The Secret Apocalypse (Book 8): Rage Against the Dying

by James Harden

  We make our way down the stairs of the pub and Kenji says, “We need to move quickly, but we need to be careful. If we go rushing off into the night, we’ll get our heads blown off. These people are spooked. They’re jumpy as hell and they’re much too eager to kill, to shoot first and ask questions later. So we need to be extremely careful.”

  I got the same impression. It sounded like they were scared of their own people, scared of whoever was in charge.

  You don’t want to piss off the big guy…

  It sounded like they were more scared of him than they were of anyone else, including the people behind the walls and the Desert King.

  Again, I catch myself calling a person I’ve never met the ‘Desert King’. And it is super weird that I’m already thinking of this guy, or whoever it is, as an actual King. I guess it’s because names have power, titles have power. Even pathetically self-appointed titles. Then again, maybe it wasn’t self-appointed. Maybe the people chose him to be their King. Maybe he earned the right. Who knows?

  The only thing I know for certain is that we’ve stumbled into a perfect storm here, a storm with multiple fronts.

  On one front there are an unknown number of people safe behind their walls, ruled by a King of the Desert. They are safe and elite and unmerciful. And they’ve already given us our marching orders. They’ve already given us an ultimatum. On the other front, there’s a gang of marauders and scavengers. Again, there’s an unknown number of them. And by the looks of things, they’re taking whatever they can and killing anyone who gets in their way. And on yet another front, somewhere in the shadows, is a maniac, a serial killer who is probably killing them all, one by one, and eating them and feeding them to his brother.

  And don’t forget the man in the gas mask, I remind myself for the hundredth time. There’s a good chance he’s still alive. And if he is, he’s somewhere out there and he’s on the loose. And you better believe he knows about this town, and the next one. You better believe he’s memorized a detailed map of the entire area, of the entire country.

  So here we are, stuck in the middle, stranded and trapped. We have been forced into a corner and there’s nothing left to do except fight. So it’s time to lash out. Time to stand up and fight for our lives. And fight we will. To our very last breath. We will do this because we’ve come too far and survived too much. We will do this because no one else will fight for us.

  We slowly make our way to the entrance of the pub. Kim scans the street. No sign of anyone. This doesn’t mean the street is empty, but it’s a good start.

  “What now?” I whisper.

  “Where’s Jack and Sarah hiding?” Maria asks.

  “I told you, they’re at the church,” Kim answers.

  The intersection in front of the pub looks impossibly massive and extremely exposed. The moon has finally risen and it looks brighter than I ever remember it being. At this point, knowing what we know about these people, running across this intersection to get to the church sounds like a goddamn suicide mission. I look up and down the street. There are a few parked cars close by, a couple of trucks. A few shops. And many dark places, hidden from the moonlight. These people could be anywhere.

  Kim sneaks back inside to the pub. She moves behind the bar, searching for something. Before anyone can ask her what the hell she’s doing, she returns with a bottle of beer.

  “Feeling thirsty?” I whisper. “What are you going to do with that?”

  “We need to be sure we’re alone.”

  “We’re not alone. We already know this.”

  “Just trust me.”

  That was the end of the discussion, because at that moment, Kim stood from her hiding position and threw the bottle of beer as far as she could. She threw it away from the church and it landed on the front windshield of a car, cracking and smashing the window and the bottle.

  The noise was incredibly loud. Probably too loud.

  I’m guessing she wanted to get the attention of anyone hiding in the immediate area. But that noise probably carried throughout the entire town.

  We shrink back into the doorway of the pub and we wait, listening and watching for any sign of movement.

  “That was way too loud,” Maria says.

  “Yeah, sorry,” Kim apologizes. “Didn’t mean to hit the car.”

  “Pretty good throw, though,” Kenji says. “Good distance.”

  This is the first light hearted thing I’ve heard Kenji say in a while. I hope this means he’s feeling better, coming back to his normal self. Or maybe he just feels more comfortable when he is risking his life and fighting for his life. Maybe right now, hiding, running, killing, maybe this is the only time when he feels truly comfortable. Truly normal.

  We wait for a few more minutes. Nothing happens.

  Which means, “Either no one is here,” I say. “Or they’re on to us and they know it was a trick. And now they’re just waiting for us to make a move, to come out into the open so they can shoot us.”

  “Yeah,” Kenji says, agreeing with my grim assessment. “That pretty much sums it up.”

  “And?” Maria asks. “Do we go now? Or do we wait?”

  “We have to go anyway,” Kim says. “No point in waiting.”

  “But they could be hiding, ready to ambush,” Maria says.

  “True.”

  “But we’re going anyway. I mean, we have to, right? Sarah and Jack made it across and they can barely walk.”

  Maria is basically talking to herself at this point. Exhaustion and stress getting the better of her. Making her sound kind of crazy.

  I put my hand on Maria’s shoulder. “It’s going to be OK. They’re going to be fine. They’re hiding in that church. It’s a good hiding spot. Plenty of places to hole up. No reason for these scavengers to go inside.”

