Bestial (40 page)

Then Bob heard the voice—”This do in remembrance of
meeee
!”—followed by loud laughter and three sharp hand-claps.

Vanessa’s movements slowed as she turned to look over her shoulder.

The others surrounding Bob turned their attention from him, stood up straight and stepped away from him, and turned their eyes toward the voice and the clapping hands.

Bob lifted his head, blinked his stinging, teary eyes, and saw Sheriff Taggart standing on the sanctuary stage.

“I hate to interrupt, but I’d like your attention, please,” the sheriff said.

The crowd around Bob thinned out and he turned to the right to look out over the sanctuary. It seemed the sight of all those hideous fanged creatures staring up at the sheriff should be shattering to him, should spread weblike cracks through his mind and sanity. But in a relatively short time, he had gotten past that—and
that
frightened him as much as the monsters that filled the church sanctuary.

“I’ve called you here for a reason,” Sheriff Taggart said. “We have things to discuss, plans to make. But first, before we do anything else, I want to introduce you to someone... to the person about whom you’ve heard so much recently. Just a few months ago, you stood in the front yard of the house on Edgerly Drive and I told you that she had been born, that she was thriving. You cheered. We all felt elated. She was the first of her kind. The First Born. But not the last.”

First Born,
Bob thought vaguely as his eyes passed over the congregation of beasts. He thought briefly of that vicious infant creature in the ER. But the thought melted away when his attention was caught by something in the rear of the sanctuary—one of the double doors opening just a few inches.

“She still thrives,” the sheriff went on. “She has grown a lot in the last few months. We don’t fully understand her yet, but that’s changing. And as we learn more about her, we learn more about ourselves. Everyone, I want you to meet Lupa—the First Born!”

The crowd of upright animals went wild. They howled and growled and jumped up and down.

Bob’s eyes remained on the door at the back of the sanctuary.

It opened a little farther. Another of the creatures walked in—female, hairy, apparently halfway between her two physical states. Another one followed behind her, its hair blond. But behind the two creatures were
people
who wore clothes over their hairless skin and who looked... familiar.

Bob blinked his eyes several times.

Karen Moffett and Gavin Keoph... behind them, Dr. Dinescu from the Emergency Room... behind him, the man Bob had met in the ER parking lot—what was his name?
George
, that was it.

A surge of relief moved through Bob like adrenaline and he felt his mouth stretch into a smile.

The female werewolf the led them into the sanctuary turned and said something to them over her shoulder. Then she and her hairy companion broke away and moved forward into the congregation while Gavin and George went to one side of the sanctuary and Karen and Dr. Dinescu went to the other.

Karen and Gavin each hand a gun in hand.

I’ve gotta get up,
he thought.
I’ve gotta
do
something. They’re here to help me—I need to help them
.

He clutched the edges of the pulpit and sat up.

“There he is,” Ella said, trying to be heard above the melee. “Cynthia and I will go straight up the center aisle. You should split up and approach from the sides. Don’t sneak up—move fast. When he sees Cynthia and me, he’s going to know something’s up, but he’ll be distracted. Take advantage of that when it happens.” She turned to Cynthia. “Come on.”

As she and Cynthia moved into the raging crowd, Karen and Gavin moved close and put their heads together, their mouths curling in response to the foul smell that was so thick in the air.

“You okay?” Gavin said.

“No. You?”

“Nope. You go that way, I’ll go this way.”

They looked around, registering surprise that they had not been noticed. Sheriff Taggart continued shouting from the stage, trying to be heard over the growling and grunting from the hairy congregation. They stood in the center aisle and on the pews, all of them moving, jumping, swaying, never still.

“Don’t waste any time or take any chances,” Gavin said. “Just get a bead on Taggart and shoot, and I’ll try to do the same.”

Karen nodded. Their eyes met and held, and they saw each other’s fear.

Then Karen smiled and shrugged with one shoulder. “Hey,” she said, “we’re in a church. How bad can it be?”

George said, “I was raised Catholic. You’d be surprised.”

Karen turned to Abe. “Come with me.”

They split up.

Moving fast, Karen went to the right with Abe by her side. He had a fork in one hand, a knife in the other. She was alert, on guard, ready for the worst—but she was amazed that she and Abe were able to walk up the aisle on the right without being noticed and attacked, or at least pointed out.

The werewolves were focused on Sheriff Taggart and the beautiful young woman who stood beside him. She assumed that was the First Born Ella had told them about, the girl who was born only four months ago.

The sanctuary rang with the sound of their excitement. Sheriff Taggart had difficulty being heard above it.

Karen spotted an empty space at the end of one of the pews near the front. She went to it, stepped up on it as if were a stepladder, and rose above many of the heads that faced the stage. Others were standing on pews as well, but Karen’s position gave her a clear view of the sheriff. There was a narrow canyon of space between heads and shoulders that cut diagonally across the column of pews. Standing at the end of that narrow canyon, as if in the site of a gun, was Sheriff Taggart on the stage.

She didn’t like the distance, but it wouldn’t be necessary for her silver bullet to hit his head or a vital organ—as long as it hit him, the damage would be done. Holding it with both hands, Karen lifted the gun, arms straight, and leveled it with the densest segment of the sheriff’s body.

To her left, two of the creatures caught the movement of her arms and turned their heads to her. A heartbeat later, one of them released a piercing howl of alarm, and the other quickly followed suit.

Karen squeezed the trigger of her Taurus 9 mm. as a hairy, clawed hand closed on her left forearm.

Even in all the racket, the crack of the gunshot stood out.

Another hand grabbed her shoulder. An arm wrapped around her waist and pulled her to the left.

