Read Xombies: Apocalypse Blues Online
Authors: Walter Greatshell
Xombies: Apocalypse Blues (30 page)
Albemarle watched him for a minute, then shrugged, and said to us, “What are you waitin’ for? You heard the man.” We all followed behind.
It was hard going. The snow was tartlike, its icy crust just barely too weak to support a person’s full weight, so that every step ended in a plunge and a battle to break free. I kept losing my boots. In the time it took us to slog over, Mr. DeLuca was halfway to the top, working his way up a heap of rubble at the base of the wall. The bottom was steep, imprinted with a bulldozer’s curved blade, but it had collapsed in places, and wind-blown snow had formed deep drifts that rose high up the sides. He was using one of these as an awkward ramp.
“Could stand to have . . . some snowshoes,” he grunted.
“You’re okay,” said Albemarle from below. “You’re almost there.” He was heftier and less agile than DeLuca, and was treading the snow as if stomping grapes, trying to beat down a path. Suddenly he struck something underfoot and absently aimed his flashlight there. He stopped moving.
“What?” said Hector.
Albemarle slowly bent down and prized a large crooked object from the snow, holding it before the light.
It was a human arm gripping a .45 automatic pistol.
Rock-solid and perfectly preserved in its stiff glove and fur-lined sleeve, it looked like a limb from a mannequin. As we approached in sickly wonderment, Albemarle handed off the disturbing relic to his stepson and hunkered back down in the glowing scrape, his underlit face ghoulish as a grave robber’s. Hector took the arm as a matter of pure reflex, then didn’t know what to do with it.
The snow was full of bodies . . . or rather parts of bodies, tangled and bound together in the ice like freezer leftovers. Crablike hands and hairy heads and torsos and boot soles and pink-boned stumps all glistened underfoot. Everywhere we stepped, there was more. I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised at how calm we all were, considering how much we’d been through already.
“Gus!” Albemarle called, holding a tiny silver leaf pin up to the light. “Get down here!”
DeLuca had reached the top and was oblivious to what was happening with us—something on the far side of the berm had his complete attention. “Sweet Jesus,” he said in awe.
“Gus! Gus, you gotta see this!”
Shaking his head, Deluca said, “No, Ed, you gotta see
this
.”
this
.”
“There’s a bunch of dead airmen down here.”
“What?”
“A bunch of dead men under the snow!” He took the arm back from Hector and waved it in the air. “Look!”
DeLuca switched on his flashlight and shined it down. At that second there was a loud
ZAP!
and the flashlight tumbled down the slope, its bulb gone red. Other, larger objects were also tumbling, but DeLuca himself was nowhere to be seen. I blinked, not sure what had just happened.
ZAP!
and the flashlight tumbled down the slope, its bulb gone red. Other, larger objects were also tumbling, but DeLuca himself was nowhere to be seen. I blinked, not sure what had just happened.
Albemarle flicked his beam up the wall, then immediately turned it off, and shouted, “Everyone back! Back the way we came, fast!
Run!
” We all saw what he had seen, what was left of Mr. DeLuca, and we did not hesitate.
Run!
” We all saw what he had seen, what was left of Mr. DeLuca, and we did not hesitate.
Running in that deep snow was exactly the same as trying to run in a dream. You lunge forward as hard as you can, but your feet have no purchase and a maddening, dull force holds you back. It seems as if you are actually going slower than you would by walking. Our short sprint back to the road was such a Sisyphean ordeal, and just as we were reaching its hard-frozen shoulder, we realized it was no use anyway. The fence flew open and a blue school bus rolled out, wheezing to a stop before our frozen noses. They had us.
“Everyone get behind me,” Albemarle said, out of breath.
The door opened on a jolly Inuit waving us in. He was wearing a top hat. There was no one else on board.
“What the fuck, man?” wailed Shawn. “Why’d you assholes have to kill him? You didn’t have to kill him!” The driver’s big bronze face was cheerily befuddled, uncomprehending. He seemed to have no idea what was going on.
Albemarle raggedly told us to get on the bus, and what else was there to do? We trooped in like a work gang fresh from the gulag, collapsing into the front rows. I think we were more resigned than horrified. Personally I was grateful for the ride, even if we were just going to be returned to our doomed ghetto. And as the bus began to move, it did take us back the way we had come . . . for a moment. Then the driver found a wide enough spot in the road to turn around. Shortly, we returned to the gate and passed through with impunity, not that we cared.
