F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 (45 page)

 
          
Carole
was already out of the car. "Stop thinking of yourself and help me carry
him."

 
          
Thinking
of yourself. . . That angered Lacey. "I'm thinking about him, and what
he's meant to me, what he'll always mean to me."

 
          
"Do
you hear yourself? Me-me-me. This isn't about you or me. It's about Father
Joe's legacy. And if we're going to preserve that, we have to do what has to be
done."

 
          
She
was right. Damn her, this weird nun was right. Lacey got out of the car as
Carole popped the trunk.

 
          
"Where
are we taking him?"

 
          
"Up
to the beach."

 
          
"Why
the beach?"

 
          
"Because
we can dig a deep hole quickly, and because very few people come here
anymore."

 
          
"How
do you know?"

 
          
"Because
I watch. I watch everything. No one will find him. Now help me lift him."

 
          
Lacey
glanced around. The area looked deserted but who knew what was hiding in the
shadows. Her guns ... after taking the dead
Vichy
woman's clothes, she'd crept back into the
Post Office and lifted the pistols off a couple of the undead corpses. She
wished she'd thought to bring them, but her mind had been numbed with loss.

 
          
Carole
opened the trunk to reveal the sheet-wrapped form. Steeling herself, Lacey took
the shoulders, Carole the feet, and they carried Joe's body up a ramp, across
the boardwalk, then down the steps to the sand. Carole directed them toward a
spot under the boards with about five feet of headroom, maybe a little less.

 
          
Lacey
stayed with the body while Carole ran back to the car. She returned moments
later with a pair of shovels and a beat-up purple vinyl book bag. The sky had
grown light enough for Lacey to see ST. ANTHONY'S SCHOOL emblazoned along the
side in yellow.

 
          
"What's
in there?" Lacey asked, although she had a good idea what the answer would
be.

 
          
Carole
said nothing. She responded by pulling out a heavy, iron-headed maul and a
wickedly sharpened length of one-inch doweling. She drew the sheet back from
Uncle Joe's head and upper torso.

 
          
Lacey's
stomach heaved as she caught sight of his torn-open throat. She'd seen only his
face back in the rectory. Good thing she hadn't eaten since yesterday,
otherwise she'd be spewing across the sand.

 
          
"Look
what they did to him!" she screeched. "Look what they did!"

 
          
Carole
didn't respond. Her face seemed set in stone as she raised the stake and placed
the point over the left side of his chest.

 
          
"Can't
it wait?" Lacey cried.

 
          
"Till
when?" Carole's expression had became fierce, her voice tight, thin,
stretched to the breaking point. "Tell me a good time for this and I'll
gladly wait. When, Lacey? When will be a good time?"

 
          
Lacey
had no answer. When she saw Carole place the point of the stake over her
uncle's heart, she turned away.

 
          
"I
can't watch this."

 
          
"Then
I guess I'm on my own."

 
          
Sobbing
openly, Lacey resisted the urge to run screaming down the beach. She kept her
back to Carole and jammed her fingers into her ears while she began a tuneless
hum to block out the sounds—of iron striking wood, of wood crunching through
bone and cartilage. She knew she should be helping, but after what she'd
already been through in the last dozen hours, pounding a stake into her uncle's
chest was more than she could handle right now. She couldn't. She. Just.
Couldn't.

 
          
So
she stared through her tears at the ocean, at the pink glow growing on the
horizon.

 
          
Finally
she pulled her fingers from her ears and tried to turn, but her brain refused
to send the necessary signals to make her body move. The mere thought of seeing
her uncle lying there with a shaft of wood protruding from his chest. . .

 
          
She
heard a noise ... sobbing .. . Carole.

 
          
"Is...
is it over?"

 
          
Carole
moaned. "Nooooo! I couldn't do it!"

 
          
Lacey
whirled, took one look at the nun's tear-stained face, and she knew.

 
          
"You
loved him, didn't you."

 
          
Another
bubbling sob from Carole as she nodded. "In my fashion, yes. We all did. A
good, goo d man ..."

 
          
"I
don't mean loving him like that, like a brother. I mean as a man."

 
          
Carole
said nothing, just stared down at the sheet-wrapped body before her.

 
          
"It's
okay, Carole. It's not just idle interest. He was my uncle. I'd like to know
how you felt about him, especially now that he's . . . gone. Did you love him
as a man?"

 
          
"Yes."
It sounded like a gasp of relief, as if a long pent-up pressure had been
released. "Not that we ever did anything," she added quickly.
"Not that he ever even knew."

 
          
"But
you" ... she needed the right word here . . . "longed for him?"

 
          
"God
forgive me, yes. Not lust, nothing carnal. I just wanted to be near him. Can
you understand that?"

