F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (52 page)

 
          
Lacey
kept her eyes on her uncle. "How about a letter, hand written by their
Father Joe himself? You and I could 'find' it and read it to the
parishioners."

 
          
Carole
shook her head. "They don't know his handwriting. Some of them will think
it's a fake. Doubt will spread, ruining the whole plan."

 
          
Carole
was right. Lacey searched for an alternative. She thought of having Joe sneak
up to the church at night and speak from the shadows to someone he trusted—Carl,
maybe—but discarded the idea. Too chancy. Too many ways it could backfire,
especially if anyone caught sight of his ruined face. They'd think he was an
impostor.

 
          
Then
it came to her, so obvious she kicked herself for not thinking of it
immediately.

 
          
"We'll
tape you! All we need is to get hold of a little cassette recorder and have you
record your message. We leave it at the church for someone to find. It'll have
a note saying it's from you. They'll play it and recognize your voice. No
doubters then."

 
          
Carole
nodded. "Brilliant. I know a Radio Shack not far from here that ought to
have a cassette recorder."

 
          
Lacey
looked at Joe. His teeth were clenched. He didn't seem to be listening. She
grabbed the flashlight and headed for the bathroom. Not that there was any
water pressure in the town's system to make the bathroom useful for its
intended functions, but she needed to be away from Carole. She placed the
flashlight on the glass shelf under the medicine cabinet. . . next to the steak
knife she'd left here earlier just for this purpose.

 
          
Picking
up the knife, she called, "Uncle Joe? Could you come in here a sec?"

 
          
When
she heard him approaching, she bit her lip and sliced the pad of her left index
finger. She jumped with the pain, almost dropping the knife.

 
          
Damn,
that hurt!

 
          
She
placed the knife in the sink and cupped her right hand under the finger.

 
          
"Something
wrong?" Joe said as he came up behind her.

 
          
"Close
the door, will you?"

 
          
When
she heard it close she turned and held her bloody finger up to his lips.
"Here," she whispered. "I know you need it."

 
          
He
turned his head and stepped back. "No!"

 
          
Lacey
stepped closer. "I thought we settled this last night!" she hissed.
"This is something you need and something I want to give. Don't do this,
Unk. I'm already cut and bleeding." She pushed her finger toward his
mouth. "Take what you need."

 
          
With
a groan he grabbed her hand and pressed her finger to his lips. He sucked
hungrily for an instant, then pushed her hand away.

 
          
"Enough!"
The word sounded as if it had been ripped from deep inside him.

 
          
"You're
sure?"

 
          
He
looked away and nodded. "Look . . . I'm going out. I need to do some
reconnoitering, see if I can locate a nest or two."

 
          
"Want
us to come along?" She opened the medicine cabinet and found a tin of
Band-Aids.

 
          
He
shook his head. "Better if I do this alone. I'll be less noticeable
solo." He glanced at her, then away again. "Lend me the car
keys."

 
          
"Carole
has them."

 
          
"Can
you get them for me?"

 
          
"Just
ask—"

 
          
"Please?"

 
          
Lacey
bit back a remark. She wrapped a Band-Aid around her finger and returned to the
front room.

 
          
"Is
everything all right?" Carole asked. Her eyes darted from Lacey's face, to
her bandaged finger then to her eyes again.

 
          
"He
needs the car to go hunt up some targets. Where are the keys?"

 
          
Carole
fished them out of her sweatsuit pants pocket. "Alone?"

 
          
"He
thinks it'll be better that way."

 
          
Lacey
took the keys back to the bathroom. "I don't understand you," she
whispered. "I thought we straightened this out last night."

 
          
"We
didn't." His voice was barely audible. "I said we'd see."

 
          
"Okay.
We've seen. And it was quick and simple. Now tell me, why wouldn't you get keys
yourself?"

 
          
"Because
... because Carole's in there. One look at me and she'd know."

 
          
"So?"

 
          
"Let's
just drop it."

 
          
"No.
Tell me."

 
          
"Because
. . . because I can't bear being in her presence after doing this. I feel so
... so diminished." He squeezed her hand. "Got to go."

 
          
You
poor, poor man, she thought, staring at him. You've got it bad, don't you. And
this is tearing you apart.

 
          
He
squeezed past her and stepped into the front room. He turned right, heading for
the rear of the bungalow.

 
          
"Good-bye,
Carole," he said in a choked voice without looking at her. "I'll be
back around sunrise."

 
          
Lacey
leaned against the sink until she heard the back door open and close, then she
returned to the front room. "Carole," she said. "We've got to
talk."

 
          
JOE
. . .

