Zombies! (Episode 6): Barriers Collapse (9 page)

It was a twelve block walk from the train station to the warehouse. He took it casually, knowing he had more than enough time before the fights began. There were some residential buildings by the station, but they dwindled and disappeared within four blocks. After that he saw a corner gas station, long since abandoned, a dilapidated park, a junkyard, and lots and lots of old warehouses. He wondered how he would be able to pick out the one he was looking for.

Within two blocks, he heard the noise. It was the sound of people talking. Lots and lots of people. As he turned the corner, he spied a well lit lot with one of the warehouses dead center. Outside the building, people stood around talking and laughing and smoking. There were a few men, boys really, patrolling the perimeter. They looked tough and they looked mean, kids who grew up and became rappers. It was a side of society that John Arrick read about or watched on television. Now, like a grand explorer, he was about to enter and become a part of it.

Moving through the throng, he searched for an entrance to the warehouse. It was getting close to nine and he didn't really know what it was that he had to do to register for the fights. When it didn't seem that he would find the entrance in time, he approached one of the patrolling boys.

"Do you work here, mate?"

The boy laughed at him. He wasn't sure if it was because of his accent, because he was asking as if he was in a store, or because he'd used the word
mate
. Either way, he wasn't inclined to challenge the insult and so waited for the boy to finish.

When the boy looked back at him, he seemed to sober up quickly. "Oh. You serious."

Arrick nodded.

"Whatchoo need?"

"How do I sign up to fight?"

The boy looked confused for a minute, then looked around. When he finally looked back at Arrick, there was a doubtful look in his eye. "You want to fight?"

"That's right." Arrick tried his very best to sound confident.

The boy looked him up and down and then finally shrugged. "Follow me."

So Arrick followed him. As they walked through the crowd, the boy began to shout, raising his voice above the din. "Make way!" he cried. "We got us a warrior, here! Make way!"

Arrick wanted to shrink inside of himself. Of all of the horrors he had imagined associated with his choice, this was not one of them. As they walked, all eyes turned toward the shouting, looked about for a moment, and then found him. He could hear their dubious whispers as he passed.
Let them bet against me
, he thought.
It'll serve them right.

Past the crowd was the entrance to the warehouse. People were already moving inside, a line forming along the side of the building. There was somebody taking money at the door. Cash only. He was telling people where to go to place their bets. When he saw Arrick and his escort approaching, he stopped the line.

"We got us a fighter," said Arrick's companion. The man at the door looked Arrick up and down in much the same way the other had. He seemed a bit less judgmental when he ushered them inside.

They came in underneath a set of gymnasium bleachers. There were several rows of seats and they extended about ten or twelve feet overhead. Between them was a short corridor that led out into a center area, cleared for the fighters and the ring. The ring itself was a standard sized boxing ring. Arrick had like boxing in his youth but something about the way the Americans did it had turned him off. He also couldn't stand those mixed martial arts competitions you'd see on television. There was a dignity to boxing that seemed to be missing when you had two guys kicking, punching, and generally brawling on the ground. The old ring was falling apart. The turnbuckles had long since disappeared, leaving behind nasty metal connections. The ropes were frayed, some of the inside wires showing. Erected around the entire ring was a seven foot chain link fence with a gate. It was laid out like a cage from a professional wrestling event, but the links were a lot lighter and less dangerous than bars. As they moved out of the corridor and into the ring's perimeter, he could see the other fighters standing off to the side. There were four of them, two black, one latino, and a hulking beast of man whose head was bald and face was beet red. He looked more scared than any of the others. His eyes flitted to Arrick and then back to the other side of the ring. They shimmered and glowed and Arrick turned to see what it was that had the man so entranced. As he expected, it was the zombies that they were about to fight.

There were more than a dozen zombies. Each one stood with its hands bound behind its back and a rubber ball tied into its mouth. Some were in decent shape and others were falling apart. They remained in the clothing in which they had died. One was wearing a hospital gown. How she had gotten from the hospital to this miserable fate, John Arrick couldn't guess. He hoped he didn't have to fight her. There were also three children. Each was small, under twelve years old. But, though their statures remained diminutive, they had lost everything that made them children. Their eyes looked exactly the same as the eyes of the other. In fact, Arrick began to think of them more as zombie dwarves than as children.

"How many do you want to fight?" his escort was asking him.

"What?" asked Arrick. "I thought just one."

The boy shook his head. "No one fights just one. You can fight three if you want."

Arrick motioned to the big guy. "How many is he fighting?"

"Three."

"And the others?"

"You see the dude with red do rag hid under his cap?"

Arrick looked and nodded.

"He's fightin' six."

"Really? What’s the most anyone's ever fought?"

The youth thought for a moment. "Some dude took on eight one time. He thought he was hot shit."

"Did he win?"

The boy shook his head. "Got tore apart."

"Can I fight ten?"

The boy laughed, then stopped. "You ain't got no weapons, right? No weapons allowed." Arrick held up his arms so the boy could search him, but the boy refused. "Don't need that. If you pull out a weapon in the ring, you don't walk out. Zombies are expensive. Got it?"

Arrick nodded. So, like everything else, the bottom line on the undead plague had come down to money. Zombies were
expensive
.

"What's your name?"

"John…Smith."

"John Smith? That's what you want to go by? How 'bout Long John Silver?"

"That's fine," Arrick conceded.

The boy walked away and Arrick got into line with the other fighters. The big hulking guy tried to look over at Arrick, but he seemed to find it very difficult to look away from the zombies.

