I fall backward. Stare up at the ceiling of the Hroza’s den.
I see the bioluminescent plants sway, even though there’s no breeze. Swaths and pinpricks of light. A condensed version of the night sky right above me.
Do I cry?
Bet your ass I do.
All this time. So many years. Those dicks at the survivor camps were right. I’m infected. People have to stay away from me.
Tears tumble from my eyes. Hit the dirt of the cavern like rain drops.
Thoughts of Momma Bear float up again from the depths. Did I infect her? Did I doom her in some way? I ask the ancient titan.
The Hroza says, “No. Not unless you attacked her. Bit into her flesh. Perhaps if you copulated with her. The primary method of transfer has always been blood to blood. Have you not noticed that all of the infected creatures bleed from their mouths? Or whatever appendage it is they attack with.”
No. I really haven’t. “Well. I’m sure wearing a condom is still a good idea.” I smoke my American Spirit. “But no, man. I hadn’t noticed that they all bleed from their mouths. Or if I did, I didn’t put that together.”
“Now you know. Please stop crying. It is annoying.”
And I’m related to this ancient squid.
I take another pull of whiskey. “What am I supposed to do?”
The Hroza says, “For now, rest. This place is safe. And you will need your strength. I do not think that what happens next is going to be very easy for you.”
* * *
I’ve gotten drunk a lot in my life.
Not sure I’ve ever gotten this drunk before though.
* * *
I sleep for twenty-six hours.
Like a coma while my body heals.
I dream about her.
I always dream about her.
Then I dream about a city. A city of living death. The buildings are infected. The towers are screaming monsters. Doesn’t matter that they’re metal and glass and plastic. The parasite found a way. It absorbed them. Now there’s this place... The streets moan. A diseased heart grows inside the infrastructure alongside a diseased brain. The sidewalks throb with veins.
One giant parasite playground.
It pulls itself free from the Earth.
Ten square blocks of the city of living death.
One organism.
It starts to walk.
* * *
I shake myself awake.
It’s weird not seeing the Empire State Building around me. Weird not being a hundred floors up. Dunno how much I like it. I am alive, though, so there’s that.
Plissken’s an immobile metal saucer.
The Hroza’s big weird eyes are closed.
For the first time in a long time, I don’t go for stim pills. Don’t go for my booze.
I sit up and think. Let all the info sink into my addiction-addled brain.
It’s freeing. Some of it.
The whole being related-to-a-monster thing bugs me. But not being able to be mutated? Changed? The parasite can’t do anything to me. That’s tits. I’m all right with that.
There’s a far corner of the burrow I use for the latrine. I empty my bladder into a five-foot-deep hole we dug out. Take a strained but pleasing shit. Wipe. Toss the toilet paper in behind the feces. Then torch it with a chemical flare.
Once it’s cooked, I kick dirt on top.
I walk to the pool of water. Looks clean.
Can’t be. But it does look it.
Almost ten years without industry may finally have detoxed the Hudson River.
I know I smell. Stink, in fact. Covered in dried blood. Guts. Decaying skin. To say nothing of regular old body odor. Live single during the apocalypse long enough, you’ll get used to dirty human smells.
Stolen baby wipes can only do so much.
I need a wash.
I strip. Figure Three’s seen worse things than my naked ass.
I dip my hand in the water. It’s cold. Not freezing. Not quite. I scoop a handful out and smell it. No sewage or rot. That’s interesting. Not that I’m gonna drink any of it without sterilizing it. It’d be dumb to die of dysentery at this point.
My pants go in. I soak em. Scrub em as clean as I can without soap. Then my shirt. I leave both hanging over the edge to dry. The carbon mesh suit doesn’t stink too bad, so I leave it alone.
Now it’s time for my hairy butt.
I grab a rag and a bar of soap from my rucksack—these are massively important apocalypse items, along with a good toothbrush, floss, and toilet paper—and get to work.
It’s not erotic. Not sexy. It’s kinda gross.
My body’s been mangled and torn so many times.
I keep the water and the rag away from where the stilt-walker speared me. I’ll need to redress the wound anyway. Blood’s already seeped up through the gauze.
Then I feel pretty good. Less horribly disgusting.
The water bubbles. Like someone farted. Two little fragile spheres break on the surface.
I grab my belt with the holster and the Colt. Sling it over my shoulder.
I’m dick to the wind. I clench my ass cheeks.
An enormous arm covered in barnacles erupts from the pool. Might be attached to a sea anemone. Maybe a jellyfish. Partially transparent. There’s a hint of blue.
It grabs my pants and disappears under the water again.
My jaw drops. “Son of a dick.”
This robbery gets to me. Breaks part of my heart. The infection has taken everything in my life. Every. Fuckin. Thing.
Now: My pants. My goddamn pants.
So I scream. Naked. Holding a gun. Close to tears. A weepy grown man standing in an ancient creature’s den and whose best (only) friend in the world is a former New York Public Library drone.
Three wakes with a start. “Human?”
Plissken rushes to my side. “Infected?”
I sniff. Put the Colt revolver back in its holster. “They stole my pants.”
Three and Plissken laugh.
