Thrust & Parry: Z Day (15 page)

Chapter 12

He had to stay strong, he had to get out. Twice a day he would be given a hunk of bread on a plastic plate and a bottle of water. He guessed it was twice a day, he had no watch and had not seen sunlight since he had got on the bus. Before every meal he had given himself a small workout to keep fit. A few sit-ups and press-ups mixed with jogging on the spot and stretching. He didn't have enough room to workout fully but it helped. Every day he was taken up to an area that looked like it used to be the canteen for staff. It was now stacked with all sorts of swords and homemade shields. Anything from bin lids to sheet metal with a handle welded on to a cardboard box flattened down with a handle taped onto it. Jim always found they simply slowed him down and chucked them as soon as he got out.
Today though he was not given a sword and a shield. He was first passed a dagger held in a simple loop of fabric on a belt. He took it and clipped it on. He had learnt that he needed as many weapons as possible. As he followed the armorer round the dagger banged against his calf and he could see it was going to be an issue. He was then passed a net and he knew what was coming. As much as the guys that had taken him were complete nutcases, they were trying to be historically accurate. He looked round and spotted his next weapon. Leant up against the wall in one corner were a stack of homemade tridents. It was a hollow metal pole that once housed mop or a brush or something. The end had been cut to a point and about a foot down 2 pieces of pole had been cut to fit and pushed through at an angle to form the prongs. It was all held together by a piece of nylon rope. Jim wasn’t convinced it would actually do much damage but he would see.

"Right, you're all set Lion Heart. Let’s go." The armorer said to him as he led him towards the door to the warehouse. Jim had been given the name when he had arrived at the complex and had learnt quickly to accept anything that was said to him. He was lead through the warehouse at gunpoint to the makeshift arena. One of his own guns, a SA80 was now pressed into his back. The arena was built from corrugated iron sheets and iron railings and stood about 15 feet high. There was an entrance to the 'gladiator’s cage,' as it was known, in front of him that was yanked up by a rope on a pulley system as he approached. The cage was about 8 foot high, 6 foot long and 4 foot wide. The door slid down behind him and the pulley operator readied himself to open the front door to it.
This lead to the arena. Jim psyched himself up. He had to win this. If he survived he had a chance to get out of here, he could escape. He was jolted from his thoughts by 3 zeds flinging themselves at the front gate. They strained through the gate, hands outstretched, clawing at Jim. Jim watched them intently. The left hand zed was a long haired teen in dark, baggy clothes. The type of guy who thinks his parents just don’t understand him. The right hand one was a greying construction worker in a high visibility vest, white t-shirt that looked like it once had a logo on it but was now covered in several layers of dried blood and a pair of worn jeans. These two didn’t really bother Jim though. It was the middle one that got his attention. Save for the lifeless, vacant eyes it was the same guy he'd seen come through basic training with flying colours.

"Rim?"
Jim whispered in disbelief. He had a massive chunk missing out of his stomach and Jim could see his intestines sliding about freely. It was at that moment that the ringleader or 'emperor' as he liked to be called chirped up.

"Well, well, well, ladies and gentlemen, we have just seen one of our most promising fighters fall at the hands of the undead swine. And so we all know what that means. It's time for a little family reunion. For those of you that missed it, yesterday we saw Timid Wolf fall and be savaged by these beasts and so it was left for Leprechaun to tidy everything up." Jim could guess who Leprechaun was but he hoped to god that Timid Wolf wasn’t Whethers. "And now we have a similar situation. Swinging Bear has just been overpowered by his foes. I warned his that refusing a weapon was a bad idea." Jim smiled at this. Rim had been defiant to the end. "And now ladies and gentlemen we get to
see the animated corpse of Swinging Bear be struck down by no other than our very own Lion Heart." He announced Jim's new found title and there were several cheers and woops from the makeshift stands in the shelving units. If he wasn’t being held here against his will he might have quite liked this place. "Remember folks, we are the only salvation from the current apocalypse. We can protect you and provide for you. All we ask for is your help in creating the new world. We are recruiting for our trooper program. If you like killing zombies then sign up today or for our ladies who want to help how about our maternity program. You are the only hope for the new world and we need you to help us create the next generation." The zeds suddenly stopped clawing and turned round. Jim couldn’t see what was going on but he had seen it before.

"And now, without further ado I give you Lion Heart." The crowd roared again and the gate in front of Jim slid open. The zeds were jumping after a man swinging on a harness. He was terrified, begging towards the emperor for his life. This was one of the emperor’s favourite punishments. If anyone did anything the he deemed was against the law he would strap them into the harness and use them as bait to distract the zeds. He usually names and shames them with their crimes to deter others. Yesterday it was a man who had voiced his opinion that they should have a prime minister as a leader instead of an emperor. Unfortunately he had voiced it within earshot of one of the troopers who had arrested him on the spot. The man was hoisted back up and out of site. The zeds became docile once more. Jim had stepped out of the cage but didn’t move
, he didn’t want to attract their attention. He stood for a minute weighing up his options. At that moment the speakers round the area burst into life with yet another mindless trance track. This seemed to send the zombies into a frenzy, they were no longer charging towards anything in particular, simply charging. They began to bounce off the walls of the arena and run into each other. Jim readied himself; he knew what was coming next. One of the zeds would eventually run his way and notice him.

