by Ryder Stacy
The fifth man leaped from the sandbagged emplacement and ran down the fortress road, his legs pumping like a jackrabbit. But a ten-foot swamp being caught up with him in a flash and ripped the man from the ground, holding the trembling and crying soldier up to its dark red eyes. It let out a wet sound as its mouth opened wide, trying to decide whether to start on the brain or the inner organs. It chose the latter, and clamped down its shark-sized jaws over the man’s stomach, sucking in the soupy organs with delight as half the remains dribbled down its green front.
“Come on,” Rockson yelled, heading toward the main gate of the fortress. “Just this gate and we’re inside. You get rid of the Nazis—I’ll get the slaves out. Carnivore,” he said, stopping just before the electrified main defense gate, “if I never see you again, thank you. Your name will be known to the descendants of this—someday free America—that you and your people were one of the groups that contributed to our freedom—fought to free others. We are keeping new history records in my city and well, it’s not for nothing, I promise you that.”
“My pleasure Rockson,” the immense being answered. It constantly amazed the Doomsday Warrior how something so fearsome, so able to kill with incredible power, so hideous, was possessed with such a civilized mind. A thinker, a poet, trapped inside an ultimate deformity. “It has been good to know you. I have learned from you. Even in our wretched states—one exists, and knowledge, seeing more, taking in the things around us—there is nothing else. At least for me.”
“I hope you get your wish for peace,” Rockson said softly, not wanting to say the word death, as he had grown to like the swamp thing and didn’t hanker to the notion of its kicking off.
“It is all in the god Megapoison’s hands.”
The huge thing turned with astounding grace, considering its mass, and pushed over the gate just by extending an arm. The electric current of the fence arced through Nitrogen Carnivore, sending white sparks whipping around its body, supercharged by all the moisture. It was hardly more than a tickle. The army of green death drove into Fort Goerringrad bent on nothing less than annihilation. They came up to the first few buildings at the edge of the fortress and smashed through the concrete walls as if they were made of paper. The sleeping guards inside woke to find themselves enveloped in steel arms of slime, and then, accompanied by loud crunching noises, they were dead.
The Narga went wild, thrashing their arms, slamming out at everything in sight. They had never been able to use their full strength and let loose with everything they had. They had bottled up all the murderous hatred and twisted madness that lay inside them. And that had added to the festering poison and decay of their souls. But now they could let it all come out. Now they could kill, and kill again.
The Germans didn’t know what hit them. Everywhere, the Nagra burst through walls, windows, smashed down gates, grabbing every German they found, ripping out their throats with a single quick bite and then throwing the bodies to the ground, mentally noting where they had left them, for future collection. The barracks of the German officers was left in a sea of blood, which ran out the door and into the street—fingers and eyeballs floating in its rushing streams. Those that didn’t die instantly wished they had when they came face to face with one of the creatures and saw what was about to consume them. They backed off with their hands in front of their faces, half mad with fear, reverting to childhood states, crying for their Maters and Paters. But the swamp mutations didn’t respond well to tears—except as flavoring—and the Nazis were chewed up, spat out and left for a midnight snack.
The fortress crumbled beneath the onslaught. It was as if a tornado—a hundred tornadoes—were going through it, wrecking, obliterating everything they touched, turning buildings to dust, bodies to blood. In their last seconds of life, the dying Germans prayed to a God they hadn’t thought of for years. The Christian God, vestige of the distant past, but which their parents and their parents’ parents had still followed. These Germans prayed to a God to whom they were the antichrist—and he did not hear them. They had built their own concentration camp—and now they would die in it.
Rockson rushed through the demolished gate and toward the slaves’ section of the city. He and Rona had rearmed themselves with the weapons of the first-killed Germans, a submachine gun each, German Lugers and a few potato mashers. They tore ass down the main thoroughfare as the Narga wreaked their hellish destruction all around. A few guards heading toward the sound of the fighting spotted Rock, but Rona’s and Rock’s subs spoke death and more bodies joined in the festivities. Rock didn’t even know what the slaves would do. Most of them were already gone—their brains and hearts little more than withered nonfunctioning organs. But he’d have to try. And so would they. Because they weren’t going to have any choice about it.
