“Something’s not right,” Amara said, lifting her rifle and looking out into the darkness.
“Wh-what do you mean ‘not right?’” Nestor said. “Should I get Jubal and Mother?”
The bald woman simply shook her head and walked off into the moonlight.
He shined his flashlight toward her to light her way—the beam none too steady in his hand—but she turned and gave him a fierce look until he moved the beam away again, pointing it down at his feet.
He cursed under his breath. He always seemed to do the wrong thing.
Fine then, Amara. Just run off into the dark on your own and I’ll stay here and mind my own goddamn business.
He knew he needed to improve at this kind of thing. You’d think he’d have picked up some tips from Salina and her crew but he had always been too busy avoiding them and their cruel taunts to bother noticing how they handled themselves in dangerous situations. Besides, they were “shoot first and ask questions later” types while Nestor figured Jubal and his crew were not.
He’d just have to do better from now on, that’s all, make his new boss proud of him. After all, Jubal had trusted Nestor to guard Tommy, Heather and Robin.
Nestor couldn’t help but notice how their leader had looked at Heather; it was the one time Nestor had seen Jubal’s eyes soften, if only for a moment. He was in love with her.
“Psst.”
Nestor nearly shat himself as he gave a strangled shriek and spun around, gun shaking in his hand.
“Jeez,” said a small voice. “It’s just me. Don’t shoot, dude.”
Nestor pointed the flashlight at the tiny face of the girl poking out through the doorway.
“You-uh-you had better get back inside. I’m not supposed to let anything happen to you and your mommy.”
“Gosh, I just wanted some fresh air. It stinks like poop in here.” She opened the door a little wider as if to air out the room.
“Like poop?”
“Well, maybe not that bad. Not as bad as a zombie either. They smell even worse than poop!”
“You’ve got that right,” Nestor said, looking around nervously, expecting to be attacked by something at any moment. “Now get back inside. Where’s your mommy?”
“She’s snoring. How do you expect me to sleep through that?”
“It’s just not a good idea for you to be out here in the night, that’s all. If Jubal finds out you’re not safe in your room, he’ll take you all away in the Jeeps and leave me alone here for the zombies to eat.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to get you in trouble.”
“Thank you.”
The little girl winked at him and closed the door. He heard her throw the deadbolt and felt a touch of relief.
That is until he turned around to face the darkness again.
He wondered where the hell Amara had gone. It was awfully quiet out there.
* * *
At the far edge of the parking lot, Amara crouched in silence, her senses trained forward and on the alert for the tiniest disturbance, be it physical or otherwise. She knew that someone stood just beyond the bushes and trees in front of her. She could feel him there, waiting, just as she was waiting. But just as Amara knew he was there, he knew she waited for him as well, and now it was just a matter of time before one of them made the first move.
One of them would die tonight.
She tried to focus her mind and pinpoint where the killer was hidden but, as usual, her God-given gift was not cooperating. It seemed the more she needed her ability, the more it resisted her will. Sometimes Amara felt it was more trouble than it was worth, and sometimes she wished she had never been born with this strange power.
Some power. She snorted. Maybe she should go back and alert Jubal, as Nestor had suggested. But if she did, the madman might choose that time to make his move. Leaving Nestor, Tommy and the women unprotected was definitely not a good idea. She supposed she could shoot her rifle into the air and bring everyone running, but that didn’t seem like an option either. After all, she didn’t want to attract any walking corpses; Jubal had shot his handgun earlier in that motel room and it had been so loud it made her cringe.
Preacher.
The word whispered through her thoughts and she knew for certain that this was the killer’s name for himself; this, and that he favored the blade over the bullet.
Finally, information she could use. Thank you, super-power.
Standing up, she stalked forward, pointing the rifle at the line of bushes that ran wild and overgrown alongside the road. If she saw any movement, she would know it was the madman and she would shoot him dead before he could even think about slashing her with a blade.
The leaves of the bushes shivered in a breeze and she shivered along with them. A flash of moonlight caught her eye and then there was bright pain. She looked down and saw a throwing knife sticking out of her shoulder.
Stupid! She shouldn’t have been so overconfident, not with a foe this deadly.
A feeling of glee fluttered through her mind, a feeling that was not her own. The madman was proud for drawing first blood.
Well, now it was her turn. As the next moonlit blade flew toward her, she moved swiftly to the side and bent low, running toward a tree. She reached the tree and leaned against it. Already, the knife in her shoulder was taking its toll and she wondered for a moment if it was poisoned. But then she knew it would not be; The Preacher would consider it beneath him to poison one of his precious blades.
She glanced to her left, just beyond the Jeeps, and saw Nestor standing at his post between Heather’s door and that of Tommy. She wondered if she should go back and ask for help but knew she could handle this better solo. Yes, even with a knife embedded in her shoulder. She considered pulling it out, but then decided against it. The pain was bearable and if she yanked it out now, there might be too much blood loss.
A crosshairs formed itself in Amara’s mind and, with no forethought, she brought the rifle up, aimed and pulled the trigger. The shot split the night and she heard someone grunt. She ran forward, keeping her eye out for any more flying cutlery.
When she was several yards from where she knew the man to be, a black figure broke from the bushes and ran right past her at full tilt. He headed directly for the motel, longs blades held firmly in each hand. The Preacher giggled as he ran.
She raised the rifle and pulled the trigger, but he was moving too fast and she missed. Amara threw her weapon to the ground so it wouldn’t weigh her down and took off after the man, stretching her long legs and pumping them harder and faster than ever before in her life. The man wasn’t that large, his legs not that long, and she knew she could catch him before he reached Nestor and the others.
