Rigo surveys the area outside the plaza again. Several zombies are starting to stumble towards the restaurant, having followed the sound of the voices and whatever else it is that zombies use to track to run down living humans. Rigo doesn’t think about how the zombies find the living and how they form hordes. He has gotten very good at ignoring a lot of horror on the planet. It’s a skill someone of his profession gains quickly.

The undead figures groan in gurgling voices as they search for the living beings. These zombies are old, like the office workers near the building they had left. Not many of the zombie safari groups come into the city because there aren’t any hunting stands built in the core. Most groups would get overwhelmed by a horde quickly.

The zombies here were once soldiers. Their military gear has survived the elements much better than the less durable clothing the workers had been wearing. Rigo wonders if they were part of the last defenders before the planet collapsed under the hordes of zombies seventy years earlier. They are some of the most decayed and desiccated zombies he has ever see. Their skin is pulled tight across their bones, frozen and sparkling with a sheen of frost. Their eyes are the strangely fractured silver balls in their skulls. They moan with blackened mouths, empty of teeth and tongues, as they shuffle across the plaza, searching for the living man they can sense.

There never seems to be a shortage of zombies on Grave. Rigo has his own theories about the prevalence of zombies; not only did the zombies revive after some time, but either the corporations lied about the number of colonists they had dropped on this planet, or they kept adding people to make more zombies. He wouldn’t be surprised if the corporations put more people out in the wilderness to become zombies for whatever weird testing they want to try or just for punishment. The corporations do all kinds of shitty things.

Of course, Rigo decides he also must consider that the zombie safari business had created quite a lot of zombies as well. Tourists were notoriously bad at surviving on the surface of the planet outside of the spaceport.

Despite the death and violence, vacationing on Grave has become very popular, even beyond the popularity it had when Rigo worked as a guide himself. It generates a lot of wealth, both legally and illegally. Legality on Grave, however, only extended as far as the walls of Archangelsk and occasionally around the patrols sent out by the governor.

The stellium mines below Archangelsk is the most important part of Grave to the corporations, but the interest in the zombie safaris also made the planet a tourist destination. The guides keep taking tourists out on their weird zombie safaris, the corpse hunters keep bringing back their dog tags, and the tech hunters keep bringing in bits and pieces of alien technology, so the planet is highly profitable. And deadly and violent. As horrible as it is, it feels comfortable for Rigo. He would never return to his home planet of New Belgium.

The group of zombies wandering around the edges of the plaza is steadily increasing in numbers, as if the activity is awakening zombies in a radiating circle around the area. Some of the zombies the tourist had destroyed and Rigo had shot around the container are beginning to reanimate as well. They are also joining the horde zeroing in on the restaurant. This is a fast re-animation. Sometimes it can take several days. Marten sometimes likes to tie up zombies and watch to see how long it takes them t re-animate.

The various barriers built during the evacuation efforts slow down zombies, but there is a large horde forming. A few zombies are starting to make it through the barricades and approaching the building that the man is holed up in. They wander through plaza, but they still have not noticed Sceps or Rigo. The enzyme does its job.

Rigo moves next to an evergreen tree that was planted alongside the plaza in front of the building, a short distance from the gazebo. He is partially obscured by the branches and a column as he stares up at the restaurant building. The tree continues to grow despite the slick cloak of death blanketing the planet. He considers the situation as he glances around, towards the building and the zombies staggering closer. He knows Sceps very well and he can feel the man’s frustration with the situation rising quickly. He also doesn’t like the growing presence of zombies. The horde is not dangerous on its own, but they might attract the notice of others.

The German man speaks again. Conversationally. “Normally, I try to befriend people that I’m fighting with. It’s funny. I was fighting with the team I was here with, before we left Arkhangelsk, in the training rooms.”

“Ah, you met them randomly?”

The tourists that arrive in Arkhangelsk spend a lot of time in the spaceport, having parties and orgies and getting up to all kinds of unethical things. The sparkling sheen of the spaceport holds many of them in it, trapped in the endless hedonism and sadism of the city. And most of it is livestreamed to the masses across the galaxy by flights of camera drones buzzing around the more famous guides and tourists. The party never stops in the capital of Grave, and the killing never stops outside of it.

Rigo knows that some potential zombie hunters never even leave the city, or only get a short distance away from it, to shoot at zombies from the safety of the well-protected hunting stands the tour companies have set up. These are difficult stands for the corpse hunters to attack; they tend to be well guarded with a large number of security and guides. Corpse hunters such as themselves preferred smaller groups that wandered into more dangerous territories. Sometimes, however, the zombie stands did get overwhelmed by particularly zombie hordes. The corpse hunters near the city would converge on the wreckage, to collect the tourists’ dog tags.

