Emperor-for-Life: DeadShop Redux (Unreal Universe Book 6)

by Lee Bond

***

  Ferret ... Ferret wasn't right. Colors were weird. Light hurt his eyes and ... and his eye was out of his head, on his cheek, brushing back and forth. His ... his jaw. His jaw was off and ... and he couldn't stop himself from trying to talk. The words were wrong, they made no sense, no matter how hard he tried, the words were just …. just sounds. Every time he moved, something in his head made this odd grating feeling that made him sick to his stomach.

  Ferret wanted to lay down and die but the Zigg pumping through him wouldn't let him. It was alive and screaming through him, making him dance, a puppet on a string, bones in his head pushing against each other. Ferret was sure the grinding was squishing his brains but it wouldn't let him stop. No matter what. Alphonse wanted Garth Nickels dead.

  Anything Ferret wanted didn't matter. Didn't mean a thing.

  The primordial anger was all that mattered.

  Ferret danced forward, strings howling in the wind.

  ***

  Gameblson watched on, in disgusted awe, as the kid with the metal in his face shuffled forward, arms still swinging, even though Garth had proven more than capable of taking the hits without difficulty.

  It was disgusting, the wounds this kid was walking around with. It was like something out of a horror movie. The last time he personally had seen anything remotely similar had been in a goddamn TV show and then -just as now- Gambelson had shouted with inarticulate disgust at the sight of it, demanding that there was just no way someone could survive -even for a few seconds- with those kinds of injuries.

  But there he was. Swinging fists like a broken robot, some inner, unkillable instinct to keep fighting driving him forward.

  "You getting this, Sammy?" Gambelson whispered into his mike. "You recording this?"

  "It's Sam or Samantha, Gambelson, and nothing else." Sam's unaccented English came through loud and clear. "And yes."

  "This is like a snuff film." Gambelson was disgusted and awed at the same time. "Or one of those cheap ultra-gore flicks. Fuck me."

  "Gambelson." Rommen's thick accent cut through the chatter. "Keep the radio silent unles it's important."

  Gambelson, eyes on the target and wondering just how Nickels was going to deal with the kid, dreading that he knew the only choice available.

  Yep. There it was. Garth's hand lashed out and …

  ***

  "Just lay down." Garth practically cajoled near-dead Ferret, who continued working his jaw like he was trying to say something. "Just lay down and die. Don't make me do this."

  Pound for pound, inch for inch, Ferret's wounds ranked amongst the higest in terms of the most painful and grotesque, and for simple reasons; extract the Zigg fueling the young kid's system, and he was nothing more than a plain old ordinary human being. There was nothing alien or otherworldly about him. He wasn't a gearhead stuffed full of Dark Iron, he wasn't a merc jammed to the gills with implants and augments, he wasn't an Offworlder with inhuman traits.

  Just a plain old ordinary boy, lurching forward, struggling against the pain.

  Behind Ferret, Sketch was slowly working himself back up to fighting once more.

  That set Garth's jaw firm. He could handle these guys one on one and while Ferret barely counted as one, the additional threat of the lurching cadaver was a factor Garth just didn't want to deal with.

  There was nothing else he could do. No other options. And with Rommen and the others -hard to miss the lurking security force just behind him or the goddamn idiot perched on the crane not a hundred feet away, scope-lens glinting in the failing light- watching his every move, the Kin'kithal knew he could count on some rough questions later.

  Strains of Dead Man’s Party by Oingo Boingo still wailing in his ears, Garth pushed the advantage, taking two more solid clobbering punches to the face so he could get close enough.

  Close enough to grab hold of Ferrets fractured, dangling jaw.

  Grab hold and pull, just hard enough to get the kid's attention.

  Whatever consciousness remaining in Ferret reacted promptly to the sudden pressure on his jaw; he stopped swinging those fists in a wild matter and stared wordlessly at Garth, remaining eye bulging wide.

  Now that he had Ferret's attention, he pulled harder still, and kept pulling, using considerable strength to wrench that jaw so completely out of socket that -if he survived, which he wouldn't, not considering what was coming next- extensive reconsctructive surgery would be needed.

