Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

Looking at the floor, Kranuski jerked back with a start.

"That head's been in here."

"What head?" asked Webb.

"What head? The head! That fucking head! Fred Cowper's head!"

"I thought it went down the TDU."

"That's what Langhorne originally said she did with it. Now I'm not so sure." Kranuski fidgeted for a moment, scanning the nooks of his quarters. He could barely look at Webb; suddenly he felt dangerously vulnerable, as though he had made a critical error in chess. Gathering his composure, he asked, "How are the preparations coming along for getting under way?"

Webb was studying him closely. "Everything looks ship-shape. We ran a test on the A induction valve but couldn't trace the glitch-probably a bad sensor. The tube itself seems to be working all right. Other than that, all critical systems are in the green. The tide's just hitting peak. If we pull anchor now, we can run right out on the current."

"Good. No word on those shore parties?"

Alton Webb's broad face remained blank. "No, sir."

"All right." Kranuski sighed. "Prepare the bridge for surface maneuvers. Get everyone on station. Let's get the hell out of here."

"Dad, Dad…" Bobby cries, panting as he approaches the exit booth. He can hear a tinny radio voice saying, "-the public is instructed to wait in their homes for the duration of the emergency, with the exception of essential medical, law-enforcement, and military personnel. To maintain critical lines of communication, phone usage is restricted to-"

Behind the fogged windows, his dad is bent out of sight, only the humped back of his brown garage uniform showing as he fiddles with something on the floor. Bobby opens the metal sliding door with a crash. "Dad-"

A silver-haired, steel blue mummy stares out at him. The ghoulish creature is wearing his dad's brown coat and stooping over the big man's lifeless body to remove the key ring from his trousers.

Bobby starts to scream, but the grim specter lunges at him and claps a long, rough hand over his mouth, pinning the boy's frantic body in a painfully tight bear hug.

"Shhh," admonishes the monster. In a voice that is slow and deep and oddly gentle, it says, "Don't worry, I'm not one of them. I didn't kill him; he killed himself. I just found him this way."

Now Bobby notices that his dad's shirtsleeve is rolled up and there is a blood-filled syringe hanging out of his arm. Bobby knows all too well what that means, knows it is the reason his parents had been through counseling and finally gotten divorced, but this final cop-out is not something he is prepared to accept.

Kicking wildly, Bobby tries to bite, to escape, to scream, He didn't kill himself! He didn't! He never would!

Out the back of the garage, across the exit driveway and beyond the overflow parking lot, Bobby can see a man riding a sputtering motorcycle down Fountain Street. The man is being pursued by dozens of crazy, half-naked blue people, mostly women-the street is full of them. The motorcycle's engine keeps coughing and dying, and its rider keeps kick-starting it, barely keeping ahead of the pack. But the running stalemate can't last. Finally, the man realizes it's hopeless and ditches the bike, trying to dodge his attackers on foot. In final desperation he pulls a handgun out of his jacket and fires at the nearest one, popping away uselessly as it tackles him. A hurtling police cruiser swerves hard around the trouble and keeps right on going. There will be no help coming.

The terrible blue man releases Bobby and stands back. "We have to go up," he says, indicating the concrete ramp. "Up top. It's the only place."

Shattered by shock and grief, Bobby moans, "Why? Why is this happening?"

"Don't you know? Ask yourself what the King of Kings has in common with a monarch butterfly, then provide the means of mass production. But wait, you say: Where is our crucifix, our chrysalis? Do we weave a cocoon around our heart… or cast it in Portland cement?" He lurches out of the booth and starts up the ramp.

"How come you're not like the rest of them?"

"Argyria-silver toxicity. Occupational hazard. I was blue before blue became the new black."

The man is clearly nuts, but Bobby is still alarmed to see him go. "I can't just leave my dad here!" he cries.

Without a backward glance, the man says, "Then you'll join the millions of other satisfied customers."

Bobby falls on top of his dad and weeps: "I'm sorry… I'm so sorry, Dad. Why did you do this? How could you leave me here?"

The voice on the radio continues to drone. "-BBC World Service reports that a similar crisis is sweeping Europe and Asia, and that the UN Security Council is convening an emergency session-just a moment… just a moment, please. I have just received word that due to technical difficulties we will be going off the air in five minutes-"

Then Bobby kisses his father's cool, bristly cheek and gets up. "I'll come back as soon as I can," he promises tearfully. He goes out and gently shuts the door.

Out in the rain and sleet, those other blue people are approaching, pouring out of doorways and becoming an insane mob, a whirling, insectlike swarm that overwhelms everything in its path. Stragglers at the outer fringes are nearing the garage-any second now, they'll see him.

Bobby still doesn't understand why the old man's skin is blue-blue like them-and yet he obviously doesn't want to be caught by those things any more than Bobby does. That's what prompts the boy to follow.

Trying to be as inconspicuous as possible, Bobby ducks low and scuttles up the ramp, relaxing a bit as he rounds the first turn and is out of view of the street. He still can't see the old man-where does the weirdo think he's going? The roof? Bobby has been all over this garage from top to bottom, and he knows it's a dead end. The only refuge up there would be in the stairwells or the elevators-dismal places where drunks piss and women occasionally get raped. Is that it? Is the man luring him up there to kill him… or worse? Somehow Bobby doesn't think so. For one thing, if the strange man had wanted to murder him, he could have done it right in the garage booth, and for another, Bobby hardly cares anymore.

From outside, Bobby hears echoes of the chaos engulfing the city. He hurries up. At the top of the ramp, where it opens to the sky, Bobby can see the man standing atop the huge concrete cylinder that supports the spiral exit ramp. "In here," he says, offering Bobby a hand up.

In where? Bobby thinks dully, taking the boost and finding himself precariously balanced on the edge of a deep chasm. Whoa. The pillar is hollow inside, a vertical concrete tube thirty feet wide and three stories tall, with rusty rungs protruding from the wall. It shocks him out of his lethargy.

"The Green Heart," the man says, starting down.

Clinging to the narrow ledge with both hands, Bobby stares at the top of a small tree. He doesn't like this, but the city outside is hardly more promising: There are fires everywhere and sounds of mass panic. He has already been out there and doesn't want to go back. Following the old man's lead, he straddles the curved wall and lowers himself to the first rung. It's a long drop if he slips. Hanging on for dear life, hugging the concrete, he makes his way down. At one point he almost screams, thinking sharp claws are digging into his back, but it's only the bare branches of the tree. There is grass below, and clumps of weeds. The cylinder wall is covered with velvety green moss. Hurrying down the last icy rungs, he drops to the ground. The noise and chaos seem far away, softened by the patter of drizzle.

The place is an overgrown garden, just thirty feet in diameter, with several small trees and a grassy hummock in the center.