Anarchy

by Peter Meredith

  “To free you from your oath, of course,” Five Zero One answered. “Sacrifices, you know. Nothing in this world is free.”

  “Yeah. I hear you,” she said, gently turning Victoria’s head around so that it sat natually. She closed the woman’s eyes and then, in a surprisingly girlish move, she arranged her hair and pulled her hands up onto her flat belly so that it looked like Victoria was sleeping. “There is a price for everything, and this is going to cost you.”

  Five Zero One feigned shock. “Me? But I did nothing. Remember, you came here to me. If you have an issue, it’s with this poor creature.” The blonde had darted up to stand behind the foul body of Five Zero One. Lovingly, he stroked its hair. “This demon as you think of her, is a victim in this just as we all are.”

  Maddy stood, drawing the pipe up with her, enjoying the scrape of it along the ground. “You claim victimhood? After how you crowed about being the first volunteer?”

  “Hmmm, yes. I suppose that is stretching my point somewhat. Still, I am innocent and you would be a murderer if you got lucky enough to strike me down. Do not let your righteous anger go to your head. You are not my equal. Not yet. Besides, I don’t want to see you dead as you still have a role to play. Isn’t that so, my pet.” This was addressed to the demon who nodded largely with head and neck, much like a trained parrot.

  “I very much doubt your innocence,” Maddy told him. “But she is guilty without question.” Yes, Maddy could understand that the blonde had once been just a girl. That was no longer the case and even if it hadn’t murdered Victoria, Maddy would kill it if she could. There was an enmity between them that existed even below the cellular level. It was encoded in their DNA.

  Maddy began to stalk forward only to stop as Five Zero One held up an enormous hand, showing its filthy palm. “For the moment she is under my protection. Until she has paid off her debt…” The hand snuck around behind the demon and its eyes opened slightly wider. “After, you can have her, though I doubt you’ll have the time. The missiles, remember?”

  It would be impossible for her to forget. The darkness that swirled around her had not diminished an iota. It was strange to her that she didn’t care about the missiles. Perhaps it was because they hadn’t been launched yet, or maybe it was because she still had time to escape. Or I’m done with all this. She had seen enough death that she knew being fried in a blink of an eye had its advantages.

  “I’m not that worried, and I find it curious that you don’t seem all that worried, either. Why is that?”

  One of his squirrel-sized eyebrows went up. “Really? You ask that of me? Do you think this is the life I envisioned?” Was promised—this thought ghosted from his subconscious, telling Maddy volumes. Magnus had lied to him, had sold him on a vision of the future that was light years from reality. “This isn’t exactly my idea of heaven and if it were to vanish in a snap, I can’t say that I would be all that upset. And yet…”

  He did something to the demon that made the demon lurch forward. “I’m not exactly unhappy either. I suppose you and I are in the same boat. But what about your little friend, Billy? Remember him?”

  Her mothering instinct flared up. “Of course, I do. He’s safe…” For now, but for how long? Until the missile strike?

  “And have you forgotten Griff? He needs you now more than ever because he’s slipping. He’s on the verge. You know it’s true.” He paused just long enough for her mind to switch gears from Billy to Griff before he went on. “And then there’s Bryce. I hate to tell you, but he’s hurt, Maddy. He’s hurt and in deep trouble. He needs you, too. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  He was lying about lying. From the moment she had walked into his dark chamber, every word that came out of his vile, stench-filled mouth had been tinged with some sort of untruth. He knew more than he was letting on. “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “Hmmmm. Nothing. Nothing you need to know.” This was his most blatant lie yet and he tried to “juice” it the way Bryce could; however, he lacked the power to affect Maddy. She took a quick step toward him, gripping the pipe. He waved his hand at her aggression. “Okay. I have secrets, you are right about that, but who doesn’t? And my secrets are valuable.” He leered at her. “You could afford them. Oh yes.”

  “I’ll pass, thank you.”

