Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory (4 page)

The heroic, if not overzealous, Lloyd guides
the blondes up the stairs. Since launching the zombie attraction
this year, Dwayne has seen folks take the game a bit too far
before, but what he’s just witnessed is over the top.

He turns to Vicky, who is a lot calmer now
but still fidgeting in her seat. “It should be all right for you to
leave now. Just head for the door you entered.”

“Half of these doors are locked, Buddy. Are
you sure the keys are down this way?” the father asks his son.

“I don’t know where they are,” the pre-teen
says. “That’s the point.”

“C’mon, honey. This is fun!” the man’s wife
says, trying to ease his nerves. She reaches for the next door knob
and is thrilled to find it turns. The exhilaration overrides her
use of caution.

Out of the guest room lunges a figure like
those who stole the skinny girl. Its head is cloaked in a large
grey mask with drooping features. The woman recoils away from its
reaching arms. It is the husband who shrieks with fright, unable to
react otherwise. He is seized while in his stupor and ‘bitten.’

“Well, that’s just great!” he says, after his
son splatters a paintball into the ghoul’s face. “I’m dead.”

“Sorry, Dad.” The boy passes his fallen
father to check the room. He must step over the stunt zombie that
lies in the doorway.

“So, what, can I leave now?” the dad
says.

A muffled response comes from the dispatched
zombie on the floor, “Just sit down and wait for the all
clear.”

“They aren’t in there.” The boy emerges.

“Just remember,” the dad says, “if you
win…”

“I know. We split the money. But I get the
shirt!” The garment is all he really wants out of this. He pictures
himself walking the halls of his school wearing it, being the envy
of all his peers that have entered this house and have failed.
However, his daydream is shattered by moans. From both directions,
the dead are closing in on them.

###

Of the ten that have entered the Zombie
House, a large team of six has been forged. Josh leads the pack
with Brandon, but he whispers to him, “We need to split up.”

“No way. More guns means better odds.”

“It also means they’ll throw more zombies at
us!” Josh rasps, raising his voice a bit. “If we can divide their
attention, we’ll stand a better chance.”

Brandon can’t argue with his logic. It makes
sense. But shedding the blondes will cost them Lloyd. He already
feels that Vida is mad at him for some reason, so he can’t ditch
her. The idea of sending one of his band mates, let alone his
girlfriend, off to die doesn’t sit well with him.
So
,
where
do
I
make
the
cut
?

###

Given permission to leave, Vicky sat up too
fast, and she swooned as she raced through the door. She hit the
dark halls and needed to hold onto the walls to avoid falling over.
The disorienting head rush made it impossible to walk, plus she
lost all feeling in her feet and couldn’t tell which way to go.

Being addicted to diet pills, she is used to
these spells, and her already quick heart rate has increased to a
thundering inside her chest that shakes her lightweight body. She
has a trick to slow her palpitations, though--looking down and
holding a deep breath. Letting the air leave her lungs slowly, she
finds no relief. She takes another breath and holds it, releasing
it slowly.

“They get you too?” a voice startles her in
the foyer, not at all helping her affliction.

“Huh? Oh, yeah,” she answers the young boy
she saw earlier, now being led out by his parents.

“Pretty intense game,” the father says.

Having trouble breathing, Vicky is left alone
in the dark doorway. Her hummingbird-like heart has finally slowed.
Actually it has stopped altogether. In a split second, she realizes
this before collapsing among the shadows in the corner. She is dead
before hitting the floor.

“All right, boys, we are past the point of no
return.” Dwayne lets the actors know they are entering the final
ten minutes of play. During the first half of every round, the dead
go relatively easy on the survivors to give them a better show and
reduce the likelihood someone will complain about dying so quick
and demand a refund. “With the exception of the chick I told you
about, it’s killing time! We have six heading for the third
floor.”

