[ WP ] You 've been lying your way through the zombie apocalypse by telling everyone you meet that you 're 'The One With The Cure ' because you 're immune . The most recent group has decided to make you prove it .

`` This is ridiculous!'' I shout at them. The crowd is hushed and the stadium is fairly small, so my voice carries. `` Why do I have to prove anything!?'' 
 
 He laughs from his throne, as he does the chains that crisscross and hang from his shoulders jingle like a rattlesnake's tail, no doubt where he got his name. `` What's ridiculous is that you seem to think you can lie to me and get away with it.'' He grins, revealing his yellowed smile. His teeth are in a greater state of rot and decay than the dead outside the walls. A fact I know everyone thinks, but no one says. 
 
 `` I do n't have to prove anything to you!'' I shouted back. 
 
 `` Frankly,'' Diamondback said. `` I do n't give a shit. I just enjoy watching idiots like you squirm.'' He looked to his right and motioned with his hand. 
 
 An emaciated man, who looked so aged I wondered how he held himself up, nodded back and spread his lips to reveal a toothless smile. He laughed childishly, a high pitched hair raising shrill, and leaned against a massive leaver. As he did, the iron portcullis between me and Them started to rise. 
 
 At first they did nothing. They stood in their pack stupidly, swaying in the pseudo darkness of their cage. Then, as the gate rose, they looked in its direction -- my direction. Behind the slowing rise of the gate, they gnashed and gnawed. Reaching their hands through the gaps and clawing at the air in front of them. Their bodies were dead, but their eyes were anything but. They flashed with a horrible yearning. An eagerness so simple, it was terrifying. 
 
 Red eyes above biting teeth. Eyes the color of a setting sun, the color of desert sand, the color of blood, set themselves upon me with horrible fascination and hunger. 
 
 A large metallic object landed before me in the sand. 
 
 `` Let's keep this interesting,'' Diamondback said, flashing that same, rotting smile. I picked up the pipe and stood waiting. 
 
 When the gate lifted above their heads, the first of them sprinted towards me. It released a guttural noise, closer to a horrified scream than a battle cry, and ran suicidal towards me. Hands with missing finger nails and flesh groped in front of it, its dislocated jaw testing its mechanism and chewing at nothing in particular. Eyes wide and full of fury. 
 
 I could hear the crowd cheer around me, shouting and screaming; as bloodthirsty as the Romans must have been in the Colosseum. 
 
 As the thing reached me, the world went quiet. I did n't hear the belabored moans of the creatures advancing towards me, or the fiery cheers of the people above. I locked my eyes with the thing before me and reeled back. 
 
 Back and back, until I hit the wall behind me. 
 
 The thing cried one last time, the only thing my ears registered, the sound of air being seeping out of a small hole, and lunged. I swung the pipe, and with it the sounds of our world came roaring back. The crowd cheered, the dead thing reeled. I did n't so much as hear the breaking of bone, more I felt it. Soft, malleable, brittle. 
 
 Before too long the next was upon me. Half its face dropped, sloughing off of the skull beneath it. I brought the pipe across its face as well. 
 
 Another crack. 
 
 Another cheer. 
 
 Time got hazy, I do n't want to say I blacked out, because I remember it all. And yet the details are n't all there. 
 
 I remember coming to from my bloodfury, sweating and covered in head to toe with something's blood. Bits of skull and bone were caked to my face and arms; which howled with aching pain. My heart slammed hard against my chest, each beating pulse I could feel in my throat, in my head, all the way down to me feet. 
 
 The last of them leapt towards me and I swung in return. The blood crusted, now bent pipe, only scored a glancing blow, and I felt a searing pain in my forearm, the warmth of blood, the hard dirt, and an explosion of stars before me. 
 
 Then it went dark. 
 
 -- - 
 
 I woke in a bed, beneath filthy yet warm covers. The room was small and abandoned. Tools rested on metallic stands, a saw here, a syringe there, a plastic bottle of prescription meds, and a handgun hanging on the wall. Above it was a sign scrawled in hasty handwriting, `` In Case of Emergency.'' 
 
 `` He's awake.'' I heard, then the world swallowed itself around me. 
 
 -- - 
 
 `` Wake up.'' A gruff voice said just beyond my consciousness. It was distant, small, quite. 
 
 `` *Wake up! `` * Again, though this time loud and accompanied with a rough shake. 
 
 I smelled it before I saw it; though the first thing my eyes saw was the filthy smile of Diamondback. The grin had a grim genuine quality to it that made me feel uneasy. Not just his mouth, but his *eyes* smiled as well. The man seemed pleased to see me. 
 
 `` About damn time,'' He said. `` You've been sleeping for days, you lazy sonovabitch.'' He crossed his arms and leaned back, `` Then again, if I had been through what you went through, I'd probably pass the fuck out too.'' 
 
 `` I...'' 
 
 `` You're confused. First off, I suppose I owe you an apology. What you did was really great. You know for someone so small, you got some fuckin' fight in ya!'' 
 
 I blinked hard, trying to bring the room into focus. My arm itched furiously. 
 
 `` And, you were right. Sorry about that too. It's not everyday you meet someone who's immune. In fact, it's never. No one is immune. Which is why I had to put you in the pit, you see. I got real tired of people knocking on our front door and claiming to be'immune.''And I'm the queen of fucking England.' I used to say. But after a time, I had to teach people a lesson for trying to trick me, see?'' 
 
 I nodded because I had no idea what else to do. 
 
 `` Fact of the matter is I was wrong and you were right. For that you have my apology.'' 
 
 I gave him a confused look and croaked, `` I'm sorry?'' 
 
 `` You *are* immune! I thought it was damn impossible, but I guess even The Diamondback can be wrong from time to time!'' He laughed again, his chains rattling while he did. 
 
 I looked to my arm and saw it wrapped up in a bandage, when I reached for it, a rough hand fell upon mine. 
 
 `` Nope, do n't be doing that. You may be immune, but it does n't mean that ca n't fester.'' 
 
 `` Mirror...'' I had to see. 
 
 `` Hmm?'' 
 
 `` Do you have a mirror?'' 
 
 `` This is n't 3rd century Transylvania, of course we have a mirror.'' He got up and picked up something small and handed it to me. 
 
 I held it before my face and regarded the man before me. 
 
 Though I looked worse for wear, it was me. My hair, my nose, my mouth, my scars, my.... 
 
 Not my eyes. They were someone else's. I felt a sudden urge to grab a spoon and pry them out. *They were n't mine. * Something bad had happened. Yet they had a strange familiarity about them. 
 
 They were the color of a setting sun, the color of desert sand... 
 
 The color of blood.
