“It’s all right,” Stiles said from the hallway. He was coming out of the bathroom in just his jeans, toweling the water from his chest. “I’m up now. What about the silver?”
She related the story to him for the first time and to the boys for a second, leaving out the graphic details for their benefit and Doreen’s death for Ted’s. The soldier listened intently, angry at first at Charlie’s hardheadedness but taking in her every word, even inspecting the rest of the silver service she had brought back. When she was finished he said, “Well, I’ll be damned.” He looked at her and smiled, and pulled her into his arms. “You know, I ought to kick your ass for not checking with me first.”
She nuzzled against him. “Would you have been worried?”
“Who me? Are you kidding?” He kissed her, unconscious of the stares and smirks around them.
“OKAY IN THERE. CUT OUT THE HAPPY HORSESHIT.”
They all jumped. Bean was standing in the doorway with a speakerphone in one hand. “Nice to see you up, Mr. Stiles,” he grinned.
“How did the meeting go?” Billie asked.
“See for yourself.” He motioned toward the window.
A small crowd of fifteen to twenty people, men, women and children, were milling in the street below: Many carried shotguns and axes and shovels and any other weapon they could get their hands on. Others carried boxes and sacks of supplies. Like silver. “They actually believed you?” Billie was astonished.
“It wasn’t easy. A few still wanted to run, so we had to lock them up down at the jail. We’re going from street to street now. If anyone comes out they can join us. We’re also rounding up silver and taking it over to Pete’s Radiator Shop. He’s got some acetylene tanks we can use to melt this stuff down and flux out the alloys to get it as pure as possible.” He tapped Stiles on the shoulder and said softly, “You and me and Billie, outside. Okay?”
They went out onto the stairway and closed the door. “Did Billie tell you what happened?”
“Not about Doreen,” she was quick to say. Then to Stiles, “We found Ted’s girlfriend there. Larson had been feeding on her.”
“Christ.”
“She was dead. Charlie made sure she stays that way.”
“Temporarily,” the deputy interjected. “That’s what I wanted to tell you. Some of the others wouldn’t believe me at first. So, I took them over to Dutch’s house to prove it.” His face was pale with the memory. “He wasn’t there, Billie. Him or Doreen. I found the broken pool stick on the floor. And this.” He drew a bundle from inside his coat and unwrapped the cake knife. “Look at the handle.”
Stiles held it up with two fingers to avoid the gore-stained point and inspected the hilt. It was coated with a blackened, gauze-like substance. “Skin?”
Charlie nodded. “Whoever grabbed this burned the flesh right off their palm. That means someone else was in the house all the time. Like his wife. Well, I didn’t have to think about it twice—we got the hell out of there. Fighting one’s a God’s plenty. Two, maybe three—forget it.”
“Just stay out of houses from here on,” Stiles warned. “We’ve got enough to keep us busy until nightfall.” He looked at the sun. “Probably another eight, maybe nine hours. It’s not much.” He turned to Billie. “I’ve got a job for you. Take the boys and Cooper, maybe some of Charlie’s people, out front. Find some lumber—slats, tomato stakes, whatever—and make crosses out of them. Big ones, waist-high or so. We’ll need a cordon to isolate the town after dark. Living people will honor a quarantine sign but dead ones won’t. If we string them across the roads out of town and out into the surrounding fields, we might at least slow them down. But be very careful. The others can help you make the crosses, but you have to put them out yourself. You and you alone.”
She was visibly confused. “Why just me?”
He lifted the crucifix around her neck. “This is why. Faith. You’ve got it. You proved that last night when Larson ran off. Anybody can say they’ve got faith or play at it or even convince themselves of it, but you’re the only one we’re sure of. You put up a cross and they’ll back away. We can’t take the chance with anyone else. Can you handle it?”
She saluted. “Yes, sir. Crosses, coming up.” She sneaked a quick kiss before disappearing back into the apartment. Stiles turned his attention to Bean.
“I like your approach to this. Do you have enough shotguns? How about reloading gear?”
