Xombies: Apocalypticon

by Walter Greatshell

  Punish Mint, said a voice in her head. Punish Mint Gum. The sound of that voice had more of an effect on her than being skewered on a pike, more than having her skull fractured through burlap; it actually caused her to wince. Within the stifling bag, a blue tear ran down Lulu’s dusty dead cheek, shed by a tear duct that instantly closed up shop, withering like a dried flower and being sucked up in her head. The last tear of her residual humanity.

  Mummy, she thought.

  They opened a trapdoor, opened the neck of her sack, and dumped her down the well. From one darkness to another, deeper, Lulu landed headfirst in a sump of cold grease, a gummy tank of artificial amniotic fluid that enfolded and encased her, making the least movement arduously slow . . . had she wanted to move. But she didn’t. She was content to float, to feel. And she wasn’t alone. There were hundreds of others buried around her, bodies entwined every which way like fossils in a tar pit, or flies in amber.

  And one of them was her mother.

  They woke to the sound of music. Not music, actually, just a beat, a powerful stomping of feet that caused the metal walls to vibrate. It was the middle of the night.

  “Sounds like a party,” Sal said grimly.

  “Rock the house,” said Kyle, rubbing his eyes. “Where’s it coming from?”

  “One way to find out.”

  They woke Todd, Ray, and Freddy and left the room, heading down the corridor. There was no one around. Some of the truck trailers had been set a few feet apart, creating a maze of narrow passages deeper into the stack, and the boys ventured down one of these. Following the music, they entered a crevice that got narrower and narrower before suddenly opening on a much larger space.

  “Daaaamn.”

  A kind of courtyard spread out before them, an open-topped hall perhaps a hundred feet long, with sheer walls of stacked shipping containers and the night sky visible through a web of rope netting. The place was bright with laughter and the yellow flames of torches, dense with voices and music and the aromas of marijuana and hot popcorn. Half the people were making music of one kind or another—a lush cacophony of mismatched instruments and voices that sounded like the world’s biggest jug band—and the rest were stomping and singing along. The song was “O-O-H Child,” by The Five Stairsteps.

  “I guess this is the party,” Kyle said.

  “No duh.”

  “Well, howdy, boys!” It was Voodooman. They hardly recognized him now, a blinding apparition in a hot pink suit and ten-gallon hat. He looked like a Nashville novelty act. “Glad you could make it! How do you like our little pleasure dome? Feel free to mingle, and help yourselves to the grub!”

  Help yourselves—that was the invitation of a lifetime.

  The room was a hoard of treasure, a moveable feast heaped high with vast quantities of luxury goods and non-perishable goodies of every kind, amid which the crowd milled freely, sampling at will. It was like an all-you-can-eat buffet in a bulk food warehouse. But Sal felt too conspicuous, too vulnerable to join the free-for-all. He and the other boys were still sick from the convenience-store splurge, sick from losing friends and brothers, sick with worry and confusion over what to do next. They couldn’t relax, much less enjoy themselves.

  Sensing their hesitation, Voodooman said, “Don’t be shy, boys. Listen, we’re all family here. Things ain’t like they used to be, with folks all fired up at one another, steppin’ on each other’s toes. Them days are over. What reason do we have to fight? There’s enough here for everybody! Look yonder, you’ll see Bloods dancing with Crips, Muslims with Mormons, Latin Kings chillin’ with White Pride. Those labels don’t matter like they used to in the joint. We’re all brothers now, and we got us a whole world to carve up, like the Twelve Tribes of Israel. Here, let me take you to meet El Dopa.”

  Dragged through the room like starstruck peasants, the boys gaped at truckloads of wine and champagne, cigarettes and cigars, whole hams, sides of bacon, sausages and other cured meats, every kind of canned and dry goods, imported chocolates and cheeses, a huge trove of prescription pharmaceuticals, enough designer clothing to stock a Fifth Avenue department store, and endless cases of cheap beer and expensive liquor. There was also a huge arsenal of military weapons and ammunition. But what really caught the boys’ eyes were the Christmas decorations everywhere they looked: a large street display made of lights spelling MERRY XMAS as well as ivylike profusions of red and green bulbs, giant glowing candy canes, fake Christmas trees covered with flock and silver and gold tinsel, images of angels, reindeer, bells, gold stars, gold ornaments—gold everywhere they looked, even hanging overhead. Real gold: golden lamps and chandeliers, gold jewelry, gold goblets and tableware, gold eggs, gold coins, gold bricks. Several Oscar statuettes. At the center of it all, a massive golden crucifix with a bloody, tortured Christ.

