Body Count
While General Copperfield's unit was conducting the autopsy and tests in the mobile field lab, Bryce Hammond formed two search teams and began a building-by-building inspection of the town. Frank Autry led the first group, and Major Isley went along as an observer for Project Skywatch. Likewise, Captain Arkham joined Bryce's group. Block by block and street by street, the two teams were never more than one building apart, remaining in close touch with walkie-talkies.
Jenny accompanied Bryce. More than anyone else, she was familiar with Snowfield's residents, and she was the one most likely to identify any bodies that were found. In most cases, she could also tell them who had lived in each house and how many people had been in each family — information they needed to compile a list of the missing.
She was troubled about exposing Lisa to more gruesome scenes, but she couldn't refuse to assist the search team. She couldn't leave her sister behind at the Hilltop Inn, either. Not after what had happened to Harker. And to Velazquez. But the girl coped well with the tension of the house-to-house search. She was still proving herself to Jenny, and Jenny was increasingly proud of her.
They didn't find any bodies for a while. The first businesses and houses they entered were deserted. In several houses, tables were set for Sunday dinner. In others, tubs were filled with bathwater that had grown cold. In a number of places, television sets were still playing, but there was no one to watch them.
In one kitchen they discovered Sunday dinner on the electric stove. The food in the three pots had cooked for so many hours that all of the water content had evaporated. The remains were dry, hard, burnt, blistered, and unidentifiable. The stainlesssteel pots were ruined; they had turned bluish-black both inside and out. The plastic handles of the pots had softened and partially melted. The entire house reeked with the most acrid, nauseating stench Jenny had ever encountered.
Bryce switched off the burners. “It's a miracle the whole place wasn't set on fire.”
“It probably would've been if that were a gas stove,” Jenny said.
Above the three pots, there was a stainless-steel range hood with an exhaust fan. When the food had burned, the hood had contained the short-lived flash of flames and had prevented the fire from spreading to the surrounding cabinetry.
Outside again, everyone (except Major Arkham in his decontamination suit) took deep breaths of the clean mountain air. They needed a couple of minutes to purge their lungs of the vile stuff they had breathed inside that house.
Then, next door, they found the first body of the day. It was John Farley, who owned the Mountain Tavern, which was open only during the ski season. He was in his forties. He had been a striking man, with salt-and pepper hair, a large nose, and a wide mouth that had frequently curved into an immensely engaging smile. Now he was bloated and bruised, his eyes bulging out of his skull, his clothes bursting at the seams as his body swelled.
Farley was sitting at the breakfast table, at one end of his big kitchen. On a plate before him was a meal of cheese-filled ravioli and meatballs. There was also a glass of red wine. On the table, beside the plate, there was an open magazine. Farley was sitting up straight in his chair. One hand lay palm-up in his lap. His other arm was on the table, and in that hand was clenched a crust of bread. Farley's mouth was partly open, and there was a bite of bread trapped between his teeth. He had perished in the act of chewing; his jaw muscles had never even relaxed.
“Good God,” Tal said, “he didn't have time to spit the stuff out or swallow it. Death must've been instantaneous.”
“And he didn't see it coming, either,” Bryce said, “Look at his face. There's no expression of honor or surprise or shock as there is with most of the others.”
Staring at the dead man's clenched jaws, Jenny said, “What I don't understand is why death doesn't bring any relaxation of the muscles whatsoever. It's weird.”
In Our Lady of the Mountains Church, sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, which were composed predominantly of blues and greens. Hundreds of irregularly shaped patches of royal blue, sky blue, turquoise, aquamarine, emerald green, and many other shades dripped across the polished wooden pews, puddled in the aisles, and shimmered on the walls.
It's like being underwater, Gordy Brogan thought as he followed Frank Autry into the strangely and beautifully illuminated nave.
Just beyond the narthex, a stream of crimson light splashed across the white marble font that contained the holy water. It was the crimson of Christ's blood. The sun pierced a stained glass image of Christ's bleeding heart and sprayed sanguineness rays upon the water that glistened in the pale marble bowl.
Of the five men in the search team, only Gordy was a Catholic. He moistened two fingers in the holy water, crossed himself, and genuflected.
The church was solemn, silent, still.
The air was softened by a pleasant trace of incense.
In the pews, there were no worshipers. At first it appeared as if the church was deserted.
Then Gordy looked more closely at the altar and gasped.
Frank saw it, too. “Oh, my God.”
The chancel was cloaked in more shadows than was the rest of the church, which was why the men hadn't immediately noticed the hideous — and sacrilegious — thing above the altar. The altar candies had burned down all the way and had gone out.
However, as the men in the search team progressed hesitantly down the center aisle, they got a clearer and clearer view of the life-size crucifix that rose up from the center of the altar, along the rear wall of the chancel. It was a wooden cross, with an exquisitely detailed, hand-painted, glazed plaster figure of Christ fixed to it. At the moment, much of the godly image was obscured by another body that hung in front of it. A real body, not another plaster corpus. It was the priest in his robes; he was nailed to the cross.
Two altar boys knelt on the floor in front of the altar. They were dead, bruised, bloated.
The flesh of the priest had begun to darken and to show other signs of imminent decomposition. His body was not in the same bizarre condition as all the others that had been found thus far. In his case, the discoloration was what you would expect of a day-old corpse.
Frank Autry, Major Isley, and the other two deputies continued through the gate in the altar railing and stepped up into the chancel.
Gordy wasn't able to go with them. He was too badly shaken and had to sit in the front pew to keep from collapsing.
After inspecting the chancel and glancing through the sacristy door, Frank used his walkie-talkie to call Bryce Hammond in the building next door. “Sheriff, we've found three here in the church. We need Doc Paige for positive IDs. But it's especially grisly, so better leave Lisa in the vestibule with a couple of the guys.”
“We'll be there in two minutes,” the sheriff said.
Frank came down from the chancel, through the gate in the railing, and sat down beside Gordy. He was holding the walkie talkie in one hand and a gun in the other. “You're a Catholic.”
“Yeah.”
“Sorry you had to see this.”
“I'll be okay,” Gordy said, “It's no easier for you just because you're not a Catholic.”
“You know the priest?”
“I think his name's Father Callahan. I didn't go to this church, though. I attended St. Andrew's, down in Santa Mira.”
Frank put the walkie-talkie down and scratched his chin.
“From all the other indications we've had, it looked like the attack came yesterday evening, not long before Doc and Lisa came back to town. But now this… If these three died in the morning, during Mass”
“It was probably during Benediction,” Gordy said, “Not Mass.”
“Benediction?”
“The Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament. The Sunday evening service.”
“Ah. Then it fits right in with the timing of the others.” He looked around at the empty pews. “What happened to the parishioners? Why are only the altarboys and the priest here?”
