The pulse starts to build and crescendo and Tommy begins to feel sick. Then it stops.
He breathes in for a second.
Then another trumpet sounds.
Another mysterious, blaring, booming trumpet.
Like they’re in some kind of end-of-the-world comedy and each new moment of doom is signified by these ridiculous trumpet blasts that seem to cut through your skin.
“What was that sound?” Skylar shouts behind them.
Tommy wants to smart off and say something like, “Which insane sound are you talking about?” But he can’t. The moment doesn’t feel very funny. Nothing feels very funny, in fact.
Someone—something—rushes past in front of them. Jack is still just standing there, apparently trying to figure out what to do. The dark mass in the night blinks past them like some kind of glitch on a black computer screen or a ripple in the middle of the ocean at midnight.
Then another shadow sprints through the murkiness in front of them.
“Hey,” Jack shouts.
He saw it too so I’m not losing my mind.
Are there others like them rushing to get out of the way? Or people waiting to attack them for whatever reason?
Tommy looks around and sees Dan and Skylar right behind him, their worry seeming to tremble on their faces. Skylar’s eyes look huge, full of the unknown. Dan’s presence doesn’t really seem to be providing much comfort.
It feels cold, much colder now.
“It just got so cold.”
Tommy wants to start running down the road.
His heart races and his mind is splintered in ten million pieces all rolling around like tiny marbles down a hill.
A scream—no, several screams.
The pulsing sound—louder—thicker—closer—
The gray-black fog shakes and moves like there are more people or more monsters closer, sinking in, sneaking nearer.
No no no run away.
A clapping sound on the pavement. More howls.
Then Tommy sees something coming toward them—a large, sickly silhouette.
It’s a horse. This one is alive, however. A horse pulling a carriage with a dead driver still holding the reins.
The tour guide of death passes by them and Tommy only scans the area wondering if something else is coming. Jack curses while Skylar looks down and shuts her eyes.
“What are you doing?” Tommy asks her, but it’s obvious. More obvious than anything else going on around them. “Praying isn’t going to help us.”
Tommy sees a white face like a ghost staring at him. It’s Sam, the Goth girl, just looking at him as if she wonders what’s next and what to do.
“We gotta go,” Tommy says.
Jack is still cursing, which doesn’t help the situation one bit. Jack screaming profanities and Skylar squeezing prayers and all of them stuck in this shadowy road.
We gotta get out of here before something else comes.
Another sound starts and Jack heads toward it.
It’s a church bell in the distance. This one isn’t from the skies. This sound actually seems normal, if that word can apply to anything right now.
“Come on,” Jack says. “We gotta keep moving.”
“Hold up, guys,” Dan shouts.
Tommy turns and sees Dan still consoling Skylar.
“It’s okay,” Dan says. “I’m not going to let anything happen to you.”
It looks like Skylar is shaking. This in itself is terrifying. The unshakable Skylar, the one normally so confident and in charge.
She looks like a little lost girl who’s looking for her parents.
Skylar clutches Dan’s hand. “Don’t let go of me.”
“I won’t.”
The bride and the groom, remaining together until the very end.
A thumping sound starts, then seems to be heading their way.
The air around them begins to move and change.
For some reason, perhaps because there’s no other thing to do, Tommy lifts the camera toward the sound and starts filming.
“There’s something out there,” Tommy starts to say.
The blur wraps itself around them.
A high-pitched buzzing sound that pierces his ears seems to coil around their heads and throats but still Tommy can’t see anything. Not yet. Not just yet.
The air shifts and he can feel it—whatever it happens to be—moving. Shifting. Rushing.
What’s happening?
He still holds the camera.
Something buzzes by his head. It’s behind him, then at his side, then . . .
A figure, massive and beastlike, right in front of them.
Skylar screams. It’s so dark, so foggy, so hard to see.
Tommy looks at Dan and Skylar but can only see Dan. He hears Dan now, howling like someone’s peeling his skin off.
Skylar is not there. She’s not on the street and not by Dan’s side.
“She-was-there-and-then-she-was-just-gone,” Dan screams in one giant, long, single word.
Jack is suddenly by their side, out of breath like he was running back toward them. “What was it?”
“I was holding her hand. She’s not there. She’s not there. I didn’t let go.”
Dan is out of his mind like some kind of crazy man.
This isn’t happening. “What are you talking about?” Tommy asks, looking around, knowing Skylar has to be around somewhere.
Nothing just took her.
No way.
“Did you really see . . . ?” He doesn’t even want to finish his comment.
No.
Dan and Jack start screaming out Skylar’s name while they all look around the street. The buildings on either side. The broken windows, the fallen debris, the empty cars, the alleyway leading to nowhere.
Tommy shouts her name too but he’s out of breath, out of sorts. His head hurts and his eyesight feels blurry.
He then hears a sound. Another sound. An awful, hideous sound.
God make them stop make these sounds stop.
It’s a woman’s voice. It’s Skylar.
Screaming.
Down the street somewhere.
