Because, y’know, fuck cockroaches anyway.
* * *
The parasite parade is halted. Stopped by three kids and three titans. A hundred and fifty corpses litter the ground.
Caleb tells Three, “Have your kin pick up Jack and Catarina. We need to take care of Big Momma.” He sees Jack and Catarina below. The lovers covered in so much blood they look like some kindergarten paint project.
Three says, “Why do we need them? You are introducing them to another threat. Involving them in more danger.”
“We need them for when she finishes birthing that new monstrosity. We’re gonna need their weapons, because we’re gonna be busy.”
Chapter 42: Big Momma’s House
The Tribe rides the three remaining Hroza toward the bridge and the big birthing bitch. Her meat cocoon engulfs the first tower. Her bastard child is nearly free.
Brooklynites cheer them on. Call to the Tribe from streets. Rooftops.
Jack, Caleb, and Catarina wave back. Seems like the right thing to do, since they’re apparently superheroes.
Jack bounces along on his Hroza. “This is bizarre and uncomfortable. Both our new fans and these horror horses. I want the Charger back.”
Caleb says, “We can get it later.”
Three tilts his enormous head to Jack. “You will not be riding us for more than a moment anyway, human. Enjoy the peace. Stop complaining.”
Jack gives Catarina a look. Can you believe the shit I gotta put up with?
She smiles. Shrugs. She’s more concerned with what’s going to happen next.
Jack tosses Elie’s shotgun to his brother. “This is gonna work?”
“No fuckin idea,” Caleb says.
* * *
Jack and Catarina hit the ground running. They watch as Caleb, Three, and his two remaining kin progress along the bridge.
Catarina snatches a loaded M4A1 from a fallen soldier along the on-ramp.
She jogs. Barrel down.
They slide up against a couple deserted cars blocking the six lanes of the Verrazano. One to the left and one to the right.
Big Momma’s outstretched flesh throbs along the bridge cables. Thick red vines along the steel that holds the roadway in place. The new flesh meant to bring an apocalypse.
The couple gets military.
Jack says, “Move.”
Catarina shoulders the M4. “Moving.”
Jack covers her. Colt in his good right hand.
She crouches next to a half-destroyed Volvo. Hugs its burnt-out husk. Sees a couple straggling parasite people. Puts them down with two straight shots of 5.556 to the brain. “Move.”
“Moving.” Jack sprints. Throws himself against another car fifty feet up. There’s something in the back. A baby. Infected. It struggles against the harness of its child seat. Bites at the air.
Jack says to himself, “It’s not a baby anymore. It’s not a baby.”
He puts the barrel of the Colt to the mewling thing’s head. “Move.”
* * *
Big Momma glowers at them from her meat cocoon on the tower. She sneers. Pushes her flesh out to corrupt more of the human world with jealous madness.
Caleb says, “Tell your kin to go left and right. Hit her midsection. Pin her. Just hold her. Stop her thinking. Interrupt her.”
The Hroza charge. Hit their mother-in-loathe on both sides. A monstrous crunch noise shakes the air.
She screams. Cries.
The Hroza dig their tentacles into her. Pull her flesh apart. Coil around her like living barbed wire. They spill her blood. She grunts and pushes.
Three darts forward. Pins her shoulders with his legs. He keeps his head tilted back to avoid her snapping skull mouth. Uses one of his tentacles to pick Caleb up and hold the boy above her. Right next to her eyes.
Caleb stands in the pad of Three’s tentacle. Shotgun over his shoulder. Defiant as he glares into her dark pupils.
Big Momma stares at his tiny form.
She laughs.
The red vines of her flesh shoot out. Tentacles with razor mouths. They plunge into Three’s two brothers like psychotic leeches. Burrow into the Hroza.
The Hroza feel themselves being invaded. Feel the mother Corrupted’s tendrils flood them. Pierce their organs. Tear apart their insides. They fight to hold her down while they die. Slow and painful.
They try.
Jack and Catarina open fire from behind crashed cars. They aim for the living red ropes. The bullets hit their marks. Snap the tendrils. But it’s too late.
The Hroza holding Big Momma shudder and heave. They fall between the bridge cables and splash into the Hudson.
