Blood God (The Hroza Connection Book 5)

by William Vitka

  Tray in her hands.

  She cocks an eye at me while I blink the coma away. Says, “Eat.” Rests the potato soup next to my head. Whispers in my ear: “Carefully.”

  I rub my face. Reach for the pack of Lucky Strikes. “How long was I out?”

  She smirks. Nods to my right hand. Fingers all there again. Nods to my legs. Both regrown. Says, “Seventeen days.”

  Durandal cheers in my head.

  Man, am I good or what?

  * * *

  I stop chewing on the potato in my soup when I realize it’s paper.

  Which seems stupid, but, there it is.

  I pull the paper outta my mouth. Uncurl it.

  Thing reads: WALK AND TALK.

  I arch my eyebrows.

  Burn the note with my cigarette.

  * * *

  I flex my legs in the bed. Hurts. They’re stiff. But there’s no muscle atrophy, far as I can tell. I guess, actually, there wouldn’t be. Since I just got rebuilt. I should be in tip-top shape.

  Turns out standing ain’t super easy at the moment, though.

  Attempt number one finds me face-first on the ground.

  Watch it, hero boy. We got things to do. No more knocking out for days on end. I need entertainment. I need action. That was the deal.

  Attempt number two is better. Not great, but I don’t find myself eating cement again.

  After a few minutes, I remember how to walk.

  I haven’t walked under my own power for almost a month.

  Feels funky. Wobbly.

  I stretch. Look around the room from a new angle. One higher up than the bed. Place is still dank. Crummy. Just sucks in here all around.

  There’s that desk. Rotten old thing. Only landmark other than the bed and the concrete. Be nice if I could arm myself.

  I open the big center drawer. See bits of decayed, mildewy magazines. A pamphlet exclaiming how the Block Island Southeast Light—the goddamn lighthouse I’m trapped in—was made a historic landmark way the hell back in 1997.

  Whoopee-fuckin-doo.

  At least I know where I am now.

  The three small drawers on the left side yield nothing. The ones on the right ain’t much better, but I grab a pen and stick it in the waistband of my underpants. Might be strong enough to stab someone in the throat.

  I hear the door open. Turn.

  It’s Madison. She throws a pair of grey coveralls and work boots at me. Says, “Can’t have you walking around out there in your underpants.”

  I say, “What about when I was in the wheelchair?”

  She shrugs. “Bandages hid your pecker.”

  * * *

  I follow Madison into the red-lit concrete hallway. We pass the MS-DOS computers whose function I still don’t know. Out onto the rolling field of Block Island. The darkness is punctuated by electric lanterns in the windows of buildings around us. The result of those wind turbines and the solar cells. Fireflies in the night.

  The lighthouse, though, stands stark. Its lens casts no glow.

  Madison takes me to the edge of the bluffs. She waves off a guard who seems damn concerned that I’m up and about and no longer crippled. Tells the cult fuck: “I need to increase blood flow to his legs. He’s been in a coma for seventeen days.” She crosses her arms. “Or would you like to tell Master Norris that phase two of his and Advisor Brennan’s experiment is going to fail because the man’s blood flow is fucked?”

  The guard’s eyes go wide. “No, no. Certainly not.” He nods. “Please, carry on, nurse.”

  “Thank you.” She watches him leave. Motions for me to sit in the grass.

  I plop down. Dangle my legs out in nothingness. Spark a Lucky Strike.

  Gonna need more cigarettes.

  Gonna need my Zippo, too.

  I breathe smoke. Say to Madison, “You got chatty in a hurry.”

  She furrows her brow. Says, “I needed to know if what they said about you was true. Before I opened my mouth. Exposed myself. You’re a legend out in the wastes.” She shakes her head. “The man and his robot. Surviving all those years at ground zero. Slaughtering the raiders at Newark. Destroying that...walking corpse city...And, of course, killing more than a couple cultists.”

  I watch the bioluminescent creatures out in the water. The way they shine. Reds. Greens. Blues. Yellows. A light show. Almost neon. Almost beautiful fireworks.

