The head noticed its intact girlfriend and winked at her.
She opened her fanged mouth and smiled.
Belline, Carleson, and Clineman chose that moment to run for their lives. They got clear of the building and found an ambulance with the keys in the ignition. Pulling out of the hospital compound, they headed for safety. Somewhere.
* * *
The commander of the state police detachment in Phoenix had a bad feeling in his gut. And as the night wore on, he couldn’t shake it. With a sigh, he finally picked up the phone and called in.
“How’s the situation over in Tepehuanes? They catch that nut?”
“I don’t know, Captain. There hasn’t been a thing on the air or the teletype.”
“I don’t like this!” the commander stated flatly.
“Neither do I. And Burt Sandry can’t be located. His office is really getting antsy.”
“How about Mike Bambridge?”
“Can’t get in touch with him either. All we’re getting is a lot of bull from the Tepehuanes PD. Burt’s office has admitted they’ve been working on some sort of devil worship thing in and around Tepehuanes.”
“I don’t recall being briefed on that.”
“We weren’t. SO admits they’ve deliberately kept a lid on it to muffle the news. But it’s beginning to add up in my mind.”
“How so?”
“Reports of creatures in the night. Those truck drivers. That cop’s body that disappeared. Missing persons. It’s all adding up, Captain.”
“What’s our man—Langston—in Tepehuanes have to say about this?”
“I don’t know, Captain. We can’t reach him either. And he hasn’t been heard from since going ten-eight.”
“How long has that been?”
“Hours.”
The captain was silent for a moment.
“You still there, Captain?”
“Yeah. Roll a SWAT team. It’s probably overreaction on my part, but I just don’t like the feel of this. You know what I mean?”
“Yes, sir, I do,” the watch commander said. “I’ve had one standing by for an hour.”
* * *
Lisa Arnot and her followers had a good time torturing a young man. But when he died all the fun went out of the game.
“Let’s go link up with Paul,” Lisa suggested.
The others thought that was a good idea, so they all headed for the hospital.
On the way, they found an elderly man and set his clothing on fire. They laughed as he screamed and staggered away into the night, a living firebrand.
* * *
“I can’t understand it,” Matt said to Leo. “There’s not one ounce of sense to it. These people who’ve chosen to follow Paul have nothing to gain by this and everything to lose.”
He was in the rectory, where they had decided to make their stand.
“That’s true,” Father Gomez said.
“Well, that’s probably the point,” Linda replied.
“What do you mean, child?”
The girl cocked her head to one side. “I may be young, but I’m somewhat of an authority on matters such as these. I mean, I’ve studied everything I could get my hands on about this stuff, ever since I could read. The devil masks his true intentions under layers of raw violence and senseless actions. Don’t you agree, Father?”
“Yes.”
“But the mark on Paul’s arm . . . ?” Mike protested.
“Meaningless,” Gomez said. “Since it was first brought to my attention, I’ve looked into that. If I read it right, Paul was put here to die. And he’s refusing to cooperate. Someone else has been prepared to receive his powers. But I don’t know who. Yet. ”
The priest did not see the hot look of pure hate that was directed at him.
But Leo did.
THREE
State Trooper Kyle Langston was found by the lead car of the Tepehuanes bound SWAT team. The highway cop was bent over the steering wheel; appeared to be sleeping. He was. Sort of.
He was chalk white. His eyes were wide and staring and very dead-looking. His hands gripped the steering wheel so hard that the skin around his knuckles had split open. No blood. His hair was snow white.
Kyle Langston had been twenty-eight years old. He’d had a full head of coal black hair.
“Holy Mother of God!” a SWAT member whispered.
The sergeant in command took a deep breath and swallowed hard. He kept telling himself that he’d seen worse.
But he couldn’t remember when.
“Get a camera and take some shots,” Sergeant Wilson ordered. “Jimmy, get on the horn, tach freq, and call in. Get Captain Madison out here. Tell him code three.”
“Right, Sergeant.”
