These mini Grinders, however, formed very specific shapes. Unchanging shapes from the looks of it. Their exteriors were more like a quilt than a Lego sculpture. It didn’t look as if they were made to break apart and come together again, either. The bodies were fused with no space between them, formed to make horrific creatures whose only imaginable purpose was to instill fear before they destroyed.
Before I’d lost the radio, I’d heard the word ‘chimera’—the mythical creature made from parts of a lion, a goat, and a snake. I think that’s a close, but not perfect way to describe these new monsters who marched dumbly down the avenue toward my position. These were more like Frankenstein’s monster, or golems, made of flesh.
Two of them resembled massive scorpions with sharpened metal infused into the meat of their tails. Their bodies were a patchwork of naked human flesh. Towering behind was a 25-foot tall gorilla-like beast made of coyote. Two giant, octopus-like balls appeared, caked in nothing but charred flesh, giving them the appearance of a hardened shell.
But mostly I gaped at the middle of the parade, at the pink crab thing—made out of babies. It stood out more than any of the others. Its pink, bulbous body, made entirely of infants, skittered sideways as it moved along. The sight of it caused a fear and revulsion within me that I hadn’t expected, after all I’d seen. The infants’ heads all stuck outward, like the crab was covered with hairy pimples. And unlike the other flesh golems, these infants all appeared alive. And aware. Every single one of them screamed at the top of their lungs. The sound carried high in the air, louder and louder as the parade approached.
Like the Grinder, none of these monsters had eyes or discernible heads, and I wondered just how autonomous they were.
I had to avoid notice. If the golems or any other drones or animals in the Grinder’s posse spied me, surely they would rip me to shreds or just remove my mask and stick me face-first into the network.
I sunk deeper into the muck at the bottom of the wash, and I readied myself to jump up onto the Grinder as it approached. My heart beat so hard, it felt as if it kicked the inside of my chest.
I wondered, if there was a God, if there was a heaven, if this act would be considered suicide. How could it not?
Only twice in my life had I ever considered suicide, and both times were when I waited desperately in a hospital waiting room. After Nif’s overdose and after her suicide attempt, in those dark moments when I thought she wouldn’t make it. When I tried to envision a sunrise in a world without her, I knew it would be too unbearable.
The Hummers passed on the street to my right. Their loud, diesel engines roared. To my left, one of the flesh scorpions crashed by, and I cringed as I heard the sound of Zora’s car crushed under its weight. Glass rained on me. I kept low, praying they wouldn’t look down.
Crash! A leg made of screaming babies plunged into the wash, just inches from me. Water and mud splashed over me and the visor, and I instinctively rubbed it off. The leg was the diameter of a barrel, and the tip was made of metal that fused up into the flesh. I stared in horror at the babies who faced me, but their eyes were all clenched closed. With a sickening feeling I realized most, if not all, were dead, and their cries were really post-mortem puppetry designed to make any attackers piss in their pants.
The leg paused, as if it sensed someone was near. I held my breath.
All the eyes of the babies snapped open.
I didn’t move. I huddled in the shadow, doing my best to hide and keep from screaming. I knew young babies had limited eyesight, but I didn’t know how limited.
The eyes closed, and the monster continued on its way.
I’m coming, Nif. I’m doing my best.
The massive, round golems rolled over the road, and one passed directly over the ridge in which I hid. The asphalt at the edge cracked and crumbled, but it held.
That was the last in the line. I only had a few seconds to act. Am I being brave? Or stupid? I sprang up from the wash and scrambled up the side.
I turned to face the Grinder.
Chapter 23
I faced a wall of humanity and metal.
The forward wall of the monster was built like the front of a bulldozer. A curved plane rose and arched outward from the top. Cars. Trees. Rocks. Dirt. Animals. People. All came together to stack the wall 30-stories high.
