Scavengers (18 page)

Shaun’s heart tripled its pace as he ran for the doors to get back inside. The fat man laughed, aiming the rifle at him.

“No,” Shaun pleaded. He looked over his shoulder toward the infected picking up his scent. They shambled closer to the playground. “You can’t leave me out here.”

“Get back, kid. You’re making me uncomfortable.” Reeves pulled a pistol from his hip and fired into the ground near Shaun’s feet. The sound of the shot slammed into his ears. The sudden ringing in his ears muffled the men’s laughter. The fat white one took a shot with the rifle. The bullet sparked against the steel ducky and sent it swaying like crazy. A ricochet whined in the darkness.

Shaun screamed and scrambled backward across the wood-chipped ground. Before he knew it, his back was pressed against the fence. For just a moment, the immediate danger of the men shooting at him replaced his fear of the Sickies on the other side of the fence. He remembered damn quick as one of the infected zombies slipped an ashen, patchy-skinned hand through the links and dug into his shirt with a rotted, claw-like hand.

He spun. The face of the infected was mummified, skin taut across skullish features. It was like a living skeleton with skin and gore-caked teeth, a bag of bones in leathery film. He could feel the fetid breath of the thing panting against his skin.

Shaun yelled and rolled away, swatting the grasping hand from his shirt.  He came to a stop near the base of the spinning merry-go-round. Blindly, he reached for the metal bars to pull himself up, but it carried him under, continuing to turn. His leg was caught until he pulled away and stood, panting, staring at the five Sickies pressed against the fence. Savagely they fought each other for the chance to score the waiting prey. Snapping and snarling, the Sickies battled for the best position, all the while yanking and throwing themselves maniacally against the fence. The thin metal links bowed beneath their weight. One of the fiends yanked on the fence, rattling and clinking it against the support poles. Shaun regarded its construction worriedly.

Beyond the current cluster of zombies, others caught the scent of flesh and were straggling this way. They came over the hill, through the clearing, black lumbering shapes.  Hungry. Shaun took a deep shuddering breath. He couldn’t swallow; the reflex was frozen with fear. Tears welled in his eyes but he didn’t sob. He thought of rushing the two men with the guns, but knew they were more dangerous to him for the time being. At least until more zombies put their weight against the fence.

“Hope we don’t have ourselves any accidents here, eh kid?” yelled Reeves. The fat man chuckled right on cue. A flash of fire signified Reeves lighting a cigar. “Well, now. Let’s just hope it all holds together for ya.”

“Whuddya know,” boomed the fat white man’s voice. “Instead of getting in trouble and havin’ to stay
in
from recess, the kid’s gotta go
out
to the playground for bein’ a troublemaker.”

“Why, Darryl,” said Reeves. “What an astute observation you’ve made. Downright ironic, I’d say.” Reeves puffed his cigar with a grin and aimed his pistol at Shaun’s feet. He fired. Wood chips exploded. Shaun’s eardrums rang like the aftermath of a hammer on steel as he jumped back but struggled not to fall against the fence. The thin metal fence was now heavy with the leaning weight of dozens of zombies, their arms grasping for him.

“Might be a long night.”  The two men laughed.

Shaun stood, bathed in silver moonlight, waiting to die.

*       *       *

The room housing the Daughters of Heaven was quiet now. The plush accoutrements were hunched shapes in the near-darkness. The only light glowed amber from a decorative lamp in the far corner next to Karen’s sleeping form, sprawled without covers atop her bed. Not far from where she slept, Judith stirred atop the divan. Dejah was still asleep so deeply that she didn’t move from the position she’d been in when she rolled over and closed her eyes.

Zanine was still awake. She stared at the long mirror on the back wall of the room and felt someone staring back.

It was
him
.

She knew Keller watched them in the night. Watched them change, watched them sleep. The pervert even watched them piss. There were mirrors everywhere. So tonight, she’d given him a show. Tonight she needed a man, and he wouldn’t come to her. All he ever did was sit back there and watch like some chickenshit peeping Tom.

