Emergence

by William Vitka

  Catarina isn’t ready to treat the Hroza like pets. She doesn’t trust them at all. But she does trust Caleb. So she rides her own monster like a horse. Grips spiky protrusions from the thing’s carapace as though they’re made for her hands.

  She tilts forward. “Put me on your kin’s back. I will end him.”

  The creature she rides bucks and shakes as it dodges an attacking Corrupted.

  Catarina jumps. Flies over two insane monsters. Uses her Grace to soar. She reaches out. Grabs onto the Corrupted. Hauls herself up with one hand. Perches herself on its back.

  She screams. Her heavy machine thrums. She pulls the trigger. Sets the blades spinning. Feels the cutter get hungry. She holds it down. Pushes it into the neck of the Corrupted.

  The giant beneath goes batshit. Frightened. It drags itself along the cave wall. Tears its own flesh against the rocks to free itself of Catarina.

  She dodges as well as she can, but it’s not enough.

  A sharp outcropping punches into her shoulder. She shrieks. Pain and surprise. Goes careening, tumbling from the back of the Corrupted.

  The Corrupted grabs her ankle with its tentacle. Revenge in its alien eyes. It dangles her over its mouth. A tasty morsel.

  The titan drops her.

  Catarina plummets toward the creature’s dark maw.

  She reaches out at the last second. Grips one of the space fucker’s big teeth. Crawls up over its lip before the jaw can slam shut and scissor her in half. She jumps. Cutter extended. Lands on the Corrupted’s right eye.

  She pushes the big saw into white tissue. Grits her teeth as the eye pops and douses her with gore.

  She thinks, Yeah. Come on down. Try to break us.

  Just try it.

  She dives in. Cursing and covered in blood. She takes a shortcut. Goes right into the skull. She kicks with her legs. Like swimming in mud.

  She revs the cutter. Creates an entrance into the brain case. She enjoys the violence there. Turns the fatty grey meat of the Corrupted’s head into a thick Slushee.

  It’s so much fun.

  She cuts her way down into the mouth. Marches triumphant between its teeth. Walks on its dumb dead tongue like a wretched red carpet.

  Man, she’s good. And she knows it. She saunters out of the thing’s broken face into the darkness of the den. She looks up from the bottom of the pit. Sees Caleb still clinging to Three. The sunlight above. The other four Corrupted clawing their way to street level.

  Jack’s on the back of one Corrupted.

  With a roaring chainsaw and a shotgun.

  Jack hollers. “I liked them better when they were underground.” He plows the Husqvarna into the winged thing’s neck. “Hipster joke. I’m still funny. Shut up.” He discharges both barrels of buckshot into the eye of another Corrupted nearby. “Man, I fuckin wish I could justifiably do that to Hipsters...”

  Catarina grins. Three’s tendrils wrap around her.

  Bring her topside to pursue the fleeing Corrupted.

  Chapter 41: Emergence

  Jack laughs. “Gang’s all here.”

  He says this just in time to be plucked away from his perch by a Corrupted tentacle and tossed through the air.

  Jack’s got a lotta talents.

  But flying ain’t one of them.

  His voice follows him as he pinwheels. “Stupid dogdicking cocksucker aliens.” He comes to a bumpy, painful stop atop a six-story apartment building nearby. Jack picks himself up. Laments the giant tear down the leg of his jeans and the blood flowing freely. He marches on the white tiling of the roof. Glad he didn’t collide with the air conditioning units.

  Coulda been even more ouchy.

  He stands on the edge of the roof. Shotgun in one hand. Chainsaw in the other. He looks out to the battlefield of Bay Ridge. The madness of the fight.

  Jack calls to the Corrupted who chucked him. “We ain’t done yet, motherfucker.”

  The Corrupted obliges. Charges the building. Smashes cars and buses in its way.

  Jack jumps back. The giant beast’s teeth click together in the air where he’d been standing. He opens up with both barrels. Shatters bone in the monster’s mouth.

  The Corrupted pulls its head away. Shakes it. A dog with an itch it can’t reach. It lowers its face.

  Jack sees his chance. Dives to avoid one whipping tentacle. Then another. He scrambles to his feet. Throws himself off the roof. Lands again on the Corrupted’s neck. He uses the chainsaw as a climbing tool. Uses its teeth so he can find purchase against its bucking.

