Xombies: Apocalypso

by Greatshell, Walter

  Finally, a wary voice cut through the static: “Sorry, Admiral, we’re having a bit of a debate here about protocol. Please identify your boat again?”

  “My boat has no official identity because it was decommissioned and secretly refitted for a classified operation known as SPAM—Sensitive Personnel and Materials. The SPAM mission no longer exists, but we are still custodians of the cargo, which includes several hundred tons of food and other basic provisions.”

  “And why are you sharing this information with us?”

  “You’re Americans. You and your vessel are a vital strategic resource. It’s our duty to assist you in any way we can.”

  “What is it you want from us?”

  “Nothing at all, other than whatever information you can provide us in locating other survivors like yourselves, either military or civilian. Anyone we can help, or who can help us. We are very much in need of a submarine port facility where we can overhaul our vessel.”

  “Join the club. From our experience, all shore facilities are … unsafe.”

  “Then we need to talk about that.”

  There was a pause, and Phil Tran whispered, “They’ve locked torpedoes on our radio signal.”

  Coombs said, “Be aware that if you fire on us, we will fire back. We have torpedoes loaded and preset. But we didn’t come here to fight; we would rather join forces with you.”

  “Sounds like you may need us more than we need you.”

  “What have you got to lose?”

  “Our starry-eyed optimism? Cut the shit, man. We heard the Mogul Cooperative was out of business.”

  “It is. We are not MoCo.”

  “And we just have to take your word on that.”

  “It cuts both ways.”

  “Life’s a bitch, is that it? All right, stand by; I’m giving the order to surface. Here’s how it’s going to work: Upon visual confirmation of our positions, we will each dispatch a runabout with our executive officers for debriefing. If everything you say checks out, we will then heave to and all have a big powwow together. If not, or you do anything that makes me or my crew nervous, you will be treated as a menace and destroyed. Are these conditions acceptable?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then let’s proceed.”

  The formalities were discharged without incident, and the captains arranged to meet over a celebratory meal in the larger submarine—ours.

  Captain Parminter’s entourage came with good appetites; they had heard how well their XO was treated during his visit. He had made a full report of the mysterious boat, mentioning that it had undergone extensive modifications at the hands of its largely civilian crew, many of them teenagers, but the Virginia’s people still weren’t prepared for what they saw when they stepped aboard the USS No-Name .

  “Oh my God,” said Parminter, shaking his head.

  The exterior of the ship, its matte black anechoic skin, was spray painted with colorful graffiti, most conspicuously a garish pirate emblem high up on the fairwater: a grinning skull with two crossed hammers. It looked like a giant tattoo.

  Belowdecks, things only got worse. “What is this,” Parminter muttered, “The Fun House?” He wasn’t exaggerating; the boat was dark and cold, its steel corridors rotten with thick formations of an unusual substance, some sort of blue lichen or moss that was causing all the paint to peel.

  “Why?” Coombs asked. “Having fun?”

  “What is this stuff?”

  “Oh, that? That’s … mildew.”

  “Mildew?” Parminter would clearly have to have a word with his XO for not including this in his report. He had never seen anything like it in his life. The stuff was velvety to the touch, slightly luminous in the shadows. It smelled strongly of iodine. “My God. Are you serious?” Every metal surface bulged with this organic, fungal padding, turning linear corridors into leviathan guts. The mechanical made flesh.

  But his men were starving, and what they saw next shocked them out of their dismay.

  The crew’s mess had been cleared except for one table. The room was dim, lit by a single lamp, but the men could see a gorgeous table set with a blue linen tablecloth, cloth napkins, expensive silverware, and fine china decorated with the boat’s crest.

  None of that meant anything to them; what they cared about was the food.

  It looked like a fancy luau, a regular Thanksgiving feast, with enormous gourds serving as tureens, and a whole roast pig garnished with unusually large, glistening vegetables and fruit. In the center was a silver dome, and next to it a platter holding a spectacular arrangement of glossy red steamed crabs layered on a bed of lacy black seaweed. Smaller side platters were filled with mountains of gooseneck barnacles, mussels, oysters, and other hull-dwelling shellfish. There were peculiar sausages and cheeses and a wicker basket piled high with warm, crusty loaves of bread. To accompany the food was a case of fine French champagne—Bollinger—perhaps the last ever to be drunk.

  Once the men had all taken their places and the champagne had been poured, Coombs raised a glass: “To the journey.”

  “To the journey,” the guests agreed, eyes fixed on the food. They were dizzy from hunger and lack of oxygen.

  “Well, dig in.”

  The men reached for the feast … and the feast reached for them. Crabs became grasping, clawed hands; the roast pig reared up and became a headless human torso, innards flailing; veggies turned to writhing gobbets of flesh; loaves to severed limbs. As the visitors recoiled in panic, they realized they were anchored to their seats by vines of sticky living sinew. They shouted, trying to break free, but the undead tissue was immovable, tough as old tree roots. It covered the mouths of all but Parminter, silencing their screams.

  I entered the room, followed by little Bobby Rubio and a few other boys.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” cried Parminter.

