by Andy Remic
“Look,” said Keenan.
They watched in ill-disguised horror as the huge swarm of zombies ambled across the Freeport Landing Zone beneath, eyes turned up, mouths hung limp. The group suddenly opened fire, and a thousand machine guns howled sending bullets scything past the Y Shuttle and Keenan twisted the controls, the Y Shuttle’s engines screamed and it banked violently to shoot up into the storm with rain rattling off the cockpit and tracer dancing against armoured engine ports.
“I know Steinhauer said a large number of the population were a genetic malfunction, a transformation of humans and aliens into mutants; but he never said anything about them using damned machine guns!” Cam sounded affronted.
“Zombies with brains,” said Keenan. Then laughed. “God does enjoy dicking with me. Cam, we’ve leapt from a junk-ridden war-zone into a cesspit of plague. What the hell are we doing here?”
“I never suspected it would be like this. And you agreed to come. Steinhauer played you like a xylophone.”
“I can’t leave Franco down here to have all the fun, can I?” Keenan fired the Y Shuttle low across towering skyscrapers. Below, huge tracts of The City were deserted. In other parts, fires raged and riots were in progress. Zombie riots. From their high vantage point, it appeared a vision of hell.
“Cheer me up. Tell me this mutation thing isn’t contagious.”
“Scanning now.” Cam went silent for a while, as Keenan dropped down between tower blocks and skimmed low above the streets, watching in grim silence as zombie creatures hunted down screaming men and women. God, he wished the Y Shuttle was armed... and he suddenly regretted not accepting Steinhauer’s offer of a Hornet. What had he said? Keep their entry low-key. Covert. Don’t draw attention to themselves. But hell, he’d love to have sent a savage volley of fire to pulp the mutated bastards raging below. Instead, all he could do was watch in a brooding silence. Nothing burned Keenan worse than innocents destroyed by evil strong.
“OK,” said Cam, eventually. “You were right to use that terminology. These things are... zombies. Of a sort.”
“I never invented it; I read it, in the Black and White News Clip provided by Steinhauer,” said Keenan. “But still, zombies... you’re pulling my dick, right?”
“The mutations below are unfortunate people who took pirated, cracked and hacked biomod technology in order to improve their physical aspects. They call it a human upgrade. Very droll.”
“You mean NanoTek?” said Keenan.
“Yeah. So you’ve heard of them?”
“I’ve seen one of these biomods go wrong before,” said Keenan, voice a low drawl. “A rich bitch down on Galhari; holidaying on a yacht. They had to scrape her off the poop deck with a shovel. Her father wanted me to investigate—and I tried, but man, I’ve never seen a conglomerate as powerful as NanoTek. They put so many obstacles in my path I needed an army of lawyers just to take a shit. Eventually, I filed a lawsuit against the owner himself, I targeted the individual rather than the organisation. A guy called Dr Oz.”
“What happened?”
“The rich bitch’s father was paid off by Oz. It seems if you add a few more zeroes to any cheque then the after-effects of murder can be negotiated. The whole incident made me sick.”
“Well, it’s a lot more sick down there,” said Cam. “It’s a plague-town. Very dangerous. How many weapons did Steinhauer provide?”
“Everything I need. And I’ve still got my trusty Techrim.”
“You understand that... if we meet resistance, it will be a tough gig.”
“I didn’t expect anything less,” snapped Keenan. “I ain’t here for a holiday.”
They cruised for a half hour, and eventually located the narrow street—aptly named Stud Avenue—which led to Franco’s apartment. Keenan had Cam check the location locks five times. “After all,” he said, “we don’t want to get stranded in No Man’s Land.”
