Cemetery of Angels

CEMETERY OF ANGELS

2014 Revision

For my longtime friends Pam and Steve Tamburri
with every good wish

BOTTOM LINERS BEWARE: there’s

another

set

of

books

—James dePreist

This is a revised and updated version of the original 1995 edition of the same title. I freely admit this is one weird book, strangely conceived, oddly structured, quirky as hell, hated by some, loved by others and begging for your mildly irrational leap into a world of supernatural fun and fantasy. You’ll be able to tell also that I have a certain amount of affection for Hollywood, Southern California and the American film industry. When I first wrote this, I was attempting to move to California. I finally did in 1995. I’ve never been sorry.

But I’ll tell you something about how this business of film and television works. A few years ago, I pitched
Cemetery of Angels
to a major television studio as a cable movie. I had a really good meeting, so good that the producer there “thought about it” for 2 months. Then the word came back of the studio’s decision. “Excellent pitch, fine book, great story. Highly, highly entertaining. You know, if Steven King had written it, we’d give it a green light.”

That said, I hope you enjoy
Cemetery of Angels
as much as I enjoyed creating this new manuscript. As you are reading, or afterwards, feel free to say hello on Facebook or at [email protected]. Keep in mind that I am not named Steven King. ;-)

PART ONE
Abduction

Rebecca Moore would never forget the face of the man who tried to kill her.

The first time anyone wanted her dead was late on a February afternoon in 2010. The incident came up out of nowhere, as if it had risen from regions of the earth that were as dark and cold as the wintry afternoons in Connecticut.

It began in a supermarket parking lot in Fairfield. Rebecca had done a day of grocery shopping and was anxious to arrive home. Already there was snow and ice on the ground. More was predicted for later that evening. As was the case on most days, she was to make dinner for the “three guys” currently in her life, as she affectionately called them.

The three: Bill was her husband, stepfather to her children. Patrick, seven, was her son. The third “guy” was Karen, five, her daughter. At that moment her husband, a freelance architect, should have been home with the kids. The “three amigos” were waiting for her.

As she unlocked the rear door of her Dodge Caravan, a pair of headlights swept around the dark parking lot. The lights, and the fast creeping shadows they cast, caused her to look up. Almost simultaneously, she felt a pair of eyes upon her. She had always felt that she had a keen sixth sense, a sense of being watched, and an instinct about an extra presence whenever there was one. And she felt it now, intertwined with a shiver.

The headlights belonged to a woman in a Mercedes. The Benz parked and the woman stepped out. Rebecca’s eyes kept working. She scanned past the parked cars. Then she searched further, looking under the supermarket’s sign and the variety store’s billboard. When she finally found the source of her anxiety, fear surged through her.

A man was watching her from only fifty feet away.

He was sitting in the driver’s seat of an old Lincoln that was battered but looked otherwise sturdy. But it wasn’t the vehicle or its condition that frightened her. What riveted her was the sheer menace on his face.

As a reporter for a suburban newspaper called
Westpress
, she had known a few criminals in her day. She had even, in her impetuous early twenties, loved and slept with a free spirited young man who would eventually go to jail for selling an ounce of window box hashish to a narc. But that had been different. Her reporting assignments had taken her into all sorts of stories, so she had known more people who had gone to jail than she would have cared to. Yet most of the criminals whom she had known personally were physically harmless: tax cheats, recreational druggies, and swindlers. And the young man to whom she had been a lover had actually been quite tender.

But the man in the car was pure threat. He was there to devour her. From somewhere came a horrible image: a vision of this man tearing off her clothing and attacking her flesh with his mouth. Her heart quickened. She knew he was watching her. Her only question was, had he also been waiting for her?

Instinct again: Something told her he was there for her. She took a second look.

He was pale-skinned and his head was shaved. He wore dark wraparound sunglasses. He looked as if he would be tall — maybe six two, six three if he stepped out of the Lincoln. And worst of all, sunglasses or not, his line of vision was fixed on her.

At first she tried to dismiss him. Then, as she shoved the first of three shopping bags into her van, she shivered again as she thought of him as a potential rapist. She turned. She continued unloading from her cart. She took a longer look at him. She held him in her gaze for several seconds, as if to try to convince herself that she wasn’t afraid.

It didn’t work. Their eyes locked. But at least she got some of his details.

He was wearing a leather jacket over a bare chest, odd attire for a raw February afternoon. There were some chains, gold ones she thought, around his neck. His features were sharp, and he reminded her of a hungry feral predator looking for a lamb.

And then another thought came to her. It was not an attractive one:

This man, she thought, was something far worse than anything she could imagine or anything she had ever faced before. There was something horrible surrounding him.

A malevolent aura? A threat of violence that surpassed even the physical threat? Something creepy, bordering on the supernatural? All of those things?

Yes, she decided.
All of those things.

Rebecca felt herself break a fearful sweat under her coat, sweater, and jeans. She felt perspiration form at her neck and drift between her breasts. She suddenly saw herself as female and vulnerable.

“This is what a werewolf looks like,” she found herself thinking. The thoughts formed almost by themselves. “Or a vampire. Or some sort of half human monster beast that is going to kill me, strip my body, and exsanguinate me. I will be found battered, sexually ravished, and nude in the snow.”

She shuddered. All of a sudden, she couldn’t control her own thoughts.

As she entertained that idea, the man turned over the ignition in his car. She hurriedly pushed the second grocery bag into her own car. She glanced back again. Through those hostile shades, through a streaked car windshield, he continued to stare.

