CHAPTER 12: BARELY HUMAN
1901 Words
The Searots inside the gigantic storehouse were volatilely furious!
The Giant Team, led by Gideon, were ten in number. They were armed and worked quickly to remove most of the padlocks and metal bracings they had used to protect the fragile wooden walls and doors of the storehouse.
The fury of the Searots made the storehouse shake alarmingly, causing the team some really frantic moments. Finally, there were only a couple of braces barring the door.
“Move out now!” Gideon said finally. “Any sign of Zeus yet?”
“They’re supposed to be here in five minutes,” one member said.
“Wonder if this s**t will last five minutes. Let’s move out, boys!”
They moved swiftly to the fortified metal gates and entered the community again just as a vehicle appeared at the stretch of road.
“Here they come now!” Gideon said. “Vanish, maggots!”
The team members turned right and hurried into a room near the gates where they crouched out of sight.
The vehicle that was approaching was an open-top Land-Rover jeep being driven by Zeus. In the front passenger seat was Mack, and sitting in the back was Eli, who was looking around intently as the jeep noisily made its way from the BRP through the community.
The jeep stopped briefly at the gates, and a Saint pushed it open, and it continued through.
The beach had been modelled into a miniature wharf. It had five berths, three piers, a warehouse and a huge, storehouse. And, near the storehouse, was an open-sided shed that had benches, lathes and other tools.
There were three boats berthed, and one caught Eli’s attention immediately. It was a beautiful faded black and white boat called Stephanie, but the last three letters had been rubbed off, leaving Stepha.
“Workshop is the shed over there,” Zeus said. “You’ll probably get all the tools you have in there.”
“All right, thanks,” Eli said politely and opened the door when the jeep came to a stop.
“Unfortunately, we can’t stay and help you,” Mack said, his voice filled with genuine concern. “Searots and beasts from the damn sea. You sure you wanna do this?”
“No harm in trying,” Eli said, already walking towards the boat.
“Probably the last time we’re seeing this bastard,” Zeus said softly when they watched Eli walking away. “Surely, he’s not as godlike as those bitches are making him out to be.”
Mack sighed.
“Let’s get outta here, Z. I don’t like the way the damn storehouse is shaking. It’s up to him now.”
Zeus reversed and made a U-turn, and they sped back through the gates which were pushed shut again. When they stopped the car, Saint Holy’s customized Lexus pulled up, and he got out with a mild smile on his face.
“Time to see what the Eli man is made of,” he said with an elaborate spread of his hands.
A few minutes later, he climbed the steps up to the high platform they had erected behind the walls. It had a wide look over the shoreline and was armed with machine guns to take out undesirables.
More of his men climbed to the platform, and they stood looking across the shoreline.
Eli had disappeared into the boat, and they watched for about thirty minutes.
“Maybe some anaconda in the boat gobbled him up,” Gideon said dourly.
“And the Searots are now making an entrance,” Doug said lazily as he lowered the pair of binoculars that had been glued to his eyes.
All eyes swung to the left where the double doors of the storehouse just collapsed under the onslaught of the Searots. They flew open and the Searots poured out, startling the watchers on the platform.
“Jesus, dear Son of God!” Saint Holy said with horror. “How did all those f*****g motherfuckers get in there?”
“They could have been there for years, maybe from the very first time. Or maybe there was a time the soldier boys here were many and strong enough to imprison them.”
“Dear God!” Gideon whispered. “That’s a bloody horde, maybe a hundred. Want us to open fire, Saint Holy?”
“No, not yet. Eli boy just emerged. Let’s see what he’s made of.”
Eli came on the deck of the Boat with his shirt off and holding a duster he had found belowdecks in his hands. He was wiping dirty oil from his hands, and he looked up slowly and saw the horde of monsters.
Watching him through his binoculars, Doug Holy admitted that he had never seen a more perfect edition of manhood than that boy. He zoomed in on Eli’s face and raised his eyebrows slightly when he saw that the boy did not appear to be scared by the sight of the Searot Horde coming towards him.
Incredibly, it appeared to him that Eli’s face had clouded a bit as if the boy was getting angry.
