Blood God (The Hroza Connection Book 5)

by William Vitka

  I grab Jack’s shoulder. “Speaking of, where are Catarina and Caleb?”

  Jack nods to the reinforced glass front of the security office. “In there. Working on a plan to stop the wall of flesh.”

  Shit.

  No wonder he’s in such a goddamn hurry.

  Plissken says, “I’ve pulled security footage from the last hour. Internal cameras show them in the hallway of the third-floor medical area five minutes ago. They haven’t left yet. At least, not in any way we can monitor.”

  Jack throws the front doors open. Hard enough that they bounce against their hinges with a skreek. Stomps on the shiny linoleum in the sparse lobby. Only things there are the front desk surrounded by wired glass, some chairs, and the bank of elevators.

  The bureaucrat chick at the front desk looks annoyed by the noise. “Can I help you?”

  Jack says, “We’re on lockdown, in case you somehow didn’t hear the alarms. Seal the building. Nobody in or out after us.”

  “You’ll need to sign—”

  “Shut up. DeVille, can you watch this area?”

  DeVille nods. Pulls her Sig Sauer. “What am I supposed to do if she’s a mimic?”

  The bureaucrat chick cocks an eye. “What, precisely, is a mimic?”

  Makes me wonder.

  If all bureaucrats are humorless jackoffs?

  No. I already know that. What I wonder is whether or not someone infected by a mimic would know they’re a mimic. Maybe you’d just figure you suffered a horrible goddamn attack, but, hey, you’re still alive.

  Then when the mimic wants to absorb someone else: Blammo. You go full Thing.

  Nah. When it’s got you, it’s got you. Lights out. Show’s over. The ragged refugee lost his shit when he saw you, Chosen One. Remind you of anything? Hmm? Anything at all?

  Yeah. All that crap the mimic (ah, fuck) of Momma Bear was saying when I fought the walking city at Sikorsky. The parasite talking to me. Not Durandal. The parasite out there. Said I needed to join their communion. Said I was very important to em.

  Spooky!

  Plissken chirps.

  Haven’t heard him do that in a long time.

  He says, “I’ve got it. This strain of the parasite is not reliant on brain tissue. At all. It inserts itself into human mitochondria. It takes over the body’s cellular power plants, so to speak. Otherwise, it’s invisible. Until, well, you know.”

  “Thrilling,” Jack says. “How does that help us?”

  “Mitochondrial DNA is unique.” Plissken harrumphs. Like he thinks Jack is an idiot. “Both mimics you’ve destroyed so far share the exact same mitochondrial DNA. Thus, anyone whose mitochondrial DNA is the same as theirs—”

  “Is a monster. Got it. Good job. Make sure the other droids know. Let’s go.” He kicks open the emergency stairwell door. Heads up.

  DeVille tilts her head to the bureaucrat chick. “So she’s okay?”

  Plissken says, “For the time being. Lovelace and Turing will be here momentarily to back you up. I’ve seeded the information out to the other robots. They’ll be scouring the camp.”

  “Thanks.” DeVille turns her eyes to me. “Be safe.”

  I say, “Doing my best.”

  I follow my father.

  * * *

  The medical floor stinks. Looks and smells like a hospital. Long hallways with buzzing lights and dozens of small rooms. The air’s heavy with a mix of cleaning products and blood. I get flashbacks of Bellevue, where that awful skullfucker Schneer broke loose.

  Jack takes point.

  Athena stays by his shoulder. Beretta up.

  Plissken hovers near the ceiling so he can scan unimpeded.

  I cover the rear with Rabinowitz. The kid’s knuckles white around the handle of his pulse rifle.

  I say, “There’s nobody here.”

  Jack says, “I noticed. Except that ain’t right. So we go room-by-room.”

  Plissken says, “Nothing moving is different than nothing being here. There are seven patients registered to this floor and two doctors. Not including the mimics. Follow me.” He hovers to the door with the nearest patient/possible-mimic. “The medical droids are offline. I don’t know why.”

  Jack pushes the door open. Slow. Moves into the room. Waves the rest of us over.