She was gaining on The Preacher. He was just beyond her fingertips now.
Amara reached out, farther, farther…
She went spinning as, simultaneously, she heard a gunshot. Her legs became useless beneath her, tangling around each other. As she hit the ground, she rolled onto the knife in her shoulder and screamed as it sunk in deeper—the pain a white explosion behind her eyes, obliterating everything. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t talk. She couldn’t move.
Slowly, the paralyzing glare inside her head dimmed. Now the pain raged fire, a blanket of molten agony that covered her body.
Nestor, she thought, The Preacher is coming to kill you.
Overwhelmed by regret and failure, she spiraled down into the darkness.
* * *
Nestor squinted into the surrounding darkness and was pretty sure he was about to piss his pants. He had shot his handgun—Jubal and Mother had both told him what kind of gun it was, but he forgot its name—at a running shadow. He wasn’t sure if he had hit his target or not. Part of him hoped he’d missed. The thought of shooting another human being made his guts churn. Of course, if the shadow had been the killer, the one who had murdered those girls, then killing him was a good thing, right? He’d half expected to be filled with a sort of manly joy after blowing away a killer. Instead, he was scared to death. Where were Jubal and Mother? Hadn’t they heard the shots? And what about Tommy?
Nestor decided to get Tommy, who was only two doors down from Heather and Robin. He figured the mother and daughter would be all right if he was only gone for a second.
He took a tentative step toward Tommy’s room.
Wait a minute. What had happened to Amara? He squinted toward the darkness again, just in time to see a shadowy figure rushing at him.
* * *
The Preacher was one with the night. It was his natural element, like the ocean was for the shark. The tall bitch was down, perhaps dead. If not, The Preacher would finish the job on his way back. He might even carve on her if her soul had already departed. After all, she was merely another canvas. In death she would be so much more than she was in life. He hadn’t known her, of course, yet he felt certain nothing she had attained during her time on this side of the grave could come close to achieving the profundity and magnificence that was conferred upon one who was chosen for The Preacher’s art. She might become a beautiful verse in his scarlet gospel. Praise the Lord!
But that was for later. Now, he must focus on more pressing work. Like the frightened fat man who stood trembling a few feet away.
The Preacher removed another blade from its sheath.
* * *
After settling in the lumpy and musty bed, Tommy Cho had lain sleepless for what seemed like hours. Just as he would be on the verge of drifting away, she would pop into his thoughts. Salina. He didn’t like it but he understood it. Tommy had always been attracted to the dangerous ones, the girls who burned with craziness, the chicks that you knew were going to end up in jail or dead on the highway.
Back home, there had mostly been farm girls. Even as the farms were dying out, the females his age were all the products of farm families. They were nice enough and plentiful enough—and so goddamned boring. Even as a teenager, Tommy knew he craved something more. Something special. He’d first found it when he was 16, when he went with his schoolmates to an FFA convention at the state capitol. He and Vic Imel had snuck out of their hotel and hit a couple of bars with fake IDs that had been supplied by Vic’s older brother.
She was at the other end of the bar, all dark hair and olive skin. Hispanic, like Salina. Maybe ten years older than Tommy, she smoked a cigarette, despite the signs posted all over the bar forbidding it. She stared at him like a hungry animal, dark eyes filled with secret knowledge, like she held the key to a world Tommy knew nothing about. That ended up being pretty close to the truth.
After a few minutes, she finished her drink and made her way to where Tommy and Vic stood drinking the first beers they had ever bought on their own.
“Farm boy,” she said, looking right at him. “You gay?”
“What?” he fumbled for words. “Nuh-no.”
“Good. Come with me.”
Her voice was low and rough and filled with possibilities that danced on the edge of his imagination. She led him to the women’s restroom and into a stall. Sitting on the toilet, she yanked down his pants and underwear and took him into her mouth.
Tommy almost blacked out.
Just as he was about to explode, she stood up, a condom magically appearing in her hand. She rolled it onto him and pulled down her jeans.
“Ever done this before?”
“No.” He could no more lie to her than he could fly.
She turned around, one hand braced on the toilet lid and the other reaching back to guide him into her. It was the most fantastic thing that he’d ever experienced. He hadn’t lasted long, but she didn’t seem disappointed. She yelped when he moaned, and when it was over, she pulled up her pants and kissed him on the lips.
When he caught his breath, he said, “What’s your name?”
She smiled. “Have a nice life, kid.”
Tommy never saw her again. He looked for her, of course, or someone like her. A couple of times over the years he’d found girls just as bold and just as wild as that woman in the bar had been.
And now there was Salina.
From watching her, he knew that holding Salina would be like touching a live wire. Making love to her would be hazardous to his health.
If he could figure out a way to do it, he’d be with her in an instant.
Tommy wasn’t crazy, though. He just liked women who were. He was lucky to fall in with Jubal. If this Sanctuary place turned out to be the real deal, then he might have a chance to have a real life. A normal life. He knew, though, that he would always wonder about Salina.
Finally, he was able to put her out of his thoughts long enough to slip into a light slumber.
The gunshot woke him. It was loud and came from right outside. For a second, Tommy didn’t know where outside was. The only certainty was that gunfire meant somebody wanted to kill him, whether it was zombies or looters or something worse. He quickly took stock of the situation. Motel room. On the way to Iowa. He was catching some sleep before his turn at guard duty. The next thought jolted him as badly as the gunshot had.