  Sal noticed other gory Christ images as well, valuable-looking paintings and museum pieces, and asked, “Are you guys Catholic or something?”

  “Some are, not me. We don’t trouble much about each other’s religions since El Dopa turned us on to Bhakti-Yoga.”

  “Yoga?”

  “I know what you’re thinking. But it ain’t like that; it’s a kind of philosophy—the spiritual glue that’s held all us different groups together and carried us through a lot of bad shit. It was invented hundreds of years ago by a dude in India, man by the name of Ramakrishna. He basically said that it don’t matter what religion you are—all religions are paths to God. He said, ‘All rivers flow to the ocean.’ That’s what’s helped us get along so well up to now. Which ain’t to say Jesus Christ don’t have a special significance. As someone who was raised from the dead hisself, he reminds us what it’s all about.”

  “What’s that?”

  “The promise of eternal life.”

  “Like a Xombie?”

  “Whoa, now. Jesus wasn’t no Xombie. Xombies are devils; we want to be angels. That’s what Uncle Spam has promised us as the reward for our labors, and I’ve seen enough to know it’s true. There are angels roaming the Earth again, folks immune not only to Agent X but to the rigors of sickness and death. They’re out there, and if we serve them faithfully, we may even earn a place at their table. In Valhalla.”

  Working up his nerve, Sal asked, “What do you guys know about Valhalla?”

  “I expect you boys would know better than we would. It’s the last capital—the New Jerusalem. The City of Angels, and I ain’t talking about no damn Los Angeles.” Voodooman eyed him intently. “Why? You been there?”

  Rushing to cover his tracks, Sal said, “No! Just . . . curious, I guess.”

  “I hear that. It’s the only paradise left in this world, the last and most ideal government. It’s where all of man’s wisdom is being kept safe, in preparation for the Savior’s return. And it’s the place we send our dead, so that someday they can live again.”

  “So you believe Christ is coming back.”

  “Some folks do. Personally, I don’t know if it’ll necessarily be Christ himself, or some other redeemer. I never been religious, but I believe that something is coming. Some higher power. We’ve all heard tell about it from the Harpies we catch: a glowing light in the sky, getting bigger and bigger. We call it the Big Enchilada. It’s comin’ all right.” Suddenly the electric lights flickered off, and a brilliant spotlight winked on over their heads. “Oh shit, hold up—the Thuggees are on.”

  The boys had arrived at the center of the room. At the front, rising above a wall of truck batteries, was a platform in front of a blue velvet stage curtain. A carpeted ramp rose to the dais, which was empty except for a fancy wingback chair and a microphone, both gleaming in the spotlight. The crowd cheered as a fur-coated man mounted the ramp. “Welcome to the Thug House!” he called.

  Speakers on the walls began throbbing with a familiar beat.

  “Is that ‘Funky Cold Medina’?” asked Sal.

  “Seriously, dude,” Kyle said, rolling his eyes. “Learn your history. It’s ‘Going Back to Cali,’ b
y LL Cool J.”

  Making up his own lyrics, the man onstage mumbled along to the beat, listlessly punching the air. “I’m singin’ ’bout Vedanta, Vedanta, Vedanta—I’m singin’ ’bout Vedanta—Kill your ego—”

  Kyle whispered in Sal’s ear, “Yo, it’s the Grinch.”

  Sal shushed him . . . but the man did resemble the Grinch: a prune-faced faux Santa, prematurely old, with bad teeth and jaundiced eyes. He was dressed in a fur-collared red cape over a red velvet suit, with gleaming black platform boots and a peculiar furry cap that was more Attila the Hun than Kris Kringle. In his rich brocades, the man was a strange fusion of Hollywood hustler and Russian Orthodox priest—half pope, half pimp.

