Apocalypso

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
MONS POPULI

It was slow going. All routes to DC were choked with dead vehicles, and pileups cluttered every intersection, blackened wrecks reeking of burnt rubber. Big Ed Albemarle used the truck like a bulldozer, pushing cars aside and clearing a path for the buses. I rode shotgun, wielding a road map and scanning for openings. We drove freely on the sidewalk, across parks or backyards, or plowed through fences-the fastest route was usually off-road-but then urban congestion increased to the point where driving was simply impossible.

At a place called Indian Head, we cut through a fenced Navy installation and traded the battered vehicles for a fleet of shallow-draft police skiffs, gunning them up the wide Potomac. The sinking sun turned deeper and deeper red, staining the whole sky and landscape the same color. Layers of mist hung over the river, swirling as the boat cut through.

There was a lot of trash in the water, but the first real sign of damage was the collapsed span of the I-95 highway bridge-the southernmost link of the Beltway-which lay toppled on its side as if pushed over by a giant hand. Cars and trucks were scattered like bathtub toys in the shallows or lurked just below the surface to gut our boats. Then there were massive chunks of the bridge itself, bristling with exposed rebar-it was one of these that gashed a couple of our aluminum hulls and struck off one propeller-but some of the men jumped in the water, heedless of crabs (of which there appeared to be none), and after several hours of makeshift repairs and careful maneuvering in the dark, we cleared the wreckage and continued upriver.

The channel narrowed, the air grew stagnant and humid, and the ground fog thickened. A dusky orange dawn started to come up. Through the haze, we had occasional glimpses of swampy shoreline and piles of overgrown debris-the view was not of a city but of a jungle, vast piles of rubble swallowed up in Amazonian greenery. The profusion of life made it hard to tell if there were any human auras. There certainly didn’t appear to be a building left standing.

“Where is it?” I asked Coombs.

“Where is what?”

“The city. Washington.”

“You’re looking at it. We just passed the Anacostia and are approaching the Tidal Basin and the Thomas Jefferson Memorial.”

“Washington, DC, doesn’t look anything like this.”

“It does now.”

“But there’s nothing here.”

“That’s because it’s been bombed flat. Nuked.”

“That’s impossible. It would be wasteland, not a rain forest. This looks more like some ancient Mayan ruin or something.”

“I’ve read it was similar after Hiroshima: The radiation stimulated plant growth, so you had beautiful flowers blooming amid the destruction. This kudzu and knotweed has had all spring and summer to grow unchecked over the lawns. Doesn’t take long.”

“But why bomb it, for heaven’s sake?”

“Who knows? People are capable of anything, which is why they need to be saved from themselves.”

Easing the boat into a dense wall of foliage, we got out and pushed through the marsh until we came to sparser thickets. The pulverized remains of the Bureau of Engraving and Printing blocked our way east, but after a few hundred yards the fishbone rebar and hills of fractured marble gave way to open ground. Just beyond, the thickest stone walls of the Department of Agriculture were still standing, but for the most part buildings were razed to their foundations, just mangled trunks of pipe sticking up.

Using the directional antenna as if it were a dowsing rod, I increased my pace, watching the indicator gauge. It was close. The fog thickened as we made our way among muddy pools that once were basements. Grand stone steps led to tumbled ruins, a vision out of Ephesus or Pergamum. For a little way, there was almost a path, but a bit farther on, the way was blocked with an epic tangle of wreckage, a rusty steel thicket of buildings, cars, human bones-all scorched, shattered, and rolled up together like a colossal tumbleweed.

“Wait here,” I said.

Taking the radio receiver, I made my way to the mountainous deadfall. The air was warm and thick with decay. Refraining from breathing, I entered the junk pile and started climbing. It was not easy to avoid injury; I got a number of cuts and splinters, and was partially impaled when a loose foothold gave way.

Little Bobby Rubio caught me, having discreetly followed. I couldn’t very well tell him to get lost. My dress was ruined. Freeing myself, I finally came to the top, where Bobby and I were able to stand upright on a canted slab of steel-reinforced concrete, straining to see through the fog.

This was it.

Beyond that muffling caul of vapor, I could see activity-a lot of activity. None of it human.

It was Xanadu.

Xombies were at work here; Xombies were busy. They seethed dimly in the haze, parades of blue ants spiraling in and around a bizarre anthill-a huge mound of rubble rising from the center of a flooded crater, partially divided into two lobes and split open at the fat end like an overripe fruit. The dome was at least a hundred feet high, with a column of blurred heat issuing from a recessed pit at its summit. The sides were bushy with twisted rebar, giving the artificial hill even more resemblance to an exotic fruit or seedpod, something spiny and subtropical.