Was it Salina? Tommy had felt sure he would see her again, somewhere down the road. Amara had laid her out pretty good. Maybe she and her thugs had followed them to get a little revenge. Tommy stood up, reaching for the rifle he had leaned against the nightstand. He took a step toward the door and tripped on the tangle of bedspread and sheets. The rifle flew across the room and Tommy crashed to the floor.
“Shit,” he muttered as he climbed to his feet. His left arm was red from his slide along the carpet.
He recovered his weapon and hurried to the door, opening it just in time to see a man dressed in black slice Nestor’s throat.
* * *
The black shape flew toward him. Nestor knew it wasn’t a zombie—it moved too fast for one, yet he was sure what he saw wasn’t human either. It was a living shadow, fluid darkness that soared through the air. The leading edge of the shadow was a white face with tiny, dark eyes and a mouth full of yellow teeth. There was something else. Something shiny. Nestor had his gun raised and he wanted to shoot but his hand wouldn’t work. His bladder let loose and the warm urine poured down his leg. That seemed to free him from the paralysis. Nestor tired to back up, and he tripped over the edge of the sidewalk. The shiny corner of the cloud drifted toward his face. He felt a cold touch across his throat. Again a warm liquid poured from his body.
He collapsed onto the concrete.
* * *
Tommy couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. Some psycho in black had just sliced Nestor’s throat. There was blood all over the little guy’s shirt. The man in black, obviously meaning to finish Nestor off, squatted next to the chubby man and raised his knife.
“Hey!” Tommy yelled as he ran from the doorway. He took his rifle in both hands, like it was a baseball bat, and swung for all he was worth. The wooden stock shattered against the stranger’s head. The man in black dropped like a sack of flour.
Tommy let the rifle fall from his hands. He knelt next to Nestor.
“Hang on, man. I’m gonna help you.” Tommy yanked his shirt open, the movement popping buttons free. He pressed the garment against the wound in Nestor’s throat. The shirt was immediately soaked with blood. It was too dark for Tommy to determine how severe the wound was. The only way to do that was to grab Nestor’s flashlight which lay a few feet away. But if Tommy fetched it, Nestor might bleed to death. So he stayed put, applying as much pressure as he dared without choking the poor guy.
In the distance, he heard the shouts of Mother and Jubal. Closer by, there was a scream which must have come from Robin. But Tommy was afraid to look away. Nestor’s eyes were open, and if these were his last moments on Earth, Tommy wanted him to see a friendly face.
“Hang in there, Nestor. It’ll be okay.”
Christ, there was so much blood. Someone yelled Tommy’s name. Heather. Didn’t she realize he was a little busy?
He was so focused on Nestor that he didn’t feel the knife until it was deep in his back. When the pain registered, it was enormous. Tommy tried to turn, only to find that his body no longer obeyed his wishes. He flopped down on top of Nestor.
* * *
Mother came around the side of the motel at full speed with Jubal close behind. His feet hit the front lawn and he attempted to take in what was happening without slackening his pace. They had been nearly finished burying the bodies when they heard the gunshot, soon followed by a second one. His footfalls across the parking lot slapped out the silence. A long shape lay ahead of him on the lot’s surface.
“Amara’s down,” Mother said, skidding to a stop.
He knelt beside her and reached down to touch her throat but instead had his hand slapped away by her long fingers.
“Go help the others,” she hissed. The tall woman sounded like she was in pain but Mother knew she was one tough sister who could handle herself, and that meant if she said to move, then he’d do just that, move right along.
He ran toward the cries and moans, down near the rooms where the gang had bedded down for the night. A cluster of figures were gathered there, dimly illuminated by a flashlight someone had left on the ground, or more likely had dropped there. More people were down, he could see that much.
“What in the hell is going on here?”
* * *
Jubal was on his knees beside Amara, stroking her forehead which, even on this cold night, felt overheated and dewy with sweat. Mother had run off but Jubal needed some answers, and if Amara was still conscious, maybe she had those answers.
“What happened here, Amara?”
“The Preacher happened.”
“Just one guy caused all this?”
She nodded weakly beneath his hand. He noticed the knife sticking out of her shoulder. The smell of blood perfumed the night and he wondered how seriously she was wounded. She had also been shot in the leg, so apparently the bladesman wasn’t allergic to guns.
“Where is he now?”
She said nothing, but then after a few tense seconds, she spoke again. “He went back to his lair, back to the church.”
* * *
“How many of the filthy pigs were there?” he cried into the depths of his home. He should have known the answer but his memory had become slippery again. First, he had stabbed the tall one, the one he had wanted most, but then he had seen the fat one moving around beyond the vehicles, and after slitting that pig’s throat, another had emerged from a motel room, one who dared to strike a blow against him!
He touched the side of his head and his hand came away, warm and damp. A coppery scent flooded his nostrils.
The Preacher wept.
This was not fair. He had been in total control over there. But then at the last minute, he had experienced a sense of fear and paranoia: his enemies were attacking from all sides. Sensing it was time to retreat, he had groggily stabbed the shitter who had hit him in the head and then had run back across the street and into his beloved church. His church, where he always felt safe and sound, where he could think his private, special thoughts with no one to interrupt him, planning out great works of art that he’d create by and by, bloody monuments to this new age of man’s downfall!
He wiped his eyes with a shirt sleeve and peered out his front window at the activity across the street. For a moment his vision blurred, but when it cleared again, he spotted a man crossing the street, running right toward his home. And the man had a large gun in each hand!
