“I’ll get it,” Langhorne said. Opening the front door, she said, “Good morning, boys.”
“Good morning, Mrs. Langhorne. Is Lulu around?”
“That’s Ms. Langhorne. And she certainly is. Lulu!”
“What?”
“Lemuel and Sal are here to pick you up.”
“Pick me up? For what?”
“Boys?”
As if reciting from a script, Sal said, “Miz Langhorne asked us to ask you if you would do us the honor of letting you drive us—I mean, letting us drive you, heh heh—to school.”
“School? Are you demented? What do you—” Langhorne jabbed me in the back. Hard. “Oh. Right. School, really?”
Alice Langhorne nodded grimly.
“All right,” I said. “Hang on.” I stepped into my shoes. “I’m ready; let’s go.”
“No you are not, young lady.”
“What now?”
“You can’t go to school like that. You march right upstairs and put on a clean dress and brush your hair. The boys will wait. Won’t you?”
“Yes, Miz Langhorne.”
Knowing it was pointless to argue, I climbed the stairs while Alice invited the boys in and offered them milk and cookies. Little Bobby Rubio was at the top of the stairs, staring down.
“Are you going to play school?” he asked me, as I brushed past.
“I guess so.”
“Can I play, too?”
“Go ask Alice.”
I went into my designated room and examined the clothes in the closet. They had belonged to a girl exactly my size though much younger. Taking off my filthy velvet dress, I put on a clean cotton one—a sunny yellow number with black polka dots. Then I brushed my hair into some semblance of order and tied it with a bow. Flying back downstairs, I was intercepted by Langhorne, who spit-shined my face and handed me a sack lunch before letting me out the door.
“Have a nice day at school!” she called after us.
Getting into the car, I was struck anew by the boys’ weirdly preppy appearance. Jake’s copper-colored hair was parted into two lobes in front and buzzed short at the sides, the stubble shaved in a peculiar grid pattern. He wore a V-neck sweater over a dress shirt, baggy golf pants, and brown-and-white gaiters.
“Hi, Jake,” I said.
“Hi, Lulu. What do you think of Bess?”
“Bess?” My first thought was Basic Enlisted Submarine School.
“Bessie, my new car—well, maybe not new … ”
“Oh. Nice.”
“Nice? You wouldn’t believe what we went through to find this thing and get it running. It’s a Model T Roadster—is that awesome or what? We looked up antique car dealers in three different counties before we found it.”
“Why?”
“Why? Why do you think?” He waved a comic book in my face. “Mood! Atmosphere! The power of suggestion! It’s an experiment in Xombie psychology, and we’re the subjects. Haven’t the officers drilled you about this?”
“No. Just Langhorne.”
“Oh.” Abashed, Jake said, “Well, we all got the full spiel during the night—you’re lucky you missed it.”
Lucky. Right. Well, I supposed I had no one but myself to blame. They drove me through deserted neighborhoods to the local high school. Arriving, I was surprised to see hundreds of students milling around the entrance. I was not used to seeing Xombies wearing clothes, much less carrying books and backpacks. From a distance, they did not resemble Xombies at all. Only about fifty of them were from the boat, the rest were freshly groomed strangers.
Crowd noise was muted; there was little talking and less laughter. Harvey Coombs, Dan Robles, Ed Albemarle, and several other officers from the boat were patrolling the crowd like ominous shepherds, preventing anyone from straying too far.
“Hi, Ed,” I said, as Albemarle passed me.
Lemuel hissed, “We’re supposed to call him Principal Albemarle.”
“Oh, really?” As Fred Cowper’s proxy on the sub, I was accustomed to giving the orders, not taking them. “What happens if I don’t?”
“Then you get sent to Detention.”
“Ah … ”
Clearly, most of these “students” were random Xombies rustled up during the night and given a crash course in campus life. With no humans around, they were quite docile—in fact, hard to distinguish from the treated Blues. It really brought home the fact that in a totally human-free world, my blood was no longer needed to keep the peace. I was obsolete. I wasn’t sure how I felt about that or what it would mean for me.
