by Aaron Crash
Blaze triggered the ax and went to cut through the demon. He never got the chance. The kid’s eyes exploded in black ichor and his skin melted down off his bones to puddle between his feet. The bones themselves then liquefied, and all that was left of the boy was a soup in the mud, though the color of it reminded Blaze of the lakes he’d seen on their way toward Know Return.
“Blaze, can you read me?” Elle asked through comms.
“Loud and clear. Chthonic is still around. That spell-casting obsidian dragon was tough, but it wasn’t an archduke.”
They could communicate again, but comms was getting more and more iffy. When he looked in his display, his VHI readings flickered, disappeared and then flashed on again, blurry. Losing it would suck.
Blaze retrieved his shotgun and walked through dead corn toward the crane truck. In the distance, the zombie hordes were shuffling through the wasteland Granny had created with her circle of magnified sunlight. The corpse of the dragon stank up the landscape, but it was putrefying like the kid had, the bones melting like wax and creating another of those damn shimmering lakes of evil fluid.
“I can’t find Granny,” Elle said. “She was right here and now she’s gone. We made it though. We’re all okay.”
Blaze checked their flickering VHI in his combat display. Ling was at eighty-five percent, and Trina was at one hundred percent. Since she was Human at the moment, she had vitals. Elle was at sixty-six percent, but her mojo was low. Blaze didn’t bother with his own VHI, he was fine. He did check for Fernando and Cali, but both were out of range. Blaze was worried about them. And how was Bill and the Lizzie Borden? Were any of them still alive?
“Your mojo is low,” Blaze said to his sister. “Are you going to cast another consume spell or use the syringe?”
“No, Hermano, I’m kind of strung out on Onyx and getting loopy. The zombies are coming, but we have a minute. I was going to rest.”
Blaze ended the transmission when he pushed through stalks of yellow corn and approached the crane truck on the highway. The corpses of the undead, piles and piles, were trickling their goop down through the mud. All the liquid was forming one great big river on the south side of the highway, filling in the ditch that ran alongside the asphalt. The river flowed toward Know Return.
“What is that crap, Elle?” Blaze asked.
“Ectoplasm.” His sister bent down and stared into the running thick viscous fluid. “You’ve seen the lakes of it. I guess that’s what you get when you have a haunted planet. All of the Onyx energy can’t be contained in its metaphysical form and so it liquifies.”
Blaze sighed. “You sound like Fernando. I hope he’s okay. We’ve had no word from him or the Lizzie, and no sign of Cali.”
She stood and nodded. “Yeah, and if Granny bolts, I can’t find her. Where do you think she’s gone?”
Trina approached them, holding the cat. She came close and Blaze held them both for a minute. He kissed her ear. “You doing okay?” he asked.
Trina turned her head and kissed his lips. “I am. But the hunger is pretty bad. Elle is keeping me under control but Chthonic has started talking to me, whispering all sorts of crazy shit in my ear.”
“Let me guess,” Blaze said. “We’d all be happier dead.”
“That’s it. He said life is pain, and without it, you all would be so content. At times, I kind of believe it. Of course, thinking of your blood doesn’t help. Part of me is like, ‘Yeah, Blaze would be tickled pink if I sucked all the blood out of him and killed him. Then we could be together, forever, in death. Just two happy little vampires.’”
Blaze rolled his eyes. “That’s a complete load of romantic horsecrap. First of all, the dead don’t get to have sex. Secondly, I don’t think I’d enjoy cigars without healthy pink lungs. Lastly, beer and chorizo. I rest my case. I love life, baby. Don’t think I don’t.”
“So basically, it’s sex, cigars, and chorizo?” Trina giggled. “Did I get the order right?”
“You forgot beer,” Blaze said. “And it’s a tie for first place with all those things. And you and I still haven’t sealed the deal. So I got that to look forward to.”
“Yes, you do,” Trina said. “So you can tell your buddies you’re banging a vampire.”
Blaze grinned.
Ling trotted up with his plasma bow in hand. “Hello, Gunny, glad to see you. I saw you slay the dragon. I believe you would use the term epic. Yes, that was epic. I really enjoyed that moment. However, I think we should continue on toward the city.”
Blaze knocked fists with the Meelah. “Yeah, we should. But we have to gather up the starcycles and look for Granny. Not sure either of them will run. We’ve given them quite a pounding.”