Keenan lowered the Y Shuttle onto a Porky Pauper’s Fast-Food Burger Emporium car-park. There were a few derelict groundcars, and the Y Shuttle compressed them with grinding shrieks and bangs into steel pancakes. The ramp clanged open just as the storm, growing in fury, unleashed its elemental payload; rain slammed, thunder grumbling across dark bruised heavens. Lightning stalked the skies. Keenan strode down the ramp, heavily tooled, and stood at the bottom in the shadow of the Shuttle. He lit a cigarette, Permatex WarSuit gleaming with spatters of rain, and peered out into the gloom. A huge glittering neon sign announced: “PORKY PAUPER’S TRIPLE CHILLI CHEESEBURGERS! GO ON, BE A PORKER! ENJOY FIVE FOR THE PRICE OF ONE!!”
“Looks like a bargain,” said Cam, spinning close, red warning lights fluttering across his black casing. “Cheap as chips.”
“Have you ever eaten a Porky Pauper’s? There’s so much fat you need liposuction before you’ve even finished. It oozes, like a thick white syrup, from the edges of the burger.” He shivered. “Gross. Franco loves ‘em, the gastronomic pervert.”
“I’ll scout for trouble.”
Keenan glanced around at the shattered, battered, bullet-ridden war zone. “You’re joking, right?”
“I never joke,” said Cam primly, and spun away into the rain.
Stamping out his cigarette, Keenan cursed his existence and stepped into the heavy downpour. It was like walking under a waterfall. Externally, he was instantly soaked. The WarSuit monitored his temp and kept him dry and snug within. He moved out, jogging, senses alert, a slick Techrim in his fist. He followed Cam’s bobbing unit through the gloom of high-rise scrapers. Up close, the streets were filled with detritus: broken glass, planks of wood, bullet casings. Blood smeared doorways and the battered spider-webs of impacted shop windows. Occasionally, Keenan thought he saw a body part. He looked away.
Cam stopped. “Up there.”
Keenan peered through sheets of rain. The alley was narrow, very dark, and skyscrapers and cube-blocks teetered above him for as far as the eye could see, sending the already gloomy, sodden world into deepest intimate shadow. The skyblock flanks were slick with black rain. Windows watched, like the dormant opal eyes of some sleeping leviathan.
“Nice,” nodded Keenan. “Well, nice place for an ambush.”
“Zombies aren’t that sophisticated,” said Cam.
“These aren’t zombies,” said Keenan, “they’re mutations. And from what I saw when we floated over this charnel house, I’d say they still had brains enough. And guns. Too many guns.”
“Come on.”
With a deep breath, Keenan hoisted his MPK and followed Cam into the jaws of the alley.
~ * ~
The door slammed, and Franco stood, panting, weary, drenched to the bone, staring at a point at the centre of his battered, wrecked living room. Mel moved off, head whacking the ceiling to send plaster-dust drifting, and she disappeared into the kitchen. Franco heard the tap running, and he sighed, deflating. He was exhausted. Gods, he had been close—so close—to death! What in the world was happening? The City—once haven to every hedonistic whim—had turned into a circus. A freak show. And Franco was there at the centre wearing the star attraction on his sleeve: his beautiful girl.
“Mel, my sweetness?” he said, eyeing the kitchen nervously. He glanced down the savaged corridor to the bedroom—and the stash of dangerous weapons he knew lay in his wardrobe, under the bed, and in his battered brown leather suitcase.
Mel came padding back, small eyes squinting, oiled head glistening like an overripe olive, distended vagina leaking some kind of thick green ooze which bleached patches of Franco’s carpet as he watched with an open, awestruck mouth. She grunted, and stood before him, skin rippling like a sack of stoats.
“Urrrww?”
“Hi love,” he said weakly. “Look, I’m knackered, and I was just thinking of putting my head down. Getting a bit of much earned kip. What with all the recent excitement, and all that.” It sounded lame, even to his own ears. He took a few tentative steps towards the bedroom. Mel grunted, and padded after him.
&
nbsp; Franco stopped. Mel stopped. He looked at her.
“I thought I might sleep... alone. You know how it is. Just for a few hours, you understand?” He yawned theatrically, as if to say, boy am I bushed and in need of some serious solitary sleep-time.
Mel grunted and gave a little bubbling whine. She shook her head, a heavy, pendulous motion on a heavy, undulating, corrugated neck.