He and his teammates avoid the spaceport most of the time if they could. They only make the trip if they need to turn in dog tags and collect supplies. The guides don’t appreciate men like them around the tourists, who pay thousands in credits for the spectacular and violent vacations of their lifetimes. They didn’t want the tourists to find out what the corpse hunters did for a living. Especially when it ends their own duties as guides. For some reason as well, the tourists find corpse hunters interesting and exciting. They constantly have tourists approaching them, looking to hire them for a ‘corpse hunter run’, whatever that means.

“Yes, I met them randomly, in the training rooms. I hope to meet them again. We had a great time destroying zombies on our way here. If I can get their tags back to the spaceport. Can you get me back with the tags? There is a reward for returning tags.”

“Mmm, bro, I know.”

“Oh, you’re corpse hunters?” Rigo sighs at the moniker. He hopes Sceps didn’t hear that; Sceps never took the nickname kindly. He thinks of himself as supplying a necessary service. Sceps just chooses to overlook the fact that he often is the one who makes it necessary.

As if being thought about alerts him, Sceps speaks again. “Who is he?”

“I don’t know. He’s German, I think. He wants us to take him back to the city.”

“You said. Kill him, take tags, and move on.”

Rigo ignores Sceps again. He turns his attention back to the man trapped in the building. He still finds him interesting enough to hold off killing him. He may have to convince Sceps to destroy the zombies who are zeroing in on the tourist. This will not go over well with the big man.

“We sometimes work as retrieval experts, yes. We will take your dog tags back as well, after we kill you.” This seems to be a fair deal to Rigo.

“I would rather not die. Please.” Now the German man sounds very scared. The sound of fear confirms for Rigo that the man has never died before.

It is always an odd sensation, no matter how many times someone dies. Rigo and Sceps have died many times, in many ways, to be later reconstituted through their dog tags. Like the enzyme that courses through their veins, they also never question the alien technology that brought about the reconstitution technology. It works, and that’s all they care about. They still need to reconstitute Marten in Arkhangelsk, and it will be expensive.

Rigo considers the situation as he unconsciously reaches for the dog tags under the scarf wrapped around his head. They are embedded into the back of his neck, just above his shoulders. He runs his finger across the cold alien metal, shaped more like curved wings than tags. He can just barely hook his finger under the smooth edge, but he knows the device will not come off his neck until he is dead.

The dog tags continually monitor him, recording his memories and DNA in real time, so that he will be reconstituted exactly as he dies. The small light in the centre of the tags is a solid dull orange. When he dies, it will start blinking bright green, ready to be retrieved for his reconstitution. The tags offer a kind of immortality, from injury and disease, but the wearers continue to age and will eventually die from old age, after all modern medicine finally fails. He knows that there are religious groups who protest the technology as blasphemy that creates soulless bodies, but he doesn’t care much. Rigo’s philosophical nature ends where practicality takes over.

He finally answers the German man, “I respect that. It’s just that, you sound like a nice guy and all, but I don’t know…”

The German man cuts him off, “Where are you from?”

The question startles Rigo. This man who seemed absolutely terrified of him and Sceps a few moments ago, is asking him a ridiculous question now.

“I’m from New Belgium, bro. And you’re from New Germany, cause I can hear it in your accent,” he answers slowly.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

“Ah, I cannot hear your accent. I think people from the colonies, they speak very good English. But when you speak in English with the French people, I don’t know, sometimes it sounds funny.”

“Yeah, I know what you mean.” Rigo grins ruefully at the comment. He has met several Frenchmen on the planet. The life of guides and corpse hunters seems to attract the French. Rigo has never had a good interaction with any of them. They are bastards to kill though.

“I don’t trust the French people.”

“Yeah, that’s a good attitude,” drawls Rigo. Rigo thinks that’s also a good attitude to take with everyone on the planet. Including him and Sceps.

“I’m not from New Germany, I’m from Earth, from old Germany.”

Rigo’s eyebrows raise at the comment. An Earther. The man continues to surprise him. He knows this guy must be extremely rich to be from Earth and this far out into the frontier. It is an extremely expensive trip to travel from Earth to Grave as a tourist. Earth is on the edge of the galaxy. It isn’t even the centre of the populated and colonized planets, instead sitting at the far edge.

As popular a fad as it is, usually only the upper-class people of the colonies, especially the influential scions of the spacer corporations, come out to hunt zombies. Zombie hunting is prohibitively expensive already, and adding in travel all the way from Earth makes it more so. Perhaps the trendiness of sporting on Grave is spreading farther than Rigo had previously known. Bored Earthers are always chasing the latest trend from what Rigo knows of the place and people. The livestreams the zombie safaris broadcast into the galaxy have long since become instantaneous, through the discovery and use of alien technology found on Grave. Perhaps the bloody violence of the hunts is becoming popular on humanity’s home planet.

Rigo can hear Sceps muttering in his earpiece. He is getting very impatient. He won’t be able to hold him back from killing the tourist for much longer.

