everything was going to be all right. But she knew that Rich would not believe that Jesus was coming. He would put it down to religious fervor, would think that Wheeler was either lying or had had some sort of fanatic's delusion.
She'd probably think that herself if she did not know Wheeler and had not heard for herself the way he'd spoken to his congregation, but there was no way to fake the certainty of that otherworldly elation, that sense of jubilant intimidation that he had so clearly possessed.
And had possessed all week, now that she thought of it..
They reached the car, and Corrie fished her keys out of her purse, opening Anna's door.
'Did Jesus really talk to the pastor?' Anna asked.
No, He didn't, she wanted to say, but she found she could not lie to her daughter.
Why would she want to lie?
'Yes, He did,' she said. She walked around to the driver's side of the car. Anna crawled over the seat and unlocked her door.
'Is Jesus scary?' Anna asked.
'Stop asking so many questions.'
Anna folded her arms stubbornly over her chest. 'Fine. I'll ask Daddy, then.'
Corrie sighed. 'No Jesus is not scary. Jesus is nice Jesus loves you.'
' 'Like the song?'
'Yes.' Corrie started the car.
'You don't want me to ask Daddy, do you?'
'No. I don't think we should tell Daddy. He has a lot of things to think about right now and .. . I just don't want you to say anything to him about what the pastor told us. I'll tell Daddy when it's time, okay?' 'What if he asks me?' 'He won't ask you.'
'You want me to lie to Daddy?'
'No, I don't want you to lie,' she said, exasperated.
'Anna, just button up your seat belt.'
'Jesus is scary, isn't He?'
They pulled away from the curb.
'Mommy?'
'I don't know,' Corrie admitted. 'Maybe He is.'
The phone woke Robert in the middle of a dream.
He'd been the only living creature left on earth, and he'd been wandering through an endless desert, stepping over the dead dry bodies of men and women, children and pets, keeping his eyes focused on the flat horizon far in front of him because he knew that if he looked down he would see thousands of empty eye sockets focused on his face.
The ringing of the phone saved him, drawing him out of that hellish world, and he picked up the receiver on the first pause, instantly alert. His eyes found the glowing numerals of the clock in the darkness, registered the time.
Ten-forty. He'd only been asleep for twenty minutes?
'Carter,' he said.
'Chief?.' It was Stu. ' '
'Yeah. What is it? .... 'There's been some vandalism 0er at the cemetery.'
;
'For Christ's sake, you woke me up for that?'
'I--'
'You don't have to call me every time some drunk teenager knocks over a tombstone-- ..... 'Graves have been dug up.'
Robert sat up, kicking off the covers. 'Graves? Plural?'
'A lot of them.'
'I'll meet you there in five.' Robert hung up, put on his pants, slipped into the still-buttoned shirt he'd taken off by pulling over his head, and ran a quick hand through his hair. He pulled on his boots, grabbed his keys and wallet from the dresser, and hurried outside, strapping on his holster. 'The night blackness of the desert was obscured in his rearview mirror by the cloud of red taillight-tinted dust kicked up by his tires as he peeled out.
Stu's cruiser was already at the cemetery, parked directly in front of the wrought-iron gate, and Robert knew from radioing the station that Ted was with him. The red and-blues were off, but the twin white spotlights on either side of the patrol car were trained on the graveyard and illuminated everything that faced the entrance, creating an eerie illusion of flatness. In the high-powered halogen beams, the cemetery looked like a painting or a stage set, an exaggeration of reality, all shadows and highlights--though that sharpness of contrast made it virtually impossible to distinguish the extent of the damage through the dusty windshield of the car.
Robert pulled next to Stu's vehicle, opened his door, and stepped out.
'My God,' he breathed.
All of the graves had been dug up and desecrated. Not a single plot remained undisturbed. Behind the bars of the fence, the formerly flat and well-maintained lawn was now a jumbled series of irregular holes and hills of dirt. Many of the headstones had been smashed or knocked over, and scattered randomly about were opened coffins and pieces of coffin, bones and decayed body parts lying atop wood, half-buried in dirt, thrown onto stone. One skeletal hand and connecting radius hung from the low branches of the cemetery's lone palo verde tree, looking fake in the sterile light of the halogens.
Robert turned on the twin beams of his own spotlights, adjusting them so they shone on an area to the left of that already lit. There was no movement within the cemetery, no sign of Stu or Ted, and he looked around, spot ting the silhouettes of the two policemen in the lighted doorway of the caretaker's house across the street. Turning his back on the cemetery, he walked over to the house, gravel crunching loudly beneath the heels of his boots. Behind Stu and Ted, he could see Lee Hillman, the care taker, just inside the house. The old man looked worried, and he shifted nervously from one foot to another, his hands traveling unthinkingly up and down the inner molding of the doorsill.
:
Robert strode up the Cement walk. Like a lot of single old men, Hillman insisted on wearing the hip clothes of the last fashion cycle, which somehow made him look more pathetic and out of it than if he had simply worn the fashions of his own era. Robert had always felt a little sorry for the caretaker, who had never seemed to him to be a particularly happy or well-adjusted man, and he felt even sorrier for him now.
'Gentlemen,' Robert said, nodding his greeting as he stepped onto the porch.
'I don't know how it could've happened!' Hillman said. 'I swear to God!' His voice was higher than usual, his words spoken too rapidly, and Robert realized that he was not only worried but badly frightened.
'What happened?' . Stu closed the notebook in which he'd been writing. 'He says he locked the gate at nine, the way he always does, and everything was fine. He called out and shone his flashlight around, to make sure no one was still inside the cemetery, then he came back home. He took a shower and, when he went to close his drapes, noticed that the cemetery gates were open. He got dressed, walked across the street to investigate, saw that the graves had been dug up and called the station.'
'That was exactly how it happened!'
'Within an hour? All of those graves were dug up within a single hour?'
'I swear to God, everything was normal when I closed up at nine.'
'Let's go out and take a look,' Robert said.
Stu nodded. 'We were just waiting for you.'
'Do you need me to come?' Hillman asked. 'Couldn't I just stay here--'
'We'd like you to come with us, Mr. Hillman.'
The old man nodded, not daring to argue, and closed the screen door.
The four men trekked across the street, Robert in the lead. 'Does the cemetery have any lights? We'll radio for some portable high-intensities, but until then I don't want to wear down our batteries.'
'We have floodlights, but they're not very strong. Not as strong as yours.' .: . 'Turn them on anyway. We'll use one car at a time.' He nodded toward Stu. 'Turn your beams off.'
