Dave Walsh's Blog, page 4

What’s the deal with AI audiobooks?

If you’ve been following me now for a bit, you’ll probably notice I started dabbling in uploading AI generated audiobooks. For most folks, the natural reaction to this will be “ew, what?”

When I bring them up, the usual reaction I get is “oh, I/my friend/someone I know has tried that and it sounds like a robot.” If you mean using a device’s natural read aloud, then yeah, I agree. Having Siri read a file to you on your iPhone or iPad isn’t great, just like having Microsoft Word read a book aloud is a terrible experience.

That’s… not what this is. This is an evolution away from text-to-speech.

Google created an AI-driven system that learns as it goes, trying to pick up on tone, inflection and pacing while sounding almost real. Almost. Yes, there’s some uncanny valley at play here and it will lack the performance aspects that a human-record and produced audiobook will have. Of course I’d prefer to work with narrators or record my own.

Here’s the truth, though. I’ve got a family and as important as my book business is to me, producing audiobooks is a labor intensive process. We’re talking dozens of hours for me to produce my own, at least. I started a number of times, but then something as simple as one of my kids brings home crud from school and then I sound nasally and need to stop for a while happens. It’s a ton of work and my time is already divided up enough.

The other truth is that professional narrators and audiobook producers are expensive. If I have twelve books released, all with professional covers and editing, that means I need to have twelve books professional produced as audio. The average book will cost me at least $2,000 to produce. I do pretty well, but the idea of re-investing $25,000 into my writing business in hopes I make this money back is… daunting, at best.

That’s where these AI generated audiobooks come in. I can produce them with relative ease, only needing a few hours each for basic editing to hammer down pronunciations and pacing stuff, and can charge a fraction of what most audiobooks cost to the average consumer. If you’re getting books through a subscription service, then sure, it won’t be that expensive, but the cost to purchase an audiobook is pretty high.

So while these may not be the elegant solution, they’re a solution to those looking for audio version of my work for right now.

Here’s a sample of Broken Ascension.

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD (AI Audiobook) $5.99 Add to cart Broken Ascension (Trystero Book One) – AI Audiobook $5.99 Add to cart

So please, feel free to check the out above. They can be purchased directly from Google Play as well.

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD.

Broken Ascension.

Feedback on these is most welcome.

Celestial Sagas StoryBundle Available Until May 5th!

A few months back I tossed my hat into the ring to join a StoryBundle. It was something that had eluded me throughout my career and I’d always wanted to take part in. In a way, it felt like a monolithic process. How do you even get into those things, anyway? Turns out, you just gotta be looking in the right places and have the right book.

The rise of StoryBundle coincided with the game site, HumbleBundle, in an age of the Internet where things were just a tad more innocent and exciting. It’s a site that packs together similar ebooks and sells them for a decent discount while also donating some of the proceeds to charity. When I heard I was picked for one, I thought, “cool, this will be a new experience.”

Then, as the process got closer, it became evident there are a lot of really great authors in this bundle. In fact, it was a cross-section of a few different eras of science fiction leading up into the modern indie era. When I saw the final graphics of who was included I couldn’t help but feel excited. If you know me, you know I don’t get excited about a lot. In my author career I’ve done a lot of things, and most of my excitement has been tempered by reality.

This, though? This I’m still excited over.

You can pick this bundle up from now until May 5th.

It’s pay-what-you-want for the first four books (Cydonia Rising included), but $20 or more gets you the entire 11 book set, which is really why we’re here. That includes unlocked books by Timothy Zahn, Wesley Dean Smith, Kristine Kathryn Rusch, David Gerrold, Ron Collins, Craig Martelle and Jeannette Bedard.

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD Playlist

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD has been out for almost an entire month now and I’ve decided to give another inside look into what helped inspire the story, as well as some of the songs referenced within the book.

If you’ve yet to pick up your copy, you can buy it direct from me or from your favorite storefront.

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD (Paperback) $12.99 Add to cart INTERGALACTIC BASTARD (eBook) $2.99 Add to cart

SPECIAL: Get 30% Off Trystero eBooks Until May 6th

With Smashed Hopes: Trystero Book Five launching on May 6th, I’ve decided to do something special if you aren’t caught up on the series yet. From now until May 6th, if you buy the Trystero Collection: Books One – Three and Severed Galaxy ebooks (individually or together) through my site, I’ll give you 30% off with the code TRYSMAY22.

The Trystero Collection: Books 1 – 3 (eBook) Sale Product on sale $12.99 $8.99 Add to cart Severed Galaxy (Trystero Book Four) eBook $4.99 Add to cart

You can also pre-order both Smashed Hopes (Trystero Book Five) and Cracked Palace (Trystero Book Six) right now. Smashed Hopes releases on May 6th, while Cracked Palace does not have a concrete release date yet, but I plan on releasing it by the late summer.

You can also pre-order Smashed Hopes via paperback as well.

Cracked Palace (Trystero Book Six) eBook $4.99 Add to cart Smashed Hopes (Trystero Book 5) eBook $4.99 Add to cart

This sale runs until May 6th.

Remember, use the code TRYSMAY22 at checkout to get your 30% off discount.

Thanks and happy reading!

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD Available Now, Plus Trystero Pre-Orders

It’s uhh… been a while since I’ve updated my dear blog here.

Most of my updates end up on my newsletter, which has been going out twice a month and will go out again on Tuesday. Hint hint if you haven’t subscribed already. You get a free book out of it!

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD is live and in the wild. You can purchase it from your favorite storefront in ebook and paperback, hardcover from Barnes & Noble, or you can buy from me.

INTERGALACTIC BASTARD (Paperback) $12.99 Add to cart INTERGALACTIC BASTARD (eBook) $2.99 Add to cart

On top of this, my editor is doing the final pass on Trystero 5: Smashed Hopes right now, which will be released on May 6th. Right now it’s available for pre-order as an ebook. When I have the final version back in my hands I’ll have the paperback pre-order up.

Smashed Hopes (Trystero Book 5) eBook $4.99 Add to cart

On top of that, I’ve got some pre-orders up for Trystero 6: Cracked Palace, the final book in the Trystero series. I don’t have a solid release date on this one yet, so for the moment it says December 31st. This means I have to actually write this one, too. But, my guess is it’ll be released some time in the summer.

The Genesis of INTERGALACTIC BASTARD

Sometimes you write something not because it fits a niche or is going to sell well, but instead because you need to be writing it. For those of you not willed to create constantly, that could seem like a strange concept. There’s no cosmic force sitting me down and forcing me to write anything, nor are there any sort of market forces. Instead, I was at a place where I needed to do something different. 

With Amazon launching their Kindle Vella platform to serialize stories, I figured “alright, I’ll try doing this.” Serialized stories have been doing extremely well in certain spaces, mainly romance and, well… romance, but if you know how the publishing world is, romance is always on top. That’s not a bad thing, though. It just means there’s more experimentation within the space and for something to work well for romance authors, it’ll eventually work for other authors as well. 

After a few days dealing with Amazon’s new Kindle initiative, that nagging feeling inside told me this was dead-on-arrival. Amazon is notorious for launching Kindle initiatives, not supporting them, letting them aimlessly wander for a while and then mercilessly killing them off, leaving the authors who invested their time, money and creativity into these spaces looking for a new place to publish their work. They launched the platform with zero fanfare, in “beta”, to just the US on their website and iOS devices. This was in July of last year and here we are, with nothing changed and no coherent plan for the platform. I pulled my story after five episodes and took it elsewhere.

Navigating the serial fiction spaces was tough. There are not a lot of great options for non-romance stories. While there are markets for science fiction, what’s popular now in these spaces are mainly LitRPG and “cultivation” stories. They’re similar, about “leveling up” and using video game mechanics, but the idea is too rote for me. Too mechanical. I was writing a story about a fighter climbing the ranks and overcoming the odds, but I wasn’t listing his skill tree or stats on a table or anything. I’m not a fan of numbers to begin with, and keeping track of something like this would drive me mad.

Still, I went forward with it, publishing the story on RoyalRoad, Patreon and Substack. I can’t say if any of these have been a rousing success, but then again, I’m not sure that I care. No, I wrote INTERGALACTIC BASTARD (nee DEATHMATCH) because I wanted to. I’d written 10 books in the space of 14 months and I was burnt out. I never set out to be a science fiction author. It was just something that happened, and after being immersed in the space for years, I was exhausted. Tired of reading modern SF, tired of the expectations and genre norms. 

My first novel, Godslayer, was about a professional fighter in the twilight of his career, needing to learn when was the right time to pack it in. It was about the world being cold and callous to someone who’d sacrificed his body and brain functions for their entertainment and that need to always be fighting and getting better. I’m not sure I was ready to really give that book what it needed at the time, and I’ve grown as a writer since then. 

So, this story I was working on had some striking similarities to the world of Godslayer. Originally, I wrote a short story I really love for an anthology about antiheroes. The story I wrote was about a space gladiator who was a giant asshole, fighting in the middle of a war with a mysterious alien force. The league doing their best to ignore this force of nature at war with the “civilized” planets. Things go haywire and he’s forced to learn some tough lessons. This story was entirely too bloody and crass for the anthology, which when I saw the final stories included, it was hard to disagree with. I’ve tried getting it placed in other anthologies since then, but am usually met with “this isn’t sci-fi enough” type of responses. 

It’s hard blazing your own path, huh?

So, in the midst of my burnout, I took this universe I created for this still-unpublished story and show how it all started. But it wasn’t just my former career in combat sports that lurched me forward. Sure, I’d written about MMA and kickboxing before. I was Managing Editor at MiddleEasy for a while, owner of the world’s top professional kickboxing site LiverKick (formerly HeadKickLegend), wrote for BloodyElbow, UGO, MMAMania, Heavy and a bunch of others. I knew the fight game and how fighters were outside of the ring. And as I said, Godslayer was my first stab at a novel with a similar concept, just more grounded.

I mixed in my love for pro wrestling and made this project something different.

Like I said, it started as something to do to keep me busy during my burnout. I loosely adapted the character from my SCFL character, Technology Cooper, a British bruiser who smashes people with a barbed wire bat. Just… in space. Only, after I started delving more into the meat of the story and the characters, it was clear I couldn’t just have him fight all the time. There was too much of his life ripe for exploration. Somewhere along the way, something happened to this story, and it became something much more than just an experiment in serialization. It became an important look at addiction and forcing yourself to do something you’ve lost your passion for because of outside pressures, as well as just maturing past something.