In a low, cracked voice, Jake sang, “Eighty-eight bottles of beer on the wall . . .” Then trailed off.
Out the windows we could see what Gus DeLuca had seen.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
TWENTY-ONE
I
t was an airplane city, a City of the Planes, so crowded it was more rookery than airport, with hundreds of jumbo and lesser jets making up a dense belt—a great thorny briar of silver fins and fuselages—surrounding a many-lobed dome complex of such incredible size that at first glance I thought it was a glacier.
t was an airplane city, a City of the Planes, so crowded it was more rookery than airport, with hundreds of jumbo and lesser jets making up a dense belt—a great thorny briar of silver fins and fuselages—surrounding a many-lobed dome complex of such incredible size that at first glance I thought it was a glacier.
“Mr. Albemarle,” I said as we hurtled toward it, “have you ever seen anything like this?”
He spoke as if roused from a trance. “No. No . . . I don’t know what this is. Whatever it is, it’s not what’s supposed to be here. It’s not like any kind of air base I’ve ever seen. I don’t know what the hell it is.”
“Mr. Cowper said it would be a ghost town.”
“Well . . . it’s a boomtown now.”
“Looks like an aviation junkyard,” said Julian. “You know, a graveyard, like where elephants go to die.”
“Graveyard my ass,” said Cole. “These motherfuckers are livin’ large.”
He was right—as tangled up as they appeared, all the jets were draped like racehorses, warm and well cared for. We rolled down a boulevard surrounded by pristine aircraft of every type, from hulking 747s to sleek baby Gulfstreams, each one a giant aluminum flower in a precise arrangement. Far from being abandoned to the elements, these aircraft were
occupied
. Like RVs in a trailer park, they were hooked up to utilities, their bright oval windows aglow with toasty domesticity. Watching us pass from those windows were carefree men in bathrobes!
occupied
. Like RVs in a trailer park, they were hooked up to utilities, their bright oval windows aglow with toasty domesticity. Watching us pass from those windows were carefree men in bathrobes!
“Goddamn Happy Acres,” snarled Albemarle.
Amid the cozy fleet was a network of tent workshops and support equipment that was a village unto itself, populated by the breed of men who still had to labor in the cold. This was the essence of civilization, the haves and the have-nots, and it made me realize I’d been such a fool. Such a stupid little girl—what had I been thinking? That we had inherited the world? That we could demand some kind of justice? It was funny, really, my pathetic disappointment at having to accept a smaller role in the scheme of things. I had never seen it coming. Stupid me.
Alongside the trucks and tractors I could see a number of dogsleds, and for some reason this was comforting to me. The dogs didn’t care. I looked at those contented huskies curled up in the snow and thought,
It’s just the way it is.
It’s just the way it is.
The bus pulled into a covered area full of other vehicles. Hot-air blowers were running, and it was slightly less freezing than outside. Our bearlike driver got out and waved us after him, sauntering down an aisle between repair bays. There weren’t any other people around, and I had the feeling they had scattered like mice at our approach. We came to the edge of the motor pool and paused. This was the inner circle of the compound. Only a bare strip of no-man’s-land separated us from the gigantic domes in the middle, which rose from the permafrost like an archipelago made up of thousand-foot-wide fungi, with smaller polyps branching off. But if its outward structure was organic, its skeleton was geometric: visible through the milky surface membrane was a hexagonal web of supporting members, fine as capillaries in the human eye—at least from a distance.
“Valhalla,” grunted the driver, pointing. “You go.”
This was apparently the closest he dared approach.
“I don’t like this,” said Jake, looking skittish.
“Take it easy. You’re okay,” said Albemarle.
Shawn, standing apart, turned on him. “Dude, I
wish
you would stop saying that. Every time you say that, somebody gets wasted.”
wish
you would stop saying that. Every time you say that, somebody gets wasted.”
“Cut it out,” said Hector.
“Oh, like
you’re
okay?”
you’re
okay?”
“Come on, man,” said Lemuel.
“Hey, all I’m saying is we’re all fucked, and I don’t need somebody telling me I’m okay! Unless there’s the rave of the century in there, I’m not okay! Unless there’s a poetry slam going on under there, and they’re calling for entries, I’m not okay! Unless there’s a phone in there and my mom is on the line telling me my spoken-word CD is in heavy rotation on college stations across the country, I’m not okay! None of us is okay! The only person I know who’s probably okay is Tyrell, and that’s because he’s in fucking Canada! Which is where we should all be!”
