"Well you almost got us killed you idiot." She said with a glare but her body had relaxed and she was not hitting him anymore, which Gabe took to mean she was on her way to forgiving him.
"Where are Laura and Geoff?"
"Dead, and maybe if you had been there they wouldn't be."
Where one might expect to see a look of embarrassment or sadness Gabe was surprised to see a look of anger cross John's face. But John covered it with a look of concern before Kelly looked up and saw it.
"What did you guys do anyway?" John said, gesturing up the stairs. "I've never seen a group of deadheads wander off so quickly, even if they have eaten or couldn't find their prey."
It's a long story." Gabe answered, which I will share later, but right now we are standing in the open talking. How about we go find my friends for now.
Chapter 12
"Oh... That's bad." Gabe commented as he looked around the corner towards the grocery store.
His two new companions leaned around him and took a glance too.
"There must be 30 of them." John commented.
"Yeah," Kelly came back around the corner. "I think I recognize some of them from upstairs."
"Well you don't know your friends are in there for sure..." John offered hopefully.
"Well it is obvious someone is in there and they need help regardless of who they are." Gabe reached down and pried his ax out of the head of the dead zombie where he had lost it. "You two don't need to come with me, but I have to go help my friends or whoever that might be."
"I'm going with you." Kelly offered.
"Well," John said with some thought, "if we're going, let me go get some weapons out of the room."
John bounded up the stairs and pulling a card out of his pocket he swiped it, opened the door and went right into the hotel. Less than a minute later he came back down the stairs with two baseball bats.
"Okay, follow me and stick close."
"Whoa!" John exclaimed in disbelief. "We need a plan. We can't just run out there into 30 or more deadheads and hope for the best."
"First of all their backs are to us," Gabe pointed around the corner. "And second, I'm going to do what I did upstairs again."
"Yeah, still not sure what that was." John said, now in openly incredulous.
"John," Kelly snapped but glancing at Gabe tried to play it off. "Just stay by him and do what he says."
"I was just worried about you Kelly."
Kelly replied with a halfhearted smile that was borderline patronizing but John's face lit up with a big dopey grin.
Gabe decided to file that away for later. Nodding at both of them and getting a nod of readiness back Gabe tuned the corner and quietly walked towards the grocery store.
Having learned his lesson from the incident on the steps, Gabe swung the ax so that the backside of the ax struck the side of the skull of the first zombie he approached. The zombie went down without a grunt but the sound of the ax's impact caused the zombie nearest the first one to turn its head, but Kelly was already in mid-swing and that zombie went down as fast as the first. In this fashion they worked their way steadily towards the store. As they got closer to the store they heard the shattering of glass. Having a little breathing room they were able to glance at the store. They could see that zombies were now not only getting in the door but were starting to tumble and fall through the open plate glass window. The knee-high wall seemed to be enough to confuse the zombies so that they were mostly falling forward into the store, but it was a large number of them that were now going in all at one time, and Gabe knew that meant trouble for whoever was inside.
"Stick with me." Gabe barked and then turning his eyes toward the sky began talking in a loud voice.
"Lord, I ask for your blessing for safe passage for my friends and me in Jesus name."
As soon as he finished speaking he began to stride towards the store, this time ignoring the ax in his hand. Kelly quickly followed him and after a few seconds of hesitation John ran up to join them. Kelly and John both fell into place on either side of Gabe but back just a foot or so. As they began to get into the crowd of zombies Kelly and John were amazed to see a zombie circle form around them. Even the zombies that had their backs to Gabe seemed to suddenly sense his presence yards before he reached them and they would try and get out of his path. Finally coming to the sidewalk in front of the store Gabe stopped. Kelly and John were practically on his back trying to stay close, but never once did any of the zombies try and bite or grab them.
"What are we doing..."
Before John could finish his question, Gabe dropped the ax on the ground, lifted his hands in the air and shouted.
"In the name of Jesus Christ, BE GONE."
The two zombies standing closest to him went limp and dropped to the ground.
Before either John or Kelly could express their amazement, they realized that the rest of the zombies were fleeing from Gabe at their best speed.
"Oh no," Kelly pointed with great concern. Many of the zombies were already in the store and several were still on the sidewalk between Gabe and the store. All of these zombies were now heading towards the back of the store, away from Gabe, but towards whoever was in there.
Snatching up his ax, Gabe ran after the zombies heading into the store. Kelly quickly followed and John brought up the rear. Gabe hit a zombies trying to get into the front door of the store with the blunt side of his ax, as it went down he immediately looked around to make sure that the zombies weren't coming back. The zombies were continuing their exodus, but Gabe realized that John was still several feet back from him and Kelly.
