A Soft Barren Aftershock

  Joe wanted to ask Carl where he and all these people who seemed to think they needed him now had been when he was being railroaded out of the parish. But that was ancient history.

  “Not a miracle, Carl,” Joe said, glancing at Zev. “Rabbi Wolpin brought me back.” As Carl and Zev shook hands, Joe said, “And I’m just passing through.”

  “Passing t’rough? No. Dat can’t be! Ya gotta stay!”

  Joe saw the light of hope fading in the little man’s eyes. Something twisted within him, tugging him.

  “What can I do here, Carl? I’m just one man.”

  “I’ll help! I’ll do whatever ya want! Jes tell me!”

  “Will you help me clean up?”

  Carl looked around and seemed to see the cadavers for the first time. He cringed and turned a few shades paler.

  “Yeah . . . sure. Anyting.”

  Joe looked at Zev. “Well? What do you think?”

  Zev shrugged. “I should tell you what to do? My parish it’s not.”

  “Not mine either.”

  Zev jutted his beard at Carl. “I think maybe he’d tell you differently.”

  Joe did a slow turn. The vaulted nave was utterly silent except for the buzzing of the flies around the cadavers.

  A massive clean-up job. But if they worked all day they could make a decent dent in it. And then—

  And then what?

  Joe didn’t know. He was playing this by ear. He’d wait and see what the night brought.

  “Can you get us some food, Carl? I’d sell my soul for a cup of coffee.”

  Carl gave him a strange look.

  “Just a figure of speech, Carl. We’ll need some food if we’re going to keep working.”

  The man’s eyes lit again.

  “Dat means ya staying?”

  “For a while.”

  “I’ll getcha some food,” he said excitedly as he ran for the door. “An’ coffee. I know someone who’s still got coffee. She’ll part wit’ some of it for Faddajoe.” He stopped at the door and turned.

  “Ay, an’ Fadda, I neva believed any a dem tings dat was said aboutcha. Neva.”

  Joe tried but he couldn’t hold it back.

  “It would have meant a lot to have heard that from you last year, Carl.”

  The man lowered his eyes. “Yeah. I guess it woulda. But I’ll make it up to va, Fadda. I will. You can take dat to da bank.”

  Then he was out the door and gone. Joe turned to Zev and saw the old man rolling up his sleeves.

  “Nu?” Zev said. “The bodies. Before we do anything else, I think maybe we should move the bodies.”

  VI

  By early afternoon, Zev was exhausted. The heat and the heavy work had taken their toll. He had to stop and rest. He sat on the chancel rail and looked around. Nearly eight hours’ work and they’d barely scratched the surface. But the place did look and smell better.

  Removing the flyblown corpses and scattered body parts had been the worst of it. A foul, gut-roiling task that had taken most of the morning. They’d carried the corpses out to the small graveyard behind the church and left them there. Those people deserved a decent burial but there was no time for it today.

  Once the corpses were gone, Father Joe had torn the defilements from the statue of Mary and then they’d turned their attention to the huge crucifix. It took a while but they finally found Christ’s plaster arms in the pile of ruined pews. They were still nailed to the sawn-off cross-piece of the crucifix. While Zev and Father Joe worked at jury-rigging a series of braces to re-attach the arms, Carl found a mop and bucket and began the long, slow process-of washing the fouled floor of the nave.

  Now the crucifix was intact again—the life-size plaster Jesus had his arms re-attached and was once again nailed to his refurbished cross. Father Joe and Carl had restored him to his former position of dominance. The poor man was upright again, hanging over the center of the sanctuary in all his tortured splendor.

  A grisly sight.

  Zev could never understand the Catholic attachment to these gruesome statues. But if the vampires loathed them, then Zev was for them all the way.

  His stomach rumbled with hunger. At least they’d had a good breakfast. Carl had returned from his food run this morning with bread, cheese, and two thermoses of hot coffee. He wished now they’d saved some. Maybe there was a crust of bread left in the sack. He headed back to the vestibule to check and found an aluminum pot and a paper bag sitting by the door. The pot was full of beef stew and the sack contained three cans of Pepsi.

