Race the Dead (Book 1): The Last Flag

by Cavanagh, Wren

  At least it’s a job. Mentally, Tom thanked Fats again for this opportunity. The fat man was a good friend. Say what you will, once he took a stake in you, friend or family, he stuck by you.

  Tom walked into the main editing trailer and closed the door behind him. “Nice and warm here, people!”

  “We like it,” the senior editor replied with a yawn. “We're going to need it,” added the younger, “The weather might be turning soon.”

  A side of the trailer was dedicated to screens, computers and control boards, Tom crowded in to look the screens, he watched himself introducing the competing teams to millions of viewers worldwide. Tom assessed his performance and appearance - the chiseled features still held their own against the passing of time. His blond hair was long but not too long and gray but not too gray. The blue eyes were intense and brooding but not unkind. At least, so thousands of articles had said and he agreed; he had very kind eyes and he still was in good shape. Nice...Nice, he thought. Looking good, my friend.

  As he looked on, he felt like he was looking at a carny introducing freaks to other freaks too lazy to get off the sofa or do something constructive over watching TV. Step right up! Step right up!

  Gaze upon the She Devils! Three beautiful women — young, sensual and attractive; not fat or flat. They will use the money to finish college and do good deeds and go on vacation. Whatever. But you can easily tell who has the bigger and shapelier breasts as they work out, jog, play in the pool.

  But hold on a moment! Let them tell you about themselves: Fairy Princess Cho. Yes, that is her real name, legally changed. A senior from UC Berkeley, majoring in something pertaining to the “business”, wanted all to know she would be the “Notorious FPC” henceforth, and that she had a boyfriend and a girlfriend. She was also spiritual, a Pilates/Yoga instructor, and liked puppies. She still found time to party, but is “real”, and the team leader. On meeting her, Tom had found himself liking her. The woman was out there as hell and competitive, but didn’t have a mean bone on her body.

  Kate Keller, a business major from PSU and a Portland native is a bit more intense yet a lot quieter; she self-elected to be the team’s navigator. Tom liked her too, but his liking went past her personality. He had a thing for sculptural blondes, and good God, she was well sculpted. The first time they met he got eye strain as he fought to keep his gaze firmly, professionally not on her chest.

  Last, and Tom thought, least, of the all woman team: Xhiu Lee, a senior from the OHSU medical program. She wants to be a pediatrician, speaks two languages and is shy. Xhiu is the team medic. He watched her as the video montage showed her working out, walking through a busy hospital hallway and reading a medical tome on the couch of the apartment she shared with Kate.

  “She might be a great baby doctor one day…” Tom said.

  “But zero screen personality,” the senior editor finished his sentence for him.

  “A wall flower — a fern,” Tom agreed. “Moss, even.”

  The Striker team was the next feature: Blue collar tough, hard working Americans. The older but still slender, fit and slender, dark-haired Emma Aquilla: A veteran of Doctors without Borders, Mercy Corps, and now an ER nurse at her local hospital, she is the team medic. Strong, but kind. Not blonde, not sculptural, but Tom wouldn’t have kicked her out of bed.

  Lew Ramsey is a black belt martial artist, outdoor enthusiast and paramedic who can break your arm and then set it. He is fit, tall and his back is broad and powerful. He is attractive and looks approachable, his short blond hair is still long enough to look tousled.

  Lew and Emma are an attractive couple, they bring an interesting dynamic to the team, their closeness make the team leader the odd man out.

  Joe Riesling, rodeo bull rider and decorated vet who won the battle over his PTSD and is now a top chef at his renowned family restaurant, is the leader for the team. But he is the group’s third wheel. He leads only because neither Emma or Lewis care to. At times it feels to Tom like they have other plans.

  The three are likable; all three are attractive, hot and fit. They would be dropped in at the North of town

  Tom took another quick drink from his flask and watches on. As his screen persona gazes intently in the camera and introduces the next team. Stay back as you consider these three tough young men from “the ‘hood”. Again—all kindsa hot, not one of them too “hood” or too “scary”. American TV doesn’t take to ugly, or to minorities that are truly angry and not being a good sport about being a minority. The three young men who, in the wisdom of their years, have decided to introduce themselves to the world as Team Fat Cobras: are a trio of rappers and movie stars-gonna-be. This show will launch them. Or so they think.

  Alvin and Ty, two black kids: Alvin, smart and media savvy, slender but muscular, like Michelangelo's David done in dark chocolate, was the natural team leader.

  Tyshon, —Ty— stockier and beefier looking, but muscle-beefy with an abrasive personality, he’s not exactly dumb, and he’s definitely not pleasant is very much caught up in keeping up his gangsta image. He has a strong dislike for Theo, the third team member.