The zombies only seemed concerned with getting away and didn't turn around even when one of their brethren were loudly killed right behind them. As they cleared their way through the door, again, Gabe couldn't help but notice that Donald stayed behind them, they could see that the zombies were running or walking past the people near the back of the store completely ignoring them. At first the group thought they were going to die for sure as the zombies overran them, but the zombies just kept right on going. More out of fear than any idea of capitalizing on an opportunity, the group began to move towards the middle of the store at the same time the zombies were heading toward the back. This allowed them to hit the zombies with no worries of another zombie turning on them. The group cleared out all the zombies left in the store in less than a minute.
"Gabe!" Chris said solemnly. "Glad to see you."
"Yeah," Jack added, smiling to see his pastor. "We thought you were dead."
Gabe noted that as soon as Jack had said "dead" he had looked guiltily towards the Southern back corner of the store where a group of people gathered.
"What's going on?" Gabe asked as he started to head towards the rest of the group in the corner.
"In the fight, Kevin and Aaron were out front and Kevin started to get overwhelmed." Jack answered in a hushed tone.
"Oh no. Did he get bit.?"
"No." Chris answered. "Aaron did."
Having reached the group Gabe looked down and saw several people he didn't recognize tending to Aaron, who was laying in his brother’s lap.
Gabe looked down and saw a neck wound that reminded him of the doctor he had held in his lap when this whole thing started. Eric and a man and a woman that Gabe didn't know were trying to apply pressure to Aaron's neck with various rags scavenged from the store shelves.
Kevin was sobbing and crying and talking to his brother.
Gabe stood there helpless and watched what he knew was the inevitable outcome. Aaron never opened his eyes or spoke a word that Gabe could see, but he finally sucked in one last gasp of air and then was still. Kevin sobbed louder than ever.
Gabe moved to step in and comfort Steve and do what needed to be done, but the man who had been helping apply pressure to the wound beat him to it.
"I know this is terrible son, and nothing anyone can say can change that, but remember two things, he gave his life for you, there is no greater lov
e than that." The man gently rubbed Steve's shoulder and let what he said sink in.
As Steve calmed down to a quiet cry the man went on. "And I also want you to take comfort in the fact that in his last seconds of consciousness he confessed his sins and love for Christ."
Gabe was caught off guard to hear talk of Christ coming from someone else.
"He is in a better place now." As the man finished talking, he turned his head towards those standing around in the circle and gave a comforting nod to all of them.
It was when he turned that Gabe saw that the man wore a priest's collar.
"Father, it’s good to see a fellow clergyman," Gabe put his hand on his holster pointedly, "But we need to take care of something right away.
"Nonsense." The priest answered with a gentle smile.
Then, seeming to be in no hurry at all, he turned back to Kevin and Aaron and began to pray. Assuming the priest had managed to survive this long without seeing anyone die, he un-holstered his gun and stepped towards Aaron again.
He was shocked when three people he didn't know immediately put their hands out to stop him.
"Just watch." said the middle-aged woman. She smiled as she continued, "He isn't going to change."
Gabe had missed most of the prayer, but he could hear now that the priest was asking God to sanctify Aaron’s body and comfort his brother. Gabe wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew Aaron would start biting whoever he could get ahold of if they didn't shoot him in the brain right away. Gabe began to push past the woman and two men holding him back.
"AMEN." The priest and the strangers all said in unison.
"He won't come back now." The woman said, taking Gabe's hand in hers. "We've seen this, it’s okay." she added reassuringly.
The other two men were still holding Gabe back and as he struggled, he kept his eyes on Aaron. As the seconds ticked by and nothing happened Gabe struggled to get past them less and less until he finally quit altogether and just stood there.
Gabe was still not accepting that Aaron hadn't turned. The priest stood up with a sad smile on his face and came over to Gabe.
"It's okay, he isn't changing into one of them, he will rest in peace." The priest said comfortingly.
"How..." Gabe started. "What..."
"I've given him his last rites and asked God to sanctify his body. The enemy can't dwell in a Holy place." He looked down at Aaron's brother and a compassionate frown formed on his face. "I'm sorry you lost a friend, but I can promise he will rest in peace."
The group stood around for a while until Kevin got up and tried to gently arrange Aaron's hands on his chest. "I can't leave him here. Those things will be back."
The other man who appeared to be part of the priest’s group spoke up. "The cooler, it won't still be cool, but they won't be able to get into the big door and most people don't ever consider that you get into it through the sodas, so I'm sure those possessed corpses won't either."
As both groups helped Kevin wrap his brother in blankets they found in the back of the store, Gabe took the opportunity to pull the priest aside.
"I'm Gabe." Gabe paused for a minute and then nodding his head went on, "Actually, I'm Pastor Gabe."
The priest shook his hand, "Pastor? You don't sound so sure about that." he responded with a curious grin on his face.
"I wasn't, I really wasn't until about a half-hour ago." Gabe said, breaking into a broad grin.
"Well I'm Father O'Donnell and I'm definitely glad to meet you. You showed up in the nick of time for us I dare say. People were starting to go for their guns." Father O'Donnell paused for emphasis. "That would have brought the rest of the town down on us."
"Glad we could help, but obviously we were still a little too late."
