Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead (13 page)

Muscle-gaining came easy and she hit the weights for the first time when she was fifteen years old. Soon, she got involved in inter-school wrestling. After high school, she wrestled in the university league. After that, she turned pro and scored two heavyweight titles in the women’s division then quickly suggested to the league owners they let her compete against the men. They were afraid a woman competing against a man for the title would stir up controversy, but she convinced them to utilize that to their advantage and reap the financial benefits such a scandal would cause. She took on Thunder Guns, the reigning champ at the time, and had him pinned inside of four minutes even though it was originally planned she should throw the fight. They let her keep the title for a few weeks before firing her for disobedience. The fans thought she had merely been written out of the story.

Then the Zombie War came and after it ended, she found herself back in an industry that once destroyed her livelihood. Still, to be herself and not some freak was wonderful and she didn’t mind being a part of the biz again if it meant a means to let loose some of her aggression and not have to worry about what other people thought about her.

As she stood there in the dark, she clenched her fists, then relaxed her hands and adjusted her leather corset. She double checked the long braid of her blonde hair to make sure it was in place, and she stamped her heels against the ground, psyching herself up.

She was ready. It was time to show these people what she was made of.

The buzzer sounded and the lights went on.

The iron ring lit up and the dead began to rise.

Blood Bay Arena did its best to match the zombie to the fighter, something to give the crowd their money’s worth. Shanna’s matches were no exception and standing before her was a hulk of a man, gray-skinned and purple-veined, wearing nothing but a pair of boxer shorts. Red gauges dotted the man’s skin. It looked as if he was a seasoned fighter and the damage had been done by a werewolf or other creature. He had short, greasy black hair, and wrinkly, gray circles around his eyes. The man’s hands were like baseball mitts. Unfortunately, he was a Shambler, and combining that with his appeared weight of two-hundred-fifty-or-so pounds, the guy was going to move slow.

You could end this quickly and be in a hot bath inside of ten minutes,
Shanna thought. She wasn’t sure if she was in the mood to give everybody a show or not, yet it would still be something sweet to see a big blonde take out a large dead man.

The buzzer rang and the dead man’s chains fell to the concrete floor.

Lights shining bright above, Shanna took a quick second to say a prayer of help, then focused herself at what needed doing. The secret here, as always, was to not get bit. If you kept away from a zombie’s mouth, you had an eighty percent chance of survival already. The other trick was to stay away from their
hands
. Once those slapped down on you, they dragged and pulled you in until the undead could lock their teeth around your neck or shoulder. Being near their
arms
was okay. The undead didn’t really use them to reel you in. It was the hands—the grab-and-pull—that was dangerous. The other advantage was the zombies normally led with their face, mouth-first, so you knew where they were aiming for on your body and you could then avoid them.

The zombie stumbled toward her. Shanna side-stepped, forcing it to follow her in a circular pattern.

The creature lunged at her. She stepped to the side and the zombie grabbed nothing but air. She maneuvered around it so she was behind, grabbed the zombie by the waist, bent her knees, then thrust upward with all her might, throwing the zombie over her shoulder in a well-executed suplex.

Releasing him, she got up, took two quick steps so she was alongside the zombie, then cocked her elbow and put her bodyweight behind it as she plowed it into his spine, crashing down on top of him.

The crowd cheered, loving every minute of it.

Giving in to a bit of showmanship, Shanna squatted over the zombie, facing his feet, then dropped her backside onto the small of his back. With a firm grip, she took up the zombie’s ankles and pulled hard, forcing the legs toward her and turning the zombie’s body into a perfect U: pure Boston Crab.

Hoots and whistles filled the arena.

Shanna smiled, released the dead man, got to her feet and strode over to one side of the cage, tossing her arms up.

“Yeah? Yeah? You want more? Huh! Okay, you got it!” she growled.

More whistles.

The zombie was getting to his feet. Shanna ran over to him and stomped her foot into his ribcage, stopping him. The decayed flesh gave way and a gush of blood followed by a glop of rotting intestine poured out.

The zombie fell onto his side.

Shanna took a step away and raised a fist to the crowd.

The dead man slowly got up, shook his head as if he was trying to shake the cobwebs out, then lumbered over to her, arms outstretched, moving them up and down like flesh-made scissors.

Shanna weaved under the arms, once, twice—and on the third the zombie caught her and began pulling her in. The man’s hands were rough and heavy, like lead-filled balloons, with a strength that made his fingers dig deep into her skin. She kicked at the ground, trying to push away. The zombie lost its grip for a moment but quickly re-established it. Mouth open, he pulled her in toward it.

With a swift right hook, she knocked the zombie’s jaw to the side, then came back with an uppercut and landed her fist squared where the jaw met the neck. The zombie’s head snapped back and she hoped the force of the blow was enough to break his neck. The zombie released her, stumbled back a few steps, then slowly brought his head forward again.

“Are you serious?” she said.

She snapped out her arm and ran at him, quickly veering to the side at the last moment and took the zombie down with a mighty clothesline.

She stomped on the zombie’s back. The undead man jerked, his sudden move so unexpected that the jolt of his girth was enough to knock her off balance. She fell backward on her behind.

The crowd screamed. She thought she heard someone shout, “Look out!”

She tried to roll to the side just as the zombie grabbed her legs, but it was too late. The creature had her and was tugging at her boot, trying to figure a way around the laces and into the tender flesh beneath.

She kicked her feet as hard as she could, gave it all she had in a mad scramble to gain some distance.

“Don’t get close. Don’t get close,” she told herself.
Getting close will kill you.

One foot . . . two. She was free.

