Cemetery Planet: The Complete Series (17 page)

3.

The journey went slowly. Down, down, down. Hundreds of walking dead clogging the route made the going cumbersome and tedious. The thing inside Broders commanded a group of a dozen or so who seemed to have full control of their hosts. Lea was one of them, or the maggot inhabiting her corpse. He kept forgetting that. Even seeing her in such a horrifically semi-restored state, it was so easy for him to forget.

He had no time to contemplate any of this. Once they passed through the service basement, Harvey had to catch his breath at the surprise he found.

Massive construction. Tunneling. Building. Work on a scale unlike anything Harvey had seen. And to think, it was all right under his feet. Flooding the corridors were untold numbers of rancid, listless, wandering corpses. Alive but not alive. Dead but not dead. The stench was unbelievable. Worse was the overwhelming and terrible sense of callousness, uncaring evil. Pure. Unrestrained. Unrelenting. The sensations Harvey perceived flung him into a state bordering on madness.

Harvey laughed at what Broders had said earlier, when he was a spirit and not a possessed fiend. Broders had once called the Unspeakable Ones devils, and Harvey now found that quaint. He suddenly found the whole concept of heaven and hell quaint. These things—they weren’t devils. They were worse.

As he had these thoughts, the titular leader of the group—the monster inhabiting Broders—halted unexpectedly, turned, and faced Harvey.

“You think you know who we are?”

Harvey’s veins coursed with apprehension. Did this thing just read his mind?

“Answer me, human. Do you think you know who we are?”

Harvey hesitated. The looks of malice were nothing compared to the barrage of mental anguish pouring into his brain.

“You…you’re the Unspeakable Ones.”

An outburst of disgust, both externally as well as psychologically, sent him reeling. He wanted to hide in some benign bower in his imagination, some shady shelter safe from the probing mental tentacles of these terrible creatures. Their hold on him was complete, and no matter how he struggled, no matter how much he tried to resist, he couldn’t get away.

“Do NOT say that!” the leader was aflame with rage, pointing a bony, still somewhat moldy finger in Harvey’s face. “That is NOT our name! It’s a repugnant label given to us by a repugnant species,” it squinted, its stale breath stinging Harvey’s senses. “You want to know our name? Our real name?”

Another outburst, only this one more jovial, though no less malignant. The mood from the dozen or so undead monsters surrounding Harvey took a decidedly disturbing turn, with Broders, or the cruel being inside of him, leading the charge. It opened its mouth to speak, only words didn’t come out. Not words Harvey had ever heard. The sound could have been a language, though if it was, it had to be the single most intolerable language in creation.

Screeching, discordant and unnatural. It was more than mere sound. It was the combination of articulations which, when merged together in sequence, produced an effect inside Harvey’s ear that he could only describe as excruciating. He reached to cover his head. His captors subdued even that movement, forcing the tormenting syllables onto him. Jerking, thrashing, struggling with all his might. Nothing could postpone the agony. And when it was finished, when the monster completed its sadistic phrase, Harvey’s cochlear nerves were left ringing and popping. He felt blood and thought he would be rendered deaf.

4.

After the Unspeakable Ones got their fill of depraved entertainment from Harvey, the trek continued, down an endless, winding slope, until the sounds of industry numbed him from the inside out.

At the bottom, finally, where the air was dense and the stone walls dripped, he saw conveyers. A system of transport on a truly global scale. Tantalized, Harvey imagined the complexity of this mammoth operation, the planning and engineering, the brains brawn it must have taken. Staggering. He knew the purpose. He saw why this intricate system was ultimately built. At that moment he didn’t care. The tinkerer inside wouldn’t stop marveling.

But something seemed amiss. The expanding leviathan of tracks and trusses, interconnected and intertwined like amusement rides, was running only partially. A whole swath of rollers, a main artery through which most of the exhumed skeletons passed, sat nonoperational. Suddenly the Broders parasite stopped and gestured at a giant electric motor.

“We had a breakdown,” it said. “Fix it.”

