The Red X_Complete Edition

by Robert P. Sullivan

  There were still about six zombies left when Clarence killed the last one that was singled out. “We can’t fight ‘em in a group like that.” Clarence said as he gave me a light shove. “Alright I got it. Run around the side of them and see if you can separate just one from the group. And don’t get yourself killed we need two people to do this.”

  I did as he said. We were much faster than the zombies, and the pit was just big enough for us to make use of their slow speed. We had to get the cluster of zombies to rejoin each other a couple of times to get just one’s attention, but it eventually paid off. When we had just one, we could take it down nice and easy. It was only a matter of time after that. It took a little while, but we did it.

  As the last one fell we heard a single man clapping slowly. Davidson stood up from his chair and said “Bravo! Ladies and gentleman, we have our third group to make it to round two.” A few men around the arena started to ready their guns. “Wait! Now normally, I would say ‘let dodge-bullet begin…’ it’s a fun game.” He paused to give a joking nod to his audience. “However, due to the special occasion that it is my birthday tomorrow, I’m feeling a little generous.” Davidson grinned like a maniac. “I’m going to let you go back to your cages, and give food and drink to everyone of you ‘Gladiators!’ Because I want it to be a good event tomorrow.” Davidson raised his hand to signal his men to open the gate back to the cages, but stopped half way when they started to make sounds of disappointment. He raised one eyebrow as he looked at us. “Oh! But I forgot. Only the victor of the ring gets to leave… and there can’t be two victors.” His voice drug on long and slow as he savored the word ‘victors’.

  I was trembling as I turned slowly to face Clarence. He was a good foot and a half taller than me and three times my weight. I knew that he was going to kill me with ease. The crowd cheered and started chanting “Fight!” Clarence slowly came into my view, and he stood there smiling.

  It wasn’t an evil or disturbing smile, it was genuine yet sad, the kind of smile you make to say goodbye forever to someone you’re friends with. I didn’t know what to make of it. “I don’t want to fight you Clarence!” I yelled at him shaking and holding the wrench in front of me, but the honest truth was I couldn’t fight him. If he came at me I wasn’t going to be able kill him, even if I had the chance; I was just too soft.

  “You don’t have to kid.” Clarence said to me as he raised his left arm, and pointed to his forearm, just below the elbow. He was bitten, not deep, but that didn’t matter.

  “When did that happen?” I asked him.

  “When I stabbed the one behind you, the zombie you kicked off of me got just a taste… So we both know who is leaving this ring.”

  “I can’t do it though…” I said back.

  Clarence walked over to a zombie with a blade still stuck in it, and pulled it out. “You won’t… But do me a favor.”

  I stood there baffled by what he could possibly want me to do for him and asked “What?”

  Clarence drew my gaze to Davidson by pointing at him. “Kill that mother fucker for me!” I gave Davidson a mean squint just for a second, and looked back at Clarence, but he already had the steel blade deep in the side of his forehead. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he jerked violently as he fell to the ground.

  I ran to his side, but he was already gone. The crowd didn’t know what to make of it, until Davidson started to talk. “I loved it! The drama! The violence!” he closed his eyes and faked wiping a tear from his eye. ”The emotion! That was brilliant. My favorite part was when he flopped around like a fish out of water after he stabbed himself.” The crowd actually laughed at his sick idea of a joke. “Well, congratu-fucking-lations kid! You won!” he said pointing right at me. “I bet that came as an upset to most of those betting on the match.” Half the audience instantly remembered they had lost their bets and let out a huge disgruntled cry of curse words and sighs. “Let’s give a round of applause for our first ever contestant to leave the pit alive. Damn good show kid! Damn good!”

