Sandoval answered by stomping the accelerator to the floor. As the passengers held tight, the ambulance rammed straight into the drums, bouncing them across the deserted intersection.
Squawking like a radio announcer, Sandoval said, “Empty water drums—brought to you by your good friends at Slave Labor, Inc. If it’s a shitty job, it’s gotta be Slave Labor!”
Keeping up the momentum, he charged over sidewalks and across parking lots, using a GPS device to avoid blocked streets as he raced out of the city. Clearly, the whole route had been painstakingly mapped out ahead of time. James Sandoval didn’t leave room for errors.
“What about your people back there?” Ray asked.
Sandoval said, “My crew have been slipping away for the past week, and the few that are left are taking full advantage of this diversion. Don’t worry about them; they know how to take care of themselves. We’ll all meet later at the rendezvous point.”
“What about the Apostle?” Deena asked.
“He’s just been cannonized.”
Straining up the steep grade of College Hill, Sandoval illegally took the bus tunnel through to the East Side, then hurtled down back streets of formerly expensive residential neighborhoods, swerving around abandoned cars as he crossed a bridge over the Seekonk River. On the other side, he turned left through an oil storage depot and, a moment later, pulled to a stop in a deserted boatyard.
In an ordinary summer, this lot served a small fleet of pleasure craft; now there was only one. Moored at the end of the dock was a striking three-masted yacht. The sight of it almost made Sandoval’s four passengers weep with relief.
Picking up the CB microphone, he said, “I’m here, Chandra.” There was no reply. “Chandra?”
“What’s wrong?” Ray asked.
“Probably nothing. Stay here.”
Sandoval got out of the vehicle, taking a shotgun and leaving the engine on. They watched as he walked to the dock ramp, scanning every corner. The whole area appeared to be deserted. Good.
The yacht looked untouched. It was a hell of a thing: a custom-built sixty-foot sloop, lacquered gloss black, with teak decking and ribbed orange sails like dragon’s wings. It resembled a futuristic Chinese junk. The elegantly scrolled name on the stern was La Fantasma. Ray knew this boat inside and out, having spent the previous summer working on board, transporting it from Sandoval’s estate in Venezuela across the Caribbean, then all the way up the East Coast along the Intracoastal Waterway.
Sandoval studied the yacht for another few seconds, then started down the ramp to the dock. When he reached the middle, cut off from all help, the trap was sprung.
There was a diesel roar, and a huge riot vehicle crashed through the doors of the boathouse and blocked the road. At the same time, dozens of Adamites leaped out of hiding places in the overgrown brush, brandishing automatic weapons and surrounding the ambulance. But they kept their distance, obviously well aware of the girls’ explosive vests.
The Apostle Chace appeared.
He rose like a phantom from inside the yacht. It was a deliberately big entrance; he knew he was resplendently silly in his Holy Roman Emperor regalia, replete with towering hat and gold scepter, flanked by hooded bodyguards. But the little folk so adored these exorbitant displays, and Chace was nothing if not a people-pleaser. Savoring the moment, he grandly descended a plank to the dock.
To Sandoval, he said gravely, “Et tu, Jimbo? I knew you had to be the ringleader.”
“And you the ringmaster.”
Addressing the witnesses, Chace said, “Well, as you all can see, it looks like we’ve had a serpent in our midst, a liar and an imposter! Our friend and ally the Prophet is not what he pretended to be—not a friend, not an ally, and not a prophet. In fact, he isn’t a holy man at all, but an unholy one! And here he is! Brothers, I’d like you to meet the little man who caused this big fraud: James Sandoval!”
The soldiers erupted in furious boos and catcalls.
“Who is he, you may wonder, and how did he pull the wool over our eyes for so long? I was fooled, too, I admit it! Well, look at him! So aristocratic, so smooth. But we shouldn’t be surprised. Satan is a master of deception. That’s his MO; he’s a scam artist who will masquerade as our fondest desire, tempt us with false idols and false hopes, then stab us in the back. But in the end, liars will always be found out. Even the King of Lies will be exposed. Suffer not these false prophets, these she-males and Elvis impersonators. Let us drive them into the light of Heavenly justice, just as Christ drove the demon pigs off a cliff!”