Franco, holding up his hands, started a wary retreat. “Hold on, now. Oh no, no, love, you’ve got the wrong end of the stick here. I’m really pooped. Exhausted, in fact. After all that being chased by zombies fiasco, and them trying to munch on my brains an’ all. I’s just ready for a good bit o’ quality lonely one-man shut-eye.”
Mel followed the retreating Franco, taloned claw-steps cracking the floorboards.
Franco gave an accelerated stumble backwards into the bedroom and ended in a heap. Mel leapt, catching in the doorframe and dragging the splintered, tearing wood with her, to straddle him, claws on sagging hips, pink and gesticulating vulva only inches from Franco’s terrified and locked gaze.
How did I know it’d come to this? he thought sourly.
I meet my dream girl. The One. And I mean, THE FUCKING ONE! The gal I intend to marry. Quality. Class. Hard-working. Great cook. Stunning in bed. Stunning out of bed, in fact. And then she goes and turns into an eight-foot bloody zombie mutation. What did I do wrong? Which evil god did I annoy this time?
A name drifted in his distant subconscious.
Leviathan...
“Shit,” muttered Franco, remembering bad times. “Ahhh. That god.” He focused on Mel, who was squirming above him, trying to align their bodies.
“Can we talk about this?” Franco whimpered, as she lowered herself ponderously towards him, and her small, round head came close to his face, her neck constricted into a tight inverted U. She must have possessed only limited motor skills, because her distended lower jaw bumped Franco’s chin. He laughed nervously.
“Ove ou.”
“Yeah, yeah babe, I’m sure you do, only the thing is, now don’t take this the wrong way, but you’ve lost a teensy weensy bit of your physical appeal. I mean, don’t get panicky now, I still want to get married, still want you to bear me six strapping sons, but at this very moment in time, shall we say, your excess of pus and oozing orifices does little to inflame my libido.” He smiled with the sort of shocked and stunned expression reserved for car-crash victims.
Mel reached around with a long talon. She sliced the buttons from his shirt, which flapped open in a betrayal of welcome to reveal Franco’s hairy curly chest. Mel reached out with a blood-encrusted talon, and started to rub gently at Franco’s flesh.
“Ha ha ha,” said Franco, his voice containing a nervous, underlying whine, like the discharge on a greenscale sniper’s scope. Franco coughed. “That fight back there. It made you horny, didn’t it?”
Mel nodded, her chain and collar jangling.
“And you’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”
Mel shook her head, collar still jangling. To Franco, it looked a little like she was pouting. But it was hard to tell, through the sheen of pus, and what with that distended jaw, and blackened, twisted lips like curls of lightning-struck oak.
Franco closed his eyes. “Oh. My. God.”
There came a discreet knock at the front door, and in a swift, deft, panicked martial arts movement, and with a twist and a slither, Franco rolled and squirmed from beneath Mel’s stocky legs, grabbed her chain and looped it twice around the wooden bed post. Mel growled, leaping up, vagina swinging. The chain went tight. Franco backed to the door, hands up, palms out. “Calm down, honeysuckle.”
Mel roared, saliva glistening on fangs. She tugged, and the whole bed moved like a tectonic plate.
“It’s only while I answer the door, my little chipmunk-scented rose-petal.”
Mel roared again, like a caged lion poked with a pointed stick.
Franco turned and legged it, slamming the door in the smashed and twisted half-frame behind him. In the bedroom Mel proceeded to charge around the room, dragging the slowly disintegrating bed after her. It bounced from floor, walls and ceiling, making the whole apartment shake and boom in a bass sonata.
Franco stood behind the front door, hands on knees, panting. He opened it. And stared at Keenan.
“Keenan!” he roared, and leapt forward, embracing his old war buddy.
“Franco,” laughed Keenan, taking a step back. “How’s it going, you mad ginger midget? Still drinking yourself stupid? Still picking bar brawls with women? Still, y’know,” he twitched, “a bit mad and slick and bad?”
