Dead Retribution

Flight or Fight!

No one knew where the pandemic started but when it was over almost six billion people died on the planet......and then came back!

It had been three years since the outbreak and the time since then was hard on any of the survivors. As their numbers dwindled, the last bastions of safety attracting the dead and eventually were overrun. Most survivors avoided each other for what the weak had, the strong would take.

Simon Leigh sat on the grass growing thick and lush around him, he was surrounded by almost one hundred and fifty thousand dead people, mangled and mutilated in every conceivable way. Limbs were missing and rotting entrails dangled from shattered torsos. The smell of corruption was ripe in the enclosed arena in the centre of a now empty city. The barriers that had once held crowds back separated him from the walking corpses who buffeted against the wire fences.

He dusted his hands and stood, throwing the empty can of beans into the dead crowd before walking to the fence and calling out. As his voice rose in the near silence, it was answered by the low-pitched moan that was all that the dead could mutter. The nearest creature turned to him and as always a ripple of horror ran through him.

'You know, you look like my Uncle Jack.' A figure dressed in a smart suit with gaping wound in his throat reached out. Simon leaned closer to the man and sniffed. The putrefaction that had once repulsed, now intrigued him. 'I never did like Uncle Jack.'

He reached down, took up a heavy steel bar and rested it on the wire. 'Come here.'

As the dead man leaned forward Simon drove the bar forward with all the strength he could muster. The bar speared the dead man through the face, driving into his skull and he fell to the floor without a sound.

'Time to go back to work.' He lifted the fence and started to walk back through the throng. The dead ignored him and once or twice he had to push through the jammed bodies, emerging the other side smeared with rotting gore. As he walked to the edge of the field and the great metal 'H' of the posts loomed above him.

With a sigh, Simon walked to the edge of the arena and climbed the steps to the side of the player's entrance and grabbed hold of a chain that ran down the wall.

It had taken him three weeks of scouting through the stadium to learn all of the paths and corridors. From then it had taken a further two months to prepare the building for its final purpose.

Simon grasped the chain and raised the metal gate in the runners that he had carefully constructed; the zombies in the tunnel pushed forward and joined the thousands already in the huge area. Outside the arena countless more were waiting, swaying like trees in a gentle breeze. He chuckled to himself, 'Just like international day.'

Satisfied with the flow of the dead, he made his way through the corridors until he came to a small room full of electrical equipment. Flicking a switch, a huge generator outside the stadium kicked into life, roaring and spitting fumes in the quiet evening air. As the sun went down he hit another switch and the huge spot lights flashed into life, lighting up the area.

Simon left his control room and walked to the north side of the stadium and stood at the top of the steps. He took up speaker and shouted down to the crowd. 'Come on then you bunch of dead bastards up here come and get me. Fresh food, come on. Here I am!'

As one the crowd turned and moved inexorably forward, they stumbled up the steps and fell over the seats in an effort to get him. He started singing and dancing from section to section and as each area filled he moved to another until the whole stand was filled with the undead. At the very top, the first one reached him and stopped.

He quietly crept back down to ground level and as he surveyed the area he thought to himself. 'Not long now.' The pitch was less crowded than it had been and here and there gaps stood in the walking dead.