MIDNIGHT MASS
F. Paul Wilson

It had been almost a full minute since he'd slammed the brass 
knocker against the heavy oak door. That should have been proof 
enough. After all, wasn't the knocker in the shape of a cross? But 
no, they had to squint through their
peephole and peer through the sidelights that framed the door.
Rabbi Zev Wolpin sighed and resigned himself to the scrutiny. He couldn't 
blame people for being cautious, but this seemed a bit overly so. The sun was in 
the west and shining full on his back; he was all but silhouetted in it. What 
more did they want?
I should maybe take off my clothes and dance naked?
He gave a mental shrug and savored the damp sea air. At least it was cool here. 
He'd bicycled from Lakewood, which was only ten miles inland from this same 
ocean but at least twenty degrees warmer. The bulk of the huge Tudor retreat 
house stood between him and the Atlantic, but the ocean's briny scent and 
rhythmic rumble were everywhere.
Spring Lake. An Irish Catholic seaside resort since before the turn of the 
century. He looked around at its carefully restored Victorian houses, the huge 
mansions arrayed here along the beach front, the smaller homes set in neat rows 
running straight back from the ocean. Many of them were still occupied. Not like 
Lakewood. Lakewood was an empty shell. Not such a bad place for a retreat, he 
thought. He wondered how many houses like this the Catholic Church owned.
A series of clicks and clacks drew his attention back to the door as 
numerous bolts were pulled in rapid succession. The door swung inward 
revealing a nervous-looking young man in a long black cassock. As he looked at 
Zev his mouth twisted and he rubbed the back of his wrist across it to hide a 
smile.
"And what should be so funny?" Zev asked.
"I'm sorry. It's just-"
"I know," Zev said, waving off any explanation as he glanced down at the wooden 
cross slung on a cord around his neck. "I know."

A bearded Jew in a baggy black serge suit wearing a yarmulke and a 
cross. Hilarious, no?
So, nu? This was what the times demanded, this was what it had come to 
if he wanted to survive.
And Zev did want to survive. Someone had to live to carry on the 
traditions of the Talmud and the Torah, even if there were hardly any Jews left 
alive in the world.
Zev stood on the sunny porch, waiting. The priest watched him in silence. 
Finally Zev said, "Well, may a wandering Jew come in?"
"I won't stop you," the priest said, "but surely you don't expect me to 
invite you."
Ah, yes. Another precaution. The vampire couldn't cross the threshold of a home 
unless he was invited in, so don't invite. A good habit to cultivate, he 
supposed.
He stepped inside and the priest immediately closed the door behind him, 
relatching all the locks one by one. When he turned around Zev held out his 
hand.
"Rabbi Zev Wolpin, Father. I thank you for allowing me in."
"Brother Christopher, sir," he said, smiling and shaking Zev's hand. His 
suspicions seemed to have been completely allayed. "I'm not a priest yet. We 
can't offer you much here, but-2'
"Oh, I won't be staying long. I just came to talk to Father Joseph Cahill." 
Brother Christopher frowned. "Father Cahill isn't here at the moment." "When 
will he be back?"
"I-I'm not sure. You see-"
"Father Cahill is on another bender," said a stentorian voice behind Zev. He 
turned to see an elderly priest facing him from the far end of the foyer. White-
haired, heavy set, wearing a black cassock.
"I'm Rabbi Wolpin."
"Father Adams," the priest said, stepping forward and extending his hand. As 
they shook Zev said, "Did you say he was on `another' bender? I never knew 
Father Cahill to be much of a drinker."

"Apparently there was a lot we never knew about Father Cahill," the priest said 
stiffly. "If you're referring to that nastiness last year," Zev said, feeling 
the old anger rise in him, "I for one never believed it for a minute. I'm 
surprised anyone gave it the slightest credence." "The veracity of the 
accusation was irrelevant in the final analysis. The damage to Father Cahill's 
reputation was a fait accompli. Father Palmeri was forced to request his removal 
for the good of St. Anthony's parish." Zev was sure that sort of attitude had 
something to do with Father Joe being on "another bender."
"Where can I find Father Cahill?" "He's in town somewhere, I suppose, making a 
spectacle of himself. If there's any way you can talk some sense into him, 
please do. Not only is he killing himself with drink but he's become quite an 
embarrassment to the priesthood and to the Church." Which bothers you more? Zev 
wanted to ask but held his tongue.
"f 11 try." He waited for Brother Christopher to undo all the locks, then 
stepped toward the sunlight.
"Try Morton's down on Seventy-one," the younger man whispered as Zev 
passed.

Zev rode his bicycle south on Route 71. It was almost strange to see people on 
the streets. Not many, but more than he'd ever see in Lakewood again. Yet he 
knew that as the vampires consolidated their grip on the world and infiltrated 
the Catholic communities, there'd be fewer and fewer day people here as well.
He thought he remembered passing a place named Morton's on his way to 
Spring Lake. And then up ahead he saw it, by the railroad track crossing, a 
white stucco one-story box of a building with "Morton's Liquors" painted in big 
black letters along the side.
Father Adams' words echoed back to him: . . . on another bender . . .
Zev pushed his bicycle to the front door and tried the knob. Locked up 
tight. A look inside showed a litter of trash and empty shelves. The windows 
were barred; the back door was steel and locked as securely as the front. So 
where was Father Joe?
Then he spotted the basement window at ground level by the over
flowing trash dumpster. It wasn't latched. Zev went down on his knees and pushed 
it open. Cool, damp, musty air wafted against his face as he peered into the 
Stygian blackness. It occurred to him that he might be asking for trouble 
sticking his head inside, but he had to give it a try. If Father Cahill wasn't 
here, Zev would begin the return trek to Lakewood and write this whole trip off 
as wasted effort.
"Father Joe?" he called. "Father Cahill?"
"That you again, Chris?" said a slightly slurred voice. "Go home, will you? I'll 
be all right. I'll be back later." "It's me, Joe. Zev. From Lakewood." He heard 
shoes scraping on the floor and then a familiar face appeared in the shaft of 
light from the window.
"Well I'll be damned. It is you! Thought you were Brother Chris come to 
drag me back to the retreat house. Gets scared I'm gonna get stuck out after 
dark. So how ya doin', Reb? Glad to see you're still alive. Come on in!" Zev saw 
that Father Cahill's eyes were glassy and he swayed ever so slightly, like a 
skyscraper in the wind. He wore faded jeans and a black, Bruce Springsteen 
Tunnel of Love Tour sweatshirt.
Zev's heart twisted at the sight of his friend in such condition. Such a mensch 
like Father Joe shouldn't be acting like a shikker. Maybe it was a mistake 
coming here. Zev didn't like seeing him like this.
"I don't have that much time, Joe. I came to tell you-"
"Get your bearded ass down here and have a drink or I'll come up and drag you 
down." "All right," Zev said. "I'll come in but I won't have a drink." He hid 
his bike behind the dumpster, then squeezed through the window. Father Joe 
helped him to the floor. They embraced, slapping each other on the back. Father 
Joe was a taller man, a giant from Zev's perspective. At six-four he was ten 
inches taller, at thirty-five he was a quarter-century younger; he had a 
muscular frame, thick brown hair, and-on better days-clear blue eyes. "You're 
grayer, Zev, and you've lost weight." "Kosher food is not so easily come by 
these days."
"All kinds of food is getting scarce." He touched the cross slung from Zev's 
neck and smiled. "Nice touch. Goes well with your zizith."