  “Saving you, sir,” I said.

  “What kind of damn freak show is this? Why are you doing this to us?”

  “Because we must,” I said. “Because we’re the only ones who can.”

  “What the hell are you?”

  “Friends.”

  “Friends my ass. You’re using people as fucking live bait!” To Coombs he said, “I see how it is, Harvey: They let you live so you can help them hunt down every last straggler. You rotten bastard, you’re a traitor to the human race. And what happens when we’re all gone? Have you thought of that? Are they going to just let you sail around the world like this forever? No—then it’ll be your turn.”

  Coombs said, “I’ve already been converted.”

  “You’re not a Xombie! You’re still human!”

  “Things are not as black and white as you think. Some of us have found it’s better to be … flexible.”

  I nudged Bobby forward, since he looked the least threatening of any of us. A perfectly ordinary little kid.

  “Show ’em,” I whispered.

  Bobby held up his right hand to make a fist. With a crackling sound, the fingers merged together, forming a smooth ball.

  “Holy shit!” Parminter said.

  The ball now began to expand, swelling larger and larger, pulsating like bubbling porridge. While this was happening, Bobby’s face suddenly crumpled inward, withering like a prune, as if his entire head was being sucked into his neck. A moment later, the swollen ball of his hand unfurled into a thing very much like a face. It quickly became Bobby’s face—Bobby’s whole head. The shrunken bulb that had been his head now divided into five lobes and blossomed into a perfect human hand atop his neck. It waggled its fingers.

  I said, “You see?”

  Parminter threw up. Eyes full of horror and rage, he turned to Coombs. “How can you let them do this to you? To the human race? They’re monsters! You’re the captain of a U.S. Navy vessel, for Christ’s sake!”

  “I’m not the captain,” Coombs said.

  “What? Then who is?”

  “Fred Cowper.”

  I gave a silent command to t
he man sitting beside Parminter, Lieutenant Dan Robles. Robles reached across the table to the covered dish in its center, the pièce de résistance. With a reproachful look at me, he lifted its bell.

  There was a severed head underneath—a bald blue head that was no longer remotely human but which had once belonged to Captain Fred Cowper, retired. Parminter knew Cowper well; he had trained under him and had the highest regard for the man. Cowper had been an old-school submariner from the early days of the nuclear Navy. The technocrats hated him, but to Parminter he was the real thing, a no-bullshit maverick—the kind of guy you could bet your life on in a tight spot, whatever the cost to the Navy. Or to himself.

  Well, it had cost Fred everything this time—everything but his head. But that head was alive, an independent entity with multiple little legs, its huge black eyeballs fixed on Parminter.

  “Hiya, Arnie,” it croaked.

  “That’s not Cowper!” Parminter objected. “You’re not Fred Cowper, you fucking ghoul!”

  “I yam what I yam,” said Cowper’s head.

  “You think you’re going to get away with this? If my men don’t hear from me in the next ten minutes, they will blow you out of the water.”

  I said, “In ten minutes, you’ll understand.”

  “Understand what? What the fuck am I going to understand? That a bunch of twisted monstrosities have taken over a submarine? That they’ve learned to play human?”

  Cowper’s head opened its jagged-toothed mouth and guffawed.

  A bit miffed, I said, “No … that we are the last hope of Mankind.”

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Life on Earth is going to be wiped out. The only thing that may survive is our kind.”

  “Malarkey!” Cowper shouted.

  Parminter asked me, “How do you know that?”

  “We can see it.”

  “See what?”

  “The future. Every person we save is a thread of our human destiny—an irreplaceable piece of genetic memory going back a billion years. A clue to the ultimate puzzle, which we may one day be called upon to solve. There’s not going to be any more evolution, no future generations—we’re it. The restoration of our species depends upon how many lives we save. Lose one person, and we lose all their stored equity—and that is forever. Eternity is a long time to be cooped up together; we’ll want all the company we can get.”

  “So we’re supposed to be grateful, is that it? You think you’re actually saving our lives.”

  “Not exactly. It’s more like you’re being preserved for future reference. We all are.”

  “Ah. Sounds pleasant.”

  “Barrel o’ monkeys!” Cowper’s head cackled.

  “I know it’s hard to understand right now, but in a minute you’ll see everything.”

  “I’ll see you in Hell, bitch. My boat will nuke us all before it will let you get away with this … ”

  Parminter’s voice trailed off as Bobby’s upper torso split apart, unfolding like a great, trembling orchid. A glossy blue protuberance shot forward like a chameleon’s tongue, flaring wide and engulfing the man’s face. He had no time to scream.

  The guests left by the first light of dawn, climbing aboard their ship and issuing orders to cast off. The Virginia’s XO had already been busy; the work there was done.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  FATHER KNOWS BEST

  Bobby came to me after we parted from the other sub. I could tell he wanted to say something, but it made him deeply uncomfortable.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  “I don’t like doing it this way. Why do we have to talk to them so much?”

  “To let them know we are not thieves or killers.”

  “They don’t care. It just makes them hate us even more.”

