Xombies: Apocalypse Blues

by Greatshell, Walter

  There was nothing to see but gray. Feeling very nervous, I searched a wide swath of whitecaps but found no horizon or anything else. Spume misted the lenses. Looking astern I thought I saw something: a faint light that blinked and vanished. I waited for it and caught it blinking again.

  “There,” I said. “A light. It keeps going on and off.”

  “I should hope so,” he said gruffly. “It’s the Beavertail Light. You should be able to see that without the damn binoculars. On a clear day you’d see the cliffs at Newport. If you look about twenty degrees to the left, you can probably find the automated light at Point Judith, too. It’s operational.”

  I had been to the Point Judith Light. It was only a couple of miles from Jerusalem. Living there felt like a long, long time ago. That we could still be so close made my stomach muscles clench up. “I see it,” I said.

  “Now look forward again a little more carefully. See the compass? We’re heading due east, following the mainland toward the Cape. Track ahead along the coast.”

  “But I can’t even see the coast.”

  “Doesn’t matter—the SVS-1200 says it’s there, see?”

  He showed me a map displayed on a small glowing screen, and I nodded as if I could read it. I returned to scanning, trying to keep my balance in the swinging loft. “Wait—there it is. That one?”

  “Sakonnet Point. Congratulations.” He turned robotically and shook my hand.

  “Thanks,” I said, sheepishly handing back the binoculars.

  “I’m not congratulating you for seeing the lighthouse. I’m congratulating you for being selected as the boat’s official Youth Liaison Officer.”

  “Oh . . . The what, sir?”

  “You’ll be responsible for making sure all command directives are understood and followed to the letter by the other minors on board. You will also be the spokesperson for said minors, addressing their questions and concerns in whatever way you see fit, so long as it doesn’t interfere with the official duties of the crew or the rules and regulations of this vessel. Finally, you will be my eyes and ears in the missile bay and will be expected to furnish a daily report describing any problems you may be having with civilian order or morale. Anyone gives you trouble, report them to me. Think you can handle the job?”

  “I’m not sure, sir. I’ve never—”

  “Am I to understand that you are the young woman who came up with the carbon-monoxide solution to the Xombies?”

  “I guess so, yes, but—”

  “Well, I’m sure that if you bring as much initiative to your duties as Youth Liaison Officer as you did to the Maenad problem, you’ll have them eating out of your hand. The youths, that is. Now, these duties are not to be taken lightly. All it takes is one bad apple to spoil the whole bunch, girl—our lives and the success of our objective could once again come down to your powers of observation. We’ve already compromised far too much of this mission . . . we have to salvage what we can. May I count on you.”

  It was not a question. “Yes, sir,” I said dismally.

  “Good. Mr. Monte will get you started on one of the UNIX workstations. He’ll also arrange for you to have a private snack in the wardroom every day—but I advise you to keep that to yourself. Welcome to the team. That’s all.”

  “Mr. Coombs, sir?”

  “You should call me Commander or Captain. Skipper is all right, too.”

  “Yes, sir. Uh, Captain? Where can I find Mr. Cowper, sir?”

  He turned heavily away. “You wouldn’t want to do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “Fred Cowper is under arrest, pending charges of conspiracy, mutiny, sedition, and theft and destruction of classified government property. That’s just the beginning. I don’t know what your relationship to him is, but I do know that his personnel file specifies that he is widowed with no dependents. All the times I’ve worked with him over the years, he never mentioned you. Don’t you think it’s about time you returned the favor?”

  I shook my head no, tears blowing away.

  “Lulu, Uncle Sam is your daddy now. He won’t let you down.”

  Ice-cold, I descended.

