Knee-Deep in the Dead

by Dafydd ab Hugh

  The man was Lieutenant Weems.

  I felt a curious lack of emotion, looking at the pair. They lay in an awkward position, head-to-head, each with a pistol in the other’s mouth. It was pretty clearly a suicide pact—I supposed because of finding themselves in hell.

  Arlene leaned down to separate them, and we made a horrific discovery: they weren’t just lying tête-à-tête; their heads were joined together, fused at the crowns, the scalp flowing smoothly from one to the other . . . like Siamese twins joined at the head. The hair color faded continuously from blond (Weems) to black (Yoshida) without seam or break.

  “Jesus and Mary,” I gasped.

  “I don’t guess there’s any question why they blew their brains out,” Arlene whispered, dropping the bodies.

  Arlene silently pointed to bloody imp prints all around the bodies. We both knew the shape of an imp footprint when we saw one. Judging from the depth of the heels, the bastards had been dancing around the bodies of their human victims. I spat at one of the footprints. Arlene gripped my shoulder.

  “Fly, please don’t think I’m a ghoul—but goddamn it, we need those pistols! And much as I like looking at your . . . your manly chest, I think we need the clothes, too. Definitely the boots.”

  She had a point. A stomach-turning, revolting point; but still one against which I couldn’t argue.

  We spent the next several minutes robbing the corpses and throwing up in the corner. But afterward we each had a pistol and twenty-six rounds.

  To exit the room we had to squeeze through a narrow opening that looked exactly like . . . well, I didn’t like to even think about it.

  I volunteered to go first, and she didn’t object. “Fly,” came her voice as we wriggled and writhed through the orifice, “do you ever get the feeling you’re being born again?”

  I’m not a huge fan of morbid jokes; this time all I could do was shudder. “Arlene—maybe we shouldn’t be pissing off the only friend we’ve got down here by blasphemy.”

  The moist, decaying walls pressed in around my shoulders, but I could still push through, and where I went it was easy for Arlene to follow. The thought crossed my mind that the passage might narrow so much that I’d become stuck. I wasn’t completely rational about this one.

  I was so glad to pop out the other end that I barely minded the seven imps waiting on the other side. For one truly insane moment I wondered if that would make Arlene Snow White! Then I was busy again, doing my job. Arlene was right behind me, doing her job. We only had a brace of pistols. The sons of bitches didn’t stand a chance.

  As was the usual case after a good killing, we took advantage of the opportunity to do more sightseeing. Not once did I regret that neither of us had thought to bring a camera. “So this is hell,” Arlene said.

  “What they want us to think of as the infernal regions,” I replied. Hell was made of fleshy walls, an open field whose ground was a mottled scalp with comically giant, prickly hairs growing out of randomly scattered tufts, rivers of fire, a black and red swirling sky . . . and air that stank of urine, decayed flowers, and bitter lemons. There may have been a hint of old cat boxes mixed in there as well. “Come to think of it,” I continued, “not a bad try.”

  “One of their more creative efforts.”

  We saw a single door, sagging with moldy, rotten timbers. The stonework lintel was crumbling. Arlene strolled to the unpromising portal and made a close inspection. “Fly, come look at this.”

  I went, but my stomach wished I hadn’t. There were mites or larvae eating away at the stone, the wood, the fleshy walls, everything! “Quite an attention to detail,” Arlene said as if evaluating an artwork.

  The next moment she stopped being an art critic. A cloud of the tiny creatures came off into the air as if we’d pounded on the door, but neither of us had touched anything. They settled on her. More followed and they settled on me. Holding up my hand, I could see dozens of little specks spreading across my flesh . . . and there was a very slight itch.

  “Damn it, get off’n me!” Arlene shook her arms wildly, but enjoyed no more success than I. We ran, rolled, and still the little vermin hung on. They were worse than lint.

  “Ah, the hell with it,” I said. “They don’t seem to be killing us. First chance, we’ll take a bath.”

  “Or go through a teleporter,” she said.

  “Being living organisms, they would probably go through with us. No, we’ll look for water.”