“He’s from your home world, Sceps.” As intended, the comment silences Sceps. He is also an Earther. Rigo doesn’t think Sceps has any family left on Earth, the man had been working on Grave for a long time and has spent many years dead in that time. Rigo has never asked the big man though. Perhaps he should one day.

Sceps comes around the far corner of the building and takes up a position behind a rusted metal barrier, close to the wall. He leans against the building, his matte black Tavor assault rifle barely visible in the shadows. He is tapping the side of it with his gloved fingers, staring at Rigo expectantly. He is finally close enough to hear the conversation fully, listening to the man in the building. He nods to Rigo and watches the tall buildings around them for any threats as well as the zombies that are slowly making their way through the barricades.

Rigo turns his attention back to the German man from Earth. He is still talking but Rigo has missed some of what he said.

“…and I kill Russians on sight, even if they are friendly.”

Sceps tilts his head slightly and stares incredulously at Rigo. His mouth is a tight line behind the black visor. Rigo knows that taking the trapped man alive will be a hard sell for Sceps.

“Oh, is that so? Do you have some Russian hate?” Rigo asks gruffly.

“Kind of.”

“They did bad things to you?”

“Hmm, most of the time, yes. And they did bad things to my family.”

“Yeah, that’s fucked up,” Rigo responds.

Sceps mutters, unheard by the German “Yeah, yours did it first, bro.”

“So, do you still want to come and kill me?”

Sceps growls, “I want kill him because he don’t like Russians.”

Rigo laughs darkly at the comment. “You would want to kill him if he didn’t like spaghetti, bro. What the fuck? You don’t care.”

Sceps responds with an incomprehensible grumble. Rigo turns his attention back to the German man.

“Yeah, I don’t know man, it’s a weird situation we’ve got going on here. To be honest, that’s why I don’t like to talk to people out of Arkhangelsk, cause you always end up like this, and in the end, if we don’t talk, we’ll just fight it out, you know. Because you cannot give us anything, we have everything we need. We’re just looking for dog tags.”

“Oh, okay, you want to kill me. So, you want me to fight against you?” Terror laces the man’s voice once again.

“I mean, we could fight. When we kill you, we will take your tags back. And all the others you have too. You’ll all be reconstituted.” Rigo believes this is an amicable and kind offer.

“Ahh, how do you want to fight?” The man’s voice is quavering with fear. Rigo knows it will not be a long fight.

“Yeah, I’ll lay down my tactics for you,” Rigo scoffs.

“I’m on the roof, inside the top of the building.”

“Yeah, I know you are,” Rigo responds. The man was incredibly loud, bumbling around in the bulkhead at the top of the building. “Are you ready?”

“Hmm, I’m not sure, maybe we can try.”

“Good for your experience.” Sceps says loudly, entering the conversation in a strangely friendly way.

“Oh, there’s another of you. Actually, I don’t know what to do here in the south alone.”

“What, you’ve never been to the south, that much or what?”

“Not often, no. This is my third zombie hunt and the second to come south. And you are just two people, right?”

“Correct.”

“Yeah, it’s difficult,” the man sighs.

Rigo hears shuffling footsteps in the snow from behind the building. It could be zombies, but he likes to be careful. He doesn’t think that any of the zombies that were approaching the restaurant had made it through to the open part yet. He tries to pinpoint the direction. He ignores the man trapped in the building for a moment.

Turning his attention to the new threat, he says to Sceps, “Something on snow behind the structure, do you hear that?”

Sceps responds promptly “Yeah, just zombies around back of restaurant building. They trapped in fence. The others get closer. Look there.”

Rigo startles as a zombie walks right by him in the branches of the tree. It ignores him, and he wonders how he missed it getting this close to him. The zombie turns its head and looks directly towards the tree. Its crackled eyes have long since turned to slime and frozen over. The eyes always get to Rigo. He prefers sniping zombies from a distance, so he doesn’t have to see the eyes. Getting up close like this, even with an enzyme, is not his idea of a good time. The zombie doesn’t seem to be bothered by him, and it turns towards the restaurant building. Rigo pulls out his knife and stabs it through the zombie’s neck. It falls to the pavement with a soft thump. Severing the spinal cord with a knife is the quietest way to destroy a zombie, at least for some time.

He wishes that they had not stopped in this city on their way back to the spaceport. The city was on their way, so they had decided to stop in it, as they had many times before. The center, with all the buildings, is usually empty of life and too full of death. It is too difficult for the guides to bring many groups inside the city. It is strange that any tourist group had come this far into it. They must have pressed their guide hard to bring them this far. Or offered him a lot of money. This fellow did not seem to have much experience in the southern wastelands. But, if the man in the building is telling the truth about the number of dog tags he has, they have a really big payday coming their way. Marten’s reconstitution and his new dog tags will be expensive, so they need it.

