“Angela is here,” Lois said curtly into the phone. “She isn’t herself.”
She clicked the cell phone shut and tossed it into the pocket of her robe.
The thing that had been Angela stood outside grinning. “Oh, I’m myself all right. I’m just better. I’m not the meek little girl who was always so desperate for daddy’s approval.”
She leaned forward until her face was up to the threshold. “It feels so good. No guilt, no pain. Just strength, power.”
Her face was back to normal now, and she smiled. If Lois hadn’t known what she was, she might have been fooled.
The blood stains down the front of her dress might have clued her in.
“There’s the hunger, of course. They say most of us that are new are stupid with the hunger. That’s why I made sure to get a bite to eat on my way out here. I wanted to be sharp.” She smirked. “How long has it been since you heard from Uncle Carlo anyway, papa?”
“Madre de Dios,” the older Cortez said under his breath.
“Such a good little Catholic. You know what happens to the souls of those like me? They don’t get to go on. They are just waiting…how will it be to get up to the pearly gates and realize your precious daughter isn’t there? She was losing her faith anyway. Maybe she’ll end up in hell and I’ll get to meet her there someday.”
“Leave them alone,” Lois said. She was surprised at how strong she sounded. Despite the palpable feeling of evil, she was surprised to realize she wasn’t afraid.
“Oh, a hero. I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s the only kind of woman Clark would hook up with.” The thing scowled.
“We’re partners,” Lois said defensively.
“You’re just his type. Strong, assertive, a little abusive. All the things meek little me wasn’t.” The corpse glanced at Angelica’s parents slyly. “I’ll bet you didn’t know that I threw myself at him that summer. He’s seen your little girl naked.”
“And he rejected you,” Lois said, suddenly certain.
“Clark’s too much of a boy scout to deflower his boss’s daughter…even if I wasn’t exactly a virgin.” the thing grinned slyly. “Do you remember that ranch hand the year I was sixteen? I never told you, but he forced me to do all sorts of things. I never told you because I knew you would kill him.”
The older Cortez paled even further. His wife began crying softly.
“It doesn’t matter whether Clark rejected me back then or not anyway. I’m going to have him now,” the creature said. “Once the rest of you are dead, I’ll be the only one left. I’ll be the grieving daughter…”
“Clark isn’t stupid,” Lois said. “You think he won’t notice?”
“He won’t have to for long,” she said. She stared dreamily into space. “We’ll be together until the stars turn to dust, for eternity.”
”I have a feeling you won’t survive as long as you think,” Lois said, her mind racing.
“Oh, I’m a modern thinker. The rest of them are stuck in the past. That’s the downside of being hundreds of years old, I guess. They don’t seem to realize that it’s a new day. It’s the twenty first century and we have to learn to change with the times. This whole threshold thing…the rest of them thought it couldn’t be got around, at least until I set them straight.”
Suddenly Lois was aware of movement from one of the windows. She could see several figures approaching from the woods.
“People think they are safe, all holed up cozy in their beds. Me, I had a thought.”
The corpse reached down to the ground outside of Lois’s view and came up with a crossbow.
“I can’t go in there, but I hardly have to.”
The snap of the bow was shocking. Mr. Cortez gasped and fell back as the bolt sprouted just in front of his eye.
Lois stood beside him with the bolt in her hand. Somehow she’d grabbed it in mid-air.
She gaped, as shocked as he was.
“Wow,” the corpse said. “I thought it was just a legend. Killer of my kind, eh? The big bogeyman that’s supposed to make me tremble in my boots….”
It pulled something from the back of its pants.
“Try catching this.”
The world slowed around her as Lois saw the long metal barrel of the gun rising and pointing toward them. The sound of the shot was deafening, and Lois found herself flying through the air.
She hit the older couple, and they fell to the ground as Lois landed on top of them. She’d pushed them out of sight of the door, although all the creature had to do was move around to the large picture window in the living area and shoot from there.
Already to her feet, she rushed toward the door. She dodged the first bullet and the second. The third hit the door beside her as she shoved it closed with enough force to cause it to crack a little.
“Get inside,” Lois shouted at the older couple. “Get the others to an interior room.”
The gunshots had woken everyone. She could hear the sounds of movement from deeper inside the building. Some of the children were crying.
“Get everybody away from the windows!”
The older couple staggered to their feet and rushed to do as she’d asked.
Lois locked the door and winced as she heard the sounds of several more shots hitting the door. This was a heavy, thick exterior door however, and it held.
The gun from outside went silent, and Lois moved as quietly as she was able to the room to the left, a small entryway leading off to the kitchen. There was a small circular window that lit the room.
Lois was surprised to realize that she was still clutching the crossbow bolt.
A group of men had gathered near Angelica, and she was gesturing toward the house. Six of them were carrying three bright red coolers. At her command, they sat them down and opened them.
