900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (20 page)

I cast a discreet glance at Kyle. He was looking
at an exit door.

“The Arena is our little way of keeping the peace.  Anybody who doesn’t follow the rules
, will fight in the Arena.”

More people were smiling around the table now.  They were all in on it.
My hands were under the table.  I was spinning my wedding ring to the point of making my finger sting.

“Fight who? You might ask.  I think a better question is
fighting
what
.” His tone was definitely morbid. “The people who don’t follow the rules, fight the infected... with one chance and one chance only.”

Gordon paused, and looked around the room towards all his friends.  He’d gotten them worked up, and he was going to draw this out for the big conclusion.

“Simply put, survive.  Survive the bouts, and the commoner becomes an Elite citizen.”

“Seems like you’re just toying with them,” Michael said, in his best snooty tone.

“Ahh, but that’s the best part,” Gordon replied passionately.  “While we have people who are breaking the rules and have to fight, we have also had volunteers. People who are willing to put on a show for the chance to live the privileged life... a life with us at this very table.”

“Has anybody won?” Michael inquired.
  The table let out a combined chuckle.

Gordon took a sip from a metal gauntlet of wine, wiped his face
, and looked back at Michael.

“The truth is, nobody has made it past round one. Let’s face it though, we’ve really only had a
handful of battles thus far.”  Gordon dabbed daintily at his lips again.  “I’m sure someone will prevail. It could even be you.” I saw Michael startle noticeably. My heart was now bouncing between being stuck in my throat and plunging into my feet.

“Me!  What do you mean?” Michael asked slightly panicked.

Gordon pushed his chair back, stood up, and started to walk around the table.

“There are rules at Avalon
, and all lead to you winding up in the Arena.”

“Yes, we’ve heard
them,” Michael replied sourly.  “What does it have to do with us?”

“Michael
, Michael, Michael.” Our host exhaled, shaking his head. “The first rule is, no commoner will ever strike, hurt, maim or kill an Elite customer.”

Gordon stepped up to Michael, and looked him directly in the eyes.  His face turned serious, with his brows arched and eyes wide open.

“I’ve known Michael Hoskins for fifteen years.  We’ve traveled to exotic locations, fucked exotic women in said exotic locations, and most importantly, he’s one of my best friends.”

Michael looked down at the table, sweating freely, his face turned ghostly white.
Kyle looked as if he were ready to drag our friend out of his chair and beat him to a pulp. I didn’t know what to think. Part of me wanted to believe that what this psycho man said was just a lie, but Michael’s reaction reaffirmed that it wasn’t.

“So my question for you, sir, is where is my friend Michael?
  Because you and I both know, you’re not Michael Hoskins.”

Twenty God damn years.

“Michael Hoskins was a rotten son of a –bitch,” our friend Michael, or whatever his name was, said from behind the bars.

We had been escorted by the black troopers to a cozy jail cell, complete with metal beds, metal toilets, and no privacy.  There was only a back wall. The other three walls were nothing but bars.

“People were pawns to him.  He treated everybody like shit.  His family hated him.  His friends were scared of him.  He was a womanizer, and his wife knew it.

His tickets for this place didn’t even include his wife and three kids.  They were for him, and whoever he needed to get him to this place.  Can you believe that?  He left his family to die!” Michael was pacing the cell rapidly in anger.

“I was an accountant in his building.  We were all told that if we left early, then we’d be fired.  You know, during that first day when the news reports first started to hit.  I had a wife and kid; they needed me to be employed. Things were bad enough in this economy without being unemployed as well. That bastard actually had one of
the interns from the third floor standing by the elevator, writing down people’s names as they left early that day. They knew they’d be fired, but they left anyway. They were smarter than I was. Many of us stayed, and most of us probably died!”

He stopped for several moments, panting
for air.  He curled up on the metal bed that protruded from the concrete wall.

I was in a separate cell across from him. Kyle was in the cell next to me.  There was another man next to Kyle.  He was lying on the bed, and had not said anything since we arrived.

Staring off into space, Michael continued in a distant voice.

“The Internet had basically jammed up in the building.  I really couldn’t see what was going on.  I would have left.  Seriously, I would have tried to get home.  I really didn’t understand how bad it was.  I was in the middle of a cube farm, and nowhere near a window.
”

I knew
the cube farm well. They were the norm for the modern businessman in the twenty-first century.  The mention of them made my stomach queasy.  Michael continued endlessly, rambling on. I was glaring at him from my cell, livid with the shit that he’d pulled over on us. He was up pacing around, my eyes following him accusingly.

“I knew he had some sort of backup.  He trusted me with his personal accounts.  Every month I would see a bill come through for a company called Avalon.  The name Gordon Green was all over it.
  Evacuation Emergency Contingency Fund. That was the name of the fund where the dollars came from to pay for it. We were a public company. It took some fancy accounting to make sure nobody could trace that personal expenditure back to him. I was good at it. I was always good at erasing financial problems. That’s why he liked me.”

Again,
he paused, sticking his arms through the cell bars, never making eye contact with us.  I guess he felt like he owed us an explanation.

“I got a call late in the day.”  His voice was low, almost pitiful. “My wife had told me that Toby had been bitten by
one of those things
and burning up with a fever.  She begged me to get home.  I told her I’d be off of work in an hour.  I was on the phone with her when Toby turned and went after her. She dropped the phone.” Tears began streaming down his cheeks like little rivers.

I managed a look at Kyle.  If what he was now saying was the truth, this was some intense shit. We both knew that much. Everybody has someone they want to get back to.

