by Fuchs, A. P.
Nathaniel kept moving.
She wanted to ask him why God allowed the young man to get hurt despite his efforts, but thought better of it for the time being. She also realized she needed to mind her place and remember who this man walking with her was. He had just saved her. He was protecting her now. He deserved her respect. What troubled her was the sense of ease around him despite what she’d just seen. He was an angel. A real angel. She had seen him as he was fighting evil in its purest form. Had living with the undead numbed her so much she had grown used to the supernatural and the bizarre? Billie hoped not. That was a kind of numbness that belonged to those who were disturbed, and thrived off death and murder. Killers, rapists, psychos. Sane people were still supposed to be scared and awed by such things.
A shudder ran through her.
The grass was dry beneath her feet; every fallen leaf she stepped on crunched and crumbled. If there was something else lurking in these woods, they would surely hear their footsteps.
Billie came across a large branch about the size of a baseball bat and just as heavy. She picked it up and held it at the ready. Nathaniel looked at her.
“Just in case,” she said.
He nodded.
The two went out, weaving around trees and around bushes, down a few slopes and up others. If Nathaniel suddenly vanished, she’d be lost.
Low moans filled the woods around them. The two stopped, both scanning the trees.
“How close are they?” Billie whispered.
“Close.”
They walked a few feet more, careful of their footsteps, making them as silent as possible.
The dead appeared from behind the trees. First one, then three, then four more.
Eight zombies.
Nathaniel immediately transformed, going from man to angel in a split second. His bright, bronze-lit robe illuminated the forest. Gleaming silver sword drawn, he brought it aloft then lunged through the air at the nearest zombie.
The others stumbled toward Billie. The first to reach out to her—an African fellow with beautiful dark skin that, aside from his white eyes, wouldn’t make you think he was a zombie—was quickly met with her branch to the side of his head.
Nathaniel was back beside her, having quickly taken care of the previous zombie. Suddenly, the angel jerked and threw up his hands as leathery fingers reached up through the ground, grabbed him around his feet, and pulled him into the forest floor.
The woods grew dim due to the absence of Nathaniel’s light.
About to call the angel’s name, Billie’s voice caught in her throat when an old hag of a zombie stumbled toward her, one leg missing a foot. The old woman’s clothes were in tatters and she smelled of wet moss. She slashed out with her long, cracked and yellow fingernails and narrowly missed Billie’s arms. Billie brought the branch straight down on the old woman’s skull. A faint cracked followed. Billie was about to bring the branch down again when a zombie grabbed the arm holding the branch and pulled it down. Billie kicked him in the legs and pulled the branch free. She ran and got some distance.
Eyes searching the ground, she said between panted breaths, “Nathaniel. Nathaniel. Get up here!”
Was he dead? Could angels die?
The zombies came forth. Billie charged the old woman and instead of striking her head-on, she quickly veered to the side at the last moment and swung the branch as she past, smacking the thick stick into the back of the woman’s head. The hag zombie fell forward and stopped moving.
Five more to go.
She held the stick tight, ran up ahead and hid behind a tree. Billie kept her eyes peeled, making sure the zombies she just ran from were the only ones around and others weren’t lurking near her hiding place.
The first undead to come past the tree was met with the branch to its head, the force of the blow sending the zombie’s head into the tree trunk. The creature’s skull was in such a bad state of decay it cracked open on impact and left a streak of blood and brain as its body slid down the tree’s bark.
Four left.
Billie couldn’t help but keep count.
She moved to go behind the tree again but the moment she set foot there, she was greeted by the snarling face of a zombie with pale yellow skin, a smooth skull with the bone exposed, and grimy brown and yellow teeth.
Yelping, Billie turned and ran a few steps only to encounter another zombie, this one a little girl. Like a bat to a ball on a T, she quickly clocked the girl in the side of the head with the branch, then ran past her.
Three undead left.
The skull guy with wan skin caught up to her rather quickly. He didn’t run, but had somehow managed to turn his awkward shuffle into a kind of jog. Billie swung the branch, misjudging her distance. The branch struck the zombie in the side of the arm. She tried to strike the creature again, but the skull zombie batted the stick away. The branch fell to the ground.
Billie ran past him and met up with a dead hippie woman in a washed-out rainbow dress. She snarled at Billie, raised her hands and took hold of her hair. A sharp tug and Billie was drawn in toward the woman’s mouth. About to close her eyes so she didn’t have to see the woman’s teeth bite into her face, a jolt rocked Billie’s core instead when a bright flash of silver appeared through the woman’s mouth, the hippie zombie’s expression locking in a kind of shock and awe.
Nathaniel stood behind the woman, his sword coming out from the top of the woman’s head. He withdrew it, snapped out a hand past the hippie, shoved Billie to the side, then gave a sharp lunge forward as he ran his blade through a green-haired dead man beyond.
The two undead fell.
