He nods. Kisses Athena again. They make their way to their warframes.
I stare at my feet.
DeVille cups my cheeks. “Focus on the kill.” She gives me a light slap. “For the first goddamn time, we’ve got the tools and the talent. We’re gonna be all right.”
“Yeah. An emotion shared by every hero character before the final act.”
She kisses me. “Shut up.” Runs off to her warframe.
Plissken floats next to me. “She’s pregnant.”
I rub my face. “Oh, fuck you.”
“I doubt you actually want to be pegged by a robot, but the fact remains. DeVille is pregnant.”
Got a whole buncha bad memories populating my brain. “Your sense of timing is terrible to the point of insanity.”
“You two have been fucking for forty-eight hours straight. Without condoms. What did you think was going to happen?” Plissken puffs his thrusters. “Get to your warframe. Protect her.”
* * *
Plissken stays at the camp. With Juliet and Lovelace and Turing.
Someone’s gotta run the fort.
The rest of us? Fuck. We’re on a big industrial elevator together. Getting ready for our first family vacation. Nine metal titans forty feet tall and forty tons heavy.
Baby Harryhausen flutters around my head.
Catarina says, “When we get topside, we run. Ampakine derivatives will keep your muscles from turning to shit. Burning up. Take long strides. No strolling.”
The elevator rattles around us. Strains at lifting the three-hundred sixty tons we all weigh together.
Caleb says, “We’ll be there in under four hours. Stand tight at the eastern edge of the reservoir. Jade will meet us there.”
Jack says, “This’s gonna be scorched-earth, folks.” He takes a breath. I know he’s smoking. “High-damage boom-boom launchers and incinerator units only. Don’t waste ammo. Something gets too close, rip and tear. As it is, we’re plan B. Don’t let it get to Plan C.”
DeVille says, “What’s Plan C?”
“I honestly don’t know.” He grins. “But we’d have to figure something out damn fast.”
The doors above slide apart. Morning light flows over us.
Booker taps my shoulder. “Man, sorry about before. Just fuckin with you.”
“I figured. Also, you’re forgiven. Also...what’s the deal with the metal braces on your legs?”
I hear Booker suck his teeth for a second. He says, “Not everyone’s born fair. I was born with a train wreck of a body. Wasn’t till I got to camp that they could fix me.” He sighs. “I owe Sarah my life. And we both owe our lives to the camp.”
“How the fuck did you guys even make it here?”
“I’ll tell you if we survive.” He waits a beat. “Maybe both of us will. Over alcohol we’re not technically supposed to have. So... You wanna race, old boy?”
“I only run when something’s trying to eat me.”
“Brother, everything’s trying to eat you topside.”
“Fair point.”
The elevator stops.
A light blue indicator appears at the center of my vision. Shaped like a diamond. Reads: ASHOKAN RESERVOIR, 158MI.
Catarina shouts, “C’mon kids.” She takes off running. A mechanized Olympian. Her robotic legs pump. She clears the old western wall. Does the same with the new western wall.
The rest of us follow.
We stomp asphalt and infected. Crack the streets with our feet. Buildings fall under our charge. We leap over the cooked remains of Worcester at the sunken Cabot Yard. Crunch the looted warehouses at Newmarket square.
We hit the suburbs outside Brookline. It’s greener here. But no less infested. Hard to know you’ve killed a bunch till you look at your heel and see the splatters of red gore.
Harryhausen struggles to keep pace.
Then it’s like freedom.
We’re psychotic metal gazelles in lush country and hills and big fat bodies of water we’d love to enjoy if we didn’t have murder on our minds.
I do my best to look dignified while I run.
Still have too much in common with a drunken Curly from The Three Stooges, but I’m trying.
Sarah jogs by my side. “Lift your knees.”
This as we crest a hill west of Worcester.
I pant. Say, “Little lady, I’m a clumsy, angry motherfucker. Only thing I’m good at is drinking, smoking, and killing.”
“Just trying to help.”
“I spent ten years by myself and then murdered a guy without trial like two days into my reintegration into society. You’re trying to help the wrong bastard.” My warframe can’t smirk but I kinda hope Sarah knows I’m being a doofus.