  He tears into its neck with the chainsaw. Gives himself an opening into the head. But he can’t kill it here. Too many folks below.

  People scramble. Try to avoid the big crushing legs of the Corrupted.

  Soldiers on the street open fire. Send bullets whizzing into the Corrupted’s hide and past Jack’s skull.

  “Son of a dick,” Jack shouts. “Stop trying to shoot me.”

  He slices into the beast’s skull. Crawls toward its eyes. Pulls the triggers on the shotgun. Blows the left eye out in fleshy chunks. Milky pieces. The Corrupted howls.

  Jack’s guts shake.

  “Yeah. Welcome to New York.” Jack grabs the hanging veins for both eyes. Uses them as reins. Makes the creature walk the way he wants. Out to the Hudson. Under the Verrazano. Where nobody will be hurt.

  He steps forward. Leans out the leaking eye cavity.

  Hell of a view.

  It’s like riding a big, walking building. Beautiful. He can see over almost everything. The parks and the stores. The people and the bridge. Cars stalled and abandoned in haphazard zigzag patterns. Gawkers staring without believing. More pictures and videos being taken with cell phones.

  He yanks at the Corrupted’s optic nerves. Brutal. He knows the thing feels it.

  Jack guides it to the Belt Parkway. Across the asphalt. The Hudson River.

  They entered the swirling water. Every time the Corrupted fights back, Jack rips on the veins hard enough to snap a few. The churning waves seep into the skull cavity. Lap against Jack’s boots. He drops them.

  Shotgun in one hand, chainsaw in the other, he kicks the right eye.

  The Corrupted screams. Static filled Jack’s mind. He turns the shotgun up. Unloads into the thing’s brain. The static stutters. He kicks again. Shoves his steel-toed boots through the white pulp. The eye bursts. Explodes outward. Adds a white layer of goo to the waves of the Hudson.

  More screaming and static. Jack revs the chainsaw. Starts cutting irregular patterns in the brain case above him. Because this thing has to suffer. Has to die for what’s been done to his home and his family.

  The Corrupted stops. Wheezes. Farts. Dies.

  They float on the waves.

  Jack looks out from its head to the frigid river.

  He drops the Husqvarna. Almost sheds a tear over it. It has no gas left and it’s unlikely to survive the trip to land anyway. Water and power tools being the enemies they are.

  Jack climbs out of the Corrupted skull. Clings to the weird protruding bone above the thing’s eye. Only reason he doesn’t start swimming is the ammo in his pockets. Shells for the shotgun and cartridges for the Colt will be useless after a dip.

  So he stands. On its head. Under the Verrazano. In the middle of the Hudson. Hoping there’ll be an NYPD patrol boat nearby so he can get back ashore and back into the kill.

  Sure enough, there is.

  He hops down off the dead head of the Corrupted. Lands with a huff in the boat.

  Cops and troops want to shake his hand. They saw how he killed two monsters and, man, they’re sorry about trying to shoot him before. But, y’know, you gotta be careful when you see some kid walking around with a fat gun on his thigh.

  And who’s the pretty girl fighting with him?

  Well, she’s spoken for.

  And the little kid?

  His brother.

  Jack shakes a couple hands. Lets some rookie look at the Colt. Says, “Can we focus on the
task at hand, guys?”

  * * *

  Caleb pats the sides of Three’s head. Like a big dog. “You guys need to pin her. Get her on the ground. You need to get me in her head. We can’t fight her physically. She shreds anything near her.”

  Three says, “I am aware, human. Obvious things are obvious.”

  Half the Hroza have already died trying to restrain Big Momma.

  Caleb gets a look at her. Big Momma is big. Twice the size of any of the Corrupted or Hroza. Two hundred feet long. Bright red while the others are so dark they might as well have been black. She has more thin feeders. Tentacles. A belly that looks pregnant.

  Caleb shudders. Wonders what writhing little nightmares might wriggle out of her.

  She leaps into the air. Flaps her enormous wings. The gusts of wind blow trash and cars around on the ground. Soldiers dive for cover before opening fire on her.

  The bullets do nothing.

  Caleb meets her eyes.

  Her obscene skull face grins. Hello, Caleb.

