Rapture: Survivor Chronicles 1

By Mike Sutton

The dead walk the earth feeding on the living. One of humanity's deepest fears. Civilization has collapsed, leaving scattered pockets of survivors to fend for themselves. In the midst of the plague of walking dead, humanity turns on itself.

Humanity panics and attempts to scatter in every direction, forcing the government to call up Ash and his platoon of Army reservists in a vain attempt to try and enforce the quarantine of Jefferson City.

As civilization Jesus takes his family and joins the exodus, fleeing into the countryside to whatever safe harbour he might find. While Jason and his friends search for a strongpoint to hole up in.

First book in the series. 149,000 words.

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• Language: English
• Publisher: Mike Sutton
• Release date: Sep 19, 2011
• ISBN: 9781465933010

Mike Sutton

A biography eh? Well we'll keep this short and down to the bare essentials. Mike likes shiny objects. Is a passably proficient drooler. And is thankful to the Computing Gods for the benevolent gift of spell-check software to our unworthy species. Since you're interested enough to have gotten this far, kindly leave some feedback in the form of ratings and reviews.

Book preview

Rapture: Survivor Chronicles Book 1

Mike Sutton

Published by Mike Sutton at Smashwords

Copyright 2010 Mike Sutton

ISBN 978-0-557-44731-2

In peace and prosperity states and individuals are actuated by higher principles because they do not find themselves face to face with imperious necessities. – Thucydides

Jim rolled over onto his side, pulling the covers up over his head to shield his eyes and ward off the encroaching sunlight. He groaned as he moved, knowing that he was fully awake. Even knowing that he was awake, he still wasn’t willing to give up the ghost and submit to consciousness yet.

He stretched is arm out and slid his hand towards the side of his bed where his wife slept. She had been feeling ill the night before, so they had gone to bed without making love. Which was unusual for them since they had been trying for a second child. Not to mention, they still enjoyed the act, even after five years of marriage, despite what all of the comedians had always said. His hand found nothing but empty mattress.

The cold empty spot beside him caused Jim to wonder where his wife had gotten off to so early. And when she had left. Finally surrendering to the inevitable, he pried open his eyes and let the early-morning sunshine wash over him. He lay there for a moment, adjusting to the light before looking at the clock on Alex’s nightstand. The red digits spelled out 8:12 AM. Not too dreadfully early as he had expected, but early enough. They had made plans the night before to sleep in that morning and then perhaps spend the day in bed.

That had been the plan, and they were going to take it as far as they could, enjoying every minute abed that they could scrape together. Until Meredith woke them up.

Meredith. Their own alarm clock. She had been crying earlier, he had thought. But then, before he was forced to get up and see what was wrong, the crying had ceased, letting him drift back into the land of dreams. That had all happened, oh, an hour, perhaps two, before. Time became meaningless when you didn’t watch the clock.

Alex must have gotten up in his stead, and then decided not to come back to bed after all. A violation of their agreement. He would have to make her pay for that. A severe punishment to fit the transgression. When he found her, he was going to tickle his wife until she laughed so hard that she couldn’t breathe.

Jim finally kicked the covers off him. Beige blankets, she called the color peach, they were covered in a scrolling vine pattern along the border. She had picked them out and then yelled at him when he nodded blankly when she asked what he thought. He had thought that they looked warm and comfortable. Besides that, it didn’t much matter.

Free from the covers at last, Jim stretched. His joints cracked popped as he flexed his muscles and straightened his limbs. His body was beginning to sound like his father’s. The thought made him laugh. Until he realized that now he was thinking fondly of next year’s lawnmower models, and what kinds of features they might have. Shaking his head at the revelation, he kicked his feet out over the edge of the bed, put them on the floor and stood up.

The air was warm, so he didn’t feel much need to find his robe before leaving the bedroom in search of his errant wife and daughter. Jim scratched himself luxuriantly before he opened the bedroom door. It felt good, and he would enjoy it while he could. If Alex caught him, there would be hell to pay. After all, she didn’t marry a man to expect to have him act like a man. Nope, his days of coarseness were behind him. While she was watching.

