way free, but Abby didn't make it. A zombie slipped in the gore, went down, grabbed Abby's leg, bit through dress and kneecap. Another got her in the small of the back. One bit deep into her shoulder.
Stiff-arming her way clear, she staggered toward David. He got an arm around her waist, felt her weight slump against him. And then standing in front of them was the faceless sheriff and Caleb (still dragging guts, though most of them had been ripped out).
David shot Caleb in the face, and he went down. The sheriff bobbed his head forward and hit David with the bloody maw that had once been his face. A thick swathe of blood traced David's already powder residue-, blood-, and brain-splattered face, but without teeth, Matt could not inflict a wound.
David shot the sheriff in the maw of his face, and Matt, at peace at last, went down.
Abby lifted her head, and when she did, she saw the Reverend's back. At the same moment, the Reverend turned, and their eyes met. He saw the wounds.
'I love you,' she said, and she snatched the revolver from the bewildered David's hands, pushed herself upright, put the cocked revolver under her chin, and pulled the trigger.
Like a frightened prairie dog leaping from a hole, her brains jumped out of the top of her head and she crumpled at David's feet.
David reached the revolver from Abby's hands, looked at the Reverend.
'The storeroom,' the Reverend managed. 'Lock yourself in. You might make it, boy.'
'Not without you,' David yelled.
The Reverend kicked a zombie back, slugged another aside. 'Do as I say, you little bastard.'
David shook his head.
At that moment, Doc went down beneath a horde of zombies, and the Reverend, stepping back to avoid snapping teeth, clubbed his attacker in the ivories-shattering them—
clubbed again, cracking the zombie's skull, dropping him.
Doc was swarmed. The zombies were on him like a pack of dogs. He cried and twisted his face toward the Reverend. Just before more zombies dropped down on Doc, the Reverend tossed aside the shotgun he had been using as a club, drew his revolver, and shot him in the narrowly exposed part of his head.
Abby and Doc dead, the life almost went out of the Reverend, but then, with the zombies diving for Doc, a path was cleared, and in a twinkling of a second, the Reverend saw the Indian.
The Indian was still standing at the base of the church steps, the storm screeching around him like a great horned owl. Behind him, the Reverend thought he could see the faintest hint of oncoming daylight.
There came a smile to the Indian's face that seemed to say: 'I know what you're thinking, and you won't make it.'
Snarling, the Reverend darted toward David, who had his back against the storeroom wall, and who, due to Abby and Doc being prey for the monsters, had a short lull in the onslaught in which to gain a breath. He had not tried to go into the storeroom.
Three strides brought the Reverend to the door. He snatched David up, opened the door, and set the boy inside by the scruff of his neck. Stepping in beside him, he tried to pull the door closed, but a zombie's face appeared, and then a hand, and the hand clutched the door and pulled.
The Reverend flicked out a left jab, knocking the dead man back, then he grabbed the door and tried to slam it, but the zombie was not giving up. He clutched the door, tugged, and the Reverend went sailing into the zombie's arms.
Up came the Reverend's revolver, under the zombie's chin. The Reverend fired, the dead man went down (dead for good this time).
And now they were all on him, trying to bite him, take him down like they had Doc, but the Reverend was fast and slippery. He spun, twisted, kicked, punched, cracked out with the barrel of the Navy, trying to find freedom. A kick in the face kept a twelve-year-old boy from biting him, a twist of an elbow hit a man in the neck and stumbled him back, a ducking of his head left teeth to snap air, harmlessly above him.
Then David was beside him, firing his revolver three times—BLAM—BLAM—
BLAM—and three zombies went down. It was the space they needed, and the Reverend pushed David back through the door, sending him ass over heels a few steps down the stairs, then the Reverend was clutching the knob with one hand, pushing the Navy into his sash with the other, then he had both hands on the knob, and up came David, grabbing at the Reverend's waist, serving as an anchor.
A zombie's hand was stuck between door and jamb, stopping the closing, and the Reverend, grunting, giving it all he had, and David doing the same, pulled, and the zombie's fingers cracked, snapped, and fell like little sausages onto the top step, and the door went closed, David leaping up to throw the little, weak-looking latch.
Safe.
For a moment.
The door rattled fiercely.
'Single-minded, ain't they,' David said.
The Reverend nodded.
'It won't hold them will it?'
The Reverend shook his head, found the lamp and matches on the shelf beside the door, and lit it.
The door rattled steadily.
'We're dead meat, aren't we, Reverend?'
'If we can hold until daylight, we've got a chance. Can't be much longer.'
And then he thought: 'But how much longer do they need?'
'Come on,' he said, 'let's go down.'
At the bottom of the stairs, the Reverend climbed on top of some crates and leaned toward the curtained window. He flicked back the curtain. The window, like the others, was barred. There would be no sneaky escape route. They were trapped like rats in a flooding ship.
But a flickering of hope surged through him. He could see the first pink rays of morning.
He let go of the curtain and climbed down.
'Only way out of here,' he said to David, 'is the way we came in. But it's almost sunup.
We might make it.'
The Reverend loaded his revolver with the remaining rounds in his coat pocket.
Altogether, he managed five rounds. 'One short of a full house,' he said. 'And you?'
'Empty,' David said hollowly.
The Reverend handed David the Navy.
'No,' David said. 'You're better with it. I do okay with a shotgun or pistol at point-blank range—but—well, you keep it. And Reverend. Don't let me end up like them— know what I mean?'
The Reverend nodded grimly.
The door stopped rattling.
David and the Reverend looked up the stairs.
'Have they gone away?' David asked.
The Reverend glanced toward the curtain. From where he stood, he couldn't see daylight, only the light of the lantern he had set on a crate.
'I don't think so,' the Reverend said.
Then there was a bang like the end of the world. The door at the top of the stairs had split apart, and the tip of the great cross that had hung on the wall poked through.
The cross was pulled out and came back with a terrific wham! The door split completely open and fell away, except for a fragment that swung out on the one remaining hinge at the top.
The Indian stepped into the doorway, holding the cross. His hands were spilling forth white smoke where he held the cross. Even his boots where they touched the hallowed ground boiled smoke.
But the Indian was smiling. And perched on his shoulder like some terrible parrot, chattering like a monkey, was the little girl with the doll.
Behind the Indian and the little girl, the dead pushed forward, licking their lips, moaning eagerly.
'They're mine,' hissed the Indian, and the dead moved back.
The Indian stared at the Reverend for a long moment, as if to show him that the cross and the church were