The bullet missed its mark. Sheriff Taggart’s smile disappeared as his head jerked toward the sound of the gunshot.

Abe squeezed in past her and swung his right hand up from his waist with as much force as the tight space allowed. Abe buried the fork he held in the abdomen of the creature grabbing at Karen. It lifted its head and screamed.

But others had noticed her by now and they moved forward.

Abe swung with both the knife and the fork. The utensils pierced flesh, but there were too many of the creatures.

Karen clenched her teeth and began to kick as arms snaked around her and lifted her from the pew. Finally, in spite of her resistance of the urge, she screamed.

As Gavin searched for a clear shot at the sheriff as he moved quickly along the far left aisle. He tossed a glance over his shoulder to see how George was doing, but didn’t see him. He stopped and turned around.

George had collapsed against the wall between two of the vertical rectangles of glass, clutching his stomach, his head down, body convulsing. His silver knife and fork were on the ground at his feet.

“George!” Gavin said, moving toward him.

George’s skin had darkened. As Gavin approached him, he realized that the darkness of George’s skin was fur. More of it became visible as his growing body ripped through his clothes.

George’s head snapped up and he glared at Gavin with silver eyes, the tip of his tongue moving along the lower lip of his snout. He straightened up, pushed away from the wall, and grabbed the lapels of Gavin’s sport coat, pulling him close.

Gavin’s heart thundered in his chest as George’s foul breath filled his nostrils.

“Guh-George,” Gavin said. “George, it’s muh-me. Gavin. Remember whuh-where you are... why you’re here.”

George’s silver eyes narrowed and he cocked his head to one side.

“Them,” Gavin said, jerking his head toward the crowd of werewolves. “Remember?
Them
.”

George’s head turned to the right and looked at the other werewolves. After a moment, he growled and released Gavin’s lapels. He turned to face the growling, howling werewolves as they watched Taggart on the stage. George bared his fangs and plunged into the crowd with a roar. He pounced onto a werewolf and buried his fangs into its neck. George’s victim began screaming with surprise and pain as it was dragged to the floor.

Gavin turned and headed for the front of the sanctuary again, looking for a good shot at Taggart. He heard a gunshot. He looked at the sheriff, hoping to see him go down. Instead, he saw Taggart’s attention shift to the source of the gunshot.

Amidst all the clamor, a louder furor arose on the other side of the sanctuary. One of the creatures cried out in pain. That was followed by a scream—Karen’s scream.

“Shit,” Gavin said, breaking into a jog toward the stage. He dodged around the werewolves that spilled out of the crowded pews and into the side aisle, still unnoticed while attention was turned from the sheriff to the sounds coming from the other side of the sanctuary. As he neared the corner of the column of pews, Gavin held his Glock in both hands and lifted it in anticipation. He caught glimpses of Taggart through the gaps in the crowd, then rounded the corner of the column of pews toward the stage.

An opportunity opened up before him and Sheriff Taggart became clearly visible from head to foot. Before that gap closed, Gavin stopped and aimed his gun.

Taggart leaned over and said something to a beautiful girl on the stage. She hurried away from him, ran behind a clump of artificial plants and disappeared.

Gavin had a clear and open shot at Taggart. In the endless, eternal fraction of an instant during which Gavin squeezed the trigger of his gun, that perfect line of fire was broken.

Suddenly, Bob stepped in front of the sheriff, naked and haggard-looking, and he swung a woman around in front of him, holding her hair with one hand and her arm with the other.

“Kill her!” Bob shouted, looking directly at Gavin, a wild, teeth-baring expression on his face. “Kill her, Gavin,
kill her
!”

It was too late to stop. Gavin was already squeezing the trigger when Bob and the woman appeared.

Gavin fired.

The body of the woman in front of Bob jerked violently in response.

Sheriff Taggart spun his head around and looked from the first gunshot on one side of the sanctuary to the second gunshot on the other side. His good eye widened in alarm.

Karen screamed again.

The woman Bob had held up in front of the sheriff released a piercing shriek of pain as she fell forward.

“Fuck
me
!” Gavin shouted as the creatures in the front of the congregation began to close in on him like piranha on a bleeding animal in the water. He fired off a succession of shots into the advancing crowd as dark, clawed hands reached out for him, clutching, grabbing.

As he went down, Gavin heard Karen scream a third time. He hoped she would die quickly—he did not want her to suffer.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

The Delivery of Take-Out

As they started down the center aisle together, Ella leaned toward Cynthia and said, “That’s her—the girl standing behind him and to the right. I’ll take him, you take her. When he sees us, he’ll know something’s up and he’ll probably try to protect her. Don’t lose her.”

Ella reached into the bag and removed two forks. The Reed & Barton table knife had a fine serrated edge, but Ella preferred the deadly tines of the fork. She held one in each fist and used her elbows to push others out of her way as she ploughed ahead of Cynthia. She kept her eyes on Taggart, even though she lost sight of him occasionally on her way up. He was shouting at the crowd, getting them worked up. She knew that Karen and Abe and Gavin and George were heading up there along the side aisles, and she hoped they were alert and ready to act.

She and Cynthia were at the halfway point in the crowded center aisle when a gunshot rang out to the right. A pained howl was followed by a scream.

Ella shoved other werewolves out of her way as she neared the front. She glared directly up into Taggart’s eye as he looked in the direction of the gunshot.

A lupine shriek of pain cut through the noise.

Several seconds later, another gun fired, this time to the left.

Taggart’s head jerked in that direction as real panic moved over his face. He stepped backward, reached out and took the girl’s arm. He turned and leaned toward Lupa and said something to her, then pushed her to the back of the stage and to the right.