The skull zombie stood only a few feet from the scene. It appeared he was almost thinking—not in an intelligent kind of way—however, there was some sense of “inner workings” going on behind his white stare.
Without any sort of fancy display of combat, Nathaniel merely rounded the dead he just slew, approached the skull zombie and ran him through by shoving his blade under the zombie’s chin and straight through to the brain. The zombie fell, and Nathaniel sheathed his sword.
Billie just stood there. “I’m getting tired,” was what she said, though it wasn’t what she wanted to say. She supposed the emotion was so strong it got the better of her. She wasn’t physically tired other than the typical fatigue following a fight, but just weak in spirit thanks to battling the dead for such a long time. She was tired of them more than anything, and just tired of living a life that only resembled her previous one in the sense she was the participant in it and nothing more.
Nathaniel didn’t respond to her statement, but instead held out his hand and beckoned her to come with him. She joined him.
It wasn’t a moment later until Billie heard, “Well done.” She turned around and standing amongst the dead bodies was a man dressed in a fiery bronze robe like Nathaniel. His hair was alight as well, same with his eyes. Across his chest was a blood-red sash decorated in strange gold symbols, the same as those on Nathaniel’s shield.
“Billie,” Nathaniel said, “this is Michael.”
She stood there transfixed despite having seen Nathaniel in angelic form before. Michael was different despite being similarly dressed. He was taller, looked to weigh more, and had a larger, more muscular frame. His fiery eyes weren’t just mere orbs of sunlight, but instead bore emotion and at the moment that emotion was approval. However, his gaze also suggested there was zero room for humor or any form of lightness. A heavy sense of utter seriousness emitted from him as did a strong commanding presence.
“Hello, Billie,” Michael said. “Do not be afraid.”
She thought she was going to faint, but instead felt an outside force strengthen her legs and steel her spine. “Um . . . hi.”
Michael came up to her, his eyes never leaving hers. “I know of you, Billie Friday,” he said.
He knows my last name, too? Wait, of course he does, she thought.
“I am sorry to say I haven’t yet had the chance to see yo
u personally, however Nathaniel has kept me updated as to your whereabouts and the situations unfolding around you.”
“Wait,” she said, glancing at Nathaniel then thumbing toward him. She did her best to not falter in her speech. “You’re saying Nathaniel has been watching over me since . . . since always?”
“No, not since always. Since recently, that day at the bank when you witnessed Hell rise up and flood the land of the living,” Michael said.
“Angels are assigned to different tasks, some of whom are given charge over humans,” Nathaniel said.
“Humans,” Billie said, the label suddenly sounding so cold and empty. People always thought of themselves as more than just a species. Now, she was learning that there were other forms of life as well.
I feel like an animal, she thought.
“It is an honorable assignment,” Michael said. “You are important to God more than you know.”
She didn’t know what to say to that. Despite all this, a part of her still clung to her old ideologies and, frankly, she didn’t want to dive headfirst into a world of religion. Yet, she also recognized she was getting dragged into it whether she wanted to or not.
“The zombies . . .” she said.
“This is Hell’s attempt to alter prophecy and place the End of Days in their favor,” Michael said. “Nathaniel is one of the host’s finest warriors and so was assigned to you because our God has foreknowledge of all things and knew the trials you would undergo.”
“Foreknowledge? You know, I . . .” Billie said. The words were there, but talking to the angels as they stood there all bright and glorious, she felt like her opinion didn’t matter.
She closed her eyes. The light beyond her eyelids dimmed. When she opened them, she was surprised to see Nathaniel as he was before the recent undead attack. Michael, too, was dressed as a man, brown hair, tanned skin, an untucked blue button-down and jeans, with brown suede work boots.
“How—?” she started.
“Prayers are always heard,” Nathaniel said.
“It wasn’t a prayer.”
“Let me rephrase that: not only are prayers always heard, but desires as well.”
She slowly shook her head. “Then if that’s true, and if God is all foreknowing like you say, then why did He even allow all this to happen?”
“Why wouldn’t He?” Michael said.
She found it much easier to talk to him like this, so much so it would be easy to forget he was an angel. “Why wouldn’t He?”
Michael just looked at her. Did he not get it?
“Why would anyone allow, like you said, Hell to take over the Earth? How does that make sense?”
“Why wouldn’t you allow it?” Nathaniel said.
“Me?”
He nodded.
“I don’t know, because millions died, the earth is dying, monsters and demons are walking around. This might as well be Hell.”
“So you want to control everything,” Michael said.
She bit her lip. The nerve of him. “No, not control everything, just make sure this would never happen.”
“So control everything.”
“Not everything, just this.”
“No, everything because you just said you wouldn’t allow millions to die, the earth to die and monsters and demons to walk around.”
“Yes.”
“How is this different than the way things used to be?”
“There were no zombies. I didn’t see those bat-demon things.”
