by Simon Parker
Wow! I thought. There had been so much going on since the apocalypse that I hadn’t known about down south. The military rule there had certainly been more strict than up here. I guessed that London was probably the most strict (since all the politicians had holed up there when the shit hit the fan) and it slowly broke down as you moved away. Come to think of it, I’d only seen two check points and maybe a half dozen patrols since I’d come through York.
I cautiously asked the infects’ keeper whether they ever got raided by the military. He just laughed.
“The military is not the problem, sunshine. Up here their presence is more implied than actual. Government doesn’t really give a shit what happens this far away from London. The problem is a group that calls themselves ZAT, the Zombie Annihilation Taskforce. Should be ZIT if you ask me. All their fuckin’ heads need popping!” He laughed heartily at his own weak attempt at humour and then continued.
“Those arseholes don’t get it. They think that every single infect is a threat to humanity. They can’t see how well-controlled we have this situation now.” He looked at his feet and sighed. “Every now and then they’ll poke their noses in and try to take down some of our best fighters. Just last month, those wankers broke into my compound and killed two of my best boys. Just gunned ‘em down, no questions. Cost me damn near £50k that night in lost assets and earning. Pricks!”
He didn’t seem so amused now. He was staring at his feet again, clearly deep in mourning for his lost infects. This guy was a fucking weirdo, I thought, but he might be my ticket back into the game and the money. He must have sensed my thoughts, because he became suddenly suspicious.
“Did those twats send you to see if I’ve got any left?”
“No” I replied, half laughing. “I was in the game myself back down south.” I proceeded to give a brief (and of course somewhat embellished) version of what had happened. In my version I had been a heroic zombie hunter leading a small band of lesser men who’d disobeyed orders and got themselves killed, nearly taking me down with them. Not to mention (but I did) that I had also single-handedly killed six of the infects and trapped the other two in a room until backup arrived. I may have embellished… a little.
“I lost almost £100k that night, so I can understand why you’re pissed off, my friend. I truly know how it feels.”
He studied me for a moment or two longer, allowing my particular brand of bullshit to work its undeniable odour through his filters. Slowly his smile returned and he drew conspiratorially closer to me.
“I tell you what,” he said, “with your zombie-hunting skills and my storage facility, we could re-stock this place and make it the premier event in the country.”
He must have seen the pound signs ker-ching! in my eyes, because he laughed heartily and slapped me on the back, like a cartoon villain.
That night I understood his problem. ‘Dead Heat’ was an excellent idea and the safety systems in place were incredible. Sadly however, with just ten infects in the holding cages, the action was quite short lived, although extremely violent and gory. These Scottish infects took their feeding seriously; when an infect threatened to snatch a fresh meal from his fellows, he was rapidly dismembered and the fight was over. A few heavy gamblers kept the bookies busy, and to maximise profits, the bookies even took bets on which bits would get ripped off first, or how long it would take the victorious infect to kill and eat the bait.
More often than not, the bait was a rabbit or a fox or something caught in the surrounding countryside. But when pickings were slim, I saw a couple of cats and a dog in there too. Hard to imagine that Britain was once known as a nation of animal lovers. It’s funny what the chance of a few quid and a little apocalypse will do to a country’s principles.
One problem in all this was that no-one was absolutely sure if these infects were truly dead or not. They certainly weren’t human anymore and they looked and smelled like the dead. Their flesh rotted, but slower than you’d expect from a corpse; sometimes these things seemed like they’d last for years. They still ate and drank like normal people (well, if you can call ripping the arse off of a diseased cat with your teeth, eating normally). But they didn’t ‘need’ to eat often.
I remember that, back in the beginning, one of the pet zombies had been a bit on the ripe side of rancid. The flesh on his lower limbs and arms was like well-cooked pork, practically hanging off the bone. Nowadays, we wouldn’t consider such a specimen to be fit as a pet or a fighter; back then we had no idea of quality control in these matters. No one wanted this useless, smelly son of a bitch, so he sat in the warehouse cell for close on eight weeks. We’d even cut his price all the way down to a measly £500 but still had no takers. When we decided to cut our losses and put a bullet in the thing, I noticed it was skinnier than when we’d caught it. And it was distinctly pissed off. This kind of intrigued me but Mark shot it anyway. Poor old Mark, I hadn’t thought about him in months now, bless him. I hoped it had been quick for him. It certainly hadn’t sounded painless! Anyway… that was enough of that. Money to be made, I thought to myself, so I spent an eventful night watching infects taking each other apart to rip into their food, just for shits and giggles.
I hung around after the main event near my new buddy (James, I later found out) and his caged friends. There was quite a little sideshow afterwards. People wandering around looking at these things like they were in a frikking zoo. The bookies tried to make a little on this too, laying odds on whether one of the victorious infects would shit or piss themselves in the two hours after their fights were over. That, ladies and gentlemen, was what passed for a post-apocalyptic evening’s entertainment. Even I found myself shaking my head and wondering what the fuck the world had come to if this was the intellect of those left alive. These sick fucks were the future of mankind. But hey, who am I to judge? If it wasn’t for these morons, I’d have fewer people to squeeze for profit, the profit I could see flying in now that James and I had decided to set up a deal together.
