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been prayer and spiritual guidance inside the Mount, but it was a huge thing for many people to set foot in a church again once the Big Wall was finished. Especially if it had been their church before the end of the world. St. George had noticed how many people headed to the different services each Sunday morning. Not surprising, all things considered.
    Father Andy exchanged a last few words with the other man and they shook hands. Then he stepped over to St. George and extended the hand again. “A bit weird to see you here,” he said. “What’s up?”
    “Just checking in,” said the hero. “I was flying by, realized I hadn’t talked to you in a while. How are things going?”
    Andy shrugged. “Not bad. The confessional’s been busy.There’s a lot of people who’ve been burdened by things they’ve done, stuff they want to get off their chests.”
    “Anything I should know about?”
    Andy shook his head. “It’s survivor’s guilt more than anything else. That’s why all the churches are so popular. Hell, my last sermon was standing room only. Can’t tell you the last time I saw that in a church.”
    “Are you allowed to say ‘hell’ now that you’re a priest?”
    “I have to say ‘hell.’ It’s part of the job description. Although, technically, if I’m the last one left I think it makes me the Pope.”
    “Pope Andy the First does have a ring to it,” said St. George.
    The priest shook his head. “I’ve got to be honest. After all we’ve seen, I’d be tempted to take the name Thomas.”
    St. George smiled.
    “Nothing else?” asked Father Andy.
    The hero looked up at the big cross above the altar. “What can you tell me about the A.D. folks?”
    Andy let out a noise somewhere between a chuckle and a snort. Then he shrugged. “Well, they’re following general Christianity, for the most part,” he said. “More of an oversized prayer circle or Bible study group than an actual religious sect. I mean, in the big scheme of things, they’re like all of us. They’re trying to understand God’s plan and establish a set—”
    “No,” said St. George. “I’m not looking for a polite religious comparison. I want to know what you think about them.”
    The priest took in a slow breath, leaned against the back of a pew, and lowered his voice. “Look, I know every religion thinks every other religion’s got it wrong, so anything I say they could probably say against me, but still … these people are grasping.”
    “How so?”
    “How well do you know your Bible?”
    St. George shook his head. “Not at all really. I mean, I know a couple of the stories, but …”
    “Don’t worry about it.” Andy crossed his arms. “The After Death folks go through the Bible and cherry-pick verses thatfit what they want to believe. Thessalonians, a fair amount of Revelation, one of them even spouted a few verses of Ezekiel at me once. They just pull stuff from anywhere without considering context. Have you ever heard the phrase ‘When there is no room in Hell, the dead shall walk the Earth,’ or some variation on it?”
    “A few times, yeah.” He took an educated guess. “Is it from Revelations?”
    “Revelation, singular,” said Father Andy. “And no, it isn’t. It’s just the tagline from an old zombie movie.”
    “It’s not even based on one?”
    Andy shook his head. “But they’re still treating it like the word of God. They just clutch onto anything that lets them cope with what’s happened to the world. More to the point, they try to spin all of it their way, no matter what the context or classical interpretation is. These days, I’m pretty damned liberal in interpreting the word of God, but I still can’t see any way to resolve their beliefs with what the book actually says.”
    “You can say ‘damn,’ too?”
    “Yep. Seriously, we all need to cope in our own way, but their whole mind-set is just a little too zealous for my liking. And I’m saying that as a Catholic