Latter-Day of the Dead (14 page)

I wanted as much distance as possible once we were out and he was little enough that I tossed him by his hair about ten feet away from us. Mary limped over with her bloodied shin. We both watched as the boy picked himself up and screeched in anger at us.

We retreated while keeping our eyes on him. He started scampering towards us. I was not prepared, looking around and still seeing nothing I could use. I crouched in front of the prophet’s wife and prepared for the boy’s impact.

My face squeezed in anticipation, realizing just standing there was a horrible plan. Before he reached us I saw my father sprinting vigorously from behind us towards the charging boy. I stood upright and watched my dad swing a chair with full steam, upper-cutting the boy with the hard wood, dropping him right on his back.

“We can’t be down here,” he said in his fatherly tone, where
we
always means
you
. “Get up to the house and get the guns.”

“You’re coming with us?” I asked.

“Start heading up. I have to finish up here then I will be there.”

“We’ll wait for you.”

He walked over to the boy still lying on the ground. “You guys don’t need to see this. Just go.”

I backpedaled for a few yards, but my dad continued to watch before doing whatever it was he was planning to do. It was only after I turned that I heard the loud crack of the chair he was still holding. Glancing back briefly I could see broken pieces of the chair surrounding the boy’s freshly caved-in head. Maybe my father was right…maybe I didn’t need to see that.

chapter eleven

O
ur progress up the hill was slow. Mary hobbled gingerly on her gaping shin. More blood pushed out of the unsealed leg with each step. I threw her arm over my shoulder and tried to take some of the pressure off.

Out of nowhere she cried, “Why would he just leave Sharon and I to die like that?”

“Oh, ummm.” My mind wasn’t ready to react to being put on the spot like that with everything else I had to focus on. “Well, I’m sure that wasn’t his intention…I reckon everyone is panicked and maybe not thinking clearly.”

“He was thinking clearly enough to get his new young wife to safety, and he clearly wanted Sharon to be the human shield that would buy them enough time to do it.”

“Okay, but,” I paused while looking across the continued entropy of our faction, “can we maybe talk about this once we get to some cover?”

She closed her eyes to push out the last tears and nodded begrudgingly.

At this point I couldn’t tell who was attacking who. I felt helpless seeing so many embattled folks. We neared the top of the hill when I heard a recognizable scream coming from near the acorn tree.

“Sariah!” I shouted. “We have to hurry, my sister’s in trouble.”

Mary limped as quickly as possible with me to the nearest house. I opened the unlocked door and hurried her to a nearby chair.

“Stay here. We’ll come get you.”

“What if someone attacks me?”

“Umm, let me think.” I frantically looked around the room for something. I grabbed a pair of pink-handled scissors from the sewing basket at the foot of the chair. “Use these.”

She gripped onto the scissors tightly. “Please hurry.”

Sariah could still be heard screaming as I darted out the front door. I slid across the dirt walkway aggressively rounding the corner to the side of the house, needing to arm myself as well. There was no time to be picky so I grabbed a shovel that was leaned up against the garbage can.

My lungs burned deeply. It felt like I could sprint faster while holding my breath. This probably wasn’t the best technique but I did it anyway. My head throbbed by the time I reached the acorn tree.

I slowed and became worried that I could no longer hear Sariah. There was no sign of her in or around the tree. Looking down the hill garnered no results either.

Out of the corner of my eye I caught a flash of powder blue. I spun around and saw Kib holding Sariah running behind one of the houses north of where I was.

I jerked forward and ran to the other side of the houses to try and cut him off. I slipped between two of the houses to intercept them at the main road. Kib had stopped running. I moved quietly but with urgency and gained on them, now only about twenty yards behind. Sariah still could not be heard, and I started to fear Kib had already killed her.

He continued shuffling up the dirt road. I readied the shovel and matched him step for step. Once in range I did not want to give him a chance to attack, so I swiftly swung the shovel and connected with the back of his head.

“Owwww!” he screamed, dropping Sariah and stumbling forward. “Ooooh that smarts! Ooooh that smarts!”

“Elias, don’t!” Sariah shouted.

I was confused but kept the shovel cocked. “You alright?”

“I am now. Brother Rodell was chasing after me all crazy-like. Kib grabbed me and helped escape.”

He still had his hands on the back of his head where he had been hit when I said, “I feel awful…just awful. I’m sorry.”

“Whelp, ain’t like it’s the first time I’ve been walloped with a shovel…probably won’t be the last,” Kib surmised.

“Why would they attack us like that?” Sariah asked, still shaken.

“They’ve been infected with some sort of rabid virus far as I can tell. It’s what overtook Benjamin. He bit both Parley and Rodell and once it got all the way through their systems they became full-on lunatics, too.”

“So all those people attacked down there will turn that way as well?” Sariah asked, eyes widening at the realization.

The three of us stood silently in the middle of the drive while that thought sunk in.

Kib asked for guidance, “What do we do now?”

“We’ve got guns up at our house, my father wants us to meet there,” I explained.

“Are we really going to shoot them? They are people we know,” Sariah interjected.

“I don’t know.”

The three of us made our move towards the house. Random screams and moans could be heard at varying distances throughout the area. The cries made me remember I had left Mary sitting at that empty house with her injured leg.

“Wait! Sister Mary is waiting for us to go get her, I forgot. We have to go back.”

“Let’s make it quick,” Kib suggested.

“Okay, Sariah, you head up to the house, Kib and I will go get Mary.”

“I’m not going alone! I am staying with you guys,” she argued.

“That’s not a good idea.”

