Spread.
It spreads.
That’s what it does. That’s its purpose.
Goddamn thing. Little parasite that Plissken says is old. Older than us. Maybe I let it out when I went to interview patient zero. A man who’d skullfucked a whore to death. Maybe.
I was a journalist then. Thought I was doing my job.
Or maybe it was the ancient titan. The one who slumbered under Brooklyn till Emergence Day—when the human race learned it wasn’t really all that unique or special after all...
That titan. That’s what I need to find...
At least there ain’t as many infected as there used to be. The shambling dead I call Keefs after Keith Richards, cuz the guy couldn’t die. Stilt-walkers and towers of flesh and all kinds of nightmares.
No. Not nearly as many infected now as there had been. At the beginning, millions writhed below like a horrible carpet of necrotic tissue. Today, the streets ain’t so bad.
Me and Plissken guess the creatures’re starving. Dying without being able to spread the infection. We think the parasite has a lifespan measured in years instead of decades, which has something to do with how quickly the human body deteriorates after death. We don’t know for sure. How the fuck could we? And it’s discomforting that the parasite’s own vicious efficiency might be its undoing. As the human numbers dwindle, so too do potential hosts, and thus so do the number of monsters.
But they always change. They always find a way to stick around. Evolve.
Even with reduced numbers, the cries of the infected can fuck up an evening already handicapped by the fucked day I just had. I don’t wanna listen to em. I could use the little solid-state music player I grabbed from a shattered Apple store. Could shove noise-cancelling ear buds into my head so I can’t hear anything but music.
Except I don’t wanna feel like they’ve boxed me in that much. I don’t wanna acknowledge that they won the psychological war.
I tell Plissken: “Music.”
He obeys. The steady stomping drums The North Mississippi Allstars’ “Snakes In My Bushes” rumble into being.
I exhale.
I open the Colt’s loading gate. Pull the hammer back till I hear two clicks. I keep my finger far from trigger. Spin the weapon’s cylinder. Make sure the hammer’s really half-cocked. I depress the cross bolt. Remove the base pin from the front of the frame and roll the cylinder out into my hand.
I set the cylinder down on the table. Take two large gulps of Evan Williams whiskey. I follow that with a long suck from a can of Red Bull and jam my dwindling cigarette back to its rightful perch between my lips.
This’s my method of meditation and medication.
A mental booster shot against The End’s countless woes.
I ask Plissken for something heavier.
Cannibal Corpse double bass-drums its way into existence. Heavy Metal claws at the air and tears its way out of Plissken’s speakers. Guitars shred.
I let the songs play without interruption. Rebuild my weapon.
It’s kinda sexual. The way I touch my machine matches the moves of a man tenderly caressing a lover before a tumultuous fuck.
Track after track pierces the sky. Music drowns out the undead things roaming below.
The Colt’s clean. Fresh. Like it was never fired. So I take it home. Slide it into the holster on my thigh.
I decide to just go nuts for a little while. Rant. “Hey, fuck those assholes at the camps here. They don’t want me? Fine, fine, to hell with all of em. They’ll never have my gun on their side. Let the parasitic shamblers and the mutants have em. I’m a gunslinger, man. I’m a goddamn gunslinger. But if they don’t want me then fuck em.”
Yeah, I’m drunk. Sue me.
I pinwheel around the Observation Deck. New York’s dark tower. My dark tower. I repeat lines from the films that Plissken projects. I drink more.
I know Plissken’s wondering if the real reason the other human camps want me to stay away is cuz I’m a drunk who might also be batshit crazy.
But the robot likes me and I’ve been through a lot. So sympathize, you jerks.
I piss over the side of the observation deck.
Plissken says, “I have found a transmission on the long-range scanners. A radio transmission. A real, broadcasted radio transmission. It’s new. Not automated.”
Plissken expects me to be excited about this. And I’m thinking: Great. More assholes who don’t want nothin to do with me. So fuck em.
I zip up my fly and mouth a bottle of Jameson. “Play dat funky music, white boy.” I stumble. “But not too loud, I’m tryin to watch Gremlins 2 on that wall there.”
Plissken ignores my drunkenness. He lowers the film.
I scream. “Dude, fuck you! What did I just say?” But I get quiet when I hear the music pour out of the hovering machine’s speakers. I stop. Something like sobriety finds me. “This’s live? Real? Not pre-recorded?”
Tom Waits. Bone Machine. “Goin’ Out West.”
Plissken dips his forecurve to say: Yes.
A little smile crosses my face.
Then I get a funny idea.
I tell Plissken: “Find out where that signal is.”
4. Escape From New York
I have no idea where we’re going, but I know we’re leaving.
There’s just all these stupid logistics getting in the way.
Transportation. What routes are safe. How many infected are in the way. What supplies do we take. Where’re we gonna rest. Does a car make sense. Can we fix a car if we find one. Do we have the tools. And what about bullets. Weapons. Clothes. Medicine. What areas are irradiated from the bombs. Will other survivors fight with us or against us.
Plissken goes: “What if it’s a trap?”
Haven’t considered that. I’m too excited. And drunk. “To what end? Why bother?”