“Before, around a hundred and fifty thousand people died daily, most of them unjustly from murder, disease, hunger, thirst, earthquakes, floods and old age. And, yes, even old age is a result of evil infesting your planet. The earth has been dying since mankind fell and turned its back on God. Demons and monsters roamed the planet for thousands of years. It is only recently that you’ve seen them. It seems to me you are more interested in changing what you see so you can see what you want to see or hide that of what you wish. Plagues and calamities have struck your planet since the beginning. What is happening now is the same.”
“You’re not making sense.”
“You’re not thinking about what I’m saying.”
She shook her head. “Nathaniel, help me out here.”
“I’m afraid he’s right, Billie. What you’re telling us is if you were in control you would do a better job. You’re confusing God’s sovereignty with control. Control involves active choice and adjustment every time any form of situation big or small arises. God’s sovereignty involves Him allowing things to happen so that all things work out for good.”
“How do zombies work out for good?”
“You will learn that. If I told you now, it might interfere with what is planned.”
“Do you know?”
“No. Angels cannot tell the future. We only know what our King informs us.”
“What about the outcome against these creatures?”
“Like you, sometimes we are along for the ride.”
She crossed her arms and set her weight on one foot. “Doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”
“Mind your words,” Michael said. “It was this ‘plan’ that brought the three of us here.”
“And it was this ‘plan,’” Nathaniel said, “that allowed you, Joe and August to have seen what you saw.”
Joe. It’d been awhile since Billie thought of him, not for lack of caring but for lack of focus. So much going on. So much danger. No time to think of anything but the present.
“Do you know where Joe is?” she asked.
“Yes,” Michael said. “I do.”
28
The Hitchhiker
The young man’s name was Andrew, the kind of guy who appeared to like old records, was a ’70s rock fan and probably had a decent zine collection stashed away wherever he used to call home. Joe guessed that before the dead rose, the artsy part of the Exchange District was where this fella had spent most of his time.
“Thanks for picking me up,” Andrew said, sitting in between Tracy and Joe. It was a safety precaution. If Andrew suddenly acted up, he was surrounded.
“You said you were on your way out of town,” Joe said. “Made it pretty far, if you ask me. Winnipeg is a ways back.” He nodded toward the rearview window.
“Just couldn’t take it anymore,” Andrew said. “I stuck to the outskirts by the Perimeter anyway. The dead weren’t as thick there. But between seeing the big ones sometimes venture out to where I was, never mind the regular kind, man, just too much. I figure there’s got to be a safe place somewhere. If anything, I’m willing to bet there’s places out there that haven’t been affected by zombies one iota.”
“That’s probably true,” Tracy said, and Joe got the feeling she was holding something back.
“You guys from the city?” Andrew asked.
Joe nodded.
“Yes,” Tracy said.
Andrew glanced side-to-side. “What brings you out here?”
“Just felt like going for a drive,” Joe said.
“No, really, why out this way?”
“Same as you,” Tracy said. “You can only survive so long in the city.”
Andrew eyed Joe up and down. “That’s some pretty decent hardware you got strapped to you,” he said, indicating the X-strap of bullets against Joe’s chest.
“Some pretty decent threats out there,” Joe replied.
“You can say that again.”
The three rode in silence for a few moments. Joe got the distinct feeling that despite the quiet from the dead roaming the earth, Andrew was the kind of guy who hated uncomfortable silences and would take chances to keep conversations going.
“How far are you heading up the road?” Andrew asked.
“We’ll see what we’ll see,” Joe said.
Andrew gave Tracy a nudge. “Not very friendly, huh?”
“Friendly enough,” she said.
Joe eyed Andrew coolly. Andrew met his gaze for a moment then put his eyes forwar
d again.
“What were you doing before this?” Tracy asked.
“Me?” Andrew said. “Like I told you, just wanted to get away from the city.”
“I know, but where were you from, where did you hide? Not many places left that the dead haven’t filtered their way in to.”
“Usually the basements of old buildings; boarded up the doors as best I could. Utility closets with their heavy metal doors are always handy. Just cramped.” He cleared this throat. “Got anything to drink?”
Joe shook his head.
“Thirsty,” Andrew said.
Joe nodded; so did Tracy.
Andrew rubbed his hands together.
“Cold?” Tracy asked.
“Naw. Just dirty. Listen, before I left, I was looking around for more survivors. The only ones I found were dead.” He seemed to have caught himself. “What I mean is, found body parts, you know, a torso here, a head there. Saw a couple, um, intact people once. I called out but they didn’t hear me. Even chased after them but couldn’t catch up. They rounded a corner and by the time I got there, they were rounding another. Got to that one and they were gone. Then a zombie came.”
“Glad you survived,” Tracy said.
“Me, too.”
“How did you survive?” Joe asked. He heard the air escape Andrew’s nostrils when he smirked.
“A brick.”
“A brick?”
