Tracey Ward - Backs Against the Wall

The crowd loses its mind again. The noise is deafening and I wonder how I’ve never heard it before, even all the way across town in my loft. They quiet down instantly as the announcer raises his hand, calling for order.

“You’ve placed your bets. You’ve weighed the odds. You’ve seen the Risen that will fight tonight. But you don’t know who your champion will be. Are you excited to find out?”

“Yes!!!” the crowd cries in unison.

“Did you vote for them to live?”

“Booo!!!” is the nearly unanimous reply.

The announcer grins maliciously. “Some of you are going to go home angry tonight. I give you your champion in the Blind…. Ryan Hyperion!!!”

There are moans, more boos, curses and exclamations of outrage. Ryan steps out into the middle of the ring wearing nothing but a pair of ratty cut off shorts. His skin is everywhere, open to the air, to our eyes. To their hands. To their mouths. It makes me feel dizzy with how wrong it is. How dangerous. But the crowd is still hissing at him, some people throwing things inside the Arena in their rage. The crowd, in a word, is angry.

“What’s happening? Do they hate him?”

“No,” Trent says with a smug smile. “They usually love him. But they all bet against him not knowing who it was. They’re mad because they know he can win.”

“And they’ll all lose.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you think he can win?”

“If you don’t screw it up, yeah.”

I scowl at him. “How would I screw it up?”

He turns to me with serious eyes. “Keep silent. Don’t distract him. He knows you’re out here watching and that’s pressure enough. If he thinks you’re in trouble or upset, he’ll make a mistake. Let him keep his head in the game. Whatever you see, whatever you hear, keep silent. Don’t you dare call out or scream.”

“I never scream,” I tell him hotly, feeling insulted.

“Well, don’t start now. It’s about to get ugly.”

He’s not joking.

The low lights are dimmed further as Ryan is blindfolded with a thick, black cloth. Then a black bag is draped over his head and tied off at the neck. There’s no way he can see anything in that cage ringed with Risen. It is the dumbest thing I have ever seen anyone do in my life.

The announcer backs away. The crowd begins to chant.

“Five!”

Men rush in, grab hold of the shackles holding the Risen in place.

“Four!”

The Risen snap at the men, eager for fresh meat.

“Three!”

A Risen stumbles toward Ryan, reaching for him where he stands in the center of the ring.

“Two!”

He’s blind. Defenseless. Surrounded by death and danger.

“One!”

The shackles are released.

The crowd goes insane. They’re screaming at the tops of their lungs, banging on the boards beneath us, shaking the ground. I’m terrified by it, but not because I think we’ll fall. Not anymore. I’m scared because Ryan is not only blind, he’s deaf. No way he can hear the Risen over this chaos echoing throughout the room.

He’s going to die. And I’m going to watch.

When the countdown ends, Ryan drops to the ground. He rolls forward across the ground, past the Risen on his right and comes to a stop just shy of the edge of the Arena. People reach in, arms trying to grab him. Probably trying to hold him in place so the Risen can get to him and they can get their drugs, whores, favors or whatever it is they’ve gambled to gain. Trent says they love him but they’d rather watch him die than lose this game. Even after all these years, with every part of me I’ve shut down and everything I’ve lost, I still know what love this. And this isn’t it.

“He knows the barriers by heart,” Trent leans down to tell me.

He stands so tall above me, I’m sure he has no trouble seeing inside the Arena. There are areas I can’t see that are blocked by people’s heads. By the shifting, writhing mass around me. I can see two of the three Risen and that third one being a mystery makes me anxious. I can’t imagine how Ryan feels not seeing any of them but knowing they’re there.

“He knows to stay away from the edges. He’s paced that Arena so many times that he has it mapped in his head. He’ll never let the living touch him.”

“It’s the non-living I’m worried about,” I grumble.

“It shouldn’t be.”

Two of the Risen descend on Ryan where he sits crouched, waiting. He must sense them or smell them because he reacts immediately. He lashes out to the right, deftly grabbing a Risen by the ankle and yanking its leg out from under it. It topples onto its back, cracking it’s head on the floor. But it doesn’t stop moving. Ryan stands quickly, still holding the ankle. He pushes his foot into the Risen’s groin, makes a sharp twisting motion and yanks up. The Risen’s leg snaps free at the kneecap.

“And he just got himself a weapon,” Trent muses proudly.

I don’t dare look at him because I’m pretty sure from his tone that he’s smiling and no part of me can handle that right now.

The second Risen is creeping up on Ryan’s back. I can see the third as well, coming around the far side of the Arena. It’s distracted by the people around the edges. It keeps grabbing at them, lunging to get through the barrier but the people are too quick for it.

Ryan takes firm hold of the ankle on the lower leg he’s holding, spins around and smacks the Risen behind him in the face. It stumbles but doesn’t go down. Reaching out with its gray hands, it grabs for Ryan. He feels its touch, jumps back a step, crouching low again. I watch in horror as he puts the leg on the ground beside him and waits, defenseless again.

The Risen comes at him, lumbering toward him with surprising speed. Ryan immediately tackles it at the knees, standing up and bringing it into the air. Then he spins, bringing the Risen back down to the ground. Hard. Its head bounces off the cement floor, then smacks down again. Ryan lands on top of it, quickly groping for the arms, then pinning them down with his knees. He’s straddling the chest as the Risen snaps at him, its arms flailing uselessly to get ahold of him. Ryan moves his hand to the top of the head, carefully feels down the sides until he has hold of the ears, then he jerks the head forward and slams it into the cement again. He rears back, bringing the head with him, then throws all of the weight of his upper body into the movement of smashing the Risen’s skull down again. He does it three more times, quick as anything I’ve ever seen, and the Risen goes slack. Motionless. Completely dead.

One down.

Or actually, two down but one is coming toward him, dragging itself over the ground. A Crawler. I hate Crawlers. Ryan ignores it or doesn’t remember it’s there, something I don’t believe possible after what I’ve seen so far. Instead of attacking it, he feels around the ground until he finds the leg he dropped. He removes the shoe from the foot and slips it on his own.

I cringe thinking of what the inside of that thing feels or smells like.

With the new, disgusting shoe on his foot, Ryan feels for the Crawler on the ground. His hand gets dangerously close to its mouth, making me gasp.

Trent shoots me a warning look. I glare back.

“Sorry, cyborg. I’m a little worried, it slipped out.”

He puts his finger to his lips, silently signaling for me to be quiet.

“Like he could hear me,” I say defensively, looking away.

Ryan is now dragging the Crawler to a bench, moving with sure feet as though he can see where he’s going. He has the thing by the head and wastes no time putting its face on the edge of the bench. Then he rears back.

“Oh no,” I mutter.

“Shhh,”

Ryan stomps on the back of the Risen’s head. There’s a crack that can’t be heard but it’s definitely seen. The Risen goes down, lifeless.