by A. P. Fuchs
“What?”
“I heard you.”
“Which part?” Had he said it aloud instead of thought it?
“What part?”
“Yeah, what part?”
“The unfair part.”
Mick was relieved. “But it is.”
“I know.”
Mick bit his tongue and was convinced this was Sterpanko’s move against him and the whole place was now paying for it.
Whatever. As if you expected this to be easy. Just roll with it. Okay, fine. So now we’re getting somewhere. Won that last one. Good. Movement. Progress. Yeah, good stuff. Onward and upward and all that. Stop rambling. But if I had put down more . . . . No, can’t think like that.
Amidst the booing during the last fight thanks to that surprise announcement, he was going to bet even more. But if he lost he’d be in way worse and recovery would have been nigh impossible so he kept his bet as was. During that last bout, though, he didn’t know if the robot would make it. Machines were capable of so much, but that was the problem: so much. Once the limit was reached, that would be it. This was one of the reasons he had a hard time buying all those end-of-the-world movies—especially now since he’d gone through an apocalypse firsthand—you know, the ones with robots taking over the globe with mankind at their mercy. In the end, machines were still machines, each with limits, each with a power source. All someone had to do was pull the plug and one person usually did with those Electro-magnetic Pulse things. Why they never pulled the EMP out at the beginning of the movie and just won never made sense. But then there wouldn’t have been a movie, now, right?
Mick’s breathing slowed. He pulled his hand away from his mouth.
Jack sat slouched beside him, hands on his gut, twiddling his thumbs. The man merely sat there, staring ahead, subtly tapping his top and bottom teeth together.
Bad round, Mick thought, yet Jack also seemed the kind of guy who could keep a pretty mean poker face if he wanted to.
Mick glanced down at his shoes and, while tapping one foot, did a quick calculation as to where he was at with Sterpanko. Not where I’d like to be.
He wondered what would happen if he ended up winning big today and came out on top. Would Sterpanko pay him or would any extra won be moot? A part of him thought he might make a big stink about it if he ended up coming out ahead. Another part thought he’d just pretend he never got in the black and would hopefully go home with a blank slate. And even if he did win huge and could have pocketed, say, fifty grand or something, he couldn’t tell Anna. She’d either be mad at him for not trying to keep it if he forfeited it—after all, every dollar counted as they tried to re-set up their lives after the Zombie War—or she’d scold him for taking it because that kind of surplus would be too much of a temptation for him to come back to Blood Bay Arena and blow it on more fights. Mick hated to admit it, but Anna would be right about that last part. He had the bug. He loved the thrill, the “what if?” and the amazing gratification that came from scoring big on a fight you thought you’d lose.
Jack cleared his throat. “You listening?”
“Huh?” Mick said.
“Seems they’re changing things up a bit.”
“What do you mean?”
“Last one had more than one zombie.”
“Yeah. Maybe they’re trying to make it more fair. I don’t remember seeing a robot take on more than one at a time.” Fair. Yeah right.
“Either that or that bucket of bolts had a few upgrades so they had to compensate.”
“That’s what I just said.”
“What?”
“About making it more fair.”
Jack arced an eyebrow. “No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Yes, I did.”
“No, you—look, point is, things are changing up a bit. Got it?”
“Don’t give me lip, man.”
“I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Yes, you are.”
Jack huffed and crossed his arms.
Mick grinned to himself. Tonight might be the last night he could act like a kid. He figured he might as well.
He pulled out his Controller and checked to see what was going down for the next bout. When he found the screen, he took a long hard look at it. Some of these fighters—he couldn’t help but wonder if they were set-ups of some kind, actors on Sterpanko’s payroll. The Space-Time Continuum truly held no meaning anymore, at least not in the way it used to.
Regardless, here he was, in Blood Bay Arena, life as the world used to know it totally screwed up, puked out and messed up.
He thought about his bet. It’d be great if he could drop what he owed by at least half.
His fingers had a hard time committing to the Controller’s buttons. Once a bet was placed, there was no do-overs, not even if you made an honest mistake and mistyped something. What was done was done. Game over, win, lose or draw.
Mick forced his fingers to comply with his thoughts.
He put the Controller back and waited for the lights to go out.
20
Viking vs ZombieS
Bet: $225,000
Owing: $569,000
Abel Meginbjörn stood strong, the weight of his chain mail shirt nothing he wasn’t used to. Neither was he clenching the handle of his sword. At least, not yet. Not until the dead rose. He’d battled many times before, first against men of lesser standing, most not knowing how to wield a sword or axe to save their life. Stealing from them had been easy, whether it was precious metals, food, women or drink. But those days were behind him now. He didn’t quite know what happened to his comrades. One moment they were sailing the sea, laughing, drinking and scouting the horizon for land. Some of his friends were known for ritually sharpening their blades before an attack, whereas others preferred their fists and hadn’t used their knives and swords the last time they made landfall and took what they wanted. So there, on the sea, he gazed off into the darkening sky, sharpening his blade, the mist of black rain hitting the water somewhere off in the distance.
