Forget The Zombies (Book 3): Forget America (8 page)

“I did, but only a few pages.”

He rolled his eyes. “They were a Christian doomsday cult, then they flipped to the dark side.”

“Like Luke Skywalker going to the dark side of the force?” I looked to make sure we hadn’t met with any curiosity. “How does that happen?”

“Hell if I know,” he said shrugging his shoulders.

We ran out of real estate and were at the wooden structure. Getting this close made its purpose much clearer. It was a grandstand to look down into a pit. From the moaning and the stench, there was little doubt what the pit was filled with.

At the top of the grandstand, there was a walkway with railing that had a break in it. Stairs on either side led up to the upper walkway. Below were places for people to stand on two levels below giving them a good view into the pit. These lower levels were covered with chain-linked fences to offer those on the walkway a safe perspective.

Just as we got in beside it, Jeb mounted the right walkway and the men closed in on my group of people and left us little choice but to follow Jeb up to the top. The grandstand was solidly built and there was no sway at all. We ascended the stairs and were at the top in no time.

None of Jeb’s men spoke, but seemed poised for something to happen. There was an edge of tension in the air.

“Grant, I’m so glad you could join me here,” Jeb said not looking at me, but instead, taking in the expanse of the pit in front of the grandstand. It was a large pit at least forty yards across and maybe eighty deep. I would guess that it was around twelve feet deep and it was full of zombies. Their moans increased in volume and insistency as they reached into the air, clutching at us and clawing the air. It was as if wanting was the same as getting, but not quite enough as they teemed against the side of the pit in front of the grandstand.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“You’re here because we have something to offer you beyond your wildest dreams,” he said.

“You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about that,” I said. “That scene on the highway was a bit too convenient.” I looked over to Clint. “What do you have to say about that, Clint?”

Clint’s expression didn’t change, but he looked away from me.

“That’s what I thought,” I said. “Your guys were too relaxed and those cars blocking the highway were a bit too staged.”

“If you’re so smart, then why did you fall for it?” he asked.

I just shrugged. I was trying to being nonchalant, but my naivete may have cost us dearly. Of course, they could offer us milk and cookies and send us on our way, but I didn’t think that was going to be the case.

“You’re not here because of our ruse,” Jeb said. “You’re here because the Lord of the Air directed you to us.”

Robbie leaned in close and whispered, “That Lord of the Air, that’s Satan.”

“What was that?” Jeb asked.

“Nothing,” I said.

“I’m not sure it was nothing,” Jeb said, his expression becoming serious. “You see, we do believe in the God above and we do believe the Bible. It is the good book because so many people think it tells the story of a great divide in the world between the light and the dark, but that’s not how I see it.” He paused for a moment. “That’s not how we see it at all.” Clint nodded his head as did a couple of the other men.

“We see the story as one continuum in which God granted dominion over the earth to the one lord. This is quite clear if you read your Bible.”

“That sounds like an interesting perspective,” I said. “I don’t think the mainstream would see it that way.”

His expression clouded over for a couple seconds, but then the sun came out from behind his darkness. “But they had it wrong,” he said raising his arms to the pit below. “This is more than obvious evidence that God has truly surrendered the world over to the Dark Lord.”

This was starting sound like a really bad Harry Potter book. When was he going to mention Voldemort? Whatever I was thinking didn’t stop him from continuing on with his sermon.

“When God cast the angel Lucifer down to earth, he gave him dominion of the seas and the land to do with what he wishes. It is through reading and study of the good book that I have prophesied the end of the world and as you can see my prophecy has come true as the dead now walk the earth.”

A couple of the men let out loud, “Amen’s.”

I remembered then that the website Jeb’s cult that he had proclaimed that the end of the earth would come in fire, most likely a meteor from the heavens or maybe a volcano. I didn’t think it was a good time to nitpick, though, and let him continue. I didn’t have much of a choice and he was on a roll working himself into a full oratorical lather.