It was a relic that looked like a legless elephant, only more pitiful. Centuries-old technology. Probably a centuries-old machine. Age seeped from its flange seals and from the rusty helical drums housing the great, spinning gears.

“Why me?” he was confused. “You built it. Can’t you fix it?”

The thing controlling Broders evinced its impatience with a contorted scowl. Harvey could tell it was still struggling to control the minute muscles in the face.

“The androids built this cumbersome contraption for us,” it said. “And the androids were built by humans. Imperfect humans, imperfect machines.”

Harvey’s emotions raged internally. He’d been told by the ghosts of the planet that DeepSix was complicit in this sordid affair. He just didn’t want to believe. They were cheap sonsabitches. That much was undeniable. Were they evil enough to nurture a plan that saw the conquest of the galaxy by the most insidious beings ever known?

“DeepSix? They did this?” he gulped down his terror.

“And you work for DeepSix,” the parasite inside Broders confirmed. “That means you work for us. Repair the machine. Now.”

Harvey had to comply. His new overlords, the Unspeakable Ones, made him an offer he couldn’t refuse. He had no choice, and got right to work, though he made sure the work went slowly.

He took no time at all identifying the problem. Immediately after removing the motor’s access panel, he recognized a simple undervoltage issue. A five minute job, tops.

He needed to stall for time. Time to think, come up with an idea, some kind of way to make it difficult for the Unspeakable Ones, slow them down if nothing else.

“Uh, we got a problem,” he said. “This one’s a total overhaul. I’m gonna need parts and tools…probably things you don’t have.”

“Nonsense,” Broders stood over him. “The androids will provide all the materials you need.”

At those words, three cyborgs marched forward carrying large bins, all of which overflowed with supplies. And behind those there were several others burdened with even more parts. Kinetic wrenches and prosthetic pliers and actinic cutting torches. Electronic diagnostics and overhaul kits. Gaskets and gearboxes and rollers and bushings and bearings. They’d thought of everything.

Though he should have been crestfallen, Harvey didn’t skip a beat, directing the cyborgs to his newly established work area and ordering them to give an inventory of the tools and parts. Another stalling tactic. It also gave him a diversion from the ghastly scenes all around him. He didn’t want to look. Didn’t want to think about it. He only wanted more time, and kept up the charade as long as he could, selecting a wrench and then climbing under the motor.
Clink, clank!
He made noises banging the wrench, then climbed out from under the motor to start the process over again.

This ritual he performed several times. Every second, he scoured his intelligence for some kind of insight, some creative solution. But a solution proved elusive, and he found the only way he could expiate his guilt for his lack of action was inaction. And by inaction, he really was acting. By doing nothing, he was doing something. He was slowing these monsters down, keeping them from executing their terrible endeavor. Even one second counted. Each second he delayed was one more second the free species of the galaxy got to live.

Harvey stalled for over an hour in this fashion, feigning a major repair job when, in actuality, he was really making it worse, tearing apart critical valves and ensuring the motor would malfunction even after the voltage problem was repaired. He would have continued forever if not for one disturbing thing. Lea. Her reconstituted, parasite-infected corpse studied him closely. The dullness in her gaze ensured him it wasn’t his Lea. Yet something was there. Something he swore he noticed earlier, in his living quarters, just before he was accosted by the undead droves. Though cold and stoic like the others, a hint of a grin frolicked on her lips, and, just then, he received a message from her.

She, or it, didn’t seem to mind his attempts at subterfuge, and only stood there when it could have done something about it. Unfortunately, the parasite inside Broders did do something.

“What is this?” it inspected his work. “You aren’t playing games with us, are you, human?”

Harvey knew he had no power to do anything else. His plans destroyed, he decided to undo his attempts at sabotage and just finish the job.

An audible roar of approval issued forth when Harvey started the motor. Then a different, even greater clamor overrode the macabre celebration. With a thundering creak and groan, the gigantic conveyer mechanism roared to life.

Not until that moment did Harvey allow himself to recognize what was on the massive contraption. Bodies, lined end to end. The underground tunnel spread to infinity. So large, it made him dizzy. And the bodies. They simply kept coming. Not much more than withered bones wrapped in rotten suits and gowns, they rolled on and on, heading to the final destination. And the final destination, when Harvey laid his eyes on it for the first time, shocked him into such a catatonic state, all he could do was stare.

