Gord Zajac - Major Karnage

Karnage and Sydney followed it into the room. Once they were through, the lily pad shot strands of light in all directions. They travelled twice as far as the first room, literally disappearing over the invisible horizon. They were barely visible as thread-like strands as they snaked their way up distant walls the height of mountains. The lines eventually disappear behind an ever so slightly mottled ceiling in the distance. Pinpricks of light flickered and danced across the ceiling like stars. They grew larger in size as they slowly descended, finally revealing themselves to be glowing spheres.

The spheres were immense. Each one was many times larger than the biggest ones they had seen in the other room, each one practically a mountain floating unto itself. The dark masses moved down, revealing incredible shapes: great pyramids of crumbling stone; mammoth pointed steeples of a giant cathedral; winding twisting walls that looked like finely carved chunks from the Great Wall of China. Each monument ended in a perfectly smooth scoop of earth that encased its foundations. It was almost too much to take in.

Sydney craned her neck. “It’s like a giant museum.”

“Yeah,” Karnage scowled. “And we’re the exhibits.”

The spheres floated back up as the light drained from the walls. It shot back across the floor and coalesced into a tiny lily pad, bobbing and pulsing before their feet, urging them forward.

They followed into the darkness.

The light led them through another airplane-sized door into another room. This one wasn’t pitch black. There were faint flickerings of green in the distance that highlighted floating orbs. The toxic smell was more pungent in the air, and the white light didn’t launch boldly into the room. It cowered near their feet, before working up the courage to flicker and bob forward. It jumped erratically as it climbed the walls, as if trying to avoid the pulses of green light that occasionally ran through the room.

The light briefly flashed in one of the larger spheres, and the silhouette of the dark blob within was all too familiar to Karnage.

It was a giant horned worm.

“Jesus.”

As the light flitted about, it illuminated other alien objects including myriad squidbugs.

“They’re doing it to us, and they’re doing it to themselves,” Sydney gasped. “But why?”

Karnage twitched with energy. “Maybe this is it,” he said. “Maybe this is what Cookie meant.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Our chance,” he turned to Sydney. “It’s our chance to stop ’em. Look at ’em up there! All lyin’ in them spheres. Sittin’ ducks. Maybe this is where I can stop ’em. Before they wake up. Before they get out!”

“How?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just gotta… I’ve just gotta use my head. Goddammit! What did Cookie mean?”

“What are you talking about? Who’s Cookie?”

“We need a weapon,” Karnage said. “Something big. Something massive. Something that’ll nuke these squidbugs to kingdom come!”

“Maybe we can find something in one of these rooms,” Sydney suggested. “They seem to have everything down here. Maybe we can find something from The War.”

The War!

Karnage’s eyes bugged out of his head. Explosions, bullets, and screams filled his ears.

The War!

He jerked his arms and his handcuffs broke with a loud snap. His mind clouded over with smoke and flames and death.

The War!

Karnage’s fist shot out and grabbed Sydney by the throat. He lifted her off the ground, his fingers squeezing her neck as her gasping face disappeared behind the haze of battle.

“Don’t… talk to me… about THE WAR!”

Sydney strained for breath as Karnage’s tightening grip closed her windpipe. Stars danced before her eyes. “What are you…?” she gasped, but Karnage choked her off. A voice in the back of his neck cheerfully informed her that he had hit Coral Essence.

“You want to talk to me about The War?!” Spittle flew from his mouth and his eyes blazed. “I’ll tell you about—”

Sydney thrust a pinky forward and danced it across Karnage’s arm. Joint by joint, she numbed Karnage into submission: a pinky jeté to his wrist, a thumb glissade to the elbow, followed by an index finger piqué into his neck. Karnage went down like a rag doll. He craned his head toward Sydney. His eyes blazed. Veins popped in his neck as he screamed at the top of his lungs.

“North Uzhorod! 8-8-4-2-1! Uncle Stanley had us on the run!”

The voice in the back of Karnage’s neck hit Frosty Pink as his voice echoed through the cavernous room. The green glow above them became brighter. The bits of white retreated from the spheres, and the green chased after them. The lines of white shot down the walls with torrents of green streaking after them. The white light retreated beneath their feet, as if trying to hide itself. The green streaks fired through on all sides and obliterated the white completely. The floor went black, and the only light was the agitated green among the spheres, flickering across them like lightning. The green lights pulsed brighter, and the spheres started to lower. The dark shapes within moved in time with Karnage’s cries.

“Blood and brains flew in all directions! Those monkeyfuckin’ skerks used our own people for cover! Those merciless bastards!”

The voice at his neck hit Strawberry Shortcake.

“Major!” Sydney shouted. “You have to shut up!”

“Snipers to the right of us! Snipers to the left of us! Snipers all around us! DIE DIE DIE!”

“THAT’S IT!” Sydney performed a grand jetée into Karnage’s ear lobe and he dropped unconscious, his head drooping against his chest. She heard something shatter above her and tiny bits of sphere showered the floor.

She swung Karnage’s body over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry. The broken handcuff bracelet around Karnage’s wrist glinted in a quick flash of green. She ground her teeth. Fucking E-nium .

She turned to run back through the door. A lightning bolt of green flashed down the wall and hit the door. It spiralled shut instantly.

“NO!”

Something clattered to the ground behind her. She turned around. A squidbug was charging towards her, its skin flashing deep crimson. She drew her goober pistol and fired. The shot hit the squidbug in the chest, knocking it onto its back. Its limbs flailed futilely as the goober swelled, sticking it fast to the floor. Sydney heard another smash above her. She turned back to the door. It glowed with green light that flickered like flames around its frame. She found a small nodule of bulbs flashing green by the door. She hit them frantically with her fist. They flashed green, almost defiantly. Hearing a squiggling screech, she turned around and took down another charging squidbug with a ball of goober. More spheres burst above her. She turned back to the door nodules and gave them a hard kick.

“Goddammit! You picked a hell of a time to abandon us! You know that? You have to let me back through! You brought us all the way in here, now you’re just going to let us die? You can’t do this!”

A sliver of white light shot across the floor towards her. A flare of green shot out and shattered the white into nothing. Another squidbug dropped to the floor and charged, but was repelled by another ball of goober. Sydney checked her pistol. She only had five rounds left. She heard a giant crash, and a massive black shape crumpled to the floor.

It was a horned worm.

Sydney looked back up into the black.

“You have to get us out of here! Help us!”