Rich Kranuski lay awkwardly in his new stateroom-the captain's quarters-and tried to steal a few minutes' sleep. He was bone-tired from being on station for the last forty-eight hours, coping with the crisis of traffic in their near vicinity-a ghost fleet of small engines puttering in and out of a ghostly marina, with all the sounds of routine human activity that went with it, even music. XO Webb had finally been able to confirm visually that the sounds came from no phantom but from a veritable floating city: Two enormous barges with attending tugboats and a host of lighter vessels, like mother ships with a litter of pups, all tucked into the mouth of the Seekonk River. Scum, sea gypsies, human trash from the squalid look of them, but whether pirates, refugees, or MoCo, it didn't much matter: Whoever they were, they were bound to be frightened, sick, and hungry. If they were anything like the crew of the sub, they would also be dangerous… and there were a lot more of them.
The only question was: Why hadn't they attacked yet?
The presence of potential hostiles in such close proximity lent great urgency to his efforts at trying to chase down the source of all the recent vandalism-or at least put a scare into whoever was behind the snafus. No doubt it had something to do with the failure of those kids to return from shore-Dan Robles and Phil Tran had certainly made their feelings known, but the unspoken resentment was even worse: It was as if the entire crew had suddenly turned against him. He could sense the angry whispering, the ill-concealed loathing everywhere he went: You sent those boys to their deaths. Even Webb had started subtly to distance himself as though from a bad smell, when the whole thing had been his idea in the first place! Kranuski silently railed, Why can't they understand that I'm as frustrated as anyone, but that someone had to start making the hard calls. And hard calls were all that was left now-no matter who commanded the ship. Let them try to lead under these conditions.
Come on, come on, come on! It wasn't going to get any better the longer they stayed here; Kranuski was desperate to get under way, if they could just patch things together long enough to clear out. But whoever it was, the mystery bandit was still at large, jacking one key system after another.
Worse still, Rich couldn't shake the feeling that the perpetrator was watching him-that no matter where he went, he was being discreetly followed by some lurking presence. Gremlins. At first he thought it was paranoia, but several times now he had heard strange noises and turned around to find himself facing an empty passage… except for that one time when he caught the briefest peripheral flash of something round and pale disappearing into the ventilation bay-an indistinct balloon shape that his imagination filled in with Fred Cowper's gnomish features. I'm just tired, Kranuski thought, which he was, but it still disturbed him deeply. He badly wanted to believe it was his imagination, an optical illusion or maybe a trick of the light. Anything.
Rich was not prone to superstition or flights of fancy. He didn't believe in vengeful ghosts or other such Halloween nonsense-God knew it had taken him long enough to wrap his mind around the concept of Xombies, but his threshold of absurdity had been pushed far beyond its limit in these past three months, and he was determined to be realistic: He couldn't ignore any threat just because it clashed with his former sense of reality.
Certainly he couldn't think of any reasonable explanation for the weird, glistening trails he kept finding in the least-accessible parts of the ship, as though someone or something had dragged a slimy mop everywhere he, or it, went. It reminded him of a joke he once liked to tell, but which now kept running through his pounding head like a broken record: Why did God give women legs? So they wouldn't leave snail trails. It wasn't so funny now.
Then there was the business with the safe.
The captain's safe was supposed to be sacrosanct. He was the only one with its combination, and in ordinary times that responsibility would have represented a degree of military privilege that was far beyond merely commanding a warship. Within that tiny Pandora's box was all the awesome potential of a Trident nuclear submarine: code books, missile coordinates, mission profiles, classified technical specs, all the mission-critical logistical data needed to independently carry out a full-blown nuclear exchange.
Of course, all that stuff was long gone, removed by STRATCOM, along with the missiles themselves, when the boat was decommissioned. Except for a few Navy-surplus torpedoes, she was more or less toothless now, little more than a refugee scow, her mission reduced to carting around a valuable reactor until they could find someone in authority to give it to. If the ship's safe was in large measure what made the captain the captain, then what was he anymore but a petty bureaucrat? A school bus driver.
And it wasn't even so much that Kranuski's safe was empty. It was that it had been violated, scorched, with a big black hole where the combination lock should have been. The sight of that hole galled him no end, affronting his sense of military order. It was a constant reminder of the kind of undisciplined individuals he was dealing with now.
