Raine considered every word of Edwards’s speech. She didn’t know what his true intentions were, but she could see the same glazed-eyed dementia she’d noticed when she’d found him shivering alone in the research facility where she had left him to die. Whatever he had in store for Ethan, for the rest of them, it would be drenched in the same fundamentalist insanity.
‘First, our new initiate must stand before God to know his destiny. Owen, are you ready to receive his judgement?’
The young man waiting patiently on the front pew got to his feet and puffed out his chest beneath his modest robe.
‘Yes, Father,’ he said.
‘Then approach.’ Edwards stepped away from the pulpit to greet Owen as he climbed the steps onto the stage.
One of the other robed men walked over to the vestry and disappeared behind its door.
‘Here is the call for endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and their faith in Jesus.’
After Edwards recited the passage, Owen got down on one knee and bowed.
‘I’m not afraid, Father. I shall be judged by his grace and accept it. To become his cursed or his hand would be the greatest honour.’
Edwards smiled down on him.
‘I cannot foretell what will become of you, my child, but I do know that God loves those who love him. We will know what he has in store for you soon enough.’
The man who had entered the vestry emerged with a wooden box. It was just small enough to carry at chest height, and its surface looked varnished and well cared for.
The congregation followed it with their eyes as the man transported the box to the stage and placed it next to where Owen was kneeling.
Owen responded by rolling the sleeve on his right arm and presenting the bare flesh to the robed man.
Edwards nodded to his minion and the man slid the lid away. The smell of decay immediately escaped into the room, carrying into the crowd and to the crated captives. The man reached into the box and removed the creature’s severed head from its nesting place, gripping it by its hair and holding it aloft to the mesmerised worshippers like Perseus after he had slain the gorgon Medusa.
The decapitated head seemed to wake from stasis when light got to its withered, almost grey skin. It opened its eyes and gazed from the stage into the crowd of the living, letting out a groan of acknowledgement.
Ethan knew what was coming, reluctantly recalling the awful memory of the facility at the mercy of Doctor Grant and his callous experiment. Unlike him, this young man wanted it to happen. He may have even dreamt about this moment, excited by the prospect.
Regardless, Ethan couldn’t just stand there and let it unfold. But as soon as he took one step forwards, he felt a strong hand grab the top of his arm.
He stared into the pale face of the guard flanking him. The disciple was in no mood to let him go, and the confident shake of the head he gave Ethan suggested it was futile to put him to the test.
Ethan dropped his shoulders, as helpless as his friends in the crate. They had also guessed what the ceremony entailed but could only watch in horror.
‘Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life,’ Edwards said.
This was the cue for the robed man to lower the head to Owen’s trembling flesh.
The head became aware of the opportunity presenting itself and opened its jaws, readying its festering teeth and gums.
Ethan refused to bear witness, turning up his nose and screwing his eyes shut.
The creature clamped down on Owen’s forearm, instantly puncturing his skin. The young man bit into his own lip and struggled to keep in the pain, refusing to cry out.
In the creature’s decapitated state, it had no ability to tear the flesh from the muscle and could only draw in the blood from the wound.
After only a few seconds, the robed man took his knife in his other hand and struck the crown of the severed head with its handle. The trauma from the blow caused the creature’s jaw to pop open again.
Owen was free from its attempt to feed and cradled his bleeding arm.
The disciple quickly placed the dazed head back into its box and slid the lid in place. He lifted the box under one arm and helped Owen to his feet with the other.
Sweating and grimacing from the bite, Owen looked into the eyes of his leader and nodded defiantly.
‘True courage, Owen. Rest now. I will come to you shortly,’ Edwards said.
The disciple guided Owen across the stage and into the privacy of the vestry.
Edwards moved back to his pulpit in order to address his flock.
‘Time will be our guide now. Over the coming days, we will see what our Lord has planned for young Owen. He will either pull through and emerge from the darkness as our new Hand or he will rise again in a different form to fight for the pure of heart.’
‘Someone mind telling me what the hell just happened?’ Jason whispered. ‘That kid offered himself up like a piece of meat.’
‘We know,’ O.B. said. ‘We all saw.’
Foster edged to the far left of the crate so she could get as close as she could to the disciple flanking Ethan. She examined him, hoping he would turn in their direction, and eventually he did.
The man stared right at her. She recognised his pallid complexion, the almost translucent skin exposing the veins beneath, and the distinct discolouration of his sclera.
She’d already started to put the pieces together in her mind, and the man’s appearance confirmed her worst fears.
‘The men, the ones who captured us, they’re all infected,’ she said.
‘What are you saying?’ Jason asked.
‘Edwards has the serum. He must have taken it with him when he escaped the facility. He’s administering it to those men so they can walk among the dead undetected,’ she said.
‘Not only them,’ Raine said. She was pressed up against the bars, her eyes fixed on the unhinged priest. ‘Look at him. He didn’t get out of the facility without being bitten.’
‘The rest of his followers aren’t. Maybe we can get to them,’ Jason said.
‘And how do you suggest we do that, genius? He’s obviously spent months indoctrinating them with his crazy shit,’ O.B. said.
