by Kirk Withrow
Nearly unable to contain his excitement as he gazed into the darkness below, Ethan asked, “What is this? Where does it lead?”
With the same conspiratorial look in his eyes, Ezzard replied, “Son, what you are looking at is a waypoint on the road to freedom. You see, this is an old church originally built in the early 1800s, and this cellar, and the tunnel within, has been here since the 1850s. This church served as a ‘station’ on the Underground Railroad, and the tunnel led to the house of a local abolitionist sympathizer at the time. While the house it leads to is still in existence I can’t guarantee that the tunnel is safe or passable. I don’t believe anyone has been down there in over seventy-five years, since I explored it briefly as a young man, and I never followed it to the end.”
Knowing how desperate their situation was, a profoundly surreal feeling swept over John as he stared into the dark tunnel and listened to the old preacher’s words. With a confidence that surprised Ethan, John said, “This is our way out.” He shined his flashlight down the rickety ladder that descended approximately twelve feet to the bottom of the small cellar. John looked to Ethan who reluctantly nodded in agreement, realizing they were out of better alternatives. Without another word, John began to descend the old ladder into the dark cellar below. Once Ethan joined him the two men inspected the cellar. The musty room was about fifteen feet square with a hard-packed dirt floor and walls reinforced by stout wooden beams. A couple of dilapidated chairs, several dry-rotting blankets, a broken oil lamp, and a rusty metal head of a pickaxe were the only items in the dank cellar. On the wall farthest from the ladder was an opening just tall enough for a crouched man to fit in. Shining his flashlight in that direction, John said, “There’s the tunnel. Come on.”
Approaching cautiously, John ducked his head into the narrow opening. Though not quite strong enough to call it a breeze, John felt the definite movement of air coming from within the tunnel. Running his hand over the walls and the roof, he noticed the narrow passageway was reinforced with the same sturdy wooden beams as the cellar and, overall, was surprised at how solid it felt. “Well I guess we should check it out,” said John in what seemed like as much a question as a statement.
Gingerly, John took the first step into the tunnel and paused as if he was expecting the floor to suddenly give way, or the walls to begin closing in on him. After an uneventful moment passed, John let out the breath he had been holding and moved forward slowly, while Ethan waited at the mouth of the tunnel. Neither man knew how long the tunnel was nor did they know if there were any branch points along the way. John tried to estimate the distance by counting his steps as he went. At approximately fifty yards in, he came upon a short section that was slightly wider, presumably so traffic going in both directions could pass. He shuddered in the claustrophobic confines of the passageway as he considered that those the tunnel was originally intended for might have had to stay in there for extended periods of time. With his heart rate increasing and his palms sweating profusely, he quickened his pace before coming to an abrupt stop about ten yards farther into the tunnel.
Immediately before him was a mound of dirt stretching from floor to ceiling, save for a small opening near the top, through which air flowed. Cursing, John tried to turn around but found he had to back up to the widened section of the tunnel before he was able to do so. Ethan’s voice echoed through the darkness of the tunnel. “You all right in there, John? How’s it look?”
Russell heard an unintelligible reply and saw John’s light coming back toward him from within the tunnel. Emerging from the cramped confines, John straightened in the comparatively spacious cellar as his back cracked and popped like a wet log on a campfire.
Groaning, John said, “The tunnel is almost completely blocked about sixty yards in. There’s a small opening, but we will definitely have to widen it to get through.”
“Damn it!” said Ethan in frustration, “How the hell are we going to get out of here?”
Reams leaned his head through the cellar door opening, and said, “Hey guys I don’t mean to rush you, but what’s the situation down there? Things are getting pretty well boxed in up here.”
“The shovel!” said Ethan as he moved to the ladder to answer Reams’ call. “Reams, there’s a small shovel propped up against the back of the church just outside the back door. Can you get it? There is a short section of the tunnel that needs a little work, but otherwise, we should be able to get through,” added Ethan as he turned to see John’s appraising look.
Moving to the back door of the church, Reams could hear the sounds of the infected mercilessly pounding on the door. Seeing that there was no conceivable way he could open the door without the infected pouring in, he was just about to head back when he noticed the moonlight shining through the window next to the door. Glancing over to the matching window on the other side of the door, he called for Kate as a plan formulated in his head.
“Kate, we need to get the shovel just outside the door, but we can’t open the door because of the infected. One of us needs to open that window slightly in order to draw their attention while the other opens this window and grabs the shovel.”
Reams expected his plan to be met with sharp objection, and was surprised when Kate nonchalantly walked over to the window and said, “Okay.” He barely made it to the other window before she opened her window, poked her arm out, and threw up her middle finger at the revs pushing against the door.
“Over here, you bastards! Come get a plug of this sweet white meat, shitheads! Come on! I’m young and tender! Come and get it!” she yelled with perhaps a bit more exuberance than was necessary considering the audience.
