Fight Night
Westlake waited impatiently for the guards to bring the weapons, but no one came. His frustration mounted as he realized they were screwed. When the red light in the ceiling started to flash, he looked at Saul. “They’re not coming,” he rasped.
“Thank you for pointing out the obvious, dead guy,” Carter said. She peered at him. “Guess we don’t get weapons this time around. I blame you.”
“Maybe they decided not to take any chances,” Saul said.
“Maybe you two shouldn’t have popped that skeezy guy in the nose,” Donovan said.
“What do we do now?” Perkins asked, nervously.
Westlake snatched up two pieces of the broken chair and tossed one to Perkins. “It doesn’t matter. Find something to use. Anything sharp. Stabby.”
“What about the plan?” Donovan asked, as he smashed another chair on the floor.
“The plan has changed,” Westlake said. He tore loose another shard of wood and tossed it to Saul. “The new plan is to survive until we can come up with a better plan.”
Saul caught the length of wood and tested the tip with his thumb. “Perhaps we should have expected this,” he said to Westlake.
Westlake grunted. “Wisdom is the cousin of hindsight.”
Saul looked at him. “And where did you hear that? A fortune cookie?”
“Self-help book.” Westlake glanced at the other man, and then at Ruth. She’d been quiet since her brother’s death. She hadn’t looked at Westlake or anyone else, but she started to rip up the couch cushions her brother died on, yanking out the springs. “She going to be all right?”
Saul shrugged. “Who can say? They were close, as twins often are. But she is resilient. I- oh.” Ruth stood abruptly, a hand full of metal springs, took the length of wood from Saul, and quickly crafted a spear-like weapon. Looking at Westlake, Ruth nodded once, and went to stand by the door. Westlake looked at Saul.
“I guess that answers my question.”
The door buzzed and popped open, swinging inwards. The roar of the crowd swept in like a cold wind. They seemed even more excited than the previous night. Westlake looked at the others. They were tired. They hadn’t eaten in nearly two days. And the only weapons they had to speak of were mainly broken chair legs. He felt a flicker of… anger. He held onto it. He figured he might need it sooner rather than later.
“Maybe we should just stay in here,” Perkins said, softly.
Carter shook her head. “They’ll shoot us. At least out there we have a chance.”
“Stay together, watch out for each other,” Saul said, as they stepped out into the arena. “We’ll get through this.”
The buzzer sounded. A door opened and the crowd cheered. Up above, on his platform, Mondo began his play-by-play. Like the crowd, he was enjoying himself. He punctuated his spiel with gestures, but Westlake couldn’t make out what he was saying. It was a garbled mess of noise, merging with the roar of the crowd.
The first batch of walkers were slow and coming apart at the seams. Ten of them. They stumbled into the arena, dead eyes staring hungrily at their prey. It reminded him of a prison exercise yard. He’d felt dead in prison, but nothing like what he felt now. The raw, aching need that twisted and thrashed within him. It had been asleep for a time. But it was awake now, and ravenous. He lifted his chair leg. “Let’s get to work.”
Westlake did the bulk of the heavy lifting, and the others were only too glad to let him. The walkers largely ignored him or outright tried to avoid him, and he put that to good use. He let the first few stumble past and then put out their lights with several quick thrusts from behind.
More doors opened and more walkers stumbled into the arena. In the stands, people cheered wildly. Westlake wondered whose side they were on. He looked for the others, and saw Carter dragging her shaft of wood free of a walker’s cleft skull. Donovan was already charging towards the new arrivals, chair leg swinging like a baseball bat. A walker wearing speedos and a bathing cap launched itself at him, and he slammed it to the ground. Saul hurried to join him, Carter following in his wake. The others weren’t far behind.
If they stayed together, they’d make it. That much Westlake was certain of. Every survivor learned that, otherwise they didn’t become a survivor. If you could keep your head and watch out for each other, walkers weren’t much trouble. At least when they were coming in dribs and drabs like these were.
Another door opened, and a half dozen metal-zombies loped into the arena, clattering like a cutlery drawer in a windstorm. “Shit, not these guys again,” Donovan shouted.
“Stay together,” Westlake snarled. “Don’t let them separate you.” Saul and the others fell back and let Westlake take point. Unlike the walkers, the metal-zombies seemed to recognize that he was a threat and zeroed in on him. Westlake sidestepped the first, letting the others handle it. He did the same to the second, but tripped it as it staggered by. He stomped on its neck and heard metal creak. The zombie turned, slashing at him.
He retreated, and then Ruth was there, sliding the tip of her handmade spear through the visor of the creature’s crude helm. The zombie thrashed and went still. She pulled the weapon loose, and he nodded in thanks.
Carter, Saul and Perkins handled a third, pulling it off its feet and sending it flailing into the blades of one of its fellows. But that left three, and Saul and the others were tired. Westlake waved his companions back.
He paused to twist a bludgeon off the arm of a fallen zombie and charged towards the remaining three. One went down quick, bludgeoned and stabbed. But a metal-zombie with a mouth made out of what looked like a bear trap as well as a neck and spine reinforced with rebar, clutched at him, clawing the bludgeon from his hand. He drove his chair leg up through its chin, angling the point so that it caught the brain. It thrashed away, yanking the weapon from his grip as it collapsed.
