F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (34 page)

 
          
Joe
lowered his voice. "I'd appreciate it if you wouldn't talk like that. Last
night was the first good thing that's happened to these people in a long time,
so if you don't mind ..."

 
          
Lacey
held up a hand. "Okay. 'Never is heard a discouraging word.' But if that's
true about the rest of the country, then instead of staying here maybe we
should be thinking about throwing a convoy together and heading west."

 
          
Joe
shook his head. He'd already thought of that.

 
          
"We're
being watched. We start to assemble dozens of cars, they'll know what we're
planning. They'll be waiting for us. We'll be sitting ducks on the road."

 
          
He'd
seen it play out in his mind's eye. He'd envisioned a line of cars racing down
Route 70 at dawn. But he'd also envisioned a
Vichy
roadblock, gunfire, bloodshed, disabled
cars, the convoy stalled, blocked fore and aft, the sun going down, and then .
. . massacre.

 
          
"We've
got a better chance here. I told Vance to get on his radio and spread the word
of what we're doing here. Maybe it will spur others to do the same. Right now
we've set a fire. If we remain the only bonfire, I agree: we're doomed. But if
we can start a trend, inspire a hundred, a thousand fires along the coast,
we'll no longer be the center of attention. We might have a chance."

 
          
Lacey
was nodding. "And if the rest of the country gets the message that there
is hope, that resistance is not futile ..." She grinned and raised her
fist. "I always wanted to be a revolutionary."

 
          
"Well,
you're going to get your wish." Joe yawned. When was the last time he'd
slept? "My wish is for forty winks."

 
          
"Why
don't you bed down for a while in the rectory? You catch your forty while I
take some people over to that office building and check it out. We'll see how
we can divide it up for living arrangements."

 
          
Joe
stared at her. Where did she get her energy?

 
          
"Aren't
you tired?"

 
          
She
shrugged. "I've never needed much sleep. Besides, I had a nap."

 
          
"When?"

 
          
She
smiled. "While you were saying Mass."

 
          
Joe
sighed. "When are you going to face facts and admit—?"

 
          
"Hush."
She put a finger to her lips. "I'm still not on board, but we'll argue
about this some other time. Right now, there's too much work to do."

 
          
Joe
watched her stride off, thinking that whoever said there are no atheists in
foxholes obviously hadn't met Lacey.

 
          
LACEY
. . .

 
          
Lacey
gazed out the window at the lengthening shadows and rubbed her burning eyes.

 
          
Tired.
She hadn't found time for another nap yet. All she needed was twenty minutes
and she'd be good for hours more of activity.

 
          
Her
uncle and the rest were in the process of working out a sleep schedule,
assigning shifts. Some of them were going to have to live undead style, sleeping
in the day, up all night, while others would keep a more normal schedule.

 
          
Lacey
figured she'd volunteer for the undead shift since she tended to be a night
person anyway.

 
          
She
turned away from the window and checked out the room behind her. The desks had
been pushed into a corner and a mattress and box spring placed in the center of
the floor. Not fancy but functional, and a helluva lot more comfortable than
trying to sleep on the church's stone floor.

 
          
She
stretched her aching muscles. A good workout today, driving pickup trucks to
the furniture stores, hauling bedding back, and lugging it up the steps to the
upper floors. Toward the end of the afternoon she would have given anything for
a generator to power up the elevator.

 
          
Back
to the window for another look at the grand old Victorian next door. Janey had
been so into Victorians, dragging Lacey around the city, pointing out this
Second Empire
and that Italianate until she'd caught the
bug too. They'd planned someday to come down to
Asbury Park
, buy a place like the three-story affair
next door and renovate it, dress it up like those fabulous painted ladies
they'd salivated over on their trip to
San Francisco
last year.

 
          
Lacey
felt a lump grow in her throat. Janey . . . they'd had such good times together
... the best years of her life. She missed her. Losing her had left an cavity
where she'd once had a heart.

 
          
Where
are you, Janey? What did they do to you?

 
          
Lacey
knew in that instant which building she wanted added next to Uncle Joe's
"compound."

 
          
Why
not suggest it to him now?

 
          
She
ducked into the hall and started down the stairwell, only to have to back up to
allow a couple of the parish men to pass with a queen-size mattress.

 
          
"I'm
heading over to the church to see Father Joe," she told them.

 
          
"Give
us a minute and I'll escort you back," said a red-faced, heavyset man in a
plaid shirt.

