But then it was silly for him to stand there and have a debate with himself, for there was absolutely no chance that he would turn around and leave. Illegal entry didn’t matter. This was more than just a cop doing his job. This involved his wife and daughter. It was personal.
Don slipped back into the woods, using the trees for cover as he moved around the vegetable field. He was able to get within fifty feet of the barn before being forced to leave the protection of the woods. He was behind the barn, out of sight from the house or the dairy barn, so he covered the fifty feet at a fast walk, more concerned with being quiet than with moving quickly.
When he reached the barn, he stopped and listened, trying to determine whether anyone was nearby. He heard a car door slam, but it was impossible to judge how far away it was. There were a few pieces of rusty farm equipment lying around, the sorts of things you’d pull with a tractor to dig up the soil. Terms like till and cultivate floated around in his head, but not being a farm boy he was uncertain what they meant. He knew about turning over his backyard plot with a digging fork, and that was all. He peeked around both corners of the structure, seeing no doors on either side, which meant the only way in was through the front.
One side of the barn was visible from the house, the other from the dairy barn. Figuring that it was better to be spotted by cows than people, he chose the side that was visible from the dairy barn. As he moved, he tried to figure out what he’d do if he got caught. What could he say? It’s okay, guys. Since I’m the whole police force, that means I’m the SWAT team as well, and I’m practicing my sneaking-up techniques. Helping to keep Ice Island safe for democracy.
When he reached the lone window in the side of the barn, Don tried to look through it, but it was covered on the inside with dark cloth. At the front of the barn, he peeked around the corner, seeing no one. The doors were open. Don quickly moved to them and slipped inside.
The building was empty except for a long, sturdy wooden table at one end and a number of wrought-iron candelabra on tall stands. The candles in them were of various colors—whatever had been available, apparently. There were three posts sticking out of the earthen floor to the left of the table. Puzzled by the posts, Don went over to take a closer look at them. They were about seven feet tall and thick, like short phone poles. The freshly dug earth piled around their bases indicated that they had only recently been put there, which meant they probably had something to do with the revivals.
There was nothing churchy about this place. Where was the pulpit, the cross, the other religious accoutrements? This was nothing but a big empty room that didn’t even have chairs. When he thought of a revival, he thought of a brightly lighted place with seats for everybody, probably a PA system for the preacher so people in the back could hear him. When he looked at this place, he thought of a hoedown—except for the candelabra, which reminded him of a medieval castle, something from a Vincent Price movie. He wished he hadn’t thought about Vincent Price.
Don heard voices coming from outside. Instantly he began looking for a place to hide, and he spotted the hayloft. Quickly climbing its wooden ladder, he slipped behind the bales of hay. He was invisible up there and wouldn’t be discovered unless the loft was searched for some reason. The voices—two men—became louder, almost clear enough for Don to make out the words, and then they faded as the speakers moved farther from the barn.
Peering over the tops of the bales behind which he was hiding, Don studied the three posts sticking out of the floor. There was something about those posts that bothered him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it. He checked his watch. One-fifteen. The revival was supposed to start in an hour and forty-five minutes.
Thirteen
About two-thirty, Carolyn Pfeil entered the barn and began lighting the candles.
She was still lighting them when people started showing up. From his hiding place, Don watched them come in. Derek Aldrich, Ben Jones, and Scott Bender. Brian Young, the fire chief. Kevin Waggoner. Vince Terrell and Ray Loubet. Rod Donahue and Dean Vanetti. Brittany Uhl and some other girls from the high school. They kept coming in, forming themselves into rows that faced the table and the three posts. Nobody speaking. The only sounds the moving of feet on the earthen floor and the rustling of clothing.
And then Don saw someone he was hoping against hope he wouldn’t see: Allison. A few moments later he spotted Sarah. He was uncertain whether they’d arrived together. They made no effort to stand together. Although Sarah moved into the same general area as her mother, there were a half-dozen people between them.
