Blood Soaked and Contagious (50 page)

This time we were not disappointed. The nano-critters pinged at us, so we knew there were smelly people nearby and girded our loins before we pushed open the door.

Surprisingly enough, they appeared quite ready to receive visitors. In fact, it looked like they knew we were coming. A cup of coffee and Danishes would not have surprised me at all. What surprised me was my mother.

I stood there with Charlie by my side and gaped like a bigmouth bass. My own estranged maternal organ stood in front of us, backed up by a flock of exotic perverts from Central Casting. The woman I had known all my life was utterly transformed and I could barely process it. Denying it wasn’t even possible. You don’t forget your mother’s face, hair, eyes, or the big diamond ring that cut your lip open when you were 12.

The last time I saw her, barely two years ago, her style was much more Christian Dior dress, tasteful diamonds, and flute of champagne than leather and lace. My mom never would have worn black leather underbust corsets and chainmail skirts. I won’t even mention the silicone appendage that protruded from a hole in the front of the skirt.

I don’t know which was longer, the bullwhip in her hand or the beastly monster that the skirt couldn’t contain. What happened to my giggly mother who knitted and collected Coach handbags?

“Baby! I knew you were coming and I didn’t bake a cake.” She strutted over to me, working curves that no son should ever be aware that his mother has. “I’ve missed you so much! You’ve been a bad little motherfucker.”

She hauled back with one hand and slapped me with all her might. The claws on the ends of her fingers dug into my cheek, ripping away ribbons of my face as she swung. I didn’t give her the satisfaction of reacting. Charlie did it for me by closing the distance and laying the barrel of her pistol right between my mother’s eyes.

“Don’t you ever hit him again.” She looked my mom up and down. “What the Hell are you supposed to be, the Undead Leather Cougar of the Year?”

Mom laughed, standing still with the gun between her eyes. It was the same old musical laugh she always had, but the look on her face was not anything I had ever seen in the whole of my life.

“I’m a dominatrix. I used to beat his daddy before I decided to marry him and make babies. Now I discipline everyone, my wayward son included.” Mom leered at me. “He’s come to kill his daddy, but now his mommy gets to fuck him up. I should have named him Oedipus.”

I couldn’t tell whether Charlie was more disgusted than I was or not. I knew that people who came back from the grave returned with certain bits missing, like their internal editor, but to hear things like that... I felt ill.

“Then again, I could have the executive staff fuck you both up now,” my mother continued, “and that might be an amusing little scene to watch.”

Standing and lounging behind her were seven men and women dressed in leather harnesses, shiny metal buckles, plates, as well as clips and clamps that would have made wonderful accessories in an operating room. They had not even moved since we came in the door, but they all started to chuckle in unison after my erstwhile parent’s comment.

It was a creepy effect, but it came off as being staged rather than a natural communal response. I was vaguely queasy about all of it, but I certainly wasn’t frightened.

“We don’t have time to fuck with your friends, Mom. We came to get Bajali. Kindly save us the trouble and tell us where he is.”

“Warren, that’s so dominant of you. Mommy just got drippy for you, you disloyal little worm.” She tossed her curly hair over her shoulder, stuck out her tongue, and squeezed her nipples.

Seeing my own mother, even as a zombie, doing things like that…Why is there never a trashcan handy when you need to regurgitate your last 20 meals?

I made my intentions clear to Charlie with my in-skull telephone. She agreed to keep my mother occupied while I took out the Leather Belt Manufacturers Convention behind her. We started to move at the same time thanks to that little bit of communication; I went left to skirt my mother’s reach, and Charlie changed her aim.

My mother shrieked when my girlfriend put a bullet in her kneecap.

Charlie yelped when my mom’s whip snapped out and curled around her neck. I wanted to pay attention, but we were outnumbered and something needed to be done about Mistress’ entourage. I had faith in Charlie, and I had faith in scary marvels of technology.

I found myself in a kung fu movie full of yelling executives wielding expensive sex toys instead of guns. They had claws, teeth, silicone appliances, leather straps, paddles, and oodles of bad attitude. I had a deadline.

“Excuse me, I don’t have time for you PowerPoint-pushing shits right now. I’m here to rescue a friend, not expand my repertoire.” I got that out of my mouth and one of the enterprising bastards broke a hardwood paddle across my skull. The world went very gray.

When I squirmed my way back to full consciousness, I noticed that someone was trying to stick something up my ass. Not having consented to such treatment, I got ready to take issue with their idea of fun and discovered that the morons had not disarmed me before taking a break to plunder my rectum. I let them have a second to indulge their fantasy of successful ravishment.

Charlie and my mother were still involved in their first meeting. I couldn’t have been in limbo long because the whip was still around Charlie’s neck. My mother’s penis was two-thirds shorter, thanks to the bare blade in my girl’s hand.

I was about to yell, “Just shoot my mom,” when the prodding at my exit got serious. I whipped the Man Scythe behind me at random, figuring it would either hit someone or stop them from rummaging in my basement.

Someone screamed and my ass was free. I scrambled to my feet, annoyed that my belt was gone, my delicate parts were uncovered, and my pants were around my knees. That didn’t do much for my ability to move around. Seeing my lack of composure as an opportunity, some of them tried to get the weapon out of my hands and others set about beating me with dildos.

Having zombies try to rape me was one thing, but hitting me with phallic objects... that was the straw that broke the camel’s back.

I bellowed at them with the rage of ten thousand suffering prudes, dropped to my knees, and swung the blade in an arc around my right side. Three of my opponents were suddenly much shorter. Two of the remaining kinky undead dropped their plastic dicks and fled.

