Apocalypticon x-2 Read online

  Sure you can.

  Lowering her voice, she said, Idiot-I have to be present in the lab when that morphocyte degrades. What do you think I've been waiting for all these months? Singing "Auld Lang Syne" with Regis? I can't rest easy until this thing elapses and returns to its constituents.

  You can track it just as easily in Greenland. You said it was everywhere.

  Are you serious? All my equipment is here.

  Not anymore. It's been shipped.

  What?

  He nodded slowly, the cat that swallowed the canary.

  Jim, you better be joking.

  Sorry to spring it on you like this.

  Since when? she demanded.

  Since early this morning. The whole kit 'n' kaboodle, on a C-130 transport out of T.F. Green. Your friend Dr. Stevens rode along to make sure it all went smoothly.

  Chandra's in on this? Are you all out of your fucking minds?

  I would have told you yesterday, but you were kind of out of it. Hey, it's just for a couple of months. I may even drop in on you guys up there later.

  I can't believe this. This is all too weird right now.

  Come on-weird is good. Weird is just what the doctor ordered.

  Yeah, but which doctor? Witch doctor-I made a funny. Which doctor's the witch doctor?

  Alice, you're drunk.

  She leaned in close, breathing gin fumes into his face. And you're a bastard. But I'll be sober in the morning.

  "Well, this is another fine mess you've gotten me into."

  Alice Langhorne was sitting on one of the brown Naugahyde couches in the goat locker, playing solitaire. Not looking up from her cards, she said, "What do you suppose happens now? They make us walk the plank?"

  Pacing, Coombs said, "There's no plank on a submarine."

  "The screen door, then."

  "I just don't understand what Kranuski thinks he's going to get out of this."

  "You don't? He already sold out the boat once before, didn't he?"

  "Not deliberately. I can't believe he did that deliberately. He didn't know about the Moguls, and as soon as we all realized what was going on, Rich stopped cooperating with them… even under torture. I saw it. The man's a walking recruiting poster-his sense of duty is sincere, if misguided."

  "You mean he's got a major stick up his butt."

  "He has good reason to be that way. There's no margin for error on a submarine. If you heard the tape of the Thresher going down, you'd know what I mean. And let me tell you something about Richard Kranuski: He has more reason than most to want to stick to protocol. He had a bad hazing experience at the Academy-a couple of drunk midshipmen hung him off a second-floor balcony by his ankles and dropped him. Ended their careers, and it's only a miracle Kranuski wasn't killed or paralyzed. Since then, he hasn't had much tolerance for games."

  "Well, that explains it."

  "What?"

  "He fell on his head."

  "I'm just worried he's being manipulated by Webb."

  "That meathead?"

  "Alton Webb's been developing a regular little following by playing on the men's fears and telling them what they want to hear. At first I thought it was a useful tool to keep morale up and maintain order, but now I realize he obviously had other ambitions. Webb's second-in-command now; all he has to do is remove Rich, and he'll be running the show."

  "I hate to tell you, Chief, but he's already running the show."

  "Yeah… yeah, but why? For what purpose?"

  "Who knows? Demigod of the seas isn't enough?"

  "Webb used to be a good officer. Kranuski, too. We all were."

  "Those were the days, my friend. The question is, what do we do now?"

  "Hold up!" Sal called softly, waving the boys to stop. Still no sign of Xombies. Through the window he could see hundreds of bikes filling every inch of the store. Better still, it was a repair shop, which meant that a lot of the bikes should be good to go, tires all pumped up and waiting for their owners to come get them. He checked the door. It was locked, of course. Damn! They didn't dare break in-it would make too much of a racket. What now?

  Sensing Sal's indecision, Russell shoved past him and stuffed his coat over a windowpane in the door. As Sal started to say, "No, don't-!" the bigger boy gave it a sharp tap with a rock. The glass tinkled inward, barely audible.

  "I done this before," he said, reaching through to unlock it. They quickly filed inside.

  As the last of them came in, Sal said, "Wait, where are the others?"

  "They gone, man."

  "What?"

  "They didn't never make it outta the minimart."

  "Are you kidding? And you just left them there?" Sal was almost yelling.

