Twisted World: A Broken World Novel (5 page)

“A lot of good it will do if these assholes are carrying the mutated virus,” I said, even though my knowledge of how this all worked was child’s play compared to Jackson’s.

The whole thing made me uneasy. Why people liked watching something this sick I’d never know, but it took a twisted kind of person to really enjoy something like this. Suddenly, I found myself wondering how the hell I had ended up here in the first place.

Jackson squeezed my leg. “It’ll be fine.”

I was too focused on the zombies to push his hand away, even if it had now snaked up to my thigh.

The beefy men had finally reached the ring, and I leaned forward when they unhooked the zombie’s chains. The creatures fought their handlers as they were dragged forward, but it didn’t seem to take much effort to pull them into the ring. They got closer to where we sat and the stench of death became overwhelming. I had to focus on breathing out of my mouth so my stomach didn’t jump up and spill its contents all over the red carpet at my feet.

The men pulled the zombies to opposite corners of the ring, clicking their chains into place before heading out, being sure to keep a safe distance from the claws of the dead. The creatures went crazy as all around them more cheers rang through the air, and the clink of metal against metal was so loud it felt like it was echoing through my head.

Dragon grinned, his eyes sweeping across the throng of people gathered around the ring as he turned in a circle one final time. “Are you ready?” The walls seemed to vibrate with the roar of the crowd. “Do you want to meet our fighter?” More cheers pulsed through the air. “Bring him out!”

Dragon pointed to my left and a man stepped through the door the zombies had just come out of. He kept his head down as he made his way through the throng of people, and I found myself standing so I could get a better look at him. The crowd was too thick, though, and no matter how I twisted nothing was visible except the top of the fighter’s head.

I shifted from foot to foot, waiting for the man to come into view. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he stepped into the ring and took his place at Dragon’s side. Still, though, I couldn’t get a good look at him because both men had their backs to me.

“Donaghy!” The crowd went wild when Dragon announced the fighter’s name.

The man still didn’t lift his head. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, and the muscles in his arms flexed. Almost every inch of them were covered in tattoos. Dark black lines crisscrossed one another, circling his forearms and biceps as they moved up and curled around his shoulders and back. From there the lines moved down, stopping just above his waist. The design was so intricate that it was nothing short of a work of art. I couldn’t imagine that he’d gotten it in DC—not based on the rumors I’d heard about the living conditions in the prison settlement.

Dragon’s arms were still raised when he turned to face me, and his mouth was stretched wide with a smile that made him look like he was on the verge of going insane.

The fighter turned too, and I was finally able to get a good look at the convict. He was younger than I’d thought he would be, only twenty-five at the most. His dark hair had either been cut close to his head or was just growing back after being shaved. I’d heard stories about problems with lice in the DC prison system, so it was possible they’d resorted to shaving the heads of all the prisoners.

Donaghy’s eyes stayed on the floor and his square jaw twitched as Dragon talked, highlighting the fighter’s victories in DC before joining the release program. Since then, he’d excelled in both the Baltimore and Dayton settlements.

The room went nuts, and finally the fighter pulled his eyes away from the ground. They were ice blue and colder than December when they scanned the crowd. He didn’t smile, and he didn’t look proud of his accomplishments in the ring. At his side, his hands were still clenched into fists, and every time he tightened his jaw, the scar that cut across his chin puckered.

Seeing it made me sit back in my chair.

Dad had a scar in the exact same place. I was so used to it that most of the time I didn’t even notice it, but with Donaghy in front of me, it felt like I’d been slapped across the face. It was harsh and unexpected, and enough to make my head spin.

“Are you ready?” Dragon called as he walked backwards, moving toward the door.

I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the image of my father as all around me the crowd once again cheered. Donaghy barely blinked.

Dragon was still grinning when he ducked through the open door, shutting it behind him. The click of metal against metal was so loud it could be heard even over the roaring crowd. In the ring, Donaghy turned to face the zombies, his back once again to us as he flexed his hands. Making a fist, then relaxing his fingers, then repeating the gesture. In front of him, the dead fought against their chains, while outside the ring their handlers got ready to release them. All it took was a flick of a switch and the chains fell away, freeing the dead. And then they charged.

