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  But if there were no police…

  Hence the men smiled and nodded and patiently sat through those whole long speeches, but as soon as the doors rolled back, they shook off the unsolicited advice like a long-winded sermon in the prison chapel when all they wanted was free wine-they didn't need El Dopa, they didn't need no funny money, and they certainly didn't need any half-assed Rambo motherfuckers telling them what to do.

  Marcus himself held back, as did all the boys who had been at the rodeo that night. No one who had seen that, who had those sounds and pictures playing in his mind day and night, was in any big hurry to dash outside, however hungry or thirsty he might be. They tried to impress this upon the men around them, but the momentum to leave was too great… until the jackhammer sound of a modified AK-47 caused everyone to fall back in panic. Bits of concrete and ceiling insulation rained down on their heads.

  It was Major Bendis. He and his men were sitting in the shadows, blocking the passage to the main guard station, barring the exit. They were dangerous men, men with a philosophy of violence, all five of them heavily laden with weapons and belts of ammunition. Despite their smoking guns, they appeared perfectly at ease, lounging back in plastic kiddy desks from the visiting area.

  Speaking into a megaphone, Bendis said in his odd foreign accent, "As I said before, you are free to go. Just not all at once. We'll let you go in your elected groups, starting with the smallest. Will the smallest group please to come forward? Everyone else stay where you are."

  The sixteen representatives of ILL-the Incarcerated Libertarian League-pushed through the crowd. They were all paunchy, red-faced NRA supporters and militant anti-government types who had been convicted of weapons charges and tax evasion, or who had killed bosses, coworkers, and ex-wives in suburban shooting rampages. Because of the latter, high-profile atrocities, most of them were on Death Row, where they shared a dormitory and were kept on permanent suicide watch: intrusive searches, twenty-four-hour video monitoring, and bright lights all night long. The thought that they were about to just waltz out of here scot-free was incredible to these men-they were all too familiar with betrayal, it had to be a trick of some kind-so they came forward hesitantly, upper lips sweating, pudgy nail-bitten hands trembling in disbelief.

  Bendis nodded at El Dopa, who waved the men through, saying, "Go on, you're free."

  Two of the soldiers led them through the various gated levels of the security station, the processing room, and the outer waiting area, to the heavy exit door. The outside video monitors were all dead. Directing them to wait, the lead mercenary peered through the security glass, then popped the latch. Jerking his bearded chin toward the exit, he hissed, "Run! Now!"

  The men ran. Barging through the door into bright daylight, the first thing they saw was the surreal sight of the warden's white stallion nibbling the grassy verge of the inner keep. The huge animal huffed and tossed its head, rearing away as the group headed down the enclosed path between fenced exercise yards to the outer compound. Beyond that was the secure parking and the driveway to the main gatepost, a fortified checkpoint through steel jungles of chain link and concertina wire, sandwiching a perimeter-long dog run and great thick brambles of razor ribbon.

  Those brambles were full of naked dead people, scare-crows of raw meat, their clothes and flesh torn off and hanging in rags from the wire, their mangled bodies bent in impossible contortions, limbs all but torn off trying to swim through the steel thicket, finally stuck fast.

  Horrific as this sight was, the convicts had already either seen it themselves or heard about it from others with outward-facing windows. They were focused more on the peaceful vista just beyond: the rolling green landscape of the prison farm, thousands of acres surrounded by a single outer fence that bordered the service road. From what they could tell, the plague had run its course; the landscape was deserted. No guards to stop them, no crazy women running wild, just clear sailing all the way. Basking in the sunshine, they jogged anxiously toward freedom.

  They made it as far as the parking lot before the Xombies hit. First there was just one-a creature so torn from its passage through the wire that it was practically skinless, all purplish muscle and yellow fat, its torn belly an empty cavity. It was a woman.

  The men shouted to each other as the thing came around the building, skittering as though hyped-up on meth or PCP, much faster than they could run and open the gate-they were already out of breath. Fleeing wasn't an option; the only choice was to stand and fight. Even though they had no weapons, the men weren't overly alarmed at the prospect-they were comfortable with their sixteen-to-one advantage. One torn-up madwoman didn't stand a chance.

