Apocalypso

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MR. DIXON GOES TO WASHINGTON

“This is it, sir! Welcome to Xanadu!”

Looking out the windows of the big helicopter, Air Force 2, James Sandoval could see thousands of people waiting to greet him. A giant banner read, WELCOME CHAIRMAN SANDOVAL! Flags were flying, bands were playing, children were waving, and hundreds of soldiers stood lined up at attention. Those troops were wearing flamboyant parade uniforms with tall hats, tasseled epaulets, and rows of gold buttons. Their rifles looked like toys.

“Where did all those people come from?” Sandoval asked.

“They’re mostly new converts,” said his pilot, a jolly Marine aviator named Hapgood Bragg.

“You mean converted Xombies?”

“That’s right.”

“But they look so… normal.”

“Of course! We’ve streamlined the conditioning process. Otherwise, there would be no point.”

The helicopter was set down gently, and men came running with a rolling stair platform. At the edge of the landing pad was a group of dignitaries covered with medals and other decorations, the tallest one holding a giant gold key, and a line of women in flowing pastel gowns holding necklaces of flowers. Everyone had formal gloves, cravats, canes, top hats, and other such anachronistic finery, all blowing violently in the helicopter’s downdraft. It was ridiculous.

“What is this, the inauguration of Grover Cleveland?”

Sandoval stepped from the chopper as if testing a hot bath, and was immediately swarmed with greeters. One of them was a man he had been told to expect: Kasim Bendis, the mercenary soldier known as Uncle Spam, who had advised the Reapers and was blown to smithereens while hunting Uri Miska. Sandoval had heard that Bendis arrived in Washington a shambling Xombie, little more than a blasted carcass, but clearly that report was old news. The man was completely intact again, a gentleman warrior in full command of his faculties as well as his brigade. He had also jumped several ranks, from major to major general.

“Welcome to Xanadu, Mr. Sandoval,” Bendis said.

“Thank you, Kasim. Congratulations on your promotion.”

“Yes, sir. Same to you.”

Sandoval and Bendis went way back. Long before Agent X, they and Chace Dixon had founded a private security firm that in the heat of 9/11 netted a billion-dollar contract to provide force protection for the U.S. military… among other things. Sandoval was the silent partner, supplying capital and global connections, Bendis brought the military expertise, and Chace Dixon handled PR. They called it the Charm School, and it included a Christian men’s retreat, a church, a survival-training camp, an airfield, and a weapons range frequented by individuals who did not like to be photographed. The Charm School worked closely with various intelligence agencies as an unofficial recruiting center, just as the seminary recruited from the ranks of ex-servicemen. It was a useful symbiosis, because the seminary was a place in which men were trained to submit their will to God, but it was hardly a place of passive worship. In Chace Dixon’s opinion, the assault on traditional values had begun long before Agent X, and men like these had been preparing all their lives to fight it. The Apocalypse came as no surprise to them. Accustomed to railing against government-funded birth control, legal abortion, illegal immigrants, and the election of a socialist, foreign-born Muslim for president, they were amazed it took so long. Yet even as Dixon’s wildest convictions were borne out, most of his men hadn’t known how to deal with it. With Xombies swarming the country, the Charm School fell into serious disarray, two thousand hard-ass holy warriors holed up like scared rabbits at their training camp. Believing the Second Coming was really upon them, they went to pieces, some disappearing into the chaos, others throwing their weapons down and devoting their final hours to prayer. They would have died that way, on their knees, if not for Kasim Bendis rallying them to action. It was Bendis who founded the Holy Avengers of Adam-the Adamites. He even came up with their slogan: “Give Me Back My Rib.” Then he was immediately dispatched south to mobilize an army of prison convicts-the Reapers.

Bendis presented Sandoval with the key to the city, a marching band struck up “My Country ’Tis of Thee,” and together they ventured outside to a tremendous ovation.

