Read Online F Paul Wilson - Novel 10 by Midnight Mass (v2.1) - Free Book Online

Carole's hands with painful
intensity and loosed a torrent of her own words. "Carole, get out! Get
out, oh, please, for the love of God, get out now! There's not much of me left
in here, and soon I'll be like the ones that killed me and I'll be after
killing you! So run, Carole! Hide! Lock yourself in the chapel downstairs but
get away from me now!"
                 Carole
knew now what had been missing from Bernadette's voice—her brogue. But now it
was back. This was the real Bernadette speaking. She was back! Her friend, her
sister was back! Carole bit back a sob.
                 "Oh, Bern , I can help! I can—"
                 Bernadette
pushed her toward the door. "No one can help me, Carole!"
                 She
ripped the makeshift bandage from her neck, exposing the jagged, partially
healed wound and the ragged ends of the torn blood vessels within it.
"It's too late for me, but not for you. They're a bad lot and I'll be one
of them again soon, so get out while you—"
                 Suddenly
Bernadette stiffened and her features shifted. Carole knew immediately that the
brief respite her friend had stolen from the horror that gripped her was over.
Something else was back in command.
                 Carole
turned and ran.
                 But
the Bernadette-thing was astonishingly swift. Carole had barely reached the
threshold when a steel-fingered hand gripped her upper arm and yanked her back,
nearly dislocating her shoulder. She cried out in pain and terror as she was
spun about and flung across the room. Her hip struck hard against the rickety
old spindle chair by her desk, knocking it over as she landed in a heap beside
it.
                 Carole
groaned with the pain. As she shook her head to clear it, she saw Bernadette
approaching, her movements swift, more assured now, her teeth bared—so many
teeth, and so much longer than the old Bernadette's—her fingers curved,
reaching for Carole's throat. With each passing second there was less and less
of Bernadette about her.
                 Carole
tried to back away, her frantic hands and feet slipping on the floor as she
pressed her spine against the wall. She had nowhere to go. She pulled the
fallen chair atop her and held it as a shield against the Bernadette-thing. The
face that had once belonged to her dearest friend grimaced with contempt as she
swung her hand at the chair. It scythed through the spindles, splintering them
like matchsticks, sending the carved headpiece flying. A second blow cracked
the seat in two. A third and fourth sent the remnants of the chair hurtling to
opposite sides of the room.
                 Carole
was helpless now. All she could do was pray.
                 "Our
Father, who art—"
                 "Too
late for that to help you now, Carole!" she rasped, spitting her name.
                 "...
hallowed be Thy Name ..." Carole said, quaking in terror as frigid undead
fingers closed on her throat.
                 And
then the Bernadette-thing froze, listening. Carole heard it too. An insistent
tapping. On the window. The creature turned to look, and Carole followed her
gaze.
                 A
face was peering through the glass.
                 Carole
blinked but it didn't go away. This was the second floor! How—?
                 And
then a second face appeared, this one upside down, looking in from the top of
the window. And then a third, and a fourth, each more bestial than the last.
And as each appeared it began to tap its fingers and knuckles on the window
glass.
                 "NO!"
the Bernadette-thing screamed at them. "You can't come in! She's mine! No
one touches her but me!"
                 She
turned back to Carole and smiled, showing those teeth that had never fit in
Bernadette's mouth. "They can't cross a threshold unless invited in by one
who lives