In Extremis Read online

from the altar. The organ was silenced forever. A mother knelt down in front of her young son and started a soft rendition of “Happy Birthday to You”, crying as her voice wavered. Claire watched as the boy placed his hand on his mother’s lips and realized he was deaf. Job looked away and disappeared into the rectory. Claire approached the woman and knelt with her. The newly seven-year-old boy stared at her, his bottom lip quivering. The nun sang in beautiful acappella.

  Another week passed without incident. There was no more scavenging because the courtyard of the church teemed with zombies. After the last mass, the dead continued beating on the doors for an hour. Job didn’t want to take the chance anymore; he quit giving sermons. The survivors huddled into small prayer circles daily, looking to Claire and Job for guidance. The Father was growing more distant every day.

  The dead had turned to cannibalism. The ones who had missing limbs were the first to be preyed upon. As time passed, the weather grew warmer and the rotting increased in speed. The flesh on some was blackened and fell off with the slightest jar. One caught the corner of his abdomen on the rail for the church steps, becoming disemboweled. The others rushed to the growing pile of intestines, fighting for their share. He had actually eaten some of it himself before the others tore him apart. Flies were increasingly abundant, laying maggots on the dead. The air was filled with a putrid stench. Yet they kept coming.

  Two toilets in the ladies room had become totally plugged up and unusable, so they had to share the four remaining commodes in the church. Showers were becoming less frequent. Some would sit in the same clothes day after day. A temporary bout of dysentery plagued the congregation. Mop buckets were used as makeshift toilets and rinsed in a utility sink. Drinking water had all been boiled after that. The seven-year-old wasn’t strong enough. Claire and his mother wrapped his body in one of the ornamental drapes that had adorned the walls. The crushed red velour drape was not as soft as the child’s cheek. They stashed the bundle into a downstairs closet. Job stayed as the mother was led back upstairs. He struck the child’s head with a candlestick, then fell against the wall and silently sobbed. Claire stepped back down the steps and could hear the priest singing “Happy Birthday” under his tears; she left him alone to grieve. The song fell upon deaf ears.

  Some of the supplies were running low. Things one takes for granted, such as toilet paper and trash bags. The reanimated dead had been quiet for three days. The large wooden doors blocked the view of the steps leading into the church. Several of the men put their ears to the doors and narrowed their eyes and listened. Silence came from both from the church and the other side of the door. Whispers filled the entryway, whispers of need.

  A group of volunteers was arranged for a small exploration into the courtyard. Each would be armed with a stave from a pew that had been dismantled. The short oak planks made heavy clubs, capable of inflicting fatal damage. Hopefully they wouldn’t need them. Claire blessed each man before turning to look at Job. The priest was standing at the altar looking totally lost. She turned to walk up the aisle of the sanctuary as the men removed the large bar off the door. A beam of sunlight cut into the gloomy interior as the men stood with staves in hand.

  “No!” bellowed Job, “what are you doing?”

  All heads turned to the priest as he looked beyond them to the rapidly filling door of decayed and rotten parishioners who had waited outside the church. Called by the word of God; called by the voice of Job. Taken by surprise, the doors burst in slamming into a woman who was just kissing her husband good luck. The men swung their clubs against the flood of bodies pushing into the doorway. The portal huddled the dead tightly together as they made their way into the house of God. The men failed and were pulled apart in a ravenous feeding frenzy. Job stood unbelieving his eyes at the altar as his church … his home was being invaded by these spawns of hell. The screams and cries of each man, woman and child burned into his ears and mind. But yet he did nothing.

  A wave of fetid air blew across the sanctuary in advance of the undead horde. The survivors were trapped between pews before being dragged down to the floor in a volley of screams and teeth. Claire turned toward the rectory steps in a panic. Job bellowed a cry of anguish; the room went silent. Slowly the dead shuffled to the aisle and in a communion-like line, advanced to the altar. The sound of their shuffling feet drowned out the useless cries for help of the forgotten injured, who lay upon building red stains. Claire was frozen in awe as Job began to speak.

