Devil's Kiss

Nine

After Michelle left the room, Sam was wide awake, his heart pounding. His nose wrinkled at the odor of unwashed flesh, the musky scent of sex, and of evil, he was sure. He lay still for a time, the smell assailing his nostrils. He now knew the truth, and he did not know what to do with the knowledge.

His wife, Michelle, was one of Them.

He blamed himself for not realizing sooner. He should have known; should have put it all together weeks ago, when he first suspected the evil in Whitfield. The pranks that were played on him; the phone calls with heavy breathing and cursing.

Kids, he had thought. Playing games with the preacher.

Now he knew better.

He rose from his bed, padding softly to the bathroom. He washed his face, brushed his teeth, and ran a comb through his hair. In his room, he dressed quickly. Jeans, pullover shirt, rough-out boots. He checked his watch. Seven-thirty. He wanted to see five people this day: Dubois at the rectory; Haskell at the Episcopal church; Lucas Monroe; Wade Thomas; and Miles Lansky.

If Miles, a Jew, who really did not believe in Heaven or Hell—so he professed—sensed something evil in Whitfield, then something was evil in Whitfield.

And Sam had made up his mind to visit Tyson's Lake. Somehow, he believed, everything was linked to that area. If there was something evil out there, he was going to find it, and if possible, kill it!

Sam pulled a trunk out of his closet, rummaging around in the bottom until his hand touched the cold metal of what he sought. He pulled out a .45 caliber automatic pistol, a box of shells, three clips, and the leather that went with them. He had not touched the weapon in almost five years—except to clean it occasionally. Not since 1953 had he thought of using it. Since Korea.

In the living room, he field-stripped the weapon, cleaning it, oiling it, working the slide action back and forth. He filled the clips, inserted a full clip into the weapon, and left the chamber empty.

Sam suddenly remembered the Thompson Submachine Gun Chester had in his shop. In a vault. Sam made a mental note to speak to Chester about that weapon.

Am I being silly? he questioned.

No! he answered the question.

He put the .45 into leather, fitted the full spare clips into their pouches, attached holster and clip pouches onto the web belt, and wrapped the belt around the holster. He carried it outside.

He was a bit confused for just a few seconds at seeing the pickup in his drive, then the memory of the trade came to him. Peter Canford. He wanted to see Peter, too. Peter sensed something wrong in town.

He looked up and down the street. Nothing moved. Nothing at all.

Sam drove out into the country, into the sand hills, where he practiced with the .45 until he was satisfied he had not lost his eye for shooting and could hit a man where he aimed to hit him.

"Hit a man!" Sam said aloud, shocked at his thoughts. He glanced heavenward, seeking some advice.

None came.

"Is that what it will come down to?" he asked the sand hills. "Man killing?" Only the wind sighed as it moved endlessly across the rolling plains.

Sam drove for a time, crisscrossing ranges. He was stopped just after intersecting with a range road that would take him back to Whitfield.

The cowboy who blocked the road with his jeep was not friendly. "This is Rocking-Chair Range, Balon. Stay off."

Sam, suddenly angry, got out of his truck to face the cowboy. "I've known Paul Merlin for years," Sam said, not realizing he was balling his fists. "I've fished with him. If Paul wants me off his range, let him tell me."

The cowboy was a small, wiry man, his face burned the shade of old leather. But his eyes were strange—dead-looking. The cowboy stood his ground.

'I've told you what I was told to tell you, Balon. Now, git! We don't need your kind around here."

"My kind! I'm a minister, man. What do you mean?"

"That'll do, Davy," the words came from behind Sam.

Sam turned to look at Paul Merlin. He did not know where the man had come from, and Sam Balon was not an easy man to sneak up on.

"Paul," Sam spoke a greeting.

"Balon," the rancher spoke the word harshly. "You're not welcome here. Leave now!"

"Paul, I—"

"Get out!"

Something about Paul was out of kilter. Sam realized this as he studied the face. His eyes, like the cowboy's, were dead-looking, the voice flat.

"All right, Paul," Sam said. "I'll leave. Tell your hand to move his jeep."

"Go around it."

Sam resisted a quick impulse to give the rancher a short right cross to the mouth. "Very well, Paul," he fought back his temper. "As you wish."

