Doomware

by Nathan Kuzack

  He looked at the knife and, without really thinking about it, moved it from the wire to his arm. He didn’t know the first thing about amputation. Where did you cut: mid-bone or at the joint? What did you use for a tourniquet? Surely he’d pass out before he ever cut through? He was certain those people stranded in the desert hadn’t had to deal with pain; they must have been aided by brainware every step of the way. He had no such advantage and besides, if he did somehow manage it, would he survive such brutal self-administered surgery without proper medical attention? He returned to sawing the wire, knowing that his best shot was using the knife on Varley himself. Maybe driving it point-first up through the floor of his mouth would stand a chance, even though it was a long shot. The blade would have to penetrate quite some distance before it reached brain tissue, and on a body as meaty as Varley’s it would be no mean feat.

  The rain was no more than a few lingering spots when he looked up and saw a zombie appear from a side street. The figure was far too slight to be Varley, but he recognised it immediately: Everard. Quickly, he hunkered down, pressing himself against the windscreen, but he sensed it was too late. It had already seen him. Oh Christ, he thought as he changed grip on the knife so he could use it as a dagger. Just when he’d thought things couldn’t get any worse.

  Everard attacked with the same cow-eyed deliberation he’d witnessed countless times before. It grabbed at his legs, trying to pull his trousers down, its engorged member straining to get to him. David let loose with the knife, jabbing it into its shoulder, an action that produced no response whatsoever. Shit! He wasn’t thinking clearly; he should be holding the knife the other way round, so he could push it up through the floor of its mouth. The knife came out with a horrid sucking sound. There was no chance of changing grip on it now. He’d have to go for the eyes, but before he could do so Everard leapt onto the bonnet. The closeness of its swollen organ outraged him and he yelled at the zombie, trying to kick it in the balls. He couldn’t land a kick hard enough, and in the attempt Everard, more by accident than design, knocked the knife out of his hand. It bounced with a metallic clang on the car’s roof and went spinning away – quickly out of reach and out of sight.

  “Nooooo!” David cried.

  Everard’s hands, together with his stink, were all over him. It was trying to turn him over and remove his clothing at the same time. He felt the outlandish, desperate futility of his situation. He was alone, defenceless, his movements restricted by the wire and the cold and fear that were draining his muscles, no match for whatever force it was inside Everard that refused to die. Just placing his hand on its face and pushing at it weakly felt like it took a monumental effort. It would be easier just to let the thing have what it wanted. No sooner had he thought this than Everard seemed to lift up and take flight like some vampiric apparition. He caught a glimpse of him sailing backwards through the air before the image of Varley, who had picked him up and tossed him like a rag doll, demanded his full attention. For once in his life he had a reason to be glad to see Varley, but it was a fleeting thing; he knew only too well that evil had just been replaced by a greater evil. He cursed his luck. It was all over. He’d lost the knife, his only chance of survival. Varley had won. Then he had a crazy idea: what if Varley didn’t mean to torture him after all? What if his intention was to be good to him, to apologise, to somehow make up for all the misery he’d put him through in life?

  Varley wrapped an arm around his free arm, linking them at the elbow, positioning itself so that it was in complete control. Slowly, the creature began bending his fingers back. What a crazy idea indeed. He was powerless to resist, and showed defiance the only way he could: by not crying out in pain. Mostly it was bloody-mindedness, but he wouldn’t let Varley have the satisfaction of getting what it wanted. His fingers bent further and further, causing skin to stretch and bone to grind against bone. His teeth clenched together, still he refused to cry out. Then it reached the point where it seemed his bones must surely break, the pain shot into a hitherto unexplored region, and a long, anger-filled scream erupted involuntarily from between his teeth.

  Varley turned its filth-covered head in his direction and said, “Does - it - huuurrt?”

  “Fuck you, you bastard!” he spat, with such vehemence it seemed to quash the pain.

  Then he realised Varley had let go of his fingers. Keeping his arm pinned back, it tore his shirt open and sank its teeth into his chest. He roared in pain and horror. It quickly turned its attention back to his arm, twisting it at the elbow. This time he called out long before the pain became unbearable. Varley stopped twisting, and he felt a moment’s triumph. Everything might be stacked against him, but he could still outwit the bastard. But it wasn’t long before Varley got wise to the ploy, pushing further and further until it got the genuine cry of pain.

  The torture went on with neither pause nor mitigation until his head lolled and he lost all concept of time, Varley assaulting different parts of his body with anatomical precision, its strength indefatigable. Dimly, he was aware of the other zombies that surrounded him like a circle of spectators. They flitted at the edge of his senses like the memory of a dream shortly after waking, their insensible cries and ghoulish faces adding to the horror of it all. He was where he’d always dreaded being ever since the virus had struck: out there, in the night, an enforced trespasser amongst them, the unwilling central star of a Grand Guignol show for the undead. There must have been some kind of hierarchy to them, since all of them seemed to know not to mess with Varley. Only once did a zombie stray too close, which Varley disposed of with a single bone-crunching backhand.

