Suicide Kings wc-20

by George R. R. Martin

  Alicia Nshombo was still screaming. Michelle struggled to her feet. Joey was staring into space with a beatific smile on her face. Hoodoo Mama was in the house.

  Michelle’s arms were withered and wrinkled as an old woman’s. She was dizzy and shaking from the water loss. All she could do was watch. Shambling into the center of the camp were zombies. All of them were children. Dozens of them, scores of them, hundreds of them, green and grey and rotting. More were coming up around them, little fingers clawing up from the ground like rain lilies after a storm. The earth sprouted small heads and shoulders.

  Leopards leapt upon the zombies, snarling, clawing, growling. They ripped the dead children apart, but for every one that fell there were a dozen more. The soldiers were emptying their guns, but bullets can’t kill the dead.

  Waves of dizziness poured over Michelle. She was so thirsty. Dazed, she had trouble trying to remember what she needed to do now.

  Adesina. She staggered to her feet.

  Some of the soldiers dropped their guns and fled into the jungle. Michelle held her palms up. She thought about Adesina in the pit. All the dead children. About how horrible it must have been for them to be torn away from their families, dragged to this place, and injected with the virus that would kill most of them, maim some, and leave only a few… like her.

  And something in Michelle shifted. Something in her broke and her energy surged.

  With methodical calm, she created small, extremely dense bubbles and sent them hurling through the air at the nearest soldiers. They screamed and clutched their chests. Blood poured from their wounds. The zombies moved in on the rest, ripping and tearing as they went.

  Michelle saw Alicia Nshombo surrounded by zombies. Alicia’s face elongated as she dropped to her hands and knees. Her body grew larger, and fur erupted from her skin. Her teeth grew into fangs. She gave a roar that felt to Michelle as if it were echoing in her own chest.

  Okay, Michelle thought. Wasn’t expecting that. World’s fattest leopard.

  Joey’s zombies flowed around her. None looked older than fourteen or fifteen. Most hadn’t reached puberty. They surrounded the leopard, piled on top of her, and began tearing and ripping at her with small dead hands. Alicia gave a howl, slashed this way and that. She almost broke free, but one of the zombies grabbed her tail and yanked her back. She screamed again, and this time the sound was almost human. Then she fell silent.

  That was when the other leopards vanished. In their places sprawled confused, naked men.

  Michelle sat down hard on the ground. It was wet. Mummy. Or what was left of her.

  “Jesus, Bubbles, what did you do?” Joey ran to Michelle and dropped to her knees. “Wasn’t there a kid here? Had hold of your arm?”

  The world was spinning crazily again. Michelle closed her eyes. “I tried not to die.”

  Joey gave a primitive wail. “You fucker! You didn’t have to kill her! I was helping you!”

  Michelle swallowed. God, she was thirsty. It was worse than waking up from the coma. “I didn’t have any choice. It was me or her.”

  “You didn’t have a choice? You’re the Amazing Bubbles! Nothing can hurt you!”

  “She could. She was.”

  “She was just a kid!” Joey was screaming.

  “Not anymore. I looked in her eyes. And you know what, Joey? Shit happens to little kids. Even if they’re loved and protected, shit happens. All. The. Time. Welcome to reality.” Michelle pushed herself up from the ground. “I told her to stop. Sometimes kids get so broken they aren’t really kids anymore. But if you want to hate me, knock yourself out.”

  Joey slapped Michelle’s arm. Then she slapped Michelle’s face. It didn’t take more than a few slaps for her to wear herself out. “You fucker. You fucker. You fucker,” she cried over and over.

  “Yep, that’s me,” Michelle said. Unsteadily, she made her way through the carnage of zombies, leopards, soldiers, and pieces of Alicia Nshombo to one of the compound’s buildings.

  Inside she found a sink. She opened the tap, leaned over, and put her mouth up to the faucet. Warm water poured into her mouth. She gulped it down until some of the dizziness had passed.

  Then she went back outside. She had to find Adesina.