  A wordless, gabbling howl rose up out of the mess that was Ferret's mouth as the jaw broke loose entirely. Hanging slack inside the flesh of his mouth, the drug-addled Zigg-head started genuinely spazzing out, flinging himself every which way as the pain lasered in through the haze of narcotics keeping him upright.

  Garth dodged this way and that, easily avoiding the few uncoordinated fists coming his way. Sketch, behind Ferret still, was nearly to his feet now, growling against his own pain. That next wound -this one much more serious, given he was going to be busy turning almost-dead Ferret into All The Way Dead Ferret- was inbound.

  The moment Ferret's lurching body resumed something closely approximating the upright and locked position, Garth moved in for the kill. Grabbing Ferret by the torn and tattered shirt collar, the Specter closed his eyes as he pulled the kid's head down.

  Then he started ramming his knee into the side of his head, driving the fractured skull wider and wider, slamming bone into brain, transforming Ferret into a lightning rod of even crazier, brutal motion. Ferret let out a screeching yowl that was horrifically mangled by his injuries and started struggling against Garth's unbreakable grip.

  "Just stop." Garth demanded. Another thump, another sickening crunch. "Stop. Just … shhhhh." Ferret's hands, curled in twisted claws as brain and nerve damage settled in, raked and scratched at his arms, the filthy nails leaving thin trails of blood down one side.

  Taking the wounds without even recognizing their existence, Garth drilled his knee -now soaked in blood, aqeaus humour from Ferret's popped eyeball and a significant amount of both brain and brain fluid- one final time into the poor kid's skull.

  The bones splintered, like wood, sending goop everywhere.

  Ferret let out a mewling gasp as the brain was finally destroyed.

  Garth dropped the corpse and tried to spin as fast as he could, but Sketch was right there behind him, fresh, shiny Bowie knife a burning bright splinter of light slashing out at him…

  ***

  Rommen finally lost his cool as Nickels took the wounds in his arm -no small thing, but a nearly flourescent gash shining under the overhead lamps- without flinching. The man spun on a heel, hands moving deftly to intercept the knife before it could cause any further damage and failing only because he slipped on the effluence left behind by the savagely killed Ferret.

  "Who in the fuck is this fucking guy, Samantha?" Rommen demanded angrily, sickened to an extreme degree by the unparalleled violence now boiling from their employer in visible waves. "You have anything?"

  "That's a negative." Samantha watched the scope-feed for a few moments, more than impressed at the man's incredible speed; as she watched, his hands snapped and flicked, blocking and maneuvering … Sketch's … knife hand this way and that, matching the drug-addled maniac's narcotically fueled fury with frightening impartiality. "Securicorps face ident has come up with nada. I'm running him through some of the local databases, to see what's what."

  "Would you look at this guy?" Birchcreek insisted, incredulous. "He took that first gash like a champ! He's gonna need treatment in a few minutes or he might bleed out. That other one ... holy shit, I'm sorry, what the fuck just happened? Did he really just do that? Is that even a thing?"

  Rommen shook his head. Garth Nickels had moves that made no sense. "I think he just did, yes."

  ***

  The drugs in his system were screaming now, a chaotic, audible roar that his bones shaking beneath his flesh and blood. Nickels' right arm was a dripping mess of blood. Every time he moved, droplets of brigh
t red lifestuff showered them both, but he wasn't slowing down. If anything, the pain and anger were making him move faster still.

  Ferret's inhumanly grotesque death kept playing over and over in his mind, a five second snippet of Garth Nickels hammering away at the poor boy's head with that gore-soaked knee. Crink was off to one side, almost alive enough to move. Soon, soon enough, she'd be moving again, but Sketch had zero intention of letting the man live for another second.

  Knife-hand twisting sinuously like a snake taunting prey, Sketch waited until Garth's eyes were completely trained on the deadly weapon before slamming out with a front kick similar to the one that'd taken him down a notch a short while ago. Then he lashed out, intending to knock the wind from Garth's lungs before driving the wicked Bowie right into the back of skull...

  ***

  Garth let the knife occupy his primary attention, Specter-instincts warning him that a kick was coming any ...

  ... second ...

  ... now ...

