A Soft Barren Aftershock

  Bernadette rushed back into the foyer. Her face was drawn with fear. “Nine-one-one doesn’t answer! I can’t raise anyone!”

  “They’re all over town,” Mary Margaret said after another spasm of coughing. Carole could barely hear her. She touched her throat—so cold. “They set fires and attack the cops and firemen when they arrive. Their human helpers break into houses and drive the people outside, where they’re attacked. And after the things drain the blood, they rip the heads off.”

  “Dear God, why?” Bernadette said, crouching beside Carole.

  “My guess . . . don’t want any more vampires. Maybe only so much blood to go around and—”

  She moaned with another spasm, then lay still. Carole patted her cheeks and called her name, but Mary Margaret Flanagan’s dull, staring eyes told it all.

  “Is she . . .?” Bernadette said.

  Carole nodded as tears filled her eyes. You poor misguided child, she thought, closing Mary Margaret’s eyelids.

  “She’s died in sin,” Bernadette said. “She needs anointing immediately! I’ll get Father.”

  “No, Bern,” Carole said. “Father Palmeri won’t come.”

  “Of course he will. He’s a priest and this poor lost soul needs him.”

  “Trust me. He won’t leave that church basement for anything.”

  “But he must!” she said, almost childishly, her voice rising. “He’s a priest.”

  “Just be calm, Bernadette, and we’ll pray for her ourselves.”

  “We can’t do what a priest can do,” she said, springing to her feet. “It’s not the same.”

  “Where are you going?” Carole said.

  “To . . . to get a robe. It’s cold.”

  My poor, dear, frightened Bernadette, Carole thought as she watched her scurry up the steps. I know exactly how you feel.

  “And bring your prayer book back with you,” she called after her.

  Carole pulled the blanket over Mary Margaret’s face and gently lowered her head to the floor. She waited for Bernadette to return . . . and waited. What was taking her so long? She called her name but got no answer.

  Uneasy, Carole returned to the second floor. The hallway was empty and dark except for a pale shaft of moonlight slanting through the window at its far end. Carole hurried to Bern’s room. The door was closed. She knocked.

  “Bern? Bern, are you in there?”

  Silence.

  Carole opened the door and peered inside. More moonlight, more emptiness.

  Where could—?

  Down on the first floor, almost directly under Carole’s feet, the convent’s back door slammed. How could that be? Carole had locked it herself—dead-bolted it at sunset.

  Unless Bernadette had gone down the back stairs and . . .

  She darted to the window and stared down at the grassy area between the convent and the church. The high, bright moon had made a black-and-white photo of the world outside, bleaching the lawn below with its stark glow, etching deep ebony wells around the shrubs and foundation plantings. It glared from St. Anthony’s slate roof, stretching a long, crocketted wedge of night behind its gothic spire.

  And scurrying across the lawn toward the church was a slim figure wrapped in a long raincoat, the moon picking out the white band of her wimple, its black veil a fluttering shadow along her neck and upper back—Bernadette was too old-country to approach the church with her head uncovered.

  “Oh, Bern,” Carole whispered, pressing her face against the glass. “Bern, don’t.”

  She watched as Bernadette ran up to St. Anthony’s side entrance and began clanking the heavy brass knocker against the thick oak door. Her high, clear voice filtered faintly through the window glass.

  “Father! Father Palmeri! Please open up! There’s a dead girl in the convent who needs anointing! Won’t you please come over?” She kept banging, kept calling, but the door never opened. Carole thought she saw Father Palmeri’s pale face float into view to Bern’s right through the glass of one of the church’s few unstained windows. It hovered there for a few seconds or so, then disappeared. But the door remained closed.

  That didn’t seem to faze Bern. She only increased the force of her blows with the knocker, and raised her voice even higher until it echoed off the stone walls and reverberated through the night.

  Carole’s heart went out to her. She shared Bern’s need, if not her desperation.

  Why doesn’t Father Palmeri at least let her in? she thought. The poor thing’s making enough racket to wake the dead.

