The Rising Dead (30 page)

“Pick up the pace, people,” Max screeched as she blazed a path up the front walkway of the chapel. She turned and saw the door to the chapel swing open. Fat Elvis was waving them in. Max wasted no time running into the safety of the inside. Holt followed without looking back. Then Gunner.

Parker turned back to the street. He was the first to notice there were still actual living people out there. A woman in a red dress with long blonde hair ran screaming across the street at the sight of them.

“Wait!” She cried out. “Please wait for me!”

A small cluster of the living dead were right behind her. There was no way she was going to make it. Parker paced back and forth in front of the door in anxiety. If he went back for her they might all die, but how could he leave her to this terrible fate?

“Come on!” Parker shouted. “Hurry!”

“We need to get inside and lock the door,” Fat Elvis pleaded making the sign of the cross over himself. “Now.”

“Just a minute, King,” Parker said. “Run lady, you are almost there!”

Just then the woman tripped on the curb and fell into the grass. The dead were on her in seconds, like vultures feasting on a fresh carcass. The woman's loud screams rang out down the street, like a dinner bell for the ghoulish fiends. They came from every direction in numbers too large to be believed.

“No!” Parker cried, but he knew it was over. He allowed Fat Elvis to pull him in and lock the door. The woman was gone now, and nothing he did could change that.

Parker unleashed a slew of obscenities as he kicked the last row of chairs in the chapel. Max's eyes filled with tears as she watched his impotent outburst. Still Gunner's plan had worked. He had saved their lives, for the moment at least.

“Dear Lord,” Fat Elvis said. “You need to calm down son.”

“Thanks for letting us in,” Gunner said, slapping the man on the back, before turning and walking toward the altar. It was covered in Elvis memorabilia from every period of the singer's life. The word GRACELAND formed an arch under which the betrothed were meant to be joined in the sight of God and any witnesses they'd scraped together in a drunken stupor before taking the plunge.

“What are you doing?” the impersonator asked. Gunner didn't answer. Fat Elvis turned to Max. “What is he looking for?”

“His sanity,” she replied, turning and walking over to Parker. She put her hand on him and he shook it off. She didn't flinch. She put her hand back on his arm, slowly.

“It's okay,” Max said in a low voice.

“It's not okay,” Parker raged. “Did you see what they did to her? That could be us at any moment now. All of us!”

“I know,” Max said, the tears still streaking silently down her face. “I know.”

Parker fell to his knees and began sobbing in dry heaves that wracked his body.

Max bent over and wrapped herself over him.

Holt turned to Fat Elvis.

“It sure is quiet in here, King,” Holt said.

“You can call me Frankie,” he said. “I'm not really the King you know.”

“All hell has broken loose out there, King” Holt replied ignoring his request. “How is this place still standing?”

“I like to think Elvis is watching over us from heaven,” Frankie calmly replied. “This building is like a small piece of Graceland set adrift in Vegas. They wouldn't dare defile that. No sir.”

“No shit,” Holt said. “You really believe that?”

Gunner gave out a loud cry and then there was a thunderous crash as he used all his strength to shove a huge statue of Blue Hawaii Elvis over. It smashed into the first few rows of chairs as it broke into pieces. Frankie looked alarmed for the first time since they'd met him.

“Jesus H Christ on a pogo stick,” Frankie hollered. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“Sorry,” Gunner said. “I was looking for supplies.”

“And just what made you think they'd be under a fucking statue that weighs hundreds of pounds? I'd love to hear the fucking reasoning behind you demolishing a priceless piece of art. I mean, why not just let those creatures outside in, let them have a run at everything?”

“John F. Kennedy,” Gunner said. Parker, Max, and Holt walked forward in silence, stunned by Gunner's answer.

“Excuse me?”

They gathered around him waiting to hear his answer.

“When he was elected, a lot of people were worried about his faith affecting his policy making,” Gunner said. “They were worried that the Pope and the Catholic Church would have carte blanche in directing Kennedy's decisions regarding the governing of the nation.”

“Please tell me he's joking right now,” said Fat Elvis.

Holt shook his head no.

“After the Cuban Missile crisis, Kennedy secretly ordered sophisticated state of the art bomb shelters built under every major Catholic Church in America, an order Johnson oversaw after the president was killed.”