The bell rang, and everyone started filing inside. Waiting my turn at the back of the line, I noticed a car racing toward the school. It was a silver Jaguar with the top down. As it screeched into a handicapped parking slot, the driver vaulted out of his seat and landed lightly on the sidewalk. Despite his aviator sunglasses and disco outfit, I recognized Kyle Hancock.
Kyle strutted up the path like an urban cowboy, and when he reached me, he threw his arm around my shoulder, and said, “Hello, baaaaby. Can I have a burger with that shake?”
Shrugging his arm off, I said, “Smooth. Who are you supposed to be? Superfly?”
“I’m MC Ricky Ricardo, honey. The Afro-Cuban Revolution. Babaloooo! Question is, who are you supposed to be?”
“That’s actually a good question … ”
“Well, in that case, why don’t you and I blow this chicken shack and take a ride in my X-K-E?” He put his arm back around my shoulder and tried to steer me away.
I resisted slightly, but it was more trouble than it was worth. Actually, I was glad for the excuse to get out of school. Just then, a large hand settled on the back of Kyle’s neck. Before the boy could react, the hand squeezed tight and hoisted him off his feet.
It was Lemuel. Shaking Kyle like a rat, the larger boy said, “Nobody messes with my girl.” Then he punched Kyle square in the face. Kyle’s sunglasses fractured, mirrored shards embedding in flesh and bone as his nose squashed flat and his face actually inverted. He bounced off Lemuel’s fist and sailed backward across the grass. The crowd watched all this impassively, then turned away.
“Gee,” I said. “You really didn’t have to do that.”
“I kind of did,” said Lemuel sheepishly. “It’s in the book.”
Picking glass out of his face, Kyle yelled, “But you didn’t have to mean it!”
The first day of school was always a little strange. New classes, new faces, new locker combinations—it was a lot to learn. Unless you just didn’t care. That was the challenge of Xombie High: teaching those who had no reason to work. The time factor alone was nearly impossible since Maenad consciousness was not easily synched to a clock. Five minutes here, an hour there—it was like posting stop signs for the wind.
To a Xombie, the rate at which time passed was completely optional. We were not trapped in the here and now, chained to the present like students watching a clock. Exes were never bored or impatient because if we didn’t like what was going on, we simply skipped ahead in time, leaving our inert bodies for however long was necessary—hours, days, weeks … perhaps years or centuries—until body and mind could reunite under more pleasant circumstances. To us, this leap was instantaneous; there was no mental gap.
Therefore, in order for school to function, we had to deliberately imprison our minds in the present and obey a schedule, like circus lions jumping through hoops. For us creatures from the boat, this was not so difficult—we were accustomed to a degree of effort and self-control. The challenge was that we were expected to impart this work ethic to the wild-caught Exes, the free-range and the rogue, who had no such inhibitions.
Fortunately, the newbies learned fast. All of us did. At least at first, Langhorne’s experiment was far more successful than I ever imagined possible. With no actual humans around to distract us or remind us what monsters we were, we eagerly convinced ourselves we were people again. Nostalgia spread among us like a new disease, so that even the zombiest of Xombies w
as soon putting on hair gel and yammering “Gosh!” and “Gee whiz!”
Classes were fairly interesting, and there were only two subjects being taught: Xombiology 101 and Ex Ed. The first was a kind of Xombies for Dummies tutorial on everything that was known about the Maenad condition, given by the resident authority, Alice Langhorne, PhD. The second was a primer on how to create a utopian society by modeling idealized human behavior, such as that found in “wholesome” 1950s Americana. Not just comic books, but television shows, movies, and children’s literature. The idea was to use these materials as How-to-Be-Human handbooks—make it so simple even a Xombie could understand. It helped that wild Xombies had a moony fascination with Clears and were inclined to do what they said.
All day long, Langhorne addressed variations of the same question: What was the purpose of all this?