Emerging on the green of the Ellipse, near the Zero Milestone, Sandoval was spellbound. The city of Washington was apparently intact, and then some; in fact, it seemed to have reverted to an earlier, more genteel time. There was no automobile traffic, only the quaint sight of electric trolleys, horse-drawn carriages, and bicycle rickshaws ferrying loads of well-dressed burghers about the National Mall.

Strolling onto the grass with Bendis and an entourage of city officials, Sandoval was led to the base of the Washington Monument, which had been turned into an immense hood ornament, a winged colossus representing the First Man. The statue was a framework of iron bars with gas flames burning in its eyes. In its shadow was a tent big enough for a three-ring circus, full of lights, chairs, and buffet-laden tables, where Sandoval was subjected to dozens of toasts and many pious expressions of grace. He joined the toasts but didn’t touch the food or drink, blaming a bout of stomach flu. Afterward, he was taken on an all-day tour of the city, culminating in a parade in his honor.

The parade floats were unusual, with sponsors like EX-IT and RED-IT, both appearing to be aerosol deodorants, and there were dancers, jugglers, acrobats, soldiers, and more marching bands, each group flying the flag of Xanadu: a big blue X on a red background with white stars in the blue.

Sandoval asked, “What’s Red-It? Looks like some kind of energy drink.”

“You might say that. It’s what makes all this possible. It’s what our whole economy is based on. I believe you in Providence call it the Sacrament. It’s simply immune serum in a convenient aerosol form. We have commercialized it a bit more, but it’s still the same basic thing. Soon we will begin large-scale exports, and the Xombie problem will be eliminated worldwide.”

“Do you plan to give it away free?”

This caused a great eruption of hilarity from all in earshot. People crying with laughter.

Annoyed, Sandoval asked, “Then what’s Ex-It?”

“Ah. Now, Ex-It is something we’re all very excited about, a time-release cocktail combining the immune factor with an oxygen inhibitor and a specialized strain of the Maenad agent. With that one treatment, we can essentially reboot your body’s entire DNA structure in minutes, wiping out a lifetime of accreted cell damage, as well as any disease or injury. Everything is restored to mint condition, meaning that whatever age you are, you are now functionally back to zero, so you get a whole new lifetime. And you can use it again and again! But you already know all this, don’t you, Jim? I happen to know you’re a major investor in our wonderful products, as well as a customer.”

“Yes. Yes, of course. Just making sure you all love the product as much as I do.”

“Oh, we do, believe me! Disease and death are things of the past in Xanadu, as are the personality clashes that have led to strife in all other human societies. Ex-It screens out more than ninety percent of subconscious stress factors, all that personal baggage we carry around from childhood, leading to a more homogeneous, receptive personality type. Man will finally be able to rise to his full potential.”

“And woman,” said Sandoval.

“And woman, of course.”

Last stop was the White House.

The White House glowed like a lamp in the settling dark, a civilized beacon of chilled air and electric light. Sandoval’s party was led inside and down a carpeted hallway, past elegant sitting rooms full of busts and portraits of former presidents, then through suites of offices. At last they were shown into a room filled with TV cameras and lights, where a man in a suit and tie sat at a table signing papers. No one failed to recognized both the man and the room in which he sat. It was the Oval Office.

“Oh my God,” Sandoval muttered.

Alarmed, Bendis said, “What?”

“It’s the president!”

“Oh, yes. Quite dignified, isn’t he?”

“I saw him shoot himself in the head. During an emergency bulletin.”

“Now, Mr. Sandoval. None of the best presidents ever needed a brain, just a signing pen.”

Jim Sandoval approached the president’s desk. There were several imposing-looking Secret Service agents standing by, but none attempted to stop him or indeed took any notice at all. A bucket brigade of elderly men was busily grabbing papers from an enormous stack, stamping them with the date, passing them to the president to sign, then crimping them with an official seal before piling them onto an even more enormous stack. Carts full of such documents rolled in and out. TV cameras monitored the proceedings.

