Alex took one look at me, at my expression, then dropped the body and rushed to my side. Belatedly, I noticed the large key ring in his hand, courtesy of the dead man, I supposed.
“Ev-Ev-Evelyn,” I managed to sputter out between sobs.
Yanking on my chains, Alex shook his head. “Haven’t found her yet. Only found you because you were screaming.”
“Bi-bitten.” I sobbed, trying to move my right arm to show him.
There was a momentary pause as Alex’s eyes grew wide with alarm, and then he ripped off the remaining shreds of my sleeve and frantically inspected my skin.
Dropping to his knees, not caring what he was kneeling in, he rocked back on his heels and smiled at me. “Not bitten,” he whispered.
Not bitten. Those two words were like fuel to my dwindling fire. My waning energy erupted, my worries for myself instantly gone, replaced with nothing but concern for Evelyn.
After dislodging my foot from the skull of the infected and helping me to my feet, Alex kept one arm looped around my waist, holding me up as he unchained me from the altar. It took several attempts, but he finally found the right key and removed my shackles. I winced at the sight of my bloodied and mangled wrists, but then quickly forgot about them.
“Evelyn,” I whispered frantically. “We need to find her.”
Alex, his back to me now, was bent down next to the body he’d dragged into the room. Roughly rifling through the man’s clothing, he was pocketing whatever he could find.
Getting to his feet, he thrust a small blade at me and I readily took it, grateful for it. The smooth handle was hot in my cold hand, steady and sure against my shaky resolve. I could do this if I had to. It wasn’t as if I was any stranger to using a knife on someone, even if that person had been sleeping. My apprehension stemmed from the fear of retaliation. I wasn’t a fighter, with very little physical strength. If a full-grown man came at me…
Gritting my teeth, I shut down that line of thinking. I would do what I had to do. I would be strong and fight, if need be. I’d be like Evelyn.
“Stay behind me,” Alex said, his voice a hushed whisper. “If anything happens to me, you run. Understand? Just run.”
I managed to bob my head up and down, my relief at finding out I hadn’t been bitten short lived. We still had to get out of here…wherever we were. The last thing I remembered was being torn away from Evelyn, and then I’d woken up here, shackled and alone, only to have an infected shoved into the room with me.
“What is this place?” I asked as we crept quietly toward the door. “Where are we?”
With one hand on the knob, the other clutching a handgun, Alex turned his head just enough to look at me. In the bouncing light that gave his already shadowed features a menacing glower, he swallowed audibly.
“Hell,” he replied darkly. “Just another version of hell.” His expression and his words were a window to his soul, and for the first time since I’d known Alex, he seemed honestly afraid.
Instinctively, I reached out, placing my palm on the small of his back and fisting the material of his shirt. It was a reassuring gesture, both for him and for myself. His eyes shut, just for a second, but in that moment I saw his features relax. The worry seeped from him, and when they reopened, he was the Alex I knew once again.
Hard. Determined. And ready to fight his way out of hell.
Again.
Chapter Twelve
Evelyn
“You’re going to regret that, friend.”
Somehow I’d backed myself into a corner, the heavyset man blocking any chance of escape I might have had. At least he was no longer smiling. In fact, he looked furious, so much so that his saggy jowls were quivering with rage.
Glancing behind him, toward where his companion lay unmoving, and hopefully, not breathing, he turned to back to me, his upper lip rising in a crude snarl. “The Lord will not be pleased.”
Crouching lower, I backed even farther away, my back now pressed against the cool, damp wall. I’d been lucky with the younger one. Leisel’s screaming had spurred me on and I’d struck out wildly, gripping hold and ripping out his hair, my nails digging into his eyes, but it had been his own weapon that had been my saving grace—a long-handled police baton that had been tucked into his belt. Taking hold of it, I’d swung as hard as I could, feeling the crack against the man’s skull, the force of the impact radiating down the baton and into my arm. Then I’d taken off running down the hall, in the wrong direction, no less, only to find myself boxed in.