She hums. Says, “If you need something, let me know.” Pumps her legs harder. Gets away from me. “I’ll cover you if needed.”
Guess not.
Holy shit, you’re the old man now.
Yeah, I’ll just make sure Booker and Sarah are the ones to empty my fuckin colostomy bags when we get back to the fort.
Jack jumps to my side. “I wouldn’t worry about the kids. We’ve never seen anyone adapt to their machines so damn fast. This is kinda what they do. It’s why we need em. The world hasn’t totally kicked the piss out of em like it has the rest of us.”
“I’m worried about surviving. Not getting there first.”
Dad’s got a point.
On the other hand, I’m clearly too stubborn to die.
The next hundred goddamn miles are gorgeous. We trample the “quaint” little spots people with too much money used to go on vacation. All of it now retaken by vegetation.
As we stomp, hidden birds take off to the air.
Maybe they’ll be the lucky ones and turn into thunder lizards again.
It’s fuckin pretty, is what I’m saying. All that backwoods shit you see in western Massachusetts. Where the locals don’t like you at all, but they’ll happily take your money.
Or, nowadays, eat you.
Great.
Sure.
Pretty.
Till you get within ten miles of the slobbering horror of the wall of flesh.
Then it’s kinda, y’know, dog shit.
We jog to a stop near the shore. Stand in a line about two-hundred feet apart. Leave craters in the lush greenery of the woods that surround us.
Jade’s light blue signal pops up at the southeastern edge of the reservoir. She’s hauling ass at sixty miles an hour. Clyde unhelpfully lets me know in his creepy Vincent Price voice that if I wanted to blow her up, I could fire a grenade at such and such location.
She kicks up dirt near my feet. “So, gang’s all here, huh? Hi mom!” She a bit less than half as tall as the rest of us.
DeVille walks to her daughter. Picks her up with overpowered arms. “Hi honey. You weigh a ton.”
Jade embraces the robotic form of her mother. Locks her arms around DeVille’s neck. Says, “Ten tons, actually.”
They stand together for a moment.
First time DeVille’s been able to hold Jade since she was nine.
First time’s it’s looked right. Proper.
The rest of us let em have their peace.
For a minute.
Caleb points. “Get tight, folks. Monster incoming.”
Heeeeeeeeere’s squishy!
The wall of flesh crests a mountain range on the far side of the reservoir. Its tendrils slither down. Obliterate the forest it crawls through. Turn it into splinters. Kindling.
It drives a frothing sea of infected before it. What isn’t trampled and absorbed moans. Cries out. The shambling forms of the undead are faster than the parasite amoeba, but they also get caught up on terrain. Then, shlorp. They’re sucked up. Their hands and teeth are added to the growling
nightmare of skin.
Caleb says, “It’s moving faster. Picking up speed. Maybe reacting to us. I don’t know.”
Catarina says, “If emergent are triggered by proximity to the parasite, then it follows that the parasite can be triggered by us.”
Flesh towers and hellbabies struggle to get the fuck outta the way.
The wall of flesh doesn’t care. Anything organic is gore for the grinder.
Almost easy to feel sorry for the displaced infected.
Parasitic diaspora of displaced dipshits.
Except I want em all to die.
Suffer.
So, actually, no. It’s easy to enjoy this.
Jack shouts. “Get yer boom-booms on.”
The nine of us pull our grenade launchers. Oversized versions of the M32—instead of the MGL’s 40mm six-round cylinder, we got eight shots of 50cm high-explosive. Jade shoulders a six-foot long plasma cannon.
The front edge of the wall of flesh splashes into the reservoir. Its bulk pushes up thousands of gallons of fetid water thick with corpses. A slushy stew of faces. Failed infected forms. The dead who’ve been washed in by heavy rain and gravity.
Caleb says, “Wait till passes through Shokan. Wait till it’s on the other side. Our side. That’ll put it inside five miles. Then you can go hog wild.”
