She was going to give him a look of pity. He gripped the counter and said in a throttled voice, “Yes?”
She never looked away from the paper. “He was transferred over to a room in Pediatric General. 204. Go ahead.”
He almost slammed the swinging doors into an orderly on the other side. Mumbling an apology, he walked quickly down the hallways until he hit Pediatric General. 201 . . . 202 . . . 203 . . .
A woman screamed behind him. He had never heard Colette scream but recognized the thin, short sound as hers at once. She was standing by a water fountain, her hand still capped on her head to hold her long hair back. Nurses looked up from their station, startled.
She didn’t move. She was so stunned that she just gaped at him. Then she almost teleported over the five feet between them, bounced from there to here and threw herself into his arms. Pressed her face to the disgusting burp shirt that had to be laundered about forty times or just thrown away. “Oh my God! Oh my God. What happened to you? I found your keys in Lost-and-Found . . . I went down to the morgue every morning and asked if a man’s body had been brought in and I walked every street in the settlement calling for you . . . no one could tell me where you were . . . Xan . . .”
She was the only one that he would ever tell. But they couldn’t have this conversation here, and it wasn’t the first thing on his mind. “I ran into . . . some pretty bad trouble the other night. But I’m back now. We can talk about it later.”
The message passed between them, in his hold, in his voice, in his eyes. She took them in, her gaze touching upon his bandages and the nearby nurses, and whispered, “Okay.”
He was going to die if this took any longer. “Is Lucca all right?”
“He’s fine.”
He didn’t understand what fine meant. Fine as in still clinging to life, fine as in poking along like he had been before . . . She pulled him into 204, where Lucca was just waking up in his bed. The nasal prongs were out, and there weren’t nearly as many machines in this room as there had been in intensive care.
He was alive. He was pink. He was downright rosy.
“He pulled through,” Colette said as Xan sat down in wonder at the bedside. “He’s doing fine. He’s doing fantastic. He had the one bad night and then . . . the doctor said he’s going from strength to strength now. They want to discharge him tomorrow morning.”
“Hey, buddy,” Xan whispered.
Lucca blinked rather blearily. There were toys on the bedside table, along with the book that Xan had brought from home on a day that felt like it was eons in the past. Although there was a second bed in the room, it was empty. A nurse clipped past the doorway.
A big smile came to Lucca’s lips. Katie’s smile/Lucca’s smile, and Xan’s heart ached and rejoiced all at once. Lucca was alive. He had never had so much color, and his eyes were gaining liveliness as he woke up. He felt okay, for the first time in his life, and he was going to be okay. Never the all-star player, the fastest kid to sprint down the block, but he would be in the pack. Chugging along to play with his friends, to school, to Colette, and to Xan.
“Is it okay to pick him up?” Xan asked when Lucca reached for him. There were still tubes, but not the snarl from before.
“It’s okay,” Colette said. Xan pulled off his nasty shirt and snagged a towel to put over his dirty pants. Colette helped to arrange the tubes as he lifted his son into his lap. Lucca squirmed and strained for the bedside table. Colette swiped aside her purse as Xan inched the chair over to let Lucca reach the toys. He selected a foam block and then a second, and settled back in Xan’s lap to explore them.
“He likes those,” Colette said as Lucca clapped them together. “They’ve become a thing over the last few days, banging them together, stacking them up, and knocking them over. I know there’s a third somewhere at home, but I can’t find it. It’s probably under our bed. If more come through in the store, let’s get them.”
“Every one,” Xan said. Lucca dropped a block, which went under the bed. Colette dipped after it and Xan picked up the book hesitantly.
Maybe it wouldn’t be okay. Lucca could die tonight from his heart, or in three years from an illness to sweep through the settlement, or decide when he was sixteen and invincible that it might be fun to swim over the moat and hunt zombies with his pals. But Xan could not hold Lucca at bay, because whether or not it turned out okay, his son would be hurt by the distance. “Do you want to read a book, Lucca-Bucca? Do you want Dada to read you a story?”
