nodded, and took them down a back corridor that led to the back of the building.
They checked there was nobody outside before opening the door, and ran to Colin’s illegally parked car. He drove like a maniac, following the back streets and driving straight at any zombies they saw on the way. They passed the Sacred Heart, which was already under siege, and found the undead forming a throng, banging on the doors of St John’s and the Methodist Church. It seemed to be all the same, fewer of the creatures roaming the town and more of them gathered around centres of faith. The synagogues were just the same.
‘Are they scared of something in there?’ Ed speculated, ‘Or is that where most people have run to?’
‘Go to the Tower,’ Lily cut in before they could waste any time guessing at an answer they couldn’t see, ‘There’s a massive group from the Ecclesiopian Church holding some prayer vigil or something.’
‘Oh yeah,’ Colin almost spun the car on the spot, turning to give her a thumbs up as he did so. Ed closed his eyes and shrank back into his seat, but the driver didn’t seem to notice. ‘I saw that on the news. They want to be closer to heaven when the rapture comes or something?’
‘The question is whether loony apocalypse-cults count as priests,’ Ed muttered between clenched teeth, trying not to notice how fast they were travelling, ‘Or even if religion can drive away the undead.’
‘They’re predicting the end of the world this week,’ Lily answered, ‘Then this happens. If one religion has to be right, I’d say their odds just went way up.’ It was a sobering thought, and the three didn’t say any more until they got to the Tower. It was one of the town’s biggest tourist attractions, but there was nobody in sight now. Inside, there was nothing to stop them going wherever they wanted. The floors were strewn with corpses, and there were more than a few zombies in the corridors. One caught the trio by surprise, and managed to drag Colin away before they could even react. After that, Lily and Ed were more careful to be sure of where they were going.
In front of the elevator on the 3rd floor, they finally found a group of Ecclesiopians. Three priests in full regalia, a man with a bishop’s mitre, and a congregation of a dozen sitting in a circle, listening to them. They turned as Ed and Lily approached, and the look in their eyes was of pure bile. The bishop raised his staff to point, and as one the group moved forward. Not one of them was alive. It was a minor miracle that the two managed to get to the lift before the zombies reached them.
‘Remains,’ Lily gasped, ‘Damn.’ Ed just looked puzzled, so she had to explain what she could remember from the news.
The posters and flyers the Armageddon cult had been circulating had beautiful pictures of a world returned to nature. Piles of clothes scattered around the landscapes, everyone who had real faith being gathered by angels and returned to the Kingdom of Heaven. This morning they’d even joked that the apocalypse prophets were wrong, because nobody had disappeared.
‘We just misunderstood,’ Lily muttered disconsolately, ‘If you read one of those leaflets, they reckon that the people who aren’t worthy are left behind – the remaining, they call them – and they all have to die before a new world can be established with only the good people. The remains have to die, but how do the believers manage that if they’re not here? Or to put it another way: what do you think would happen, if every righteous soul went to heaven, and left their bodies to clean up the world?’
Ed just stared in shock, not wanting to accept that explanation but unable to offer anything better, until the lift doors opened on the ground floor and they found themselves, once again, fighting to decide the fate of the world.
Angel Wedge lives in Lancaster, where most of his time is divided between writing and walking. He has more ideas than he knows what to do with, and recently wrote a short story every day for 444 days, of which ‘Remains’ is № 156. Now he is collecting all these stories to anthologies, as well as working on his second novel.
Sand, Sea, Zombies Page 14