APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (56 page)

             
She lifted the body of her husband easily. It was so light, with its absence of fluids that it reminded her of one of those mummies that were found in the desert of Peru, only the color wasn’t that leathery brown, it was white, ghostly white. “I love you Mickey, and every day I have left I’ll try to make you proud. We
will
be together. I swear it.” She kissed the blanket that covered his head and lowered him into the oblong hole.

             
Regeliel and Bodie covered the mound of dirt with stones, each one perfect in its place.

                                                             
Chapter 67 – Introductions

Easter Island
 

              The Croatoan was an enormous ship and capable of carrying over two hundred thousand tons of dead weight and had a length of almost an eighth of a mile.

             
They sat on the empty deck of Diego’s ship and enjoyed a meal of canned soup and Spam. Death wasn’t partial to the canned lips and assholes, but the island had no wild game roaming upon it other than rats. Still, he thought that Diego could have caught some fish to eat instead.

             
Nan told the group about Mick and Mia and Regeliel. She explained about the ship at Wright Patterson Air Force base and how it had manifested a dimensional portal and that for whatever reason she had not been able to pass through. She began to get emotional retelling this account.

             
“So we have aliens, zombies and a Bigfoot,” said Death jerking a thumb at the yeti that stood at the deck railing hooting at birds. “It seems like one acid trip of a scenario, if you ask me.”

             
Arlington spoke up. “Not necessarily,” he said “We’ve all heard about UFO’s and we have all probably seen a zombie movie or a Bigfoot investigation on the History channel.” They all agreed.

             
“We’ve also heard of Superman, so where’s
that
dude when we need him?” Juanita asked impatiently. Over the past two weeks with Arlington she had begun to settle into a comfortable repartee with the hook-handed hillbilly.

             
“It gets complicated, so I’ll try to keep it as short and simple as possible,” Arlington said.

             
“Simple is good,” Diego said.

             
“A big part of alien theory is the wormhole and that’s how they get from place to place so quickly. This ship doesn’t seem to be capable to gate wherever, though, it opened a gate at Wright Pat, but nowhere else. There are rumored to be vortices that allow them to pass. There is one that I know you’ve all heard of.”

“What’s that?” asked Death.

“The Bermuda triangle,” Arlington answered and his eyes seemed to light up at the subject.

             
“I’ve read about that… freaky.” Nan said.

             
“Yeah but do you know what else in is the Bermuda triangle?” he asked expectantly.

             
“Bermuda?” Juanita asked dryly.

             
Arlington stammered. “Well…yeah…but the northern tip of Haiti and Tortuga Island is there.” He studied their faces.

             
Nan’s eyes lit up. “Haiti is the birthplace of voodoo…and zombies!” she exclaimed. “That is genius Arlington!”

             
Arlington looked embarrassed, but continued, “If you spell Haitians phonetically you get the words Hai Siens. In French, because Haitians speak French, they have this phrase
Qui hait les siens.”

             
“
One who hates his own,”
translated Nan as she looked around at the others who were staring at her. “What? I know a little French,” she said matter of factly.

             
Arlington nodded. “Yep, the island of Hate; zombies hate their own. People are their own…or at least used to be.

             
“OK, you’ve tied the two together, but how does that help us?” Juanita asked.

             
“More theories, I’m afraid,” he answered.

             
“Great,” muttered Juanita, but she watched Arlington intently and she realized that she had once thought he might be retarded. Now, that idea seemed ridiculous. For certain, he was eccentric and would have been considered weird in the old world, but now
weird
was extremely relative.

             
“Before we got here, Basil told me that he was having visions of a red glass skull. It got me thinking of the crystal skulls. There are supposed to be thirteen, but only twelve have been found.”

             
Juanita held up a hand and made a circular motion with it,
Hurry it up.

             
“
Skulls are a symbol of death, which coincides with zombies. Guess where the last known exhibit for these skulls was supposed to be shown?” Arlington asked and looked around the group.

             
“Haiti?” ventured Diego.

             
“Close, Bermuda,” he said. “Next, we have a talking Anubis that is as old as Noah from the book of Genesis in the Bible. Somehow he got on the alien ship and the Grays took to him and fixed him up so that as long as he stays on the ship he doesn’t die.”

             
“OK, I’ll bite. How does this tie in?” asked Juanita, and despite herself she was starting to become interested in this conspiracy theory.

             
“There’s an island in the Bahamas that has a mountain on it and perched on top of this mountain is a monastery. They are rumored to have a vast collection of archaic relics and a library which contains ancient books on the occult, mythology and ancient astronaut theory. I think the monks there might be able to help us out...if they are still alive,” Arlington said and glanced at Nan who appeared to be thinking. She looked up and smiled.

             
“Cat Island,” she said nodding her head.

             
“So you want to go to Cat Island then?” Death asked.

             
Arlington nodded. “First the skulls; I think they’re important and I want to get to them before someone else does. Once we have those, then we can go to the monastery. Maybe we can get some more answers there.”

