She finally got the idea. There were plenty of corpses around with uniforms waiting to be stripped. I watched her from the corner of my eye as she followed my example. The best aspect of these form-fitting uniforms was the way they conformed to every contour of the human body. She looked just as good in clothes.
I tried to think of something appropriate to say, then grunted, punching her shoulder middling hard. “Now I forgive you,” I said with a grin. The grin didn’t last long. I’d completely forgotten about the bullet wound in my shoulder. The pain finally caught up with me as the adrenaline wore off.
“Jeez, that looks bad,” she said. “Maybe there’s some Medikits around here. You mind holding still while I do some alterations on your shoulder? Meanwhile, tell me where the hell you came from.”
Seemed like a fair deal to me. “Long as you tell me what happened to you, A.S. You and the company. And what the hell were you doing hiding in a cupboard?”
She made me go first. I recapped everything that had happened since I left Ron and Ron behind in the mess hall. She’d been through the same crap; I didn’t need to be overly detailed about the killing. It would be nothing more than a sentence completion exercise.
While I told her my adventures, hoping I wasn’t boring her, we weren’t standing still. With the soft suction sounds of our boots on the cold, stone floor, we went hunting for medical supplies. “I’d rather go up against a dozen zombies than one of these monster aliens,” I was telling Arlene as she yanked open a closet door.
Dozens of shotguns cascaded down on us like bales of hay . . . heavy, painful bales of hale. Fortunately, they weren’t loaded.
Staring at the pile of weapons for a long moment, I put on my best annoyed face and asked Arlene: “Can’t you keep your space neat and tidy?”
Rolling her eyes, she scooped up one of the weapons and tossed it to me. She took one, too. I regretted leaving behind such a beautiful pile of weaponry. But Arlene and I only had four hands between us. We still needed a Medikit, and Arlene was starving. With the burning sensation growing in my arm, the Medikit was first on the list.
Then I was going to get my Recon Babe out of this hellhole. I’d e-mail her, if that’s what it took to pack her back to Mars. No, Earth.
“Get your crap together,” I said, “and take mental notes.”
“Notes?”
“We’ve got to give a full report when we get back. We’re blowing this popcorn stand.”
Arlene smiled wanly. “You have any good ideas on that one, Ace?”
“I left a land-cart back at the entrance; we can hot-rod it back to the air base and take the troopship back to Mars. Or even Earth . . . it should be able to make it.”
Arlene looked around, studying the architecture.
The architect must have been hired by the Addams Family. Nothing seemed normal. The surface of the walls was rough, twisted, the sickening color of internal organs. Skulls, monster faces, and decay dominated everywhere I chanced to glance.
Arlene coughed politely. “Just two problems with that plan. First, we’re not on Phobos anymore, Toto.”
“Huh?”
“We’re on Deimos, and there ain’t no land-carts, or rockets, either. We used all the ships to bug our people out four years ago. Fly, we’re stuck here, and we don’t even know where ‘here’ is!”
I must have looked blank; she continued. “Look, Fly, don’t you remember when Deimos vanished from the screens?”
“No, actually. What the hell are you talking about?”
“Whoops. I guess you were already in custody when we got word from Boyd that Deimos had disappeared from the Martian sky.”
The idea that a moon could vanish bothered me for some reason. “Wouldn’t there have been gravitational effects?” I asked.
She laughed before asking, “Are you kidding? Do you know how small Deimos is? It’s even smaller than Phobos.”
“I knew that.” These chunks of space rock were so small that their real gravity was theoretical, notwithstanding the alien gravity zones. Although I’d become used to fantastic events lately, a little nugget of skepticism scratched at my capacity to believe just anything. “How do you know we’re on Deimos?”
“ ’Cause I’ve been here, Fly. I did a TDS as a yeoman right here while I was waiting for an opening in the Light Drop.”
“A yeoman? But the Marines don’t have any staff positions, only line positions.”
