"How about a form of the truth?" Joe said. "We'll tell them that the vampires attacked me, tried to turn me, but failed. I survived but I'm badly hurt. I need time to recover and until I do... until I'm back to my old self"— which will be never, he thought grimly—"I've got to stay out of sight."
"Right," Lacey said, liking the idea. "You're in hiding until you heal up because they're out there looking for you, trying to finish the job they started."
"Works for me," Joe said. "How about you, Carole?"
"Well..." She frowned. "It's not exactly true."
"But it's not exactly false," he said.
She shrugged. "I've no objection, but if I were in their place I'd be wondering why you wouldn't want to heal up among them ... safety in numbers and all that."
Joe didn't answer. All of a sudden he seemed distracted. Lacey watched his right hand trail down to his abdomen and press on it.
Her heart sank. The hunger ... it was starting.
She force-fed brightness into her tone. "We'll just say that you feel it's safer to stay away. Your presence there might trigger an assault on the church, causing unnecessary casualties. When you're fully healed you'll return. But till then they must be brave and vigilant and keep up the fight, blah-blah-blah."
Joe nodded absently, both hands over his stomach now. "Good . . . sounds good."
Carole said, "Then the next question is, how do we get this message to them?"
Lacey kept her eyes on her uncle. "How about a letter, hand written by their Father Joe himself? You and I could 'find' it and read it to the parishioners."
Carole shook her head. "They don't know his handwriting. Some of them will think it's a fake. Doubt will spread, ruining the whole plan."
Carole was right. Lacey searched for an alternative. She thought of having Joe sneak up to the church at night and speak from the shadows to someone he trusted—Carl, maybe—but discarded the idea. Too chancy. Too many ways it could backfire, especially if anyone caught sight of his ruined face. They'd think he was an impostor.
Then it came to her, so obvious she kicked herself for not thinking of it immediately.
"We'll tape you! All we need is to get hold of a little cassette recorder and have you record your message. We leave it at the church for someone to find. It'll have a note saying it's from you. They'll play it and recognize your voice. No doubters then."
Carole nodded. "Brilliant. I know a Radio Shack not far from here that ought to have a cassette recorder."
Lacey looked at Joe. His teeth were clenched. He didn't seem to be listening. She grabbed the flashlight and headed for the bathroom. Not that there was any water pressure in the town's system to make the bathroom useful for its intended functions, but she needed to be away from Carole. She placed the flashlight on the glass shelf under the medicine cabinet. . . next to the steak knife she'd left here earlier just for this purpose.
Picking up the knife, she called, "Uncle Joe? Could you come in here a sec?"
When she heard him approaching, she bit her lip and sliced the pad of her left index finger. She jumped with the pain, almost dropping the knife.
Damn, that hurt!
She placed the knife in the sink and cupped her right hand under the finger.
"Something wrong?" Joe said as he came up behind her.
"Close the door, will you?"
When she heard it close she turned and held her bloody finger up to his lips. "Here," she whispered. "I know you need it."
He turned his head and stepped back. "No!"
Lacey stepped closer. "I thought we settled this last night!" she hissed. "This is something you need and something I want to give. Don't do this, Unk. I'm already cut and bleeding." She pushed her finger toward his mouth. "Take what you need."
With a groan he grabbed her hand and pressed her finger to his lips. He sucked hungrily for an instant, then pushed her hand away.
"Enough!" The word sounded as if it had been ripped from deep inside him.
"You're sure?"
He looked away and nodded. "Look . . . I'm going out. I need to do some reconnoitering, see if I can locate a nest or two."
"Want us to come along?" She opened the medicine cabinet and found a tin of Band-Aids.
He shook his head. "Better if I do this alone. I'll be less noticeable solo." He glanced at her, then away again. "Lend me the car keys."
"Carole has them."
"Can you get them for me?"
"Just ask—"
"Please?"
Lacey bit back a remark. She wrapped a Band-Aid around her finger and returned to the front room.
"Is everything all right?" Carole asked. Her eyes darted from Lacey's face, to her bandaged finger then to her eyes again.
"He needs the car to go hunt up some targets. Where are the keys?"
Carole fished them out of her sweatsuit pants pocket. "Alone?"
"He thinks it'll be better that way."
Lacey took the keys back to the bathroom. "I don't understand you," she whispered. "I thought we straightened this out last night."
"We didn't." His voice was barely audible. "I said we'd see."
"Okay. We've seen. And it was quick and simple. Now tell me, why wouldn't you get keys yourself?"
"Because ... because Carole's in there. One look at me and she'd know."
"So?"
"Let's just drop it."
"No. Tell me."
"Because . . . because I can't bear being in her presence after doing this. I feel so ... so diminished." He squeezed her hand. "Got to go."
You poor, poor man, she thought, staring at him. You've got it bad, don't you. And this is tearing you apart.
He squeezed past her and stepped into the front room. He turned right, heading for the rear of the bungalow.
"Good-bye, Carole," he said in a choked voice without looking at her. "I'll be back around sunrise."
Lacey leaned against the sink until she heard the back door open and close, then she returned to the front room. "Carole," she said. "We've got to talk."
JOE . . .
Standing in the deep moon shadows, he watched the church from afar, listened to the hymns echoing from within, saw the daylight-bright glow gushing through the open front doors, and yearned to go inside.
But that was not to be. The huge crucifix hanging over the sanctuary and the dozens of crosses on the walls—crosses he'd helped fashion with his own hands—would blind him now, make his presence there an ongoing agony. That part of his life was over. The simple comfort of kneeling in a pew and letting the cool serenity of the church ease the cares and tensions from his soul would be forever denied him. And as for saying Mass . . .
The longing pushed a sob to the back of his throat but he forced it down. In his other existence he might have felt tears running down his cheeks, but they remained dry. The undead don't have tears. Their hair doesn't grow. They don't progress or regress, they simply are.
He was about to turn away when movement to his right caught his eye. His night vision picked out a figure—balding, with a ripe gut bulging over his belt—leaning behind a tree.
Joe, it seemed, wasn't the only one watching the church.
He bent into a crouch and moved a few yards closer. He caught the flash of a Vichy earring.
Not surprising that the undead would want to keep an eye on the church. They had to be furious and more than a little unsettled by these defiant "cattle."
With a start Joe realized that they might be watching for him.
Of course. Franco had expected him to rise from the dead in the rectory and start feeding on the parishioners. He must know by now that that hadn't happened. He'd want to know why. Never in a thousand years would he guess the truth.