             
“What about the work that needs done here?”

             
“I’ll leave that to you four,” Arlington said. Nan looked disappointed and Death noticed that expression.

             
“You’re going to go alone?” Death asked. “That doesn’t seem wise.”

             
“Basil and Laptu will be with me.”

             
“I’ll go,” Juanita said, standing and stretching her short legs. Arlington looked surprised and she explained. “What? It beats burning corpses. When do we leave?”

             
“Uh…tomorrow, if that’s alright,” he said uncertainly.

             
“Alright, tomorrow then, but I need to get some sleep,” Juanita said then walked to the hatch leading below deck.

             
“She’s a little firecracker, isn’t she?” Death asked.

             
“I like her,” Nan said.

             
Arlington grunted as he watched Juanita descend below deck.  Diego ushered his children to bed and Laptu hooted at them affectionately. The children waved and hooted back, laughing.

                                                            
Chapter 68 - Skullduggery

Hamilton
, Bermuda

              The Bermuda National Gallery in Hamilton, Bermuda had remained relatively untouched. There were no connect-the-dot mosaics of bullet holes or gore streaked Jackson Pollack paintings adorning the exterior walls.

Although the population of
Bermuda had been annihilated, just as it had everywhere else and even though the island smelled like a dumpster behind an abortion clinic, the scans showed that the dead had seemed to surround, but not infiltrate the building or its outlying property.

According to the banner hanging from the front of the five story brick building that proclaimed ‘Crystal Skull Exhibit March 16
th
- 18
th’
, the skulls should be resting beneath glass cases in the main auditorium of the third floor.

Basil dropped
Arlington and Juanita off on the roof of the museum and flew the ship to hover three blocks over so the ship’s vibrations wouldn’t draw the dead to their position. With any luck Basil would find a gaping abyss and the dead would trudge forward and fall en mass into its depths.

Basil’s visions of the red glass skull had triggered the old memory in
Arlington’s head of the crystal skull conspiracy theory. According to the legend, there were supposed to be thirteen of the skulls hidden throughout the world, but when brought together, something cataclysmic was thought to occur, although the so-called experts could never agree as to what exactly that occurrence might be. He didn’t believe that any of those theories had once mentioned a zombie apocalypse. Besides, there were said to be only twelve skulls here at the museum, not thirteen so Arlington reasoned that the red one in Basil’s vision must be the thirteenth and somewhere else, but being used by a darker force. Arlington and Juanita had discussed this on the way and the discussion had consisted largely of her making sarcastic comments on his theories.  She had told him that maybe the thirteenth skull was that of a leprechaun and when you found it you found a giant bowl of Lucky Charms cereal.

Bermuda
was hot, too hot for a man who had just spent the past few months in the winter and spring landscape of Ohio. He opted to wear one of his pit stained wife-beaters, while Juanita had found the least disgusting of his shirts that had the letters U.S.A. emblazoned on the front in descending shades of red white and blue. He looked at her and even though she had to tie up the bottom of the long shirt into a knot, the round shape of her breasts strained against the material and he began to feel his pants swell with patriotic pride.

She looked up from tying the shirt and caught his gaze. “You can quit staring anytime now.”

Arlington jerked his eyes away with his face reddening and pretended to scan the rooftop for enemies. Juanita smiled. She didn’t tell him, but she kind of liked how easy it was to embarrass him.

Arlington
cleared his throat, “Looks clear up here.”

Juanita glanced around the wide open space theatrically. “You think?”

Arlington attached an LED flashlight to the nub beneath the barrel of his Mossberg and grunted something unintelligible. It was easy to pick on Arlington. He was so awkward in his speech that verbal sparring had about as much sport in it as clubbing a baby seal. Basil was often times brutal and Juanita was guilty of picking up the club when the Anubis swinging it needed a break. To Arlington’s credit he never seemed to get mad; he might grumble something under his breath, but mostly he just stood there and took it. Truth be told, she liked how he would blush like a school boy and how it took years away from the forty that lined his face.

She adjusted her shoulder rig and caught him sneaking another peek. She pretended not to notice this time and allowed him to drool over her saline implants. She felt a slight tickle in her belly and frowned. She had grown accustomed to men wanting her for the novelty of nailing a dwarf or because it was taboo. Being bound and abused by the Doctor had allowed her to see the worst in men and they had subjected her to their most deviant of desires. Mostly they had kept her drugged; she was grateful for that now and the memories of that period were hazy. Although
Arlington liked to stare at her, he had never once acted inappropriately or even said anything sexually inappropriate. Still he was a man, she had seen the way he stared at her breasts and he probably couldn’t be trusted.

She looked up and over at him and he jerked his gaze down to his shoes guiltily.

“I’m still not convinced this is necessary. It sounds pretty far-fetched,” she said.

“Might be, I s’pose, but everything seems far-fetched lately.”

She silently agreed; there really was no arguing with that logic.

He walked to the door of the stairwell. “Stay behind me.”