 
          
Standing
in the deep moon shadows, he watched the church from afar, listened to the
hymns echoing from within, saw the daylight-bright glow gushing through the
open front doors, and yearned to go inside.

 
          
But
that was not to be. The huge crucifix hanging over the sanctuary and the dozens
of crosses on the walls—crosses he'd helped fashion with his own hands—would
blind him now, make his presence there an ongoing agony. That part of his life
was over. The simple comfort of kneeling in a pew and letting the cool serenity
of the church ease the cares and tensions from his soul would be forever denied
him. And as for saying Mass . . .

 
          
The
longing pushed a sob to the back of his throat but he forced it down. In his
other existence he might have felt tears running down his cheeks, but they
remained dry. The undead don't have tears. Their hair doesn't grow. They don't
progress or regress, they simply are.

 
          
He
was about to turn away when movement to his right caught his eye. His night
vision picked out a figure—balding, with a ripe gut bulging over his belt—leaning
behind a tree.

 
          
Joe,
it seemed, wasn't the only one watching the church.

 
          
He
bent into a crouch and moved a few yards closer. He caught the flash of a Vichy
earring.

 
          
Not
surprising that the undead would want to keep an eye on the church. They had to
be furious and more than a little unsettled by these defiant
"cattle."

 
          
With
a start Joe realized that they might be watching for him.

 
          
Of
course. Franco had expected him to rise from the dead in the rectory and start
feeding on the parishioners. He must know by now that that hadn't happened.
He'd want to know why. Never in a thousand years would he guess the truth.

 
          
Franco
had to be baffled. His beautiful plan had gone awry. More than awry, it had
gone bust. He had to be furious.

 
          
Joe
cradled the thought, letting it warm him, feeling the best he'd felt all night.

 
          
He
found a place between a couple of waist-high shrubs where he could watch the
watcher without being seen. He settled onto the ground. Despite his lightweight
shirt and shorts, the damp earth and cool breeze didn't chill him. He felt
perfectly comfortable. Extremes of temperature didn't seem to bother him.

 
          
What
else wouldn't bother him? He had much to learn about, this new existence, this
altered body he'd be wearing into the future.

 
          
The
future . . . what did that mean anymore? How long could he exist? Would he go
on indefinitely like the true undead? And beyond that hazy future, what of his
salvation? What of his soul? Did he still have one?

 
          
The
possibility jolted him. What if his soul had departed after Devlin had torn him
up? Was he an empty vessel now, marked and doomed to wander the earth like
Cain, offensive to the sight of God and man?

 
          
Joe
shifted his gaze to the dark blotch of the graveyard to the left of the church.
He could almost pick out Zev's grave among the shadows.

 
          
Zev,
he thought. Where are you, old friend?

 
          
How
he wished he were here tonight, sitting beside him. He longed for the comfort
of his wit, the honed edge of his Talmudic intellect. He wouldn't have answers,
but he'd know the questions to ask, and together they might come to understand
this, or at least find a path toward understanding.

 
          
Here,
on his own, would he ever understand what he'd become? Was there anyone else
like him on earth? He doubted it. He was sui generis.

 
          
The
quote, Alone and afraid in a world he never made, trailed through his head.
Whoever wrote that hadn't been thinking of Joe Cahill, but could have been.

 
          
Joe
watched the watcher through the night. When the sky started to lighten, the
Vichy
slunk away from the tree and started
walking south. Pistol in hand, the man kept to the center of the street,
looking wary. Dear Carole, all on her own, had filled their rotten hearts with
terror.

 
          
Joe
paralleled his path, traveling through the backyards of the deserted houses
lining the street, catching only occasional glimpses of him between the
buildings, but that was enough.

 
          
Although
Joe's was a much more difficult route, hopping fences and ducking through
hedges, he felt no sense of exertion. He wasn't even breathing hard.

 
          
He
stopped as he realized with a start that he wasn't breathing at all. He had to
take in air in order to talk, but otherwise he didn't need to breathe. No
blood, no respiration—what was powering his body? He didn't know, might never
know.

 
          
He'd
lost ground on the
Vichy
and hurried to catch up. The task of tailing him became dicier as he
entered the business district. Too open, with no cover. Joe had to settle for
huddling in a doorway and watching him. After what Lacey had told him about her
abduction, he had a good idea of where the man was headed.

 
          
Sure
enough, the Vichy stopped before the Post Office where he met with another pair
of his kind.

 
          
And
then, out of the shadows, a group of undead, seven males and a female, appeared
as a group. Joe couldn't make out their faces from this distance. He couldn't
hear their words, either, but he saw a lot of shaking heads and tense, unhappy
postures.