Plissken looks at my cock and balls. Says, “I do not need to be seeing this right now.”
* * *
Plissken retrieves fresh clothes for me. He leaves asking what brand I prefer. Like it matters. Fashion is a useless and wretched industry. It was even before things went to hell.
He dives into the pool. Returns an hour later. Pulls a pair of Levi jeans and some olive-drab Dockers cargo pants from his cargo compartment with little metal arms.
The jeans are a kinda tight. Have to wear em in.
I grab a can of chili. Use gloves to hold it under Plissken’s ass thrusters for a few seconds till it’s hot. Then I rip the lid off. Chow down. “So what’s this next step?”
Three says, “You heard the radio signal, I presume?”
“Plissken picked it up, yeah.”
Plissken’s off working on himself. He whirs. Makes more noise inside his hull. No idea what the tricky tin can’s up to, precisely.
Three says, “What is your plan?”
“I tend to make this stuff up as I go along.”
“I would not recommend that.”
“Why? It’s worked so far.”
“I can guess that you planned to head north. Straight toward Boston. How do you expect to bypass the bridges needed to access the mainland?”
I shove more chili in my face. “Thought we’d steal a boat.”
Three makes a noise like he’s disappointed in me. “Need I remind you of the monster that stole your—” He laughs once. Catches himself “—The monster that stole your pants? A boat would leave you almost literally a sitting duck for the new kings of the sea. I am built for that sort of combat. You are not. Try again.”
I got nothin. “Well, I ain’t gonna be flying.”
“Why’m I doing that?”
Three doesn’t answer.
I finish my food. Rouse Plissken. Get myself together.
Three puts me back inside his awful mouth.
I hear the water of the Hudson whoosh around us.
* * *
Daylight. Probably early afternoon. We surface under the broken George Washington Bridge.
Three opens his mouth. Plucks me from his tongue. Places me atop his big head. Says, “You will go to Newark. On the mainland. And you will use the highways on the mainland to travel to Boston.”
I check Old Glory’s knot around my neck. “Why’re you sending me west so I can turn around and go east? Seems like a waste of time.”
“None of the routes from New York are passable. The resistance you would meet heading north, through Yonkers, exceeds even your abilities right now.”
“My ‘abilities.’”
“You are the man, after all, who managed to lose his pants.”
Plissken sniggers.
I put my hands up. “All right, all right. Back off. It was a very emotional time for me.”
We ride with Three to the George Washington Bridge.
I say to him: “So, hey. Stupid question: Why can’t you take us to Boston? This ain’t exactly the ride of kings, but—”
Three wraps a tentacle around me so I don’t fall. He crawls up the metal struts of the bridge. Plops me down on the Jersey side. Upper level.
The ancient titan blinks his huge red and blue eyes. Says: “I am not your dancing monkey. Momfuck.” He turns to sink below the Hudson again.
I shout after him. “It’s ‘motherfucker,’ you big idiot!”
* * *
We end up on Interstate 95 South. Which really ain’t the way I wanna be going at all.
Hooray! The irradiated zones! Where they dropped all the nukes!
What delightful horrors await us there?
Let’s find out!
I say, “Oh, I bet the Meadowlands will be all kinds of fucked.”
Plissken says, “I am detecting enormous biological masses out here.”
“Plural.”
“Yes. Though it’s possible the radiated areas are interfering with my instruments.”
“Possible. They moving toward us?”
“Most of them aren’t moving at all. Of the seven I’m reading, all but one are stationary. That one is pulsating. Under Newark. I will need to inspect them if we get closer.”
“Let’s keep to the elevated highways.”
I slip between crashed cars.
Broken down Vans and SUVs and sedans with empty baby seats. Torn seatbelts. Spilled toys. Rotten groceries. Shredded clothing. Where families literally ripped each other apart. No bones. No bodies—no bodies cuz they all got up and started walking again.
The parasite parade.
I tell Plissken: “High alert. Keep those sensors warm.”
I didn’t like Jersey all that much before the world went to hell. Now I’m walking through Fort Lee. Into the United States of Christ.
This is gonna blow.
Old Glory flaps in the wind behind me.
10. C’mon, City Boy
Plan is: Follow 95 to Secaucus, then walk along the train tracks to Newark. Won’t have a maze of cars to deal with. Won’t have our feet wet in the Meadowlands. Should be clearer of crap.
But Plissken gets excited. He’s a robot. He shouldn’t be able to. But he does.
Especially at the prospect of examining some new messy form of the parasite.
There’s shit out here we just don’t know what to do with.
In the city, the parasite determined what infected forms were best for the environment. I didn’t think there’d be much of a difference out here. Zombies and stilt-walkers and flesh-towers. Maybe a dogipede. Or a vaginasaurus.
Well. Lemme tell you: I was wrong.
You ever hear of an arachnocar?
Course not.
I just thought of it.
We walk along the Jersey Turnpike near Overpeck Park. The retaining walls kept a lotta garbage trapped inside this little valley of 95. All the wrecks. People couldn’t escape the flood of infected coming from behind. Couldn’t go off road to escape the traffic jam in front.
