by Aaron Crash
We’ll help if we can. It’s hard to think. Being dead changes one’s priorities and perceptions. I was keeping us together and somewhat sane, waiting to see my daughter again. I knew she was outside, but I couldn’t open the door. Well, the door is open. Our ships should still be at the air force base. But you’re wrong about what Chthonic is.
“He’s right, Blaze,” Elle said. “I’ve been feeling it for a while now. Chthonic isn’t simply a demon, not at this point.”
“Then what is it?” Blaze asked.
The colonel replied. Chthonic is the planet. Hutchinson Prime, itself, is the devil’s body. We’re like ticks on the thing. Even the dragon was only a mosquito. You can’t kill an entire planet…not with any technology we know of.
“I did see a movie once about a weapon that could…” Blaze started.
“But the stars are going to explode,” Elle said. “Won’t that kill Chthonic?”
The devil will find a way to escape. Perhaps Chthonic even now has plans we cannot even begin to understand.
The explosion ended the conversation, and the roof the church rained down on him in chunks of burning wood. Clouds of decimated drywall dust filled the room. The Gorebacks in the helicopter were back, spotlights streaming through the particles in the air, blinding Blaze.
The ghosts of the military men were washed away in the spectacularly bright light of the chopper. It must’ve hit the church with some kind of missile.
Fires erupted around him. Elle went to cast a spell, but a gush of ectoplasm roared up from the basement, splitting open the floor and tossing pews around. The top of the church was destroyed, and in seconds, so was the bottom. The liquid Onyx snatched up Blaze’s sister, a thick tentacle gripping her legs and thorax. It sucked her legs down into the floor, but she threw her arms out. Her elbows caught the edge of the hole and she stopped herself from being pulled down farther. Agony painted her face.
Blaze dove for her, gripped her under her armpits, and tried to pull her up from the basement and out of the ectoplasm’s grip.
“No, Blaze, run! Go!” Elle shouted. “It’s too late for me!”
“Never!” Blaze thundered. He wasn’t going to listen to family, and he wasn’t going to let Elle sacrifice herself like Ling had. Or like Trina.
Nope, sometimes the price of victory was too high.
Blaze felt a spear hit him through his upper chest. Not a spear, a harpoon, like the one he’d used against Cali to hook her to the ship.
This harpoon too had a cable, connecting him to the helicopter in a similar manner. Not a second later, he was torn away from Elle, lifted off his feet, and propelled into the air.
He watched as his sister was sucked down into the bowels of the church’s basement. Maybe even farther down, maybe through the crust and into the core of the planet. Was that where Chthonic was? Had the heart of Hutchinson Prime become a frothing orb of ectoplasm and entrails, the guts of billions of people reduced to zombies and ghosts?
It was a haunted planet, an undead planet, and Chthonic ruled every inch of dirt and every ounce of rock.
Pain blistered Blaze. While the harpoon had him through the meat of his chest, under his collarbone, it was like all his nerves, from his toes to his scalp, were screaming in torment. He knew he was going to lose consciousness, but he struggled against it. His ax and shotgun were gone, back at the church, where he’d dropped them to help Elle.
Through the cloud of agony, he glanced around for Ling in the parking lot, but the muddy lot was empty of everything except for the two starcycles. The ghosts were all gone, but so was Ling. Raziel had sped off, but that cat had a way of appearing and disappearing when it wanted to.
The torture of being impaled and lifted into the air was too much, and Blaze’s consciousness was blasted away.
The chill rain woke him, soaking his face, as he dangled from the harpoon and the helicopter carrying him above the blasted landscape. Not just rain woke him, but lights. Every light on the airfield was on, giving him a view of the high razor-topped fences, the miles of wet tarmac gleaming in the brightness, and all those ships—transports, fighters, attack ships—a whole squadron that had come for the civilians.
The tall fences were lined with zombies, all dead with their heads blown off their bodies. Automatic plasma gun turrets punctuated the fence line. Those guns would be drawn to movement and could be programmed for head shots. That had kept the air force base free from the walking dead. The remnants of the salt around the perimeter had been washed away by the rain but the white on the ground was sign enough that it had been there. He wasn’t sure who had set up the salt border or where they had gotten so much sodium chloride. Maybe there was a salt processing plant around Know Return.
