Breaking up the first few rows of pews, they used hammers and nails in a woodpecker frenzy to barricade the door and the windows, and as the zombies had not made another move toward the church, it had given them a good length of time to prepare properly.
Calhoun held a revolver in his hand. "I've never used a gun in my life—I can't abide them."
"Now's the time to learn," the Reverend said. "And learn to like them. They will be your most important companion shortly, I'm sure."
The zombies stood near the windows, looking through the cracks in the slats nailed over them.
"What are they waiting for?" Calhoun asked no one in particular.
"Their master," Doc said. "His word."
"Doc," the Reverend said, "if there's anything you can tell us that might help, now is the time."
Doc found a pew to lean against. "All right," he said. "I'm going to cut the details and tell this quick. I can't explain it, I'm just telling it. The Indian is a shaman, a magician. He put a curse on this town and accepted a demon into his body so that he might live after death and have revenge. The demon gives the Indian powers. This church will hold the zombies for a while, but not if he pushes them. And he will. The power of this church is uncomfortable to him, and he will send them to do his bidding. If they can't, then he himself will come. And the closer it gets to morning, the more likely he is to try himself.
When daylight comes, his powers wane. We can find him then and kill him, and there won't be much he can do against us. Sunlight is like poison to him.
"The zombies are like bees and he's like the queen of the hive. They are of one mind. HIS.
They can be stopped by destroying their brains. The Indian's magic only works on corpses in which the brain survives. I don't know how or why. No more than I know why some potions might call for a toad's eye or a black moth's wing. But that's the way it is. Shoot them in the head. Crack their skulls good. That's the way to stop them."
"And the Indian?" David asked.
"Not the same. The demon controls his body and keeps him alive, no matter how worse for wear he becomes. The only way to stop him is with sunlight, or holy objects. But the person behind those objects must believe in them. If his faith falters, they'll fail."
The Reverend put his arm around Abby's shoulders, "You're sure about all this, Doc?"
"Hell no," Doc said. "You think I fight ghouls every day of the week? I read it in a goddamned book." He paused. "One other thing. This walking dead business—it's like a disease. One bites you, it's like being bit by a mad dog. Only worse—you become just like them. If you should get bit—I advise you to use the gun on yourself."
II
The town was dead.
And the dead walked.
The Reverend, looking out through a crack in the wooden slats watched them. Once, in San Francisco, he had seen at least fifty rats leave a docked ship by a docking rope, and this reminded him of that time. Red, hungry eyes and all. The zombie that in life had been Millie Johnson appeared at a slit in the window and looked in at the Reverend. She licked her lips with a thick tongue. A stream of stringy snot dangled from her left nostril falling nearly to her left cheek. She moaned gently, as if the Reverend were a prize steak she coveted. Finally, she moved away to prowl about outside the church in search of a better way in, and when she moved, the Reverend saw the Indian.
He was in the middle of the street—walking—a crate on his right shoulder, and the rain seemed to part for him.
Calhoun (who had been watching from the other window) turned away, fell to his knees, and began to pray.
The crowd of dead parted for the Indian, and the Indian stopped near the church steps and set the crate upright. He tore the lid off and revealed the corpse to those in the church.
Doc, now beside the Reverend, said, "His wife— what's left of her."
The Indian turned to the corpse, took off the strand with the ears, and slipped it over the head of the body. He then kissed the blackened, lifeless lips and looked back at the church.
Down the street came more dead. The sheriff, faceless, among them, and Caleb, dragging guts and limping along because most of his right ankle had been chewed through.
The Reverend and the Indian seemed to lock eyes, and Jeb was surprised to feel a wave of pity wash over him for the red man. He too knew how it was to have loved ones taken away, only in his case it had been purely emotional. As far as he knew, his family (though surely his sister had been cast out of it) were alive and well.
Now they were both here: he, God's representative for good, the Indian, the Devil's pawn for evil. Two forces about to meet head on.
But the Reverend did not feel so self-righteous, and he could not look upon the Indian as purely dark and evil.
The Reverend turned to look at Abby. She tried to smile back at him, but the muscles in her face would not quite make the effort. The Reverend was assailed by a sudden thought that made him feel even less self-righteous, if more joyously human. He wished he had taken Abby to bed and known her in the Biblical sense.
It seemed only fair that two people who loved one another and were possibly going to die should have had that experience. Now, unless they survived, it would never happen. He had kept the laws of God, but not the laws of his heart, and he was uncertain if he felt better for having done so.
He looked at David. He felt a kinship for the boy, as if he were his own son.
The boy was sitting on a pew, holding a shotgun, his face smeared with dirt, his hair streaked with the same, and love went out of the Reverend and embraced the boy.
David, perhaps feeling the thought, turned to look at the Reverend, and he tried to smile, managing it only a little better than Abby had.
The Reverend turned to look out the window again. The Indian had not moved and was still looking in his direction, as if his eyes were deliberately tracking in on the Reverend's.
The Reverend looked away. He broke open the shotgun for the fifth time to make sure it was loaded, then he checked his revolver for the fifth time also.
He leaned the shotgun against the wall, put the revolver in his sash, walked over to Abby, and put his arms around her. "I love you," he said abruptly. "Come what may, I love you."
She put her weapon aside, and embraced him, kissed him long and deep—a kiss of love, and perhaps farewell.
For the moment of truth was about to begin.
III
The dead began to ease forward. Very slowly at first. They went up the steps and took hold of the bars in the windows and pushed their hands out to touch the wooden slats.
Their fingers wriggled through cracks in the boards and gently tugged and pulled out again.
The church defenders moved back and took position in the wide center row of the church, facing the bolted doors. The Reverend and Doc stood side by side, and just behind and to the left of the Reverend was David, and to Doc's right was Abby, and dead-center-rear was Calhoun, who was shaking so hard you could hear his stiff clothes wrinkle and his teeth click.
Now the window nearest the door creaked as a board was pushed forward, the nails flying from it like bullets, and it fell to the floor. The Indian smiled at them, his teeth colored with blood. He took hold of the bars with his hands and pushed his face close and looked inside.
"Boo," he said.
Trickles of smoke curled up from the Indian's hands where he touched the bars, and he removed them quickly, little bursts of fire blazing in his palms.