A Haunting of Horrors: A Twenty-Novel eBook Bundle of Horror and the Occult

by Chet Williamson

  Oh yes—and her brand-new hands.

  C.J. cleared his throat uncomfortably and looked away, his eyes instinctively searching the darker areas of the church nave before returning to Jo. Louise blushed and realized that Jo had lost most of the neckline and front of her dress, and half her childishly formed chest was in full sight. C.J., however, regarded her with an almost clinical interest, much as a boy would watch a small and interesting pale frog. "So," he finally said. He slipped a medieval-looking contraption from his shoulders and placed it carefully on one of the pews. "You've only been here two days?"

  Louise nodded and swallowed her nervousness. "Yeah."

  "Where'd you come from?" He leaned against the side of one of the benches and folded his arms. "Were you with anyone else?"

  Louise shook her head. "No, just me and Beau.”

  "Beau?"

  Louise couldn't wait any longer. "Jo, what happened to you?"

  Jo looked at her strangely, then made only a semiconcerned effort to pull her dress together. Louise's mouth dropped open when she saw that Jo's hands, so terribly mutilated last night, were as white and unblemished as her own. "Your hands—"

  "I think I'll go change," Jo interrupted. Her voice was muffled and sleepy-sounding. “And splash some water on my face." She smiled sweetly. "You guys get to know each other."

  Louise quickly scanned the aisle. "Beau—“

  "—is in the back," Jo said calmly. "I guess he's tired, too."

  "Who's Beau?" C.J. asked again.

  Louise had taken her gaze off Jo for only an instant, but the white-haired girl was gone. In another moment Louise heard a door close somewhere in the northern end of the church. C.J. was still waiting, his eyes like some bizarre pair of sparkling yellow stones. "My dog," Louise finally managed. "Beau is my dog."

  "You have a dog? Wow." He sounded impressed. "That must've been a trick. Were you always by yourself?"

  This time she answered his repeated question with a nod. "Were you?"

  He shrugged. "Sometimes." Again he looked briefly at the dark rear of the church; it was a habit Louise understood well. "But …" He hesitated.

  "But what?"

  "There are … a few others now," he finished at last.

  Louise's tense expression spread into pleasure. "Well, that's great! How many? And where are they? I was starting to think I was the only one left before yesterday, because I hadn't seen anyone else in so long, you know—" She stumbled slightly over the last word and stopped. She was babbling and he was staring at her like she had two heads. And why not? Her face turned scarlet. Where did I get off thinking I was the only person with brains enough to survive? She choked back the sudden urge to cry and closed her mouth.

  C.J. grinned abruptly and the smile lit up his face and made him look like an impish little boy. "Hey, don't stop now—you're on a roll!" He glanced around the dim interior, lit only by the richly colored but feeble glow from the stained glass overhead. "Let's get out of here. I'm sure it's holy and all that, but I just don't like dark places." Louise followed him outside without speaking, then was shocked to feel the drop in the temperature in only the last quarter hour. She threw a worried glance at the sky.

  "It's going to snow soon."

  C.J. jumped at the sound of Jo's voice floating from just inside the door to the church, and Louise dredged up enough courage to touch the sleeve of his jacket reassuringly. The only living thing she'd touched for the longest time was Beau. "She's always doing that," she told him. "I think she likes to surprise people."

  "Person could get killed that way," he muttered.

  Louise thought of the dangerous-looking weapon inside and wondered just how badly Jo had startled him earlier in the day. "Not her," Louise said.

  C.J.'s eyebrows lifted and Louise shrugged. She might sound as odd as Jo acted, but she believed every word. Jo rejoined them, wearing a white dress that except for the sleeves was the same as the ruined one. Her porcelain-tinted skin glowed when she lifted her face and breathed deeply of a swirl of frigid wind sweeping the thick sheet of her hair. She turned back to them, her gray eyes a strange reflection of the tightly layered clouds. "We have to get you back to Water Tower."

  For the first time, C.J.'s iron composure cracked. "How did you know about that?" he demanded. "Who else knows?"

