tweak your appearance just a little. He knows his stuff.”
She sighed heavily. “You’re not telling me the full truth here, Stephen. I know you’re up to something. I’m not that much of an idiot.” Natalie dragged a fingernail down the side of his cheek. “Just remember that if it wasn’t for me, you would probably be one of the medi-unit scumbags that we’re about to destroy.”
Stephen took her finger and kissed the tip. “I owe my life to you, honey.” He ran his fingers through her hair, wondering how long he’d be able to keep up this pretence. That last statement had really shaken him up. He now saw that she wasn’t as trusting as he’d first thought. Natalie really did believe that her husband was up to some trick. Stephen just hoped that she didn’t discover the truth until it was way too late. “Natalie, we had better be moving on.” He pointed over to another archway, to the west of them.
“They’ll be wondering why we’re not moving.” The gothic stone monument held one of the show’s many cameras. There were over ninety cameras covering nearly every area of the game zone. There were only two or three locations where you could stop and recover without being seen. This rocky outcropping was one of them. When he’d designed the set, Stephen never actually thought that he’d be participating in one of Rossini’s sick and twisted shows; then again, until last week, Stephen had never needed to make his wife disappear from his life.
Natalie set off running along the narrow stone path that cut through the high, gravel-sided valley, heading for the first archway. Stephen followed her, suddenly aware that both their movements would be under scrutiny by the collection of Rossini’s technicians in the studio on the top floor of Entertainment House. He almost felt naked, knowing that other eyes were now tracking their movements as they hurried along the pathway. He pushed away the nagging feeling of being watched and focused on keeping up with his loving wife.
The high sides were only there to stop their prey from trying to find an alternative route out of the game zone; despite being warned about the numerous pits positioned along the path, there had been more than a few who had been stupid enough to risk the climb to the top. Stephen suddenly wished that his wife wasn’t such a follower of the show now. It would have been so easy to arrange some kind of stunt to have the bitch slide past the pathline and into the danger zone. Watching her fall into one of the pits would have sorted out his problem in one stroke. She probably knew the course as well as he did though.
Natalie reached the archway and waited impatiently for him to catch up. It troubled him greatly that she w
asn’t even out of breath. He, on the other hand, was already tired. He turned around and took a deep breath, feeling his heart beating hard. He’d felt like this ever since waking up. Even the morning tablets hadn’t made much difference, which had disturbed him. Stephen’s tablets were just like the rest of the elite’s medication. Almost pure Beldazine. The tablets used to make him feel super-human just after taking them; not so now though.
“Stephen, what have you stopped for? You’re the one who was saying we needed to get a move on.”
He turned around, flashed her his usual ‘nothing to worry about’ smile, and caught up to her. “Sorry, I thought I saw movement up there,” he said. Stephen smiled again. “Don’t look like that. You know as well as I do that there have been at least two occasions when the prey has been successful in scaling the gravel sides instead of following this path.”
She shrugged. “Not this time though. Remember, I was there when Rossini left them in the holding tank. The girl might have done it, but not the other one. What’s his name again?”
“He’s called Kenny,” he replied, “and his sister is called Diane.” He knew her all right, she used to work for him. It was a shame to see her put in the game zone, she had been a great asset.
“Yeah well, the man wouldn’t have been able to climb that. He looked half dead when Rossini had them bundled into the holding pen. Come on, I don’t want to stumble over his corpse just because my unfit husband couldn’t keep up.” She flashed him a cold smile. “I want to kill him myself.”
Stephen shivered, suddenly believing that the woman knew what gruesome death he and Rossini had cooked up for her. He shook away the doubt; he knew her almost as well as she knew herself. If Natalie thought for one minute that they had planned to have her killed, Natalie would have had the pair of them executed on the spot. There was no way that she’d be able to keep up the pretence of not knowing.