Apocalypticon x-2 Page 16

  Carpet remnants, Sal thought. Scrap leather. He watched, revolted, as those bags-as well as Lulu and the captive Xombies at the stern-were hoisted away by crane.

  "Fun's over, gentlemen," said Voodooman. Out of his flesh suit, wearing shorts and flip-flops, he was revealed to be a knobby-kneed older black man with gray in his beard. "Go on up."

  They were led around the deck to where a rope ladder dangled from the mountain of shipping containers. There were more ladders up to the higher tiers. It reminded Sal of pictures he'd seen of an Indian pueblo in New Mexico.

  Voodooman said, "We pull these ladders up after dark, so you don't need to worry none about Harpies kissin' on you in the night."

  The boys climbed to the next level, following as the man briskly walked them around the first shelf of the pyramid. It was like the sundeck of a very unruly cruise ship, littered with deck chairs and sun umbrellas and just plain litter. They passed a port-a-john on a plank and were told to remember its location. At intervals there were holes cut in the metal floor, and at one of these the boys were directed to go below.

  "Just like on the submarine," Kyle said, climbing down the ladder.

  "Yeah."

  It wasn't quite the same as the sub though, didn't have that subterranean heaviness, that density that always made Sal feel like he was locked inside a bank vault. This felt more like a barn: stinky but well ventilated, and not nearly as claustrophobic.

  First they descended into a long shipping container loaded to the ceiling with cases of soda pop. Open at one end, it faced into a fluorescent-lit corridor under the pyramid, and they were taken down this narrow passage to another container-a bare box about the size of a bus and nearly as comfortable, with dozens of hammocks and folding cots, a hundred-gallon barrel of water, soap, rolls of paper towels, and a washtub. The perforated walls rang with raucous sounds of men.

  "This is my crew's bunkhouse here," said Voodooman. "We'll let you use it for now, just until you get fixed up. All I ask is that you don't bring any food in, on account of the rats."

  "Rats?" squeaked Freddy.

  "What food?" asked Kyle.

  "What food?" The man seemed to find this amusing. "When you get hungry, just head on down the passage-I'm sure you'll find something."

  He left them alone, and the boys considered their situation. It was all so overwhelming, and they were so exhausted after the long, terrifying, tragic day, that they barely had the energy to discuss the situation.

  "What do you think?" Sal asked softly.

  "I don't know," said Todd, yawning. "Looks like they don't know much about us or the sub, which is good."

  "I agree. They obviously think the boat's here to hook up with them and get supplies for some kind of bogus 'provisional government.' Sounds a lot like MoCo to me."

  "Maybe it's true," Kyle offered. "Did you ever think of that? That would explain why Coombs brought us here in the first place, and why the crew mutinied."

  The boys lay stunned as this possibility sank in.

  "Shit, man, you're right."

  As they were mulling this over, one by one, the exhausted boys fell asleep.

  On one level, Lulu was aware of her body being rudely stripped from the jagged spike upon which it had been impaled, her gaping, shredded body cavity huge and drafty as a hollow tree. She felt herself being bound up with baling wire and bagged in coarse burlap, then tossed and banged around like a sack of bulk mail. While this was going on, she remained perfectly inert, as immune to rough handling as a rag doll, her consciousness dwelling elsewhere, out there, up where the stars pooled, carried along on tides of gravity and time. But it was not the immensely distant phenomena that held her attention. There was something else going on up there, something much closer to home, close and drawing nearer every minute-an amorphous paisley shape in the void, white on black, fuzzy as smudged chalk on a blackboard and crude as a child's drawing of a tadpole: a bulbous head with a long, trailing tail. Invisible to the naked eye, and insignificantly miniscule by astronomical standards, this eyeless object seemed to stare right back into Lulu's mind as though shining a spotlight on the back of her skull-no, not on her, but on Earth itself, the whole planet. Fixing upon it with the obsessive fertility of a sperm contemplating an egg. It was coming, this thing, not directly but on a wide, looping intercept, using the giant planets Saturn and Jupiter as slings to multiply its force. It was coming. How she knew this she didn't know, nor why. The knowledge came unsought, delivered upon her like an unsigned threat. What did it mean? It occupied the space of dreams, but whether this was dream, vision, sheer figment of her imagination, or impending truth, Lulu didn't know… or care. She was barely capable of caring. To her it was merely interesting-an abstraction like everything else.

