The Remaining (13 page)

“Is she okay?”

The older woman who introduced herself as Beverly is asking about Allison. Tommy looks over to see Jack holding Allison in the pew. The muted light and low murmurs make everything feel more ominous and creepy. If they could just get out of this place with all of its religious mumbo jumbo and strange heavenly feelings, their outlook might improve. But for now, the place feels like a divine prison.

“She’ll be okay,” Tommy says.

It’s been half an hour since Tommy witnessed the birth of the mother’s dead baby. Now he doesn’t know what to think or say. Allison is still weeping somewhat
uncontrollably while Jack holds her and tries to make her feel better. Dan and Skylar are still somewhere in the back of the church, hopefully sleeping or at least chilling out.

“They keep coming in here,” Beverly says.

“Yeah. While I want to get out of here.”

Every now and then he checks his phone. It’s dead and it’s been dead for a while, but he checks it just in case. A few people have still been trying to make calls or connect with someone on their phones. Nobody’s said they’ve gotten through, however.

Maybe there’s nobody out there to get through to.

Pastor Shay steps into the sanctuary looking tired and sweaty. “Hey, Tommy. Can I talk with you?”

He wants to tell the pastor no, he doesn’t want to talk. Surely the pastor is going to ask him to do something he doesn’t want to do. And he’ll probably do it because that’s what Tommy does. He’s the nice guy. He’s the guy who isn’t attached to anybody and he’s doing what anybody else asks and those guys always
 
—
always
 
—get killed off first in horror movies. They never make it to the end. Who cares if they live or die anyway? It’s usually the girl with the guy at her side who makes it to the end.

“I need you to help me downstairs in the basement,” the pastor tells him.

There’s a basement? Wonderful.

Of course he nods. Of course he’s going to follow the pastor down into the basement. At this point what else is there for him to do?

Well, maybe you can pray and ask . . . Oh, wait, you don’t do that.

Pastor Shay’s eyes are grim as they scan the pews of the church. He doesn’t appear to even want to reach out and help anybody. Instead he looks pessimistic and frightened. “Come on then,” he tells Tommy.

A hallway leads to a door that opens on a set of concrete steps. This would be where the pastor turns out to be a serial killer in the horror movie that Tommy wouldn’t survive.

He’s leading Tommy to a dark passageway lit only by the shaking glow of his lantern.

Soon they open a door and enter a room that looks like storage. There’s a door at the back of the room. Tommy half expects to see something freaky like a mannequin that maybe looks like the pastor coming to life and talking to him.

“Half this basement is unfinished,” Shay tells him as he opens the door and leads Tommy into a cold, massive room.

The first thing Tommy notices is that the floor is dirt. It’s soft, the air musty. Metal pillars are placed in strategic positions around the open area. For some reason, Tommy thinks of his favorite television show when the main character was burying money in the crawl space. Yet this is much larger than a simple crawl space. There’s no crawling necessary down here.

“We always imagined finishing this space off eventually,” Pastor Shay says, walking toward the side wall of the room. “Guess there’s really no point now, huh?”

Tommy doesn’t reply. He spots a shovel and then gets why he’s here. Next to a shovel, he spots a couple more. Then he sees the pile of dirt close by.

They’re graves. Somebody’s dug fresh graves down here.

“I didn’t want a bunch of dead bodies upstairs freaking people out,” Shay tells him. “We’ve been burying bodies all night.”

Tommy wants to throw up.

Pastor Shay takes a shovel and starts to dig a hole at the end of the row of graves. Tommy counts them. Six, seven, eight of them. He slowly walks toward the pastor, wondering for a second who this hole will be for.

Then he has a sudden and awful realization. “Did you know the baby was going to be stillborn?” Tommy asks.

“I knew. He was an innocent.”

Shay’s words are cut with heavy, frantic breathing.

“I still don’t get it. Why would God kill all these people and an innocent baby?”

“He didn’t kill them. He took their souls and left their mortal bodies here. The baby didn’t get death. He got life.”

The scene back there with the wailing mother and the weeping father sure didn’t look like
life
to Tommy, but he doesn’t say anything to argue. He picks up a shovel to start helping with the hole.

“I was at home having dinner with my family when they all
 
—they were all taken. I didn’t know what was happening
 
—and then I heard the first trumpet. The most terrifying thing I think I’ve ever heard.”

Tommy doesn’t say anything. He remembers the trumpet blasts all too well.

