The Devil's Touch

'It ain't,' Joe returned the shout.

Together, with Monty leading, the men entered the silent house. They noticed the electric coffee brewer, still on, a full pot of coffee. Strips of bacon laid out in an iron skillet, uncooked. A setting for one at the kitchen table, unused.

For the moment, the men went no further than the kitchen. Both of them experienced the hard sensation of something being very wrong.

'Take the house to the left, Joe,' Monty said. 'I'll check the one to the right. Ask if anyone saw Miss Mayberry today.'

'Something awful wrong in town, Chief. And I mean the whole town.'

'I know, Joe. You haven't mentioned to anybody about what Father Le Moyne saw last night, have you?'

'Not a word, Chief.'

'O.K. Let's go.'

'Yes, Chief,' a lady said. 'I saw her earlier this morning, out in the orchard, picking wildflowers. But that's the only time I saw her.'

The lady could definitely use a good scrubbing, Monty thought. She smelled very bad. Come to think of it, Monty mused, a lot of folks around town the last three-four days have needed a good bath. Strange. Damn! that word again.

So the basket and the flowers did belong to Judith. But where was Judith?

And the smelly lady showed absolutely no interest in what had just transpired in the orchard. Strange. Crap! Come on, Monty—find another word.

'Ah—Mrs. Clemmings, you haven't noticed anything out of the ordinary this morning, have you?'

'Not a thing, Chief. I've been here all morning. Haven't seen a thing.'

Somehow, her reply was not unexpected to Monty. 'I see,' he said slowly. 'You didn't notice large groups of men, an ambulance, nothing like that?'

'Why—no, Chief,' she said.

What was wrong with her eyes. They seemed so . . . so dull and lifeless.

'Thank you, Mrs. Clemmings. You've been very helpful.' And for God's sake, lady, take a bath! You're a one- woman hog pen.

Monty walked slowly to the rear of the Mayberry house. The woman had seen or heard nothing! Four police and sheriffs department vehicles and one ambulance, and the woman had heard nothing. He knew she wasn't deaf; she had admitted being in the house all morning. So that left one alternative: she was lying.

But why?

He looked up to watch Joe walking slowly toward him, a very puzzled expression on his face. Monty felt he knew the reason for the puzzlement.

'Chief, either we got the most unobservant and deafest folks in all of northern New York State, or we got a bunch of bald-faced liars. Take your pick. And these folks are beginning to stink like polecats.'

'I know what you mean, Joe. Nobody has seen or heard a thing. Strange.' That word again. Monty made a mental note to avoid using it.

'Strange isn't the word I'd use, Chief.'

'Oh?'

'Weird.'

'Yes. That, too. Let's take a walk in the orchard before we prowl the house. I want to go over every inch of that old orchard.'

'What are we looking for?' Monty glanced at the man. Joe was more than his assistant; the men were good friends. Joe was the oldest and most stable of all Monty's men. 'I don't know, Joe. I just don't know.'

In the rolling ambulance, beneath the blanket that covered her tortured and mangled body, Marie Fowler twitched her fingers. She opened her eyes. They were not the eyes of the living. They were dull, unfeeling, evil eyes of the undead.

Marie felt no pain. She was no longer of the living world. Her body had not yet been washed of the blood that streaked her marked nakedness, so no one among the police or the paramedics had noticed the tiny fang marks on her neck. They were her vaccination against almost everything pertaining to the human side of living.

Marie was weak. She had lost much blood, and her new form of unlife craved the hot, salty taste of fresh, living blood. She was fully cognizant of what had happened to her; fully aware of her new life-form. She harbored no ill will toward those that changed the direction of her human life, for in this form, she would know eternal life, barring no unforeseen difficulties, such as humans wielding pointed stakes or holy water.

She pushed the blanket from her and wrapped herself in a hospital gown. She looked around. The driver and his partner were chatting. Marie smiled; a grotesque grimace, exposing teeth that had become pointed. Her lips were chalk white, her tongue a swollen bright red.

She opened the partition.

The men turned around.

'Hello,' Marie said.

The men began screaming.