Carnell, Thom - No Flesh Shall Be Spared

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."