  One by one, as at a beauty contest, a line of extraordinary figures began to sashay out from the wings, making strange shapes with their arms and singing a high-pitched chorus. The room erupted in cheers and wolf whistles.

  Oh my God, Sal thought, heart pounding. The boys around him gasped.

  Women. Women of every shape and size, only their stage costumes identical. All were barefoot and bare-limbed, bodies painted coal black from head to toe, with peculiar skirts of gnarled roots or sticks, beaded breastplates, and great quantities of gold bangles and other jewelry, including jewel-encrusted crowns or tiaras that held back tremendous manes of wild black hair. In their hands they carried wicked-looking curved blades and objects that resembled withered fruit. It took Sal a second to realize that their disturbing black faces—red eyes popping, red tongues protruding—were only masks.

  It didn’t matter that they were weird-looking; what mattered was that they were women. The boys were rapt, drunk on music and incense, their frozen hearts thawed with childish yearning for this impossible bounty from a dead world. Some of them started to cry, reminded of what they had been missing, keeping buried in their hearts: every woman they had ever known. The sight of these unearthly black goddesses dredged it all up.

  Hearing the other four sniffling, Kyle leaned over and hissed, “Hey! Assholes! They’re dudes!”

  Freddy Fisk physically recoiled, blinking tears. “What? No, their voices—”

  “It’s a recording. Just look, stupid!”

  It was true. As soon as Kyle spoke, the illusion fractured and their wistful soft focus sharpened to a painful resolution: These were not women at all, but frightening caricatures of women. Under their masks, ebony body paint, and fake boobs, they were nothing but transvestites.

  Parading above the boys was the unlikeliest female of them all, a gangly, chicken-necked character, his face disguised but his leathery Adam’s apple bobbing as he lip-synched along. Like the others, he was wearing a necklace of shrunken heads and skeins of teeth that swayed like rosaries as he danced languidly to the beat. A separate blackened head dangled from his fist, leaving a trail of perfumed smoke as he waved it around by its long hair. The tuberlike objects that made up his skirt were desiccated arms—children’s arms. Viewed closely, they were every bit as real as the shrunken heads.

  Unable to bear it, Freddie cracked, whimpering, “Oh no, no, no! Please, not again!”

  The boys had been through this before, far up north at Thule, and were still traumatized from the experience. This same heinous charade. They remembered all too well the shame of being tarted up in wigs and makeup, fodder for elderly Moguls seeking a female substitute. Even though there had been no choice—it had been either give in or die horribly as a guinea pig for the Mogul Research Division—they bitterly regretted having allowed themselves to be so abused . . . and would gladly die before they’d ever let it happen again.

  Falling to his knees, crying, Freddy begged, “Oh God no . . . nooo . . . they can’t do this to us! They can’t make us do it—”

  “Shut up, bitch,” said the gawky dancer, jarred out of his mellowness by Freddy’s outburst. “Joo so stupid! Nobody’s making nobody do nothing—this ain’t no fucking Scared Straight. Who are these punks, anyway?” Still dancing, he turned to Marcus Washington, demanding, “Voodooman, why you do me like this in the middle of my rumba? Joo know how I hate to be disturb.”

  Marcus said, “Sorry, Chiquita—I just need two seconds with El Dopa, you don’t mind. It’s kinda important.”

  El Dopa—the Grinch—overheard and nodded from his perch, dismissing the dancer and beckoning the boys with a flaccid wave.

  “Shit, go ahead,” Chiquita said. “Why not? Just because it’s a fucking lost art.” He flounced offstage and sat down in a huff. To the boys, he said, “Joo have to shut up and listen when he speaks, okay? He’s the boss around here, so give him some damn respeck. He’s also a fucking recording star, entiendes?”

  “Oh shit, man,” hissed Kyle. “That’s really El Dopa!”

  “Who’s El Dopa?” asked Sal, unnerved.

  “Are you kidding me? You never heard of El Dopa? He did all those pirate tracks from prison—dude had some mad beats. He was heavy into Eastern religion. He did that chanting thing: ‘Como Se Lama’!”

