"Not necessarily," said Alice Langhorne, intently watching her video monitor. The image was a blurred green jumble of infrared. There would be little to see until dawn. "All it means is that she left with them. Whether she'll stay with them is another matter, but there is clearly some residual bond there. Maybe that's a hopeful thing-she's obviously much more capable of independent reasoning than they are. In fact, her faculties ought to be perfectly intact. Unlike the rest of them, she's been vaccinated with the actual enzyme, the pure concentrate, which should have preserved all her higher brain functions. If she's at all sane, they could probably use her help, and so could we. I mean look at this." Langhorne pointed at the poor picture quality. "How am I supposed conduct them under these conditions?"
"Come on," blurted Kranuski. "She saw the opportunity to escape and took it. Like any caged animal. We're never going to see her again."
Dr. Langhorne said patiently, "I can't predict what she's liable to do. All we know for sure is that so far they are still on task, and until that changes, there is no reason to jump to conclusions. Lulu led them when she was alive, why not now?"
"Give me a break. You're just stalling."
"You heard her, Rich," said the captain. "We're going to stick to plan… for now. In the meantime, I want you and Mr. Robles to develop some contingencies for resupplying our provisions in case Langhorne's expedition doesn't return-food stores are at rock bottom, and those kids are going to start crashing if we don't do something fast. I don't need to tell you what will happen if we have any deaths on board, if that room back there becomes a nest of Xombies. The whole city is at our doorstep: restaurants, shops, warehouses-there must be something we can do in reasonable safety, even without the Blue Man Group at our disposal. Make this your top priority. I want at least three serious options on my desk by 0600. Don't be afraid to be bold."
"Be bold…" Kranuski wasn't listening anymore. Gesturing at someone out the doorway, he said, "Captain, I'm afraid I have a very different priority right now. If you order us to stay here, against all reasonable expectation of success, and in complete disregard for ship's safety, I must advise you I intend to follow regulations."
Everyone froze. Suddenly the hum of the electronics seemed very loud.
"Don't do it, Rich. This is not the time." Coombs felt the hulking presence of Alton Webb crowding into the radio shack behind him. He was alarmed to realize that except for Dr. Langhorne, he was surrounded by Kranuski's gang: Webb, Jack Kraus, and even a civilian, Henry Bartholomew, who blamed Coombs for the death of his nephew Jake. None of Coombs's faithful was in sight. He said, "If I don't need a security detail to protect me from Xombies, are you saying I need one to protect me from my own crew?"
"It's not your crew anymore." Richard Kranuski took a deep breath, and announced, "Commander Harvey Coombs, I hereby relieve you of command and confine you to quarters, pending charges of incompetence and gross dereliction of duty. Mr. Webb, please escort the captain to his new quarters."
"Rich, I'm telling you to consider what you're-" Coombs tried to leap for the intercom. There was a brief, ugly scuffle, Webb overpowering the captain and taking him in a choke hold.
"Don't fight, you're just making it worse for yourself," Webb grunted.
"Oh that's great," said Langhorne in disgust. She turned to Kranuski: "That's just great. Brilliant move, Caligula. What comes next? Public executions?"
Richard Kranuski turned and leaned into her face, their profiles strikingly alike, one black-haired, one white, both icily handsome and equally contemptuous of the other. "You've got exactly until the next tide to prove to me that you're not a waste of space on my vessel," he said. "Then we sail-with or without you."
CHAPTER SIX
X GAMES
Although most representatives of the federal government and armed services acted heroically in the face of the crisis-and indeed died at their posts-there is substantial evidence that major resources were diverted to private interests at the time they were needed most to shore up the collapsing national infrastructure. Classified military records, preserved as part of the SPAM initiative, reveal hundreds of examples of elite forces providing extraordinary security and logistical support for private individuals and their families, while more vital emergency personnel were left exposed to be killed or infected in droves. While it is tempting to assume that these were merely random incidences of corruption amid the greater chaos, a pattern emerges that suggests an organized, methodical, and highly secretive program to abandon the existing government and establish an alternate one. -The Maenad Project "Hey, guys, guess what!" shouted Kyle Hancock from the rafters. "Captain Coombs has just been arrested! Kranuski's in charge now!"