  The crowd cheered as I walked back towards the gate which I came out of, one of them fired off a gun into the air. “Who did that!” Shouted Davidson to the now silent audience. “I said who fucking did that!” this time he yelled at the top of his voice. They eventually ousted the man who fired his rifle. Davidson pointed at him and said “I liked that! Everybody do that!” They all started firing their guns into the air like the mad men that they were. “Alright you can go back kid.” he said flipping his hand as the gesture to open the gate. “Eat! Drink! And sleep well, because tomorrow is the big show down! Which reminds me… Johnny!” he yelled to his henchman. “Go heard up some more zombies, we’re going to need them, and don’t get more than we need! It’s a waste of time and bullets killing the extras.”

  Finally the gate opened up to go back to my cage. I walked inside the hall and they immediately told me to put my weapon in the box. I had been hoping that they might forget that I had the wrench, but apparently they weren’t that stupid. I was sent back through the chain link corridor from which I came, but even though they took my weapon away, I didn’t go back without something useful, even if I didn’t realize it immediately.”

  Act: II

  Chapter 13

  Jake had a twinge of excitement on his face as he continued the story. “They took me back into the room with the rest of the prisoners. I was still shaken from what had just happened, and didn’t even realize that everyone in the room was gasping at the fact that I was allowed to return.

  “Get in there!” One of the men said to me as I was shoved back into the cage, and it was locked behind me. The one that pushed me turned around to face the cage that Mark was in and shined a light on his face. He had a black eye and his face was swollen from where he had been hit. “I’m glad we got the chance to… talk.” He said to Mark emphasizing the word ‘talk’.

  “We’ll be right back with the food and drink, you shits!” The one holding the gun back by the doorway said, before they left.

  It was silent for a brief moment as everyone tried to wrap their minds around what had happened, well either that or they were waiting for the ‘X’s to stop listening in on us. “What the hell did you do?” Mark asked me with shock in his voice, after the shadows flickered letting us know that we were alone.

  “I fought in some sort of makeshift arena. They pitted us against zombies until they ran out. They were going to have us survivors killed, or at least they would have if it weren’t for the fact that they are saving us for tomorrow.” I told Mark, who had pushed himself up against his cage door. “What happened to your face?” I asked.

  “Oh, this…” Mark said rubbing his face. “That asshole worked me over for warning you about the cup full of piss yesterday.”

  “Sorry.” I replied.

  “Don’t worry about it; I knew it was coming when I saw the feet under the door when I told you in the first place.” He paused for a moment before continuing on. “What I really want to know is what is going to happen tomorrow.”

  “Well that is sort of bad news. It’s their leaders birthday I guess, and they intend to kill us all off. I’m guessing it’s going to be more of what I just went through.” I said back to Mark. “But! The good news is that because they want a good show tomorrow Davidson, I mean their leader, ordered that we be given food and water!”

  The whole room either let out a cheer or sigh of relief when I said that. It was like giving them the best news of their life. It was kind of like being their hero.

  “Well that’s at least something.” Mark said as he sat back down in his cage. “But, I guess it really doesn’t matter if we can’t get out of here… You sure you didn’t see any way to get the hell out of here?”

  I told him the whole layout of the immediate area, and what I saw the guards do, but there didn’t seem to be any way that it was going to help us get out of there. It was well guarded. Mark was disappointed that I didn’t have any good information to give.
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  “What we need is help from the outside…” Mark said with despair in his voice. “Someone to make a distraction long enough for us to break these cages.”

  “Wait what did you just say?” I asked Mark just before the door slammed open and the guards walked in.

  “Dinner time! You lucky bastards, Davidson even told us not to spit in your food. I guess we’ll just have to settle for the show tomorrow.” They said as they walked around the room handing out food and drink through feeding slots in the kennel’s cages. We were all overjoyed at the “feast” we were given. It was pathetic, canned soup, old meat, and stale bread… The best meal of my life.

  Anyway, the guards were just about to leave us alone when I had figured out how we were going to get out of that hell hole. So, when the door closed shut behind them, and I saw that they were still there at the door I spoke loud enough for them to hear me. “This food is terrible, I am so glad these bastards didn’t catch the rest of my family out there.”