The gunny glanced over at the cab of the crane truck. Patsy was bent over in the seat. He could hardly see her, but she seemed to be shaking.
“What’s up with our new girl?” Blaze asked.
Ling thought for several long minutes. “The cat does not like her. And she clings to her pain, though is it pain or is it a mask? While all of you Humans were having a sexual reaction to her, I see her as something of an anomaly. She is the only living thing we’ve encountered on this planet. Coincidence?”
Blaze shrugged. “I’m pretty sure if she comes for us, we can take her. But I’ll go talk to her. Innocent until proven guilty, right?”
The gunny had taken two steps toward her when Granny came walking down the highway. Her dress was ripped, her nylons were snagged, showing smooth brown skin, and her hair was mussed. She walked on her stilettos like a cat stalking a bowl of cream. She still had the cigar in two fingers, but the beer was gone. Her white hair glowed in the dim light.
Elle shook her head. “Here comes Granny. We need to have her tell us where the Onyx Gate is right away before she goes off again. Deal?”
“Deal,” Blaze agreed.
Granny was about fifty yards away, strutting, but slowly, like she wanted to bide her time. Of course she did. She was the reason why they were on the planet, and Granny liked an audience as only an alcoholic narcissist does.
The door to the crane truck banged shut.
Blaze turned, and his heart froze. Patsy walked up, the buttons on her blouse undone and even more cleavage showing. She’d stripped off her cutoffs and was in her panties, red and lacy. She walked barefoot, her toes a bright red, as red as her fingers, as red as clownishly painted lips, as red as the tip of her rouged nose. She’d lathered on white pancake makeup, and she’d pulled off the blonde wig she’d been wearing to reveal short green hair, shaved on one side. She had painted blue starbursts around her eyes.
And the chica wasn’t crying now. She was howling laughter. “Aww, y’all are fun to watch bein’ all heroic and shit.”
Chthonic’s words, when he was pretending to be the kid, came back to Blaze in an instant. Ain’t no one alive on Hutchinson Prime anymore, except for the Gorebacks.
A name drifted through his head, a name and picture on a wanted dead or alive poster. Pattie Cakes. As in Pattie Cakes Goreback.
Blaze lifted his shotgun, but he never had a chance to use it. Some huge guy, seven feet tall, three hundred pounds at least, but as quick and as lethal as a panther, slammed into Blaze. The guy stank like a gym locker with old socks rotting at the bottom. He was dressed only in overalls, but he too had clown makeup, big red lips, purple eyes, and a bulging ulcerous nose slathered in red paint. He had long greasy hair poorly dyed the dark green color of a muddy pond. When he grinned, he showed off his big yellow teeth.
Before Blaze knew it, electricity coursed through his system. The giant had a cattle prod in his fist, and it wiped out Blaze in seconds. He went to his knees, unable to move, but he could watch as his crew was taken down.
Another giant, this guy old, with a long matted purple wig and meaty wobbling biceps, popped up from the mud. He’d covered himself in filth, a little mud, a little pig poop, and had wiggled through the corn to get close to him. His pancake batter face was streaked with
mud, but he was wearing a goddamn fake red nose and had teardrops painted on his cheeks in bright blue paint. When he split his overly red lips to grin, he was missing every other tooth, though the yellow rotten teeth he did have had been filed into points.
The purple-wigged oldster caught Ling by total surprise, but the Shaolin sloth punched the guy in his throat. Too bad the oldster wasn’t alone. A massive woman with pendulous breasts dressed in a white clown onesie shoved Ling into the ectoplasm river. The liquid came alive, formed tentacles, and dragged Ling underneath. The Meelah could hold his breath maybe a couple of minutes but then he’d drown in the liquid Onyx.
Elle started a spell, but she never had the chance to finish it. Another man appeared. This guy was only six foot, but he was shirtless and muscled like an Olympic bodybuilder. Jeans covered his legs down to the chains of his biker boots. His long hair was green, red, yellow, black, dyed a hundred different colors, and his face was more mime than clown: whiteface with a plus sign under one eye and a minus sign under the other. Lips painted black. He too had a cattle prod and he jammed it into Elle’s neck. She fell, eyes rolling to show their whites.
