Dead in the Water_A Space Team Universe Novel

by Barry J. Hutchison

  “You’re lying.”

  “I really am not,” Krato whispered. “Without you, Mr Deadman, those children would not currently be tearing up the streets. In many ways, this is all your fault.”

  He gave that a moment to sink in.

  “Oh, and you’re right. I should’ve killed you when I had the chance. After all, I brought you into this world.”

  Dan saw movement through the billowing sheets on his right. He turned, too late. A spray of rapid-fire blaster bolts turned his gun hand to pulp from the wrist down. Dan tried to twist away, but the blaster carved a trench through his ribcage and cut off his other arm at the elbow.

  Krato released the trigger and the gun whined as it stopped firing.

  “And I can take you out of it.”

  “Yyyyyyyyeeeeeeeeeeeeee ffffffffffffffeeeeeeeeeeeecccccckkkkkkk—”

  Krato moved his gun so the barrel was half an inch from Artur’s face. “And I have zero emotional attachment to you, you little fonk. So just try me.”

  He cracked the butt of the gun against the side of Dan’s head, staggering him. “Now, let’s go watch all the excitement, shall we?”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  THE THINGS that had until recently been children thrashed their armored limbs, stabbing and pouncing at anything that moved on the street below them. They were twenty feet tall now, but with tentacles fully extended much larger still. They were growing, although they didn’t really understand that. They understood very little now, other than the compunction to maim and kill and destroy that burned through them like cold fire.

  One of them punched its pointed limbs through the front of a building and pulled. There was a roar of breaking brickwork as the wall collapsed out into the street, revealing a room full of terrified people beyond.

  Two of the monster-children pounced like jumping spiders, their tentacles snapping and stabbing, their blood boiling in their blackened veins.

  A child – a real one – howled in terror. Six armored shapes turned toward the sound as one. Thirty-two blade-like limbs drew back to strike.

  “Loopy-Loopy-Loopy-Loopy-Loo-pee Lou’s, it’s fun for me, and it’s fun for you!”

  Thirty-two blade-like limbs froze.

  “Come bring your friends. Meet you-know-who! Loopy-Loopy-Loopy-Loopy-Loo-pee Lou’s!”

  The monster-kids turned away from the house with the broken wall and peered down at a furry shape in a satin yellow shirt that jerked around erratically in front of them. From their high vantage point, they couldn’t see the things dangling genitals, which was probably just as well really.

  Loopy Lou’s mouth flapped open and closed in time with the audio blasting from somewhere inside the suit.

  “Hey-hey-hey, kids! It’s your old pal, Loopy Lou! Say ‘Hi Loopy Lou!’”

  There was a heavy, oppressive silence.

  “That’s it!” Loopy Lou continued. “Hi right back atcha!”

  A high nasal laugh screeched from inside the suit. “Now, who wants to play a game?”

  The monster-kids regarded the furry figure with quite intense levels of bemusement.

  “Everybody?” Loopy Lou laughed. “Well, OK, then. Let’s play!”

  A black tendril swatted Loopy Lou aside. Ollie screamed inside the suit, then briefly giggled as yet another electrical charge tore through her. She smashed into an abandoned car, flipped over it, and then crunched onto the street on the other side.

  The car crumpled as one of the things stabbed a limb through its roof and hoisted it aside. Ollie spasmed as the suit zapped her again. “Uh, I think I have their attention!” she hollered.

  Even through the heavy costume and the random bzzzt of electricity coursing through her body, Ollie heard the song come drifting along the street. It rippled over her like warm water, seeping through the seams of the suit, steaming up the eye lenses and filling the costume with the smell of…

  No.

  Wait.

  She’d wet herself.

  In her defense, that last impact had really hurt.

  The suit gave her another shock, but this time something inside it went pop and began to smoke. Ollie pulled the headpiece off and saw one of the spiky monster-kids looming above her, two of its many limbs raised and ready to deliver a killer blow.

  It never came. As the music swelled around them, the monsters’ limbs first became limp, and then became smaller. Their armored black flesh rolled like boiling tar, then collapsed in towards each monster’s center.

