The Dead

faintly.

“Thorough bastards, aren’t they?” Dennis asked.

Chapter 16: Engine Trouble

Daybreak found them in a concrete-walled auto repair shop, completely intact, on the southern edge of town. Dennis and Father Chuck had taken the first watch, the priest looking out through the windows of the sliding bay door, Dennis stationed by a glass door at the other end of the building. The women and Jamie MacAleer were already asleep in the office, where they’d found a gas heater. Max had started it up with some difficulty, then joined Dennis at his post.

Max viewed the blackened landscape outside. There was much less drifting smoke than the day before; there was also less light. The diseased sun had just risen and, though the dark patches didn’t seem to have spread, the glowing orb appeared even paler than yesterday.

Max saw no figures moving in the desolation, or even in the distance. He wondered where the dead had gone.

The southern part of town had been full of them during the dark hours of the morning. After managing to slip by the parking lot, the group had spent the next seven frantic hours covering one mile, scrambling in and out of refuge, barely avoiding one patrol after another. It had reminded Max of accounts of the last few Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, trying to elude capture after the rebellion was crushed, scrabbling and crawling through the rubble, never far from some searching Nazi platoon.

“Why are we still alive?” Dennis asked.

“The Grace of God,” said Mr. MacAleer.

“You think He’s showing us mercy?” Dennis asked. “Maybe He’s enjoying roasting us over a slow fire.”

“Cheerful thought,” Max said. “But I don’t believe it. A being like that wouldn’t be God.”

“What about all that stuff you said to Father Chuck? About God not being a tame lion?”

“There’s a big difference between that and God being a sadistic maniac. I believe He loves us. That the greatest gift He could give us is existence, and that He’ll permit us to suffer rather than taking it away. I think He still even loves Satan Himself.” Max laughed. “Though I can’t think why. But nobody put me in charge, did they? And it’s just as well.”

“But should I still be afraid of Him?” Dennis asked.

“Hell yeah. What could be scarier than something like that? What do the angels always say when they appear in the Bible? Fear not. Precisely because they’re terrifying. And they’re just reflections of Him.”

“Was that Him in the dream?”

“Of course it was,” said MacAleer.

“Sure was scary enough, wasn’t He?” Max said.

Dennis said nothing for a time. “What was the verdict in your dream, Max?”

“I didn’t hear it,” Max said. “I woke up.”

“Mine was guilty,” Dennis said. “Mine and Camille’s.”

“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Max said, without much conviction.

“You know better than that,” MacAleer answered.

“Do I?”

“I do,” Dennis said. “I’m sure of it. God’s going to make me pay for what I’ve done.”

“Not if you throw yourself on his Mercy,” MacAleer said.

“How do I do that?” Dennis asked.

“Confess you’re a sinner. Admit to yourself that you can’t achieve salvation without acknowledging the sacrifice Christ made for you.”

“Considering the kind of life I’ve led,” Dennis said, “I don’t think anything so easy could work.”

“That’s because you don’t know the power of the Lord Jesus.”

“And you do?” Max asked.

“Yes,” MacAleer replied.

“You’ve acknowledged Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” Max asked.

“Yes.”

“You’re born again, washed in the blood?”

“Yes.”

“What was the verdict in your dream?”

MacAleer was silent.

“Well?”

“You’re trying to trip me up.”

“Oh?”

“To stop me from preaching the good news to your uncle.”

“What was the verdict, Mr. MacAleer?” Max asked.

MacAleer looked away. “I woke up too,” he said. Suddenly his eyes swept back to Max, vehement, defiant. “That doesn’t mean that what I told your uncle is false. And it doesn’t mean I’m not justified. All it might mean is that I woke up, that’s all-”

Max laughed.

“Max,” Dennis said, “has it occurred to you that I might really be interested in what he has to say? Regardless of whether or not he’s in the same boat with the rest of us?”

“That doesn’t make any difference to you?” Max asked. “Doesn’t it suggest his little formula doesn’t work as well as he says?”

“I notice you seem to have accepted my explanation,” MacAleer said.

“Not quite yet,” Max said. “But let’s say that I do. Fine and dandy. Seems to fit a lot of facts. But your ideas on how we should extricate ourselves don’t seem so impressive. You’re still here to explain them.”

“But maybe they’re right anyway, Max,” Dennis said. “Maybe he just doesn’t have enough faith.”

Max grinned, impressed by Dennis’s logic; he was having some effect on his uncle.

“How dare you suggest such a thing?” MacAleer demanded.

“It follows from what you’ve been saying,” Max said. “If your theories are correct, of course. “

“Well, what do you want your uncle to believe?” MacAleer demanded.

“That’s it, change the subject.” Max said.

“A lot of superstitions?”

“What superstitions are those?”

“Worshipping the Virgin Mary? Bowing down before relics?”

Max went through his pockets. “Well, I do have this bone-fragment from St. Severa here somewhere…”

MacAleer’s eyes bulged, as though Max were really about to produce the abominable object.

Max snapped his fingers. “Left it back at the shelter.”

“Thank God,” MacAleer said.

“Us Papists have better alternatives in any case.”

“Like what? Confessing to a mere man in a stuffy little black booth?”

“The stuffier the better,” Max said. “Booth’s optional, though. Icing on the cake.”

“Then why don’t you just go over to Father Chuck and have him confess you both right now?”

Max mulled it over. “Haven’t had time up till now-thought we were going to be in the shelter longer. Should’ve spoken to him about it before I dozed off last night.” He looked at Dennis. “Want to join me?”

“You don’t have to be Catholic?” Dennis asked.

“Nope. You just have to be sorry.”

“So that’s your formula for salvation?” MacAleer demanded.

“What the hell,” Dennis said, and handed his shotgun to MacAleer. “Watch the window for me, will you?”