No Flesh Shall Be Spared

and—with a flick of his wrist—the spike flashed into the light. He moved to where the UD lay and impaled the corpse’s brain with a single downward stroke. He drove the polished steel into the flesh at the back of its skull where the spine met up with the Occipital Bone. The spike’s insertion made a wet, crunching sound. Once the head’s eyes went blank and vacant, he slowly pulled the blade back out again. Blood ran in dark rivulets down the chrome spike as it was withdrawn into the gauntlet.

The crowd predictably roared its hearty approval.

Man, I got this shit knocked.

Cleese regained his footing and once again stood fully erect. Menacingly, he scanned the pit. Behind the thick glass walls, he caught sight of the television cameras and smiled for The World. He could just make out the guys who were running the cameras and could tell that they were going crazy: all shouting, waving their arms. Pointing.

Cleese momentarily wondered what all the fuss was about.

His left arm unexpectedly rang out in a painful pinch. He quickly looked down and saw One (a little girl—maybe eight or nine, her hair mussed, eyes wild, a ragged, open wound that ran across her chest, over her shoulder and down her back) had her teeth clamped firmly around the meat of his forearm. Drool ran thick and syrupy down to his wrist as her jaws worked against the chain-mail-covered flesh. She looked up at him with a mixture of hatred and hunger in her little eyes.

Shit, this was only a kid. Younger than even the stoner had been and he’d been fucking young. Hell, she was nine, if she was a day. Dressed in a torn and soiled pinafore, her head moved back and forth from side to side as she gnawed greedily on his arm. Her cold hands gripped him at the wrist and the elbow and, for a moment, she looked as if she was working on her first Thanksgiving turkey leg.

Cleese’s stomach made an oily, gurgling sound.

The crowd sat silently, expectantly, for this was an important moment in all Cherry Matches: the moment when every first-time fighter made his decision to kill. It was a choice made not out of necessity, not out of self preservation, but out of pure, raw vengeance. It was largely held that even if a new fighter did make the kill, he could be so demoralized that he made mistakes later in the match and mistakes always proved fatal.

Killing a child—zombie or not—was where a lot of fighters drew their moral line.

Cleese looked down at the kid as she hungrily gnawed on his protected arm. He tried to imagine what she’d been like back when she’d been alive: her first birthday, her first steps, her first bicycle. She’d been called 'daddy’s girl' by someone, no doubt. It was all too easy to imagine her mother saying that she had the eyes of an angel.

Now, those eyes were cloudy and refused to stay still in their sockets.

The girl’s mouth worked against the metal of the chain-mail, grinding and biting, while her eyes danced to their own silent tune. Finally, her attention managed to focus on something cold and oily-smelling that had been pressed into her limited field of vision. It was hard and pointed and pushed forebodingly against her turned-up nose. She tried to make her eyes see the thing, but it was difficult and her vision just wouldn’t stay still. Her corrupted brain knew that it was something she’d seen before, but she just couldn’t recall when or where or even what the invading thing was.

Then, a sound was heard that helped her to remember.

Cli-Click!

Cleese felt the Beretta jump in his hand before he even realized he’d pulled the trigger. To be honest, it surprised him just as much as it had the crowd in the stands. 19,939 people jumped in their seats as one and then exuberantly let out another explosive cheer. The sound came down like a torrential downpour, drowning out even the sound of Cleese’s heart beating in his ears.

The whites of the little girl’s eyes were washed away by an internal explosion of blood. Her milky gaze pierced Cleese’s own and then she let out a long, gurgling snort. Smoke swirled up from one nostril in a looping curlicue of bewilderment. Those eyes, now set free, rolled up toward Heaven and returned home, back to the angels.

Cleese’s bullet sheared its very violent way through the child’s nasal cavity, turning bits of bone and meat into secondary projectiles and churning what lay beyond into paste. The slug ricocheted wildly within the confines of her skull and quickly carved her reanimated brains into mush. The back of her head immediately exploded outward, throwing blood and grue into the air and splattering it like a Rorschach drawing across the sand.

Cleese watched with a sudden sense of detachment as her little, fragile body briefly teetered and then dropped to the ground like a felled tree. It was as if, having already pulled the trigger, his compassion for her evaporated in a red mist of apathy. He felt nothing as he watched her body crumple to the sand. His lack of sentiment, much less guilt, toward killing this child troubled him more than anything he’d encountered thus far in The Pit.

The stadium crowd was still on its feet, screaming and applauding, their din rattling the timbers of the building. Instinctively, they sensed that a new champion was in the making; someone who could make good on the promise of communal redemption that the Octagon held. Having eradicated the first round’s dead so effectively, they now knew that Cleese was somebody worthy of their love. He was someone that they could revere.

Ok that sucked… that really, really sucked hard.

Cleese dropped to his knees, now somehow out of breath and bowed his head. He blindly reholstered the Beretta, the metal squeaking into the oiled leather. As the crowd above showered their adulation upon him, his attention focused on his fingertips as they swam hurriedly over his forearm as he searched for any signs of injury.

No blood. No wound.

Hot shit, he was ok!

He was all right. He’d made it.

He smiled and felt himself begin to relax.

And then the buzzer sounded for the second round.

The Three Stooges

The foyer of the Joseph F. Weber Industries building stood as both a testament to the man and to the business he’d created. Predictably, it was an amazing thing to behold: ostentatious without being overly flamboyant, classy despite the nature of the firm’s stock and trade. The structure was a colossal monument of rigid steel and shimmering glass which towered over the city and cast the buildings and streets around it in perpetual shadow. It stood like a giant middle finger jutting up from the fist of the city.

Inside, a huge atrium—fully four stories high and impeccably decorated—greeted visitors as they entered the building through the massive bronze and glass revolving doors. A multitude of plants had been placed about the foyer and were so plentiful that the place had a distinct jungle-like feel. Jutting down like stalactites from the ceiling high overhead, large fans made of bamboo and oak spun lazily above, their motion gently stirring the air-conditioned atmosphere. Their movement created a soft breeze which wafted refreshingly across the expanse of the lobby. The building was a magnificent showplace and one that had won several architectural awards since it had first been erected. The place was almost too nice.

Cleese hated it immediately.

Although he was astounded by the building’s stateliness and its inordinate sense of style, there was something about it that just didn’t sit right with him. It was all too sanitary. The place felt restrictively clean, annoyingly orderly, and utterly, utterly spotless.

Hell, you could probably eat off the floors.

God knew he’d eaten off of dirtier tables in his life.

Shit, he’d eaten off of dirtier plates!

Walking briskly, he was able to pass the front desk without the receptionist noticing. He continued toward the bank of elevators tucked away in a small alcove at the far end of the lobby. His appointment was in an office up on the fourth floor and he’d left his hotel early so as not to be late. Punctuality was something that had been drilled into his head since he was a kid. He hated being late. He hated it even more when others were.