The Outside Read Online Free Page A

and harvested, and animals fed with its warmth on our faces. We went to bed when it set, when the crickets and spring peeper frogs emerged in the warmer seasons. During the short days of winter, we would sometimes play checkers by lamplight for an hour before submitting to the moonlit darkness muffled by snow.
    This was the same, but different. Then, it had been an easy connection to nature. We told time in the fields by squinting at the sun. I still did, in fields not so different from those, but for much different reasons. I could feel Darkness bearing down on us, behind every shadow and patch of shade.
    We were running. There was no objective other than simple survival now. No livestock that needed us to care for them, no fruit that would rot on the vine without our intervention. We just needed to find enough to eat and keep from being eaten.
    We waded through the fields until the sun pushed our shadows long to the right of us. I shivered, with the knowledge not only that night would come soon, but that frost was coming. Frost would kill the last of the blackberries and gooseberries that I’d found for us to subsist on. The acorns were long gone. I’d been lucky to find a crab apple tree three days ago, but I didn’t think that we’d be that fortunate again. The animals, like birds and squirrels, who had been accustomed to scavenging the leftovers of humans, were now stripping trees and bushes bare.
    The animals had known that Darkness was coming. I remembered when I had been back home, before any hint of evil. The ravens had known, taking wing in huge flocks that blotted out the sun. I saw no sign of any of them as we traveled.
    I squinted, spying something white in the distance: a structure, with a gravel road leading up to it.
    Alex and Ginger and I traded glances.
    “What is it?” I asked, narrowing my eyes. I had never seen a house washed that white.
    “It’s a church,” Alex said.
    “If it hasn’t been defiled, this could be good.” Ginger sighed happily.
    I regarded it closely as we approached. Plain folk didn’t have churches. Our worship services took place at our homes, on a rotating basis. We’d listen to sermons in backyards and on front lawns. In that way, our whole space had been sanctified. We lived and worked with God.
    I had never been in a church before. The white structure was small, perhaps a story and a half, with wooden siding covered by paint that was beginning to peel. The windows were peaked, but closed with shutters. A large cross was nailed to the peak of the roof, and the gravel drive led up to the front door. A small stream meandered behind it. I doubted that it could contain half as many people as were held on my backyard on Sundays.
    A hand-lettered sign on the front lawn read CALVARY PENTECOSTAL APOSTOLIC CHURCH. ALL ARE WELCOME .
    I shuddered. I hope that wasn’t enough invitation for the vampires.
    I ran my fingers over the black painted letters of the sign. I knew that the Pentecost was when the Holy Spirit descended upon the disciples of Jesus, after his resurrection. “A Christian church, then,” I said, comforted a bit by the idea of a traditional God that I could recognize.
    Alex stared at the sign. “Yes,” he said. “Pentecostals have an experiential belief in God. They believe that the Holy Spirit can move within them, work miracles, make them speak in tongues, grant special rapport with animals . . .”
    I pressed my lips together and thought about what that might mean. “Interesting.” Plain folk believed that God and man were separate. My body seemed confused and crowded enough with just my spirit inside. How strange it would feel to have God inside me as well . . .
    Ginger climbed the steps. “Let’s see if anyone’s home.”
    She rapped on the whitewashed front door. It was tall with black hinges. We waited, hearing the sound echo in the structure. A mourning dove was disturbed from one of the gutters and flew away in a flurry of cooing.
    She knocked