F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (23 page)

 
          
done it again, Carole! AGAIN! I know they're a bad lot, but look what you've
DONE!>

 
          
Sister
Carole looked down at the unconscious man with the bleeding head and trapped,
lacerated leg. She sobbed.

 
          
"I
know," she said aloud.

 
          
She
was so tired. She'd have liked nothing better now than to go upstairs and cry
herself to sleep. But she couldn't spare the time. Every moment counted now.

 
          
She
tucked her feelings—her mercy, her compassion—into the deepest, darkest pocket
of her being, where she couldn't see or hear them, and got to work.

 
          
The
first thing she did was tie the cowboy's hands good and tight behind his back.
Then she got a washcloth from the downstairs bathroom, stuffed it in his mouth,
and secured it with a tie of rope around his head. That done, she grabbed the
crowbar and the short length of two-by-four from where she kept them on the
floor of the hall closet; she used the bar to pry open the jaws of the bear
trap and wedged the two-by-four between them to keep them open. Then she worked
the cowboy's leg free. He groaned a couple of times during the process but he
never came to.

 
          
She
bound his legs tightly together, then grabbed the throw rug he lay upon and
dragged him and the rug out to the front porch and down the steps to the red
wagon she'd left there. She rolled him off the bottom step into the wagon bed
and tied him in place. Then she slipped her arms through the straps of her
heavily loaded backpack and she was ready to go. She grabbed the wagon's handle
and pulled it down the walk, down the driveway apron, and onto the asphalt.
From there on it was smooth rolling.

 
          
Sister
Carole knew just where she was going. She had the spot all picked out.

 
          
She
was going to try something a little different tonight.

 
          
COWBOYS
. . .

 
          
Al
screamed and sobbed against the gag. If he could just talk to her he knew he
could change her mind. But he couldn't get a word past the cloth jammed against
his tongue.

 
          
And
he didn't have long. She had him upside down, strung up by his feet, swaying in
the breeze from one of the climbing spikes on a utility pole, and he knew what
was coming next. So he pleaded with his eyes, with his soul. He tried mental
telepathy.

 
          
Sister,
Sister, Sister, don't do this! I'm a Catholic! My mother prayed for me every
day and it didn't help, hut I'll change now, I promise! I swear on a stack of
fuckin bibles I'll be a good boy from now on if you'll just let me go this
time!

 
          
Then
he saw her face in the moonlight and realized with a final icy shock that he
was truly a goner. Even if he could make her hear him, nothing he could say was
going to change this lady's mind. The eyes were empty. No one was home. The
bitch was on autopilot.

 
          
When
he saw the glimmer of the straight razor as it glided above his throat, there
was nothing left to do but wet himself.

 
          
CAROLE
. . .

 
          
When
Sister Carole finished vomiting, she sat on the curb and allowed herself a
brief cry.

 
          
ahead, Carole. Cry your crocodile tears. A fat lot of good it'll do you come
Judgment Day. No good at all. What'll you say then, Carole? How will you
explain THIS?>

 
          
She
dragged herself to her feet. She had two more things to do. One of them
involved touching the fresh corpse. The second was simpler: starting a fire to
attract other cowboys and their masters.

 
          
GREGOR
. . .

 
          
Gregor
stood amid his get-guards and watched as cowboy Kenny ran in circles around his
dead friend's swaying, upended corpse.

 
          
"It's
Al! The bastards got Al! I'll kill 'em all! I'll tear 'em to pieces!"

 
          
How
Gregor wished somebody would do just that. He'd heard about these deaths but
this was the first he'd seen—an obscene parody of the bloodletting rituals he
and his nightbrothers performed on the cattle. This was acutely embarrassing,
especially with Olivia newly arrived from
New York
.

 
          
"Come
out here!" Kenny screamed into the darkness. "Come out and fight like
men!"

 
          
Stan,
the head of this posse, was stamping out the brush fire at the base of the
utility pole.

 
          
"We
should be getting back, Gregor," one of his guards whispered. "It's
too open out here. Not safe."

 
          
All
four of them had their pistols drawn and were eyeing the night, their heads
rotating back and forth like radar dishes.

 
          
Gregor
ignored him and called out, "Someone cut him down."

 
          
Stan
pointed to Kenny. "Climb up there." Hey, no—

 
          
"He
was your bud," Stan said. "You do it."