Zev fingered the fringe protruding from under his shirt. Old habits didn't die 
easily. "Actually, I've grown rather fond of it."
"So what can I pour you?" the priest said, waving an arm at the crates of liquor 
stacked around him. "My own private reserve. Name your poison. "I don't want a 
drink." "Come on, Reb. I've got some nice hundred-proof Stoly here. You've got 
to have at least one drink-"
"Why? Because you think maybe you shouldn't drink alone?"
Father Joe winced. "Ouch!" "All right," Zev said. "Bissel. I'll have one drink 
on the condition that you don't have one. Because I wish to talk to you." The 
priest considered that a moment, then reached for the vodka bottle. "Deal." He 
poured a generous amount into a paper cup and handed it over. Zev took a sip. He 
was not a drinker and when he did imbibe he preferred his vodka ice cold from a 
freezer. But this was tasty. Father Cahill sat back on a crate of Jack Daniel's 
and folded his arms. "Nu?" the priest said with a Jackie Mason shrug.
Zev had to laugh. "Joe, I still say that somewhere in your family tree is Jewish 
blood."
For a moment he felt light, almost happy. When was the last time he had 
laughed? Probably more than a year now, probably at their table near the back of 
Horovitz's deli, shortly before the St. Anthony's nastiness began, well before 
the vampires came. Zev thought of the day they'd met. He'd been standing at the 
counter at Horovitz's waiting for Yussel to wrap up the stuffed derma he had 
ordered when this young giant walked in. He towered over the other rabbis in the 
place, 
looked as Irish as Paddy's pig, and wore a Roman collar. He said he'd heard this 
was the only place on the whole Jersey Shore where you could get a decent corned 
beef sandwich. He ordered one and cheerfully warned that it better be good. 
Yussel asked him what could he know about good corned beef and the priest 
replied that he grew up in Bensonhurst. Well, about half the people in 
Horovitz's on that day-and on any other day for that matter-grew up in 
Bensonhurst and before you knew it they were all asking him if he knew such-and-
such a store and so-and-so's deli. Zev then informed the priest-with all due 
respect to Yussel Horovitz behind the counter-that the best corned beef sandwich 
in the world was to be had at Shmuel Rosenberg's Jerusalem Deli in Bensonhurst. 
Father Cahill said he'd been there and agreed one hundred per cent. 
Yussel served him his sandwich then. As he took a huge bite out of the 
corned beef on rye, the normal tummel of a deli at lunchtime died away until 
Horovitz's was as quiet as a shoul on Sunday morning. Everyone watched him chew, 
watched him swallow. Then they waited. Suddenly his face broke into this big 
Irish grin.
"I'm afraid I'm going to have to change my vote," he said. "Horovitz's of 
Lakewood makes the best corned beef sandwich in the world."
Amid cheers and warm laughter, Zev led Father Cahill to the rear table that 
would become theirs and sat with this canny and charming gentile who had so 
easily won over a roomful of strangers and provided such a mechaieh for Yussel. 
He learned that the young priest was the new assistant to Father Palmeri, the 
pastor at St. Anthony's Catholic church at the northern end of Lakewood. Father 
Palmeri had been there for years but Zev had never so much as seen his face. He 
asked Father Cahill-who wanted to be called Joe-about life in Brooklyn 
these days and they talked fox an hour. During the following months they would 
run into each other so often at Horovitz's that they decided to meet regularly 
for lunch, on Mondays and Thursdays. They did so for years, discussing religion-
0y, the religious discussions!-politics, economics, philosophy, life in general. 
During those lunchtimes they solved most of the world's problems. Zev was sure 
they'd have solved them all if the scandal at St. Anthony's hadn't resulted in 
Father 
Joe's removal from the parish.
But that was in another time, another world. The world before the vampires took 
over. Zev shook his head as he considered the current state of Father Joe in the 
dusty basement of Morton's Liquors.
"It's about the vampires, Joe," he said, taking another sip of the Stoly. 
"They've taken over St. Anthony's." Father Joe snorted and shrugged. "They're in 
the majority now, Zev, remember? They've taken over everything. Why should St. 
Anthony's be different from any other parish in the world?"

"I didn't mean the parish. I meant the church."
The priest's eyes widened slightly. "The church? They've taken over the 
building itself?" "Every night," Zev said. "Every night they are there." "That's 
a holy place. How do they manage that?"
"They've desecrated the altar, destroyed all the crosses. St. Anthony's is no 
longer a holy place." "Too bad," Father Joe said, looking down and shaking his 
head sadly. "It was a fine old church." He looked up again, at Zev. "How do you 
know about what's going on at St. Anthony's? It's not exactly in your 
neighborhood." "A neighborhood I don't exactly have any more." Father Joe 
reached over and gripped his shoulder with a huge hand. "f m sorry, Zev. I heard 
how your people got hit pretty hard over there. Sitting ducks, huh? I'm really 
sorry."

Sitting ducks. An appropriate description. Oh, they'd been smart, those 
bloodsuckers. They knew their easiest targets. Whenever they swooped into an 
area they singled out Jews as their first victims, and among Jews they picked 
the Orthodox first of the first. Smart. Where else would they be less likely to 
run up against a cross? It worked for them in Brooklyn, and so when they came 
south into New Jersey, spreading like a plague, they headed straight for the 
town with 
one of the largest collections of yeshivas in North America.
But after the Bensonhurst holocaust the people in the Lakewood 
communities did not take quite so long to figure out what was happening. The 
Reformed and Conservative synagogues started handing out crosses at Shabbes-too 
late for many but it saved a few. Did the Orthodox congregations follow suit? 
No. They hid in their homes and shules and yeshivas and read and prayed. And 
were liquidated.

A cross, a crucifix-they held power over the vampires, drove them away. His 
fellow rabbis did not want to accept that simple fact because they could not 
face its devastating ramifications. To hold up a cross was
to negate two thousand years of Jewish history, it was to say that the Messiah 
had come and they had missed him. Did it say that? Zev didn't know. Argue about 
it later. Right now, people were dying. But the rabbis had to argue it now. And 
as they argued, their people were slaughtered like cattle. How Zev railed at 
them, how he pleaded with them! Blind, stubborn fools! 
If a fire was consuming your house, would you refuse to throw water on it just 
because you'd always been taught not to believe in water? Zev had arrived at the 
rabbinical council wearing a cross and had been thrown out-literally sent 
hurtling through the front door. But at least he had managed to save a few of 
his own people. Too few.
He remembered his fellow Orthodox rabbis, though. All the ones who had 
refused to face the reality of the vampires' fear of crosses, who had forbidden 
their students and their congregations to wear crosses, who had watched those 
same students and congregations die en masse only to rise again and come for 
them. And soon those very same rabbis were roaming their own community, hunting 
the survivors, preying on other yeshivas, other congregations, until the entire 
community was liquidated and incorporated into the brotherhood of the 
vampire. The great fear had come to pass: they'd been assimilated.
The rabbis could have saved themselves, could have saved their people, but they 
would not bend to the reality of what was happening around them. Which, when Zev 
thought about it, was not at all out of character. Hadn't they spent generations 
learning to turn away from the rest of the world? Those early days of anarchic 
slaughter were over. Now that the vampires held the ruling hand, the 
bloodletting had become more organized.But the damage to Zev's people had been 
done-and it was irreparable. Hitler would have been proud. His Nazi "final 
solution" was an afternoon picnic compared to the work of the vampires. They did 
in months what Hitler's Reich could not do in all the years of the Second World 
War. There's only a few of us now. So few and so scattered. A final Diaspora. 
For a moment Zev was almost overwhelmed by grief, but he pushed it down, locked 
it back into that place where he kept his sorrows and thought of how fortunate 
it was for his wife Chana that she died of natural causes before the horror 
began. Her soul had been too gentle to weather what had happened to their 
community.

"Not as sorry as I, Joe," Zev said, dragging himself back to the present. "But 
since my neighborhood is gone, and since I have hardly any friends left, I use 
the daylight hours to wander. So call me the Wandering Jew. And in my wanderings 
I meet some of your old parishioners." The priest's face hardened. His voice 
became acid.
"Do you now? And how fares the remnant of my devoted flock?"
"They've lost all hope, Joe. They wish you were back."
He laughed. "Sure they do! Just like they rallied behind me when my name and 
honor were being dragged through the muck last year. Yeah, they want me back. 
I'll bet!"
"Such anger, Joe. It doesn't become you."
"Bullshit. That was the old Joe Cahill, the naive turkey who believed all his 
faithful parishioners would back him up. But no. Palmeri tells the bishop the 
heat is getting too much for him, the bishop removes me, and the people I 
dedicated my life to all stand by in silence as I'm railroaded out of my 
parish."
"It's hard for the common folk to buck a bishop."
"Maybe. But I can't forget how they stood quietly by while I was stripped of my 
position, my dignity, my integrity, of everything I wanted to be..." Zev thought 
Joe's voice was going to break. He was about to reach out to him when the priest 
coughed and squared his shoulders. "Meanwhile, I'm a pariah over here in the 
retreat house, a god dam leper. Some of them actually believe-" He broke off in 
a growl. "Ah, what's the use? It's over and done. Most of the parish is dead 
anyway, I suppose. And if I'd stayed there I'd probably be dead too. So maybe it 
worked out for the best. And who gives a shit anyway."
He reached for the bottle of Glenlivet next to him.
"No-no!" Zev said. "You promised!"
Father Joe drew his hand back and crossed his arms across his chest.
"Talk on, O bearded one. I'm listening."
Father Joe had certainly changed for the worse. Morose, bitter, apathetic, self-
pitying. Zev was beginning to wonder how he could have called this man a friend.
"They've taken over your church, desecrated it. Each night they further 
defile it with butchery and blasphemy. Doesn't that mean anything to you?"

