Blood God (The Hroza Connection Book 5)

by William Vitka

  Praise for William Vitka

  “There is a bold new voice howling in the post-apocalyptic wasteland...”

  - Jonathan Maberry, New York Times best-selling author of ASSASSIN’S CODE and DUST & DECAY

  “Charmingly perverse, vivid and thrilling.”

  - Cherie Priest, award-winning author of BONESHAKER and GANYMEDE

  “[Live, From The End Of The World] is one of the best zombie stories I›ve read this year. Actually, it›s one of the best stories I›ve read this year, period. It›s funny, offensive, irreverent and action-packed ... If you›re a zombie fan who is losing faith, [Live, From The End Of The World] will give you the warm fuzzies all over again.”

  - Hellnotes.com

  “Mr. Vitka is a hard-nosed writer with a hard-nosed tale to tell.”

  - HorrorNews.net

  “Vitka’s ability to stick to the facts and a darkly jaded worldview combine to make [Live, From The End Of The World] a book that will stick with you long after you’ve read it. I would strongly recommend that you do not attempt to match the main character drink for drink as you read, however--that way lies madness and liver disease.”

  NeedCoffee.com

  THE BLOOD GOD

  The Hroza Connection Part 5

  William Vitka

  A PERMUTED PRESS BOOK

  ISBN (eBook): 978-1-61868-604-6

  THE BLOOD GOD

  The Hroza Connection Book 5

  © 2015 by William Vitka

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover art by Sean Vitka

  This book is a work of fiction. People, places, events, and situations are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or historical events, is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author and publisher.

  Permuted Press

  109 International Drive, Suite 300

  Franklin, TN 37067

  http://permutedpress.com

  WELCOME TO THE FUTURE

  IT STILL SUCKS

  AND EVERYTHING WANTS

  TO KILL YOU

  Contents

  1. Sale: 30% Off Damaged Heroes

  2. Oh. These Assholes.

  3. Where It All Gets Weird

  4. Holy Shit, I Miss My Guns

  5. Well. That’s Interesting

  6. This Is The Part Where I Start Going Fuckin Crazy

  7. Oh, You’re Fucked Now

  8. The Fortress

  9. The Peace Won’t Last...

  10. ...So Enjoy It

  11. Plausible Deniability

  12. Survey Says?

  13. Way Below Sticker Price

  14. Kiss Kiss Bang Bang

  15. Let the Good Times Roll...Off a Cliff

  16. You Gotta Be Fuckin Kidding

  17. Let’s Shit On a Canvas and Call It Art

  18. Meet the Emergent

  19. The Disappearing Son

  20. The Only Thing Left Is Blood

  21. I Am the Antidote

  22. Raining Blood

  About the Author

  1. Sale: 30% Off Damaged Heroes

  There’s a guy shoving his dick into the leaky torso of a stilt-walker behind an Amazon Dispensary off I-95 in New London, Connecticut. He grunts and tries to find a better hole. Cock in hand. Not quite hard. More half-mast.

  It’s messy.

  Blood and pus and other liquids slosh around.

  The weird fucker looks at us. TSA patch on his shoulder. No shock or shame on his face. Just this kinda, Yeah, well, this is what I’m doing right now, thing. Same shit we all tried to ignore when New York was populated by the living.

  What’re you lookin at?

  That’s the face he gives us.

  Us being: me, the big half-ruined fifteen foot-tall mech suit I’m driving called Alpha, the brain of the damn robot—who’s actually a dead girl named Jade...then the dead girl’s mom, Jessica DeVille, who’s a Pequot Indian-cum-marine pilot and has a way with machines. Finally, there’s an adolescent bot named Turing who’s the son of my currently-not-alive best friend, a former library drone named Plissken.

  I have to ride in Alpha cuz the mech’s the only thing keeping my spine connected.

  Yeah, I’m crippled. At least until my body regenerates and repairs the damage.