He decided he wasn’t waiting to find out. He flipped the trident round so that he had it like a javelin and tried to find a target. There was just a blur of movement in front of him. He pulled the trident back and launched it forward. It hurtled through the air and made contact. It took a few seconds before Jim could see what he had hit, it was Rim. He had caught him in the chest, the two prongs had broken off on impact but the pole had gone straight through Rim and got caught in the iron bars behind him. Rim was now effectively trapped along one side. The other two stopped dead for a second as the trident made contact before pouncing towards Jim. There was very little space to fight one zed in here, never mind two. He switched the net to his left hand and drew his dagger. The right hand zed reached him first and he stepped left and simply swung the dagger round at head height, hard. The zed moved past him slightly before dropping in the cage he had just come from. The zed’s head parted at the mouth and the top of his head slid off.

The second zed was getting very close now so Jim pulled up the net in front of him. As the zed ran headfirst into the net Jim dived to the left, landing heavily on his side. The zed attempted to recover but tripped over a dangling piece of net and fell headfirst. It tried to get up but got tangled in it. Jim rolled back to his feet before sprinting to the pile of netting and stabbing it repeatedly. He trust his knife in again and again, hoping to find a head in the tangle. Pausing for a second he checked the net for movement, there was none. He stood up and turned to his last zed, Rim. As he stepped forward at the zed in front of him, with its arms outstretched in a last ditch effort to get to him, he chanted the same words over and over again in his head.

“That is not
Rim, That is not Rim. That is not Rim!” He realised he was now shouting it aloud. “THAT IS NOT RIM! IT’S NOT RIM IT’S FUCKING NOT!” Without breaking his stride he stuck the dagger into Rim’s head. He didn’t even see his head drop before turning and moving back the middle of the arena. He stood there glaring at the emperor as a crowd burst into a crescendo of applause and yells. In amongst the clapping a chant of ‘Lion Heart’ swelled until it took over. Eventually the emperor held a hand up and the audience fell silent.

“Well
It seems Lion Heart has once again bought his right to live. He has so far slaughtered any competition we have put in front of him. He has brought happiness to our entire family with his actions. He shall be rewarded greatly tonight. Our gladiators…” Jim had stopped listening by now. He was weighing everything in the room up. Assessing the best plan of action for the next time he was here. There were only two armed personnel other than the emperor and they stood either side. The gap between the floor and the emperor was around 10 feet high.  There was nothing on the wall to help him climb. He wanted to get the emperor first, he had noticed several fights ago that the emperor carried Jim’s weapon. The sharpshooter rifle hung loosely in his right hand. Jim had thought he had seen the Gimpy by his feet. The guards had an SA80 and a sharpshooter between them and the armorer had the other. Jim planned on relieving them off all the weaponry but he wanted his daysack back. He had tried to look for it as he was marched from his cell to the arena and back but had no luck.

“Anyway, Lion heart, you may return to your bed for now. If you will step back into the cage we will whisk you away.” Jim obeyed and the cage slid closed behind him. As the other door slid open the armorer ushered Jim out with the rifle. He was lead back to the armoury and relieved of his dagger sling before being locked back into his cell with another hunk of bread and bottle of water. Several hours later his door slid open again and a girl was pushed in. She was no older than sixteen and wore only a sheet. This was the usual procedure for winning a fight. Every time he was given a different girl to do what he wanted with. Jim waited for the guard to disappear.

“Are you ok?” He asked her. She just looked at him, a terrified, innocent look. “I am not going to hurt you, I just want to make sure you’re ok.”

“My shoulder hurts and I have a headache but I’m ok.” She said in a quiet voice. “They told me when that when I came in I had to do this.” She dropped the sheet, ran one hand through her hair and the other she placed uncertainly on her hip. Her naked, young virgin body aroused nothing inside Jim. She would still be in school. He picked the sheet up off the floor and handed it back to her.

“Put it back on, you don’t have to do anything for me. I’m not like these guys.” Jim explained as she wrapped herself in the sheet. Jim looked round his cell. It was once an office and now had corrugated iron over each wall. There was a camp bed in one corner that Jim had been made to put up when he was brought here. He had been given a cheap sleeping bag that was now rolled up at one side. Opposite the bed was a pile of plastic plates and empty bottles from the meals. Jim was using them to keep count of how long he had been there, as long as he assumed that he was being fed twice a day. Currently in front of this were half of the hunk of bread and half the bottle of water. The rest of the room was comprised of floor space, a bucket he used as a toilet, and the door. Jim shuffled over to the rubbish corner and picked up the food and water. He offered it to the girl.

