Dark War

by Tim Waggoner

  The Gila monster gazed down at me, and its leathery dragon-like tongue flicked the air once more. I had no idea if the beast was a carrion-eater, but the last thing I wanted was to end up sharing the same fate as the lower half of Tavi's body. I concentrated, and my two hands flipped over and began scuttling toward my head. They backed up to the stump of my neck, and tendrils of skin reached out from all three parts to fasten them together, and an instant later, I was an ambulatory head resting atop a pair of hands. Feeling absurdly like a zombie spider, I crawled toward my body and rummaged around in one of my jacket pockets as best I could.

  The Gila monster lumbered forward and lowered its head toward me as I searched for something that might allow me to fend the beast off. I wasn't just worried about myself. Tavi was in one of my pockets, and if the Gila monster devoured my body, the lyke – what was left of him, anyway – would get eaten too. As it approached, the lizard opened its maw and dripped thick saliva onto the ground, and carrion-eater or not, it looked like the beast was going to have itself a zombie snack. I was fairly confident my head and hands could scuttle out of the way in time, but there was nothing I could do for the rest of me. I hoped my undead body would give the damned thing heartburn.

  Devona leaped on top of the Gila monster's back and crawled along its pebbly neck with inhuman speed and grace until she reached its head. She leaned down over its left eye, gripped its pebbly hide with one hand to steady herself, made a fist with the other hand, and rammed it into the beast's shiny black orb. The eye popped like a liquid-filled balloon, and the Gila monster threw back its head and cried out in pain. It thrashed back and forth, trying to dislodge Devona, but she held on with superhuman strength and tenacity.

  "That's my husband you're trying to eat!" she said through gritted teeth, and jammed her arm into the lizard's eye socket all the way to her shoulder and groped around inside, trying to get hold of the beast's tiny brain.

  I reached out psychically to her. Have I told you lately that you're magnificent?

  Tell me a few months from now, when I'm big as a house and feeling like I swallowed a couple bowling balls.

  I'll make a mental note.

  An instant later, Varney jumped onto the Gila monster's head – an impressive feat considering that the creature was still thrashing and bucking. Varney reached into his own eye, the cybernetic one that Varvara had ruined, and drew forth a thin cable. He continued pulling until he'd exposed several feet, and then he bit the rubber coating off the end and plunged the exposed wires into the Gila monster's other eye. Crackling electricity discharged, and the beast's cries of agony became shrill. Devona continued rooting around in the lizard's skull, and she finally found what she'd been searching for. She smiled grimly, yanked her arm free of the socket in a spray of dark blood, and threw a handful of giant lizard brain onto the path. The Gila monster shuddered, stiffened, and then collapsed to the ground, even deader than I was.

  Devona jumped off the Gila monster's carcass and rubbed her hand and arm along its rough hide to scrape off the worst of the goo coating her. Varney also climbed off and fed his cable back into its eye socket.

  "We need to keep moving," I said. "The lizard's body is going to attract hungry monsters before long, and it would be a good idea for us to be somewhere else when they get here. We don't have time to put me back together, so if you three wouldn't mind…"

  Varney grabbed the bulk of my body. Since my clothing held most of my pieces together, he cradled the bundle against his chest and wrapped his arms around it.

  "Don't forget Tavi's in my pocket," I said, and Varney nodded.

  Devona picked up my head-and-hands combo and perched me on her shoulder as if she were a vampirate and I her zombie parrot. The four of us then continued toward the exit, trying to ignore the loud footfalls of giant predators eagerly approaching the Gila monster's corpse.

  We had more to worry about than the Grotesquerie's escaped creatures, though. The zoo's defensive flora was going crazy – perhaps goaded into action by the sound of alarms – and was reaching out to grab anything that came near. The leech vine couldn't harm me since I had no blood for it to drain, but the same wasn't true for Devona, Varney, and Shamika. Even though the former were vampires, they still had plenty of the red stuff pumping through their veins, and leech vine actually prefers blood aged and refined in a vampire's body. All tanglethorn would do to me was create puncture wounds I'd need to have repaired later, but rotweed was a different story. It causes accelerated decay in anything it touches, and since I already struggled with decomposition, rotweed can reduce me to dust in short order, so I make sure to stay well clear of it.

  As we ran, we did our best to avoid the guard plants, and while we took a few hits, none of us were seriously injured, and it began to look like we would make it out. But when we reached the main gate, I was once again reminded why I'm not an optimist. Two behemoths the size of office buildings blocked the entrance, one a giant ape, the other a huge sinuous dragon-like creature. I expected to see Kongar and Reptilikan fighting each other, but the monsters stood side by side facing the entrance, roaring with fury as they slammed their bodies against an invisible force field. Energy crackled and flared bright with each blow the monsters struck, but the force field held strong.

  "The Grotesquerie's security system initiated a total lockdown when all the creatures escaped," Devona said. "The whole place has been sealed off – nothing can get in or out."

  "Maybe the force field isn't covering the entrance," I said. "We were able to get inside without any trouble."

