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  Apocalypticon

  ( Xombies - 2 )

  Walter Greatshell

  Walter Greatshell

  Apocalypticon

  CHAPTER ONE

  RODEO ZULU TANGO

  In considering why the collapse of civilization occurred with such astonishing speed, we must acknowledge the role of sexism: In almost every recorded instance, men failed to respond with appropriate caution to female attackers. This has been called the Sadie Hawkins Effect, in which radical reversal of traditional sex roles conflicted with assumed male supremacy and clouded the ordinary instinct for self-preservation. Overnight, a world in which women were the "weaker sex"-where they frequently dared not walk alone for fear of sexual assault-was transformed into a world where wholesale violation and murder were being committed upon men by women, where men were suddenly the objects of violent lust, and where the toughest of tough guys dared not go out in the open for fear of his life… and his wife. This was not a condition that most men could readily grasp, to their abrupt misfortune. By trying to retain their perceived sexual hegemony-by leaping in to "take charge"-the males of our species surrendered in droves to the annihilating passion of the Maenads. -The Maenad Project Marcus Washington, aka Voodooman, sat at the card table and tried to gauge his opponents' blank expressions. You weren't allowed to turn or take your eyes off the game; you weren't allowed to show fear. It was a matter of honor that you had to sit still and play for real in the shadow of death.

  Marcus knew these men better than he knew his own family. They were the Dead Presidents Posse, the four of them seated at the cardinal points of the compass:

  Righteous Weeks faced north, with the best view; Little Rock faced west; 50 Cal east; and Voodooman himself in the blind position, for which they drew straws before the game-all very cool customers who were not easily spooked. But they were nervous now, all right. The question was, were they nervous enough?

  Marcus could hear the dancing clown at his shoulder and the expectant buzz from the stands-he sensed the bull's-eye on his back, knew he had better choose his next move carefully, or it could be his last. Seeing Calvin's frozen grin, he thought, Boy looks like a long-tailed cat in a roomful of rocking chairs. Maybe this would be a good time to bluff.

  Righteous had just raised two dollars and the others had matched it, so Marcus said, "I'll see your two dollars and raise you five more." He threw his chips in.

  The tension swelled like steam in a teakettle-oh, it was going to be close.

  Little Rock and Calvin folded, shaking their heads. Righteous disgustedly tossed in the chips and said, "I call, you son of a bitch. Show your hand."

  Marcus had no hand to show; it was pure trash. He felt naked in the crazed glare of the stadium lights. If nothing happened in the next instant to prevent it, he was going to have to show his cards, losing gambler cred as well as the nineteen dollars in the pot. Then the skin on his shaved scalp tingled-Oh damn-

  Something happened.

  The other three leaped backward in unison, and Voodooman barely had time to dodge as a ton of pissed-off Black Angus Hereford came barreling through the game like a horned locomotive, causing the cards, the chips, the table itself, as well as the players and their chairs, to explode in every direction.

  The audience exploded, too, into gales of laughter-convict poker was the prison rodeo's most popular event. The last event of the evening, and in this instance, the last rodeo event of the year, for this was New Year's Ropin' Eve.

  "Shit, man, that was close," said Righteous Weeks, helping Voodooman to his feet and handing him his hat. "You one crazy nigger. Motherfucker got eyes in the back of his head."

  "Just remember it's my hand-last one seated. Cattle call."

  "You earned it, brother-straight bull flush. Were you really holding?"

  "Nope."

  Weeks laughed, dusting himself off. "I didn't think so. Shee-it. A'ight, let's put this puppy to bed."

  It was almost 10 P.M., an hour before lockdown. Now the animals would be returned to their pens and the weary and battered inmates to their cells-those who weren't already at the prison infirmary or being ambulanced to the state hospital. Now the hootenanny would begin: Bands would play, free men and women would dance and drink until midnight on the red dirt of the arena, then it would all be over but for the fireworks. No inmates invited.

  Voodooman was helping corral the bull when the first screams started in the stands.