Sam listened to the men laugh at him as he backed out and around the jeep, almost getting stuck in a ditch. Sam did not know what was going on around this part of Fork County, but he sure intended to find out—soon.

He drove straight to the Crusader office, where he knew Wade often worked on Saturday mornings, on personal business.

"Sam!" Wade said, surprise on his face as he answered the knocking on the front door of the newspaper building. He looked at the truck. "You trade cars?"

"Yesterday."

"I like it." The editor smiled, taking in his minister's casual dress and the unshaved stubble on his face. "You going fishing, Sam?"

"Hunting might be a better word, Wade. Can you spare me a few minutes of your time? I need to talk with you."

"For you, Sam—anytime. All the time you want. Hunting? I didn't know you hunted." He paused in his locking of the door after Sam was inside. "There is no hunting season open around here, Sam."

"The season on this animal never closes," Sam said dryly.

Wade gave him an odd look as they walked into his office. But he said nothing about whatever his minister might be hunting in the middle of summer.

"Sit down, Sam," he pointed to a chair facing his desk. "I just made a pot of coffee. You take yours black, don't you?"

"Black as sin," Sam smiled, but there was no mirth in his grin; no humor in his eyes.

Wade picked up on his minister's seriousness. Something is very wrong, he thought. Has Miles's alarm drifted over to Sam? I won't open the ball, though. I'll let him tell me.

Pouring them coffee, Wade stole a glance at Sam. The man never ceases to amaze me—never ceases to bring out the curiosity in me.

Sam was the only minister Wade had ever known with a combat background, although Sam never talked about his time in Korea with UNPIK. Whatever in the hell UNPIK was! He doesn't look like a minister. Big man. Barrel chested; thick, powerful wrists. Big hands, flat knuckles. Tattoo on his arm. Boxed in college, some say. I can believe it, looking at the size of those arms.

To lighten the mood of the moment, Wade abruptly asked a question he'd been wanting to ask for years. "How many fights did you have, Sam?"

Sam grinned boyishly. "I had too many, Wade. I enjoyed boxing, even though I felt it best to quit when I went into active ministry. Your next question will be, how many fights did I win? I won all of them." He tapped his head. "Thick skull; hard to knock down," his grin widened. "My trainer was appalled when he learned I was a theology major. He couldn't quite correlate boxing with the Bible. Thought it wrong somehow."

"You were a minister while you were in the service?"

"Yes. But the guys didn't know it. Let me clarify that. I had my degree, but I had not yet held a church. I wasn't sure until after the war—or sometime during it—that I really wanted to be a preacher."

The speculation of whatever it was lurking around Whitfield entered Sam's mind, fading his grin. He did not know how to bring up the subject to Wade. Or what to do about it when he did.

Wade watched the changes sweeping his minister's face. "And you didn't think boxing wrong?"

That grin again. "No, I didn't. God liked his warriors."

"You do like the Old Testament, don't you, Sam?"

"Yes, I do. Our nation—the world—would do well to go back to some of those hard Old Testament rules."

Wade arched an eyebrow—a habit he picked up from watching George Sanders movies. "A lot of people—ministers included—might disagree with you about that."

"Good," Sam said, sipping his coffee. "I enjoy a fast debate. I'm a very opinioned minister, Wade. I've been called a maverick more than once, by my own peers. I really don't care, since I know for a fact that many ministers are notoriously naive about worldly ways. I think going back to the Old Testament might make a better people out of us. Myself, included. I know I could use some hard discipline from time to time."

Interesting thing for him to say, Wade thought. Wonder why he said that? Jane Ann, perhaps. I know he's in love with her.

Wade knew that Sam came from a religious family, but had been a wild one, well up into his twenties. A street fighter; he openly admitted that. Sam's father had been a minister in Kansas City, Missouri. The elder Balon and his wife had been killed in an automobile accident when Sam was fifteen. Sam ran away from his Uncle's home in Iowa, drifting around the country, raising hell wherever he went, until a social worker in California persuaded him to go to college. Then the army.

"It amazes me how well you get along with young people, Sam. My oldest says you're a cool cat."

But not "cool" enough, Sam thought. The youth department at the church has gone from bad to worse to zero. Again, the radio station came to mind. It had to be. Sam could think of no other way it could have been done. But, he recalled, every teacher in the elementary and high school was in that parade of humanity I saw last night, heading out to worship the devil. The radio station and the teachers—a good combination to mold young minds.

