900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (21 page)

After a while, Kyle asked, “So what is your real name?”

Fake Michael then looked at us, focusing as if finally relieved that someone knew what had happened.  He had a twisted enthusiasm in his eyes and a crooked smile on his face. “I’m nobody,” he snorted softly with a shrug.  “I’m the man who killed Michael Hoskins.”

****

We remained imprisoned for some time.  It felt like days, but was probably hours.  I kept thinking about the last thing Gordon said as we were being escorted away from the round table.

“You’re going to have fun in the Arena.”

It kept ringing in my mind.  What the hell was the Arena?  It drew thoughts of the Roman Empire, gladiators, swords, and death.

Kyle and I were speculating when the guy in the cell next to him sat up.

He was big.  Bigger than Kyle, and complete muscle. His arms, bulging against a tight shirt, led up to a set of shoulders which made his neck look more like a thick peg that his head sat on.

“We’re all going to die
,” he said decisively.  “The arena is Death. Accept it, and you can find peace.”

Chapter 22

So
, we are going to try something new and exciting tonight.

Mr. Muscle was more talkative once he finally got going.  He was solemn in his tone, and had clearly been through a lot.  He had an accent that I couldn’t quite place at first, and his giant size was nothing more than a mask over the reserved man that sat before us.

Oddly enough, we learned that he was part of a two-person circus act for one of the Greatest Shows on Earth. His act was called the Amazing Mongolian Strongmen
. He and his partner who were both alike in size, dress, and looks, and would get in front of thousands of people a week to demonstrate amazing strength by lifting these giant telephone size wooden poles up in the air.

The finale included lifting two of the poles in the air in the shape of a cross, each with swings on them, where four women dressed as clowns with red shirts and little skirts would sit down and be swung around in a full circle before being placed back on the ground.

Nine hundred pounds; that’s how much the full weight of the women and apparatus was.  The two guys would lift nine hundred pounds and fling it around nightly.

The funniest thing was that he wasn’t even Mongolian.  He was a giant
light-skinned Mexican who shaved his head into a Mohawk, which was mostly grown in by now.  Mr. Muscle went on to explain that he and his partner left the circus in Charlotte, where they were on tour when the shit hit the fan.  They found their way to Avalon, like so many others. They were the first to put the barbed wire fence up, and practically did it on their own, according to his verbal account. They had helped to protect this place, and were promised a room for leading the efforts.

When they did not get it, his friend got caught up in a fight with one of the guards and wound up in one of the first Arena battles.  Mr. Muscle had to watch from the
sidelines with the rest of the audience, made up of worker bees from outside.  They were allowed to sit along the outside of the arena just below the Elites, who were in throne-like chairs circling around the top of the Arena on a platform just above the chain linked fence that had been erected around the perimeter of the battleground.

“What room?”  Kyle asked.

Mr. Muscle went on to tell us that there was a giant room, like a conference hall with huge pillars. He thought that it used to be used for trade shows or something at the hotel.

“Anyway, the Elites had made a round pen in there, and the rest is history.”

“Why are you in here?” I asked.

“When I saw the three creatures finally take down and start tearing apart my friend...man, I couldn’t take it.  I started to knock into the fence, eventually pushed it over, too.  One of the Elites fell from above the fence, and onto the floor.  I did not mean to hurt the son of a bitch.  The zombies ate his ass, too, though.  I was eventually caught, and sentenced to the next battle.  So here I sit, awaiting my death.”

He pulled a necklace from around his neck and kissed the cross on the end of it as he looked up at the ceiling and murmured, “I’ll see you soon,
ese
. I’ll see you soon.”

“They told us if we won three battles we would be freed.  You buy that shit?” Kyle asked frankly
.

“
Don’t know.  What I can tell you is that they just kept putting more zombies in the Arena until they kill everybody in there.  They were all slow as hell too, so the gladiators just kept killing them one by one; until they just put too many in there for them to handle.  Wasn’t much chance of winning if you ask me, man,” Mr. Muscle replied.  Our attention was drawn to the guard in the doorway, who suddenly jumped up from his perch. He stood at full attention, staring straight ahead. Gordon entered the room with a smile on his face.

“Gentlem
en, come on now,” he smirked. “There is always a chance to win. Especially for the strong,” (looking over at Mr. Muscle,) “and the brave,” (looking at Kyle and I).

“Afraid there isn’t much chance for the weak, and stupid,” he sneered at Michael.  “I have to know, whoever you are, did you really think we wouldn’t have a clue that you were not Michael?  You have big fucking brass balls trying to pull that one off. That is for sure.  Should have checked your facts a little better though.  I am going to assume that you killed Michael Hoskins.  Am I correct?”

Fake Michael met his eyes and gave a slight nod.

“Good.  Thank you.  That makes this much easier.”   He was no longer wearing the turtleneck and jacket. He was dressed in the type of Adidas jump suit you would see mobsters wearing in the Sopranos.

“With the exception of Mr.-I-don’t-know-what-the-fuck-his-name-is, you all get the privilege of trying to earn your Elite status here.  Win three times, and you become an Elite citizen.”  He spoke as if we should be jumping for joy.  Kyle perked up.

“Listen man, not to be a dick, but we just met Michael.
I don’t want to see anything bad happen to the guy because we’ve been through a lot together, but we have not done shit. We haven’t broken any of your rules.  All we did was get caught up in a lie that was much bigger than what we had any clue about.”

“Ahhhh
, yes.  So why would we ask you to participate in the Arena as gladiators? That is a good question. Very true, we have no basis for putting you in the Arena, based on what Michael has done.  Why, that would not be fair at all.”

That cold hearted prick. He was toying with us.

“But then again,” Gordon continued, “you have broken one of our three rules.  You shall not hurt, kill or maim an Elitist.”  The words sucker punched me in the face.