The empty safe was Fred Cowper's doing. That damned old man had broken into the safe during the brief few hours that he and his gang were in charge of the boat after Harvey Coombs was incapacitated. Captain Coombs had quickly recovered and relieved Cowper of duty, arresting him for mutiny, but not soon enough to safeguard the safe-Fred had wasted no time cutting that baby open and making free with its contents.
The safe had not been empty then. Aside from some reasonably current military intelligence and the only complete SPAM manifest, it had also contained a sample of an experimental Agent X antidote, salvaged from Miska's research lab and brought aboard by James Sandoval-Chairman Sandoval. Cowper must have instantly grasped the serum's hostage value. He squirreled it away and never gave it up, even under some pretty heavy interrogation, knowing he and his daughter Lulu were safe only as long as he held that secret in his head.
A lot of good it had done him, or that big-mouthed girl Lulu. From what Kranuski had seen, Miska's mysterious Tonic was no antidote at all but merely a kind of Xombie Prozac. Valuable enough in its way, he supposed, as a limited means of keeping small numbers of Xombies in check (although even that had not been borne out by Langhorne's shore party), but far from the grand hope for humanity he had been led to expect. Clearly, there was no such hope.
Looking at that black hole in the safe, Commander Kranuski had the creeping sensation that something inside was looking back at him. At times he even thought he heard things from it: ratlike scritchings in the night, an odd flibbery-flubbery noise, and, once, even a loud, metal slam that jarred him out of a fitful sleep. Or was that just a dream? Increasingly, he was having trouble distinguishing dreams from reality.
Stupid, he thought impatiently. And yet… for some reason, he couldn't bring himself to open the safe anymore. It was right there in his quarters, staring him in the face, but he just couldn't do it. He almost thought of asking Webb to take a look inside for him, make it seem like a casual thing. He would have if only Webb weren't already treating him like some kind of convalescent-home patient, going behind his back. Webb was a loose cannon, and Kranuski didn't want to cede to the man any more authority than he already had.
Strangely enough, Kranuski almost wished Fred Cowper was somewhere on board-he would have liked to consult with a more-experienced man about some of these issues. Someone other than Harvey Coombs. Someone who understood the terrible burden of ordering innocent people to their deaths so that the less innocent might survive… or the essential problem of captaining a doomed ship to its fate.
Of course, the rational part of him knew there was no such assistance to be found, not from Cowper's head or any other quarter. He was all alone.
"We have to get the hell out of here," Sal said, dabbing his split lip with a towel. "We got away from the Moguls; we can get away from these bozos, too."
They were back on the crane barge, their second evening as guests of the Reapers. Kyle had not come back with them from the casino, and the other four boys were nearly in a state of hysteria, compounded by injuries to their bodies as well as their pride: Refusing to return to the cargo barge without Kyle, they had been beaten, kicked, and all but dragged back by El Dopa's black-masked goons. Something had to be done.
"I agree with Sal," said Todd. "We need to get out of here before the shit hits the fan. Something big is going on, something they don't want us to know about. The ship's gotten so quiet, did you notice?"
The four boys sat in their box and listened to the sounds of hectic activity reverberating through the metal walls. Quiet? Sal thought. The thing rattled like a tin drum, with men returning from the day's foraging mission. But Todd was right-the commotion seemed unusually furtive. There wasn't the level of profane banter they had heard the day before, just murmurs of intense conversation. Already they had begun to learn the basic rhythms of life in this floating ark, and the near silence wasn't usual. Certainly it wasn't like the submarine, where people worked around the clock in shifts, and the Navy officers might turn up at any moment to make sure they were keeping busy.
On the barge, it was much more loose. An endless cycle of long siestas and longer fiestas, punctuated by short bursts of hard physical labor. More or less everyone stayed up late into the night and slept late into the morning, which was one of the prime luxuries the convicts had been denied in prison. Nevertheless, certain routines from incarcerated life continued to hold true: Domestic chores were relegated to the "gal-boys"-male hausfraus and pot-watchers-who provided sexual gratification and never went ashore. These were not the same as the Kalis, also known as the K-Thugs or Tarbabies-the fearsome transvestite junta responsible for home defense, whose cultish authority was nearly equal to El Dopa's. Then there were Skinwalkers or just Skins, Voodooman's clique, former rodeo hands and other such daredevil types who executed the foraging missions in return for the choicest pickings.
