Passed bucket-brigade fashion along a line of jumpy crew-men, I finally made it up onto the sub's runwaylike deck, its entire length crowded with milling refugees. Above us soared the mammoth black cross that was the vessel's conning tower, a steel Golgotha beckoning the pilgrims with salvation.
Waiting my turn to go below, I prayed.
CHAPTER SEVEN
They weren't letting us below.
"The hatches must be kept clear," shouted someone at the head of the crowd. "Ship's personnel must have free access or we cannot cast off! Make room!"
A squall of protest and pleading met this development, but we were packed too tightly to riot, and in any case, it was only those boys near enough actually to see the hatches who really objected-the rest of us knew we weren't getting below anytime soon. The sub was hundreds of feet long and the Xombies all but upon us.
We watched helplessly as they spilled over the landing, scrambling for the best crossing and leaping like grotesque pirates for the stern. Albemarle's thinning rear guard did its best to hold them off, but the footing down there was terrible: a slippery ramp to the sea. Men fell by the dozens, locked in death grips with twistedly grinning monstrosities as they slid out of sight. Every loss set off a new a chorus of grief. Cowper was there, and I dreaded the moment I would see him grappling for his life or being dragged into the water.
At some point the shooting stopped, and I heard people say, "They're out of ammo." No sooner had this idea been relayed through the crowd than there was a commotion up front.
"What's going on?" I asked, as boys around me frantically craned their necks to see.
An obese, Buddha-faced kid nearby replied, "The crew have all gone below."
"Maybe they're getting more bullets," I said.
"They've closed the hatches."
A sickening weight seemed to press the air out of us.
"Well, that's it," someone said calmly. "We're dead."
"We've been played," another boy agreed.
"They let us on the boat, wait until we good and trapped, then lock us out. All they gotta do now is wait-frickin' Exoids'll do the rest."
"Shit, man."
I didn't know what to believe and wasn't sure they did either. "Let's not jump to conclusions," I said shrilly. "We don't know what they're doing down there."
"Shut up. They got food, they got water, they got air, they got power. They're sittin' pretty."
Not everyone was taking it as stoically as these few boys. Elsewhere on the deck, the babble of panic could be heard: a hundred variations on the theme of, "They can't just leave us out here!"
Turning on me, a wild-eyed boy with a hairnet said, "This is all your fault."
"God, shut up," I groaned.
"If you hadn't come along, none of this would've happened."
"You are so stupid."
They all closed in around me like hostile savages, grimy hands reaching for my arms, my hair, my throat.
Completely exhausted, I could think of nothing to say or do. Time stopped, and everything froze into a weird tableau, jittering like film snarled in an old projector. Wait. Vibration-the deck was vibrating. Whitewater boiled up around the rudder. From one end of the submarine to the other, a desperate, bedraggled cheer broke out.
We were moving.
It was a sickening, slow race for time. The huge submarine took forever to get going, while Exes were fast overwhelming the lowest part of the stern. It was a giant blender down there. After the propeller started, there had been a general retreat up to the safety cable, but the enemy (mainly male ones, I should say) had no such qualms. They continued leaping to the slippery slope in droves, heedless of being sucked under, and were picking off our rear guard.
Yet the sense that we were moving, the renewed hope of escape, did seem to give strength to our defenders. They fought back with incredible zeal, sacrificing themselves rather than permit the enemy to breach their lines.
I watched as a Xombie grabbed someone around the neck, clamped on like a python, and was all but impossible to get off. Many times I saw men throw themselves and their clinging attackers over the side rather than risk joining the enemy ranks. For that was what was at stake, I belatedly realized, not death, but Ex membership. They did not want to kill but to multiply. They lusted for us. For them, strangling was a procre ative act-there was even a horrific sort of deep kiss involved that suggested a perverse, rough tenderness toward the struggling victim. It was horrible to see.
The sub started to budge, glacially scraping along the landing. We were making the slowest getaway of all time. As we passed the overhanging hulk of the Sallie, I had a good long look at its mangled rows of tires, the blown-out glass cockpit, and the heavily pitted SALLIE emblem. The thought of Cowper backing into that firestorm made me shake my head in disbelief-had my mother ever seen that side of him? She never told me anything that explained her fierce attraction… or excused it. I could see him down there, taking his turn with a hammer, and felt something unlike any emotion I'd ever experienced: a raw amalgam of yearning and awe. Love. Was he really my father? For the first time, I wanted him to be. I desperately needed him to be.