 
          
Lacey
waved him off. "Don't be silly. It's a hundred feet away. And the street's
blocked."

 
          
Probably
just wants a break from all the lifting and hauling, she thought as she stepped
outside.

 
          
She
checked up and down the street. Nothing moving. No one in sight.

 
          
As
she started across the street she glanced again at the old house and figured,
why not check it out first? If it wasn't habitable—say, a big hole in the roof
or something like that—why waste her time?

 
          
But
she wasn't going in there alone. No way. She'd seen enough horror movies to
know you don't go into empty houses alone when there are bad guys about.

 
          
She
looked around, saw a short, muscular guy in a sleeveless T-shirt crossing the
street, heading from the church toward the office building. What was his name?
Enrico. Yeah, that was it.

 
          
"Hey,
Enrico. Want to help me check out this place next door? See if we can move
people in there?"

 
          
"Sure,"
he said, grinning. "Let's go."

 
          
She
waited for him to catch up, then together they headed for the front steps and
climbed onto the porch. She tried the door, hoping it was unlocked—she hated
the thought of breaking one of those old windows to get in—and smiled as the
latch yielded to the pressure of her thumb. All right!

 
          
Enrico
hung in the living room while Lacey hurried through the cool, dark, silent
interior. The decor was not authentically Victorian—nowhere near cramped and
cluttered enough—but the place hadn't been vandalized. The two upper floors
held five small bedrooms and one larger master bedroom, all furnished with beds
and dressers. The couch in the first-floor sun room could sleep another, once
all the dead house plants were removed.

 
          
Perfect,
she thought, feeling the best she had all day. This is a definite keeper. And
I've got first dibs on the master bedroom.

 
          
She
came down the main staircase—the house had a rear servants' stairway as well,
running to and from the kitchen—and found the living room empty.

 
          
"Enrico?"

 
          
Maybe
he'd done a little exploring on his own. She headed for the kitchen and stopped
cold when she saw a pair of feet jutting toes-up from behind a counter. She
wanted to run but knew she had to check. She hurried forward, took a look at
the kitchen carving knife jutting from Enrico's bloody chest, at his dead,
glazed eyes staring at the ceiling, then spun and ran.

 
          
She
didn't head for the front door. Instead she sprang for the French doors and
leaped onto the verandah. There she ran into three waiting
Vichy
and had no time to react before something
cracked against her skull, sending lightning bolts through her suddenly
darkening vision. She lashed out with her booted foot but struck only air, and
then another blow to her head sent her down.

 
          
She
had flashes of faces, one clean-shaven, one bearded, one with braided hair,
snatches of voices . . .

 
          
"Got
one!" . . . "Hey, she's fine! She's really fine!"

 
          
A
feeling of being carried, then an impact as she was tossed into the rear of a
van, the van starting to move, then more voices...

 
          
"We
get major points for this—major!" . . . "Man, she's so fine! Shame to
hafta give her to the bloodsuckers." . . . "Ay, yo, they only said
they wanted a live one. Didn't say nothin 'bout havin to be a virgin, know'm
sayin?"

 
          
Laughter.

 
          
"Right!
Fuckin-ay right!"

 
          
And
then the feeling of her clothes being torn from her body . . .

 
          
CAROLE
. . .

 
          
Sister
Carole watched a beat-up old van race along the street. She couldn't see who
was driving but it was coming from the direction of St. Anthony's.

 
          
St.
Anthony's . . . how she'd wanted to step inside when she'd passed by this
morning. She'd heard the voices drifting through the open front doors,
responding to Father Joe during Mass, and they'd tugged her up the steps to
participate and ... to see Father Joe's face once more. But she couldn't allow
it. She was unworthy . . . too unworthy.

 
          
She'd
seen the stains on the steps—blood and fouler substances—and had asked one of
the armed men guarding the front about them. He'd told her about what had
happened during the night, how Father Palmeri and other undead had been routed
and killed along with their living helpers, how the church was now a holy place
again.

 
          
Carole
had walked on with her heart singing. Maybe what she'd been doing was not all
for naught. Maybe there was a Divine Plan and she was part of it.

 
          
Then
again, maybe not.

 
          
Most
likely not.

 
          
The
song in her heart had gasped and died.

 
          
And
so she'd spent most of the rest of the day working around the house. She
figured it was only a matter of time before she was caught and wanted to be
ready when the undead or their cowboys came for her.

 
          
wish they'd come for you NOW, Carole. Then this shame, this monstrous
sinfulness would he over and you'd get what you DESERVE!>