Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set (35 page)

“Back on the other side, buddy,” the white one said.

“You don’t understand,” Kesev told him.  “She’s gone.  They’ve stolen her.”

He heard the crowd behind him begin to mutter and murmur with concern.

“Now don’t go starting trouble, Mister,” the black one said.  “The lady’s fine.  We’ve been out here all night and nobody’s been in or out of that church.”

“She is gone, I tell you!”  Kesev turned to the crowd and shouted, “They have stolen the Mother right out from under your noses!”

“Shut up!” the white policeman hissed in his ear.

But Kesev wrenched free and began running toward the front of the church. 

“Come!” he shouted to the crowd.  “Come see if I am not telling you the truth!”

That was all they needed.  With a roar they knocked over the police line horses and surged onto the street, engulfing any cop who tried to stop them.

The lone policeman stationed in front of the church backed up to the front doors but decided to get out of the way as Kesev charged up the steps with the mob close behind him.  A few good heaves from dozens of shoulders and the doors gave way and they flowed through the vestibule and into the nave.

And stopped with cries of shock that rapidly dwindled, finally fading into horrified silence.

The altar was bare.  And near the end of the center aisle two figures huddled on the floor.  Kesev recognized them immediately—the nun and the priest from the El Al plane back in July.

The priest was kneeling in a pool of red, weeping, his deep, wracking sobs reverberating through the church as blood from a scalp wound trickled down his forehead to mingle with his tears.  In his arms lay the limp, blood-soaked form of the nun.

Kesev, too, wept.  But for another reason.

‡

Mumbai, India

The rosy fingers of dawn grasp the decorative tower of the Mahalakshmi Temple and squeeze it and the rest of the structure from existence.

‡

Manhattan

“Do you remember me?”

Dan forced his eyes open.  He was cold, he was sick, he was emotionally drained and numb; his head was pounding like a cathedral gong, and his scalp throbbed and pulled where it had been stitched up.  But the greatest pain was deep inside where no doctor could see or touch, in the black void left by Carrie’s death and the brutal, awful, finality of her dying.

The four hours he’d spent here seemed like minutes, seemed like ages.  He’d sat in a daze, occasionally staring at the TV screen suspended from the ceiling.  Something was happening in the Far East.  Temples, mosques, churches were disappearing, vanishing as if they’d never been, leaving not a trace even of their foundations.  Only empty holes remained where they’d stood. But all other buildings around them remained intact.  It was happening with the rising of the sun.  Dawn was sweeping across the world like a scythe, leaving not a single place of worship standing. Words and phrases like
Antichrist
and
End Times
filled the airwaves.  

So what.

Dan looked up from his seat in the Emergency Room of Beekman Downtown Hospital.  For a rage-blinded instant he thought the black-bearded man with the accented voice standing over him was the bastard who’d shot Carrie.  He tensed to launch himself at him, then realized this was someone else.  Just as intense, but much too short.  He’d seen this man before but his grief-fogged brain couldn’t recall where or when.

“No,” he said. 

“At Tel Aviv airport last summer...I was questioning your nun friend and you—”

Now Dan recognized him.  “The man from the Shin...”  He fumbled for the word.

“Shin Bet.  The name is Kesev.  But I’m here unofficially now.”

“I wish we’d never gone to Israel,” he said, feeling a sob growing in his chest.

Carrie...dead.  Dan still couldn’t believe it.  This had to be a dream, the worst nightmare imaginable.  A dream.  That was the only logical explanation for all these fantastic, unexplainable events, the most unbelievable of which was Carrie’s death.  Life without Carrie...a Carrie-less world...unthinkable.

But it had seemed so real when he’d held her limp, cold, blood-drenched body in his arms back there in St. Joe’s. 

So real!

“I wish you’d arrested us and jailed us.  At least then Carrie would still be alive.”

“So do I,” Kesev said.  “For more than her sake alone.  There are other matters to consider.”

“Yeah?  Like what?”

Dan heard the belligerence creeping into his tone, into his mood.  What right did this Israeli bastard have to come up to him here in the depths of his grief and start bothering him about Carrie?  What did anything matter now that Carrie was dead?