"It's Palmeri's parish. I've been benched. Let him take care of it."
"Father Palmeri is their leader." "He should be. He's their pastor."
"No. He leads the vampires in the obscenities they perform in the church."
Father Joe stiffened and the glassiness cleared from his eyes.
"Palmeri? He's one of them?"
Zev nodded. "More than that. He's the local leader. He orchestrates their 
rituals." Zev saw rage flare in the priest's eyes, saw his hands ball into 
fists, and for a moment he thought the old Father Joe was going to burst 
through. Come on, Joe. Show me that old fire.
But then he slumped back onto the crate. "Is that all you came to tell me?" Zev 
hid his disappointment and nodded. "Yes."
"Good." He grabbed the scotch bottle. "Because I need a drink."
Zev wanted to leave, yet he had to stay, had to probe a little bit deeper and 
see how much of his old friend was left, and how much had been replaced by this 
new, bitter, alien Joe Cahill. Maybe there was still hope. So they talked on. 
Suddenly he noticed it was dark.
"Gevalt!" Zev said. "I didn't notice the time!" 
Father Joe seemed surprised too. He ran to the window and peered out.
"Damn! Sun's gone down!" He turned to Zev. "Lakewood's out of the 
question for you, Reb. Even the retreat house is too far to risk now. Looks like 
we're stuck here for the night." "We'll be safe?"
He shrugged. "Why not? As far as I can tell I'm the only one who's been in here 
for months, and only in the daytime. Be pretty odd if one of those human leeches 
should decide to wander in here tonight."
"I hope so." "Don't worry. We're okay if we don't attract attention. I've got a 
flashlight if we need it, but we're better off sitting here in the dark and 
shooting the breeze till sunrise." Father Joe smiled and picked up a huge silver 
cross, at least a foot in length, from atop one of the crates. "Besides, we're 
armed. And frankly, I can think of worse places to spend the night." 
He stepped over to the case of Glenlivet and opened a fresh bottle. His 
capacity for alcohol was enormous.
Zev could think of worse places too. In fact he had spent a number of 
nights in much worse places since the holocaust. He decided to put the time to 
good use. "So, Joe. Maybe I should tell you some more about what's happening in 
Lakewood."

After a few hours their talk died of fatigue. Father Joe gave Zev the flashlight 
to hold and stretched out across a couple of crates to sleep. Zev tried to get 
comfortable enough to doze but found sleep impossible. So he listened to his 
friend snore in the pitch darkness of the cellar. Poor Joe. Such anger in the 
man. But more than that-hurt. He felt betrayed, wronged. And with good reason. 
But with everything falling apart as it was, the wrong done to him would never 
be righted. He should forget about it already and go on with his life, but 
apparently he couldn't. Such a shame. He needed something to pull him out of his 
funk. Zev had thought news of what had happened to his old parish might rouse 
him, but it seemed only to make him want to drink more. Father Joe Cahill, he 
feared, was a hopeless case. Zev closed his eyes and tried to rest. It was hard 
to get comfortable with the 
cross dangling in front of him so he took it off but laid it within easy reach. 
He was drifting toward a doze when he heard a noise outside. By the dumpster. 
Metal on metal. My bicycle!
He slipped to the floor and tiptoed over to where Father Joe slept. He 
shook his shoulder and whispered. "Someone's found my bicycle!"
The priest snorted but remained sleeping. A louder clatter outside made Zev 
turn, and as he moved his elbow struck a bottle. He grabbed for it in the 
darkness but missed. The sound of smashing glass echoed through the basement 
like a cannon shot. As the odor of scotch whiskey replaced the musty ambiance, 
Zev listened for further sounds from outside. None came. Maybe it had been an 
animal. He remembered how raccoons used to
raid his garbage at home . . , when he'd had a home . . . when he'd had garbage 
. . .
Zev stepped to the window and looked out. Probably an animal. He pulled 
the window open a few inches and felt cool night air wash across his face. He 
pulled the flashlight from his coat pocket and aimed it through the opening. Zev 
almost dropped the light as the beam illuminated a pale, snarling demonic face, 
baring its fangs and hissing. He fell back as the thing's head and shoulders 
lunged through the window, its curved fingers clawing at him, missing. Then it 
launched itself the rest of the way through, hurtling toward 
Zev. He tried to dodge but he was too slow. The impact knocked the flashlight 
from his grasp and it went rolling across the floor. Zev cried out as he went 
down under the snarling thing. Its ferocity was overpowering, irresistible. It 
straddled him and lashed at him, batting his fending arms aside, its clawed 
fingers tearing at his collar to free his throat, stretching his neck to expose 
its vulnerable flesh, its foul breath gagging him as it bent its fangs toward 
him. Zev 
screamed out his helplessness.

Father Joe awoke to the cries of a terrified voice.
He shook his head to clear it and instantly regretted the move. His head weighed 
at least two hundred pounds, and his mouth was stuffed with foul-tasting cotton. 
Why did he keep doing this to himself? Not only did it leave him feeling lousy, 
it gave him bad dreams. Like now.
Another terrified shout, only a few feet away.
He looked toward the sound. In the faint light from the flashlight rolling 
across the floor he saw Zev on his back, fighting for his life against Damn! 
This was no dream! One of those bloodsuckers had got in here! He leaped over to 
where the creature was lowering its fangs toward Zev's throat. He grabbed it by 
the back of the neck and lifted it clear of the floor. It was surprisingly heavy 
but that didn't slow him. Joe could feel the anger rising in him, surging into 
his muscles.
"Rotten piece of filth!" He swung the vampire by its neck and let it fly against 
the cinderblock wall. It impacted with what should have been bone-crushing force 
but bounced off, rolled on the floor, and regained its feet in one motion, ready 
to attack again. Strong as he was, Joe knew he was no match for this thing's 
power. He turned, grabbed his big silver crucifix, and charged the creature. 
"Hungry? Eat this!"
As the creature bared its fangs and hissed at him, Joe shoved the long lower end 
of the cross into its open mouth. Blue-white light flickered along the silver 
length of the crucifix, reflecting in the creature's startled, agonized eyes as 
its flesh sizzled and crackled. The vampire let out a strangled cry and tried to 
turn away but Joe wasn't through with it yet. He was literally seeing red as 
rage poured out of a hidden well and swirled through him. He rammed the cross 
deeper down the thing's gullet. Light flashed deep in its throat, illuminating 
the 
pale tissues from within. It tried to grab the cross and pull it out but the 
flesh of its fingers burned and smoked wherever they came in contact with the 
cross.
Finally Joe stepped back and let the thing squirm and scrabble up the wall and 
out the window into the night. Then he turned to Zev. If anything had happened
-	"Hey, Reb!" he said, kneeling beside the older man. "You all right?" 
"Yes," Zev said, struggling to his feet. "Thanks to you."
Joe slumped onto a crate, momentarily weak as his rage dissipated. This is not 
what I'm about, he thought. But it had felt so damn good to let it loose on that 
vampire. Too good. And that worried him.
I'm falling apart . . , like everything else in the world.
"That was too close," he said to Zev, giving the older man's shoulder a fond 
squeeze.
"Too close for that vampire for sure," Zev said, replacing his yarmulke. "And 
would you please remind me, Father Joe, that in the future if ever I should 
maybe get my blood sucked and become a vampire that I should stay far away from 
you."
Joe laughed for the first time in too long. It felt good.