  First, they tried to just shoo her off, waving their fists and yelling, "Fuck off! Get out of here! Beat it!" but she kept coming. As she drew closer, and they really got a look at her-that flayed face with its hugely exposed black eyeballs rimmed in yellow-some of the men became more doubtful, but the ringleader, an ex-Marine named Sherman Oakes, said, "Holy Jesus, she's already got both feet in the grave! Probably drop dead from a stiff breeze." He wrapped his jacket around his fist, and the others did likewise, forming a defensive half circle to meet her.

  Then another Xombie appeared from behind them. It was a guard, a young guy named Cyril Shaklee, who was blue in the face but otherwise intact except for one of his legs having been ripped off at the hip. He scrambled forward on his three remaining limbs, crablike, freakishly fast, and was followed by two more creatures rounding the east wing of the building. Furthermore, the dead ones caught between the fences suddenly came back to life, barbed coils twanging as they bucked and wriggled through, leaving dangling gobbets of flesh.

  The convicts' line began to fray, trying to keep all the spastic creatures in view. As the woman charged among them, Sherman Oakes swung at her with a royal haymaker, hoping to take her out with one punch, but she dodged in side his fist and hooked him around the neck, toppling the big man backward and clamping on. The others kicked at her as viciously as they could, trying to knock her off without having to actually touch her, but she was grafted to her man, legs around his chest, arms around his neck, and the lower half of her face buried deep in his mouth as though trying to crawl down his throat, cracking his jaw as she sucked his lungs inside out. She couldn't be budged.

  "Goddammit," someone said, realizing they were in over their heads. Resolve buckling, first one man, then another and another and finally all of them broke off the fight, half of them running for the gatepost, the other half scattering senselessly the way they had come. The gatehouse was the nearest hope of shelter, but it was a losing race: Several creatures were emerging from the wire right beside the gate, and those already running free were at the men's heels.

  The first man to run, a forty-year-old former postal worker named Ted Kleinmetz, made it. Arriving at the open door, he cried to the others, "Come on, come on!" But a lightning-quick monstrosity lunged at him from the fence, and Ted had no choice but to slide the metal door shut against it. The demon hit the door with a crash, cracking the wire-reinforced window and leaving an inky smudge.

  There were gun ports in the walls, and Kleinmetz frantically scanned the office for firearms, but the guards had obviously taken everything when they left. He could hear the other men's muffled screaming outside, and things banging against the doors and windows that might or might not have been human-he couldn't bear to look. Oh God oh shit… Searching the drawers, he found a police baton and some pepper spray, clutching them to his chest as he sought a hole to curl up in and wait out this nightmare.

  He found one: a tiny, windowless closet in the back, with a toilet and sink. But as he stepped inside the dark cubby, his right foot fell down a gap in the floorboards, and something grabbed his leg from underneath, twisting and pulling with inhuman strength. His hip joint ruptured with an audible crack.

  Screaming in agony, he realized the impossibility of his entire body fitting down that crevice, the incomprehensible ramifications of that, and
the last thought Ted Kleinmetz had as he blacked out from the pain of his leg being ripped off was a memory of something one of his victims had said to him right before he pulled the trigger:

  Uncle, dammit, uncle!

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  HOPALONG CASSIDY PHALANX

  "CHEW DUNE, BOA?" the monster roared again.

  Sal awoke, confused, then recoiled and squeezed his eyes shut, hoping to die quickly. He couldn't bear to look. Every inch of the thing held a new horror: cancerous growths of ears, nipples, belly buttons, genitals-a cannibal collage of misplaced organs. And on top of it all a head like a spiny leather cactus, with three blackened holes for a face. It reminded him of something out of a comic book he had once read, about a swamp monster called the Man-Thing, whose tagline was Whatever knows fear BURNS at the Man-Thing's touch.

  Sal was speechless, unable to think. Deafened by the blood rushing in his ears, he was yet able to sense that the other boys had gone equally silent and still. And he knew why: They were surrounded, the wood taken over by dozens of these horrific things, rising amid the swamp brush like ghastly sentinels.