  Scraps of skin appeared in the bubbling black, fusing together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle wherever they met. It was one of the most mesmerizingly horrific things Ollie had ever seen, and considering the shizz she’d spent her entire childhood being forced to watch, that was really saying something.

  She sat up and backed away on her padded elbows, her stuffed penis waggling as she shimmied back toward the singing moms.

  Four of the monsters had faces now. Their expressions would probably haunt Ollie’s nightmares forever, but they had faces. Faces were an improvement on a moment ago.

  It was working. It was actually working.

  And then, just like that, it wasn’t.

  One of the two bigger monsters bounded through them, scattering them all like skittles. Its spear-like legs stabbed at Ollie, shattering the ground wherever she dodged clear.

  “Wait, wait, don’t. Stop!” Ollie protested, holding her hands up in surrender. “Finn? Finn, is that you? It’s me. It’s Ollie!”

  The children, stuck between forms, began to squirm and twist again. Their mothers raised their voices, singing their song of soothing that promised an end to all pain and all fear.

  Pointy tentacles dug into the ground around Ollie, fencing her in. She had no idea where the thing’s face was, but she could feel its eyes boring into her. She felt her own eyes fill with tears.

  “Finn, if that’s you, I know you won’t hurt me. I know you won’t. I know you’re still in there. And I know you can come back.”

  She smiled up at the monster. She didn’t flinch as it raised an arm, or a leg, or whatever the fonk it was above its head. Didn’t blink as the blade stabbed down. Didn’t scream as she heard the tearing flesh and felt the hot blood spatter across her face.

  The monster howled and thrashed, spraying more of its blood across the street. At first, Ollie didn’t notice that it had an extra limb, or that the limb was protruding through a wound in the thing’s chest. It was only when the blade withdrew and the creature was violently knocked aside that she realized what had happened.

  The second of the two larger monsters appeared above her. She knew him right away. Although she still had no clue where its eyes were, this one looked at her like Finn did.

  Like it loved her.

  “Hey,” she said. A tentacle capable of tearing through solid steel reached down and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. Ollie felt herself laugh and cry at the same time, and couldn’t decide which reaction was correct.

  She got up slowly, so as not to startle him. The mothers’ chorus continued to echo around them. The monster-kids had gone limp again, their panic subsiding, their transformations reversing.

  “You look terrible,” she said.

  Finn nudged the discarded Loopy Lou head. “Totally suits me better,” Ollie told him, and she swore she heard the thing snort.

  Taking a breath, she stepped forward and placed a furry hand on his armored frame. “Come back to me,” she urged. “Please.”

  The Finn-thing tensed, and for a moment Ollie thought he was going to run away. But then he slumped down, his tentacles flopping loosely around him. Ollie forced herself to watch as the black shape collapsed in on itself, and pieces of Finn’s skin began weaving themselves together.

  She almost cried again when she saw his face. There was so much pain and suffering written there, and she wondered if he remembered all the terrible things he had done. She hoped not. God, she hoped not.

  It didn’t take long for all his various p
ieces to reconnect. He stood before her, naked and bleeding, his whole body trembling in shock.

  He blinked a few times, like he couldn’t quite figure out how his eyes worked, or even what they were supposed to do. The pupils swam vaguely for a moment, before finally fixing on her. His face lit up when he saw her, like a kid on Kroyshuk morning.

  “Hey, you,” he said, then he frowned and looked down. “Uh, I’m naked. Why am I naked?”

  “Long story,” said Ollie. She, too, looked down. “Mine’s bigger,” she said, pointing to her impressively large artificial penis.

  Finn blushed. “Harsh, brah,” he said, then his chest erupted outwards and his throat ejected blood as Bonbo skewered him through the back.

  Ollie grabbed for him as the blade withdrew. “No, no, no, no, no,” she babbled, catching him in her furry arms. “Finn? Finn! No, no, no.”

  He gargled what would be the last sound he ever made. His final breath formed a bloody spit-bubble on his lips. And then it, and he, were gone.

  The air around Ollie hummed. Loopy Lou’s fur stood on end as sparks crackled between the coarse strands.