He tore into the first of the barracks and let loose a volley from his sub which ripped like metal teeth into the soft rotting concrete ceiling.
“Time to go, boys. Name’s Ted Rockson, you may or may not have heard of me. But I’m here to free your fucking asses whether you want to or not. You, to put it bluntly, no longer have a master. The Nazis are retiring from the slave business as of tonight. Get out of here. Run, into the hills, the mountains. You’re on your own now. It’s up to you, live or die—as men or beasts.” He turned as the amazed eyes stared up at him speechlessly. Rockson went through every slave barracks from A–G, telling inhabitants the same thing. Not accustomed to thinking for themselves, they milled around in confusion and out into the streets not really wanting to leave the fortress. That is until they saw the first lines of the Narga coming nearer. They trampled each other heading the other way.
Rock grew increasingly nervous as he reached his old barracks. Had they all died, left there in the basement? He jumped into the huge room and again fired the sub. The men, already awake from the fighting, sat up.
“It is him,” one of them screamed. “He has returned. See—I told you—The Rockson has returned.” He jumped up and rushed over to Rockson, kissing his hand, which the Doomsday Warrior pulled away in disgust.
“You!” He recognized the man as one who had joined him in the ill-fated rebellion. “They didn’t kill all of you when I left?”
“No—they needed us too bad. We were whipped and had electric shock to our—but other than the 12 men who died down in the basement and of course Lyons whom they took away—they just sent us back to work.”
“And Lyons—what happened to him?” Rockson asked anxiously of the only one in the whole place who seemed really salvagable.
“Oh they took him to the House of Pain. He has been the Screamer this week. For three days now. His are the screams we must work to—that are broadcast all day.”
Rock told them all the same thing he had to the others. It was their choice now whether to live or die. Then he rushed toward the pain center in the central square, the place where uncooperative prisoners were taken for “treatment” or disposal. He turned the corner to the building with his sub by his side, Rona running a step behind, her long red hair tied back with twine, in a thick ponytail, her right hand holding a grenade, pin pulled ready for quick release. The three guards at the front entrance to the cylindrical tower where Rona had spent her time as goddess in residence on the 10th floor didn’t have a chance. She released her hardball and the two Freefighters dove to the ground. With a three-second delay, the Germans barely had time to hear the click as the grenade hit the ground and see just what it was that was about to take them out. Then it took them out—a spray of blood, bone and cartilage coated the outer stainless steel curved wall of the tower. The two Free Americans rushed over the dismembered heaps and up the stairs, unleashing a spray from both submachine guns as they came bursting through the door. Two more guards waiting inside took slugs to the face and chest before they even saw their opponents and flew backward, sliding along the well-waxed lobby floor.
“It’s on the next floor up,” Rona yelled. “I heard the screams at night sometimes myse
lf from down below. Coming right up through the walls and floors, I swear, like ghosts.” They shot open the locked door to the second floor and tore in, stepping over the corpse of the man who had been waiting on the other side, his pistol cocked.
They rushed down a hallway of padded rooms, each filled with humans or the remains of those that the S.S. had had their way with. In the seventh small cubicle they found Lyons.
“Oh Jesus,” Rona gasped, as she saw the bloody remnants of a human being. But the bashed-in face, the teeth missing, one eye swollen as large as a black egg, smiled up at them.
“You came back. Rockson. They told me, the S.S., that you had betrayed me. That, as miserable as my life was, you had made it even worse and had lied and deserted us all. But I told them no and even in the midst of what they did to me—the knowledge that you were coming—that got me through it. A man needs something to believe in—or else there is nothing.”