Sandoval walked behind the president’s desk and peered over the man’s shoulder as he was handed a document. It was titled, Amendment to Federal Antitrust Act-Mogul Clause 3381C. Without reading it, the president automatically scrawled a large X and handed it off. Immediately, another document hit the desk, something about a Mogul bill to reinstate the Articles of Confederation, essentially abolishing all taxes. The president mimed signing those, too, then the next and the next and the next, just like an assembly line.

So this was it, Sandoval realized. All these resurrected Moguls were rewriting bills for the president to sign. The man was a drone-like all the other drones here. They were converted Xombies, brainless ghouls resurrected and trained like monkeys to sign MoCo’s wish list into law. The White House had become a factory for rewriting history, manipulating the future by deleting the past. A giant propaganda organ. The dead president was just a puppet, making America safe for permanent Mogul domination.

As they left, Sandoval asked, “Mr. Bendis, who’s in charge of all this? You?”

Bendis grinned, suddenly resembling the death’s-head he had so recently been. “Oh no, Mr. Chairman.”

“Then who is?”

“No one. That’s the point.”

The big ceremony took place that evening, in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

There were tens of thousands of spectators, all of them new converts. The packed field of West Potomac Park was solemn as a cathedral, lit by bonfires that resembled votive candles on a crowded altar. Atop the memorial’s promontory, two flatbed trailers were planked over to make a platform for the prisoner.

As Sandoval and his party watched from their places of honor by the stage, a man was led up there, bound, blindfolded, gagged, and chained at the wrists and ankles. It was Chace Dixon. He was remarkably calm, as if expecting nothing other than what he was getting.

The guard pulling Dixon wore a black hood that made him look like a medieval executioner. Once the prisoner was secured to a steel post, the guard removed his blindfolds and gags so Dixon could see the mob staring back at him.

Kasim Bendis climbed the stage to swelling applause. “Good evening, citizens of Xanadu,” he said. “We are here tonight to honor James Bernard Sandoval, whose warning of the imminent threat posed by agents of intolerance and discord allowed us to prevent what surely would have been a catastrophic attack on our fair city. Let us put our hands together for this hero of our people. Thank you, Jim!”

Bowing to the cheers, Sandoval stood up and went to the podium. “All of you know now of the dangers you face. The immediate threat is gone, but the hidden danger remains, and lurks right here among you. It is up to every one of you to stop the Moguls from enslaving the human race just to gratify their lust for power. They have destroyed human civilization in their quest for ultimate control of life and death, and now they want to replace it with a society of mindless, groveling serfs. I know the Moguls because I was a Mogul, and all they are interested in is total dominion. They don’t want to worship God, they want to be worshipped as gods! You must not abet them in this!”

The crowd was silent.

Dixon stood up out of his chains, and asked Kasim Bendis, “May I?”

“Please,” said Bendis.

It was an elaborate trap. Sandoval was suddenly very conscious of gun muzzles pressed into his back. Chace Dixon addressed the assembly:

“Jim Sandoval, everyone,” he quipped, applauding tepidly. “Jim, this little speech has been interesting, but all of us here have worked too hard and sacrificed too much to stop what we’ve begun. Just because it doesn’t meet your high moral standards? This from a man who betrayed his sacred oath and sold out his brethren? I don’t think so. These fine people won’t allow it. God won’t allow it. I won’t allow it.

“No, we are going back to the old ways, the good old days, when men were men and women knew their proper place as child-bearers, guardians of home and hearth. Think of Genesis. Was it an accident that Agent X struck women first, and that they spread it to men? Was it an accident that most of the men who survived were in protected hideaways that traditionally shunned women? Official police and military forces were gone; no coed organization on Earth survived Sadie Hawkins Day, a clear signal that God is done with Political Correctness. What you so disparagingly call the Moguls are merely the protectors of ancient tradition, a tradition which is the very foundation of Western Civilization. Xanadu represents a New Genesis. Though we love and honor women, we must never again allow Satan to convince us that the sexes are equal. Equal Rights are off the table; to quote the immortal James Brown, it’s a man’s world.

