APOCALYCIOUS: Satire of the Dead (59 page)

                                                   
Chapter 71 - Cat Island

Cat
Island 

At Juanita’s suggestion they allowed Laptu to stay on the island to entertain himself and Diego’s children. The duo had no trouble finding weapons and ordinance. In fact they had found enough to outfit a small army but
Arlington insisted that when they finished their business at Cat Island he and Nita would scavenge more weapons to equip the ships that docked on Easter Island. They left Nan to implement the defenses as they set out for answers that had eluded them.

The monastery that rested at the peak of Mount Alvernia was called, The Hermitage.

“We’ll have to land in the valley closest to the mountain. There’s no place the ship will fit on the mountain top,” Basil said.

Arlington looked at Juanita knowing she wouldn’t be particularly happy to hear that. He braced himself as he said, “I don’t think you’ll be able to climb up there, Nita.”

Her lips were tight. “Maybe we should get Death or
Nan to go with you then,” she said and silently cursed her short stature.  Although she knew what Arlington said was true and that she would not be able to make the trek without having a week to do it, she was still angry.

“Nita, I need to talk to those monks. I think they might have some information that could help us,” he said, placing his hands on her shoulders. Her eyes locked on his, but she gave no answer.

He tried changing his tactics. “You sure are cute when you’re mad,” Arlington said smiling his crooked grin.

She narrowed her eyes with an obvious lack of amusement. Making light of the situation probably hadn’t been his best course of action. He knelt down in front of her, and from his crouch he had to look up at her, but she didn’t so much as blink.

“C’mon, Nita; don’t be mad at me.”

“I’m not mad at
you
, Arlington,” she said and looked away. She was mad at herself and Arlington knew it.

“I have to do this.”

“Do whatever you want,” she said coolly.

He leaned in to kiss her and she turned her head. He sighed, kissed her turned cheek and stood.

“Put’r down on the beach, Basil,” he said to the Anubis and strapped on his holster before tying the leather hold down around his thigh. He straightened and looked back to see that Juanita had walked to where the Anubis sat and stood beside the half-canine humanoid. She refused to look at Arlington.

He grabbed his shotgun, loaded it, and slung a shotgun shell bandolier over his shoulder as the ramp lowered for him to exit the ship. He walked down the ramp expecting to hear Juanita’s footsteps running after him. She would apologize and kiss him and everything would be alright, but those footsteps never came. He wondered for the thousandth time if he was equipped to handle a relationship such as this. Nita was worth the effort, but would he be worth hers?

Arlington exited the ship and the ramp closed behind him. He didn’t want to leave her behind, in fact he hated having to do that, but then again she hadn’t exactly put forth a good argument against it. Still, he figured that he was in for a cold shoulder and possibly a beat down when he returned.

Arlington
began walking up the beach toward the path that lead to the mountain trail and saw four of the dead staggering in his direction. He pumped a round into the chamber of his Mossberg. There were times when there was something cathartic about shooting someone in the face and not having to worry whatsoever about guilt. Maybe he had become desensitized to the violence or maybe that threat of violence lay dormant in all human beings, waiting for the catalyst to draw it forth.

The pirate strode purposefully forward leaving boot prints in the sand. The dead were about thirty feet away when he raised the shotgun and aimed. As he rested the bead on the closest he was stunned to see the dead men break into a slightly disjointed run. To him it looked as if they were competitors in the polio Olympics but it was also disquieting to know that they seemed to becoming faster and more agile than the slow lumbering hordes he had encountered at the beginning of the plague. He watched as their expressions changed into one of rage. Spittle and a yellow wax-like substance flew from their mouths as their jaws swung open wide and slammed shut like hydraulic presses. In that moment he might have laughed at their clumsy locomotion, but there was nothing comical about the speed in which they closed.

He fired, hitting the closest just above the chin, shearing the top of its head from its lower jaw. He could see the tongue flapping left to right, forward and back like a dead fish as the force of the impact knocked it over backward. Its arms drew upward as its biceps contracted and seized. He pumped the shotgun again in horror as they gained ground on him and he found himself aiming at the next as he stepped backward. He aimed and fired again and took the second, what would have been a teenage girl, just below her eye, removing the left half of her head. Her shredded scalp fluttered in the tropical breeze and his mind thought of butterfly wings. Arlington pumped the shotgun again. It was a moot point the two remaining zombies were upon him and he back pedaled, dropping the shotgun into the sand. He willed the hook to straighten and it formed into a make shift ice pick as he slammed it upward beneath the chin of one of the dead men. The spike pierced all the way through the top of the dead man’s skull. Arlington yanked the hook back down as he felt the rush of air as fingernails clawed at the side of his neck. He thought that he heard a bee whiz past his ear and the fourth and final zombie dropped into the sand, the contents of its head strewn behind it on the beach. Arlington stood there breathing heavily, and watched as a crab crawled into the hollowed out skull and explored its new home.

Arlington
turned slowly and looked behind him.

The silver disk hovered about eight feet above the beach. The ramp was lowered and Juanita had secured herself with a nylon harness. She held her Mini 14 and winked at him.

“Basil said we couldn’t land on the mountain, but he was willing to follow you,” Nita said and Arlington grinned, not knowing what to say, but he thought that saving his ass beat hearing her running footsteps any day. She had been too proud for that and too stubborn to not find a way around her limitations. He could hear her easily from the entrance to the silent ship and he barely had to raise his voice for her to hear.

“You’re awful cute when you’re savin’ my life,” he said.

