by Ryder Stacy
Suddenly a piece of material was thrown around its throat. The band tightened and instantly the giant was turning red himself as both hands left Rock’s neck and lifted to his own throat. Chen was yelling. When Rock’s ears unpopped he heard, “Slide out Rock, fast, I don’t know if I can hold him long. He’s strong as an elephant.” Rockson didn’t need any prodding and slid away, rolling end over end like a barrel.
“I’m out!” he screamed so Chen wouldn’t stay on the reins any longer than he had to. For already the giant was up and shaking at the flea behind him who had managed to coil ripped material from his burlap gladiator outfit.
As soon as Chen saw Rock was clear he let go of the material and kicked off with both feet on the creature’s broad back. The push took him a good twenty feet, out of range of the man-thing which suddenly turned ripping at the air with those five foot long arms. He was really, really mad now. No more Mr. Nice-Giant!
“What the hell, Rock?” Chen exclaimed with exasperation as both men stepped back, searching desperately around. “You’re the boss, I’m stymied on how to even dent this demon,” the Chinese Freefighter said, his almond eyes tight, unsure.
“That tree,” Rock said suddenly, as he scanned frantically all around them. “If we can break it off, we can use it as a spear, slam the fucker right in the gizzard. That should do some kind of damage.”
They both leaped to each side of the fake aluminuplastic tree about ten feet high, with plastic branches drooping down the sides. Like a model railroad set’s tree, only grown to monstrous levels.
They placed their hands a foot apart as if they were choking up on a baseball bat, and then pulled hard. Only two men possessed with such strength and desperation could have ripped the foot thick plastiwood base from the ground where it was cemented in. They both let out grunts as the “tree” came free and stumbled forward a few feet before regaining control of it.
“Let’s go hunting,” Rock shouted to Chen as the giant came bearing down on them from about twenty yards off, getting up a full head of steam. It was wipeout time. They turned the pointy top of the tree down and aimed it at about chest level. The plastic top leaves hid the metal tip. Luckily.
“Hold back until the last second,” Rock shouted as they charged toward the thing, “so it can’t bat it away.” In his peripheral vision Rockson caught everyone in the enclosed balconies above rising to their feet as they watched in stunned disbelief the battle unfolding.
It was like they were knights at a joust, Rock and Chen carrying the pointed tree, pushing it forward with all its fake plastic branches flapping around. The giant suddenly dove forward, as if trying to come down on them, on the tree, on everybody. And Rockson and Chen thrust their end up with everything they had.
There was a loud wet crunching sound and they couldn’t see for a moment through the fake branches what had happened. But the killer was stopped in his tracks and was standing there with no face. The end of the tree had gone right through his left eye, and proceeded out the back of its head.
It now staggered backward, faceless, brains coating the plastic branches. So powerful was the man-thing that it took a good twenty seconds to even realize it was dead. Then the whole bloody mess fell in a quivering heap to the astro-turf floor.
Rockson raised his hand to the officers above, looking directly at General Hanover who didn’t look too pleased about it all. He made the V-for-Victory sign.
“We won, now your promise,” Rock screamed, shaking his fist like he was ready to come up there and take the bastard out himself. “Let us go, along with Langford and Kim. You gave your officer’s vow in front of your men!”
“I lied,” General Hanover laughed, and Rockson could hear his words over some sort of P.A. system. “And my men don’t dare do a thing about it, I assure you. I had vague thoughts about saving you so you could see my marriage ceremony to Kim, and see the President himself in a tux holding flowers. But I see you’re too dangerous.” Hanover turned to a subordinate and said, “Gas them. Class D.”
Rock knew what that meant; joining the ranks of the mindless.
“And give them a good dose, a little extra, so there’s nothing left up there. We’ll use them for—shoveling shit!”
The officers around him laughed loudly, and General Hanover beamed. The guards came in and Chen and Rock again looked at each other. But a lead-spray from a dozen submachine guns right at their feet dissuaded them.
