APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (53 page)

             
“Laptu!” he yelled louder this time. Although Laptu was easily able to rend the dead limb from limb, he knew that all it took was one bite, maybe even one cut by a diseased fingernail and he would be forced to put the Bigfoot down. Surely Laptu could easily distance himself and if he encountered one at a time he could club the dead with one of those enormous lunchboxes he called fists, and bludgeon the head to a pulp. He hoped so anyway.

             
The screams and groans became louder and was joined by more creating a hellish choir.
How many?
He wondered. He guessed there to be at least five or six that he heard distinctly, but he couldn’t be sure and he couldn’t pinpoint from where the echoes came. He didn’t like making so much noise yelling for Laptu, but he had no choice.

“Laptu!”

              He listened and apart from the growing number of the dead man symphony he heard a snapping of a twig from somewhere close by. He levered back the hammer and kept the Winchester at his hip in front of him as he spun slowly in a circle, scouring the vista with his dilated eyes. He squinted into the growing engorged shadows and saw four figures about eighty yards away, illuminated by the rising moon.

             
He lowered his voice and called again, “Laptu?”

             
Again, he heard nothing. Arlington assumed a kneeling shooter’s position and brought the rifle up, resting the front sight on the lead figure, curling the index finger around the trigger, with his hook clamped securely on the front stock. He focused on his breathing, settling his nerves.

             
Arlington eased his finger from the trigger. He couldn’t risk the shot yet. It would give away his position and he wasn’t ready to allow them to pinpoint him.

             
He waited and heard the crickets that surrounded him suddenly stop chirping. He swung the rifle around and the barrel pointed directly at Laptu’s stomach.

             
The Bigfoot raised a finger to his mouth. “Shhh…”

             
Arlington lowered the rifle relieved to see his friend. “Where’ve you been big fella?”

             
Laptu pointed to the approaching figures. “Babies,” he said, and then a low rumble growled from his diaphragm.

             
Arlington looked back at the four figures and noticed they were about twenty yards away now. Behind them, another fifty yards further away followed a group of disjointed figures. Arlington recognized them to be the dead, but they seemed faster than many of the others he had previously seen. He felt Laptu grab his forearm, the Bigfoot was gentle, but firm and easily hoisted the man to his feet. “Come.”

             
Laptu led him toward the forms that didn’t seem to be the least bit scared of the hairy primate.

             
A man stepped forward and said in a hushed voice, “I am Diego Dos Santos. This is my son and two daughters.” He extended his hand.

             
Arlington, who was a firm believer in manners, took the offered hand shook it briskly, then said, “I ain’t tryin’ to be rude, Mr. Santos…”

             
“Dos Santos,” Diego corrected.

             
“Yeah, OK, but let’s get outa here and we can introduce ourselves properly once it’s safe,” Arlington said in a quick whisper.

             
Laptu scooped up the two small girls in his long heavily muscled arms. “Babies,” he said happily, and the girls hugged him fiercely, perfectly content to be protected by the Yeti.

              When they arrived at the ship they found Nan and Death on either side of the ramp waiting for his return.

             
“We’ve got to lift off, there’s more of the dead heading this way,” Arlington said.

             
“Yeah we heard,” Death said scowling.

             
They rushed into the ship and Basil guided them a mile off shore and settled into the water, where it bobbed in the waves, although inside there seemed to be none of that effect. Basil opened a row of round portholes, giving them a full view all the way around the ship.

             
Arlington raised four more bunks from the floor. Nan rushed to the father of the children and introduced herself. “I’m Nan. This is my husband Death.”

             
“Muerto?” Diego asked puzzled.

             
Death nodded; his face pleasant but not warm," Trust me it gets weirder.”

             
Nan continued with the introductions, “That is Laptu, Arlington and Basil.” She pointed to each in turn.

             
The father put a hand to his chest. “Diego Dos Santos and this is my son Marco,” he said resting his hand on the head of a boy of about thirteen, “and these are my daughters, Maria and Isabella.”

             
Laptu held his arms straight out before him as the little girls giggled and dangled like monkeys. “Babies,” said the grinning ape.

             
“Are you from the island?” Nan asked.

             
“No, we are from the Croatoan. She is my ship, a tanker anchored off the eastern side.”

             
“Croatoan?” asked Arlington and Diego nodded.

             
“That doesn’t bode well,” Arlington said as he remembered the story of the Roanoke colony. No one else seemed to notice his disconcerted expression

             
“No one is infected?” asked Death and Nan glared at his tactlessness.

             
“No!” Diego crossed himself “No one is infected.”

             
“Do you have any weapons?” Death asked, more for their own safety than concern for the new arrivals.

             
Diego drew a .38 special and snapped open the cylinder. “Only two bullets left.”

             
“Well, you have obviously passed the Laptu test, so you are all welcome,” Arlington said and Diego looked relieved.

             
“Thank you, but why have you come to Easter Island?” Diego asked curiously.

             
“It’s remote and we want to clean it out to make a settlement. From the looks of it we won’t really have to build anything,” said Nan referring to all the homes.

             
Diego looked pleased. “Yes, yes, it would be a good safe harbor. We can help. My son and I know how to run many machines and my daughters are small but strong and behave well.”