  Theo: a boy so white he could make fresh milk look dingy and gray, whose eyes were bright blue and blond hair was almost shoulder lengt. He was Alvin’s unlikely protégé, and followed him like a puppy. Theo did look awfully young but was supposedly legal, and the production’s agents had vetted him. The Cobras would come from the west most point of Prideful.

  ----------

  “Alvin, you're the leader. Speak for the team: why are you taking this chance? It's going to be dangerous,” Tom had asked during the interview.

  “Make our mark, mark our lives, live our brand. We got a real chance here — a real chance to finance our music career, our freedom, our lives! Make the world aware of us. We are on our hero journey.”

  “Hero journey?” Tom asked.

  “Yeh.” Ty had replied as he squared up to the camera, he stared into challenging anyone watching. “Heroes.”

  The view on the main screen switched again to show rapid-fire segments of the young men: shirtless and fooling around rapping, pouting, and wrestling, relaxing by a swimming pool. Perfect young muscular bodies.

  Last but not least he watched himself in the company of the last team: Team Righteous! A family values team. Mr. and Mrs. Pine with children in tow. Yes. Children. This family will step into danger to save the life of one of their own. Tom looked on, as his screen-self addressed the daughter, the youngest member of the team whose eyes were as blue as the summer’s sky and hair was as blonde and as long as Kate’s.

  “Tessa, when did you find your mom’s Lupus had turned for the worse?”

  Shy and nervous, the girl swept loose locks of hair from her forehead over her right ear. She looked at her mother who was sitting, sandwiched between Tessa and her brother, Carson. After a moment of hesitation she took her mother’s hand and held it.

  “Mom started to have problems keeping her food down and her stomach started to hurt all the times, so...We worried...”

  “Do you think you’ll be able to save your mom?” Tom cringed, embarrassed that screen Tom had asked that question...part of the job.

  Her father stepped in to answer it. Scott Pine was large muscular man with light brown hair and a surly little mouth that was normally barely visible under the walrus-like ‘stache and goatee. There was nothing wrong with him physically, but his personality made him hard to look at as far as Tom was concerned. Of all the contestants, this was the one Tom had been unable to work up any empathy or liking. Scott Pine had quickly proven to be a narcissistic, self righteous, asshole if he ever saw one, but all the same he cared for his family. His daughter seemed to have him wrapped around her little finger.

  “Absolutely. We'll win and the money will go toward Amber’s cure. We prayed long and hard over this, as a family. God w
ill help us through this.”

  Tom put his hand on the man’s shoulder and gave it a manly slap. “A family of strong faith! The American people like to see that.” He paused, for a bit of suspense then gave an intense at the camera, “We’ll see if it’ll be enough to pull them through.”

  After that ominous parting shot the viewer was treated to a collage of more rapid-fire images whose main theme was the abandoned city, intense swirling graphics, and the team members getting ready for action. More pre-recorded segments would be edited into the show later on and they'd help move it along during the slow segments.

  That would be when he would go into depth about a team or a contestant’s profile or weapons carried by them. Each team lead was allowed one weapon of choice going in. Blunt instruments only. More might be provided later. It had been a baseball bat for the patriarch of the Pine family, with a large cross burned into the blonde wood. A Japanese Bo had been Lew’ choice, A Chinese Staff for Cho and another baseball bat for Alvin. Alvin’s bat was aluminum and decorated with the signature and well-wishes of all friends and family members near and dear.

  All the segments were two to three minutes long. Don’t let the grass grow and add dizzying camera tilts to go along with the action-themed score. Screen Tom babbled on about the dangers of the run. Real-life Tom yawned then shivered. It was getting chilly. On the screens, the show segments cut away to ads for erectile dysfunction whose only protagonist was an attractive woman getting ready for some romantic action. A spot for the newest Ford product followed it, a loud beer commercial trailed that one.

  Sex, cars, and beer. The original American dream, he thought as the door to the trailer opened and let in a crisp wind. Zisk, the show’s director, followed it in.

  “So we're ready?” Tom asked him.

  “Yeah. We need you to go out and do your thing in fifteen minutes,” replied Zisk. “You’ll be on a ‘central helicopter’ looking over the others as we drop ‘em into town.”

  “What?!” Tom blurted. “I'm supposed to stay on the ground. Safe! On the ground.”

  “Surprise man! This is sexier and more dramatic. You’ll be safe — don’t worry. Your helicopter will just hover right outside here, and then land right back down, all show. You won’t even go over the fenced area.” Zisk grinned at him. “Our editors here will make it look like you are in the thick of the action.”

  “I’ll throw up.”

