Stanley reached over for a slice of chicken and some veg, and tucked in, his eyes focused on the food.
Father Dave rolled his eyes, as if watching a child misbehaving. “Go on then, tuck in everyone!”
There was the clink of cutlery and the small murmur of conversation as the group passed the food around.
The leeks crunched, the potatoes melted and the tomatoes burst in tangy goodness on Grace’s tongue. The chicken was warm and soft, cooked well, none of the moisture lost. Her heart raced with excitement as she almost felt the nourishment leak into her bloodstream. Something more than intellectual knowledge told her this was what her body needed. She felt warm, right to her soul.
“So how long have you been in the wild for?” said Brenda, shaking Grace from her momentary lonely euphoria.
“Since the start,” she said.
“Oh my,” said Brenda, her eyes open wide. “How did you ever survive, you must both be so brave.”
“I think we just did what had to be done,” said Harry, from his place opposite Grace, in between Beth and Gary.
“I don’t know abut that,” said Brenda. “If I hadn’t been here at the Church, I don’t think I would have lasted too long.”
Grace agreed with Brenda, but she didn’t say so. “I’m sure you would have managed.”
“Well I think we should all just be grateful for the grace of God that we found each other,” said Father Dave, his voice riding over any other conversation. All eyes suddenly on his smiling face and shock of blond hair. He held up his glass of water. “A toast, to new friends and healthy living.”
The company raised their glasses and the clink of glass mixed with the six voices echoing Father Dave’s toast.
Grace took a sip of her water, then said, “Thank you, so much, everyone. For rescuing us today, and for, well, for this. For the clothes, the food. We’ll do everything we can to help, to pay our way. We want to help.”
Father Dave beamed at her. “Well that’s just wonderful, Grace.” He leaned forward. “I’m a great judge of character, and I can tell that you and Harry are two of the good guys. Just like us. All the good guys together,” he chuckled to himself.
“Have you told them about the service tonight?’ said Beth.
“Oh yes, didn’t I mention it? We have a little service every week or so. We like to give thanks to God for everything we have. I don’t know whether you’re religious or not, and, well, I’m a modern kind of guy, I realise that not everyone is, especially the young ones. It all seems terribly old fashioned these days. At least it was before the Fall, but maybe things will be different now, now that the world is how it is. I’m just trying to say, we’d really like it if you came along. You don’t have to think of it as a Christian service, think of it as a chance to give thanks, to whatever you believe in, thanks that we’re alive, that we’ve got each other, that we’re safe.”
Silence as the assembled group turned to Harry and Grace.
“Of course,” said Grace.
“We wouldn’t miss it,” echoed Harry.
Father Dave’s face lit up, “Well, that’s just wonderful. Wonderful!”
Chapter 9
The congregation of six shuffled into the front pew. They sat in silence as Father Dave made his way up to the pulpit, his shoes clicking on the tiles of the floor, echoing around the giant cave of a church. Goose-pimples shuddered down Grace’s back. The was something about people collected in silence that touched her. She wanted to cry; relief, she imagined, the feeling of finally being safe, and of being part of something bigger than just survival. It was a ceremony for a God that she didn’t believe in - but it wasn’t scanning the windows for undead, or scrapping the final flakes of dried tuna from the bottom of a can, or trying to glean warmth from a candle.
It was a reminder of life beyond that of an animal.
And Harry’s hand was holding hers.
Father Dave, in his elevated pulpit with his settling black robes and blonde hair, had the appearance of a living Guinness advert. He looked over his flock and smiled, softly, shortly. Now was a time of reverence, the celebration of God not to be conflated with base physical celebrations of happiness.
“Today,” he said, his voice loud, deep, and full, and more than a match for the imposing empty spaces of the Church, “we are blessed. Yes, I hear you say, we are blessed every day; but today, even more than usual.” His eyes scanned the whole church, looking not only to the six people in the front pew, but beyond. Grace wondered if he saw a full flock, if he imagined all the old members of his church still there, clutching their bibles, living in hope of redemption. Or maybe it was simply habit, a tic as much a part of his sermon as the words themselves.
