The Infinity Affliction

by Evan Currie

  Now he just needed a new strategy to get out of this mess.

  Fuck.

  *****

  Jan crashed through the thick branches, shocked by the sudden attack…

  No, he knocked me out of the way.

  She hit the ground, skidding to a stop as she struggled to get her rifle back on target… only there was no target to be had. The branches obscured her vision and left any attempt at response… pointless.

  Groaning, she planted the butt of the rifle in the ground and forced herself up as quickly as she could. Mistreating her equipment at the moment was the least of her concerns.

  Jan forced her way through the branches back the way she’d come, bursting out into the small clearing they’d been in with rifle ready, only to find no sign of the Corporal.

  The local Marines were running and gunning, however, and it didn’t look like they were thinking about a withdrawal any longer, so it wasn’t hard to put together the change in stance. Jan immediately set out in pursuit of them, assuming that they’d lead her where she wanted to be.

  *****

  “He went that way!”

  Ben groaned, the voices coming to him from a long damn way off.

  Well that was one of the dumber moves I’ve ever done, He thought painfully, and I was stupid enough to sign up for the Corps. Ouch.

  He felt shooting pains in his left arm, ribs, and now his leg.

  The day was just getting better and better.

  He struggled against the force wrapping him up as he was dragged through branches that scraped at his clothes, limbs, and face.

  Moving fast. Not a lot of time.

  Ben’s hand closed around the hilt of his knife, a thick bladed traditional fixed fighting knife with a bit of an extra buried in its tough form. The blade scraped on the sheath as he drew it out, then flipped it over in his pinned arm.

  He grimaced, against both the pain he was feeling and what he knew was coming, then hammered the hilt into his hip until he heard the pop of the blade’s catalyst pod breaking open. The chemical catalyst began to react with the knife immediately, and he felt it warm in his hands, a slight hum running up through his hand, wrist, and into his arm.

  He drove the blade into the muscle mass that was holding him down, eliciting a real scream and a sudden shaking that felt like it rattled his teeth in his skull, but he didn’t let go or slow the motion of the blade.

  Ben knew that the edge was glowing white hot, but that wasn’t what was causing damage to the abomination. The catalyst was burning off any imperfections in the material, leaving the edge perfect and able to cut through nearly any material that did exist… or could exist.

  At the moment he was using that finely honed edge like a hacksaw, however, just driving it back and forth and tearing as much as cutting as he did.

  “Let me go you piece of filth,” Ben ground out through gritted teeth. “Let me go!”

  *****

  Driscoll swore as he chased the tendril around a tree. It whipped off in a completely different direction so fast he could barely follow the change with his eyes let alone actually chase the damn thing. His M4 was useless, more so than it had been even, now that he was worried about killing an ally.

  He didn’t let up, though, crashing through the underbrush in pursuit, mildly shocked that he was chasing the damn thing now instead of running from it.

  I have lost my goddamn mind.

  “It went that way!” He yelled aloud, pointing in the direction he was running and hoping someone heard and saw him in the process, but he didn’t have time to make sure.

  The damn thing was fast.

  Dimly he could hear crashing and yelling around him, people charging through the underbrush paralleling him he hoped.

  He almost stumbled as he burst out into a cleared area, skidding to a stop in shock and horror as he saw what was ahead of him.

  Driscoll fell on his ass, sliding to a stop in a few feet, and stared in shock.

  The writhing mass ahead of him was nothing that should exist in a sane world.

  How the hell did that come from a bunch of random animals and shit?

  He scrambled backwards, away from the mass, eyes refusing to look away as he got his M4 back up. A hand on his shoulder made him pause and look aside to see the Colonel standing beside him.

  “Good work, you located the core,” She said, reaching under his arm to pull him up. “But do not waste your ammunition on it. It is too well armored for your weapon to do much. Watch for its drones instead.”

  “Um… right. I guess?”

  She lifted her rifle, eyes intent, “I will find the corporal.”

  Driscoll couldn’t help but stare as she started forward, into the writhing mass, her rifle coming to her shoulder.

  That is one crazy bitch.

  Being the dumb Jarhead that he was, Driscoll couldn’t help but admire the hell out of that.

  Kirth and the others burst into the clearing, and he waved them down.

  “Watch for more of the drones, she said,” He told the Sergeant. “It’s too armored for our carbines.”

  Kirth hesitated, but nodded, “Right. Perimeter security! Cover the Colonel, unless you have other orders Major?”

  Burke panted a little, slumping, but he just shook his head.

  “No Sergeant, perimeter security sounds about right.” Burke said. “Be about it.”

  *****

  The Corporal is in there somewhere, Jan thought grimly as she examined the mass with a critical eye.

  The Abomination was a rather brutal biokinetic, there was no question about that. Combined with its quantum infection vector she really didn’t want to see what happened if it escaped the swamp they were currently in.

  Granted, it couldn’t infect anything sentient without some rather drastic measures… likely requiring the death of the sentient, she estimated, but that still left an unholy level of damage it could cause in a rather short time.

