She brought it up and almost fired it, but stopped. Three squirts meant three bullets. Not a lot of ammunition but a lot of noise. With a growl she thrust the water pistol into her pocket, snatched up a piece of broken branch and ran over to where the three faux zombies were trying to untangle themselves. She jabbed the closest one twice on the back of the skull.

“Dead,” she cried, and the zombie collapsed down.

Dahlia knelt on him and reached over his bulk to repeat the action with the second.

“Dead.”

The third was thrashing and she hit him four times before she got good placement on the temple.

“Dead,” she cried.

“Miss!” called Church. “The temple is lethal to humans, not to the dead.”

She cursed. Church was always a stickler for accuracy. It wasn’t just any part of the brain that killed the zombies; only a few specific areas would work. So she climbed over the two “dead” ones, ignoring the grunts and cries of the Pack-members inside the padding, pushed the third zombie’s head down and stabbed really hard on the brain stem.

“Ow!” cried the zombie.

“Dead,” yelled Dahlia.

“Don’t wait for applause,” said Church. “Move!”

She moved.

Everything in the Arena seemed to be in motion and she tried not to focus on any one part. Mushin no shin.

“Thirty,” yelled someone, and suddenly Skye wheeled on Pepe and grabbed him. She bent forward to try and bite his neck, making it look way too real. Pepe howled in pain and surprise as he shoved her away, and then the Pack members began a new count. For him.

Then Bailey was there, and she had a ten-inch length of plastic garbage hose that was taped at one end. A training knife. She stepped up behind Skye, grabbed her paint-smeared hair, pushed her head forward and stabbed her four times in the back of the neck.

“Dead!”

Pepe was still standing there, a hand pressed to his neck. Red leaked between his fingers. Skye had actually bitten him. From the ground, Skye cried out, “God, I’m sorry.”

Then another branch was released, smacking Bailey and Pepe both with gobs of paint. The Pack members howled and began counting in total confusion. Dahlia started in that direction, then spotted a large bundle on the ground.

Fuck, she thought, torn for a split second with indecision.

The War is the War.