No Flesh Shall Be Spared (56 page)

Masterson turned and leaned against the railing, saying, "And if Cleese thinks he can do anything like bailing on his contract, well we have a battery of lawyers just waiting to sue him for more money than he’s ever imagined.

Monroe had by now reached the hatch to the stairway. He stopped and waited for Masterson to finish his thought.

"If that doesn’t work…"

"There’s always the mercs…"

"Right. If he does as he’s told, we’ll utilize his talents until he’s no longer any good to us. After that…"

"I’ll just continue to stack the decks against him during his matches until he has a change of heart… or gets himself injured."

Reluctantly, Masterson agreed.

"But just so we’re clear… and let’s be agreed on this… The man is, as of now, utterly expendable."

Masterson nodded and looked away. For a moment, he thought he had an idea of how Judas Iscariot felt.

"One thing I doubt he ever read was the small print of his own contract," Masterson continued, "and you are quite right… We do own him—alive or dead—and we continue to own him until which time we decide that we’re through. Not the other way around. Even if a fighter ends up dying in the pit, The League still has a legal right to whatever is left of his body. Dead… or
Undead
."

Monroe stood at the open Pit door and looked toward the gangway which led up to the grandstands. He’d always figured he could trust Masterson. Now, he was sure of it. He’d only had to take an ass-whipping to find it out for sure. He was convinced now the man would watch his back and, as a result of that, they would both come out of all of this being solid gold.

Masterson watched Monroe as he limped his way around the corner and up the ramp from where the gangway was. He watched him approach in the dim light of the hall and silently wondered how wise it was to be allied with a duplicitous man such as Monroe. He was proving himself to be a bit of a pain in the ass and Masterson was beginning to think it might be wise if he put as much distance as he could between himself and the man’s impulsive schemes as possible.

Because, if he wasn’t careful, Monroe was going to put both of their asses in a sling.

I Shall Be Released

"Well, Bob, we are nearing the end of yet another exciting match for our Fan Favorite Fighter, Cleese. This is the last round—last call—for him and, to be honest, that’s probably a good thing. He’s looking a little worse for wear out there and that’s never good. He’ll need to find some energy from someplace though. I mean, he’s not quite out of the woods yet."

"You’re right, John, we still have this final round to go and, as any regular WGF Fight Night viewer can tell ya, one round can make all the difference in the world."

"Ok, Bob, according to the clock, we’re just about ready for that buzzer and hopefully Cleese can bring this already exhilarating bout to an even more exciting conclusion!"

"So, let’s go back onto the floor and see how this all turns out!"

~ * ~

Cleese groaned aloud and drew a deep breath in to help clear his mind.

His arms and legs hung at his sides, exhausted. They ached now more than they’d ever had in his life. His tendons had been stretched beyond their endurance; muscle fibers having sprung with the sound of banjo strings. He felt like some hammered shit out here and by his count he still had one more round to go. His back, bent and twisted from his toil down on the floor of The Pit, felt like it was made of shattered glass and bound together by razor wire. He stood stooped and panting as he hovered over the pile of dead bodies at his feet. The omnipresent stench of spent blood, urine and chyme on the sand left a sour tang that clung to the back of his throat like oily smoke.

His eyes drifted over the faces of the corpses at his feet. Some of the UDs bore the countenance of people who had died in great pain. Given their present surroundings, that was about what he expected. Oddly, others bore expressions of a deep peace, as if finally dying—and dying in a way that guaranteed them to be dead for good—gave them an escape from the torment of being what they were. These looks crawled deep into Cleese’s psyche and touched a part of him that he was very uncomfortable with. He slowly raised his eyes toward the lights as a shiver tickled its way up his spine.

The crowd overhead continued to drone on into the night. They existed out there within the black folds of darkness, moaning like specters lost in a dwindling twilight. Their voices crescendoed and then crashed like the echo of violent waves breaking on a rocky shore. The sound had become a primal thing, something exultant and yet somehow darkly terrible. There was blood in the air now and that always drove the crowd into a malignant fervor. It was the emotional equivalent of throwing gasoline on a grease fire.