“Our little flock here in St Jerome’s, safe in the arms of our beloved and merciful God, has seen its numbers rise today, not by one, but by two. Two more souls have been brought to us by the will and the hidden mechanisms of the Lord. Two more lost sheep have been brought home by the Shepherd who watches us all, and loves us all.” His eyes settled on Grace and Harry and he smiled the warm smile of a Father. “Give us the strength Lord, not to let these two lost and lonely souls down, give us the strength to do your will for them, to embrace them with the love they deserve.” He looked close to tears.
Father Dave paused, then closed his notebook. “Three months ago, our Father took it upon himself to commit a great pestilence upon the world. At first, I, like many others, asked how can you do this Lord, how can you commit such horror upon your beloved and precious creation? So many people, families…” he paused, “children, lost. And at the hands of what terrors? It was like the demons of hell themselves had risen, and took it upon themselves to cast each living soul into a terrible and actual purgatory, forever to walk the world in Dante’s limbo, neither a creature of the world, nor of heaven.
“What could we have done, Lord, I asked night after night in my prayers, what could we have done to deserve this? I prostrated myself before you. I waited, nay, pleaded for the demons to take me, for my time to come, for the pain was too much to bear.
“And then the answer came…”
Grace glanced down the row at her companions. Every eye fixed on the Father. Brenda had a slightly dazed look on her face, like a teenager watching her idol in concert.
“You gave me the answer. The answer was in front of me, as the truth always is. The truth reveals itself in light, as the lies of the Devil hide in the darkness… I realised, this was not a punishment, this was a cleansing. This was a clearing of the way for the true light and goodness of God’s eternal creation to shine through. The Lord said to me, ‘Father Dave’, I’m on first name terms,” Father Dave winked at the congregation, and Brenda laughed, “he said, ‘Father Dave, two thousand years have passed since my son came to help the people of the world find their way, and things have not gone well in that time. We are more lost, more treading in the darkness than ever. My flock is wandering in ways they can’t understand, each step bringing them closer to the fires of hell. Even the little children…’
“When the Lord said this, it hurt me, it did, but I realised he was talking the truth, he said, ‘even the little children are stained now, even they have lost their souls to the darkness, the devil, to the demons’.”
“I said ‘Lord, what can we do? What can I do?’, and he told me there was nothing to do, but to live by the Word, to live by my heart. You see, my flock, what the Lord did was pull away the veil. He took away the sheet of death that was hanging over us all, and revealed the truth. Remember, truth lives in the light, and evil lives in the darkness. Once the light has been shone, nothing can hide from it.
“And I knew. This plague, this pestilence, has not been committed by God. All God has done is shine the light of truth upon us all. The world has been illuminated with his love. Evil no longer has anywhere to hide, evil has been found out!
“The demons, the undead, the infected, the zombies, whatever you call them, they are but the bared souls of the pe
ople they used to be. Their masks have been pulled away. As it said in the good book - ‘And your sins will be known, and Peter shall see your sins and he shall say, yay, or nay, on the measure of your sins’.”
Father Dave rested his hands on either side of the lectern and gazed in turn at each of his congregation. “The sins of the many are now bare for the world to see, and what a sinful world it is. Not many are righteous. Of all of us who have been judged, only a few are here to stand free. And we must be thankful, yes, we must never take the Lord’s love for granted, we have work to do.”
Father Dave closed his eyes and held his arms up, reaching for the roof of the church. “The world must be cleaned,” he shouted, his voice filling the church with a deep bellow.
Grace jumped as everyone else repeated, loudly, “The world must be cleaned!”
“We are the blessed,” said Father Dave
“We are the blessed!”
“We are the servants of God.”
“We are the servants of God!”
