“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Michael,” he said, his eyes on me. “We’re all friends here, no need to panic.”
I scowled at him. “Where’s Leisel!” I demanded.
The minister cocked his head to one side, looking thoughtful. “I’m afraid I don’t know of a Leisel, friend.”
“The woman I was with!” I screamed, my hands twitching with the urge to wrap them around his neck. “Where are the people I was with?”
“Ah, your companions,” he replied calmly. “Why, they’re here. With us.” He gestured behind him, toward the congregation.
Desperate, I swung my head around, my eyes now wild as I searched for any sign of Alex or Leisel.
The church was small and dark, its windows boarded up. The walls were white, the carpet red, and candles have been placed throughout the entire space. There were more people here then I’d previously thought, twenty or so, although there might have been more considering I couldn’t see straight through to the very back. Still, I saw no sign of Leisel or Alex.
“Leisel!” I shouted again. “Leisel!”
Mr. Peter placed his hand on my arm. His grip was not harsh, in fact, his touch was gentle, probably meant to be a calming gesture, yet it had the opposite effect on me.
“They are here,” he said, his tone lower than before, with a hint of a threat. “They are within us all.” He pointed to himself and then spread his arms open wide, emphatically gesturing to everyone.
Sharply, I turned to look out at the congregation, finding them little more than happy statues. When I glanced back at Mr. Peter, my panic and fear reached their pinnacle and I lashed out. My fist connected with his jaw with a sickening crunch, and we both cried out in pain. But pain was the least of my concern. As he stumbled backward, I leaped, jumping on top of him, and sent him sprawling flat onto the floor. Screaming obscenities, I sent my fist again into his face, clawing at his skin, slapping at him, until hands gripped the back of my clothing and promptly yanked me to my feet.
I was still flailing, screaming and kicking, when Mr. Peter was helped to his feet. His nostrils flaring, he glared at me through swollen eyelids. Licking the blood from his bottom lip, his once happy expression was gone, replaced with a deadly snarl.
“That wasn’t very nice of you,” he practically growled. “I thought we were friends.”
“Where is she?” I yelled, my throat burning with grief.
Without warning his hand lashed out, connecting painfully with my cheek. My head snapped back and stars danced in front of my eyes as I blinked repeatedly, desperately trying to focus. But the slap was like a mallet to my already dazed skull. Suddenly my legs were like jelly, and I slumped against the men holding me up.
“Take her to the altar,” Mr. Peter said to the men holding me, his now cold and disappointed gaze landing on me. “We’re forever grateful for your sacrifice, friend,” he said softly, a wicked smile curving his lips.
No longer with the strength to yell, I mumbled something incoherent in response before I was dragged away from the candlelit room and through a door. It was dark in the bowels of the church, my already strained eyes unable to make out much more than shadows.
“Don’t worry, friend!” Mr. Peter called out, his voice sounding muffled and far away. “You’ll be with them soon. Both the Lord and I want you to know that we are indebted to you. Forever grateful.”
I didn’t have the energy to fight them, whoever was dragging me along. And what would have been the point? Not only did they outnumber me, but Mr. Peter’s parting words had stripped away any fight I had left. It no longer mattered anymore what happened to me.
Nothing mattered if Leisel was gone.
I felt myself being pulled down a set of stairs, hearing the thump-thump-thump of my feet as they dully hit against each concrete step. It was even darker down here, and foul smelling. As the rank smell of death and decay washed over me, I gagged and almost sobbed. That smell reminded me of the early days, of the disease on every corner, in every home. It reminded me of the families lost, the children massacred. Worse, it reminded me of Shawn, of his final moments.
A low buzzing sound surrounded us, a strange humming, not unlike the sound of an electrical transformer. But my throat was thick with unshed sobs, and burning with a grief so all consuming, I couldn’t even find the strength to lift my chin from my chest to locate the source of the noise.
