Serial Escalation

by Sean E. Britten

  Toward the end of the Bio-Wars, nuclear weapons had simply seemed like the most merciful option in several parts of Africa that had been ravaged by genetically engineered infections and bioweapons. What had ended up crawling out of the irradiated craters left behind, however, no one could have anticipated. Enormous masses of meat and bone, hundreds of human beings that had been melted and morphed, warped and twisted into singular, impossible things. Cacophonies made flesh, first made mutable and pliable by cellular bioweapons then reborn, fused together in the heart of each nuclear explosion. Each of them was unique. Each of them was more terrible than anything the world had ever seen before.

  The Abomination pulled itself out of the cylinder and hit the water with an enormous splash. Its roar echoed across the arena. The main body of the Abomination was around half the size of the nearby cargo ship, tentacles probing in all directions. One curious great white shark clone was still circling the rippling waters nearby. It looked no bigger than a goldfish compared to the Abomination as the Abomination yanked it out of the water, dangling it over a mouth filled with huge, broken teeth before eating it whole.

  Back at the medical clinic, Thao and Layla moved inside again. Their bracelets were showing the monstrous, tentacled beast as it slithered up the shoreline. Thao stared, frightened by how shell shocked his partner suddenly seemed.

  “They used to give them names, you know?” Layla said, “The techs who used to track them via satellites would give them names like Kong, Jabba, Fishmonger, the Elephant Man, based on-, you know, their unique attributes.”

  “Layla, we need you.” Thao said.

  “What I mean is-, I know this one, I recognise those spikes on its back. They called it Pinhead.” Layla said, “It’s the same Abomination they killed my unit and ripped off my arm. It’s back to finish the job.”

  “Okay, just-, stay calm okay? I’m sure there’s a way to beat it. It’s like the traps and the bots, they wouldn’t unleash it on us unless there was a way to beat it.” Thao turned to Church, “What do we do?”

  “I don’t know, I didn’t exactly factor fighting off a fucking monster into the plan.” Church said, “Anything below category six weaponry is useless against that thing, we’ve got nothing that amounts to that except for maybe this dead asshole’s flamethrowers. Even that thermite grenade your partner has, or these bricks of explosive, wouldn’t scratch it unless we could get the thing to swallow them, and even then it would probably only give the thing heartburn.”

  “So, we find somewhere to hide and wait for-, I don’t know, something to help us.” Thao said, “It can’t get over the walls with that force field up and neither can we.”

  “Won’t work.” Layla held up her arm, “They pick up on the biomechanical signals of stuff like prosthetics. Wouldn’t matter how far underground we got, it’d dig me out, and I’m betting even if you left me and Thao alone all our kill switches would be giving off the same kind of signal to draw it in. There’s no way the producers would just let us hide until it gets bored, it’ll sniff us out somehow.”

  “Maybe-, with one of our bricks of C4 we could bring a building down on its head.” Church said.

  “It’s useless, we can do whatever we like, it’s still going to kill us all.” Layla said, “None of you have ever seen one of these things up close, I have. I’ve seen this one up close and the only reason I survived even in less than one piece was plain and simple dumb luck, can’t count on that twice. This isn’t one of the biggest or most powerful Abominations out there, but it’s still going to be more than enough to tear us all apart.”

  Chapter Twenty-One.

  A flushed man, sweat gleaming on his face and neck, sprints down the sidewalk and turns into his driveway. He is lean with a scruff of beard and tanned skin. His shirt clings to his sweat-soaked chest. Clearly parched from his run, the jogger struggles with his keys and lets himself into the house.

  “Sometimes, an ultimate thirst needs ultimate refreshment!”

  The jogger makes his way to the refrigerator and removes a bottle full of pale liquid. Tipping his head back, he opens the bottle and guzzles from it thirstily. The sweat instantly freezes to a solid sheen on the man’s skin. His flesh takes on a bluish hue and he becomes stiff as a marble statue, frozen in place. The bottle remains attached to his lips by a rim of frost. White mist rising from his blued skin, the jogger rocks backward and hits the kitchen floor. His frozen form shatters into hundreds of pieces that scatter across the room.