  Mark just about flipped the hell out when I started to talk about more survivors outside. I know that he thought that I didn’t realize the ‘X’s were listening at the door, because he was making every gesture he could to get me to shut up, so that they wouldn’t get caught.”

  Barry interrupted “Wait. Did you skip something, didn’t you say you didn’t have any family left.”

  Jake stopped for a moment and looked at Barry with a toothy grin on his face. “That’s right, I never saw any of them again.” Barry had raised one eyebrow in confusion as he sat there waiting for an explanation, before Jake proceeded with his story.

  “As I was saying, I told Mark “Yeah, they’re real close by too, just about six miles west of the town. I’m not too worried about them getting caught though. They have a few trucks, which means the only way to catch them would be to ride over the hill as fast as possible, and get them before they could get the trucks started.” I know I must have had the same damn smirk on my face that I have right now when I told that to Mark, not that he could make out what my face looked like. He still didn’t get the fact that I wanted the ‘X’s to hear.

  And with that, the trap was set. A few moments passed by and the shadows walked away from the light under the door. Mark took a little bit of time before he started to talk. “Why would you say that Jake? You know they’re going to go after them now.”

  “I know, I’m counting on it.” I replied.

  “Then… why?” He asked just as confused as you were.

  “I don’t have any family out there, but six miles west is what’s left of a refugee camp filled with thousands of zombies. We needed a distraction to break out right? Well Davidson said killing zombies was a waste of time, and I figure a few thousand ought to buy us a good distraction. And now they’re going to be rushing right into them.” I said before I started eating again.”

  “You clever bastard!” Barry said as he was putting the palm of his hand on his forehead, as if he didn’t know why he hadn’t caught it sooner.

  Jake nodded at Barry with a knowing gleam in his eye. “I thought that was a pretty good trick too. After I told Mark about it the whole room was dead quiet. They had all stopped eating and drinking, and were just waiting for someone to break down exactly how we were going to escape.

  Mark was the first one to break the silence. “Everybody hear that?” he asked to the whole room.

  They responded with a hushed barrage of yeses, but they were still waiting for the exact plan.

  Mark continued with the best plan he could come up with. “It looks like we’re going to have to wait a couple hours for them to get back with the horde, but when we hear them shooting like crazy everyone tries to break out of their cage all at once. Don’t try and break out after the first few shots, we want them to be good and distracted by the zombies, so wait till they really start letting loose. After that… I guess, it’s just grab whatever weapon you can and run like hell.” Mark, waited to make sure that everyone got it, and let the room settle down.

  “Hey, Jake.” Mark called out to me.

  “What is it?” I asked back.

  “Good work. This may be our only shot to get out of here alive… So, I wanted to say thanks, you know, just in case something happens and we don’t survive the escape.” Mark was quiet for a minute or two after that when he heard a few whispers about the plan floating around the room. “Hey listen up.” He said, “We should all try and keep our mouths shut about what’s happening. We don’t want to take any chances of them hearing us, do we? So don’t say a word about it.”

  We knew that we could talk about anything else but we spent the next six hours just waiting there as quiet as possible, just hoping to hear the gunshot starting. The silence was nerve wracking, but we were all excited to get out, and no one wanted to mess up our chance of escape. So we sat there patiently in the dark, just waiting for our only chance.”

  Chapter 14

  “Somewhere around the sixth hour, we were all startled to hear a few gunshots off in the distance. They were far out but it really got the spirits of the whole room up.

  “Hold up.” Said Mark to the whole room. “Wait until the bullets really fly.”

  We were almost a bit discouraged when the shots dissipated and turned back to the same old silence. It wasn’t but a few more minutes that passed when they started up again though, and this time they were a lot closer. The shots weren’t stopping this time and we all knew that the time was near. It wasn’t but half a minute after that, when we heard the door slam open in the other room. “That fucking kid tricked us!” We heard the person who opened the door yell.

