Blood Games (9 page)

He unhitched the trailer so Nadia could drive off to the motel.
Then he got to work, resentful of other managers who had a wife or husband toiling at their side. Leaving the zombies locked up for now, he rolled a suitcase for Thor and a second one for Scrapper into the stables. Those went into his locker room between the two stalls assigned to him. They were small, but set up with hay and two troughs, one for water and one for food. Bolted to the floor, Scrapper would have no luck trying to dump his over. Both stalls had lights shining brilliantly overhead. Posted on the bars were each zombie’s list of competitions. For Scrapper, it was SATURDAY HALFTIME – CHILDREN’S COSTUME AND MELEE, and for Thor, it was ADULT MALE/20-35/MELEE/MATCHES/BRAWL. How optimistic to think that Thor had a chance of making it to the matches and the brawl! Ink felt sour at that sign.

On his second trip, he retrieved his own suitcase and the folding cot.
The third trip was for weapons, neither of which his fighters needed but were just for pictures. Acquaintances called out to him
oh my God, I’m so sorry about Samson, do you know who did it
and Ink spun out his tale so well that he
did
believe it for a moment.

His final trips were
for Thor and Scrapper. Some people took their zombies in two, three at a time, even four, but that wasn’t wise. There was no rush. Ink did them one at a time, leading the boy down first and smiling politely to a coo about how cute he was, and then doubling back for Thor. The zombie fellow came along placidly, mesmerized by the walkway and the lit aisles to his stall. They were stopped many times so people could see the zombie who took down Samson. Ink was patient with it, even though he had to pee. Some managers hung sheets up around the bars to give their zombies some privacy, but Ink never did. They were the show.
He
was the show. So the two of them were
on
until the Games ended and they were headed for home.

“Look at those cuts!” one man gasped about the still healing slashes.
“Just a little deeper and Samson would have had him!”

Slapping Thor companionably on the back,
Ink said, “Well, you’re at the Games! Just like you wanted, you ruthless boy!”

“I didn’t know Samson could use weapons
that well,” a woman said.

“Oh, yes, but just for a short while,
a very short while, and so can Thor,” Ink said, knowing that that woman was very proud of her zombie who was quite proficient with a sword for an extended period of time. “One minute, two at their best. If it had been hand-to-hand combat from the start, I don’t think good old Thor would be standing here right now. Lucky blow.”

Many
of the zombies they passed on the way to Thor’s stall were grotesquely muscled from doping. Their withered buttocks vanished into the spread of their taut, bulging thighs; the muscles in their backs and upper arms looked like grape clusters. Veins ran thick under their skin. Doping was illegal, but the newest medications didn’t show up in tests so everyone used them and pretended those muscles were built from heavy lifting alone. The bullshit was deep in the underground stables, and it would be deeper still once every stall was full. But doping so heavily was an amateur move. The zombies weren’t showing off how much they could lift in the ring, or how impressive they looked while flexing. They were fighting for their lives. They had to be fast. Making them so huge perversely made them weaker. It strained the heart and kidneys, put tumors on the liver, and to get the muscular definition to its utmost, the zombies were kept dehydrated. Doping had to be done carefully and intelligently to reach the sweet spot. Jackie had guided Ink through the science of it for years, and he was grateful for her wisdom.

Once Thor was ensconced in his stall, Ink
visited the restroom and then walked around to shake hands, collect condolences, and clear up misconceptions. One of the reporters had published a tiny, back page article anyway based off an anonymous police officer’s statement. Ink dismissed the truthful story and laughed about how cops couldn’t think through their doughnut haze. It had been a new one to the force, he’d bet, that one with the shiny pimples that couldn’t have been more than twenty years old. Were they getting younger or was Ink getting older? The kid had looked barely out of junior high, his uniform was hanging off him, and he had barfed at the sight of blood. That reporter must have offered him money to talk, and he’d made up a good story to earn the cash. Ink invited everyone to come and marvel at Thor. Most weren’t too impressed. Thor’s muscles were all natural. Ink enthused about him regardless.

