No Flesh Shall Be Spared

could see that she had a wild-eyed look on her face and the scabbard of her sword had been ripped from her back. All things considered, she looked pretty beat up, but thankfully, she didn’t seem to have been bitten.

Then, just for a second, she looked up. Her eyes bore straight through the glass and into Cleese’s. For the first time since he’d met her, she looked scared; really scared. Gone was the brave fighter who’d led more than her share of men into battle and kept them alive, sometimes despite themselves. Gone was the confident woman who alternately could be tough as nails and then soft and pliable as velvet. Gone was the brave soul who he’d just held in his arms and sent down the gangway. For that second, their eyes met and she made a silent plea for his help.

Her mouth moved slightly as she silently whispered his name.

Cleese had an unnerving sense of deja vu.

Then, a shadow moved behind her and the world seem to fracture and slow down.

An unseen UD (a rapper-looking black guy in his mid-twenties with multiple gunshot wounds to his chest and upper abdomen), who’d been quietly hanging back and observing things while the others attacked, stepped up silently behind her. Despite its brain being addled and driven by a single-minded purpose, it had learned a thing or two from its time being used as a training aid. It knew that although the fighters were fast and strong, they could also be over confident. And it was that arrogance that often led to them leaving their backs exposed.

This one had proven herself no different.

Cleese saw the thing’s shadow fall across Chikara’s shoulder as it came up behind her. With alarming speed, it quickly wrapped its arms around her, effectively trapping both of her hands at her side. Through the glass, he heard her cry out in pain as her injured arm was pressed tightly against her chest. Her blood-covered katana fell useless to the sand at her feet. The thing bent its face into the nape of her neck and slid its wet mouth to the right.

As Cleese tore himself away from where he stood and raced toward the gangway which led out onto the sand, out of the corner of his eye he saw the thing’s mouth slowly open. Its teeth were yellow and rotten within its twisted maw. Its black tongue was raked across its dry, cracked lips. And the last image he saw through the glass before racing out into the Pit was a flash of the thing’s teeth sinking into the meat of her neck.

~ * ~

Cleese came through the Pit’s hatch moving as fast as his legs could carry him. By his last estimation, there were four or five UDs still left roaming the sand. He quickly scanned the area and found all of them on their knees and huddled in a small group. Two more lay in pieces on the sand, their necks broken, but their heads were still technically connected.

Cleese was moving at a full run now and, as he got closer to the huddled group of UDs, he snatched up Chikara’s abandoned sword. Once he’d gotten to within a few yards of them, he saw one (a middle- aged Filipino woman in a nurse’s outfit with the left side of her body badly mangled) pull a chunk of something wet and quivering away from the crowd. As Cleese lifted the katana to strike, the thing brought the mass of meat up to its mouth.

Cleese stumbled to a stop, the sword raised over his head like an executioner’s axe. The nurse looked up at him with an almost sated look in her eyes. Below those empty pools, on the meat it was gnawing, he saw the familiar face of a dragon. A small silver ring glistened in its jaws.

Cleese bowed his back and struck, crying out in pain and frustration, with all of the strength he possessed. The blade hit the nurse with such force that he barely felt it cut through the bitch’s neck. Her head fell like an oversized melon to the ground. The satisfied look on her face dissipated like vapor.

By now, he was in a position where he could see more clearly what had happened to Chikara. After having put up what could have only been a valiant fight, the things had, quite literally, torn her to shreds. One of her arms—her right from the look of it—was being fought over by two of them. The two others were busy ripping into her chest as if today was Christmas and she a present to be fought over.

In a flash, he noticed the spot just below her rib cage where he’d once discovered she was the most ticklish. His heart twisted savagely in his chest as he recalled having kissed that spot time and time again. The sensation of it, the warmth, the softness, brushed over his lips like a ghost’s touch. Now, the spot—her spot—was a torn and blood-covered mess.

Tearing his eyes away, the image before him being too much to bear, Cleese raised his gaze. He caught a quick glance of Chikara’s face as they tugged and tore at her. Her body rocked back and forth from the force of their efforts. One eye was closed. The other was wide opened; her eyelid having been torn cruelly from her face. Cleese saw a small drop of clear moisture pool and then slide away from the corner of her closed eye.

After that, things sort of blurred for Cleese. He dimly remembered wading into the center of the UDs without a care for his own safety. He chopped and slashed with the katana until the muscles in his back screamed in protest. Like a whirling dervish of death, he tore at them. Hunks of meat flew from their bodies and tumbled across the sand. Like a Pollack painting, blood splashed across the glass, creating an impressionist’s vision of Hell itself.

When the last one of The Dead had fallen, Cleese turned in the light and saw a cadre of the Budo Warriors now coming through the doorway. They rushed toward him, but quickly slowed when they saw that all of the UDs had been dispatched. Cleese glanced back and took another look at Chikara’s ravaged face. He felt his throat tighten painfully.

Even in death, she was still one of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen.

He tore his gaze away and, as he looked up, saw the horrified faces of the camera crews staring at him through the glass. The broadcast must have cut to commercial because the cameras were all pointed away. Now that there was not a need to document what was happening, they were able to react honestly to the horrible tableau before them. Their expressions and demeanor were ones of heartache and alarm. Most of them had known Chikara and, like many, thought her invincible. To see her die like this, rocked them to their core.

For his part, Cleese couldn’t stand to look at them; their anguish was a debilitating reflection of his own. He turned away and desperately sought something—anything—on which to focus in order to help hold back the wave of grief and nausea he felt building like a tsunami within him.

Just then, something moved behind one of the cameras across from him and caught his eye. Something—no, someone—pulled from the shadows and stepped into the light being cast inside the Pit. Cleese was able to make out the shape of a thin man, in a business suit, talking to one of the cameramen. Cleese saw the man lift his head and laugh at something said. That was when whoever it was turned his head and Cleese saw that the guy wore his hair long… and pulled back into a tight ponytail.

Just then, Cleese saw the smarmy fuck notice him staring. Through the glass, Monroe never acknowledged him, but instead just stared as if the entire situation was a goddamn science experiment. The self-satisfied expression Monroe wore spoke volumes. It was all Cleese needed to see in order to know that he was involved.

Somehow… in some way… that motherfucker had had a hand in this.

With great difficulty, Cleese tore himself away from Monroe’s gaze. He knew that if he looked too deeply and thought about it for too long, he’d kill that son of a bitch right here and now; in front of God and twenty million witnesses.

No. This was something he’d force himself to wait on. He’d collect Chikara’s body and see to her burial. Then, when the time was right, he’d slaughter that prissy fuck with his bare fuckin’ hands.

Slowly, he turned and walked back across the Pit toward the door. His foot kicked against something and he looked down. There, half buried in the sand, was the scabbard to the sword that he still held half forgotten in his hand. He dropped to one knee and picked up Chikara’s saya, dusting it off. Carefully, he slid the blade into the slot in the wood. The metal made a hissing sound as it disappeared into the sheath. With a click, the sword slid into place.

The sound made his heart twist unbearably within his chest.

As deep and painful emotions swirled within him, he fought back the rising tide of his anguish. A knot the size of a man’s fist flexed in his stomach and, for a moment, a wave of tears splashed against the inside of his eyelids.

Silently, he cursed himself.

Goddammit, he should have seen this coming!!