Still they kept coming. Joe Coleman, the pharmacist-postmaster-mayor. Ralph Higgins, the guy who’d worked most of his life at the Soo Locks. Larry Kohler, the owner of Ace Hardware and Kevin Waggoner’s boss. Phil Deemis, who owned the Shell station and who was keeping Paul Edley’s body in his freezer. And then for Don another disappointment, because Doc Ingram had just arrived.
When the place was full, the doors were closed, and Reverend Pfeil, wearing a long black robe, walked to the wooden table, turned, and faced the crowd. For a moment he and the people eyed each other silently. Then the minister began chanting, speaking rhythmically and slowly in words Don was unable to understand. The people were swaying. All at once they joined in the chant, repeating the words after the minister, softly, like a chorus of moans.
Don focused on Allison and Sarah, watching them sway, as if in a trance. He had no idea what had drawn them or any of the others to this bizarre ceremony. If the people were drugged, he had not seen the narcotic administered. If they were mesmerized, he had not witnessed the hypnotizing. Why had they come? Why were they cooperating? Pfeil had given no verbal instructions. So how did they know what was expected of them?
Don had no idea what to make of the disturbing ceremony going on below him. Bathed in flickering orange candlelight, the people were still swaying and chanting in a language they couldn’t possibly understand. The scene was more than just eerie and disquieting; there was something decidedly evil about it.
The devil got loose in there. That’s how Doc Ingram had described the carnage at the Gordons’ house.
Suddenly Don felt certain that what was going on here was somehow connected to what had happened to the Gordons. He recalled the blood-spattered walls, Michael Gordon’s severed head, its lips pulled back in a ghastly smile, watching Don mockingly as he examined the mutilated bodies of what had once been the Gordon family. The scene Don was watching now was part of everything that had been happening on the island. The murders of the Gordons. The murder of Paul Edley. The macabre suicide of Edward Dwyer. Somehow it was all connected. Don wasn’t sure how he knew, but he knew.
The devil got loose in there.
Don watched Reverend Pfeil chanting and swaying. The devil’s loose in this barn, too, Don thought.
He shifted his gaze to Doc Ingram, who had spoken those words. The physician was swaying and chanting with the rest of them, swinging like a sapling in a gentle breeze, his eyes fixed on Pfeil, but distant-looking, as if they really weren’t seeing the minister at all. Devil’s loose in you, too, Don thought. Then he made himself watch Sarah and Allison. They, too, were watching Pfeil with rapt attention while they swayed and chanted, and Don had the distinct feeling that they were lost to him, that they were no longer the two people he thought of as his wife and daughter.
Again Don tried desperately to figure out what kind of control Pfeil had over them, how he caused them to come here, how he controlled them once they got here, how he made them forget afterward. Whatever it was, it apparently didn’t affect him. And there were other Ice Islanders—many others—who weren’t here. Were they spared because Pfeil didn’t need them or because they were immune to his techniques of control? Then Don realized he could ask the same question about himself. Was he really unaffected by Reverend Pfeil’s methods of control, or was he being held in reserve, to be used when needed?
He didn’t know. He didn’t even have a wild guess. And there were ot
her crucial questions for which he had no answers. What was the purpose of all this? Pfeil had gone to a lot of trouble. What was in it for him? Was he going to get all the people who came here today to sign over all their worldly goods to him, the way many cults did? Don liked that explanation, because it was something he could get a handle on. Good old-fashioned greed. A normal, understandable motive even if the means were bizarre. The trouble was that deep down inside where things like instinct and intuition lived, Don knew that whatever was going on wasn’t nearly that simple.
Watch for people acting strangely …
Christ, Don thought, the whole island’s gone crazy. It was time to have a talk with Kesselring, a serious talk, the kind in which Kesselring provided answers, not evasions. Maybe the ex-cop was just a fruitcake. Maybe. On the other hand, perhaps there really was a killing sickness. People on the island were certainly dying—and disappearing. And if the ex-cop knew anything about what was happening, Don was going to learn it.