“I froze when I heard it. I knew instantly. The other trumpet calls just confirmed it. The only thing I could think to do after that was to come here.”

Tommy wipes sweat off his forehead and stops for a moment. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

“It wasn’t my loss. It was their gain.”

This sounds like typical pastor talk, though the guy giving it certainly doesn’t seem to fit with the typical pastors Tommy has known in his life.

“So why weren’t you taken?”

“Just because you have a church and a title doesn’t mean you have real faith. I had no relationship, no trust. I just had false comfort. That’s how I failed.”

Even though he can barely see the pastor’s face since the light is behind him, Tommy can tell the man is tearing up. He wants to ask more questions but just can’t. He knows Shay is being honest with him, but that doesn’t mean he can’t be completely out of his freaking mind.

Tommy keeps digging. His tired mind and body are both failing and full of adrenaline. He thinks of the famous movie
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
. The end where there are only two men left at the cemetery.
“You see, in this world there’s two kinds of people, my friend: those with loaded guns, and those who dig. You dig.”

I think I’ve always been the one digging in my life. I’ve always been surrounded by people with guns. Dan, Skylar,
Allison, Jack
 
—all of them are gun-toting fools. But not me. I’m the digger. Always have been and always will be.

“Come on, let’s finish this hole,” Shay says.

Tommy never thought he’d hear such impassionate words being uttered by a pastor.

Then again, he never thought he’d be digging a grave in the basement of a church.

Tommy and Pastor Shay watch as the man holds the small bundle in his hands. It’s wrapped in a blanket that was taken from the nursery. This little life never had a chance. It never had an opportunity.

Then again, if Shay is right, all this baby ever had was opportunity. He would never have the chance to grow up and make a mess of things.

Life? Death? What’s the difference now that all of this is happening? This in here and out there.

The father bends over and places the bundle in the ground. Then, kneeling before it, he starts to weep. The cries echo in this empty, dark space. Tommy swallows hard and looks away. He wants to leave but he can’t. He can’t move.

And then Tommy does decide. He wipes tears off his cheeks, feeling the anger curl deep inside him. There is nothing but ugliness here. And the only thing Tommy wants to know is why.

Why?

Just wait.

So I’m told.

Wait. Then wait a little longer.

Boys will be boys.

It takes them a little longer to grow up.

The games, the nights out, the long days gone, the growing pains.

Just wait, Allison.

So he tells me.

It’ll all work out.

So he says.

So I wait. I wait on Jack. Waiting until he’s ready for
something more. Waiting because I believe he’s the right one. Yet each day that passes strips a little shard from the shell of belief covering me.

Wait.

That’s all I do.

I wait.

Allison and Jack sit in a side room off the hallway heading into the church sanctuary. They finally have a chance to be alone and talk and not deal with anything else. At least for these few moments.

“I just wanted to say sorry for how I stormed out of the reception.”

Jack’s leg touches her and his hand holds hers in a firm grasp that doesn’t feel like it will ever let go.

“I’m sorry I was the reason you left.”

Considering everything that has happened
 
—all of the death around them combined with the confusion and terror
 
—their argument seems silly and stupid. So many things seem silly and stupid suddenly.

Jack doesn’t have his arrogant do-whatever-you-want look on his face like he sometimes does. She’s sure she doesn’t have that awful witchy look on her face like she knows she does when they argue and she doesn’t get her way.

Nobody’s getting their way anymore.

“You came looking for me,” she says softly. “That’s all that matters.”

She actually manages to smile, and Jack mirrors it. It’s nice to see that smile. She really believed she’d never see it again.

“So when did you start going to this church?” Jack asks her in a sincere manner, not a mocking tone like he might have used hours earlier.

“About six months ago. I don’t know. . . . It’s not like an every-Sunday thing or anything.”

“How come you never told me?”

“I knew you’d laugh,” she says with a nervous chuckle. “Laugh and roll your eyes.”

“Yeah, you’re right. I probably would have. Then.”

He takes his other hand and grips her hand tightly with both of his. He suddenly looks very serious and, in a way, sad.

“I don’t know what I was waiting for or why it took me so long,” Jack says. “I guess I was waiting around for a sign. Like some eureka moment to happen. You just have to make a choice. I realize that. I love you. I
know
that, and I want to marry you.”

Jack swallows and then moves out of his seat, bending on one knee while still holding her hands.

What’s he doing? Now? He’s going to do this now?

She wants to both run out of this room and also rush to embrace him. But Allison does neither. She’s just absolutely shocked, more so by this than by anything else that’s happened today.

