NO FLESH SHALL BE SPARED
By Thom Carnell
Smashwords edition published at Smashwords by Crossroad Press
Copyright 2010 by Thom Carnell
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"Death closes all;
But something ’ere the end,
Some work of noble note, may yet be done,
Not unbecoming men that strove with Gods."
- Alfred, Lord Tennyson, Ulysses
"When the dead walk, Senores…
We must stop the killing…
Or lose the war."
Dawn of The Dead
Motherhood
Before…
Cigarette smoke swirled in the bright beams of light pouring in through the windows of Kathy Mae Gilbert’s trailer home. The smoke danced like willowy strands of ether within the pillars of luminosity that stabbed their way through her thin, Kmart curtains. Inside the trailer, the air was a dank, cough-inducing fog bank that never seemed to go away, satisfied just to hang in the air and whirl over the faded velveteen couch. Next to the sofa, a worn, faux-leather La-Z-Boy roosted, the sheen of its fake hide rubbed off in the spots where it came in repeated contact with human skin. The furniture sat like squatters in front of an old, wood-veneered Motorola television set. Against one wall, half a dozen boxes from a move made six months ago waited to be unpacked. The place was a shit-hole, but for Kathy Mae it was home, a squalid fortress of solitude to come to and rest her bones after working double shifts at the Hog & Dog diner and do exactly what she was doing now: sit and smoke and pretend for a moment that her life had gone a different way.
Kathy Mae had been a smoker since she was twelve and never once did she consider quitting. Her Daddy taught her to smoke when she was little. It had been one of his parlor tricks when guests came over to drink beer and work on cars. "Watch my li’l girl… she’s so damn growed up… she even smokes!" But even before that, she’d always thought smoking was cool. People in the movies smoked and they looked cool. Daddy smoked and he was also cool. These days though, Daddy was also dead and buried. Throat and lung cancer claimed him several years ago. Kathy Mae could still remember seeing him sitting on the porch of his house, smoking through the tracheotomy tube in his neck.
Before she knew it, nicotine had its hooks into her and she was fully addicted by the time she hit high school. Her smoking was like a lethal legacy handed down, just one of many bad habits given to her by her parents. Hell, she’d even smoked, despite her doctor’s warnings, through the entire length of her pregnancy. And why the hell not? She never wanted kids and would have been all too happy to have left her womb a barren landscape. Unfortunately, Billy Ray Beaumont saw to it that was not to be.
Billy Ray had sweet-talked Kathy Mae at the Leslie County Swap Meet and wined and dined her on a spectacular buffet of frozen pizza rolls and Mad Dog 22. Theirs was a union made in hillbilly heaven, but from the start it had been destined for failure.
One dark and stormy night, when he informed her that he’d forgotten to bring a condom (a "jimmy," he’d called it), she was just liquored up enough to say "What the fuck." Billy Ray didn’t have it in him to drive straight, what were the odds that he could shoot straight?
Pretty good from the sound of the screaming brat in the other room.
"OK, you little shit dispenser!" she shouted. "I’m comin.’"
She stalked into the other room and lifted the screaming baby by one arm out of the laundry basket where he, more often than not, spent the day sleeping and crying and swimming in his own shit. The baby wailed loudly and kicked its legs in the air, to little effect. The child, Johnny Garth Beaumont by name, had been brought into the world with a criminally low birth weight a little over a year ago and he’d gained precious little in the way of body mass. The little shit had been colicky for the last week or so and Kathy Mae’s nerves now bore the stretch marks of his foul mood.
"Jeezus H… Will you shut the fuck up!?!" Kathy Mae screeched into the baby’s wailing face.
Johnny continued to blubber loudly and flail his spindly limbs.
Kathy Mae slapped him twice sharply across the back of his legs and tucked him into the crook of her left arm. She unbuttoned the front of her grease-stained waitress uniform and hauled one of her pale breasts out from the sweat-sodden depths. Roughly, she pushed the nipple into the baby’s mouth, hoping he’d nurse or, at the very least, quiet down. Either one would have been just fine for her. She looked down, annoyed, and sighed in frustration when he didn’t. Johnny didn’t seem to want her nip, he just continued kicking and crying like a banshee. His lone tooth, sticking up from his gum-line like a headstone, glimmered dully in the dim light.
"Fucking kid…" she said. "I cain’t give you what you want to make you stop cryin’ if’n you don’t tell me what it is you fuckin’ want!" The last word sounded like the desperate cry of someone at the end of her rope.
Johnny spit the anemic areola from his mouth, threw his head back, and let out another ear-splitting wail. The baby’s eyes were full of tears, the corners caked with a gummy sludge. A high fever raged like a fire within his little brain and nothing Kathy Mae did or could do would stop it. The baby had lain for far too long in the cold trailer; his body rife with a combination of the flu, colic, and rampant malnutrition. Kathy Mae’s breast milk was pitifully inept at providing the nutrients he needed in order to fight off the host of viruses that now coursed through his system. All his mother’s body was able to give to him was a lethal mixture of nicotine, alcohol, and cheap diner food with just a splash of methamphetamine.
"Gawd damn ya, ya ankle biter, eat will ya!?"
Kathy Mae propped up the child’s head and pressed his face against her breast with all her might, thinking that she could make the baby eat with a combination of brute force and strong will.
The child managed to pull back from her far enough to catch a quick breath and let out another wail of pain and frustration. Kathy Mae took the sides of his head in her hand and pressed his face back to the meat of her breast.
