Cleese wasn’t entirely sure, but he could have sworn he smelled Monroe shit his tailored silk pants.
The fighter and his training partner quickly pulled the agitated UD away from the side of the pit nearest to where Monroe hung. Off in the distance, a raucous chorus of cheers, shouts and applause were heard coming from the other fighters in the Hall. It seemed that there were more than a few people who didn’t like Monroe or his methods and watching him get bitch-slapped was riotous sport.
It sure as hell beat standing around and sweating like a pig.
Finally, Masterson was able to pull Cleese from on top of Monroe, but not without a good deal of exertion. Cleese let go reluctantly and brushed Masterson off.
"Cleese, what the hell do you think you’re doing?" Masterson asked excitedly, pushing him back. "You can’t strike a League official. Do you want to get released from your goddamn contract?"
Now secure that Masterson had Cleese under control, Monroe renewed his shouting and impotent threats as he rose to his feet.
"How dare you! How fucking dare you!!" Monroe shouted as he stood up and brushed at his shirt in a vain effort to wipe away the wrinkles. "Don’t you get it, you stupid mother fucker? We own you, you stupid fuck!"
"What did you just say?" Cleese growled.
"I said, we own you. Lock, stock, and white trash barrel."
Monroe, feeling a bit of his old self now that Cleese was away from him, threw his hands up into the air.
"Let me break this down for you," Monroe pointed an accusing finger at the man who just seconds ago was trying to throttle him. "You fighters…" and he raised his voice loud enough for everyone in the hall to hear, "You are nothing more than commodities. Property. We call the shots here."
"Shut up, Monroe," Masterson warned.
"No… No, Masterson… he needs to hear this."
"Shut. Up. Monroe."
"You really don’t get it, do you? We… Us… The League… We make the decisions here. We decide who gets signed. We decide who gets fighting slots. We decide who gets play. You’ve never been anything other than a circus act, you fuck."
"Shut. Up. Monroe. Walk away…"
Monroe stared at Masterson then shot a menacing glare at Cleese.
"You know what… Fuck you! We decide who lives, Cleese. We decide who lives and who fucking dies!"
Cleese grinned malevolently and tried to decide which body part he was going to shove up Monroe’s ass.
"Walk. Away!" Masterson warned. "NOW!"
Cleese looked around and decided he couldn’t just kill this asshole in front of God and all these witnesses. Better to step back, get some perspective, and decide what to do. He figured it’d be best to decide just how cold his dish of revenge should be before serving it. Slowly turning away, he took a step back the way he’d come.
Then, Monroe went and ruined it all by opening his mouth and letting the other inconceivable shoe drop. Monroe glared at Cleese and smiled.
"After all… if you hadn’t noticed, you fucking chimp, shit has a way of happening around here."
Cleese stopped in his tracks. He slowly turned at the hip and stared menacingly at Monroe.
Surely he wouldn’t be so stupid as to…
"Shut up, Monroe," interrupted Masterson angrily. "Shut the fuck up!"
Cleese glared in Masterson’s direction and then back at Monroe.
"Just ask your girlfriend," Monroe said smugly and looked away.
Almost immediately, he regretted making the statement and glanced over at Masterson. From the look that passed over his face, it was plain to see he knew that he’d fucked up. Silently, he wished he could take that last bit back the instant after he’d said it, but Cleese had laid his meaty hands on him, struck him and made him look like a fool. If anyone needed to be taken down a rung or two, it was Cleese.
Far off, he heard the sound of Masterson sighing in frustration.
As he gazed sidelong at Cleese, his mind almost didn’t register the fighter’s movement.
Cleese spun at the waist and threw a reverse side kick which hit Monroe square in the center of his chest. The air was kicked out of the man’s lungs and Cleese took no small amount of satisfaction out of the sound it made. The only thing better than hearing it was watching Monroe go sailing back into the railing, pitching over the edge and falling headfirst into the Pit. His shocked face disappeared over the edge milliseconds before his shoes did. He went over with the most sublime expression.