Franco’s laughter boomed even louder, but was drowned out by the sounds of a crashing bed bouncing from walls fifteen feet away. Something roared like a wild cat with its testicles in a nutcracker, and dust drifted lazily from the living-room’s swinging light-bulb.
“Problem?” Keenan lifted an eyebrow.
“You’d better come in and meet the missus,” said Franco grimly.
Keenan stepped across the threshold, Cam floating in behind him. Franco fought to make the door fit its frame, and eventually leant a crushed piece of furniture against the warped portal.
“Sounds like you’ve caught yourself a bear,” said Keenan, slowly, eyes never leaving Franco’s.
“No. No no.” Franco laughed, voice weak. “Much more entertaining than that, I assure you. In a serious and psychologically bleaching kind of way. The stuff of nightmares, so to speak.”
Keenan slapped Franco on the back. “So, where’s this amazing girl, then? The one who’s gonna stop my mate Franco doing exactly what he wants, ten... times... a night.” He stopped. Franco’s face could have sunk the Titanic. His chin was more brutally chiselled than any iceberg. “You OK?”
Mel roared again. The building shook.
“It’s nice to see you Keenan, really it is, it’s just I’m having these teething problems in the old relationship department. It’s Mel, you see. She’s not, um, not well.”
“Touch of a cold, by the sounds of her,” said Keenan with a totally straight face, as a roar like the colliding of worlds vibrated windows in twisted frames. “Want me to pop out, get her a few packets of Wankers Honey & Lemon Flu Cure?”
“You’re fucking with me, aren’t you Keenan?”
“Look. I’m honoured you asked me to be best man. There was an internal struggle, but my humanitarian side won. So, if you’ve got a problem with the lovely lass then don’t be shy. Bring her out, and we’ll all deal with the situation. That’s what best men are for, right? Franco, buddy, we have been through the shit together. Remember Termi-nus5? Remember Leviathan?”
“I remember,” said Franco dejectedly. “Only...” he squinted. “This is worse.” He trudged to the bedroom door and kicked it open on the fifth attempt. Inside, everything was dark, quiet, still. Dust drifted through the gloom. “You can come out now, Melanie.”
Mel charged, knocking Franco from his feet, her claws raking up yet more floorboards and head leaving a long jagged groove in the ceiling. She stooped, sliding to a halt with a rake of sparks, her out-thrust face mere inches from Keenan’s.
Breath like a sewer rolled out.
Slowly, Keenan lifted a home-rolled cigarette, cupped it, and lit the weed. He lifted his head, drew deep with a bright glow of burning tobacco, removed the cigarette, and blew a ball of smoke into Mel’s face. She blinked. And gave a little, feminine cough.
“Nice to meet you,” said Keenan, as he took in the mottled skin, small round head with ears and nose-holes oozing pus, and the dangling, distended grey-flesh breasts which reached to Mel’s waist and swung in a cumbersome, pendulous cycle.
“Grwwlll.”
Keenan leant left, and eyed Franco as the little man picked himself shakily from the floor. He started brushing crumbled plaster from his clothing. Franco looked up at Keenan. He grinned weakly.
“You’ve had worse,” said Keenan, leaning back to stare into Mel’s
small black eyes.
“Hey!” shouted Franco. “Now don’t be like that, this isn’t the kind of situation you think it is.”
“What, that my old Combat K buddy has netted himself something from a Nazi’s experiment laboratory? Where you getting married? Castle Wolfenstein?”
“Oh. Ha and ha, Keenan. Listen, my Mel is a beautiful creature, sleek black hair, slim and voluptuous—and a demon in the bedroom!” Mel turned and eyed him. “Sorry love. Didn’t mean to give away the intimacies of our private life. However,” he gritted his teeth, eyes narrowing, “as you can see she has recently been a victim of a series of unfortunate and badly coincidental accidents which have transmogrified her into the admittedly inelegant creature you see before you.”
“You don’t fucking say,” said Keenan, smoke curling from his nostrils.
