Aftershock: A Collection of Survivors Tales Read Online Free PDF Page B

their bludgeons. Not wanting to be left out, I grabbed a table leg with a vicious looking nail jutting from it and stepped up beside the men.
    “No, Padre, tienes descansar. You need to rest. You look like you have come through a war.” Alejandro attempted to move me toward a chair.
    I shrugged him off and shook my head. “I will not stand by while others risk their lives to protect my church.”
    They did not appear to grasp what I was saying so I stepped past them, threw open the door, and buried my makeshift cudgel in the forehead of the ghoul standing there. We moved out into the parking lot and stood abreast. There were three more approaching from the copse of trees. Corpses from the copse, I thought and chuckled.
    “Que es chistoso?” Alejandro asked.
    “Nada.” I replied, eliciting a bizarre sideways glance.
    We advanced on the dead as a single unit and dispatched the trio easily. I had come to realize that they were little trouble to deal with, at least in small groups. Mind you this was before I saw my first swarm.
    To shorten what has already become too long a tale, I stayed at the church for several weeks. We found that if we made no noise, the dead would pass right by without a glance. There was only one more occasion where direct intervention was necessary. We ate food from the pantry and we could gather on our few trips outside. I avoided stepping into the sanctuary, more because I did not need to see the stains on the floor rather than out of fear of divine retribution. I was treated with the utmost respect by my saviors, guests, housemates… I am not sure what to call them even now.
    One evening, while out gathering what was left of the food from nearby houses, we noticed a distinct swell in the number of ghouls. They appeared to be wandering aimlessly with no real purpose, but there were certainly more of them now. Back inside the church there was a heated discussion that I was almost totally unable to follow. Later while taking stock of our dwindling supplies, Alejandro explained that they had made the decision to move on. It made sense to me to leave. With the growing number of fiends and the near depletion of resources here, we would have to consider a move to another location. Perhaps out west where population was thin even before our little apocalypse. Alejandro and his friends disagreed on where to go. Some wanted to go west for the reason I have already stated. The rest wanted to go north. They apparently believed that with winter on the way, the dead might move south toward warmer climates. As if they were migratory birds. I believed they would follow the food.
    The next day I awoke to find the church empty. A few cans of food were left, and my favorite table leg. There was also a hastily scrawled note. All I could make out was “We go north” and some kind of apology at the bottom. I sat pondering the situation and was broken from my reverie by the sound of scrapping outside the front door. I thought nothing of it. It happened frequently. Maybe they could smell me in here or maybe there was some last vestige of humanity left in them that sought the forgiveness and comfort that brought them here in life. Given what I had seen in these last months I guessed it was more toward the former.
    I gathered what little there was left of use into an old duffle bag and prepared to head out. I would go west as I had planned. There were several maps in my office, I paused a moment to pray for my friends as they had not taken one with them. I sat at my desk for the last time. Memories of Tuesday nights, writing sermons flooded my head. I would toil away trying to find the voice of the Spirit and in would come Laura with a tray of sandwiches and thermos of coffee. Sometimes there would be a wedge of apple pie if she was in a baking mood. I sat silently weeping and all of the sudden I realized that the scrapping had turned into a pounding. I rose from the desk to check the door and saw through the barricade