F Wilson - Midnight Mass

And maybe he'd get real lucky. Maybe she'd get pregnant before he turned her in.

"Well... all right," he said, trying to sound reluctant. "Bring her out where I can see her."

"She's home asleep."

"Alone?" Al was like immediately pissed. He already considered that kid his property. He didn't want no bloodsucker sneaking in and robbing him of what was rightfully his. "What if—?"

"Don't worry. I've got her surrounded by crosses."

"Still, you never know." He paused, thinking. "Here's the deal. I got food but I got this tiny little rundown place that ain't fit for the cockroaches that live there. Maybe I could like spend some time at your place. That way I could guard you and your kid from those cowboys. They'd love nothing better'n hauling a little kid into the bloodsuckers."

Did that sound concerned enough?

A hand flew to her mouth. "Oh dear!" Her voice softened. "You must be a good man."

"Oh, I'm the best," he said.

And I've got this friend behind my fly who's just dying to meet you.

"I'll show you my place," she said. "It's not much but there's room for you."

Yeah, babe. Right on top of you.

She got in the car and directed him to the corner and around to the middle of the next block to an old two-story colonial set back among some tall oaks on an overgrown lot. He nodded with growing excitement when he saw a child's red wagon parked against the front steps.

"You live here? Hell, I musta passed this place a couple of times already today."

"Really?" she said. "We usually stay hidden in the basement."

"Good thinkin."

He followed her up the steps and through the front door. Inside there was a couple of candles burning but the heavy drapes hid them from outside.

"Lynn's sleeping upstairs," she said. "I'll just run up and check on her."

Al watched her black-stockinged legs hungrily as she bounded up the bare wooden stairway, taking the steps two at a time. He adjusted his jeans for a little more comfort. Man, he was hard as a rock. Couldn't wait to get her out of that miniskirt and himself into—

And then it hit him: Why wait till she came back down? What was he doing standing around down here when he could be upstairs getting himself a preview of what was to come?

"Yoo-hoo," he said softly as he put his foot on the first step. "Here comes Daddy."

But the first step wasn't wood. Wasn't even a step. His foot went right through it, like it was made of cardboard or something. As Al looked down in shock he saw that it was made of cardboard—painted cardboard. His brain was just forming the question Why? when a sudden blast of pain like he'd never known in his whole life shot up his leg from just above the ankle.

He screamed, lunged back, away from the false step, but the movement tripled his agony. He clung to the newel post like a drunk, weeping and moaning for God knew how long, until the pain eased for a second. Then slowly, gingerly, accompanied by the metallic clanking of uncoiling chain links, he lifted his leg out of the false tread.

Al let loose a stream of curses through his pain-clenched teeth when he saw the bear trap attached to his leg. Its sharp, massive steel teeth had sunk themselves deep into the flesh of his lower leg.

But fear began to worm through the all-enveloping haze of his agony.

The bitch set me up!

Kenny had wanted to find the guys who were killing the cowboys. But now Al had done just that, and it scared him shitless. What a dumbass he was. Baited by a broad—the oldest trick in the book.

Gotta get outta here!

He lunged for the door but the chain caught and brought him up short with a blinding blaze of agony so intense his scream damn near shredded his vocal cords. He toppled to the floor and lay there whimpering like a kicked dog until the pain became bearable again.

Where were they? Where were the rest of the cowboy killers? Upstairs, laughing as they listened to him howl? Waiting until he wore himself out so he'd be easy pickings?

He'd show them.

Al pulled himself to a sitting position and reached for the trap. He tried to spread its jaws but they were locked tight on his leg. He wrapped his hand around the chain and tried to yank it free from where it was fastened below but it wouldn't budge.

Panic began to grip him now. Its icy fingers were tightening on his throat when he heard a sound on the stairs. He looked up and saw her.

A nun.

He blinked and looked again.

Still a nun. He squinted and saw that it was the broad who'd led him in here. She was wearing a bulky sweater and loose slacks, and all the makeup had been scrubbed off her face, but he knew she was a nun by the thing she wore on her head: a white band up front with a black veil trailing behind.

And suddenly, amid the pain and panic, Al was back in grammar school, back in St. Mary's before he got expelled, and Sister Margaret was coming at him with her ruler, only this nun was a lot younger than Sister Margaret, and that was no ruler she was carrying, that was a baseball bat—an aluminum baseball bat.

He looked around. Nobody else, just him and the nun.

"Where's the rest of you?"

"Rest?" she said.

"Yeah. The others in your gang. Where are they?"

"There's only me."

She was lying. Had to be. One crazy nun killing all those cowboys? No way! But still he had to get out of here. He tried to crawl across the floor but the fucking chain wouldn't let him.

"You're makin a mistake!" he cried. "I ain't one a them!"

"Oh, but you are," she said, coming down the stairs.

"No. Really. See?" He touched his right ear lobe. "No earring."

"Maybe not now, but you had one earlier." She stepped over the gaping opening of the phony tread and circled to his left.

"When? When?"

"When you drove by earlier today. You told me so yourself."

"I lied!"

"No, you didn't. But I lied. I wasn't in the basement. I was watching through the window. I saw you and your three friends in that car." Her voice suddenly became cold and brittle and sharp as a straight razor. "And I saw that poor woman you had with you. Where is she now? What did you do with her?"

She was talking through her teeth now, and the look in her eyes, the strained pallor of her face had Al ready to pee his pants. He wrapped his arms around his head as she stepped closer with the bat.

"Please!" he wailed.

"What did you do with them?"

"Nothin!"

"Lie!"

She swung the bat, but not at his head. Instead she slammed it with a heavy metallic clank against the jaws of the trap. As he screamed with the renewed agony and his hands automatically reached for his injured leg, Al realized that she must have done this sort of thing before. Because now his head was completely unprotected and she was already into a second swing. And this one was aimed much higher.

CAROLE . . .

Sister Carole looked down at the unconscious man with the bleeding head and trapped, lacerated leg. She sobbed.

"I know," she said aloud.

She was so tired. She'd have liked nothing better now than to go upstairs and cry herself to sleep. But she couldn't spare the time. Every moment counted now.

She tucked her feelings—her mercy, her compassion—into the deepest, darkest pocket of her being, where she couldn't see or hear them, and got to work.

The first thing she did was tie the cowboy's hands good and tight behind his back. Then she got a washcloth from the downstairs bathroom, stuffed it in his mouth, and secured it with a tie of rope around his head. That done, she grabbed the crowbar and the short length of two-by-four from where she kept them on the floor of the hall closet; she used the bar to pry open the jaws of the bear trap and wedged the two-by-four between them to keep them open. Then she worked the cowboy's leg free. He groaned a couple of times during the process but he never came to.