  "You left 'em, bro. We were all following you."

  "But I didn't know! I was counting on you guys to-"

  "To what? To die like them? Ain't nobody could help them, man. Come on, what the fuck we here for?"

  Trying to gather his wits, shaken by the magnitude of his failure-ten, no, eleven guys gone!-Sal said dully, "Uh, yeah… just grab whatever you think you can ride. Shit, dude. Keep it simple-no crazy junk with eighty-eight gears. These are good up here. Pull 'em down, check the tires for air…" He could feel his eyes watering, wanting to cry.

  Something flashed by outside the window. A blurred human shape, bright in the daylight, its eyes and mouth three gaping black pits. Then another rushed by. And another and another. The last one stopped short, peering into the dark shop. There was an electric jolt of eye contact-and every boy in the room felt his bowels turn to water.

  The thing staring at them was a teenage girl, or once had been. Now it was a naked blue banshee, deathly savage, with long, curved fingernails, nipples like tarnished iron spikes, and hair a black nest of brambles. Sal was reminded of the cover of an old picture book that had given him nightmares as a child: Struwwelpeter-the grotesque boy who never cut his hair or nails. It whirled and came at them.

  "Damn," Derrick croaked. "Here she comes."

  There was nowhere they could hide; the store was wide open, all glass. As most of the boys scrambled backward, Sal jumped forward and opened the front door.

  "Hell you doin'?" Kyle yelled, leaping to stop him.

  Sal hissed back, "If it has to break in, it'll give us away!"

  Russell rammed Kyle clear of the doorway as the Xombie came hurtling through. "Nail it!" he cried to the others, jumping for cover. They shrank backward, tumbling over bikes and each other to escape.

  As the ferocious gargoyle plunged after them, Sal dove to shut the door, then grabbed the first thing at hand, the frame of a little girl's bike, and swung it around by its glittery, pink-tasseled handlebars, hoping to use the sharp ends of the bike's front fork as a weapon.

  The Xombie was much too quick. Before Sal could strike, it whirled at him, knocking him onto his back with the bicycle crushing his chest. Powerful blue arms snaked for his throat. As he tried to fend them off with the handlebars, he realized he was inadvertently twisting the Xombie's head-its neck was lodged between the prongs of the fork. In desperation he wrenched the handlebars all the way around and heard the creature's neck snap with a sickening, cartilaginous crack. The force of its fury weakened for an instant, long enough for him to kick it off him and pin it to the floor by the fork. "Help me!" he shouted.

  "Here!" Derrick said, handing him a bike chain.

  Are you kidding? As Sal whipped the thrashing thing, feeling like a circus lion-tamer, some of the other boys found the nerve to join in. Immediately it became a hyper-caffeinated, junk-food-fueled frenzy, all of them fighting each other to get a lick in. Tools were located and put to use-crowbars and tin snips and hacksaws. A bunch of old golf clubs turned up. In less than a minute, the Xombie was chopped and pounded to quivering purple hamburger, its severed joints kicked around the room.

  While this was going on, Sal had a moment to step back and wipe his brow. He knew they didn't have long-more of those things could show up any second. It wa
s a miracle they hadn't already. He looked up at the row of used BMX bikes hanging from a rack. There were some okay ones there. Nothing as cherry as his custom Diamondback stumpjumper, but not bad. Choosing a metallic blue Trek, he took it down and checked the feel. It would have to do.

  Wheeling the bike to the door, he said, "Guys. I'm going."

  The others were shaky from their bloodlust, some puking, the rest shocked and not quite in their right minds. "What…?"

  "Listen to me. You see that cross street out there-Transit? I'm gonna ride up that and make as much noise as I can. Give me a minute to draw them off, then you go the opposite way. Go fast, but stick together and don't stop for anything. I'll loop back around and meet you on the other side, where Transit meets Gano. On the map there's another highway underpass down there that we can use to get back to the docks."

  "Say what?" They were sobering quickly, realizing what he was saying. "You gotta be-"

  "I'm gone. Don't wait too long!"

  Then he was out the door and riding hard. As he turned the corner, they heard him singing at the top of his lungs: "Riders of the storm!-Riders of the storm!-Into this world we're born!-Out of this world we're torn!-ner, na-nyer ner ner…"

  "Damn," said Russell.

