Wade makes it to the SUV and starts searching for something inside. Forget this, you think, and take off heading toward the church. Wade doesn't try to stop you. He's probably happy to see you go.

You sneak quiet as a mouse down the sidewalk, trying to keep your disappointment at losing your phone stifled. You'd like to go back for it, but that would be stupid. Undead have, no doubt, filed into your house by now, and no-one is answering their phone anyway. The SUV that Wade had been tampering with fires up behind you. Any visible undead is going for that noise now, so you start to flat out book it toward the church.

Bloody hand streaks are across the siding, standing out gorily against the otherwise pristine white paint. For a sickening moment, the thought that they might already be dead inside flashes through your mind. That thought is what drives you to try the door before pounding on it. To your astonishment, it opens.

Row after row, faces turn in the pews with curious, and thankfully, lively stares. Who is the new comer? They soak your appearance up like mildly shocked sponges. You must be quite the sight, sporting zombie blood and holding a machete taped to a broken mop stick. Through the tender silence, the door creaks closed once again, and then the murmurs start.

It smells like musk bathed in an iota of fancy perfumes and colognes in here. At the head of the church stands a man, dressed in a navy blue suit. His finely lined face gives the impression that he's much older. In fact, were he not so spotless and proper, you'd suspect he was one of the undead. He approaches you, limping on one leg slightly.

"Friends, friends," he calls to the congregation. "Let us welcome this lost soul with open, erm," he takes the machete from your fingers gently and you let him, "arms." He tosses the weapon to the side, letting it thump onto the floor, while his other hand pats your shoulder.

"We have to lock the door. Block it, fortify-" you say frantically, but the preacher breaks in.

"Now, now," he says somberly. "There's no need. We offer admittance to all who wish to attend. All who seek forgiveness."

"They don't want forgiveness, okay, they want your flesh," you say with disbelief.

The man smiles, showing a row of straight, white dentures. The gesture is meant to be calming, but it just gives you the creeps. "We all receive what's coming once we've been judged. We are not afraid. It's the rapture, and we are his," the man says serenely.

"What? No. They bite you, and you die! I saw it happen. You don't float up into the sky. You die and you come back and kill other people! You turn into a freaking cannibal."

"They are serving their due in purgatory, by finding others that must repent. His will be saved."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" you shout and a few people gasp at your language- you don't even care. "These things aren't picky. If you're standing around, you're going to be slaughtered. Then you'll be just like them - no matter what religion you follow. You'll be just as hungry for people as they are."

You turn to the people and yell, "Get out! Get out before they eat you all!"

"Mommy!" a little girl cries out, and the woman beside her starts comforting her in soft murmurs and hugs. The little blonde boy beside them stares at you curiously.

"We will pray for you child," the preacher says.

They're all looking at you with pity. Mother, brothers, children. Fools, you think. Every one of them are fools. You know that God wouldn't expect them to just give up and be devoured by those evil creatures. Really, it's you that pities them.

"Pray for yourselves," you say, and stomp away down a side hall.

The preacher doesn't follow you. A passive, you figure. Psychotic, but probably a good man before all of this. Never mind. You can hear the undead outside already, and that is your only concern now. You can't save a group of people that don't want to be saved. It's been a long time, but you went here once for a Sunday school with a friend. The layout is faint in your mind, but you remember making a wrong turn for the restroom and finding the room where they stashed donations. Your goal is to find that very room now, hole up, and wait a while.

You reach the last door at the end of the hallway and- you hear a noise behind you that freezes your steps. A creaky board a ways behind you. Someone or something is there.

Run to the church cont. - SKIP TO CHAPTER 26