Zombie Fight Night: Battles of the Dead (18 page)

Mick put the Controller back, folded his hands and waited.

Not long after, the lights went out.

Being one with the dark wasn’t anything new for Kanaye. If anything, the past fifteen years were nothing but living in the dark, half the time physically, the other half mentally.

No one knew he was a ninja, not even his family. Though ninja’s weren’t heroes, he took up the mantle of one during the Zombie War, sticking to the shadows, tracking his mother’s and sister’s movements each day for ten long years as they moved from place to place, trying to stay alive and ward off the undead. There was a price, though. His mother and sister thought he was dead. Before the war, when he first donned his black
shinobi shōzoku
and covered his face with a
tenugui
, he never told them. Even before then he never told them about the long hours after school and university studying ninjutsu, mastering the art. Even the school he studied at was a secret. It didn’t even have a name, but instead was led in an old abandoned warehouse on a Tokyo pier by Master Xu—a seventh generation ninja—four nights a week.

He knew his mother would never understand fighting nor would his sister. Both were conservative women and despite their strong sense of tradition, they abhorred violence for it was brutality that took Kanaye’s father away from them when Kanaye was just eight years old. His father had been the target of a ninja assassin. The murderer was never found, but the theory was his father bore a remarkable resemblance to a criminal leader at the time and was mistakenly killed as a result.

Kanaye took up ninjutsu as a means of vengeance, unaware in those early days there was more than one ninja clan in Japan. He thought that by joining he’d work his way up the ranks and discover who his father’s killer had been. It never came to pass.

The darkness. It was where he kept himself in daylight hours, the real Kanaye secluded deep within his mind, the ninja inside clinging to the shadows of his heart while on the outside emitting the façade of a student fascinated with computer science.

He wasn’t home when the Zombie War began and his mother and sister had escaped the house while he was at school. That same night he was to go on a field exercise for Master Xu, but instead of doing so he donned his
shinobi shōzoku
and set out to find his family.

He rescued them as a pack of zombies tried to corner them near
Satō
Noodles.

After the war, he didn’t know if he could face his family and tell them he was still alive. They already grieved for him and appeared to be moving on. Besides, he still hadn’t found his father’s killer. When Zombie Fight Night started, he thought maybe there his father’s assassin would surface if the fiend was still alive, so he made his way into the fighting circuit, hoping that eventually he and the assassin would cross paths.

Now, the darkness surrounding Kanaye was like a warm blanket, a sense of comfort. He dreaded the moment when the lights would burst on, not for their brightness but for what they represented: life away from the shadows. He had been secreting himself in the night for so long that living in the light like most others . . . . He didn’t know if he could do it or even remember how.

The buzzer sounded and the arena lit up.

Kanaye let his eyes adjust as the iron ring across from him filled with blue light.

It slid to the side and the dead began to rise.

The zombie came to the surface, filthy baggy clothes and all. The tarnished shackles around its wrists matched the leathery blotches marking its gray skin. Its facial hair was patchy and wiry. It wore a bandana, one that was red and ripped on the left side, a puff of crusty and dry black hair poking out. The sash around the creature’s waist was especially interesting and bore a gold embroidered flower against a satiny-smooth brown that was clean and out of place against the filthy ghoul. The stench of rot and years of decay caused Kanaye’s stomach to twitch despite his years of training to withstand unpleasant smells and bad foods.

Pirates,
Kanaye thought. The one before him must have come from another time because he hadn’t heard of the pirates of today still wearing their clothes of old, yet he also didn’t discount the possibility. The oceans and seas were vast and there were still many islands and secret inlets yet to be discovered. Some crews could have held up in those covert places for generations enjoying their previous spoils.

The buzzer sounded again and the pirate’s shackles clanged to the floor.

The man shuffled toward Kanaye, arms outstretched. This was going to be easy. Analyzing his opponent was ingrained within him and each of the zombie’s movements—obvious or subtle—registered inside a couple of seconds. Slow shuffle of feet. Hands shaky thanks to the rotting arms with barely the strength to hold themselves up. Mouth open, ready to bite down hard. One eye gouged to pieces; the other missing an eyelid. Options to counter: plenty.

Unlike the other fighters Kanaye knew of, he wasn’t obligated to give the audience a show. If anything, the only preference Tony Sterpanko gave him was to “do that spinning stuff you guys do and jump around a lot,” and even then, those items weren’t mandatory.

Kanaye let the zombie get close and just when the dead pirate moved to grab him, Kanaye ducked and slid to the left, executing a sharp side kick into the zombie’s ribs. The pirate folded to the right, his body now nearly in half. He stumbled a few steps away. If Kanaye hadn’t withheld his strength, he could have easily sent his foot through the zombie’s flesh.