"Wade, Jr. is a good boy," the minister said. "He just likes the girls, that's all."

"Would I be asking you to violate a confidence if I asked what you told him that time he talked with you half the night. After you sobered him up, that is," he added dryly.

"No. No violation of any confidence. I just told him if he couldn't keep it in his pants, at least put a rubber on it."

Wade felt his face flush hot. He shook his head. "Sam, you're the darnest minister I've ever met in my life." He fought a losing battle to hide a smile.

"Friend, in this day of blossoming sexual promiscuity among the young—and it's going to get much worse before it levels off—I'm not about to tell a healthy young man to go home and jack off. He'd think me a fool! I have to do what most parents won't or can't do with their kids, mostly boys, and that is tell them about the birds and the bees. It's a job most ministers don't want and are not equipped to handle. It's not our job, although a great many parents seem to think it is. Lucas Monroe told me, last year, a young man said to him that he didn't want to know about the birds and the bees; what he wanted to know about was pussy."

The editor stirred uncomfortably in his chair, embarrassed at the minister's bluntness. "Damn, Sam!"

"I'm telling you the way it is, Wade. I shudder to think what it's going to be like ten or fifteen years from now. If you think it's a sex-oriented society now, just wait a few more years. The movies, the magazines, the song lyrics, and the books are going to be full of nothing but sex. You wait and see if I'm not correct. But right now, we'd all better get ready to cope with it until we can turn this society around and get back to some plain old decency. And we're going to hit rock bottom before we do."

Wade smiled, a smile many would take for sarcastic, but which Sam knew was not. "I'm getting a sermon on Saturday. What do I get to hear tomorrow, Sam?"

"I haven't written my sermon for tomorrow."

The men stared at each other, Wade thinking: does this have anything to do with the feeling I've had for several weeks? Dwindling church attendance ? The strangeness that seems to have overtaken this town? If so, Sam, get to it. Convince me, Sam. Tell me what's wrong. Come on, stop walking around what's on your mind.

But neither wanted to be the first to mention it.

Wade wondered if his minister knew his wife was running around on him with an elder of the church? He decided Sam did, but in his usual manner, was playing it close to the vest.

"How's the paper's circulation, Wade?"

The question caught the editor off guard, startling him. He shrugged. "So, so."

"No one stopping their advertising with you?"

Wade's eyes narrowed slightly. "It comes and goes, Sam."

"Sure."

"Terrible thing about John Benton," Wade changed the subject.

"Awful. The funeral is tomorrow."

"I heard about Jane Ann's trouble. It's very strange."

"I guess you heard about the sheriff hiring George Best, then?"

"The same day? Yes. I suppose Walter had his reasons?"

"Right—whatever they may be."

Wade let that lie for the moment. "Is it true about Chester's kids? Did they leave home last evening?"

"Yes. Yes, they did. Hurt their parents very badly. Wade? Why did you suddenly send your kids to summer camp in Colorado last week? Wade Jr. told me he was looking forward to working here with you this summer."

The editor sighed heavily. "Because Miles convinced me it was the right thing to do. His kids went, too, you know."

"He wants to see me this afternoon. In private."

"You're not going to like what he has to say, Sam."

"I believe I know what he's going to say, and I agree with him."

Wade slammed his hand on his desk top, suddenly angry. His face was flushed. He rose to stalk the small office, pacing restlessly. "I'm sorry, Sam, but I just don't buy it. I've had time to think on it, and I just don't believe it."

"Miles obviously believes it enough to go against his own religious upbringing. You believed it enough to send your kids out of town," Sam reminded him.

"I panicked. A moment of weakness, that's all."

"Why didn't you or Miles come to me with your suspicions? Why wait?"

The newsman stared at the minister for a few seconds, then sat down behind his desk. "All right, Sam—all right! Enough, okay?" His face was red, a combination of anger and frustration and entrapment.

A minute ticked by while Wade attempted to gather his thoughts. "Miles doesn't know what it is," he muttered. "And neither do I, for that matter."

He drummed his finger tips on the desk. "Sam, Miles hasn't been to a temple or synagogue in almost thirty years. Since his bar mitzvah. He was laughing the other day; told me he didn't believe he was a Jew—just Jewish!

"Sam, I'm going to tell you something in very blunt language, you're on the sheriffs shitlist—you know that?"