“Fucking hate this, bro.” Rigo says to Sceps. He can see Sceps nod at the other end of the building.

“So, are you coming?” The German man asks.

“No, that’s not us.”

“Zombies, huh?”

“Yeah, it’s the zombies, zeroing in on you.” The other zombies in the plaza have made it through the barricades. They are closing on the building.

“Ahh, you come inside, I hear the door.”

“Wait, that’s not us bro, that’s not us.”

“Loading door round back probably.” Sceps notes.

“You sure you heard the door?”

“Yes”

“Alright, don’t peek over the edge the roof, or we’ll shoot you. I’ll make sure nobody’s entering.”

Sceps turns back to business. “I go back around building.”

“My buddy will check,” Rigo calls up to the tourist.

“I will stay here. Unless you need my help.”

Rigo and Sceps laugh. They don’t need the German man’s help.

Sceps spoke first. “I need kill you, bro.”

The tourist does not respond.

The two men move out, checking the surroundings for living humans. Rigo moves out of his tree and walks slowly around the perimeter of the gazebo. Leaving his gun hanging from its sling, he knifes another zombie through its neck, letting it fall to the ground with a soft thump. He easily takes down two more zombies that have converged on the building. He can hear the soft whomp of bodies hitting the concrete behind the building and knows that Sceps is doing the same. The horde that is forming around the derelict restaurant begins to thin. Rigo returns to his spot in the tree, close enough to hear the German tourist above him and see the rest of the plaza for new threats. There are more zombies, but they are still at the barricades. They have some time.

“Are you still behind the restaurant building?” Rigo asks Sceps.

“No. Near police shack on north side, next building. Zombie trying get through loading door. Another destroyed zombie here. I not do this one.”

“Hmm.” Destroyed zombies could mean more people were there.

“I shot one from the window a while ago, when I first got in the building, with my last bullet.” the German man offers from the window. Rigo realises the German had saved one bullet for himself. He isn’t that scared of death after all.

Rigo’s matte black armour fades into the needles of the tree branches he stands in. He considers the situation.

Rigo sighs. “Fuck, bro, why did you start talking? I don’t like it. Now, I feel sorry for you.”

The man laughs as if Rigo has made a joke.

“I am not sorry,” growls loudly Sceps in his thick Serbian accent.

“You are not sorry?” the German man asks.

Sceps reaffirms, “I am not.”

“My friend is kind of ruthless. He don’t have any emotions. His name is Sceps.”

“He doesn’t need to be sorry; we don’t know each other. You know, you are already my friend, but he is not.”

“What’s your name?” Rigo knows he shouldn’t ask the man his name, it will give him too much of a connection, making the bad situation even worse.

“Luka.”

“Okay. In case shit goes bad, my name is Rigo.”

Sceps growls up at Luka, “I will eat your arm, bro.”

“We can team up now if other guys are coming.”

“No?” Sceps sounds incredulous at the suggestion.

“Yeah, if anyone shows up, I’m shooting everything except for my teammate, no disrespect to you. No one is here though, it’s just zombies.” Rigo says to the man.

“I don’t want to die. Are you in the back of the building? I hear a lot of noise,” whimpers the man in the building.

Rigo considers the situation. They haven’t seen or heard anyone in days. He doesn’t think anyone is in this part of the city but themselves and this tourist.

“I think it’s the zombies going crazy out back. I can’t see the other side from here. Can you?”

Sceps grumbles about having to check the back again. Rigo hears him climbing up on the roof of the police shack near the end of the building. The police shack is a smooth building, shaped like a bean. It had been painted dark blue at some point, but like the containers in the street, it had begun to fade and peel. Inside, abandoned equipment and gear had been left behind by the police force during the evacuation. None of the electronics left blink or beep any longer. Rigo and Sceps had checked the interior when they went through here a few days earlier. Sceps is lying on the curved roof, trying to wiggle himself into a position where he can see the back of the building while still being protected from the looming skyscrapers by the large police sign.

“It’s still zombies, still stuck in the fence. I go inside shack. Let me know when I can kill this guy.”

Rigo hears Sceps slide off the roof and move around into the shack. He hears a door open and close. Sceps is sulking inside the abandoned police shack.

“You’re fine, bro, it’s just zombies,” he calls up to the German tourist.

“Ah, that’s good. Just zombies.” The man sounded thoughtful, as if he finds it a bit ridiculous that zombies were the best thing to have to deal with in his situation.

Rigo turns his attention to Sceps, “Alright, you sure you don’t want to give this guy a chance?”

“Hmm, nope, pretty sure.”

“You wanna do rock, paper, scissors for it?” Rigo asks him.

Sceps laughs. He loves a good game. Rigo knows the big man agrees.

“Alright, listen, we got a deal, bro.” Rigo says to the man trapped in the building.