Ultimate Supernatural Horror Box Set

TWENTY-ONE

Manhattan

Decker honked and yelled and edged the D’Agostino’s truck through the crowd until it nosed up against one of the light blue “Police Line” horses that blocked access to the street ahead. Beyond the barrier the pavement stretched dark and empty in front of St. Joseph’s, illuminated in patches by the streetlamps. An island of calm in a sea of frustrated Mary-hunters.

“You know what to say?” Emilio said.

Decker nodded. “Got it memorized.”

He jammed some gum into his mouth and slid out from behind the wheel as one of the cops approached.

Emilio watched from his spot in the middle of the front seat. Molinari slouched to his right, trying to look casual with his elbow protruding from the open passenger window. Emilio was keeping a decidedly low profile at this point in their little mission. Decker and Mol sported extra facial hair, glasses, and nostril dilators to distort their appearances, but Emilio had gone to the greatest length to disguise himself. He’d added a thick black beard to augment his mustache, a shaggy wig, and a Navy blue knitted watch cap pulled low over his forehead, almost to his eyebrows. He was often caught in the background when the Senador was photographed leaving his office or his car, and he didn’t want the slightest risk of being identified later.

“Street’s closed, buddy,” the cop said. “You gotta go down to—”

“Gotta delivery here,” Decker said, chewing noisily on the gum as he fished a slip of paper from his pocket. “The rect’ry.”

“Yeah? Nobody told me about that.”

“We deliver alla time, man. Youse guys maya shut down da choich, but dem priests still gotta eat, know’m sayin’?”

As the cop stared at Decker, Emilio winced and closed his eyes. He heard Mol groan softly. Decker was laying it on too thick.

The cop pulled a flashlight from his belt. “Let’s have a look at what you’re deliverin’. You wouldn’t be the first Mary-hunters tried to sneak by us tonight.”

Emilio nodded as Mol nudged him. They’d done this right. This was no fake D’Agostino’s truck. This was the real thing. They’d hijacked it just as it left the store. The driver was bound, gagged and unconscious in the trunk of a car Mol had stolen this afternoon. The back of the panel truck was loaded with grocery bags, all scheduled for delivery elsewhere, but Emilio had changed the addresses on half a dozen of them to read “St. Joseph’s rectory.”

Emilio heard the rear doors open, heard the rustle of paper as a few of the bags were inspected, then heard the door slam closed.

Seconds later, Decker was slipping back behind the wheel as the cop slid the barrier aside and waved them through.

“‘Choich?’“ Mol said, leaning forward and staring at Decker. “‘Choich?’“

Decker shrugged, grinning. “What can I say? I’m a Method actor.”

Mol laughed and grabbed his crotch. “Method this!”

Emilio let them blow off a little steam. They were in—past the guard house, so to speak—but they still had a long way to go.

Decker gave a friendly wave to the cop standing on the sidewalk in front of the church as he drove past, and backed the truck into the alley on the far side of the rectory. Mol and Emilio got out, opened the rear of the trunk, grabbed some bags, and left the doors open as they approached the rectory’s side door with loaded arms.

A middle-aged woman opened the door.

“A gift for Father Dan from one of his parishioners,” Emilio said. “Is he in?”

Emilio knew he was in—he’d confirmed that with a phone call.

“Why, yes,” the woman said. She let them into the foyer, then turned and called up the stairs behind her. “Father Dan! Someone here to see you!”

By the time she turned back again, Mol had put his grocery bags down and had a pistol pointing at her face.

“Not a word, or we’ll shoot Father Dan. Understand?”

Eyes wide, jaw trembling, utterly terrified, she nodded.

“Anyone else in the house besides Father Dan?” Mol said.

She shook her head.

“Good.” Mol smiled. “Now, let’s find a nice little closet so we can lock you up where you won’t get hurt.

Emilio had his own automatic—a silenced Llama compact 9mm—ready and waiting for Father Dan when he came down the stairs.