  Kyle scoffed, astonished, "Boy be trippin'."

  "Trippin' or not, he's clearing the way for us to get out this shithole. I ain't about to waste it." He grabbed a silver Peugeot mountain bike. "Move ass, all of you! Grab a bike and follow me!"

  "Dog, where you think you goin'?"

  "You heard what the man said: Gano Street! That's all I need to know-I been here before. Hurry up! Once I go, everybody else gotta be ready to follow, one after another like clockwork! We ain't slowin' down for nobody."

  There was no shortage of bikes; in a few minutes all twenty-nine boys were poised to go, crushing into the doorway. Though the coast looked clear, no one wanted to be first. The Xombie was fresh in their minds.

  "Fine. Everybody back the fuck up," Russell said. "If I'm taking point, I gotta have room for a running start, least be a movin' target."

  As the others jockeyed for position behind him, a fight broke out: "No way, man!" "I ain't bringin' up the rear!" "Yeah, why don't you go last?"

  "Hell, I'll go last." The squawk of Russell's strained throat shut them up. "Get in front, whichever one of you wants to be first. You, Freddy? Derrick? Come on up, dog-I'm savin' the best place for you. I already had one of them things on my neck, I'll let you have the next one. I'll gladly kick back at the end of the line, watch everybody else take the heat." Nobody moved. "We straight, then? A'ight, back up, motherfucker."

  Kyle, who had been wavering between standing by his brother or defecting to the naysayers, now said, "Get back, fools!" As they cleared away, he gestured for silence, then cautiously opened the door and peeked both ways. Satisfied, he whispered, "Go."

  Russell nodded and kicked off into the sunlight. As he raced across the street, he could still hear the receding echo of Sal's singing… and something else: a deep, rushing sound as of the wind through autumn leaves, comprised of rapid footsteps and ghastly massed voices. He shuddered, nerves wilting with horror. Don't let 'em catch you, man.

  Kyle went next, flubbing his pedals as he jumped the curb, followed in quick succession by all the others. Getting their rhythm, they formed a ragged line, zipping unobstructed along the narrow side street. There were no dead cars here, only parked ones, and they made good speed. All that prevented them from going even faster was the incline-they were pedaling uphill. None of the boys had had any cardiovascular exercise in months, trapped on that submarine, and as they forced their bikes up the rise-emaciated bodies already starting to crash from the sugar binge-it became abundantly clear that they were in truly terrible shape. Their lungs were on fire, their wasted legs flimsy as rubber bands. Many of the boys had been athletes; it shocked and dismayed them to be so weak.

  "Damn, man, I got no game," Kyle said, struggling to keep pace.

  "Me either," Freddy Gonzales said. "Slow down, I am dying."

  "Shut up, you guys!" Russell hissed back.

  Turning to face forward again, Russell found himself staring into the face of an onrushing Xombie. It was a big woman with flaming red hair, her open mouth a black grotto that seemed big enough to swallow him and his bike whole. Heart exploding, he instinctively ducked, trying to swerve, but the thing hooked him around the neck, and they spun together in a horrible pas de deux before crashing to the ground.

  Seeing Russell in trouble, Kyle made a flying leap from his bike, trying to knock the creature off his brother with a large crescent wrench. Freddy came next, with a claw hammer, followed one after another by the rest of the boys. Having so quickly dispatched the Xombie in the bike shop, they were now much more willing to jump in.

  But no matter what they did, they couldn't seem to pry the hideous thing off Russell. Its body was practically fused to him, arms and legs wrapped whipcord tight around his limbs, mouth mashed against his face as it sucked the breath from his lungs. Worse, their mouths were joined together from within by a rootlike mass of flesh. The boys could hear the sickening, hopeless sound of Russell's rib cage crumpling.

  "Cut it off him!" Kyle cried tearfully, but some of them were already doing that, dismembering it and hacking at the tough, slippery umbilical as best they could. They just weren't doing it fast enough-Russell's popping eyes were already glazed over, staring blankly through them. He had stopped struggling.

