APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (41 page)

              Shere stood up and adjusted the blanket tighter around her and shivered. She walked back over to her room to where her clothes lay in a pile and began to put them back on. As she did this she had a gut feeling and looked at the side of Hito’s bed and saw that Annie’s clothes were already gone. She dressed and quietly toured the secluded farm house and found no trace of her blonde friend. Her jacket was missing from its hook by the front door. Morning light crept through the crack of the blanket covering the window at the top of the door as a feeling of dread crept into her heart.

             
She grabbed her deuce gear and strapped it around her thin waist and over her shoulders. She drew her Glock from its holster and inched the slide back, making sure it was chambered. She walked to the front door and reached for the door knob to look outside. She eased the door open and peeked outside and saw there was three of the dead milling in the pasture in front of the house and she knew that was enough for them to call for others. She saw footprints in the mud.  The tread appeared to be combat boots and they looked like Annie’s size. Shere’s eyes widened with a gasp as she quickly shut the door and locked the dead bolt.

             
Shere ran back to where Hito still slept, she shook him firmly by the shoulders. “Hito, Hito, wake up!” she shook him harder as she grew more anxious. Hito was always such a light sleeper and normally he would have woken just by the slightest noise. She shook him even harder. “Hito, wake up!”

             
Hito’s eyes flickered open and shut a couple of times before they filled with comprehension

             
“Uhh…my head,” he said, clutching both sides of his head with his palms massaging his temples with his thumbs. He wiped the grit from his eyes and Shere relaxed her grip on his shoulders a little.

             
“Hito, Annie’s gone.”

             
“Wha…”

             
“She’s gone. The HMMWV and all her things are gone too.”

             
Instantly he sat bolt upright his nose almost touching Shere’s, as his eyes blazed. “Are you sure?”

             
“Yes, I’m sure,” answered Shere and felt her heart fill with fear for her friend.

             
Hito clumsily stood up, grabbing his clothes and hurriedly putting them on. He grimaced. “Ahh…my head,” he grumbled and grabbed his shoulder rig from the bed post and slipped it on.

             
He checked the front porch confirming what Shere had told him. “Damn,” he said clenching his jaw and remembered Victoria for some reason, but then shook his head as if to clear the memory from his mind. On the porch railing he saw a slip of paper held in place by a broken piece of concrete. Beside it reclined Annie’s teddy bear. He retrieved the paper and the bear and went back inside, unfolding the paper as he did so.

             
He walked back to the bed and tossed the stuffed bear onto the mattress beside the black woman. Her eyes were worried, her brow furrowed.

             
He shook the paper for emphasis and growled “She drugged us, got the drugs from the Doctor’s basement when she went down to get that stupid bear. She says that she went back to find her
sisters
from the Doctor’s. Annie said it was because I wouldn’t take them in, so she went to help them herself. She thinks I’ll kill her for running off after she promised us her loyalty, so she can’t come back.”

             
Shere’s fears confirmed she reached out her hand to Hito. He narrowed his eyes suspiciously. “What about you, Shere? Are you leaving too?”

             
They stood there for several minutes, both experiencing the warmth of the other for the first time. Hito’s face a mask, but for the clenching and unclenching of his jaw.

             
“Hito, I swore my loyalty to you and I don’t lie. I expect you to believe me.” Her gaze didn’t waiver.

             
Hito’s jaw relaxed a little. “So now what?” he asked quietly, but the volume belied the tone.

             
“We need to find Annie,” she said, her eyes darting from one of his eyes to the other.

             
“And what should we do to her for betraying us?” he asked raising an eyebrow.

             
Shere closed her eyes. “She was only doing what she thought was right, and I can't blame her.”

             
Hito nodded. “I know her intentions were good in helping her sisters, but…”

             
“She should have asked us,” Shere agreed.

             
“I don’t know if I can let her get away with this,” Hito said and Shere could tell that he was torn.

             
“She was just scared,” she said looking back up at him hopefully.

             
“She should have trusted us…”

             
Shere lowered her head. “We need to find her before anything happens to her,” Shere would not let Hito hurt Annie. He had no right, but she would stay with him and give him the benefit of the doubt until that time when he had to choose. If he chose the wrong path then she would have no choice, but to veer from his.

             
Hito lifted her chin with a thumb and forefinger.

             
He leaned to her, pressed his lips against her soft full mouth and kissed her firmly and she kissed him back, enjoying the softness of his lips. Suddenly she pulled away; she was no man’s rebound. If he wanted her he would have to prove it. “We need to try and get that old car in the garage running before her trail gets cold.”

             
                                             
Chapter 46 – ‘Anita New Drug

Johnstown, Ohio 

              Annie had found Juanita at the Johnstown Elementary School. It was an old brick building built in the 1950’s and had been built sturdy, like all schools were during the cold war. This was a secret place and she had told no one about it other than her ‘sisters’, not even Hito or Shere. Annie hadn’t wanted to leave them, but she had no choice. If it had been possible she would have brought her sisters to Hito, but she knew he wouldn’t have the time to take care of the younger girls.