  Punish Mint, said a voice in her head. Punish Mint Gum. The sound of that voice had more of an effect on her than being skewered on a pike, more than having her skull fractured through burlap; it actually caused her to wince. Within the stifling bag, a blue tear ran down Lulu's dusty dead cheek, shed by a tear duct that instantly closed up shop, withering like a dried flower and being sucked up in her head. The last tear of her residual humanity.

  Mummy, she thought.

  They opened a trapdoor, opened the neck of her sack, and dumped her down the well. From one darkness to another, deeper, Lulu landed headfirst in a sump of cold grease, a gummy tank of artificial amniotic fluid that enfolded and encased her, making the least movement arduously slow… had she wanted to move. But she didn't. She was content to float, to feel. And she wasn't alone. There were hundreds of others buried around her, bodies entwined every which way like fossils in a tar pit, or flies in amber.

  And one of them was her mother.

  They woke to the sound of music. Not music, actually, just a beat, a powerful stomping of feet that caused the metal walls to vibrate. It was the middle of the night.

  "Sounds like a party," Sal said grimly.

  "Rock the house," said Kyle, rubbing his eyes. "Where's it coming from?"

  "One way to find out."

  They woke Todd, Ray, and Freddy and left the room, heading down the corridor. There was no one around. Some of the truck trailers had been set a few feet apart, creating a maze of narrow passages deeper into the stack, and the boys ventured down one of these. Following the music, they entered a crevice that got narrower and narrower before suddenly opening on a much larger space.

  "Daaaamn."

  A kind of courtyard spread out before them, an open-topped hall perhaps a hundred feet long, with sheer walls of stacked shipping containers and the night sky visible through a web of rope netting. The place was bright with laughter and the yellow flames of torches, dense with voices and music and the aromas of marijuana and hot popcorn. Half the people were making music of one kind or another-a lush cacophony of mismatched instruments and voices that sounded like the world's biggest jug band-and the rest were stomping and singing along. The song was "O-O-H Child," by The Five Stairsteps.

  "I guess this is the party," Kyle said.

  "No duh."

  "Well, howdy, boys!" It was Voodooman. They hardly recognized him now, a blinding apparition in a hot pink suit and ten-gallon hat. He looked like a Nashville novelty act. "Glad you could make it! How do you like our little pleasure dome? Feel free to mingle, and help yourselves to the grub!"

  Help yourselves-that was the invitation of a lifetime.

  The room was a hoard of treasure, a moveable feast heaped high with vast quantities of luxury goods and non-perishable goodies of every kind, amid which the crowd milled freely, sampling at will. It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet in a bulk food warehouse. But Sal felt too conspicuous, too vulnerable to join the free-for-all. He and the other boys were still sick from the convenience-store splurge, sick from losing friends and brothers, sick with worry and confusion over what to do next. They couldn't relax, much less enjoy themselves.

  Sensing their hesitation, Voodooman said, "Don't be shy, boys. Listen, we're all
family here. Things ain't like they used to be, with folks all fired up at one another, steppin' on each other's toes. Them days are over. What reason do we have to fight? There's enough here for everybody! Look yonder, you'll see Bloods dancing with Crips, Muslims with Mormons, Latin Kings chillin' with White Pride. Those labels don't matter like they used to in the joint. We're all brothers now, and we got us a whole world to carve up, like the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Here, let me take you to meet El Dopa."

  Dragged through the room like starstruck peasants, the boys gaped at truckloads of wine and champagne, cigarettes and cigars, whole hams, sides of bacon, sausages and other cured meats, every kind of canned and dry goods, imported chocolates and cheeses, a huge trove of prescription pharmaceuticals, enough designer clothing to stock a Fifth Avenue department store, and endless cases of cheap beer and expensive liquor. There was also a huge arsenal of military weapons and ammunition. But what really caught the boys' eyes were the Christmas decorations everywhere they looked: a large street display made of lights spelling MERRY XMAS as well as ivylike profusions of red and green bulbs, giant glowing candy canes, fake Christmas trees covered with flock and silver and gold tinsel, images of angels, reindeer, bells, gold stars, gold ornaments-gold everywhere they looked, even hanging overhead. Real gold: golden lamps and chandeliers, gold jewelry, gold goblets and tableware, gold eggs, gold coins, gold bricks. Several Oscar statuettes. At the center of it all, a massive golden crucifix with a bloody, tortured Christ.