“Hello,” the priest said. “What—”

And then he saw the pistol.

“Let’s go to church, shall we, Father?” Emilio said.

The young priest looked bewildered. “But there are police all over—”

“The tunnel, Father Dan. We’ll use the tunnel.”

The priest shook his head. “Tunnel? I don’t know what you’re—”

Emilio jabbed the silencer tip against his ribs. “I’ll shoot your housekeeper in the face.”

“All right!” Father Dan said, blanching. “All right. It’s this way.”

“That’s better.

Mol rejoined them then, and gave Emilio a thumbs-up sign. The housekeeper was safely locked away. She’d keep quiet to protect her precious priest from being shot while the priest was leading them to the church in order to keep his housekeeper from being shot.

Wasn’t brotherly love wonderful?

But repeated reminders never hurt. Emilio had worked this one out and memorized it: “No heroics, please, Father. We’re not here to hurt anyone, but we’re quite willing to do so without hesitation if the need arises. Remember that.”

‡

Why are all these things happening, Mother?

Carrie sat in the front pew, staring at the Virgin where she lay upon the altar.

She could not get the sight of her father—now that he was dead, had died so horribly, it seemed all right to call him that—out of her head. The flames, the oily smoke, the smell, the obscene sizzle of burning human flesh haunted her dreams and her waking hours, stealing her appetite, chasing her sleep. That had been no ordinary fire. Only the man had burned, nothing else.

Did I do that, Mother? Did you? Or was that the work of Someone Else’s hand?

And now the church was closed, the sick and lame turned away, the building sealed, the street blocked off. What next? Tomorrow these aisles would be crowded with investigators from the Archdiocese and the Vatican, trailed by nosy, disrespectful bureaucrats from City Hall and Albany, from Washington and Israel, all poking, prodding, examining.

They’ll be interrogating me about how you got here. I won’t tell them a thing. It’s not me I’m worried about, Mother. It’s you. They’ll treat you like a thing—an it. They may even decide you belong back in Israel. What’ll I do then, Mother?

Carrie felt tears begin to well in her eyes. She willed them away.

There’s a plan, isn’t there, Mother? There has to be. I just have to have faith and—

She heard a noise in the vestibule and turned. She smiled when she saw Dan leading two other strange-looking men up the aisle, but he did not return her smile. He looked pale and grim.

And then she saw the pistols.

She shot to her feet. “Dan? What’s going on?”

“I don’t know.” His voice was as tight as his features. “They came into the rectory and—”

“What we want is very simple,” the bigger, bearded one said. He stopped a dozen feet or so down the aisle from Carrie and let Dan continue toward her. He gestured toward the altar with his pistol. “We want that.”

Carrie was stunned for a few seconds, unable, unwilling to believe what she’d just heard.

“Want her for what?” she managed to say.

“No time for chatter, Sister. Here’s how we’ll do this. You two will carry her back through the tunnel to the rectory, and we’ll take her from there. No tricks, no games, no heroics, and no one gets hurt.” He gestured with his pistol at Dan. “You take the head and she’ll take the feet. Let’s move.”

“No!” Carrie said.

The bearded man snapped his head back in surprise. Obviously he hadn’t expected that.

Neither had Carrie. The word had erupted from her with little or no forethought, propelled by fear, by anger, by outrage that anyone could even think of stealing the Virgin from the sanctuary of a church.

She faced him defiantly.

“Get out of here.”

He stared at her for a heartbeat or two, then pointed his gun at Dan.

“You cause me any trouble and I’ll shoot your priest friend.”

“No, you won’t. There’s a cop outside that door. All I have to do is scream once and he’ll be in here, and that will be the end of you. Get out now. I’ll give you a chance to run, then I’m going to open the front doors and call the police inside.”

“I’m not kidding, lady,” the big one said through his teeth. “Get up there and do what you’re told.”

“Carrie, please,” she heard Dan say from her left. “It’s okay. They can’t get past the cops with her anyway. So just do as he says.”

