I was beginning to feel guilty because I’d stopped off and parked on the side of the road and fell asleep for a couple hours and if I’d not done that then maybe I could’ve been there to help fight them. Abby assured me it wouldn’t have made a difference. All of this crap went down while I was still in the big city. I know I said time doesn’t matter, but it did when she told me that. Besides, I saved them — not the whole village, but my family — and I hate to say it, but that’s all that matters.
No, I’m not up in the middle of the night because I’m guilty or anything like that. I’ve learned to live with guilt, for the most part. The reason I’m up while everyone else is sleeping is because I had the most terrifying dream.
It was bad enough for me to wake with a start, my fingernails digging into the wooden back of the pew in front of me. I didn’t hear Father Michael turn a page in his book for a long time. We aren’t on good enough terms for him to actually come over and check on me. Anyway, the dream. I can’t get it out of my head.
I lean out of the aisle again to check that he is still there. And he is. Doc Klein hasn’t moved since the last time I checked on him and that was around half an hour ago. He sleeps with his glasses off in the farthest pew. He doesn’t sleep with covers over him, just that stupid bag full of top secret information that has something to do with the Mojave Desert.
I hate him right now. I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t, but my dream was about Doc Klein and his bag.
It was one of those dreams that make running from the living dead seem tame. The living dead, I can at least outrun or bash their heads in or blow them up by way of a found grenade.
The fire that consumes the world, well, that I can’t outrun.
I’m getting up now because I’m letting the fake fire consume me in reality. Darlene stirs, opens her eyes. She looks sleepy and I must look worse than I feel — which is saying a lot — because Darlene shoots up.
“What’s wrong?” she says in a harsh whisper.
“Nothing, go back to bed,” I say.
“Zombies?” she asks and it’s almost as casual as if she were asking if I was feeling under the weather. I hate to hear her say it. Zombies. It’s now become a bad word and it sounds ugly coming from her pretty lips. I wish life wasn’t like this. I wish it was how it used to be where if Darlene woke up, it would be because I was getting up from my desk to get a snack or a drink. The zombies she’d ask about would be the ones in the book I’d be currently writing. Not real ones.
“No,” I say, shaking my head.
The light at the end of the aisle, Father Michael’s lone candle, flickers and starts growing closer.
In the dream, the fire came from a button and the Devils were below ground — not as far as Hell, but deep enough. I remember the cave’s jagged teeth and the moisture dripping somewhere far off in the darkness, the beads of water on the handrails. I remember them chanting in their slithery tongue, but I can’t remember what they were saying. I remember them bowing down to Klein and the horns sprouting from his head, his true face showing. He finally unveiled what was in his bag in my dream and to tell you the truth, I wasn’t surprised when I saw it.
I was heartbroken, but not surprised.
My savior turned out to be a destroyer.
I’m crossing the aisle now, ignoring Father Michael’s questions. Are you all right? Why does he have a gun?
And I don’t know how I have a gun. I don’t know when I picked it up or unholstered it. I’m sure I didn’t sleep with it actually in my hands, did I? Then the face from my dream hovers in front of me again — this one ten times worse than Froggy’s after I riddled it with bullet holes.
It’s Klein’s face, but it’s the face of the Devil. And the Devil carries around a button that will destroy the world, that will bathe us in fire, turn us to ash.
That will bring Hell on earth.
I stand at the end of Klein’s pew. His eyes flick open at the sound of Norm’s voice yelling, “Jack, what the fuck are you doing?”
I don’t know what I’m doing, but I don’t answer my older brother. That slithery voice is laughing at me while the dormant nuclear missiles are slowly awakening.
I grab Klein’s bag. He grips it with a dead man’s hand. I’m too fast, too strong, too determined.
I should’ve done this a long time ago. Really, I should’ve and I should know by now to check all of my bases.
Then, the voice of reason is speaking in my head and it’s saying, It’s just a silly dream, Jack.
But is it?
Twenty-Three
“Please,” Klein is saying, “please, I didn’t know, I swear.” He has both hands up and he’s shaking his head. Tears spill from the corners of his eyes.
Bullshit. If he didn’t know, he wouldn’t be so protective of the bag. It wasn’t just a silly dream. No way.
What I hold in my hands is not a button that will end the world — it’s not that simple — and it’s not something I can fully comprehend. My mind is not advanced enough to decipher the technobabble printed in the files. It is smart enough to see the signature at the bottom of one of the sheets; it’s the President’s. And the technobabble is called PROJECT RESET, written in red ink.
It starts with: “In the event of a global scale catastrophe…” and that’s all I need to read before my stomach clenches with nausea. I bend over, but I don’t let my gun leave Klein’s face.
“What is it?” Darlene shrieks.
Herb is crying somewhere in the corner. Father Michael is close enough for me to feel the warmth of his candle and the smell of melting wax. Norm rips the file out of my hand. He’s not careful and a few pages spill and are lost in the dark shadows around our feet.
“What is going on?” Abby shouts, her voice sleepy, her hair tousled. Herb continues to cry, the sobs growing louder.