Sergeant Wilson touched Langston’s neck with his fingertips. The flesh was very cold. He shone his flashlight onto the body. Grimaced when he saw teeth marks on the man’s neck. And knew something was very wrong.
“There isn’t a drop of blood on him, and from the looks of things, none in him, either.”
“What!”
“Take a look, Ned.” Wilson stepped away from the car.
When Ned stuck his head inside the car, Trooper Kyle Langston lifted his head and kissed the young SWAT member right on the mouth. Then he grabbed Ned in a cold grip, and dragged the screaming young man into the car with him.
* * *
“The chanting is getting louder,” Leo said. “Here they come.” He was very calm. “Everybody who can pull a trigger, grab a gun and get to a window.”
Father Gomez looked out into the night and crossed himself.
They were facing what at first glance appeared to be several thousand citizens of Tepehuanes. Actually the mob was smaller, but large enough to be terrifying to the few defenders.
Many people had remained in the town. They were busy fighting other small pockets of resistance.
“There must be more like us,” Linda said.
“I agree.” The priest picked up his shotgun and chambered a round.
“Probably. Judging by those shots we’ve been hearing off and on,” Burt Sandry noted. He was oading a spare shotgun he’d taken from the substation.
“We know how to shoot,” Bing said. He tried to grin. “Sure would be more comfortable than sitting iown. If you know what I mean.”
Leo smiled at the boys. They both had spunk. ’Grab a gun,” he said to them.
“We don’t know anything about guns.” Janis looked at Melissa and Carol.
The chanting from the outside was louder, nearer.
“You girls go into that small room and lock the door,” Father Gomez told them, pointing.
Fifteen picked up the phone, again, and held it to his ear. Dead. With a low curse, he slammed it down onto the cradle.
“Paul worked it all out, didn’t he?” Peter said to no one in particular.
“With some outside help,” the priest reminded them all.
And then there was no time for anything other than survival.
Connie, Mary Beth, and Linda took one side of the house, shotguns in their hands. Leo and Father Gomez took the other. Burt Sandry and the boys took the rear. Peter and Fifteen manned the front.
A staunch advocate of gun control, Matt was frightened of guns. He joined Janis and the other two girls in the small room.
For a full five minutes, hearing was shattered by the roaring of weapons and the screaming of the dying and the badly wounded. Several times those possessed managed to breach the windows. They were shot to death inside the rectory, or had their heads beaten in by gun butts. Eyes smarted from the sting and stink of gunsmoke. Nerves were frayed raw by tension and by the howling of those maddened by Satan.
Weapons became too hot to handle and were exchanged for fresh ones from the piles placed around the room. Leo was slightly wounded in his left arm. Gomez took a cut on his head. Sandry was hit in the left side but stayed on his feet. Bing’s scalp was nicked, and a bullet creased Roy’s shoulder. Though clubbed on the
forehead and knocked to the floor, blood pouring into her eyes, Connie lifted her shotgun and shot the squalling woman trying to climb in the window, in the face. A chunk of flying brick caught Mary Beth on the jaw, slicing it open. And Linda was hit in the mouth with a gun butt, and lost several front teeth.
But the embattled little group hung on.
Then, as if on some silent signal, the fighting ceased, those possessed racing off into the night.
“What happened?” Peter questioned. He and Fifteen were the only ones who had not been injured.
Someone in the rectory knew, but that person wasn’t about to say a word.
Another person suspected the truth, however.
It was almost time for a transference of power; a stronger, more stable person would take over. And Paul would die.
Mary Beth began patching up the wounded with what she could find in the medicine cabinet.
“Hospital ambulance coming in!” Leo shouted, his hearing still impaired from the roaring gunfight.
Connie looked out. “Doctors—Belline and Clineman and Carleson.”
They watched as the men stepped over and through the dead and the dying.
Leo opened the bullet-pocked, axe-scarred door that was barely hanging on its hinges. Right then, he made up his mind. Even before he greeted the newest survivors, he said, “We can’t stay here. We’ve got to shift our location.”
