Walter Greatshell - Apocalypse blues

This is it, I thought.

The web of cracks burst inward, the witch's hands peeling apart the safety glass like a membrane and her grinning, black-eyed face thrusting through at me. Trapped in my seat, I could hear myself making a high-pitched whine from deep in my throat. Just then Cowper stamped hard on the brakes, causing the whole unmoored wire contraption and every Ex on it to go flying off the car in a jangling heap.

Finally, I could see again. We were clear of the traffic, clear of maniacs, and dragging our flopping treads down a tree-lined drive toward some kind of factory complex. The trees gave way to parkland, then a high fence and a series of concrete barricades. It was the end of the road, in every sense. Cowper turned off the dying motor, and we sat there in silence. My ears were ringing.

I was about to say the place looked deserted when a brilliant light filled the car. It beamed down from above the fence, from a hidden platform. Bathed in phosphorescent white smoke, we couldn't see a thing.

"Hold up your hands." Cowper held up his own, fanning identification cards like a poker hand. "Fred Cowper here!" he shouted. "Referred by James Sandoval!"

For a long moment there was nothing, then a voice shouted, "Step out of the vehicle!"

We climbed free of the car, keeping our hands up. Cowper had an old leather satchel slung from his shoulder. Again, he called out, "Fred Cowper here! Fred Cowper-don't shoot!"

A different voice called down, "Fred Cowper? We thought it was the Mexican Army. What'd you do, take the scenic route?"

"Who's that? Chief Reynolds? Beau, you know I'm cleared with Sandoval!"

"That was three weeks ago. We gave up waiting for you."

"Goddammit, I'm here now! Open up!"

After an unbearable pause, the spotlight went off, and we could see men with guns lined up on a high catwalk and makeshift guard tower. They were not soldiers, but some kind of private security force-what my mother called "rent-a-cops." Others below waved us toward a cagelike revolving door in the fence. "Hurry!" they shouted. "Run!"

As we made for it, something charged from the shadows between barriers, something naked, blue, and low to the ground. I barely saw it before gunfire erupted from a dozen places at once, and the thing was knocked over, spouting flesh. It was a headless torso riddled with holes, trying to get back up on its hands. Then we were inside the door, pushing as hard as we could. But it only revolved a quarter turn before crashing against the bolt, trapping us inside.

"Who's the girl?" demanded a stunned-looking sentry.

"Sandoval said I could bring someone," Cowper said. "Open the damn gate!"

"Girls are supposed to be quarantined."

"That's only if they might turn. She has a medical condition that stops her from maturing. Look at her-does she look seventeen?"

"She's seventeen?" All the guards nearly jumped out of their skins, as if I were liable to snatch their guts out.

Impatiently, Cowper replied, "You morons, if she was gonna, she already woulda. Don't you get it? Where's Reynolds?" As he spoke, I saw a ghastly figure appear out of the hazy twilight, racing along the outside of the fence toward us. We were pinned in place; it could grab us right through the bars.

"Let us in!" I screamed.

"I guess it's Bring Your Daughter to Work Day," said the man Reynolds from above. "All right, go ahead," he ordered. "Let 'em in." The gate swung open, and we were jerked through, half-deaf from the fusillade around our ears. I had never heard shooting before. It wasn't like the movies. Something squishy slammed against the bars just as we jumped clear. I didn't want to look. I could've cried to be among people again, and tried to thank them, but any man I approached reared like a spooked horse.

"They're a little traumatized," Cowper observed, taking me aside. "Send 'em a thank-you note."

Reynolds announced, "Hold your fire! That thing's got more holes than the goddamn Albert Hall." At his command, a man swaggered past us wearing a tank on his back like an exterminator. Using a sparking device, he ignited a pale blue pilot light at the end of his weapon and pointed it at the writhing pulp outside. Liquid fire sprayed through the gate. Its oily yellow glow cast all the men's unshaven faces in gold, making them look like combatants in some Hollywood spectacle.

"Cowper!" called Reynolds from above. In the waning torchlight, he, too, looked heroic up on his crowded platform, like Napoleon reviewing the troops, but he was obviously extremely annoyed about us traipsing through the scene. "Get that girl out of here before somebody shoots her by accident. They'll fill you in at Building Nineteen."

"I have to go to the Front Office," Cowper said.

"The Front Office is restricted to company executives and NavSea."

"Since when?"

"Since you'll find out. Now go."

"I want to talk to Sandoval."

The other man's laugh was mirthless and distracted. "Sandoval's a little scarce these days, along with the rest of the suits in upper management. Talk to Ed Albemarle."

"Ed Albemarle? From Finishing?"

"He's in charge of you people. Better hurry-it's after curfew."

I had no idea what they were talking about, but Cowper was plainly troubled by it, and that was enough to disturb me. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"I retired here after twenty years," he groused, nodding to himself. "That was after serving twenty in the Navy, and you're gonna tell me that son of a bitch won't talk to me? He'll talk to that asshole Coombs, but he won't talk to me? Bullshit. I served with Rickover, for Christ sake! I got more experience than both of them assholes put together. We'll see about this…"

He started leading me away, but just then the man with the flamethrower was sent outside the fence, and we were caught up in the sudden, expectant lull. "Why is he doing that?" I asked, appalled.

A hyper young guard standing nearby said, "That's Griggs; he's hard-core. 'Have Flamethrower, Will Travel.' First time I saw it I was like, 'Whoa!' It's his job to make sure nothing's left wiggling on the doorstep that might creep in your bunk later on. Somebody's gotta do it!"

In spite of his heavy fuel tank, Griggs moved lightly, a black silhouette against the settling dusk, pilot flame darting back and forth. Every few seconds he would let loose a dripping gust of fire down the concrete hedgerows, as if trying to flush game. Just before he reached the last row, I saw movement. Something large, pale, more crablike than human, had been hiding in the smoldering wreck of the car. Now it rose at him from the murk.

He was ready for it, unleashing a billowing yellow plume that met the thing and swallowed it whole. But in that gorgeous light, Griggs must have seen what we all saw, captured in midair like a camera flash: four garish monstrosities, jittery-fast in the sepia light as creatures in a bizarro silent movie, coming at him from either side. In that split second, Griggs knew he was dead. I knew the feeling, too, and perhaps because I had been wrong, I expected something to intervene, to save him, but when the nearest one-a feral harpy wearing a coat of greasy flame-caught Griggs up in her blazing rapture and bellowed into his face with a mouthful of fire, lips peeling back like bacon, black teeth gnashing, hair a crackling torch, then covered his mouth with her own as the others piled on, I could only whimper, "No, no, no…"

Shocked cries and gunfire rose from the men around us, then were drowned out by the double explosion of the car and Griggs's tank. A fireball like an immense Japanese lantern rose into the sky, radiating debris and baking heat. It enveloped the watchtower, sending men ballooning upward and dropping them like charred scarecrows. Reynolds was caught completely off guard. I saw him up there just before the fire-cloud hit, and he seemed to be looking off into the distance. Perhaps he didn't much care that the air was suddenly sucked from his lungs, or that the chill evening had become a blast furnace. Perhaps, like Griggs, he already knew he was dead, having seen in that baleful light the hordes of Xombies emerging from the trees and scrambling across the grassy divide toward the fence.