Now, Norm has gotten off an exit and we are facing south. It is not choked with cars, but there are a few in our way. Norm swerves through them easily enough. We are not near any big city. Nothing like Washington D.C.
The place Norm has pointed to is a church. It’s rather large, and it’s easily the nicest thing around. The steeple juts high in the sky, a glass facade glimmers in the fading sunlight. It’s as if this holy place has been untouched by the apocalypse.
The town, I see, is called Butain. I’m not sure what state we are in anymore and I really don’t care. The concept of states are pointless now. Same with towns, districts, and borders. The dead know no boundaries.
“This is it,” I say.
“I know,” Norm says.
“I don’t like it,” Darlene says. “It’s…gothic.”
“Some churches are, but I think Mother would like it,” I say.
Darlene gives me an uneasy smile. “I hope so.”
We pull into the parking lot. There are a few cars left, but I don’t see any zombies inside of them or any dead bodies. The grass is green and full. Flowerbeds line the walkway to the large oaken doors. All the windows are intact and clean. I get this feeling in the pit of my stomach. Not a good one. I’m no idiot and neither are any of my group. Someone has been taking care of this church during the apocalypse, but who?
Norm parks between a pickup truck and a Chevy Volt. Both vehicles are sparkling clean and waxed.
“It’s so pretty!” Herb says from the front seat. “I wish Abby would wake up so she could see it.”
“She’ll be awake soon enough,” Klein says, leaning forwards and patting Herb on his shoulder.
“Weapons?” Norm asks.
I give him a nod and hear Darlene scoff softly next to me. I don’t have to explain to her that beauty isn’t everything. The way society is now, without any police forces or rules or laws, you have to be cautious. Sure, the building is nice and the grounds have been kept, but that doesn’t mean the people inside of the building will be the same. They could be dead. They could be zombies, recently turned. I know, I know, my head is going through all these scenarios and you’re probably thinking I’m a pessimist, but wouldn’t you be, if you’d gone through all the bullshit I’ve gone through?
I think so.
Norm checks the pistol he has for ammunition. I get out of the van. My heart is beating faster than I’d like it to be. I feel like I’m about to give a big speech or something, all sweaty under my arms and my hands are all swampy.
I turn to Darlene, expecting a kiss and her ritualistic good luck wish, but she’s crawling out after me. She sets Abby’s head gently down on the seat, takes her jacket and sets it over her torso.
“What are you doing?” I ask.
“Going with you,” she says.
“No — ”
“Jack, I love you, but you don’t control me. You know that, right?”
I chuckle. If anything, it’s the other way around. I smile. “Darlene, I think it’s best you stay behind. Let us — ”
“Let the men clear out the place so the little old ladies can be safe.” She snorts. “Gimme a break, Jack. Have you forgotten what I did to that creep Blade already?”
I shudder. I don’t think I could ever forget that. She stabbed the cannibal in the neck with the same pen she used to write these really beautiful poems. It’s weird to think that a tool used for such delicacy could also be used for such barbaric purposes. Then again, when I was younger, how many screwed-up horror stories did I write in my composition notebook? A good amount. Still, though, I don’t think I’ll ever get the image of Blade’s blood spurting from the pen-sized hole in his neck. Yuck.
So I shake my head.
“Let the gal tag along,” Norm says. “She’s proven her worth.” He says it jokingly enough. “And with Abby a little under the weather, we could use all the help we can get.”
I turn to Klein, giving him a look that asks if he’ll come with us, but he just shakes his head and clutches that damn bag against his chest tighter. I hate that bag, I don’t know why. It just pisses me off. I think because he almost got us both killed when he wouldn’t drop it. Sometimes, I don’t even think the Doc knows what’s in that bag. Not really. Then again, I think of what he went through to get it and I saw D.C. firsthand. I know exactly what he went through to get it.
I think about the Mojave Desert now, how I’ve never really been out West. It sucks that the first time I saw Washington D.C. and now the West Coast will be once the damn world has ended. Go figure, just my luck.