Several moments passed, then a flicker of light caught my attention. When I lifted my head, my gaze fell on someone’s legs. I tilted my head up, letting my gaze travel up the legs and body until I found the blurry face of a man.
“Please,” I begged. “Just tell me where she is, just let me see her.” My chin trembled as I spoke, but I refused to cry, refused to give in to my grief until I’d seen her, until I knew for sure what had happened to Leisel.
But the man didn’t respond, didn’t even look at me. Instead he moved away, allowing the men dragging me along to pass by him.
There was a draft down here, a chill that worked its way through the damp corridors, similar to the one making its way down my spine. My heart hammered heavily, and a drop of sweat slid slowly down my back. Off in the distance I could hear the sound of footsteps, each one echoing all around me.
Letting my eyelids drop, I swallowed another threatening sob, not quite able to believe that it had come to this. That after everything I’d lived through, this was how I was going to die—at the hands of a bunch of whack jobs in serious need of therapy.
Really, God? Really?
We continued for what seemed like an eternity, until one of the men holding me up began to grunt with the effort it took him to keep me from falling.
I lifted my head, just enough to catch a glimpse of him in the dim light. He was younger than me, yet he had an aura of darkness surrounding him that aged him beyond his years. There was a familiar look in his empty eyes, one I’d seen a hundred times before. It wasn’t sadness or anger, but the look of someone who’d seen too much, done too much, someone who knew they were going to burn in hell for it all when push came to shove.
“You’re going to burn,” I whispered hoarsely, wanting to remind him of what he already knew, and his eyes flitted to mine, staring blankly down at me. Disgusted, I turned away from him. There wasn’t hope for someone like him, lost to their madness.
We finally came to a stop just outside a large wood-slatted door. One of the men holding me unexpectedly released me, shoving me entirely into the arms of the other. He was older, and surprisingly heavyset considering we were in the midst of a damn apocalypse. I was reminded of Mason then, his greed when it came to everything, but most of all when it came to me. I hoped that having lost me, he was drowning in self-pity.
Casting a quick glance over my head, the man pulled a set of keys from his pocket and thumbed through them. After several tense moments as I waited for the horrors behind the door to be revealed, he unlocked it.
The door creaked open ominously, revealing a dark room, and the smell of decay wafted from within, even more potent than before. It wasn’t just the smell of decay, but the smell of death itself that hung in the air, and my stomach lurched at the thought of what new horror I’d just stumbled into. Squinting my eyes, I could make out what looked to be a concrete stand in the center of the room, a velvet blanket thrown over the top of it. There were no windows, and no doors aside from the entrance. Of course there weren’t.
The man still holding me pushed me forward, shoving me into the foul-smelling darkness. At first, I tried to resist but it was futile, and I was shoved hard onto the cold concrete floor. Quickly, I scanned the room, but saw nothing but the concrete stand and velvet blanket. But as my eyes began to adjust to the darkness, I found that it wasn’t a blanket at all. It was blood, thick and red, covering the stand.
“Why are you doing this?” I whispered, turning back to the men, my eyes wide with horror as my brain struggled to process what was happening.
“It’s not our choice,”
the heavyset man replied. “It’s the Lord’s.” And then he gazed up to the ceiling, making the sign of the cross in front of him.
“You’re telling me that the Lord asked you to kidnap three people off the street and kill them? The Lord wants you to murder three innocent people who have done nothing to you?”
“You’re not going to die,” the younger man said.
“I’m not?” I asked, dumbfounded.
“No, silly, you’re going home.” He smiled then, though it wasn’t a friendly smile, leading me to think he didn’t quite believe what he was saying.
“You’re speaking in riddles!” I yelled, fixing them both with as menacing a glare as I could muster, but it was wasted on them as they were both now smiling.
“Where are my friends?” I asked, feeling the slightest bit hopeful, though my voice had cracked on the last syllable. “Have you killed them? Please, just tell me.”
“We’re sending them home too,” the older man replied, his voice distant, his gaze suddenly far away. “They shall protect our flock from the wolves.”
