"From the waist down," Grace said, prompting them. "We can leave the dress on."
As the two women began lifting the skirt of Carol's sundress, Grace stepped over to the kitchen door and closed it. It shut out the sound of the prayers being said in the parlor. But that was not the reason she closed it. Although they were all here on a holy mission, she would not expose her niece's nakedness even accidentally to the male Chosen.
The women pulled the hem of the skirt up to Carol's neck and tucked the rest of it under her, then they slipped the beige cotton panties down past her ankles, revealing a tangle of light brown pubic hair. There was a sanitary napkin in place over the vaginal area. This too was removed but showed no trace of blood.
Grace stared wistfully at the unblemished napkin.
If only you'd lost the baby two days ago, none of this would be necessary.
Grace adjusted her surgical gloves and spread the sterile instruments out on their autoclave wrappers. She showed the two women by Carol's lower body how to position her legs—by grasping each behind the knee and flexing it up and back until the top of the thigh was almost touching the abdomen, then rotating it out to the side a few inches and holding it there.
The lithotomy position.
Grace had to look away from Carol's exposed perineum for a moment. It pained her to see her so helpless and vulnerable. But she steeled herself with the thought that it made the Antichrist vulnerable too. That was all that—
Something moved on the floor near her feet. Grace looked down and stifled a cry. An infant, a naked nine-month-old, was crawling toward her from beneath the table. It gripped her leg and pulled itself to a standing position. She could see now that the baby was a male. He looked up at her with wide, guileless blue eyes.
"Don't do it," the child said in the voice of a five-year-old. "Please don't kill another helpless baby!"
Grace bit down on her lower lip to keep from screaming. This must have been what Mr. Veilleur had warned her about. Her worst fear, her deepest guilt. She looked away.
Another infant, a female, was sitting atop Carol's abdomen, staring at Grace, a reproachful look on her chubby face. She spoke in the same voice.
"Haven't you killed enough of us already? Must you add one more innocent life to your long list of victims?"
Grace closed her eyes and felt the room begin to sway.
"You can't hide from us!" the voice continued, rising in volume. "We are always with you. Everywhere you go, we are there, watching. Open your eyes, Grace Nevins. My friends are all here now. Open your eyes and see what you did to them!"
Grace had to look. She blinked her eyes open for half a heartbeat and then squeezed them shut again, fighting back the vomit that surged into her throat, clutching the table edge to keep from falling.
Blood. The kitchen was awash with it. And everywhere were torn and mangled infants—ripped limbs, gouged faces, eviscerated torsos. And they were moving!
The child's voice never stopped.
"See what your instruments did to them? They'd be whole now, alive, working, loving, having babies of their own—if not for you. Please don't hurt another one of us. Please!"
Grace refused to break down. She straightened her back. This was Satan's work. This wasn't real. The demon wins by deceit and confusion. She would draw on the strength of the Lord to overcome him.
She opened her eyes and forced herself to stare at the bloody carnage. Of course it wasn't real. The other women still stood where she had placed them, oblivious to the charnel house around them.
"Murderess!" screamed the infant on Carol's abdomen, but Grace only smiled at it.
And then the gore and the mangled corpses and the accusatory infants began to fade. In seconds they were gone as if they had never been.
Grace realized she had been holding her breath. She shuddered and let it out, then forced herself back to the task before her. With a trembling hand she rubbed a Betadine-soaked gauze pad over Carol's pubic area, then dipped a large, cotton-tipped applicator in the brown antiseptic and swabbed the inside of the vaginal canal. She felt perverse, as if she were violating her own niece, but it was for Carol's protection, to prevent infection. Only the Satan-child would be harmed.
And it would be harmed. Satan would need more than visions to deter her from this holy task.