They climbed out at first light. Joe stretched his cramped muscles in the fresh 
air while Zev checked on his hidden bicycle.
"Oy," Zev said as he pulled it from behind the dumpster. The front wheel had 
been bent so far out of shape that half the spokes were
broken. "Look what he did. Looks like I'll be walking back to Lakewood." But Joe 
was less interested in the bike than in the whereabouts of their visitor from 
last night. He knew it couldn't have got far. And it hadn't. They found the 
vampire-or rather what was left of it-on the far side of the dumpster: a 
rotting, twisted corpse, blackened to a crisp and steaming in the morning 
sunlight. The silver crucifix still protruded from between its teeth. Joe 
approached and gingerly yanked his cross free of the foul remains.
"Looks like you've sucked your last pint of blood," he said and immediately felt 
foolish.
Who was he putting on the macho act for? Zev certainly wasn't going to buy it. 
Too out of character. But then, what was his character these days? He used to be 
a parish priest. Now he was a nothing. A less than nothing. He straightened up 
and turned to Zev.
"Come on back to the retreat house, Reb. I'll buy you breakfast."
But as Joe turned and began walking away, Zev stayed and stared down at 
the corpse. "They say they don't wander far from where they spent their lives," 
Zev said. "Which means it's unlikely this fellow was Jewish if he lived around 
here. Probably Catholic. Irish Catholic, I'd imagine."
Joe stopped and turned. He stared at his long shadow. The hazy rising sun at his 
back cast a huge hulking shape before him, with a dark cross in one shadow hand 
and a smudge of amber light where it poured through the unopened bottle of 
Scotch in the other.
"What are you getting at?" he said.
"The Kaddish would probably not be so appropriate so I'm just wondering 
if maybe someone should give him the last rites or whatever it is you people do 
when one of you dies." "He wasn't one of us," Joe said, feeling the bitterness 
rise in him. "He wasn't even human."
"Ah, but he used to be before he was killed and became one of them. So 
maybe now he could use a little help." Joe didn't like the way this was going. 
He sensed he was being maneuvered.
"He doesn't deserve it," he said and knew in that instant he'd been trapped.

"I thought even the worst sinner deserved it," Zev said.
Joe knew when he was beaten. Zev was right. He shoved the cross and bottle into 
Zev's hands-a bit roughly, perhaps-then went and knelt by the twisted cadaver. 
He administered a form of the final sacrament. When he was through he returned 
to Zev and snatched back his belongings.
"You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din," he said as he passed.
"You act as if they're responsible for what they do after they become 
vampires," Zev said as he hurried along beside him, panting as he matched 
Joe's pace.
"Aren't they?" No.
"You're sure of that?"
"Well, not exactly. But they certainly aren't human anymore, so maybe we 
shouldn't hold them accountable on human terms."
Zev's reasoning tone flashed Joe back to the conversations they used to 
have in Horovitz's deli. "But Zev, we know there's some of the old personality 
left. I mean, they stay in their home towns, usually in the basements of their 
old houses. They go after people they knew when they were alive. They're not 
just dumb predators, Zev. They've got the old consciousness they had when they 
were alive. Why can't they rise above it? Why can't they . . . resist?"
"I don't know. To tell the truth, the question has never occurred to me. A 
fascinating concept: an undead refusing to feed. Leave it to Father Joe to come 
up with something like that. We should discuss this on the trip back to 
Lakewood."
Joe had to smile. So that was what this was all about.
"I'm not going back to Lakewood."
"Fine. Then we'll discuss it now. Maybe the urge to feed is too strong to 
overcome."
"Maybe. And maybe they just don't try hard enough."
"This is a hard line you're taking, my friend."
"I'm a hard-line kind of guy."
"Well, you've become one."
Joe gave him a sharp look. "You don't know what I've become."
Zev shrugged. "Maybe true, maybe not. But do you truly think you'd be able to 
resist?" "Damn straight."
Joe didn't know whether he was serious or not. Maybe he was just 
mentally preparing himself for the day when he might actually find himself in 
that situation. "Interesting," Zev said as they climbed the front steps of the 
retreat house. "Well, I'd better be going. I've a long walk ahead of me. A long, 
lonely walk all the way back to Lakewood. A long, lonely, possibly dangerous 
walk 
back for a poor old man who-" "All right, Zev! All right!" Joe said, biting back 
a laugh. "I get the point. You want me to go back to Lakewood. Why?" "I just 
want the company," Zev said with pure innocence. "No, really. What's going on in 
that Talmudic mind of yours? What are you cooking?" "Nothing, Father Joe. 
Nothing at all."
Joe stared at him. Damn it all if his interest wasn't piqued. What was Zev up 
to? And what the Hell? Why not go? He had nothing better to do.
"All right, Zev. You win. I'll come back to Lakewood with you. But just 
for today. Just to keep you company. And I'm not going anywhere near St. 
Anthony's, okay? Understood?"
"Understood, Joe. Perfectly understood."
"Good. Now wipe that smile off your face and we'll get something to eat." Under 
the climbing sun they walked south along the deserted beach, barefooting through 
the wet sand at the edge of the surf. Zev had never done this. He liked the feel 
of the sand between his toes, the coolness of the water as it sloshed over his 
ankles.
"Know what day it is?" Father Joe said. He had his sneakers slung over 
his shoulder. "Believe it or not, it's the Fourth of July."
"Oh, yes. Your Independence Day. We never made much of secular 
holidays. Too many religious ones to observe. Why should I not believe it's this 
date?"
Father Joe shook his head in dismay. "This is Manasquan Beach. You 
know what this place used to look like on the Fourth before the vampires took 
over? Wall-to-wall bodies."
"Really? I guess maybe sun-bathing is not the fad it used to be."

"Ah, Zev! Still the master of the understatement. I'll say one thing, though: 
The beach is cleaner than I've ever seen it. No beer cans or hypodermics." He 
pointed ahead. "But what's that up there?"
As they approached the spot, Zev saw a pair of naked bodies stretched out on the 
sand, one male, one female, both young and short-haired. Their skin was bronzed 
and glistened in the sun. The man lifted his head and stared at them. A blue 
crucifix was tattooed in the center of his forehead. He reached into the 
knapsack beside him and withdrew a huge, gleaming, nickel-plated revolver.
"Just keep walking," he said. "Will do," Father Joe said. "Just passing 
through." As they passed the couple, Zev noticed a similar tattoo on the girl's 
forehead. He noticed the rest of her too. He felt an almost-forgotten stirring 
deep inside him.
"A very popular tattoo," he said.
"Clever idea. That's one cross you can't drop or lose. Probably won't help you 
in the dark, but if there's a light on it might give you an edge." They turned 
west and made their way inland, finding Route 70 and 
following it into Ocean County via the Brielle Bridge.
"I remember nightmare traffic jams right here every summer," Father Joe said as 
they trod the bridge's empty span. "Never thought I'd miss traffic jams." They 
cut over to Route 88 and followed it all the way into Lakewood. 
Along the way they found a few people out and about in Bricktown and 
picking berries in Ocean County Park, but in the heart of Lakewood . . . "A real 
ghost town," the priest said as they walked Forest Avenue's deserted length. 
"Ghosts," Zev said, nodding sadly. It had been a long walk and he was tired. 
"Yes. Full of ghosts." In his mind's eye he saw the shades of his fallen brother 
rabbis and all the yeshiva students, beards, black suits, black hats, 
crisscrossing back and forth at 
a determined pace on weekdays, strolling with their wives on Shabbes, their 
children trailing behind like ducklings. Gone. All gone. Victims of the 
vampires. Vampires themselves now, most of them. It made him sick at heart to 
think of those good, gentle men, women, and children curled up in their 
basements now to avoid the light of day, venturing out in the dark to feed on 
others, spreading the disease . . .
He fingered the cross slung from his neck. If only they had listened.
"I know a place near St. Anthony's where we can hide," he told the priest. 
"You've traveled enough today, Reb. And I told you, I don't care about St. 
Anthony's."
"Stay the night, Joe," Zev said, gripping the young priest's arm. He'd coaxed 
him this far; he couldn't let him get away now. "See what Father Palmeri's 
done." "If he's one of them he's not a priest anymore. Don't call him Father."
"They still call him Father." `Who. "The vampires."
Zev watched Father Joe's jaw muscles bunch. Joe said, "Maybe I'll just take a 
quick trip over to St. Anthony's myself-"
"No. It's different here. The area is thick with them-maybe twenty times as many 
as in Spring Lake. They'll get you if your timing isn't just right. I'll take 
you." "You need rest, pal."
Father Joe's expression showed genuine concern. Zev was detecting 
increasingly softer emotions in the man since their reunion last night. A good 
sign perhaps?
"And rest I'll get when we get to where I'm taking you."