  “Try not to,” Zisk replied, his genial smile betrayed by the look of boredom in his eyes as he left the trailer. The production manager patted him on the shoulder amiably.

  “Don’t worry, you go on and vomit all you want. We can edit it out.”

  “Glad someone has my back,” Tom replied wryly.

  “Always, you beautiful sarcastic bastard, you.”

  Familiar rock music began to play again in the background but its intensity increased. On one of the screens a live shot showed Team Righteous getting into the helicopter that would fly them into town at the east-most location. Each team, with the exception of Righteous —which had four contestants—would have three team members and a cameraman. A well-paid professional cameraman, who could take and keep a shot without indulging in the “found footage”, nausea-inducing style of movie making.

  “You're up, Tom.”

  “On my way.”

  Tom opened the door of the trailer. With surprising strength, the wind shoved it from his hand and crashed it loudly against the wall, startling everyone in the room. Tom grabbed it on the bounce back and closed it behind him.

  “Hell of a breeze,” he mumbled as out into the cold, in the worsening weather, he made his way to his own helicopter ride.

  ----------

  Viewers settled in for the show, from the comfort of their home, kicking back on comfortable couches. From the seats of buses or cars on the way to work, hell, their way to anywhere, looking at their phones or tablets to kill the time commuting.

  A distinct feeling of blood in the water began to manifest, as of yet unspoken, over the Internet.

  ----------

  “Hey Jen, show’s on.” Announced a boyfriend. “Jen, you gonna miss the start.”

  People gonna get eaten #omnNomNom posted @furiousGeorge.

  “Do the damn dishes, you are not a little princess Serena.”

  The girl whit the swollen, split upper lip, and the hollow eyes said nothing but went to the sink and began her work as the mother who wasn’t her mother sat down in front of the wide screen TV, with her father who was not her father.

  Show time

  The helicopters lifted off from their respective locations at the town’s cardinal points. For the landings, the pilots made a show of finding a good spot, good editing would do the rest. It would create the impression of action and urgency where there wasn’t much of it; for ‘safety’ the pilots hovered close to ground and let the members of the four teams jump out of the open doors. All a show—a few ladders and some thick blankets thrown over the barbed wire would have worked as well. Or cutting a hole in the fence. But cutting through it would have caused legal issues, worse, the noises might eventually draw out some of the town’s current inhabitants. And everyone wanted intact fences between them and the turned.

  The players now had two days to reach as many flags as possible. They would be told how many flags the other teams had, for added pressure. If they went past two days the cash pot would drop hourly by hundreds of thousands of dollars. A million today not being what it used to be, the contestant had better be hauling ass.

  The video streams from the aerial drones, the helicopters, and the cameramen showed that most of the teams had gotten quickly organized once they hit the ground, and trotted off without a hitch. With one exception: The voice of the senior editor came in through Tom’s headset.

  “Tom, first fuck up.”

  “Great, who is it?”

  “Joe from Striker,” replied the man as he zoomed in on the feed for the team.

  Tom nodded, he looked at the fallen man on his tablet and opened his microphone. His voice came in over the video feed. “It looks like we have a player down. A player in danger! And that can put his team mates in danger. Joe Rosling from team Striker is on the ground and not getting up! Team striker has hit the ground and is already behind. Joe Rosling! Joe, looks like you got hurt there.”

  Joe, the Army vet, tall and wiry, with wild shoulder length brown hair tied back in a pony tail and biker mustache, sat grimacing on the ground. He looked embarrassed and his lips formed a tight white line on a face from which pain had already drained all color.

  “Just a sprain. I’ll be okay.” He gasped through clenched teeth and killed any credibility his reply might have had. Joe tried to get up and held his hand out to Lew for support. With the other man’s help he struggled to his feet, but when he tried to put weight on the hurt foot he gave a sharp cry and fell back on his ass.

  The awkward silence and frustration was palpable as the camera feed streamed on and minutes passed. Ross Boulez, the team’s assigned cameraman, panned in on the reaction of the team members. Embarrassment, anger and impatience were the predominant emotions.

  “Think you can keep going, Joe?” Tom asked. “Your team is waiting on you. Do you need to be extracted?”

  The man shook his head. “I'm good.” With a pained, tight lipped expression and Lew’ help, he managed to get back up and started walking. Emma and Lew clapped and patted him on the back, but they looked doubtful. The team left at a slow trot that soon turned into a slow walk, and then to a funeral procession pace march as Joe limped along and kept up as best he could.

  ----------

  “That guy is done. Right now he’s just looking pathetic.” Said Fats “So far, so boring. Where are all the dead people? I don’t see dead people. Our viewers want to see dead people.”

&nb
sp; “They're there,” Cheryl snapped.