There was an eruption of activity in the great compartment. Some of it was cursing and complaining, some was cheering, but most of it was eager chatter of the wait-and-see variety. None of the boys had much love for Harvey Coombs-they had pretty consistently starved under his watch. The only time they had eaten well, in fact, was for the few weeks they had been in the service of the Moguls… and that had had its own drawbacks.
Sal DeLuca looked up from his chessboard and felt a twinge of anxiety: Not again. No wonder Tran was too busy to come aft, with another mutiny going on. How many captains were they going to run through on this boat? This made three so far. He looked across at his younger opponent, the new kid, and said, "Don't worry about it. It's probably not going to make much difference to us."
"Check," said Bobby, intent on the game. Sal's plan to distract the boy from his trauma was proving almost too successful-the kid had moves.
"No you don't," Sal said. He skated his queen to the king's defense, and instantly realized she would have to be sacrificed. Damn. He might as well resign right now-you couldn't do anything without a queen. Trying to stall, he asked, "So, how'd you make it out there?"
Bobby grunted, "Huh?"
"How'd you survive so long?"
The boy pointedly ignored him. It was clear he wasn't ready to talk about it; the force of his attention had been honed to a thin wedge, a fragile tool unsuited to other uses. Push too hard, and it would break.
"You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to," said Sal. "You want to know how I made it through? I rode my bike."
Bobby grunted again.
"Seriously. You want to hear about it?" Sal didn't wait for a reply. "I don't know how they knew something was gonna happen, but on the day before New Year's, all of us were supposed to get picked up by buses and taken under escort to the submarine plant where our dads worked. Or uncles or brothers or whatever-only immediate family. Just get on a bus with no explanation and no girls allowed. But I missed the bus! My dad and I were kind of living our separate lives, and I wasn't home a lot. We had different schedules and really didn't meet up much, especially over vacation. I never even got his message. I was heavy into BMX, and used to ride my bike a lot between East Greenwich and Wickford to visit my girlfriend. The terrain there is excellent-there's a lot of rugged country. I was training for the freestyle event at this year's X Games. Anyway, we went to a New Year's Eve party down around Narragansett, but then Wendy got a headache and wanted to go home, so we left early, even before the countdown. I was kind of pissed, but it was her car, you know? She didn't even want to stay over at my place, even though we would have had the whole house to ourselves.
"Wendy hardly said anything all the way home. That's what sucks-I didn't know it was the last time I'd ever see her, so I didn't even kiss her good night, just got my bike out of her car and that was it. Last thing I saw was her taillights going down the hill, with the sound of people yelling and horns honking and fireworks all over the place. I remember thinking, 'Happy New Year-yeah right.'
"I went in the house, nuked a frozen burrito, and turned on the TV. It was only a few minutes after midnight, so I figured I could still catch some of the celebrations-New Year's Rockin' Eve or whatever. But that was the first sign that something was messed up: Most channels were ei
ther dead air or 'experiencing technical difficulties.' The rest were showing old reruns. I could not believe it. Dude, it was like, 'Is this the worst New Year's Eve ever?' I thought about calling Wendy on her cell but just went to bed instead. I was pretty wasted.
"The next morning I woke up with a pillow over my head and a wicked headache. I don't know if it was more from the hangover or from the noise-there were car horns and sirens and car alarms going off all night. It was still going on. And we live in a pretty quiet area usually, a lot of officer housing. I got cleaned up and took some ibuprofin, then I noticed there were about ten messages on the answering machine, so I hit the button. It was my dad."
All at once, Sal couldn't speak. It was maddening. He wanted so bad to be over this, but he knew that if he said one more word, he would start crying again. Come on, he thought, pinching the back of his hand hard enough to leave a welt. You can't keep doing this, it's ridiculous. He's better off dead-handle it!