  I was used to being shunned—kids had been shunning me all my life, as they will anyone who dares to use reason and four-syllable words—but under these circumstances it was bothersome beyond belief. As Youth Liaison Officer I was given scheduled times when I could roam beyond the missile compartment, and these outings became more and more necessary as my tolerance for being sniped at decreased—the decks were gauntlets of whispered asides, to which I responded in kind: “Bitch.” “Jerk.” “Bitch.” “Creep.” “Skank.” “Pig.” “Bitch.” “Trash.” No one cared that I had neither asked for nor desired my new title; any fledgling public sympathy just evaporated overnight. Word had gotten out about Cowper’s arrest and confinement, and a lot of guys acted like he had been asking for it all along. “Oh yeah,” they murmured together. “What did he expect?” I couldn’t believe it. He and I were even made the subject of outrageous graffiti—cartoons that portrayed me as a Nazi Kewpie doll putting a noose around the old man’s neck.

  All my fears about sharing a cave with these troglodytes seemed to be coming true. I took to carrying my possessions everywhere I went for fear of vandalism. The boys blamed me for everything. When I had to announce that the laptops were being confiscated, they blamed me. When I couldn’t increase the measly ration, or couldn’t answer questions about our destination, they blamed me. For anything they could think up I was blamed, so that I began to feel like a sacrificial effigy: Coombs’s stand-in. Fortunately, there were no more psychos among them, or if there were, they knew better than to act on it. But when animals are crowded together in unhealthy conditions, they eventually start killing one another, and I think Coombs knew exactly what he was doing, letting me take the heat. I was expendable.

  Rather than murdering me, however, the boys vented their testosterone on one another, fighting over any slight—I mean real fistfights—and forming belligerent gangs. I tried to channel these passions in a positive direction, enlisting Shawn to help me organize a makeshift poetry slam, and even contributed a short piece in the style of my idol, Emily Dickinson: “Trapped in this armpit omnibus / The river feeds its source / We’ve traded in our Pegasus / And bought a rocking horse.” But in spite of the captive audience, the reading was a bust, at best an unruly class assembly.

  “Cut them some slack,” Shawn said afterward, unfazed. “It’s too soon. They’ll rhyme when they’re ready to rhyme. Right now it ain’t real to them—everybody needs to feel safe first.” He shrugged, not looking at me. “You just don’t inspire that much confidence, Lulu. It’s not your fault.”

  The ship’s crew didn’t like me any better than the passengers did, resenting my presence in “officer country” and taking full advantage of their option to bounce me out of any area deemed too sensitive. This was completely at their discretion and depended on the whim or temperament of the individual officer. Robles and Noteiro were liberal; Kranuski and Webb not so nice. But at least I wasn’t the only one receiving this treatment: there were over a hundred of our people—men and proficient older boys (Julian among them)—who had been engaged to assist and relieve the burned-out crew. What made my position unique was that I only answered to the captain and didn’t have to take on any old job that came up.

  I should say here I did have my supporters, however reluctant. Hector, Julian, Jake, Tyrell, and a handful of others never treated me like a stooge. In fact, they sheltered me as best they could from the bullying, though they were obviously terrified of being isolated themselves. It was due to their civility and encouragement that I was able to fulfill any part of my duties, not to mention sleep in peace. I really depended on them.

  “You okay?”

  It was late in the night, and the weight of woe had driven me to tears. I tried to be quiet about it, huddled in my corner, but Julian overheard me and crawled over. Back turned, I nodded, tried to hold it in, the
n blurted, “I’m sick of everybody hating me. I can’t stand this anymore. I didn’t do anything!”

  “No they don’t. Hey.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?” I retorted.

  “Okay they do, but it’s nothing personal.”

  “That’s just it, it is personal. It’s about me! It’s always been about me. Either people think I’m stuck-up, or I’m some kind of mutant quiz kid—a sideshow freak. Now I get to be an evil she-devil on top of it all? Give me a break!” I turned and looked at him through brimming tears. “What the hell am I supposed to do? Kill myself?”

  “Listen, everybody’s just scared. We’re all alone out here. Nobody knows what’s going on, and right now they’re taking it out on you, trying to do anything they can to bond together.”

  “Great.”

  “I know it sucks, but it’s not something you’re going to overcome by appealing to their sense of logic. Believe me, I’ve tried. You’re going to have to aim lower.”

