“Come on, man,” Rhett says, pressing against the torn flesh bleeding freely from the knife’s damage. “We are almost out of here.”
“Rhett is right. We have the way cleared. Get up.” Lawless tries to tug on the taller man to motivate him to move. Chapel only stares at them both knowing the truth of what is going to happen.
“We have to move,” Marxx whispers, placing his hand over Aimes’ sobbing mouth.
Turning to see what he has found, Travis’ promise comes from the direction of the gym. His flock who once found reason to murder so many behind their hate for the “demons” are now the very things they led a holocaust to destroy. They stare at us, locked in their stalking state. They are newly turned and not starved enough yet to push their advantage. Their new minds are still learning how to use the new extensions they have. Like the children from the school, they will wait until we give them a reason to pounce.
“Go,” Chapel says softly, but the many eyes still rotate to him with the sound of his voice. “Go on. I’ll hold them.”
“You can’t even hold yourself. Get up!” Lawless demands and the eyes roll to him.
Chapel reaches for the back of Law’s neck, pulling them forehead-to-forehead. The misery in their eyes in synchronized and reflecting in all of ours that are watching.
“Listen,” Chapel says to the younger man whose heart is breaking behind the walls trying to hold it together, “take care of my girls. I won’t be around to do it anymore. They are a handful, but they love each of you in their own way. You remember that. Those girls are your humanity. They always have been. Don’t become him. Don’t let this world break you the way it did him.” Chapel winces from the pain, shuddering him. “I’m not going to make it, Brother. I’m ready to go home. I want to see my kids again. I want to hold my wife.”
Lawless reaches for the gold chain around Chapel’s neck. He fishes the cross from behind the bloodstained shirt, snapping the chain to wrap it around his friend’s hand. Chapel grins as his hand closes on the metal effigy.
“I got this, Brother,” Chapel says, pulling his gun from the holster on his side.
The same holster that once winked at me with encouragement. The same gun that had once seduced me into action. I saved a group of strangers with that gun. Now, it will once again face an army to secure a group’s safety, but this time, its owner won’t be the one to leave.
Lawless pulls slowly from the shared embrace. His face is wet with tears even as his face sets with resolve. He walks backwards from Chapel as if afraid to turn his back to what is about to happen. Marxx is lifting Aimes off the ground as she fights to stay. Waiting eyes flip from one pair to another as they debate what is happening.
Rhett turns, scooping the mute April from me as he moves past. The glass beads turn to dust under his boots. The red powder is ground underneath him and deeper into the marks on the floor.
Chapel’s mouth is already moving with his silent prayers as he stares at his death. My feet move forward to him as he pushes from the wall.
“Not this time,” Chapel tells me, seeing me move towards him. “Don’t let me be another haunting, Hells,” he tells me, bringing a conversation to life that centered on an evergreen that served as the North Star that night. “I want this.”
“Let’s go,” Lawless says taking my hand. His fingers wrap around mine, pulling me away from the man who once laid everything on the line for me. He pulls me from the man who stood beside me when nobody else would. The preacher’s son is going home.
Aimes is screaming his name from the cafeteria. Chapel smiles when hearing it.
“Run,” Chapel says turning to the fray that have become animated.
Lawless and I turn and run stopping only long enough to scoop up the spare bags as they rush forward. Law tells me to not look back. It’s a warning we are all told when something horrible is happening. We never listen, and like Lot’s wife, I look back.
I watch as they reach him despite the few rounds he was able to fire. I watch as they pull Chapel down into their madness. I watch as the grinning skull disappears, slowly swallowed by the things that it had meant to represent. The silver tear catches the light at the last moment as he falls and I turn to salt with mine.
CHAPTER 36
It requires Dolph and Marxx to haul the shrieking Aimes from the cafeteria. The courtyard has been cleared of the Risen Dolph lured in to act as a distraction. The men never went upstairs. They came below.
The windows of the top floor explode, sending flames erupting from their casings. We flinch from the explosion. The safety glass glitters in the air as it cascades down around us. Travis had set fire to the floor before infecting his people. Now it is fully engulfed in the man’s one last attempt to purify those who have escaped from his grasp.
Only a small handful of those who lived on that floor before we arrived are gathered under the cold rays of the moon. They stare with gaping mouths as their home becomes a cauldron of lost hopes. There should be more, so many more, standing here.
“What happened?” I ask Lawless. He still has a death grip on my hand as if he fears I will run back inside with one final attempt to rescue Chapel. He needn’t.
“Ryan’s wife turned faster than she should have. She killed a few before she was stopped. The rest ran out the door not thinking.”
“Ryan?”
“Shot her after she attacked their daughter. Then he shot himself.”
The horrors keep mounting and we haven’t yet made it out of the gate. Paula races towards us thinking that Aimes is hurt. When she hears the name Aimes is screaming, her running stops. Aimes is hurting. She isn’t hurt.
Paula’s eyes look to me and what she sees there sets her jaw to quivering before she can regain herself. Something cold overcomes her face as she stares behind us. For once, I don’t look back. Let someone else become the pillar of salt.