“Might have to,” Kib said. “I’m not sure if we lost Rodell, or if he lost us…but he’s around here somewhere.”

“Fine,” I conceded, “but you stay right behind me, Sariah. At the first sign of trouble you high-tail it out and you don’t worry yourself about us.”

“Okay.”

We backtracked to the house I had left Mary at. Driftless people scattered about in search of safe hiding along our way. We stayed on high alert at the sight of each of them, making sure we were steering clear of any attackers.

The door to the house was open when we approached, which was not a good sign.

“I hope she didn’t leave on her own,” I said.

We stepped tentatively towards the open entryway. I reached my arm back to make sure I kept Sariah directly behind me until we knew it was safe. Kib followed, holding the shovel at the ready.

When we arrived at the door I could hear crying inside and swiftly popped my head in.

“Mary!” I ran inside to make sure she was okay. She sat straddled on top of a man’s chest. He was lying motionless on the floor.

I could not see above the torso but could tell it was Rodell by the bandaged four digits of his hand. She continued crying as I approached, now able to see her hands still tightly holding on to the sewing scissors that were pierced through Rodell’s eye socket.

“Keep her out!” I shouted back to Kib, but it was too late. He and Sariah were both right behind me now in full view of the carnage.

“Mary, it’s okay. You can let go of the scissors.”

I reached my hand out to no response. Kib was more forceful, kneeling down and physically pulling her hands from the embedded blades. He picked her up off of Rodell’s body and she lunged into his shoulder for support. Her neck and face were splattered with Rodell’s blood. The tears and excess blood smeared onto Kib’s jacket lapel as she uncontrollably wept in his arms.

“He…he tried to kill me. There was nothing…nothing I could do,” she gasped between sobs.

“It’s alright. Everything is okay,” I comforted.

“I was so scared,” she moaned.

“We know.”

I turned back to see Sariah’s eyes had welled-up with tears of their own.

We began ushering Mary to the door. Her leg was still in need of attention from the bite attack earlier. Kib and I each took a side, putting her arms around us for support.

On our way out we could hear a commotion coming from where we just were. We pushed Mary out the door with Sariah and turned to see Rodell convulsing on the floor.

“Is that normal, Doc?” Kib asked while viewing the violent shaking.

“I think we’ve been past normal for some time now.”

The convulsions stopped and the body on the floor became still again. Before we could step closer for inspection Rodell sat upright and slowly cocked his scissor-punctured face towards us.

“Whoa,” Kib uttered under his breath, amazed and scared. He adjusted his grip on the shovel in preparation.

“It’s probably time to go,” I told Kib and myself.

Neither of us listened, mesmerized with what we were seeing. Rodell’s hand felt around his face, patting on the scissors wedged tightly into his eye socket. He let out a groan that sounded to be more in anger than pain.

Sariah’s fingers were wrapped across the door frame with half of her face exposing itself in the doorway so she could see what we were doing with one eye.

“Stay out, Sariah,” I ordered without turning around. Her face disappeared back into the night.

Rodell rocked to each side, trying to find a way to his feet. Kib and I cautiously took a step back. His continued rocking finally gave him the momentum to get to his feet, but his legs weren’t ready and he tumbled clumsily forward, crashing into the nearby end table holding the lamp. That lamp had been the only light source in the room. The crash blackened the room and I did not hesitate to grab Kib and get out of there immediately.

We quickly got Mary back between us and hurried away from the house.

“Stay right in front of us, Sariah. We need to get home.”

It may have seemed like we were more exposed by walking in the middle of the road like we were, but it had gotten so dark that we wanted as much reaction time as we could get if anyone was lurking in the shadows. I stopped once we got a safe distance from the house Rodell still occupied.

“What are you doing?” Kib asked.

They all turned and looked to the doorway I was watching.

Sariah’s impatience was the first to kick in when she complained, “I don’t think he’s coming. Let’s just go.”

“Wait,” I said.

A few drawn-out moments later Rodell came stumbling out the door, crashing off the porch and onto the ground much like he did when he lost his finger. The group all jumped, not ready for the sight.

Rodell got back to his feet but his equilibrium and balance were all types of wrong. He looked up the road to us but his first four steps swung him sideways before finding forward progress.

“Why are we waiting around, Doc?” Kib asked.

“We’re not. Let’s go.”

I watched as long as I could while we walked before turning and focusing on getting the group to safety.

We kept a brisk pace up the road with all of us staying well aware of our surroundings. The only thing hindering us from running to the house was Mary’s injured leg. We stayed huddled along the trek, and all things considered it seemed like we were making good progress.

“Two O’clock,” Kib whispered loudly.

“What?” I said, mirroring Kib’s movement and crouching with him.

He repeated his comment, extending his index and middle finger up ahead and to the right.

We all followed the path his fingers pointed to with our eyes. I could barely make out the silhouette of a young girl. We sat still, staring her down. She sat still, staring us down.

“She needs our help,” Sariah speculated.

“We don’t know that,” Kib argued.

Sariah turned to me and said, “Well, shouldn’t we find out?”

I shot a glance back where we came from. Squinting down the dark road, I was unable to gauge whether Rodell was still making his way up or not.

“Whatever we do we have to do it now,” Mary complained, looking like she was about to pass out at any moment.

“Alright. Kib, you get Sariah and Mary over to the side of that house right there. I will check on the girl. If it is safe I will call you guys over.”

They all agreed and scurried over to the house. Now alone, I stepped towards the girl who was probably just as scared as I was. I inched closer, wanting to be able to talk to her without being loud enough to alert anyone else who may be prowling in the vicinity.