They were shackled from behind and led back out of the Games-course, through a hidden side door built into the wall. It took only a minute to reach a room about twenty by twenty with ten chairs inside. The chairs were almost like barber’s chairs, only much nastier looking, with straps all over them and tubes and junk reaching into them.
They were thrown into the seats, and before they could make a move had been shackled down, everywhere. Houdini would have had a hard time getting out. And Rock didn’t even belong to the magician’s union! Helmets were lowered down like a woman’s beauty parlor and then sealed, so they were airtight.
“If I don’t see you again—with this brain,” Rock shouted through the mask to Chen, “it’s been a good friendship. Proud to have known you.”
“Ditto,” was all the Chinese Freefighter muttered. Suddenly there was gas flowing into the helmet. They could hear it and after a few seconds they could smell it too, faintly. The smell of burnt almonds. He knew that with just a few breaths, he was gone to the world as Ted Rockson forever.
Goodbye Rockson, hello Shit-Shoveler No. 6,666!
Twenty-Two
Rockson held his breath as long as he could. At first it wasn’t hard, the lungs expanded to their fullest capacity, to keep it all in. In his mind, he had crazy thoughts, as men sometimes do when death—or worse—is just seconds away. Images of his life spinning around in front of him in a merry-go-round of shadows and light. But mostly for some reason he thought about the air. The air before the gas mixed with it. How sweet and clean and like crystal spring water it tasted in his throat and lungs. Why had he never tasted it before? The taste of air is the taste of Nirvana. Where had he read that, heard that? Chen probably, or an old . . .
But Rockson knew he was just bullshitting himself and fate itself. Trying to remember everything, trying to think any thought to avoid the reality of it all. That he was going to have to breathe soon. But he wouldn’t breathe. How about that? He goddamn well wouldn’t. He’d hold the fucking air forever, recirculating it through him as if through a self-circulating pump. He didn’t need air. He didn’t even want air.
Not true!
Then he sucked in hard, knowing as he did so that it was all over. The gas had a foul taste to it and burned his throat and mouth. He could feel it oozing through his lungs. It hurt, with a strange throbbing kind of pain as if all his capillaries were exploding. And every second it circulated more into his cells, his heart, his brain, filling them with its noxious molecules. He felt himself sink a little deeper into the darkness, the mindless shadows that awaited there. He knew that his second breath would be the last one he’d ever remember.
Suddenly there were noises, voices screaming which jarred him even through his befuddled senses. He shook his head within the gas helmet trying to not go under.
“Back off, slime, or you’ll eat one of these grenades,” a voice was screaming wildly. Rockson knew the voice, it was, was . . . He searched through his mind which felt as plastered as if it had just drunk a gallon of tequila, without a chaser.
“I said move it, Hitler’s little helpers,” the voice shouted again with tremendous rage in it. Detroit! It couldn’t be— Could it?
“Hold it in there, Rockson, hang on, pal,” the voice now shouted through the fog of the Doomsday Warrior’s half gassed brain. “Getting you out of here, Rocky Boy.”
Suddenly the gas helmet was being lifted from his head and he took huge gulping breaths, savoring the beautiful taste of the real air. He vowed to taste all the pure air, every breath he took for the rest of his life.
But he promptly forgot the pledge, as his eyes blinked hard trying to adjust to the bright neon light. At first he saw just shadows, shapes all around him.
Then he saw the black face staring hard at him with deep concern just a few inches from his face. It was Detroit.
“Rock! Rock! are you okay? Come on, man, try to move, breathe deep, get that zombie-shit out of your lungs.” Detroit suddenly stood back and flung his hand out, slapping the Doomsday Warrior right across the cheek. Rockson felt a surge of anger well up in him and his cheeks got flushed. He opened his eyes wide now and looked like he wanted to choke Detroit.
“Sorry about that, partner,” Detroit laughed as he helped Rock to his feet. “Had to do something to get your systems going again.”
Rockson shook his head from side to side trying to clear the cobwebs.
