He staggered toward the girls; blood was pouring from his forehead.
“Help me!” he cried again.
“No, no, oh, God, oh, no!” Sarah cried.
“Bitches! I’ll kill you!” Hanson roared.
Carly screamed; Sarah screamed. And the two were gone, racing away.
Milton Hanson came staggering on through the trees. And then Vickie realized that he saw her. He seemed to gain strength. There was a massive branch in his hand and he held it with a death grip. He was coming toward her, and he was going to bash her head in.
“There you are! You—there you are. God help me, I will make you pay!” he exclaimed.
She held no weapon; she wasn’t sure if she looked just as bloodied and torn apart herself.
She let out a cry; every bit of adrenaline in her came to the fore.
And she rushed toward him, using all her strength to shove him down. She was like a catapult, and when she hit him, it might have been comical. He staggered back and lost his grip of the branch. He went down as hard as a pile of bricks, his head cracking on a tree trunk as he fell.
He was out, she thought, looking at him. Out cold, like a prizefighter taken down with a surprise right hook to the jaw.
She gasped in a slew of air, stood over him a second and then looked for where the girls had gone.
Close, she was so close. She stepped over Milton. And there was a path. She went in the direction that the girls, Carly and Sarah, had gone.
It would lead, she was certain, to the old insane asylum. And once she was there, she would find Alex, and she would learn if Helena was, by any prayer, still alive.
She started to move. It wasn’t much of a path, but she could begin to make out the fact that it had been used often enough lately. It meandered through the rich growth of trees and seemed to elevate as she kept moving. At one time, she thought, she would have been leaving the valley below; she would have been heading up a slope.
Then suddenly, there was a break in the trees; an expanse appeared before her. Bushes and brush had grown about haphazardly, but she had reached what had once been a yard...some kind of a garden or a patio.
What had probably once been a garden table had been draped in black fabric and adorned with black candles. Around it, the trees, as well, had been dressed with skulls—from rams, or goats, she believed.
Real skulls.
Torches were stuck into the ground; fires burned already.
And on the stone garden table, shimmering in the torch light, was a knife. A large, curved knife.
A sacrificial knife!
Vickie held fast where she was, trying to judge where people were.
She was here! She had found it. And she was, of course, an idiot if she tried to go into any of the decaying buildings to find Alex or Helena on her own. She had to get back. If she could just find the road she had come from, Griffin and Rocky and a score of officers would be there.
She barely stopped herself from crying out as a door to the building opened, and people emerged.
They were wearing long red robes, and conical hats, and had red scarf-like face masks that fell from the hats, leaving nothing but their eyes visible. She couldn’t help but think that they resembled a flock of blood-drenched KKK members, the apparel was so similar—other than the color.
Two emerged from the building...
And then two more, dragging someone along behind them. Someone barely able to walk...
Alex!
For a moment she stood there, wishing that she’d gotten a branch and made sure that she’d bashed in Milton Hanson’s head. He was the leader here. And whatever he had planned was for tonight—not tomorrow night!
Hanson! He’d been coming out here...for how long? Years—thirty years? Would they find that they had been blind for too long, and that Hanson had been killing and killing and killing?
Well, she’d hit him pretty good. But his followers were all here, without him, getting ready...
Two more of the figures came out of the building. They were also in the crazy red costumes. And they were half leading, half carrying a woman. A blonde woman...
But not the woman from Vickie’s dreams.
Vickie didn’t know her, but she had seen her picture often enough.
It was Helena Matthews.
Vickie forced herself to remain still. The two were led out to the garden table.
The sacrificial table!
They were being forced down upon it.
Vickie’s breath caught in her throat. It wasn’t so much a matter of force. The two were so weak they obeyed. They needed help, even, to obey. They appeared to be half dead already.
Drugged? What was it?
Helena lay, faceup, in one direction. Alex lay, faceup, in the other. One of the red-cloaked thugs picked up the sacrificial knife.
Vickie’s heart seemed to stand still. She tried to tell herself that they were just being prepared for the rite.
The rite that couldn’t take place now, because Milton Hanson had gotten hurt. He wasn’t there to conduct the rite. They would just be prepping...
One of them was behind the altar. He had the knife, the giant knife.
Vickie had to do something. There wasn’t time to wait. She backed against the tree, trying to think, trying to breathe. And then one of the girls she had seen earlier stepped by her. She was making her own way through the trees, trying not to be seen.
It was the very scared one named Carly.
Vickie crept up behind her, praying that she had what it took to make her plan work.
She caught the girl from behind, forcefully grabbing her, a hand over her mouth.
“You failed your master, but you can live. Help is coming. The law is coming. You can survive. You have to get the hell out of here, do you hear me?”
The girl nodded, swallowing hard.
“They’ll come with guns, so you need to be far away. Take this trail, until you’re out—far, far from here. Do you understand me?”
“Yes.”
“First, I need one of those.” And Vickie pointed.
The girl nodded strenuously. Vickie eased her hold and Carly turned to her. “My...my cloak is in the building. You’re...you’re her. You’re the true messenger. You know where Jehovah is.”
“Yes, actually, I think I do,” Vickie said.
“You can’t go in. Everyone has seen pictures of you. I’ll... I’ll get a cloak.”
The girl was shaking.
Vickie knew that it could go either way.
The girl could bring her out a cloak.
Or she could bring all the cultists down upon her.
But she couldn’t wait. Alex and Helena already lay on a table.
“Get me a cloak. Please.”
She prayed that she knew what she was doing.
16
Griffin cursed, wondering how the day had gone so quickly.
It wasn’t dark; darkness was still more than an hour away.
But here, around the Quabbin, the towering trees created shadowed canopies that seemed to rule even the light of day.
It was easy enough to find the road, and then the crossroad, where Devin and Vickie had been headed.
Griffin was in front, running, leaving Rocky to organize, to meet up with the others, to follow as silently as they could, lest they be seen, lest their arrival cause the high priest to demand instant sacrifice from those who served him.
It was a terrible, anguishing dilemma. They had to be so careful.
He followed what remained of the road; it disappeared into the trees.
He could hear a rush of water, and the thought that they were very near the reservoir, or one of the little streams leading to it.
The road was gone, but it seemed that a path remained. He hurried—as quietly as he could—along the path. And then he nearly tripped over a body.
He dropped down on his knees.
Yes, a body, lying prone on the pine needles. Griffin hunkered down, quickly trying to ascertain if the person was dead or alive.
It was a man. He quickly realized that it was Isaac Sherman.
Griffin felt for a pulse. The others were behind him, but Isaac seemed to need help—now. He’d been bashed hard on the head.
Blood dripped down his forehead.
He pulled out his phone, praying it worked out here. A signal! He spoke rapidly.