  A sudden eruption sent the ring of boys scattering: "Look out!" someone screamed. "Heads up!" There was another Xombie in their midst. It was a boy about their own age, a feral thing still wearing a tattered Patriots shirt. Flying after them, it plucked Nate off his feet, taking the boy in a headlock and capering away with his thrashing body slung over its back. Several boys gave chase, but almost immediately two more Xombies appeared, striking like spiders at them as they left the main group. In an instant, Rick and Carlos were down.

  Now things dissolved into panicky confusion, people tripping over bikes trying to escape. How could they fight these things and watch their own backs at the same time? Russell was beyond saving; Kyle miserably knew that unless they did something fast, his own brother would bounce back as a demonic Xombie. So would the other three boys, meaning the number of unstoppable monsters they had to deal with would effectively double. Meanwhile, more Exes were popping out of the woodwork like cockroaches. Roy Almeida was hit as he watched, limbs flailing. Kyle was stunned to be so suddenly helpless and alone-there was no one in charge! Without Russell or even that goody-goody Sal, he felt completely lost.

  "We gotta get indoors!" Freddy shouted.

  "We gotta make a run for it!" yelled someone else.

  Kyle roused himself. Abandoning the mess of body parts that were still inextricably clutching his older brother-his soul brother, his best friend and last living family member-he cried, "Everybody on your bikes, let's go!"

  That's it, isn't it, Dad? We're all going to die?

  Everybody dies sometime, Sal. And if they're lucky, they stay dead.

  Once again, Sal DeLuca was riding for his life. It was literally an uphill battle. When he'd rashly conceived this plan, he had no idea how soon his legs would start giving out, but he took strength in knowing that every inch he climbed would at least be rewarded with an effortless downhill glide on the return journey. He was sweating and dizzy from carb and caffeine overload-he never ate that kind of stuff.

  Transit Street was shady and tree-lined, narrow as an old cart path, with quaint, pastel-colored historical houses arrayed on either side. The road was not particularly steep, but Sal might as well have been pedaling up Mount Washington-this was the first time he realized how much of a wreck he'd become. Had he been able to weigh himself, or look in a mirror, he would have been shocked at the sunken-eyed wraith staring back at him. Since the end of the world, he had lost nearly a third of his body mass.

  Sal didn't know the College Hill di
strict very well, having grown up miles away in South County, but he had been to Providence enough times to have some sense of its geography. This was the hilly part-he knew that much. Beyond that, he had to rely on the map and his own sense of direction. East, west, north, south-those he could handle. Up and down he was learning as he went along.

  His intuition (and the map) told him that heading west up Transit was a smart move: Xombies were drawn to population centers, so it made sense to get off the main drag and into quieter neighborhoods. He could lure the creatures in after him and use the cobblestone maze of Colonial-era city planning to confuse them, slow them down-they didn't have maps to find their way out.

  Sal knew he didn't dare head too far in that direction, though, because Phil Tran had told him that Lulu and the rest of Dr. Langhorne's "subjects" were foraging somewhere around here. Benefit Street was highlighted in red on his map, with the scrawled warning, TO AVOID. Sal was in full agreement with Phil on this point. The last thing he needed was to run into those things, however harmless they were said to be.

  His plan was simply to pull a Pied Piper routine, clear the road for Russell and the other guys to get a head start in the opposite direction, then ditch the deadheads and loop back around to rendezvous with his team at India Point. From there they could follow bike paths along the waterfront all the way back to the rafts.

  Easy as pie… in theory. What his map didn't show was that Brook Street was in a trough, a former creek bottom from which it had derived its name, and that by turning up Transit he would be hill-climbing at the same time as he was acting as live bait for hordes of the undead. Nice going, Scout, Sal thought ruefully. So much for that merit badge. He could only hope the other guys were having an easier time of it.

  At least one part of Sal's plan was an unqualified success: The Xombies were coming. They had heard his singing and were swarming out after him like hornets from a disturbed nest, following hard on his wheels. He didn't dare look back, but he could hear them behind him, a gathering roar like the tide.

  The Xombies are coming!-that was the crazed thought that ran through his mind like the ravings of a demented Paul Revere. The Xombies are coming, the Xombies are coming!