  She nods her head. “I know… I know…”

  “Let’s do this,” Kenji says. “We go now. Run as fast as you can for the steps of the church. It has a large doorway. There’s a good amount of shadow. When we get there, press yourself against the wall, stick to the darkness.”

  I look at the steps leading up the large wooden doors of the church. It’s not that far away. We can make it.

  Kenji starts inching forward, moving out into the open. He makes it to a parked car and waves us over. We stay crouched down, moving as quietly as possible, making as little sound as possible, moving as a unit.

  “We can use the cars as cover,” Kenji whispers. “We move down this side of the road until we’re directly opposite the church. And then we can sprint across. Less time out in the open that way.”

  Only by a few seconds, I think to myself. But that few seconds could mean the difference between life and death.

  We follow Kenji from car to car. Behind us is the massive black wall of the sanctuary. This is a good thing because it means no one can sneak up from behind us. Although I guess someone from up top could drop something on us. Rocks. Boiling oil. Or they could just shoot us. That would be beyond messed up, especially boiling oil. But I think we’re safe from the Desert King and the people behind the walls for the moment. I’m getting the impression that they’re content to stay put. To actually wait for daylight before they do anything. Maybe they really will give us a full twelve hours to leave town. Maybe longer. And I can’t blame them for hiding behind the walls. I’d do the exact same thing if I was in their position.

  Once we’re directly opposite the church, we again pause to make sure we’re actually alone.

  “Come on,” Kenji says. “It’s now or never.”

  We choose now and together we sprint across the road in single file. We move up the steps of the church and we make it to the door. We didn’t actually run that far but all of us are breathing hard. Kenji physically drags me closer to the church and pushes me against the wall. The others follow Kenji’s advice and we all make sure we’re hidden in the shadows.

  Again, we wait in silence. Again, we listen for the sounds of a pursuit, for the sound of run
ning footsteps.

  A few seconds pass. A minute. No sounds. No movement.

  I’m about to open the door, when I hear something coming from inside. It sounded like a chair, like one of the pews being pushed or dragged along the floor. My hand is on the door handle and I hesitate.

  I turn to the others. “Did anyone hear that?”

  “Yeah,” Maria says. “I heard it.”

  “What do we do?”

  “We need to get inside,” Kenji says. “We’re too exposed out here.”

  “But what if they’ve set up an ambush? What if they’re waiting for us?”

  Kenji takes a deep breath. “Stay behind me.”

  “What are you doing?” Kim asks. “This is no time to play hero. We need to be more careful than this.”

  “We’re running out of time. We can’t stay out in the open. They know we’re here. We’ve killed at least three of their people. Maybe more. They’re going to come for us. And if they find us…”

  “They won’t be happy,” Maria says, finishing Kenji’s sentence.

  No, they will not be happy at all. They’ll be out for revenge. Out for blood.

  “Stay behind me,” Kenji repeats. “I’ll open the door. When I do this, we need to stay back against the walls. Out of the way. Out of the doorway. If they’ve got shooters ready and in position, they’ll expect us to walk straight in.”

  “So we open the door and just wait?” Kim says. “That’s the plan?”

  “If there are shooters, and remember, we don’t know that there is, but if there is, we’ll need to take them off guard. Present multiple moving targets at random. We’ll be harder to hit this way.”

  Kenji is a shooter himself. And I can tell that right now he is putting himself in the shoes of these people. If he wanted to kill, if he wanted to shoot someone, then having them walk through a doorway would present an ideal target. However, if we wait, if we take them by surprise, if two of us run to the left, and two of us run to the right, it’ll be much harder for them to lock on to us.

  Kenji echoes my thoughts, “After I give the signal, Maria and I will move to the right, Kim and Rebecca, you move to the left. Stay low. Use the chairs and the pews as cover.”

  “And then what?” I ask.

  “Stay low, make your way forward. These people are spooked. They’re scared and they’re in a hurry to get as much stuff as they can and get the hell out of this town. So If there are people in this church, they’ll reveal themselves, they won’t have the patience to lure us in.”

  “You’re hoping they won’t have the patience,” I say.

  “Trust me, they’ll shoot first.”

  “He’s right,” Maria says. “Remember what they did before. How they reacted. As soon as they saw us, as soon as they realized they weren’t alone, they opened fire.”

  Yeah, I remember. They opened fire immediately. They shot to kill. No warning.

  “OK,” Kim says. “Let’s get this over with.”

  Kenji turns the handle of the door. A large ornate handle, beautifully designed, beautifully crafted. The downside of this is that the handle is old and a little bit rusty. And as a result, it did not open silently. The handle squeaked and complained, completely not silent. But there is no going back now. No stopping. No choice but to keep moving forward. Kenji opens the door the rest of the way, pushing it wide open and then retreating back, out of the doorway.

  We wait. For a few seconds.

  A minute.

  We wait for a gunshot.

  But the sound of gunfire never comes.

  We are all holding our breaths, listening for any possible sounds that would alert us to an attack.

  Kenji gives us a little signal. It is time to move inside. Kenji and Maria go first, darting quickly inside, moving off to the right. Kim and I head to the left. We are both running hunched over. I then slide on my knees, diving for cover behind the back row of seats.