On another conveyer, lined up like sausages, were slime-coated, wriggling larvae, mandibles clacking and clicking, sickeningly plump abdomens pulsing with anticipation. Just like the procession of human remains, the line of slithery worms trailed into infinity. From multiple directions came multiple belts, carrying countless corpses and maggots, all converging at one central nexus.

5.

When the ghost of Kip Broders had first told him about evil worms invading and using dead human corpses as host bodies, Harvey pushed the images out of his mind. He never wanted to believe it, let alone see it. Now he would see. Now he would believe.

At the junction of several conveyers, worms and human bodies were paired together on one, primary moving platform. This was where the most gruesome, most revolting process occurred. The culmination of the entire operation started to take shape in front of his eyes, and he shuddered with terror as he watched.

A maggot was deposited in close proximity to a corpse. A skeleton, really. Some bones broken from the feet. A pinky and a thumb missing from the left hand. An eternal, toothless grin on the weathered cranium. How life could have been brought back to this bag of bones he’d never understand. Soon he would understand.

The larva, as big as a man’s middle finger, wriggled and writhed toward the skinless skull. Slowly, purposely, it undulated in its flabby pellicle, its gnarled mouthpieces clicking in feverish anticipation. Harvey detected joy from the Unspeakable Ones gathered in the underground factory, a palpable sense of reuniting, of reconnection. This was as human as the Unspeakable Ones would get, though. Harvey knew their kindhearted camaraderie only went so far. But he couldn’t deny they took care of their own.

The giant maggot unleashed a sheath of slime, adhering to the skull, climbing past the jawbone into the small opening where an ear should have been. Harvey’s stomach turned at the disgusting creature’s every despicable undulation. Yet, try as he might, he couldn’t look away. It was bizarre. It was repulsive. And it drew him in. He struggled with his cognitive dissonance. On one hand he had never been so repulsed. On the other, never so intrigued.

Once the worm entered the brain cavity, the conveyers quaked and the body was transferred to another set of conveyers running parallel with the original. These mechanisms took the skeleton to an area with countless holding bins, receptacles stacked neatly and cleanly, shaped roughly in human form. There, rather gently, the machines placed the body into one of the receptacles. And then an amazing thing occurred.

A milky fluid drained into the receptacle, flooding the human-shaped shallow depressions where the bones were waiting. The fluid seemed to cause an instant chemical reaction. Steam rising. Crackling and popping like an old-time skillet. Harvey never would have believed if he hadn’t seen it with his own eyes. Even then he wasn’t one hundred percent positive. He must have gone mad. How would he otherwise explain seeing the moisture permeate the bones, transforming them from a drab, flaky gray to bright and white and new?

That wasn’t all.

Muscle tissue, striated and sinewy, began to take shape. Then a heart, liver, lungs, stomach and intestines. He wasn’t an expert at anatomy, and the grimy, disintegrating clothes concealed most of the activity, but he was certain every organ was there, present and accounted for. Developing, forming, becoming real as if by some sort of magic spell.

“You said DeepSix built this?” he asked the alien controlling Broders. “Humans don’t have this kind of technology.”

“What you see before you is of our design,” the thing inside Broders kept its eyes on the former stack of bones, though far from a finished product, as it took on the characteristics of a living human. “We gave them the design diagrams, all the technology advancements to build the machine. And, as you can see, your human friends couldn’t even get that right.”

As it spoke, the reconstituting body began developing flesh. Dark skin stretching over exposed bone. But not everywhere. The process slowed to a crawl, as if the program was imperfect. Large swaths of exposed soft tissue, tender redness and moist muscle. And that was just the one directly in front of Harvey. Others were worse. Some hadn’t developed much past the skeleton stage before the transformation back to a fully-formed body ceased. 

“Inept humans,” the thing growled. “This is not how we envisioned our rebirth, but it will have to do…for now.”