It was a fairly open system. Any man who questioned his role was welcome to switch, but from what the boys gathered, this was a very uncommon occurrence-not everyone could handle the extreme commitment of joining the Kalis, or the radical requirements of the Skins. Easier to mop floors as someone's bitch.
The shore missions left every afternoon, a fleet of four duck boats and support vessels gathering tons of supplies and depositing them on the crane barge. At the end of a week, most of this enormous quantity of goods (whatever the barge crews didn't take themselves) would be transferred to a prearranged shore depot, where they were marked with a large, Day-Glo X and left there for pickup at the convenience of their Mogul overlords. Once the goods had been claimed, there was always a sealed package left in their place, containing shares of Mobucks and the latest news and science updates direct from Valhalla. Airmail, the Reapers called it. It was a matter of some concern to them that in recent days the airmail had mysteriously stopped… almost as peculiar as that submarine just sitting out there, ignoring its load of tribute. Why didn't the thing take its cargo and leave? Company policy strictly forbade the Reapers from contacting the ship directly (the official reason for this was that security of trade routes would be jeopardized if the different transportation branches were allowed to mingle-a tactful way of saying that the military crews refused all truck with looters and thugs), but it felt like they were all holding their breath until the sub went away. Yet Uncle Spam kept telling them that everything was under control.
Whether the Reapers believed this or not, the boys could sense tension and scuttlebutt, dark secrets on the wind-unpleasant schemes that would require their attendance whether they liked it or not.
"What about Kyle?" asked Sal.
"What about him?"
"We can't just leave without him."
"It's not like we have a choice," said Todd. "Who the hell knows what they're doing to him over there? Longer we stick around, the more likely it is that it'll be our turn to find out."
"He's probably dead," said Ray Despineau in his Eeyore-like monotone.
"Which is what we'll be, too, as soon as they contact the boat," Todd said. "It's only a matter of time before they realize we're fugitives from their precious Valhalla. I can't wait to find out whatever it is they'll do with us then. Guaranteed it'll suck."
"You guys are crazy," said Freddy, becoming more nervous by the second. "How do you think we're gonna get out of here?"
Sal looked thoughtful. "I don't think it should be too hard to escape if we do it in the early morning when they're all asleep and hungover. It's not like they keep guards posted on deck."
"They don't need guards," Freddie argued. "I've heard those outer decks gather Xombies every night-they have to mop them up every day as the first order of business."
"We can handle a couple of Xombies with the weapons they have lying around loose. The whole place is a damn armory."
Todd said, "Maybe, maybe not, but we'd wake up half the barge doing it. All it takes is one guy blowing the whistle, and you can kiss our asses good-bye-somehow I don't think they'd look kindly on us declining their hospitality, much less stealing their shit."
"So what do you suggest? Stay here?"
Freddy shook his head. For the first time in his life, he realized he had an opinion that didn't square with the dominant majority-these guys didn't have a clue what they were saying. As far as he was concerned, Kyle Hancock had been their last voice of reason, and without him, there were no clear options. "I don't know, man. I mean, even if we could escape and make it back to the boat, what is there to look forward to? Getting stuck in that dungeon until they starve us to death? Whole time I was in there, I felt like Pinocchio in the belly of the whale-I ain't down with that no more."
"Are you down with staying here and being somebody's house elf?" asked Sal. "Because that's how it works, Freddy, you know that. They talk a lot about freedom of choice, but it's all based on survival of the fittest, law of the jungle. Sure, there's no rules here as such, but haven't you noticed that there's a really strict social code? The amount of freedom you get depends on what caste you belong to. From each according to his ability, to each according to his need… just so long as you accept your rightful place in the dogpile. They look outrageous, but they're a bunch of conformists sticking to a script because that's what's worked for them up to this point, kept them alive. There are no rebels here-the real rugged individualists probably all got killed off the first week."
Freddy said, "They eat good, though."
"They do eat good. But I think if we can get back to the boat with what we now know about Xombie protection, our supply problems might be over."
"That's a big if. We don't even know if the boat's still there."
"It's there, it's gotta be there. Kranuski and Webb might be assholes, but the rest of the crew wouldn't just bail on us like that. Plus, this whole place is freaking out about something, haven't you noticed? Guarantee you it's because of the boat. Look, I say the time to move is tomorrow morning. We just act like we know what we're doing and slip out right under their noses. Anybody asks what we're doing, we say that Voodooman dude told us it was okay."