Harryhausen coos. Hovers toward the infected on the ground we’re not paying much attention to. He torches the heads of the nearest ones with his thrusters. A little 10mm cannon swivels out from his underside and he chunkifies a few more heads before puffing back up to me and chirping.
I smile. “Good boy.”
The front end of the wall of flesh slinks into the water. Its pink mass disappears under the putrid water for a moment. Reservoir’s just deep enough for the parasite to touch the bottom. Its ass end is still undulating over the western mountain.
This weird meat slug.
The idea of actually killing this gargantuan fucker suddenly hilarious to me.
Not only do we need to destroy whatever main brain it’s using, we gotta kill all the other brains it absorbed. We’re gonna have to burn the abomination till it’s nothing but dust in the wind.
The wall of flesh breeches. Water pours from its flanks. Howls as it throws itself aground in Shokan. Hundreds of mouths that make a lotta noise. Mostly sounding pissed.
A giant blue beam explodes out from our ranks. Hammers the crashing wave of the wall of flesh’s front faces. Carves a smoking trough through eyes and mouths.
Doesn’t seem to do much except annoy the thing.
We all look to Jade.
She shrugs. Does a little dance. Sings, “Dada dum da dum dum. Cue slide whistle.” Puts her hands on her hips. “Thought it was worth a shot.”
Jack giggles.
Caleb readies his grenade launcher. “Fuck it. Open fire.”
Our warframes’ targeting computers tell us where to aim. We launch nine. Eighteen. Twenty-seven high-explosive rounds that arc through the air. Whump whump whump.
We’re mobile artillery.
The grenades hit their apex. Twirl down. Leave traces of smoke in the sky.
Tremendous explosions mushroom along the top of the parasite blob. A saturation bombing. Red chunks fly up from the leaky potholes punched into skin. The wretched carpet of insanity screams. Tentacles unfurl from violently-created pores of gore. Whip frantically.
Damn good reason for us to keep shooting.
Our grenades pound the monster. Hit it hard enough that pieces the size of cars slough off in sloppy splashes. A mudslide of blood and guts tumbles into the reservoir. Like someone dumped a fifty-gallon drum of Chef Boyardee spaghetti all over the place.
Sarah drops the clip from her launcher. Retrieves another from the storage compartment in her machine’s thigh. Says, “Well, we’re making a good mess. No idea if we’re gonna stop it this way, though.”
Jade runs around our legs. Between em. She saves ammo by using her sword to hack heads apart. She stands on a pile of Keefs. Stilt-walkers. Says, “What’s the next part of this brilliant plan?”
The wall of flesh ain’t stopping. It slides down from Shokan. Glides into the next area of the reservoir. Makes crimson waves.
Caleb takes a few steps back into the tree line. Slings his grenade launcher. “Incinerators! Wait till it comes ashore, then light it up. Maybe a roasting will push the thing back.”
Nobody calls it “retreating,” but that’s what we’re doing.
I heft my incinerator. It’s got a layout similar to an AR15-style assault rifle. Stock. Upper receiver. Forward grip. Instead of a magwell, though, there’s a heavy tank of fuel screwed in just in front of the trigger guard.
I squeeze a shot off. The range is shit compared to the grenade launchers. The tongue of fire reaches maybe nine hundred feet over the water. Coats the rippling surface of the reservoir. Burns there.
Hey! Smoke on the water, man. Groovy.
Raining high-explosive charges from five miles away is far fuckin preferable.
The wall of flesh surges through the man-made lake. The water bubbles. Boils.
Harryhausen chirps.
Clyde tells me, “Sir, it might be wise to move. The organic mass is fast approaching.”
Like I didn’t already know that.
Still...
The wall of flesh bursts from the water. Lunges toward the clouds. It stretches. A psychotic spire hundreds of feet tall made of muscle. Blood. Sinew. It twists. Corkscrews. Skin wrapping around itself. Malformed eyeballs swivel in their sockets. Mouths flash their teeth. Gnash at nothing.
Those of us in its shadow scramble to get clear. Dive when the obscene thing crashes down and smashes the trees.
It thrashes. Roars. A putrescent hellish worm.
We open fire. Bathe the beast in flames.
