The fighting space below them was a pit roughly thirty feet across with dull, brushed metal sides. The walls bore the marks of training sessions past, blood smears and bullet holes hung like macabre decorations across the vertical iron surface. At the spaces where the walls came together, there were metal X-frames which Cleese had previously seen spin on their central axes. The floor of the pit was mostly sand to aid the fighter’s footing.
It also made cleanup a whole lot easier.
Cameras sat perched like paparazzi on the walls above and sent a steady stream of video to the media booth at the back of the Hall. It beamed an up-close-and-personal view of the action to the monitors there which recorded every fighter’s training session. All of them were required to review the tapes and use whatever they learned to refine their techniques. Off to the side, a dimly illuminated scorekeeper’s box sat high above the stands. Cleese noticed an ethereal, ghost-like shadow move behind the glass.
"Rules of the Game… Listen to ’em, learn ’em, and never fuckin’ forget ’em." Monk said and leaned forward, his forearm resting on his knee. "Forget ’em and you will almost assuredly have your ass carried out of here with your toes pointing toward the ceiling." His manner was secretive and almost conspiratory; as if great knowledge was about to be handed down in a lurid, oral tradition.
"You may think you already know this stuff, but as with all things, you don’t know shit from shaving cream."
Cleese leaned back and closed his eyes. He gently prompted his mind to imprint the words he was hearing upon his memory; to sear them into the meat of his brain. They were just a few days away from Cleese’s first training session with the UDs and he knew better than to blow this off.
This… this was important shit.
"One man goes inside," Monk explained. "He has his bare hands, a blade, and a side arm with one full clip. We use Beretta 92Fs with Teflon M882 hollow point rounds for side arms. We’ve opted for the meatier slide that’s sixty grams heavier and one millimeter wider to improve control for when you’re firing multiple shots in quick succession. The Beretta is used because it’s a damn reliable weapon. The hollow points because they make for splashier bullet hits. These are televised events after all and we want to keep it exciting for the crowds. You’ll have fifteen rounds in the first clip with one up the pipe."
Cleese nodded, taking it all in and mentally transforming principles into instinct.
"As the rounds progress, you’ll come across a rash of shotguns out there: Mossberg 500s, pump action Remington 870s, Winchester 1300s… even semi-auto Browning A-5s and Benelli M1s. There’ll also be chainsaws, harpoon guns… a whole host of shit. We’ll have a ton of weapons training available, so we’ll make use of it all. You don’t want to get caught out there with a locked and loaded weapon that you don’t know how to use."
Monk dragged the back of his hand across his chin. His stubble produced a harsh, rasping sound. For a second, his mind seemed to slip away to a time when he’d first been given this speech. It seemed like a lifetime ago and the talk, quite literally, changed his life. After a moment, he returned to the here-and-now and continued with his explanation.
"Oh, and a word of advice: save your bullets for when you draw a crowd. The people in the stands came to see
Spartacus
not
High Plains Drifter
so be frugal, you get me? You go in shootin’ up the place and you’ll find that you’re out of rounds when you need them the most. And then… Toes up."
Monk shrugged and broke away. He paced back and forth along the front of the benches. He’d found long ago that keeping himself moving helped him to think. At a time like this, it wouldn’t do to forget something important.
"A match begins with three UDs released into The Octagon. Every two minutes, a buzzer will sound." He jerked to a halt, and pointed a finger at Cleese. "Listen for that sound, because that sound… is your ass."
Monk raised his right arm and made a tight circle in the air with his finger. The room echoed with the sound of a loud buzzer. Suddenly, the X-frames spun a quarter turn and locked into place with a hollow, metallic sound.
"Motherfu…" Cleese exclaimed. He’d heard the sound before, but for some reason, this time it made him damn near jump out of his skin.
Monk waved toward the scorekeeper’s box as if in thanks. Inside the elevated room, the shadow Cleese had previously seen waved back before evaporating back into the gloom.
"At the sound of that buzzer, the eight corners of The Octagon will pivot like you just saw," Monk continued, returning his full attention to his enthusiastic student. "In your head you should assign each corner a number and remember what’s what so you can keep ’em all straight in the heat of the moment. Once those spindles move, you’re gonna find one of four things there."
