Apocalypse Island (23 page)

Father Byrne knew that the authorities had somehow covered up the murder of that woman. Nearly five years had passed since the meeting and he had not heard another word. He’d begun to believe that all survivors had been found as promised and that they could all breathe a sigh of relief. Now, two more young women had been murdered in exactly the same manner as that woman five years ago, and this very afternoon the news had broken of four nuns killed execution style in a small convent in western Maine. He’d known two of those nuns and he was certain that their murders were arrows aimed directly at the heart of the church. There could be no other explanation. Someone was in the process of wiping the slate clean once and for all. But what he couldn’t understand was why they were killing innocent young women? What did these innocents have to do with Apocalypse Island? It didn’t make sense.

There had been nine of them out of all the children in the orphanage. They were all special in their own individual way, a brotherhood and sisterhood, all born without names or identities, forgotten and unwanted because they were so different.

These were the ones the government wanted, so Father O’Neal, Byrne’s superior at the time, had made a deal with members of the government in exchange for further funding for the orphanage. At the time it seemed like an equitable exchange. It was either take the government’s money or close the orphanage. They promised that no harm would come to the children. The government had lied, as governments have a way of doing. Byrne had been uncomfortable with the arrangement from the beginning, but he’d had no power over the church or the government and he’d been forced to go along. Then he’d seen what those poor children had to endure. He’d tried to help. He’d tried to save some of them, but it had all been in vain.

Byrne knew that these new killings could not be covered up by the government. Some fool had taken photos of one of the victims and posted them on the internet. Now things were starting to unravel, the photos had gone viral and people were asking questions. Byrne feared that it was only a matter of time before questions about the orphanage began to arise and the church’s deceits were uncovered.

How many were still out there, he wondered. Did any of them remember him? If so, could they point fingers? Should he inform the feds of the young man who’d come into his church or should he just wait and see what happened?

Now with the killing of these nuns Byrne feared that it would not be long before the feds reappeared and this time they might not be satisfied just to eliminate the survivors. This time they might decide to eliminate...everyone who knew. The thought struck him like a lance that perhaps they had already begun.

Byrne was caught between his duty to the church, his conscience, and his fear of recrimination. If what he knew ever came to light he would certainly be tried and convicted for crimes against humanity. But so would they all. Then the thought struck him that members of the government rarely paid for such crimes even though they were often the worst offenders. These men had ways of hiding behind terms such as top secret and national security. He knew also that they were good at cover-ups, at eliminating those who might implicate them.

Finding no solace in prayer, or relief from his bleak thoughts, Father Byrne stood and left the church, the door to the nave shutting behind him with a soft whisper.

Chapter 52

Outside the wind was blustery and cold for October. A cold rain had ceased earlier and the sky had cleared. Without a moon Byrne could clearly see the constellations and the rim of the Milky Way galaxy above him. The thought struck him what a cold, vast and unforgiving place the universe was. Difficult to imagine God caring much for man’s concerns.

He’d come to the Cathedral of St. John the Divine thinking he could start over, reaffirm his vows and forget about the things that had happened on Apocalypse Island. He’d been wrong about everything. He would never be able to forget what he’d seen there, all the suffering and cruelty, what he’d turned his back to, what he’d conspired to keep secret all these years.

After the madness and the fire, the confusion, and all the death and destruction, he had come here, and as high as he’d climbed, as far as his ambition had taken him, his life was a failure. Now his deceit would be his undoing. He was lost and forsaken, tumbling into a darkness without end.

He’d wanted to blame Father O’Neal for all that had happened—O’Neal, after all, was the one who’d made the pact—but he knew that he could only blame himself for turning his head, for going along when everything was so wrong. Now O’Neal was dead, brutally murdered nearly a year ago, and Byrne was the one left to bear the burden of sins committed in that terrible place.

You can never outrun yourself, Patrick,
he thought as he made his way through the dark night toward the rectory.

Something moved near the corner of the building. He stopped and stood perfectly still. There it was again, a shifting of light and shadow, solid one moment and fluid the next. Sudden terror rushed through his bowels, turning them to liquid.