Cleese tried to not listen to them, tried to blot out what they were saying, but doing so was impossible. Their voices were a deluge of sound which rained down from above, a din falling on him from somewhere out there in the darkness; a murderous, blood-parched thing. It took everything he had in him not to scream back at them. To shout and to tell them that their bloodlust, so complete, so all encompassing, had burned inside of them for too long, that it had robbed them of whatever humanity they’d once had. Cleese knew though that it would do no good. He’d once thought he understood their hatred for the dead, but since Chikara’s death, he knew he didn’t understand shit. Like the Romans before them, these people only craved their spectacle. Deep down, he had come to realize that this was just another coliseum and he was just this day’s Champion.

And The Dead… they were just more lions waiting to be fed.

Cleese stood fully erect and pulled the spike from the back of the last UD’s head. Grey matter clung to the blade in sticky, wet clumps. He whipped his arm about and dislodged the material by centrifugal force. Then, with a snap, he retracted the blade and stepped out from beneath the pile of the last round’s dead.

Once again, he almost didn’t hear the buzzer go off; he’d grown so distracted by the chorus of complaints emanating from his weary body. He felt tired and drained mentally. His arms and torso were coated with a thin, slimy veneer of brains, sweat and blood. His skin felt completely drenched in the stuff. He couldn’t imagine what he looked like.

Raising his head, he saw his image on the television monitors mounted on the Pit’s high walls. What stared down on him looked more like a hellish demon—all red and black with a maniacal, blood-thirsty gleam in his eyes—than a man. He smiled for the cameras, hoping it might soften the image.

It didn’t.

God… I’m ready to for this shit to be over—
like now
.

As he stumbled to the center of the ring, the echo of the buzzer vibrated through the stadium’s metallic skeleton. He didn’t so much hear it this time as he felt it reverberate down deep to his core. The vibration rattled him down to the soles of his feet. Wearily, he crouched into his loose fighting stance and took a quick look around. The Pit stretched out before him, blanketed in a cold, unforgiving stillness.

Remarkably, the spindles remained still.

A ripple of expectation shimmered through the crowd and, just for a moment, every person in the stadium held their breaths as one. The feeling of anticipation was palpable: heavy and electric.

Cleese walked inquisitively to the center of the ring and looked up toward the control booth. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the strong, overhead lights, but saw nothing.

The quiet within the stadium soon became a deafening weight that pushed down on the interior of the giant space, pressing each member of the audience into their seats. It was a silence made all the more oppressive by the vastness of the structure in which it was contained.

A heartbeat passed.

Then, another.

Then, with an abrupt teeth-rattling boom, the spindles spun and locked themselves into place. The ear-splitting, metallic sound cleaved the air like a blade. It was a noise that lacerated molecules and carved a savage gash into the meat of the still atmosphere.

Cleese relaxed his muscles and fell back into a half-crouch instinctively. He swept his eyes around the diameter of the pit; scanning the immediate area, looking for any threat. His gaze flickered from one spindle to the other, his brain locked and loaded to catalog any impending threat or hazard.

They’re empty!

All of the spindles spread out before him were empty.

No weapons, no UDs, no… nothing.

What the fuck?

Cleese rose up onto the balls of his feet and gingerly walked toward the nearest position to him: Position Five. Quickly and carefully, he checked the interior of the spindle for some hidden menace, but there was nothing.

He did the same with Position Four and got a similar result.

Then, out of the corner of his eye, he caught a hint of motion—from Three—and he whirled to face it. Across the sand, he could just make out a dark silhouette as it rippled deep within the blackness of the turnstile. The form stood back in the shadows, clutching at the back wall of the spindle. Its figure was squat, but thicker than most—at least its shadow was. Its manner was pure fear and volatile confusion.

"Uuuuuuuuuuh…???" the thing moaned; sounding confused and almost scared. The voice sounded muffled inside the enclosed space of the spindle.