“Cut it out,” I said miserably. “This isn’t helping.”
“I’m okay,” said Jake.
We left the driver and ventured into the open, heading for a large portal directly across the way. Our perception of distance was off—it took us longer to get there than we expected, and the nearer we got, the more peculiar the whole thing appeared. It was a colossal brood sow with prefabricated structures around its base like feeding piglets.
“What
is
this?” I wondered aloud.
is
this?” I wondered aloud.
“It’s an inflatable building,” said Albemarle. “I’ve heard of something like this. It’s supported by air pressure, so there’s no limit to how big it can be.”
The entrance we were approaching was certainly a huge thing, a raised loading dock wide enough for a dozen semitrailers. It had a modular, impermanent look. As we climbed to the platform and pushed through clear insulating flaps, we could hear Muzak coming from inside: the noodlings of a generic saxophone. It was such a perversely ordinary sound that we were rapt, listening. Then a prerecorded voice-over cut in:
“Welcome to Valhalla. You are now entering a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mogul Cooperative, a transnational partnership dedicated to preserving and restoring the benefits of civilization. But we can’t do it without you. When you give your allegiance to MoCo, you are protected by the largest coherent military power in the world today; you are cared for by a Medical Research Division with all the resources of a major hospital—and which alone pursues a cure for Agent X—and you join an organization with branches in over thirty countries, where a network of export professionals tirelessly combs the Earth in search of the Things You Need. Isn’t this reason enough to say, ‘MoCo Is My Future’?”
“You’ve gotta be shittin’ me,” Albemarle scoffed.
Then the tape was turned off, and a testy male voice came on, flat as the order taker at a drive-thru. “We’ve been informed that one of you was killed at the perimeter wall, and I’d like to offer our very sincere condolences. I’m
afraid
we operate within a very strictly enforced
boundary
here, and our defense system does not distinguish between friend or foe. Without being
forewarned
of your arrival we had no way of preventing what happened.”
afraid
we operate within a very strictly enforced
boundary
here, and our defense system does not distinguish between friend or foe. Without being
forewarned
of your arrival we had no way of preventing what happened.”
“Well, what was the idea of stranding us out there in the goddamn boondocks?” Albemarle shouted to the air.
As if correcting a petulant child, the voice said, “Your people at Thule are being briefed right now, as a matter of fact. If you had only waited at billeting, the tragedy would have been avoided. We were getting to you as quickly as we could. Since you were
provided
with the basic necessities of survival, we didn’t think a one-day wait was excessive, certainly not by ordinary bureaucratic standards, and
particularly
in light of the fact that we are dealing here with a worldwide disaster of such
extreme
proportions that the only previous event it can be compared to is the extinction of the
dinosaurs
.”
provided
with the basic necessities of survival, we didn’t think a one-day wait was excessive, certainly not by ordinary bureaucratic standards, and
particularly
in light of the fact that we are dealing here with a worldwide disaster of such
extreme
proportions that the only previous event it can be compared to is the extinction of the
dinosaurs
.”
I have to say this speech made me feel very small, but Albemarle was unfazed. “And what about the remains we found outside?” he said. “Were they impatient, too?”
There was silence from above.
“Oh
man
,” muttered Cole. “What’d you have to say that for, man? That shit was not necessary.”
man
,” muttered Cole. “What’d you have to say that for, man? That shit was not necessary.”
Tentatively, the voice said, “If you are
speaking
of the bodies at the perimeter, I can only reiterate that survival dictates everything we do. Those men chose to be billeted outside this compound because they objected to a
legal
transfer of authority that was taking place. They were informed of the risk. At some point the contagion must have appeared among them, and they rushed the automatic defenses. It was over before anyone here even knew what was happening. Could you enter the air lock, please?”
speaking
of the bodies at the perimeter, I can only reiterate that survival dictates everything we do. Those men chose to be billeted outside this compound because they objected to a
legal
transfer of authority that was taking place. They were informed of the risk. At some point the contagion must have appeared among them, and they rushed the automatic defenses. It was over before anyone here even knew what was happening. Could you enter the air lock, please?”
There was a pneumatic hiss, and a big door rumbled aside. Inside was a brightly lit room that reminded me of a racquet-ball court. High in the ceiling was a glass booth, and behind its windows we could make out the man speaking. He was young, clean-shaven, and wore a dark baseball cap. He waved.
“‘Legal transfer of authority’ my ass,” Albemarle muttered.
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