by K Helms
“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.
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?” venture
d 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 16th- 18th’, 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.”
“Just don’t be farting in my face, Neff.”
He chuckled because he was a ravenous eater of Bean and Bacon soup. It was his favorite and he had eaten some of it this morning.
“Something funny?” she asked suspiciously
“Yea…no…I just remembered something….uh…never mind…” he stammered.
She put a hand on his backside and pushed. “Go!”
He turned on his flashlight and she did the same as he swung open the metal door that led from the roof.
They took it slow as they descended into the darkness. It was silent within the stairwell but for Arlington’s boots echoing, keeping steady rhythmic time until they finally reached a landing with a door printed with a large number three.
“Here it is,” he whispered.
“I can read, you know?” she whispered back.
Arlington didn’t respond as he pulled the handle toward him and swept the light through the doorway. Dust motes floated like snow through the beam of light. Another banner hung from the ceiling welcoming them to the exhibit. It was just as quiet in here as it had been in the stairwell and his boot heels made a distinct clack-clock sound as he moved forward. Juanita’s sneakers squeaked softly, but every sound seemed amplified in the cavernou
s auditorium.
Juanita emerged to his right side and the door swung slowly shut with a light hissing sound on its pneumatic shock. She shined her light on the large glass case in the center of the floor and walked toward it as Arlington kept pace with her to her left.
The case was covered in dust and Arlington wiped a section clear with his palm then wiped his hand on the leg of his jeans.
“It’s empty,” he said, sighing with disappointment.
Juanita examined other cases. “They’re all empty.”
“They must’ve moved them someplace safe when the infection was reaching critical mass,” he said.
“Great,” she groaned, “don’t tell me…the basement, right?”
“That’d be my guess.”
“And I suppose you want to have a look see?” she asked miserably.
“I can call Basil and have him pick you up if you want. I wouldn’t blame you,” Arlington said. That was exactly what she wanted but she held her tongue.
“You’d probably end up getting lost if I wasn’t there to hold your hand.”
“Could be…basements are usually upstairs, right?” he said sarcastically, and she had to smile.
Juanita began to feel a coldness burrow into her bones and her heart began to hammer in her chest at the thought of going deeper into the building. Being trapped in a basement was not her idea of a good time, especially, when you were surrounded by a horde of dead cannibals and stuck in close quarters with a man that had been fiendishly devouring beans like the campfire scene of Blazing Saddles.
He looked at her, waiting for an answer.
She rolled her eyes. “You owe me big time,” she said with a sigh.
Arlington looked as if he wanted to say something witty then clamped his jaw shut.
They walked back to the stairwell and headed down the stairs.
Chapter 69 – Wails from the Crypt
The double push bars to the basement door was chained shut and Arlington cursed under his breath. A sign on the gray steel doors read in bold red letters ‘Authorized Personnel Only’. He lifted the padlock that secured both ends of the chain and grunted.