The burrito man went around and everyone stood about to have dinner.
Then it was time to make preparations for tomorrow. Locker room doors closed all along the aisles as people unloaded costumes and lined up brushes. Ink had a locker room all to himself. He didn’t want anyone borrowing his zombies’ things, and locker mates often did that. If you had no towels, five minutes to report to your next event, and your zombie had just spit up his meat mash all over himself, you grabbed whatever was closest out of desperation. Mortal enemies had been made many times out of locker mates.

He hung up Scrapper’s expensive costume on the rack and stared at the genuine, round blue sapphire in the star medal.
That was five hundred dollars of the eight hundred it had cost right there, and it was going to get lost in the children’s melee. Ink pried it off, pocketed it, and spent half an hour going up and down the aisles to ask if anyone had sparkling blue beads. Just one! He’d pay for it.

Plenty of
folks brought spare beads along in case something fell off a costume. Ink found a manager who had an entire case of them in every color and multiple shades, and he plucked out one that looked almost exactly the same as the original. The man said it was worth all of a dollar, and Ink paid him gladly. Then he sewed it onto the medal. He’d get that five hundred bucks back for the sapphire and put it in his personal account to pay Vasilov later.

The stables were full of nervous fun,
created by hundreds of people all doing what they loved most. Reluctantly cheered by it, Ink set up his locker room the way he liked it, towels in a folded, easy-to-grab pile, Thor’s combs and brushes separated from Scrapper’s, all the bottles label-out and staggered in two lines so he could see everything and snap it up fast when needed. It was customary for him to take a stroll afterwards and size up the competition before bedtime, but he had been stopped so many times coming in with Thor that he’d seen almost everything and everyone.

A
man and a woman were fighting about their shared locker room down the aisle from his already! A stadium organizer appeared to quell the battle, and ended up in an argument with the more abrasive of the two. But the employee prevailed. If the manager wanted more than half the space in there, he should have paid for a single. And if he was going to keep hogging and quarreling, the organizer had the power to kick him out of the Games entirely. The guy decided that he wanted a single then, but everything was sold out. So he paid off the woman to have it to himself, and she moved her things out and set them up outside her zombie’s stall. Peace resumed.

The locker room wasn’t big enough for
a cot, so Ink set it up outside Thor’s stall and climbed in. The lights would be on all night, shining through the zombies’ eyelids as they slept. They’d wake up still dazzled. But no human could sleep in these lights, so Ink put on his travel eye mask and entered a black out. Voices softened as people tucked themselves into cots, tents, air mattresses, and sleeping bags. Ink drifted away in the familiar sounds and scents that felt more like home to him than his actual home.

The morning began at five.
He was up the instant the alarm on his phone went off, and several others in the aisle rose at the exact same instant. After visiting the restroom, he fed the zombies and received a text reminding him that pictures would be taken between six and nine. Contenders for the grand prize had to show up in the atrium at half-past nine in their Hawaiian tourist outfits. Food vendors raced around the aisles, all of them selling meals that could quickly be shoved into a mouth. They had loads of change and accepted cards, every card, just to make each transaction take as little time as possible. There was no small talk anywhere in the stables, no cheery visits. Just purpose.

Nadia came in yawning
at a quarter to eight, and was annoyed that Ink hadn’t done anything but feed Scrapper. But the kid wasn’t Ink’s problem. He’d just finished up his work on Thor. The new zombie had pushed out a hearty morning log and that was awesome, since it was now less likely that Ink would find himself hurriedly picking shit out of the gladiator costume to get to pictures on time.

As proficient as the food vendors were th
e men and women who handled pictures. They had been awake all night to set up. A variety of backdrops stood at the far end of the stables, lights already adjusted and three employees handing out numbers. They also accepted payment as the cameras clicked and clicked. Each backdrop had its own photographer, which kept things moving speedily.

