Untaken

by Yul Calsto

  “Keep moving,” the priest yelled back.

  They went through the alleyway and neighborhood streets that were lit up by the fire behind them. They found themselves on a sidewalk in front of what seemed like a shopping center development. They felt their way into an open door that was swinging open on its hinges.

  Brooks was the last one in and pulled the door closed, latching it. Beads of sweat dripped off of his face and made a soggy ring around his shirt collar.

  It was dark. They waited with strained ears, not quite sure of where they were. The earth rumbled again, but the night was quiet. Inside, they couldn’t see their hands in front of their faces. The lightning in the sky was less frequent, and when it did flash, they could see that they were in an empty tanning salon. It was dusty inside and pieces of glass had been spilled across the floor.

  After a spell, Emily lit the final torch that she carried. She kept the flame hidden behind the counter of the salon. The blinds on the windows had been down when the store owner had closed up for the night, but the churning red clouds that had followed the golden light had imploded the windows, ripped the blinds, and shed a layer of dust across the linoleum floor and countertops.

  “I think this is as good a place as any to stay for a while,” Thomas suggested.

  “We have to be close to the church. Do we keep going?” Emily asked.

  “It’s too dark. I can’t see anything out there.”

  The priest felt his way into a back room of the salon. There were chairs with wooden legs lined up in the hallway. He found a desk with drawers full of paper. Within a few minutes, and with the help of Emily’s torch, he had a fire going in the back room, and was warming some canned food from the backpack. There was a window in the room that the priest opened slightly. The group moved into the back room, leaving the door open a crack to create air flow.

  Brooks had only one jug of water. The other water jugs were left behind in the creek bed. Jake peeled off his shirt and inspected the bite to his chest and armpit. His side was sore and he couldn’t lift his arm more than six inches away without severe pain. He soaked his shirt in holy water and bathed the wound, making sure to fill each tooth crevice. He wrapped the wet shirt underneath his armpit against the wound and tied it around his neck. He could already feel the energy of God in his wound.

  Lying next to the fire, Jake asked the priest, “Father, what happened back there with Buggy?”

  The priest was ready with an explanation. “Beware of the Antichrist who will lure you in falsely.”

  “Is that scripture?”

  “Not specifically. Buggy was an Antichrist.”

  “Buggy was the Antichrist?”

  “He was one.”

  “I thought there was only one Antichrist,” Jake kept his voice low. Emily and the children had gone to sleep in the corner of the room. Brooks ate his share of the meal by the fire. He was stretching the cables on the crossbow and checking the working parts. Every so often he would walk out of the back room to check the front door of the shop.

  The priest continued the conversation, “There are many. The word ‘Antichrist’ only appears in the epistles of John the apostle, and he presents it as an idea rather than a person. The idea of false prophets.”

  “That’s not right. I’m not religious but I know that part. The Antichrist. The Beast?”

  “The Beast of Revelation,” the priest nodded. “The horned Beast shall rise above all nations. Maybe…I don’t know. Like I said, it’s already happening very differently than what we had expected. The dead shall be raised in God.” The priest fluttered his fingers in front of him.

  “The dead shall rise? Now we’re talking about zombies.”

  “Not at all. This is a spiritual journey, however, I’m not sure we are in the pop-culture version of the Rapture.”

  “People have been taken. The Rapture has happened, right?” Jake was confused.

  “Is there a Rapture? One that we’ve come to learn about from movies and books? Again, I don’t know. It’s said that all eyes will see the Lord. Did you see God?”

  “The golden sky?”

  “Maybe. It can be assumed that we’re in the Tribulation times now…if there is such a thing.”

  “And the Antichrist? Buggy wasn’t a false prophet. He wasn’t pretending to be God. Or…Jesus.”

  “No, but he did deceive. Perhaps he wasn’t an Antichrist. But he was a Marked.”

  Thomas had been listening in from the other side of the fire. “Will there be more? Anitchrists?”

  “Surely. They will come upon us innocently like Buggy did. He had odd behavior didn’t he? We should trust our initial judgment.”

  “Judge not, that you be not judged,” Jake smiled as he quoted the Bible passage.

  The priest looked back at him through humored eyes. “Such a scholar now?” He stood up and walked to the corner of the room where he curled into a ball and fell asleep within a matter of minutes. Brooks was now napping in the chair by the fire.

  Jake and Thomas picked at the warm ravioli in the pan. Jake was close with his father. Having never known his mother, he had spoken with his dad about her many times and relied on the picture that his dad generously painted of her in his mind. They both carried a picture of her in a locket, close to their hearts.

  “Dad, tell me about mom.”

  Without a hesitation, Thomas began to speak, “Her name was Gloria. She was beautiful, kind, and very special…”

  Jake awoke at the sound of a man calling for help outside the salon. He sat up quickly from his sleep. Only a small amount of pain came from his healed bite. The children were still asleep, curled up next to Emily. The priest was snoring in his corner of the room, and Thomas awoke just as Jake did. The fire in the center of the room was reduced to coals. Brooks was not in the chair that he had fallen asleep in.

  “Hey, is anybody here?” the man outside the salon called out.

