Apocalypso

CHAPTER TWO
TWO DEAD BOYS

Two boys missed the boat.

Unlike all their shipmates, Todd and Ray were neither dead nor undead. They were very much alive, thank you, though a casual observer might not have deduced this fact from their ghoulish appearance-in fact, such an observer would have had to be forgiven an involuntary shudder at the sight of two such unspeakable monstrosities as Todd Holmes and Raymond Despineau.

But there were no observers, casual or otherwise, to shudder or deduce anything. Other than the two teenagers, the entire riverfront was deserted. Neither man nor Ex-man walked its urban shores, the place having been recently cleansed of its inhabitants. Whether alive or dead, red-blooded or blue-, all had been caught up in the Reapers’ recent Waterloo and swept downriver to the sea.

All except Todd and Ray, who had missed the boat.

Let me tell you how they looked: Imagine a pair of seven-foot-tall rag dolls; pumpkin-headed monstrosities with blackened knotholes for eyes and gaping, raggedy mouths. Scarlike seams crisscrossed their bodies, stitched shut with shiny metal staples. Their naked, veinous flesh was weirdly active, a crazy quilt of mismatched skin samples, some with hair, some without; some with nipples or moles or freckles or ears or faces, some without; but every part alive with tics and twitches and grand-mal spasms, several square yards of jerky meat, all aflutter with the animating energy of Maenad Cytosis-the original Agent X.

Like beauty, this ugliness was only skin-deep. It was a shell of undead tissue that clung to each boy’s mesharmored body like a thick excrescence of living coral, a literal power suit that amplified his strength to Maenad proportions. But that was the secondary purpose of Reaper outerwear. The prime purpose was that it allowed the boys to walk among Xombies unmolested. It was camouflage.

Each suit had been carved from live-caught Xombies, tailored to spec, and worn by a foot soldier of the Moguls during their scavenging raids. Todd and Ray had stolen the awful, offal garments in order to make their escape, only to be trapped inside the grisly vehicles of their flight. Now the Reapers were all dead, their barge sunk, and the submarine, which had been the boys’ last hope, was a floating flytrap, a five-hundred-foot-long Pandora’s box. Witnessing the annihilation of the Reapers, the boys had been hesitant to go anywhere near the thing

… until they realized the only other choice was to be abandoned in this no-man’s-land of Providence, Rhode Island.

Great.

“This is so not cool, man,” groaned Ray, watching the U-boat vanish in the distance. Hell-ship or not, there was clearly some sort of intelligent control at the helm, whether human or otherwise. “What are we gonna do now?”

“Try to chill. I’m thinking.”

“Awesome.”

“It’ll take all day for the sub to get out of the bay. Maybe we can find a boat and catch up with it.”

“How? Those Reaper dudes scooped up every boat in the harbor when they abandoned their barge. They all got trashed. Face it, we missed our chance.”

“Then we can take a car and beat the submarine down to Newport. There must be tons of boats there.”

“And then what? You saw what happened to those guys who attacked the sub.”

“Yeah.” Todd wished he could forget it. He and Ray had witnessed the horrible spectacle from shore: those bulging masses of flesh that rose from the boat’s missile bays and exploded into a thousand frenzied tentacles, yanking El Dopa’s assault force down to oblivion. “What the hell was that?”

“I don’t know, but something’s seriously wrong in there. Whatever it is, I don’t want a closer look.”

“Well, where would you like to go?”

“I just want to get out of this suit. I’m thirsty, man.”

“Me, too. Let’s just start by finding a drink.”

“How the hell are we gonna be able to drink anything wearing these helmets?”

“It’s called a straw, doofus.”

They left the waterfront area of India Point and headed inland on Gano Street. There were several small businesses along the way, including a donut shop and a convenience store. It was the same street that had been swarming with Xombies a few days earlier, when the boys had first come ashore seeking supplies. Bad idea. They didn’t have the Reaper suits then and were completely defenseless against the blue onslaught that wiped out over thirty boys in under thirty minutes. It was the meat-armored Reapers who saved their lives.

