"Where did they get a battering ram?" Tucker Case asked. He was examining the big rubber coasters on the piano, trying to figure out how to lock them.
"Half the forest has blown down tonight," said Lena. "Monterey pines don't have a taproot. They probably just found one that they could lift."
"Turn it on its back," Tuck said. "Brace it against the table."
The ram hit the doors and they popped open six inches. The table hooked under the heavy brass handles was bending and beginning to split. Three arms came through the opening, half a face, the eye drooling out of a rotted socket.
"Push!" Tuck screamed.
They ran the piano up against the braced table, slamming the doors on the protruding limbs. The battering ram hit again, popping the doors open, driving the men back, and rattling their teeth. The undead arms pulled back from the gap. Tuck and Robert shoved the piano against the door and it shut again. Jenny Masterson threw her back against the piano and looked back at the onlookers, twenty or so people who seemed too stunned or too scared to move.
"Don't just stand there, you useless fucks! Help us brace this. If they get in, they're going to eat your brains, too."
Five men pointed flashlights at each other in a "Me? You? Us?" inspection, then shrugged and ran to help push the piano.
"Nice pep talk," said Tuck, his sneakers squeaking on the pine floor as he pushed.
"Thanks, I'm good with the public," Jenny said. "Waitress for twenty years."
"Oh yeah, you waited on us at H.P.'s. Lena, it's our waitress from the other night."
"Nice to see you again, Jenny," said Lena, just as the battering ram hit the door again, knocking her to the floor. "I haven't seen you at yoga class…"
"Clear the way, clear the way, clear the way!" called Theo. He and Nacho Nuñez were coming across the floor from the back room carrying an eight-foot-long oak pew. Behind them, Ben Miller was wrestling a pew across the floor by himself. Several of the men who were holding the barricade broke ranks to help him.
"Cantilever these against the piano and nail them to the floor," Theo said.
The heavy benches went up on a diagonal against the back of the piano and Nacho Nuñez toenailed them to the floor.
The benches flexed a little with each blow of the battering ram, but they held fast. After a few seconds, the pounding stopped. Again, there was only the noise of the wind and the rain. Everyone played flashlights around the room, waiting for whatever would come next.
Then they heard Dale Pearson's voice at the side of the chapel. "This way. Bring it this way."
"Back door," someone shouted. "They're carrying it around to the back door."
"More pews," Theo yelled. "Nail them up in the back. Hurry, that door's not as heavy as the front, it won't take two hits like that."
"Can't they just come through one of the walls?" asked Val Riordan, who was trying to join in the effort to hold the line, despite the handicap of her five-hundred-dollar shoes.
"I'm hoping that won't occur to them," Theo said.
* * *
Supervising the undead was worse than dealing with a construction crew full of drunks and cokeheads. At least his living crews had all of their limbs and most of their physical coordination. This bunch was pretty floppy. Twenty of the undead were hefting a broken pine-tree trunk a foot thick and as long as a car.
"Move the goddamn tree," Dale growled. "What am I paying you for?"
"Is he paying us?" asked Marty in the Morning, who was hefting at midtree, on a jagged, broken branch. "Are we getting paid?"
"I can't believe you ate all the brains," Warren Talbot, the dead painter, said. "That was supposed to be for everyone."
"Would you shut the fuck up and get the tree around to the back door," Dale yelled, waving his snub-nose revolver.
"The gunpowder gave them a nice peppery flavor," Marty said.
"Don't rub it in," said Bess Leander. "I'm so hungry."
"There will be enough for everyone once we get inside," said Arthur Tannbeau, the citrus farmer.
Dale could tell this wasn't going to work. They were too feeble, they couldn't get enough strength behind the battering ram. The living would be barricading the back door even now.
He pulled some of the more decayed undead off the tree and pushed in those who seemed to have much of their normal strength, but they were trying to run up a narrow set of stairs carrying a thousand-pound tree trunk. Even a crew of healthy, living people wouldn't be able to get purchase in this mud. The tree trunk hit the door with an anemic thud. The door flexed just enough to reveal that the living had reinforced it.