The doctors began to assist Mary Beth, using medical supplies they’d carried in from the ambulance.
“And go where?” Burt asked as the doctors worked on the wound in his side.
“Back to my house. It doesn’t have as much glass as Connie’s, and the roof is tile.” He had other reasons, but kept them to himself. “What do you say?”
“Walther’s Sporting Goods is on the way,” Peter said. “We’ll stop there and get more ammunition. I’m for it.”
“Let’s roll.”
* * *
Trooper Langston ripped at Ned’s throat, greedily sucking his blood, feeling new and strange life flow into his own body. The young trooper howled and kicked and tried in vain to break free.
For a few seconds, the other SWAT members stood in shock and stared.
Sergeant Wilson broke out of the paralysis first, and stepped up to the unit, emptying his .357 into the smiling, bloody-faced Langston.
Langston continued smiling at him. Despite smoking holes in his uniform shirt, he slowly opened the door, stepping out into the night. His lips were slick with blood and his teeth, very sharp, were needle-pointed.
Wilson looked at his empty gun, then at the grinning Langston.
He knew he was in big trouble.
Another trooper ran up and shot Langston in the chest with a riot gun. Another put a load of buckshot in his belly. The buckshot knocked Langston back against the car, but did not stop him.
A third trooper knocked Langston down with a wild swing of his shotgun, and then proceeded to beat in the back of the man’s head with the butt.
“Grab Ned!” Wilson shouted. “Get him to the hospital at Tepehuanes.”
Langston suddenly began laughing, his brains hanging out of his skull. He grabbed the nearest cop’s ankles and hung on with a cold steely grip.
The trooper screamed and emptied his pistol into Langston’s back at almost point-blank range. Langston released his hold and the trooper stumbled away.
Still not done in, Langston crawled around on the highway, snarling and grabbing at any leg he could see.
Yet another member of the team realized what he was seeing and ran to the trunk of his car. Jerking out a small axe, he raced back to the impossible scene and, with a horrified look on his face, began chopping at Langston’s arms, rendering them useless.
No blood flowed. Langston flopped his shattered arms on the pavement.
Wilson got it then. He didn’t believe it. But it was the only thing that made any sense. He grabbed the axe and chopped at Langston’s chest, opening the cavity to expose the dead but still-beating heart. As he chopped, he yelled, “Handcuff Ned’s hands behind his back. Be careful. Don’t let him bite you.”
“What?” a trooper screamed.
“Just do it, damn it!” Wilson shouted. He lifted the axe high and brought the head down, chopping through Langston’s heart.
The trooper screamed in real pain, then cursed them all as he lay dying on the highway, his dark soul winging away. Again.
The troopers stood in the deserted and moon-swept road and struggled to get their emotions under control. Finally, one said, “I don’t believe none of this. But if I was to believe it, I’d have to ask who done this to Langston—and where are they? Or it?”
The troopers nervously looked around them, scanning the seemingly empty landscape.
Then Ned began to speak in a language that none of them could comprehend. He now appeared to be completely free of pain.
They all knew that was impossible. But then, everything they’d witnessed in the last thirty minutes or so was impossible.
The men looked at Ned. Looked at each other. “I didn’t know Ned could speak Russian,” one said.
“He can’t,” Wilson said. “And that isn’t Russian. I was stationed on the border in Germany. I learned some Russian. I don’t know what that gibberish is; nothing I ever heard of. Put Ned in the cage and be careful doing it. Donnie, get on the horn and get Captain Madison. Tell him to move it. Advise the troop to order all roads into this area closed. Immediately. For at least a twenty-five-mile radius in all directions.”
“Now what, Sarge?” he was asked.
“We wait.”
The night yawned huge and silent around them.
* * *
The small group made it to the sporting goods store, got guns and ammo, and rushed to Leo’s house. The vehicles now had a few nicks and dents from thrown rocks and bricks, but they were all running.