Opening a parchment scroll, Dixon put on a pair of reading glasses and declaimed, “James Sandoval, you are all hereby charged with blasphemy, heresy, and conspiring against all the Angels, Prophets, and Living Saints, in the person of Their chosen representative on Earth!”
Sandoval laughed. “You mean you?”
“I am now Prophet and Apostle rolled into one. How plead ye to these charges?”
“Ye? Come on, ye can’t be serious.”
“Oh, the charges are extremely serious.”
“Well, I don’t acknowledge your authority, Torquemada. Go stick that in your hat.”
Delightedly, Chace cried, “Guilty! Did you hear that? Did you all hear that? The accused has freely confessed that he denies the True Prophet! By rejecting the Apostle of Adam, he rejects Adam’s Word!”
“Adam doesn’t give a damn about you,” Sandoval said, “and neither do I.”
“Guilty! To deny the authority of Lord Adam’s appointed vassal is to deny Adam Himself, and to deny Adam is to deny Our Heavenly Father.”
“You know what? I’m not really religious, but I seriously doubt that God needs any help from a bug like you.”
“Guilty! The accused admits to opposing Our Lord and Savior. ‘Not really religious,’ he says, which is the same thing as saying he is irreligious, antireligious! There is no middle ground—the Lord accepts no compromise! Therefore, it becomes our solemn duty to save this man from eternal suffering. To scourge his physical body that he may repent and be saved.”
The guards seized Sandoval and forced him to his knees. Striking a dramatic pose, Chace cried, “O Heaven bestow thy Flaming Rod, to smite the Foe of Man … and God!”
Chace raised his scepter. It was made from an electric cattle prod: a forked steel bar wrapped in kerosene-soaked rags, with a copper core and an insulated handle. When he flicked the switch, a blue-white spark bounced between the poles, igniting the rod in a wreath of yellow flame. At night the effect was quite spectacular. He swooshed it back and forth a few times for good measure.
“Now, Heathen,” he said ominously. “Tremble before the Mighty Scourge of Heaven!”
Sandoval’s defiant face twisted away from the burning staff.
That’s when the ambulance came to life, popping into gear and lurching forward. Several disciples barely had time to leap aside as the vehicle charged. Gathering force, it smashed through the dockside railing and shot out over the water, landing hard. The hood buckled, and the windshield caved in. In seconds it sank out of sight. No one emerged.
“What the hell was that all about?” Chace asked.
“I think you just lost all your Immunes, buddy.”
Dixon’s eyes widened with comprehension, then hardened. “That’s okay. That’s okay. All it means is we have to speed up our train schedule. We have enough doses left for a couple of weeks, and I’m pretty sure there’ll be no shortage of Immunes once we get to Xanadu. I’m not worried.”
“You should be. Those people will defend themselves, and you’re not immune against them.”
“They won’t be expecting us. We’re the Peace Train! We’ll come tooting in there like Thomas the Tank Engine, and they’ll never know what hit them. The only ones left when it’s over will be the Immunes.”
“Then I guess you have nothing to worry about.”
“You got that right, Jim. But you do.” He raised the sizzling torch. “You definitely do.”
> “I guess I’m caught in a trap,” Sandoval said.
“Yes, you are.”
“I can’t walk out.”
“No, you can’t.”
“You want to know why?”
“Why?”
Out of nowhere, there was a blast of amplified music, and a booming voice sang, “BECAUSE I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH, BABYYYY.”
Chace jumped in surprise, craning his neck to find the source. “What the hell?”
It was coming from the top of a giant oil tank. There were people up there, a whole rock band. The soldiers hurriedly fell back to see better.
“What is that?” Chace demanded.
Awestruck, one of his men said, “It’s the King.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
FREE CONCERT
The singer’s face was partially obscured behind large sunglasses and a glossy black forelock, but the weirdness of that familiar husky voice jerked the heartstrings of all below, as though they were hearing a voice from a tomb. He wore a white suit with bell-bottom pants and a silver-ornamented jacket with an upturned collar. He was frozen in a running stance, only his leg jerking to the drumbeat, and on either side of him were rows of disco-dressed Xombies, all matching his moves with perfect precision.