Taking a late stage capitalistic cyberpunk aesthetic, pro wrestling and combat sports inspiration, as well as inspiration from comics by my pal Aubrey Sitterson (No One Left to Fight and his former audio serial SKALD), I made this.

And you can pre-order it now.

5. The Doctor

A knock at the door broke Dr. Faraday from her trance-like sleep, springing her back to life in a cold sweat, little Elsie in her arms still curled up next to her. The knock hadn’t disturbed the sleeping child. She only moaned and rolled over. A red silk robe was on a hanger by the bathroom, Dr. Faraday draping it over her shoulders before she went to the door, still favoring her bandaged right arm. Living with air conditioning again after two years without power felt obscene, considering how she knew people were living outside of the building, but it was hard not to appreciate it. She glimpsed herself in the gigantic mirror that hung over a dresser, only to see a haggard, aged woman with dead eyes looking back at her. Had it been that long, that stressful? Wasn’t this all some horrific dream?

Another knock, Dr. Faraday shuffling towards the door, looking through the fish-eyed hole in the door. A man in a sharp tuxedo with neatly gelled hair and a thin mustache stood with a tray in his hand. She turned the deadbolt and opened the door, feeling the whoosh from the hallway, causing her to collect up the robe that she found her gaunt body swimming in.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Faraday,” the man gave her a brief nod before striding past her and into the room, laying down the tray on the dresser, pulling off the large domed cover to reveal a bottle of sparkling water, two glasses and two plates heaping with food. “Roasted chicken, baked potatoes and roasted carrots, for two, of course.”

“Are you kidding me?” Her eyes grew large at the sight of not only fresh food, but eloquently prepared food. Russell, who served as the caravan’s chef, was a line cook at a Denny’s prior and did his best with what they had, but it was never anywhere near the ostentatious presentation in front of her. The aroma of the chicken alone filled up the room and left her feeling intoxicated.

“Compliments of Mr. Branch,” the man explained, “this is one of his favorite dishes.”

“Does everyone here eat like this?”

“Mostly, although some on the lower floors dine in the cafeteria,” his tone visibly dismissive when speaking about the cafeteria.

“This is too much. You must tell Mr. Branch how much I appreciate this, mister, um?”

“Clyde,” he said.

“Yes, Clyde, please send him our sincerest thanks for the room, the clothes and now the food.”

“You can thank him yourself in the arena tonight.”

“Oh?”

“I’m sure that you saw it on your way in,” he said, standing rigid in the doorway. “That mass of a structure appended to this marvelous building, that is.”

“The big hodgepodge? I thought that was some sort of refugee camp of sorts.”

“One could say that.”

“So this is some sort of event?” She probed further, not happy with what he was withholding.

“Yes, the premiere entertainment here at Branch Tower. You have a personal invitation from Mr. Branch, which I hope you understand the gravity of. That’s an honor that most will never be extended.”

“I’m sure it’ll be very interesting.”

“Uh huh,” he seemed disgusted by her lack of enthusiasm, “I’ve done the honor of preparing outfits for both of you.”

He exited the room, then wheeled in a rack with two hangers on it, covered in black garment bags with two pairs of black heel shoes sitting on the base, most likely leather and recently polished. Clyde unzipped the bag when Dr. Faraday smiled at him and stopped him.

“It’s been a while, but we remember how to dress ourselves. Thank you, Clyde.”

“Madame, this is my job and Mr. Branch…”

“I’m sure that Mr. Branch appreciates your attention to detail, but the girl just lost her parents and I just saw the only people that I had left in the world mowed down by assault rifles and a horde of the undead. We need some time on our own for now. We’ll graciously accept Mr. Branch’s offer, but we could use some time to at least change on our own.”

“I… I understand,” he said, “I’ll return in three hours to deliver you both to Mr. Branch’s private box.”

The door closed behind him with a subtle click, although it made Elsie jump. Somehow she had slept through his entire visit, but the sound of the door clicking pulled her from her slumber with a gasp. She sat up, covered in sweat, hyperventilating and thrashing in the sheets.

“Where am I? Where am I? Mom? Mom!?”

“Oh sweetie,” Dr. Faraday cradled her in her good arm, being careful with her right, “sweetie it’s alright, Auntie Ruth is here.”

“Auntie Ruth?” She looked up at her, like a lost little lamb. “Where’s my mom? My sister?”

“Oh sweetie, sweetie,” she ran her fingers through the girl’s hair. “I’m here now, that’s what matters. We are safe inside of the Tower. Remember the Tower?”

“I… Mom…” The girl fell silent, the memories returning to her right before Dr. Faraday’s eyes. Her heart broke again, like it had dozens of times since the fall, like she thought it couldn’t anymore. That’s one lesson that she has learned; that heartbreak doesn’t have its limitations. It wasn’t a singular event and it would and could repeat itself without end.

“I’m sorry, Elsie, I’m so, so sorry.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know, darling, I don’t know. I just am.”

* * *

“Why do we have to go to this?” Elsie asked, wearing a perfectly sized black dress with her black heels. Dr. Faraday had helped to brush her hair back and did her best to make them both look presentable. She appreciated that there were sweaters for both of them, as she didn’t feel comfortable in the black-satin dress that they had picked out for her.

“We just do, Elsie,” she said, feeling unsure herself. The invitation itself would have felt benign if Branch’s men hadn’t slaughtered their entire caravan without remorse. Upsetting Branch seemed like a bad idea, considering their lives were in his hands right now, which was an even more terrifying thought than surviving out in the wasteland like they had. “Just stick by me and everything will be fine.”

“I’m scared.”

“I know, sweetie, I know.”

A knock came at the door. Elsie jumped, and Dr. Faraday took a deep breath. This would be Clyde again, she presumed, straightening out her sweater. She unbolted the door and swung it open, only to find Tom standing there, in a new set of leather clothing that looked every bit as new as the clothing that was left for Elsie and herself. “Oh, Tom,” she said. “I didn’t expect you.”

“We’re going to this thing,” he said, “but stay close.”

“Okay,” she replied, noting his tone was somber and guarded. “Elsie, we should get going here.”

The girl gathered herself up, and like a magnet, attached herself to Dr. Faraday’s hip. Elsie was still shaken and in a daze, making her pull the poor girl in closer while they walked down the hallway behind Tom. He was never a man of many words, and when he spoke, he whispered. But no matter what, she trusted him. Knowing that he was going to whatever this arena was with them at least gave her some comfort. If it wasn’t for him out in front of the building, neither one of them would be alive. Then again, after all that they went through, with all that they lost, was alive the correct terminology anymore? There was no way to be sure.

The great hallways of Branch Tower were lavish to the point of being gaudy. Branch’s taste was not for everyone, with the primary tenants of his palate being black, gold, yellow and the occasional dash of red. That meant that the hallways were darker than they needed to be, but gilded wherever gold could be applied. There was no denying that the red carpets were beautiful, but the deep maroon color reminded her of blood and her thoughts immediately went to the steady stream of blood that had dripped out of the bus while she lay there in the sand cradling Elsie while death surrounded them.

A shiver ran through her entire body, Elsie feeling it and looking up at her, only for Dr. Faraday to squeeze her even tighter. They made their way to an elevator where Tom pressed the button and waited with his back against the wall and eyes studying both sides of the hallway. There were a few people lingering about the hall, all of them dressed up in exquisitely made clothing, like they were heading out for a night at the opera. Drinking had already begun, with champagne flutes and wine glasses in-hand, the laughter and chatter serving as the backdrop.

“This all feels…” she started.

“Wrong,” Tom finished the sentence for her.

“Yeah, wrong. After what we just saw, after what we’ve gone through? It’s like none of that touches these people. The world never ended, their lives just carried forth into a new setting.”

He merely grunted and nodded before the chime of the elevator rang. The golden doors parted and in there stood Clyde, still without an expression and standing as rigid as ever. “Ah yes, I was just coming to retrieve you all. Please, let me guide you the rest of the way.”

The butler narrated their journey through Branch Tower, describing the renovations that the building underwent after the fall, the floors that had morphed into supply operations, how the water was processed, and every other minor detail that was of no genuine interest to them. Tom seemed distracted and uneasy, but Dr. Faraday did her best to seem interested while keeping Elsie engaged and not letting her mind wander to her dead family. The girl simply kept quiet, and her face had a constant look of blank horror on it.

Clyde made note of it a few times.

The arena was detached from the main building, with access to it being from the parking structure that was built underneath the resort. Surprisingly enough, there were cars still there, most of them looking to still be in good condition. Clyde led them through the base floor of the parking structure, through the sea of people who were in line to enter the arena and off to the side, through a special, black-and-gold door that had the Branch seal on it. Through there was a red-carpet-lined hallway that led to an elevator.

When they emerged from the darkness of the hallway and the elevator, the only way to describe the wave that hit them was overwhelming. The elevator spat them out into a narrow hallway that led to a set of steps and into a box that hung over the entire arena. Inside that arena was a sports stadium chock-full of humanity, containing more people than she had imagined even survived the apocalypse. Yet there they were, an immense mass of humanity, their murmurs almost deafening after the years of relative silence.

“My god,” she said under her breath.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” Branch was leaning on the edge of the box, waving a gloved hand towards the crowd, not bothering to look back. Of course, he knew who was approaching. This was his world. “Behold my creation, my world, risen from the ashes of a sad, little world full of sad little people.”

They all stayed silent while he marveled at the world that was built in his image. Dr. Faraday did her best to hide her disbelief and disgust. Billions were dead, all because he couldn’t let his ego be bruised by a failure to create some superhuman serum and pushed beyond the point of good taste.

“Ah, Dr. Faraday,” he outstretched his hand towards her. “How good of you to accept my humble invitation, and you’ve brought… that girl with you as well.”

“This is Elsie,” she gave the girl a squeeze, “say hi, Elsie.”

“No.” Elsie turned and buried her head into Dr. Faraday’s sweater.

“I’m sorry, she’s just shy is all, this is all rather overwhelming.”

“I understand, I understand. It’s all quite impressive. Even I’m impressed by what I’ve been able to build in just a few short years.”

“A regular Caesar,” Tom muttered.

“Oh Mr. Gabriel, I know you are still leery of this, but you, my friend, are the guest of honor here and my, do you look splendid. In fact, I hand-selected your clothing, ripped from the cinema, you might say.”

“I noticed.”

“So, Mr. Branch,” Dr. Faraday interrupted, sensing Tom’s growing agitation and afraid of what might happen. There were two armed guards in the box along with them; a blonde man covered in scars and another, taller blonde man who was pacing back and forth. “What exactly… is this?”