I could wait for it bowl me over, or run at it. So I ran at it, the cleats of my boots biting at the cracked asphalt. I jumped, and I braced myself for impact, expecting to lose consciousness the moment I came into contact.
I slammed hard into the curved wall, close to the left edge of the front. To my utter astonishment, I still had full control of my body. I grasped and held onto a car door as I pulled myself up, gasping from the impact. I dug my feet in, and they found purchase in something fleshy. I didn’t dare look down.
I climbed. Nothing tried to stop me, at least not yet. At any moment I knew a hand would clench onto my leg or pull off my glove. I grasped onto anything I could, people, scraps of metal, the exposed ribs of a dog. I pulled myself higher and higher, hoping to find some sort of entrance.
A machine gun rattled in the distance. I ventured a look over my shoulder and saw it came from the Hummer with the little girl. She fired off toward something unseen.
I wouldn’t be able to climb over the top of the scoop, so I went sideways, hoping it’d be easier along the flanks of the creature. I crawled and clutched, digging my shoes into whatever would stick. I came face-to-face more than once with a person ensnared, and their open eyes stared at me, registering nothing. Already, my arms and legs screamed in pain at the effort.
My fanny pack kept sticking to the wall when it pressed against a person or anything organic. As I pulled away, it would come with me, but tiny hairs now protruded from the pocket of the bag, like roots searching for soil. I didn’t know if that meant Clementine’s plan was working or not, but I was still here, and I trudged on.
Everything started moving at once, and I could do nothing but hold on as tightly as I could. My left hand clutched onto the belt of an upside-down man, and my right arm wrapped around the limp neck of a dog.
What the— The whole thing reared up, spinning high up into the air like an upside-down tornado. Fuck me, it’s changing shape. I swung and twisted as I clutched onto the monster. If I let go, I would be flung off and splattered somewhere on the other side of Tucson.
I wasn’t sure how high we’d risen. The fog got thicker the higher we went, like I had neared the top of Jack’s beanstalk. I couldn’t see the ground anymore.
Splashes of blood and smoke erupted ten feet below, followed by the distinctive, terrifying dinosaur-roar of an A-10’s cannon. A moment later, the plane rocketed out of the fog. It turned on its side as it whipped past, so close I could almost touch it, the roar of its engine so loud I was deaf for a few precious seconds afterwards. I screamed as a wave of heat washed over me.
The Grinder changed shape again, and I felt myself screaming more as I fell. I still clutched onto the dog’s head, and, wham, my left hand found a metal bar. I jerked to a stop, then let go, falling several feet and landing hard on a woman. I grasped her arm.
Behind me, a distant explosion rippled through the air.
Fuck, fuck, fuck. Couldn’t they wait just ten minutes?
My gloved fingers started to slip, and I let go, sliding and bumping until I came to stop. I was now on the back of the monster. The smoke and fog made it impossible to see more than ten feet in front of me. It looked as if I’d fallen upon an arched plane that went on forever in every direction. The Grinder surface was black and crunchy. The charred flesh had turned to charcoal, and long lengths of metal crossed the back in a rib-like configuration, giving the impression of a string-wrapped ham that had been burned under a broiler.
My foot became stuck, and I tripped, catching myself on a metal girder. The metal’s consistency was unexpected, more elastic than metallic. This wasn’t metal at all, but something organic. I let go, afr
aid to touch the metal again.
I scrambled to my feet and moved as quickly as I could across the surface. The wind whipped at my dripping suit, and I could sense we moved swiftly.
Ahead of me was a wall of thick, white fog. As it billowed toward me, I realized it was no fog. It was smoke.
A strange sizzling and crackling sound, like water poured into hot oil filled the electric air. Before I could figure out what that was, hell rained down.
Out of the smoke, hundreds of bodies fell from above. They smashed into the back of the Grinder like hail, many bouncing off and away. They crashed all around me. A woman fell right in front of me, writhing and screaming. I watched in horror as the skin of her face burned away like flames eating paper.
