F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 Read Online Free

"But
dear God, 'tis Holy Week! 'Tis Good Friday, it is! How could they dare?"
                 "It's
the perfect time, if you think about it. There will be no Mass said until the
first Easter Mass on Sunday morning. What other time of the year is daily mass
suspended?"
                 Bernadette
shook her head. "None."
                 "Exactly."
Carole looked down at her cold hands and felt the chill crawl all the way up
her arms.
                 The
car suddenly lurched to a halt and she heard Bernadette cry out. "Dear
Jesus! They're already here!"
                 Half
a dozen black-clad forms clustered on the corner ahead, staring at them.
                 "Got
to get out of here!" Bernadette said and hit the gas.
                 The
old car coughed and died.
                 "Oh,
no!" Bernadette wailed, frantically pumping the gas pedal and turning the
key as the dark forms glided toward them. "No!"
                 "Easy,
dear," Carole said, laying a gentle hand on her arm. "It's all right.
They're just kids."
                 Perhaps
"kids" was not entirely correct. Two males and four females who
looked to be in their late teens and early twenties, but carried any number of
adult lifetimes behind their heavily made-up eyes. Grinning, leering, they
gathered around the car, four on Bernadette's side and two on Carole's. Sallow
faces made paler by a layer of white powder, kohl-crusted eyelids, and black
lipstick. Black fingernails, rings in their ears and eyebrows and nostrils,
chrome studs piercing cheeks and lips. Their hair ranged the color spectrum,
from dead white through burgundy to crankcase black. Bare hairless chests on
the boys under their leather jackets, almost-bare chests on the girls in their
black push-up bras and bustiers. Boots of shiny leather or vinyl, fishnet
stockings, layer upon layer of lace, and everything black, black, black.
                  
                 "Hey,
look!" one of the boys said. A spiked leather collar girded his throat;
acne lumps bulged under his whiteface. "Nuns!" "Penguins!"
someone else said. Apparently this was deemed hilarious. The six of them
screamed with laughter.
                 We're
not penguins, Carole thought. She hadn't worn a full habit in years. Only the
headpiece.
                 "Shit,
are they gonna be in for a surprise tomorrow morning!" said a buxom girl
wearing a silk top hat.
                 Another
roar of laughter by all except one. A tall slim girl with three large black
tears tattooed down one cheek, and blond roots peeking from under her
black-dyed hair, hung back, looking uncomfortable. Carole stared at her.
Something familiar there...
                 She
rolled down her window. "Rosita? Rosita Hernandez, is that you?'
                 More
laughter. " 'Rosita'?" someone cried. "That's Wicky!"
                 The
girl stepped forward and looked Carole in the eye. "Yes, Sister. That used
to be my name. But I'm not Rosita anymore."
                 "l
can see that."
                 She
remembered Rosita. A sweet girl, extremely bright, but so quiet. A voracious
reader who never seemed to fit in with the rest of the kids. Her grades
plummeted as a junior. She never returned for her senior year. When Carole had
called her parents, she was told that Rosita had left home. She'd been unable
to learn anything more.
                 "You've
changed a bit since I last saw you. What is it—three years now?"
                 "You
talk about change?" said the top-hatted girl, sticking her face in the
window. "Wait'll tonight. Then you'll really see her change!" She
brayed a laugh that revealed a chrome stud in her tongue.
                 "Butt
out, Carmilla!" Rosita said.
                 Carmilla
ignored her. "They're coming tonight, you know. The Lords of the