Cecile kicked through the doors of the cultists’ base err…the church. Her stance widened and arms angled at her hips. The smile, bright and white across the battle-scarred round face of hers. The sun, beaming…bright…cut off. Harrogate stepped up next to her, his head leaned down a bit.

About fifty cultists turned around, suspicion and contempt all across their faces. The ones that lifted up their cloaks, at least.

“Well, let us tell you something.” Cecile said. “I got what you’re all looking for. A real life Jenba artifact.”

She rose her hands, open palms facing them.

“I know. I know. Hold your surprise.”

They sniffed the air and puckered their lips and picked their noses and…did anything but hold surprise. The people by the pews, standing tall to the brazen pair. She looked around at the pillars, at the colored glass of Jenba. Jenba who came down, who gifted life to the dead wheat germs. Jenba who fought off the dragons in shining, colored-glass armor. The whole history here, across the walls and chiseled columns and sanctimonious clothes laid out at the front. Where there, Jenba was as a statue, arms dragged back in chains in prostration before his death.

“What a fucking trip.” Harrogate said. “This place gives me the creeps.”

“We have your God’s amulet.” She dug deep into her pockets and raised it high. The ruby gem that reflected a bit of light from outside the open doors.

They all whispered, some eased the tension across their foreheads.

“Did Jenba have an amulet?” One of them asked.

“I didn’t even know he was dead.” Another clasped his hands to his side. The murmurs grew, the eddy of noise coming to its clash until - the priest slammed down his hand. A man by the front bestowed in all blue, with what looked like a slime on top of his head, which was really just a blue round cap with striped lines of red.

“Silence.” He said. “Give her a chance to speak.”

The man next to this priest, a young man with brown, thin hair and gaunt looking cheeks tugged at the priest’s arm-sleeve. Which was blue, by the way.

“Kick them out, sire.” He said. “There’s no need to entertain heathens. The ceremony is at it’s midpoint, we’ve only just begone on the book of Junpa. Junpa twenty-two-four.”

“We can hear you, you know that?” Cecile said across the room.

“Give them a word. Let them have their peace.”

“This isn’t a court room, ya know that?” The young man said.

“Why don’t you shut your mouth, kid.” Harrogate said.

“It’s not kid, It’s Turnus. And no, Jenba compel you.”

“Let’s see if Jenba will compel my foot up your ass.” Cecil said.

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Everyone gasped. Harrogate started sweating. She looked down at him, he had his hands tucked under his armpits and she nudged him with her knee.

“I need you able, alright?” Her voice cracked. Everyone, still murmuring and still talking. But most of them, waiting and it was the eyes that killed her slowly. The google-eyed, patient, lip licking wondering on them all.

“Yes. I have the amulet of Jenba.” Her eyes darted in opposite directions. “From uh…Ruspin fourteen…twenty…seven…? The uh. Book thing.”

She breathed hard.

“You’re full of it.” Turnus said.

The people looked to him now, nodding up and down. She started to creep back, the amulet dangling by her hands thinking, I should have just pawned this for fifty gold bucks.

She took another step back, her shoulder touched the door frame behind her. The air drew her further in, the embrace of retreat.

“Now wait.” Harrogate said. “You would be remiss to ignore this amulet.”

He penguin-wobbled towards her, grabbed the amulet and raised it high (it wasn’t that high).

“It was by this divine object that Jenba came down to the people of Vulkibule, or would you forget the Ruby of Life gifted to the true prophet Jenba for his accomplishments in the Juvla wars.” Harrogate wasn’t look at them. Cecile turned to the direction he looked at, near the glass pictures on the wall and the writing written boldly underneath the frames. She narrowed her eyes; the words were fine.

It wasn’t exactly what he was saying, not even close. But boy did the people eat it up.

“It was by this divine object that he gave life to the dead farms. It was by this object that he led the four kings through the artic of Nuvla. It was by this-”

“This isn’t the scripture at all!” Turnus said.

“Is it? I can’t read.” Someone in the audience said.

“No. It’s not. None of this is.”

“It was by this object that Jenba came to be the true prophet for the five gods, and by this object that his divinity is validated by the Church of Jenba. Would you not agree, Priest? Or would you deny that.”

The priest looked at the faith-comers. The gaped mouth, just-about-ready-to-believe-anything look across their faces. The beaten down, seduced, committed Jenba’s Witnesses.

The priest cleared his throat.

“Tell ‘em.” Turnus crossed his arms, somewhere behind the tall stand. A whole crowd, a whole five pillars and about six pictures of history between the two liars and the other two liars. The priest raised his hand and pressed it down on a black leather bound book. Cecile took a step forward, she grabbed the amulet and raised it high above so that for the brief moment, it was like the sun had condensed on its oval body and sustained itself as a bright star in the open air.

They gasped.

“We are here to deliver this artifact to you people, to your priest who will be first bearer of the Amulet of Life.”

“That’s right.” Harrogate smiled.

“T-that’s right.” The priest said.

“That’s right.” The people said, clapping and shaking each other and kissing. Small and old, and young and tall bodies all coming together in the group-love of a common faith.

“I can’t even read!” A man shouted, joyous.

They ran to her, got near her and somewhere along the way Harrogate was pushed to the side. His brief, hey relax, coming to sudden muteness against the river of laughter and yells from the Jenbas Witnesses. They came with such fury, some fleetfooted stampede that everyone was knocked away. Priest, Harrogate. And Turnus.

Turnus, who tried to stop them. She could see it on his face, the ruin building up with the creased lines of stress that formed along his cheeks.

“Hey, stop that. She’s a liar!” He pulled one person out of a time, but three filled in the gap.

“Stop this! What the fu-” Someone knocked him away.

Now it was just her. Not Harrogate, not Turnus. Just her and the amulet…But somewhere else, creatures stirred…

The shuffling stampede of zombies continued on past the graveyard. Here came Smitty, here came the living bones and the bloated flesh of unholy cadavers in their stunted, mechanical movements. Each of them, a whole army of them, stepping through the mud of the woods. They came through the brushes, through the trees, knocking everything out their path. Then they stopped, each glowy-eyed specimen looking down the hilltop.

They stopped to look down at Kraven’s Willow. The city of slimes. The home of the Jenbians. Or Jenbian Witnesses.

They stopped and opened their mouths in a loud, practiced bite down and started down the winding path towards the city.