Father Joe Cahill watched the moon rise over his old church and wondered at the 
wisdom of coming back. The casual decision made this morning in the full light 
of day seemed reckless and foolhardy now at the approach of midnight. But there 
was no turning back. He'd followed Zev to the second floor of this two-story 
office building across the street from St. Anthony's, and here they'd waited for 
dark. Must have been a law office once. The place had been vandalized, the 
windows broken, the furniture trashed, but there was an old Temple University 
Law School degree on the wall, and the couch was still in 
one piece. So while Zev caught some Z's, Joe sat and sipped a little of his 
scotch and did some heavy thinking.

Mostly he thought about his drinking. He'd done too much of that lately, he 
knew; so much so that he was afraid to stop cold. So he was taking just a touch 
now, barely enough to take the edge off. He'd finish the rest later, after he 
came back from that church over there.
He'd stared at St. Anthony's since they'd arrived. It too had been extensively 
vandalized. Once it had been a beautiful little stone church, a miniature 
cathedral, really; very Gothic with all its pointed arches, steep roofs, 
crocketed spires, and multifoil stained glass windows. Now the windows were 
smashed, the crosses which had topped the steeple and each gable were gone, and 
anything resembling a cross in its granite exterior had been defaced beyond 
recognition.
As he'd known it would, the sight of St. Anthony's brought back memories of 
Gloria Sullivan, the young, pretty church volunteer whose husband worked for 
United Chemical International in New York, commuting in every day and trekking 
off overseas a little too often. Joe and Gloria had seen a lot of each other 
around the church offices and had become good friends. But Gloria had somehow 
got the idea that what they had went beyond friendship, so she showed up at the 
rectory one night when Joe was there alone. He tried to explain that as 
attractive as she was, she was not for him. He had taken certain vows and meant 
to stick by them. He did his best to let her down easy but she'd been hurt. And 
angry. That might have been that, but then her six-year-old son Kevin had come 
home from altar boy practice with a story about a priest making him pull down 
his pants and touching him. Kevin was never clear on who the priest had been, 
but Gloria Sullivan was. Obviously it had been Father Cahill-any man who could 
turn down the heartfelt offer of her love and her body had to be either a queer 
or worse. And a child molester was worse.
She took it to the police and to the papers.
Joe groaned softly at the memory of how swiftly his life had become Hell. But he 
had been determined to weather the storm, sure that the real culprit eventually 
would be revealed. He had no proof-still didn't-but if one of the priests at St. 
Anthony's was a pederast, he knew it wasn't him. That left Father Alberto 
Palmeri, St. Anthony's fifty-five-year-old pastor. Before Joe could get to the 
truth, however, Father Palmeri requested that Father Cahill be removed from the 
parish, and the bishop complied. Joe had left under a cloud that had followed 
him to the retreat house in the next county and hovered over him till this day. 
The only place he'd found even brief respite from the impotent anger and 
bitterness that roiled under his skin and soured his gut every minute of every 
day was in the bottle-and that was sure as Hell a dead end.
So why had he agreed to come back here? To torture himself? Or to get a 
look at Palmeri and see how low he had sunk?
Maybe that was it. Maybe seeing Palmeri wallowing in his true element 
would give him the impetus to put the whole St. Anthony's incident behind him 
and rejoin what was left of the human race-which needed him now more than ever. 
And maybe it wouldn't.
Getting back on track was a nice thought, but over the past few months Joe had 
found it increasingly difficult to give much of a damn about anyone or anything. 
Except maybe Zev. He'd stuck by him through the worst of it, defending him to 
anyone who would listen. But an endorsement from an Orthodox rabbi had meant 
diddly in St. Anthony's. And yesterday Zev had biked all the way to Spring Lake 
to see him. Old Zev was all right. And he'd been right about the number of 
vampires here too. Lakewood was crawling with the things. Fascinated and 
repelled, Joe had watched the streets fill with them shortly after sundown. But 
what had disturbed him more were the creatures who'd come out before sundown. 
The humans. Live ones.
The collaborators.
If there was anything lower, anything that deserved true death more than the 
vampires themselves, it was the still-living humans who worked for them. Someone 
touched his shoulder and he jumped. It was Zev. He was holding something out to 
him. Joe took it and held it up in the moonlight: a tiny crescent moon dangling 
from a chain on a ring.
"What's this?"
"An earring. The local Vichy wear them."
" Vichy? Like the Vichy French?"
"Yes. Very good. I'm glad to see that you're not as culturally illiterate as the 
rest of your generation. Vichy humans-that's what I call the collaborators. 
These earrings identify them to the local nest of vampires. 
They are spared."
"Where'd you get them?"
Zev's face was hidden in the shadows. "Their previous owners . . . lost 
them. Put it on."
"My ear's not pierced."
A gnarled hand moved into the moonlight. Joe saw a long needle clasped 
between the thumb and index finger.
"That I can fix," Zev said.

"Maybe you shouldn't see this," Zev whispered as they crouched in the 
deep shadows on St. Anthony's western flank.
Joe squinted at him in the darkness, puzzled.
"You lay a guilt trip on me to get me here, now you're having second 
thoughts?"
"It is horrible like I can't tell you."
Joe thought about that. There was enough horror in the world outside St. 
Anthony's. What purpose did it serve to see what was going inside?
Because it used to be my church.
Even though he'd only been an associate pastor, never fully in charge, 
and even though he'd been unceremoniously yanked from the post, St. 
Anthony's had been his first parish. He was here. He might as well know 
what they were doing inside.
"Show me." Zev led him to a pile of rubble under a smashed stained glass window. 
He pointed up to where faint light flickered from inside.
"Look in there."
"You're not coming?"
"Once was enough, thank you."
Joe climbed as carefully, as quietly as he could, all the while becoming 
increasingly aware of a growing stench like putrid, rotting meat. It was coming 
from inside, wafting through the broken window. Steeling himself, he 
straightened up and peered over the sill.
For a moment he was disoriented, like someone peering out the window 
of a city apartment and seeing the rolling hills of a Kansas farm. This could 
not be the interior of St. Anthony's.

In the flickering light of hundreds of sacramental candles he saw that the walls 
were bare, stripped of all their ornaments, of the plaques for the stations of 
the cross; the dark wood along the wall was scarred and gouged wherever there 
had been anything remotely resembling a cross. The floor too was mostly bare, 
the pews ripped from their neat rows and hacked to pieces, their splintered 
remains piled high at the rear under the choir balcony.
And the giant crucifix that had dominated the space behind the altar-only a 
portion of it remained. The cross-pieces on each side had been sawed off and so 
now an armless, life-size Christ hung upside down against the rear wall of the 
sanctuary.
Joe took in all that in a flash, then his attention was drawn to the unholy 
congregation that peopled St. Anthony's this night. The collaborators-the Vichy 
humans, as Zev called them-made up the periphery of the group. They looked like 
normal, everyday people but each was wearing a crescent moon earring. 

