The APOCs Virus (24 page)

The giant's features immediately softened.  He looked down and started to mumble.  Henry's guess to the man's intelligence had been right on the money.  

Softly the big man said; "I was told to keep anyone from passing.  Phil
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he said don't let any person go by
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that's what he said to me
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that's why I stopped you.  I think now he meant a human-bean."

So he does think I'm an Apoc, can't be too hard on him though, looks like he might end-up crying.
  "So tell me there young fella, my name's Henry, what's your name?"

A look of excitement passed over his face lighting up his eyes with a dull red glow.  With a boyish smile on his face he said with the words rushing together; “Tom, Tom Hankard
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ah that's what I used to be.  Now everyone calls me Tom the Terminator.  Like Arnold in the movies." 

"Terminator huh, how'd you get a name like that?"

"Because I kill human-beans."

Henry was going to correct him and tell him the word was “human beings” but instead an icy shudder brought goose flesh to his arms. "Why they got you guarding this sewer-pipe?"

"Because they're digging up there
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up there by Miss Nattie's old house."

Henry felt a lump the size up a grapefruit well up inside his throat. 
Nattie, did he say Nattie?  I've got to keep him talking.
  "Miss Nattie, did you say?  Tell me about Miss Nattie, Tom?”

Again the overgrown boy's face began to beam.  "Miss Nattie, she's real nice, sometimes she calls me her son.  I say, Miss Nattie I'm not your son.  But she don't listen and just calls me her son anyway."

"What does she look like, Tom?”  Henry asked excitedly.

"She's a big lady, not too fat, but big, you know?  And she has her hair that looks like a helmet, like this," he said moving his hands around an inch from his greasy hair.  "And, and Miss Nattie, she don't walk too good.  Sometimes I have to carry her places."

It had to be her
, Henry thought.  "Tom, where's Miss Nattie at right now?  Do you know?  Is she up there where they're digging?"

"Oh no, Miss Nattie, she's gone with the others.  She's gonna be on TV tonight."

"At the concert?"

"Yep.  At the concert."

Nattie!  Nattie's still alive!
  Henry's heart felt like bursting with happiness and relief.  He had to calm down.  He needed to get his things and get to that concert.  "Ah, Tom, I need to get up with the people that are digging.  Are they at Miss Nattie's house?"

Tom put one finger to his lips and looked up as if he was asking for divine help
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or inspiration.  Having mused the question he finally answered: "A few maybe.  I think they finished connecting the tunnels there, though.  Most are probably connecting the big tunnel to the one that goes to the castle."  

The castle, Henry thought, he had to be talking about the old ice factory.  So that was how they moved around without being seen. 
He hadn't been the only one with the idea of using the sewers.  "Well Tom, it sure has been a pleasure talking to ya,” Henry said meaning to be on his way.  "But I've got to be going now, got to make my report to Abaddon."

"But Abaddon's not there, he's gone to the TV place.  He left in a big shiny bus this afternoon.  I know because I was there.  And you know what too?  There were human-beans in that bus, I could smell them and it made me real hungry.  But Abaddon told me in my head, without speaking, to not hurt these humans and it made me mad."  Tom stuck out his bottom lip like a six-year-old being told to go to bed early.  “Did you say your name was Henry?"

Henry turned completely around to face the huge behemoth and wondered if he should have made up a name.  "Yes I did," he said hesitantly, "It's Henry, Henry Pigott, why do you ask?"

"Because Miss Nattie's husband's name was Henry too.  But you can't be Miss Nattie's Henry."  Tom pondered this by rubbing his hand on his near-bald head and making big tufts of hair fall out in the process.

"Why do you say that Tom?"

"Because Abaddon laughed and said he had killed Miss Nattie's Henry."

"I've really got to go.”  Henry turned and left without saying goodbye.

Henry's clothing had nearly dried by the time he was one storm grate away from his house.  He stood in the light of the drain to examine the cuts and bruises he was sure that he must have up and down his arms and shins.  There was nothing but a few places where it looked like the skin had already healed over. 
That was a hell of a spill I took back there, he thought.  Damn cop almost killed me
.  He walked up close enough to see the large tunnel made by Abaddon's men.  He could hear the sounds emanating from the hole of large objects being moved around.  He retraced his steps backward—keeping an eye on the tunnel to his house—until daylight from the drain opening spilled down onto his face.  He placed a hand on a rung to climb out when the ringing in his ears intensified.  He spun around quickly and stood face-to-face with trouble.

