The noise from the park swelled into a roar. I looked down the street in the direction Dax and I had ventured earlier in the day.
“Is the cheering bothering you that much?” Tony asked. “You want some sleeping pills? Come inside.”
I didn’t move. “I want to see what it is.”
“Why?”
“I asked Alyssa what happened there today,” I said. “She told me people do awful shit when they think God’s not watching.”
Tony stared at me, his dark gaze shifting from anger to what looked like resignation. “Goddammit,” he muttered.
He closed the distance between us, hand outstretched. I reluctantly pressed the leash into it. He took the dog back inside and I heard him exchange a few words with Dax. The latter followed him out, almost swimming in a gigantic Hastings Monarchs sweatshirt obviously designed for someone much wider. “This isn’t a good idea,” Tony said. “Nothing good for you to see there.”
No way, man. A prophecy like Alyssa’s needed to be seen to be believed.
The field was only four blocks away from our house—no wonder we could hear it so well. It had been a good distance away from the medical facility, that was for sure. I tried to take in some landmarks, but everything looked different in the darkness.
“Do me a favor and don’t wander around at night on your own,” Tony said. “They don’t patrol parts of the fenceline all that well. Things can sneak through.”
The crowd sent up another cheer, accompanied by a thrum that I realized must have been hundreds of feet stomping on the bleachers.
Once we reached the Norwall Park, Tony stopped us beneath the rearmost row of the bleachers, which were not entirely filled. “Stay back here,” he said, indicating that we should watch through the spaces between the benches and the foot rests. “They don’t feel like being judged, and you two tend to get all horrified when you see things you don’t like.”
“What are they doing that’s so horrible?” I asked. “Fighting zombies?”
Right on cue, two men carrying swords trotted out onto the field.
Tony turned and looked at me, eyebrows lifted.
“Really?” I mumbled.
“Those are just guys,” Dax said. “Not revenants.”
I was glad to be at least partially wrong.
Whoever had outfitted them had given them swords and shields. Total gladiators—aside from their all-too-normal jeans, Tshirts, and sneakers. They circled each other, and the crowd’s voice went up to a solid, steady roar.
At least they didn’t have an announcer. That would just be too tacky.
The men circled each other, taking hesitant jabs with their swords. One of them finally took a proper swat at the other, and the second man stumbled, his hand going up to cover the wound on his arm. The people in the bleachers above us stomped their feet and cheered.
“Well, this is all oddly disturbing,” I said, “but I think it’s okay. They can have their fighting games if they want.”
“I don’t like it,” Dax said.
“You don’t like anything.”
“You just wait.” Tony pointed past the men, at what I guessed was the home team dugout. Most of the dugout itself had been cordoned off, leaving only a doorway to a dark tunnel that probably led to the locker room.
Tony went on: “First blood is up, which means the party is just starting.”
The door in the dugout opened, and a figure lumbered out. It wore a plaid shirt and sweatpants, and even from here we could tell that most of its face had fallen off in some unfortunate incident.
Oh shit. Oh shit.
Dax looked at me accusingly. “How did you know?”
Oh shit oh shit oh shit! “I didn’t!”
The revenant spilled out on to the field and looked around, seemingly distracted by the roar in the bleachers. It jerked to the side, looked between the two combatants, and went after the bleeding man.
Dammit, I hate being right.
The bleeding man lifted his sword and cut awkwardly at the revenant. It batted the blade aside and lunged at him, and he went down in a series of screams, gurgles swiftly cut short by the snap of powerful jaws around his neck. Then came the fountain of blood, visible even from our spot under the bleachers.
The crowd screamed in what sounded very much like approval.
The other man lifted his sword up and brought it down on the back of the zombie’s neck. I’m fairly certain he intended to behead the dead guy, but he either didn’t hit in the right place or the sword was too dull, and he only sent the zombie sprawling forward. He dragged the blade upward for another strike. The ghoul stretched for him.
The bleachers shook as the crowd stomped their feet, whipped into bloodlust.
Dax covered his ears. Tony just stood there.
“Do they just keep a closet of revenants for this?” I asked. “Where are they getting them?”
Neither man answered me.
The second man stabbed the revenant through the midsection. Easy mistake; when they come at you like a living person, you react like a living person. The dead man kept walking toward him, not really caring that each step just wedged the blade deeper into its guts.