Now the other man was advancing on me, a shotgun in his hands, and I knew there was no way out of this. You didn’t bring a metal club to a gunfight and expect to make it out alive.
Tears, unexpected and unwelcome, formed behind my eyes, startling me as one by one they slid down my cheeks. Trying to staunch my emotions, I took a deep breath, and ended up whimpering instead. I was suddenly furious, hating myself for allowing this man, this lunatic, to see my weakness. Hating that it was this stranger who was the first to see my tears after so many years of containing them. Not Shawn, not Jami, not Leisel, but this vile, hateful, murderous man who used God as an excuse to hurt others.
And that was where I found it, my strength. In the knowledge that I was better than this man, than these people. That even if I were to die here today, I would die with the knowledge that I was a survivor, a true fighter, who didn’t resort to violence, who hadn’t lost my mind just because the world as we’d known it had ended.
Gritting my teeth, I unfolded from my crouch and stood to my full height, ready to meet my fate head-on. So focused was I on my quickly approaching death, I nearly screamed when Alex was suddenly there, running up behind the man with his own gun drawn. Alex jumped up into the air, and as he came crashing down, slammed the butt of his pistol into the back of the man’s head.
The shotgun fell first, falling free from the man’s hands as his eyes went wide. The man himself fell next, slumping into a heap on the floor. But Alex didn’t stop there. He leaped on top of the man’s lifeless form, using his gun to hit him again and again, over and over until blood sprayed from several gaping wounds in the man’s head.
“Stop!” Leisel screamed, running up from behind. “Alex! Stop!”
She was alive. She was alive and Alex was alive, and even more amazing, so was I. My gaze flickered between Leisel and Alex and the bloodied body on the floor, and then back to Leisel.
She was alive.
Grunting, Alex climbed off the body, using his coat sleeve to wipe away the blood that had spattered across his face. He then tucked his pistol into his waistband and reached down to retrieve the man’s shotgun.
“We need to go,” Leisel whispered.
I knew we needed to go, but I couldn’t seem to stop staring at her and move my feet. I’d been convinced she was dead, that fear driven home when I could no longer hear her screaming. Yet she wasn’t, she was here, and I still couldn’t quite believe that she was real, that she was still alive.
“Lei,” I choked out, reaching for her, my chin trembling. “You’re alive.”
Her face crumpled at the sound of my broken words and then she rushed forward, nearly tripping over the mangled body at our feet as she fell into my waiting arms. Wrapping my arms around her, feeling her warmth and her trembling, feeling the dampness of her tears on my face, only served to reinforce the fact that she was truly alive, and I wasn’t dreaming or imagining that she was here. I breathed out a sigh of relief and slumped against her.
“We need to go,” Alex muttered. “Now.”
He was already moving, heading down the hall, and Leisel and I hurried to catch up. We followed closely behind him, me still clutching my baton in one hand and Leisel’s hand in the other.
“This place is huge,” I whispered when we breached a third set of stairs. “And creepy as hell.”
Wherever we were now, I could hear singing, the same hymn being belted out by the same joyful voices, the sound of it all the more chilling now that
I knew what was happening here. In the Lord’s name, no less.
“You ready for this?” Alex asked when we reached a large wooden door, the singing coming from just beyond it.
Nodding, I showed him my weapon, and he rewarded me with what might have been a smile. With Alex, whose smiles and grimaces looked nearly identical, the possibilities were endless.
Tightening my grip on Leisel’s hand, I gave her a hard yet gentle glance, trying to will my strength and reassurance into her. She looked petrified, yet determined, and it was then that I noticed a small blade clenched in her fist. Knowing that she had some way to defend herself if we got separated was a comforting thought.
Raising my baton, I looked at Alex and nodded. “Ready,” I whispered.
As he took hold of the handle, I had a moment of panic at the thought that it might be locked, that we might have to bust our way back into the bowels of the church. If that were the case, we’d lose the element of surprise, no longer have the upper hand.
