The Walking Dead_ The Road to Woodbury - By Robert Kirkman Page 0,84
mostly empty. The citizens sit above him, scattered across the upper decks, clapping and whooping and craning their necks to see the action. The harsh brilliance of the arc light shining down makes Bob blink. The air smells of old burned rubber and gasoline, and Bob has to squint to identify what’s going on down on the track.
He takes a step closer, leans toward the fence, and peers through the chain link.
Two large men grapple with each other in the center of the muddy infield. Sam the Butcher, seminude in his blood-spattered athletic trunks, his bare chest sagging, and his belly hanging over his belt, swings a jury-rigged wooden club at Stinson, the big, lumpy middle-aged guardsman. Stinson, his camo pants dark with bodily fluids, staggers and jerks back, trying to dodge the onslaught, an eighteen-inch machete in his greasy hand. The end of the butcher’s club—sprouting rusty nails on one side—catches the side of Stinson’s doughy face, gouging flesh.
Stinson rears backward, throwing spittle and strands of thick blood.
The crowd issues a salvo of yelps and angry cheers as Stinson topples over his own feet. Dust rises up into the sodium light as the portly guardsman hits the ground, the machete flying out of his grip and landing in the dirt. The butcher pounces with the club. Nails puncture Stinson’s jugular and left pectoral before the man has a chance to roll away. The audience yowls.
Bob turns away for a moment, feeling nauseous and dizzy. He takes another huge gulp of whiskey and lets the burn soothe his terror. He takes another, and another, and finally works up enough nerve to gaze back at the action. The butcher is pummeling Stinson, sending gouts of blood—as black as tar in the sodium lights—spraying across the matted brown turf of the infield.
The wide dirt track circling the infield has armed guards at each gate, intently watching the fracas, their assault rifles cradled at the ready. Bob swallows more whiskey and averts his gaze from the grisly slaughter, focusing on the upper regions of the racetrack. The diamond-vision screen is blank, powerless, probably inoperable. The glass enclosures of VIP boxes lining one side of the arena are mostly deserted and dark … all except for one.
The Governor and Martinez stand behind the window of the center box, looking down on the spectacle with unreadable expressions on their faces.
Bob chugs another few fingers of whiskey—he’s already halfway through the bottle—and finds himself avoiding eye contact with the crowd. In his peripheral vision he can see the faces of young and old, male and female, all riveted to the bloody skirmish. Many faces contort with a kind of manic delight. Some of the onlookers rise to their feet, hands waving as though they are finding Jesus.
Down on the field the butcher delivers one last savage blow to Stinson’s kidney, the nails sinking into the guardsman’s fleshy lower back. Blood bubbles and gushes, and then Stinson sags in the dirt, convulsing, twitching in his death throes. Breathing hard, drooling with psychotic glee, the butcher raises the club and faces the crowd. The spectators respond with a surge of howls.
Repulsed, woozy, going numb with horror, Bob Stookey chugs more whiskey and looks down.
“I THINK WE HAVE A WINNER!”
The amplified voice coming through the public address system echoes and feeds back with harsh, electronic squealing noises. Bob gazes up and sees the Governor behind the center box window casually speaking into a microphone. Even from this great distance, Bob can see the weird pleasure glimmering behind the Governor’s eyes like two pinpoints of starlight. Bob looks back down.
“HOLD ON! HOLD ON!! LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I THINK WE HAVE A COMEBACK!!”
Bob looks up.
On the infield, the big lump on the ground has come back to life. Lurching toward the machete, Stinson gets his blood-slick hand around the hilt and twists back toward the butcher, who has his back turned. Stinson pounces with every last ounce of strength. The butcher turns and tries to shield his face as the machete slashes.
The blade sinks into the butcher’s neck deep enough to get stuck.
The butcher staggers and falls backward with the machete still planted in his jugular. Stinson moves in with drunken rage, the blood loss making him lumber and weave with eerie resemblance to a zombie. The crowd jeers and roars. Stinson pulls the machete loose and delivers another devastating blow to the butcher’s neck, severing the gaunt man’s head between the fifth and sixth cervical vertebrae.