"Forget it. Forget it," said Dale. "There are other ways we can get to them. Fan out in the parking lot and start looking for keys in the ignition of people's cars."
"Drive-thru snackage?" said Marty in the Morning. "I like it."
"Something like that," Dale said. "Kid, you with the wax face. You're a motorhead, can you hot-wire a car?"
"Not with only one arm," Jimmy Antalvo slurred. "That dog took my arm."
* * *
"It stopped," Lena said. She was checking Tuck's wounds. Blood was seeping through the bandages on his ribs.
Theo turned away from the pilot and looked around the room. The emergency lighting was starting to dim already and his flashlight was panning them like he was looking for suspects. "No one left their keys in their car, did they?"
There were murmurs of denial and heads shaking.
Val Riordan had a perfectly painted eyebrow raised at him. There was a question there, even if it was unspoken.
"Because that's what I'd do," Theo said. "I'd get a car up to speed and crash it right through the wall."
"That would be bad," said Gabe.
"That parking lot had two inches of water and mud the last time I saw it," Tucker Case said. "Not every car is going to get up to speed in that."
"Look, we need to get some help," Theo said. "Someone has to go for help."
"They won't get ten feet," Tuck said. "As soon as you open a door or break a window, they'll be waiting."
"What about the roof?" said Josh Barker.
"Shut up, kid," Tuck said. "There's no way up to the roof."
"Are we going to cut off his head now?" said Josh.
"You have to sever the spinal column or they just keep coming."
"Look," Theo said, playing his flashlight across the center of the ceiling. There was a trapdoor up there, painted over and latched, but it was definitely there.
"It leads to the old bell tower," Gabe Fenton said. "No bell, but it does open onto the roof."
Theo nodded. "From the roof someone could tell where they all were before making his move."
"That hatch is thirty feet up. There's no way to get to it."
Suddenly the high chirp of a barking bat came from above them. A half-dozen flashlights swung around to spotlight Roberto, who was hanging upside down from the star atop the Christmas tree.
"Molly's tree," said Lena.
"It looks sturdy enough," said Gabe Fenton.
"I'll go," said Ben Miller. "I'm still in pretty good shape. If I have to make a run for it, I can."
"Right there, that proves it," said Tuck, an aside to Lena. "No guy with tiny balls would volunteer for that. See how the dead lie."
"I'm driving an old Tercel," Ben said. "I don't think you want me trying to make a run for help in that."
"What we need is a Hummer," said Gabe.
"Yeah, or even a friendly hand job," said Tuck. "But that's later. For now, we need a four-wheel drive."
"You really want to try this?" Theo asked Ben.
The athlete nodded. "I've got the best chance of getting out. Those I can't outrun I'll just go through."
"Okay, then," said Theo. "Let's get that tree over to the middle of the room."
"Not so fast," said Tuck, patting his bandages. "I don't care how fast Micro-nads is, Santa still has two bullets in his gun."
Chapter 19
UP ON THE
ROOFTOP, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK
This is what it's all been about, thought Ben Miller as he climbed into the tiny bell tower atop the chapel. It had taken ten minutes to saw through the painted-closed seams of the hatch with the bread knife, but finally he'd made it, thrown the latch, and crawled from the top of the Christmas tree into the bell tower. There was just enough room to stand, his feet on narrow ledges around the hatch. Thankfully, the bell had been taken away a long time ago. The bell tower was enclosed by louvered vents and the wind whistled through like there was nothing there at all. He was pretty sure he could kick through the vents, hundred-year-old wood, after all, then make his way across the steep roof, drop off whichever side looked safe, and make it to the parking lot and the red Explorer he was holding the keys for. Thirty miles south to the highway-patrol post and help would be on the way.
