Walter Greatshell - Apocalypticon

He could see bodies and parts of bodies floating down all around him, all the myriad bits and pieces moving independently, a glowing exodus from the barge's ravaged hull. His attention was drawn to the surface, up to the brightest lights of all, a great raft of votive candles bobbing on the waves. A human chandelier of living beings, survivors-fast-burning tapers of mortality, soon to be snuffed.

It was a fleet of boats to which the men had escaped and where they were now consolidating their survival, gathering their forces, and planning their next move. The futility of this effort wrung Sal's dead heart like a tragic chord of music: If they only knew.

Sal wasn't the only one; all the Xombies yearned to in tervene, but they were too heavy to swim, and in any case, the ebb tide was against them, pushing them downstream like a powerful wind. It was more than the tide: There was something else drawing them that way, a distant choir calling for them to come. So they walked with the current as though the river itself was the glorious force of their longing, as marchers in a vast candlelight vigil, parading down a valley to a rendezvous at sea. A final revival.

Across the intervening depths, Sal could sense many familiar auras: Lulu, Kyle, Russell, Derrick, Freddie, and most of the other boys from the shore party; Ed Albemarle, Julian, Jake, Lemuel, and Cole; Voodooman and a whole host of former Reapers, as well as Chiquita and many fallen Kalis, now shed of their masks and the mortal fear that imposed them. Even Uncle Spam was there, his riven body made strangely graceful in this octopus's garden of algal mats and junk cars. All were innocents again, baptized by the purifying waters of Agent X. Children of Uri Miska.

Born again, Sal was called back to the steel womb from which he had come, to the place they were all being shepherded: back to the boat.

The next day they went for a walk. It was easier getting out of the cylinder than it had been getting in; turned out there was a small padlocked door at the base, hidden behind the bushes. Bobby felt funny, but for once he wasn't the least bit afraid.

Downtown Providence was dead, totally deserted, and as they strolled down Fountain Street, Bobby and Joe had to tread carefully over broken glass and other wreckage that had issued from burnt-out shells of buildings. Most structures were still intact, however, particularly two enormous masks of comedy and tragedy, which had been fashioned out of steel mesh and hung above the sidewalk. The masks contained black nests of bones-the charred remains of many women.

Circling back, they came to a massive brick edifice, the Providence Place Mall, which had been designed to resemble the mills that once dominated the city skyline, and it did, overshadowing even the great marble State House. The mall overlooked an artificial pond, and actually straddled its polluted tributary canal, which meandered sludgily under an archway beneath the soaring windows of the food court.

The old man was whistling a familiar tune, "This Land Is Your Land," when they saw the horsemen.

There were four of them, tattooed berserkers on blinkered police horses, and they burst galloping from a hidden tunnel by the skating rink. There were vehicles there, too, and other, more monstrous beings on foot: steel-stitched grotesqueries charging from every direction.

Man and boy didn't move, standing their ground as the horde swept down upon them.

"STOP WHERE YOU ARE," croaked an amplified voice. "SURRENDER AND YOU WON'T BE HARMED."

The boy was still not afraid; he found all this very interesting. There was an unearthly beauty to the scene: those brilliant horses and riders, bodies glowing like molten metal, and the flesh-armored infantry glimmering through their seams like banked coals. They burned with life-it was consuming them from within as though they were walking, talking jack-o'-lanterns. Which in a sense they were. If nothing was done about it, they would soon burn out and turn to mush. So sad.

One of them had a megaphone. "I AM MAJOR KASIM BENDIS OF THE NEW UNITED STATES. KEEP YOUR HANDS WHERE I CAN SEE THEM."

Surrounded, covered by dozens of automatic weapons, Joe and Bobby stood in the center of a shrinking circle of long, bladed pikes. The sight of all those sharp points triggered a knotty feeling in Bobby's stomach-a thing he realized was fear. It was like remembering something from long ago, a regression to infancy: the forgotten dread of potty training or something equally ridiculous. He could only grin in embarrassment.

The leader handed off his megaphone and approached them. "Uri Miska, I presume?" the man said, keeping his distance. He was a tall, handsome man, with wavy black hair and a neatly trimmed mustache. "You can't imagine how much this means to me, finally meeting the great man in the flesh. Father of the Mogul Cooperative, chief engineer of the Maenad nanocyte, architect of the Xombie apocalypse-the list goes on and on. But you don't like to take credit for that, do you?

"You probably don't recognize me, but then I'm not surprised-Colonel Sanders probably didn't know who plucked his chickens, either. I've served your organization for a number of years now. A private contractor, one might say, strictly freelance. But it's not really your organization anymore, is it? Not since Sandoval took over the project. Is that why you unleashed the plague? Personal revenge? Did you think you could just vanish into the blue? That's an interesting condition you have, by the way-blends right in. Very clever. As a soldier, I appreciate the value of camouflage.

"But maybe you don't need camouflage. No one walks in the open anymore unless they have confidence in their own immunity. Look at us, burdened with the crude instruments of our resistance. Now look at you: no guns, no protective gear, acting like nothing could be more natural than taking a pleasant stroll on a sunny Sunday morning. It's obvious that you've found a cure-and kept it for yourself.

"Well, the time has come, the walrus said, to talk of many things: of lack of sex since Agent X, and lonely buggerings. That's the New World as we know it, Uraeus, and I am the walrus."

Averting his eyes, the old man said, "Yes, yes, I know you. You're the handyman-the one who will fix anything for the right price. I know they bought you, just like they tried to buy me. Now they want to steal what they couldn't buy. But I tell you what I told them: Everything comes to he who waits."

"I've waited long enough," said Bendis. "This is a barter economy, so I'm offering you a trade: your Tonic for the boy's life."

Bendis gave a signal, and suddenly a noose was around Bobby's throat, dragging him backward.

Hemmed in by a ring of spears, the old man just shook his grizzled head in disappointment. He looked broken and pale. Very pale-in fact, white. And as the blue pigment evaporated, Joe Blue's face seemed to fill out, it's withered features smoothing and hardening until he resembled another person entirely… until he was Uri Miska. In the flesh.

"Can't you people take a hint?"

All at once, everything stopped. The Reapers froze, quivering in place as though their Xombie suits had suddenly turned to stone. They couldn't move. Muffled cries of alarm could be heard from their helmets.

Then, haltingly, they began to dance.

Jerking around like clumsy marionettes, they formed pairs and tottered from foot to foot, making stiff curtsies and pas de deux. Grabbing Bendis and his mercenaries, they launched into a violent tango, twisting the protesting men's arms from their sockets and snapping their spines. Dragged from his horse, Bendis realized his mistake and managed to pull the pin of a hand grenade. It went off at his belt, blowing bits of man and horse in all directions, kicking the party into high gear. The street was a monster's ball, with men's harrowing screams as the orchestra.