Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

"Which way now?" Russell gasped.

"Why you askin' him for?" Kyle said. "Just go!"

There didn't seem to be much choice. They were walled in on three sides by several buildings-a church, the rear of the minimart, and a hardware store. Directly ahead, the alley opened onto a back street. Sal went that way, the others following close behind.

Meanwhile, the boys at the rear, who were still trying to get out the exit door, found themselves trapped.

"Hurry up!" they screamed, trying to crush through as leering blue Xombies entered the store.

Micah Franklin, the last kid in line, whose nickname on the boat was Sleepy because he walked around in a trance all the time, perpetually in shock because of the loss of his family, suddenly felt a hard, cold arm around his throat. Ah, damn, he thought, unsurprised. Then he was jerked backward off his feet and was gone. The same thing happened to Carl and Scott and Elijah, all snatched up as they climbed over one another to get out. With naked Xombies crashing through the windows, some guys broke and ran, trying to dodge or fight their attackers, and were picked off like rabbits. The last boy to leave the store, Aram Fischer, the boat's resident cardsharp, the con artist, could see Xombies coming up fast as he slammed the exit door. But there was no lock from outside, no way to secure it.

"Oh God oh God," he cried, trapped there with the door shuddering against his back. He could hear a hideous whinnying sound from the other side. "Somebody help me!" But the other boys were running away as fast as they could and not looking back. As he strained with all his might, the door popped open an inch, and a long arm slithered through the crack. It seized Aram by the face, thick fingers rooting in his eyes, going all the way up his nose. Before he had time to scream, it yanked him back inside, his legs kicking furiously.

Now Sal and the others were running down the street, trying to stay low as they scurried behind rows of cars piled up at the intersection. They didn't speak, but Sal could hear their gasps and sobbed curses as they caught glimpses of Xombies converging on the gas station, heard the sound of breaking glass. He hoped everybody got out. Any second now, those things were going to spot them, and it would be all over. They had to get off the street, out of sight, but anyplace they went would be another trap.

Face it, dude, we're screwed.

Even as he thought this, Sal felt that odd peace that always came over him during a race. Running, ducking, jumping obstacles, his attention streamlined into a familiar tunnel vision, everything focusing laserlike on a single goal. It was his training kicking in; he was conditioned to think under pressure. As an aspiring stunt rider, he had cultivated the mind-set of a kamikaze: In the heat of competition, you didn't have time to dwell on what was behind you, or the risks of the next jump-you just went. Fuck the law of gravity. You had to ride balls-out into the teeth of pain, grievous injury, possibly even death. Because that was the game. If you couldn't do that, you couldn't win.

They were emerging into a neighborhood of hip-looking shops and restaurants, past a futon store, an upscale bar. Nothing that looked very promising as a hiding place. Continuing up Brook Street, they passed a small market and a liquor store. "Liquor store!" Sal heard Freddy hiss at his back. Sal ignored him, kept running. That was all they needed-access to free beer. On the next block was a hole-in-the-wall video joint, then something that almost caused Sal to jump out of his skin:

A bike shop.

Q: Does everyone who dies come back to life, like in a zombie movie? A: This is a hard question. Not because we don't know the answer, but because it is so vital that we treat all those who are about to die as an imminent threat. But the truth is no, most people who die from causes other than direct Maenad infection-which means a Xombie attack-remain dead. The reasons for this are twofold: One, the person's tissues may be insufficiently saturated with the Maenad morphocyte to permit revival; two, a level of cellular degradation has occurred that makes revival impossible. Dead is dead-Agent X can't infect a body with any degree of decay. The only absolutely predictable danger is from those who have become infected spontaneously while still alive, such as menstruating women, and anyone who has been "expired" by them.

Q: So the dead are not returning to life? A: If a body has not revived within a few minutes of clinical death, it will not revive. This is not Hollywood. -The Maenad Project Xibalba…

They didn't waste any time arresting her, once it was clear she couldn't regain contact with her shore party. Dr. Langhorne didn't give a damn now that Lulu was lost.

Sitting with ex-skipper Harvey Coombs in the goat locker, unable to do anything but wait, she drifted in and out of the trance state that now constituted a good part of her waking life. Alice wasn't the only one. Nearly everyone on the boat was haunted by the past, visited by dreams and visions that came on so strong it was sometimes difficult to return to reality-the dead world refusing to let go, gripping tight as a Xombie. But Langhorne was a bit different in that the past was as loathsome to her as the present:

Alice! Help me-my legs are broken. That insistent voice, so hard to ignore, harder still to forget. Almost as bad as the actual sight of him had been, smashed and bleeding on the red-stained ice, pitiful as a dog maimed by a car. Helpless in a way that was alien to both of them; she could hear the disgust in his voice-the new and awkward experience of having to beg for help. Alice Langhorne understood perfectly; it was shocking to her as well, after all this time, at long last. But she kept moving, made herself keep moving. Toward the submarine.

Alice! What are you doing? Help me!

I'm sorry, Jim.

You can't leave me like this. Then, to her escaping back, I saved your life!

It was true. He had saved her life. Not out of love, though-God forbid. Their marriage, never about love or romance, had always been more of a business arrangement, a limited partnership with emphasis on the limited: Jim amp; Alice Enterprises. And she had been the silent partner, the spy, working as Jim Sandoval's personal mole into Uri Miska's organization, serving as a direct link to Mogul Research Division, a subsidiary of MoCo.

Had he ever loved her? Alice wasn't sure if Jim was even capable of such an emotion. She was useful to him; he valued her. Then again, she wasn't the most warm and fuzzy person herself, and the street ran both ways. Jim funded her research and provided the business and political connections that enabled the ASR project to be carried on without government interference-even if it was only so he could glean a hefty tax write-off-and she provided the product. But there was no denying that neither her work nor Miska's… nor Agent X itself… could have existed without the contributions of Chairman James Sandoval.

When the ASR prototype, the artificial microorganism that would come to be known as Agent X, got loose in the environment, Alice couldn't help but feel that it had been inevitable, a form of cosmic justice. Looking at those contaminated soil and water samples, she had to laugh: Why not add failure and professional disgrace to her catalogue of sins? And when both Miska and Sandoval had downplayed the threat, advising her to sweep it under the rug, she had no energy left to resist. Nor did she resist much when her ex approached her at the company Christmas party, just one short week before the epidemic.

They were on the top floor of the Biltmore Hotel, with a beautiful view of Providence, when he started blathering some nonsense about the installation of a research laboratory at a military base somewhere in the frozen Arctic-a place she'd never heard of, called Thule.