She yearned for him, for his power. So she spread her legs over the arms of the recliner, caressing her inner thighs, hiking up her dress until her loins were exposed to the cool air of the room. She wore no panties because she always hoped he’d come to the room and have his way with her. Out of all of the Daughters of Heaven, she wanted that the most. The others were simply prisoners. She was a prisoner of love, of her lusts for him … as she touched herself tonight, she thought of Keller touching her instead. And she spread her legs to the mirror as she satisfied her craving for release, moaning and writhing, gasping as she came.

Now she let the dress fall around her legs. She focused on the slumbering shapes in the room. On one shape in particular. The one she hated. The woman who’d come to them as good as dead, and now lay sleeping peacefully on the canopied bed across from her.

Dejah
.

She gave it no thought as she withdrew the shining blade from the drawer. A knife she’d secreted from the café, just a steak knife, but sharp and deadly enough to do what needed to be done. She was tired of competition. Too many women were gathered in these chambers, and with each new wife accepted into the fold, her chances of being the recipient of Keller’s love and seed were diminishing. It was time to remove Dejah from the equation. This time she’d make sure the woman died. She would stab her to death, and then hack off her head inch by bloody inch.

Zanine stood and gripped the knife, blade down, for repeated stabbing. Stealthily, she crept bare-footed across the room. Now that she’d had an orgasm, she breathed easy. The exhilaration released her pressures and gave her the presence of mind to do what had to be done. This would surely show the reverend how much she loved him. How far she was willing to go for his love.

She hovered above Dejah just watching the rise and fall of the woman’s chest. Zanine raised the weapon, angling down. The silver blade gleamed in the scant light. She smiled ever so slightly.

She thrust the knife down toward Dejah’s neck.

As if by dispelled illusion, a door burst open in a nearby wall. The wallpaper cracked open in the shape of an arch as Reverend Keller rushed through. His pale face gathered all the light in the room, but his sinister, dark eyes reflected it like the eyes of a vicious dog.  Draped in a silken black robe, he rushed to Zanine.

“No!” Keller shouted, grabbing her wrist. The knife froze in midair. The reverend knocked it away.  It flipped across the room and clattered into a corner.

Zanine stopped struggling, and her eyes lit with joy. “Reverend!  Oh love, I need you!”  Her eyes flicked to the opening of his robe. Between his legs jutted a pinkish erection, pushing between the flaps of his nighttime attire. She reached for his sex organ like a starved woman. He slapped her across the face and flung her away in a rage.

Zanine fell to the floor before him. “Oh Reverend Keller. Lawrence, my love. Let me suck your cock. Let me be your slave. Fuck me! I need you! Fuck me like you’ve never fucked a woman before! I’ll be yours always. And when the Lord comes I’ll be yours from now and into Heaven—”

“Shut up, you whore,” he yelled. “Shut
up
!”  With the last word he slapped her again, following the loud smack with a kick to the ribs. “Harlot! Jezebel! How dare you tempt me with your wiles. You are a tool of Satan, driven by demons and sent to lead us to our deaths.”

Dejah awoke, watching the exchange in bewildered half-cognizance. She drew closer to the headboard, clutching blankets around her in some false form of security.

“Guards!” the reverend shouted. “Guards!” Two men unlocked the main door, barreling through, seeming embarrassed at the reverend’s state, but recognizing that the best thing to do was simply obey. “Take her away from here. Take her away.”

They dragged Zanine from the room, writhing, shouting proclamations of love and promises of sexual favors. The reverend turned his head, closed his eyes, and covered his ears against her delusional shouts.

Dejah watched Keller’s reactions until Zanine was gone. The guards locked the doors behind them. Both Judith and Karen were awake. Karen was crying. The reverend hurried back through his secret door in the wall and was gone without a word to the other women. The wallpaper sealed against itself, once more leaving no trace of an entrance ever having been accessible in the wall.

The next morning, the reverend called an emergency gathering of the faithful and paced the stage like a caged panther. He folded his hands in a tight knot behind his back, staring grimly, purposefully at the ground.  His angry breathing huffed in the speakers.

Overlooking the crowd, Keller knew that only about half of the people currently seeking shelter here at the Church of the Risen King were in attendance. That seemed to be the consistent attendance for his impromptu updates, as well as his main sermons this past couple weeks. It crushed him knowing the majority of his 10,000-member church were out there in the world – dead, dying, their souls reaped by The Accuser, the Evil One. That many were Hell’s children walking the land in empty shells feasting on the flesh of living was a travesty not even he, in his vast wisdom, had foreseen. Now, there couldn’t be more than 600 people at the church, and not all of them were members. They were people who’d come to the church seeking refuge; others were saved from the surrounding area. Keller hoped they’d join the church family. There was strength in numbers, and if all of these sheltering beneath the roof would join as members, it would make them stronger.