But Sal couldn't help it. It was the memory of his father's scared voice on that answering machine, saying, Sal, are you there? If you're there, pick up-it's an emergency. Did you get my note about the bus? There's going to be a company bus coming to pick you up tomorrow to bring you to the plant. It is very important that you be on it, all right? Very, very important. You'll find out why when you get here. Do not miss this bus, son, whatever you do.
Before Sal could begin to wrap his mind around that, the next message started: Sal, pick up. Pick up! Shit. Shit, shit, shit. You're still not there. Okay, listen, this is important: You missed the bus, but you still have to get to the plant. I don't care how you do it, but come here as quick as you can. This is no joke! Whatever you do, avoid other people-there's some kind of murder epidemic going on, and a lot of crazy psychos are running around killing people. I know what you're thinking, but it's true. Watch out for women especially-they're all contagious. I'm not allowed to leave, or I'd come get you. I'm serious, Sal, take your bike and get out, now. Stay off the roads. Go as fast as you can, and don't stop for anything. My God, I hope you get this message.
All the other messages were pretty much the same, though increasingly desperate. His father was crying by the end. Sal had never heard his father cry before.
Standing amid the familiar clutter of his kitchen, holding a box of cornflakes, Sal couldn't process the information-it was like he was still dreaming, or stoned. Sal's father Gus DeLuca was probably the most infuriatingly hardheaded person he had ever met, a man who had zero tolerance for anything he deemed "fantasyland," so something was seriously wrong. Worrying that his dad had snapped, he went to his father's room. The drawers were pulled out and the old man's Samsonite suitcase was missing. Returning to the kitchen, Sal found the note about the bus taped to the fridge calendar. It had been there a couple of days. He picked up the phone to call the plant, but the line was dead. In a daze, he turned on the TV. Snow-all snow. Pondering, searching for anything that would make sense, Sal opened the window and leaned out.
Wow.
The air was full of smoke. He could see cars backed up along the road, and there were alarms going off far into the distance, an insane multitude of alarms-the most he'd ever heard at once. But he couldn't see any people. That was the weird thing. With all the noise and disturbance, neighbors should have been standing in the road checking it out, but Sal couldn't see a single person.
And then he did. Just as he was about to shut the window, he caught sight of a group of people charging up the street. Three women leading five or six men. They were half-naked and running like maniacs, but the main thing was, they were blue. Really blue blue, like zombies in a cheesy horror movie. It was sick. Their mouths were wide open, and their eyes were black and bugging out of their heads.
At first Sal couldn't move, frozen in shock, but as they crossed his driveway he snapped out of it and shut the window. They saw him then, and he would never forget the sensation of being spotted, like prey-it was as if they locked on to him. Holy shit! Everything his dad had said was still spinning in his head, so he didn't have to think long about what to do. He just did it.
On the fly, Sal grabbed his helmet, his jacket, and his BMX bike, and plowed through the back door. If there had been a Xombie lurking out there, he would have been toast. Sal knew exactly where he was going. His backyard overlooked the train tracks, and past that it was all swampland and miles of rugged trails he knew by heart, so he jumped on his bike and took off toward the back fence. Out of the corner of his visor he saw something nasty come rushing around the porch, but before it reached him, he hit the ramp he used for practice jumps and popped over the fence. Just like he did every day.
After that he never stopped pedaling. In a straight line it was only about eight miles between his house and the submarine works, but navigating through the rough terrain made it a lot longer. At some point it started sleeting, making the icy trails even more slippery. Tiring, he followed the railroad tracks as long as he could, until blue maniacs started coming down the embankment ahead of him, then he made for the woods again. Aside from crazy blue people, there were other obstacles to avoid: blind gullies, dense brush, ponds, houses, roads, and a lot of fenced government property. At least it was winter, and the ground was hard; in springtime, he often got bogged down in the mud.
