“It doesn’t necessarily mean they are everywhere. The outbreaks could be contained. The bigger cities have to be better equipped for natural disasters.” He reassured his audience.
The priest shook his head. “I don’t think there’s anything natural about what’s going on. Nobody is going to be prepared for this.”
Eric, still on the phone, shushed everyone. “I’m trying to talk here.”
Everyone quieted down and tried to watch the news, but the rest of the program was uneventful. The burning desire for discussion or potentially helpful information consumed the group. Stephanie shifted uneasily in her seat. The priest paced around the room with his head down in contemplation. The two lovers clasped each others’ hands as if the other one could make all the horrible events go away.
When Eric hung up the phone, everyone leaned forward to hear about his conversation. The doctor met their faces with looks of amusement. “I bet you’d like to know everything, wouldn’t you?” A sly smirk lighted upon his face.
Bryant’s temper broke after the joyous discovery of the TV and the subsequent let downs about the state of things. “Tell us damn it!” He impatiently shouted.
“Okay, okay. His name is John Raymond and he is held up in a home out in Mount Vernon.”
Bryant interjected. “That’s only a mile or two from my house.”
“Let me finish.” Eric feigned insult. “He has no vehicle and they have clustered around too thick for escape. He has a gun with only a few shots. The home is in poor condition and it’s only a matter of time before they break in. He wants us to pick him up.”
Father O’Brien screamed. “That’s preposterous! We can’t even escape ourselves, much less save someone else ten miles out of town.”
“I told him that, believe me. In the meantime, he’s going to call us every hour until he sleeps. Then in eight hours, we will resume the hour contacts. If we do see an opportunity for escape, we are to take him with us. If he misses a call and we can’t reach him, we are to presume him dead.” Eric declared all this in an even, business-like fashion.
The priest walked to the door. Turning around, he addressed the group. “I think I will retire. I want to be well-rested for my turn at guard duty.”
Tommy said goodnight and then added, “Are we ever going to take baths again?”
Everyone thought for a moment. No one had found a shower in the building. Eric leaned against the wall and shrugged. “I don’t see why we can’t bathe in the baptismal font.”
Stephanie gasped at the suggestion but Bryant and Cara easily accepted it. “Good idea, doctor.” Cara chimed. Then they eased off of the sofa and out of the office. “I think we’re going to hit the sack.” Despite the news, or perhaps because of it, they both wore the grins of people who know that they are about to have sex.
Since everyone drifted apart and the party was over, Stephanie looked back at the doctor with a tired expression. “I’m going downstairs to relieve Martin and catch him up on everything he missed.”
Eric’s brow furrowed with concern. “Are you sure you’re up to it? You look tired.”
“Not physically.” She gave a weak smile. He knew exactly what she meant. She disappeared into the darkened hallway.
Tommy flipped channels for a few more minutes, but not seeing anything intriguing, he also left.
Eric looked around the deserted office and started thinking about everything. The numbers were scary. If even half of the population became zombies, the occupants of the First Baptist Church were S.O.L. They probably had three hundred rounds of ammo. That would not even put a dent in the army waiting outside.
***
On the bottom floor, Stephanie exited the stairwell and briskly walked across the dining room until she faced Martin. He smiled at the visitor and stepped away from the closet door he guarded. “Everyone disappeared for a while, anything special going on?”
Stephanie opened her mouth to whisper when Rick shouted from the closet. “Who’s out there? Please, let me out! I won’t try anything, I swear.”
Martin suffered an uncharacteristic explosion of anger. “Shut the fuck up or I’ll put buckshot straight through you!” He turned back to Stephanie and politely urged her to continue.
“Well, we found a television set and started watching the news. The rest of the world seems pretty normal, but then some guy in Washington survived a drive-by shooting and a beheading in the Middle East produced a head that wouldn’t die.” He paused to give the story a chance to sink in. “Then we got a call from a survivor in Mount Vernon.”
“Oh my God, is he coming to get us?” Martin enthusiastically asked, not realizing that he had completely discounted the possibility that a woman had survived on her own.