No one said a word. Gunner continued uninterrupted.

“They called it the Noah’s Ark project,” he said. “Kennedy chose Catholic churches as a payback for all the controversy over his faith during his presidential bid.

“Only true leaders of pure faith and high ranking Masons were supposed to know about them. According to my sources, the shelters are supposed to be able to support twenty people for up to a hundred years while the earth returned to normal after nuclear war. They’re stocked with food, alcohol, seeds, medical supplies . . . everything we'd need to start over. The
Urban Survivalist
says the combo was either Kennedy's birthday or the date he died.”

“So enlighten me here, GI Joe,” Fat Elvis sputtered in disbelief. “Even if there was one tiny little shred of truth to that insane theory of yours, and that is a huge if, you thought the Chapel O' McLovin was a substitute for a real Catholic church somehow?”

“Is it true, King?” Holt asked. “Is there really a secret bomb shelter hidden under the chapel?”

“Does that
sound
true?” asked Frankie, producing a silver flask and taking a deep drag from it. “Don't you think I'd be in it right now with the fucking door locked tight? I mean, I've heard some crazy shit in my day but this tops all of it. Where the fuck did you find this lunatic? Please tell me he hasn't been in charge the whole time.”

“He's kinda been leading us yeah,” Holt admitted while rubbing the back of his neck and avoiding eye contact. “A lot of strange stuff he's said has been dead on though, if you'll pardon the bad pun.”

“Did you find a secret door hidden under there?”

“No,” Gunner said. “I didn't.”

“Of course you didn't you jackass,” the impersonator replied shaking his head. “You can't believe everything you read on the internet.”

That’s the first time he’s been wrong,
Parker thought. He remembered Travis telling them to trust him. Maybe they should have stayed down in the tunnels with him and Gemma. Life underground was starting to look better by the minute.

“Seriously,” Parker said, burning a hole through the priest with his unrelenting stare. “How have you not been attacked by the zombies like everyone else on the Strip?”

“I was attacked,” Fat Elvis said. “Right here, in this very chapel this morning. One minute I was giving this guy directions back to the 15, a greasy looking salesman from North Dakota who'd gotten turned around, and the next thing I know, his five year old daughter came flying at me teeth first.”

“So you were bit?” Max asked gingerly.

“No I wasn't,” Fat Elvis said. “I kicked that little girl square in the face with my boot and locked the door...thankyouverymuch!”

He smiled at his impersonation of Elvis but no one else did.

Max jumped up and pointed her machete at him.

“He's lying. He's infected,” she yelled. “He's one of them.”

Fat Elvis didn't seem concerned by her show. He chuckled.

“I've never lied to a lady before in my life,” he said with a smile. “I assure you, I am not one of them.”

“You're going to have to strip down buddy,” Holt said. “Let us check you for bite marks. No one is just going to believe you've been sitting in this unholy shit storm drinking your last hours on Earth away until we got here.”

“Is this some kind of joke?” Elvis began looking surly. “Let me get this straight, I open my hiding spot to you nut jobs and you threaten me? Get the fuck out!”

“No,” Parker said. “We're not leaving just yet.”

“I know it's terrible manners,” Holt said, jostling his crowbar between hands. “Look the faster you get this over with the sooner we can put it all behind us.”

“Why don't you take your clothes off?” Frankie slurred. “I will if you will.”

“I'm fine with it,” Holt said.

“Me too,” Parker joined in.

“I'm fairly sure almost everyone in this room has already seen me naked anyway,” Max joined in.

“Count of three then,” Frankie said. “One, two, three...”

“There's no need for that,” Gunner said defensively. “You a vet by any chance?”

“I'd piss myself at the sight of a gun,” Frankie said. “I've never been what you might confuse with a brave man no. I'd like to think I'm a lover not a fighter, like Elvis.”

“Elvis served,” Gunner spat at him. “Did you ever work at Zymetech then?”

“What the hell is a Zymetech?” Frankie was starting to look like he seriously regretted letting them into the wedding chapel.

“It's a bio tech company over near Paradise road and UNLV,” Gunner said. “Did you ever work for them or Black Helix?”