Ink gave over the money and took
a pale blue slip that read Coliseum-123. Coliseum-119 was having his picture taken now, and even as Ink watched, the screen wiped out 119 and replaced it with 120. This wouldn’t take any time at all, the manager of 119 sweeping him away from the backdrop and calling out thank you to the photographer.

The photographer waved to him and called, “Coliseum-120!
Step up!”

Next to the Coliseum backdrop was one of a
grand white castle for the zombie children dressed up as princes and princesses. A man was fretting over there. “But can’t you get her eyes to drop down? The picture will look stupid with her staring up at nothing.” He was obviously a first-timer to a show. The castle photographer waved him off impatiently and an employee stepped over to explain that an even more brilliant light just beneath the camera would flip on before the picture was taken. His zombie child would stare at the lens when it was time.

Coliseum-
120 wasn’t ready. The manager asked for just a minute to fix his zombie’s hair and the photographer shouted for Coliseum-121. A woman said, “Coming!”

“Hey!” protested the manager of 120.
“I just need a lousy min-” He was given another pale blue slip that made him Coliseum-127. Pissed, he moved his zombie aside to let Coliseum-121 through. That one was ready. As was Coliseum-122, and Thor when 123 came up. Ink walked Thor over to the backdrop and hiked up his leg on a fake body upon the floor. Pressing a sword into his hand and tying a strap to hold it there, he repositioned Thor when the photographer called out directions. Then he backed away and let the man do his work.

After that, Ink
could take a breather. The men’s melee didn’t start until one. Returning Thor to his stall, he stepped into his locker room to change into his Hawaiian clothing. Nadia was moving around in Scrapper’s stall hysterically, throwing out demands for this comb and that piece of the costume, and oh God, he had just pissed his pants! His new pants! And it was half-past eight now! Pictures only ran until nine and then she had to dress herself for her own picture and she hadn’t even had breakfast and she needed a towel . . .
Innnnnnnkkkkk
. . .

That was why Ink’s day had started at five.
Some managers started even earlier than that, especially if they were showing women with long hair that had to be styled, or several competitors who all needed pictures. Gorvich had an entire staff to fix the dozen zombies she brought to every show and she was in the thick of it herself from four o’clock as well, still dressed in her nightie and working furiously. Without sympathy for Nadia, without offering to pick up a burrito or a towel on her behalf, he went upstairs to see the Games.

A boom of noise hit him when he entered.
Vendors were everywhere, free standing and in kiosks and tents, shouting out what they sold or leaving the announcement to marquees with bursting fireworks and exclamation points. Thousands of people had already come into the stadium grounds from the parking lots, and thousands more were in lines that stretched out as far as Ink could see. The swell of excitement caught him up, teenagers shouting about which competitions they wanted to watch, adults placing bets, tiny replicas of favorite fighters doing battles over tables at the restaurants while parents scolded their kids to put those toys away and eat. A vendor selling backstage passes had a long line at his kiosk. During certain hours, people would be able to walk the stables down below. It was an absolute chaos of thrill and happiness, music playing and names booming out over the speakers to cheers.
MAENAD! HADES! DIOOOOOOOOOO-NYSUS!

“Which Hades?” someone yelled to the speaker.

“The only one that matters!” someone else shouted back.

The sky was blue and cloudless, a perfect day for fighting.
It was promising to be very warm. Ink ambled around to take in the sights and thought he spied Adolfo at a back table in a breakfast joint. The man had no zombie to show at the Games, and maybe he’d wanted to make sure Ink had no zombie either. Ink put a smile on his face in case anyone was watching. He had Thor, mighty Thor, and his grief over Samson could only be expressed in private. A text came from the vet, just a reminder that she would meet him at Thor’s stall after the melee. It was going to be a short visit, since he would either be dead or need to be euthanized.