Kill Machine (The Hroza Connection Book 6)

by William Vitka

“We’ve used it before.”

  “Yes. To great, destructive effect. Which is the problem. Remember that the USC military was forced to use napalm during the outbreak. That, or face levelling New York.” Plissken hums. “Though, if the USC had survived, and hadn’t been so feverishly trying to unfuck themselves, they probably would have levelled it anyway.”

  There are infected on the tracks ahead. Four. Simian. Hunched over and muscly. Gorillas. Apes with huge arms. Stumpy legs. Two and three heads with skull faces. Big insane teeth that poke through their jaws. Skin. Eyes that glow green.

  Makes em look like psychotic electric weed whackers.

  Really really strong psychotic electric weed whackers.

  The apes beat their fists against their chests. The ground. They roar. Throw up droplets of filth. Dirt. All kinds of rotten crap that festers on the tracks.

  Could be worse. Could be poop.

  I mean, hey, it could totally be their poop.

  What’re you supposed to do when a gorilla charges? Don’t make eye contact, but stand your ground or some shit? Crouch down? Act submissive? Otherwise they’ll chase you? Rip your fuckin arms off?

  I don’t remember. Even though it’s probably been on National Geographic a gazillion times.

  So I scream back.

  Open fire.

  Explosive bullets rip the bodies of two apes in half. Meaty giblets. Their eyes still shiny and pissed. But their bodies unable to do anything about it.

  Plissken melts the third into angry goo that tries to march on. Skeleton still moving as its skin flashes electric blue and sloughs off. Then it’s a puddle.

  The fourth cocksucker...

  Well, he’s a cocksucker.

  Hits me full-tilt boogie. With his shoulder.

  Goddamn parasitic linebacker.

  I feel my ribs crack. Snap. Bend inward. So they stab my lungs. My mouth manages a few choice words in rapid idiot succession: “Dicktitcocksuckasscuntfacedouchehammer.” The carbon mesh keeps the gorillafuck’s gazillion teeth from piercing my skin but it doesn’t stop the bones from breaking.

  You’ll be fine. Suck it up.

  Dick.

  The ape pounds my chest. Punches me. Tries to smash me. Throws me against the side of a derailed N-train. The carbyne absorbs a few of the blows. But it sucks.

  I lose my grip on the pulse rifle when the cocksucker breaks my right wrist. I get the Colt up with my left. Put the barrel against one of the ape’s three snarling heads while it beats on me. Pull the trigger.

  Blam.

  One brain down.

  I can’t see so good. Blood all over my visor.

  Blam.

  Two brains down.

  Kchunk.

  Three brains down.

  The gorilla drops me. Stops squeezing my insides into paste.

  Wait, kchunk?

  Definitely not a blam.

  Still can’t see squat cuz of all the blood.

  I yell, “Plissken, you got the cocksucker?”

  He says, “Wasn’t me.”

  That...is...interesting.

  I shake my head. Wipe some of the bodily fluids from my helmet with my limp right hand.

  There’s a giant fuckin bug in my face. Compound eyes glittering. Glistening.

  La cucaraaacha, la cucaraaacha...some...thing en español.

  A cockroach has its mandibles through the final ape skull. One’s burst through the left eye. The other clicking through a temple.

  The cockroach stares at me. Impossible to know what the bug’s thinking. But it seems pretty goddamn confused.

  So I put five rapid shots through the bug bastard’s thorax. Empty the mag.

  White pours from the critter. Elmer’s Glue.

  It shrieks in pain. Pulls its mandibles from the ape. Schlorp. Lets me tumble against the ground. Broken.

  It howls. Yells. “Stop.” It holds four legs up. Flutters its wings. Ignores its wounds. Says again, “Stop.” Its mandible click. Clack. The cockroach looks me over. Points to me with one of the legs it ain’t using to support its six-foot body. “Hurt.” It points to itself. “Hurt. Not enemy.” Its voice a perpetual buzz. “Stop. Not enemy.”

  Plissken hovers close to me. Scans me. “You are not doing well.”

  I chuckle. Cough. Blood spatters the inside of my visor now. “No shit.” I wrench my helmet off. Light a cigarette. “I hate this fuckin job.”

