by Andy Remic
It was Mel.
She swam like an otter, undulating the entire length of her body. She circled him with powerful strokes, fighting the violent torrent. But even as her strong talons sliced through whatever had snagged Keenan and held him a prisoner beneath the flood, so he felt a dark fist of unconsciousness take him; the sun was shining strong and Freya looked so pretty sitting in the warm yellow light, sunshine diffusing her hair.
Mel dragged him by the scruff of his WarSuit up towards the chute, and forced his limp and failing frame up past the ladder which bubbled and fizzed with detergents, frothing a brown foam soup. Franco grasped Keenan from above, hauled him up onto the city street and slapped the man’s soaked dead body onto the tarmac. Franco heaved on Keenan’s chest, forcing flooded lungs to disgorge. Water bubbled from Keenan’s mouth, ran like brown vomit across his face and into his eyes. Franco rolled Keenan onto his front, heaved on the man’s back forcing yet more fluid out. Then he administered the kiss of life... as Mel squatted, small head weaving left and right, scanning for zombies.
Franco inhaled, exhaled, inhaled, exhaled. Pumped at Keenan’s lungs. He checked the man’s wrist. He could feel a pulse, fluttering weakly, and suddenly Keenan choked and coughed, rolling onto his side, foetal, and wracking as he choked out the remains of the invasive tunnel water.
There came a few long minutes where Keenan simply lay, panting, staring at the ground like a limp fish. Franco squatted by his side, D5 shotgun in his calloused, scarred knuckles, watching for zombies... and the three things which had attacked them in the tunnel.
What were they? A manner of AI Franco had never before seen, that was for sure. Extremely high-tech, not like the primitive GE Razor Droids of pre-Helix. No. These were fast, fluid, lethal. Franco knew killers when he saw them; and the things hunting them in the tunnel had been awesome.
Keenan sat up, breathing deeply.
“Cheers mate.”
“No problem Keenan. Listen, I know you don’t want to be hearing this right now, but we need to get moving. Those things from the tunnel—God only knows how far they were swept. I don’t want to meet them again in a hurry.”
Keenan nodded, allowed Franco to help him to his feet. “I lost my weapon.” Franco handed him a Kekra quad-barrel, which he hefted thoughtfully. Then he turned to Mel, waiting patiently, her lead lying by her side. Keenan smiled. “And... thank you. Melanie.” He met her gaze. There was pain there; a mixture of feral understanding, and... tears. Keenan nodded. She was trapped inside another shell. Yet she still felt... at least partially... the same.
Mel made a kind of low purring sound. Keenan bit back a comedy retort, and ran his hands through wet hair, spiking it. More rain was falling and he laughed, turning his head to the sky and roaring as loud and boisterously as he could.
Franco placed a hand on his shoulder. “You OK?”
“Yeah mate, never better. I just cheated death. But you know what? I wasn’t afraid. My girls were waiting.”
Franco exchanged a worried glance with Mel behind Keenan’s back. “Come on Keenan. This way. We’ll move slow to begin with. Your system’s overloaded with shock and shot to shit.”
“Franco, bizarrely, I feel as strong as a bull.”
“Well, one step at a time.”
They started down narrow, overshadowed streets. Skyblocks loomed around them, upper stories nearly touching high, high above in the imitation night sky. Mel padded behind the two armed men, eyes watching Keenan, head bobbing in rhythm to her raking footsteps.
“Listen,” said Keenan.
“Yeah?”
“You gave me the kiss of life, right?”
Franco frowned. “Ye-es. To save your life.”
“Well, don’t be getting any ideas.”
“Hey, I took no enjoyment snogging you, mate. Next time I’ll fucking leave you to die, shall I?”
“I’m just warning you not to get frisky.”
“Don’t flatter yourself, Keenan.”
“And your beard tickles. It’s not something I’ve ever considered before, having never snogged a bloke.”
“Fuck off,” snapped Franco.
“Tetchy.”
“You’ve answered that question, anyway.”
“What question?”
“Did you suffer brain damage from oxygen starvation.” Franco eyed him beadily, in the gloom. “Quite obviously, you did.”
Keenan’s laughter boomed between the buildings, and a cold rain fell like black diamond tears.
~ * ~
They were in gangland. They could tell, because of the graffiti. It filled every spare inch of space at ground level, in every colour and every language conceivable, including various alien tongues written with Hydrogen Pens, which shifted eerily through several dimensions. Keenan halted, boots splashing an oil puddle, his confidence returned after his close brush with death. To Franco, he seemed somehow more... powerful. Fearless. As if he’d faced an internal demon: and conquered the savage beast.
“Why we stopping?”
Keenan pointed. Huddled in a doorway was a little girl. “She might know of Knuckles. Let me handle this.”
“Oh no,” said Franco. “I remember back on Ket, you scaring the shit out of all them little kiddies on the Gem Rig.”
“What? Wasn’t that you, Francis?”
