Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

  The pilots’ saucers float at their stations. Three in a slight V-shape out over the Hudson. South. Blue bastards just hanging out.

  I give em the finger. Say to nobody, “Hope you’re enjoying the show.”

  Goddamn cockrots.

  I catch a glimpse of Catarina and Jack kissing. Hugging. Plissken and Harryhausen are with em. Whole group’s at the 168th Street 1-train entrance in front of New York Presbyterian Hospital. The A and C lines are here too. DeVille ain’t, though. She’s still farther north.

  Jack waves me over. Says, “I’m taking Harryhausen.” He pats my babybot. “Gonna show the little saucer how to work with a real man.”

  Uh...

  I say, “That sounds gross, pop.”

  Harryhausen flashes a line of holographic text: NO THANK YOU.

  Jack puts a hand up. “All right, all right.” He eyes Harryhausen. “You asked to roll with me. Pick a goddamn voice.”

  Harryhausen turns to Jack. His small saucer body dips. Scans my old man. Says, “If that’s how you want it,” in a very Clint Eastwood voice.

  Jack arches his eyebrows. Jaw half-open in bewilderment. Then he cackles. “This shit’s gonna be fun.” He starts toward the stairs.

  Catarina shouts after him. “Don’t die, cowboy.”

  “What, me?” He flaps his hand at her. “C’mon, Harryhausen. Time for us to murder some motherfuckers.”

  Harryhausen floats with my dad. “You know how sometimes you come across someone you just shouldn’t’ve fuck with? That’s me.”

  Jack cackles again.

  Catarina cocks an eye. “That little baby drone, with that gravelly voice...”

  I say, “You think that’s weird, ask Jade about robosexuality.”

  “Robo-what?”

  “Jade and Turing have sex.” I make a little punching motion. “They be fuckin.”

  My mother blinks at me.

  I shrug. “Kids these days, huh?”

  * * *

  I escort my mom to the 155th Street B and D subway stop. This area surrounded by tall buildings and trees to offer the bullshit illusion of “nature.”

  Then again, the whole city’s overgrown with unchecked plant life.

  Catarina wraps an arm over my shoulder. Bumps her helmet against mine. “Y’know, I’m looking forward to being a grandmother.”

  Hard for me to be a dick when it comes to that. I say, “Athena didn’t count?”

  “Athena was a kid for about a week.” She frowns. “And I love her. Jack loves her. But she wasn’t...really yours. Do you know what I mean?”

  “Hey, don’t get snobby with the ‘emergent’ shit. Who cares if she wasn’t born—”

  Catarina gives me a shove. “That’s not what I fuckin mean.”

  Us having this odd moment as troops rush passed to secure more locations. More buildings. Choppers whumpwhumpwhump above. Monsters cry out. Gunfire responds. Talos warframe chainguns bzzzzrt as the rounds chase targets we can’t see.

  Catarina says, “Plissken told us about New York. About what happened there. At the end.” She offers me a weak smile. “All we’ve done is kill. That’s always been our job. But you and DeVille have a chance. Maybe do something different.” My mom holds the side of my helmet. “I’m just happy for you.” Her eyes tear.

  So do mine. Doesn’t mean I have a clue what to say. “I don’t wanna blubber on the battlefield, mom.”

  She sniffs. Smiles again. “Then don’t.” She shouts over her shoulder. “Shake a leg, Lovelace. We got lives to end.”

  Lovelace jogs toward us. Her chest panel displays two babies swaddled in blankets. Then: .

  Fuckin...

  I shoo Lovelace away.

  March south with Jade and Plissken.

  Gotta tell you: I’d punch a puppy in the face for a cab.

  Like an idiot, I volunteered for shit central: Midtown. Times Square.

  My thought at the time being: I wonder how the old office and Empire State Building are?

  Did I consider that’d turn into a seven-mile hike?

  Nah.

  Cuz I’m so goddamn smart, you see.

  It’d take me more than two hours to walk that on a good day. When parasites ain’t trying to eat everything on the island.

  Right now, I’m just trying to make sure I get there before dark.

  Then we can play in the subway! Yippee!

  Yippee?

  No good?

  Not really.

  Five Keefs stumble outta Jackie Robinson Park.

