I spun in the direction the machete had flown from to find a man standing in the doorway we had entered the kitchen from. He looked to be about thirty-five, with shoulder-length blond hair and a surprisingly serene expression on his face, as if none of this really bothered him. I wasn’t sure if it was shellshock, but it wasn’t normal.
“I wouldn’t fire a gun in here if I were you,” he said, his voice calm and smooth as silk. “The sound will bring the rest running.”
“Look out!” I cried before I could say anything else, because from the walk-in fridge where the first zombie had come, two more were on their way out, jerking toward our now-unarmed savior.
I flipped my shotgun around, taking into account what the stranger had said about not firing and swung, bringing the butt down right on the crown of the first zombie’s skull. It hit with a thunk and a splat, almost like you’d see during the “fights” in the old Batman series… only in my version the skull cracked like a melon, spraying brains, blood, and flesh in all directions.
Dave was on his feet behind me as I took care of the lead zombie. He yanked the newcomer’s machete from the skull of the chef zombie who had attacked him and with a slicing motion right out of a video game, decapitated the zombie straggler. His head bounced like a basketball on the linoleum floor before it rolled away under the metal shelving.
The newcomer nodded toward us, a smile on his otherwise calm face. “I am much obliged to you, I’m sure,” he said as he stepped into the room.
I gasped in shock because three others stood behind him. Humans! Uninfected, a man and two women. They stared at me, then toward Dave with curiously blank expressions. Apparently this guy had had back-up all the time. He didn’t need our help, I guess.
“I’ll take that,” the man said, holding out his hand toward David, who stood staring at the small group, his mouth dropped open in shock and the bloody machete still dripping in his hand.
“What?” he said with a shake of his head. The other man motioned toward the weapon and David nodded. “Oh yes, of course.”
He took the machete and casually wiped the blade on the closest zombie’s shredded shirt and then slipped it into a big sheath fastened at his waist.
“Th-thank you,” Dave finally said as he extended a hand. “You certainly saved us.”
Unlike when we had met Lisa in Seattle and she had refused our attempts at friendship, this man immediately clasped hands with David.
“Not at all,” he said. “We saved each other. And we always welcome more soldiers in God’s war against the unclean.”
My brow wrinkled. David and I are not religious people, okay. I think by now you probably guessed that. Sunday was my only day off, so I’d much rather sleep in and make pancakes than go sit in a stuffy church and get preached at by a bunch of hypocrites, but I respected other people’s right to religion. And I guess under these circumstances some people find a lot of comfort in their faith.
I figured this guy must be one of them and I held my hand out.
“I’m Sarah.”
“Sarah,” he repeated with a smile. He took my hand and held it in both of his instead of shaking it. His palms were warm and slightly humid. “My name is William Blackwell.”
I nodded as I pulled to free my hand. He let me go, but only after a slight struggle on my part.
“And there are four of you here,” I said, sliding closer to Dave and putting my arm around him without thinking about why. “That’s wonderful. We haven’t seen so many survivors since the outbreak started yesterday.”
William smiled, but I sort of felt like he was looking at a little kid who needed a complicated idea explained. There was condescension in his gaze that irritated me.
“Oh, there are far more than four of us left,” he said in that same soft monotone he had used when warning me against firing the gun.
Dave squeezed my waist and I felt the excitement move through him almost like electricity. “More! Wow, that’s wonderful. We’re so happy to have found you. See Sarah, I told you there might be people here.”
I nodded, unable to keep my eyes off the man before us. “Yeah, you were right on that one.”
William smiled. “Why don’t you come along with us? We’ll let you meet the others.”
I blinked, overcome by disbelief. “You mean, they’re here? Close by?”
He nodded. “Oh yes, many others just a few steps away.”
For the first time in days, hope swelled inside of me. Many others right here, like a camp or something! Had they come here after the outbreak or merely banded together when the attack began in the casino?
Oh, it didn’t matter. The very idea that there was a group of survivors after so many pieces of bad news and so many disappointments made me think we could make it to Longview after all. Hell, I was even starting to think we could find my parents or Dave’s.
“Come.” William motioned toward the door.
Dave and I walked toward the others and I peeked over my shoulder. William was walking behind me with a slow, steady gait while the others with him moved before us. I felt like we were being led somewhere. It wasn’t comfortable, but I was still so twitterpated with the concept of other survivors that I ignored my intuition.
We wound down some hallways behind the casino floor until we reached a back ballroom. There was a sign outside the door. You know, the kind hotels print up at conferences or for other meetings? Well, this one said, BLACKWELL TRUTH CHURCH GROUP. I frowned as one of the women pulled the door open and motioned us inside.
I suck at remembering names, but I was pretty damned certain that Blackwell was what William had told us his name was a few minutes earlier. But “Truth Church Group”? That sounded like someplace that asked for money in exchange for salvation on TV.
Before I could ask for more details, we stepped into the room and I staggered back at what I saw. At the far side of the ballroom were probably thirty people. There were women who were all dressed in mid-calf dresses and a handful of wussy-looking men with pale skin and soft jaws. There were even a few children either held in the arms of their mothers or big enough to stand in small groups of their own. Their long faces were filled with fear and doubt.