“We must find the Mother.”

“You find her!  She’s brought me nothing but grief.”

He started rise but Kesev restrained him with a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder.

“If we find the Mother, we find the killers.”

Dan leaned back into the chair.  Find the killers...wouldn’t that be nice?  To wrap his fingers around that big bearded bastard’s throat and squeeze and squeeze, and keep on squeezing until—

“Father Fitzpatrick?”

Dan looked up.  One of the homicide detectives who’d questioned him before was approaching—Sergeant Gardner.  He carried a black plastic bag in his hand.  What did he want now?  He’d told him everything, given descriptions of the killers, the sound of their voices, anything he could think of.  He was tapped out.

He noticed Kesev slipping away as the detective neared.

“They’re shipping her remains uptown,” Gardner said.

Dan lurched to his feet.  “Why?  Where?”

“S-O-P.  To the morgue.  They’re going to autopsy her right away.”

“So soon?”  Hadn’t Carrie been through enough?  “I’d’ve thought—”

“The pressure’s on, Father.  We’ve got a big, mean, unruly crowd outside your church, and from what I hear, the commish has already heard from the cardinal, the mayor, Albany, even the Israeli embassy.  Everybody but everybody wants these guys caught and that relic returned.  The commish wants a full forensic report on his desk by six a.m., so they’re going to do her right away.”

“Can I see her before—?”

Gardner shook his head.  “Sorry.  She’s gone.  Saw her off myself.”  He held out the black plastic bag.  “But here’s her personal effects.  You want to return them to the convent?  If not...”

“No, that’s all right.  I’ll take them.”

Detective Gardner handed the bag over and stood before him, awkward, silent.  Finally he said, “We’ll get them, Father.”

Dan could only nod. 

As the detective hurried away, Dan sat and opened the bag.  Not much there: a wallet, a rosary, and Carrie’s Zip-loc bags of the Virgin’s clippings and nail filings.

For an insane moment Dan thought of cabbing up to the morgue—it was up in the Bellevue complex, wasn’t it?...First Avenue and 30th...he could be there in a couple of minutes.  He’d sneak into the autopsy room.  He’d sprinkle the entire contents of both bags over Carrie’s body and...

And what?  Bring her back to life?

Who am I kidding? he thought.  That’s Stephen King stuff.  Carrie’s gone...forever.

Without warning, he broke into deep, wracking sobs.  He hadn’t even felt them coming.  Suddenly they were there, convulsing his chest as they ripped free.

A hand touched his shoulder.  He fought for control and looked up.  The man called Kesev had returned.

“Come, Father Fitzpatrick.  I’ll take you home.  There are things we must discuss.”

Dan nodded absently.  Home...where was that?  The rectory?  That wasn’t home.  Where was home now that Carrie was dead?  He didn’t care where he went now, he just knew he didn’t want to stay in this hospital.

He bunched up the neck of the plastic bag and followed Kesev toward the exit.

‡

Manhattan

Dr. Darryl Chin, Second Assistant Medical Examiner for New York City yawned as he pulled on a pair of examination gloves.  This is what you get, he supposed, when you’re downline in the pecking order and you live in the East Village: They need somebody quick, they call you.

“Could be a lot worse,” he muttered.

He looked down at the naked female cadaver supine before him on the stainless steel autopsy table, dead-pale skin, breasts caked with blood, dark hair tangled in disarray, jaw slack, dull blue eyes staring lifelessly at the overhead fluorescents.  The murdered nun he’d heard about on the news tonight.  Young, pretty, and fresh.  The fresh part was important.  Only a few hours cold.  He might get some useful information out of her.  Better than some stinking, macerated, crab-nibbled corpse they’d dragged out of the Hudson.  And this was a neat chest wound, not some messy gut shot.  He’d be through with this one in no time.

If
he ever got started.

Where the hell was Lou Ann?  She was supposed to assist him tonight.  She lived in Queens and had a longer ride, but she should have been here by now.  Probably had to put on her face before she came in.  Darryl had never seen her without two tons of eye liner and mascara.

Vanity, woman be thy name.

