While leaving the dim lights on, Brown leaned back on the dusty couch and set his boots up on the far armrest. There was no intention of sleeping that night, from anyone, not just him. They all just wanted a little privacy with their found loved ones, and Russ and Lisa had been eyeing each other like two horny teens all night.
Brown tried to think of his wife and of his family, but he couldn’t keep his mind off the present situation. They couldn’t stay in this church forever. That preacher was a madman. It may have been the chaos that brought it out, or it may have just been there all along. He didn’t trust the guy, and it made him wonder what he was doing up in his office.
He could be locking them down there for the rest of their lives. Brown hadn’t checked the security locked door. It would have been a major issue if they couldn’t open it from the inside.
Ammunition was also going to be a problem. He had two clips left for his desert eagle, and one for the mp5.
He popped the one out of the desert eagle and laid it on the floor beside him. It was half empty. The other one in his belt was fresh. Then he checked the mp5, which was almost full.
After reloading the magazines in both guns, Brown laid back onto the couch and stared at the cob web covered ceiling.
* * * * *
Russ was amazed that Lisa had been able to keep her sanity, knowing that both of her parents were dead. He remembered what happened to his own mother and was trying not to think about it. His dad was still a toss-up, and that was what he tried to focus on. It kept him moving and hoping for a chance to see him again. He had always thought of him as a fat old grunt, but he couldn’t have predicted how much he meant to him at that moment.
But Lisa was there, and there was something about her. She was different, not necessarily beautiful, but something else. Seeing her quiver made him rethink of his promise to her. They were going to get out of this alive, together.
She was depending on him. She needed him.
They sat side by side in the dimly lit room. Russ’s eyes were constantly watering from all of the dust in the air, and he was trying with everything in him not to sneeze, but it occasionally came out anyway. Lisa seemed not to be bothered by the dust at all, as if she were an angel with some sort of immunity to her surroundings, an angel with THE STONES tattooed at the bottom of her back.
“How are you feeling?” he asked.
“I don’t know. I feel better, I guess.”
“You’re amazing.”
“Why?”
“If I knew that both of my parents were dead, I don’t think that I would have the hope of anything to go on. My dad is the only living relative I have left, and I don’t even know if he’s alive. God knows if this shit spread to Wichita or not. I keep trying to dwell on the possibility that it didn’t and that he’s safe. I just don’t understand how you can keep going with what has happened to you.”
“I have something else that gives me hope,” she said, turning to meet his gaze.
He had felt the warm fuzzy love feeling with her before, back when he had tried to kiss her for the first time. Then briefly again at the bottom of the staircase, waiting on the reverend to open the door. But it had never been this strong. Her eyes had never been so beautiful.
“What is it?”
“You.”
There was a brief moment when all of the confidence in Russ’s body left him. He was scared enough to run away like a nervous little school boy, and he wanted to. After the incident in the Humvee he couldn’t afford another screw up with her or-
Lisa threw herself on him before he could object. When he looked down into her face, the grimy room around him went away. The fuzzy feeling became stronger, and the warmth spread through his entire body. But the confidence was still falling from him, and his fear was growing.
She pushed to his face and kissed him. At first it was awkward, but not as bad as he feared. He let her lead and tried to relax the muscles in his body, but found it difficult. Every muscle in his body tightened to the point of aching.
She pulled away for a moment and laughed. “Relax, I won’t bite.”
The comment made him think of how fearless he felt when he confronted his undead mother. He wasn’t afraid of a walking corpse, but he was afraid of making out with a girl. The thought made him smile, and each muscle began to relax.
“I’m fine.”
Lisa kissed him again.
* * * * *
“I’ve gotta get out of here,” Donahue said, coughing. “Too much dust.”
Jennifer nodded and followed him to the door and out into the hallway. It wasn’t much better. “This whole place is filthy.”
He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The coughing stopped, his lungs and throat were clear. “I’m fine.”
“I think we should go upstairs, Alan.”
“Think that door will open for us?” He pointed to the security locked door.
“It will unless he locked it.”
“I don’t know why he would.”
“He’s gone crazy, honey. Didn’t you see him? He was telling everyone how the end of the world is coming.”
“I almost believe him. We have no idea whether or not it’s just this town. For all we know it could be happening in Wichita.”
When they reached the door Alan gave it a tug, but it didn’t move. Jennifer took a step back and put a hand over her mouth. He gave her an agitated stare and tried again with the same result.
“He’s crazy,” she muttered.
“There’s more than one way upstairs, Jen.”
She nodded. Down the hall there was a spiral staircase that led up to the auditorium. That part of the church was regularly cleaned and kept up, plus it had comfortable chairs. “The auditorium is good,” she said. “I think he’s gone crazy though. I’m afraid of him to be honest.”
They began walking down the hall towards the staircase.
“I don’t know. He just believes in his religion radically and gets easily offended is all.”