  I shoulder my pulse rifle. Rattle off a few bursts.

  The explosive bullets shatter chests. Arms. Legs. Faces split apart. Chunks of head splash against the ground. Bone fragments clatter. Splinter.

  I strut up to a crippled Keef. One I’ve shot the legs off of.

  The zombie kicks its stumps around. Tries to right itself. Reaches frenzied, broken hands out at me. Snarls. Growls. The fucker’s face is skeletal. Eyes dry. None of the bastards can even really see anymore. They’re withered. Been around too long.

  These sorry working-class undead who didn’t have the—respectively—good fortune to become bigger. To mutate the right way. Turn into a stilt-walker. A flesh-tower. Meat slug. Cthulittle. Any of the other hundred rotten variants.

  I shoot off its left hand. Blow up its right. Say, “I wish you understood hate. Hate me. Please.” I remember the parasite voice inside the walking dead city. “I’m sure some of you do, but I wish you all did.” I lick my lips. “You’re just sad. Boring.”

  Bullets from my pulse rifle erupt the Keef’s abdomen. Its chest. I shoot until the shambler is chopped salad in raspberry dressing. A head with an upper spine that wriggles on the pavement.

  I check the ammo counter on the side of the pulse rifle. Still twenty-seven rounds left. Mutter, “Shit, Caleb. You did good.”

  Plus the caseless ammo means no brass down anyone’s collar.

  I pick the undead up by the hair. The strands start to fall apart. Taking lumps of head tissue with em. The monster’s diminished eyes try to track me. Mouth open. Hissing.

  I squint. “If you knew hate, then I would know you hate me. It’d make this interesting. Maybe even scary.” I drop the head at my feet. Nudge it with the boots of my suit. “As it stands—” I stomp the skull. Splatter it like a rotten melon. “This ain’t much different than smashing a shitty machine.”

  19. I Fail to See How This Is a Good Thing

  The sun’s in the middle of the sky when I hit Seventh Avenue and Forty-ninth Street. Shit. Right around the corner from my old office.

  What’s left of it.

  What’s left of this tourist mecca.

  Joke’s always been that there ain’t no New Yorkers in Times Square.

  And there wasn’t. Not since Giuliani and Bloomberg turned it into Disneyland for people with too much money to spend.

  Times Square managed to become the worst place to buy weed.

  Let that sink in for a minute.

  Now it’s a decrepit reminder of the shitstain of rampant commercialism. I guess, technically, you’d call it capitalism.

  But this was really, really commercialism. Corporations as identities.

  Along the lines of motherfuckers getting “New York” pizza from fuckin Sbarro at Forty-seventh. Maybe eating it with a knife and fork like that dipshit de Blasio. Or “Italian” food from the goddamn cocksucker, Olive Garden.

  Hey, the Disney store fit right the fuck in there. So did the big banks. The billboards hocking fake food and syrup drinks to the crowds. Amazon dispensaries. Apple iBanks.

  I’m glad it’s gone. Dead. In every meaning of the word.

  I’m glad there are shuddering pink tentacles instead of stock symbols and news alerts chasing each other on holographic boards. I’m glad I�
�m shooting infected outside Applebee’s instead of trying to shove my way through barely-moving bodies on my way to work.

  Jade says to me, “You gonna do this or are we all gonna stand around jerking each other off?”

  I stare at Jade. “It’s always a delight with you, lady.” Look up to the black sign with its yellow N-Q-R circles at the Barclays building. Take a breath. Smoke a cigarette. “Yeah. Let’s fuckin do this. Plissken, you ready? Gonna be like old times.”

  “I was built ready.”

  “Yippee kay yay, motherfucker.”

  See, you said “Yippee.”

  I’m allowed. You’re on double-secret probation.

  I can put you into a coma and rebuild your entire body.

  That’s exactly why you’re on double-secret probation.

  Narrator Houuuuse!

  What a fantastic John Vernon impression.

  I try.

  Me and Plissken are about to head underground when I hear survivors yelling at each other.

  “What’re you doing, Dhawan?”

  “Don’t shoot. Please.” “Move!”

  “It’s my wife for fuck’s sake.”

  “She’s dead, man.”