             
Annie entered the gymnasium and found Juanita huddled in the corner, alone.

             
“Juanita!” shouted Annie and ran to her ‘sister’. Even though Juanita looked like a younger sister she was actually older than Annie by ten years. She just happened to be a dwarf, albeit a very well-proportioned dwarf with hypochondroplasia. The doctor had kept Juanita drugged up due to her propensity for violent behavior; he preferred his women barely conscious. The Doctor had bestowed Juanita with an enormous set of breast implants and lipo-suctioned any excess fat from her hips, effectively turning her into his own personal sex doll.

She and Annie had been the closest of all the sisters, and Annie was well aware of how strong a person the little woman was. She had never allowed the doctor to break her spirit. Annie hugged her then asked

“Where are the others?” Annie asked anxiously.

             
Juanita shook her head. “They dropped me off. I tried to convince them to stay, but they said they were going to get as far away from the doctor as they could. I was still too doped up to present much of an obstacle for them.”

             
For a second Annie regretted leaving Hito and Shere for only one sister. Hito probably would have let just one more accompany them, especially a woman as tough as Juanita was, but not now. She knew Hito, and even though he had always been gentle with her, she had also witnessed how cold he could be. He had tried to hide it, but it was there. Hito would kill them both. She shrugged her duffle bag from her shoulder and handed it to Juanita. “I’ve been scrounging up gear for you for weeks. Whenever I found clothes your size I’d grab some. I even got you a pair of .380’s and an M-14 carbine. They will fit your hands and I can show you how to use them.”

             
“I grew up in Juarez, Annie, I know how to shoot. Did that Japanese guy show you?” asked the little woman.

             
Annie nodded, her eyes blurring with tears. “Him and Shere…they taught me all kinds of things.”

             
“Good things?”

             
“Yeah, they were good things…do you need some aspirin for your hip?” Annie asked changing the subject.

             
Juanita shook her head, “Are
you
alright, Annie?” asked the little Mexican woman, not taking the bait. Her face was lined with concern.

             
“Yeah, I’m OK. Just hurry, I want to get moving before day breaks.”

             
                                             
Chapter 47 – Wright-Pat Castle

Wright Patterson Air Force Base

Dayton
, Ohio 

             
Bodie drove the Winnebago back into the prison that he and Daniel had escaped from and things had changed drastically since they had last been there. He drove straight for the castle, as Regeliel had asked. Daniel rode shotgun as the rest of the group sat in the back looking out the windows.

“Jeez, it looks like someone nuked the place,” said Bodie. He couldn’t swerve enough to avoid running over the remains of the dead and fallen. The Winnie bounced along as its tires dug trenches through torsos and limbs, spinning occasionally on the gore that pooled everywhere.

              Regeliel stood behind Bodie and pointed to the bastion’s huge double doors. “That’s where we need to go; I can feel it pulling at me.”

             
“Feel
what
pulling at you?” asked Daniel.

             
“The doorway,” the knight replied. “It wasn’t there when I came through to this side; it was in a large hanger before, but it is there now, I feel it.”

             
“We’ll take your word for it,” said Mick.

             
Bodie pulled to a stop in front of the broken down double doors. They were solid steel, but they hung bent from their sturdy quarter inch steel plate hinges.

             
They piled out of the Winnie. “Anyone that wants to change their mind, now would be the time to say so,” said Mick as Mia slung her Katana across her narrow back.

Daniel cinched his deuce gear and slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Nah, let’s just go before I lose my nerve.”

              Bodie clapped a large paw on his friends back. “C’mon you pansy.”

             
They entered the castle in pairs, except for Sir Regeliel who led the way.

             
They marched through a long corridor trying to ignore the massive amounts of dried blood and the stench of rotting flesh. Mia took notice of how many footprints had made their way through, but said nothing. Their footfalls echoed like hammers against the silence that seemed thick and muffled, while Nan and Death wagon brought up the rear and watched their backs.

             
They made their way down the stairway, level after level until they came to another corridor. At the end of this they saw light emanating from another set of steel double doors; these were also ripped from their hinges.

             
As they entered the enormous chamber they stopped in their tracks at the sight of the UFO hovering, suspended silently in midair.

             
“Damn! The Pirate was right,” interjected Daniel.

             
“The Pirate?” asked Mick, and then just shook his head. “Never mind… it was a stupid question.”

             
Mia giggled nervously and elbowed him in the ribs. “Stop it, Sir Mick.”

             
“You guys are nuts, you know that?” said Daniel

             
“Well, we did volunteer to help the inmates bust out of the asylum,” Bodie stated, shrugging good naturedly.

             
“Now what?” asked Daniel.

             
“Now,” said the knight “we go through the door.”

             
“Are we going to
that
castle,” Mia pointed at the hazy vista.

             
“No, first we must go to
mine
and then speak to the Gemini,” said Regeliel.

             
“Of course,
the Gemini
, who else would we speak to?” said Daniel sarcastically.

             
“I don’t know, maybe the
Pirate,”
concluded Mick with equal sarcasm.