“On loan to the Navy. Technically, I was still a rifleman, but the only weapon they issued me was a word processor.”
I had to think about this. The implications were definitely bad. And the image of Arlene Sanders as a secretary was astonishing.
I looked up. There was a skylight in the ceiling, and where Mars should have been, there was nothing. Where stars should have been, there were no stars. The black of space was missing, too. All I saw was a gray mist, not to be confused with clouds; the texture was all wrong.
Having a gift for the obvious, I said, “We’re not in orbit around Mars, are we?”
She smiled and patted me on the head. “Congrats, Fly. You win the Nobel Prize. You don’t see a pressure dome up there, do you? But we’re still sucking air. I know we’re on Deimos; I recognize all the stuff that H. P. Lovecraft didn’t redecorate.”
Who, I wanted to know, was H. P. Lovecraft? If he’d had anything to do with this, I wanted to punch his lights out.
“No, Fly,” Arlene said. “He was a fantasy writer, early twentieth century American. Obsessed with hybrid monsters and underground labyrinths. Always describing ancient menaces as eldritch.”
I’d never heard the word before, but it sounded just right. “This situation has got eldritch coming out the ass.”
“You can say that again,” she agreed. “And this is Deimos, muchacho; only thing is, these bastards have taken it somewhere.”
“Great. So what’s number two?”
She looked puzzled for a moment, then she frowned. “I don’t want to hurt you, Fly.”
I licked my lips, feeling my stomach contract. I never liked anything from a girl that began like that. “What?”
“You’ve always been more loyal to the Corps than I was, my friend.”
I stiffened. “What’s wrong with the Corps? The Marines have given me a lot, babe, in case you’ve forgotten.”
She smiled and shook her head. Arlene hadn’t forgotten my father, a pathological liar and petty thief who ended up doing twenty-five to life for his fourth felony conviction . . . trying to run down a state trooper with his pickup truck. He died in Vacaville two years later, from a cerebral hemorrhage, they said.
My father was the pettiest, lowest, meanest man I ever knew. He couldn’t even understand the word “honor.” He never knew why I joined the Corps, never would have understood if I told him I did it for him . . . so I would never be him.
All right, I confess. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. The Corps was the world to me.
“There’s nothing wrong with the United States Marine Corps, Fly. But damn you, there’s something a bit more important.”
“Like what?”
“Like the human freakin’ race!”
She had me cold. So I got pissed. “Hang the human race! ‘It’s Tommy-this, an’ Tommy-that—’ ”
“Oh, don’t quote Kipling at me; I’m the one who gave you the book. Fly, what do you think the whole purpose of the Corps is?”
I didn’t say anything. I didn’t like where this was leading; I knew what she was going to say. But I couldn’t figure where she was wrong.
“You’re so much into honor and duty, Fly. Don’t you know what duty means? We’re the ones on the wall, kiddo. They might not know we’re there; might not even know there is a wall, might not give a hang. But that’s what we’re here for.
“Fly, this thing is bigger than just getting us both out alive. We’re the only ones here, only ones who know about the invasion . . . the only ones who might be able to throw something big and
heavy into the gears. And damn it to hell, I’m not going to bug out until I do it!”
I glared at Arlene. I wanted to protect her, get her out of there. I was a man, she was my—
Bull. I was a Marine. And so was Arlene. I understood what she meant about the wall; somebody had to man it. Who else?
I lowered my gaze. We couldn’t just bug out, even if we could find a transport on abandoned Deimos. We had to get to the bottom of all this—and if Deimos was like Phobos, I had a bad feeling that meant getting to the bottom of the Deimos facility. For some weird reason, the alien monster demons preferred “down.”
Besides, her point number one still made sense, too. We don’t even know where “here” is. Deimos had been yanked away somewhere . . . we were stuck, no rocket, no clue where we might be . . . only that we weren’t in orbit around Mars anymore. “Up” meant—what? Empty space? Nothingness? The only way out—if there was one—was “down,” following the levels of Deimos to the bottom.