No use in wasting time.  He could get started without her.  Open and drain the thorax at least.  These chest wounds always left the cavity filled with blood.

He probed the entry wound with his little finger.  Looked like the work of a 9mm slug.  Good shot.  Right into the heart.  Poor girl probably never knew what hit her.

He reached up and adjusted the voice-activated mike that hung over the table.  He gave the date and read off the name of the subject and presumed cause of death from the ID card, then reached for his scalpel.

Time to open her up.  Get the major incisions out of the way, drain and measure the volume of blood in the thoracic cavity, and by then Lou Ann would be here and they could start in on the individual organs.

He poked his index finger into the suprasternal notch atop the breast bone, laid the point of the blade against the skin just below the notch, and leaned over the table to make the first long incision down the center of the sternum.

“Please don’t do that.”

A woman’s voice.  He looked around. 
Who—?

Then he looked down.  The cadaver’s blue eyes were no longer dull and unfocused.  They were bright and moving, looking at him.  They blinked.

The scalpel clattered on the metal table as he jumped back.

“Jesus
Christ
!”

“Please don’t take His name in vain,” the nun said, staring at him as she levered up to a sitting position on the table.

Darryl felt his heart hammering in his chest, heard a roaring in his ears as he backed away. 

She’s dead!  She’s dead but she’s talking, moving!

She swung her legs over the side of the table and slipped to the floor.  Still backing away, Darryl dumbly watched her naked form cross the room like a sleepwalker and pull a white lab coat from a hook on the wall. 

Darryl’s heel caught against something on the floor and he fell backward, his arms pinwheeling for balance.  He grabbed the edge of a table but his fingers slipped off the shiny surface and he landed on his buttocks.  His head snapped back and struck the painted concrete block of the wall. 

Darryl tried to call out but found he had no voice.  He tried to hold onto consciousness but found it a losing battle. 

The last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the dead woman slipping into the lab coat and walking out the door, leaving it open behind her.

‡

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

The sun rises over the Arabian sea and strikes the minarets and domes of Masjid al Haram.  The mosque and every open spot around it as well as its central courtyard, home to the Kaaba, are packed with the faithful who have rushed here from all directions.  More are on the way, careening from all over the world to protect the holiest place in all of Islam.  They have brought their prayer rugs and are on their knees, their foreheads pressed to the ground as they face the Kaaba and pray to Allah to save the Masjid al Haram. 

But the minarets and domes and walls dissolve, and the Kaaba too fades away, leaving only the participants in the last Hadj.

IN THE PACIFIC

24
^o
N, 120
^o
W

Reconnaissance flight 705 out of San Diego is buffeted by tornadic winds and blinding torrents as it fights its way toward the center of the huge, mysterious Pacific storm that shows up on satellite photos but not radar.  An unclassifiable, logic-defying storm with the combined properties of an Atlantic hurricane, a Pacific typhoon, and a Midwestern supercell.  All that can be said of it from orbit photos and fly-by observation is that a towering colossus of violent weather topping out at fifty-thousand feet is crossing the Pacific in the general direction of northern Mexico.

Reconnaissance 705’s mission is to classify it, but right now, hemmed in by roiling clouds and radar that shows clear, calm, open sea ahead of them, they are truly flying blind.  The pilot, Captain Harry Densmore, has never experienced anything like this.  The barometric readings are in the mid-twenties as he approaches what should be the center of the storm.  He wants to turn back but needs to know what’s at the heart of this monstrosity.  There’s no eye visible from orbit, but all indications point to an organized center.  One look, one reading, and he’ll turn tail and run.  This monster hasn’t killed anybody yet but he’s afraid he and his crew might change all that.  He’ll count himself lucky if he sees San Diego again. 

Just a little farther...

Suddenly the plane is buffeted by a gust that knocks it 45 degrees off line.  Metal shrieks in Densmore’s ears and he’s sure she’s going to come apart when suddenly they’re in still air.

“It’s got an eye!” he shouts.  “We’re through the eye wall!”

But an eye should be clear.  And in an eye this size, blue sky should be visible above.  Not here.  It’s dark in this eye.  Very dark.  And raining.