Tears began to build behind my eyes. These people were insane; they were completely fucking nuts. I had no idea what they had done to Leisel and Alex, no idea what they were going to do to me. My heart began to beat so incredibly fast that it felt as if my chest might explode from all the pressure. But I’d held it together for this long, managing to keep everything always bottled up and buried deep down inside me, that I refused to release it here, especially in front of these lunatics.
And then, just when I’d thought all was lost, a scream, piercing in its intensity and utterly familiar, cut sharply through the otherwise silent hall.
Leisel!
Jumping to my feet, I lunged through the doorway, blindly reaching for either man standing there. Punching, kicking, clawing, biting, I attacked them with everything I had left, drawing my strength from the sound of Leisel’s fear.
Chapter Eleven
Leisel
I couldn’t stop screaming. The smell was foul, vile, enough to make my eyes water and my stomach heave. Only I didn’t have time to lose my stomach contents. Not locked in this tiny room, lit by a lone candle on the floor, chained to a stone altar, my only companion a hungry infected.
I’d never been this close to an infected before, only Thomas and Shawn when they’d been newly turned. Shawn had quickly ended Thomas’s life, and when Shawn had awoken as an infected, it had been Evelyn who’d taken his.
Although I’d seen other infected through the years, it had always been from afar. Even our encounters most recently, I hadn’t been up close and personal with them, not like Evelyn or Alex had. I’d always been shielded by something, by someone.
Not anymore.
My head was still pounding from the blow I’d suffered, and the shackles around my wrists were cutting into my skin, chafing and tearing it. But I continued pulling on them, my adrenaline overshadowing my pain as I ran in circles around this bloodied stone altar. I had only myself to protect me now. No one was coming to save me, and there was no time to break down, to freak out and give up. Not unless I wanted a very painful and awful death.
The infected was desperate to take a chunk out of me. It shambled mindlessly after me, its arms outstretched, its maw strained wide open, exposing rotten, jagged teeth. Even worse, this was not a newly turned. From what I could tell in the flickering shadows, this looked to be a first- or second-wave infected. What had once been skin, smooth and plump and flush with life, was now sunken and shriveled by age and decay, giving the thing an overall brown and leathery appearance. It was utterly hairless, its cloudy eyes were sunken in, and what little muscle mass remained wasn’t enough to shield the infected’s bones from protruding from its skin. Since it was utterly devoid of any body hair, I couldn’t even begin to determine what sex it was.
First-wave infected were rarely seen anymore, most of them having been killed or no longer able to get around as easily as in the early days after years of decomposition had taken its toll on their bodies.
However, this particular one had been well cared for. No exposure to the elements to quicken the decaying process, no human attacks had left it missing limbs or with gaping bullet holes. Sure, it smelled something awful, like meat that had been left in a freezer long after the electricity had gone out, but at the same time it had been routinely cleaned, clothed…and fed.
This infected, as hard to believe as this was for my fear-addled brain, had been loved. Was loved. And I’d been so lovingly given to it for dinner. But I wasn’t going to be an easy meal. Whereas fear might have paralyzed me in the past, in this tiny room it had become my motivation.
With the stone altar the only thing keeping the creature from easily getting to me, I ran left, then right, then left again, or sometimes in a complete circle, as it slowly but surely continued to come at me. It was a tireless creature, uncaring about the energy it expended, whereas I was the opposite. I was cold, exhausted, my body not yet recovered from Lawrence’s final beating. I didn’t have Alex’s physical strength or Evelyn’s seemingly tireless stamina, and although I wasn’t out of shape, I certainly wasn’t in the best condition. Eventually I would tire or make a mistake, and then become fodder for the dead.
Then the worst thing possible happened—I slipped. I didn’t know how or why it happened, not that it mattered once I was flat on my backside, my arms hanging above my head, my wrists still chained to the altar. As the garbled groans grew closer, I grabbed hold of my chains, kicking at the floor, attempting to pull myself back up to my feet, but I wasn’t fast enough. The infected reached me, and with its bony arms outstretched, descended on me.