“We are the cleaners,” said Father Dave, opening his eyes and bringing his hands down heavily to the lectern.
“We are the cleaners!”
Grace felt her hand being taken by Beth as everyone stood. She stumbled to her feet along with Harry
“We are the cleaners,” they said, over and over again, the words echoing together in the church, bouncing and forming a new sentence that was impenetrable in lexicon, but heavy in meaning. Grace was being led from the pew, the line of people snaking down the aisle, towards the front of the church.
Harry and Grace were pushed to the front, underneath the pulpit. Father Dave looked down upon them, smiling.
“Our new children of the Lord, you are welcome,” he held out his arms. “Stanley, the anointment.”
Grace heard footsteps behind her, she turned to watch Stanley walking to the back of the church, his figure covered in shadow.
Her and Harry looked at each other, he raised his eyebrows slightly; incomprehension, a little worry. Grace felt something in her stomach rise; anxiety, maybe fear.
“What’s the anointment?” said Harry.
Father Dave smiled. “Only the clean, can live in the Lord’s new world, Harry. We have to test that cleanliness.”
Father Dave’s eyes gleamed and shimmered. She had seen eyes like that a long time ago, only once. Barry McKenna, the five year old boy who lived next door, had caught a frog once. Six year old Grace had found the squirming green creature fascinating; she loved its bulbous eyes, its slimy skin and the way its little webbed feet pushed against her hands. Then Barry had taken the frog and, with the same eyes that Father Dave had now, ripped off its legs. It had squealed. She had screamed.
The door to the church was behind them, if they ran, they could make it, maybe. She grabbed Harry’s hand.
“Stop!” shouted Gary. A click reverberated in the church, a loud and ominous click. The pulling back of a trigger, a gleaming silver gun in Gary’s hands, pointing, in turn, from her to Harry. “Stay there,” he said.
“You are righteous, aren’t you?” said Father Dave. “If you are righteous, then you have nothing to fear.”
Chapter 10
Grace stood rooted to the spot. This was the second time in her life a gun had been pointed at her. She had seen the damage a gun could do, close up, for real. She had pulled a trigger and torn the life from a man; a man who deserved to die, she told herself. True, the man she killed really deserved to go to court and be judged, but she considered courts thin on the ground these days. did this make her justice correct? Had she been ‘righteous’ in dispensing her justice to Taylor?
She looked at the gun in front of her. Maybe it was those with the guns who decided what was righteous, now.
“What’s the anointment?” she said quietly.
As if to answer, the clunk and echo of a lock being undone rang through the church. A chain dropped to the floor, its rattling and noisy collapse like every old horror film, a tortured ghost of Marley carrying around the weight of his sins for eternity.
Grace was still holding Harry’s hand. He squeezed hers and she his. They looked at each other. His deep eyes, which only thirty minutes ago had promised so much warmth and comfort and the possibility of love and a new hope, were now only cruel reminders of the uncertainty of this world; a stark beacon of something to be lost, now it had been found.
A sound cast fear into her heart. A moan filled the wooden timbered and stone hall of the church. The most terrifying zombie call she had ever heard. It hissed and snarled.
“Come on ya bastard,” said Stanley’s old cigarette tarred voice. “Get out here.”
Stanley emerged from the darkness at the bottom of the church, pulling a chain wrapped around the hands of a disfigured fleshy mass. A motorcycle helmet was on its head, the visor down, hiding the face, but not the clattering and clicking of the teeth. It grasped blindly with its bound hands, uselessly clawing the empty air.
“Shut it,” said Stanley, pulling the zombie to the front of the church, to stand before Harry and Grace.
Grace put her arms around Harry. He pulled her close. His heart thumped heavily against her chest.
“Remove the visor of sin,” said Father Dave.
Stanley took the helmet off, revealing the zombie’s rotten head. Wisps of hair clung to peeling yellow skin. One side of the head was staved in, fragments of bone poking through the thin leather like flesh. Its jaws worked furiously as it pulled towards Harry and Grace, but Stanley held the chains fast.
