“The time for what?”
“For Satan’s time on earth. The high priest feels that they are close. They are waiting for just a few more details. But...oh, God!”
“What?”
“She’s...gone. It’s ahead of me. The inverted cross...and there’s a woman. She’s hanging upside down—and...the blood. The blood is coming from her throat. There’s so much of it. It’s running into the river and the lake and...”
Vickie sat up abruptly. She was shaking.
Griffin quickly pulled her into his arms.
“What?” he asked softly. “What was ahead? Why is it that you stop every time you come to this point? There can’t be that much blood, Vickie.”
She looked at him, her eyes wide.
“I think,” Vickie said softly, “I think that I stop because...because it’s me. I’m the woman on the inverted cross, and the blood that is flowing everywhere... Griffin! It’s my blood.”
11
The town of Barre was charming, Vickie thought. It was along the Mohawk Trail, part of a meandering journey that went through some of the most beautiful countryside to be found anywhere.
The town common was certainly one of the loveliest she’d ever seen and the picturesque bed-and-breakfast they had chosen—an early Victorian manor that bordered the common—was a stunning display of architecture, as well.
They were just sixty-one miles west of Boston, which, of course, made it a growing “bedroom” community. It was just about twenty miles from the city of Worcester, and part of Worcester County, making it even more of a bedroom community.
Once, it had been part of the northern area of Rutland, another area known for exceptional geography.
“Imagine this place when all the leaves change color!” Devin said, echoing thoughts Vickie hadn’t voiced. “I’ve never been out here in the fall—actually, I’ve barely been out here ever.”
“I’ll bet it is beautiful,” Vickie said, smiling. “I haven’t been out here in that season, either. Then again, most of New England is seriously beautiful in fall. And nice in summer, too.”
Devin laughed softly. “And hell in winter.”
But it was a beautiful summer’s day. They stood outside, just waiting for Griffin and Rocky to come out; they were bringing in the luggage and chatting with the sweet, elderly woman who was their hostess at the bed-and-breakfast, a place she had dubbed Common Court.
Dylan and Darlene had already taken off on foot, determined to understand the town and listen for whatever gossip they could come across.
Darlene had died by drowning, the first victim of the Undertaker. There was no way she wanted to visit the Quabbin, the Massachusetts man-made giant lake and reservoir.
Quite understandable.
The rest of them were ready to head out to meet up with the police divers.
For the general public, diving in the Quabbin was not permitted. In fact, doing so could get one arrested, facing serious charges.
The men appeared at the front door, still speaking with Mrs. McFall, their octogenarian hostess.
Vickie and Devin waved; she smiled and waved in return, and went into the house. Rocky and Griffin came down the stairs.
“Flirting, were you?” Devin teased Rocky.
“She’s a fascinating woman,” Griffin said. “I was flirting—at least a little. She gave us something very important.”
“Oh? What was that?”
“About a year or so ago, she had a guest, a young woman. She was just with her for a night, signed in as Nell Patton,” Rocky said.
“When she checked out,” Griffin continued, “she forgot one of her bags. It was just a little toiletries bag, but our Mrs. McFall is a good woman. She tried to reach Nell so that she could return the bag. She was never able to get in touch. Apparently, the phone number Nell gave her was written hastily—and it was missing a number. And—she has a real sign-in book, the kind with which you actually use a pen!—the address she wrote is illegible. She’s going to find the old book and show it to us.”
“But did she hear anything that might suggest something bad had happened to Nell?” Vickie asked.
“She spoke to Wendell Harper—Detective Barnes’s friend out here with the state police,” Griffin said. “He made an inquiry, but there wasn’t really much he could do. There was no sign of foul play, no one knew how to find Nell...and it all just dropped.”
“But you think that something bad happened to her?” Devin asked.
“I think that we’re possibly looking at a number of people who are a) dead, or b) part of the cult. We know that there are followers—Darryl Hillford and our girl Gloria were definitely part of the cult. So, yes, I think this woman was part of the cult or possibly came to harm at the hands of the cult. Which, I don’t know. But Wendell Harper is one of the men who is going to meet us by the Quabbin. We’ll have a chance to talk to him,” Griffin said.
“Then we should go.”
“This is actually an intriguing place when you’re talking about people coming and going,” Rocky said, once they had all slid into the car.
This time, he and Devin were in the back.
Griffin was driving; Vickie was staring ahead at the scenery.
She turned to look at Rocky. “Because tourists come through for the natural beauty, the Mohawk Trail and the Quabbin itself?”
Rocky nodded. “There’s a lot of space up here.”
“And an interesting situation,” Vickie said. She half turned in her seat to address them all. “When they determined through whatever legal machination one actually uses that they would flood the valley and create the Quabbin, they immediately set about clearing the ground, and leveling the towns that had to be destroyed to create the reservoir,” she said.
“Creepy!” Devin said.
“I thought so when I was a kid and first learned about it,” Vickie said. “It was built between 1930 and 1939 and four towns were basically destroyed for it—Dana, Prescott, Greenwich and Enfield.”
“She knows that,” Devin said, shaking her head. “She just knows that!”
Vickie laughed. “I am good with dates and all that, but I also just looked up a lot of this stuff when I first started reading about Ezekiel Martin. Anyway, when I was a kid, I thought that they just flooded whole towns with all the buildings standing—that wasn’t the case. They were torn down. You can maybe find roads and some foundations under the water, but Massachusetts did a pretty good job of tearing everything down, doing some burning...ridding it of the vestiges of dry life!” she said. “It is fascinating. There’s a bunch of videos on it—one that’s really good is called ‘Under the Quabbin’ by PBS. They can find shards of pottery, steps, bits of daily life, as in old prescription or liquor bottles or the like, but not much else.”
“What did they do with the dead people?” Devin asked.
“The dead people!” Rocky said.
“Yes! Old Massachusetts towns. There had to have been a lot of dead people!” Devin said.
“Quabbin Park Cemetery,” Vickie said. “It’s actually very cool. Okay, I don’t remember exact numbers on this, but over seventy-five hundred graves were moved from I think thirty-four cemeteries for eight towns—sometimes, you might not lose the town, but you might lose the cemetery! So, all those graves were moved. You can get to the entrance by Route 9, in Ware. Not far at all—we can go!” she said.
“And I do want to go there,” Devin said.
“Me, too,” Vickie agreed. “Of course, even if everything hadn’t been disturbed—torn down and dug up—for the Quabbin, nature takes a toll, the same way progress and populations do. There are many areas where you’ll see a cemetery and people basically respecting the cemetery when—in a city—it originally extended over the road, as well, and people are walking or driving over graves all the time. But I do believe that they tried very hard to see that when graveyards were going to be flooded, the known dead were reburied or reinterred.”