Xombies: Apocalypse Blues

by Greatshell, Walter

  Actually, I wasn’t getting colder. A deep warmth had started to bloom, and with it a dreamy calm. I knew what this was, this welcome, enfolding dark. I knew these were precursors to the end, and the gratitude I felt was indescribable. Thank you thank you thank you thank you . . .

  But even as I slipped beneath the surface, trailing a string of mirrored bubbles, my alien hand found the necklace, snapped the chain, and held the locket up above the water. Up where the gold would catch the light.

  I could feel cool grass against my cheek, and desert wind riffling my clothes. Red sky at morning, sailor take warning. I was heavy, immovable, a lizard sunning on a rock. In the hazy distance, I could see our old house in Oxnard, white as a milk carton on the grass, with the peeling eucalyptus trees and the laundry line. At first I sensed the presence of my mother inside and was overjoyed, wild to tell her something. Then I began to notice something wasn’t right—the focus was peculiar—and as I reached my hand out, the illusion collapsed: It was a miniature, a fake. A crummy little diorama. I was so frustrated I wanted to smash it! That’s why I disliked miniatures and models, even the good ones in museums, because the more real they are, the more daintily inviting, the more they put you at arm’s length. But this one was the most crushing disappointment of all.

  Or maybe I was just too old for toys. I remembered how delighted I was by the toy circus set on my birthday cake when I was five: the plastic Ferris wheel, the big top, the flags and trapeze, the clowns and camels. There was nothing realistic about it, nothing to scale. It was probably very cheap. But it was the only thing that interested me—the few other presents were so drab and functional I have no memory of them at all. But at the end of the party, the landlord and her daughter wrapped up what was left of the cake and disappeared with it.

  Not sure what had just happened, I said, “Mummy, where did the circus go?”

  “Oh, honey, those were just decorations. They belong to Mrs. Reese.”

  “But it’s my birthday,” I said, tears streaming. “I wanted them.”

  “Well, she made the cake, Lulu. I’m sorry. Come on now, be a big girl.”

  My mother’s voice was growing faint. The house was empty, a cheap toy, and the more I pawed at it, the more unreal it became. My heart seized up with a terrible feeling of loss, and I called, “Mum!”

  As I spoke, the dream shivered apart. I was in bed, naked as a baby, swaddled in flannel. It was no ordinary bed, but a fluffy giant pillow as rapturously soft and warm as a sheltering bosom. The room was dim, but the impression I got was something out of Arabian Nights—a large carpeted tent with hanging swaths of colorful sheer fabric and pillows all over the place. Was I still dreaming? I squirmed deeper, away from bad thoughts and a ghostly hand petting my head.

  “Welcome back, Lulu.”

  I scrunched up my face. It was that blond woman doctor—Dr. Langhorne. She was sitting cross-legged at the head of the bed. Her eyes were red and her face raw-scrubbed, as if fresh from a long crying jag.

  “How are you feeling?” she asked.

  “Alive,” I murmured, heartsick.

  “Oh yes. You were never in any danger. We made sure of that.”

  “Why?”

  “Because you have a place here. You’ve earned a place here.”

  “Don’t say that.”

  “Why not? It’s a new day, Lulu. A brand-new life starts today.”

  “No . . .”

  “Louise, I know this is hard, but from what I know about you, you’re tough enough to take it. And starting tomorrow, things are going to get a whole lot easier.”

  Reluctantly, I asked, “How?”

  “Tomorrow you’ll get a guardian. Someone to take care of you.”

  “Oh.”

  “I know that doesn’t mean much to you yet, but I think you’ll find it exciting.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “You’re a princess around here. A rare bird. Important men are eager to meet you.”

  “You mean like they’ve been meeting the boys?”

  She looked at me shrewdly, grateful to dispense with childish fictions. “Much more so,” she said. “Boys are just a substitute borne of necessity.”

  “Swell.”

  “You know, later on you’ll have a chance to see some of your pals again, the ones who have been ‘adopted.’ You’ll see that they’re getting along just fine.”

  “Why not now?”

  “They’re still going through orientation.”

