Xombies: Apocalypso Read Online Free PDF Page A

that was how we all thought of it, despite Dr. Langhorne’s explanations. You were alive or you were dead, and since we no longer fit the definition of life, we had to be ghouls, zombies, revenants, none other than the ever-loving Living Dead.
    I say that all these things had to play themselves out, and there were many little melodramas before the strange new dialectic was resolved. Boys being boys. We were on the boat a long time working it through.
    Being human was a craving most found hard to ignore: the comforting, pointless routines of eating, drinking, dressing, breathing. Hoping, praying, hurting, doubting. Loving and hating. In my case, reading and writing. We liked our mortal identities, frailties and all, and were deeply afraid of losing ourselves.
    Eating, yes. What do you think, we didn’t eat? Xombies aren’t magic—there’s no such thing as a perpetual-motion machine; everything that moves requires a push. Most unreformed Exes get around this by moving as little as possible, existing in a fugue state that allows them to subsist for a long time on the stored energy of their residual human tissue as well as elements in the air, every pore soaking up gases and microparticles like a sponge, taking in nitrogen and carbon dioxide and even ambient light, and off-gassing a bit of ionized oxygen—the undead are regular air purifiers. Environmentally semiconscious!
    We on the boat, however, had daily duties to perform. The cost in energy was such that we had to supplement “light soup” with more substantial food. I say “had to”—the truth is we ate less for physical nourishment than to sate the hunger in our souls. Eating was an act of nostalgia. We could as easily have gotten our calories by glugging diesel oil or chewing rubber boots—our bodies were capable of rendering almost any organic-based substance into motive force. For that matter, we could have taken bites out of each other … and some did. Since pain was no longer an issue, and even the grossest injury did not lead to death, cannibalism was a sin comparable to stealing from the cookie jar. Except cookies don’t grow back.
    Little by little, everybody began to relax. To surrender. And in surrendering to realize we were free. Free of pain, free of disease, free of old age, free of death. Free even of the Xombie curse—with no human crew left, Dr. Langhorne decided there was no need for me to continue donating my blood serum. I was doubtful about this, having developed a maternal bond with my blood recipients. It was hard to just cut the cord.
    Despite my qualms, they remained entirely placid, choosing to stay on the boat rather than to join the wild ones ashore—which was yet another freedom: the freedom of choice. Many other freedoms we could not yet comprehend, but for now, this alone was enough, an existence not only rid of pain but with the prospect of joy. The joy of saving others.
    On my command, the boat emptied like an uncorked cask. Men and boys erupted from the hatches and spilled over the side like hairless lemmings, plummeting to the bottom and clambering forward through swaying eelgrass as through a meadow, leaving clouds of roiled silt. They emerged from the water draped in seaweed and nipping crabs, their splashes making prisms in the sun. Mounting the bank, they lined up on dry land and waited.
    It was the moment we had dreamed of in life … and beyond death. The crucial first step toward restoring our lost humanity and returning home. Home. What was home anymore? We only knew what it was not: Home was not the cold bowels of a submarine or the colder void of eternity. Home was not anyplace we had left behind. Because without our loved ones, our houses were only haunted shells.
    After the battle with the Reapers, we had briefly considered putting ashore in Providence to look for surviving family members and friends, whom we could indoctrinate into our tribe. The simple truth of the matter was, the population of rational undead