  "I know a lot of things." Jo's soft voice was reassuring. “And only Louise knows—now. You're quite safe.” Watching Jo, Louise had the queer notion that the younger girl's eyes changed to a darker, brooding gray that had nothing to do with the snow clouds overhead, like some kind of optical chameleon. It was scary and Louise's belly gave a single, dreadful twist. "Let's go," Jo said. "I'll walk with you, but I cart stay when we get there."

  "Why not?" Louise asked nervously. She was distinctly aware that she could be an uninvited intruder into C.J.'s life. He'd never invited her to Water Tower Place. What if—

  "Of course you can," C.J. interrupted Louise's jumbled thoughts. "What're you going to do, hike all the way back? By the time we get there, it might be dark. No way."

  Jo shrugged. "Then let's not waste time. Why don't you tell Louise about your … what would you call them? Family?"

  "Whatever."

  Louise bristled at C.J.'s snappish response but Jo didn’t appear to notice. "Get Beau and your things," she told Louise. "You won’t be coming back."

  "I won't?" Confused again, Louise glanced at C.J., but he only stared crossly at Jo. A flicker of irritation stirred, warring with uncertainty and the sensation of homelessness she'd had ever since leaving the north side; had he and Jo planned this without even asking her? "Suppose they don’t want any more people?" Louise plunged on. "Or—"

  "There's room," C.J. said. His tone made it clear that he thought her questions were yet another waste of time.

  "I don’t want to impose," Louise continued stubbornly. She felt like the unwanted relative during the holidays. "I can take care of myself and I don't have to stay with Jo to do it." Louise was getting angry and embarrassed. What was happening here anyway? One minute Jo was saving her life and performing miracles, the next she was kicking Louise out on her butt.

  C.J.'s expression was rigid. "Get your stuff."

  "I refuse to be a burden!" Louise said hotly. "I'm not so stupid I'd go where I'm not wanted!"

  "Oh, he wants you to go, all right." Jo's voice was smooth and sweet, like warmed honey. "He's just too shy to say so."

  Louise was about to retort when she realized that despite his fighting stance and protectively folded arms, C.J.'s face was deep red. "I–I'll get my backpack," Louise stammered. "Here, Beau! Come on, boy!" She fled to the small confessional office where her dog and small cache of belongings waited; as the door closed behind her she could hear the tinkling of Jo's laughter, the sound light and not at all cruel.

  A few minutes later and they were on their way, Beau tucked safely in his customary place inside Louise's jacket as the trio wound through the downtown streets. They were only four blocks from St. Peter's when the snow began to fall in thick, clinging clumps that immediately began to gather in small piles. Louise stopped. "We should go back," she said, struggling to make herself heard above the wind; when she halted, Beau poked his nose inquisitively from a fold in her jacket, then quickly retreated. "Before we leave tracks. It won’t matter if they lead back to the church." She looked at Jo knowingly. "We'll still be safe."

  Jo shook her head and her companions gaped at her in disbelief. "No. Come on." The young girl resumed her steps, leaving small telltale depressions in the growing layer of snow. Louise and C.J. followed, knowing it would be useless to disagree, petrified about the footprints marking their progress like huge blotches of black paint on a white canvas. In the cold—something that apparently didn't affect Jo—their prints were becoming more defined with each quarter block. How much would it snow? It was barely past noon now; what if it snowed all day?

  When the crystal-shrouded front of Water Tower Place was finally less than a bloc
k away, Louise shivered as C.J. planted his feet firmly on the snow-covered sidewalk and refused to go any farther. "I can't do this." The snowfall that had seemed so pretty now swirled ferociously around them and the sidewalk was crusted over with ice, leaving perfect depressions with each step. "The tracks will lead the vampires right to the front door."

  Louise's voice was grim. "He's right." Although she was only three feet away, Jo seemed to blend into the harsh weather and Louise could barely see the white-haired girl.

  "What tracks?" Jo asked gently.

  Anger twisted C.J.'s dark-complected features. Are you completely crazy?" he demanded. A clot of snow tried to stick to one cheek and he slapped it away. “We might as well hang flags, for Christ's sake!" His black hair was sodden beneath a crown of quickly accumulating snow. When Jo smiled and touched his arm, he snorted in disgust and whirled to point at the indentations marking their passage, but his sound of derision ended in a shortened gasp.