  “Why can’t I go through orientation with them?”

  She smiled and put her hand on my shoulder. “Honey, you don’t need to.”

  I remained in bed all day, feeling leaden and ill. At intervals my guts would seize up, bending me double and wringing out harsh silent tears, like juice from a frost-damaged lemon. I wondered if there were any hidden cameras as I used the bed-pan. Several doctors dropped by to check my vitals, and I had the impression they had drawn straws for the privilege. They didn’t speak English. Ridiculously sumptuous meals were brought on a cart—soft-boiled eggs, fresh fruit, a variety of breads and crackers with a basket of individual little spreads and cheeses, a pot of tea. At lunch there was an antipasto tray that could have fed six people, and at dinner a four-course meal with whole roast game hens. I hardly ate any of it—I could tell it was from the boat.

  Sometime later, Dr. Langhorne returned, accompanied by a much older lady, a Miss Riggs, whose baggy face was plastered with makeup and whose flaming copper wig looked about as natural as a coonskin cap. I couldn’t believe they had given this poor old thing an implant! She dragged a huge rolling suitcase behind her like a homeless person.

  “Lulu, Miss Riggs is going to help you get ready for tomorrow. She’s a professional, so give her your full cooperation, okay?”

  Professional what? I thought apprehensively.

  “Oh, my achin’ feet,” said Miss Riggs, opening the suitcase and setting up a bright light on a stand. “Come on, honey. I ain’t gettin’ any younger.” I hesitated because of my nakedness, but she didn’t give a darn. “Let’s go!” she squawked.

  Half her suitcase was taken up by a big makeup kit with folding trays full of every conceivable grooming tool. I nearly swooned from the smell, which evoked the spicy-sweet aroma of numberless beauty parlors. The color palette had the worn look of long, expert use, and the tools and brushes were arranged as neatly as surgical instruments. The other half of the case contained a stack of carefully packed dresses, all plastic-wrapped as if fresh from the dry cleaner. On top I could see a baroque layered gown of jade silk and antique lace.

  “Excuse me,” Miss Riggs said to the doctor. “I can take it from here.”

  “I won’t get in your way,” said Langhorne.

  “I can’t stand people lookin’ over my shoulder when I’m workin’! Beat it!”

  Langhorne was shocked and furious, but she held her tongue. “All right,” she said. “Let me know when you’re done.” To me, she said, “Your escort tomorrow will be Mr. Utik. He’ll be here at eleven, so be ready to go. He’s conversant in Inuktitut, French, and Danish, but his English may leave something to be desired. I suggest you don’t call him an Eskimo, or he’ll think you uncouth.” She brusquely ducked out.

  “Some people can’t take a hint,” the old lady said. “They don’t understand the artistic temperament. You can’t crowd talent. I learned that from Jayne Mansfield. You gotta stick up for yourself, or these bozos will walk all over ya.” Measuring me, she said, “Honey, you sure ain’t no Jayne Mansfield, I’ll tell you that. How old are you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “That’s a shame. You need some meat on your bones; you look like a plucked chicken. They treatin’ you all right in here?”

  I couldn’t begin to answer; all I could do was cry.

  “Aw, honey, you’re gonna be all right. You know how many fresh-faced young girls I worked with over the years? I seen ’em all go through it, even Marilyn Monroe. You ain’t the first. Some became tra
mps, some became drunks and dope addicts, some made a career of getting knocked around by the wrong kind of men. There’s always gonna be men who think having a pretty dame around will make them hate themselves less, and they take it out on the girl when it doesn’t work. Ain’t no different now. Hold still.”

  “What can I do?” I quavered. “What can I do?”

  “Don’t move.” She was fastening the tiny hooks on a carapace-like bustier, her hands strong and nimble and utterly without hesitation or wasted movement, everything coming together with an accidental ease that suggested the opposite of entropy—order flowing from chaos. Despite her rheumy yellow eyes and cigarette-stained teeth, I sensed that nothing could shake her; she was solid. I wished she would stay with me and tell me what to do. I wanted to hide in her suitcase.

