If only, Sam thought, God gives us the time to do this thing. And again, he thought: Why me?
Then it was full dark, and Sam knew the Disciples of Satan would wait no longer. He could practically feel their impatience to begin the hunt.
How do I know that? he questioned silently.
Sam ran to the porch, throwing open the door. "Mount up!" he said.
"But it's four hours 'til midnight," Wade argued.
"MOUNT UP!" Sam barked at them. His tone moved them into action.
They were outside, by their pickups. Everyone was armed. The eleven stood quietly in the night, listening to the rustle of leaves, the sighing winds from the prairie, and the thudding of their own hearts.
"Going on a camping trip?" the voice came behind them.
The men spun around, hands on the butt of weapons. No one had heard the two men come up. Otto Stockman and Dalton Revere.
"Otto," Sam greeted the man. "Dalton. I've missed you at church lately."
The man spat his contempt, the spittle landing between Sam's booted feet.
A scream cut the night, shattering the illusion of peace.
"What in God's name was that?" Chester asked.
"A nonbeliever," Otto said. "There will be many more before this night is over."
"I thought we were all the nonbelievers?" Wade asked, his flesh goose-pimply from the screaming.
"Oh, no," Revere smiled. "There are many who are reluctant to serve any God with all their hearts. Sam knows, don't you, Sam?"
The minister said nothing.
The screaming was heard again, a hoarse yowling, as if more pain than a human could endure was being forced upon unwilling flesh. Then a choking cry, and the night was silent.
Otto laughed, an evil barking in the evening's murkiness.
"Mrs. Johnson's house," Chester said. "Two houses down." He looked at Otto. "You people are crazy! You're murderers!"
"The mass is almost ready to begin," Dalton said, holding out his hand. "It will be beautiful. Won't you join us? It's your last chance."
"Yes," Otto said. "Join us—do."
"Otto?" Sam pleaded with the man. "What has happened to your faith? To your belief in our God? He hasn't forsaken you. Give this up."
Revere and Stockman laughed. "Your God, Sam," Dalton said, "not ours. Our Master gives pleasure, joy we can touch with our hands, not empty promises. Our God lives; I can touch him, see him. Where is your God?"
"All around us, Dalton. Everywhere. I shouldn't have to tell you that." He looked at Otto. "Where is your wife?"
The man grinned. "Being serviced by Servants of the Master. She's beginning to come around to the pleasures of our God."
Jane Ann stood by Sam's side. She moved closer to him as Dalton's eyes traveled over her body, lingering at her breasts, her crotch, moving, undressing her with his possessed mind.
"Being serviced?" Wade questioned. "What do you mean?"
The man rubbed his crotch and grinned, "We've been having a party at my house this afternoon."
"Your wife is being—serviced?" Anita grimaced. "Otto, you're disgusting!"
A strange chant drifted through the night. A hundred or more voices chanting in the distance, in unison. It was the chant Sam had faintly heard on the wind that night at Tyson's Lake. Now he could understand the word, and that word was DIE.
"Get into the trucks," Sam ordered,
"You'll never leave this town alive," Dalton warned him. "I'm giving you all a chance, don't you see? We don't want to harm you; we just want you. The time is now. He is here. He has returned."
"He's always been here," Sam said, disgust in his voice. He knew there was no point in attempting to try to change Dalton's mind.
"You're all fools!" Otto cried. "Fools! Listen! Look around you. We've come for you. Join us—the pleasures are wonderful; there for the taking. Look!"
A hundred or more men, women, and children had gathered at both ends of the street, blocking it. They stood shoulder to shoulder. Sam knew them all. Their eyes were glowing red with evil, and they chanted: Die!
Dalton glared at Doris. She shrank from his lusting eyes. "I've always wanted to fuck a Jew bitch. To personally thank you for killing that pig, Christ. I will, this night." He reached for the woman.
Miles acted before he thought, his pistol jumped into his hand. The .38 barked twice, the slugs hitting Dalton in the chest. Miles screamed curses as the man fell backward into the street. Survival took over, as pictures of Dachau, Buchenwald, and Auschwitz filled Miles' brain.