  “ICE 9, annihilate your thirst with the refreshment to end all other refreshment.”

  “Trumpet sound, to the fifth angel was given the key to the bottomless pit.” Priest said, “Rising out of the sea I saw a beast with seven heads and ten horns, with ten crowns on its horns. And on each of the crowns were written names that blasphemed God.”

  Priest and Santa Muerte were still moving along the shore as the sirens wailed. The Abomination was dragging itself through the shallows, rampaging and hissing as it looked for more food. Taloned and insectile limbs pulled its torpedo-shaped upper body forward. Its rear section was a swarming mass of tentacles, more legs and tentacles jutting out of its body at random angles. Swarms of eyeballs and mouths seemed to move across the monster’s mottled surface like schools of fish. Gnarled and blackened metal girders, building materials that had been fused with the Abomination during its creation, jutted out of its back. A busted car door stuck from between a couple of legs like a tiny wing.

  “Beautiful, what a beautiful boy.” Santa Muerte said.

  The tremendous crater filled with salt water stretched across the middle of the arena. Overhead, the glowing dome of the force field bathed the creature in its bluish light. Tentacles threshing, the Abomination powered into the ruins and smashed into the shell of a half-toppled apartment building. Tonnes of masonry exploded outward. The Abomination shrieked, tearing through the building with the force of a hurricane in mindless anger. Accidental or not, Abominations were biological weapons that could level whole city blocks as thoroughly as an airstrike. Tossing car-sized chunks of building into the lake the Abomination created mortar blasts of water across the surface. Its roar reverberated through the ruins again, deafeningly loud.

  Santa Muerte raised one of her rifles and fired off several rounds with loud, high cracks. Priest’s eyes flashed as he shrunk away, toward cover.

  “No! The Devil has come amongst us with great wrath, because he knows his time is short.” He said.

  In some parts of North Africa, they had worshipped the Abominations as gods. The religion didn’t catch on as the Abominations kept slaughtering all their worshippers and the non-believers were the ones with anti-tank weaponry. Santa Muerte had also been worshipped as a god. She smiled beatifically as the enormous beast wheeled around in a cloud of grey and choking dust. Its movements caused huge, whirling eddies in the dust and across the lake. The Abomination scrabbled along the shore with far too much speed for something that big. Spiked feet tore furrows in the fractured asphalt, its tentacles propelling it even on dry land.

  “Come, child, to Mamá.” Santa Muerte said.

  The Abomination loomed over Santa Muerte. Its primary mouths were salivating thick, white ropes of fluid. In addition to the girders jutting from the Abomination’s back there was a piece of rebar stuck through its head where the Abomination’s brain would be, if it had a centralised brain. Mandibles flaring it lunged at Santa Muerte as Priest took cover. Santa Muerte was still holding her beautifully engraved weapons but made no attempt to use them.

  One crooked, spear-like limb shot out and slammed through Santa Muerte’s chest. Dark hair and white dress whirling, she was flung into the air. One of her M4s spiralled from her grip to the ground. The Abomination, Pinhead, tossed Santa Muerte into one of its mouths like a piece of popcorn. There was a wet crunch as it bit down and swallowed the woman, equipment, armour and all. Tremors of what could have been pleasure rippled through the Abomination’s twisted body.

  “Fo
ul demon!” Priest said.

  Needles from Priest’s kill switch sunk into his flesh. He remained where he was, behind a crag of concrete. Priest raised the heavy energy weapon he’d been given and sent a thick harpoon of light searing into the Abomination. The blast burst a small patch of eyeballs. A second shot severed a relatively short tentacle, smoke wafting from the stump as it dropped to the ground. Another tentacle shot out, thick and gnarled, and covered in melted but recognisable puzzle pieces of the people that had gone into forming the Abomination. The tentacle roped around Priest and the heavy spike of concrete he was using for cover, ripping it clear of the ground. Concrete exploded into chunks and grey dust, and Priest was pulverised into a thin paste. The Abomination shovelled the whole rocky mess into one of its mouths and ate it, pieces tumbling to the ground below. The Abomination then swept around and knocked several abandoned cars away like toys. It could sense other bioelectrical signals coming from across the arena. Ignoring the walls and force field for now, the giant beast set off in search of more food.

  xXx

  “Layla! Layla, snap out of it, we need to go!” Thao said.