  She flies toward the river. The Verrazano Bridge. Bright red insanity, soaring over businesses and homes. A prehistoric beast in the wrong time.

  She snakes her tentacles around the first bridge tower. Suspends herself there. Starts to spread along the road. Big Momma’s feeder tendrils squirm out. She’s laying roots. The tower begins to look like a cocoon. A sick womb.

  She plucks up people and cars near her. Hurls the metal away before plugging into the back of each person’s head. She infects them. Puts an awful parasite inside them to take them over.

  Big Momma sets the once-people down. A couple dozen. She gives them all a nudge to set them on their way. Idiot puppies.

  The infected march into Brooklyn.

  And then the terrible bitch starts to give birth.

  * * *

  Catarina ducks between the legs of titans. Avoids being smashed by any chitinous appendages. She uses her Grace to hack out the joints of the last remaining Corrupted.

  She climbs over ruined cars. Cracked roads. Sometimes, bodies whose faces she tries not to look at for fear she might recognize them.

  The carnage done by sparring giants is insane. Shops nearby are flat. Others are on fire. Hell, none of the trees in the park are even standing anymore.

  She hunts Corrupted. Climbs one of their kraken’s rear legs. The beast’s pockmarked shell has enough holds for her feet and hands. When she gets to the first knuckle of a leg, she revs the big cutter and goes to work. The flesh unhinges. The big leg begins to fall. She drops with it. Rolls to safety.

  She skids to a stop amidst debris and blood. The rear end of the Corrupted dips. The creature loses its balance. Stumbles.

  The Hroza surround it. They punch into the meat of the Corrupted. Rip at it and pierce it and puncture it while it screams. They tear its limbs off. A thick load of viscera gushes across the ground.

  Only thing left now is Big Momma. The queen perched up there on the Verrazano. Some massive alien spider squid in a red web of flesh.

  Caleb waves his arms at her from atop Three. Shouts. “They’re coming from the river.”

  Catarina wipes monster blood from her face. “What’s coming from the river?”

  “Infected people. Zombies.”

  “You’re shitting me.”

  * * *

  Elie’s got his back against the wall in the sewer.

  He listens to the madness outside. Knows, in some weird way, that his daughter is fine. Fighting, but fine.

  He has the M4 carbine across his lap.

  He counts the various discolored splotches around him.

  He’s terribly bored.

  * * *

  Jack hits shore with his squad of cops and soldiers. A seventeen-year-old leading five professionals onto the Belt Parkway. They watch Big Momma. Watch her turn New Yorkers into parasite people. Watch her turn the first tower of the bridge into a nest. Watch her force something dark and wriggly from her birth canal.

  Jack shivers. Wonders what Corrupted sex is like. Can’t be fun. Giant alien wangs and hoohas ramming each other like crashing cars. He shivers again.

  A group of infected shamble their way toward him and his troops.

  Jack yells to his men. “The parasite sets up shop in the brain. Destroy that, you destroy the ghoul. Aim for the head. Like the movies. And don’t let them bite you.”

  One of the soldiers readies his assault rifle. “They’re zombies, man.”

  “Little more complicated than that.” Jack spins the Colt in his right hand. Hefts the shotgun in his left. “But, uh, similar in principle.”

  The group of infected balloons to several dozen as they bite more people on their way down the Belt. Shit spreads fast. Mind-bogglingly so. Now they’re almost running. Bad sign.

  NYPD officers and army soldiers pour fire on both sides of Jack. A hundred rounds of heavy metal goes screaming at the infected. Flowers of blood blossom on the enemies’ arms. Legs. Chests. Only four of the walking dead receive bullets to the brain.

  Jack says, “The heads, butterdicks.” He fires six rapid shots from the Colt. All perfect. He blows out the back of six infected heads. “Not that hard, and they’re not that fast. Take your time.”

  The troops chose their shots. Fire in short, controlled bursts. Pop the heads of infected almost as fast as Jack can.

  He reloads. Snaps open the Colt’s cylinder. Grins while his guys destroy the remaining parasite people. The boys can shoot. They just need some motivation.

  All that remains of the walking dead are splashes of red and broken skulls.

  This side of the Belt Parkway, anyway.

  To their left, there are more. A hundred goddamn more headed into Brooklyn.