  The monster leaned closer. "Ahmo ask yew once mo: What the hail you all doin' heah? Ah-bla Inglays?"

  Its heavy Southern drawl suddenly clicked.

  "Nothing!" Sal cried, relieved to understand, to at least be able barely to comprehend what this appalling vision was saying to him. To know that it was in some way human. This hopeful possibility triggered a domino effect in his mind: Of course it was human! Yes, he could see it now, a face through the eyeholes-there was some kind of man in there. The Xombie flesh was only skin deep, a grisly living costume. He was not a Xombie at all but dressed in Xombies. Armored from head to toe in living Xombie flesh.

  Weeping, Sal cried, "We're running away from Xombies! They're coming! Help us, please!"

  "Xombies, hell. You ain't-"

  Just then the churning, rumbling noise within the tunnel became very loud. Waves lapped out from its mouth, fanning across the mired boys, then a single high, resounding voice: "Yeeeeehaaaaaaw!"

  And out came the boat.

  It was a large amphibious truck, a converted military landing craft of the type called a duck boat, familiar to Sal from preapocalypse days as a tourist ride. The aft end of it was covered with a peculiar, fleshy canopy resembling a Conestoga wagon, Xombie skins stretched over aluminum ribs like the translucent webbing of a bat's wing. On its hull, painted in ornate letters, were the words PRAIRIE SCHOONER. The vehicle's open front appeared shaggy, its high gunwales festooned with an odd, rippling mass of bluish fronds, opening and closing like blooming flower petals. Not flowers-arms. A thousand clutching, severed arms, nailed down like blossoms on a Rose Parade float.

  "We found one of Miska's!" the truck's driver shouted. Upon seeing the boys, he pulled up short, and called down, "Well, well! Looks like we ain't the only ones to bag us a prize. What we got here?"

  In their ghoulish second skins, the vehicle's crew were no less unspeakably awful than the men on the ground, each one's costume arranged differently according to personal idiosyncrasy, each one with a large black number scorched-branded-on the front of his leathery helmet. But there was no question now that there were ordinary men underneath. Aside from the massive vehicle, the proof was in the axes, spears, guns, lights, and sophisticated night-vision equipment they carried-Xombies traveled much lighter. But with their Xombie armor and medieval weaponry, they resembled nothing so much as a boatload of hideously deformed goblins. Aliens. Mutants. It was not such fanciful monstrosities that sprang foremost to Sal's mind, however. The whoops, ropes, drawling banter, and holstered staple guns were indicative of a slightly more r eassuring archetype.

  Cowboys, he thought crazily. Rednecks. Shit, that's all we need: a bunch of sadistic backwoods shitkickers-probably necrophiliacs, too. Necrophiliacs and cannibals. They'll rape us, then kill us, then rape us again, then eat us, then wear our skins as hats.

  Somehow that still wasn't as scary to him as Xombies.

  "Who-who are you guys?" he asked shrilly.

  "Ain't that funny," said the monstrous vision. "I was about to ask you the same thing. But I guess we both have to wait-trouble's nigh."

  "Harpies bazaar!" someone whooped.

  The Xombies were upon them.

  First there was the sound, a rushing commotion in the dense underbrush, crackling like wildfire. Then, far down the glade, Sal saw a solid wave of manic blue bodies sprinting toward them. Swarming up the railroad tracks, the river of trampling ghouls gathered force as it approached, secondary streams of Xombies merging with it out of the trees.

  Sal barely had time to think before a blue hand seized him by the front of his jacket. The hand was not attached to a person, but to the end of a long pole wielded by a man on the duck boat. The man shouted, "Hang on!" and in one dizzying swoop Sal was swung over the high rail of the truck-its frilled arms following him like iron filings after a magnet-and dumped hard onto its rubberized foredeck. Someone planted his bootheel on Sal's chest, using a crowbar to pry the hand loose. It hurt.

