What the-?
A mass of ghostly people materialized out of the thick gloom; he nearly plowed right into them. Xombies! No, not Xombies-kids! Hundreds of teenage boys crossing the compound on foot, with adults from the factory herding them like a flock of sheep.
Trundling amid the crowd like a parade float was a large construction vehicle, the Sallie, a specialized flat-top crawler used to move hundred-ton sections of the submarine. Now its dance-hall-sized freight bed was loaded with teenagers dangling their legs off, like a truck hauling migrant workers to the fields. The rolling behemoth was heading slowly but implacably toward the Fitting Bay and, just beyond, the gates to the wharf.
That wasn’t good… not good at all.
Working up the nerve to toot his horn, Sandoval watched in agonized frustration as the mob closed ranks on him. A sneering overweight boy pounded the car’s hood while the rest scowled at him with the dull effrontery of a bunch of hooligans, shielding their faces from the Cadillac’s headlights.
They were after the boat. The rebellious idiots were storming the submarine-his submarine. It was unbelievable… or maybe not so unbelievable. This was exactly the kind of thing he had been hoping to avoid all these weeks, and now here he was, caught up in a revolt, prevented from getting to the boat himself.
They were armed, too, not with guns but with the even more alarming weapons of angry villagers: hammers, clubs, makeshift blades, and bludgeons of all sorts. Sandoval had a gun, but it would be worse than useless against a mob like this. If he wasn’t careful, this could turn into a bloodbath-his blood.
These were the folks he had dropped the bomb on only yesterday, serving up the bad news with barbecued chicken and a side of coleslaw. Apparently, they weren’t taking it well. According to plan, they should’ve all been under lock-down until force withdrawal was complete. Until the boat was gone.
So much for the plan.
Sandoval saw the shop foreman Larry Holmes coming over at a fast trot, dangerously clutching a big hammer. Jim didn’t want to find out what these people would do if they got their hands on him. Gun or no gun, he put the car in reverse and backed away as fast as he could until the fog shielded him once more, then stopped and turned off his headlights. Sitting in the dark, he could still make out the shadowy crowd limned by the orange caution lights of the Sallie.
Shit. There was just no way past them.
Directly ahead, so close and yet so unattainable, were the big cranes of the yard, which had recently been used to pull all the ballistic missile tubes out of the boat and line them up in neat rows on the ground. And before that, the missiles themselves, yanked like so many bad teeth by the watchful representatives of the Strategic Air Command. That had been a new experience for Sandoval-he had always secretly regretted not joining the Air Force, thinking his vertigo had condemned him to an alliance with the less sophisticated, less lordly of the two services. And those pompous SAC bastards had proved him right, hoisting their precious missiles like somber priests removing idols from a defiled temple. God, he had envied them. The civilian sector could never hold a candle to that kind of self-importance: the fate of the world in your hands.
As the crowd started to thin, Jim cautiously nudged his car forward. All the people passing him now were adults, his formerly dutiful employees, everybody hustling the slowpokes along. The fearful way they were glancing backward toward the main gate made Jim nervous about sitting still for too long.
Someone rapped hard on the driver’s side window, causing Sandoval to jump. He turned to find himself staring at Gus DeLuca from the machine shop. The man’s jowly mug was sweaty and flushed, but not hostile. DeLuca appeared taken aback to find himself face-to-face with the company CEO.
Smiling apologetically, DeLuca shouted a muffled, “Uh, sir? Mr. Sandoval, sir?”
Damn. Jim rolled down his window a crack, saying with false cordiality, “Well, howdy there, Gus. What’s this all about? You know, these people are heading into a restricted-”
He was interrupted by a length of steel pipe smashing his passenger window. Peppered with glass, Sandoval cringed, then felt himself yanked bodily out of the car.
“Sorry, Jim, we need the ride,” said Gus as he wrestled him to the ground. “I’ll explain later.”
Lying there on the damp pavement, Sandoval looked around at his attackers: DeLuca, Holmes, Big Ed Albemarle. “Take me with you,” he said. “Let me talk to Coombs-you’ll never get through without me. I can help you.”