A causeway of packed gravel exuded from its woundlike opening, crossing the water and branching into several feeder roads that splayed in all directions like rhizomes. The whole thing gave the impression of organic function-the fractal architecture of nature.

Above it all hung a strange, living balloon, a thousand-foot-long Xeppelin that rippled and pulsated like a gigantic grub. Attached by a fat umbilicus to the dome, it slowly rose to the end of its tether as it filled with heat, then settled back down as it cooled-over and over again.

The inflated flesh bag was translucent as a fetus, shot through with purplish blue veins and connective tissue. A beardlike mass of filaments hung from its bottom rim like stinging tentacles. In its cycles of rising and falling, expanding and contracting, the Xeppelin was weirdly lifelike, appearing to feed on the dome’s exhaust.

Everything else was still under construction, expanding outward and upward. Xombies were building their temple brick by brick, stone by stone, bone by bone, from the surrounding rubble. Only workers who didn’t sleep or need rest could have built so much, so fast. They used no concrete, simply fitting the pieces together by hand and pounding hot tar into the cracks. Somehow, it held together.

The overhanging walls of the V-shaped entrance portal all but defied gravity, its builders not being overly concerned with the laws of physics or even basic geometry. For a busy construction site, it was surprisingly quiet-there were no engines of any kind, and the naked Xombies labored silently, ceaselessly.

I was paralyzed by a strange feeling I didn’t understand, but Bobby didn’t wait-without a word, he was off and running. I watched him go down, curiously following his progress as he leaped to the muddy field. The outside edge of the work zone was only a few hundred yards away, a plain of mudflats surrounding a moat of stagnant water. Raised highways of packed debris crossed the moat, and long lines of Xombie-drawn wagons were traveling to and from the site. Morphing his skin blue, Bobby joined an inbound convoy, his alien presence unnoticed by the laboring multitude.

I followed him down, not knowing what to do, certain only that I had to do something. Cautiously approaching a raised road, I immediately realized the workers passing above had no interest in me at all-or in anything other than their plodding task. Their job was Egyptian, biblical, endless slave trains pulling wobbly carts full of raw materials, mostly charred bones and resin-encased mummies, hard as rock.

Certainly this would have been a hellish chore for human beings-they would drop like flies from the heat alone-but Xombies showed no signs of strain, nor so much as a drop of sweat. They had no boots, no helmets, no gloves, nothing, yet were impervious to pain.

Upon closer inspection, the carts were weird agglomerations of steel and flesh, self-loading meat wagons made of interlocked limbs and interwoven bone, marching in lockstep on ranks of severed legs. They looked like giant bugs. Even to my jaded sensibilities, the versatility of Xombie bodies was marvelous and hideous.

My caravan merged with others as the various roads joined together at the main entrance ramp. This broad avenue crossed the moat and humped over a retaining dam, then sloped downward through the yawning gap beyond, a wedge-shaped defile buttressed by arches of human bone. It was like entering a narrow river gorge, with only a crack of sky to light the way. Above, I could see the tentacles of the Xeppelin raising buckets of black slop. The air became even more densely humid, reeking of something I recognized well: the smell of ichor-Xombie blood. My blood. The whole structure was saturated with it, plastered with it, oozing purple-black extract from the very walls. Not tar, but gore. It was literally the glue that held the joint together.

At long, irregular intervals, the whole structure seemed to settle, wheezing with a deep bass throb as it compressed like a huge bellows… or a gigantic heart… before expanding once more. I had to stop in awe. Not only the builders but the building itself was undead, a million-ton golem lying helpless as a beached whale.

Now the grisly mule trains began breaking off, bearing their loads up wavy ledges that climbed the inner walls. After that, they disappeared from view. All the traffic was inward; there was no exit route that I could see, no train of empty carts.

I continued downward along the main path, heading for the low archway at the end, a wavering glimmer of light. The air was being sucked that way, rushing like a river into the depths. All angles were askew, all edges rounded, all lines twisted, forming crudely sinuous curves and shapes. Random patterns became grotesque reliefs-gaping mouths, eyes, whole faces that writhed and dissolved as I looked at them. Snatches of words and gibberish emanated from the walls, so many that they combined into a roar, as though I were emerging from a tunnel into a packed stadium. There was even light at the end of the tunnel.

