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 voila! 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
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?
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
'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.'
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