All these people were part of a hydra tentacle, I realized, and it had been destroyed.
That smoke. White phosphorus. I choked at the thought. It’s some seriously nasty stuff.
“Ah, shit.” I turned from the billowing white cloud and ran as quickly as I dared.
Swoosh. One hundred feet above, a bright fireworks-like explosion punctuated through the haze, punching me in the chest with the concussion. From the explosion, dozens of flaming bright flares arced downward, crackling like an exposed electrical line, each trailing white smoke.
I had nowhere to go. If that smoke touched me, I was fucked.
I spun, looking for a way out. My mask might protect me from inhaling the deadly smoke, but I knew the particles would burn through the suit, exposing my flesh and killing me.
Movement caught my peripheral vision through the mask. A group of half-burned men and women crawled across the surface. Just in front of them, one of the metallic, organic girders dilated open like a jagged mouth, and one after another, they slipped in.
This is it. I grasped onto the strap of the duffel bag over my shoulder, I ran, and I jumped feet-first into the hole just as the last of the drones crept through. The opening snapped shut over my head.
I careened down like in a water slide, rolling to a stop on an uneven surface that breathed up and down, like I was on top of a giant lung. I jumped as a person crawled over me, skittering away like a spider. I smacked my head on something hard, what it was, I couldn’t see.
Complete, utter darkness encompassed me. I was inside.
I pulled the duffel around my front, unzipped it, and felt for the flashlight. I pulled it out and flipped it on.
If ever a vision of hell existed on this earth, this would be it.
The flashlight illuminated the low cave, an interior artery ringed by the metallic girders, which I suspected were nerve bundles. The hallway was tall enough that I could sit up, but I couldn’t stand. I stood on my knees, hunched over, and shined the light. The tube I’d come down was closed. I could only travel one of two ways, forward or backward.
Dripping intestines hung like vines. Blood and fecal matter and whatever other fluid existed in the human body fell in a mist, collecting on the screen of the gas mask. I couldn’t smell anything but the molded plastic of the mask, and I was glad for that.
All around the conduit, the views moved and changed as bodies, packed tight, cycled around me, some spinning as if on a spit. The passageway itself seemed more or less static, though it waved, like one of those playground rope bridges.
A quick succession of explosions rocked the entire monster. Even though I was mere meters into the interior of the beast, the explosions sounded far away. The Grinder reared up again, and the horizontal tube turned vertical in a matter of seconds. I grasped onto a thick nerve bundle to keep from plummeting. A rush of liquid sloshed over me, and I was thankful again for my dry suit. The monster crashed back down, and the passageway trembled like a plucked rubber band.
The connection in my chest, the invisible tether from me to the Grinder still pulled, even though I was already in the belly of the monster.
Why? I wondered. What did that mean?
Shit. It’s not the monster that’s reeling me in.
It’s Nif.
Chapter 24
Could it be her? My heart swelled at the thought, and got me moving.
The tether at my chest pulled me left, so that’s what I did. I crawled, the dying flashlight in my hand and the heavy duffel over my shoulder.
The passage became tighter as I traveled. I had to move to my stomach, careful not to rip the suit on a bone or tooth. My mask fogged in the hot, oppressive, air. I trudged on.
Several junctions and curves littered the way, but I always knew which way to turn. Sometimes the conduit would get wider, sometimes so tight I could barely squeeze through.
Occasionally I’d see movement up ahead or hear a furtive rustling noise just behind me. At a few larger junctions, I’d have to wait as a quick-moving line of drones blurred past. At first I flattened myself down as they neared, terrified they’d stop to investigate, but they didn’t seem to notice me at all.
Every time I got back to my knees, the fanny pack peeled away like Velcro off the meat floor.
I travelled for what seemed like an hour, and while I knew I was going slowly, it felt as if I’d crawled the length of the Grinder and back.