Neither spoke for a minute.
"I wish I had known your trick." Gabe said, making a head motion towards Aaron. "I've already seen a couple of people die and I wish I could have put them to rest the way you did."
"Well, I couldn't make it out clearly from where I was, but it looked like you had a trick of your own."
"Yes," Gabe reflected for a moment. "I had all but given up my faith but in my moment of need I cried out for the Lord and he answered."
The priest eyed him with interest, "I've heard many believers do the same but not have the response you seemed to get." The priest got a faraway look in his eyes as he continued. "I was in my Church with a group of my parishioners when someone opened the door. I don't know what happened, I'm not even sure the door was ever locked... It was horrible. They must have been waiting at the door, they just poured in.” The priest seemed to be staring at nothing. “I heard many a man, woman and child call out to the Lord…”
After a few minutes of silence Gabe restarted the conversation. "But how did you keep our friend from coming back?"
"Oh, well.. when this all started my Church was a sanctuary, one of my parishioners had been bitten and he slowly succumbed to his wounds. As he died I administered the last rites. At that point, I honestly didn't even think about it as anything as other than that, the last rites that he was due as a faithful Catholic." He paused for a moment before going on. "Of course I had seen on TV what was happening, and we were all ready for him to get up again..."
O'Donnell paused again, clearly remembering something. "But he never did to all of our amazement. Later I got to see firsthand what could happen when someone was bitten without the rites."
"Wow, think of all those scientists and talking heads on TV going on about this disease or that." Gabe noted.
"It could still be a disease." Chris said coming up behind them.
Chris and most of the others had joined the two clergymen after putting Aaron in the cooler.
"Kevin was hoping you would say a few words Father." Chris was speaking for Aaron who was still sobbing.
Father O'Donnell walked over to Kevin and put his hand on his shoulder and nodded before walking towards the open cooler.
Everyone gathered outside of the open cooler door as the Father stepped just inside.
"Would you join me Pastor Gabe?"
Gabe was caught off Guard by the Pastor's request but stepped forward to stand next to the priest.
"I only knew Aaron for a matter of moments, but his love for his brother was obvious in every action he took. The Bible tells us there is no sacrifice or love greater than to give your life for another."
Father O'Donnell crossed himself and Gabe knew that was his cue.
"I haven't even known Aaron for a month, but it feels like it has been a lifetime. He was generous and he was caring and his love for his brother was unbreakable even onto death." Gabe paused and gathered intensity. "He died not just protecting his older brother, but trying to get food, food to keep all of us alive. And he didn't die in vain, we have the store now and all the food but now I have to live with the shame of his death."
The sudden change in direction of Gabe's words surprised the group and several who had put their heads down in prayer now looked up.
"In the time I've known Aaron not once did I ask him about his spiritual life. I made sure he had food and water and a safe place to stay, but I didn't ask him if his soul, his eternal life was safe."
Gabe saw Chris' frown, but he kept going.
"When this started, and consequently when several of you met me, I thought I had lost my faith. My wife had left me for another man. Our congregation wasn't growing and our youth ministry had added only two kids in as many years. Talking about it now... I realize I never truly lost faith in God, God was always at the bottom of my heart, but I realize now I quit having faith in me. As a man, and a man of God."
Gabe knew he had everyone's attention now and silently prayed that the Holy Spirit would give him the words.
With this young lady as my witness and then both of these young people my witness again, God performed a miracle and scattered the dead before us like scarred mice... twice. “I know God is real and I hope you do too. He died for your sins, he d
ied for all the bad things you ever did or thought so that when you die and face God the Father, you won't have to pay the price. Romans 3:23 tells us that all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. And if you haven't done so before, I hope you will give your life to Christ now. Romans 6:23 tells us For, the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. It is an open invitation from God, a free gift from your loving father, all you have to do is believe in Jesus as the son of God, confess your sins to him and accept him as the Lord of your life. There is no time to wait or waste, life has always been short and now it is even shorter. There is no pretty Church building, beautiful singing chorus or magical words, but if you want to give your life to Christ, I will be glad to pray with you right now in this walk-in refrigerator. Romans 10: 9-10 assures us that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.”
When Gabe quit talking, he took a small step backward, folded his hands, lowered his eyes and began to pray quietly. Aaron's brother Steve was the first to come forward, sobbing he came over and wrapped his arm around Gabe's neck and continued to cry. But as Gabe began to comfort him, he was surprised to see the man, who's name he still didn't know, who he thought was part of the Priest's group come forward with his head hung low. Just after him came Kelly.
Gabe saw John look up with surprise as Kelly had come forward and then quickly followed. As Gabe was processing that, he was again shocked when the priest fell to his knees in front of him.
"I forgot." The priest said quietly through tears. "Forgive me, I got lost in what we were going through, I got comfortable in the ceremony and proud of what I could do. Please forgive me."
Dead Faith (Book 1): Dead Faith Page 9
