Midnight Mass by F. Paul Wilson

Author:F. Paul Wilson
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Vampires, New Jersey, Horror, Fiction - Horror, New York (N.Y.), Fiction, Rabbis, Horror - General, Clergy, Horror fiction, General
ISBN: 9780765346346
Publisher: Macmillan
Published: 2005-11-01T05:00:00+00:00

"Will you help me clean up?"

Carl looked around and seemed to see the cadavers for the first time. He cringed

and turned a few shades paler.

"Yeah . . . sure. Anyting."

Joe looked at Zev. "Well? What do you think?"

Zev shrugged. "I should tell you what to do? My parish it's not."

"Not mine either."

Zev jutted his beard at Carl. "I think maybe he'd tell you differently."

Joe did a slow turn. The vaulted nave was utterly silent except for the

buzzing of the flies around the cadavers. A massive clean-up job. But if they

worked all day they could make a decent dent in it. And then

. And then what?

Joe didn't know. He was playing this by ear. He'd wait and see what the

night brought.

"Can you get us some food, Carl? I'd sell my soul for a cup of coffee."

Carl gave him a strange look.

"Just a figure of speech, Carl. We'll need some food if we're going to

keep working."

The man's eyes lit again.

"Dat means ya staying?"

"For a while."

"I'll getcha some food," he said excitedly as he ran for the door. "An'

coffee. I know someone who's still got coffee. She'll part wit' some of it for

Fadda Joe." He stopped at the door and turned. "Ay, an' Fadda, I neva believed

any a dem tings dat was said aboutcha. Neva."

Joe tried but he couldn't hold it back.

"It would have meant a lot to have heard that from you last year,

Carl."

The man lowered his eyes. "Yeah. I guess it woulda. But I'll make it up

ya, Fadda. I will. You can take dat to da bank."

Then he was out the door and gone. Joe turned to Zev and saw the old

man rolling up his sleeves.

"Nu?" Zev said. "The bodies. Before we do anything else, I think maybe

we should move the bodies."

By early afternoon, Zev was exhausted. The heat and the heavy work had

taken their toll. He had to stop and rest. He sat on the chancel rail

and looked around. Nearly eight hours work and they'd barely scratched

the surface. But the place did look and smell better.

Removing the flyblown corpses and scattered body parts had been the worst

of it. A foul, gut-roiling task that had taken most of the morning.

They'd carried the corpses out to the small graveyard behind the church

and left them there. Those people deserved a decent burial but there was no time

for it today.

Once the corpses were gone, Father Joe had torn the defilements from the

statue of Mary and then they'd turned their attention to the huge crucifix. It

took a while but they finally found Christ's plaster arms in the pile of ruined

pews. They'd been still nailed to the sawn-off cross piece of the crucifix.

While Zev and Father Joe worked at jury-rigging a series of braces to reattach

the arms, Carl found a mop and bucket and F began the long, slow process of

washing the fouled floor of the nave.

Now the crucifix was intact again-the life-size plaster Jesus had his arms

reattached and was once again nailed to his refurbished cross.

Father Joe and Carl had restored him to his former position of domi

nance.

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