He counted them off aloud, using his stubby fingers as a visual aid.
"One: a weapon. It could be a better pistol, a shotgun, a chainsaw. You’ll never know, but whichever it is, you’ll be damn glad to see it. Two: ammo. This ain’t Halo or Quake out there, Buddy. There’s no cheat codes, so sooner or later you’re gonna need to reload. And that’s as good as fuck a reason as any to conserve your ammo. Three: A very pissed-off UD. They’ll be disoriented at first, but soon enough, they’ll smell you and come a-runnin’. Four: Nothing… Nada… Bupkiss. There are eight spindles and we have to maintain some sense of drama. We don’t want this to be a goddamn turkey shoot. Again, we gotta keep it interesting for the crowd. It is, after all, what they’re paying for.
"Keep this in mind, by the time the next buzzer sounds you’ll need to have thought about a lot of shit: your position in the Pit, the position, if any, of the remaining UDs around you, your weapon’s status and what you need to replenish it, where the spindles are (which can be both a good thing and a bad thing depending on what is there when it next spins). Lotsa shit… You’re a smart boy. You’ll figure it all out.
"When that buzzer sounds, kill whatever’s around—fast! You move on to get what you need, but only after those first UDs are down. Don’t stand around fucking shopping. Kill—Grab—Move on. You with me so far, Champ?"
Cleese sat up and looked the ring over. His eyes narrowed and as he thought, he spoke his thoughts aloud.
"Ring. Spindles. Buzzer. Weapons. UDs. ‘Kill—Grab—Move.’" He looked back at Monk and grinned malevolently. "Got it."
"Ok, genius, after six minutes and three rounds, the buzzer will sound each and every minute with the odds of a UD being ‘spun’ being higher. Think of it as a game and you’re going on to harder and harder levels. At ten minutes, the buzzer will sound every thirty seconds. You reach fifteen minutes and you’re done! Make it through and you’re a hero, a media fuckin’ god. Sound simple enough?"
Cleese sat thinking, going over the math in his head. No matter how he added it all up—it sucked. It also sounded crazy, but… as they say, "in for a penny, in for a pound."
"By my count, that’s a fuckload of UDs, Monk."
"It’s roughly fifty of the slimy bastards in those fifteen minutes. It’s why you’re being paid those big bucks, Pal. But none of that shit is gonna make a lick of difference ’cause, if you have to shoot, you’re gonna aim for the head. Demolish the lumps of shit that pass for their brains as quickly as you can. Remember, it ain’t considered a kill unless you destroy the brain or lop their heads from their shoulders.
"And don’t get cocky and don’t play to the fuckin’ crowd. Not at first. You get the job done and you’ll be back in your trailer gettin’ your dick sucked by a big-titted blonde faster than you can say "wet and sloppy."
Monk raised a hot dog of a finger.
"Fuck up…"
"I know… it’s a vinyl body bag," said Cleese.
"Fuck the body bag, Bronco, that’s for your momma to cry over. You get stupid out there and step in it, some UDs gonna be having your ass for an appetizer."
Cleese stared out over The Octagon, rubbing his hands over his eyes. This was some world of hurt he’d gotten himself into, but if he were to be honest a part of him was almost excited about trying this. He’d fought his way out of San Francisco back when the shit first hit the fan, but this… this was something else.
This was sticking your dick in a bear trap and callin’ it pussy.
This was crazy and Cleese fucking well knew it.
"Come on, Cochise," said Monk slapping Cleese across the back. "We need to get you fitted for your gear."
He turned and walked away.
Cleese continued to stare down at the fighting ring, weighing his decision… and his options. The last place he’d called home had been a bit of a bust. He’d been out of work—honest work that is—since he bitch-slapped Stolie, the loan shark he had worked for. The man pushed Cleese one time too many and needed to be ghetto-cuffed if only on general principal. It was a mistake and Cleese knew it even as he was doing it. Then again, "job security" and "good sense" were never high on Cleese’s list of watchwords.
