Empire

19 Kipp

"How are there so many?!" Miss Palmer was saying to the bald cop, but before he could answer Miss Palmer ran over to Kipp and his mom and took each by the hand.

It sounded like they were in the middle of a thunderstorm, caught up in a dark cloud somewhere. Kipp briefly felt weightless as he was pulled across the community room and he imagined falling, helpless, from the thundercloud. Perhaps into the waiting arms of a hundred, a thousand dead men, all with blood-red painted smiles.

Wendy glanced back at him as the two of them were pulled along. He realized he'd wet himself and started to say something, but she interrupted him. "It's okay it's okay it's okay," she said breathlessly. Her grip was tight on his shoulder. Miss Palmer's fingers were interlaced with his. Miss Palmer opened a small door and pushed Kipp and his mom inside.

"The chapel," Miss Palmer said. She stepped back and shut the door behind them and darkness flooded the room. Kipp screamed.

Hands slapping on the walls; his mom's hands. She found a switch, and soft lights came on overhead.

Kipp turned to look around the room while Wendy ran to the door to ensure that it had a lock. It didn't.

The chapel had four rows of long wooden seats. The walls were wood-panelled, floors swept clean; Kipp felt oddly detached from the rest of the shelter. He thought it might be a secret room. Then, as his eyes adjusted, he saw the effigy: the dead man nailed to a crossbeam, his face sallow and streaked with blood.

Kipp threw himself gibbering into Wendy's arms. She pulled him down behind a pew and tried to calm him, but he wasn't hearing her words anymore as she assured him that the dead man in the chapel wasn't supposed to be like the things outside, that he wasn't really there.

And he wasn't, was He?

She had taught Kipp prayer, but Wendy didn't herself keep the habit up enough to set any kind of example. She didn't think much about God anymore. It wasn't that she questioned how God could let bad things happen to good people; she accepted that He did so, and hated Him for it.

Wendy crossed the aisle and pushed one of the other pews in front of the door. The reverend had whispered as she pushed them into the chapel, "Don't open it for anyone." Through the wall she could hear the others arguing and pounding, trying to drive back the attack.

Kipp drew himself into a ball. Kneeling beside him, Wendy gently pried his hands from over his eyes. "Honey, we're safe in here, I promise. But I need you to get up, okay?" She motioned to the front, to the crucifix. "We need to move up there so we can push these seats against the door."

He shook his head with a whimper. She took his hands and pulled. He resisted, his body — and fear — stronger than hers.

There was a loud thud against the chapel door. Kipp jerked away and buried his head in his arms.

"Open up! C'mon!!" It was the ex-con. The door rattled in its frame but held; Wendy grabbed another pew and dragged it across the floor. "Please help me, Kipp!"

In the community room, Shipley hammered frantically. Most of the windows had been cleared of boards, but thankfully were too high and narrow for the undead to climb through. The living fought off the rotters' grasping hands using the fallen planks.

Voorhees had followed Shipley back into the room. He aimed his pistol at a thin female face peering through a window. She met his gaze and opened her mouth, as if to protest; a second later she was sent reeling, leaving a red mist in her wake.

Yeats dragged Oates in, crying "One of them's got a gun!" Checking Oates' pulse, he groaned. "He's dead!"

Palmer saw the gaping hole in the front door and grabbed Mike's shoulder. "We've got to put more shit on that barricade!" The P.O. shook her off and aimed out one window, then another, as if he couldn't decide where to waste his bullets first. She spun him around to face her. "They can't get in that way! They CAN through the door!"

Mike stared dumbly for a moment, then nodded and followed her from the room.

Voorhees fired a second shot and turned to see Shipley wrestling with the chapel door. "Back off!" He shouted. Amidst the chaos, Shipley probably didn't hear him, or even know who was being yelled at. Voorhees crossed the room and shoved him roughly. "Forget it! Help us out here!"

Shipley turned and threw a fist into Voorhees' gut. The cop wasn't expecting it and doubled over, nearly dropping his gun. Shipley went for the door again and Voorhees grabbed his leg. He yanked the ex-con to the floor, pressing the gun hard into Shipley's back. "I said FORGET IT."

"Okay." Shipley said to the floor, relaxing his body. Voorhees rose slightly, keeping the pistol against Shipley's flesh. "Help us secure the building or everyone dies. You, me, the people in the chapel. Everybody."

"You don't understand," Shipley argued, though still lying prone. "The kid-"

"I don't wanna hear about it!"

Across the room, a board cracked over a leering zombie's ahead. Voorhees looked up. Shipley rolled over beneath him and drove a work boot into his groin.

Voorhees buckled again; the ex-con scrambled to his feet and grabbed at the chapel door. "You gotta let me in! Listen to me!"

Voorhees drew the widowmaker from beneath his coat and sliced cleanly through the meat of Shipley's right calf. The man howled and staggered back. Voorhees tackled him to the floor, snapping a handcuff around one of his wrists.

He yanked Shipley across the room and slapped the other cuff onto the broken radiator, just below an open window. A gray hand lurched inside and groped blindly. Shipley flattened himself against the floor. "Lemme go!!"

"You're staying right there." Voorhees fired out the window and the hand retreated. With a sneer, he muttered "Worthless," and left Shipley to his protests.

Inside the chapel, the soft lights flickered and dimmed. Wendy collapsed onto a pew while pushing it. Then Kipp was beside her, trembling, but fighting to keep his head up. "I'll help."

Though she barely had any strength left in her body, Wendy got back up and braced herself against the pew. "Okay honey. Let's go."

He brushed his hair from his eyes. She saw the dark outline of the bite again, just above his hairline, then the lights went out completely.