  He came to a new understanding of pain. He’d thought he’d always known what it was, better than anyone, but he was wrong. Pain was not a headache or a hangover or an accidental cut; it was the worst thing in all of creation. He was experiencing True Pain. Unbearable pain. And it was the master of all. It superseded God and the Devil and morality. It superseded hopes and fears and decency. It superseded everything – even reality itself. Nothing else mattered when you were in the grip of True Pain. Nothing at all.

  The notion he’d had of not giving Varley what he wanted by refusing to cry out seemed so ludicrous now he couldn’t believe he’d ever deluded himself with it. He howled over and over, completely unable to stop himself.

  There was one major zone of vulnerability on his body that was so far unmolested: his crotch. What Varley did to him down there made him squirm and shake and catch screams in his throat, rattling against the car’s bonnet as if he were being electrocuted. Blood filled his mouth. He couldn’t understand why he didn’t pass out. His senses phased back and forth, switching between alertness and stupefaction as he was forcibly see-sawed between pain and True Pain. Through it all he was quite certain he hadn’t lost consciousness since recovering from that first punch. Varley was adept at keeping his subject conscious, all so the screaming and the howling and the sating of its sadistic desires could continue. Even so, Varley’s gradual increasing of the pressure and intensity of its torture methods meant it could only be a matter of time before bones broke and organs ruptured. Surely then he would pass out?

  He prayed for an end to the pain and the degradation as a kaleidoscope of thoughts and images flashed into his mind – his brain’s attempt at providing some kind of comfort in such dire circumstances. Mostly they were memories of his family, or of Shawn. He could only hope the boy had done as he’d told him to, and wasn’t watching all of this. Dear Shawn. Poor dear beautiful Shawn. How terribly he had failed the boy. He would probably wake to find him still attached to the car, his desecrated – and no doubt half-eaten – carcass symbolic of a promise of fatherhood unfulfilled. It was the child who would bear witness to them tearing the flesh from his bones, and dully he wondered if he’d still be alive whenever Varley finally finished with him, when the many vulturine zombies encircling the car would be free to take their first bites.

  He teetered on the edge of unconsciousness, willing himself
into it, exhausted by his own repeated screaming and the protests of his body. But still unconsciousness refused to come, and when he looked up next Varley was holding the carving knife Shawn had brought to him. Shivering from head to toe, he realised it was far from over; they hadn’t even gotten to the torture with implements stage yet. Did Varley plan on cutting off parts of his anatomy? Did it plan to pull out teeth and fingernails? Was the creature versed in the abhorrent torture techniques of long ago, back when everybody had felt pain? He wanted to cry, to weep for himself and the boy and the world, but he was too tired and pain-stricken. When Varley drew the blade across his forearm he grinned a maniacal grin. He couldn’t feel it. I can’t feel it, you bastard! he felt like crying out in victory. But then his pain receptors caught up with the blade’s track and the cut burned like fire. He screamed as Varley carved a second notch in line with the first, going half insane with pain and despair.

  Never had he wished he was cybernetic so badly – to be able to turn off the pain, to turn off the agony of this indecent state of consciousness. Looking up into the blankness of the black sky, he gasped the words “help me” over and over between screams. He was of no significance to his experiment-loving God, an entity who certainly would not intervene on his behalf, yet still he called upon him in supplication. What were a few more unanswered prayers to add to the scattered billions that had gone before? How much longer could it go on? He didn’t know. He didn’t know anything any more. All he knew for certain was that unconsciousness had to come to him at some point. It had to.

  When the first sharp sounds rang out he mistook them for thunderclaps, fantasising that the heavens were opening up in angry retribution for the evil events taking place beneath them. Zombies starting whooping and running in different directions. Varley stopped what he was doing and looked past him over the roof of the car, the glint of mad relish vanishing from its eyes. A red dot appeared on its chest and travelled up to its face, where it bloomed once, twice, three times. Slowly, like an ancient tree sawn off at its base, it toppled backwards and out of sight, the bloody knife still in its hand.

  David understood none of this. He watched it all from a great distance. He knew only that something was happening, and could hardly dare to hope it was for good rather than ill. Using all of his energy, he lifted his head so he could look over the car’s roof. He scarcely comprehended what he saw.

  Walking towards him along the street, calmly gunning down zombies, was a lone soldier.

  CHAPTER 27

  D + 335

  David half believed the soldier wasn’t real, that what he was seeing was an elaborate hallucination invented by his mind to ease his passage into death.

  When he reached the car the soldier stood a way off, his weapon levelled at him warily. He was dressed in camouflage gear from the cap on his head to the black boots on his feet, with various old-style weapons and items of kit strapped to him like a marching infantryman. He was tall, strong and healthy-looking. His eyes were completely hidden by a pair of wrap-around tactical glasses; assuming he was acybernetic, they were probably providing him with night vision, scanning capabilities and targeting aids.

  David looked at this strange visitant in a kind of stupor of pain-fuelled ecstasy, revelling in simply being free of Varley’s torture. It took a while for the reality of the situation to penetrate through the fog of his mind, but as soon as it did he realised the solider was wondering whether he was a zombie. He undoubtedly looked like one, and for a terrible moment he thought he was going to survive Varley only to be shot dead by his rescuer.

