Biohell (31 page)

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,
or 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.

“Come here. I’ll carry you.”
Knuckles hoisted the little ‘un onto his shoulders, and the group ran through
flickering, deserted corridors, past water-coolers and dormant glowing
computers. Up more stairs they sprinted, and heard another
boom,
muffled,
behind them. The floor and the entire building shook. Little Megan started to
cry, shaking in his arms.

Cursing, Knuckles led the charge
to the roof. Flight after flight of stairs sped beneath boots and sandals;
lights flickered on and off, on and off, and every now and then the building’s
entire power would go down... then surge on a boost of generation... then die
again, plunging their world into a temporary, ethereal gloom.

They were panting, streaked with
sweat, and brandishing makeshift melee weapons as they climbed wearily the
final set of narrow steps to the roof of The Happy Friendly Sunshine Assurance
Company building. Knuckles had thought they would be safe there; now, he was no
longer sure. Fear gnawed at him, like a ferret in his belly.

The door slammed wide, and they
were greeted by a black sky. A wind smashed this high precipice, and Knuckles
gasped, breath caught in his throat. He staggered onto the flat concrete-alloy
platform and fell to his knees. The kids fanned out behind him, and Skull
gently closed the final door. He threw three thick bolts, but eyed the portal
dubiously. It wouldn’t hold against a detonation. What could?

Knuckles placed Little Megan
gently down, and staggered to his feet, rusted machete in one fist, eyes dark
and hooded. The wind howled. It smelled fresh, filled with rain—and a welcome
drug after the stuffy confines of the assurance building.

“Are we safe here?” asked Little
Megan, large brown eyes staring up at Knuckles, lower lip quivering.

“Yeah, sweetie. We’re safe.”

The door rattled. Knuckles
glanced at Skull. Had it been the wind?
Surely
the bastards couldn’t
have caught them already?

The door rattled; harder this
time. There came a moan, distant, muffled, but definitely the ululation of the
zombie. Knuckles squared his shoulders, lifted his ten-year old’s chin, and
scowled at the door. His hands tightened on the machete. He released a slow
breath. “We’re going to have to fight,” he said. “If they get through the door.”

“Knuckles!”
hissed Glass, and nodded past the
youth. Knuckles turned. From the deep shadows of the roof three figures had
emerged; they were heavily muscled, yet slender, and would have been fine
examples of the athlete if they hadn’t been zombies. There were two men, one
woman, and yellow and grey flesh hung in strips from their faces, gaps in
cheeks showing working, gnashing teeth within. Their eyes were feral, glinting,
dangerous. They spread out, moving smoothly, padding like hunters, almost like
cats.

Knuckles took a step back. These
weren’t like the others. They seemed, somehow, more
dangerous.

“You back me up, now,” growled
Knuckles and Glass, Skull, Sammy and some of the others lifted their assorted
knives and pipes and makeshift clubs.

“We’ll back you,” said Glass. “We’ve
nowhere to run.”

The three zombies murmured, low
soft sounds of appreciation. Their nostrils were twitching, lifting to the wind
a little as if savouring this delivery of fresh meat, raw brains.

“Don’t fight now,” said one,
suddenly. It was the woman, its voice low, a lullaby. It tilted its head,
smiling with gaping fangs and holed cheeks. This did nothing to instil the
children with confidence or trust.

“We won’t hurt you,” said
another, flexing claws which shone like long daggers in the starlight.

The third, the largest, most
heavily muscled, nodded slowly, methodically, saying nothing but running a fat
red tongue over distended black teeth.

With snarls, they leapt to the
attack...

~ * ~

Keenan
paused on the ladder as a boom rocked the building within. He glanced down. “Franco?”

“KEK5 blast,” he said without
looking up. “Antipersonnel, a mixture of splinter-barbs with a High-J coating
and Honey-spunk with G6 trigger det. Definitely military sourced. Let’s hope
the zombies aren’t using them.” He laughed weakly.

Keenan carried on climbing,
reached a low parapet and swung his legs thankfully over the ridge. He dropped
into a dark trough of corrugated metal, then climbed up a slope of the same
metal and crouched behind a low bank of cubic extractors. They hummed,
vibrating under his steadying hands. He pulled free his Techrim, stowing away
the Kekra—which he found too bulky and intrusive for his liking. He checked his
weapon’s magazine as Franco joined him, followed by Mel who formed a terrifying
silhouette against the bleak skyline.

