No Flesh Shall Be Spared

the pile of desks in the corner and pulling them away, made a throughway to where her kids cowered. Once a way was cleared, she frantically saw to some children who were obviously injured.

'Chikara…' Helen asked hesitantly. 'What’s going on here?'

'Helen,' Chikara shouted, 'get me the fucking First Aid kit in the desk.'

The children all got that all too familiar 'Ommmm, you’re in trouble' look on their faces and it wasn’t until the two ladies realized it was because Chikara had said the 'F word' that they understood. If it hadn’t been for all the blood and carnage around them, the two women might have laughed. Instead, they each set their faces and went to work.

Once it was apparent that whatever danger there had been had passed, the children encircled them both and began wildly gesturing and talking, all trying at once to relate the horror of what had happened. A few of the others grabbed onto each of their legs crying, holding on for dear life.

'Hold on… Hold on. We need to see to those who were injured and then we can all talk,' Helen said. She’d retrieved the First Aid kit and pulled gauze and antiseptic out of the case.

'No,' Chikara said, still trying to catch her breath. She gently started freeing her legs and directing the traumatized children toward the door. 'We need to get out of this room and lock the door behind us. There could be more of them coming up the fire escape.'

'Right. Come on, children. We need to exit this room,' Helen responded as she ushered the unhurt children through the debris and toward the door. 'Just like we do when we have a fire drill, ok?'

 'Go downstairs to the Teacher’s Lounge and tell whoever’s there what happened.' Chikara called to her. 'Roger, honey… I know you’re scared, but I really need you to run ahead. I need you to go tell the other teachers what’s happened here.'

Roger, jug-eared and bespectacled, stared at his teacher and fear once again gripped his expression. He looked around nervously at his classmates for support, but his gaze was met by wide-eyed stares which mirrored his own.

'It’s ok, Roger,' Chikara said trying to soothe his worries. 'There’s none of those people anywhere else in the building. It’s safe. I promise.'

To his credit, the boy nodded and stood up, but not before helping a few of the others to their feet. Once he was sure those around him were ok, he looked back at Chikara. She smiled at him and winked as if to reassure him. With a quick nod, the boy turned and took off at a run out the door. The sound of his footfalls slowly receded as he sprinted away from the classroom.

One by one, the children were attended to and carried out of the room. Helen brought the uninjured kids to the Teacher’s Lounge where they were given drinks of water and allowed to recuperate from their trauma. Even Jim Rhodes helped out by gently taking the hands of some of them and holding them close as they cried and sobbed out their stories. In the end, he wasn’t such an asshole after all. The injured were tended to one at a time and then taken to an impromptu infirmary in the main lavatory on the first floor.

And the dead…

Even though it broke her heart to do so, the dead were left where they lay. There was little choice other than to leave them in the classroom. It would simply be too traumatic if any of the other children were to come across the dead bodies in any way, shape or form. And so, after taking one final, soul-crushing look at their bleeding and broken little bodies, Chikara turned her back on her room and locked the door behind her.

As night fell, all of the children from the other classes were brought to the gymnasium and the rest of the classroom doors had been secured one by one. The injured from Chikara’s class were cared for on makeshift litters and left in the infirmary that was set up in the first floor lavatory. Around midnight, the first of them began dying. Poor Tia—who had been bitten so badly on her cheek—was the first to go. Chikara had cradled her little body in her arms and felt her slip away.

In the end, every one of those who’d been slightly injured died; delirious and hot with fever.

Near midnight, on a patrol of the hallways, Jim Rhodes heard the sound of something scratching against the door from inside Miss Pressfield’s classroom. When he looked through the small piece of glass set in the wood, little Lisa Jackson, with her floral headband still twisted around her neck and her face hot with festering bite marks, stared back at him from the darkness with cold, dead eyes. He’d stumbled away from the door, his hand covering his mouth in horror, and vowed never to go back.

As the news on the television in the teacher’s lounge continued to play on through the night, the newscasters did their best to explain the gravity and extent of the situation. All too soon, it became apparent just how widespread it was.

And what needed to be done.

It was just after the news had switched over to the Emergency Broadcasting System that Chikara quietly searched the school for the kind of weapon she figured she’d need for the gruesome job which surely lay ahead of her. She found a never used fire axe in an enclosed case near one of the toy bins by the front door and decided that it was the best thing she’d be able to find at the school. It was either that or an old aluminum bat. She couldn’t ever imagine bringing herself to doing what she knew had to be done with that. As odd as it sounded, she thought the axe would somehow be kinder. It would at the very least be quicker.

However, knowing that didn’t stop her from shuddering at the thought of it.

So now, more or less armed, she sneaked off by herself and sat quietly on a folding chair in the lavatory and waited, waited for them each to come awake.

Just her and her kids.

And the heavy, metal axe.

And as each of her small and hopelessly fragile students slowly opened their eyes, their pupils now clouded and opaque, their mouths open and hungry for all things wet and red, she tightly gripped the firm wood of the axe’s handle and raised it over her head.

Then, as compassionately as she could, she put each one of them back to sleep.

It was, after all, the least she could do… for her kids.

Poisoned Apples

Cleese stood brooding behind the thick Plexiglas wall of the pit. His right arm raised and pressed against the clear laminate, he glowered and gave off a distinct 'don’t fuck with me' vibe. Behind him several teams of workers busied themselves with the multitude of tasks necessary in order to put a television show of this scale on the air. Cameramen moved large cameras about like they were gun turrets, each angling for the best shot at incoming enemy zeroes. Others sat behind giant consoles, busily turning knobs and sliding levers. Scores of fresh-faced Production Assistants rushed back and forth like baby chicks as they herded paper from one disorganized desk to another. It was all business as usual for them, but for Cleese it looked like a chaotic mess.

His mood was a foul and malignant thing and it showed. His was a demeanor that very nearly shouted for people to leave him be and, for the most part, they were all smart enough to comply. He’d always been a man who wore his emotions on his sleeve; the good, the bad, and—like this one—the ugly. It was an integral part of his charm. He was not someone who kept things bottled up and now was no exception. His intent gaze burned its way through the glass and a troubled sneer lay fixed upon his face. A few yards in front of him on the sand under the blinding lights stood the catalyst of this grim temper.

Inside the Pit, Chikara had just regained her footing after eviscerating the UD (an impossibly skinny old man wearing boxer shorts and not much else. His scalp had been ripped away and the shiny whiteness of his skull lay horrifically exposed) that had stood in front of her. It was technically still a 'live' combatant, but with the old guy’s guts rapidly cooling in a pile at his feet, he wasn’t going anywhere fast. Gutting him bought her some time and had given her, at the very least, some breathing room. Around her, the bodies of the fallen lay heaped like cordwood, their vacant eyes staring blankly upward toward the blackness of the ceiling.

Cleese leaned closer, nearly pressing his face against the glass, and carefully watched Chikara at work. The vapor of his breath made small clouds of moisture on the acrylic. She really was something to behold. Standing there beneath the hot lights, her body glistened with the perspiration created by her prolonged movement. Her short, spiky hair threw droplets of water off and into the air like a sprinkler head. Her face was covered in thick, Kabuki-style makeup: curving, purple splashes of color covered her eyes with deep, lavender shadows. The harsh