This time there were neither Reapers nor Xombies, and no reason to fear them even if there were. The boys were covered.

Todd and Ray checked the donut shop first. They were unsurprised to find the four-month-old pastries inedible, but were disappointed to find the drink coolers cleaned out and the sink taps dry.

“Look out-zombie donuts!” Todd yelled, pitching Munchkins at Ray’s flesh helmet. The stale balls exploded into crumbs.

“Hey, cut it out, man,” Ray said lethargically.

Todd threw a few more, but Ray could not be incited to a donut war, so Todd gave up. They went next door to the convenience store, heartened by the big Pepsi sign out front. Nothing-it was even worse than the donut shop.

“What the hell, man.”

There were not even any remains of food-rats, mice, and maggots had erased all organic matter. Anything canned or bottled had been efficiently looted; the shelves were empty. And the pillaging had happened recently, a few days ago at most; the mud tracks were fresh. This wasn’t the act of random looters in the heat of panic. It was Reapers.

“Shit, man, that’s right,” Todd said. “We’re not gonna find anything around here-the Reapers reaped it all. They stripped this whole area, remember?”

“Awesome.”

“But they couldn’t have gone through every house. Come on, we just have to go door-to-door.”

“You mean break into people’s homes, Holmes?”

“Yeah, why not? It’s not like they’re coming back.”

“I don’t know… it’s like desecrating the dead or something.”

“Not really. It’s just putting stuff to good use that would otherwise go to waste.”

“Hey, Todd?”

“Yeah?”

“I have to go to the bathroom.”

“I know; I’ve been holding my piss for the last hour.”

“It’s not just piss.”

“Well, just try to hold it.”

“Too late.”

They were prisoners of the flesh, golems of raw meat, doomed to wander the wasteland until they drowned in their own filth. Ray expected to die a little sooner, having been shot through the side, but this was only speculation since there was no way of examining or treating the wound. At least it didn’t hurt, and the bleeding had stopped, so there was that.

Out of forty boys who had come ashore, just these two survived. Did they survive out of superior skill or intelligence? Was it their unusual grit that enabled them to outlast their fellows? Were the others just weak?

No-much as they might have wished it were so, both Todd and Ray knew they were nothing special. This was what haunted them: the thought that stronger, smarter, and more deserving boys had died in their stead. Brave dudes like Sal DeLuca and Kyle Hancock had sacrificed themselves so that lazy nubs like Todd and Ray could escape. It wasn’t fair. But as Todd shuffled along the barren streets of his hometown, staring out through misshapen eyeholes at the living nightmare that was his only companion, and knew that he, too, was a horror, both of them damned to this ridiculous, incomprehensible fate, he realized there was perhaps some justice to it after all.

Maybe the dead were the lucky ones.

As they turned a corner, they encountered a blue Elvis. Elvis was dressed in a blue-and-white polyester suit covered with sequins, a gold-lined cape, and boots of blue suede.

Blue Elvis asked, “You boys lookin’ for someone?”

“Who the hell are you?” Ray asked.

Todd said, “Don’t talk to that Xombie, man, are you crazy?”

“He asked me a question.”

“Ignore it and keep walking.”

Elvis stayed with them like a persistent panhandler. “You fellas look lost,” he said. “Maybe I can help you find what you’re looking for.”

Todd spun on him. “What the hell kind of Xombie are you? Get the fuck away from us, man.”

“Now what kind of way is that to talk to a fellow traveler on the road of life?” The blue man suddenly became very animated, running ahead and calling their attention to a seething mass of ants around a crack in the asphalt. “Take a look here, right here. You know what this is? This is a war we’ve got going here, with two races killin’ each other: the Black and the Red. I been watching ’em all day.” He shook his slick-coiffed head. “Look at ’em go, man!”

“I hate bugs,” said Ray.

