The Fall of Deadworld Omnibus

by Matthew Smith

  I saw something else move in one of the deeper stretches of floodwater that wasn’t simply a cadaver working its way loose of the wormfood flotilla; an elongated shape cut through the throng, a good nine feet long, with plated ridges along its back. I strained to get a better look, but it dived, leaving a stream of bubbles in its wake. The bodies swayed with the sudden motion.

  “Uh, Lox?” I said. “Don’t want to be a back-seat driver an’ all, but make sure you stay on the road, okay?”

  “I’ve seen them,” she replied, staring straight ahead. “Trying to forget they’re there, to be honest.”

  “Not the bodies. There’s something else… something predatory in the water. Over there.”

  “Jesus, McGill, this is hard enough as it is without you shitting me up even further. Over where—?”

  A spume of brownish water suddenly geysered up on her left, sprinkling the side of the cruiser with droplets, and everyone in the car cut loose with an expletive simultaneously. The vehicle wavered as Lox tugged too hard on the wheel in reaction, and there was a momentary loss of control before she righted it again. She flipped on the wipers, the windscreen misting with condensation, and peered ahead.

  “Is Hawkins still in front?”

  “Yeah,” I answered, rubbing my sleeve against my side of the windscreen. “I can see her tail light.”

  The radio receiver burst into life with a surge of static. I heard the Judge’s voice hailing us so picked up the mic and responded. “You guys all right?” she asked. “Looked like you got into difficulties.”

  “There’s, um, something following us. Seems kinda hungry.”

  “Your momma never warned you about the gators?”

  “Not this far inland, surely?”

  “New rules apply, I guess. Environment’s changing.”

  “That’s a hell of a gator.”

  “Christ knows what they’re turning into. Look, just keep going straight, and obviously don’t get out of the car. You should be safe—”

  There was a wrench as something heavy collided with the rear wing of the cruiser, and the vehicle wobbled again. I looked anxiously in the mirror, trying to catch sight of it. “Why aren’t I reassured?”

  “Just don’t stop,” she reiterated. “It’s testing the limits of your defences.”

  “It’s the limits of my sanity I’m worried about,” I murmured, watching the roiling water for what lay beneath. “Seriously, I’ve about reached my personal quota of fucked-up shit right about now—”

  It was then, of course, that Stender started spazzing out. He gripped the wire mesh and began to shake his head back and forth, muttering a series of refusals as he did so, before throwing himself back in the seat violently enough to make the whole vehicle shake. He arched his back, rocking to and fro with increasing speed.

  “What the hell’s got into him?” Loxley asked, casting a quick glance over her shoulder.

  “Christ knows,” I said, turning far enough around so I could address him. “Stender? What’s wrong?”

  The Tek man lurched forward to the mesh again and smacked his forehead against it, which made me flinch instinctively; several red marks were imprinted on his skin when he pulled his face away. His eyes were rolled upwards in their sockets, and he was emitting a keening noise, like he was taking a big lungful of air.

  “Stender?”

  He rubbed his knuckles against his temples, and gritted his teeth. His veins seemingly throbbed, as if something was exerting pressure from within, and he sobbed the word “no” repeatedly, snot and tears now wiped across his nose and mouth. He threw off his glasses, clawed at his eyes. I felt helpless, unable to reach out to him because of the metal divide.

  “Stender, talk to me. What is it?”

  There was another thump from beneath the car, and the engine roared a little as if the exhaust pipe had been damaged. Was this thing keeping pace with us? Lox wasn’t going fast by any means—the depth of water was pushing back against us—but even so it has some speed on it. It clearly hadn’t lost interest.

  “Get ouuuuutttt…” Stender intoned mournfully.

  “What’s he saying?” Lox demanded.

  “Get ouuuuttttt of my… heeeeaddd!” The guy was screaming now. “Get ouuuuuttttt! Get ouuuuuutttt!” He started to slam his shoulder against the passenger door, ripping angrily at the handle, yanking on it, but it wouldn’t budge. He lifted his feet up and kicked out at the glass, each impact sending the cruiser rocking. The car slid, but Loxley prevented it from fishtailing completely.

