F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 Read Online Free Page A

Night
will be arriving after sunset, and that'll spell the death of your world and
the birth of ours. We will present ourselves to them, we will bare our throats
and let them drain us, and we'll join them. Then we'll rule the night with
them!"
                 It
sounded like a canned speech, one she must have delivered time and again to her
black-clad troupe.
                 Carole
looked past Carmilla to Rosita. "Is that what you believe? Is that what
you really want?"
                  
                 The
girl shrugged her high thin shoulders. "Beats anything else I got
going."
                 Finally
the old Datsun shuddered to life. Carole heard Bernadette working the shift.
She touched her arm and said, "Wait. Just one more moment, please."
                 She
was about to speak to Rosita when Carmilla jabbed her finger at Carole's face,
shouting.
                 "Then
you bitches and the candy-ass god you whore for will be fucking extinct!"
                 With
a surprising show of strength, Rosita yanked Carmilla away from the window.
                 "Better
go, Sister Carole," Rosita said.
                 The
Datsun started to move.
                 "What
the fuck's with you, Wicky?" Carole heard Carmilla scream as the car eased
away from the dark cluster. "Getting religion or somethin? Should we start
callin you Sister Rosita now?"
                 "She
was one of the few people who was ever straight with me," Rosita said.
"So fuck off, Carmilla."
                 By
then the car had traveled too far to hear more.
                  
                 *
* *
                  
                 "What
awful creatures they were!" Bernadette said, staring out the window in
Carole's convent room. She hadn't been able to stop talking about the incident
on the street. "Almost my age, they were, and such horrible
language!"
                 The
room was little more than a ten-by-ten-foot plaster box with cracks in the
walls and the latest coat of paint beginning to flake off the ancient embossed
tin ceiling. She had one window and, for furnishings, a crucifix, a dresser and
mirror, a work table and chair, a bed, and a night stand. Not much, but she
gladly called it home. She took her vow of poverty seriously.
                 "Perhaps
we should pray for them."
                 "They
need more than prayer, I'd think. Believe me you, they're heading for a bad
end." Bernadette removed the oversized rosary she wore looped around her
neck, gathering the beads and its attached crucifix in her hand. "Maybe we
could offer them some crosses for protection?"
                 Carole
couldn't resist a smile. "That's a sweet thought, Bern , but I don't think they're looking for
protection."
                 "Sure,
and lookit after what I'm saying," Bernadette said, her own smile rueful.
"No, of course they wouldn't."
                 "But
we'll pray for them," Carole said.
                 Bernadette
dropped into a chair, stayed there for no more than a heartbeat, then was up
again, moving about, pacing the confines of Carole's room. She couldn't seem to
sit still. She wandered out into the hall and came back almost immediately,
rubbing her hands together as if washing them.
                 "It's
so quiet," she said. "So empty."
                 "I
certainly hope so," Carole said. "We're the only two who are supposed
to be here."
                 The
little convent was half empty even when all its residents were present. And
now, with St. Anthony's School closed for the coming week, the rest of the nuns
had gone home to spend Easter Week with brothers and sisters and parents. Even
those who might have stayed around the convent in past years had heard the
rumors that the undead might be moving this way, so they'd