"Yeah? And what then? Jump overboard and swim back?"
"I was wondering about that myself," said Todd.
"I knew it," groaned Ray. "We might as well forget about it-we're dead."
Ignoring him, Sal replied, "I was thinking more along the lines of those water scooters they've got tied up alongside."
"Are you kidding? Steal a boat? Talk about pissing them off, plus we'll be sitting ducks in those-I've ridden a Jet Ski before, but I'm no daredevil like you. They'll chase us down and blow us out of the water before we can get five feet."
"I'm betting more like five hundred. Just enough of a head start to get out of sight."
"Out of sight of what? Dude, try a mile-the sub's at least that far. We'll have targets on our backs halfway across the bay."
"That's why we don't head downriver to the bay-we don't go to the sub at all. We run upriver, duck under the highway overpass, and break for shore using the bridge pylons as cover. Then we cut overland back to the tug docks, where we started out."
"Overland? I hate to tell you this, Sal, but aren't you forgetting something? Something that's blue and fucked-up and starts with the letter X?"
"No, that's the best part…"
The door flew open with a bang, causing the boys to jump.
"Hey, got a minute? I want to talk to you fellas."
It was Marcus Washington-the genial Reaper captain known as Voodooman. They froze at the sight of him, terrified at what he might have overheard.
"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, looking around inquisitively. The night's fiesta was going strong, and he was wearing an entirely different party getup-gone was the pink suit, replaced by a gaudy Hawaiian shirt, golf slacks, and shiny Italian loafers.
"No," said Sal, as the others tried to look casual. "What's up?"
"I think you know what's up."
"What do you mean?"
He checked the booming corridor and shut the door. "It's time you dudes got out of here."
The boys were silent, the hair standing up on the back of their necks. Was this a trap?
Voodooman continued in a low voice, "Things have been cockeyed ever since Uncle Spam come back, but he and his posse ain't never taken no one prisoner before. Can't say as I like the sound of that-just rubs me the wrong way. Far as I knew, you boys was to be offered every courtesy as citizens of the U.S. of A.-ain't no call for takin' hostages or torturin' nobody. Problem is, that big old submarine of yours done got folks spooked. We don't know what it's waitin' for, and neither you or Uncle Spam done give us a straight answer. Long as it sits there, we're sewed up tight in this river. I don't think El Dopa's got a damn clue what he's doin' with y'all-he's just tryin' to cover his butt.
"Fact is, some of us been getting real tired of sending all these goods up north, wishin' we could go our own way. Can't see as how we even need Uncle Spam all that much anymore. These last couple weeks have proved we can get along perfectly well by ourselves. Sure, we needed a leg up at first, but lately it's gettin' so that we're doing it by habit rather than for any actual ree-ward. Maybe there's others feel the same on that submarine of your'n."
"There are. We've told you everything we know," Sal said.
"Maybe you have, maybe you ain't-point is I don't give a tinker's damn. I think as long as we hold you boys, we're just draggin' this thing out, whatever it is. Obviously, your people won't leave without you, which means we gotta send you back, pronto. You all are about the same age my sons woulda been, and it ain't right to hold you against your will. This ain't no fuckin' jailhouse strike. You got a right to your freedom, same as us."
The boys nodded hopefully, hearts thrumming.
"Here's my problem: I can't let you go without authority from either El Dopa or the major hisself, and they ain't talkin'. So here's what I'm gonna do…"
The four boys left their quarters before dawn and went down the puke-smelling corridor to the Coca-Cola van, where they fortified themselves with caffeine and sugar, then proceeded to the ceiling hatch at the end. There was a thick plywood cap screwed on it, and they quickly removed the wing nuts, trying to be as quiet as possible as they opened the lid.
Dim pinkish light came in, along with cool morning air that smelled like low tide and lilacs-a smell oddly like the funeral parlor where Sal's mother had been shown. The boys climbed single file onto the roof of the first tier, taking with them the rolled-up rope ladder to access the outside deck of the barge. Before lowering it, they scanned the area for Xombies. They could only see one side, but it looked clear. Voodooman had promised them it would be.
