by Tristan Vick
Holding the chalice in his left hand, Perry Campbell put his right hand on Mary’s head, as if he were blessing his dear wife. Mary bowed her head as he took the cup in both hands and raised it heavenward. Bringing it to his lips he pronounced, with a jackal-toothed grin, “Remember His holy words! This cup is the new covenant in my blood; do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me. In the name of Je’zuz Christ, we pray, amen!” Campbell smiled and drank heartily from the chalice. Tipping it back, he consumed the whole amount of what was contained inside, then rubbed a dribble of blood he had spilled on his chin with the back of his hand. It smeared his face with red and made him look like a mad anthropophagus, a vampire, a bloodthirsty cannibal, or whatever one chose to call such a vile creature.
Rachael’s eyes fluttered, then rolled back in her head, and her head fell limp. Hank caught her so she didn’t fall to the ground. The audience grew deathly silent as they watched with bated breath and waited for what would happen next.
Gasping for air, Rachael re-awoke to the frenetic sound of applause. It seemed the more she regenerated the faster and easier it became.
Reverend Campbell, with knife in hand, simply slashed her throat, as if it was the most casual thing to do in the world, and reopened Rachael’s neck. He filled the cup up again, then he handed it to one of the ushers, who took it to distribute among the congregation. Campbell and his wife repeated the ritual until practically the entire congregation has partaken of her blood.
Rachael was so weak from the assiduous bloodletting that she could no longer stand, and collapsed to the ground. Between each suffocating breath Rachael begged and pleaded for them to stop this insanity. But they merely ignored her. Tears streamed from Rachael’s eyes as she watched parents force their small children to partake in the so-called “Holy Communion.” Many of the parents lied outright and informed the small ones that it was just “juice.”
But there is nothing holy about drinking another human being’s blood, Rachael thought. It was morbidly grotesque.
Just as Hank began to pick her up again, to force her to repeat the sadistic ritual, she fainted.
Moments later Rachael rolled over on the floor. Groggy, she pushed herself to her hands and knees. She heard a loud pop. Then another. And another. Rachael could smell the scent of gunpowder thick in the air.
Pop! Pop, pop!
Struggling her best to raise her head, Rachael’s craned her neck and looked around. It was pandemonium everywhere she looked. People ran in every direction screaming, others held smoking guns, others sat in the pews bleeding out—caught in the crossfire. Zombies with bullet holes in their foreheads littered the aisles. The parishioners were all turning. Everyone who had consumed Rachael’s blood was transforming into the undead. All hell had broken loose in the chapel. The day of vengeance was upon them.
Whatever the viral strain had done to her, its fast-acting properties worked equally as fast in reverse on those not immune to the infection, like she was. By the looks of things, nearly everyone in the church had turned. Even the poor children who were forced to drink her blood, all in the name of God. Whoever drank her blood turned in just a matter of minutes. They had become the white-eyed, flesh-eating monsters that marked the end of days. Those who hadn’t drunk yet rushed to grab weapons to defend themselves from their friends and loved ones, who attacked them with a ravenous hunger.
Some had formed a prayer circle and dropped to their knees. They were praying furiously to God to save them, but to no avail. The circle’s prayers were suddenly silenced by a multitude of chomping teeth.
“That’s her,” a man cried out. “That’s the witch!”
“Kill her!” another voice shouted out over the screams.
One of Hank’s men, a small wiry guy with yellow spiky hair wearing a white and blue pin-striped collar shirt, ran up to her with a sawed-off shotgun. He brought it to her chest, and Rachael sensed her end was imminent, when from nowhere Mrs. Mary Campbell leapt onto the young man’s back like a jumping spider. They toppled over, and Mrs. Campbell gnawed at his face and jugular, biting into his tender neck viciously. Her whitewashed eyes gave her a hideous look, but Rachael couldn’t help but think, the monster beneath the mask had finally come out to play.
A nearby man saw Mrs. Campbell’s feeding frenzy and freaked out. He threw down his gun and tried to escape out of one of the side exists. He even made it out into the hallway. His retreat was cut short, however, when Rachael suddenly heard him scream out, “God have mercy!” Blood splattered across the glass windows of the doors he had just exited.
