Cemetery Dance

'Animal sounds?'

'Certainly, animal sounds.'

'May I?' He indicated the window.

'And let the cold air in? You should see my heating bills.'

'Just for a moment.' Without waiting for the woman to reply, he lifted the double — hung — it went up easily — and leaned out. The fall evening was cool and quiet. It was believable she'd hear something in the van, if it was loud enough.

'Look here, if you need fresh air, do it on somebody else's dime.'

D'Agosta shut the window. 'How's your hearing, Mrs. Pizzetti? Do you wear a hearing aid?'

'How's your hearing, Officer?' she snapped back. 'Mine is perfect.'

'Anything else you remember telling Smithback — or anything else about the Ville?'

She seemed to hesitate. 'People talk about seeing something wandering around over there, inside the fence.'

'Something? An animal?'

She shrugged. 'And then they sometimes come out at night. In the van. Gone all night and come back in the morning.'

'Often?'

'Two or three times a year.'

'Any idea what they're up to?'

'Oh yes. Recruiting. For their cult.'

'How do you know?'

'That's what people around here say. The old — timers.'

'What people, specifically, Mrs. Pizzetti?'

She shrugged. 'Can you give me any names?'

'Oh no. I'm not dragging my neighbors into this. They'd kill me.'

D'Agosta found himself becoming exasperated with this difficult old lady. 'What else do you know?'

'I don't remember anything else. Except cats. He was very fond of cats.'

'Excuse me, who was fond of cats?'

'That reporter, Smithback. Who else?'

Fond of cats. Smithback was good at his job, knew how to gain people's trust, establish a connection with them. D'Agosta recollected that Smithback loathed cats. He cleared his throat, checked his watch. 'So the van is due back in an hour?'

'Never fails.'

D'Agosta exited the building, breathing deep of the night air. Quiet, leafy. Hard to believe it was still Manhattan Island. He checked his watch: just after eight. He'd seen a diner down the street; he'd grab a cup of coffee and wait.

* * *

The van came right on schedule, a '97 Chevy Express with windows in front only, deeply tinted, and a ladder running up to the roof. It eased slowly onto Indian Road from West 214th, cruised the length of the block, then turned into the stem road leading to the Ville. It stopped at the padlocked chain.

D'Agosta timed his steps so that he was just crossing behind the van as the driver's door opened. A man got out, went up to the padlock, and unlocked it. D'Agosta couldn't get a clear view in the dim light, but he seemed to be extraordinarily tall. He wore a long coat that looked almost antique, like something out of a Western movie. D'Agosta paused to fish out and light a cigarette, keeping his head down. Chain down, the man came back, got in the cab, drove the van across the chain, stopped again.

Dropping the cigarette, D'Agosta darted forward, keeping the van between himself and the man. He listened as the man raised the chain again, padlocked it, and returned to the driver's door. Then, keeping low, D'Agosta slid around to the rear, stepping onto the bumper and grabbing hold of the ladder. This was public land, city land. There was no reason why an officer of the law couldn't enter, as long as he didn't trespass inside any private buildings.

The van crept forward, the driver cautious and slow. They left the dim lights of Upper Manhattan behind and were soon among the dark, silent trees of Inwood Hill Park. Although the windows were closed tight, the sounds Mrs. Pizzetti had mentioned were all too plain to D'Agosta: a chorus of crying, bleating, meowing, barking, clucking, and — even more horrifying — the terrified whinny of what could only be a newborn colt. At the thought of the pitiful menagerie within, and the fate that they seemed all too clearly destined for, D'Agosta felt white — hot anger boil up inside him.

The van crested a hill, descended, then stopped. D'Agosta heard the driver get out. As he did so,

D'Agosta leapt from the rear of the van and sprinted into the nearby woods, diving into the dark leaves. Rolling into a crouch, he glanced back in the direction of the van. The driver was unlocking an old gate in a chain — link fence, and for the briefest of instants the face passed through the glow of the headlights. His skin was pale, and there was something strikingly refined, almost aristocratic, about it.

The van went through the gate; the man emerged once again and relocked it; then, getting back in, he drove on. D'Agosta rose and brushed off the leaves, his hands trembling with fury. Nothing was going to keep him out now, not with all those animals at risk. He was an officer of the law in performance of his duty. As a homicide detective, he didn't normally wear a uniform; taking his badge out and pinning it to his lapel, he scaled the chain — link fence and set off down the road, where the taillights of the van had disappeared. The road curved and ahead he could faintly make out the spire of a large, rudely built church, surrounded by a disorganized cluster of dim lights.

After a minute, he stopped in the middle of the road and turned, peering into the darkness. Some cop instinct told him he wasn't alone. He pulled out his Maglite and played it about the tree trunks, the dead bushes with their rustling leaves.

'Who's there?'

Silence.

D'Agosta turned off the Maglite and slipped it back into his pocket. He continued staring into the darkness. There was the faint light of a quarter moon, and the trunks of the beech trees seemed to float in the darkness like long scabby legs. He listened intently. Therewas something there. He could feel it — and now he could hear it. A faint crush of damp leaves, the crack of a twig.

He reached for his service revolver. 'I'm a New York City police officer,' he rapped out. 'Step into the roadway, please.' He left the torch off — he could see farther into the gloom without it.

Now he could see, just barely, a pale shape moving with a strange, lurching gait through the trees. It ducked into a stand of deep brush and he lost it. A strange moaning floated out from the woods, in — articulate and sepulchral, as if from a mouth yawning wide and slack: aaaaahhhhhuuuu …

He slipped the torch out of his holster, turned it on, flashed it through the trees. Nothing.

This was bullshit. Some kids were playing a game with him.

He strode toward the area of brush, playing the light about. It was a large tangle of overgrown azaleas and mountain laurel stretching for hundreds of feet — he paused, and then pushed in.

In response, he heard the rustling of brush to his right. He flashed the light toward it, but the bright beam striking the tightly packed brush prevented him from seeing deeper. He switched off the light and waited, his eyes adjusting. He spoke calmly. 'This is public property and I'm a police officer — show yourself now or I'll charge you with resisting arrest.'

The single crack of a twig came, once again from his right. Turning toward it, he saw a figure rear up out of the bracken: pallid, sickly green skin; slack face smeared with blood and mucus; clothes hanging from knobby limbs in rags and tatters.

'Hey, you!' It reared back, as if temporarily losing its balance, then lurched forward and began to approach with an almost diabolical hunger. One eye swiveled toward him, then moved away; the other eye was hidden in a thick crusting of blood or perhaps mud.Aaaaahhuuuu …

'Jesus Christ!' D'Agosta yelled, leaping backward, dropping the flashlight and fumbling for his service piece, a Glock 19.

Abruptly, the thing rushed him, bulling through the brush with a crashing sound; he raised his gun but at the