My reverie was interrupted by shouts of "Look!" and fingers pointing ashore. At first I couldn't see anything in the gloom, but then a peculiar white shape came trundling across the grass, making a faint electric whine: a golf cart! It sped down toward us at top speed, faster than I thought golf carts could go, and skidded to a stop beside the Sallie.
"Jesus Christ," said Albemarle from below, "it's Jim Sandoval!"
Exes on the landing raced for the well-dressed driver, who climbed, scrabbling for footholds, to the Sallie's freight bed. They vaulted up after him, and he ran to its projecting front end, bald head gleaming in the spotlight. Cornered, he didn't hesitate but used his momentum to leap across the water into the mass of us-it had to be a good twenty feet. People were knocked over like tenpins. Before we could learn if anyone had been hurt by this desperate act, we were distracted by a thunderous sound from the shore: thousands of trampling footsteps. We fell silent, listening.
They came. The foggy void boiled over with them like a biblical plague-or perhaps extras in a biblical epic-rushing forward in mute frenzy. "Xombierama," said a much-pierced boy in awe.
Fear sounded all over the deck as this inhuman host, this nightmarathon, swept across the field and down the landing in an avalanche of flailing blue arms and legs. People steeled themselves for the bitter end, but appalling as the enemy seemed, its numbers served only to clog the already-precarious stern crossing, and a great many were simply crowded off into the propeller wash. Also initially alarming were the spastic multitudes swarming the Sallie, their rushing bodies spilling off as if from a sluice… but they were too late: Sandoval's leap had been lucky-the submarine had moved just out of jumping range, and the naked throngs pummeled harmlessly down the ship's side like a lumpy waterfall, piling up at the waterline to claw against the passing hull.
It really began to seem that the handful of Exes already on board were all we had to fear (which was certainly bad enough). But then the Sallie began to tip over on us.
"Whoa," people moaned, seeing the rig teeter from the weight of massing bodies. If they hadn't kept jumping off like lemmings it would have gone already. My heart constricted, and I tried to will the ship to move faster: Come on come on come on…
So close. As the ship's big rudder fin finally came even with the Sallie, the great crawler tilted past the point of no return. Cracking sounds like gunshots could be heard as its plank bed flexed, and the rear wheels levitated upward. Keens of mass dread erupted from all of us as the front end of the thing dipped into our surge, but still didn't topple-the banks of tires at its axis gripped the ledge until the last possible instant, until the vehicle was so improbably steep that the audio equipment on its back plummeted through the Ex-humans hanging below.
"It's gonna hit the screw, it's gonna hit the screw," someone jibbered.
The S
allie dropped.
It went loudly, each of its nine rows of wheels slamming first against the concrete ledge, then against the lower wooden pier-BABAMBABAMBABAMBABAM! As it jounced downward, it must have just cleared the giant propeller, because the ringing, fatal blow we were all holding our breaths for never came. What did happen was scary enough: A mound of water engulfed the stern, carrying away Exes but also rows of men. Some of them escaped the propeller and were left bobbing in our wake. We could hear them calling in the dark.
Not many of us had the energy to be mortified. I couldn't see if Cowper was still aboard or not, and for the moment I didn't want to know. A few hysterical kids were being restrained. I understood: At that instant my biggest fear was that someone might include me in their compassion, might slow our flight. I would've gladly killed someone like that, even though we were safely out of reach of the Ex mass.
But there was nothing to worry about. The boat didn't stop.
CHAPTER EIGHT
It was very cold and windy out on the open water; the only shelter we had was each other. Grief sounds threaded the night. A lot of people had to go to the bathroom, but unlike the others I couldn't just pee over the side. Albemarle, Cowper, and the rest of the adults came forward to see what could be done, which wasn't much. There was no one from the sub's crew to appeal to, except maybe hidden atop the conning tower, and they wouldn't answer our shouts. The searchlight had been turned off. When Cowper's uniform went by in the dark I grabbed a sleeve.