  “I’m not about to be the ship’s slut, if that’s what you mean.”

  “Not that low. I’m talking about the heart, the gut. Give them something to rally around.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. You’re the English wiz. Think of something.”

  Every day a hastily typed memo would appear in my file, describing in the vaguest possible terms the submarine’s itinerary, and part of my job was to brighten this bland text with cheerful adjectives and patriotic platitudes, then read it out loud from atop one of the big box girders that spanned the missile bay. This was part of what Coombs called “Building Team Spirit.” I cranked out the fluff as he asked, though the thought of reading it made me cringe. I put it off and put it off. But when I finally got up the nerve, the response was nothing like I expected.

  Here was the first such memo: SURFACE CRUISING 17 NAUT. MI. SOUTH OF CAPE COD—NANTUCKET SOUND—NORTHEASTERLY TRACK—MODERATE TO HEAVY SWELLS—PLANNED NORTHERLY COURSE CHANGE 1900 HRS—SHIP’S STATUS CONTINUED ALERT.

  My read-aloud version went:

  “It is only through adversity that we know our mettle. We follow the track of the fabled nor’easter and charge through the burgeoning swells like Eros on his dolphin. The bayberry and beach-plum dunes of Cape Cod, only seventeen miles north, do not beckon us the way they did the scurvied whale-men of old Nantucket, returning to their Sound from mythic hunts in southern seas. Our hunt lies north, as tonight at the hour of seven we round the curling eyelash of the Cape and emulate the cool and forward-thrust brow of America. America : She looks to the North Atlantic as the source of her strength, first as the stream that brought her peoples—as the infant Moses was borne upon the Nile—then as the rich fishing grounds that sustained them. Her beating heart urges us this way . . . and as proud Americans we are bound to go.”

  Coombs liked this so much he had me broadcast it all over the boat. I have to say that with “The Star-Spangled Banner” playing in the background, it sounded pretty good, but what really surprised me was the effect it had on everyone: There wasn’t a dry eye in the house. Best of all, after a few of these performances, kids stopped being so mean to me.

  “What are you going to do, now that they’ve arrested your old man?” asked Hector after dinner.

  “What is there to do?” I said.

  “How can you keep working for them?”

  “Yeah, that’s gotta suck, dude,” said Jake.

  “I’m not working for them. The idea is that we’re all supposed to be working together.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “Really, I consider myself your representative up there. Anything anybody asks about, I forward it to Coombs, just like I bring back any information he gives me.”

  “Which is bogus.”

  “Maybe, but without it, we wouldn’t know anything at all.”

  “I get more scuttlebutt just listening to my stepdad complain.”

  “Yeah, but that’s just a lot of rumors and gossip,” I said. “That’s not real information-sharing. The only people who really know anything are the senior officers.”

  “Like they’re sharing with you, give me a break. You’re a tool.”

  “Thanks.”

  “A propaganda tool, come on. They’re using you.”

  “It goes both ways.”

  “Oh yeah? So what are they planning for us? Tell me that.”

  “You heard the message,” I said. “We’re going up north to find the ‘environmental survivability threshold of Agent X’—”

  “Whatever that means.”

  “—where Maenad activity might be less intense—”

  “Where they’re all frozen solid, in other words.”

  “Xombiesicles.” Jake smirked.

  “—and where we can presumably be dropped off safely.” I shook my head. “God, you guys.”

  “Where? Like the North Pole? I don’t believe in Santa Claus, Lulu,” Hector said. “Spring is on its way, you know? And it isn’t just flowers that are going to be in bloom. Maybe it’s cold now, but there’s not going to be any place cold enough to make ice in July—not any place we can live. And what are we supposed to eat in the meantime? What are we supposed to wear? None of us brought clothes for a damn Antarctic expedition.”

  “Arctic. Look, there’s no point in talking about this, because we don’t know what they have in mind.”

  “All I’m saying is we’re starving already, and it’s only going to get worse.”

  “They shouldn’t call it the Donner party,” mused Jake. “I’d be like, ‘Where’s the beer, dude? Holy shit!’”

