Page 19 of Once Upon an Apocalypse

I’ve also learned a lot about zombies. How they move. How they kill. How they die. The fast ones—freshies—are newly turned zombies. They are quick, strong, and hard to outrun. When I look back at how Jonah and I survived prom night, I can’t help but think how lucky we were to have escaped without even a scratch.

Then, there are grabbers. These guys are slow, but if you are not careful, they’ll grab you. Some of them can run too, so it’s always best to stay alert. Deadies are old, withered zombies that move incredibly slow. It is easy to walk away from them unscathed.

The easiest way to tell a deadie from a grabber is by how much skin they have left. These things have been dead for at least a year. Their skin is in the advanced stage of decay, making them mostly bone. I don’t understand how these monsters can still move by how much muscle and skin have decayed. I guess it’s why they walk so slow. Grabbers still have plenty of freshly dead muscle. Their skin has a grayish tint and their eyes are a foggy red color.

As I walk the hallways of the bunker on my own, I wonder when my next fight will be. Not that I’m eager to fight. I’m anxious not knowing when it will be. I don’t want to do this anymore. I don’t want to fight. I don’t want to kill. I can feel defeat deep in my bones. Doctore has taken so much from me. Denied me a life. A life I know I can no longer have. So why fight for it?

I know now that there is no other future for me. This is it. A dank bunker and a bloody arena pit. That is all I know now. And yes, every so often I get a reprieve from the horrors of this life when Doctore allows me a night with Jonah. But I no longer cherish those moments. I don’t love Jonah anymore. The thought should hurt. I’m numb to it. After years of torture. Of fighting. I’ve accepted defeat.

My only regret is that I will die before killing you, I think to myself as I look into Doctore’s soulless eyes. No. I cannot die. I cannot let him win. As much as I want to throw myself at the horde of zombies I know are waiting for me, let them devour every morsel of my flesh, leaving nothing to heal, I can’t. Even if my mind and heart are ready to die, I don’t think my body will let me.

When I turn toward the groans and shuffling I know to be the sound of deadies, five zombies are waiting for me. I look up at Doctore again, trying to read his thoughts. I can put down five deadies effortlessly. Though I know the crowd in the stands are cheering to be entertained, I don’t take my time with these deadies.

After putting them down quickly, a door at the far end of the arena opens. Five more zombies come pouring onto the sandy floor. Two of them are grabbers. Another glance at Doctore tells me all I need to know. Another challenge. He will not go easy on me. Though I know I can take these five just as easily, this wave isn’t the last awaiting me.

I put all five down without a scratch using my trusty mace. But I’m losing my stamina. When I turn to look at Doctore, who loves to watch from his VIP box, perched like the emperors of his beloved Roman Empire, I want nothing more than to kill him. I want to rip that fucking smile right off his face.

Three doors open, each one with three freshies sprinting out into the pit. I know they can’t see me, that the sound of the crowd impairs their hearing, but my breathing is so loud from fighting ten zombies already. They might not know exactly where I am, but there’s nowhere for me to go.

I could maybe take on two or three freshies at once, but nine? I swallow hard, pushing the fear down as deep as it allows me. Trying to calm my breaths, I ready myself for battle, still unwilling to give up even though I was ready to die a real death just a few moments ago. I twist my fingers tighter around my mace and charge.

The first two freshies go down with three swings of my mace. As I double tap the second one, another freshie tackles me from behind, sinking its rancid teeth into my neck. I kick it off me, roll onto my stomach, and push myself up. Then I sprint, giving me some distance from the horde of freshies, but two of them hear my movement and barrel toward me on wobbly legs.

They look like a pair of drunk teens. Where did Doctore get all these newly turned zombies? It looks like they had been alive only a few hours ago. But I can’t let that thought stop me from putting them down. They aren’t alive. They aren’t human. They are monsters.