  There’s a woman in bed. Brown hair. Eyes closed. Machines beep quietly around her. Her breathing is steady. She seems peaceful.

  Plissken scans the woman. Says, “Burn her.”

  Me and Jack unleash twin tongues of fire that engulf her form.

  She thrashes. Screams. Her throat makes noises wholly alien to human ears. The woman’s chest splits. A thick tentacle bursts outward. Small clicking legs sprout along its length. A screaming face starts to grow on the tip.

  The face howls in pain before succumbing to the flames.

  Rabinowitz’s face reflects that pain. Maybe some final acceptance of just how insane the parasite can be when it wants something.

  That something being the last of the human race.

  I wanna slap him again. Shout at him. You see what happens? I don’t even know how you can get complacent these days, but you did, and this is what happens as a result.

  Athena grabs a fire extinguisher from the hall. Aims it at the funeral pyre. “Probably wanna put this out before the building catches.”

  Plissken says, “Not yet. There’s still cellular activity.”

  “How long does it take these things to die?”

  “About as long as it takes them to consume their prey. Thirty to sixty seconds.”

  The stench of burning hair and flesh fills my nostrils.

  Plissken nods to Athena.

  She smothers the flames in a chemical spray.

  Jack says, “All right. That’s one. Keep moving.”

  “Incoming,” Plissken says.

  An aging white doctor comes running down the hall as we emerge from the cooked mimic’s room. “My God, what are you people doing? What are you doing?” He points to the flamethrowers.

  I raise the wand of my own at him. “That’s close enough.”

  Athena trains her 9mm on him. Lets the fire extinguisher hang in her left hand. “Plissken you wanna give us the ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ on cooking this guy?”

  “He’s clean,” Plissken says. “No parasite.”

  The doctor puts his hands on his hips. “Of course I’m not infected. Do you see me scavenging around for people to bite? Are you insane?” He sniffs the air. “What have you—”

  He brushes passed us. I read his nametag: Dr. Davidson.

  Davidson stops in front of the roasted-mimic’s room. Peers in the window. Shrieks. “You killed her. Jesus Christ, you burned her alive. I heard the screams but I didn’t...I’m calling security.”

  I shake my head. “Bub, we are security.”

  Jack says, “Doc, there’s a nasty new version of the parasite. It can look like us now. And it’s here. We think we’ve isolated it to this level. I know you can hear the camp alarms. And you gotta know the building’s on lockdown. So what is it you’re so busy with?”

  Davidson pulls his face away from the door window. His lip quivers. “Yes, I heard the alarms. I’ve been with a patient at the far end of the floor.” He frowns. “It’s not as though a doctor can abandon the people he’s caring for. I only even ran here because of that horrid scream.”

  “Did you see two people in brown rags? A man and a woman?”

  “The refugees?”

  “Yeah, they’re here?”

  “The John and Jane Doe, yes. The man just said he needed help. The woman was mute. Doctor N’Gai was seeing to them in his office.”

  “Well, they’re goddamn monsters. Take us to their room. Fast.”

  “Christ.” Davidson breaks into a jog. Leads us around th
e corner to room three-nineteen. No window. He stands outside the door. Goes to knock.

  Jack grabs his hand. “Don’t.” He pushes the doc away. Tries the handle. Unlocked. He moves the door with the nozzle of his flamethrower wand. Finally knocks it open.

  N’Gai is lying on his desk. Feet toward us. They’re jittering. His legs spasm.

  The mimic’s tendrils throb. They stretch from the monster’s mouth to N’Gai’s. Obscene, glistening red strands. The fluids from both figures coat the floor. Make it slick.

  It’s the blonde bastard in rags. Mr. Mimic.

  His eyes roll to focus on us. Me. The top of its skull cracks vertically. Splits open. Becomes a mouth. A barbed tongue lashes out.

  Athena shoots it down.

  Me and Jack light it up.

  The mimic and its victim roar as one.

  Davidson covers his mouth. Chokes for a second. Loses his lunch in the hallway.

  I pat his back. “Welcome to the fold, Doc.”

  Now. Where’s the blonde bitch?

  Davidson wipes his mouth. “I have to get my patient out of here. This is madness.”