They turned, almost as a herd, as we came in. They had the same blank looks of the three others accompanying William. The ones who were now standing behind us at the door, as if guarding it, though now I wasn’t so sure if that was to keep zombies out… or keep these people in.
Immediately, William stepped in front of us and said, “Brothers and sisters, we’ve been privileged to find more sheep for our flock. Others who have survived the wrath of God’s hand and battled the unclean who wait like wolves outside these very doors.”
A murmur worked its way through the crowd and William smiled like he was enjoying his own show.
“Welcome Sarah and David,” he finished.
“Ah,” said a woman, stepping forward.
She was wearing a long dress and her dark hair was pulled back into a bun. From the size of it, I figured her hair must reach past her ass when it was down. Also, she didn’t have that blank look of the others. No, this woman looked sharp as a whip.
She shot William a knowing look as she held out her hands. “We always welcome fellow soldiers to the war. And ones with such good, Christian names. I’m Melissa Blackwell, William’s wife.”
I blinked. The bad feeling that had started in my stomach before we entered the kitchen and grown when William started talking about God and stuff was now screaming at me.
“Er, well I’m not sure about the soldiers part,” Dave murmured, his tone telling me he was as squigged out by this as I was. “Just people who were lucky enough to survive this tragedy.”
“We don’t believe in luck,” William said as he put his arm around the woman with the long hair. “Melissa and I believe in fate. The destiny Our Lord presents to us. After all, there is a reason that our church group decided to come to this place to meet at this time.”
I s
tared. So this group had been here at the time of the breakout? It seemed odd for a church group to decide to meet in a place like this, surrounded by vice of all kinds.
I looked around. “Was it the low rates? Let me guess, it was the table games?”
His smile, that ever-present benign smile that matched his even tone so perfectly, faltered a little at my sarcasm. “No, child, we chose this place because where better to face sinners than on their own heartland?”
“A casino,” Dave said slowly.
He nodded. “Yes, brother. This place was already the devil’s playground. And the Lord sent his vengeance down upon it with merciless precision. He turned all those who walked in Satan’s shadow into the unclean, the monsters you have seen outside.”
I shook my head. “N-No. You don’t understand. That didn’t just happen here, it’s actually happening everywhere, Mr. Blackwell.”
“Father William,” he said, turning toward me. “Please.”
Yeah, I wasn’t about to call him that. Instead, I continued with a shake of my head.
“We came from Seattle and the infestation has happened all across the city and even beyond it, if the news reports are correct.”
His face lit up and in that moment my entire body tensed. He actually seemed happy to hear that news. He turned to his followers and said, “Did you hear that, brothers and sisters! God’s vengeance is coming down in Seattle, a city of sin, indeed.”
I stared as the men and women started praising the Lord at this news. The idea that the city had been all but wiped out by this horrible infestation actually excited them and they raised their hands and waved them around.
I grabbed Dave’s arm gently to get his attention because he seemed as mesmerized as I was by what was happening right before us. He slowly lowered his head and our eyes met. In his gaze, I saw the same disgust, the same abject horror as I felt in that moment.
“David,” I whispered, watching the group start a prayer in the background. “Um… I think this is a cult.”
He didn’t answer, he just stared.
“We’re so happy to have you join us,” Melissa said to us after William’s prayer of joy at “God’s Vengeance” was finished. “I know you’ll be right at home with our flock within a few days.”
She grabbed my arm. I guess it was meant as a comforting gesture, but her nails dug into my skin and it felt more like she was holding me where I was.
“I think you’ve misunderstood,” Dave said, taking my other arm. Now I was trapped between them and neither one seemed to want to let go. “We aren’t planning to stay. Sarah and I are headed for family in Longview. We only planned to stop here for a night.”
I noticed he didn’t invite any of these weirdos to join us on our trip, even though that had been our hope when we tried to find other people.
William turned on us and the murmured prayers of the surrounding people died with a collective gasp.
“Oh no,” he said. “You cannot go. God brought you to us for a reason.”
“Look, I don’t mean to disrespect your beliefs, William, but the neon sign led us here, not God,” Dave said, and I could see he was freaked out and pissed off and trying to rein it all in.
He was doing pretty well, too. The only reason I knew what was going on in his head was because we’d been together so long.
William, on the other hand, couldn’t hide his rage as he turned on my husband with the fire and brimstone of a rabid preacher.
“Don’t blaspheme,” he snapped, his hands fisting at his sides and his eyes widening. “Or deny God or you’ll be stricken by this plague, David.”
Both of us recoiled. That sounded like a threat, not a statement. At that moment my brain exploded with possibilities. Had there been others who had refused this “offer”? Had they been left to the zombies outside? Maybe even those poor fools in the kitchen…
Dave leaned closer. “With your help, I assume,” he said, his teeth clenched.
I stepped between them and turned toward William, though I reached back to take Dave’s hand and squeezed gently.