  Southwest of Bunia, Congo

  People’s Paradise of Africa

  The flatbed truck lurched forward with the grinding of gears and a gout of oily, black smoke. Wally shifted his weight, eliciting a creak and groan from the suspension beneath the cargo bed. The truck stank of goat innards. And its best days were long in the past, which reminded Wally quite a bit of Mr. Finch’s airplane.

  That, in turn, reminded him of Jerusha. He wondered if she got the kids to Tanzania, if she were safe, if he’d ever see her again. He cast a long glance up and down his rust-pitted body, and decided he already knew the answer to that last question.

  The truck’s oversized tires chewed up the muddy road, leaving ruts the size of small lakes. The mud was a deep, rich brown, and when it splashed on Wally it looked like a rain of caramel or butterscotch. Even in spite of the mud and the constant bouncing, this was the most comfortable he’d been since heading out overland.

  One leg burned where the bullet wound had become infected; the dents in his other leg still ached where the crocodile had bit him. His feet were solid orange with rust. Nicks, scratches, and even claw marks covered his arms, legs, and torso. The rust was deep enough in places that when he stuck a fingertip in, he felt something warm and squishy inside.

  He pulled out his last S.O. S pad and set to work, doing triage on his crumbling skin. He cast his gaze into the forest while he scrubbed. Sure enough, twenty or thirty feet past the edge of the road, Ghost kept pace with the truck, her toes dangling just inches from the ground. She still clutched the knife handle, though Wally had destroyed the knife.

  He hoped the driver wouldn’t see her. Getting this ride was the first break he’d had in two days, and he needed the rest. Cripes, did he ever need the rest.

  The smaller villages, like this one, had no electricity. No radios. No telephones. He’d eventually figured that out after a long session of intercultural charades; the villagers had spent a lot of time staring at the clanking metal man and his strange gestures. They didn’t run from him, though. If anything, he had the sense they knew what he was doing, and secretly approved of his mission. Maybe they’d heard about the Nyunzu lab, and the barge. They seemed to think he was pretty okay. Especially after he pantomimed fighting a Leopard Man. They’d loved that. Hence the ride.

  He didn’t know how far this fella planned to take him-certainly not all the way to Bunia-but every mile Wally didn’t have to walk was a small blessing.

  Wally scrubbed until there was nothing left of the S.O. S pad but a handful of fuzz. His feet looked a lot better, and he’d buffed out some of the worst pits in his arms, legs, and torso. The spots he couldn’t reach, those were what worried him the most. He dozed off

  …

  … and woke when the truck skidded to a halt. Wally slammed his forehead on the cab of the truck, cracking the rear window. “Ouch. Hey, sorry about your truck, guy.”

  But the driver had already jumped out, and was running back down the road. Great. Wally stood, expecting to find Ghost floating in the middle of the road.

  She wasn’t. But the road was blocked with an armored personnel carrier and three leopards (two spotted, one black). A fourth Leopard Man stood atop the carrier, in human form, behind a machine gun.

  Rats. He should have expected this. The PPA knew where he was; he’d seen a helicopter earlier in the day. By now, they probably had all the roads to Bunia blocked off.

  The machine-gunner raked the truck. A line of holes perforated the hood. The windshield shattered. Rounds pingpingpinged across Wally’s chest. He made a mental note to try to make sure the Committee found the driver somehow and got him a new truck. “You guys again. Don’t you leopard folks ever learn?”

  He vaulted over the cab. The leo
pards reared back. Wally hit the ground hard, sending up a spray of mud that drenched the cats. They hissed, shaking their heads to clear their eyes.

  Wally took advantage of the momentary distraction to close with the APC, rendering the machine gun useless. The gunner couldn’t aim at him as long as he stood next to the vehicle. Wally placed a hand on the armor, ready to disintegrate the whole thing, but then he thought better of it. Why not drive to Bunia in a PPA vehicle?

  The leopards surrounded him, one in front and one each to his left and right. The gunner pulled his sidearm. He emptied a magazine on Wally’s head, arms, and shoulders. It hurt. A lot. Rivulets of blood trickled down his body, from a dozen different spots.

  “Okay, now you’re asking for it, pal.” Wally gave the APC a violent shove. It tipped up on one set of wheels, just short of flipping over, before landing back upright with a ground-shaking crash. The gunner fell off.

