We couldn’t let panic stop us now. I was out of pills and only had 12 rounds of .357 Magnum. We came here for one thing. One simple fucking thing. Unfortunately, it wasn’t Xanax. It didn’t matter too much anymore since they were both dead. But maybe I wanted to die. That or just really, and I mean really, leave Beaumont.
I killed the big 80 cubic-inch EVO engine on Sweet Agnus. I loved her, but this would be the second to last ride. Her pipes ticked as they cooled, echoing off stained concrete. It was so quiet the echoes seemed to bounce forever. The only other sound was the wind clanking an old street sign. It was like Morse code beating out an apology for the dead. The ride in had been an awful maze only a bike could navigate. Overturned city buses, cars, and military trucks all with crusted corpses in their seats. We parked in what used to be the asshole spoiled VIP lot, right in front, reserved signs still standing. I unmounted and grabbed my pack, with HICK zip-tied to the sissy bar.
“Goddamn fuckin’ bullshit making me ride bitch? Sissy bar? Sissy? You got me fucked up, hand. When we get back I’m gonna kick your fuckin’ ass so hard you ain’t gonna sit right for a week, in fact when I…”
Yeah—he was not happy to be out of his typical 7’ frame. I’d pulled his tablet monitor—basically this asshole’s AI brain—off his bastardized engine-crane body so we could take my Harley.
I took one more hit from the flask I’d been nursing all morning.
HICK buzzed up, “This place smells like fuckin’ shit. Should’ve brought the goddamn crane. Gimme some Beam fucker.”
He extended out a little telescopic tube and I poured some in. The ethanol converter charged his batteries—unfortunately I’d created the world’s first digital alcoholic.
Now feeling slightly better with some liquid courage I crunched through dead leaves, broken glass, and cracked asphalt bleached by thirty summers.
“I’m telling you man, I shouldn’t be out of my fuckin’ frame.”
“Your goddamn frame would never fit down the stairs.”
“It would if you believed hard enough—bitch.”
“Shut the fuck up—man.”
The building looked worse than I remembered—glass blown out like broken teeth, ivy strangling the brick like nature was trying to cover it up out of embarrassment.
The sign still read: JOYCO APPLIED SYSTEMS. Someone had spray-painted over it: FUCK YOU. Plus a giant cock. Fucking thing was like twelve feet long. Kinda felt better for a second. Probably abandoned.
I pushed the front door.
It opened easy.
Too easy… that was worse than locked.
Inside was all mildew and regret. The air was thick with rot and copper. My boots splashed into standing water. Somewhere, a light flickered like it had been dying slow since ’91. I hadn’t been here in 20 years, but I somehow felt the same after walking through the doors. Disgusted. Just as much as I had been when I was fired for whistleblowing. But I ate it, I had a family to protect then.
I pushed on.
“Losing fuckin’ signal, I can’t guide you through this fucked off mess,” HICK muttered.
“Yeah? Cold War construction. Three-foot concrete. A real paranoia bunker. Bout to find out if I remember the room.”
Fuckers drilled the map into us, but I usually ignored them. Guess brainwashing pays off sometimes, because we found the stairwell in the east wing. Laminated signs still clung to the walls: FLEET 2 MAINTENANCE, LEVEL B.
The handle turned smooth.
Too smooth.
I didn’t like how the dark smelled like hot breath.
I pulled out my Maglite and flipped it on.
The light cast all over the wall, revealing deep gouges—not the good kind.
“Fuck me running.”
I unholstered my Smith and Wesson model 66—6 rounds of .357 Magnum.
The stairs groaned like they wanted us to stay. I kept the flashlight high. Water pooled on every third step. I slipped once and nearly took us both out. Would’ve been a hell of a way to die—skull cracked open on rusted JoyCo steel with a smartass tablet for company.
Each step down was a heartbeat. By the time we hit bottom, sweat clung under my arms and spine.
The basement was a drowned maze—doorless thresholds, caved-in walls, old safety signs hanging like crooked smiles: JoyCo is one big family!
Water hit my shins, pouring into my boots.
Above me the pipes rattled with a groan. A lone fluorescent light flickered at the far end of a long corridor. The strobe effect was throwing me off, that or the booze was finally making me slow and weak. How the hell did this place still have power?
I could feel the slime and grit in my boots. All I wanted then was more pills and to never have come here. Fuck, the smell wasn’t sewage—it was rot deep enough to grow teeth.
HICK buzzed, “Goddamn, this place sucks ass dude.”
Jesus Christ, I desperately needed to find a distributor cap to get the truck running so we could escape the city. Agnus couldn’t take us past the swamps. The auto part stores in town had long been rummaged through. This was the only place I could think of where one would be. That is, if my old stash was still around. Good chance it was, JoyCo doesn’t throw much away.
Well, unless you count people.
Those who died on site got recycled.
Fuck, it was even if you died at home.
They’d send the county medical examiner over for pickup.
Basic inventory.
I turned the corner and entered my old office.
Goddamnit—the layout was all different.
Suddenly there was a banging sound, like someone with a hammer on the pipes.
“Fuck, that’s the noise that always happened when the water pumps kicked on for the fire suppression system.”
HICK not amused, “Shut up nerd, hurry the fuck up.”
First cabinet: Rusted sockets and a cracked wrench.
Second: JoyCo respirator. Teeth marks in the rubber.
Third: Locked drawer. I kicked it. Nothing.
HICK finally piped up, “Thought you said you knew this fuckin’ place, why not try the big FUCKIN’ box labeled GM over there, dumbass.”
Sure enough.
Crate labeled: GM IGNITION / FLEET 2. I popped the lid.