“Here, I knew they would send you here, are you hungry?” She nodded and took it. He motioned for her to sit down and she sat on the floor against one wall and dug into it. While she ate they chatted. Her name was Rebecca and she had been snatched off the street with her friend as they left her parents’ house to get food from the shop. It seemed to be the same detail as Jim had seen. A bus had appeared being chased by zeds and she had been given no choice. Once she was on it they had held her at knifepoint until they had got back to the warehouse where she was stripped and fondled before being told she was a part of the maternity program. When she refused they beat her and told her she was the gladiators’ whore. This was the first time she had left her cell since then. She had not been fed or anything for what seemed like days to her.

“Look, your here for the night. Take my bed and the sleeping bag, I’ll have your sheet and the floor.” Jim offered and she nodded. She dropped the sheet and walked across the floor naked before climbing into the sleeping bag and falling asleep. Jim pulled the sheet over him and used his arm as a pillow. He lay there trying to understand why women in an apocalypse were treat with such a lack of respect. He was still attempting to work this out as he fell asleep.

Chapter 13

Jims was awoken with a kick to the stomach from a heavy boot. He coughed and spluttered as he was dragged to his feet.

“Wakey, wakey Lion Heart.” Sneered his attacker. Every bone in Jim’s body told him to lash out but he stopped himself. He knew if he started kicking out he would just get his head kicked in. He looked round the room. One of the guards had pulled the sleeping bag off Rebecca and was stood over her as she tried to make sense of what was happening. He began to pull at her and grope her and she kicked out. It was a good kick and caught his square in the nose. He recoiled and landed heavily in Jim’s bin pile, clutching his now bleeding nose. The guard stood up looking enraged and started towards her. She balled herself up, ready to receive his retaliation. As the guard reached her a voice from outside the cell stopped him in his tracks.

“Leave her be. Come now brother, we must not treat our women as anything less than our equals.” The emperor stepped into the room. This was the first time Jim had seen him up close. He looked to be in his early thirties with short black hair that he had swept back with some form of gel, his nose was broken in several places and he had bad acne scars down both cheeks that made his face look like an old warzone. He wore a floor length toga and sandals. Jim could see that he wasn’t scary in any sense of the word. He stood about 5’10” and was a naturally scrawny bloke. Even in the toga Jim could see a beer belly forming though. The emperor turned to Rebecca.

“My dear if you could follow my brother here back to your cell I must have a word with our champion here.” Rebecca stood up, retrieved the sheet and followed the guard that had given Jim a kicking out of the room. He now turned back to Jim. “We have noticed a decline in the initial response to our little entertainment section and so we would like to spice things up a bit. I won’t ruin your surprise but I do want you to get your strength up. Everyone involved will not be fighting for 3 days now and in that time you will get 3 meals a day with meat from my table. You will come to learn that I am a merciful and fair leader.” Jim said nothing, simply stared into his eyes. He had a hatred for the man. Because of the man stood in front of him at least one of his men were dead and what is worse, the one that he knew of had to ultimately die at his own hands. “I thought I would come and see you personally to wish you good luck as the next time you see me I will be back in my rightful place on my throne watching you do what you do best. May the gods smile on you.” And with that he whipped round and strode out of the room. The guard with the bleeding nose followed and second later returned with a plastic plate with an entire ham joint on it. It had been cooked and glazed in honey. He set it down just inside the door with a bottle of water and left.

Jim hid the ham under his sleeping bag in case the guards decided to take it back off him and ran through his workout. Pushing himself beyond the limit he had before. Knowing there was soon to be much needed nutrients and protein in his body to repair his muscles. Once he had finished he took a large gulp of water and dug in with his hands. He looked like an animal as he carelessly ripped meat apart and stuffed it in his mouth. He didn’t care though, there was no one to see him and this was the first meal he had eaten that wasn’t bread for, by his calculations, 15 days. Meat juices dripped down his bare chest and onto his dog tags as he rammed more meat into his mouth.  They had taken his top, once he had awoken after his fall on the bus he had found they had taken everything from his pockets, his webbing, his daysack, his shirt and t-shirt.

He finished the ham and threw the plate onto the pile before downing the remaining water. The bottle joined the pile and he lay on his bed feeling very sick indeed. He refused to vomit though. He wasn’t wasting this food. He lay there for around 5 minute before sitting up and pulling the sleeping bag on once more and drifting back off to sleep. He was awoken every time food was brought to him and every time it was something different. They ranged from plates full of steamed vegetables to giant chunks of chocolate cake. Each time they arrived he followed the same process. Hide the food, work out, eat, drink and sleep. As he lay on his bed after his 9
th
meal a sudden apprehension hit him. He had been too pleased to get real food to care why he was getting it. The emperor must have something interesting planned for him tomorrow for him to go to all this effort. He decided he would need all the energy he could muster for it and pushed the thoughts from his mind before falling soundly asleep.