Every one of them was well armed. Under cover of the party last night, Marcus Washington had crept around the deserted passageways and empty dorms, taking anything that he thought might be of use to the boys, returning with the goods as well as detailed instructions. After he was gone, they smoked cigars and got plastered on peppermint schnapps, tearfully saying their good-byes to each other and the world-it was an emotional night, and quite likely their last.
Now they all had throbbing headaches, dry mouths, and a revolting aftertaste-as well as four samurai swords, three fire axes, two machetes, a couple of crowbars, and two military-grade Taser weapons of Israeli manufacture. These were all items that had just been lying around loose amid mounds of other clutter, so Voodooman wasn't expecting the loss to be immediately noticed. For that matter, he could have given them anything from machine guns to light artillery to rocket-propelled grenades… except that it was wiser if they didn't wake up the whole barge.
Lowering themselves to the deck, the four boys crept to the bow ramp, where they had first come on board. Everything was in deep shadow, and they moved carefully to avoid tripping over anything. There was a lot of equipment here, stuff for the shore patrols, but they were mainly interested in one particular item: the oxygen tent.
There it was, deflated, heaped against the wall like a tarp-covered pile of junk. Racks of full-body coveralls and other protective gear were set out to dry, stinking of bleach. A large air tank was connected to the tent's gasket, and Sal cautiously opened the valve by increments. It hissed, but hopefully not loudly enough to be noticed.
For a moment nothing happened, and Todd said, "Turn it up some more," but Sal said, "Wait." Creases in the clear vinyl began to pop out as the tent inflated.
It was all too reminiscent of the inflatable fortress of the Moguls-the bubble of bloated excess that was Valhalla-swelling bigger and bigger like a physical manifestation of the boys' growing anxiety.
Swallowing his fear, Sal said, "Ray, Freddy, scope out the boats down there, will you? Make sure Voodooman cut the wires, and we can get down without any hassle. While we're waiting, we should also put on these coveralls."
"Fuck that," said Freddy. "They'll mess up the crease on my new threads."
"So will the Xombie that kills your ass."
Freddy and Ray reluctantly complied, grumbling that they were digging themselves a deeper and deeper hole. They still weren't sure that this wasn't just an elaborate trap. But they were committed now, there was no backing out. If it wasn't quite the first daring escape they had ever taken part in (that would have to be the hijacking of the submarine, followed by the exodus from Thule), it was by far the most nerve-wracking. Not to mention they felt stupid in hooded plastic jumpsuits.
Returning, Freddy said breathlessly, "Boats are no problem-the keys are in the ignition, just like he said. Maybe we should forget this and just take one now."
"No, you said it yourself: They'll blow us out of the water. Our only chance is a fast dash to shore before they can get their bearings."
"Well, you look like a bunch of Oompa-Loompas."
Todd tossed him a suit. "Join the club."
"What about this stuff?" asked Ray, glumly referring to all the strange protective equipment littering the deck: wire helmets resembling weird birdcages, shoulder and knee pads, chest and back plates, gauntlets made of light, flexible steel mesh.
"We have to put that on, too. And be quick-sun's coming up."
"Everything? We'll barely be able to move in all that junk."
"Everything. You heard Voodooman-if they do it, we do it."
They covered themselves with mesh armor from head to toe, checking each other over and cinching hard-to-reach straps. Fortunately, most of the fastenings were Velcro and very simple to figure out. Inflating the tent proceeded apace, until at last the thing stood rigid before them, a lot bigger than they remembered-big as a house. It looked like one of those bouncy kiddy rooms at the fair.
Sal shut off the valve, and they crowded through the air lock, stiff and clumsy as astronauts. It smelled like plastic inside, like a new beach ball. The steel drums were all on a wooden pallet in the center of the main chamber, and beside them was a compressor and a bundle of tall gas cylinders marked OXYGEN-FLAMMABLE-DO NOT EXPOSE TO OPEN FLAME.
With trepidation, the boys examined the sturdy lid clamps on the barrels.
"You sure you wanna try this?" asked Todd.
"No," said Freddy.
"This is stupid," said Ray. "We're all gonna die."
"Shut up," Sal said. "It's the only way. Come on, you saw how they did it."
"Go ahead, then."
Using a crowbar as a lever, Sal sprang the first clamp… then the second. The lid was free. As the other boys stood well back, he worked the crowbar's tip under the lid and prized it off.
