He’s a tall thin man who can’t seem to make up his mind. He never looks the same way twice. Some days he has long black hair, a smart black beard and is wearing a black top hat and a long medical coat. Today he’s wearing a white surgical gown. A shock of dirty blonde hair cropped close, a long pointy nose on a long pointy face, it looks like The Boss was stretched as a child it does. Today he wears no beard. As always his long, supple bony fingers–the hands of an artist–are protected by spotless white surgical gloves. Always spotless.
The Boss is a man of many terrors and phobias. The Traumist’s Affliction I call it–often working with germs and disease has made him into a hypochondriac. Constantly washing his hands. Constantly checking himself for signs of dysentery, salmonella poisoning, diarrhea, foot rot, bedsores, sleep apnea, irregular heartbeat, irregular breathing, indigestion, fevers and plagues, cancers, cavities and the occasional odd ‘auge in the small of his back.
“Ahh, Leather Apron, what have you brought us today?” The Boss looks at me, his eyes eager and expectant.
I unsling my bitch-tits and begin to unpack the treasures I brought back from Debron IV.
Blood, bone, hair, internal organs. As always he is both pleased and delighted with my work.
I have saved the best for last. Vacuum sealed, floating in a solution of preservative and disinfectant I pull the recycling-pouch that holds Six-by’s leg out of the barrel. It is cool to the touch.
“He’s the one.” I says.
“Are you sure of it?” asks The Boss.
I handed him the kid’s leg in response.
He eagerly accepted the leg and nodded. “I’ll test it.”
We both know there is no need for that. However, there is no rush. We’ve been looking for that kid for nearly twenty years. It won’t hurt to make certain.
The Boss inspects the leg, and then asks me “Was he in any condition to protect himself?”
“Absolutely not, sir.” I reply without hesitation. “He was at death’s door. Traumatized, shell shocked, missing a limb. He’d hemorrhaged so much blood I’m surprised he was conscious. I wasn’t there to see it but I’m fairly certain he’d caught on fire at some point during the fighting.”
The Boss doesn’t say a word. Just looks at me.
“I gave him a dab of the business for that knee. Then pushed him back into the fight.”
The Boss raises an eyebrow. Not exactly a reproach but not approving what I had done either.
“You probably saved his life.” He says.
“Well, no one’s perfect.” I reply.
The Boss knows me too well.
Chapter Six
All Fled, All Done
call sign: Propaganda Officer III
unit type: propaganda officer
location : The Apocalypse (historical record)
* * *
OURS IS NOT A SPIRITUAL WAR. There is no virtue in what we do, why we fight, how we die. The ethicists of the Third Space Marine Recon Expeditionary Force have no illusions. They will be judged harshly for their crimes.
The first thing the Krag did was massacre all of the women. The old, the young, the weak–none were spared their bloodlust. The Last Woman Fell, and with her passing all hope fled. There will be no more sons, no more daughters, no one to follow in our footsteps.
We are Generation Incel.
The orphaned misfit children of a murdered race. Sons without mothers. Brothers without sisters. And we are to be the last of our kind.
Among our ranks you will not find well trained, well fed, well disciplined professional soldiers. We are not young men in our prime, hearty and hale, six-feet tall and one-hundred-and-eighty pounds of muscle and grit, flush with the esprit de corps and eager to kill for a cause we believe in.
No, we are not the stuff of heroes.
We are the dregs. We are all that is left. Our lives a grief induced wasteland. Malnourished dopefiend soldiers hopped up on amphetamines, maxed out on synthetic testosterone and strung out on painkillers and healing draughts. Discouraged by empty promises of a better tomorrow we know can never come.
Our numbers dwindle. Never far from starvation’s maw, we are without a home. We are dirty, hungry, smothered in our own shit, constantly beset by horror, tormented by madness and stalked by our murderous enemy.