The front doors of the barn opened, white daylight overpowering the orange glow from the candles, and suddenly the chanting grew louder, faster. Four people had just entered the barn: Tommy and Jean Quirk, who were part owners of the island’s only garbage removal firm, along with Conrad Neuhaus and Hiram Bellamy, two of the town’s leading citizens. The Quirks’ hands were tied behind their backs. Neuhaus and Bellamy pushed them forward, the crowd parting to make way. The doors closed, shutting out the daylight.
The Quirks were looking all around, taking in the scene, their faces displaying bewilderment and fear. The people in the barn chanted and swayed, their expressions rapt, trancelike.
“Hey, Al,” Tommy Quirk called. “Hey, what’s going on?” When he got no response, he looked in another direction. “Danny, hey, look at me. What’s this all about?”
Don watched, not knowing what was going to happen, but not liking this new development at all. Others got up to help as they guided the Quirks to the three posts. They took Tommy to the one on the right, Jean to the one on the left. She screamed and began to struggle, which triggered Tommy’s protective instincts. He was a big man, strong from all the garbage cans he lifted, and he pulled away from the men holding him, knocking one of them down and trampling on him as he lunged toward his wife. But others swarmed out of the crowd like angry ants, surrounding him. Tommy let out a bellow of frustration and rage, but he was quickly subdued by superior numbers.
He was tied to a post.
So was Jean.
The chanting was growing ever more intense, angry and excited, like a swarm of furious bees. While Tommy Quirk strained against the rope holding him to the post, looking like a riled bear, Pfeil approached Jean. She was a thin woman with hair the color of weathered wood, and she seemed to have passed beyond screaming and struggling, as if she were frozen, too terrified to so much as twitch. Her eyes were filled with a mixture of abhorrence and helplessness, and she stared at Pfeil as a doomed prisoner might eye the hangman.
Don watched from the loft, transfixed. He realized that the Quirks were probably going to join the other Ice Islanders who had gone to the revival and never been seen again. At least on some level he understood this, although his conscious mind was too confused to sort things out logically. Other notions churned at the periphery of his consciousness as well, thoughts about responsibility and odds. The responsibility was his: to stop this. The odds were terrible: one of him and about two hundred of them.
His fingers automatically went to the butt of his service revolver. The gun he had never even drawn in the course of duty. What exactly did he think he was going to do with it now? Shoot his friends and neighbors? Shoot Allison and Sarah? On the other hand, how could he just stay put and let something awful happen to the Quirks?
Whatever his decision, it would have to be made quickly, because Douglas Pfeil had just produced a wicked-looking knife, which he placed against Jean Quirk’s throat.
“No!” Tommy bellowed. “Reverend, for God’s sake, think about what you’re doing!”
Holding the blade against Jean’s throat, Pfeil just stood there, smiling at her. She was trembling. Don still had absolutely no idea what to do.
“Reverend Pfeil,” Tommy pleaded, “you’re a man of God. You’ve got to … to come back from wherever you’re at. The devil’s got you, Reverend. Can’t you see that? The devil’s got you.”
Moving so quickly that his hands were a blur, Pfeil grabbed a handful of Jean Quirk’s hair and cut it off. She emitted a sound that was part scream, part gasp.
“Pfeil, you son of a bitch!” Tommy shouted.
The minister touched Jean’s ear with the tip of the knife.
Having no plan but knowing there was no way he could just watch and do nothing, Don began pushing bales of hay off onto the crowd. The bales were heavy, and they knocked people to the floor. Because the group was so tightly packed, the people who fell took others down with them, who in turn caused others to fall. Startled, Reverend Pfeil backed away from Jean Quirk and was knocked flat by a man with a red shirt. It was like dominoes. Hoping he’d go unnoticed in the confusion, Don quickly climbed down from the loft and ran to the Quirks.
“Thank God,” Tommy said as Don untied him. “That fucker’s crazy. He was going to … to …” He seemed unable to complete the sentence.
When Tommy was free, Don said, “Untie Jean. Hurry.” Quirk rushed to do so.
