“And you didn’t think to end the experiments there? Look at her, Dad.”
“We thought she was getting cranky because she hadn’t eaten. But no matter what we tried to feed her, she wasn’t interested.”
The footage showed Mark’s dad putting a plate on the floor.
Seconds later, she kicked it away, the food spilling everywhere.
“I was at a loss. She was going to die.”
“Maybe that would have been for the best.”
Still not looking at his son, Mark’s dad sighed. “It definitely would have been for the best, but hindsight’s twenty-twenty, eh?”
“So what did you do?” It was hard not to make it sound like an accusation.
Standing up, his chair rolling away from him, Mark’s dad undid his belt and dropped his trousers. In the center of his left thigh was a livid scar about the size of an identity card. Why had Mark never noticed it before?
“I’d heard from the Marines that after the dead came back to life, they craved human flesh.”
“You didn’t, Dad?”
Mark’s dad didn’t reply.
The echo of Mark’s high-pitched shriek bounced off the walls of the small room. “You fed her a slice of your fucking thigh?”
The footage showed Mark’s dad walking into the room again. This time, he moved with a limp as he shuffled towards the dead woman. “She seemed too tired to get up at that point.” He put the plate down near her as she arced her lip at him from the floor.
As his dad backed off, the woman on the screen stirred. It was like the human flesh contained some kind of magical property that roused her from her death spiral.
With her tongue flicking from her mouth like a snake tasting the air, she dragged her weary body across the floor to the slab of meat.
Unable to take his eyes off the footage, Mark swallowed against the bilious burn rising up his throat. “Did you cook it before you gave it to her?”
When she got closer to the plate, the camera zoomed in, and Mark got his answer. The meat sat in a pool of its own blood. “Fucking hell, Dad, what were you thinking?”
After a cautious taste, the woman pounced on her meal, grabbing the meat with both hands and biting down hard. As she tore the first chunk away, deep red blood ran down her chin, standing in stark contrast to her pallid skin.
Another leap forwards in time, and the woman was on her feet again. She was running from one side of the room to the other, more energy coursing through her than at any other time before.
Watching on, breathing heavily through his large nose, Mark’s dad said, “It worked.”
“No shit.”
“We nicknamed her Eve. It wasn’t because she was the first because there were others before her. But she was the catalyst. Having this virus active in the city was a very different prospect from having it in a distant rainforest. At first, I thought I was God. I thought I’d managed to create life. Imagine what power there was in bringing people back from the dead. But I soon realized I was the asp. I’d masterminded man’s fall from grace. I’d set the wheels in motion.”
Mark pointed at the monitor, showing the zombies outside. “Hardly a legacy to be proud of is it, Dad?”
“It was an accident.”
“You cut a chunk out of your fucking leg and fed it to her. How’s that an accident? It was fucking foolish.”
When his dad didn’t reply, Mark looked back at the zombies outside. “So why do they eat dog now? I thought she would only eat human flesh.”
“She would, but they must have evolved. I’m guessing the ones that would only eat human have either learned to adapt or have died out. It’s been over thirty years, so they’ve clearly coped.”
“They’ve more than coped,” Mark said. “They’ve thrived. Who’d have thought that the next evolutionary step for humankind would be to take away our ability to think? Remove our ego, and we stop destroying one another. Those mindless fucks are less of a threat to their own existence. Maybe humanity can live in peace now?”
Searching the monitors, Mark looked at the evidence of their once “great” society. Abandoned buildings were wrapped in weeds. Cars had turned to rusted lumps on cracked roads. Skyscrapers were nothing but derelict and craggy pillars that were rotting from the top down. Mark had witnessed the entire train wreck from that tiny little control room. A detached observer of humanity’s fall from grace.
