Xombies: Apocalypse Blues Read online

  “Sorry,” I said, mortified. “I tripped.”

  “This is no place for games,” he said flatly.

  “I know, I’m sorry, excuse me.”

  Cowper was concentrating on finding his footing down the ladder. At bottom I could see a mustached man in khakis waving us down. In my ear, Albemarle said, “He doesn’t come back, you don’t come back.” He handed me a big sticky hammer.

  I nodded, climbing as fast as I dared.

  It was like entering a pool. As light and warmth surrounded me, I experienced a brief, primal surge of relief—my animal instincts going, Ahhh, shelter. I was helped down the last few rungs to an institutional-looking Formica floor in a room like a well-lit basement. It reminded me of the boiler room at the Y. Though hardly exotic, the insulated plumbing and perforated acoustic tile were a dramatic change from the blustery ocean above. We were underwater! The guys already there motioned me aside, and I joined Cowper by the wall. Albemarle came down last, wincing in pain.

  Once everyone was present, the man who had given us a hand down said, “Welcome aboard. Hi, Ed. I’m Lieutenant Commander Dan Robles, among other things, and I’ll be your guide today.” He was a dapper-looking, pudgy man with a faint Spanish accent and an air of weary contempt, though not necessarily for us. I could tell he accepted me as just another in a series of disasters that fate was delivering upon him, and as such, unworthy of special attention. I liked him immediately. Brandishing a pistol, he asked, “Any questions before we get started?”

  “What’s the plan?” Cowper asked a bit shortly.

  “The captain and Mr. Kranuski are standing by forward to brief you.”

  “Any more guns?” Albemarle asked.

  Robles shrugged apologetically. “For reasons of safety, the captain is reserving firearms for active-duty personnel only,” he said. “Not that they’re any better than your weapons. Personally I’d like a chain saw. All right? Watch your heads.”

  Following Robles, we crossed the room and passed through a heavy watertight door, which opened onto a sight so unexpected that my stomach lurched:

  We were at least four stories up in a yawning tunnel that resembled a multitiered prison cellblock . . . or King Tut’s tomb. It ran forward from us a hundred feet or more, piled high with plastic-wrapped cargo of every shape and size—boxes, barrels, cases, crates—under a vaulted ceiling inset with two rows of numbered white domes. Cables looped everywhere like jungle vines, giving the place an apocalyptic, overgrown look. They swayed with the movement of the boat.

  Hearing my gasp, some of the boys smirked in the way of jaded old-timers, but Cowper nodded, whistling appreciatively at the view. “We used to call this Sherwood Forest, but without the missile silos it looks more like Shipping and Receiving. You guys have been busy little beavers.” Pointing down at the heaped freight, he asked, “What’s all this crap? SPAM?”

  “SPAM,” Albemarle said, shaking his head.

  “I see. That would make things a bit tight.” He sighed.

  Robles led us along a steel-grated walkway to the far end, where we could see Captain Coombs and Mr. Kranuski waiting for us, armed to the teeth, beside another watertight door. As we came up, they stared at me as though they couldn’t believe their eyes.

  “What the hell’s going on?” Coombs demanded. “What’s this little girl doing here?”

  “Get her outta here,” Kranuski told Robles darkly.

  “Hold on!” Cowper said, holding him off. “Before you do anything, you ought to know this kid may be immune to Agent X. She has a genetic problem—Lulu, what’s it called?”

  “Chromosomal amenorrhea,” I said.

  “Right, and she’s been surviving on her own since this thing started—almost a whole month with those bastids. You know how I found her? She knocked on my door! I’m barricaded down there for three and a half weeks, an’ she just knocks. I’m telling you, Harvey, she might have an advantage none of us has, not to mention the possibility of a cure.”

  I couldn’t wait to see how this would fly. Years with Mum had taught me to keep my composure in the face of rampant BS, but even she would’ve never attempted such a flimsy tale. Then it occurred to me that Cowper might really believe it.

  Kranuski scoffed, barely listening, but Coombs said, “Wait. Are you saying they won’t touch her?”

  “No. I’m saying she and I came through what you saw up there, and I don’t think it’s because of our sterling character. If you ask me, she oughta be SPAM.”