17
They were praying! Jonah ground his teeth in rage and frustration as he listened to the lousy bastards. He glared at Emma's covered body where she lay facedown on the carpet. The ax handle raised a tent over her head, but she was covered and apparently that made them feel better. Now they stood around mouthing their worthless Our Fathers and Hail Marys and Acts of Contrition. What fools.
The worst part was knowing that he could break free of this chair if only they'd allow him to move. He could bounce it, rock it, twist it until something broke, and then he'd be on his way to untying himself.
But they wouldn't let him move! Every time he tried to swing the chair or twist himself, hands would clamp onto his shoulders and hold him still.
All the years of waiting, preparing, hoping, planning—most of his life!—all about to be turned to shit by that fat bitch Grace Nevins in the other room. He couldn't stand the thought of it. He wanted to explode and kill them all!
And he would kill them all. Jonah memorized their faces. He would spend the rest of his days tracking them down one by one and slowly tearing the life from each of them.
Suddenly he froze.
Something in the room had changed. Something was in the air, gathering, growing. No one could see it, but Jonah could sense it. He forced himself to relax. It might not be too late vet. The One could still be salvaged.
He leaned back and watched. Something was about to happen.
Something wonderful.
18
"You don't deserve to have those prayers on your lips!" Bill shouted to the unheeding room.
Heads bowed, hands folded, they prayed on.
Bill shut out the voices and thought of Carol. Her shrill pleas and piteous wails had cut off abruptly a few moments ago, and then he had heard the kitchen door shut.
My God, my God! What are they doing to her in there?
He knew damn well what they were doing, but his mind shied away from the horror of it, especially since they were doing it in the name of God.
If only they'd listen to him! If only they'd—
The drape that covered Emma moved.
He stared at it, watching for another sign of life, sure that he must have been mistaken. But then he saw it move again. His stomach lurched. This was no random postmortem twitch, if there was such a thing. Emma Stevens's body was rising up under the drapery.
The prayers died in the throats of Brother Robert and the so-called Chosen as they noticed it too. The room was deathly still as they all stood and stared with gaping mouths at the body beneath the drapery rising to its feet. Bill, too, was transfixed, but he stole a glance at Jonah Stevens and was appalled at the sight of his bright, hungry eyes and flinty grin.
The drape slid to the floor and there stood Emma, the bloody ax still protruding from the back of her cloven skull. Slowly she turned in an unsteady circle, her eyes wide and blank, her lips pulled back in a grim rictus, dried rivulets of blood streaking her forehead and cheeks.
The tableau suddenly fell apart as all but one of the Chosen males scrambled from the room, crying out and tripping over each other in their mad haste to flee the horror before them. A moment later Bill heard a car speed away. No doubt some were running back to the safety of their homes and neighborhood churches, but a few remained huddled in the shadows of the hall.
Only Brother Robert stood his ground.
He pulled a long, slim, shiny brass crucifix from within his habit and thrust it before Emma's face.
"Back to hell, demon!" he cried. "Back to the pit you crawled from!"
She cocked her head to the side and stared at the crucifix. Slowly she reached out and touched it, running a f
ingertip softly over the figure of Christ.
Then her hand moved quickly, gripping the crucifix and snatching it from Brother Robert's bandaged hand.
"No!" he cried. "You can't have that!"
But he made no move to retrieve it from her. He simply stood there and watched her, as did the other two living occupants of the room.
For a moment Emma held the crucifix up between them, gripping it by the short upper end, her palm wrapped around Christ's head, the crosspiece flush against the body of her hand.
With the light gleaming along the slim length of its long lower end, Brother Robert's crucifix looked like an Art Deco dagger That thought was just passing through Bill's mind when Emma's arm straightened in a pistonlike thrust. Still grinning horribly, she drove the lower end of the crucifix deep into the left side of Brother Robert's chest.
With a shout of pain and shock he staggered back. Blood spurted from the wound, blossoming across the scapular of his habit like a crimson flower opening to the morning. He stared down dully at the crucifix protruding from his chest, a bloodied Christ staring back as it bobbed up and down with the chaotic rhythm of his fibrillating heart. He looked up, looked around the room, his eyes finally coming to rest on Bill's.