Gross.
Underneath was a slimy mass of naked flesh, looking for all the world like raw turkey skin, except there was too much of it-a whole barrelful. It was bluish gray, shot through with tiny capillaries of a brighter, almost violet hue. The flesh was wrinkly as wet laundry, and even showed a zipperlike seam where two patches had been stapled together. It made Sal sick to look at it, queasy; his eyes were playing tricks, making the Xombie flesh appear to be bulging upward, swelling like rising dough. Heaving toward him.
"Shit, man, look out!" Todd shouted, knocking Sal backward as a great flap of translucent flesh fanned up out of the barrel like a huge sail. Falling in slow motion, Sal was reminded of a magic trick he had learned as a kid-the scarf from the hat that just keeps coming and coming. Todd dove clear as the thing batted wildly in the air, a gigantic webbed hand seeking something to grab, a six-foot-tall bat wing that even made a weird chittering noise.
The oxygen!
Lying on the floor amid tumbled oxygen cylinders, Sal suddenly realized what was wrong: They had inflated only the outer envelope of the tent, the part that supported the structure, without flushing the inner chamber with pure oxygen. They had opened the stupid can in plain, ordinary air!
Feeling like a complete fool, and probably a dead one, he grabbed the valve on the nearest oxygen tank and gave it a spin, blasting a stream of gas at the shimmering quilted membrane that was just then breaking on him like a veiny, steel-stitched wave.
The force of the oxygen filled the thing like a billowing sheet… and all at once it was collapsing, blushing, retreating into a shriveled pile in the corner, attached by a rag of pink meat to the open drum.
"Fuck," Todd said. He and the other boys were tangled together on the floor, having tripped over each other trying to get out. "You got the bitch."
"Yeah," Sal said, getting up and retrieving his face mask. "Sorry-I didn't realize there were separate tanks for the O2."
"Hey, better late than never."
"Ain't like we knew what was goin' on. I thought we were toast."
"Yeah, good job, dude."
Sal shrugged, turning the valve low. He already felt a little giddy from breathing pure oxygen. Determined not to make any more fatal mistakes, he said, "Okay, we gotta move fast before we pass out in here. Everybody come over here and let's see what we can do with this stuff…"
It was disgusting, like handling flayed human skin that had been sewn into grotesque sheets-which is exactly what it was. Fumigating everything with fresh oxygen before they touched it, the boys were appalled at what twisted things they had been driven to: They were wearing human body parts!-something only the most disgusting psychopath would do. Nauseated and retching, they pretended it was rubber and tried not to breathe through their noses, making sounds of revulsion as they squeamishly draped themselves with slimy tissue of every kind. The stuff had been sewn together into crude overlapping ponchos and skirts that hung slackly to the ground, threatening to rip and fall off at any moment. More stapling was required to make it stay on, but the dragging hems were still collecting bits of dirt.
"Okay, you-you all ready?" Sal asked, shivering as if from a chill.
"No," Freddy said. Ray echoed him, and Todd said, "Not really, dude… but there's no turning back now."
Standing ready at the oxygen tank, Sal said, "Open the tent."
Freddy and Todd spread the tent flaps wide and let the outside air in.
Only a small percentage of the atmosphere is oxygen-the four boys were well drilled in this from living aboard the sub-most is nitrogen and other gases. But oxygen is the only one vital to animal life, the only hedge humankind had against Agent X. This was by design: The blood-oxygen bond interfered with Agent X absorption, which was why Xombies suffocated their victims. But oxygen was only effective against Xombies at artificially high concentrations (toxic carbon monoxide worked even better, as Lulu Pangloss had proved) such as those found in hospital ICUs, decompression chambers, and other such rarefied environments. Dilute it even a little, and the Maenad cells came back with a vengeance.
Waiting for the unthinkable to happen, Sal had a little revelation: If the atmosphere was comprised of pure oxygen, Xombies couldn't exist. Then again, neither could any vegetation-damn. Nerves jangling, he wondered how long it would take for the effect of pure O2 to wear off in Xombie tissues. Should have a stopwatch…
"Think of it as a s-science experiment," he said, trying to make light.
"Yeah, we're the guinea pigs," Todd said.