  “Jesus, Martin,” I shouted, slamming my good palm against the mesh. “Calm down. We can’t afford to stop here.”

  “What the fuck’s going on?” Hawkins voice spat out of the radio receiver.

  “Stender’s gone crazy,” I said. “He’s having some kind of fit. Keeps saying something’s in his head.”

  There was a pause. “Psi-Division’s found him,” the Judge finally answered flatly. “They’ve got inside his mind. They know where he is.”

  “Oh Christ. What can we do?”

  “Nothing we can do. They’ll be remote-tracking him, and units will be dispatched to collect. We need to pick up the pace, get to Rennick before they catch up with us. Let’s go, c’mon.”

  I glanced at Loxley, who nodded glumly and eased down on the accelerator. Water sloshed over the hood, and the car felt even more unsteady as it swayed with the increased motion. A scrape from below told us that our gator friend was still showing no signs of giving up.

  “How far we got to go, do you think?” I asked.

  “I reckon another ten miles.”

  “Shitsticks. We’re not going to make it.”

  “We’ll make it.”

  There was further grunting from the back seat, interspersed with hacking sobs. “I don’t wanna see I don’t wanna see…” were the only words that could be discerned. I shuddered to imagine what loathsome visions were being force-fed into his skull by the Psi-Div creatures. He resumed slamming his arm against the door frame until there was a resounding crack, and a scream. I thought at first that the glass had finally splintered under his relentless assault, but when I turned, I saw that it was his right forearm that had fractured, the bone dividing the flesh at the wrist. Blood fountained across the roof of the car as well as the back window. Despite the very real pain he must’ve been in, Stender continued to screw up his eyes and shake his head, his face pale with shock.

  “Aw fuck, he’s gonna bleed out if we don’t staunch that,” I said. “Stop the car.”

  “You’re not serious? You heard what Hawkins said—we gotta go,” Lox answered.

  “There’s no way I can get to him without going in from the outside.” I slammed my palm against the mesh to emphasise the point. “We need him alive as much as they do.”

  “You know what’s out there.”

  “Only too well.” I rummaged around under the seat, and came up trumps with a med-kit. “I’ll have to be fast, and once I’m in the back, get going again. It’ll be a matter of seconds, hopefully.”

  “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”

  “He’s gonna die before we hit Rennick. Believe me, I’m not wild about the idea myself, but I can’t see we’ve got a choice.” I looked back at Stender; his eyes were fluttering, his breathing erratic. I could smell the coppery aroma of his blood.

  “Yo, McGill,” Hawkins’s crackly voice interjected. “We’ve got trouble.”

  A near-hysterical laugh bubbled up my throat and out of my mouth in response. “No shit?”

  “Just picked up radio chatter. An aerial unit is on its way. They’ve zeroed in on your lab guy.”

  I closed my eyelids for a second, trying to damp down the panic. “How long have we got?”

  “Probably a few minutes before it’s in visual range. Loxley has gotta put her foot to the floor, man.”

  “Right.” I clicked off the mic, and tucked the med-kit under my arm. “Piece of cake. Stop the car, Lox.”

&nb
sp; Shaking her head, she braked gently. I quietly counted to five, then popped the lock and slipped out, shutting the door behind me. The water was up to my knees, the cold instantly penetrating my jeans, and I waded as speedily as I could round to the rear door, aware that anything could be hiding in the murk below. The road was firm enough beneath my feet, but the swirling current pushed and pulled at me. Cadavers just a few metres away rocked gently with the little wavelets that I was creating. I grabbed hold of the door handle and pulled, just as Stender tried to barge his way out, knocking us both back into the water. I struggled to maintain my footing, and the med-kit went flying from my hand. Stender fell forward with a splash, his injured arm hanging limply at his side.

  “Get out, have to get out,” he repeated, his expression and demeanour telling me he was more or less no longer in control of his actions. He was trying to rise and head back in the direction we’d come.

  “Martin,” I said, reaching for his shoulder. “Get back in the car. It’s not safe to be out here.”