"Not now, honey, okay?" he said, pulling away. "Sit tight."
Bereft, watching the dark shore recede, my initial flush of gratitude quickly passed, and I began to get anxious. How long did the crew expect us to stay out here? A rough head-count was organized: There were about four hundred people on deck, less than fifty of them adults. At least half the older men we'd started out with were gone. Boys were the great majority, mostly teenagers like me (well, not exactly like me-these were more the suburban-gangsta crowd), who seemed to have the same casual expertise about the sub that other kids had about Nintendo. Sea urchins. Listening to them, I quickly learned that the sub was the boat, the conning tower was called the fairwater or sail, and the leathery black deck was a steel beach. They had prepared for this nuclear orphanage. But obviously something had gone wrong… and I, the only female, was to blame.
"This is bullshit, man," said the hairnet guy. Turning on me once more, he groused, "This is all your fault. If you hadn't of come, things would be different. You're bad luck."
Vision swimming with pathetic tears, I said, "What is your problem, kid? I'm serious. Are you off your medication or something? Because even the dumbest knuckle-dragging moron would see that this is not an appropriate time or place to be pulling this bullshit."
"Oh, you really auditioning to be my bitch now."
A voice over my shoulder said, "Shut up, Mitch." It was the boy in the chipmunk costume. He was a head taller than the other, but somewhat less menacing: Sesame Street versus Crenshaw. Squeezing between me and the homeboy, he added, "Give it a rest, man. She's been through enough."
"What you say?" Mitch exploded, shoving his furry shoulder. "Huh? You got somethin' to say, you clown? Pussy? Oh, she been through enough, is that it? Fuck you! You wanna do somethin' about it? What you gonna do?" The costumed boy didn't react but just watched the other with tired patience. "That's what I thought," Mitch said at last, spitting at his feet and pushing past us into the crowd.
After a moment the bigger boy said softly, "He lost his whole family, I mean we all have, so you know…"
I nodded in perfect understanding. After a short interlude, I asked, "What's with the chipmunk costume?"
"I'm not a chipmunk. I'm Safety Squirrel."
"Aren't squirrels supposed to have a big fluffy tail?"
"It got caught in the machinery. That's the tragedy of Safety Squirrel."
Gruff sounds of an argument broke out under the tower. Men were shouting, "Throw the son of a bitch overboard!" and a raw voice beseeched, "SPAM, I'm SPAM-ask Coombs!" Making my way forward, I practically tripped over a man sitting on the deck. He was the bald guy-Sandoval-who had jumped across from the Sallie. He looked stunned and was hugging his right knee as if in pain. The other men loomed all around.
"Quiet, Lulu," Cowper said brusquely when I found him. To the injured man, he said, "We've had to fight for what we were promised. A lot of men I've known for years were lost. Since you're the one who made the promises, Jim, you're kind of in a spot."
Gravel-voiced, the other replied, "I didn't have any choice, Fred. Jesus, I'm glad to see you."
"I bet you are. We're all happy as clams to see you, too."
"Now just hold on. It wasn't up to me. When I made that offer to all of you, I didn't think there was anybody left in Washington who would bother about a decommissioned, neutered boat. STRATCOM had her birds in Kings Bay-they weren't interested anymore. I figured she was a big fat windfall for us. Can you blame me? With communications all down, and the crazy talk out of Cutler: We were bombing Canada, or it was the Rapture-crap like that? I never heard back from Group Ten, much less the Nuclear Posture Review, so we decided to reactivate her as SSGN on Coombs's authority. Don't laugh-he was the most senior person we had. We never got any acknowledgment from COMSUBLANT. Then all of a sudden a tender shows up carrying promotions and sealed orders for all the NavSea people-"
"Not to mention SPAM," Albemarle snapped.
"Right, SPAM. Tons of SPAM. I was as disappointed as anybody. Suddenly SPAM took precedence over everything else. In the absence of any other orders, Coombs might have been willing to entertain the thought of an employee sealift, but after that it was his sworn duty to execute this SPAM operation. I lost my vote."
"But you run the company," said Cowper. "You're a civilian contractor, not his subordinate. You're the chairman, for God's sake, the CEO. You could've stood up to him, and Reynolds would've backed you."