  “Captain—” Kranuski began.

  Coombs looked hard at me, asked, “What do you think?”

  “I don’t know, sir,” I said honestly.

  “Tough nut, are you?”

  “Well . . . I don’t know.”

  “What happened to your other shoe?” Before I could reply, he said to Cowper, “Bring her, what the hell; there’s no time. Just keep her out of the way—we’re not here to babysit. Christ Almighty!” He shook his head in giddy disbelief. “Okay, here’s what’s happening: You boys are going to do a Roto Rooter straight for the control center, with the rest of us bringing up the rear. Follow Mr. Robles. If anything blue gets in your way, you beat it down and move on. Don’t stop to finish the job! Each guy in line will have his turn, but speed is more important than anything—keep moving, no matter what. Once we’re all in command and control, we need to seal it off good. Then we’ll go from there. Ready?”

  We could never be ready, but they weren’t waiting for a reply. Kranuski unsealed the door and pulled it open. “Go,” he hissed. “Go, go, go!”

  Holding his pistol with both hands, Robles ducked through. Coombs and Kranuski covered him from the door with rifles; but the way was clear, and boys began to follow at a brisk walk, hammers upraised. Any moment I expected to hear trouble, something to interrupt this madness, but before I knew it, Cowper was moving, and I with him. Kranuski and the captain went last, securing the door behind us.

  We were in a pastel green corridor, its ceiling a baroque mass of ducts and wiring. A metal stair descended somewhere, and vented aluminum doors branched off to either side. Some of the doors were open, and inside I could see empty chairs facing banks of electronics. The last two rooms, however, were cozy adjoining cabins with beds, TVs, and a tiny shared bathroom. Small plaques on their doors read, CO—H. COOMBS and XO—R. KRANUSKI.

  We went up a flight of stairs, and the passageway opened out into a large compartment that I recognized at once from its glamorous central feature: a periscope. No, two periscopes. I didn’t remember seeing that in movies. When I entered the room, our people were already jumping into action at various consoles and donning headsets to contact other parts of the sub. Robles was standing by the raised platform in the middle, issuing orders, while Albemarle and the boys checked various side compartments and closed off the area. Feeling supremely useless, I stood by Cowper as he took readings off gauges and called them out to Coombs. In that roomful of busy, shouting people, I think I actually forgot for a second that the Xombies existed. Until I saw one.

  It took me a second to comprehend what I was seeing, another to react. I don’t know if I was the first one to spot it, but I certainly felt alone as I watched that purple-faced thing hang upside down from an opening in the ceiling. With its hair sticking down and its wild-eyed grin, it looked almost childlike, in a florid, demonic way. It was so darn happy to find us.

  One of the boys had just crossed beneath the hole. He was a tall kid, with a gold front tooth, and he had to stoop to avoid banging his head. He never saw the thing or made a peep before it had him around the neck. Then he was gone. The bang of his hammer hitting the deck alerted everyone, and a few people made involuntary sounds of surprise.

  “Look out!” I screamed, too late.

  “God damn it!” shouted Albemarle. “Get ’im!”

  “No!” Kranuski ordered, kneeling for better aim. “Secure the hatch!”

  Cowper yelled, “McGill! Where’s McGill?”

  “It to
ok him up the sail!” Kranuski barked impatiently.

  “Not him, damn it! George McGill! Big, bearded guy! He was right there!”

  It was true—suddenly we were short a man. Two people gone.

  Kranuski screamed, “Find out where it came from! Get that hatch!”

  Cowper had already found out—an access panel had been removed from the floor of a small cubby, the opening concealed by a stanchion and bundles of cable. Seating the metal cover with a loud clang, he shouted, “Got it!” Coombs, meanwhile, was closest to the overhead hatch, bounding up the ladder to reach for it. As he did so, everybody watched in frozen horror as a pair of blue-sleeved arms unfolded from the hole and snatched him off his feet. But Albemarle was right there, grabbing his legs before they could disappear. For an instant it appeared that the big man might be drawn up as well, then Robles had him, and together they wrenched Coombs down, fighting the thing for him.

