Lust Plague (Steamwork Chronicles)
Page 18
Appalled, mouth wide, Emily put her hand on Cadrach’s head. “Jeez, Sten. You’re joking? Not him? How could he get to her, even know to find her?”
“Not joking, no. He’s done it before—found her for me.” He bent down, squatted, and patted his knee. “Here, boy.” The wolf ambled over. Sten shut his eyes as he caressed Cadrach’s ears. How torn could you be? Sacrifice Cadrach to the zombs—maybe for nothing? If he just headed for the snowman, he knew she’d die before he had a chance to do anything. Each second that passed was like the strike of a sword to his flesh.
“A man can’t get to her, Emily, but maybe a wolf can. I’ll strap the shotgun and ammo to his back. And there’s this.” He dug his hand in his pocket and dredged out the wolf pendant, held it out to Cadrach. The wolf sniffed eagerly. “He knows how to track her. And I’m betting on the zombs not wanting dog flesh. Okay?”
Slowly Emily nodded. “’Kay. I understand.”
“Good, then let’s do this before I regret it.” He mussed up Cadrach’s fur, then whispered, “And damn, I already do.”
"He’ll be all right, Sten.”
“Yeah, he’d better be. Come on.” He straightened. “I need one of the anchor ropes. Also I need you to write a note. A big one that says, hide and duck.”
“That’s it?”
“Yep. That’s it.”
Within a few minutes they’d rigged a rope harness for Cadrach, tying on the ammo and the shotgun in its scabbard, with the note tucked in as securely as possible.
“Let’s go, boy.” Sten cradled the wolf to his chest. He stepped to the open hatchway. Snow-covered ground drifted past below, then a lip of brown. “Got it! Leaving now!” No time for finesse. He stepped out and plummeted, rappelling. Only the secondary rope in his right gloved hand, playing out under friction, let him slow the speed of his descent. Cadrach whined and wriggled.
“Stay, boy. Nearly there!” His boots hit earth, shock jarring up through his thighs.
Sending Cadrach into the horde of zombs was the hardest decision he’d ever made. Sten cupped his palm under the wolf’s nose and let him sniff the pendant again. “Good. Now…go find her. Go!”
He watched the leaping flow of the wolf as he bounded up the slope, then wiped his hand down his nose and mouth. The cacophony of screaming people and groaning, grumbling zombies would send horror skittering through any sane person. “The world is so damn fucked. This had better work.”
Behind him towered the snowman. An automaton of greater complexity than any he’d seen or heard of. A collar of spikes stuck out from the stubby legs like misplaced spines on an upright porcupine.
“Now,” he muttered, “where’s the bloody door to this Hell Machine?” When he found it in the left leg beside the half-buried tread, the door wheel had to be kicked to get it to budge. He swung it open and stepped in, leaving the door ajar. Even so, without internal lighting, the stairs spiraled up into darkness. “Going up. And up and up.” He hauled out the revolver.
Somewhere at the top was the control cabin. He just needed to be brave and forget whatever unimaginable horrors might be lurking, though it was more the imaginable horrors that bothered him—he recalled exactly what a zombie looked like.
The steps rang under his boot like some off-key xylophone. Revolver in hand, he took the last step, glimpsed a seat with a man still in it, his head swaying, and past that a half snowed-in glass screen. Found the cockpit or whatever they call this.
A thin blue hose ran to the back of the driver’s seat. A heating system? The cabin was cold enough to have ice on the inside of the glass and on the timber floor. It cracked under his weight. He shifted, made sure the trigger was under his gloved finger.
“You okay?” Another step closer. “Hoy. Are you the pilot?” Another step.
The jiggling of the pilot’s head stopped. The chair swiveled slowly, creaking.
The goggles on his face were dislodged and lopsided, the inside of the lenses coated with blood and strips of thin flesh. No eyes. The zombie moaned, stretching his arms toward Sten. He struggled against the cross chest harness that fastened him to the leather seat.
Sten looked down.
The pilot’s fingers curled and uncurled. The nails were chipped and torn. Bone showed in the raw flesh. Some of the fingers had been chewed off.
