900 Miles: A Zombie Novel (25 page)

Still, there were some in the crowd that were not carrying on. Once I had noticed it earlier, I couldn’t stop spotting them.  Jarvis was one of them, and he was watching the battle waging under Gordon’s platform very closely.

Mr. Muscle lifted the creature above his head and threw it at a support beam. It shook ever so slightly. The Elites looked at each other pausing for a moment, and then laughed out loud. They saluted with their wine glasses and continued to watch the fight.

The woman was standing just outside of the fight zone.  She was holding up her spear, making sure the creature didn’t get away from the immediate area.

Mr. Muscle managed to run the creature directly into the same beam.  The zombie’s head clanged against it, and the spikes pulled chunks out of the wood itself.

The creature staggered then turned,
and gave the woman a feral look. Losing grip of the beast, Mr. Muscle reached back after it as it darted towards her.  She tripped sideways, losing grip of her spear, which clanged across the ground out of her reach.  Leaping toward her, midair, the creature was coming down on her when she let out a scream that turned the crowd’s cheers silent.  Just as its arms were falling through her hair, Kyle came smashing into it sideways, knocking it back across the floor.  He rolled a few feet, interlocked with the deadly abomination, before he landed on top, pinning the creature down.  It bucked, and arched its back to no avail as Kyle slammed his club across its face, knocking the razors into it the back of its helmet.

Killing was always easy for Kyle.  He knew death well.

The woman picked up her spear and stepped towards Kyle extending a hand.  He reached up, as she pulled him to his feet.  They didn’t exchange words, but there was a moment shared between them that I couldn’t quite discern.

Gordon glared down at the five of us. Some of the wine from his cup splatted at my feet. I could see it on his face; he had grown livid of that fact that all five of us were still standing.

The horde was fully upon us. There was no stopping it.

The crowd was behind us now.  We just stood there listening to the deafening chant of:

“All five are still alive!”

Gordon took a sip from his newly refreshed wine mug before looking around at the eagerly awaiting audience.

“This has been a truly amazing feat, and one like no other that we’ve seen in this arena so far.  This group of five have managed to remain alive, thus passing this week’s battle.”

I looked at Jarvis. He was staring directly at Mr. Muscle and the Asian, who were nodding.  Whatever it was, I could tell something was getting ready to go down.

“I’d like to give the crowd a choice,” Gordon continued. “You, my dear Avalonians
, will decide the fate of these five.” Gordon held both hands out at an even distance to his sides with his palm up, creating the illusion of a scale with his arms.

Lifting his left hand up, Gordon said,

“In one hand, we have two fights left. Two battles like this one.  If these five continue along to the end, they earn their freedom and the honor of becoming an Elite citizen. We can stop the battle now, to see each of these gladiators come back next week for the second fight.” He lowered his left and raised his right one into the air.

“On the other hand, we could keep them here now, and give them a shot at being Elites tonight!”

The crowd stopped suddenly; dark whispers arose like wind blowing through trees.

“That’s right; we make this fight overwhelming, but not impossible. We finish this epic battle tonight, instead of waiting for next week.  We give this group a shot at freedom now, not two battles from now.
Their fate is in your hands, Avalonians!” he cried, equaling his hands.

Holding out his left hand again, Gordon looked out among the crowd, asking for the battle to commence the following week. Some claps and cheers echoed in the room, but the room remained, for the most part, quiet.

“Who wants to finish this
tonight?
” His voice was high with fervor. The cheers were so loud I didn’t hear them as much as I felt them shaking through my core.

Exaggerating every movement, Gordon raised his right hand up high
and nodded for the troopers down on the floor to open the gate. It opened with a grating screech.  What started as a trickle, turned into an uncountable stream of Zs that began to emerge from the darkness.

Kyle quickly shouted out directions to split us into three teams
spreading out to separate sections of the fence. As the horde stumbled towards us, I looked to each member of our group.  Eyes wide, beaten down and bloody, nobody moved a muscle. The crowd was silent, watching in anticipation, waiting to see our next move. We knew the score; there was no escape from this one. It would be a blood bath that left none of us alive.

Mr. Muscle
pulled the mace across his body, bits of flesh falling from the rusted spikes, and moved closer to Kyle and me.  With a rushed voice, filled with determination, he said,

“Help with this post,
ese
? You had the right idea. We’re going take the whole fucking thing down, like you said.”

Kyle and I exchanged glances,
then nods. If he had an idea, we were in on it. As one, we raced up to the column and started to hack at it with our weapons. Mr. Muscle, the Asian and the woman had a good start to their plan. They had already weakened the post leading up to Gordon and Chauffer, and between the sword, mace and mallet, it was only a matter of time before we crippled it.

Gordon didn’t have time to react; fortunately, the
Zs took too long to reach us. Just as he was screaming for one of the guards to shoot us, the beam collapsed, and so with it the fence and the floor beneath him. I kept one eye on the zombies and one eye on Gordon, as three chairs, along with multiple Elite citizens slid down into the arena in front of us. Mr. Muscle cupped his hand, and the Asian used it to bound up to the top balcony. Sword drawn, he started to hack and slash anything moving. Trying to flee the mayhem, many of the Elites leapt down into the arena, only to realize that they had jumped into certain death as the zombie horde approached them. When faced with death, people will do anything to escape.

Kyle was busy hoisting up the woman over the fence when I realized that the group of the commoners, quiet and disengaged in watching the earlier battle, were now attacking the Elites.
Even though the troopers tried to surround and defend them, the commoners simply overwhelmed them in numbers. They overran the guards, pulling them apart more savagely than any of the zombies behind us ever would have. There was pure anger in their eyes as they ripped the Elites’ togas off, beating them to death with their own wine mugs.