  They hurried around the clinic collecting everything they could to give them the best possible chance. Thao stuffed some of the broken attachments from the medical droid into his coat, a laser-edged scalpel, needle and the synth skin dispenser amongst others.

  “Go where?” Layla said, “This place is as good a place as any to die.”

  “We need you to take Kohler, none of the rest of us can carry him.” Thao said, “We have a plan.”

  “Its bad religion for Santa Muerte and Priest, I hope at least one of them was right about the hereafter, Rick, because they’re off to meet their maker now.” The screens on their wrists said.

  “That’s right, Fred, and it’s bad news and good news for our remaining contestants.” The second announcer said, “The bad news is Southpaw Jackson was absolutely right when she said the electrical signals of their kill switches are going to draw the Abomination right to them, no hiding and not a lot of places to run.”

  “Good news, Rick, is that three new weapon checkpoints are opening across the arena right now.” The first commentator said, “These are mounted weapon positions so they can’t be moved but they are the only guns in the arena big enough to put some real holes in that Abomination. Either they get to those guns and wipe it out, or it’s going to wipe them out and we’ll have our first nonhuman champion! Can any of our contestant teams beat the Abomination round and emerge victorious?”

  The group’s screens showed vision from a trio of positions around the arena’s central lake. Several hidden trapdoors rolled open, disturbing camouflaging carpets of rubble and wreckage that had been placed over the top of them. One was clearly near the beached cargo ship where the Abomination’s chamber had emerged with the other two spaced out equally around the shoreline. Huge mounted guns, multi-barrelled energy weapons, emerged from the holes. Their platforms were thick and could swivel around in 360-degree arcs but would keep them locked in place. Weapon drop markers appeared on their maps to indicate where the stationary guns had appeared.

  “Doesn’t matter, those guns-, they’re barely going to scratch that thing.” Layla said.

  “Happy hunting, contestants!” One of the commentators said, “Remember, the team that slays together, stays together!”

  “We’ve got to get to the closest one of those guns!” Thao said, “Come on, please, Layla! I-, I want answers, you get that, right? Whatever we do we’ve got to keep moving forward and-, I’ve got to find out who I am and what I’m doing here. I can’t do that without you, you’ve got to help me.”

  Layla’s eyes seemed to clear, “Okay, alright, I’m coming.” She said, “You said before you need me to carry Kohler? Why?”

  “We’ll explain on the way.” Thao said.

  “Let’s go!” Church said.

  The six of them filed out of the clinic and hurried into the darkened street. Noise from the Abomination echoed across the arena, buildings crumbling and the monstrosity howling with rage. Left leg stiff, Layla dragged Kohler behind her with her mechanical arm as she held her P90 in her right hand. Still dressed in his weaponised life support suit, not a single one of the others could have hoped to pull Kohler’s corpse along like Layla did. Titama carried her partner, Anaconda. His wound had been sealed up but Anaconda was pale and obviously still in serious pain. Church, Thao and even Jeannie covered the group as best they could. Jeannie still had the bulky arm cannon which was probably their best weapon to at least distract the Abomination if it came at them. Church had his SPAS-12, which now seemed inadequate for the fight at hand, and Neena Twist’s blocks of explosive.

  A warped skull symbol indicating the Abomination had appeared on their maps. Thao spotted it, running and studying his sleeve for the weapon locations with his pistol in his right hand. The symbol was coming around the outskirts of the craterous lake.

  “It’s on the map!” Thao said, “Holy crap, it’s-, it’s moving so fast!”

  “No kidding, which way do we go?” Layla said.

  “Uh, down the main avenue to the nearest gun emplacement.” Thao said, “If it keeps moving the way it’s moving though, it’s going to cut us off.”

