Free Blood Games by Macaulay C. Hunter

up. It would take another two years, four or six even, but he’d build himself back. This was only going to make him stronger. He had to believe it.
    He did believe it. You only lost when you quit, and he wasn’t quitting. This was his destiny. Fortune, fame, and a permanent seat in the clubrooms at stadiums once his zombie fighter swept the Games . . . he would just keep fighting until he got there.
    And he had saved the lives of Billy and his ignorant mother. A zombie as a friend and servant! A pet and a babysitter! All it would have taken was one swing of that long hair to cover his eyes, an old battery making the light flicker or go out while Mom was at work, and it would have been all over for the blind kid. People didn’t know what the hell they were doing with zombies. But Ink did. The only thing they were good for was fighting. Bypassing the hardware store, he called up the vet and asked her to meet him at the stables. Nadia sent a text just as he hung up with Jackie. She wanted to know if she should bring back Chinese or pizza for dinner.
    They had talked about this. Or he had talked, and she hadn’t listened. Only on Fridays were they allowed to splurge on take-out from a restaurant. They couldn’t afford to do that every damn day of the week. If he were a bachelor, he wouldn’t have splurged ever. But marriage was about concessions, and he had conceded Fridays to a treat.
    It wasn’t enough for her. It was never enough. She didn’t appreciate the treat of those Fridays; she resented the deprivation on the other six days of the week. If she wanted to go out every night, then she had to get a job and pay for it herself. He wrote a text saying as much while sitting at the longest red light in the world, and received an angry response that she was looking for work.
    He knew what looking meant. It meant she noticed NOW HIRING signs when she shopped. But she considered herself above jobs like working a cash register or being a receptionist like she had been before. So the job search never got off the ground since she was too good for what was available. Another text came in that announced she had posted a resume online.
    That isn’t a job search , Ink wrote.
    All you ever do is criticize! If I’m only ever going to be wrong in your eyes, why should I do anything?
    She never did anything anyway! The light finally turned green as he typed testily that the refrigerator was packed with food. All they had to do was pitch something into the microwave and warm it up. Then he stopped responding to her texts. Let her order sixty dollars’ worth of food at the pizza place and find out there was only fifty-five bucks in the account.
    He got home. The vet arrived just as he was stepping out. She parked her dirty pick-up behind him and Ink called, “That was fast.”
    “I was finishing a job nearby,” Jackie said. Her pants were equally dirty.
    “A horse?” Ink said. Jackie treated a lot of those. She thought people who had horses were the craziest of all large animal owners, and being the lowest vet on the totem pole at her clinic meant the senior vets shuffled off a lot of crap jobs with weird people onto her.
    “ A trek through a pasture to check on a horse reported to be in a bad way.” Kicking mud off her boots, Jackie rolled her eyes. “The receptionist told me distressed . I got there and the owner said depressed . He’d just retired the horse and moved her from paddock to pasture, and was worried because the old girl didn’t seem to be making friends. The horse was fine. The owner is a kook.” She opened up her toolbox and pulled out a clipboard to fake some papers for Thor. All of the vets did it. There was so little regulation on zombies that paperwork was a joke.
    Ink lifted the back of the trailer and the two of them peeked in. Thor was sitting in the far corner and staring at his light. It was a wonder they didn’t go blind. Going in, Ink got him to his feet and brought him out. Waving her hand in