Xombies: Apocalypticon Page 6

  But Sal couldn’t help it. It was the memory of his father’s scared voice on that answering machine, saying, Sal, are you there? If you’re there, pick up—it’s an emergency. Did you get my note about the bus? There’s going to be a company bus coming to pick you up tomorrow to bring you to the plant. It is very important that you be on it, all right? Very, very important. You’ll find out why when you get here. Do not miss this bus, son, whatever you do.

  Before Sal could begin to wrap his mind around that, the next message started: Sal, pick up. Pick up! Shit. Shit, shit, shit. You’re still not there. Okay, listen, this is important: You missed the bus, but you still have to get to the plant. I don’t care how you do it, but come here as quick as you can. This is no joke! Whatever you do, avoid other people—there’s some kind of murder epidemic going on, and a lot of crazy psychos are running around killing people. I know what you’re thinking, but it’s true. Watch out for women especially—they’re all contagious. I’m not allowed to leave, or I’d come get you. I’m serious, Sal, take your bike and get out, now. Stay off the roads. Go as fast as you can, and don’t stop for anything. My God, I hope you get this message.

  All the other messages were pretty much the same, though increasingly desperate. His father was crying by the end. Sal had never heard his father cry before.

  Standing amid the familiar clutter of his kitchen, holding a box of cornflakes, Sal couldn’t process the information—it was like he was still dreaming, or stoned. Sal’s father Gus DeLuca was probably the most infuriatingly hardheaded person he had ever met, a man who had zero tolerance for anything he deemed “fantasyland,” so something was seriously wrong. Worrying that his dad had snapped, he went to his father’s room. The drawers were pulled out and the old man’s Samsonite suitcase was missing. Returning to the kitchen, Sal found the note about the bus taped to the fridge calendar. It had been there a couple of days. He picked up the phone to call the plant, but the line was dead. In a daze, he turned on the TV. Snow—all snow. Pondering, searching for anything that would make sense, Sal opened the window and leaned out.

  Wow.

  The air was full of smoke. He could see cars backed up along the road, and there were alarms going off far into the distance, an insane multitude of alarms—the most he’d ever heard at once. But he couldn’t see any people. That was the weird thing. With all the noise and disturbance, neighbors should have been standing in the road checking it out, but Sal couldn’t see a single person.

  And then he did. Just as he was about to shut the window, he caught sight of a group of people charging up the street. Three women leading five or six men. They were half-naked and running like maniacs, but the main thing was, they were blue. Really blue blue, like zombies in a cheesy horror movie. It was sick. Their mouths were wide open, and their eyes were black and bugging out of their heads.

  At first Sal couldn’t move, frozen in shock, but as they crossed his driveway he snapped out of it and shut the window. They saw him then, and he would never forget the sensation of being spotted, like prey—it was as if they locked on to him. Holy shit! Everything his dad had said was still spinning in his head, so he didn’t have to think long about what to do. He just did it.

  On the fly, Sal grabbed his helmet, his jacket, and his BMX bike, and plowed through the back door. If there had been a Xombie lurking out there, he would have been toast. Sal knew exactly where he was going. His backyard overlooked the train tracks, and past that it was all swampland and miles of rugged trails he knew by heart, so he jumped on his bike and took off toward the back fence. Out of the corner of his visor he saw something nasty come rushing around the porch, but before it reached him, he hit the ramp he used for practice jumps and popped over the fence. Just like he did every day.

  After that he never stopped pedaling. In a straight line it was only about eight miles between his house and the submarine works, but navigating through the rough terrain made it a lot longer. At some point it started sleeting, making the icy trails even more slippery. Tiring, he followed the railroad tracks as long as he could, until blue maniacs started coming down the embankment ahead of him, then he made for the woods again. Aside from crazy blue people, there were other obstacles to avoid: blind gullies, dense brush, ponds, houses, roads, and a lot of fenced government property. At least it was winter, and the ground was hard; in springtime, he often got bogged down in the mud.