“Until recently, we had limited success contacting the South, likely due to the warmer weather conditions-the extreme winter of the Northeast was a big help in suppressing Hellion activity. This ‘chill factor’ was yet another sign of God’s favor. Now, of course, I only wish we had known sooner what you folks had going down here.

“It is a historic day. We stand today on green grass, but it has been no picnic. It was war-the bitterest test of our faith. Let history never forget the battles we fought and lost before we achieved Grace. Clearly, normal rules of combat don’t apply to demons, so we tried other means, faith-based means, such as prayer and exorcism… and burning. The scientists, of course, had other ideas. Early in the outbreak, they discovered that pure oxygen had a limited effect on Agent X, so a great deal of time and energy was wasted on that. But without a constant supply it was worse than useless, inspiring nothing but false hope since there wasn’t enough available to treat the billions of Hellions roaming the Earth. So much for science!

“In the end, the answer came from the unlikeliest of places: Women. The root of all evil turned out to be the source of our salvation. Yes, we must never forget that women not only cursed us but also saved us… and in so doing saved themselves. Pious women admitted their guilt, accepted their responsibility, and for this act of holy contrition, they earned God’s blessing upon us all. He bestowed upon us the Immunes, and thus we were able to again walk fearlessly upon the land. All is finally going as the good Lord intended.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sandoval said.

“Guilty! Blasphemer, I pronounce you guilty as charged.” Pointing his finger at Sandoval, he bellowed, “Guilty, guilty, guilty, guilty!”

“I’ll be the judge of that,” said a muffled voice.

It was the masked guard who had led Dixon up there. He pulled off his hood, revealing an intense, bearded face… and a crown of thorns. The spectators gasped, then fell absolutely silent. The wind ruffled his hair.

After an initial start, Dixon seethed. “Who are you? Who is this man?”

“Don’t you know me, Chace?” asked the stranger. He was something out of a black velvet painting, with wavy brown curls and gold highlights in his beard. His eyes shone strangely bright, their whites luminous. Droplets of blood were visible on his brow.

“I know who you’re pretending to be, but you’re going to find we don’t appreciate imposters, much less spies and vandals. Arrest this blasphemer!”

As guards warily approached from both sides, the stranger held out his hands in mild supplication, revealing open wounds in both palms. The wounds were deep vertical slits, grisly but totally bloodless. Pinkish light shone through them.

The soldiers stopped as if hitting a wall, some dropping to their knees and others piling up behind in confusion.

“Somebody please just shoot him,” Dixon beseeched, crossing to the opposite side of the stage. Kasim Bendis drew a pistol that had been used by Teddy Roosevelt to deliver the coup de grace to enemy soldiers on San Juan Hill. Bendis was a dead shot, and the bullets traversed the bearded stranger to strike the great statue of Lincoln just beyond. Lincoln didn’t flinch… and neither did the stranger.

“Oh, ye of little faith,” the man said, pulling open his robe to reveal his exposed, beating heart.

“It’s a miracle!” someone cried.

“It’s Him!” yelled someone else.

“Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!” The field echoed with men begging forgiveness, throwing down their weapons and falling on their faces, to weep and drool into the mud.

Impatiently, Dixon stalked across the stage and shoved his forked scepter into the stranger’s side. The rod was adapted from an electric cattle prod. It was an effective crowd-control device, delivering a hundred thousand volts on contact.

There was a bright blue spark, and suddenly the stranger underwent a bizarre transformation. The flesh of his face rippled smooth, wiped of its features like a sandcastle in the surf. Eyes, nose, mouth, beard, thorns-all abruptly fluttered, dissolved, then changed into another face altogether, an old man’s face, clean-shaven and angular, with deep-set eyes and a shock of silver hair. Dixon thought he looked like Jimmy Carter. His pierced hands also aged, their wounds miraculously healing shut.

Uncertain about what it meant, but feeling vindicated by his own evident power, Dixon fired consecutive shocks from his staff, yelling, “Look! Look! He’s a phony! A fake! He’s possessed by demons-a wolf in sheep’s clothing! Stop groveling like dogs and get him!”