“Behold the judge, himself judged guilty only one week ago,” shouted Father Dave, his voice like a beast in the woods at night. “May the righteous ones be cleansed, and the darkness of their masks peeled away to reveal the true light of their heart. For, verily, if thee are of the dark, then the emissary of God will reveal it to you, and to us, the righteous witnesses of God’s great creation!”
Grace spun round to face Father Dave. “You’re crazy! It’s a virus! It’s just a virus,” her voice turning to sobs.
“Get back,” said Gary, motioning at Grace with the gun.
Father Dave raised his hand. “Grace, my child. Have you not listened to anything of the sermon? There is only peace in this world once the truth is revealed. You will either live in peace, knowing you are of the good, one of God’s flock, or you will be passed to Heaven, forever to live in his exulted host.”
“What about you,” she shouted, “What about all of you? Have you been ‘anointed’, have you let it bite you?”
“We don’t have to,” said Brenda. “We were in the church when the Fall came. It’s obvious the Lord has chosen us.”
“You’re all fucking crazy,” shouted Harry. “Murderers!” Desperation in his voice.
“How can there be murder in the house of the Lord?” said Father Dave. “Everything that happens in the house of the Lord is willed by the Lord. Please, my children, understand.” Father Dave pointed at Stanley, his eyes wide open, wild with what seemed to be delight. “Stanley, release the Angel of God!”
Stanley let go of the chains and the zombie lurched for both her and Harry. Harry shouted, “Run!” his voice simply a background instruction that seemed to feed directly to her reptilian base brain. Bypass all software, a hardware instruction, impossible to be ignored.
But first. Something she needed to say.
“I love you,” she shouted back as Harry pushed her away from him. She didn’t know if she did, but she wanted him to hear it, that someone loved him.
Harry ran to the zombie and punched at its head. He yelled as the zombie lurched for him and sank its teeth into his neck. His skin stretched and broke, blood spurted in a wide fan from his throat like from a hose, covering all around. Harry yelled, not in pain, Grace liked to remember, but in defiance. He turned and pushed the zombie towards Gary.
There was a shot, but Harry didn’t stop moving, the zombie in between him and Gary.
Someone let out a desperate and prolonged
shout of “No,” it sounded like Beth.
Another shot, a scream. Harry and Gary and the zombie fell to the ground.
No one was watching her.
She ran down the aisle of the church.
“Get her!” someone shouted.
A terrible scream rang out, forever embossed across the watchful air of the church.
She pushed through the door leading out of the church.
Chapter 11
Grace lay on the old musty bed, its smell worse given her brief flirtation with a clean life at the church. New clothes, clean hair, smooth skin bathed with the touch of Lily Of The Valley shower cream.
Darkness outside, silence. The odd owl tooting from the distant park. Sometimes she heard the roar of an engine, a truck. They were still looking for her, but they wouldn’t find her.
She had ran from the church with tears streaming down her cheeks; the pain of allowing herself to feel free, to feel forgiven. To have it all ripped from her. Her insides had wanted to scream like a toddler, to lie on the floor and kick her legs in the air, but she couldn’t, not if she wanted to live. So she had ran.
Harry. Poor Harry. Why did he give himself to save her? Maybe because he knew that she would have stood there and they both would have died.
Maybe he loved her.
Maybe he was just tired of it all. Sick of the scrambling for survival like a mountain goat on an eternal rise, each step throwing rocks thousands of feet down the side of the mountain, a reminder of their precarious existence.
She had ran out of the church and through the gates into a balmy autumn evening. A shot had clanged on the metal of the gates. An engine had started up.
Grace managed to lose them in the small alleys and pathways that threaded through the Victorian terrace estate. No way for trucks to pass. A maze of roads, streets, houses, avenues, little parks. She had run in circles, maybe; she didn’t know.
Faith of the Dead (After the Fall Book 8) Page 4