  The Specter in his glory sidestepped the wicked front kick by the merest hint of a whisper, hands already moving to block the deadly knife strike slashing down from on high like a dragon's tooth. Fingers from one hand closed around one of Sketch's wrists right at the pressure point, the other slapped the knife hand upwards, sending the knife rocketing into the air. Reflexes took over, and Garth found that same hand flickering upwards without pause, calloused palm closing smoothly over the nicely balanced hilt, reverse grip style.

  Sketch's shout of disbelief ringing in his ears, Garth brought the weapon back down, flat length of the blade resting smoothly against his bloody forearm. The first slash caught Sketch across the top of his chest, slicing cleanly through the heavy jacket then down and into his skin and down, down to just above his navel.

  Taken aback by the unexpected moves and the loss of his knife, Sketch tried stepping back and away from Garth, but the blue eyed, black haired maniac dropped into a spinning swirl, knife arm lashing out just as he managed to get a step backwards; this time, the sharp edge sliced him open across the gut, side to side, leaving a sucking wound that gaped like a fish's mouth.

  Garth still wasn't finished, though, because there was one thing he'd learned when dealing with Zigg addicts; they weren't nearly as tenacious as their older, meaner ODDity incarnation, but if you let them live, they'd keep coming. Face focused and steady, Garth continued pushing the advantage, even though Sketch was preoccupied with keeping his guts in place.

  One final sweep of the stolen weapon, this time in a savage upward swing that caught and played with the pre-existing wounds, from navel right up to the man's neck. Everything that was inside Sketch started joining the outside world in a hot, steaming mess of blood, veins, and vital organs. The middleman, the man in control of the trio, dropped down to his knees, still desperately trying to scoop his precious innards back into their rightful places, unaware that he was already dead.

  Scuffling sounds reached his ears.

  Ah. Right. Crink. Garth spun once more on his heel and took in the poor girl. Her head was even worse than Ferret's had been, to the point where you could make out the skull displacement without even trying; one half of her face was now stretched out, turning her ghoulish. Collision with the lamppost had done her no favors either; based on her gait and leg placement, poor Crink was being driven by Ziggurat on a broken spine.

  "Time to put you out of your misery." Garth started moving, this time making damned sure he avoided Ferret's bleed out. Slipping in that shit was as embarrassing as fuck.

  ***

  "So..." Birchcreek settled back on his haunches, ashen. "We just gonna pretend we didn't see that?"

  Samantha closed her laptop up and joined Rommen and Birchcreek more properly. "We've all seen people killed and done more than our fair share of the deed itself, Rommen, but that was ... that was ..."

  "Necessary." Garth's voice had all three up and ready, sidearms drawn. The Specter indicated Samantha's laptop as it skittered down the ramp. "Hope that's a hardened case, Sam. Gear like that ain't cheap."

  Rommen didn’t know what to do. For the first time in his life, probably since he’d been three or four years old, his brain was completely empty of ideas. Joining the Army, serving Uncle Sam, becoming a Ranger, moving on from that … his entire life from that very early age had been scripted. All he’d had to do was hold on tight and follow the path of his life, safe and secure in the knowledge that he’d be fine, no matter. Even in those dark places, in those deadly little wars filled with no good choices save the ones that got you back into the light, he’d known what to do.

  But not now. Not here, not talking to Garth Nickels, one arm entirely coated in blood thanks to a wound the length of a hand and deep enough to stick a quarter in. Not now, not when they’d all watched him essentially slaughter three drug addicts who should’ve died a lot sooner than they had.

  Of course Nickels wasn’t afraid of the guns pointed at him, either. Wounded, having fought against three people … three … Nickels looked like he had more than enough left in the tank to take care of three more, no matter they’d been trained by some of the best in the world and had seen and done things that had left them irrevocably changed.

  Garth snapped his fingers. “Hey! Guys! Are we gonna have an OK Corral moment here or are we gonna bring ourselves back to the present?”

  Birchcreek and Samantha looked sheepishly at their drawn weapons before holstering them, but Rommen stayed where he was, head tilted slightly to one side, as if he were trying to come to some kind of decision.