"You think so? And be a traitor to his country? Maybe. I didn't see it that way, Fred. It's been my experience that some ex-Navy guys are pretty patriotic."
This was the wrong thing to say. Albemarle jumped in. "We're plenty patriotic, you asshole. This is about saving Americans. I notice you were pretty quick to save your own ass back there."
"That's because I'm Sensitive."
"You weren't too goddamned sensitive to let Bob Martino get blown away."
"No, I'm Sensitive Personnel. I'm SPAM-that's what I've been trying to tell you. That's why I'm here. Otherwise, I would've shipped out with the rest of the board a week ago."
"Whattaya mean, you're SPAM?" Cowper squawked.
"I mean I have been designated essential to the mission-Coombs is required to deliver me at all costs."
"Deliver you where? Why?"
"That I don't know. But it gives you guys a pretty sweet bargaining chip, doesn't it?"
"He's lying," said one of the other men threateningly. "He's just trying to save his friggin' neck."
"Give me a little credit, will you? I wouldn't lie about something that you can verify so easily. Ask Admiral Coombs."
"Admiral Coombs," Cowper scoffed. "That would be fine if he'd talk to us. The maneuvering watch won't answer our hails."
Albemarle said, "He's up there, and we're down here. That's the problem."
"Just because he won't talk doesn't mean he won't listen, Ed." Sandoval pointed to the top of the sail. "How about I let them know I'm here?"
Cowper rubbed his chin, said, "Go ahead."
"Topside watch!" he shouted weakly. "This is for Commander Coombs! Harvey, it's James Sandoval, requesting to come aboard! I made it! Harvey! Admiral Coombs!"
There was no reply. He tried several more times, straining harder with each effort, but the tower appeared to be deserted. Concerned muttering broke out among the bystanders.
"I don't think there's anybody up there," Sandoval said finally, discouraged.
"How can there be nobody up there?" demanded Cowper. "We
're in the goddamn channel! Somebody's gotta be piloting this thing!"
Sandoval shrugged helplessly. "I know. I don't understand it."
"Maybe they're piloting by scope," a boy offered.
"And maybe we don't need no cockeyed opinions from the peanut gallery," Albemarle barked. To Cowper, he said, "Look, this bastard's just stalling for time. He'll say anything to keep us off him until Coombs gets things under control. SPAM my ass. For all we know-"
He was cut off by a falling body that slammed him to the deck. Two more followed in quick succession, plunging into the sea.
"Heads up!" Cowper shouted, pinning me flat against the tower. Other men followed suit, keeping the crowd back, but there didn't seem to be any more jumpers, and after a moment everyone rushed in to help Albemarle and the fallen man.
Albemarle was groggy, but the new man was wide-awake. He wore a dark blue jumpsuit with gold dolphins stitched over the left breast pocket. Over the right pocket was his name: COOMBS.
"Xombies," he gasped. "Xombies on board."
"They're spreading down there like weasels, snatching men right and left," the commander babbled. He was a trim, swarthy man with a hawk nose and short, dense hair like Velcro. "So fast, so fast, there's no time to think. They suck the life out of you, you know that? Put their filthy mouth on yours and-" He shuddered violently. "Then you're one of them."
"Easy there, Skipper," said Cowper. "How much of the boat have they got? Where are they?"
"Wardroom-must've started in the wardroom with the injured. Yeah, one of those Marines who cracked his head, had to be." His eyes were glazed, feverish. "I'm on the bridge, and all hell breaks loose-Montoya's screaming in the phone for armed support, the general alarm starts going off-I don't know what the hell's happening. I drop down to Control, and there's nobody there! Kranuski's on the com yelling to secure the forward bulkhead, and all of a sudden Stanaman comes running in from Operations like he can't breathe, blue in the face, and just before he reaches me, Baker and Lee come flying across the console and take him down, wham! I thought they killed him, but he's fighting back like a damn wildcat, and Lee yells, 'Get out, Cap! Up top!' Just as I'm thinking, Xombies! here come Tim Shaye and Cready after me like a couple of damn ghouls, and there's nowhere to go but up. They're right on my ass the whole way-I never climbed so fast in my life." He glanced around in fear. "Where the hell'd they go?"
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