  "Every way in and out of the Grotesquerie is blocked, no matter how small," Devona said. "Including the entrance we came through. Remember, not all of the monsters in here are giants. Hopefully, the keepers will be able to get things under control soon. The Grotesquerie's security system is designed to release powerful knock-out gas throughout the zoo in the event of a mass escape." We looked at her and she shrugged. "What? Security's my business, remember?"

  It's true. Other people come to a zoo to look at the animals. My love prefers to spend her time examining the traps and alarms.

  Still perched on Devona's shoulder and feeling absurd, I frowned. "If that's true, then the gas should've been released as soon as the monsters were freed. Something's wrong."

  "I should think it's obvious," Varney said, sounding even less like the airheaded cameraman than ever. "Whoever freed the monsters also disabled the knockout gas to prevent them from being recaptured."

  Shamika had been quiet while we ran, but now she spoke. "We should put Matt back together… while we can." She glanced around nervously, which given that we were trapped inside the Grotesquerie with any number of deadly behemoths was only natural. But instead of directing her gaze skyward, she kept looking toward the ground, as if she were worried about a threat of much smaller stature. I remembered thinking that I'd seen something out of the corner of my eye just before the monsters were released: many small somethings, as a matter of fact, moving so swiftly I hadn't been sure that I'd seen them at all.

  "Good idea," Devona said, and she took me off her shoulder, and with Varney's help, managed to reassemble me without too much trouble.

  I stood. Everything stayed where it belonged, but I felt even more like a scarecrow than I had before. It seemed the more often the connections between my parts were broken, the harder it was to keep myself together again afterward. I'd have to be more careful.

  Once I was a whole man again – or at least a reasonable facsimile of one – I reached into my pocket and removed Tavi to check on him. The miniaturized lyke was still unconscious, but at least he was breathing. I tucked him away again

  Kongar and Reptilikan were still too busy trying to beat the hell out of the force field to pay any attention to us, but I knew we wouldn't be safe for much longer. One or both of the monsters would eventually notice us, or worse – more of the behemoths running loose in the Grotesquerie would arrive to try to break through the force field, likely sto
mping us into jelly as they went by. So far the force field was holding, but only two giant monsters were battering it right now. How long could it hold up under the onslaught of five gargantuan beasts? Or a dozen?

  And that thought led to another. "If the saboteur responsible for releasing the monsters also disabled the knock-out gas, why didn't he, she, or they also deactivate the force field? If Talaith is behind this, she'd want the monsters to escape and flood the streets of the Sprawl. So why aren't the monsters out there right now, doing what they do best – performing urban renewal on a macro scale?"

  "The force field won't hold up forever," Devona said. "Right now emergency power is being fed to the field to strengthen it, but the power boost is designed to be temporary. It's only supposed to last long enough for the knock-out gas to be deployed."

  "And since the gas isn't working–" I said.

  "The force-field generators will eventually burn out," Devona said, "the force field will collapse, and the monsters will break free."

  I told myself not to worry about that right now. Tavi needed medical attention, and as long as the force field was in emergency mode, we were trapped inside. Time to call for help. I grabbed my vox, selected one of my contacts, and pressed call. Varvara had probably already been informed of what was happening at the Grotesquerie, but in case she hadn't…

  "It won't work," Varney said. "You won't be able to get a signal through the force field."

  He was right. The vox's mouth said, "I'm sorry, but your call cannot be completed at this time. Please try again later." And then it gave me a loud raspberry to taunt me. I flipped the cover closed with a bit more force than was absolutely necessary and put the vox away. So much for that idea.

  Varney looked at the entrance, and a thoughtful expression came over his face. "If we could reach the gate, I might be able to use the energy from my cybernetic systems to disrupt the force field long enough for us to get through." He frowned. "There's only one problem."

  "You mean two problems," I said. "Both of them about the size of a small mountain."

  Varney nodded. "We're going to have to find a way to get past them."

  "I suppose we'll just have to be extra sneaky," Shamika said.

  We looked at her, and Devona and I couldn't help smiling. For the first time since we'd met her, she'd sounded her age.

  "Good plan," Devona said.

  "Works for me," I added.

  Varney just rolled his eyes.

  The four of us started toward the gate, doing our best to heed Shamika's advice. Getting past Kongar didn't worry me too much. The giant ape had his feet planted firmly on the ground for leverage as he pounded away on the force field with his fists. I doubted he was going to suddenly lift a foot as we drew near and accidentally stomp on us. Reptilikan was another matter. The dragon-beast was long and thin, something like a monstrous snake with bat wings and tiny feet. Its preferred method for attacking the force field was to rear back on its hind legs and slam its body forward, and each time it did so, it bounced back and slid a few dozen feet. It then scrabbled forward for another go at the force field. Since Reptilikan' s movements were more erratic, we made sure to stay well clear of the beast as we approached the gate. Unfortunately, this meant that we had to pass so close to Kongar's right leg that we could've reached out and ruffled his coarse fur if we'd wanted to.