“The arena,” he smiled gently. “We had it built on right after, well, you know. More and more people were coming to Branch Tower, what with it becoming a beacon of hope in an otherwise bleak world. The best and the brightest were what we needed, but sadly, not everyone could live up to that potential. So, judge me not, we devised the arena. While I would love to take in everyone with open arms, there is not enough room for every wanderer or vagabond, especially with so many out there being so violent.”

“So you take people in and have them fight to the death?”

“You make it sound so crass and simple, but essentially, yes. Oh, don’t make that face, Mr. Gabriel,” he looked over at Tom, who was shaking his head. “I’m working on a plan to build additional housing out there for these strays, but until then, we don’t have the resources for them all. No offense, Dr. Faraday.”

“You are forcing people—people that are alive—survivors, to kill or be killed? I’m not trying to be ungracious here, but haven’t enough people died, Mr. Branch?”

“I completely agree, but they come here. What am I to do? Turn them away? We give everyone a choice. Only the strongest remain. In fact, tonight I want you to see our champion. He’s a bit of a brute, but I believe that you’ll like him, all of you, but Mr. Gabriel in particular. There were no favorites here; he was given the same opportunity that I gave everyone else that wandered in from the wasteland, and my god did he take advantage of it. He’s a shining example of how this system works. You look skeptical, but you’ll see.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” an announcer boomed overhead. “Please welcome the Wizard of the Wastes, the Savior of the Damned, the Ayatollah of Rock ‘n Rolla himself, Mr. Jordan Branch!”

“Ahh yes, we are starting,” Branch smiled, pumping both fists in the air, the crowd erupting with applause and cheers. There was no way to decide how many people were there, but it sounded like there was an enormous mass of humanity in attendance, cheering on Branch. Branch looked back at them, motioning towards Tom. “C’mon.” Tom took a deep breath and walked towards the edge of the box overlooking the crowd. The whole thing was garish and unthinkable. More people than she had imagined even survived the apocalypse were out there and they were cheering for the blood of other survivors to be spilled on that sand pit floor.

“Thank you, thank you,” Branch stood before a varnished maple podium with a microphone, motioning with his hands for everyone to quiet down. “Welcome, ladies and gentlemen of my new world, to the arena!” Another cheer broke loose, only for Branch to settle them down again. “Tonight you will be in for some of the greatest action that the world has ever seen. Acts of bravery, heroism, depravity and old-fashioned violence. Tonight, though, tonight is a special night. You see, standing here with me is a very special guest. Standing here with me is hope. Standing here with me is a survivor, the strongest of the strong. Not only that, but standing here is someone that you might remember. Ladies and gentlemen, Jordan Branch is very proud to present none other than Mr. TK Gabriel!”

The crowd erupted, the rumbling of the arena coursing through his veins, his chest pounding from the roar. Tom outstretched his hand, an image of him mirroring him from the other side of the arena, Dr. Faraday seeing herself standing there behind both men, Elsie tucked under her arms and once again could not correlate the connection between her and the image of her the survivor. Branch was beaming, applauding, while he motioned for Tom to take the podium. “Make it brief,” he yelled into TK’s ear as he approached the microphone. Tom was hesitant at first, glaring sideways at the podium and the microphone before taking a deep breath. In her brief time knowing him he was never one for words, outside of that one night when he told her the story of his him and his wife’s escape from their home, the night that she died and he claimed that he also died, reborn as a shell of a man.

“So,” he leaned against the podium. “I… I don’t know. It really is hell out there…” he said, reflecting on life out in the wasteland, the cheers and applause awkwardly tapering off. Branch tapped him on the shoulder, a sign of impatience. Dr. Faraday was cringing. Tom had mentioned Branch to her briefly, none of it that he mentioned seemed complimentary. In fact, she was shocked that he had even been heading there. He wasn’t heading to the Tower for refuge, but something else burned in his eyes. “I can’t do this.”

Branch’s expression was hard to crack; part amused, part angry, and part suspicious of the man. “Thank you very much, Mr. Gabriel. Ladies and gentlemen, Mr. TK Gabriel! Now, on with the violence!” That was all that it took to get the crowd riled up again.

Humanity under the rule of Jordan Branch had been transported back in time to an amalgamation of the Roman empire and the worst nightmare of the apocalypse coming to life, such as watching the living batter the living over a space in the tower in their new high society. The not-so-dearly departed were trotted out as a sideshow attraction, subhuman fodder for a violent spectacle. She wondered how many of these people watching had actually been forcedw to survive out in the unforgiving wasteland for long, or if these were only the privileged who hadn’t been subjected to all the horrors. Maybe she was just jaded, and humanity had simply defaulted to this level of madness when trying to comprehend their devolving existence. When there weren’t smartphone screens to get lost in daily and social networks to share every bit of minutiae, humanity simply craved entertainment in a social setting.

They called two survivors out to the arena, both decked out in what looked like crude leather armor, each with their equally haphazard weapons of choice. A tall, lean-looking man stood barefoot with a two-by-four wrapped in barbed wire while a smaller, more muscular man had a baseball bat with a few railroad spikes driven through it, fashioned it into a cudgel. Branch hungrily licked at his lips while he turned to Tom, looking like a kid on Christmas morning, unable to contain himself. “Oh, this should be a good one,” he said.

Tom stood transfixed, unmoving outside of a balled up fist.

“Look at this, there is going to be blood for sure, not like that last one.”

“Is there ever mercy in the arena?” Dr. Faraday asked, watching as both men circled around each other, taking tentative swings that missed by at least a few feet.

“Mercy? Why, at times, if both men put up a fight, I suppose.”

“Why are they fighting? Are they criminals or something? Did they break the rules?”

“Their crime, good doctor, was surviving.”

That stung her harder than he imagined it would. Both men had survived out in the violent wasteland, a place that Branch knew nothing about, and this is how they were greeted when they reached their desert oasis; death. They continued to circle around each other, their tentative blows growing no closer to the mark while the crowd was growing increasingly hostile.

“This is no good,” Branch slapped his hand down on his makeshift throne and sprang to his feet. “I’m sorry that you have to see such a poor showing.”

“I’d rather…” She was doing her best to shield Elsie from the impending violence and felt relieved that no one was being slaughtered.

“Nonsense, and please uncover her eyes. She needs to understand that the world—my world—can be a brutal place,” Branch turned to his podium, clearing his throat. “If you don’t wish to fight in the arena, we’ll make you fight. You all know what that means!”

A dull chant broke out, it growing louder and louder while Branch cackled. “Crusher! Crusher! Crusher!” the crowd chanted.

“Bring out the Crusher!”

The large metal gate affixed crudely to the arena wall creaked open, the sound of metal on metal filling up the arena in a cacophony with the chants and screams. A figure emerged from the shadows, hulking, disfigured and barely recognizable as a man, but it was a man. Branch was wearing a sick, proud smile while the crowd went crazy. The two men in the arena standing, mouths agape while the beast plodded out into the arena, letting out a mighty roar that sent shivers down her spine.

“What in the…?”

“That, my friends,” Branch settled back down into his chair, rubbing his hands together. “Is my latest creation. That is the Crusher.”

Another mighty roar shook the arena, both men at a loss for what to do with themselves. The lanky one with the 2-by-4 charged, swinging wildly at the Crusher like his life depended on him and his lucky shot. The crude weapon made contact with the Crusher’s left arm, the barbs burying themselves into his flesh, a gasp washing over the crowd. A roar emenated from deep within the beast while the crowd “Ooh’d” over the contact. He did his best to break the weapon free, but the Crusher simply swatted him down with his massive left hand that looked to be about the size of the man’s torso. The lanky man lay motionless on the ground while Crusher began charging at the other one.

The man, far from nimble on his feet, stumbled back, tripping and falling onto his ass with the cudgel still in his grip. Crusher closed the distance with a few mighty strides, descending upon the man like a hungry wolf on its prey. Overcome with desperation, the man swung the cudgel, but the mighty beast grabbed it with his hand like a child’s toy, yanking it up into the air and bringing the man with it. The muscular man let out a cry before Crusher slammed him to the ground, grabbing him by the neck and draping his body over his shoulders. Crusher chants overtook the crowd, who let out another mighty roar before driving him down headfirst into the ground. The lanky combatant was up and had jumped onto the Crusher’s back, Crusher reaching behind him and grabbing a hold of him by the head, holding his body up high while he tried to struggle free before bringing the screaming man’s head into his giant maw and crunching down, the body twitching a few times before going limp in his giant hand.

Dr. Faraday let out a groan and pulled Elsie in tighter, diverting her eyes away from the horrific scene, but the sounds were inescapable and bone-chilling.. The amplified sound of that beast feasting on their freshly dead bodies filled the air, accentuated by the foul stench of death. The scene was one that she’d never be able to shake, even after all that she had been through. Branch had somehow made a monster worse than any of the rest of his creations throughout his sordid history, and this one was seemingly for his own perverted sense of entertainment. She snuck a peek back down at the arena only to see what remained of their mangled corpses; the Crusher covered in blood and guts while the crowd chanted his name. Tom wore a morose expression, fist still tightly clenched.

“Quite the scene, isn’t it?” Branch commented. “Come now, you’ve surely seen worse out in the wasteland, haven’t you?”

“I’ve seen some horrible things,” TK said, “but nothing this wrong.”

“There is a new world now, Mr. Gabriel,” Branch said snidely. “We have to adjust to it eventually, all of us. There is no more Hollywood to entertain the masses, the arena is all that we have.”

“I’m not so sure that our primary concern should be entertainment right now,” Dr. Faraday said. “Survival seems to be the key.”

“You try running a new society with no form of entertainment. Rape, murder, looting. It all happened because they were bored. Now they have something to look forward to.”

“Now you just entertain them with it, instead of worrying about it happening to them?”

“So be it. It isn’t like either of those men were of any value to our new society.”

“What about that monster of yours?”

“Demoreo was in terrible shape. You see, there was no way that he’d survive without injecting him with the virus. Did I take some liberties with which strain that I injected him with? Of course I did, but he’s not dead. Oh no, he’s quite alive.”

“He’s a monster.”

“There were some unintentional side effects, I’ll give you that, but he has found new life in the arena.”

“Feasting on the flesh of other men for this crowd’s approval?”

“We all play our part, Dr. Faraday,” she noted that his tone was growing weary. “I’m sorry that you don’t seem to approve of my society here, but I thought that Crusher here would excite you.”

“Excite me?”

“Why yes, aren’t you curious why I invited you up here? Mr. Gabriel, well, he makes sense, but you? A lowly pediatrician, correct? We don’t exactly have access to an array of medical professionals here, and I would love your assistance.”