  The other monster – Bonbo – loomed over her again, lining its limbs up for another strike.

  “No,” she said, and it squirmed in pain. She glared up at it, fire and fury burning behind her eyes. The markings on her face twisted and intertwined like serpents at an orgy, then a wave of heat radiated from her, stripping the monster’s exoskeleton and revealing its dark, gelatinous center.

  Ollie raised a hand and the thing rose from the ground, flapping and gasping like a fish out of water. She scrunched up a fist and watched as its mushy middle ignited, sending its limbs into a frenzy of movement.

  A light exploded from within it, rapidly consuming its quivering, exposed flesh, blackening it and turning it to ash. It fluttered away as fine black flecks, leaving nothing behind but a dark stain on the road surface, and a dead man in Ollie’s arms.

  She breathed for what felt like the first time.

  The singing had stopped. When had that happened? She couldn’t say.

  Six children hugged their mothers, sobbing as they were held close, deep welts clearly visible on their bare skin. But they were children again, that was the main thing. And they were alive.

  Ollie held Finn for a moment longer, then lowered him to the ground. She flinched when Marnie’s webbed hand rested on her shoulder. “You OK?”

  She didn’t answer right away. She didn’t know how to.

  “Not really,” she admitted. She looked across the street just as Dan was shoved out of an alleyway, one of his hands and a sizeable part of the other arm missing.

  “What the fonk is this?” demanded Krato. He had the gun jammed against the back of Dan’s head, but his eyes were darting in all directions as he tried to figure out how his plan had gone so terribly wrong. “Did the Tribunal do this?”

  “Do you see the fonking Tribunal here?” Dan asked.

  “FONK!” Krato spat. The sound of approaching sirens was closer, but nowhere near close enough. “Fonk!”

  He inhaled deeply through his nose and shook his head. “It’s fine. I can still salvage this,” he said. “I’ll bring the bodies back to Deeper Down. I’ll tell them Down Here did this. Killed all its soldiers. Killed its children, and their fonking interfering mothers.”

  Another crack to the back of Dan’s head sent him staggering. Krato turned the gun on the closest of the moms. “They’re going to be so upset when they see what happened to you all,” he said.

  Then, just before he could pull the trigger, a tiny transvestite punched him in the eyeball.

  “Didn’t see that coming, did ye, ye shoitebag?” Artur spat. He sank his teeth into Krato’s eyelid while stamping down on the bridge of his nose hard enough to splinter the bone. “Yer fecking slowdown thing wore off. Not so tough now, are ye?”

  Krato smashed the gun into his own face, knocking the wind out of Artur while fully destroying his own already broken nose.

  Artur managed to wheeze out a brief, “Ye bastard,” before Krato tore him off and tossed him onto the ground.

  A bare foot thwumped into Krato’s groin, doubling him over. He fired wildly with his gun, but Dan knocked it aside with his one remaining forearm and followed up with a headbutt when Krato tried to straighten up.

  “S-stay back!” Krato babbled. He held up the same cigarette lighter-sized device as earlier and waved it around for everyone to see. “You think I didn’t prepare for this?” he shrieked. “You think I wasn’t ready for you fonking people? Ha! I’ve prepared for this for months! For years!”

  He pointed to the kids. “Ask them about the implants. Hmm? About the devices I put in their heads.”

  He stumbled past Dan and into the street, blood spurting from his now utterly ravaged nose. From the way he kept gagging and coughing, even more of it was flowing backward down his throat.

  “Explosives!” he said, his face twisting in glee. “There are bombs inside their heads. All I have to do is push this button and KABOOM! It’s raining kiddie-brains.”

  Artur growled and clenched his tiny fists, but Dan shouted him down before he could do anything stupid. “No one moves,” he said. “Artur, Ollie? No one moves.”

  “Listen to him,” Krato suggested. “He’s shizz-ugly and he fonking stinks, but he knows what he’s talking about here. Anyone moves and the kids are dead. Hell, the explosions might take out all of us, I don’t even know.”

