Renny hesitated as he watched Ryan haul himself up to the top of the wall. This was getting crazier by the minute. He was letting a madman, a defrocked priest who was a child molester and child killer to boot, lead him up and down the East Coast. And now he was supposed to follow Ryan into a deserted cemetery?
I must be crazy!
But it was too late to turn back.
"Shit!" he said.
He slammed a fist against the dashboard. Then, muttering a stream of curses, he followed the priest over the wall.
It was dark on the other side, and for an instant he was mortally afraid. Somewhere nearby was a mad killer with a brand-new pick. He dropped into a crouch and pulled his pistol.
Then he saw the beam of the flashlight a dozen feet away. Ryan stood there like a statue, shining the light on a patch of ground before him. Renny approached warily.
"This is the spot," Ryan said. His voice was hoarse, barely a whisper.
"There's no marker. How can you be sure without a marker?"
"I know where I dug it. You don't forget something like that. And look—no grass."
Renny stared down at the bare patch of ground. Thick, winter-browned grass surrounded the area, but not here.
"Has this been dug up?" Renny said, scuffing his feet on the bare earth. "Somebody beat you to it?"
The priest bounced the business end of the shovel off the hard, cold earth.
"Not recently."
"So there's no grass there. So what?"
The priest's voice was barely audible.
"This isn't the first time I've seen something like this."
Renny couldn't see Ryan's face, but he sensed real fear in the man. Suddenly he became aware of how cold it was here in New York in February. He very much wished he were back in N.C. right now.
"Let's get this over with."
He held the flashlight while the priest did the digging. It was tough work breaking through the granite-hard top soil and at times Renny was tempted to help out, but he couldn't risk it. He couldn't turn his back on this man and let him turn this spot into a double grave—if indeed it was a grave at all.
The priest made quicker progress in the deeper layers below the frost line. When he got the hole hip-deep, he tossed the shovel aside and sank out of sight.
Renny moved closer. Ryan was on his knees, scooping up the dirt with his bare hands.
"What are you doing?"
"I don't want to hit him with the shovel."
He's not going to feel it, you jerk!
But Renny was struck by the reverence in Ryan's tone. That little boy seemed to matter an awful lot to him—even dead.
And after five years at the bottom of that hole, he couldn't be anything but dead. But his body could still tell stories. Recovering it would put a whole bunch of nails in Father William Ryan's legal coffin.
"Almost there," the priest said, panting. "Just a little bit fur—"
He jerked back.
"What's wrong?" Renny said.
"Something moved."
"Come on, Ryan!"
"No… under the dirt there. Something moved. I felt it."
Renny stepped up to the edge and shone the light into the bottom of the hole. He didn't see anything moving.
"Probably just a mole or something," he said, trying to sound calm.
"No," said the priest, his voice so hushed Renny could barely hear him. "It's Danny. He's still alive. Oh, God, he's still alive!"
He began to paw at the earth, frantically.
"Easy, fella. Just take it easy."
Christ Almighty, don't go to pieces on me now.
"I feel him!" The priest was shouting as he tossed huge handfuls of dirt into the air, showering Renny and himself with cold, damp earth. "I feel him moving!"
And damned if the dirt in front of the priest didn't seem to be heaving and rippling, as if something was squirming and struggling beneath it. Renny swallowed what little saliva remained in his mouth. A trick of the light. It couldn't be anything but—
But then something broke through the surface and writhed in the light. At first Renny thought it was some sort of giant white worm, then realized it was an arm, a thin little arm, twisting and flailing in the air. But not a whole arm. It looked tattered and moth-eaten, the skin stiff and dry, the flesh rotted away in areas to expose the underlying bone.
Renny gagged and almost dropped the flashlight, but the priest kept on digging, sobbing as he clawed at the earth. Finally he uncoveredthe remnants of what looked like a blanket. He grabbed two fistfuls of the fabric and yanked upward. The material ripped with a soggy sound, the overlying layer of earth parted, and what was left of Danny Gordon sat up in his grave.
Or maybe it wasn't Danny Gordon. Who could tell? It was child-sized, but whatever it was, it had no business moving and acting alive. It belonged in a grave. It belonged dead.
Renny felt the strength rush out of him as he watched the thing in the jittering beam of the flashlight. Where its head and upper torso were exposed the flesh was as tattered and rotted as the arm that still wnthed in the air like a snake. It reached for the priest and Father Bill didn't hesitate. He took the worm-eaten thing in his arms and clutched it against his chest. Then he raised his head and cried out to heaven in a voice so full of anguish and despair that it damn near broke Renny's heart.
"My God, my God! How could you allow this? How could you allow this?"
Renny probably would have been able to handle it if he hadn't seen the eyes. He'd managed okay through the smell, through the sight of a dead thing moving like it was alive, but then came that moment when it turned its face toward the light and he saw the perfect blue eyes, moist, bright, shining, untouched by rot. Little Danny Gordon's eyes, fully alive and aware in that decaying skull.
Renny's nerve snapped then. He dropped the flashlight and ran. A part of him hated himself for bolting like a panicked deer, but a larger, more primitive element had taken hold, shrieking in fear, overruling any action but flight. He reached the cemetery wall and leapt but couldn't get a grip on the top. He caromed off and ran to the leaning tree nearby, scrabbled up its rough bark, swung to the top of the wall and leapt down, landing next to the rental car. He slumped against the fender and heaved, but nothing would come up. So he stood there panting and sweating, his eyes closed.
He'd been right! The priest had been right! The kid was still alive—buried for five years and still alive! Five years in the ground! This couldn't be happening.
Yet it was, dammit! He'd seen it with his own eyes. No question about it—something hellish going on here.
From the far side of the wall he could still hear Father Bill's voice, ranting at the empty winter sky.
And then he heard something else. Footsteps approaching.
Renny straightened and looked around, stiffening at the sight of a bundled-up figure limping toward him across the frozen ground. A big guy, but not too steady on his feet. He supported himself with a cane in one hand; something boxlike dangled from the other and bounced against his leg as he walked.
"Get out of here," Renny said, his voice tight and raspy. For want of something better to say, he added, "Police business."
The old man didn't even slow his pace; unperturbed, he continued forward. When he stepped into the glare from the streetlight, he stopped and stared at Renny. He wore a heavy topcoat. The brim of his hat kept much of his face in shadow, but from what Renny saw of his white beard and lined cheeks, he could tell he was old.
"You've opened the grave, I gather," the old man said.
Christ, who else knows about this?
"Look," Renny managed to say, "this is none of your business. If you're smart, you'll go back to wherever you came from and stay the hell out of this."