  We’re on our way to Boston, where apparently my family has set up some kind of survivor camp.

  You got all that?

  Good.

  Where was I?

  We’re living in a monster-filled post-apocalypse and there’s a guy shoving his wiener-meat into what’s left of a creature called a stilt-walker.

  Okay. Glad we’re all on the same page.

  The display the makes up Turing’s face flashes an endless interrobang: ‽

  DeVille’s face scrunches into a frown.

  Jade yells at the guy through the mech’s external speakers. “I hope you’re wearing a rubber, man.” Her hologram—how she sees herself despite being only a mind—jiggles on the dashboard in front of me.

  She died when she was eight. But her brain matured over the next thirteen years. Thanks to her mom. Who kept her daughter’s headmeat alive in a petri dish. Now Jade enjoys tormenting me with her perfect, digital, naked body.

  For kicks.

  I haven’t gotten laid in years.

  Fuckin apocalypse.

  What’s worse? Since I’m piloting Alpha, my and Jade’s brains are connected. So we’re talking about constant torment. Sorta like marriage.

  At least you don’t think about your Momma Bear much anymore, huh? Not since, oh, haha, not since a few days ago when you had to kill her a bit cuz the parasite was mimicking her. Fun!

  Yeah, I guess it’s time to introduce the voice in my head. He’s a real asshole. Not as frequent. But he’s still around. And he doesn’t usually talk in a bad Mexican accent anymore.

  So there’s a plus.

  And yeah, yeah, the love of my life died during the outbreak almost ten years ago. So did everyone else I loved or cared about.

  Including the baby she was pregnant with.

  This ain’t a cheerful fuckin waltz.

  I watch the freaky dude and his attempt to fuck the diseased flesh through the giant hole that used to be Alpha’s right side. And he’s still going at it. Very, very dedicated pervert here. I shout, “Seriously, bud. That can’t be a good idea.”

  The desperate fucker grins. Points at Jessica. “I’ll take her instead.”

  Jessica turns to me. Gestures an open hand toward the guy. Telling me without words: Please. Do the honors.

  I cock my eyebrow at the floppy humper. “Oh, dude.” I bring up Alpha’s good left hand. There’s a giant broadsword in it that Jessica cobbled together with a blowtorch and a cargo container at the port in New Haven. “Dude, you and all these bad fuckin ideas.”

  Then, yeah, the weird sonuvabitch looks a bit concerned.

  I slice his head from his shoulders. One sweep of the sword. Dude’s head goes bouncing across the pavement. It’s odd but, even with blood erupting from his neck, the half-flaccid erection he was nursing goes full-mast. His hand still grips it. His body takes one step. Two. Then down to his knees he goes.

  The head of his dick pulses to the rhythm of the blood gushing from where his head-head had been—that head-head
now rests near the dumpster.

  He falls. Slumps over. The blood ceases to gush from his neck. It squirts. Drips. His body releases its red, diseased ejaculate.

  Jade giggles. “I’m kind of impressed.”

  I smile. “Cuz I chopped that guy’s head off all like ‘YOLO, motherfucker?’”

  “No, cuz that’s, like, a shitload of cum. Especially for a dude who doesn’t have a head.”

  I frown.

  DeVille squints. Rubs her forehead. “Jade, language. Christ, I’m standing right here. And how would you even know about all that?”

  Jade says, “I’m plugged into this sick weirdo piloting Alpha.”

  I nod toward DeVille. “Yeah, it’s true. I was actually just thinking that. This dude I decapitated unleashed a Peter North-level load. It is pretty impressive.”

  DeVille groans.

  I light an American Spirit cigarette. “Flygirl, I’ve been alone for almost ten years. I’m a goddamn porn scholar.”

  * * *

  DeVille says we should stop by the New London Naval Base. Since it’s on our way to Boston. And maybe, maybe there’s some shit there we can use. Military-grade equipment. Perhaps even the parts to get Alpha back up to a hundred percent. Replace the mech’s arm, at least. Though who knows how long it’ll be before we get the carbyne armor up to par.

