Zombie Brawl
Westlake pressed himself against the wall as the things that smelled of rotten meat and rusted metal paced and jostled one another in the crowded space. He couldn’t tell what they were, other than dead. And big, for walkers. But not the kind of dead and big he was used to. These weren’t normal walkers, but something else.
Thankfully, they seemed to share the rest of the zombies’ lack of interest in him. At least, after they’d shoved him around and sliced him up a bit. He wasn’t missing anything important, but he did feel a bit like he’d tripped and fallen into a Cuisinart.
He didn’t know how long he stood there, out of the way, listening to the scrape of metal and the querulous grunts of his fellow captives. An hour at least. Maybe two. It was getting harder to judge the passage of time with any accuracy. His mind wandered if he didn’t concentrate, and there was no way of telling how much time had passed when he finally snapped back to lucidity.
He tried to stay focused by thinking of a way out. He made a slow circuit of the small room, shuffling along, staying out of the way of his fellow captives. They stank in a way that was nasty even to him. Walkers smelled sweet in comparison. The guards had referred to him as a vanilla zombie and he didn’t figure they were referring to how he might taste.
He pushed the thought aside and concentrated on the room. The store, rather. That was what it had been. He found a counter and a second door that probably led to a stock room. But everything else had been ripped out to make room for the small crowd of zombies that now occupied it. Another holding pen, then. The guards had mentioned an arena.
He suddenly recalled passing through a few survivor camps, back when he’d been alive. In one of them, the survivors had dug a pit and dropped two walkers in it. Every few days, they’d throw in a stray dog as well, and watch the walkers tear at each other in an effort to get to the animal. They’d placed bets on the outcome. Maybe it was the same here, only this wasn’t two tattered walkers in a dirt pit.
He’d made his second slow circuit of the room when a red light suddenly flashed overhead, illuminating everything. For the first time, he saw his fellow captives – and froze. Not in fear, just in a sort of dull surprise. They didn’t look like any zombies he’d ever seen before, something for which he was grateful. There were six of them; their ravaged flesh somehow scaly. More, they were covered in scrap metal.
Some had crude blades or bludgeons for hands, while the heads of others were completely enclosed in makeshift helmets. Others had been gutted, their chests and abdomens replaced by riveted plates, studded with shards of metal, wood and glass. A few crawled about on all fours, their spines and heads twisted and bent in exoskeletal harnesses that forced them to move like animals. At least one had had its mouth replaced by a set of ill-fitting steel jaws that resembled a beartrap.
The light began to flash and the zombies became agitated. Music started to blare and the doors at the far end of the room popped open. The zombies raced out in a clanking, clashing stampede. Westlake followed, but not too quickly. A rush of noise met him as he stepped out through the doors and into what he realized must be the arena.
The arena lighting reminded him of a disco. A mix of golden oldies and more modern hits – or modern before the music industry had gone the way of everything else. An announcer was standing on a raised section of seating, shouting a play-by-play through a bullhorn.
From where he stood, the stretch of sand and gravel seemed impossibly vast. Maybe it was just the noise. The stands above him were almost full – sixty, maybe seventy people and all of them seemed to be yelling at the top of their lungs. More than that, he could almost hear their heartbeats; the pulse of their blood; the industrial thrum of their brains.
He could almost see it, like a roadmap superimposed over them. The hum and pulse called to him, and the smell – God, the smell! He couldn’t remember real food, but he somehow knew this would taste better.
He turned as the sound of a chainsaw close by tugged at him. The metal zombies were loping towards a knot of activity a short distance away. Walkers – normal ones – were attempting to swarm a small group of survivors. The latter were armed with a variety of improvised weapons, including the chainsaw and what looked like a weed whacker. He started moving towards the confrontation without thinking.
As he approached, a survivor took a zombie’s head off with a swing of his spiked bat. The body lurched past him, hands flailing, before it finally toppled over, to the cheers of the crowd. Westlake saw that the survivor, a young man, was bleeding from several scratches on his arms and face. He imagined taking a bite out of his neck. Of ripping away a mouthful of meat and chewing and chewing and chewing…
He thrust the thought down. Stamped on it. Padlocked it. The metal-zombies had reached the fight and were smashing and slashing at the walkers in their eagerness to get to living prey. Above him, in the stands, people were on their feet, leaning over to get a better view. That only riled the metal-zombies up more. Some of them were attacking each other, bludgeoning or hacking ineffectively at their armored fellows. But the rest were laser focused on the survivors.
