A woman shouted, ‘close the doors.’ A wave of people rushed towards Dean to close the doors. At least ten survivors pushed the doors shut. Hands soon clawed on the thick wood.
‘Lock it,’ a man shouted into Dean’s ear. Dean shunted the man aside. Another man picked up a wooden beam and carried it to the door. Dean placed the wooden beam over the steel holders. It was secure, for now.
Survivors sat on benches panting and crying, parents tried to comfort and calm their screaming kids. The response had been worse than Dean anticipated. Things could turn barbaric. The government had failed to respond to the threat in time. Wherever it started and whatever caused it was old news. It was a new world now and Dean felt it resonate within, an horrific apocalypse. Safety was out there, not in London, but somewhere. Throughout history countries had fought and come together to help one another, this was no exception. Dean was certain a resolution would be found.
The hall was bickering unintelligibly. Dean looked around the church, the walls and windows reached at least thirty feet and there was scaffolding up near the organs. Dean felt for his pistol and was relieved it was still in his pants. Relieved that others had the same idea to come to the church. It was safety. The scaffolding reached towards the top stained-glass windows with a stack of metal poles and planks leading up to the bell tower, which was about thirty feet above the vicar’s stage.
This was how people lived before this, it was no surprise that they now returned seeking solitude and comfort, answers and salvation from a place that once brought them peace. Dean remembered that he too felt the peace a long time ago. Not as a true Christian, but as a believer in a higher authority. That changed now. The beasts outside rising after being attacked, that was not peace.
Most survivors wore pyjamas and dressing gowns. A few were fully dressed. They sought rest on the wooden benches. Dean scanned the hall for a fellow officer. Nothing, no backup. It was time to take charge and lead these scared survivors to a comfortable mindset. Evacuation to a more secure site was improbable. The dead banged faintly on the doors. The worried cries and bickering had quietened.
Dean spotted the priest or vicar, he wasn’t sure what the official title was, coming from a back room to the left. The priest always lived in the church; it was a requirement of the job. The priest was dressed in a black top and jogging bottoms. He was frail, his face thin with strands of grey hair. Dean walked through the crowd of survivors, kids were sleeping on the benches and men and women huddled and prayed. Nobody noticed the priest; they were too occupied. A handful of kids played tag and had forgot what they just saw, or perhaps didn’t want to remember.
‘What is this?’ the priest asked as Dean stepped towards him. Dean gestured to people with waterfall tears flooding their nightgowns. Some kids now sat on their mum or dad’s laps, others cried, asking for food or bed.
‘A nightmare is what this is,’ Dean said. ‘I’m afraid we’ll need the church for safety until we can find refuge for these people.’
‘Why, what’s happened?’ the priest enquired. A woman stepped out of the back room towards them. Her eyes bagged and she rubbed them. Dean saw the wedding rings on their fingers. She stood and held her husband’s arm. They were easy on the eyes.
‘I’m afraid there’s been a dangerous epidemic. I can’t explain because I don’t know all the facts. These people have been forced from their homes and need shelter.’ Dean scanned the room of survivors, at least twenty. He saw someone who worked at the station offices, no frontline.
The priest comforted his wife. They held each other. She kissed her husband on the cheek and walked off to the children playing on the front row of benches. Their parents tried to smile. She knelt next to them and assured them they could stay for a sleepover.
‘We have sheltered the homeless in the past and we will shelter these people. This is a house of the lord and all are welcome. We have food supplies and bunk beds in the basement, in case of hurricanes and earthquakes. It’s secure and warmer than this hall,’ the priest said.
Dean was relieved. He thought he’d be stuck trying to calm the crowd down. At least there was food and beds, something to keep them quiet until he could figure out what to do.
‘We need to keep those front doors closed at all times. The threat is high. Do not open them for any reason. I assume you have an emergency radio as well?’ Dean replied, folding his arms.
‘We do, it’s in my study,’ the priest said. ‘We had to move it because we couldn’t plug it in downstairs.’ The priest began to walk to the back room. Dean looked around.
