4 A Brief Respite

"Mom, where are we going? What are we going to do?" I could barely pull in enough oxygen to ask.

"Just keep running."

I didn't have much of a choice. She had since let go of my arm so I could run of my volition, at least. Dad was several paces ahead of us, sans the duffel bag with our evacuation kit so he could sprint unhindered with Maddie in his arms. She was sobbing and screaming and for once I didn't mind because I seriously felt like doing the same.

Not a single one of us was in particularly good shape, so even under the influence of adrenaline we were only going to get so far before the mob of infected caught up to us.

I didn't dare look behind me into the night. Their various hollers and snarls were still present, growing louder and louder as they ran out of unfortunate victims caught near the busses.

"This way!"

Dad suddenly banked left. Mom and I stumbled after him. I had been going to Rutland High School for a couple of years now, so we had a pretty good idea of how to navigate the area; we were running in the opposite direction of home, driven away by the horde. 

Whose brilliant fucking idea was it to throw all of the infected in a small, confined area? 

The building had a middle school attached to it, making the whole property rather large. We left the whole thing behind and wound up on Skipper Road, heading away. By then we had slowed down quite a bit, unable to keep sprinting. It was just unfortunate that there was a whole lot of nothing on Skipper Road to use as cover.

"C'mon, we have to keep going," Mom urged, checking in on me with a glance.

Maddie was still scream-crying. Dad had her pressed into his shoulder to try to muffle it somewhat. He turned just enough to tell us, "There's a church up ahead. We'll go there to rest and decide what to do from there."

I could see the building up ahead, but it was still much farther than I thought I could possibly run. 

At the very least, the noises of the infected had somewhat quieted. I felt it was safe to look and saw that they had fallen behind, distracted by some late arrivals trying to sneak into the evacuation point. 

By the time we made it to the Chruch of God of Prophesy, we were all at the end of our ropes. The only problem was that the church was closed, its doors locked. 

"Now what?" Mom asked, doubled over and panting.

Dad handed Maddie to her. She had calmed down somewhat but was still hiccuping and weeping. He tried to work the handle, tried shoving his shoulder against the door, but he wasn't strong enough to force it open.

"Gimme a credit card," I sighed, holding my hand out. I felt like I was going to die but maybe my last act could be unlocking the door for my family before perishing.

"Why?"

"Because I can get the door open."

He gave me a wary look but pulled his wallet out all the same and handed me a Visa from within. I gave it an appraising bend, then checked the door itself. 

No deadbolt. Easy.

With a little bit of weight against the door and some card jiggling, I had it open in a little less than thirty seconds. 

"We will talk about that later," Dad said when he took his card back.

I shrugged. "Nothing to talk about. I locked myself out of the house and had to use a gift card to break in."

Both of my parents seemed to take that at face value and we made sure to close and lock the door behind us. Everything was dark inside, so I felt along the wall until I found a switch for the overhead light and flipped it. 

"Thank you, Taryn." Mom smiled at me and I smiled back.

The inside of the church was just like any other church I'd been to (which, admittedly, was only a couple). It looked like the interior hadn't been updated since the early sixties with its faded carpet and antique pictures on the wall. The only thing that stood out was all the Christmas decorations—bows on some of the pictures, a decorated tree in the corner of the entryway, and themed knickknacks on the shelves. 

With all of us exhausted—save for Maddie since she was carried the whole time—we wandered the hall until we found the room of worship. Though we stuck together, we wound up on different pews, sinking down to rest. Our packs were deposited on the floor next to the pews.

Maddie, now too busy wiping tears and snot all over her sleeves to cry, was the only one in good shape. Must have been nice being carried the whole way. She tugged on the sleeve of Dad's jacket to get his attention. 

"I have . . . to go pee-pee," she whimpered.

Mom sighed and stood up. "I'll take her. Let's go find the potty."

My sister took Mom's outstretched hand and they walked off into the dark church to find the facilities. I thought about going with them but I didn't want to leave Dad by himself and I didn't need to go that bad anyway.

"Need a drink?" Dad asked, moving to sit next to me.

