Now phase two begins as Jeremiah hurriedly backs away from the trailer.
This is the part Jeremiah relishes the most: the acting part. He once heard of an actual psychological disorder categorized and catalogued in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual called Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. The condition involves behavior patterns in which caregivers, often nannies and nurses, induce health problems in those under their care merely so the patient can be rescued. Thinking about it brings a wry smile to the lips of the preacher as he crouches in the shadows and waits for the screaming to start.
* * *
Father Patrick Liam Murphy stirs from a strange recurring dream, a nightmare he has been having for the last year that involves being buried alive.
He sits up suddenly on his sweat-damp portable cot, which is shoved against the RV’s front fire wall. Heart hammering in his chest, he sees shadows moving on either side of him, smells the rancid rot, and hears the buzz-saw growling. He rolls off the cot just in time to avoid a clawlike hand about to grab his nightshirt.
The priest lets out a bellowing howl of shock and surprise and smashes into an aluminum cupboard, which teeters and falls with a resounding crash, spilling bowls and cups and utensils and bottles of butane across the floor. He realizes far too late that he’s trapped, alone in his trailer with three monsters, that his gun is on the other side of the room, and that he left a lantern on the bedside table burning when he drifted off after his nightly pint of cheap whiskey.
The impact of the falling cupboard causes the lamp to tip and fall on one of the creatures, the kerosene instantly catching the thing’s pant leg on fire. The air crackles and fills with hellish odors as the priest moves on instinct now. Rolling away from another cold, dead hand slashing down at him, he crawls toward the cab and suddenly finds a long, metal barbecue fork that has fallen off a nearby shelf.
Something grabs his leg, and cold gooseflesh spreads across the bare skin of his ankle for a single instant before he reacts. He jerks his leg back before the female can get her slimy incisors into his flesh, and he howls again and says something garbled and inarticulate to his One Dear Lord and Savior.
Then Father Murphy plunges the fork into the eye socket of the female, the tines sinking into the pulpy meat of the dead occipital. Black matter bubbles and oozes around the hilt of the fork as the female instantly sags and collapses to the floor, her desiccated body now as still as a sack of laundry. The priest twists around and madly crawls toward the front cab enclosure, still unharmed, still unbitten.
Behind him, in the flickering light of the fire, the two males freeze at the sound of footsteps. A figure appears outside the back door. “PADRE!” An all-too familiar-voice—to the priest, a voice like fingernails clawing across slate. “PADRE, I’M COMING!”
The door bangs open with the force of a huge Wellington boot kicking it in.
A big man in a black suit fills the doorway. The two male walkers stagger, clawing at the air, the fire sparking and climbing up the leg of the older one. Reverend Jeremiah Garlitz raises his 9-millimeter pistol and squeezes off two shots in quick succession at point-blank range. The blasts take off the tops of the creatures’ skulls, sending pink mist spraying against the inner walls of the RV.
The monsters collapse, the flames exploding in a blossom of sparks.
“Are you okay?!” Jeremiah scans the dark living space for the priest. He sees the flames creeping across the floor. “Talk to me, Padre!” Jeremiah removes his coat and pats out the fire. “Padre?!—WHERE ARE YOU?”
From behind the fallen cot, the Irishman lets out a meek little chuckle. “That was … interesting.”
“Thank Christ!” The big preacher rushes over to the upended cot. He kneels by his fallen comrade. Jeremiah’s eyes already shimmer with emotion as he cradles the priest’s head. “Are you bit?”
“Don’t think so.” Father Murphy tries to move but his arthritic joints are frozen, seized up with pain. He needs a drink. He pats his arms, his midsection, feels his neck. He looks at his hand. No blood. “I think I got lucky this time, if you can call this lucky.”
Outside the trailer, the sounds of voices and footsteps fill the air.
“Don’t try to move,” Jeremiah says. “We’re gonna get you help, you’re gonna be fine.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” A bolt of panic travels down the priest’s spine. “What are you doing? Why are you—?”