“Alan, quit it!” she stopped and faced him. “When he left to go up those stairs that door was unlocked. You saw him walk through it, just like I did. Quit pretending, goddamnit. Something is wrong.”
She was right. He hadn’t thought of that. He was the goddamn sheriff and it didn’t occur to him. It took his wife to show him. All he could do was smile.
“You’d make a far better sheriff than me.”
She had a satisfied look on her face. The look was her trademark. Lips curled up to her cheeks, and her eyes made him feel as if he was naked. Then her ears wiggled. It was the look she had given him every time she had proven herself right in an argument, and Donahue saw it on a daily, sometimes hourly basis.
He was glad to see it, though. An hour before he figured she was dead and that he would never get to see her beautiful face or even that horrific look that she used to disgust him. It would no longer disgust him, though. It was something he looked forward to seeing every day for the rest of his life.
“I love you,” he said. He thought about kissing her but she turned away and began walking down the hall.
“Come on.”
“I think we should tell the others what’s going on first.”
“Let’s just see if we can get up the staircase.”
Alan followed her to the room at the end of the hall. There was no light.
“Well, if we can’t see the damn staircase, then we aren’t going up it, are we?” he said.
“Just shut up.”
There was a loud clamor ahead of him. It sounded like a group of frying pans or something had fallen from the shelf. He smiled when he heard his wife grunt.
“What was that?”
“Something hit me.”
“You okay?”
“Hell, no.”
Donahue laughed and took a step back. It was another one of her expressions that had driven him nuts once before, but he was glad to have it back.
“Don’t just stand there, you asshole
, help me!”
“I can’t see you.”
Something else fell. It sounded like a large, wooden object.
“What the hell are you doing?” He was amused.
“Trying to find the light switch.”
“Doesn’t sound like you’re having much luck.” Donahue felt around for the flashlight on his belt and laughed. He thought about giving it to her, but he was starting to enjoy himself. It was a good feeling. He hadn’t felt it since the call he had gotten that morning.
“What’s so damn funny?”
“I love you.”
“You asshole!”
Another expression that he now loved. “Close to finding that light yet?” He clicked on the flash light and shown it in her direction. There were several silver communion trays on the floor and coat rack.
Jennifer squinted as he pointed the light at her. “Jackass.”
He smiled then pointed it up at the empty light bulb socket in the ceiling. “There’s our problem.” Then he pointed the light at the staircase in the corner of the room. “There.”
“Great,” she panted, then walked toward him. Donahue noticed a small bruise on her forehead and kissed it as she approached.
“Communion tray get you?”
She ignored him. “Think we should go tell them now?”
“Yeah.”
* * * * *
Patrick lied down on the love seat staring at Jessica. She was sitting on the couch across from him with her mother. He couldn’t believe that he had Jessica back. She left the home after a bitter argument about a curfew when she was 18. Then as far as Patrick knew, she was living with some guy in a crappy home on the other side of town. He hadn’t seen her, or even spoken to her in two years.
And all she could talk about was how disrespectful everyone had been to Reverend Willis.
“You haven’t been to church in a couple of years, honey. You’re not really Miss Religious,” Patrick said. “I think we should just drop the subject. I want to catch up with you. We’ve missed you.”
“That’s just the kind of answer you would give, Dad.”
“Yes it is. Because I love you, and I am very grateful to have you back.”
Cecilia put an arm around her. “What happened to you?”
At first she was hesitant to tell them her story. It wasn’t every girl’s dream to grow up and tell her parents that she had been sleeping with a violent drunken idiot for two years. And how she had been ignoring her parents. She didn’t want to have anything to do with them before now. Jessica had been able to survive on her own.
But now things were different.
She told them, but she left out the part about the beatings. Then she told them about being chased out of the house by Undead Rick and how his skull exploded on her chest.
“I suppose we should be thanking Evan,” Patrick said.
Jessica nodded, but she was staring at the ground, thinking of Rick’s head exploding in slow motion. It gave her some degree of satisfaction. There was a bruise on her neck from where he had tried to choke her two nights ago. It was getting worse.
“I just don’t know what we’re supposed to do,” she muttered it to hear someone speak. Silence made her feel alone.
“Well the world is ending,” Cecilia said. “There isn’t much we can do. Just wait.”
“Oh my God, you’re kidding,” Patrick moaned. “The world isn’t ending. The military will be out there soon enough. Then it will all blow over.”
“How do you know the military will be out there?”
“Because of Evan. He’s living proof.”
Jessica stood up and began pacing the floor. It quieted the brief argument. Cecilia and Patrick both remembered the trait. It usually meant that she was in deep thought about something. It had always irritated them when she did it, but tonight it was relieving to see.
“What are you thinking about?” Cecilia asked.
“I need clothes.”
Cecilia and Patrick gave each other quizzical glances. Neither one of them could think of where she could get some. The front of her nightgown was molded to her body and her bra was showing through the streaks of blood.
