Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead (14 page)

Sterpanko walked over to the large window, looked down and didn’t say anything. A moment later, he reached inside his coat pocket and pulled out a cordless Controller.

The guard walked Mick over to him. Sterpanko handed him the device.

Mick just held it.

“Are you going to place a bet?” Sterpanko asked.

“Do I have a choice?”

“No.”

Sighing, Mick registered himself with the machine and flipped through the screens to see what the next fight held. He made his selection and handed the Controller back. “There.”

Sterpanko put the device back in his pocket. “Let’s see what happens.”

28

Bigfoot
vs
ZombieS

Bet: $369,000

Owing: $369,000

T
he flashes came only once and a while now. There used to be a time when they came quite regularly, shots of a world from long ago from a time that was no more.

The Bigfoot’s mind wasn’t as underdeveloped as most people thought. His name was Stalla
.
Though not his pack’s Alpha Male, he most definitely was one of the fiercest. He
knew
that much. Reason and process-of-thought wasn’t beyond him either. He prided himself on that and reflected on it often. Sometimes, for amusement, he’d pretend he didn’t understand what Steer-payn-koh and those with him were saying, or would feign just enough understanding to comply with what they wanted but only half-heartedly. It seemed to appease them enough.

Those flashes. Bright images of hairy beasts, large hands, pushed-in noses and glorious fangs. His people. His kind.

Of which he was the last.

The
muptigs
, as his people referred to them, had caused so much trouble before, building cities out of the fruits of the woods, killing trees just to harvest their strong interiors beneath the bark. The
muptigs
were what forced Stalla and his family to retreat further into the trees. It was a tradition—though Stalla had trouble recalling from where—for one to retreat deeper into the forest at the first sign of a
muptig.
He only knew two things in regards to those smaller and balder versions of themselves: retreat into the forest; cover your head while doing so. The stories passed down from his grandfather said that the
muptig
were able to shoot hard things from their hands, so fast and with so much force that those hard things would penetrate your skull if you weren’t careful. They were even strong enough to make your blood run freely on the ground and end your life.

It was the
muptigs’
ability to shoot hard things from their hands that created the fear inside the world of the Bigfoots. It was the
only
thing they feared.

Until that day when the
muptigs
came, this time appearing differently than before. Their skin was lighter, wounded, and their foul smell was even worse than their original scent. These
muptigs
—
thwellers
, as they became known amongst the Bigfoot—did not shoot hard things from their hands. To a degree, they were like the Bigfoot and devoured their prey with their teeth, sometimes using their claws to reel their meals in.

Stalla always believed in the idea that
muptigs
would be afraid of his kind if they were presented to them. Everyone in his tribe thought he was crazy. But he was right because one night—before the
thwellers
arrived—a
muptig
was moving through the woods, appearing to be searching for something. Stalla had stepped out from behind a tree and startled the
muptig
. The
muptig
screamed and on wobbly legs tried to run away only to trip and fall to the forest floor. Stalla had braced himself for the impact of a hard thing from the
muptig’s
hands, only to find that nothing came from the
muptig’s
hands at all. Stalla left that
muptig
there in the dark and returned to his tribe with the news of what he’d done. No one believed him, except one—the tribe’s leader and Alpha Male, Yugta.

To show the leader that
muptigs
were actually harmless, the two set out the next night in search of one. The night went on and no
muptigs
were found. However, after wandering through the forest all night and just before the sun came up, Stalla saw one and called Yugta over. He told Yugta to stay behind the bush and watch him go up to the
muptig
and scare it. Being the Alpha Male of the group, that didn’t sit well with Yugta and he instead pushed past Stalla and strode into the path of the
muptig.
The
muptig
didn’t scream, as Stalla expected. Instead, it merely looked quizzically at Yugta, as if trying to process that which was before it. Then, with a quick jerk of its body, it jumped onto Yugta and sunk its teeth into his neck. Dark streams of blood arced from the wound and stained the green and brown of the forest trees and bushes. Yugta fell and the
muptig
kept eating.

Stalla watched from behind the trees. He so desperately wanted to howl over losing his friend, but instead found himself pinned with fear and unable to move. This wasn’t a
muptig
like the other night. This thing eating his friend was something else. Some kind of . . .
thweller
, an “eater.”

When he returned to his tribe, they were already under attack,
thwellers
everywhere, chasing and eating and cutting open all those he loved.

Stalla ran.

Now, in the dark of the arena, a flash of blood-coated hair danced before his eyes.

A sound droned overhead. The lights went on.

Blue light lit a circle on the floor and a
thweller
began to rise.

This
thweller
had eyes like blood, pale skin, and pure hate upon its face.

The joyous screams of
muptigs
filled Stalla’s ears.

A loud noise droned again and that which bound the
thweller
fell to the floor.

The
thweller
moved instantly, charging straight toward him.

Stalla took a giant step to the side, hoping the
thweller
would run on past him and he could attack the creature from behind. Instead, the
thweller
matched his movement and went to the left with him, plowing mouth first into Stalla’s big and hairy chest. The monster’s mouth tried to work its way through the mats of hair, searching for flesh. He grabbed the
thweller
on either side of the head and yanked the creature off, the
thweller
bringing a mouthful of thick brown hair between its teeth along with it.

This was going to be easy.

The
thweller
grumbled and groaned as Stalla held either side of its head, keeping the creature’s body from touching the ground. Then, using his chest and shoulder muscles, Stalla squeezed his hands together. There was a split second of resistance, then the
thweller’s
head burst open at the top, brain and blood shooting out of it like a jam-packed pumpkin. Its mouth slowly moved up and down, as if it realized that its life had just ended, yet even then it still yearned for one last taste of solid meat.