Ignoring him, DeLuca shouted, “Holmes, you’re up! Take the car and deliver our terms. Honk if they’re amenable to discussion.”
More urgently, Sandoval said, “I’m telling you, let me talk to them. You can’t negotiate. They have orders to shoot to kill.”
Gus looked at the others as if to ask, What do you think?
“Take him along,” someone said-Sandoval realized it was Fred Cowper. So Cowper had made it after all! Hell, this was all probably his idea. The old man had aged a lot since his retirement party, but he was clearly as cantankerous as ever.
Cowper said, “Gus, you and Ed ride shotgun.”
They shoved Sandoval into the passenger seat and piled in behind him. “Say the wrong thing, and none of us gets out alive,” Albemarle said.
As the car skirted the crowd and caught up to the rolling platform, Sandoval’s attention was suddenly drawn to a blurry figure running alongside. At first he assumed it was someone else from the crowd trying to catch their attention, but then he heard shouting and noticed that the adults were banding together and throwing the smaller kids up onto the crawler’s deck. Everyone was pointing at the Cadillac with terrified expressions on their faces.
A hand grabbed hold of Sandoval’s window frame, making him jump. He whipped around to see a vision so awful that his mind couldn’t absorb it. The sight hit him like a physical blow, a rabbit punch that knocked all the air out of him.
The thing was an obscene caricature of a beautiful young woman, her perfect teeth gleaming Pepsodent white in a tautly grinning purple face, with a gaping crater in her skull through which the remaining brain matter was visible, undulating like a wrinkled scrotum. The living matter seemed to be reaching out of her head for him.
Before Sandoval had time to react to the shock, the woman seized the car with both hands and vaulted up like a circus rider mounting a galloping horse. He drew breath to shout, Look out! But before he could get the words out, two long legs slithered in through the broken window, and her whole naked body landed on his lap. He could see right through her heart.
Pandemonium broke out in the car.
Gus DeLuca spun the wheel, and suddenly there was a utility pole in the headlights. They were only moving at about 15 mph, but the car slammed hard, deploying its air bags, and everyone dove, screaming, out the doors. Sandoval tumbled to the ground with the woman wrapped around him, her nimble and ridiculously strong arms crushing his windpipe while her neck strained to force that crazed sucker-fish mouth over his. Her exposed brain licked his forehead like a sticky tongue.
Help me! he tried to shout, head twisting wildly to avoid her questing mouth. Somebody help! He couldn’t reach the gun; his arms were clamped tight by her cold, naked thighs. Sandoval could feel himself blacking out.
Then by some miracle he was free, doubled over on his side and retching in pain. It was Gus DeLuca and Big Ed Albemarle: They had brained the thing with the heavy hammers they used in the factory-they were still braining it. It had no brains left to brain.
“X marks the spot,” DeLuca crowed.
“Die… die… die… ” muttered Albemarle, his denim coveralls speckling with inky blood as they pounded the writhing thing into the ground.
Stepping back to rest his arm, Gus DeLuca said, “Ed, we gotta go.” The parade had moved on, and they were alone in the fog. The Cadillac was steaming from its crumpled hood, totaled.
“What about him?” He pointed to Sandoval.
An eruption of gunfire and screams rattl
ed the gloom, then a rockslide of trampling feet that was the sound of mass panic. An amplified voice said, “Halt. You are in a restricted area.”
“Fuck him and the car he rode in on,” said DeLuca. “We gotta get down there.”
They left him.
In the distance, Sandoval could hear a chorus of voices begging to be let on the boat. He knew there wasn’t much chance of them ever getting past the Marines posted there. It was the end of the line for all of them, himself included.
He could picture the scene: the dockyard full of empty missile tubes, the dead hulk of the Sallie blocking the road, its driver shot dead in the front cab and terrified boys pouring off the crawler’s deck like panicked wildebeests entering a crocodile-infested river.