They began pulling wine bottles out of the coolers and passing them around. Lois doubted that they were filled with wine. The bottles each had a rag sticking out of them.
She grimaced. They were going to try to burn the family out of their home.
When the Cortez family finally had to leave the burning remnants of their home, they would be easy victims for whatever those men really were.
One of the men approached. He tried to light the rag with a lighter and instead managed to spill some of the fluid on himself.
A moment later he was an inferno, screaming and staggering toward the building. A moment later, he disintegrated, turning to ash.
Angelica looked disgusted.
The others weren’t nearly as stupid. They began to run around the perimeter of the house, and a moment later, Lois heard the sounds of crashing from the windows as lit bottles were thrown through the windows.
She raced toward the kitchen, where she saw that one of the bottles hadn’t broken. She scooped it up and threw it out the window, hitting the man that stood outside.
There was a flash of light as he caught fire and a moment later, silence.
She ran again, and in the second room, she hadn’t been as lucky. This was someone’s bedroom, and the carpet was already on fire. Lois scanned quickly for any survivors and then she closed the door quickly.
She had to find the family. The only way they were going o survive was to make it to one of the cars and force their way through as a group, preferably while most of the men were chasing after a distraction.
Her mind flashed back, and she felt bones crunching under her hands. She’d never wanted to face something like that again, but she didn’t see any other way.
Lois had a sick feeling as she realized that part of what she was feeling was anticipation.
She’d been accused of being an adrenaline junkie by jealous reporters, people who said she risked her life time after time on purpose. She was chilled by the thought that they might be right.
Lois found all twenty members of the Cortez family huddled together in the central courtyard.
Lois approached the patriarch.
“Senor Cortez,” she said. “Are you all right?”
His face was pale, but he nodded. She noticed that his hands were clutched around a crucifix, and that several other members of the family had them as well.
“I don’t know if those will work, but we’re going to have to get out of here.”
“They cannot get inside. We are protected.”
Lois spoke quietly. “They are throwing lit bottles filled with gasoline through the windows. Soon everything will begin to burn.”
He stared at her for a moment, then glanced back at his family.
“The smoke will kill them long before the fires will,” Lois said.
The adobe walls would not burn, but the rooms inside would, and it wouldn’t be long before the smoke was overwhelming.
“Is there a way to get everyone on the roof?” Lois asked.
He shook his head. “We’d have to leave the children, the old behind.”
“Do you have any vehicles that will carry you all?”
“There’s an old grain truck in the back,” he said.
“I’m going to distract them,” she said. She glanced at the others. “Does anyone have a cell phone?”
**************
These people had been good to her. They’d opened their home to her, and in some ways, they’d been more of a family to her than her own ever had.
She barely knew them.
She hadn’t even bothered to learn their names. They hadn’t been witnesses and so it hadn’t mattered. Somehow, it mattered now.
All she knew was that she didn’t have a choice. Maybe this would atone for what she’d done in the Congo.
Fighting twenty men had been surprisingly easy, but these weren’t men. They were something else, and Lois had no illusions about her chances against them, especially with the Angelica-thing having a gun.
She wasn’t even sure how to fight them.
All she had was her cell phone clutched in one hand, and the crossbow bolt in the other. At the urging of the eldest Cortez, she’d snapped the tip off the end of the bolt, leaving a jagged edge.
She could feel the heat from the fires now, and the smoke.
Unlocking the door as quietly as she could, she picked up her cell phone again from the ground, and prepared to run.
She slammed the door open and launched herself out into the open.
The light of the fires behind her lit everything in high contrast.
Several of the men were standing in a group near the thing that had been Angelica. The rest of them were spread out around the building, waiting for the onrush of humanity.
As Lois ran toward them, she yelled into the cell phone and dropped it.
It was then that the miracle happened.
The wind in the trees stopped suddenly, and everything fell into an unnatural, almost preternatural stillness.
The creature in Angelica’s body stared at her for a moment, and in its eyes, Lois saw an awareness that something was wrong.
A tremendous wind rose suddenly, and the light from the fire in the windows behind her flickered and died.
The wind died down for a moment, then it rose again, this time in the middle of the crowd of things near Angelica.
They went flying in all directions, although most flew towards the woods.
Angelica ran, and Lois could see several of the other things flying, caught up apparently by small twisters.
Before she could do anything, it was over.
************
The Cortez family was unharmed, although all of them were pale and the children were crying quietly to themselves.
Lois jerked violently as there was a knock at the door. They’d been discussing whether to still make a run for it. There was no telling if they would receive a second miracle if the things came back.
The door opened, and Lois rose quickly to her feet.
Clark stepped inside and looked apologetic.
“I didn’t hear a car drive up,” Lois said.
“Someone locked the gate near the road,” Clark said grimly. “Is everyone all right?”
Lois nodded. “We’ve got to talk.”
It was strange, but although he was only a man, Lois felt a sense of relief now that Clark was here.
He just had that effect on people.
