The Dead Live On Page 13

  “Did she say where they came from?”

  “No, I didn’t even think to ask. I was just helping someone in trouble.” Kate was not satisfied so she thought she’d ask Kimmy.

  “Where did you come from, Kimmy?” Kate asked and received a most adult like response.

  “Don’t speak to me, Bitch.” Kate was taken aback by not only Kimmy’s language, but her tone and she showed no sign of the childlike pronunciations of her words as she has done the whole time.

  “Kimmy came straight from Hell.” Allen said as he raised his hands in front of his face to protect himself because Kimmy had turned in her seat and began beating at his head with Barbie’s torso. Kate snatched it from her and threw it out the window. Kimmy screamed and raised her fist to hit her and before she knew it, Angel had Kimmy by the wrist and said “You don’t hurt my Kate.” She squeezed Kimmys wrist and Kimmy screamed louder and cried out, “You’re burning me! You Bitch, you’re burning me!” Kate told Angel to let go and she did, her face remained passive as if nothing happened at all. She loving placed Teddy’s cap and his head and pressed it down to try to make it stay. Kimmy pulled her arm to her chest and rubbed it as she glared at Angel with more hatred than any child should ever carry in her eyes. They seemed to glisten with it.

  Kate removed the sewing kit she found out of her pocket and began threading the needle to sew Teddy’s hat back on his head. Angel smiled brightly at her. She would never get tired of seeing that.

  “See Tisha,” John said. “You and your bleeding heart invited the Devils Spawn into our midst.’ He chuckled getting a kick out of throwing her words back at her. Everyone had a good laugh at that and Kimmy finally settled down for a bit. Kate finished with Teddy and then got the purple ribbon out of her pocket as well and put Angel’s hair in a ponytail, tying the ribbon around it.

  Kate became worried for Dave because he was being less social when he had been fine only the day before. But still, she let him alone. She knew that when he was ready to talk to her he would, and if he didn’t, she was going to approach him in private. After all, what are friends for?

  They had gotten pretty far. They crossed into Tennessee and the rains poured down again. It was cold outside and the only one prepared for that kind of weather was Tank. He told Kate where a jacket and sweater were, in a Rubbermaid storage bin that was in the very back of the van. Kate got them out and handed the sweater to Tisha, then asked if anyone else might’ve wanted the jacket and they declined. So she covered Angel and herself with it and dozed for bit. She had slept much better than she had at the Hideaway, and felt a lot better when she woke up.

  It was dark by then and still raining, but it was raining much harder than before. She looked back at Dave who was laid out across the very back seat. His face was turned toward the seat so she couldn’t see it. She wanted to wake him to see if he was okay, but thought he might be coming down with something considering they weren’t used to such chilly weather. She would let him rest. They would need to stop for gas soon, so she’d decided that she would wake him then. Unexpectedly and suddenly, the front tire popped and the van weaved violently across the road. They were thrown around and forward until finally, the van slid several feet before coming to a complete stop.

  “DAMN IT! I don’t have a spare! We used it on our way to Florida.” Tank yelled.

  “We’ll have to wait for the rain to stop, and then we’ll walk.” John said

  “Walk where? I don’t want to leave my van until I can see daylight. I’m sorry. This is probably the end of the road for all of us.”

  “No, Look!” Angel said. Everyone looked in the direction of her pointed finger and about a hundred yards ahead of them, sat a tiny white church. There were no lights of course and it was very dark. They were in the hills of Tennessee, there were woods everywhere and the moon provided very little light. The cross on top of the church seemed to be brighter than the rest of the building and the dream replayed in Kate’s mind but she quickly dismissed it. She found it too strange to think of. They grabbed what they could and got out of the van to walk the three hundred feet to get there, in the rain.

  Tank walked ahead and Dave walked behind them, watching for Infected as they went. As they grew closer, Kate saw a shimmer of silver beside the church. She squinted her eyes to keep the rain out so she could see. It was the most beautiful red mustang she had ever seen. She wondered who it had belonged to.

