Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

The others were beginning to notice the effect as well.

"Damn, dude, we ugly," said Freddy, rolling his spiky scarecrow head as though snapping out kinks in his neck. "But this shit really works."

"Just so long as we can get it off again," grumbled Ray.

"Don't say that, man. Don't even say that."

"Okay, Sal, what now?" The boy didn't answer, and Todd repeated, "Sal?"

"Quiet," Sal said. He was frozen in place, facing the clear wall of the tent. Suddenly, everyone realized what he was looking at: Dozens of frightful human shapes were standing outside, their black manes and machetes blearily visible through the plastic. There was no mistaking those exaggerated female silhouettes.

It was the K-Thugs-the terrible Kalis.

Rich Kranuski was in the belly of the ship, the "snake pit," looking for the source of a particular glitch that kept cropping up in one of the pressurized hydraulic manifolds, an area classified as a "hazardous system" because its failure could jeopardize the boat. No one else had been able to trace the problem, and he had finally taken it upon himself to have a look. Without being able to dismantle the system, there was not much point to looking except perhaps as an act of self-abasement, a final wallow in the mud before reinstating Coombs and placing himself under arrest.

It was better than being on the bridge with all those eyes on him-anything was better than that. Everyone was so strange all of a sudden, watching him as though he was some kind of monster, and the aft section had become so quiet. The boat felt empty. He couldn't stand it.

Poking around the subflooring, a region called the Yellow Brick Road for its painted blocks of lead ballast, Kranuski shined his flashlight up into the jungle of pipes and braces under the auxiliary machinery room. That was when it would have been really useful to have a crew of experienced chiefs on board. Unfortunately, I don't.

Somewhere nearby, he heard a splash. Sweeping his flashlight aft across rippling puddles of oily bilgewater, he saw something like a blurry white octopus slip out of sight between two swash plates.

Shit, he thought. There you are.

"Cowper?" he called, feeling at once terrified and ridiculous. "Come out and show yourself."

For a moment there was nothing. Then, from the shadows came a low moaning sound, like a Siamese cat. It almost sounded like words, but Kranuski couldn't decipher them. Another fluttering splash.

"Hello?" he said. "Come out, or I'll shoot." Feeling his way aft under the low ceiling, he crept toward the source of the noise.

He was beginning to think the thing had disappeared, that he had lost it or it had never been there at all. Impossible. Then, in a corner, his flashlight beam picked out a white bulge, half-concealed in the nook beneath a rusty gusset plate. It was pulsating, wet, and slimy. It can't be, he thought. It's fucking absurd. He cocked his service pistol.

Nearing the spot, Rich could feel his gorge rise. The thing-whatever it was-was in a blind hole; he had it cornered. For better or worse, he was about to come face-to-face with the cause of so much fear and despair over the last three days, the thing that had not only brought the ship to its knees but made him question his very sanity. He aimed the gun, point-blank.

"Fr-Fred?" he croaked softly. His heart was slamming so hard it hurt his chest. "It's all right, I'm not going to hurt you…"

Cautiously approaching, keeping the object centered in his flashlight beam, he squeezed into the space with it… then stopped. Kranuski's anxious face flushed, collapsing into a frown-What the hell? Letting out his breath, head throbbing, he stepped over the intervening steel frame and picked the thing up.

It was a ball of dripping wet rags in a white handkerchief, on which eyes and a mouth had been crudely drawn with grease pencil. The bundle was fastened to a length of nylon fishing line that ran up through an access panel in the floor above.

Incredulous, unable to form a coherent thought, Kranuski followed the line up, sticking his head out the opening in the next deck.

"Sorry, Captain," said XO Webb, and hit him in the head with four feet of galvanized pipe.

"Oh shit," Freddy squeaked.

"It's them."

Sal nodded, trying to control his drumming heart. His first thought had been Xombies, but Xombies didn't have attitude. These things were posing out there like comic-book characters. Not mindless Harpies then, but the blurred figures of demonic, coal black goddesses… or rather, goddess impersonators: Tarbabies. K-Thugs. Worshippers of the Hindu goddess Kali-the Black One. Pitiless arbiters of their nightmarish New Age religion.

One of them took a last drag from a cigarette and flicked it overboard. "Come on out, babies," he called. "Joo-hoo! Stop comparing dicks and get out here. That chamber ain't no toy-it's off-limits. You done got us outta bed, so you best come out and explain what you think you doin'."

"No way," hissed Sal. "Fuck that-fuck it. Everybody take your weapons and get ready to make a run for it."

"Don't be stupid," Todd said, "they'll blow our brains out."

"I don't see any guns, do you?" Sal unsheathed his samurai sword. "They don't carry guns." With two great swings, he hacked an X in the tent wall, nicking the inflated support columns so that air started whooshing out. Todd tried to grab him, to hold him back, but their skinsuits bristled at the contact, folds of flesh ruffling wildly and knocking them apart. It was like touching a live wire.

"Guys!" Ray shouted. "Something's wrong with Freddy!"

The smaller boy was on the floor having some kind of seizure, his stumpy legs kicking and his hands clawing at his throat. There was a gap between his helmet and the rest of his suit, and Sal realized that he had not fastened the helmet's mesh cowl down properly: the collar of Freddy's flesh cape had tightened on his exposed neck like a noose. The Xombie skin was strangling him.

"He's choking!" Ray cried. Suddenly Freddy leaped to his feet in panic and dove for the tent flap. "Stop him!"

Sal tried to tackle Freddy around the legs but was unable to get a handhold because of the repulsion effect. He knew that if they let the kid get away, he was going to die, but nailing him was harder than catching a greased pig. Ray and Todd flung themselves at the boy from both sides, trying to knock him down and rip his helmet off, but Freddy had the inertia of pure panic, bowling through them and tumbling to the deck amid the encircling Kalis. Caught off guard, the convicts leaped back in surprise from the convulsing, flesh-suited figure at their feet.

"Help us!" Sal shouted at them, as he and the other two boys scrambled clear of the collapsing tent. "It's killing him!"

Ignoring their plight, Chiquita demanded, "Why you little fuckers dressed like this?"

"We wanted to be Reapers," Sal replied frantically, unable to remove Freddy's helmet. "We thought we could impress you! Hurry, please help him!" The younger boy was already unconscious, possibly dead, which meant that in a few seconds he was going to become a Xombie.

Chiquita's eyes narrowed to sharpened flints behind the baleful leer of her mask. "Joo lie to me? Oh no, I don't think you wanna lie to me. Peoples that lie to me will never lie again." He removed his massive syringe from its arm clip, squatting down and pressing the tip against Freddy's constricted throat. "It's very inneresting," he said. "If you die inside this suit, what do you think happens?"

"Help him, or I'll kill you!" Sal cried, rearing up with his sword. Suddenly a loop of rope came out of nowhere, dropping over his upper body and yanking him backward to the deck-it was the actual Reapers, standing above on the container stacks. Roused from their beds, they were out of sorts as well as out of costume, plying their rodeo skills in fanciful silk pajamas. More ropes came down over the other boys, the Reapers jumping down to secure them, careful not to touch the twitching flesh of their suits. There was no sign of Voodooman.