  He looked up in astonishment to see rioting among the spectators: men and women grappling with one another, and the prison guards and trusties rushing to intervene. At first he thought it was a joke, some kind of mass prank: Several hundred women were straddling men-bodily pinning them down-and smothering them with what looked to be passionate kisses. But clearly there was nothing funny about it-some folks were just angry, telling their children not to look, but the ones nearest the trouble were plainly scared about something. Other audience members were frantically trying to pull the pairs apart and shouting for help.

  "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN," said the announcer, "I'M AFRAID I HAVE TO ASK YOU TO REFRAIN FROM CAUSING A DISTURBANCE. I KNOW IT'S NEW YEAR'S EVE, AND WE'VE ALL HAD A FEW DRINKS, BUT REMEMBER THAT WE ARE ON THE GROUNDS OF A PENITENTIARY AND MUST ACT IN FULL ACCORDANCE WITH THE RULES-IT'S FOR YOUR OWN SAFETY. THIS IS A FAMILY SHOW. WE'RE ALL HERE TO HAVE FUN, BUT ROWDINESS WILL NOT BE TOLERATED."

  Marcus watched as five people, two of them state troopers, managed to wrestle one of the women off, fighting for all they were worth to get her into a headlock and cuffs. Other men were interfering with the woman's arrest, offended by the rough treatment she was receiving. They were trying to be gallant. Meanwhile, the man she had been kissing looked like a broken doll, sprawled on the bench.

  Holy shit, Marcus thought, that man's dead.

  The woman looked… strange. Wet with pepper spray, her face was twisted into a mask of black rage-or was it pleasure-her mouth a gaping pit and eyes almost popping out of her head. She was wearing a sexy cowgirl outfit with buckskin fringes, all torn and disheveled now. They were all like that, all fighting like wildcats to get at the men; Marcus could see the tendons standing out in their necks. Their blue necks, he noted. All the women seemed to have blue skin.

  Suddenly, the dead man burst to life, leaping up and seizing another man who had been checking his pulse. The attacker's face was puffy and purple from strangulation, his tongue black, but his near-death experience didn't slow him down any. Onlookers shouted in surprise, scrambling backward as the two men thrashed between the benches, then tumbled out of sight below the bleachers.

  Marcus wasn't sure whether to laugh or scream-this was the damnedest thing he'd ever seen. It had to be some kind of stunt-had to be.

  A shotgun was fired into the air, and an officer yelled, "Everyone stay seated! That's an order!"

  The announcer came on again:

  "LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, WE ASK YOU TO PLEASE REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS AND COOPERATE WITH THE AUTHORITIES. DO NOT LET YOURSELVES GET DRAWN INTO THIS BRAWL. THE FOLKS RESPONSIBLE WILL BE DEALT WITH SHORTLY IF YOU'LL ALL JUST REMAIN IN YOUR SEATS AND REFRAIN FROM ADDING TO THE CONFUSION. ALL RODEO PERSONNEL AND TRUSTIES ARE INSTRUCTED TO RETURN AT ONCE TO THE STAGING AREA. EVERYONE REMAIN CALM-THE SITUATION IS UNDER CONTROL. WE APOLOGIZE FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE."

  The rodeo performers and trusties weren't listening. They had all stopped what they were doing and were calling to their wives and sweethearts in the stands, or just watching dumbfounded as chaos broke out above them. The animals were getting jumpy from the noise.

  Reining in one of the ponies, Righteous Weeks called out, "What in hell's going on? Somebody makin' a break I don't know about?"

  Voodooman could only shake his head. "I don't thin
k so."

  "Be one hell of a diversion."

  "You got that right," agreed Voodooman in his Texarkana drawl.

  Despite what the announcer said, nothing was under control. In fact, the trouble was spreading like wildfire, doubling every couple of minutes. The number of cops was shrinking by the second, and now some of them were joining the fray, crazy and blue-faced as the women, attacking and grappling with anybody they caught, forcing their victims down like spiders on flies and sucking the life breath out of them-a kiss of death. "Love Potion Number Nine," Marcus thought crazily, but there was nothing funny about it. It was all happening so fast. People were dying-they were as dead as any corpses Marcus had ever seen, and he had seen a few. But then the weirdest thing kept happening, the ridiculously crazy thing. The victims-the corpses frozen in their last death rictus-would jump up and maul someone else. It was like a murderous game of tag: You're it.