	But the others, the group gathered in the sanctuary Joe felt his hack les 
rise at the sight of them. They surrounded the altar in a tight knot. Their 
pale, bestial faces, bereft of the slightest trace of human warmth, compassion, 
or decency, were turned upward. His gorge rose when he saw the object of their 
rapt attention.
A naked teenage boy, his hands tied behind his back, was suspended over 
the altar by his ankles. He was sobbing and choking, his eyes wide and vacant 
with shock, his mind all but gone. The skin had been flayed from his forehead-
apparently the Vichy had found an expedient solution to the cross tattoo-and 
blood ran in a slow stream across his abdomen and chest from his freshly 
truncated genitals. And beside him, standing atop the altar, a bloody-mouthed 
creature dressed in a long cassock.
Joe recognized the thin shoulders, the graying hair trailing from the balding 
crown, but was shocked at the crimson vulpine grin he flashed to the things 
clustered below him.
"Now," said the creature in a lightly accented voice Joe had heard hundreds of 
times from St. Anthony's pulpit.
Father Alberto Palmeri.
And from the group a hand reached up with a straight razor and drew it 
across the boy's throat. As the blood flowed down over his face, those
below squeezed and struggled forward like hatchling vultures to catch the 
falling drops and scarlet trickles in their open mouths.
Joe fell away from the window and vomited. He felt Zev grab his arm and 
lead him away. He was vaguely aware of crossing the street and heading toward 
the ruined legal office.

"Why in God's name did you want me to see that?"
Zev looked across the office toward the source of the word. He could see a vague 
outline where Father Joe sat on the floor, his back against the wall, the open 
bottle of scotch in his hand. The priest had taken one drink since their return, 
no more.
"I thought you should know what they were doing to your church."
"So you've said. But what's the reason behind that one?"
Zev shrugged in the darkness. "I'd heard you weren't doing well, that even 
before everything else began falling apart, you had already fallen apart. So 
when I felt it safe to get away, I came to see you. Just as I expected, I found 
a man who was angry at everything and letting it eat up his guderim. I thought 
maybe it would be good to give that man something very specific to be angry at."
"You bastard!" Father Joe whispered. "Who gave you the right?"
"Friendship gave me the right, Joe. I should hear that you are rotting away and 
do nothing? I have no congregation of my own anymore so I turned my attention on 
you. Always I was a somewhat meddlesome rabbi."
"Still are. Out to save my soul, ay?"
"We rabbis don't save souls. Guide them maybe, hopefully give them 
direction. But only you can save your soul, Joe:"
Silence hung in the air for awhile. Suddenly, the crescent-moon earring Zev had 
given Father Joe landed in the puddle of moonlight on the floor between them.
"Why do they do it?" the priest said. "The Vichy-why do they collaborate?"
"The first were quite unwilling, believe me. They cooperated because their wives 
and children were held hostage by the vampires. But before too long the dregs of 
humanity began to slither out from under their rocks and offer their services in 
exchange for the immortality of vampirism.

"Why bother working for them? Why not just bare your throat to the 
nearest bloodsucker?"
"That's what I thought at first," Zev said. "But as I witnessed the Lakewood 
holocaust I detected the vampires' pattern. They can choose who joins their 
ranks, so after they've fully infiltrated a population, they change their 
tactics. 
You see, they don't want too many of their kind concentrated in one area. It's 
like too many carnivores in one forestwhen the herds of prey are wiped out, the 
predators starve. So they start to employ a different style of killing. For only 
when the vampire draws the life's blood from the throat with its fangs does the 
victim become one of them. Anyone drained as in the manner of that boy in the 
church tonight dies a true death. He's as dead now as someone run over by a 
truck. He will not rise tomorrow night."
"I get it," Father Joe said. "The Vichy trade their daylight services and dirty 
work to the vampires now for immortality later on."
"Correct."
There was no humor in the soft laugh the echoed across the room from 
Father Joe.
"Swell. I never cease to be amazed at our fellow human beings. Their 
capacity for good is exceeded only by their ability to debase themselves." 
"Hopelessness does strange things, Joe. The vampires know that. So they rob us 
of hope. That's how they beat us. They transform our friends and neighbors and 
leaders into their own, leaving us feeling alone, completely cut off. Some of us 
can't take the despair and kill themselves."
"Hopelessness," Joe said. "A potent weapon."
After a long silence, Zev said, "So what are you going to do now, Father Joe?"
Another bitter laugh from across the room.
"I suppose this is the place where I declare that I've found new purpose in life 
and will now go forth into the world as a fearless vampire killer."
"Such a thing would be nice."
"Well screw that. I'm only going as far as across the street."
"To St. Anthony's?"
Zev saw Father Joe take a swig from the scotch bottle and then screw the cap on 
tight.
"Yeah. To see if there's anything I can do over there."
"Father Palmeri and his nest might not like that."

"I told you, don't call him Father. And screw him. Nobody can do what he's 
done and get away with it. I'm taking my church back."
In the dark, behind his beard, Zev smiled.
Joe stayed up the rest of the night and let Zev sleep. The old guy needed his 
rest. Sleep would have been impossible for Joe anyway. He was too wired. He sat 
up and watched St. Anthony's.
They left before first light, dark shapes drifting out the front doors and down 
the stone steps like parishioners leaving a predawn service. Joe felt his back 
teeth grind as he scanned the group for Palmeri, but he couldn't make him out in 
the dimness. By the time the sun began to peek over the rooftops and through the 
trees to the east, the street outside was deserted. He woke Zev and together 
they approached the church. The heavy oak and iron front doors, each forming 
half of a pointed arch, were closed. He pulled them open and fastened the hooks 
to keep them open. Then he walked through the vestibule and into the nave.
Even though he was ready for it, the stench backed him up a few steps. 
When his stomach settled, he forced himself ahead, treading a path between the 
two piles of shattered and splintered pews. Zev walked beside him, a 
handkerchief pressed over his mouth.
Last night he had thought the place a shambles. He saw now that it was 
worse. The light of day poked into all the corners, revealing everything that 
had been hidden by the warm glow of the candles. Half a dozen rotting corpses 
hung from the ceiling-he hadn't noticed them last night-and others were sprawled 
on the floor against the walls. Some of the bodies were in pieces. Behind the 
chancel rail a headless female torso was draped over the front of the pulpit. To 
the left stood the statue of Mary. Someone had fitted her with foam rubber 
breasts and a huge dildo. And at the rear of the sanctuary was the armless 
Christ hanging head down on the upright of his cross.
"My church," he whispered as he moved along the path that had once been 
the center aisle, the aisle that brides used to walk down with their fathers. 
"Look what they've done to my church!"
Joe approached the huge block of the altar. Once it had been backed 
against the far wall of the sanctuary, but he'd had it moved to the front so 
that he could celebrate Mass facing his parishioners. Solid Carrara marble, but 
you'd never know it now. So caked with dried blood, semen, and feces it could 
have been made of Styrofoam.
His revulsion was fading, melting away in the growing heat of his rage, 
drawing the nausea with it. He had intended to clean up the place but there was 
so much to be done, too much for two men. It was hopeless.
"Fadda Joe?"
He spun at the sound of the strange voice. A thin figure stood uncertainly in 
the open doorway. A man of about fifty edged forward timidly.
"Fadda Joe, izat you?"
Joe recognized him now. Carl Edwards. A twitchy little man who used to 
help pass the collection basket at 10:30 Mass on Sundays. A transplantee from 
Jersey City-hardly anyone around here was originally from around here. His face 
was sunken, his eyes feverish as he stared at Joe.
"Yes, Carl. It's me."
"Oh, tank God!" He ran forward and dropped to his knees before Joe. He 
began to sob. "You come back! Tank God, you come back!"
Joe pulled him to his feet.
"Come on now, Carl. Get a grip."
"You come back to save us, ain'tcha? God sent ya here to punish him, dint 
He?"
"Punish whom?"
"Fadda Palmeri! He's one a dem! He's da woist a alla dem! He-"
"I know," Joe said. "I know."
"Oh, it's so good to have ya back, Fadda Joe! We ain't knowed what to do since 
da suckers took ova. We been prayin' fa someone like youse an now ya here. It's 
a freakin' miracle!"
Joe wanted to ask Carl where he and all these people who seemed to think they 
needed him now had been when he was being railroaded out of the parish. But that 
was ancient history.
"Not a miracle, Carl," Joe said, glancing back at Zev. "Rabbi Wolpin 
brought me back." As Carl and Zev shook hands, Joe said, "And I'm just 
passing through."
"Passing trough? No. Dat can't be! Ya gotta stay!"
Joe saw the light of hope fading in the little man's eyes. Something twisted 
within him, tugging him.
"What can I do here, Carl? I'm just one man."
"I'll help! I'll do whatever ya want! Jes tell me!"