Dan might be right, but Carrie wasn’t going to let these creeps get their filthy hands on the Virgin for even a few seconds.

“Get out now or I scream.”

The shorter one looked about nervously, as if he wanted to take her up on the offer, but the bearded one stood firm. His eyes narrowed as he raised his pistol and aimed it at her chest. His voice was low and menacing.

“No me jodas.”

He wouldn’t dare, she thought. He’s got to be bluffing.

“All right,” she said. “I gave you your chance.”

Still they didn’t move, so she filled her lungs and—

She saw the flash at the tip of the silencer, saw the pistol buck, heard a sound like phut!, felt an impact against her chest, tried to start her scream but she was punched backward and didn’t seem to have any air to scream with. And then she was falling. Darkness rimmed her vision as a distant roaring surged closer, filling her ears, bringing with it more darkness, an all-encompassing darkness...

‡

Nara, Japan

As the first rays of the sun crest the horizon and light the flared eaves of the Todaiji temple, the largest wood structure in the world, it begins to dissolve, to melt into the air. And as the sun rises farther, the temple further dissolves. Finally the sun strikes the bronze surface of the Daibutsu. The bronze of the Buddha seems to glow for a moment, then it too dissolves.

In a manner of minutes, nothing of the Todaiji or its Buddha remains.

‡

Manhattan

Emilio stood frozen with his automatic still pointed at where she had been standing as he watched her fall and lay twitching on the marble floor, the red of her life soaking through the front of her habit and pooling around her.

“Christ, Emilio!” Mol gasped beside him.

“Carrie!” the priest cried, dropping to his knees beside her and gripping her limp shoulders. “Oh, God, Carrie!”

I’m sorry, Emilio thought. I’m so sorry!

And that shocked him. Because he’d killed before without the slightest shred of guilt. Anyone who threatened him or stood between him and what he wanted didn’t deserve to live. It had always been that simple. But here, now, in this place, before that old woman’s body on the altar, a new emotion, as unpleasant as it was unfamiliar, was seeping through him.

Guilt.

The priest looked up at him, tear-filled eyes wild, rage and grief distorting his features almost beyond recognition. With a low, animal-like growl he hurtled himself at Emilio.

A bullet in the head would have been the simplest, most efficient response. But Emilio couldn’t bring himself to pull the trigger. Not again, not here, with...her here. Instead he dodged aside and slammed the Llama’s butt and trigger guard hard against the priest’s skull, staggering him. Before the man could shake off the blow, Emilio hit him again, harder this time, knocking him to the floor where he lay still with a trickle of red oozing from his scalp.

Mol had already started back down the center aisle.

“Where are you going?”

He turned and looked at Emilio, fear in his eyes. “I—”

“Shut up and stand still. Listen!”

Emilio strained his ears through the silence. And as he’d hoped, it remained just that: silent. None of the noise in here had penetrated the heavy oak front doors; the cop outside had no idea anything was going on inside.

“All right,” Emilio said, gesturing toward the altar. “Let’s get moving.”

Mol hesitated, glanced once more at the front doors, then shrugged and hurried toward the altar. Emilio directed him toward the head of the body while he took the other end.

But as he reached to take hold of the feet, he hesitated. He hadn’t believed in this church-priest-God-religion bullshit since he’d been a little boy in Camino Verde and watched his older sister screw the neighborhood men in the back corner of their one-room shack. Any guilt he’d felt a moment ago had been a leftover from the times his grandmother would drag him off to church before he was big enough to tell her to go to hell. And yet...a deep part of him was afraid to touch this mummified old woman, afraid a lightning bolt would crash through the ceiling of the church and fry him on the spot.

“Bullshit!” he whispered and gripped the body’s ankles.

Nothing happened.

Angry with himself for feeling relieved, he nodded to Mol who had her by the shoulders, and together they lifted her off the altar.