Jack, Dan, and Tommy all run to her.
24
BLACK AND WHITE
For a moment or a lifetime—Skylar isn’t sure—she knows she’s no longer the person she once was, the girl who became a woman who turned into a bride today. She opens her eyes and sees the vastness of everything, all while the light and the dark do battle over her.
She hangs in the balance, drifting, falling.
The light is bright but she continues to fall into the deep well of darkness.
She’s somehow not in pain in this place, even while being tossed and turned around. But she’s alone. She’s alone and empty and knows there’s more. So much more.
The moment lasts an eternity as she is tugged back and forth, pulled and pushed and clawed and scraped.
The luminance above her quivers and she feels a rumbling as if the earth is trembling like before.
Then Skylar drifts off until she opens her eyes again to find herself sprawled over the sidewalk.
Dan and Tommy and Jack are running toward her. In the background, she can hear the bells of a church ringing.
I’m back.
“Sky, are you okay?”
She’s dizzy and weak and can barely lift herself up.
“What happened? I heard you scream!”
She tries to answer but feels the darkness seeping back in. Then she feels someone’s arms scooping her up and once again she’s flying.
She pictures her parents. Together. Inseparable. Smiling. Arm in arm. Laughing.
It’s the way it’s always been, the way she’s always seen them, the way she wanted it to be for her and her husband.
One day I’ll have that.
It’s not picture-perfect and she knows there have been struggles and difficulties. Some of them her parents shared, while others she knows they kept to themselve
s. She’s old enough to understand. Or at least try to understand.
I want that kind of friendship.
They often said that it was God who kept them together, but Skylar has never believed it. It’s the two of them making a daily choice, right? It’s the two of them being patient and loving and forgiving and living.
Living together . . . and now dying together.
She doesn’t understand what’s happening and doesn’t know what’s going on and she still can’t face the fact that her parents are gone. Truly gone.
She hears her mother again.
“God has watched over this marriage and this family.”
So where are You now? Where are You, God? Did You decide to abandon every person who didn’t give themselves over to You completely?
Skylar has her eyes closed but can hear the church bells growing closer.
The church will take them in, but then what?
It’s only a building made of bricks and wood. A structure that can easily be ripped apart like the rest of the world around them.
Will we find safety inside?
Safety from the darkness hovering just below the light?
The darkness that tried to tug her away and keep her deep inside.
Just as they’re about to enter the church, the screams begin.
Horrible screams coming from the area they just left.
That could have been me.
Skylar is still being carried by Dan. She opens her eyes and sees him. He looks shocked, desperate, tired.
For a moment, he looks at her and she sees him try to get rid of all those emotions.
He smiles. “We’re almost there.”
Her eyes start to drift back toward the darkness again.
25
TRAPPED
The light glimmers like some kind of solitary lighthouse on the edge of an island under a blanket of thick fog. They rush toward it, hoping and praying the light is a good sign. Everything else around them—everything that Tommy can see—is just darkness. Desolate and gloomy. Forgotten. Abandoned.
But hope lies ahead. So all of them anxiously expect.
As they draw closer, the building’s outlines come into dim view. It’s a church.
They arrive and try to open the front doors but they’re locked.
Who locks the doors of a church?
Tommy can’t help letting out a curse. They’ve escaped from all this insanity behind them only to get here and find locked doors. Really?
Jack starts pounding on them. “Let us in! We need help! Help!”
He’s almost losing his voice from screaming so loud.
There’s a very long, very quiet moment where nothing happens. Nothing except Tommy’s heart crumbling and his blood beginning to boil. Until the sound of a latch unlocking can be heard, then the two wooden doors opening.
“Get in,” a man tells them. “Come on, hurry.”
Tommy waits to be the last one inside. He peeks up at the night sky and can see hundreds, maybe thousands, of what look like dark streaks descending from the heavens.
What are those marks?
They’re like claw marks on the wall of a prison. They sicken his stomach.
He rushes inside and hears the doors closed and locked behind him.
The man who welcomed them in is the same one who makes sure the doors are locked. He’s got long hair and a thick beard along with dark bags and wrinkles under his eyes. He’s wearing a sweatshirt and jeans. He’s probably like them—some guy running in the darkness who saw the church and sought refuge.
“Is she all right?” the man asks.
Dan is holding Skylar up. “I don’t know.”
They head from the entryway into the main area of the church. Dim lights show strangers huddled in the shadows. There are couples embracing. Lone figures sitting in silence. Groups comforting those weeping.
This might be a place of sanctuary, but it looks more like a prison.
As Jack helps Skylar sit on a pew, Dan looks around and cries out for assistance.
“Get her some help,” he screams, his voice on the verge of sobbing. “Please . . . please, please, somebody help her.”
The man who helped them in is standing over Skylar. Tommy watches as the man examines her. The front of the beautiful white dress she was married in is now discolored and contains ashy burn marks all over it. Her shoulders are bruised and dirty and the sides and back of her dress are torn.