With a loud snap, the power went out. Someone had pulled the plug. Before anyone could react, an ugly mutt ran out from under the stage and disappeared around the Memorial.

The crowd murmured in confusion. Even with his rod disconnected, Chace kept on jabbing until the stranger seized the weapon, and said, “Quit it.” The holy visage reasserted itself, wounds and all, smiling sadly upon the congregation. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

“Shut up! I don’t know who you are, but you’re not going to get away with it!”

Dixon charged to tackle the stranger, confident in his immunity. He wanted to humiliate him and prove him false. The thought of kowtowing to this soft-voiced hippie was unbearable; it was impossible, absolutely ridiculous, to think that this queer could be his Lord and Savior. Jesus-if He really existed-was a man. A man’s man, who could bench-press three hundred pounds and pin Chace Dixon to the floor with His massively muscled thighs. That was a Jesus worth surrendering to.

The stranger did not flinch from the attack but met his attacker head-on, ducking beneath Chace’s outstretched arms and flipping the bigger man over his back. Dixon was shocked-no Xombie should be able to touch him! But after the initial alarm, he realized he was pissed off. Dixon had been a championship wrestler in college and a dabbler in mixed martial arts, so he was not about to let himself go down without a fight. Lunging upward, he managed to lock arms around his prancing opponent’s legs so that both men became halves of a human cartwheel, a rolling yin and yang that tumbled off the platform.

Landing hard, they came up fighting, each one gripping the other’s shirt with one hand and furiously punching with the other. Locked together in a brutal tango, they grappled for advantage as the assembly watched in awe.

Shouts rang out: “Bust his face! Kick him in the balls! Hit him with a left, a left! Whup his ass!”

To break the stalemate, the fighters commenced kicking, trying to trip one another, but in spite of their size difference, they seemed evenly matched. Bendis hesitated to intervene without a direct command.

The stranger grunted, “Karma’s a bitch, ain’t it?”

“Who the hell are you?” Chace demanded.

“A man… a plan… a canal-Panama.”

“Phony!” Dixon snarled.

“Hypocrite!”

“You’re not the Savior!”

“Neither are you!”

“But I’ve been anointed by God!”

“Oh really? Then how come I can do this?” The stranger kneed Dixon in the groin. “Or this?” He head-butted him in the mouth, splitting Dixon’s lower lip. The crowd went wild. “You know what I think?” the bearded stranger said. “I think you got a bad batch. I think you got some blood from a boy-a boy in drag.”

“You shut up, shut up! Shut your filthy mouth!”

Crazed with anger, Dixon delivered a knockout punch, a hard uppercut that coldcocked his opponent. The newcomer went down like a ton of bricks.

Gasping for breath, bloodied but unbowed, Chace climbed back onstage and turned to his audience, awaiting their cheers. He became aware that no one was looking at him. All eyes were focused on the top of the Washington Monument. Dixon followed their gaze, and he, too, saw the source of the disturbance.

It was the obelisk’s winged colossus-it was moving. Someone was crouching atop the tower, using a blowtorch to cut through the suspension cables. Showers of sparks rained down, and wires twanged, causing the wings of corrugated steel to wobble. Suddenly, the cable let go, and the whole thing toppled down the side of the building and crashed to the ground.

The crowd gasped. Appalled, Dixon shrieked, “Find whoever did that and catch them! Scourge them! Don’t let them escape!” Bendis ran to comply.

Chace was still looking up, afraid to blink lest he lose sight of this phantom. “Get some lights on him!” In a feverish voice, he muttered, “There you are, there you are…”

At the very apex of the obelisk, an Olympian figure with a golden spear gleamed heroically in the floodlights. It was the statue of the Independent Man-the very statue Dixon had removed from the Rhode Island State House!

Except that it was no statue. It was alive. And the stranger was gone, vanished from the stage.