Surprisingly light. They each got a comfortable grip on her, then hurried down the center aisle, Emilio leading, carrying her feet first. Through the vestibule, down the steps into the locked-up soup kitchen in the cellar, through the tunnel, and back up into the rectory. All still quiet there. Decker would have been inside if anyone had come in. They eased the body out the side door, slipped her into the back atop the grocery bags, and locked the doors.

Emilio climbed into the cab next to Decker and slapped the dashboard. “Let’s go.”

“Any trouble?” Decker said as he nosed the truck into the street.

“Not really,” Emilio said.

Mol snorted. “Like hell!”

“What happened?”

“I’ll tell you later,” Emilio said. “Just drive.”

He wanted Decker cool and calm for the drive back past the police and through the crowd, but he needn’t have worried. The police waved them by, and even made a path for them through the horde of Mary-hunters beyond.

Once they were free of the crowd and rolling toward the FDR Drive, Emilio allowed himself to breathe a little more easily. And he’d breathe even more easily when they ditched this rig and switched the body to the Avis panel truck he’d rented earlier. But he knew he wouldn’t be able to relax fully until they had it aboard the Senador’s waiting jet and were airborne over LaGuardia.

‡

Angkor, Cambodia

As the rays of the rising sun touch the five towers of the Temple to Vishnu, the stone begins to dissolve. By the time the sun is fully above the horizon, the temple is no more.

‡

Manhattan

She is gone!

Kesev violently elbowed his way through the crowd near St. Joseph’s, leaving a trail of sore and angry Mary-hunters in his wake. Let them shout at him, wave their fists at him, he didn’t care. He had to reach the church, had to know if his suspicion was true.

During the past hour he had felt a dwindling of the Mother’s presence, and then suddenly it was gone.

He’d sensed something else, felt a change coming over the world. A wheel had been set in motion. What would its turning bring?

Finally he reached the front of the crowd, but as he squeezed under the barricade, two blue-uniformed policemen, one white, one black, confronted him.

“Back on the other side, buddy,” the white one said.

“You don’t understand,” Kesev told him. “She’s gone. They’ve stolen her.”

He heard the crowd behind him begin to mutter and murmur with concern.

“Now don’t go starting trouble, Mister,” the black one said. “The lady’s fine. We’ve been out here all night and nobody’s been in or out of that church.”

“She is gone, I tell you!” Kesev turned to the crowd and shouted, “They have stolen the Mother right out from under your noses!”

“Shut up!” the white policeman hissed in his ear.

But Kesev wrenched free and began running toward the front of the church.

“Come!” he shouted to the crowd. “Come see if I am not telling you the truth!”

That was all they needed. With a roar they knocked over the police line horses and surged onto the street, engulfing any cop who tried to stop them.

The lone policeman stationed in front of the church backed up to the front doors but decided to get out of the way as Kesev charged up the steps with the mob close behind him. A few good heaves from dozens of shoulders and the doors gave way and they flowed through the vestibule and into the nave.

And stopped with cries of shock that rapidly dwindled, finally fading into horrified silence.

The altar was bare. And near the end of the center aisle two figures huddled on the floor. Kesev recognized them immediately—the nun and the priest from the El Al plane back in July.

The priest was kneeling in a pool of red, weeping, his deep, wracking sobs reverberating through the church as blood from a scalp wound trickled down his forehead to mingle with his tears. In his arms lay the limp, blood-soaked form of the nun.

Kesev, too, wept. But for another reason.

‡

Mumbai, India

The rosy fingers of dawn grasp the decorative tower of the Mahalakshmi Temple and squeeze it and the rest of the structure from existence.

‡

Manhattan

“Do you remember me?”

Dan forced his eyes open. He was cold, he was sick, he was emotionally drained and numb; his head was pounding like a cathedral gong, and his scalp throbbed and pulled where it had been stitched up. But the greatest pain was deep inside where no doctor could see or touch, in the black void left by Carrie’s death and the brutal, awful, finality of her dying.

