Devil's Kiss (31 page)

And the hollow, evil voice laughed at the words.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and
my
fortress: my God; in Him I will trust
.”

The lamp beside the priest suddenly shattered, plunging the room into semidarkness, the only light a small night light in the hall.

John Benton stepped into the room, his dark burial suit rumpled, white shirt dirty from the grave.

Dubois rose in shock.
Get away!” He held a cross up to the figure.

Benton shuffled across the room, his pale, bloodless face shining in the dim light. A hideous face, with staring, unblinking eyes.

“Do not forsake me now, my God,” Dubois prayed.

Benton raised a stake, shuffling closer. The cross Dubois held had no effect on the living dead. The priest backed away, back, until he bumped against the wall. His heart was pounding in his chest.

Dubois reached for a vial of Holy Water on the table by his chair. His shaking hands knocking the vial to the floor, the glass shattering on the tile.

Benton came closer, his walk a staggering, awkward gait. His smile was hideous.

“John!” Dubois cried. “John Benton—can't you hear me? Don't you know me?”

“I know you,” the living dead spoke. He raised the stake.

The last sound Father Michael Dubois heard was his own praying as the stake plunged into his chest.

Sam banged on the front door of the rectory, growing more frustrated with each knock. He walked around to the rear. The back door was open, early morning sunlight streaming into the kitchen, the light picking up the faint dusty track of footprints on the tile floor. Sam cautiously stepped inside. The dirty footprints led to Father Dubois's living room.

The smell of death hung in the small room. Something else, too. Something Sam could not quite identify. Then he had it: it was a musty odor. But more than that, it was a smell of something he had smelled many times in Korea: graves that had been disturbed.

But why would that smell be in Michael's house?

Unless—?

Sam stepped around the footprints in the kitchen and walked into the living room, knowing what he would find. He was not shocked to discover Dubois dead on the floor. The old priest had known it was coming—somehow.

Sam stood for a long silent moment, looking down at the body of his friend. The priest lay sprawled on the floor, his face twisted in horrible pain, eyes wide and staring. At nothing. A long stake protruded from his chest. The room stank of blood.

And that musty smell.

Sam spoke a silent prayer for Dubois, then picked up the phone and gave the operator the number of the City Police, knowing everything he said would be monitored.

“Jimmy? Get over to the rectory as quickly as possible. Father Dubois is dead.”

He then called Tony, telling him what had happened. The doctor said he'd be right over.

The operator laughed.

Sam sat down in a chair, waiting. He had to force himself to remember that the grotesque thing on the floor was merely an empty shell; Dubois was not in this room. He was home with his God—home, at last.

“You fought a good fight, friend,” Sam whispered. “Now rest forever in the arms of God.”

“Sam?” Jimmy's voice echoed through the home.

In here, Jimmy. Watch those footprints on the floor.”

“I see them.” He got his first look at Dubois and gagged for a moment, before control took over.

The body of Dubois seemed to sigh in death as gas escaped him.

Tony walked in. He looked at Dubois, crossed himself, then knelt down by the body. “Dead about ten or twelve hours, I'd guess. Give or take a couple of hours.”

“What is that smell?” Jimmy asked. “Not the blood—the other one.”

“The Undead,” Sam said.

Eyes swung toward him; disbelieving eyes. Eyes mirroring dread and horror. Jimmy stuttered,
The—the Undead, Sam?”

“How many graves have been broken into the past two months, Jimmy?”

“Couple of dozen, I guess. Maybe more.” The realization of what the minister was saying struck him a hammer blow. “You mean—?”

“Yes.”

“But why would they do this?” Tony pointed to the remains of Dubois. “Like this!?”

“Because they were ordered to do it.” Sam rose from his chair and got a blanket from the closet. He pulled the stake from Dubois's chest, grunting with the effort. He tossed the bloody piece of wood to one side then covered the priest with the blanket.

“What do we do with him?” Tony asked.

“We can't take him to Glower's; he's one of Them. I won't have Michael's body defiled. I'll take care of it myself.”

“I'll help you,” Tony volunteered.

“How many city cops can you trust, Jimmy?”

“None. They're all wearing medallions.”

“Watch your back, boy,” Sam warned him.

“Yes, sir,” the young acting-Chief said. “I'll swing by and take a look at Chester's and Miles's.” He left, walking slowly out the back door, his shoulders hunched, as if expecting a blow from behind.

Tony looked at the blanket-covered body of Father Dubois. “What do we do with him, Sam? Where can we bury him where They won't find him?”

“We don't bury him,” Sam said. “We burn him.”

 

Black smoke spiraled upward from the makeshift funeral pyre at the city dump. The gas-soaked wood upon which Dubois lay burst into flames. In minutes, the priest was gone.

The doctor shuddered in the heat of the Nebraska morning and the flames from the dying pyre. “What an ignoble way for a good man to have to go,” he bitterly observed, then looked at Sam. “I'm scared, Sam.”

So am I, Tony. So am I.”

But the doctor looked at the preacher and thought: No, you're not, preacher. I believe you're looking forward to this fight.

Sam met his gaze.
Go on home, Tony. Get your gear together. Boots, canteens, blankets, guns—the whole bit.”

He nodded his agreement. “Miles and Doris have asked me to stay with them.”

“That's good. Everything pops day after tomorrow.”

And—?”

“We win or we lose. And God have mercy on us if we lose.”

After dropping Tony off at his car at the rectory, Sam drove the streets of town. Very few stores were open. No one walked the streets except young people. They were brazen, rude, and very profane.

Then he saw Jane Ann walking on the sidewalk, being followed by several young men.

Sam gunned the pickup, reaching her a moment before the young men. They were hulking, sneering, and half drunk. Sam threw open the door on the passenger side. “Get in here!” he snapped. “Have you lost your mind, Janey?”

She slid in beside him, fear on her face.

“Hey, preacher!” a young punk called. “You gonna get you some of that pussy?”

A deadly calm overcame the minister; a killing mood crept into his brain. He got out of the truck, walked up to the young man, and hit him, a low, vicious right to the stomach, about one inch above the belt buckle. When the punk doubled up in agony, Sam savagely brought his right knee up into the young man's face. There was grim satisfaction on Sam's face as he heard teeth shatter and the jaw break under the impact. The punk dropped to the sidewalk, his face ruined. Sam resisted an impulse to kick him in the balls; to finish him as he had been taught to do.

Brutally, he shoved the other punks out of his way, sending one sprawling into the gutter, hoping they would try to start something with him.

They did not.

I have to remember, he thought, that I am a minister.

It seemed to Sam he was reminding himself of that fact more and more each day.

“I'm sorry, Sam,” Jane Ann said, as he pulled away from the curb and the drunken, once profane, and now silent and stunned young men. “I just wanted to get out of the house. I didn't know it would be this bad.” She looked at Sam in a different light, now, after having witnessed another side of the man. She loved him even more.

He told her about Father Dubois. Tears sprang into her eyes, multicoloring the violet.

“And we can't run?” she asked.

“No.” He glanced at her. “All right—let me show you.”

They spent the next hour driving about that section of Fork, attempting to get out. It was useless; impossible, as Sam had told them all it would be. He could feel her fear growing. This section of Fork—thousands of square miles, dotted with more than two hundred small lakes—was sealed off tight.

A wreck is blocking the road just ahead,” sheriff's deputies told them, smiling as they spoke, their eyes dead.

A bridge is being worked on,” a highway patrolman informed him, smiling as he lied.