  Jack rallies his men. “Gentlemen, we have monsters to kill.”

  * * *

  Catarina kicks a tottering corpse in the chest. Knocks it back into another pack of zombies. She spins up the cutter. Plunges the whirling blade into the infected heads around her. Splits fat juicy melons.

  She isn’t worried until they start to change. Mutate. First it’s a couple who move faster. Jog instead of shamble. Another couple starts running. Now they’re doing weird shit. Their arms and legs stretch out. They walk on all fours. Their faces lose flesh. Tendrils whip around toothy grins. Like the stilt-walkers from Halloween night.

  The infected are evolving. Starting to look a hell of a lot like the Corrupted.

  Catarina jerks back as one of the stilt-walkers attacks her with a spear-like leg. She swings the cutter in a quick arc as the monster gallops by. Her tool slices through one of its legs. It trips. Skids against the ground.

  She snaps one of its back legs under a boot heel at the joint. The stilt-walker rears its head. Mewls. The tendrils along its mouth quiver. She plunges into its sallow skin with the power tool. Then she crushes its skull with her steel.

  The cutter chugs. Out of gas. She drops it in the gore.

  There’s a howl behind her. A long bark, almost a whale song.

  Two more stilt-walkers bear down on her.

  She plants her feet. Adopts a combat stance. Holds the machete at the ready. She waits for the damn things to come so she can hack off some appendages and stomp their brains.

  They charge. Weird bulls of twisted flesh and bone.

  Catarina jumps between their brutal attempts to pierce her and maul her. She swings the machete. Lops off limbs without trying.

  She drives the blade up. Into their awful torsos. Across their bodies. She gives them the wounds of an autopsied cadaver. Their guts gush out in hot piles.

  She steps high to avoid the mess.

  Caleb is above her. A field general riding Three. He commands the remaining Hroza. Suggests tactics. Where to stomp. Which targets will help to stop the flood of undead.

  She remembers babysitting him with Jack and Patrick.

  Now he’s telling ancient monsters what to do.

  * * *

  The Caleb of three months ago would prob
ably spend his time squealing in terror right now. Maybe peeing himself. There’s also the possibility he’d get an inopportune boner from rough-riding the Hroza. Crotch friction and all. Bouncing. Whathaveyou.

  But he rides tall. Three is his massive warhorse. Twelve-year-old Caleb commands. Bops Three on the head. “Kill that one. Faster the infected are gone, faster we get to Big Momma. Gotta stop that thing coming out of her. But we also can’t let these get farther into Brooklyn.”

  Three is obedient. So are the other enormous creatures.

  The Hroza smash the infected. Wrap their tentacles around them and rend them. Squeeze the heads until they pop with a thick splorsh.

  It’s amazing and sickening.

  And it’s almost done. Almost time.

  A few more shambolic husks whose brains need ventilating.

  Then they’ll march. Between hooting, cheering New Yorkers. March to the bridge. To Big Momma. He and Catarina and Jack astride Hroza.

  They can end it.

  After all of this.

  They can finally end it.

  * * *

  Jack led his squad over the small hillock between the Belt Parkway and Bay Ridge proper. Where the action is.

  He double-fists it. Shotgun in his left hand. Colt in his right.

  They’ve taken out sixty of the parasite people. Aren’t too many left to put down before going after Big Momma and that writhing thing she’s pushing out of her alien cooter. Maybe twenty more shamblers.

  He tells the cops and soldiers to regroup with their own. He thanks them. They hurry off. Take out a few more monsters as they go.

  Jack walks, calm and confident, through the center of the insanity. He uses the Colt to headshot any infected in range. He blows out a stilt-walker’s front two legs with the shotgun. Crushes its head as he reloads.

  Catarina sidles up beside him. “Hey, Cowboy.”

  “Cowgirl. How goes the kill?”

  “Splendid.”

  “Lovely.”

  They kiss. Then put more bodies on the ground.

  * * *

  Elie takes potshots at cockroaches near him. He uses the red dot sight on the M4. Explodes about seven of the scurrying critters into individual cockroach molecules.

  He’s pretty sure a few of them were straight-up vaporized, leaving no twitchy legs or smears of goo. Just a black mark from the bullet’s impact.