By his admittedly unreliable count, this was Round Eight and he was looking at four more UDs coming up. Or was it six? He couldn’t quite seem to remember which. Shit, for all he knew, it might be eight. Whatever it was, it was going to seem like way too many.
He fought his exhaustion hard for both a rational perspective and any oxygen he could get as he tried to gauge how much time he had until the next buzzer. Thirty seconds, at best. He knew that, for now, he needed to just stay still and breathe; replenish his lungs with oxygen as quickly as possible so that his muscles didn’t cramp up on him. Forget about the crowd. Forget about the cameras. Forget about how much he wanted to puke his guts up onto the sand. He had to conserve his energy while he was able since it was still a long way to go until the final round and some of that big-titted dick suckin’ Monk had once talked about. Truthfully, he’d skip that last part in exchange for a hot bath, a good stiff drink and maybe some face time with Chikara, but he was willing to take whatever he could get.
"Miles to go before I sleep…"
He figured that whenever the buzzer went off, he would take a few seconds to survey the situation from the ground and, only then, would he decide a definitive course of action. If the UDs happen to catch him as he was halfway to his feet, he’d hit them low and hard from this crouch. Once erect, he could always spin off to a safe zone to gather his wits and plot his next move.
Far above his head, the crowd’s incessant roaring throbbed like a bee sting at the back of his skull and made it hard to think. Cleese had once heard that, in the movies, when they needed a crowd to talk, the director would tell the extras to simply repeat the word "rhubarb" over and over. He’d thought that silly at the time, but now, standing on the receiving end of it, that was exactly what it sounded like— "rhubarb."
Cleese had always hated rhubarb.
He hated it even more now.
~ * ~
Ok, John, so we’re seconds away from the next buzzer and the start of Round Eight. So far, we’ve really been getting our money’s worth in this fight. Cleese has dominated the action with some vicious hand-to-hand skills and that spike of his is an amazingly effective weapon. He’s even managed to get some time to rest between rounds. Now, here it is the beginning of the Eighth Round and he’s still looking pretty fit out there although the physical strain of any match can crush a man.
"That’s right, Bob… We’ve seen seasoned athletes get buried in few rounds."
"Boy, I’ll say… Ok, we’re getting the signal now that the next buzzer is just about to go off, so let’s go back down to the pit for more action…
~ * ~
This time, when the buzzer went off, Cleese was almost ready for it—almost. Still out of breath and knowing he was a little past halfway through with this thing, he hoped it would surely all be downhill from here. At least, that was what he kept saying to himself. Then, he remembered that the closer he got to the end of the match, the more UDs would be coming out of the turnstiles. The more UDs there were, the greater the danger.
"Danger! Danger! Danger!"
Wasn’t that what that crazy Aussie used to say on television back before a fish stuck his dizzy ass and killed him? They’d called that idiot "The Croc Hunter," hadn’t they? Cleese had always thought that anyone who would willingly crawl into a cage with a dangerous animal like a crocodile simply had to be a loon. As he glanced around the pit at the corpses and the blood, he wondered just who was the crazy one now.
"Crikey…" Cleese snickered aloud as he huffed in another breath.
The turnstiles spun and locked with their now familiar booming sound and Cleese quickly made note of where everything was. Positions One, Four, Six, and Seven had UDs in them. Position Three had a fresh clip. The other three spindles were empty.
Things could be a helluva lot worse.
Knowing that there was a new full clip waiting, Cleese decided to expend a few bullets to make his life a little easier. He sprang to his feet and briskly strode toward Six (late teens/early twenties male, punk rocker with a crushed Mohawk, wearing a shirt with the words "Dead Kennedys" printed on it, a series of bruised heroin tracks ran up one arm) and Seven (forty-ish white guy—big, looked like a cop, a bullet wound was visible in his upper abdomen). The other two UDs seemed to be having a bit of trouble getting out of their turnstiles, so Cleese bet they wouldn’t be posing too much of a problem, not for a few seconds at least.