"Fuck you," said Cleese as regained his footing. His hands went up into the air in frustration. "Fuck you and fuck your little fuckin’ game! Fuck your League! Fuck this…" and he waved a hand in the direction of the Hall.
He brushed past Masterson and, as he walked away, he shouted, "And fuck you too!"
Another shout of rousing consensus from the fighters across the Hall rose and fell in the room like a wave. Cleese sensed a few rounds of free beer in the offing.
Masterson reached out to Cleese, as if to try and stop him, but Cleese was beyond hearing any more of his or anyone else’s bullshit. As he walked away, he looked back at him with a look of complete contempt.
"You fuckin’ Assclowns," he spat as he continued on back across the Training Hall and toward the door. "You fuckin’ deserve each other."
Cleese made his way toward the main door and his form disappeared into the blackness of The Hall’s shadowy corners. The applause from the assembled fighters continued unabated until he’d kicked the door open and walked out. Once again, the heavy sound of the door closing echoed through the hall.
~ * ~
Masterson walked to the edge of the Pit and looked over at Monroe who’d by now managed to pull himself up into a panting, seated position down on the sand. His fall had been far, but the sand softened his landing considerably and the only thing injured was his ego.
The two training fighters were not amused as they made their way quietly out of the Pit. When Monroe fell over the railing, they’d had to yank their UD around hard to keep it clear of him as he hit the sand. From the look of things, they’d broken the damn thing’s neck doing so.
"Ass-hole!" Monroe shouted as he stood and set to brushing the sand from his pants. He stood silently fuming for a moment and then glanced up to Masterson with the look of an errant child.
It was immediately obvious to the fighters still in the Pit that they’d been pulled into something of which neither of them wanted any part. Leaving the corpse with the broken neck lying in the sand, they both headed out the hatch.
Sometimes discretion really was the better part of valor.
Masterson peered over the top of the railing, his expression not a happy one. Once he was sure Monroe was for the most part unhurt, he stood fully erect and slowly crossed his arms across his chest.
"Nice job… You just had to say something, didn’t you? Had to open your goddamn mouth, eh Monroe?"
Masterson looked around to see if anyone was within earshot. He had no doubt that the fighters out on the mats heard what Monroe had said. It’s not like he didn’t fucking shout that shit at the top of his lungs. As he looked out over the Hall, he saw most of the fighters looking away. If they’d heard anything, they were not showing it. Satisfied that things were more or less ok, he stared down at Monroe balefully.
"You might as well have just signed your name to a goddamn confession, you stupid fuck! There will be no controlling him now. Not now… not ever!"
"Oh, bullshit…!" Monroe said with disdain, still trying to pull himself together. "Oh, and thanks a lot for helping me out there. You know you could have done something to stop him! He could’ve gotten me killed!"
"No, can it, Phillip. You’ve habitually pushed this whole thing in a direction it never needed to go. Things were progressing as they should have: revenue was up, attrition was manageable and everything was fine. We really didn’t need you lending a helping hand…" Masterson uncrossed his arms and grabbed the rail before him forcefully. "God knows, there is enough dr
ama and trauma in these damned spectacles to keep people tuning in. You didn’t have to fuck with things."
Masterson ran a hand across the back of his neck.
"Now… Cleese has gotten wise to your bullshit and he knows… he knows… you’re the fucking man behind the curtain. Jesus… Weber is going to be furious over this." Masterson looked down and concentrated his gaze toward the tips of his highly polished shoes before whispering more to himself than anyone else, "We’re going to need to be extra careful… now more than ever."
"What?" Monroe said emphatically from the pit.
Monroe paused and looked back in the direction Cleese had left.
"Perhaps there is more to our friend than we’d first believed."
Monroe stared up at Masterson and looked deep into the old soldier’s eyes as he went back to pulling himself together and rubbing his cherry-red cheek.