Johnny’s mouth and nose were smothered by the drawn flesh that surrounded the fatty tissue of Kathy Mae’s breast. He tried in vain to move his head in order to pull some air through his turned-up nose, but Kathy Mae’s grip was too strong and his underdeveloped muscles were far too weak. His little hands beat against her chest futilely. Saliva coated both the nipple in his mouth and his face, but still Kathy Mae pressed on.
"Eat will ya, goddamnit? Eat!"
Johnny’s lungs screamed out for oxygen, but his mother, either in apathy or anger, ignored his plight. His tiny fists beat with less and less force against her bony chest, his strength draining from him like water through a colander. The smell of tobacco and speed sweat was the last thing to flit through his diminishing senses before Johnny Garth Beaumont died in his mother’s indifferent arms.
After a few minutes, Kathy Mae drew the baby from her breast and roughly wiped his mouth of spent lactate with the back of her hand.
"You done?" she asked, not registering in the sparse light the child’s slightly blue tinge. "You just lay here for a minute and I’ll change ya just as soon as you shit that out."
She laid Johnny down on the tattered, yellow sofa and went off to fetch herself another cigarette.
~ * ~
An hour or so later, Kathy Mae had damn near forgotten about Little Johnny and his crying. He’d been so quiet since she’d fed him last that it was almost like he wasn’t even on the planet. She figured that, by now, it had to be just about time to change him.
"A goddamn cow on a milking machine, that’s all I am to you," she said as she walked over to the couch. She plopped herself down on the sofa, puffs of dust springing up into the air.
Johnny lay where she’d left him and, thank the lord, he seemed to be sleeping peacefully for once. She picked him up brusquely, his body limp in her hands. She slid him like a football into the crook of her arm and checked the back of his diaper. Finding it empty, she once again pulled her tit from her uniform. As she did so, she felt the child stir slightly in her arms.
"Now you take this with no more of your goddamn complainin’," she said, pressing her breast to his cobalt-tinged lips. She slid her nipple into the baby’s slack mouth and sat back into the well-worn arms of the couch. The baby roused a little and his mouth began the gentle sucking sensation that told her he was feeding.
"You must be feeling better, ya brat. You’re eatin’ again."
Johnny awoke with little knowledge of his brief life or of his reprehensible death just a short time prior. All his brain knew was that the initial confusing whirlwind of sensations—the lights, the sounds, the tantalizing smells—had finally started to settle down. Slowly, they’d begun to focus in on just one: hunger. As he nursed, the hot fluid coursing over his tongue became distasteful; milky and acidic to his palate. It was a sour and nauseating excuse for a meal. And while Johnny had never gotten a chance to learn what life had in store for him, he had learned in his short stay on the planet that his mother’s breast could yield something that almost resembled nourishment. Now, death showed him a new purpose for her breast. Instinctively, he clamped his mouth down harder, nipping at the soft flesh with his tooth, and sucked harder.
~ * ~
Kathy Mae sat dozing on the couch, her cigarette burned down to a cylinder of ash in her hand. Far off in her senses, she could still feel the baby nursing. He’d been at it for what seemed like an awfully long time. He would need to stop soon, she thought, since she was starting to feel a little woozy. She glanced up at the clock over the stove and realized that she’d been sitting there sleepy-eyed for almost half an hour. Her head felt light to her somehow and the floor seemed uneven beneath her feet. Her sight made the angles of the room seem… off. Her perception waffled like an image in a fun house mirror.
She tried to pull the baby away from her breast, but surprisingly, he wouldn’t let go. From the way he was holding on, he must have been hungrier than she’d first thought. Pulling gently, she attempted to dislodge Johnny from her chest, but he had latched on too tightly. She tried again, harder this time, only his little hands kept pulling himself closer.
"Well, you’ve managed to mess up my only clean uniform, Johnny Boy. Good God, it feels all wet," she said. "I’m going ta have to go change now before my next shift at the diner!"
She reached up and forcibly dislodged Johnny’s mouth from her nipple. Her hand came away wet and coated in a dark, viscous fluid. She looked down at the baby and saw his mouth straining to get back to his nursing. His eyes were closed. His mouth remained pursed and sucking at the air.
"Goddam, Boy! What the fuck? Did you bite me, ya little bastard?"
Johnny looked up to meet his mother’s gaze. His eyes were unfocused and still gooey from his infection. His pupils were now clouded and opaque.
Kathy Mae’s mouth dropped open as her child pushed toward her and latched back onto the place where her areola had once been. Blood flowed out of the side of his tiny mouth as he abruptly bit into her flesh in earnest. Pain screamed through Kathy Mae’s drug-addled senses and instinct commanded her to push him away. She tried to get a decent grip on him, but his new-found vigor confounded her. He chewed and tore at her breast, insistently demanding the only sustenance his newly reawakened system could now tolerate.
Kathy Mae stood up and pulled the child forcibly away from her chest. In disgust, she held him at arm’s length. With all of the wriggling and kicking, he jerked out of her grip and dropped like a stone to the ground. With an audible grunting sound, what little air that was held captive in Johnny’s dead lungs came out in a rush. Kathy Mae tried to get to her feet, but her legs went all rubbery from the loss of blood. She stumbled and collapsed in a heap next to the couch. She tried to crawl away from her child, but her coordination was off and her limbs felt weak.
Pressing her back against the sofa, she looked across the floor and saw Little Johnny dragging himself rapidly toward her across the beer-stained rug. His mouth was still working busily and the pupils of his eyes shone creamy white. His expression seemed filled with a hunger that was like something she’d never seen before. As his cold, little hands grasped at her ankle and he began pulling himself up her leg, Kathy Mae drew a stuttering breath and started to scream.