“Jesus Christ,” Marxx says seeing whatever Paula has, “you people just won’t die.”
With one hand Lawless turns as he pushes me forward, reaching to draw a gun from his waistline with the other. I still don’t look.
“Leave her,” Rhett tells Lawless, pressing the barrel of the gun to the ground. “She’s got nothing.”
Collecting Aimes, I finally spare a look behind me and I lose my grip on our violent pixie.
“Kill her, Law!” Aimes is screaming across the span between them and us. She turns to me forcing the duffels I carry open. “Give me a gun. I’ll kill her!”
Selma limps towards us coated more in blood than clothing. She still bleeds from an attempt to bandage the gunshot. Her arm is torn and dripping crimson like rose petals thrown from a flower girl’s white basket as she walks, but her smile is still as sweet.
“Rhett,” she calls out, “you wouldn’t just leave me here?”
Rhett says nothing to her. His face doesn’t even twitch with her quilt-laden question.
“I’m sorry,” she tries again. “I love you…”
“Where the truck is a gun?” Aimes is muttering beside me as she turns the bags inside out.
She isn’t watching Rhett the way the rest of us are. She isn’t holding her breath, fearing what he may or may not do. He only stares at her, and as he hugs April a little tighter to him, his hand doesn’t tremble.
“April,” Selma calls to the little girl who nestles deeper into Rhett’s arms hearing her name, “come to Mommy. Come here, Sweetheart.”
“Like I said,” Rhett tells us as Aimes ransacks the duffels. “she’s got nothing.” He turns from the woman he once placed his faith in. He lets her stumble and fall the way she made his soul stumble as she tore him apart mentally. “Let’s go.”
Marxx lifts Aimes again and she fights to be released still screaming about finding a gun. Paula helps me quickly repack the bags. Her hands tremble in tempo with her jaw.
“You can ride with us,” I tell her, knowing she would never ask for the comfort she needs right now. I know because I wouldn’t ask either.<
br />
“I’d like that,” she tells me with a voice that holds steadier than her hands. “You might need me to sedate Aimes.”
I smile, believing the woman completely. Aimes is mute as we climb into the truck. The men have deposited our bags in the truck’s bed, but I can’t start the truck yet.
Climbing back out, I walk to where Rhett is starting his bike. I don’t ask him for permission. I simply lift April from the back of the bike as he watches me in the side mirrors with a grin.
“Idiot,” I tell him, carrying the girl who is more like a doll than a human to my truck while Selma screams her name.
Sliding her into the lap of Paula, I climb back into the truck and start the large engine. It roars, threatening the vehicles in front of me. Paula laughs a soft chuckle as the cars pull out of my way with such a simple act. I lead the exit from what we had hoped would be our safe refuge. We leave behind the many bodies of our loved ones who will forever live in the rooms of our hearts. With every beat, their memory will be reborn inside of us. We will search for their faces in our dreams. We will hear the sounds of their voices sometimes when the wind blows just right. We will mourn them, but the words we never said to them, we will mourn the most.
I watch in the rear mirror as my wishes fade away in a parade of painful pride. Their floats are decorated with the flashing décor of lost dreams and I wave as they go by like a child marveling at their wonder. I wave at every desire I once cradled in those walls as smoke takes it from sight. What else can I do but once again drive into the night with no knowledge of what tomorrow might bring.
The loud bikes fall in behind me. I’m amused to see Dolph astride the large beast, which once belonged to J.D. I can almost hear J.D. cussing over it and my smile grows larger. Dolph has lost everything as we exit the place he fought to keep secure. It feels fitting that the men now should adopt him.
As we reach the road, I see the right blinker flash from Law’s bike. So, I turn right just as another man had once instructed me to. The cars following us pull off in different directions as we come to intersections. Each lost car signals their final goodbye with short waves as a salute.
We can’t promise them a safe future. No one can. Each must find their own path now for better or for worse. Finding it is the heart behind what it means to have courage.
Courage is not a goal set in the dark throes of desperation. It’s the need to survive. It’s the need to push through the fears and find the strength to face the perils ahead. It’s not a brass ring to be claimed or a trophy to boast over. It’s the personal level of discomfort we all must face when no outstretched arm is there to help you. Travis was right about one thing. Only a soul lost to the deepest pit of despair, void of any other option but of fighting for each new day, can truly understand what it means to claim life in its shaking, defiant fist. Courage isn’t something you are born with. It’s something that life carves out of you along the way. To say one has courage is to say one has been through hell and back so many times they have grown bored with life’s attempts to break them.
“She wasn’t really my mommy,” Aprils says from the warmth of Paula’s arms. “My mommy was turned into a monster and tried to eat my daddy.”
“Mine too,” Aimes says as lifeless as April. “Mondays just suck.”
I can still see the smoke towering into the night sky behind us. It curls its way into the heavens where I hope Chapel is at peace. I hope he is standing with the family he never truly let slip from his mind. I hope he can find the forgiveness he longed for from the actions he had no other recourse. I hope he does, because one day, I hope I do too.
