Life Among The Dead (Book 3): A Bittersweet Victory (5 page)

“Dwayne!” he hears Trent calling still over
his abandoned headset. “Where the hell are you?”

Trent is in the stairwell, awaiting his cue
that seldom comes. At first Trent had insisted on being involved
with the action, watching everyone have fun, but after a while he
just stopped caring, opting instead to sit alone so he could check
his stocks and other investments on his phone. Dwayne ignores him,
easing into the kitchen. He creeps as quiet as he can, not wanting
to attract Vicky’s attention or entice her to come back. Blood
saturates the cloth he holds tightly against his wound and it drips
onto the floor.

The cold air is bracing after coming from the
warm house. Dwayne can see his breath as he heads around the lot.
What he witnesses near the game’s finish line, the old blue truck,
takes him a moment to process.

Folks are taking the zombie theme way too
far. Many had arrived dressed as victims of the walking dead, many
had shuffled around like them, but now they are all acting like
them. Those still on their feet meander on the asphalt, while
others devour their friends in a mess of fake blood and moulage.
Dwayne can’t move. He is transfixed by the realistic carnage, and
even the Zombie House staff are getting in on the action. Laurie
the ticket taker, a woman that never seems to smile, is slumped
over the dividing rope she has parted for those seeking admittance
for years. Her limp body swings as the customers pretend to eat
her.

Is
it
always
like
this
? he asks himself, though he can’t answer his own
question, being that he spends each evening sequestered in his tech
room.
I’ve
had
enough
of
this
place
, he decides as he walks to his car. He is a fan of all
things horror, but working here once it transformed into Zombie
House has ruined him for the living dead.
I
am
so
sick
of
zombies
.

Nearing his ride, the Zombie House’s die-hard
fans take notice of him. Shuffling feet and pitiful moans draw
closer as he searches for the correct keys among the many on his
ring in the poorly lit lot. “I hope you assholes know you’re
killing a perfectly good sub-genre,” he scolds the encircling
throng. “Doing to the zombie what Twilight did to the vampire.”

The chastised horde does not stop. Instead
they relentlessly invite him to their blood orgy, as if he is just
playing hard to get. Dwayne shakes his head as he slides into the
driver’s seat, predicting that these fools are in for a rude
awakening when they realize they are opening themselves to
ridicule, as the hardcore sci-fi fans have. It kills him to watch.
These were his people. Deep down he knows, if he wasn’t so jaded
and left with such a sour taste for the genre, he’d be right out
there with them, grinding his teeth on the guts and drinking fake
blood by the gallon.

Enclosed in his car, away from the madness,
he starts his engine and his headlights flare on, illuminating the
assembly that surrounds him. A handful of them proudly wear
amateurishly applied makeup on their slack faces, their clothes
obviously shredded with shears since the cut edges are too neat.
For his taste, they should have hand tore them. On the other hand,
since the fanatics stop his departure, he has ample time to
appraise them, and he sees several that he can commend on their
work. Their wounds and blood spatter patterns look authentic. The
appliances they are using are nice and moist, not too red.

It’s
a
damn
shame
, he thinks, looking at the ravaged meat of one guy’s
face, depicting a wound all the way to the bone. Such a wonderful
prosthetic is wasted because the rest of the man’s costume tells a
conflicting story. He critiques the zombie like the judge of a
special effects reality show.
You’re
in
burial
clothes
that
I
can
tell
aren’t
slit
in
the
back
.
How
the
hell
they
got
your
corpse
into
those
is
beyond
me
!
The
dirt
you
rubbed
on
your
skin
suggests
you
came
fresh
from
the
grave
,
so
why
the
fuck
would
you
have
been
bitten
?

Dwayne’s experience working at the haunt,
creating so many scares and characters, has given him an eye for
detail. Every aspect must tell a tale without words if you want it
to look real. Customers may never become privy to the full truth of
every artifice, but it shows in the work. So many of these ‘dead’
just look like zombie fans that have arrived at a horror venue and
inadvertently got bitten by a real one.