No matter.
The Preacher had a few tricks of his own.
* * *
“Tommy, speak to me, man!” Mother held the man’s head between his large hands, yelling down into his face as if that would snap him back to consciousness. He had extracted the long knife from Tommy’s back, dripping blood, then thrown it away into the parking lot.
Nestor was lying down, his wound not as serious as they had at first thought. After they had calmed him down, it turned out to be nothing more than a long scratch. And even though this was good news, the little baker didn’t seem thrilled by the discovery. Something was wrong with him.
But first things first.
Heather came out of the motel room at a jog with bath towels clutched in her hands. She had Mother flip the farmer over onto his side. She lifted his blood-drenched shirt and held a towel against the hole in Tommy’s back. She pulled his shirt back down so he wouldn’t get cold. “Maybe we should move him inside.”
Mother laid him back down flat on the sidewalk. “Jesus, I’m afraid to.”
“How is he?” Heather asked the big man.
He just shook his head and blinked his eyes like he had some dust in them. “All this time, you think it’ll be one of the dead men that gets you, but instead it’s just some lunatic with a knife fetish.” Sadness and anger transformed his voice.
Heather checked Tommy carefully, at his wrist, at his throat, and then began to sob.
Sensing what had happened, Robin dropped the flashlight and ran to throw her arms around her mother’s neck.
Mother walked away, crossing the parking lot slowly, his mind numb, his feelings numb. He felt like a block of ice sliding into the big nowhere. Why had all this shit happened to him? To his friends? Why the hell were they the chosen ones? What kind of god did this shit to people? The questions scrolled through his mind until it all just became babble and nonsense. He reached the spot where Amara was still on the ground.
“You’re sittin’ up, huh?”
Amara nodded her head there in the dark, a different shade of black moving against the night’s own colors. “I pulled the knife out too.” She pointed to it on the ground next to her.
“That’s my girl.” Mother held his hand out to her and she placed her graceful fingers into his calloused and thick palm. He lifted the woman to her feet as if she weighed nothing. Though she stumbled slightly from the gunshot wound in her leg, she did not fall. Mother placed an arm around her waist, steering her back to the motel.
“Where the fuck did Jubal go?”
“He went after the madman.”
“Goddamn Slate. Always doing the fun stuff himself.”
“Goddamn Slate.”
“Why don’t you head on back to your room and have Heather look at your shoulder and leg, get some fluids into you.”
Amara nodded, leaving Mother’s embrace.
He spoke again. “Tommy’s dead.”
“I know.”
* * *
“Motherfucker.”
“What is it?” Philly and Morris were awake. Ned filled them in on what was happening down at the motel.
Salina watched Slate’s headlong sprint toward the church. This would not stand. She couldn’t care less if the others in Slate’s happy little gang were butchered. However, no hand would slay Jubal but her own. It was a vow she had made and intended to keep.
“Slate chased that fucker back to the church. Goddammit!”
Ned made a tsking sound.
“What?” Salina said.
“Mentioning a church and taking the Lord’s name in vain all at the same time…that’s not good.”
She shook her head. “Were your parents brother and sister?”
Ned put one hand over his chest as if she had wounded him. “Hey, I was just sayin’. No need to get personal.”
Fucking retard. She tossed the binocs to Morris. “Keep an eye on that bunch at the motel.”
“You goin’ after Slate?”
But Salina was already running down the hill.
* * *
Jubal crouched in the shadows at the side of the church. The building had no stained glass representations of the Last Supper or the glories of Heaven. Most of the windows were empty of glass. Plywood panels had been haphazardly nailed across the openings. There was a gap in the wood in the window above Jubal’s head. Probably a peephole through which the killer kept an eye on the motel. He held his breath and listened for any sounds from within. There was only silence. That didn’t mean much. Amara said he was in there. So he would be. Probably standing on other side of the window right now.
Okay. Fine.
Jubal stood up, the Desert Eagle clenched in one hand and a Scorpion machine pistol in the other. He pulled the triggers. The Desert Eagle punched chunks out of the wood while the Scorpion’s automatic fire chewed up the remainder. The world was a lot quieter these days and the gunfire shattered the tranquility of the night. If there were any dead people around, this was sure to draw them.
He didn’t care.
Jubal didn’t wait around to see if the killer reacted to his pleasant greeting. He crouched low and ran for the back of the church. There was a simple wooden door centered in the building’s back wall. Jubal kicked it so hard, the door actually tore loose from its hinges and slid across the dusty floor like a surfboard until it disappeared into the darkness.
Jubal fired into the opening with both guns. Someone screamed, though it wasn’t until he stopped firing that Jubal realized it had been himself. He darted away from the open door, leaning against the outside of the church as he dug in his pockets for fresh magazines.
Christ, that was stupid. If this Preacher had a shotgun he could have turned Jubal to confetti. He reloaded, then tried to get his thoughts and breath under control. After so many months of killing zombies, he couldn’t quite believe he was chasing a man. One man, who had taken down three of Jubal’s people. Incredible.
He heard a heavy footstep and a rasping breath coming from around the side of the building. Jubal raised the Desert Eagle, only to lower it again when he saw the man’s large silhouette. It could only be Mother.
“Don’t…don’t shoot,” he gasped. “That is…if…you have any bullets…left.”
“Heard that, huh?”
Mother slid down to a sitting position. He held the Shredder in one big hand. “Is he in there?”