  We wait a few more seconds once we’re behind cover. I look across the aisle to Kenji. I motion with my head for us to move forward. Kenji nods in agreement because there’s no point in waiting any longer. We make our way down the center aisle. Up ahead is the corpse of the man who had hung himself. He is still hanging from the ceiling, still hanging above the altar. He is still dead.

  His words of warning echo around my mind.

  I tried to stop the King. Tried to stop the madness. I was punished… sentenced to death.

  He is a tyrant…

  Suddenly I see a shadow, running behind the altar, brushing past the hanging corpse, causing it to spin one way and then back the other. The rope creaks against the wooden beams.

  Kim pulls me behind the nearest pew. And I don’t know what has come over me, but I know it was Sarah. Even though I couldn’t see her clearly, I know it was her. Something about the way she moved. It was quick… silent.

  I decide to call out to her. “Sarah!”

  Kim practically tackles me, puts me in a choke hold and puts her hand over my mouth. “Shut the hell up,” she whispers into my ear.

  Kenji and Maria take cover on the other side of the aisle.

  I wriggle free from Kim’s grip. “It’s Sarah,” I say. “It has to be.”

  I stand up and move out into the open, and I was right. Because Sarah is standing there, leaning against the altar for support, completely unfazed or completely oblivious to the dead man hanging and spinning right next to her.

  She stumbles forward and collapses to her knees. She does not look good at all.

  She appears to be alone.

  Maria moves up behind me. “Sarah? Where’s Jack?”

  Sarah shakes her head. Eyes barely open. “Gone,” she whispers. “He’s gone.”

  Chapter 16

  We rush forward, helping Sarah to her feet. But she doesn’t want our help, doesn’t need our help. She doesn’t need our help because she is amazingly strong and she’s survived for so very long by herself.

  She pushes us away. “I’m fine. I just need… I just need to catch my breath.”

  “What happened?” Maria asks. “Where the hell is Jack?”

  “They found us,” she whispers. “They know we’re here. They were close. Real close.”

  I instinctively look back towards the entryway of the church. It feels like we are being hunted and it definitely does not feel safe here.

  And then Sarah says, “It’s not safe here. We need to move.”

  “Where is Jack?” Maria repeats, her voice rising.

  “Don’t know exactly…” she says trailing off.

  “Is he hurt? Is he…”

  Dead?

  Alive?

  Shot?

  Stabbed?

  Has he been taken?

  These words hang in the air even though no one actually says the words out loud.

  “I don’t know,” Sarah says, struggling to speak, struggling to breathe. “But he said he was going to try for the fire station. He was going to lead them away.”

  “Lead them away?” Kim asks. “They were here? They were inside?”

  “Yes. They came in here. They knew there was food here. There’s a church pantry back there. It’s full of canned food donations, I guess. Can’t believe no one has looted this place yet. Maybe people get hung up on stealing from a church. Or maybe they were scared away by those giant walls across the street.”

  The latter seems more likely. People have moved way past stealing from places of worship. No one is getting hung up on that, especially not people who are prepared to shoot first and ask questions later.

  “Without realizing it, Jack and I had chosen the absolute worst hiding place,” Sarah continues.

  “I’m sorry,” Kim says.

  “Not your fault. You didn’t know. No one did. Anyway, they made it inside. They were getting closer. We could hear them talking about an attack. We’d heard the gunfire. The explosion.”

  “That was us,” I add. “They shot at us.”

  “I take it they miss
ed?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Makes sense. These people are afraid. They’re angry. Ready to kill anything that moves. Jack told me what he was going to do. We knew they were armed. He knew what he was volunteering to do, but he did it anyway. Told me he saw a fire station when we first arrived. Back up the main road. Said he was going to draw these people away from here. And then make his way towards the station. Said there’d be plenty of places to hide in there. Said not to worry about him. Don’t know if he made it.”

  “How the hell is he going to do all of that?” Maria asks, on the verge of tears. “His leg… he can’t run. He is such an idiot. I can’t believe he’d do this.”

  I can.

  I can totally believe it.

  This is Jack. This is what he does. Time and time again he will put his life on the line for the people closest to him.

  “Jack knows what he’s doing,” I say. “He’s smart. He’ll get away. Trust me, he’ll be fine.”

  Maria has her head lowered. Stress and worry getting the better of her. My words do not comfort her in the slightest.

  “We should make our way towards the fire station,” Kenji says. “Does anyone remember seeing it?”

  I shake my head. I mostly remember being shot at by a serial killer and being chased by a horde of infected monsters. It’s hard to take in the sights when you’re running for your life. And I don’t remember seeing it when we went looking for Marko’s car.

  Kim says, “It was on the main road, according to Jack. So I guess we should retrace our steps. If we do that, we’ll find it. We’ll find Jack. And then we get the hell out of this warzone of a town.”

  “My sister,” Sarah whispers. “Not leaving without her. Not going anywhere.”

  The rest of us exchange worried looks. At what point do we give up on rescuing Sarah’s sister, on getting behind the walls? Because right now, it just does not look possible. The walls are impossibly high, impenetrable, unscaleable.