The four hours he’d spent here seemed like minutes, seemed like ages. He’d sat in a daze, occasionally staring at the TV screen suspended from the ceiling. Something was happening in the Far East. Temples, mosques, churches were disappearing, vanishing as if they’d never been, leaving not a trace even of their foundations. Only empty holes remained where they’d stood. But all other buildings around them remained intact. It was happening with the rising of the sun. Dawn was sweeping across the world like a scythe, leaving not a single place of worship standing. Words and phrases like Antichrist and End Times filled the airwaves.

So what.

Dan looked up from his seat in the Emergency Room of Beekman Downtown Hospital. For a rage-blinded instant he thought the black-bearded man with the accented voice standing over him was the bastard who’d shot Carrie. He tensed to launch himself at him, then realized this was someone else. Just as intense, but much too short. He’d seen this man before but his grief-fogged brain couldn’t recall where or when.

“No,” he said.

“At Tel Aviv airport last summer...I was questioning your nun friend and you—”

Now Dan recognized him. “The man from the Shin...” He fumbled for the word.

“Shin Bet. The name is Kesev. But I’m here unofficially now.”

“I wish we’d never gone to Israel,” he said, feeling a sob growing in his chest.

Carrie...dead. Dan still couldn’t believe it. This had to be a dream, the worst nightmare imaginable. A dream. That was the only logical explanation for all these fantastic, unexplainable events, the most unbelievable of which was Carrie’s death. Life without Carrie...a Carrie-less world...unthinkable.

But it had seemed so real when he’d held her limp, cold, blood-drenched body in his arms back there in St. Joe’s.

So real!

“I wish you’d arrested us and jailed us. At least then Carrie would still be alive.”

“So do I,” Kesev said. “For more than her sake alone. There are other matters to consider.”

“Yeah? Like what?”

Dan heard the belligerence creeping into his tone, into his mood. What right did this Israeli bastard have to come up to him here in the depths of his grief and start bothering him about Carrie? What did anything matter now that Carrie was dead?

“We must find the Mother.”

“You find her! She’s brought me nothing but grief.”

He started rise but Kesev restrained him with a surprisingly strong hand on his shoulder.

“If we find the Mother, we find the killers.”

Dan leaned back into the chair. Find the killers...wouldn’t that be nice? To wrap his fingers around that big bearded bastard’s throat and squeeze and squeeze, and keep on squeezing until—

“Father Fitzpatrick?”

Dan looked up. One of the homicide detectives who’d questioned him before was approaching—Sergeant Gardner. He carried a black plastic bag in his hand. What did he want now? He’d told him everything, given descriptions of the killers, the sound of their voices, anything he could think of. He was tapped out.

He noticed Kesev slipping away as the detective neared.

“They’re shipping her remains uptown,” Gardner said.

Dan lurched to his feet. “Why? Where?”

“S-O-P. To the morgue. They’re going to autopsy her right away.”

“So soon?” Hadn’t Carrie been through enough? “I’d’ve thought—”

“The pressure’s on, Father. We’ve got a big, mean, unruly crowd outside your church, and from what I hear, the commish has already heard from the cardinal, the mayor, Albany, even the Israeli embassy. Everybody but everybody wants these guys caught and that relic returned. The commish wants a full forensic report on his desk by six a.m., so they’re going to do her right away.”

“Can I see her before—?”

Gardner shook his head. “Sorry. She’s gone. Saw her off myself.” He held out the black plastic bag. “But here’s her personal effects. You want to return them to the convent? If not...”

“No, that’s all right. I’ll take them.”

Detective Gardner handed the bag over and stood before him, awkward, silent. Finally he said, “We’ll get them, Father.”

Dan could only nod.

As the detective hurried away, Dan sat and opened the bag. Not much there: a wallet, a rosary, and Carrie’s Zip-loc bags of the Virgin’s clippings and nail filings.