“That’s actually a pretty cool idea,” he
admits, nodding farewell to the zombies that bat at his window.
Clawing hands leave behind smears of what he assumes is corn
syrup.

Despite their persistence to draw him into
their shared fantasy, he refuses to stay. He bullies his car
through the mass, figuring they can either move aside or get run
over. He just wants to go home and hates the fact he must delay
that by going to the hospital first.

His front bumper pushes them yet they won’t
break character. Dwayne is tempted to live up to his ultimatum of
running them over, but yields. Instead he scans the backyard for an
alternate route.

Beyond the headstones he had helped construct
are the real markers of the neighboring cemetery. Figures walk
among the graves, just like the image on all their promos and the
coveted ‘zurvived’ shirt. Under the light of the moon, the earth is
disturbed. Hands sprout, clawing their way free, as if begging to
be released from the soil.

Josh led Brandon and Vida down the hall to a
panel in the ceiling at the far end. The opposition in their way
was nothing compared to what follows them, so Brandon quickly pulls
the cord to lower the attic’s retractable ladder.

“Go up!” Josh commands. “I’ll hold them
back.”

“I thought you said you were almost empty,”
Vida says.

“Just go.”

With Vida in tow, Brandon pops his head into
the musty space first to ensure it is safe. “Here, baby, take my
hand.”

“I got it.” She brushes away his
assistance.

“Are you mad at me?” His question comes with
a slight laugh, until the horror of her actually being angry with
him sinks in. “Oh no! Why are you mad at me?”

She remains silent, letting him stew in his
ignorance for a bit. Brandon has been with many girls, but none
he’s actually cared about. He thinks he may be in love with Vida,
so knowing she is upset causes him a fear far worse than anything
he’s encountered tonight.

Conflicted, Brandon wants to make amends but
he must also attend to the tasks at hand: fighting the dead,
finding the keys, and getting to that truck. A new problem has also
reared its head, for Josh hasn’t joined them.

###

Josh left the ladder as the zombies closed
in, backing himself against a door. He slid through it as they
filled the space between him and the rest of his team. The
attention of the men in the ghoulish masks was divided between him
and the two that ascended into the attic.

In a stairwell now, he laughs at Brandon’s
misguided idea.
Who
keeps
keys
in
an
attic
? With all the dead on the third floor, he
knows he can make it to the kitchen easily to search for the keys,
which was his plan all along.

When the Zombie House was a hotel, it
included three staircases as well as a service elevator for
bringing linens and meals to guests. With the elevators obviously
defunct, this is the best way to get back to his goal. He had
conserved his ammunition as best he could, hiding ammo bonuses from
his temporary alliance. He takes each flight as fast as he can
while still remaining cautious of hidden dangers. He isn’t sure how
much time is left but it has to be running out.

He needn’t fear the stunt zombies above who
struggle against the door to get to him, for he placed a rubber
doorstop at the base of the jam. This he brought into the game from
home. He figures it isn’t cheating since the rules don’t mention
that such tactics aren’t allowed. He’s read the handbook cover to
cover and gone onto the website to search for such
constrictions.

Almost to the first floor, he wears a smile
sculpted by pride. His chest is tingling with excitement. This is
the farthest he’s ever made it. He can almost smell victory and
feel the coveted shirt against his skin.

Movement at the base of the stairs forces him
to push down his exuberance and halt his premature celebration. The
sound of feet slowly climbing echo against the bare walls. A shadow
lumbers in the minimal light. Josh drops to one knee and takes aim,
but he waits for the mystery person to come closer. He doesn’t want
to waste a single paintball since he has no idea what’s in store
for him once he steps foot outside with the keys.

###

After his gun ran dry, Lloyd started swinging
it like a bat at the final corpse that entered the room. He put
himself between the girls he had vowed to protect and the zombies
hell bent on making him break that promise. The fallen dead were
forced to rise yet again to help their co-worker. Five of them now
hold him to the ground. One of them tries to talk sense into Lloyd,
“Kid, it ain’t real! It’s just a game!”