Big Momma laughs again.
Three roars. He’s filled with a sudden rage at the sight of his kin bring slaughtered with such ease. He pulls one of his many arms back. Plunges it into Big Momma’s mouth. Makes her choke and gag.
She stops laughing.
The move is clumsy. Brutal. Effective.
Jack approves.
More of her red tendrils burst from the length of the bridge.
Jack and Catarina do their best to blow them out of the air. They curse as they reload. One sneaks by. Slams into Three’s side. It starts to chew into him.
Three says to Caleb, “Whatever you are going to do, human, do it fast.”
Caleb jumps.
He reaches out. Grabs the lower part of Big Momma’s eyelid with one hand. With the other, he hefts the shotgun. He shoves both barrels into the white of her eyeball. Pulls the triggers.
Boom.
Big Momma’s eye explodes. Releases a torrent of fluid that douses Caleb in putrid gore. The boy gags. Struggles to hang on as the flood washes over him. The flow slows. Stops. Caleb lifts himself into the leaking ocular cavity.
Three struggles to keep the mother Corrupted pinned. He can feel her tendril inside him. Worming its way around. Weakening him. “Hurry.”
Caleb nods.
* * *
Big Momma’s newest baby is born in blood.
It drops from her drooping birth canal between the columns of the Verrazano tower. Hits the pavement with a wet slap. It’s about the size of a large SUV. And it starts working to stand immediately.
“Mazel tov!” Jack says. “It’s a boy.”
Catarina says, “Actually, we don’t know that.”
“Sorry. I got my PhD in Shootology, not sexing giant squid spiders from space.”
“Doctor, please focus.”
“It’s okay, ma’am. I’m a scientist.”
They stops a few yards from the newborn—which has just figured out how its many legs work. The lil’ Corrupted stands somewhere between eight and ten feet tall. It has that fat skull head. Eight chitinous legs. The toothy feeder tentacles of its kin.
It sees Jack and Catarina. Makes a startled motion. Dips its head down and keeps its rear up in the air. A puppy that wants to play. It made a noise. Something between a growl and a yip. There’s a certain dopey Oh, hey, what’re these things? look on its face.
Catarina says, “You think we can, like, make it a good guy?”
“Turn it into a pet?”
“Yeah.”
“No. That would be sweet though.”
“Come on. Things aren’t born evil.”
“I get the impression these things are. And I’m sure it noticed us trying to sorta murder its mom.”
“Aw, but that noise it makes is cute.”
“Not cute enough.”
The baby Corrupted lets out another yip. Then something in its face changes. Its eyes narrow. It bares its teeth.
Catarina says, “It’s not cute anymore.”
The newborn nasty grins. Shrieks. Releases a barrage of mental static.
Jack and Catarina grab their heads. Close their eyes. Grimace. Fall to their knees. Trickles of blood dribble from their ears in thin rivulets. Catarina’s gift can’t protect them.
The thing stops. Retakes its puppy posture. Ass up.
Jack sha
kes the pain off. “That’s new.”
Catarina rubs her ears. “Makes sense though. The one born in space had a trait that made it undetectable. This one gets around my ability to block that sonic hell. Just another mutation to deal with us.”
“We’re dangerous enough that organisms force themselves to evolve to handle us. I’m kinda proud of that.”
“Yeah. So let’s start shooting.”
Catarina raises her M4. Unleashes a flurry of bullets.
Jack fans the hammer of his machine and brings thunder.
The baby Corrupted responds by scratching itself. Like it’s got an itch.
“Shit,” Jack says. “Wasn’t expecting bulletproof.” He reloads.
Catarina tosses her rifle to the side. Draws her machete.
The baby screams again. Jack and Catarina both think they’re going to die. Right there on the bridge while Caleb crawls around inside Big Momma’s head. The pain is too goddamn much.
More blood falls from them. From their ears. From their eyes.
Jack furrows his brow. “We are boned... Oh, wait.” His machine thunders twice more. Perfect shots that enter the baby’s eye sockets. The Colt .45 slugs bounce around its bulletproof skull. Turn its brain into mulch.