  “Don’t.” Garth said warningly. “Don’t even. This whole thing, this sudden bit of clarity into my life and the things I’m doing … that’s on you. From the moment you decided you were gonna follow me through the site, from the second you had that idiot on the crane … who, by the way, should be shot for leaning his scope into the sunlight like that because not only did I see him, but half of ‘Frisco prolly saw him as well … this is all you. You looked into my background and when you didn’t like what you saw, you let all this happen. Well, you think you let it happen. It was going to go down one way or the other, the only difference is, in this version, you all saw some terrible ass shit and now you’re standing there, wondering what the fuck. But you don’t get to. I gave you the option of remaining in the dark for a little while longer. God knows I did.”

  Birchcreek took a step forward, pointing at the man’s wounds. “Christ, Rommen, the man’s going to bleed the fack out right here on the spot! Let’s treat his wounds first, all right?”

  Samantha was already on the radio to Varely, demanding the squad’s battle-ready first aid kit.

  Ignoring Rommen and his drawn weapon, Garth addressed Samantha. “Tell what’s his nuts to bring a hose. I’m covered in infected blood. Can’t be treated until I’m hosed down. Oh! And a fresh change of clothes because obvious reasons are obvious. Oh! And get one of your other guys who were lucky enough to draw the short stick to leave the site, find me some food. Like, buy out a Slappy Burger’s or something. I’m hungry. Oh! And … some kind of hazmat equipment? Like the kind of stuff those dudes who clean up grody crime scenes use? Yeah. The trio just up the way are going to need special treatment if we’re going to do it right and avoid becoming addicted to Ziggurat. Shit’s nasty as hell. Don’t want you guys to have your life spiral down the drain.”

  “And what about you?” Rommen demanded stridently, finally holstering his weapon. “You don’t seem to be too worried about becoming an addict.”

  Garth laughed into the darkening sky. “Hah. Wouldn’t that be funny? If I wound up addicted to Ziggurat? Me. A walking zombie! No, but seriously, that definitely isn't going to happen. I’m … got awesome Medicare. Now,” he said, voice all business, “you get what you wanted?”

  “I don’t understand the question, sir.” Rommen replied flatly. He’d used that same tone during Congressional hearings. Worked wonders.

  Didn’t work on Nickels, of course, but it did
keep the man from asking again.

  Because the truth of the matter was, Rommen was wishing to Holy Jesus he’d let the man from a few hours ago, the man who’d seemed just a little off, a little weird, a little strange, wander around the construction site under his own steam because the man he was looking at now was someone else entirely.

  “Sam.” Rommen moved a little ways away from Nickels. Not out of fear or anything, but out of prudence; the man was covered in blood, had fought addicts enslaved to one of the worst drugs the US had ever seen. Even a single droplet might carry with it a lifetime craving for a drug that could take an ordinary person and warp them into something capable of walking with a broken spine. “Everything done?”

  “Sir.” Samantha nodded curtly, resisting the urge to salute. The whole op had gone sideways. Felt like an actual mission now, somewhere in the dark, out there in the dangerzone. “That’s a 10-4. Varely’s on the way with a hose, the kit, and some preliminary stuff to deal with the bodies. Houston’s en route to … to a Slappy Burger’s. We … we need to call this in to Securicorps. Let them know what went down here. This is f… this is awful.”

  “Orrrrrrr,” Garth said taking off his shirt and using it to lamely wash away some of the blood and succeeding only in making himself messier, “We can discuss the future, and possible exciting new changes in all your careers. But it’s up to Rommen over there. I mean, well, yeah. It’s up to you guys. Sam, can you get Varely to put the gas on? I’m not precisely bleeding to death, but now the battle’s over, the old veins aren’t nearly as constricted. I ain’t no yogi over here.”

  Samantha spoke quietly into her radio, eyeing everyone.

  ***

  Garth bit into the Slappy Burger Deluxe with Bacon, three types of cheese, no tomato because anyone who put a tomato on a burger didn’t know how to burger properly and resisted the urge to groan for all of two seconds before groaning so orgasmically that Birchcreek –who was sewing him up- actually flinched.

  “Sounds like you ain’t had a burger in a long time, mate.” Birchcreek resumed stitching Nickels up, using his eyes to communicate to Varely, Rommen, Samantha and Gambelson that they all needed to take a good, long look at the healed wounds on their man.