"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 gym, a mixed martial arts training space and, of course, a Training Octagon.
Masterson raised his right arm and pointed with his middle finger.
"Beyond that is The Chest which is what we call our equipment room and armory. Further on, is the Firing Range and Quarter Mile Track and, over on the far side of the compound, is the Holding Pen, which you can’t really see from here, but is where we store the all of the training UDs."
"UDs?"
"Verbal shorthand, I apologize. Undeads or, as you and the rest of the world have been referring to them, ‘Zombies.’"
Cleese looked at Masterson like the man just shit in his morning bowl of corn flakes.
"Are you telling me that you keep zombies here?
Masterson nodded. "It’s what we do, Cleese. Get used to the idea that you will soon be dealing with Them on a very intimate basis."
"How many?"
"What?" Masterson asked, sounding annoyed.
"I asked how many of them do you keep here?"
"We store up to three hundred at any given time. The number ebbs and flows depending on the kind of training we’re engaged in."
Cleese shook his head in disbelief and stumbled to a stop. His mind reeled at the thought of someone willfully keeping that many of those fuckers together in any one place, at any one time. The things could be a handful if encountered one on one—he’d seen that firsthand—but gather a half dozen or so together and you could end up having a very shitty afternoon. And to think, these fuckin’ imbeciles were casually talking about "storing" them by the hundreds. He trotted to catch up with the still-walking Masterson.
"You ever have any of ’em break out?"
"Never."
"Never?" Cleese said with a slight chuckle.
Masterson stopped abruptly and Cleese had to skid to a stop to avoid running into him. He turned to look Cleese square in the eye for the first time since the two of them met in San Francisco. His gaze was direct and allowed no argument.
"Never." he said emphatically and turned.
An odd shadow, cast by a sun slung low over the horizon, danced across the man’s back as he continued walking toward the training hall.
Monk
The two men entered the Main Training Hall and the heavy, metal door echoed loudly as it slammed shut behind them. The first thing Cleese noticed as he walked deeper into the building was the smell. It was a pungent mixture of leather, sweat and bitter antiseptic. The place reeked of hard work and exertion, of men pushing their bodies beyond their physical limitations and of painful learning.
It also smelled like death. A swirling odor of putrescence and decomposition hung over the room like a pall, tainting everything it touched. It was a smell that stuck to the back of your throat like paste and made gagging a very real possibility. It was, simply put, a smell that once experienced you never forgot.
Once, a long time ago, Cleese had broken into a local funeral home and made off with a couple of bottles of embalming fluid. Some freaks he knew in the neighborhood made a habit of dipping their cigarettes into the shit, letting them dry, and then smoking them. They’d called them "Sherms." Got real high on them, they did. The things also burnt their brains out like napalm. Cleese had to go into the mortuary’s prep room to get the stuff. That place had the same smell to it then as this one did now.
As they walked deeper into the main part of the Hall, Cleese saw what looked like a locker room and showers off to the left. Directly in front of them was a large open space covered with interlocking mats on the floor . Up and further to the left was a weight training area where several workout machines glistened in the low overhead light. The mirrored wall at the far end reflected racks of free weights and a dozen or so treadmills. An open-beamed ceiling arched high above them, its supports fanning out like a ribcage. Hung sporadically from the rafters, large round lights threw pools of illumination over the interior.
"Here’s the martial arts area, over there, the gym. You’ll be expected to conform to our way of doing things here, our protocol," Masterson explained as they continued deeper into the building. "Here’s the way it all breaks down… We hold fight and tactical classes every day at zero-eight-hundred and again at sixteen hundred. Your attendance there is mandatory. Later in the day, we offer gymnastics and Judo, which are elective. Some guys’ fighting styles don’t make use of it and so not everyone is required to come to class. You’ll need to check the schedule for you and your trainer’s spots in The Octagon."
"Is that when we fight the zombies?"
"No." Masterson sounded slightly annoyed. "It’s where you train. Live combat is saved for the televised events. It was one of the first rules laid down by The League. When people tune in, they want to see a show. This isn’t professional wrestling or any of that staged kinda bullshit. They don’t want matches that appear planned or biased in any way…" and then under his breath, "not like you could plan, much less reason, with those damned things.
"It just keeps things honest and above board," he continued. "You will be required to train with the UDs as well as living opponents. The UDs will, of course, be wearing bite blocks and harnesses. It’s to maximize your safety and minimize our liability."
As they walked together across the mat, Cleese saw an older man coming toward them from the opposite direction. He stood not quite as tall as Cleese, about fifty or so, with salt-and-pepper hair. His body was well-muscled and yet compact—solid, like a boxer’s—only it looked as if capable of inflicting a lot more damage. Even though he was an older man, he still gave off a vibe that said he’d seen some shit in his time and, if troubled, he’d be only too happy to carve off a major chunk of your ass.
"Monk!" Masterson called out and waved a hand.
The other man returned the wave, but Cleese noticed that he didn’t smile. He strode over and shook Masterson’s hand. From their body language, Cleese immediately assumed that these men had known one another for some time. He also noted that although their acquaintance had been long, it was not particularly deep.
"Good to see you, Sir," Monk said. His voice was gruff and scratchy, like silverware drawn over broken glass. He immediately looked Cleese over, appraising him as if he were a racehorse. With a discerning eye, he circled Cleese and, every so often, poked or prodded at him.
"Monk, this is Cleese." said Masterson. "Cleese, the man before you is James Thelonius Montgomery. Although the last man to call him ‘James’ or ‘Thelonius’ is, I believe, still able to breathe as long as no one unplugs him. It’s safest if you just call him ‘Monk.’"