"Not again!" he screamed, emptying his pistol into Dalton's twitching body.
Doris pulled him back, toward their truck.
Survival gripped them all, shoving civilized mores to the rear.
Otto ran screaming into the night. "Kill them! Kill the men. We want the women!"
The mob moved forward, chanting, "Die Die Die!"
"Roll it!" Sam shouted, and the eleven ran for their trucks. "You drive," Sam told Jane Ann. He reached for the Thompson, jacking a round in the chamber. "Don't stop for anything. Just roll right over them."
"Sam!"
"Do it!" he shouted. "Move!"
She jerked the transmission into gear and roared into the night, toward the growing mob of devil-worshippers at the end of the street. Fifty yards from them, Sam leaned out the window and pulled the trigger, the SMG on full auto. The slugs sparked through the night, slamming men women and teenagers backward, to lie jerking on the street.
And still they came.
Jane Ann gripped the wheel and roared into the crowd, shutting her mind to the crunching and breaking of bones and the slick pop of mauled flesh. Several of the possessed climbed onto the truck, in the bed, on the hood, on the running boards. Sam hammered at them with his big fists, slashing at them with his big-bladed knife, finally jerking out his .45, firing at point-blank range.
"Hard left!" he shouted.
She spun the wheel, sending the man in the bed of the truck flying through the air. He landed on a spike of a wrought-iron fence, the point impaling him, driving through his chest. He died screaming, dangling from the fence, his legs jerking.
The little caravan was clear of one street. "Head for the south Bad Lands!" Sam yelled.
They roared through town, past burning churches and bonfires filled with Bibles and church hymnals and pews. They screamed past blockades set up by the Satan-worshippers, cutting across yards and down side streets. Sam glanced behind him. Everyone was with him. For now.
"Sam!" Jane Ann screamed. "The road is blocked."
A deputy crouched behind a patrol car, grinning at them in the headlights' glare, his teeth yellow and fanged. Sam leveled the .45 and shot the man/thing in the face, blowing away part of his head. The deputy fell backward, but he would not die. Appearing as a terrible apparition, the bloody thing staggered to its feet, lurching in front of the truck, arms outstretched, fingers working in killing anticipation.
"Roll over it!" Sam yelled. "Smash it!"
Jane Ann felt sickness well in her throat. She fought it back and floor-boarded the truck, hitting the creature with the front bumper, rolling over it. The others did the same, until the man/thing was a bloody, smashed smear in the street.
But it would not die.
As the caravan roared into the night, clear of Whitfield, none of them witnessed the hideousness pull itself to the curb and slide disgustingly into a gutter opening, leaving a trail of crimson behind it. In the darkness of the sewer it hid itself, under the town of Whitfield, to wait, to heal.
The caravan was out of Whitfield, heading for the Bad Lands. Five vehicles, eleven people, racing to the unknown, running from horror.
The town soon became an open pocket of death as the possessed went from house to house, searching out those not of themselves. Only a few would escape. They would crouch in their basements, in the darkness, with their fear. Only a few, hiding.
Beasts roamed the streets, slobbering, howling, following the directio
n of the appointed Coven leaders. Many of the elderly were the first to die. And the Beasts feasted. Old man Word held them off for several hours with a rifle, until he was overwhelmed by sheer numbers. He died not believing his eyes.
"Sam should have warned me," he muttered, as life left him. Then he remembered what the preacher had said as they stood in the door of the church that Sunday. "He did try to warn us!"
The grunting sounds of rape and degradation filled the night air, as men and women of all ages were passed naked from Coven member to Coven member. Some would join the Satan-Worshippers; some were given to the Beasts. They were mounted, mated, and bitten. Where there had been only a few Beasts, soon there would be many.
Crude crosses were fashioned, and some who would not renounce their faith were nailed onto the timbers. Others were tortured for hours.
Evil was the name of Whitfield this night.
"Balon got away," Wilder raged at Addison. "Because you could not keep your people in line. I warned you, Addison."