Exordium
The landing gear of the UH-60M Blackhawk helicopter touched down on the helipad, its hydraulics hissing like venomous snakes under the weight of the aircraft. The titanium and fiberglass composite four-blade rotor began to whine down as power was cut to the T700-GE-701D engine. Almost immediately after the three wheels touched the paved ground, a clacking sound came from one of the copter’s side doors and it slid open on oiled rails. Two men jumped down heavily to the pavement— their boots making an empty and hollow sound— with their AR-15 rifles not drawn, but at the ready.
A quick survey of the landing space and one of the security men nodded back toward the darkness within the helicopter. From inside the cramped compartment, a man in an impeccably cut silk suit climbed out of the helicopter and out onto the tarmac. He surveyed the area, breathing deeply of the early morning’s cool air.
The man, one James Masterson by name, wore the officious bearing and no-nonsense demeanor of someone who was born to lead and had spent a lifetime doing so. His manner was one that demanded respect and was, more often than not, granted it. Short dark hair crowned his head and gave him a distinct military look. His dark eyes gleamed from over an aquiline nose, intellect cataloging minutiae, silently gathering details that— in another place and at another time— could spell the difference between life and death.
"Sir," said one of the armed men, "the area is secure."
"Good job, Son," said Masterson as he absentmindedly brushed his seams straight. "Thank you."
His baritone voice splintered slightly from lack of use, many hours having passed since he’d last spoken to another human being. It had been a long flight from what still passed for San Francisco and, in spite of his best efforts to the contrary, Masterson felt tired and more than a little cranky. The search for this new man had been long and arduous, but after having seen some of the footage of him at work, both Masterson and The League felt it would all soon be worth it—well worth it.
At least that was the hope…
The man now sitting in the shadows of the copter’s interior was as close to a natural fighter as Masterson had ever seen. His intuition was good, even if raw and untrained. His body was not large, but it was firmly put together: hard muscle mixed with a brain that could react, truth be told, even more effectively than Masterson’s own. All of this was impressive, in spite of the fact that up until now the man had been working on instinct, a big set of balls, and pure dumb-fuck luck.
Thinking back to the tapes he’d seen on the guy, it was no wonder that The League had ordered Masterson to personally escort him back to this facility. It wasn’t exactly irregular for them to send someone with Masterson’s pedigree out into the field to do something as simple as a retrieval, especially when there was so much money potentially riding on this dude’s ass. Better to protect their investment out of the gate with a trained and armed chaperone than lose it due to some bad planning.
Masterson turned at the hip and looked back into the inky black of the copter.
"Cleese…" he said into the darkness, "Follow me."
From within the shadows of the copter, a figure pulled itself from the blackness and moved slowly toward the door. Anyone could see that this was a man who radiated an innate sense of power with limbs that were both lithe and supple. His movements, although controlled, crackled with an energy that betrayed abilities learned in the blistering heat of battle. His build was forged in the Real World, not in some gym somewhere hefting weights. The man gave off the impression of a big, lethal cat that had been caught dozing. It was plain from his demeanor and body language that if something was to rile his ass up, there would surely be hell to pay.
Cleese’s face came almost reluctantly into the light. His features were lined, hard-edged, and dominated by a pair of cold eyes that burned with an icy-blue fire. His mouth was little more than a cruel slash that tore angrily across the lower part of his face. His gaze was one that gave no bullshit and expected none in return. This was a face that had gotten him out of a lot of bad shit in the past, but then again, had gotten him into a lot of it as well.
He stepped out of the Blackhawk, his long black hair whipping about his face, strands riding the air being moved by the still-spinning rotors overhead. He looked around suspiciously—taking in the expanse of the compound spread out before him at a glance—and raised his eyebrows. The place he’d been brought to was an odd cluster of modern buildings set amidst large expanses of grass, all plunked down right here in the middle of no-fucking-where. The compound was made up of no more than a handful of what looked like semi-permanent structures and then nothing for miles. It was as if whatever it was that they were doing out here—when they did it—they didn’t want much of an audience.
Masterson marched across the helipad, never looking back to see if Cleese was following. He simply walked, trusting that his every order, his every command, would be followed to the letter. His silhouette grew smaller until it finally turned and descended a flight of unseen stairs at the far end of the helipad.
Cleese looked at the soldier nearest him and cocked an eyebrow.
"Nice guy…" and he nodded in Masterson’s direction.
"Your gear will be delivered to your quarters a-sap, Sir," said the soldier in a flat monotone. His gaze remained fixed and pointed straight ahead. He was a young kid of about twenty-five who looked as if he’d once called someplace like Kansas home. Cleese looked into the man’s eyes, which were set back in deep, cavernous sockets. They were rimmed in redness and puffy from lack of sleep.
Cleese smiled to himself. He glanced over to the other soldier who could have been the first one’s brother and saw the same weariness in his gaze. He looked back and forth between the two men. They both stared silently straight ahead and waited for him to comply with Masterson’s orders.
As he always did when confronted by a new and potentially dangerous situation, Cleese assessed the myriad of possible outcomes should things turn ugly and he need to clock both of these bitches and head the fuck on out of here. He considered their guns, his inability to fly a helicopter and God only knew what else might lie beyond the walls of this place, and decided against it.
"Sir," reminded the first soldier as he almost imperceptibly jerked the gun barrel in the direction of the stairwell where Masterson had gone. "Mr. Masterson will be waiting. You’ll need to follow the stairs down, head through the door. Mr. Masterson will be waiting for you in The Press Hall which is down the long corridor and to the right."
