Carnell, Thom - No Flesh Shall Be Spared

"Monk!" Cleese repeated.

Monk stared blankly into space.

Cleese tried again, "MONK!"

Monk slowly turned his head and looked at Cleese. His stare remained empty and soulless, but a small spark of recognition could be seen smoldering deep within.

"MONK!"

It was obvious from his reaction that Monk was at least slightly able to recognize his name when he heard it called to him. Surely, if that spark was there, there must be a way to fan it into a roaring fire.

"Monk!" he shouted. "MONK!!"

The dead man looked away sadly and stared into space for the longest time. His eyes roamed the pit as if his mind had just tuned into a radio station no one but he could hear. He turned his head and his eyes fell back on Cleese with a heartrending finality. Monk’s clouded gaze seemed to bore through to Cleese’s very soul. It left him feeling a terrible coldness inside. Then, as if a sun slowly dawned across his slackened features, Monk painfully blinked and then he drew a stuttering breath.

"Cleeeeeeesssss…"

Fuck me…

Cleese stepped back and dropped his hands to his sides. Staring up into the lights, he blinked away more of his tears. He narrowed his eyes against their harsh brilliance and squeezed away his pain. Around him, the stadium’s air had gone—whether in reality or merely in perception—utterly silent. Cleese looked back and felt his heart twist once more as he gazed into his friend’s sad, doomed eyes.

"Monk? You with me, Buddy?"

Monk sagged in his own skin as if, deep down, he was ashamed of what he was, of what he had become. He turned his face away and sheepishly fumbled at his clothing. With noncompliant hands, he tried his best to straighten away the wrinkles and stains from his shirt’s fabric.

"Cleeeeeessss…" he groaned sadly.

"Monk…" Cleese sighed, letting the situation sink all the way in. "No. Not you…"

Bit by bit, Monk’s gaze slowly rose and finally settled once again on Cleese’s now tear-stained face. The dead man stared for a long time as if he was off, lost in thought. His expression looked almost like he was listening to a voice from far away. His internal radio quietly whispered its message from across the veil of Death. For a second, he made no further movements. He simply stared at Cleese, moving his mouth in that constant chewing motion.

And then…

"Cleee… sssssss," Monk moaned. "Kiiii. Meh…"

"Fuck…" and tears came anew. "Monk…"

"Kiiii… Meh… Cleeesss!!"

Monk crawled arthritically across the sand, painfully prostrating himself before Cleese like an over-whipped dog. He continued to keep his head down, but reached up and grasped at Cleese’s hand. At first, Cleese was reluctant to let him take it, but he figured that he’d be able to yank it back if Monk fell back on instinct and tried to bite. At least that was his hope.

"I can’t, Monk." Cleese hissed, and the dam that held back his reservoir of tears finally broke completely free. "Not you, man… Not you."

Monk slowly raised his gaze and looked Cleese dead in the eye. For a moment, Cleese was dumbfounded by how ravaged his friend’s face was. His gaze was rheumatic and the enamel of his teeth looked stained and pitted. It broke his heart to see Monk like this; beaten, dragged back to life and now abandoned to be ingested by the Pit.

Hadn’t he worked hard enough or long enough for them here?

Couldn’t he, of all people, be spared this indignity?

Monk slowly reached up, his fingers fumbling at the gauntlet on Cleese’s arm. He stared and never broke his gaze from Cleese’s, but his hands moved with a clandestine secondary agenda. His fingers ran over the metal like a blind man reading Braille.

At first, Cleese thought he’d been wrong and his friend’s need to feed was going to win the battle for his soul. For a second, he was sure Monk was going to try to take a bite out of him, but finally, he felt his friend’s fingers touch the release mechanism and pause.

Monk stared intently at Cleese and repeated, "Kiiii… Meh… Cleeessssss!!"

Then, Monk pressed down on the metal latch.

The metal spike sang out of its sheath.

Monk slowly looked up at him with dead, pleading eyes and released his grip on the gauntlet. They were the same eyes Monk always had, only now, the pupils were milky and clouded over.

"Cleee… ssssss. Kiiii… Meh… "

Monk reverently bowed his head and offered up the nape of his neck. Cleese looked up and away, into the light, and lovingly slid his fingers into Monk’s hair.

Now, he too asked of the Light that same question, the one that The Dead seem to always be asking, but never had answered.

Why?

The moment hung in the air like the body of a suicide; soulless and as heavy as the sin itself. The Light… as always, kept its thoughts to itself.

Cleese slowly raised his right hand as if it weighed a thousand pounds. He gently placed the tip of the spike against the small indentation at the base of his friend’s occipital bone. Oddly, Cleese flashed on the mental image of an old woman wearing a boxy coat standing in an elevator long, long ago. The memory of the taste of bubble gum flitted across his tongue. The image of two young boys—one wearing an eye patch and another with a turtleneck raised impossibly high—flashed across his mind’s eye. A small, well of dark blood pooled where the tip of the spike cut into Monk’s greasy skin.

"Ye.. ssssss," Monk whispered. "T’aaang… yooooo…"

Cleese stood silent for a moment and looked around the pit. His mind reeled back over all that he’d seen and done since stepping off that fucking helicopter so many, many months ago. He thought of how his life had changed—both for the better and for the worse. From where he stood now, it had once looked a hell of a lot better.

The league had fucked him and fucked him hard, that much was sure. They’d treated him like shit since the beginning and, despite the money and the supposed affluence, that had never changed. He saw that all too clearly. The sickening part was that they’d expected him to just bend over and take it all… and he had. God help him, he had. Willingly. He’d always thought that his soul could never be bought, but he now knew he’d been wrong.

He knew it could…

He could even tell you the exact amount on his fuckin’ price tag.

And to think… They’d fuckin’ set him up— twice —and they’d played him for a chump more times than that. And those fuckers hadn’t shown one ounce of remorse over it. Not over Chikara. And now, not over Monk. Who knows what kind of shit they’d done to Monk over the years or what strings they’d pulled in order to get him here in this place tonight.

But in the end, here they all were. Together.

Monk, treated like dirt for years and then retired before he was ready, he’d been thrown away unceremoniously with little to no fanfare much less respect. He’d been discarded without so much as a thought or kind word. But even that was not enough for these motherfuckers. No, they’d knowingly sent him off to be killed in some rat-fuck farm league where, as everyone knew, safety was never a high priority.

And what did he get as thanks for years of loyal service?

His reanimated corpse was sent back into the pit to fight some more.

And then there was Chikara… Yeah, that particular wound was still far too tender to poke at. Her memory was one that would haunt him, he knew, for the rest of his life.

Well, fuck this…

One look into Monk’s eyes told him everything he needed to know.

He was outta here. Gone like the fuckin’ wind.

The League could, if they were very quick, kiss his lily-white ass.

They’d taken far too much from him to sit still on this one. There was just way too much pain and far too much loss for him to just kick back and forget everything that had happened.