Stalla dropped the body at his feet then stepped on it toward the creature’s legs, his massive weight pulverizing the corpse like he did that coyote that one time, leaving only a sack of skin filled with mushed meat behind.

Stalla raised his massive hands and arms skyward, howling at the audience as they cheered. Others in the crowd made a different sound, one low and long: “Booooo.” Stalla growled.

Soon the droning hisses and low booing from the crowd blended with wild cheering and, eventually, was replaced. Stalla searched the cage for the source of their amusement. Rising out of the iron ring stood three more
thwellers
, two males and one female. Each had a head of brown hair. One of the
thwellers
had hair on its face, the other two did not. Blood coated their torn clothes, all of them wearing white. Stalla was amazed that the blood remained splotched clearly in its place, bringing a sharp contrast to the white of their clothing. It was almost beautiful.

This was a new trick. So far in his career battling in the cage, the enemy had only been offered to him one at a time, and each of the
thwellers
that stood before him were the aggressive sort, the ones that ran instead of walked. The ones that charged instead of wobbled toward you like some kind of half-asleep beast.

The moment the three
thwellers
rose so their feet were level with the cage floor the chains were released and all of them made a mad dash for Stalla. He threw out his big hairy arms to either side and ran at them, slamming his biceps into two of their necks, forcing them to fall backward to the floor. The third—the female—just simply rushed past. Stalla kept her in his peripheral and spun around on his leathery-soled feet and met her head-on as she sped toward him, growling and shrieking like an eagle in the night.

Stalla slammed his palms down on the cage floor and used them as leverage and vaulted himself into the air, coming at her feet-first. The sharp claws at the end of his toes connected squarely with her face, two of his toes lodging themselves deep in her eyes. He jerked his legs back, ripping her eyes from their sockets, doing so accidentally shoving his heel into her mouth. Her teeth clamped down. Stalla howled, then yelped when she tore the bottom of his foot away as he fell to the floor.

Ignoring the pain, he stood up and met the two males that had now gotten to their feet. In an instant he swiped a gigantic paw at them and cleaved off one of the
thweller’s
faces. He then leaped away from the second as it came at him, jaws snapping, and finished the female off by digging his claws into her skull, then peeling the bone back like de-boning a fish. Brain and blood glopped out of her cranium and she hit the floor.

A male
thweller
latched onto Stalla’s back and bit hard and deep to where his neck met his shoulder. The sharp sting of his hair being torn from his skin was quickly masked when the flesh beneath the hair gave way and blood and meat started to splash out.

He reached over his shoulder, grabbed the
thweller
just underneath its jaw with both hands, and flipped the creature over his shoulder. The
thweller
hit the concrete floor with such force that its skull cracked on impact, blood immediately beginning to pool around it. Stalla bent down and opened his mouth wide and bit off the
thweller’s
face, opening its skull, then stood and spat the bloody skin and flesh and shards of bone toward the audience. Most of them cheered. A few hissed.

Stalla didn’t care.

The zombie didn’t move.

Suddenly the pain in his heel ignited as if he had been bitten afresh and he had no choice but to
not
step on it otherwise his leg would surely fold beneath him.

The faceless zombie tugged on his hand as if trying to free a stray branch from a rushing stream. Stalla jerked his fist toward himself, bringing the
thweller
along with it. The
thweller
had its mouth open and when its head connected with Stalla’s, it took a bite out of the Bigfoot’s lip. Blood sprayed on both of them. Stalla growled and dug his claws deep into the
thweller’s
chest and pulled out anything that would quickly give: bone, meat, veins, heart—glory.

The
thweller
didn’t seem to mind and kept snapping its jaws.

Blood continued to gush from Stalla’s wounds and his vision began to go blurry. The only thing he was certain of at the moment was the pain and the snapping jaws in front of him.

He fell to his knees, dragging down the
thweller
with him. His vision grew darker around the edges and the inside of his head felt lighter and lighter, as if something was removing the bones from beneath his skin. He didn’t know what to call the sensation but wanted more than anything to just sleep.

Snapping jaws.

Stalla couldn’t let it win.

He reached into the creature’s mouth. The
thweller’s
teeth bit through his paw. He didn’t care. He teetered backward, fell over, the
thweller
now resting on top of him, its blood cool and soaking through the hair on his chest and stomach.

Stalla turned his paw over inside the
thweller’s
mouth so his claws dug into its roof, and with one swift-yet-effort-filled motion, jerked his hand upward, ripping off the top of the
thweller’s
head. The creature fell lifeless on top of him.

Stalla’s vision darkened.

The crowd cheered somewhere distant.

This was for Yugta.

29

This is New

M
ick stood there, heart pounding, his mind playing the last few moments of the fight over and over. A draw? Mick couldn’t recall the last time that happened, if at all. But he also hadn’t seen every single zombie fight either.

He turned to Sterpanko. “Now what?”

The man pressed his lips together and for the briefest of moments, Mick thought he didn’t know what to do. Yet, of course, Mick knew that wasn’t the case. If Sterpanko was anything, he was smart and calculating. He was the type of guy who had Plans A through D for everything. Surely the scenario of a draw had been taken into account when Zombie Fight Night was first created, especially given the contenders.

Sterpanko reached for the Controller and began tapping buttons. A few moments later, he stopped. “That was quite a bet, Mick. If you had won, we’d be even.”