“All taken care of,” nodded the deputy. “We’ve got plenty of hunters around these parts and they know how to reload. We’re leaning toward light loads, just enough to puncture the chest. Anyway, we’ve got three presses so far, and we’ve already got a mess of shotguns. I’m on my way to the office to get some more. I’ll pick you up a couple.” He started down the steps but turned with an errant thought. “Pardon me for asking, but what are you gonna be doing while all of this is going on?”
“Planning a surprise party,” was all Stiles would say. Bean caught an icy gleam in the soldier’s eye and decided not to ask again.
It was nearly 10:30 a.m. The morning was almost gone. Nightfall was not far away.
Chapter Fifteen
The sun was losing its grip on the sky. With each glance Ted took, it dipped closer and closer to the tree-ragged horizon. It would be night soon. “About an hour left,” he said so everyone in the commandeered bakery truck would hear him. “We should have time to kill a few more ’fore it gets too late.”
Billie was anxious enough with dusk so close and trying to keep her eyes on the road, but the teenager’s words and manner unsettled her. “Haven’t you been listening, Cooper?” she said, perturbed. “Chris told us to stay out of the houses and that’s what we’re going to do. It’s too dangerous.”
He waved her off. “You ain’t my mommy. If I want to do some hunting, I’ll damn well do it.”
She was incredulous. He’d gotten so cocky. “I’ll tell you something, big man. If you want to get yourself killed, fine. Jim-dandy. But you’ll not get someone else hurt in the process. You go hunting, you do it alone. Understand?”
He just shook his head, muttered something under his breath, and went back to staring out the window.
She glanced into the rearview mirror to check on Del and Bart. They were on the floor of the truck amid the trays of bakery goods that would never be delivered, Bart poking at a day-old Danish before tasting it, while Del sat propped against a row of bread shelves. Both were quiet and obviously exhausted, a feeling she heartily shared, but Del was more sullen than normal. He held the last of the tomato-stake crosses, turning it over and over in his hands, gazing at it as if it were some complex puzzle he couldn’t quite fathom. Then he shook his head. “No way,” he murmured. “No way these’ll stop ’em. I mean, those things aren’t stupid. They see that cordon, they’ll just walk forty or fifty feet off the road until they find out it doesn’t reach everywhere. Then they’ll just go around it and what then?”
“There’s no way we could’ve fenced in the entire town, Cap,” Bart said through a mouthful of pastry. “That’s not realistic. Hey, you ought to try one of these, they’re not bad.” The boy shook his head no.
“Bart’s right, honey,” Billie agreed. “Chris only wanted us to slow them down, that’s all. And that’s just what we’ve done.” His tone was skeptical. “You mean with these?” He threw down the cross contemptuously.
“You can’t give up on faith, sweetheart,” Billie assured him. “You’ve got to believe in it, if only to offset the evil. There is goodness out there. Why do you think they have to be invited into a house? Because there is an inherent good to every home—it’s presupposed, taken for granted. Only when evil is invited in, accepted willingly, can that sanctity be violated. It’s faith that wields the cross, too, not you or me. . . .” But the boy had already made up his mind and his attention was elsewhere. She frowned with worry and turned back t
o the road.
The Todd’s Bakery truck rolled into the heart of town and found it not much different than before. There were no shoppers, no loitering old men. No cars running. For the latter she figured Chris was probably responsible. He told her earlier that any fool could drive a car. Even a dead one. And her fence of crosses wouldn’t stand up to a vampire in a plummeting Honda Civic.
“Charlie’s car’s not there,” Bart said, coming up from the back of the truck. “He must still be over at Pete’s with the rest of ’em. Maybe we’d better head over there.”
She pulled the truck into Bean’s parking place just the same. “In a minute. You guys stay put. I want to see if Chris is back.” By the time she was out of the truck Bart had already slipped through the sliding door on the side and unshouldered the carbine.
“Hey, Mom?” Del leaned out the window and pointed across the street to the drugstore. “Can I go get some candy? The door’s still open—Chris was there, remember?”
She looked at the empty store skeptically. “I don’t think so.”