  “Hey!” Albemarle grunted. “Hey! Hey!”

  Then boys were piling on. Coombs made a gargling noise, and I could hear his joints popping from the strain. The only visible part of the Ex-man was its arm, which had Coombs in a headlock, but the captain’s own raised arm was also entangled in its grip, taking some of the pressure off his neck. He still didn’t look good. There was no way to beat at the creature without pulverizing Coombs in the process, and two boys together couldn’t loosen that constricting arm. There was just no leverage—it was like ten guys fighting to change a lightbulb.

  The miserable futility of it was just starting to sink in—He’s dead—when Cowper came up with Coombs’s rifle, forced his way through, and blasted the Xombie’s arm off at point-blank range. Coombs dropped free, the quivering limb still on him. Kranuski dashed in and began shooting up the hole. The shocking explosion of noise and sparks and hot shells on their shoulders caused boys to duck away, cursing, while Albemarle and Robles picked up the captain and hustled him clear. But the Xombie wasn’t finished. It sprang from its hiding place like a jack-in-the-box, the stump of its arm spurting inky liquid as it lunged for Cowper.

  I didn’t think; there was no time to. I just jumped forward and hit the thing as hard as I could, surprised at how light the big hammer suddenly felt. My blow fell on the creature’s temple and seemed to spin its whole head around, causing it to become disoriented for a second and lose its balance. Before it could recover, there were a dozen hammers clouting it down, a rain of iron that turned bone and sinew to limply wriggling pulp. “Have a club sandwich, asshole,” someone snarled, pounding. The sound was the worst—at least the sulfur smell from all the shooting masked the stench of blood. To the boys it was obviously some kind of catharsis: They were avenging their parents, their world, on this creature. I had to turn away.

  “Seal that hatch!” Kranuski bellowed for the third time, reloading his rifle, but people hesitated, understandably leery about going near. They were staring at me, and I realized they expected me to do it! Since I was immune, no doubt. I shot Cowper an exasperated look, and he raised his eyebrows as if to say, Yeah, so? and gave me a boost to the opening. “Don’t take all day,” he said.

  I could see way up the narrow shaft, the inside of the sail, and smell seawater. Reaching for the gleaming valve wheel, I began to pull the heavy hatch cover down, only to have it yanked from my hand. What happened next is a blur, but suddenly I was on the floor with the wind knocked out of me, and some kind of brawl was going on.

  The kid with the gold tooth was at the center of it, struggling wildly as men and boys hung off his back and grappled with every limb. They weren’t having an easy time—he had freakish ways of squirming loose, impossible contortions like a Chinese acrobat. The expression on his gray face was one of pure intensity, not fear. He wanted them bad.

  “I can’t get a clear shot!” Kranuski was yelling, and the people with hammers were almost as stymied, trying to land blows without braining the guys hanging on for dear life. Also they were tentative, as anyone would be who had to kill someone they knew.

  “Come on, Jerry,” sobbed the old guy who looked like a carnival strong man, holding the boy from behind. “Ya gotta go with God—we talked about this. Don’t fight.” Other cries of “Hold him still!” and “I got him!” were fired back and forth as the battle migrated into a corner, where I think they hoped to trap the boy. But just as they turned him loose, the Ex-teen seemed to vanish into thin air. The men were left standing there, hammers aloft, staring in confusion at the place where he had been.

  “Shit,” someone said.

  “Ah, hell,” Albemarle said. He was cautiously peering between the thick trunks of black cable that filled the corner. “There’s an open penetration from when we pulled out the CIP.”

  Kranuski probed the narrow gap with his gun muzzle. “How could anything fit through there?”

  “Who the hell knows? You saw it as well as I did. We better put a boot on that before others come popping in.”

  Kranuski jumped back. “And check every inch of this place!” he roared, red-faced.

  Albemarle looked at Kranuski, then at the unconscious Coombs. “You better see to your skipper, Mr. Kranuski,” he said. Then he pointedly turned and addressed Cowper: “What are your orders, Commander?”

  Laying the rifle on a table, Cowper sighed, “You and the boys make sure there aren’t gonna be any more surprises, Ed. Everyone else, resume your stations—let’s get this boat under control fast.”