 
          
Lacey
shrugged, unsure of what she could understand. This was so unreal.

 
          
"I'm
not sure how to say this," Carole said, "because I've never expressed
it, even to myself."

 
          
"Why
not?"

 
          
"Because
it wasn't right. I took vows. He took vows. I shouldn't have been thinking of a
man like that, especially a priest. God was supposed to be enough. But
sometimes..."

 
          
"Sometimes
God just isn't enough."

 
          
"It
must be a sin to say so, but no, sometimes He isn't. Father Joe had something
about him that made me ... made me want, long to be near him. His very presence
just seemed to make the world seem right. I'd see him touch some of the other
sisters, the older ones—nothing but a hand on the arm or, rarely, an arm across
the shoulders as they'd laugh about something. But never me. And I never knew
why. Not that I wanted more, not that I'd ever lead him astray, but a simple
touch, just to let me know he knew I existed, that would have made me so
happy."

 
          
Lacey
felt as if she were talking to some lonely preteen, and sexually, maybe that
was where Carole was. She'd probably joined the convent right out of high
school—maybe during high school—and she'd never progressed past that stage in
her relationships with the opposite sex.

 
          
"Do
you think my uncle was avoiding you?"

 
          
"Sometimes
it seemed like it."

 
          
"Well,
I can think of only one reason for that."

 
          
Carole
looked up. "What?"

 
          
"Maybe
he felt the same about you."

 
          
"Oh,
no." Carole shook her head vehemently, almost violently. "He didn't.
He couldn't have."

 
          
"I'm
sure of it."

 
          
She
wasn't sure at all, but the sweet light flaring in Carole's eyes now touched
Lacey more deeply than she could have imagined a few moments ago when this
seemingly icebound woman had crouched there with a stake poised over Uncle
Joe's heart.

 
          
"Carole,
you should have seen his face the other night after you stopped by the church.
He was worried about you, wished you'd come into the church with us, but he was
beaming too ..."

 
          
Wait
a sec. That was no exaggeration. Joe had been beaming. Maybe there'd been more
going on between those two than anyone knew, least of all themselves.

 
          
"Beaming?"
Carole said.

 
          
Lacey
knew a prompt when she heard one. "Yeah. Beaming. He seemed really, really
happy to see you and know you were still alive. He kept talking about you."

 
          
How
sad, Lacey thought. The two of them could have made each other's lives so much
brighter, but they'd been kept apart.

 
          
Carole
sobbed again. "Now he's gone!"

 
          
"Not
quite," Lacey said. "Not yet. And that's where we come in, I
guess."

 
          
"How
can I do this?" She wiped her eyes and sniffed. "I could do it, I
know I could if he were one of them, if I could see that cold evil hunger in
his eyes, I could save him from that. But look at him. Except for his throat he
looks so normal, so . .. peaceful. I can't."

 
          
"But
we have to," Lacey said. She realized with a start that their roles had
been reversed. "Why don't we dig the hole—the grave—first, and then ...
and then we'll do it together."

 
          
Carole
stared at her. "You'll help me?"

 
          
"Yes."
Lacey nodded, hoping she was making a promise she could keep. "For him.
For Uncle Joe."

 
          
They
began to dig, together at first, then taking turns as the grave deepened.

 
          
Lacey
was waist deep in the hole as the sun began to emerge from the sea. She pointed
to the loose sand sliding down the walls around her.

 
          
"If
that keeps up we'll never make six feet."

 
          
Carole
sat to the side, taking her turn to rest. "We'll do the best we can. We
need it deep enough to discourage any wild dogs from trying to dig him
up."

 
          
The
exertions of digging plus her earlier concussion had started blinding bolts of
pain shooting through her head. That, the beating she'd endured, and the lack
of food made the work agony, but she'd keep on digging till nightfall and
beyond if it meant putting off what they had to do once Joe's grave was ready.

 
          
"All
right," Lacey said. "We'll go down another foot, then—" She
stopped as she caught a sharp, pungent odor. "What's that? Something
burning?" A puff of white smoke wafted past her. "What the hell? It
almost smells like—"

 
          
"Oh,
dear God!" Carole cried, scrambling to her hands and knees. "Father
Joe!"

 
          
Lacey
looked and saw her uncle lying in the full light of the rising sun. His exposed
skin was smoking and bubbling.

 
          
"Shit!"

 
          
She
scrambled out of the grave and grabbed his arm, then released it in a spasm of
revulsion. The flesh felt like hot wax. She looked for a place to hide him from
the sun. With the light shining at this low angle, the only shady spots here
were the narrow bands behind the pilings, nowhere near enough to shelter him.