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By Root 2091 0

convent was half empty even when all its residents were present. And now, with St. Anthony’s School closed for the coming week, the rest of the nuns had gone home to spend Easter Week with brothers and sisters and parents. Even those who might have stayed around the convent in past years had heard the rumors that the undead might be moving this way, so they’d scattered south and west. Carole’s only living relative was a brother who lived in California, and he hadn’t invited her; even if he had, she couldn’t afford to fly there and back to Jersey just for Easter. Bernadette hadn’t heard from her family in Ireland for months.

So that left just the two of them to hold the fort, as it were.

Carole wasn’t afraid. She knew they’d be safe here at St. Anthony’s. The convent was part of a complex consisting of the church itself, the rectory, the grammar school and high school buildings, and the sturdy old, two-story rooming house that was now the convent. She and Bernadette had taken second-floor rooms, leaving the first floor to the older nuns.

Not really afraid, although she wished there were more people left in the complex than just Bernadette, herself, and Father Palmeri.

“I don’t understand Father Palmeri,” Bernadette said. “Locking up the church and keeping his parishioners from making the stations of the cross on Good Friday. Who’s ever heard of such a thing, I ask you? I just don’t understand it.”

Carole thought she understood. She suspected that Father Alberto Palmeri was afraid. Sometime this morning he’d locked up the rectory, barred the door to St. Anthony’s, and hidden himself in the church basement.

God forgive her, but to Sister Carole’s mind, Father Palmeri was a coward.

“Oh, I do wish he’d open the church, just for a little while,” Bernadette said. “I need to be in there, Carole. I need it.”

Carole knew how Bern felt. Who had said religion was an opiate of the people? Marx? Whoever it was, he hadn’t been completely wrong. For Carole, sitting in the cool, peaceful quiet beneath St. Anthony’s gothic arches, praying, meditating, and feeling the presence of the Lord were like a daily dose of an addictive drug. A dose she and Bern had been denied today. Bern’s withdrawal pangs seemed worse than Carole’s.

The younger nun paused as she passed the window, then pointed down to the street.

“And now who in God’s name would they be?”

Carole rose and stepped to the window. Passing on the street below was a cavalcade of shiny new cars—Mercedes Benzes, BMWs, Jaguars, Lincolns, Cadillacs—all with New York plates, all cruising from the direction of the parkway.

The sight of them in the dusk tightened a knot in Carole’s stomach. The lupine faces she spied through the windows looked brutish, and the way they drove their gleaming luxury cars down the center line … as if they owned the road.

A Cadillac convertible with its top down passed below, carrying four scruffy men. The driver wore a cowboy hat, the two in the back sat atop the rear seat, drinking beer. When Carole saw one of them glance up and look their way, she tugged on Bern’s sleeve.

“Stand back! Don’t let them see you!”

“Why not? Who are they?”

“I’m not sure, but I’ve heard of bands of men who do the vampires’ dirty work during the daytime, who’ve traded their souls for the promise of immortality later on, and for … other things now.”

“Sure and you’re joking, Carole!”

Carole shook her head. “I wish I were.”

“Oh, dear God, and now the sun’s down.” She turned frightened blue eyes toward Carole. “Do you think maybe we should … ?”

“Lock up? Most certainly. I know what His Holiness said about there not being any such thing as vampires, but maybe he’s changed his mind since then and just can’t get word to us.”

“Sure and you’re probably right. You close these and I’ll check down the hall.” She hurried out, her voice trailing behind her. “Oh, I do wish Father Palmeri hadn’t locked the church. I’d dearly love to say a few prayers there.”

Sister Carole glanced out the window again. The fancy new cars were gone, but rumbling in their wake was a convoy of trucks