Knee-Deep in the Dead

by Dafydd ab Hugh

  I whirled around, diving sideways; two spikys, two zombies, one big barrel of sludge. Ignoring the monsters, I concentrated fire on the stationary barrel. It took a couple of rounds then exploded spectacularly.

  I wondered if my “intellectual” demon could spell KA-BOOM?

  I approached cautiously and examined the remains. At least the aliens’ blood was red and the internal organs bore a strong resemblance to human plumbing. Just beyond the primary gore site I noticed another tangle of human arms and legs.

  Catching my breath, I went closer. It was a relief when I saw the bits and pieces were from zombies; for a moment, I’d been worried.

  It was Christmas when I saw the riot gun clutched in one severed hand . . . but it was Valentine’s day, hearts and flowers, when I spotted the missing rocket launcher!

  The shotgun was a little fancier than the last riot gun, a more old-fashioned model. It took the same twelve-gauge, but it also had a muzzle device so you could adjust the pattern spread for close work or far.

  I allowed myself to feel real gratitude for the zombies, who were turning out to be my best pals. If not for them, I wouldn’t have a single functional weapon. Even when the aliens deliberately destroyed radios, maps, and anything else decorative or useful, they had to keep their zombies armed. We don’t come equipped with claws or armor plate. At least, not we guys.

  Looking around, I was disappointed there was no one else to shoot. Then, as if receiving a good grade for a job well done, I spotted the glimmer of another A.S. on a distant wall.

  I ran to look. It was! Arlene had come through again. Once again the arrow showed me where to go, and I wasn’t complaining. It seemed like she had an uncanny knack for shadowing the demons until she found the way down.

  Clipping the rocket launcher to my webbing gave me an odd feeling. I had thought to use it to frag myself; but Arlene and her Magic Markers changed that plan.

  The rocket launcher was serious firepower. This one looked in good shape, but it didn’t have the two preloaded rockets that were standard issue. I was going to have to make my one rocket round count. I loaded up then let it dangle.

  Armed for very big bear, I followed Arlene’s arrow through a narrow opening; I could barely squeeze past. The UAC designers evidently did not have big men wearing combat armor in mind when they built the “Manual Vertilift Bypass Route.”

  The doorway led to a spiral escalator down. It was not operating, so I crept down as silently as possible . . . not very.

  The escalator led down to the Command Control level, as I recalled from the map I had seen above. C&C was the nerve center; if there were any working radios in the facility, that’s where I expected to find them.

  Once there, I wondered if it had been worth the trip. The architecture of this place was the most depressing yet, heavy, gray, very much in the style of military garrisons from World War II. I had to wonder why any human would build thick, fortified walls deep inside Phobos—if a human had. Maybe we inherited this, too.

  Making my way down the longest corridors I had seen yet, I was struck by the grotesque combination of black moments from human history with the inhuman qualities of the invader. A heavy whiff of diesel fumes had me coughing so badly I had to stop and catch my breath. Diesel fumes? That couldn’t be right. But that’s what I had smelled.

  My footsteps echoed so loudly, they sounded like mortars. I was glad when I reached the first open space, if only because the echoes wouldn’t be deafening. The kind of stone forming the floor changed, and the higher ceiling gave the sound somewhere to go.

  I was at the edge of a huge room, shrouded in darkness except for a couple of shafts of bright light shining through glass skylights. I don’t know whether there were spots behind the glass or whether I was seeing actual daylight; but the squares of brilliance lit up two spots as bright as freeway construction sites.

  One of the two bright-lit squares contained a table; on top of the table was an AB-10 machine pistol. God, did I want that pistol! I could almost taste it. I stared from the doorway, trying to estimate the odds that the pistol was bait for a trap; I kept getting an unacceptably high probability.

  Turning in the opposite direction, I crept along the wall, rolling each step, just as they’d taught us in SERE School and SurvInfil. Every few steps I stopped abruptly, listening for someone shadowing my footsteps.