  Jake could tell that there was light outside. It was enough to light up the lobby of the salon and it came pouring into the cracked door of the back room.

  In the lobby, Brooks was leaning toward the blinds that half covered the shattered window holes. He was hidden behind it well enough to not be seen from the outside.

  “Brooks, what is-“

  “Shh.” It came slowly and quietly from Brooks’ pursed lips.

  The sky was a deep shade of purple, streaked with white clouds. It was magnificent. The man outside was walking in the street. He was dressed in jeans and t-shirt that was torn across the chest and muddy. His face looked normal. No telling signs of stretched skin over protruding cheekbones. The corners of his mouth were not split.

  He was close to the salon door opening. Jake felt that if he had to, he could sprint out the door and tackle the man in just a few quick strides. He decided that if it came down to it, he would rather do that and use his knife than fire a round from the shotgun. The shotgun. Jake realized that he had left it behind in the mud of the creek bed. He reached into his pocket and gripped the handle of the dagger.

  “Can someone help me?” the man outside said again. He was keeping his voice low, but loud enough to be heard at the distance that the men were at in the salon lobby. “Is anyone here?”

  “He looks ok,” Thomas said.

  “Shh.” Brooks had the crossbow in his arms. Jake noticed that the arrow was locked back and ready to fire.

  The man kept walking, following the sidewalk in front of the other stores in the shopping center. “Is there anyone else?” He kept moving.

  The parking lot was empty for the most part. There were only a few scattered cars. The man was jogging down the sidewalk, calling in through the broken windows of the shops.

  “Brooks,” Thomas said, “are you sure he’s-?”

  “No. I don’t know. He seems fine. But so did Buggy. I don’t want to take the chance. As soon as we let him in here, he’ll turn on us.”

  The man kept going. He was on the other side of the shopping cen
ter now. They could see him in the distance, bobbing up and down as he jogged.

  A shriek. It was at the far end of the parking lot, near the man.

  Jake moved toward the door. “He’s one of us.”

  “Don’t, Jake,” Brooks pointed, “It’s too late.”

  There were two of the Marked running toward the man. They were already in the parking lot, scrambling on all fours, teeth out front. The man screamed and the frenzied noises of the butchering demons followed.

  With their gear packed up, they waited until there were no noises outside. The hours since the golden light had passed had left them with a depleted batch of weapons. Brooks’ battle axe was left in the door of the gas station. It was no doubt dust on the rubble at this point. He still had the crossbow. Jake had only his dagger. Emily still had the spray mace and the samurai sword. The priest still had his revolver and a case of rounds, and the flamethrower on his back. Thomas had his Glock, but the only rounds that he had were in the magazine clip of the gun already.

  Jake led the way out the door. They went around the back of the salon, avoiding the open space of the parking lot, and found their way onto a lonely neighborhood road.

  “There’s the church,” Jake pointed to the old-fashioned bell tower that stuck above the tree line in the distance. In their scramble to safety from the creek bed earlier they had covered more ground than they had thought.

  The road curled around an empty field that was to be used by the city to collect solar energy. The panels were not installed yet, and the field was an unused acre of swaying grass. Jake kept his eyes on the grass, expecting at any moment a mass of the Marked would rise up and give chase to their group. The only movement from the field was the grass that wavered in the breeze under the purple sky.

  A rumble from the earth.

  The city seemed to be deserted. There was very little noise at this point. The screams of found survivors had waned as each hour passed, and sightings of the Marked had decreased. Without the electric buzz of the city or the muffled motors of cars, there was hardly a sound to be heard.

  St. Patrick’s Church was over a century old. It was made of brick, and had the construction of a 19th century design, but a humble appearance. It was covered in black ash.

  The door in the front was not locked. The bolt lock was broken in two pieces on the ground, but the door was held shut by some sort of clamp on the inside. Jake shook the door and it opened only a crack before the clamp held it in place. He put his eye to the crack. The church was quiet and it appeared that nobody was inside.

  “Is anybody in there?” Jake spoke through the crack, “We need to get in.”

  It was silent. There wasn’t even a shuffling in the pews or a footstep inside.

  “Anybody?” he said again.

  “Jake, we need to get inside before we’re seen,” the priest said. He pointed to the stain glass above the door. “There, the window. If I stand on Brooks’ shoulders, I can break the window and climb in.”

  Jake considered it their only option. He pressed his eye to the crack once more. A spray of water from the other side splashed against his forehead, and he pulled back quickly, knife in hand. “Let us in.”

  There was a pause. The group stood silently for a moment in front of the door. Then a man’s voice spoke through the crack from the inside, “Sorry about that. I had to be sure.”

  There was a rustling against the door and a moment later, it opened a crack just large enough for an arm to stick out with a squeeze bottle. Before Jake and the group knew how to react, they were all sprayed with water from the bottle in a quick sweeping motion of the protruding church arm.

  The door crack was quickly reduced back to sliver, and there was another pause from the man on the other side. Jake knew what he was doing, and he liked the man’s caution.

  “Alright then. Come on in, folks,” the man said as he opened the door for them. They went in.