“Aw, c’mon. There are windows everywhere. There ain’t no way one of them can be in there. Please?”
“Oh, hell,” Ted said, climbing out of the truck. “I’ll take him. Shouldn’t be five minutes.” He shouldered his ax. “C’mon, little guy.”
Billie finally relented. “All right, but just for a minute. And you leave money on the counter for anything you take.” Then she sidled up next to Ted and breathed into his ear, “You let anything happen to him, kid, and I’ll slit your bag and stick your leg through it.” He answered her with a laugh as Del slithered out of the truck and walked alongside him across the vacant street. Billie watched after them anxiously, even after they were inside. Bart had to touch her shoulder to get her attention.
“They’ll be okay, Mom. It’s light in there.” He started for the stairs and she finally followed after him.
The apartment was still unlocked, but no one was inside. Bart was the first to notice, vocally at least, that Stiles’s things were gone. The reloader, the guns, the pack of explosives, and anything else that might even hint that he was ever there. Billie felt a sudden pang of distress at the discovery but said nothing. Bart was not nearly so controlled. “Looks like he packed up and left,” he said, half-indifferent, half-frightened by the implication. “You think he’d really take it on the lamb like that?”
“No, I don’t.”
He shrugged. “Me neither. But I wouldn’t blame him if he did.”
She was adamant. “Believe me, he didn’t, so let’s drop it and go find your brother.” She turned then and started for the door, inadvertently knocking a photo from the end table with her elbow. She picked it up. The photo had been taken at Kings Island—the Eiffel Tower and person in the Scooby Doo suit in the background were the giveaways. In the foreground was Charlie, wearing a law enforcement cap and a T-shirt that read, CALL 911 TO MAKE A POLICEMAN COME. He held a woman in his arms, a clowning knight with his mousy damsel, and the two of them together were a study in contrasts. Where he was beefy and stout, she was petite. Where his manner, even frozen in the photo, was flamboyant and garrulous, hers was retiring and shy, eyes avoiding the camera. But she was looking at him, and Billie could read the emotion in that look. It choked her up. She kept connecting it to the Toyota wagon they’d found out on Croglin Way—Susie’s wagon, off the road but with the nose pointed homeward, the doors open and the driver gone. Billie tried to think hopefully, to believe that Susie might have made it to safety. But she failed.
“You okay, Mom?” Bart asked, but then he saw what she was staring at. “Oh. Are you going to tell him?”
She sat the photo down gently, like a fragile, precious thing, then wiped her eyes. “No. Not till later.” She held out a hand to her son. “Let’s go find Del.”
As they came down the stairs, they found Delbert and Ted sitting in the well of the truck’s big side doors, the younger with a large sack perched on his lap. Del rifled through it and produced a handful of candy bars for their examination. “What do you want? We’ve got a Kit Kat, a Mounds, a Nestle’s Crunch . . .” Billie was indignant. “I thought I told you to leave money for anything you take.”
Del grinned mischievously. “All of these were on sale. Hey, everybody check this out.” He stuck his head down into the sack and when he looked up, his smile had changed. It was now huge, bulging his cheeks, and his incisors had grown long and tapered. The “Vampire Teeth” were obviously plastic, but that fact didn’t spare his mother any discomfiture. Bart had to intervene to keep her from smacking them out of his mouth.
“Delbert, I don’t want to see that stuff again, do you hear me?”
“But Mom—”
“It is not funny, young man. Now get in. We’re going to find Charlie.” She started around the front of the truck.
“Way to go, Cap,” Bart said, giving him a noogie on the noggin.
“But she didn’t even give me a chance to explain—”
At once all three boys suddenly became alert, ears primed, like hunting dogs on the trail. It would’ve been almost comical had the sound that stirred them not been so distinct. A woman’s gasp. “Mom!” Del cried, scrambling through the truck and picking up a claw hammer on the way while Bart went around the back and Ted around the front. They converged on the driver’s side like the troops at Normandy.