‘I don’t see you coming up with any ideas,’ Jason snapped.
‘The only way we’re getting out of here is through the person we have on the outside,’ Raine said, shifting her stare to Ethan.
‘We don’t know how much of Ethan is still in there,’ O.B. replied.
‘If he was going to turn on us, you’ve done an excellent job of moving that along,’ Foster said.
Edwards gestured to his henchman, and the others had to watch as he led Ethan from the stage.
All Ethan could manage was a nervous glance back to Foster.
‘Before you return to your homes, let us pray.’ Edwards clasped his hands together and closed his eyes.
The men, women, and children of the congregation followed his lead.
‘Dear Lord, please protect these families during the difficult days and weeks to come, and give us the strength to do what we must in the battle for our eternal souls. May you show mercy to your enemies, even if we cannot. Amen.’
A collective ‘Amen’ was repeated by his followers in response.
Edwards opened his eyes to look upon them and smiled.
‘Please get some rest. We will gather again tomorrow. There is much work to be done.’
Silently and carefully, each member shuffled to the aisles and filed out of the church entrance.
Edwards waited on stage until they had all left before he made his way towards the vestry door.
‘Edwards,’ Raine called.
At first, he ignored her, but when she called his name a second time, he stopped and turned to the holding cell.
‘I will have someone come and escort you back to your quarters. Don’t worry, we’ll get a chance to talk very soon,
’ he said.
‘Wait!’ Raine said.
This time Edwards did not reply and instead retired to his chambers.
3
The Snowcat emerged from the dense cover of the British Columbian wilderness like a spluttering old grizzly bear in the midst of its final breath.
Salty felt fortune was on their side when he spied the weathered asphalt of Highway 37 and, on the other side, the snowy rooftops of the work camp and gas station at Meziadin Junction. Meziadin was situated where the highway split in its path from Terrace to Dease Lake, one branch heading over Bear Pass to Stewart.
Salty had managed to navigate using the maps he’d found to exactly where he wanted to be. He stopped short of the highway and pulled his binoculars from his pack. He scanned the wooden cabins at the camp, the accommodations, fuel station, general store, and restaurant. There were no lights or movement he could detect.
Anna sat alongside him, staring at the camp with equal curiosity.
Salty lowered the binoculars and chewed on his lip while he considered his next move. Although his intention was to get the Snowcat to the gas pumps in the hope he could fill the empty tank, he knew bringing the vehicle any closer would surely alert potential ambushers waiting for victims.
He zipped up his jacket to his neck and snatched his rifle and pack from the footwell.
‘Let’s take a look-see,’ he said.
Anna couldn’t wait to jump out and stretch her legs. They’d been cooped up for hours trying to make the final miles needed to reach the junction before the Snowcat ran down to fumes.
She took off, kicking up plumes of loose powder with her back paws, racing over the empty highway.
‘Hey! Don’t stray too far,’ Salty said, his tone inflecting the concern of a father.
As he got to the middle of the highway, he looked past the camp and over to Meziadin Park and Lake.
There were at least thirty motorhomes and tents lining the edge of the water. It was impossible to tell whether they had been abandoned during the outbreak or had arrived since. Either way, it was unlikely that they were inhabited by anything living now.
Just before he hit the trail for the camp, he came upon a sign warning about the dangers of hitch-hiking. It featured a pretty competent print of a painting that depicted a lone woman trying to thumb a lift. As a car approached, the wispy spectres of supposedly dead hitch-hikers that had gone before swirled around her body, attempting to dissuade her from her course of action, and cross-shaped headstones paved one side of the highway ahead. The rather haunting scene was captioned with a question: ‘Is it worth the risk, sister?’
Salty’s worst fears were realised when he reached the pumps at the gas station. Not only were they locked, they appeared to be empty.
The door was open to the station itself, and he searched the mouldy interior for the attendant’s office.
The place had been gutted of any produce, so the bare shelves had become a hive for dust and intricately woven spiderwebs that stretched several inches long. They had taken the creatures that created them time and care to construct. Salty made a conscious effort not to disturb or damage them.
He found a back room marked ‘Private’ and had to kick it to break the lock.
Although he found the key for the pumps, they had indeed been bled dry.
Salty heard Anna’s light feet as she scuttled by him on her way towards the campsite.
‘No heroics,’ he muttered under his breath. ‘Leave all the dumb shit to me.’
Between Salty and the cluster of buildings at the camp lay a graveyard of broken-down vehicles. Most were cars, off their wheels and nothing more than rusting hulks of bodywork, their rooves topped with hard snow.
There were even a couple long-haul trucks and unhooked trailers stored together. If by some slim chance they had retained all their necessary parts, their engines would have been lying dormant for several months already.
Dodging around the corroding metal automobiles, he caught a whiff of something on the breeze that made him raise his rifle instantly. It was the smell of death—fresh death. This was no reanimated corpse. Someone had been killed, and they were slain recently.
He followed his nose to one block of chalets, then the open door towards the centre of the block.