  Madness? This. Is—

  No, Durandal. I yearn for the day when that meme dies.

  Jack clamps his hand around Davidson’s shoulder. Turns the doctor around to face him. “Nobody’s going anywhere till we kill these rotten cocks.”

  Davidson says, “Can I at least go back to my patient?”

  Jack takes a deep breath. “We’ll escort you. Then Rabinowitz can stand guard.” Jack cocks an eye at the Spartan. “Maybe earn back some of the good will he’s pissed away.”

  Rabinowitz’s mouth becomes a hard line. “They looked like survivors. You would’ve done the same thing.”

  Jack snaps. Backhands the kid. “No, I fuckin wouldn’t have.” He takes a breath. “Now it’s in the fort. Now it’s in the same building as my family.” He pushes Davidson.

  We walk to a hallway facing the courtyard. It’s lined by big windows. The sky is dark, but I see points of light flutter and zoom around the camp. Drones. Some like saucers. Others spheres. Even a few in more traditional aircraft designs.

  Their spotlights cut through the night as they hunt for mimics.

  Robots on the ground keep survivors corralled. Order em into lines to be scanned. Checked. Moms. Dads. Children. The elderly. Everyone.

  People are cleared. One by one. Then led down stairs into, I guess, some kinda underground bunker I haven’t seen yet.

  The scene makes it real easy to find dark thoughts.

  Rabinowitz shouts next to me. Something indistinct.

  I whip my head up in time to see the mimic at the end of the hall. She’s on all fours. Bones twisted. Feet facing the wrong way. Neck snapped around so her mouth is above her bright blue eyes.

  She screeches.

  Jack and Athena throw themselves against the wall opposite the glass as the Spartan opens up. A quick burst.

  Then I hear the underslung grenade launcher on his pulse rifle ping.

  Athena shouts, “No, goddamn it!”

  The grenade hits low. Explodes. Shatters the windows. Destroys the half-wall at the far end of the hall. Obliterates the right side of the mimic.

  But sends the rest of the monster tumbling into the courtyard.

  I run to Jack. “Burn the rest up here.” Pat Plissken’s side. “Get me down there. Just like in New York. Come on.”

  Plissken shoots to the hole in the side of the building. Hovers out. I grip his undercarriage. We glide.

  The mimic is already moving.

  New mismatched legs sprout. Tendrils grow to life from its wounds. It crawls. Screams. Manages to stand. A spider leg springs from its damaged right side. The mimic starts to trundle along. Gibbers madly. Picks up speed as it rushes the corralled survivors.

  People shriek. Panic.

  It’ll hit the survivors in forty feet.

  The robots hold their fire. Form a defensive perimeter. If they unload on it now, they’ll probably blow my head off.

  Thirty feet.

  And if I use the flamethrower here, I could torch someone. Burn up a family. Ruin a business. Ain’t a graceful weapon.

  Twenty feet.

  I drop when me and Plissken are close enough. Hit the concrete with a thud. Draw my Colt. Put two .45 slugs in the mimic’s fleeing leg joints.

  That makes the fucker stumble. Howl.

  Ten feet.

  But it doesn’t fall.

  Five feet.

  The mimic lunges.

  Turing slices it from crown to cunt with his plasma swords. It flops to the ground. Smokes where his energy weapons cauterized the wounds. He slices it again. Turns it into fourths. Then eighths.

  I rush over to the nightmare.

  The parasite pieces form new mouths. Squeal. Chitter. Each one tries to find an escape on freshly grown limbs. Or a target to attack.

  I yell to the crowd. To the robots. “Back. Back.” I nod to Turing. Torch the squirming little mimic chunks before they can do any more damage.

  They sputter and pop in the flames.

  Jack calls from the wrecked third floor of the security building. “Plissken, get your shiny metal ass up here. We got more patients to check. I’m sending the others down.”

  Plissken turns to me. “I thought just one of you was demanding.” Hovers back to my father.

  The crowd eyes me.

  I shrug the flamethrower off. Light a cigarette.

  A little boy breaks away from the group. Same ten-year-old that felt obligated to tug my armor before in front of his school buddies.