He stopped in front of the mirror for a moment. Grinning at his severe case of bed hair, he poked himself in his expanding paunch with his index finger. He was getting soft, just like Alexander’s old man kept saying. He did a couple of deep knee bends before saying ‘too hell with it’ out loud and going to find the missing girls. Ever since he had gotten his black belt in Judo, he had gotten lazy and let himself go a little. Sure, he still lifted weights, but he had given up his daily run to spend more time with his girls, and there were so many donuts to eat at work when the day got slow, which got even worse since the captain started enforcing the non-waste policy for food. His gun belt didn’t fit right anymore. Tickling and food, then a shower afterwards. Despite his goofy looking hair. He was on a mission.

The wooden floor made all of the appropriate squeaks as he trod barefoot across its varnished length. He listened as he walked. The house was quiet, except for the ticking of the large grandfather clock in the front hallway. A gift from her parents. Devoid of the usual morning, rise and shine, breakfast making and television watching sounds that usually accompanied their weekends at home. Unusual and slightly jarring.

Jim wondered what the two of them were up to, if not watching television and eating breakfast. Perhaps Alex was still feeling ill, and fell asleep in Meredith’s room after checking on her. She hadn’t done that sort of thing since their daughter was two months old and she was still a worrying mother hen, determined to watch over her new baby night and day. Thankfully Alex had grown out of that phase.

He reached out and touched the Display as he passed. The Display carried all of the war trophies brought home by the men in his family. His father’s AK-47 from Vietnam. His grandfather’s samurai sword and Japanese flag that he had taken as a marine in the Pacific theatre. And the 1911 Model .45 that his great grandfather had carried in the First World War. All were fully functional weapons, and from time to time, he took them out and admired them some times he even used the fire arms.

Neither of them were anywhere downstairs, nor was there any sign of their recent passing. No dishes in the sink, or cereal boxes left out on the table. This oversight confirmed for him that his earlier suspicion was correct. He would now have to go and rescue his beautiful wife from sleeping on the hard floor, and carry her back down stairs to her warm and comfortable bed. A noble and charitable deed that would no doubt win him many nookie points with her. This spurred him on a little faster.

The banister creaked under his hand as he took hold of it and pulled himself forward onto the first step up to their second floor. The old Cape Cod house was just that, and it made a boatload of strange noises for all occasions to make sure its occupants were fully aware that it was past its prime. The house groaned like an old man with numerous war wounds that were constantly paining him.

Their first storm there had been an eye opening experience, with the two of them expecting the house to collapse around their ears at any moment as it shuddered with each oncoming gale. The in-laws, on both sides offered to buy them a new home, but they declined. The cape cod was theirs and they loved it despite its (often loud) quirks.

Jim climbed with as much silence as he could muster. The stairs existed in the same squeaky fashion as the floors, and didn’t give much to the cause of stealth, especially when a full-grown man was trying to ninja his way to the top. His sockless feet stuck to the bare wood as he lifted them, making a squinching sound on each stair. Quiet meant slow, so he held in his impatience in check.

Portraits of their various family members that followed the stairs upward and down stared out at him, smiling, as he passed. A strange feeling since a number of the faces represented in those photos wouldn’t be smiling if they were actually sharing the same room with him. He wasn’t overly popular in Alex’s family’s camp, though he did get along fairly well with her folks. They let it be known, loudly at times when they had been socially lubricated, that they felt she had married far below her station. His family agreed with that notion. And to be honest, so did he. But he wasn’t about to question his good luck now.

The door to little Mere’s room, at the end of the hall, stood halfway open. He could see his wife’s backside as she squatted down in the middle of the floor, holding her hands in front of her face. She was still wearing the panties and t-shirt that she had gone to sleep in the night before.

Squatting in the middle of the floor wasn’t exactly how he had expected to find her when he had awoke that morning, and it struck him as odd that she sat there like that at 8am on her morning off, but women were strange creatures. Wonderfully exotic and alluring. But weird.

He crept along until he reached the doorway behind her. Pushing the door open a little more and admitting himself to the room, he stopped. He smelled blood. He could see blood. It had pooled all over the floor.

