Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two

by Short Story Anthology

  An owl hooted someplace.

  There was a moon but under the trees it was still dim. His cell phone flashed NO SERVICE—he was too far from a tower, or blocked by the hills, or something. Zack stumbled on. Nothing looked familiar—all the damn trees looked like trees!

  Eventually he came to a place he knew he hadn’t been before, a sort of mini-meadow, thick with weeds and brush but at least moonlight could shine down. The air was growing colder, and he shivered. Where the hell was he? And what if he couldn’t find his way back? People died lost in the mountains, didn’t they? But maybe not in September. He hoped not in September.

  A shape stepped out of the woods into the moonlight.

  A city boy, Zack could nonetheless recognize a wolf. Dimly, he remembered Anne saying something about a pack having come down from Canada and killing chickens or sheep or something. Did wolves attack people? Zack had no idea, but his hands curled into fists. Which probably wouldn’t be of any use anyway—

  He and the wolf stared at each other.

  All at once an idea came into Zack’s head, from wherever ideas started. A wolf was just a kind of dog, right? Zack took a step toward the wolf and moved his body, without thinking about it, the way he had with the dog on the sidewalk. Commanding. In charge.

  The wolf snarled softly.

  Zack kept staring, in challenge.

  The wolf hesitated, then lay down on the brush and lowered its head.

  My God, I can dominate a wolf.

  Not that he really wanted to. After a long, wholly satisfying moment, Zack turned and walked away. Twenty minutes later he glimpsed light through the woods and came to the lodge. His cell phone worked again. He got into the car and started the engine and the heater. It was two minutes to nine.

  “Jerry? Call Solkonov. I’m in.”

  II.

  Zack stepped out onto the fourth, highest level of the huge stage. Immediately, the crowd shouted and stamped. Zack couldn’t see them; everything beyond the stage was in darkness. But the stage itself was bright, and he easily spotted the other three fighters, one on each level, where they couldn’t get at each other until the bell rang. Zack looked past the edge of the rough wooden board at the three men arrayed near the front edges of the levels below.

  It’s a long way to fall, Zack.

  He pushed Anne’s voice out of his head and concentrated. The stage, covered in canvas printed with a pattern of rocks, was supposed to look like some sort of cliff with four staggered ledges that overlapped in the center:

  _____________

  ________________

  _______________

  ________________

  At the overlap, the ledges were only three and a half feet above each other, which meant not only that you had to crouch if you were idiot enough to move up or down that way, but also that you could jump, or throw a man, from levels four to two or three to one. Each ledge was set back a few feet from the one above. At each of the ends were fake palm trees of concrete with green plastic fronds; in the middle of each ledge was a hole. Zack wore shorts printed in leopard (Donavan had won on that), with a jockstrap but no cup. Ramon Romero had zebra, Julian Browne tiger, Serge Luchenko, who spoke almost no English, snakeskin. Nobody wore shoes or gloves. Everybody had shaved their heads.

  The announcer introduced the fighters and spent a few minutes excitedly explaining what everyone there already knew: No rules! Raw and primitive! A brand new sport! The first match ever! Zack took deep breaths and looked down at Romero, on the broad and deep level one. All four fighters were welterweights, but Romero had the long, muscled legs of a jumper. Zack had checked them all out on the Internet, and he hadn’t liked what he’d read. Romero had almost qualified for the Olympics in gymnastics. Browne was a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. Luchenko, who Solkonov had dug up somewhere in Russia, was a mystery, with almost no web presence. But he had more muscles than Zack had known it was possible to pack onto a human body. If the blond Russian caught you in any kind of grip, you wouldn’t leave conscious, or possibly alive. Zack was insane to be here.

  The bell rang.

  The men on the lower three levels faded back under the ledges above, to avoid being jumped on. Zack moved back, too, and waited. At the highest level, drawn by lottery, he had the advantage. Seconds passed, which seemed like hours. Then shouts erupted from the audience and grunts from below Zack, on the left edge of the stage.