“To lure travelers. To lure the able-bodied who are well-stocked. It might very well be pirates, or roadmen looking for easy pickings.”
“You know I’m hard.”
“That’s not what your mom said.”
“Touché.” Goddamn robot getting clever on me.
Plissken says, “Well?”
I shrug. “Track it and try to communicate while I pack. See if there’s anyone answering the phone over there. Either way, we ain’t staying here.”
“We can’t communicate with a broadcast signal. It only goes one way.”
“So gimme a fuckin location on it.” I flap my hands at Plissken. “Wherever it is, whoever they are, I still think it’s our best shot at something better than—” I wave my hands around the shitty deck we live on “—this shit.”
“What if you don’t get along with them? You don’t get along with anyone.”
“Oh, you’re adorable.”
I pack and plot.
Simple truth of the situation is this: Me and Plissken can keep on with our charade of a life, or we can seek others outside. Others who maybe don’t hate me.
Sure, the view’s nice. But the natives ain’t so pleasant.
Even if it is a trap, trying is better than stagnating here. Alone.
Plissken sounds an alarm. “North side.”
I drop my bags. My hand hovers over the Colt. Ready to draw. “Stilt-walker?”
“Variant. It’s crawling up the north side. Rather quickly.”
In our lingo, “variant” means one of the infected types changed itself. Adapted. Added a few more arms. Maybe. Or grew suction cups where fingers used to be.
They do that. Mutate from generation to generation to suit the environment. Evolution at hyper speed. The infected do not plan. But they’ll surprise you with their ingenuity.
No, not ingenuity. That alludes to a thoughtful, guided process. This’s just blind natural selection. Some evolutionary path
s work. Others don’t.
I try to make sure none of the parasite’s paths work.
I pull the Colt. Check the rounds in my machine. Click the freshly-cleaned cylinder shut. “Give me a time. A countdown.”
Plissken says, “Uh... Now.”
An enormous variant lunges over the fence of the Observation Deck. Fucker looks like a human, torn apart and put back together. Stretched out. Some kind of makeshift being. It’s all long arms and long legs. Flaps of flesh and suckers writhe on its sides. Its head is a skinless skull with bulging eyes.
The variant lashes out at Plissken with spear-like forearms. Smashes and scatters random items in my safe house. It sniffs the air like a dog. Shifts its murderous gaze from the robot to me.
I stand my ground.
It barks. Locks its eyes on my warmth.
My fresh, uninfected flesh.
I say, “Yeah? Fuck you too.”
I aim. My right hand steadies the Colt. My left hand slams back the hammer. The index finger on my right hand pulls the trigger once. Just once.
One expert bullet.
One sublime shot.
Can’t lie. I’m sporting a murderboner.
The top of the variant’s head pops off. Up and away. Over the fence it vaulted. Its skull goes up in a red mist of blood and gore. Its bulging eyes spin. Dead pupils tilt toward the eruption of its cranium. Even skinless, it flashes an expression of Oh shit before slumping forward and crashing to the deck.
Plissken dips in the air. “I can see why leaving might be attractive.”
“Knew you’d come around.”
* * *
Plissken says, “The signal’s origin is Boston.”
“Pissballs. Even with a car that’s—”
“Four hours of driving, if the roads were in good condition. Which they are not. And it’s a worse walk. All while large things are trying to eat us.”
I smile. “Sounds like a challenge.”
Plissken groans. It’s a noise he learned after extended time with me. “A journey of this length is—”
“Crazy. Yeah, I know. But we’re going. I’m sick of this city.” I shove spare ammunition into my pack. My cleaning kit. More essentials. “Nothing here likes me.” I light a cigarette. “Do me a favor and locate a boat or something. The bridges and tunnels have been screwed since the USC military tried to bomb the infection when it started.”
“Stand by.” Plissken’s blue lights pulse. He makes a light ding noise. Like a microwave. “There’s an undamaged helicopter at the West 30th Street heliport. As well as several NYPD emergency vehicles. One is a boat. Satellite imaging suggests someone made an ill-fated last stand there.”
“Bummer for them. Good for us. Infected?”
“Infected presence seems light.”
I clap my hands together. “Fuckin-A.” I take a pull from the bottle of whiskey next to my work bench. “What time is it?” I look out across the destroyed cityscape.
The sun sits on the horizon like a melting scoop of strawberry ice cream. It paints everything with an angry orange-red glow.
Plissken says, “Six-seventeen p.m.”
“I’m gonna have a few drinks and pass out. Wake me up at four a.m.”
“Would you like me to put something on?”
“Yeah. Some goddamn porn.”
5. Nightmares
I’d borne witness to the infection’s beginning. My own colleague, an idiot asshole photographer named Declan, was bitten by patient zero.
Patient zero was a skullfucking politician named Schneer. Literally. He had skullfucked a whore to death. I dragged Declan’s ass back to work. Thinking, y’know, goddamn it, I’m a journalist and we have shit to do.
Then Declan succumbed to the parasite we later named Sub Specie Deus. He went batshit. Bit a lotta people. Made em into infected carriers.
