by Andy Remic
“You got another headache?”
“Mm.”
“I got some painkillers! In the sack! You want me to dig you out a pill?” Franco’s eyes gleamed.
“It’s a headache, Franco; the last thing I need is one of your psychedelic drug trips. No, I’ll pass, thanks. The pain’s not bad, just there, nagging at me like a wife with a new credit card.”
“That’s not politically correct,” snorted Franco.
“But correct,” said Keenan, baring his teeth. “You’ll learn, mate. When you marry one of your two, ahh, chosen ladies. Unless, of course, you marry them both.”
Franco eyed Olga warily, then climbed into the Corvette beside her, scrunching his frame into the narrow slot now available. Olga shuffled, with a big toothless smile. Then, she lifted an arm and placed it ponderously across Franco’s shoulders, nearly buckling the small chap under the weight of her bicep.
“You gotta be joking,” mumbled Franco, eyeing Olga’s tattooed knuckles as he tried to get comfortable beside her titanic, heaving bosom; and tried his damnedest not to meet Keenan’s chuckling, over-critical stare.
~ * ~
“It’s blocked,” said Knuckles, as the Corvette stuttered to a halt, tyres grinding loose rubble. They stared at the alley, where two low apartment buildings had collapsed into one another, merging, to form a three-storey pyramid of rubble.
“Other ways?” said Keenan. They could still smell fire. It smelt stronger now, and tangy with a secondary, acid stench. Keenan was sure he could hear the moaning of zombies.
“Yeah. One.”
Keenan reversed the Corvette, struggling to see past Olga’s width. They skidded into a narrow cross-roads, and the hackles on Keenan’s neck suddenly lifted. Behind them, advancing swiftly and in complete silence, was a wall of zombies.
“Keenan!” wailed Franco.
“I see them,” he growled, and slammed his foot to the floor. The Corvette cut out with a grunt, and a backfire crack of unspent fuel. The zombies, seeing fresh meat stranded, accelerated.
Keenan turned the starter. It grumbled, rattling like a spanner in a turbine.
“Keenan!”
“We go now,” said Olga, eyes wide, brows furrowed. “Ze zombies come! Oh my!”
Keenan turned the starter again, pumping the pedal. Fumes exploded from roof exhaust as zombies flooded past the vehicle, several leaping to grasp the back. Wheels turned, tyres spinning, as Franco struggled to drag free his Kekra and unloaded a hail of bullets into twisted, elongated deviant faces...
A roar went up, from all around. It was like a battle cry, the roar of an advancing army, a war host of terrifying and epic proportions. To Keenan, it sounded a million miles from the simple zombie moans of the movies... the simple cackle of brainless undead.
The Corvette lurched, engine screaming, and sped down the street. Five zombies clung to the Corvette’s tailgate, and Franco unleashed a hail of bullets into their faces, destroying eyes, eating away grey, sickening flesh, but still they hung on with the tenacity of a yappy terrier. Franco clambered over the boot and started hammering at grey-flesh fingers sporting long, twisted talons with the butt of his Kekra as Olga grabbed the back of his pants to stop him toppling from the bouncing, juddering vehicle.
“That way!” screamed Knuckles, pointing—
As another horde of zombies flooded, like a rampant evil enema, into the street before them, hands bearing weapons which flexed and opened fire. Bullets whined and zipped everywhere as Keenan dragged on the steering wheel, and tyres squealed, squirming on warped rims. The arse of the Corvette slammed a wall sending a shower of sparks over the thumping Franco. Franco squawked, almost tossed free. Only Olga saved him. He glanced back into her wide, brutal, flat face. He could see sweat gleaming on the stubble of her upper lip. “Thanks!” he breathed. She winked at him, and his insides lurched like a lard-fried breakfast on a hungover wedding morn.