  “Or flea dip.” She probably had a very good idea there. But her voice cracked; she held on by main force.

  “Can’t stand here forever,” I said. “Let’s pop it.”

  I cracked the seal. Surprise! A pair of larger than life pumpkins floated out. At least they weren’t going to crawl around on our skin. They were up high enough that we ducked and managed to avoid being seen. They sailed past, looking for hoops and nets.

  The pumpkins saw the dead imps and floated over to investigate, providing us with the opportunity of darting through the doorway. Inside we found a single shotgun and a few shells. Arlene picked it up and tossed it to me.

  I was touched. We soldiered on.

  To the left we saw a rickety, wooden walkway over a pool of boiling, red stuff that seemed to be a cross between lava and the traditional green toxin. Annoyingly, it was the only way to go. As we began to cross cautiously, the path started to give way. For some reason, neither of us was the least bit surprised.

  There was nowhere to go but forward before the pathetic bridge collapsed into the evil fluid below. We ran like hell. But at the end we were blocked by what appeared to be a solid stone wall.

  I threw myself at the wall, hoping to grab a handful, and Arlene could grab me. Instead, we ended up very much alive on the other side of the illusion. There was no wall.

  If we were startled by the turn of events, the imps we had landed on were downright stunned. The shotgun lost its virginity then and there. Arlene took care of a few stragglers with her 10mm.

  This time, when we lifted our eyes from the carnage of the moment we were in for a real surprise. Right in front of us was the figure of a human being wrapped in something sticky and suspended from the ceiling by his feet.

  We could tell by his clothing that he was a UAC civilian. We could tell from his groans that he was alive.

  He was tall, nearly two meters. He was overweight and suffering a lot more because of it, the stomach hanging at a painful angle, his belt about to come loose. Blood trickled down his wrists from where he had tried to free himself.

  “God, he’s still kicking,” Arlene said, focusing on the only important thing.

  I looked close; the man appeared to be wrapped up in spiderwebs; the web suspending him from the ceiling was thick and didn’t look like we could easily break it.

  “Is there a knife anywhere?” We pulled UAC boxes over and rummaged through them; no knife, but a bottle would break to serve the purpose. Arlene sliced, and I cushioned his fall as he came down, grunting at the weight. Good thing there were some medical supplies in the UAC boxes; the man was in shock. Arlene pushed some D5W saline to pump up the volume; after a while his eyes opened. He stared at us without comprehension. I expected that.

  “Can you hear me?” I asked, and got nothing. “If you understand me, nod your head.”

  That took a moment but he finally nodded. Arlene massaged his neck and I held a finger in front of him until he focused on it. “Are you all right?” Arlene asked him at last.

  “Unh,” he grunted in a low, husky voice, carrying all the pain.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Bill Ritch,” he said, groggily.

  “How long were you up there?” Arlene asked.

  Further proof that life was coming back into him was the way he shuddered. “Long enough that I thought I’d died.”

  “Who put you up?” I asked.

  “The—goblin,” he answered. “Spidermind.”

  Oh, great; a whole new nomenclature. That narrowed i
t down to any of the monsters. If we ever reported to Earth, we would need to settle on a common terminology.

  “Congratulations,” said Arlene.

  “For what?” he asked, half turning to her, still dizzy.

  “Surviving.” It was a big deal finding another human who could move and wasn’t a damned zombie! We would have opened a bottle of champagne and celebrated if we’d had the time . . . or the booze. As it was, Ritch was stunned to receive a mouthful of cold water, if still a bit confused.

  Following a corridor that looped around, we wound up back at the same damned central entrance. I would never enjoy an amusement park again. Peeking cautiously around the corner, I saw we had company, tired of inspecting the dead imps outside. Pumpkins in the air, pumpkins everywhere . . .

  They roared in frustration and shot their nasty little balls of electricity at each other. Important datum: pumpkins are immune to their own weapons. And I made a note to see how they responded to being baked in a pie.

  “Were those the goblins you meant?” Arlene whispered to Ritch. He shook his head, but his grim expression left no doubt that he’d encountered pumpkins before.