  Sudden terror tightened along the back of Carole’s neck.

  . . . wake the dead . . .

  Bern was too loud. She thought only of attracting the attention of Father Palmeri, but what if she attracted . . . others?

  Even as the thought crawled across her mind, Carole saw a dark, rangy figure creep onto the lawn from the street side, slinking from shadow to shadow, closing in on her unsuspecting friend.

  “Oh, my God!” she cried, and fumbled with the window lock. She twisted it open and yanked up the sash.

  Carole screamed into the night. “Bernadette! Behind you! There’s someone coming! Get back here now, Bernadette! Now!”

  Bernadette turned and looked up toward Carole, then stared around her. The approaching figure had dissolved into the shadows at the sound of the shouted warnings. But Bernadette must have sensed something in Carole’s voice, for she started back toward the convent.

  She didn’t get far—ten paces, maybe—before the shadowy form caught up to her.

  “No!” Carole screamed as she saw it leap upon her friend.

  She stood frozen at the window, her fingers clawing the molding on each side as Bernadette’s high wail of terror and pain cut the night.

  For the span of an endless, helpless, paralyzed heartbeat, Carole watched the form drag her down to the silver lawn, tear open her raincoat, and fall upon her, watched her arms and legs flail wildly, frantically in the moonlight, and all the while her screams, oh, dear God in Heaven, her screams for help were slim, white-hot nails driven into Carole’s ears.

  And then, out of the corner of her eye, Carole saw the pale face appear again at the window of St. Anthony’s, watch for a moment, then once more fade into the inner darkness.

  With a low moan of horror, fear, and desperation, Carole pushed herself away from the window and stumbled toward the hall. Someone had to help. On the way, she snatched the foot-long wooden crucifix from Bernadette’s wall and clutched it against her chest with both hands. As she picked up speed, graduating from a lurch to a walk to a loping run, she began to scream—not a wail of fear, but a long, seamless ululation of rage.

  Something was killing her friend.

  The rage was good. It canceled the fear and the horror and the loathing that had paralyzed her. It allowed her to move, to keep moving. She embraced the rage.

  Carole hurtled down the stairs and burst onto the moonlit lawn—

  And stopped.

  She was disoriented for an instant. She didn’t see Bern. Where was she? Where was her attacker?

  And then she saw a patch of writhing shadow on the grass ahead of her near one of the shrubs.

  Bernadette?

  Clutching the crucifix, Carole ran for the spot, and as she neared she realized it was indeed Bernadette, sprawled facedown, but not alone. Another shadow sat astride her, hissing like a reptile, gnashing its teeth, its fingers curved into talons that tugged at Bernadette’s head as if trying to tear it off.

  Carole reacted without thinking. Screaming, she launched herself at the creature, ramming the big crucifix against its exposed back. Light flashed and sizzled and thick black smoke shot upward in oily swirls from where cross met flesh. The thing arched its back and howled, writhing beneath the cruciform brand, thrashing wildly as it tried to wriggle out from under the fiery weight.

  But Carole stayed with it, following its slithering crawl on her knees, pressing the flashing cross deeper and deeper into its steaming, boili
ng flesh, down to the spine, into the vertebrae. Its cries became almost piteous as it weakened, and Carole gagged on the thick black smoke that fumed around her, but her rage would not allow her to slack off. She kept up the pressure, pushed the wooden crucifix deeper and deeper into the creature’s back until it penetrated the chest cavity and seared into its heart. Suddenly the thing gagged and shuddered and then was still.

  The flashes faded. The final wisps of smoke trailed away on the breeze.

  Carole abruptly released the shaft of the crucifix as if it had shocked her, and ran back to Bernadette. She dropped to her knees beside the still form and turned her over onto her back.

  “Oh, no!” she screamed when she saw Bernadette’s torn throat, her wide, glazed, sightless eyes, and the blood, so much blood smeared all over the front of her.

  Oh no. Oh, dear God, please no! This can’t be! This can’t be real!

  A sob burst from her. “No, Bern! Nooooo!”

