Christopher Moore - Island of the Sequined Love Nun

“Probably just military exercises, Beth,” Sebastian called after her. “It’s nothing to be concerned about.” He was glad to have help cleaning up and didn’t want to lose it. Usually, at this point, she was on the plane heading for Japan.

“’Bastian, come here!” she called. “Something’s up!”

Sebastian shoved the last of the surgical draperies into a canvas bag and hurried outside. The sound of jet engines seemed to be everywhere.

Outside he found Beth staring at some coconut palms. The guards were standing outside their quarters, looking in the same direction. “Look.” Beth pointed to the north.

“What? I don’t see…” Then he saw movement behind the palms and a 747 coming toward the island at entirely too low an angle.

“It’s landing,” Beth said.

Sebastian’s gaze was caught by more movement in his peripheral vision. He looked across the runway. The Shark People were coming out of the jungle. All of the Shark People.

From the 747 the airstrip looked smaller than he had remembered. To conserve runway Tuck wanted to touch down as close to the near end as possible. He pulled full flaps and checked his descent rate. The Shark People were moving toward the plane in a wave. Some of the men carried long ladders.

As all sixteen tires hit the runway, Tuck slammed the levers that reversed the engines and they screamed in protest. Immediately, he hit the ground brakes and watched the brake temperature gauge zoom into the red as the jet screamed toward the ocean at the far end of the runway at a hundred and fifty miles per hour.

“Did you see the ladders?” Roberto said, but this time it was Vincent’s voice coming from the bat. “Ya fuckin’ mook, I told you they were makin’ ladders.”

“You must come,” Malink said. He crouched at the edge of the jungle where the old cannibal was hiding. “Vincent said all of our people must go.”

Sarapul watched as the huge jet slowly turned at the end of the runway. “No. I am too old. This is my home. They don’t want me where you are going.”

“We don’t know where we are going.”

“Your people didn’t want me here. Would they want me in this new place? I will stay.”

Malink looked to the runway. “I have to go now.”

Sarapul waved him off with a bony hand. “Go. You go.” He turned and walked into the jungle.

Malink ran into the open and began shouting orders to the men with the ladders. The Shark People poured onto the runway and surrounded the jet like termites serving their swollen queen.

Beth Curtis saw the first of the doors on the 747 open and immediately recognized Tuck. A tall ladder was thrown against the plane and the Shark People started climbing.

“He’s taking them away!” she screamed.

Sebastian Curtis stood stupefied.

Beth shouted to the guards, “Stop them, you idiots!”

The guards had been spellbound by the landing of the jet as well, but her harpylike scream brought them to action. They were in and out of their quarters in seconds, running toward the airstrip with their Uzis. Beth Curtis ran behind them, screeching like a tortured siren.

All six doors of the 747 were open now, and the Shark People were streaming up the ladders, mothers carrying children, the strongest men helping the old.

The other guards piled up behind Mato while he unlocked the gate. He fumbled with the key, then finally sent it home and pulled the chain from around the bars.

Beth Curtis hit the chain-link and curled her fingers though it like claws as she watched her fortune piling into the plane. “Shoot!” she screamed. “Shoot that son of a bitch!”

The guards had no idea who she meant, but they understood the command to shoot. The first one through the gate pulled up and pointed his Uzi at the crowd of natives waiting to get up the ladder. There was a fat one who seemed to be giving orders. He aimed for the center of his back.

A bullet took the guard high in the chest, knocking him back off his feet. His Uzi clattered on the runway. The other guards pulled up, looking for the source of the shot..

“Kill them all, you fucking cowards!” Beth Curtis yelled. “Shoot!”

The guards crouched to make themselves into smaller targets as they scanned the edge of the jungle for movement.

There was a roar and the guards looked up to see two fighter jets coming in low over the runway. Their decision was made. They ran for the cover of the compound as Beth Curtis screamed at their backs.

She ran out to the dead guard, picked up his Uzi, and pointed it at the

747. A gunshot came from the jungle and a bullet ricocheted off the concrete next to her. She turned the Uzi toward the trees and pulled the trigger. It roared for three seconds, the recoil pulling her sideways as the bullets chopped a pattern in the vegetation like a remotecontrol Cuisinart. She brought the gun back around on the plane and pulled the trigger, but the clip was empty.

She threw the gun to the ground and stood shaking as the last of the ladders was thrown away from the plane and the doors were pulled shut.

Malink joined Tuck on the flight deck and tried to work the flight officer’s harness around his belly as Tuck released the ground brakes and the jet started rolling. The two fighters did another pass overhead, one of the pilots warning Tuck not to attempt to take off.

“You forced me down,” Tuck said into the headset mike. “What more do you guys want?”

He rammed the throttles to maximum. They either had enough runway or they didn’t. What was certain was that he wouldn’t know in time to stop. They were going into the ocean or into the sky and that was that.

The flaps were down for maximum lift, which would use three times as much fuel as a regular takeoff, but that was a problem to deal with once they were in the air. He looked at the ocean ahead, then at the airspeed indicator, then at the ocean ahead—back and forth, waiting, waiting, waiting for the airspeed indicator to reach the point where the plane would lift. He was twenty knots short of takeoff speed when the end of the runway disappeared from view and he started his pull up.

The rear wheels of the great plane grazed the water as it lifted into the air. Tuck heard what he hoped was a cheer coming from the back of the plane, but there was a distinct possibility that he was hearing collective screams of terror. He had just lifted off with three hundred and thirty-two people who had never flown before. Tuck thought of Sepie, who would have started her first plane ride two hours ago.

“Where are we going?” Malink asked.

He was trying to compose himself, but when Tuck looked at him, he saw that the old chief’s eyes were as wide as saucers.

“A place called Costa Rica,” Tuck said. “You ever heard of it?”

Malink shook his head. “Vincent tells you to take us there.”

“No, it was my idea, actually.”

“There is plenty cargo on Costa Rica?”

Couldn’t say, Malink, but the climate is nice and there’s no extradition.”

“That is good?” Malink said, as if he had the slightest idea what extradition was.

Tuck admired the old chief. He was here because his god told him to be here. He had just made a decision that would change the history of an entire population, and he had done it on faith.

Tuck set the autopilot and crawled out of the pilot’s seat. “I’m going back to make sure everyone is strapped in. Don’t touch anything.”

Malink’s eyes went wide again. “Who is flying the plane?”

Tuck winked. “I think you know.” He turned and headed down the steps to check on his passengers.

Pushed to his limit and no little bit frightened, Sebastian Curtis sneaked up on his wife, who was in full tantrum, and injected her in the thigh with a syringe full of Valium. She turned and gave him a good shot to the jaw before she started to calm down. He caught her by the shoulders and backed her into the office chair in front of the computer.