  “They’re so freaking stupid,” said Arlene contemptuously.

  “You’d think something that was all head would have more brains,” I added.

  The next step was obvious for those of us with brains. We dashed across the corridor to another closed door. I opened it a crack while Arlene kept watch, making sure the pumpkins didn’t float back, Ritch obviously hadn’t received military training, but he caught on fast. Considering what he’d been through, he was a quick study. He kept pace, which was all we really needed from him at the moment.

  Through the door I saw two pumpkins on the inside as well, hanging with a bunch of imps. Taking a deep breath, I waited until a mob of spinys marched between the door and the nearest pumpkin. Then I stepped out and fired five or six unaimed rounds. These guys didn’t merit any wasted shotgun shells. Having done my damage, I popped back and braced the door. Arlene and Ritch helped.

  One thing you can say about pumpkins: they don’t let a little obstacle like imps stand between them and a target.

  And one thing you can say about imps: they don’t like being shot by balls of electricity.

  We left them to each other’s mercies. Over the sound of carnage, Ritch shouted at me. “How’d you get them fighting each other?”

  “We do it all the time,” said Arlene, smiling. “It’s the Iago tactic.”

  “I’m impressed.”

  I watched for the two in the hall; but they’d gotten tired of shooting each other and returned to shoot the imp carcasses.

  When the sounds behind the door died down, I slowly cracked it. I saw a lot of dead imps on the floor and the remains of one deflated pumpkin on top. I assumed the other one must be on the bottom of the pile. That’s when I made a huge mistake.

  29

  Stepping inside, I didn’t think to look behind the door, straight up, the logical place for a surviving pumpkin to be waiting in ambush. And that’s exactly where the bastard was.

  “Fly!” Arlene shouted. She was paying attention. She never used that tone of voice except when it was life and death—and in this case, the issue was my life. I threw myself on the floor just as a lightning ball fried the tip of my scalp. A run of 10mm rounds got my attention.

  I flipped over to see Arlene blasting away, then scrambled to my feet and pumped my shotgun at the floating head. She split left and I right, and we kept firing.

  When we were done, that was the deadest pumpkin I had ever seen still floating. It was almost like one of those old cartoons where the character hangs in space for several seconds before it remembers the law of gravity, then quickly plummets to the ground. All that was missing were the sound effects.

  “Incoming!” yelled Ritch, outside the door. We hadn’t forgotten the other pumpkins. We’d hoped they might have forgotten us, though.

  “Get in!” Arlene yelled, pulling at Ritch’s sleeve. He didn’t need another hint. The moment he joined us, we slammed the door shut and jammed the latch with Arlene’s pistol. The latch immediately rattled; God only knew what the pumpkins were using for hands.

  “Look,” Ritch said, pointing. Protruding from under a dead imp were the pieces of a box of shotgun shells, along with shells.

  “They may be covering all kinds of supplies,” I said. The prospect didn’t appeal to me, but I thought I should set a good example. Getting on my knees, I pulled the corpse away from the box, and dozens of shells went rolling as Arlene and Ritch collected them.

  Then we all got busy moving the dead monsters and stacking them in one corner. We received our just reward. There was another functional shotgun, lots of ammo, even tools: hammers, nails, even a gas-powered chain saw. Maybe the zombies had been used to build condos for imps and pumpkins. We even found an antique revolver for Ritch; I wondered which one of us the civilian would accidentally shoot.

  We replaced the pistol in the latch with a handful of nails, then collected all the tools and put them in a neat pile for later use. Weapons and ammo in hand, we explored the room and found it led to a broader plaza area. Then we found a door leading into a narrow corridor.

  “I’ll go first,” I said.

  “Fine with me,” said Arlene. Ritch was more than happy to bring up the rear.

  No good deed goes unpunished. I realized that the moment I heard the familiar pig-grunting noises, the ugly snuffling that always turned my stomach and might keep me from ever eating bacon again. They didn’t make us wait very long. The demons came storming down the corridor, pale pink flesh with claws and lots and lots of teeth.