A bolt of lightning cracked overhead. Thunder followed. Then another bolt struck the ship, right where he was standing, striking his sword. A shock raged through him and all went bright blue, then white, then he was in a land not his own. Those he encountered on the ravaged streets suggested his armor would do him well as there were straggling “dead men” about. He encountered one, too, his shield protecting him from the ghoulish man’s snapping jaws and sprays of blood coughed up from between cracked, yellow teeth.
The thrill of running that dead man through left him hungry for more, and as time went on, he discovered he was quite good at it and so eventually made his way here to fight the dead every chance he was allotted.
Abel Meginbjörn didn’t care much for going home. Not anymore. Why pillage a small town or settlement when you could earn so much more by slaughtering the dead and protecting not just oneself, but the living as well?
He adjusted his helmet so it sat more comfortably on his head, enabling him to see just a little bit better. His helmet. Someone who was part of this . . . fighting circuit . . . showed him a picture of what was supposed to be a Viking. The fellow in the picture had horns sticking out of his helmet. Where such a notion came from, Abel didn’t know. It didn’t matter. He was here now, setting history straight, showcasing to those looking on that Vikings were not to be trifled with.
As he stood there in the dark, he wondered how many of the dead he would have to fight today. Sometimes there was just one, usually the slow ones, which he found to be an insult. One quick swipe with his sword, a splash of black blood, and the creature would drop. The other ones—Sprinters—were much worse, but still manageable thanks to his armor. Two times in the past he had to fight two of the dead, both Shamblers each time.
The buzzer sounded and the lights went on.
The iron ring lit up.
And the dead began to rise.
Two of them. One a Sprinter. The other the slower kind, it seemed.
“For my country, for my men. Today I will cut off your heads!” Abel shouted, raising his sword, gripping the handle tight. He ran toward the dead men.
The crowd shouted and cheered. “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
“GRRRAAAHHHH!” Abel growled and ran his blade through the shoulder of the slower, dead man. The other one, the Sprinter, was gone.
Abel whirled around, bringing his blade about in a wild arc. He connected with something and a moment later took note of the severed arm on the floor. The Sprinter in front of him shrieked and charged at him, fingers curled good and stiff, sharp nails ready to tear through his flesh, chain mail or not.
Abel moved to the side and the Sprinter moved past him, burying its hands into the chest of its slower counterpart. The Viking drew up his sword and ran it through the back of the Sprinter, piercing both that zombie and the one beyond.
The dead men twisted with the impact and black blood and globs of flesh splashed onto the floor.
Tugging at his sword, Abel hoped to rip it out then bring it up and around for a swipe at the men’s heads. The blade wouldn’t budge; the dead men’s torsos twisted, one to the left, the other to the right, his sword lodged between flesh and bones.
Quickly, Abel brought up his shield and brought its heavy metal frame down onto the Sprinter’s head, crushing its skull. The dead man beyond groaned and tried to pull itself free from the sword. Instead, it only tore up its torso, glops of lung, stomach and intestines splashing onto the concrete floor.
Abel withdrew his soax and plunged it into the slower man’s head. The dead man’s eyes went wide . . . then he went limp, his body still hanging on the sword.
“Boooooo . . .” the crowd droned.
Abel guided the dead men to the floor, placed a heavy foot on the Sprinter’s torso, braced himself, then yanked hard, jerking the blood-covered blade out of both men’s bodies.
“Boooooo . . .” the crowd continued. Others hissed. Many stomped their feet in protest.
Let them howl, Abel thought. The world is now less two evils.
The buzzer droned and instead of the cage opening as always, it remained shut.
“Boooooo . . .”
The lights went out.
A few sharp whistles from the crowd, then a few more. Soon the whole place began screaming, “Kill! Kill! Kill! Kill!”
Abel didn’t know what to make of it. This wasn’t how things went. He held his sword at the ready, his soax also gripped tightly with his other hand.
The iron ring lit up, casting blue light on a shadowy figure rising from the dark. This wasn’t a zombie, or, at least, didn’t seem like the others. This one was wider and wore something on its head.
The buzzer droned and the arena lights went on.
Primal cheers crashed through the air. It was all Abel could do to concentrate on what was before him.
A dead man.
A dead brother.
Another Viking, this one with the red eyes of a Sprinter, glaring at him from beneath a tarnished helmet. Its chain mail was old and worn, its face hollow with slash marks on the cheekbones. It was then Abel recognized the beard, the muddy brown hair that covered the Norse man’s chin and extended near a foot down his chest. Abel had known only one man in his life with a beard like that: Hári. The man was as fast as a rabbit, if Abel’s memory served him correctly.
A flash back to the boat. The lightning. Hári standing beside him, not fast enough to get out of the way. The lightning must have brought him here, too, though not to the same place. Hári must have been changed to the dead at some other point and was gathered to be here.
Gathered to fight.
To the death.
“Forgive me, brother, for I knew you well,” Abel said.
Hári only stared at him. The shackles fell from his wrists and ankles. Hári charged.
Abel moved to bring his blade clean across Hári’s neck, but just as he was about to do so, he withdrew and stepped to the side; Hári ran past him.
“I cannot believe you are here,” Abel said.
Hári merely growled, his bloodshot eyes no longer carrying even a hint of the man Abel once knew.