  "Per istam sanctan unctionem et suam piissimam misericordiam, indulgeat tibi Dominus quidquid per visum, audtiotum, odorátum, gustum et locutiónem, tactum, gressum deliquisti."

  All forward movement stopped.

  “Kyrie eléison. Christe eléison. Kyrie eléison. Pater noster.... Et ne nos indúcas in tentatiónem.”

  They stared up at Job at the altar as he crossed his chest in the sign of the Trinity.

  “Amen,” the priest concluded, as did Claire. The dead had been given their extreme unction … their last rites.

  Job turned toward Claire and walked down from the altar. The dead did nothing but watch. The nun noticed the priest’s white knuckles as he gripped his Bible; she noticed how his legs trembled with each step. Claire backed down the rectory steps with the priest following behind. Her hand guided him for his eyes were closed and lips moved in silent prayer. As he passed the wrought-iron gate, she pushed it closed. They were not followed.

  Job fell with his back against the wall, sliding on legs that could no longer carry the weight. Claire looked down the hall to the gate to assure it was latched securely before going into the kitchen to get the priest some water. Job held the Bible to his chest tightly, his back bouncing lightly on the wall. The closet door at the end of the hall slowly opened and a small child pulled himself out of folds of fabric. His light brown hair was creased above the right eye. Job’s blow had only smashed the ocular orbit frontal bone, leaving the eye a mash of yellowing ooze that dried on child’s cheek. He was merely a couple feet when Job looked up at the boy.

  “No!” Job screamed. But his plea reached deaf ears.

  The child bit into his arm as he pushed him away. Claire drove a cleaver into the boy’s skull.

  They cleaned and dressed the injury, each knowing it was fruitless. Assuring each other that they had cleaned the wound well enough, then prayed. Claire had dragged the boy’s body to the outside of the gate before closing it again. He had disappeared in the night. She didn’t want to think about what had taken him away.

  The Father grew sick with fever. Claire read scripture to him and kept cool washcloths on his brow. She took his Bible and read from the Book of James over him. Anointing of the sick it has been called; Job deserved his last rites also.

  She fumbled tying the knots to lash him to the bed. Job gave no resistance. His head burned with fever and his lips split open. Claire wet a cloth and he sucked the water from it.

  “Please,” he whispered in a raspy voice.

  She knew what he pleaded for but was unable and unwilling to provide, for he was a man of God. He shook violently as he expired. Claire wept out loud until she realized the attention it was causing. The wrought-iron gate was a portrait of rotten faces looking in and groping. She went to her room and cried into her pillow.

  The priest snarled and snapped at her when she came near. There was no need to approach him anymore. Claire talked to him every day though. She tried to work things out in her head by speaking aloud; there was no answer. She attempted to stay in her room as much as possible. The air in the rectory was pungent with the sickening stench of decomposition. Claire stuffed towels under her door to filter the smells, also to keep the flies at bay.

  Morning came; Claire had only known this fact by the wind-up clock on her nightstand. She quickly kicked the towel away from the door on her trek to purge her swollen bladder. When exiting the bathroom, her knees grew weak as she noticed the gate standing ajar. Eyes darted into the priest’s room. The sashes she had used to tie
the man lay dangling from the side of the bed. Job was gone. Watching the stairway for the slightest movement, Claire crept toward the gate. The hasp was bent and small pieces of the bolt lay scattered around the floor. It was totally useless. She bit her bottom lip slightly, craning her neck up the stairwell; only silence and gloom. Hands trembling uncontrollably, she pressed them to her side as she slid up on the first step. Slowly and methodically, the nun scaled the access to the sanctuary.

  The large wooden church doors stood open hanging askew. A slight breeze blew through the room. It was the closest thing to fresh air that Claire smelled in days. The room was empty. She dropped her shoulders in relief until a grunt from the left caught her breath. Behind the altar Job stood dressed in his robes, his eyes staring outside with the large golden cross in hand. Claire backed up into the gloom until her back brushed the door of the confessional. A far-away scream grew closer until it was in the courtyard of the church. The nun pulled the door open with both hands slowly and stepped into the small compartment.

  A small ornate carved grate gave Claire a clear view as six zombies dragged a screaming woman in front of the altar. The