One left. It crashed into him, nearly lifting him off of his feet. Its arms were wrapped in barbed wire, and its chest was armored. But its head was exposed. Westlake drove his fist into its skull, punching through meat and bone, stretching his fingers, reaching. He caught hold of something and gave it a twist.
The metal-zombie slumped over, nearly dragging Westlake from his feet. He tightened his grip on what he guessed was its brainstem and the zombie went still. Above them, the crowd cheered. There were maybe six walkers left, in various states of collapse – too slow to catch the survivors. But Mondo was shouting, punching the air. He looked excited. Westlake tensed. He knew what was coming.
Only one door opened this time. But what came out was worse than any walker. “What in the name of God is that?” Saul whispered.
“El Gigante,” Westlake said, wrenching his fist from the walker’s pulped face. El Gigante stepped into the arena, bigger than a brute, and slathered in raw, seeping muscle tissue. Music blasted down from unseen speaker, some death metal crap from before the apocalypse. The monster seemed to hate it as much as Westlake did, because it swelled up with homicidal fury and bellowed to the heavens. He’d never heard a zombie make that sort of noise and hoped never to hear it again.
Even at a distance, the force of its fury hammered at him like a physical blow. Its strangely jointed, clawed feet tore at the arena floor as the beast prowled towards them, sniffing the air. It caught up a half-dismembered walker and studied it before casually biting its head off. Chewing noisily, it fixed its red gaze on the small group of humans staring at it. It tossed what was left of the walker over its shoulder.
“What is that thing?” Saul whispered, staring at the monster in horrified awe. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
“A zombie. Just a big one.” Westlake tried to sound more confident than he felt.
El Gigante roared and charged.
“Split up,” Westlake shouted. “Try and stay out of his way!” El Gigante roared again as it cannoned towards them. It was a strangled, wet sound, like a garbage disposal choking on bones. The creature was not just wide but tall. Its legs were crooked, like those of a dog, and it ran in an awkward half-crouch, knuckling along like an angry gorilla. It shouldered aside the slower walkers in its haste, knocking them sprawling without a sideways glance. It wanted fresh meat.
Saul and the others scattered, running in all directions. It didn’t matter. El Gigante made its first kill a moment later. Donovan had been too slow. Cop instincts ingrained, he’d been hustling Perkins along, making himself a convenient target.
El Gigante pounced on both men with bone-shattering force. They rolled through the sand and when the creature bobbed back up to its feet, most of what had been the two survivors were smeared across its chest or laying crumpled on the ground. It flung Perkins’s body into the air, roaring that same gargling roar.
As Westlake watched, the monster sank its claws into what was left of Donovan’s back and hauled the corpse into the air. It grabbed an arm and a leg and tore the body in two, gobbling the stuff that fell out greedily.
“Son of a bitch,” Carter howled, dragging her improvised blade out of a fallen walker’s back. The outburst caught El Gigante’s attention however, and it whipped around, eyes fixed on her. Variables danced in Westlake’s mind, weighing the odds. Running wasn’t going to help. There was no place to hide. That meant they had to fight.
El Gigante bounded on all fours towards Carter, who backed away but didn’t run. She had her blade out. The crowd cheered. Thinking quickly, Westlake reached down and pried a chunk of sharpened metal loose from the arm of a fallen metal-zombie.
Hefting his weapon, he stepped forward and whistled sharply. El Gigante paused and turned. It eyes met his, and he hesitated. There was nothing human in that skull. But it wasn’t an animal either. It was worse. Malign. It was enjoying this.
El Gigante started towards him, gaining speed as it neared. It roared, jaws wide. Westlake leapt aside as it pounced, narrowly avoiding its claws. He scrambled to his feet and met its second lunge, driving the length of metal into its midsection as it knocked him sprawling. Black blood spurted and El Gigante shrieked. It snatched Westlake up and drove him face-first into the wall.
It let him go and he stumbled back, world spinning. Another blow knocked him off his feet and he rolled limply through the dirt, synapses sputtering and dying as he tried to regain control of his unresponsive limbs. Flashes of vision showed him Ruth running. El Gigante caught the back of her coat with a talon tip and yanked her backwards. Then Saul was there, a length of wood in his hands. He stabbed it into the monster’s wrist, forcing it to let go. It flailed at him, and he scrambled away, grabbing Ruth’s hand as he did so. Westlake tried to get to his feet. Failed. He heard Ruth and Saul shout, drawing the monster’s attention.
No. He was already dead. No point in saving him at this point.
As El Gigante turned, Carter made her move. She darted forward, slashing at it. El Gigante fell on her like an avalanche, teeth sinking into her neck as it wrenched her off her feet and flung her away, like a terrier killing a rat.
Westlake watched Carter’s body pinwheel across the arena. El Gigante followed and fell upon the body with a savage howl. It began to feed, one eye on Westlake and the others. There was a promise in that gaze, but Westlake was beyond caring.
He shoved himself to his feet. “Try and get to the door,” he said, not looking at Saul and Ruth. “I’ll buy you a few minutes. Make them count.” He started towards El Gigante without waiting for a reply, his hands balling into fists. El Gigante heaved itself up as he approached.
“All right, you ugly son of a bitch,” Westlake said, loudly. “Time to settle this, zombie to zombie.”