Then, I look to Herb, but he has the glove box open and is reading the Ford’s owner’s manual…upside down. This causes me to smile. I would never ask Herb to help us kill zombies. In a way, he’s like the family’s youngest — but biggest — kid. I sigh. “All right,” I say to Darlene, reaching out to help her from the SUV. She doesn’t take my hand. Guess she doesn’t need my help and apparently chivalry is dead and all that.
“I got it,” she says.
I pull one of the guns I have from my waistband and hand it to her. “Be careful,” I say.
She rolls her eyes and says, “I got it.”
“Just stay behind me,” I say.
Norm walks over to us, claps me on the back, and says, “And you stay behind me, little bro.” Now, it’s my turn to roll my eyes and as I do, I see Herb peeking at us from the front passenger’s window. He still holds the owner’s manual upside down. There’s beads of sweat on his face despite the coolness in the air. It’s a perfect day by my standards — not too hot, not too cold, a little sunshine, a little breeze. If all that shit didn’t go down in Washington and the village, I’d imagine I’d feel pretty damn good. Alas, that’s not been the case. Still, seeing Herb with the upside down owner’s manual slays me and I find myself smiling.
I lean into the window and give his hand a squeeze. He jumps a little despite seeing me coming from a mile away. “We’ll be right back, Herb,” I say.
“I know, Jacky,” he answers.
“Keep Doc Klein and Abby safe for me, okay, big guy?” I say.
“What if…what if all those runny dead guys come for us?” he asks.
I get lower so I’m almost face to face with Herb. “They won’t. We would’ve seen them on our way up here and if they do — but they won’t, I pinky promise — we’ll be right there. Just a few steps away.” I put my pinky out and he takes it.
“Okay, Jacky, I trust you,” he says. He finally puts the owner’s manual down.
Norm leans on me. “You hear or see anything, Herb, you beep the horn, all right?”
Herb nods.
“Don’t worry, Herb,” I say. “It’ll all be okay.”
He smiles. I can tell it’s not real, but what more can I do? So I smile back at him and turn toward the church’s doors.
It’s now I notice the darkness bleeding into the blue sky farther away. A storm’s coming. I think I can feel the electricity in the air.
We all tighten our grips on the weapons we have and climb the church’s front steps.
Sixteen
The smell is lilacs.
There are three candles burning low in the darkness at the altar. A large statue of Jesus Christ hangs on the wall. He is on the cross, his ribs sticking out, his face in anguish, tears of blood stream from the corners of his eyes.
I’m unsettled, but I’ve always been unsettled when walking into churches. My grandmother, who used to attend Christmas Mass with us a very long time ago, had once called me the Antichrist. I don’t think I’m that bad. I certainly don’t burst into flames or anything like that once I’m past the threshold. I think my grandma was just a bitter old woman.
Darlene does, in fact, stay behind me. I feel her tensing up.
Norm turns around and gives me a look that says we should probably get the hell out of here. I nod back to him. He’s right. It was just too perfect, I guess.
We spin around and head for the door and just as I’m
reaching out to push the heavy oak open so we can head back to the car, I hear a voice behind me.
“Welcome! Welcome!” the voice says.
I close my eyes and think so close. We almost made it without any bloodshed. The fact the door wasn’t locked should’ve been my first sign that whoever’s in here is crazy.
“Where are you going? What’s the matter? Is it the smell? I can burn different candles. Please. Just give me a moment. Just give me a moment to go down to the basement and get more candles. Please…please… Please!”
I turn around, flicking the safety off the pistol I’m holding. If the voice is any inclination, we’ve stumbled into a crazy man’s web.
A man dressed in a monk’s robes stands at the altar. He has a book in his hand, the Holy Bible, and a weird smile on his face. His eyelids are virtually nonexistent, his eyes are so wide. It’s as if he hasn’t seen live people in years, not months. I find myself taking my finger away from the trigger, mainly out of pity.