Trina ran to help, but another Goreback tripped her. This one was an old woman with her skin hanging off her like thrift store clothes on a metal rack. Her thin hair was long, waist length, but you could see every bit of her scalp. Clown makeup covered the pits and valleys on her crone face. One hand held a cattle prod. The other hand was useless since it had long, filthy fingernails, so long that they curled around each other. The crone electrified Trina, and while she tried to change into a vampire the cannibal-toothed oldster rushed forward, scooped up Trina, and tossed her into the ectoplasm.
The guy who’d taken down Blaze seized Elle and threw her down next to him. His sister convulsed from the electricity coursing through her nerves. At least she wasn’t in the ditch. If they didn’t hurry, Ling would die. Trina might be okay, if she had vamped out in time.
Granny came charging forward. If there was anyone who could help them, it was that ancient crazy-powerful puta.
Rain abruptly poured down from the sky, and the ghosts followed. Ragged clothed phantoms raced down and hit Granny, sending the woman down to the highway. Ghost after ghost after ghost disappeared into her body, stopping her from casting spells, reducing her to a screaming mess of tears and curses. If anyone could survive a ghost attack like that, it would be Granny, but how much more disturbed would it make her? The cigar fell from her fingers and hit the pavement.
Raziel, the calico, went dashing off after the cigar from some reason.
The Gorebacks continued to bleat laughter.
Pattie Cake Goreback giggled. “Calhoun Goreback, they sure did like my titties and tears. You were right. Give a lesbo witch and a horny marine a little of the titty and tears act, and they just wanted to protect me and love on me.”
Calhoun, the guy with the Adonis muscles and dyed hair, barked laughter. “I’s just glad Uncle Upchuck took care of that Meelah motherfucker. Did y’all see him with his fusion nunchakus? Took out a powerful number of zombies. Quick too.”
Uncle Upchuck, the purpled-wigged huge old man, gurgled happily. “Had help from Auntie Lips. Right, Lips?”
The fat woman in the filthy clown onesie blinked and drew back her scarlet lips in a yellow-toothed smiling grimace. “Praise the Harlequin! Praise Borzor and give us meat and chaos!”
The big bruiser who’d taken down Blaze took up the call. “Praise Borzor. Dilly Donny loves Borzor. Me do! Me do! Me Dilly Donny and me do too! Mama Mayhem, do you do too? Mama? Do you do too?” He grunted and laughed and waved his ham-sized hands around like it was Easter and he’d found his very own basket full of chocolate bunnies.
“I do, Dilly. I do love Borzor.” The old woman with the waist-long thin hair and terrible terrifying clown makeup on her clownishly wrinkled face spit on Blaze. “Looky, Cal, looky at this big ol’ marine. He’s a-hating us. Thinks just ’cause he can kill a dragon he can kill us Gorebacks. He don’t know. We are beloved by Borzor. The Harlequin protects us and gives us meat. Even Mr. C pays homage to the Harlequin, and Mr. C is powerful, powerful, powerful.”
The crone’s spit dripped down Blaze’s cheek. His eyes went to their faces and he catalogued their names: Calhoun Goreback, Mama Mayhem, Dilly Donny, Pattie Cakes, Uncle Upchuck, and Auntie Lips. All Gorebacks. All clown-worshipping cannibals. And all were gonna die by his hand.
“Never have ate a witch,” Mama Mayhem cackled. “Now we got two, though Mr. C wanted Granny left alone so it can get her. This one…” She kicked Elle in the face. “We can do what we like with this one. Ol’ Dilly Donny gonna get nasty on her. My boy, always so nasty.”
That enraged Blaze to his core.
These insane pinche pendejos were about to see what a pissed-off Astral Marine could do.
By sheer force of will, he got his system going. The Gorebacks thought their little sparklers could keep him down. Not a chance.
Blaze scooped up his ax. Mama Mayhem came forward and Blaze punched her with his nanotech gauntlet. The few remaining teeth in her head went flying. Usually, Blaze didn’t hit women, but these pendejos weren’t people. They were monsters pretending to be Human.
The old woman went down, shrieking. Blaze triggered both blades on his ax and took off the head of Uncle Upchuck, the purple-wigged old man. The wig stayed on the severed painted-up head, which went flopping through the mud, the mouth in a red O of surprise.
Blaze turned on the fat woman in the onesie, Auntie Lips, who shrieked and threw up her hands.