  Except the reds are sometimes eating the blues or the greens or any combination thereof. No loyalty there. No peace.

  I say, “I like that I’m a legend. What I don’t like is this, here, getting more and more like some perverse version of Matheson’s ‘I Am Legend.’”

  Madison says, “I don’t get the reference—”

  “Course you don’t.” I rub my forehead. “Kids these days.”

  “—but I get the meaning. You’re fucked here. You don’t fit.”

  I smile. First time in a while. “Hard to fit in anywhere, all things considered. But I also didn’t think other humans would end up trying to eat me.”

  Madison nods. “I know.”

  A massive, yellow jellyfish explodes from the water. It pumps. Pumps. Propels itself into the air. Seems to have some trouble. An equally massive blue crab with a scorpion tail snatches at it. Drags it back down. Tears it apart.

  Man, Discovery Channel’s been weird recently.

  I chuckle a little.

  I say, “What’s your stake in all this, Madison? Why even join these fuckballs? I mean, you’re clearly not insane. But you shack up with these assholes? Why?”

  Madison takes her time. Breathes deep. “I was twelve when the infection hit.” She eyeballs me. “I was a twelve-year-old boy trying to become a woman.”

  I nod. “So you’re transgender. Still doesn’t explain why you’re running with these living miscarriages.”

  Madison stops for a second. “That doesn’t bug you?”

  “Does what bug me?”

  “That I’m transgendered.”

  I fill my lungs with smoke. “I don’t care.” Hold it. Exhale through my nose. “Lady—I’m saying ‘lady’ only cuz you said you were transitioning to a woman—why the fuck would that bug me?”

  “Bothers some people.”

  “Y’know, that is some shit—” I shake my head. Growl. “This is some shit I don’t understand. I don’t fuckin understand it.” I flick my cigarette over into the darkness. It sputters like a dying comet. “When I say I don’t give a shit about your gender or your sexual preferences, I don’t see why that’s a bad thing. I don’t get it! That’s the best possible thing I could say. It means I’m dealing with people on a person-to-person basis.”

  Madison holds her hands up. Relax. “Dr. Brenner is a radical feminist and you did sound like a chauvinist pig—you treated her like an asshole.”

  “I treated her like an asshole cuz she’s an asshole. Acts like some social justice warrior. Person with enough time in the classroom to get a piece of paper and then too much time in a room thinking and telling everyone else how to do their shit from a fuckin pedestal!”

  “Holy shit, you are an angry man.” Madison smiles. “I think we’re going to get along just fine.”

  “Not till you tell me what your deal is with the cultists.”

  She steals a cigarette from my dwindling pack.

  I light her.

  Madison says, “They picked me up two years after the infection broke. I was living like a little rat in New Haven, Connecticut. I raided pharmacies. I kept looking for hormone medication to keep up my transition. Then, uh...” She spreads her hands out. “Charlie Norris found me. And he was good to me. He, they, didn’t judge. They helped me.” She sighs. Meets my eyes. “During that time, we were just survivors. Norris brought everyone here. We worked the land. Got everything running again.�
�� Madison takes a drag off the Lucky Strike. “Wasn’t until that cunt Brennan showed up three years ago that we became ‘The Great Ray Cult.’”

  “Hacking me apart was Brennan’s idea. Feeding parts of me to those goddamn things...” I consider this. “So you’re helping me cuz Brennan took Norris and your friends away from you.”

  She laughs. “I’m helping you because Brennan is such a lunatic psycho radical feminist that she thinks I’m the abomination, not the creatures. She went full circle. All the way from being progressive to hateful. Dangerous. She flipped the switch in Norris’s head too. If you aren’t totally on their side, then you’re totally against them.”

  “Ah, glorious myopia.” I light another cigarette for myself. “They got a habit of doing that.” Exhale. “Get me to my guns.”

  “I will. And they want to start phase two tomorrow.” Madison shakes her head. “But there’s something else first. It happened a few days ago. While you were in your coma.

  “Do you know anyone named Athena? She made it all the way to your room. Almost had the door open after she knocked Gunnar out—the big guy guarding you. But then his relief came. Bad timing.”