Jim stepped further into his daughter’s room, getting closer to his wife. Alex pulled something away from her face, and made chewing movements with her jaw. The blood. Realization tried to smite him, but failed to penetrate the shield of shock that clouded his brain.

Jim reached out a hand and took his wife by the shoulder. Desperately telling himself that everything he saw was a nightmare. Just a nightmare. Maybe he had caught her fever and was still lying in bed, dreaming the entire horrifying scenario. Maybe she would pinch him and he would wake up and the loathsome images would fade away. A memory to drudge up when he saw his shrink next.

Alex turned at his touch and faced him. Her clothing was covered with blood as it ran from her lips and dripped off of her chin and down her chest. She dropped the shredded fleshy mash that she had been devouring, grabbed his hand and bit it, taking two joints from his index finger.

Jim screamed from the duality of surprise as well as pain. Cupping his injured hand and pulling it away from his wife’s blood drenched lips. It wasn’t a terrible fever nightmare that he was in. This wasn’t even a dream.

He backed away two steps before he doubled over and threw up all over one of Meredith’s stuffed animal toys. Alex was on him before he could right himself once more and stand up. He was weakened by the shock of what he had seen and what she had done to him. He tried to push her away and failed.

She bit him again on the cheek before he could force her back and flee the bedroom and run back down the stairs past those happy faces. He ran, but it was too late. He had caught her illness.

In peace and prosperity states and individuals are actuated by higher principles because they do not find themselves face to face with imperious necessities. - Thucydides

He sat with his back to the campfire, looking out into the trees that surrounded the small camp. The flicker of the fire’s light sent shadows dancing on the trunks of the trees, in a nearly hypnotic pattern that he had watched for what felt like days.

Leaning back on a log with his shotgun in his lap, he mindlessly flicked on and off the safety switch repeatedly as the last few days ran through his head. At least as much as much of them that he could still recall. They all ran together into a giant blur of color and motion, including some of the parts that he would rather have forgotten. It took much concentration for him to keep everything strait. He was alive and in most cases that might be more than he could have hoped for.

The last few days had been rough to say the least, he had watched friends die terrible deaths. He had to kill more to save them a fate that was most defiantly worse than death. Three days since it all had really started and three days on the run. This had been the first peaceful night that they had had in those long days. Peaceful was relative, though the excitement had died down, the memories were still fresh. The panic and mindless terror were beginning to fade away, leaving a kind of numbness in their place.

He could still hear the moans and screams of the dying whenever the soft clicking of the safety switch died down, even over the crackling of the fire behind him. And from the sounds that his companions were making, they were in the same place that he was. He jumped up a little as one of the logs in the fire split and collapsed with a dull thud that sent sparks racing skyward. He knew nothing would ever be the same, as he wondered whether or not he would ever regain his nerves. Best not to think about it, but he had little choice. It all just kept coming back.

He got up to stretch his legs for a moment and walk around the perimeter of the camp. This was at least the twentieth time that he had done it over the course of the night, and each time with the same results, nothing was out there. Still he was left with the gut wrenching feeling that if he let his guard down for a moment something would appear and pounce on them all.

The sky began to lighten as from time to time one of his companions gave a soft murmur in their sleep, once in a while even going so far as to speak or cry out. Troubled by their dreams, or more likely their nightmares. He knew what they were going through in the depths of their subconscious. Sleep was not something that he wanted to endure at the moment, he was still haunted by the nightmares that assailed him the last time he tired. The faces of the dead wouldn’t leave him alone. He could face the horrors while awake, but doing so in his sleep deeply unnerved him. To be afraid of a dream. It was pure cowardice.

Lynn stirred and finally awoke, she had actually managed to sleep through most of the night, but she was a tough woman. A damn near fearless woman. He was glad that she was in charge. She kept her head through the entire ordeal. What time is it? She asked sleepily.