All of the years after high school and college when he had continued to train, all the hours of roadwork, all the weights and swimming and high-protein diets, it all came down to this moment. Keeping himself in shape all these years when no one really seemed to care would finally pay off. Anything out there that he couldn't outrun, he could take out with a lowered shoulder. (He'd played one season as a jay-vee halfback in addition to his varsity track career.)
"You okay, Ben?" Theo yelled from below.
"Yeah. I'm ready."
He took a deep breath, braced his back against one side of the bell tower, then kicked at the louvered slats on the opposite side. They broke away on the first kick and he was nearly launched out on the roof feetfirst. He fought to get his balance — turned around on his stomach and scooted backward out the opening onto the roof. Facedown, he was looking down the length of the Christmas tree at a dozen hopeful faces below.
"Hold tight. I'll be back soon with help," he said. Then he pushed back until he was on his hands and knees on the peak of the roof, cold wetness cutting everywhere he touched.
"Please, bitch," came a voice from right by Ben's ear. He jumped sideways, and started to slide down the roof. Something caught his sweater, pulling him back, then something hard and cold was pressed against his forehead.
The last thing he heard was Santa saying, "Pretty fucking tricky for a jock."
Below, in the chapel, they heard the gunshot.
* * *
Dale Pearson held the dead track star by the back of the collar, thinking, Eat now, or save it for after the massacre? Below him on the ground, the rest of the undead were begging for treats. Warren Talbot, the landscape painter, had made his way halfway up the pine-tree trunk that Dale had used to climb up on the roof.
"Please, please, please, please," said Warren. "I'm so hungry."
Dale shrugged and let go of Ben Miller's collar, then gave the body a shove with his boot, sending it sliding down the roof and off the side to the hungry mob. Warren looked behind him at where the body had fallen, then at Dale.
"You bastard. Now I'll never get any."
Disgusting sucking sounds were rising from below.
"Yeah, well, the quick and the dead, Warren. The quick and the dead."
The dead painter slid back down his tree and out of sight.
Dale had some revenge to take. He stuck his head inside the bell tower and looked down at the horrified faces below. The wiry little biologist was climbing up the Christmas tree toward the open hatch.
"Come on up," screamed Dale. "We haven't even gotten to the main course."
Dale spotted his ex-wife, Lena, staring up, and the blond guy who had charged them with the buffet table had his arm around her.
"Die, slut!" Dale let go of the edge of the bell tower and aimed the .38 down the Christmas tree at Lena. He saw her eyes go wide, then something hit him in the face, something furry and sharp. Claws cut into his cheeks and scratched at his eyes. He grabbed for his attacker and in doing so lost his balance and fell backward. He slid down the side of the roof and off the edge onto his feasting minions.
"Roberto!" Tuck yelled. "Get back in here."
"He's gone," said Theo. "He's outside."
Tuck started to climb up the Christmas tree behind Gabe. "I'll get him. Let me come up and call him."
Theo grabbed the pilot around the waist and pulled him back. "Close and lock the hatch, Gabe."
"No," Tuck said.
Gabe Fenton looked down briefly, then his eyes went wide when he realized how high above the floor he was. He quickly pushed the bell-tower hatch shut and latched it.
"He'll be okay," said Lena. "He got away."
Gabe Fenton backed down the Christmas tree. When he got to the lower branches, he felt some hands at his waist, steadying him down the last few steps. When he hit the floor, he turned around into Valerie Riordan's arms. He pushed away so as not to smudge her makeup. She pulled him out of the branches of the tree.
"Gabe," she said. "You know when I said you weren't engaged in the real world?"
"Yeah."
"I'm sorry."
"Okay."
"I just wanted you to know that. In case our brains are eaten by zombies without me having a chance to say it."
"That means a lot to me, Val. Can I kiss you?"
"No, sweetheart, I left my purse in the car and don't have any lipstick to touch up. But we can knock out one last stand-up quickie in the basement before we die if you'd like." She smiled.
"What about the kid at the Thrifty-Mart?"
"Squirrel porn?" She raised a perfectly drawn eyebrow.
He took her by the hand. "Yes, I think I'd like that," he said, leading her to the back room and the stairs.