But there was a problem. Sal was gathering followers. It was becoming a regular entourage-he hardly dared look back. Even though the freaks were naked and barefoot, they never quit or got tired, just kept chasing him. Every time he had to backtrack or change direction, they drew closer… and all the time more and more were accumulating. At first he had barely noticed them, they were so few and far away, but the longer he went, the more he began to see rows of them in the distance, fanning out like hellish search parties, waiting for him to hit a wall or a dead end or the limits of his own endurance-anything that would hold him up long enough for them to close their noose. It was just a matter of time.
Then it happened. Out of nowhere he was completely blocked, cut off by an impenetrable woodfall and forced back to the railroad culvert. In that moment, Sal feared he was done. They were all around him, sweeping in for the kill.
That's when he heard the train.
It was the high-speed Acela Express-one of the same trains that killed his old dog, Banjo. His dad had had to scrape the poor hound up in a bucket. Those trains were so fast that by the time you saw them coming, it was already too late-everyone who lived along the tracks had a story to tell. But right now Sal wasn't afraid of being killed by a train. He was more concerned with it blocking his escape so the crazies could do the job. They were all around him now, forcing him toward the railroad tracks as if they knew this was their chance. Compared to those horrible, gaping faces, the train didn't seem so scary, which was how Sal managed to do what he did.
Leaping into motion, he rode his bike straight at the railroad ditch. As several maniacal women threw themselves in his path, Sal head-butted the nearest one with his helmet and jumped down the steep gravel embankment. It was almost too late-the hurtling locomotive was right there, roaring up to meet him at 150 miles an hour, and the psychos on his back clinging fiercely as he crossed the tracks-
WHOOOOOM!-
– and then their weight was gone, jerked loose by a violent shock wave that almost spun Sal off his bike. The rest of the train roared by, barely inches away. Before it completely passed, he was already on the move again, climbing the far embankment.
Looking back, he could see a mess of busted meat and bone flopping along the tracks like wet laundry: twitching arms and legs and tumbled-out guts and cracked heads bouncing through the air like hairy coconuts.
Trancelike, Sal said, "Worst thing I ever saw… and also the best, you know? I sometimes wonder if there was even anybody alive on that train, you know? I think God sent that train! But more Xombies were still coming, still trying to catch me, and I had to move."
"Make your move," said Bobby impatiently, fidgeting.
Sal suddenly r
ealized he had been thinking aloud for some time. Telling Bobby the whole story. The crisis had passed.
"In a second, dude," he said. "Don't you want to hear how I got to the factory compound? It was like a fortress, man-they almost didn't let me in! Or how, after all our work refitting this tub, the Navy crew was just going to bail and leave us behind? Leave us for the Xombies?"
"Make your move."
"All right, I will!" Sal slammed down his queen.
"Checkmate."
"I know!"
CHAPTER SEVEN
XIBALBA
This report represents the last official document commissioned by the combined agencies of the federal government of the United States of America, or by emergency representatives of those agencies. All such agencies and personnel are declared to be in recess for the remaining duration of the crisis. They are furthermore ordered as a matter of national security to take shelter at secure locations and remain there until such time as it becomes possible to resume their official duties. The purpose of this report is to create a factual account of the Maenad Epidemic, collating all available documents into a single reference. It is not exhaustive, representing only "found" materials-no research in the ordinary sense was possible. Nevertheless, this volume represents a heroic effort on the part of all involved, many of whom gave their lives in the course of its creation. It stands as their epitaph. Let it not be America's. -The Maenad Project Smoke was on the water. Dawn showed through the black teeth of the city. Out of the haze, a long, dark shape drifted into view, barely disturbing the mist or the river's glassy surface: a gondola. There was a pale figure standing in the bow, a young girl in a periwinkle blue nightgown, with black hair and blacker eyes. Not real-she could have been a statue. An exotic, ethereal creature, blue-skinned as Shiva, lifeless as a painted figurehead. Larger figures hulked behind her, grim blue footmen frozen in her thrall.
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