"Will you help me clean up?"
Carl looked around and seemed to see the cadavers for the first time. He cringed 
and turned a few shades paler.
"Yeah . . . sure. Anyting."
Joe looked at Zev. "Well? What do you think?"
Zev shrugged. "I should tell you what to do? My parish it's not."
"Not mine either."
Zev jutted his beard at Carl. "I think maybe he'd tell you differently."
Joe did a slow turn. The vaulted nave was utterly silent except for the 
buzzing of the flies around the cadavers. A massive clean-up job. But if they 
worked all day they could make a decent dent in it. And then
.	And then what?
Joe didn't know. He was playing this by ear. He'd wait and see what the 
night brought.
"Can you get us some food, Carl? I'd sell my soul for a cup of coffee."
Carl gave him a strange look.
"Just a figure of speech, Carl. We'll need some food if we're going to 
keep working."
The man's eyes lit again.
"Dat means ya staying?"
"For a while."
"I'll getcha some food," he said excitedly as he ran for the door. "An' 
coffee. I know someone who's still got coffee. She'll part wit' some of it for 
Fadda Joe." He stopped at the door and turned. "Ay, an' Fadda, I neva believed 
any a dem tings dat was said aboutcha. Neva."
Joe tried but he couldn't hold it back.
"It would have meant a lot to have heard that from you last year, 
Carl."
The man lowered his eyes. "Yeah. I guess it woulda. But I'll make it up 
ya, Fadda. I will. You can take dat to da bank."
Then he was out the door and gone. Joe turned to Zev and saw the old 
man rolling up his sleeves.
"Nu?" Zev said. "The bodies. Before we do anything else, I think maybe 
we should move the bodies."
By early afternoon, Zev was exhausted. The heat and the heavy work had 
taken their toll. He had to stop and rest. He sat on the chancel rail
and looked around. Nearly eight hours work and they'd barely scratched
the surface. But the place did look and smell better.
	Removing the flyblown corpses and scattered body parts had been the worst 
of it. A foul, gut-roiling task that had taken most of the morning.
They'd carried the corpses out to the small graveyard behind the church
and left them there. Those people deserved a decent burial but there was no time 
for it today.
	Once the corpses were gone, Father Joe had torn the defilements from the 
statue of Mary and then they'd turned their attention to the huge crucifix. It 
took a while but they finally found Christ's plaster arms in the pile of ruined 
pews. They'd been still nailed to the sawn-off cross piece of the crucifix. 
While Zev and Father Joe worked at jury-rigging a series of braces to reattach 
the arms, Carl found a mop and bucket and F began the long, slow process of 
washing the fouled floor of the nave.
	Now the crucifix was intact again-the life-size plaster Jesus had his arms 
reattached and was once again nailed to his refurbished cross.
Father Joe and Carl had restored him to his former position of domi
nance. The poor man was upright again, hanging over the center of the
sanctuary in all his tortured splendor.
	A grisly sight. Zev could never understand the Catholic attachment
to these gruesome statues. But if the vampires loathed them, then Zev
was for them all the way.
	His stomach rumbled with hunger. At least they'd had a good break
fast. Carl had returned from his food run this morning with bread,
cheese, and two thermoses of hot coffee. He wished now they'd saved
some. Maybe there was a crust of bread left in the sack. He headed back
to the vestibule to check and found an aluminum pot and a paper bag
sitting by the door. The pot was full of beef stew and the sack contained
three cans of Pepsi.
	He poked his head out the doors but no one was in sight on the street 
outside. It had been that way all day-he'd spy a figure or two peeking in the 
front doors; they'd hover there for a moment as if to confirm that what they had 
heard was true, then they'd scurry away. He looked at the meal that had been 
left. A group of the locals must have donated from their hoard of canned stew 
and precious soft drinks to fix this. Zev was touched. 	He called Father Joe 
and Carl.

"Tastes like Dinty Moore," Father Joe said around a mouthful of the stew.
"It is," Carl said. "I recognize da little potatoes. Da ladies of the parish 
must really be excited about youse comin' back to break inta deir canned goods 
like dis."
They were feasting in the sacristy, the small room off the sanctuary where the 
priests had kept their vestments-a clerical Green Room, so to speak. Zev found 
the stew palatable but much too salty. He wasn't about to complain, though.
"I don't believe I've ever had anything like this before."
"I'd be real surprised if you had," said Father Joe. "I doubt very much that 
something that calls itself Dinty Moore is kosher."
Zev smiled but inside he was suddenly filled with a great sadness. Kosher . . . 
how meaningless now seemed all the observances which he had allowed to 
rule and circumscribe his life. Such a fierce proponent of strict dietary laws 
he'd been in the days before the Lakewood holocaust.
But those days were gone, just as the Lakewood community was gone. And 
Zev was a changed man. If he hadn't changed, if he were still observing, he 
couldn't sit here and sup with these two men. He'd have to be elsewhere, eating 
special classes of specially prepared foods off separate sets of dishes. But 
really, wasn't division what holding to the dietary laws in modern times was all 
about? They served a purpose beyond mere observance of tradition. They placed 
another wall between observant Jews and outsiders, keeping them separate even 
from other Jews who didn't observe. Zev forced himself to take a big bite of the 
stew. Time to break down all the walls between people . . . while there was 
still enough time and people left alive to make it matter.
"You okay, Zev?" Father Joe asked. Zev nodded silently, afraid to speak for fear 
of sobbing. Despite all its anachronisms, he missed his life in the good old 
days of last year. Gone. It was all gone. The rich traditions, the culture, the 
friends, the prayers. He felt 
adrift-in time and in space. Nowhere was home. "You sure?" The young priest 
seemed genuinely concerned. "Yes, I'm okay. As okay as you could expect me to 
feel after spending the better part of the day repairing a crucifix and eating 
non-kosher food. And let me tell you, that's not so okay."
He put his bowl aside and straightened from his chair.
"Come on, already. Let's get back to work. There's much yet to do."
"Sun's almost down," Carl said.
Joe straightened from scrubbing the altar and stared west through one of the 
smashed windows. The sun was out of sight behind the houses there.
"You can go now, Carl," he said to the little man. "Thanks for your help."
"Where youse gonna go, Fadda?"
"I'll be staying right here."
Carl's prominent Adam's apple bobbed convulsively as he swallowed.
"Yeah? Well den, I'm staying too. I tol' ya I'd make it up to ya, din't I? An 
besides, I don't tink the suckas'll like da new, improved St. Ant'ny's too much 
when dey come back tonight, d'you? I don't even tink dey'll get t'rough da 
doors."
Joe smiled at the man and looked around. Luckily it was July and the days were 
long. They'd had time to make a difference here. The floors were clean, the 
crucifix was restored and back in its proper position, as were most of the 
Stations of the Cross plaques. Zev had found them under the pews and had taken 
the ones not shattered beyond recognition and rehung them on the walls. 
Lots of new crosses littered those walls. Carl had found a hammer and nails and 
had made dozens of them from the remains of the pews.
"No. I don't think they'll like the new decor one bit. But there's something you 
can get us if you can, Carl. Guns. Pistols, rifles, shotguns, anything that 
shoots."
Carl nodded slowly. "I know a few guys who can help in dat department."
"And some wine. A little red wine if anybody's saved some."
"You got it."
He hurried off.
"You're planning Custer's last stand, maybe?" Zev said from where he was tacking 
the last of Carl's crude crosses to the east wall.
"More like the Alamo."
"Same result," Zev said with one of his shrugs.
Joe turned back to scrubbing the altar. He'd been at it for over an hour now. 
He was drenched with sweat and knew he smelled like a bear, but he couldn't stop 
until it was clean.
An hour later he was forced to give up. No use. It wouldn't come clean. The 
vampires must have done something to the blood and foulness to make the mixture 
seep into the surface of the marble like it had.
He sat on the floor with his back against the altar and rested. He didn't like 
resting because it gave him time to think. And when he started to think he 
realized that the odds were pretty high against his seeing tomorrow morning.
At least he'd die well fed. Their secret supplier had left them a dinner of 
fresh fried chicken by the front doors. Even the memory of it made his mouth 
water. Apparently someone was really glad he was back.
To tell the truth, though, as miserable as he'd been, he wasn't ready to die. 
Not tonight, not any night. He wasn't looking for an Alamo or a Little Big Horn. 
All he wanted to do was hold off the vampires till dawn. Keep them out of St. 
Anthony's for one night. That was all. That would be a statement-his statement. 
If he found an opportunity to ram a stake through Palmeri's rotten heart, so 
much the better, but he wasn't counting on that. One night. Just to let them 
know they couldn't have their way everywhere with everybody whenever they felt 
like it. He had surprise on his side tonight, so maybe it would work. One night. 
Then he'd be on his way.
"What the fuck have you done?"
Joe looked up at the shout. A burly, long-haired man in jeans and a flannel 
shirt stood in the vestibule staring at the partially restored nave. As he 
approached, Joe noticed his crescent moon earring.
A Vichy. Joe balled his fists but didn't move.
"Hey, I'm talking to you, mister. Are you responsible for this?"
When all he got from Joe was a cold stare, he turned to Zev.
"Hey, you! Jew! What the Hell do you thinkyou're doing?" He started 
toward Zev. "You get those fucking crosses off-"
"Touch him and I'll break you in half," Joe said in a low voice.
The Vichy skidded to a halt and stared at him.
"Hey, asshole! Are you crazy? Do you know what Father Palmeri will do to you 
when he arrives?"
"Father Palmeri? Why do you still call him that?"
"It's what he wants to be called. And he's going to call you dog meat when he 
gets here!"
Joe pulled himself to his feet and looked down at the Vichy. The man took two 
steps back. Suddenly he didn't seem so sure of himself.
"Tell him I'll be waiting. Tell him Father Cahill is back."
"You're a priest? You don't look like one."
"Shut up and listen. Tell him Father Joe Cahill is back-and he's pissed. Tell 
him that. Now get out of here while you still can."
The man turned and hurried out into the growing darkness. Joe turned to 
Zev and found him grinning through his beard.
" `Father Joe Cahill is back-and he's pissed.' I like that."
"We'll make it into a bumper sticker. Meanwhile let's close those doors. The 
criminal element is starting to wander in. I'll see if we can find some more 
candles. It's getting dark in here."