"Did you say you was gonna fight ten?" It was man with the do rag. To Arrick, he looked like he was somewhere in his mid twenties. He wore a stylish red New York Yankees cap with a silver logo. The cap was slightly tilted and the do rag underneath hid all of his hair. There was a nasty scar running from the inside corner if his left eye, over the bridge of his nose, and over his right eye. It looked like a distorted fleshy eyebrow.

"That's right," Arrick answered.

"You tryin' to show me up?"

A little taken aback, Arrick didn't know how to answer the question so he simply said, "No."

"What makes you think you can take ten of them, man? I mean, look at you?"

Arrick actually did look down at himself in his long brown coat and grey sweats. He didn't really look like a fighter. "I'm quick on my feet," he answered.

"Ain't gonna do no good," the large red faced man said. "I've watched three fights and the quickest on the feet are quickest to die."

"Then why you so scared?" asked
do rag
. "You don't look quick on your feet all."

The red faced man still looked at the zombies, even as he answered. "You better be scared too. It's scary. You might think you won and then wake up tomorrow with a bloody nose and a fever. Then it's all over for you."

Do rag
made a
pht!
noise and waved his hand. "Man, they ain't gonna touch me."

"Six?" said the red faced man. "You're underestimating them. Is this your first fight?"

The man nodded.

"Then God help you."

They might have continued talking like that, but two more men came forward. There was another fighter with them. This guy was a little more like Arrick, although he went completely to the opposite end of the spectrum as compared to the others. Arrick could see the man sitting behind a desk and punching computer keys for a living. Even dressed in old army fatigues, he had the look of corporate America. His hair was perfect. Then the two men were ushering them up into the ring. A microphone attached to a long chord was pulled out from underneath and given to one of the men.

"Gentlemen!" he cried out to the audience and in fact Arrick couldn't see one female face in the crowd. "These are your warriors. They're a weak bunch, but it should be entertaining enough when they're getting eaten." There was an unsettling roar of approval from the crowd. "The betting windows will already have odds. Just write in the names and the bets on the tickets. Let me introduce Sly Dee!"

The first black teen stepped forward. He was wearing loose blue jeans and a heavy jacket. His hair was braided into tight dreadlocks that flopped around when he moved. The second man introduced was the guy with the do rag. He was introduced as nothing more than Jeremiah. The latino was the Latin Shark, and the big guy was Red Rover. When Arrick was introduced as Long John Silver, he felt silly, but he supposed it was better than John Smith.

"We've got long odds on this one, folks. He's bold enough to fight
ten
zombies at once. If you're enough of a player to bet on him, we're happy to take your money, but for a special occasion like this, we've put odds on the number of zombies Long John Silver is going to be able to take down before they finally get fed."

The crowd roared.

The last guy was introduced as William the Third. He played it up to the crowd, very confident in himself. He was fighting five zombies.

Once all of the introductions were made, the fighters were taken from the ring and some time was given to the people so that they could go and place their bets. There was a mass exodus to the tables. Arrick could just make out a flurry of motion and yelling that greatly resembled the stock exchange of old. There were papers flying and hands waving. Men were shouting out numbers and the odds seemed to be changing as the bets came in. He couldn't see the people who were taking the bets but he didn't envy them.

At long last, the tables settled down and people returned to their seats. There were a couple of fights that broke out in the stands, but they settled themselves. The announcer returned to the ring, pulling the microphone with him. They decided to start with Red Rover because he was only fighting three zombies. As two men led the three undead into the ring, the crowd cried ever louder. The noise was so deafening and so incomprehensible that it bordered on silence. The three zombies were lashed to the fence inside the ring and the balls were removed from their mouths. Then their keepers beat a hasty retreat. Red Rover looked a little reluctant as he moved into the ring, his eyes fixed on his opponents. There was a school girl, barely fifteen, in a short skirt and tattered sweater. She looked like something out of 1953, with blonde tousled hair and a round face. Then there was the guy with the beard and the tattoos. He didn't wear a shirt, which showed off just how many tattoos he had. It looked as if the keepers had removed his shirt on purpose. He had no visible wounds. Finally, there was the woman in the business suit. She looked very kempt down to the small pin on her lapel. If it weren't for her vacant eyes and grayish pallor, he could have mistaken her for any Wall Street executive. Well, maybe she could keep the vacant eyes.

Outside the ring, the keepers moved around behind the zombies and cut the bonds holding their hands. It took them a moment to realize that they were free. If Red Rover had been more alert, he'd have been able to take advantage of that moment and better his odds. As it was, he stood ready, wary of their movements. He was waiting for them to approach, watching their movements. Arrick could smell them now. The odor was more like what he had experienced in the restaurant. It wasn't offensive to him at all, just a bit strong. And it didn't smell like death.

The three zombies moved slowly toward Red Rover. He didn't seem to know which one to grab first. It was amazing how they could focus on him with all of the noise. But noise didn't represent a meal. With his fear and his sweat, the big man was probably the most noticeable thing for miles. When they were close enough, he lashed out and grabbed the middle zombie, the school girl, by her hair. He didn't even bother to fight with her. Instead, he swept her across his body and tossed her away as hard as he could. She was light, the lightest of the three and that was why Red Rover went for her. Next he went for business woman. She looked pretty solid on her stockinged feet but she was no match for his size. He didn't try the same tactic. She was taller than the school girl and he was able to put his shoulder into her chest. You could tell by watching that his attacks were meant to throw the zombies off balance rather than to hurt them. You couldn't hurt them and Red Rover knew that.