Cleese ran a hand through his hair and chuckled as he slowly crossed the helipad. A few scant hours ago, he was asleep and dreaming in his bed. Then, a knock on the door later and he was being escorted onto the Blackhawk only to now find himself here. It was turning into quite a night. He couldn’t wait to hear what this Masterson fella had in store for him now that they’d arrived here in this Disneyland of the Damned.
Still chuckling softly, Cleese strode across the asphalt and toward the stairway.
Space Station #5
Back when the poop hit the prop, things had been rumbling along pretty well for most of the world’s population despite the usual moguls and pitfalls that always had a way of cropping up. Life, as they say, could oftentimes get in the way of Living. Economies see-sawed, despots rose and fell, morality shifted along its slippery slope toward inevitable oblivion, but in the end it was pretty much status quo.
In the spirit of global unity, several of the more affluent nations of the world came together under NASA’s banner, and after several years of development set up an orbiting research station. It floated serenely in space and real strides in medical and technological science were made. Brave new strains of substances were generated up there in the cold, vacuum of space that never could have been created here on Earth. We were all, as a planet, beginning to understand that the world was indeed a small place and, like it or not, we’d better all start getting along.
Sure, there were isolated instances back on terra firma in which dictators would venture outside their country’s borders, but they were put down in short order like rabid dogs. A seemingly real and lasting peace was catching and spreading like a grass fire across the planet and, finally, everything seemed to be on track for ol’ Mother Earth.
As so often happens, just when things seemed to be going their best, it all went to shit. A group of scientists in the U.K. discovered that the space station’s orbit had begun to decay—microscopically at first—but within a week or two, it was a given that the whole shebang was going to come down out of the sky and fall onto all of our heads. The scientists and astronauts who’d inhabited the station only had enough time to grab their Buck Rogers suits and beat feet onto the shuttles hastily sent to retrieve them before it did just that.
When the station entered the atmosphere, its collapse and incineration was a light show like no other. Giant pieces came apart from the main hull like wings pulled from an overcooked chicken. Huge, multi-colored streaks ran like a street hooker’s eye-makeup across the dark of the sky. Everyone came out to watch. It was like the Fourth of July, the Macy’s Day Parade, and Christmas all rolled into one big burning ball of rapidly descending metal.
It wasn’t until later, when the government asked what had gone wrong, that people questioned what exactly it was that was being done in that circling laboratory in the sky. Finally, CNN ran an interview with a rogue scientist (his face obscured for his protection by computer-generated pixelization) whose conscience outweighed his sense of national obligation, and he admitted that there were indeed some very nasty bugs being brewed up there. He went on further to insinuate that–maybe–a fiery combining of them probably wouldn’t be in the planet’s best interest.
But several days went by and nothing happened. After a week or two, we all thought that whatever danger there might have been had passed us by. It was that error in judgment that brought due a bill for which we would all be made to pay.
It was only when the first of the dead opened their eyes in, of all places, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that it was apparent how right that scrambled-pixel-faced scientist guy had been. Within hours, we had ourselves a nice little End-of-Times caliber catastrophe brewing. The contagion (if that was what it could be called) splashed across the face of the planet. Due to some of our antiquated views on death and dying, we’d gotten ourselves right fucked pretty quickly.
First, morgues and mortuaries started reporting cases of flat-line misdiagnoses. Then, hospitals were flooded with random biting and clawing attacks. The medical community was initially indignant, saying that these reports were unlikely especially considering the number and how spread out they were. The Center for Disease Control finally decided that the disaster could only be the result of either a series of chemical spills, bio-terrorism, or something heretofore unknown biologically.
And in a roundabout way, they were right on that last bit.
Soon enough, all protests and hypotheses were drowned out by the sheer number of police reports that came flooding in. There were just too many instances to be ignored, let alone enough time to try to explain them all away. When the dead finally got up from their beds and shuffled out from their tombs to roam the streets by the tens of thousands, the C.D.C. had fallen ominously silent.
So when it could do nothing else, the networks reluctantly began reporting the truth of what was happening and the news wasn’t good. It was with sad and unbelieving faces that the anchors told us what we all already knew…
The Dead were returning to life and eating the Living.
The Gullfire’s Waiting
After entering through a pair of double doors at the bottom of the helipad’s stairway, Cleese walked down the long corridor in front of him and followed it through a maze of very corporate-looking passageways. From what he could tell, the place was made up of offices and conference rooms mostly, but since the majority of the doors in the building were locked, it was hard to tell what else was housed there.
After a bit of searching and finally following the guard’s instructions, he discovered a set of doors with a sign reading Press Hall above them. Inside, he found Masterson seated behind a long table in what looked like a lecture hall. The auditorium was laid out with long rows of theater seats each with desktops that could be folded up or down depending on the needs of whoever sat there. The desks were set in a large semi-circle, which surrounded on three sides the podium at the furthest part of the room. From the looks of things, this was where The League held their news conferences. Across both the walls and ceiling, squares of acoustic tile ran in a grid-like pattern; each tile dampening any sound within the room. As a result, even the door shutting behind him sounded muted and hollow.
Along the far wall was a set of blackboards, each on rails allowing them to slide back and forth, one behind the other. The lectern stood at the center of the stage; a microphone jutted up phallically from the middle of the podium. Masterson sat patiently at a table just to the right. His fingers were tented and his eyes closed as if he were trying to snatch up any bit of rest he could.
