Warhead (46 page)

‘You know what give me creeps?’ hissed Mongrel.

‘What?’

‘At base of each pole is big puddle of dried blood. That mean them impaled alive. Hoisted up there, and forced down kicking and screaming onto the sharpened point—whack, right up arse, up past spine and out of back of neck.
Savage.
I wonder just how long it take them to die? I have horrible feeling it not quick.’

‘Thank you for sharing that wonderful observation,’ Carter said dryly. ‘Now I
really
feel better.’

They reached the foot of another natural stone stairway and the camp spread out around them in its unholy stench. As they walked, prodded in the back with submachine guns, they passed rows of tents between which were displayed many disgusting examples of brutality. Piles of hands, naked bodies staked out against iron pegs—several still alive, but with flesh carved from their limbs, and wriggling numbly, feebly. In one case, there was a pile of around thirty heads, eyes glazed, the stink incredible. A woman was seated nearby, cross-legged, a head in her lap with its eyes facing towards Carter and Mongrel. As they passed, she lopped the crown of the head off with a blunt, chipped machete, and started to scoop out the rancid brains with a spoon, digging the tarnished silver implement in hard and grinning madly through her own holed cheeks as the spoon made soft,
schlup
noises. Carter nearly threw up.

They were pushed towards what seemed to be a centre for the camp: a huge ring of stones, each as large as a man and worn smooth by centuries of the pounding elements. The stones were topped with a wooden platform on which squatted a large black iron cauldron, apparently covered in tar. A fire was burning steadily underneath, sending out a thin column of black smoke.

‘That look like my sister’s manky old barbecue.’

Carter glanced sideways at Mongrel. ‘So your sister cooks human flesh, does she?’

‘It fucking tastes like it.’

‘Anyway, I didn’t know you
had
a sister!’

‘Aye, Carter. I got six sisters. Jam mauled this one at Spiral Christmas party. In fact, I pretty sure he gave her right good seeing-to. He couldn’t walk next day. Apparently. He say she milked him like stag, although he then smirk and say that this OK because he have huge balls like stag.’

Carter mulled this over, distracted by displays of obvious cannibalism presented to his reluctant gaze. But he was still disturbed by the notion of a
woman
in the same mould as Mongrel ... and the idea of
six
of them! He shivered.

‘Does your sister ... look like you?’

‘Oh no!’

Carter released a deep sigh. ‘Thank God,’ he said.

‘She much uglier.’ Mongrel grinned his gappy grin, set in a pouchy, rough-skinned, heavily scarred face on the front of a tufted head shaped like a punchbag. ‘I pretty one in the family, for sure.’

Angel Constanza mounted the platform at that moment, and the army around her grew hushed. They dropped to their knees, silence settling like nuclear fallout ash. Then, as she finished speaking, she made eye contact with Carter and gave a broad smile. Her gold eyes sparkled and Carter felt confusion flood through him.

Constanza dropped down from the platform and stood in front of the two men. She dragged off her furs and stood proudly, her near-naked body incredibly toned and muscled. She was wearing nothing but a leather harness hung with knives and jewels. She shook back her hair and moved close to Carter, whose face went suddenly stony and grim, lips tightly compressed. There was a long, uneasy silence as they stared into one another’s eyes.

‘Don’t you remember me?’ she asked.

Carter frowned. ‘Remember you? I have never met you before in my life.’

‘You have.’

Carter shook his head, peripherally aware of Mongrel’s smirk. ‘I’m pretty sure you’re going to eat my fucking liver—whatever—but on this point we must disagree.’

Constanza took a step back, turned lithely and bent to grab her fallen furs, presenting her ample and uncloaked backside to the Spiral men’s gaze. Mongrel’s eyes widened in their sockets.

Then she gestured to several of the disfigured soldiers who grabbed Carter and Mongrel roughly between them, guns poking against the backs of their heads.

‘We
have
met before, Carter,’ said Constanza without turning to look at him. Her voice was quiet. ‘That’s why I know about Kade—that’s why I know about the demon twin nestling inside your skull.’

