Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory (3 page)

“Such as?”

“First aid spray. We get a case of cheap
aerosols, slap some fake labels on ‘em, and then charge ten bucks
to rent a can at the door so people can heal themselves, one time
only, if they get bitten. Then all we have to do is have our boys
target those schmucks.”

Dwayne listens to the man he’s known for many
years and it’s like hearing the words of a stranger. He once
respected Trent. Revered him as a visionary. Now all his friend
cares about is money. When they started the haunt it was all about
the thrill of the scare, but that Trent is gone.

“You’re on in one minute, if this meathead
ever finishes his waiver.” Dwayne taps the monitor displaying the
new group and the one person who hasn’t finished his required
paperwork. “We’re recording in all rooms.”

“Good.” Trent stands and takes another look
at his new audience. A girl among the ten catches his eye. She has
naturally tan skin and a Latin allure, yet also possesses the
downhome charm of the girl next door. An attainable beauty. “She’s
the one.”

“Who?”

“She’s gonna make it through this.” Trent
points her out to Dwayne. His voice is a whisper.

“Fat chance.” Dwayne scoffs after a mere
glance at the pretty girl’s exotic curves. “The boys are gonna take
one look at her and grope her like prom night.”

“So tell them to keep their greasy hands
off.”

Dwayne’s smile fades. His chuckle dies at the
prospect of rigging the game. “Why?”

“Because she has to win. She has to make it
out alive,” Trent says. “Don’t you think she’ll fill out the
‘Zurvived’ tee beautifully? She’ll look great in the ads, draw
people here in droves, thinking ‘if she can do it…’ Tell the boys
they can have the bimbos.” Trent indicates a pair of blondes as he
peruses the contestants. Then he singles out two men huddled in the
corner, which make him uneasy. “I want those two taken out early.
Keep my girl on the run, but make sure she lives through the
night.”

In the foyer of the house, ten hopeful
survivalists wait. Ten hooks along the wall have been provided for
them to ‘drop their dead weight’ as a sign puts it. Brandon hung up
his hoodie upon entering and left his keys in one of its pockets,
with assurance from a placard that all effects will be kept safe,
but anything left more than 48 hours won’t be so lucky. A trashcan
marked ‘lost and found’ contains one such unclaimed garment.

Chairs are aligned down the middle of the
hardwood floor, and on the seats are their weapons, safety goggles,
and full clipboards. With the tethered pens, everyone has made
short work of the waiver and has had time to review the manual that
lays out the ground rules for them. They are allowed to quit the
game at any time using the ‘suicide out’ policy. All they have to
do is announce to the dead that they have shot themselves and they
can proceed immediately to the nearest exit.

Only one of the hopefuls is still filling out
his paperwork, but he is easily sidetracked. “I don’t think they’re
giving us enough time,” Lloyd confides in Vida and Vicky, who sit
beside him. “I lost my keys the other day and it took me three
hours to find them.”

“Things are always in the last place you
look,” Vida says.

“Whoa, they were in the last place I
looked!”

She gives the bassist a sympathetic pat on
the arm. She hopes for his sake that their band’s aspirations of
success in music come true. Lloyd’s a sweetheart, but good looks
and playing the bass are all he has going for him. Having already
read through the manual, Vida excuses herself and walks to the coat
rack to see what’s going on with Brandon.

Brandon and the guy he chose over her are
still in their clandestine powwow in the corner. Neither has
reviewed the rules that she has seen. They only scrawled their
information on to the form before taking to the sidelines to
whisper like schoolgirls. Vida leans in the opposing corner to
stare daggers at them. She tries to will Brandon to look her way,
but he’s too engrossed in strategizing to succumb.

Frustrated beyond belief, Vida kicks a
trashcan at her feet. The metal receptacle produces an unexpectedly
loud clang that draws all eyes to her. Her face flushes brightly
with embarrassment as she drops to the floor to pick up the can and
return a denim jacket that has fallen out.

Lloyd is still wrestling with the form, but
Vicky is there to help him. “How would I know if I have a heart
condition?” he asks his waif-like friend.

