Snippet #2347306

The birds' evening song drew to a close as Fr Pat rose from his knees, leaning heavily on a tree. Anger burned within him. Not anger at his God, for he wasn't sure any more if there even was such a thing, or, if there was, if He ever listened. No, Fr Pat's anger was at himself, anger and shame. Somehow he was more disturbed by the devastation of his faith than at the devastation that had been wrought on the living. Could his faith be so weak? He'd been taught, as a teenager in the seminary, to resist demons' tests of his faith. He hadn't expected to come face to face with them. Then the Cardinal's cold, arrongant sneer rose before his eyes and Fr Pat remembered that demons came in all shapes and sizes. He had lost his faith that day, the day evil had risen in the living, not the day the Dead had risen from their graves.

He stretched his back and looked around for a safe place to sleep. The sparse trees would provide little cover, and he had spied no buildings before dusk had fallen. The narrow spit of land meant the Dead could only approach from one direction, meaning a watch would be easy, but sleep would be as elusive as if he was on an exposed hilltop. There were no fallen trees to pile into a makeshift barricade. Fr Pat's eyes fell on the rowboat in which he had crossed the river. Its mooring rope was about 20 feet long. Piling his meagre possessions into the boat, he tied one end of the rope to the nearest sturdy tree to the bank, and pushed out into the current. It wouldn't stop the Dead wading out to him, but the current would slow them, their noise would wake him, and the depth of the river - he estimated it at over five feet this far from the bank - would hamper their attempts to grab him. It would even present their heads at a level that would save him hoisting his heavy club far above his head.

He took off his helmet and stashed it at the foot of the boat, stretched his length out as best he could and lay his club across him. The silence and the undulation of the river soon rocked him into an uneasy sleep.