###

The intrepid pack has made it to the third
floor. They aren’t alone, for the dead are emerging from guest
rooms now, and more are still ascending the stairs behind them.
They have nowhere to run.

“Where’s the attic?” Brandon asks, firing his
paintball gun at a corpse that gets a little too close for
comfort.

“There’s a ladder at the end of this hall,”
Josh tells him. “We need to get some of these guys off our
backs.”

“Lloyd, take the girls down the other hall,”
Brandon says. “We need to check those rooms.”

“Uh?” Lloyd hesitates. He has already
exhausted his ammo and is taking rounds from the blondes’s
supply.

“You want to win, right? Find the keys,”
Brandon says before he and Josh push on down the other hall.

Vida isn’t sure if she was included in the
command to ‘take the girls’ somewhere else, but she is certainly
not leaving Brandon’s side. The dead have made it up the stairs and
now amass as a horde between the splitting group.

###

Dwayne watches the monitors that cover the
third floor as the dead converge on the two factions. He knows
Trent is in position for his re-appearance. A second act most
players never get to see.

Puzzling movement in his peripheral vision
brings his attention to the display of dim halls on the first
floor. There should be nobody down on his level, but he’s certain
he saw an impossibly skinny shadow.

“Everyone, I might have a problem down here.
I’m going offline to check something out,” he tells the crew before
removing his headset.

Standing for the first time in hours, his
legs feels as if they weigh a hundred pounds each. He won’t miss
this sedentary lifestyle once he quits. He knows the gig has caused
him to gain weight, since he’s been snacking all night while
playing god.

Dwayne heads through the kitchen and to the
dining room. His undead guards have gone upstairs to help bring the
game to an end and prevent overtime.

He encounters someone who should be long
gone--the skinny girl that briefly kept him company.

“You were supposed to leave.”

Dwayne shines a small flashlight on her. She
looked sickly before, but now she looks as if she’s going to vomit.
Her thin face is slack and set in a mournful grimace as she slowly
approaches him from around the long table.

“Vicky, isn’t it? There’s a bathroom to the
right.” He indicates a door with his light, but she doesn’t falter
from her path. With her arms outstretched, the round’s first victim
is almost to him.
All
right
, he thinks to himself.
She’s
going
to
need
help
getting
there
.

During his years of service at the haunt,
Dwayne has seen many physical ailments manifest themselves out of
panic and extreme fear. Folks will pass out or retch. He’s even
seen grown men revert to a childlike state and need to be pulled
out of the house, all in the name of a good fright. Most in this
line of work don’t consider their attraction a success until they
have extracted a few frantic customers.

“Take it easy,” he says calmly to the girl.
“You’re just coming down off the rush. We’re going to sit you down
and get you some water.”

She is close enough to touch him, and a
pitiful moan escapes her throat. Dwayne takes one of her offered
hands and swiftly leads her to the bathroom. He shouldn’t have to
worry about the game for the moment since his zombies are on
autopilot, zeroed in on the survivors. But Trent will want an
update on the body count soon.

Vicky may weigh less than half of what he
does, but she exhibits surprising strength. Her free hand grabs his
arm and pulls hard, wrenching him towards her. He fights against
this sudden action, but she just lowers her mouth to his arm.

“I can’t believe I got beefed!” the boy
complains as he pays for an overpriced t-shirt that states that
exact sentiment.

“Don’t feel bad, kid,” the vender says as he
hands back the change. “Nobody survives Zombie House.”

His parents wait off to the side for their
son to finish his transaction. They huddle together against the
chilly night air, looking forward to getting into their car and
returning to their nice, warm house. The fortitude of those still
in line waiting for their turn to play impresses them. The number
of hopeful survivors has diminished, but they figure many have lost
interest and gone elsewhere. However, these die-hard fans linger. A
few who arrived dressed as victims nap against the wall, while one
man rests on the pavement.

“Come on, Buddy!” the dad calls to his son,
who scans through all the other items for sale. “You said you just
wanted the shirt. It’s cold.”