‘Hold on,’ Dean said, the priest walked back to Dean and leant on his pedestal. People rested on benches or the floor. A small group huddled in the middle walkway. Cuddling each other.
Rain pattered on the stain-glass windows. The hall lights flickered.
‘Okay listen up. It seems our officers have been unable to contain the threat. So, from now on everyone stays here until I’ve established had bad the situation is.’ Dean halted; a crack of lightning whipped through the sky; the windows flashed. Kids snuggled closer to their parents and one man fell to the bench in shock. Lightning lit the church. Dean knew it was a matter of time before the power cut out. He looked to the priest. ‘Do you have a generator?’
Thunder boomed through the hall, lightning flashed, and the wind and rain lashed against the windows. The dead pounded relentlessly against the doors. Wind howled through the hall. Dean felt the floor rumble beneath his feet.
‘Err, I think so…ah yes, I remember they installed one last Easter because we were having electrical shortages.’ Brilliant Dean thought, a lifesaver too good to be true. The church was a sanctuary.
‘Brilliant,’ Dean muttered. ‘Okay this place has food, beds and electric, so you are all going to be staying here until proper accommodation can be established. Try not to worry. Please understand that this situation is unlike anything we’ve dealt with before, it’s new and it’s intimidating, I get it. But please be patient.’ Dean turned and began to walk to the back room.
‘There eating people, what the hell is this?’ Dean turned to face the woman. She stood gazing harshly, her retinas piercing Dean.
‘That’s why we need to stay calm and not frighten our children anymore by shouting things like that. Everyone rest and try to sleep, don’t worry,’ Dean replied.
Sleet hailed down on the windows like popcorn in the microwave. Thunder rumbled overhead, it drowned out the moans of the undead.
‘This is stupid, is this what the curfew was supposed to be stopping. Useless town hall,’ a man yelled. Dean tried to walk away but the abuse continued, and the shouting got louder. Dean felt halted.
The thunder and shouting rattled the building, the scaffolding shook. Dean heard the metal clang. Thunder and lightning were coming constantly alternating.
The priest leant on his pulpit. A figure of Jesus was hung to the back wall bearing his look upon the church.
The scaffolding swayed. Dean heard the planks crack but without notice the scaffold fractured around the bell tower. Thunder shook the building and a lightning bolt shot through the top stained-glass window striking the bell.
‘Move,’ Dean cried, diving out of the way. The bell jolted from its hook and came crashing through the scaffold tower, the planks splintering as the bell smashed down onto the priest. The priest was crushed. It wasn’t over. Planks fell and poles clanged to the ground. Survivors scattered to the sides of the hall.
Dean saw the priest legs visible from one side of the bell. Amputated, trailing blood and shattered bone. A metal pole bounced from the stone floor and speared through the air, striking a man in the face, impaling and pinning him against the stone wall. His body slumped unable to fall flat. The pole scraped down the wall to the floor and his head slid down the pole until it hit the floor. The pole held upright by his skull.
Dean gagged. People screamed and hid under benches. The thunderstorm was in full swing. The scaffolding dropped a few more plank
s near the bell.
The priest’s wife ran to the bell and got on her hands and knees sobbing intensely.
Dean couldn’t tolerate it and he walked to the back room. The distressing cries was too intense, headache inducing. He stepped in and closed the door from which the now deceased priest came from and locked it.
CHAPTER 18
Liar
Harry spotted the little boy in the window of the house on the other side of the street. At first, he felt empathetic and then angry that he couldn’t find James.
Harry saw the child alone and afraid. But he didn’t feel the hero in him now.
Harry realised he might have to get to the child and save him if his parents were dead. He couldn’t leave him, it wasn’t human. Surviving the thunderstorm wasn’t human; Harry was lucky to be alive, if the lightning had struck him, he would be dead. The rain was pounding down, but the thunderstorm had settled.
The child could barely see over the window frame. Harry had his sights on the boy.
If he dwelled on the infinite possibilities of where Molly was, he would freeze to death, zoned out in anger. He’d end up hurting Molly if he did find her. Hospital? Harry gripped the chimney harder and stone chipped off and slid down the roof. She could have found shelter in a broom closet; she could have taken James home. She had vanished and taken their son with her; it was selfish. The dead broke Harry’s train of thought.
