CHAPTER 12

I know that many of us, especially the very young, are unprepared when the end comes. But I never thought that it would end like this for me. Growing up in the world in which I live, you would think that I would know more than anyone that nothing is forever. But for some reason, I had always felt that bad things happened to other people, and nothing would ever touch me. Logically I knew better, but obviously, I was good at fooling myself.

I was just in the middle of coming to terms with my imminent demise when a door opened behind me, and we fell inside, sprawling across the cracked linoleum floor of the church kitchen.

"Oh my goodness, are you girls, ok?" A pretty young woman just a few years older than me with light brown hair exclaimed as she slammed shut and locked the door behind us. She bent over to help us up off the floor, wincing slightly at the sound of zombie bodies crashing into the door.

"We're a lot better now that you let us inside," I remarked, hoping that the door was strong enough to withstand the onslaught.

"I'm so sorry I didn't notice you sooner, but I fell asleep after being up all night and most of the day," she confessed.

"What happened out there?" Norah asked, taking a seat at the table and motioning for us to sit down as well.

"It was horrible," the young woman replied, looking more and more distraught. "This is our first congregation, and I think that we lost over half of them in one day."

"Just take a deep breath," I advised fearing that she was going to go off the deep end any minute. "My name is Kaley Black, and this is Norah LeBlanc. We were looking for Pastor John before the zombies attacked us."

She took a deep breath and busied herself pouring us glasses of sweet tea, "I'm Mollie Benoit, my husband Adam is the new pastor. He just took over for Pastor John who retired last month. And now we've lost our congrega -" the rest of her sentence ended in a flood of tears.

Norah and I stared at each other in silence for a moment; neither one of us knew what to say or do, but Moose, who seemed a little better than either one of us at things like this, came over and laid his head on Mollie's knee with a soft chuff. Mollie actually smiled at that and patted him on his head.

"Why don't you tell us how it happened?" I suggested.

Mollie sniffed a couple of times and tried to collect herself, "We decided to have a picnic after church yesterday as a way to get to know everyone, and at first, everything was going great. Some of the people were down in the church basement playing games, and the rest were out back just visiting and playing some yard games."

Norah nodded her head, encouragingly, "so what happened next."

"Well," Mollie said and sniffed again. "It was just about time to start serving the food when I noticed that nobody was coming up from the basement. So I walked around the side of the church to the basement door. And that's when I saw that someone, probably some of the kids, had locked them inside." She paused and visibly steeled herself before continuing her story, "I could hear them inside banging on the door, so I unlocked it. They flung the door open so hard that it knocked me back against the wall, and they started pouring out the door like demon spawn and attacking everyone in sight. It was like something out of a nightmare, some of us took refuge in the church, and a few managed to run away."

She paused, lost in her thoughts, and I glanced at Norah, wondering if she'd caught that part about them being locked in the basement and saw from the alarmed look on her face that she had.

"It's not your fault," I said with a reassuring smile at Mollie. "Unfortunately, this is the world that we live in now, and these things happen."

"But why?" Mollie cried. "They were good people, our friends, and neighbors. They would be horrified at what they've become! Why would God let something like this happen to them!"

"I wish that I knew," Norah said with a haunted look.

" They didn't deserve this," I said. "But then again, none of us deserve what this life has dealt us. All that we can do is to make the best of things and try to do what we can to make things better."

Mollie took another deep breath and straightened her shoulders, " Thanks, I needed to hear that." She said with a determined look.

"There's a battle between good and evil going on," Norah said with a faraway look on her face. "Unfortunately, it's too soon to know which side will win."

"That may be true, but right now, we need to figure out how to get this situation under control. Because right now, they have us pinned down pretty good with only two of us in here who are armed," I replied.

"I will check with the parishioners that are in the chapel," Mollie replied. "Most of them are pretty traumatized, so I'm not sure how much help they will be."

***

Besides Mollie's husband Adam, who was doing his best to keep everyone calm, there were six women and five men of various ages in the chapel. And it was immediately evident that most were too devastated to be of much help. And I couldn't blame them; seeing your friends and family members turn into vicious feral beasts would be more than most people could take.

Looking around the room, I recognized a young blonde woman standing by a door and supervising some small children playing in the nursery area. It was Penny, the waitress.

"How are they doing?" I asked, crossing the room to look inside the nursery door.

Penny gave a start when I spoke, "Kaley, I didn't know that you were here!"

"We just stopped by to speak with the pastor,' I explained.

Penny nodded; her face was lined with worry, but she still seemed calmer than most everyone else in the room. "It's hard to tell; children are pretty resilient, and most of them were inside playing games at the time, so I think that they were spared the worst of it."