  “Not a zombie,” he croaked, feebly flailing his free arm. “I’m not a zombie. I’m alive, I’m alive.”

  The soldier lowered his weapon and stepped closer. David went to touch him, to prove he was real, and the soldier grabbed his arm protectively.

  “Careful,” the soldier said. “Those fingers are broken.”

  “Are they?”

  “Yes, they are.”

  “Please help me,” David said, half destroyed but still ready to beg like he’d never begged before should it be necessary.

  The soldier rested a hand on his shoulder. “It’s okay. Relax. I’m going to.”

  His voice was like music – a strong, beautiful adagio – the likes of which left David gasping, fighting back tears.

  The soldier was all business. He examined the wire, testing it using some kind of instrument.

  “Look at this stuff! That big bastard did this to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m gonna have to use a mini-thermite on it. I’ll get you outta here ASAP.”

  As if to emphasise his point, he turned and opened fire, dropping an approaching zombie with a single burst. David had no idea what a mini-thermite was, nor did he much give a damn as long as it freed him.

  “You’ll feel a lot of heat,” the soldier went on. “You might suffer some burns, but they should be minor. You’ll just have to trust me.”

  “I trust you. Jesus Christ, if you get me outta this I’ll fucking marry you.”

  The soldier grinned. “How could I refuse such a charming proposal?”

  David watched as the soldier carefully placed a flat disk on the car’s roof. Then he removed one of his gloves, pressed his thumb against the disk and held it there.

  “Are you acy’?” David asked him.

  “You have to ask?”

  “You’d be surprised.”

  “You live near here?”

  “Yes – just there.”

  The disk gave out a beep and the soldier hurried to position himself at the roof rack. “Ready?”

  David nodded, not knowing what he was readying himself for. After a few seconds the disk began to glow white and give off heat. The roof buckled and rippled in concentric circles around the disk, which sank slowly into the car’s passenger compartment. David felt as if he were being made privy to the workings of magic as he watched the rippling effect reach the roof rack and start melting it away. Immediately, the wire slackened and parts of it snapped, its ends red hot and fizzing. Unceremoniously, and with great strength, the soldier hauled him off the car, carried him a few paces and set him down. There he quickly removed the remnants of the wire before wrapping a surprisingly gentle arm around David to support him. David inhaled sharply, but it wasn’t surprise or pain that took his breath away in that moment (he felt no pain); it was the feeling of being held. After the barbaric nightmare he’d just been through even this simple semi-embrace between strangers felt so human and tender he could scarcely bear it.

  “I’ve got you,” the soldier said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

  David didn’t trust himself to speak; he was on the verge of declaring undying love for another man.

  They stayed like that while David caught his breath. He was weaker than a kitten, and the soldier must have sensed how overwrought he was. When David looked at the car again it was virtually unrecognisable, having caved in on itself like a failed soufflé. He let his face bathe in the warmth from it.

  “Can you stand?” the soldier asked.

  “I think so.”

  He got to his feet with the soldier’s help, but he couldn’t stand nor walk unsupported.

  “Show me where you live,” the soldier said.

  “This way,” David said, and they started off.

  “You alone?” the soldier asked.

  “I have a boy.”

  “Which floor are you on?”

  “Top floor.”

  “It would be.”

  * * *

  By the time they got to the top floor David was breathless and racked with pain. It was all filtering through now, probably as his adrenaline dissipated. There seemingly wasn’t a cell in his body that didn’t hurt, and the only thing that kept him going was his desire to get to the flat.

  Inside the soldier helped him onto his bed. “I’m gonna give you some injections,” he said. “Antibiotics, analgesics, a sedative. Where’s your kid?”

 
; As if on cue, the boy burst into the room. His face fell when he saw how dreadful David looked.

  “Dad!”

  “It’s okay, it’s okay. C’mere.”

  He hugged the boy and kissed him, but was too in the grip of pain to really savour the moment.

  “Were you sleeping like I said?” David asked him.

  “Yes, my system woke me ‘cause there were sounds inside the flat.”

  “That’s good.”

  “What happened?”

  “This hero here … I don’t even know your name.”

  For a moment it seemed as if the soldier had been struck dumb by the sight of the boy. Then he said, “Tarot. Like the cards.”

  “Tarot here saved me.”

  “Oh, thank you!” the boy cried, and he flung himself into the soldier’s arms.

  The soldier hugged him, looking a little taken aback, but his reaction was mostly hidden behind his glasses.

  “Go back to bed now,” David said. “Daddy needs some time.”

  The boy didn’t want to go, but eventually he trooped off after several exhausted kisses from David, and reassurances from both of them that everything would be okay.

  As he administered an injection the soldier said, “Cute kid. He’s cybernetic?”

  “Yes.”

  “How’s that possible?”

  “You tell me.”

  “You’re one lucky guy.”

  “He’s not my son, not biologically. I found him.”