Horror leaped into the man's eyes. "Their own father? Their own brother!"

  "Their father is Satan," Sam told him. "I don't know what else has to happen to convince you of that fact. But you'd damn well better get your act together. Because if you don't, you're going to die and take a lot of us with you in the process."

  Sam hooked one toe of his boot into a crack in the stone fence and heaved himself up. He burned half a clip into the group standing on the other side. He dropped back to face a horrified Monty Draper.

  "You killed those people—those kids! You shot them in cold blood."

  "If he hadn't of done it," Joe called from the second floor, "I damn sure was goin' to."

  Sam was rapidly getting irritated at Monty. "Like I said, Monty. Get your shit together. And do it quickly."

  TUESDAY NIGHT

  "Things roamin' around on the other side of the fence," Joe radioed from the second floor. "They ain't them Beasts, but they ain't really human neither, I don't think. I don't know what the hell they are, tell the truth. Look to me like they're all tore up."

  "What are they doing?" Sam radioed back.

  "Nothin'. Just standin' by the gate lookin' in. Man and a woman, I think. But it's hard to tell. They look familiar to me—kind of."

  Sam cut his eyes to Father Le Moyne. The priest stood up. "1 know," he said. "I felt their presence. Now I have to face them."

  "What are you two talking about?" Barbara asked. The woman looked as if she was about to come unhinged.

  "Daniel's brother and sister-in-law," John told her. "They've become part of the walking dead. They're here, looking for Daniel."

  "Oh, come on, John!" his wife blurted. "Now this is getting totally out of hand. This is a nightmare. I'm asleep. None of this is real."

  "Barbara—" John opened his mouth.

  "No!" she screamed at the roomful of people. "I just, by God, will not take any more of this. I can't. I want out of here, John."

  Before anyone could respond, a mocking male voice was heard, speaking through a bullhorn. "Oh, Barbara. Barbara, honey, come on out and play with us, Barbara. You remember me, don't you, Barbara?" He laughed, an ugly, evil ring to the savage bark of dark humor. The voice came from the east side of the grounds.

  John Morton sighed and would not meet the eyes of those in the room.

  "Cut the lights," Sam told Mille.

  She plunged the room into darkness.

  "Come on out, Barbara," the voice called. "1 got something long and thick and hard for you. Come on, baby. Don't you remember how you used to love to lick on it?"

  John rose from his chair and walked out of the room, a stiffness to his back. He left the room as if that act alone would prevent him from hearing the vulgarities coming from beyond the fence.

  Barbara sat with tears running down her face. She sobbed quietly.

  "Come on, honey!" the voice boomed through the night. "This is ol' Duke. Don't you remember how you used to love to get on top and sit on it? You said it felt good going in that way. Sure you remember. Come on out and play, Barbara. We'll be waiting."

  Viv went to the sobbing woman. She pulled her from the chair and took her by the arm, leading her from the darkened room and into another room just off the hallway.

  The bullhorn fell silent. Joe said, "1 feel sorry for both them people. It ain't John's fault the way the Good Lord made him, and it ain't really her fault the way she is. Some folks just can't help the way they are." He walked toward the archway leading out of the room. "I got me a rifle upstairs. I think I'll go see if I can't get that Duke Edwards in gunsights. If I do, 1 guarantee you, he's gonna be one dead son-of-a-bitch."

  "Good luck," Monty said grimly, his comment surprising Sam.

  Sam glanced at Father Le Moyne standing quietly in the heavy darkness. "You know what we have to do, Father. Are you ready?"

  "Yes. Did you get the articles I asked for?"

  "I got them," Sam replied. "They're in the hall. One for you and one for me."

  "You're a brave young man, Sam."

  Sam didn't respond to the compliment. He was as scared as the next person; but he knew fear was contagious, and he could not let his personal fear show. "Come on, Father. Let's do it. Noah? Even though a bullet won't stop them, enough lead will knock them down in case we run into—"

  "Sam!" Joe yelled from upstairs. "Them folks that was by the gate—they're gone. I think I seen them walkin' on the grounds."

  They all heard the back door open and close. The smell of the grave permeated the house.

  THREE

  "I sure would like to dip my wick in that Balon woman's snatch," Sheriff Pat Jenkins said to Vernon. "Sexy bitch." They stood a safe distance from the mansion, both of them looking at the hugeness of Fox Estate in the night. "Then I'd stem Monty's wife."

  "Fine-looking cunts," Vernon agreed. "But Mille's the one I want."

  "Miller Jenkins laughed. "Hell, Vern. She's been spreading that pussy around town since she was twelve/thirteen years old."

  "It ain't wore out," the deputy replied. "Other than a woman's mouth, the pussy's the most durable part of her body. Besides, there's only two kinds: big ol' good ones and good ol' big ones."

  The crowd of unshaven and unwashed men laughed at the old joke. The stench of them was foul. Dan Evans said, "And you ain't never had no bad, huh, Vern?"

