Apocalypso x-3 Read online

  Others rose over the edge, fanning out to encircle me, pressing me toward the center. As they closed in, I felt a vestigial tingle that I recognized as fear. The mortal fear of Xombies. For an instant, I even considered jumping off the tower, but then thought, Why? I was as much a monster as any of them; what possible reason did I have to be afraid?

  They pressed in on me, getting too close, and I raised my hands to keep our distance. The two Maenads on either side of me took my hands, gripping tightly. My flesh shriveled at their touch, and I twisted wildly to break free. Two more of them seized my kicking feet, and all of a sudden I felt an electric force shooting through me. It surged up my arms and legs like water through a fire hose, jerking my limbs taut, flooding my heart, and filling my head to bursting.

  I fell backward, and they fell with me, all of us connected like paper dolls, a web of six-sided figures draped like lace across the steel dome of the tower. Facing the sky, I said, “Oh.”

  We were one, linked not just with each other but with other hexagons all over the world. Streaming live and jacked into the Agent X network-the proliferating mass of cyanotic rust that had already infected the human race and was now spreading like wildfire in the iron-rich veins of our very planet. This blue rust was merely the visible manifestation of the indestructible Maenad morphocyte. It was everywhere now, fusing the billions of Maenads into an information complex greater than the entire Internet, drawing power from Earth’s magnetic field. Soon it would be able to focus that power, channel it, exploit it.

  But to what end?

  As if in answer to my unspoken question, I could suddenly see masses of strange black objects floating in the sky. They looked like enormous embryos-pulsating, alive, and intricately organic. Hundreds, thousands of them were rising off the land like so many spores, rising in streams from multiple sources all over the world.

  I didn’t see them with my eyes but with the eyes of a billion others, vast Hexes of Maenads, and as I watched, I could see the first of them actually leaving the bonds of the Earth, pushed by collective thought alone, rising beyond the highest reaches of the atmosphere and accelerating into space. Heedless of gravity, heedless of time.

  For that brief moment, I knew everything.

  A little later, I was sitting on a second-story ledge over the drugstore, just watching the show. That was what I thought of this experiment of Langhorne’s: It was a play, some kind of performance art, so we might as well enjoy it. All the world’s a stage, I mused, as Julian Noteiro passed beneath me.

  In a hurry as usual, Julian sensed my eyes on him and looked up. “Hi, Midge.”

  I froze, then dropped from the ledge to the sidewalk. “Whoa,” I said, getting up and brushing myself off, “whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa-what?”

  “I’m sorry?” Julian said, reluctantly pausing.

  “Did you just call me Midge?”

  “Uh… yes?”

  “Let’s get this straight, once and for all,” I said, jabbing a finger in his chest. “Nobody calls me Midge. All right? Midge is not a name, it’s an insect. I may be short, but I refuse to be called Midge for the rest of eternity. I am not Midge. My name is Lulu, get it?”

  “Okay, sure, Lulu.”

  “Also, I am not ‘going steady’ with Lemuel, in case you were under that impression.”

  “You mean Big Moose?”

  “No! I mean Lemuel! I’m Lulu, you’re Julian, and he’s Lemuel. My friend Lemuel-not my boyfriend. I didn’t ask for a boyfriend, I don’t need a boyfriend, and I don’t want a boyfriend. Period! Case closed! End of story!”

  Without warning, I kissed him.

  Apropos of nothing, I leaned forward and kissed him, and it was like two car batteries joined at the wrong terminals: Electricity arced from our lips, our hair crackled, our flesh ran liquid, and boiling acid seethed in our veins. We burned. Flesh sizzled against flesh as every Maenad cell in our bodies recoiled against the forbidden contact.

  Julian screamed in pain, fighting to break free. But just when I thought we had to die, to explode, something… the wall burst, the defenses cracked wide, and instead of being forced apart, we fused harder, melting one into the other until I didn’t know where I ended and Julian began… and I didn’t care. At once I understood that there was something beyond the X barrier-something awful and wonderful and utterly strange. Something no one knew about.

