"Hey! Wait." He walked over to John and began undoing one of the laces on Levi's boots.
Surely he won't mind. Just trip over them anyway, and at least this way he's a little bit of a hero. Kind of.
Tal grabbed a stick about as thick as his pointer finger and tied one end of the bootlace to it.
"Isabella, c'mere for a second, sweetheart. I need one of your grenades." She moved over to him and took one from her front pocket, handing one too him with a look crossed between mild confusion at what he was doing, and a blush at being called 'sweetheart'.
"Ok, now everybody keep moving, I'll catch up."
As Ben took the group further down the valley floor, Tal went back through the cleft in the rocks and into the pool again. Kneeling down, he pushed the stick into the pool's dirt and sand floor right up against the right hand stone, until the bootlace was almost buried. Seeing some fist sized rocks off to his left, he began to grab them and placed them in the water, forming a depression to the left of the opening. He tied the other end of the lace on to the circular grenade pin and gently, so so gently, pulled the pin until it just barely held the spoon onto the grenade. Slowly, he lowered the grenade into the water and laid it in the depression of rocks, the bootlace now lying across the opening between the boulders and submerged out of sight. Tal could hear the not too distant sounds of the dead mounting in the wadi behind him, and with a smirk, slowly lifted his boot out of the water and over the cord, so as not to unduly disturb the water and therefore his booby trap. Carefully, he pulled himself through the cleft and jogged up to the group, who had stopped about five hundred yards away.
"Don't go back that way. What is it? Why'd you stop?" he asked slowing to a walk.
"We are here." replied Ben, pointing to the cliff face. Nestled among the cliffs of the En Prat, within sight of the tiny Wadi Qelt, the white plaster walls of the Faran Monastery shone in the afternoon sun, a beacon of hope to the weary group. Pine trees planted around the monastery waved in a light breeze, inviting them to come and be safe.
Chapter Six
Faran Monastery was tucked into the cliff face, an Eastern Orthodox cross rising above the tops of the pines planted around the tiny complex. Tal could see that a long stone stairway led up from the hard scrabble of the wadi and disappeared to the left around the rock wall leading up to the main gate. There was still a few hundred yards to travel before they got to the base of the stairs, but now that they were out of the majority of the boulders, the going should be much easier. John was breathing heavily again, but seemed to be able to carry on, he was younger than Tal by maybe 5 or so years and whatever he did in Ohio had made him broad shouldered and solid. As they walked along the valley floor, Tal called Christine over.
"Let me see your weapon", he said, and she surrendered it without complaint.
There wasn't even a magazine in the well. Tal stopped for a second, judging the distance through the water and rocky terrain behind them enough to slow the dead behind, and produced a clip from his pack. Shouldering the pack once more, he closed the distance between the two of them, speaking softly.
"Ok, look. I know you got thrown into this so I'm gonna go through this with you, once and real quick. This thing won't work without bullets, take the magazine like this," he held it in his left hand, bull pup in his right and showed her the clip with the top round facing forward, "seat it in like so until it clicks. See, you can't pull it out without the release." To illustrate he gave it a couple of quick jerks. "Chamber a round. Point and pull the trigger. Sights are up here, safety is here." Tal pointed quickly to each part as he named it off, "You don't need to do anything else to fire the rest of the bullets; they just keep loading until you run out. Then you do the steps over again. The rounds in here are only good in close quarters, ok? I'm telling you all this because you are going up front with Ben, and I'm staying in the back. I don't know what's up there, but I know what's back there and I’m very familiar with this type of thing." He pointed behind him with his thumb.
"Ok. Ok. Got it. Um…so it's ready to shoot now?" Christine's eyes were wide but she took the rifle and held it in a fairly decent imitation of how you're supposed to. Tal reached over and flicked off the safety.
"It is now. And from now on, you point that thing only at something you want dead."
