Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

Grimly, I said, "You were home, weren't you? You heard us."

He scowled, nodded. He didn't look at me. "You shouldn't have been out there," he said gruffly.

"We didn't know."

"Well, goddammit, you should have known!" Suddenly he was spitting with exasperation. "Don't you think I'd've let you in if I hadn't known the bastids were out there? They were there the whole time, and you two standing on my porch like there's nothing funny!"

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry!" His temper abruptly dwindled, and he shook his head, saying, "I was gonna let her in. After you left, I was gonna take a chance and let her in." The old man's face contracted as if squinting into a high wind. "But they came first. They came running like a pack of hyenas, and she saw 'em before I did. Before I could do anything, she was gone-"

"Okay," I said sharply, not ready to hear everything.

"That was when I got it in me to go. Take Sandoval up on his offer-why not?" His cactus-bristled cheek quivered. "I figured maybe I could get to you before… uh…"

He was very upset. It scared me and took me out of my panic. Trying to sound strong, I said, "And you did. You did it, Mr. Cowper. You saved me." I started to cry.

"Don't thank me just yet," he said.

Suburban sprawl gave way to industrial blight. Fenced-off tracts of land were posted, PROPERTY OF U.S. NAVY-KEEP OUT and WARNING-RESTRICTED AREA-USE OF DEADLY FORCE AUTHORIZED. It was reassuring in a way, though there was no sign of life. Any authority, however brutal, sounded pretty good. I craved the sight of men with guns the way a person lost in the desert craves a drink. For that matter, I was thirsty, too.

Coming to a dusty crossroads jammed with abandoned vehicles, Cowper was forced to slow down to a reluctant stop.

"Don't stop," I said shrilly.

"I have to," he said.

"What about that median strip?"

"It's too narrow. Hush up!"

There were no Exes (it was too awful to think of them as Xombies) in sight, but adrenaline lanced through my veins like quicksilver as I scanned the myriad hiding places. I tried to remind myself of how much time my mother and I had spent out in the open without knowing the risk, but that only alarmed me more. Cowper, too, showed nervousness as he bounced us through a rough three-point turn, squealing the tires. Finally, we were on our way. It was a short respite: after backtracking a couple of miles, he stopped the car between two empty pastures and got out.

I thought he was angry, but he leaned in, and said, "You want a bite to eat?"

Surprising myself, I opened the door without hesitation. My legs supported me. It was late in the day, but enough light penetrated the hills on either side to give ample warning of any threat… I hoped. Skittish as a rabbit, I joined Cowper at the rear. He was making a great deal of noise manhandling some devices of wood and chain link-they looked like screens for sifting clams. Leaning them against the bumper, he took out two small coolers and a rolled-up blanket.

"Spread this out on the grass, will you?" he said, handing me the picnic items. Seeing my disbelief, he added, "Go on, I'll be right with you." Then he began placing the screens on the car, and I realized they conformed to the shapes of the windows. He had devised them to belt across the top and fasten by hooks beneath the fenders. When the job was complete, the SUV resembled some kind of demolition-derby hot rod. "Should've really had these on the whole time," he said. "Looks like a damn lobster trap, but at least they fit like I hoped."

The daredevil look of it scared me, as if we were going to attempt a stunt. I wanted no contact with those creatures, however protected. As he came up the embankment to join me, I said, "Won't they just hang on to those?"

"Nah… Well, as long as they don't get in. Hey, it's better than nothing. It was all I had to work with."

"No, it's good. It's great."

Less reassured than I would've wished, I kept my peace as we shared a meal of Rhode Island delicacies: cheeseless slabs of cold pizza, stuffed quahogs, pickled snail salad with yellow peppers and mozzarella balls, and gritty little cornmeal patties called jonnycakes. Once I got the first few bites down, I found I could eat, though I kept crying all over everything. To drink there was bottled lemonade-"For scurvy," he said-and a Thermos of coffeemilk. It was chilly to be outside in the dead of winter, but as we sat and ate, I could feel my dread loosen its grip. In shock or not, I could breathe again.

"Thank you," I said.

He replied offhandedly, "Might be our last meal. Oughta make the most of it."

I stopped chewing, feeling the food like a brick in my stomach. "Where are we going?" I asked.

"I don't want to get your hopes up. You'll see. We're almost there."

Just as the sun began to set, moving figures appeared in the distance, and we packed up and got under way.

Returning to the traffic jam, Cowper slowed to bump the car up onto the highway divider as per my earlier suggestion. But as soon as we were on that narrow island, I realized why he had taken the extra measure with the screens: the median was scarcely wider than the car itself, hemmed in on both sides by bumper-to-bumper traffic. Driving along that cramped passage was unnerving-there could be no U-turns, no reversing at any speed. And the soft, grassy track seemed to go on forever.

Cowper didn't seem unduly concerned. "Once we turn right at the intersection, should be clear sailing," he said. "Long as we don't get stuck in the mud."

I put my faith in the elderly gent, though as we neared the end I didn't like the look of things. This was no mere traffic jam, but an abandoned military roadblock. Through the misting windshield I could see relics of recent violence: shoes, broken glass, bullet holes, and spent shells everywhere. But no bodies.

Shadows flitted between the cars. I drew up my legs under me.

"Here they come," I said.

They came in droves, like paparazzi. One minute our path appeared to be clear, the next it was choked with rushing bodies that hurled themselves at us willy-nilly. Cowper accelerated, trying to mow them down, but even the most brutal impact did not seem to prevent many of them from clinging parasitically to the window cages. In minutes it became pitch-black inside the car, the windows draped with writhing, naked monsters. All credit to the driver for keeping us moving-I don't know how he did it.

"How can you see?" I yelled over the pounding.

He ignored me, scrunching up his gnome face to peer between the cracks. Absorbed in his futile task, Cowper was bottoming out, hitting the horn again and again like a cranky old codger. I wouldn't have minded, except his horn played the festive strains of "La Cucaracha" and seemed to energize them.

Several times we crashed into other cars, and I wasn't sure if it was accidental or Cowper's attempts to shake off our foe. If intentional, it failed, because for every Xombie we lost, we gained three by losing speed. It reminded me of a grisly nature film I'd seen showing cattle set upon by vampire bats. Also, the car was falling apart: I could hear the wup-wup-wup of flat tires, and smoke began pooling around our legs. We didn't have long to live.

I remembered those radio reports referring to Agent X as some kind of disease, but it was incredible to me that these things could be in any way considered sick. They were superhuman, nothing stopped them. I could even tell that some were smart. One female Xombie-a blue woman who straddled the hood like a fierce, Celtic witch-had no trouble figuring out the arrangement that kept the screens in place, and began unhooking the straps. In seconds the whole thing was loose, held in place only by other bodies, and she battered its frame against the windshield, starring the glass.