Keenan fought the Corvette Scrambler as it thundered down another alleyway. The huge bumper smashed through barrels and crates, then slapped the flesh of a zombie, tossing the body into the air like a broken ragdoll. More zombies stumbled into view, several opening fire. Keenan hunkered down behind the wheel as the Corvette’s bumper whacked and smacked, crushed and tossed. Zombie bodies were hurled into the sky, crunched against dirt-smeared brick walls; were flung up and over the thundering Corvette. One flipped, caught a foot in the front bumper, and slammed onto the bonnet, inverting metal, its head cracking the windscreen. Keenan watched, heart in his mouth, as the skull gaped like a piranha’s mouth and black brains oozed free, dribbling. The zombie looked up, grinning a long-fanged grin at Keenan and he felt it, his sanity, teetering on the brink of an abyss. “Hold the wheel,” he growled at Knuckles, stood in his seat, and slammed five bullets into the grinning face. The body flipped to one side, leg torn free and slapping like a heavy rag against the front of the Corvette. Keenan tried to ignore it, but it nagged at his peripheral vision like an obtuse drunk in a posh restaurant.
“Not far now,” said Knuckles. “Around the next bend.”
Keenan nodded. “How you doing back there, Franco?”
“The bastards...” he slammed his Kekra against the last of the fingers, which finally parted with a soft squelching of necrotic flesh, “just don’t know when to let go.” He turned, panting, cheeks flushed red. “Shit Keenan, this ain’t a fun gig by any stretch of the imagination.”
Keenan glanced in his mirror. He tapped his chin. “Better see to the beard, Franco.”
“What? Why?” Franco frowned, and combed fingers through the ginger monster. He knocked free a grey severed finger which tumbled into the footwell. “Aiiee!” he screamed. “A finger! A finger!”
“Let me soothe you,” rumbled Olga, and took Franco in a bear hug.
Keenan grinned sombrely, and focused on driving. Clouds of heavy smoke were filtering into the street. He slowed his speed, veering suddenly to thud over another zombie. Tyres crushed flesh, and Keenan blinked, trying hard not to think that these devourers of flesh had once been human.
The smoke thickened.
“OK, up ahead,” said Knuckles, “be ready!”
The Corvette slammed round a tightening bend, rear tyres squirming, and Keenan almost hit the brakes in shock. Ahead, stood a massive ornately carved stone edifice, a circular building filled with pillars and wide buttresses of stone. It sat on a raised plinth at the head of broad sweeping steps of finest gold and white marble. High long windows looked down over a plaza of manicured lawns and trees, an extravagant luxury in a place where every square inch was worth billions to developers. It just went to underline how affluent The Great Malkovitch Library really was, but then, it was an addendum to The Great Malkovitch University, and that was renowned as being academically elite to the point of farce through the Quad-Gal in its entirety.
And... the library burned.
The sculpted, tree-lined plaza before the library was filled from edge to edge with thousands upon thousands of zombies. Every creed, colour, shape and size was catered for. Every wound, deformation, amputation and decapitation was on show. It was a fairground of freaks. A party for the forcibly deformed. A unity of unwilling undead.
“Hell,” breathed Keenan, lost in awe. Already his foot was lifting from the accelerator...
“Keep driving!” howled Knuckles. Keenan glanced in the rear view mirror to see a charging wall of snarling, growling, hate-filled faces only inches from the Corvette’s rear bumper. He slammed his foot, and the bonnet lifted, engine surging, the Scrambler slamming towards the massive gathering of zombies filling the street, the plaza and the whole world before them.
Closer, they saw a pyramid of flammable materials had been stacked against the front wall of The Great Malkovitch Library—a bonfire of terrible proportions spanning perhaps two or three hundred metres. Flames roared, and the zombies cheered, waving guns and chainsaws at the sky as fire scorched stone and ornate pillars.
Knuckles grabbed
Keenan’s arm. Pointed. “Down the side. There. I know a way in.”
“You been a busy boy, here?”
“I was a busy boy everywhere,” smiled Knuckles, face grim.