The sickening hum of the fly swarm infected his ears as he swung around the door to aim his rifle inside.
The dead body sat up against the wall, one wrist handcuffed to a bedpost. It was the corpse of a man, stripped naked. His face and genitals had been mutilated, and the blood trailed down the middle of his body and between his legs like a red river, ending at his feet. The sheets on the bed had been bloodied too, but not by him. Whomever had done this to him had used the sheets to wipe their hands.
Salty checked the bathroom was clear before returning to the corpse. Taking a closer look, he noticed his penis and testicles had been removed completely, along with his eyes and part of his tongue.
He hoped for the man’s sake that the crude surgery had not been performed while he was still alive, but he feared that would be a futile wish. Salty shivered at the thought and pulled one of the sheets from the mattress.
‘If someone did this to you for a reason, friend, I don’t even wanna know what you did.’ He tossed the sheet over the man’s head to cover the grotesque sight.
A thud on the wall behind the corpse caused Salty to shuffle back and lift his rifle. The sound came again. It emanated from the next chalet.
He rushed outside and turned the handle. The door was unlocked.
The noise was being created by another captive. He smashed the back of his head against the wall a third time just as Salty entered and saw him. He too was sitting on the floor, chained to the radiator by his left wrist.
The young man clenched his teeth around the dirty gag in his mouth and tried to scream, tugging violently at the chain that bound him in place.
His long black hair was straggly with sweat, his thin handlebar moustache almost indistinguishable due to the heavy bruises and swelling around his face.
His beaten condition and the desperation in his eyes as he pleaded through the gag for Salty to help him contrasted with his electric pink short-sleeved shirt scattered with images of palm trees to such a degree that it appeared darkly comical.
The muffled screaming was beginning to get on Salty’s nerves, and he put a finger to his lips to indicate to the man that he wanted him to quiet down.
As Salty moved towards him, the man adhered to his instruction and stopped screaming. Tears of frustration and panic streamed down his face, washing away some of the grime from his cheeks. Salty took pity on him enough to slide the gag down over his chin to rest around his neck.
‘You have to get me out of here,’ the man said.
‘I don’t have to do anything,’ Salty replied, and the man’s brow furrowed.
‘Are you fucking crazy?’
‘Not quite, which is why I ain’t just gonna cut you loose without an explanation as to how you ended up here in the first place.’
‘Look, man. We don’t have time for this. I’ll tell you everything once we’re out of here. You don’t get it. These people… they’re barely even people,’ the man said.
Salty let out a weary sigh and dropped to one knee.
‘You’ve got two choices, cupcake. You can argue about how we’re gonna do this until your friends come back and finish the job, or you can start talkin’,’ he said. ‘What’s your name?’
‘My name’s Teddy. Teddy Jackson. Me and my friend Josh stumbled upon this place searching for supplies. These maniacs came out of nowhere and knocked me unconscious. The next thing I know, I woke up in here. Those freaks have been holding me and torturing me for two fucking days. I could hear Josh screaming in the other room, but not since last night. Is he dead?’
‘I hate to break it to you like this, but I would say dead is a bit of an understatement,’ Salty said.
<
br /> Teddy grimaced, contorting the large swellings on his face before slamming the back of his head against the wall again.
‘Fucking animals. Please, man. Please, you can’t leave me here.’
‘So it would seem,’ Salty said.
‘I get you don’t know me from Adam, but I swear, you let me go and I’ll be on my way. I won’t give you any trouble,’ Teddy said.
Both men were alerted by the distant barking of a dog, and Salty jumped to his feet.
‘Wait. Where are you going?’ Teddy asked.
‘That’s Anna. She wouldn’t be makin’ that racket for nothin’.’ Salty walked to the chalet door so he could look outside.
‘Hey, don’t leave me,’ Teddy pleaded.
Salty ignored him, instead looking south to where the barking originated.
He saw Anna’s outline standing on the bank of the lake in a defensive stance. Pulling the binoculars from his pack to take a closer look, he noticed her ears were raised as she focussed on something approaching on the water. He followed her line of sight and saw the single outboard motorboat skipping across the surface of the lake. Inside were three passengers.
‘Goddamnit!’ he said.
‘What is it?’ Teddy asked.
‘A boat on its way inland.’
A distinct sense of terror raged in Teddy’s eyes, and he started to yank on the chain tying him to the radiator, quite prepared to tear his own arm off to free himself.
‘It’s them! They’re coming back. Get this fucking thing off me. Get it off!’
Before he could say another word, Salty returned to his side and pulled the gag over his mouth.
‘If I’m gonna negotiate with your friends on their own turf, I wanna be the only one doin’ the talkin’. Sit tight, cupcake.’
The pat on the head Salty gave him only served to anger Teddy further before he left the man in the chalet just as he’d found him, struggling and screaming.
Salty shut the door to quieten his protests. If these people were as volatile as Teddy claimed, the last thing he needed was for them to know he’d already seen their handiwork.
Before the boat could reach the shore, Anna took off in the direction of the work camp to make sure her companion had been warned of the new arrival.
Everything Dies | Season 3 Page 14