The corpses continued attempting to climb up to the roof. One corpse accidentally pulled the guttering onto itself. Harry turned his attention back to the child. The street was swarming with diseased dead.
The child had disappeared from sight. The garden was infested with the undead. The door was shut but the downstairs windows were broken, and zombies clambered through the window. That’s what they were; zombies. Harry didn’t want to believe it but there was no other word to describe them anymore.
Harry scanned the road and tried to plan a route through the zombies. Mr Brown wandered in the middle of the road wearing green joggers, his fat belly exposed and torn, intestines trailed behind him. Harry heard a cry; it could be the child. Harry wanted to get there and save the kid; it was a stupid shot at redemption for losing his own child.
Panic spread across his chest; his glutes tightened. He struggled to breath in the humid air. He let go of the chimney and slid down the roof to the front garden, scraping his ribs along the tiles. He landed on the concrete and jumped to his bare feet.
The zombies were hidden beneath the roof out of sight and latched onto him, Harry punched them away and his knuckles cracked. Harry went primal and twisted one’s neck until it snapped. Harry felt no fear. The adrenaline kicked in and his skin tingled. He kicked three of them back and shook them off. His hands pulsed and his legs cramped.
Harry ran from the house into the road swerving past Mr Brown. More zombies tried to grab him and missed. Harry was fast approaching the neighbour’s house and he lunged onto the garden path. On final leg to touchdown, Harry kicked open the front door, it smashed against the wall and a shard of glass shot into Harry’s hand. He pushed the door shut and hopped up the staircase. The kid was crying.
‘Help me mummy,’ the kid screamed. Harry encountered the neighbour at the top of the stairs coming out from the bathroom. She was dead, her eyes black pus. Miss Penny tried to bite Harry. She had been kind towards him and his family. She must have forgot because she grappled Harry’s shoulders trying to eat his face.
Her overweight boyfriend exited from a bedroom to the left. He was a zombie and clawed at Harry who stepped out of the way and the man fell down the staircase.
A bookshelf was behind Harry and he grabbed the thickest hardback and smashed Miss Penny’s face until the teeth caved in and she fell dead to the bathroom floor. Harry turned, the boyfriend was laying dead at the bottom of the stairs and the kid cried from a room to Harry’s left. Harry opened the door and stepped in. He had to stop his hand bleeding. It was warmer in this house and Harry was glad he came to help.
The boy stood in a puddle of urine clutching a teddy bear. He wore frog pattern pyjamas. ‘I’m her to help,’ Harry said, closing the bedroom door and getting closer to the child. People would judge Harry, no doubt about it because he was in a neighbour’s house trying to help a kid he only briefly knew after James had him over for tea a couple of times.
It would have been nice if the neighbourhood wasn’t so reclusive. The days of Beach Town barbeques and picnics were long gone.
The kid screamed. Sweet mother, Harry thought. He attempted to pat the kids shoulder but the boy was afraid and stepped back. The kid stopped crying and bit the arm of the teddy in comfort. Harry then recognised the teddy bear. It was James’s, and he always had it with him. Harry checked the tag, it read James Carrington. Hallelujah. Harry smiled; this was a successful rescue mission. A teddy was better than nothing.
‘Where did you get that?’ he asked. The kid pointed to the wardrobe behind him. Harry’s heart sank. Could it be that James was already dead in the wardrobe, or had James given him the teddy bear? Harry walked towards the wardrobe.
There was a shuffling in the closet. Harry dropped to his knees. A tear trickled down his cheek. The pain in his hand subsided. There was no noise. Harry braced himself and opened the wardrobe doors.
The wooden doors slid open and a little boy jumped out. Harry grabbed James as hard as he could and sobbed into James’s shoulders. It was his son, alive in the neighbour’s house. It was a miracle, a true miracle.
James held a kitten and it sniffed Harry. Harry let go and kept hold of James’s hand, he wouldn’t let go of him again.