With a vicious swipe of his fusion blade, Blaze cut off her hands and drove the ax haft into her skull, enjoying the satisfying crunch of the bone giving way. When he ripped the metal away, her brains spilled down onto her makeup.
A tentacle from the ectoplasm river lashed out and grabbed Elle, dragging her through the mud, toward the river.
“Gather the bodies!” Calhoun yelled. “Gather up Granny! Speeder Bob, come on and get us quick!” Calhoun had one of Elle’s fusion katanas, and he engaged Blaze. The guy was both strong and fast. When Blaze went to cut off the clown’s arm, Calhoun knocked his ax away in a shower of fusion sparks and hissing.
Rain hit their star-fire weapons, smoking and spitting as they fought.
An old rusted Dodge hovertruck, more gray primer and rust than actual paint, whooshed down from the sky, and the Gorebacks loaded Granny and their dead into the bed.
Calhoun sliced at Blaze’s leg, but the gunny got his ax in the way and deflected the blow.
The clown’s greasepaint was dripping down his face, the plus and minus signs on his face smearing. He leered with yellowed teeth. “Always knew our paths would cross, Blaze Ramirez. Always figured we’d be a bounty on your list. Always knew I’d eat your thighs. Only a matter of time. Word has it you’ve come here for Granny. Come and find us, space marine. Come and find us so I can barbecue your fine thighs and eat them up with some greens and some of Mama Mayhem’s world-famous farty beans.”
Blaze was in no mood for dicking around with this evil jagweed. Elle, still dazed, weakly struggled against the tentacle grasping her leg, but she was nearly to the ectoplasm river. He had to help her and get to Ling, but it might already be too late.
Back and forth, ax met katana and the fusion sparked and spat, until Calhoun threw the katana into Blaze’s face and fled. The gunny blocked the fusion blade from searing his face, but by that time, Calhoun had already jumped onto the tailgate of the hovertruck, and in a flash of blue-fire engine light, the old Dodge raced down the highway toward Know Return. The truck floated over the incoming zombie horde and kept on going.
Guy was too quick for Blaze to hack in two. He snarled, “Two down, four to go, you Goreback pinche putas.”
He whirled and threw his ax. The blade severed the ectoplasm tentacle holding his sister. She collapsed into the mud, safe for now.
Trina emerged from the river of spectral muck. She had Ling in her arms. The
Shaolin sloth vomited liquid Onyx into the mud and then flopped over onto his back, breathing hard. At least he was alive.
Trina was vamped out, skin translucent, eyes, fangs, and fingernails black. She hissed, “Those bastards. I should’ve gorged myself on that little bitch. I will. Mark my words, Blaze Ramirez, you killed two, but there are eight gallons of blood left in those fuckers, and I’m going to drink every drop.”
“Take a ticket and stand in line,” Blaze said.
Elle was coming around, finally. Her nose was broken and bleeding from Mama Mayhem’s savage kick.
Blaze walked over to where Raziel trembled miserably in the rain, standing over Granny’s fallen cigar. It was still lit. Blaze stooped, picked it up, and stuck it in his mouth. The cat walked under his legs and took shelter under his armor. It shook itself and then rubbed up against the nanotech covering his calves. Damn cat had saved the cigar from going out. Blaze was liking this feline more and more.
Elle walked up next to him. The dragon’s massive body was gone, drooled down into the ditch, and it was forming a frothing ectoplasm river that gushed toward the buildings of Know Return.
Blaze sucked in the cigar smoke and let it drift from his mouth. “They took us down, Elle. Bushwhacked us. Never saw it coming.”
“Yeah, Blaze, and they have Granny.”
Blaze chewed on the cigar. “And they seem to be in cahoots with Chthonic. Called him Mr. C. That’s how they got close to us through the zombies. The Undead didn’t care about them. They’re monsters, Elle, and I’m going to treat them as such.”
Elle laughed. “You already did. You hit the old woman, killed two others. I was proud of you. I figured your sense of chivalry would’ve stayed your hand.”
“Not this time. No way.”
Ling got to his feet and rushed over. Trina followed, walking slowly. Soon all four stood on the highway. A marine, an Onyx witch, a vampire, and a Shaolin sloth.
It was seven o’clock. They had five hours before the planet was blasted apart by the colliding stars.