  He does it again now.

  I say, “Hey, bud.”

  “I did what you said.”

  “That right?”

  “Yep. When the alarms went off, I was brave. I didn’t get scared. I got my mom and my dad and my little sister and we came down here as fast as we could.” He wears a proud smile.

  I smirk. “Sounds like your family’s lucky as hell to have you around. What’s your name?”

  “Max.” The little boy offers his hand. “Max Prochnow.”

  I grip his hand in mine. “It’s nice to meet you, Max.” I glance over my shoulder. See Athena and Rabinowitz heading my way. Say to Max, “Why don’t you get back to your parents and your sister. Take care of em. I gotta get back to my folks too.”

  “Yessir.”

  Max takes off back into the crowd. He jumps into the arms of his dad. A guy in his forties who gives me a look to let me know we ain’t gonna be friends any time soon.

  Wonder if it’s the smoking...

  I meet Athena and Rabinowitz halfway between the security building and the crowd. Colt in hand.

  Rabinowitz opens his mouth. Starts to talk. Brow furrowed.

  I ain’t listening to any more whining. No more excuses.

  So I put a bullet in his goddamn face. Enjoy the way his forehead crunches. Enjoy the splash of gore. The sound of blood as it pitter patters on the concrete. The way he drops to his knees and the sound his power armor makes when it collides with the ground.

  Fuck him.

  Athena looks pissed but not surprised.

  I say, “What’s the camp’s policy on negligent homicide?”

  “Death.”

  “Good.”

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

  Jack says, “As of last night, all Spartans squads are now required to bring at least one droid along with em on patrol. Cops inside the walls did from the beginning—to prevent any bullshit abuse of power.” He leans forward. Taps the ash off his cigarette into small metal box.

  We’re back in the sublevel command center. Me, DeVille, Plissken, Athena, Jack, Catarina, and Caleb.

  Nobody mentions the fact that I put a ho
le in Rabinowitz’s head.

  Guess they feel he had it coming.

  Mostly cuz he did.

  I nod to my father. “Okay, so where does that put us?”

  Jack looks to Caleb.

  Caleb stares at the table. Eyes narrow. “I wish I had news you’d actually like. Jade made contact. She’s in Ohio, finishing recon on the, uh—” he licks his lips “—wall of flesh. It’s just finished consuming Scranton, Pennsylvania and it’s moving into New York.” He gestures to the center of the table. “Plissken?”

  My old metal buddy swivels in the air. Shines a hologram on the table. A video feed from Jade. Her weirdly chipper voice pierces the room’s quiet. “Hi mom!” We see what Jade does. She’s high up somewhere. Surrounded by lush green trees. The Catskill Mountains, maybe.

  DeVille smiles. “Hey, honey.”

  “You guys wanna see something scary?”

  Jade’s view barrels through branches. Leaves. She climbs a cliff face. Pulls herself onto the peak. Gives us an unimpeded sight of the horror crawling our way. Says, “Behold! The Fuckening!”

  The wall of flesh writhes in the distance. A massive carpet of muscle and skin. Tentacles and legs. Eyes in its bulk blink at random. Mouths the size of houses gnash their teeth. The tongues inside lick the air.

  There are clues to its journey embedded in the flesh. Shit it’s sucked up. Or stuff that’s just gotten stuck in it.

  Neon signs from casinos in Vegas. Bits of buildings. Trees. Part of the arch from St. Louis. Highway signs from Kansas City. Chicago. Columbus.

  Pissing my pants seems like a perfectly reasonable reaction.

  Jack rubs his face. “We got problems.”

  Catarina grips his hand.

  Jade says, “Best estimates put this behemoth at one hundred-fifty feet tall, half a mile wide and about three miles long at its farthest...uh, piece? Pseudopod? Whatever. It’s effectively an amoebic vacuum. A meat slug. Whatever the mouths don’t eat, it rolls over. And most of what it rolls over gets added to it.”

  Plissken says, “What’s most interesting from the readings is that this appears to be what Newark turned into.”

  I grumble. “Yeah, that’s fuckin fascinating.”