The Corvette approached the wall of zombie flesh, and Keenan saw where a few over-eager, partying zombies had got too close to the flames and self-ignited. Still they danced and jiggled, waving flaming hands above flaming, blackened heads. Engulfed in fire, and seemingly celebrating some unrecognisable victory, this sight of denial and sub-animal stupidity chilled Keenan to the core and cemented in his mind that these were nothing like the zombies of fiction. Whatever these creatures were, they were different, the product of some terrible experiment perhaps, some disfiguring virus, or even the deviated biomods blamed by the press; whatever, the results were very, very dangerous.
The Corvette skidded at speed, rearing on two wheels like some unstoppable juggernaut. Tyres squealed and deformed to the brink of detonation. The zombies close by, those that had spotted the Corvette, roared and waved weapons, many opening fire. Bullets pinged and zipped from heavy calibre guns. Keenan prayed, keeping the motor revving high, as the Corvette touched down, ramming the necrotic wall with its front left bumper and sending figures toppling like skittles. For a moment Combat K ploughed through ranks of zombies, bodies falling and bouncing from the charging Corvette. Then they were free, rear wheels skidding and squirming in blood and pulped flesh, and sending the groundcar slewing on aged suspension.
They shot down the side street, the library rearing to their left, pillars thum thrum thrumming; they were level with a high windowless wall which formed the library’s bulk. “Stop!” screamed Knuckles, and Keenan slammed the brakes, pitching the group forward in seats. Franco grunted, engulfed for a moment by Olga’s flesh.
“Why here?” Keenan was loathe to leave the vehicle. It was sanctuary.
“We’ve got to climb,” said Knuckles, rubbing at his skull. “I was going to take us in by the front door, but twenty thousand zombies kind of put me off the idea.”
Keenan nodded, and watched Knuckles leap free, search for a moment, then locate a practically invisible handhold. He started to scale the building, hand over hand, red gloss boots digging into narrow horizontal slots which, due to their angle of cut, blended nearly perfectly with the wall. To Keenan, it looked like they had been expertly chiselled. A professional job.
“You don’t like heights,” said Keenan, glancing at Franco.
“I’ll be fine. But what about Olga?”
“Olga climb!” boomed the huge woman. “Olga strong! Olga fit! Olga triumph!”
“OK,” said Franco. “But... no offence meant, you can go last. I wouldn’t want you on my head on the way down.”
Olga smiled slinkily. “Yes, little man, but on my way down on your head I make sure you come last! Har! You do make sexy chit chat with Olga, you naughty little man! Har har!”
Franco paled, then glanced up to where Keenan was scaling swiftly after Knuckles, who had stopped, shouting down instructions on how best to climb. Franco dug in fingers, and began his ascent. Within seconds his fingers were sore, his sandals finding scant purchase on the sheer stone wall. Olga followed close below him, not quite blocking out the ever-expanding view of the flood of zombies making their way down the alley. A few errant bullets whined past the climbers and Franco ducked, feeling suddenly, incredibly, vulnerable. The zombies seemed to be sniffing around the Corvette Scrambler, and glancing about—but not, most importantly, up. Franco kept this keen in his mind as he ascended and used it as a mental helve to urge him to extra speed. Amazingly, Olga stayed with him.
Keenan, halfway up now, gazed down—and out—over the darkened city streets spread beneath. His stomach lurched, and he glanced down at the hard concrete six storeys below. To fall now would be instant death, despite his WarSuit. And even if the fall didn’t splatter him into component atoms, the deviants would converge on his wounded frame and eat his brains. He shivered; then grinned a wild grin. Shit, he thought, but wasn’t this what life was all about? If you never experienced danger, then you never had anything by which to grade safety, and security, and happiness.
Half way. Another six storeys. And Knuckles was already leaping ahead, monkey-like in his agility and sure-footedness. You could tell he’d done this sort of thing before; probably many times.
