Walter Greatshell - Apocalypso

On one of these floes, an iceberg the size of six city blocks, Sandoval and Cowper came back to life.

“Oh my God,” Sandoval said, or rather tried to say-his throat was still crushed in Cowper’s grip. The choking was not what bothered him; it was the feel of Cowper’s alien flesh. “Get… off… me!”

Voice or no voice, Cowper’s headless corpse seemed to understand him. Having no more business to transact, it willingly pulled free, though their blue skin had bonded and required some nasty-looking tearing to separate.

Where am I? Sandoval wondered, staring with black eyes over the vast expanse of ice-strewn ocean. There was no land in sight. What am I? But he already knew the answer to the latter question-it was no mystery. Good thing, because he could hardly expect any answers from Fred Cowper. Looking at that ridiculous headless figure in its bloodstained hospital gown, then down at his own blue hands, Sandoval thought, I’m a Xombie-great.

As he came to this unbelievable conclusion, he suddenly realized he wasn’t the only one waking to a strange new destiny: The baboon that had kept him company in his last moments of life was apparently going to keep him company in the afterlife as well.

It lived.

They drifted for days, weeks, partially refreezing every night and thawing again in the sun. Cowper barely moved, facing south like a gnarled tree. The broken-necked baboon paced around the floe’s rim, occasionally staring at Sandoval with its head cocked quizzically to one side, as if to ask, “Am I dreaming?” I know the feeling, buddy, Sandoval thought. His crushed legs caused him no pain, but they prevented him from walking, so he took great interest in their healing process: the splintered bones softening like putty, and his newly prehensile muscle tissues kneading them back into shape-a shape he could actually control if he wanted to. Long and fast, or short and strong-or something else altogether? He was afraid to mess with the original design too much, lest he screw it up and never get it back the way it was. But the possibilities of this newly plastic body fascinated him.

All around him, he sensed life, an awesome profusion of microscopic organisms that made the sea look like a living nebula, an animated horoscope of swimming, drifting, dancing celestial bodies, all eating or being eaten. The life was thickest on the bottom, illuminating the topography, so that at night Sandoval felt as though he were flying high above a radiant red desert. He would have gladly walked across that desert to the distant shore of Canada, except he knew there were a lot of crabs down there, and crabs ate Xombies. Miska had designed them to.

By day there were seals, birds, whales, an occasional polar bear. But even the hungriest bear could make nothing of Sandoval, Cowper, or the baboon-they had no smell, no warmth, no presence. They weren’t living flesh, and they weren’t carrion. They were about as palatable as clay.

Then Sandoval remembered his pen. It was a special pen, a laser pointer with a GPS beacon, designed to direct aerial fire on ground targets. A powerful tool for playing God. But Sandoval no longer had any desire to play God; he just wanted to reach dry land. So he turned on the beacon and waited. And while he waited he remembered.

The chairman of the board, James Sandoval, was not surprised by sounds of gunfire filtering into the briefing room. He was already despondent over the shooting of a civilian employee at the company picnic though it had been far from unexpected: Bob Martino was a union organizer and chronic loudmouth from way back. Still, a terrible threshold had been crossed. Things could only get worse from here on out.

Sandoval and the NavSea leadership were sitting around the big conference table, watching a live video feed from the security cameras at the fence line, less than a mile away, where things were going downhill fast.

“Everyone off the fence!” the guards shouted, sounding like harried gym teachers. “Pull back, pull back!”

They were leaderless, rudderless, shocked by the sudden death of Security Chief Beau Reynolds, who had gotten blown up in a freak explosion while standing on his observation platform like a half-assed Douglas MacArthur.

Sandoval panned the closed-circuit cameras as guards were snatched off the scaffolds and abandoned the fence, retreating before the horror that they had dreaded and drilled for, but for which no one could ever be truly prepared. Perhaps some were even relieved that the waiting was over.

The main gate was on fire, its bright glow in the evening mist silhouetting a scene of desperate flight. Shots sputtered like strings of firecrackers all along the perimeter, and men could be heard shouting hysterically for ammo, for reinforcements, for God Almighty.

Whatever was outside the fence was mostly hidden by plastic slats threaded through the wires, but the crashing chain link gave clear indication of multiple climbers, a sound like a stirred-up monkey cage. White phosphorous and burning magnesium fluoresced brightly in the fog, strobing, and it was possible to see scores of flaming shadow puppets scrambling up the barrier.

Two figures stood apart from the confusion, looking weirdly out of place: a skinny old man in golf slacks and a dark-haired little girl in a green velvet party dress.

“Holy hell,” said Commander Harvey Coombs, staring at the monitor. “Is that Fred Cowper?”

“It is indeed,” said Sandoval. “I don’t know what he thinks he’s doing bringing that girl in here. Figures he’d pick a time like this to show up.”

“We could use his experience. He served on the original 726, didn’t he?”

“Yeah. Put in his twenty in the Navy, then did a full term here. He’s one of the real old-timers. Looks like he’s taking us up on our offer.”

“A little late. Can we get him, you think?”

“Well… it’s pretty hairy down there. I’d have to say no, and the girl is completely out of the question. It’s just too late-he had his chance a month ago and blew it. In a matter of minutes, that post will be completely overrun, and after that the compound is wide open. It’s critical that you men get to the boat right now… or you never will.”

Sandoval had a pang of regret saying this. At one time he had really hoped to get Cowper for this run. The man was a maverick, a hard case who knew subs inside and out and could be counted on to get the job done, red tape be damned. Rough around the edges, sure. A bit of a crank. Some people couldn’t stand him, especially those in the upper echelons of military/industrial middle management, but to Sandoval, that was the highest recommendation of all.

At least most of the executive committee was safely aboard the rescue ship to Diego Garcia-that was a load off his mind. His adopted nephew, Ray, had made it to the compound in one piece, though Ray’s sister had not-another good woman lost to the plague. And his ex-wife, Alice, had landed in Thule weeks ago to head up the science team. Sandoval had hoped to be away by now himself, but endless last-minute delays kept piling up until he was a whole day behind schedule.

From the sound of it, things would have to be accelerated a bit.

“Gentlemen,” he said, gathering up his things and breaking the hush in the room. “The corporation wishes to thank you for your efforts in securing the enormous volume of classified material stored at this facility. By your efforts over the past weeks, you have safeguarded the cream of naval war-fighting technology, as well as the very building blocks of American civilization, assuring that they will neither fall into the wrong hands nor be lost to future generations. Without your work, it would be impossible to do what I now propose we all do: get the hell out of here.”