But he knew that not all of them were believers. He had a lot of work to do to bring all that were beneath his wing into the fold. God had told him the Church of the Risen King was to be a sanctuary where they would find new life and a fresh start, but to make this a reality everyone within these walls would need to buy into the vision. He felt time was short, and the anxiety inside made him feel lightheaded, frenzied. He prayed to the Lord for solace. He asked the Lord to give him serenity, but that peace that surpasses all understanding didn’t come.

Only anxiety.

Only fear.

Reverend Lawrence James Keller looked across the sanctuary at the faces in the seats.  He took a deep breath, drawing power from their faith in him. For these faithful few, he continued to fight the forces of evil. He fought to vanquish Satan and his hoard of minions so that he and his followers could assume their rightful place at the right hand of Jesus Christ when the son of God returned to claim his bride. Just as he was joined with the beautiful Dejah, whom God appointed to be his bride, Christ would join with Keller’s faithful followers. Keller, as shepherd over that faithful flock, would be a great man in the Kingdom of God. His years of toil would soon be rewarded.

He called the room to silence and said a prayer for protection, for the rise of the church, for the sanctification of its members, and for the realization of God’s will. Then, after a pause thick with anticipatory silence, he began to speak.

“Ladies and gentlemen.” He took a deep breath, looked grimly at the ground, and then raised his head to face them. “The Devil is amongst us. And as the Devil often does, he came to us under the guise of a woman: a beauty, but a
beast
, a fair creature, but a
whore
. One who came to me virtuous and with concern for my sheep. One who I took to be one of my trusted Daughters of Heaven.”  He paused to muster tears, letting them glisten in the lights shining from the high ceilings. “But I’ve been betrayed, and in this betrayal, you, my sons and daughters, have also been betrayed. Last night this whore of Babylon showed herself to be a
murderer
. An instrument of Satan put here to bring the downfall of the
divine plan
of God here at the Church of the Risen King.”

A stunned murmur buzzed through the crowd. The reverend suppressed a smile. God had not failed him in his hour of need. His faithful followers felt the concern and the anguish that he, himself, felt broiling within as he unburdened this terrible deed to them.

He turned with a theatrical flourish as Reeves and Carson brought Zanine out onto the stage. She kicked and thrashed, screaming like a wild woman at the crowd. Her hair flew wildly about her head as she resisted their hold, shouting curses over the heads of the congregation and praying down disaster from heaven upon their heads. But the men had her fast.

Reverend Keller pointed a finger of accusation at Janine’s struggling form as he made his final pronouncement to the faithful. “This Jezebel tempted me with sexual favors, offering her mortal body to me to use in lustful and lascivious ways. She sought to thwart God’s plans for this church, and for all of
you
, with her machinations of malice. She attempted last night to
murder
the woman sent by
God himself
to be the mother of this church, to be my bride, sent to usher us into the
Kingdom of Heaven
that we may stand before God when he descends from the heavens without blame and without fear. We must take decisive action
against
the
devil
when he reveals himself in our midst. This woman is the embodiment of the devil, the temptress offering up sin just as Eve gave Adam the fruit that led to his downfall!”

Cheers rose from the crowd, reverberating through the floor of the dais beneath Keller’s feet. “Tonight,” he shouted. “
Tonight
, we give her back to the Devil and to his soulless minions that now walk this earth.
Tonight
we make a stand against evil, and send a decisive message to all who would come against us, who would oppose our mission: the mission of God. We will
not
be defeated! We will not allow Satan and his cohorts to gain dominion over our souls, for we, here at the Church of the Risen King have a covenant with God Almighty, and he shall see that we prosper, and he shall keep us safe in his bosom. Can I hear an amen?”

A chorus of
amens
rumbled through the sanctuary, as Keller finished with a flourish.  The crowd of the faithful stood and cheered, and clapped. And this time, the reverend couldn’t stop himself from grinning gleefully at their zeal for the Lord.