She ran to the other side of the cage, bounced off the chain-link, and charged straight at the zombie just as he was standing up. She leaped into the air and sent both feet into the dead man’s chest. The creature slammed back against the cage on the other side. Shanna landed on her back.

A sudden woosh of dizziness overtook her and black fuzz lined her vision. A moment later and a searing pain ignited at the back of her head. It took a moment, but the two words “head” and “impact” bounced around inside her skull. Ears buzzing, she caught sight of something big and gray lumbering toward her.

A man.

A dead man.

A zombie!

Shanna rolled over to the side, face down. For a second she forgot what she was trying to do and her heart sped up in panic. Meaty hands grabbed her waist and yanked her to her feet.

Her head lolled back, then she quickly jerked it forward just as a set of yellow teeth snapped at her cheek.

Screeching, the crowd roaring for blood, pain already lighting up the back of her skull, she tossed her head back in one swift jerk and head butted the zombie, somewhere hopefully between the eyes, enough to daze him for a second.

She pressed down on the zombie’s hands, releasing his hold on her.

Giving in to the whirlwind of instinct flooding through her, she stepped forward, grabbed the zombie by the neck, and forced him to bend at the waist. Then she wrapped her arms under him, jerked the dead man’s body and legs up so he was inverted, pulled him up even higher . . .

. . . and let that pusbag have a Power Bomb, sending him crashing to the floor with all her might.

She stomped forward and slammed her foot down on the back of the zombie’s head.

The skull cracked beneath her foot and brain oozed out like rotten banana from its peel.

27

Option Four

“
I’
m a genius,” Mick said quietly.
Thank you very much, I’m almost out.
It took everything he had to keep a smile from forming on his face.

Okay,
just
breathe.
Brreeeaaatthhe.
He
let
out
a
slow exhale.

In his peripheral, he caught Jack shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

That last one mustn’t have gone so well for him,
he thought. He pretended he hadn’t noticed.

“I really need to go to the can,” Mick said.

“Again?”

“That last visit was to wash the puke off. Besides, I got a bladder like an infant.”

“Hmph. Come to think of it, actually, I gotta tinkle, too.”

Mick chuckled, trying to convince any secret onlookers he was settling back in instead of wondering where the heck Anna was. He had to find her.

Jack got up. “You coming?”

“In a sec.”

Jack left.

Mick needed to find his wife.

Option One: try and make a break for it past the security guard. Naw. Wouldn’t work. Another would catch up to him right away and clobber him.

Option Two: try to sneak away and get back in time for the next fight and hope no one notices. But he wasn’t a ninja, so that one was out as well.

Option Three: hire a ninja?

Mick shook his head, wondering where that last thought came from.

Option Four:

Mick bent at the waist and untied his boot. He flipped it over and inspected the sole. Clumps of dirt from Blood Bay’s floor and a chunky sheen of puke from the incident earlier coated the bottom of his boot.

As discreetly as he could, he took a whiff of the sole. The sharp stench pierced his nostrils, the fumes enough to prime his gag reflex. Then with as wide a mouth as he could manage, he stuck out his tongue and ran it up and down the length of his boot, licking off as much of the funky gooey slop as he could. The spongy, mud-like mixture sat in a ball on his tongue. He rolled it around in his mouth a couple of times before swallowing.

Instantly, his stomach revolted and a stream of puke launched out of his mouth. Mick made sure to shake his head a little as the stuff came out so as to get it everywhere and cause an even bigger scene.

However, the old guy sitting next to him didn’t seem to notice.

Mick stood hunched over, retching, when a pair of hands grabbed him by the collar and dragged him out into the aisle.

“I oughtta beat you down to a pulp, you know that?” a voice said.

Mick glanced up through watery eyes to a meaty security guard, this one not the guy standing by the door to the hallway.

The big man grabbed him under his arm and dragged him up the steps to the door, Mick’s insides still convulsing all the way.

At
least
I’m
on
my
way
out,
Mick
thought. “Bathroom
.
.
.”

“Not this time,” the guard said.

Just as they passed through the door, Mick bumped into Jack.

“Hey, man, what gives?” Jack said, arms outstretched.

Mick didn’t have a chance to reply as he was taken down the hallway to a metal door at the far end, up six flights of concrete steps, and was brought into another hallway, the walls lined with yellow bricks.

His stomach muscles were still contracting and little chunks were coming up again. He could barely keep his feet under him.

The guard hauled him to the room at the far end, shoved him inside the dark room, then closed the door behind them, keeping a firm hand on Mick’s shoulder. A moment later, the light went on.

“Why are you doing this, Mick?” Sterpanko moved from the far side of the plainly-furnished room. There was a large window behind him overlooking the cage below. A row of four black leather chairs were positioned in front of the window. That was it. Nothing else other than gray carpeting and charcoal black-painted walls.

“Doing what?” Mick said.

“You come here, screw me over, and I by my good graces decide to give you a chance to get out of this mess and all you do is lose money, cause a scene” —he snapped up the first two fingers of his right hand— “
twice
yack all over the place—SENSELESS! You really do live like a man with nothing to lose, don’t you?”

Mick swallowed, winced, and cleared his throat.

“Want to say something?” Sterpanko said.

“No. Just a cough.”

“You’ve done enough of that already, don’t you think?”

Mick didn’t answer.

“I asked you a question.”

The guard tightened his grip on Mick’s shoulder, digging his thumb deep into the flesh.

“Yes,” Mick said. “Sorry.”

“You should be. And now here we are.” Sterpanko pulled a cigar out of his breast pocket, stuck it in his mouth, lit it, then put the lighter back in his pocket. He exhaled a thick plume of smoke. “I’ve already given you the speech about what will happen if you don’t perform today, so I’ll spare saying it again.”