Rob Zombie - Lords of Salem

But Lacy had found the piece of mail she’d been looking for and had begun to tear it open. “Finally, took long enough,” she said. “Of course when they owe you money it takes forever.” Abruptly she stopped opening it, having realized that she’d been ignoring Heidi. “Huh? What were you saying, dear?”

“I was talking about the person in apartment five.”

“Apartment five?”

Heidi nodded.

Lacy shrugged. “I don’t know what you mean,” she said. “I hate to break it to you, but there is no person in apartment five.”

Heidi looked at her. Nobody in apartment five? But she had seen someone; she was sure of it. Was she wrong or was Lacy being cagey? Maybe Lacy was just confused by the question. Or maybe she herself was more hungover than she realized.

“Anything wrong, sweetie?” asked Lacy.

“Well, I definitely saw someone in there,” said Heidi. “But when I said hi, he slammed the door right in my face.”

Now it was Lacy’s turn to give her a long look.

“You sure?” she asked. “Honey, nobody’s even asked to see the place in a week.”

Steve, feeling it was past time for his walk, whined.

“I think so,” Heidi said. “Maybe…,” she started, but unable to figure out how to go on with it, she let the sentence trail off unfinished.

“It doesn’t make much sense, but I’ll check it out if it’ll make you feel better.”

Heidi nodded. “Thanks,” she said.

Steve barked, rubbing up against Lacy’s leg. Bending down, Lacy patted him on the back and addressed him in a baby voice.

“Good morning, handsome boy. How are you today? Did you get a good sleep last night?”

Heidi rolled her eyes. “All right,” she said. “Time to walk this handsome boy before he does some ugly business right here on the porch. Bye.”

Lacy smiled. “Have a good one.”

They started off but hadn’t gone more than a few steps when Steve wanted to stop and sniff the bushes. Heidi glanced back to see Lacy there, frozen in the act of locking her mailbox. She was staring up the stairs. There was something strange about the way she held herself. Then Lacy finished closing her mailbox and hurried into her apartment.

Chapter Ten

What is it I feel, Sister?” asked the first nun.

“It is the same that I feel,” said the second. “The time is coming.” She made a gesture as if to cross herself, but the symbol she made was different and more complex: the cross was there, but once she had made it, she topped it with an upward-curving semicircle and drew a downward curving semicircle through its base as well. So, a cross, but not a cross. A cross perverted into something else.

The other sister made the same gesture.

They knelt together in the back pew in the deserted Saint Peter’s church, in the darkest part. The nuns were both quite old. The portion of their heads and faces not hidden by the cowls of their habits seemed as wrinkled as dried apples, almost sexless. Their hands, resting against the backs of the pews in front of them, were bony and liver spotted and nearly translucent, quavering slightly.

“The time comes at last,” said the first nun. “And we shall embrace it.”

“Yes, we shall,” said the second nun. “The promised time has come and Salem shall be reclaimed.”

After a long moment, the first began to pray, a slow chant in what seemed at first nonsense. “Nema,” she said. “Reve rof d’na won sruoy…” The other nun joined in. “Era ylorg eh-t d’na…”

Had anyone been listening, it would only slowly have dawned on them that it was not nonsense after all but some language, even if an unfamiliar one. Someone paying very close attention might have eventually realized it was not an unfamiliar language at all but a familiar one turned on its head and running in reverse. From there it would be only a matter of time before they deciphered that what the nuns were doing was reciting the Lord’s Prayer backward.

They were interrupted by the appearance of a young priest beside them. He stood there with his hands clasped, smiling.

“Father,” said the first nun in a voice that was flat and neutral, nodding her head.

“Father,” said the second, imitating the tone of the first exactly.

“Sisters,” said the priest. “I don’t believe I’ve met either of you before. Am I mistaken? Are you newly arrived? Have you just been transferred to join us?”

“Not exactly,” said the first nun.

“We are from another… parish,” said the second nun.

“We are just passing through,” said the first. “A little traveling.”

The priest nodded. “You are most welcome,” he said. “If I can be of service to you, please don’t hesitate to call upon me.”

Both nuns nodded. The priest stood there a little longer, waiting for them to speak, then after a moment wandered away. They watched him go, following him with narrowed eyes down the aisle. Once he was out of earshot, they began to pray again, continuing their act of desecration.

“I feel him,” said the first nun.

“Who?” said the second nun. “Mather?”

“Hawthorne,” said the first. “Though he has been dead these many years, I feel him.”

“It is not he whom you feel,” said the second, “but his kin. His blood.”

The first nun nodded. “His blood still beats within her veins.”

“But the time is coming,” said the second.

“The time is coming,” the first agreed.

They traced once again the symbol over their chests, then stood and left the pew. Leaning against one another, they hobbled their way down the aisle and toward the doors of the church.

“I feel him,” whispered the first nun, angrily. “I feel him.”

“We shall have our revenge,” said the first. “And it shall be sweet.”

And then they were out of the church and in the morning sun. They stood on the steps, sniffing the air.

“There,” said the first nun. “There he is.”

“Yes,” said the second. “I can feel him. I can smell him.”

Halfway down the narrow, redbrick sidewalk was a woman in a faux fur coat, leading a large Labrador retriever. She had stopped to let the dog sniff a lamppost. She was looking idly around, her eyes wandering. After a moment she tugged on the leash, but the dog braced its paws. It wasn’t ready to be pulled away.

Her gaze was slowly drawn to the nuns. They stood there on the steps, motionless, their habits blowing in the wind.

“He sees us,” the first nun said.

“No,” the second nun said. “It is Hawthorne’s blood but it is not Hawthorne. It is a she. And she does not know what she sees.”

The first nun nodded. “She will not know what she sees until it is too late.”

Chapter Eleven

The large African American man stood on the front steps of the apartment trying to stop himself from pacing. He was dressed in a way that made him stand out from other residents of Salem, that made him seem like a throwback to the seventies. He wore glittering white Adidas shoes, a black-ribbed T-shirt, and a white-leather suit coat. His pants were white as well, tight-fitting slacks that looked like they’d been tailored to fit him. He was in his late fifties, but still relatively fit. He took a cigar out of his coat pocket, stared at it, then put it away again. A moment later he had it out again and had bitten off the ends and was lighting it.

Might as well enjoy myself if I have to wait, he thought, puffing on the cigar and turning it in the flame until the tip glowed evenly. Where is she? he wondered. Late again. He tried not to worry about Heidi. When he’d knocked on the door, nobody had answered and that’d made him a little anxious, but Steve hadn’t barked, which meant wherever she was she was out with Steve. Which meant the chances that she’d started using again and hadn’t come home the night before were slim to none. She was okay, he was pretty sure, but he couldn’t help but worry about her, because he’d seen how bad things had gotten for her last time. He didn’t ever want her to go through something like that again. But he also didn’t want to have to be the one to pull her out the next time; once was enough. He’d been happy to do it, happy to be there for her, but it’d been hard on both of them, and the way she’d cursed him out when she realized he was going to check her into the clinic, well, that just wasn’t something easy to forget. He’d put his own job on the line convincing the station to hire her back, which was why he made a point of picking her up and getting her to work on time, of making sure she didn’t start fucking up again.