"What's that smell?" Theo Crowe said, remarkably glad to turn his attention away from Gabe and Val. "Anybody smell that? Tell me that's not —»
Skinner was sniffing the air and whimpering.
"What is that?" Nacho Nunez was following the smell to one of the barricaded windows. "It's coming from over here."
"Gasoline," said Lena.
Chapter 20
WINGING IT
The angel had opened six envelopes of powdered hot-chocolate mix and handpicked out all the minimarshmallows. "They trap them in these little prisons with the brown powder. You must free them to put them in the cup," the angel explained, tearing open another packet, pouring the contents into a bowl, picking up the little marshmallows, and dropping them into his mug.
"Kill him while he's counting the marshmallows," said the Narrator. "He's a mutant. No angel could be that stupid. Kill him, you crazy bitch, he's the enemy."
"Nuh-uh," said Raziel, into his marshmallow foam.
Molly looked at him over the rim of her mug. By the candlelight in the kitchen, he certainly was a striking fellow — those sharp features, the lineless face, the hair, and now the chocolate-marshmallow mustache. Not to mention the intermittent glowing in the dark, which had been helpful when she was looking for some matches to light the candles.
"You can hear the voice in my head?" she asked.
"Yes. And in my head."
"I'm not religious," Molly said. Under the table, she held the tashi with her free hand, its blade resting across her bare thighs.
"Oh, me either," said the angel.
"I mean, I'm not religious, so why are you here?"
"Lunatics. We're attracted to them. It has something to do with the mechanics of faith. I don't really understand it. Do you have any more?" He held up the empty cocoa envelope. His mug was overflowing with melted marshmallow foam.
"No, that's the whole box. So you're attracted to me because I'm loony and will believe anything?"
"Yes, I think so. And because no one will believe you. So there's no violation of faith."
"Right."
"But you are attractive in other ways, too," added the angel quickly, as if someone had suddenly smacked him in the head with a sock full of people skills. "I like your sword and those."
"My breasts?" It wasn't the first time that someone had said that sort of thing to her, but it was the first time it had come from a messenger
of God.
"Yes. Zoe has those. She's an archangel like me. Well, not like me. She has those."
"Uh-huh. So there are female angels as well?"
"Oh yes. Not always. Everyone was changed after you happened."
"Me?"
"Man. Mankind. Women. You. Before we were all one kind. But then you happened, and we were divided up and given parts. Some got those, others got other things. I don't know why."
"So you have parts?"
"Would you like to see?"
"Wings?" Molly asked. She actually wouldn't mind seeing his wings, if he had them.
"No, we all have those. I mean my special parts. Would you like to see?" He stood and reached down the front of his pants.
It wasn't the first time she'd had an offer like that, but it was the first time it had come from a messenger of God.
"No, that's okay." She grabbed his forearm and guided him back into his seat.
"Okay, then. I should go. I have to check on the miracle and then go home."
"The miracle?"
"A Christmas miracle. That's why I'm here. Oh look, you have a scar on one of them»
"He has the attention span of a hummingbird," the Narrator hissed "Put him out of his misery "
The angel was pointing to the jagged five-inch scar above Molly's left breast, the one she'd gotten when a stunt went wrong while filming Mechanized Death Warrior Babe VII. The injury that had gotten her fired, the scar that had ended her career as a B-movie action heroine.
"Does it hurt?" asked the angel
"Not anymore," Molly said
"Can I touch?"
It wasn't the first time that someone had asked, but — well, you know. "Okay," she said.
His fingers were long and fine, his fingernails a little too long for a guy, she thought, but his touch was warm and radiated from her breast through her whole body
When he pulled his hand away, he said, "Better?"
She touched where he had touched It was smooth. Completely smooth. The scar was gone. The angel blurred in her vision as tears welled up in her eyes.
"You complete shit bag of sentimental saccharine," said the Narrator.
The Stupidest Angel: A Heartwarming Tale of Christmas Terror Page 16