"Whatever… That fucking idiot’s becoming a liability and a menace despite the money he’s pulling in," he whined as he continued brushing sand from his pant’s seat. "And don’t tell me you haven’t thought the same."
The two men each stared into space for a long time, thinking. After a moment, Monroe looked around at the pit in which he stood.
"Jesus… look at this place. It’s disgusting!"
Then, he looked up and caught Masterson’s eye.
"Do you think…" he asked and looked around for any unwanted ears, "Do you really think he’ll be a problem now?"
Monroe suddenly looked more than a bit worried. The League had a lot invested in Cleese and they would remain happy just as long as things continued along the rosy path they’d all been traveling. If he’d somehow managed to push things a little too far and jeopardized all of that, it might cause an inconsolable rift to appear.
"I mean," Monroe continued, "Weber will be really fucking pissed if Cleese got clear before the League was done with him and his contract. If he were to be killed, that'd be one thing, but…"
Masterson pondered the situation silently for a moment. It was good that Monroe had gotten his head back in the game and was thinking clearly again. The man was an impetuous and manipulative jerk, but he was also pretty adept at climbing the corporate ladder and sensing the ebb and flow of the tides. Masterson wasn’t much interested in the upward mobility of his career.
He just wanted to keep his job.
Thinking it through though, Masterson decided that yes… Cleese was indeed pretty hurt and angry—and with good reason—but when push finally came to shove, he was alone in this. Chikara was gone. The League owned Weaver pretty much lock, stock and barrel. He wasn’t close with anyone else and had no one he could trust outside of this place.
"Ok," sighed Masterson, "so looking at it objectively, I don’t think Cleese can do shit. He’s pissed now, you’ve pretty much seen to that, but give him time. He’ll calm down and remember who pays the bills and when he does, he’ll either get back on the program or he won’t."
Monroe thought it over and decided Masterson was right. He nodded his agreement and then moved to tie his hair back into its ponytail.
Masterson smiled and then added, "Besides, where else does he have to go?"
"You really think so?"
"I do. And besides… something’s just been brought to my attention that, I think, should help settle the matter, one way or the other. Once and for all."
Monroe turned and limped painfully across the sand toward the Pit’s entryway.
"After that," Masterson said from overhead, again looking over his shoulder toward the Hall’s door, "he’ll either be on the team or he won’t be. Whichever… It’s all the same to us, right? And you know as well as I do… It’s not like there’s a shortage of fighters out there. They may not be as talented as he is, but they’re still more than willing to step out there onto that sand. It’s like you said, whether they end up living or dying… we win either way."
Monroe nodded and continued hobbling toward the door.
Masterson turned and leaned against the railing, saying, "And if Cleese thinks he can do anything like bailing on his contract, well we have a battery of lawyers just waiting to sue him for more money than he’s ever imagined.
Monroe had by now reached the hatch to the stairway. He stopped and waited for Masterson to finish his thought.
"If that doesn’t work…"
"There’s always the mercs…"
"Right. If he does as he’s told, we’ll utilize his talents until he’s no longer any good to us. After that…"
"I’ll just continue to stack the decks against him during his matches until he has a change of heart… or gets himself injured."
Reluctantly, Masterson agreed.
"But just so we’re clear… and let’s be agreed on this… The man is, as of now, utterly expendable."
Masterson nodded and looked away. For a moment, he thought he had an idea of how Judas Iscariot felt.
"One thing I doubt he ever read was the small print of his own contract," Masterson continued, "and you are quite right… We do own him—alive or dead—and we continue to own him until which time we decide that we’re through. Not the other way around. Even if a fighter ends up dying in the pit, The League still has a legal right to whatever is left of his body. Dead… or Undead."