To which she would reply, “The purpose is to have a purpose.”
“That’s it?” Julian Noteiro asked on Day One. “So what we’re doing is just totally arbitrary?”
“Not at all, Julian. We are preserving certain familiar archetypes—just as our bodies are preserving human physical characteristics, which are equally obsolete. We are doing this because each of us is an archive of human traits—a walking, talking time capsule—and someday our survival as a species may depend on how much we remember of being human.”
“But what if we don’t want to be human?”
“Then we may forfeit that choice forever. That’s the challenge we must confront: whether to jettison the mortal definition of humanity—its ‘soul,’ if you will—or try to preserve it. Life as a Xombie is very inviting—we all feel the pull. No need to think, no need to worry or wonder or doubt. No need to do anything but float in eternal bliss—that euphoria which some of you have taken to calling the ‘Gulf of Toyland.’ The problem is, our minds are not equipped for infinity, and I believe there’s a danger of getting lost in it, losing our way back. The only landmark in all of time is our residual humanity—that’s our sole point of reference, our one small island in an eternal sea. Lose touch with that, and we drift out into the unknown, our finite consciousness expanding outward until it disperses like smoke, leaving our bodies empty vessels, ripe for plucking by whatever alien will is constantly insinuating itself upon us. In other words, we will become true zombies—that’s zombies with a ‘z’—mindless slaves to that controlling intelligence.”
“How do you know that intelligence isn’t God?”
“Yeah,” others agreed, “maybe it’s God. Maybe we’re supposed to submit to His will.”
“Maybe,” Langhorne said. “Or maybe it’s the Devil, did you think of that? Although in a contest between the Devil and Uri Miska, I’d put my money on Miska.”
At lunchtime, I went into the cafeteria. There was no food being served, but many students had brought their own lunches, according to instructions. Since Xombies only needed a tiny fraction of all this food we were eating, most of it passed right through us undigested. The bathrooms became popular student hangouts.
In the cafeteria, I noticed something odd. Blues and Clears were not sitting together.
All my original Dreadnauts had assembled at one table, and I automatically went over there.
“What’s going on?” I asked Julian Noteiro.
He was tentatively peeling a hard-boiled egg. I wondered where he had found it. “What do you mean?” he asked.
“I mean why is the room divided up like this?”
“Oh, that. Yeah. I didn’t really notice.”
I went to a table of Clears and sat down. These were all boys from the boat, not strangers, and I knew most of their names. Speaking to a guy named Virgil Kinkaide, I asked, “Why aren’t you guys sitting with any Blues?”
They ignored me.
“Excuse me,” I said. “I believe I asked you a question.”
Instead of answering, they all got up and stationed themselves at another table. Intrigued, I followed and sat down with them again. When they tried to get up once more, I grabbed Virgil by the ear and slammed his head down on the table, pinning his neck with my elbow.
“What do you think you’re doing?” he squealed.
“What is this? Why can’t I sit with you?”
“You’re Blue.”
“What?”
“Blues and Clears don’t sit together. Go sit at a Blue table.”
“Are you serious?”
“Blues sit with Blues, Clears sit with Clears—everybody knows that.”
“Why?”
He seemed reluctant to answer.
“Who came up with this?”
“All of us. Yesterday, on the bus.”
“I wasn’t on the bus.”
“Well, now you know. So deal with it.”
Interesting, I thought.
After lunch we had Gym, which initially consisted of tryouts for various sports teams: football, baseball, track and field, gymnastics. I recoiled from any of these, having only negative associations with school athletics programs. But there was also to be a marching band. When I saw that the band consisted entirely of Clear guys, I immediately signed up.
“You can’t do that,” said the Clear band captain, a bearded Ex named Henry Bartholomew, whose nephew Jake was one of my best Blues.
“I just did.”
“Well, go and unsign. We’re full up.”
“I’m staying. So deal with it.”
“There’s no way. What are you, ten years old?”