Words fail. Useless and lame, I do not wish to speak the language that could describe our anguish. We witnessed the worst catastrophe humanity will ever know, the collapse of all order, the descent into ruin, the final destruction of everything. Our worlds, our colonies, our history, our civilizations, our cultures, our homes, our lives, our families, our future–nothing remains. Save the will to live, and the fight to survive.
This fight–our fight–is the last fight, the hard scrabble. In the mud. In the shit. Chemtrailed eyes groping blind in the filth for severed limbs, scavenging our fallen comrades’ bloody skins and vital organs from the dirt where they lie, grist for the blood wagons to spin once more into the fight. This long, hard slow grind kills in pieces. Our defeat torn from us, our lives lost in chunks of vomit and gutters of blood.
This grisly business, the recording of the carnage of the last days of the human race, falls to us, the propaganda officers. And so we created this Apocalypse. A suicide note for humanity. A place to share our final thoughts before the end. Our final wish, a quiet proof that we were here.
We once were, and we too mattered.
–a reading from The Ravings, Propaganda Officer III (deceased), Founder of the Apocalypse, and earliest extant entry therein
Chapter Seven
Hello, Alone
call sign: Six-by
unit type: space marine
location : The Battlefield (Debron IV)
* * *
CRAZY PEOPLE DON’T REALIZE THEY’RE CRAZY. They think they are doing something else. They think what they are doing makes sense.
I’ve seen some strange shit in my life. I grew up in the middle of the slaughter. Same as the rest as Generation Incel.
You get used to the horrors of war quick enough. Melted eyes. Dribbling lips. Skinless walking corpses. The smoking ruins of bodies stacked high. The descriptions of the dead quickly become a medical textbook or anatomy lesson.
It was the story and the emotions of the slaughter that stuck with me.
I remember the last days of Alina Moedra. The city was on fire. We were evacuating. Refugees, stragglers and the sick and wounded clogged the roads. I was waiting in line on a mass transit platform. People were scared. Jostling and pushing each other for position. Why I do not know, it wouldn’t make a difference. A man carrying a suitcase got knocked into a kiosk. The suitcase popped open and the cadaver of his wife fell out. He was going to save her by killing her then hiding the body. I’ll never forget the look on his face when he was shoving her back into the suitcase.
Madness.
I think that was where I learned how to not be able to read people faces.
I write this because I know my grasp on reality has slipped a bit further. Perhaps tenuously so. Time is up to its old tricks. Chunks of (something I don’t know what) perception/memory/time are missing from my memory. I’m just popping in and out of awareness at key moments.
It could be a million things. Fatigue. Blood loss. Passing out from total exhaustion. Something internal might have given up the ghost and shut down. Could be Omen’s not the only one with yellow eyes out here on the battlefield. Or maybe I have to face the truth. Maybe I’m just a big pussy and gave up somewhere along the way without realizing it. Couldn’t hack it and now I’m just trying to hide my shame.
It also could be the pathogen. Clearing my short term memory so the horrors I have seen this day do not permanently psychologically damage me. One of the true beauties of the holocauster-pathogen platform, you can’t be hurt by what it won’t let you remember.
My nervous system is compromised. My judgement can no longer be trusted. I am not receiving nor sending valid nerve impulses. The
game has been broken, I can not play. Weary past the point of fatigue.
There is a quitting point, we have been pushed unreasonably beyond that. Here is where you stop believing in yourself and you believe in those around you and when that too is lost.. You quit, you fail, you die.
The war is now entirely in our minds. It comes as no surprise this is where its final battle will take place. And that I am its weakest link.
We fight now for each other. This is morale. Keeping your mouth shut no matter the toll. Because the first of us to crack will drag all of the others down with us.
Regardless of the cost. I hold my silence. This must be done.
These thoughts are quickly brushed aside. Big Bro is talking.
“How does it feel to be alive?” His eyes are bright, eager. A hint of challenge to his voice, as though daring us to prove him wrong and die. He does not expect an answer and we do not disappoint.
He spreads his arms wide, “Come on man!”