“Hate? They’re just doing what comes natural. Hate is in their DNA, just like it’s in ours. Only way to stop ’em from fighting is to change their fundamental genetic structure. They won’t do it voluntarily, I can tell you! But hate, gee whiz. How can you hate anything in this beautiful world?” He took off his sunglasses, wiping an imaginary tear. “Especially knowing it’s all gonna be gone soon.”

“Oh shit,” Ray hissed. “It’s him. Todd, I think it’s him.”

“Who?”

“Miska!”

“No way.” Todd turned to the blue man. “You’re Uri Miska?”

“I’m partial to folks callin’ me the King.”

“See, it’s not him.”

“Just kidding!” The man shook his head affably. In a British accent, he declaimed, “The king is dead! Long live the king!”

Todd said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.”

The man blocked their way, bowing stiffly. “Uraeus Miska, at your service!”

“What? Seriously?”

“Surprised? Yes, it’s me. To paraphrase another great emancipator: I had a dream.” He raised his arms to the sky. “A dream to which all men expired!”

Todd hissed, “This is bullshit. Dude is crazy.”

“Congratulations!” Miska cried.

“What for?”

“Finding me. They say a good man is hard to find. Considering how many people keep finding me, I must not be very good… or perhaps it’s that I make myself too conspicuous. What do you think?” He struck a heroic pose.

Ray couldn’t hold back anymore. “Oh my God,” he said. “Can you help us? We need to get out of these suits.”

“Why? Clothes make the man.”

“Seriously, sir, we’re in trouble. If you help us, we’ll do whatever we can to help you.”

“What makes you think I can help you… or you me?”

“You’re a scientist! You’re famous! You invented Agent X!”

“I had nothing to do with those ‘suits’-that’s somebody else’s workmanship. Check the deli. I hope you got a money-back guarantee.”

“They’re not ours! We only stole them so we could get away!”

“Hoist by your own petard, eh?”

“You have to help us, please.”

“Well, let me think about it. Sit down, and I’ll tell you a story. Did you know we’re standing on the site of a battle? Before the ants, I mean. This was the War between the Black and the Blue.”

“Come on, man!” In desperation, Todd said, “Help us or we’ll kill you.”

“That would be a neat trick,” Miska said. “Come now-sit, sit.”

The boys suddenly jerked into motion like meat puppets, their bodies wrenched against their will as the flesh armor moved them. Insanely strong and none too gentle, it forced them to plop down cross-legged across from Miska.

“What the fuck, man!” Todd cried, in pain. He felt like he had been wrung out like a wet sponge.

Weeping, Ray groaned, “Awesome.”

“Sorry,” Miska said, sitting down himself. “I’m still getting the hang of it.”

“What is this, man? What the hell are you doing to us?”

“That flesh you’re wearing answers to me. Isn’t that something? I originally developed the technology to control prosthetic implants. Every Maenad morphocyte is an independent nanotransceiver, tuned to an electrode array in my cerebral cortex. It triggers a cellular rather than a neuromuscular response, which allows a rather extraordinary degree of control. It’s just a matter of mastering the complexity-learning to ride a bike. Or a million bikes. The cells themselves amplify and relay the signal, promulgating in iron-rich hemoglobin and even the Earth itself to form a vast, wireless data array-a true cellular network. What I call my Billion-Fingered Fist.”

Mind reeling, Todd asked, “Are you saying you can control the Xombies?”

“Yes.”

“You fuck! You made them kill our friends and families, you motherfucker! You killed everybody!”

“I know, it sounds pretty bad when you put it that way. I suppose that explains why folks are so mad at me.”

“Fuck you! You might as well kill us, too, you asshole!”

“Who said anything about killing anyone? I never killed anyone. How do these things get started? No one has been killed. Do you understand? Literally, no one who has been inoculated with Agent X has died.”

“No, they’ve just become Xombies, which is worse!”

“Worse than death? I think you would have to consult them about that. They are quite content, believe me.”