  With effortless speed, she threw clothes on me from that treasure chest of couture, one dazzling outfit after another, enough to stage the Oscars, all pristine and new. Obscenely plush designer gowns straight off a Paris runway; metallic silks and jewel-fruited filigree; bloodred taffeta and peach satin; cream lace studded with pearls; Versace, Gucci, Dior—annoying names that littered my consciousness with all the other obsolete pop-culture clutter, but which I had never seen on a label, suddenly delivered into my pauper’s hands like so much pirate booty. Nothing fit me, but needles sprouted from Miss Riggs’s withered lips, thread from her spiderlike hands, cinching in and hemming and pleating, filling out the tops with blubbery foam inserts so that for the first time in my life I looked like a woman. Amazed at my unfamiliar spangled self, I realized I was booty, too—part of the loot.

  “You wanna know what to do?” she said through a mouthful of pins. “None of the above. That’s the extent of my wisdom, hon: Do none of the above.”

  Miss Riggs took all the costumes with her to finish working on them—a whole lavish wardrobe, custom-fitted for me. I couldn’t quite comprehend it. It had been such a bizarre flurry of activity that I almost believed I had imagined the whole thing, and it was a little bit of a shock the next morning to find all the completed dresses hanging in the tent, with a row of matching shoes lined up below. One of the outfits was set apart, and next to it was something I never expected to see again: the hooded fur cape Hector had given me. I wept to touch it. It had been cleaned and brushed to a high reddish gloss, matching perfectly with the teal-and-black ensemble I was to wear.

  At exactly eleven (by the Tiffany watch that had appeared on my bedstand), a pair of Air Force men came in through the tent flap and escorted me down a sausagelike inflated tunnel. I sensed them taking great pains not to stare at me in my finery.

  “What happens now?” I asked them.

  “We’re not at liberty to say, ma’am.”

  “What do you think of all this?” I tapped my forehead nodule.

  One of them was annoyed by my questions, but the other one said, “Everybody’s just coping. That’s all you can do. Forget who you were and roll with it. Those who can’t . . .” He shrugged.

  Eyes swimming with tears, I said, “I’m not sure if I can live like that.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first.”

  At the end, we came to a revolving door, and they sent me through. Pushed by a gust of warm air, I emerged on an enclosed balcony in pale, subzero twilight. I was outside the dome!

  There was someone else on the balcony. A large Inuit man in a long black overcoat with the collar turned up and a gleaming stovepipe hat. He had no implant, making me more aware than ever of mine.

  “Oh,” I said. “Are you Mr. Utik?”

  Doffing the hat with a comical flourish, he said, “Herman.” He opened a pneumatic outer door and gestured me through. I braced for the murderous cold, but he took his heavy coat off and wrapped it around me as we went. Underneath he was wearing a striking charcoal uniform with jodhpurs, gold buttons, and highly polished leather boots. The outfit made him look like some kind of Prussian officer. His face was familiar, then I realized he was the bus driver who had intercepted us at the perimeter wall.

  I looked across the white divide to that motley armada of planes, and suddenly made the connection—I was being taken out there. Mogul country. Mr. Utik hustled me down a short flight of stairs to a waiting armored truck, and two other equally decked-out native Greenlanders appeared to help me aboard. They all stared at me with frank curiosity.

  Climbing into the truck, I had to laugh: From the outside it looked like some kind of tank or riot vehicle, replete with turret, but on the inside it was an outrageous Victorian carriage, roomy as a small RV, with velvet-upholstered walls, pastoral thumbnail portraits in gilded frames (by the likes of Sargent and Cassatt—if they were real), stained-glass lamps, a small mahogany bookcase with miniature editions of Herodotus and Thucydides, two antique divans, and curtains over the gun slits.

  “Oh my God,” I said, plopping down on one of the burgundy divans. It reminded me of a psychiatrist’s couch. All I could think was, If this van’s a-rockin—

  As the others took their places in the cockpit, Mr. Utik got me squared away, tucking high-tech hot-water bottles around my legs and showing me a cooler full of liquor.

  “No thanks,” I said. “I’m underage.”

  This seemed to fluster him, and he gave the order for us to get going.