“I remember screaming for her over the phone,” Michael blurted emotionally. “I was in the middle of the cube farm, screaming for her.  I felt stupid, screaming like that.  What would everybody think? She never picked the phone back up. That’s when I stood up, and saw that I was the last person there. I was so caught up on my work, so intent on making Michael happy, I let my family die! All for
him
. All in the name of Michael Hoskins.” The name was spat with such vehemence that it gave me the chills.

“He deserved what he got,” Michael grumbled wiping impatiently to dry his cheeks.

I could see him clenching his fists.  There was a look of pure hatred in his eyes.

“When I started towards his office, I had not intended to do what I did.  There was no malice, no preconceived notions.  I just wanted to tell him what he had done.  Tell him that I could not get home to my family now.  I wanted him to understand.” Michael’s voice was low, slightly hoarse from regret and sorrow. He was taking in deep breaths, his chest heaving slowly as he tried to steady himself.

“His door was open.  I stepped in, not knocking.  I had worked there for twenty years.  Every time I entered his office, I had knocked on that door. Unaware that I was there, he continued to fill up a metal brief case with some sort of documents and cash that he was pulling from a wall safe. I got his attention. He was surprised to see me, and asked what the hell I was still in the office for.” Michael threw up his arms in furious exasperation. He asked the question again, and then let out a short roar.

“
What was I still in the office for?
  I guess I didn’t get the fucking memo to leave.  I restrained myself, and told him that I was just finishing up the day.  But I was shaking so hard. I was so pissed that I couldn’t see straight. Maybe it was something in my voice, or maybe the look in my face. Either way, that’s when he knew he was in trouble. He knew it before I did. The real Hoskins stopped what he was doing and looked at me.  His puffy, red rimmed eyes had a way of making you believe him.

“You’ve been a good worker.  A loyal servant to this company. Hoskins told
me.  Don’t ruin a ten year career over one bad day.”

“Twenty,
I had reminded him.”

“What?”

“Twenty God damn years, I said.  I’ve been here for twenty God
damn
years.”

I had often wondered what I would be like after twenty years on the work force.  I had done it for maybe ten after college and was already going a bit nuts.  Double it...and you turn into this guy.  I watched Michael shake his head deliberately.

“When I charged him, he crouched down in a low center of gravity sort of position.  He had apparently been trained in some sort of martial art.  Using my own momentum, he flung me up into the air. I landed stomach first onto his oversized desk, knocking paper, pens and the metal briefcase on the floor. He stood over me, saying, that I was weak and pathetic. He started in on me about how I was always doing what I was told, not standing up for myself. That was the real reason why I would never amount to anything, because I was afraid to take chances. That bastard said that I had a sad existence. Can you believe that son of a bitch?”

Michael looked at me in outraged disbelief; all I could do was stare at him. I hated my fat bastard boss
, but his piece of rotten shit boss sounded like a genuine scumbag. Michael held the bars of his cell in a death grip, his remaining knuckles bright white.

“It was the last thing that bastard said to me,” he snarled.

“I had a pen in my hand.  I’ve thought about this since that day.  I like to think that it was a BIC, and not a real expensive pen.  I would just relish in the thought that I took that son of a bitch out with the cheapest pen on the planet.  I like to think that he was killed buy something cheap and disposable.

The truth is, I never looked at it.  As he was standing over me, I felt a pain brewing in my stomach.  I saw my wife, my kid, my miserable existence... I snapped.

I jumped up and jammed that pen directly into Michael Hoskins’ neck. As soon as the deed was done, I dropped back. Blood squirted across the desk, across the metal briefcase, and across my face. It was shooting out of his neck with every pulse. At first, it was heavy, and then it slowed down, like a water gun running out of water. Until finally, he lay still on the floor...with a pool of the dark red mess just soaking into the carpet.

I looked into his eyes as he died.  He couldn’t speak.  The only audible noise was a gargle as blood bubbled up out of his neck.  Standing over him, watching him die, I simply
said, ‘Who’s pathetic now?’

I had killed him.  I had killed Michael Hoskins.  So many people before me had dreamed of this moment.  I got to live it.  It was payback for so many wrong doings.  So many people that he had fucked over.  I killed him. I got redemption for us all.

In that moment I was liberated.

It was short lived however.

That’s when he sat up.  The Pen was still stuck in his neck.  Blood was still trickling out down his shirt.   He was crazed. I had no idea that he was the undead.

I started to apologize.  I even told him I’d pay for the medical expenses...

As he ran towards me, like a wild creature, I side stepped and gave him a slight push, directing his head right into the wall safe.

As he entered it, I swung the door, with everything I had i
n me, and it smacked directly across his skull.

He fell lifelessly to the ground.

I got to kill that bastard, twice.”

Kyle and I had not said a word so far.  This guy was spilling the story, and we were going to let him.  I still had not connected how we were led here.

“It was easy, really.  Assuming his identity, I mean.  We are about the same age, same height, and same build.

He had everything set up, including greasing the army helicopter pilot to pick him up.  All I had to do was play the part.  After all, who would be checking my photo ID?  I just had to be in the right place at the right time.

Everything I needed was in that metal briefcase.  All the tickets.  All the information on how to get here.

I met them on the roof. There was another passenger, a woman, who was along for the ride.  She was meeting her husband at Avalon.  She never made it...obviously.”

Kyle and I didn’t say a word.  We sat for a long time in silence thinking over his story.