  There were no tracks.

  The snow stretched along Michigan Avenue, unbroken and startling in its magnificent blanket of purity.

  The blood drained from Louise's face and an absurd thought occurred to her: she and Jo must look like winter sisters right now, Jo, with her flowing mass of colorless, strangely dry hair, and Louise, with her snow-covered brown hair and shock-white skin.

  "You two go in." Jo's voice was kind. "Louise was ill yesterday and shouldn't be out in this weather."

  "What about you? Aren't you coming?" Louise grabbed

  Jo's hand and clung to it; even without a coat in the subfreezing temperatures, Jo's skin was pleasantly warm. "But you'll die out here!" C.J. protested. "You'll—”

  “I'll be fine."

  C.J. and Louise stumbled after Jo as she crossed the final steps to the glassed-in entrance and pulled open the door.

  "That's supposed to be locked!"

  "It was." Jo brushed a new clump of snow from the young man's cheek and Louise's flesh crawled when she saw Jo's eyes darken again to that terrible, brooding shade of gray. For a moment the girl stared at them, then she turned back to C.J. "You just have to accept that. Sometimes you have to accept a lot of things." She glanced at Louise, and the brown-haired girl felt as though she'd been touched by a flash of love and … regret. Terror swept her for a second. Why would Jo look at her like that?

  "Both of you be in Daley Plaza tomorrow at noon," Jo said suddenly. "Don't come earlier or you’ll miss him."

  "Miss who?" C.J. demanded. He looked ready to explode. "What are you talking about?"

  Jo's perfect smile, even in the midst of the surprise snowstorm, blanketed them with warmth.

  "The key to the Mart."

  Louise blinked at C.J. and his return gaze was perplexed. Both teenagers turned back to Jo—

  She was gone.

  And there were still no footprints.

  3

  REVELATION 13:14

  And deceiveth them that dwell on the

  earth by the means of those miracles… .

  "I wonder if C.J. found that girl."

  McDole's voice was loud and startling, but he had to say something to break the silence; he and Calie had been sitting there for nearly two hours watching Bill Perlman stare into a contraption he claimed was a microscope. McDole was amazed the doctor had gotten the thing to work, and if he hadn't believed the results would someday be worth it, McDole would've protested about the number of batteries used to provide power for all the lights and equipment the physician needed. He looked at Calie, but she only sat on her stool, rotating slowly and watching the men, occasionally glancing into the darkened hall of the basement where they'd hastily moved the laboratory after the tissue sample had started to disintegrate in the bright lab at Northwestern. They hated being in this dismal part of Water Tower Place, but it couldn't be avoided.

  "Damn," Perlman said. He stepped back from the microscope.

  "What?" McDole said. "Do you need something?'

  Perlman shook his head. "No, but thanks for offering. You two have been very capable assistants. I couldn't have gotten this far without your help—and C.J.'s, too." Still, he looked tired and discouraged. "But today's great experiment was a bust."

  Calie rose and peered uncertainly at the slides. "What was the experiment?" The doctor started to answer and she held up a finger. "Keep it simple. Doctors run in your family, not mine."

  The younger man looked rattled by Calie's comment, then began to speak as McDole leaned forward. "Well, I'm trying to …" Perlman frowned. "The vampires are dead," the doctor began again. "Or they're supposed to be. We don't know what animates them and probably never will. Maybe, and I'm very hesitant to say this, it takes place on a spiritual rather than physical level. However, the only arena in which we have experience is the physical, so that's where we have to try and tie the two together." His gaze stopped briefly on Calie and Perlman looked as though he would qualify his words, then decided against it. "So these dead creatures get up and walk around—"

  "They do more than that," McDole interjected.

  "Sure"—Perlman nodded—"but again, you're going into a new realm." He motioned to them. "Look here. What do you see?"

  Calie positioned herself and studied the view through the microscope, then McDole took a turn. There wasn't much to see: a spattering of light and dark shapes around something that looked brown and dried up. Nothing moved. "Not much," McDole admitted. "Cells, I guess. But I didn't see anything alive."

