• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

“Of course. You’ll need fluids. Lots of fluids.”

The bathroom was only two doors down. She took her water pitcher, lit a second candle, and left Bernadette on the bed, looking like an Indian draped in a serape.

When she returned with the full pitcher, she was startled to find the bed empty. She spied Bernadette immediately, by the window. She hadn’t opened it, but she’d pulled off the bedspread drape and raised the shade. She stood there, staring out at the night. And she was naked again.

Carole looked around for the blanket and found it … hanging on the wall over her bed …

Covering the crucifix.

Part of Carole screamed at her to run, to flee down the hall and not look back. But another part of her insisted she stay. This was her friend. Something terrible had happened to Bernadette and she needed Carole now, probably more than she’d needed anyone in her entire life. And if someone was going to help her, it was Carole. Only Carole.

She placed the pitcher on the nightstand.

“Bernadette,” she said, her mouth as dry as the timbers in these old walls, “the blanket …”

“I was hot,” Bernadette said without turning.

“I brought you the water. I’ll pour—”

“I’ll drink it later. Come and watch the night.”

“I don’t want to see the night. It frightens me.”

Bernadette turned, a faint smile on her lips. “But the darkness is so beautiful.”

She stepped closer and stretched her arms toward Carole, laying a hand on each shoulder and gently massaging the terror-tightened muscles there. A sweet lethargy began to seep through Carole. Her eyelids began to drift closed … so tired … so long since she’d had any sleep …

No!

She forced her eyes open and gripped Bernadette’s hands, pulling them from her shoulders. She pressed the palms together and clasped them between her own.

“Let’s pray, Bern. With me: Hail Mary, full of grace …”

“No!”

“… the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou …”

Her friend’s face twisted in rage. “I said NO, damn you!”

Carole struggled to keep a grip on Bernadette’s hands but she was too strong.

“… amongst women …”

And suddenly Bernadette’s struggles ceased. Her face relaxed, her eyes cleared, even her voice changed, still hoarse, but higher in pitch, lighter in tone as she took up the words of the prayer.

“And Blessed is the fruit of thy womb …” Bernadette struggled with the next word, unable to say it. Instead she gripped 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 deep, jagged 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 control.

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, her movements