Elliot helped the men. He and several others ran through the church, grabbing desks and chairs and anything else they could find, and stacking their haul against the doors. While they did this, Jeffry and the women took the children in the back then began closing and fastening the shutters. From outside, they could hear the crazies gibbering, but the sound was far off still. Elliot wondered what they were up to and why the zombies hadn’t pressed the attack.

Nahom, this far out in the mountains, didn’t have electricity lines, so when the last of the shutters was pulled shut, the church became completely dark. Children cried out and sobbed, mothers and fathers doing their best to provide comfort while clearly upset themselves. Elliot tracked down Evajean and sat with her as Jeffry talked quietly to his people, telling them they needed only wait this out, that the people outside couldn’t get in.

“I’m not going to say I’m scared,” Evajean said.

“I know,” Elliot said, looking around, trying to see if there was somewhere else they might sit, closer to an easy exit in case things went bad.

“I’m scared,” she said.

Elliot put his hand on hers. “Remember what we said? About just sticking this out and leaving?” He squeezed. “It’s one more thing to stick out.”

“Yeah,” she said.

“Only one more thing.”

And they were quiet for several minutes then, listening to the sounds of the Nahom’s citizens, these fundamentalists making perhaps their last stand in their house of God. Still, the sense of strength Elliot got from them was staggering. The people of this town were not terrified anymore. They’d set those emotions aside and made themselves focus on what they could do against the horde that had violently interrupted their mourning. Elliot had to respect them for that, even if he couldn’t fully wrap his head around what they got out of their isolated, religion driven existence.

“I’m going to talk to Jeffry,” Elliot said when he was relatively sure Evajean was in control. “I want to know what he plans to do.”

“Just to wait,” she said. “Like he told us. Just wait.”

“And hope they go away? I’m not buying that. It’s silly. We don’t have any food.”

She shook her head and Elliot could barely make out the gesture in the faint light coming from the small stained glass windows near the roof. “It’s–”

Something heavy slammed against one of the windows to their right. Children screamed and a group of men rushed to the location of the hit. Then a crash came from the other side of the church and Elliot turned to see a faint arc of sunlight where the wooden shutter had cracked.

“Stay here,” he said to Evajean and ran over to the small breach, trying to see outside. He couldn’t make out much more than moving shapes, blurred and indistinct, but then another rock crashed into the window and the glass between him and the shutters’ wooden slats shattered. He fell back, away from the falling glass, and called out. “Over here!” he yelled. “They’re coming through over here!”

Men, women, and more than a few kids scattered, some heading toward Elliot and the window to fight anything that might burst forth, while others ran in the opposite direction, terrified to be near the crazies if they did make it through. Elliot stayed where he was, again trying to look through the break in the shutters to get a sense of what they might be up against.

Unfortunately, the view was still poor and the best he could do was affirm that more of the crazies had gathered. Someone behind him said, “Get away from there, we’re going to–”

And then an arm was around Elliot’s chest, dragging him backwards, and four men carrying a pew hurried past, flipping their enormous load up against the window’s empty frame.

“That won’t hold!” Elliot shouted. “There’s too many!” But they weren’t listening–and probably couldn’t have heard him anyway over the noise from the pack of children cowering on the floor to his left.

He wished he could see. The man who’d held him–Elliot didn’t know any of their names, except Jeffry, who was futilely directing, and Andrews, who was with the men near the window–let go and Elliot spun around in the near dark, trying to see Evajean. He couldn’t find her, however, and, anyway, he wasn’t sure what he would have done if he had. They were trapped in the church with the exits blocked and some indeterminate number of crazies out there, ready to tear the citizens of Nahom apart if only they could figure a way in. The real trouble was, after his experience in the cave, Elliot knew the crazies were smart. They weren’t like slow and dumb movie zombies you could count on to just keep walking into the closed door until they either rotted or the wood collapsed from all that gentle nudging.

So he found a seat at one of the few remaining pews, waiting for Evajean to find him, and thought about what to do next. What were the chances the crazies–who he could now make out shouting from beyond the church’s walls–weren’t after him and Evajean, that they’d leave them alone in favor of Nahom’s Mormons? Not likely, especially since the woman in red had shown such interest in him. He hadn’t seen her in the mass of crazies coming down from the ridge, but their number was so large that he could have just missed her.

No matter what, he knew he couldn’t count on Uncle Jeffry and his boys to protect him and Evajean. They were on their own, just like she’d predicted. These people would fight for their own and Elliot needed to be ready to do the same.

He stood up, and saw Evajean. She was with the men near the window now, talking to one of them, who had to lean down close to hear. She looked up when Jeffry again called his people to attention.

“We don’t have a lot of time,” Jeffry said, standing atop a pew three rows ahead of where Elliot sat. “Those people out there, those beasts, are going to get through that window or another window and they’re going to try to hurt us like they did before. We need to be ready to fight them and we need to be ready to die to protect what’s ours. I want you men finding anything you can to defend yourselves. There’s a sword above the bookcase in my office and I have a few letter openers, too. Not a lot, but it will have to be good enough.” He paused while a pair of men broke from the pack to get the weapons. “The rest of you, look for anything. Break legs off these pews or the chairs if you need to. Once that’s done, we’re going downstairs.”

Downstairs? Elliot hadn’t seen any way down. Why had Jeffry just now mentioned it? Of course going into a basement was their best bet, since that’d limit the ways the crazies could get to them.

But then Jeffry said, “And once we’re downstairs, everyone here knows what to do.”

Shit, Elliot thought. What does that mean? He remembered the men in the woods, the treasure hunters, and Andrews’s mention of blood atonement. None of the things those same people might know to do in the basement were going to be good. Was this a suicide cult, like Jim Jones? Were they going to lead the children down below and then everyone would drink Kool Aid and die peacefully while the crazies pounded to get in?

No. No, they were gathering weapons. You don’t arm yourself before drinking poison. Still, Elliot wasn’t going to take any chances. He ran to Evajean.

“We have to find a way out of here, ” he said, trying to keep his voice low enough that nobody but she could hear.

“You think?” she said. “What are they going to do, Elliot? In the basement, what are they–”

“I don’t know,” he said. “But it’d be damn stupid of us to stick around to find out. I don’t want to be locked down there with them no matter what they’re up to.”

Evajean glanced around. “But how do we get out? The doors are– They’ve stacked all that stuff up against them and the windows are locked.”

“And the crazies,” Elliot said. “We’d have to get by them.”

Evajean didn’t hear this, however. She was reaching out and grabbing the arm of a man standing nearby. He turned, startled, and she said, “We need to get our dog. We forgot our dog back at the house.”

The man stared at her.

She said again, “Our dog, the one I brought with me.”

The man said, “No. Those people out there will hurt you. Uncle Jeffry–”

“Look,” she said, “all I’m asking is, when you all head into that basement, you let us stay up here. We’ll get the dog, come back, you let us in. Okay?”

His eyes shifted to Jeffry, who was talking with a group of women while the men tore apart the pews. “Uncle–”

“Don’t worry about him, okay?”

A Note From The Author: If you’re enjoying the story so far–and I certainly hope you are–it’d be terrific if you could take a moment to vote for the link to the novel over on Digg. If all ninety of you subscribed to the email list do that, we can get “The Hole” on Digg’s front page. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, however, just ignore this note. And thanks again for reading. I’ve got a lot more coming.