  I tracked the wall to the left, followed it for a right turn, and finally approached a hulking machine of some sort that almost touched the wall, leaving a slight gap. I slid through the gap as silently as I could and poked my head out.

  What I saw made me smile grimly. Behind a pile of boxes, ten feet past the machine pistol, were no fewer than a dozen of those brown spinys who would never make Smokey the Bear’s Christmas list. They were hiding behind the boxes, staring greedily at the well-lit gun and waiting for someone stupid enough to march up and try to grab it.

  Allow me to introduce myself . . .

  I let my new shotgun dangle, shouldering the minirocket-launcher instead. I only had one round, and I had never fired one of those things before; my first shot would have to be a damned good one.

  I closed my eyes and visualized the UAC sales video: raise range finder; grab plastic propellant tag and pull—which mixes the volatiles and incidentally engages the primer firing pin; thumb-off safety; aim and squeeze trigger. Pulling the trigger halfway produced a tiny, red laser dot; I lovingly moved it across to sit directly on the rump of the biggest demon.

  One of the other demons noticed the spot and reached out to touch it. I squeezed the trigger the rest of the way.

  The rocket exploded with a bang so loud, I thought I would be permanently deaf. While my ears still rang, I dropped the rocket-launcher and retrieved my scattergun.

  I humped toward the remains of the ambush crew; there were a few survivors, crawling along the ground looking for their legs and arms. I put them out of my misery.

  I counted thirteen heads and fourteen left arms, so I must have slipped a digit somewhere. Shotgun in hand, I slowly approached the AB-10, alert for a second line of attack.

  I was still seven meters away when I heard the sound, and it was a bad one; the worst one yet . . . a low, piglike growl, a snuffling sound turning into a wet, animalistic grunt. I froze, the image of a giant boar filling my mind. Slowly, I backed away from the AB-10. I did not want to meet whatever made that noise.

  11

  Damn! I thought, furious that even after expending my only rocket, I couldn’t get the machine pistol; I was right back where I started, except one rocket lighter. I had squandered my gift! I felt like the guy who found a lamp that would grant one wish, and he says, “Jeez, I wish I knew what to wish for.”

  I moved on, warier than before. The simplicity of the layout and the big blocks of stone made secret doors less likely here, although I would pause occasionally and try pushing against anything that looked remotely promising. The fact that the alien monsters had set a trap worried me; as I went deeper into the base, it seemed like they were getting smarter.

  I was becoming concerned that I hadn’t found any more messages from Arlene. Was I still following her trail, or did I take a wrong turn?

  Through a doorway arch, I found another room with a light blue motif. The UAC logo was repeated regularly, over and over, in the floor; evidently, I was back in original, human architecture.

  The room contained a number of kiosks, four that I could see. As I neared the center kiosk I must have triggered another of those motion detector switches. All the doors began to rise as one. A filth of aliens tumbled out, and this time I had no rocket and no convenient barrels of toxin.

  I fired a quick shell, dropping one; then the rest fell on me like ravenous in-laws. I dropped the shotgun to the ground and barely managed to swing my semi-auto Sig-Cow up to take the shock as the first alien hit me.

  The damned thing impaled itself on my bayonet—but it was too stupid to die! It clawed forward, stopped only by the bayonet hil
t, and grabbed my padded shoulders with death-grip talons, dragging me back against the wall.

  Saved my hide, it did. The alien’s broad back shielded me as its brethren flung their fiery, mucus wads; the fireballs burst, spraying flaming, red liquid that dribbled down my dance partner’s legs to pool on the ground, lighting the room with a hellish, red glaze. I fired nine or ten times, finally blowing a hole clean through the alien . . . a gory loophole through which I turned on the rest.

  I guess they refused to believe that the firewads weren’t frying me; they stubbornly kept throwing them, ignoring the burning pool around the feet of the first, dead monster. I got lucky; two of the aliens jostled, then turned on each other, fang and claw. The weakened survivor fell to a single shot from my Sig-Cow . . . abruptly, I realized I was alone with two hundred kilos of alien brochette on my bayonet. What a life!