A warrior’s spirit was a strong one and Hári proved it by pulling his sword from its sheath.
The crowd gasped.
Abel hadn’t known any of the dead to fight with a weapon.
The two Vikings ran at each other, swords slicing through the air, each ready to massacre the other. The blades clashed mid air; a shockwave zipped through Abel’s arm. Quickly he dipped down, bent at the knees, and brought his soax across the inside of Hári’s thigh. Blood immediately spurt out.
Still bent over, Hári brought his blade down on Abel’s exposed back, the force of the blow sending him to the ground. His knuckles hit the concrete first, fingers still gripping his weapons. A dead weight suddenly plowed into his back, pressing him against the ground. A sharp pain shot through his arm and he didn’t need to look at it to know Hári had ran his blade through it.
Screaming, Abel tried to pull himself out from under his former comrade. Instead, the most he could do was rock his body side to side and hope to loose him.
Searing pain lit up his pierced arm. He glanced over. Hári was chewing through it. Abel tugged and tugged, intentionally loosening the muscle and fat for the undead Viking. With a wet tear, he pulled what was left of his arm free, in turn getting him the leverage he needed to jerk out from under Hári’s weight and crawl off to the side.
Hári sat on his knees, hunched over the arm, devouring the flesh off the bone. Blood trailed in a long, thick puddle from the arm over to where Abel sat off to the side, shaking from the pain.
The crowd’s screams droning in his ears, all going blurry before him, Abel wondered about his mates back home and if, even now, they looked upon the deck of the Snake of the North to where he once stood, still wondering what happened to their friends and if they wound up overboard.
Abel plunged the tip of his sword into the ground and used it to help himself to his feet. Seemingly sensing that he did so, Hári got to his feet as well, dropped the arm and looked at him.
“Remember yourself, Hári,” Abel said.
Hári charged him.
Abel brought up his sword . . . and brought it down.
21
A Hard Kind of Loathing
If Mick had a crowbar, he’d take it to his own head right now. Either that, or take the hooked end, wedge it in his eye sockets and pop his eyes out. At least that way he could claim he could no longer see the Controller and make an informed choice. Bottom line: he lost again, and still owed close to eight hundred grand. It was as if Sterpanko was somehow rigging it—even the fighters. Maybe the money didn’t mean anything to Sterpanko and instead the guy who ran Zombie Fight Night was just a sick freak who enjoyed blood, guts and, well, zombies.
Like before, Mick resigned once again to just spend-spend-spend and hope for the best. No time to even hope for a payout at the end. Now it was all about staying alive and seeing the night through. Once—if—he got to the end of it, then he could focus on just getting home, seeing Anna, crawling into bed and, hopefully, waking up tomorrow morning and pretending it was all a bad dream.
If only.
“Hmph,” Mick said.
“You say something?” Jack asked.
Mick shook his head. He didn’t feel like talking. Even if he did, he doubted he could even find the strength to speak. It was one of those moments where the words were locked in his throat, as if the words and phrases had hit some kind of ceiling and merely bounced off and dropped back down into his stomach.
There were few times in Mick’s life where he genuinely hated himself. Sure, he had moments like everyone where he wished he was someone else—but no, this was different. This was one of those moments where loathing himself was his reality, the kind of hatred whe
re if he could step outside himself, he’d kick himself in the nuts, tell himself off and kill himself—just to make a point and hurt himself so bad out of pure, rage-filled disgust.
It was one of those moments where he couldn’t believe he was himself, the one with the problem, the problem that was insurmountable, deadly and, above all things—and which made it sting even more—could have been completely avoided had he merely kept a decent level of self control.
A hard kind of loathing.
It was the kind of problem where you simply wanted to turn it off, call it a day and say good night. Except, the irony of those problems were they couldn’t be turned off by a simple solution. This kind took an all-out war just to face the music never mind actually solving it.
He was so sick of dwelling on it. He’d been doing that all evening.
New resolution: not only did he no longer care about the money, he no longer cared about himself.
It was the only way to stay sane. Just write yourself off, call it a day and say good night.
After one more bet.
He pulled out the Controller from the seat in front him and just held it. Every few seconds his eyes would begin to drift to the screen, but he’d pull them back and force them to stare forward again past the fight cage and to the rows of seats beyond. Even the faces weren’t digestible. Just blurred beige and brown circles, dotted with tiny black specks and squiggly lines.
A sharp pain sparked in his ribs and his first inclination was his muscles were spasming from the stress, but it was Jack, sticking a thick elbow into him.
“Better make up your mind, friend. Show’s coming down the pike, you know?” Jack said.
“Yeah.” Mick mouthed the words more than said them. He didn’t have to look at Jack to know the guy knew something was wrong. He had to be careful. The betting had to stay personal. Mick cleared his throat and forced the word out again: “Yeah.”
“Then get ’er done.”
Mick nodded and forced himself to look at the pale blue glow of the Controller screen. At first the details of the next fight didn’t even register. He had to read the notes two more times before it sunk in. You could only see the word “zombie” so many times before the death machine it represented didn’t carry any weight anymore. But there was another word there that did carry some weight.