“You want some fucking more or something?”
My hand must be frozen or petrified in the I copy position.
“Alright, so no excuses for not keeping up.” Big Bro is teasing out big ideas from small beginnings. “We sync in two. Get your apocalypses in order.”
The thought of thinking is too painful.
Anyways. I lean back. Against some rock jutting out from the eternal gray dust of the planet’s surface. Start breathing. Just so happy to breathe.
It’s difficult to appreciate just how wonderful it was. The taste of blood in the mouth. Having gone down to the cellar and drained that last bit of energy. How utterly exhausted we are. And now, these good refreshing gulps of air.
I couldn’t tell you how long I sat like that. Just breathing. Happy, maybe for the first time in my life. Just happy to be alive.
Nothing lasts forever and eventually my thoughts turned.
My apocalypse?
What the hell do I want to include? I consider the question carefully but it slides away from me, unanswered.
I have a noble confession to make. I might have attended a bugfuck festival once. But I didn’t enjoy it.
Nah. No good. Sounds contrived, ‘sides anybody who knows me knows that’s a damn lie. I’ve never been to a bugfuck festival.
The truth is something has been bugging me. Tugging at my mind since before we made the jump. The only thing I want to include in my apocalypse is…
Youth is a myth.
And that’s why, when we get back aboard The Good Shepherd the first thing I’m going to do is kill that damn annoying little kid.
Other than that… All I have to report is the obvious.
Me? I have no qualms about relating… I’ve seen piles of shit that are more attractive than me. And there is a smell of wrongfulness coming off my knee that frankly I should be ashamed of. An ancient and wicked stink of death drawing near. Which is great if you’re getting a blowjob from someone’s grandma. But entirely inappropriate when it’s coming from your own damn knee.
I’m not the only one having problems.
I don’t like writing it this way, but the truth is Omen doesn’t look so good. No, he’s not collapsed in the dirt like I am, but he stands to the side, resting heavily on First Strike. His breath comes in ragged gasps, his eyes are werewolf yellow. Gross jaundice. Something important–Liver? Kidney? I don’t know–inside of him isn’t working anymore.
The muscles in the back of his right leg are cramping for all they are worth. You can see them spasm like strands of limp spaghetti or worms crawling mercilessly in his quads. He appears to have lost control of it. I imagine the muscle will tear itself from the bone soon. And assume his suit has pumped him full of muscle relaxant to no avail and now is just smoothing over the incident with hush, hush… don’t say a word.
Hangman has started shaking again. He collapses in front me. He looks like wiggling shit, and lets out a long low sigh.
His shaking is not a nervous twitch. It’s fear or worse. I can not imagine what his suit must be pumping him full of to keep that big phat motherfucker of a weapon useful. He’s probably not too happy about breathing great big gulpfuls of my ass-smelling-knee.
He’s shaking bad. Better get that down. We all are. Nervous wrecks.
[Did I say that already? I think I’m contradicting myself. Fuck, my suit might be stealth pumping me full of something. No telling what its trying to compensate for. I’m beyond caring, truth to tell.]
My god, that fuggin smell. I’m going to have to chop my knee off again just to be free of my own stench.
Personally, things aren’t going so good. Little downward spiral is catching up with me. I’m going to lose consciousness soon. I’m pretty sure of it. Just too damn tired to move my lungs anymore. Omen might not be the only one with jaundiced eyes, important stuff is gonna start shutting down soon. Organ failure.
Look, this isn’t the kind of thing I should be thinking, much less writing but… Well…
He’s sitting across from me. Pointing those ridiculously oversized damn things he calls boots at me.
Nope, Hangman is provoking me. I’m sure of it.
Why would he do that? Not unless he wants me to make fun of him…
Maybe it’s his way of breaking the ice. It must be. An impossible thought, he wants to be friends. No one has ever wanted to be my friend before. This is complicated. I am unsure how to respond.
I’m just some pogued out New Guy. I better watch myself.