  Voodooman could see the whole deranged business because the crowd was thinning as people fled the stands. They ran down onto the field, scattering in all directions, and the horrible blue attackers followed them. Marcus couldn't believe how many of the things there were already. Another few minutes, and there wouldn't be anybody alive and sane left in the arena. For a moment longer there were isolated bursts of wild shooting, then no more guns, no more guards, no more control.

  Frozen with shock, Voodooman said, "What the fuck they doin' to 'em?"

  "I don't know, brother, but leave us get the hell outta here."

  A man carrying a little boy ran up to them, screaming, "Help us! Please stop them!"

  "What the fuck you expect us to do? We ain't armed."

  "Please! They're coming-!" He was suddenly blindsided by a running leap, taken down by a feral-looking teenage girl. She was all over him like a snake swallowing a rat-it was if she thought she could burrow down into his body through his mouth. Her teeth broke against his teeth. The little boy was knocked to the ground and lay there screaming.

  They could hear the man's chest collapse, like the dregs of a milk shake being drained through a straw.

  Voodooman grabbed the kid and put him on the skittish horse, tying a rope around his middle and fastening it to the saddle horn. "Hug his neck good and tight," he said, shaking the child by his shoulder to snap him out of it. "Okay?" The boy nodded through his tears. To Righteous Weeks, Marcus said, "Get up there with him, man. Go!"

  "You do it-I ain't gonna be nailed with no childendangerment rap."

  "Just ride clear of this mess and drop him off with somebody!"

  Before Righteous could reply, the horse suddenly reared up, yanking him off his feet and breaking his grip on the reins.

  "Damn," he said, watching his favorite mount escape with the bawling kid on its back.

  "Ain't nothing we can do," said Voodooman grimly. "Come on."

  They allowed themselves to be swept up in the hysterical mob exiting the field. People were being attacked right and left, or falling and being trampled. As the two convicts crowded through the entrance promenade, they saw their cell-mate 50 Cal galloping toward them on another horse, the warden's big Percheron stallion. Cal had a blue woman lying hog-tied across his legs, and a little girl hanging on to his waist from behind. As he rode, he had to hold down the woman with one hand to prevent her from bucking loose. People beseeched him to stop, to save them, too, but he ignored them, breasting their yearning hands as if they were a cane thicket.

  Approaching Voodooman and Righteous Weeks, he shouted, "I roped Darleen! She ain't right, but I'm takin' her and Maybelline!" Before he could reach them, one of the demonic ghouls leaped from the crowd and knocked 50 Cal out of the saddle, taking his wife and daughter with him. The horse reared, kicking someone in the head with a sound of busting crockery.

  "We gotta catch that horse!" Voodooman shouted, and the two men plunged through the dwindling crowd after it. Things were going south fast, the ranks of fleeing people eroding around them like a sand castle. The horse was their only hope-Marcus realized that without it, they were no better than sheep: easy pickings for the ravenous wolves at their heels.

  But just as they caught up to the plunging beast, and Righteous caught the reins, Voodooman knew it was too late.

  The demons were on them.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Marcus saw something ugly rushing toward him, a blue-faced scarecrow with a shock of straw blond hair. It grabbed him hard around the neck and toppled him into the horse's haunch, causing the animal to buck, kicking wildly. He felt the force of its hooves rocket past his face, hard enough to snap his neck or crush his skull had they struck him. Instead, they hit the thing on his back: two iron-shod pistons straight to its face. Something wet spattered his neck, and at once the weight was off his back.

  He spun to see a whole pack of blue devils swarming in, this final invasion going unnoticed by Righteous, who was too busy steadying the horse to see them coming.

  "Look out!" he shouted, just as the other inmate vaulted into the saddle. Marcus grabbed hold of his waist and put one foot in the stirrup, hanging off the side like a circus rider as Righteous kicked the animal into motion.

  The horse wouldn't go; it tossed its head in confusion, spinning sideways to see the wave of crazed harpies sweeping in from behind. Its big golden-apple eyes rolled with panic.