Doug Holy was right in his assessment because Eli was indeed angry. The sight of Searots, Tombers and other beasts was now intolerable to him. These were the decay that had affected the earth and reduced a vibrant, happy, developed race to a few communities and singles scavenging for basic survival. He did not know why or how these beings had come to be. It didn’t make sense that the dead would somehow crawl back to the earth and terrorize the living with their red circles and purple eyes. There was a genesis to that, and that could lead to their demise. But, until that particular switch was found, the only thing to do was to reduce their numbers.
He knew, though, that he could not allow this horde to attack him on the boat. They might end up destroying it further, and he did not want that to happen. He would fight them on the turf.
Eli growled in a low, ominous voice and dropped the rag.
The men on the platform gasped when the son of Eli jumped from the deck with a single movement and curled into the sky. They watched with stunned expressions as he came crashing down on the grass-covered embankment away from the pier.
The Searots growled ,some screamed, some howled, and more roared as they changed directions and moved towards him in a maelstrom wave of violence.
Eli dove across the ground, seeming to fly parallel to the ground, wrapped his arms around some of the Searots, and slashed across the earth again, slamming them sickeningly into the walls of the community. The Searots exploded out in a shower of bones. Eli was away again, grabbing another armful and slamming them against the side of the warehouse!
But the beasts were many, and as he kept crushing them against the walls, the continuous change in directions made them scattered, and it was difficult for him to dive through them freely.
Doug Holy and the watching men gasped with shock once again when Eli held a young coconut tree on the shore and pulled it out of the ground with one hand.
“Jesus H Christ!” Gideon said with shock.
“He’s not human!” Zeus said, and his voice was not steady.
Using the tree as a club, he began to strike them down.
Left, right, centre!
Wave after wave was beaten back or exploded back!
But they were crowding him and driving him back by their numbers.
“Should we open fire?” Gideon asked with concern. “They’re overrunning him, Saint Holy!”
“They’re too far away from our guns,” Doug said, his voice filled with excitement. “Plus, I might hit the boy. Let’s see what happens now!”
They could not fully see Eli, but they saw more Searots flying into the air and falling. They had pushed him near the toolhouse.
Suddenly, Eli let out an ear-shattering roar and jumped away from the Searots. He came down with his right fist hammering the ground, causing a savage tremble of the ground that felled many of the monsters!
“f**k!” Mack whispered. “Did he just create an earthquake with his fist?”
Eli pulled a stout metallic bar from the side of the warehouse and moved through the monsters.
And he did not move like an ordinary man!
He was like a god!
He was a blur of speed, his movements so fast and devastating that the people could barely see him. He was a furious wave of violence, scattering and laying the Searots in front of him to waste until he reached the entrance to the tool house.
The iron rod was slick with gooey green and purple mess, and he dropped it with disgust and ripped up an anvil with his right hand. The heavy metal should have dragged him down, but he wielded it like a glove and moved outside.
He pummelled the Searots until there was none left standing.
Finally, he let the anvil drop and surveyed his surroundings with bleak eyes. There were only bones; a lot of bones.
He leapt into the air, with no sign of tiredness, and landed on the deck of the Stephanie. A moment later, he disappeared below decks.
Saint Doug Holy lowered the binoculars with trembling hands. All around him, he saw the faces of his men and did not see admiration or shock or wonder.
He saw only fear!
What they had seen Eli doing with such deadly devastation, made it all clear to them that whoever that man was, whatever he was, Eli was not a man!
“He… he could kill all of us in a second!” Gideon said softly.
“He could,” Doug Holy said with a tight smile. “But, he could also father hundreds of children, boys, like him! Gentlemen, this is it. He’s the one we’ve been waiting for! The prime Black Man, the ultimate, the one man to make super black men! He’s the one we’ve been waiting for!”
“Sir!” Zeus cried, indignantly, his face still filled with terror. “What are you talking about, sir Saint?” Zeus croaked. “We can’t keep him here! He’s a danger to us all!”
“Or we can make him rely on us!” Doug said furiously. “Oh, you with small brains! If we can get Africans as strong, as intelligent, as capable as this, our way back would be far easier, and we would sit on the throne of world power! We need him!”
He looked around him defiantly, and sow the fire in the eyes of some of them, but a majority still had fear in the depths of their eyes.
And Doug Holy suddenly knew that if they had a chance, some of these men would murder Eli without a second hesitation.
- Writer