Desiring to escape, Rachael was about to get out of this madhouse when something caught her eye. The dagger they had used mercilessly on her lay abandoned on the floor nearby. Without a second’s hesitation, she bent down to pick it up, but the moment she clasped it a hand from behind the podium shot out and grabbed her wrist.
Looking up, she saw the fever-struck face of Reverend Perry Campbell. His forehead glistened with wet residue from the sickness, and he shook with cold sweats as beads of perspiration dripped down his forlorn face. Through chattering teeth he spoke, “What d-d-did y-you d-d-d-do to us?”
Rachael tore her arm free of his clammy clutches and replied with an unsympathetic voice so cold it could have dripped icicles. “I didn’t do anything. This is all on you. You got your wish. Now you’ll live forever—as the King of the damned. Lord of the dead.”
“I d-didn’t want th-this. Puh-please s-save us!”
Rachael smiled a Mona Lisa smile, diminutive and sly, but it spoke volumes. “You already have a savior. Ask him for help.”
Gripping his hands together, Campbell pleaded with her. “He has forsaken us!”
Rachael’s smile grew big and bright, as if to say, “Good, you deserve it.” Jerking her arm free, Rachael stepped back, then, taking a running start she kicked the reverend right in his face. He went down instantly like a ton of bricks. But Rachael didn’t hang around to savor her victory.
Spinning around, she sprang forward, leapt up, and brought the golden dagger straight down through the back of Mary Campbell’s skull, interrupting her feeding frenzy. Tearing the knife back out made a hollow noise, which sounded like corn being shucked. Mrs. Campbell’s body toppled over and fell next to where her deceased husband lay, staring vacantly out at the horrors that he’d helped to unleash upon his congregation.
Rachael picked up the sawed-off shotgun the young man was clutching in his dead hands and took it off him. She took his ammunition belt as well. Rachael then spied a .44 Magnum he had tucked into his belt buckle. With nothing but her skimpy dress, she looked around for something she could use to strap her weapons to her body. Luckily, Mary Campbell’s corpse has a lovely raspberry-colored sash. Taking the flowery sash, Rachael wrapped it around her waist and tucked the knife in.
Holding up the .44 in one hand and the snub-nosed shotgun in the other, she cocked the shotgun single handed. Those gun training courses down at the range really had helped her look good in front of her law associates. Being around criminals all of the time, her entire law firm was requested to learn gun safety. It was just something she felt was important to know. Just in case.
Just then the young man, whose face had been completely chewed off by Mary Campbell, reached out and grabbed Rachael’s leg. Without hesitating she put the barrel of the .44 Magnum against his head and pulled the trigger. His head popped like a watermelon being hit by a sledgehammer, and his body flew back and tumbled down the stairs of the platform.
Rachael stepped down and started her perilous trek down the center aisle of the zombie-infested chapel. A teenage zombie wearing a “God Saves!” t-shirt lunged at her. Rachael pulled the trigger of the shotgun.
BLAM!
Half of the girl’s face was instantly blown clean off and the half that remained was still smoking when her body hit the floor. Gray matter spackled with blood painted the floor where she fell. Rachael forged on. But before she could get to the doors she face
d her worst obstacle yet.
“Hilda!” she gasped.
Directly in her path stood Mad Hilda. Hilda’s massive undead husk of a corpse lurched up the aisle. Her eyes were completely glazed over with the hazy white vacancy typical of the living dead. Red slime oozed out of the corners of her growling mouth. Mad Hilda was locked on like a homing missile. As she made her way toward Rachael, the hag’s chapped, purple lips peeled back to reveal blood-soaked teeth. “Grrrah!”
Rachael raised the .44 Magnum and aimed it straight at the center of Mad Hilda’s chest.
BLAM! BLAM!
Mad Hilda staggered back, but then bared her teeth and growled even louder. She was tough, Rachael would give her that much. Just then Hilda started hacking, as if she had a hairball caught in her throat, and spat out a mucus-filled blood clot the size of a mandarin orange. It plopped down on the floor by her pointy-toed granny shoes with a wet splat.
