F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 Read Online Free Page B

scattered. Carole's
only living relative was an aunt, her mother's sister Joyce, who lived in
Harrisburg and usually invited her to spend Easter and the following week with
her; but she hadn't invited her this year, and wasn't answering her phone. She
had a son in California ; maybe she'd gone to stay with him. Lots of people were leaving the
East Coast.
                 Bernadette
hadn't heard from her family in Ireland for months. Carole feared she never would.
                 So
that left just the two of them to hold the fort, as it were. The convent was
part of a complex consisting of the church itself, the rectory, the grammar
school and high school buildings, the tiny cemetery, and the sturdy old
two-story rooming house that was now the convent. She and Bernadette had taken
second-floor rooms, leaving the first floor to the older nuns.
                 Carole
wasn't afraid. She knew they'd be safe here at St. Anthony's, although she
wished there were more people left in the complex than just Bernadette,
herself, and Father Palmeri.
                 "I
don't understand Father Palmeri," Bernadette said. "Locking up the
church and keeping his parishioners from making the stations of the cross on
Good Friday. Who's ever heard of such a thing, I ask you? I just don't
understand it."
                 Carole
thought she understood. She suspected that Father Alberto Palmeri was afraid.
Sometime this morning he'd locked up the rectory, barred the door to St.
Anthony's, and hidden himself in the church basement.
                 God
forgive her for thinking it, but to Sister Carole's mind Father Palmeri was a
coward.
                 "Oh,
I do wish he'd open the church, just for a little while," Bernadette said.
"I need to be in there, Carole. I need it."
                 Carole
knew how Bern felt. Who had said religion was an opiate
of the people? Marx? Whoever it was, he hadn't been completely wrong. For
Carole, sitting in the cool, peaceful quiet beneath St. Anthony's gothic
arches, praying, meditating, and feeling the presence of the Lord were like a
daily dose of an addictive drug. A dose she and Bern had been denied today. Bern 's withdrawal pangs seemed worse than
Carole's.
                 The
younger nun paused as she passed the window, then pointed down to the street.
                 "And
now who in God's name would they be?"
                 Carole
rose and stepped to Bernadette's side. Passing on the street below was a
cavalcade of shiny new cars—Mercedes Benzes, BMW's, Jaguars, Lin-colns,
Cadillacs—all with New York plates, all cruising from the direction of the Parkway.
                 The
sight of them in the dusk tightened a knot in Carole's stomach. The lupine
faces she spied through the windows looked brutish, and the way they drove
their gleaming luxury cars down the center line ... as if they owned the road.
                 A
Cadillac convertible with its top down passed below; four scruffy occupants
lounged on the seats. The driver wore a cowboy hat, a woman in leather sat next
to him. Both were drinking beer. When Carol saw the driver glance up and look
their way, she tugged on Bern 's sleeve.
                 "Stand
back! Don't let them see you!"
                 "Why
not? Who are they?"
                 "I'm
not sure, but I've heard of bands of men who do the vampires' dirty work during
the daytime, who've traded their souls for the promise of immortality later on,
and for ... other things now."
                 "Sure
and you're joking, Carole!"
                 Carole
shook her head. "I wish I were."
                 "Oh,
dear God, and now the sun's down." She turned frightened blue eyes toward
Carole. "Do you think maybe we should . . . ?"
                 "Lock
up? Most certainly. I know what His Holiness said about there not being