  He resisted, pushing my hand away, and I noted the crimson threads in the water around us where his wound was leaking. I got my arm around his neck and forcibly pulled him back towards the cruiser. He kicked and tried to dig his heels in, growling something inaudible, but he was off-balance, and I made progress dragging him the few metres that separated us from the car’s back seat.

  Then I saw the suggestion of a plated spine crest the water half a second before I felt a force below the surface tug him down hard. Stender was momentarily plucked from my grip, disappearing up to his waist, and he yelled, face contorting in agony. Fresh crimson clouds blossomed in the water around him. I swore and tried pull him upright, but the gator had a good firm grip on him and wasn’t going to relinquish him easy. I changed tactic and let go, drawing my gun from my belt instead, and aimed to the side of him, blindly taking three successive shots. The creature thrashed, whipping Stender with it as he was slammed against the car’s trunk. Christ knew if I’d done any damage—what little I’d seen of the thing suggested it had a thick hide—but I just wanted to distract it enough to release the man from its jaws.

  Stender was holding on the vehicle’s bodywork, trying to stand, when he was yanked from below again. He wailed, long and piteously. I sighted my gun once more at the water’s surface, then decided against it and thumped hard on the window, catching Lox’s attention.

  “Reverse,” I called out. “Right now.”

  The cruiser lurched as it suddenly jerked backwards, hit an unseen obstacle, then rose up a good foot from the road as it rolled over what I assumed was the rear part of the gator. The water frothed and churned manically as the creature curled back in pain, mouth opening instinctively, allowing Stender to tumble free. I grabbed him and heaved him away, trying to get him back into the car, but he was borderline unconscious by this point and a dead weight, his clothes heavily saturated with blood and water.

  Loxley pulled forward, and I had a hand on the passenger door handle when the gator snapped with lightning speed and sank its teeth into Stender’s thigh. He slipped back down, now on all fours, and I toppled with him, unbalanced. I held his arms, and he raised his head, eyes seeing through me.

  A swish in the air above us made me glance up, and I saw the H-Wagon that Hawkins had warned was on its way banking as it descended.

  “Aw fuck,” I muttered, feeling the warmth of its jets against my cheeks and forehead the closer it got. I turned back to Stender but his eyes were now shut.

  A laser bolt lanced out of the underside of the craft and into the water, causing a red fountain to erupt several feet high. The gator had taken a direct hit. It keeled over and Stender almost went with it, head dipping below the surface. The H-Wagon fired again and the beast’s skull flew apart, its riven body now floating upside down in a stew of its own innards.

  I kept hold of Stender and pulled him towards me. “C’mon, Martin, stay with me. Can you stand?” With my back to the car as leverage, I hoisted him up, and discovered his legs ended just below the groin, the stumps raw and gleaming.

  “Martin?” I got my good hand free from under his arm and slapped his cheek. He was cold and still.

  He was gone.

  Numbly, I let go of him, his body sliding into the water, then turned my attention to the H-Wagon hovering before me, the blast of its engines rippling the surface.

  CHAPTER NINE

  THERE WAS KIND of a moment where I felt it wouldn’t be so bad to be vaporised where I stood—with those H-Wagon guns trained on me, the sense of resignation that swept briefly through was liberating. It was so damn hard, this struggle to survive, scrabbling to cling on to life when everything’s doing its damnedest to put you in the ground. To be reduced to ashes and scattered on the wind seemed in that instance to accept your place in the universe, to find some form of peace.

  I never quit when I was in the ring, I told myself. Not in the early days, when I was still driven and hungry. I never gave up when there was fight still left in me. But that was so long ago, another voice countered, and all the knocks I took, all the punches that I steadfastly refused to allow to put me down, what good did it do, in the end? Every piledriver I soaked up, every right hook that I rode out—it was all damage. What did my stubbornness achieve in the end other than to punish myself? Years later, I paid the physical price for my obstinacy. It was never grit; I was just too dumb to know when I was beaten.