They were pinned down on the broad tarmac between the submarine’s gangway-the “brow”-and the terraced lawn that was the site of yesterday’s dockside picnic. Bob Martino’s blood would still be there in the grass for anyone who cared to look. The boat would still be there, too, though not for long, its speckled mast array looming in the dark as if suspended in midair. Beneath that, the railed gantry would fade into black nothingness, a bridge to nowhere.
How did those poor saps think they were going to escape when the man who owned the submarine factory could not? Did they imagine they could appeal to pity? Lay claim to human dignity, decency, or justice? At this late hour, when the coin of mercy was a debased slug not even fit to steal a gumball? When the sleep of death itself had become a luxury? How dare they be so stupid-Jim Sandoval damned them for their pride.
Resigned, lying there in the dirt, he could only shake his head as the shooting resumed. It would all be over soon.
Something slippery touched his hand.
He jumped up to see the ruined Maenad coming toward him. She was just a quivering pulp on the ground, roadkill, but she was still alive, still moving. Not fast, but faster by the second. Most incredibly, he still sensed that same wild eagerness as before, emanating from these smashed remains-pure, frenzied lust at the sight of him. As he watched, the mincemeat of her mangled flesh was knitting back together, not quite healing but gathering itself into sturdier form. The sound it made was awful.
There was an explosive crash down at the wharf. Still staring in horror, Sandoval thought, What the hell are they doing now? The shooting abruptly stopped. and the thinly officious voice of Harvey Coombs came over a loudspeaker:
“FRED, THIS IS COMMANDER COOMBS. I DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING, BUT IN MY BOOK IT’S TREASON. YOU ARE INTERFERING WITH CRITICAL NAVAL OPERATIONS.”
Jim listened, snorting incredulously as the amplified voice of Fred Cowper, USN (Ret.), replied, “LET ME AND ALL THESE PEOPLE ON BOARD, THEN PUT US ASHORE SOMEPLACE HALFWAY SECURE!”
Was this a joke? Fred talked as if he was calling the shots. As if he and a ragtag bunch of hardhats and teenage boys were the ones holding the aces.
Which, Sandoval suddenly realized, they just might be.
With dawning wonder, he understood why they had brought the Sallie vehicle on their little crusade: The massive freight hauler wasn’t just to give the kids a lift. In its sheer bulk, it was the only weapon they had capable of sinking a nuclear submarine. What he was hearing down there was the ultimate game of chicken.
Demolition derby, Sandoval thought, not without admiration. Fred, you old bastard!
As he stood there shaking his head, the raveled Maenad rose to its feet and lurched toward him. At the same time, he could see movement in the fog: several odd-looking people running for the wharf. Not people-Xombies. Lots more Xombies, attracted by the light and commotion.
It was going to be a hell of a fight. Feeling reanimated himself, Jim knew he had to get down there, too… but obviously he’d never make it on foot. Dodging the gropes of that mangled Hellion, he sprinted toward the nearest available vehicle, an electric cart by the tool shed.
He wouldn’t miss this for the world.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
THE MOSH PIT
Todd and Ray were sworn in as disciples of the Prophet Jim.
It was a strange process, requiring them first to stuff themselves with rich foods like cheese, cured meats, and canned fruitcake, then to become violently ill for three days. Purged to the point of dehydration and delirium, they were forced to confess their sins and desires at the end of a red-hot poker. After declaring their total fealty to the approved pantheon of gods and prophets, they were stripped to the waist-their revealed torsos covered with cross-shaped welts-and doused in freezing water almost to the point of drowning. Finally, they were allowed to sleep. For years, it seemed.
When they awoke, it was to gentle voices, soft robes, and delicious bread and soup.
Then the praying began. Prayers before meals, after meals, before bed, upon waking, and randomly throughout the day, religious obeisance required before and after engaging in any activity, however trivial, a constant, compulsive drone of gratitude and contrition.
Time blurred. Reality warped.
“Yoo-hoo. Wake up, sleepyhead. I’d like to show you something.”
