ready. He spun away just before the collision, his unfettered hand clutching the thing’s hair as his body swung around and crashed into the back of the creature. With momentum working to his advantage, Bruno drove the monster forward and the thing’s head crashed into the unforgiving bars of the cage. Bashed repeatedly against the steel, the creature’s forehead took on a dented look, as if bone were caving in just below the surface. And yet Bruno continued his assault long after the thing’s limbs had gone limp. He knew it was true dead, as they called it in the business, but found himself powerless to stop It was as his body were a killing machine that, once revved up, had to be given time to power down.
By the time he allowed the thing’s body to crumple to the floor, the doors to the cage had been unlocked. The crowd was going wild with applause and the scarred bikini model carried a large bowl of canned goods as if it were an offering to the gods. The bowl was mostly symbolic. The food within it would definitely be included in his prize, but the true wealth of the purse was so great that the woman would have been crushed beneath it.
He hadn’t needed Smitty to tell him the odds. He knew fully well going into it that no one really expected him to live. So a few private bets placed on the side had netted him a fortune of food. He would eat for weeks without considering rationing and would have his pick of the higher class food whores instead of settling for diseased guttersnipes. His life was about to get very, very good.
Bruno held his hands aloft and bounced across the floor as he played to the crowd. There were more than a handful of boos scattered among the applause, but you always had that. The only thing that mattered was Bruno would be eating well and they would not.
Pausing to wink at the ring girl, Bruno noticed his hand and felt as though he’d taken a sucker punch to the groin. Bile stung the back of his throat and his breath caught on the bitter flood of acid, becoming nothing more than a sharp gasp with no follow up. His heart was a runway locomotive and the blood surging through his veins felt cold. He stared at the back of his bare hand as the broad smile melted from his face drained of color.
A flashback memory of landing that first punch after freeing himself from the glove: there’d been a flash of pain, what he’d suspected to be a hairline fracture. But, no. There it was, this jagged little break in the skin, nothing more than a scrape really. In another world, in another time, it would have meant nothing; but in the wastelands there was no word for inconsequential. Even something as small as this flap of bloodstained skin carried grave consequences. In the trade, it was known as fighter’s bite and not to be taken lightly. Regardless of whether you’d been chewed on like a soup bone or just nicked your knuckle while landing a punch, the results were the same.
Bruno would never live to enjoy his food. He’d never fuck again. In his profession, death was a career path. And he thought he’d been ready for it. He really did. He’d always sworn that he’d never be one of those assholes: the ones who tried to hide a wound, who went about their business in an exaggerated manner, almost as if they were calling attention to the fact that everything was normal. But when faced with infection, priorities changed without debate.
Lifting his tattered glove as if it were the severed head of an enemy, Bruno turned in a slow circle and played the part of victorious champion. Wriggling his hand into its confines, he forced a smile. His fighter’s bite was now hidden, but how long did he have left? 15 minutes? Half an hour? Even less if anyone noticed that his sweat continued streaming long after he should have cooled down. Either way, he’d be dead before the fires in the burning barrels gutted out.
But those were his moments, damn it, and he planned on savoring every one he could. And who knew? Once that last breath had rattled his soul free and his muscles twitched with the semblance of life, maybe Boss Nash would allow him to continue his career.
****
William Todd Rose writes dark, speculative fiction from his home in West Virginia. With short stories being featured in numerous anthologies and magazines, his longer works include Apocalyptic Organ Grinder, Cry Havoc, The Dead & Dying, and The Seven Habits. For more information on the author, including links to bonus content, please visit him online at www.williamtoddrose.com
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