  Suffering never got me anywhere other than in a shit-ton of debt concurrent with a spiralling alcohol problem. Why prolong it? What are you still fighting for when you know you don’t have a chance? Why take the smacks and tell yourself that they don’t hurt? ’Cause it’ll just keep coming: more blows, more horror, more knockdowns. They won’t stop—accept that. They won’t stop until you’re dead; isn’t it time to finally give them what they want, and end this brutal, pathetic charade?

  Like I say, I had a moment. But it was just a moment.

  I barely heard the slamming on the car window next to me above the whine of the H-Wagon’s engines, but I glanced over to see Lox banging her fist against the glass and yelling. I was aware of the water sloshing around my knees, then the sound of something else approaching from the opposite direction. I turned in time to see Hawkins powering towards us, bike surging through the flood, Lawgiver raised a fraction above my head.

  “High explosive,” she roared, and the gun barked. The wagon banked in response to avoid the bullet, but it caught the wing and exploded, causing the craft to veer wildly. Black smoke poured from the burning fuselage as it managed to arrest its list and come back firing, cannons chopping up the water. I yanked open the cruiser’s door and dived inside, covering my head, just as the wagon’s rounds found the Lawrider and shredded the tyres. It somersaulted and Hawkins rolled to the side, avoiding her ride coming crashing back down again. She got to her feet, looked at me and Loxley, wide-eyed on the other side of the window, and made a sweeping movement with her arm.

  “Go!” she shouted. “Get out of here!”

  Lox put her foot down. The H-Wagon curved round for another pass and the Judge fired off a second shot, tearing away a section of the cabin. It seemed destined to plough straight into the floodwaters but it managed to pull up, cutting low across the surface, throwing up backwash from its lifters as it aimed itself directly at Hawkins. I watched the rapidly diminishing scene in the mirror as we sped away, the Judge a tiny figure kneeling before the blazing craft that was bearing down on it. Then came the explosion and the sky lighted up in a tangerine flash.

  “Fuck,” Lox breathed, smoke shrouding the horizon behind her. “Hawkins…?”

  “Can’t see her,” I said.

  “You think we should go back?”

  I shook my head. “She wanted to buy us some time. We shouldn’t squander it.”

  “But if she made it—”

  “And if another H-Wagon comes along, we’ll have lost the lead we had. We have to keep going.”

  We rode in s
ilence for another fifteen minutes. The road began to incline, and the water level dropped away significantly, allowing us to gain some traction. We crested a hill, and slowed—there, nestling below, was the town of Rennick, looking as battered by the elements as everywhere else.

  Visible beyond it, looming over the smaller buildings like some sleeping beast, was the glass and steel edifice of the Center for Disease Research.

  “CAN WE STILL do this?” I asked.

  “We can’t turn around now.”

  “Stender was our expert—he knew what the hell this Red Mosquito stuff was. Without him… I’m kinda lost as to what we can achieve.”

  “We don’t necessarily need the man who helped make something to tear it down.” Loxley grabbed my arm and made me face her. “You wanted my help to get you in there—the pair of you were going to destroy all the samples. I don’t see how that’s changed. We get in, we blitz the place. We make sure that nothing survives.”

  I was quiet for a moment.

  “The vials that he stole—you still have them?” she asked.

  I shook my head. “He had them on him. They’ve been lost to the floods.”

  “Better they don’t fall into the wrong hands, I guess. Okay, we’ll have to adapt our plan. I’m still in favour of scorched earth—we level everything that’s inside. Burn it all down.”

  “Stender didn’t seem to think that was a good idea.”

  “With all due respect to the guy, he’s dead, and we’re out of options. Look, McGill, these creatures, what they’re doing; we have to stop them by any means. It doesn’t require finesse or a degree from Stanlake to drive a wrecking ball through their scheme. Just takes guts. You with me?”

  I nodded. She studied me, clearly not convinced, her gaze piercing mine. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really. My head feels messed up. Shock, I think, and a sort of… helpless frustration. I had a wobble, back there, where for a split-second I wondered how peaceful it would be to be atomised by the H-Wagon, to just succumb to the inevitability of it all. Losing Stender after all we’ve been through knocked the fight out of me, I suppose.”