"How’z it goin’?" Cleese said with a jerk of his head and extended a hand and waited for it to be shaken.
Monk ignored him and looked accusingly at Masterson. A displeased look sat on his face like a fat man on a lawn chair and he shook his head in disgust.
"He’s too skinny."
Masterson sighed. His shoulders slumped and he rubbed at his right eye with his fist.
"He’s too skinny and he’s too green," Monk continued. "He’ll never be worth a shit."
"Monk, it’s been decided" Masterson said calmly. "You’ve read the file."
"Hey, fuckin’ ex-cuse me," said Cleese. "I am still standing here."
"And he’s stupid." Monk ran his hand over his face, pulling his features into distortion. "Motherfucker doesn’t even know when to keep his mouth shut tight."
"I recall someone once saying some similar things about you," Masterson smiled.
"I’m going on record right now as saying that I think he’s the type to shit the bed, but ok. After all, you guys are the boss."
"Duly noted."
They both turned and looked toward Cleese, who scowled and held up his right hand, brandishing two fingers. His expression let it be known that it was not a gesture of peace he offered.
"Two things," he said with a tiger’s slow smile. "Number one," he said as he dropped his index finger. His middle finger jutted from his fist in unabashed defiance. "Don’t talk shit about me like I’m not here." He spun his fist around in a tight circle. "You have something to say, you say it to my face or not at all. And number two," the middle finger lowered slowly into a fist. "I get treated fairly here and I play nice, but if I think that anyone is trying to buttfuck me, I walk. No bullshit and no second chances."
He pumped his fist like a heartbeat.
"We work on a mentor system," continued Masterson, ignoring everything that Cleese had just said. "Every new recruit is paired with a veteran. Your mentor is Monk. The two of you will bunk together, train together, eat, sleep, and shit together. When in the pit, you are to know where your partner is at all times. Remember, the people who have forgotten that have been carried out of here in pieces."
Cleese looked at Monk and then back to Masterson.
"Is that understood?" Masterson asked.
Masterson looked quite pleased with himself, like a child who’d been given a job and been able to complete it to satisfaction. And why shouldn’t he be? His package had been picked up and delivered in exactly the manner that The League requested. From here on, Cleese would be Monk’s problem. Masterson was out of it unless, of course, the fighter fucked up. If and when that happened, he would personally pitch the son of a bitch out of a helicopter and throw him back into a world of shit.
For Monk’s part, a look of dissatisfaction continued to squat across his features, like an old woman taking a dump. He’d been around this game for as long as it had been around and he’d seen more fighters come and more fighters go than even he was comfortable with. It was sad for him to think that this guy standing before him would no doubt be dead in a week, maybe less. From the look of him, Monk was starting to think that betting heavily on the "maybe less" would be a good idea.
"Ay-yup," Cleese said with a heavy sigh. "Let’s do this…"
Indoctrination
Over the course of the next few days, Monk showed Cleese how things worked around the compound. He learned there was a rigid five day schedule in place which started with a big breakfast, martial arts and weight training in the mornings, an enormous lunch, and then free sparring and what was referred to as "target specific training" in the afternoons. After that, it was more food, more training and more pain. It was a helluva lot of work, but despite some initial bitching Cleese found that he enjoyed it. It had been a long time since he’d worked his body this hard and in a short amount of time he regained some of the strength and vitality he’d lost years ago. Hell, he’d even gotten back some of that muscle definition he’d thought was buried forever beneath the avalanche of booze and bad bar food he’d once called a diet.
During the evenings, both mentor and student were encouraged to spend their time doing whatever activity they chose just as long as they remained together. Some of the teams played chess or played music; others drank and took in women. The more serious of them studied the day’s lessons and pored over the compound’s vast fight tape library. Whatever the two of them did, it was always in one another’s company. The generally accepted theory was that if the two fighters were together at all times, constantly looking out for one another, a trust would develop. It was similar to an ethic that the Spartans once developed in their soldiers.
Besides, in this game, you could always use someone who was willing to watch your back.
Cleese was grateful when everything finally settled into a routine and he could get his first real look at some of the other fighters. There were a lot more of them here than he’d initially thought. They were an odd assortment of personalities that had been collected together for an equally odd assortment of reasons. Some of them had nothing left to lose, having lost their families and whatever passed for their lives back before The Dead first crawled from their dusky tombs. These folks started fighting back then and now continued doing it because that was all they remembered.
Others were nothing more than professional adrenaline junkies: guys who’d given up their snowboards, crotch-rockets and thrill-seeking base jumps for a pistol and a blade. They’d gotten hooked on the notoriety and developed a real jones for the high that only came from stepping within scrapping range of the ultimate, dangerous animal. Of course, the money was a pretty big incentive as well. Cleese noticed early on that a lot of these guys had wide-eyed, jittery looks about them and if local myth was to be believed, they usually ended up being torn to shreds in short order.
Another group, one who kept their members apart from the others, referred to themselves as The Budo Warriors. They’d attached a complex theology to the carnage that took place within the confines of The Pit. Each of them had given up his identity from Before and adopted a samurai-like outlook to their work here: "Live today to the fullest, for tomorrow, we die."
It was, in their minds, a perfect marriage of canon and confrontation.
Their leader, a good-looking bit of femininity named Chikara, was the stuff of legend around here: leader of the Budo Warriors, a woman without a sense of remorse, fighter beyond equal. She’d been in the League for almost as long as Monk and it was rumored that she’d come here after something she’d held dear was lost to the rampaging Dead. After she’d walked away from her life back in The World and joined The League, she’d not given a good goddamn whether she ever made it out of the pit alive. The League welcomed her mostly because she kicked ass and, as a woman, she was a rarity in this killing game.