When Masterson came calling, Cleese had already beaten down two guys with a broom handle earlier that night when they’d tried to muscle him over a boxing bet. Afterward, as he stood over their unconscious forms, he knew that he’d just stepped in yet another steaming shit-pile. Both of them were connected and that meant Mob. Whether he ended up getting into the Blackhawk or not, he’d probably not be living to see his next birthday. Making the choice between dying in his shitty apartment with a bullet in the back of his head or by whatever bullshit means Masterson might think up was pretty easy. The way he had it figured, either way, he was pretty far beyond fucked.
But then again…
It’s not like any of it really fucking mattered. He knew that if he bought it, it wasn’t like there was anyone there to really give a shit. With no wife and no kids (that he knew of) there was no one around who cared enough to mark his passing, much less mourn him. There really was nothing to lose here and, it would seem, a shitload to gain. All he needed to do was go ahead and slide his dick down deep into that bear trap.
From far off, he heard Monk’s voice come drifting in.
"Yo, you comin’…?"
Cleese forcibly dragged himself back to the present moment. He took a long look at The Octagon and then another one back at Monk who stood waiting a dozen or so yards away.
"Fuuuuuck…" he hissed before getting to his feet and trotting off to catch up.
Graveyard Shift
Before…
"Damn it!" hissed Jeffrey Adamson as he lost his grip on the long metal trocar he held in his hands. The instrument fell, banging loudly as it bounced off of the bright aluminum embalming table and continued on, clattering against the linoleum floor.
Adamson, who stood just over six feet with a cap of short cropped hair and a dark-humored personality, was the living embodiment of his vocation of Funeral Director. While outwardly stoic and conservatively dressed, he was known by the people in his life as a bit of a contradiction; someone whose tastes ran from micro-brewed beer to the crudest of jokes. His music of choice was death metal. In more ways than one, he was not the person he seemed.
He stood next to the embalming table, dressed in black suit pants with, white shirt with cuffs rolled carefully up around his elbows, tie tucked discreetly between the buttons of his shirt, plastic apron and thick rubber embalming gloves. For almost an hour now, he’d been putting the finishing touches on the late Mrs. Abigail Harvey and fatigue was starting to gnaw at the fringes of his awareness.
The woman lying on the table before him had died (ahem, passed on) as a result of a life-long heart condition. One minute she was standing in her kitchen drinking a cup of coffee and watching "her stories" on TV and the next she was a mound of inert flesh wrapped in a faded housedress. A tremendous weight pressed and twisted deep in her chest and then it all—the dishes that needed to be done in the sink, the laundry waiting to be dried, the machinations of the citizenry of Port Charles—simply winked out. There was no choir of angels singing "Halleluiah" to mark her passing, just a spilled cup of General Foods International Coffee Café Vienna and a soup of urine and feces congealing on the tile floor.
Luckily, the preparatory work for her upcoming service had gone well. The acrid embalming fluid that Jeffrey had pushed through her arterial system via the Sawyer machine had completed its chemical alchemy, preserving her tissues at least long enough to last through her wake and funeral. When she’d died, Mrs. Harvey had fallen face first onto the floor and remained there for as long as it had taken for her to be found and for the Medical Examiner to arrive and assess her cause of death. The dark purple discoloration from post-mortem lividity where her blood pooled had almost completely faded from the side of her puffy face.
After death, blood settled in whatever the lowest point was in the anatomy: the back, feet and hands. Gravity’s laws demanded to be obeyed above all else. Marilyn Monroe died lying flat on her photogenic face and it had been a certified mess by the time the embalmer was able to begin his ministrations. The timely removal of such settling was one of the trickiest parts of the job. If not caught early, the red blood cells would burst, forever staining the surrounding tissues. The condition was called "post-mortem stain" and it was best to clear the circulatory system out as soon as possible in order to achieve the most eye-pleasing results…
…for the family’s sake.
With an exhausted sigh, Adamson squatted down and picked up the trocar. Standing up, he took a moment and checked it for damage or dirt. The instrument was an imposing length of rigid metal with a sharpened point at one end. Three small holes were visible just before the tip of the point. At the other end, a ribbon of rubber hose was attached to the handle. The pale rubber tubing snaked away, its far end plugged into to a delightful little apparatus called a hydro-aspirator which, in turn, was fastened discreetly under the table’s drain. The metal instrument was used to remove any fluids trapped in the abdomino-thoracic cavity of the deceased by the use of the vacuum created as water ran through the aspirator.