The memory of her mother—her mummy—rose like a phantom out of Lulu’s amorphous mind, that familiar carping voice that in life she so loved and reviled:
What is this, Mummy squawked, Grand Central Station?
“Everybody move!” Russell barked. “You heard the man! Everybody off your ass!”
“Where you think we goin’?” demanded Kyle, frozen in place. He was not only terrified, but angry that his brother Russell was suddenly so eager to throw in with a loser like Sal DeLuca—especially at a time like this. After all they’d been through together, he was gonna start taking orders from that guy? No way, uh-uh. What did that fool have that they didn’t? Except maybe the map.
“In here!” Sal shouted. He was standing behind the counter, pointing through the doorway of the minimart’s utility room. It stank from the boys all having used the employee toilet even though there was no water pressure for flushing.
The boys looked doubtfully at the dark, stinking little cell. “Can we all fit in there?” Freddy asked.
Kyle yelled, “That’s a death trap, man!”
“Not there!” Sal impatiently pointed through the room to a door marked EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY—ALARM WILL SOUND. “There!”
The Xombies were coming fast; if the boys didn’t move quickly, they were going to be trapped in that glass box of a convenience store.
They moved. In an explosion of panic, they trampled each other to reach the back door, the lucky ones bursting outside into an alley. Sal had the advantage of a head start, then Russell and Kyle and the rest of the stronger boys.
“Which way now?” Russell gasped.
“Why you askin’ him for?” Kyle said. “Just go!”
There didn’t seem to be much choice. They were walled in on three sides by several buildings—a church, the rear of the minimart, and a hardware store. Directly ahead, the alley opened onto a back street. Sal went that way, the others following close behind.
Meanwhile, the boys at the rear, who were still trying to get out the exit door, found themselves trapped.
“Hurry up!” they screamed, trying to crush through as leering blue Xombies entered the store.
Micah Franklin, the last kid in line, whose nickname on the boat was Sleepy because he walked around in a trance all the time, perpetually in shock because of the loss of his family, suddenly felt a hard, cold arm around his throat. Ah, damn, he thought, unsurprised. Then he was jerked backward off his feet and was gone. The same thing happened to Carl and Scott and Elijah, all snatched up as they climbed over one another to get out. With naked Xombies crashing through the windows, some guys broke and ran, trying to dodge or fight their attackers, and were picked off like rabbits. The last boy to leave the store, Aram Fischer, the boat’s resident cardsharp, the con artist, could see Xombies coming up fast as he slammed the exit door. But there was no lock from outside, no way to secure it.
“Oh God oh God,” he cried, trapped there with the door shuddering against his back. He could hear a hideous whinnying sound from the other side. “Somebody help me!” But the other boys were running away as fast as they could and not looking back. As he strained with all his might, the door popped open an inch, and a long arm slithered through the crack. It seized Aram by the face, thick fingers rooting in his eyes, going all the way up his nose. Before he had time to scream, it yanked him back inside, his legs kicking furiously.
Now Sal and the others were running down the street, trying to stay low as they scurried behind rows of cars piled up at the intersection. They didn’t speak, but Sal could hear their gasps and sobbed curses as they caught glimpses of Xombies converging on the gas station, heard the sound of breaking glass. He hoped everybody got out. Any second now, those things were going to spot them, and it would be all over. They had to get off the street, out of sight, but anyplace they went would be another trap.
Face it, dude, we’re screwed.
Even as he thought this, Sal felt that odd peace that always came over him during a race. Running, ducking, jumping obstacles, his attention streamlined into a familiar tunnel vision, everything focusing laserlike on a single goal. It was his training kicking in; he was conditioned to think under pressure. As an aspiring stunt rider, he had cultivated the mind-set of a kamikaze: In the heat of competition, you didn’t have time to dwell on what was behind you, or the risks of the next jump—you just went. Fuck the law of gravity. You had to ride balls-out into the teeth of pain, grievous injury, possibly even death. Because that was the game. If you couldn’t do that, you couldn’t win.