Mr. Muscle leaned down, and grabbed the broken post.  Lifting with his legs, he bellowed standing straight up to dump the platform that Chauffer and Gordon were standing on backwards.  They slid helplessly into the crowd.
I watched them tumble just as the fence tore completely free. Hearing gunshots, I instinctively ducked my head only to realize it was not man shooting zombie, it was man shooting man.

Some of the
Zs from the horde had fought their way to us. Kyle was batting them back with his club. I screamed to run through the downed fence. He looked back at Mr. Muscle, who had recovered, and was sprinting towards us.

We watched helplessly as four of the creatures caught up to him.  He swung his thick arms, knocking them back, but not before one of them
bit down on his calf.  Mr. Muscle let out a startled cry as the creature tore backwards with a mouthful of his flesh. Spinning around, he swung the mace three very succinct times. The first smashed the Zs face that had bitten him. The second came down on his leg just above the bite mark. I could hear the bone snap like a dry tree branch. The third hit did the job and tore through his leg, severing it from his thigh.

Kyle
darted back towards him, knocking away the oncoming Zs. Mr. Muscle, without a sound or scream of pain, pushed up with his giant arms and pulled himself towards the opening in the fence, leaving his foot and a trail of blood across the floor.

The horde was fully upon us. There was no stopping it. They poured around Kyle, and
began exiting the Arena through the broken fence. Kyle, who was standing above the broken man below him, twisted his arm back and brought it sideways, knocking two of the creatures down to the floor. Extending a hand down to Mr. Muscle, he winced back and stopped in his tracks. The distinct red eyes had set in.

Kyle turned,
stepping away from the creature crawling towards him and pulled his club back up to his shoulder. Surrounded by the Zs, he was clearly outnumbered, but not going down without a fight.  He would soon fall, like so many others before him.

This world had gone to shit. Humanity went straight with it
. However, I still wasn’t willing throw in the towel just yet, and there was no way I was giving up on Kyle.

Diving into the mix, I
drilled my shoulder into a creature clambering on Kyle’s arm. Moving into position, we both went berserk, back to back, swinging at anything that moved, and in some cases, things that were not. My eyes and face were blood soaked from the gore that we had created. I hit a point where I couldn’t see a thing.  I could feel Kyle to my back. Our grunts of exertion could hardly be heard over the moans from the surrounding creatures.

This was it. This was the end.
I thought that despite everything, I was at least going down fighting alongside my friend. Just when I started to panic, knowing that we would be taken down and turned into those foul, wretched creatures, we heard gunshots. Red and pink mist shot up all around us. Only when they had all dropped to the ground and the gunshots had stopped, did I realize I was screaming.  Through my muffled cries, I heard someone calling to us.

“This way! Come this way!”

I wiped my eyes clear with my filthy sleeve, and squinted through the mayhem. It was Jarvis standing by the broken fence with an extended hand. He had a small group of armed commoner’s with him, lighting up the Zs around us with automatic weapons. Contraband I thought, weapons that had been pulled from the dead fingers of fallen troopers. Kyle grabbed at my arm, and we pulled each other towards the gaping hole in the chain link fence.

Standing behind the line of gunmen, free of the zombies, Kyle and I gasped for much needed oxygen. The place was indeed coming down around us. I could see a woman, her breasts fully exposed, holding a machine gun. She was aiming up at the balcony
, taking out anybody in a white toga. The place was on fire with destruction. The Elites created very visible targets as they tried to escape.

There were
dozens of Troopers who had been killed.  They had gotten back up and were chasing down the Commoners and the Elites alike.  In the end, everybody was equal in the eyes of the dead.

Jarvis stepped back behind the line while his gunners were mowing down the approaching creatures.

“Told you, boys, if you survived the fight, there would be opportunity. No time to explain now.” He lifted his gun between Kyle and me and pulled the trigger. I spun around to see one of the Elite, in a blood drenched toga, just as the bullet tore through his throbbing red eye.

“Just know you helped us with a huge distraction. The Arena is the only time the commoners and the Elites ever come together. We have you to thank for giving your fellow gladiators the time to take the place apart.”

Kyle and I stood there with our mouths hanging open, stunned. This rebellion was planned. This is what their quiet, secretive nods and sideways glances were all about.

Looking back on the whole thing, it was only a matter of time. How could Gordon expect to continue along the way this group had been without them staging a revolt? Unbeknownst to us, we had simply helped them do it.

“You boys have been all the help you can be. We’ve got it from here.”  He shot us a half-cocked, approving smile before turning turned back to join the fight.

Kyle and I carried each other to the back of the room. My shoulder was still pouring blood, and Kyle’s shirt was split open from a gash running down the length of his chest.

We were alive. That was what mattered, and at the moment, we intended to stay that way. Avalon was far from secure. Now, we needed to get the hell out of there.

In this world, some people simply don’t deserve to be helped.

A sea of death flooded the great hall. Between us and the door that led to the communication room, Zs, troopers, togas and the rebels littered the floor. Gunshots echoed through the arena, muting the screams and moans from
both the alive and the dead.

Kyle reached down and pulled a machine gun from the grip of a
fallen trooper, who had thankfully been struck down by a blow to his head. I watched as he ejected the cartridge, checked how many bullets remained, reloaded, and then raised the weapon. Two Zs, dressed in commoner clothing, violently jerked backward as he squeezed the trigger, placing precisely aimed shots through their foreheads, dropping them to the gore covered ground a mere feet from the two of us.