  The unnatural noise of the Abomination echoed toward them. Overhead, the eerie blue light of the arena’s glowing force field cast a weird pall over everything, the buildings looking half starkly exposed and half wreathed in shadow. Their camera drones were still moving after them, half a dozen drones now following them like giant insects or vultures. Still moving, Church pulled one of the bricks of C4 out of his coat.

  “Keep your eye on it.” Church said, “I’d better start preparing this thing a snack before it’s breathing down our necks.”

  xXx

  In the control centre, parts of the holographic map in the middle of the room flickered as if with interference. A wall of camera feeds near the Abomination’s location went dark. Roland Smith was at the head of the room, his oily hair askew as he bristled with excitement.

  “The creature is finding some of the nodes for our system and tearing them apart!” One of the techs said, “The electrical signals the nodes put off are too close to the biomechanical signals it’s hunting. It’s wiping out whole sections of our monitoring systems and cameras!”

  “It’s fine, just keep the drones in tight on the remaining teams, we’re nearly at the end of it now.” Roland said.

  “Aside from the drones though we could end up blind in the arena if it keeps ripping up nodes.” The tech said.

  “We can still monitor their locations on the bracelets, can’t we? Calm down.” Roland said, “Will someone please give me some good news?”

  “Audience figures have risen over a quarter since the end game, sir.” The blonde woman said, “We experienced a spike around the time we announced the ringers joining the arena. But when we announced we were releasing the Abomination the active viewership figures really shot up.”

  “Engagement on the networks is also at the highest levels we’ve ever seen.” Another tech said, “Abomination Round, Kill ‘Em All and His Time is Short are all trending.”

  “Excellent, let’s hope this isn’t over too quickly, I’ve got a lot of faith in these guys.” Roland said.

  xXx

  Another building exploded, one battered wall collapsing and sending pieces raining into a flooded street. The Abomination tore through the wreckage, roaring. Picking up an old, battered dumpster the Abomination lobbed it easily through the air like a tennis ball. Further along the broken shore, the walking mech that had been nicknamed Puppy swivelled toward the destruction. Something exploded, the Abomination setting off a tripwire inside the building.

  “Hey! Hey, robot!” Baxter Webley said.

  The short and overweight man in his roughshod suit had crept up behind the mech. He ignored the Abomination’s rampage nearby. The mech turned with the barrels of its minigun clicking, head swivelling.
Baxter raised his artificial hand with the screen on his forearm glowing. He moved forward with the palm facing outward as if calming a spooked horse. Without its mistress, Yoyo, the mech’s programming didn’t know what to do. It levelled its barrels at the man as he approached.

  “Come on, now, boy, you want to stay with me, don’t you?” Baxter said, “You’re going to help me get out of here.”

  Puppy’s barrels started to whirr. Before it could open fire though, the Abomination’s scream cut through the air. It rumbled down the shoreline while sweeping rubble away ahead of it and behind it, clearly a bigger and more obvious threat than Baxter. The mech turned away from Baxter and opened fire. Every third bullet was a tracer, streaking from its muzzles in glowing orange lines, and rounds thundered into the Abomination’s body. Faulty aiming system or not, the Abomination was too big for Puppy to miss. The bullets seemed to make no difference as they sewed up and down the Abomination’s fused jigsaw of burnt flesh.

  Baxter ducked behind a thick cement wall, the remaining stump of a collapsed building, as the Abomination neared. Shockwaves from its movements trembled through the ground. One enormous talon whipped out and scarred the side of the mech. It staggered sideways, still firing, and bullets ripped apart the concrete around where Baxter was hiding. The Abomination toyed with the mech like a giant cat with a mouse, ignoring the glowing orange tracers that pecked at its flesh. It lashed out with one thick tentacle. A fanged mouth peeled open at the end of the tentacle, biting down on the mech’s armour. It tasted the mech and didn’t like it then lashed out again. The mech was thrown out over the saltwater lake, skipping like a stone before plunging under with a terrific splash.