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 an
y 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 w
hat 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?
No Flesh Shall Be Spared Page 2