"Did you see how this all started?" I asked.

"No, not really. I was inside with the children; this was my friend Mollie's first time hosting a picnic, so I offered to help out with the kids. Anyway, when I heard the screams and saw what was going on outside, I locked the nursery door so that we were safe inside."

"So, you were with the children the whole time?"

"Yes," she replied. "Several of them are too young to be left unsupervised."

"Then none of them would have been able to lock anyone inside the basement," I mused aloud.

"No, they wouldn't have had a chance," Penny answered.

"Penny, do you know that guy?" Norah asked, indicating a slight young man in his early twenties sitting alone in the corner of the room.

"No, I don't think that I've ever seen him before," she replied.

"Why do you ask?" I wondered.

"It's probably nothing," Norah answered. "But I've been getting some odd vibes off him. It's hard to explain, but something seems a little off about him."

Penny nodded, "now that you mention it, I got the same feeling from him as well."

I took a quick look across the room and saw that he was watching us before quickly looking away when he noticed me. "You're right, it's probably nothing, but it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on him," I suggested.

"I'll say something to Mollie," Penny replied and immediately crossed the room to have a word with her friend.

"What about the roof?" Norah asked as we stood there, watching the children play.

"What do you mean."

Norah grimaced," I didn't mean just to blurt that out, but I think that if we went onto the roof, it would be a lot easier to pick off the zombies."

"It sounds like a plan to me," I replied. " Besides, which I just can't see myself waiting around here for someone, however long that might take to come and rescue us."

* * *

We left Moose inside with Penny and the children who were really taking a liking to him. Before we crawled through a small window out onto the slanted roof to get a better look around. From up here, we could get a good view of the front and back of the church. There were several zombies in the front and a few just standing around in the back. With no prey in sight, the zombies were standing in place, making them an easy target.

I raised my shotgun and took aim on the closest zombie's head before firing, "this is almost too easy." I remarked to Norah as we watched it topple over.

"Just don't get too cocky," she replied with a grin as she sighted a zombie just to the left of the one that I'd just killed.

The gunshots were starting to agitate the zombies a little as they began to move around the church. This made it just a little more of a challenge, and we started making bets on who would bag the most. I know this sounds heartless and even slightly morbid, but you have to understand what it takes to live in a world like this. Sometimes just to get through the day, you had to find some humor in things that weren't funny.

We were both very much aware that these zombies used to be someone's loved ones. Which is the main reason that we came up here in the first place so that they wouldn't have to be put in the position of maybe killing a former loved one or friend.

My train of thought was interrupted when I heard a gunshot from the end of the parking lot, and I turned to see that five horsemen had ridden into the church's parking lot. The local militia had arrived; fascinated, I sat and watched as they waged war on the zombies.

As you may know, animals have an extreme aversion to zombies, so you wouldn't think that fighting one on horseback would be a good idea. But, these horses were so well-trained that they almost seemed as one with their rider, anticipating their every move with a precision that was beautiful to watch.

The horsemen were using guns and sometimes swords to finish off the zombies, and as I watched, one of the men dismounted to finish off a crippled zombie that was crawling across the ground towards him. He didn't realize that while he was occupied with the first zombie, another had come up behind him.

When it was about five feet away from him, I stood up and carefully took aim before taking it out with one precise headshot. Surprised, the man whirled around just in time to avoid the falling zombie's body. He looked up at me, standing on the roof, and raised one hand in acknowledgment before remounting in one swift move.

"I'll go inside and let everyone know that help has arrived," Norah called as she slipped back through the window.

"Sounds good; I'm just going to concentrate on the few that are left in the back since they are taking care of the ones out front," I replied as I moved to the back of the church roof.

The three remaining zombies were extremely agitated from the sounds of the fighting out front, but being the typical zombie, they were too stupid to figure out what to do. This made it a simple matter for me to finish them off. I was turning to go back inside when I saw a flash of movement in my peripheral vision; turning, I noticed that a young boy probably about 12-years-old was making a run for the back door of the church with a zombie in hot-pursuit just a few yards behind him. Unfortunately, he didn't realize that the door was locked and that another zombie from the front was making its way to the church's corner.

Hitting a moving target is a lot harder than hitting a stationary one, but I did manage to take out one of its legs and considerably slow the zombie that was pursuing the boy. Unfortunately, because of the angle of the roof, I could no longer see the other zombie. Realizing that time was of the essence, I jumped over the edge before dropping to the ground between the boy who was beating on the door and the rapidly approaching zombie.