  Her nose curled slightly, a scent striking her that stood out against the others in the area. It plucked at her memory, then suddenly solidified.

  She smiled.

  “Good job, Corporal…”

  *****

  “Just fucking die already,” Ben snarled as he drew the blade through the tendril entirely, hacking it in two.

  The mass around him shuddered, a roar filling his ears and shaking him in place as he felt himself drop a slight bit before stopping. His arm was free, however, and despite the pain he forced himself to continue with the blade.

  Somewhere in that mess, the central core had to be. Ben hacked at another section, and it recoiled from him, twisting around in what looked like confusion like it couldn’t see him or… something. He didn’t know, that didn’t make a lot of sense, but he wasn’t an expert on the damn abominations. He was just decent at killing them.

  Usually with artillery.

  Preferably from several light seconds away.

  But killing them, nonetheless.

  He sat up, stomach straining as he forced himself into an upright position so he could reach his leg with the blade in his hand. The impossible black muscle tissue parted with a swipe of the blade and he dropped again, this time into a roiling mass that lay beneath him.

  Ben rolled over, eyes scanning the area, and was horrified to find himself encased in the tissue, walls of it on all sides, above, and below.

  Well, this sucks.

  He unsteadily got to his feet, legs wobbling as the surface under him moved and writhed and swallowed as he began to make out the horror he was surrounded by.

  There were the remains of various animals visible in the center of the mass and, far worse, quite a few humans as well. They were… still moving, though he doubted that there was anything of the original owners still at him in them.

  They made up the core, he was certain of it, but…

  Ben looked at his knife, the glowing blade was thirty centimeters long and incredibly lethal… but as much as he could cut and slice a
way, the core was a lot deeper than he could reach with just that.

  Around him, he could see jerkily moving forms rising out of the mass, all turning in his direction.

  Oh fuck.

  He dropped into a fighting stance, figuring he’d do as much damage as he could, but paused when he heard something.

  That’s the Colonel’s pulse rifle… but… where?

  He looked around, trying to orient to find the source, made his best guess… and ran for the wall of tissue that was between him and the sound.

  *****

  Jan fired slowly, adjusting her aim to ensure she didn’t cut through the muscle with any given shot, hoping that the Corporal would find a way to make himself known so she could shoot around him rather than perforating him with the rounds from her weapon.

  It wasn’t much, but there were limits to what she could do with the minimal field kit she had made it to the lifeboat with.

  A neuro linked scanner would be lovely right about now, she thought, but I might as well wish for a heavy assault armor instead. Both are just as out of reach.

  She paused as the acrid smell she’d caught earlier spiked hard in her nose, and fell back a step as she swept the mass for any sign of the Marines issue Mole-Blade she knew was causing the odor.

  Where are you… I know… There!

  Smoke, white light, and a sizzling acrid burning smell marked the use of the chemically catalyzed molecular blade. It was a last resort weapon and tool, but a very good one within its limitations. She spotted the burning section of tissue as the Corporal cut open a small section and rushed toward it.

  “Corporal!”

  Weak sounds that could be a voice were audible through the writing mass, so Jan didn’t hesitate. She drew back her weapon as she charged, then thrust it into the split with all the strength she had left.

  *****

  Ben jerked back in surprise as the barrel of the Pulse Rifle damn near stabbed him in the face but caught on quickly to the idea. He dropped his knife and grabbed the rifle by the barrel shroud, yanking as hard as he could. He could feel the Colonel pushing from the other side, and between them they managed to tear enough of a hold through the mass for him to get the weapon in his hands.

  It was covered in ichor, dripping from it, but that was not a concern for Ben as he lifted it to his shoulder and turned on the central mass.

  The weapon flipped to full power, automatic fire, with a touch of his thumb and he didn’t even hesitate to squeeze the trigger as the shambling mass continued to move in his direction.

  At first, they dove in front of the blasts, taking the hits as he just hosed down the core, but there were only so many of the already dead walking abominations, and they were not particularly fast. In seconds he was striking the core itself, and that raised a horrific cry that deafened him as he just kept firing.

  Ben ignored the smaller things that grabbed at him from the sides, clawing at his legs and arm, he couldn’t even feel the broken bones he knew he had, though that wouldn’t last.

  He just kept firing.

  Even as the writhing mass began to fall around him, he just kept firing.

  Ben fell back, bracing against the wall of muscle tissue behind him, the heat from the weapon burning his hands even through the barrel shroud, warning sounds from the weapon screaming at him to stop.

  He ignored it all.

  One of the two of them were not walking out of this mess, and if it were to be him… it would not be for lack of conviction, that he swore.

  *****

  Epilogue

  Washington Situation Room

  “The situation appears to be stabilizing, Mr. President. News from the Pacific is good, as much as it can be, and initial reports from the surviving Marines on the ground in Florida are also promising.”

  President Strand nodded, a little numbly at this point.

  “Thank you, Mr. Secretary,” he said, standing up. “I… am going to go give my wife a kiss, and I think tell her I love her. If you need me… try not to need me for a while, please?”