             
“They certainly look strong,” replied Nan as she regarded the little gymnasts climbing all over the Bigfoot as if he were a fir tree.

             
“Sleep first,” Arlington suggested and patted the cushioned bunks “These are actually pretty comfortable.” He tried to remember the last time he had been in the presence of this many people, much less, this many friends or what could become so. It had been years, though he wasn’t sure exactly how many.

             
Nan looked at Death “Seven of us now. That’s a good start,” Diego agreed.

              It turned out that the Croatoan was a lot more comfortable than Arlington’s ship so Death and Nan accepted Diego’s invitation to call it home until the island was completely secure. It also freed Arlington to use the ship for its intended purpose; to search for survivors. Laptu was reluctant to leave the ‘Babies’, but he did, and the girls cried as they watched him disappear into the ship then peek back around the corner and looked longingly at the girls as they struggled against their father’s arms to run to the yeti.

             
“Will you be alright while we’re gone?” Arlington asked Death as he shook his friend’s hand.

             
“We’ll be fine. Just make sure you don’t bring back any bad apples,” Death said.

             
“Don’t worry about that, you saw how Laptu reacts to the wormy ones,” Arlington joked. Death remembered the scene at the Greenbrier and nodded.

             
“That works for me.”

             
The six remaining survivors watched as the silver disk quickly became a dot winking in the sun and disappear from view.

             
“Well Diego, we’ve got a busy few days,” Death said as he stood beside the tanker captain.

             
Diego nodded and instructed Marco to man the radio and make sure the girls were kept below deck as they prepared to go back ashore.

             
They boarded the inflatable raft and Diego ripped the cord firing up the Evinrude outboard engine. The raft leapt wave to wave as they bounced toward the uncertain shore.

             
“What’s first?” yelled Nan above the roar of the motor.

             
“I really want to burn the bodies, but we need to scour the island; we’ll kill any of them we find and then go house to house and clear out every square inch first,” Death yelled back.

             
“Yes, the dead first,” agreed Diego.

             
Nan wasn’t sure which dead Diego was referring to, the dead washed up on the beach or the dead still walking around, but Death Wagon seemed to understand so she didn’t question.

             
They were equipped with .12 gauge shotguns instead of long range rifles.
Better take down power, less chance to miss, better chance for Nan to be safe
, Death thought.

Death had tried to convince
Nan to stay with the children and he instantly regretted it. She was far from happy about that suggestion and had let him know it. There was no way that she was going to let the men do all the glory work. She planned on being proactive in this new world and Death Wagon would just have to deal with it and drop all that macho crap. Nan really didn’t cuss and using the word ‘crap’ during an angry rant made him want to smile, but he knew better than to do that.

             
As they neared the shore they felt hands reaching from beneath the waves, buffeting the sides of the raft, clamoring for purchase and Diego gunned the engine before those ragged fingers could puncture the heavy material. Nan looked over the side, into the pounding surf, and saw the gray and blue faces of the dead, and their milky eyes staring at her with an unrelenting hunger as their jaws snapped open and shut. She brought the barrel of the shotgun over the side and Death stopped her, shaking his head. “It’s too risky, you might hit the raft.” Nan looked perturbed, but the reason, she decided was sound.

             
They ran the raft onto the beach and hurriedly jumped over the sides into the shallow surf and dragged it further up the beach. Diego tied it to a piling and they formed a circle, back to back at Nan’s urging. Death felt kind of stupid standing there doing nothing but Nan insisted. “We can’t start house to house with the dead on both sides. We’ll wait for the dead to emerge from the water and finish them first. Don’t forget to keep count; Basil said there was seventy-eight of them remaining.”

             
                                                  
Chapter 64 - 52” Pickup

Nine months after infection

Bowling Green
, Kentucky 

              Juanita didn’t regret leaving Hito and Shere behind, every time she had looked at them she had wanted to stab them in the heart. She had stitched up her wounded shoulder with dental floss and had splashed Aqua Velva after shave over it as disinfectant, bandaged it, then gathered her gear and took the Bentley, leaving Annie’s friends stranded. She was sure that they were smart enough to find something else and if they weren’t, then they deserved what they got.

             
Juanita had the intention of driving the Bentley as far south as possible. When the car finally gave up the ghost of fuel and fumes she would find a small boat and travel down the Mississippi river to the Gulf of Mexico, then head south-west being sure to stay along the coastline and possibly hit the Rio Grande. Juarez was her destination. She held no delusions of ‘happily ever after’ in that gangland haven of a town, but that was where her family had been before the dead had decided that the grave didn’t look all that interesting. If she was extremely fortunate she may find one or two of her brothers and sisters still alive and they could figure out where to go from there. There was nothing left for her in the States.

             
She glanced up at the rear view mirror and gave herself a quick appraisal. She thought she looked pretty tired. The whites of her eyes were streaked with red and the dark circles under her brown eyes were visible even though her skin was tanned. All things considered, she thought she looked presentable then had to laugh, but there wasn’t much humor in that sound. Who was she worried about looking presentable to? Still, she thought that she could use a good shower. Her scalp itched and her hair, normally satin smooth and shiny, was limp and in desperate need of shampoo. She looked back to the road; there was too much wreckage to divert her eyes for too long.