  The cockroach chitters. Motions with one of its legs. “Follow. Help.” Its feelers taste the air. “Remember you. Here. Smell you.”

  “I didn’t think I stank that bad, to be honest.” I wince. Grab where my guts are supposed to be. “Yeah, I...passed through here a long while ago.”

  The cockroach flutters its wings again. “Yes.” Its antennae flit. “Yes. Good. Good mammal. May understand, then.”

  Plissken offers me his chassis to lean on. “Can you walk?”

  I say, “I can manage a stumble.”

  “That’ll do.” Plissken picks up my pulse rifle. Then dips his disk shape toward me. “Grab hold. I can carry you.”

  I lock my fingers into the random ruts of Plissken’s frame. Where the metal comes together. “I think this is the first time I’ve done this sober.”

  “And yet not the first time you’ve done it near death.”

  “Make sure you tell the crews. And keep the survivors topside.”

  “Already done.” Plissken pauses. “You realize that I am accustomed to taking care of quite literally everything, right?”

  I groan. “No. Yeah. I know, bud.”

  “It will take DeVille and the others some time to reach us. You also need to heal.”

  The cockroach keeps waving us on. “Go. Please. Talk. Heal.”

  “Dude.” I cock an eye at the insect guy. “This’s not a ‘thirty minutes or less’ situation. I’ll get there when I get there.” My lungs bleed. I feel an emptiness in my chest. Something’s supposed to be there but it ain’t.

  Probably a rib floating around.

  Just, y’know, whatever.

  Fuck.

  Me and Plissken hobble behind the man-sized cockroach that’s talking in broken English. All the way to a crevice that goes down down down into New York’s sewers.

  Plissken halts.

  Stops the two of us.

  Says, “This seems oddly familiar.”

  I cough. Smoke. Spit blood. “What’s the worst that could happen?”

  Uhhh...

  20. What Has Life Made You?

  We follow the cockroach. Uncomfortably. Uneasily.

  Adverbs! All over the place! They’re almost as bad as semicolons.

  It’s tough, is what I’m saying, okay? Unpleasant.

  All these creepy tight spaces through the schist of New York’s geographic nethers.

  Woulda been so much easier to nuke from orbit. The entirety of Earth. Let the pilots do what they do. Y’know. Poof. But I guess that’s not why we’re here. We’re here so I can at least try to do the right thing.

  I feel like an old man. Trying to make peace.

  Save his planet.

  Even though it got all fucky and shit.

  Poetic, as always.

  Bioluminescent mold and moss light the tight tunnels. It’s colorful. New neon below Times Square. Greens. Reds. Yellows. Purples. Blues. Reminds me of Three’s burrow. Or an insectoid pride parade.

  The shaft widens. The air gets warmer. More moist.

  Then we overlook a vast cavern. It’s dim. The glow all coming from those same bioluminescent plants stuck to the walls of the schist. Glow that illuminates huts and dwellings made from garbage. Rock. Mud.

  And there are big cockroaches. Fuckin everywhere. Hundreds of the bastards. They scuttle around on six legs. Sometimes four. Sometimes
two. They chitter and chatter at each other.

  I see one with a brood of twelve babies. Youngins of varying age—which I assume based on my vaguely chauvinistic “insect size gotta = age” thing. Critters the size of cats and dogs following mom. Maybe dad.

  Dunno how the fuck to sex a cockroach. They sure as shit don’t look all that different from one another.

  Racist.

  The ones I do notice—the ones who really stand out—are battered. They carry marks like scars. Torn wings. Legs missing. Antennae damaged.

  A couple of em even have the rotted heads of the pale thin freaks cinched around their chests with rope.

  Warriors.

  I arch my eyebrows. Tap Plissken’s side. “We got some funky tribal shit going on here, dude.”

  The cockroach we’ve been following buzzes. Points out to its kin. “Yes. Yes. Tribe.” It clicks its mandibles. Cocks its head at me. Points to me and then Plissken. “You tribe.” Points back out to the cavern. “Me tribe. Good. Help. You tribe help me tribe. Kill skinnies kill us.”

  I blink. Once at the ground. Once at the cockroach. “Uhhh... Sure. Sorry about shooting you. Like five times. And stuff.”