  The leopards chose that moment to pounce. One landed on his back, the others raked his arms. Wally jumped and fell backward, body-slamming the leopard on his back. They landed with a splash, a crack, and a yelp.

  Wally caught a flash of white in the foliage. Ghost, watching from the sidelines. She looked… terrified.

  But then he was at the center of a maelstrom of fur, claws, and fangs, and couldn’t see anything. The remaining leopards dodged his punches and kicks. When he turned to deal with one, the other put new gouges in his rust.

  He had finally caught one by the throat and was squeezing hard, when the leopard shimmered into the form of a man. The giant cat scratching at Wally’s shoulder also turned into a man. A very confused and very silly-looking man. Wally saw panic in their eyes. He dropped the first guy, who fell to the ground with both hands to his neck, and planted an iron elbow into the second fellow’s stomach. They crawled away, past their comrade whose legs Wally had crushed. He, too, had reverted to his human form.

  What the heck just happened?

  The gunner ran out from behind the APC. Apparently he had reloaded, because he squeezed off a volley of shots while his comrades retreated. Wally charged him, grabbed his hand, and crushed the gun into a useless ball of metal. His opponent fell to his knees, screaming like a banshee.

  Wally cuffed him alongside the head, knocking him out. Silence descended over the empty road. Well, it was mostly silent, except for the sobbing.

  Sobbing? Did I miss one? Wally looked around, but all the Leopard Men either were unconscious or had retreated. No, the crying came from nearby. From the roadside.

  From Ghost.

  “It’s okay,” said Wally. He saw how she stared at the Leopard Men. “You’re safe. They can’t hurt you now.” Her feet, he noticed, were touching the ground.

  The knife handle fell from her fingers. She grabbed a fallen branch, ran across the road, and started to beat the guy sprawled at Wally’s feet. Her bawling-loud, inconsolable-evoked one of the horrors Wally and Gardener had witnessed in Nyunzu: a Leopard Man handing a syringe to a little boy, forcing him to infect another child with the virus.

  “Hey, hey. Don’t do that.” Wally gently took the branch away. She fell to her knees, hitting the dead man with tiny fists.

  He wrapped her in his arms and held her until she cried herself to sleep. It took a long time.

  Kisangani, Congo

  People’s Paradise of Africa

  Adesina was in the second pit Michelle searched.

  At first, Michelle had thought the pit held nothing but body parts. Then she saw something moving in the corner. She started trembling. But then she made herself jump into the pit. Immediately she sank up to her waist in the decaying remains. She waded over to where the movement had been and started digging. Soon she was completely covered in the foul-smelling, rotting flesh.

  But what she finally uncovered wasn’t a sweet little girl. It wasn’t even the feral child who had haunted those dreams. What she found was a hideously repulsive sluglike creature, encased in a shiny filament cocoon.

  She knew it was Adesina.

  Michelle tried not to think about how she didn’t want to touch Adesina now. But when she finally grabbed the thing around its middle, it was as if she’d been flipped into one of her pit dreams.

  Adesina is there with her, the dream Adesina, the way she was before the wild card had changed her. Adesina can feel Michelle’s revulsion, and in turn Michelle feels Adesina’s sorrow. It staggers her for a moment.

  Michelle gathered herself and carried Adesina back to the compound, cradled in her arms. Joey glared as she walked up.

  “This is Adesina,” Michelle said. And then the cocoon began to pulse. A chunk of it fell off and Michelle almost dropped it. “Go get me a towel,” she said to Joey. The cocoon moved again. Michelle tried not to be grossed out, but she hated bugs and wormy things.

  A few seconds later, a leg emerged from the cocoon-and then another. After that, the head started out. It was covered in a shiny, viscous fluid. Michelle thought it was nasty. Joey was thrusting a towel at her. Michelle plopped on the ground and started dabbing at Adesina’s head. Now that she had something productive to do, she could shove her gut reaction aside.

  And as she patted away the fluid, she saw that Adesina’s face wasn’t an insect face at all. It was the face that Michelle knew from her dreams.