When he had just about reached where Six and Seven were standing, he pulled his pistol out of its shoulder holster, and shot Six three times between the eyes as the boy came teetering toward him. Sure, it was overkill, but he knew deep down that the crowd would react positively to the splash the blood would make on the sand.
This early in the round, those fuckers’ll go crazy.
The bullets shattered the bridge of the kid’s nose on impact and blew most of his slack expression out the other side of his head. The punk’s Mohawk flopped limply to the side as his scalp slid from his skull like a rotting orange peel. Cleese figured it was pretty safe to say, he was now officially down.
The dead cop came up unexpectedly from behind and wrapped his meaty arms around Cleese’s chest, trapping both extremities at his side. He felt the thing’s rank breath fall cold and clammy against the skin at the back of his neck. A chill ran like a thief down the length of his spine. The cop drove his mouth onto Cleese’s trapezius muscle and slobber ran wetly down the meat of his arm.
Fuck!!!
Luckily, the thing had clamped its jaws over the leather of his shoulder holster rather than on anything he needed. However, it did manage to scare Cleese more than a little. He had missed being bitten by a quarter inch of oiled leather. Simply put, he couldn’t let something like that happen again. Ever! Next time, he wouldn’t be so fortunate. A quick, reverse-headbutt broke the cop’s nose and caused the UDs eyes to water enough so that it had no choice but to let him go. It was a risky move, but given the circumstances, it was the only option open to him.
Once free, Cleese drew out the spike, spun around, and, putting his back into it, slashed diagonally across the cop’s chest. The metal edge of the blade went in through the bullet wound in his chest, cut through muscle and ribcage and slanted downward. The flesh parted like a sausage and let loose the dead man’s intestines in a squiggling heap. The reanimated cop acted as though he’d been slapped with a pillow. His hands flew up and clawed voraciously at Cleese’s chest, fingernails scraping against the chain-mail on his arms.
Over the sound of the crowd overhead and the snarling of the cop, Cleese could just make out the sound coming from the other UD’s as they stumbled their way out of their turnstiles. He could tell from the hissing sound of their feet lumbering across the sand that they were coming, and coming fast.
He’d have to make this quick.
He whacked the gauntlet’s release with the side of the Beretta’s barrel and felt a jerk as the blade fell back into place. He raised the pistol and fired the last of his shells with a "double tap" into the centre of the cop’s snarling face. The hollow points slapped into his upper lip, splitting it, and then proceeded straight up the cop’s nose. The back of its head exploded in a fireworks display of blood and bone. With a look of complete surprise still plastered on his face, the cop teetered briefly on its feet and then crumpled to the ground like an unwanted doll.
Immediately, Cleese turned toward Position Three and made his way straight for the new ammo. As he ran across the sand, he pushed his thumb against the pistol’s magazine release and the now empty clip slid out, falling to the ground. He reached the turnstile and, with a practiced move, snatched up the fresh magazine. His bullet needs now cared for, his attention shifted and he spun around and attempted to get a fix on the other UDs. He hastily slapped the magazine into the butt of his gun and, in one smooth movement, thumbed the slide. He felt it "klack" back into place and knew the gun was now ready to be fired once again.
By now, One (a once-cute woman, about thirty or so,
wearing a bloody pullover and light, green pants with no visible signs of trauma) had managed to come within ten feet or so of him. At first, he thought about taking her out with just his hands, but he’d lost track of Four and didn’t want to get caught on a half-blind flank like he had with the cop. So, Cleese raised the pistol, sighted in on the middle of the young girl’s face, and pulled the trigger.
The hammer fell and the gun went off in his hand.
The woman continued coming and had, in fact, begun to pick up speed.
He sighted in on her forehead and shot her again.
The gun fired sending up a small cloud of smoke, the air suddenly charged with the smell of cordite. Through the haze, he saw that her progress had not been impeded in the slightest.
What the fuck?!?
He took a couple of shuffling steps back and pointed the barrel at the ground. Pulling the trigger, he was not surprised to see the sand "jump" as the pistol’s discharged force tore into the soft ground. However, now that his attention was focused on it, the "jump" was nothing like a live round would have made hitting the ground. It was different—more dispersed and not as powerful.