Darlene even straightens up and relaxes a bit. Norm, though, doesn’t. He eyes the robed man wearily. I think Eden still haunts him. It certainly haunts me so I can’t imagine how he feels about it.
The robed man makes his way down the few altar steps. I step back, shielding Darlene more as I do so.
Norm raises his weapon. “That’s far enough,” he says.
The man drops his Bible. It makes a loud oomph as it hits the carpeted steps and goes cartwheeling out of sight beneath the front pews. He puts his hands up. “I don’t have anything, really. I have a little bit of food. A little bit. Please.” He falls on his knees, cups his hands together, and looks up to the ceiling beams. Faint sunlight is streaming in. I see motes of dust floating all around us. How long until the sunlight is gone…for good? I shake my head.
“We don’t want anything,” I say. “We have someone special to us we would like to bury.”
The priest’s eyes light up. “You mean it?” he smiles, then promptly covers his mouth. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to smile. It’s just that I’m happy you aren’t here to kill me…or worse.”
I can’t think of what’s worse than that, but I don’t pry.
“Stand up, man,” Norm says.
The man does.
“We saw the cemetery in the back,” I say. “It’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” the man says. “I’ve spent many hours out there tending to it — the whole grounds, in fact…there’s not much else to do.”
I holster my gun into my waistband. Darlene does the same. This man isn’t dangerous. He’s just alone and I feel for him.
Now he looks like he is thinking very hard. It almost puts Herb to shame, furrowed brow, tongue hanging from the corner of his mouth. Except this man is much older and, from what I gather, mostly all there. “But I don’t have many spots left. When the…the…”
“I know,” I say.
When the virus hit, this man had to bury his loved ones. Had to see them either turned to walking monsters or meals. It’s a wonder all of us aren’t mentally fucked up.
“I’m sure we can find a place,” he says. He looks away from us. I see tears welling up in his eyes, hear the hitch in his voice. “Just please don’t leave,” he says. “I hate being alone.”
Seventeen
The man’s name is Father Michael. He has since stopped crying. We have promised to stay the night with him under the shelter of his church’s roof. The church is called Our Lady, Victorious, and I think to myself how perfect of a place it is to bury Mother. Even in defeat, she was victorious.
It’s weird how much it hurts me to think about her gone. And her last words echo in my head, especially now that I’m carrying her to the grave we’ve dug.
“Jack, you will have to stop them. They will destroy it all!”
Who will and what will they destroy? I don’t know.
I’ve told no one about what Mother said to me. I don’t think I could. Besides, I don’t think anyone would know what she was talking about anyway. As much as I shouldn’t worry, as much as I should brush those last words off as death babble, I can’t. There was just something about her face and her eyes. They were so intense, almost looking through me into a future only she could see.
The rest of the group is gathered around the freshly dug hole — except for Abby who sleeps on a bed made on one of the pews and Klein who’d offered to stay with her in case she woke up. He didn’t know Mother after all, though he’s sorry for our loss.
The wind whips our clothes and hair all around us. The storm is nearly here. I can smell the moisture in the air. Leaves are rustling, now flipped, revealing their paler sides. Any minute, the dark clouds above us will burst and the downpour will drown us, but it won’t drown our sorrows.
Herb is sniffling very loud. He was the last to know of her passing and naturally, he didn’t take it well. I hate seeing him like this. I hate this. Burying people I care about. It never ends. You get close to someone in the apocalypse and the next thing you know the rug of your relationship is swept out from beneath your feet. It almost makes me want to quit going on. But I can’t. I have to keep going. I have to keep surviving, if not for my family and myself, then for the ones who I’ve lost.