  But there was a problem. Sal was gathering followers. It was becoming a regular entourage—he hardly dared look back. Even though the freaks were naked and barefoot, they never quit or got tired, just kept chasing him. Every time he had to backtrack or change direction, they drew closer . . . and all the time more and more were accumulating. At first he had barely noticed them, they were so few and far away, but the longer he went, the more he began to see rows of them in the distance, fanning out like hellish search parties, waiting for him to hit a wall or a dead end or the limits of his own endurance—anything that would hold him up long enough for them to close their noose. It was just a matter of time.

  Then it happened. Out of nowhere he was completely blocked, cut off by an impenetrable woodfall and forced back to the railroad culvert. In that moment, Sal feared he was done. They were all around him, sweeping in for the kill.

  That’s when he heard the train.

  It was the high-speed Acela Express—one of the same trains that killed his old dog, Banjo. His dad had had to scrape the poor hound up in a bucket. Those trains were so fast that by the time you saw them coming, it was already too late—everyone who lived along the tracks had a story to tell. But right now Sal wasn’t afraid of being killed by a train. He was more concerned with it blocking his escape so the crazies could do the job. They were all around him now, forcing him toward the railroad tracks as if they knew this was their chance. Compared to those horrible, gaping faces, the train didn’t seem so scary, which was how Sal managed to do what he did.

  Leaping into motion, he rode his bike straight at the railroad ditch. As several maniacal women threw themselves in his path, Sal head-butted the nearest one with his helmet and jumped down the steep gravel embankment. It was almost too late—the hurtling locomotive was right there, roaring up to meet him at 150 miles an hour, and the psychos on his back clinging fiercely as he crossed the tracks—

  WHOOOOOM!—

  —and then their weight was gone, jerked loose by a violent shock wave that almost spun Sal off his bike. The rest of the train roared by, barely inches away. Before it completely passed, he was already on the move again, climbing the far embankment.

  Looking back, he could see a mess of busted meat and bone flopping along the tracks like wet laundry: twitching arms and legs and tumbled-out guts and cracked heads bouncing through the air like hairy coconuts.

  Trancelike, Sal said, “Worst thing I ever saw . . . and also the best, you know? I sometimes wonder if there was even anybody alive on that train, you know? I think God sent that train! But more Xombies were still coming, still trying to catch me, and I had to move.”

  “Make your move,” said Bobby impatiently, fidgeting.

  Sal suddenly realized he had been thinking aloud for some time. Telling Bobby the whole story. The crisis had passed.

  “In a second, dude,” he said. “Don’t you want to hear how I got to the factory compound? It was like a fortress, man—they almost didn’t let me in! Or how, after all our work refitting this tub, the Navy crew was just going to bail and leave us behind? Leave us for the Xombies?”

  “Make your move.”

  “All right, I will!” Sal slammed down his queen.

  “Checkmate.”

  “I know!”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  XIBALBA

  This report represents the last official document commissioned by the combined agencies of the federal government of the United States of America, or by emergency representatives of those agencies. All such agencies and personnel are declared to be in recess for the remaining duration of the
crisis. They are furthermore ordered as a matter of national security to take shelter at secure locations and remain there until such time as it becomes possible to resume their official duties. The purpose of this report is to create a factual account of the Maenad Epidemic, collating all available documents into a single reference. It is not exhaustive, representing only “found” materials—no research in the ordinary sense was possible. Nevertheless, this volume represents a heroic effort on the part of all involved, many of whom gave their lives in the course of its creation. It stands as their epitaph. Let it not be America’s.

  —The Maenad Project

  Smoke was on the water. Dawn showed through the black teeth of the city. Out of the haze, a long, dark shape drifted into view, barely disturbing the mist or the river’s glassy surface: a gondola. There was a pale figure standing in the bow, a young girl in a periwinkle blue nightgown, with black hair and blacker eyes. Not real—she could have been a statue. An exotic, ethereal creature, blue-skinned as Shiva, lifeless as a painted figurehead. Larger figures hulked behind her, grim blue footmen frozen in her thrall.

