shirt ended just at about the bottom of the ribcage.
Cleese glanced over at Monk.
'A fighter going out because of a small bite on the arm is bad for business. The crowds feel cheated. So, we protect your arms with this chain-mail. It’s kind of like one them shark suits you see on the Discovery Channel. However, if you’ll notice, it’s not all about protecting your monkey-ass. We’ve left your belly and throat exposed so that if a UD gets a good hold of you there…' Monk shrugged. 'Game over.'
Cleese eyed the leather gloves and noticed that they were in fact not leather, but rather a unique kind of synthetic material. The surface was shinier and looked almost porous.
'What’s with the gloves? Is that Kevlar?'
Weaver smiled.
'Good eye, kid. Those are Blackhawk Hellstorm S.O.L.A.G. gloves with a dual-layer and PittardsWR100X and Armortan treated goatskin leather.'
'In the beginning, we lost a lot of fighters due to them punching on the UDs and cutting their hands on the bastard’s teeth,' Monk chimed in. 'As it turns out, breaking the skin by getting your hand cut from a punch and breaking it cause one of the fuckers bit you is not much of a difference. Infection is infection. Weaver here came up with attaching military tactical gloves to the tunic. The man’s like fuckin’ MacGuyver.'
Weaver gave a small bow and smiled.
'I do have my moments.'
Cleese rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and laughed with a quiet snort.
Man, this just keeps getting better and better.
'Now,' said Weaver as he approached the counter, grinning like a mental patient, 'Let’s talk a bit about weaponry.'
Weaver rubbed his meaty hands together and got an evil look in his eye.
'Ok, so… Guns! Guns! Guns!'
Cleese stood a little bit straighter. Once again, he knew that this was a discussion in which he would need to pay a lot of attention. Weaponry was something Cleese had worried about from the beginning. He had a few ideas of his own regarding the things he would need to fight these unholy sons-a-bitches. He didn’t want to get stuck out there with some shitty-ass gear just because he was the 'new' guy.
'Sidearm… Beretta 92F… and three—count ’em—three extra clips,' Weaver said with a smile.
With a heavy, metallic clunk, the pistol and magazines which were wrapped in a blue cloth marked with the League’s logo were set on the counter before Cleese. The smell of gun oil wafted bitterly in the air. He picked up the pistol and hefted the weight of it in his hands. It was black as sin and had obviously been well maintained.
'Ok,' he said, and nodded his head. 'This’ll work…'
'Now, we’ll need to get you a bladed weapon…' Weaver stood behind the counter and looked at Cleese as if he were going to guess his weight. 'You got a preference, Hotshot? Katana? Machete? Push dagger? Spork?'
'Actually, yeah…' Cleese said and, almost as if he were embarrassed by it, drew a crumpled piece of paper from his back pocket. 'Can I get something like this?'
Weaver pushed his glasses up onto the bridge of his nose, bent at the waist, and looked at the crude sketch laid out in front of him.
'Ok… this shit just got all kindsa interesting,' Weaver looked at Monk and smiled broadly.
Cleese looked at his partner and cocked his head.
'Weaver loves to make shit. He’s never been a particular fan of ‘off the rack,’ y’know?'
Cleese nodded and turned back toward the counter.
On the small piece of paper which Weaver now held in his hand, Cleese had drawn a metal gauntlet in pencil and what the drawing lacked in technique it made up for in ingenuity. The sleeve went over the right hand and nestled against the musculature midway up the forearm. A thin leather strap was visible, wrapped tightly around the wrist and forearm, securing the contraption so that it became an extension of the arm. From the back of the hand, a shaft of steel protruded out what looked to be about eight or nine inches.
'The blade needs to be spring-loaded, and it has to lock. Also, I’ll need it to be able to retract when this catch is released.' Cleese jabbed a thick finger at the drawing designating the back of the hand. A crudely drawn mechanism had been scrawled there. 'The point and the sides of the blade need to be sharp. The point is for stabbing. The sides are for slashing.'
Monk looked up and saw the two men staring at one another with mischievous grins spreading like butter across their faces.
'Well?' Cleese asked, 'What do ya think?'
Weaver winked at him and smiled approvingly.
'I think that you’re one sick, fuckin’ bastard,' Weaver said through his grin.
Monk, who was looking over Cleese’s shoulder, barked out a laugh.
'Can you make it?' Cleese asked.
'Oh, I can build this, all right.' Weaver said. 'I just think you need professional help is all.'
Cleese looked over at Monk and smirked. He wasn’t exactly sure, but he thought he saw a new measure of acceptance shining in Monk’s dark eyes. It was as if this choice of weapon had proven him to be a man worthy of Monk’s friendship, and more importantly, worthy of his tutelage. In this game where Life and Death were concepts easily bandied about, Cleese found a small bit of acceptance in the older man’s eyes, and for some reason, that was something that mattered to him a great deal.
Weaver spoke and broke the awkward silence.
'Ok, well like I said, I’ll have all this shit and this little masterpiece of yours taken to your crib when they’re done,' he said.
Weaver reached his hand out and shook Cleese’s hand firmly.
'I look forward to seeing you work, Mr. Cleese.'
Monk clapped his hand across Cleese’s shoulders and pulled him toward the door.
'C’mon, Badass… I’ve got something you need to see.'
The Holding Pen
Monk walked out of The Chest with his arm still around Cleese’s shoulder. The two of them headed off across the grass field toward a large building set far from the rest of the compound. It was a structure everyone here knew and knew well yet rarely visited. Cleese looked over to Monk and raised his eyebrows in surprise.
'We going where I think we’re going?'
Monk nodded. His face was now set in a grim mask, his demeanor suddenly more subdued, more reserved. After a moment, he released his grip on the younger man’s shoulder and the two of them continued to walk in silence.
Cleese grinned slightly and looked down in order to hide his smile. He felt his pulse quicken as he rolled the thought of where they were going around in his head. He knew from the direction and the change in Monk’s demeanor that the Holding Pen was their destination and he’d finally be able to get a look at what he’d be up against. It had been a while since he’d been up close to one of these undead motherfuckers. He’d almost forgotten what they were like: their smell, the way they looked, the unmistakable way they sounded. He knew the passage of time dulled any experience… and so could alcohol. Since the night he’d first run into Them, quite a bit of both had fallen by the wayside.
As the two men walked along, Cleese thought back to that day when the world had gone to shit and he’d seen his first walking corpse. He’d been working in The Tenderloin District of San Francisco—a notorious cesspool of aggravated assault, drugs, prostitution and gangs—as muscle for that fuckin’ Stolie, a low-tier loan shark who made it a habit of taking his interest out in flesh. Stolie always got his money, one way or another. He was the kind of guy who’d turn his own mother out if there was a dollar in it for him. The guy was a real piece of work, but Cleese needed the money and figured he would make his nut and once he was solvent again bail on the gig—just like always. He’d never had to push people too hard to get his point across, never had to break much to make sure Stolie’s affairs continued to run smoothly. He just made sure that promises got kept.
One night, he’d been out drinking—alone as usual—when the television above the bar abruptly clicked over to