  I recognize Madison’s voice. Which means Gunnar’s gotta be here too.

  By this point, you’d think people know to shoot. Without emotion. All the infected used to be someone. Mothers. Fathers. Sons. Daughters.

  Doesn’t mean dick.

  I sling my pulse rifle. Pull my Colt M1911. Stomp toward the argument that’s happening in front of a goddamn McDonald’s mostly overgrown by weeds.

  There’s a survivor in front. Indian. Helmet of his Pegasus armor off and clutched in one hand. He’s got his other hand up. In between a slobbering Keef and two other dudes who wanna end it.

  Maybe the undead chick used to be a looker. Can’t tell now. One of her arms is gone. Hair’s been torn out in chunks. Patches of her bony, glistening skull are exposed. She can’t go anywhere. She’s stuck. Clothes are hung up on a broken traffic sign.

  The guy keeps saying, “It’s my wife.”

  Madison shouts, “You goddamn idiot. She isn’t anymore.”

  Gunnar stands beside her. Silent. Flamethrower wand up. His enormous stature makes the bulk of the fire-shooter look light as a feather.

  I gesture for Madison and Gunnar to lower their weapons. Raise my Colt. Say to the pleading guy, to Dhawan, “Doesn’t matter how much noise you make. This shit only goes one way. You gotta know that.”

  “You don’t understand—”

  “No. You don’t. If you’re not dropping parasites, you’re useless. Actually, you’re worse than useless. A survivor who hesitates gets people killed.” I point to Dhawan’s rifle. “Ready your gun. Take the monster out.”

  He shakes his head. “No.” Keeps himself between my Colt and the Keef. “You can’t—”

  I pull the trigger. Send a .45 slug through Dhawan’s forehead. Blood and brains and bone splash against the undead wife’s face.

  She moans. Licks the gore hungrily from her lips. Wipes it around her withered face. Mushes it into her mouth.

  I shatter her head with a second bullet that ruins her for good.

  Then nod to Madison and Gunnar. “You guys have my permission and thanks to do the same if any other assholes try that. Don’t forget about the bullshit that happened with the mimics. Maybe he was a first-timer, but I don’t care.”

  They nod back. And Madison says, “You got it.”

  I pop the mag from my M1911. Refill it with loose ammo. “Torch the bodies.”

  * * *

  First damn thing I see when I hit the dark platform is a rat creature the size of a dishwasher.

  Digital night vision that blends in thermal tech in the helmet helps with that—gathers up existing particles of light, amplifies em, and even corrects em so I get less of that neon green crap. Makes it so my eyes don’t have to process as much. If there ain’t enough light, the suit provides the photons or the infrared or whatever.

  I’m not a scientist. I’m a tool. A living weapon. Point me in the direction of what you want dead. That’s what I do.

  Anyway, aside from the size of the rat it seems...normal...ish. It’s round. Fuzzy. Hairy. Got a snout—a snout that’s buried to its beady black eyes in the carcass of a... Uh... Huh. I don’t have a fuckin clue. It ain’t a Keef. Ain’t a stilt-walker.

  It’s pale as paper. Thin. Gangly. Human-sized and -shaped. Where there should be eyes are black discs about as big as silver dollars. It’s got this whole Ken doll thing going on, though. A white clone off an assembly line.

  “Plissken, what the shit is that.”

  “I wish I knew.”

  The rat pulls its bloody face free of the dead pale thing. Its skull splits down lengthwise. Peels back. The petals of a meaty flower. The rat shrieks.

  I fill its head with explosive rounds. “Yeah, yeah. Heard it before.”

  Plissken hovers over the pale humanoid thing. Arms unfurl from under his case. A laser cuts a one-by-one inch cube of flesh from it. He pulls the mess inside himself. Grunts. Says, “Well, it’s definitely a parasite.”

  “Nooooo. You don’t fuckin say.”

  “Spare me, jackass. I’m trying to differentiate it from the slender things your parents saw outside Three’s burrow.” Plissken bobs in the air. “The creature is...old. The parasite in it is, anyway. The mitochondria of this one puts its birth at...well, here. The day of the outbreak.” He turns to me. “Your outbreak.”