“Yeah. Everybody okay back there?”
Mother hesitated. “No.”
“Who?”
“Tommy.”
The news hit Jubal like a sledgehammer to the chest. As hardened as he’d become, the loss of someone close to him was devastating. As it should be. Sometimes he thought the pain—and the feelings he had for Heather—were the only signs he was still human, that he had not become as cold and heartless of a killing machine as the zombies.
“You bring a flashlight?”
“Hell, no,” Mother said. “I dropped it along the way.”
“Doesn’t matter.” Jubal stood.
“Wait.” Mother shoved past him. “I usually let you call the shots, but I got dibs on this fucknut.” Mother crouched low—which would have been comical under other circumstances—and stepped through the doorway.
Just as the building collapsed on him.
* * *
The Preacher was exhilarated, as he always was after a kill. Murder did something to his head, like flipping a switch. In the joint, he’d talked to a doctor who had a theory that adrenaline could sometimes even up an imbalance in The Preacher’s brain, at least for a few minutes.
The Preacher didn’t care for it, no sir. Not at all. When he was all evened out he couldn’t hear the angels anymore and he forgot how to make his art and, worst of all, he remembered his name was Donald and his Daddy used to burn him with cigarettes when Donald would wet the bed. But he had quit when Donald put the steak knife in his chest, oh yes he did. That was the night Donald first heard the angels and they told him about the scarlet gospels and his life’s work. It hurt to remember Donald. He knew if he sat in the dark long enough, The Preacher would be back in the driver’s seat. Only he couldn’t sit. The man with the guns was outside. He had already shot one of the windows and kicked in the back door. Fortunately, The Preacher was hiding in the sanctuary, high up in the balcony. It was also lucky that Donald could remember all the traps The Preacher had set. When he heard the second man stomp his way in through the back door, it just took a yank of a rope to free the timbers that hung suspended from the ceiling.
One more down.
* * *
It looked like a ton of wood had fallen on Mother. In the dark and the dust, Jubal couldn’t see. He felt around like a blind man, trying to find Mother, while keeping his gun pointed toward the black recesses of the church. That lunatic could be hiding anywhere.
And Jubal might have lost another friend.
Someone coughed.
“Mother?”
Another cough, then Mother said, “This place really sucks.”
Jubal followed the sound of his friend’s voice. He had to skirt around most of the wood until he reached a place in the pile where he could feel one of Mother’s arms and his face.
“I thought you were dead, man.”
“The night’s still young,” Mother said.
“Do you think anything’s broken?”
“I can wiggle my toes, if that’s what you mean. It’s gonna take some time to crawl outta here though.”
“I’ll help,” Jubal said.
“No. That freak could pick you off while you’re hauling timber off my ass. You have to go after him. No choice.”
Mother was right. Jubal had to find The Preacher and end him now. If he was even still in the building.
He’s still here. This place is important to him.
“Okay,” Jubal said. “See you in a minute.”
Jubal skirted around the last of the fallen wood, all the while worrying that the big man was downplaying his injuries.
He was in a room he reckoned was behind the altar. Several choir robes hung from hooks. Three doors faced him. The one in the center likely led onto the altar. If this building was laid out like most churches he had visited, the other two doors would open to the far aisles of the sanctuary. Jubal went through the center door.
He could make out the shape of a bench, a chair and a lectern. Beyond that was only darkness. He raised his weapons and fired, moving the guns from left to right, sending a fusillade of death across the room. He stopped firing and waited for the ringing in his ears to die away. He heard nothing. No gasps or cries or shouts.
Where was the bastard?
Jubal walked to the end of the altar. It was set up a couple of feet above the floor, like a stage. He hopped off and struck the floor. Then he kept going.
The floor dissolved beneath him.
Jubal fell a short distance and landed hard on his back. The air was forced from his lungs and he dropped the guns.
He struggled to draw in a breath. He had stepped onto a pitfall, like a tiger trap. The hole in the floor had been covered with fabric. The surface beneath him was concrete. He was in the basement. He couldn’t move, and he didn’t know if it was shock or if something was busted in his back.
Above him, a flashlight came on, held by a thin, dark shape.
“Daddy? Is that you?” The voice was reed-thin, like a child’s. “Did you come back to burn me with cigarettes, Daddy?”
Jubal tried to speak but the only sound he could make was a weak wheeze.
“Can’t let you do that, Daddy. I’m not Donald, not no more.”
The light glimmered off a shiny surface in the man’s hand.
“Remember the first time I killed you?” the man said. “Did it hurt? I hope so.”
Still flat on his back, Jubal looked around for his weapons but could not see them within the unsteady beam of The Preacher’s light. At least he knew his neck still functioned. That was one good sign and possibly meant he wasn’t out of this fight yet. He prayed he could defend himself against this knife-wielding cuckoo.
The eerie voice came again. “Are you looking for your cigarettes, Daddy? I don’t think they make your brand anymore. In fact, I bet there aren’t any cigarettes left in the whole, wide world. The dead men have smoked them all up.” The Preacher laughed. And if Jubal hadn’t known what crazy sounded like before, he sure did now.
He tried to rise again but a bolt of pain slapped him back down.
“What’s the matter?” The Preacher said. “Did you fall down go boom?”
C’mon, Mother. Now would be an excellent time for you to make like the cavalry and save my sorry ass.
But Mother was buried under a pile of wood on the floor above.
“Why don’t you say something, Daddy? I haven’t cut your tongue out—yet.”