“I’m eighteen.” But he refused to admit me until I said, “I have an idea. Why don’t you go complain to Principal Albemarle?”
Instead of facing big blue Ed, he disbanded the band. After that, the Clears withdrew from most official school activities, forming clubs of their own.
I could sympathize to a degree. In this world, Blue was normal; Blue was the mainstream. Clears could, of course, choose to look Blue, camouflage themselves to resemble everyone else, but that required constant effort on their part, a burden none of the rest of us was subjected to. So it was either accept the strain of conforming, or give up and be … different. They chose to be different.
I chose to join the cheerleading squad. I was intrigued by the idea of being a cheerleader, as it was something I never would have considered in my mortal life, when my physical awkwardness, small size, and bad attitude relegated me to the society of misfits, making anything to do with sports or “school spirit” loathsome. Also, my mother called cheer-leading “Red State porn.”
After school, Lemuel came up to me, and haltingly asked, “D’uh, hey, Lulu, would you like to go to the malt shop with me?”
“Jesus, Lemuel, cut the moron act.”
“Sorry—it’s just that Dr. Langhorne wants us to stay in character. We’re supposed to be examples to the others.”
“Are you sure that’s all it is?”
“Well … ”
“Because I’m not really your girlfriend, you know. I mean, if there even is such a thing anymore as boyfriends and girlfriends. I don’t have those feelings; I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have those feelings, or you just don’t have those feelings for me?”
“I don’t know. What the hell difference does it make?”
“It makes a difference to me.”
“Fine! I have no feelings.”
Lemuel seemed slightly placated. “So how about the malt shop? A bunch of us are going.”
“Yeah, sure, why not? Malt shop—unbelievable!”
When we arrived at the malt shop, the joint was humming—literally. There was a large generator out front spewing exhaust. But the power was on, the neon sign was lit, and the jukebox was playing “Sugar Sugar.” It looked cozy and hospitable, but once inside I could see that Blues were only sitting with Blues, and Clears with Clears. Sal DeLuca sat slumped at the lunch counter, arguing with Emilio Monte, who was dressed like a short-order cook.
“I ain’t makin’ no fifteen hamburgers,” Emilio said.
“B
ut you have to,” Sal insisted, pointing his finger at the pages of a comic book. “It’s right here. It’s my character.”
“I don’t care if it’s your character, the point is I got no meat, kid. No meat, no buns, no cheese, no lettuce, no onions, no tomato. Also no gas to cook it on, you understand? All I got is whatever’s left in tin cans. The refrigerators work, but there ain’t nothing in ’em. You bring me a cow and a charcoal grill, and I’ll make as many hamburgers as you can eat.”
“Well, what do you have?”
“Ah,” Monte said, raising a finger. He leaned down behind the counter and emerged with a box of crackers and a big glass jar. “How do you feel about pickle chips on stale Saltines?”
Before Sal could reply, the door burst open. From out of the darkness, a large, skinned carcass slid across the checker-tiled floor, leaving a red swash. It was a deer—a big buck.
“There’re your hamburgers, Emil,” said former commander Harvey Coombs. He was wearing a coonskin cap and holding a propane gas cylinder on one shoulder. Following behind were Dan Robles and Phil Tran, both dragging sacks of foraged wild goods: potatoes, onions, carrots, various greens. There was a whole truckload of the stuff outside.
The dead animal shocked us—death of any kind was disturbing to those who could not die. I suspected this was one of Langhorne’s tests.
As the restaurant went silent, Emilio Monte stormed out from behind the counter, yelling, “I just waxed this floor!” Ranting about the mess, he slipped on blood and went airborne, crackers flying, and landed flat on his back. The pickle jar shattered, launching sliced gherkins in all directions.
Sal said, “That’s no way to make a buck!”
Everyone laughed and laughed. The new Xombies were slower on the uptake, but quickly caught on, screeching like hyenas. Then the laughter abruptly petered out. The scene was over, no point running it into the ground.
CHAPTER SIX
Xombies: Apocalypso Page 5