  “So this sonuvabitch—”

  “Was from Ground Zero. Yes.”

  “And living in the tunnels like some creepy infected hobo pee-person.”

  “Yes. Pee-people everywhere.” Plissken moves to the white thing’s hands. “Isn’t that interesting?” His running lights center on the dead white thing’s right hand. It’s got a shard of scrap metal there. Fashioned into a makeshift knife.

  I squint. Lick my lips. “That...is some shit.”

  Infected making weapons, even primitive weapons, ain’t good.

  I take my helmet off. Light a cigarette. “So, what, they’re 2001 monkey-with-a-bone-ing us now?”

  Plissken burns both bodies with shots from his little plasma cannon. “Evolution is a helluva thing, isn’t it?”

  I drop myself onto the tracks. Head south. “Yeah, well, so’s violence.”

  “Didn’t your mother ever tell you that violence never solves anything?”

  “You’ve met my mother.”

  “Fair point.”

  “Yeah. Violence solves all kinds of crap.” I slink between broken down N-train cars. Listen to tiny, dirty oceans lap back and forth in the cracks of concrete. All these noises between steel and bodies. Decay and parasitic life that’ll never, ever stop.

  I tell Plissken, “I’m not sure how to make this work, bud.” The Pegasus suit tells me there are seventeen Keefs milling around the ass end of a sidelined R-train. “Between you and me.” I shoot the glass on the cars themselves. Toss napalm charges in that purify with fire. “I don’t get it, dude. I don’t know how to do it. Cleaning out New York? The hundreds of miles of tunnels?”

  “The pilots and their armada won’t leave us alone otherwise.”

  I slaughter the seventeen zombies. Drop my mag mid-kill. Reload. Blow em into individual zombie particles with my pulse rifle. “Hey, I’m happy to be a gun-toting straphanger again, but how do we fix this shit so that the fuckin pilots don’t eradicate the planet?”

  Plissken says, “Burn it. Secure New York and burn it all. Until there’s nothing. Just ash.”

  I snap my fingers in front of Plissken’s frame. “Hey. Hey. We’ve been there before.”

  “Well, we have to do it...better.” Plissken stares me down. “If I bathed this place in your blood, the parasite
would be gone.”

  “My blood doesn’t last that long. It needs to be fresh. Pilots barely got away with it when we doused the camp. You told me that.”

  “Yes. Which is unfortunate.”

  I let my pulse rifle hang at my waist. “Really? That’s what you’ve got to say?”

  Plissken puffs his thrusters. “I wonder, sometimes, what would happen if we could contain you. Harness you. Crack your chest over a continent at let your blood truly rain down with the weather.”

  I poke my pal with my finger. “How hard you thought about this? Exactly?”

  Plissken bops away. Makes a whoop-whoop noise. Very Three Stooges. “Only theoretically. I swear.”

  “So you ain’t thinking about having a little lynching party?”

  “No.” He regards me. “No.”

  “I don’t mind the idea of self-sacrifice, but having someone else gank me and stick me on a fork?” I shake my head. “Not really on my to-do list.” I sigh. Stare at my boots. “Dude, I’m serious. I don’t know what to do here.”

  Plissken floats near me. His internals buzz. “Keep going. That is what we do, isn’t it? After all of the years. All of the bodies.”

  I smirk. “And a sullen plunge, in the sullen swell—”

  “Ten fathoms deep on the road to hell.”

  “Yo ho ho.” I ready my pulse rifle. “I’d like to give my kids something better than ‘hell,’ though.”

  “I would like the same. So...” Plissken chuckles. “Keep shooting.”

  Explosive 10mm rounds find another group of heads. I blow a stilt-walker off the subway wall. It mewls. Breaks under the barrage of bullets. “Man, this brings back a ton of shitty memories.”

  I hear a helluva lot more parasites than I can see. Even with the night vision. Mandibles clicking. Cucaracha. Teeth gnashing. Infected.

  After this big sweep, we’re still gonna have to shut down some of the subways. Block em off. Flood em with flames for a few days.

  Then.

  Maybe then the tunnels’ll be clear.

  I say to Plissken, “What about plasma?”

  “If you would like to bring Manhattan crashing down on us, then sure.”