Biohell (55 page)

“Yeah,” nodded Keenan, “Ronan has
that effect on me as well.”

“There’s no way across,” said
Xakus, appearing suddenly behind the two men and nearly getting a bullet in his
brain for his trouble. He eyed the four barrels of Franco’s Kekra, an inch from
his nose, thoughtfully. “Franco, tell me you’ve got the safety switch on?”

“Nope. That would be silly.”

“Doesn’t a Kekra have a hairline
trigger?”

“Yep.”

“So you nearly blew my head clean
off?”

“Yep.” Franco leered at him. “So
don’t fucking sneak up on me, OK? Or I’ll never find Mel, and brains are so
damned
hard
to clean off the matt finish of a Kekra’s quad barrel. You have to
scrub and scrub for ages. You have to use a pan-scrub, and detergent, and
everything.
OK?”

“I hear you, Franco. Loud and
clear.” He stared at the milling zombies. It could be argued their aimless
movements were a close approximation of any disco atrocity. Only zombies had an
excuse. They were brain-dead mutations.

Xakus ran a hand through his
white, frizzled hair. “This could explain why we’ve met so little resistance. I
would suspect an organisation as powerful as The Hammer Syndicate of using
biomods to enhance a lot of its employees. They certainly had the financial
backing. So...”

“So when the shit hit the fan,
and the biomods deformed their hosts, the deviation took the majority of the
Syndicate’s staff with it?” Keenan rubbed his stubbled chin. “Sounds possible.
That’s
if it
was the biomods. But I thought Hammer had something to do
with the cracking and pirating? Providing a service to the No-Creds of The
City?”

“Yes. But Hammer didn’t expect
the deviation. That came from... somewhere else. There’s something
not quite
right
here. The puzzle doesn’t quite fit.”

As they were talking, Keenan had
been analysing the surroundings. He gestured with his MPK. “There’s a way
across.” Keenan’s voice was soft, face thoughtful. “Up there.”

“Amongst the rigging?” Franco
stared at him. “Are you mad? Amongst the lights and the strobes? Amongst the
wires and the cabling? It’s not designed to take somebody of my,” he patted his
rotund belly,
“advanced
metabolic stature.”

“Look at the bolting on the mesh.”
Keenan scratched his chin. “It’ll hold.”

“Have you done a Risk Assessment?”

Keenan’s scowl sank below
contempt. Then he leant forward, staring down at the spiral staircase which led
to the lower halls of the disco. “What I want to know, is, why did the zombies
remain
here?”

“Locked in,” said Xakus. He
gestured to the far doors.

“So somebody wanted to keep them
here? Why?” asked Franco.

“We’ll ask Voloshko when we meet
him,” snapped Keenan. He strapped his MPK to his back, moved to the edge of the
stairs, and reaching up, started tugging at the edge of the ceiling mesh. After
a few moments he peeled a panel free, which wobbled as he threw it to one side.
He glanced back at the two men. “I’ll go first. Xakus, next. Franco, to the
rear.”

“Why do I always have to go last?”
mumbled Franco.

“Because you’re armed, dickhead.”

Keenan hoisted himself up, onto
the meshed false ceiling, and squeezed between thick cabling and trailing
wires. The mesh shook worryingly under his weight, but held, as he’d predicted.
Warily, he eased forward, crawling past stacks of flaring, flashing lights
which spun colours across his face and vegetable- and grease-smeared WarSuit.

Xakus climbed next, and leaving a
suitable gap, followed Keenan out above the sea of gyrating zombies.

Finally, Franco had to run and
leap, catching the edge of the mesh and hauling his bulk up, legs kicking
frantically. He sat, panting for a moment, then realised he was being left
behind.

“Guys? Hey, you guys? Wait for
me!”

He started out, crawling
hurriedly over the shaking, vibrating roof-mesh after the fast disappearing
figure of Xakus. Behind Franco, unseen, several bolts jiggled and worked free
of their L-shaped brackets and clattered like metal rainfall on the bone
staircase below.

Far beneath, the zombies boogied.

~ * ~

Franco
was sweating as he crawled. It stung his eyes, tickled his beard, and made him
squint like an unconvincing D-list Hollywood actor in a cheap horror flick as
the rubber-suited monster comes round the corner.

“Franco? Where the hell are you?”
boomed Keenan’s voice above the din of Ronan’s warbling.

Franco froze. Keenan’s voice was
in the
wrong place
which meant
holy shit he’d managed to go and get
himself
—

Lost.

“I’m here,” he squeaked, eyes
frantic and searching for a way through the forest of cabling, the barrage of
flashing lights and the zaps of strobe which periodically blinded him.

“Where, lad?”

“Na na na na na na”
sang Ronan.

“Here! I must have taken a wrong
turn!”

