F Wilson - Midnight Mass

He'll recognize me! This will ruin—

Wait. He won't recognize me.

Joe had forgotten momentarily how his face had been disfigured by the sun. Easy to forget when you'd never seen it, when mirrors gave back only a smeary blur.

"What the fuck is this?" the Vichy said, stepping up to the open driver window and leveling his semiautomatic at Joe. "Who are you and what the fuck you think you're—shit! What happened to your face?"

That voice ... Joe remembered it taunting him in the long elevator ride to the Observation Deck.

I'm glad I ain't you. Holy shit, am I glad I ain't you.

"Good morning," Joe said. "Just waiting to pick up a friend. And the face? An industrial accident."

"Who gives a shit. What're you doin here, man? You think this is some kinda taxi stand?"

Joe turned his head and showed his right earlobe. He flicked the dangly earring. "Hey, I'm in the club."

"That don't mean shit. Who you waitin for?"

Joe cudgeled his brain for the name of this guy's buddy, the one in the suit who'd called him "god-boy."

"Barrett," he said as it came back to him. "He told me to meet him here at sundown."

The Vichy's eyes narrowed. "Barrett's on night duty with me. Should be here any minute." He pulled open Joe's door. "Let's go see about this."

As Joe stepped out of the car, he saw movement in Houlihan's over the Vichy's shoulder: Carole and Lacey leaving the kitchen.

Joe reached for the man's pistol and was surprised by how fast his hand moved. It darted out in a blur of motion; he grabbed the weapon and twisted it from his grasp. The Vichy jumped back with a shocked look and stared at his empty palm. Then he opened his mouth to shout but Joe's other hand reached his throat first, fingers gripping the nape of his neck while the thumb jammed against the windpipe. The man made a strangled sound. Joe pressed harder, hearing the cartilage crunch as it began to give way.

Stop, he told himself.

They'd decided no killing tonight, it might rile the Vichy too much, send them out hunting instead of staying close to Houlihan's and tomorrow's breakfast.

But this felt too, too good. And oh this man deserved dying for how he'd taunted him. Worse yet, he'd seen too much.

A crushed throat might raise too many alarms, though.

With a heave Joe lifted him off his feet and hurled him head first toward the sidewalk. The back of his skull hit the concrete with a meaty crunch; his arms stiffened straight out to either side, then fell limp beside him.

"Joseph?" It was Carole, stepping through the revolving door. She stared at the body with the blood pooling around its head. "What—?"

"Hey, Unk," Lacey said. "I thought we said—"

"In the car, both of you!" he snapped. "We've wasted too much time already!"

Their fault. If they hadn't dawdled so damn long inside, this wouldn't have happened.

The two women piled into the back seat as Joe slipped behind the wheel. He wanted to slam his foot against the accelerator and burn rubber out of here, but a quiet departure was best. When he reached Sixth he turned uptown one block, then raced east on Thirty-fifth. Mostly pubs and parking garages along this block. He pulled into a multi-level garage and parked far in the rear. If the Vichy went hunting for the thieves who stole their food and killed their man, they'd never expect them to hide just one block away.

As he shut off the engine he noticed a foul odor emanating from the back seat.

"What is that?" he said.

"Just some snack foods we picked up," Lacey said. "A pepperoni and what looks like provolone."

"The pepperoni—does it have garlic in it?"

"Probably, I—oops. Sorry about that."

"Throw it out."

"No way, Unk. We might never see another pepperoni again. But we'll eat it outside the car."

Joe was halfway turned around, ready to grab the damn pepperoni and shove it down her throat when he stopped himself.

He turned back and leaned his head against the steering wheel.

What's happening to me?

- 15 -

CAROLE. . . .

At dawn, and not a minute before, Joseph, Carole, and Lacey stepped out of the garage and started toward Fifth Avenue. The pistol in Carole's hand— Joseph had told her it was a 9mm Glock—felt heavy as it swung with her gait, muzzle toward the sidewalk.

They'd been waiting for Joseph when he awoke an hour ago. After Carole had fed him a few drops of her blood, they'd gone to work checking weapons and mentally preparing themselves for the coming ordeal.

While Joseph and Lacey had tinkered with their guns, Carole sidled off with her gear to a far corner of the garage to make her own preparations. In a little while they'd be entering the heart of darkness, with a fair chance of not coming out alive. Carole wasn't afraid of dying. It was undying that terrified her. So while Joseph and Lacey armed themselves from the collection of weapons confiscated along the way, Carole added extra precautions to guarantee she'd never be an undead: extra charges front and back, and extra triggers. If it came to the point where all hope was lost, she'd make her exit. But not alone.

If worse came to worst, she'd be risking eternal damnation to avoid undeath. Carole shuddered at the prospect. She'd been taught that suicide was a one-way ticket to hell, but she hoped and prayed that God would understand. Death before dishonor . . . death before undeath . . . surely that was the right thing to do.

And now they were on the street, heading toward . . . what?

"All right," Joseph said as they neared Fifth Avenue. He was walking between them. "This is it. We take it slow down to Thirty-fourth. If things went as planned we won't meet any resistance. If things didn't, well, we might have to fight to escape."

Carole knew all this but let him talk. She sensed an unusual tension in

Joseph. Was it because this was their D-Day, when all their planning and watching and waiting would either bring them success or death? Or was it something else?

He stopped them at Fifth and worked the slide on his gun.

"Ladies—time to lock and load."

Carole followed his example. The slide gave more resistance than she'd expected.

"Remember what I said," Joseph told them. "If anything happens to me, get out of town and do your best to reach unoccupied territory."

He leaned away and peered around the corner, then turned back to them and nodded.

"I think we're in business."

He motioned them to follow when Carole cleared the corner she saw what he meant. Down the gentle slope, past Thirty-Fourth Street, she spotted three still figures lying on the sidewalk under the Empire State Building's front canopy.

As they passed a smashed and looted Duane Reade, Houlihan's came into view. Writhing forms littered the sidewalk in front of it. One lay in the open doorway next to the revolving door. The odor of fresh coffee wafted across the street through the cool dawn air. On another day, in another place, the smell would have had her salivating, but right now her stomach had shrunk to a tight little knot the size of a walnut.

They crossed the street and now Carole could see the Vichy close up— their gray faces, their bloodshot eyes, their blue lips. She tensed and ducked into a half crouch as she caught movement to her right. One of the Vichy was convulsing on the sidewalk. Her first impulse was to run to his side and help him, but she suppressed it. She, after all, was the reason for his seizure.