Bill 5 - on the Planet of Zombie Vampires (16 page)

“Got to get Slasher. Be back quick.”

“Look for the screens over there, too,” called Rambette, checking her flamethrower. “I've had enough of this place. I wish I was anyplace else but here, like in some bar, sipping Galactic Garglers with a good friend. Drunk with one drink — stone dead with two.”

“Sounds great,” Bill lied as they started combing through the stacked supplies. They found about a thousand cases marked dehydrated toilet paper, but no screens.

“Whoa!” called Bruiser. “Look at dat!”

“Did you find the screens?” asked Bill as he and Rambette hurried across to the spot where Bruiser was on his knees looking down into something.

“Not here. Found Slasher,” said Bruiser. “And dis.”

It was a huge hole in the metal floor, its edges eaten away by what could only have been alien acid. An enormous orange-fur-littered tunnel led from the opening into the darkness below.

“I don't think the screens are down there,” said Rambette. “It looks like it might go all the way back down to the pod cavern.”

“I'm not going to be the one to check it out,” said Bruiser. “Hey! What's dat?”

“Something's moving down there,” cried Rambette. “Something impossibly large and covered with orange fur and ichor.”

“I think we're going to meet mother,” moaned Bill. “And I don't think she'll be happy that we've been killing her kids.”

The monstrous mother monster, menacingly malignant, rose slowly out of the hole. With terrible certainty, a gigantic clawed hand, twice as large as Bruiser, gripped the edge of the floor. Then a second hand appeared, and a third, followed by her immense sloping head, its multiple rows of pointed teeth clashing and gnashing as she drooled noxious ichor and breathed in and out with a terrible reverberating rasping sound that, like one coffin being dragged across another, sent a cold chill up Bill's back.

He started backing away as the creature continued to pull itself out onto the supply dock. The mother towered high over the three Troopers, grunting and hissing as it freed first one enormous leg and then the other. And the other. And two more. Its huge tail swung out and barely missed pounding Bruiser into an unrecognizable splotch.

“Run!” suggested Bill.

“Toss da grenades!” shouted Bruiser.

“Take the mother out!” cried Rambette.

“This way!” yelled Bill, who had already opted for running instead of fighting and was headed full-tilt toward the part of the supply dock that was the most crowded with boxes and crates. “If we hide, maybe she won't be able to find us.”

“Clear thinking,” cried Rambette. “Come on, Bruiser. Let's follow Bill.”

“Can't I just — Yeow! — dat was too close. I t'ink maybe you right!”

The trio ducked behind a stack of packing crates each bearing the label TOILET PAPER, DEHYDRATED, 10,000 ROLLS, ADD WATER AND STEP BACK. Bill fervently hoped they hadn't been shipped by mistake instead of the screens. This kind of thing happened far too often.

The malevolent beast was tromping and crashing around the supply dock, roaring and dripping ichor. Its spiked tail swung in a wide and murderous arc, pulverizing anything it crashed into. The creature seemed to be moving randomly, pushing crates aside as though they weighed nothing at all. Then it paused, rotated its enormous head slowly, and stared right at the humans' hiding place.

“Gonna get it!” cried Bruiser, tossing two grenades. “Turn you into green hamburger!”

Bill hit the deck to avoid the fragments. The grenades exploded with a tumultuous roar. “Did we get her?” he asked, his face on the floor. “Did it tear her apart?”

“Not all,” said Bruiser. “Nicked couple of places, dat's all. Maybe oozing bit more. If we had couple thousand grenades, do okay — Wow! — here dat t'ing comes!”

“I'll back her up with the flamethrower!” yelled Rambette. “Bruiser, cover me! Bill, get that forklift over there!”

“You want me to fight this alien with a forklift?” asked Bill. “You out of your teeny-tiny? You been into the spores again?”

“Do you see any battle-tanks around here?” sneered Rambette. “We've got to go with what we've got. Move, bowb-brain!”

Bill glanced over his shoulder as he ran for the forklift, his elephant foot leaving dents in the floor. The alien mother was awash with fire as both Bruiser and Rambette had their weapons on maximum strength. The creature was a towering inferno, but except for being bathed in flames, it seemed little the worse for wear. It wasn't combustible like the other giant aliens. But it was certainly angry, and roared at earsplitting volume while it thrashed around violently.