“Can't say I have,” Fat Elvis replied.

“Have you ever volunteered for any kind of medical procedures or scientific studies?”

“I tried to donate sperm once,” he chuckled, “but they turned me down. Starving musicians aren't high on the list of desirable donors. They wouldn't take my blood either, since I had fresh tattoos.”

“There has to be something you're not telling us about,” Gunner pleaded. “Did the military contact you? Did you see any men in black suits with dark shades since you've been here, maybe putting up a large white plastic box that looks like a speaker?”

“Nope,” he said, still looking perturbed.

“Is there anything you've forgotten or overlooked?”

“I've forgotten more than I've ever learned,” Frankie said. “Still I manage. Say, are we all getting naked or what?”

“Where is this going Gunner?” Max asked.

“Yeah man,” Parker joined in. “What's the fucking deal with you? What aren't you telling us right now?”

“All right then,” Gunner said. “No more secrets. I am the only one who needs to get naked here.”

Gunner took his jacket off. He lifted his shirt, slowly revealing a full chest tattoo that read
Semper Fi
. He turned unhurriedly and showed them his back. Two rings of teeth marks scored the skin just above his shoulder blades. They looked clean, bloodless, and swollen red with infection, but free of the revelations virus to the naked eye.

Max gasped and dropped her machete.

“Because I am the only one here who was bit,” Gunner said.

CHAPTER THIRTY ONE

“This whole time!” Max screamed at him, leaning forward but not daring to get close to either of them. “You've been one of them since the beginning and you didn't say anything?”

“Calm down now,” Gunner said, but Max picked up her weapon and pointed it toward Gunner and Fat Elvis as she backed into Parker and Holt. Holt lifted his crowbar, uncertain of what to do, looking back and forth between her and Gunner.

“When did it happen?” Parker asked, indignation glowing in his eyes.

“Before I found you at Sunrise Manor,” Gunner said.

“Sonofabitch,” Max yelled, turning and kicking the wall hard.

“I was watching the chaos unfold from the monitors,” Gunner explained. “It was spreading so fast, I didn't know where to start. Every time I thought I had a plan, something new would kick off. It became apparent pretty fast that most of Thunderdome was a lost cause. It was like a massacre.”

His words trailed off into silence as he lost himself in the memory.

“Get to the part where you were bitten,” Parker prodded. “Twice.”

“The south side of the building were the only ones not crawling with zombies,” Gunner said. “It's mostly kids your age as you know, and I think that a lot of them, like you, were out partying all night. I knew if I had a chance to help anyone, it would be there.”

“I set off right away, but when I got to the bottom of the staircase I was ambushed by two undead creeps,” Gunner said, his eyes glossing over in memory. “I've been accused of being a little paranoid so I wanted to be sure that what I was dealing with actually required a lethal response. The last thing I needed was to kill some stupid kids playing war games and get sent to the electric chair for it.”

“They don't use the electric chair in Nevada,” Fat Elvis said. “You'd get lethal injection.”

“One good look at those things told me everything I needed to know,” Gunner continued, ignoring him. “There was nothing in their black, empty eyes but pain and hunger. I mean, the way they moved, the dark blood coming out of them, that rotten smell, it was clear that whatever they were, they definitely weren't human anymore. Just like Satoshi.”

“Then they bit you?” Holt asked. “They overpower you or what?”

“I never saw them coming,” Gunner admitted. “I guess I underestimated these things. I thought they were on a par with dumb animals. I didn't realize they were capable of coordinated attacks. I took the first one down with a clean shot to the head. The second one came at me. No hesitation. No fear. Nothing. Just raw hunger. He moved so fast, I didn't have time to aim. In a split second I knew I'd be fighting him with my bare hands. I braced myself for the impact but before he could lunge at me, a searing pain tore through my back at the same time something icy cold gripped my shoulder. The bastards had snuck up behind me and took a chunk out of me. I spun around and put my pistol to his temple. The blood was dripping from his mouth, my blood. It was over fast, maybe a second, maybe less. I pulled the trigger and his head exploded like a ripe melon. Before I could turn back, his buddy was on me.”

“Damn!” Holt said, engrossed in Gunner's tale.