Mel grunted, pointed at herself,
then at the sky.

“She’s trying to tell us
something,” said Franco.

“You don’t say,” muttered Keenan.

Franco frowned. “Go on, Mel. What
you trying to say, girl?”

Mel growled, and gave a little
bark. She patted her breast, flexed her foot claws, then shook her head as if
savaging a bone.

“Shit, it’s like trying to decode
Lassie,” snapped Keenan.

“She’s saying,” said Franco,
primly, “that the cold and the dark have speeded up her metabolism. We should
expect the same from the enemy zombies we encounter.”

Keenan stared hard at Franco. “You
got all that from
that?”

“We have a spymbi... a spiimbe...
a connection.” He tapped his skull. “A joining of minds.
Reet?”

“OK.
OK.”
Keenan peered
past the cubic extractors. There was something going down. He watched the
children disgorge from the door, bolt it, then turn in horror as three zombies
appeared from a pool of inky shadows. “Looks like we’ve found... somebody,”
said Keenan.

“We’ve got to help them!” snapped
Franco.

“They may not be critical to our
mission,” said Keenan, voice cool, eyes hooded, ever the professional.

“They’re damn and bloody kids,
and I won’t stand by and watch no nasty zombies eat their brains!” Franco leapt
to the attack; he charged, and with a mutter and a curse, Keenan padded after
the powerful ginger squaddie.

When he was ten feet away, Franco’s
Kekra boomed in his fist and, with a blink, he watched the three zombies
scatter, rolling apart fluidly like a combat squad, and coming up with claws at
the ready. Franco skidded on his heels, tracking one. He fired, the bullet
winging the female zombie in a splatter of gore as the gun went
click
with
stoppage and Franco cursed and shook his weapon as the other two zombies
snarled, drooling befouled spittle, and leapt at him—

“Keenan!”

Keenan opened fire, Techrim
slamming his palm. Five bullets ate their way up a male zombie’s chest—but did
not slow him. The creature slammed Franco, bearing the powerful pugilist to the
ground as claws slashed an inch from his face. Franco growled, slamming a right
hook, then another to the zombie’s head. A tooth flew free, and as Franco
bounced, the zombie atop him, he grasped the zombie’s ears to deliver a
smashing head-butt—but the ears came away in his hands leaving him stunned,
mouth open, a scream of horror welling and bubbling in his throat...

Keenan leapt, Techrim whipping
against the second zombie’s head. It rolled with the blow, ducking and
spinning, leg sweeping Keenan’s feet from beneath him. He hit the ground,
rolled, as claws smashed the concrete where his face had been. The zombie
reared above him, leapt at him but he rolled again, Techrim barking. Bullets
scythed past the zombie, missing as it moved with awesome speed— then was atop
Keenan, fangs open, bearing down on his face as he twisted, wriggled, then
discharged his Techrim from hip-level.
Booms
slammed through the zombie,
which twitched with each rapid successive impact; claws raked Keenan’s flesh, from
neck to sternum, slashing his WarSuit, and he felt blood pump from the wound at
his neck. He wrestled free his arm, and the wounded zombie was snarling,
clawing at him, his skin under its talons and its teeth lowered towards his
face; he could smell the foul stench of sour acid breath and as the muzzle
dropped towards his eyes he squeezed his Techrim under its chin and fired. The
head jerked, glassy eyes staring deep into Keenan’s with a sudden
connection
as the top of its head mushroomed in blood and rotting purple brain. The
connection was simple: from murderer to victim. The zombie smiled, then snarled
despite half its brain raining down over the roof concrete—and Keenan snarled
in return, firing again. The top of the zombie’s head lifted like a flap and
the remains of its diseased brain flowered from the dark, blood-pooled cavity.
Keenan pushed the flopping useless body from him, heard it slap the ground, saw
Franco struggling, locked in his own personal nightmare—the creature atop him,
talons locked in his hands, both straining but unable to break the grip. Keenan
crawled over to Franco, poked his Techrim into the zombie’s blood-ringed
ear-hole, and sent its brain pissing from the cranial cavity with three slams
of 11mm Techrim.