  A moment later, there was a wet sound and the rest of Adesina’s body slid from the cocoon. The husk fell off Michelle’s knees and she kicked it away. She kept gently drying Adesina’s body. Adesina started shaking and wriggling. A pair of small wings unfurled from her back. She pushed herself up on her legs, wobbly at first. She was the size of a small dog. Michelle didn’t know what to do now. Part of her was still not wild about the insectyness of Adesina, but then there was that sweet face she knew so well. She was torn.

  Adesina raised herself up onto her back legs and put her front legs on either side of Michelle’s face. Amazing warmth and happiness spread through Michelle. Then Adesina said, “Thank you.”

  Tears began to pour down Michelle’s face and she reached out and touched Adesina’s cheek. “You’re welcome,” she replied. “I’m so sorry.

  …”

  Adesina kissed Michelle’s cheek. “You saved me. I held on because I knew you would find me.”

  Michelle couldn’t speak. It felt like there was a golf ball in her throat from the tears. It had been so long since she’d felt… since she felt happy. She wondered if she had ever really felt happy before.

  “Michelle,” Adesina said. “Michelle, now you need to go help the others, you need to go to the Red House.”

  “I don’t want to leave you!” Michelle replied, alarmed. “I just found you.”

  Adesina cocked her head to one side like a praying mantis. “This is the other reason why I brought you here. It wasn’t just to help me. It was to help them. I’ve been in their dreams, too. I know what has been happening to them and so do you. You must go soon. Because I’ve been in his dreams, too.”

  And then Michelle saw a barrage of new images. A compound in the jungle. Children being rounded up and given shots. Then there were images of Tom Weathers killing people. Lots of people.

  She didn’t need to see more. She sighed. “Of course I’ll go,” she said. Adesina removed her front legs and the wonderful warmth and happiness slid from Michelle. And she felt cold inside again.

  “What the fuck was that all about?” Joey asked.

  Michelle held Adesina up to Joey. “I need you to take care of her for a while. Take care of all of the children here.”

  Then Michelle got up. She brushed past Joey and went to find someone who knew where the Red House was-and who would take her there.

  33

  Monday,

  December 28

  On the South Bank of the

  Aruwimi River

  Near Bunia, Congo

  People’s Paradise of Africa

  Ghost loved peanut butter.

  She sat behind Wally, on one of the long, low benches t
hat lined the interior of the APC, silently scooping peanut butter out of a jar with her fingers. She still hadn’t spoken, but neither had she become insubstantial since letting Wally hug her. If anything, she followed him more closely than ever now.

  The APC wasn’t the easiest thing Wally had ever driven. He knew how to drive a stick, and even some mining equipment, but this thing had more gears than he was used to. And it handled strangely, too. But he more or less managed to keep it on the bumpy, muddy roads leading to Bunia. They’d passed another roadblock this morning, but the soldiers and Leopard Men had waved the PPA vehicle through without a second glance.

  Which suited Wally just fine. The last thing he wanted was to get into a fight while Ghost clung to his side. Also, it gave some of his wounds time to heal.

  Wally chanced taking his eyes off the road long enough to glance at the booklet he’d found in the APC. It was a wire-bound booklet of laminated map pages. Together they covered the greater Bunia area, depicting topographic details, roads, power lines, garrisons, military installations, trains… everything he might have needed to make a strategic assessment of the area, if only he could read French. If only Jerusha were here.

  A green “X” had been marked on one map page with a grease pencil, at what appeared to be a compound on the outskirts of town: the central laboratory for the PPA’s child-ace project. Wally figured he’d make it there in a few more days. This river road along the Aruwimi would take him most of the way. He was in the homestretch, now.

  But with every mile, Ghost became more nervous, more agitated. She inched closer and closer to him. She probably didn’t even realize she was doing it. Whatever they’d done to her, Wally guessed it had happened at Bunia.

  Wally pulled over for a bathroom break around midafternoon. He parked the APC in the shadow of a trestle bridge that spanned the tall embankments on either side of the river. Ghost followed him into the brush. It took a lot of gesturing before she got the gist of what he was up to, but he finally managed to convey enough that she backed off a little bit to give him privacy.