Apocalypse Now Now Page 15

  ‘Can we talk about my glasses later?’ I say.

  There is someone else in the cage with us. He’s tall and sinewy, leaning back on the cage with a top hat tipped rakishly on his head. His dark suit looks like an undertaker’s and is old and tattered. Through the frayed elbows and jagged cuffs I can see his thin, pale limbs. He regards us with narrowed eyes, twirling a long moustache that droops over his restless twitching mouth. Ronin stares at him with a look of disbelief on his face. ‘It can’t be,’ he says. ‘She wouldn’t.’

  ‘What?’ I say.

  There’s a cheer from the crowd as the Queen enters the arena on a throne carried on the backs of a phalanx of humans in bondage gear. She gives a stately nod as she’s carried toward a spot next to the cage.

  ‘I see you’ve met your opponent,’ she says with a smile.

  ‘You’ve aligned with these insane bastards?’ Ronin splutters. ‘MK6 will destroy you for this. Get ready for an army of sangomas coming to tear down your evil little kingdom.’

  The Queen taps her lips with a long finger. ‘Well, gosh, here I am breaking taboos left, right and centre. And where, oh where, is the great and powerful Tone and MK6?’

  ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ Ronin says. ‘They don’t form alliances, they use them and then destroy them.’

  ‘Aww, are you worried for the poor widdle Queen?’ she says. ‘Well, dry your tears. Dober and I have an understanding. Besides, I thought you’d be happy to face one of the Crows. After what they did to Baresh.’ She clicks her fingers. ‘Kill them, Crow,’ the Queen says. ‘And make sure it’s a good show.’

  Top Hat lazily pushes himself off the cage and Ronin quickly rips off his coat and wraps it around his forearm to create a makeshift shield. Top Hat points a finger at me. ‘I can smell your corruption from here, half-breed.’

  ‘Your mother dresses you funny,’ I say.

  He laughs, a long barking sound, and advances slowly toward us.

  ‘I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like to kill one of you,’ Ronin says.

  ‘Then I’m afraid you will gain no satisfaction here,’ Top Hat says, taking off his coat, revealing a dirty white shirt beneath. His skin begins to ripple and twist. There’s a cracking of bone and sinew, like the sound of a carcass put through a grinder, and black feathers begin to sprout from his face. His mouth crunches as his jaw dislocates and begins to twist into the shape of a long beak. Large leathery wings erupt from his back and a scorpion’s tail rises above its head. Top Hat has ceased to be a shabbily-dressed gentleman and has become something from a nightmare. A singular Cyclops eye stares at us from the centre of the crow’s forehead and two claws clench convulsively on the side of its head.

  ‘Grandpa Zev was right, there are giant crow demons; Jesus, that thing looks evil,’ I whisper.

  ‘Well, let’s just say I wouldn’t let it babysit,’ Ronin says, grabbing me by the sleeve and pulling me behind him. ‘Look for an opening in the cage,’ he whispers. ‘And make it fast.’

  The thing shuffles toward us with its wings raised. Ronin circles out of its way and throws an explosive kick at its bloated leg. It barely seems to notice. It spreads its wings and retaliates with the force of a freight train, slamming into us and sending me to the mat with a wing. Ronin ducks the other wing but is caught by the beak and flung into the centre of the cage, landing with the sound of a sandal slapping a wet sheep carcass.

  He drags himself to his knees. A long, ugly gash has opened up on his forehead and is dripping blood. ‘Any ideas?’ he wheezes.

  ‘Well, I don’t want to get in the way of your spontaneity,’ I say, ‘But I do have an idea.’

  Grandpa Zevcenko won’t leave me much when he dies. No offshore investments. No money or property. My sole inheritance is advice on how to fight giant crows and I’m cashing it in. ‘Fire,’ I say to Ronin. ‘It’s the only thing that’ll stop it.’

  ‘And you’re now the world’s leading expert on Crows?’ Ronin says groggily.

  ‘Trust me,’ I say.

  I look out through the bleached white bones of the cage and into the eyes of a punter enjoying a meal. Human brain by the looks of it; a small congealed pink mess surrounded by squiggles of marinade and topped with an artfully carved cucumber. Even gourmet cannibalism is a rip-off.