  Kranuski couldn’t believe his ears. “What do you think you’re doing? You’re not giving the orders here,” he said threateningly.

  Cowper was totally matter-of-fact. “As the only man on board with command experience, I’m acting captain until Mr. Coombs is fit for duty.”

  “Like hell you are. You’re a goddamned traitor who has jeopardized this vessel and compromised its mission, and now you think you’re going to make it your private little navy. Well, that’s not going to happen. I’m in command here.”

  “Mr. Kranuski, you haven’t been XO long enough for that promotion, but I will need you to continue your duties, starting with a fix on our position. Lulu will look after Mr. Coombs. Mr. Robles, will you man periscope one and scan for traffic?”

  “Stay where you are, Mr. Robles,” Kranuski ordered.

  Robles looked from Kranuski to Coombs and back again. Then he crossed to the periscope and began working. Kranuski cast about furiously and realized not a single person was paying attention to him. He was alone. I was afraid he would kick up a fuss and upset everybody, but something seemed to click in his mind, and he became very calm. Without another word, he went to the other periscope and flipped down the handles.

  His grace in defeat was awesome to see—I could have kissed him for taking it so rationally. You can’t usually count on people being dignified, and to me there is nothing in the world more important, because isn’t dignity the soul of reason? It’s what makes us human.

  I felt Coombs grasp my ankle, and looked down expecting to see that he had recovered consciousness. I might have been smiling in relief. But Coombs was still passed out, arms motionless at his sides. The arm that clutched my leg like a predatory squid had no body. It seemed to want mine.

  Even after I managed to wrest the nasty thing loose, then hammered, stomped, and mashed it into something resembling day-old roadkill, it was a while before I stopped freaking out. People gave me plenty of space.

  CHAPTER NINE

  After everything possible had been done to stabilize the sub and barricade us in, the men discussed what to do next.

  “I know there isn’t a lot of useful information about this Maenad thing,” Cowper said, looking dreadfully tired, “but if we pool what we know, maybe we can think of a way to slow those bastids down. I know we can’t suffocate ’em, because that’s how they spread the infection, by stopping you from breathing. They give you that kiss of death, and the disease moves in. That’s why they all look cyanotic, because Agent X somehow takes the place of oxygen in the bloodstream and uses
it like a highway to attack your brain and nervous system. That’s the last I heard out of USAMRIID. Anyone else hear that?”

  A white-haired man with a walrus mustache said, “I saw on TV that the Centers for Disease Control were treating it with pure oxygen. They said it slowed the disease. That was the only good news I heard before everything went off the air.”

  Others chipped in, saying they had heard the same thing.

  “Well, that’s gotta be our first move then,” said Cowper, encouraged. “We pump the oh-two content way up and see what happens.”

  Kranuski was skeptical. “Are you serious? This boat has just been gutted and rebuilt. You wouldn’t believe the half-assed repair jobs I’ve witnessed over the last four weeks—I’d hardly dignify it as a refit. More like something out of Dr. Frankenstein’s lab. Enriching the oxygen mixture under these circumstances is asking for it.”

  “He has a point,” said Albemarle. “One spark, and we’re toast. We know the smoke barrier’s compromised, too, not to mention the X-jobs crawling around in the works. I don’t think we can risk a fire. Especially since we don’t really know if it’ll make any difference. I’m no scientist—what do we really know about this? Enough to stake the boat on it?”

  “I agree,” said Strong Man. “It’s not worth it. We’re better off fighting hand to hand, section by section.”

  Cowper shook his head. “We’ve lost two people, and we’ve secured one compartment. Now we’re gonna abandon that small hedgehold and open ourselves to attack? There’s too much boat to cover; they’ll whittle us down to nothing. That’s how they get you.”

  “Have you ever seen a flash fire?” asked Kranuski.

  “I’ve seen enough to know we got no choice.”

  “Well, you’re acting CO,” he said scornfully. “You give the order.”

  Cowper didn’t take the bait. “Keep your shirt on. Commander Coombs must have had some plan. What’d he have in mind?”