Bill flinched from the impact of those frightened, agonized eyes. It took all of his strength not to turn away. Then he saw the life slip from them. Brother Robert's mouth opened but no words came forth, only a trickle of blood, running slowly into his beard. He toppled backward like a felled tree, twitched once, then lay still.
"May God have mercy on your soul," Bill said, really meaning it.
He looked up and saw that Emma seemed to have forgotten her victim. Numbly he watched her step around him and move toward the kitchen, the protruding ax handle bobbing up and down over her as she walked.
19
Grace had paused briefly when she heard the cries and commotion from the parlor, but all was quiet now. No doubt Jonah Stevens had tried to break free from his bonds and the men had had to subdue him. It was good that there were so many of them out there. They would assure her of sufficient time to complete the task God had assigned her.
Everything was set, everyone was in position.
Carol's legs were propped in place by two of the women; her vagina and perineum had been prepped with the Betadine; a third woman was standing by her head, ready to administer more chloroform if necessary; the fourth woman was at Grace's side with a flashlight.
Grace lubricated the cold steel speculum and slipped it into Carol's vagina—
No. Not Carol's vagina. A vagina. She had to distance herself from this. That was the only way she was going to be able to go through it. This wasn't her niece, this was a doll, a lifelike mannequin.
She inserted the speculum sideways at first, then she rotated it ninety degrees and squeezed the handles. The speculum blades expanded and the corrugated tunnel of the vaginal vault lay open before her. A little adjustment of the angle and the cervix came into view, a pink, quarter-size dome with a deep dimple at its center—the cervical os, the gateway to Carol's uterus—
No! The uterus. Somebody's uterus. Anyone's but Carol's.
Beyond the cervix, through the os, the Antichrist grew.
She picked up the uterine sound, a slim metal rod with a small knob at the end. With this she would find the depth of Carol's—someone's—uterine cavity. Once she knew that, she could avoid the major complication of an abortion—perforation of the uterus.
After sounding, she would gradually widen the cervical os with a progression of curved steel dilators until it was open enough to pass the curette.
Then she would begin scraping.
She would clean the inner walls of the uterus until she had torn the embryonic Satan-child from his lair. And then she would take the bloody membranes and bits of tissue and burn them in the fireplace. And then she would scatter the resultant ashes to the wind.
And the world would be safe once more.
20
Carol slowly became aware that she could see. She found herself looking down the length of her body. It was like looking into a canyon. Her pubes formed the floor and her raised thighs the walls. And framed within the canyon was Grace's head. She tried to move, to call out, but her limbs wouldn't respond.
Was it over? Had they killed her baby?
If only I could move!
Then she heard Grace's voice: "We're ready to begin."
It wasn't over yet! She still had a chance! But she needed help—she couldn't do this herself!
She thought of her parents, dead all these years now, and wished they could rush in and save her. Her Dad could yank Grace away and give his sister pure hell for what she was about to do.
She tried to move again, and this time felt her limbs respond a little. But not enough! She had to get away, but she was too weak. Too weak to fight.
If only her Jim were here—he'd wipe the floor with these people and set her free.
But Jim was dead, just like her parents. And Emma too. All dead. Maybe Bill and Jonah were dead now as well. There'd be no help from the dead. She'd have to do it herself.
Herself. From now on she'd have to do everything herself. Starting now.
The women holding her legs seemed tense and distracted. No one was holding her arms. Carol gathered her strength and turned her body partly on its side. She tried to continue the motion in an effort to roll off the table. She heard Grace's voice shouting in the sudden confusion, felt hands rolling her onto her back again.
That was when she saw Emma's blank-eyed, blood-streaked, grinning face rise in the canyon above Grace's.
