“Where the fuck are we and shit?” says the yellow mohawk punk, as Charlie passes him to go to the window. The punk follows him.
Standing over the Asian woman’s shoulder, Charlie peers out of the window. Outside is a vast city of collapsing vine-ridden skyscrapers and rubble. A wasteland. The building they are in is an old hotel, with a security wall around the perimeter.
The punk’s jaw drops when he sees the city. It is one of the ancient ones, the kind of city that they have only seen in old pictures and books.
“We’re on the mainland,” says the punk, “in the middle of the damned Red Zone!”
“Impossible,” Charlie says. “How did we get all the way out here?”
The punk’s mohawk quivers. “Look around and shit! We’re not on the island anymore. It’s obviously the damned Red Zone!”
The Asian woman glares up at the punk. The look in her cold dark eyes is enough to shut him up. She peers at Charlie and puts her long black-painted fingernail to her lips, then points to a figure on the other side of the yard.
When Charlie looks, he sees a naked man staggering through the weed-coated parking lot. His skin has melted off of his body, his face nothing but a skull buried in fluffy pink meat, his intestines wrapped around his neck like a scarf. He’s a walking corpse, moaning with every step he takes.
“We
The Asian woman nods. “Right in the middle.”
“How is that even possible?” Charlie asks. “That’s hundreds of miles away from the island. How could we have possibly gotten here?”
“We were put here,” she says.
“For what reason?” he asks. “To play some kind of joke on us?”
“Something like that,” she says.
When the young prostitute with the dark red hair looks out of the window and sees the zombie, she screams.
“What the fuck is that!” she cries. “What is it doing here!”
The zombie hears the prostitute and looks over at her. Sunflowers are growing out of its hollow skull like weeds. A tongue coils out of its black teeth.
“Brains…” it says, then approaches the building.
When the prostitute’s eyes meet with the zombie’s, she covers her mouth and backs away. The zombie shuffles forward like bags of garbage spilling from a dump truck.
“It’s a fucking zombie!” says the yellow mohawk punk, almost excitedly.
Everyone runs to the window to see it for themselves, but once they get a glimpse of it they all back off.
Charlie looks back at his wife, sitting on the floor, curled around
her knees, shaking her head. He goes to her. “Do you know what’s going on?” he asks.
She looks up at him with tears in her eyes.
“I’m so sorry…” she says.
He holds her close to him, her tears tickling his cheeks.
A voice comes over the intercom system. The building has long been without electricity, so Charlie is confused by how it is functional.
The voice says: “Welcome, contestants!” It’s the voice of an overly excited young woman with a Japanese accent. “I hope you slept well! I’m sure you’re all wondering what has happened to you and why you have come to be in the middle of the Red Zone. But, for you, I have super great news! All twenty of you have been randomly selected to participate in the hit television series,
“I knew it,” says the Asian woman.
The voice continues: “Most of you are probably unaware of this show, because citizens of the Copper Quadrant such as yourselves do not have the luxury of television. But it is the most electrifying entertainment on TV, guaranteed! If you do a good job and win the game, first prize will be citizenship in the Silver Quadrant, with certified passports to the Gold and Platinum Quadrants. However, there can be only one winner. Losers will be left for dead in the Red Zone.”
“This can’t be,” says an obese man of Italian descent. “I’m not a citizen of the goddamned Copper Quadrant. I’m from Silver. I was just visiting my dumbshit nephew!”
The Asian woman hushes him.
The voice continues: “If you will all make your way up to Room 222, you will find your supplies. Each of you have been left a backpack including survival gear and a unique weapon personalized to your estimated fighting capabilities! The backpacks are electronically locked and will not unlock until you have left the safety of the barricaded hotel. I recommend you go upstairs and claim your pack immediately. If you stay in the lobby for too long you are likely to gain some unwanted attention.”
The punks rush up the stairs and go for room 222. Everyone follows. Charlie is the last one upstairs, waiting for Rainbow to stop crying and get to her feet.
“Braaains!” the zombie yells through the glass.
Looking behind him on the way up the stairs, Charlie examines the zombie banging on the boarded window trying to get in. It rips at the boards with its claws, a cracking sound splits through the wood but the plank remains in its place… for now. Charlie gets a good look at the sunflowers growing out of its empty eye socket and out the top of its hollow skull. Its mulched brain must have acted like fertilizer for the flowers, its head like a pot. He wonders how the thing can think without a mind in its head.
It’s been seventeen years since Charlie has seen a zombie. Back when he was a kid, he lived in one of the many fortified cities along the coasts of the mainland. Back then, he saw zombies every day, through the barrier, in the wasteland. The dead were constantly trying to get into the city and the living were always reinforcing their perimeters to keep them out. Every capable human was responsible for guarding the perimeter. Charlie’s father was no exception.
“There are so many of them out there, like an ocean,” his father used to say when they would stare at the zombie wasteland from the top of the guard tower.
His father was fascinated with the walking dead. He thought of them as almost beautiful, like works of art.
He handed Charlie his machine gun and had him look through the scope. While zooming in, Charlie saw a black sludge-covered skeleton creeping down a street. Its eyes bulged out of the sockets, its skeletal teeth in a wide smile. Its black flesh melted from its body. The thing looked comical in its bumbling state. It made Charlie laugh.
“What is it?” his father asked.
“It’s funny,” young Charlie said. “The zombie looks funny.”
Then he looked again at its bulging googly eyes and laughed harder.
His father patted him on the back. “Yeah, perhaps they are a bit funny. From a distance.”
Eventually, civilization moved off of the mainland completely. They built protected cities on islands, on oil rigs, on aircraft carriers. Most of Charlie’s generation have it pretty good compared to those who had to survive the zombie apocalypse that began over fifty years ago. Very few people have to fight for their lives on a day to day basis anymore, especially those in the upper-class Platinum Quadrant of Neo New York.
The twenty contestants squeezed into the small hotel room on the second floor. Lying along the wall were twenty bags. They weren’t all backpacks. Some were duffel bags, some were purse-sized packs, some were large mountaineer packs. Charlie guessed the size had something to do with the weapon included within. A good weapon would be a huge advantage, but lugging around a large pack would not.
The voice came over the intercom: “Your packs will also include a map of the area with the pickup point marked by an X. You have three days to arrive at the designated pickup zone, but remember brave contestants: the remote control helicopter only has room for one passenger. If more than one person tries to board the craft, it will