An old man with a prosthetic foot was the first to die as a metal-zombie slammed into him and grappled him, piercing him through with the spikes and shards on its chest. He was dead even as it started to feed. Westlake circled the creature and saw that the old man had dropped a baseball bat studded with nails.
He snatched it up and turned to see a biker-type covered in tattoos catch a zombie in the back with a blow from a weed whacker. The zombie fell onto its face and the biker pinned it down with his foot while he trimmed its hedges. The zombie twitched and gurgled as he chopped it apart, filling the air with the flaky remnants of golden body paint.
The biker spotted Westlake, and his eyes widened. Before he could say anything, however, one of the metal-zombies removed his head with an awkward, flailing slash of its blade arm. It hadn’t even been looking at him while it did it, too focused on pursuing one of the other survivors.
Westlake stepped back as the biker’s head bounced past his feet. The crowd roared in what might have been pleasure. Westlake cursed under his breath. It was mayhem.
A metal-zombie lurched past him, slamming its bludgeon fists together as it pursued a young woman and an older man. “Rabbi, look out,” she cried, as the thing reared up over them, fists raised. The older man, holding what looked like a hockey stick with a knife attached to the end, thrust his weapon at the zombie. The knife end skidded across the metal-zombie’s reinforced hide. It gave a guttural roar as it brought its fists down on the ground, knocking them both sprawling. It turned, focused on the young woman.
“Ruth – run!” the older man shouted, as the metal-zombie raised its fists over her. Westlake, behind it, slammed his bat into the small of its back. There was no metal there, just scaly skin. The metal-zombie staggered and whirled, nearly clobbering him with a fist. Westlake ducked and hit it again, across the face this time. The metal-zombie stumbled and he hit it a third time, breaking the bat across its skull. The crowd screamed.
It shook its head, as if trying to clear it. As it did so, Westlake stabbed the jagged end of the broken bat into the side of its skull. He rode it to the ground, stabbing it again and again, until it finally ceased twitching.
As he rose, he caught a flicker of steel out of the corner of his eye, and felt something grate against his ribs. A knife; someone had stabbed him. He turned and saw the young woman backing away. He looked down and saw a clasp knife jutting from his side. He plucked it out and stared at it, at the tarry muck that coated the blade. His blood, gone sour now. He looked at her. “That was uncalled for,” he rasped.
“What…?” she began, staring at him in horrified wonder. Westlake shook his head.
“No time. Get moving. Help your friends.” He indicated the knife. “Oh, and I’m borrowing this.” He turned away from her, towards another of the metal-zombies. The other survivors were falling back, grouping up now that they didn’t have so many walkers pressing them. The metal-zombies stalked after them. Only three were left. Good odds, but not the best. Maybe he could even them.
He took a step towards them, but he was interrupted by one of the few remaining walkers, this one in glasses and a sports jacket. It staggered towards him, or maybe it was just trying to get past him. Either way, he didn’t hesitate. He stabbed it through the broken lens of its eyeglasses, and the zombie folded up like a discarded box.
He heard a grunt and turned. One of the metal-zombies prowled awkwardly towards him on all fours, the hinges of the steel struts on its limbs squeaking. It had evidently decided he was either prey or a rival. It scrambled towards him with startling speed, dragging a tail made from several lengths of bike chain.
Acting on instinct, he let the knife snap forward, out of his hand. It struck the zombie in the head, cracking bone. It reared back, clawing at the knife embedded in its skull. While it was distracted, he circled it and leapt onto its back. Before it could throw him off, he caught hold of either side of its head, hauling backwards with as much strength as his dead muscles could muster. The zombie reared, grabbing vainly for him.
Westlake kept pulling, ignoring the sensation that warned him his own muscles were at their utmost. Then, with a sound like a melon being cut in two, the zombie’s head came apart in a splatter of gore. Westlake fell to the ground and his opponent collapsed almost on top of him. He clambered to his feet, feeling gingerly at his arms and shoulders. Nothing seemed torn or dislocated; rather, everything was working, at least. A buzzer sounded, and a set of doors opened along the nearest wall.
Expecting more zombies, he went for the knife. But instead, guards in black riot gear thundered into the arena. The remaining metal-zombies stiffened and he smelled the acrid tang of electricity, but saw no cattle prods. Smoke billowed from the head of one of the zombies as it collapsed in a twitching heap. The few remaining walkers did so as well, thrashing and clutching at their skulls as if in pain.
In moments, Westlake was the only dead man on his feet. But not for long. Several of the guards advanced on him, catch poles and batons at the ready. He considered playing dumb walker again, but realized the jig was up. He tossed the knife aside and raised his hands.
“No need for violence,” he croaked. “I’ll go quietly.”