The ticky-tacky houses nearby in Teaneck ain’t burning anymore. They’re already cooked. Johnny and Barbra won’t be playing in those blasted backyards any time soon. Whole place is a suburban scorched earth.
Plissken says, “Signal. Movement a hundred yards ahead. Big.”
I drop behind a burned-out Dodge van. One of those vehicles soccer moms or baseball dads hauled their stupid cabbage-headed spawn in. “What is it?” Being immune to the parasite’s mutations doesn’t mean I wanna get impaled or otherwise deadified.
“Unknown.”
“The fuck do you mean ‘unknown?’”
“I mean unknown. We’ve never encountered this before.”
“Goddamn suburbia.”
I pull the Ruger off my shoulder. Look through the scope. “Yeah it’s... Uh...Huh. That’s something.”
“You’re clearly far better at identifying threats than I am.”
“Shut up.”
The creature crawls down the retaining wall a hundred yards south of us. It’s spidery. Maybe fifteen legs. Twenty. Hard to tell since they’re moving fast. They keep the body a good ten feet off the ground. And the body of the beast appears to be a Toyota sedan. The shell of one, anyway. Giant gangly eyestalks sprout from where the headlights should be. Two vaguely human irises sit in the orbs at the end.
I can’t see its head.
That’s a problem.
I say, “Nukes made these things kinda weird. Arachnocar?”
The bot says, “Sure. Arachnocar is apt. Scans do indicate a significant dose of radiation. However, there is no way to tell if radiation caused this creature’s mutation or the parasite.” Then Plissken shoots off toward the monster.
He gets that way when there’s a new abomination he can poke and prod and try to make sense of.
The big spider bastard bad guy makes a noise like a tuba. Deep. Loud.
It sees Plissken.
The bot zigs. Zags. Loops through the air. Doesn’t give the arachnocar a target. Plissken’s trying to determine behavior. Patterns.
The arachnocar makes the tuba noise again. It skitters after Plissken. Its legs move in a horrible blur. The eyestalks are much slower. Focused on this metallic interloper.
Me, I’m not sure if I should be shooting or not. I wanna shoot. Put some .308 rounds into those creepy eyestalks. But I don’t wanna screw up Plissken’s plan. And if I can’t hit the head, the shots are a waste.
Plissken dips under the arachnocar. It gets confused. Loses sight of him. Trips over its multitude of legs trying to find my bot and slams to the ground. The thud rattles vehicles nearby. Plissken pops out near its rear. Shoots over its head. The big bastard scrambles to its feet. Jumps a little. Like a cat after a toy.
He scoots back under the thing’s legs. Two circular saws emerge from his rounded sides. Then he whirls. Buzzes. He chops apart spider appendage after spider appendage. They splinter. Break. Spew liquid.
He slices! He dices!
Plissken’s a sentient chainsaw. A dervish of destruction.
In about thirty seconds, he’s got the monstrosity down. It spins and writhes without legs on the ground. The stumps of amputated limbs spurt blood. The eyestalks bounce around with manic speed in a panic.
The arachnocar makes a farty, sad tuba noise.
Plissken flashes a blue light in my direction.
I sling the Ruger and walk to him. “Bout time you earned your keep. Shit, I
’m gonna have to give you a wash. Those blades are new. That what you were doing back in Three’s cave?”
“Indeed. I determined that venturing into the wastes with only one of us armed would be unwise. I had planned the upgrades for some time. However, your constant need for attention and alcohol and pornography forced me to push most of the modifications back.”
“I thought all that was more of a...bonding experience.”
Plissken grunts. Ignores my snark. “This infected is interesting.”
“Do tell.”
“For one, it’s a car.”
“No shit.”
The arachnocar keeps trying to move forward. Toward me.
Tasty, tasty me.
One of its eyestalks bops me in the chest. Nearly knocks me over. I punch the orb. It deflates. Makes the same noise a balloon losing air does. I shoot the second eye because fuck these things.
Plissken says, “Pop the hood.”
I do. Whistle. “That’s some serious hardware.”
I find the head. Heads as it were. Two large skulls melded together. One freakish huge eye socket apiece. The thick cords of the eyestalks lead into them. A lower jaw hangs down below the chassis. So it can most definitely eat you, but good luck scoring a headshot.
The stalks themselves jiggle and wriggle with alarm. They really, really wish they could find me. But ain’t that just too bad about being blind.
I can’t muster up any pity. What with all of em trying to eat me.
I pull my revolver. Ready to put a few bullets in the arachnocar’s brain pan. “Any compelling reason to keep this thing alive?”
Plissken says, “Wait.” He pops a circular saw out. Spins on his axis. Lowers the blade just-so onto the double-skull. It whines. Cuts through a thin layer of flesh, then the hefty bone. He uses a deft little claw to pop the cap off.
Then: Voila.
One-hundred percent Grade-Z monster brain.
I say, “You gonna study it?”
Plissken says, “I already have.” A turret slides up from inside his frame. A little cannon. It glows blue for a split second. Then discharges. A blast of energy slams into the brain meat below. Which erupts like a sack of fat hit by a sledge hammer.
A Man and His Robot Page 6