Apocalypso x-3 Read online

  Apocalypso

  ( Xombies - 3 )

  Walter Greatshell

  Walter Greatshell

  Apocalypso

  How is it possible for you to have accompanied me all this time without coming to perceive that all the things that have to do with knights-errant appear to be mad, foolish, and chimerical, everything being done by contraries? Not that they are so in reality; it is simply that there are always a lot of enchanters going about among us, changing things and giving them a deceitful appearance, directing them as suits their fancy, depending upon whether they wish to favor or destroy us.

  - Cervantes, Don Quixote

  Comedy is not pretty.

  - Steve Martin

  PART I

  Loveville

  CHAPTER ONE

  DREADNAUTS

  There was no boat. There was no crew. There was only a shared dream, fragile as a bubble in an endless sea. And there was no sea, just ripples of time and space-the bottomless, shoreless reach of eternity.

  And Beatles music.

  Suspended in the depths like a black thought, the USS No-Name echoed with the murky strains of “Eleanor Rigby.” Within its vast hull, we all listened, everyone equally intent, equally inert, whether whole or in pieces, all motionless as corpses in the smothering dark, embedded like fossils amid the roots of a tree-which was what the boat had become: a single organism of cold flesh and metal, blue limbs intermingled with blue steel, organs with plumbing, sinew with cable, bone with bracing. The flesh persisted, the flesh was permanent-the metal somewhat less so. Water trickled in, pooling blackly in the bilge.

  In the airless environment, a creeping patina of blue rust became more evident by the day… at least in the areas where lights still functioned. Nobody cared. There was a short somewhere, many shorts, all neglected, life-support systems ignored and faltering… for there was no life left to support.

  It didn’t matter as long as the reactor still burned, the screw still turned, and the music still played. That music was our residual humanity made manifest; it was the sound of hope: hope of finding the living and relieving their mortal woes, the damned seeking the doomed and spreading the seed of Maenad salvation… before it was too late. Such was our mission.

  Such were we missionaries.

  All at once, the music stopped. From miles away, far across the void, down from the world of light and air, came a new sound, a deep electronic vibration low enough to be detectable even through water. A sound meant specifically for submarines to hear: an Ultra Low Frequency radio signal.

  In the belly of the boat, a rusty, cracked voice: “Can you hear that?”

  “Yes.”

  “Sounds like an invitation.”

  “Let’s RSVP.”

  The glittering blue surface of the sea spread in all directions to the thin circumference of the horizon, swells rolling in long regiments under the sun. In the middle of this enormity, a giraffe-speckled pole rose from the water-the boat’s radio antenna. It scanned the heavens for the least electronic whisper and immediately fixed upon the loudest signal. This was routed to the AV console in the radio shack, where Reggie Jinnah played it for a small audience that included Captain Harvey Coombs, Dr. Alice Langhorne, and me. All of us Xombies. Reggie’s mates, three other Anglo-Pakistani musicians who formerly comprised the Beatles tribute band known as the Blackpudlians, waited in the background, having been using the room as a makeshift music studio.

  On the video screen, we could see an image of a man. He was a very familiar man, a man we had not seen since the height of the Agent X pandemic and never expected to see again. A man I had seen shoot himself on national television.

  The superimposed caption read, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.

  “Turn up the sound,” I said.

  “Sorry.” Reggie hit a switch. Now we could hear the man’s familiar voice:

  “-time to correct the mistakes of the past. We are rebuilding humanity one soul at a time, just as we are rebuilding civilization one brick at a time, and we can choose the kind of society we want it to be. Do we want another society doomed to failure? A society based on fear and lies? Or do we want one based on reason and truth? Not a society of exploitation, corruption, and waste, but a federation of free peoples in which the Golden Rule prevails; a society in tune with nature, run on green principles of clean energy and self-sustaining agriculture, and serving the highest goals of mankind, for which everyone shares the burden and the benefits. If you can hear this, you are invited to join our grand endeavor. We are located in the heart of Washington, DC, a place we now call Xanadu. In Xanadu, we have learned to live in harmony with Xombies as we have with each other, not as adversaries or exploiters but as fellow citizens of the Earth, celebrating the diversity of all beings, for all beings play a precious role in building the future. If you still live in fear, hatred, or despair, join our growing family and learn the meaning of freedom.”

