BIOHAZARD by Tim Curran Read Free Book Online

other and in the process, made us a little more human than the drones with the guns.
    “ I said, get to fucking work!” Weeks called out, popping a few rounds into the air.
    “ Go fuck yourself,” Paulson told him.
    Weeks took two trembling steps forward, ejecting the magazine from his tactical carbine and slapping a fresh one in place. “Hell did he just say to me?” he asked his soldiers.
    “ Told you—” one of them began, suppressing a mad desire to giggle “―told you to go fuck yourself… sir.”
    Weeks raged but we paid him no mind. We were clustered around Specs, touching him, reassuring him, while he went on in a whining voice about his sister, about Darlene. Darlene and her beautiful red hair and how she rotted away in her bed of typhoid fever.
    About this time, we realized that Weeks was shouting at us. We turned and he had his weapon on us, his hands shaking on it. He was either scared to death or so pissed off he could’ve passed nails.
    “ Mr. Fucking Useless!” he cried. “Step away from those Shitheads! Do it! Do it! Do it! You better goddamn well do it right fucking now, you miserable ass-sucking squeeze of shit! I’ll drop you where you stand! Yer a fucking walking dead man!”
    Paulson pulled off his helmet and threw it at Weeks who nearly jumped right out of his suit trying to avoid the filthy thing. It hit the ground and rolled across the parking lot.
    “ No,” he said. “I refuse.”
    “ No? No? No? Fuck you mean, you refuse?” Weeks said, his voice very dry like all the spit had just dried on his tongue. “You can’t refuse me! You can’t fucking well refuse me! Are you out of yer fucking mind? Are you? Well…ARE YOU?”
    “ Yes sir, believe so,” Paulson said.
    Specs, Jakoby, and me stood tight with him, ringing him in so that Weeks would have to shoot through us to get at him.
    “ Step away from him!” Weeks ordered us. “Get away from him or I’ll cap every one of you!”
    “ Go ahead!” Specs shouted. “Go right ahead!”
    Weeks moved in still closer and so did his soldiers and I was figuring this was it, this was how it ended and what a goddamn revolting way to go, standing there knee deep in human remains in filthy suits with flies buzzing all over us.
    Weeks was going to shoot, there was no doubt of it, but then Specs reached into the hopper and grabbed an arm that was bloated white. “Hungry, asshole? How about a wing?” he threw the arm and it hit one of the soldiers with a moist thud that put him on his ass. He screamed.
    We started laughing.
    “ How about a thigh?” Jakoby said and heaved a maggoty leg.
    “ Got me a breast here,” Paulson said, gathering up a withered trunk. “At least I think it’s a breast…” He let it fly.
    Then all of us just went mad with the idea.
    Limbs and bones, entrails and mucid clots of flesh started flying, raining down on the soldiers, making them jump and duck as they were spattered with carrion and maggots. Weeks tried to dart back, but I tossed a head that broke apart and splattered him with wormy gray matter.
    He, of course, screamed.
    Screamed and went right down on his ass.
    One of the soldiers said, “Screw this,” and turned, jogging across the parking lot.
    “ Get back here!” Weeks called out to him. “You’re deserting your post!”
    But the guy didn’t listen and Weeks shot him, dropped him right there.
    After that, it was sheer pandemonium.
    One of the soldiers shot Jakoby as he tossed handfuls of grave matter at him. And about the time he went down—staggering, bullet-ridden, but managing to crash into the guy who had shot him—I threw a loop of bowels at Weeks and they struck him right in the chest leaving a gray, snaking stain on his white biosuit. He screamed and tossed his rifle.
    “ I’m contaminated! I’m unclean! I’m filthy! Dirty! Dirty! Dirty!” he shrieked out from inside his helmet, rolling around on the pavement, maybe trying to wipe the putrescence off himself.
    The other