“… gotta tell…”
For the briefest instant, Lilly jerks at the sight of his fluttering eyes, revealing the bloodshot whites underneath. Has he turned? Her heart races. “Bob? It’s Lilly. You’re having a nightmare.”
Lilly swallows the fear, realizing that he’s still alive—if one could call this alive—and he’s simply writhing in a drunken fever dream, probably reliving the endless rerun of stumbling upon Megan Lafferty dangling at the end of a rope coiled off a broken-down apartment deck.
“Bob…?”
His eyes flutter open, just for an instant, unfocused but glazed with anguish and pain. “Gotta—tell her—what he said,” he wheezes.
“It’s Lilly, Bob,” she says, softly stroking his arm. “It’s okay. It’s me.”
Then the old medic meets her gaze, and he says something else in that halting mucous wheeze that makes Lilly’s spine go cold. She hears it clearly this time, and she realizes the “her” is not Megan.
The “her” is Lilly.
And the thing that Bob Stookey has to tell her will haunt Lilly for a lifetime.
TWO
That day, in the arena, Gabe delivers the final blow that ends the contest at just after three o’clock Eastern standard time, a full hour into the fight. The nail-studded head of the mace slams into Bruce’s ribs—his midsection protected with body armor concealed under his army fatigues—and Bruce goes down for the count. Exhausted from the rough-and-tumble charade, the black man stays down, veiled by a dust cloud, breathing hard into the dirt.
“WE GOT A WINNER!”
The amplified voice startles many in the stands, the crackling noise issuing forth from giant horns positioned around the arena, powered by generators rumbling underneath the grounds. Gabe does his strut, waving the mace in his best William Wallace impersonation. The jeers and applause mask the low communal growling of living dead chained to posts all around Gabe, many of them still reaching for a morsel of human flesh, their putrid mouths working and pulsing and drooling with robotic hunger.
“STICK AROUND, FOLKS, FOR AN AFTER-SHOW MESSAGE FROM THE GOVERNOR!!”
On cue the speakers crackle and thump with the downbeat of a heavy metal tune, a buzz-saw electric guitar filling the air, as a battalion of stagehands floods the infield. Most are young men in hoodies and leather jackets, carrying long iron pikes with hooked ends.
They circle around the walkers. Chains are detached, collars hooked, voices raised, orders given by foremen, and one by one—in a thunderhead of dust—the workers begin leading the monsters across the infield toward the closest portal. Some of the creatures bite at the air as they are ushered back down into the shadows beneath the arena, others snarling and flinging gouts of black drool like reluctant actors being dragged offstage.
Alice watches this from the stands with silent distaste. The other spectators are on their feet now, clapping along with the headbanger tune, hollering at the horde of undead being led away. Alice reaches down to the floor beneath her and finds her black medical bag under the bench. She grabs it, quickly struggles out of her section, and then hurries down the steps toward the infield.
By the time Alice makes it to track level, the two gladiators—Gabe and Bruce—are walking away, heading toward the south exit. She hurries after them. Out of the corner of her eye, she senses a ghostly figure emerging from the shadows of the north portal behind her, making a dramatic entrance that would rival King Lear treading the boards at Stratford-Upon-Avon.
He comes across the infield in his leathers and studs, his stovepipe boots raising dust, his long coat flapping in the breeze behind him. He looks like a grizzled bounty hunter from the nineteenth century, his pistol banging on his hip as he lopes along. The crowd surges with excitement as they see him, a wave of applause and cheers. One of the workmen, an older man in a Harley T-shirt and ZZ Top beard, scuttles toward him with a hard-wired microphone.
Alice turns and catches up with the two exhausted warriors. “Bruce, hold up!”
Walking with a pronounced limp, the big black man reaches the edge of the south archway, pauses, and turns. His left eye is completely swollen shut, his teeth stained in blood. “Whaddaya want?”
“Let me see that eye,” she says, coming up to him, kneeling down, and opening the medical bag.
“I’m fine.”
Gabe joins them with a smirk on his face. “What’s wrong, Brucie got a boo-boo?”
Alice takes a closer look, dabbing the bridge of his nose with gauze. “Jesus, Bruce … why don’t you let me take you down to see Dr. Stevens.”
“It’s just a busted nose,” Bruce says, pushing her away. “I said I’m fine!”
He kicks the medical bag over, the instruments and supplies spilling across the dirt. Alice lets out an exasperated groan and bends down to pick up the pieces, when the music cuts off and the sound of a low, velvety, amplified voice rings out over the winds and noise of the crowd.
“LADIES AND GENTLEMEN … FRIENDS AND FELLOW RESIDENTS OF WOODBURY … I WANT TO THANK ALL OF YOU FOR ATTENDING THE SHOW TODAY. IT WAS A BARN BURNER!”
Alice glances over her shoulder and sees the Governor standing center field.