The dead man growled. Kanaye covered ground quickly, crossing one foot in front of the other. He jumped in the air, spun and snapped his foot out, the side of his foot spiking the zombie in the nose. The creature’s head jerked back from the impact.

The crowd cheered.

Kanaye stepped in, not allowing the zombie to recover, and delivered two swift punches to the creature’s chest, a fast right hook to its face, then a spinning back hand hard against its jaw. The ghoul teetered to the side, confusion written on its face.

Practice dummy,
Kanaye thought. Upon studying these creatures, they didn’t seem to feel pain but instead only impacts and jolts, anything that upset their stride.

Kanaye decided to pour on the assault, but not before drawing some blood. He viewed this particular fight as training. The pirate moved in. Kanaye let it grab his arm. He then took its wrist in one hand and slammed the palm of the other against the creature’s elbow, popping the bone through the flesh. Creamy black blood splashed out. With a swift heel, he stomped on the zombie’s knee, his foot cleaving the knee cap off. Blood stained the creature’s pants. He kicked the same spot again, folding the knee against the joint. The dead man’s leg went inward then snapped off completely. Kanaye avoided a quick nip to his hand and socked the creature in the face, derailing its searching mouth for a moment, then grabbed the thing by the collar, dragged it around and punched it straight in the chest. The zombie’s severed leg fell out of its pants as the creature flew back against the cage.

A look of almost disbelief and anger flashed across its face, as if saying all it wanted was a meal and Kanaye denied him that.

You better believe I did,
Kanaye thought.

The dead man pushed off from the cage, teetered on the one leg, then began falling forward.

Kanaye darted in, brought his lead foot around in a sharp crescent kick from inside right to outside left and snapped his heel across the zombie’s head so fast that, combined with the dead man falling face first, he swiftly guided the creature to the ground, his foot still against its head.

Sticking his fingers out and hardening his hand like a board, Kanaye shoved his wooden-like fingertips into the back of the zombie’s neck, breaking it. Another hit and he punctured the flesh. A quick jerk upward with his other hand holding the zombie’s tuft of hair through the bandana and the head was removed from the body. Blood leaked out from the neck.

Kanaye stood, dropped the head, then waited for the lights to go out so he could vanish once more.

I won!
Mick thought.
I won! Man, three hundred bucks just like that. In the old days that took me two days to earn, a whole sixteen hours. Three hundred beans. Clams. Moola.

Anna was going to be thrilled, he knew, and, boy, did they need the cash. Now they could get a fresh batch of groceries, get some much-needed clothing and not feel the pinch for once.

“She’s gonna love me for this,” he said softly.

He leaned forward and picked up the Controller and scrolled to the next fight. He liked what he saw.

Okay, quick debate: I could go and give Anna the money. She’ll kiss me and we might even make love tonight. It’s been a long time since we did that, her mood kind of deterring things in that arena. Anna. Her perfect—okay, focus. Go, or stay here and see what happens. Maybe just a small bet, like, ten bucks? I could double that. Three-twenty. ’Kay, fifty bucks. If I win, I’m up to four hundred. Oh man. Yeah. Four hundred.
His heart rate picked up at the thought.
Three hundred. Wow, but double or nothing could mean six hundred beans before the night’s out. That’s groceries, clothes, maybe a new front door ’cause the one we have now has a huge crack in it.
And doors weren’t cheap.
Six hundred. Six hundred. Six hundred . . .

He let out a slow exhale through pursed lips. Quietly to himself: “Six hundred, if I win.” He squeezed the Controller tight. “Just do it.” His fingers wouldn’t move.
I should go.
But his legs wouldn’t budge either.
Six hundred, maybe more if I put a guess on someone just obliterating the other guy.
“Six hundred.” He exhaled slowly again. “Okay, just get it out. Just do it.” He worked his fingers quickly, laying it all down on the line.

Man, I’m stupid. Dumb move.
He checked the screen to see if there was an option to cancel his bet. There wasn’t.
No turning back now. Anna’s gonna kill me if I blow it. But I also don’t have to tell her. Just say I lost the fifty bucks I started with and it’s all good. She can live with that. I hope.

He put the Controller back and tried to ignore the sweat forming all over his body.

Thee hundred bucks on the line.

Double or nothing.

What could go wrong?

About the Author

A.P. Fuchs
is the author of many novels and short stories, most of which have been published. He is also known for his superhero series,
The Axiom-man Saga
, and is the author of
Blood of the Dead
, the first novel in the shoot ’em up zombie trilogy,
Undead World
. He also edited the zombie anthologies
Dead Science
and
Vicious Verses and Reanimated Rhymes: Zany Zombie Poetry for the Undead Head
.

Fuchs lives and writes in Winnipeg, Manitoba, with his wife, Roxanne, and two sons, Gabriel and Lewis.

Visit his corner of the Web at

www.canisterx.com

Check out the
Undead World Trilogy
at
www.undeadworldtrilogy.com