F Paul Wilson - Novel 10

by Midnight Mass (v2. 1)

  Lacey turned back to Kenny. He was down on his knees with his hands jammed between his thighs, clutching his jewels, his face gray, his mouth working.

  "You fucking bitch!" he managed. "You're gonna wish—"

  Lacey kicked him again, in the stomach this time, high, a bull's eye into his solar plexus. He doubled over. Kenny wouldn't be threatening Lacey or anybody else for a while.

  Five seconds later she was back in her jacket and booking south with her duffel and her sleeping bag. Behind and above her she thought she heard a woman's voice cry out. The blond the two creeps had mentioned? Lacey stopped and listened. She heard another cry and looked up at a seagull coasting overhead on the breeze. It squawked again. Had that been what she'd heard?

  She dropped her load and grabbed the edge of the boardwalk. The ends of the weathered boards rasped against her palms as she pulled herself up for a look—all those chin-ups at the gym were finally paying off. She held her eyes at board level. No one in sight.

  She dropped back to the sand, grabbed her things, and started walking again.

  No time to waste. She'd come to find her uncle.

  CAROLE . . .

  Sister Carole checked the Pyrex bowl on the stove. A chalky layer of potassium chloride had formed in the bottom. She turned off the heat and immediately decanted the boiling upper fluid, pouring it through a Mr. Coffee filter into a Pyrex brownie pan. She threw out the scum in the filter and put the pan of filtrate on the windowsill to cool.

  She heard the sound of a car again and rushed to a window. It was the same car, the convertible, with the same occupants—

  No, wait. There had been only four before. Now there were three squeezed into the rear. The woman who had been in the front earlier was in the back; she looked as if she might be sick; the man with the red Mohican seemed to be struggling with a newcomer, a young woman with long blond hair. She looked—

  Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, the poor thing was pregnant!

  Sister Carole suddenly felt as if something were tearing apart within her chest. Was there no justice, was there no mercy anywhere?

  She dropped to her knees and began to pray for her, but in the back of her mind she wondered why she bothered. None of her prayers had been answered so far.

 

  Maybe not, Carole thought. But if He'd answered somebody's prayers somewhere along the line, maybe she wouldn't have been forced to turn the Bennett's kitchen into an anarchist's laboratory.

  The Lord helped those who helped themselves, didn't He? Especially when they were doing the Lord's work.

  COWBOYS . . .

  "Please leave me alone," the blonde whimpered, pushing Kenny's hand away as he tried to unbutton her top. She'd been nothing but a blubbering basket case since Al had put her kid in the trunk. "I want my little boy. Please let him out. Please!"

  Al was sitting shotgun while Stan drove. Her whining was getting on Al's nerves. And so was Kenny. He turned around and checked out the back seat. Jackie was slumped on the driver side, holding an old sweatshirt against the side of her head. The bleeding had stopped but she looked pale and sick. The pregnant cow had the middle seat, and Kenny was nuzzling up against her from the other side.

  Al said, "I still can't believe you got kayo'd by a girl."

  Kenny kept his eyes on the cow. "I told you, man, she suckered me. I was slippin up on her, real casual like, gettin ready to make my move, and she's lookin like she's fallin for it when she punts me."

  Kenny had been in sad shape for about ten or fifteen minutes, but he'd snapped back. He walked a little funny but the kick hadn't seemed to take the steam out of his usual horniness.

  Jackie was another story. She'd puked once on the boardwalk, and another time in the parking lot. Al hoped she didn't puke up the car. You just didn't find a Cadillac convertible every day.

  The cow started wailing about her kid again. "Please let my little boy out of the trunk! He'll suffocate!"

  "Look!" Stan shouted, speaking for the first time since they'd left Point— he'd been real pissed at Kenny and Jackie for losing a girl. "I'll get your brat outta the trunk, all right. I'll tie a rope around his feet and drag him back to Lakewood if you don't shut up!"

  She sobbed but didn't say anything more.

  Al remembered the little kid lookin up at him as he shoved him into the trunk. "Don't let them hurt my mommy," he'd said. Kinda reminded Al of his little brother when they were kids. Never could stand his little brother.

  Kenny started toyin with the cow again. "C'mon. Show ol' Kenny those pretty pregnant titties."

  "Ease up, Kenny."

  Kenny didn't look at him. "Mind your own fucking business, Al."

  Stan looked at Al and jerked his head toward the back seat. "Straighten out your friend, will ya?"

  Al grabbed Kenny's arm. "Lay off her, man."

  Kenny slammed his hand away. "Yeah? What for? To save her for you? Bullshit!"

  Kenny could be a real asshole at times.

  "We're not saving her for me," Al said. "For Gregor. You remember Gre-gor, don't you, Kenny?"

  Some of Kenny's tough-guy act faded.

  "Course I do," he said. "But I don't wanna suck her blood, man." He jammed his hand down between the cow's legs. "I got other things in mind. It's been a long time, man—a long time—and I gotta—"

  "What if you screw up the baby?" Al said. "What if she starts having the baby and it's born dead? All because of you? What're you gonna tell Gregor then, Kenny? How you gonna explain that to him?"