  This was followed by a long series of diverse and attractive faces-men, women, and children, of many races, styles, and physical types-all saying the same thing: “I am Xanadu.” At the end, the president came back, closing with, “We are Xanadu. And we welcome you.”

  “Sounds bloody good to me,” said Reggie. “Where do I sign up?”

  CHAPTER TWO

  TWO DEAD BOYS

  Two boys missed the boat.

  Unlike all their shipmates, Todd and Ray were neither dead nor undead. They were very much alive, thank you, though a casual observer might not have deduced this fact from their ghoulish appearance-in fact, such an observer would have had to be forgiven an involuntary shudder at the sight of two such unspeakable monstrosities as Todd Holmes and Raymond Despineau.

  But there were no observers, casual or otherwise, to shudder or deduce anything. Other than the two teenagers, the entire riverfront was deserted. Neither man nor Ex-man walked its urban shores, the place having been recently cleansed of its inhabitants. Whether alive or dead, red-blooded or blue-, all had been caught up in the Reapers’ recent Waterloo and swept downriver to the sea.

  All except Todd and Ray, who had missed the boat.

  Let me tell you how they looked: Imagine a pair of seven-foot-tall rag dolls; pumpkin-headed monstrosities with blackened knotholes for eyes and gaping, raggedy mouths. Scarlike seams crisscrossed their bodies, stitched shut with shiny metal staples. Their naked, veinous flesh was weirdly active, a crazy quilt of mismatched skin samples, some with hair, some without; some with nipples or moles or freckles or ears or faces, some without; but every part alive with tics and twitches and grand-mal spasms, several square yards of jerky meat, all aflutter with the animating energy of Maenad Cytosis-the original Agent X.

  Like beauty, this ugliness was only skin-deep. It was a shell of undead tissue that clung to each boy’s mesharmored body like a thick excrescence of living coral, a literal power suit that amplified his strength to Maenad proportions. But that was the secondary purpose of Reaper outerwear. The prime purpose was that it allowed the boys to walk among Xombies unmolested. It was camouflage.

  Each suit had been carved from live-caught Xombies, tailored to spec, and worn by a foot soldier of the Moguls during their scavenging raids. Todd and Ray had stolen the awful, offal garments in order to make their escape, only to be trapped inside the grisly vehicles of their flight. Now the Reapers were all dead, their barge sunk, and the submarine, which had been the boys’ last hope, was a floating flytrap, a five-hundred-foot-long Pandora’s box. Witnessing the annihilation of the Reapers, the boys had been hesitant to go anywhere near the thing

  … until they realized the only other choice was to be abandoned in this no-man’s-land of Providence, Rhode Island.

  Great.

  “This is so not cool
, man,” groaned Ray, watching the U-boat vanish in the distance. Hell-ship or not, there was clearly some sort of intelligent control at the helm, whether human or otherwise. “What are we gonna do now?”

  “Try to chill. I’m thinking.”

  “Awesome.”

  “It’ll take all day for the sub to get out of the bay. Maybe we can find a boat and catch up with it.”

  “How? Those Reaper dudes scooped up every boat in the harbor when they abandoned their barge. They all got trashed. Face it, we missed our chance.”

  “Then we can take a car and beat the submarine down to Newport. There must be tons of boats there.”

  “And then what? You saw what happened to those guys who attacked the sub.”

  “Yeah.” Todd wished he could forget it. He and Ray had witnessed the horrible spectacle from shore: those bulging masses of flesh that rose from the boat’s missile bays and exploded into a thousand frenzied tentacles, yanking El Dopa’s assault force down to oblivion. “What the hell was that?”