  "Hah!" shouted Righteous, kicking its flanks. "Run, bitch!"

  All at once a huge, humped shape barreled out of the darkness and straight into the thick of the ghouls, running them down or tossing them right and left on the honed tips of its horns-an enormous Brahma bull with blood in its eyes.

  "Damnation!" yelled Righteous. "It's Damnation! Somebody musta left his pen open!"

  The bull veered around the stalled horse, nearly goring Marcus as it stampeded past him toward thicker concentrations of people in the visitor parking lot. He winced as its horns thundered by, close enough to graze his back. That would be the final irony: if after everything that happened, he was killed by a steer.

  But it didn't touch him, kept right on going. The sight of the bull snapped the horse out of its panic, and it immediately broke into a following gallop. Marcus swung himself up over the horse's rump, grabbing Righteous Weeks around the waist, and saying, "Don't get no ideas. This don't mean we're engaged."

  "Just hang on."

  Weeks reined the horse sideways behind the arena, driving the nervous animal away from the crowd and off the main thoroughfare. A ravening horde of maniacs followed, but Marcus applied his spurs, and the creatures fell behind in the dark. Other refugees were there as well, scattered across the parade grounds and running for the farm out-buildings. When they saw the horse, some turned around to beg for help and were immediately attacked by blue-faced ghouls. There was shooting along the fence line, guards in the towers trying to stop what they thought was a mass escape. No way Righteous was going anywhere near there; get shot trying to escape with his parole hearing coming up next month? Uh-uh. Ignoring the civilians, he called to any convicts they passed, "Stay away from the perimeter fence! Get up inside the main camp!"

  Prison buses and trucks with horse trailers were peeling out of the rear staging area, some covered with crazy attackers, some crashing before they got out of the parking lot. The animals were all over the place. Marcus saw a bucking, panicked mare with a blazed face dragging a snarl of concertina wire with people tangled up in it.

  Making for the inner gate of the camp-the triple-fortified central compound that contained the main cellblock-Righteous and Voodooman found themselves once again falling in with a fleeing mob, but here there were fewer crazies to be seen, perhaps because all the spectators had reflexively run the opposite way and were bottled up down at the exit. This was a much smaller crowd, mostly prisoners and trusties, not a single one of them female, and some even armed.

  The gate guards watched stupefied as men poured through from the farm, unsupervised and completely out of order, babbling incoherently about crazy women and blue devils. The guar
ds didn't try to stop or interrogate them-leave that for the block captains and the warden, wherever he was. The quick-response team had already been dispatched to the arena with tear gas as well as more lethal munitions. Clad in their imposing black riot gear and shields, resembling a Roman cohort, they'd mop up any trouble quickly, and the prisoners knew it. Emergency procedure during a jailbreak was first and foremost to get everybody under lockdown, and these boys were obviously eager enough to do that for themselves.

  Voodooman and Righteous Weeks were another story: Two convicts riding into a restricted area on the warden's prizewinning stud was a clear violation of something, and the guards were quick to draw down on them. "Stop right there!" they shouted. "Get down off'n that horse!"

  "You gotta close the gate!" Marcus shouted, jumping to the ground. "They're right behind us!"

  Ignoring Marcus, the second guard shouted up at Weeks, "What you think you doin', boy, bringin' that horse up here? Take that back where it belongs."

  There was a sudden influx of men streaming through the gate, running wild-eyed from the not-yet-visible threat at their heels, no one wanting to be last in line.

  "Can't you see they're almost here?" Marcus screamed, as much to his fellow inmates as to their keepers. "Shut the damn gate before it's too late!"

  "Too late for what?" the senior guard scoffed. "All I can say is, you both better have the warden's permission to be riding that horse, I tell you what."

  "We do! He sent us to tell you to close the gate!"

  "Is that right? Why don't I ask him that?"

  "He ain't here!"

  "He damn sure is."

  A manic, burly figure came rushing out of the darkness. People scattered out of his way, not for the usual reason that he was the warden, but because something was clearly wrong with him. Even from a distance, he looked like a rabid animal.

  "Warden!" the guard said in alarm, leaping to help him. "You okay? I was just-"