"I know."

"You've been snooping around behind his back."

"I sure have, Wade."

The editor sighed, slowly nodding his head in resigned agreement. He rubbed his eyes, then massaged his temples. "All right, Sam. Let's compare notes, okay?"

"I guess my feeling that... something was—is—wrong started with Charlie Bell," Wade admitted. "Sam, Charlie and I go 'way back together. Grade school. Best of friends. We started playing golf back when we were— oh—freshmen in high school, out at the Club. Twenty-five years ago; little more than that, now. Then, about five-six weeks ago, he became a stranger to me. Cold. I went to him at the bank to talk about financing a new pickup. Over the past fifteen years I've financed six new cars with Charlie's bank. This time, Sam, he turned me down cold—flat. In so many words, he told me to get out of his bank and don't come back. I still haven't gotten over that."

"And you have no idea what might have brought all this on?"

The editor was suddenly embarrassed. "Well—Sam—yeah, I do, sort of. You see, Charlie, about a week before, had kind of suggested—well, talked around the idea of us swapping wives."

The minister did not appear to be shocked. "Like they do out at the Club." It was a statement.

"You and Anita still go out there?"

"No! After I turned down Charlie's offer—well, I would walk in the Club door and conversation would stop. Anita was propositioned every time she went in there; pretty crude stuff, Sam. We resigned our membership." He was thoughtful for a moment. "As a matter of fact, so did Peter Canford, Jane Ann, Chester and Faye. That's about it, I guess."

Sam remained silent, waiting for his friend to continue.

"Then Art Holland pulled his advertising out of the paper. I'd been friends with Art for years—close friends: we were Frat Brothers at the university. Now he won't speak to me. Others began pulling their advertising out, gradually. Then, last week, my ads took a nose dive. Went from bad to zero."

"Have you talked with other editors around the state?"

"No."

"Why?"

"For one thing, Sam, I haven't been out of Whitfield in a month. For another, my national and state ads have been keeping me going—in a manner of speaking. For another, I guess—well, it's the reporter coming out in me." He thumped the desk with a fist, then blurted, "I want to know what in the hell is going on around here!"

Sam told him of Paul Merlin's ordering him off his range that morning.

"That's incredible! Paul is a good, decent man."

Sam told him of the closing of highway 72, north and south, for a week.

"What!?" Wade shouted.

"The state highway department says the notice ran in this paper for weeks."

"No way, Sam! It has not run in my paper. Closing down? Good Lord, Sam—we'd be cut off here—" The truth came staggering into his brain. "Cut off," he whispered. "Cut off!" his voice was stronger.

"Wade, I want you to think back. Has anybody approached you to join any kind of club, or, oh, cult—that's what I'm trying to say?"

He shook his head. "No. Some of us used to gather at various homes to discuss church business, things for the kids to do. Nondenominational meetings among parents. But we don't do that any longer. Haven't for—I guess a couple of months. You know that. My friends won't discuss anything with me; those people who used to be my friends, that is," he added sourly. He reached for the phone.

Sam's hand shot out, grabbing his wrist, stopping him. "No!" the preacher said.

"Sam? Have you gone crazy? Excuse me, but I want to find out what's going on around here."

"It's too late," Sam's voice held a warning.

Wade gave up attempting to free his wrist from Sam's viselike grip. The man was strong as a bear. He nodded, and Sam released him. Rubbing his wrist, Wade asked, "Too late for what?"

"Do you trust me, Wade?"

"Sure. You know that without asking. Of course, I do. Dumb question."

"Then listen to me for a few minutes—answer a few questions, then make up your mind whether to call."

"All right," Wade leaned back in his chair, a half-smile on his lips. "Sounds awfully sinister, preacher, but I'll listen."

"First give me a cigarette."

"I didn't know you smoked!"

"I don't, very often. Come on, Wade, give me a cigarette."

He tossed a pack of Pall Mall's on the desk. "Next thing I know my minister's going to tell me he drinks, too."

"I had a shot of booze with Chester last evening."

Wade rolled his eyes and grimaced. "Please spare me any more of your vices, Sam."

"Just leave the pack where I can get at it, will you? Ready for this? Okay. Tell me everything you know about Dr. Black Wilder and his crew."