  “They just don’t know. They can’t imagine. Could you imagine before you were changed?”

  “I don’t ’member being changed. I just was.”

  Bobby was our Mystery Boy. He had still never explained to any of us exactly how or when he acquired his unusual abilities. He was brought aboard the boat as a helpless refugee, and forty-eight hours later every human being on board was converted to his peculiar species of ultraplastic, nonspastic, completely human-looking Xombie. If they were even Xombies. As a Maenad myself, one of the ship’s original Blue Meanies, I had my doubts.

  “Okay,” I said. “But you remember before that. Being human.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Would you have wanted to be changed?”

  Bobby didn’t have to think twice. “Yes.”

  “Well, not everybody feels that way. That’s why we try to prepare them.”

  “But even after we tell them, they’re still upset.”

  “Sure, but they know. Knowing is important. You heard the man—they want to know.”

  “They still fight, though.”

  “Not after the change.”

  “No, not after the change. But why do we have to tell them beforehand? Why can’t we just do it and get it over with?”

  This was something I had wrestled with myself. I had never been completely convinced that our so-called mission was anything more than wishful thinking. The visions were powerful, yet they could easily be some mass hallucination. It was very possible we were all insane. Just as with the wild Xombies ashore, we had a deep need to convert people, but our more-lucid brains required elaborate justifications for doing so. Or at least mine did.

  I said, “I think it’s necessary and right to reveal our purpose to those we are about to change. I don’t like hiding it as if we’re ashamed. If what we’re doing is the most important work on the planet, then we should say so.”

  “Even if it they don’t believe us?”

  “Even if they don’t believe us.”

  “Okay. Can I ask you something else?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know that head on the table?”

  “You mean Fred Cowper.”

  “Isn’t he your father?”

  “That’s what I thought … but I just found out my dad was someone named Despineau.”

  “Then why is your name Lulu Pangloss?”

  “He and my mother were never married. Her name was Grace Pangloss.”

  “Oh. There was somebody else named Despineau when I was in Providence. A lady.”

  This was the first time Bobby had ever mentioned Providence. Something very traumatic had happened to him there. Trying not to look overly interested, I said, “A lady named Despineau?”

  “Uh-huh. Her first name was Brenda.”

  Brenda. Brenda Despineau. I remembered what Mummy had told me, and wondered if I had just discovered an unknown relative.

  “What happened to her?” I asked.

  “She got all shot up.”

  “Shot up? How?”

  “There were these guys looking for immune women. They caught her, but Mr. Miska got her out.”

  “Really,” I said. Immune women. Well, it made a kind of sense. For a long time I thought I might be immune … until I turned into a Xombie. There were rumors of Immunes wandering the landscape, but the thought that some of them might be lost relatives of mine was unexpectedly disturbing. If what we believed was true, then Immunes were inherently doomed. We were helpless to save them. “How do you know all this?”

  “I was there.”

  “Bobby, was Uri Miska the one who changed you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Were you human before you met him, though?”

  “I don’t know. Shut up!”

  “But if Miska changed you, that means he must be a Clear. Maybe the original Clear.”

  “I don’t care! So what?”

  I could think of nothing to say to that. So what indeed? It suddenly all seemed so obvious: Of course it had to be Miska. Changing tack, I asked, “So did Miska turn this Brenda woman into a Clear?”

  “Yes.”

  Thinking about what Bobby had told me, I went to the CO quarters a
nd opened the captain’s safe.

  “About time,” squawked Fred Cowper’s head. “I was beginnin’ to think you might have forgotten about me.”

  Cowper’s head had developed the ability to form crude words, wheezing like a bagpipe, but he could also actually talk to me without speaking, his voice buzzing inside my head as if broadcast to my brain. All of us on the boat had learned by now that we shared some degree of telepathy, but in most cases it was not as clear, or as consistent, as my connection to Cowper. Otherwise, it would drive us batty—who could tolerate such an inescapable chorus? There was no volume control on thoughts, no on/off switch, hence most Xombies preferred less invasive means of communication. Cowper only did it as a matter of necessity, but even he preferred that I reply aloud.

  Since losing his body at Thule, Fred Cowper had learned to function quite well, cinching off the ragged stump of his neck and sprouting a nest of rootlike tendrils with which he could scuttle around like a hermit crab. His mouth had widened to accommodate the enlarged manipulating organ that was his tongue, and this sensitive member was guarded by a phalanx of oversized, jagged teeth.

  Cowper’s head was somewhat terrifying, but to me he was still Dad—the only dad I ever knew. Angry as I once was at him, I had made peace with the past and now was simply grateful to have him in my eternal life. Whether he really was my father or not, he was a piece of my former humanity, a part of me. A fragment of living memory I clung to like a security blanket. Having found him, I would never lose him again.

  “Fred, I need to ask you something. About our past lives.”

  “I know,” he said. “Grace told me she spoke to you.”

  “She did?”

  “Yeah, about me not being your real father. It’s true … but that’s not all of it. There’s something I gotta get off my chest, too.”

  “You don’t have a chest.”

  “Whatever. There’s something I been meaning to tell you.”