She put out her free hand. Terry took it and raised himself to his feet. The two children turned him around.
His heart almost stopped. A black coffin lay open in the aisle. The boy took his other hand. "This is just our initiation," he whispered. "You have to get in."
"Come on, don't be ridiculous."
Something sharp pressed up against his neck. He shud-dered; he knew that it was the stiletto.
His legs were wobbly, but he made it to the coffin. In other circumstances he might have tried to run, but there were hundreds of people between him and the doors. He had a strong feeling that he either got into that coffin or ended up with his throat cut.
It looked soft inside but the damn thing was hard. Beneath the white satin lining there was just wood.
"Nobody close this thing," Terry said. He did not speak in a whisper. He wanted to be heard.
The girl smiled. "Even if we do, it won't be for long. It's going to be fine. Really it is."
The intensity of the music increased, the emotional timbre became excited and mean.
There was no real pillow, so Terry had to raise his head to see what was going on around him. He raised it and kept it raised: there was no way he was going to let these loonies put that lid down. He noticed that the edges of the lid were lined with rubber, like the door of a refrigerator.
His Eminence approached the altar. He began to quiver, creating the impression that a tremendous inner battle was taking place. The wand he held seemed about to drop from his hand. An acolyte appeared and held a gold platen cov-ered by a silk doily beneath the vibrating wand.
"I conjure Thee, O Lord of Flies and Ills, through the medium of his dread, bring the infection unto his body."
A tension of expectancy filled the church. People were whispering. He saw a mother putting a surgical mask on her six-year-old.
The music was vicious now, actually prancing with glee.
His Eminence straightened up. He raised his hands and the music stopped. With a rustle of his robes he turned around. He spread his arms. "The time has come."
Faces began to look expectantly at Terry. The two chil-dren had taken places at the foot and head of the coffin. The wizard said softly to them, "Now."
With a movement too sudden to avoid the boy reached out and spurted a tiny aerosol in Terry's face. It wasn't much of a spurt. There wasn't even any odor.
Then they started to close the coffin.
Terry had been expecting this. "No way!" He jumped right out onto the floor. "No way do I get shut up in there."
In the dark a woman screamed, a keening sound. "Seal him up," somebody said in a frantic whisper.
People began pushing down the pews, away from him. His Eminence plastered on a smile. And here came the Stilettos. They were not smiling. For his part, Terry was about to sneeze.
"Amanda," the wizard said pleasantly, "tell Terry a little about the ritual." She hesitated. "Don't be afraid, Amanda. There are still a few minutes' grace."
At the sound of that word Terry noticed that he felt like hell. His bones ached, his skin was dry and sensitive.
The girl took his hand again. He noticed for the first time that there was an almost childlike quality about all these people. The gaudy rituals, the deep of the night, the secrecy, all spoke of the distant past; the terror of it, but also the charm.
"Terry, we have to close the lid for a little while because our ritual is about dying to the past and coming to life again in the service of evil. It only stays down for about two minutes. It's just symbolic." She squeezed his hand and gave him a cute smile. "It's what you want, isn't it? I mean, that must be why you're here."
"Yes." Terry's voice was hoarse with fear.
"We all want you to do it, all of us." There were murmurs of assent from the surrounding pews, accompanied by en-couraging nods and smiles. And then there were also the Stilettos.
"Sorry I'm so touchy," he muttered. "Claustrophobia." He got back in and the kids, smiling warmly, closed the lid. There was a distinct click, and then utter darkness. Someone had locked the lid with a coffin key.
Oh, Christ, this was going to be hard. Almost at once the air began to go bad. He felt absolutely horrible.
The music started again, its low notes filling the thick air. Muffled but audible there came from the congregation a sharp sigh. This was followed by a burst of low words, sounding like Latin.
Although he listened with all his might Terry couldn't hear much. He felt along the top of the coffin.
Maybe there was some kind of a handle or latch in here-just in case the dead man woke up. But no, nothing.
They were doing something outside; he could hear move-ments close to the coffin.
It was hot in here. Plus he was so sick his chest was beginning to rattle. He sneezed violently. Once.
Again. Three times. Four. Five. He began to see the true nature of the experiment they were conducting. It had to do with that aerosol.
They had given him the disease!
The top seemed to crash against his face. For a moment he didn't understand that he had banged at it with his forehead, trying to break out. When he did understand it scared the hell out of him. He was farther gone that he thought; he was out of control. Must be fever coming on.
They weren't going to let him out of here. They were going to see how efficiently their disease worked.
How long it took to kill an average adult male.
He writhed, felt with desperate, questing fingers the satin flocking of the coffin. He had been an idiot to think they would let him out! "Please!" Nothing. "Please! Oh, plea-a-ase!"
"Mr. Quist?"
"Oh! Oh, yes! Oh, thank you! Thank you for answering me! I can't get my breath. I gotta have air! I'm sick. Sick bad! You've got to open this thing up."
"We have a few questions first, Mr. Quist." The wizard's voice sounded so close he must be crouched right at the head of the coffin. Terry had been fool enough to come here, and they had simply taken advantage.
All Terry could think to do was be agreeable. If he cooperated there might be some hope.
If not he was a dead man. "Questions? Sure, but hurry!" He had never been able to hold his breath long in childhood contests at Miller-Walkin Public Swimming Pool in Corona Park. Never for long. He would come bursting up out of the water first or second, his lungs aching for air, his whole body filled with a painfully urgent need to breathe. "Please hurry!"