  “What the fuck are you talking about?” The guard said back to him, with a lazy response.

  “There was no fucking family out there man! Just a shit ton of zombies, and they followed us back.”

  “So what do you want me to do about it?” The guard asked just as lazy as before.

  “Get off your lazy ass and go fucking shoot them! Davidson said to get everyone to fight ‘em.” The one that entered had panic in his voice as he yelled at our guard. “Maybe you didn’t understand the definition of a shit ton. There are literally thousands of zombies heading this way. If we don’t kill them, or lead them away we could be trapped.”

  We heard the guard finally get to his feet. “Son of a bitch!” he said more frustrated than angry. The ‘X’ that gave the news opened the door to leave when the guard stopped him. “Hold up! What do you say that we go shoot the little prick for tricking us like that? It’ll only take a minute.”

  My heart was beating out of my chest when I heard them say that they were going to kill me for what I had done to them, but I had some luck on my side. “No! We don’t have time for that, and besides I’m sure Davidson is gonna want to torture the fucker for this. Just get your shit, and get out to the outskirts of town. I still have to get the rest of the guys, I’ll see you out there.”

  “Alright, alright, shit, I’m going.” said the guard, and the two of them made their way out of the front room.

  After about thirty seconds a few of the prisoners started to try and break out of their cages, but Mark yelled out to them as quietly as he thought he could to get their attention. “Not yet! We want things to get a little bit worse out there before we break out.” Which worked, but only for about another minute before we could hear the shots of machine gun fire start up off in the distance. And that was when all hell broke loose in that room. Everybody started throwing their weight against their cage doors, and kicking them. It made a horrible racket, and if Mark hadn’t stopped us when he did, we would have gotten caught for sure.

  We kicked and slammed our cages hard, and finally after a few minutes of this we all heard one of the cages bust open. “I’m fucking out of here!” the first one to be free yelled, as he ran out the door. Then another one broke open, and another. There were probably only about thirteen of us in there to start with, but after a few minutes most of us got out.

  I remember when
the last cage opened up and whoever it was ran out as well, and then I was alone in there. I kept trying to break the cage, but I just wasn’t strong enough to hit it as hard as it would take to break it. I was starting to panic, because I knew this was my only shot to get out of there, and I couldn’t break open the cage. I tried as hard as I could to get that stupid fucking door to open, and I bent it a little, but I think I hurt myself more than I had damaged the cage. I knew that I wasn’t going to be able to get out, and I was in that moment, horrified.

  The door swung back open to the kennel and someone stood in the light. “Jake? You still in here?” Mark asked.

  “Yes! Please help me out, I can’t break the cage!” I yelled back at him, and I’m not proud to say it, but I might have been crying a little.

  Mark ran over to my cage and started kicking it from his side, and sure enough after a minute or so he had it open. “I looked for you when I got out, but I couldn’t find you, when I realized you were still inside, I thought it would be fucked up to not come back for you.” He said as he helped me to my feet.

  “Thank you!” I practically screamed back at him. “Now let’s get the hell out of here.” We ran out of the door into the office part of the kennel and I really got a good look at Mark for the first time. He wasn’t much older than me, maybe three years. He had dark hair, and dark eyes and… well he still had a black eye at the moment, and it was all swollen up, but other than that, he was just a young guy trapped like the rest of us.

  When we were just about to walk out of the office, I noticed something in the corner of my eye. The box full of weapons from the arena was pushed in the corner. I ran over to it and opened it up. Mark was surprised that everyone else missed it. “Shit I wish that we had known about that, everyone else out there only has their fist to get out of town with.”

  “Well that’s what you get for coming back to save me I guess.” I said back as we grabbed some weapons from the restocked box. I got the pipe wrench again, since I figured it already proved itself. Mark picked up a knife and a baseball bat, and we headed out the door.