Flames flicker through the trees as it buries more than just the memories we leave behind. If I listen hard enough, I can still hear the strands of the hymn being played.
Through many dangers, toils and snares I have already come. ‘Tis Grace that brought me safe thus far and Grace will lead me home.
CHAPTER 37
It isn’t long until we find ourselves behind the line of skulls as the road widens before us. Once, there were five that would back stare at us with their threatening eyes. Now, only three remain.
April has long since fallen asleep and Aimes drifts in-and-out with her dreams sabotaging any hope for rest. I battle against my body’s fatigue with better efforts. I can only imagine the toll being taken on the bodies riding through the cold night in front of me.
“You could let me drive,” Paula offers. It’s the first sound to disrupt the silence of the cabin since April and Aimes had their little moment of bonding. “I know your stomach has to be hurting you. I wish you’d let me check the stiches like I have been asking you to.”
“Been a little busy with the whole death camp thing.”
She snorts to disguise her laughter. “Well you ain’t busy now.”
“Obviously you have never driven a large truck without power steering.”
“A list of excuses as the day is long.”
“- and I’m not even trying.”
“She’s really not,” Aimes mutters, resting against the passenger door.
I know Lawless and the men are searching for any place to pull over that might hold a hope of safety. Our bodies are too tired from the past day’s events to trust ourselves to be alert to danger and assigning someone as look out would just be cruel. It’s just mile after mile of open road on this small town’s highway and it feels hopeless as the miles continue to stretch on.
Only a few times have we come across a cluster of wrecked or abandoned cars to navigate through. Well the men navigated. I played bumper cars with my large grill demolishing the compacts in my path. It was a sick release of the frustrations to watch the metal fly in shrapnel-like pieces as I pushed the truck through the clusters.
Lucky for me, we have found another one. This one might not be as easy, though. A large Jeep sits parked across the road ahead of us. Behind it sits another car and I’m already mentally lining them up like a game of pool.
The men slow their bikes and I slow as well, just a little further back. I know I will need a decent amount of speed to topple that Jeep.
“You could just go around,” Paula says with a touch of motherly disapproval.
“Where is the fun in that?” I smile at her and receive an eye roll for my excitement.
“They are stopping,” Aimes says, sitting up with her concern.
“They just need to stretch their legs.” Paula still uses her mother voice.
“There are people out there.” Aimes is squinting to make out the moving shadows.
The men are stretching, but it’s to cover their motives as they reach for their guns. Aimes is obviously not the only one to have spotted the moving shapes. When the first shape comes around the corner, I highlight him in the brights of the truck. His hands instinctively come to cover his face, showing he is unarmed and now blind.
More men come around from the back of the Jeep. They each shield their faces from the burning light from my truck. Knowing any risk of danger has passed, I climb from the cabin to see what the people want. Mostly I just need to stretch too.
The sounds of their voices float to me on the night air. Fog forms from their breath as they speak, giving proof of who is speaking when. One voice, one voice from the circle ahead of me, makes the hairs on my neck rise. I have goose bumps and it has nothing to do with the weather.
I listen as he introduces himself with good-natured intent, but I can’t really trust what my ears have heard or what my mind is screaming. I couldn’t believe it until Lawless turns to look at me, squinting into the high beams of the truck. I didn’t want to believe it until Rhett and Marxx also cast their eyes my way. I wouldn’t believe it until the man, sensing something is wrong, stares trying to pierce the glowing veil that conceals me.
My whole body is trembling with a rush of emotions that for most I don’t have a name as I stare at him. Memories tumble through my mind and the door I have locked bursts open. I say the one name I never thought I would s
ay again. I cast it into the winter night as Truth, Karma and Fate clap with distorted elation. “Dad?”
Selma sits in the blue mini-van left behind by those who once lived in the forsaken school. Her shoulder throbs, her arm feels as if it is blistering from an invisible fire, but it’s her head that is sending her into tears of agony.
Pressure thrusts against the walls of her skull. It ruins her vision as a fever-like fire blazes inside her body. A part of her knows what is happening. She has seen it enough times in the past. She has caused it to happen to every small neighborhood in their path as she and Travis played out their personal vengeance for what had happened to them. She, of all the people who are still cursed to walk the earth, should know what is happening. It just doesn’t make sense.
She never injected herself with the shots her and Travis had convinced the remaining believers to take. She sat, watching them self-administer the doses marveling at how Travis could so easily twist people to his plans. Plans that had involved their mathematical-like destruction of every pocket of life they discovered, until now.
Selma stares at the gaping, torn flesh of her arm where one of the believers had bitten her when he awoke. She stares at it as the first convulsions rattle her skeleton with the force of the contractions.
It doesn’t make sense. It doesn’t make sense! Are her last thoughts as her mind is destroyed by the very evil she had used to destroy so many others.
Additional titles by Marie F Crow:
The Risen: Dawning - Available now
The Risen: Margaret - Available now
The Risen: Remnants - Available now
The Risen: Defiance - Coming soon
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The Risen (Book 4): Courage Page 30