  "Nope. Just some that was better than others," Vernon said. He looked at Jenkins. "Why don't we rush them, Pat? Just rush them and take them out of that mansion?"

  "The Master says no. The Princess says no. We have to obey. The Master is going to win this time, and he knows it. He wants to play with them for a time."

  Vernon nodded his head in understanding. He looked around him. "Anybody here wanna come home with me and fuck my old lady?"

  A huge fat man stepped up, an equally fat man with him. "Me and Jesse'll take a whack at her, Vern."

  Vernon looked at the pair, an amused look in his eyes. "Yeah. One in front and one in back. That ought to be a sight to see. Wanna come see the show, Pat?"

  "Bet she'll holler," the sheriff said with a smile. "Yeah, let's go."

  The grounds of Nelson College lay dark and quiet in the purple of Satan's night. A light mist clung to the land, undisturbed by even a whisper of wind. Inside the dark structures, however, it was quite a different story. Low moanings could be heard from nearly every room; weeping and crying out for mercy came from the basements; the begging and pleading for God to put an end to this suffering and degradation whispered and echoed around the deserted halls and corridors of the buildings. The slap of flesh against flesh, the gruntings as male hardness hunched in and out of female softness played a rhythmic tune without melody or meter as dozens of rapes continued into the night.

  In the basement of the administration building, a bloody and naked young man clung to life and love of God. Life was rapidly leaving him; but love of God had not. He refused to renounce his God.

  Another young man, his clothing blood-splattered, stood over the naked young man, a stained knife in one hand. He turned to a group of men and women. His smile was macabre.

  "Are you ready to take the pledge to forever serve the Master?" he asked the crowd of young people.

  "Yes." The reply came as one voice. All eyes were on the hideously tortured young man tied to a table. To a person they had enjoyed the horrible cries from the torture. Yes. They were ready to take the pledge of submission.

  Professor Edie Cash began intoning the chant that would forever seal the fate of all who repeated the damning words.

  And all present repeated the chant of the damned.

  Screaming filled the basement as the knife-wielding young man began cutting into living flesh. He removed the still beating heart and held it in his hands, blood leaking from life's muscle, dripping onto the floor.

  "Now you are and always will be one with us," Edie told the group. "For you, there will be no turning back. Now, go! Seek out and find all nonbelievers in the word of the Dark One. Bring them to us. Go!"

  The room quickly emptied.

  Edie looked at what was left of the young man on the bloody table. "Stupid fool," she said. "He could have had eternal life with us." She lifted her eyes to the young man standing with the knife and heart in his hands. "Have him taken to the Beasts."

  "Yes, mistress."

  Sam and Father Le Moyne ran from the room and jerked up the sharpened stakes leaning against the wall in the hall. Sam paused for a moment at the door.

  "Lock all the doors to this room and don't let anybody you don't know inside. No matter what they might say. And be sure it's who you think it is. Father Le Moyne, Noah—let's do it."

  The smell of the undead was strong in the mansion. The smell was of rotting flesh and blood. The lights flickered off and on, finally settling into a dimness, shadowing the corners and pockets of the hall.

  "Daniel." The whisper drifted through the dim corridors of the lower level of the huge house. "Come, Daniel. We want you, brother. Come to us and we'll go home. Come meet us, now, brother. It's time."

  A hissing sound filled the corridor. The hissing was followed by the foulest of smells.

  Father Le Moyne began murmuring prayers. He held vials of holy water, one vial in each hand. He whispered to Sam, "The holy water will cause them great agony. But you must strike immediately after the liquid touches their flesh. Give me a stake."

  "You handle the holy water, Father," Sam returned the whisper. "I'll handle the stakes. I'm younger and stronger. Are you sure you can go through with this, Father?"

  "They are no longer of this world, Sam. That is not my brother nor my brother's wife. They are of the undead, the walking dead. They must be destroyed."

  "Look out!" Noah yelled. "To our right."

  Creatures from the depths of horror's living reality came lunging at the three men, momentarily freezing them in the grips of stark terror and revulsion.

  Noah was the first to react. His shotgun roared, the double ought slugs ripping into already mangled flesh, knocking the man and woman sprawling backward. The sight was more than hideous. Father Le Moyne's brother had only part of his face; one eye dangled from the socket. His chest was ripped open, exposing the rib cage. His wife was torn and mangled from her face to her knees; she had been thrown through the windshield. Bloody tissue and whiteness of bone was evident.

  The priest sprang into action. He hurled the holy water onto the flesh of the undead.

  The man and woman shrieked in agony as the blessed water burned and seared the unholy flesh. Their gaping mouths spewed forth great belches of stinking breath as they thrashed on the polished floor. A thick yellow fluid began leaking from the smoking holes in their flesh.

  Sam jumped forward, a stake in each hand. He drove the first stake into the center of the man's chest, whirled around, and drove the second stake through the heart of the woman.

  "Noah," Sam shouted. "Work the stake deeper into his chest."