  Sal noticed other gory Christ images as well, valuable-looking paintings and museum pieces, and asked, "Are you guys Catholic or something?"

  "Some are, not me. We don't trouble much about each other's religions since El Dopa turned us on to Bhakti-Yoga."

  "Yoga?"

  "I know what you're thinking. But it ain't like that; it's a kind of philosophy-the spiritual glue that's held all us different groups together and carried us through a lot of bad shit. It was invented hundreds of years ago by a dude in India, man by the name of Ramakrishna. He basically said that it don't matter what religion you are-all religions are paths to God. He said, 'All rivers flow to the ocean.' That's what's helped us get along so well up to now. Which ain't to say Jesus Christ don't have a special significance. As someone who was raised from the dead hisself, he reminds us what it's all about."

  "What's that?"

  "The promise of eternal life."

  "Like a Xombie?"

  "Whoa, now. Jesus wasn't no Xombie. Xombies are devils; we want to be angels. That's what Uncle Spam has promised us as the reward for our labors, and I've seen enough to know it's true. There are angels roaming the Earth again, folks immune not only to Agent X but to the rigors of sickness and death. They're out there, and if we serve them faithfully, we may even earn a place at their table. In Valhalla."

  Working up his nerve, Sal asked, "What do you guys know about Valhalla?"

  "I expect you boys would know better than we would. It's the last capital-the New Jerusalem. The City of Angels, and I ain't talking about no damn Los Angeles." Voodooman eyed him intently. "Why? You been there?"

  Rushing to cover his tracks, Sal said, "No! Just… curious, I guess."

  "I hear that. It's the only paradise left in this world, the last and most ideal government. It's where all of man's wisdom is being kept safe, in preparation for the Savior's return. And it's the place we send our dead, so that someday they can live again."

  "So you believe Christ is coming back."

  "Some folks do. Personally, I don't know if it'll necessarily be Christ himself, or some other redeemer. I never been religious, but I believe that something is coming. Some higher power. We've all heard tell about it from the Harpies we catch: a glowing light in the sky, getting bigger and bigger. We call it the Big Enchilada. It's comin' all right." Suddenly the electric lights flickered off, and a brilliant spotlight winked on over their heads. "Oh shit, hold up-the Thuggees are on."

  The boys had arrived at the center of the room. At the front, rising above a wall of truck batteries, was a platform in front of a blue velvet stage curtain. A carpeted ramp rose to the dais, which was empty except for a fancy wingback chair and a microphone, both gleaming in the spotlight. The crowd cheered as a fur-coated man mounted the ramp. "Welcome to the Thug House!" he called.

  Speakers on the walls began throbbing with a familiar beat.

  "Is that 'Funky Cold Medina'?" asked Sal.

  "Seriously, dude," Kyle said, rolling his eyes. "Learn your history. It's 'Going Back to Cali,' by LL Cool J."

  Making up his own lyrics, the man onstage mumbled along to the beat, listlessly punching the air. "I'm singin' 'bout Vedanta, Vedanta, Vedanta-I'm singin' 'bout Vedanta-Kill your ego-"

  Kyle whispered in Sal's ear, "Yo, it's the Grinch."

  Sal shushed him… but the man did resemble the Grinch: a prune-faced faux Santa, prematurely old, with bad teeth and jaundiced eyes. He was dressed in a fur-collared red cape over a red velvet suit, with gleaming black platform boots and a peculiar furry cap that was more Attila the Hun than Kris Kringle. In his rich brocades, the man was a strange fusion of Hollywood hustler and Russian Orthodox priest-half pope, half pimp.

  One by one, as at a beauty contest, a line of extraordinary figures began to sashay out from the wings, making strange shapes with their arms and singing a high-pitched chorus. The room erupted in cheers and wolf whistles.

  Oh my God, Sal thought, heart pounding. The boys around him gasped.

  Women. Women of every shape and size, only their stage costumes identical. All were barefoot and bare-limbed, bodies painted coal black from head to toe, with peculiar skirts of gnarled roots or sticks, beaded breastplates, and great quantities of gold bangles and other jewelry, including jewel-encrusted crowns or tiaras that held back tremendous manes of wild black hair. In their hands they carried wicked-looking curved blades and objects that resembled withered fruit. It took Sal a second to realize that their disturbing black faces-red eyes popping, red tongues protruding-were only masks.