It was fast. The tent walls wobbled as a fresh ocean breeze swirled in and replaced the funk of four sweaty, unwashed boys occupying a big plastic bag. In a few minutes, they would have used up all the oxygen anyway, just by breathing-Sal couldn't help thinking they were fools to rush it.
Nothing's going to happen, he thought, as an odd crackling force began spreading across the surface of his body. At first it felt like a stiffening blood-pressure cuff… except all over. The tension spread unequally, so that some patches expanded faster than others and were answered by slower pressures elsewhere, creating an odd kneading sensation, a give-and-take as warring cellular kingdoms strained to achieve equilibrium.
Weird-it was alive. Sal's real skin crawled as those hanging meat skirts retracted, tightening and hugging the contours of his legs and lower torso, while the flesh cape and hood embraced his chest, arms, and head. The graying undead skin expanded and webbed outward to cover every inch of him, probing for chinks in his armor with the rippling delicacy of a predatory mollusk enveloping a clam. It was disturbingly like being caressed sexually, squeezed in alarming places, uncomfortably snug at the groin. He could feel the blood being forced from his thighs into his head as though his body were a toothpaste tube.
For a minute he thought he was suffocating, and he had to force himself to breathe against the pressure. Oh shit…
Then it let up: The weight on his chest met a counterforce from his back, and the two sides canceled each other out in twisting knots of repulsion, clinging to Sal's mesh panels like limpets sealed fast to a rock, both refusing to give way. The odd patches of hair on it-someone else's hair-bristled menacingly.
I can't do this, I can't do this…
Worst of all, the flap of flesh on his head oozed like melting wax down the screened dome of his helmet, threatening to completely block off his vision as well as his air. Panicking, Sal tried pushing it back and stapling it fast, but the skin was muscular and quick, rebellious as a live octopus. He couldn't get a grip-the flesh sheathing his gloves rebelled at handling it, so that Sal's hands kept slipping off, making him feel frustratingly clumsy.
He could hear the other guys going crazy as well, rocking the tent as they spun in circles or thrashed around on the floor trying to rip the weird membranes off their faces. Sal was about ready to start doing that himself, the sound of his trapped breaths booming loud in his mask.
In desperation, he found a machete and slashed at the thing, poking eyeholes and scraping their bleeding edges back. The holes tried to close immediately, grotesque eyelids weeping dark juice, but he kept digging, and suddenly Todd was there with a butane torch, shooting a jet of blue flame at the questing lips until they blistered and charred, searing open. He had done the same thing for himself, his perforated flesh helmet resembling a deformed jack-o'lantern. Resembling a Reaper.
"Whoa, watch my eyes," Sal said, gagging on the stink of burning flesh. As soon as he could see properly, Todd handed him another minitorch from a box on the floor, and they both set to work helping the others. It went quickly, and in a couple of minutes everyone was out of danger, if slightly hysterical. Voices muffled inside their helmets, they all thanked Todd profusely.
"That was quick thinking, man."
"Yeah. Good call."
Todd shook his head apologetically. "Sorry, guys. I would have done it sooner, but I had to be sure the oxygen count was back to normal before I lit a flame. Otherwise, we'd have been crispy critters in here."
They looked at Todd with dawning respect.
Sal was feeling better. Not just better but strangely euphoric, as though his whole body had become lighter and more compact. The more he moved around, the more the stiffness of the suit seemed to vanish, all its mismatched pieces joined under a pulsating web of Xombie flesh to form a snug body glove that supported him in all the right places. Though it had to weigh at least fifty pounds, the animated skin had a springiness that somehow helped distribute and carry the weight. It even had some kind of heat-exchange property that was keeping him cool. This was better, he thought, than his protective BMX gear.
The others were beginning to notice the effect as well.
"Damn, dude, we ugly," said Freddy, rolling his spiky scarecrow head as though snapping out kinks in his neck. "But this shit really works."
"Just so long as we can get it off again," grumbled Ray.
"Don't say that, man. Don't even say that."
"Okay, Sal, what now?" The boy didn't answer, and Todd repeated, "Sal?"
"Quiet," Sal said. He was frozen in place, facing the clear wall of the tent. Suddenly, everyone realized what he was looking at: Dozens of frightful human shapes were standing outside, their black manes and machetes blearily visible through the plastic. There was no mistaking those exaggerated female silhouettes.
It was the K-Thugs-the terrible Kalis.