“You can have my shirt,” Patrick said.
“No.” She stopped pacing. “What about the choir robes?”
“Umm, Sure. I’ll go get them.”
“They’re upstairs in the closet across from Willis’s office.”
“I know where they’re at.”
He gave her a kiss on the forehead and then walked over to his wife and hugged her. It felt great to be a family again. Over the past two years his life consisted of work and the denial of sex from his wife. They had distanced themselves from each other and they both knew it, but they were too busy with their careers to do anything about it. The touch of his wife and daughter made his eyes water, but he blinked them repeatedly so no one would notice.
“If any good came out of this, Jess,” Patrick said, “having you back is it.”
* * * * *
“Sheriff? Something wrong?”
“You can call me Alan, Patrick. How long have we known each other?” He smiled. Jennifer suddenly poked in behind him with an unsettled look on her face. Something was probably wrong, but you wouldn’t have guessed from the sound of Alan’s voice. He seemed to be happy as a child at Disney World. But Patrick couldn’t blame him. It was great to have family back.
“Cut the bullshit small talk, Alan. Tell him what’s going on!” Patrick jumped at Jennifer’s statement.
“That security door is locked, man. We’re locked down here except for the staircase that goes up to the auditorium. She thinks–” Jennifer elbowed him, “We think that Willis has done it intentionally for some reason.”
“I know he’s an oddball, but why would he do that?”
“Well–”
Jennifer quickly interrupted him. “When he stormed out on us the door was unlocked. Now it isn’t. That guy’s a fucking lunatic.”
Patrick took a moment to think about it. It would make sense that he had intentionally locked them down in the basement. He had never liked Willis as a person and he didn’t trust him. Willis had always been kind of awkward around him, as if something else was going through his crazy, religious mind every time they crossed paths. It could be possible that they were just rushing to a conclusion. Alan didn’t seem to think the matter was very serious. But it was definitely a possibility.
“That is kind of strange. I just don’t know why he would be trying to keep us down here.”
“He’s gone crazy,” Jennifer answered.
“Think we should talk to Evan before we make any decisions?”
Alan nodded at him. “I’ll go talk to him. Why were you going up there anyway?”
“My daughter is covered in blood. I was going to go get her a choir robe.”
“You might wait. I don’t think it’s a good idea for anyone to go up there alone. There’s a baptism pool in the auditorium though. She could probably get cleaned up in that.”
“Good idea,” he said. It hadn’t occurred to him. “Maybe a quick bath in there would make her feel better.”
“Yeah, well, while you two finish up whacking each other off, I’m going to go get Evan.” Jennifer turned around and stomped down the hallway.
Alan just shook his head. All of the chaos was making her uptight. He had never seen her like this before. At first it was funny to see her act pissed off, but it was going too far. Her comments were bad, but so was her body expression. Patrick looked kind of shocked at the comment, and Alan felt a slight wave of embarrassment.
“Sorry about her,” Alan said. “All this stuff is making her crazy.”
Patrick nodded. “Think it’s making us all crazy. My wife and daughter are actually collaborating against me because they feel sorry for Willis. They were saying we were wrong to laugh at him.”
“Maybe we were,” Alan said.
There was a short moment of silence where they stared at each o
ther’s eyes, then said in unison: “Nah.” They both exploded in laughter.
“Get down here! Evan won’t answer his door!” Jennifer shouted from down the hall.
“Just open it.”
She did and stepped back, slowly pressing her palms against her cheeks. Lt. Evan Brown was lying on the couch, trembling with his eyes rolled back into his skull. Jennifer had seen stuff like that before on TV. Seizures.
“Something’s wrong! He’s having a seizure!”
Patrick and Alan both came jogging down the hallway and peeked into the room. Patrick was just as confused as Jennifer was, but Alan just shook his head. He saw some of the soldiers fall to their knees doing the same thing in the middle of Washington Avenue while those blood thirsty ghouls ripped them apart. That wasn’t a seizure. It was a hallucination. And it had to be coming from something. Something that knew there was food in the old kitchen at the Brownsville Church of Christ. There would soon be more somethings that knew about it too.
“That’s not a seizure. He’s fallen into a hallucination. Wake him up. I’ll go get the kids. Patrick grab your family. We’ve gotta get out of here.”
“What are you talking about?” Jennifer’s controlling aggressiveness was now just a submissive fear. All of the attitude she had displayed before was gone. Her eyes were no longer controlling, but terrified.
“They know we are here.”
21
Reverend James Willis overlooked the parking lot from his office window. The wind had picked up and was blowing various pieces of trash over the black top. And inside, behind him, the scent was in the air. The scent of what he had only smelled from trash cans and dead animals on the side of the road. He always thought that he would be the one to die first, not his wife.
“You know I could rip you open any second. I probably would, but they want me to keep you here.” His undead wife placed a bloody hand on his shoulder.
Super Zombies from Outer-Space Page 13