“Daaaaaaa.” Lucca laughed, that captivating burble.
There was time to make this right, to gather his son to himself the way he had gathered his daughter. Colette offered the block but Lucca squeezed the one he had and watched as Xan opened the book. A little finger came out and stroked the soft fur of the kitten on the first page. Xan touched it with him, Colette’s hand resting warmly on his shoulder, and he began to read.
THE END
BLOOD GAMES
By Macaulay C. Hunter
Chapter One: The Shooting
Nadia had spent eight hundred dollars on a Prince Charming costume for Scrapper, and Ink was just about to kill her when the gunshot rang out.
It wasn’t close enough for either of them to duck. It wasn’t far away enough to feel safe. Ink had a bad feeling about it, a very bad feeling, and for no reason. It most likely had just come from the adjoining property as it had many times before, Old Man Robinson shooting at stray cats who slipped through the fence around his backyard to use his vegetable beds as a litter box.
But it was night and his property poorly lit. The ninety-year-old man tucked himself into bed at half-past seven after his favorite game show ended. Spinning on his heel, Ink fled through the kitchen and out the back door, headed through the pasture for the stables. His life was in there.
Not in the house with his wife. He loathed his wife.
The door to the stables was closed. That was a good sign. Bright light shined under the crack at the bottom, and that was another good sign. Staggering in a gopher hole, Ink straightened and looked over to the old man’s house. All of the windows were dark. That was not a good sign.
Ink broke into a run again, telling himself that it had to be Mr. Robinson slipping further into senility. The geezer was stalking around his home in the blackness and shooting at a cat that existed only in his imagination. He’d pulled that trigger twice over the last week alone, shooting at who knew what in the late afternoons. Ink had looked over into the yard each time and seen neither a feline body nor one fleeing for its life. Robinson’s adult kids had already relieved him of his car keys, control of his finances, and no less than four other guns. But he always dredged up yet another one that had been hidden in his attic or his shed. One day he was going to squint through his cataracts and shoot the mailman, and then he’d finally be forced out of his home and into a supervised care situation.
“Ink? What’s going on? Is it the zombies?” Nadia called querulously from the doorway. He forced open the heavy door to the stables and blinked in the overwhelming light from all the overheads.
Taking a moment to let his eyes adjust to the brilliance, he called, “Everyone okay in here? Medusa? Samson?” It was habit to speak to them, even if they couldn’t speak back. Three of the stalls stretched out before him. The doors were closed and latched, and the sight convinced him that all was truly well. Tomorrow he was going to call Ricky and let him know that his father had a gun again. Ricky would be there in a shot to remove it from dear old Dad’s wizened clutches.
In a shot. Ink had thought up an inadvertent joke. Amused at himself, he walked in and peeked through the bars of the first stall. That one belonged to Medusa. Fixated on the blazing lights over her head, she was in a corner with her jaw working mindlessly. Even when she fought, her jaw was grinding like a cow on its cud. Her leg was in a cast and would be for another few weeks, but the lacerations on her face and arms had healed up fine. She’d had her ass handed to her during her second match at Filo two months ag
o, so he hadn’t enrolled her in the Games. That was a shame, but she needed a little more time to recuperate. She was a steady winner, an asset to his stables, and no one won against Maenad anyway. Ink should have withdrawn her and ceded the win to Cantine, who owned many champions in both sexes and all age groups. But almost everyone did that, and Ink wanted that old fucker to know that Ink wasn’t afraid to go up against the old boys. No sirree. Ink was aiming to join their championship club for good, not just to be invited into each stadium’s clubroom for competition post-parties as all higher-ranking managers were. He had to win their respect just as much as he had to win competitions. Respect wouldn’t come by him being obsequious. So he had watched as Medusa got pounded on and figured the time she’d be out of commission was worth the point he’d scored in Cantine’s esteem. Medusa had to be put on a stretcher and carried out of the ring. And at the Filo’s clubroom post-party, Cantine had shaken Ink’s hand as the two of them stood beneath Maenad on her podium and said bloody good show.