  I spot a vintage oil lamp providing tasteful ambience for the table. I squeeze my arm through the cage and grab the lamp. The man grabs my hand and for a second we struggle over it. ‘Let it go,’ I hiss. The guy seems to think this is part of the entertainment and holds on tightly with a dumb grin on his face. With my other hand I scrabble across the table and find a heavy silver fork. With a grunt I jam the fork into his forearm. He screams and releases the lamp, and I wrench it from his grasp and pull it through.

  Ronin takes it from my hand just as the Crow launches itself at us. I scramble out of the way and watch as the bounty hunter stands poised, brandishing the oil lamp like it’s some kind of super-weapon. I really hope Grandpa Zev is not completely insane.

  As the Crow jabs its beak forward Ronin twists to the side and brings the burning lamp down on its head. The hot oil runs down and scalds its single eye and I smell burning flesh. The Crow shrieks in pain and lashes out blindly with its wings, colliding with the cage and ripping a jagged hole in the bones.

  We scramble past the flailing Crow and Ronin climbs through the hole and reaches back to help me. I grab his arm and struggle through the opening but am viciously yanked backwards. The floor hits me hard and drives the air from my lungs. There’s a lancing pain in my side. I groan. It feels like one of my ribs is broken. I don’t have time to check because a claw grabs me by the throat and lifts me into the air.

  The blind Crow caws in triumph. Hanging suspended from the muscular appendage of a bird-like monstrosity while the air is choked from you really puts your life into perspective. I see a vision of fair-haired children playing happily on playground swings, while a young mother, radiant in the sunlight, laughs with carefree abandon. I’m slightly disappointed when I realise that it’s a scene from a popular washing powder commercial. The jingle plays in my head as I begin to lose consciousness.

  My forehead throbs to the rhythm of my last few breaths and I find myself sliding out of my body with the feeling of a bar of soap slipping from your fingers. My disembodied consciousness looks down and sees my body being slowly choked, my face a hideous shade of magenta, my eyes rolling back in my head.

  Something cool takes my hand and I look up and see a girl about my age floating above the cage with me. She gives me a smile and tugs at my hand. I follow her and we float up through the ceiling and to the club above. More of the men in top hats at the entrance of the club are pushing through the throng of patrons and strippers.

  She leads me away to the side, to one of the lap-dance booths. It appears my dying brain desires a lap dance from a ghost. Well, OK. But the girl gestures to a door at the back of the booth and we watch as a woman in a hairnet opens it and steps out.

  She gestures again to the door and then reaches forward and places her hand on my forehead. A warm glow fills my head. ‘Am I dead?’ I whisper. She smiles and an image of the red eye fills my brain. I smile back at her.

  With a start I find myself back in my body. The pressure increases and I get the feeling that the Crow is enjoying watching me die. I let my body go limp. I’m ready to die.

  Out of the corner of my blurred vision I see Ronin crawling back through the hole with a steak knife between his teeth like he’s a pirate scaling the side of a ship. He climbs up the bones and then turns and launches himself off, hanging in mid-air for a split second like a hawk in flight before slamming down on the Crow’s back, pulling the knife from between his teeth and relentlessly stabbing the Crow in the face.

  The Crow drops me and lashes out at empty air. Ronin tumbles from its back and lands on the ground next to me. He pulls me back to the hole and gives me a boost through. I crawl over the sharp bones, gas
hing my arm on the edge of a humerus.

  I crash onto a table and it gives way; I roll off and hit the ground. Ronin hoists me to my feet. The room of diners stare at us, some in the back standing up and craning their necks to get a better look. ‘All part of the entertainment, folks,’ Ronin says, spreading his arms like a showman.

  ‘Ronin!’ a voice behind us screeches. We turn to see the Queen holding her arms out above her like she’s blessing a Black Mass. A dark, wet web erupts from her necrotic body and its long cords slither toward us. They leave a trail of gore behind them as they elongate and spread through the diners, covering and wrapping around them.

  The crowd begins to scream, overturning tables and climbing over each other to get away from the dark, lecherous strands. Ronin grabs a famous newsreader in a headlock and uses him as a shield as a strand whips forward. ‘I know people,’ the newsreader screams as the cord wraps around his foot and begins to pull. ‘Please, I’ll get you anything – money, women, you name it.’