That was by far the grossest thing Rachael had seen in her entire life. Mad Hilda’s head snapped up and she growled again at Rachael. By this time Rachael was fed up with Mad Hilda’s rude manners. Aiming the shotgun at Mad Hilda’s head, Rachael fired.
BOOM!
Mad Hilda plowed face first into the floor with a ground-shaking thud. Poor Mad Hilda, she never even had a chance to get her waltz on.
Darting toward the door, and wielding her guns, Rachael fired off one round after another. Six bodies later, she made it to the chapel doors and slipped out undetected.
Once on the other side, she locked the doors behind her, confining everyone left inside to a doom they had more than earned, then turned and ran through the lobby toward the main entrance. Her bare feet left wet sets of red footprints behind her as she went.
33
Gunslinger
Four miles from the Air Force base the midnight blue pickup truck blew a tire and screeched to a halt. Barnes hopped out and grabbed the jack out of the back toolbox. Everyone waited patiently as he jacked up the truck and began to put on the spare.
“Come on man, I’m telling you, just jack another vehicle. There are hundreds of abandoned cars all around.” Ulysses folded his arms impatiently and tapped his foot.
“I’ve grown attached to this one,” Barnes said. “Besides, the keys were already in it. Having the actual keys makes a big difference in…you know, getting it to actually work, and all that.”
“There’s just one problem with your line of reasoning,” Noble said.
“Oh, yeah? What’s that?” asked Barnes, pausing to look up at his pal.
“We’re sitting ducks out here in the middle of Zombieville, U.S.A. You might want to hurry it up.”
“I would, but somebody keeps interrupting me and yammering on and on about trivialities.”
Motioning with his chin toward Noble, Zanato asked, “Why don’t you just have the moose here hotwire a different car?”
“Say again?” Noble snapped. “Just because I’m black you think that my childhood after-school hobby was a bit of grand theft auto? Listen up, you racist little prick. The only grand theft auto I ever messed around with was on the PS3.”
Zanato threw up his hands and said, “I give up.”
“Well, can you hotwire a car or not?” Jennifer asked Noble impatiently.
“No.” Noble said, annoyed that everyone kept assuming he was some kind of street hooligan. He folded his arms and huffed.
“You act all gangsta but you’re just a big ole teddy bear, aren’t you?” Jennifer punched Ulysses in the arm and smiled.
“A big sexy teddy bear,” Noble replied, flexing his bicep and giving it a sweet kiss.
“Take it easy on the big guy,” Barnes chuckled as he unfastened the lug nuts with the tire iron. “It’s not the lack of street smarts that’s bothering him. It’s his lack of technical skills.”
“Hey, I got plenty of skills!” Noble thrust his hips and did a little erotic dance, mock humping the air.
Jennifer liked it and snickered at the sight of his jocular antics like a coquette who wanted desperately to show that she was into some guy even though he wasn’t actually all that amusing. Zanato merely rolled his eyes; he found such macho bravado irksome. Looking annoyed, he folded his arms across his chest and ignored Noble’s showboating.
Barnes paused his work and looked up at Noble. “Your ability to please imaginary women aside, I think I recall something about a toaster burning down your first apartment.”
“That toaster was on the fritz for months. That totally wasn’t my fault.”
“The electric can opener?”
“Three words: Made in China.”
“What about the electronic garage door?”
“Defective.”
“It ate your mountain bike, for Pete’s sake!”
“I’m telling you man, they were all defective. Every single one of those contraptions.”
“Even the barbeque?”
Both men broke into laughter.
“What about the barbeque?” Zanato asked, regaining interest in the conversation.
Getting nostalgic, Barnes relayed the story. “This genius over here thought that the burgers and franks would get done faster by squirting a little bit of lighter fluid on the coals. Of course the meat goes up in flames instantly, but the best part is, the flames leap across the grill and catch his uniform on fire.” Barnes wiped the tears from his eyes, and continued. “Mind you, we’re at the general’s fiftieth birthday party, so this spectacle is drawing a lot of unwanted attention.”