Cold fingers touched his shoulder.  He looked to his left, and there stood two other creatures that looked as if they came from the grave, wearing dirt
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encrusted McDonald's uniforms.  Through the changeover or from lack of nourishment they had dissolved down to skinny stick figures, and what remained of their flesh was now a scabby, leprous gray.

It was a small-statured man in a police uniform and two half-anesthetized Apocs with shovels in their hands.  Henry quickly assessed the situation and decided flight was out of the question, so he'd have to stay and fight.  Henry thought the little cop would be no trouble, but the two Apocs were a different story.  

"Just where do you think you're going old man?"  The cop asked smiling weasel-like.  "It looks like we have us a live one boys!"

With one quick, precise movement, Henry reached around in his back pocket and retrieved the road-flare he had taken from Dick Haloran's trunk.  "I've got a little surprise for you half-dead pus-buckets," Henry said pulling the end of the flare off to light it.  "Let's see how y’all polka with this stuck up your ass."

But the striker was too wet from his fall onto the floor of the drainpipe.  He briefly looked at it with dismay before throwing the striker-end into policeman’s face.  Still undaunted, but without much hope, and brandishing the impotent flare as a club, he said; "Come on you scum-suckers and meet yer maker."

The cop sneered exposing too many, too dangerous-looking teeth.  "Let's get him boys," and the Apocs moved in for the kill.

The cop turned to wait for the Apocs to make the first move and Henry saw his chance.  Using the rung to propel himself forward Henry landed feet-first into cop’s kneecap.  With a loud 'pop' it gave way and bent backwards like a flamingo's.  The cop grasped at large jagged bones that had broken and ripped through his pants.  Henry dropkicked him in the face.  His scream filled the cavernous enclosure.  "GET HIM BOYS!"

Henry landed off-balance from his aerial acrobatics with his back to the two Apocs.  The larger of the two grabbed him around the throat from behind and lifted his feet off the ground.  The Apoc that held him tight shot putted Henry's head into the concrete wall.

Henry was about to pass out, his throat was closing up and dark motes spun before his eyes.  When he put his hand to his face it came away smeared with blood.  The policeman, now on his feet, snorted gore, and came at him dragging his mangled leg. The little man reached down for him, grabbed his hair with one hand and his throat with the other. Henry came up off the floor like an uncoiling spring, his teeth gritted, as he grasped the front of the cop’s uniform and thrust the end of the flare into the man's bleeding leg.  A howl of pure agony burst from the cop’s mouth.  He let go of Henry's throat to clutch at his leg, and he toppled backward off balance, his shoulders slamming against the legs of an oncoming Apoc.

Henry lived his old Marine motto, "Never give your opponent time to regain his strength."

Still clutching the bloody road-flare Henry advanced on the still-standing Apoc.  Resembling Sir Galahad, using the flare like a lance and aiming for the head, he advanced on the creature like a knight on a steed in King Arthur's Court.  The Apoc waited in a crouched stance for the oncoming man’s onslaught.  The flare-end glanced off the rough rock-like head of the thing and shot upward.  A blinding dazzle of glitter and sparks lit up the sewer as the flare burst to life.  

Wielding the lit flare like a light saber, he turned and thrust it into the eye of the stunned Apoc.  Viscous yellow fluid erupted from the creature's eye-socket, slow at first then gushing from every orifice.  He was knocked backward to the ground, the breath bursting puss-yellow from his mouth and nostrils. He jerked a few times, like a fish on a hook a then he lay still, face down, his arms splayed out in an expression  of Crucifixion.  

Both the cop and the Apoc he had bowled over were on their feet and backing away from the intensity of the blazing object.  Henry used the torch to taunt his former tormentors.  "Not quite the smarty-pants you were a few minutes ago," Henry said.  "Not too bad for an old fart, huh."

"Look behind you old man.  My people won't let you get out that way."  The cop said.

Henry turned and looked, the cop hadn't been lying.  A group of Apocs were milling at the edge of the light.  An Apoc kicked a shovel that clattered harmlessly at Henry's feet.  "Well, I guess I just have to go out your way."  Henry said.