Upper Echelon Executive Latex Man shot me in the chest with my own pistol. Unfortunately for him, it hit an area where my vest was intact. All I got for his trouble was bruised and very annoyed.

“Unacceptable.” I spat in his face and lopped off the hand that was holding my gun. He fell to the floor squealing, adding just that much more to the wailing in the room.

Over all the moaning and weeping in pain, I heard a Charlie yell, “When you get to Hell, tell them your future daughter-in-law sent you!” I didn’t look. I simply stood up, pulled up my pants with one hand, and calmly decapitated the last of the entourage.

I felt lucky, standing there holding my pants up, that my Best Charlie had a background in psychology, because I was really starting to resent Bajali for all of this gore-encrusted bullshit. With a deep sigh, I put the scythe down, tracked down my belt, and reassembled my wardrobe. The weapons were easier to locate than my belt.

“Charlie, if you didn’t take her head, you really ought to.” The words came out of my mouth as flat as glass, but much less reflective.

“I hear you. We need to go.” I knew something was coming because she started to stammer a little. “Is there anything you need right now?”

“I need to find Bajali and then I need to get out of here alive with you. Let’s go.”

We went out the door we came in and scurried up the stairs to the next floor. Charlie was on point and went through the door low while I took the high position. Nothing.

Same boring floor plan, similar cheesy pastel art on the walls, except for the places where they were redecorated with arterial spray. We didn’t hear any noise or detect any movement with our little high-tech friends, so we moved up another floor.

It was a solid six floors before we even got a chirp. It was a Hell of a chirp.

Crouched behind the door, we knew that there was a human being not too far away from us on the other side. Near that human were four readings of abnormally low body temperatures, gunpowder, and something that the critters didn’t like but we had no reference for. Unless they had taken someone other than Baj at one point or another, our friend was behind that door.

“Frank, will any of the ammo in these guns make it through this door with any accuracy?” Charlie asked me over the private channel.

“Probably not. If they get through at all, I’m guessing that they’d end up changing direction from deflecting on the steel. We’ll have to go in there if we want to find out anything.”

“The human in there doesn’t read as having critters. No spark or anything.”

That raised a little curiosity in my head. Baj would have nanos. It simply stood to reason that he would have exposed himself to them first.

“Charlie, I have no idea, but we need to find out and we need to do it now. You go high, I’ll go low. Count of three.”

My Luscious Commando and I went through the door with our guns already aimed. Our targets fired at the same time we did, but our aim was better. They were out of the conflict, permanently. Charlie and I took hits to our vests and probably one or two flesh wounds.

The impacts slammed us back into the door we’d just come through, but I did look up and see Bajali tied to a chair. My skull was ringing, but I was feeling like the end was almost in sight. We had him and we could get him out.

“Warren Hightower!”

Someone called that name from down at the end of the hall, and I turned my head to see who yelled. My father and some dude in a suit were at the end of the hall.

Bajali screamed, “Frank, duck!”

I shifted my eyes and caught a flash of light at the end of the hall. I didn’t understand why my head was moving or why Baj looked so distraught.

The last thought I had was that my father had shot me in the head.

It is accurate to say I didn’t have a conscious thought for quite some time after taking a 9mm round to the middle of my forehead. I don’t think it would be accurate to say there was no one or nothing functioning from my neck up, because my body kept moving.

Unlike the instances in the past where my consciousness observed things from outside my body and commented as things unfolded, even having the choice to shut off rather than to observe, this time there was no choice. Everything I was went along with my body, but there were no comments or functions that spoke of me being a product of modern civilization. Warren Francis Hightower, the third, was gone.

Calling that creature “me” unsettles me, even after the fact. My soul, values, love, and humor were gone. All that was left running my flesh was nanotechnology that unlocked millions of years of evolution and threw the gears into reverse. It wasn’t
me
. It was a beast that I had become.

The thing that was using my body bounced back off of Charlie’s thigh, screaming wordless noises full of indignation and rage, and sped down the long hallway. Hot, stinging things hit it and tried to knock it down or deter it; that was simply not going to occur. There was a very simple instinct that forced breath through my body and each muscle that pumped power into the legs that propelled the thing I’d become down the corridor: You hurt me; now you will pay.

The upright animal in the gray skins interposed itself between my rushing body and my father. Animals don’t have words for concepts like “unacceptable” or “this is a thing that shouldn’t be.” The only thing my body knew was that Gray Skins was in the way.

I learned much later that my father’s bodyguard was none other than Ronnie Bianco, the most efficient hitter the Rhode Island Mafia had ever produced. But none of the skills he had learned or the experience of dying and coming back to feed on the living prepared him for what that round to my brain had created.

With a drywall-shaking bellow, all that was left of me challenged Gray Skins and did not bother waiting for an answering call. Our bodies plowed together with the wet pop of breaking bones, the front of my forehead crushing Gray Skins’ lower jaw.

Now the opponent had one less weapon. That was a satisfactory exchange for the pain that flooded my wounded skull and made sight difficult.

The former Mafia hitman noticed that the impact caused me to gray out for a moment and knew he had to press that advantage or not live long enough to recover from a broken jaw. The quarters were too close for him to pull his gun, but he did have access to the switchblade in his coat pocket and the claws that arced out over his fingertips. Somehow, without words or gestures, I knew he decided that a blade was for killing a man, but claws were for killing animals. As for me, this guy with a hole in his head, it certainly looked like I had left “human” far behind.

He grabbed me by the hair, pulled back my head, and tore my throat out with a single pass of his sharpened claws. While my body was operating on nano-critters and primeval rage, it couldn’t ignore the shame it felt when it hit the floor. Ronnie “Black and White” Bianco stood up. The gray suit was ruined, but there would be other gray suits.