All that night we sat in his mobile home with a bottle of single malt, discussing plans and dreaming of the large sums of money that would surely be rolling in. I still thought he was a fucking weirdo, but he was my kind of weirdo… a weirdo with few morals and a lot of greed!
The next few weeks were spent making contacts, hunting the increasingly rare infects and preparing for the next ‘Dead Heat’. I shared what I’d learned down south from Mark about how to move in downwind to catch the smelly bastards unawares (the guys up here had been catching individuals in rope nets with brute force, wearing nothing more than building site protective clothing and heavy leather gloves). I even managed to stay off the front line, getting our guys to do it for us instead.
The first hunt I had faked a blinding headache and cried off. The boys had done well on their own, so each time after that, I told them I was too busy with the management side of things. I stroked their egos by telling them what a great job they had done without me and how I knew we could count on them. Some things never change. Apocalypse or not, the working classes were easily manipulated and would do anything they were told, if you cooed the right ego triggers, paid them a little more than fuck all and made a point of regularly telling them you appreciate all the hard work. Suckers! I was just glad I’d been smart enough not to be one of them.
It took us about eight hunts in ten weeks, but now our cages were full to bursting. We’d sold about thirty infects to some of James’ contacts and we kept twenty for ourselves. We even offered a storage service for some of the buyers, charging them a rent for cage space and a service charge for protection of their beloved pets. Ten weeks had felt like forever, but when you look at what we’d achieved in that time, it was proving to be very lucrative indeed. We had upwards of thirty infects caged and ready. We’d already made gross profits of a cool quarter million and our overheads were pretty low.
We paid our hunters about a grand for each hunt, and our full time security team (which consisted of four guys with machet
es and walkie talkies) got about £500 a week. Our infects were costing us nothing to keep (the hungrier the better!) and the dozen that were our paying borders earned us another £12,000 a week, so things were going great. Our pride and joy, though, was the deal we had negotiated with the bookies; every show, they would pay us a flat fee of £5000 each, plus another ten percent of their take. James and I were going to hit the big time and I was as excited as hell.
The first few weeks after the virus took hold had scared the living shit out of me. But now, big picture, this apocalypse had been the best thing that had ever happened!
As the first big night approached, we stepped up security, covering the whole site while we were busy setting up. The arena was beginning to look like a full-on carnival. This time, we were able to go all out, not least of all because one our military overseers was secretly an owner of a 6 foot 4 inch infect that was built like a brick outhouse. He stood to make more in this one night than his army salary paid in two years.
But that infect… man it gave me the creeps! Like a frikkin’ zombie wasn’t scary enough, this one was huge and had this strange way of staring right through you, unflinching, making you feel like he was not only eyeing up his next meal, but raping your soul while doing it. He never growled or ran at the bars like the others did when you passed them. Creepy. Even now I’m shuddering just thinking about that freaky son of a bitch.
We’d long since had the cages modified. Now all the cubicles were placed along two corridor tunnels with all the gates controlled automatically. The idea was that the bait would be released into the central arena cage, and at precisely the same moment, a cage in the red tunnel and one in the blue tunnel would open. The two infects would charge after the bait and fight over it. It got very grizzly and intense very quickly, but it was a sight to behold.
The bookies were to run several different scenarios with bets taken for first infect to reach the bait, first infect to draw blood (bait or each other’s wasn’t specified), first infect to lose a limb (yes limbs were so frequently torn or bitten off in this sport that it warranted its own book), and of course, the main bet was winner and loser.
More often than not, the losing infect was in pieces and no longer any use as a fighter. Most owners of the losing infects just put them down after the bout; either a single bullet (for the more squeamish) or a hefty swing of the machete, but some of these weirdo’s liked to keep what was left. The limbs, once separated from the body, were essentially dead meat, but it seemed that as long as there was some form of brain matter and function, these infects just kept coming. One guy back down south had been so attached to his pet infect that when it had got beheaded, he sewed its mouth up and carried it around in a frikkin’ bag. Jesus! Some people.
I must admit, I was surprised when the big night arrived. The few fights I had seen before were lots of drunken guys betting and shouting, but tonight had been so well organised and promoted that it had become a ‘proper’ family event. Mums and Dads were walking around with their kids, buying snacks from the food stalls and wandering through the arena like it was a petting zoo. Of course, all our safety systems were carefully in place and that included a waist high chain-link fence around the whole enclosure so none of the dipshits were tempted to stick their hands through the bars and provide a finger buffet for our paying lodgers.
I was like a kid in a sweet shop. I was part of a crew who had made this happen and I stood to make a shed load of money from it. My plan, once the evening was over, was to take the money and run. Shit like this was too risky and ‘friends’ were the last thing I needed. I’d always been a lone wolf, all about me. In about three hours I’d have everything I wanted from this little venture, then I was out of here, looking for the next big score. Maybe I could try a bit of black marketeering in other commodities, which could earn me a wedge without the risk of being frikkin’ lunch. I was also smart enough to know that these hunts had been getting harder and harder, often coming up empty, The zombie game was finite and reaching its end times.
