Major Karnage by Gord Zajac Read Free Book Online Page A

now—well, just look at this place!” Charlie
threw his arm out in a sweeping arc.
    Soap splattered across Darla’s clean floor. Darla moved to wipe it
up. “I can see it just fine, Charlie.”
    They had cleared up as well as they could manage. What furniture
and stock that remained was stacked neatly on the counter. The rest
lay in a jumbled pile of broken wood and glass in the middle of the
parking lot.
    “I don’t know what’s worse,” Charlie shook his head, “that lunatic
throwing around my tables, or those damn pigs sprayin’ chemical
gunk all over the place trying to arrest him. I mean, he was just one
man!”
    “They did what they had to do.”
    “They could have done it a little more carefully! Hell, even I could
have done better than that!”
    “Really? I seem to recall somebody marching out there with
a mop mumbling something about putting an end to this, then
running back with his tail between his legs.”
    “And what exactly was I supposed to have done? He was armed then. He could have killed me, you know.”
    “Uh-huh.”
    “Did you hear what I said? I said he could have killed me!”
    “You want to maybe put a little more effort into those walls?”
    “Well, how do you like that. I stare death full in the face, live to
tell the tale, and all you can think about is your damn—”
    A noisy shriek came from the radio resting on the counter. Charlie
jumped and stepped in a pool of Sudsy, nearly falling on his ass in
the process. “Sonofabitch!” He half-slipped, half-stormed across the
room and grabbed the radio. “Would you look at that? It ain’t even
on!” Charlie yanked the plug out of the wall. The radio squawked in
protest, then went silent. “Guess we’re gonna have to add this to the
. . . well, what the hell’s gotten in to you?”
    Darla’s face was white. She stared intently at the radio, then
looked at Charlie. “Did that sound . . . squiggly to you?”
    “Squiggly?!” Charlie curled his lip. “Oh hell. You’re as crazy as
that—”
    The radio screeched again. The lights in the diner went out. A
solid wall of pitch black slid over the sky, as the world descended
into darkness. Flickering panels of light shot back and forth across
the sky.
    “Wow, would you look at that?” Charlie moved over to the
window. “Looks like it’s gonna rain something fierce!”
    Darla went pale. Her voice was barely a whisper. “I don’t think
those are clouds. . . .”
    “Well, what the hell else—”
    Their world was consumed by an intense painful green.

MK#3: KARNAGE BEHIND BARS
CHAPTER ONE
    Karnage’s arms and legs were strapped to his chair. He was sitting at
one end of a long table, dressed in an orange jumpsuit. His scowling
reflection stared back at him from the two-way mirror in the far
wall.
    Could be worse , Karnage thought. At least I don’t got a catheter
shoved up my pisshole.
    He watched in the mirror as the door behind him opened. A pair
of hulking Dabneycops squeezed through the door. Tasers and stun
sticks hung from their belts. They were followed by a tiny figure
in a Dabneycop uniform, conspicuously lacking a matching helmet
to cover his face. He was a thin, pallid man wearing thick glasses
and a cowlick. The binder he carried was thicker than his rib cage.
He shuffled across the room and sat in the empty chair. His two
Dabneycop flunkies stood behind him. He pushed up the frames of
his glasses, and cleared his throat. “Hello. I’m . . . ah, Dr. Huang.”
    Karnage let the silence hang in the air, hoping to unsettle Huang.
It worked. “You a shrink?”
    Huang’s head jerked and bobbed like a trained seal. “Ha! I suppose
that you could, ah . . . put it that way.”
    “I ain’t talkin’ to no shrink.”
    “That’s rather, um, unfortunate as, ah . . . you’re sort of stuck
with me. Ha!”
    “Ha,” Karnage said.
    Huang paled. He put his binder on the table and sat down.
    “That my file?” Karnage