“Okay,” croaked Jubal. “Here’s something: Why don’t you start running away now because when I catch you—and I will catch you—cigarette burns are going to be the least of your worries, you sick piece of shit.”
The Preacher shrieked his rage and turned off the flashlight, leaving Jubal in the dark.
“You are going to regret that.” The words were cold, and uttered in an evil hiss. The threat was followed by the sound of The Preacher moving away from the opening, and across the floor above.
He’s going to the basement door. He’s coming down here to finish me off just like he killed Tommy and those other people at the motel.
Again, Jubal tried to sit up, but all he could manage was to rock back and forth like a turtle on its back while daggers of pain sliced through him and unconsciousness loomed in the wings. He reached out to either side with both arms, stretching them as far as possible, but felt nothing but the cold, dusty floor beneath his palms. Nothing he could use as a weapon was close at hand.
A creak sounded above him, and Jubal knew it was the door at the top of the staircase opening. The light tread of creeping feet followed, moving down the stairs slowly.
Why doesn’t he turn that damn flashlight back on? Freak can probably see in the dark. Or he’s been lurking in this church for so long that he has every inch of the place memorized. Or hell, maybe he just likes scaring the shit out of people.
Of course he did.
Jubal’s arms were still groping for weapons when something small and furry ran across the back of his hand. He flinched at the touch of tiny feet against his skin but did not pull his arm back. He had to find something to fight with besides his fists and he had to find it fast.
Then the flashlight flicked on, blinding Jubal, its beam pointed directly into his eyes.
“Looking for something?” The Preacher said, holding up one of Jubal’s weapons—the Eagle—in the hand that wasn’t holding the flashlight. “Such vulgar things, these guns: oily, dirty, noisy and no skill required. A weapon for idiots, just point and shoot. Big whoopin’ deal, eh?” He flung the gun backwards and it clattered behind him against the wall. “Now this…” The Preacher produced a thin knife from the belt around his waist. “This is something much more stylish, don’t you think?”
“The last crazy motherfucker I met who liked playing with knives got a bullet right between the eyes. He wasn’t quite the piece of work you are, but he could probably have given you a run for your money. One thing though...”
“What’s that, Daddy?” He was back to the kiddy voice. Sick fuck.
“His knives were way nicer than that piece of shit you’re holding.”
The Preacher shrieked with rage and in one fluid movement threw his leg over Jubal, straddled him, and brought all his weight down hard on the prone man’s mid-section.
Jubal gasped. The pain radiated everywhere, skewering his very being, swirling into a whirlwind of white, searing hell.
He blacked out.
* * *
Salina gasped as her foot sank into the earth and she fell hard to the ground.
She extracted her foot from what she assumed was a woodchuck or rabbit hole. Her ankle felt like it had been twisted, if not broken. There was only one way to find out. She got to her feet and, though it hurt like hell, found that her damaged ankle could bear her weight. She couldn’t move quickly, but at least she could move.
Time was wasting.
On her way down the hill, she had heard the sound of heavy gunfire. Not the tiny pops like earlier in the night, but a full-blown, both-barrels-blazing assault on the church. She hoped it had been the sound of Jubal taking out that skinny creep and not the other way around. Although she was confident that Jubal could handle himself, the other man was an unknown factor and God only knew what sort of weaponry he had hidden away in that church. Salina had to get down there fast.
Slate better be alive.
Limping down the hillside, at times nearly toppling over, it wasn’t long before she arrived at the back entrance to the church. The door had been blasted off its hinges and, just inside, her flashlight’s beam revealed a pile of wood, as though the ceiling had collapsed. As she tiptoed inside and then around the pile, she heard someone grunt. She brought her gun up and shined the light into the woodpile. Within the circle of light, she saw the freak show face of Jubal’s right-hand man, Mother.
“Get that light out of my eyes whoever you are and go help Jubal,” he hissed.
“Yeah, ‘cause that face needs to stay in the dark.” She pulled the light away.
“Salina? That you?”
Jubal’s buddy sounded pissed off at seeing her again, but she didn’t bother replying. Instead, she crept farther into the building, wondering if she should turn off her flashlight. She decided against it because she didn’t want to fuck up her other ankle by tripping over something in the dark. But when she heard the murmur of a voice, she changed her mind. Salina stopped and turned off her light. As her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she saw faint illumination emanating from the ground just a few yards ahead. She crept forward, coming to the edge of a large hole in the floor.
Someone was speaking down there and it wasn’t Jubal Slate. She leaned over and peered into the hole.
The skinny church man sat on top of Slate, waving a long knife about his head as he spoke. “Know how the Indians used to do it back when America was young, Daddy? Why they’d just take a handful of their victim’s hair—like this—and then place the blade just so at the hairline—that’s if the dead fucker had hair. And then, pulling tight the hair, they’d—”
Salina was concerned because during this entire horrible speech Jubal Slate hadn’t budged an inch.
“Oh, shit!” Salina said. And dropped straight down through the hole. She landed hard, but she landed as planned: right on top of the crazy fuck with the knife.
And on top of Jubal Slate, who still wasn’t moving.
The squirrelly fuck beneath her hissed and spat, the blade still clenched in his fist like it was part of him. He waved it about but couldn’t do much with Salina lying on top of him.
“Get off me, you goddamn fucking fucker!” said the madman.
With her handgun, she hit him in the face as hard as she could.
“Fuck! That hurt, fucker!”
She had hoped to brain him, but no such luck; she blamed the bad angle. But if she rolled off the guy to get her bearings, the slippery rat might slip away and no way was she allowing that to happen.