Cleese had heard of the technique before from men in the military. They called it "Alpha Napping" and it was a way to rest the mind (since brainwaves changed to restful Alpha Waves when the eyes were closed) when full blown sleep was a luxury the soldier couldn’t afford. Cleese figured that the military must have been where Masterson had learned it. The guy had a look about him that said he’d spent some time in Uncle Sam’s service. He noted the tidbit of information and catalogued it for later consideration.
Upon hearing Cleese enter, Masterson slowly raised his head and opened his eyes.
"Sit down," Masterson ordered and nodded toward a desk at the front of the room.
"Nice place…" he said looking around, but not moving.
"Sit down, Cleese. I won’t say it again."
Behind him, Cleese noticed that the two security men from the helicopter had appeared at the exit. They dutifully closed the doors behind them and stood by at attention. Their rifles, cradled in their arms like sleeping children, spoke volumes as to the reason for their presence in the room.
Cleese smiled and shrugged, then walked down the center aisle a few rows. Choosing a seat midway down the gallery, he sat down heavily, just within earshot of Masterson. His choice of seating would, at the very least, mean that his disagreeable host would have to raise his voice in order to be heard.
Pity.
As he settled into his seat, Cleese gave Masterson the once-over now that they were in brighter light. There was no doubt that the guy was as hard as nails. His manner and the look in his eyes said that he’d seen some shit in his time, but given all of the events of the last few hours, he knew that Masterson was someone he simply wasn’t going to like.
For the life of him, Cleese couldn’t put his finger on exactly what it was that bugged him about the man, but it was there. God knew there were so many reasons to choose from. Maybe, it was that he was a "Suit" and Cleese hated Suits. Maybe it was the unceremonious way he’d barged into Cleese’s room and had him yanked out of bed at gunpoint. The promise that the trip would be "worth his while" might have been enough to spark his interest in the beginning, but more and more, even that was failing to hold water.
And then there was that quiet-as-a-tomb airlift here. The chopper ride had been about as comfortable as a cavity search what with the guy just sitting there stone-faced the entire trip. He’d just sat there, staring straight ahead, not saying a syllable.
It was enough to almost creep a guy out.
Whatever the reason was, Cleese decided the least he could do was to put a little crimp in that anally-retentive timetable of his. The prospect of fucking with him was proving to be all too tempting.
It was only after some silent deliberation that he decided it was Masterson’s sense of entitlement—that self-absorbed air of superiority—that rubbed him the wrong way.
All that other shit was just icing on an already unpalatable cake.
In the end, it came down to something as simple as chemistry…or a lack thereof.
The crux of it was that Cleese was certain that the guy was an asshole of the first order, and for that alone he deserved to be given at least some small ration of shit. And he’d learned from past experience to trust his gut whenever it grumbled. That oily feeling deep in the pit of his stomach had saved his ass more times than he could remember. So when it spoke up as it had now…he figured it best to pay it the strictest attention.
"I’m sure you’re wondering why your presence here has been requested," said Masterson.
Requested?!? Is that what he called it? So then what were the firepower and military accoutrements for, setting a mood?
Cleese looked him dead in the eye and slowly—methodically—scratched his balls.
"It had crossed my mind," he said over the soft sound of his ball scratching.
"That was a rhetorical question, Smartass. From here on in, I talk…you listen," hissed Masterson, looking down at his clenched hands. "I ask questions and you answer them. Interrupt me again and I’ll have you dropped back into that shit-hole where I found you."
Cleese grinned his best "I’d like to see you do just that" grin.
Masterson looked up at him for a heartbeat, silently considering whether he should make good on the threat. Finally deciding against it, he reached for the lone folder laying on the table near him. As he slid it across the table, it made a soft, whispering sound as if already betraying its secrets.
"Cleese, have you ever heard of the WGF?"
Cleese sat for a minute, quietly thinking. Of course he’d heard of them. Fuck, everyone had. The World Gladiatorial Federation and its subsidiary, The Undead Fight League, were huge—making the NFL, Major League Baseball, and NBA all look like sandlot pick-up games. The thing was…Cleese had never really given a shit for what many now called sport. He was, in his own way, a busy man and already had enough violence in his life. He didn’t really feel the need to watch a televised slaughterhouse in Dolby Digital. He left that sort of thing for people who led less active lifestyles.
Cleese shook his head slightly. He’d wondered what cards this guy was holding up his sleeve and what the real reason was for his being brought here. Now, as the fine hairs on the back of his neck stood at attention, he was almost wishing he’d never agreed to get into that damn helicopter in the first place. Then again, with all the hardware his escort was sporting, it wasn’t like he ever really had much choice in the matter.
Cleese took another moment and, looking around the room, thought back to a time before there was a need for such sport, back to when chaos first tore its way across the face of the planet, back to the day when The Dead first got up and started walking again. Hordes of Them had come spilling out into the streets, killing and eating anyone and anything unlucky enough to fall into their path. An unfathomable number of people died as a result of the initial Awakening and that only made the situation worse. Death led to more death. Soon, those who were murdered awoke and began killing. A basic understanding of exponential math should have told people just how fucked they all were.
It had been hell there for the first few days. Initially, the dead were able to move quickly and that was a major part of the problem. The Dead being as swift and as strong as they had been in life made them formidable foes, but as the days slipped by and rigor mortis and decomposition set in, they slowed right down. By that time however, there were so many of them. At one point, the tide almost turned in their favor as the days gradually turned to weeks.
It was closing in on months when the living finally got things back under control by giving the whole dog and pony show over to the good ol’ U.S. Army. Those jag-offs sure as fuck fixed things up right quick. First, they’d assessed how badly contaminated specific areas were. It became clear early on that the really big cities such as New York, Chicago, Houston, and Los Angeles were fucked. Slightly smaller municipalities could be scoured in house-to-house search-and-destroy missions, but the major metropolitan areas were all chalked up as losses because just one of those things left upright and roaming would start the whole thing all over again. It was imperative that not one of Them be left "alive."