“But they’re not even human! They’re monsters!”

“Monsters? Human beings are monsters. Did you ever watch MTV? Unlike Will Rogers, I never met a man I liked very much, which is why it is so ironic that I should be the one to save the human race from annihilation when the end comes.”

“What the hell are you talking about?”

“Oh yes-haven’t you heard? The end is coming. From up there. The end of life on Earth: every bird and bee and monarch butterfly blown to smithereens, not with a whimper but with a bang. The only survivors will be deep-sea tube worms and some hardy bacteria… and perhaps my Xombies.”

Ray said, “You mean that Big Enchilada thing the Reapers talked about?”

The blue man looked at him, then burst into laughter. “Big Enchilada? Really? That’s what they’re calling it? No ‘Hammer of God’ or ‘Shiva the Destroyer.’ Big Enchilada, wow.” Sobering up, he said, “The word is ‘Enceladus.’ Let’s call it a Trojan horse, which will unleash an enemy of unknown proportions or intentions. All I know is that they aimed for us. They are coming, and we must be prepared to stop them.”

“Them who? Aliens or something?”

“Or something.”

“Stop them how?”

“With my fist. Quiet now, boys, and let me tell you the story of the Sadie Hawkins Day Massacre.”

Uri Miska closed his eyes as if summoning unseen forces, then began to speak:

“Imagine a line of Humvees with roof-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns, armored personnel carriers with swiveling weapons turrets, actual tanks, all driving down the streets of Providence. Some of the vehicles were flying American flags or were painted with crosses and Bible quotes. The weather was so warm and sunny it was like summer in January, a regular Fourth of July parade. And like any parade, there were cheering spectators… only in this case the spectators were naked and blue.

“Not too many at first. It was hardly worth the soldiers’ ammunition to shoot them, for they splattered like rotten melons and were squashed to pulp beneath the treads. But from every corner of the city more Xombies were flying in, Xombies by the thousands, their bare feet hardly touching the ground and their blue hands outstretched as if magnetically drawn to all that clanking steel.

“Many of the creatures had been migrating out of the city along the interstate and were now drawn back by this sudden bonanza of red-blooded fighting men, this traveling carnival of destruction. And as the unstoppable naked horde descended upon the immovable mechanized force, the female Xombies-Furies, Harpies, Maenads-winnowed themselves from the main group, holding back in the shadows as the less-circumspect males charged forward.

“These males closed in from all directions, rounding corners and converging ever tighter, the narrow canyons of downtown funneling the crowd into an undifferentiated flowing mass, a tsunami of blue bodies that filled the urban grid like a caustic fluid, scouring everything in its path. Then they were there, pouring onto Westminster from all sides, surrounding the mobile column and falling upon it.

“The turkey shoot commenced. Harrowing spikes of ammunition blazed straight into the densest centers of the mob, rendering them instantly into bursting globes of jelly, with limbs and heads and other large fragments raining down like chaff. Ground-floor windows disintegrated all along the street, stores and restaurants gutted by blizzards of steel. In a matter of minutes, and ten million rounds of ammo, the entire mass of creatures was cut down. The vehicles continued on, having barely paused to engage the enemy. Random burps of gunfire continued as more Xombies were sighted, but the battle was over.”

Miska held up his finger, then slowly wagged it. “Or maybe not. As the column’s wheels drove over its semi-liquefied adversary, movement could be seen in the remains: All those sundered body parts were still very much in the fight.

“Mangled sinew stuck to heavy treads; tendons wound around drive shafts like taffy, gummed up brakes and springs and mounted guns; animated gristle wiggled up under chassis, fouling engine rods and clogging exhaust pipes; bony hands scuttled spiderlike over fuse boxes, pulling wires willy-nilly; veiny cauls of flesh covered windshields and viewports.

“The war machine seized up. Not every vehicle was equally vulnerable, but those that were blocked the rest, so that very soon the whole enterprise ground to a halt.