  It didn't matter that they were weird-looking; what mattered was that they were women. The boys were rapt, drunk on music and incense, their frozen hearts thawed with childish yearning for this impossible bounty from a dead world. Some of them started to cry, reminded of what they had been missing, keeping buried in their hearts: every woman they had ever known. The sight of these unearthly black goddesses dredged it all up.

  Hearing the other four sniffling, Kyle leaned over and hissed, "Hey! Assholes! They're dudes!"

  Freddy Fisk physically recoiled, blinking tears. "What? No, their voices-"

  "It's a recording. Just look, stupid!"

  It was true. As soon as Kyle spoke, the illusion fractured and their wistful soft focus sharpened to a painful resolution: These were not women at all, but frightening caricatures of women. Under their masks, ebony body paint, and fake boobs, they were nothing but transvestites.

  Parading above the boys was the unlikeliest female of them all, a gangly, chicken-necked character, his face disguised but his leathery Adam's apple bobbing as he lip-synched along. Like the others, he was wearing a necklace of shrunken heads and skeins of teeth that swayed like rosaries as he danced languidly to the beat. A separate blackened head dangled from his fist, leaving a trail of perfumed smoke as he waved it around by its long hair. The tuberlike objects that made up his skirt were desiccated arms-children's arms. Viewed closely, they were every bit as real as the shrunken heads.

  Unable to bear it, Freddie cracked, whimpering, "Oh no, no, no! Please, not again!"

  The boys had been through this before, far up north at Thule, and were still traumatized from the experience. This same heinous charade. They remembered all too well the shame of being tarted up in wigs and makeup, fodder for elderly Moguls seeking a female substitute. Even though there had been no choice-it had been either give in or die horribly as a guinea pig for the Mogul Research Division-they bitterly regretted having allowed themselves to be so abused… an
d would gladly die before they'd ever let it happen again.

  Falling to his knees, crying, Freddy begged, "Oh God no… nooo… they can't do this to us! They can't make us do it-"

  "Shut up, bitch," said the gawky dancer, jarred out of his mellowness by Freddy's outburst. "Joo so stupid! Nobody's making nobody do nothing-this ain't no fucking Scared Straight. Who are these punks, anyway?" Still dancing, he turned to Marcus Washington, demanding, "Voodooman, why you do me like this in the middle of my rumba? Joo know how I hate to be disturb."

  Marcus said, "Sorry, Chiquita-I just need two seconds with El Dopa, you don't mind. It's kinda important."

  El Dopa-the Grinch-overheard and nodded from his perch, dismissing the dancer and beckoning the boys with a flaccid wave.

  "Shit, go ahead," Chiquita said. "Why not? Just because it's a fucking lost art." He flounced offstage and sat down in a huff. To the boys, he said, "Joo have to shut up and listen when he speaks, okay? He's the boss around here, so give him some damn respeck. He's also a fucking recording star, entiendes?"

  "Oh shit, man," hissed Kyle. "That's really El Dopa!"

  "Who's El Dopa?" asked Sal, unnerved.

  "Are you kidding me? You never heard of El Dopa? He did all those pirate tracks from prison-dude had some mad beats. He was heavy into Eastern religion. He did that chanting thing: 'Como Se Lama'!"

  Chiquita nodded. "He's a bad motherfucker, so don't mess with him."

  "Thass right," El Dopa slurred. "Ain't nobody better fuck with me. I got karma on my side, baby-I have mastered Mahasamadhi and passed beyond birth and death. Everybody said my career was gonna blow up as soon as I got out of the joint, but Agent X beat me to it: Was the damn world that blew up. But it's cool-I finally got me a headlining gig, hey! Yo, Marcus! Rise and come forth."

  "What up, El?" said Voodooman. "How you doing, brother?"

  "It's all good, man. I see you starting your own Boys' Club. Who these cats?"

  "They from that big mother sub off downtown. We picked 'em up goin' into Miska's tunnel, along with a real interesting Harpy, regular damn Kewpie doll, tame as a kitten. They claim her blood has some kinda magical effect on other Harpies, chills 'em right out. They also mentioned the name Langhorne."