I glared up at her again; her eyes were as cold as steel, as warm as the sacred heart. “Well don’t expect me to say I’m sorry,” I muttered.
17
While we’d been talking, we came across an undamaged crate that looked promising. All that stood between us and it was one of my fireball-throwing buddies.
This one never got a chance to warm up. Arlene whirled and blasted him; the demon went down without a chance to hock and spit.
The label on the crate promised Medikits and comrats. We opened it and found a full pantry.
Arlene insisted on playing nurse before I played chef. She examined my shoulder; the bullet had gone straight through. Score one for my side. She injected universal antiviral/antibiotic and wrapped a bandage around my shoulder, while I gritted my teeth and groaned like a big baby.
When she finished with my arm, I heaved a sigh of relief. God, I hate medical crap! But I was premature; I’d forgotten about my burns.
Arlene didn’t forget. The cream she applied on my forehead, cheeks, and chin hurt worse than the arm injections! It hurt so bad that I started hunting for any serious cuts or burns Arlene might have . . . something that would require my delicate attention—and lots of cream. Despite her appearance, she was disgustingly healthy.
Now it was her turn to tell a story. “Fly,” she began, pausing to gulp water from a bottle we’d extracted from the crate, “I don’t want to see anything like that first assault ever again.”
She sat with her back to a wall, and I stood where I had a good view of anything coming or going. I had to find out what happened to Fox Company. Munching on a bland, fast-energy bar that tasted as fine as a steak at that moment, I gave her my undivided attention (and a chocolate bar of her own).
The situation had been as bad as I imagined. The assault simply fell apart. Seeing the zombies was enough—the guys didn’t even need flaming-snot demons to drive them off the deep end. Walking, staring, drooling, rotting human corpses proved sufficient to make them forget every combat lesson they’d ever learned.
They went crazy; they broke ranks and charged the zombies. Fox was full of fighting spirit, all right; it just lacked a plan, strategy and tactics, a command structure, and a snowball’s chance in they-should-have-known-where as soon as they let themselves get isolated, cut off from each other. The fire-hocking spinys picked them off one at a time.
I couldn’t really blame my buds. I’d had the same reaction, the same rage to rip the zombies apart with my bare hands.
Arlene was saved because she wasn’t as affected by the male berserker fury. It must be a male thing; testosterone, maybe? Jesus, did that sour-lemon odor actually stimulate a testosterone and adrenal rush overdose?
Then again, she might simply have had better selfcontrol than a guy. I interrupted to say, “You’re a better man than I am, Arlene.”
“Shush, Fly, if you want to hear the rest of this.” I shushed.
“I found a cupboard and hid out,” she continued. “I could hear them moving just beyond the door. Sometimes hearing is worse than seeing.”
I nodded at the truth of that observation. “Like this ugly demon,” I said, kicking the brown hide of the creature she’d dispatched. “They hiss like giant serpents. Scares the piss out of you in the dark.”
She laughed. “I wouldn’t call that a demon! I’ve seen some others that more deserve the name.”
“Yeah,” I agreed, remembering the minotaurs. “I guess those hell-princes you warned me about with your skull and crossbones are a more traditional demon design.”
“I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I never saw them. You’re talking about the pentagram room?”
“You didn’t see them?”
“I put one foot into that room and heard one of ’em scream. I guess it saw me, but I didn’t stick around to see it! What do they look like?”
“Eight feet tall, bright, flaming red, with goat legs and huge horns. They fire some sort of electrical-ball lightning from wrist-launchers.”
She shook her head. “Nasty. But the thing I call a demon is a huge, bloated, pink thing with tusks. Maybe we should call it a pinkie?”
“Does your pink demon make a pig sound?”
The way she shuddered answered the question before she nodded. She wasn’t kidding about what you hear being worse than what you see. I didn’t press her for further details. I had a sinking feeling that no description was necessary. Before this was over, I imagined we’d be seeing lots worse nightmares, a full menagerie from the lowest pits of hell.