  He ran to the center and leapt onto the third level, far enough out that if anyone were crouching there to grab his feet, they wouldn’t get him. No one crouched. The third level was empty, and Zack peered through its hole to the first. Luchenko advanced on Romero while Browne rushed toward them from the other side. Zack caught the quick glance between Romero and Browne.

  They had formed an alliance. No rules. Together take down Luchenko, then Zack, and only then fight each other.

  Luchenko is going to feint left and trip Romero, but Romero’s already seen it . . . .

  Browne is going to come at Luchenko with some fancy martial-arts move that throws him . . . .

  Another second and the Russian was on the ground. Romero and Browne began kicking him and then dancing away. Luchenko wasn’t as fast as they were. He put up his arms to protect his head, but not soon enough. Still, he got one good grab, which Zack anticipated, and caught Romero’s ankle. Browne bent and elbow-jabbed Luchenko in his now exposed face. The Russian couldn’t handle them both at once and he was too vulnerable on the ground. A few more vicious kicks and murderous jabs, and he went still.

  Half the crowd shouted, the other half booed at how quickly one fighter was out.

  Browne had a clear shot at Romero while Romero was freeing his ankle,but he’s not going to take it. They were still in alliance, and Zack knew the moment before that they were going to turn toward him.

  He shimmied up the palm tree to level three. Romero, the jumper, leapt easily onto recessed level two and then three, but by that time Zack had dropped back through the level-three hole to level one, jumping down the seven feet to face Browne, whom Zack had known was going to move back under the overhang of level two.

  This was risky. Browne was the one trained in martial arts, and Zack had only seconds before Romero leapt back down to join his ally. But if Zack let them corner him on a higher level, Browne could fancy-move throw him off a ledge, which might break his back. Zack had to face him here, and fast.

  He rushed Browne, who sidestepped easily . . . but Zack had known he was going to. He counter-feinted, grabbed Browne in a choke hold, and began to batter him in the head. Browne shifted his weight to try for advantage, but Zack sensed every move he would make and counter-shifted—clumsily, maybe, but Browne didn’t get out of the hold. He was trained in graceful kicks and chops, not brutal battering. In a few moments he screamed and stopped trying to fight. Zack didn’t know if the scream was a feint, too, so he kept punching at the face, head, chin. It felt terrible, but Zack was afraid for his life, and that made him afraid to stop. Fear fueled rage—he hated feeling afraid!—and he kept on punching as his knuckles bled and throbbed. Browne went slack in his arms.

  Romero rushed up. Zack threw Browne’s body on him and climbed to the third level.

  For three minutes, they chased each other up and down and around. Romero was more agile but Zack more tireless; he’d spent months training to build up his stamina. In a proper boxing match, the bout would have ended at five minutes, with a one-minute rest between bouts. Not here. Zack caught Romero’s puzzlement; he couldn’t understand how Zack kept escaping him. Zack knew every move Romero would make.

  The crowd loved it. They roared wordlessly, a beast without language.My non-voices have no words either and they’re not beasts—

  The thought distracted him for a fraction of a second, and Romero caught him.

  But the jumper was tired. Zack broke away with less trouble than he’d expected and climbed a palm tree. It had real coconuts wired to its plastic fronds. Zack tore one free; it was surprisingly
heavy. He hurled it at Romero. Put on a show. The coconut missed, but now the crowd screamed a real word: Murphy! Murphy! Murphy! Zack threw more coconuts.

  It took him another two minutes to confuse Romero enough for Romero to lose track of him. Zack dropped through the fourth-level hole, on top of Romero, and started punching. The man’s training in boxing was minimal. He fell to his knees. Zack let him get up and then crashed a left hook to his head. Romero went down and stayed down.

  Zack stepped to the edge of the second level and held up his arms. All at once they felt too light without gloves. Blood streamed into one eye; he’d been hit in the head. His left knee, which he hadn’t even noticed before, was ready to buckle. His hands were scraped raw.

  “Murphy! Murphy! Murphy!”

  “And the winner is . . . Zack Murphy!”