And so, with a suitably heavy heart, The President ordered the four cities leveled: from downtown to the suburbs and all points in between. After that, the deaths of all those innocent citizens—the ones holed up and awaiting rescue—were never a topic that was discussed openly. It was just a fact unquestioned, but kept like pocket change: a small, hard, terrible thing that people carried and never mentioned, but were never without.
Soon after the military had their way, people slowly found their way back to a place that resembled normalcy. The Dead were still a consideration, something everyone dealt with, but now, they were more of a reminder of what had been lost, both on a personal level and as a culture. There were still sporadic outbursts of undead activity, but the situation was nowhere near as dire as it had once been.
Once the authorities had gotten a solid handle on what was left and things finally started settling down about a year later, it was only natural for people to attempt to deal with everything they’d been through in their own way. It wasn’t long after that that the network news picked up on a story of illegal Undead fight clubs that started cropping up in city after city. At these midnight, underground locations, one of the Living would climb into a ring or pen with a few of The Dead where they would fight, one-on-one, mano-a-mano. Weapons were added in an effort to level the playing field somewhat. After all, The Dead had their teeth and claw-like hands the least we could do was to give the Living a gun or two.
It was decided that too many combatants were being bitten, so some rudimentary hand and arm protection was introduced. After another year or two, things became more and more standardized and voilà! a new sport was born. It was pretty obvious that there were a lot of people left in the world who wanted to see Mankind dole out some righteous payback to the unholy sonsabitches.
And who could blame them after everything that had been lost? In some macabre way, people wanted a chance to fight that initial confrontation all over again…only this time they wanted more of a heads-up. This time, they all were longing for a change in venue and the hope of a different outcome.
A young producer at one of the networks had been taken to a match by a story source and pitched the idea to his bosses. He told them the matches were a television natural and with the proper marketing the phenomenon could be big; huge, in fact. Like Survivor, only this time getting kicked off the island was the least of your worries. This time, if you played the game wrong, it was your ass. What was extinguishing your torch and being sent home compared to getting your throat ripped open and having your intestines eaten live on national TV?
After all, with what the world had just been through—The Dead crawling out of their graves, family member murdering family member, corpses eating corpses—people had already become desensitized to the imagery of Death and of The Dead. Putting it all on TV was almost a fait accompli. Luckily for them, there was already a guy who was running the show and had a whole network of fighters, handlers, and support teams in place. The network’s Standards and Practices thought it over and agreed that this was something they could turn a blind eye toward, if for no other reason than for the good of the Nation.
~ * ~
"Well…?" asked Masterson bringing Cleese back to the moment.
"Sure. Everyone has. Zombie fightin,’ right? Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome-type shit."
Masterson looked at the seated man for a moment and, quite against his will, the corner of his mouth twitched.
"Yes, well…We prefer the term: ‘UD Engagement,’ but the sentiment is the same."
"Tomayto…Tomahto, Pal. Call it what you want. It’s still kickin’ a zombie in the ass to me."
Masterson picked up the folder before him, opened it, and looked at the contents once again. His eyes scanned the documents, and as if reciting a bedtime story to a child, he read what he saw aloud.
"Cleese, William Thomas. Born 1977… Idaho Falls, ID… to… Cleese, Elizabeth Margaret… Father… Unknown."
Masterson looked up over the rim of the folder and, just for a second, shot Cleese a wry glance.
"Is there a point to any of this?" Cleese said, casually flipping him off.
"You presently reside in what was once San Francisco, California where, at last report, you work as ‘muscle’ for a local loan shark and live in a rat-trap, walkup apartment." He raised his eyes once more and grinned. "Nice place, by the way."
"Fuck you."
"During The Outbreak, you achieved a bit of notoriety by fighting your way out of San Francisco armed only with a baseball bat. Since then, you’ve ridden that cred and managed to establish a bit of a reputation by supplementing your income with taking odd bar fight bets where you often cheat and seldom lose. You are not married and you have no children. All of your relatives have either disowned you or are dead. Sound about right, Tough Guy?"
"Yeah, so…? What the fuck is this… my A&E Biography?"
"Let’s you and I be honest here, Cleese. You are a man with few options. You’re a bottom dweller who lives a life based on thuggery and unlawful pugilism. You, quite frankly, have little in the way of anything remotely resembling marketable skills. You’re a loser without a future and are, quite frankly, seemingly beyond redemption. However, The League sees something in you and has therefore asked me to bring you here to see if you have sense enough to try to change all of that."
Cleese leaned forward in his chair. Despite himself, his interest was piqued. He sensed that the other shoe was about to drop, that the real reason for his being brought all the way out here was about to be revealed.
Masterson leaned back in his chair and carefully closed the file. His eyes burned red and weary as he finally arrived at the point of all of this. He slowly rubbed his eyes and raised his gaze to meet Cleese’s.
"Zombie fightin’…" He smiled slow and creepy, like a rattlesnake might if it had lips. "Ever do any of it?" Masterson asked, already knowing the answer.
Cleese smiled and scratched at the scruff on his chin. Now that he knew why he’d been brought here, he relaxed. He knew what he was being asked and it wasn’t whether he’d ever fought the dead. Shit, everyone had done a little of that back in the day. When Masterson mentioned the bar fights and then the WGF, he was letting on that he wanted to know whether he ever opened a can of whup-ass on the undead… for money.