“So what happened after you left me the warning?”
She smiled, happy to oblige. “I ran like the devil.” She interrupted herself, uncomfortable with the expression. The way things were going, there was no telling who we might meet next. “I ran,” she said, “and found the crack. I had enough paint stick left for a final warning. I want you to know, Fly Taggart, that taking the time for that Do Not Enter sign was the stupidest thing I did all day; while I was making like a public information booth, one of those hell-princes, as you call them, came tromping down the hall.”
“You’ve got guts,” I piped in, and didn’t care if she shushed me this time. Instead, she insisted on my going back into the narrative and giving all the gory details of how close I’d come to cashing in when facing these monsters.
Then she resumed: “While I was writing as fast as I could, I studied that crack in the wall, wishing I could make it larger.”
“I couldn’t squeeze through.”
“I know. I felt like dog dirt. But what could I do? I didn’t have a jaws with me, and no time to crank the crack wider even if I did have. I wormed my way through, leaving a few layers of skin behind, and hoofed it for the Gate.”
She stopped to catch her breath.
“You must have been surprised when you came through stripped bare,” I said.
She sighed. “I was surprised to still be alive, which is how I’ve felt every leg of this mission. There was a corpse-reception committee waiting at the other end; but at least they weren’t zombies. While I picked my way through all those bodies, a metric ton of zombies started teleporting in. There were too many of them to handle—so I dived into that secret cupboard you found . . . and somebody pressed a switch, and the freaking door slammed shut! And then you showed up, looking . . .”—she struggled for words—“not a helluva lot better than the zombies, Fly.”
“Thanks,” I said. She always had a knack for compliments.
Sometimes I suspected she liked toying with me. I pointed at the brown carcass of a spiny. “So if you don’t want me calling it a demon,” I said, “how about a spiny?”
“How about an imp?”
“An imp?”
“Why not? I had a book of fairy tales when I was a kid with goblins and things. The picture closest to this critter had the caption ‘imp.’ It was playing with magical fire.”
Our game was becoming fun. We didn’t have a lot of entertainment at the moment. “I dunno,” I said. “Something abou
t the head reminds me of an old monster movie about a fish-guy who lived in a lagoon.”
“He’s an imp,” she insisted, reminding me that tough Marine or not, she was still a woman.
My mother didn’t raise any fools. “He’s an imp,” I agreed.
“We should name the others, too,” she said, encouraged. “We’ve got zombies, imps, demons or pinkies, and hell-princes. What do we call the rest?”
I laughed. “That’s pretty biblical, isn’t it?”
She stared blankly. Not everyone had enjoyed the benefits of religious schooling. “Anyway, it’s a great idea, Arlene. If we ever find a functional radio, we’ll need to report to someone. We might as well play Adam and Eve and name all the beasts.”
She relaxed, convinced now that I wasn’t making fun of her, so I continued. “One of these imps talked to me—” I started, but Arlene cut me off.
“Talked?” This was the most surprised I’d seen her yet We hadn’t exactly duplicated each other’s adventures.
“He tried to get me to surrender, promising if I did, I wouldn’t be reworked—uh, zombiefied. But the son of a bitch was such a liar, I wouldn’t trust him for the time with a clock stuck to his face.”
The way she laughed made me laugh. Finding her had changed everything. I wanted to live now as well as fight, report back to Mars or to Earth, do my duty for the survival of homo sap, the home team.
“Are those all the monsters we’ve discovered so far?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted. “There’s something around here that’s partly invisible. I was thinking of them as killer ghosts.”
“Specters,” she corrected offhand. If we got out of this alive, I would recommend Arlene for the job of an editor. On a religious magazine. I had a sense of justice. “I haven’t run into them yet,” she added.
“And some flying skulls. What should we call those?”
“Flying skulls.”
“Right. What do you want to call them?”
Knee-Deep in the Dead Page 12