They were emerging into a neighborhood of hip-looking shops and restaurants, past a futon store, an upscale bar. Nothing that looked very promising as a hiding place. Continuing up Brook Street, they passed a small market and a liquor store. “Liquor store!” Sal heard Freddy hiss at his back. Sal ignored him, kept running. That was all they needed—access to free beer. On the next block was a hole-in-the-wall video joint, then something that almost caused Sal to jump out of his skin:
A bike shop.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
RIDERS ON THE STORM
Q: Does everyone who dies come back to life, like in a zombie movie?
A: This is a hard question. Not because we don’t know the answer, but because it is so vital that we treat all those who are about to die as an imminent threat. But the truth is no, most people who die from causes other than direct Maenad infection—which means a Xombie attack—remain dead. The reasons for this are twofold: One, the person’s tissues may be insufficiently saturated with the Maenad morphocyte to permit revival; two, a level of cellular degradation has occurred that makes revival impossible. Dead is dead—Agent X can’t infect a body with any degree of decay. The only absolutely predictable danger is from those who have become infected spontaneously while still alive, such as menstruating women, and anyone who has been “expired” by them.
Q: So the dead are not returning to life?
A: If a body has not revived within a few minutes of clinical death, it will not revive. This is not Hollywood.
—The Maenad Project
Xibalba . . .
They didn’t waste any time arresting her, once it was clear she couldn’t regain contact with her shore party. Dr. Langhorne didn’t give a damn now that Lulu was lost.
Sitting with ex-skipper Harvey Coombs in the goat locker, unable to do anything but wait, she drifted in and out of the trance state that now constituted a good part of her waking life. Alice wasn’t the only one. Nearly everyone on the boat was haunted by the past, visited by dreams and visions that came on so strong it was sometimes difficult to return to reality—the dead world refusing to let go, gripping tight as a Xombie. But Langhorne was a bit different in that the past was as loathsome to her as the present:
Alice! Help me—my legs are broken. That insistent voice, so hard to ignore, harder still to forget. Almost as bad as the actual sight of him had been, smashed and bleeding on the red-stained ice, pitiful as a dog maimed by a car. Helpless in a way that was alien to both of them; she could hear the disgust in his voice—the new and awkward experience of having to beg for help. Alice Langhorne understood perfectly; it was shocking to her as well, after all this time, at long last. But she kept moving, made herself keep moving. Toward the submarine.
Alice! What are you doing? Help me!
I’m sorry, Jim.
You can’t leave me like this. Then, to her escaping back, I saved your life!
It was true. He had saved her life. Not out of love, though—God forbid. Their marriage, never about love or romance, had always been more of a business arrangement, a limited partnership with emphasis on the limited: Jim & Alice Enterprises. And she had been the silent partner, the spy, working as Jim Sandoval’s personal mole into Uri Miska’s organization, serving as a direct link to Mogul Research Division, a subsidiary of MoCo.
Had he ever loved her? Alice wasn’t sure if Jim was even capable of such an emotion. She was useful to him; he valued her. Then again, she was
n’t the most warm and fuzzy person herself, and the street ran both ways. Jim funded her research and provided the business and political connections that enabled the ASR project to be carried on without government interference—even if it was only so he could glean a hefty tax write-off—and she provided the product. But there was no denying that neither her work nor Miska’s . . . nor Agent X itself . . . could have existed without the contributions of Chairman James Sandoval.
When the ASR prototype, the artificial microorganism that would come to be known as Agent X, got loose in the environment, Alice couldn’t help but feel that it had been inevitable, a form of cosmic justice. Looking at those contaminated soil and water samples, she had to laugh: Why not add failure and professional disgrace to her catalogue of sins? And when both Miska and Sandoval had downplayed the threat, advising her to sweep it under the rug, she had no energy left to resist. Nor did she resist much when her ex approached her at the company Christmas party, just one short week before the epidemic.