“Shovel . . .” he mumbled, “Give me shit-shovel,” Rockson croaked out.
“Oh God, no!” Chen exclaimed.
Rockson grinned. “Aw, I’m just kidding!”
“You are a shit!” the ebony-faced Freefighter said with a sly grin as he freed Rock from his chains with the jailer’s key. Archer was a few feet away ripping Chen’s bonds free as he threw the gas helmet in disgust across the floor. “Me and Archer decided to go against orders and come looking for you after you’d been gone more than twenty-four hours. I think you’re glad we did.”
Archer growled and looked at Rockson with a quizzical expression. “YOU—NOOOOO—MMMMAD?”
“You can bet your family jewels on that,” Rock said as he stood up and almost fell down. “I wonder why I’m not zombied out like the rest of their gas heads,” he asked with an almost detached curiosity.
“Not enough time, Rock,” Detroit replied. “We were watching some others of them getting the juice, before you showed up. At least two or three minutes is the usual amount. Unfortunately we couldn’t stop them from being gassed, as our primary goal was to find and free you and Chen.”
Rock’s brain was clearing enough for him to realize that Detroit was holding a Liberator shotgun right on three of the guards standing across the corridor. Archer as well had his huge crossbow held in one arm, aimed at someone’s gizzard across the room ready to dissect it if they made the slightest move. They didn’t move. He continued to undo Chen’s chain bonds and helped him to his feet.
“Here man,” Detroit said, handing Rock a mini .9mm autopistol with 30 round clip, and then four more clips as well that he took from his utility belt. “Have fun, man.” Archer as well handed Chen, who was without his usual assortment of star-knives and other little tricks, a .9mm pistol with 15 round clip which the near-mute usually carried with him but never used, preferring to rely on the crossbow.
They tied up the guards in chains and then went up and down the rows of bound up prisoners releasing everyone in the place. In all, nearly a hundred men in various states of brainlessness—from those who were relatively untouched to absolute blithering idiots who would have made Frankenstein look like a Ph.D.—were freed.
“How the hell did you get in here?” Rock asked.
His mind seemed to clear in stages, like layers of an onion slowly shaking off the effects of even a few seconds of the zombie juice. He noticed that the two Freefighters were wearing combat uniforms like Hanover’s troops, with camouflaging and officer’s insignias on their sleeves.
“Took a few prisoners,” Detroit said with a grin as he started toward the front door out of which the released prisoners were fleeing, lurching, bumping into walls as they madly ran down the corridors in every direction. “Found out where you were. It’s not hard, when you go slow and deliberate, step by step. You taught us well.”
“Next time skip a few steps,” Rock replied as they exited the torture chamber. “Give me a few pineapples, will you, man?” Rockson asked. Detroit looked confused for a moment and then complied, handing the Doomsday Warrior two of the grenades from his utility belt where a whole string of them were attached like garlic cloves ready for the spaghetti.
“I don’t think I want to leave this place untouched,” Rockson commented bitterly and heaved both of them. They ran on, and heard the explosions behind them as they moved up the corridor. There were a bunch of secondaries louder than the grenades and then intense heat as flames came roaring down the passage behind them. They’d hit something good. Maybe too good.
“Do you know how the hell to get out of here?” Rock asked as Detroit took the lead. Chen moved fast behind him and Archer took up the rear, his crossbow cocked back and held at chest level, covering their rear.
“Well, no,” Detroit admitted. “Arch, you know the way?”
Archer shrugged.
From a side corridor, just then, popped the swollen red eyes of a gashead. The Doomsday Warrior did a doubletake.
“Ralph! You! How the hell did you—”
“No time,” the man spoke, “get out here before they catch. Me escape hospital—and jj—jjoin the—underground. I take you. Fast, fast.” For Ralph it was positively a speech. They could hear shots pinging down the narrow alleyway into the dirt. The troopers would be on them within a minute at most. Ralph, bounding along on a peg-leg, disappeared back down through the manhole opening’s steep staircase. He spoke better than he had the last time Rockson had seen him. Though he still looked pretty terrible, or worse.