  I'm not sure what happened, whether one of us did something to catch Kongar's eye or whether the oversized ape just happened to pick that exact moment to look down. Whichever the case, he saw us and snarled. He stopped pounding his fists against the force field and bent down, reaching out to grab hold of us with one of his gigantic paws.

  "Keep heading for the gate!" I shouted. "I'll distract him!"

  Devona looked as if she wanted to protest, but she said nothing. We've worked together long enough for us to trust one another in tight situations, though it's never easy to watch someone you love put himself or herself in harm's way. It's not like I'm a hero or anything, though. Facing impending doom is a lot easier when you're already dead.

  I darted off in the opposite direction, ran a dozen yards, then turned to face Kongar. I waved my hands in the air to attract the ape's attention and shouted so he could hear me.

  "What's wrong with you? Are you completely stupid?"

  Kongar glared and showed me his teeth. He moved damn fast for something so huge, and he snatched me up in his hand before I even had the chance to try and dodge out of the way. He straightened and lifted me up to his face to examine me more closely. The giant ape had a hell of a strong grip, and he could've squeezed me to zombie pâté if he'd wanted to. But though he held me tight, none of my bones had yet broken and I could still take in enough air to talk. Maybe Kongar's curiosity had gotten the better of him and he didn't want to squish me before he figured out what my problem was. Whatever the reason, I decided to speak fast before the titanic ape changed his mind.

  "If you manage to break out of here, you'll have the fun of knocking down a bunch of buildings and scaring the crap out of a lot of people, but when the fun's over and you realize you've worked up a monster-sized appetite, what are you going to eat? A big boy like you needs a lot of food to keep going, and in the Grotesquerie you get super-sized meals delivered to you every day. Once you're out on the streets foraging for yourself, you're going to find it pretty slim pickings."

  I had no idea how intelligent Kongar was or if anything I'd said had gotten through to him, but the ape no longer looked angry. He frowned, as if he were thinking hard.

  I glanced down to check on the others' progress. Devona, Varney, and Shamika stood at the main entrance, right at the edge of the force field. Varney was once again in the process of pulling cable out of his eye, and Devona and Shamika stood back several feet to give him room to work. While you couldn't exactly see the field, its energy had a tendency to ripple like heated air rising off hot asphalt, allowing them to pinpoint its precise location. I needed to keep Kongar busy for a few more moments.

  Up to this point, Reptilikan had continued slamming its scaly coiled bulk against the force field, but now the giant dragon-thing broke off its assault on the field and turned to look at Kongar, as if to ask the monster-ape why he was slacking off.

  Varney held his eye's cable up to the force field. As soon as the exposed wires touched the energy of the containment field, sparks shot off in all directions. I don't know how Varney controlled the power output of his cybernetic parts, but he must've done something, because the sparks increased in number and intensity until the energy discharge was so bright I could no longer see Varney.

  Kongar and Reptilikan noticed it too, and as they turned to look at the light, I started talking again, almost shouting at the top of my lungs this time to keep them from being distracted by the crackling energy bouncing off the section of the force field blocking the entrance.

  "And Nekropolis isn't like a city back on Earth – it's a city full of monsters. Sure, they may be smaller than you, but they're mean and there's a hell of a lot of them. At first they might flee in terror when they see you coming, but they'll eventually band together against you. They'll fight back, and some of them will want to do more than just fight you. One of the most popular restaurants in town is called Kaijushi. You know what's on the menu? Fresh sushi made from raw giant monster meat."

  Kongar turned to Reptilikan and gave his fellow behemoth a doubtful look, as if he were reconsidering his plan to escape.

  I looked down again. The energy discharge had ended, and the entrance was free from distortion. Devona grabbed hold of Shamika's hand and pulled the girl along with her as she hurried through the opening Varney had made in the force field. Shamika looked back at me and pointed. I could see that she was saying something to Devona, but I was too far away to hear.

  Reptilikan was clearly irritated at Kongar, and the dragon-beast horked up a mass of nasty greenish gunk and spewed it at the giant ape. Kongar tried to dodge, but Reptilikan was too good a shot, and the g
oo struck the massive simian on the chest. Immediately fur and flesh began to smoke and sizzle as the acidic substance began its work. Kongar roared in pain and fury as Reptilikan's corrosive venom continued eating away at his skin. I didn't escape unscathed. Several large droplets had splattered on me and were eating holes in my forehead and right shoulder. The wounds didn't hurt, of course, but I was glad I couldn't smell. I've been told the stench of burning zombie is more than a bit stomach-churning.

  I knew the time for distraction had passed. Devona and Shamika had made it to the other side of the force field, and Kongar and Reptilikan were going to start beating the hell out of each other any second – and I didn't want to be caught between the two behemoths when the fists, claws, teeth, and corrosive vomit started flying in earnest.

  Even though I was clasped in Kongar's hand, I could still move my arm, and I reached into one of my pockets and withdrew Livingstone again. As soon as the head got a good look at the two giant monsters, he said, "You can't be serious!"