It’s nearing morning, not quite sure, maybe five or so. He had lost the watch that he had picked up in an encounter the day before, but it didn’t matter, time didn’t mean very much anymore. No meetings to get to and no schedules to keep. All that was left was staying alive for as long as possible. He stopped flicking the safety switch and turned to look at her, she looked a little disheveled and bleary-eyed from a long night out in the open, but aside from that she looked as good as ever. Lynn palmed the sleep from her eyes and then shakily stood up.

Have you been sitting up all night?

Yep he grunted as he turned back to watching the woods. Watching for movement.

Lynn put her glasses on and came over and sat next to him, mind if I sit here?

Mi casa es su casa. He slid over a little on his log to make some room for her.

Lynn shook her head at him, you should have gotten one of us up to take the watch for you, so you could get some sleep!

I didn’t feel like sleeping. He went back to flicking the safety switch on and off.

Lynn noticed his flicking of the safety grabbed his shoulder and gave him a gentle squeeze You still need rest.

Any good dreams?

You know I don’t dream.

Seems like anything is possible, I also know that the dead don’t get up and walk around to feed on the living, look where that got me. He stopped flicking the safety switch once again and turned his head to look at her. Pretty as ever. Honestly though he was the only one he knew who thought that she was pretty, besides perhaps Douglas. He had thought so since they met back in junior high school. It was her smile that did it for him, her smile was like the sun. Bright and always there. But she hadn’t smiled for three days now, three days was a long time to go without seeing the sun.

Jason, please try and get some sleep.

I’ll try. For the first time in those three days she smiled and just for that he knew it was worth the nightmares that would come the moment he dropped off. Lynn took the shotgun from him and pushed him on his way to the empty sleeping bag that she had been using. Within seconds of his head hitting the pillow and the blankets accepting him within its warm embrace, he was asleep.

The four of them sat in the darkened living room with their eyes on the television that was sitting in the corner of the room. The warm glow of the television flickered and washed over them as the images on its screen changed. Their worn VHS copy of the movie Dawn of the Dead was playing for perhaps the 20th time and it was starting to show it’s age. They had all seen the movie many times, some of them had done so willingly, and the rest because that is what was going on at the time and they didn’t wish to rock the boat.

Billy sat alone in the easy chair in the corner opposite from the television. He sat there with a grin on his face. He always got a kick out of Hare Krishna zombie girl, nobody was quite sure why and nobody really wanted to know badly enough to bother to ask. It was just one of his many quirks, you accepted them when you accepted Billy as a friend. They made life more interesting.

Jason sat on the couch with both Lynn and her intended Douglas. Lynn was enraptured by the movie as ever, while Douglas was doing his best not to look bored, if only out of politeness for his fiancée. He was failing that struggle, but he always did. The man couldn’t act his way out of a wet paper sack.

Jason personally divided his attention between the movie, and his friends. Unlike Douglas he thought that the movie was still fun, but their reaction to it was usually even better. Lynn with her usual thoughtful look and Billy with his girlish delight over the entire premise and more so over the rampant chaos. He was just waiting for either of them to ask the question. It was only a matter of time before it happened, it always came. Even more interesting would be the reaction that Douglas would have to the question being asked.

Tonight he looked tired and Jason thought that he would use that as an excuse to finally take his leave and head off to bed for the night. Some nights he just sighed and sat in the silent agony of a martyr who was being burned at the stake for his beliefs. On others he exploded and informed them about how stupid and childish they were acting.

The question finally came during the scene where the characters in the movie were cleaning up the mall after killing off all the zombie hordes. It was Billy this time who finally put the question to voice, What would you guys do during a zombie uprising? He did it in a lazy manner that suggested that it was only done out of proprieties and tradition.

True to form, Douglas got up and said Good night all, I’m off to bed. That being said he headed upstairs to his and Lynn’s room. The man was rather intelligent, but he had little of either imagination or patience for those who had it in excess. Billy and Jason shared a grin behind his back as he left. Douglas didn’t care much for Billy, and Billy returned the disdain in spades. Likely he had spoken up just as a chance to get Douglas to leave. Another one of Billy’s quirks.