Most likely, it was the Gorebacks who had constructed the supernatural saline boundary. They were right not to trust Chthonic to keep whatever demonic deal they’d made with him.
Blood drizzled down Blaze’s skin from his wound, kept open by the metal hook impaling him. Now he knew what a worm felt like.
Ha! The thought was grisly, but it made him laugh. He was going into shock. Dammit, he hated when things turned against him. But he hated the Gorebacks more. Normal evil Onyx stuff was one thing, it was created to be chaotic and vile, but the Gorebacks were people, and they should’ve known better.
Well, maybe calling them people was being generous. Blaze gritted his teeth. He’d killed two of them. He figured he could kill a few more before he cashed in his chips. It wasn’t as good as closing the Onyx Gate, but it was making the universe a better place. He’d be doing all sentient life a favor by removing as many of the clown-worshipping psychopaths as he could.
The rain continued to batter his face in freezing needles but in the distance the clouds had parted and bright moonlight from at least three moons painted the landscape in silver.
He turned slowly around on the harpoon to see downtown Know Return, but something was wrong with it. The buildings were floating up into the sky. Blaze blinked. He was losing it. But bleeding to death on a hook under a helicopter operated by cannibals would make keeping your perspective a bit difficult.
The buildings seemed to be gushing up through the clouds. No, those weren’t the buildings, or maybe they were there, but they were riding up a mile-wide pipe of fluid. It was the ectoplasm reservoir damned up by the sheer number of zombie corpses. The liquid Onyx was streaming upward in a reverse waterfall. And it wasn’t the only one. Other gleaming waterfalls of ectoplasm rose from the surface of the damned planet up into the atmosphere. But where was all that fluid going? What the hell?
Once again, the pain knocked him out, and the next thing he knew, he was skidding down onto the tarmac in front of a huge hangar. Again, the lights dazzled him. Everything was so pinche bright.
Inside the hangar was a huge cigar-shaped vessel sitting on struts. It was venting something. Damn, but the thing was big. It was mostly freezer space, with a big main bridge up front and the engine rooms with some smaller cabin rooms at the back. Blaze had seen ships like it before.
Clownish pendejos, that big Dilly Donny and Pattie Cakes, were loading something into the main refrigerated hold, which spanned basically the length of the hangar. Blaze tried to get a better look, but he was having trouble seeing.
He went to pull the hook out of his chest, but when he tried, his hand slipped on the blood, the pain blizzarded through his head, and he wound up on his knees, trying not to throw up. Well, he hadn’t eaten or drank anything in a while. Not much to throw up.
The mime pendejo with badly dyed multicolored hair came strutting up. On his cheeks were the plus and minus signs. In his hand was the cattle prod. “Look at you, Blazer Boy, trying to pull that little ol’ hook out yer chest. Gotta say, you are one tough jarhead.”
Blaze growled, lurched to his feet, and went to pull Calhoun Goreback onto the harpoon so he could join in the fun.
Calhoun danced back and drove his cattle prod into Blaze’s forehead. The gunny went
down, legs flopping out from under him, his arms jerking about spasmodically.
Despite the gunny’s struggle, he lost consciousness again.
He woke up looking into Granny’s eyes. She was muzzled, her dress ripped, with her arms bound behind her. But she was alive. They were in the hangar still, up against a wall, both on the floor. The floor was wet and slick from something. At first Blaze thought it was ectoplasm, but a second glance revealed it was blood.
The whole area was a congealing, stinking pool of blood. A few hands and feet lay cast aside.
The harpoon was out, but the wound in his chest felt like someone had started a bonfire in it. Hot coals seemed to drop into his lungs and finally into his heart, setting his entire abdomen on fire.
Granny’s eyes were wild, not with fear, but with hate. She’d survived the ghost attack that had dropped her, and that gave Blaze hope for Ling.
But the fury in her eyes, oh, once she when got loose, she was going to put the hurt on the Gorebacks and do things to them not even their chaotic clown god would consider doing.