"A bit… but that was a long time ago," he said with an almost embarrassed grin.
Cleese looked deep into Masterson’s eyes and let his smile grow a little bit wider. "How much?" he asked.
"Excuse me?"
"Let’s cut the shit, shall we? How much are we talkin’ about here?"
Now it was Masterson’s turn to smile.
"A lot, Cleese. A helluva lot."
The two soldiers at the door grinned silently to one another as laughter rang out in the empty room.
Early Morning Constitutional
Cleese and Masterson stepped out of the Reception Building and into the early morning’s soft light. Dew still sparkled on the sidewalks that separated the building from the helipad and another small structure which, from the multitude of cabling coming out of it, looked as if it held some kind of electrical power source.
As his eyes became accustomed to the growing sunlight, Cleese got his first real glimpse of the compound as a whole. He looked past the electrical shack and across a short stretch of lawn where he saw two large gymnasium-like buildings, one directly in front of him and another just to the right. Between the structures Cleese could see other smaller buildings and beyond that another larger expanse of grass—like some sort of immense soccer field. Off in the distance, he could make out the erratic pop of small arms fire, the shots’ echoes snapping like whip cracks through the spaces between the walls. Other than that, there was really nothing but farmland for as far as the eye could see.
"We have four main buildings here at The Compound," explained Masterson as they walked. "The building we just left is accounting offices, lecture auditoriums, and corporate offices mostly. Over there, to the right, is the fighter’s housing which we refer to here as ‘cribs.’ At the other end over there is the Mess Hall. We expect you to comply with a full training regimen while you’re here, and so, we feed you well. You should prepare to gain some muscle weight while you train."
Cleese looked around and had to admit, the joint was impressive; sparse, but damned impressive. Someone had dropped a fair amount of coin on this bitch. He just couldn’t figure why anyone would build it out here in the middle of nowhere.
"What’s that?" Cleese pointed toward a large building which lay directly before them.
"That is where we’re going now… The Main Training Hall. Inside, you’ll find that it comes complete with a full gym, a mixed martial arts training space and, of course, a Training Octagon.
Masterson raised his right arm and pointed with his middle finger.
"Beyond that is The Chest which is what we call our equipment room and armory. Further on, is the Firing Range and Quarter Mile Track and, over on the far side of the compound, is the Holding Pen, which you can’t really see from here, but is where we store the all of the training UDs."
"UDs?"
"Verbal shorthand, I apologize. Undeads or, as you and the rest of the world have been referring to them, ‘Zombies.’"
Cleese looked at Masterson like the man just shit in his morning bowl of corn flakes.
"Are you telling me that you keep zombies here?
Masterson nodded. "It’s what we do, Cleese. Get used to the idea that you will soon be dealing with Them on a very intimate basis."
"How many?"
"What?" Masterson asked, sounding annoyed.
"I asked how many of them do you keep here?"
"We store up to three hundred at any given time. The number ebbs and flows depending on the kind of training we’re engaged in."
Cleese shook his head in disbelief and stumbled to a stop. His mind reeled at the thought of someone willfully keeping that many of those fuckers together in any one place, at any one time. The things could be a handful if encountered one on one—he’d seen that firsthand—but gather a half dozen or so together and you could end up having a very shitty afternoon. And to think, these fuckin’ imbeciles were casually talking about "storing" them by the hundreds. He trotted to catch up with the still-walking Masterson.
"You ever have any of ’em break out?"
"Never."
"Never?" Cleese said with a slight chuckle.
Masterson stopped abruptly and Cleese had to skid to a stop to avoid running into him. He turned to look Cleese square in the eye for the first time since the two of them met in San Francisco. His gaze was direct and allowed no argument.
"Never." he said emphatically and turned.
An odd shadow, cast by a sun slung low over the horizon, danced across the man’s back as he continued walking toward the training hall.
Monk
The two men entered the Main Training Hall and the heavy, metal door echoed loudly as it slammed shut behind them. The first thing Cleese noticed as he walked deeper into the building was the smell. It was a pungent mixture of leather, sweat and bitter antiseptic. The place reeked of hard work and exertion, of men pushing their bodies beyond their physical limitations and of painful learning.
It also smelled like death. A swirling odor of putrescence and decomposition hung over the room like a pall, tainting everything it touched. It was a smell that stuck to the back of your throat like paste and made gagging a very real possibility. It was, simply put, a smell that once experienced you never forgot.
Once, a long time ago, Cleese had broken into a local funeral home and made off with a couple of bottles of embalming fluid. Some freaks he knew in the neighborhood made a habit of dipping their cigarettes into the shit, letting them dry, and then smoking them. They’d called them "Sherms." Got real high on them, they did. The things also burnt their brains out like napalm. Cleese had to go into the mortuary’s prep room to get the stuff. That place had the same smell to it then as this one did now.
As they walked deeper into the main part of the Hall, Cleese saw what looked like a locker room and showers off to the left. Directly in front of them was a large open space covered with interlocking mats on the floor . Up and further to the left was a weight training area where several workout machines glistened in the low overhead light. The mirrored wall at the far end reflected racks of free weights and a dozen or so treadmills. An open-beamed ceiling arched high above them, its supports fanning out like a ribcage. Hung sporadically from the rafters, large round lights threw pools of illumination over the interior.