  They approached the door to the church and it was chained shut from the outside. Worried that there could be a horde of infected just inside the doors, Kate and Tisha stayed huddled at the entrance while the guys checked around the sides. She heard Tank whistle as he passed the pretty red mustang.

  John and Allen returned a minute later but Tank and Dave were gone for several minutes. Kate handed Angel to Allen, and told them to run if she didn’t return within a few moments. Once she rounded the side of the church, Tank and Dave were coming back, accompanied by short, nervous looking elderly man. She saw his collar and realized he was the Pastor or Father, whatever his religion called for.

  “Kate, this is Father Barrett.” Dave introduced them and then broke into a coughing fit. He needed to get out of the cold rain. They all did, they were soaking wet shivering at this point. Father Barrett only nodded at her and went to the doors. With shaky hands he produced a key ring with several more keys on it than anyone should need. Kate noticed a shiny red key. He unraveled the chain and let them all in, shut the doors behind them and chained them back up from outside.

  Kate put Angel down on the floor and she walked away while Kate helped Tisha organize the stuff they were able to carry in with them. Father Barrett returned from outside through the side door.

  “I am not locking you in; I’m locking the living dead out.” He laid his key ring on the alter. Angel stood staring at the large Jesus nailed to the cross on the wall at the back of the church. Kate looked around for Dave and saw him sitting in one of the back pews. He was holding on to the cross necklace that he’s worn since high school. She assumed he was praying so she left him alone. He had never expressed whether or not he had a religious preference, so she wasn’t sure. Tank and the others were talking to Father Barrett so she sat in the front pew to join them.

  “Thank you, Father, for letting us in.” she said.

  “You’re very welcome, though you probably won’t want to stay here long. I have a spare tire in the church van out in the garage. The van doesn’t run, so you can take all the tires if you like. There’s even a hand jack back there. I suggest you be on your way at first light,” he said quickly and walked behind the pulpit to grab a bottle of scotch and pour a shot. “I’d offer you some, but it’s all I have left.” He downed the shot. “Now, there are two small rooms to the left that we used to use for daycare, if you feel like lying down. This room here.” he pulled a red curtain back to reveal a set of double doors that were chained up like the front doors. “In this room, is the risen dead of my congregation, well, most of my congregation. Do not touch these doors, do not touch my keys. You see why, I say you won’t want to stay.”

  The dead knew they were out there and became restless, shoving the door and moaning in loud, haunting wails. The door opened a little but held tight because of the chains. One of the dead had their fingers out through the slit and Father Barrett pushed the door shut, it snatched its fingers back.

  “Now go, get some rest. Eat. Do whatever it is you have to do and then you must leave in the morning.”

  “How did you get them all rounded up to go in there?” Tank asked him as he eyed him suspiciously.

  “Some of them were already in there for a meeting to discuss the coming rapture.”

  “Obviously one of them were infected, but all of them? How many are in there?”

  “Thirty one.” Father Barrett looked down and took another shot of scotch.

  “And you did this all by yourself? No one helped you?” It seemed very weird that this one little man had herded all those u
ndead into that room alone.

  “Well, no. Another member of my congregation helped me.”

  “What happened to him?” Tank really wanted to know because for some reason, he didn’t trust the Father. Tank wasn’t going to let it go.

  “It was a woman. Diane helped me and she’s in there as well. I guess your next question will be how she got in there, too. Well, don’t bother to ask. I pushed her in at the last minute. She was sick too, and beginning to show signs. I could not risk my life!” He stomped back behind the pulpit and produced another bottle of Scotch. This one was full. He was so shaking violently, that as he poured another shot, he spilled some of it. We hadn’t been there fifteen minutes yet and already he’s had three shots. He was half soused. Tank and I had looked at him in disbelief. He was full of lies. He would’ve been the last person they would have expected to hear lies from.

  “How do you know they were all infected? Had any of them turned before you locked them in there?” Tank kept drilling him.