The newborn looks confused. Its face goes slack. It wobbles on its legs. Sneezes. Scratches its head with one long tentacle. Then its legs give up. It flops down. Lies still.
Jack lights a cigarette. Takes a long drag. Hands the smoke to Catarina and says, “PhD, Shootology.” He taps his chest.
Chapter 43: It’s Just Hotwiring a Monster
Caleb disappears into the nightmare of Big Momma’s skull. Wet and slippery. Hard to stay on his feet. He concentrates. Cranks the Engine. Reaches up. Grips a fistful of ganglia that lead to her brain.
He forces himself in.
* * *
Chaos and hate. Those two emotions roil and bubble over one another.
Caleb lands in the thick foaming sea of her insanity. He wants to cry out in pain and anguish, but doesn’t. He dives down. Deeper. Darker. Farther. A psychonaut.
Beneath it all, at the bottom of the inky ocean, is her jealously. The root. Her absolute disgust for humanity and the mammals who share the traits she believes to be hers and her kin’s.
We are the meddling, fumbling idiots of the universe.
We have no right.
Big Momma wants a holocaust. Genocide. Wants to get rid of everything she considers offensive about our existence and reclaim the planet.
Caleb touches her jealousy. It’s right there. A boiling bed under him. Black. Pulsing. An unending multitude of ropey worms that bloat up and then shrink. The whole mass of it breathes in unison.
He puts his palm flat against it. And then he does scream. A surge of her vile madness flows into him. An eternity’s worth.
She pulls him in. He’s crushed. Smothered.
Then he’s hurtling through a craggy tunnel. There’s red up ahead.
A throbbing flesh cavern surrounds him. Veins pump. Muscles contract. Sticky blood covers Caleb’s hands. Muck keeps his feet glued down. The walls of the chamber move. Drip. He hears enormous lungs inflating and deflating.
A heartbeat.
The scene snaps.
Walls of muscle press into his face.
Her consciousness is fighting him as though he’s an infection. Psychological white blood vessels scramble to protect her. But he can push back just as hard. Because of the Engine.
He imagines a crowbar in his hands. Uses it to puncture and separate the flesh walls that close around him. The meat relents.
Then he has a chainsaw. Ready to cut. Husqvarna, same model as his father’s.
That’s right. This awful bitch’s kid killed his father and his mother.
Nearly killed him and his brother, too.
Caleb lets the chainsaw eat.
Rotten thing.
Space spider squid bitch.
Who the hell does she think she is.
Caleb thinks all of this. Turns the walls of the flesh chamber into slick ribbons of viscera. He cuts himself a path through her mind’s defenses.
He goes to where she speaks. Thinks. Decides.
A circular throne room made of skin and bone and muscle. Bright organs with a red apocalypse star that spins overhead. Behind the sun, strings swirl. Ancient and huge and full of cosmic energy. The same damn strings she and her kin had sought.
Big Momma poses at the center of it all. Not as the huge beast she is. As a human. A naked Venus covered in blood. Perfect hourglass. Her wings spread. The tentacles along her back vibrate in a flurry.
Caleb’s chainsaw idles. “That’s hilarious. You hate us and then here you are. Taking our shape. No shit, jealousy. Look at you. You’re pathetic.”
She runs her hands across her body. Slick with red. Runs her hands across her heavy heaving breasts. Across her taut stomach. Her thick thighs. Between them.
The tentacles shimmer in ecstasy.
Caleb guns the chainsaw. “Give it a rest.”
She harrumphs. “Fine. I thought you would like that.”
“Lady, I’ve seen what you look like. Too many legs. Red tendrils pumping out of you. Baby cannon dangling over the bridge. I’m not gonna be fooled by this.”
“Why are you here, human?”
“To kill you.”
“How?” She crosses her arms. “I have laid waste to your friends. And even with this distraction, I am quite easily holding your Hroza at bay. Eating into him. Weakening him. He will fall soon. And while your own kin are adept at fighting, they cannot kill me. Nothing can. Especially not a bunch of hairless apes.”