21
As she was slipping the uterine probe toward the os, Grace glanced up and saw Carol staring at her, a look of horror on her face. Her legs began to move. Her pelvis writhed, ejecting the speculum. It clattered to the floor.
"She's coming to!" Grace cried. She looked up at the woman standing at Carol's head. "Give her more chloroform! Quickly!"
But the woman wasn't paying attention. She too had a look of horror on her face. Grace noticed then that the woman's gaze was actually fixed above and behind her. Suddenly the other women were screaming and moving away from the table.
"What's wrong?" she cried. "Don't let her go!"
And then she felt a cold hand close on the back of her neck in a grip of iron.
22
The horror of it was slow in coming, for Carol realized in that instant that no one was restraining her any longer. She managed to roll onto her side again but rolled too far. Suddenly she was falling. She hit the linoleum hard and lay there a moment, stunned.
She shook off the pain, the dizziness, the nausea, and used the table leg for support to pull herself to a kneeling position, instinctively pulling the skirt down around her legs. Even though she was naked beneath it, the thin fabric gave her a protected feeling.
In the center of the kitchen, Emma and Grace were struggling. Emma was trying to get a lock on Grace's throat, but Grace was fighting her off this time, keeping her from getting the death grip she'd had in the parlor. And the ax—oh, God, the ax was still in Emma's head!
The other women clung to the sides of the room, their backs pressed against the walls like passengers spinning on that amusement park ride, the Round-Up.
A couple of the men came in from the front hall, timidly, like mice watching two cats locked in combat. They whispered to each other. Carol wondered where the rest of them were, especially that skinny one—Martin.
Suddenly Grace gave out with a choking cry and Carol saw that Emma was slowly reestablishing her stranglehold on her throat. Still weak and nauseous, Carol fought to make sense of her roiling emotions. She wanted Grace stopped, wanted her put away where she couldn't threaten or hurt her baby ever again, but she didn't want her killed—especially not at the hands of this walking horror that had once been Emma Stevens.
The two men seemed to gather some strength from Grace's peril. They rushed forward and tried to pull Emm
a away. Two of the women helped. This time they succeeded in freeing Grace by yanking Emma's arms outward and away, one in each direction. As Grace staggered free and gasped for breath, Emma shook off the Chosen and reached behind her head. With no change in her expression, no indication that she felt the slightest discomfort, she levered the ax handle up and down until it came free from her skull with a wet, sucking noise.
Carol knew what was going to happen next, as did everyone else in the room, most likely, yet she could not move to prevent it. Neither could any of the Chosen. Neither could Grace.
Still grinning horribly, Emma raised the ax until its red-stained blade almost touched the ceiling. Grace screamed and raised her arms over her head, but to no avail. The ax swung down with blinding speed and crushing force.
Carol screamed and turned away before the blow struck, but she heard the awful splitting impact and heard screams and trampling feet, heard and felt a heavy thump on the floor.
Then silence.
Slowly Carol opened her eyes. Her head was down. She could see a limp, outstretched arm and blood on the floor on the far side of the table. Fighting nausea, she raised her head. Emma still stood in the center of the kitchen, stiff, swaying. She looked at Carol, and for an instant there was a spark of something in her dead eyes—maybe a spark of Emma. But if so, it was a miserable, infinitely sad Emma.
She raised her arm and pointed toward the door to the hallway. Shakily Carol pulled herself to her feet and stumbled toward it, giving wide berth to Emma and averting her eyes from the still form in the pool of blood on the floor. As soon as she was past them, she ran.
As she reached the hall she heard the thud of a second body hitting the kitchen floor, but she didn't look back.
When she got to the parlor door and saw Bill, bound in a chair but still alive, she almost lost it. She wanted to cry out his name and throw herself on him, wanted to clutch at him and sob out all the grief, rage, horror, and relief exploding within her. But she couldn't do that. That was what the old Carol would have done. She was now the new Carol.
Reborn ac-4 Page 32