  Suddenly, a wedge came between us. In a frazzle of molten strands, we were split in two, roots sundered and our gorgeous circuit cleaved apart by Lemuel’s brute sword-actually a NO PARKING sign planted in a can of concrete. While we were still stunned, Lemuel slashed again, chopping Julian’s upraised arm off at the shoulder, then reversed the weapon and clubbed the slighter boy to the sidewalk.

  Blind and barely sensible, I tried to intervene, leaping on Lemuel’s back and locking arms around his freshly scarred neck, but what would have crushed a human throat had no effect on my fellow Dreadnaut.

  Ignoring me, Lemuel seized Julian by his head and swung him in a circle, leaning against the centrifugal force like an Olympic hammer thrower before hurling him through the drugstore’s plate-glass window.

  “Lemuel, Lemuel, stop!” I cried. “It’s just a game!”

  The big boy wasn’t listening, still intent on Julian. With manic ferocity, he vaulted over the sill and was hit in midleap by an old-fashioned, enameled-steel candy machine. It cracked his skull like a Goober-filled shillelagh, and as he went down, it struck him again for good measure, thick glass and thicker skull fracturing together in a burst of brain matter and candy-coated peanuts.

  “What the hell do you people think you’re doing?” asked Alice Langhorne, setting down the vending machine and helping Julian to his feet. “Oh shit, did you just lose your arm? Unbelievable-that’s gonna take a week to mend. Can’t I even go to the drugstore in peace? Let me tell you, I’m getting a little tired of all the horseplay, people. This is not in the story-there’s no dismemberment in Archie, I can tell you. If this continues, we’re going to have to start taking away privileges. You want to be benched all season? Yes, I’m talking to you, Moose.”

  Things were getting out of control.

  Lemuel’s jealousy was just the tip of the iceberg: the weekly football games were Coliseums of rampant carnage, two dozen Mooses going berserk on each other, and the lost body parts raked into a pile until their owners could claim them.

  Then there was the conspicuous consumption of the Reggies, Veronicas, and Richie Riches, who were engaged in a race to see who could acquire the most stuff, all of them amassing huge stockpiles of worthless “valuables”: jewelry, designer clothes, original art, antique furniture, cars, boats, planes, and enormous estates in which to hoard it all. If one mansion got too cluttered, they took over another.

  Likewise, the wasteful appetites of the Jugheads and Dagwoods were depleting the food supply for miles around, and they contributed nothing to the common good except perhaps a comforting example of human repose… and the occasional clever quip.

  On the other hand, the blond Bettys were the workhorses of the community, volunteering for the most onerous tasks (such as helping the Veronicas get more stuff) and doing it all with a smile. In fact, the Bettys would have been perfect if not for their unhealthy obsession with the Archies… an increasingly violent obsession, which caused them to do almost anything for an Archie’s attention, such as jump in front of a speeding car or set themselves on fire-especially if an Archie told them to do it.

  The Diltons, on the other hand, had no real faults, being the junior problem solvers and tech wizards of the neighborhood-Julian Noteiro was top Dilton. All they lacked was a sense of fellowship; their clinical solutions sometimes lacked consideration for social niceties; they were cold, clinical nerds.

  Then there were the Archies.

  Archies were the stars of the town, the planets around which all the other stories orbited. An Archie might be hated or he might be loved, but everyone knew that he among us all was the name
on the masthead. Archie was the Hero, the Holy Fool, the Boy Next Door, and Jake played him to the hilt. Jake Bartholomew had been born to play Archie-he even looked like Archie.

  But there were other Archies out there, and some of these gingers took great license with the brand. Archie is a bumbler, yes, so at first their accidental catastrophes were taken lightly-it was accepted that no vase, sculpture, or windowpane was safe with an Archie nearby, and ladders were acknowledged instruments of havoc. But the harmless blunders soon escalated to unnecessary heights of mayhem: The school science lab exploded, destroying Dr. Langhorne’s research, along with a wing of the building; then a fireworks display went haywire, causing a wildfire that burned down half the village. Both times it was an Archie that caused it.