“No, he’s surrounded with no working vehicle. He wanted us to pick him up.” She turned her face away so that he would not see the disappointment.
Martin felt the same way. Perhaps he had reached for the prospect of rescue too quickly. Now he just felt crushed. After a minute of gloom, he tried to put a positive spin on it. “Maybe we should think about escaping the town. I mean, if things are normal everywhere else, why shouldn’t we ride out?”
Stephanie gave him a surprisingly droll look. “How are we going to do that? There are eight of us and the vehicles in the street don’t have keys. We can’t exactly wander up and down Temple Avenue until we find one big enough for all of us.”
“Well, we can’t wait forever. No one’s going to miss this place. It could be weeks before anyone realizes the town is gone.” His face conveyed that he truly believed this. In some way, he figured that Fayette was like him and the rest of the world was the society he desperately wanted to belong to. How long would the jocks or the preps go through their daily routine before realizing Martin was absent?
Stephanie sighed and walked around to the chair that all the guards had used to rest. “Give me the gun. I’ll watch him for a while.”
Martin looked at her expression. Trying to talk to her, he had just made her feel worse. No one wanted to think that they were so insignificant that the world would not miss them. “I don’t think that’s a good idea. He’s been talking shit trying to get under my skin for hours.”
“Which is why you need a break.” She extended her hand for the shotgun.
“I can handle it.” He cradled the gun close to his heart.
“You need sleep. Now go upstairs.” She commanded.
Rick’s voice rang out. “Bitch told you what to do, didn’t she?”
Martin glared at the door with rage in his eyes. “Ignorant mother fucker!” He spat back. Dutifully, he handed the weapon over and retreated to the thin blankets and padded pews waiting.
As soon as he disappeared, Rick began taunting. “So, we’re alone again, huh?” A long pause filled the space between them as Rick tested the waters. “I guess you’ve been mercy-fucking him, right?” Still no answer. He peered around the darkness trying to figure out how to goad her into making a mistake. “So, if your nigger boyfriend is walking around out there, are you going to let him eat you? ‘Cause I’ve heard black guys don’t like to eat girls. It should be a first.”
“Shut up!” She shouted into the wooden door. “Shut your dumb fucking mouth!”
“Or what?” He taunted.
“I’ll feed you to those walkers.” Her cheeks felt hot. For a brief moment, Stephanie regretted stopping Martin from taking out his version of vigilante justice on the captive.
“You’d have to let me out first.” Rick sat in darkness, but if anyone could have seen him, the self-satisfied expression would have sickened them.
***
The sun poured in through the uncovered office windows. Bryant lazily ran his fingers unconsciously across Cara as they both struggled to wake up. A hard point pressed into his back with little force and Dr. Wagner’s voice suggested that they wake up. Bryant’s sluggish brain told him that he was being prodded with a shoe. Opening his burning eyes, he saw the doctor standing over his girlfriend and him, waiting for full consciousness.
Cara rolled under the small blanket and felt cold air touching her shoulders where someone had just pulled the cover down a few inches. “Let me sleep.” She spoke in a part pleading, part commanding voice still heavy with slumber. Then she pulled the cover back up over her face.
“Come on. Get up. Out friend out in the country has already called and wished us a good morning.” Eric tried to hook them, get their curiosity aroused. “He said that some of our mindless friends smashed in some of his lattice work around the porch, but otherwise it was a quiet night.”
Bryant reached around the pallet they had made and finally found his boxers and pulled them under the blanket. Eric could see him shift his weight under the sheet trying to pull the underclothes on without exposing himself to the doctor. When finished, he slipped away from Cara and stood up. “That’s nice.” His head swiveled around looking for his shirt.
Eric bent down and picked it off the floor, handing it over to the young boy. “Here you go.” He stood back a minute, letting the teenager dress. “I’ve got an experiment that I’d like the two of you to see. Get her up and dressed then meet me at the roof hatch.” The doctor left the room and the two adolescents in it.
Cara rolled over letting the cover slide off of her breasts, unconcerned now that only she and her lover were present. “What do you think this is about?”
Bryant shoved one leg into his jeans. “I have no idea.”
