Walter Greatshell - Apocalypso

Ashleigh held up a small walkie-talkie. “I told them-with this! I told them, and I’m glad I told them! Yes! That’s right! Because those men are trying to do the Lord’s work, and it’s our job to help them, not sell them out to Miska!”

“Oh my God… ”

“You might well pray for Eve’s mercy, because you’ll have none from me!”

“Oh my God, you crazy bitch… ”

Ray felt boiling-hot tears running down his frozen face, and before he knew what he was doing he slapped the girl. The instant he did it, he regretted it. Ray had never hit a girl in his life, and hitting a misguided teenager was just wrong. But there was no taking it back.

Ashleigh immediately returned the blow, clawing Ray’s cheek with her long, painted nails and attacking like a wildcat. Stunned by the furious assault, he fell back, ducking and dodging the girl’s clawed hands. Ashleigh was clearly experienced at catfighting, a natural street brawler. Ray hadn’t been in a fight since grade school, and he didn’t want to be in one now, but the girl was all over him, punching and scratching and kicking as hard as she could-which was very hard.

“Stop it, stop it!” Ray cried, defending his eyes from those sharp nails.

Ashleigh drove even harder, her baby-doll features twisted into a mask of rage, spittle flying from her mouth. The left side of her face was bright red from his slap. In panic, Ray suddenly realized that no one was going to save him; that if he surrendered or showed weakness, this maniac might kill him, so he started fighting back with all his might. Pinwheeling his arms, he landed a lucky blow to the girl’s jaw-crack!-and just like that, Ashleigh went down.

She went down hard, looking pitiful and frail, just a kid really. Ray knelt to help her and found she wasn’t breathing. Oh God, he thought. Not this. Please not this.

“Help!” he cried. “Somebody help! We need medical attention here-it’s an emergency! Anybody, please help!”

No one seemed to hear, and Ray decided to try CPR. He remembered there was some song you could use to time chest compressions-was it “Stayin’ Alive”? Suddenly, something hit him like a wrecking ball. The force knocked him a good ten feet. Stunned, he looked back to see a strange figure straddling Ashleigh’s helpless body.

It was the girls’ dog-the ugly pig-dog.

Only now the animal looked almost human. It had human hands and a childish human face, its skin mottled pink and black, and its eyes two dark marbles. Those bulging, manic eyes fixed on Ray, and he shrank in horror to realize he was alone, unarmed, and trapped in a fence with this grotesque hybrid monstrosity.

But the thing was not interested in him. As he watched, it cradled Ashleigh’s limp body in its hands and leaned down as if to kiss her. To Ray’s horror, it did kiss her, the dreaded Xombie kiss. Black demon lips cupped pink human ones and proceeded to suck face… but then something unusual happened:

Instead of collapsing, Ashleigh’s chest swelled with air. At once the girl coughed to life, not as a hellish Maenad but as a normal human female. Her attacker let her go and spit something on the ground: Ashleigh’s bubble gum. The creature had saved her from choking.

Having done its good deed, the dog-thing now came for Ray. From its maniacal face, he knew there was no such benevolence in store for him, and he scrambled to escape, slip-sliding on the dewy grass. Dead I’m dead I’m so dead.

Just before the weird thing reached him, a pinpoint of red light skittered across its body, and it started coming apart. Ray hit the ground, thinking, Snipers! Whatever that laser sight touched magically exploded as if spring-loaded. Chunks flew from the dog-boy’s head and torso; its legs snapped like twigs. As the creature went down, incendiaries pelted the grass, flaring white-hot. It writhed in the fire, curling backward and inside out as it tried to flee its own burning flesh.

Suddenly a voice yelled, “Come on!” and a hand jerked Ray to his feet. It was Todd. He ran for the main gate, pulling Ray with him. There was an EMT vehicle there, a gleaming white ambulance with Sandoval at the wheel. He was holding a laser pointer.

“Wait!” Ray cried. “I have to get Ashleigh!”

“You can’t!”

“Yes!” Ray yanked free and ran to Ashleigh. She was sitting with her head down, hugging her legs. As gently yet urgently as he could, Ray said, “Ashleigh, we’re leaving now. Come on, get up.”

“No,” she said dully.

Suddenly, dozens of men began pouring out of the State House as if roused by an alarm. They rounded the building and took shooting positions on the hillside, preparing to unleash a hail of death upon the field. Ray knew he was as good as dead, trapped in plain sight.

“Ashleigh, please!”

“No! Stop!”

The guards were well drilled, adjusting their gun sights for perfect accuracy. They didn’t want to waste any ammunition-that stuff didn’t grow on trees. As they focused all their attention on their targets, they didn’t notice the earth itself rising around them.

A profusion of weird black spores uncoiled from the mud, spreading and growing, branching outward to form a web of vines that encompassed the entire hill.

For weeks the black sludge had been migrating underground, creeping through soil and pipes and groundwater as it converged on the capitol. This living tar was the pure Maenad essence-the boiled-down lees from a million cooked Xombies. Impervious to fire, these tough, long-chain fibers formed wormlike tendrils, exaggerated fingers tipped with rudimentary sense organs that spread faster than the most pernicious weed.

The snipers were oblivious to the wild activity around their feet. As the strands of dark matter proliferated, they also thickened and toughened, pulsing from within with vital juices. Fat globules formed at their junctions, splitting open like fibrous gourds to release vertical shoots that expanded to resemble hideous giant mushrooms, vaguely humanoid blobs that rose amid the oblivious snipers and jostled them for space.

Some of the men began noticing that they had been infiltrated by a second army, a gray, faceless corps, but before they could speak, the net contracted and engulfed them. Such contractions were happening all over the field, shloop! shloop! shloop! like coral polyps snapping shut, until the siege became evident to all, and wholesale panic broke out.

Scores of men disappeared, and for a moment the State House lawn was a garden of heaving human pumpkins, fast turning from red to blue. Then the vines relaxed, and all the new Xombies emerged.

Witnessing this, Ray said, “Ashleigh, come on.” He tried to bodily lift her, but she was like a rag doll, deadweight. Todd joined him, and together they picked her up. As they carried her toward the truck, Ashleigh suddenly looked at Ray with clear eyes. Her expression was so challenging that he searched for some cause… and instantly found it. She had torn the fail-safe tab from her vest. The detonator cord was in her fist; all she had to do was pull.

The instant she knew he saw, Ashleigh yanked the cord.

Ray dropped her, and screamed, “TODD! RUN!”

Taken by surprise, Todd was slow to react, but this time Ray grabbed him, and together they bolted for the gate. They could hear Ashleigh laughing behind them, her voice cut short as the entire face of the mall turned white and a wave of scorching heat blasted their backs. Blinding fireballs rained down on the truck as Todd and Ray dove for cover inside. Fran and Deena were waiting; they hauled the boys up and slapped out their burning clothes as the truck lurched into motion.

“Woo-hooo!” Sandoval howled. “I loves me some fireworks!”