  Somehow, though, after the steam-demon, I couldn’t take the pinkies seriously.

  The narrowness of the corridor meant I had taken point with a vengeance; no one could shoot past me. I loosed a shotgun blast. “Fall back!” I shouted, and heard Arlene and Ritch doing it. Taking steps backward, I never took my eyes off the enemy. I shot a second time, then a third and fourth time, before dropping the first demon.

  I didn’t like the arithmetic. Despite our extra ammo, there were more demons than we could take down at this rate. My comrades had made it back through the door as I held the corridor. Back to the wall, I kept firing, when suddenly . . .

  “Hold fire!” It was Arlene’s voice, and I couldn’t imagine that she’d gone nuts. I risked turning my head. She stood in the doorway, holding the chain saw. Then with a chugga-mmmmmm, chuggga-mmmmmm, she pulled the cord. Third time was the charm, and it kicked to life with an honest roar to drown out all but a steam-demon’s scream.

  Elbowing past me, she lifted the buzzing blade and let the teeth bite into the nearest demon. “Die, Pinkie, die!” she screamed. It sounded odd, but the results were great: red blood splashed us both, and she kept at it, screaming a war cry that just might scare a fallen angel.

  Arlene waded through them, working the saw, beads of sweat and drops of blood covering her face. A demon arm fell to the floor, blood exploding in a torrent. She slipped on the gore, but the movement carried her forward and the saw buried itself in the chest of the next demon, ripping a death gurgle from the creature.

  I tried to get to her to help, but the demon corpses were in the way. She worked the chain saw loose but fell backward, swinging it in a wide arc. A large demon swung its claw down hard and knocked the chain saw out of her hand.

  Before Arlene could get away, another claw ripped her open. She didn’t scream but fell silently.

  The sight drove me mad. Somewhere in the back of my mind I’d accepted the likelihood of our being blown to bits; but I wouldn’t have us die like animals!

  Picking up the saw, I revved it and finished the damned job, shoving the blade into the face of the one who had hurt her. I lost count of how many were left but I kept at it, swinging the chain saw back and forth, covering the walls with gore. Finally, there was nothing left to kill.

  The red haze lifted and I remembered Ar
lene. Turning back, I saw that Ritch was with her, trying to stanch the bleeding with improvised first-aid. My right sleeve was already in tatters, so it was a simple matter to rip off a strip of cloth and use it for bandages. We patched her up as best we could.

  Her face was pale and she was weak; but she was alive. “Can you move?” I asked.

  “Move or die,” she wheezed, “so I’ll move.” We helped her stand up. I started to pick up her shotgun and pass it to Ritch, but she shook her head. “That’s mine,” she said, reclaiming it proudly. I wasn’t about to argue.

  We left the heavy chain saw on the deck and staggered forward into a last chamber. There were disgusting things lying around, but as nothing was moving or alive, I gave it no further attention. In the center of the room was a teleport pad of rusted metal, designed in a heavy and cumbersome manner. It looked like an antique.

  “That doesn’t look promising,” I said.

  “We have no choice,” Arlene answered through clenched teeth. We hadn’t had a good choice in a long, long time. All three of us stepped aboard, arms linked. Ritch must have been religious. He said a prayer.

  Maybe because it was an old-fashioned teleporter, the experience was different from the others . . . like the special F/X were provided by a different company. I noticed sounds that were new, a wind tunnel combined with an avalanche; and there was the sensation of falling turning into floating. Then we arrived.

  “Wow!” Ritch said. He wasn’t as used to this stuff as we were. The terminus was a rock garden. Although the light was dim, we could make out the twisted, curved, and warped rocks that made me think of a giant coral reef, except the color and texture of the formations was the same as desert camo. Met our old friends, the zombies.

  Arlene fired first. The opportunity to fight put life back in her again. Most of these zombies weren’t armed—ex-UAC civvies—which was fine with me. Ritch got off a couple of shots as well; I don’t know if he hit anything. Abruptly, I realized we had a more serious problem than the walking dead crew. I’d almost forgotten the real spooks—the ghost things I thought of as specters.