“Father Byrne, do you remember me?”

That voice. There was something familiar about it. “Who are you?’ he asked. “What do you want?”

“Do you remember the orphanage, father? Do you ever think of the children?”

Byrne crossed himself and took a backward step. It was as if someone had been reading his thoughts. “I think about them all the time,” he said.

“Good,” the voice replied. “I hope you’ve suffered knowing what you did.”

“Dear God, are you one of the...”

“Children?” the voice finished for him. “Maybe I am. But I’m not a child any more.”

“How is it possible...that you’re...?”

“Still alive?” the voice whispered. “After you abandoned us we were saved.”

“I tried to protect you!”

“That is a
lie!
If turning your head while they tortured us is your idea of protection then you never fully understood your vows as a priest.”

“You were all special children,” Byrne said.

“Don’t patronize me, father, not after you gave us up to those monsters. You abandoned us when we needed you most. And if you deny it again I’ll gut you like a pig.”

“Why can’t I see you?” whispered the priest.

“They
did this to me,” said the voice. “They wanted soldiers who could do all sorts of miraculous things. They made us eat terrible things. Do you remember the sick children crying about bad medicine, father, begging and pleading not to give them any more bad medicine? Only later did I realize that they were feeding us radioactive poison. They shocked us with electricity. They put terrible thoughts in our heads. They taught us to push people with our minds and do terrible things to them. They tried to make us communicate with the blue light. Do you remember the blue light, father?”

“Oh dear God, yes, I could never forget the blue light. For a time I thought it would be your salvation. But they never understood it, did they?”

“No. And they still don’t. When the fire happened, from the carnage I was reborn.”

“But how...?”

“The blue light, father. It saved us.”

“Oh dear God,” Byrne said, crossing himself. “I’m so sorry for everything.”

“Too late, priest.”

“How many?”

“How many did the blue light save? Is that what you want to know? How many
survived?
Quite a few, actually. If you could call what we have survival.”

“I know how you must feel, but—”

“You don’t have a fucking clue how I feel, priest. We were just children. They tortured us, treated us worse than lab rats, and you went along. And in the end you ran like a coward. Then you conspired to cover it up. This is about you and this evil institution you call a church.”

“It wasn’t the
church,”
Byrne said with incredulity. “You can’t blame the church for what happened. Men! Evil men did this. Not the church. We took their money in order to
save
the children. You have to understand. They promised it would be all right, that only a few of you would be used and no harm would come to the rest.”

“You offered up the few for the greater good, is that it?”

“You were all so pathetic.”

“So we weren’t worth saving?”

“Sometimes sacrifices need to be made. But I told you, it wasn’t my decision.”

“What about Danny? Was Danny worth saving?”

“You all looked up to him. He was the—”

“Beautiful one?” the voice finished for him and Byrne heard adulation in it. “Yes, he was beautiful and he was brave, the one everybody wanted to be. We all loved him. I still do. In the end he helped save us. The blue light told him how and he obeyed. Now he doesn’t remember. So sad. But I shall never forget what he did.”

“Is he...involved in these killings?”

The voice laughed. It was a high, hideous sound that sent terror rushing into Byrne’s heart.

“Well, is he?” Byrne said, backing away a careful step.

“Oh, that is so precious, priest. Now why would Danny be killing demons?”

“Demons?” The priest said. “You’re telling me those murdered women are demons?”

“Oh yes, father, you bet your ass they’re demons, and Danny needs to be protected from them
.
”

“Oh, dear Jesus, you’re murdering people in his name?”

“They’re not people! They’re demons I tell you!
They wish to destroy him, just like they wish to destroy us all.”

“You’re insane!” Byrne said. “All those things they did to you drove you mad!”

“Could be,” said the voice. “But it doesn’t matter now.”

The priest backed up another careful step, squinting to identify the source of the voice. All he saw were shifting shadows. “Please,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be this way.”

