Free No Flesh Shall Be Spared by Thom Carnell

for those things, but life had been good.
    More or less.
    However, deep down he knew that it was all just an empty replacement for the one thing he most craved: a place to truly fit in and call his own, without ties or caveats.
    But as they say, that was then and this is now…
    Now, he found himself sitting square in the eye of a shit tornado and from the look of things life was going to get a hell of a lot worse—or at least a heck of a lot weirder—before it ever got better.
    That said… if this routine supplied him with anything, it was a place and a role. He was a fighter. And as a fighter, that meant he was a man who put his mettle to the test day after day in the most inhospitable—and most unimaginable—of places. He did what few others would do—what few others could do.
    Or at least that was the plan… just as soon as he finished this training, completed this next set.
    Cleese slowly opened his eyes and stared up at the ceiling and Monk’s grinning Jack O’Lantern face. Jesus, he was a hideous motherfucker, hovering there and looking like Death and Ugly had a baby and it had been allowed to grow up. He closed his eyes once more and silently prepared himself for the next lift.
    Raising his hands, he slid them across the straight bar that sat on two posts welded to the bench on each side of his head. He moved his hands roughly eighteen inches apart, stopping when he felt the knurling carved there under his fingertips. A quick check as to the position of the three forty-five pound metal plates on each side of the bar and he braced his hands against the steel. He took a deep breath, then another, and pushed against the weight. Once clear of the supports, he carefully moved the bar over him and held it there.
    The plates rattled softly as he slowly lowered the weight to his chest. He felt the bar bounce gently off of his sternum and held it there. He contracted his pecs, forcing blood deep into the muscle. The flesh grew still warmer and, slowly uncurling like a serpent, pain raised its cobra-like head once more. With a grunt, he pushed at the bar, and the weight rose slowly and steadily to the fully extended position. Cleese methodically repeated the "lower–contract–lift" motion another six times and then, with a deep breath, set the barbell in its rack above him.
    Once more, Monk’s face came into focus wearing a grin which cut fiercely across the lower part of his face.
    "You’re a goddamn animal," he said, his voice brimming over with delight.
    "That’s what your momma said," Cleese puffed as he sat up.
    "Like fuck…"
    Cleese leaned over and picked up a small towel from the floor. He reached up and wiped at the side of his neck. As he caught his breath, he felt the serpent in his chest recede and the flush subside a bit.
    "I gotta tell ya," he said as he slowly caught his breath, "this feels good. I haven’t done this kind of shit in quite a while."
    "Well, from what I hear, you weren’t living the healthiest of lifestyles when they did your Retrieval."
    "Yeah, well… We can’t all walk the straight and narrow."
    "Son, you ain’t seen the straight and narrow since you were a dribble on your daddy’s dick," Monk said as he reached down for an additional thirty-five pound plate. He slid it onto the left side of the bar and then went to do the same on the right.
    "Hey, that additional weight isn’t for me, is it?"
    "Damn straight, Skippy. I wanna see you either beg for mercy or cry like a four year old school girl. Frankly, either one’ll do."
    Cleese laughed and wiped the other side of his neck. When he was done, he dropped the towel to the ground and lay back onto the bench for another set.
    Monk slid the last plate on and pushed it against the others.
    "You guys going to fuckin’ gossip all day or give the rest of us a chance on that equipment?" a gravelly voice interrupted.
    Cleese looked up and saw one of the other fighters standing there in sweat pants and a large red shirt. It was a guy