“Hallelujah!” someone cried. “Praise the Lord!” A furious murmuring swept through the crowd, many people babbling, “It’s Him! It’s our Lord and Savior!” Others crossed themselves, and yelled, “It’s Satan, it’s Satan!”

“It’s not God or Satan,” yelled Dixon. “It’s just a freak in gold paint! Someone shoot him, and you’ll see!”

Gunfire crackled, peppering the Monument. The range was too far, having no effect on the golden man, who stared down like a disappointed Oscar as spent ammo pelted the crowd, causing mass casualties. Then he hefted his spear, raised it high, and cast it like a thunderbolt.

Kasim Bendis was halfway to the tower with a squad of sharpshooters. He saw the spear coming but did not try to run or dodge because it was simply too absurd to think a thrown spear could single him out amid so many others, not from such a height and distance, even if it was aimed at him, which it surely was not.

Girded by the confidence of his disbelief, Bendis stood fast as his soldiers scattered. “Stand fast, dogs!” he barked, shooting a fleeing man in the back half a second before he was stuck fast, diagonally pinned to the ground by a twelve-foot-long, gold-plated pole through his chest.

At first he didn’t understand, trying to walk and getting nowhere, but then his hands found the icy-cold shaft like a tree trunk through his ribs, and he thought, Damn. Oddly enough, there was no blood and little pain, just a bit of difficulty breathing, like a stitch in his side, so that his discomfiture was mainly related to the practical challenge of getting loose. The men around him gaped in horror, afraid to touch him. Wriggling like a hooked worm, he wanted to say, I’ve been dead before; it’s nothing.

From up on the stage, Chace Dixon heard distant sounds of shooting and hoarse screams of grown men. The screams became a chorus, and in an instant he could see most of his security cordon in flight, scattering like poultry. In another second, he saw exactly what they were fleeing:

There! From the direction of Constitution Avenue, a host of women appeared, moving strangely fast, strangely strange. They were not women but Hellions-horrific blue Maenads. It quickly became apparent that even the more-human-looking ones were not human, running so erratically that the snipers couldn’t get a bead on them. The blizzard of ammo cut zigzagging holes in the crowd, people toppling like dominoes as they ran for cover or leaped into the Reflecting Pool. Tracer gunfire poured down like fireworks, chewing a few Xombies to bits as others swept in right over them, stabbing right and left with the bayonets of their rifles.

Rifles? Chace thought. Since when had Xombies ever carried guns?

They were so damn fast, it was already too late; most of the sentries never saw what hit them. As Chace started to give the order to fall back, he spotted more inhuman creatures rushing in from behind the Memorial, cutting off his escape route-it looked like hundreds of them. They whipped across the stage like a high wind, snatching his men off their feet and spiriting them into the dark. Seemingly no one was immune.

Chace ordered someone to hand him the microphone. As he started to speak, the marching band struck up a slow number, “Greensleeves,” and he realized the musicians had all been replaced by a band of naked Maenads.

“Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. We’ve been wimps, and God is justly punishing us for our weakness. Women pretend to be weak in order to gain sympathy, but there is a difference between being weak and being willing. They desire to be seduced; it’s their nature. Come on now, this is no surprise. Their unclean loins are instruments of Satan’s will-always have been. Women are too easily possessed… and they too easily possess us, leading us into sympathy and temptation, using our charity against us, making us their minions. And Satan laughs to collect our souls. Look around you! How many millions of men have joined the Enemy because they hesitated in the face of a mother, a daughter, a sister, a wife? That is why Satan loves the ladies! They are his public-relations dream team, his spokesmodels. As men of purity, we must be immune to their witchcraft. Because that’s what it is, people; let’s be real. Faith is no longer required for belief. We are in the time of Revelation, it’s no fairy tale, and we can no longer hide from the inconvenient truth: The only Global Warming we need worry about is the fire down below. Witches and demons roam the Earth. The Antichrist himself is afoot, raising his army for the last battle. As soldiers of God, we have inherited a mission, to purify this land and make of it a kingdom worthy of the Savior’s return, so that He may lead us in the final battle between Heaven and Hell. The greatest mission ever known. The second-greatest story ever told, but the greatest mission ever known… and the soul you save may be your own. As much as we would all like to practice compassion on these miserable creatures, we simply don’t have that right. Such days are past. There have been holy women, yes, but they most of all would tell you it is Woman’s affinity for sin that brought Man’s fall from grace, and Woman’s appetite that has again destroyed us. From now on, their appetite for our dutiful souls must be matched by our appetite for their blood!”