Neither discussed it any further. Exchanging curious glances, they clothed themselves in silence and stepped out into the hall. Cara pulled the army jacket tightly around her, fighting the early morning chill that settled into everything. Walking through the proper doorways, they found the doctor waiting on them.
Eric clasped a rung of the ladder and said, “Follow me.” With deliberate slowness, he incremented his way up to the roof. Cara followed and Bryant climbed up right behind her. Soon, they stood in the full force of a bright morning sun. For a moment, Cara held her hand above her eyes as a shield from the glare. In the direct light, she thought about shedding her jacket. In a few minutes, the heat would coerce the perspiration out of her. The entire environment seemed to single her out at that moment. “Not used to the heat, are you?” A sadistic voice laughed in her head. “Face it, you don’t belong here.”
“I never said that I did.” Cara spoke in her defense.
Bryant looked at her with a strong undercurrent of worry in his eyes. “What was that?”
“Nothing.” She forced a smile that failed to convince. Had she really been vocally responding to a voice in her head? Only crazy people did that! She thought about the constant strain the situation pushed down on her and figured “Hell, I’m probably lucky to be this sane right now.”
Eric did not notice the exchange between them. Instead, he motioned across the roof at the bodies of Daniel and Sylvia. “This way.” He led them forward; small pebbles ground together under the trio’s weight as they trekked toward the ledge. Bryant remembered laying both bodies in their positions and shook his head at the brief recollection of putting a bullet in the little girl’s head to ensure that she never felt like getting up and wandering around. Even though she was already dead, looking at her slack face and aiming a gun at it had almost been too much for him. What kind of animal shoots a kid in the face? He shuddered again. “It’s not like she was alive” he told himself, but it did not help.
Eric stood in front of them and pointed down at Sylvia. “This girl has been dead about twenty-four hours approximately and she never came back as one of them. The basis of this experiment is to determine the range of food they will eat. We know that they eat warm flesh. Let’s see how picky they are.” Eric quickly rolled the body over the edge where it disappeared over the lip of the building.
Bryant’s eyes widened with shock and Cara covered her mouth, but they still ran forward to see. The couple stopped short of the drop and peered down beside Eric. The child’s body landed on a zombie, breaking its neck. The other creatures pressing against the outer wall took no interest in the old meat.
Eric nodded. “They’re ignoring her. Why is that? It’s free food.” He turned and faced his shocked spectators.
Bryant’s mind reeled from the adult’s calloused treatment of the body. He swallowed, finding himself unable to speak for a moment. “Maybe they like it . . . fresher.” He did not know what else to say.
Eric stooped and rolled Daniel over the edge. Another thump sounded. “Got one!” He exclaimed, looking over his shoulder at them.
Cara gripped Bryant, wanting any comfort she could find in touching him. She stepped back pulling him with her. The couple eased back toward the hatch, trying to avoid Eric’s eyes. Something indefinable disgusted them. Dealing with the severed head, Bryant had not acted any differently, but the two people thrown off the roof like bags of garbage had been people that they knew. The severed head belonged to a stranger at least.
Eric glanced down at the faces below and whistled at them. The moans of the dead rose in volume. He shouted down. “Yeah, you hear me, you ignorant bastards.”
When he turned around, his interested parties were gone. He did not mind. Ignoring the ocean of dead flesh below, he felt serene high above the other buildings, feeling a soft breeze against his face. “If only I had a nice glass of port” he said in an imitation of high society. Before going back inside, he made sure to spit over the edge, hitting a walking corpse squarely in the eye.
Bryant spent his shift listening to Rick curse profusely through the door and wondering how long before the captive shouted himself hoarse. He sat with a shotgun across his knees and read from an outdated issue of Newsweek. Bryant imagined that the magazine found its way into the church due to the cover article about the marketing of religion. When the swearing increased, Bryant began reading aloud.
“You son of a bitch, don’t you preach at me!”
Bryant kept his eyes on the text. “I’m not preaching. I’m reading Newsweek. Besides, it might do you some good.” Bryant continued reading despite the captive’s remarks.
“What good could it do me? It’s not like that shit matters anymore.”