  “I’d give anything to know what you make of all this,” I said in an undertone as the vehicle lumbered forward.

  “Better than hunting seal,” said Utik, sitting behind the drivers.

  “What?”

  “I said it’s better than freezing your ass off out on the ice hunting seal. That’s what these guys would be doing now if we weren’t working for the qallunaat.” He pointed to their backs in turn. “This is Nulialik, and this little runt is my brother, Qanatsiak.”

  “You speak English.”

  “Shhh—don’t tell anyone.”

  “Why tell me, then?”

  “You’re not one of them.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I’m a spy.” He winked at me.

  “Give me a break.”

  “I’m spying on you right now.”

  “I’d believe that.”

  “But I’m also spying on them.”

  “The Moguls?”

  “Kapluna. Qallunaat.”

  “What for?”

  “Something big is going on. Bigger than all this. We want to know what it is.”

  From his grin, I couldn’t tell if he was being serious or not. “Who’s ‘we’?” I asked.

  “Ilagiit nangminariit—my extended family, and many others, led by an elder—the inhumataq. He believes we bear a special responsibility for all that is happening. We may be the only ones with the power to intervene.”

  “How so?”

  “The indigenous peoples of the Arctic are now the dominant race on the planet. Our civilization is the most intact; the meek have inherited the Earth, just as Christ foretold. But this means nothing unless we can stop the tunraq kigdloretto that has been unleashed.”

  “The what?”

  “Agent X. We call it a tunraq—a spirit invoked by a shaman. Usually it’s a helper spirit, but if it is invoked for evil purposes, ilisiniq, it can get out of control and even turn on its user. The kigdloretto is this kind of rogue spirit.”

  “Okay . . .”

  “My Netsilik ancestors routinely practiced female infanticide, and many of us now believe that it is the ghosts of these girls that are coming back to possess the living. We think they were released by an angotkok, a powerful shaman, who is practicing witchcraft.”

  “Do you really believe that?”

  “All the Seal People were converted to Catholicism long ago, so there aren’t many who remember the old ways. Most of what we know comes from legends we heard as children. But a lot of the legends are relevant—it isn’t superstition to see connections where they exist. Is it a coincidence that menstrual blood was one of the most powerful instruments of ilisiniq?”

  “But how does
that help you? What is it you think you can do about it? Cast a spell or something?”

  “You’re humoring me, but I do believe the answer lies somewhere in our tradition. It won’t be a matter of chanting some mumbo jumbo, but of taking rational, specific action at the right time and place. It’s a question of recognizing the signs when we see them and interpreting them correctly.”

  “Good luck.”

  “It’s not a matter of luck, but of fate. Whatever is supposed to happen will happen. Is it luck that all our hunting parties were pinned down by a blizzard on the day the women turned? We came back after a week to find our houses cold, our families gone. The few men and old people who survived told what they saw, showed us the blue bodies of the ghost ones, frozen while trying to break down the doors of the living. Many children, too. Whole towns were dead, and yet all the able-bodied men survived, far out on the sea ice. Was that luck? Some thought we were cursed to have survived. I knew it was for a reason, and when I heard that the qallunaat were arriving in great numbers, I realized it was connected to our purpose. We’re here.” He got up and threw the door open, admitting a blast of cold. Aircraft loomed around us like a forest.

  I didn’t want to move just yet. “How did you wind up working here?”

  “I’ve worked for the qallunaat for a long time. I started by selling fossil ivory out of a kiosk in the BX, then served for eight years as Native Liaison and Labor Coordinator for the Danish Interests Office, which used to broadcast Danish Radio off a transmitter at Thule.”

  “Danish radio?”

  “Kalaallit Nunaat—Greenland—is part of Denmark.”

  “No, I know, but you speak English.”

  “I grew up in western Canada, outside Yellowknife. There were Canadians and Americans here at Thule. It was what they call a ‘joint-use facility.’ I remember once a guy from Siorapaluk was caught toking up, and he told them that’s what he thought it meant. They let him off the hook! We got along pretty well with the Air Force. I didn’t like to see them slaughtered.”