  Knocked flat on his back, Sal rolled aside just as another boy tumbled in, crying "Hey!"-it was Kyle Hancock. Two other boys followed in quick succession, Todd Holmes and Freddy Fisk, boated like flopping tuna, then finally Ray Despineau. No sign of the rest; they had scattered, fleeing into the trees. Sal tried to get up, but one of the grisly men pinned him with a spear handle, and barked, "Stay still!"

  Suddenly, they could hear Xombies all around the vehicle, the terrifying wash of sound filling the air. Sal's body tensed in expectation of blue demons pouring over the rails-the duck boat was wide open. But the creatures did not come in. As the truck lurched into motion, the men on foot calmly hoisted themselves up the rear step, piling in with practiced ease. The Xombies weren't touching them.

  "Phew, that's a peck of 'em," one said, voice muffled beneath his spiny meat helmet.

  "You have to help the others!" Sal cried. "Please!"

  "We would if'n we could, but they already gone. Ain't nobody can he'p them now."

  A flurry of Xombies boiled up against the rail, threatening to spill over.

  Freddy screamed, "Why don't you shoot! They're coming in!"

  "We don't waste good ammo on Harpies."

  Another said, "Don't do no good."

  "Fact it makes things worse. Just more bits and pieces to contend with."

  Their resolve on this point was demonstrated when a feral blue infant leaped from a tree toward the huddled boys. Instead of shooting it, the crew deftly speared the flailing thing in midair and pitched it overboard. They all had such lances; the craft's topside bristled with them, every one unique as though for a specialized purpose, or perhaps just customized to suit the user. The basic design was long wooden handles tipped with variously shaped iron spikes, blades, and sharp-pronged hooks, though a few also had severed Xombie hands affixed to them. The choice of such a tool, and the skill with which it was being wielded, evinced a level of casual use that Sal found both alarming and wildly reassuring.

  The boys could hear Xombie skulls thwacking against the hull as the truck plowed through. Its angled bow was particularly well suited to this purpose, rafting atop the slippery living cataract.

  Prairie Schooner, Sal thought. Injun country.

  Heedless of the six-wheeled juggernaut, Xombies were squashed into the mud by the dozens, by the hundreds, their ribs collapsing like crates and inky blood jetting from every orifice. It was a temporary condition; they would be back. Over the rail Sal could see blue arms flailing as more Xombies lunged against the sides, but they weren't coming aboard. Something seemed to be preventing them from hanging on.

  As he watched, a particularly eager female crested the railing only to be stopped short by contact with that garden of disembodied limbs nailed to the gunwales. The effect was immediate: Hundreds of undead arms, themselves intent on the boys, jerked like a mass of disturbed snakes and hurled the attacking Xombie against a t
ree.

  "Why aren't they coming in?" Freddie whimpered.

  "The hands," Sal said. "The hands aren't letting them. I don't think they like being grabbed."

  "You got that right," said the leader. "They strongly object to bein' manhandled by one of they own. You ever see how magnets repel each other? That's what it's like. Them Harpies spook to each other's touch-it's like an electric shock or something. Maybe it reminds 'em a what they is."

  Another man said, "Nah, that ain't it. They just a hindrance to each other, that's all, an obstacle to be avoided-ain't no feeling about it. All they can see is us, like as if we got a damn neon sign over our heads."

  "Don't make no damn difference why it works," said the first man, "long as it works." To the boys, he said, "They won't even fight over us. They got this system for keeping things polite: first come, first served. One to a customer. Ain't you never noticed how when a Harpy grabs someone, the rest of 'em just shy off? We call it the Solomon Principle. Otherwise, they'd tear each other to pieces, and us, too. By wearing their doodads, we give off that vibe of being spoken for; our dance card is full."

  "Damn," said Sal, awestruck. This was like discovering fire. "It's like the ultimate camouflage!"

  Kyle said, "I wish we'd known about this shit sooner. Get me a Xombie-skin jacket."

  The man nodded. "Damn straight. It's like a protective membrane, like them Nemo fish that can live in a poisonous sea flower. We just goin' back to nature."

  "How'd you figure all this out?" Sal asked.

  "We didn't. It come down from the man upstairs-part of our shareholder benefits. But your boys on the sub must get the tech updates, too. Ain't you got no company rep?"