The dead banged on the front door. A car screeched followed by a metallic bang and a flash of light pulsed through the window to Harry’s right.
‘James?’ Harry asked. He hugged James again, it reminded him of the day he was born. He would never let him out of his sight again. Little James pushed his dad back and stroked the kitten’s head.
‘Careful you’ll hurt the kitten,’ James said. The kitten was cute fresh with glistening eyes and groomed brown fur. Harry wept tears of joy. James had found life and happiness in all this death. James was young and appeared unfazed by the reality of the situation.
‘James, where is mummy?’ Harry asked. He had forgotten about his hand bleeding and grabbed the bed sheet to clean the blood. He picked James up and placed him on the mattress.
The other boy was distant, and he fondled with the pillows. James held both palms up with his lower lips extended, he didn’t know. Molly had been selfish leaving James here. Harry squeezed his hand, the stinging wound stopped bleeding. A white light of satisfaction grew inside that his genes, flesh and blood was alive.
‘Where did you see her last?’ Harry asked. He was interrogating his own son over his mother’s incompetence. The marriage had gotten a bit worse over the last year, but to abandon James, that was petty. Unless she did him the favour of topping herself, he wanted to feel her beg for life in that moment. That WAS THE RAGE again. He took a deep breath and sat on the bed next to James. His buttocks sank into the star covered quilt.
Little James held a finger to his lips, using every bit of strength that he had to figure out where mummy was.
‘She went to grandpa’s,’ James cheered, smiling in victory. Harry felt like everyone was against him now. His son abandoned amid an epidemic. Was she at the hospital before or after he was? When he finds out they better answer for this.
The only things that mattered now were the kid’s lives and finding secure shelter. The church was a street away and the fire station adjacent.
Once he visited the fire station for fire extinguisher training for his workplace. The station housed a padlocked room containing emergency supplies for earthquakes, but so did the church. It was difficult to conclude. The other option was the police station. The three of them couldn’t stay huddled in the cupboard all night. It felt strange caring for a stranger’s child. The child was Harry’s responsibility now
and he would protect both children.
The dead had broken into the house and shambled upstairs. They clawed at the bedroom door. Harry had locked it and returned to the window. He counted thirty zombies wandering the street. To the left on a dresser, a note caught his eye.
It had Harry’s name on it. Harry picked it up. The reverse side read: “Miss Penny for Harry Carrington”. The note was a red flag. Harry examined the note before opening it, the paper was dog eared and stained. The town was a cake, and this note the icing. Harry opened and read the letter. His heart fluttered. Harry could see the dead invading his porchway.
He tried to let the words sink in. Obviously, the neighbours had slept in the spare room and let the boys share. Why not take James to her dads? Why not let Harry take care of James rather than fobbing him off with the neighbours? Molly’s dad lived so far North he might as well live in the sea.
Miss Penny had a profound drinking habit as evidenced by the empty bottle of vodka in the trash can next to the dresser. The bloke, Harry wasn’t sure of, but a stranger and probably not police vetted. The note had read a solemnly goodbye, akin to a suicide, but Harry would have preferred her death to this;
For Harry,
I have been with you now for some time, and every day I remember when we got on the road and began our journey into love. That was then, and this is now. Things change, and people change. All I can think of is James and so I’ve had to break our hearts as they beat as one. They used to be one and now they are nothing, you don’t feel the same and I don’t either. We cannot pretend forever, even for James sake.
You’ll probably wonder why I didn’t tell you to your face, but it isn’t like that. I wanted to, and I was GOING to. When I told you, James was at the hospital, it was a minor cut that needed stiches, and that was when I wanted to do it, so that you could take James home and be angry as you should be. So that I could have some time to get over it too. I am angry as I write this, because I couldn’t do it and I felt ashamed afterwards. So, I left James in the care of our neighbours, Margaret Penny and her boyfriend Henry. After I said my goodbye and wrote this, I departed town and made for my mother’s house, where I will be staying until you come to terms with this. By the time you get this letter, you can forget about trying to amend anything, and to just move on.
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