“We’ll put a ‘no’ and hope for the best,” she
tells him, uncharacteristically calm. She leans on his beefy arm
while assisting him. “And, we can put a ‘no’ on this one too,
right? You aren’t pregnant, are you?”

“No, I haven’t been with a chick in…” He
laughs as her joke dawns on him. “I’m a guy.”

Vida returns to where her friends are seated,
and Vicky notes her mood has changed. Before she was rather tense,
but now she wears a goofy grin. “Embarrassed? Don’t feel bad,”
Vicky says. “We all have our clumsy moments.”

“I guess.” Vida shrugs.

“Brandon really pissed you off, huh?”

“You noticed that?”

“Are you gonna get even, or make him
grovel?”

“Probably both.”

“Just sign at the bottom and you’re done,
Lloyd!” Vicky cheers.

The bassist scribbles his name and sets his
clipboard under his seat as everyone else has.

The green light is given to Trent Tilden, who
emerges from one of the halls, four minutes late. “Who are you
people?”

“We’re your next group,” Lloyd tells the
armed man that has startled them.

“Shh, sweetie. It’s starting,” Vicky explains
softly.

“I asked you a question,” Trent continues
after being derailed. He trains his paintball gun on each set of
eyes watching him. “Who are you?”

The contestants are silent. They shift in
their seats, not knowing how to respond. Vida, Trent’s special
pick, offers an answer, “Survivors?”

“Same here.” Trent nods. He relaxes his
weapon and tosses the future face of his ad campaign a tube of
paintballs as a reward.

“Aw,” Brandon groans from the corner like an
envious child.

“Those things are everywhere,” Trent goes on,
checking the opposing hall to make certain it’s clear.

“Cue exterior zombies.” Dwayne’s disembodied
voice appears in Trent’s earpiece, and it will echo out across the
property from his command center--the pantry in the kitchen.

In his search of the foyer, Trent pauses by
the windows facing the front of the house. Slow moving silhouettes
evoke a collective gasp from the assembly. The air they breathe
instantly becomes thick with tension as the shadows grow
larger.

“We need to move!” Trent draws them to the
hall opposite the one he emerged from. Everyone grabs their guns
and dons their protective eye wear. In the dim light, a few of the
survivors catch a glimpse of a wound on Trent’s neck. A blood
soaked cloth bandage is held against the moulage with duct
tape.

“You’re bit!” Lloyd says.

“I ain’t dying here,” Trent bravely announces
with a groan. He takes his position near the next room, a sitting
area full of old, dusty looking furniture. “Follow me if you want
to live. I saw a truck outside. Whose is it?”

When nobody lays claim to the pick-up, Trent
continues, “The keys must be somewhere in this house. We need to
split up and find them!”

Screams alarm everybody, especially the Dogs
of War, since they know the voice calling out in terror. While the
host had everyone looking where he wanted them to, five ghouls
sneaked up behind them from the dining room. Tattered clothes and
grey skinned masks with slack expressions and bloody mouths
indicate their role for the evening. The zombies must have on
protective headgear under their Halloween masks, because Vicky
strikes ineffectively at their faces while thrashing against their
grasps. They take her away as she calls out for help. She tries to
keep the wet mouths of the corpses away from her because red paint
rubbed off on a contestant equals a bite.

The group fires at the dead, but the zombies
carry Vicky’s light weight with ease through the dark halls.

Trent orders them to cease fire. “Save your
ammo! I’ll get the girl. You all need to find those keys!”

With that, they are left to their own
devices. Trent disappears on the heels of the dead to save the
damsel, and the game has started.

“Vicky,” Lloyd says softly, as if she has
actually died.

Brandon isn’t as torn up over the loss to the
team, figuring he can always make it up to her after the game.
“Kitchen, right, Josh?”

“Yeah, but we have to wait,” Josh says,
pointing to where Vicky was just dragged away. “It’s down there.
The last time I tried for it I got beefed. We can try somewhere
else. You said you think the keys are in the attic?”