  And now, from the water, other beings began to rise. Slowly, ponderously, like mosquitoes being birthed from the husks of their aquatic larvae. First just eyes gleaming wetly, then whole gaping faces, mouths and noses streaming seawater, then rubbery-slick shoulders, trunks and gangling arms, finally naked blue feet treading indifferently through the polluted muck of the shallows, turning up rusty nails and broken glass secreted in the silt. The wire connecting them to the boat and each other was draped with slime—was it threaded through their bodies?

  Lulu and her landing party passed the first of the still-glimmering braziers, a steel grate rising on a pedestal from the water, its contents now burnt down to a smoldering toxic slag of tires and plastic and crackling human bones. Black leaves of charred debris twirled slowly in the current.

  The gondola scraped ashore at the foot of a concrete ramp, and Lulu stepped off without getting her feet wet. Ed Albemarle took the lead, all the rest trailing him in a loose V formation, their bodies strung along a high-tensile braided steel cable that was threaded through their spines and rib cages. The Moguls had wired them so for ease of handling, and the submarine’s skittish crew had demanded they remain that way. Lulu was the only one able to walk freely.

  She followed as they emerged on a waterfront path, a strip of parkland bordering a road, with quaint old buildings of brick and quarried stone on the far side. There was a little debris on the ground—broken glass, loose shoes, windswept paper, and other trash. The windows regarded them blankly.

  “You’re doing fine,” said the disembodied voice of Alice Langhorne, piping from a tiny portable speaker. “Cross the street and keep going up. You’re looking for Benefit Street.”

  They entered the city. The way was narrow and increasingly steep, archaic and picturesque, with Colonial-era structures all around: residential houses, taverns, lawyers’ offices. An art-house cinema advertising a Chinese love story. Lulu could see a number of steeples ranged along the hill and a golden dome. Some windows and doors had been broken open, and there was weather damage—wires down, broken tree limbs—but with the budding spring foliage, the scene was peaceful, nearly pleasant.

  Continuing up two blocks, they found Benefit Street. “Now turn left,” Langhorne instructed. “It’s a few blocks down, on the left-hand side—you’re looking for a red house, number 182. The Lazarus Speake House.”

  As the sun came up, they passed the Greek-columned Athenaeum Library (its chiseled inscription: COME HITHER EVERYONE THAT THIRSTETH), then crossed above the white edifice of the First Baptist Church. Cars were sitting abandoned in the intersection, their doors hanging open. A few buildings farther down, they found the address they were looking for, a small, steep-roofed red cottage teetering on the brink of a cliff overlooking downtown. It had tiny windows, built for a time when people couldn’t afford the luxuries of light and fresh air, when they huddled close together for warmth. It was nothing, little more than a shack. This was Uri Miska’s infamous laboratory?

  “Go inside,” Langhorne said.

  The front door was already open, a trail of soggy personal debris scattered along the walk, mostly books and artwork, a trampled Klimt print—glints of gold amid the trash. They crowded in. It was just as cramped as it appeared, with a low ceiling and several small rooms. The rear ones were brighter, facing the sunrise. The furniture had all been torn apart with ruthless efficiency; the place had clearly been searched, stripped. And it hadn’t been an easy job, judging from the number of bullet holes riddling the plaster.

  As they kicked their way through the wreckage, there were weird rustlings underfoot. Something scuttled crablike into the corner, and Lulu could see it was a disembodied hand. There were a number of hands loose in the room, some with partial arms. There were also legs and feet, as well as squirming organs of all types. The heads had mostly been blown to bits, but they were around, too, eyeballs creeping like snails. Clearly a lot of Xombies had been blasted to pieces by whoever sacked this place.

  It meant nothing to Lulu. Her interest was purely abstract as they checked the attic, then the basement, beginning to realize that there was nothing here. No Miska and certainly no laboratory—Dr. Langhorne was wrong, or deliberately lying, as the living were prone to do. To uselessly prolong their dwindling span of life. They would do anything for that. Lulu remembered well.

  “Look under the furnace,” Langhorne said. “Move it aside. I’m pretty sure there’s some trick to it.”