"That's easy. I don't know anything about them! Sam, I'm much more interested in this so-called notice that is supposed to have run in—"

"Just bear with me a few minutes, Wade," Sam cut in. "Okay? What do you know about the Tyson Lake area?"

"I might be able to help you there. It's been fenced off for years—as long as I can remember. It's full of caves, holes, lava pits."

"You've seen these caves and holes and pits? Firsthand?"

"Well—no, Sam. But someone obviously has, or the place wouldn't be fenced off for public safety."

"Karl Sorenson owns the land?"

"That's right. Been Sorenson land for—oh, over a hundred and fifty years. Maybe longer."

"And the Sorenson's came from—where?"

Wade shrugged. "Scandinavia, I guess."

"Uh-huh. Got a dictionary, Wade?"

"You're asking a newspaper man that?" he grinned. "Sure." He flipped open a large dictionary on his desk, cleverly hidden under a pile of out-of-town newspapers. "What's the word, Sam?"

"Black."

"Black? Just Black?" He received a stare for a reply. "Okay." He thumbed through the pages. "Got it."

"Check the Icelandic spelling."

"Blakkr."

"Now look up wild."

A curious stare, then Wade thumbed through the W's. "All right, got it."

"Icelandic spelling?"

"Villr."

"Put them together in English."

The editor was thoughtful for a moment. "Black Wild. Black Wilder; that what you're getting at? So what?"

Sam told him of the book he'd read. Of Jane Ann's suspicions. Of his own.

"Duhon," Wade muttered. "Yeah, I recall reading about him. He isn't exactly one of the heroes of early Americana, but he did trap this area two centuries ago. Let me think back to my history classes at the university. All right. Duhon, along with a Father—" he stumbled over the word, "Dubois, helped set up the First Catholic Church in what is now Nebraska. Dubois! Father Dubois is our parish priest now." He forced a smile.

"Interesting, isn't it?" Sam returned the forced smile.

"Have you spoken with Father Dubois?"

"Not lately. And not about this, but I plan to—today."

Wade nodded absently. He rose to his feet, walking to a wall lined with books. He selected a slim volume of Fork County history. "Yes, things are coming back to me. Sam, do you know what is purported to have happened to Duhon and the original Father Dubois?"

"No."

"Real fairy tale stuff." He flipped a few pages of the book, found the passage he sought, and read, The log cabin church was destroyed in the late 1700s. Folklore has it that the church was destroyed by huge, foul-smelling, hairy beasts, who, after destroying the church, ate both Duhon, the trapper, and the priest, Dubois. He laughed. "Pure hogwash."

Sam said nothing.

"The truth," Wade read on, will probably never be known, for their bodies were never found, nor was any grave site ever located.

He skipped a few pages. "The church was originally built near what is now the town of Whitfield, in an area known locally as Tyson's Lake. The lake was named in memory of two young children, Abe and Martha Tyson, who disappeared near there in the mid-1800's, and were presumed to have drowned.

Trappers have long avoided the area known as Tyson's Lake, because of the bad smells coming from the small stand of timber, and because of the frequent howling and snarling from the woods.

The author goes on to say the smells probably came from bad water in some of the holes, and the howling and snarling pure imagination and the wind.

"Sure," Sam said. "Right."

This time the editor's smile was not forced. He openly chuckled. "Come on, Sam! You're not going to sit there and tell me you believe in ghosties and ghoulies and things that go bump in the night?"

"Do you believe in God, Wade?"

"Certainly, I do!"

"Then if you believe in God, you have to believe in the devil."

Wade nodded, but refused to elaborate further. He sat behind his desk, a slight smile on his lips, his eyes amused.

"Why did the radio station close down, Wade?"

He shrugged. "I guess because it wasn't making any money. Town's too small. It was always marginal."

"Who owned it?"

"Oh, it's changed hands several times in the past ten years. A media group out of Omaha owned it for years. Then about three years ago—" he paused, his eyes lifting to meet Sam's, "Karl Sorenson bought it."

"And ran it until a few months ago. That's interesting."

"Maybe," Wade was thoughtful. "But I know something that is more interesting, I believe. You know Karl Sorenson?"

"Unfortunately. He's perhaps one of the most profane men I've ever had the misfortune to encounter. Why do you ask?"

"Karl's been spending a lot of time with Otto Stockman."