“Fuck. Hope I never get hungry enough to eat my own fingers and eyes.” He drew a deep breath, held the pistol steady, and put a shot through the thing’s skull. It convulsed once and went still.
Yep, it was darn cold. The thing was stuck to the seat by frozen liquid. He didn’t investigate the type of liquid, just wrenched the zomb loose and dropped him to the floor.
Cleaning the gunk off the seat wasn’t necessary to get the automaton running. He sat on the slippery leather. At one corner, through the glass, he could see the distant scene unfold like a story in a play.
He’d work at something, then peek a look. Check the pressure gauges, and look. Find the switches, and look again. Zombies crowded Kaysana. He couldn’t read, but he could guess and he remembered the diagrams Emily had shown him. He found the switch for the voltaic pump, watched the pressure grow. Distant grating told of machinery awakening and thawing. Then he looked again. She was on top of a rock and being swamped by zombs. Cadrach was there, snapping, helping her. Wetness filled his eyes. There was ice on his nose already. His gut ached as if a spider with needles for legs were crouched inside it.
The pressure needle showed green.
He leaped to a seat on the far side, brought the gunner’s leather, glass, and steel headset down, and locked in the lenses. Then he loaded napalm rounds into the cannons. The turret engine started with a whine, and the cockpit swung. He sneaked a look at Kaysana again and couldn’t see her at all. Fuck.
The controls were in the form of a heavy steel wheel, with a pair of triggers on either side of it, also metal. He couldn’t get his fingers into them. Couldn’t grip the frozen wheel. He tore off the gloves, took a deep breath, and settled his hands on the wheel. The cold seared into him and locked his skin to the subzero temperature steel.
He breathed past the agony in his hands and prepared to shoot. Aim high and don’t swerve right—miss the goddamned rock. He found out why they’d named this machine what they had. The first shells erupted from the gun’s muzzle like a hose channeling the essence of hell. Bright and beautiful and deadly.
Throwing herself to the ground and running worked for about two seconds. She might be faster than most zombies, but not the raised men. The doctor caught her by the hair, and she was ripped to a halt. “Aah!”
Relentlessly he dragged her toward whatever happened up there. She passed no humans—they were all ahead of her. But she could hear them. Every one of their cries or sobs or pleas for mercy drove a nail into her. GAM Air Fleet captain or not, she shook with fear.
Blood spattered down from above. The zombies tilted their faces skyward like thirsty men tasting rain. Sometimes it wasn't blood that rained down, but pieces of flesh. Soon her hands, her clothes, her face, were wet and red. She made her feet drag, clutched at the clothes of the zombies she passed.
But the screams of the dying living became louder, closer.
She dug in her heels yet again, feeling the snow pile up about her boots. The doctor only firmed his grip, pulled her on.
A snarling, grinning wolf barged between two zombies and slid to a stop beside her.
The shotgun beckoned, as did a clinking pouch strapped beside it.
She couldn't afford to shake but couldn’t stop her hands trembling like those of an earthquake victim reliving disaster.
The doctor released her hair.
As if he sensed her indecision, Cadrach butted his head into her. Zombies growled at the intrusion.
Man up, woman. She spat out blood, marking the snow with more crimson, grasped the gun’s butt, and hauled out a few feet of lethal metal. The leather hissed. Words on notepaper caught her eye—hide and tell them to duck!!! What th
e…? She whipped free the ammo pouch with its load of fat, gleaming metal, slipped it on her shoulder. Sten’s favorite gun. She would do it justice.
The zombie to her left grumbled, teeth bared, and as claw-curved hands snagged at her, she raised the weapon to her shoulder and yanked the trigger. Three quarters of the zombie’s head shattered, disintegrating into a million bits of mush.
The doctor turned, saliva swinging in a long strand from his lower lip, eyes blazing.
“Sorry, sir.” Apology out of the way, she gritted her resolve, if not her teeth, and blew his head off too.
As if she’d signaled the start of a race, Cadrach lunged and savaged the legs of a zombie, who reached down and swept blackened hands at him. Chunks of wolf hair flew. Blood and fingers flew. She shot the first of Cadrach’s victims. The wolf danced from zombie leg to zombie leg and throat, tearing and ravaging. And the zombies staggered after him, tripping over each other.