  He poked his head out the doors but no one was in sight on the street outside. It had been that way all day—he’d spy a figure or two peeking in the front doors; they’d hover there for a moment as if to confirm that what they had heard was true, then they’d scurry away. He looked at the meal that had been left. A group of the locals must have donated from their hoard of canned stew and precious soft drinks to fix this. Zev was touched.

  He called Father Joe and Carl.

  “Tastes like Dinty Moore,” Father Joe said around a mouthful of the stew.

  “It is,” Carl said. “I recognize da little potatoes. Da ladies of the parish must really be excited about youse comin’ back to break inta deir canned goods like dis.”

  They were feasting in the sacristy, the small room off the sanctuary where the priests had kept their vestments—a clerical Green Room, so to speak. Zev found the stew palatable but much too salty. He wasn’t about to complain, though.

  “I don’t believe I’ve ever had anything like this before.”

  “I’d be real surprised if you had,” said Father Joe. “I doubt very much that something that calls itself Dinty Moore is kosher.”

  Zev smiled but inside he was suddenly filled with a great sadness. Kosher . . . how meaningless now seemed all the observances which he had allowed to rule and circumscribe his life. Such a fierce proponent of strict dietary laws he’d been in the days before the Lakewood holocaust. But those days were gone, just as the Lakewood community was gone. And Zev was a changed man. If he hadn’t changed, if he were still observing, he couldn’t sit here and sup with these two men. He’d have to be elsewhere, eating special classes of specially prepared foods off separate sets of dishes. But really, wasn’t division what holding to the dietary laws in modern times was all about? They served a purpose beyond mere observance of tradition. They placed another wall between observant Jews and outsiders, keeping them separate even from other Jews who didn’t observe.

  Zev forced himself to take a big bite of the stew. Time to break down all the walls between people . . . while there was still enough time and people left alive to make it matter.

  “You okay, Zev?” Father Joe asked.

  Zev nodded silently, afraid to speak for fear of sobbing. Despite all its anachronisms, he missed his life in the good old days of last year. Gone. It was all gone. The rich traditions, the culture, the friends, the prayers. He felt adrift—in time and in space. Nowhere was home.

  “You sure?” The young priest seemed genuinely concerned.

  “Yes, I’m okay. As okay as you could expect me to feel after spending the better part of the day repairing a crucifix and eating non-kosher food. And let me tell you, that’s not so okay.”

  He put his bowl aside and straightened from his chair.

  “Come on, already. Let’s get back to work. There’s much yet to do.”

  VII

  “Sun’s almost down,” Carl said.

  Joe straightened from scrubbing the altar and stared west through one of the smashed windows. The sun was out of sight behind the houses there.

  “You can go now, Carl,” he said to the little man. “Thanks for your help.”

  “Where vouse gonna go, Fadda?”

  “I’ll be staying right here.”

  Carl’s prominent Adam’s apple bobbed convulsively as he swallowed.

  “Yeah? Well den, I’m staying too. I tol’ ya I’d make it up to ya, din’t I? An’ besides, I don’t t
ink the suckas’ll like da new, improved St. Ant’ny’s too much when dey come back tonight, d’you? I don’t even tink dey‘ll get t’rough da doors.”

  Joe smiled at the man and looked around. Luckily it was July when the days were long. They’d had time to make a difference here. The floors were clean, the crucifix was restored and back in its proper position, as were most of the Stations of the Cross plaques. Zev had found them under the pews and had taken the ones not shattered beyond recognition and rehung them on the walls. Lots of new crosses littered those walls. Carl had found a hammer and nails and had made dozens of them from the remains of the pews.

  “No, I don’t think they’ll like the new decor one bit. But there’s something you can get us if you can, Carl. Guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, anything that shoots.”

  Carl nodded slowly. “I know a few guys who can help in dat department.”

  “And some wine. A little red wine if anybody’s saved some.”

