The final Zaphead—at least among the ones he could see—was a young boy of perhaps fourteen, his forearms covered in tattoos, blond streaks now growing through the blue dye of his hair. Campbell could easily imagine him on his skateboard, weaving through traffic and flipping a bird at the cop. Now they were like the best of buddies, happy campers on the winning team.
Except, none of them looked happy. Their body language said they had a mission, a virus to eradicate from their midst.
In case he lived long enough to follow Pete, Campbell took one last survey of the surroundings, scooped up his backpack and dashed down the dark, narrow stairs. At the landing, he considered locking the front door and holing up, but he was pretty sure the Zapheads could wait him out. After all, he only had a day’s supply of food, and he wasn’t sure they even needed food or water.
Besides, if they really wanted in, they could shatter any of the large, stained-glass windows that featured stylized images of Christ with children, lambs, or serious-eyed men in robes. But he didn’t want to leave via the front door, because four of the Zapheads were closest. He hurried down the aisles of the nave, toward the altar, hoping to find a side exit.
“Where the hell do I go?” he implored of the large, brass-coated cross fastened on the wall above the altar.
“Seek and you shall find,” thundered a voice, so resonant and clear that Campbell thought it was a broadcast recording.
Finally cracking. God’s talking back.
Then Campbell rounded the front row and saw a man sitting in the pew, hunched forward and clasping a hymnal. The man was balding, his white shirt sleeves rolled to the elbow, his dark leather shoes spotted with gray.
“How long… who…?” Campbell couldn’t believe the man was just sitting there while civilization crumbled outside. But, he had to admit, the construction of the church hushed most sounds from outside and was probably as peaceful a place as any to die, outside of a well-stocked survival bunker.
“They’re coming.” Campbell wondered if the man even knew about the Zapheads. His sunken eyes and vacant, rapt smile gave the impression of a man whose cares were few.
Then his eyes lit with a fierce passion. “But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a roar, and the heavenly bodies will be burned up and dissolved, and the Earth and the works that are done on it will be exposed.”
“Uh… some people out there are coming to kill us.” He wasn’t sure if “people” was the right word, but he didn’t have time for a brief history of the end of the world. He cast about for a weapon of any kind.
“The Book of Peter,” the man said. “Do you know Peter?”
“Yeah. He’s holed up a couple blocks away. Come with me. We have a better chance with the two of us.”
The man waved to the empty rows behind him. “I can’t leave my flock.”
“You the preacher?” Campbell thought he heard something scraping against the church door.
“I am a servant.”
Campbell’s frustration mounted. He didn’t have time to deal with a madman. But he still clung to old notions of camaraderie and civility, even if it meant those values were baggage. “Well, you better serve yourself right now. Or you’re going to be dead.”
“And the dead in Christ will rise first.”
Campbell gave up. There was banging at the main door, the noise made even more disturbing by its steady rhythm and insistence.
Almost like they’re not enraged, just stopping by for a visit to check on the neighbors.
The altar was about a foot higher than the nave floor, and was flanked by two tall brass candlesticks that matched the cross. United States and North Carolina flags stood on thick wooden poles on either side of the cross in an incongruous mash-up of church and state that was particular to Southern Baptist churches. A darkened set of stairs led down on one side of the altar. Despite the high windows, the light was so weak that Campbell didn’t think he’d fare better by wandering deeper into the bowels of the church.
Campbell jumped onto the platform and grabbed the state flag, attracted by the sharp wooden point on top of the pole. It was about seven feet tall, and as he removed it from its heavy base, he realized that it would be far too cumbersome to ward off an attacker. He gripped one of the tall brass candle holders, knocking the stubby candle from it as he gave it a test swing. It was about three feet in length and had a satisfying heft.
“That’s property of the Lord,” the preacher said, rising from the pew and dropping his hymnal.
“I’ll give it back when I’m done.” Campbell made one last attempt to get the preacher to come with him, holding the candlestick aloft. “Side door, make a run for it—I got your back.”
The preacher turned toward the main entrance, where the pounding of many hands continued. “All are welcome in the house of God.”
The preacher clasped his hands and bowed in reverence as he started his slow trek up the aisle. He murmured some sort of poetic prayer, but Campbell didn’t wait around to see how the message played to his newfound congregation. Instead, he descended the stairs into darkness.
On the lower floor, a few small utility windows illuminated a narrow hall that broke off into several meeting rooms. Campbell hoped he hadn’t backed himself into a corner. He felt confident that he could fight his way past one or two Zapheads, but he didn’t have any delusions about playing gladiator against a crowd of them.
He tried a door to his left. It opened onto a dim room that had probably been used for Sunday School classes. The stench hit him like a sheet of ice. Bodies were stacked in various positions on the floor, arranged in the shape of a cross. As Campbell backed out of the room with his nose buried in the crook of his elbow, he wondered if the preacher had laid out some sort of demented holy tribute in a burst of apocalyptic fever.
Out in the hall, he heard the preacher’s voice soaring into a rhapsodic welcome.
Why haven’t the Zappers killed him yet?
Turning a bend, he spotted a fire exit. As he kicked the release bar, gripping the heavy candlestick, sunlight poured around him, and he was cravenly grateful that the preacher had offered himself as a decoy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
They kept to the shadowed side of the street, moving fast. Rachel led the way, hoping she was headed north. DeVontay seemed to be even less of a Boy Scout than she was, so he didn’t question her judgment. Or maybe he was keeping his eyes in the side alleys, worried less about the destination than the journey.
They’d gone at least ten blocks without seeing any signs of life—if such a word was even appropriate under the circumstances. Birds flapped in the eaves of the buildings and the canopy of trees, and Rachel heard a hound dog baying in the distance once, but mostly, the town was just a still life of abandoned cars and silent storefronts. The stench of death emanated from inside many of the buildings, so they didn’t bother with a door-to-door search for survivors. Calling out for them was risky as well, since the noise might attract Zapheads.
The streets were remarkably free of corpses, given the density of the population, but once they came upon a shrunken man with a stringy white beard, leaning against a brick wall with his arms tucked under his knees. In the old days, he might have passed for a homeless man, rags tied around his ankles.
“Hey, Pops?” DeVontay whispered, afraid to touch him.
The man didn’t move so they kept going. Stephen’s expression didn’t change, which saddened Rachel. A boy shouldn’t be hardened to the point of numbness. His days should be filled with bubble gum, comic books and video games instead of death.