  His corner man—or at least that’s what he would have been if this stage had corners—brought Zack a robe and led him away. Pretty girls wearing almost nothing lined up across the front of level one to dance to raucous music. Men with mops appeared behind them to clean the stage of blood and pick up the shattered coconuts. A doctor bent over Romero, said, “Okay,” then moved swiftly to Browne. As Zack and the corner man passed by them, Zack just caught the doctor’s words over the music and the crowd:

  “This one’s dead.”

  Julian Browne had been beaten so badly around the head and neck that he had choked on blood and broken teeth and other assorted body bits. That had taken five or six minutes. If the doctor had gotten to him—had been permitted to interrupt the drama on stage—while Zack was throwing coconuts at Romero, Browne might have lived.

  The prize money, a percentage of the gate plus the broadcast pay-per-view plus a variable bonus, was supposed to be substantial. Zack didn’t ask if it was. He walked past Jerry, past the backstage reporters, past the doctor and his dressing room. No fans stood by the back entrance, not yet: There were two more fights to go tonight.

  “Zack! Zack! Where are you going? You can’t just leave, kid!” Jerry, sputtering and worried. Zack didn’t answer.

  “You feeling dizzy? Wait, I’ll get the doc!”

  Zack didn’t wait. In his leopard-printed shorts and bare chest he raised his hand, bloody still, and a cab stopped. It never would have stopped in the States. He was not in the States. He was on a tropical island someplace—he didn’t even know which island—and he had just killed a man.

  “Yeah, mon?” the cabbie said.

  Zack mumbled the name of the hotel and the cabbie drove through the warm, flower-scented tropical night. Zack had no money with him. The cabbie went with him through the lobby, where guests turned and stared, up to Zack’s room. Zack paid him. Then he stood under a shower as hot as he could get it, which wasn’t very hot, for as long as the water held out, which wasn’t very long. His phone buzzed insistently. As soon as it stopped, pounding started on his door.

  “Go away, Jerry,” Zack said. “That’s it. I’m not fighting anymore. Break the contract.”

  “Zack—”

  “Go away.”

  Jerry didn’t. He began his spiel about all the fighters—boxers, ultimate fighters, anybody he could think of—who’d happened to die in the ring or shortly after a bout. It was the risk you took, the risk Browne had known he was taking, it was nobody’s fault, it wasn’t such a—

  Zack called hotel security and had the old man removed. When he accessed his bank account on his phone, the prize money from the first fight—the only fight!—was already there. Zack bought a ticket for a 6:00 a.m. flight home, bandaged his fists as well as he could with washcloths from the hotel, and packed. The airport bar stayed open all night. Zack had two double Scotches, and then he couldn’t hear the voices anymore. By 5:30 a.m. he was on a plane headed Stateside.

  Fighters take risks in the ring. Browne knew the risks. Not anybody’s fault.

  He couldn’t make himself believe it.

  And it easily could have been him. A fraction of a second slower in reading the other fighters’ signals, in “integrating sensory data” with his “acquired savantism,” and it would have been him.

  He slept until 4:00 p.m. in his one-bedroom apartment. It had an actual bed, but nearly nothing else. Somehow Zack had never gotten around to shopping for furniture. The walls were the pristine white of snow before stumbling drunks, urinating kids, or car exhaust got at it. Zack’s cheap Walmart clock sat on the floor. He peered at it, sat up, and gazed at the blood from his cuts, which had stained his new sheets before he’d properly, if awkwardly, bandaged his hands. On each, fingers stuck out of a thick wad of padding.

  He had killed Julian Browne.

  He punched at his phone, grimacing at the screen as if it were toxic. “Gail? It’s Zack.”

  “Well, well. A call from On High.”

  Zack gritted his teeth. But what else did he expect? “I need to ask a favor.”

  Surprise colored Gail’s voice, even as she pressed her attack. “Yes, I’m fine, thank you for asking, and so is Anne. Who has been out of her mind with worry about you.”

  “I’m going to call her.”

  “Really? Then why call me at work, where you knew she wouldn’t be able to wrench the phone from me so she could talk to her worthless brother?”

  “Never mind. Forget the whole thing!”