“No it isn’t,” Chace said with dawning wonder, climbing the dock ramp. “It’s Miska.”
A series of small pyrotechnic explosions went off, raining showers of cool sparks down on the troops, then the boatyard was filled with the sound of a Hammond organ and electric guitars … and suddenly Elvis was moving! He was singing and dancing! The guards started cheering uncontrollably as the long-deceased King rocked above them, his pelvis thrusting and his sexy undead dancers thrusting in sync. The song resumed in an explosion of energy. It was deafening, booming down from a dozen speakers: a command performance of the Elvis classic “Suspicious Minds.” And it was beautiful.
Resistance collapsed before this surprise live appearance by one of the greatest entertainers of all time performing one of his greatest hits. It was insane. It was impossible. Yet it was good. Hardened warriors who hadn’t felt such joy in years gave in to the pure bliss of the moment, grinning uncontrollably as they rocked to the beat and sang along with the choruses. When the song ended, wild applause broke out, men whistling and howling for an encore. The ovation was deafening, causing Dixon to shake his head in wonder.
Elvis called out, “Thank you very much!” then vanished from the roof. The Xombies scattered with him, abandoning their instruments and costumes like a squad of poltergeists. Suddenly, it was very quiet.
Gathering his wits, Chace said, “Son of a bitch, my rod’s gone out.”
He turned around to deal with Sandoval, but Sandoval was gone. As Chace’s eyes traced the only path the man could have taken, he was blinded by the sun glaring off the water … a glare that had not been there before. Something else was missing. His mouth dropped open as he realized the cheap magician’s trick that the Devil had just played on him.
The yacht had disappeared.
As the EMT vehicle sank, freezing water had galvanized its stunned passengers to action—air bags or not, that crash had hurt. Trading breaths from an oxygen mask, they waited until the ambulance was completely flooded, then Ray led them out the broken windshield. He was a good swimmer, a champion in summer camp, but the water back then was never so cold.
Surfacing their heads in the narrow space under the dock, they could hear loud music starting above.
Ray said, “Okay, this is it—wish me luck.”
“Fuck luck,” Todd said. “Just hurry, dude, I’m freezing.”
Working his way to the end of the dock, Ray took a last deep breath, then ducked below and swam under the yacht. Its draft was quite shallow for such a large boat, designed for scuba trips on Caribbean reefs. Knowing he was taking a dangerous gamble, he felt his way along the keel to the dive well, praying the external hull panel was still off.
The panel was to cut drag when under sail, but in port it was left open as a convenient latrine for the carpenters since there was no other working toilet. As beautiful as La Fantasma looked from the outside, the vessel’s interior was still all raw plywood, its planned refurbishing postponed indefinitely by the long work holiday of Agent X.
The dive well was open, a mirrored square under the hull. Crashing his reflection, Ray came up in the dim green light of the well, gasping for air. He was shivering uncontrollably, his nose dripping blood. It was so cold he could see his breath. The second door was just above his head, a watertight hatch into the main hold. It, too, was open. Barely able to feel his extremities, Ray cautiously climbed the ladder and peered above the raised rim. Immediately, he realized there was trouble.
To his left, through the doorway of the galley compartment, he could see a woman’s legs—presumably the legs of Sandoval’s associate, Chandra Stevens. Her legs were awkwardly splayed as if she were unconscious or dead. There were signs of a struggle and food ransacked from the storage bins. To Ray’s right rose the aft companionway, at the top of which were two heavily armed men staring out the port-side window. There were many more weapons lying loose all over the cabin: shotguns, pistols, machine guns, rocket launchers, grenades, and multiple cases of ammunition.
Too cold to wait, Ray grabbed a loaded revolver, and said, “P-p-put down your g-guns or I’ll shoot.”
One of the men spun with his shotgun, and Ray surprised himself by firing first. It was loud and quick: the bullet struck the man in the chest, and he tumbled down the stairs. The second man froze and set down his gun.
“Whoa, whoa,” he said. “We’re cool, baby, we’re cool. Damn, did you just swim up in here?”
“What did you assholes do to her?” Ray demanded.