While he was talking, his bodyguards started to slip away. Attempting to stop them, Dixon felt a cold hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t leave now, man,” said the spitting image of Elvis Presley. “The show’s just gettin’ started.”

Unhinged with rage, Chace said, “Go back to Grace-land,” and stuck a commando knife into Elvis’s heart. He stabbed him again and again, venting all of his frustration and terror on this charlatan, following the King to the floor until absolutely sure he was dead.

It felt good to lie there for a moment and catch his breath. There was pain now, a deep sorrow for all that was gone, but also relief. Chace sobbed a little for his long-lost mother. She had been such a decent, hardworking soul, salt of the Earth, and as a child he had always hoped to make her proud. But she learned of the sickness in his soul when she caught him with another man, and it was not something she could either forgive or forget. She never spoke to him again.

“Come on, sir! This way!”

It was one of Kasim Bendis’s tin soldiers, a handsome young man, half out of his mind with fear. Dixon allowed himself to be hustled into the cover of the Lincoln Memorial, where a number of green troops were making a last stand against the encroaching blue enemy.

As the snipers fired and reloaded, fired and reloaded, they were astonished to find themselves under fire. Some of these men were accustomed to fighting Xombies, even crafty Maenads… but not armed ones. For the first time ever, the Hellions were shooting back! It was a very discouraging development since everyone knew Exes could not be killed, only damaged enough to temporarily slow them down. Then, hopefully, one could dismember them at leisure; crush them, freeze them, burn them to a puddle of black tar. But if they had guns… well, a guy simply stood no chance.

“This can’t be happening!” men cried, and, “We’re immune, we’re immune!”

On every side, surprised men were shot, clubbed, or stabbed by Xombies. Some shot themselves, witnessing that hopeless scene of Xombies firing guns, Xombies riding motorcycles, Xombies driving trucks. One was even wearing a flamethrower.

As Chace watched the last of his forces go down and the Maenads overrun their positions, he was approached by the last person on Earth he needed to see just then. It was Jim Sandoval. Sandoval’s guards had disappeared, and the man looked calm and utterly cheerful amid the wholesale panic. “Isn’t this something?” he said brightly. “Look at ’em go!”

Chace grabbed a gun off the ground. “Jim, you don’t believe in anything, do you? Never did.”

“Dix, you’ve got me all wrong.” Sandoval’s flesh suddenly rippled, a wave that started at his scalp and passed down the length of his body, seeming to strip off his outer layer of skin and clothing to reveal an entirely different person-a woman. Not a grotesque blue Maenad, but seemingly a living woman. And in an ordinary woman’s voice, she said, “I’m not Jim.” She leaned down and shouldered a flamethrower abandoned by his men. “My name’s Brenda.”

Dixon tried to shoot, but the gun was out of bullets. Throwing the gun at her, he pulled a cheap two-way radio from his pocket and hit the emergency signal. He had one last thing to do before they got him.

“This is Chace Dixon,” he croaked. “Just do it!”

“Just do it?” the radio squawked. “Is that a go?”

“Yes, go! Now!”

The woman paused over Dixon. The light of her weapon’s pilot flame guttered in her eyes, barely illuminating her expression of inscrutable fascination. Chace realized it wasn’t her looking at him, but someone else looking through her eyes. She was just a window… but who was on the other side? Then she pulled the trigger and everything flared bright as day, the heat blowing her hair back.

At that same exact moment, Washington, DC, froze in the glare of a newborn sun.