Blaze wasn’t bound, but he was weak, could hardly move from the shock and the loss of blood. But it wasn’t all his blood. He shifted and saw a stack of bodies, not zombies, but fresh corpses, some still dribbling blood from mashed-in noses or bashed-in heads.
A sharp spike of wood was near his hand, some bit of trash that had been scattered about. Maybe a broken table leg?
He managed to get a nerveless hand over to grip it, and he attached it to the nanotech of his armor. The microscopic robots gripped it to his thigh. It wasn’t much of a weapon, but better than nothing.
Granny grunted, trying to say something, but she couldn’t. Nope, the Gorebacks had fixed it so she couldn’t use her apocalyptic Onyx sorcery against them. Smart. Dammit, he hated when the villains were smart.
Two clown-painted dickweeds ambled by. No, couldn’t be. Blaze had killed them…beheaded Uncle Upchuck and bashed out Auntie Lips’s brains. But there they were, walking around. Auntie Lips had a found a new white onesie with big red puffball buttons down the front. She was a huge woman, six feet and five inches at least, with a wobbling gargantuan chest—not a lot of support in there. She’d shaved her head and had covered it in white pancake makeup. She was in smeared clown makeup, laughing and smiling. Uncle Upchuck hadn’t washed his purple wig and it was matted together with mud and pig shit. His red plastic nose was equally stained but the bright blue teardrops on his cheeks looked freshly painted on.
Both were chatting in lowered voices, squawking with shouted laughter, but they weren’t zombies. Or ghosts.
But Blaze had killed those two. How could they still be alive?
Uncle Upchuck let out a grunt. “Goddamn kitty clawed me but good. Couldn’t catch it though. I’s eaten cat afore and it tasted like chicken. You ever eat cat, Lips?”
Auntie Lips guffawed like the half-wit she was. “I’s eaten a kitty or two afore, Unc, you betcha. But it don’t taste like chicken. Tastes like tuna.”
Both fell into gales of completely freaked-out laughter and continued on.
Well, Raziel must’ve been around, causing trouble. Good. Pinche cannibal pendejos.
The gunny grimaced against the pain, fought against losing it again, and failed.
Dammit, this losing consciousness thing was getting old.
He woke up and the pain of his upper chest wound felt distant. Good news there. Bad news? He was cold, frigid cold, and he couldn’t feel his fingers or toes. They’d been that numb before, on an ice planet in the Huaxia quadrant during the Bug War. The medic said he’d been five minutes away from frostbite and losing his digits forever.
It was complete darkness, wherever he was, and it smelled like hamburger meat. Frozen hamburger meat. The ice crystals tickled his nostrils.
A light flickered on for a minute and Calhoun’s voice came over loudspeakers. “Hey gunny, got you a little synthetic skin and some meds to keep you alive. Gonna play with you a bit, I reckon. Gonna give you a bit of light to try and find yer girlfriend. She’s in there with you. Lots of people in there with you, but only one is alive. Fer now. Figure you both’ll be goners afore too long.”
Blaze glanced around. Above him, hanging on hooks, were skinned Human corpses, as far as he could see in both directions. They were headless, and some had their hands and feet hacked, while others were missing limbs at the elbows and the knees. Their abdomens had been hacked open, and all their guts removed as well as their genitals.
He was in the Goreback freezer where they’d loaded their meat. The long freighter could hold hundreds upon hundreds of bodies.
Those Goreback bastards. He was going to kill them all, over and over, until they stayed dead.
He checked his watch and saw it was 11:15 PM, EST. In less than forty-five minutes, the stars would collide and the planet would be destroyed. How come it always came down to the last goddamn pinche second?
I’m hungry, Blaze, a voice whispered through his head. Elle is far away, weak, maybe dead. And I’m so hungry. Can you help? All of these bodies and no blood. They don’t know what I am, but you do. You know, and you love me anyway.
It was Trina, she was somewhere close.
The lights clicked off and he was alone in the darkness with a starving vampire who was already using her wicked telepathy to get him to offer himself to her.
He had a couple of gallons to give. What would it hurt to give her a few pints? She’d only take a few, right?
TWENTY_
╠═╦╬╧╪
Blaze jumped to his feet. He used Ling’s meditation techniques to shake the madness out of his head and plucked the stake from the nanotech housing on his thigh. He gripped the sticky blood-soaked spike of wood. “I got wood, Trina.”