As I was ruminating on my strategy, watching the crowds mill around the site, my plans all got shot to pieces. From where I stood I could see a huge problem about to unfold. I saw the army guy’s daughter. He had brought her along to show her his fighting pet. A strange thing to try to impress a young girl with, but that’s what he was doing. They were both on the wrong side of the safety fence, staring into the holding cubicle of the infect we had nicknamed ‘Fukwid,’ not due to his lack of intelligence (no, this monster had smarts, you could just sense it) but because he was so huge in stature, he was one big mother you didn’t want to fuk-wid!
The girl was looking horrified but not scared, but she made me feel uncomfortable for some reason. I couldn’t put my finger on it right then. She didn’t look right, she was just… shifty.
I started heading down the hill to tell them to get on the right side of the fence again, then thought better of it. Why the hell should I get involved? She wasn’t my daughter and I didn’t give a toss if the two of them wanted to do something stupid. It was their problem. If I stepped in, either army guy would get pissed off and thump me or Fukwid would grab my collar and try to give me a zombie hickey.
The other reason I decided not to get involved was just rolling over the hillside. Land Rovers. All decked out in matte black. Then it clicked; these could be trouble, the ones I had heard of. Sure enough, as they moved in formation closer to our not so little gathering, I could see the unmistakeable insignia of ZAT emblazoned on the side of each vehicle. Oh shit! There were loads of them!
I called over my new partner. I knew he couldn’t stop them, but I didn’t know what else to do. The convoy of eight Land Rovers pulled up at the side of the field, leaving no doubt in the minds of everyone that they meant business and tonight’s little venture was about to be shut down. They poured out of the vehicles and began to sweep through the crowd with military precision. They were looking for owners. How the hell they knew who the owners were, I didn’t know, but it became glaringly obvious that that’s who they were targeting.
My new partner took no prompting; he simply said, “Oh shit!” and ran for his pickup. That was when the first shot rang out. They’d found one of the owners they were looking for and had just executed him right there in front of everyone!
The crowd began to panic, but the ZAT guys had obviously anticipated this and had trapped them in a classic pincer movement. About fifteen guys now totally controlled a crowd of about two hundred people. I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.
There was no way I could see this ending well, so I did what I do best and began to devise a plan to bug out and save my own ass. My brave partner had already had it away on his toes, so he would be no help, but by the same count, he would be no hindrance either. His fear had been uncontrolled and his reaction instant and careless, with no thought for what was to come next. My fear was just as intense; I knew I had about two or maybe three minutes before I became one of the executed. I was under no illusion; ZAT obviously knew exactly who they were looking for and I was damn sure I’d be on that list. For now, they were on the other side of the enclosure with two hundred souls and more than a dozen infects between them and me.
As I ran into the shipping container which had served as our temporary office, I heard another shot ring out. I turned around just in time to see another of the owners fall face down into a puddle of what, until seconds ago, had been the contents of his skull. A stream of expletives rang through my mind and urged me to return to the task at hand, namely saving my own fucking skin.
I grabbed a canvas holdall that was stuffed into the bottom drawer of a filing cabinet; a slapdash, makeshift safe for the large amounts of cash we’d been handling of late. We had divided it as it came in and some of my share was already stashed in an old suitcase back at my flat. Since that was unavailable for now, I’d have to take what was at hand. I opened the bag; there had to be at least £80k. Even better, neatly nestled on top of th
e wadded notes, was a Sig Sauer and two spare clips. I wasn’t a great shot (like I might have said before, guns terrified me), but I’d rather have it and not need it.
I heard another shot ring out and a woman scream louder than the crowd around her. I hurriedly zipped up the bag and left the office. As I did, I saw a key ring hanging on a peg by the door. The keys belonged to a little black Golf parked behind the office; I dimly remembered it belonged to Ted, one of the security team. The VW wasn’t great for cross country, certainly no match for the Land Rovers, but beggars can’t be choosers and since Ted was probably already dead, I didn’t think he would mind.
I snagged the keys and ran outside. The sight that greeted me beggared belief; my jaw actually dropped. From my vantage point, slightly elevated from the arena, I saw the entire crowd on their knees, fully encircled by the ZAT guys, armed to the teeth. A team moved slowly among them, holding out photos and singling out those that matched their mug shots.
I saw another of the owners dragged into a small clearing in the crowd and executed without hesitation. I looked slightly eastward of the crowd and noticed another detachment of ZAT guys moving among the holding cages around the main arena.
As they reached the first cage, they casually flipped a coin and the apparent winner stuck the barrel of his assault rifle through the chain-link and fired. The infect didn’t even see it coming; its head just exploded, much to the amusement of the shooter and his comrades, who high-fived each other in celebration.
It was as I stood rooted in trouser-soiling awe at this scene that I saw a flicker of movement in my peripheral vision. I looked a little closer at the other end of the holding cages and could just make out the army guy and his daughter.
