APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (50 page)

                                                                
Chapter 60 –Swastikas

Covington
, West Virginia 

              Death pulled the Winnebago to the end of the paved drive, hung a U-turn and pulled it to the side in case they had to make a quick getaway. He looked at Nan, and with a serious edge to his voice he said, “OK Nan, let’s gear up.”

             
Nan smiled nervously. Her heart raced, exhilarated. She put a hand to her breast. “I am so excited,” she said with a slight tremor in her voice.

             
“I’d be excited if my hand was there too,” Death said, nodding toward her breasts.

             
“You are impossible.”

             
“No, I’m pretty easy, actually.”

             
“No kidding,” she said and leaned over to him, kissing him fiercely. “Later…” she promised with a sly narrowing of her eyes, then spun the captain’s chair around and went to the back of the land yacht. Death followed.

             
Nan had been waiting for this day for a long time and had prepared a routine in her mind; a set of protocols to ensure her safety. She had everything: shin guards, knee pads, elbow pads, Kevlar gloves, body armor and a paint ball mask with neck sheath. She covered this gear with leather pants and jacket.

“How do I look?” she said through the mask.

              “You can’t hide your kind of hotness, but you sound like Darth Vader,” he replied as he helped her sling a sheathed katana on her back and handed her a pump shotgun.

             
Death strapped on his shoulder rig, but he felt naked without his .308. He knew that in closer quarters he would have to leave behind his rifle and opted to carry a ‘brush-cannon’.               “Ready?” Death asked and wondered if
he
was ready for this.

             
She took a deep breath, exhaled slowly, and nodded.

             
They locked the Winnebago behind them and started up the drive. Death felt exposed, walking up the paved drive, but walking in the woods left too many places for zombies to be hiding.

             
They rounded a bend in the road and the Greenbrier came into view. The large plantation front of the hotel had seen some battle damage, but it still stood with a large portion of its former opulence intact.

             
“I still don’t feel good about this Nan,” he whispered.

             
“Death don’t…I’m nervous enough.”

             
“Stay close,” Death said quietly but firmly.

             
“You don’t have to worry about that.”

             
As they neared the front of the hotel, Death noticed curtains fluttering in the second story of the building. “Stay sharp, there might be someone in there.”

             
Nan pointed to the sign in front of the building. “Is that what I think it is?”

             
Death looked in that direction  and saw that a swastika had been spray painted on the green and beige sign that read, ‘The Greenbrier’, in a curling and classy script.

             
“That’s it Nan, we’re outa here,” he said, blocking her path with his left arm in front of her waist.

             
“Death it’s just a ….” She was cut off by a blaring, crackling voice.

             
“Drop you weapons and lay on the ground face down!” roared the voice.

             
Nan looked at Death, her eyes wide and round. He weighed the options. As he did so, the sharp report of a high caliber rifle kicked up asphalt mere inches from his right foot and ricocheted away with a high pitched whine.

             
“That was your only warning; do as you’re told or the next one goes through one of your faces!” the voice roared again. It was thick with country accent.

             
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” said Nan with shaky voice.

             
“You’ve got to the count of three,” said the mega-phoned voice “One…”

             
“Damn,” said Death Wagon. He hadn’t seen where the shot had come from, as he’d been looking at Nan. He remembered the curtains moving in the window, but could see no human form there, so he couldn’t risk taking a pot shot and possibly getting Nan wounded or killed. “We’re sitting ducks,” he muttered angrily.

             
“Two…”

             
“Death?” asked Nan timidly

             
Death hesitated for just a moment, and then said, “Do what he said. We’ll figure this out when we have more of a chance.”

             
She and Death laid the shotguns down.

             
“That’s a good boy! Now lay face down on the road!”

             
They did as they were told and within a minute they heard footsteps running toward them. There were at least two sets of them, hard soles clumping heavily against the cracked blacktop.

             
Nan looked over at Death through the paint ball mask. “I’m sorry, Death.”

             
Death was angry but not at her so he forced a smile “Don’t be. We’ll get out of this.”

             
“Promise?” she asked in a frightened little voice.

             
Death nodded, still smiling weakly. “You bet. I won’t let anything happen to you.” He hated himself for promising something to her that he knew full well he had no control over, but he knew that he had to try to keep her calm. As far as he knew, the enemy had no idea that Nan was a woman yet and that was good.

             
He heard more footsteps behind the first. That meant there were three of them, at least. He felt his heart sink as the odds kept getting worse.

             
Two men quickly patted them down and removed their blades and side arms. They slipped plastic zip ties around their wrists behind their backs and forcibly yanked them to their feet.

             
“Walk!” said one of the men and they both were shoved in the middle of their backs to spur them forward.

             
They walked the rest of the way to the hotel, through the main lobby and were marched through several long corridors. They were led through another set of double doors and then shoved outside into an open courtyard. Three sides of the courtyard were surrounded by the sides of the hotel leaving one side exposed to the woods lying fifty feet beyond.

             
On a chaise lounge sat a tall fat white man with a shaved head.  A large black swastika was tattooed over his left temple and he wore a permanent hateful scowl etched on his face, his brow, a knot between his eyes.

