APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (55 page)

              “And I thought the wrestling circuit was a freak show,” she said, as Arlington raised a bunk from the floor for her. It was adjusted perfectly for her height. Laptu nearly sat on her lap and stared down at her, entranced.

             
“He thinks you’re a baby,” Arlington said. “He likes babies.”

             
“Yeah…” she said dryly. “I didn’t figure he kept calling me ‘baby’ because he was hitting on me.”

             
Arlington’s face reddened and she saw how uncomfortable he was. He stammered “Uh…well…we are going to Easter Island…There are six others there if you’d like to go.”

             
“Mexico, remember?”

             
“Yeah, I know…but if you don’t find what you’re looking for…”

             
“Then I’ll think about it.”

             
Basil called for Arlington and he welcomed the diversion as he walked to where the Anubis sat perched in the pilots’ chair. “What’s up buddy?”

             
“Don’t call me ‘buddy’ I’m not a dog.”

             
Arlington exhaled out his mouth. He felt like he was taking a royal beating today and really didn’t understand why. “Sorry,
que pasa, amigo
?”

             
“That means the same thing in Spanish,” chided the Anubis as it peered up at him then looked back to the console. “I want to keep this between us.”

             
“OK.”

             
“I am serious, Arlington. Just us,” reiterated the Anubis.

             
“Just between us, I promise.”

             
The Anubis took another minute before speaking, looked at the others to make sure they couldn’t hear him, and then said with a sigh, “I have been seeing things.”

             
“What kind of things?”

             
“It’s difficult to explain…but I feel as if I have a mental link to someone…something… I’m not sure, but it isn’t anything good and I have been getting headaches from them.”

             
“That’s a pretty vague description.”

             
“There is a skull…like it is made of red glass…and there is my eye; my
missing
eye. I think that is the link. It feels right.” The Anubis was obviously troubled by this and Arlington scratched the Anubis behind the ears.

             
“I’m getting tired, Arlington; very, very tired.”

             
“If you need to take a break, just say the word and you can take as long as you need.”

             
“It’s not that. I rarely sleep, I don’t need to as long as I remain in the ship,” said Basil, with a distinct weariness in his voice. “I am very old Arlington. I don’t think you recognize just how old I am and I just want this to be finished.”

             
Arlington had never considered that living as long as Basil had could be a bad thing. He studied the Anubis with concern. “You’re right; I can’t understand that, ol’ buddy. Even though there were days when I felt old, in comparison forty years is pretty fleeting compared to yours.”

             
Basil closed his eye and sighed, “I just feel like I deserve the right to die.” His eye snapped open and he added “when this is over…that’s what I plan to do.”

             
Arlington felt a lump in his throat and petted the Anubis. “Whatever you decide, I’ll back you.”

             
“Thank you, Hillbilly,” Basil said, and Arlington saw that the gleam was back in his friend’s eye.

             
“No problem fleabag.”

             
Juarez, Mexico looked as if it had been part of the movie set for ‘The Day After’. Every building had some damage. Some had been gutted by fires, some lay in piles of rubble, while others were riddled with holes of all sizes in them. Cars were overturned in the street, burnt hulks of metal sat on brake drums with a layer of melted rubber coating the pavement beneath them. The stench of the rotting dead was so intense that they could almost taste it. Bodies lay in the streets and vultures had picked the organs from their open torsos. Others still lounged in burnt up vehicles, their flesh cooked and charred with mouths agape. Of the one million plus inhabitants of Juarez the scan had picked up no heat signatures of the living.

             
Immediately, upon lowering the ramp, the dead emerged from alleys and demolished structures. They moved with more surety and coordination than Arlington had seen before. Their steps were faster and Arlington shivered. “Basil said that there was no one left alive.”

             
“How can he know that?” she snapped at him.

             
“It’s too sophisticated for me. I only know that the scans are always right.”

             
Juanita wasn’t mad at the inked up man beside her, but she often used that forced hostility to cover up the raw emotions beneath. Her whole family had lived in Juarez and although the town was notorious for being a horrible place to raise a family it was still home. At least the gangs, drug dealers and dirty cops no longer inhabited the city. Had it been the wrath of God or had God simply abandoned those who had abandoned Him? She rubbed her cross pendant absently. She jumped when Arlington laid a hand gently on her shoulder. “Ms. Mendoza?”

             
She watched the dead striving toward them. “Easter Island, huh?”

             
“Yeah.”

             
“Is it safe?”

             
“It will be.”

             
“I guess I could give it a shot.” She glanced over her shoulder and thought of Lot’s wife, but she didn’t turn into a pillar of salt. God had already left town.

             
As she walked back up the ramp she asked Arlington “Is there any way I could get cleaned up? I feel disgusting.”

             
He looked down at her “Yeah, sure, but you don’t look disgusting to me.”

             
The way he said that, not the words themselves, but the inflection made her feel something she hadn’t for a long time and she found that she was smiling. “Easy cowboy and remember the rules.”

             
“I remember Ms. Mendoza.”

             
“You might as well call me Juanita.”