“The doctor lady? Nothing, I swear! She hurt herself resisting so hard—hurt us, too. But we weren’t about to kill her; she’s too valuable to lose. We just wanted to throw in with y’all since we could obviously use each other’s help. Chace is gonna make this his personal flagship, and he needs an experienced crew. I’m Brother Lake Snyder, and that poor bastard was Father Frederick Arnott. But it don’t matter now—what matters is obviously you’re somebody who can get shit done. We need people like you for the big march on Washington.”
Barely listening, Ray knew something had to be done fast, or the people under the dock were going to die of hypothermia. He said, “Okay, take all your weapons off, all of them. You’re going for a swim.”
“Are you crazy? I can’t swim!”
“Do it! Do it now!” He stepped aside to give the man room.
Lake Snyder wavered, then disgustedly shed his arsenal and peered into the green light of the well. “This is ridiculous.”
“Get in there, or I’ll shoot you!”
“No you won’t,” said the dead man from the floor.
Turning, Ray felt something hard strike him behind the knees, causing a bright flash of agony. Going down, he thought, Dummy. As the men seized and disarmed him, he could see that the man he thought he had killed was wearing a bulletproof vest. Just playing dead—of course.
“You got him, man!” whooped Brother Snyder.
Just as he said this, a woman’s face rose out of the dive well behind him. It was one of the Immunes, the one named Fran. Her lips blue with cold, her long hair stringy as wet seaweed, she held the oxygen tank from the ambulance, and before either man could react, she brought it down like a sledgehammer on Lake Snyder’s head.
“Shit!” cried Father Arnott. He went for his gun, but Ray kicked him in the face and fought him for it. It was a short fight: the older man was much bigger and stronger, an experienced warrior, while Ray was just a skinny kid who liked to dance. As the man broke Ray’s grip and knocked him over, there was a loud bang, and Father Arnott toppled to the deck with a hole in his head.
“Gotcha,” Sandoval said from the top of the stairs.
“What’s going on?” Ray asked.
“I just cast us off. We’re drifti
ng out with the tide, and in a minute I’m going to fire up the engines.”
“How? Where’s Chace?”
“Chace decided to stick around for the encore.”
Deena and Todd emerged from the dive well, both shivering uncontrollably. Ray closed the hatch behind them, dogging it tight, then he went to see about Chandra Stevens. He knew her only slightly as one of Sandoval’s many science connections, along with Alice Langhorne and Uri Miska. In the aftermath of Agent X, they were a very select group.
Propped in a corner, the gray-haired woman was conscious, her eyes trying to focus. When Ray reached for her face, she twisted away, moaning.
“Relax, it’s okay, I’m just taking the duct tape off your mouth.”
She went limp, nodding.
As gently as possible, he peeled the tape off, and said, “I’m just going to untie you, okay? Hold still.”
“Who are you?”
“A friend. I’m here with Jim Sandoval.”
“Jim’s here?”
“Yes.”
She relaxed and closed her eyes as the engine rumbled to life.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
SAILING
Ray Despineau awoke to the smell of coffee. For a long time he just stayed in his bunk, enjoying the thumping motion of the waves, his bleary eyes scanning the familiar bookshelf.
Lots of sailing books: knot tying, navigation, and other basic seamanship. A few old-timey sea stories: Treasure Island, Two Years Before the Mast, The Sea-Wolf, Melville’s White-Jacket and Typee. He had read them all.
He felt pretty good, though his memory of recent events was sketchy. Even not-so-recent events: In the first few minutes of waking, he forgot everything that had happened since New Year’s Eve. He blanked out the entire Xombie Apocalypse and imagined he must be aboard Sandoval’s boat for a pleasure cruise, perhaps to Bermuda. That would be awesome. Flashes of something unspeakably hideous kept poking through the calm, but he refused to think about it.
He heard snoring from the lower berth and leaned over to see who it was. It was a familiar face, the face of a friend, yet also a face that had no business in that boat. A face that instantly evoked everything they had lived through together for the past six months. Todd Holmes. Todd’s ratty, scorched dreadlocks told the whole tale.
Xombies: Apocalypso Page 19