Christine nodded and moved back up front with Ben. Tal waved them forward, and the group began moving again, up toward the monastery stairs. The cliffs around them were pock marked with caves, some still having older style ladders leading up to them, and aside from the valley floor, no path or road was discernable.
Ben and Christine moved cautiously, but were clearly eager to get up to the monastery, John lagged a little under the weight of the unconscious captain, and Isabella walked just behind him with her arms tightly hugging her abdomen and her bull pup still untouched. Tal, as rear guard, kept his weapon at the ready, every tenth step turning around to ensure their pursuers hadn't cleared the boulders by some other route. He'd hear it if they came the way he wanted them to.
A couple of large rocks hid the beginning of the stairway, but Christine was almost a natural at tactical movement and cleared the area behind the rocks before waving Ben forward. A low stone wall ran along the base of the cliffs on their left, and about a hundred yards from where they now stood the stairway began, another wall starting to provide an outer barrier.
Nothing had presented itself from behind, so Tal made a low but sharp, tsk to get
Christine's attention. Moving up to come along side her, he turned and brought his finger to his lips, everyone speaks a different language around here, but they all know 'shut up' when they see it, and pointed to Christine then himself, and motioned up to the top of the stairs. John, clearly sweating and working to control his breathing, gave no sign of complaint at the steep stairs before him and simply shrugged his shoulders to better settle Levi's weight.
Moving side by side, cautiously, Tal and Christine guided the group up the stairs to Faran's gate. There were two landings, and at each Tal would hold out his hand to signal a stop and he'd look for a long moment toward the top, then the bottom, and then out into the wadi.
No movement yet, apparently the terrain had been more difficult for the dead than he'd though, or if God was still watching out for anyone these days, they'd simply lost whatever passed for interest. There was no movement up top either, and he wasn't sure yet if that was a good or bad thing. No movement meant no dead, but it could also mean no living, and there were too many reasons to count why that could be. Tal just hoped it didn't turn out to be because there was a giant breach in the walls or the gates were missing or some crap like that. Still, from where he stood, the place looked whole enough and even a little peaceful - and that was enough to try. So, after the second landing, when they'd come to the stout and very much intact wooden doors set in delightfully thick stone walls, Tal was just this side of ecstatic.
The gates were shut and barred, not moving so much as an inch when Tal set his shoulder to them, and clearly the dead had been up here recently. Scratches marred the age polished wooden gates, and the remnants of flesh and fingernails still clung to the splinters along the gouges.
They just keep going, they'll tear themselves to shreds and not give a rusty tin shit they're doing it either…as long as they get what they're after. Which begs the questions: what were they after, and why did they leave?
The rest of the group began looking around and shifting nervously. They couldn't just stand out here; if the dead came up behind them they'd just tear them apart up against those doors. Tal was reluctant to just climb over; if they were out this far in the desert then someone else could be just as easily. And if people were in there, with guns, and he was trying to shimmy over the wall…well it wasn't a scenario that would end well for anybody.
There were no dead in the immediate area, and if they were still trying to make their way through the wadi the way the group had come, they'd get up this way eventually. At leas
t the ones that didn't get blown to bits, anyway. Taking a couple of deep breaths and motioning to Christine to keep her eyes open but not to shoot, Tal moved up to the wooden doors and rapped lightly with his knuckle. Tap, Tap, Tap….Tap…Tap…Tap…Tap, Tap, Tap. Morse Code was standard training in practically every armed service in the world as well as the civilian jobs that might have need of it, like pilots and sailors. If there was anyone inside, even if they didn't know it was an S.O.S., they might at least know it was a living person doing the tapping.
I don't think the dead are that coordinated.
He listened for about half a minute afterwards, but heard nothing. Tal repeated the S.O.S. two more times, stopping for a moment after each. After the third time, he decided that going over the wall would be the only option left as the dead couldn't be too far behind now. He was pulling the strap of the rifle over his head in order to hand it to Ben so that he could jump to try and grab the lip of the wall, when a muffled voice came from behind the door.
