Apocalypse - Keith R. A. DeCandido [34]
If only the same could have been said for Morales.
Jill couldn’t entirely blame Morales for turning her video camera back on. She hadn’t been kidding about this footage being worth an Emmy—Christ, maybe a Pulitzer—if they got out of this alive. Hell, if Jill had had video documentation of what had happened at Arklay, she’d never have been suspended.
Unfortunately, the camera made a beeping noise when it started recording.
A noise that echoed like a gunshot in the quiet church.
The creature turned toward them.
Peyton had his weapon out before Jill could draw a breath. “Run, now!” he screamed as he started shooting at the thing.
The creature was too fast, though—it dashed up toward the roof.
Even as it did so, the one doing its gecko impersonation over the church door leapt down at them.
No, at Jill.
Before she could even raise the .357, the creature slammed into her, knocking the wind out of her and sending her crashing to the floor. The blood-slick weapon slipped from her grasp, careening across the church floor under a pew.
Jill gasped for breath and rolled onto hands and knees, groping for one of her automatics. Nearby, Peyton tried to shoot the creature that had taken her down, but its tongue snapped out like a snake and knocked his weapon from his hand.
Then Peyton looked up. Jill followed his gaze.
The glow in the stained glass had grown brighter. And she could hear the sound of an engine.
No, not just any engine—a Harley.
Jill smiled.
“Down!” Peyton cried, but Jill was already ducking.
With a crash that resounded through the old church like an A-bomb, the stained glass shattered into thousands of pieces, the victim of a Harley-Davidson motorcycle impacting it at high speed.
The bike slammed right into the creature, body-checking it and sending it flying across the church.
Pain wracked Jill’s chest, and she was having trouble breathing, much less getting to her feet. As she struggled to catch her breath, she tried to get a good look at their rescuer.
He wasn’t what Jill expected.
For starters, he was a she. Such Harleys usually were ridden by large, middle-aged white men. The skinnier variety generally weighed upwards of three hundred pounds, and they tended toward facial hair that made the front men for ZZ Top look clean shaven.
But this Harley was driven by an athletic-looking white woman with dirty blond hair, a shotgun in a back holster, one nickel-plated Uzi on each hip, and a Colt .45 in a shoulder holster.
She was also wearing only a hospital gown with a white lab coat over it.
On any other day, Jill would have found this weird.
The woman looked at Jill with ice blue eyes and said one word.
“Move.”
Morales certainly didn’t need to be told twice. She ran for the front doors like a bat out of hell, Peyton limping along behind her, while Jill was still struggling to rise.
That turned out to be a huge tactical error.
On the other side of the doors that Morales opened was a teeming mass of zombies, all wanting to get in and chow down on what few living were left.
Peyton came to her rescue, and the pair of them slammed the doors shut.
The front door was certainly not an option.
Meanwhile, Biker Lady revved her Harley to a point that had to be way past the red line, then put it in gear—but with her bare feet planted on the floor.
The bike shot out from between her legs—another bit of symbolism Jill could have done without—straight into one of the creatures.
Both the creature and the Harley went flying into the air.
Biker Lady pulled her Colt and fired a single shot.
Just as Jill was wondering how this woman thought one bullet was going to stop this thing, she saw the bullet hit the Harley’s gas tank.
And then the bike exploded, taking the creature and a good chunk of the altar, pulpit, lectern, and candles with it.
The third creature dropped from the ceiling, but Biker Lady was ready for this one, too. Whipping out both Uzis, she unloaded dozens of rounds into the creature as it fell.
When it hit the floor, it didn’t get up.
Jill felt her breathing