It’d been a day for Harrogate, that was a way to describe it. Being pushed to the side and exited out of the church, Cecil’s final smiling face between closing doors.

“Hey, I’ll get us rich, don’t worry!” She said, and the doors slammed in front of him and covered him in shade. Outside the people wandering the streets with their candy-colored clothes stared at him. The wind blew, his side hairs pushed aside. The long coats and sleeves and hats of the passer byers swayed in the wind.

“So that’s that then.” Harrogate came down the street, rubbing his chin. Wondering…how it’d happen.

It happened pretty fast and pretty…good? Maybe too good.

That next morning he came by the church house again, staring up at the great engraving at the top, the one on the gold plaque above the door frame with the carved angels and coronating the square. He knocked once and pushed his hang back to knock again, loud. The door opened. One eye came out from between the slits.

“Hey. I was here yesterday. Ya remember?” He rubbed his elbow. “Do you know if Cecil is here?”

“The…the sun goddess?” The person said with a voice so craggy and deep that a cthulian creation would have been impressed.

“Uh. Yeah. Red hair. Wolf jacket-thing.”

The voice whispered into the room, their eye disappearing from the door frame. Harrogate pushed his head in through the crack, eyes narrowed. The eye appeared. A different one, a woman this time.

“Wait here.” She said.

The door closed. Peoples feet shuffled. An arm grabbed him and pulled him in before he had a chance to scream, and sat him right there on a wooden chair in the receptionist room. Which was the first room.

Hands, and people that disappeared as soon as he landed hard on the wooden chair. The room was blue, his head spun. Plotted plants came down from the corners of window sills. Pictures of the priest, of Turnus, of…Cecil? Hung from the walls. To his right, on a stand; pamphlets.

Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

Dying soon? Don’t get insurance, get Jenba. It read. He took one and opened it and started going through when another door opened, on the other side opposite of his, two long big wooden oak doors. Cecil came through, smiling like it’d never gone away yesterday.

“Cecil. The amulet…the money…the pictures…uh.” He said.

“Don’t worry about it. I paid our debt this morning,” She had her palm out, golden and ruby rings lined her fingers.

“Cecil.” He said. “What’s going on?”

“What’s going on?” She asked. “We’ll never be poor again. I’m a chosen one now, Harry.”

“A chosen what?”

“Someone picked, like a lottery sort of.” She said. “Except Jenba picked me.”

“Cecil, we gotta leave. We gotta hitch a ride and go somewhere else to make money. You understand? We can’t stay here and be…prophets or whatever.”

A follower came to her rear lugging a great ax. Cecil carried it - the wolf ordained on the pommel - spun it, and placed it on her back.

“I got it all now, Harry.” She said. “Money. Fame. And this awesome ax. I’m done running, I’m done working. I’m staying here and so should you.”

“Gods damn you.”

People gasped in the background, behind the doors.

“We gotta go, Cecil.” He said. “These people aren’t normal. Lets just rip ‘em off and leave.”

She leaned down at him and put her hand on his shoulder. She smelled of alcohol. Of wine.

“Harry. We won’t need to rip off anyone ever again.” She said. “Come, stick around. The tribute is tonight.”

“The what?” He asked. “Who’s the tribute, to what?”

And the many faces of the followers peered through the outline of the door, one head at a time until the square frame was filled with the same-face of smiling followers.

Harrogate’s eyes went wide. His head reeled back, and he felt a hand on his shoulder.

Somewhere in the outskirt of the village.

And all the while the undead roamed in the drove of some insatiable hunger, tearing through the dumbfounded cows tipped over their sides, mooing as the zombies came down to suckle - and chew on their udders. A man stepped out of a house, fork in hand.

“How many times am I gonna have to tell you all?” He said. “I ain’t handing my daughter away!”

The zombies continued, stumbling on, stepping through the mud and onto the wooden-floored front of the house.

“You hearing me?” The old man said. Toothless at the front of his mouth, with his face tightened. “Where’re my damn glasses.”

“What you need ‘em for’?” A voice asked.

“To shoot that damn Gendry that keeps comin’ around.”

“Not him pa, I love him.”

And the zombies approached, feet away from him, coming towards a lunge.

“Yeah. Yeah. You just love everyone, don't ya. Why don't you start loving some rich kid, huh? Hu-” He turned. The weight on his shoulder. “God damn, Gendry. You got fat or something? Let go of my arm.”

The zombie drew its head back. Its teeth drawn.

“My arm, Gendry.”

It dug straight through, like butter.

“My arm!”