“My assistance? Why?”

“We’ve had a few, well, unfortunate accidents with a few of our medical staff and haven’t had the chance to replace them. So?”

She paused, surveying the gore and the fervor of the crowd, disgusted and fighting her instincts to take Elsie and to run as far as she could from there. “Sorry, it’s just a lot to take in is all.”

“Don’t think too long,” he said, “need I remind you that everyone at Branch Tower has a role. Those who can’t fulfill their roles are of no use to us… Outside of entertainment.”

“Oh,” her skin crawled. She couldn’t take any chances as to what he was alluding to. It was all very clear. “I have no problems earning my keep, Mr. Branch.”

“Splendid. Now, as for my friend TK. Tonight was for you, you know that, right? You are the guest of honor. You should say something to them. What will they think if you don’t approve?”

“I don’t know,” Tom picked himself up and headed towards the stairs. “I don’t care, either. C’mon, Doc, let’s get out of here.”

“Oh come now,” she felt Branch’s hand reach out and grasp onto her arm. “The main event hasn’t even started yet. Look, they are just assembling the ring right now.”

“Ring?” Tom turned back, looking down on the crew, erecting what looked like a professional boxing or wrestling ring in the center of the arena.

“Ah yes, you see, our champion has a flair for the dramatic,” Branch explained. “A man after my own heart, you could say. He puts on a show for the people.”

“Tom,” she looked up at him. “Surely we can stay for one more?” Her eyes were pleading with him. She thought she had known fear out in the wasteland, but there was still a sense of sanity, of purpose. This was insane on every level. Upsetting this madman was not a good idea.

“You see, the lady approves.”

“Oh,” Tom said, quieting down again while the crew finished assembling the ring. Music piped through the loudspeakers and the crowd began to clap, rumble, and stomp their feet. Puffs of smoke arose from the door directly across from their luxury box, the cheers growing louder and louder before a man emerged, not much to look at, just a bit of a bigger guy, almost chubby, wearing a pair of jeans, a soccer jersey that she couldn’t discern the team on and a scruffy beard with equally scruffy long hair. On his left hand he wore a red glove, his right had what looked like a mechanical gauntlet, parts of it running into the sleeve of his shirt.

The champion was carrying a large, golden belt over his shoulder, hefting it up high over his head with his left hand, much to the delight of the crowd. She glanced over at Branch, who wore a smirk and applauded while the man entered the newly constructed ring in the middle of the arena. After what they had all just witnessed, this almost felt surreal. The whole thing was ludicrous. He might as well of been zapped directly from the 1980s with the professional wrestling pageantry. None of it made any sense knowing all the death and destruction that existed beyond those walls. Everyone was doing their best to forget that the real world was still out there and that it lay in ruins while they celebrated the continuation of the cycle of destruction.

“That’s my brother.” The taller guard nudged Dr. Faraday. “He gonna tear that bugger apart, just you watch.”

“Oh,” she said, “you must be very proud.”

“Fuckin’ A.”

“Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the Champion of the arena, The Fist of the Northern Isles, William Farrington!” The announcer beamed over the loudspeakers, barely cutting through the crowd noise. One thing was for certain, they truly did love this guy, whoever he was. He pumped the gauntleted fist into the air and they all roared louder, a wave of stomps reverberating throughout. “Brrrrrring out the dead!”

A few of the undead bastardizations of Branch’s creation stumbled out from the main tunnel, shuffling and moving towards the ring while Farrington laid his championship belt in the corner. There was time, and he wasn’t lacking in confidence, so he continued to warm up, stretching his arm out while they lumbered towards his ring. They began clawing their way into the ring, without order, just looking to attack him. He was more than ready. Stomping on the neck of the first one and stopping it cold in its tracks, the body slunk down over the side of the ring into a heap, sending another one stumbling back. One had finally clawed its way past the ring ropes that seemed to be difficult for these shambling miscreants to understand, only for Farrington to wave his hand towards the crowd who rallied behind him more.

He threw a few punches with his left hand, staggering it back into the corner before pumping his fist into the air, the crowd almost on cue shouting, “Take his bloody head off!” along with him. The monster slipped towards him, Farrington holding his right fist towards his side before it came into range, him unleashing a right hook unlike she could ever have imagined. His fist came over in an arc, the gauntlet glowing yellow while it came into contact with the monster, his head instantly bursting like a melon, sending blood and brains all over the gray and already-stained ring. The crowd ate it up, waiting for another to make its way into the ring. Two were in there and Farrington had to think fast, ducking under one while quickly unleashing another right hand on this one’s head, it bursting like an over ripened tomato upon impact. He spun on his heel, his fist whistling through the air and landing with a splat, sending a third headless body to the canvas.

“Fucking hell,” Tom muttered.

“Quite a scene, isn’t it?”

“Does he ever fight, you know, something that can hit him back?”

“Of course, of course,” Branch said. “That was just the warmup.”

Farrington lifted the belt high above his head, climbing up the ropes and soaking in the adulation from the crowd. They were loving every second of it. Next, emerging from the same doorway that he came through, a lightly armored man was shoved through, stumbling over his own two feet and barely staying up. In his hand was a wrench and by the looks of it, he was scared out of his mind. Farrington goaded him to get into the ring with him, but it looked like this shaking mess of a man had no other choice. Farrington laid the title belt out on the mat in between them while a few of Branch’s armed guards pulled the unmoving, decapitated bodies out to clear the area.

The nervous man with the wrench rolled into the ring, picking himself up and staring down Farrington, who remained calm as ever. Farrington was weaponless in comparison, but that gauntlet on his hand was most likely all the weapons that he’d ever need. That wrench in that man’s hands was most likely not going to help much. Farrington continued to goad the man to attack, the man finally jumping forward, slashing wildly with the oversized spanner while Farrington deftly ducked out of the way. He swung again, this time towards Farrington’s face, Farrington parrying it expertly with the gauntleted right fist, the sound of metal-on-metal clanging loudly, the wrench flying from the man’s hand. A knee to the stomach connected, and the man doubled over, Farrington bringing his left elbow down onto the spine of the man who crumpled to the mat in a heap, face down in the gore still in the ring.

“C’mon,” Tom muttered. “This is an execution.”

“Such are the rules of the arena, my friend. Farrington had this same opportunity.”

She grit her teeth while Farrington signaled he was going to slam the man down. He reached down, securing both of his hands around the man’s waist, tucking his head between his legs before hefting him up onto his shoulders and sending him crashing down to the mat right on his already injured spine. The man cried out in pain, writhing on the mat, crying for mercy. The microphones surrounding the ring picked up his cries, and they sent a shiver down TK’s spine. “For heaven’s sake,” she said. “He’s crying for mercy.”

“This is the arena, Dr. Faraday. The rules are the rules. This man has no hope outside of the arena. All that is left for him now is to die.”

“Haven’t enough people died for no reason?”

“If you want, I can stop this,” he said. “But, be warned, Mr. Farrington will not take this offense lightly.”

“Stop this,” Tom interjected. “Now.”

“Fine,” he sighed, walking over to the podium. Farrington was standing over the man, fist pumped into the air. “Will, Will,” he called over the loudspeaker. “Mr. Farrington.”

Farrington froze, looking up towards the box that they were in high above the rest, although still unable to escape the stench and the madness.

“What?” He called it, echoing over the now-hushed arena.

“It appears that Mr. Gabriel and his friends here find this to be a bit… barbaric.”

The crowd started booing, one guard bringing a microphone over to Farrington, who snatched it away from him and stomped around the ring. “You telling me some sissy-mouthed Hollywood type ain’t okay with this? He ain’t okay with me making my living, for making these people happy?”

“He seems upset by it,” Branch replied, turning towards Tom.

“This is my ring,” Farrington spat. “This is my arena, and these are your rules. If he has a problem with them, he can come down here like a man.” Farrington tossed his belt down in the center of the ring, dragging it out like it was on display. The fans all cheering for him while she found herself frozen in disbelief. They had all truly lost their minds. Farrington picked up the man by the nape of his neck, holding him in position while he could barely even keep himself standing, never mind fight back. Farrington reared back his fist, looking right up at Tom, who stood leaning up against the front of the private box staring down at him, shaking his head, mouthing “don’t do this” under his breath while Farrington’s fist arced over, lighting up and contacting the man’s skull, his cries quickly disappearing while his head burst into pieces, the body falling limp onto the already stained canvas and the crowd going wild.

Branch turned to Tom and smiled, shaking his head. They had all lost their goddamned minds.

4. The Engineer

Vera let out a sigh while she reached over the edge of the bed and gathered up her clothing. She’d pull the sheet up around her, but Will’s other girl, whom she always had to remind herself was named Jenna, was back to sleeping after Will had left the room. No matter how often it happened, she still felt awful about her role in Branch’s “new world.” Her whole life was wading out into the deep waters, fighting against the current, and working her way up from relative poverty in Sao Paulo before making her way to the United States to study aerospace engineering. That move made her family both proud and conflicted; their baby girl, Vera, would leave home to make them all proud, but would she ever look back?

Granted, at the time the distance felt nothing short of rapturous and liberating, but in retrospect, she wished she had appreciated it more. Brazil was her home, but it was a restrictive existence that she led there. There was always a nagging feeling that she didn’t quite belong, no matter where she went or what her family told her. Yet all that she could wish for while cooped up in Branch Tower was to be back in Brazil again, even during Carnival, when the streets were overrun with tourists and festival goers. None of that existed anymore and would most likely never return, but she missed it just the same. Vera was living in Southern California, working through her first real internship, when everything fell apart. Since then, even the concept of being able to reach someone back home felt like a pipedream, knowing in her heart that there couldn’t be much left.

In Jordan Branch’s new world, there was no room for an aerospace engineer, especially one that happened to be female. Oh no, while Jordan Branch was rebuilding humanity in his image, there was no room for women to move ahead. Vera had never considered herself conventionally beautiful while growing up, nor was she pursued much by anyone outside of her nerdy friend, Roger. As an adult, she was curvy by most measures of a society that seemed obsessed with being thin, although she would never call herself fat. In this new world she looked more like a Greek goddess, only, you know, Brazilian. Survival was the only thing on her mind and her time in Branch Tower felt tenuous at best, so she didn’t cause any trouble, especially after seeing what happened to anyone who caused a stir in Branch’s new world. Those that caused trouble were outfitted in leather, given clubs, and told to fight for their lives in the arena. The problem wasn’t that she couldn’t fight; it was that if Branch wanted you dead in the arena, you’d be dead in the arena. Will wasn’t one to be wanted dead because he was their champion and he was special. That was why she latched onto him, even if she found him to be a disgusting louse most of the time.