Looking up, he saw that the woman was even closer now and so, bending slightly and using all of the strength in his legs, he jumped into the air pushing off with his left leg. Putting the musculature of his lower back into the kick, he front mule kicked the woman with his right leg. When he landed, he pivoted on the balls of his feet and threw an almost instantaneous spinning heel kick that hit her like a phone book on the side of her jaw. She flew back from the force of it, arms reeling. The foul air that had been trapped in her lungs was knocked out by the front kick with an audible "oof" and she fell heavily to the ground.
Far too quickly for his liking, she scrambled back to her feet and renewed the attack.
As he watched her coming toward him, Cleese took another quick couple of sliding steps back to buy himself some time. Deftly, he pulled the magazine out of the Beretta and inspected it. Sure enough, the damn thing was loaded with nothing but blank cartridges. He looked back quickly toward the magazine he’d just ejected and saw that it, of course, lay useless in the sand. The warning Monk had given so long ago came whispering out of the back of his brain: "You go in shootin’ up the place and you’ll find that you’re out of rounds when you need them the most."
It figured that old drunk would have been right about some things.
Who knew he’d be right about everything.
"Son. Of. A. Bitch!" Cleese hissed.
They’ve given me a clip full of blanks!
Monroe’s arrogant little voice rang in Cleese’s ears.
"Good luck on your next Fight Night."
That little fuck.
Cleese quickly decided that he would have to consider the many different ways he was going to put the hurt on Monroe later. Right now, he had more pressing concerns in the way of a very undead pissed off Valley Girl now coming toward him like a maniacal freight train; not to mention the still unknown quantity that was Four.
One came straight in his direction, reaching out hungrily for him. Cleese focused in on the ten clawing nails that were coming toward his face like whirling blades. The observation part of his brain noticed that her French manicure had gone to shit. Dried blood and tissue lay caked under the beds of her bent and broken nails. Behind the clawing fingers, slightly out of focus, he could just make out the girl’s perfect set of snarling, snapping teeth. She looked as if she had come from a bit of wealth: perfect manicure, perfect teeth. Someone’s parents once had enough money to pay a top-flight orthodontist, Cleese idly thought. Her tattered shirt, while not exactly haute couture, looked as if it had come from a more than upscale shop.
Like, totally!
He angrily tossed aside the useless magazine and holstered the empty pistol, the black metal seating itself firmly into the oiled leather. Cautiously, he approached the girl. Her hands were his first problem. As they came clawing at him, he slapped the left hand aside, and circled her right wrist in his grasp. Quickly, he spun it, twisted the radial and ulna bones in upon themselves, and shoved the limb back up into its shoulder socket. Her elbow bowed up, drawing the skin taught across the soft underside of the joint. With the heel of his free hand, he struck her in an upward motion just at the point of the elbow, pushing it back and hyper-extending it. The joint snapped with a loud, cracking sound, like wet wood thrown onto a bonfire.
Overhead, the crowd gave up another wave of frenzied shouting.
The girl screeched in what could only have been—undead or not—agonizing pain, but her cry was cut short as Cleese followed up with a savage knife-hand blow to the front of her throat. The scream sounded cut-off as if she’d gulped the remainder of it. His blow snapped the hyoid bone deep in her throat with a muted scrunch. She took a small step, then another, and then stumbled to her knees.
As she fell, Cleese turned his head and quickly surveyed the pit. He still couldn’t see where Four had gone. He needed to get an idea where it was pretty damn quick, but for now, he had his hands full with the wounded creature before him.
The girl, down on all fours and crawling away, moaned coarsely while she nursed her shattered arm. She may have been no longer alive, but her sense of self-preservation remained firmly intact as she tried to scuttle as far away from him as possible.
Cleese next threw a short, oblique shin kick that struck the girl across her already damaged throat. Her larynx collapsed fully and folded in on itself with a wet, gurgling sound. Cleese knew there was no real point to the blow, the damage had already been done. He just did it because he knew it looked good and it made a really cool sound.