"That is interesting. And odd. The most profane man in the county spending time with a Baptist deacon. Stranger still, when one recalls it was Otto who urged the new man, Farben, to break with the Ministerial Alliance a couple of months ago. I heard Farben called the M.A. the most useless group in town."

"I remember you telling me about that. I didn't pursue it because I know you don't care for Otto." He grinned. "Or is that putting it too mildly?"

"No, it isn't. I prayed for guidance, Wade; prayed for help and forgiveness because of my dislike for Otto. I recall what Father Dubois told me about Stockman. He said Otto was too Christian! He said anytime a mortal man sets himself up as a pure model for others to follow, he's in real trouble. Dubois said he'd known Otto for years and the man had always been a pompous ass. He allowed himself to be placed on a pedestal. Dubois told me a couple of years ago he thought Otto was heading for a bad fall. He didn't elaborate."

"You think Otto has something to do with—whatever you believe is happening here?"

Sam lifted his shoulders in a shrug. "Maybe. Something else, too. Jane Ann told me Annie Brown has disappeared."

"What do you mean, disappeared?"

"Gone. Vanished. Departed. Dematerialized—"

Wade held up one hand. "Enough, Sam— spare me. 1 know the meaning of the word. I withdraw the question. How do you know she's disappeared?"

"Because Jane Ann checked it out. No one has seen her. Not at church, not at the movies, nowhere. She's just gone."

"Her stepparents?"

"They told Jane Ann she'd gone to visit relatives in Bradville. That's a lie. The girl has no relatives." He related to Wade what Jane Ann had told him. The editor's face expressed his disgust at her stepparent's actions.

"Have you talked with the sheriff?"

"Wade, the sheriff is in this thing up to his neck," He told the newsman what Chester had overheard; all his personal suspicions. "You will recall that Walter has dropped out of the church. Has he been friendly toward you lately?"

"No. No, he hasn't. He's been acting strangely of late. Sam, three-quarters of the people in this town are behaving—well, not normally. Damnit, Sam!" he slammed his open hand on the desk. "Come on straight with me—say what's on your mind."

"Just calm down, Wade. I want to know more about Tyson's Lake."

"Now, what?" he asked irritably.

"Your father was a newspaperman. What did he have to say about that area?"

"My father died when I was was seven years old, Sam. I don't remember much about him."

"I'm sorry, Wade. I didn't know."

He shook his head. "No, I'm the one who should be apologizing, Sam. I never told you about him. Sorry I lost my temper. But this . . . thing—this town; it's got me upset and confused."

"Does it bother you to talk about your father?"

"Oh, no."

"Was your dad killed in an accident?"

"Sort of, I guess you could say." Wade seemed evasive.

Sam pressed on. Like a cop who had just picked up a strong lead, Sam felt a tingling in the pit of his stomach. "Sort of an accident, Wade? Where did the accident happen?" He knew the answer before Wade opened his mouth.

The small office was very quiet. Wade's sigh was audible. He kept his eyes downcast. "Not far from Tyson's Lake," he said softly.

"How did he die, Wade?"

Wade's dark eyes lifted to meet Sam's. "You know, preacher, you're beginning to spook me a little. Just a little."

"1'm waiting."

"Sam, from all I've been able to piece together, my dad was a very virile man. Kept himself in excellent physical shape. He ran, he boxed, did calisthenics. The whole bit, and he wasn't afraid of a living thing.

"It was just about this time of the year. Yeah, almost to the date. Dad had been working on some hush-hush story. No, don't look at me like that or ask me what—I don't know. I've torn up this building, looking for a lead of some kind—any kind. Nothing. No journal, no notes, no nothing.

"Anyway, mother told me, just before she died, that dad had started carrying a pistol whenever he went out there. No one knows why he did it. And no one really knows what happened. Lord knows, I don't. I just vaguely remember the funeral. Closed casket. When I grew older, mother told me dad had been horribly clawed; mangled. Blood everywhere, and not just dad's blood. She said whatever it was that killed him—and the theory at that time was a bear or a puma—had to have died later. Dad's pistol had been fired several times, and he was an expert shot with that .44."

He sighed heavily, as if the telling troubled him. "This is the strange part: dad had dragged himself away from the fence—it was fenced off even then—barbed wire. It's been replaced several times. Dad dragged himself almost a half mile, to an old road. Doctor King—not Tony, his father—told me years later that dad's face was grotesque; so horribly twisted as to be almost macabre, as if dad had been frightened out of his wits. But I can't believe dad would be frightened of anything, or anybody.