They make it a point to keep their voices low
so as not to tip off the competition. The pair of blondes haven’t
budged from where they leapt to when the dead appeared, and they
cling to one another. The kid and his uniquely adventurous parents
have already struck off for the first floor’s guest rooms, opposite
of the dining hall.

Vida speaks, “I think I--”

“Let’s do it!” But Brandon’s enthusiasm
drowns her out.

Now out of the customer’s sight, Trent slows
his pace. He nods to his paid corpses as he passes through what was
once used as a dining area. The zombies lurk in the shadows by the
doorway, waiting for anyone foolish enough to try being a hero.
They set Vicky onto her feet in the kitchen.

“Am I dead?” she asks.

“I’m afraid so,” Trent says, breaking
character as the dead do when they wander off to their next
assigned zone.

Should I just lie down or leave?” she
says.

Trent opens a door, revealing a small closet
full of monitors and a man on a swivel chair.

Dwayne tells him, without looking away from
his duties, “We have stragglers in the foyer.”

“Again?” Trent asks in frustration. The
attraction has been going strong since it opened, but it is still a
work in progress. There’s a lot they need to figure out. In this
scenario, he can’t send the victim out until the front door is
clear. “What’s your name?”

“Vicky.”

“Vicky, I need you to hang out here with
Dwayne until he says it’s time to go, ok?”

“Sure.” She puts a hand to her chest, as if
in an attempt to slow her adrenaline fueled heart rate. “I can’t
believe I died already.” She drops herself into the empty chair by
Dwayne.

Trent has already moved on.

“Don’t feel bad,” Dwayne says, without once
looking from his monitors. “It happens every round. We take one
person at the jump to get the others moving.” He has no qualms
about revealing the secret strategy. After his conversation with
Trent earlier, he has decided this is his last year working the
haunt.

“So where are the keys?” she asks while
tapping out a beat on her legs.

“I have no idea,” he admits. Only Trent
Tilden knows the answer to that question. Dwayne has a suspicion he
doesn’t share:
Maybe
there
are
no
keys
.

Brandon wants to lead his group up the main
stairs but is halted by Lloyd, who grabs his arm and hitches a
thumb toward the petrified blondes. “We should help them.”

“Forget them. Let’s go!” he snaps.

Lloyd hangs his head low and follows Brandon
to the back of the foyer where a wide set of stairs are situated.
The route to the next floor branches off into two sets that veer to
either side above them.

“We’ll sweep the parts of the second and
third floors that I’ve never made it to.” Josh reminds Brandon of
the plan they had come up with.

“How many times have you done this?” Vida
asks.

“This is my fifth try. This time it will be
different. I was able to get my hands on a blueprint of this place
from city planning and I memorized it.”

“Wow, you really want that shirt,” she
says.

From the stairs, the group can see murky
figures crossing dim pools of amber light cast by antique fixtures.
They emerge from the shadows below and more enter through the front
door. The pair of blondes that have been left behind scream out in
terror. Unable to move, they just cling tighter to one another.

Lloyd stops in his tracks at the sound, torn
between his band and his good intentions. The zombies branching off
from the amassing horde to pursue them up the stairs do not deter
him. He charges down the steps, checking the corpses aside with his
broad shoulders to get to the damsels in distress.

###

“We have a foul on the first floor!” Dwayne
reports over his mouthpiece. “Security, I need you to remove a
survivor from the foyer.”

“That’s Lloyd!” Vicky says, as she watches
her friend bash the stunt zombies. “Please don’t kick him out. He’s
just trying to help those girls.”

“We’ve got rules,” Dwayne says. “He read them
in the handbook.”

“He isn’t much of a reader. Please!”

A second of deliberation is all it takes.
“Cancel that, security.”
Fuck
it
!
I’m
quitting
anyway
.

They watch as the thickly built musician
hurls one zombie into another before finally using his weapon,
taking out three targets with near perfect precision. On his way to
the ladies, Lloyd plants his foot into the drapery shrouded heads
of some more zombies trying to enter the windows. This sends them
back out into the cold.

Concerned for the safety of the actors,
Dwayne calls to them, “Guys, just back off of the beefy one! Focus
on the three down the hall. They’re getting too close to me.”