“It is in Revelation, we are told to rejoice because the devil toils on the earth as his time in short. We know…”

...blah, blah, blah. He went on like this for another ten minutes with his men nodding and sometimes shouting out “Amens,” when the spirit hit them. The day was hot and after a few minutes, I started to feel a little drowsy. Maybe I wasn’t fully over being drugged or maybe he was boring the utter crap out of me. To stay awake, I scanned the surroundings to look for any chance of escape, but found none. There was either open fields behind us or the pit full of zombies in front of us. Making a break into the field would likely get me shot in the back Going forward was a no-win proposition as the zombies would chow down on me. So, I listened. He finally got interesting a few minutes later.

Jeb said, really getting into it, “In serving Lucifer, we really serve the Lord because He saw fit to put the angel Lucifer in charge of the planet. But Lucifer is a harsh master and deserves a sacrifice to keep us safe from the undead scourge. It is through the sacrifice to the unclean and unconsecrated that we remain holy in his eyes. It is through this sacrifice that the living become transfigured in a holy blessing that pleases our Lord of the Air.”

Now, I knew why we were there and I did not like where this was going. The word ‘sacrifice’ was being repeated too many times.

Jeb put his right index finger into the air and looked to me and said, “There is only one way to to avoid that sacrifice and that is if any of your group wants to join us in our devotion to the Lord of the Air.”

“Well, I’m not much of the joining type,” I said. “And I don’t think my group is.”

“That’s too bad because I don’t think you’re taking me seriously,” he said, his expression becoming dark as he nodded in my direction.

I heard the shuffling of boots on the wooden platform and spun around, considering a run across the field, but when I turned, I came face-to-face with two rifle barrels, their dark, cold eyes staring at me, unblinking and deadly.

That last sentence must have been a cue for the men around us. They closed ranks around us, and two of them grabbed Mo by each arm.

“Hey, what’s going on here?!” he asked with a look of alarm.

“It is through sacrifice that we appease you Lucifer,” Jeb shouted.

“Take your hands off him!” I shouted and took two steps toward the men manhandling Mo. Those were my last two steps of the day as I felt something hard smack into the back of my head. A bright and colorful fireworks show of red, yellow, and orange went off in the back of my head as I went to my knees. The impact further jarred me and my world swam in a flurry of blackness with bright blue sparkles at the edge. I teetered on the edge of consciousness for an undetermined amount of time. I heard shouts and a couple screams, but they seemed far off and indistinct.

Through force of will, I fought my way back to the tableau before us and, in retrospect, a part of me wished I had given in and let the darkness take me When I finally turned my head (which was no small effort as it felt like my head was encased in concrete), I saw two of the men standing at the edge of the platform. Mo was slumped forward between them and looked worse than me. Blood flowed down his face freely and from a large gaping wound on his forehead. He wavered back and forth. One moment, it looked like he might fall backwards and, in the next, I was sure he was ready to fall forward into oblivion. Well, in truth, he’d be eaten alive in a ghastly pitstop before oblivion.

“It is now that we cast out the unclean as an act of propitiation. To atone for all the sins have committed against you, Lord of the Air,” Jeb shouted loudly, his head thrown back and his eyes nearly glazed over in a overheated fervor.

“Please accept our sacrifice!” Jeb yelled as he threw his hands into the air.

That was the final cue as the men beside Mo pushed out their arms and shoved Mo forward. Mo took that instant to come fully back to the situation at hand and that’s when he screamed. He screamed all the way down into the pit. It only got worse then as the zombies, ready and waiting, pounced on him.

I turned away and watched as Joni screamed in horror as she struggled against the giant who held her in check. Robbie fell to his knees and vomited on the platform. All-in-all, it wasn’t our best moment. I blacked out completely a few seconds later.

I awoke lying in in my bed sometime later. The room was spinning and my head was pounding. I wasn’t sure how long I had been out, but the world outside my room was dark. I heard crickets chirping away, and everything seemed peaceful, ignoring the fact that I had just witnessed one of my people being thrown into a pit of zombies to be devoured. Add to that the fact that all the rest of the us were locked in our rooms by a crazy group of dangerous assholes presumably to share the same fate. No, there was nothing peaceful about this. Not even close.

