Reborn

22

The horror of it was slow in coming, for Carol realized in that instant that no one was restraining her any longer. She managed to roll onto her side again but rolled too far. Suddenly she was falling. She hit the linoleum hard and lay there a moment, stunned.

She shook off the pain, the dizziness, the nausea, and used the table leg for support to pull herself to a kneeling position, instinctively pulling the skirt down around her legs. Even though she was naked beneath it, the thin fabric gave her a protected feeling.

In the center of the kitchen, Emma and Grace were struggling. Emma was trying to get a lock on Grace's throat, but Grace was fighting her off this time, keeping her from getting the death grip she'd had in the parlor. And the ax—oh, God, the ax was still in Emma's head!

The other women clung to the sides of the room, their backs pressed against the walls like passengers spinning on that amusement park ride, the Round-Up.

A couple of the men came in from the front hall, timidly, like mice watching two cats locked in combat. They whispered to each other. Carol wondered where the rest of them were, especially that skinny one—Martin.

Suddenly Grace gave out with a choking cry and Carol saw that Emma was slowly reestablishing her stranglehold on her throat. Still weak and nauseous, Carol fought to make sense of her roiling emotions. She wanted Grace stopped, wanted her put away where she couldn't threaten or hurt her baby ever again, but she didn't want her killed—especially not at the hands of this walking horror that had once been Emma Stevens.

The two men seemed to gather some strength from Grace's peril. They rushed forward and tried to pull Emma away. Two of the women helped. This time they succeeded in freeing Grace by yanking Emma's arms outward and away, one in each direction. As Grace staggered free and gasped for breath, Emma shook off the Chosen and reached behind her head. With no change in her expression, no indication that she felt the slightest discomfort, she levered the ax handle up and down until it came free from her skull with a wet, sucking noise.

Carol knew what was going to happen next, as did everyone else in the room, most likely, yet she could not move to prevent it. Neither could any of the Chosen. Neither could Grace.

Still grinning horribly, Emma raised the ax until its red-stained blade almost touched the ceiling. Grace screamed and raised her arms over her head, but to no avail. The ax swung down with blinding speed and crushing force.

Carol screamed and turned away before the blow struck, but she heard the awful splitting impact and heard screams and trampling feet, heard and felt a heavy thump on the floor.

Then silence.

Slowly Carol opened her eyes. Her head was down. She could see a limp, outstretched arm and blood on the floor on the far side of the table. Fighting nausea, she raised her head. Emma still stood in the center of the kitchen, stiff, swaying. She looked at Carol, and for an instant there was a spark of something in her dead eyes—maybe a spark of Emma. But if so, it was a miserable, infinitely sad Emma.

She raised her arm and pointed toward the door to the hallway. Shakily Carol pulled herself to her feet and stumbled toward it, giving wide berth to Emma and averting her eyes from the still form in the pool of blood on the floor. As soon as she was past them, she ran.

As she reached the hall she heard the thud of a second body hitting the kitchen floor, but she didn't look back.

When she got to the parlor door and saw Bill, bound in a chair but still alive, she almost lost it. She wanted to cry out his name and throw herself on him, wanted to clutch at him and sob out all the grief, rage, horror, and relief exploding within her. But she couldn't do that. That was what the old Carol would have done. She was now the new Carol.

Besides, even as she stood here, all her emotions seemed to be running out of her. An endless tunnel had opened inside her. All her feelings seemed to be flowing down its black length toward a yawning, bottomless pit, leaving her empty, cool, controlled.

"Carol!" Bill cried. "Thank God you're all right!"

She started toward him, then saw Brother Robert's body with the bloody crucifix jutting from his heart.

I don't know who should be thanked, she thought, but I've got a funny feeling it's not God!

She looked away and darted behind Bill's chair.

"What happened in there?" he said, trying to look at her over his shoulder as her shaking fingers worked at the knots.

Carol experienced another of those sudden surges of hatred for Bill, a blazing rage that urged her to take a length of clothesline and strangle him with it. It frightened her. She shook it off.

"Grace is dead."

"I mean, to you. Are you okay?"

"I'll never be the same," she said, "but I'm okay, and so's the baby."

"Good!"

Oh, I hope it's good!

"What about… Emma?" he said.

"Gone. Like Grace. Both gone." A sob built in her throat, but she forced it down the tunnel.

Finally the knot at the back came free and she began to unwind the rope from around Bill's chest. As the coils loosened, he managed to pull an arm free.

"I'll get the rest," he said. "See if you can get Jonah started."

Jonah… she almost had forgotten about him. He'd been so quiet. She turned toward her father-in-law and hesitated. He was sitting calmly in his chair, smiling at her. She pushed herself forward and knelt beside him to work on the knots.

"You did good!" he whispered.

"I didn't do anything."

"Yes, you did. You kept strong. You kept the baby. That's all that matters."

Carol looked into his eyes. He was right. Her baby—Jim's and hers. That was all that really mattered.

"We've got to get away," he said, still whispering.

"We?"

"Yes. You've got to hide. I can help. I can take you south. To Arkansas."

"Arkansas?"

"Ever been there?"

"No." In fact, Carol couldn't even remember if she had ever said the word before this.

"We'll keep on the move. Never stay in one place long enough for them to gather strength against the baby."

"But why? Why do they want to hurt him?"

She searched Jonah's face for an answer, but there was nothing written there.

"You heard them," he said. "They think he's the devil."

"After what just happened, I wonder if they may be right," she muttered.

"Don't say that!" Jonah hissed. "He's your baby! Part of your flesh! It's your bound duty to protect him!"

Carol was stunned by his vehemence. He seemed genuinely concerned for the child. Maybe that was because he and Emma had never had a natural child of their own. But Emma was dead, murdered, and he didn't seem to care. All his concern was focused on the child. Why?

"I'll go to the police," she said.

"How can you be sure some of them won't be involved with these fool Chosen? Or won't join up later?"

The thought was chilling. This was becoming a paranoid nightmare.

"Here," Bill said, dropping to her side. "Let me finish those."

Carol noticed that his hands were shaking too. She resisted the urge to claw at his face as he worked on Jonah's knots. These irrational bursts of hatred for Bill—she didn't understand them, but she wouldn't let them control her. She would dominate them. She would learn to control everything in her life now.

She stood and walked to the bay window to stare out at the clearing sky. She felt as if she were in the center of a great whirlwind, and she desperately wished she knew which way to turn, where to go. The sun was low, shining through a break in the clouds on the horizon. The air was cold again. She clutched her arms across her chest and tried to rub away the chill.

And suddenly felt her blood freeze.