F. Paul Wilson - Reborn

She looked around the vestibule. To her left was the baptismal font and, to the right, the stairway to the choir loft. During seventh and eighth grades she had sung in the choir every Sunday at the nine a.m. children's Mass.

She shivered. Her hair and bare shoulders still dripped with rain and her wet sundress clung to her like an ill-fitting second skin.

She opened the door and stepped into the nave. As she walked up the center aisle, the rapid-fire lightning flashes from the storm illuminated the stained-glass windows, strobing bright patterns of colored light across the pews and the altar, almost like one of those psychedelic light shows that were so popular with the acid heads.

Thunder shook the building again and again as she walked about two thirds of the way to the altar and slipped into a pew. She knelt and buried her face in her hands to shut out the lightning. Questions kept echoing through her mind: How was she going to do this alone? How was she going to raise this baby without Jim?

You are not!

Her head snapped up. The words startled her. Who… ?

She hadn't really heard them. They hadn't been spoken. They had sounded in her mind. Yet she glanced around the church anyway. She was alone. The only other human figures present were the life-size statues of the Virgin Mary standing in the alcove by the pulpit to the left of the altar, her foot crushing the serpent of Satan; over on the right, the crucified Christ.

For a heart-stopping instant, out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw Christ's thorn-crowned head move, but when she looked again, straight on, it seemed unchanged. Just a trick of the flashing light from the storm.

Suddenly she felt a change in the empty church. The atmosphere had been open and accepting when she had entered; now she sensed an air of burgeoning unwelcomeness, of outright hostility.

And she felt hot. The chill from her rain-soaked sundress was gone, replaced by a growing sensation of heat. Her skin felt scorched, scalded.

A sound like cracking wood startled her. She looked around, but because of the way sound echoed through the wide-open nave and across the vaulted ceiling, it seemed to come from all sides. Then the pew shifted under her. Frightened, she stumbled out into the aisle. The cracking sounds began to boom around her, louder than ever. The creaks, the groans, the screams of tortured wood filled the air. She watched the pews begin to shift, to twist, to warp and writhe as if in agony.

Suddenly the pew she had just vacated buckled and split lengthwise along the seat with a sound like a cannon shot. All around her the other pews began to crack in a deafening fusillade. Fighting the trapped, panicky feeling, she clapped her hands over her ears against the roar and staggered in a slow circle. In the flickering, kaleidoscopic light, splinters flew into the air as the pews cracked and pulled loose from the marble floor.

And she was hot! So hot ! A mist rose before her eyes. She looked at her arms and saw tendrils of smoke curling, twisting, rising from her wet skin. Her whole body was steaming!

The flickering light, the rumble of the thunder, the screams of the tortured wood—it all seemed centered on her. She had to get out of here!

As she turned to run, she saw the head of the crucified Christ moving. Her knees went soft as she realized that this wasn't a trick of the light.

The statue had raised its head and was looking at her.

2

Curse this rain!

Jonah felt the balding tires slip on the old downtown trolley tracks as he guided his car toward the curb. He couldn't see where he was going. His wipers couldn't keep up with the downpour, and his huffing defogger labored in vain against the mist that blurred the sweating inner surface of his windshield.

He wiped a sleeve across the side window to clear it but that was no help. It was as if he'd driven into a gray, wet limbo. Outside, Monroe's shopping district was completely obscured by the mad torrent of water dropping from the sky. As rain and hail beat a manic tattoo on the roof, Jonah felt the first stirrings of fear. Something was happening. Somewhere nearby, the other side was doing something to her. Everything would be ruined if he didn't find her!

Where is she?

In desperation he pressed the heel of his palm over his good right eye, sealing out the light. He lifted the patch over his left.

Darkness. Some drifting afterimages on the right, but on the left only a formless void.

Well, what did he expect? The visions only came when they damn well pleased. And apparently whatever power he had was keeping to itself today. Today, of all days, when he needed it most! He swiveled his head left and right like a radar dish, hoping something would come, but—

Jonah froze. There, to the right. Uphill, away from the waterfront. He pulled off his right hand and saw only the fogged interior of the car. But when he covered it again…

A light.

Not a flashing beacon, not a bright spotlight. Just a pale glow in the sightless black. Jonah felt a burst of hope. It had to mean something! He put the car in gear and began to crawl through the deluge. At the first intersection he turned right and revved the engine uphill against the current. Every so often he would stop and cover his good eye. The glow was growing brighter as he moved. It was now ahead and to the left. He slowly continued to make his way up the slope, turning the car left and then right again, until the glow filled the void in his dead eye.

This is it!

He determined the position of the glow's center, flipped his patch down, and leapt from the car. Through the pelting rain he made out the looming stone-and-stucco front of the Catholic church.

Jonah froze at the curb. This couldn't be! The Church wasn't involved! It had no power—least of all over the One! What was happening here?

But the girl was inside, and with her, the One. And the One was in danger!

As Jonah started toward the church, the wind and hail doubled in fury, as if to keep him away. But he had to get inside. Something terrible was about to happen in there!

3

Christ stared—no, glared —at her from his cross. His eyes glowed with anger.

Carol's heart thudded against her chest wall. Her whole body trembled.

"This isn't happening!" she said aloud into the cacophony of rending wood, hoping the sound of her own voice would reassure her. It didn't. "This is another one of those dreams! It has to be! None of this is real!"

Movement drew her eyes to Christ's right hand. The fingers were flexing, the palm rocking on the spindle of the nail that pierced it. She saw the forearm muscles bulge with effort. But this was a wooden statue! Wooden muscles didn't bulge!

That proves this is a nightmare! Any minute I'll wake up!

For a moment she was transported to a more peaceful place by the thought of waking up next to Jim and finding that all the horrors of the past week had been just part of an awful dream. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

Blood began dripping from Christ's hand as he worked the nail free. It oozed down his palm in a rivulet and fell to the floor in long, slow, heavy drops.

Carol turned to run down the aisle when she noticed the statue of the Blessed Virgin looking at her. Tears streamed from her eyes. A voice sounded in Carol's head: Would you undo all He suffered for ?

This was madness! A fever dream! Someone must have slipped some LSD into her water carafe at the hospital!

Then she noticed movement at the blessed Mother's feet. The snake was moving, slithering free from beneath her crushing foot.

Would you set the Serpent free?

The snake slid off the pedestal and was out of sight for a moment. Then its thick, brown length appeared again at the chancel rail, coiling up a baluster and then pausing at the top to stare at her with its glittering eyes.