*       *       *

In the room with the Daughters of Heaven, Reeves standing watch at the door, Keller sat next to Dejah upon her bed. He regarded her beauty, her luxurious hair, the creamy, unsullied smoothness of her skin, her sparkling eyes and long lashes, supple breasts and pink lips. His heart raced at the thought of having her as his bride and he again thanked God for such a woman, sent by his own hand.

He took her cool hand in his. He turned toward her on the bed, studied her face. Both Judith and Karen drew near, but next to Dejah, they were mere mortals, simple handmaidens. Still, he loved them for what they were: servants to him, visions of beauty that he could gaze upon in the deep of the night. For when he awoke from his frequent nightmares, he watched them through the looking glass, regarded their peaceful sleep, the smooth curves of their bodies, all meant to remind him of the loveliness of women in line with their God-ordained positions in life. All reminding him of the gifts the Lord had given to him and to the world. These, his precious wives, were God’s rewards for his service to his son.

Keller looked into Dejah’s eyes.

“Tonight, Zanine pays the price for her sins against us, my love.” He smiled at her, feeling a flutter in his chest. A deep sense of euphoria rushed over him as he touched her skin. His groin stirred, eliciting an erection, which he wished he could guide her hand to touch, but, alas, not yet. But
soon
. “Tomorrow night, I’d like to have our marriage celebration to remind the faithful of the wonderful things that God has sent us. We’ll have a grand celebration that will bring us together in the Lord, and share my joy – our joy – with the faithful, so they may feel the hope we feel. Our celebration is a firm reminder that God has ordained the Church of the Risen King as the birthplace of the new world. Here, with us, within the confines of this church consecrated unto the Lord, life begins anew.”

Dejah nodded, lifting his hand to her face, and brushing it against her cheek. “Oh, Reverend,” she said, her voice heavy with desire for him. “My love.”

“Please, Dejah. Call me Lawrence.”

She smiled. “Lawrence, I can’t wait to be joined with you, to be your wife. But, I feel guided by the Lord to pray.  I need time alone. I don’t want to spend even a minute away from your side, but God speaks to me powerfully, and I must obey him. With this gift that he’s given me, he’s also given to me an understanding of his will. I … must obey him, Lawrence.  I know you bear this burden also, that you shoulder a great weight of responsibility for your flock. You know what it means to do God’s bidding, to follow the plan the Lord has ordained. So, I need to find a quiet corner where I can be alone. I have to get away from everyone to pray for what he would have for us, for you. I feel the moving of the Holy Spirit to pray for the world, to pray for wisdom for establishing our coming kingdom. And to ask God’s blessing on our union.” Dejah dropped his hand and in doing so, very lightly brushed against the bulge of his slacks. Keller flushed. His heart raced. He felt as though he couldn’t contain himself. Embarrassed, he glanced over at the other two women watching this exchange.

“Yes,” he said, standing. “Absolutely. Do what you must, my love. But please return by sundown. I’ll want you by my side as we send the Devil’s whore to her death.”

“Oh, I will.”  She smiled at him from the bed, sliding one leg over the edge of the mattress with seeming innocence, showing him most of her left leg before coyly covering the flesh again. She glanced at him with a look composed of apology and desire.

“Reeves,” Keller commanded, somewhat shaken by the strength of his desire for Dejah.  “Allow Dejah time alone in the church. Let her go where she needs to.”

Reeves grunted acquiescence.

“Thank you, my husband,” Dejah said.

Lawrence hurried into his chamber, using the secret door in the wall. Feeling full of shame, he went straight to his marble and gold fixture bathroom to relieve himself. As he finished, pants around his ankles, flushed semen whirling down the toilet, he looked at the razor sitting on the counter. Methodically, he rolled up his sleeve to reveal a scarred forearm.

He sat upon the commode, penis red and flaccid from his wild masturbation, and took the razor between his thumb and finger. Tears in his eyes, guilt, regret and shame burning in his cheeks with the heat of hellfire, he cut himself seven times, seven holy times, the number of God. The number of completeness. He watched blood run from the slices slivered into the flesh of his arm, watched the crimson flow dribble onto the marble floor between his feet. 

He atoned with his own blood, as God had sent his son to do for humanity. He poured out his lifeblood in supplication, beseeching the Lord that he would once again be spotless and without sin.