Almost immediately the mangled forms moved away from the door toward Kate’s open window. Of the five revs Reams originally saw pressed against the door, all of them except for the dangling, mutilated lower leg of an infected mailman had moved out of view. The leg twitched and turned, pulled by the sinewy nerves and tendons as it dutifully kept watch over the door while its master went to investigate the nearby commotion. Raising his window with as little sound as possible, Reams warily leaned out, looking both ways as if to ensure he wasn’t about to be decapitated by an oncoming train. Satisfied it was clear, he leaned out farther and braced his leg against the inside wall to keep from falling completely out of the window. With the tip of his outstretched middle finger he was just able to reach the shovel’s handle, and for a moment, it teetered precariously on the end of its blade. Sweat dripped down his face and into his eyes as he strained his inverted body, desperately trying to stretch even a half-inch more. Suddenly his body lurched forward a couple of inches as his foot lost its purchase on the inside wall. The unexpected movement pushed the shovel handle away where it struck the side of the building before ricocheting back to Reams’ waiting hand. Struggling to maneuver his suspended upper body back into church, he saw two of the revs turn toward the sound of the shovel. The closest was dressed in a fancy blue dress with a matching hat still atop its head; Reams assumed it was one of the former members of the congregation. Where the skin was missing over a portion of its outstretched hand he could see several wriggling tendons tugging on the finger bones like the strings of a marionette. Tightening his abdominal muscles, Reams pulled up hard, brutally smashing Blue Dress on the side of the head with the shovel. The blue hat and wig it wore flew off its head, disappearing into the darkness as the thing fell back into the outstretched arms of its infected brethren.
Before he could reload for another swing the other rev was on him. It was a former male that for some strange reason wore only a soiled white t-shirt. It appeared to have a massive inguinal hernia that made its scrotum swing like a pendulous wrecking ball as it closed the distance. Exhausted from trying to maintain his precarious position, he brought the shovel up just in time to wedge it against Wrecking Ball’s chest. The rev did not seem to notice the implement poking into his chest as it continued to push forward with unreserved effort. Using the shovel to push off of the advancing re
v, Reams was able to pull his upper body back inside the church. With a hard shove, he sent Wrecking Ball sprawling to the ground as he pulled the shovel in, and closed the window. I wonder if he’ll be stuck on the ground now like a man thrown into the river with a cement block attached to his ankles? He saw Kate close her window, and the two ran back to the cellar door with their prize in hand.
“Here you go, man. That thing was a hell of a lot of trouble to get, so make it worthwhile,” said Reams as Ethan disappeared back into the darkness of the cellar with shovel in hand. Reams turned to Kate, and said, “I’m going to check on things out front. Wait here in case they need anything else down there.”
Kate stood staring into the darkness of the cellar with Ezzard quietly at her side. After a few moments she sensed eyes on her and turned to see Ezzard staring at her with a rather curious expression that she interpreted as a disapproving look generally reserved for someone about to administer disciplinary action. Alarmed, she wondered what she had done to warrant such a look as her mind flashed back to her taunting of the revs behind the church. “Sorry for the language, Reverend,” said Kate with her eyes cast toward the floor.
“It’s all right, child. I suppose technically you were outside of the Lord’s house,” replied Ezzard with a warm smile.
Surprised, Kate looked up at him and couldn’t help but let out a little giggle that he met with a quiet laugh of his own. After another moment Kate asked in a more serious tone, “What happened here, Ezzard?”
For the first time since they met, Ezzard’s smiling visage truly faltered and, for a fleeting second, Kate saw something dark and evil pass over his face as he contemplated her question.
“It was just like the good Lord said in Revelations. The army of the beast came to wage war on God’s children and, by His good grace, that army was repelled. You see, in the first days, many of my parishioners came to the church seeking the comfort of their faith during the dark times. You would of thought it was Christmas as packed as this place was. We even had folks out in the aisles. You know what they say, ‘Ain’t no atheists in the foxhole!’ ”
As Ezzard relayed the tragic sequence of events that befell his church in the first days of the plague, Kate envisioned similar scenarios playing out in exactly the same way in countless gatherings everywhere the plague hit. How could anyone have imagined what was going on or what was about to happen?
That night at the Enoch Hill Baptist Church, someone in attendance harbored a lethal secret. Perhaps they truly didn't know the consequence of hiding their injury, or maybe they were simply too frightened to speak up. Perhaps they didn’t even know they were infected. No matter the reason, the outcome was unchanged; said individual succumbed to the infection, became a rev, and the over-crowded congregation was quickly and mercilessly overtaken. As she listened to the story, the whole scenario reminded Kate of a pool game called ‘sharks and minnows’ that she and her friends often played on hot summer days when she was a child.
One child—the shark—was in the middle of the pool, with all the other children on the sides as minnows. If the shark managed to grab a minnow, that child then became a shark as well, until all but one child was a shark with only a single minnow remaining. As the game progressed it became exponentially harder to remain a minnow in the face of the increasing number of sharks. With people praying about the end of days, packed in as tightly as sardines, there was little chance for escape from the church when the ‘shark’ surfaced in their midst. With that thought, her mind shifted to her own mortality, and she wondered how long she would remain a minnow in the face of the ever-increasing number of sharks around her.