Everyone knew that Jenna and Vera were earmarked for Will, which meant that they were mostly left alone, what with Will being the chosen one and all. That thought sent a chill down her spine. Vera was just thankful at this point that she had never gotten pregnant. To be fair, Will wasn’t a monster by any stretch of the imagination. There was never a time where she found him forcing her to do anything, nor did he get out of control when he was drunk or high. When he was drunk, he’d just get tired and pass out. If high, he’d just get silly, and they’d sit around and talk about the world before it all fell down. Things were also compounded because he was a solid lay, too. She thought back to her friends in college and how most would have been disgusted by the thought of her somehow being seen as a live-in servant to some guy, but the world had changed and her time living with William was far from the worst of the horrors that she had seen. She wasn’t subservient, either, seeing as though she had a workshop of her own that she maintained, and if she wasn’t in the mood for his bullshit, she’d escape down to it to clear her mind. If people wanted to think that their arrangement was sexual, that was fine with her, as long as she got to do what she wanted to and wasn’t pestered by anyone else.

She shuddered at the memory of the shelter that she was holed up in when the raid happened. Death surrounded them at every turn, the masked raiders killing every man and child in sight, but sparing the women. Sparing was perhaps not the correct word for it, but they were still technically alive, herded into an old box truck and transported around the wasteland. The raiders never touched them, which struck her as odd until she heard the sales pitch they made, “pristine beauties” they called them, letting whoever purchased them do as they please with these undisturbed mirages of the wasteland.

The truck traversed the wasteland and the ranks of the women in the truck shrunk with each stop, the younger ones moving first, along with the skinnier ones. Vera could only imagine what was happening to them, but she had kept to herself in the shelter and on the bumpy trip through the wasteland. This was about her survival and as much as she would have liked to have saved everyone, she knew it was not possible, not in this new world. There were only three of them left when the truck had stopped, one of the masked men opening up the back for them and tossing them a few bottles of water. The heat was overwhelming in there, and the water was a welcomed reprieve. She had studied these stops and thought about running, but they were all armed and she wasn’t sure how she’d get away without being killed.

That last stop, though, was the first time that she saw William. There was a commotion from the outside, raised voices and the sound of a scuffle. Two of those voices were new, distinctly British and, well, different. A few gunshots rang out. The other two girls cowering back towards the back of the box behind some crates of food while Vera felt her heart throbbing in her chest. This could be her chance, this could be the only chance that she ever got to break free from that forsaken truck and make a run for it. She peered around the side of the truck only to see the guy that had just thrown them some water laying in a pool of his own blood in the dust, a handgun laying at his side.

Vera slipped out and scrambled for the gun, only to look up and see the massive man that she now knows as William standing over her, blood dripping from his fists with one man gripped in his left hand, hanging limp while his right hand hovered over him. “Oh, hello there,” he said, sounding surprised.

“Um,” she looked down at the gun, but hesitated. “Hi?”

“Were these fuckers keepin’ you back there?”

“Yeah,” she said. “They’ve been selling us off.”

“Pig fuckers,” he spat at the man in his hands, letting the body drop to the ground. Vera remained frozen in place, waiting for his next move. “Oh, uh, were you going to pick that up?” He pointed down at the gun.

She nodded.

“‘ere,” he kicked it over towards her. “Take it, never much cared for ’em myself.”

“Uh,” she paused before snatching it up. “Okay, thanks, I guess?”

“No problem,” he turned around. “‘ey Stuart.”

“What?” Another British voice rang out.

“You done with ’em yet?”

“I guess, why?”

“There’s some food back there, we should check it out.”

“Whatever.”

“Thanks,” she said to him. “I’m just gonna grab some food and water, is that okay?”

“Of course, lass,” he said in a jovial voice, a tone shift from before. “We’re headed to Branch Tower.”

“We are in Las Vegas?” She hadn’t known how far they had traveled, but apparently pretty far.

“Pretty much,” he said. “Stuart and me are heading there, if you wanted to, you know, tag along or something.”

There wasn’t much conversation to be had on their way to Branch Tower, just the occasional stop for food, while William and Stuart reminisced about home. From what she had gathered, they were brothers and were on vacation to the United States when the first attack hit, finding themselves trapped in an underground vault before they were kicked out. Now they were heading to the only other place they knew of where there were people and food, which was the home of Jordan Branch. Vera didn’t have a preference where she ended up. She just wanted to survive. Someone with her background, though, might be of some use at Branch’s lab. The talk of him working to rebuild society through science and creating a haven was murmured about throughout the wasteland. She had to imagine that there weren’t many actual rocket scientists holed up in his facility and that she’d be of use to them.

When they happened upon Branch Tower after a few days of walking, it was unlike anything that she had ever witnessed before. The tower stood there like a beacon in the night amidst nothing but sand, dust, and rubble. What struck her the most was that it was pristine. Somehow, Branch Tower survived the nuclear holocaust without a single scratch on it. The building and whole compound was a marvel of modern engineering, standing tall as a monument to mankind’s ingenuity and ability to survive. The feeling that wafted over her at that moment was complicated, but she equated it with hope. It felt like hope for once.

That feeling dissipated when Stuart was screaming and already in a fight. They had sicced the proverbial dogs on them. A herd of Branch’s walking dead that was about twenty strong were shambling towards them. William motioned for Vera to stay back. But somehow it felt wrong to not jump into the fray with them, especially at the thought of being left alone in the wasteland if anything were to happen to them. She stayed near the edges first, watching both of their backs while they waded into the sea of monsters and began swinging. One thing that she would give the both of them, they enjoyed a good fight. Stuart was deranged in how he fought, fashioning weapons by tearing off limbs from the monsters before beating them back to death with them.

There he was, swinging a leg around his head, even pulling the head off of one and using it as a projectile all while William was fighting in close quarters, fists flying, picking one up from behind and slamming it headfirst onto the ground, the neck breaking and head almost dislodging while it moaned its last pained hisses. She became entranced by watching them fight and didn’t notice the one that took a swipe at her. Her assailant looked like an older woman who had aged poorly as the walking dead with her jaw hanging on by a few tendons. She tumbled down onto her back while the old hag approached her, hands reaching out towards Vera, only for her instincts to kick in. The trigger pulled in a blur. The first time hit her in the shoulder, the second in the chest, third time in the head, which sent the body toppling over onto her. She screamed in horror, the body heavy and oppressive, making it difficult for her to breathe, only to realize that it wasn’t moving anymore. Vera heaved the body off of her before picking herself back up on shaky legs.

This was the fight of her life, for her life, and all the while the two brothers were joking and laughing while they tore through the walking dead, the entire scene awash in the surreal. The battle lasted a little longer until a group of guards rushed out in heavy armor with assault rifles poised and aimed at the three survivors. At that moment, Vera imagined it all being over, that they were just going to mow them down, but instead they were invited in. From that day forth, she stuck by William, even when Branch had presented him with a new girl, Jenna.

Jenna’s existence was more of a relief than it was an insult. While Vera enjoyed sacking up with William from time to time, they didn’t have what you would call a romantic relationship. They just fucked out of animalistic instinct now and then and had conversations about what their lives were like before the world fell apart. Jenna served as more of his girlfriend. Vera just his fuckbuddy that he kept around for the intellectual stimulation and to help tether each other to reality. Jenna came to them pretty shaken up when she had first moved in, but Will was always a gentleman to both of them and the relationship between Jenna and Will happened organically enough, while Vera and Will were just what they were. She assumed that William had the same fear she did, that if he was “done” with her that Branch would be done with her as well and there would be no room for her in their new, burgeoning society.

William was off getting prepared for the arena, which left Vera with Jenna. Both of them were linked to William, but she didn’t consider Jenna to be a good friend. She was a roommate that she had to deal with. Vera pulled her clothes on while Jenna was still asleep and slipped out of the apartment into the dimmed, quiet hallway. There was a buzz throughout the hallway that there always was on arena nights, everyone getting ready for the arena later that evening and wearing their best. At Branch Tower, the arena was the social event that couldn’t be missed; everyone who was anyone in Branch’s new society came out for every fight dressed in their most elegant of wear suitable for their social stature. The arena served as a culling of the weak and helped to deliver on the bloodlust that became a part of their collective consciousness. A disease to some, affliction to others, and curiosity to those with some strands of their humanity left intact.

“I can’t believe it,” she overheard a woman saying to another.

“He’s really here,” the other one confirmed.

“Have you seen him?”

“No, not yet, but he’ll be at the arena tonight, I heard.”

“Hi,” Vera butted in, curious about who they were talking about. “Who will be there?”

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” The one woman who appeared to be in her early 40s, hair teased and makeup caked onto her face. “TK Gabriel is here.”

“TK Gabriel?” She asked, puzzled.

“The movie star,” the woman scoffed.

“Movie star?”

“Yeah, he was in like, god, a ton of great movies and he’s here. I heard Branch wants to put him in some sort of position of power.”

“Oh, thanks,” she smiled and walked away towards the fountain in the common area where she liked to stay while William was away doing whatever he did. The name did sound familiar to her, like something from a past life. The very idea of watching movies seemed so distant and perverse. Yes, there was electricity within Branch Towers and even televisions, but their in-house library was rather limited, which made it not worth watching, plus, within the context of their existence, watching films about people murdering each other for entertainment seemed illogical. She preferred the more introspective kinds of movies, which Branch’s library seemed to lack.

There was a sinking feeling in her gut about the buzz surrounding this new arrival and William’s demeanor over the past day. There hadn’t been a new arrival that was treated with as much of a buzz that she could remember ever, at least in the amount of time that she had been there. Her sneaking intuition told her that William’s retirement would be delayed yet again and those morbid thoughts of him meeting his fate inside of the arena sooner, rather than later, were hard to push out of her mind. No, she didn’t particularly love him in any sort of romantic way, but he had become an important part of her life and the thought of him dying on the sands of the arena went from persisting to prevalent.

3. The Brawler

Life prior to the fall was a distant mirage to William. There were still those fleeting, hazy memories of his rain-soaked home in Britain. Not that any of that mattered now. It was all bullshit now; he chuckled while he heaved his tank-like body from the bed, taking special care to not disturb the women on either side of him. He couldn’t help himself, though, his hand slapping the ass of the one on the right. The blonde with the perky tits, Jenna. She giggled and moaned while he slunk off of the bed and onto the floor, pulling a bottle of scotch off of the nightstand.