I knew I was screaming, I could feel the vibration in my lungs and in my throat, yet I couldn’t hear a thing. My heart was pounding, my cold, sweaty hands sliding down the chain as I continued to try to pull myself upright, my fingers slipping with every attempt. Instinctively, I swung my right leg up and forward, hitting the infected square in its open mouth and sending it staggering backward. It hit the wall, the force of which pushed it forward, giving me only a split second to pull myself up.
I managed to regain my footing, but the chains had become twisted and tightened when I’d fallen, and now running in circles around the altar was no longer an option.
The infected came at me again, steady and sure, and again I swung out with my leg, this time catching it in the knee. With an audible crack, the limb bent and the infected stumbled. But still, it kept coming, entirely unbothered.
Frantic, I tried to untangle the chains, screaming as I yanked and pulled, uncaring that I was openly bleeding, uncaring that I was now probably missing most of the skin on my wrists. I hadn’t lived this long—surviving the loss, the pain, and the brutality of this new world—only to end up locked in a room, chained to an altar like a sacrificial lamb, and given to an infected as a gift.
I took too long trying to untangle myself, not giving myself enough time or space to get another good kick in, before the infected came barreling back toward me. I screamed as it reached for me, thrusting out my elbow into its chest, but without enough strength. The shove didn’t do much, only alerted the infected to the ready meal I’d just shoved into its face. As its rotten teeth clamped down on my arm, I screamed again, this time with tears in my eyes.
“No!” I cried out, struggling harder. “No!”
My jacket ripped beneath the onslaught of teeth, and I squeezed my eyes shut, knowing my shirt and skin would be next. I was too tangled now, no room for any evasive maneuvers. The sickly sweet smell of rot and decay was all around me, the breathless monster on top of me, clutching at me with frozen hands. It was over. This would be my bitter, ugly end.
At the first scrape of teeth against my skin, my heart skipped a beat. A visceral reaction burst forth and I swung my arm upward, and even with as little room as I had, my elbow dislodged from its mouth, finding purchase against its jaw. The force of the blow wasn’t enough to send it backward, nor distract it
, but it gave me enough room to back away just enough to lift my leg and send my foot straight into the same knee I’d already broken.
This time its fragile bones shattered and the infected fell to the floor, its head slamming against the concrete. I didn’t waste another second. I lifted my foot and sent it down and onto the creature’s face. With the force of my stomp and the amount of decay the infected had already endured, my foot sank easily through its skin, its face giving way beneath my weight. Skin split and bones cracked beneath my shoe, but I pressed on, grinding my heel, screaming and crying until I both felt and heard a resounding pop. Like a broken water balloon, the head of the infected deflated, sludge pouring from it.
The infected was now still, unmoving, and what was left of its face entirely engulfed my tennis shoe. Still screaming, I began kicking, attempting but unable to dislodge it. With my refusal to touch the thing, I eventually had little choice but to sink to the ground beside it. Not that it mattered much. The infection would soon take root inside me and the fever would spread quickly, giving me a day, maybe two before I succumbed and then awoke as one of them.
As my bottom hit the cold concrete floor, the rest of my fleeting energy leaving me entirely, my screams turned to whimpers, my cries to a quiet choking that resulted in bile erupting from my throat and down my chin. I sat there, coughing through my emotion, fear snaking through my body so wildly that I could hardly think straight, and then my bladder unwittingly released, warm and wet, coating my jeans.
And that was how Alex found me. Covered in my own vomit, in a pool of my own urine, with my foot still lodged in the skull of an infected.
So consumed with my own circumstances, I hadn’t even heard the door open, didn’t see Alex until he was standing in front of me. I stared up, feeling momentary disbelief until I noticed the arm in his hand. Connected to the arm was the entire body of a man I didn’t recognize. A man who, considering he had what looked like a human bone jutting from his eye socket, was obviously dead.
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