Rawley was flushed red now. “You just settle down, snatch. You’re real close right now. Real close.”
“Don’t you be calling her that,” Ruby Sue said. “Way I hear it, man, only thing big in Texas is your mother’s hole.”
Rawley stared. He looked for a moment like he might snap, then his face seemed to relax. “Might be some truth to that, sweet thing, so I won’t attempt a debate. You do know how to push a man’s buttons, I’ll give you that.” He made a show of tipping his hat to her. But his finger never left the trigger of his shotgun. He looked at the preacher. “While I keep these folks honest, preacher, have your boys see what they can find.”
Rawley had managed to corral them together now. Even Johnny had allowed himself to be worked. Mainly because he feared for Lisa’s life.
The preacher’s boys were both in their twenties. They found Johnny’s guns right away and then Joe’s duffel. They also found Lisa’s purse, her guitar, assorted personals.
The congregation were getting antsy. They wanted to do whatever it was they’d come to do.
Rawley had stopped smiling long ago. “Listen up. This is how it works. We need a diversion to get out of this place. Those goddamn Yankee crazies are lining up outside in case you didn’t notice. And—”
“And we’re it?” Ben said incredulously. “You feed us to them and you walk right out?”
“You catch on quick for a Northerner, son.”
“And if we don’t care for that plan?” Lou said.
Rawley aimed the shotgun at Lisa. “Then I kill the snatch.”
Johnny looked at Joe who looked to Lou who, in turn, looked to Ben. Then they all looked at Ruby Sue and Lisa. This was it, then. This was the big one. No more fucking around here, death had arrived. They’d spent most of the evening fighting to stay alive, to stay uninfected… and now this crazy bastard Rawley was throwing them to the wolves. The irony, if that’s what it was, was numbing.
Johnny accepted it, as did Joe. Both were fighters, yes, but both were experienced enough to know that you didn’t attack an armed man until all possible hope was vanquished. Besides, it wasn’t just Rawley now; they all had guns.
“Bring her to me,” Rawley said, staring at Lisa with unabashed hunger.
One of the preacher’s minions made to do just that, but Lisa pulled back.
“You either come over here, snatch,” he said, “or I drop you right now.”
Lisa allowed herself to be pulled forward.
Rawley was happy now. “This little girl, you see, is our insurance policy. Any of you fucks try to play hero, she gets it first. Understand?”
They did.
Rawley formed them up into ranks. Ben was in front, Rawley decided, because he didn’t give two shits for his own skin. Next was Joe and Johnny. Ruby Sue and Lou were in the back. Directly behind them were the preacher’s boys. They marched their little group up the aisle between the pews towards the front of the church. Outside, there was the night and all it contained.
“It isn’t too late to become a human being,” Lou said.
Well behind them, the shotgun pressed into the small of Lisa’s back, Rawley said, “But I am a human being. And I plan on staying that way. Wish I could say the same for you, friend.”
The preacher unlocked the front door.
And the shit hit the fan.
It was as if some predestined moment of attack had arrived. Without bugles blaring or so much as a rebel yell, the stained glass windows began to shatter and the siege began. Dozens of rabids began pouring into the church. Their pallid faces were cut and bleeding but it did nothing to erase their zeal. Like an insane hive, they thronged over the pews. Countless others came from beyond the altar. And, of course, before anyone could possibly register their horror or shock, the front door exploded in.
And pandemonium began.
Ben and the others seemed to literally disappear in sea of clutching, clawing white hands. The preacher’s boys started shooting. And that’s the way it was—screams and shrieking, gunfire and shouting, all punctuated by the inhuman gibberings of the rabids as they sought out the last few healthy cells of Cut River, attempting to absorb them into the cancerous body of the new order.
Rawley said, “I’ll be dipped in shit.” He shoved Lisa to the floor and started popping off rounds from his shotgun.
Lisa had barely even hit the carpet when three of the rabids ringed in Rawley. She realized that the crazy redneck hadn’t been trying to save her, but had been trying to shove her at them to buy himself time. Thanks to her own natural clumsiness, she tripped over her own feet and went down. And maybe that’s what saved her. The trio of rabids had no interest in her—they went right at Rawley.
She brought her face up in time to see the head of a bald man get blasted to shrapnel. He staggered backward drunkenly, fountaining blood and collapsed in a heap.
A hugely overweight woman took two blasts to the abdomen before she, too, went down.
The third, a naked teenage boy launched himself at Rawley, spraying foam and slime. Rawley swung the empty shotgun like a bat and cracked his head open. The boy went down to his knees a few feet from Lisa, head split like a cantaloupe, blood oozing down his white face in crimson rivers. He didn’t seem to comprehend that he was mortally wounded. Beyond the mask of blood, his yellow eyes blazed like headlights in a dark tunnel.
He pulled himself to his feet and staggered on after Rawley who was running back the way they’d come, swinging the shotgun in wild arcs.
The preacher dropped his empty weapon—Johnny’s little .38 snubby—and simply began to pray. The sound of his voice droning monotonously seemed to drive the rabids into a white-hot rage. As the 23rd Psalm tumbled from his lips, he was struck by a wave of them. A few of which were children which hung on like ticks, biting and tearing at his face, throat, belly and legs as the adults hammered him to his knees. Beneath their lunatic attentions, he came apart like a ragdoll.
Lisa crawled away on all fours.
The church was a huge echoing drum of noise. There were bodies everywhere—tumbled, heaped, crawling, screeching.
She couldn’t see any of her new friends, but she did see what was left of the preacher’s congregation. One of the young men with him was being ritually dismembered by a group of children. She saw two rabids fighting over the head of the other man.
The young girl that had been with them (who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven) was encircled by four or five teenagers, girls and boys. All naked and streaked with grime. They were visibly excited at the sight of their helpless prey. As she tried to stand, they shoved her down. As she tried to crab-crawl to safety, they rained kicks down upon her. Bleeding and bruised and whimpering, they tossed her back and forth like a ball. They were like cats sharing the torments of a mouse. The girl kept screaming and screaming.
The rabids were all grinning, foaming at the mouth, their eyes glassy and reptilian. They closed in tighter, mocking the child’s screams, howling in her face.
Lisa searched frantically around for a weapon.
She found her feet and a hand locked onto her shoulder, spun her around.
She cocked back her fist… and saw it was Johnny. He was banged-up and bleeding, but his battle-scarred face was the best thing she could imagine.
“Oh… Jesus, Johnny,” she heard herself weep. “Lookit them… oh Christ… this place—”
“Fuck it!” Johnny shouted over the din. “Let’s save our own asses here!”
By luck or pluck, he had some of his weapons back—the Winchester and his .357. Pried from dead fingers, no doubt.
He stuck the .357 in her hand, shoved her towards the back of the church. There were more rabids now gathering outside the front door. Oddly enough, they weren’t attacking; they were just standing on the steps looking in with almost puzzled expressions.