That made it all worth it. They were going to be friends one day. Ink knew it. He’d been planning his moves since he was sixteen years old and sneaked out his bedroom window to attend his first zombie show.
“Good girl,” he said fondly to Medusa. She paid her keep and the mortgage with what she brought in from her fights, and a little more on top of that.
Then he moved on to the next stall. That one was Apollo’s, and it was empty since Ink had rented him out. The stall needed to be mucked and he made a mental note to pick up a street kid soon and put it to work. There were always a passel of scruffy teens hanging around the homeless shelter downtown, scrounging for cash to buy booze or drugs, or whatever they did with it. They’d do anything for a few bucks, and this one was going to be washing shit off the floor and walls for hours. Apollo always made a mess of his stall. But they got the perk of seeing zombies up close, and that was unusual enough that Ink often had more volunteers for work than he needed.
Within the last stall in the aisle was Chaos. Ink intended to sell him once the Games were over, trading on the raised capital of his name after Samson won. He’d get a lot more for Chaos than Chaos was worth, purely because he was a fighter that hailed from Delwich Stables. Only throwing a glance to the thin but wiry zombie sleepily staring into the lights within the stall, Ink rounded the aisle to check on the other three. It was just from force of habit now. Everything was fine. Either Robinson had shot his gun at an invisible cat or a tire had blown out on a car a road away.
Ink was just jumpy, and that was understandable. Anyone would be jumpy on the eve of a great performance, the one that had the potential to change a life.
The door to the tack room was closed, as was the back door of the stables. He arrived at the fourth stall, which was empty. That startled him for a split second, and then he remembered renting out Priapus to those overeager boys the day before. They’d been able to cobble together just enough for an elderly zombie Games rental, where prices were hiked up double or triple the normal rate. It was the biggest competition of all in the United States, and it came around only once every two years.
The Zombie Olympics was what the boys had called the Games. Ink had corrected them. If they wanted to fit in, they wouldn’t toss around terms that only people unaffiliated with the sport employed. The Games. That was what people in the know called it, and these boys wanted to be people in the know. So he’d caught them up to speed, such as the difference between a rink for training and a ring at a show, all sorts of minutiae, and the boys treated every word as gospel.
Just as the zombies were dazzled by extremely bright light, so were the boys dazzled to speak with the owner of stables, albeit a very small and unimportant one. They had been swift to correct their terminology and add more to it. In triumph and gratitude, they learned, paid, and led a zombie on his last legs away.
Ink had been about to shoot Priapus and pay the knacker to take his body off, but the money those boys offered would pay the last of the vet bill for Samson’s dope. So Ink would make one more bit of money on Priapus, offload the bill and cover what he’d owe the knacker, and that was a good deal. The elderly zombies were a halftime sport that no one took seriously, unless you were young and didn’t have the money for anything else. The boys had discussed the grand prize giddily, having no shot of it with an old, broken-down zombie that couldn’t fight in the real matches, but filling themselves up with the dream. One million dollars. A two-week all-paid vacation at the finest resort in Hawaii. Ink had played it cool as they chatted, but inwardly he was as giddy as the boys about those things himself. Samson had never lost a fight in his two-year career. The odds were good, better than good that he was going to win the Games. He had beaten most of his opponents in previous competitions quite easily, and those opponents were going to round out a high percentage of his competitors at the Games.
He would have his challenges in Ares, Dionysus, Hades, and Cantine’s Poseidon, and Poseidon was getting a little long in the tooth. This would be his last time qualifying for the adult male 20-35 age group. He still won a lot of the time, though not as easily as before. The other three were more worrisome, but none presented challenges that Samson couldn’t surmount. So Ink would soon be rich and on his way to Hawaii from the stadium. Unable to resist the photo ops it presented, the sponsor of the Games had instructed every contender for the ultimate prize to bring their luggage, and for the winner to plan to leave in a limo to the airport afterwards.
“Ink?” Nadia called. She sounded like she was now in the doorway of the stables. “Is Scrapper all right?”
“Yeah,” Ink said shortly, and pressed on to the next stall to check even though he didn’t care.