“You’re gonna be fine. You’re a tough old cuss, gonna outlive us all.”
Father Murphy feels the cold steel of a Glock’s muzzle under his ear. “What are you doing? Why in God’s name are you holding your—”
The sudden and unexpected blast is the last thing Father Patrick Murphy hears.
* * *
The priest’s skull erupts, the bullet passing through his brain and blowing back wet splatter in Jeremiah’s face. The big man flinches. The bullet chews a hole in the RV’s ceiling, puffing fiberglass and metal shards in a tuft of filaments. The explosion makes Jeremiah’s ears ring, almost drowning out the footsteps closing in from outside, several sets, each one hastening across the yard toward the priest’s RV. Someone hollers Father Murphy’s name.
Jeremiah springs into action. He shoves the priest’s body to the floor, lurches across the enclosure, and grabs the shriveled remains of the old female. He drags the corpse by the nape over to the priest.
Within seconds, Jeremiah has clamped the walker’s teeth down upon the priest’s exposed ankle. Ragged incisors pierce the skin. Phase three. Quickly. Now. Working up tears is easy. With all the adrenaline sluicing through his body—the thrill of this impromptu coup d’etat—he spontaneously breaks into artificial sobs, his lungs heaving, genuine tears welling up, salt-sting burning his eyes.
A face appears in the rear doorway, the fair-haired young man named James. “Father?! FATHER MURPHY?!”
Jeremiah gazes up, the blood spatter on his face mingling like watercolors with his tears. “James, I’m sorry, he got—”
“Oh Jesus.”
Jeremiah shakes his head and cradles the priest in his arms. “He got bit.”
“How the fuck—?!”
“He begged me to put him down, and I didn’t want to do it but he begged me and we prayed together.”
“But how did—?!”
“I recited the last rites for him the best I could remember them.”
“Oh Jesus.” James Frazier climbs into the living chamber, choking on his shock and tears. “How the hell did they get in?”
Jeremiah lets out a raspy sigh of agony, bowing his head in an Academy Award–worthy performance. “Dear God, dear God … I just don’t know.”
“Oh Jesus, Jesus, sweet Jesus Christ our Lord,” James babbles, and kneels and puts his hand on the dead priest. “Dear Lord, in this hour of … this hour of … of sorrow … please take his soul in the bosom of … your kingdom … and … and … deliver him … OH JESUS!”
The young man slumps to the floor, weeping convulsively, as Jeremiah tenderly strokes his shoulder. “It’s okay. Let it out, son.”
The crying carries out into the night and echoes up into the black sky.
The other caravan members—now gathering by the open doorway—stand paralyzed.
Not a single one of them is aware they are witnessing an epochal exchange of power.
* * *
For the rest of that night, and for most of the next day, Jeremiah helps the surviving members of the convoy deal with the tragic loss of their spiritual guide and moral compass. No one feels like driving, so they secure the periphery and place guards at key points around the site, and Jeremiah urges people to vent, to express themselves, to pray, and to remember their leader.
They bury the man in the southeast corner of the KOA camp, near a grove of pecan trees. James says a few words, and then a few other alpha dogs have their say, each one of them eventually breaking down and sobbing, unable to continue. The death of Father Murphy hits them hard. Jeremiah ca
n see they need to let out the grief.
By sundown the next night, very few caravan members have wandered away from the makeshift grave site. Most linger over the loosely packed pile of earth, as though they are houseguests who refuse to leave a beloved relative’s abode, praying, sharing stories of Father Murphy’s generous spirit and acts of kindness and legacy of courage in the face of Armageddon. Some share flasks of cheap, stale moonshine … or home-rolled corn-silk cigarettes made from the local tobacco that still stubbornly grows in profusion in south Georgia and along the northern edges of the panhandle … or the same beef jerky that they’ve been sharing for weeks now, ever since they hit that deserted truck stop outside Jacksonville.
Jeremiah watches all this until he gets an idea right around sundown.