I’d tried to stop it. But it didn’t matter. Within twelve hours, the New York City Zone fell. Soon after, the tristate area. Then the country. Then the world.
The plague touched every corner of the globe.
That was the start. And the end.
But the parasite’s actual origin remains a mystery.
I wonder if the parasite was released on Emergence Day—some serious shit that went down decades ago when an ancient creature woke up under Brooklyn. I’d read about it all when I was younger. Old monsters came out of the sky and the ground. Great tentacled and winged kraken. Some kinda family feud. Good monsters from underground fighting bad ones that wanted the planet. Earth.
They were defeated by three kids.
Kids from fuckin Brooklyn.
When the battle was over, the heroes disappeared.
Including the sole surviving titan.
Maybe those goddamn giants left the parasite behind. A parasite that laid dormant.
For the infection to have spread so fast, Schneer can’t have been the only carrier.
Right?
Maybe this’s bullshit.
But that’s what I dream. The one “good” monster who stayed. Him, curled up underground. A massive motherfucker who decided his job was done and he just wanted to sleep.
The monster that woke up all those years ago and turned everything to shit.
That’s who I wanna talk to.
6. History Lesson
It’s four in the morning. Plissken’s making obscene wet fart noises to wake me up.
I grumble. “I’m gonna pork your face and fart in your daughter.” I roll over. Point the Colt at him. “Can you please inject drugs into my brain so I can function? This waking up stuff is horseshit.” I reach for a can of IMMEDIAFEINE. Weird energy drink crap invented by the same people who created the ampakine derivative tablets I’m so fond of. Major uppers.
I rub my face. Thoughts trickle in.
The kid I killed yesterday.
The old thing under Brooklyn.
I light a cigarette. Bark at Plissken, “Get to da choppah.”
Plissken bobs. “Ah. Yes. A stillborn Arnold Schwarzenegger reference. How delightful. Though I know you’re referring to the NYPD helicopter I mentioned before.”
“You are either the best or the worst straight-man ever.” I blow smoke. “Remind me to piss on your sarcasm circuits.”
“I’m not comprised of anything you would recognize as a circuit.”
“Fine, then I’ll just piss on you.”
“I’m rated to withstand a depth of fifty pee-meters.”
When you reach a point in your life when you can’t out-funny a fuckin robot, it’s best to just stop and cut your losses. So I wander over to the fenced-in edge of the Observation Deck. Look out into the darkness.
I don’t see the streets below. I don’t see the infected crawling around. Not the skeletal skyscrapers that claw up at the sky. Not the little fog of light in the distance—fires from the survivor camps. And fuck those people anyway.
I see the face of that kid.
Eyes bulging. Mouth gasping.
Red on my hands.
Yeah, I think, we’ll all just outright kill each other. Make the Keefs’ job easier.
My brain says: Ay, mang. Chu look tired an troubled. Av a drink, mang.
Don’t ask me why it sounds like a racist stereotype that likes to mock me. I’ve never been able to figure that out. But, the point is, I don’t listen. For once. Can’t booze now.
The ancient titan. I need to talk to it. I know it’s not dead. I’m betting it’s here. Hibernating or whatever. Some weird part of my head knows it’s here somewhere.
I pull my dick out and piss over the fence. Say to Plissken, “How do we get to Bay Ridge?” Say this hoping my urine is pitter-patting on the head of some infected monster down below.
Plissken says, “Brooklyn? You wanted to get to the Un
ited States of Christ.”
USC was what America turned into a while back. Easier to let freezones like NYC and LA and a few other places become city-states.
I say, “Well, now I wanna to get to Bay Ridge. Got somethin there needs doin.”
Plissken studies me for a second. “You want to find the Hroza.”
“Gesundheit. I want to find the what?”
“The creature from Emergence Day.”
“That’s what it’s called? Sounds like someone trying to throw up.”
“Do you even remember the history? At all?”
“Some.” I’m slightly ashamed. “Shit all happened before I was born.”
I don’t even know how old I am at this point.
Plissken whirs around. Sighs. One of his side panels slides open. He projects an old holovid on the wall. A news clip. Some talking head who looks way too excited. The newscast goes from a story about a kitten in a blender to PANIC IN BROOKLYN.
Then a cut. Shaky camera footage. AMATEUR VIDEO. Someone points the lens out a four-story building. Looks through their window.
There’s a hole in the middle of Bay Ridge. A crater. Massive. A square block wide.
Someone off-camera says, “They came down. Right through that. Blew out the street.”
Another voice says, “What did? What the [bleep] did? Oh, my God. Is it terrorists?”
Everything was “terrorists” back then.
The first voice says, “Nah, man. Big things. Not bombs or nothin. They was movin, like they’re alive. Squid things, man, I dunno. Aliens from space. Why you askin me?”
Then there’s movement in the hole. Big shapes under a blanket of shadow.
And then holy shit.
The shapes. The things. The titans. They’re out. They scream. Howl. Tear into one another. Huge beasts that’re part squid and part spider and part lobster. With fleshless skulls for heads and far too-human eyes... Two factions, it looks like. It’s an insane galactic gang fight. Bay Ridge is Ground Zero.
A Man and His Robot Page 2