Devil's Kiss

'Might account for so many of the kids going over Satan's side.'

'Yeah.' His eyes touched Chester's. 'I know, Chester.. I stink. Come on, let's drag these bodies into the house. Burn them. That way we'll know they can't become what I just destroyed.'

So they dragged the twisted, mangled, broken bodies into the smoky house, Chester said, 'I wish there was some other way. Can't people like these be helped, Sam? Isn't there some way we can undo what has been done to them?'

'I don't know how to exorcise an entire county, Ches. I really don't understand exorcism to begin with. But I do know it's got to be done one on one.' He piled another bloody corpse in the living room. The floor was beginning to get hot from the flames in the basement. 'Unless God intervenes, I'm afraid this is the only way.'

Outside, the men stood away from the house watching it explode into flames, the roof caving in.

'Don't feel sorry for them, Ches—they knew what they were doing; what they were accepting They had a choice. It's nobody's fault but their own.'

'Maybe somebody will see the smoke,' Chester said, watching the smoke soar into the sky. 'Come to help us.'

'No,' Sam said. 'Nobody will see it. A plane could fly a hundred feet off the ground, right over it, and would not see it. Their Master has taken care of that. We're in this alone, Ches. Better accept that fact.'

Driving away from the smoking ruins, Sam said, 'Yes, Ches, they can be helped—but they've got to want that help. God does not expect man to be perfect, but He does expect man to try. Our God is a vengeful God, Ches. It's not wise to cross Him.'

'After we pick up the extra gas cans,' Chester said, 'we'll stop at that old dump, pick up a couple dozen empty whiskey bottles. They make dandy Molotov cocktails.'

'Yeah,' the preacher smiled. 'Mix a little with the gas and you've got homemade napalm.'

'I don't like the idea of you going out alone and—headhunting,' Wade said. 'I think it best we stay together from now on.'

Late afternoon in Fork County, the shadows beginning to paint the rolling hills and prairies with a darker brush, the deepening gray reminding them all that night would soon be on them, and the evil that would surface with the darkness.

'I agree with Wade,' Miles said. 'I think we'd be safer in a—a—'

'Wolf pack?' Sam finished the sentence.

'Yes,' Tony said. 'If that's what you want to call it.'

Sam rose from his squatting position, a freshly sharpened stake in his hand. 'None of you realises what you're in for—what you're saying, But perhaps you're right. We'll do this together.' He searched the prairie in all directions.

'What are you looking for, Sam?' Jane Ann asked.

'Some of the Undead. They're out there. I can feel them.'

The small group looked around them, fear touching each heart, brows wrinkling with concern. Hands unknowingly went to weapons, as if the lethal steel or the smooth stock or butt of the weapon would somehow comfort them.

'I don't feel anything out of the ordinary,' Jimmy said, but his hand did not leave the butt of the .38 belted around his waist.

'That pistol won't do you much good against the Undead,' Sam told him. 'I put thirty rounds of .45 caliber ammunition into Bill Mathis. I literally blew him to bits with this Thompson. But he kept coming. They are not human, you all must remember that. They are not human, and they are not animal—they're dead people walking upright. I want you all to keep a canteen of Holy Water with you at all times. And a stake.' His eyes touched them all. 'We took the fight to them this morning; we hit them where they live, and they can't allow us to get away with that. So they'll be coming at us tonight. For now, you all had better get some rest. Go on, I'll take the watch.'

He walked up the small hill above the cottonwoods where they made camp. He stood alone on the hill.

'I feel as though I should be up there with him,' Jane Ann said. 'But I also feel he would send me right back down here.'

'He would,' Anita agreed. 'Sam looks upon this as his battle— his fight. We're just his soldiers.'

'You should have seen him this afternoon.' Chester spoke from the shade of his pickup. 'He moves like a cat. I did some work with Marine Raiders once; Sam is as good and probably better than those guys. I didn't believe anyone could come up behind me without my knowing it, but Sam did. And damn near scared me out of my pants doing it. But Wade is right: we're going to have to stay together.'

One by one they drifted off to sleep in the late afternoon. Jane Ann was the last one to slip into the silence of deep rest. When she finally closed her eyes, the thing she remembered was the outline of her man, alone on the hill, with his weapon, his stake, his Holy Water, and his God, watching over them all. Sam, calm, sure, strong— waiting for the night to bring the fight to him.

And the thought came to her: Sam would willingly die to save them.

She slept restlessly.

Sam touched her on the shoulder, bringing her out of sleep, her heart pounding. Full dark on the prairie. She could see only the bulk of him.

'They're coming,' he told her. 'I've told the others. Get ready.' He was gone into the night.

Sam had changed clothing, into black, to blend into the night.

'We're awake, Janey,' Faye said. 'I saw Sam, I'll be darned if I saw where he went when he left you. The man moves like a ghost.'

A scream cut the night. A horrible choking sound; a cry of pure anguish, tapering off into a blubber of pain. Silence. They heard Sam laughing in the darkness.

'He's deliberately goading them!' Peter said. 'He's killing them, then taunting them.'

Miles suddenly ran to the edge of the camp, a stake in his hand. 'They're all around us!' he shouted. He stepped into the blackness.

A hissing in the night. A coughing thud. The thump of something heavy falling to the ground.

'MILES!' Doris shouted.

Screaming from out of the darkness, ending with a strangling sound. Miles backed into his circle of friends, his hands shaking.

'I killed one of—Them!' he said. 'Oh, my God!'

The yammer of Sam's Thompson split the night. Things ran away into the blackness.

Silence.

Sam walked back into the camp, as calmly as if he had done nothing more exciting than duck hunting. He built up the fire, then looked at the body lying between two trucks. A long stake protruded from its chest.

'I don't know this one,' Sam said, walking over to drag the carcass out of sight. The face was pockmarked and rotted, and the stench was the worst he'd smelled thus far.

Sam picked up a foot and began to drag the Undead from their camp. The leg came off in his hands.

Behind him, Jane Ann began screaming. 'That's my father!' she shrieked. 'My father!' She fell unconscious to the ground.

Tony gave her a shot after Sam carried her to their sleeping bags. 'This will keep her out the rest of the night and probably most of next morning. She needs it, Sam. That was a hell of a shock she just had.'

Sam pulled a blanket over his wife, then walked back to the fire with the doctor. He poured a cup of coffee as Miles said, 'Mr. Burke has been missing for years. His flesh was—' He swallowed hard. He shuddered. 'Rotted,' he managed to say. 'Where do they stay? Are there more of them?'

'I guess they sleep, Miles,' Sam picked up a sandwich from a covered plate. 'And, yes, I'd say there are probably a lot more of them.' He chewed slowly.

Wade looked at him with his face mirroring shock. He wondered: How can he do it? How can he sit there and eat! There was blood on the front of Sam's shirt.

'Were you people this calm when you did your jobs in Korea?' Wade asked.