Chapter Ten

Tartarus

It was hot in Tartarus; appropriately so. Brewer liked the heat, or so he’d claimed to St Cloud. But it made everything in his fiefdom stink of rotting meat and spoiled blood. Attendants in scavenged and much-patched hazmat suits hurried past St Cloud and his guards, on errands for the ruler of the underworld.

Brewer’s laboratory had once been the laundry facilities for the casino. Four large concrete rooms just below the ground floor, reachable only by a quartet of elevators and a single set of fire stairs. The area was isolated and ignored by most of Elysium’s population, just the way both St Cloud and Brewer liked it. The fewer people who knew exactly what went on down here, the better, as far as St Cloud was concerned.

Originally, he’d intended to turn the facilities into a secondary stockpile – a final redoubt for himself and a few others, in case of disaster. Potable water was at a premium after all, and no one was using the machines. Brewer had convinced him otherwise. At the time, the other man had seemed perfectly sane, if a touch cold-blooded. In the months since, St Cloud had come to doubt his initial assessment. Brewer was utterly insane, but useful.

St Cloud pulled out a scented handkerchief and pressed it to his nose as they reached the doors that led to the central lab. There was an armed guard in a hazmat suit on duty, as was procedure. Couldn’t have any lost souls getting out and making a nuisance of themselves. He would have preferred a hazmat suit himself, if only to cut the smell, but he couldn’t be seen to be wearing one. It might provoke the wrong sort of talk among his people, and there was enough of that to worry about as it was.

Things were becoming tense on the lower floors. Food was in short supply, and the gardens weren’t producing anywhere near the proper quantities yet – not to keep both his guests and his workers fed.

The guests resided on the uppermost floors of the hotel, beneath the penthouse. He’d made the decision early on to establish a well-to-do class. Every society needed its middle-managers. They’d been corporate royalty and celebrities.

Now they were overseers, in charge of the gardens, the water, the waste disposal facilities. He delegated the business of the day to day to them. Others bought their status with access to homes and businesses, selling him their worldly possessions just to keep themselves from having to grub in the gardens with everyone else.

The problem was, the more camps he co-opted, the more mouths there were to feed. But he needed strong backs and steady hands if he was going to accomplish anything of value. All progress required sacrifice. Hence, the arena. Entertainment kept his subordinates happy. And happy subordinates were productive ones.

The guard saluted awkwardly, the seals of his hazmat suit flexing against the duct-tape. Steeling his gag reflex, St Cloud entered Tartarus, his guards at his heels.

Inside, it looked to him like so much controlled chaos. There were work benches situated along the walls, cooling units liberated from restaurants and hospitals, racks of equipment scavenged from pharmacies, as well as hardware and electronics stores.

A dozen makeshift pens, crafted from chain-link fencing and bulletproof glass, were strategically arranged near the drains. Each one contained an examination table and restraints of various makes and models. Three of the pens were currently occupied by listless walkers; the other seven needed washing out. They were the source of the smell.

The walkers shuffled to the fronts of their pens, glaring at the newcomers. All had mesh cages fixed to their heads, preventing them from biting. Their hands had been cut off, and their stumps thumped against the pens in futile aggression.

Brewer went through a dozen walkers a week, easily. Some he vivisected, others he simply observed for a time before having them destroyed. The rest went to the arenas. Through his observations, he’d managed to identify the areas in the city where runners and brutes congregated in great numbers, the movement patterns of the local walkers, and other such useful information.

He’d even devised several methods of repelling the occasional mob of walkers that tried to breach the casino – from recorded brute groans to using ichor, gleaned from the more aggressive types of zombie, to scent mark certain buildings.

On one of the examination tables, trays of zombie body parts waited patiently for their turn under the knife. The walls were decorated with photographs, drawings and crude schematics. Brewer was an inveterate doodler.

St Cloud’s eyes were immediately drawn to the far end of the space where a larger cage, far sturdier than the others, sat. The cage had belonged to a novelty act at one of the other casinos – something to do with tigers. But the monster the cage now contained was no tiger.

It crouched at the center of the cage, dozens of lengths of chain extending from it to rebar anchors sunk into the floor and the nearby walls. It was a zombie, but unique in its physiology: a hulking tower of muscle, covered in slabs of what look like bone or fossilized keratin beneath the tattered remnants of a gray-green boiler suit. Its big hands were clawed, and its legs were jointed like an animal’s. Its face was thankfully hidden beneath a bright crimson mask. The mask had been stitched to its head, so that it couldn’t remove it.

El Gigante.

The zombie stared incuriously at the newcomers from beneath half-shuttered eyes. Another of Brewer’s contributions to the cause – something the doctor also insisted on referring to as a he. Brewer had figured out how to keep their prize asset doped up and docile after a few weeks of trial and error. A good thing too, since the creature was exceedingly dangerous in its natural state.

St Cloud strode towards it, his hands clasped behind his back. “Magnificent,” he murmured, looking up at the creature. It never failed to take his breath away, seeing it up close. El Gigante was truly a sight to behold. With a dozen like it, he could easily take the city. Maybe even the state. For now, he just had the one.