  “Yes sir, I believe we can handle the cleanup without bothering you for a little while.”

  “Thank you.”

  He picked up his glasses with slightly shaking hands and tried to walk casually as he passed the Secret Service Agents at the door, picking up two in his wake as he did. They weren’t likely fooled by the act, but if anyone had a camera or just some visitor happened to see him it wouldn’t do for the President to look like he wanted to hurl.

  Especially if that was exactly what he wanted.

  He’d learned too much for one day, and seen too much.

  Aliens were real, ok that was not an easy bit of news, but he could deal with it. Pulsing black mounds of muscle that swallowed up almost an acre of Everglades swamp?

  No.

  Just… no.

  The loss of ships and planes in the Pacific… dear god no.

  And…

  San Francisco. My god.

  He glanced aside at the closest USSS Agent, “Where is my wife?”

  “She’s waiting for you in your rooms, Mr. President.”

  “Thank you.”

  President Strand would come back and do what he could for all of those… later. First, however, James Strand needed to hug his wife.

  For a long damn time.

  *****

  Glades

  “Is he going to be ok?” Burke asked, eyes moving between the muck covered ‘Realms Marine’ and the rapidly rotting mass of flesh that they’d just chased through the damn swamp to kill. A rotting mass that they’d just pulled the injured man out of, no less.

  “Burns on his hands, broken ribs, leg, arm, some sort of chemical rash,” The corpsman said. “He’ll live. Won’t be happy about it for a while, though.”

  Burke snorted, “alright. That’ll do.”

  “We’ll look after him, Sir,” The corpsman said as he finished strapping the injured man into the gurney and waved down a line from the hovering helicopter overhead.

  “Oh god, please not another ride on those things,” Ben groaned from where he was pinned into place. “Just leave me here, I’ll walk it off.”

  “Get him out of here,” Burke ordered, laughing.

  “Yes Sir.”

  Burke made his way over to where the Colonel was observing the disintegration of the tissue and drones. Bodies of which were laid out all around the area, most with 5.56 holes in them. It had been a hectic fight there at the end.

  “Is that it?” He asked, “Is it dead?”

  “Define dead,” She shrugged. “Here, in this dimension? Yes, this is it. We’re done. Its consciousness, however, will have jumped to the closest matching dimension where it survived. That’s the horror of these things, you know… we never win, we just win here. Out there, elsewhere, the war always goes on.”

  “I’ll take the win here, thanks.”

  Jan smiled, “Spoken like someone who has just been introduced to the concept, Major. It will grow on you, the horror. Trust me.”

  *****

  San Francisco

  “What. The. Fuck.”

  The SEALs emerged from the rubble into what had once been the Embarcadero Center and into a scene out of a slaughterhouse.

  They instantly brought their Carbines up, evaluating the situation on the fly, and deciding that this wasn’t a result of the tidal wave or impact.

  The blood-spattered figure in the middle of dozens of bodies was a pretty good sign of that.

  “Put your hands up!” Grady snarled, gesturing to cause his team to spread out and surround the figure. “Get down on your knees!”

  The figure, he wasn’t sure if it was a man or a woman just turned slowly to look at him and smiled. Grady could see the smile, though the features of the face were almost entirely obliterated by the blood and gore that covered it.

  “Well now,” The sibilant voice almost made the SEALs fall back a step, but they marshalled and held firm. “More meat for the grinder, I
see?”

  “Get down on your knees!” Grady ordered again. “I won’t tell you again. We have you surrounded.”

  The figure laughed softly.

  “Surrounded? All I am surrounded by is dead men,” He said, gesturing to the bodies. “Some of them are smart enough to know it…”

  He looked up at Grady, “And some of them are… not.”

  Instinct told Grady to pull the trigger, and he was a man who listened to his instincts. However, for some reason his fingers weren’t obeying him when he did. He looked down and was shocked by the blood pulsing out from where his hand had been, his weapon nowhere in sight.

  That’s impossible.

  Grady went for his pistol with his left hand, only to have it stopped by an iron grip holding him in place. He looked up to see his team hitting the ground, blood flowing again to mix with that which was already there.

  “Lieutenant, I believe, if I’m reading your rank correctly,” The voice whispered in his ear. “I applaud your fortitude. Most would have passed out already, and almost none would have been able to go for their pistol. Rest assured, in some place, in another time… you even succeeded.”

  Grady felt the world going black around him as a hand wrapped around his throat.

  “Just not in this place or time, I am afraid.” The voice whispered in his ear. “Perhaps we will meet again. Do try to be better prepared for if, or when, that happens. Goodbye, Lieutenant.”

  Grady felt a pressure on his throat, then a tearing sensation, and a liquid warmth splattered under his chin and flowed down his chest.

  He didn’t feel the ground when he hit it.

  The figure that stood above him observed for a while, then casually turned around and walked away.

  “Be sure to put some flowers in your hair,” It sang off key, “When you’re going to San Francisco… you’re gonna to meet some gentle people there…”

  END