  "Who says he has to know?"

  "You think he won't find out?" Al said. "I tell you what, Kenny. You wanna to get your jollies with this broad, fine. Go ahead. But if that's what you're gonna do, we're droppin you and her here—right here—and drivin away. Am I right, Stan?"

  Stan nodded. "Fuckin ay."

  "And then you can explain any problems to Gregor yourself tonight when we meet. Okay?"

  "Gregor-Gregor-Gregor! Let up, huh? You just about piss your pants every time we get near him. He ain't so tough. Gimme a stake and a hammer and show me where he snoozes and I'll show you how tough he is. Fuckin leech is what he is. Stake him through his heart, cut off his head, and then we won't have to worry bout no more fuckin shit from Gregor. Do it to alia them. Show'em all."

  "Yeah?" Stan said, smilin but lookin straight ahead. "Then what?

  "Then we'll be fuckin heroes, man."

  "Heroes to who? These Saab-drivin, gel-haired, sprout-chewin faggots hiding behind their crosses and garlic? You wanna be heroes to them, go ahead. But what happens when word of what you done gets out to the other bloodsuckers and they come a-knockin? What then? You know how many of them there is out there, man? Zillions. They'll come back with a truckload of those ferals and rip us all to shreds. That what you want, asshole?"

  Sounded to Al like Stan had already given Kenny's idea some thought and had shit-canned it.

  Kenny said, "Hey, no, but—"

  "Then shut the fuck up. And leave the cow alone."

  Kenny pulled his hand away from the blonde and sat on it.

  "Jesus, guys. It's been a long time. I need some."

  "Hey, I need some too," Al told him. "But I ain't ready yet to get killed for a little pregnant poontang, know what I mean?"

  Stan said, "Look at it this way. We gotta take some shit now and then, but you know anybody else got it better? We hold the fort, man. We hold the fort for them till we get to join up." He grinned. "Then we'll have assholes holding the fort for us."

  Stan seemed to think that was real funny. He laughed about the rest of the way into Lakewood.

  CAROLE . . .

  Sister Carole finished her prayers at sundown and went to check on the cooled filtrate. The bottom of the pan was layered with potassium chlorate crystals. Potent stuff. The Germans had used it in t
heir grenades and land mines during World War One.

  She got a clean Mr. Coffee filter and poured the contents of the pan through it, but this time she saved the residue in the filter and let the liquid go down the drain.

 

  Sister Carole ignored the voice and spread out the crystals in the now-empty pan. She set the oven on LOW and placed the pan on the middle rack. She had to get all the moisture out of the potassium chlorate before it would be of any use to her.

  So much trouble, and so dangerous. If only her searches had yielded some dynamite, even a few sticks, everything would have been so much easier. She'd searched everywhere—hunting shops, gun stores, construction sites. She'd found lots of other useful items, but no dynamite. Only some blasting caps. She no choice but to improvise.

  This was her third batch. She'd been lucky so far. She hoped she survived long enough to get a chance to use it.

  GREGOR . . .

  "You've outdone yourselves this time, boys."

  Gregor stared at the three cowboys. Ordinarily he found it doubly difficult to be near them. Not simply because the crimson thirst made a perpetual test of proximity to a living font of hot, pulsing sustenance when he'd yet to feed, urging him to let loose and tear into their throats; but also because these four were so common, such low-lifes.

  Gregor couldn't wait until he was moved up and would no longer be forced to deal directly with flotsam such as these. Living collaborators were a necessary evil, but that didn't mean he had to like them.

  Tonight, however, he could almost say that he enjoyed their presence. He'd been unhappy about the news of a fifth slain cowboy, but was ecstatic with the prizes they had brought with them.

  He had shown up shortly after sundown at the customary meeting place outside St. Anthony's church. Of course, it didn't look much like a church now, what with all the crosses broken off. He'd found the scurvy trio waiting for him as usual, but they had with them a small boy and—dare he believe his eyes—a pregnant woman. His knees had gone weak at the double throb of life within her.

  "Where's your companion?" he asked. "The woman?"

  "Jackie's not feeling so hot so we left her home," said the one in the cowboy hat.

  What was his name? So many of these roaches to keep track of. This one was called Stan. Yes, that was it.

  "Well, I'm extremely proud of all of you."

  "We thought you'd appreciate it," Stan said.

  Gregor felt his grin grow even wider.

  "Oh, I do. Not just for the succulence of the prizes you've delivered, but because you've vindicated my faith in you. I knew the minute I saw you that you'd make a good posse leader."

  An outright lie. But it cost him nothing to heap the praise on Stan, and perhaps it would spur him to do as well next time. Maybe better. Although what could be better than this?

  "Anything for the cause," the redheaded one said.

  The one with the spiked dark hair—Al, Gregor remembered—gave his partner a poisonous look, as if he wanted to kick him for being such a boot-lick.

  "And your timing could not be better," Gregor told them. "We have a special guest visiting from New York." He didn't mention that she was here because someone was exterminating their fellow slugs. "I will present this gravid cow to her as a gift. She will be enormously pleased."