  “One had turned. A few others were injured in the scuffle. I could not be sure who was infected and who wasn’t, so I locked them all in.” He said this with no remorse. What kind of man of God did this type of thing?

  “You mean to say… that you locked them all in and only a few were infected? You locked innocent, very much alive people in there with them?” Dave had entered the conversation and wasn’t happy.

  “And what is your life worth now that there’s nothing left? You’re no man of the cloth! You’re a murderer of innocent people that looked to you for help! And they trusted you enough to seek your guidance!! You guided them right to their death! What makes your life more important than theirs?” Dave walked up to the pulpit and backed the Father against the wall.

  Father Barrett tried to cower away from Dave yelling at him. Dave slammed his fist into the wall beside his head, leaving a gaping hole in the plaster and disappeared into the hall that led to the restroom. Father Barrett stood still for a moment before he slid down the wall to his butt and wrapped his arms around his knees. Kimmy sat in the first pew laughing her little head off. All the while the dead in the room beyond continued to lament. Kate went in search of Dave and found him still in the bathroom. She knocked gently.

  “Can I come in?”

  “Sure, only you though.” He was sitting on the edge of the toilet seat, Kate stood leaning on the sink.

  “You don’t look too hot. You okay?” she asked. He shuffled around on the seat and put his head in his hands.

  “No, I’m not okay at all.” He tilted his face up to look at her. The only light in the bathroom was a short stubby candle and she could barely see.

  “Bring the candle and come closer,” he said. She did as he asked and approached him with the candle held up. His face had paled and the white of his eyes were a bright pink. The bags under his eyes were bluish in color. He didn’t look like that twenty minutes before. Kate inhaled sharply and stepped back, she almost dropped the candle.

  “Dave. Dave. No, oh no. What happened? When, How? No!” she sobbed.

  “When I went into the bathroom at the Hideaway to wipe the blood off of my boot, it got on my hand. I have a cut on my hand, I don’t know how I got that, but it seeped into it.”

  He held his hand out to show her, the little cut was an angry red. Sadness and fear washed over her, she felt as if an ice cold bucket of water had been dumped over her head. Without thinking, she neared him with her arms outstretched to hug him but he pushed her away.

  “You know that if anything of me gets on you, it’s over. I don’t know how long I’ve got but it can’t be a long time. Take this, ” he removed the cross from around his neck and laid it on the edge of the sink. “Get some tissue to wrap it up until you can find a way to wash it off. Keep it for me, please. It means a lot to me, my mother gave it to me. I want you to get them and get out of here. Father Barrett is not right in the head.” Kate cried harder than she had ever in her life. He is her friend and it hurt to know there was nothing she could do to help him.

  “Dave, what are we gonna do? There’s still time I’m sure!”

  “Time for what, Kate?” He yelled. “Nothing…there’s no time for anything,” he quieted, not wanting to alarm the others. “My main concern is you and Angel. I care about the others, but you have to be safe. Angel is important, I can see that. Can’t you?” Kate was beginning to feel the same way but was unsure how a little girl could be of any importance to the situation she just knew that she had to keep her safe. But Kate didn’t want to leave her old friend to suffer alone.

  “I’ll stay with you, and then I’ll do it for you.”

  “No, I’ll do it myself; at the right time. I have a feeling something will go down and I need to be ready when it does. Maybe because I’m dying I can feel the tension better than anyone else, but we have to go back out there and pretend for a while. If I turn, then do what you have to do. If I don’t, then just take it as it comes. Okay?”

  Kate was so distraught over his coming death and didn’t care about anything else at that moment. She nodded her head, grabbed some tissue, folded the necklace into the tissue and turned to leave the bathroom.

  “Kate,” Dave said just before she could exit the bathroom and she turned back around to face him. “You’ve been a great friend. You’re a great soldier and I am proud to have known you.” A flood of tears ran down her face, she wanted so bad to hug him and say goodbye.