Distributor caps and rotors. Still in shrink.
The banging stopped.
“There might be a god after all, man.”
“Touching. But, GET ME THE FUCK OUTTA HERE AND GIVE. ME. SOME. BEAM.”
“Yeah, hold on. Let’s rock n’ roll the fuck out this bitch. I hate this place.”
I went to grab my flask.
Slosh.
Slosh.
I wasn’t moving.
The familiar ice cold feeling of adrenaline hit.
Wet, slapping steps from down the hall.
Then another.
Then twelve.
All the fire sprinklers exploded with blackwater and rained down a torrent of filth. My Maglite became a blinding white flood until I slammed the focus into a beam.
I pointed all around trying to find the door.
Found it.
Then they came around the corner.
Like they’d been glued together wrong—twisted limbs, bloated blue-veined skin, teeth clicking like castanets. Mouths stretched too far. No eyes. Or too many. Uniforms half-melted into flesh. Bio engineering name tags still attached. I managed to read one: Steve. OH GOD—my old manager.
They screamed.
Not yelling.
Screaming.
High and unbroken—like a smoke alarm with lungs.
I was paralyzed. The water running all over and getting into my eyes and mouth tasted metallic like blood. No amount of pills and booze could stop this panic attack.
“RUN, GODDAMNIT! FUCKING RUN!” HICK howled.
What was two seconds felt like two years. Finally, I bolted. Water exploded beneath every step. They chased, howling like a choir of dying brakes. One grabbed my pack. I twisted and elbowed. It let go with a hiss.
Corner. Hallway. Turn—dead end.
“HARRY! WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING DUMBFUCK?! GET US THE FUCK OUT OF HERE!”
I spun, raised the .357, fired—missed.
Second shot clipped a neck. It staggered but didn’t fall. I emptied the rest into their legs. They slowed. Didn’t stop.
Click. Clk.Ck.Ck.Ck.Ck.
Fuck me.
I needed the extra 6.
HICK’s panel faded out.
I only had the Maglite and .357 for company now
In the spotted dark I reached into my jacket.
Pulled out a speedloader—6 more rounds.
I tried to flash the light down the hall to see the horde.
I fucking dropped them.
MagLight.
Ammo.
Into the water.
I dropped to my knees, fingers combing sludge, blind from tears and water. Flashlight first. I could see its glow underwater. The growling—closer now. Thrashing teeth. Too close.
My fingers found brass.
I flipped out the cylinder on the 66. Managed to slip in the rounds and close—just as one slammed into me. I was too late. Cold rotten hands wrapped my throat. I was choking. Muzzle. Under. Chin.
BAM.
Its spongy skull split like a rotten pumpkin.
I shoved it off, staggered to my feet gasping. Seven more coming. I fired. Dropped another. A seemingly growing amount. Vomited from fear. Turned. Ran.
My legs were on fire. Lungs felt full of broken glass. HICK was silent and just flashing error codes.
One distorted voice rang out, “Haaaarrryyy.”
The hallways all made a loop but I couldn’t find the goddamn stairwell door in this downpour. In a frenzy I tried every door I could as the screaming and splashing became deafening. I fired another shot at the growing horde of what seemed to be flesh and bone, it screamed back, “WHY DO YOU HATE ME, HARRY?! DON’T YOU WANT THE FILES, HARRY?!”
They then attempted what sounded like the word assimilate but I couldn’t tell because it was a frantic mixed chorus of lows and highs.
By sheer luck I rounded one corner and saw the flickering exit sign. Found the stairwell.
Door jammed.
“FUCK!!”
I fired off two more into the door latch—left one.
In case I needed it for myself.
My kicks at the door mixed in with the chatter of teeth and screams of agony, finally it slammed open, and I climbed like I meant to die upstairs. I saw three seemingly connected ones slink through the semi-closed door.
Another scream behind me. Too close. I scrambled harder at the stairs, on all fours now as I burst through the double doors at the top.
Fuck me. No time. Grabbed a piece of rebar—jammed it through the handles. Then filing cabinets. Piled fast. Dirty barricade.
Silence.
Me gasping for air.
More vomiting.
Then banging.
Muffled behind the barely holding door, a deep roar of all pitches, “ASSIMILATE!”
Flesh began to very slowly ooze through the cracks.
Fuck this.
I started to sprint as hard as possible despite the pain.
On the run back we didn’t speak until sunlight hit my face like it hadn’t in years. His screen just displayed black. Coward had turned himself off. I lit a Camel with shaking hands. HICK booted up and buzzed up softly. Unsurprisingly he said nothing about me pissing myself.
“I didn’t realize these sick JoyCo fucks had old experiments around.”
Breathless, sick, soaked, and exhausted I replied, “I didn’t know they had them at all.”
I was lying my ass off. It was the reason I got fired 20 years ago. For walking into the restricted “research” area.
It was smaller then. I should’ve filed something.
Goddamnit.
They would have killed my wife and daughter.
Just like they did to my fuckin’ manager—Steve. Honestly, not a bad guy. Only hated him when he would microwave fish.
But man, I mean what the actual fuck was I supposed to do?
They had mailed me satellite pictures of her daily routine.
And an x-ray of my daughter labeled: More training available if needed!
I hit my flask.
Climbed back on glorious savior Sweet Agnus, and cranked her aluminum V-twin of pure Milwaukee hate. I kicked her into first and we rode like hell. Still, the word assimilate was ringing through my head.
We had come for just a part.
Fuck.
Maybe if I had said something then…
They wouldn’t be all jammed into one.
Then again—corporate always finds a way to fuck everyone together.