“Ow!” another ghoul complains, cradling his
arm where he had taken many blunt blows while defending his face.
“I think it’s broke.”

“You’re wearing pads, Scott. I’m sure it’s
fine,” an undead peer assures him, while laying all his weight on
Lloyd’s legs.

The blondes haven’t ceased screaming since
the first zombie entered the room, and the sound is maddening.
“Suck it up and kill these chicks already so this nut will calm
down!”

Lloyd continues to buck against the actors,
though he is covered in ‘bites,’ and he fights even harder still
the closer Scott the zombie gets to his companions.

“Ladies, I’m sorry. I just need to give you
each a little kiss and then you can go home,” Scott tells them.

The girls cringe as he nears them with his
mouth. Inside his lips is a sponge saturated with fake blood that
he presses against the hands they offer up to push him away.

“That wasn’t so bad,” Brandy says.

In an instant, the tension leaves the room as
Lloyd melts into the floor in defeat. The walking dead slowly
release his limbs and back away.

“Trent’s gonna love this footage,” a zombie
says.

“There’s one in every group.” Another shakes
his head. “Let’s get them out of here.”

“They must have got him,” Brandon says, after
pulling up the ladder. He waited as long as he dared, but the
zombies were getting too insistent. He tried to fire upon the
corpses to keep the landing clear, but it was no use.

“Or he went for the kitchen,” Vida says.
“That was his plan from the beginning, right?”

They linger in the dark attic for what feels
like forever. Brandon has been analyzing Vida’s tone of voice and
it finally dawns on him why she’s upset. He chose Josh over her.
It’s almost like he cheated on her right in front of her face.

“I am so sorry,” he tells her. “I was so
wrapped up in winning this game I couldn’t see what I was
doing.”

“It’s ok.”

“No, it isn’t. No prize is worth hurting
you.”

“I don’t know. That is a pretty nifty
t-shirt.”

“Forget the shirt.” Among the cobwebs, he
kisses her as the zombies moan below them. “I don’t even want it
anymore.”

“Are you sure about that?” A jingling follows
her words.

“You found them?” He instinctively reaches
for the key ring she holds out, but he retracts his hand before
making it halfway, as if he fears it is a snake that may
strike.

“Go ahead,” Vida says.

Brandon can’t believe they have it. A single
key on a split ring with a metal tag displaying the words
Zombie
House
in red lettering. All he can manage to
say is, “Where?”

“In the foyer. They were in the Lost and
Found.”

“Of course they were!” He feels like an
idiot, as if he should have known all along.

“Now all we have to do is get to the truck.”
Vida checks her cell phone for the time. “We’re in overtime.
There’s only ten minutes before they consider us suicides.”

“We’ll never make it,” he says.

“We didn’t come this far just to quit,” she
tells him. “We’re gonna die trying.”

###

“You’re dead, kid.”

“Bullshit!” Josh challenges the ruling. “I
shot you!”

Trent Tilden pulls off the mask made
especially for his role as a zombie. He needed one that looked as
much like him as possible. “I put the bite on you. You’re out!”

Josh fired just as the zombie lunged on the
stairs, his ball splattering a split second before Trent’s mouth
touched his leg. He refuses to let his dreams of glory be dashed by
the wetness on his ankle where the ‘bite mark’ soaks in through his
jeans.

“Dwayne?” Trent calls into his walkie-talkie.
“Come in, Dwayne!”

Trent turns his back on the contestant he has
just eliminated. He hasn’t heard from his technician in a while and
he wants to know what the count is. The end is coming, and for all
he knows he just got rid of the last one, aside from his arranged
victor that he still needs to usher to the keys somehow. “Dwayne, I
just took one out on the stairs. Where do we stand? Are we in
sudden death, or what?”