I closed my eyes and the spinning stopped. There was little doubt that I had a concussion. There was also little doubt there would be no escaping this place. They had us locked down tighter than a supermax prison and unlike the guards in the prison, I’m sure these guards would show no hesitation in shooting us. No, there’d be no civil rights suit for us being fed to zombies either. We were screwed.

As if surviving a zombie apocalypse weren’t hard enough, we were about to become victims of a cult of certifiably insane idiots and there was almost nothing we could do about it. There was no justice or fairness, but I had known that since I was seven years old and the school bully had punched me in the gut, taken my lunch money and no one did anything about it.

I guess I could have become lost in hopelessness and that’s what I did for the next ten minutes as I envisioned our grisly deaths. I reviewed my decision not to run when we were on the highway at the roadblock. I regretted so willingly taking the hospitality of Jeb’s people. I kicked myself for not being able to see through the whole ruse.

These and all my life’s mistakes and regrets threatened to overwhelm me, but then hope came my way in the form of the sound of someone going ‘psst.’ At first, I didn’t think I had heard anything until it happened again.

“Pssst,” the sound came from the window.

I opened my eyes and the room was only mildly tumbling now. I looked to the window into the darkness outside and saw a pair of shiny white eyes staring at me through the bars on my window. Sitting up took a lot of effort and I resisted the urge to toss my cookies after being hit with a wave of nausea which forced me to close my eyes for a few seconds. I reopened them and looked to the window to see that the eyes were still there.

“Hurry up and get over here before the next guard comes by,” a voice said from outside the window in a sharp whisper.

I wobbled as I stood and took the two steps from my bed to the window and nearly stumbled, only stopping myself from falling by grabbings the bars. In my condition, the best I could say was, “What?” I wasn’t sure this voice and eyes weren’t a product of having my brain scrambled.

“Grant, what’s wrong with you?” the voice asked.

“They whacked me in the head,” I said.

“Who are you?”

“It’s Chuck, you idiot.”

“Chuck, you’re here?” I asked, the words coming out slowly. I was having trouble comprehending where Chuck had come from. We had last seen him jumping off the bus miles away.

“You need to get your head on straight,” he whispered. “I don’t have much time. How did they take all of you?”

“They drugged us and locked us in these rooms,” I said. “These people are crazier than shithouse rats.”

“Yeah, I sort of guess that,” he said. “I’ve been watching them since I got here.”

“They worship the devil and they threw Mo into a pit of zombies.”

“What?”

“They said he was a sacrifice to their Dark Lord. They said it would appease him and keep the rest of the undead at bay.”

“I knew it was bad when I saw them dragging you across the field, but this is worse than I thought. ”

“Ya think?!”

“Calm down, princess,” he said and didn’t speak for a few seconds. “The whole shootout on the highway was an act.”

“I sort of got there already,” I said, then added, “but just a little too late.”

“I shot one of their guys hiding in the woods shooting at you.”

“So, that was you?”

“Yes.”

“What took you so long to get here?” I asked.

“You rode, I walked.”

“What are you going to do to get us out of here?” I asked.

“Nothing for now. The place is too heavily guarded.”

“I have a feeling that we don’t have a lot of time,” I said. “Their leader, Jeb, has a whole shitload of crazy behind his eyes. It’s only a matter of time before he takes another one us to the pit.”

“I know, I know,” he said. “I just need some time to get something setup.”

“We may not have time. It’s only a matter of time before they start feeding us to the zombies.”

“Well, you need to make time. The guard is going to be coming around any time now. I need to get out of here. You hold tight here.”

“Like I’m going anywhere.”

With that he stepped back into the darkness and faded away like a shadow as I stood there holding onto the bars and staring into the darkness. He was so quiet that I began to suspect that the whole incident was a product of my addled brain.

A minute later, the giant came walking by with a rifle over his shoulder. He looked my way and wiggled a finger at me, chiding me for even looking out my window. I stepped back and took a seat on the bed and waited. What I was waiting for, I didn’t know. Sometimes you have to surrender yourself to fate, I guess. I was always terrible at doing that and really wanted to punch someone, but there was no one close enough to hit, so I sat and stewed until I finally decided to lay back down.