Annihilation

Church

In the morning Yoongi and Jimin strapped bags of supplies to the bike while I wrote a note to leave for the others. I squeezed onto the bike behind Yoongi, wrapping a hand around his waist while Jimin did the same to me. I was thankful that we were all pretty small, imagining that it'd be an even tighter fit with any of the others.

I was still torn about leaving it all behind, the wind gusting through my hair as we moved further and further from Red Lane. We breezed past the undead, thinly scattered along the highway, my legs and bottom going numb as we hit the marker thirty miles out from where we started.

There was another small town, Jetersville, that Yoongi circled as a potential stopping point. When the faded sign came into view, he took the exit, turning right for the nearest gas station. He pulled the bike over on the side of the road a few hundred feet away from the building, the town appearing completely deserted outside of the bodies littering the ground.

"Let's sweep the station and see if we can siphon more gas." Yoongi spoke as we demounted the bike. I squatted to stretch my legs, grabbing my machete from where it was secured against the bike.

There wasn't much to grab, the aisles dusted of anything useful and few cars outside already emptied of fuel. Yoongi slammed the door to the last car he attempted to hotwire, leaning against it with frustration.

"Hey, we'll figure it out. How much further can we get on the bike?" I asked, Jimin distracted by a hare he was after.

"Maybe another twenty of thirty miles." He sighed.

I knew he was carrying the pressure to get us there and tried to assure him in the way I knew he best responded, with a direct task. "Okay, so we go until the gas runs out and walk the rest of the way like we planned. By then it'll be just over a hundred miles to Chapel Hill. We can make it Yoongi."

The ounce of positive regard he had dwindled with every mile we took, the roads practically empty, even of the undead it appeared. In this new world it seemed that the even larger threat, beyond the undead, was people and the scarcity of resources.

We had to transition from riding to walking in the middle of the highway, a half mile from a city called Meherrin. Jimin was driving and when the bike cut off, decelerating to a stop, I felt both of their muscles tense around me.

"I think we should find somewhere to rest, to sleep for a few hours." I suggested, grabbing an extra bag from Yoongi to sling across my shoulders and leading the walk into town with them at my sides.

Meherrin was apparently a city of very few fooderies or places to shop, but with chapels galore. It was the first thing we saw when we stepped through the slight turn into town, a small white church with a giant cross displayed on the roof.

Along the street there were three more, similar to the first but one with the remaining letters of a Bible verse on a sign and the others unmarked. I imagined that before, you could find the streets packed with churchgoers on Sunday's, dressed in their best and eager for some divine message. I wondered where all of those people were now.

"Sometimes churches take donations of food and clothes so we should check all of them." Jimin noted, looking down at his shirt, a few holes made by branches exposing parts of his chest and back.

It was the first time I saw Yoongi smile since seeing Jimin and as much as he was a realist and would never admit it, I knew he hated leaving with no trace of the others. Despite the walls he kept to avoid the pain of loss, they were practically his brothers. He crept up the steps quietly, pressing an ear close to the doors to listen for any noise before swinging them open, Jimin and I standing behind with our weapons drawn.

The way the light shined through the stained-glass windows illuminated the empty sanctuary with a rainbow of gleam. It reminded me of the church I grew up in, my grandmother putting me in a scratchy, ruffled dress once a week and taking our usual spot on the third pew. I never paid much attention honestly, doodling on the back of the envelopes used for tithing and daydreaming about a world filled with rainbows as I stared out the window.

The wood flooring creaked under Yoongi and Jimin's boots as they made sure the rooms at the back of the building were clear.

"We'll check the other churches and that corner store for supplies since the town looks so empty. We can stay here tonight and use the door at the back since it's not the obvious entrance. Can you secure the front door?" Yoongi grunted as he pulled up a loose floorboard, the old nails sticking out of the ends.

I nodded, keeping an eye on them from the front entrance while I used a large rock from the parking lot to hammer the floorboard across the door, closing me inside. I sealed the entrance, making use of the final bit of sunlight to cook a pot of noodles and canned sauce for dinner.

Things had been moving so fast since Jimin joined us that it didn't seem we had a moment to just breathe. They returned with a few cans of food found in a donation box and with Jimin still in his ripped t-shirt.

Whenever we were caught in a stream of silence, something that happened more often without the constant attention to phones that existed before, we filled the space with a story.

"I spent a good amount of my childhood in church, at least until I turned sixteen and my granny stopped forcing me to come every week." Their attention was set on me as I spoke. I met both of their eyes before looking to the altar. "Our church had this woman who played the piano. She used to hit the keys so hard that her bottom would come off the stool. As a kid it always made me laugh. Most of the time my granny would slap the back of my hand and tell me to stop, but one day I caught her giggling too." The image was so clear in my head, as if it all happened yesterday.

I wasn't even sure why I was telling that story. The last time I'd been to church was at my grandmother's funeral. It was the memory at the forefront of my mind, but I guess it was easier to recall the overzealous pianist and rainbow glow of stained-glass windows.

"Yoongi plays piano." Jimin wore a mischievous grin, nodding his head toward the piano left untouched next to the choir stand.

Yoongi picked up a book of hymns, chucking it at Jimin's head, the book hitting the edge of a pew as he ducked just in time.

"Are all of you hiding musical talents from me?" I laughed, remembering Jungkook's euphonious voice. I missed making him sing for me on the roof under the stars and Hobi's humming, a constant melody that we wouldn't hear again. "Play for me."

He pinched Jimin's ear after standing, but walked up the steps that led above the pulpit, shaking his head at the dust-coated instrument before taking a seat on the bench. At the moment he pressed down on the first key our heads snapped toward the door, a grating sound echoing through the room as someone pulled down on the handle.