I ground myself, digging my toes into the sandy ground and swing when the first one is in reach. If its head wasn’t firmly attached to its body, I would have scored a home run. No time for jokes. I spin around, narrowly missing the second one, and jab up, smashing the back of its head with my mace. When the freshie drops to the ground, I land another blow to its skull.

Three more freshies are so close my shadow tries to tear itself away from me. I’m running out of steam, but I keep pushing myself. I look behind me for a second to see how close they are when another one comes at me from the side. I dive to the ground, rolling sideways to avoid being trampled by four zombies.

One of them grabs my foot. My bare foot. I hold in a scream when I feel teeth gnaw on the sensitive tendons. Using what energy I have left, I raise my mace and bring it down with a force that shatters the zombie’s face. Another freshie grabs my shoulder, anchoring its teeth to the bone as another reaches for my abdomen. I swing my mace in every direction, attempting to knock the zombies far enough away so that I can get out from under them. But one of the freshies knocks the mace out of my hand.

I’m unarmed. Defenseless. Lying in a death pit. There is no way out. A scream ruptures the air around me as my entrails are pulled from my stomach and my arm is ripped out of its socket simultaneously. Thankfully, the pain knocks me out, saving me from witnessing the rest of my body being ripped to pieces.

Chapter 14

Fight.Survive.Live.Isurvived. I am alive. Most of my physical wounds have disappeared after months of healing. Like it never happened. But it did. The memory of it will never leave me. The tearing of my flesh echoes in my ears at night as I try to sleep. The groaning of a freshie hot on my tail haunts me every time I close my eyes. Every time I open them too.

And Jonah has no idea. Or maybe he does, but he’s choosing ignorance. I was in the lab for months. Months. When Doctore had my arm sawed off, that healed within a day. But that was a clean incision. Easy fix. This time, my body was shattered. Tendons, ligaments, bones, organs, and muscles all needed to weave themselves back together.

It took a full staff of scientists, nurses, and doctors to put all the pieces of me back together like a puzzle, to hold me in place long enough for my body to heal and regrow was eaten. Months.

And Jonah didn’t show up for a single moment of it.

I’m furious with him. Furious that he’s chosen this place over me. Chosen this place over his own humanity. I’m furious that he tells me he loves me one moment and looks away the next as Doctore throws nine freshies in my direction. I hate him. Not just Doctore. I hate Jonah.

“I’ve been told the last of your scars have fully healed,” Doctore says in that deep voice that does an almost perfect job of mimicking calm. I hate it. I hate that he has the power to make me feel safe when the pit of my soul is screaming to run. “The crowds at the Colosseum have missed you.”

Is he serious?I hold back the massive eye roll as I turn toward his frame, casually leaning against the wall of the room I had spent most of the last few months in. He is serious. What does he expect me to say to him?

The willpower I once had has dwindled over the years I’ve been held captive here, forced to fight, forced to endure pain and torture. I have nothing left to hide behind and zero fucks to give. I show Doctore my real face. The face that shows him my unfiltered rage and hate. A vision of my hands around his neck invades my mind, and it is all I can think of. Anyone else should be afraid of the look I give him. Doctore simply smiles at me.

“There she is, the monster of my creation. My gladiator.”

His words make my face fall. “My creation,” he said. And he’s right. The person I am today, this person filled with so much hate and fury, this is his creation. I never thought I could kill a person. Yet, here in this hell called Novus Seclorum, I have killed. Not just zombies, but living human beings. I killed because I wasn’t given a choice. But the truth is, I was given a choice.

I can’t die. That much is evident from my last appearance in the Colosseum. Though I might not have known it at the time, I wasn’t willing to chance death. So I killed anyone Doctore threw at me. Everyone except Jonah. As much as I hate him, I don’t want to kill him. I don’t want him to die. Somewhere inside, my Jonah still exists.

Jonah, all the Praetorian Guards, me…we are all Doctore’s creations. He is more than the gladiator trainers of Ancient Rome. He is the creator of monsters. Mindless monsters with nothing better to do than kill. Our humanity has been taken from us.

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