  Ah, shit.

  I warned you.

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

  Madison and I sneak back and around the lighthouse. Stay low. Move fast.

  I unzip my coveralls. Reach a hand in. Transfer the pen I found from the elastic band in my boxer-briefs to my good right hand. Ain’t much, but it’s what I got.

  Athena...How could Athena be here? Fuck. I had to cut her outta some stranger’s womb in Newark. Plissken inoculated her with my blood...She started growing at inhuman speeds...

  Could she have grown that much in a month?

  Think about how much she grew in a few days...

  Kill em. Kill em. Kill em all.

  We end up near a corrugated steel building that looks like a corral. Squat but long. A place to keep livestock on the northern edge of the cult’s camp.

  There’s a small crack in one of the walls. I peer through at the dimly-lit interior. See stalls. See the packed-earth ground and scattered hay. Maybe a dozen cows standing. Chewing cud.

  At the far end, I see three men standing over a woman who’s chained to the wall. Hands up over her head. Norris at the center. A cult goon on either side. Norris is saying something I can’t hear.

  Gotta get closer.

  I crouch-run along the outside wall. Overgrowth and crabgrass swishes at my legs.

  I push my eyeball against another crack at the corner of the corral.

  The woman’s in her early twenties. Curly dirty-blonde hair down to her shoulders. Blue eyes. Dark green camo combat vest. Dark green camo BDUs. Sexless under all the garb.

  Her name tape reads: ATHENA. Her face is smeared with grime. There’s a lump and a cut under her right eye. Like she took a nasty hit.

  My heart aches.

  How could I have missed so much of her life in so short a time.

  These people all need to die.

  Nobody touches my daughter.

  Nobody.

  They’re gonna dieeeeeeeeee. Yay!

  I hear Norris say, “But how do you know him? Who are your people? Are you with that goddamn group of heretics in Boston?”

  Athena’s mouth doesn’t open. She sneers.

  Norris leans in over her. “Tell me how you know him.” He runs a knife along her face. Down her throat. Lets its lie on her chest. “Tell me who your people are.”

  The woman spits. A loogie splashes against Norris’ face.

  He wipes it off. Grimaces. Punches her. Hard.

  She goes limp.

  Norris backs away. Rubs his hands on his jumpsuit. “We’ll see what she has to say tomorrow. After the second phase of the experiment.” He looks to his goons. Grins. “But have at her until then.”

  I whip my head to Madison. “You mind if I kill em all?”

  She shakes her head. “Let me get Gunnar first.”

  “My fuckin guard? Why?”

  “He’s with me.” With that, she snakes back through the shadows. Back toward the lighthouse.

  I peer inside again. Watch.

  Norris and his cult goons are still there. One of em reaches over. Hefts a bone saw.

  You know what they’re gonna do.

  A hand grips my shoulder. I figure it might be Madison. Come back to tell me something.

  It ain’t.

  I turn. Look up.

  Into the eyes of a cult guard.

  His mouth goes slack when he sees who I am. Brings his lever-action shotgun to bear on me.

  I pop up. Piston with my legs. Plunge the pen into the underside of the cult bastard’s jaw. It punches through. He gargles blood. I hammer it again with my palm. “Fuck you.” So it rockets up. Into his brain.

  He drops.

  I catch the shotgun by its short handle. It’s one of those Winchester 1887 models. Not an original. A replica. Bitchin little thing. I check to make sure a round’s chambered. A 12-gauge 00 buckshot shell smiles at me, ready to go.

  Yes, yes! More! More!

  I pull the bandolier off his body. Sling it over my shoulder.

  The bone saw starts up inside the corral. A high-pitched whine.

  I kick at a seam in the corrugated metal wall. Hear the wood frame splinter. Kick again. The wall section cracks inward. I throw myself inside.

  Norris and his goons turn to me. They’re about ten feet away.

  I don’t say shit. Just unload on the left goon’s head. His face splatters open. Lower jaw goes flying. I rack the shotgun lever. Blow apart the right-side goon’s head. He drops the bone saw.