“All of this,” Mark said. “All of this because of you. I’ve spent most of my life in this shitty complex because of you. I’m probably going to die in here, you realize. I’m going to die in that fucking chair. I’m going to die running stupid fucking checks on stupid fucking machines to keep a small group of stupid fucking people alive until all of our resources inevitably run out. We’ll probably resort to eating each other and becoming what we’ve spent our entire fucking lives trying to avoid.”
Heat swelled in Mark’s chest, accelerating his heart as he watched his dad, his face gaunt, his jowls hanging loose. He looked older than ever before.
“They were going to weaponize it anyway, Mark. The human race has always been destined to wipe itself out. I thought I could do something different. I thought I could use it for good.”
It took all of Mark’s strength to refrain from grabbing the back of his dad’s head and shoving it into the screens in front of him. Couldn’t he see what was left outside? It was hardly used for fucking good.
The next jump in the footage showed his dad entering the room again. This time, he had a clear perspex shield as well as his riot gear. Slipping inside, he moved quickly across the lab to the other side of the room. “I couldn’t see so well with the helmet and mask on,” he said.
“What do you…” But before Mark could finish the question, he saw Eve run for the door, pull it open, and dart out into the corridor.
Staring at his lap, Mark’s dad’s shoulders slumped. “I thought the door had locked behind me.”
Another jump in the footage, and Mark’s dad had taken the riot gear off but was still in the lab. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, he was playing cards with a three-year-old Mark. They were smiling and joking. That was the man Mark knew. Maybe that was when this iteration was born. Looking at the dejected figure in the chair, the anger inside of him settled. Nothing would change who he was as a father. That was, and always will be, real.
“It was a miracle that you were safe, Mark. It was like she knew to leave you alone.” Before Mark could respond, his dad added, “After she’d escaped, I ran out into the complex, grabbed you and some food, and locked us in the lab. It was a bloodbath outside of that room. Everything the marines had told me about the virus was true.”
“Why didn’t you listen then?”
His dad didn’t respond.
The footage jumped forwards again. “We stayed in there for a week, and no one came to find us.”
On the screen, Mark’s dad left the room.
“Eventually, food started to run low, and I had to do something. Leaving you on your own was the scariest thing I’d done in my life, but I had to do something.”
Another jump, and Mark’s dad had returned. “The complex had fallen. Instead of coming back for me, Eve clearly went for easier pickings out in the unsuspecting world. Why wait for one stubborn scientist and his boy when there was a banquet elsewhere?”
Unable to take his eyes off his infant self, Mark watched the little boy drive a toy car around on the floor of the lab. Oblivious to the horrors that had been set free, he was still allowed to be a child. “How many people know you started this, Dad?”
“No one. Anyone who was involved in the experiments were long gone when I locked Eden down a week later.”
“You cut the world off that soon?”
“I did what I had to do, Mark. The world had already fallen. My only purpose was to keep you alive at that point. There isn’t a day that passes where I don’t regret what happened. I was young and foolish. I was caught up in the ego of science. I thought I co
uld control the natural world. And most of all, I thought I’d found a way to reunite a mother with her son.”
Mark’s stomach lurched, and his knees buckled, thawing a wobble through him.
“I couldn’t cure cancer when she was dying, but maybe I could do the next best thing.”
Watching his dad for a second, remaining upright by holding onto the back of his seat, Mark’s gaze followed the single tear that ran down his wrinkled cheek. He then looked back at the screen. Frozen in the center of it was an image of a woman. Eve. Her eyes were bright, her smile full. It was taken before she’d died. It was the first time he’d seen a photo of her. His dad had told him there weren’t any.
Stepping backwards, Mark fell into the other chair in the room. Reading the words beneath the photo became harder as his vision blurred, but he managed to finish the eulogy before he was blinded by a hot wave of grief.
“To a wonderful wife and mother. Your time wasn’t up. Always in our hearts. Thomas and Mark.”
Ends.
The Arena
Bran tossed and turned in bed. The thin mattress offered little padding against the hard metal frame it rested on. Both frigid and unyielding, the bed seemed to have been designed with discomfort in mind.