Annoyance filled him at that four-year-old zombie boy staring up to the lights. Eight hundred dollars. For something Scrapper would only wear once, and tear beyond repair during the children’s melee. Nadia thought that she’d gotten a good deal on the costume since it was marked down from a thousand. Until the gunshot, she had been showing off every last cunning detail of it to Ink. Look at these little red pants! They have a yellow stripe down the outer side of the legs! The velvet epaulets on the jacket match the belt and sash! Isn’t that adorable?
The cuffs were brocade and there was a gem in the center of the eight-pointed star medal at the breast. A real gem! She was pleased as punch over her purchase, and oblivious as always that she was running their bank account into the ground. If Ink didn’t squirrel away money in a secret, separate account that only he could access, they’d have had to file for bankruptcy years ago.
The kid had dumped out his water again. Ink let himself into the stall and righted the bowl. Pulling down the hose that ran along the upper bar, he began to fill it back up and sighed at the poor water pressure. This was going to take time.
Scrapper took no notice of Ink and the running water. He was cute enough, having a sweet little face and soft brown hair. The scars from his previous battles were small and would be hidden by his clothing. Right now he was naked. Ink kept all of his zombies but Samson naked. They just fouled up their clothes with shit and piss and food stains, Medusa with her period, and made tons of laundry for no reason. But Ink wanted Samson to have some dignity, so he did laundry for him. In the feed room was a bar filled with identical pairs of pants and shirts, so Ink didn’t have to walk back to the tack room every time Samson needed a fresh outfit.
The richer managers kept their zombies dressed all the time, even changing them from day clothes to night clothes and back again, but they had permanent, full-time staff to do the dressing and the endless wash cycles. The only staff Ink had was his own two hands. Nadia spent the money the zombies brought in but refused to lift a finger for them, even if Ink was doubled over and throwing up into the toilet from a miserable stomach bug.
“Scrapper!” Nadia called in the high-pitched voice one would use for a darling kitten. “How is my Scrappy-Scrap? Do you want to see your new costume?” She was desperate to win Best Costume at a
show, which was awarded before the kids began the melee and proceeded to rip all of those costumes to shreds as they killed one another.
Such a waste. No one took the elderly zombie battles seriously, and no one took the kid zombie battles seriously either. But it had become very fashionable for stables to maintain one or two children, and Ink wanted to fit in more than he wanted to announce how stupid it was and stand out by refusing to participate. Cantine had two kids; Gorvich had one; Bayder had a brand new boy for each competition; Stanson had four in a rare set of identical quadruplet girls. Only two were still alive. His wife dressed them up in matching costumes for every show and had coached them until they could shake hands. Or at least hold their hands out and let them be shaken. That stole the judges’ hearts every time.
If you had a stable that mattered, you had a kid in it. Even Handley had a kid, and his stables were smaller than Ink’s.
But a kid was a money sink in every way. He begrudged every bite of meat that slid down Scrapper’s throat, every extra time he had to refill this bowl, every haircut and costume and special light bulb and why, why did it have to be en vogue to dress them up? There had been a pirate theme at Filo. All of the stables had dressed up their kids in eye patches, bandanas and hats, hooks on their hands and stuffed parrots fixed to their shoulders. Another waste of cash on Scrapper, but the price tag on his pirate costume didn’t remotely compare to what had just gotten frittered away on the princely one. A chunk of the steady money that Medusa and the rentals brought in, the grand prizes that Samson took in his conquests, all of that went right back out the door to doll up stupid Scrapper.
“Scrappy-Scrappums! Scrapper! Scrappy-pappy!” Nadia was singing. Ink wished that she would go back into the house. Water had half-filled the bowl and he turned the lever to stop the flow. The kid was just going to dump it over sometime in the night, so Ink wouldn’t fill it to the brim like he did the others’ bowls. The floor in the stall was going to rot from the constant puddle, and that was even more money that would get spent on the maintenance of this kid.
Zombie Tales Box Set [Books 1-5] Page 44