  ‘How about some good news for a change?’ Ronin says. ‘South Africa’s not all about crime, you know.’ The cord drags the newsreader from Ronin’s hands and twists his head off, sending a fountain of blood arcing through the air.

  ‘Ronin,’ I shout and point toward the Queen’s throne, where Warchild and Hagaz are hung on steel spikes like trophies. Ronin leaps over a writhing cord and sprints toward the throne. He dodges past two zombie guards and his fingers close around Hagaz’s hilt and drag it from the scabbard.

  ‘Kill them,’ the Queen screams. Three cords slide toward Ronin like fat black anacondas. He slashes one as it rears up in front of him. It begins to ooze black liquid but continues to attack. More cords slide forward, tangling together to form a huge, wet mass that pushes him back. Ronin hacks at them, the black liquid splashing onto his face as he tries to beat them back.

  More cords pour from the Queen’s zombie body, which begins to dissolve, leaving nothing but the large hideous spider that rises up the black cords like it’s surfing a black wave.

  One of her cords wraps around Ronin’s leg and drags him to his knees. He hacks viciously at it but another grabs his hand and begins to drag him into the roiling wet mass. Ronin stretches the sword behind him as far as his arm can reach and then with a grunt hurls it.

  The blade slices through the air and buries itself hilt-deep in the Queen’s fat red spider body. She shrieks hysterically and the cords whip frantically about like high-pressure hoses.

  Ronin extricates himself from the mass of cords and limps over to the throne to retrieve Warchild.

  The Queen’s many legs scrabble on the ground but Hagaz is buried deep in her abdomen and toxic black ooze is pouring from the wound. Ronin walks over to her and prods her with the shotgun’s barrels.

  ‘Convince me not to kill you,’ he says conversationally. ‘What’s that? You can’t speak without a host body? Well then, I guess you’re out of luck.’

  The spider scrabbles frantically but Ronin pushes Warchild into her abdomen and then fires both barrels into the fat body. Fetid black liquid sprays everywhere. Ronin wipes his arm across his face.

  A guy stumbles past me and I notice an Octogram lanyard peeking out through his jacket. Instinctively I stick my leg out and the guy trips, hitting the ground hard. Ronin raises an eyebrow.

  ‘Octogram,’ I say, pointing to the lanyard.

  Ronin drags Hagaz from the Queen’s body and holds it against the guy’s throat and then reaches down to look at the lanyard. ‘Looks like you’re coming with us … Dave.’

  ‘We’ve got to go to the lap-dance booths,’ I say.

  ‘Let’s save the celebrations until we get out of here, sparky.’

  ‘There are more Crows coming,’ I say. ‘They’re in the club. One of the booths has hidden stairs. Unless there’s some other way to bypass the Crows, that’s our only way out.’

  Ronin grabs Dave by the throat. ‘Is that true?’

  ‘Chop shop,’ Dave gurgles. ‘I’ve heard there’s an exit into the sewers there.’

  Ronin looks at me appraisingly. ‘Well, you’re really getting into the supernatural swing of things, aren’t you?’

  We plough through the disorientated zombies. Without the Queen they seem to be content to tear random diners apart. We take the stairs that lead to the upper level and move quickly through the corridors to the line of lap-dance booths. ‘That one,’ I say, pointing to the one on the end.

  Ronin opens Warchild and slides in two new shells and then drags back the curtain. A zombie in a thong is gyrating on the lap of a young guy with square glasses and a checkered shirt. ‘Out,’ Ronin says. The guy scrambles to his feet and disappears through the curtain but the zombie hisses and scratches at Dave’s face with her bony fingers. Ronin raises Warchild and pulls the trigger. Her head explodes, spraying flesh and bone onto the velvet cushions. The body collapses sideways but continues to claw manically at the ground. We step carefully over it and head to the stairs.

  Ronin shoves Dave first and presses Warchild to the back of his head. We head down a long flight of stairs. I look back up but there doesn’t seem to be anyone in pursuit. Yet. The stairs end in a large smoky room filled with industrial equipment. A group of women are sitting next to a conveyor belt, chatting and smoking as they dissect human corpses and shove internal organs into packets.

  ‘And then her sister says, “Your husband was all too happy to watch me undress”,’ the hairnet woman I saw in my vision says. The other women shake their heads. ‘Disgusting,’ says a pretty younger woman with a scar down the side of her face. She pulls the intestines from a corpse and begins to feed them into a surgical bag marked with the distinctive red octopus.