The man tried to buck her off like he was a horse. Salina grabbed a fistful of his hair and pulled; she wanted to yank his head up to get a better angle at bashing his skull in. His hair was so greasy that it slid right through her fingers; her hand felt like it was coated in petroleum jelly. The last time he’d washed his hair must have been in the pre-zombie days.
He bucked again and she was thrown from his back and onto the concrete floor. As she hit, she lost her grip on the gun and the flashlight, and heard both spin away across the concrete. The flashlight made a crazy kaleidoscope of shadows before it finally came to rest, pointed at the cinderblock wall.
Fine. You want to play rough?
Before she could scramble to her feet, he landed on top of her like a flying monkey, cackling and talking his crazy shit. “Have you come to watch me punish Daddy? Do you like this, Mommy? Remember how Daddy hurt you, the noises you’d make at night, all the screaming and squealing?”
He clapped a hand over her mouth. It smelled like unwashed ass. And even though she was the toughest bitch on earth, Salina felt her gorge rise.
I am not going to throw up.
“I could hear your sins, Mommy. The sins you shared with Daddy.”
She felt movement below her waist. Son of a bitch. The freak was humping her. She twisted and squirmed, trying to throw him off, but he was incredibly strong. He removed the hand from her mouth. She drew in a deep breath. By comparison, the musty air in the basement smelled sweet. He used the hand to squeeze her breasts, while he continued his humping. He mashed her tits around and seemed to be groping for her nipples but he couldn’t get to them through her shirt and jacket.
“What’s the matter, douche bag? Never felt up a girl before?”
With his other hand he pressed the edge of his knife to Salina’s throat.
“Not a live girl, Mommy.”
* * *
Mother was sleepy.
His head throbbed and he was pretty sure his left arm was broken. The darkness was interrupted with bright flashes of colored lights, mostly red, pulsing in time to his headache. It had to be a concussion at the very least. He had taken a mighty blow to the head and actually blacked out for a few seconds. He hadn’t let Jubal know how badly he was injured; the idiot would only have stayed to dig him out, leaving himself wide open to that knife-wielding maniac. Mother thought it was better this way, at least he had thought that until he heard the maniac gloating from somewhere off in the building. That meant something had happened to Jubal.
Mother had tried again to dig his way out. The pain in his arm was bad enough, but the real killer was the hammering in his skull. Every movement sent a wave of nausea coursing through his guts, followed by those exploding lights which reminded him of the time he had gone with his Moms and his sister to the Fourth of July fireworks show at the Rose Bowl.
He used his right arm to push his body up once more, straining against the heavy timber that lay across his shoulders. It was no good. The wood was too heavy and Mother was simply too damaged. He rested his face against the wooden floor. It felt cool, and for a second, the ache receded.
Then Salina had shown and shined the light in his eyes, and that felt like she’d shoved an ice pick into his brain. Hopefully, she was in time to help Jubal.
He closed his eyes. It wasn’t like he needed them open. It was too goddamn dark in here to see anything. Besides, if he kept still, maybe the hurt would ease up.
He thought about that summer night so long ago, how the three of them had piled into his uncle’s Caddy and made the trip to Pasadena. Mother was just Chris back then, and he was blown away by the size of the Rose Bowl. They got their seats, then Moms bought them hot dogs and Pepsis. Christ, it was the greatest hot dog he’d ever had, dripping with ballpark mustard and smothered with onions. His sister couldn’t finish hers, so he’d been happy to take care of it for her. The great food had only been the preamble for the fireworks celebration. For nearly an hour, the rockets exploded above the field and the air was filled with the smell of gunpowder and the most vivid, incredible colors in the whole world. It was one of the fondest memories Mother had.
He wondered for the millionth time if any of his family was still alive and for the millionth time he decided it didn’t matter. If they weren’t dead now, they soon would be.
Let’s be honest, friends, it’s the Twilight of Humanity out there. It didn’t matter how many guns they had, eventually the bullets would run out. They would run out of food. They would run out of places to hide. Mother hated that, but he understood it. He accepted it, and a long time ago he vowed that he would fight on to the bitter end. And what had that gotten him?
A life on the run. Watching his friends die.
And now, lying under a ton of rubble, the victim of a trap set by a skinny psycho.
Yeah. Good times. It was so much easier to stop fighting, to lie here and drift off to sleep. He’d always heard that you shouldn’t sleep if you had a concussion. Like that mattered now.
Tommy was dead, Amara was hurt real bad. And for all he knew, Jubal got sliced to pieces because Mother was stupid enough to walk into the snare like a dumb animal.
Show’s over, folks. The band is breaking up. The plane is going down. All good things, etcetera, so forth, Amen.
He had been so cold, yet warmth now spread through his body. The pain faded as he drifted off to sleep.
He was at the crossroads of sleep and wakefulness, still aware of the feel of the floor beneath him and the weight on his back. At the same time, he was in his Moms’ small, clean kitchen. She was just like he remembered her, sitting at the table in her robe, smoking a Pall Mall and drinking coffee. She shook her head as she looked at him. Not good. Not good at all. He’d seen that look too many times. Moms was pissed.
When she spoke, her voice was muffled, like she was on the other side of an invisible wall. But, like always, Moms made herself understood.
“Wake up, Christopher. Wake your lazy ass up right now!”
His eyes opened at the same instant a scream filled the church.