  “I don’t know, but something’s seriously wrong in there. Whatever it is, I don’t want a closer look.”

  “Well, where would you like to go?”

  “I just want to get out of this suit. I’m thirsty, man.”

  “Me, too. Let’s just start by finding a drink.”

  “How the hell are we gonna be able to drink anything wearing these helmets?”

  “It’s called a straw, doofus.”

  They left the waterfront area of India Point and headed inland on Gano Street. There were several small businesses along the way, including a donut shop and a convenience store. It was the same street that had been swarming with Xombies a few days earlier, when the boys had first come ashore seeking supplies. Bad idea. They didn’t have the Reaper suits then and were completely defenseless against the blue onslaught that wiped out over thirty boys in under thirty minutes. It was the meat-armored Reapers who saved their lives.

  This time there were neither Reapers nor Xombies, and no reason to fear them even if there were. The boys were covered.

  Todd and Ray checked the donut shop first. They were unsurprised to find the four-month-old pastries inedible, but were disappointed to find the drink coolers cleaned out and the sink taps dry.

  “Look out-zombie donuts!” Todd yelled, pitching Munchkins at Ray’s flesh helmet. The stale balls exploded into crumbs.

  “Hey, cut it out, man,” Ray said lethargically.

  Todd threw a few more, but Ray could not be incited to a donut war, so Todd gave up. They went next door to the convenience store, heartened by the big Pepsi sign out front. Nothing-it was even worse than the donut shop.

  “What the hell, man.”

  There were not even any remains of food-rats, mice, and maggots had erased all organic matter. Anything canned or bottled had been efficiently looted; the shelves were empty. And the pillaging had happened recently, a few days ago at most; the mud tracks were fresh. This wasn’t the act of random looters in the heat of panic. It was Reapers.

  “Shit, man, that’s right,” Todd said. “We’re not gonna find anything around here-the Reapers reaped it all. They stripped this whole area, remember?”

  “Awesome.”

  “But they couldn’t have gone through every house. Come on, we just have to go door-to-door.”

  “You mean break into people’s homes, Holmes?”

  “Yeah, why not? It’s not like they’re coming back.”

  “I don’t know… it’s like desecrating the dead or something.”

  “Not really. It’s just putting stuff to good use that would otherwise go to waste.”

  “Hey, Todd?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “I know; I’ve been holding my piss for the last hour.”

  “It’s not just piss.”

  “Well, just try to hold it.”

  “Too late.”

  They were prisoners of the flesh, golems of raw meat, doomed to wander the wasteland until they drowned in their own filth. Ray expected to die a little sooner, having been shot through the side, but this was only speculation since there was no way of examining or treating the wound. At least it didn’t hurt, and the bleeding had stopped, so there was that.

  Out of forty boys who had come ashore, just these two survived. Did they survive out of superior skill or intelligence? Was it their unusual grit that enabled them to outlast their fellows? Were the others just weak?

  No-much as they might have wished it were so, both Todd and Ray knew they were nothing special. This was what haunted them: the thought that stronger, smarter, and more deserving boys had died in their stead. Brave dudes like Sal DeLuca and Kyle Hancock had sacrificed themselves so that lazy nubs like Todd and Ray could escape. It wasn’t fair. But as Todd shuffled along the barren streets of his hometown, staring out through misshapen eyeholes at the living nightmare that was his only companion, and knew that he, too, was a horror, both of them damned to this ridiculous, incomprehensible fate, he realized there was perhaps some justice to it after all.

  Maybe the dead were the lucky ones.

  As they turned a corner, they encountered a blue Elvis. Elvis was dressed in a blue-and-white polyester suit covered with sequins, a gold-lined cape, and boots of blue suede.

  Blue Elvis asked, “You boys lookin’ for someone?”

  “Who the hell are you?” Ray asked.

  Todd said, “Don’t talk to that Xombie, man, are you crazy?”

  “He asked me a question.”

  “Ignore it and keep walking.”