"But, Master, they can't get out of this area."
"This area, idiot, is thousands of square miles!"
"But all roads are blocked. Every range is covered. Our people are everywhere—watching. They can't get away." A sly gleam slipped into his eyes. "I couldn't control them, Master, because they wanted to serve you. They love you."
"Yes, yes!" Wilder was impatient with Addison, wanting to be rid of him. The man was useless; a fool. "Nydia," he called, "come. This man has served us well, and he has lusted for you. Take him, and pleasure him." He smiled at the Raven-haired witch, a silent message passing between them.
Addison felt an erection growing as he gazed at Nydia, to him, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. In the midst of all the carnage that night, with the screaming of the dying drifting around them, she took Addison's hand into her incredibly soft hand, leading him to a nearby home, into a bedroom.
Quickly, Addison stripped, standing naked before her. She opened her robe, allowing him to view her body. She was woman in perfection, without blemish, everything any man—all men-have dreamed of. Addison sucked in his breath as she dropped the robe to the floor.
Nydia sat on the bed, allowing Walter to fondle her breasts, her belly. She lay back, opening her legs, and he fell on her in his haste. He pushed his erection inside her, groaning as she took him. In heat, he did not notice her mouth working at his neck; did not notice her teeth sharpening into fangs, and felt only a second's pain as she bit him, sucking a few drops of life's blood from him.
Nydia sucked at his neck as he humped on her, giving her no pleasure except the taste of his blood. In his rush to have her, he climaxed quickly, rolling from her, to lie panting on the side of the bed. He felt dizzy and weak. His mouth felt strange, as though his teeth and tongue had grown larger.
Then, as the infection spread through him, he knew what he had become. He looked up at the woman standing over him, still naked. But he felt no lust for her, only a wish to serve her. As the contagion settled into his brain, suspending all once-human reasoning, Walter Addison, who had plotted with the devil to kill Sheriff Marsh, became a member of the Undead.
"You," Nydia said, pointing a finger at him, "will join the others. Find Balon and his followers. You will kill the others, make them as yourself—if possible. But you will not harm Balon. I want him. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Nydia." His voice was strange, a hollow sound pushing past a swollen tongue, fanged and bloodless lips.
"Go! But remember, you must seek shelter at the first hint of light. Go!"
She licked her lips as she watched him shuffle out the back door, into the night, red-tinged with what was left of the fires from the churches. It was not often Wilder allowed her this pleasure, and her bloodlust had been aroused, but not appeased, Blood. She wanted blood.
Slipping into her robe, its color blending with the darkness of the night, the vampiress began her hunt. For blood. For the sweet/salty taste of life.
A child, a boy, not more than ten or eleven, ran past her in the night, screaming out his terror at all he had seen. Nydia twisted her fingers in his hair, throwing him to the damp earth and grass, pinning him with arms made strong by centuries of evil.
She bent her head, her dark hair fanning over his face, and opened her mouth, sinking her teeth into his neck, holding the child as he jerked and whined. She drank deeply, then threw back her head and howled at the sky.
She left the boy on the earth, his neck bleeding. In moments, he had changed. He rose to his feet, unsteady for a moment, then walked away to join the others, his eyes dead, his teeth fanged.
Sam stopped the caravan some twenty miles from Whitfield, deep in the rolling Bad Lands.
"It's night when we're in the greatest danger," he reminded them. "There will be dozens of Undead before this night is over. We'll have to post guards at all times." The asylum sprang into mind, with its occupants of disfigured, mindless lunatics. He knew Wilder would, before this week was over, order the guards to release the inmates.
And they would have to face that horror.
Shock had just struck the women: the chase, the getaway, had kept their minds from dwelling on their impossible situation. Now, some of them knelt on the ground, weeping, shaking uncontrollably.
Sam put his arms around Jane Ann, holding her, hoping some of his strength would transmit to her. He held her as she cried. Sam, as most men, felt totally inadequate with a sobbing woman.
