The man shrugged. “I’ll have to talk to Uncle Jeffry.”

Evajean said, “Okay, fine, you do that. But I want my dog.”

Shaking his head, the man walked away to help his friends tear apart furniture.

“What the hell was that?” Elliot said, when he was gone. “The crazies are out there. We’re not going after that dog.”

“No. But if they think we are, they won’t expect us to head down into the basement with them. And we don’t want to be in that basement, right?”

Elliot nodded. “Right. Okay, you’re right. But that doesn’t help us with what we’re going to do once we’re left up here–if Jeffry lets us get away with your plan. We still can’t get out.”

“One thing at a time,” she said. “We can just hide if we have to. There has to be somewhere in here where–”

“They’re going down,” Elliot said. Jeffry was standing by the door to his office, waving his hands and directing the men, women, and children in a careful line past him. The entrance must be in there, Elliot thought. Under the desk or behind the bookshelf. A secret passageway.

“Just stay here,” Evajean said. “Don’t do anything to make him change his mind.”

“Shit,” Elliot said, pointing.

“What?” But then she saw. Jeffry had called over three men and was talking to them while glancing and gesturing at Elliot and Evajean. “They’re not going to let us,” she said.

“No,” Elliot said, “and we can’t get out.”

The men broke away from Jeffry and began walking across the now empty floor of the church toward the two of them. Jeffry called out, “I’m afraid getting your dog is too dangerous. I’m going to have to insist you come with us.”

“I want my dog!” Evajean shouted at him as the men closed in. One grabbed her by the arms and the other two flanked Elliot. Neither he nor Evajean struggled–there wasn’t much of a point–and they were soon stumbling across the church and into Jeffry’s office.

The desk had been pulled out and swung against one wall and the carpet pulled aside. Underneath was a trap door, four feet on a side, leaning open as the last of the townspeople climbed down the latter into whatever lay underneath the church.

“Let go of us,” Elliot said as they got near Jeffry. Evajean shook herself in the arms of her captor, but remained quiet.

“I won’t do that,” Jeffry said. “I’m sorry about this, really, but the simple fact is that the two of you have become too important to let you get killed by those people out there. I’ll do my best to explain, I promise, but for now you’ll have to trust me. We’ve dealt with them before, we know how to get through it again. My men are strong. All will be well.”

“Go to hell,” Evajean said. “We don’t want to go down there with you.”

Jeffry stared at her. “You mustn’t–”

“No,” she went on. “Goddamn it, I spent the day helping your mindless women make that stupid food and I gotta say, you people are as nuts as any of the crazies outside.”

“Ms. Rhodes,” Jeffry said, tilting his head, indicating to the men to continue getting the two of them down into the basement. “You may speak like that out there, in that world of gentiles, but we do not use such language in Nahom. I ask you to respect that.”

Evajean laughed. “Out there?” She shook her head. “Whatever,” she said. “Whatever. Take us down there. Do whatever you want. But I’m going to get my goddamn dog when this is done.”

Elliot, scared deep into his guts, had to grin. Evajean was the stronger of them, he knew. And now he knew, for reasons he wouldn’t have been able to articulate, that she’d get them through this. She’d stood up to the death of her husband and pushed for this quest to find answers about his demise. She’d hauled herself out of that wrecked truck and hunted through the woods to help Elliot. She was the strong one.

Neither of them said any more as they were pushed to the ladder and made to climb down. Down turned out to be quite a bit further than he expected, thirty feet at least, by his count of the rungs, and then he was standing on hard packed earth as he watched Evajean come down after him.

The room was small and lit with torches and candles along the walls and in the hands of several of the women. It was another cave, like the one the woman in red had taken Elliot to, but larger and supported in places by thick logs. The people stood with their backs against the stone and wood, leaving the center open, and it was here the ladder touched down. Evajean dropped next to Elliot and looked around, startled by the size. The three men who’d grabbed them came next, and then Uncle Jeffry. As soon as he was down, Jeffry directed Elliot and Evajean to join the others against the walls.

“I’m going to close it now,” he said to his people. “I will close this door above us, lock it, and then it will be braced with heavy boards. Nothing will get through and nothing will interrupt us before we finish.” Several of the people near Elliot nodded at this, like it was part of a rehearsed speech they’d all listened to before.

Jeffry pointed at the trap door and one of the men–it was Andrews, Elliot saw–broke from the group and climbed the ladder. When he reached the top, there was a loud thump and the scraping of wood on wood. Then Andrews came back down and nodded at Jeffry as he went past and back into the group by the wall.

“There,” Jeffry said. “We’re safe now, the door is strong. Gather yourselves and pray that it remains so and pray for what we must now do.”