"We saw you coming. We know you are armed. If you put down your weapons and swear to Holy God you will not harm anyone, we will let you in."
That’s not gonna happen .
"We don't know who you are any more than you know us. But there are dead out here on our ass, and one of ours is hurt. I'm not telling my people to drop their weapons, but I can promise you two things: let us in, help us out, and we will repay you in any way we can. But if you keep us out here waiting for those things to kill us unless we disarm, I'm gonna toss a grenade over this wall." Tal hoped there was just enough we need help mixed with don't fuck with me to get them inside. If not, he wouldn't miss one grenade. After a few
moments during which Tal could hear two voices in heated discussion, in a language Tal didn't recognize, the voice relented.
"Very well, we will help you. We are opening the gate." And with that the sound of a heavy bar could be heard being levered out of the way and the right hand door cracked open.
"Everyone, move inside", Tal motioned for the group to get in quickly, "weapons ready, but don't do anything stupid."
Everyone moved into the monastery compound, Christine keeping her weapon pointed toward the ground but her finger near the trigger, and Tal taking a last quick look out over the wadi before backing in. As soon as the door shut in front of him, two men in black cassocks, one appearing to be in his early thirties and the other closer to sixty, rushed forward to muscle the heavy oak bar back into place. Once it was secure, the younger monk turned around to face the group and the older man took a moment to catch his breath, both made sure to hold their hands in plain sight.
"Ah…yes. I am brother Kushka and this is brother Sergius. Please, please, bring your friend inside. Father Superior Alexius will tend him, yes? We have food, and water. You will be safe. Be at ease, the walls are high and the gate is strong." Both men were dressed after the Eastern fashion and spoke in heavily accented English in a way that put Tal of a mind that they were Russian.
Tal looked over the two priests, instantly realizing they were no threat, and his muscles slumped, gravity hungrily pulling the barrel of his rifle toward the earth. "Thank you, sincerely thank you. I'm Tal, these are…the others. We had some of them come at us up near Almon and we hiked it up this way. Your gates…did they come here too?"
"Yes, some few did. You are not the only people to find us, and they were also followed. They clawed at the gates for two days, but we took shelter in the sobor, ah…the church. We were very quiet and they left eventually. We are very quiet since." Sergius spoke, still leaning against the door, his soft cap in his hand and wiping his tonsured brow.
Tal nodded and was about to turn to the group to get them all moving towards the buildings, when an explosion could be heard reverberating down the wadi. The dead had made it to Tal's improvised trap and triggered the grenade. He closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and silently let out a string of curses before looking at brother Sergius apologetically.
"In my defense, that was my quietest grenade."
"Yes…well…we are good at forgiveness here. Come quickly, all of you. We do not wish to be outside if they come, they smell us and hear us and become wild." Tal noted that as Kushka's mouth was saying "forgiveness", his eyes were were saying "moron", but since he couldn't really argue, he shouldered his rifle and followed the little procession toward the church.
Christine looked at Tal as if requesting permission, which he gave with a nod, and she began to herd the survivors after Brother Kushka into the main chapel of the compound. Though he was just as anxious as all the rest to find a place of relative peace, only a fool lets his guard down in a place he hasn't checked out.
Thoroughly. Sergius had caught his breath and Tal sidled up to him.
"Listen, no offense but I'm going to check the perimeter. Just a second set of eyes. This is the chapel?" he pointed toward the building that his people were entering. "I'll be there directly, I'd like to meet Alexius and these others."
"Father Superior Alexius, or Father Alexius. Or Father. We don't have much anymore, but we have respect for him." Sergius obviously held the Father Superior in high regard, and Tal saw no reason to create unnecessary friction, regardless of his faith. Or what passed for it these days, anyway.
"Yes, of course, Father Alexius.