“Folks … if I may say something?” He rises to his full height at the edge of the burial mound. Still dressed in his black mourning suit and threadbare tie, he looks more than ever like a strange government man from another age—a revenue agent or an auditor come to take stock of the caravan’s books. He holds a leather wine bota filled with the same awful whiskey he’d been sharing for hours with James Frazier, Norma Sutters, Leland Burress, and Miles Littleton. “I know it ain’t my place to speak at such a solemn and important occasion such as this.” He looks around the group with a humble, contrite expression. “I didn’t know the Padre even remotely as well as y’all. I have no right to say anything on his behalf. All I want to say is, you measure a man not by what he makes in his life, you measure a man by what he leaves behind. And let me tell ya, old Patrick L. Murphy left behind a whole mess of love, and one great big dream.”
He pauses, and this is Jeremiah Garlitz’s genius: the ability to hold an audience with well-chosen silence. He lets silence work like a river cleaves mountains, like a tiny sapling takes root and grows into an enormous redwood. He makes love with silence.
“Father Murphy left behind a dream of solace and succor in the face of the End Days … a beautiful dream amidst the beasts of hell … a dream of something more than survival. He left behind a dream of life. He wanted y’all to flourish. Together. Moving, always moving. Like a stream turns into a river and a river turns into the sea.”
More silence. Some listeners begin to clear their throats, fight tears, and bow their heads. They need this. They need to release something, and the silence gives them permission. They listen so closely to the silence, Jeremiah feels as though he can hear their heartbeats.
“I don’t know about y’all, but in my short sweet time with the Padre, I realized he knew something that I didn’t. He knew the key to paradise—and no, I ain’t talking about heaven right now. I’m talking about paradise on earth. Even amid these desecrated times, these horrible ruins, he held the key to paradise, and you know what that was? At the end of the day, do you know what paradise is?”
Another beat of dramatic silence as Jeremiah makes eye contact with each listener—dirty, plague-worn, terrified faces staring back at him, hungering for salvation and answers, eyes moist with sorrow.
“It’s us. Us! With good treads on our tires and a few gallons of high test in our tanks.” He raises his voice. “That’s all Father Patrick Murphy ever wanted. For us to stay together, and stay on the move. That simple. That’s what the Padre’s paradise is … the convoy. On the move. Just as the ancient Israelites escaped from Egypt! The convoy! Just as the Hebrews wandered Canaan!” He lets out a triumphant shout: “THE CONVOY!”
Leland Burress, a heavyset former pipe fitter from Tallahassee who has been known to regularly vent about the Jews controlling the banking system, springs to his feet and makes a ham-hock-sized fist and cries out, “Damn straight!”
Jeremiah grins a beatific sort of grin full of humility and earnestness.
Across the makeshift burial site, a portly woman in a floral print sundress turns away, her lips pursed with disdain and incredulity.
* * *
Norma Sutters stands on the far edge of the pecan grove, listening with a sour look on her face, as the preacher finally gets to the point of his little impromptu sermon. The whole speech strikes Norma as not only inappropriate but also a little disturbing—the way the big man in the black suit coat has almost seamlessly taken over the ceremony, and the subtle tone of condescension in his voice as he blatantly tugs on the heartstrings. Norma Sutters knows all the signals. She has dealt with a rogues’ gallery of hypocrites in her life. This guy is off the scale.
“You all right?” Miles whispers to her. The young man standing next to her in the hoodie and the tarnished bling from happier times furrows his brow. It’s obvious from the look on his face he senses something as well, but he apparently can’t quite articulate it.
She shushes him, putting a plump finger to her lips, indicating they should pay attention to what the preacher is saying.
“Friends, I humbly come to you today with a proposition,” the preacher is now announcing to the group, letting out the stops on his big baritone, lifting his voice to the heavens, projecting with the skill of a backwoods Olivier, so that the far edges of the crowd can hear every breath, every dramatic pause. Most preachers are just naturally theatrical and vociferous, but there’s something about this guy that Norma can’t quite pin down. Something manipulative. And scary. “I have no right to stand in the shoes of our dearly departed Padre—no one does—but I will gladly, in tribute to his legacy, volunteer to step up. With your blessings, with your approval, with your help, I will gladly take the reins of this great community—this mobile fraternity of God-fearing Christians—if you’ll have me, if you’ll give me that honor.”