  Elvis stayed with them like a persistent panhandler. “You fellas look lost,” he said. “Maybe I can help you find what you’re looking for.”

  Todd spun on him. “What the hell kind of Xombie are you? Get the fuck away from us, man.”

  “Now what kind of way is that to talk to a fellow traveler on the road of life?” The blue man suddenly became very animated, running ahead and calling their attention to a seething mass of ants around a crack in the asphalt. “Take a look here, right here. You know what this is? This is a war we’ve got going here, with two races killin’ each other: the Black and the Red. I been watching ’em all day.” He shook his slick-coiffed head. “Look at ’em go, man!”

  “I hate bugs,” said Ray.

  “Hate? They’re just doing what comes natural. Hate is in their DNA, just like it’s in ours. Only way to stop ’em from fighting is to change their fundamental genetic structure. They won’t do it voluntarily, I can tell you! But hate, gee whiz. How can you hate anything in this beautiful world?” He took off his sunglasses, wiping an imaginary tear. “Especially knowing it’s all gonna be gone soon.”

  “Oh shit,” Ray hissed. “It’s him. Todd, I think it’s him.”

  “Who?”

  “Miska!”

  “No way.” Todd turned to the blue man. “You’re Uri Miska?”

  “I’m partial to folks callin’ me the King.”

  “See, it’s not him.”

  “Just kidding!” The man shook his head affably. In a British accent, he declaimed, “The king is dead! Long live the king!”

  Todd said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

  The man blocked their way, bowing stiffly. “Uraeus Miska, at your service!”

  “What? Seriously?”

  “Surprised? Yes, it’s me. To paraphrase another great emancipator: I had a dream.” He raised his arms to the sky. “A dream to which all men expired!”

  Todd hissed, “This is bullshit. Dude is crazy.”

  “Congratulations!” Miska cried.

  “What for?”

  “Finding me. They say a good man is hard to find. Considering how many people keep finding me, I must not be very good… or perhaps it’s that I make myself too conspicuous. What do you think?” He struck a heroic pose.

  Ray couldn’t hold back anymore. “Oh my God,” he said. “Can you help us? We need to get out of these suits.”r />
  “Why? Clothes make the man.”

  “Seriously, sir, we’re in trouble. If you help us, we’ll do whatever we can to help you.”

  “What makes you think I can help you… or you me?”

  “You’re a scientist! You’re famous! You invented Agent X!”

  “I had nothing to do with those ‘suits’-that’s somebody else’s workmanship. Check the deli. I hope you got a money-back guarantee.”

  “They’re not ours! We only stole them so we could get away!”

  “Hoist by your own petard, eh?”

  “You have to help us, please.”

  “Well, let me think about it. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a story. Did you know we’re standing on the site of a battle? Before the ants, I mean. This was the War between the Black and the Blue.”

  “Come on, man!” In desperation, Todd said, “Help us or we’ll kill you.”

  “That would be a neat trick,” Miska said. “Come now-sit, sit.”

  The boys suddenly jerked into motion like meat puppets, their bodies wrenched against their will as the flesh armor moved them. Insanely strong and none too gentle, it forced them to plop down cross-legged across from Miska.

  “What the fuck, man!” Todd cried, in pain. He felt like he had been wrung out like a wet sponge.

  Weeping, Ray groaned, “Awesome.”

  “Sorry,” Miska said, sitting down himself. “I’m still getting the hang of it.”

  “What is this, man? What the hell are you doing to us?”

  “That flesh you’re wearing answers to me. Isn’t that something? I originally developed the technology to control prosthetic implants. Every Maenad morphocyte is an independent nanotransceiver, tuned to an electrode array in my cerebral cortex. It triggers a cellular rather than a neuromuscular response, which allows a rather extraordinary degree of control. It’s just a matter of mastering the complexity-learning to ride a bike. Or a million bikes. The cells themselves amplify and relay the signal, promulgating in iron-rich hemoglobin and even the Earth itself to form a vast, wireless data array-a true cellular network. What I call my Billion-Fingered Fist.”