The kid shrugs off the embarrassment of being
called like a dog and rejoins his parents. “We missed all the
excitement.”

“I wouldn’t say that,” His mother laughs. She
will have nightmares about the mauling. It was terrifying and a bit
intrusive, and she can’t help but think some of the costumed actors
took special liberties with her.

“No. I mean, while we were inside an
ambulance came to take some guy away. And then the cops showed up
to take some woman away that was biting people!”

“Wow! I’m glad we missed that,” the father
says, shivering against the cold as he encourages his son to start
moving towards the street where they are parked. “I’m sorry we
couldn’t win you that shirt, sport. Maybe next year.”

“Can’t we come back this year? The t-shirt
guy said they’ll be running for a few more weeks at least.”

“You’re lucky we stayed out this late on a
school night,” the father says. If he had known the wait would have
been so long, he would have never agreed to their spur of the
moment family outing.

They pass the line of people where the
slumbering man finally awakens. He must have realized he’s fallen
behind in the queue, since he instantly heads towards the others
that have left him behind.

“It’s already after one-thirty,” the mother
says after looking at the time on her cell phone. “We’ll sleep well
tonight.”

“I don’t know about that,” the dad says. “I’m
expecting bad dreams about ghouls coming--”

Screams from the lot interrupt him, so he
hurries his loved ones along through the cars as he prepares his
keys. Figures in the shadows are between them and their SUV. A trio
of shambling men dressed for the festivities in bloody bandages and
shredded clothing.

“Excuse us,” he says. “We’ve had all the fun
we can stand for one night.”

The people beg to differ, and as the dad
moves past them to unlock his door they latch onto him with their
hands and mouths, taking him to the ground.

“We dared each other to come here,” the
blonde named Bri explains in a trembling voice. “Brandy and I have
a ‘thing’ about zombies.”

Lloyd wasn’t able to get the girls very far
down the hall before they were forced to seek shelter in one of the
open rooms. Now they are stuck. He made sure there were no dead
inside, checking the bathroom and closet, even under the bed. There
is no danger in this suite, but no keys either. Now Lloyd feels he
has let his band down. He knows how much the money would have
helped them out, and how badly Brandon wanted to wear the
‘Zurvived’ shirt to their gig in Fallen. Not being a man of
inventive thought, all he can do is wait.

The girls are prattling on about their phobia
regarding the living dead while Lloyd takes stock of their ammo. A
mere six balls among them, all loaded into his gun.

“We knew we wouldn’t win this. We just wanted
to face our fear,” Brandy says, but Lloyd only half listens. “The
whole people-eating-people thing has always given us the
creeps.”

Lloyd just nods his understanding. He seldom
talks much around new people, being afraid of saying something
stupid.

“Thank you so much for coming back for us.
Most people wouldn’t have cared.”

Lloyd takes a split second to decide whether
to say ‘don’t mention it’ or ‘it was nothing.’ In his moment of
deliberation, a door behind the girls open, and from an adjoining
room the dead enter.

“What the fuck do you mean you got bit?”
Trent demands over his radio from his hiding place.

“The first vic!” Dwayne says. “She didn’t
leave.”

“She bit you? She weighs like 80 pounds!”

“Yeah, 80 pounds of fucking crazy! I’m outta
here!”

He slams his headset down. Trent’s distant
voice continues to implore, and Dwayne can’t escape it since he’s
locked in the pantry at the moment. He holds one sleeve-covered
hand over the wound on his other arm. He was able to get free of
her and toss her over the dining table. Now he searches his
monitors for sight of the lightweight lunatic so he can plan his
escape.

She
seemed
so
nice
, he thinks, spotting her in the dark hall as she
wanders towards the foyer. If he wants to avoid another encounter
with her, he’ll have to go out through the kitchen. The haunt has
one main entrance and exit for customers to use. All the other
doors are for emergencies and staff.