'Sam?' Miles said, exasperation in his voice, 'What in the hell is a perimeter? I was in supply, not in the Commandos.'
The preacher chuckled. 'I'll go into combat with you anytime, Miles. A perimeter is your designated watch area. Anything to the left of that tree is yours; to the right is mine.'
'Why didn't you say so in the first place?'
'Audie Murphy, he ain't,' Doris said.
'Silence, woman!' her husband warned.
'Yes, dear,' she laughed. 'My, isn't he becoming assertive?'
The good-natured bantering ceased as Anita began shaking uncontrollably, sobbing into her hands.
'Shock,' Tony said. 'I've been waiting for her to break down. It was just a matter of time. Wade, put her in the back of your pickup. Wrap her up in blankets, elevate her feet, and stay with her.'
'I can't take anymore of this!' Anita screamed out. 'Dear God—let's run. Just get away from
Anita fought the hands that tried to help her, striking out at anyone until her husband and Tony managed to pin her to the ground, wrap her in blankets, and place her in the bed of the pickup. Wade stayed with her, holding her.
Sam looked at his wife, her profile beautiful in the moonlight. 'How are you doing?'
'I'll make it,' she touched his face. 'But I know how Anita feels. I just haven't allowed myself the luxury of breaking down.'
He bent down, kissing her mouth. 'Get some rest.'
She looked up at him, all the love in the world shining through her eyes. 'Will they be back?''
'Yes. This time it will be the Undead. Their tactics don't change.'
She shuddered in the warm prairie breeze.
Miles' shotgun blasted the night. Four quick booms.
'Lights!' Sam yelled, grabbing a stake, running toward the firing.
Walter Addison staggered to his feet, thrown on his back by the slugs from the shotgun. Smoking holes covered his chest. He grinned grotesquely, making grunting noises past a tongue that seemed too large for his mouth. His face was pale, eyes shining yellow with evil.
Sam held out his silver cross. Addison hissed at him, his foul breath corrupting the air. Undead stepped toward Sam, unafraid of the cross..
Chester was locked in a deadly struggle with another of the Undead. Wade ran to help him, shouting for Jane Ann to watch over Anita. Miles ran to Sam's side and tossed a canteen of Holy Water on Addison. The creature howled in pain. Miles looked at the canteen of blessed water.
'Stuff works,' he said. Addison turned to one side in his pain and Sam lunged at him, driving a stake into his chest.
A wretched screeching cut the night, an un-Godly sound from the mouth of a man who had forsaken his God, his Maker. Sam worked the stake deeper into his chest, forcing the man to the ground, pinning him there until he was dead.
Addison trembled as the evil in him died.
Forms scurried away, ratlike in the darkness, hissing as they ran.
Miles capped the canteen, then looked at the container.
'Powerful stuff,' he said dryly. 'I wonder what would happen if you drank it?'
Whitfield lay quiet in the weekend sun. No one moved on the streets. To a passerby—if there were any—only the ruined churches would be out of the ordinary. Everything else would seem normal—almost.
Nydia slept soundly, Jimmy sprawled naked by her side. He was—without caring—her slave, hers to do whatever she wished done.
Black Wilder sat in the living room, sipping tea, his thoughts, like the room, dark. Balon and his followers were ruining everything; wreaking havoc in Fork County. They had to be stopped—must be stopped!—but stopped within the rules. But how?
Balon did not behave as a minister should. Just this morning, early, at dawn, Balon had destroyed another ranch, killing all those at the ranch. Then he had, along with the others, methodically and cold-bloodedly shot down another dozen of the inmates from the asylum. Not like a minister. Not like a minister at all. Wilder had to smile. Quite a man, Sam Balon.
Wilder was also aware of the change in Nydia. The silly bitch seemed not to realize that Wilder knew of her communications with the Master. The Master had come to him during the night, in the quiet, telling him of her plans and schemes. And, to the Master's surprise, Wilder had agreed— providing all else failed. He was weary of earth; weary of the game; ready to go home. Let the bitch worry with it. She, too, would soon discover what a tiresome job it was, and how unrewarding.
So Nydia had a plan to make Balon her own, for a few hours, to mate with him, to produce a lemon. All right. So be it. If all else failed.
In homes around Whitfield, members of the Coven were awakening. Fathers were mounting daughters, engaging in grunting incestuous love. Mothers were caressing sons. Sisters and brothers were copulating.
The whimpering cries of those who still clung to the Love of the one God was heard in basements as the day's tortures began.
In the darkness of their homes, the followers of Satan were performing their appointed tasks. Yes, Whitfield was normal. But not by God's standards.
And in the darkness of a basement in a ranch house in Fork County, Peter Canford slept behind a couch, on the dirty floor. He waited for the night to carry out his orders: to kill.
By midafternoon they stood watching the fourth ranch of the day burn to the ground. Paul Merlin's Rocking Chair. Sam and Chester, using M-1s, picked off the Satan-worshippers as they tried to escape the flames. Smoke from the burning buildings spiralled upward in greasy plumes. The prairie winds sighed lonely through the vastness of Fork County.
tried to escape the flames. Smoke from the burning buildings spiralled upward in greasy plumes. The prairie winds sighed lonely through the vastness of Fork County.
Chester squatted on one knee, his face dirty and haggard. 'I stopped counting at three hundred. And we still have Whitfield ahead of us.'
Sam's rifle barked, a lone figure stumbled, falling to the ground, screaming curses as he tried to get to his feet. He died cursing God.
'Sam?' Jane Ann said, standing by his side. 'Tomorrow is Sunday—can we rest then?'
'No. Tomorrow is the one day we can fight them with God guiding us. They can't move on His day, but we can.'
They were not the same people as they had been only a few days before. They would never be the same; those that would live through this ordeal. These men and women had toughened—hardened, and their faces bore that fact.
Anita had found some inner strength buried deep within her and had shaken off the shock of the night before. She had killed this day, killed with a determination and cold ferocity that amazed her husband.
She had said, 'I know now it's the only way. We can't run from it; we've got to destroy them—all of them, or be destroyed. These people are not our friends; not the people we knew and grew up with. These people are no longer human. They are rabid animals, and you can't show sympathy to a rabid animal.'
Sam gathered his people and exited the scene of death and fire and blood. This night, he knew, they would have to be extremely careful, for from dusk to midnight, Satan's followers would come at them with all the force they could muster.
Chester led them to a half destroyed old cinder block house built on a flat plain. The house commanded the prairie from its ridge. By late afternoon, with at least three hours of day left, they had made ready for the night's