  I look out across New London. This place that used to be a bustling seaport. All red brick buildings. Spires. A tight downtown with architecture from the nineteenth century.

  Vast swaths of the city are charred holes. Areas where either the USC military bombed the shit out of it. Or fought with high explosives. Or even where the parasite infiltrated the buildings and got up and walked the hell away.

  The parasite does that now. Uses human infrastructure like a horrific hermit crab. I watched the entirety of Newark lumber off westward on big tentacles. I battled the nightmare of undead downtown White Plains. Only reason we won was cuz Plissken manually detonated a plasma bomb.

  Ah, fuck.

  Plissken.

  My best friend’s metal body waits, battered and scarred, affixed to the utility magnets on Alpha’s back. He sacrificed himself for the rest of us. After his daughter Lovelace fell victim to the parasite’s machinations.

  Too many casualties.

  But we managed to save her data on one of Jade/Alpha’s hard drives.

  So I’m hoping—really fuckin hoping—we can bring Plissken back in Boston.

  It’s all pretty depressing.

  A little infographic hologram from Jade tells me New London was the site of America’s first Navy Submarine Base. It’s 687 acres, and 530 of that is housing. There’s a park and hotel and all kinds of amenities. To say nothing of the tens of thousands of soldiers. Some other text boasts the base’s motto: “The First and Finest.”

  DeVille keeps trying to convince me to stop at the naval base while Alpha’s waste evacuation system sucks the piss from my bladder and the shit from my ass. It’s a weird feeling, but not wholly unpleasant.

  I shrug at DeVille. “How do we know the base is even still standing? And I don’t wanna repeat of Sikorsky. Y’know, where my spine got severed then I had to assault a living parasite city.” My bladder deflates.

  The sky’s red above us.

  Earth still hasn’t shaken the nuclear blues of humanity’s attempts to defend itself from the parasite infection.

  DeVille nods her head. “I’m sorry about that. I told you I was.”

  I say, “Yeah... We can fix Alpha when we get to Boston.”

  “We can probably fix Alpha now if we check the base.”

  Now it’s my turn to groan.

  DeVille says, “How many infected have we fought already? Just going from Stratford to New London? We’re not even halfway through our little jaunt.”

  I think: We oughtta be way more worried about that wall of flesh eating and absorbing its way across the United States of Christ.

  Jade pipes up. Her voice crackles over internal and external speakers. “Five hundred seventy two zombies. One hundred twenty stilt-walkers. Twenty seven flesh-towers. Twenty dogipedes.” She starts to play the Twelve Days of Christmas song.

  DeVille and I both snap: “Shut up.”

  Jade’s hologram becomes a naked little elf that gives me the finger.

  Her tits have Santa hats on the nipples.

  DeVille pats her 6.5mm Swift Industries Hellion. “I’m almost outta ammo. And badass as Alpha is, it needs some work. I don’t wanna to hike the rest of the way this far below strength.”

  I sigh. “Fair point.” I look to Turing. “Thoughts?”

  Turing’s face display flashes a welding icon.

  I take it as a vote for the naval base. Probably in the hopes we can fix his dad. Which I want, too. I’m still wary as hell of stopping anywhere that isn’t friendly at this point. But I say, “You people are gonna be the death of me. I hope you know that.”

  * * *

  We march along the Gold Star Memorial Bridge. Which I’m a little surprised is still in one piece. Dark clouds rumble over the Block Island Sound in the distance. The Thames River churns below. There are some bloated corpses in the water—there are always gonna be bloated corpses in waterways nowadays. But it ain’t the slaughterhouse conveyer like the Hudson River back in NYCZ.

  That brings up an obvious question: What the hell are people drinking?