Franco, on the other hand, was suffering badly. His fingers felt like blocks of lead. His toes and feet were rigid with cramp which made him want to cry out, but he didn’t dare, for fear of a rapid hail of bullets from below. And, worst of all, he needed a shit. Shit, he thought as he climbed, I don’t bloody believe it. Of all the times the human body can dump on you, halfway up a building with a horde of flesh-eating zombies below armed with Uzis and D5s has to take the chocolate biscuit. Hot diggity dog. Cabbage and bloody bollocks! He surged on, body screaming, bowel pummelling, thinking about the drugs in the canvas sack stashed in his pack. He would gorge himself at the top, yes! And the thought of a drug-induced heaven pushed him on...
Olga, also, was struggling. She was incredibly strong, with fingers that could crush any windpipe. But her huge bulk and weight were conspiring against her. And despite being surprisingly manoeuvrable for her size and girth, she was tiring. She glanced down. The zombies held little fear for her, despite her earlier protestation. Neither did the drop. Never a woman blessed with an incredible imagination, Olga had achieved most of her goals in life and, when push came to shove, accepted what fate had to deliver. Her main motivation, as she glanced up at Franco’s surprisingly muscular arse, was where this sudden impromptu meeting of boy and girl would conclude. Yes, he had spoken of another woman—his ‘girlfriend’. But Olga merely smiled at that, her huge, multi-poundage mam-maries wobbling with an almost innate and frightening AI. In Olga’s experience, there were few men who, when drunk enough, could refuse her charms. Like a Venus flytrap, once you were inside her powerful muscular embrace...
Well hell, there was no getting out.
The group climbed.
Below, the zombies worked diligently at detonating the Corvette.
~ * ~
Keenan reached the summit of the library a few minutes after Knuckles, and with a groan he crawled over the edge and slumped to rain-slick organo-glass. His stomach lurched again, for as he peered down he could see through every single internal floor and he felt like he was toppling forward and down, down and falling...
Knuckles grabbed him. “It helps if you close your eyes. Orientate yourself gradually.”
Keenan tried it, and felt stability return. He breathed deep. Steadied himself against the stone to his left, which was rough, textured, grainy under his glove. “I didn’t expect that. Twelve storeys, straight down. Shit. Glass floors. What a stupid idea.”
“I think it’s a security feature,” said Knuckles.
“Do you see anybody?”
Knuckles crouched, peering in different directions. “It seems mostly deserted down there. There’s a group of men, I think, near the main entrance at ground level. Probably worried about the fire eating through their defences.”
“Well, the damn deviants want something from in here. That much is obvious.”
“Yes,” said Knuckles, eyes stoic and older than myth. “Fresh brain.”
~ * ~
Keenan helped Franco over the ridge, just as the Corvette, far below, detonated with a boom. Fire rushed upwards, and with a squawk Olga accelerated and, her great behind aflame, toppled over the ledge and onto the organo-glass floor which rippled softly under her weight. There came a hiatus. Then she squawked again, and Franco ran over, patting at her flaming rump with hearty slaps that sent many a pound of rolling flab quivering across her great bottom.
Franco hopped about, patting and blowing. “I can’t believe they blew up the Corvette!” he scowled. “A mighty fine vehicle, that.” Pat pat, blow blow.
He stopped.
Keenan gave him a weak smile.
“What?” sai
d Franco. “What?”
Keenan shrugged, and Franco turned to meet Olga’s eyes. His hand was still touching her long extinguished bottom. She was smiling, showing crooked teeth, broken from far too many bar brawls.
“Please, carry on, Olga like,” she purred, although it was more the purr of a sabre-tooth tiger than that of felts silvestris catus.
“A ha haha,” said Franco, withdrawing his hand just a little too quickly.
“No, you continue, Olga much enjoy!”
Franco skipped backwards, and bumped into Keenan.
“Come on lad, we’re moving.”
“Yeah, Keenan. What we gonna do for transport now?” He gazed over, where they could see from their vantage the gathering of thousands of zombies in the alleyway. His implication was obvious. The game was getting more and more dangerous by the minute. Locating a groundcar was no longer going to be easy. Their mission had, it seemed, led them further into the heart of darkness. And there would be no Conrad to write a conveniently neat ending.