"You see, Sam, mother went to her death, seven years ago, still believing dad had been killed by a . . . a . . . whatever it was! That's not true; dad killed himself. Shot himself through the heart. Only two people knew that—until now. Doctor King and me. Now you."

Sam was silent for a moment, thinking of the author's reference to the Beasts. "Could your father's face have been swollen with—oh, infection, perhaps?"

"Well, yes, Sam. You see, that's one of the dark secrets about Whitfield. Very tragic after dad died. Two of the men who helped load dad in the wagon to bring him into town—you couldn't get a car out there—not then, not in those days, had been working on the fence all day. Barbed wire. They had cut themselves on the hands and arms several times; just little cuts, nothing serious. But in handling dad, it seems dad's blood got into those cuts. This is Old Doctor King's theory, remember. Anyway," again the heavy sigh, "the cuts became infected. The men went crazy, Sam. I didn't see them, of course, I was only a child. But I remember the shooting that night. The shouting and the screaming. The townspeople killed them. It was never reported as such, of course. Whitfield, you see, does have its secrets, Sam."

"Who else, Wade?" the minister asked softly.

"You're smart, Sam," the editor's smile was grim. "You put things together real quick, don't you? Yeah, sure, there were others that following day and night. A dozen people—men and women."

"They were all found and —disposed of?"

"No. Two of them ran away into the prairie. They were never found."

"Which way did they run, Wade?"

"Boy! You're like a bulldog, aren't you, Sam? You never give up. They ran toward Tyson's Lake—so I'm told. They were tracked to the fence by bloodhounds."

"And?"

"And? And? There is no 'And?' That's the end of it. They fell in a cave or a hole and died. Period."

"And you believe that crap?"

Wade's reply was soft, almost inaudible. "No." He lifted his eyes. "But, if not that, then what?"

"The Mark of the Beast."

"The Mark of the —what? I beg your pardon, Sam?"

"Let's count it down, Wade. How many people have died, or been killed, or disappeared in that area known as Tyson's Lake? Jane Ann's mother and father. Ex-Chief of Police Kramer. The young kids the lake is named after. The original Father Dubois and the trapper, Duhon. Your father. The two escapees that night, after they were infected. And a dime will get you a dollar that's what happened to Larry and Joan and Annie Brown. Far too many people for coincidence. Some were torn, others mutilated, marked."

"What is the Mark of the Beast, Sam?"

"I don't know, Wade," he said, then hesitated for a moment. Then Sam bared his thoughts and all his suspicions to his friend, taking it from the beginning. He told him everything.

When he came to the part about Michelle bending down to kiss him, and the stink of her breath and her reaction to the Holy Cross, Sam almost lost control. He paused for a short time, getting his emotions under control.

Wade didn't know what to believe or how to react. Coming from another man, the editor would have openly laughed. But this was Sam, one of the most level-headed men he'd ever known. He ran a shaky hand across his face. "Good God, Sam!"

"Yes," the minister said, his voice firming. "I think God is about all we have to count on in Whitfield."

"We'll call the authorities," Wade reached for the phone.

"No, we won't!" Sam said. "It's too late for that."

Puzzled eyes lifted to touch the minister's hard gaze. Wade pulled his hand from the phone. "What do you mean, Sam—too late?"

"I—I believe there is just a handful of Christians left in Whitfield, in this part of Fork, and we're growing smaller in number with each passing hour. I think right now, Wade, we'd better go see Father Dubois. Perhaps he can shed some light on what's happening around here."

Wade's usual demeanor had returned; the reporter's attitude on nearly everthing: cynical, doubting. "Sam? You really believe all you've told me, don't you? All this body snatching that's been going on—where are they? Do they prowl the streets at night? Come on, Sam, you're a grown man who is under a terrible strain at home. Now all things can be explained. Surely you don't believe—?"

"I don't know what I believe, Wade. And that's the truth. I need some answers; you need some answers. So let's go find them."

Wade stood up, his ears doubting what he'd heard but willing to go along with his minister—for a time. "Next thing you'll be telling me is that Frankenstein is lurking outside Whitfield."

"Frankenstein is not mentioned in the Bible, Wade. The devil is."