After a long, slow exhale, lethargy gripping his muscles; Bran sat up, rested his elbows on his knees, dropped his head into his hands, and stared at the floor. Other than the wafer thin mattress and duvet, the entire cell was made of metal. The floor, the walls, the beds, the toilet, the sink… dark grey surrounded Bran on all sides. It smelled like spilled blood; a smell that had been with him most of his adult life.
The screen mounted on the wall showed live footage from the arena. It ran all day, broadcasting either live fights or reruns. The noise blared from tinny speakers and they had no control over the volume. The violence was fine; it was a way of life for Bran before he came here in fact. The over-excitable commentators on the other hand… if he ever got a hold of one of them… Bran clenched his fists and took calming breaths.
The commentator screamed, “And the human, Max Rodrigo, is down. Will Grintoo finish him?”
Grintoo, an eight foot tall purple Jehoban lifted Max Rodrigo from the ground. Bran’s cell mate bounced on the spot. “Oh my, Max is screwed.”
“Talk about stating the obvious,” Bran said as he watched Grintoo. “He’s got arms as thick as tree trunks—and four of them to boot. How’s this even a fair contest? No human can beat him.”
Bran’s cell mate stopped and turned to Bran. “You could.”
An ache ran up both sides of Bran’s head from clenching his jaw. “Not this again. You’ve only been in here one night. What is it with every cell mate I have trying to get me into the arena?” His pulse pounded and his body temperature rose. “Did Moses send you down here?”
While shaking his head, Bran’s cell mate backed away a step. “Honestly, Bran, it’s what I think. No one’s sent me here to try and persuade you.”
“It doesn’t matter whether you’re lying or not,” Bran said, “nothing’s getting me into the arena.”
Bran’s cell mate held his hand out. “My name is—”
“I don’t care,” Bran said.
Dejection deflated his cell mate, so Bran turned away from him and watched Grintoo lift Max from the ground. He raised the limp human above his head and turned on the spot, drinking in the reaction from those around him. The camera panned the crowd to show the red-faced spectators screaming for the Jehoban to finish the fight. No doubt all of the gamblers across the galaxy would be shouting too. After all, who bet on the human?
“Grintoo must have called in a favor for this fight,” Bran said.
While releasing a deep roar, Grintoo brought Max down. The crowd fell silent long enough to hear the deep crack of Max’s back breaking before they went wild again.
Grintoo discarded his broken opponent and raised all four of his massive arms, roaring for a second time as the crowd went wild.
“And Grintoo wins,” The commentator called over the chaos. “Not only has he gained his freedom, but, if he’s sensible, he won’t ever have to work again.”
The broadcast then cut to ads. The first one was for prostitution in Liloo. Bran’s cell mate turned away from the screen. “That was nasty. Poor Max. I was hoping for a fairer fight to end the day.”
While eyeballing his new cell mate, Bran said, “I liked my last cell mate, you know. He was quiet… kept to himself.”
Bran’s cell mate didn’t reply.
“Although, for some reason, he thought he should fight in the arena. He was built like a damn pipe cleaner.”
To get to his top bunk, Bran’s cell mate had to step on Bran’s bed. When he put his dirty foot on Bran’s mattress, Bran stared at it, his entire body tensing up. The old Bran would have torn the grubby foot clean off and shoved it up his cell mate’s arse. The old Bran would have stepped into the arena a long time ago. The old Bran would have fought everything and everyone like a rabid dog. The old Bran was a fucking fool.
The bunk bed shifted and rocked as Bran’s cell mate made himself comfortable up above. He then said, “Why don’t you fight, Bran?”
Without replying, Bran lay down and stared up at the bottom of his cell mate’s bunk. After drawing a deep breath, he counted down in his head. Three, two, one… A loud shunk cracked through the prison and every light in the place turned off.
“Everyone knows you’ll win,” his cell mate said, “and there’s no other way off this ship.”