The shadows solidified, moving toward him at speed and that’s when Byrne saw his antagonist for the first time. He could not believe his eyes.

“I know who you are,” he said. “I’ve seen you. Oh, dear God! But how...? This can’t be happening... This isn’t
right.
”

The killer laughed again, a high, hysterical sound, chilling in its ferocity. “Oh, it’s right, Father Byrne. It’s right, and it’s good.”

Byrne’s mind told him to escape, but before the thought could translate into action the blade was in his throat buried to the hilt. He went to his knees, his clutching hands feeling the blade and the warm wetness there.

His murderer stared with a cool and intelligent sort of detachment, the very same intelligence Byrne had seen in those very same eyes dozens of times. But he would never see those eyes again. He would never see anything again. He was on his way to Hell. Byrne coughed, choked, unable to breathe. Blood poured into his lungs, drowning him. He fell forward onto his face, his dead body twitching with spasms.

Chapter 53

When Wolf returned to his apartment at 1:45 am, he found a note on his door from Mr. Tripp telling him that the tenants had all gotten together and signed a petition for his eviction. The superintendent was reviewing it and would come to a decision tomorrow.

Wonderful,
he thought, balling the note up and throwing it at the wastebasket.
Just fucking wonderful.

He sat in his chair and drank whiskey until he was stupid drunk. Then he cuffed himself to the bedpost and laid awake tossing and tumbling, writhing and sweating, feeling like a man without a soul. Finally, sometime near dawn he fell into a troubled sleep.

In his dream he carried a dead woman across a long field pitted with sand traps and striated with deep ruts. It was a suburban tract, littered with the remnants of some long-forgotten ambition.

A line of construction vehicles, stripped naked by vandals and looking defeated and forlorn glared at him like skulls from an improbable iron-world graveyard. Piles of steel girders, red with rust, lay scattered in and around the abandoned site. In the distance an interstate roared, and across from it, a mile or so to the west, the sodium wash of shopping mall security lights shimmered.

Above him stars glimmered like diamond chips against the black curtain of night.

An old brick three-story building stood derelict against dark woods at the far end of the abandoned field.

He knew this place. He’d been here before.

Feeling a terrible aching in his soul, he walked on, staring straight ahead. Though he carried a dead woman, he could not bring himself to look her in the face. He knew that he would die if he did.

He arrived at an opening in the building where there had once been a door. Now it was a maw; a wound in the flank of some dead and decaying monster. He stopped at the opening, staring at the darkness within. Rubble from the interior spilled through the doorway blocking a portion of it. He entered the building, ducking down and stepping over mounds of broken brick and fallen roof timbers. The woman’s dead weight was not a burden, for he was big and powerful, and she was so small, so defenseless.

He made his way down a steep set of stairs into a basement.

The light was dimmer down here, but he had no trouble seeing in the dark. He did not question why this was so. He stopped in the center of the empty space, squatted, and while holding the unconscious woman in one arm brushed the dust off a small patch of wood with his free hand. A brass ring was revealed. He grasped the ring and lifted a trap door up out of the floor. Dust rose into the dead air like microscopic insects. Tiny bits of sand cascaded into the opening with a sound like gently falling rain.

An enormous wave of dread seized him. It was almost too much to bear, knowing in his heart that this dream was more than a dream. That it was all wrong. That what he was seeing—what he was living—was somehow real and so terrible.

He stepped onto a crudely-made ladder and climbed down into a room below the basement, holding the woman carefully, so afraid he might break her.

He was standing in a crude room with rough-hewn wooden walls and an earthen floor. The ceiling was constructed of old boards and beams, held up by metal jack posts. An old iron-frame bed sat against one wall, and beside it, several wooden trunks were stacked, one on top of another. An old chest of drawers with scraps of clothing sticking out of drawers askew leaned against the opposite wall. A closer inspection revealed most of the garments to be women’s lingerie, panties, bras, nylons. A crude two burner propane stove sat on a table constructed of concrete cinder blocks, and an array of soiled pots and pans lay scattered in and around the ramshackle shelter.