I’m not gonna look at my hands because they’ll just disappoint me. There is a clattering sound coming from my lap. I’m not fapping, I assume my hands are just involuntarily contracting, thrashing and banging against my armor.
My teeth itch. That’s a hell of a feeling, itchy teeth. And they’re jittery. I don’t mean chattering like I just saw a ghost. No, I mean all 32 teeth jerking helter skelter up and down and out of sync like an undulating sea monster in my mouth.
My nervous system has known happier times.
Instead of bitching, I just lean with my back against the rock. A respite. Girls in White Dresses propped up beside me. Taking a break. Breathing, just breathing. Seemed like the right thing to do. So fucking tired.
Hangman shifts and sits up across from me. I’m sure of it now, he’s provoking me. His huge boots pointed right at me. I want to tease him about his boots so goddamn bad. Isn’t that what teammates do in situations like these? Take a breather, a short respite. Indulge in some light hearted banter. Threaten to fuck each other’s dead sisters and then go die together in a ferocious display of glorious brotherhood?
I open my mouth then shut it. Tranquility seems like a world away because it was but he just lost half his fire team there. Him, Omen and Big Bro…
They’re probably grieving. The last thing they want is some New Guy going buddy-buddy on them, trying to make a good impression. Thinking he’s part of something he’s not. Cracking jokes like they have something in common.
No, there is a distance between us and all the good intentions in the world aren’t enough to cross it. I respect that distance. It belongs there. Between myself and the others. Instead, I go back to breathing. Highly impressed with myself and my ability to deduce the mood. To make the right decision.
I’m down to my last hand but that doesn’t stop me from reaching into my boot and pulling out my joss piece. It’s just a twerp gun, not much more than a slim firing tube and a trigger attached to a sliver of a gencel, if that. Etched into its barrel is muh knife. Don’t throw stones. I, too, was young once. I don’t know what I was thinking when I named it.
I’ve had it since I was a boy. I’ve slept in some strange places in my life and sometimes… Late at night, alone in the dark, when I’m trying to sleep and I hear some spooky shit…
I’m not always as brave as I wish I was.
Anyways, fuck it all, I’ve had all I can take of Hangman and his damn boots. In the name of friendship I point the twerp gun at Hangman and pull the trigger–
<
br /> KABOOM!
–killing the kraggit over his shoulder that was about to sink its killing spikes into his shoulder.
I tuck muh knife back into my boot and close my eyes then go back to breathing. Focusing on just being a part of the team.
Behind Hangman, the kraggit scratches in the dirt, maybe dying. Maybe not. I thought I’d killed it but I’m just too damn tired to get up and check. Omen doesn’t take any chances and spoors the little fucker.
Is this teamwork? It’s been ages since I’ve used my twerp gun. I’m secretly proud.
Hangman’s nervous laughter breaks the silence. For a small guy with a big gun he has very expressive laughter.
“You fucking psychopath!” Hangman shivers.
I’ll have to look up the meaning of that word in a dictionary.
“You could have shot me.” We get another shiver from Hangman then he laughs it off.
I am 47% sure he is joking. 26% sure I just scared the shit out of him. Maybe 18% sure that is his way of thanking me. And whatever percent is left sure I suck at math.
Even though I don’t really know what a psychopath is those words still sting. If anyone is reading this, I’m pretty sure there is a good chance I’m not one.
Despite this I decide I’ll tease him about those goddamn boots another time.
Omen laughs. Like we’re pure fucking entertainment. I don’t join in his laughter and I’m not sure if he thinks Hangman getting killed would be funny. There might be some complex fuck-you going on here that I can’t follow.
“Told you,” Big Bro smiles like he’s proud of me, “He’d fit right in.”
And if you are thinking he said it with a voice laden with brotherly love and the feelgood acceptance of teamplay and togetherness then you are completely wrong. As he speaks he overrides my suit and hits me with a massive dose of get-up-get-on-your-feet.
The Maggot Colony Page 4