  Back at the Empire State Building, I survived off bottled water. Whatever Plissken could scrounge. I also drank—drink—shitloads of alcohol. Y’know, for my health. The Sikorsky plant had a filtration system that DeVille kept operational. Even now, we’re hauling our own supplies in Alpha’s chassis.

  Other people? Survivors? No idea. You’d have to boil and distill the hell outta all this to make it drinkable. Can’t even trust the rainwater with the sky-jellyfish floating around.

  Sky-jellyfish are exactly what they sound like. Huge shimmering, translucent jellyfish that ride the air currents above us. The infected haven’t figured out how to make wings work yet, but apparently they can goddamn float.

  Joy.

  They use air bladders...or some shit. I don’t fuckin know. Plissken’s always been around to explain this crap to me and everyone else within earshot.

  Until he’s back, expect a lotta this to sound dumb.

  Jade says, “No big shock there.”

  There’s an undead fucker in one of the cars next to me. Some late model Toyota Corolla. She’s still strapped in. Insert your own joke about seatbelts “saving lives.” She reaches for Alpha. Not much more than beef jerky on a human skeleton. Torn clothes and raisin tits.

  Now, I could ignore the zombie chick. DeVille knows how to handle herself. No need to worry about Turing, either.

  But I don’t feel like doing that.

  I’m annoyed.

  Jade says, “You’re always annoyed.”

  I shrug as hard as I possibly can.

  Which is pretty much not at all, given the restraints I’m in to prevent my body from separating.

  I sling the giant sword. Slide Alpha’s big left hand under the Toyota. Fling it about two hundred yards out into the water south of us. The vehicle and its occupant splash down. A moment later, one of nature’s new psycho monsters breeches and devours the car.

  Hard to tell what it was. Just a big mouth on a big body.

  Lotta foam in the water.

  DeVille rolls her eyes. “Boy, you sure showed her.”

  A kerfuffle of Keefs—which is to say: a bunch of zombies—make their way toward us from the other side of the bridge. And while I’m sure any idiot chucklefuck would delight in describing this as some harrowing battle, it ain’t. It’s boring.

  I mean, shit, I’m in a mech suit.

  Yes.

  Zombies are fuckin boring. />
  B-b-b-but what about the human drama‽

  It’s all boring and nobody cares and people are stupid.

  So I take point. Smash the twenty or so Keefs with my remaining robotic fist. Shoot a few more from my seat with my Colt M1911.

  I take a bow.

  DeVille slaps Alpha’s ass. “Good job, but a bad show, Big Daddy. Where’s your flare for the dramatic? At least pretend you might be in trouble.”

  Turing flashes a sad face: 

  I tell Turing: “Sorry, bud. How about you take point and then you can eradicate some of these putrescent parasite people?”

  Turing salutes me. The five-foot-tall death machine bounds ahead on his metal legs. Lightsabers out.

  Jade snaps. “They aren’t ‘lightsabers’”

  I snap back. “We gonna have this conversation every time? They’re totally lightsabers. I mean all the fwoosh and braaahm noises they make.”

  “I hate you. We’ve been over this. They’re energy weapons that utilize super-heated plasma inside a strong magnetic field.”

  “They’re Lightsabers.”

  “Next time you fall asleep? I’m gonna cockblock you in your dreams. Good luck getting away from that, asshole.”

  Jade continues to make noises. Prolonged farts. Nails on a chalkboard.

  Again: Marriage.

  Woo!

  We hop off 95. Head north. Up 12. Through little bits of suburbia that’s a home to the horrors we’ve all seen before.

  Abandoned businesses. Dilapidated houses. Charred lawns. Crumbling foundations. Bodies. Serene plant life. Corpses with holes in their skulls. Corpses with missing limbs. Corpses embracing smaller corpses. Trees towering over it all. Hundreds-year-old flora probably quietly laughing because they had the good sense not to develop a central nervous system that could be contaminated by the parasite.

  Turing introduces any infected resistance to redeath with his lightsabers.

  We hit Crystal Lake Road. Go left.