  Chiquita nodded. “He’s a bad motherfucker, so don’t mess with him.”

  “Thass right,” El Dopa slurred. “Ain’t nobody better fuck with me. I got karma on my side, baby—I have mastered Mahasamadhi and passed beyond birth and death. Everybody said my career was gonna blow up as soon as I got out of the joint, but Agent X beat me to it: Was the damn world that blew up. But it’s cool—I finally got me a headlining gig, hey! Yo, Marcus! Rise and come forth.”

  “What up, El?” said Voodooman. “How you doing, brother?”

  “It’s all good, man. I see you starting your own Boys’ Club. Who these cats?”

  “They from that big mother sub off downtown. We picked ’em up goin’ into Miska’s tunnel, along with a real interesting Harpy, regular damn Kewpie doll, tame as a kitten. They claim her blood has some kinda magical effect on other Harpies, chills ’em right out. They also mentioned the name Langhorne.”

  El Dopa’s eyelids drooped to mere slits. “Well, ain’t that nice. Friends in need. Chiquita! Put out some milk and cookies for our young guests, would you? These boys look hungry.” He clapped his hands.

  The dancer scoffed, “Fuck you, I ain’t putting out shit.”

  “How nice to know that in this vast, deserted wasteland, it’s still possible to run across folks with mutual interests,” El Dopa said lazily, waving at them to dig in to his pharmaceutical tray: candy-colored pills and capsules of every type. “Small world!”

  The man’s hooded eyes bored directly into Sal’s, and the boy felt the skin prickle at the nape of his neck. There was an absence behind those eyes, a vacuum as harshly unforgiving as a black hole in deep space. Perhaps El Dopa had been a whole person once, but now he was damaged, shut down inside from having witnessed one too many unthinkables. Sal knew plenty of people like that, ghosts living in a ghost world, and one thing he knew was you didn’t want them calling the shots.

  “There’s just one thing I don’t understand,” the wizened man said. “The timing. See, things have gone a little funny with our sponsor. We’ve had a slight . . . communications breakdown. I assume your people on that submarine must have a direct line to Valhalla, all that high-tech gear you got out there. Right? Can you also jam radio signals? Suddenly here you come along, and what’s the first thing you do? Start poaching on our turf.”

  Sal jumped in, “No!—I mean, I don’t think so, sir. The Navy officers don’t really tell us anything, but I know the boat maintains radio silence almost all the time, so—”

  El Dopa wasn’t even listening. “I hope they don’t think we’re going to renegotiate our contract,” he said. “Is that why you’re here? Give us a little wake-up call? Introduce some healthy competition, a little competitive bidding? Are they unhappy with what we’ve been sending them? Think somebody else could do the job better? I’d like to see them try. Or maybe you’re with a rival agency? Come into our territory and try to muscle us just because you think you so bad with that big-ass submarine? Is that it?”

  “No
, sir. At least, I don’t think so.”

  “Boy don’t think so. Well, there must be SOME explanation!” El Dopa flung his beer bottle at the floor, then subsided and pondered them for a moment. Shaking his head, he sighed, “I guess there’s nothing for it but to call up Uncle Spam.”

  Eavesdropping, Chiquita said, “Why you gotta do that? I had enough of that creepy spider. He don’t say shit no more.”

  “Now, baby, he is still our esteemed company agent—the only one we have. Don’t worry, I’m not sending you.” He clapped his hands. “So let it be written, so let it be done.” Abruptly dismissing the visitors, he took up the mike and started singing again: “Cortez was a gangsta, a measure of thanks ta, conquistador killa in the biblical mold . . . bust a cap in the Az-tecs, dust the map what he did nex’, and played Montezuma for a room of pure gold . . .”

  The dancer’s leering mask was fixed on them, something out of a nightmare. “The audience is over,” Chiquita said. “Get out before somebody carry you out.”

  “Oops,” said Voodooman. Hustling the boys away, he said, “I guess he’ll call for you in the morning. For now, you guys just enjoy the party. That’s what it’s for. If anybody mess with you, tell ’em you’re under the special protection of the Skins.”