Then she was gone, and Carter was left frozen, confused, filled with a billion questions pounding his mind as the guards jostled him and Mongrel away from the central cooking area and towards a wooden hut with thick pitted black steel bars that was surrounded by a ring of heavily armed fighters.

Carter’s last sight was of an old man, seated, almost naked, his face a cluster of ragged flesh strings. He was eating small cubes of raw meat, pushing them into his mouth via a hole in his cheek, jaw opening to accept the soft flesh before chomping between rounded molars. The strings of cheek flesh swayed in rhythm with his chewing ...

The heavy timber door of the hut slammed in Carter’s face, blocking the view and plunging both men into a frightening darkness.

Night had fallen. Outside, many fires burned among the army of the insane and the Spiral men could smell the sickly sweet stench of old rotting meat turned carefully on long slick skewers.

‘We’re running out of time,’ said Carter. His head was pounding, and his limbs felt like lead. His bound hands were burning him with lines of razor fire, and his recent wounds were throbbing, making his life just that little bit more uncomfortable: his aching nose, the cracked ribs, the extensive bruising across his whole frame. I feel like a kick-bag, he thought. I feel like a human train wreck.

On top of this, the day’s surreal events seemed like a very bad, fuzzy nightmare. A brain-fuck with a sharpened screwdriver.

‘What we going to do, Carter, my boy? We got to find codes for Warhead. We close now—can you feel it? I can feel it. We are close, oh so very close—like a quivering hand down a plump girl’s panties going for that sweet wet touch. And that fucking
pizda
out there, she know how to initiate ECW and she not fucking telling us! We need kidnap her, Carter. We need give her much pain, then she talk, Mongrel promise you that!’

‘Have you managed to break free of the wire yet?’

‘No.’

‘Me neither. Next option?’

‘Aww, fuck, Carter, we need think of something real fast. Why don’t you sweet-talk her or something?’

‘
What?’

‘Ha har! Old Mongrel, he see way that sexy little lady stare at Carter man. She fancy dance with you, Carter baby, she fancy slice of Carter meat pie. Again.’

‘Again? What the fuck do you mean,
again?’

‘She remember you. Carter.’

‘She remembers
fuck all.’

‘OK, OK, don’t get touchy. I know how embarrassing these things can be.’

‘You fucking
what?’

‘Mongrel, too, spend many drunken night canoodling with some sexy plump
devushka,
hands all over ass and slobbering tongues entwined—dancing in as close as plump overhang bellies allow, only to wake up next morning next to Great White Whale and wishing, oh wishing I had harpoon gun to hand and real skill with weapon, just like Captain Ahab. I been there Carter, there no shame in beer goggles. We all done it. We all felt the comedy burning in cock as we rush limping and scratching to the VD clinic to be given our anonymous identification number. And oh how we all does laugh as simple case of antibiotics clear it all up! How we roar with guffaws down at pub and drip Guinness down our combats.’ Mongrel finally rolled into an uneasy silence. He coughed in the gloom and scratched at his itching stubble.

‘Mongrel,’ Carter interrupted threateningly, ‘we live in
different fucking worlds.
Now listen, you moron, Constanza’s not some ex-girlfriend who just might do me a favour because I was good in bed. She’s a fucking lunatic rogue ex-Spiral programmer with a fucking Kurtz obsession. But this isn’t
Apocalypse Now,
it’s
Apocalypse Over.
She’s a fruit-loop, a nutcase, and the only way we’re getting warhead codes from her fried brain is if we drill them out.’

‘I understand.’

‘Understand what?’

‘I suppose ... you know, shagging cannibal—well, it not good for man’s self-esteem.’

‘Mongrel, I did not
shag
the cannibal.’

‘Ahh, but she know about Kade. So you
must
have shagged cannibal.’

Carter paused, unease prickling down his spine. He licked at his dry lips: their packs had been dumped outside and thirst-quenching was currently high on his agenda of needs—shortly behind the necessity of strangling Mongrel.