  I clear my throat and ten pairs of eyes turn to look at us. ‘The dead hookers are upstairs, you peverts,’ hairnet woman says.

  ‘We’re looking for a tunnel,’ I say.

  The woman takes a drag of a cigarrette and squashes a bloody heart into a packet. ‘The Queen know you’re here?’

  ‘The Queen is dead,’ Ronin says with satisfaction.

  ‘Yeah, no shit, genius,’ the younger woman says. ‘She’s a zombie.’

  ‘Dead dead,’ Ronin says. ‘The spider part too.’

  ‘So you don’t have to work here any more,’ I say. ‘You’re free.’

  A large woman with a red cloth tied around her head takes a drag of her cigarette. ‘Are you going to pay me twenty-five rand an hour, as well as overtime?’

  ‘Ja, you think we want to go back to working at Chicken Ranch with a manager that tries to grope our titties every two seconds?’ hairnet woman says. ‘No thanks. We may work for zombies but at least the pay is good and they leave us alone.’

  ‘We have a TV,’ the younger woman adds. ‘We can watch Generations every day while we work.’

  ‘There’s a bus that takes us home,’ the large woman adds. ‘And we always go to a fancy restaurant for our Christmas party.’

  ‘But –’ I say.

  ‘The tunnel is in the back, perverts,’ hairnet woman says and blows smoke out through her nostrils.

  The women shake their heads in collective disgust and ignore us as we make our way quickly past the production line.

  The passageway opens out into a dank tunnel. Ronin drags Dave through, kicks him against the wall, and jams Warchild into his mouth. ‘We have questions. Only truthful answers will ensure longevity here today, understood?’ Dave gives a short, terrified nod.

  ‘We don’t have time for this,’ I hiss. ‘The Crows.’

  ‘He’ll slow us down if we take him.’ Ronin looks at Dave. ‘Quick answers. Let’s start with the human body parts; why does Octogram need them?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Dave says.

  Ronin cocks both of Warchild’s hammers. ‘I’m not sure you understand the gravity of your situation, Dave.’

  ‘OK,’ Dave whimpers. ‘Please.’ He takes a deep breath. ‘The Queen supplies us with biological material that we use for researc
h purposes.’

  ‘Researching what?’

  ‘Weapons mostly,’ Dave says.

  ‘And what do you give her in return?’ Ronin asks. ‘Last time I checked the Queen didn’t do much pro bono work.’ He pushes Warchild against Dave’s forehead.

  ‘Oh God,’ Dave says, his eyes squinting as they look up at the twin barrels of the shotgun that pins his head to the wall. ‘Freedom. She gets to do what she wants. MK6 doesn’t interfere. Actually they help. I don’t know any more than that, really I don’t. I’m just a junior executive.’ Ronin looks at him for a second and then nods. ‘I understand. Corporate hierarchy, right? You work and you work and what do you get? Nothing. They keep you in the dark, make you do all the work while they’re off running up huge expense accounts?’

  Dave nods.

  ‘I believe you,’ Ronin says.

  Dave sighs with relief. Ronin smiles benevolently. And then viciously slams the butt of the shotgun into his temple. Dave slumps into the dirty grey water.

  ‘That’s what you get for being a yes-man,’ Ronin says with a smirk.

  We make our way through the long pipe and into some kind of tunnel system which runs under the club. The tunnel smells like a portable toilet at a rock festival. All things considered, the smell of faeces is preferable to the smell of death. Still, I can’t keep from vomiting into the grey water which is ankle-deep in the pipe.

  The sun is injecting daylight into the veins of the city as Ronin and I finally scramble out of a manhole several blocks away from the Flesh Palace. We make our way through the streets and back toward the Cortina. We get close and peer around the corner. Several black vans are parked outside the entrance.

  ‘MK6,’ Ronin whispers.

  ‘Let’s go ask Tone if he’s found Esmé or Obambo,’ I say, moving forward. Ronin shoots out his arm and pushes me against the wall. ‘Tone’s not there,’ he says. ‘It’s Mirth. With Sabian Dober, the head of the Murder.’

  Dr Kobus Basson

  32 Riker Place Business Park