She took her eyes off the man and pushed the third bag of groceries into the van. Then she looked at him again. Definitely, she told herself. He was stalking her. The entire late afternoon was now the color of his dark eyes. He was there for one thing: her.

What to do? What was Rebecca Moore, suburban wife and mother, reporter for a suburban weekly, to do?

She tried to stay calm. She told herself: You are smart. You are wily. You have been around a bit. You are not going to be intimidated by a thug. And, oh yes. One other thing that she acknowledged to herself:

Might as well admit it. You are not just scared. You are terrified.

She begged her composure not to desert her. She had to stay calm. She knew that her life would depend on it.

His car, the ignition running now, was positioned between her and the supermarket. Between her and the nearest telephone. Her husband had taken her phone to upgrade it with the company that issued it. Of all days! Something told her that if she tried to walk back to the store to use a pay phone, the man with the shaved head would hit her with his car and kill her.

She made a decision. She was only two miles from her home, two miles from the house where her family waited. She would leave the parking lot quickly and get out of the area. If she were lucky, she would elude him, and then she would call the town police. But her first impulse was to get out of there as fast as possible.

She slammed her van closed. She turned on the ignition. She waited. The old Lincoln made no effort to move.

Rebecca reached to her backseat. Her son Patrick had left a child’s size baseball bat in the car. Child size or not, it was made out of wood, and Rebecca, at age thirty-two, knew she could still pack a wallop when she swung it.

She had played soccer and run track at the University of Maryland a decade earlier. She had kept in shape ever since aerobics, the Nautilus at the health club twice a week, three mile runs four mornings a week, and the occasional game of tennis when time permitted. She swam at the Westport YMCA. “So help me,” she told herself, “if he comes anywhere close to me, I’ll bash his filthy bald head in and…”

This thought was interrupted by a second one.

Fact of life: a strong man could always overpower a strong woman. And what if he had a weapon? The best defense was always the defense of the rabbit. Swift flight.

She put her Dodge in reverse. She eased out of the parking place.

“Make one move with your car, Buddy,” she whispered aloud, her heart thumping in her chest, “and I’m hitting this accelerator so fast!”

She backed up and turned toward the exit, which led out onto the Post Road.

“Where are the police?” she found herself thinking. “Where are the police? Never visible when you need them! Never!”

She drove evenly, watching her rearview mirror the whole time. The darkness of the late winter afternoon closed in on the bare parking lot. Snow was piled near the light standards. And the bald man in the car didn’t move.

Rebecca relaxed slightly. She breathed more easily. She scolded herself for becoming so upset. For imagining herself in danger. After all, what had this strange man done? His face was pointed in her direction. That was all. But she was still alarmed. Her instincts had kicked in. And her instincts had rarely lied to her.

Rebecca’s Caravan arrived at the exit. The Lincoln made no move. She heaved a big-time sigh of relief. She watched for a break in traffic, glancing repeatedly in her rearview mirror as she waited.

A few seconds later, she had a break. She turned left, exiting the parking lot. And as soon as she committed herself to driving in a specific direction, Rebecca heard a screech of tires. She looked in the mirror and let out a short scream. Goose bumps surged across her entire body. She saw her worst fears realized: The man had turned his car sharply. He
was
following her!

She hit her accelerator. Her wheels screeched on the asphalt. She followed the Post Road for several blocks and watched in the rearview mirror. The Lincoln darted out of the parking lot and was in pursuit. She made a flash decision. She didn’t want to lead him directly home. And she saw no place where she could stop for help. So she turned sharply when she came to Tremont Lane, a winding road that cut through a patch of woods. It was in the general direction of her house.

She hoped she could lose the man if she floored the accelerator on winding Tremont. She hit her gas pedal hard. But almost immediately, she knew that she had erred. The roads were slick. There had been some melting during the day, and now what had melted was frozen. It was impossible to move quickly.

She prayed that the man in the Lincoln hadn’t seen her turn, that he had lost her taillights among a handful of others. Her heart sank. Yes, he had seen her! He turned after her. Seconds later she realized something worse. He was quickly gaining on her.

She went up a hill, then down one, traveling much too fast.

Again, her eyes were on the rearview mirror. At first she saw only blessed blackness. Then there was the glare of head lights following from the other side of a crest. Then, as she hit a turn, the headlights were yellow and bright about a hundred feet behind her. She heard herself muttering. A prayer to anyone who would listen: “Oh, no… Oh, God, please… Oh, God, help me…!”

The other car was gaining fast. Within seconds the pursuing vehicle was no more than sixty feet back, its headlights brighter, larger, and more yellow with every second.

She hit another turn.

Hairpin, this time. Much too sharp. And she was moving far too fast on an icy road. She yanked her steering wheel sharply going into the curve and her tires betrayed her. They didn’t hold the road. The van hydroplaned, fishtailed, and slid.

At the same time, the pursuing car pulled abreast of Rebecca’s. All she was aware of was how close it was, tracking her down by cutting into the wrong lane. Then there was a loud crunching sound as her attacker turned his right front fender into her car to force it off the road.

The tactic worked. The Lincoln was a heavy old beast, designed perfectly for forcing a smaller, lighter vehicle out of a rightful lane. Rebecca’s tires whirled on nothing, and she hit a patch of black ice. Her tires spun. Then, still forced by the muscle of the Lincoln, Rebecca’s car found the narrow snow-covered shoulder of the road.