 
          
Kenny
reluctantly climbed the pole.

 
          
"I
want to let him down easy!" he yelled when he'd reached the rope.

 
          
"Just
cut the rope," Stan said.

 
          
"Dammit,
Stan. Al was one of us! I'll cut it slow and you ease him down."

 
          
"Oh,
fuck, all right," Stan said. "C'mere, Jackie, and help me."

 
          
The
woman stood back by one of the cars that had brought them all here. Not the
fancy convertible the posse had been using recently—Al had apparently taken
that for a drive and never come back. She had a bandage around her head over a
blackened left eye. Gregor wondered what had happened to her. Beaten by one of
her own posse perhaps?

 
          
He
looked at Jackie and remembered lusting after women for their bodies; now he
cared only for the red wine running through them. Sexual lust was a dim memory.
He hadn't had an erection since he was turned, seventy years ago.

 
          
Blood
. . . always blood. Gregor was glad he had supped before accompanying these
cowboys to their dead friend.

 
          
This
made six dead. Two in the past three days. The pace was accelerating. Olivia
would be on the warpath.

 
          
Jackie
shook her head. "No way," she said, her voice faint. "I
can't."

 
          
"Get
your skinny ass over here!"

 
          
"He's
comin down!" Kenny shouted.

 
          
"Damn
fuck!" Stan shouted as the body slumped earthward. He reached up to grab
it and—

 
          
The
flash was noonday bright, the blast deafening as the shock wave knocked Gregor
to the ground. His first instinct was to leap to his feet again, but he
realized he couldn't see. The bright flash had fogged his night vision with a
purple, amebic afterimage. He lay quiet until he could see again, then rose to
his feet.

 
          
He
heard wailing sounds. The woman crouched beside the car, screaming
hysterically; the cowboy who had climbed the pole lay somewhere in the bushes,
crying out about his back, how badly it hurt and how he couldn't move his legs.
But the other two—Stan and the murdered Al—were nowhere to be seen.

 
          
His
get-guards were struggling to their feet, enclosing him in a tight, four-man
circle. "Are you all right, Gregor?" one said.

 
          
"Of
course I'm all right," he snapped. "You wouldn't be asking that
question if I weren't."

 
          
Gregor
shook his head. He tried to choose carefully for his get, emphasizing
intelligence. Sometimes they fell short.

 
          
Gregor
began to brush off his clothes as he looked around, then froze. He was wet,
covered with blood and torn flesh. The entire street glistened, littered with
bits of bone, muscle, skin, and fingernail-size pieces of internal organs,
leaving no way of telling what had belonged to whom.

 
          
Gregor
shuddered at the prospect of explaining this to Olivia.

 
          
His
fury exploded. The first killing tonight had been embarrassing enough by
itself. But now another cowboy had been taken out, and still another crippled
to the point where he'd have to be put down—all right in front of him. This had
passed beyond embarrassment into humiliation.

 
          
When
he caught these vigilantes he'd deal with them personally. And see that it took
them days to die.

 
          
CAROLE
. . .

 
          
Sister
Carole saw the flash and heard the explosion through the window over the sink
in the darkened kitchen of the Bennett house. No joy, no elation. This wasn't
fun. But she did find a certain grim satisfaction in learning that her
potassium chlorate plastique had worked.

 
          
The
gasoline had evaporated from the latest batch and she was working with that
now. The moon provided sufficient illumination for the final stage. Once she
had the right amount measured out, she didn't need much light to pack the
plastique into soup cans. All she had to do was make sure she maintained the
proper loading density.

 
          
That
done, she stuck a number-three blasting cap in the end of each cylinder and
dipped it into the pot of melted wax she had on the stove. And that did it. She
now had waterproof block charges with a detonation velocity comparable to
forty-percent-ammonia dynamite.

 
          
"All
right," she said aloud to the night through her kitchen window.

 
          
"You've
made my life a living hell. Now it's your time to be afraid."

 
          
GREGOR
. . .

 
          
"Three
in one night!"

 
          
Olivia's
eyes seemed to glow with red fire in the gloom of the Post Office basement.
She'd taken up temporary residence in the old granite building.

 
          
"They
booby-trapped the body." Gregor knew it sounded lame but it was the truth.

 
          
Olivia's
voice was barely a whisper as she pierced him with her stare. "You've
disappointed me, Gregor."

 
          
"It
is a temporary situation, I assure you."