I turned a corner and headed down a steep angle. I knew I was getting close. I could feel it, and I quickened my pace. I emerged through a hole into a room about the size of my bedroom—small, but large enough to stand. I stood upon what seemed to be the roof of a car, and the walls here appeared metal, real metal, not the organic material the Grinder used to girder its shape, though that was present as well, but thicker, wider, and pinker than up above.
This room was a dead end, but I could feel her, just on the other side of the wall. I pounded, and the barricade felt solid. The material was dense steel, made from something studier than a car, like the wall of…
Like the walls of an armored truck.
My heart racing, I searched for a way in.
It seemed like this was the back of the truck, but if there was a door, it was covered with the thick nerve bundles or some other metal. I could find no handle or entrance. Come on…
There! Just to the right, a single, naked man stood sandwiched between two hunks of wall. If I could get past him, I might be able to angle my way around.
I grabbed the man’s wrist and pulled, but he wouldn’t budge.
In the trip through the Grinder’s pipes, I’d lost most of the needles I’d duct taped to myself, but I still had a few attached to my arm, and I grabbed one now.
“Sorry, dude,” I said, and I plunged the needle into the guy’s heart. I depressed the plunger, releasing the deadly neurotoxin into his body.
“Only use these if you have to,” Clementine had said. “It might not work, but if it does, it might work too well.”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Well, it’s a bit of a cocktail,” she said. “I’ve been working on it for a while. It’s a synthetic neurotoxin. Two CCs of this stuff will drop an elephant, so make sure you don’t prick yourself. It’ll be game over.”
I didn’t want to ask her why she would be working on such a thing, so I left it at that.
The man fell forward. Dead and stiff. But it didn’t stop there. The entire room sagged. Two more people just beyond him dropped, like rotten fruit falling from the vine. One was a younger derby girl I recognized, still wearing her jersey from the Savage Patch Kids.
The organic nerve girders holding the metal into place twisted up, like the legs of a dead spider, and the car underneath my feet dropped away.
I jumped and grabbed the ceiling with my free hand, clinging to another nerve ending. Light filled the room, and I looked down through a hole in the Grinder, down to desert rock moving by underneath. The floor closed on itself just as quickly, people rushing from all directions to fill in the hole.
I may have gone this far unnoticed, but not anymore.
I eased myself down, afraid I’d be dropped through the hole or grabbed. I lifted my feet just as a new nerve bundle grew, moving serpentine across
the floor.
But nothing attacked. Yet…
The man I had injected opened up a short passageway behind the metal wall, and I squeezed in, revealing the side of the vehicle I’d been trying to get to. It was an armored truck. A big one, too, with dual wheel sets on the back. The Brinks logo was discernible as I brushed past the passenger side of the truck.
She was in here. I could feel it.
I moved past the logo until I came to a single door with a window. This was the door the guards in the back used to exit and enter when the truck parked on a curb. I grabbed the handle and pulled, but it wouldn’t open. Even if I could get it open, I’d only be able to open the door a crack.
I peered inside, but I could only see dark shadows within.
“Nif!” I called, banging on the door. “Nif!” I could feel her, right there on the other side.
I tried the handle again, desperation rising. I couldn’t get in. I banged again, so hard my hand ached through the glove.
“Nif, please. Oh God, please. I’m here. I’ve come all this way. I’m here.”
I banged again.
Then I heard it. A rustling noise within, and a face appeared just on the other side of the glass.
Nif.
Pale, afraid. But it was Nif, and she was alive.
I found her. I found her.
“Adam?” Nif said, her eyes wide with surprise, her voice muffled through the bullet-proof glass. “Is that really you?”
“Nif!” I called as tears streamed down my face. “I’m going to get you out of here. We’re going home, baby. I’ve come to save you.”
A hand grabbed my shoulder. Another grabbed my mask. I was twisted violently around as my mask ripped off. A third hand grabbed my hood and pulled, taking hair and skin with it.
The Grinding Page 19