Harvey perceived motion from the body he’d been observing. A spark, a vibration, and the half-formed lips quivered. The emaciated fingers twitched. The chest underneath the dust-covered suit jacket rose and fell. Harvey heard a deep gurgle and an unsteady groan as the body took its first breath in hundreds of years.

His own flesh crawled watching the sudden gift of life with one cadaver after the other. Only they weren’t cadavers any more.  They were living corpses. Barely alive. So fragile and tenuous was their existence that each and every one of them had to be helped out of the receptacles. Once their shaky feet hit the floor, it became obvious the transformation process had just begun. More flesh to be grown, more bone concealed. The sight of these unfinished beings, wobbling and stumbling like the elderly in the severe twilight of life, lit a smoldering revulsion deep within Harvey. So many of them in various states of decomposition—twitching and flexing fibrous muscles and veins—and so many others without any tissue at all—mostly skeletons—all coming to life.

The numbers didn’t register. He simply refused to see it, and if he didn’t see it, it didn’t exist. Yet it did exist. One corpse after the next, infused with just enough life-giving fluid to restore what once had been worn away, crushed to dust by the cruel fists of time.

To his left and his right, ahead and behind, conveyer after conveyer, rolling, creaking, rumbling from every point on the compass. A virtual maze. On some belts hundreds, thousands of skeletal remains. On others the larvae. And he was in the center of it all. Witnessing the horrific invasion, watching maggot upon maggot enter skull upon skull.

He wanted to vomit, yet had nothing in his gut to heave. He wanted to be anywhere but there, in a place a million times more torturous than Tartarus. He couldn’t take the morbid sights. The putrid smells. No one was watching him. The cyborgs and the Unspeakable Ones were all inspecting the insidious operation. So he had made his getaway.

In a move born out of desperation and delirium, he burst off, triggering a furious chase. The alarm sounded almost immediately. Harsh lights and piercing tones. Covering his ears in the wake of the sonic barrage, he ducked under the lowest conveyer, dropping flat on his stomach and rolling into a narrow gap. The fury grew greater. The drive to catch him increased. His head buzzed with the hostile language of the Unspeakable Ones. These creatures were vile in every conceivable way, and they weren’t going to rest until Harvey was dead.

He must have set a record for speed on hands and knees. He swore he did. Navigating the vacuum lines, straddling junction boxes, negotiating track struts. He moved so fast on account of one fortuitous reason—the machines, as the Broders parasite had told him, were designed by humans. It gave him a decided advantage, and he located a hiding place quickly, inside a cooling fan housing, which had just enough clearance. He waited there for a brief time. The search party kept moving. He heard heavy footfalls and belabored shouts, along with his own hammering pulse.

The fan, its giant blades spinning in a blur, wobbled slightly. Poor counterbalances resulted in an oblique rotation, causing a slight
thump-thump-thump
as the rotor turned. In those revolutions, Harvey had a revelation, and he hit himself for not thinking of it sooner. The cooling fans had bearing housings which could be drained of lubricant easily. He did just that—and watched the fans grind to a stop.

Almost instantly the great motor sputtered great tufts of black smoke. Harvey covered his mouth and nose, snapping into motion, hurrying to the next set of fans, and disabling the cooling systems one by one. Before he knew it, he had seven fans shut down, and seven gigantic motors sputtering toxic fumes.

The abrupt halt in the line represented a small section of the greater mechanism. But that was all Harvey needed for a gigantic mess to develop. The stalled belt soon backed up with corpses, bones mixing and tangling with other bones. The meticulous arrangements were sullied in the pileup, and it was getting worse by the second. Cyborgs rushed to mitigate the damage. The place erupted in chaos, a perfect situation for Harvey’s escape.

The tightly-constricted spaces he circumnavigated ensured him no cyborgs could follow as he made his way deeper into the mechanical goliath’s substructure. A sophisticated network only few would have been able to travel. Harvey, having been trained on such equipment, knew the intricacies of the machines. Knew just where to go, just when and where to hide. He sneaked through areas with less cover when he knew the coast was clear, and then waited, hiding with bated breath as Cyborgs
clank-clank-clank
went by only centimeters from his head.