F. Paul Wilson - Reborn

The thought was chilling. This was becoming a paranoid nightmare.

"Here," Bill said, dropping to her side. "Let me finish those."

Carol noticed that his hands were shaking too. She resisted the urge to claw at his face as he worked on Jonah's knots. These irrational bursts of hatred for Bill—she didn't understand them, but she wouldn't let them control her. She would dominate them. She would learn to control everything in her life now.

She stood and walked to the bay window to stare out at the clearing sky. She felt as if she were in the center of a great whirlwind, and she desperately wished she knew which way to turn, where to go. The sun was low, shining through a break in the clouds on the horizon. The air was cold again. She clutched her arms across her chest and tried to rub away the chill.

And suddenly felt her blood freeze.

23

As he loosened the last of the knots that bound Jonah Stevens, Bill heard a low moan, a tragic mixture of shock and pain. He glanced up and saw Carol standing by the bay window. Her back was to him and she was swaying back and forth, as if she were standing on the deck of a ship in a storm.

"Carol? Are you all right?"

He saw her stiffen. She turned to him, her hands thrust stiffly into the pockets of her sundress, her face a deathly white.

"No," she said in a soft, hoarse voice. "I may never be all right again."

She looked as if she were about to keel over any minute. He rushed to her side and took her arm.

"Here. Sit down."

She shook off his hand, then lowered herself to the window seat where she sat with her shoulders hunched, trembling. She looked up at him; her attempt at a smile was awful.

"I'm okay," she said.

Bill didn't believe her, so he went to the phone and lifted the receiver.

"What do you think you're doing?" Jonah said in a low voice.

"Calling the police."

Bill saw a look pass between Carol and Jonah. What had they been whispering about while she'd been working on his knots?

"I don't think that's such a good idea," Carol said.

Bill didn't want to argue with her. He too was shaking all over, inside and out. He had seen things today he never would be able to explain, had never dreamed possible. He needed the police here to impose some order, some semblance of a sane reality.

He put the receiver to his ear. There was no dial tone.

"Line's dead, anyway," Bill said. "But what's wrong with the police?"

"They might be involved."

That was preposterous. "I can't—"

"Bill, will you drive us to the airport?"

"Who?"

"Jonah and me. I've got to hide for now. It's the only way I can be sure of being safe, of saving my baby."

"I can help her disappear," Jonah said.

He glanced at Jonah and saw him nodding. He remembered the complete lack of emotion as his wife was murdered before his eyes. The man was a snake! Bill couldn't let Carol go with him.

"No! It's crazy! This can all be straightened out! The police can round up these nuts and—"

"Jonah can drive me," she said, "or I can drive myself. But I'm going now, and I'd like you to come along. I may never see you again."

Bill stared at Carol. She had changed. Whatever iron had been scattered through her personality in the past had been drawn together and tempered to a solid, steely core by what had happened to her today. Her eyes looked out at him with unswayable determination. He felt so damn helpless !

Bill forced the words out. "Okay. I'll drive you."

Maybe he could change her mind on the way.

24

Carol faced Bill at the Eastern Airlines gate.

"Time to go," she said.

She felt scared and alone. Jonah was going to be with her, but that was like being alone. Yet she could see no other way. Head south where things weren't so organized, get lost in between the small towns—that was the plan.

"Will you be all right?" Bill said, his eyes searching her face.

She hid her real feelings from him. He had been trying to talk her out of this since they had left Monroe, but she had no choice. She had to go.

"I think so. We'll buy a car once we reach Atlanta, then we'll drive off. I suppose we can be easily traced as far as Atlanta. After that, Jonah promises we'll be almost impossible to find."

And that was just what she wanted right now. She was going to have her baby and raise him in peace and quiet. And no one was going to stop her.

She watched Bill glance over to where Jonah was standing by the ramp, waiting to board with her. When Bill looked back at her, his expression was stricken, his eyes full of foreboding.

"I don't trust him, Carol," he said in a low voice. "He's hiding something. Don't go with him."

"I have to, Bill." She didn't particularly trust Jonah herself but knew he would protect her and the baby.

"Does he know what he's doing?"

"I think so. I hope so."

She saw Bill's hands curl into fists of frustration as he said, "God, I wish there was something I could do!"

They stood in silence for a moment, then Bill spoke in an even lower voice. He seemed to fumble for the words.

"Carol… what happened back at the Hanley place?"

She did her best to keep her expression neutral, blocking out the horrors of the afternoon. She'd work them out later.

"You know," she said. "You were there."

"Emma was dead, Carol. As dead as can be. I know. I sat there looking at her unblinking eyes and her motionless chest before they covered her up. Yet she got up and killed two people."

"Then I guess she wasn't dead."

She knew how cold that sounded, but she couldn't help it. This was the only way she could deal with any of what had happened and what might yet come.

"She was dead , Carol. But she got up and saved you and your baby from your aunt. That wasn't Emma in Emma's body. It was someone else— something else. What's going on here?"

Something wants to kill my baby; and something else is trying to protect it!

This was the first time she had allowed the idea to put itself into words, and the bald truth of it terrified her. But the truth was there, staring at her, and she had to face it.

And she had to choose sides.

There was a monstrous struggle going on, and she seemed to be at the heart of it. She dreaded the thought of which side of that struggle might be protecting her child. But no matter what the nature of her ally, there was no question with which side she would align herself.

She would choose for her baby, now and forever.

"I don't know what's going on, Bill. All I know is that my baby was threatened, and now he's been saved. That's all I care about at the moment."

"I care about that too," he said. "But I've got to know more." Another glance over his shoulder at Jonah. "I bet he knows more than he's saying."

"Maybe he does. Maybe he'll tell me." Although she wasn't sure she wanted to know.

"We're being used," Bill said suddenly.

Carol didn't let him see that she instantly knew exactly what he meant.

She said, "I don't understand."

"Jim, you, me, Grace, Emma, that monk, even Jonah over there—I don't know it but I feel it: We've all been used like pawns in some sort of game. And the game's not over yet."

"No," she said with leaden certainty. "It's not."

Suddenly she felt another of those inexplicable bursts of rage at him. Run out of facile rationalizations, smart ass ? The words very nearly escaped her before she bit them back.

The loudspeaker announced the last call for passengers to board the Eastern flight to Atlanta.

"Gotta go," she said quickly, forcing good feelings for Bill to the surface. "Tell the police whatever you know, or as much as you dare."