For an insane moment Dan thought of cabbing up to the morgue—it was up in the Bellevue complex, wasn’t it?...First Avenue and 30th...he could be there in a couple of minutes. He’d sneak into the autopsy room. He’d sprinkle the entire contents of both bags over Carrie’s body and...

And what? Bring her back to life?

Who am I kidding? he thought. That’s Stephen King stuff. Carrie’s gone...forever.

Without warning, he broke into deep, wracking sobs. He hadn’t even felt them coming. Suddenly they were there, convulsing his chest as they ripped free.

A hand touched his shoulder. He fought for control and looked up. The man called Kesev had returned.

“Come, Father Fitzpatrick. I’ll take you home. There are things we must discuss.”

Dan nodded absently. Home...where was that? The rectory? That wasn’t home. Where was home now that Carrie was dead? He didn’t care where he went now, he just knew he didn’t want to stay in this hospital.

He bunched up the neck of the plastic bag and followed Kesev toward the exit.

‡

Manhattan

Dr. Darryl Chin, Second Assistant Medical Examiner for New York City yawned as he pulled on a pair of examination gloves. This is what you get, he supposed, when you’re downline in the pecking order and you live in the East Village: They need somebody quick, they call you.

“Could be a lot worse,” he muttered.

He looked down at the naked female cadaver supine before him on the stainless steel autopsy table, dead-pale skin, breasts caked with blood, dark hair tangled in disarray, jaw slack, dull blue eyes staring lifelessly at the overhead fluorescents. The murdered nun he’d heard about on the news tonight. Young, pretty, and fresh. The fresh part was important. Only a few hours cold. He might get some useful information out of her. Better than some stinking, macerated, crab-nibbled corpse they’d dragged out of the Hudson. And this was a neat chest wound, not some messy gut shot. He’d be through with this one in no time.

If he ever got started.

Where the hell was Lou Ann? She was supposed to assist him tonight. She lived in Queens and had a longer ride, but she should have been here by now. Probably had to put on her face before she came in. Darryl had never seen her without two tons of eye liner and mascara.

Vanity, woman be thy name.

No use in wasting time. He could get started without her. Open and drain the thorax at least. These chest wounds always left the cavity filled with blood.

He probed the entry wound with his little finger. Looked like the work of a 9mm slug. Good shot. Right into the heart. Poor girl probably never knew what hit her.

He reached up and adjusted the voice-activated mike that hung over the table. He gave the date and read off the name of the subject and presumed cause of death from the ID card, then reached for his scalpel.

Time to open her up. Get the major incisions out of the way, drain and measure the volume of blood in the thoracic cavity, and by then Lou Ann would be here and they could start in on the individual organs.

He poked his index finger into the suprasternal notch atop the breast bone, laid the point of the blade against the skin just below the notch, and leaned over the table to make the first long incision down the center of the sternum.

“Please don’t do that.”

A woman’s voice. He looked around. Who—?

Then he looked down. The cadaver’s blue eyes were no longer dull and unfocused. They were bright and moving, looking at him. They blinked.

The scalpel clattered on the metal table as he jumped back.

“Jesus Christ!”

“Please don’t take His name in vain,” the nun said, staring at him as she levered up to a sitting position on the table.

Darryl felt his heart hammering in his chest, heard a roaring in his ears as he backed away.

She’s dead! She’s dead but she’s talking, moving!

She swung her legs over the side of the table and slipped to the floor. Still backing away, Darryl dumbly watched her naked form cross the room like a sleepwalker and pull a white lab coat from a hook on the wall.

Darryl’s heel caught against something on the floor and he fell backward, his arms pinwheeling for balance. He grabbed the edge of a table but his fingers slipped off the shiny surface and he landed on his buttocks. His head snapped back and struck the painted concrete block of the wall.

Darryl tried to call out but found he had no voice. He tried to hold onto consciousness but found it a losing battle.

The last thing he saw before darkness closed in was the dead woman slipping into the lab coat and walking out the door, leaving it open behind her.

