ocean wave, and the Reverend and Doc tried to hold the front, firing, reloading, but the wave was furious now, and they were surrounded and nerve-wracked, and each time they reached into their coat pockets for ammo there were fewer and fewer shells, and now it was necessary for them to toss their weapons aside (though the Reverend maintained his Navy in his sash) and grab the emergency weapons leaning against the pews.
Sometimes the smoke was so thick a zombie was not visible until his dead face and clicking teeth parted the smoke cloud and pushed near the face of one of the defenders.
Nearly all the killing now was done at point blank. Blood, and brains, and flesh fragments were thick on the floor. The Reverend and the others found their feet slipping in the muck, but still they held.
Now there came a pause in the attack and the gunfire died. Cool, wet wind blew in from the storm, and the smoke clouds roiled and turned clear.
The defenders saw now that the church was full of the dead. They were as thick as seed ticks on a cow's udder.
Outside, at the foot of the church steps, stood the Indian. The fragmented church doors flapped back and forth in the wind like ragged bat wings, giving the defenders a now-you-see-him-now-you-don't view of the man.
The Indian raised his hands to the storm, and little blue tendrils of lightning reached out of the sky and touched them. It was as if he were drawing power from the storm. He opened his mouth, and it grew wider and wider until it unhinged. The horrible, sharp teeth were visible and a sound like a death scream magnified came out of his throat and mixed with the howl of the storm, and the storm became more ferocious. The dead, as if charged by the Indian's storm charging, began to move en masse toward the defenders.
For a moment (too horrible a moment) the Reverend saw them as people: men, women, and children. There was Montclaire, Caleb, Cecil from over at the cafe, others he had seen about town but who he could not put a name to, and they began to cry out to the Reverend in shrill, ugly voices, cry out for him, a man of God to embrace them and save their souls.
'Pay them no mind,' Doc shouted. 'They are beyond saving unless the Indian dies.'
On came the dead, their voices a litany of names and entreaties, spoken time and time again.
Calhoun turned to see two zombies coming down a row of church pews, pulling aside their truly dead companions, coming with a greater determination than ever before.
Calhoun quick-shot the one in back, missed its head, and blew away the right shoulder of the one in front. He cocked back the hammer on the double barrel and fired again, this time hitting the nearest creature in the head, sending the top of its skull flying off in a spray of brains and blood.
Calhoun broke open the shotgun and fumbled for two shells, trying not to look up at the approaching zombie and the others coming behind him.
His pockets were empty.
He looked up.
The zombie was before him, teeth bared.
Calhoun dropped the shotgun, tried to go for the revolver in his belt, but the foul breath of the zombie froze his hand for a flash-instant too long. The zombie's head dipped quickly, took a chunk out of Calhoun's face. Then, as Calhoun screamed, the zombie hooked both of his arms around the screaming preacher, as if they were lovers, and began biting plugs out of his face like a chicken pecking grit. Abby heard Calhoun scream. She wheeled around, saw the zombie holding Calhoun.
'Sorry,' she said, and just as Calhoun turned to look at her, she shot him through the head. He flopped in the zombie's grasp.
The zombie turned his head toward her, as if to express his disappointment at the turn of events, but the only sound he managed, before Abby shot him through the right eye, was a grunt. The zombie and Calhoun melted to the floor.
The dead were swarming like bees. The smoke was getting thick again and it burned the defenders' eyes. The roar of the guns had nearly deafened them. They could hardly hold the weapons up, their arms were so tired. And still the dead came on. Pushing. Driving the defenders back toward the store room, causing them to lose ground so fast they no longer had time to reload at all. They were forced to snatch up new weapons from the pews (and there were few left), fire them empty, and exchange them for others.
'We can't hold,' Abby said.
'Make for the storage room,' Doc said.
David and Abby—as if by instinct—turned back to back with Doc and the Reverend, ready to defend the rear, and they walked forward, as their companions walked backwards, fighting all the while. Doc swung the barrel of his Winchester at a zombie who came leaping through the smoke, and the sound of it striking the dead man's skull was as loud as a shot. It was Nolan. His skull cracked open and a burst of brains, like puked oatmeal, spewed onto Doc.
Nolan's falling body parted the Doc and Reverend, pushing Jeb a bit more to the rear, and pushing Abby forward.
The Reverend didn't need a flash from God to know that their defense was falling apart, and it looked as if they would not make the storage room, for now zombies had worked down the pews and were standing before it.
…
David's shoulder felt as if it were going to fall off. The shotgun's recoil had worn it raw.
He stole a moment to rest his arm.
The shotgun he held had only one round left, and then he had the revolver in his belt, a bit of ammo in his pocket—and all that would be left after that was using the weapons as clubs—and finally nothing more than assholes and elbows until the end—which would not be the end, but a horrible beginning of sorts.
A hand came out of the smoke and confusion, grabbed the barrel of David's shotgun, wrenched it from him, and sent it clattering off into the pews and zombie bodies.
David whirled around to stare into the face of his father. It looked strangely calm, in spite of the face wounds and the splatterings of blood. David jerked the revolver from his belt, pointed the gun at his father.
And froze.
He could not pull the trigger.
Many times he had hated his father to the point of wishing death on the man, but now, when his life depended on it—and he tried to tell himself his father had no real life to lose—he could not pull the trigger.
Rhine grabbed David by the shoulders and shot his head forward, knocking aside the revolver David held. David screamed, knowing what was next and hoping he had the strength to blow his own brains out, lest he too become like the dead. And then there was a shotgun stock between him and the snapping teeth of his father.
Rhine bit a chunk of wood from the stock, and the stock moved back toward Rhine's face.
Teeth and blood flew and Rhine went down. The Reverend appeared in his place.
'Move back, boy,' the Reverend yelled. 'Keep it going.'
David came unfrozen, began to use his revolver, but he was moving backwards by inches only. The zombies were thick as buzzards on a dead cow.
Hands came out of nowhere, clutched at the defenders. They knocked them off and kept trying to move backwards—toward the last stand—the storage room. The zombies were like a living, biting wall.
Montclaire, fat and bloody, grabbed Abby by the collars, lifted her off her feet toward his slobbering mouth. Abby cracked the barrel of her .45 across his forehead, hard, and Montclaire staggered. The dress ripped and Abby fell to the floor, crawling over brains, blood, bodies, and spent cartridges, looking for the gun she had dropped.
She found her pistol on Rhine's chest, grabbed for it, but Rhine's hand came up and gripped hers, Rhine lifted his head. His skull was cracked, but the Reverend's blow had not been fatal. Rhine snapped his mouth forward and bit off Abby's thumb.
Abby let out a cry, jerked free, crawfished backwards.
David spilled over her, fell across his father, and rolled. When he came up, Rhine was rising, and Abby's revolver fell from his chest to the floor.
David leaped for it, got it, came up rolling, twisted back to look at his father's face, and this time, he fired. Rhine's nose disappeared and he fell back with a slap.
David spiraled to his feet, tried to help Abby. Zombie hands grabbed both of them. He slugged and kicked his
