Shawna lunged forward and grabbed Nan’s ankle. With her free hand, she swung the rifle around and jammed the butt against her shoulder. Aimed high. Pulled the trigger.
The pine trees shuddered. A low howl emanated from within the copse of trees. Nan’s legs were still kicking furiously, her body buried in the pines from her waist up. Shawna yanked Nan toward her but only succeeded in tearing Nan’s pants. Shawna fell back on her buttocks, the rifle thumping to the snow.
A strangled cry broke through the trees as Nan’s legs were swallowed up into the pines.
Grabbing the rifle, Shawna charged forward, pine branches whipping at her face. She cried out for Nan but the woman did not answer. She got the sense that the figure was dragging Nan through the trees just mere feet in front of her, but she could not catch up. Risking it, she raised the rifle up high and fired another shot. This one vanished into distant space. Shawna’s ears rang.
Finally she burst through the trees and spilled back out into the alleyway. Directly ahead of her, the figure was running at breakneck speed, dragging Nan behind him by her hair. Again, Shawna leveled the gun and fired two shots in a row. Both struck the figure in the back but did not slow him down.
“Shawwwwnaaaa!” Nan screamed as the figure dragged her out into the town square.
Shawna pursued, her lungs burning, her feet numb. Just as she reached the street, she saw the upper portion of the man’s body blur and lose consistency. It became a wavering shimmer of bright light and twirling snow. The figure launched up off the ground as it simultaneously became a cloud of rattling snow, carrying Nan Wilkinson with it.
Shawna raised the rifle…but there was no longer anything to shoot at…
Nan let out one final scream as she was carried off into the night sky.
“Jesus…” Shawna’s throat rasped.
The barefoot child in the pajamas appeared at the opposite end of the square. At this closer distance, Shawna could make out the smooth, unmarred convexity of flesh that made up the child’s face. There were no eyes, no mouth, no nose—just a fleshy bubble that appeared to drip down from the boy’s hairline.
Two more white moon-faces rose up from behind a parked car. Farther down the avenue, a mound of snow rose up off the ground like a missile rising up out of an underground silo.
Shawna turned and ran.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“This was Father Finnick’s stuff,” Meg said, lifting open the priest’s trunk. They were in a small room deep in the rectory, which was attached to the rear of the church. A tiny bed clung to one wall; above it hung an iron crucifix. In the closet, dark slacks and buttoned shirts hung neatly from wire hangers. On a small circular table sat a potted plant in desperate need of water.
“Thank you,” Kate said, kneeling down before the open trunk. It was filled with hand-stitched garments, embroidered stoles with gold trimming, and lavish robes made of a material that looked like silk but felt much heavier. “These are priest’s clothes.”
“I told you that already.”
“What happened to Father Finnick?”
“He changed.”
Kate sifted through the trunk. “Is there anything else? A coat or something?”
“Chris said to take you to the trunk. This is the trunk.”
Kate looked up. Her gaze lingered on Meg. In the glow of the candle she held, the girl looked almost savage. What had Shawna said about checking the shoulders? Could this girl actually be one of those things?
“Could you turn around for me?” Kate asked, trying to sound as innocuous as possible.
Meg’s expression—one of stupid incomprehension—did not falter. She did not turn around, either.
“Remember how Chris tore my shirt off?” Kate pursued. “Remember how he looked at those scratches down my back?”
“You want to see if I have scratches, too,” Meg said. It was not a question. The candle’s flame danced just inches below her chin.
Kate struggled to come up with something soothing and placating with which to respond, but in the end her mind came up blank. She said simply, “Yes.”
“Dad had them.”
“Your father?”
“Straight down his back,” said Meg. “Two long cuts. Like someone…like someone chopped him with an axe…”
“That’s horrible.” One of Kate’s hands advanced the slightest bit, moving to touch the girl and offer some semblance of comfort…but she stopped herself at the last minute.
“He came back to the church,” Meg went on. Her voice was monotone. “He banged on the door for hours. I wanted to let him in, but Chris said it wasn’t our dad anymore.”
“What happened?”
“He went around to the side of the church to try to break the windows,” Meg said. “That’s when Chris went up into the bell tower and dropped a fountain on him.”
“A fountain?”
“One of those marble water fountains at the front of the church,” Meg said. “I forget what they’re called. Chris knows.”
“Chris killed your dad?”
“It wasn’t our dad. Chris said so.”
“But he killed him?”
“He dropped the fountain on him and one of those things came out. The things that turn into snow.”
Despite the chill, a tacky film of perspiration now coated Kate’s face and neck. Resigned, she turned back to the trunk and stared noncommittally at the garments inside. “Isn’t there anything else? Anything at all?”
“This is the trunk,” was all Meg said. She’d taken a single step back; the repositioning of the candlelight caused the shadows to shift.
Kate looked up. A corduroy blazer hung in the closet. She got up and took the blazer down from the hanger. It would be a bit long on her, but she much preferred it over some religious robes.
“No,” Meg said. There was a strictness in her voice that caused an icy finger to prod the base of Kate’s spine. “Chris said to take you to the trunk.”
“And you did. But I don’t want to wear any of that stuff.” She pulled on the blazer.
“No!” Meg threw the candle down and the light blew out, dousing the room in blackness. The girl stomped out of the room. Standing in absolute darkness, Kate listened to her footfalls recede down the hallway.
I need to get Todd and we both need to get the hell out of here, she thought. Suddenly, she found she’d much rather be back at the Pack-N-Go with the others than here in this church with these two strange kids.
Kate hurried back out into the narrow hallway. Ahead of her in the darkness, Meg’s footfalls struck hollowly as she took off. There was another sound, too—a consistent thumping coming from somewhere above her head, like someone rhythmically dropping a fist over and over against the rafters.
“Meg,” she called after the girl, her voice swallowed up by the darkness.
Dragging one hand along the wall, Kate headed back in the direction of the main body of the church, moving strictly by intuition. Without lights, it was like passing through an enclosed maze. Once, she even thumped against one wall.
Eventually she felt the space around her expand and she could make out the dimly lighted stained glass radiating with the moon’s glow, and she knew she was in the heart of the church. As her eyes grew accustomed to the dark, the bracketed shape of the altar, like white bone, was visible on the chancel. To her immediate right, rows of pews stretched out like the exposed ribs of some giant fallen carcass.
Someone else was in the church with her; Kate could make out the indefinite shuffling of nervous feet across the dusty floor.