As Douglas reached the top of the stairs Billy prodded on well? It was a silly question, not in itself for being about an absurd subject. The distant possibility of zombie uprisings were very important among the three of them, however unlikely. It was absurd more for the fact that they had discussed it as many times as they had watched the various zombie movies that had come across their hands and played in their living room. They all knew the answers that the others would give by heart and all the arguments both for and against the plans that they made. Some people discussed religion or politics, the three of them invented survival plans for the apocalypse.

First thing that they would all do, because they were in it together, was to raid the gun store out on the highway. Amend that, the first thing that Billy would do was to take off his pants, nobody ever asked, after that they’d all cut their hair short. After they cut their hair, and Billy de-panted himself, THEN they would make a run on the gun shop. Not many people there, so there weren’t many corpses to have to wade through. The best part about that gun shop though was that they also carried some old fashioned swords and axes. Sort of as a novelty, but still a high quality products and very useful ones at that. You needed something to rely on when you ran out of bullets.

Once they were stocked up on a variety of boomsticks, shells and what not, then they would move on to the mega-store down the street a couple miles. That is where they would pick up everything that they felt that they might need in a zombie holocaust. Toilet paper, decks of cards, food, flashlights, more toilet paper(leaves suck, don’t ask). Batteries were a big one, as was a portable radio. They would come up with lists and discard them to make more. Knives, candles, bed sheets, matches, chemistry text books and Nerf weapons (they needed something to play with when they were safely away from the undead) had all graced at least one list at one time or another. Some things were more useful than others. It all depended on their moods at the time, somber and serious or giddy and silly.

After they were stocked up they usually devised two different schemes. The first is that they would hold up in the store, Dawn of the Dead style and wait for it all to pass in relative comfort. The second, which he was personally fond of, was to escape out into the wilderness and start a new community hundreds of miles away from the crushing zombie hordes. He liked the scenario so much so that he had built a storage box into the back of his aged El Camino that held all of the camping gear that they would ever need. Aside from the distant threat of the inevitable zombie uprising, it came in handy whenever he wanted to just take off from work for the weekend and spend some time alone in the woods.

The biggest factor was who would go with them. It was always the four of them (three if Billy got his way), plus usually whichever of their friends might be over at the time. They often debated about whether or not they would help any victims that they ran across along the way. In his own words Billy often said that he would lend a hand only if the chicks were hot! Lynn being the compassionate idealist always said yes to trying to save as many people as she possibly could, going out of their way if they had to. While Jason himself kept mum on the subject, he felt that it was best to help who they could, as long as they weren’t a burden. The safety of his friends came first. Lynn’s before the rest.

Their plans relied always on several important points. They would all have to be together for one. Or close to one another anyways. They were all sure that they would be on the ball and that none of them would panic when it all went down. That was never really a worry, they all acted gung ho about fighting zombies. Billy even talked about all the zombies that he was going to kill, and he would not only list, but also describe what he would do to them when he had a chance. Neither of them were sure exactly how serious he was on the subject, but some times they wondered and hoped that he was only joking with them.

With another round of bullshitting past them, they turned back to the movie.

The small office was lined with bookshelves, many of which were full to capacity and overflowing onto the floor beneath. Books and papers lay stacked along the floorboards, devouring the floor until a narrow strip of carpet, running between the door and the beautifully carved antique desk that sat underneath the windows, was all that remained visible. The room was lit by a lone lamp sat atop the desk, bathing the walls in colored patterns formed by the stained glass shade.

There sat Father Bagrowski, reading his bible. The original Latin translation. Reading the bible, or at least trying. In practice he was just staring at what might as well have been blank pages.

The day had been a trying one. Bittersweet. The last thirteen years of his life had been happy ones. Thirteen years since he had spoken his vows before God and become one of the anointed of the Church. Five of those very blessed years he had spent in this very Parish. In all of his years of observing his flock he had noticed a definite and disturbing trait possessed by the whole of humanity. Love of country and God were often set-aside during times of happiness and prosperity, only to be sought and dusted off when the tides changed and life became more difficult. These feelings were like a suit worn to funerals, moth-eaten and tattered and always in need of a good cleaning.