They were on the top floor of the Biltmore Hotel, with a beautiful view of Providence, when he started blathering some nonsense about the installation of a research laboratory at a military base somewhere in the frozen Arctic—a place she’d never heard of, called Thule.
Air Force base? she asked, only half-listening to him. It was her third drink. Laboratory where? Arctic what?
There’s an old Air Force base up there, left over from the Cold War. It’s in Greenland. The government’s converting part of the site into a storage depot for sensitive materials and personnel in case of a pandemic. Homeland Security stuff, all very hush-hush. We got the contract—mucho dinero. The downside is that they want it done yesterday.
I can’t go to Greenland.
Why not?
Why not? Are you trying to be funny? With all this crap going on?
I know you’re burned-out; we’ve all been under tremendous stress lately. That’s why I think a change of scenery could do you some good—not just you, but your whole division. Miska’s already agreed to hold the fort. Get away from here for a little while, a paid vacation out of that dungeon.
Why? Are indictments coming down?
I could think of nicer places if that were the case. This isn’t Acapulco.
When would I have to leave?
That’s the catch: You have to report by next weekend, preferably sooner.
Well, it’s out of the question then. You know I can’t go anywhere until after New Year’s.
Sure you can.
Lowering her voice, she said, Idiot—I have to be present in the lab when that morphocyte degrades. What do you think I’ve been waiting for all these months? Singing “Auld Lang Syne” with Regis? I can’t rest easy until this thing elapses and returns to its constituents.
You can track it just as easily in Greenland. You said it was everywhere.
Are you serious? All my equipment is here.
Not anymore. It’s been shipped.
What?
He nodded slowly, the cat that swallowed the canary.
Jim, you better be joking.
Sorry to spring it on you like this.
Since when? she demanded.
Since early this morning. The whole kit ’n’ kaboodle, on a C-130 transport out of T.F. Green. Your friend Dr. Stevens rode along to make sure it all went smoothly.
Chandra’s in on this? Are you all out of your fucking minds?
I would have told you yesterday, but you were kind of out of it. Hey, it’s just for a couple of months. I may even drop in on you guys up there later.
I can’t believe this. This is all too weird right now.
Come on—weird is good. Weird is just what the doctor ordered.
Yeah, but which doctor? Witch doctor—I made a funny. Which doctor’s the witch doctor?
Alice, you’re drunk.
She leaned in close, breathing gin fumes into his face. And you’re a bastard. But I’ll be sober in the morning.
“Well, this is another fine mess you’ve gotten me into.”
Alice Langhorne was sitting on one of the brown Naugahyde couches in the goat locker, playing solitaire. Not looking up from her cards, she said, “What do you suppose happens now? They make us walk the plank?”
Pacing, Coombs said, “There’s no plank on a submarine.”
“The screen door, then.”
“I just don’t understand what Kranuski thinks he’s going to get out of this.”
“You don’t? He already sold out the boat once before, didn’t he?”
“Not deliberately. I can’t believe he did that deliberately. He didn’t know about the Moguls, and as soon as we all realized what was going on, Rich stopped cooperating with them . . . even under torture. I saw it. The man’s a walking recruiting poster—his sense of duty is sincere, if misguided.”
“You mean he’s got a major stick up his butt.”
“He has good reason to be that way. There’s no margin for error on a submarine. If you heard the tape of the Thresher going down, you’d know what I mean. And let me tell you something about Richard Kranuski: He has more reason than most to want to stick to protocol. He had a bad hazing experience at the Academy—a couple of drunk midshipmen hung him off a second-floor balcony by his ankles and dropped him. Ended their careers, and it’s only a miracle Kranuski wasn’t killed or paralyzed. Since then, he hasn’t had much tolerance for games.”
“Well, that explains it.”
“What?”
“He fell on his head.”
“I’m just worried he’s being manipulated by Webb.”
“That meathead?”