Listen…one more thing. Your church, does it have wine? For the Sacrament, of course. Two of my people may ask." His motivation was hardly altruistic, but he supposed that the reason he gave the monk might also be true.
Sergius gave him a quick look, one so practiced at reading parishioners over countless decades that Tal never knew he'd done it. "Ah…we have not had wine for some time. We used to receive…eh, no purchase wine from Kfar Adumim, but we have not been that way since the troubles. I am afraid your friends will have to keep the spirit of communion with water."
"Ah. Well, just as well probably. Anyway, I'll be back shortly." Damn. Just damn.
Tal began his routine, checking the doors of the gate more closely now that he had a moment to breathe as well as the heavy oak bar, both of which seemed as though they had seen some years in the desert sun but looked none the worse for it. The walls, likewise, had been maintained and were in good repair, and were all much higher from the outside than the courtyard. The only route of attack or egress was that one stairway, and even at the landing in front the doors were at least six and a half feet high.
God, please don't let the zombies learn to jump. Zombies…did I really just use that word?
Yeah, there had been some movies, all Hollywood bullshit he'd assumed. But
seriously…those were just movies. They got that headshot thing right, though. But not how they move. Mostly, they walked around like they were in a daze, or just really…well, bored. But when they saw prey, they moved quick enough, not like that one movie he'd seen where they were slow like molasses. But vampires and werewolves and shit like that had movies and they were crap. Right? Though he supposed the stories had to come from somewhere. Still…it was a stupid word, and he resolved that he wasn't going to use it again.
Moving between the few buildings, Tal took inventory of everything he saw - which was getting seriously harder with every passing minute. His head was splitting and his vision was getting a bit more blurry than he was really comfortable with, but he needed to make sure the dead couldn't get over the walls, or through any crumbling masonry or anything.
It wasn't a long recon, there were only perhaps three buildings - the church, the monk’s cells, and what appeared to be a small storage space. The courtyard ended beyond the church and the stone floor gave way to a space for the brothers to grow some vegetables and herbs, and in the center of the garden area was a tree. It was hard to make out in the light of what had to be late evening, the sun had long since
disappeared behind the surrounding cliffs, but it wasn’t a small tree and the leaves bent like a willow.
Past the tree was another space of grass and planted herbs, and behind the
m the wall met with the sheer face of the cliff, the drop to the wadi below was not insignificant. Before deciding he was satisfied that the monastery was secure, he gazed across the valley in the direction they had come. It looked much farther from this height than it felt on the trek up, but then being chased by carnivorous dead people tended to distract one from counting the miles and minutes. The good news, however, was that he could see no pursuit. Either that grenade had killed the ones that made it up that far, or in a best case scenario, had filled the gap between those boulders with debris.
There was no more to be done today. The night was approaching, he still needed to see Alexius and take stock of who they were shacking up with for the time being, and in short enough order he needed to collapse and deal with the withdrawal. Shouldering the bull pup, Tal turned from the vista and made his way back to the church building, putting his hands in the pockets of his dirty tan pants, the better to hide the shaking from the others. Unbeknownst to him, Sergius had already spoken quietly to Father Superior Alexius and had poured what wine remained down the monastery’s privy.
Chapter Seven
Father Superior Alexius was in
surprisingly good shape. He was in his late 70's, but seemed to Tal to be no older than 60 or 65, and built like a linebacker. It was a shock to him, when he'd entered the church after completing his inspection, and saw this very large yet older Russian priest looking over Levi. The captain was laid out on the floor in front of the altar, John and Ben standing near his feet, while the Father Superior was kneeling at his head and gently feeling around, brother Kushka bending over at his side. Isabella and Christine were off to the front left hand side of the altar in the soleas, speaking to four people in Arab garb, clearly the other people who had found the monastery. Tal briefly considered Christine, how she kept her rifle ready, how she'd fallen into an almost military role since they found the weapons cache, and thought that she was going to be an asset in this new world.
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