And here again came those sorrowful times. In the times of the prophets of the Old Testament, God Almighty would send down conquers or plagues upon His children to punish them for turning away from Him. To subdue them when they strayed too far from His chosen path, His covenant with them. He announced His great displeasure with violence. Eventually His people would finally listen, wake up and return gladly to His warm embrace, weeping for their past mistakes. Supposedly, according to His Son Jesus, Father Bagrowski’s, and all of the rest of humanity’s Lord and Savior, that cycle had ended leaving only the loving forgiving God.

The radio had said that a new plague had arisen all across the state. More than the state. The national news said that this was an international crisis, inflicting all the nations of the world with death. The whole world was plagued and suffering before God’s righteous wrath.

But Jesus had now revealed himself to his true followers yet. The world was very clearly ending before their eyes and the Lord was late. Rome had been quiet on the subject of God’s retribution. They claimed not to wish to add to the fear and panic of the times. Despite their silence, Father Bagrowski knew what was happening. Judgment day was upon them, and they had been found wanting. His parishioners knew this too, they could see the signs as clearly as could he, even those souls who only gave lip service to their faith, coming to mass only on the most holy days of Christmas and Easter. His pews were packed with the renewed faith.

A bitter victory.

Too little too late.

The church numbers had been dwindling for years, only a small number of the devout youth carried through with their parents’ expression of faith. Sure people claimed the faith, but then they only showed up to services on Easter and Christmas, taking the rest of the year to sleep in.

But once again, the church was full of singing voices and prayers for forgiveness begging for deliverance. Father Bagrowski shook his head and wondered why it must always come down to this? Why did his people never learn? The Scriptures were clear, laying out the eternal cycle of arrogance, failure and then redemption. But why couldn’t they just learn finally and walk the path that they had been ordered? Only the fool said in his own heart that there was no God.

Here they were once more, dying and crying out for God’s forgiveness and aid.

Father Bagrowski even wondered if their Father was even listening to his children anymore. He ran his fingers through his short, grey flecked, light brown hair. Back to the Psalms of King David. The Lord is my Shepard, I shall not want, he maketh me lie…

He stood up and paced to the door and back along his worn strip of carpet. Even the book of Psalms, the calming and ever inspiring book of wisdom and faith written by the greatest anointed warrior king of Israel, even they were unable to calm his mind.

The pacing did nothing to sooth his nerves.

He returned to his chair, turned it to face out the windows, and gazed out into his little courtyard garden. The garden had always been his sanctuary from the troubled times of the material world. The sun was setting, and a pleasant breeze was passing through. The shadows deepened as the sunlight faded away until the spotlights blinked on, casting shadows that followed the forms of the garden as it danced in the wind. Even the beauty of the evening sunlight playing on the flowers could not take his mind off his woes.

The most harrowing part of the ordeal was the test of his faith. His parishioners, his flock, had the sick and dying amongst them, driving them back into the pews where they belonged. The plague though had not been isolated and spread among only the strays, but within even the very faithful of the flock.

Mrs. Saboski, one of his most kindhearted and dedicated parishioners, a woman who attended every single mass and confessed daily (as if she had anything to confess, but she did anyhow, and to be honest, her confessions were very dull to take), a true modern saint of a woman, long-suffering and meek, the greatest of their Lord’s followers. She had born the brunt of God’s wrath, falling ill and sending her eldest son to take her place in the pews.

He was a boy, or now a man, who hadn’t stepped through the sacred arches to attend communion for the greater part of the last decade. If rumor held true he had been working as a pimp in some back alley whorehouse for many of those years. How his mother had been struck down, only to leave him hale and whole, defied reason. Maybe it was God’s way to bring him back into the fold. But why take one such as Mrs. Saboski? The woman did everything in her power to lead the boy to God. Why punish her for failing her lost cause?

But within the church, that was the worst news of it all. Three of his nuns had been afflicted. Two of the sick had taken their vows more than two decades before hand. What sort of sins had they committed, these brides of Christ?

Humanity must have greatly angered the Lord for Him to target His clergy with his wrath. It was the only logical answer for the turn of events that he had beheld. Where had they in turn failed him in their ministrations? Where had they been blind or lazy in their work in His name?