  The cockroach buzzes. “Take more to kill us. Insides sticky. Heal fast. No in head. Head kill. After time.”

  I chuckle. It hurts.

  I’m working on it.

  Still, makes sense that cockroaches’d be the bastards to bet your survival dollars on.

  * * *

  I sit down on what passes for a chair at the center of the cockroach cave. I mean, it is a chair. Some ratty half of a booth from...hell, I dunno. A TGIF’s or something.

  Still, it’s a fuckin seat and my internals are bleeding so I ain’t gonna complain.

  Not with my pulse rifle back in my lap.

  These’re the most polite roaches in the world.

  Which I guess ain’t saying much, but, uh, there it is.

  The bugs’re damn curious though.

  Sniffing around my feet. My face.

  Around Plissken.

  He won’t admit it, but my robot loves the attention.

  I rest my head back against the booth cushioning. Allow my eyes to close. Start to fall asleep. Grimace as I feel Durandal rearrange crap inside my body. My chest.

  It’s weird, folks. Real weird.

  Never been fully awake when he works his parasitic mojo.

  You’re welcome.

  I mean, you get an itch on your ribs, you itch your ribs. Right? Your lungs itch, you cough. That’s how the body responds to some of this crap. The itchiness is actually good, cuz it signifies that your body’s repairing.

  Well, that or some awful festering shit like gangrene.

  But let’s stay positive here.

  If I let us die from gangrene, whoa shit, I’d be bad at my job.

  So the thing I got right now is, my insides itch. I can’t scratch em. I could jab a knife into my chest. Maybe get a cockroach to punch its mandibles through me.

  That’d probably be no good, though.

  A bad idea in general, I’d say.

  Plissken nudges me with his disc body. Wakes me up.

  My eyelids pop open. “Yeah. Hey.”

  Plissken says, “Time for school, honey.”

  “Eat all the dicks.” I rub my forehead. Light a cigarette.

  Cockroaches around me sniff the fumes. The smoke. The nicotine.

  Who says New York ain’t smoker-friendly?

  Reality, mostly, but do what you gotta.

  Yeah, this town got strange.

  The cockroaches lead a greying version of their own before me. Two warriors escorting this old fragile bug who settles down all six legs when he’s in front of me.

  Grey says, “Hello.” Its antennae flit back and forth. Tap my legs. “Smell you. Old one. You were the one here before.”

  I breathe smoke. Nod. My neck lazy. “I was here a long time ago, pal. How do you—” I shrug. “How is it you and your geeks know me?”

  “Parasite. Parasite-walker. Smell is distinct. We not big when parasite-parasites stumble through these tunnels. First time. Only concern was flesh. Consuming. Carrion.”

  I chuckle. “Okay, and you big bugs know English cuz?”

  Grey lifts a chitinous appendage. “Hear you all the time. And...” He points to the garbage in the sewers. Pages of books. Newspapers. Pretty sure I see the front page of my own fuckin tabloid in there somewhere. A front page with a headline I wrote. “BILL HAS A DREAM”—when one of our illustrious ex-presidents fell asleep during a Martin Luther King Jr. awards ceremony.

  The king cockroach says, “You. Words. Hoomans leave words. Fall down here. We learn after eating parasite. Parasite make us bigger. Make us learn.”

  “Why do you need me?” I flap my hand. Stutter. Point to myself. “Why does ‘parasite-walker’ matter? You creepy crawlies seem to be doing pretty well for yourselves.”

  I shift my legs as a couple little cockroaches crawl up to my seat. Nymphs.

  They squeak. Play their feelers over me.

  An adult roach scurries forward. Tries to pry em away. Buzzes. “No.”

  I hold up my hand. “It’s...all right.” I pet the bugs. Try not to touch their eyes. Run my hands along their carapaces. Tickle em. “It’s all right.” I eyeball their mom. Or whoever. Say, “But if they bite me, I’ll end em.”

  Their momma or whoever buzzes. “No bite parasite-walker.”

  “Then we’re good.”

  I shriek. Shudder when Durandal fixes something in my chest. Snaps it back into place. Makes me drop my American Spirit.

  The baby bugs freak out for a second. Scatter.