“Tell me this is a lie,” Norm says. His voice is very steady and very calm. I wish it was a lie, I truly do.
“Uh,” Klein grunts. He’s still shaking his head, which is two horns short of a nightmare. Then he brings his hands up to his face and starts sobbing himself. “I-I — ”
“Gimme the gun, Jack,” Norm says.
“No,” I’m saying, and it doesn’t even sound like me. I can barely stand up straight. “The bastard needs to die. We need to burn this stuff.”
“There will be no killing in my church!” Father Michael shouts. His voice is strong. I imagine it’s his preaching voice. It bounces off the walls and echoes up toward the roof.
We largely ignore him.
“I know, Jack,” Norm says, “but I’m going to be the one to do it.” I really don’t care who does it as long as Project Reset is prevented.
“Y-You don’t understand,” Klein says between sobs. “It’s the only way. There’s no cure. There’s no coming back from this…whatever this is.”
Bullshit, again. How many zombie books and movies have I consumed where there was a cure? If we live in a world where the dead can rise, then we also live in a world where some scientist can cook up a solution.
“You liar!” I shout, jamming the gun in his face. I feel tears stinging my eyes. “You were supposed to save us. I trusted you.”
“Gimme the gun, Jack,” Norm says. “You’re shaking so much you’re liable to miss. Besides, you don’t want to get blood on Father Michael’s nice walls.” I’m still in awe of how calm his voice is.
Now, Darlene starts crying. It’s enough for me to take my eyes off Klein. I turn my head and see how haggard and pale Father Michael looks. I can’t imagine I look much better.
“So gimme the gun, little bro,” Norm says again.
Herb goes on crying.
Abby gets up and goes over to comfort him. We aren’t in immediate danger, not anymore. I won’t call it prescience or knowing the future or any of that fantastical bullshit, but I will call my dream about Doc Klein a hunch. That’s all. And maybe I’ll indulge myself with thinking Mother is paying me a visit from the afterlife.
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Abby hugs Herb, who buries his face in her chest. He sobs so hard — now muffled — that she jumps up and down with his movements. Darlene has her hand gripped on my bicep. She’s squeezing hard, digging her nails into me. She doesn’t want bloodshed, either. I think to myself, do we have to kill Klein? Do we really have to kill him? Can’t we just let him go? He won’t make it on his own and without his precious bag, we’ll save the world. Then that voice of reason is talking to me again, saying, Yeah, Jack, let him go and those loose ends will come back to hang you. You want that? You want what Froggy did to that nice little village to happen to the entire world? All because you want to be the good guy and let this mousy, rat bastard walk. No, Jack, you aren’t that dumb. Listen to me. Listen to your gut just like you listened to me about the dream.
I cock the pistol. Norm steps away. He must know I mean business.
Klein slides off of the pew now, lands on his knees with a bone-jarring thump. He’s got his hands up again, saying, “Please, please, you don’t understand. They are going to save the good ones — ”
But that’s as far as he gets because I press the gun to his head.
Twenty-Four
Klein is more of a rat bastard than I initially realize.
He bends over, almost as if he were about to pray for God to give him peace in death or some bullshit like that, and as he’s going down, his fist strikes out in front of him like a rattlesnake catching a mouse.
He hits me so hard below the belt, I feel something pop and move in a way it probably shouldn’t. I have become stronger since the world ended, but I’m not strong enough to withstand a shot to the balls…yet. And they’ve already had their fair share of torment not even twenty-four hours ago — fucking cannibals.
So I double over again. Not before I squeeze the trigger and shoot up into the rafters. A chunk of ceiling cascades down upon us. My ears feel like they’re bursting with the sound. Herb graduates from sobbing to screaming. Next thing I know, Father Michael drops the candle and the carpet lights with flame. Darlene screeches and dances over the fire, stomping and trying to put it out.
Then Klein shouts, “Stop moving!”
We do because he somehow has my gun. My vision blurs and my groin is on fire. Norm tries to rush over to where his stuff is, to probably grab his gun — Never sleep without it nearby, little bro — and winds up being unsuccessful.
There’s much more of us than him and I think about advancing on the Doc despite the pain and the icy fear freezing my joints, but he grabs Father Michael around the throat and presses the gun to his head.
“You don’t understand,” Klein says.
“Now, Klein, there’s no need,” I say. My words are choked out by the pain below my belt.
“Yeah, there is. They’re going to let me live with them. They’re going to let me be a founding father of a new society after the bombs drop,” he says.
There it is. There’s the reason for betrayal. The promise of glory. The promise of a fresh start. I should’ve known.
“You do realize how crazy that sounds, right?” Norm asks. He is next to me, his arm through mine, holding me up because I do feel like I might pass out. Darlene is behind. Herb and Abby are frozen in the corner. Herb sobs no more, just looks on with wide, wet eyes.
Now every warning given to me about Klein in the village — from Grady, from Mother — makes sense. He is crazy.
“No, it’s not crazy,” Klein says.
Father Michael’s lips move in a silent prayer. His eyes are shut, Klein's gun pressing into his temple. I see the skin bunch up there, the red ring already forming.