Murmurs of approval ripple through the two dozen or so mourners still lingering there in the purple twilight and the dense shadows of crooked pecan boughs hanging over the grave site. Miles had secretly shared with Norma earlier that day his belief that Leland Burress would be the one to take over. Leland was a far more likely candidate to replace Father Murphy than some interloper with a Bible and a cross. Leland had started the convoy back around the early days of the outbreak. An independent gun shop owner from Jacksonville, Leland and his late wife had lived in a trailer park near the St. Johns River, and when people had started dying and coming back hungry for human flesh, Leland followed his instincts to move and keep moving.
A breeze blows the faint odor of rotting flesh across the musk of fallen pecan shells. Norma feels sick to her stomach as she shares a loaded glance with the young man standing next to her. “Mmmmm-hm … what a surprise,” she mutters under her breath with wry disgust.
Across the bare ground of the freshly dug grave, the big preacher does what all salesmen do naturally—he goes for the close: “I don’t expect y’all to accept me right off the bat, to trust me as much as y’all came to trust that dear, dear man we just put in the ground. I don’t expect y’all to make a decision this important without giving it a lot of thought, without takin’ a vote, without being dang sure.”
One final dramatic pause. One final moment of eye contact with practically every listener, and then: “But I promise you this, and I assure you that this is the God’s gospel truth: If y’all accept me as your leader, I will lead. I have been in the wilderness for nigh on to a year now, and I have survived, and I will do everything in my power to make sure all y’all survive, each and every last one of you, and I will pray to the Lord Almighty that He helps me make sure that all y’all prosper. Because y’all are God’s children, and we will prevail!” A few shouts of approval mingle with his words. “WE! WILL! PREVAIL! TOGETHER! AS ONE!!”
Now the hollering drowns out his words and sets Norma’s teeth on edge.
As the crowd gathers around the big man, a victory celebration breaks out, reminding Norma of the campaign headquarters of some two-bit politician. She signals to Miles, and the two disgruntled listeners discreetly slip away into the shadows beyond the pecan trees.
The Reverend Jeremiah Garlitz, flush with boisterous approbation, doesn’t notice the hasty departure of
his only two skeptics.
FIVE
The next morning, just before dawn, as the caravan sparks its engines in a series of rumbling reports and coughing blasts of carbon monoxide, Jeremiah assumes his newly acquired throne behind the wheel of the priest’s battered RV, on the same shopworn pilot chair that the previous leader had planted his bony rear end for so many months. At first demurring at the offer to drive Father Murphy’s beloved Winnebago, with its rattling portraits of the Pope and church-sponsored Little League teams, Jeremiah eventually reconsiders, coming to the conclusion that it might be an elegant little piece of symmetry.
Now Jeremiah proudly pulls onto the main road with the weight of the entire convoy behind him, an early morning mist coming down like gunmetal steel curtains in the gray dawn. The air has an acrid tang to it, like burned circuits, and the sky is so low and opaque it has the look of old charcoal, like something taken out of the ground. This part of Florida has a primordial feel to it, all mossy and moldy with a patina of furry age on every surface, every fence post, every mailbox and road sign and power line.
Reese and Stephen follow immediately behind the RV in the dented Escalade, each young man healing nicely with the benefit of the caravan’s first aid and medical provisions. Behind the SUV come the fourteen other vehicles, each filled with plague-weary, shell-shocked former acolytes of the dead priest. The vote to make Jeremiah the new leader—simple “Yes” or “No” declarations on torn paper ballots gathered in Jeremiah’s hat—had been almost unanimous, with the identities of the only two members of the caravan to dissent still unknown to Jeremiah.