  Somewhere nearby, a dog howled in answer. Or was it a dog?

  Carole realized she was defenseless now. She had to get back to the convent. She leaped to her feet and looked around. Nothing moving. A yard or two away she saw the dead thing with her crucifix still buried in its back.

  She hurried over to retrieve it, but recoiled from touching the creature. She could see now that it was a man—a naked man, or something that very much resembled one. But not quite. Some indefinable quality was missing.

  Was it one of them?

  This must be one of the undead Mary Margaret had warned about. But could this . . . this thing . . . be a vampire? It had acted like little more than a rabid dog in human form.

  Whatever it was, it had mauled and murdered Bernadette. Rage bloomed again within Carole like a virulent, rampant virus, spreading through her bloodstream, invading her nervous system, threatening to take her over completely. She fought the urge to batter the corpse.

  Bile rose in her throat; she choked it down and stared at the inert form prone before her. This once had been a man, someone with a family, perhaps. Surely he hadn’t asked to become this vicious night thing.

  “Whoever you were,” Carole whispered, “you’re free now. Free to return to God.”

  She gripped the shaft of the crucifix to remove it but found it fixed in the seared flesh like a steel rod set in concrete.

  Something howled again. Closer.

  She had to get back inside, but she couldn’t leave Bern out here.

  Swiftly, she returned to Bernadette’s side, worked her hands through the grass under her back and knees, and lifted her into her arms. So light! Dear Lord, she weighed almost nothing.

  Carole carried Bernadette back to the convent as fast as her rubbery legs would allow. Once inside, she bolted the door, then staggered up to the second floor with Bernadette in her arms.

  She returned Sister Bernadette Gileen to her own room. Carole didn’t have the energy to drag the mattress back across the hall, so she stretched her supine on the box spring of her bed. She straightened Bern’s thin legs, crossed her hands over her blood-splattered chest, arranged her torn clothing as best she could, and covered her from head to toe with a bedspread.

  And then, looking down at that still form under the quilt she had helped Bernadette make, Carole sagged to her knees and began to cry. She tried to say a requiem prayer but her grief-racked mind had lost the words. So she sobbed aloud and asked God, Why? How could He let this happen to a dear, sweet innocent who had wished only to spend her life serving Him? Why?

  But no answer came.

  When Carole finally controlled her tears, she forced herself to her feet, closed Bernadette’s door, and stumbled into the hall. She saw the light from the front foyer and knew she shouldn’t leave it on. She hurried down and stepped over the still form of Mary Margaret under the blood-soaked blanket. Two violent deaths here tonight in a house devoted to God. How many more outside these doors?

  She turned off the light but didn’t have the strength to carry Mary Margaret upstairs. She left her there and raced through the dark back to her own room.

  Carole didn’t know what time the power went out.

  She had no idea how long she’d been kneeling beside her bed, alternately sobbing and praying, when she glanced at the digital alarm clock on her night table and saw that its face had gone dark and blank.

  Not that a power failure mattered. She’d been spending the night by candlelight anyway. There was barely an inch of candle left, but that gave her no clue as to the hour. Who knew how fast a candle burned?

  She was tempted to lift the bedspread draped over the window and peek outside, but was afraid of what she might see.

  How long until dawn? she wondered, rubbing her eyes. This night seemed endless. If only—

  Beyond her locked door, a faint squeak came from somewhere along the hall. It could have been anything—the wind in the attic, the old building settling, but it had been long, drawn out, and high-pitched. Almost like . . .

  A door opening.

  Carole froze, still on her knees, hands still folded in prayer, her elbows resting on the bed, and listened for it again. But the sound was not repeated. Instead, something else . . . a rhythmic shuffle . . . in the hall . . . approaching her door . . .

  Footsteps.

  With her heart punching frantically against the inner wall of her chest, Carole leaped to her feet and stepped close to the door, listening with her ear almost touching the wood. Yes. Footsteps. Slow. And soft, like bare feet scuffing the floor. Coming this way. Closer. They were right outside the door. Carole felt a sudden chill, as if a wave of icy air had penetrated the wood, but the footsteps didn’t pause. They passed her door, moving on.