“No, no,” said Franco, holding up his hand, “I think you’ll find I am the friendly face of the child population.” He paused, chin tilted, and considered his position as humanitarian. “I am easily trusted, nay, readily confided in! I should be a Samaritan! They should put me on midnight suicide watch.”
“Go on then.”
Franco approached the young girl, who squatted, huddled in a blanket. He slowed his pace, stooped almost double, plastered a broad, teeth-filled smile on his goatee-bearded chops, and with a worrying gait, scuttled in an almost-sideways shuffle towards where she sat.
“Hello der liddle pumpkiny wumpkinny. Now don’t you be frightened of big old bad Franco here, you funny wunny liddle girlie popsicle,” said Franco, with a completely straight face.
“I’m not frightened.” Despite her youth, her voice was guttural and harsh.
“Tsch! Wsch! And why’s that, little bunny wunny girlie wirlie?” Franco was close now. Close enough to reach out and tweak the nose of the little bunny wunny.
The blanket twitched and Franco found himself staring down the twin barrels of a Heckler & Koch Terminator5. A single round would blow his head clean off.
The girl smiled. She’d lost most of her teeth. “Because, after all the zombies I’ve slaughtered, a little ginger man wouldn’t offer much of a fight.”
Disgruntled, Franco scuttled back to Keenan, his face beetroot red, his hands clenching and unclenching.
“I thought you were ‘the friendly face of the child population’?”
“Shut up.”
“‘Easily trusted’?”
“Shut up.”
“‘Readily confided in’?”
“Are you going to have a go,” he growled, “or should we just go home now?”
“Temper, temper, Francis.” Keenan strode to the young gang member. “We’re looking for Knuckles. Part of The City Liberators. I can pay you for information.”
“I know where he hangs out. What have you got?”
“What do you want?”
“Are those BABE grenades on your belt?”
“Yeah.”
“I’ll take five.”
Keenan removed the grenades, and stooped, placing them at the girl’s feet. She gestured down the street. “Five blocks down. You’ll find a towering shit-hole. The Happy Friendly Sunshine Assurance Company. They live in the basement.” She smiled. “With all the other bunny wunnies.”
“You sure?”
The girl gave him a withering look, and pushed thick strands of greasy hair from her face. A small hand appeared, scooping the BABE grenades and placing them neatly into a canvas sack.
“Come on,” said
Keenan, and led Franco and Mel down the street. During the trade, Keenan had noted the girl had her Terminator5 permanently fixed on Mel. Keenan felt it wise not to point this out.
“One more thing,” she shouted.
Keenan halted, and turned back. Rain ran in rivulets down his face, making the Kekra slick in his powerful hands. “Yeah?”
“Watch out for the zombies,” said the girl. “They’re like a plague down there.”
Keenan nodded, turned, and headed through the rain.
~ * ~
“They spotted us, Keenan.”
Keenan cursed, and the two Combat K men and Mel ran down a narrow alleyway, glancing behind. They stopped on a corner; ahead, a group of perhaps fifty zombies were moaning and hammering at glass doors. Many carried Uzis.
Suddenly, high above, gunfire rattled. Keenan shaded his eyes, watched windows explode and glass snowflakes rain from on high. A short battle raged. They heard the muffled revving of engines.
“Engines?” said Keenan.
“That sounds like chainsaws,” frowned Franco.
“Just like in the movies.” Keenan flinched as bullets smashed bricks by his head. He dropped to a crouch. Gloss brick dust settled over him in a patina, and he snarled, the Kekra pumping in his fist. Zombies were punched from their feet, three, four, five, in a flurry of perfect headshots. Keenan paused, watched the dropped zombies stumble back to their knees, then climb to their feet. The horde turned its attention towards the Combat K men.
“We need to get up from ground level,” said Keenan. He fired off another couple of rounds. Zombies rolled with the blows, their decrepit flesh flying off in long curled strips. Even at this modest distance, they could hear the crunch of splintering bones.
“I thought these kids were in the basement?”
“Not with that zombie horde outside. They’ve been chased upwards. To the roof.”
“I can’t see kids using chainsaws.”
“Yeah, well, that girl back there just relieved me of five BABEs. Don’t underestimate the little buggers.”
More Uzis rattled and Keenan and Franco retreated; they circled the building, eyes alert, Mel padding behind them in silence. Keenan found his lungs were screaming at him, his head light, and he stopped for a moment, leaning against a graffiti-strewn wall as lights danced behind his eyes.
“You OK?” asked Franco.
“Better, since I was resurrected.”
Franco nodded, and they continued. Suddenly there was a snarl, and a zombie leapt from a darkened recess; Keenan’s Kekra was knocked from his fist, bullets blatting skywards as claws and fangs descended on his throat and brains, bearing him to the ground. Franco’s D5 shotgun boomed, and the zombie was flung like a ragdoll down the street. It rolled to a savage abrupt halt, slamming a wall. Franco ran forward, placed the D5 against its head, and pulled twin triggers. Half of the zombie’s head splattered up the wall. Black blood ran along the gutter in the gloom. The mutation twitched.