Ray awoke to find a man’s face staring at him, inches away. It was a bulbous, boyish face, the face of a middle-aged schoolboy with hair sleeked back like a sumo. It took Ray a second to remember where he was: in his new quarters on the fourth floor of the Westin Hotel. Todd’s room was down the hall. The hotel was less luxurious than it had been formerly, having no heat, running water, electricity, working elevators, or room service, but it still looked pretty snazzy. Most of the disciples were bivouacked next door in the Providence Place Mall, camped out on the floor of Macy’s or Old Navy, and taking their meals in the Food Court.
“Who the fuck are you?” Ray asked in alarm.
“Whoa. Hey. Easy there, big fella. It’s only little ol’ me, Chace Dixon.”
The name didn’t immediately register. “What are you doing in my room?”
“Ray, I know it’s been a while, but come on. Don’t you recognize me?”
Oh shit. Ray hurriedly braided the frayed ends of his wits. Chace Dixon. Media Mogul and associate of Jim Sandoval. He owned an apartment in Jim’s building, and Ray had met him a few times in passing. What the hell was he doing here?
Then it hit him. Ray said, “Are you the Apostle Chace?”
“Did you just realize that? I love it! I was just thinking about you, and thought I’d drop by and say hello.”
“Hello… and good-bye.” Ray rolled over to face the wall.
Dixon sat down on the edge of the bed. “Ray, do you believe in miracles?”
“Not really.”
“I love that! Thank you. If only more people around here were so honest! Yet you must admit it’s a strange coincidence that you and I should meet each other again, here on the far side of the Apocalypse. One might even call it fate.”
“This is ridiculous.”
“Of course it is! It’s totally nuts. But then that’s pretty much the definition of a miracle.”
“Or mental illness.”
“This from someone who claims to have seen Elvis.”
“Yeah, but I know it wasn’t really Elvis-it was Uri Miska.”
“I wouldn’t say that too loud-some people around here wouldn’t take kindly to it.”
“Why not?”
“I mean these Elvis visitations have inspired a bit of a cult. It’s a time of miracles and wonders; people are primed to believe in anything, including Elvis. They don’t want to think he’s an imposter.”
“But you know he is.”
“Let’s just say it’s part of my job description to promote miracles and wonders.”
“Have you even seen him?”
“Seen him?” Dixon said. “We shot him.”
“You what? Shot him?”
“Yes indeedy. After what happened to us last time we were in this town, my sentries are on a hair trigger; they shoot anything that moves. One of them put a twelve-gauge shotgun load in Elvis’s chest. Blew a hole you c
ould have stuck your fist through, but it had no effect on him. He just kind of shook it off, and said, ‘Don’t do that, man.’ Then he was gone. I ordered the men not to report anything until I could get to the bottom of it. Thanks to you and your friend, I think we have.”
“Miska thinks you’re threatening the survival of the human race by spreading immunity to the Xombies. He says some kind of Armageddon is coming that only Xombies can survive.”
“And what do you think?”
“I think Miska’s probably crazy.”
“Put your shoes on,” Dixon said, getting up off the bed. “I’d like to show you something.”
He led Ray through a dark parking garage that connected the hotel to the Convention Center. The latter was a large, glass-faced building resembling an airport terminal. Unlike the mall or the hotel, there were very few people around.
As they walked, Dixon said, “It’s not as if I was ever that pious before Agent X. I believed in God, but organized religion was a tool of manipulation, a way to control the masses. I thought it was purely psychological, but then I had never had any real evidence to the contrary.”
Leading at a brisk pace, Dixon took Ray down a utility corridor to a heavy double door marked EMERGENCY EXIT-ALARM WILL SOUND.
In a hushed voice, he said, “We call this the Mosh Pit.”
He unbolted the door and pulled it open. On the other side was a dim balcony overlooking a huge convention hall full of people. Not people-Xombies. Thousands of eerily quiet Exes, all staring up at them. Even fifty feet above that sea of blue faces, Ray felt panic squeeze his guts like a big cold hand.
“What are they all doing here?” he asked.
“They’re locked in.”
“Why?”
“Can’t live with ’em, can’t kill ’em. Originally, we intended to burn the whole thing down, but then we realized it wasn’t necessary. They can’t get out. It’s like storing nuclear waste. Out of sight, out of mind.”
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