* * *
Salina screamed so hard, she was pretty sure something burst in her throat. The greasy-haired bastard just laughed and continued to hump her. She had hoped to startle him, force him to move and allow her some leverage to throw him off. Instead, he pressed the blade harder into the flesh of her throat. She felt a warm trickle slide down the side of her neck. Okay, when all else fails, put that moneymaker to work, girl.
She raised her hips by an inch or two—all the room she had—and thrust back against him. He paused for a second and she felt his small erection poking into her pelvic bone.
“Oooh,” she moaned, in her best porn star imitation. She relaxed her hips and thrust up at him again. This time he raised his own ass and pounded back against her, dry humping like a fifteen-year-old on his first date.
“Yes,” she whispered. The nutcase made a sound in his throat, a cross between a moan and growl. Salina bit her lip to keep from laughing at his fucked-up girly voice.
Their little dance continued, the parting and rejoining of their crotches, until he was really rising up now, and slamming into her like a jackrabbit on crack. She knew it wouldn’t be long until he blew his load.
He lifted away from her again, leaving at least a foot of air between them.
She raised her right knee and nailed him in the nuts.
He hissed before collapsing on top of her. The knife sliced across her throat without doing much damage. She rolled out from under him and scrambled for her flashlight. Now to find her gun.
Too late. The lunatic slammed her into the wall. His forearm smashed into her windpipe, cutting off her air and pinning her against the cinderblocks. The flashlight was jammed between them, pointing toward his face. The oily hair hung like moss from a swamp tree and his yellow teeth looked like fangs.”Bitch! You fucking cunt! You’re dead.”
She felt his body shift and knew the next sensation would be the blade slicing into her.
Two hands appeared on either side of the psycho’s head, as if they had sprung from his skull. The hands clamped on the killer’s jaws and violently twisted. There was a crack as his neck broke, and the man with the knife fell to the floor.
Jubal Slate stood facing her, breathing hard, his mouth open and his eyes blazing.
* * *
Help’s a’comin’… Help’s a’comin’…
This time, footfalls woke Mother from his daze. Had someone just screamed? Was the walker also the screamer? He was no longer sure where delirium and reality diverged. He just hoped it was someone who could drag his sorry ass out from beneath this chunk of church on top of him.
Someone moved across the ground outside, their steps crisply amplified by the cold night air. The way they shuffled along, they almost sounded wounded—just like him. Maybe one of the gang, Nestor or Heather, was here to help a brother out. Or maybe it was one of Salina’s knuckleheads, come to cause a mess of trouble.
Now where’d I drop that thing?
His fingers, like feelers, groped for the Shredder but he wasn’t having much luck locating it, his movements restricted by the honkin’ huge heap of wood piled atop him. If he could just stay conscious long enough, and if he was allowed enough time, he imagined he could get himself out of this mess—maybe.
But someone was coming.
Now it sounded like several someones. And they all walked funny.
Oh, no. Not now. Not them.
The smell wafted past him and the trapped man knew for sure: the dead were coming to call, probably drawn to this location by all the explosions, gunfire and Wild West action courtesy of one lone maniacal killer.
He stretched his hand farther and, with a jolt of pain, felt something sharp rip the skin of his arm.
Oh, great. More scars. Just what I needed.
Then the tip of his middle finger touched something cool and smooth; could be anything, but he hoped to hell it was his bad-ass Shredder.
Move away from the church, please, zombie folk. Please, please…at least till old Mother gets his hands on something to defend himself with.
He wondered if Salina had found Jubal and if either one of them were still alive. Or even if they weren’t alive, if he was stuck here all alone with some crazy motherfucker as well as a buttload of zombies? That would be just like old times...
He flashed back to that horrible day—a strong contender for the worst day of his life—when he had been locked in the back of a furniture truck, left alone in the dark among the wall-to-wall walking dead, the only thing keeping them at bay being Luther Kemp’s alien-given power to control them with his whacked-out mind.
That day had nearly driven him mad and now here he was again, pinned down and unable to move with one psycho and a herd of monsters traipsing around the grounds. He almost giggled at his ridiculous situation, but then thought better of it; not only might the sound give his position away, but it would also prove he’d gone loony-tunes for good, something he wasn’t quite ready to admit to himself.
C’mon, Shredder!
One last lunge and he felt the familiar shape of the gun’s handle in his hand. Only thing was, how was he going to tug it free from where it was lodged if he couldn’t even extract himself?
Someone who smelled like the vilest fart ever began pounding on something nearby. It didn’t take Mother long to figure out that one of the ambulatory dead had found the pile of building that had collapsed on him. Soon, other hands joined in as well, all pounding out a nonsense rhythm like the world’s worst drum corp. Obviously, these weren’t the brightest and best of the undead but Mother was pretty sure it wouldn’t be long now before they figured out Mother was trapped under here and they began crawling through the wreckage to yank his tasty ass out.
He tightened his grip on the Shredder. At least holding its grip made him feel a little better.
The sound of a large plank striking the floor echoed within the church’s confines. Maybe one of the drummers had grown tired of playing beat box. But the trapped man knew that wasn’t the real reason. All along, the undead posse had been moaning and grunting—as they were wont to do—but now the sounds they made took on greater urgency. Mother had heard these sounds before many times and it only could mean one thing: the zombie folk sensed a meal nearby.
They know what’s cooking and they all want a piece of it…of me.
Above the racket the zombies made, Mother could hear someone screaming. At first it sounded like a woman but then he realized it was a man, a man that was near and dear to him—and trapped under a pile of wood: Himself.