‘I concede,’ said Carter slowly, ‘that she did mention Kade, and as far as I am aware, only a handful of very, very close acquaintances know about
that
fucking demon. However, my old
drook,
I certainly didn’t sleep with the woman. I never even shared a glass of Italian red. I didn’t put my hand down her “sweet panties” and I didn’t cook her tagliatelle in exchange for hardcore Spiral secrets. You listening to me, Mongrel?’

‘Har har har.’ Mongrel loomed in the darkness and slammed Carter hard on the back. ‘Just fucking with you, Carter, just fucking with you. Don’t get so uptight—the old Mongrel, well, he just trying to keep your chin up. Give you boost of some good old British spunk!’

‘Thanks,’ said Carter weakly. ’Spunk. That’s just what I need.’

‘You want to hear story of Fat Chick Night yet?’

‘No.’

‘Another time, then,’ mumbled Mongrel, and retreated to his own side of the hut.

Carter’s head snapped up as the door opened. Constanza was there, holding a small Glock 9mm and with an Agram K50 silenced sub-machine gun strapped to her back. She gestured wordlessly to the two men and lumbering to their feet they stooped and stepped out into the bright daylight, squinting.

The camp seemed to be in turmoil. The deformed and scabrous fighters were running everywhere, bristling with weapons. Constanza indicated that the two Spiral men should grab their packs.

‘We going somewhere?’ asked Carter.

‘Yes, I will show you Spiral_R.’

‘Ahh, the place which twisted your mind?’

She smiled then, gold eyes shining. ‘Yes, something like that. You’ll understand if I don’t return your guns. Now, down there, past the yaks, the narrow pathway.’

The two men walked ahead of Constanza. Carter glanced back, expecting to see an entourage of guards, but none followed.

‘What’s happening back there?’ asked Mongrel. ‘What is all excitement about?’

‘We have some unexpected and unwelcome visitors.’

They moved down the narrow pathway, which squeezed between two huge boulders at the foot of the dark mountain walls. Carter glanced up at the steep climb ahead of them. Steps had been cut into the rock face, a huge veering series of uneven ledges, and as Carter took the first step he had to strain to get his leg just high enough. Great, he thought. The world’s largest staircase.

Grunting, Mongrel followed close behind Carter and within a few minutes they were above the camp which bustled like an anthill. The ‘soldiers’ were setting up some kind of defences; trenches had been uncovered and they were rolling out big mounted guns which were being locked into place on sturdy steel tripods.

‘None of the army are allowed up here,’ said Constanza, climbing lightly and easily behind the two men. ‘It is hallowed ground. A holy place. They do not understand the implications of Spiral—or what Spiral_R was all about.’

‘What happened to them?’ asked Carter.

Constanza shrugged. ‘Chemical agents? Biological toxins? Maybe it was a side-product of that toxic fucking puke Durell poured over the world. So, a mutant form of HATE, then? I’m not really sure. I do not claim to understand genetics—code was my speciality.’

‘And you know the location of the Evolution Class Warhead?’

‘I do.’

As they climbed, both Carter and Mongrel started to sweat heavily, their packs gripped in clumsy, bound hands. The camp fell away below them, and within thirty minutes looked like nothing more than a toy model populated by scurrying stick figures.

‘This feels strange,’ said Carter at last. ‘Like you are abandoning them.’ He threw the dark-haired woman a glance, but her expression did not change; she showed no emotion.

‘What that noise?’ Mongrel’s head cocked to one side.

‘Choppers,’ snapped Carter. He whirled, stare sweeping the skies—and there they were, a swarm of black Nex helicopters. They swept down from the heavens towards the distant camp—and machine guns began to rattle from the mounted positions on the ground.

‘They have brought HTanks, and infantry,’ said Constanza. ‘My scouts report six thousand Nex, three hundred tanks, and as many helicopters.’

‘Your soldiers cannot hope to stand against such military might.’

‘Yes. I agree.’

‘So we’ve taken the back door?’ sneered Carter.

Constanza smiled, nodding. ‘Come on, follow me. We are nearly there.’