Gord Zajac - Major Karnage

A stun stick came plunging down into Karnage’s vision. Karnage’s free hand whipped up and grabbed the wrist that was holding it. A quick twist snapped it. Somewhere outside of his vision a man screamed. A second stun stick came thrusting in after the first. Karnage adjusted his grip so he held both the broken wrist and the accompanying stun stick and swung it around to meet the second one barrelling towards him. The metal tines of both sticks struck naked flesh. Hot sizzling and the stench of ozone filled Karnage’s nostrils. Two sets of screams filled his ears. Somewhere deep in his vocal chords, a guttural primal laugh flowed up and out and reverberated throughout the room.

The two Dabneycops fell to the floor. Huang was pressed against the two-way mirror, clutching the binder to his chest. Karnage grabbed his remaining restraints and ripped them open with his free hand.

“Don’t talk to me about The War!”

Karnage tossed the table out of his way and charged Huang. Huang pressed himself against the two-way mirror, screaming. Karnage’s fingers wrapped around Huang’s throat. He slammed Huang’s head against the mirror. The mirror sprouted a spiral of jagged spiderweb cracks starting from the back of Huang’s head.

“You want to talk to me about The War?” Karnage hissed. “I’ll tell you about—”

The door behind Karnage burst open. Boots stomped into the room. A familiar voice shouted, “Karnage!”

Karnage turned around. There, standing in front of a line of Dabneycops, was Riggs. His tall, lanky frame had filled out. His hair was grey and pulled back in a ponytail. Crow’s feet had sprung up around the eyes. But there was no mistaking those eyes. It was him.

“Riggs?” Karnage stared at his former sergeant. His fist stayed closed around Huang’s throat.

“Mercy,” Huang weakly clawed at Karnage’s tightened fist. “Please…”

A Dabneycop beside Riggs cocked his rifle. “Let the doctor go or we will be forced to open fire!”

“Negative!” Riggs pushed the Dabneycop’s rifle down. “Nobody fires until I give the order! Do I make myself clear, Murtaugh?”

“That’s not how Sydney would have us play it, sir.”

“Sydney’s not in charge here!”

“We found your dog tags. Half-melted, lost in that sea of rubble. How could you…?” Karnage’s fists clenched tighter around Huang’s throat. Huang gasped in his grip. Karnage growled: “You ran. You got scared and you turned tail and ran! Riggs The Roach. Always comin’ out okay! Always! Right up until the end. Right up until the goddamn end!”

“John—”

“We were counting on you to hold your position. When we came back, there was nothing there but a pile of smoking rubble. Nobody to meet us but Uncle Stanley. They came outta the hills like hornets, Riggs. Like a goddamn swarm! We thought for sure you were dead. The Roach had finally been crushed. We shed tears for you, you asshole. We shed goddamn tears!”

“I can explain—”

“You left us behind!” Karnage’s fists tightened around Huang’s neck.

“John, you’re killing Huang!”

“You left us, Riggs. YOU LEFT US!” Karnage dropped Huang and lunged at Riggs.

Murtaugh levelled his weapon. “Open fire!”

“NO!”

Riggs’s cry was drowned out by the pop-pop-pop of automatic weapons fire. The rounds slammed Karnage in the chest, throwing him into the cracked mirror. It shattered. Karnage fell through. He landed in a tumble of desks and screams on the other side.

The wounds in his chest went from hot to cold. Karnage looked down. Brightly glowing ping pong balls covered his chest. Tranquilizers , Karnage thought. The icy coolness spread from his chest to his limbs. He lost consciousness.

Karnage woke in a holding cell. Its thick metal bars were covered in barbed wire. Blue sparks danced and crackled from the wire to the bars. He stood up.

“Where the hell am I?”

A monitor on the wall behind him came to life. A DC logo splashed across the screen. Dabby Tabby bounced onto the screen and leaned against the logo. He was decked out in an orange prison jumpsuit. His ankle sported a ball and chain. A gentle, female voice wafted from the screen.

“Welcome to the Dabney Correctional Executive Class Hospitality Centre. We hope your stay with us is a pleasant one. Please enjoy these pastoral images and soothing mood music while you await trial and sentencing. And remember—at Dabney Correctional, we believe everyone is innocent until proven guilty. And it shows.”

Treacly music blasted from the walls and ceiling. Karnage clamped his hands over his ears. The music vibrated through his body and threatened to shake the fillings from his teeth. It was unbearable. “Jesus Christ!”

The gentle female voice returned, now at a much higher decibel. “Rather than use offensive language to express yourself, try to articulate what you’re feeling.” Dabby Tabby unrolled a list of words on the screen. “Please feel free to use this vocabulary of handy alternatives to many common expletives.”

“You want vocabulary? How’s this? Shut up, you fucking fuckknuckle!”

“Rather than use offensive language to express yourself, try to—”

Karnage screamed in frustration and kicked the wall. His neck buzzed. “Warning. Sanity Level upgraded to Frothy Cream. Please refrain from violent—”

“Goddammit! What do I have to do to get you cheery bastards to shut the fuck up?!”

A voice shouted to him over the noise. “I can’t help you with that voice in your neck, but I can get that music to stop for you.”

“Who the hell said that?” Karnage whipped around. A grizzled old man in an orange jumpsuit sat in the cell across from his. A pair of reading glasses sat perched on his nose. He held a tattered paperback in his right hand. His left hand ended in a stump. He pointed to the monitor with his stump.

“Tell it you’re hungry,” he said. “It gives you a fork you can use to short the system.”

Karnage did. A tray popped out of the wall. A bowl full of steamy grey pulp was bolted to the middle of the tray. A fork lay beside it. Karnage picked up the fork.

“It’s attached to the tray with a cable.”

“Don’t worry about that,” the old man said. “Just bend up the tines and jam it under the bowl. On the other side. You want it to get jammed up inside the wall when the tray retracts.”

“How’s that?”

“Perfect.”

“What now?”

“Empty the bowl.”

Karnage eyed the oily grey slop. “I ain’t eatin’ that shit.”

“I don’t blame you,” the old man said. “It tastes worse than it looks. Like ground-up cardboard soaked in bacon grease. There’s enough sedatives and hypnodrugs in there to kill an elephant. Scoop it out and dump it in the toilet. But don’t spill any. The sensors in the floor call the cleaning staff when it’s dirty.”

Karnage scooped out the gooey grey mush with his hands, and dumped it into the toilet. It was so heavily laced with narcotics it made his skin tingle. Once the bowl was empty, the tray retracted. The fork’s bent handle slid under the rim of the wall with a satisfying thwock . The tray seamlessly disappeared into the wall. The music kept playing.“It didn’t work!” Karnage said.

“Yes, it did,” the old man said.

“Then why the fuck can I still hear music?!”

“Tell it you’re hungry again,” the old man said.

Karnage did. The edge of the tray appeared in the wall, then stuck. Somewhere inside the wall, gears ground. Engines whined. Karnage caught the faint scent of burning plastic. Something inside the wall snapped. The tray shot forward an inch, then sagged back, its bottom edge sticking out from the wall. The music stopped. The monitor flashed blue. Three red Dabby Tabby heads appeared on the screen.