Bill leaped on the forklift, started it and put it in gear. The nearest thing even remotely resembling a weapon was a pile of steel girders, so he picked a few up and angled them out like spears.

“Get her, Bill,” cried Bruiser. “Hurry! She's gaining on us.”

Bill figured there was a slightly faint and very remote chance he might be able to force the creature back into the hole. If he did that, they could maybe close it up with the grenades. It wouldn't hold her long, but it might buy them enough time to find the screens and get out of this death trap. He headed toward the alien, shifting into high gear. It all sounded very iffy — but there was no other choice.

“Dat's it, Trooper,” cried Bruiser as Bill crashed into the mother monster with a Bill-bruising jolt. “I fry and you push.”

“Over here,” shouted Rambette. “I found the screens.”

“Dat's it, Bill,” said Bruiser, backing away. “You push — and I'll help Rambette with da screens.”

Bill had serious reservations about this recent modification of his careful plan. He was not happy being a steel-girder length away from the killer creature without a lot of firepower backing him up.

The creature, still smoldering and screaming with pain, or bad temper, or both, weaved and dodged like a punch-drunk prizefighter. It slipped around to one side of the girders and almost had Bill by the throat when he spun the forklift hard and blindsided the beast, toppling her to her multiple knees. He slammed into reverse gear and backed off, preparing for another futile attack.

“We got 'em, Bill,” shouted Rambette. “Come on!”

He didn't need to be told twice. Bill dropped the girders, hit the throttle with all the weight his elephant foot could manage and went screeching toward the door, crashing through the gear box and laying a smoking track of burning rubber behind him. As he got to the door, he slammed on the brakes, locked the wheels and slid sideways through the opening.

“Did you get your driver's license in a cereal box?” laughed Rambette, stacking grenades in the door opening. Bill and Bruiser frantically loaded the screens on the front of the forklift.

“Here she comes!” cried Rambette, jumping on the back of the forklift with Bruiser. “Hit it!”

Bill grabbed the first forward gear he could find and mashed the throttle again. The monstrous mother alien was almost on them. Rambette sprayed the pile of grenades with her flamethrower and the resulting explosion rocked the corridor and almost lifted the forklift into the air.

“Wow!” cried Bruiser as the dust and forklift settled to the ground. “Dat was close.”

“Is the door blocked?” asked Bill, too busy motoring down the corridor to look back at the debris-clogged doorway.

“I hope so,” said Rambette. “Can't you go any faster?”

“I'm doing the best — Yow!” Bill cranked the steering wheel hard and with twin bumps ran over two aliens. They were the scuttling kind, and his elephant foot started twitching enthusiastically.

“Look up there!” cried Rambette. “They've broken out of the reactor room.”

The area was swarming with orange-furred repellent aliens of all sizes, from the cute little fur-and-feather babies to the Curly-sized stomping uglies. What used to have been the door to the reactor room was a pile of molten slag. Ichor and fur were everywhere as Bill went into a stomach-wrenching four-wheel slide.

“Don't hurt the screens!” cried Rambette, as Bill fought for control of the skidding forklift.

“Yippee!” yelled Bruiser, tossing a grenade into a flock of swarming aliens. “To da left, Rambette! Burn dem!”

A cluster of creatures went up in flames as Rambette sprayed them with liquid fire. It was all pretty revolting. Even as they melted, others scrambled to take their place.

Bruiser threw another grenade and shouted. “Look! Here come da reinforcements!”

“Ours or theirs?” cried Bill hopefully, fighting the wheel.

“Two guesses,” Rambette panted gloomily.

The corridor was filled with gnashing and struggling aliens, clawing their way over each other to get to the fleeing forklift and its edible, spawnable passengers. Bruiser shifted to his flamethrower and sprayed them until it ran out of rocket fuel. He used it to club a few of the nearest creatures back and finally threw it in the face of a Curly-sized one.

“I taking yours,” he cried, grabbing Bill's weapon and blasting a dozen aliens that were trying to climb aboard. “Da docking tube's over dere! Make it quick!”

Bill skidded around the corner and hit the brakes hard, screeching to a stop by the entrance to the docking tube. While he was unfastening his seat belt, Rambette and Bruiser jumped off.

“We've got all kinds of creeping horrors on the silver screens,” cried Rambette. “They're nightmare material for sure!”

About a dozen of the scuttlers were scuttling around on the screens. Bill struggled and danced in circles trying to keep his elephant foot from stomping them, rendering the vitally important screens useless in the process.