  Norris stares at me. Puts his right hand up. “Now, wait, wait—”

  I turn his right hand into chunky chowder with buckshot. Rack the lever. Take apart his left leg. Rack the lever. Take apart his right leg.

  Reload. Cheat a little bit. Place a sixth shell on the carrier behind the five loaded in the shotgun’s magazine. Then slide a seventh into the barrel. Then lock it up.

  Norris howls. Moans. Bleeds in rivers onto the dirty ground.

  I let him. I like listening to it. Music to my ears.

  The ratfucker.

  Athena looks up at me. Her eyes heavy-lidded. Her mouth a crooked little smirk. “Hi, daddy.”

  I offer her a smile. “Hi, monkey.”

  I decide not to skullfuck Norris in front of my adopted daughter.

  Awww. Shucks.

  Norris switches between crying and holding his shattered right hand and holding his fucked left leg and his ruined right leg.

  I lean over him. Impressed in a small way that he hasn’t passed out from pain yet. I pat him down for the keys to Athena’s cuffs.

  He grabs at me. “You bas—”

  I punch him. Break his nose. Punch him again. Punch. Punch.

  Till he does finally lie still and bleed out.

  I unclip a ring of keys from his belt. Kneel next to Athena. Next to this woman who was only a few years old last I saw her—which was less than a month ago.

  After a couple of tries, the shackles around her wrists click undone.

  Athena grabs me. Locks her arms around me. Buries her face in my chest. “I’m sorry, daddy.”

  I push her away. Grimace. Try to clean some of the grime away from her cheeks with my thumbs. I wince at the throbbing, split wound under her eye. “Why’re you sorry?”

  “I failed at saving you.” Her lips tremble. “Grandma Catarina taught me how to go stealth, but I screwed it up.”

  The cult camp’s alarm shrieks through the night. An old air raid siren.

  “Hey, hey.” I hold her against me. Plant a kiss on the top of her head. “Fuck that noise, monkey. I’m so glad to see you. Tha
t’s what matters.” I push her away again. Lock eyes with her. “Y’know what we’re gonna do to celebrate?”

  She gives me a tight-lipped smile. “Kill everyone?”

  I cup her cheeks in my hands. “That’s my girl.”

  Athena scrambles away. Pats down Norris’ goons. She liberates their ammo and sidearms—a Ruger 9mm and a S&W Model 29 .44 Magnum. She grabs their belts. Holsters. Holds up the goons’ two primaries. She says, “Which one should I take? Bushmaster AR-15 or the .45-70 Marlin?”

  I shrug. “How good a shot are you? Get more ammo with the AR, but the Marlin’ll put down a bear.” I nod to the handguns. “Same applies to the 9mm or the .44.”

  “Grandpa Jack says I’m one of the best.”

  “Does he now?”

  Athena grins. Buckles the Smith & Wesson around her hips. Readies the .45-70 and keeps her finger on the trigger guard. “What about him?” She pokes Norris’s head with her boot.

  The camp klaxons are still going crazy. It’s been a minute. Maybe two.

  I lean against the front door frame. “Your call.”

  Athena pulls the Magnum. Bang. Turns Norris’ head into leaky red shredded cabbage. Says, “Nobody’s allowed to touch me without permission.”

  “Fuckin-A.”

  Who says you’re not a feminist?

  Shouts join the air raid siren outside in the darkness. Men and women. Cult members mobilizing to kill the interlopers—me and Athena.

  Well! Fuck that!

  Question is: Where do we go?

  Athena leans against the wall across from me. Peeks her head out for a second. “Can’t stay here.” She looks to me. “We gotta get to the lighthouse. Gotta get it shining again.”

  “For what?”

  “To signal the others.”

  “You mean—”

  A bullet pangs off the metal siding near my head.

  Athena shoulders the Marlin. Aims out into the darkness. Her rifle barks. I hear a man shriek in the night. She points to the rear of the corral. Where I made my entrance.

  I nod. Scurry toward it. Duck outside. Stay low. Wait for Athena. Her gun thunders two more times. Then she appears behind me, sliding three fresh rounds into the Marlin.