I’m not Human enough to enjoy that. The voice slithered through his mind.
Ha, funny. “I got a stake. You come at me, I’ll drive it into your heart. But I don’t want to do that. We’ve been here before. Come on.” Blaze pushed through frozen corpses to get out into the aisle. The muscle on the bodies was solid ice and the fat had all congealed into a thick, hardened paste. The smell was freezer meat with a slight tang from the metal hooks and metal floors. His boots clanged against the floor, echoing off the walls. Damn, but he couldn’t see a thing.
Trina’s voice pierced his mind. Blaze, I can see you, but you can’t see me. The meat is cold, but you are red hot, you big marine you. And even if I couldn’t see your heat signature, I can smell your blood. You have so much of it. Your heart is so pinche loud. I only need a few drops. That’s all I’ll take, I swear.
Blaze checked his display out of habit. No GPS, no VHI for anyone, the shit wasn’t working. He whirled and stabbed empty air with the stake. A frozen body smacked him in the face, but he took off down the aisle, stumbled against another corpse, spun again, and then ducked.
He heard a lone plaintive yowl next to him. Raziel. The cat was warning him, but was it close to Trina or what?
“Trina, we’re gonna do our game, okay? If you can’t get yourself under control, I’m going to have to put you down.”
Instead of answering him out loud, she used her vampiric telepathy. Sure, he couldn’t echolocate her if she spoke directly into his mind. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta, right, Blaze?
“That’s the game, darling,” the gunny said and moved away from where he’d heard the cat. He kept his arms out, letting the cold meat guide him down the corridor between the rows and rows of bodies. “Echo, Foxtrot, Golf, Hotel, India.”
In India, they call their vampires rakshasa. Interesting, Humans have had the idea of bloodsucking creatures since their inception. Perhaps we were all meant to become vampires in the end.
Raziel’s hisses and yowls came toward him and while he couldn’t hear Trina’s soft footsteps, he could hear the cat. Raziel was staying with the vampire, giving her position away.
Instead of fleeing, Blaze charged the sound of the cat, went low, and then grabbed
for Trina. There she was. He threw her as hard as he could into the meat. Bodies were torn from the hooks and went slapping down onto the ground.
The gunny barreled back down the corridor calling out, “Juliet, kilo, Lima, Mike, November.”
Come and help me, Blaze. That hurt me so much. I think you broke my arm. Why did you throw me? I must try to help you become a vampire. You’d be so much more powerful if you were dead. You’d easily be able to kill the Gorebacks, free Granny, and close the Onyx Gate.
Blaze laughed. “Yeah, sure, whatever, Trina. Your lies are not going to work on me today. I already went insane and tried that same line of logic on Elle and Ling. They didn’t buy it. No, death is death, and if I become a vampiric pendejo, I’d only be interested in drinking blood and killing people. Nope, not gonna happen.” He continued to go through the alphabet, getting closer and closer to Zulu.
Raziel meowed from where Blaze had thrown Trina. She was still there. He started toward her, senses alive, stake ready. He’d have to be quick and he couldn’t have any lingering doubts. Trina wouldn’t. As a vampire, she’d be faster, stronger, and far hungrier. His chances were slim, but dammit, Gunnery Sergeant Ramon “Blaze” Ramirez was going to go down fighting.
The cat let out a meow far closer to him. Another meow, and Trina was closer.
Your little feline friend isn’t just a cat, clearly. I’m trying to break her little neck, but I can’t get my hands around it. She’s giving me away, but it won’t matter. I’m faster than you, Blaze.
“Tango, Uniform, Victor,” Blaze continued the litany.
I’m beyond reach or help. I need your blood. I need a little suck, and I know you’ll like it, Blaze. I know you’ll like my suck.
Blaze ended it. Trina was coming, but he needed to finish the game. “Whisky, X-ray, Yankee.”
Like before, Zulu, Blaze. Zulu!
A fresh blast of cold hit him. It was Trina, fully vamped out and all her Human warmth gone.
But behind him, Raziel let out a squawk, kind of an odd sound from a cat, but there it was. Behind him.