“I've got dem!” cried Bruiser happily.

“No grenades!” howled Rambette. “And absolutely no flamethrowers!”

“Just use Slasher,” Bruiser slavered happily, grinning and picking them off one by one, using his axe with a surgeon's precision.

“I got this end,” said Bill, grabbing the screens. “Bruiser, you take the other. Rambette, cover our retreat.”

“You got it, Trooper,” said Rambette, spraying the anteroom with her flamethrower.

Bill lifted his end and led Bruiser up the tube. Rambette tossed a few good-luck grenades to make sure they weren't being followed, while Bruiser leaned out and sprayed the tube ahead with his flamethrower to clear the way. Larry opened the door when they arrived and slammed it tight behind them. The whole crew was gathered in hopeful anticipation.

“Bad out dere,” said Bruiser, soot-faced and sweaty. “But we do wotta Trooper gotta do.”

“Grammatically unsound but commendable,” said Christianson. “But we have been suffering too, you know. The latrines are backed up again.”

“The screens!” cried Uhuru. “About twenty minutes work and we can get out of here. Come on, Larry. Give me a hand.”

“I got the autopilot working,” said Curly as Larry and Uhuru hauled the screens away. “At least I think it's working. It probably is. Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Ichor flashbacks,” whispered Captain Blight. “Sometimes he gets confused.”

“It should be okay,” said Curly. “It'll take us straight to Beta Draconis. Or maybe it'll drop us into a dark star somewhere. But, gee, all a guy can do is try.”

“I'm most interested in the alien situation,” said Caine. “What did you discover?”

“You were right about the mother,” gasped Bill, slumping exhaustedly to the floor. “We met her.”

“Wonderful!” cried Caine. “And you lived to tell me about it. This is fantastic news. My report will be acclaimed on every inhabited planet. I'm back to my future as a renowned scientist. What did she look like?”

“Real big,” said Bruiser.

“Could you possibly quantify that in some detail?” asked Caine. “Real big is hardly scientific. How big is big? Did anyone take measurements?”

“Ugly, too,” said Rambette. “Ugliest alien I've ever seen.”

“Could you possibly define that with just a little more objectivity?” moaned Caine. “I don't believe I can use the word ugly in my paper.”

“Dangerous,” said Bill. “A hard-shelled, multi-legged horror dripping ichor and orange fur all over the place.”

“Did you kill it?” asked Curly anxiously. “Or will I have to worry about it and maybe mess up the autopilot?”

“It didn't look too good the last time I saw it,” said Bill, stretching the truth elastically.

“I really must have more concrete details for my report,” said Caine. “Didn't anybody take measurements?”

“Will you bowb off,” suggested Bill. “We'll catch you up later. If we want to. Let's get the ship out of here first.”

“There is one small problem,” said Tootsie hesitantly. “It's your dog, Barfer.”

“Hey,” said Bill. “Where is he? I don't know why, but for some reason I miss the smelly brute.”

“Well, he missed you too,” said Tootsie. “He really whined and fussed when you went out after the screens.”

“That's my good dog for you,” said Bill. “He knows how much I like him.”

“He's gone,” moaned Tootsie. “Gone.”

“What?” shrieked Bill. “Is he in the okra room?”

“He's in the communication station, Bill,” said Curly. “He got by Larry just after you left, and went down the docking tube. He's out there all alone with all those horrible ichor zombies. Yow!”

“The poor dog's helpless,” moaned Tootsie. “You can't seriously be thinking of leaving him behind.”

“I'm thinking,” said Bill. “Don't rush me. I'm thinking.”

“He depends on you,” said Captain Blight. “Only the lowest form of life would turn his back on a friend.”

“That dog loves you,” said Rambette. “What are you going to do?”

“Fifteen minutes to liftoff,” said Uhuru through the intercom. “If anybody's got anything else to do, they better do it quickly.”

Bill sighed emphatically and took Moe's flamethrower.

“I'll need some more grenades,” groaned Bill, shaking his head at the sheer stupidity of what he was about to do.

“Take my mama's knife,” offered Rambette, suddenly all heart. “It's always been real lucky for me.”

“This might help, too,” said Curly, holding out a box covered with flickering lights.

“What is it?” asked Bill.

“It's a tracking device,” said Caine. “I hope. I designed it myself, and Curly built it out of some kitchen utensils and a couple of old transistors.”