             
                                                 
Chapter 66 - The Gemini

Grove of the Gemini,

Plane of the Ark

             
The Grove was a small circular clearing that lay surrounded by dense woods. A single trail led to it and in the center of the clearing was a large stack of flat rocks that Regeliel called a cairn. Around the perimeter of the clearing stood large monoliths, each monolith was formed by two long rectangles standing on end supporting another that bridged their span. The same pattern repeated every ten or fifteen feet and Bodie saw the resemblance between it and the photos he had seen of Stonehenge in England.

             
Regeliel carried the grief-stricken Mia to the center and laid her body upon the cairn. Bodie watched as he leaned against his double-bladed war axe. He had no idea what to expect, only that some dude named ‘the Gemini’ was supposed to help her.

             
As Bodie watched, he saw two ghostly apparitions appear at the edge of the forest. Remembering how the skull had seemed to dissolve before their eyes he instantly grabbed his axe and ran forward. Regeliel held him back with one outstretched arm. “It is alright, my friend. It is the Gemini.”

             
The twin spectral bodies hovered near where Mia lay and Bodie could better see the detail of their faces. They were just children, probably eight years old at the most. The Gemini was a boy and what Bodie assumed to be a twin sister. Their faces were round and innocent and kind. There was none of the earthly greed or selfish defiance that graced most of the kids he had known.

             
The little girl laid a hand on Mia’s chest and visibly cringed. “Oh,” she said, with much pain inflected in her tone.

             
“She’s an empath,” whispered Regeliel.

             
“I have no idea what that is,” Bodie admitted.

             
“She can take your pain. She feels it so that you don’t have to.”

             
Bodie narrowed his eyes and stroked his beard “What’s in it for her?”

             
“Nothing,” answered the knight, “but she will only take it if the boy approves.”

             
“And what does the boy do, other than boss around his sister?” Bodie asked grumbling.

             
“He is an oracle.”

             
“A what?”

             
“Oracle, he is a prophet.”

             
“Don’t you have any normal occupations in this place? Maybe a plumber, because I think you’re full of shit and a toilet might come in handy.”

             
Regeliel patted the top of Bodie’s helmet affectionately.

             
They watched the little girl, still resting her hand on Mia’s heart as she began to sob uncontrollably. Bodie thought that it was probably the spookiest sound he’d ever heard. Mia’s eyes slowly lost that vacant, far-away look and her gaze found that of the little girl. The girl’s eyes swam with tears and pain. Mia raised a hand “No…not all of it…” her voice pleaded.

             
The little girl obeyed and left some of the pain to remain, but a small amount was still enough to pierce her heart. That shred was like a dagger that burned within her. The residue of dying pain was anger and Regeliel saw that spark glinting in Mia’s dark eyes.

             
The little girl floated back to the trees still sobbing as she disappeared from view, but the forest heard her grief and wept with her. Birds and animals took up her call and Bodie’s arms became covered in goose flesh.

             
The little boy finally spoke. “This woman is to be taken to the Isle of Hate.” The boy’s voice sounded like a ghastly two part harmony. “The skull you seek will be found there.”

             
Regeliel bowed silently but the boy quieted him by raising a hand. “When the moon is at its apex she must be present at the Cairn of the Megaliths.” The boy motioned to the Nephilim to come closer. Regeliel did and the boy said. “She must be atop the cairn before the lightning fades.”

             
Regeliel bowed again and the boy’s ethereal form faded into the woods to comfort the little girl. The giant pondered what the Gemini had told him, but believed that he would know when the time came, of how best to interpret the Prophesy.

             
Mia eased herself from the cairn and stood before the knight and the dwarf. “Now we bury my husband.” Her tone challenged the two, but they lowered their gaze from her eyes. There was a hardness there that they had never seen before.

             
“Aye M’Lady,” said the knight and Bodie grunted. Regeliel turned and walked back upon the single trail that led to the Grove. Mia and Bodie hurried behind, following the great strides of the giant. Bodie virtually had to run to keep up. “Don’t you people have any horses or dirt bikes or something?”

             
They found Daniel standing sentinel over Mick’s body. The wolf’s eyes a bright red in the dark. He rose on his hind legs, howled and ran with the moon that still called him to eat his fill that night before she descended below the horizon.

              Mia insisted on filling the grave herself. Daniel had already prepared the ground for Mick’s body while they were gone. The Lycan’s claw marks scratched the edge of the hole. Regeliel and Daniel gathered the stones to place over his grave. As she covered Mick’s body in blankets she did not sob, but tears flowed freely down her cheeks. She mourned that the child that grew inside her womb would never know so great and good a man. She mourned for herself and the loss that she felt, but she refused to mourn for Mick. She had never believed in his religious theories or rhetoric, but she could not force her atheistic mind to believe that a man as good as Mick would simply cease to exist. No, he would be taken to be with his God. She had seen things that her analytical mind could not rationalize; things at which she had scoffed, and she had found that she had been wrong on a lot of things. God was one that she was more than happy to accept. If she were to see her husband again then logic dictated that she must believe in the same God. She wanted that. More than anything else she wanted to be with Mick again. She would be with him again; hell and science be damned.