But they had worked so hard. Stretched their budget and labored long hours and into the depth of the night. The nuns most of all, they had lived for the spreading of the word in their deeds amongst the lost and orphaned, as they tried to lead those granted with free will and blinded with the sins to the flesh to His glorious word and away from their lowly beginnings. Was this how He repaid their selfless toil and sacrifice? By striking them down?

What if he had been wrong in the first place? What if there had been no God at all, and the love that he had felt was an illusion? What if the Church, and his life within, had been built on a long-lived lie? What if there was a God, but the Church wasn’t the true faith as he had so long believed and preached.

The moment of temptation. Even their Lord had faced it. The devil was ever there, waiting in the shadows to whisper doubts. Waiting to spring and attack in the moments of weakness such as these. Father Bagrowski had had his faith shaken before, but never so powerfully. Never to its very foundations. Would those foundations crack and have his whole being collapse?

Nuns sick, perhaps dying. The wheat burned along with the chaff.

He stood again and walked to the door and placed his hand on the carved surface. It was made with solid oak and carved in the relief of a story taken from the book of Mathew, the Christ preaching to the masses, arms outspread and raised in blessing. He eased the heavy door open on its well oiled hinges and let himself out into the corridor beyond. His study had become too small and stuffy all of a sudden, too close. Father Bagrowski was overcome by the need to stretch his legs.

The halls were empty, save himself, the sisters had been set to ministering to the sick and the frightened as they poured into the awaiting arms of the church. As he walked, only the reverberation of his footsteps on the stone floors arose to meet his ears. Some time in the past two hours since he had retreated to his office, the massive pipe organ that had been the pride (pride, one of the sins of humanity) and joy of the community, had fallen silent.

Big Mary massaged her lower back. She was a large woman, not just fat, but all around big. Almost as tall as the majority of American men, and she out weighed most of them. Some of her bulk was even muscle, though it was like a solid core of apple wrapped in a jellowey outer shell. Thinking of Jello molds made her hungry. She was a big woman. If she had to guess, it was due to some unexpected reaction caused by the mixing of her parent’s African and Samoan genes. Big, tall and strong. That was her. All wrapped up with the homely brown-ribbon bow that was her face. A face lined by long years of smiling. And even more tears.

Her uniform was stained from the night’s hard use, spots of sweat had formed here and there, where the fabric rose like ocean swells on a rough sea, pressed against her ample flesh. All of the walking had made the sweat pour from her body, drenching the cloth with salty water and making her uniform resemble the ocean that much more closely. Even with the building’s air-conditioning working hard to make the building’s atmosphere comfortable for the people housed within.

Her feet ached, even in the supportive tennis shoes with the expensive inserts. She didn’t want to think of how her feet would have pained her back in the days where formal shoes and high heels had been required as part of the uniforms for the nurses and caretakers. Eight hours on her feet in heels would probably break her as sure as a week of torture.

She stopped for a moment and checked her clipboard. She just completed her final round of the floor, having checked all of the patients under her care. She had a few other tasks to complete and then she was going to take a much needed and deserved break.

It had been a long shift, and it was only going to get worse. Three of her orderly’s had called in sick so far that morning. Half of her ward had taken ill too. Some sort of flu it looked like. A nasty thing it was too, they had a fever, the chills and were feeling an overall bodily weakness. Not that most of them were very strong to begin with. It was heartbreaking to see these poor dears drained of what little strength that they did have. At least though, there was no nausea reported. Cleaning up vomit from forty different patients would have been more than she would have cared to do.

The poor dears. She said aloud to nobody in particular. Most of her patients were in their seventies or eighties. Many of them suffered from such afflictions as senility. And quite a number of them were bedridden. Making her rounds and seeing their eternal suffering broke her heart some days. Most days. Hardly a month went past when she didn’t lose a couple of them. The poor, poor dears. They were put in this place to die, and most of them knew it. Whether they were aware of anything else or not, they seemed to know that their race was nearly run.

Mary looked around to make sure that nobody was standing near by and watching, before she scratched herself in a certain private area that nobody else need know. The air conditioner was on the fritz again and the night had been full of hard labor in warm rooms that caused sweat to drip from her brow. She let out a content moan, she had been aching to find relief in that spot for what felt like hours now.