"Here’s the martial arts area, over there, the gym. You’ll be expected to conform to our way of doing things here, our protocol," Masterson explained as they continued deeper into the building. "Here’s the way it all breaks down… We hold fight and tactical classes every day at zero-eight-hundred and again at sixteen hundred. Your attendance there is mandatory. Later in the day, we offer gymnastics and Judo, which are elective. Some guys’ fighting styles don’t make use of it and so not everyone is required to come to class. You’ll need to check the schedule for you and your trainer’s spots in The Octagon."
"Is that when we fight the zombies?"
"No." Masterson sounded slightly annoyed. "It’s where you train. Live combat is saved for the televised events. It was one of the first rules laid down by The League. When people tune in, they want to see a show. This isn’t professional wrestling or any of that staged kinda bullshit. They don’t want matches that appear planned or biased in any way…" and then under his breath, "not like you could plan, much less reason, with those damned things.
"It just keeps things honest and above board," he continued. "You will be required to train with the UDs as well as living opponents. The UDs will, of course, be wearing bite blocks and harnesses. It’s to maximize your safety and minimize our liability."
As they walked together across the mat, Cleese saw an older man coming toward them from the opposite direction. He stood not quite as tall as Cleese, about fifty or so, with salt-and-pepper hair. His body was well-muscled and yet compact—solid, like a boxer’s—only it looked as if capable of inflicting a lot more damage. Even though he was an older man, he still gave off a vibe that said he’d seen some shit in his time and, if troubled, he’d be only too happy to carve off a major chunk of your ass.
"Monk!" Masterson called out and waved a hand.
The other man returned the wave, but Cleese noticed that he didn’t smile. He strode over and shook Masterson’s hand. From their body language, Cleese immediately assumed that these men had known one another for some time. He also noted that although their acquaintance had been long, it was not particularly deep.
"Good to see you, Sir," Monk said. His voice was gruff and scratchy, like silverware drawn over broken glass. He immediately looked Cleese over, appraising him as if he were a racehorse. With a discerning eye, he circled Cleese and, every so often, poked or prodded at him.
"Monk, this is Cleese." said Masterson. "Cleese, the man before you is James Thelonius Montgomery. Although the last man to call him ‘James’ or ‘Thelonius’ is, I believe, still able to breathe as long as no one unplugs him. It’s safest if you just call him ‘Monk.’"
"How’z it goin’?" Cleese said with a jerk of his head and extended a hand and waited for it to be shaken.
Monk ignored him and looked accusingly at Masterson. A displeased look sat on his face like a fat man on a lawn chair and he shook his head in disgust.
"He’s too skinny."
Masterson sighed. His shoulders slumped and he rubbed at his right eye with his fist.
"He’s too skinny and he’s too green," Monk continued. "He’ll never be worth a shit."
"Monk, it’s been decided" Masterson said calmly. "You’ve read the file."
"Hey, fuckin’ ex-cuse me," said Cleese. "I am still standing here."
"And he’s stupid." Monk ran his hand over his face, pulling his features into distortion. "Motherfucker doesn’t even know when to keep his mouth shut tight."
"I recall someone once saying some similar things about you," Masterson smiled.
"I’m going on record right now as saying that I think he’s the type to shit the bed, but ok. After all, you guys are the boss."
"Duly noted."
They both turned and looked toward Cleese, who scowled and held up his right hand, brandishing two fingers. His expression let it be known that it was not a gesture of peace he offered.
"Two things," he said with a tiger’s slow smile. "Number one," he said as he dropped his index finger. His middle finger jutted from his fist in unabashed defiance. "Don’t talk shit about me like I’m not here." He spun his fist around in a tight circle. "You have something to say, you say it to my face or not at all. And number two," the middle finger lowered slowly into a fist. "I get treated fairly here and I play nice, but if I think that anyone is trying to buttfuck me, I walk. No bullshit and no second chances."
He pumped his fist like a heartbeat.
"We work on a mentor system," continued Masterson, ignoring everything that Cleese had just said. "Every new recruit is paired with a veteran. Your mentor is Monk. The two of you will bunk together, train together, eat, sleep, and shit together. When in the pit, you are to know where your partner is at all times. Remember, the people who have forgotten that have been carried out of here in pieces."
Cleese looked at Monk and then back to Masterson.
"Is that understood?" Masterson asked.
Masterson looked quite pleased with himself, like a child who’d been given a job and been able to complete it to satisfaction. And why shouldn’t he be? His package had been picked up and delivered in exactly the manner that The League requested. From here on, Cleese would be Monk’s problem. Masterson was out of it unless, of course, the fighter fucked up. If and when that happened, he would personally pitch the son of a bitch out of a helicopter and throw him back into a world of shit.
For Monk’s part, a look of dissatisfaction continued to squat across his features, like an old woman taking a dump. He’d been around this game for as long as it had been around and he’d seen more fighters come and more fighters go than even he was comfortable with. It was sad for him to think that this guy standing before him would no doubt be dead in a week, maybe less. From the look of him, Monk was starting to think that betting heavily on the "maybe less" would be a good idea.
"Ay-yup," Cleese said with a heavy sigh. "Let’s do this…"
Indoctrination
Over the course of the next few days, Monk showed Cleese how things worked around the compound. He learned there was a rigid five day schedule in place which started with a big breakfast, martial arts and weight training in the mornings, an enormous lunch, and then free sparring and what was referred to as "target specific training" in the afternoons. After that, it was more food, more training and more pain. It was a helluva lot of work, but despite some initial bitching Cleese found that he enjoyed it. It had been a long time since he’d worked his body this hard and in a short amount of time he regained some of the strength and vitality he’d lost years ago. Hell, he’d even gotten back some of that muscle definition he’d thought was buried forever beneath the avalanche of booze and bad bar food he’d once called a diet.