If they grabbed him, they would tear the wolf to bits. Damn.
Hide and duck? What was Sten planning? Where was he? She snuffled and blinked away tears and maybe snot or blood. Polite and pretty didn’t count here when people were being torn apart. Two full loads maybe of the gun? Fifteen rounds a pop. There is nowhere to hide here. No-fucking-where at all! As she thought, she blew them away. One two three four. Counting was second nature. On five she whistled to Cadrach and backed toward a snow-topped outcrop.
Teeth dripping black fluids, he followed her, slashing here and there at the following zombs. She cleared a path to her objective with six, seven, and eight. Nine and she gained the top, using two ledges to clamber up with a hop and a jump. Then she turned and saw it all.
Panting, growling, Cadrach stood beside her. Her heart turned to rock and sank. There were more zombies here than she could count in a month. In the gaps, at the center of them, a bloated golden man lay. Twice normal size, his limbs and body were pumped up with gold scintillations that burst in waves from huge cracks in his skin.
The ripples. The respite gave her back awareness. She could feel them again. The ripples that altered…everything, that made the lust, that sent the virogen forth—they came from him. He was the living, breathing incubator of this devastating disease. And the zombies worshipped him with lust and torture and death.
A raised man swiveled, then strode toward her—a shrieking and kicking child still draped across his back. He scattered lesser zombies with a sweep of his arm. Those near the bottom of her rock roused. Their red maws gaped. They hissed. Shots ten, eleven, and twelve took out the first three that set foot on the ledges. An eyeball rolled stickily over the snow beside Cadrach. She bit back the urge to vomit.
“Stay!” But the wolf lunged and tore off a hand. Tendons trailed from his mouth. “Drop it, boy.” It plopped next to the eyeball. A few more and I’ll have a matching set.
The grotesque thought tipped her past a limit into muscle-paralyzing horror. She stared too long. A scream rent the air. She looked up, met the blazing eyes of the raised man. He flung the screeching child, sent him tumbling through the air. She glimpsed brown hair and terrified blue eyes, then the boy’s body whumped into her, and she fell, rolling over the snow, the gun loose and spinning God knew where.
Sprawled on her knees, she gagged and retched. Bile burned her throat and eyes.
Stilted legs rose before her, crooked hands descended. She cowered on the snow-veiled rock. The small boy crawled to her, nesting into her side as if she offered shelter. Silent, full of deadly purpose, Cadrach barreled in and leaped for the raised man’s throat. One wicked swipe connected. The wolf fell in a crumpled mess, slid, leaving a thin trail of blood to the edge of the rock, then vanished over the side.
“Cadrach!” Knocked again during the flurry, the gold shotgun spun and stopped two feet from her hand.
More zombies climbed up and tottered close, their decayed feet crunching on the snow. The orange eyes of the raised man roiled as if in triumph. Beyond, the clearing blue sky mocked her with freedom.
“Mami.” With a whimper, the boy curled himself into her. His little heart thumped frantically against her skin.
No. She mouthed the word. No. I’ll not die a fool and a coward. She threw herself at the shotgun. The raised man grinned lopsidedly, jaw hanging loose. His hand rose into the sky, a long knife clutched in his fingers. The trigger…she searched for the curved metal, her gloved fingers hopelessly lost. Too late. Her death had arrived.
A bullet cracked, and the raised man’s skull blossomed with fire. He staggered back and fell. More cracks and fire seemed to rain from the heavens as three more zombies collapsed in flames.
Someone is sniping. Though wobbly with shock, she went to one knee and shot five times. Click. Empty. The rock was clear again except for her and the boy. And a few burning bodies. The fat in their flesh sizzled and smoked.
“Stay with me,” she croaked to the boy as she reloaded. “I’ll keep you safe.” I pray. And if I cannot, at least you’ll have some peace maybe, before we die. She picked her way past the bodies to where Cadrach had gone and looked over the edge. He lay down there with a circle of red about his head. Was he breathing? Couldn’t see. The boy came up behind and grabbed her boot.
