The Village Down South

A group of about forty townsfolk walked inside a church building. The wood in the building was tearing away. Everyone looked at each other with curious faces. They wondered why they all had met up in the old church. All of the people were the only survivors out of the two hundred who used to live in the village. All frightened by the disease going on in town, they all were afraid they would get sick soon.

The town priest walked before them. He stood behind the wooden stand in the church. He did not wear the gown that he usually wore. He wore worker's overalls and a white unbuttoned shirt. His beard was grown but by a little bit, not a lot. He stood before everyone.

"Everyone," He broke the silence. His voice echoed throughout the church, "The beginning village below us have not been affected by the disease." People listened in surprised the disease has not been affected anyone else than them, "I have been walking to the village to inspect in how no one is sick, whenever I check during the day no one is out. At night the villagers are not and walking."

People confused all stared at the town doctor. A thirty year old man whose daughter is the only other survivor than him. The doctor asked, "What are you inferring, Reverend?"

The Reverend replied with a straight face, "God has forsaken them."

People gasped and stared at the Reverend. A old woman who lived in the town for a long time took a step forward to the Reverend. She said, "I think the Reverend is on to something. A week ago when Henry was dying a visitor from the other village visited me. He tried to help and I handed him my bible. He threw my bible across the room and ran off into the evening skies."

"Yeah!" The local farmer who stood a foot above everyone else in the yelled. "When I went to sell my goods to that village all they did was stay in their houses as I sold them food."

People kept on standing up telling stories about their experience about the down down South. The children recalled stories about the kids in the other village not wanting to play with them and the local drunk told them that his liquor was being taken overnight, and he saw footprints leading to that village.

The town drunk asked, "So what the hell are we going to do with those bastards?"

The Reverend signaled for them to go outside with him. He lead them through the back door of the church to the dawn sunlight. He followed a path to a open space in the woods of the village. The other villagers followed him frightened in what he was going to show them. He stood in the middle of the open space of the woods.

On the ground was a woman. Tied up in ropes that were staked on the ground. The villagers looked down upon her with disgusted faces. She was in unconscious with blood running down from her forehead. Some of the villages looked to the Reverend wondering what he was showing to them.

He said, "This is a local woman from the village South of us. She jumped on me when I was placing my bible on my Dining room table when I was going to pray to our great lord. I was going to chase her away but I felt her pulse. There was none."

The town drunk yelled, "Dumbass! She had no pulse because you murdered her!"

Suddenly her eyes were forced open. She looked up and started to scream. She tried to get out of the robes but the Reverend got the robes tight enough so she could not escape. Skin from her forehead started to peel and make blisters. The townsfolk gasped as they stared down at her.

The Reverend asked, "Remember your wife Johnson?" He looked at the local farmer.

"Hell yes!" The Johnson screamed, "I remember my own wife!" He was furious at the Reverend. His wife died six months before from the disease. It took him three months to get closer over her death. If she lived his child would have been born a month later.

"Look at this woman closely." The Reverend said pointing at the woman squirming on the ground in pain. Johnson looked down at the woman. Her entire forehead had no skin on it anymore. Some of her hair had fallen out. Her anything around her nose was not blistering up since it was in the shade, away from the sun. Through out her burnt forehead and bleach white skin Johnson realized that the woman looked exactly like his deceased wife.

He shrieked jumping back away from the burning woman. She looked at him and tears rolled down from her eyes. A hand tapped Johnson's shoulder. He turned around to see the Reverend handling him a sharpened piece of wood. He looked at the Reverend confused.

The Reverend told him, "Place the stake on the middle of her chest and hammer it in her." He looked at the town doctor. He demanded, "Alfred hold her down."

Alfred handed his glasses to his daughter. She shook her head trying to tell her dad not to hold the burning open down. Alfred knelt down and wrapped his arms around the dead's woman's legs. She started to claw at his head but the Reverend walked up to her with a on Axe in his hands.

He swung the Axe and one of her arms flew up in the air. Blood splattered all over the Reverend's white shirt. He swung down at the ground to get the other arm. She screamed as her blood spilled down on the ground. Her waist was still tied to the ground. Johnson approached her.

The bushes around them started to shake. They looked to see a pale white old man run at them. The Reverend swung his Axe at the old man. The head of the attempted attacker flew ten yards away from his falling body. People started screaming at the sight. The Reverend looked down at his blood covered axe.

Johnson bent down over the burning woman. Her forehead was burnt so bad that her skull started to show. She looked up at Johnny. She can see the blurred image of her husband's face. She cried, "Johnny.... Johnny.... It's me! Susanah! Your... Wife! Please don't! Please!"

Johnson placed the stake on the ground. A hammer was thrown at him and landed on the grass next her. His former wife begged for him to not kill her. He picked up the stake. Alfred kept on pushing his legs down on the ground. He was struggling to keep ahold of the squirming dead woman.

The hammer rose up in the air. Johnson said with his face hidden by a tree shadow, "You bastard. You are dead and pretending to still love me." The hammer was shaking in his hands. "WHY DID YOU COME BACK!" The hammer was then swung down. A scream filled the air. He kept on hammering the stake into her until the screams gurgled. He swung a few more times until there was no sounds except for the hammer smashing the stake into the corpse's body.

Blood covered Johnson and Alfred's clothes. Johnson stood up still holding the hammer. The townsfolk stared at him eyes widened. The Reverend walked to the townsfolk with the Axe in his hands. He looked at everyone and they stared at them eyes widened frightened.

The Reverend said, "We need all of our men to come with us. We are going to exterminate the rest of these monsters." Everyone stared at them.

Alfred and Johnson stood by the Reverend's side. The town drunk lazily walked to them with his belly hanging down. A teenage boy with long hair walked up. His mother tried to stop him but he shrugged her off. The butcher walked up with a townsman. The last man to walk up was the town elder. He was over seventy years old.

The eight men turned from the children and women who were left behind. Alfred's daughter stared as her father with the other eight men started to walk away. As they walked they picked up the hammers and wooden stakes from the ground. The town drunk had picked up a hatchet as they kept on walking.

The morning sun started to rise as they traveled down the road to the town ahead. They walked the muddy road out of the woods to the dust road. A wagon trail was on the dust. They went down South of the trail. The morning fog below their waists made the down hard to see. The town stood before them.

The Reverend walked up to a barrel on the ground nearby the entrance of the town. He kicked it down and a pale man flew out of the barrel. He screamed and his skin started to the blister in the sun. The Reverend swung his Axe down. The man's decapitated head rolled on the ground.

The Reverend said, "Alright, here goes the first house." The eight men learned close to the first house's door. The Reverend grabbed the door knob. Everyone leaned closer. Then the door opened and the mass murder began.