             
Four of them now,
Death kept the running count in his mind.
How many more of these inbred douche bags were scurrying in the hotel?
He wondered.

             
The swastika adorned fat man stood up from his repose, and something like a smile crossed his lips, but never touched his eyes. “What have we got here? A Mexican?” he asked in a jovial tone as he strode toward them purposefully and smiled broadly. Death could see only three teeth and he couldn’t help but think that those teeth had probably been rotted to their roots from all the acidic hate speech that had passed over them.

             
“Me?” continued the swastika leader, “I’m an American.” Swastika looked at the man standing behind Nan and said, “Take that mask off the other one.”

             
Death Wagon felt his heart sink even lower. Nan looked more Japanese than black, but he thought that neither side of her heritage would be welcomed here.

             
The camouflaged man directly behind her unceremoniously jerked off the mask and Death watched the leader’s face. Death saw a mix of surprise, disgust and lust.

             
“Well I’ll be damned. It’s a Chink…a chink and a Mexican!” declared swastika.

“Actually, it’s a Mexican and a
Jap
. If you’re going to use ignorant racial slurs, then at least pick the right one,” whispered Nan through clenched teeth. Death smiled over at his woman.

Swastika shrugged. “Whatever bitch, it’s still a lucky day for the Aryan Nation.”

              “The Aryan Nation only has four people?” asked Death with a sneer. His question was not only to be a smart ass, but also to ascertain just how many more of these yahoos there were lurking around the premises.

             
The leader punched Death in the jaw and Death staggered back into the other camouflaged man behind him.

The man behind Death Wagon pushed him forward and growled, “Get offa me.” Death heard laughter from the other and he spat a mouthful of blood on the ground.

              “I’d mind my manners if I was you, Mexican,” said the leader and pointed to his left, “or I might feed ya’ll to my pets.”

             
Death and Nan followed with their eyes in the direction Swastika had pointed and saw a fenced in area against one of the white washed walls of the hotel. Inside were three other camouflaged forms. They staggered and kept walking into the fence that bounced them backward, only to keep repeating the process. The cage men weren’t men any longer; they were now dead men walking.

             
“Yep, that there is Charlie, Dave and Boxcutter, and besides that, smart guy…we got us a few others out and about bringing in more recruits all the time.” The leader then leaned in toward Nan, sniffed her hair and said “I might have to keep this one for myself.” He looked at the man behind Nan. “Cut those clothes off her and let’s take a peek at what we got, Clem.”

             
Nan started crying.

             
“You son of a bitch!” yelled Death and lunged forward, but was instantly yanked backward from behind.

             
Clem jerked Nan’s jacket down over her shoulders where it hung behind her, bunched over her bound wrists. He pulled out a long blade from his belt and cut the black sweatshirt down the front and ripped it open.

             
“I’ll kill you!” screamed Death as he struggled in futility against the man that restrained him.

             
“She’s got a bullet proof vest on, Hal,” said Clem, seeming somewhat confused.

             
“Of course she does,” said Hal, the swastika wearing leader. He shook his head as Clem stood looking and shrugging his shoulders. Hal gave a long suffering sigh, and then said, “Just cut the straps, Clem, for God’s sake.”

             
Clem turned back to Nan and cut easily through the nylon straps and removed the vest revealing a very tight under armor t-shirt as her full round breasts heaved with her sobs.

             
“Well damn! Those
are
some fine titties, cut that shirt off her Clem!” said an animated Hal.

             
Death screamed without words, the cords in his neck standing out like short lengths of rope.

             
“Oh yeah, those are…what the…?” said Hal and he looked down as he felt something rubbing against his boots. A large, stray black cat brushed against his ankles, purring loudly. Hal reached down and scratched the top of the cat’s head. He looked up at his boys smiling “Who wants pussy for dinner?” Death heard a round of laughter erupt from behind him as if it was the wittiest thing he’d ever heard.

             
Blood showered Death as Hal’s head exploded in front of him. Death hadn’t heard the shot, and Clem watched in horror as his leader’s body toppled lifelessly forward in the grass.

             
Nan reacted instantly and brought a knee up into Clem’s crotch; he buckled in pain and curled up in a fetal position, groaning and whimpering words that no one could understand.

             
Death donkey kicked behind him and struck the nameless camouflaged man in the knee cap who fell over cradling his injured knee.

Death turned back to
Nan just in time to see Clem’s head explode into chunks of bone, brain, and scalp and a fine red mist burst in the air like a macabre Independence Day celebration.

Death heard the nameless man shouting at someone in the house, “Shoot ‘em…Shoooot ‘em!!”

The nameless man regained his feet and staggered toward the back doors of the hotel. Death heard a thundering of footfalls from behind, spun and saw a large hairy form shoot from the wood line and close on ‘nameless’ in mere seconds. The towering beast rushed between Death and Nan, and Death smelled a pleasant scent that reminded him of freshly cut grass. It grabbed the unnamed man and wrenched his head from his shoulders with its bare hands. The sound made Death’s stomach heave, but he choked his gorge back down, leaving an acidic taste in his mouth.