  On the other side, the man wrapped the door handles back up with a rope and tied it tight. He was an old man, most likely in his seventies from what Jake could tell. He wore a cowboy shirt and boots, and old fashioned brown, canvas pants.

  “My name is Morris. I’m glad you all are here.” His skin was leathery and his eyes were yellowing, but his movements were crisp. He pointed to the flamethrower on the priest’s back, “Oh, good. You have some artillery.”

  Jake introduced everybody.

  “Pleasure folks. We have a pretty good setup here. There’s food aplenty, but we don’t have any weapons, except for the holy water that I wet you with. It’s the best weapon, I suppose.”

  Morris walked them through the foyer of the church and into the pew area. People were now visible, sitting up in the pews and greeting the group with a wave or a nod. “You can trust everyone here. I’ve personally checked them with a dash of holy water. As you can tell, I’m being specific with who I let into my church.”

  Jake looked at the old man, “You’re the priest here?”

  “I’m the deacon. Father Bruggs was taken. He must have been holier than me,” he chuckled without humor.

  The priest held his head down, but Jake made no mention of it. The church had no more than twenty people in the pews. Mostly they were men, but a few women. The three children that he had brought in were the first additions of youth.

  “How many of the Marked have tried to get in here?” Jake asked.

  The old man just looked at him with a confused expression.

  Jake elaborated, “The demons. We’ve been calling them the Marked. Marked by evil.”

  “Oh, not many. I suppose a handful. We only opened the doors to a few people early on and only because they spoke to us. The demon-people don’t speak. At least they haven’t to us.”

  “Do they know you’re in here?”

  “I don’t believe so. We stay quiet, and when they can’t get in the door they move along.”

  “What about the Antichrists?”

  Again, Morris gave him a confused look.

  “I mean, the ones who appear to be just like us,” Jake said. This did little to clear up Morris’ confusion. Jake continued, “We’ve seen one of the Marked, the demon-people, who acted like us. But he wasn’t. The minute he got a chance, he turned on us and went hollering for more demons.”

  Morris scratched his head under his hat. “No. No, I don’t suppose we’ve seen any. Everyone here has been checked with holy water.” He put his hand on Jake’s shoulder, “Did you know that holy water destroys them?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’ve doused a few of ‘em on our way here and they shriveled up and died.”

  “They died? We’ve done that too, but they don’t die, they change back to normal. They change back to us.”

  “Really? I don’t suppose we had the chance to find out. We were in a hurry to get here and didn’t stick around to check. I figured they were dead.”

  The priest was walking through the church, talking with the people in the pews. Emily took the children to a stockpile of canned food, where they picked out their choices, and quickly went to work. Along the church walls were boxes of bottled water.

  The earth shook again, more agitated than before. Outside they could hear raindrops on the roof shingles.

  “What do you think of all this, deacon? Is it the end of the world?” Jake asked.

  Morris breathed in deeply through his nose and exhaled a slow sigh. His hands were in his pockets. “I’m not sure what else to think of it.”

  “How long do you think we have?”

  “Any moment, I’d say.”

  “What about the ten days or the seven years of Tribulation?”

  The old man looked Jake squarely in the eyes. “God created the heavens and the earth in seven days. Do you think he will wait seven years to take us all home?”

  “How will it happen?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Will it hurt?”

  “He that overcometh shall not be hurt of the second dea
th.” Morris knew scripture too.

  Jake looked over at the people in the church. “And this is it? This is what’s left of mankind?”

  Morris sat down on a metal chair that he had placed in the foyer. It gave him a good view of the people in the church, and it gave him quick access to the door if he needed it. “I’m sure there are more people out there. Every church in the city is probably just like this one. A stronghold for survival.”

  “How many people do you think are still out there?” Jake asked.

  “Hundreds.”

  “Children too. They don’t know what is going on. They’re out there, just waiting to be found. Those three children wouldn’t be with us if my father hadn’t gone next door and found them.”

  “I suppose you’re right. I don’t think there are too many children who would be left behind in the first place, though.”

  Jake looked at the old man as those last words left his lips. He walked across the church to the three children. They were digging into freshly opened cans of tuna and peas that Emily had opened for them. Jake rummaged through the cans of food and picked out a snack-sized pudding cup. He handed it to Jimmy, the oldest. “Hi Jimmy. How are you doing?”

  “I’m fine,” he said as he took the pudding.

  “I want a pudding too.” Jenny was sitting next to her brother.

  Jake picked two more pudding cups from the pile and gave one to each of the other two children. The rain outside picked up intensity and a violent downpour thundered on the roof.

  “Jimmy, did your mommy and daddy go to church a lot?”

  “Yes. We go every Sunday,” the boy answered. He put down his can of tuna and peeled the lid off of the pudding cup.

  “Were you and your brother and sister ever baptized?”

  Jimmy nodded his head, but Jake could tell by his expression that he didn’t understand the question. Jake pried a little deeper. “Do you remember your sister as a baby?”

  Jimmy nodded again.

  “Do you remember going to church with your mommy and daddy and the priest pouring water on your sister’s head when she was a baby?”