“What? Who?” I blurted when a man entered the room. He was wearing a bandage across his forehead and part of his face, which he started to unwrap as he walked.  Two layers off, I knew who it was. My heart sank.

Mr. Cul-de-sac Chauffer, that bald asshole from the rooftop who left us to die, finished unwrapping the bandage to display one hell of a gash that ran across his forehead and down his face.  It was just barely starting to heal, and it made him look far more crazed that he actually was.

“Remember me, boys?” Chauffer asked mildly.

“You left us to die, you bald fuck!” Kyle spat in anger.

“Not the story we heard
, Gentlemen,” Gordon butted in.  “Chauffer here says you split his head open with a metal pole and left him for dead in some parking garage.  He’s lucky to be here after catching one of the last helicopters out of New York.”

Chauffer’s speech was a little messed up.  You could tell that he was in pain when he spoke, but that didn’t stop him from saying,

“I wanted to personally come down here so you would know that I am the reason you’re not being released. When I saw you at that table, I couldn’t believe my luck. You assholes are going to get what’s coming to you in Arena.  You’re going to pay for this scar.”

Never trust our leaders. The words reverberated through my head.
  Kyle grabbed the bars of his cell as if to merely bend them out of his way.

“We didn’t do shit, you coward. You ran away and left us to die!” he raged. Gordon interrupted with a smirk.

“Gentlemen, it is decided.  There is nothing I can do.  It’s your word against an Elitist.”

I could see it in Kyle's
eyes. That last statement hit him the wrong way. Kyle’s face was dark red in fury, his fingers gripping the bars so tight his knuckles were like little light bulbs against his tanned skin.

“This isn’t over Chauffer...or for you, Gordon,” he snarled murderously.  Chauffer snorted, his mouth twisting up in another smirk.

“Save your strength,” Gordon said. “You’ve got an epic battle ahead of you in the coming hours. Please do put on a good show. We have something special in mind for tonight.”

As he spoke, two black troopers entered the room with some sort of contraption
and a wooden mallet. The apparatus had what looked like a metal helmet with spikes coming out of the top along with a chest shield with a larger metallic spike that hung from a leather strap.

Turning his full attention to the troopers, Gordon said, “Well...time to get this party started.” He then grinned at the fake Michael. The soldiers began to open
his cell door. Michael backed away, bumping against the wall. There was a look of terror in his eyes.

My palms were slick with sweat
, but before I could speak, Kyle bellowed,

“What the fuck are you doing? Leave him the hell alone!”

Gordon merely waved him off, tapping his foot slowly as he eyed Kyle and me.

“You see, the first battles started to get, well, a little boring.  Old zombies are slow zombies.  That is the reality of things.  Sadly, slow zombies are pretty easy to kill, unless you have a ton of them overrunning the place.  This is not terribly exciting either, and it’s very difficult to wrangle them all back in.”

As he talked, the guards entered the cell, and captured Fake Michael by his arms.  They started fiddling with the metal apparatus lifting it up, trying to straighten it out properly.  I could see that instead of having a facemask, like in a football helmet, there were metal razors sticking out in the shape of teeth.  They looked like they would append to the chin of the person wearing the helmet in some way, shape or form.  However, I couldn’t really tell how it would work.  I wasn’t so sure that I wanted to know.

“So we are going to try something new and exciting tonight. The crowd is going to love it. And you, my dear friend, are going to be our main star.” Gordon smiled sickly sweet at Michael as he struggled wildly. I looked at Chauffer, the fear of what was happening
was making me nauseous. He knew what was coming. The excitement radiated from his mangled face. A face that I wanted to finish off for good.

“You see, new zombies are the best,” Gordon chimed with gusto.  “They are fast, strong and frankly, they are in short demand at the moment.  The ones coming to our walls have been dead for over a week. That just won’t do at all, will it.” It was not a question.

Michael realized what was about to happen just as the troopers placed the metal helmet over his head. I watched as one of the razor teeth gouged his cheek open, his cry vibrating off the walls. His eyes went from panic to crazed terror. The guards held him tight, not allowing him to put up enough of a fight to break free. Blood filled the helmet momentarily, and then began streaming down Michael’s strained neck cords. The metal had opened an inch and a half of the flesh, held in place only by the headgear.

“So we came up with this little device.  Ingenious really.  It’s designed to make it so that the creatures are not easily killed, and that they have a little more power to their destructive ability.”  Gordon raised his eyebrows and glanced towards Kyle and
me with a larger than life smile; he was very proud of his invention.

“The trick is to make sure we have the freshest zombie possible. Therefore, we really need to start with a live person to make this work.” He really was one sick, twisted individual. Gordon slowed down now. His words became methodical, and his face had drawn serious.

“I can think of nobody better than the man who killed my best and most trusted friend to give it a test run.” He nodded in the troopers’ direction. They had finished putting on the torso piece, which was made up of a front and back plates, each with a round hole in the middle, right in the center.

One of them slammed Fake Michael against the cell bars facing us, while the other raised the metal spike that was attached by the leather strap.  Fake Michael stopped struggling. He was immobile, helplessly staring at Kyle and
me. We could see raw defeat in his eyes. We were powerless to do anything to help him. I could do nothing but stand there and watch as the events took place. Kyle shook his bars and screamed for them to stop. His anger only adding to the pleasure Gordon was getting from the frenzy.

Gordon gave a small motion, as if saying, “Let’s begin.” The guard with the
larger spike lifted it to the hole in the rear torso plate, took a deep breath, and brought the mallet down on the end of the spike with a muffled
thomp
, as the spike cracked through the muscle and bone in Michael’s back. After another hard
thomp
, which echoed through the cell, it slid through the plate, through his heart and then out the front chest plate, protruding three inches.