  Evidently, I had not met all my playmates yet. I decided I liked it that way.

  The room had a central kiosk, which I entered. There was a blue security card in there. I grabbed it on the chance I’d find a use for it. Then it was back to the search for signs of Arlene.

  Edging up a shallow set of steps, I finally found Arlene’s next A.S. and arrow. Grinning, I followed her trail through a room stuffed with computers. Most of these centers had the same basic floor plan; but I was absolutely, one hundred percent unprepared to encounter a freaking swastika! Some sick joker had arranged eight Cray 9000s to form the “crooked cross” that a certain Austrian corporal had appropriated in the middle of last century. Maybe it was a coincidence, but I doubt it.

  This was all getting a little too weird for me. The River Styx, zombies, demons, flaming skulls . . . what kind of intelligence was behind this? Whatever it meant, I decided not to think about it.

  I could easily have gone through the computer room without noticing, but an undamaged map to the section made it impossible to ignore the swastika floor plan. My adventure with the kiosk had been dead center in the largest circle. Above it and slightly to the left was the swastika of the computer room. Walking through, one might figure it out. At certain angles one couldn’t help but recognize that the bloodred design of the floor had a certain association. The map was like a slap in the face.

  It barely bothered me when I triggered another of those damned motion detectors. They were becoming routine by now. Of course, there was always some element of surprise. In this case, the swastika-crays lowered into the floor, real slow with a grinding sound like the bones of a million dead being rendered to powder, and I expected to see soul-shattering horror. Instead, I won another jackpot.

  I’d just found two boxes of rockets, five to a box. And I found a yellow security card with a note that if I were trying to find the card where it was supposed to be, north of the “maze” at the northwest corner of the installation (maze? talk about feeling like a trapped rat), well, I wouldn’t find it there because it was here instead. Safe and sound with the rockets. The note was signed A.S.!

  Man, I was going to have a lot of questions for that girl when I found her. It was hard enough staying alive without going to a lot of trouble for a hypothetical fellow soldier, who on a wild off-chance might still be breathing and putting one foot in front of the other. She had performed incredible feats here. As Arlene found supplies along the way—everything from weapons and ammo to these ugly key cards—she took only what she could carry and stowed the rest where a thinking man might find it.

  Anyway, the least I could do under the circumstances was load the battery-sized rockets into my pack (aside from the two I loaded into the launcher), pocket the yellow card next to the blue one, and blow this horror show.

  I ran into one minor obstacle along the way. I should say I avoided it; I was just about to barge through a flimsy, narrow door, en route to the exit from Command Control, following Arlene’s latest arrow, when I heard the horrible pig sound to which I’d taken an instant hatred. This time it was accompanied by heavy footfalls suggesting tons of flesh waddling ponderously in the artificial gravity of the base. These pig noises were sloppier, wetter, deeper than before.

  Part of me wanted to kick in that door and face the creature; part of me had had enough. I had rockets; from the sound, this pig thing was made of flesh and blood—plenty of both to spare.

  The rational part of me said I’d probably find out sooner rather than later whether I could kill this new monster or not. Why race it to the grave?

  While I was having this debate with myself, the pig thing thumped-thumped on past the door. I waited a few more breathless minutes, then opened the door a crack and listened. Nothing.

  But the instant my book crossed the threshold, I heard a warning grunt from my right, down the black-dark hallway, followed by a heavy, meaty tread accelerating toward me like a main battle tank.

  I could barely make out a bulky shape shambling out of the night to starboard; but directly in front of my nose was a heavy, armored door, a pressure hatch, rimmed with blue lights. I bolted across the corridor, jamming my hand in my pocket and fishing out both key cards.

  The first one I tried turned out to be yellow. The door buzzed angrily, and I began to smell the rotten stench of corruption that comes from animals that chow-down on decayed carrion.

  Swallowing panic, I yanked out the yellow and inserted the blue. The door chimed and ponderously rolled up; I darted through, unslung my scattergun, and waited, shaking, for the Thing Without a Name.

