Ray said, “You mean that Big Enchilada thing the Reapers talked about?”
The blue man looked at him, then burst into laughter. “Big Enchilada? Really? That’s what they’re calling it? No ‘Hammer of God’ or ‘Shiva the Destroyer.’ Big Enchilada, wow.” Sobering up, he said, “The word is ‘Enceladus.’ Let’s call it a Trojan horse, which will unleash an enemy of unknown proportions or intentions. All I know is that they aimed for us. They are coming, and we must be prepared to stop them.”
“Them who? Aliens or something?”
“Or something.”
“Stop them how?”
“With my fist. Quiet now, boys, and let me tell you the story of the Sadie Hawkins Day Massacre.”
Uri Miska closed his eyes as if summoning unseen forces, then began to speak:
“Imagine a line of Humvees with roof-mounted fifty-caliber machine guns, armored personnel carriers with swiveling weapons turrets, actual tanks, all driving down the streets of Providence. Some of the vehicles were flying American flags or were painted with crosses and Bible quotes. The weather was so warm and sunny it was like summer in January, a regular Fourth of July parade. And like any parade, there were cheering spectators… only in this case the spectators were naked and blue.
“Not too many at first. It was hardly worth the soldiers’ ammunition to shoot them, for they splattered like rotten melons and were squashed to pulp beneath the treads. But from every corner of the city more Xombies were flying in, Xombies by the thousands, their bare feet hardly touching the ground and their blue hands outstretched as if magnetically drawn to all that clanking steel.
“Many of the creatures had been migrating out of the city along the interstate and were now drawn back by this sudden bonanza of red-blooded fighting men, this traveling carnival of destruction. And as the unstoppable naked horde descended upon the immovable mechanized force, the female Xombies-Furies, Harpies, Maenads-winnowed themselves from the main group, holding back in the shadows as the less-circumspect males charged forward.