All she really wanted to do was to go home and get a good day’s sleep. But that wasn’t going to happen was it? No, she was going to have to pull another double shift. The pay was outstanding, but the long hours were at times quite wearisome. The job was stressful too. But she loved the people. All of them. Not counting some of the administrators, but they could hardly be considered people now could they?

The random potted plants swayed with the wind that she created with her passage through the corridor. Mary watched the reflection of the overhead florescent lights on the waxed tile floors stretch and morph as she walked. It was something that she had done as a child, watching the patterns that the light made. That she fallen once again into the childhood habit was measure of how tired she was. She forced herself to stop, and instead looked at the furniture as she walked down the corridor. Uncomfortable chairs mostly, one or two in the nook between the doorways that lead to each of the little rooms. They were meant to briefly seat the visitors of the patients as they waited their turn. At this early hour the chairs were all empty. But then, the chairs were nearly always empty.

At times like this loneliness hung over the ward like an invisible fog, it was nearly tangible against her skin. She could feel it all the way down to her bones as if a giant hand was squeezing her. It would be worse for the patients. They never got to leave the hospital. The poor dears. They were such nice, interesting and wonderful people. And now they were forgotten and abandoned. The hospital was like the Humane Society for unwanted people. This place worse even than an orphanage found in the works of Dickens. If nothing else, Dickens’ children could eventually escape.

When she had first started on the job more than thirty years ago, the thought had made her weep. Every day when she had gone home, she cried herself to sleep on her pillow. With time she became more determined to show these people as much kindness as she could. Mary was a sweet, kind woman, and she had a lot of love to share. The job had been more than a job. It gave her life meaning. She never married, she never had kids of her own. And her own family was hundreds of miles away. She needed the people here as much, if not more than they needed her.

So, she was willing to work the double shifts when she had to. She accepted the discomfort and pain. Some things were just more important. And her job was one of those things.

A voice came over the intercom, echoing through the hallway ahead and behind her Mary, please report to the front desk. Mary’s heart sank as she heard the summons, it was never a good sign. Either she was in trouble, unlikely, or an even worse event had transpired, like a death, or one of her staff was fired and she was being called as a witness. Considering the facts that none of the administrators would be around at this hour, that left only one option. Mary wondered who it was.

She went to the front desk as summoned using the most direct way possible, though she walked at her normal slow waddling speed. Walking faster just made her look silly, besides, who wanted to get bad news any more quickly.

The usual clamor greeted her as she entered the lobby. There was the hum of the computers that was barely audible over the racket coming from the television. They kept it tuned into the news, CNN some days, Fox News on others. MSNBC rarely. The television was there as much for the distracting noise as it was to keep the office workers informed about the goings on of the outside world.

Having the news on had managed at times to help them keep a sense of relativity in their lives. Mrs. Smith dying all suddenly like that might be upsetting, but what was it to a car bomb killing fifteen small children in the middle east? It was morbid and somewhat demeaning, but it helped them from slumping into a depression brought on by the near constant misery of the world in which they lived. A sad fact of living on Earth, no matter how bad it was in your neck of the woods, somebody else always seemed to have it worse.

The front desk was their reception desk for the facility. Someone, one of the more intelligent administrators. Intelligent administrator. Hah. Less stupid, she’d leave it at that. One of the less stupid administrators had at one time decided to lighten the atmosphere and make it less imposing using potted plants. The remodeling had worked to an extent and the desk looked marginally more cheerful that it had.

Diane the nurse-receptionist did a lot to dispel that smidgeon of cheer. She was an angry woman. Stuck for ten years now doing the same job with just minor pay raises and a worsening economy to keep her from quitting. Small and round, most of her ample form was hidden behind the desk and computer monitor, all you could usually see on passing was the top portion of her deeply lined forehead.

Her hair was rolled up in the standard bun that the nurses in the facility favored, with the usual end of day loose strands poking out here and there. For the time being she looked more tired than angry and just a little sad. Even the hardest heart on