"What did you tell Inspector Michael Banion about us?"
Holy God! Mike wasn't in on it, only his wife! His heart went out to the poor guy. He had to get out of here, to somehow warn Mike! They'd been friends forever, he and Mike. The poor guy.
His wife! His wife! wife!
That unbelievable bitch.
His throat hurt as if it were being hacked with a dull blade. He raised his hands and was horrified to find huge swellings on both sides of his neck. Then he couldn't lower his arms. In that moment other swellings had appeared in his under-arms. Even as the air around him went bad he kept having to take deeper and deeper breaths through his constricted windpipe.
"Help me! I told you, I'm sick! Bad!"
"Inspector Banion-"
Maybe he could still help Mike a little. "I told him nothing!"
"You're lying."
"Let me out of here! Let me out! You've got to get me to a hospital. I'm sick. I'm smothering, for God's sake!"
"Are you an Inquisitor? Is Banion an Inquisitor?"
"What the fuck is an Inquisitor? I don't know from Inquisitors. For the love of God, open this thing up!"
He kicked, he hammered, he tore at the upholstery. The swell-ing under his right arm burst with an audible pop, a discharge of thick, stinking fluid, and an agonizing shaft of pain.
He knew suddenly that he would die before the interrogation was over. "Open it up and let me breathe!I'll tell you everything. Please, I beg you. I beg beg you." you."
"Did you name names?"
"Hell, no!"
"Tell us the truth and we'll open the top."
This was no time to be coy. "I told Mike nothing because he wouldn't listen to me. The minute he heard Night Church he laughed at me. He's not the type of cop's gonna buy something like this without it being rubbed in his ever-lovin' face! Now let me out!" Now let me out!"
There was whispered conversation outside, which soon died to silence. He felt himself drifting. Then he felt nothing.
Suddenly he came to. He had been out cold! "Open this thing up!"
What air he could get past his twisted throat moved with a thin whistling sound.
This was the death of Terence Michael Aloysius Quist, reporter. Noble? Not very. No Pulitzer for this turkey. He became aware of a seething, slithering sound on the outside of the coffin, as if somebody was lying on it. Just a few inches of wood separated his face from excited breathing.
"You perverts-you bastards!"
The response was a sort of whine that sounded hardly human. The coffin started to shake with the gyrations of whoever was there. "Listen with the stethoscope," somebody whispered. "Four minutes and he can barely breath past the buboes!"
Buboes? The bastards had given him some kind of super-plague, then shut him up in here to see how fast it worked.
Terry was almost grateful when his heart began to beat irregularly. Death is coming soon, guy. This too will pass. Who knows, maybe there's even some kind of special heaven for the congenitally unlucky.
"Cardiac arrhythmias at five minutes," said a calm voice.
"Excellent work," His Eminence replied.
Unfeeling bastards. At the sound of those clipped, educated voices Terry's fear shattered. Now he was simply mad. Too bad there was no way to disappoint them at least a little. To die nobly, instead of like a choking, poisoned dog.
A wave of raw desperation made him hammer his feet wildly. From outside there came excited little cries. "Delirium at five minutes twenty seconds!"
For an instant Terry was out again, then he returned to consciousness amid a series of white flashes. He was going now, he knew it. Escape just wasn't in the cards.
He grieved for parts of life he had loved, for the snow-muffled nights along old cobbled streets, for the pungent smell of coal smoke, for crime scenes and squad cars and all-night delis. And girls, all the girls he hadn't had.
Outside there were eager scufflings, as if more of the ghouls were gathering around the coffin. He could picture them out there, all crowded around, laughing that stifled laughter, gleeful at the success of their experiment.
There was a plague that killed in minutes, and it was in the hands of the mad.
He would at least show them a little human nobility, a little bravery. Mustering every bit of self-control available to him he cleared his throat as best he could.
If he was going to die, let it be in style.
"I'm singin' in the rain," he gasped, "singin' and dancing -"
He had to work up another breath to go on.
Outside, silence had descended. Maybe they were shocked, maybe awed. Good. He wanted them to know this was a human being in here, and at the end this human being had broken through all his pain and all his terror, and faced a hell of a death with a song.
"Singin' in the rain-"
There came a murmur of conversation. He was getting to them, he knew he was.
"Glory halleluja, I'm happy again!"
Somebody hushed the murmur.
"Singin' in the rain, you bastards! Singin' in the goddamn rain!" He threw back his head and ground out some wheezy laughter. There was thunder in his ears and acid in his throat. He was dying in agony but he did not scream.
Then singing burst forth all around him, the brightest, most triumphant singing he had ever heard. From hundreds of throats: ". . . just singin' in the rain. What a glorious feelin', I'm happy again. . . ."
They were throwing it right back at him. He hadn't gotten through to them at all. They had no feelings, they were worse than mad, they had no souls.
At last the animal took over and he tore madly at the coffin, digging as a trapped beast would dig. He sank his nails into the wooden lid.
He died.
MARY: THE TERROR OF THE INQUISITION.
My dearest Jonathan: I write this now, in this black time, in the hope that it will one day soon be possible for you to read it.
I must tell you that Patricia's injuries are not your fault. The blame rests with me and your Uncle Franklin.
All I can say in our defense is that what happened was a sort of accident. We caused it, yes, but for the best of reasons. We were trying to protect you both from the terror of the Inquisition.
There is a chance that we may cure Patricia, by a method that will surprise you. If the cure works, my son, you will one day hold this letter in your hands.