‡

Mecca, Saudi Arabia

The sun rises over the Arabian sea and strikes the minarets and domes of Masjid al Haram. The mosque and every open spot around it as well as its central courtyard, home to the Kaaba, are packed with the faithful who have rushed here from all directions. More are on the way, careening from all over the world to protect the holiest place in all of Islam. They have brought their prayer rugs and are on their knees, their foreheads pressed to the ground as they face the Kaaba and pray to Allah to save the Masjid al Haram.

But the minarets and domes and walls dissolve, and the Kaaba too fades away, leaving only the participants in the last Hadj.

IN THE PACIFIC

24^o N, 120^o W

Reconnaissance flight 705 out of San Diego is buffeted by tornadic winds and blinding torrents as it fights its way toward the center of the huge, mysterious Pacific storm that shows up on satellite photos but not radar. An unclassifiable, logic-defying storm with the combined properties of an Atlantic hurricane, a Pacific typhoon, and a Midwestern supercell. All that can be said of it from orbit photos and fly-by observation is that a towering colossus of violent weather topping out at fifty-thousand feet is crossing the Pacific in the general direction of northern Mexico.

Reconnaissance 705’s mission is to classify it, but right now, hemmed in by roiling clouds and radar that shows clear, calm, open sea ahead of them, they are truly flying blind. The pilot, Captain Harry Densmore, has never experienced anything like this. The barometric readings are in the mid-twenties as he approaches what should be the center of the storm. He wants to turn back but needs to know what’s at the heart of this monstrosity. There’s no eye visible from orbit, but all indications point to an organized center. One look, one reading, and he’ll turn tail and run. This monster hasn’t killed anybody yet but he’s afraid he and his crew might change all that. He’ll count himself lucky if he sees San Diego again.

Just a little farther...

Suddenly the plane is buffeted by a gust that knocks it 45 degrees off line. Metal shrieks in Densmore’s ears and he’s sure she’s going to come apart when suddenly they’re in still air.

“It’s got an eye!” he shouts. “We’re through the eye wall!”

But an eye should be clear. And in an eye this size, blue sky should be visible above. Not here. It’s dark in this eye. Very dark. And raining.

Maybe it’ll clear up ahead.

The copilot calls out the barometric reading: Twenty-three.

“Twenty-

three

? Check that again. That’s got to be wrong!”

Then lightning flashes and Densmore sees something through the rain ahead. Something huge. Something dark. The far side of the eye wall? Maybe this eye isn’t as big as he thought. Maybe—

“Oh, Christ!”

He turns the wheel and kicks the rudder hard, all but standing the plane on its wing-tip as he banks sharply to the left. The shouts of alarm and surprise from his copilot and navigator choke off as they see it too.

He finishes the turn and levels off on a circular course around the center of the eye, catching lightning-strobed glimpses of the cyclopean thing in the heart of the storm. His copilot’s and navigator’s hushed, awed voices fill the cabin.

“What in God’s name

is

that?”

“I don’t know.”

They are at 20,000 feet and whatever it is reaches from the ocean below and disappears into the clouds miles above them.

Densmore realizes that what he sees before him is impossible. He knows his physics, and something that big breaks all natural laws. Just like the storm itself.

Which means something else is driving this storm that breaks all the rules and defies the world’s most sophisticated radar tracking system.

And God help whoever is in its way when it makes landfall.

Suddenly he wants to be as far away as possible from this unnatural phenomenon.

“Take some pictures so people won’t think we’re all crazy, and let’s get the hell out of here.”

Moments later, reconnaissance flight 705 re-enters the eye wall but instead of flying through, it is tossed back by the hellish fury of the tornadic winds. Densmore tries again and again to pierce the wall but each time his craft is rejected like an unwanted toy.

The storm won’t let them leave. They’re trapped...in the eye...with that thing...

Densmore resumes a circular path along the wall, staying as far as possible from its center. They’re safe here in the relative calm of the eye—safe at least from the winds—as long as their fuel holds out.

But they’ve got only a few hours’ worth left.