“I came back,” Rock said softly, cradling the barely moving man’s head as he cut the cords that bound him to the steel ribbed chair. “I want you to know that I didn’t try to escape from the basement when you were all trapped. Rona fell onto the tube car and I jumped on to help her—the thing took off. There was no time—”
Lyons cut him off. “It’s okay, Rockson, I believe you.”
“We’re gonna fix you up now, pal. You’re coming with us—Rona and me—back to Century City. I can see a man of your courage and intelligence would be of great use to us there.”
“Thanks, Rockson—but I think I’m dying. So why don’t you two just—”
“You ain’t dying,” Rocks said curtly. “Believe me, I’ve seen more dead men than you could spit at, and you’re not one of them.”
Rock looked him over. No large puncture wounds, though there were cigarette burns across his chest. Hopefully he had just been tortured and not mortally wounded. The Nazis would have wanted to drag it out.
“Come on, get up, try to walk,” Rock said, lifting the gaunt slave to his feet. The man rose and then stumbled but caught hold of Rockson’s arm and steadied himself.
“Yes, I think I can—but not too fast.”
He held himself stiffly erect. Reborn from being a slave into being a man, at least partially, through Rockson’s words, he didn’t want to give up his dignity now. He walked shakily down the corridor, his body twitching with exquisite pain but his eyes clear and strong. Rockson pulled out a Luger from his belt and handed it to Lyons, who took it in trembling hands. It seemed symbolic of his emancipation—a material object that marked a metaphysical transition from savage to human.
“From this day forward,” Rock said, as they headed down the corridor to the stairs, “you are no longer a slave, Lyons, but a man. And as a man you’ll have to kill the enemies of freedom or be killed. Don’t hesitate. They won’t.” Rock looked the newly liberated man square in the eyes. Freedom was one thing, but keeping it for very long—that was another.
They came out onto the main floor corridor and walked smack into nearly a dozen Nazi storm troopers. Standing in front of them, holding the inevitable Luger that Hitler had done so much to popularize, Von Reisling, his face bright red with rage, his one good eye bloodshot and wide as if it were about to burst from its socket. The two groups—adversaries at the opposite ends of the spectrum of good and evil—stood stock still, frozen in a limbo of hesitation, each side facing down the other. Gunfight at the OK Corral, 2089 AD.
“You,” Von Reisling said, grinding his teeth together like pieces of crumbling chalk. He stared at Rona. “You—my queen. We gave you the ultimate honor—the perfect archetype of Aryan womanhood—a goddess to be worshipped by every proud soldier of the Fatherland. And you threw it all away.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Rona laughed out loud, throwing her head back for a second, and slipping a grenade into her hand from a pouch just behind her lower back. She flicked the pin out and got it launch ready. “My fine Führer Uber,” Rona said, making the eye signal to Rockson, one of a thousand body codes that the C.C. Freefighters learned as part of their training—signaling attack within seconds—hit the dirt on my movement. “I had no intention of ever being your goddess,” Rona went on, continuing to laugh, taking the Nazi’s attention away from what was actually going on. “Besides, you’re a dickless wonder anyway. No goddess could ever be satisfied with an ugly, effeminate, impotent Nazi pig like you, Von Reisling.” She figured one of the adjectives would cause a fuse to blow. And it did. Von Reisling’s face grew even brighter, almost the color of his pulsing blood, and she saw his chest inhale to scream out the command to fire. Only he should have screamed it faster. Rona threw the grenade so it slid along the floor like a bowling ball, and twisted around in a flash diving backward flat on the floor. Rockson grabbed Lyons at the instant he saw her arm move and pulled them both backward onto the marble-tiled floor. The three-second timer gave the Nazis just about enough time to look terrified and time to run. Then it went off, sending out a spitting shredder of shrapnel in every direction. Six men fell, gushing blood in jagged deep wounds in their legs and backs. But they had shielded the others from the metal storm, and they began firing back from their prone positions on the floor.