  And then they stopped.

  Carole had her ear pressed against the wood now. She could hear her pulse pounding through her head as she strained for the next sound. And then it came, more shuffling outside in the hall, almost confused at first, and then the footsteps began again.

  Coming back.

  This time they stopped directly outside Carole’s door. The cold was there again, a damp, penetrating chill that reached for her bones. Carole backed away from it.

  And then the doorknob turned. Slowly. The door creaked with the weight of a body leaning against it from the other side, but Carole’s bolt held.

  Then a voice. Hoarse. A single whispered word, barely audible, but a shout could not have startled her more.

  “Carole?”

  Carole didn’t reply—couldn’t reply.

  “Carole, it’s me. Bern. Let me in.”

  Against her will, a low moan escaped Carole. No, no, no, this couldn’t be Bernadette. Bernadette was dead. Carole had left her cooling body lying in her room across the hall. This was some horrible joke . . . .

  Or was it? Maybe Bernadette had become one of them, one of the very things that had killed her.

  But the voice on the other side of the door was not that of some ravenous beast. It was . . .

  “Please let me in, Carole. I’m frightened out here alone.”

  Maybe Bern is alive, Carole thought, her mind racing, ranging for an answer. I’m no doctor. I could have been wrong about her being dead. Maybe she survived . . . .

  She stood trembling, torn between the desperate, aching need to see her friend alive and the wary terror of being tricked by whatever creature Bernadette might have become.

  “Carole?”

  Carole wished for a peephole in the door, or at the very least a chain lock, but she had neither, and she had to do something. She couldn’t stand here like this and listen to that plaintive voice any longer without going mad. She had to know. Without giving herself any more time to think, she snapped back the bolt and pulled the door open, ready to face whatever awaited her in the hall.

  She gasped. “Bernadette!”

  Her friend stood just beyond the threshold, swaying, stark naked.

  Not completely naked. She still wore her wimple, although it was askew on her head, and a strip
of cloth had been layered around her neck to dress her throat wound. In the wan, flickering candlelight that leaked from Carole’s room, she saw that the blood that had splattered her was gone. Carole had never seen Bernadette unclothed before. She’d never realized how thin she was. Her ribs rippled beneath the skin of her chest, disappeared only beneath the scant padding of her small breasts with their erect nipples; the bones of her hips and pelvis bulged around her flat belly. Her normally fair skin was almost blue-white. The only other colors were the dark pools of her eyes and the orange splotches of hair on her head and her pubes.

  “Carole,” she said weakly. “Why did you leave me?”

  The sight of Bernadette standing before her, alive, speaking, had drained most of Carole’s strength; the added weight of guilt from her words nearly drove her to her knees. She sagged against the door frame.

  “Bern . . .” Carole’s voice failed her. She swallowed and tried again. “I—I thought you were dead. And . . . what happened to your clothes?”

  Bernadette raised her hand to her throat. “I tore up my nightgown for a bandage. Can I come in?”

  Carole straightened and opened the door farther. “Oh, Lord, yes. Come in. Sit down. I’ll get you a blanket.”

  Bernadette shuffled into the room, head down, eyes fixed on the floor. She moved like someone on drugs. But then, after losing so much blood, it was a wonder she could walk at all.

  “Don’t want a blanket,” Bern said. “Too hot. Aren’t you hot?”

  She backed herself stiffly onto Carole’s bed, then lifted her ankles and sat cross-legged, facing her. Mentally, Carole explained the casual, blatant way she exposed herself by the fact that Bernadette was still recovering from a horrific trauma, but that made it no less discomfiting.

  Carole glanced at the crucifix on the wall over her bed, above and behind Bernadette. For a moment, as Bernadette had seated herself beneath it, she thought she had seen it glow. It must have been reflected candlelight. She turned away and retrieved a spare blanket from the closet. She unfolded it and wrapped it around Bernadette’s shoulders and over her spread knees, covering her.