Chapter Text
After the voicemail ended, Jesse cursed violently while Amelia sobbed, trying to call her dad back. It went directly to voice mail. Dakota barked and brought their attention back to the gate where Natalie was leaning against it. Dakota continued to bark and Jesse realized why; a grey SUV was heading for the gate, and at first, he thought it was going to barrel through, but it came to a dead stop. Dakota stopped barking to growl, pressing up against Natalie’s legs as a man got out of the driver’s side.
“Thanks… for leaving me,” Natalie panted, though Jesse couldn’t tell if she was glaring or not. “What-what was happening?”
“They’re gone. Amelia got a message from her dad; they wouldn’t let them leave the evac.” He looked at her as he spoke. She was still trying to call her dad back. “You have your phone?”
“In my… my bag.”
Natalie pushed against the fence and placed a hand on Dakota’s head, and he stopped growling, but still pressed against Natalie, intently watching as the man grabbed bags out of the backseat, and a young girl got out of the passenger side. The man was tall, muscular, and freckled all over, and the girl –outside of size and build—was his spitting image. Jesse sighed and walked to their truck, muttering and cursing as he went. He grabbed his phone and tapped the screen. Five messages. No calls. No voicemails. He slammed the door shut and approached the gate again, the man and girl standing by it.
“How can they close it?” The man asked. The light Russian accent piqued Jesse’s interest.
“I-I don’t—we just got here. The, um, the helicopter left wh-when we got here.”
The man said something in Russian, sliding his hand down his face. He and Amelia continued to talk, but Jesse stepped back to Natalie. She was glistening with sweat, skin pallid, eyes distant. He put his hand on her forehead only to immediately retract it as if he were burned by the warmth radiating from her.
He peeked at the man and girl before asking quietly, “You didn’t take any meds today, right?”
Natalie managed to shake her head, but her eyes widened in the same instant. She stepped back, turned around, fingers clutching the chain-link fence as she threw up in the grass. Jesse sighed and watched, wincing when she continued to retch when nothing came up. Her knees buckled, fingers letting go of the fence, but before her knees hit the ground, Jesse grabbed her waist, which made her retch again. He carefully lowered himself until she was touching the ground. Should they go back home? Would the ER be open? No, he can’t take her there. People were still flying down the road, so going back home would be stressful, especially if Natalie ended up throwing up in the truck.
He turned to the church, then to Amelia. “Nat needs to get inside. Can you carry the bags in?”
Amelia nodded, wiping her eyes. “Y-yeah. I’ll go—let me go get the door open, too.”
As she left, the man stared at Natalie. “What’s wrong?”
“None of your business,” Jesse snapped, voice softening when he asked Natalie, “do you think you can walk?”
“I’m-I’m fine. Let’s just…” She stopped, brows scrunched and eyes squeezed shut.
Instead of waiting for her to continue, Jesse just pulled her back up with one arm under hers and around her back. He clicked his tongue at Dakota as they eased toward the church. When Dakota didn’t follow, growling again, Jesse loudly sighed. “Dakota! Come—”
The dog barked, and a screech filled the air from behind the cluster of vehicles. A woman came running around the truck, hands outstretched, screaming as she ran. Jesse drug Natalie into the gate and the man and his daughter followed, the man slamming the gate shut and fumbling with the lock. Another shrill scream emanated, a man came running, and right as the Russian clicked the lock into place, both slammed into the fence, bouncing off before running right back into it. The man pulled his daughter along and stepped inside the church, past Amelia, who was stood at the door. She sprinted to Natalie’s other side, helping Jesse move the older woman along.
“I-I already got—the bags are inside,” she said, glancing over her shoulder when the gate rattled.
They were climbing over it. One was just at the peak of the gate, the other on its way, and a third had emerged. The first was over, falling against the pavement with a crack! Its arm was broken, but it still got up and dashed for the trio. Dakota was backing up beside the three, growling, barking, trying to scare off the pursuers. Jesse tried shaking Natalie, but she was deadweight, head rolling from side to side. Was this the end? Swarmed by these things? These infected? One was hard enough to beat off, but three? If they had just a bit more time—
The first screamed, right behind Jesse, hair standing on end, arms tightening his hold on Natalie. The sound of a gunshot echoed. Jesse and Amelia jumped, the former glancing back to see the infected down, but the other two were closing the gap. When he looked forward again, the father had stepped out of the church, rifle raised. Another shot. As the three crossed the threshold, Dakota slipping in after, the man fired again before slamming the door shut. Jesse and Amelia went through the foyer to the worship room and laid Natalie across the chairs. Something slammed against the door, the sound resonating in the halls. Jesse creeped back into the foyer to look at it, blinked, not realizing it had been modified; rather, it was replaced with a thick, metal door, a bright green, with bars for a window, and a large pipe looped through large braces preventing the door from being pulled open from the outside. The walls were plastered with warning fliers and tables were set up with maps and documents.
“Papa, what’s going to happen?”
The man stepped away from the door when an infected reached its arm through the bars, pulling his daughter away to sit a few rows away from where Natalie was. “I’m not sure… But I will think of something.”
It made sense that they were father and daughter. Both freckled, both blue eyed with platinum blonde hair. They looked more alike than Natalie and Jesse did. He huffed softly. “Amelia, where are the bags?”
She looked up from her phone. “Um, they’re behind the, um, the row N-Natalie’s in.” She moved to grab them anyway, holding both backpacks to him.
He grabbed Natalie’s and fished for her phone, and, if she packed them, the medicine. It dawned on him that she wouldn’t have had time to take them with everything that happened. Both were in the same pocket. “There’s water here somewhere, right?”
“Yeah.” Amelia went to the foyer and returned a minute later with 4 bottles cradled in her arms.
Jesse took one, then another when Amelia held another one to him. She stepped over to the father and daughter and held the bottle out. They took them with quiet thanks, and she left to the foyer again. Jesse turned his attention back to Natalie, grabbing her arm to look it over. Still normal. No bleeding. No redder than the day before. She was hot though, so she had to have an infection. Or was she just sick? Was it just coincidence? He studied her face, her brows upturned with a deep frown on her lips. He opened a water bottle and lifted her head with his free hand, putting the bottle to her mouth and tilted it slowly. She stirred. Her eyes lazily opened so he pulled the bottle away.
“Can you sit up?”
It took some doing, but she sat herself up. Jesse held the water back to her, keeping a grip on the end of it while she lifted her own hands to it. After a few sips, Jesse opened the pills and pulled one out. It was the size of the end of his thumb since it was a 10-day dosage. Two a day, every twelve hours. He looked at the back wall in the worship hall, clock noting a time of 9:40 or so. Close enough. He put the pill in her hand and watched her while she took it and drank. She held the water back to him, eyes fluttering close. He sighed, set the bottle down and stood back up so he could gently push her back to laying down, and once she was settled, he grabbed her phone and turned the screen on. 10 texts. 5 missed calls and two voice mails. Even in end times, they called Natalie more.