  There was an ancient, rusty furnace in the middle of the basement floor, a heavy contraption set on a huge stone slab. It looked impregnable. Albemarle and Lemuel—the biggest guys—were about to try tearing it loose, when Lulu noticed four massive iron bolts anchoring it in place. They looked like they had been there for hundreds of years, but suddenly Lulu sensed an odd dampness about them, a wispy condensation like swamp gas. Breath from a tomb. Wait—see? Without exchanging any words, she set her boys prying up the bolts. Once they discovered that the threads were backward, it was simple. In moments, the whole furnace and slab slid easily aside as if on casters.

  There were stairs underneath, descending into darkness.

  “Xibalba,” Langhorne breathed.

  “All right, gentlemen. I want you to know that I do not relish taking command in this way. In fact, if there were any other alternative, I would gladly pursue it, even to the extent of resigning my commission. But we have no legal recourse here, no grievance committee, no avenue of escape whatsoever. We are all in the same boat, so to speak. What I want you all to know is that I am here to represent you, the ship’s officers and able seamen. That includes those of you who may disagree with my present actions. But I think it safe to say that most of us here have become increasingly unsatisfied with command decisions that reflect neither the legitimate concerns of this crew nor any ordinary military protocol. Of course this is not an ordinary situation, but that makes it all the more crucial that we act with uncompromising rigor in approaching this new set of realities. That we acknowledge that we are a priceless national asset and must act accordingly to ensure our survival. That the preservation of this vessel and its functional crew must now trump any other consideration—at least until such time as we receive orders to the contrary from whatever senior authority may still exist. We are privileged to have the means to seek out such authority, and I intend to do so. Until then, this submarine is our sacred trust, which we are sworn to deliver; these decks represent American soil. That means this boat is America, gentlemen. Therefore, I say to you: Anything that is incompatible with the smooth functioning of this vessel must be rejected. Swiftly and with extreme prejudice. Any questions?” Kranuski searched the crowded mess hall for doubters.

  “All right, Captain,” said Dan Robles, standing by the juice machine. He could feel Webb’s murderous stare. “What do you propose to do about the provisions? Those kids back there are starving.”


  “I’m glad you asked that, Lieutenant. That’s my first order of business. We can no longer afford to consider ourselves a refugee ship. Everyone on board has to bring something to the table—it’s a simple matter of fairness. We all have to earn our keep. Out of eighty-eight boys back there, only about half are working on qual cards. The rest are just taking up space. That can’t continue—we can’t afford it. So I propose we kill two birds with one stone: Send the unskilled out on a foraging run. We’re stuck here until the next tide anyway. Might as well get those kids earning their keep.”

  “They’ll be wiped out!”

  “Not necessarily. We don’t know exactly what conditions are like ashore, but so far there hasn’t been a single Xombie sighting. The only excitement has come from the living: those fires and that survivor kid—another refugee, just what we need. Even Langhorne admits the streets are clear. The only creeps out there are hers.”

  Phil Tran stepped forward. “Some of those kids can barely stand up, much less go on a raiding party. They’re undernourished, half-sick.”

  “Is that your professional opinion, Doctor?” said Kranuski, baldly scornful. Phil Tran had some slight medical training, a couple of years, but he was really a sonar expert. Their original medical officer had bought it two months ago, when out of Harvey Coombs’s stupidity Xombies briefly got loose in the boat. Since then, Tran was accorded the role of corpsman—everybody was doing double and triple duty on this cruise. That didn’t give him the right to act like Dr. House.

  Kranuski continued, “Anyway, that’s the whole point—they’re not going to get any fatter if the food runs out. Should we send essential personnel out there? Is that what you’re suggesting? Or should we just wait in this boat until we all starve? I think not. So, Phil, because you’re so concerned with those kids’ welfare, I’m making it your duty to choose up a shore party and organize the field trip. Map out a location, brief them, and send them on their way. You have thirty minutes. Anything you need, talk to Mr. Webb—he’s acting XO. Just make sure to have them back by 0900. That’s when we sail.”