But my fears were baseless. As the door clicked open and the room we were standing in flooded with light, the three of us moved forward and into the nave of the church.
The room was exactly the same as when I’d been forcefully dragged through it. There were still people lining the pews, the choirs was still situated on the chancel, and the minister, Mr. Peter—apart from his swollen lip—was still smiling, still singing his heart out with his arms raised toward the sky in worship.
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Alex bellowed, startling everyone in the room, including Leisel and me.
The singing abruptly ended. A heartbeat of silence followed before a chorus of gasps and murmuring finally rippled through the pews as the parishioners watched us creep slowly into view. Only Mr. Michael was brave enough to stand, though his hands were trembling, giving away his fear and causing his gun to quiver in his grasp.
Alex smiled at the armed man, a menacing show of teeth. “Put it down, or your man over there”—he gestured with his gun toward Mr. Peter—“is going to eat a bullet.”
With a quick nod, Mr. Peter signaled for Mr. Michael to do as Alex asked. Mr. Michael did, gently setting his weapon down by his feet before sitting down again.
Mr. Peter, no longer smiling, his eyes wide as he looked the three of us over, opened his mouth to speak.
“Don’t say anything, asshole,” Alex gritted out, cutting off whatever the man was about to say. “Get your people and go stand over there.” He pointed to the far aisle of the nave, the one directly opposite of where we stood.
The church went silent, the choir and the parishioners all looking at Mr. Peter in question. Sheep, that was what they reminded me of. Unable to think for themselves, to eat, sleep, or breathe without some sort of direction.
“Stay here,” Alex muttered before he stalked forward. With his shotgun raised, the barrel fixed on the center of Mr. Peter’s chest, Alex approached him slowly.
“You would kill a man of God?” Mr. Peter asked in shocked disbelief as he eyed the gun in Alex’s hand. “You would murder innocent church folk for simply spreading the word of the Lord?”
Reaching him, Alex pressed the barrel of the gun against his chest. “Tell them to move,” he growled. “Or I will kill you.”
The two men stared at each other, Alex’s eyes full of hard determination, and Mr. Peter’s full of hatred. Pure, unadulterated hatred glowered beneath the facade of kindness.
“Do what he says,” Mr. Peter said, lifting his chin obstinately. “Get up and move to the east side, and let these sinners pass. The devil has a different path for them.”
Another murmur rippled through the pews as people glanced back and forth at one another, some looking fearful, others looking angry, until eventually everyone was on their feet and shuffling slowly across the room.
“Arms up!” Alex shouted, glaring toward the gathered crowd. “All of you.”
Again, Mr. Peter nodded, signaling for them to do as Alex asked. Once their arms were raised and Alex noted that their hands were devoid of weapons, he reached for Mr. Peter. Taking hold of his neck, Alex shoved him forward. Pressing his gun into the man’s back, he kept his grip on his neck and urged him to begin walking.
Gripping Leisel’s hand, I pulled her forward into the center aisle and followed closely behind Alex, only stopping to reach down and scoop up Mr. Michael’s fallen shotgun. We continued down the aisle quickly as I kept a close watch on the crowd to my right, looking for any sign of movement, ready to run if someone pulled a weapon.
“You’re leaving us unarmed, you know,” Mr. Peter said, his tone suddenly oddly friendly. “We’ll have no way to protect ourselves against the risen.”
Alex laughed, a cold and cruel sound. “You tried to kill us, and you think I care what happens to you?” He barked out another angry semblance of a laugh, and pressed his gun harder into Mr. Peter’s back.
When we reached the set of double doors at the entrance, Alex looked at me and I hurried forward, trying the handles and finding them locked.
“Where’s the key?” Alex growled, shaking Mr. Peter.
“It’s here!” a voice called out, and an elderly man stepped forward from the crowd. Graying and wrinkled, he wore a pair of tattered suspenders and a golfing cap. He reminded me of a grandfatherly type, a great uncle, or an elderly neighbor, someone who looked harmless, kind and caring even. Holding up a set of keys for us to see, he shook them. “I’ve got them.”