  Her snippy reply made him smile, an expression that only made him more disgusting. “Maybe someday then. If there is a someday. You better run along. So many lives are counting on you.”

  This at least was true, and she felt the weight of responsibility settle on her shoulders. It was a heavy, urgent feeling as if time had suddenly turned against her. She spared only a second to glare at the demon. Three more were spent on Victoria who looked peaceful in death. “I’m sorry,” Maddy whispered, wishing she could move her body into the light above.

  “I’ll take care of her,” Five One Zero said. “Hmmm, yes.” Maddy shot him a look of disgust, which only made him laugh. “Go or you will be worrying over a great many more bodies.”

  He was right and she had to let Victoria go. She sprinted away into the grubby, narrow corridor between the tracks. Instinct and a compass-like premonition guided her. It kept her away from the masses of dead roaming beneath the city. There was no getting away from the strays. As it was almost lightless in the tunnels, most of them could be dodged and those that couldn’t got the pipe.

  Her legs seemed tireless and her feet nimble. The palms of her hands had grown calluses sometime in the last few hours and now the pipe was no longer so foreign to her. In near silence, she struck with savage but concentrated intensity. No one kill could be lingered on and those that did not die were frequently left behind, reeling from the shocking swiftness of her attack.

  But her progress through the tunnels was not as quick as she needed it to be. Along with the zombies, demons had been drawn to the darkness. She could feel their power radiate along the oily walls. Most she could avoid altogether, by finding a sewer or a side tunnel and slipping around. One fled from her. It was small, child-like, with a mouthful of overgrown teeth and wickedly sharp claws. It was a nasty, perverted little thing and Maddy had to resist the temptation to hunt it down and kill it.

  She went on, darting into a three-track subway tunnel, only to find another of the beasts sitting directly across her path. At first, she didn’t see it, which didn’t make sense. Its power was greater than her own for sure and was greater than Grae-Zier’s as well, which made her think that it would be a monster of great size.

  Hoping it was blind in the dark as so many others were, she crept forward, thinking she could slip around it.

  While it was blind, its sense of smell was particularly acute and when it swung its head her way, she froze. It had been lying in wait on what appeared to be a pile of limbs. Then it shifted in her direction, crawling oddly as if dragging its lower body, only its lower body went on and on, stretching out longer and longer, twenty-five feet in length. To support this, it had sprouted lizard-like arms which propelled it along.

  “Christ!” Maddy whispered, louder than she could have wished, and yet the beast did not act as though it had heard. It continued to sniff and slither at her. Overcome by the obscene nature of the thing, Maddy stepped back and hit the heel of her foot on one of the tracks and although it emanated only a soft thud, the creature stopped and turned towards her.

  She froze in place, holding her breath.

  The monster breathed in deeply, turning its head this way and that, trying to catch a scent. Maddy’s own aroma was buried beneath the city grime, the lingering stench of the sewers and a certain greyness that the rain had imparted. Still, the demon slid forward.

  Thinking she was clever, Maddy knelt, found a rock and threw it off to the demon’s right. With a clang, the rock bounced off a girder, struck the tracks and hopped away. Instead of turning its head, the creature flattened, stretching out its hands. It was feeling the vibrations each time the rock hit. This was wild to Maddy and gave her a quick way to
get past it.

  Tossing another rock, again, off to its right, Maddy darted to the left. Just as a bouncing rock emitted a certain obvious sound, it also gave off tremors in the same manner—and the demon was not fooled. Worse, it knew exactly what the thrown rock meant and instead of racing off to the right, it went left, right at Maddy.

  A dozen arms flung outward with a dozen clawed hands raking the air. It was blind but not crippled or even handicapped. With so many hands coming at her at once, her second-sight was useless. One way seemed as good as another and Maddy tried to fling herself between two sets of hands, but frightfully strong fingers caught her rags in midair, pulling her down. She tore free, losing half her shirt in the process, but as she did, the creature heaved its body at her, using a sidewinder-like undulation, and tried to pin her to the wall.

