Walter Greatshell - Apocalypso

Ascending to the Food Court on the top floor, Todd and Ray sat down to a dinner of “stew”-what the cooks called stew. It was a lot of random canned things poured into a pot and heated together-in this case tomatoes, green beans, beets, tuna fish, and hominy. It actually wasn’t that terrible, but Ray had no appetite.

As they finished and prepared to leave, they were joined by Captain Barnstable, who took them aside, and said, “I have a message for you guys.” He looked shaken and preoccupied. As if coming to a difficult decision, he asked, “Did you say you talked to Elvis?”

The boys were wary. Todd said, “We haven’t seen him lately, if that’s what you’re asking.”

Barnstable leaned close and palmed Ray a folded square of toilet paper, “This is from the Prophet to all of us. He asked me to show it to you. I suppose that must mean he thinks you can be trusted.”

“How do we know you can?”

“Just read it, then eat it.” Barnstable walked away.

The note read:

This is Jim Sandoval, your Prophet. An assassination attempt has been made on my life, and I have reluctantly accepted an offer of sanctuary by the Evians. They do this in full knowledge that it is a breach of their inviolate status, but know it is imperative that we prevent Chace Dixon and his followers from committing a heinous crime in the name of our Lord Adam. As most of you already know, Dixon intends to wage war on the innocent human beings at our nation’s capital. What you may not know is that he has a nuclear missile at his disposal and is gathering a trainload of other heavy weapons. That train is being outfitted as a war machine, an engine of destruction, and within days or weeks, it will begin its terrible journey south. We must not allow this. I hereby authorize any and all resistance against Chace Dixon and his supporters.

“What the hell, man,” Todd said despondently. “Figures we’d find ourselves in the middle of a fuckin’ jihad.” He noticed the intensity of Ray’s expression, and said, “Don’t sweat it so hard, man. This shit has nothing to do with us.”

“Todd, I’ve gotta try and break Sandoval out of there.”

“Huh?”

“You know how I called him ‘uncle’ before? Well, the truth is, he’s been more like a father to me. He took me and my sister in when we had no place else to go, and he’s the only family I have left now.”

“Are we talking about the same guy here? This is Chairman Sandoval.”

“Yes.”

“How come you never told me about this?”

“I never told anyone. He swore me to secrecy so I’d be allowed on board the boat with the rest of you. Truth is, I was too messed up after the death of my sister to talk much about anything. But if it weren’t for Uncle Jim, I would’ve never known about the sub. He saved my life. I have to at least try to return the favor. But I’ll understand if you don’t want to take the risk.”

Todd was offended. “Screw you, man. Of course I’m going to help you, that’s not the issue. Do you even have any idea what you’re going to do?”

“No. But I’m thinking we need to create some kind of diversion, like what happened with the Reapers. Then, in all the confusion, I sneak into the women’s camp and smuggle Jim out.”

“Assuming he even wants to go. We don’t know what he’s got going on in there. We could get ourselves into deep shit for nothing.”

Ray nodded. “No, you’re right. I really need to talk to him first.”

“Oh, is that all? And just how, exactly, do you plan on getting in there?”

“Maybe I’ll dress up as a woman.”

“Yeah.” Todd looked him over skeptically. “Good luck with that.”

When Agent X hit, Ray Despineau and his big sister, Brenda, were on the road.

It was midnight, New Year’s Eve, and Brenda had a splitting headache. They had been trapped in traffic for more than nine hours, all routes south inexplicably blocked by police and armed troops. Through sheer gall, their driver had managed to bully his way to an off-ramp, but the situation was no better on the streets below. They should have been at the plant by nightfall; Uncle Jim would not be pleased.

“Happy fucking New Year,” muttered their burly limo driver, Apollo, knowing the axe would fall heaviest on him. He was desperate for a toilet break but was punishing himself with the discomfort. His passengers had overcome their own aversion to peeing in plastic cups from the minibar and dumping it out the windows.

“It’s okay, Apollo,” Brenda said. “It’s not your fault. There was no way of knowing the roads would be blocked off like this.”

“I knew we shoulda had a police escort, a big official motorcade. But the bastards wouldn’t give it to us, and now I see why: They were all pulling fucking traffic duty. God-damn flagmen. This is bullshit.”

Suddenly, everything went crazy: a lunatic orchestra of car horns, sirens, alarms, people screaming and yelling- and gunfire. The amount of racket was astounding even for midnight on New Year’s Eve. But very quickly, Ray, Brenda, and Apollo knew something else was going on.

Car crashes! Ray could hear a ridiculous smashing and screeching of tires up on I-95, just a never-ending pileup, hundreds of cars in a row-crash, boom, bash! Their own car was underneath the highway, near the I-195 interchange, so this was all happening right over their heads. Glass rained down, and Ray could see fires up there and hear bloodcurdling screams… and then people started falling! Just jumping over the highway barrier and slamming into the street below like sacks of potatoes.

Drivers started pouring out of their cars, wondering what the hell was going on. Cops screamed at them to get back inside their vehicles. Others just went crazy, hitting the gas and crashing into the traffic around them, like mad bumper cars. As Ray watched, an ambulance swerved into the opposing lane, busted through the line of cars, flew off the road, and hit a freeway pylon-kabam!

All this was bad enough, but what freaked him out the most was when everybody started fighting all of a sudden. Wherever he looked, there were these weird struggles going on: people trying to either kill or kiss one another-it was hard to tell which. But in either case, they were going at it like crazed wildcats, men and women both.

Some of them-a lot of them-looked oddly blue. Blue women ran in from all over, jumping out of cars, tearing their clothes off, and running naked down the road. They all had the same freaky black eyes, shark eyes, and they just swept in from out of nowhere like sharks joining a great big feeding frenzy. Only instead of eating you, they… kissed you. Kissed you and killed you and sucked the living breath right out of your body. Then you came back as one of them.

Ray saw it happening more and more, everywhere he looked. Clothes were shredded; blood was shed, blood both red and black. But one after another, the normal folk were taken down, even the toughest-looking dudes turning into two-legged blue sharks, adding their fevered lust to the frenzy. Crazy was winning, the night overthrown by eye-popping, blue-in-the-face, hysterical lunacy.

The horrible spectacle was not lost on Apollo. He said, “Belt yourselves in and hold tight.”

“What are you doing?” Brenda asked.

“Getting us the fuck out of here.” He shifted into reverse and stomped on the gas.

The limo was a customized 4x4 Escalade, armor-plated and with bulletproof windows and tires that wouldn’t go flat even with big holes in them. Apollo drove it like a bat out of Hell even in normal circumstances-he was a retired Secret Service agent, picking up extra change providing personal security for Sandoval’s “family”-so all at once, they were plowing clear of the mess, making a U-turn, and flying around car wrecks and fight scenes like a star quarterback running for a touchdown. The northbound lane was much less congested, but now they were going in the wrong direction, heading back into the city. A number of other cars were right behind them, piggybacking on the SUV’s momentum.