  “You got it.”

  He hurried off.

  “You’re planning Custer’s last stand, maybe?” Zev said from where he was tacking the last of Carl’s crude crosses to the east wall.

  “More like the Alamo.”

  “Same result,” Zev said with one of his shrugs.

  Joe turned back to scrubbing the altar. He’d been at it for over an hour now. He was drenched with sweat and knew he smelled like a bear, but he couldn’t stop until it was clean.

  An hour later he was forced to give up. No use. It wouldn’t come clean. The vampires must have done something to the blood and foulness to make the mixture seep into the surface of the marble like it had.

  He sat on the floor with his back against the altar and rested. He didn’t like resting because it gave him time to think. And when he started to think he realized that the odds were pretty high against his seeing tomorrow morning.

  At least he’d die well fed. Their secret supplier had left them a dinner of fresh fried chicken by the front doors. Even the memory of it made his mouth water. Apparently someone was really glad he was back.

  To tell the truth, though, as miserable as he’d been, he wasn’t ready to die. Not tonight, not any night. He wasn’t looking for an Alamo or a Little Big Horn. All he wanted to do was hold off the vampires till dawn. Keep them out of St. Anthony’s for one night. That was all. That would be a statement—his statement. If he found an opportunity to ram a stake through Palmeri’s rotten heart, so much the better, but he wasn’t counting on that. One night. Just to let them know they couldn’t have their way everywhere with everybody whenever they felt like it. He had surprise on his side tonight, so maybe it would work. One night. Then he’d be on his way.

  “What the fuck have you done?”

  Joe looked up at the shout. A burly, long-haired man in jeans and a flannel shirt stood in the vestibule staring at the partially restored nave. As he approached, Joe noticed his crescent moon earring.

  A Vichy.

  Joe balled his fists but didn’t move.

  “Hey, I’m talking to you, mister. Are you responsible for this?”

  When all he got from Joe was a cold stare, he turned to Zev.

  “Hey, you! Jew! What the hell do you think you’re doing?” He started toward Zev. “You get those fucking crosses off—”

  “Touch him and I’ll break you in half,” Joe said in a low voice.

  The Vichy skidded to a halt and stared at him.

  “Hey, asshole! Are you crazy? Do you know what Father Palmeri will do to you when he arrives?”

  “Father Palmeri? Why do you still call him that?”

  “It’s what he wants to be called. And he’s going to call you dog meat when he gets here!”

  Joe pulled himself to his feet and looked down at the Vichy. The man took two steps back. Suddenly he didn’t seem so sure of himself.

  “Tell him I’ll be waiting. Tell him Father Cahill is back.”

  “You’re a priest? You don’t look like one.”

  “Shut up and listen. Tell him Father Joe Cahill is back—and he’s pissed. Tell him that. Now get out of here while you still can.”

  The man turned and hurried out into the growing darkness. Joe turned to Zev and found him grinning through his beard. “ ‘Father Joe Cahill is back—and he’s pissed.’ I like that.”

  “We’ll make it into a bumper sticker. Meanwhile let’s close those doors. The criminal element is starting to wander in. I’ll see if we can find some more candles. It’s getting dark in here.”

  VIII

  He wore the night like a tuxedo.

  Dressed in a fresh cassock, Father Alberto Palmeri turned off County Line Road and strolled toward St. Anthony’s. The night was lovely, especially when you owned it. And he owned the night in this area of Lakewood now. He loved the night. He felt at one with it, attuned to its harmonies and its discords. The darkness made him feel so alive. Strange to have to lose your life before you could really feel alive. But this was it. He’d found his niche, his métier.

  Such a shame it had taken him so long. All those years trying to deny his appetites, trying to be a member of the other side, cursing himself when he allowed his appetites to win, as he had with increasing frequency toward the end of his mortal life. He should have given in to them completely long ago.

  It had taken undeath to free him.