  “Shouldn’t I be the one to say those things to you?” She sniffed and wiped the tears from her eyes, and tried to gather herself together before she went back out. “So, the feelings are mutual my old friend.” she said. “Just know that I am hugging you, in my heart.” She walked back out to join the rest of them, her heart in her throat. Dave came out of the bathroom behind her and went straight to the back pew that he had been sitting in before.

  Angel sat in the floor in front of the alter with Teddy in her hands and was speaking in a voice so low, that they couldn’t hear what she was saying. Kimmy sat on the front pew looking bored. Kate guessed it was because she didn’t have anything left to torture. She began to eyeball Teddy.

  Kate was very uncomfortable with the fact that the dead were just a few feet away, held back by a weak, old wooden door, started to approach Angel to take her into the another room to get away from it all. Just as she reached Angel, a little, multicolored bird flew out from behind Jesus’s head and landed on Angel’s right foot. She giggled and stretched forward to pet it. The bird hopped forward so Angel could reach it. If you were to ask them later about what had happened next, they would say that the next ten minutes contained the neatest, strangest and meanest things they had ever seen in all their lives.

  Chapter Twenty Three

  All at once, several more birds swooped down from the ceiling. The flutter of their wings created a cool breeze that circled throughout the room. Many different kinds of birds and they all sat on or near Angel. It was a spectacular sight, they were stricken with awe. There were probably a hundred or more. Everyone laughed and giggled as well, as the birds frolicked around Angel. They were lifting her hair in places and a few of them rubbed their faces on her cheek. She laughed joyously and played along with them. It was like watching an urban rendition of Snow White.

  All eyes were glued to the spot watching this when Kimmy angrily got up out of the pew, ran over, screamed and stomped her feet trying to scatter them. She pointed her finger at the birds and yelled, “GO AWAY!” One tiny lavender bird flew right up in her face, making Kimmy go cockeyed to look at it. It pecked her very hard on the tip of her nose and a small dot of blood welled up from the spot. Kimmys face grew beet red with anger and faster than anyone could ever imagine a child moving, she snatched the little bird out of the air and slammed it on the floor of the church. Then, without hesitation, she smashed its tiny head in with the heel of her black Mary Jane. Everyone stared in shock. They knew she enjoyed destroying things, but had never thought that she was capable of mur
dering anything that was truly alive.

  The birds grew eerily silent and not a one of those who watched made a sound. Every bird in the place turned to look at Kimmy and cocked their little heads from side to side. Two of the birds closest to their fallen feathered friend hopped over to inspect it. The other birds waited in silence. It was so still in the church that you could hear a pin drop. Even the undead had quelled their lamentations. Both birds nudged the fallen bird with their heads and tweeted angrily. Without warning every single one of the birds screeched flew directly at Kimmy.

  Their little beaks pecked at her legs, arms, face and pulled her hair. Little drops of blood welled up everywhere that they pecked her. She flailed her arms, trying to beat them away and screamed so loud. The birds had her completely covered and only the cries of the birds could be heard. The dead in the room behind her grew excited and shoved against the door again and gain. The wood cracked and splintered at the handles, causing them to fall to the floor with the chain still intact.

  Dave ran up behind Kate and threw Tank’s jacket over Angel, scooped her up, and everyone broke free of their trance. Tisha grabbed Allen and ran to John. Kate screamed for Tank to grab the keys from the alter and Father Barrett sat praying, making no attempt to move. The doors were broken open and the dead spilled out of the room. The birds continued to attack Kimmy, backed her into the crowd of dead and her screams grew deafening as they fell upon her, devouring her in a macabre feast. The birds, satisfied that Kimmy was being punished, flew to the ceiling and disappeared in an instant.

  Kate turned around to see where everyone else went, saw Angel’s Teddy was still sitting in the floor facing Kimmy, as she was being consumed, with a perpetual smile on his face. Kate picked him up and scanned the room. Dave was by the hall that led to the side door holding Angel and waiting for her. Father Barrett was being attacked by who she hoped was Diane. They both deserved their fate for being so selfish. Kate ran to Dave and he handed Angel to her.