“Alton Webb’s been developing a regular little following by playing on the men’s fears and telling them what they want to hear. At first I thought it was a useful tool to keep morale up and maintain order, but now I realize he obviously had other ambitions. Webb’s second-in-command now; all he has to do is remove Rich, and he’ll be running the show.”
“I hate to tell you, Chief, but he’s already running the show.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, but why? For what purpose?”
“Who knows? Demigod of the seas isn’t enough?”
“Webb used to be a good officer. Kranuski, too. We all were.”
“Those were the days, my friend. The question is, what do we do now?”
“Hold up!” Sal called softly, waving the boys to stop. Still no sign of Xombies. Through the window he could see hundreds of bikes filling every inch of the store. Better still, it was a repair shop, which meant that a lot of the bikes should be good to go, tires all pumped up and waiting for their owners to come get them. He checked the door. It was locked, of course. Damn! They didn’t dare break in—it would make too much of a racket. What now?
Sensing Sal’s indecision, Russell shoved past him and stuffed his coat over a windowpane in the door. As Sal started to say, “No, don’t—!” the bigger boy gave it a sharp tap with a rock. The glass tinkled inward, barely audible.
“I done this before,” he said, reaching through to unlock it. They quickly filed inside.
As the last of them came in, Sal said, “Wait, where are the others?”
“They gone, man.”
“What?”
“They didn’t never make it outta the minimart.”
“Are you kidding? And you just left them there?” Sal was almost yelling.
“You left ’em, bro. We were all following you.”
“But I didn’t know! I was counting on you guys to—”
“To what? To die like them? Ain’t nobody could help them, man. Come on, what the fuck we here for?”
Trying to gather his wits, shaken by the magnitude of his failure—ten, no, eleven guys gone!—Sal said dully, “Uh, yeah . . . just grab whatever you think you can ride. Shit, dude. Keep it simple—no crazy junk with eighty-eight gears. These are good up here. Pull ’em down, check the tires for air . . .” He could feel his eyes watering, wanting to cry.
Something flashed
by outside the window. A blurred human shape, bright in the daylight, its eyes and mouth three gaping black pits. Then another rushed by. And another and another. The last one stopped short, peering into the dark shop. There was an electric jolt of eye contact—and every boy in the room felt his bowels turn to water.
The thing staring at them was a teenage girl, or once had been. Now it was a naked blue banshee, deathly savage, with long, curved fingernails, nipples like tarnished iron spikes, and hair a black nest of brambles. Sal was reminded of the cover of an old picture book that had given him nightmares as a child: Struwwelpeter—the grotesque boy who never cut his hair or nails. It whirled and came at them.
“Damn,” Derrick croaked. “Here she comes.”
There was nowhere they could hide; the store was wide open, all glass. As most of the boys scrambled backward, Sal jumped forward and opened the front door.
“Hell you doin’?” Kyle yelled, leaping to stop him.
Sal hissed back, “If it has to break in, it’ll give us away!”
Russell rammed Kyle clear of the doorway as the Xombie came hurtling through. “Nail it!” he cried to the others, jumping for cover. They shrank backward, tumbling over bikes and each other to escape.
As the ferocious gargoyle plunged after them, Sal dove to shut the door, then grabbed the first thing at hand, the frame of a little girl’s bike, and swung it around by its glittery, pink-tasseled handlebars, hoping to use the sharp ends of the bike’s front fork as a weapon.
The Xombie was much too quick. Before Sal could strike, it whirled at him, knocking him onto his back with the bicycle crushing his chest. Powerful blue arms snaked for his throat. As he tried to fend them off with the handlebars, he realized he was inadvertently twisting the Xombie’s head—its neck was lodged between the prongs of the fork. In desperation he wrenched the handlebars all the way around and heard the creature’s neck snap with a sickening, cartilaginous crack. The force of its fury weakened for an instant, long enough for him to kick it off him and pin it to the floor by the fork. “Help me!” he shouted.
Xombies: Apocalypticon Page 10