The crowd, predictably, loved every second of it. They lapped up every burble and drowning gasp as if it were fine wine.
He stood towering over the girl, her usable hand now cupped over her shattered airway. Their eyes briefly met, but Cleese quickly tore his gaze away. Monk always told him, "Never look into their eyes. The hopes and dreams of what they once were remain there. Look into the eyes and you look into the soul, and that breeds sympathy and sympathy breeds hesitation. You hesitate down here and you’re dead before your body hits the fuckin’ sand."
Cleese grabbed a healthy handful of the girl’s hair and jerked her head back. Her eyes rolled wildly about in her head and her mouth was pulled slack-jawed by the extension of the muscles in her neck. He slapped the release on the spike against his thigh almost as an afterthought. The spike slid out and locked itself securely into place. He raised his right arm and the spike sparkled menacingly in the light.
The crowd overhead continued applauding and stomping their feet in the stands, creating a deafening racket. The pounding made the entire building shake to its foundations. It was Thor’s Hammer battering the world into submission. Cleese could feel the thunderous booming down deep in his bones.
After what he determined to be a sufficiently dramatic pause, Cleese brought the spike down and drove it into the top of the woman’s skull. Its tip exploded through her head and out the front of her perfectly capped teeth. As the polished porcelain fell like shattered china from her mouth, her voice wailed in a crescendo and then trailed off into silence.
More rhubarb cascaded down from the crowd.
Suddenly, behind him and off to his left, he heard a low moan: a deep and sorrowful sound. It was a voice that mourned for a precious thing long lost; a keening for something it had once cherished, but had now misplaced.
Four.
Cleese pulled on the spike and had already mentally moved on to how he was going to take out his next UD. However, to his surprise and panicked dismay, he found that the weapon was firmly lodged in one of the fissures between the bones of One’s skull. He pulled again but the metal still wouldn’t budge.
He looked up toward the direction of where he’d heard her moaning and saw Four (another gramma of all things, about sixty, flowered running suit, the skin on the lower half of her face missing) shuffling across the sand t
oward him. Her neck was cocked at an odd angle and she squinted malevolently as she tried to focus her eyes on him.
Cleese hastily glanced down and inspected the mechanism of the gauntlet. It was coated in a sticky veneer of blood, but it all seemed to be okay. Nothing looked like it had been damaged. It was just that the metal had somehow gotten itself caught in a crack of bone or something deep within her skull. With the spike stuck where it was and the gauntlet strapped to his hand, his right arm was essentially useless to him. The woman’s dead weight not only deprived him of the use of the limb, but it gave him an additional hundred pounds or so to lug around. The trapped arm would continue to be a hindrance to him until he could figure out a way to dislodge it.
Four lurched into him from the side, screaming and clawing, and almost pushed him off his feet. The old woman’s arms wind-milled crazily as her hands tried to claw Cleese’s face off. It was as if she was trying to make it match her own. He backhanded her firmly with his free hand and sent her reeling.
He quickly bent his knees and dragged One’s body over to the side of the pit by the spike. A streak of deep crimson painted the sand in her wake. He hoped that he could somehow pin her body against the wall and, by see-sawing the metal spike back and forth, force the damn thing loose. All he had to do was keep this old bitch away from him long enough and he just might be all right.
Well, it sounded easy…
By now, Four had managed to get up onto her hands and knees. She crawled arthritically over to where he stood. She clawed hungrily at his boots and tried to drag herself up his legs with her arms. Cleese irreverently kneed her twice in the face. Her nose made a small "cricking" sound and her jaw shut with a snap. When she opened her mouth again, the tip of her severed tongue fell unnoticed to the sand.
For the life of him, Cleese wasn’t exactly sure how what happened next occurred, but somehow, in the midst of the commotion, his legs became entangled amidst Four’s frantic arms and One’s inert form. Between the wriggling motion of Four and the dead weight of One, he felt his center of balance pitch sickeningly forward and the three of them fell to the ground in a heap.
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