“We wouldn’t dare question your beliefs,” I said, keeping my voice low so we wouldn’t cause a riot. These were people on the edge. I recognized it now in the wildness of their expressions. “But my husband and I have been through a great deal over the last two days and we are going to Longview to see if our family is all right. We certainly appreciate your hospitality in allowing us to stay with your group tonight, but tomorrow we intend to continue on our path.”
“Oh no,” Melissa said. She was smiling but it didn’t even come close to reaching her eyes. “You must stay with us. You see, we’ve been saved, spared from this plague and now we are called by God to draw all the survivors to us. You are part of our family now.”
I opened my mouth but William interrupted. “It is our duty to repopulate the earth.”
I swallowed. When he said that, he was looking at me. From top to bottom like he was checking out a great steak. I thought about all the shows I’d watched over the years on cults. Didn’t their leaders always… mate with their followers? They wanted to own all the children, claim all the females.
“And now,” William said, his tone increasingly menacing, “I think we’ll be taking your weapons.”
Dave tensed behind me. “What? No fucking way are we giving you our guns.”
The group that had been milling around benignly in the distance suddenly moved forward. I stared. They almost seemed like zombies, moving as a group, their eyes blank. But they were human. This was human herd mentality.
And just like the zombies, it was dangerous and terrifying.
“David,” I whispered.
He looked toward the group and his face paled. “You can’t leave us defenseless.”
William smiled. “Oh, you won’t be defenseless. You’ll be with us and that means you’ll be with God. But just remember, the Lord giveth, David. And the Lord can taketh away.”
Plan romantic getaways. Or just getaways.
One thing I can say about the Sea King Hotel and Casino is that they had far nicer rooms than I’d expected when we walked in the door hours before. They weren’t great, don’t get me wrong, but I had some really low expectations based on the shitty appearance of the lower level. Now that we were in a room, I couldn’t complain much. It was clean with two queen-sized beds and a little desk by the window.
Unfortunately, at the moment, those rooms were our prison, so I had less appreciation for them than I would have if we’d just come to stay for a weekend excursion.
Dave handed over a cracker and a slice of cheese that he was forced to hack off with a plastic knife. Yeah, our cult-y captors had given us food, but they’d decided we couldn’t even be trusted with a steak knife. It was like the airlines, but without the instructions for what to do in an emergency. Right now, we could have used them.
I crunched on the cracker as I cast a side glance at the hotel door. I had already checked through the peephole a couple of times since some of William and Melissa’s minions had tossed us into a room (not even a suite, the cheapskates).
What I’d seen every time I checked were guards standing outside. And not just any guards, but two of the biggest followers in the group armed with wicked machetes that they held like they’d been training for this moment. The worst part was… maybe they had.
I wasn’t about to tangle with them one way or another, especially without any weapons of our own.
“Okay, are we going to talk about this?” Dave sighed.
“Talk about what?” I asked before I chugged some water from the mini-bar. “There’s so much to cover here.”
He laughed softly. “Yeah, but I meant talk about them.”
“You mean asshole and assholette?” When David nodded, I shook my head. “We never should have saved that shithead. We could have let the zombies in the kitchen get him.”
He grinned, but it was tense. “I admit the idea of watching him get eaten alive is pretty pleasa
nt right now, but there was no way we could have known that at the time.”
I shrugged. “Yeah, you hardly ever come face to face with a genuine —” I dropped my voice to a whisper, in case they were listening outside to report back to William and Melissa about what we were saying, “— cult.”
“Yeah,” he said with a frown.
I nodded. “I guess we’ve got to figure out what to do next, as much as I’d like to pretend like none of this is happening. But we are in the middle of a zombie outbreak, we’re trying to get another hundred miles plus to your sister’s… and we’ve just been taken hostage by a crazy-ass cult that thinks this zombie thing is the hand of God. Ignoring the problem — er, problems — is clearly not going to fix them.”
“Nice summary,” Dave said as he got to his feet and brushed cracker bits from his pants. “Right now I think the zombies are the least of our worries.”
“I never thought we’d say that,” I said with a shake of my head. “But you’re right, at least for now.”
I shivered as I thought of the dead eyes of Blackwell’s followers. They were such a stark contrast to the bright intelligence of his and his wife’s. Unlike the zombies, those two knew exactly what they were doing. And if we got in the way, we wouldn’t make it. They would make sure of that.
“We have to get out of here.” I rubbed my eyes. “As soon as we possibly can.”
“I think tonight is our best chance.” Dave paced the room to the window and turned back. His hands were clenched at his sides. “I saw how he looked at you when he talked about repopulating the earth.”
I shrugged. “Isn’t that typical cult behavior? From all the documentaries I’ve ever watched on the subject, it seems like the leaders always manipulate the women into marrying them or sleeping with them or whatever.”
Dave spun around and I could see how pissed he was from the way his shoulders and back hunched. I have to admit, I kind of liked this chest-banging-woman-mine thing that was going on with him. It was sort of a new experience from Mr. Laid Back, Play a Videogame Dude.
Married with Zombies: Book 1 of Living with the Dead Page 13