She mouthed a kiss to him “Don’t be a chauvinist; I’ve still got twenty nine rounds in this magazine,” she said patting the wooden butt stock.

“From the looks of it, you only need one of those rounds,”
Arlington said.

She nodded. “That’s right. Now why don’t you hustle that cute little butt up the mountain so we can go home,” Nita said turning the chauvinism around on him.

Arlington followed the path that curved lazily up the side of Mt. Alvernia and Basil hovered close, beneath Juanita’s watchful eyes.

The Hermitage was a stone fortress surrounded by ten foot high stone and mortar walls. Some of the monastery appeared to have been hewed from the mountain itself. Arlington’s mind turned toward Freemasons and the church, but he wasn’t sure if there was any link to the secret society and Franciscans. As he climbed the final few steps he saw that a monk was waiting for him. It wasn’t just a monk though; there were dozens, maybe hundreds of cats prowling the grounds behind the gates meowing and rubbing affectionately against the monks legs.

The monk glanced at the ship that hovered twenty yards behind
Arlington, but didn’t seem to be very surprised to see it. Arlington reasoned that people’s lack of surprise must be in large part that they had just survived the impossible scenario of zombies eating their neighbors. The iron gates opened and Arlington entered. The monk shut and locked the gate behind him and as he did so, Arlington turned in time to see the ramp on the ship raise. Juanita kept her eyes on his until it closed.

“Do you speak English?”
Arlington asked.

The monk clad in a long brown robe that was cinched at the waist by a white cord with frayed ends that hung down to the middle of his thighs.
Arlington also saw that the monk wore a pair of black canvas Chuck Taylors. The monk said nothing, only gestured silently with his hands to follow him.

They entered the main doors to the two story structure. Double iron-banded oak doors thudded heavily behind them. The hallway was lit by rows of candles and paintings alternated between them. The monk gestured him closer and urged
Arlington to view the first painting. There was a brass placard that announced the name of the painting: ‘The Madonna with Saint Giovannino.’ The painter’s name appeared to be unknown only that it was attributed to the Lippi School. In the work of art, Arlington saw Mary looking down upon two babies that he assumed to be Jesus and possibly John the Baptist. Arlington’s eyes followed the monk’s finger as it pointed to the figures of a man and a dog looking up into the sky. They appeared to be staring at a shimmering disk shaped object that floated over the water above Mary’s shoulder.

Arlington
felt a hand on his shoulder and the monk ushered him past many other works of art to the end of the hall where another thick, banded oak door stood closed. Arlington felt an all-encompassing desire to study the other paintings and wondered what secrets they held in their masterful brushstrokes.

The monk knocked twice then opened the door for
Arlington. The monk placed a hand at the center of Arlington’s back and guided him into the dimly lit room. Two slits of windows allowed sunlight to shine in yellow streaks into the chamber. There were no stained glass or any gold or silver relics. This room was of Spartan décor and smelled of incense.

“Please, sit, mon fils,” said a heavily French accented voice.

There was only a desk and two chairs, one for the desk and one before it. It was simple furniture that contained no curved accents, functional, but not aesthetic. Straight lines continued through the room and kept the room clearly divided into two sections. This one was obviously for work while the other side was for sleeping. This is where the voice emanated from. Another monk clad in the same plain brown robe emerged from its gloom.

“I am Father Arnaud Lefevre, please call me Father Arnaud.”

“Arlington Neff.” he said, extending his hand to the monk who shook it in both his hands. Arnaud’s hands were hard and calloused.  Arlington half expected the monk to claim that he already knew his name and why he was here.

“We don’t receive many visitors. Lately the only visitors we receive have the stench of the grave upon them. So what brings you to our
Island?”

“Just tryin’ to find some answers, I guess.”

“Ahh…” said the monk, “but first you must ask the right questions.”

Arlington
shifted uncomfortably in his chair as the monk seated himself behind his desk with a pleasant smile. “I’m not sure where to begin.”

“I believe that would be Genesis,” said the monk still smiling, “everything begins in the beginning.”

Arlington
spent the next hour talking. He told the monk everything he could remember that had happened since the beginning of the apocalypse.

“I would like, very much, to see the Anubis,” said the monk, referring to Basil with an expression that was full of wonder, and Arlington managed to piece together the heavily accented dialogue, but he wasn’t surprised that a monk from the order of St. Francis would be interested in an animal.

“He can’t leave the ship except for short periods and there is no place for him to land,” Arlington said, then added, “Besides doesn’t the whole alien bit contradict what organized religion says about God?”

The priest smiled broadly and upon recognizing his language faux pas, made a conscious effort to speak in better articulated English. “I think that is what some would have you believe. The church does not believe that God is a simple astronaut or that Christ will come back in the Millennium Falcon to drive us to heaven with Chewbacca praying at our side, but we do believe that God can do whatever He wants, even if it does not include us in His plans or that we need to understand those plans.” Arnaud spread his arms gesturing grandly. “Aliens, why not? The universe is big enough for billions of races we could never dream of and God is certainly not limited by man’s imagination.”

The monk looked troubled as he tried to reorganize his thoughts, but recovered his smile quickly. “Do you know the Egyptian legend of Egyptian burial, mummification or the Anubis?” the monk asked, and after studying
Arlington’s face he didn’t wait for a negative response. “The Egyptians believed the Anubis a deity, but he wasn’t of course. He was a guardian of the dead...or undead. His purpose was to keep that blasphemy of mankind sealed within its tombs.” The monk leaned forward. “They believed that the Anubis came from the sun to protect them.”