  Scabby black hands were all around her scraping and scratching; she dodged these as well as she could and yet they were everywhere and again she was caught and dragged down and nearly overwhelmed. The pole was ripped from her grasp and tossed aside then hands were pulling her in three directions, lifting her into the air and towards the gaping wet mouth of the monster.

  The ceiling was low in this part of the tunnel and she twisted herself so that her feet caught a beam. With a great thrust from her powerful thighs, she heaved back out of the grasp of the hands, and as she did, the last of her rags shrieked as they tore from her body.

  She was in midair when her second sight returned. There was only one way out of the fight and it wasn’t going to happen on the ground. As she flew back, she grabbed the underside lip of one of the ceiling beams and pulled her legs up. Below her, the hands and arms swept back and forth in strange patterns, searching for her—and not finding her!

  A grin flashed across her face only to disappear just as quickly as she “saw” the creature’s next move. Again, snake-like, it curled its body and then shot out the lower half like a hideous whip and slashed the air. Being forewarned was only marginally helpful. She dropped just as the thicker lower half of its body swept at her. Just as before, it came with arms out and fingers stretched, hoping to snag her, forcing her to land across the tracks practically on her face.

  As exercise had been as foreign to her as make-up, Maddy had never done a push-up in her life; she did one then, landing flat and breaking her fall with just her hands and the tips of her toes. A few feet away was Bryce’s pipe she leapt up and grabbed it. For some reason she couldn’t completely understand, the weapon was important and not just in its ability to hurt or kill her opponent. It had more meaning than that and for a fleeting space of time, it felt smart and right to have grabbed it.

  Then the creature curled in an arc around her, practically pinning her to the subway wall. On either side were gaps of four or five feet, gaps that could be closed in a second. In her mind, she saw herself being cut off and swarmed with arms if she went in either direction. And it was no good trying to leap or climb over the creature. Even as she watched, it went on its right side and lifted itself up with all its arms on that side, while at the same time it stretched out its many left arms so that it went floor to ceiling.

  For as long as it took to have another vision, she considered fighting the demon and even raised the pipe. But she was still too weak and in her vision, she wasn’t just killed, she was torn to pieces; practically mulched by the tearing hands.

  Her body might be weak, but her mind was sharp as ever. The creature was blind and relied on its sense of touch, something that was difficult but not impossible to overwhelm. The track ran right beneath her feet and it only took a split second to bring the pipe down on it with all her might.

  WAAAANG!

  Vibrations shot not just through her hands, which went instantly numb, but also along both directions of the steel track. The demon, confused by the vibrations going in two separate directions, dropped and tried to spread itself low along the floor of the tunnel, its hands out feeling for the lightest step or the smallest scrape of gravel. Soundlessly, Maddy leapt up, grabbed a ceiling beam with one hand, and with the other placed the pipe between her bare thighs and clenched down on it. Quickly she began monkeying along the ceiling, going hand over hand down the tunnel.

  Passing over the demon, she paused, dangling only a few feet over it, weighing the idea of dropping down and trying to kill the thing right then. While it was a tempting idea, she saw no outcome to this, making her think that the fight could go either way. A fifty-fifty shot wasn’t worth it, not when she had others counting on her. Next time, she thought. For now, she would have to be content with escaping.

  Chapter 36

  As she passed overhead, the demon began to undulate and writhe, searching for her, its many hands waving like antennae. The creature was an inhuman horror, but it became utterly alien when it began wafting the air towards its dark face. What the fuck? was her first thought, only then, she realized that this odd motion was helping it to sense her aroma. It grew excited beneath her, swinging about. She went faster and faster along the ceiling and still it kept up. How long the two might have gone on like this she didn’t know, but the pipe, somewhat awkwardly placed between her thighs, began to slip.

  If the pipe fell, there was a chance it would draw its attention and maybe she would gain enough time in the confusion to get away. Was it worth losing the pipe? No.