Instead of replying, Bran closed his eyes and drew a deep sigh. Maybe he would win, but what did he have that was worth fighting for? As he lay in the dark, Bran ground his teeth and waited.
After a few minutes of silence, he relaxed. Maybe the loud mouth did know when to shut up.
A deep shunk ran through the entire prison tower and the lights turned on. It sounded like someone had just thrown a massive light switch into action; one that registered on the Richter scale.
Bran groaned, rubbed his face, and looked across his cell to the open window. It was dark outside, so who knew what time of day it was? Maybe Moses and those who ran the facility kept a strict schedule where they turned the lights on during the day and off at night. Maybe they didn’t.
Bran’s cell mate was already out of bed and making a cup of tea in the corner of the room. “Can you see in the dark or something?”
As he stirred his tea, he looked over at Bran. “Huh?”
The chink of the teaspoon against the porcelain mug made Bran’s shoulders tense. “How do you manage to get up and move around the cell in the dark?”
His cell mate shrugged, and then before Bran could say anything else, he said, “I’ve been thinking about our conversation yesterday.”
“A conversation usually goes two ways,” Bran said. “You talked yesterday; I had to listen because I don’t have anything to wedge into my ears.”
With his shifty eyes moving from side to side, Bran’s cell mate cleared his throat. “Um… well… anyway, I was thinking about how much money you’d make if you went into the arena. If ‘Bran the Warrior’ fought, it would pull in the biggest crowd Moses has ever had.”
Bran sat up and dropped his feet onto the cold metal floor. Aches gripped his entire body like they did every morning; a consequence of fighting for so many years. As a youngster, Bran didn’t believe in stretching. If only he had.
Bran rolled his neck, generating a series of pops and clicks. “Of course it would. That’s why Moses paid a bounty hunter to bring me here. The more profit the man can make, the more of an interest he takes in you. But I’ve given up fighting. I’ve already told you that.”
A quick shrug and his cell mate said, “But, if you want freedom, you don’t have a choice now.”
“Maybe freedom isn’t that important to me. I don’t have a life to return to, so why should I risk fighting to the death for it? I don’t know exactly how much Moses paid to get me here, but I wouldn’t mind betting
he’s seriously out of pocket. If I fight, he gets that money back. I don’t ever want him to recoup his spending on me… ever.”
Bran reached up and grabbed the top bunk. He then pulled himself to his feet, groaning as he straightened his twisted back. By the time he got to the window, he’d already loosened up a little.
When Bran poked his head outside, the cold wind tossed his hair and stung his eyes. Flecks of rain whipped his face as he breathed in the cool air. The windows had no bars because the only way out of the prison tower was down. Down, by most people’s reckoning, was about a mile or maybe more. Even if there was daylight on the planet Stoonray, it would have been impossible to see the ground anyway. “You can see why some people choose to leave the tower this way,” he said as he continued to stare into the abyss below.
His cell mate came over to his side and peered out. “But you’d die.”
“Better that than getting torn apart by some intergalactic monster in the arena.”
“But that wouldn’t happen to you, Bran.”
Pulling his head back in, his face still stinging from the harsh weather outside, Bran stared straight at his cell mate. “I used to fight because it gave me power. It made me significant. After a lifetime of feeling below average in everything I did, fighting gave me a way to get respect. Or that’s what I thought it was.”
“What do you mean?”
“There’s a difference between fear and respect.”
A scream shot into their cell as a prisoner from one of the floors above hurtled past their open window.
After upending his mug, Bran’s cell mate slammed it down on the table and smiled. “But you were a hero.”
Bran shook his head. “I was a bully. My own daughters looked at me like I was a monster. I was a fool to think I could get anything from fighting.”
His cell mate chewed on his bottom lip for a second. “Maybe you can get something from fighting now?” He pointed at the cell door. “Your freedom’s waiting for you out there. All you have to do is go and take it.”
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