“Masked men with long-necked acetylene torches got out and played their superhot jets over the carpet of crawling meat, fanning it off vehicles and creating a clean zone for the mechanics to work. The stench of burnt flesh filled the air. At first, the technique seemed to be working: The disarticulated foe pushed back to form a seething dam around the cleared area, but every time the firemen let up for only a second, the line broke down, invaded by slithering masses of viscera. As the gruesome dam grew higher, it became more impossible to police all the sneaking incursions… and the psychological effect of that wall of talking heads and slurping entrails must have been terrible.

“Very soon, the defenses started to break down. Men were beset by slippery fragments worming under their pants and into their orifices. The vehicles were also infested, so that their crews had to turn their attention from the threat outside to more immediate pestilence in the cockpits. It became a farce, every man battling an invisible enemy, ripping at his own clothes like an alcoholic with delirium tremens.

“At last the order was given to retreat. Crazed men piled back into overcrowded truck cabs with their crazed fellows, pursued by waves of squirming chum. Guns blasted indiscriminately at the enveloping mass as the column surged forward and crashed together, panicked gunners shooting each other, and the heavier vehicles pushing lighter ones out of the way or just driving over them. Acetylene tanks exploded, setting off boxes of shells, which ignited leaking fuel-a chain of fiery explosions ripped through the column. Two tracked vehicles-an Abrams tank and a Bradley Fighting Vehicle-broke through and hurtled up the street, wreathed in mantles of flame and frying meat.

“Several blocks up, Westminster ended at a T-intersection on Empire Street, where there was an Irish pub and a National Guard recruiting office. The Abrams was there first, but did not stop, did not turn, did not even slow down, but just blindly rammed the brick face of the federal building, smashing through the support columns, and the Bradley followed it right in, causing the whole structure to avalanche down on them both. The last sound was the popping of ammo in the fires… with perhaps a few conclusive pistol shots mixed in.

“That was a turning point in human history-the first battle of meat versus machines, where the point went to the meat.

“The next battle was very different. The men had learned their lesson. It began two weeks later, and was initiated by a single unarmed truck: an ice-cream truck. Like any ice-cream truck, it had a loudspeaker on top, blasting the familiar tinkly version of ‘When the Saints Go Marching In.’ Unlike an ordinary Mister Softee wagon, this one was pulling a flatbed trailer with a large chain-link cage on it, a portable dog kennel. The cage did not contain dogs, however, but human beings-specifically, women. Innocent women incarcerated for the threat posed by their sex. They appeared to be praying.

“The reason for their prayers soon became apparent. Following close behind the truck was an enormous mass of running Xombies. It looked like a naked, blue Boston Marathon.

“Approaching the site of the previous battle, the truck turned off the music and slowed down, allowing a man in back to release the trailer hitch. The cage came free, rolling to a stop as the truck peeled away.

“Now the trapped women could only wait as the following horde caught up with them: Xombies tall and short, fat and thin, young and old. Xombies of all kinds except for one specific group: the initial women carriers of Agent X, the Maenads, who had gone rogue spontaneously, then spread the disease to everyone they could catch… and kiss. Once again, these less-impulsive multitudes were holding back, watching from the shadows.

“Unlike them, I could not stand to watch as the cage was surrounded. The worst weren’t even the running dead but the crawling ones-the blasted remnants left over from the earlier fight, whose bodies had half frozen and healed together in strange, awful configurations and now came scuttling out of burnt storefronts like a freak invasion.

“In seconds, the kennel was an ovum buried under a thousand competing sperm. The victims could be heard screaming as the cage crumpled… and then all vanished in a blinding flash.

“It was fire. White-hot fire as bright as the sun. Brilliant sparks rained down like a shower of stars, burning through anything they touched, incinerating skin and hair and turning Xombies into roamin’ candles, great balls of fire, their bodies consumed even from within by tumors of malignant flame. Inhuman torches fled the bonfire, shedding layers of flesh like dead leaves until there was nothing left to combust, and they toppled into paper-doll silhouettes of molten slag.

