He was in the middle of the street—walking—a crate on his right shoulder, and the rain seemed to part for him.
Calhoun (who had been watching from the other window) turned away, fell to his knees, and began to pray.
The crowd of dead parted for the Indian, and the Indian stopped near the church steps and set the crate upright. He tore the lid off and revealed the corpse to those in the church.
Doc, now beside the Reverend, said, 'His wife— what's left of her.'
The Indian turned to the corpse, took off the strand with the ears, and slipped it over the head of the body. He then kissed the blackened, lifeless lips and looked back at the church.
Down the street came more dead. The sheriff, faceless, among them, and Caleb, dragging guts and limping along because most of his right ankle had been chewed through.
The Reverend and the Indian seemed to lock eyes, and Jeb was surprised to feel a wave of pity wash over him for the red man. He too knew how it was to have loved ones taken away, only in his case it had been purely emotional. As far as he knew, his family (though surely his sister had been cast out of it) were alive and well.
Now they were both here: he, God's representative for good, the Indian, the Devil's pawn for evil. Two forces about to meet head on.
But the Reverend did not feel so self-righteous, and he could not look upon the Indian as purely dark and evil.
The Reverend turned to look at Abby. She tried to smile back at him, but the muscles in her face would not quite make the effort. The Reverend was assailed by a sudden thought that made him feel even less self-righteous, if more joyously human. He wished he had taken Abby to bed and known her in the Biblical sense.
It seemed only fair that two people who loved one another and were possibly going to die should have had that experience. Now, unless they survived, it would never happen. He had kept the laws of God, but not the laws of his heart, and he was uncertain if he felt better for having done so.
He looked at David. He felt a kinship for the boy, as if he were his own son.
The boy was sitting on a pew, holding a shotgun, his face smeared with dirt, his hair streaked with the same, and love went out of the Reverend and embraced the boy.
David, perhaps feeling the thought, turned to look at the Reverend, and he tried to smile, managing it only a little better than Abby had.
The Reverend turned to look out the window again. The Indian had not moved and was still looking in his direction, as if his eyes were deliberately tracking in on the Reverend's.
The Reverend looked away. He broke open the shotgun for the fifth time to make sure it was loaded, then he checked his revolver for the fifth time also.
He leaned the shotgun against the wall, put the revolver in his sash, walked over to Abby, and put his arms around her. 'I love you,' he said abruptly. 'Come what may, I love you.'
She put her weapon aside, and embraced him, kissed him long and deep—a kiss of love, and perhaps farewell.
For the moment of truth was about to begin.
III
The dead began to ease forward. Very slowly at first. They went up the steps and took hold of the bars in the windows and pushed their hands out to touch the wooden slats.
Their fingers wriggled through cracks in the boards and gently tugged and pulled out again.
The church defenders moved back and took position in the wide center row of the church, facing the bolted doors. The Reverend and Doc stood side by side, and just behind and to the left of the Reverend was David, and to Doc's right was Abby, and dead-center-rear was Calhoun, who was shaking so hard you could hear his stiff clothes wrinkle and his teeth click.
Now the window nearest the door creaked as a board was pushed forward, the nails flying from it like bullets, and it fell to the floor. The Indian smiled at them, his teeth colored with blood. He took hold of the bars with his hands and pushed his face close and looked inside.
'Boo,' he said.
Trickles of smoke curled up from the Indian's hands where he touched the bars, and he removed them quickly, little bursts of fire blazing in his palms.
The Reverend looked at Doc. 'Holy ground?'
Doc nodded. 'As long as it's holy to us, it will be holy to him. But they're outside now. It's when they come inside, and you're face to face with them. That's when our faith will be tested. And if his faith is stronger....'
'We'll die.'
'Worse.'
The Reverend looked at his watch. Dawn was just a little more than an hour away. He had just returned the watch to his pocket when the zombies began to make their move.
The door began to bulge, as if it were a great chest trying to take a deep breath.
Boards across the windows cracked, and faces of zombies took their places, peeking in through the bars. One zombie gnawed madly at a bar, his teeth powdering out of his mouth as he did. Others wrenched and pulled madly at the barrier.
And now big hands appeared—the Indian's hands, and though they smoked with contact, he jerked— with a nerve grating screech—the bars from the windows one by one.
'Reverend?' David said. He had moved up close.
'Yes,' the Reverend said.
'Been nice knowing you.'
'Don't count yourself out till the very last, boy. Trust in God and that shotgun. Just tuck it tight against your shoulder and aim for the head. Don't panic. Keep cool, and when you've got off your two shots, load again, backing if you have to. If you're being pushed too hard, forget the shotgun. Pull the revolver and shoot point blank. Got me?'
'Yes sir.'
'David?'
'Yes sir?'
'I love you, boy.'
'I love you too, Reverend.'
'Jeb. You should at least call me Jeb.'
'Jeb.'
Zombies began to push their way through the windows all around the church.
The Reverend lifted his shotgun to his shoulder. 'Hallowed be thy name, oh Lord—and shotgun do your stuff.'
The Reverend blew the head off one of the zombies who was writhing through.
The decapitated creature slid backwards out the window and out of view.
And the siege began.
IV
Zombie heads began flying to pieces. The dead were pushing hard and fast, and at first the defenders kept up with them, dropping them as they came through, holding them back, but there were so many, and they were so constant, that soon the church was full of the things, and they were without fear, for they knew only hunger and the desires of the Indian.
The guns of the defenders roared, and soon the church was constipated with the acrid smell of gunsmoke, and the weapons were hot in the hands of the defenders, but they continued to reload and fire, and it seemed as if they might hold forever.
Bodies were piling in front of them like dog turds, and to their left and right, bodies draped the pews or clogged the narrow aisles between them.
But there was still enough time to reload and keep the zombies weeded faster than they could overwhelm the defenders, and the Reverend felt hope and even thought for a moment that things would be all right—that they would hold until daylight saved them.
Then the door burst open, splinters raining inwards, and zombies tumbled in like little pebbles before a great
