Love in an Undead Age, A.M. Geever [best contemporary novels txt] 📗

head high, but inside she quaked. Historically speaking, redheads did not always fare well—Lizzie Borden, Mary Queen of Scots, Judas Iscariot…

“So what are we to make of their arrival, My Children?” Jeremiah continued. “Are they sent by Our Heavenly Father? Most assuredly! For red is the color of flame, which purifies the fallen world, just as we purify ourselves when we embrace the truth of God’s Judgment in our hearts.”

“But more is required than simply embracing God’s Judgment. How can we testify the truth of His Judgment?”

A rush of energy hit Miranda. The atmosphere inside the building felt electric, tangible. Miranda had never experienced anything like it. And yet, somehow, everyone became so still that they almost seemed to recede, as if every single person was trying to blend into the background.

Across from them, a woman stood and called out, “One must walk with their faith!”

“‘Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live!’” Jeremiah thundered. He shrugged off the robe to reveal his wiry frame, clothed only in a loincloth. He held his arms outstretched and began to turn in place once more.

Miranda’s brow furrowed as she looked at the crescent-shaped scars on Jeremiah’s arms and torso. Mario leaned forward, the whistling intake of his breath audible.

“Bite marks?” Miranda whispered.

“It’s true,” Doug said.

“What’s true?” Selfie muttered.

“See the scars of God’s Judgment,” Jeremiah cried, his golden eyes blazing with an unholy light. “Even a sinner may be spared by God, as We were, if His faith is strong and true!”

A chorus of ‘Amen!’ and ‘As the Prophet commands!’ rippled through the assembly. The risers creaked and groaned around them as everyone leaped to their feet.

“Who will walk with Us among the Hollow Men?” Jeremiah shouted as he began to circle along the perimeter of the balcony.

Hollow men? Miranda thought.

He means zombies!

Miranda could not process what she was hearing. No one, not even this lunatic Prophet, could be that insane. She turned to Mario as Doug’s hand clamped around her forearm and pulled her up.

“We can’t look afraid,” Doug whispered as he wrapped his arm around her waist for balance.

Horror blossomed anew in Miranda’s brain as the Prophet called out a name. A young man raced down into the pit, deep in a frenzy of religious ecstasy. Another man and woman called down looked dazed, their movements stiff, as if an outside force propelled them forward.

The Prophet stopped in front of them. He looked up, his eyes no longer flashing, but flat and cold. Unfeeling. Miranda had always prided herself on her mettle, but now she began to shake. They were trapped, outnumbered, and utterly at the mercy of this madman. And any second now he might call the names of her friends.

“Bethany,” the Prophet called out.

“No!” Miranda cried.

Bethany swayed on her feet and almost fell back over the bench into Doug.

Mario lunged forward and caught Bethany’s arm. “Bethany, you can’t go down there!”

Bethany looked at Mario with wild frightened eyes as Dalton caught and steadied her.

“If she resists, she will be executed, along with anyone who tries to help her,” said Dalton.

“You can’t let him do this!” Miranda protested. The shouting from the restive crowd grew louder at the delay.

“The Prophet’s Guard is loyal and strong,” Finn answered, glancing down the aisle.

Miranda looked around the balcony and for the first time, really noticed the men armed with machetes along the aisles. Finn and his archers did not have their weapons, she realized. After they reached the village, she had not seen them carry their bows even once. She watched helplessly as the doctor stumbled along the row toward the stairs. The Prophet still looked at them, but Miranda felt sure it was not she and her friends he was staring down, but his son.

“Tamara!” the Prophet called out, a vicious smirk spreading across his lips.

Finn started as if he was going to leap over the balcony, but his cousin grabbed him.

“Stay here, stay still!” Dalton hissed.

Finn struggled against his cousin’s grip, searching the balcony frantically. On the other side of the balcony, a slim young woman with mousy brown hair rose and began to make her way through the crowd. When Finn sighted her, he tried to break free once more. The armed men in the aisle stepped forward to engage him, but Dalton and the other archers dragged Finn back.

People began sitting down. Miranda slumped to the bench. She thought she had seen it all. Dalton and the man seated on Finn’s other side wrestled Finn to his seat.