Father Michael offered to read from his Good Book as we lay Mother to rest. I don’t know what her religion was. I don’t think any of us did. I know she was a big believer in God — which God, I couldn’t tell you. I like to think stuff like that doesn’t matter when you’re dead, at least to me. I like to think Mother was a big believer in the Universe and the way it’s all connected…somehow. Finding this beautiful place seemingly untouched by The End is evidence of something much bigger working behind the scenes. The fact we survived the plague and all the other hardships is also more evidence, I think. We are here for a reason.
I give Mother to Norm, who takes her with wet eyes, and I crawl down into the freshly dug hole. It’s nowhere near six feet deep. We don’t have the tools or the strength and our time is shorter now because of the storm.
Once I’m in the hole, I notice my arms are shaking as I hold them up and Norm gives me Mother. She is wrapped in a blanket Father Michael has given us. She weighs next to nothing. I set her down in the soft earth and pull myself up. Darlene is sobbing. Herb has one big arm draped around her. Norm stands next to Darlene. I crawl out of the hole, dirt getting under my fingernails. My vision is watery.
Father Michael begins his sermon.
We bury Mother, we hang our heads low, and cry together, knowing this won’t be the last funeral, but hoping it is.
Eighteen
The storm breaks as we file inside of the church. Doc Klein is sitting on the first pew, his head craned up at the statue of Jesus. He holds the messenger bag on his lap. He’s not crying. He’s not shaking. Hell, I almost think he’s not even breathing.
Abby is behind him, laying under blankets, asleep. She twitches softly from time to time, but otherwise, she is out.
Darlene and I hold hands as we enter the main part of the church. Norm decided to stay outside and chat with Father Michael. They are both smoking cigarettes under an awning. Funerals are sad. Death is sad. That’s one constant in this terrible world; one thing that never changes, I guess.
Darlene excuses herself to go to the bathroom and before she disappears into the dark hallway outside of the church’s main part, she brushes Abby’s hair out of her face.
I sit next to Klein, who remains impassive. Herb sits a little farther down the pew. He takes out a Bible from the side pocket. This book, I think he can actually read, but mainly out of memory. His large fingers scan over the pages and his lips move silently with the words.
“Thank you,” I say to Klein as I settle in on the bench.
“For what?” the Doc says.
“For everything. For helping Abby, for helping me.”
“How did I help you?” he asks. A smile is playing on his lips. He pushes his wiry glasses up his nose. “If I recall correctly, it was you
who helped me in the Capital.”
I shake my head. “You don’t understand — I’m not sure I could even explain it to you.” I lean over to Herb and put my arm around him. “After the sh — crap, I mean — that happened in Eden,” we are in God’s house after all so no cursing, “I was pretty sure there wasn’t anything out in this wasteland that could keep us going, and then Herb here told me about you and how you were going to save the world.”
Klein arches an eyebrow at Herb as if to say it was a secret and Herb broke his trust, but he smiles soon enough.
“I don’t know if I can, Jack,” Klein says. The smile disappears.
“What?” I say. I feel like I’ve just stepped off the edge of a balcony ten stories up.
“It’s not up to me, really. I’m more of a middleman,” he says. He clutches the bag absentmindedly. “I’m sorry, Jack.”
“What do you mean? Middleman?”
“I’ve developed something — it’s all technical and quite boring, so I’ll spare you the details — however I’ve not the facilities or the staff to achieve what we need to achieve,” Klein says. “Yet.”
But he speaks as if he will achieve it and I’m going to help him to the best of my ability. Because I care about the future.
“Doc Klein is the smartest,” Herb says, his face behind the Bible.
I nod and pat him on the thigh. He’s solid muscle. I would say the apocalypse has treated him well, but I think Herb was probably like this long before the virus spread and the dead began to rise.
“I am not, Herb. As much as it pains me to say it,” Klein chuckles, “I’m not. There are far greater minds out there. Still.”
This, I find hard to believe. There’s not many minds left.
“The Mojave?” I ask.
Klein takes his glasses off, breathes on them, and wipes the lenses on a piece of unsoiled fabric of his shirt, then he nods. “Yes, the Mojave.”
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