  With no other choice, she dropped down just in front of its searching hands and immediately began sprinting away. It came after her, now moving like a giant perverted centipede. It was fast! Faster than Maddy, who was flying along, a noble sight: her naked milky flesh seeming to glow in the darkness, her long beautiful legs stretching out, her hair, now three feet in length streaming behind her.

  Looking over her shoulder, she ruined the vision by letting out a squawk of fright—the nearest of its many hands was only inches from her hair. Her precious hair, that is. Her entire life she had lived with a bob-cut or something that one of the Beatles might have worn in their early years. Her hair had never been thick or luxurious. It had always just been there, taking up space on her head. Now, she actually liked her hair, and she didn’t want any one of the demon’s greasy, black fingers dirtying it up any more than it was.

  She juked hard to her right, darted between two of the many girders separating the tracks and ran on. Behind her, the demon made the mistake of trying to follow. On an open stretch, it was fast. Trying to weave its long body between girders slowed it down so much that Maddy was thirty yards ahead by the time it was fully on the new tracks.

  Without slowing, Maddy darted back to the original set of tracks and kept going, leaving the furious demon behind. She knew better than to gloat. There was still too much danger all around her and it didn’t help that, other than her boots, she was stark naked. It felt like she was in the middle of one of her school-day nightmares. Perhaps it was the lack of clothes, but she had never run faster in her life and after three more jukes between the pipes, the demon suddenly gave up the chase.

  It lay curled in the dark, huffing angrily. Maddy grinned, but then slowed and slunk down. She had made it to the next station where light was streaming down from the closer exit, illuminating a bare-bones platform covered in subway grime and ancient wads of bubble gum that had been tread flat.

  A few drastically mutilated zombies roamed here. Two were down on the tracks with her, unable to climb up to the platform, and two others were scraping themselves along, heading for the exit. They were being pulled by a familiar pulse.

  “The Spider Demon,” she whispered, vaulting up onto the platform. The demon was nearby and drawing zombies to it. There could be only one purpose; it was going after Bryce. She was picturing him when one of the zombies moaned in her direction. “Keep wishing, buddy,” she told it, loping past it and to the stairs. With each step the cold advanced, and so did her reluctance to get to street level.

  She was about to emerge into one of the greatest cities in the world…buck-naked! Spying an old newspaper, she snatched it up
, opened it and draped it across her breasts. It made for an incomplete grey skirt that rode scandalously high up her thighs, dipped extremely low into the finance section in front, and left nothing to the imagination behind.

  Still, it was better than going full commando on the city streets. All around her, buildings loomed high overhead, each seeming to have a thousand windows. Most opened onto abandoned rooms, that was true enough. “Most” meant little when there were so many windows and she could feel eyes on her, picking her unexpected human form from the grey of the street.

  She wanted to duck back down and perhaps jog to the next station, only what would she find there? More than likely, the very same, except she would be that much further from Bryce. He was near, she could feel both him and the Spider Demon. She was just turning in their direction when she felt danger coming at her. A small squad of the dead had caught sight of her and were charging.

  Instinct told her to run, her foresight suggested otherwise. Running would only draw more eyes and many of them would be the eyes of the dead. Besides, she was no longer afraid of zombies though five at a time could be trouble, and this was made worse as she could only fight one-handed as long as she held the newspaper to her breasts.

  “Fuck it,” she muttered, dropping the paper and bringing up the pole. “This is New York and people come here for the shows.” Despite saying this she was perfectly conscious of her nudity and of the eyes upon her. Being on display like this made her stiff and her first strike had nothing graceful to it. Down went the first beast, its head split open to the level of its ears. The next had long bloody arms and a fantastic reach.

  She ducked away from it and then dodged a third beast that came flying in to tackle her. The pipe whistled through the air and caught it on the back of the head, doing enough to its sludgy brain that it pitched forward and went into convulsions, rolling and twitching on the ground. In that short space of time, Maddy had overcome her inhibitions and was spinning and leaping, whirling the pipe about in a blur. In truth, she had to concede that the lack of clothing was somewhat liberating.