“Baby, where are you going?” Jenna murmured, still in a haze.

“Just need a nip an’ a walk, that alright, innit?” He picked himself up, snatching the red kimono with the kanji on the back that spelled out “Metsu-Ken” off of the chair across from the bed and lazily draping it over himself, trying to tie the belt with the bottle still in his hand. His hand quaked like it had been doing for months now, requiring a deep breath to keep it from showing.

“But baby,” she said, rubbing her eyes, “you know you are in the arena tonight.”

“Oh, I am,” he said, taking another burning pull from the bottle. “Just need a l’il air s’all.”

The top half of Branch Tower was residential, with the topmost few floors being reserved for those of the utmost importance, a category that William fell into, even if he had to earn his way into the elite. Everyone knew him as the brawler; the man with the taped fists who would enter the arena with the British flag draped over his shoulders like a cape before he put on some of the wildest brawls that Branch’s arena had ever seen. They cheered, laughed and hung on his every motion, which helped turn him into a god of Branch’s new society.

William was a hero in Branch Tower, and Jordan Branch himself had promised him the retirement that he was due for. Soon, very soon. In fact, he believed that very night would be the night that the “British Brawler” William Farrington retired from the arena. William was a hero, a tall tale, and of late they were feeding him bums to fight. Maybe it was that Branch ran out of anyone willing to fight to the death in the arena anymore, or that his legend had grown out of proportion for them. He was never sure of which, but he was sure that his time was coming to a close. Still, he felt a little like a hero. Maybe after he got to retire, he could finally sleep through the night.

The only one that he hadn’t fought yet was the Crusher, but he was always sure that the arena’s two favorites would be kept separate, at least for now. With William on the way out, it meant that none of it would ever need to concern him again. He would only be a spectator at the fights from then on, not the main event anymore. A part of him would miss the roar of the crowd, the adrenaline pumping through his veins while he fended off hordes of the undead and whatever warrior had shown up at their doorstep. The rest of him just wanted it all to be over already. There was only so much self-medicating he could do to forget everything.

Some would categorize Branch as a monster, organizing fights between the living and other survivors, sometimes against the undead or even beasts from the Wasteland, but not William. William understood well enough that there was only limited space in Branch’s new world that he was building and that his skills were important enough to gain him the trust of the most important man left in this world, Branch.

William had found his way to Branch Tower like everyone else had; through stories, conjecture, and desire to survive. He was so far removed from his home at that point, with no hope of ever returning, that it seemed like the only thing to do was find a way to Branch’s compound. His brother, Stuart, had been with him throughout their journey from what was California to the desert of Las Vegas.

Everything along the way was decimated or in some state of disrepair. Stuart and he had holed up in a shelter when the bombs dropped, but they knew they couldn’t live there forever. They spent an entire year inside of that shelter until one night in a fight over some rations, Stuart had slit the throat of of their de facto-leader’s son. That was the critical mass leading to their exodus, leaving them no choice but to run. They would have to survive topside, in what was left of the world.

Will stumbled down the dimly lit hall of Branch Tower, hearing the fountain from the common area and laughing to himself at the luxury he found himself in. Their escape from the shelter was a bloody one, Stuart had snapped and had stabbed at least three of the men who attempted to come after him, with William forced to drag his brother away from the fight, subduing anyone in their way to the door. Women were crying, children were cowering while the two boys from Brighton brawled their way out of the shelter. The shelter itself was a dismal abomination of families huddled in corners and hoarding their supplies from each other.

Warm, arid wind whipped at them outside of the shelter, with the unfamiliar sunlight blinding them after their extended stay underground in a dimly lit, incandescent hole in the ground. The landscape that laid barren and still before them took Will’s breath away at the moment, so much so that he didn’t hear the heavy iron door slamming shut behind them and latching. Everyone had lived in fear of the outside world, but Will and Stuart had known that their time there was running out. The food was growing scarce, tempers were flaring, and Stuart was finding himself in more and more jams that Will had to pull him out of.

Their arrival in Los Angeles had been on a vacation across the United States. They were on a trip to clear their minds after their mother had passed on from cancer. Stuart had taken it worse than Will had and was getting into more trouble than Will could deal with, so he arranged for their great American trip. Little did either know that they’d never see home again, instead find themselves stranded in the American wastelands after the fall. Sand and ash had swept throughout what was once a great city, the Earth reclaiming what humanity had taken from it and helped to destroy. Buildings had crumbled and what was left of them had become overgrown with plant life, like the Earth was trying to reclaim what belonged to it. They dared not go into any of those old buildings, though, for fear of what could have been lingering inside still, or worse yet, random collapses. Their journey towards Branch Tower was a solemn march, most of it spent in relative silence. Stuart’s clothes stained with the blood of the people he had stabbed, and neither had muttered a single word about it. The trip took them over two months, in part because of the terrain, but also from the survivors. When the undead first appeared, the panic was undeniable, but there was a sense of control after a few weeks. That was until the bombs dropped. That was when they realized that they’d never see home again, and that all hope was for fools. There were a few shuffling undead along the way to Las Vegas, but they were few and far between on their journey. Most of their problems came from the living.

Will first killed a living man halfway into the trip when an older man with a pistol and an itchy trigger finger accosted them. He was hungry; he had said, and he wanted their food. He’d let them live if they handed it over. Stuart had wanted none of that, of course, brandishing his knife and lunging at the old man who began firing. A shot had whizzed over Will’s head before he pushed Stuart aside and buried his shoulder into the old man’s ribs. The old man was on the ground in an instant, Will on top, smashing away at his face with his knuckles and elbows until the old man drew his last pained breath. He had continued to smash at the man’s battered skull, unsure of the possibility of the old man reanimating and wanting to be sure, but it took Stuart dragging him off of the old man for him to realize what had happened. That incident became another that the brothers refused to speak of, with the fear of retelling the events out loud, making them more real or horrific. Will still saw that fucker’s broken skull every night in his dreams, no matter how much he drank.

Along the way, they had run into some trouble with a few slavers, but that turned into a silent affair for both brothers, serving as the place where Vera came into their lives. The poor girl. Neither one of them had spoken much after picking her up, just grunts and nods for the rest of their journey before they reached their destination. When Branch Tower crested over the horizon, a lone marvel of man’s endurance and perseverance, their silence was finally broken. “Quite a fuckin’ sight, innit?” Stuart muttered.

“Aye,” he had agreed.

* * *

“That fire,” Branch said, brandishing a smile and rubbing his hands together. “I know that you’ll be tremendous tonight, a star. No… No, my star.”

“Aye,” Will said, Branch’s hands grasping onto his broad shoulders. “Well, I’m ready to knock some heads off.”

“Good,” Jordan said. “That is what I want to hear! You see, Will, can I call you Will?”

“Why not?” He shrugged.

“Well Will, we’ve known each other for a while now, right?”

“Aye, that we have Mr. Branch,” William was sitting on a bench in the dark underbelly of the arena, pulling his gear on. A gauntlet on his right hand had become his signature; him using it, the cave in the skulls of the shuffling undead and any of the living that they tossed at him. The spikes made for an imposing visual, but the electromagnetic charge that pulsated through whoever it contacted was the actual killer. He had even given a name for that punch, the dreaded Metsu-Ken, which in Japanese meant “Destroy Punch.” At least, that’s what someone had told him. That what was he did, though; he destroyed lives with that punch, and they all ate it up.

“Oh please, Will. Call me Jordan,” he assured him. They hadn’t known each other all that well, but Branch had taken a serious liking to him of late, which didn’t bother William that much because it was all business at this point. Branch was arguably one of the most powerful men in the world. For all that he or anyone else around knew, Branch was the only powerful man left. There was always this vain hope that there was life and society thriving elsewhere, but Branch painted a rather vivid portrait of how the rest of the world was in chaos and how it was on them to survive, to thrive and to rebuild after all of this time. He should know. He still has a working helicopter.

“Alright, Jordan, then.”

“Good, good,” he said. “Tonight is a special night. Tonight we add to our menagerie of sorts, our society that we are rebuilding from the ground up.”

“That’s a good ‘un, innit?”

“It is. It is.”

“What’s this addition now then?”

“The addition is hope, my good friend. It is hope in the way of a new survivor, one that everyone will recognize. He’s more than a man to most of them, he’s many men, he’s a memory of our past opulence and also of our triumphs.”

“Some sort of hero?”

“A hero, yes,” he said. “Are you familiar with TK Gabriel?”

“He’s that picture badass, innit he?”

“That he is, that he is.”

“He’s here? Fuck off.”

“No, really,” Branch was staring off into the distance. “He showed up at our doorstep this afternoon. I believe he could be a turning point for our little society here. He’s a symbol of hope, a symbol of what existed before all of this.”

“That’s good, right?”

“It is, and it isn’t. He’s a symbol of a world that no longer exists and can no longer exist. He hasn’t stated that he’d do it yet. In fact, I haven’t brought it up yet, but I want him to fight in the arena. I want him to fight you.”

“Oh.”

“I wouldn’t worry about it,” he chuckled. “He’s a movie star. Yes, he’s survived out there in the wilds for years, but you are the best fighter we have. There’s no way that he can take you. Will, you are a hero to these people. You are the hero that was created in the Wasteland. You are the new hope, he is the old hope. Do you see what I’m getting at here?”

“Aye,” he nodded. “You want me to call the bugger out?”

“Yes. I want him to fight in the arena. I want it all to lead up to a final showdown between the two of you. A battle for the ages, a battle to the death. Your retirement from the arena coming by crushing one of the old gods. I’m salivating at the very thought of it, aren’t you?”

“Sounds like my kinda plan,” he tightened the gauntlet around his hand. “What about Stuart?”

“Ahh yes, your brother,” Branch paused. “Stuart and Viktor are a vital part of my security forces. I don’t believe that either has any intention of retiring anytime soon.”

“No,” he said, “s’pose not. The Twin Terrors will continue on.”

“They will. They are simply too good at what they do to stop just yet. You shouldn’t be worried about them. It’s not like either of you can return home, either. There’s no home to return to, your home is here now, your place is here as the beloved Brawler of the Wasteland.”

“Suppose so,” he said. Will picked himself up and did one last check on his gear. The gauntlet sat snug around his fist and a bandolier of throwing knives hung from his shoulder. Those knives were mostly for show. There wasn’t much use for them now that he had the gauntlet, and he hadn’t had to use them since his earliest fights. Instead, it was all about the Metsu-Ken. His right hand is what most wanted to see now, with that electrified gauntlet that gave him that boost in power that he needed to put on a good show. Power surged through it on contact and usually exploding the heads of anyone that he touched with it.

