Gord Zajac - Major Karnage

Karnage gazed out at the landscape. “This all used to be trees, Stumpy. Pine and cedar and shit. And now… now there ain’t even stumps. It’s all so different. So…” A chill ran down Karnage’s spine. “… alien. ”

There was an ear splitting bang, and the car lurched forward.

Karnage braced himself against the dashboard. “What the hell’d we hit?!”

“I don’t know!”

There was another bang, and the back of the car pitched upward. Stumpy pointed his stump behind them. “It’s comin’ from the trunk!”

“I think our passenger is finally awake,” Karnage said.

The rear of the car lurched again and slammed into the ground hard. Yellow gas spewed from the driver’s side.

“We got a flat!” Stumpy slammed on the brakes and pulled the cruiser over. The banging and lurching got worse.

They got out of the car and inspected the damage. A crack had formed in one of the hoverballs. Yellow smoke spewed from the crack. The car lurched again, and the ball slammed into the ground. Another crack appeared.

Stumpy shook his head. “If she keeps this up, we won’t have a ball left to float on!”

“Can you fix it?”

Stumpy ran his fingers along the cracks. “I think so. Grab me a goober rifle.”

Karnage fished a goober rifle out of the back seat. Stumpy took the rifle, and cracked it open.

“What are you doing?”

“Breakin’ the seals. Kills the pressure from the nozzle. It gets messy, but it should work.” Stumpy snapped the rifle back together. He pulled the trigger. Half-hearted spurts of goober oozed from the nozzle. Stumpy placed the nozzle against the hoverball and ran it down the crack, leaving a line of goober in its wake that swelled and filled the crack. The yellow smoke thinned out to a fine trickle. Stumpy tossed the goober rifle to the ground as it was slowly engulfed in the pink stuff oozing from its seams. He patted the hoverball.

“That should hold us for a while. Should be enough to get us to Camp Bailey, anyway, so long as our passenger doesn’t screw things up.”

The car lurched again.

“It doesn’t sound like she’s gonna be all that cooperative.” Karnage fished another goober rifle out of the backseat. He turned to Stumpy. “Get behind the wheel. When I give you the signal, pop the trunk.”

Stumpy eyed the rifle. “What are you going to do?”

Karnage switched off the rifle’s safety. “I’m gonna reason with her.”

Karnage stood in front of the trunk, goober rifle at the ready. He signalled to Stumpy. Stumpy popped the trunk. The lid flew open and the duffel bag launched itself into the air. It crashed into Karnage, knocking him to the ground. Karnage rolled out from underneath it and scrambled to his feet. He pinned the gyrating bag with the butt of his rifle. The bag writhed under the rifle like an angry snake, trying to wiggle free. Karnage reached forward and unzipped the bag. Sydney’s tousled head burst out. Her face was red. Her eyes shot daggers at Karnage. Her mouth was covered with a strip of duct tape. It flexed in and out as she let loose an angry tirade of muffled curses that would have made Velasquez proud. Karnage waited until she had exhausted her expansive vocabulary, then saluted. “Evening, Captain.”

Sydney glared at Karnage, her eyes full of hate.

“I apologize for the bumpy ride,” he said. “I’ll admit this ain’t exactly the sort of treatment suited to an officer of your calibre, but it’s the best we could do under the circumstances. We should be far enough from the enemy that your gag won’t be necessary. If I may, Captain?”

Sydney stared at Karnage with a cold, burning hate. Karnage took that for assent. He grabbed the corner of the duct tape, and ripped it off with a quick snap. Sydney’s teeth grazed his knuckles as he pulled his hand clear. The clack of her teeth snapping shut echoed across the desert.

“Easy there, Captain. You nearly took my hand off.”

“Sorry,” Sydney said. “I won’t miss next time.”

Karnage nodded. “Good. Either do the job right the first time or don’t do it at all. Sometimes you don’t get a second chance.”

Sydney scowled. “You know, taking me hostage was probably the stupidest thing you could possibly have done.”

“Hostage? Oh, no. You ain’t no hostage. Not by a long shot. You’re a POW, with all the inherent rights and privileges therein. And as for me bein’ stupid, from what I’ve seen you’re probably the only Dabneycop with even half a chance of bringin’ me in. So long as I keep you with me, you can’t be plannin’ any nasty surprises for me and Stumpy here. This way I know exactly where you are and what you’re up to.”

“Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“If you like.”

“Well, I’m not. You’ll find I’m very hard to hold onto.”

Karnage smiled. “You’re angry. I get that. Mad. Pissed off. Hopin’ to cause me a lot o’ trouble as soon as you’re able.”

“You got that right.”

“And you understand o’ course why I can’t let that happen.”

“And what do you plan on doing about it?”

“Well, I could just knock you cold with the butt o’ my rifle here. But I thought I’d give you a choice first. See if you’d be willin’ to keep your temper.”

“I’m sorry, are you asking me to behave myself?”

“I am,” Karnage said. “Only until we get to our destination. Then you can jump up and down and scream and holler, and raise any kind o’ holy hell you like.”

“And where are you going?”

“Camp Bailey.”

Sydney furrowed her eyebrows. “Camp Bailey? Why the hell would you go there?”

“Stumpy and I are gonna fire up the Godmaster Array and stir up some shit. Ain’t that right, Corporal?”

Stumpy saluted. “Sir, yes, sir!”

Sydney looked incredulously from one to the other. “You can’t be serious. Do you have any idea what’s waiting for you out there? No, of course not. If you did, you wouldn’t even be thinking of trying something so damn stupid.”

“Why? What’s out there?”

“The Church of Spragmos.”

Stumpy fell back against the car with a loud thud. “Sweet Christ, say it ain’t so.”

“It’s so. It’s beyond so. It couldn’t be more so. It’s the biggest so in the whole damn universe, that’s how so it is.”

Stumpy slid down the car. “Fuck me running…”

Karnage turned from one to the other. “Wait a minute. Hold on here. The Church of what ?!”

“The Church of Spragmos,” Sydney said.

“Spragmos… you mean like the gun manufacturer?!”

“That’s right.”

“What the fuck do they worship? Guns?”

“No,” Sydney said.

“They worship… The Worm.” Stumpy was clutching his arms to his sides.

“Okay, so they worship a worm.”

“Not a worm,” Sydney said. “ The Worm.”

“All right. The Worm. What the hell difference does it make?”

Sydney stared at Karnage. “You really don’t know, do you?”

“No, I do not fucking know. I spent the last twenty years locked up in a goddamn insane asylum. There is a lot I do not know. Now quit starin’ at me like I got monkeys growin’ outta my ears and tell me just what is so goddamn frightening about this goddamn worm!”

“There’s not much to tell,” Sydney said. “Nobody knows where it came from. But it’s real. And it’s dangerous.”

“How dangerous?” Karnage asked.

“Dangerous enough that we stopped sending troops out to the base because they weren’t coming back.”

“So you just let those bastards dig in and grow stronger, while you hole up in your office suckin’ yer thumb, hopin’ they go away?!”

“You think I didn’t try?! I filed thirty different requests for counter-terrorism support! Those bastards left me twisting in the wind! You tell me what I was supposed to—”