Then Tommy sees what the others must have already noticed. Two stab wounds on her back that are bleeding slightly.
The short, blonde-haired Goth girl pops out of nowhere to give Skylar her Bible. “You dropped this,” Sam says.
As she hands it to Skylar, the Bible starts to fall apart. Pieces crumble away like the ashes of a fire that’s been out for a long time.
“It’s burned,” Sam says, visibly shocked.
“The words,” Skylar says, her voice weak and soft. “They’re all gone.”
Dan is still looking around the church, seeing if anybody can help, standing guard at Skylar’s side while talking to the others. “What did that to her?” he asks the long-haired man. “Do you know what’s happening?”
“Just make sure the doors remain locked,” the man tells all of them.
“Are we safe here?” Tommy asks.
He’s having his doubts now that he can see everybody. The terror on their faces is very real. All he can see are adults trapped inside this dim space. It doesn’t matter if it’s a bomb shelter or a church building. It’s the same empty, ensnared place they’ve all somehow decided to hide out in.
The man shakes his head, looking panicked. “I don’t know. I think . . . I think we’re okay. Let’s take care of your friend. Hey, Brad, Donny—can you guys take her to the preschool room with the other injured? Find Rachel.”
Dan doesn’t leave Skylar’s side and doesn’t let her hand go. Two more strangers, Brad and Donny apparently, come and help Dan with Skylar.
“I’m Pastor Shay,” the man tells them as he shakes Tommy’s hand.
“I’m Tommy. That’s Jack. She’s Skylar; Dan’s next to her.” For a minute he forgets Goth Girl’s name. “Oh, yeah, and Sam.”
The man doesn’t look like a pastor, but then again, this doesn’t look like a church. The city doesn’t look like itself. Even the sky seems to be a stranger.
Nothing is normal. Not one thing.
“Skylar and Dan—it was their wedding day,” Tommy tells the pastor.
“Some day to get married.”
The pastor sounds cynical and bleak.
“Look, I’ll make sure she’s okay,” Pastor Shay tells Tommy. “You guys stay here. Get comfortable. We might be here awhile.”
The sigh Tommy lets out might be a little louder than usual. He doesn’t care. He leans over and puts his hands on a pew and then he shuts his eyes.
He doesn’t like being here. Trapped. Shut out. In a place that’s no different than any other place.
He hears sobs. They make him a bit sick.
Nothing makes sense. He’s not even sure how to begin to make sense of everything. But this isn’t the place to do it. This is only going to confuse things.
A large cloth banner adorns the wall nearby. Tommy reads it.
But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD.
JOSHUA 24:15
Jack is searching the room for Allison, calling her name. Tommy feels numb, knowing she’s not here, wondering if she was ever in this church to begin with.
Me and my household.
Yeah, sure, Tommy thinks.
Maybe she never made it here. Or she left and got caught up in the madness outside.
He rubs his eyes.
“Jack,” a familiar voice calls out behind him. “Tommy.”
Tommy looks back up at the banner.
It can’t be.
He turns and sees Allison.
Thank God she’s still alive.
He suddenly feels a bit lighter,
a bit brighter.
26
DEEP WOUNDS
Nobody noticed when she left the church sanctuary to walk down the dimly lit hall and go into a bathroom to have a nice crying session. But Allison couldn’t help it. As people continued to come into the church—wounded, shell-shocked, holding each other—Allison waited and wondered if her friends might show up. But minute by minute, she feared the worst.
They’re gone just like so many others.
She couldn’t help thinking of her parents and the rest of her family. So far away, so unreachable . . . no way to know if they’re alive. Just like Jack and Skylar and Dan and Tommy and Lauren.
She felt angry at herself, knowing she shouldn’t have left the wedding. Then she felt anger at Jack for letting her leave. But that just made her more angry at herself for even having emotions like this.
The tears lasted ten minutes, and then she began to walk back to the sanctuary.
That’s when she saw them.
The boys, as she calls them, standing in the midst of the strangers in the shadows.
Allison calls out to them, and they turn to her. She embraces Jack and finds her eyes welling up again, but this time with tears of joy and surprise. She holds on to him and doesn’t want to let him go. Jack crushes her with his hug, then kisses her forehead. She finds herself sobbing momentarily out of pure relief, her body shaking uncontrollably.
“You came looking for me,” her voice barely manages to get out.
“Sorry it took me so long.”
She finally regains control of her emotions and manages to look at Jack. He looks like all the rest—tired and messy and scared.
No, that’s not right. Jack isn’t scared. Staggered, maybe, and sickened, but not scared.
“I was trying to call. . . . Everything was dead. . . . How did you guys know I was here?”
Jack glances over her shoulder, then back at her. “Tommy.”
She turns around and sees Tommy, then goes over to hug him as well.
“I didn’t think I’d see you guys again,” she says.
“We weren’t sure we’d see you,” Tommy tells her.
She looks around them for a minute and finally realizes they’re alone.
“Where’s Skylar and Dan? What about Lauren? Are they hurt?”
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