A sullen sigh escaped from Will, knowing that he’d still have to keep fighting, knowing that his retirement wasn’t in order just yet. Not that it mattered, anyway, it just meant more violence, more killing and more feeling adrift and lost for him. None of that was anything new. He took a swig from a small bottle of scotch that he had tucked into his bandolier, emptying it and tossing it onto the concrete, it shattering into pieces on impact. Hopefully, at least, it meant that he was being saved for something and that he’d have an easy time out there compared to past battles. There were a few that were close calls, those were the few battles he didn’t almost return from, and they marked his body up with those scars until the day that he died to remind him of it. That wouldn’t be tonight, at least. No, not tonight, because tonight he was the champion. The Brawler of the Wasteland and Jordan Branch had a plan for him. That made him special, or at least more special than those other poor knobs that Branch fed to him..

“Are you all prepared for battle then, my champion?” Branch reached out and grasped onto William’s shoulders.

“Aye.”

“Good. I’ll leave you to it. To battle, my friend!”

“Aye, to battle!”

2. The Cannibal

Rage. Tunnel vision like a darkened corridor, worming through his subconscious, searching fervently for light. Devoid. Terrified. The rage chased him through the maze inside of his mind, looking to overcome him once again. There had to be more, there once was more, but the names, the faces, the language was drifting in an ethereal plane just out of reach. Only the darkness existed.

Remember.

Written in neon ink on the smooth stone surface of the wall, invisible when the lights were on, but visible only in the dark. Only to him. To him. Him. He had a name; he had a face and a voice and a family and existed. Existed beyond the endless race through the maze, away from it, from what he had become. Rage. A double occupancy that ate away at his consciousness.

Remember.

The word was splashed on the wall, bend after bend. “Remember.” But remember what? There was only darkness now. Blind stumbling and fumbling, hoping to remember. But why? Who? Remember. Remember. Remember.

Demoreo.

The name came on in waves, like a low, throbbing pain. A scar, leftover from a past injury. A sunset from days long past that once meant so much, but was now just a facsimile of what it once was. Demoreo. Demoreo wasn’t there anymore, but Demoreo once was. Demoreo. That was his name, wasn’t it? His name. Remember it. The woman told him to remember; she wrote it all down, wrote it all down to remember. He must remember, he must fight the darkness and the rage.

Demoreo. That was his name. He was Demoreo.

* * *

“Dad,” the voice echoed through his halls, bouncing from room-to-room and into his mind. “Dad! You gotta get up!” His eyes darted open, the sun-bleached everything in sight, his mouth was dried up and the words could form but barely escape.

“T-Tyler,” he reached out for his son’s hand; it was warm, clammy to the touch compared to his. There was a wound festering on his leg. The maggots had already set up shop, and the stench of death had followed them throughout the wasteland. “Let me go,” he mumbled. “Just go.”

“We can’t leave you, not yet,” he was a good boy, older than he had any right to be, that the world had any right to expect of him. He should’ve been worried about starting high school. Instead, he was dragging his father towards an oasis in the middle of a destroyed city while Shar followed. “It’s so close now, just look,” the boy held Demoreo’s head up, the gaudy “BRANCH” sign in bold, red letters sat atop the last standing monument to Las Vegas.

“Go on without me, you gotta,” he said.

“I can’t.”

“Yes, you can. We’ve come so far, just a little further.”

“Not without you.”

“Shar, please,” Demoreo called out to his wife. She had suffered enough trauma that she had more-or-less shut down. Just like the dead they had encountered, she was a husk of a person.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

“Just think of Marie, Shar. Please, we’ve come this far. I know we lost our baby, but Tyler needs you. We’ve come so far.”

“What does it matter, anyway?” She asked, not expecting an answer. “We’re all doomed.”

“Tyler,” Demoreo reached out for his son’s face, Tyler grabbing a hold of his hand in his own. “Just please, get your ma to safety, get her to the tower. You’ll be safe there, I just know it.”

“We’re a family,” Tyler said. “Didn’t you say that? Isn’t that why we’re here? We’re a family.”

With a mighty push of all of his collected strength, Demoreo sat up, pushing back against the remnants of a roadside barrier that was propping him up. The skeletal remains of the Las Vegas highway system hung overhead, pylons without roads to support reaching out to the sky, twisted and bent like a withered, dying tree. Fallen ash had all blended together with the crumbled rock and steel from the buildings to create a solid sheen of grit beneath them. Blood soaked through the dressing on his leg, it being more ornamental than functional.

As much as it pained him to admit, he was dying. The sun beat down on them from above unobstructed, but he felt a chill coursing through his body. Each breath took tremendous effort, taking more and more out of him. Tyler’s eyes were red and swollen, tears stained his cheeks, and his shirt was barely holding onto his body. He was a sturdy boy; he had done well, but he couldn’t forget about Marie and that dumb mistake of letting her go into that old pawn shop to look around on her own. Fuck anyone who said the undead weren’t motherfuckers, because they tore into his baby and he had to finish it before she turned. He had to look her in those big, brown eyes, hair matted to her forehead while she begged him to not let her become a monster.

“Dad? Dad?” The boy shook him, tearing him from his reverie.

“Ya,” he said, fighting to remain conscious, “I’m here.”

“We gotta go. It’s getting dark, and it’s just a ways down the road, see?” He pointed.

“I’ll take your word for it.”

“Ma ain’t gonna make it without us, dad…”

“I know,” he said, trying to pull himself up and stumbling. “I know.”

“Here,” Tyler pulled Demoreo’s arm up and wrapped it over his shoulder. He was still just a boy, but he was strong, strong enough to make it in that hellscape and strong enough to remind Demoreo to keep pushing. But this wasn’t what he wanted for him, not by a longshot. Tyler was an artist. He was a sensitive boy who cared little for sports like his old man did. But he was strong. With a heft he made it to his feet, leaning on Tyler’s lythe frame. “C’mon, ma.”

“Oh, okay,” she said, following while Demoreo limped alongside his son.

The wound was from one of those zombies; it had ambushed them when they were crossing the Hoover Dam, catching him by surprise and latching onto his thigh. Fucker took a huge chunk outta him, too. It bled like a bastard. Tyler told him he was lucky it didn’t hit some sort of artery nearby, but it still bled. Shar had worked at an old folks’ home back in Flagstaff, so she was able to wrap him up and dress it, but it wasn’t like they had much to work with. Infection came swift and hard, spreading like wildfire. He didn’t like to look at it much and the pain was a constant, so it wasn’t like he’d ever forget.

They were making their way down South Las Vegas Blvd, known as “The Strip” in a time before the fall, lined with overbearing edifices that were the casino resorts the city was known for. Now it all had been demolished, smoothed over by the blast, the fall, the ash and the winds. The street bore a closer resemblance to a barren desert, with the occasional hunk of man-made splendor fighting its way through the desolation. Branch Tower beamed out through the hazy dusk sky, a lone beacon calling to them on the horizon.

“Sure looks weird,” Tyler commented, “just sitting there like nothing happened and all.”

“Sure does,” Demoreo groaned.

“You think we’ll be okay there?”

“I dunno,” he said, “but we gotta hope, right?”

“Yeah, I guess so. Who was this guy again? Some sort of scientist?”

“The guy,” Demoreo said while they trudged forward, doing his best to push forward through the pain.

“He’s the guy who fucked it all up,” Shar interjected. “Some big, fancy white asshole that felt that he knew better. Well, he knew better, alright.”

“Oh,” Tyler fell silent.

Jordan Branch felt like an illusion more than anything else, a character from a TV show that had nothing to do with the Johnson family down in Arizona. There were stories—a lot of them—about whatever role he may have played, but out in the wasteland he was a legend, working on a cure for the undead in his tower that survived the fall of society. It had all sounded too good to be true, yet there it was, closer with each pained step.

“We’re almost there,” Demoreo broke the silence with. He needed to remain strong, to keep pushing forward. They just had to make it to the building, then he could rest, then he’d know that his family was safe.

“Where ya headed?” Tyler dropped his father at the sound of a voice, Demoreo craning his neck to see an older man emerge from the rubble of a broken down building, the bottom floor looking partially intact. His skin was pallid and devoid of any color, while his skin looking like someone had peeled it off, dried out in the sun and then stretched over a pile of bones. The old man was eyeballing them, either amazed to see another set of living beings or that he had seen no one of color in years.

“To Branch Tower, sir,” Tyler responded, clearly scared.

“Branch Tower, eh?” The old man approached, Demoreo summoning what little of his strength remained to reach for the shotgun that was slung over his shoulder. “Just a short ways now for ya, then.”

“Yes, sir.”

“That yer dad there?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Looks mighty hurt. Ya think he’ll even make it that far?”

“I’ll… I’ll make it,” Demoreo groaned.

“Strong one, this one. You got yourself a strong pa, boy.”

Demoreo’s hand was on the gun, but it felt heavy, just like everything else around him was. Tyler was keeping him up and keeping it together. That boy was gonna be something someday.

“Ya think that Branch’ll care for ‘em? Lookit us, just poor lepers left out here to rot in the wasteland while he’s up there sipping brandy and fuckin’ whores—no offense, m’am,” he looked at Shar and licked his lips.

“We’ve really gotta be going,” Tyler said, reaching down for his father’s arm and hoisting him back up.

“I see, I see.” The man’s beady eyes were burning a hole through them. “Boy,” he reached out and tugged on Tyler’s shoulder, the boy jerking to the side and Demoreo falling to the ground in a heap. “I’m trying to help you, here.”

“We don’t need your help.”

“But you do! Your father will be torn limb-from-limb by Branch’s sentinels. Don’t you s’pose if Branch took any ole’ wastelander we’d be up there, sippin’ martinis and fucking broads dry? Not out here, not in the forsaken wastes scavenging for every scrap of food? Don’t be a fool, boy.”

“The boy says we’re good,” Demoreo said.

“Aren’t you the brave one, old man? Your boy, your woman and you, all headin’ for the green grass of Branch Tower. Gonna frolick in dem irradiated hills, too? It’s all a fuckin’ lie.”

“Just let us go,” Demoreo summoned the strength to raise the gun towards the man, who recoiled before a wry smile unfolded across his pale skin.

“So brave,” he said, “so tough.”

“Back off.”

“Dad…” Tyler leaned in to pick him up, Demoreo swatting him away.

“Tyler, I’ve got this.”