“Then what happened?” Jennifer asked with utmost interest.
“The flames were already crawling up his back. So like a circus clown, he decides it would be a novel idea to shove his flaming uniform into the barbeque and close the lid.”
Noble took over the story, adding, “That’s when the general sees the smoke shooting out of either end of the barbeque, and says, ‘I think you may be over-cooking the frankfurters there, boys.’”
Noble wiped the tears of laughter from his face. “Of course, by this time everyone is looking over to see what the ruckus is about only to spot Ulysses’s jacket sleeve hanging out the other end of the barbeque.”
“They never let me live it down, did they?”
Barnes slapped his friend on the back. “Can you blame them?”
Rrroooar!
Everyone whipped around to see a massive mountain lion standing in the middle of the road, licking its chops, and eyeing them with a half-starved look.
“Holy shit! That’s a lion,” Zanato stated bluntly. “A lion,” he repeated with a whisper.
“Is it? Is it, really?” Noble asked sarcastically.
“But there aren’t any mountain lions this far east,” Jennifer said.
“Maybe it escaped from the zoo,” Zanato said, taking a wild guess.
“Nobody make any sudden movements,” Barnes ordered as he slowly unsnapped his holster and slid out his Glock 17 nine-millimeter handgun. “Everybody, get behind me alongside the truck.”
Barnes motioned for the others to fall in line behind him. They slowly inched over to the truck and crouched down. Then they heard the jingle jangle of metal spurs clanking up the road.
Craning their heads over the bed of the truck, they saw the cowboy step out into the street with the mountain lion. Jennifer couldn’t figure out which one seemed to be more surprised, the cowboy at running smack dab into a mountain lion, or the mountain lion, for running smack dab into a cowboy.
It looked as if the guy had stepped right out of a Western. He wore a long black duster jacket, a cowboy hat, and snakeskin boots with star-spiked spurs.
“See, I told you there was a cowboy,” whispered Zanato.
“Shhh!” Jennifer replied, holding her finger up to her lips.
The mountain lion hissed, paced in a circle, and then roared with the true ferocity of a mighty panther. The cowboy pushed his jacket back to reveal the Colt Single Action Army—otherwise known as “The Peacemaker”—sitting snugly in its h
olster at his hip. Sliding his right leg back and lowering his hip, the cowboy held his hand above the white ivory grip of the revolver and waited for the lion to make its move.
With an ear-splitting growl, the giant puma leapt into the air. In a split second the cowboy had the gun out and began palming the hammer. Shot after shot rang out in rapid succession. Yowling out in pain, the mountain lion crashed down at the cowboy’s feet. Although it was down, it still breathed heavily. The gunslinger, whose eyes were blotted out by the dark shadow cast by the brim of his hat, put the barrel of his gun against the panther’s skull and, without hesitating, pulled the trigger.
Jennifer screamed, not only because of the loud blast, but also because she didn’t like the idea of an innocent animal being put down like that. But she realized that it was better to put the beast of out its misery than allow it to suffer an agonizing death.
Before anyone could comment on the series of strange events, a dozen zombies appeared in the streets and lumbered toward them. Without letting the hunger filled moaning of the encroaching horde distract him, the cowboy hit the release and opened the revolver’s chamber and then dumped out all the spent shells onto the pavement.
Maintaining his focus and keeping it on the task at hand, the gunslinger took out one bullet at a time from his ammunition belt than straddled his waist and casually fed each shell into the spinning chamber of the revolver. With a whir, he spun the revolver’s chamber and flicked it shut. With the gun locked and loaded, he pulled the hammer back until her heard the metallic click of it locking into place. Raising the revolver, he trained it on the nearest zombie and then fired. The monster crashed to the ground with a thud, a hole piercing its forehead.
Barnes and Noble both pulled back the slides of their Glocks and prepared for close range combat. Not waiting for the Walkers to get too close, Barnes and Noble began taking out the monsters with carefully aimed head shots.