Connor leaned across Seffie to speak to Doug. “It’s her, the girl we saw at the service the night we arrived.”

In the pit, Bethany and the others stood apart from the Prophet, waiting for Tamara. When she appeared in the pit, Miranda realized she was only a girl of fifteen or sixteen. She did not join the others but instead approached the Prophet. She knelt and kissed his bare feet, then pressed her forehead against them. The Prophet reached down, tapped on her shoulder, and motioned for her to rise. He held Tamara’s hand and led the entire group to the far end of the building. He captured Bethany with his other hand as they spread out in a line, joined to one another like cut-out paper dolls. Six people stretched across a distance of forty feet.

Dalton whispered to his cousin. “She has invoked the Maiden’s Privilege. Now she will be beside him.”

Because they had to turn to see the activity below, Miranda could see Finn’s profile. His face was stamped with torment, but his eyes smoldered with rage.

“You know what that means,” Finn said miserably, but so softly that Miranda had to strain to hear.

“It means she might survive,” Dalton answered. “That is all that matters.”

“Brothers and Sisters, My Children,” the Prophet called out. “Watch as We walk in God’s terrible Judgment!”

A creak of hinges filled the hall. Then came the moans. Twenty feet in front of the Prophet, zombies staggered into view from both sides of the building. The Prophet stepped forward, pulling the rest with him.

“Trust in your God All-Father on Earth! Trust the Heavenly Father’s Judgment as we face the Hollow Men,” he cried.

Miranda could see ten shamblers. They lurched and twitched for a moment, then spied the people walking toward them. As the acrid smell of their rotting flesh filled Miranda’s nose, they lurched toward the people. One less recently dead than the rest limped toward the center of the line where the Prophet walked. It lurched at him, then recoiled.

The Prophet did not flinch.

A dark stain blossomed on the trousers of a man as his bladder betrayed him. His screams filled the hall as the shamblers attacked. As he was dragged out of line, the survivors scurried over to join hands with the next person. They walked beyond the zombies, most of which had joined in feasting on the first victim, when another screech of hinges made Miranda cringe. She watched, stunned, as more zombies tumbled into view ahead of the marching line of people.

A young woman ripped her hand from the person beside her and turned to flee, only to run straight into a zombie behind her. It clamped on to her shoulder and pulled her close, biting into her throat. Her screams continued as a spray of arterial blood spurted into the air. Miranda tried but could not look away. The woman thrashed and twitched as four zombies fell upon her to feed, the grunts and moans as they ripped her apart drowning out her gurgling death rattle.

Another set of zombies was loosed into the pit. The watchers in the balcony cried out and screamed. The metallic smell of blood and the reek of emptied bowels filled the air, and still the Prophet walked forward, resolute. Every zombie that came close to him recoiled, then sought other prey. Their reaction was so pronounced that twice a zombie lurched away from the Prophet and into Bethany but was so disoriented that she was able to push it off.

“That son of a bitch is immune,” Mario growled in Miranda’s ear.

Miranda jumped, so absorbed in the dreadful spectacle unfolding below that hearing a voice so close caused her heart to rocket into her throat.

“What?”

“Have you ever seen a zombie act like that, or anyone survive an untreated bite? What else could it be?”

Another shriek snapped their attention back to the pit. The man to Tamara’s left, who had raced into the pit filled with frenzied belief, was dragged down. He fought Tamara as she struggled to free her hand.

A zombie reached for Bethany. She leaned away as far as she could without letting go of the Prophet. Miranda held her breath, her entire body willing Bethany forward. Just as Bethany cringed free of the zombie’s grasping hand, the Prophet ripped his hand from hers. With a violent shove, he pushed her.

A piteous cry split the air as the zombie bit into Bethany’s shoulder. Her gray-blond hair fell loose as the zombie held her in a grotesque embrace, its arms encircling her from behind.

“No!” Miranda shouted.

The anguished screams of those watching became a roar.

“Healer, no!”

“Prophet, save her!”

Only the Prophet and the teenaged girl named Tamara remained, fifteen feet between them and a white line below the edge of the facing balcony. A zombie lurched toward Tamara. She cringed away and crushed herself against the Prophet. He smiled down at her and slid his arm around her shoulders. Like magic, the zombie shrank away.

As the