  The heavy security door rolled shut, mocking me with its lethargy. Fortune loved me this time; slow as the door was, the nightmare was just that much slower. The door shut, and the frustrated pig-thing beat on the heavy metal and howled its rage and hunger.

  And still I hadn’t seen even one of the things in the light.

  Knees weak, I followed a trail of three marks and three arrows to the next door—which wanted the yellow card, surprisingly enough. This door led to a lift that wasn’t working, naturally; but the open shaft had guide cables along the sides, and that was good enough for the human Fly. I slid down almost fifty meters before finding another open lift door.

  I swung through the hatch and saw the level-schematic on the wall; Welcome to Phobos Laboratories.

  Five minutes in the Phobos lab convinced me that Command Control hadn’t been all that bad. It didn’t escape me that every time I went to a new center, it was a level farther down than the previous one. Living conditions were not improving, not by a long shot. However, none of that really mattered. If Arlene had come this way, then so would I. I had to find her; I had to find any other human survivors.

  All of this made a lot of sense to me intellectually. Emotionally, I was willing to jettison honor, duty, and loyalty and run like a thief as I contemplated my first real swim in the toxic goo. Semper fi, Mac,

  I’d talked myself into wading through the toxin way up above, and the protective boots that were part of the armor sizzled like bacon on the griddle. But the material was plenty thick, and the corrosive liquid hadn’t reached my tender flesh yet. And like last time, there was no way around the horrible stuff.

  Got to be some way to avoid full body immersion, I thought. But without a heavy-duty flashlight that I didn’t have and wouldn’t dare show if I did, damned if I could find it.

  Arlene’s arrow pointed across the pool. Grudgingly, I had to admit there was no way to proceed without a little swim.

  I was damned glad for the edge that blue face-sphere had given me when it exploded all over me, making me feel healthier than I have in years. If ever I needed that edge, it was now.

  I took a deep breath. Then I took a few more. Man, I did not want to do this! But it was the only way to get past a wall that blocked me from going any farther along the trail Arlene blazed; I had to go under the damned thing. Thinking of how much I hated monsters from beyond the stars, I splashed down.

  Only one advantage over before: this time, I was prepared for the freezing pain, so it wasn’t quite as unexpectedly horrible. Just a throbbing a
che that sapped my strength, leaving me enervated and gasping for breath. One way or the other, the swim wasn’t going to last very long. The toxin glowed with an eerie, green phosphorescence, and the light helped a little. It showed me a metallic object that I would have missed otherwise.

  I snagged it in passing, a small, hand-sized television thing, showing a ghostly schematic.

  If I struggled, I could pretend the liquid was nothing but an algae-infested swimming hole I’d haunted as a kid. Yes, I wanted to think about water instead of the thick, toxic crap I was in right now.

  The wall did not extend all the way to the bottom of the pool. I pinched my nose, squeezed my eyelids tight, and ducked underneath. I was starting to tremble in the icy liquid; I felt sick, like a monster flu.

  Then I surfaced as fast as the law of buoyancy allows, grabbing the opposite catwalk, and the swim was over. Air never tasted better, even the stinking stuff in this place. Two or three breaths later, I put the breathing filter back in place. Too bad I hadn’t had a full environment suit with its own oxygen supply, but I’d already regretted that absence before and nothing came of it. A Marine couldn’t have everything.

  For example, I couldn’t keep the blue glow forever. I had taken it for granted until I realized what this swim could mean. Now I felt sapped and drained. I was all set to curse my lousy luck until I realized something very important: without that earlier boost to my system, this dunk in the sludge would have killed me.

  So what about Arlene? Could she have come this way? Could I have passed her body in the green murk? Had to think this through—there was no arrow immediately beyond the toxin; maybe she found a better route. She might have a decent flashlight or light-amp goggles so she could see. Or she might have had a full environment suit.

  Or what the hell, maybe she had a touch of the blue medicine show. There were all kinds of ways she could have survived.

  But maybe she didn’t. I refused to think about it.

  It was time to move on.