Nodding, I took the bottle he offered and swallowed a few sips of it, then gave it back to him. "What are we going to do? Go home? Will they try to evacuate again?"

Just as he opened his mouth to answer, a splitting scream pierced the silence. We stood up and stared in the direction it had come from, but it didn't happen again and no other sounds followed. We let out a collective breath of relief and sat back down.

"We will stay here until morning, I suppose, then return home and see what the news says," he said, shaking his head. 

"Oh."

He tried his best to smile reassuringly and pulled me against him. "We will be ok. We will figure it out."

All I could do was nod. 

When Mom and Maddie returned, Maddie was fully composed and seemed to have cleaned her face of all tears and snot. She scurried over to curl up in Dad's lap, seeking comfort from him, and Mom sat in the pew in front of us. 

She bowed her head, urged us to do the same,  and started praying. 

"Dear heavenly father, we seek your forgiveness in this dark night for breaking and entering in your holy . . . sanctuary," she began. "We would not have done so if not for our dire situation. Thank you for being such a gracious host, and please watch over us tonight as we slumber. Amen."

The rest of us repeated the sentiment and relaxed. My stomach grumbled.

I was almost afraid to ask, but I did anyway. "We don't happen to have any snacks, do we?"

No one berated me, though. Dad handed Maddie over to Mom and was halfway through digging around in his remaining backpack when a loud pounding startled all of us. Mom had the wherewithal to muffle Maddie's screeching.

We didn't say anything, just stared in the direction of the front door. The room we were in had no windows save for a single strip of trained glass on the left side that no one would be able to see through. 

"Did we lock the door?" asked Mom. Her voice was barely audible. 

Dad nodded. 

The pounding came again and made me jump. This time, it was followed by a voice—deep and bellowing. 

"Let us in!"

And another of higher pitch. "We see the light! Let us in!"

Mom, still holding Maddie in a way that limited how much noise she could make, leaned over her pew to whisper, "Should we let them in? Maybe they're in danger."

"If they're in danger they'll bring it in with them," I interjected. 

Dad was silent on the matter for a while, then said, "They cannot see us, they just see the light. If they are in danger, they will move on quickly. We have to keep ourselves safe, too."

I sighed with relief. Mom seemed disgruntled but she sat back and rocked my sister, quietly shushing her. At the door, the person or persons outside kept shouting. I tried to block them out by checking my social media—I didn't want to move around too much so I didn't bother getting my earbuds out for music and I made sure my phone was silenced.

Their angry hollering started to slow and we all let out the breaths we'd been holding. Like Dad had said, they were moving on. 

A splitting sound rang out, startling all of us. My phone? But I had silenced it just moments ago! So what could . . .

An alarm! I hadn't realized it was already seven in the evening.

I clamored to dismiss my alarm, but the second and a half of Morning Glory felt like an eternity. 

"Taryn!" Mom hissed at me. 

Hot embarrassment flashed down my neck. "It's the alarm for my meds," I whimpered, pulling them out and popping the pills dry. Back in my backpack they went.

Maybe the danger had passed and no one else heard it. 

We should be so lucky. 

The banging on the door started anew and Maddie wailed, muffled against Mom's chest. More shouting picked up. 

"We know someone's in there!"

"Open the door, fuckers!"

Dad stood up and walked around the pew before I could grab him. He waved me down, his expression assuring me that he wasn't doing anything stupid. We couldn't see the door from the worship room, so he was going to take a peek.

He flinched as the pounding grew worse, then it was the glass windows rattling. Dad took careful steps backward. 

"Did the bathroom have a lock?" he asked Mom.

"Yes, it was a single stall."

"Let's go."

We scrambled to stand. I grabbed mine and Maddie's bag, but the rest were left abandoned. 

There was only one issue with this plan—we had to go by the front door.

A rock came sailing through the stained glass window by the door as we entered the hallway, sending shards of glass scattering throughout the entryway. Maddie wailed and I let out a scream. The door shuddered and bulged; Dad rushed us toward the bathroom.

The window in front of us shattered: someone was trying to crawl through it. She locked her sights on us and let out an ear-splitting screech that shook me to my core.