Chapter 33
September 31, 2015
Reverend Ezzard Mack knew he was in for a busy day. Even before the news reported much about the increasing incidence of suspected influenza-related sequelae, the escalating violence, and the civil unrest beginning to grip the United States as well as other regions overseas, Ezzard had already seen the cards. As a pastor and an astute observer of the human condition, he had seen the signs of the times and watched with dismay as the moral fiber of society steadily deteriorated all around him. He knew dark days were coming, and though he tried in earnest to prepare both himself and his congregation, he could never have prepared for what actually descended upon them that night.
As the deeply disturbing news became more widely dispersed, many people in his intensely religious community flocked to the Enoch Hill Baptist Church as they often did when tragedy struck. He remembered how many people came to the church after the disastrous tornadoes rocked the small community a couple of years ago; this evolving situation clearly had the potential to be so much worse. As the day morphed into night, Ezzard found himself staring out into an expansive sea of concerned and gravely troubled faces, and hoping he would be granted the grace to comfort them.
As he delivered reassuring words about God’s unfaltering love for his children and the mystery of His incomprehensible plan for them, he received the customary, ‘Amen,’ and, ‘Praise God,’ responses in reply. Though he was a dyed-in-the-wool southern Baptist preacher, he was always in tune with what his congregation needed, so he opted to minimize the ‘fire and brimstone’ content of his sermon that night.
At first the passionate sobs and prayers of the majority drowned out the screams and bedlam of the few, but it didn’t take long for the pandemonium to tear its way through the entire congregation. While most people had at least some idea of what was happening by this time, some were taken completely by surprise. Regardless, once the chaos engulfed the small church there was little anyone could do to stop it.
Around 9:30 P.M., Roger Hamilton – a local machinist – collapsed in his pew. He had been feeling ill for most of the afternoon and had chalked it up to a case of food poisoning and nerves. Earlier that morning he travelled to Birmingham to get some materials for an order he was working on and had not noticed any symptoms of illness at that time. After tending to his business, he stopped to eat at a local barbeque establishment, after which he was involved in a bizarre altercation with what he assumed to be a homeless drug addict.
The strange man approached Roger as he was getting into his truck, appearing to be incapable of any intelligible speech. The man muttered and groaned but did not ask for anything despite his outstretched arms and reaching hands. Roger knew something was wrong with the man but, being a Christian, he felt obligated to see if he could help him in any way. At over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, Roger was certainly not intimidated by the emaciated man.
When he managed to stagger to within a few feet of his truck, Roger was assaulted by the unimaginably noxious odor of the vagabond. The atrocious smell, like that of animal dung and tongue cancer marinated in rotting eggs and cabbage, caused waves of nausea to sweep through Roger’s greasy barbeque-filled stomach, momentarily taking him off guard. Unfortunately, this brief lapse in vigilance was all it took for the deranged man to sink his teeth into Roger’s right shoulder, as he stood doubled over by the threat of impending regurgitation. Swatting the uncoordinated vagrant aside with ease, Roger leapt into his truck and sped home. Only later when he started to feel ill did he begin to consider that whatever was wrong with the man outside the restaurant might be related to what the news was reporting.
He cleaned and bandaged his shoulder before putting on a fresh shirt and disposing of his old one. He was relieved that the wound did not hurt and thought that was certainly a good sign. Being on the back of his shoulder, however, he was unable to see the wound, and thus did not appreciate the dark discoloration around its edges that would have been interpreted as anything but a good sign. Not wanting to alarm his wife, Lou Ellen, he decided not to mention the incident to her when she came home from work. Instead, the couple simply got ready and headed to the church to join their friends and neighbors.
Now, as many around Roger Hamilton diligently tried to resuscitate him, others fervently prayed. When he finally began to stir, they were all el
ated by the fruit of their efforts and prayers. That elation, however, soon devolved into horror as Roger proceeded to rend the flesh from the neck of his loving wife, Lou Ellen, who sat hunched over his previously still form weeping tears of joy.
With only two exits, people quickly descended into a frenzied state of mass hysteria, trampling their own neighbors as they desperately tried to flee the carnage ignited by Roger Hamilton. Many people were crushed underfoot like South American soccer fans after a home team loss. Little did anyone know, the exit they fought so desperately to reach was not the gateway to salvation they sought. Had anyone in the congregation known what was happening and realized that a group of over fifteen revs waited outside, the threat of Roger and his newly infected wife could have been readily addressed, and the lives of many in attendance potentially saved. As it was, this was not the case, and the veritable army of revs took down nearly everyone who made it out the front door before they, in turn, poured into the church. All of a sudden those nearest the door began to surge back into those still frantically fighting to get out, making the problem exponentially worse.
Helpless, Ezzard watched in horror from the pulpit as his congregation was slaughtered. No one seemed to hear his adamant pleas for them to remain calm or his warnings about what was happening at the front door. While the throng of people attempting to escape the building graciously obscured much of the grisly detail from his view, the blood and gore spewing from gaping wounds and severed arteries made it appear as though his parishioners were marching blindly into a human meat grinder. Like lambs to the slaughter…