  At least Gregor hoped so. He was relying on the gift to take the edge off her reaction when she learned that another cowboy was dead.

  "Is that the lady I saw you with last night?"

  Al's words startled Gregor. Had this cowboy been spying on him? He felt his lips pulling back, baring his fangs.

  "When was this?"

  Al took half a step back. "When we was driving away after droppin off that old lady. I saw her like come up behind you."

  Gregor relaxed. "Yes, that was her. These gifts will be good for me. And trust me, what is good for me will eventually prove to be good for you. I won't forget your efforts."

  Pardy true. The little boy would go to the local nest leader who'd been pastor of St. Anthony's during his life and had a taste for young boys. The priest had become the de facto leader of Gregor's local get. Over the decades Gregor had noted that the newly turned took to the undead existence with varying degrees of aptitude. Father Palmeri seemed a natural. He'd adapted to his new circumstances with amazing gusto. Perhaps zeal was a better term. Some people, one might say, were born to be undead.

  He'd save the boy for tomorrow since the priest already had a bloodsource lined up for tonight. The pregnant female would indeed go to Olivia. But the rest was a laugh. As soon as Gregor was moved out of here, he'd never give these walking heaps of human garbage another thought.

  But he smiled as he turned away.

  "As always, may your night be bountiful."

  CAROLE . . .

  A little after sundown, Sister Carole removed the potassium chlorate crystals from the oven. She poured then into a bowl and then gently, carefully, began to grind them down to a fine power. This was the touchiest part of the process. A little too much friction, a sudden shock, and the bowl would blow up in her face.

 

  Sister Carole made no reply as she continued the grinding. When the powder was sifted through a four-hundred-mesh screen, she spread it onto the bottom of the pan again and placed it back in the oven to remove the last trace of moisture. While that was heating she began melting equal parts wax and Vaseline, mixing them in a small Pyrex bowl.

  When the mix had reached a uniform consistency she dissolved it in some camp stove gasoline. She removed the potassium chlorate powder from the oven and stirred in three percent aluminum powder to enhance the flash effect. Then she poured the Vaseline-wax-gasoline solution over the powder. She slipped on rubber gloves and began stirring and kneading everything together until she had a uniform, gooey mess. This went on the windowsill to cool and to speed the evaporation of the gasoline.

  Then she went to the bedroom. Soon it would be time to go out and she had to dress appropriately. She stripped to her white cotton underpants and laid out the tight black skirt and red blouse she'd lifted from the shattered show window of that deserted shop down on Clifton Avenue. She slipped her small breasts into a heavily padded bra, then began squeezing into a fresh pair of black pantyhose.

 

  I know, she thought. That's the whole idea.

  JOE . . .

  Father Joe Cahill watched the moon rise over the back end of his old church and wondered about the wisdom of coming back. The casual decision made in the full light of day now seemed reckless and foolhardy in the dark.

  But no turning back now. He'd followed Zev to the second floor of this three-story office building across the street from the rear of St. Anthony's, and here they'd waited for dark. It must have been a law office once. The place had been vandalized, the windows broken, the furniture trashed, but an old Temple University Law School degree hung askew on the wall, and the couch was still in one piece. So while Zev caught some Z's, Joe sat, sipped a little of his Scotch, and did some heavy thinking.

  Mostly he thought about his drinking. He'd done too much of that lately, he knew; so much so that he was afraid to stop cold. So he was allowing himself just a touch now, barely enough to take the edge off. He'd finish the rest later, after he came back from that church over there.

  He'd been staring at St. Anthony's since they'd arrived. It too had been extensively vandalized. Once it had been a beautiful little stone church, a miniature cathedral, really, very Gothic with all its pointed arches, steep roofs, crocketed spires, and multifoil stained glass windows. Now
the windows were smashed, the crosses that had topped the steeple and each gable were gone, and anything resembling a cross on its granite exterior had been defaced beyond recognition.

  As he'd known it would, the sight of St. Anthony's brought back memories of Gloria Sullivan, the young, pretty church volunteer whose husband worked for United Chemical International in New York; he commuted to the city every day, trekked overseas a little too often. Joe and Gloria had seen a lot of each other around the church offices and had become good friends. But Gloria had somehow got the idea that what they had went beyond friendship, so she showed up at the rectory one night when Joe was there alone. He tried to explain that as attractive as she was, she was not for him. He had taken certain vows and meant to stick by them. He did his best to let her down easy but she'd been hurt. And angry.

  That might have been that, but then her five-year-old son Kevin had come home from altar boy practice with a story about a priest making him pull down his pants and touching him. Kevin was never clear on who the priest had been, but Gloria Sullivan was. Obviously it had been Father Cahill—any man who could turn down the heartfelt offer of her love and her body had to be either a queer or worse. And a child molester was worse.

  She took it to the police and to the papers.

  Joe groaned softly at the memory of how swiftly his life had become hell. But he had been determined to weather the storm, sure that the real culprit eventually would be revealed. He had no proof—still didn't—but if one of the priests at St. Anthony's was a pederast, he knew it wasn't him. That left Father Alberto Palmeri, St. Anthony's fifty-five-year-old pastor.