And, curiously, they had not been pursued. No one knew what to make of that.
All took up positions and waited, the lights in the house turned off so they could better see outside.
Leo broke the silence in the den. “I think it was a screw-up. I think Paul went too far, too fast. I think he lost control.”
“I tend to agree with you.” Gomez spoke from out of the near darkness. The street lamps the only illumination. “It’s winding down.”
Most felt they knew what had to be done to stop the spreading madness.
Only two people knew for sure. Leo was one of them.
“I wonder what happened to my mother,” Melissa asked.
No one offered a reply.
The girl would never see her again.
Flames shot up into the night sky, from the downtown area.
“Burning parts of the town,” Burt observed. “I agree, Leo. The kid’s beginning to lose it.”
“I think if we can hold out until dawn, we’ve got a chance,” Gomez said.
“You mean those . . . out there, the possessed, fear the dawn?” Burt asked.
“No. But most of them will be so tired by then they’ll be unable to put up much of a fight. Outside help can come in, or we’ll be able to get out.”
“All the books I’ve read and the movies I’ve seen state that the undead fear the light,” Matt put in.
“There is sometimes truth in that,” Linda stated. “But Satan can do anything he wishes, whenever he wishes. You all know, you must understand, that this is just a game to Satan. When he tires of it, he’ll leave.”
* * *
“Good God!” Captain Madison blurted. He stared at Langston’s body, bullet- and buckshot-pocked, axe-mauled, the arms broken in many places, then peered into the cage of a highway-patrol unit at Ned.
Ned hissed at him.
Madison recoiled from the shiny skinless skull, the long, needle-pointed teeth.
He wiped his face with a handkerchief and rejoined Wilson.
“That’s impossible!” he said. He pointed to Ned.
“Yes, sir,” Wil
son agreed. “We know. Did you close the roads, sir?”
“Yes.” The captain slowly regained composure. Shook his head. “That was a good move on your part. Troopers and sheriff’s deputies are rerouting traffic.”
After receiving Donnie’s near-frantic transmissions, the captain had ordered all available highway-patrol personnel into the area. He had debated whether or not to call the governor. Had called his superior instead. Let him notify the Gov. But now Captain Madison realized he had one big problem on his hands. A situation unlike any he had ever faced. Sergeant Wilson had spoken of zombies and undead. Madison could just hear himself telling such things to the governor.
A trooper walked to his side. “The boss is on the radio, Captain.”
Here it was. Something Madison had been dreading. He walked to his unit and picked up the mike.
“Captain Madison here.”
“What’s going on out there, Tom?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
A short moment of silence.
“Well, Tom, if you don’t know, who does?”
“God.”
A short moment of silence.
“Ten-nine, Tom?”
“Sir, we’re going to have to go into Tepehuanes. And I have a hunch it’s going to be bad. With losses. Our situation here is . . . well, unbelievable. Ungodly. Impossible. But it’s real.”
“You’re not making any sense!”
“Not over the air, sir.”
“Have you taken losses, Tom?”
“Two men.”
Another short period of silence. “Very well. I’m choppering in. My ETA is one hour.”
“Yes, sir.”
Madison tossed the mike onto the seat and rejoined the knot of troopers. In the cage of the unit, Ned was howling like a maddened dog. Banging his shiny skull against the window.
“The boss coming in?” Wilson asked.
“In all his glory!”
* * *
Paul felt ten feet tall. He was undefeatable. Victory was his. The town was his. He looked at the sobbing girl, and calmly ordered Lisa to cut the child’s throat.
With a smile on her evil face, Lisa pulled a knife out of her boot and did what she was told.
“I never did like that one,” she said, wiping the blade on her jeans.
A deputy from Burt Sandry’s tach team had heard it all. He stepped around the corner and into the corridor. He was bloody from numerous gunshot wounds, but still on his feet. Dying, he knew, but strong enough to still be effective. His friend Eric was dead. Whole damn town had gone nuts.
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