“If it was crazy I wouldn’t risk my life. Do you know what I had to go through while I was in Washington? The stuff I had to see,” he shakes his head, “it was horrendous. The stuff I had to do, it was even worse.”
I bet it’s nothing compared to what I’ve gone through, the people I’ve lost, and the things I’ve seen and done. I don’t say this. I can see there’s no talking to Doc Klein. His eyes are ablaze with fervor as the floor around him grows with fire. Slowly, the flames lick up the pew, yet we can’t move because Klein has the gun trained on us.
“Don’t you see?” I say, my voice coming back to me.
“I get that I have to do this,” Klein says.
“Maybe you do,” I say. Darlene shudders behind me. “But you don’t have to hurt any of us in the process, Klein. I saved you. Father Michael has nothing to do with this. Leave him out of it.”
“But he does,” Klein says. “He does because he’s my ticket to the Mojave.”
“What?” Father Michael says, choking.
Klein jerks him and starts backing up. He’s such a small man that it’s almost comical to see him wrestle with Father Michael almost twice his size. Klein bends down, the gun now pressed in the priest’s back, and he picks up the fallen papers with nuclear launch codes and schematics I will never comprehend. Then, he’s got the gun pressed back on Father Michael’s temple and they’re backing up toward the door.
“You have the car keys?” Klein all but whispers into the priest’s ears.
Father Michael gulps and nods. “On the inside of that door.” He points to his left.
We can’t do anything. I don’t have a gun and if I did, I wouldn’t trust my aim enough to hit him in the dark. I’m not that good.
“Get them,” Klein says. They are leaning against the wall and Father Michael’s hand reaches around the door. “Don’t try anything,” Klein says. “You do and I will pull the trigger. I don’t want to do that, Father, I don’t. I really don’t, but I will if you make me.”
Herb’s voice booms from the corner of the church where Abby holds him in the shadows. I see the whites of his eyes blazing. “Doc? Doc?” Herb says.
“What, Herb?” Klein asks.
“Why?” is all Herb says and I think I see Klein’s face go squeamish, like his heart has broken right there on the spot, like he’s pained to do this, but he’s bound by a duty none of us can understand.
No. Bullshit. Klein knows exactly what he’s doing.
“I’m sorry,” Klein says.
The car keys jingle and Father Michael’s hand comes out of the darkness holding something that gleams in the low flames. The smell of singed carpet and fear fills the church. The fire separates us from them.
Klein kicks back and they leave the church’s main area. I hear the chain and the lock rattle on the front doors beyond. We dare not move yet, not until we know the gun is no longer pressed against Father Michael’s head.
It’s when I hear a car door slam that I sprint to the doors, running through the fire, not caring if I burn. These flames are nothing to the ones that will fill the world if Klein is successful. High beams almost blind me and the tires of one of the cars skid and burn up.
Then they are gone and so is the rain. I can hear Herb’s cries from out here. As I walk back into the church, the flames now out, doused by holy water courtesy of Abby, I grab another gun and my belongings.
“We have to follow them,” I say.
Twenty-Five
I’m halfway out the door with my own bag full of items in one hand and Darlene’s hand in the other when Norm grabs me. He’s not kind about it, either. He full-on horse collars me. I stop abruptly and almost fall flat on my ass.
“Don’t be stupid,” Norm says.
“What are you talking about? You don’t be stupid, Norm. He’s crazy. I should’ve listened to everyone who told me he was,” I say. I shake my head. Darlene’s hand is sweaty in my own. “He is going to blow us all to hell, man.”
Seriously, I can think of almost nothing worse than having to deal with real zombies, crazy assholes, and crazier cowboys, but one thing I can think of that’s worse is the fire. I don’t know if it’s because I saw it in my head — and sometimes my imagination is so vivid — or not. I do know it’s now no longer a dream; it’s a full-fledged reality.
“You chase him right now with the way you are and you�
��re just as crazy as Klein, little bro. Maybe even crazier,” Norm says.
Darlene tugs me on the arm. I look at her. There’s no longer fear or uncertainty in her eyes. Now, there’s anger. She rips her hand away from me. It slides easily enough — thanks to my nervous sweat — and tightens her hands into fists. “Jack, he’s right. Listen to us for a change.”
Ouch. Her tone. The way she says ‘for a change’ gets me. It’s like she’s slapped me in the face.
“I always listen to you,” I say.
She shakes her head, her features easing. “No, you don’t. If you’d listened to us, we’d still be — ”
“We’d be dead,” I finish for her. Now it looks like she’s the one who’s been slapped. She shakes her head, mouth a grim line. Then she turns her back on me and heads back into the church.
I can’t believe this. Doesn’t she care? Father Michael was kind enough to take us in and now he’s become a hostage. Not to mention the fact that Klein is about to turn us all into black smears of ash.
Norm walks closer to me. I’m slouching. I only realize it when he stops about six inches from me and I appear much shorter than him. I tried to save my pride by standing up straight, but it’s too late. “We need to gear up first,” Norm says. “We know where the airfield is, but we don’t know how fucked up it is.”
The Dead Collection Box Set #1: Jack Zombie Books 1-4 Page 66