Caleb cocks an eyebrow. “I’m gonna piss you off until you make a mistake. And then I’m gonna explode your brain. Two step process. I have all the time in the world. Time doesn’t even exist in our current state, you moron. We’re in your head. Thought travels faster than life. I can imagine anything, and then it’s real.”
She arches her eyebrows. “I am intrigued. Go on.”
“Okay, well, I’ve got this chainsaw here. So let’s say you come at me with a bunch of rusted barbwire tentacles from the walls or something. Silent Hill-style. If I can’t hack through them with the chainsaw, then I can just decide that my mental self has iron skin. Then, I can go after you with iron skin and a chainsaw. Hack away at your head.”
She considers it. “Then can I not imagine myself with rock skin and prevent your chainsaw from doing any damage?”
“In theory. Sure.”
“Then we are at a stalemate. Any violence you do toward me, I can counteract with an imagined defensive measure. And vice-versa.”
“No, actually we’re not at a stalemate. I’m a hell of a lot stronger than you.”
She stomps her bare foot. “How, child? How are you stronger? I have existed since before the sad myths of your rotten people.”
“Just am. It’s evolution, baby. I can outthink you. That’s my thing. You spent millions of years unchanged. Chasing some lunacy in the black, whereas my ancestors spent those millions of years breeding and adapting. You didn’t give birth until recently because you thought your kids would give you an advantage over me and my kin. They’re both dead, by the way.”
She screams. Launches a blitzkrieg of tentacles.
Caleb uses the chainsaw. Parries the attacks. Cuts the thick ropes as they come at him. He’s hit on the left. Jukes. Brings the saw up. Lets it chew down. Slices through dozens of red tendrils.
Caleb pants. “That’s it? You send some spikey vines after me? Me?” He shrieks this. Tries to play on her feeling of superiority. “You can’t kill me. I’ve only been around twelve years. Twelve years compared to your eons. And I’m the one tearing your existence to shreds. Because you suck donkey dicks.”
“What does that even mean?”
“It means, Hit me.”
The mother Corrupted changes shape. Becomes a lithe hound. All black. Her ribs show through her skin. Tendrils w
hip at her back.
Caleb climbs into a heavy steel exoskeleton. It’s yellow with metal claws. He catches Big Momma by the throat. Punches a metal claw up through her head. He shakes her. Bad dog. He tosses her to the ground.
She lies still.
“I can do this for as long as you want,” Caleb says. He steps out of the machine. “You want to take this planet over? Not gonna happen.”
Big Momma becomes her naked self again. She licks her bloodied lips.
Caleb says, “You’re gonna be killed by a child’s imagination.”
* * *
Jack kicks the dead body of the baby Corrupted. Colt out. He wonders if it can come back to life and try to kill them. “You know what I want?”
Catarina rolls her eyes. “What.”
“A chainsaw sword. How sweet would that be?” He mimics holding one. “Like in Warhammer.”
She sighs. Yeah. This is the man she loves. “Pretty sweet, I admit.”
“I mean, really, like how crazy awesome would that be? Swords are scary anyway. But one with a chainsaw. Around the whole blade? That’s pants-shittingly scary. Right? Totally owns.”
“Where would the fuel go?”
Jack shrugs.
* * *
Caleb slams the chainsaw sword into Big Momma’s midsection. She jerks. Flails. It tears open her stomach. Blood flies up in Caleb’s face. His mouth. He spits the gore back out into her wound.
He doesn’t see her rocky tentacle, but he feels it when it collides with the side of his head.
He goes sprawling. Tumbles end over end. Lands a few dozen yards from her.
He’s bleeding. A lot. And he’s worried he might have a skull fracture now. Worse, Caleb is getting tired. The Engine runs damn hot. Your mileage may vary.
The mother Corrupted stands back up. Wags a finger at him. She reaches down and collects her innards. Shoves them back where they belong. She runs a finger along the chainsaw cuts and then, tada, she’s good as new. “We are at an impasse. I told you. You will not have some simple victory here. Why not slink away and die like a good mammal.”
Caleb keeps his mouth shut. He sits cross-legged on the fleshy floor. He looks up to the nuclear star. The strings that shimmer behind it. He closes his eyes. Dips his head. Realizes he’s gone about this whole thing all wrong.
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