The shots had come from the Emshalley that drifted above—two hundred yards away, an eternity away, a forever. No way could she reach it. No more shots sounded. Was it Sten who’d fired? Surely Emily couldn’t shoot like that? But it didn’t matter. The zombies returned, lurching around, staring with those clouded eyes. Fifteen cartridges left and all she had to do was kill a thousand zombies—today was more than a bad hair day.
She looked over the heads of them, and this time she found the live ones. Ten or fifteen people? And while she’d fought, the golden puffed-up man had eaten some. And still did. A corpse hung from his hands. The golden man’s skin looked ready to split. What would happen if he burst?
Not giving up this time. Not. She blinked, then rechecked the load of the shotgun. The circular backs of the shells shone. Wind tenderly caressed her cheeks and whistled past, riffling the clothes of the shambling zombies.
A distant engine whine made her turn her head. A giant sculpture in snow stirred. Metal joints clanked and clicked. Something whirred, then ran up into a higher pitch. Great chunks of snow, shifted by the moving metal, cracked away and slid to earth in a mini avalanche. Gun barrels revolved. Her military brain fired up with glee. This was something big and nasty, and it must be on her side. Understanding dawned. The automaton.
Oh no. The people.
Hide and tell them to duck.
Ohmigod. How accurate could this thing be?
Past the hulking machine, a line of black dots swept in from the horizon, skimming the ground at speed. Precision flying. Military gyros? Too late. Too damn late to help.
She spun. The live people—maybe even this boy’s mother—were among the zombies and about to be strafed by cannon. Her stomach churned. She heaved in a big breath.
“Get down! Duck, people!”
One or two threw themselves down. More zombies shuffled around to look at her. Jeez. Sometimes Sten was right. “You are about to be fired upon by a fucking huge fucking gun platform! Duck!” Her throat stung, she’d yelled so loudly.
Those who could, tore themselves free of their captors and dived to earth. With the loud toom toom toom of the cannons caroming off her eardrums, she too dived and ducked. She pulled the whimpering boy into her arms and prayed. The ground shook. The sound slammed into her ears until they hurt. Fragments of bodies and clothing, pieces of ice and snow spattered onto her.
After a last diminishing whine of spinning metal, everything stopped. Someone sobbed, then shrieked. She lifted her head. Slaughterhouse scenery. The field was clear of anything higher than a knee. Dismembered, smoldering zombies littered the landscape. In the background, the metal doors of Perihelion Station were dented and pocked with cannon holes. Smoke drifted. The bitter tang of blood and cordite clogged the air.
Another sound replaced the roar of the cannons—the purring thwop thwop of a battalion of gyrocopter blades. Kaysana wiped her eyes and whispered down into the little boy’s hair. “It’s okay. You’re safe. You’re safe. The bad men are gone.” Tears trailed down her face as she rocked and squeezed him in her arms. How old could the poor thing be? Eight? Seven? “We’re all safe.”
A single zombie climbed in wobbly stages back to its feet. Five or ten napalm rounds blasted into it at once. Flames whirled to life and splattered across the ground, tumbling into little piles of fire—all that was left of him. The gyros had good snipers.
The gyrocopters flew in close and flared to a stop on the snow outside the death zone. People waved their arms and called out their humanity. No one dared to rise to their feet until soldiers advanced in a line, inspecting the bodies and helping up the survivors.
Kaysana didn’t bother checking the insignia on the flying machines. Whatever nation they were, they were the good guys. The winds had died. The sun came out. She lay on her back, staring up at the blueness, soothing the child with small sounds and words while she combed her fingers through his hair.
A fair-haired lieutenant from the Brito-Gallic League jumped from the last ledge to the top of the rock—bob-cut hair, her white winter coat buttoned to the neck and showing only a hint of the red and gold uniform beneath. Sweat trailed down the side of her face, and a fat-bodied FREN pistol hung from her hand. She studied Kaysana before checking each and every body lying on the rock. Two female soldiers arrived on her heels, gauss rifles at the ready.