“There
are
no turns!”

“Listen, it’s not my damn fault
this entire mesh business is so confusing you know I don’t like being locked up
after what happened at Mount Pleasant with the testicles an’ everything and it’s
just unreasonable for you to expect me to negotiate such a downright
discommodious obstacle!”

“Discommodious?
Just get your arse
over
here,
Private!”

“Keenan, something feels
weird.”

“That’s because the whole damn
ceiling is shaking! Get over here
now!”

“Keenan, the floor’s moving, the
floor’s tilting, oh my God oh bloody bugger and damn and blast...”

“Franco!”

There came a long, staggered
cracking sound followed by a comedy hiatus, as if God wanted to extend this
moment of pure and perfectly timed slapstick. Then came another, final,
sickening crack.

A
whoosh
of air.

Franco felt his world
tip
and
amidst flashing, coloured lights and flickering strobes and a sensation of
rolling and whirling and falling he lashed out with desperate fingers as Ronan’s
melodic croon rattled around his skull like bone dice and a true horror and
realisation struck him like a baseball bat in the face because if the ceiling
mesh
did
collapse and there was a sea of zombies just waiting to feed on
his brains down below...

Then they’d feed on his brains
down below.

Franco blinked.

Ahh,
he thought.
‘Twas all a dream!

His brain spun into nasty focus.

Actually, it
wasn’t
a
dream.

I shouldn’t have taken that last
rainbow pill, he thought amiably as a decent kick of euphoria slid like honey
needles through his veins. He looked up. Oh look, he thought idly, my fingers
are all white where they’re clasping that nice bending flexing mesh ceiling.
Then he looked down. Something heaved against his shoulder, and he shrugged at
the static weight, thus dislodging a block of coloured lights which flashed and
spiralled on its way to the dance-floor. Only it didn’t connect, because there
was a shambling zombie in the way. The huge block of lights flattened the
zombie with a squelch, and continued to flash, whirling colours, spinning and
rotating across ceiling mesh. Oh look, thought Franco, there’s coloured lights
on the roof and coloured lights on the floor as well and I wonder if they make
a rainbow when they collide in mid-air? That’s a nice concept. The sort of
thing you could tell to small children. Rainbows. Na na. And look! The lights
are shining on the zombies’ faces. And the zombies’ faces are all turned up to
look at me. Haha. Franco gave a little wave. Only it was with the hand he was
using to hold onto the flexing, wobbling ceiling mesh.

Franco fell.

It seemed a very, very long way
down.

Long enough, at least, to sober
up.

~ * ~

In
his time Franco had attended all manner of dodgy concerts, festivals, events
and gigs. Franco quite often lost himself to the music, rocked out, and was one
of those annoying individuals who liked to climb on stage and hurl himself into
the crowd, happy in the knowledge they were crammed like sardines and would
carry his considerable lopsided weight, sandaled feet kicking people in the
mouth as he performed his personal dodgy group fantasy.

This fall, however, was the stage
dive of his life...

Viewed from above, Franco fell
spread-eagled, like a starfish, both hands clasping Kekra machine pistols, face
in a kind of rapture of euphoric stupidity. Below, alerted by falling debris
and a pulverised comrade, the mulling zombies looked up, soft moans emanating
to mingle quite convincingly with the Ronan Keating backing track.

Into this sea of upturned faces,
Franco fell.

He connected with a series of
dull thuds, like tiny flesh detonations, but despite his modest height he
carried some
serious
weight and his landing dropped several
unfortunately situated zombies as effectively as any D5 shotgun blast. Like a
sea of unloving flesh, the crowd of deviants parted, then surged back,
undulated, a necrotic river, a pus-weeping ocean, and Franco went down and
under with arms flailing and mouth a silent O of wonder and intrinsic,
disbelieving horror...

Franco disappeared from view.

Kekras roared.

Slabs of zombie flesh spewed up
and out in a chunk fountain, and despite Franco’s earlier misgivings about
these poor creatures being unfortunate victims of circumstance, he chose to
momentarily ignore deeper philosophical speculation as the rancid snarling
beasts homed in on his fresh, if not entirely functioning, brain.

“Keenan!” came his wail from
beneath the sea of surging zombies.

Keenan, on the lip of the roof,
chewed his lip, MPK wavering. “Shit.” He couldn’t fire into the mass. He might
hit Franco! His head snapped back. “Xakus, get us down there!”

“Follow me.”

They jumped down into a
connecting corridor, sprinted down slippery spiral stairs, and came up against
a locked bone gate, the bars wrist-thick and human-fat yellow.

Keenan poked his MPK between the
bars, and the weapon screamed, fire ejecting from the barrel, bullets mowing
down a field of scrambling, half-dancing, half-gyrating zombies and turning the
zombie disco into a zombie
rave.