It shrieks. Its skin crinkles with the heat. Splits over flexing monster muscles. Tendrils slither from the new seams and wounds. Jade does her best to cut em down as they sprout.
I shout at my machine. “Clyde, where’s the goddamn brain?”
“There are hundreds—all buried deep inside the organism.”
Aiden, Athena and Jack keep the blaze going against its face. Or whatever the hell you’d call its twisted, wormy front end. Caleb, Catarina, Booker and Sarah torch the long side. Me and DeVille hold our side with Jade.
Top. Bottom. Front. Back. It’s all a fucked matter of perception with this writhing sonuvabitch.
“This fuckin thing ain’t dying fast enough,” Jack says.
The worm parasite shudders forward. Drags more of itself inland. Picks up speed.
We jump and jog. Fight to keep it surrounded. On fire.
My flamethrower sputters. Runs outta fuel. I hurl the weapon at the wriggling monster’s cooking flesh. Doesn’t do much but it makes me feel better.
This whole fuckin process has been as effective as cooking a frozen hot dog with stick matches in high wind. And just as frustrating.
I mean, technically, it’s more of a gory Fruit Rollup now. Maybe a buncha Gushers mushed together. Gooey centers and all.
Yeah. A layered mess of infected flesh three miles long. A few hundred feet tall. Weighing metric fucktons.
The wormisite’s face splits. Screams. It throws its head from side to side. Brings its sledgehammer of a tail outta the water. Down. Knocks the hell out of Jack and Catarina. Booker and Sarah. Aiden and Athena.
I watch my family get beaten and tossed. Massive and powerful in their warframes and then blammo. They’re like ragdolls that flop in the air when the monster smacks em.
Jade hits the dirt. Short enough to escape the blow that comes for me and DeVille.
We pop our swords from their sheaths. Punch into the flesh of its flank as it swipes us. Still get hit. Hard enough to bring my firs
t level of carbyne armor down to forty percent. Hurts like a bitch and a fist. But the gallons of blood we spill make it worth the pain.
Only Caleb has the sense to dodge and counter-attack. He leaps toward the behemoth. Both swords out. Buries em up to his wrists. Uses the leverage they offer impaled in skin to scale the monstrous motherfucker.
He shouts. “Come on. Come on. We’re not going down like this.”
The wormisite shrieks as Caleb flays its flesh and hacks away any tendrils that try to ensnare him.
The rest of us find our balls. Howl war cries. Throw ourselves against the twirling amalgamut of skin. Ants on a millipede.
The wormipede grows legs. A thousand that lift it off the ground. A million. Proves my analogy right. Barrels forward through the trees. East.
Caleb climbs on top of it. Loses his footing, but not his grip. The big knives in his Talos’ arms sheer flesh from the squirming flesh-worm in tight packages. Fillet o’Monster—ready to eat.
He shouts again, “Come on!”
Not easy keeping up with the wormisite now. All those legs. They carry the fucker fast. It scuttles with manic intent.
Jade and DeVille run side-by-side. Each one pushing themselves as hard as they can. They look for a place they can make a stand. No go.
DeVille grunts. Stops. Digs her feet into the earth. She drives her swords into the parasite’s guts. Runs the opposite way it’s pumping. Creates a bleeding envelope that drips pus and organs.
Jade jumps inside the pocket. Her single sword hacks. Creates a canal.
Tendrils grab Jade. Squeeze her small frame. Hiss. Just like with the undead city of White Plains.
They melt into her armor. Into her.
They crack her knees. Her arms.
Break em.
Jade howls in agony.
DeVille runs for her daughter.
Jade cuts the skin that ties her to the worm. Laughs as the muscled structure crushes her abdomen and eats away at her. “You think that’s gonna kill me?” She screams. Pain and bloodlust. Metal body ripped apart. She laughs. Mad. “That ain’t gonna kill me! Fuck you. Fuck you!”
The worm takes her legs. Her arms.
I cut the tentacles.
DeVille lunges. Catches what remains of Jade and Alpha.
Blood God (The Hroza Connection Book 5) Page 16