I walked through.

Suddenly, I was no longer in that booming cavern but walking down a peaceful, sunlit street. There were palm trees and parked cars and hibiscus bushes and rows of houses, many of them Spanish-style bungalows with roofs of clay tiles. The white concrete sidewalk sparkled at my feet, sown with mica glitter. In the middle distance was a range of brown hills. I was wearing sneakers, and the hand holding mine did not burn because we were both alive. I looked back, and the tunnel was gone.

“Lulu, look! That’s our new home!”

I looked up at the smiling, beautiful woman holding my hand, and she was familiar to me. Not from life, but from some photographs Fred Cowper once gave me. I had hated her in those photos because her life looked so perfect and orderly and above all normal, everything mine was not.

“You’re Brenda,” I said. “You’re my sister.”

She nodded in surprise, but pleasantly. “How did you find out?”

“Fred and my mother-I mean, our mother. They told me some things, and I’ve just been putting the pieces together.”

“Why don’t you come inside? There is someone here who’s very eager to see you.” She opened a low wrought-iron gate and led me through a tiled patio full of greenery to a door like the arched portal of a miniature castle, made of wood planks with heavy iron bolts and fittings. There was a welcome mat that said, MI CASA ES SU CASA.

We went inside. “Wait here a sec,” she said, disappearing through another arched doorway.

The living room was cool and breezy, with bare white walls and rustic furnishings of dark wood and bloodred leather. It echoed. The only decorations were a few pieces of glazed pottery and a small crucified Jesus. I heard footsteps and looked up. There was a big, dark-eyed boy looking at me, and for a second I didn’t know why my heat-tempered heart suddenly turned molten.

“Hi, Lulu,” he said shyly.

“H-Hector,” I said.

“Hey.”

It was Hector Albemarle, the boy who saved my life. The boy who loved me. But Hector died right before my eyes, blown to bits in the cold hell of Thule.

“Hector,” I asked, “what are you doing here?”

“Same thing you are. We came here together, Lulu.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m part of you.” He stepped forward and gently touched my stomach. “Right in there.”

I stepped back. “What are you talking about?”

“Don’t you remember? You took me inside you, Lulu. And I’ve been there ever since, growing bigger and bigger.”

Shaking my head, I started to argue, But we never did that, and then something dawned on me. Something so beyond even my Xombie comprehension that it made me shriek. “Hector! Do you mean-? No!”

He nodded sadly, sweetly, exactly the way he always did in life. “Yes.”

It came back to me, the madness I felt witnessing his death on that muddy field. The grief and horror that caused me to lose my mind and dive for his shattered remains, trying to gather them together, save him as he had me, and when that wasn’t possible… when that wasn’t possible…

I ate him.

Not much of him. Just one little piece before Jake and Julian dragged me away. But was it perhaps enough to have taken root inside my living body, lying dormant until I became a Xombie? I could definitely feel something unusual in there, a tough mass like a tumor. Except Xombies didn’t get tumors, Xombies didn’t get anything. Or did they? Was I going to give birth to a clone of Hector Albemarle?

“I’m sorry, Lulu,” he said. “I know it’s weird.”

“No,” I said, feeling strangely dreamy. I looked at him, at his poor sad face, and couldn’t help smiling. “No, Hector. I think it’s wonderful.”

He beamed hopefully, his brown eyes welling with tears. “Seriously?”

“Yeah.” Now I was weeping, too. “Come here, you big dummy.”

Bobby ripped me out of my stupor.

“Lulu, wake up! Lulu, Lulu, Lulu, Lulu! Wake up, wake up, wake up!”

Bobby was shaking me, pinching me, pulling my hair. I was not in sunny California. I was in a cavernous domed chamber, perhaps a hundred feet deep and twice as wide. Suspended within it like a steel kraken was some kind of blast furnace, an infernal-looking contraption fed by numerous twisting ramps, down which trains of Xombies marched to their white-hot reward. They were its fuel, its lifeblood, and it was their cannibal god.

Beneath the furnace was a black pool, like a tar pit, fed by the slow melting of the walls and ceiling. At Bobby’s urging, I turned to see a creature of tar leaning over me-a black-dipped Medusa with black lips, black teeth, shining spider eyes, and skin as sickly iridescent as crude oil. With her overgrown nails and crazed hair, she was an intimidating presence… even to me. Compared to her, I looked like a blue kewpie doll. But I still recognized her.

“Brenda,” I said.