Despite her exclamation of surprise, Billie already had the situation in hand: to be precise, she held a man at bay with a gun barrel halfway up his nose. A sane person in that position would have gasped and recoiled himself, but this man just smiled wanly. He was not old, but looked it at first glance. His face was haggard and his hair unkempt and his eyes were so red they looked ready to pop from the sockets. His dress shirt and tie and slacks were the same he’d worn at services the day before and were well wrinkled and dirty by now. In fact, his whole appearance was so disheveled that at first they barely recognized Reverend Knutson. The Bible in his hand was the only real clue. Even his pastor’s smile was different. The warmth was misplaced, leaving it distant. Vacant. And he did not flinch at their abrupt defensive posturing. Instead he held that smile and reached out to touch Billie’s shoulder. “Did I startle you?” he asked.
She lowered the weapon, embarrassed, and had to slap at Ted to get him to shoulder his menacing ax. “I’m so sorry, Kevin,” she apologized. “I guess you did kind of sneak up on us. What are you doing out here?”
“His work,” he said with a subdued exaltation as he waved the book in front of them as proof. “At least I was trying. I thought I’d look in on some of the congregation, the ones who didn’t make it to church yesterday and all. But I can’t seem to find anyone home. It looks like we’re the only ones who didn’t go.”
“Go where?”
“To Bedford. For the fireworks.” They exchanged puzzled expressions, which seemed to weaken the man’s own confidence. “It is tonight, isn’t it?”
“It ain’t even July,” Del blurted before Billie’s glare could cut him off. The minister heard him though and nodded and tried to smile. He just looked lost.
“Kevin,” Billie said, stepping closer. “Are you okay?”
“Oh, I’m fine. Never better. The doctor told me just this morning that I’m in tip-top shape. He—”
“The doctor’s office was open this morning?”
“Certainly. Dutch gave me a ride over first thing this morning. Then I went to the diner for breakfast and called on a few doors but . . .” He shrugged but still wore that same blank smile.
Billie looked at the diner across the street. It was still empty, still unopened for business, the door ajar only because Chris had jimmied it this morning. And Dutch . . .
“Sounds like somebody’s slipped a cog,” Ted whispered to Bart, but she heard it too.
“Listen to me, Kevin,” she said, taking the man by the shoulders. “You�
��ve got to snap out of it. We need your help right now, so listen. None of that happened. You didn’t see the doctor today. You didn’t see Dutch.”
“Billie, I just told you—”
“Dutch is dead, dammit. Maybe the doctor too. Most of the people aren’t human anymore. They’re vampires. Do you understand?”
“You too?” the minister sighed. He pulled her into his arms and stroked her hair like a condescending parent. “Now, now,” he soothed. “Nothing to be scared of.”
She yanked out of his grasp. “Yes, there is something to be afraid of. They’re here, now. I’ve seen them.”
“NO!” His tone was suddenly violent, frenzied. Almost panicked. He raised the Bible as if to smite her with it. Bart stepped between them. “It’s you who don’t understand. I am strong. My faith is strong. Satan’s touch cannot defile one of purity. He cannot!” His voice cracked. His confident tone rang hollow. “I am pure,” he said emphatically, though they could not tell who he was trying to convince. “I am! And I will not let your own faithlessness draw down my flock.” He turned, tucked the book under his arm, and started to leave. But Bart caught him by the shoulder before he could get too far and spun him around.
“Here,” he said, forcing the last of the tomato-stake crosses into the minister’s hands. “You might need it.” Then he and his brother and Ted climbed back into the truck, leaving Billie and the irate reverend alone.
“Kevin,” she pleaded, “come with us. We can use your faith. You can help us, and you’ll be safe.”
He looked around the town with the same dramatic flair he utilized at the pulpit every Sunday. “I don’t see any evil, Billie,” he said, but his eyes were still too glazed. It was no wonder he couldn’t see. His insanity kept getting in the way.
“Please, Kevin. I’m begging you—”
“Send them to me, Billie,” he said, striding off down the street. “Send your monsters, your vampires. Your boogeymen. Let them face me on hallowed ground.” He laughed and headed in the direction of the church, to the sanctuary it offered him in more ways than one.
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