But the moment is suddenly frozen in time.

A banging at the doorway interrupts them, accompanied by “Guys, you need to see this!” shouted by Tommy.

Jack looks at Tommy and is about to say something, but he stands and helps Allison up as well.

Tommy holds his video camera in his hands and motions to it that whatever he has to show them is on it. Allison is half glad for the interruption. She doesn’t know what she feels right now. A part of her feels like laughing and another part feels like breaking down to cry. Every inch of her is so full.

Of all the times and all the places . . .

Yet she knew it was probably going to be like this. Things never come at the right time. The moment your parents split up. The moment you lose the love of your life. The moment the world decides to end.

Tommy is cueing up the video. Allison glances briefly at Jack, who has his annoyed look on his face. He spots her looking at him and smiles. She does the same, hesitantly.

The sound of footsteps makes her look at the doorway. She sees the sweaty face of Pastor Shay. “What’s going on?” he asks.

“I’m showing them something I just found. Here, come watch this.”

“What is it?”

“I was filming
 
—when we were outside
 
—I have it on tape.”

“What?” Jack asks.

Tommy keeps pressing buttons until he finally gets to the right moment.

The video starts playing on the small monitor attached to the recorder. It’s a scene from outside. Allison sees her friends moving on the street in the murky light. She can’t believe how dark it is and how scared everybody looks.

The sound of something like a trumpet wailing in the background overwhelms the camera’s tiny speaker. On the screen, everybody stops. The video is jittery and shaking, but Allison can still see clearly enough to make out the terror on Skylar’s face.

“The fifth angel sounded his trumpet and opened the Abyss,” Pastor Shay says.

The camera is moving as if Tommy was trying to follow the direction of the blaring horns. For a moment they can see only darkness.

“The sun and the sky were darkened and locusts came down upon the earth.”

Allison is not sure what the pastor is referring to. She can see Skylar back on the screen, looking all around her until
 
—

She’s grabbed by something and disappears.

No no no.

“Whoa,” they all collectively gasp.

“What the
 
—?” Jack starts to say.

“And were given power like that of scorpions of the earth,” Pastor Shay finishes.

Tommy rewinds a bit and then pauses.

There’s something Allison can make out in the darkness. Some kind of strange shadow hovering right over Skylar. It’s like the night suddenly grew teeth and pulled her into the thick black.

They stare at the freaky image.

“They had hair like women’s hair, and their teeth were like lions’ teeth,” Pastor Shay says. “The sound of their wings was like the thundering of many horses rushing into battle.”

If it were up to Allison she’d tell the pastor to shut up. He’s really freaking her out. But she can’t. She’s afraid to.

“Look at this,” Tommy says as he starts zooming in on the shape. It’s blurry with the pixels having a hard time forming the outline, but she can make out something.

What is that?

Jack curses.

Allison feels goosebumps. Whatever they’re looking at
 
—this dimly lit
thing
 
—it’s terrifying. She can make out stringy hair and long wings and an even longer tail.

That thing is grotesque.

It’s something out of a nightmare. Something terrifying. Something unimaginable.

“They had tails with stingers, like scorpions, and they had the power to torment people.”

“Okay, now you’re just freaking us all out,” Jack says to the pastor. “What are you talking about? And what is that thing?”

“One of the fallen,” Shay tells them. “The opposite of life.”

“You talking demons?” Allison asks.

The pastor nods.

Wonderful.

“What do they want?” Jack asks.

It’s not a question of whether there’s really anything there. They all know now there’s something there.

“To torture. To destroy.”

I’m glad I’m not a full-time member of your church, Pastor Doom and Gloom.

“There’s got to be a way to fight them,” Jack says.

Tommy just stands there, the implications of this discovery clear on his face. Allison knows he’d normally be beaming with pride, but there’s not one ounce of it on Tommy’s face. Just bleak terror.

They all wait for the pastor to explain more. “This is the first season of bad things to come.”

“The first?” Tommy asks.

Shay nods and looks at them without any sort of reaction. It’s like he’s known this was coming for years. “It’s going to get worse,” the pastor tells them in a low, no-nonsense manner.

Allison glances at Jack, who just stares ahead at the pastor.

Maybe she doesn’t need to worry about waiting for a proposal anymore. Maybe that’s been the reason all along. It was never meant to happen because the end was near.

And now, the end doesn’t look just near. It’s scratching at the window waiting to come in.

Waiting to come in and prick the life out of every single one of them.