  Warrior roaches get close.

  Plissken’s plasma cannon whines. “Don’t.”

  I put up my hands again. “Wait, wait! Just...” I point to my chest. “No...hurt. No hurt.” I try to make a wrenching motion with my hands. “Repairing? Repairing. Me. Pain. Repairing pain.”

  Dogsucking... Y’know, it’s pretty late to be adding whole new races to this tale. There ain’t much time left. Skinnies and roaches?

  I sigh.

  The baby roaches crawl up again. Settle alongside my legs. The warmth there, I guess, even with the Pegasus suit on. Odd dogs.

  I look to Grey. “Last time I saw you guys, you devoured human and parasite-parasite alike. Now you want help. Why?”

  Grey says, “Skinnies hunt. Hunt us. Not much left to consume.” He gestures to the little ones around my legs. “Why broods so small.” Grey clicks his mandibles. “Always get smaller. Food running out.”

  I suck in a lungful of air. Cough up blood. Try not to get any on my new cockroach pals. “What do you want, exactly? From me...err, from my tribe.”

  “Parasite-walkers strong. Kill parasite-parasites. Means food for brood. They no kill us when you kill them.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, but I’m in the business of killing monsters. Not helping em. And, to be honest, I hate this whole ‘noble savage’ shit. Hated it in fuckin Pocahontas, hated it in fuckin Avatar—”

  Plissken nudges me. “They don’t know what that means. However, it may be wise to enlist help. If the cockroaches can help clear the tunnels, we might be able to convince the pilots that they’re simply indigenous wildlife. A non-threat.”

  I whisper. “And if the ‘indigenous wildlife’ decides they’re gonna go after survivors?”

  Plissken bobs. “You forget how many creatures revere you as a god now.”

  “God doesn’t exist, bud. My parents killed him.”

  “Yes. The great legacy.”

  “They were all alien dicks.”

  “You’ve got the ‘dick’ part covered.”

  “Fuckin smartass robot.” I roll my eyes to Grey. “We’ll do it. I’ll do
it. But, uh...” I glance around the cockroach cave. “I’m not doing it from here.

  “I’ll be in touch. Make sure your tribe doesn’t harm mine.” I stand. My chest burns. Almost makes me scream. I sling the pulse rifle over my shoulder. Careful. Slow. I whip my hand out. Grip Plissken’s side for balance and support with my left. Keep my right on the grip of my Colt. I say to my saucer pal, “Help me get the hell outta here, man.”

  “Where are we going?”

  “Take a wild guess.”

  21. I Touch You Through Someone Else’s Dreams

  Me and Plissken hobble outta the subway. My army continues its march south. Obliterating everything in their path. Thompson and the other chopper pilots run care packages to the troops. Crates of ammo. Food. Building materials to establish barricades.

  They’ve actually secured most of Times Square. Got concrete up. Which’s pretty impressive.

  Madison and Gunnar greet me with frowns when they notice my crummy condition.

  She says, “That thanks to the bugs, or these new skinnies we’re hearing about?”

  I purse my lips. Shake my head. “Nah. Big ape sonuvabitches. Apasites. They’ve got two and three damn heads. One, uh...kinda squished me. They’re dicks.”

  “How bad is it?”

  Internal bleeding. Partially collapsed lung. Two fractured ribs.

  I tell Madison, “I’m fine. It’s real hard to kill me.”

  “Well, shit. Want an escort? With all the support we’ve got, Gunnar and I can—”

  “Thanks, but—” I pat Plissken’s side “—this’s a walk we’re gonna take solo.”

  Plissken bobs.

  * * *

  I could use a drink. Several, in fact. But I’ll settle for a stroll down Broadway with my best friend. Smoking.

  It’s early evening now. The rain’s stopped. The smell is still there. And the sinking sun casts long licks of orange and red along the buildings. The glass and steel.

  Makes me think about how this is gonna end. And what the fuck I’m supposed to do with myself then.

  I’ll be a father soon. Twins. Me and DeVille, we got a good thing going. I’m sure that’ll be hectic as hell. Ain’t as though babies come with instruction manuals. That’s okay. DeVille can guide me. She’s been through some of it before with Jade.