  That was just the beginning: Soon neighboring towns burned, bridges sagged, dams broke, and power lines went down-all in the wake of well-meaning involvement by Archies.

  The Weatherbees, Flutesnoots, Grundys, and various other authority figures attempted to rein in these extreme manifestations of “character,” to channel them in more positive directions, but this only led to more opportunities for destruction. By the same token, increasing restrictions and curfews on one Archie just made the others act up. There was talk of eliminating the role of Archie altogether, replacing him with a less-destructive persona. But it was too late; the play had developed its own momentum and could not be controlled. It was like a runaway train, careening faster and faster to some unknown end.

  The end came on a Monday night, right after the football game.

  After a bad call, the game degenerated into a brawl, with players fighting and hooligans running onto the field with weapons. A tanker truck was driven onto the field, scattering the combatants and smashing through the goalposts before ramming the stands and exploding.

  Flaming spectators swarmed down and made it a riot, then the whole population joined in and made it a war. The battle migrated from the stadium to the center of town, everyone savaging everyone else and being savaged in turn. All traces of Archie and the gang were erased. All the nice outfits were ripped to shreds (if not burned away entirely), all the neat houses were trashed, and all the tidy townsfolk were reduced to antic horrors, frenzied skeletons jigging to the music of The Monkees.

  Perhaps because of the jukebox, they left the malt shop for last… but finally its time came. As if by some prearranged signal, the mob poured in, breaking down the door and crashing through the windows. The cash register became a weapon; plates and silverware became missiles. The level of crazed destruction was far beyond that of ordinary Xombies-this was violence for the sake of violence, mansized ants attacking each other and spiraling into even more extreme havoc, so that to a human witness, the scene would have been a blur, a chaos-making whirlwind.

  “Stop,” I said.

  The mob came at me, rearing up with everything it had to slice, dice, and make julienne fries.

  “I said stop.” My voice had a power over them; they bumped into it like hitting an invisible wall.

  Then the power went out.

  Just like that, the lights winked off, the music died. Anything running on electricity clunked to a halt. All at once, Loveville was silent but for the crackling of flames. Somewhere in that silence, a telephone rang-it was the malt shop’s pay phone.

  Grumbling, Emilio Monte answered it, saying, “Hello? Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh… uh-huh… uh-huh-no shit. Okay… I’ll tell ’em.”

  He hung up and just stood there, ruminating over whatever he had just heard, while everyone else in the room waited expectantly in the dark, frozen in midfight. It was the first time the phone had ever rung. At last, Emilio picked his way through the wreckage of his shop, footsteps clinking on dishes and broken glass.

  “Attention,” he said. “I got an announcement to make. That was Arlo Fisk on the phone, calling from the nuclear plant. He says he’s under attack.”

  “Under attack! By who?” I asked.

  “Another boomer. It’s a French boat-Triomphante-class. Arlo says they entered the reactor facility and routed his team. Says they stole the fuel rods, cleaned the place out.”

  “Were they Xombies?” asked the charred corpse of Harvey Coombs.

  “No. Just ordinary humans.”

  This caused a stir.

  Coombs said, “We should go after them!”

  Alice Langhorne scoffed, “How? Swim?”

  “No! Return to our boat! Get her reasonably shipshape, and start a search pattern.”

  “That other sub will be halfway to Africa by the time we do all that.”

  “Well, we have to do something. Look at us!”

  “Coombs is right,” said Phil Tran. “If we ever want to catch them, we need to act like we give a damn.”

  Dan Robles said, “Isn’t acting what we’ve just been doing? And look where it got us.”

  I said, “That’s because we’ve been ignoring the elephant in the room. It’s not about us. Our story ended with our human lives. We no longer require care and feeding, and pretending otherwise is frustrating us to madness. Stop acting. Stop trying so hard. We are already free. Let’s focus on freeing them.”

  Heads nodded, a change swept the room. Yes, free them, free them.

  The tension ebbed like pressure dropping in an airplane, giving way to intense relief. Ravaged ghouls smiled. In letting go our humanity, we briefly felt the joy of being alive.