Alex gestured for the man to join us and when he did, still keeping his grip on Mr. Peter’s neck, Alex used his shotgun to shove the old man toward the doors. “Open them,” he demanded.
The old man complied, his hands shaking with age and fear as he attempted to locate the correct key. It took several tries, each failed attempt causing the man to glance back at Alex with wide, fear-filled eyes, until finally the doors were unlocked. Pulling them open, the man tentatively peeked his head out, looking both left and right before stepping back.
“The way is clear,” he said, swallowing hard. “Though your conscience will not be if you harm Mr. Peter.”
Alex snorted. “I should kill him,” he gritted out through clenched teeth. “I should kill you all.”
The old man swallowed again and shook his head. “No, friend, you should be grateful for what we had planned—for what the Lord had planned for you.”
“What is wrong with all of you?” I cried out, looking from the old man to Mr. Peter to the crowd of people still gathered together. When no one bothered to answer me, I shook my head, feeling both sickened and saddened. “Alex,” I said. “Let’s go. Right now.”
“Yes, go,” Mr. Peter snarled. “Get out of my church, and take with you the evil you’ve brought into my home. Go back to the vile cesspool the world has become, full of sinners and whores,” he said pointedly, looking at Leisel and me as his face contorted with disgust, his eyes burning with madness.
I was shaking, not with fear but with a burst of uncontrollable anger, and as Alex shoved Mr. Peter forward, just barely missing the elderly man, I found myself releasing Leisel’s hand, raising my gun, and pulling the trigger. My aim was wild and the first bullet sliced through Mr. Peter’s shoulder, causing him to lurch backward and cry out in pain. Again, I pulled the trigger, this time hitting him squarely in the chest, piercing his most vital organ. He stumbled backward, his eyes wide, and hit the wall behind him before his knees gave out and he dropped to the floor in a heap.
Gasps and screams erupted from the gathered crowd as the old man fell to his knees, his hands covering the growing red stains on Mr. Peter’s shirt.
“What have you done?” he screamed, his voice shrill and thick. “You’ve doomed us all. You’ve doomed us all!”
Alex, aiming his gun at the old man, let loose a mouthful of spit, sending it directly onto the toe of his shiny black shoe. “You’ve doomed yourselves.”
I was shaking, my gun still aimed at the man I’d just killed, wanting to kill him all over again, wanting to kill ev
ery last person inside this church. Though they deserved worse than a quick death, they deserved the very same death they nearly inflicted on us, and who knew how many other innocent people.
“The blood attracts the risen,” the old man wailed, his words barely distinguishable amid his groans of grief. “We’ll need an offering!” he cried, looking toward his people.
Much to my horror, several of the parishioners stepped forward. Their heads were bowed as they silently offered themselves up at the old man’s request.
“We need to go,” Leisel cried out as she grabbed my arm and tried to pull me through the doorway. “Now, Eve, now!”
The three of us ran through the doorway and out into a dark and empty street. Though I didn’t stop running long enough to get a good look at the place, I garnered from what glimpses I did see that it was a quiet sort of neighborhood. It had once probably been full of families, with children laughing and playing, neighbors borrowing sugar, the sort of town where Christmas caroling was a yearly event looked forward to by all.
We passed house after house, the windows dark, no signs of people or of infected, but we kept running, not wanting to stop until we were as far away from this place as possible.
Eventually the houses were spaced farther apart. The road was wider here, the trees larger and thicker, their heavy branches blocking the moonlight. I slowed first, my steps staggering, my chest burning from breathlessness. Leisel’s body was pressed heavily against my side, and she smiled at me, seeming glad for the reprieve.
“Alex,” I called out, my voice strangled, my throat dry and sore from exertion.
Still jogging ahead of us, he turned, slowing down when he saw we were unable to keep up with him. Nodding, he circled back around to us, taking the place on Leisel’s right.
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