  And to think he had been afraid of undeath, had cowered in fear each night in the cellar of the church, surrounded by crosses. Fortunately he had not been as safe as he’d thought and one of the beings he now called brother was able to slip in on him in the dark while he dozed. He saw now that he had lost nothing but his blood by that encounter.

  And in trade he’d gained a world.

  For now it was his world, at least this little corner of it, one in which he was completely free to indulge himself in any way he wished. Except for the blood. He had no choice about the blood. That was a new appetite, stronger than all the rest, one that would not be denied. But he did not mind the new appetite in the least. He’d found interesting ways to sate it.

  Up ahead he spotted dear, defiled St. Anthony’s. He wondered what his servants had prepared for him tonight. They were quite imaginative. They’d yet to bore him.

  But as he drew nearer the church, Palmeri slowed. His skin prickled. The building had changed. Something was very wrong there, wrong inside. Something amiss with the light that beamed from the windows. This wasn’t the old familiar candlelight, this was something else, something more. Something that made his insides tremble.

  Figures raced up the street toward him. Live ones. His night vision picked out the earrings and familiar faces of some of his servants. As they neared he sensed the warmth of the blood coursing just beneath their skins. The hunger rose in him and he fought the urge to rip into one of their throats. He couldn’t allow himself that pleasure. He had to keep the servants dangling, keep them working for him and the nest. They needed the services of the indentured living to remove whatever obstacles the cattle might put in their way.

  “Father! Father!” they cried.

  He loved it when they called him Father, loved being one of the undead and dressing like one of the enemy.

  “Yes, my children. What sort of victim do you have for us tonight?”

  “No victim, father—trouble!”

  The edges of Palmeri’s vision darkened with rage as he heard of the young priest and the Jew who had dared to try to turn St. Anthony’s into a holy place again. When he heard the name of the priest, he nearly exploded.

  “Cahill? Joseph Cahill is back in my church?”

  “He was cleaning the altar!” one of the servants said.

  Palmeri strode toward the church with the servants trailing behind. He knew that neither Cahill nor the Pope himself could clean that altar. Palmeri had desecrated it himself; he had learned how to do that when he became nest leader. But what else had the young pup dared to do?

  Whatever it was, it would be undone. Now!

  P
almeri strode up the steps and pulled the right door open—and screamed in agony.

  The light! The light. The LIGHT! White agony lanced through Palmeri’s eyes and seared his brain like two hot pokers. He retched and threw his arms across his face as he staggered back into the cool, comforting darkness.

  It took a few minutes for the pain to drain off, for the nausea to pass, for vision to return.

  He’d never understand it. He’d spent his entire life in the presence of crosses and crucifixes, surrounded by them. And yet as soon as he’d become undead, he was unable to bear the sight of one. As a matter of fact, since he’d become undead, he’d never even seen one. A cross was no longer an object. It was a light, a light so excruciatingly bright, so blazingly white that it was sheer agony to look at it. As a child in Naples he’d been told by his mother not to look at the sun, but when there’d been talk of an eclipse, he’d stared directly into its eye. The pain of looking at a cross was a hundred, no, a thousand times worse than that. And the bigger the cross or crucifix, the worse the pain.

  He’d experienced monumental pain upon looking into St. Anthony’s tonight. That could only mean that Joseph, that young bastard, had refurbished the giant crucifix. It was the only possible explanation.

  He swung on his servants.

  “Get in there! Get that crucifix down!”

  “They’ve got guns!”

  “Then get help. But get it down!”

  “We’ll get guns too! We can—”

  “No! I want him! I want that priest alive! I want him for myself! Anyone who kills him will suffer a very painful, very long and lingering true death! Is that clear?”

  It was clear. They scurried away without answering.

  Palmeri went to gather the other members of the nest.

  IX

  Dressed in a cassock and a surplice, Joe came out of the sacristy and approached the altar. He noticed Zev keeping watch at one of the windows. He didn’t tell him how ridiculous he looked carrying the shotgun Carl had brought back. He held it so gingerly, like it was full of nitroglycerine and would explode if he jiggled it.