Skeeter gave Connor a squeeze. “She was a sweet lady.”
Connor peaked over Skeeter’s shoulder at the rug covering Annabelle, and then shut his eyes tight.
“We
“We can’t leave. Give it a couple of days, Nate. They’ll move on.”
“What if they don’t? We’ll be trapped here.”
Skeeter sighed, pulling the toothpick out of his mouth with his free hand and throwing it down to the growing crowd of undead below. “I can’t move Jill.”
My eyebrows pushed together. “What if she gets worse? What if she turns into one of those things?”
Skeeter looked down, and then back at me, resolute. “You should go. Get Zoe some place safe. She shouldn’t be here when Jill . . . but, I can’t leave, brother. I wouldn’t have anything to live for, anyway.”
My stomach dropped, and goose bumps formed on my arms. Skeeter was going to die in this church, with his wife.
“I’ve gotta get Zoe out of here.”
“I know.”
Skeeter crawled back inside carefully with Connor still in his arms. He walked past Eric and Gary, but stopped in the doorway. “Board up the door.”
“But,” Eric said, pointing to the sheet, “they can’t climb, and Annabelle’s dead.”
“In case she comes back as one of them,” I said, nodding to the window.
Gary frowned. “Maybe we should roll her off the roof. She’ll start stinkin’ before long.”
“No!” Connor cried.
Skeeter patted his back. “The smell might help cover ours. Leave her be. Board the door.”
Gary and Eric nodded, and Skeeter and I walked back downstairs to the kitchen, joining Bob and Evan, Reverend Mathis, and Doris. They had made Jill a pallet on the floor with a rolled-up dish towel for a pillow.
“Oh my Lord in Heaven! Connor Nicholson! Are you all right, sweetheart?” Doris said, taking him from Skeeter.
Connor hugged Doris tight, wildly sobbing all over again. They obviously knew each other, but I wasn’t sure how.
Doris blanched, looking up at Skeeter. “Where is Amy?”
“She’s outside. Annabelle Stephens helped him up to the roof.”
“Well . . . ?” she said, looking past Skeeter. “Where is she?”
Skeeter shook his head. “Upstairs. She didn’t make it.”
About that time the hammering began. Doris held Connor while he cried. Reverend Mathis went to the sanctuary to check on Barb and Ms. Kay, and Skeeter sat on the floor next to his wife. Jill was unconscious, her bloodshot eyes barely visible between the two thin slits of her eyelids. She was nearly panting, and a thin sheen of sweat covered her paling skin.
Zoe was standing in the doorway, her eyes fixed on her aunt Jill. I kneeled beside my daughter and pulled her against my side. There wasn’t really anything I could say; no point in asking if she was all right. None of us were.
Skeeter bent down to speak soft, comforting words to Jill. Unable to watch, I walked into the sanctuary. Broken glass lined the carpet next to all three walls. The townspeople of Fairview were clawing and batting at the boards Eric and Gary had nailed across the windows. The boards wouldn’t last forever, just like the small amounts of food Skeeter and a few others had thought to bring along with them.
Reverend Mathis was praying with Barb and Ms. Kay, but paused to watch me approach the windows. I peeked through, trying to gauge how far my car was from the church. I didn’t see any of the sick around Skeeter’s house, or even between there and the church, but that didn’t mean there weren’t any. Still, the hardest part would be walking out the door.
I walked into the kitchen, pulling my car keys from my pocket. “I’m going to make a run for it with Zoe. I have a car down the block. We’ve got two, maybe three empty seats, but we’re going to need a diversion to get outside.”
“But I don’t wanna leave Aunt Jill, Daddy,” Zoe said.
Doris shook her head. “I’m not going out there.”
Bob frowned. “Why don’t you just stay here? It’s as safe as anywhere.”
I covered Zoe’s ears and spoke softly. “Because Annabelle left a trail of blood leading to the church, and it’s smeared on the west wall. Skeeter and I were just on the roof. The church is surrounded, and more are coming. Who knows when they’ll go away, or if they ever will?”
Skeeter nodded. “You’ll need a gun. Something light but with a lot of stopping power. Grab the AR out of my bag there. The two twenty-three. Don’t forget the clips. I’ll cover you.”
A long, camouflage duffle bag holding nearly every gun Skeeter owned was tucked under the church’s kitchen table. I crouched down to pull the nylon across the worn linoleum, and found a squat-barreled rifle that was smaller, but looked just as ferocious as anything else in the bag. “I’ve never shot a semiautomatic rifle, Skeeter. I’m not sure I can handle this.”
Skeeter laughed once, but he couldn’t quite smile. “Zoe could handle it. And you should let her practice when y’all get somewhere safe. Just in case.”
The thought of something happening to me, and Zoe then being left alone made my world stop. She was so little, and if we left Skeeter and Jill, I would be all she had. “Maybe we should stay?” I said, my gaze floating to the sanctuary. The things outside were still trying to get in, pulling and banging against the boards.
Skeeter looked at his wife, and then back at me. “No. You shouldn’t.” I pulled a 9mm from the bag and a box of ammo. “Can I take this, too?” Skeeter’s eyes touched on Zoe for just a moment. He knew why I wanted it. I couldn’t leave her alone to fend for herself.
“Of course, brother.”
I nodded in thanks, and then stood. “But we still need a distraction.”
Doris set Connor in the chair that Jill was in. “Maybe we’ll get lucky and someone will pass through town. Will they follow a car?”
Zoe tugged on my pant leg. “I don’t want to go outside, Daddy.”
I leaned down, looking her in the eyes. “I know you don’t. It’s scary out there, isn’t it?”
Zoe nodded.
“But this isn’t the safest place for us. We have to find somewhere else.”
Zoe’s lips formed a hard line, and a tiny indentation appeared between her eyebrows, but she didn’t argue.
“You should take Connor and Evan,” Skeeter said.
Evan looked to Bob with fear in his eyes. Connor shook his head and hid behind Doris.
Doris shook her head, too. “I can’t stop him from taking his daughter, Skeeter, but I won’t let him take these boys outside with those things.”
“Connor,” Skeeter said. “I think you should go with Nathan. We’re going to work to keep those things out but I’m not sure that you’ll be safe here, little man.”
I could barely see Connor’s head shake in protest as he stood behind Doris. I wasn’t going to force him, and really, I couldn’t blame him after what he’d just been through.
“Bob?” Skeeter said. “You sure you don’t want to give Evan a chance?”
Evan stared at Bob, his eyes pleading to stay. Bob patted the boy’s shoulder, and then shook his head.
Barb located a plastic grocery sack, and I put a few boxes of bullets and five bottles of water inside, and then stuffed the 9mm in the waist of my pants. If someone were to tell me the day before that I would be doing anything close to this, I would have laughed them out of the office. I’d been hunting and shooting with Skeeter a handful of times, but owning a gun was not a priority for me, and I wasn’t opposed to gun control.
Now that the undead had taken over the earth, I imagined any member of the NRA was doing better than most.
Just as I hooked the handles of the sack in the crook of my elbow, the sound of salvation echoed through the church: a car horn.
Scarlet