"That's where you're wrong again.  We have more people on our way now coming up behind us." 

Out of frustration, Henry picked up the shovel and tossed it toward the cop.  It hit the wall near their heads and sent a shower of sparks cascading down around them.  He heard it clang to the ground in the distance behind them.

"You're never going to get out of here alive old man."  The cop said limping backwards.  That flare's not going to stay lit forever."

He was right—the light was already starting to fade quickly.

"What are you doing down here anyway?  Why aren’t you home somewhere doing a crossword puzzle?"  The cop jeered.

"You have my home  . . . you have m  . . . my wi  . . . wife."  Tears began to flow as his light began to fade.  "All I want is, is my wife.  I want my Nattie."

The cop’s face glowed with a hateful grin.  "Nattie, yeah, Nattie the old bitch.  You're the old man that put up such a fight over the house.  Yeah, I know who you are now.  Abaddon didn't mess you up bad enough already?  You had to come back for more.  Well, I tell you what old man, as soon as that light of yours goes down just a little more, I'm going to come over there rip out your eye and socket-fuck you.  Then when I'd done with you I'm going to do the same thing to that old
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bag wife of yours.  I—"

The cop was cut off in mid-sentence as the arc of a flying shovel appeared from the darkness.  He continued to stare as the shovel severed his head and the Apoc's next to him from their bodies.  All four pieces fell like dead meat to the sewer floor.  His savior stepped into the light, shovel in hand. 

It was the man-child, Tom the Terminator.

"No one is going to do those things to you and Mrs. Nattie, are they Mr. Henry?"  Tom asked as they stepped from Henry's house and moved toward the garage.  The sky was starting to darken.

"No one is right, Tom.  Not as long as we're around."  Henry said as he gave the big man an affectionate pat on the back.  He worked the combination to the padlock on the door.

"I killed those bad men real good, didn't I, Mr. Henry?  Like the Terminator?"

"Just like the Terminator."  Henry said as the lock fell open into his hand.

"Term-in-nator."  Tom corrected him.

"Term-in-nator.”  Henry repeated.  He swung open the door and surveyed his workbench.  He smiled as he saw the supply of black powder he used for muzzle hunting.  It sat on the end of the bench in two five-pound sacks.

"It looks like it's going to rain Mr. Henry.  Abaddon said not to go out in the daylight or when there is rain."

"We just need to get a few things and then we'll be on our way."

"Where are we going Mr. Henry?  For a car ride?  I love to ride in cars."

"Yep, for a car ride.  We're going to see Mrs. Nattie."

"And be on television?"

"Yep," he said as he handed the bags to Tom and grabbed a ten-gallon gas can, "and I think it's going to be one heck of a show."

 CHAPTER 24

THE BEACH

Ethan ambled along the moonlit beach.  He could smell the wood
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smoke from someone's fireplace and smiled a little
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boy's smile to himself.  The fragrance brought back memories of happier, carefree times.  The feelings overwhelmed.  These feelings of belonging were so very fleeting, the only one that cared about him it seemed was his crazy friend Bill. He had no family left.  The years with Sophia had isolated any all his other friends.  He could see the hazy stars and feel the damp of the night air off the ocean.  He watched the tiny fiddler crabs scurry sideways into their holes.  A thin dog came to him and threshed itself in greeting like a wind
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blown flag, and Ethan looked down at it, yet didn't see it.  

He was cold and lonely inside and out.  He felt alone and unprotected, and scraping crickets, shrilling tree frogs, and croaking toads seemed to be carrying the melody of evil.  It was evident all around him; hell, it was evident in him.  Ethan shivered a little and drew his hands to his pockets, hunched his shoulders and walked a little faster.  He probably should be getting back.  That's when he saw her.

She was lying back on her elbows with her feet in the froth of the incoming waves.  She was slender, dark, and fiery with eyes that glowed and pierced the night air.  He stopped to quietly admire her. She was less than fifty feet away.  He could tell she knew he was there by the way she glanced in his direction and smiled.  By the light of the full moon, he saw the way her smooth skin glowed with pale gold undertones.  She was the girl he saw on the beach earlier.  She was the woman he thought he'd never see again.  She was the object of his desire and he was too scared to move, too frightened to speak.