  A little shrilly, I snapped, “What do you expect me to do about it?”

  Hector backed off, looking beat. “Nothing. Nothing, man, I’m sorry.” I suddenly realized I could see the beginnings of gauntness in his features. After three days trapped belowdecks, seasickness and the starvation diet were undermining his robust Boy Scout face. All of them, all their eyes were haunted. I felt terrible—my own belly was full of canned ham, biscuits, and three-bean salad, which I had wolfed down in the grizzled, jolly presence of Mess Officer Emilio Monte, who had prepared it for me in the wardroom pantry. Away from prying eyes.

  Eat up, girlie, he had said. Mmm-mm! Goes down good, does it? That’s what good little children get. Bad little children go to the goat locker.

  “No, I’m sorry,” I said to them then. “I’ll have to try harder to be useful up there. Fish for more concrete information.”

  “Be better to fish for fish,” Tyrell said. “They’re gonna starve us till we don’t care what they do. Make us weak as baby chicks, then they can kill us, leave us on an iceberg, don’t matter. Sub-mission—ain’t that the name of the game? We ain’t nothin’ but a drain on ’em.”

  “I just think we have to be patient.”

  “Being patient is a crock,” Hector said. “But I know you’re doing everything you can, Lulu. You’re a stand-up girl.”

  From that point on, I began abusing my privileges, creeping on cat feet around the forward compartments in the hope of finding Cowper or overhearing anything that might be helpful to the guys. Ready with a host of diversions—“Ow, can’t talk, ooh, I barked my shin, ow, gotta go”—I loitered just around the corner from every conversation I could, but though I did manage to learn that a dive was being planned, there was no indication of Cowper’s whereabouts. Furthermore, my memos detailing the rotten conditions in the missile room (which was by then being called simply the “Big Room”) were going unacknowledged, if not unread, by the captain. Since I had been specifically told to address him only by electronic posting, I was afraid of what might happen if I broached the subject personally. My instinct . . . and my hungry belly . . . told me not to.

  I did, though, begin to gravitate toward Coombs. Whereas previously I had sought out the least-attended workstations on board for my assignments, I began using consoles in the control center, hoping opportunities to speak with him would come up. With all the training goin
g on, it was a busy place, and on my second day there I was pleased to see Julian working, too—we exchanged aloof nods like initiates to some inner sanctum. Julian didn’t look well, and I wondered if he was getting the extra food I was. I had assumed it came with our duties, like pay.

  “Lulu,” Coombs said over my shoulder.

  I jumped. “Sorry, sir, you snuck up on me.”

  “That’s all right. Listen, I read your proposal about starting a Youth Corps on the boat. I’ve actually been thinking about something along those lines myself, internships for kids who show aptitude. We’re still critically undermanned; we could use more bright kids like you working on qual cards.”

  This was funny to me. They hadn’t trained me for anything, but Coombs seemed to take a peculiar interest in promoting the fiction that I was a vital member of the team. A “qual card” was a card you got when qualifying for specialized jobs—Julian had one, I knew, as did most of the adults. But Youth Liaison Officer was not a recognized specialty. I knew nothing, and Coombs seemed to like it that way.

  He said, “This skeleton crew has been working for ten days with not much relief, and they’re doing a lot of jobs a trained monkey could handle, while those kids back there are twiddling their thumbs and getting into mischief. I say let’s give them some responsibility, a crash course in seamanship. What do you think?”

  “Yes, sir. I think it would be great.” I couldn’t wait to tell the boys. “They’ll be thrilled.”

  “Good. Get on it right away—I want seventy-five nonpuk ing candidates by oh-nine-thirty. Oh, one other thing”—he lowered his voice—“you haven’t told anyone about our arrangement, have you?”

  “Sir . . . ?”

  “Because that little extra something is still a special deal between you and us. It’s not for everybody and his brother-in-law. There isn’t enough chow to go around, and we don’t want everyone to get all up in arms about it, do we?”