“Yes. Isn’t he just?”

St Cloud frowned and turned. Brewer stood beside him, eating a somewhat bruised apple. His hands were bloody, but he didn’t seem concerned. Unlike his staff, Brewer didn’t bother with a hazmat suit. Instead, he dressed like an old man at the track. He was round and shiny with sweat, a grizzle of white on his cheeks and chin, and thinning hair the same color. He was in his fifties, or maybe his sixties.

He took a bite of the apple, chewed methodically, clearly in no hurry, and then looked up at St Cloud. “You took your time getting down here today.”

St Cloud ignored the comment. “How is he? Ready for tonight?” He’d wanted something special to celebrate the first step in his plan. El Gigante was to be that something special.

Brewer frowned. “He’s getting hungrier. It’s getting harder to keep him under.”

“You assured me that he was under control.”

“He is. For the moment. But I wanted you to be aware in case the situation becomes… untenable.” Brewer dropped his apple into the pocket of his sport coat.

“It would be a shame to put him down, given your hard work,” St Cloud said, letting a little acid creep into his voice. “Especially before we have a chance to watch him.”

“You wanted a monster for your circus, I gave you one,” Brewer said, wiping his hands with a cloth procured from one of the examination tables. “But value is often finite and always debatable. If you were that worried, you should have used him before now.”

“I wanted to save him for a special occasion.” St Cloud looked up at the somnolent creature, who had been a member of the casino’s custodial staff originally. Then, during the first week of the zombie apocalypse it had changed into… whatever it was now. Not a brute or a simple walker, but something far more monstrous.

“You ran a casino, Mr St Cloud. You of all people should know that what you want and what you get are not often the same.”

St Cloud brushed the statement aside. “We had a good morning. Supplies are coming in. More warm bodies for the gardens. You know what that means?”

Brewer grinned. “More test subjects.”

“A celebration,” St Cloud corrected. “As I said, tonight will be special.”

“Well, you know best.” Brewer knelt and clucked his tongue gently. A heretofore unseen shape rose on unsteady legs and lurched into view. It had been a dog once, a stubby faced little Pekinese. Brewer had arrived with it in his backpack. It had already been a zombie by then, and he’d kept it muzzled. But it wasn’t muzzled any longer. Instead, it had a black collar with a small box mounted on it.

Brewer murmured softly to it in what St Cloud thought was Polish, and stroked its ravaged skull. “And how is the little fellow?” St Cloud asked. It was the dog that had convinced him of Brewer’s claims. There were plenty of zombified dogs wandering around the city, but only one seemed inclined to listen to its owner.

“Pierogi is quite cheerful, as one judges such things,” Brewer said, still stroking the dog. “He is safe and well fed. More than can be said for most.”

“I notice you’ve stopped using the muzzle.”

Pierogi looked up and gave a guttural sniff. The dog’s eyes were the color of pus, and its tongue was black. Something oily dripped from its frayed jowls. It growled softly as its eyes fixed on him. Brewer turned. “I’ve installed a small inhibitor chip in his head.” He rummaged in his pocket and came out with a remote. “A tap sends a signal to the receiver on his collar, which then passes it along to the chip.” He tapped a button on the remote and the dog stiffened, its eyes rolling. Then it subsided and laid down.

“Well, that is something,” St Cloud said, grudgingly.

Brewer stood and indicated a cardboard box on a nearby workbench. “I’ve made a few, and converted the receivers to go with them. I’ll begin inserting them in some of the new test subjects this afternoon. If I am right, they’ll work the same regardless of the difference in size of subject.”

St Cloud considered this. There were definite possibilities there. Especially in regards to El Gigante. “Is it programmable? Or simply on/off?”

Brewer smiled grimly. “The latter, at the moment. But the former is a possibility, given time and resources.”

St Cloud nodded. “Can you… make more?”

Brewer gave him a sly look. “Enough to control a horde, say?”

St Cloud didn’t reply. Brewer gave a little laugh. “I’ll need supplies. I can provide a list. Most of it can be found in any electronics or pet store. And I’ll need test subjects, of course. No more than a dozen, ideally. Walkers, for preference.” He looked at El Gigante. “I’ve already put one in him. My prize test subject.” He turned his gaze back to St Cloud. “That should make tonight very special, eh?”

“Yes, it might just. Very good, Doctor. I am suitably impressed with your progress. I no longer doubt my wisdom in giving you sanctuary.” He smiled. “Is there anything else?”

“Some food for Pierogi,” Brewer murmured, his attentions drifting back to El Gigante. He scooped up the dog and scratched it under the chin. St Cloud looked at the dog, and grimaced. The wretched thing let its tongue loll as it snuggled into its owner’s arms.

“Pierogi and I thank you,” Brewer said. Something came away on his fingers as he scratched it and he idly wiped them on his sport coat. The dog didn’t seem to notice. Indeed, its cheerful smile widened unhealthily. A surge of bile threatened to well up and overcome St Cloud, and he quickly pressed his handkerchief to his nose and mouth as he turned to go. He was nearly running by the time he reached the doors.

“I’ll send the list up later, Mr St Cloud,” Brewer called after him, as he fled.