He patted her shoulder and said, "There, there, now." And felt like a fool doing it
"Oh, shut up!" she pushed away. "A woman needs to cry at times." She smiled up at him. "Stop trying to burp me."
Sam looked around him in the dimness of the makeshift camp. His friends stood grinning at him. The tension had snapped—for now. "Okay, Sam," Tony said. "It's all up to you and Chester. The rest of us don't know a thing about combat."
Suddenly, Sam was back in Korea, with his team. "Chester, take the first watch. Jimmy, the second. I'll take the dog watch. At good light, we'll make our plans."
At two o'clock, Sam rolled from his blankets, away from the warmth of Jane Ann, to take his watch. The dog watch, that lonesome time until daylight. As he squatted with his back to a tree, his eyes constantly moving, shifting from hill to hill, roaming over the terrain, Sam formulated a battle plan.
As he had told the others, there was no point in trying to run for help, for even if they did manage to get out of this section of Fork—which was highly unlikely—probably impossible—and reached help, say the State Police, and returned, what could they prove? Nothing. All his senses told him that by this time tomorrow, Whitfield would look like any other small town. Stores could be open for business, people could be moving about, shopping. The fires could be explained, perhaps not to everyone's satisfaction, but enough to satisfy all but the most doubtful. There would be no bodies lying about. Everything would be normal enough to satisfy the uninitiated.
No, they could not run away. They had to fight. For the greatest reason of them all. And his friends did not question that.
At night, though, at night, that's when Whitfield would work its evil, worshipping Satan. The town had to be destroyed.
But to kill them all!
The thought was staggering in its enormity. But Sam could think of no other way.
By now, he knew Wilder would have people looking for them. There were cowboys who knew every inch of Fork. They would surely be working toward them. But they would come in the light, were susceptible to lead. The living did not worry Sam too much.
But the Undead. The night people. And the people like Michelle; how many were there? That was another matter. Squatting there, with the ruins of the Talmage place silhouetted to his left, Sam tried to work out a plan. Surely, they would have to—
Something moved just to his right. Whatever it was had stepped on a twig, snapping the dryness. Sam remained still, only his eyes moving. Whatever it was came closer. Sam slowly lifted the muzzle of th
e Thompson, easing the SMG off safety. If it was one of the Undead, perhaps he could not kill it with the machine gun, but he could stop it long enough to grab a stake. Sam had fitted a drum onto the belly of the Thompson. Sixty rounds of .45 caliber ammunition.
The thing drew nearer, moving stealthily through the moonless night. It moved with a shuffling motion, almost clumsy as it came.
Sweat beaded Sam's forehead as the thing made a noise unlike anything Sam had ever heard before. A non-human sound, as if heavy jaws were chewing on something.
And then it mooed. A cow.
Sam slowly expelled his breath, relaxing tense muscles, easing his grip on the Thompson. And then the thought came to him: the devil can take the shape of any thing, any animal. If the devil can do that, could not his true disciples do the same? Could not the devil will his work to any animal—any human?
Sam looked closer, his smile grim as his suspicions became facts. The animal's eyes were blood red and unblinking. The drool from its lips stank. And Sam knew where he'd smelled that before.
He eased down on one knee, bracing against the kick and the climb of the weapon on full automatic. The animal was less than five yards from him when he leveled the Thompson and pulled the trigger, starting the fire at the animal's legs and allowing for the rise of the powerful weapon. He emptied half the sixty round drum into the cow. The animal screamed in an unHoly wail, the heavy slugs actually lifting the cow off its front hooves.
Undead it may be, but in human or animal form, it was subject—unless it had time to prepare itself—to damage, just as any mortal, breathing, living thing. And Sam shot it to bloody rags.
The thing thrashed and howled on the ground, its legs smashed and broken, unable to hold its assumed weight. Sam shot it between the eyes, putting ten rounds in its head, in its brain. As his friends gathered around, rubbing sleep from their eyes, flashlights in their hands, the thing began its metamorphosis, changing from animal to human and back to animal, until nothing was left except a dirty, stinking pile of rags and bones.
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