Carnell, Thom - No Flesh Shall Be Spared

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."