  “No, wait, don’t hang up—Anne really is worried about you. Let me at least tell her you’re all right. Are you all right?”

  Yes. No. I don’t know any more what “all right” even means. “I’m fine.”

  “Where are you? Still on St. Aimo?”

  A horrible idea took Zack. “You mean Anne watched the fight?”

  “Of course Anne watched the fight! Did you think it escaped Google? She cried all night afterward.”

  Zack closed his eyes. “I’m sorry.”

  “Wow, there’s something I never thought I’d hear from you.”

  “I’m not going to fight again. Ever.”

  Gail’s silence was more shocked than words would have been. Zack took his temporary advantage. “I need to borrow your camping stuff.”

  “My what?”

  “Your tent and shit. Maybe a little stove thing. Whatever I need for a week in the mountains.”

  “Why?”

  “I want to spend a week in the mountains.”

  Silence. Then, “Is this really Zack I’m talking to?”

  “Stuff it, Gail. Can I borrow the things or not? I’m asking because if I went to a store and bought all that stuff, I still wouldn’t know what the fuck to do with it. I need you to show me.”

  “So you can spend a week in the mountains.”

  “Yes.”

  “Alone.”

  “Yes.”

  “In late October.”

  “Yes!”

  “Too risky, Zack. They already have snow in the passes. A neophyte could easily get himself killed.”

  “Forget it. I’ll buy the stuff and figure it out.”

  “As if. Anne would never forgive me if you froze to death or got attacked by a bear or fell off a cliff. You’ll never last a week, but you could maybe do a few days. I’ll bring the stuff tonight. Give me an address. When are you leaving?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “You’re bat-shit crazy, Zack.”

  Like I didn’t already know that.

  He had the rest of the afternoon to kill. His apartment was above a sports bar—very convenient. But all at once Zack didn’t want to go there. It was the kind of place where men and a few women watched extreme sports; he might be recognized, especially with his bandaged hands. He pulled his cap low over his face, stuck his hands in his pockets, and found a bar so dark that entire stables of fighters could have gone unnoticed. He gulped two Scotches and then nursed a third, trying to not see Julian Browne choking on his own blood on level one of the First Ever Level Fighting Match.

  At six o’clock he started home on dark streets that had half their street lamps broken. It was cold; he turned
up the collar of his jacket. Occasionally he passed little sidewalk altars, pictures painted or glued onto building walls of people who had been killed in gang-war violence, with clumps of dead flowers on the cracked cement beneath them.

  In an alley, three punks about eleven or twelve were throwing stones at a little dog.

  They had it backed up, cowering and whimpering, between two overflowing garbage cans. The stones were heavy; the bastards meant business. A gash had opened in the dog’s side.

  “Hey! Knock it off!”

  Their heads snapped around, peering through the darkness. When they saw it was only one man, their postures eased a little. When they saw his bandaged hands, Zack knew they were going to start something.

  “Yeah? Who says so? You, old man?”

  The leader. That he called Zack the same name that Zack called Jerry—that didn’t help. The boy’s lieutenant half-turned, making sure Zack was watching, and hurled another stone at the dog. It hit and the animal yelped.

  Zack rushed them. It was no contest, of course, not even when the head punk drew a knife. Zack knew what clumsy move each untrained kid was going to make, and he was fueled by a rage he didn’t even try to understand. At the same time, he didn’t want to really hurt them. So he pulled his punches, tripped but didn’t kick, only waved the knife when he’d captured it, which took about ten seconds. Another ten and they were all running away, one limping but nothing serious. Not crippling them had taken every inch of self-control Zack hadn’t even known he possessed.

  “Okay, mutt, scram. Go home.”

  The dog didn’t move. Maybe it was hurt too bad?

  But when Zack approached warily—he didn’t want to get bit, not even by a mutt this small—the dog got to its feet all right.

  “I said go home!”

  The dog lay down again, this time on its belly, and looked up at Zack.

  What the—he hadn’t been trying to dominate the animal. Actually, it didn’t look dominated. It looked adoring. The dog crept forward and licked his shoe.

  “Stop that. You know what shit can be on shoes?”