These two must have been newer than their putrid skin made them look, because they were fast. Too fast to have been turned for long. When the first one reached Donaghy, the fighter easily kicked him back, sending the creature’s rotting body flying into the side of the cage. A metallic clang echoed through the room and the crowd went wild. The second zombie reached the fighter, who once again tried to kick him back, but in a move so fast that it took my breath away, the dead man’s hand closed around Donaghy’s ankle, stopping him mid-kick.

Gasps and cheers broke through the crowd when the fighter went down, his back slamming against the floor of the ring, and suddenly I was on my feet. My heart was pounding like crazy and even though I didn’t want to see this man—or any man for that matter—get ripped apart, I couldn’t make myself look away.

Donaghy kicked his trapped leg, trying to break free while the first zombie approached him from behind. The creature’s collision with the fence hadn’t even fazed him, and he gnashed his teeth as he tore across the ring, intent on ripping the fighter’s throat apart.

“He’s out,” Jackson hissed at my side, his voice low and primal and brimming with something that reminded me of glee.

I shook my head. “No.”

In the blink of an eye, the fighter was on his feet and the zombie that had been holding him was down. It happened so fast that I couldn’t figure out
how
. All I knew was that the zombie who’d had the upper hand a second ago was on the ground and Donaghy was slamming the heel of his boot into the creature’s legs, one after the other, over and over again. Even over the roar of the crowd, the sound of splintering bone was deafening.

The second zombie was almost on top of him when the fighter spun its way. His hand wrapped around the dead creature’s throat, stopping the thing in its tracks. The zombie gnashed his teeth but Donaghy didn’t move. His fingers tightened, sinking into the decaying flesh. Black blood poured over his hand and ran down his arm, dripping onto the already stained floor of the ring. In seconds, the fighter’s entire hand had disappeared inside the zombie’s throat. Lost in a sea of gray, rotten flesh.

Donaghy twisted his wrist, and just like that, the zombie’s head detached from its body and fell to the floor. His milky eyes were still open, and his rotten teeth still chomping when its body landed next to the head.

The crowd went crazy, and I was right there with them, cheering for this man without even thinking about it.

“Did you see that?” Jackson elbowed me and I turned to find a strange kind of excitement gleaming in his eyes. “That was amazing.”

My dark hair fell across my face when I nodded, and even though I didn’t understand the expression shining in my friend’s eyes, I couldn’t deny the truth. It had been amazing.

The second zombie was still on the ground, struggling to get up despite the shattered bones in his legs. Now that his friend had been taken care of, Donaghy turned his attention to the writhing creature. With both legs snapped, the poor thing couldn’t do much more than reach for the man in front of him, so it wasn’t much of a fight. Donaghy shook his head, pausing in front of the zombie and studying it for just a second. It was almost like he hated to put an end to the thing. He didn’t hold back, though. He slammed the heel of his boot against the zombie’s skull. Two stomps was all it took, and then the second zombie met the same fate as the first one. Dead. Finally.

Donaghy’s shoulders heaved as he stared down at the now motionless creatures, his icy blue eyes looking at them like he felt sorry for them. Like he wished he could have given them a more dignified death. It was a strange scene, watching this hulk of a man stare at the piles of rotting flesh at his feet as the crowd cheered and Dragon, still beaming, returned to the ring.

“Give this man a hand!” the bar owner called, grabbing Donaghy’s arm and lifting it above his head.

Once again, the fighter didn’t react to the praise, and if I didn’t know any better, I’d think he was a robot.

The crowd was still cheering when he exited the ring.