  In minutes, a caravan of vehicles was pulling out of Loveville. For the first time, the town looked truly post-apocalyptic, streets littered with debris, buildings and cars engulfed in flames, fire hydrants spewing. By morning, there would be nothing left.

  PART II

  Divine Providence

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  PROPHETS

  Ditching Uri Miska and not daring to look back, Todd Holmes and Ray Despineau bolted for the train station as fast as their wobbly legs could carry them.

  “Wait, man, wait-look!” Ray was pointing at two of the bicycles recently abandoned by their friends.

  “Yes! Grab ’em!”

  It was somewhat disturbing to be riding bikes again; the boys were still traumatized, waiting to be jumped any second by Xombies. Riding up the hill was a nerve-wracking slog, but on the downside, they flew.

  Spread out before them was the center of Providence: on the left, the clustered towers of downtown; on the right, the marble-domed State House; between them the canal leading to Waterplace Park and the Providence Place Mall-and the train station.

  Blazing down Waterman Street, the two boys hurtled between abandoned cars and shot across the junction of two creeks, cutting through empty parking lots up to the train station’s main entrance. The train itself was in the tunnel underneath the building, but they could hear the rumble of its engine and smell its diesel exhaust. It was for real.

  Dumping their bikes at the taxi stand, the boys barged into the dim terminal and tripped over a bunch of people kneeling on the floor, rudely interrupting the murmur of prayers.

  Ray went sprawling over a bearded old man. “Whoa, shit, sorry!”

  Out of nowhere, a snarling, monstrous creature with yellow eyes and huge fangs appeared, driving the boys into a corner. It was a large mandrill baboon.

  One of the worshippers called, “Don! Down, down!”

  The baboon reluctantly backed off, and an old man came forward-the man Ray had tripped over. He was wearing a robe and sandals, and had a long gray beard, like some biblical patriarch. Eyes adjusting, the boys could see other old men in robes as well.

  Moguls, Ray thought, remembering what Miska had said. Resurrected Moguls.

  There were maybe a hundred people in the room, and hundreds more in a long line leading to the mall.

  “Who are you?” the man asked.

  The boys were speechless, spellbound by the sight of so many human beings out in the open. What’s more, they appeared totally defenseless-no face protection, no body armor, no weapons of any kind. And there were women among t
hem. The women all wore similar winged bonnets, and were corralled in a small group separate from the men.

  Finding his bearings, Todd said, “I’m Todd Holmes, and this is Ray Despineau. We want to join you.”

  “Are you… anointed?”

  “Anointed?”

  “Sealed with the Blessed Sacrament.”

  “The Sacrament, right! No, um, I don’t think so. We just got stranded here because our ship was attacked while we were foraging for supplies. It left without us.”

  “The Lord Adam gathers the Righteous, Praise Be Upon Him.”

  “Awesome,” Ray said gloomily.

  The man asked, “Have you come seeking Miska?”

  “Not really,” Todd said. “Actually, we’re more like running away from him.”

  “You’ve seen Miska!”

  “Yeah, he was right over in Fox Point. Very weird dude.”

  “Todd, shut up,” Ray said, sotto voce.

  “Well, hallelujah! This is surely a sign.” The old man called to everyone in earshot, “Brothers, the Lord Adam has sent us two guides in our search for the Evil One. They are the seal on our Covenant! The Oracle has spoken true!”

  Amid the hallelujahs and amens, Ray asked, “Sorry, what’s this Covenant?”

  “It is Man’s truce with Eve. After the Blue Apocalypse, Man had no Covenant, and in his zeal to avenge Adam, he offended the Goddess Eve. She summoned Her Blue Furies to visit the Sons of Adam with plagues wherever they took refuge, driving them first out of Providence, then out of Valhalla. For thirty days and thirty nights, the Apostle Chace led the Adamites through the wilderness, praying for a sign, their numbers dwindling as the imps of Miska stole their souls. Until finally their sufferings were rewarded: They witnessed the Resurrection of the Prophet-the Prophet Jim! The first Resurrection of many, including my own!”

  “Jim?”

  “Jim saved us! Jim anointed us against the Hellions, that now we may walk freely upon the land!”