The raspy voice from behind the sanctuary doors wasn’t the preacher’s or anyone in the congregation. It belonged to something dead.
Finger to his lips, Chris led them to the front door. Heavy pews had been stacked atop one another to form a barricade. While Dawn covered them, Klinger and Chris sat their guns aside and lifted the top pew.
Inside the sanctuary, someone screamed. Startled, Chris lost his grip. The pew crashed to the floor, reverberating throughout the building. Reichart stopped in mid-sermon. A second later, the sanctuary doors banged open. Parishioners flooded into the narthex, wide-eyed.
Dawn raised her pistol. “We don’t want any trouble. We just want to leave.”
Inside the sanctuary, Reichart shouted, “Who dares disturb the resurrection?”
“It’s the Shackelford’s,” a man yelled. “And that stranger we let in earlier in the week. Say they’re leaving.”
The preacher squawked. “Oh, no they aren’t. Bring them to me.”
Chris and Klinger sprang for their guns. Several more members of the congregation poured through the sanctuary doors.
“Get back,” Dawn warned, spacing her feet apart. “I
“You won’t kill us, sister.” The speaker was a fat man, an atheist four weeks before, now one of Reichart’s most fervent followers. His eyes darted from the gun to Dawn’s breasts. He licked his lips. Dawn shot him between the eyes. Her wrists snapped backward from the recoil. She drew a bead on the next.
The fat man collapsed. Some of the believers rushed them while others ducked back inside the sanctuary. Dawn and Chris opened fire, dropping six attackers in as many shots. Klinger fumbled with his weapon, and the crowd fell on him, dragging him inside.
Chris and Dawn pursued them into the sanctuary. At the front, twelve makeshift crosses had been mounted around the communion rail. Former members of the congregation—those who’d spoke out against Reichart—hung crucified, their throats cut. Blood still jetted from the fresh wounds. The corpses twitched, reanimating.
“They were asleep,” Reichart shrieked, “and now they are changed. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed!”
Chris grabbed Dawn’s arm. “Let’s go! We’re too late.”
“Klinger.” She shook him off. “We can’t just—”
One of the zombies tore free of its cross, the nails ripping through its wrists and feet. It landed on an elderly woman, crushing her to the floor. Then it began to feed. Chris and Dawn couldn’t see it, but they could hear the tearing sounds.
The other creatures followed its lead, freeing themselves, ignoring the damage to their bodies.
“Go,” Klinger shouted, swept along by the panicked crowd. “Don’t worry about me!”
“They should worry.” Reichart slammed his fist down on the pulpit, ignoring the rampaging zombies. “Worry about their souls.”
Chris aimed his handgun at the crazed preacher.
“Shut the fuck up! I am sick of listening to your bullshit.”
Before he could squeeze the trigger, another zombie charged the pulpit, clawing at Reichart’s face. Chris fired anyway. Dawn’s weapon roared in tandem. Blocking the doorway, they shot indiscriminately, gunning down living and dead alike. Frantic parishioners charged the door, and Chris and Dawn shot each and every one of them. Their ears rang and their hands went numb, and still they fired controlled shots, feet spaced apart. Flying brass burned their arms. They reloaded, worked their way through the aisles, methodically firing rounds into each target’s head.
When it was over, all forty-six parishioners and a dozen zombies lay dead.
Klinger stared at the couple in astonishment. His forehead was bleeding.
“Jesus Christ. Would have never thought the two of you could do that.”
“A month ago,” Chris said, “we couldn’t have.”
Dawn nodded. “We’ve changed. We shall all be changed…”
Klinger picked his way through the corpses, and retrieved the rifle from the narthex.
“Guess we should get to work on moving these pews.”
Chris shrugged. “We’ve got this place to ourselves now. Maybe we should just stay put.”
The ex-pro surfer cocked a thumb at the bodies.
“Suit yourself. But I ain’t cleaning up that mess.”
“Leave them,” Chris said. “We’ll close it off.”
Arms entwined, Chris and Dawn started downstairs. Klinger followed. Behind them, the dead slept and did not change.
ALL FALL DOWN
“It ain’t like it wasn’t hot around here to begin with.” Roche spat tobacco juice into one of the rattlesnake holes dotting the hard-baked earth. Paul Goblirsch didn’t respond, because the old man was right. It was too hot to even talk. Paul shielded his eyes, not from the sun, but from the flames on the horizon.
Phoenix was burning.
The fires started in the second week, after the military lost control of the city. Smoke filled the skies, actually blocking out much of the sun’s more harmful rays. Despite that, the temperature was sweltering, especially with the added heat from the fires. Metro-Phoenix went up first, followed by the rest of the city. Then the flames spread to the suburbs, including Paul’s home in Avondale. Escaping both the inferno and the zombies, Paul joined up with other survivors heading into the desert: Roche, who Paul thought might be crazy; Destiny, a dancer from one of the strip joints; Tina, a six-year old girl still clinging to her stuffed rabbit; and Juan, who’d worked as a telemarketer. Roche hummed the song, “Convoy.” Paul glanced back. The old man was pissing into a snake hole.“Better put it away before a zombie rattler comes out and bites your dick off.”
Grinning, Roche shook, stuffed, and zipped.
“Let’s head back,” Paul said. “It’s Juan and Destiny’s turn for watch.”
They’d taken shelter at a construction company’s airstrip in the middle of the desert; a single runway, two port-o-potties, and a corrugated steel shed. They stayed inside the shed as much as possible. Two walked the perimeter at all times, on the lookout for zombies, looters, and other monsters. Of everything Paul had seen over the last twenty-two days, human nature was the most vile and disgusting.The plane landed that afternoon: a small, twinengine Cessna. Weapons drawn, Paul and Juan met it while the others hid inside the shed. The pilot was a gregarious Mexican named Sanchez. He wore a dazzling white cowboy hat that matched his drooping mustache and beard. Sanchez told them (as translated by Juan) that there was a human settlement in Canada, just over the border with Minnesota, free of the undead and broadcasting via short wave to other survivors.
Paul’s suspicions towards the stranger vanished upon hearing the news. The five survivors squeezed into the plane, leaving behind everything except their weapons, water, and Tina’s bunny. It was a tight fit, especially with Paul’s 240 pound, 6 foot 1 inch frame.
They took off, and Paul tried to relax. His scalp itched, both from sunburn and from the stubble growing back in. He speculated about this Canadian paradise, wondered what they’d find there. He hoped for things he hadn’t thought about since The Rising began: playing pool (he’d played enough cards with Destiny, Juan, and Roche to last a lifetime), books, food and drink. He had a sudden craving for a Crown and Coke, and wondered if they’d have any.
Destiny’s head lolled on his shoulder. She’d fallen asleep. Juan sat up front, chatting with Sanchez, and Roche was swapping jokes with Tina. The girls’ spirits had lifted since boarding the plane.
“What’s black and white and red all over?”
Tina giggled. “I don’t know. What?”
“A penguin with a sunburn.”
Paul closed his eyes and listened to the girl’s laughter. His mind turned to his own family, and he cut it off. Instead, he thought about his friend,
‘Kresby’ (his real name was H, but Paul always used his online name—Kresby.) They’d never met, but knew