The second he was gone, two men rushed in. One was carrying a shovel while the other had a bucket and a mop. I stood frozen in place, watching as the man with the shovel scooped up the remains. He tossed them into a wheelbarrow just outside the cage, then turned back for more. The man scooped up the head of the first zombie Donaghy had taken out, and the things’ mouth was still chomping away. The man laughed as he said something to his friend. They chuckled together, and I found myself wondering what they were talking about. Whatever it was, it struck me as irreverent. These may have been zombies, but they had been people at one time. People who’d had lives and loved ones. People who were missed. They deserved better than this. We all did.

I turned away when the man with the bucket started mopping up the ring.

All around the room, people exchanged handfuls of money, settling bets made before the fighter had taken the ring. On the other side of the room a man was shoved through the crowd. Curse words flew through the air when a second later a fight broke out. I watched as the two men tried to beat each other senseless, but got nowhere thanks to the thick mass of people packed around them. The two hulking men who had brought the zombies out of the back room pushed their way through the crowd, and seconds later the offenders were separated and dragged from the bar.

“What’d you think?” Jackson asked, and I turned my attention to his grinning face. Everything about his expression said that he wanted to please me.

On the other side of him, Charlie was in the middle of throwing herself at a guy nearly twice her age. Despite the buzzing in my brain from the alcohol, he looked vaguely familiar. I was fairly certain that he worked with her dad, which meant she was probably trying to charm her way into convincing him not to mention this whole thing to Uncle Al. It would work, of course. Charlie always got her way.

“Did you have fun?” Jackson asked when I didn’t respond to his first question.

“It was better than I thought,” I said, lifting myself up on the tips of my toes as I scanned the crowd for the waitress.

The top of her pink head was visible, and I raised myself up higher, hoping to get a better look. Like me she was short, making it hard to see anything she was doing. Then the crowd shifted, giving me a perfect view of the stack of credits in the waitress’s hand. Seeing all those tips cemented my decision. I needed to figure out how to get a job here. It was the only way.

“We can come more often, if you want.” Jackson grinned and nodded to the rope at my side. “VIP seats.”

“Yeah,” I said reluctantly. “Maybe.”

The last thing I wanted was for Jackson to come here more often, but I needed to be subtle about it. I couldn’t let him know what I was thinking or he’d do everything in his power to stop me.

I looked back to find the waitress grinning as she shoved her credits down her dress, somehow managing to find a place to hide them within the tiny strips of fabric.

I took one step toward the rope, ready to head over there, but stopped when Jackson got to his feet.

“Are you ready to go?” he asked.

“Not yet.” Since I didn’t want him coming with me, I waved for him to sit back down. “I need to use the bathroom.”

He frowned as his gaze moved across the room. “Here?”

He had a point. The place was squalid even by the entertainment district’s standards. Now that the crowd had thinned out some, I could see how much dirt and blood—both zombie and human—were caked on the floor. The few tables in the place were so wobbly I was surprised they were still upright, and the brown tint to the walls wasn’t paint. It was years and years of dirt and neglect.

“When you gotta go, you gotta go,” I said, trying to sound confident even though my stomach had turned inside out.

Jackson frowned, but didn’t argue when I ducked under the ropes and headed off. More importantly, though, he didn’t follow.

I passed the bar where the waitress was chatting with Donaghy, the newly crowned champion of Dragon’s fight club. At his side, holding a vial and syringe, stood a second waitress who had skin so wrinkled and tan she looked like she’d spent her life wandering the desert. The fighter was dotted with the black blood of his victims, but there wasn’t a single scratch on him as far as I could tell, and he didn’t even wince when the older waitress plunged the needle into his arm.

Hopefully, Donaghy decided to go clean up soon. When I came back out I wanted to be able to talk to the pink haired waitress privately.

The hallway I headed down was thick with darkness, but I was able to locate the bathroom by smell alone. There was only one, used for both men and women, but thankfully it was empty when I stepped inside. Four urinals lined one wall while five stalls stood against the other. Only one had a door on it, and even that was barely hanging on. The toilets were so dirty that I was pretty sure a person could catch the zombie virus just from sitting on them.

“Gross,” I muttered, staring at the nearly black toilet.