“Franco!” screamed Keenan. He
took a step back, analysing the bars. He smashed a side kick, but it did
nothing more than leave a black rubber mark. He lined up his gun, and unleashed
bullets which chipped and spat bone shards, but the bars held and Keenan
gritted his teeth. “Bastard.” He peered into the surging, heaving gloom.

Between the packed mass of
scrambling deviants, he could see nothing...

~ * ~

Franco
struggled, a turtle on its back. His Kekras were gone. Taken in the scrum like
candy from a kid. A bloated face with no lower jaw leered at him. It could make
no other expression. Franco slammed a right hook to its temple, knocking the
zombie sideways with a grunt. Another face replaced the first, this one with
maggots in its hair. Franco squawked, eyes wide, mouth open. He jabbed a punch
to its nose, spreading gristle across yellow zombie flesh, then again, a right
hook to the jaw which knocked the jaw clean free with a crunch. A bloated
purple-black tongue lolled out, unrolling like diseased liquorice, to give
Franco a slimy zombie kiss. “Aiiee,” he said, grabbing the tongue and giving it
a hard tug. The tongue came free in his hand and started struggling, and the
zombie stared at him, eyes wide, drooling into Franco’s screaming mouth. Thick
zombie pus ran over his lips, across his tongue and teeth, into his throat. It
tasted of rancid amputation. Franco gagged, stomach heaving as he whacked the
zombie with its own bloated tongue, a comedy sausage, then clubbed it with his
left fist, knocking it aside. Another, a woman this time, lurched over him,
onto him, claws scrabbling for his brains. Distended blue breasts rubbed in
Franco’s face in a parody of the act he so loved, and grimacing, he bit hard
and was nauseated to find a ripe nipple part like well-cooked meat and slide
slug-like down his. throat. No, he screamed at himself. This cannot be
happening! Cannot be real! He felt her claws on his head making circular
motions in an attempt to remove his skull-top like a PreCheese jar lid. He
wriggled under the weight of pressing zombies, felt a hand on his crotch and
fear slammed his brain like a train-wreck. No! Not his nuts! Anything but his
nuts! Twisting and straining in renewed panic like a kitten in a sack, Franco
managed to free a D5 shotgun from his pack-holster. The deviant’s face stared
up him, grinning through crooked black teeth. It licked mephitic lips. Franco
scowled. “Not on my watch!” he snarled, and pushed the D5’s barrel into the
zombie’s molten mouth. Teeth fell free, rattling like ivory dice. “Suck this.”
He pulled twin triggers, watched the face— and entire
head
—disappear in
a smush of explosion leaving nothing but a wavering spine tip, charred and
smoking and wriggling weakly. Franco felt his head suddenly wrenched to one
side. He squawked. The hands above grasped him, screwing his skull with
tenacity. The female zombie leaned across him, intent on her task, great rotten
breasts suffocating him. Franco struggled, head smashing from left to right and
back. Claws gouged a circle around his skull-top. This was it! Death by
screw-top! Banishing Queensbury Rules, Franco thumped the zombie in the belly
and felt her stiffen in shock. He rolled, wriggling, dragging himself
powerfully from the rugby scrum of squirming bodies, and rolled onto his hands
and knees and began to crawl in an accelerated comedy fashion. A zombie jumped
on his back. Franco’s head slammed up, back, a rear head-butt. The zombie
disappeared, but left its upper denture embedded in Franco’s head. He scrabbled
at it frantically as he crawled. “Euch!” he muttered, finally levering the
teeth from his indented skull with a crunch and bringing them before his
disbelieving eyes. He stared at the yellow fangs, still attached to a broken
upper jaw. “You dirty, dirty
bastards!
Horrorshow! Pure horrorshow!” He
crawled like a maniac, veering left and right between legs, between zombies, as
hands, claws and talons thrashed at him, grasped at him, tore his clothes and
his damaged, sparking WarSuit. Fangs bit his toes and he cursed his sandals.
His D5 made a rhythmical clattering as he crawled beneath the writhing zombie
throng. And then he saw it! The exit from the zombie disco. They may take my
life, but they’ll never take my
freedomm!
He crawled, faster now. Hope
burned like a birthed protostar in his breast. A zombie lurched before him. The
D5 boomed, kicking, scattering the creature across the wall. And then he was
free of the scrum, staggering to his feet and slipping and sliding on gore as
he lunged for the exit—only to realise, with horror, that the exit wasn’t an
exit at all, but blocked by wrist-thick curved bars of bone, absorbed into the
organotower and molecularly redistributed to create a prison cell
just for
him.
“Oh how the Gods mock me!” he wailed. Franco slammed against the bars.
Blinked. Saw Keenan. Saw the attached explosive. Saw the flickering red light.