Mark Rogers - The Dead

“Gary,” the priest breathed, “are you sorry for your sins?”

“Yes, Father,” Gary answered.

The priest made the sign of the cross. “In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I absolve you.”

He signaled for the chalice. Linda pushed it toward him. Father Chuck closed his eyes and began the consecration, head sinking lower and lower. Gary hugged Linda against his side, clenching her hand in his.

The screams drew closer. It wouldn’t be long now.

“Pray, Gary,” Linda said. “Pray.”

She started the Lord’s Prayer. He joined her feebly, his voice fading out after a few words. His life had been a hopeless, spineless waste. He’d been spitting in God’s face all along. Why should God help him now?

“Help me,” Linda said, noticing his silence, squeezing his hand. Father Chuck’s voice had sunken to a mere halting whisper.

Gary began to mouth the words again. He didn’t know if they would do any good, but forced them out anyway.

Father Chuck raised himself to his knees, lifted the chalice slowly, struggling as though it weighed fifty pounds.

“This is the Lamb of God,” he whispered. “Blessed are we…who are called to His supper-”

With that, there came three muffled pistol cracks in quick succession. A slug, the only one to penetrate the thick front doors, crashed into the altar in a spurt of marble dust. Gary turned to see one of the doors sweep open, and in stumbled Steve Jennings, leading the way with his.45.

“ Nobody walks out on me!” he cried, and snapped off two more rounds.

The first shot struck Father Chuck in the back, tore out through his chest in a geyser of blood, spraying red all over the chalice, which dropped from his hands. The priest crumpled, taking a second slug in the leg.

Gary fumbled for his automatic. Steve turned his fire on him, giving Linda a moment to unsling her rifle.

Gary felt a numbing impact in the left leg, another in the chest, a third in the groin, and he fell to the carpet on his back, feeling little pain from the wounds, but intensely aware of the breath leaking from his punctured left lung.

Linda’s Marlin roared. By the time Gary managed to fight back up into a sitting position, a rusty film of blood coating the inside of his mouth, he saw Steve on his belly, crawling back toward the door, disappearing outside.

Linda dropped the smoking rifle, cradled Gary’s head against her breast. The screams outside were approaching their crescendo. The furies were almost to the church.

“Father Chuck!” Linda cried. “Did you finish?”

The priest nodded. He reached out toward the blood-spattered hosts scattered on the carpet, but his fingers fell short.

Figures appeared in the doorway, churned through. The church rang with their shrieks.

Gary heaved his pistol up and fired, too weak to aim, the pistol jumping in his hand. Grinning mockery at his impotence, the dead boiled up the aisle toward the altar.

Gary looked over at the priest. Father Chuck seemed to be dead, but when Linda shoved a host into his mouth, he chewed and swallowed.

She and Gary snatched others, the dead screaming toward them, claws outstretched. Linda raised hers to her lips, closed her eyes, took the Sacrament.

Gary hesitated at the last moment. It seemed almost blasphemous to go further. How could he enter into communion with God? Deep in his heart, there was a vacuum; the faith wasn’t there, and he couldn’t force it. The Sacrament would only deepen his sin. God wouldn’t help him. He was damned, cut off from grace-

If there was grace to be had.

Linda and Father Chuck hadn’t disappeared. There was no flash of light, no miracle. The heavens were mute.

And now the dead hands were on them, on him , grabbing and ripping at his legs.

They dragged him backward over the step, smashed the pistol from his hand. Some held his arms while others tore open his coat and dry suit, raked their nails over his chest, probed the bullet wound there. He howled and kicked; they held him fast. Drunk with blood loss, he felt himself spinning toward the void.

He was almost over the brink when the flash stung his eyes, a flash of pure white light that seemed to turn the church into a cathedral of frost. Still gripping him, the corpses froze, motionless. Gary couldn’t see, but he knew what had happened. Linda, Father Chuck-one of them had made it, or both.

Whipping his head back and forth, Gary shrieked with despair. He’d been given his chance, and had thrown it away. Mind reverberating with that terrible knowledge, he felt the life draining from his flesh, his limbs turning to lead.

A half minute passed. The dead stirred, started in on him once more. That was when the darkness claimed him.

Laughing thickly, jacket sodden with blood, Steve had crawled over the threshold and pried himself up off the outside steps. He knew he was dying, but felt strangely untroubled.

Showed ‘em, all right, he thought. Showed ‘em but fucking good.

He’d paid them back for their betrayal, their arrogance. Who were they to turn on him ? Insects to be stamped out at his pleasure. And if he was damned, so were they; he’d shot their shaman, cut off whatever hope they had left. They were nothing but dogs to accompany him at his viking’s funeral, and they were going out like dogs, cringing on their knees to the sadist in Heaven; but he’d go out proudly, standing erect and defiant.

Corpses poured across the street toward him. Even though he knew they wouldn’t hear him over their own screams, he pointed his pistol back at the open door and cried again and again: “They’re in there!”

The tide reached the foot of the steps and rolled upward. In his pain and dizziness, he half nursed a mad hope that they might recognize him as a kindred spirit, welcome him alive into their ranks, or at least kill him painlessly. He was, after all, already on their side…

Only at the end did he realize what his allegiance meant, that he’d made a covenant with agony beyond his wildest imaginings; that was when Ginger came flying up at him like an avenging angel, and his pride deserted him, and he pissed himself before she started in.

Pain stung Gary’s nostrils, the acrid smell of ammonia jolting him back to consciousness. They’d found some of his smelling salts, or perhaps had brought some of their own. What good was torture if the victim was oblivious?

Once they were satisfied that he was fully awake, they began where they’d left off with teeth and claws and blades, shredding, flaying, twisting. The pain was ferocious.

Yet in the midst of it all, realization struck him. There was something clenched in his pinned right hand.

The host. Salvation was an arm’s length away, and he couldn’t reach it.

“Jesus,” he gasped. “Jesus, help me!”

They hissed laughter at him, and one clapped a hand over his mouth, silencing him with its fetid scabrous palm. His tormentors resumed their sport.

As he sank toward a darkness deeper than mere unconsciousness, he saw, out of the corner of his eye, a corpse trying to force its way in among the ones working on him. The cadaver with its hand over his mouth jumped up snarling, and those holding his arm let go, pushing the interloper back.

With all the speed remaining to him, Gary thrust the host into his mouth. Instantly it began to melt on his tongue.

They saw him do it, were back on him in a flash. They pulled his jaws open and squeezed his throat, but he’d already swallowed. A tremendous surge of warmth filled his veins.

The hands on his throat tightened. The dead were trying to finish him before he could vanish. Cartilage gave, and his breath was choked off-