  "What were we looking at?" Calie asked.

  Perlman scrubbed at his face with both hands without speaking. McDole could see weariness and frustration etched in the lines beneath the doctor's light beard stubble. Finally he answered. "Clostridia, one of the most common bacteria found in dead animals. This bacteria—which causes decomposition—is a major factor in the cycle of life. The brown spot was a microlayer of vampire flesh taken from our friend in the bomb shelter"

  "But they don't decompose," McDole said.

  "Exactly!" Brief excitement broke through Perlman's tiredness. "But if I could develop a bacterium or fungus, or mutate a clostridium that could survive introduction into a vampire's body and reproduce, maybe the decomposition process could finally begin, as it should have when the body first died."

  "Like giving them a big dose of the flu," Calie suggested.

  "Not at all. Influenza is a virus, not a bacteria. A virus always requires a living host; without one, it ceases to function, although it may not die per se. On the other hand, certain bacteria can exist in either living or nonliving environments."

  "I'm out of my league here," McDole said, "but I didn't see anything moving under that microscope."

  "You wouldn't have anyway," Perlman told him absently. "I haven't had time to isolate the substance which makes the vampire's body a hostile environment, either by indirectly attacking the bacteria or by being highly toxic to the organism. Besides, it's a moot point."

  "Why is that?"

  "The way I see it—and this is open for discussion, so let me know if you have any ideas—the vampires are not technically dead. Although life-force functions—cell division and activity—have stalled, enzymatic action doesn't take place."

  McDole shook his head. "I'm lost. One minute you're talking about trying to make them rot like they're supposed to, the next you're saying they're not dead, which to me means they're not supposed to."

  Perlman spread his hands. "I never said it would be easy to use technology to destroy what seems to be supernatural." He gave McDole a wry smile. "Remember the name for them in the old movies? The undead. Whether that's legend or someone's imagination, it's very appropriate; they're not alive, but they're not dead. They're like people-sized viruses, parasitically using a host for sustenance and reproduction."

  "So what about today?" Calie asked. "What were you doing?"

  Perlman powered down the microscope. "I cultured a bacteria in the Clostridium genus," he told them. "Nothing spectacular; just a little stronger. Then I gav
e it vampire tissue. It should have gone wild feeding and replicating."

  Calie twined her fingers. "But it didn't."

  "I didn't expect it to—not on the first try, anyway.”

  “But you seem so … disappointed," she said.

  "I am," the physician admitted. “And a little flabbergasted, too." His fists clenched briefly, then relaxed. “I can work with cells and living and dead organisms, but I'm not sure what to do here." He stepped toward his equipment as though debating continuing his work. "Every time I put the bacteria or any living organism anywhere near a vampire cell … did you notice the brown cells of the vampire flesh extending past the cell membrane and into the cytoplasm of the bacteria? The bacteria are literally being transformed into vampire flesh in an instantaneous, yet invisible, metamorphosis. Not dead, but not alive."

  "But how can that be?" McDole demanded.

  "How can a vampire be?" Perlman shot back. "The problem is understanding a new biological function that I simply don't have the resources to research. That's what's happening here—like when two living animal heart cells are placed in proximity to each other and they synchronize almost immediately."

  "Synchronize?" Calie asked.

  "Heart cells beat," the doctor explained. "Literally. Two of them will gravitate to each other and find the same rhythm. The heartbeat of a sleeping human will synchronize with a dog's if he falls asleep with a hand resting on the animal."

  McDole looked perplexed. "What's that got to do with the vampires?"

  "Maybe nothing," Perlman said wearily. “And I have no idea why blood would affect the kind of rejuvenation it has on these creatures. In a man it would be understandable—"

  "Blood?" Calie looked dismayed.

  "Don't think of it as blood, Calie," Perlman pointed out. "Think of it fundamentally as food. Feed a malnourished person and the body begins to repair itself by using the vitamins and energy supplied by the food source. But a vampire's body isn’t living, so how does it convert food to energy? Not only does it obviously do so, but apparently a constant food source causes an amazing and rapid improvement in physical condition."