Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

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-

– 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 realized 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!"

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.

And now, from the water, other beings began to rise. Slowly, ponderously, like mosquitoes being birthed from the husks of their aquatic larvae. First just eyes gleaming wetly, then whole gaping faces, mouths and noses streaming seawater, then rubbery-slick shoulders, trunks and gangling arms, finally naked blue feet treading indifferently through the polluted muck of the shallows, turning up rusty nails and broken glass secreted in the silt. The wire connecting them to the boat and each other was draped with slime-was it threaded through their bodies?

Lulu and her landing party passed the first of the still-glimmering braziers, a steel grate rising on a pedestal from the water, its contents now burnt down to a smoldering toxic slag of tires and plastic and crackling human bones. Black leaves of charred debris twirled slowly in the current.

The gondola scraped ashore at the foot of a concrete ramp, and Lulu stepped off without getting her feet wet. Ed Albemarle took the lead, all the rest trailing him in a loose V formation, their bodies strung along a high-tensile braided steel cable that was threaded through their spines and rib cages. The Moguls had wired them so for ease of handling, and the submarine's skittish crew had demanded they remain that way. Lulu was the only one able to walk freely.

She followed as they emerged on a waterfront path, a strip of parkland bordering a road, with quaint old buildings of brick and quarried stone on the far side. There was a little debris on the ground-broken glass, loose shoes, windswept paper, and other trash. The windows regarded them blankly.

"You're doing fine," said the disembodied voice of Alice Langhorne, piping from a tiny portable speaker. "Cross the street and keep going up. You're looking for Benefit Street."