The crowd erupted in applause the instant they saw that there was a UD in play. When they saw the first hint of movement, their ovation rained down over Cleese in a thunderous waterfall that was overwhelming and suffocating. Collectively, they understood that if there was to be only one UD released, it must be a formidable opponent; perhaps one of the survivors from a previous match. Whatever it was, it meant that the match was on once again and the wave of their blood lust had yet to crest.

Cleese strode across the sand, his gait fatigued, but intent and still very, very lethal. He hadn’t been sure exactly what was going on before, but now… Now, there was a target in his sights and that meant there was something toward which he could direct his fury. As he approached the spindle, he slapped the spike back out and into place and aimed the point towards center mass, directly at the thing’s unbeating heart.

"What say we get this shit over with, huh…?" Cleese said aloud.

He stepped into the shadows of the spindle, firmly grabbed something inside with his left hand, and then threw a solid blow into the blackness with his right. His fist struck the thing within squarely in the back. The spike slid smoothly between its ribs like a baker’s knife into icing. In a live man, the spike would have pierced his heart and death would have been instantaneous. For an undead one, spearing it was merely an efficient way of getting the damned thing’s attention.

The dead man in the turnstile arched back with a deep, wet, coughing sound. Blood and phlegm splattered against the walls of the turnstile in thick, coagulated globs. Cleese felt the UD pull backward a little bit against the spike, but it was difficult for it to gain any leverage. There simply wasn’t enough room in the tight confines of the spindle to move. It was a lot like wrestling in a phone booth in there. Still, he felt the tug of the thing pull on his arm and strain his shoulder.

"Ok, Bub," Cleese said as he firmly set his feet in the sand. "Time to dance."

Cleese forcibly dragged the figure out and into the light with a vicious tug. The crowd caught sight of the impaled zombie and erupted into more mindless cheers and applause. Cleese got cocky and let the thing go with his one free hand while keeping the other, the one with the spike, firmly lodged in place. Hell, why not? If they were going to give him only one UD this round, he’d make the most of it.

The crowd responded predictably—with more rhubarb.

He stood before both the cameras and the crowd with his arms outstretched. He raised his face, his expression one of raw power, toward the ceiling. An errant cool breeze blew across his cheek and, thankful for the respite, he breathed in deeply and then sighed. Cleese returned his grip to the back of the thing’s neck and jerked him fully into the glare of the lights, exposing its face for all to see.

The UD was an older man who stood about five foot eight or so, middle aged, and black hair with liberal dashes of grey in it. His body was a solid frame…

…like… a boxer.

Suddenly, the truth hit Cleese in the chest like a two-by-four.

Oooooh, shit…

Monk stood dumbly in a blinding light and reached back with both hands for the spike which punctured his rib cage. His face had become a bloodless fish of a face as a result of his dying and rebirth. His mouth drooped to one side and his hair lay wetly across his skull. The smell coming off of him was like rancid milk. Deep, savage bites were torn from the meat of his neck from behind. The familiar yellow and red of infection ran hot and fierce around the bite marks.

Cleese felt his heart twist painfully in his chest as he stared at the wounds and thought of how they were in just about the same place as Chikara’s first bites had been. Monk had undoubtedly gone down just as she had. A UD must have come up on his blindside, been just out of his line of sight. In his mind’s eye, he could see it all happening all too easily. After all, he’d already seen it in real time once before. This end result was different though.

They’d left Monk in one piece.

Cleese pulled away, withdrawing the spike from Monk’s back and stumbling backward. As his mind reeled, he absentmindedly slapped the release and the blade slid back into its sheath.

Monk stood motionless, staring blankly into the air. His numb mind wasn’t sure why the pain in his back had stopped, but he was glad for it. It was enough that there was an almost constant whirlwind cycloning in his head, more physical pain only made it harder for him to focus. Above him, impossibly bright lights blinded his vision and there was a roaring sound pounding in his ears. His feeble intellect reasoned that by standing without movement, he might be able to gather what was left of his wits and get a handle on what was happening around him.