“Dad, no, let’s just go…”

“Your boy is quite brave as well,” the man said, “but he’s wrong. You can’t go. I was giving you a chance before, a chance to join us, but now…”

“You back the fuck off!” Demoreo shouted, finger trembling by the trigger while he could hardly hold himself up.

“Oh come now, you can barely keep yourself up, big poppa,” he said, approaching with his hand extended. “Your boy has seen enough horrors, hasn’t he?”

“Just leave us be and nobody gets hurt,” Demoreo said, trying to control his breathing.

“You don’t have the—“

Boom. The shell shredded his skull, sending blood and gore flying, splattering all over Demoreo and Tyler, who stood in shock while the body fell to the ground in a pool of blood. Tyler fell to his knees, aghast in horror. Demoreo had killed before, but Tyler had never had to see it. He had always helped his mom away before anything happened, but this time was different. There wasn’t a choice.

“Tyler,” he said, hands trembling from the shot and ears ringing, looking at his awestruck son. “Son, please, get your mom and let’s get out of here.”

The boy stayed there, frozen in place, while the body twitched on the ground.

“Tyler!” he shouted. “There might be more, c’mon.”

Tyler was reaching down for him, but Demoreo knew he couldn’t keep going and that he’d just drag them both down. Imagine that, just steps away from salvation, from the tower, then Demoreo Johnson goes and ruins the whole damned thing by being a goddamned bump on a log. Demoreo brushed his son’s hand away, Tyler reaching again and Demoreo slapping it away with whatever might he had left.

“Dad, no…”

“I told you to leave me, now leave me, damnit!” The tears were blurring his vision beyond what it already was, his glasses lost on one of their first days out in the wastes; dropped, smashed, forgotten.

“No, daddy, please,” the boy plead, “We need you.”

“Goddamnit, Tyler,” Demoreo tried to prop himself up against a chunk of concrete from a fallen building, but he slipped and was on his back again. “Just go, now,” his words were slurring, the world dimming.

“He don’t look so good,” Shar muttered, “c’mon, boy, let your father rest. We’ll find help, okay, sweetie?” Her words were meant to be comforting, but the tone of her voice was that of resignation. She knew, he thought, of course she knew this was it.

“We can’t!” He pulled away from her. “We can’t just leave him to die! Not after all of this!”

The boy’s hands were on him again, Demoreo doing his best to sweep the boy away, but he was strong, stronger than whatever was left inside of Demoreo. That boy would make something of himself yet, even in this fucked up world, he’d be something. Of all the things that could be final thoughts, that one was a soothing one; Tyler would be alright, he’d survive.

“Dad, c’mon,” the boy shook him again, Demoreo summoning every ounce of strength and pulling the shotgun up and pointing it at Shar.

“Go now, boy, don’t make me do it.”

Tyler froze in place, his body trembling. Demoreo could feel the boy’s heart break, but there would always be more. Shotgun blasts weren’t subtle, and dragging him along was just a liability. They needed to get the hell outta there, and fast. He had gotten them this far.

“But…”

“I got you this far, just go, finish it.”

“I can’t, I…”

“Go,” he pointed the gun at his son, his heart breaking into a million pieces. His last memory wouldn’t be of his sturdy son moving out to save himself and his mother, but the look on his face at his father pointing a gun at him.

“C’mon, baby,” Shar tugged Tyler by the shirt, “it’s just up ahead, we’ll get help.”

“Why?” Tyler asked, fighting through the tears. “Why?”

* * *

Branch’s coliseum was grandiose, as magnificent as anything could be in a world that was overrun by the walking dead and ground to ashes from nuclear weapons could be. Demoreo stood in the arena that first time, feeling as naked and vulnerable as he was, only a stranger in his own skin. The crowd gasped, gawked, and marveled at Demoreo, at what he had become through Branch’s experiments. He was unlike anything that they had ever seen; a true ghast among a cornucopia of horrors.

Fear. Was this what he had become? Loathing.

Demoreo was special. Branch had made that clear to him. All his other projects had been failures, insults not worthy of a god. Branch believed himself to be a hair away from learning the key to immortality, to being superhuman, and Demoreo was the missing link. Before it was either death or death and reanimation, but never sustained life, added strength or abilities. That all changed with Demoreo, Branch’s great breakthrough, or, as they introduced him to the arena spectators, the Crusher. The changes gripped him more with each passing day, his body alien, uncomfortable, and his mind foggy. His mind was slipping. Details that came naturally were slipping from his grasp until they dissipated, forcing him to repeat his name to himself ad nauseam, just so he wouldn’t forget.

The constructed images in his head of Shar, Tyler and Marie were fading with each passing day, which made him weep every night when the guards had all stopped paying attention. He stood out in the sunlight again, after what felt an eternity in darkness, or barricaded away in the depths of Branch’s laboratory, being tested on night and day without pause. Sunlight pierced through him like millions of tiny needles. The once-familiar sight was now alien and painful where it was once soothing and invigorating. Tonight’s crowd was hungry, bloodthirsty, and impatient. Rage. There it was, bubbling up and creeping through his subconsciousness. He had been fighting, remembering, which only made the rage come on harder. He glanced around, hoping to glance at Shar and Tyler’s faces in the crowd, but there were so many faces, all of them unfamiliar and distorted, crying for violence.

A thundering clang cut through the buzz of the crowd as two armored guards peeled the mighty iron doors across the arena from him open. A hush washed over the crowd, but from this distance Demoreo saw nothing, just a dark hallway across the massive arena. What was coming next was beyond his power. The rage would overtake him, it would drown out his consciousness and force him to feed on the flesh of the living and undead. All of it would unfold in front of a crowd, no longer in a darkened cell in private. The guards had ensured that he had eaten nothing in days, and the hunger was growing with every passing moment. Whatever had taken over his body and mind was a good parasite, and it did what it had to do to survive, even if it meant overtaking the host.

“Ladies and gentlemen,” an announcer’s voice boomed over the arena. “Tonight Jordan Branch presents to you, the disgusting cannibal of the Wasteland, the Crusher!”

The crowd roared while the guard poked him in the back with the muzzle of his rifle. “C’mon, Crusher, Branch wants you to play to the crowd.” Demoreo turned around to face the guard, only for three others to swarm in, guns pointed at him, motioning for him to turn around. They feared him, knowing what he was capable of.

“My god, he’s a lively one, isn’t he?” the announcer boomed again. “Tonight we will see the Crusher against an entire horde of the undead. Can the terror of the Wasteland outlast them? Only time will tell!” He boomed. “It’s feeding time!”

The crowd fell silent while the groaning emerged from the tunnel across the arena. The sounds of the approaching undead had triggered something inside of him, and the dark cloud rolled in over his mind. Fists clenched, he advanced towards the tunnel. If he was to live as a monster for the rest of his life, how bad would it be to just have it all end here? To fight, to not let the monster take hold and to die while he could still remember the face of his children? Death would be the only thing that he was in control of because it was his and his alone. Not Jordan Branch’s.

The only thing standing in the way of this noble death was the boiling rage flowing through his veins. Rage was bubbling up inside of him, overtaking his personality and clouding whatever logical thoughts were left inside of his mind. A few of the undead emerged from the blackness, moaning and shuffling towards him, the guards with stun batons to herd them. The crowd roared and all that Demoreo could think about was ripping them all—undead and the alive—limb from limb. His senses were dulling, the fog inside of his brain solidifying to the point of blocking everything else out, the rage overtaking him. He stumbled, falling down to one knee while the pain inside of his head grew. That pain, that blackness had overtaken him before and the only way that he knew to stop it was to let go, let it encompass his being, to let the monster take charge.

There was a dual-residency inside of his head; a struggle for dominance as to which personality would exist and eventually only one would remain. Demoreo, he whispered. Demoreo, your name is Demoreo. The pain inside of his mind intensified while the horde closed in on him. Demoreo, your name is Demoreo. A sudden jolt filled his body, a set of rotten teeth digging into his shoulder. He let out a mighty roar, exploding to his feet, flinging the few undead that had clutched onto him off to the ground.

In one swift motion, his foot came down like a piston, crushing the skull of the one who had bits of his flesh still in its maw. He grabbed another around its decaying throat, its menacing tongue lashing out, a hiss emanating from inside of it. He hoisted the monster into the air before its skull came crashing down onto the packed dirt, exploding upon impact. Crusher let out a mighty roar while another two hobbled toward him.

He reached down and grabbed a hold of a leg, using his might to fling it aside, taking the whole body with it. The body flew, but the leg remained in his hand, finding its way into his jaws. He tore a sizeable chunk of meat off from the leg before tossing it aside, another clawing at him. This one he grabbed by the top of the head, leaning down and sinking his oversized teeth into the monster’s stomach. With one tug there were entrails spilling onto the ground, the monster still hissing at him before he tore the head from the body, tossing it into the crowd, forcing a panic among the first two rows.

He was at least three times the size of them surrounding him, meaning that they stood no chance. There were no human thoughts left, just rage, just hunger, just destruction. The crowd was under control again, screaming in joy while he ripped through each one that stood before him, taking pieces into his jaw when he saw fit, other times tearing them limb-from-limb much to the delight of the crowd.

A commotion came from his right, him turning to see that a member of the crowd had fallen in. A woman in the front row was screaming, crying out, reaching for a man that had tumbled from the stands who lay flat on the ground trying to regain his senses. Crusher dropped the twitching body from his hands and stomped over towards the man, who was attempting to scramble to his feet. The guards stood silent, watching. Their orders weren’t to save anyone, their orders were to clean up.

“No, please! Someone help him!” The woman shrieked, a few guards surrounding her, taking her by the arms and restraining her. “Jonah no! Please!”

It was only a matter of a few steps before the Crusher stood before the man, blood and guts dripping from his maw and streaking down his muscled chest like a primitive beast on the hunt. Demoreo, he heard in his mind. Your name is Demoreo. A sharp pang traveled through his head, causing him to pull back, before the cloud washed back over him, the man’s torso in his grasp having the life squeezed out of him.

Rage.

“No, ple—” The man was pleading, but the Crusher was hungry. Always hungry. Restraining himself only amplified the pain in his mind, making the choice a simple one.

The head popped inside of his mouth like a water balloon against a warm summer’s day sidewalk, squishing and crunching while the body fell limp in his hand. He tore off an arm like he was munching on a game hen, a natural and effortless thing for him to do, when out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of the guards approaching him in defensive postures. The body flew towards two of the guards, knocking them to the ground before he felt the sharp pain of the taser throughout his body, falling to his knees, blackness flooding through his mind. Demoreo, he heard his voice say inside of his head. Demoreo.