  He backed off further, waving the device in front of him like a shield, which it was, more or less. “I’m going to go now,” he said. “I’m going to go before the Tribunal arrives. They’ve already paid me for the first delivery, you see? Enough for me to get off this planet and start again somewhere new. Somewhere fresh. It’s a shame that things didn’t work out exactly how I wanted, but I guess even I can’t win them all.”

  He shrugged, then grinned through his mask of blood. “Still, compared to you guys, I’m king of the fonking world. Say hello to the Tribunal for me,” he said. “You know, before they execute you all for—”

  A spaceship landed on him.

  It came down suddenly, and with enough force to make Krato’s insides become his outsides. And vice versa.

  Dan grabbed for the detonator as it was thrown into the air, but his lack of hands made catching it impossible.

  “I got ye!” Artur cried, lunging for the device and wrapping his arms around it before it could hit the ground. “Oh, thank feck,” he sighed, sinking to the ground and letting the detonator clatter harmlessly onto the asphalt beside him.

  The kids were safe. Krato was spectacularly dead.

  That just left the ship.

  “Sorry. Our fault,” called a man’s voice from inside. “We totally didn’t see that guy.”

  There was some whispering from the ship’s speakers.

  “Uh, I mean we totally aren’t aware of any guy who may or may not have been under the ship when it – and I use this term generously – landed.”

  “Who the feck is this now?” asked Artur. He looked across to Marnie and the moms. “Ye got anything to do with this?”

  Marnie just shook her head, transfixed by the greenish-gray ship before them.

  “Peaches? Ye got any idea?”

  “I think it’s a spaceship,” Ollie said.

  “Points for observation, at least,” he said. “Deadman? Do ye know who this is?”

  “Guess we’re about to find out,” Dan said, gesturing with a stump to where a ramp at the back of the ship was descending.

  For a long time, nothing happened. And then, just when it looked like nothing was going to happen, something did.

  A ball of green slime trundled down the ramp and stopped at the bottom. Two wide and worryingly human-looking eyeballs gazed out from inside its gelatinous body. They flitted from Ollie to Artur, before finally settling on Dan.

  “Well, I was not expecting that,” Artur said. “Ye think he comes in peace? Should we t
ake him to our leader? I don’t know the official protocol here, like.”

  A man in a tan leather jacket descended the ramp, waving like a rock star and grinning at… well, everything. “There he is!” the man said, pointing at Dan. “There’s my number one zombie detective guy.”

  “Ye know this arsehole, Deadman?”

  Dan shook his head. “Never seen him before in my life.”

  “Aha! See, that’s where you’re wrong. Name’s Cal. Cal Carver. We’ve met.”

  “We haven’t,” Dan insisted.

  “We have. You gave me and some of my friends fake ID when we got stuck on this shizzho… On this fine planet a while back. But there were some time travel shenanigans that messed with the past, which messed with the future, and blah, blah, blah. The point is, we’ve met. I like to think we became pretty close friends in our own way.”

  Dan sighed. The Tribunal sirens were getting closer. He didn’t have time for this shizz.

  “I don’t have time for this shizz,” he said, making that point very clear.

  “I know, I know,” said Cal. “You’re clearly in the middle of…” he gestured at the chaos around them. “…whatever this is. But here’s the thing.”

  He beckoned up into the ship. “Come on, Ronda. Don’t be shy. You already know what happens.”

  An elderly woman with permed gray hair and yellow skin descended the ramp with a surprising amount of grace. Cal tried to take her arm to lead her over to Dan, but she sidestepped past him and strode across unsupported.

  “This is Ronda. She’s a nun,” Cal explained.

  Dan glanced down at Artur, then across to Ollie. “Uh, OK.”

  “But, like, a magic nun,” Cal said.

  “I’m not magic,” Ronda corrected. “I have limited precognitive abilities, and I am able to see damage to the timeline.”

  “Maaagic space nuuun,” Cal whispered, waggling his fingers mysteriously. “She also makes awesome spit nibbles.”

  “I can help others see that damage, too,” Ronda said. “Would you like me to show you?”

  “Not really,” Dan said.