Rona and Rock edged backward along the walls, firing their subs on auto just inches above the floor. The screams from thirty feet away indicated something had received them. Suddenly Rock heard a sound from above and behind them—more S.S. coming down the stairs. They were boxed in, and the firepower was overwhelming. Just when things were starting to look good, Rock thought with disgust. He turned to Rona, who slid backward on her stomach six feet away across the corridor.
“Any more grenades?” Rock asked hopefully, cursing himself for not grabbing a few himself.
“Not a one,” she said, “and I can see—as I’m sure you can—that the party’s just about over.”
“I hate to say it, but—” His words were cut off as a slug tore into Rockson’s right shoulder, just missing the bone. He winced and then looked up again, slapping his palm over the wound to see how badly it was bleeding. It wasn’t too good, as the hand came back sopping wet. Bullets pinged back and forth along the corridor, just inches above them, ripping pockmarks into the wall. From the stairs above, another hail of fire opened up—coming closer by the second toward the three Americans.
“Oh Rock, I want to die holding you,” Rona cried out, and rolled across the hallway floor, slamming into the only man she had ever loved, half pinning him to the wall. Lyons, just feet behind Rockson, looked on in consternation, barely able to comprehend what was going on. Rona glued her lips to Rock’s as the Doomsday Warrior half gasped in surprise, a stab of pain going through his shoulder as she pulled him tight, wrapping herself around him like a starfish around an anemone.
Suddenly a roar of thunder blasted through the corridor as the very stone floor beneath them shook violently. There were roars, then screams through the thick sheets of dust that instantly filled the place. Screams of terrifying dimensions reaching notes that sent shivers up Rona’s back. Then loud crunching and slurping sounds. From behind them, the same explosion of stone as the walls erupted in a tornado of fragments. The Nazis on the staircase down the corridor from the Freefighters collapsed in a bloody heap as the stair beams unhinged and fell. The Narga crashed in through the walls, their huge swamp bodies slapping along the stone floor as they grabbed every German they could find and decapitated them, swallowing their heads like walnuts.
Rockson and Rona stood up slowly and Lyons remained on the floor, his arms over his head, trying to hide from the horrific sight of the Narga. The Doomsday Warrior sent out a powerful mental blast to make sure they didn’t chomp too quickly on one of his appendages.
“This is the Rockson! In the corridor ahead! The Rockson!” Lyons ran over to Rock’s side, standing as close as he could to the Doomsday Warrior as the immense green slime things emerged from the swirling dust of the caved-in walls. They stopped just feet away, four of them, and stared
down at the Americans.
“Should we eat him?” a voice asked telepathically, poking a huge wet finger at Lyons, who let out a scream that echoed down the collapsed corridor.
“No, he’s with me,” Rockson said firmly. The swamp creatures turned and headed out in search of more goodies. Rock, Rona and Lyons walked over the headless German bodies that littered the hall and out into the street. The fortress was in ruins—half-eaten corpses lay everywhere, appendages strewn around like a parts shop. Countless fires lapped their licking flames into the air, as explosions rocked the ground every few seconds. Towering funnels of smoke joined together, creating a vast black shroud high over the fortress. The Narga had the destructive powers of an atomic bomb, leaving nothing untouched in their path. The Nazi invasion force, the Fourth Reich, destined to last “ten thousand years,” met its violent destiny lost in the slime-coated stomachs of the ugliest creatures God had ever put on the face of the earth.
Sixteen
The swamp mutations spent nearly two days inside the fortress city of Goerringrad or what was left of it, munching on the leftovers of their deceased enemy. They ate everything, grinding down the very bones that lay in the streets, sucking out the marrow like old dogs. Then they left, heading back to the swamps, to their world of eternal green hell. Behind them not a creature stirred, not even a mouse.
The slaves of the fortress had exited post haste from the burning death camp and run into the hills. It had all happened so fast, the Rockson appearing, and the creatures from hell itself. Now they were on their own, split up into smaller groups, anywhere from four to twenty, trying to clumsily hunt, make fires, keep warm. Over half would die in the next six months, but the other half would live, would be made tough fighters, ready to strike back at those who had forced them into chains.