“Down at the river, there were more fireworks. Floating braziers which had once been piled with firewood for the pleasure of strolling tourists were now loaded with living, praying females, attracting an audience of avid blue spectators down the riverbanks and into the knee-deep scum, where there was no escape from the incendiary barrage that was loosed upon them, a glowing hailstorm that obliterated anything and everything in that blazing, boiling trench.

“On the opposite end of town, hung above the street, a pair of giant masks forged out of steel grating-playhouse faces of comedy and tragedy-were likewise packed with live girls and allowed to gather a tremendous cult before a tanker truck on the rooftop was detonated, showering jellied fire on the whole congregation.

“Such fire traps had been set in cities all over America, all over the world, and in one day they immolated millions of Xombies, perhaps tens of millions… plus thousands of uninfected women.

“Providence burned, or parts of it. It’s an old city, built in the days of brick and stone, and its walls are resistant to fire. Many newer buildings disappeared, in some areas whole blocks, but after a few days of heavy sleet and snow, the inferno sputtered out. And then it was over. Whatever tarlike deposits remained soon froze solid and were covered with a thick crust of ice. Providence was purified.

“That was when the men emerged, the instigators of the holocaust. They were a peculiar confederacy of men, whose chief point in common was that they had all survived the plague because of their isolation from women and who now believed that this was nothing less than divine providence: Agent X was God’s punishment for original sin. Women were the enemy, instruments of Satan, and it was only right and proper to burn them in order to save their immortal souls. This was a very timely gospel, and many desperate people joined the church, including not a few women.”

Todd asked, “Why are you telling us all this?”

“Because these people are still around, even after all these months. I drove them out of Providence, sent them fleeing into the wilderness, but they are coming back. In fact, they are experiencing a bit of a renaissance these days, spreading their gospel far and wide like some kind of traveling revival show. Revival in the literal sense-they are restoring Xombies to mortal life.”

“Restoring Xombies! You mean curing them?”

“Yes, but not just any Xombies. They are mainly baptizing Xombie Moguls-elderly tycoons who had the foresight to embalm themselves in Agent X prior to the plague. Restored to life, these men still have tremendous resources at their command, and they no longer need guns, they don’t need fences, and they don’t need to wrap themselves in dead meat to stay alive. But they do need women-immune women-in order to retain their humanity… and to procreate. Do you understand what that means?”

“They’re shit out of luck?”

“It means they are a threat to the survival of our species. They survived the plague, but they can’t survive Enceladus. They may be immune to Agent X, but they are perfectly vulnerable to ordinary injury and death, and every day the number of new Immunes increases. Xombies will not touch them, nor can I.”

Todd said, “Maybe you should try explaining all this to them.”

“Oh, I have. But after how I terrorized them and chased them out of town, they are not conducive to helpful hints. In fact, they think I’m the Devil and have come back to slay me. No, I cannot help them. But maybe someone else can.”

Suddenly Todd and Ray felt their suits stiffen, seams popping, and abruptly the flesh capsules of their helmets burst open like giant milkweed pods, revealing their startled, sweaty faces, then split downward and peeled off their bodies as though sheared away by invisible blades. The liberated meat jerked violently loose from under their seated butts and scuttled away in a blur of peculiar, flapping locomotion.

Freed from the restraining flesh, the two boys cried out in relief and immediately tore the wire cages off their heads so they could rub their filth-encrusted faces. Ray checked his gunshot wound and found that it was almost healed, a healthy pink dimple in his side. Then he froze.

Both boys froze, hearts stopped in unison. Listen. There was a sound in the distance-the mournful, impossible, unmistakable sound of a train whistle. A train was coming! Just on the other side of the hill. And if there was a train, there were people; where there were people, there was life. Ray’s shocked eyes met Todd’s, and they came to an instant, unspoken agreement: Run.

They ran.