The reverend was getting to his feet. The others were untangling themselves. Don drew his gun. For a moment, no one seemed to know what to do. Then Pfeil raised his arms and began to chant in that strange language he used. Suddenly the people stopped milling around and started toward Don. He fired two shots over their heads. The people stopped. Pfeil’s chant became louder. The people started forward again.
Quirk had freed his wife. She was standing, but she looked like a zombie. “What now?” Quirk asked.
Don looked at the two hundred or so people blocking his escape. “The window!” he shouted. It was to his left, covered by heavy black cloth. No one was in the way.
Leading his dazed wife, Tommy Quirk ran to it and yanked down the makeshift curtain. He tried to raise it, but it wouldn’t budge, so he grabbed a candelabrum and smashed the window, knocking out glass and mullions. Then he pushed Jean through the opening and followed her.
The people were still closing in on Don, but slowly, as if uncertain what to do. The way to the window was still clear, so he dashed to it and climbed out of the barn. The Quirks were waiting for him.
“Come on,” Don said. “My car’s in the woods.”
He led them into the trees. They had to go slowly because of Jean, who, still in a state of shock, was stumbling along blindly, unable to keep up. “She has to go faster,” Don said. “Or they’ll catch us.”
“I’ll carry her,” Tommy said, picking her up. She was quite thin, and he bore her with ease.
“If you get tired, I’ll spell you,” Don said.
“I should be okay,” Quirk said.
Don glanced behind them, seeing no sign of pursuit. He thought for sure they would follow. Don had interrupted Pfeil’s ceremony, stolen the … what? Human sacrifices?
“I don’t know what’s going on around here,” Quirk said. “The whole damned island’s gone bug-fuck.”
“I don’t know either,” Don said.
Quirk said, “They were going to kill us, weren’t they?”
“I think so.”
After that they saved their breath for moving through the woods. Several times Don looked behind them, seeing no one. It was too easy. Why wasn’t Pfeil coming after them? Don asked whether he could carry Jean for a while; Tommy just shook his head.
Finally, the Cherokee came into sight. Don pointed to it, and both men put on a final burst of speed to get to it, for the vehicle meant escape, safety. At least temporarily. Don hadn’t lost sight of the fact that he was on an island with at least two hundred people who could be turned against him. But he could deal with that later. First h
e had to get himself and the Quirks out of there.
Suddenly Pfeil and a half-dozen of his followers appeared, blocking the way to the Cherokee. The minister was still clutching the knife he’d used to terrify Jean Quirk. Don drew his gun.
“Move out of the way,” he said, putting all the authority into his voice he could muster.
The two groups stood there, staring at each other, nobody moving. Quirk, who was still carrying Jean, glanced at Don questioningly, his eyes asking, What are we going to do?
“If you don’t move aside,” Don said, “someone’s going to get hurt.” His palms were growing sweaty, making the gun in his hand feel slippery.
Looking at the men who’d accompanied the minister, Don found himself staring into the eyes of Al McDougall, Derek Aldrich, Todd Wolfe, and others he knew well. But they were no longer the eyes of his friends and neighbors, and they looked at him distantly, as if he were a stranger. And even more chilling was the way those eyes exuded cold indifference, as if everything that made them warm and caring and human had been extracted.
Don knew he could wait no longer. He was giving the others from the barn time to get there, and their numbers would simply overwhelm him and the Quirks. Glancing at Tommy Quirk, trying to communicate that the time had come to make their move, Don began walking slowly, purposefully, toward Pfeil.
When he was about five feet from the man, he said, “Move. You don’t, I’m gonna blow your fuckin’ head off.”
Pfeil moved, but not the way Don had meant. His eyes suddenly sparkling with rage, the minister hurled himself at Don, slashing at him with the knife. The blade knicked the left arm of Don’s jacket. And then the stinging in his flesh told him that the blade had cut all the way through the material and into his arm. Don was backing up. The minister’s attack was ferocious. He just kept coming, slashing crazily with the knife, emotions Don was unable to identify dancing in his eyes.
A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult Page 43