“My bad. Go ahead.”
“Do you repent your sins?”
“Definitely!”
“Have you rejoiced in the company of homosexuals?”
“What?”
“I assume you are repenting being Sodomites and sexual deviants?”
“That’s not really-”
“There’s no need to lie. We have signed affidavits testifying to your perversions at Thule.”
“Thule! Are you kidding? We were prisoners of those motherfuckers!”
“That’s immaterial,” the man said mildly. “Are you sexually attracted to each other?”
“No!”
“So you are free of sin?”
“No-just not that one.”
“Are you prepared to take a vow of chastity from this day forth?”
Sensing closure, both boys jumped at it. “Hell yeah.”
“Do you love America?”
“Of course.”
“Are you true patriots? Would you die for your country?”
“Yeah… probably.”
“Then why aren’t you dead, like so many other patriots?”
“Why aren’t you?”
“Because I have a sacred duty to perform. Answer the question!”
“Well… same here.”
“Which is better: the Prophet Jim or the Apostle Chace?”
“Uh, Jim?”
“Both are equal in the eyes of the Lord! Do you believe in the Resurrection of the Moguls?”
“Oh, absolutely.”
“Are you prepared to swear loyalty to the Lord Adam, the Lord’s Prophet Jim, the Lord’s Apostle Chace, and all the Living Saints of the Adamites?”
“Uh-sure.”
“What is His purpose in revealing Himself at this time?”
“Who?”
“The Prophet Jim.”
“I… don’t know.”
“You haven’t witnessed His deeds?”
“I don’t think so… Have we, Ray?”
“No.”
“Are you prepared to swear undying allegiance to the Living God, that ye may serve Him as instruments of Miska’s final destruction? Are ye prepared to don the mantle of the Sons of Adam?”
“Sure.”
“And if any man among us should fall short, or betray the trust placed in him, or otherwise desecrate this sacred oath, do you swear to uphold the penalties for such conduct, even if those penalties be imposed upon you or your dearest loved ones?”
“What are the penalties?”
“Hard labor. Scourging of the flesh. Castration. Purification by fire. In that order.”
“Wow. And, just out of curiosity, what’s the alternative to joining?”
“Purification.”
“Right. I guess we’re in!”
“Then welcome, brothers! Welcome and rejoice!”
After the debriefing, Todd and Ray were released from their bonds but left locked in the windowless restroom. Many hours went by, perhaps days-they had no way of telling except by their increasingly ravenous hunger. They had ample water from the tap, but no food or privacy. They took turns sleeping on the hard tile floor.
By the time the door burst in, they had no strength left to resist. They didn’t want to. “What took you so long?” Ray asked, as a man hogtied him and put a bag over his head.
They were carried up a dead escalator to a deserted Italian restaurant on the next floor. When the door of the restaurant closed behind them, it suddenly became very quiet. Their captors sat them down and removed their hoods. Todd sneezed, and a man said, “God bless you.”
“Thanks,” he said.
The restaurant was cleaned out. It was just a large carpeted room with floor-to-ceiling tinted windows overlooking the street. Sepia daylight filtered in. The only furnishings were the banquet chairs on which they sat, and a small table between them.
On that table was a feast beyond their wildest imagining: a platter of cold cuts, pickled vegetables, crackers, dried fruit, and two cans of cold apple juice.
As they ravenously dug in, the door opened, and someone entered the room-a tall bald man with a limp. He was very grave and very pale, wearing steel-rimmed glasses and a dark robe. He looked like some kind of Orthodox priest. Then Ray had a second look and dropped his spoon.
“Uncle Jim?” he said. He clapped his mouth shut, thinking, Shut up, idiot!
“Uncle?” Todd said.
“More like a family friend.”
The man turned ominous, rearing up over Ray like Nosferatu.
“I know you,” he intoned.
Ray nodded, shrinking in his seat. “You’re not dead.”
“Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated. What are you two doing here?”
Ray was speechless, so Todd intervened: “We came back here after you… left the ship. I’m Todd Holmes, sir. My father was your shop foreman-Larry Holmes?”
“I know Larry,” Sandoval said.
“He died, sir.” Todd almost said, Same as you.
Sandoval’s eyes flicked from Todd to Ray and back. “The submarine. Is it here?”
“No. It was, but it’s gone. It was attacked by these Reaper dudes and pulled out. We came ashore to forage for supplies, so we got stranded.”
“Alice Langhorne, was she on board?”
“Yes.”
“How is she?”
“We don’t know.”
“What about the rest of them? Lulu Pangloss?”
“Lulu’s a Xombie,” Ray said.
“A Xombie. How?”
Todd jumped in. “A bunch of people got turned into Xombies at Thule, but Dr. Langhorne figured out a way to keep them under control using Lulu’s blood.”
“I bet she did,” Sandoval said thoughtfully. “I just bet she did. What was that you said about Reapers?”
“They attacked the boat. We saw it all from India Point.”
“Saw what?”
“Uh-that’s a good question. Something really… weird… came out of the boat and got ’em. That’s why we didn’t try to get back aboard.”
“I see… ”
“What happens to us now?”
“You’ll be taken to Indoctrination,” the man said. “There’s a whole process for new disciples, you’ll see. Everybody has to go through it.”
“How long does it take?”
“Just a few days; it’s like a crash course.”
“A crash course in what?”
“Good citizenship.”
CHAPTER TEN
SANDOVAL
Having literally been run over by a truck, James Sandoval was half-frozen and already half-dead when Fred Cowper’s headless body strangled him. Cowper wasn’t doing so well either, having been mangled by a monkey and beheaded by Lulu Pangloss. They froze solid like that, a pair of vandalized statues from a forgotten war memorial. The dead monkey lay frozen a short distance away.
Over the following weeks, the sagging Mogul dome overhead was ripped away by storms, and the weird tableau of Sandoval and Cowper became drifted with snow and collected wind-driven icicles on its leeward side-just another strange formation on the frozen sea. But then the sea began to thaw. Spring was coming earlier and earlier every year; seas that had once been frozen in May were now navigable. The sun beat down, and soon the thick white mantle on the Davis Straight cracked loose and started to move. More storms came, bringing rain and waves that fractured the ice into huge floes, herding them into sun-warmed waters farther south.
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.