Monroe stood at the open Pit door and looked toward the gangway which led up to the grandstands. He’d always figured he could trust Masterson. Now, he was sure of it. He’d only had to take an ass-whipping to find it out for sure. He was convinced now the man would watch his back and, as a result of that, they would both come out of all of this being solid gold.
Masterson watched Monroe as he limped his way around the corner and up the ramp from where the gangway was. He watched him approach in the dim light of the hall and silently wondered how wise it was to be allied with a duplicitous man such as Monroe. He was proving himself to be a bit of a pain in the ass and Masterson was beginning to think it might be wise if he put as much distance as he could between himself and the man’s impulsive schemes as possible.
Because, if he wasn’t careful, Monroe was going to put both of their asses in a sling.
I Shall Be Released
"Well, Bob, we are nearing the end of yet another exciting match for our Fan Favorite Fighter, Cleese. This is the last round—last call—for him and, to be honest, that’s probably a good thing. He’s looking a little worse for wear out there and that’s never good. He’ll need to find some energy from someplace though. I mean, he’s not quite out of the woods yet."
"You’re right, John, we still have this final round to go and, as any regular WGF Fight Night viewer can tell ya, one round can make all the difference in the world."
"Ok, Bob, according to the clock, we’re just about ready for that buzzer and hopefully Cleese can bring this already exhilarating bout to an even more exciting conclusion!"
"So, let’s go back onto the floor and see how this all turns out!"
~ * ~
Cleese groaned aloud and drew a deep breath in to help clear his mind.
His arms and legs hung at his sides, exhausted. They ached now more than they’d ever had in his life. His tendons had been stretched beyond their endurance; muscle fibers having sprung with the sound of banjo strings. He felt like some hammered shit out here and by his count he still had one more round to go. His back, bent and twisted from his toil down on the floor of The Pit, felt like it was made of shattered glass and bound together by razor wire. He stood stooped and panting as he hovered over the pile of dead bodies at his feet. The omnipresent stench of spent blood, urine and chyme on the sand left a sour tang that clung to the back of his throat like oily smoke.
His eyes drifted over the faces of the corpses at his feet. Some of the UDs bore the countenance of people who had died in great pain. Given their present surroundings, that was about what he expected. Oddly, others bore expressions of a deep peace, as if finally dying—and dying in a way that guaranteed them to be dead for good—gave them a
n escape from the torment of being what they were. These looks crawled deep into Cleese’s psyche and touched a part of him that he was very uncomfortable with. He slowly raised his eyes toward the lights as a shiver tickled its way up his spine.
The crowd overhead continued to drone on into the night. They existed out there within the black folds of darkness, moaning like specters lost in a dwindling twilight. Their voices crescendoed and then crashed like the echo of violent waves breaking on a rocky shore. The sound had become a primal thing, something exultant and yet somehow darkly terrible. There was blood in the air now and that always drove the crowd into a malignant fervor. It was the emotional equivalent of throwing gasoline on a grease fire.
Cleese tried to not listen to them, tried to blot out what they were saying, but doing so was impossible. Their voices were a deluge of sound which rained down from above, a din falling on him from somewhere out there in the darkness; a murderous, blood-parched thing. It took everything he had in him not to scream back at them. To shout and to tell them that their bloodlust, so complete, so all encompassing, had burned inside of them for too long, that it had robbed them of whatever humanity they’d once had. Cleese knew though that it would do no good. He’d once thought he understood their hatred for the dead, but since Chikara’s death, he knew he didn’t understand shit. Like the Romans before them, these people only craved their spectacle. Deep down, he had come to realize that this was just another coliseum and he was just this day’s Champion.
And The Dead… they were just more lions waiting to be fed.
Cleese stood fully erect and pulled the spike from the back of the last UD’s head. Grey matter clung to the blade in sticky, wet clumps. He whipped his arm about and dislodged the material by centrifugal force. Then, with a snap, he retracted the blade and stepped out from beneath the pile of the last round’s dead.
No Flesh Shall Be Spared Page 43