  The writer handed Father Le Moyne his shotgun and jumped into the middle of the stinking gore, grabbing the stake and working it deeper into the man's heart.

  The screaming of the undead echoed through the great house, ricocheting off the marble statues, the fine paintings, the old wood, and causing the chandeliers to vibrate, trembling as if in terror.

  Dirty yellow smoke began rising from the man and woman. They jerked and screamed as their souls left their bodies. Father Le Moyne prayed to God Almighty to forgive the dead, for what they had become was not of their choosing.

  The smoke drifted away; the moaning ceased; the jerking stopped; the man and woman were no more a part of the living dead. Nothing was left of them except a few scraps of stinking rags and the dust of a few bones.

  "Noah," Sam said. "Find a garbage bag. I'll get a shovel from the utility shed." He looked at the priest. "You want to say anything over them when I bury what is left of them, Father?"

  Le Moyne hesitated for a moment. "No," he said. "I've said all that needs to be said. There is more I could say, but I don't believe it's necessary."

  "Barbara." The electronically pushed voice once more found its way into the mansion. "Come on, baby. Come suck ol' Duke's cock again. Then you can bend over and I can stick it to you. I bet you'd like—"

  Joe's rifle barked, flame leaping from the muzzle of the .270. A bubbling, choking scream cut a painful scar into the ink of night, followed by a thump and a metallic sound scraping on concrete.

  Joe's voice drifted downstairs. "Shot that bastard right in the bullhorn. Drove that sucker slap into his mouth and down his throat. Bet that'll shut him up."

  Somewhere in the huge mansion, Barbara began alternately laughing and screaming hysterically.

  WEDNESDAY

  "What has been done to bring Sam Balon to me?" Xaviere asked the coven leaders.

  No one replied. None present would meet the young woman's piercing eyes.

  "I see," she spoke softly. "Sam and the others have ignored my deadline. I cannot, for some reason, reach my Master Father, and that disturbs me. For I am unsure as to the proper direction to take. 1 do not know what has happened. He was here only hours ago. Now he is gone."

  "Princess!" Jimmy Perkins shuffled into the room. "The Tablet is gone!"

  They all knew what that meant. Satan was gone.

  But why did he leave?

  "You cheating, rotten, no good son of a cosmic whore!" The Dark One hurled the message across the sky in plumes of yellow smoke.

  In the firmament, the Almighty yawned.

  "Damn You! How dare You interfere with my earthly affairs? That was not the deal we made. You were to keep Your meddling nose out of my affairs."

  "I make no deals with the likes of you, wallower in filth. Besides, how have I interfered? The followers of My Word are still surrounded by your rabble. The barrier you erected around the community is still in place and functioning. I have not prevented the torture and rapes and deaths. How can you say 1 have interfered?"

  "You son-of-a-bitch!" Satan roared. "I cannot reenter the community. I have been blocked. You have blocked me from entering."

  "No, fallen one. I have done nothing of the sort. You are mistaken."

  Satan was silent for a time. When he again communicated with the one whom he once served, he had calmed himself. "Which is precisely the reason 1 hid the Tablet before leaving that area. 1 knew somehow You would find a way to jam Your fucking nose into my business."

  The Almighty directed His never closing and all-seeing eyes downward. "What are you implying, foul one?"

  "That You are a liar!"

  "I shall take no umbrage at that. No, Prince of Darkness. It was not I who interfered on Earth. And it was not my warrior, for he is seated beside me." The Ruler of Light looked at his old friend and companion. The warrior was sitting calmly, a smile on his lips. A rather smug smile, the Almighty thought.

  Satan began shrieking once more and the Almighty blocked out the howlings from the northernmost regions on Earth and spoke to the warrior. "Where is the elder Balon?"

  "I haven't the vaguest idea."

  "You tell lies to Me? Here?"

  "I have not told a lie in so many centuries I've forgotten how it would feel," the warrior replied. "Well— years, anyway. But I am being truthful with You. I do not know where the Elder Balon is."

  "But he is gone from the firmament?"

  Without hesitation the warrior said, "Yes. Would You like for me to search for him on Earth?"

  "No, 1 most certainly would not

  Perhaps Valhalla was not such a bad idea after all. Warriors can be such a nuisance. They're all so scheming. Very well. So the father has once more gone to help his son?"

  "No—I don't believe that is entirely the case," the warrior replied. "I do think that perhaps he has evened the odds a bit. I think that is all he will do. Leaving the rest up to the small band of believers. I think he will stay on, viewing the battleground."

  "And you would like to leave here to help Balon— ah—reconnoiter the situation?"

  "That thought has occurred to me," the warrior replied blandly.

  "Oh, I just imagine it has." The reply from the Almighty was dryly given.

  Both were conscious of Satan's furious howlings from Earth. Satan was shrieking for the Almighty to answer him. How dare He block him out?

  "Oh, shut up!" the Almighty roared from the heavens.

  Minor earthquakes were felt along several fault lines on earth. Hurricanes formed and then died. Volcanoes puffed smoke and ash.