Rock jumped down into the opening knowing he’d have to trust the man. There was nothing to lose. Chen came next, then Detroit. It was Archer who had the most trouble. But desperation will make men squeeze into openings a lot smaller than they are. Suddenly he was in and half-fell down the stair-ladder. Then he righted himself and reached up, pulling the steel cover closed over them. It was instantly quite dark as they bumped and banged against one another and the concrete walls.
Suddenly there was a dim light—Ralph with a single candle which he protected with his cupped hand. Their shadows flickered wildly around the narrow pathway, making them appear to dance violently on the walls and ceiling.
“Follow,” Ralph said. “I take you to my leader.”
Twenty-Three
They followed Ralph through numerous twisting and turning tunnels, the candle their only illumination. Bugs covered the walls down here, big thick centipedes and earth beetles, slugs and larvae which eyed them with hunger. Rats scampered around not challenging the creatures that were a hundred times larger than them. After about ten minutes they came to a ladder bolted to the wall. It was old. A cranking, squeaking sound, as if it might collapse, emitted from it as Ralph slowly, laboriously climbed up. It was clear that though he had improved on all levels, his strength and dexterity were not of the highest order. The peg-leg didn’t help either. The ladder was heavily rusted, even the rust had hardened and been smoothed out by the years.
They headed up and Ralph pushed a hatch at the top about twelve feet above. It fell away with a dull thud. The rest clambered up after him and they all stood there for a few seconds looking at the octagonal shaped duct system of some kind which they were in. They couldn’t see very far up and down it, as the flickering small flame was their only source of light. But they could see around them. The aluminized duct was about four feet in diameter sideways, then went to about five on the vertical. So they all had to bend down as they stood there. Archer was bent nearly halfway over, his huge back arching up like Quasimodo’s.
“What the hell is this place?” Rockson asked, as Ralph motioned for them to follow him down the piping to the right. They had to put their hands out against the cold metallic sides at first as the octagonal shape of the passage was quite disconcerting, particularly with the way their shadows bounced around the wall. It was as if they were in a funhouse and everything was shifting, moving all the time.
“Is ancient air duct system for base,” Ralph replied, his voice echoing and echoing, and again Rockson was amazed, having seen the guy the other day, how much difference there was between then and now. It gave him hope that maybe a lot of those whose minds had been
gassed into oblivion had a chance to climb back into humanity again. “Was used after Great War. But fifty years ago,” Ralph went on, as his single candle lit the deep darkness of the ducting system. They could feel a constant breeze against their backs. Ralph had to do everything to keep the flame from going out. “Rulers of Pattonville put new system in. More airflow. This place forgotten long ago. But we use.”
And use it they did as the five of them tore along the duct about six feet apart so as not to put too much stress on it at once. But the thing held, even for Archer who was looking pretty nervous about the whole affair. Particularly since the ducting seemed to shimmy and sway around whenever he came down too hard. Which was all the time.
Archer didn’t like tunnels anyway, not since the Moscow subway and this one felt like it might just come apart around him. But other than a few complaining growls and falling down once or twice so all of them could feel the ducting shake around beneath their feet, the giant managed to make his way through.
They had moved through the ancient air duct system for several hundred yards, Rockson reckoned, when they emerged into a much larger chamber. It was a good hundred feet on a side filled with all kinds of machinery, ducting pipes, fans, pumps. All was shut down and covered with a patina of rust; everything down here was ancient.
Rock gasped as he stepped inside the room which was dimly lit, with candles and torches placed here and there. But it gave off enough light to see the zombies! Must have been hundreds of them lying, sitting, walking around the place, sitting up on the piles of rusting artifacts of the past. He gulped hard. Many of them still had their tattered clothing on, and most of the faces were twisted and contorted in pained expressions. The bloodshot wide pink eyes caught by torchlight topped it all off.