“Thanks,” panted Keenan, retrieving his Kekra.
“No problems, bro. You need a lie down?”
“I need a holiday.”
“I went on one of them once. Cleaned out every damn brothel on the planet!” He grinned, and winked. “They don’t call me Franco ‘Horny Stud Muffin Gigolo’ Haggis for nothing, y’know.” Keenan sighed.
They moved on, Keenan filled with apprehension. He was in a greatly weakened state, he acknowledged, and it galled him. He had always been so strong, so fit, so unstoppable. But, first with the heavy drinking, the smoking, the continuous abuse of his body... and then his near-death experience, well, his Combat K reserves of seemingly limitless strength and endurance were being pushed to the brink of what a human body could endure.
Keenan halted in the gloom, boots thudding. “Here.” He glanced up, and Franco followed his gaze. An old fashioned alloy-iron fire escape. Thirty feet off the ground, slick with rainfall.
“But... how do we reach it?” said Franco. “I’m only a little fella.”
“Mel?” Keenan looked at her sideways. “Can you throw me up there?”
Franco puffed out his chest. “Better let me do it. You’ve had a recent brush with that Old Daddy, the Grim Reaper.” He coughed, nodding to himself. “I’m man enough for this gig.”
Mel cupped her talons, and Franco stepped into the makeshift cradle. “When you’re ready,” he growled, and Mel tensed huge muscles, and hurled Franco flapping and squawking fifty feet into the air. The little ginger soldier flapped his way up and beyond the ladder, sandaled feet kicking as if he thought he could paddle himself to safety.
“I think you put a bit too much effort into that,” said Keenan, voice soft.
“Grwlllll.”
Franco reached the summit of his ascent—there came a long pause, as he glanced down and his eyes went wide—then flapping even more vigorously, he began to fall. There was a grunt and a clang as he connected with the fire ladder, bounced from a rung, scrabbled frantically for a second, and finally managed to get a grip. Franco sighed in relief. The ladder creaked. Franco’s sigh turned into a wail as the ladder engaged digital rails and accelerated towards the ground, aided and abetted by Franco’s considerable belly.
Mel leapt, catching Franco as the ladder hit its rubber stops. She cradled him in her arms like a babe. Keenan pushed past them, looped his Kekra to his back, and stared up at the ninety-three stories of ascent. “Better get to it,” he said, coughing heavily and hawking a mouthful of tunnel water and phlegm into the gutter. He started to climb quickly, boots clanging rungs, and Keenan was eaten by the sky.
Franco stared at Mel from his safe cradle against her distended, rotting bosom.
“Thanks for catching me.”
“Mewlll.” She nuzzled him, drool leaving long slimy streamers across his skin and beard.
“Ahh. That’s OK. Just a little slava accident. Not much mess at all. We can clean that up just fine... [cough]... you can put me down now, chipmunk.”
Mel nuzzled him again. He could see his reflection in the pus-gleam of her mottled facial skin.
“Really. Honest Melanie. It’s time to put me down. We have a job to do.”
Reluctantly, finally, Mel deposited Franco on the buckled tarmac and watched as he started to climb the ladder.
After a few seconds, Franco glanced back from his perch, and went suddenly red with embarrassment as he realised exactly what Mel was doing.
“Hey, you can stop watching my arse right now!” he bellowed, huffing and puffing and acknowledging the utter irony of the reversal. Franco had spent a lifetime watching girls’ arses. Now, he was on the receiving end, and it made him feel quite abused.
~ * ~
Knuckles and his group of twenty-five gangland orphans, The City Liberators, had successfully reached the roof of The Happy Friendly Sunshine Assurance Company—barricading at least forty doors in their wake. The problem at first had been the zombies with chainsaws, cutting and hacking away at reinforced doors and allowing entry for the snarling, clawing creatures. The doors had at least bought the kids time—time they used to reconnoitre further floors, and then use a plethora of metal filing cabinets and kev-mesh firemats to further impede the chainsaws’ progress. On Floor 80 it seemed the kids had won against insurmountable odds, and Knuckles led a hearty cheering session as they danced and punched the air, watching as chainsaw blades struggled and tangled and ground to a stuttering two-stroke halt on the kev-mesh firemats. Even Little Megan danced a little jig.
“Suck on that!” shouted Knuckles, gesticulating with hand-sign street-shit at the door. “You can’t puk and ruk with the best! :-).”
The kids were barricading the door on Floor 81 when a detonation on the floor below signalled an end to their juvenile barricade. A curious silence settled over the children, like ash.
“No,” said Skull.
“They can’t have,” muttered Glass.
The kids were all thinking the same. If zombies had access to grenades, o
r even worse, High-J, then no matter how thoroughly the kids barricaded the corridors and doors, the zombies would be able to follow. To hunt them down. And the children were fast running out of space, time, and floors. There could only be one conclusion if they reached the dead end of the roof...
“Knuckles, I’m so tired,” said Little Megan.