He wore the night like a tuxedo.
Dressed in a fresh cassock, Father Alberto Palmeri turned off County Line Road 
and strolled toward St. Anthony's. The night was lovely, especially when you 
owned it. And he owned the night in this area of Lakewood now. He loved the 
night. He felt at one with it, attuned to its harmonies and its discords. The 
darkness made him feel so alive. Strange to have to lose your life before you 
could really feel alive. But this was it. He'd found his niche, his metier.
Such a shame it had taken him so long. All those years trying to deny his 
appetites, trying to be a member of the other side, cursing himself when he 
allowed his appetites to win, as he had with increasing frequency toward the end 
of his mortal life. He should have given in to them completely long ago.
It had taken undeath to free him.
And to think he had been afraid of undeath, had cowered in fear each night in 
the cellar of the church, surrounded by crosses. Fortunately he had not been as 
safe as he'd thought and one of the beings he now called brother was able to 
slip in on him in the dark while he dozed. He saw now that he had lost nothing 
but his blood by that encounter.

And in trade he'd gained a world.
For now it was his world, at least this little corner of it, one in which he was 
completely free to indulge himself in any way he wished. Except for the blood. 
He had no choice about the blood. That was a new appetite, stronger than all the 
rest, one that would not be denied. But he did not mind the new appetite in the 
least. He'd found interesting ways to sate it. Up ahead he spotted dear, 
defiled St. Anthony's. He wondered what his servants had prepared for him 
tonight. They were quite imaginative. They'd yet to bore him.
But as he drew nearer the church, Palmeri slowed. His skin prickled. The 
building had changed. Something was very wrong there, wrong inside. 
Something amiss with the light that beamed from the windows. This wasn't the old 
familiar candlelight, this was something else, something more. Something that 
made his insides tremble.
Figures raced up the street toward him. Live ones. His night vision picked out 
the earrings and familiar faces of some of his servants. As they neared he 
sensed the warmth of the blood coursing just beneath their skins. The hunger 
rose in him and he fought the urge to rip into one of their throats. He couldn't 
allow himself that pleasure. He had to keep the servants dangling, keep them 
working for him and the nest. They needed the services of the indentured living 
to remove whatever obstacles the cattle might put in their way.
"Father! Father!" they cried.
He loved it when they called him Father, loved being one of the undead 
and dressing like one of the enemy.
"Yes, my children. What sort of victim do you have for us tonight?"
"No victim, father-trouble!"
The edges of Palmeri's vision darkened with rage as he heard of the young priest 
and the Jew who had dared to try to turn St. Anthony's into a holy place again. 
When he heard the name of the priest, he nearly exploded. "Cahill? 
Joseph Cahill is back in my church?"
"He was cleaning the altar!" one of the servants said.
Palmeri strode toward the church with the servants trailing behind. He knew that 
neither Cahill nor the Pope himself could clean that altar. Palmeri had 
desecrated it himself; he had learned how to do that when he became nest leader. 
But what else had the young pup dared to do?
Whatever it was, it would be undone. Now!

Palmeri strode up the steps and pulled the right door open-and 
screamed in agony.
The light! The light! The LIGHT! White agony lanced through Palmeri's 
eyes and seared his brain like two hot pokers. He retched and threw his arms 
across his face as he staggered back into the cool, comforting darkness. It took 
a few minutes for the pain to drain off, for the nausea to pass, for vision to 
return.
He'd never understand it. He'd spent his entire life in the presence of 
crosses and crucifixes, surrounded by them. And yet as soon as he'd become 
undead, he was unable to bear the sight of one. As a matter of fact, since he'd 
become undead, he'd never even seen one. A cross was no longer an object. It was 
a light, a light so excruciatingly bright, so blazingly white that it was sheer 
agony to look at it. As a child in Naples he'd been told by his mother not to 
look at the sun, but when there'd been talk of an eclipse, he'd stared directly 
into its eye. The pain of looking at a cross was a hundred, no, a thousand times 
worse than that. And the bigger the cross or crucifix, the worse the pain.
He'd experienced monumental pain upon looking into St. Anthony's 
tonight. That could only mean that Joseph, that young bastard, had 
refurbished the giant crucifix. It was the only possible explanation.
He swung on his servants.
"Get in there! Get that crucifix down!"
"They've got guns!"
"Then get help. But get it down!"
"We'll get guns too! We can-"
"No! I want him! I want that priest alive! I want him for myself! Anyone 
who kills him will suffer a very painful, very long and lingering true death! 
Is that clear?"
It was clear. They scurried away without answering.
Palmeri went to gather the other members of the nest.

Dressed in a cassock and a surplice, Joe came out of the sacristy and 
approached the altar. He noticed Zev keeping watch at one of the windows. 
He didn't tell him how ridiculous he looked carrying the shotgun Carl had 
brought back. He held it so gingerly, like it was full of nitroglycerine and 
would explode if he jiggled it.

Zev turned, and smiled when he saw him.
"Now you look like the old Father Joe we all used to know."
	Joe gave him a little bow and proceeded toward the altar.
All right: He had everything he needed. He had the Missal they'd found in among 
the pew debris earlier today. He had the wine; Carl had brought back about four 
ounces of sour red babarone. He'd found a smudged surplice and a dusty cassock 
on the floor of one of the closets in the sacristy, and he wore them now. No 
hosts, though. A crust of bread left over from breakfast would have to do. No 
chalice, either. If he'd known he was going to be saying Mass he'd have come 
prepared. As a last resort he'd used the can opener in the rectory to remove the 
top from one of the Pepsi cans from lunch. Quite a stretch from the gold chalice 
he'd used since his ordination, but probably more 
in line with what Jesus had used at that first Mass-the Last Supper.
He was uncomfortable with the idea of weapons in St. Anthony's but
-	he saw no alternative. He and Zev knew nothing about guns, and Carl knew 
little more; they'd probably do more damage to themselves than to the Vichy if 
they tried to use them. But maybe the sight of them would make the Vichy 
hesitate, slow them down. All he needed was a little time here, enough to get to 
the consecration.
This is going to be the most unusual Mass in history, he thought.
But he was going to get through it if it killed him. And that was a real 
possibility. This might well be his last Mass. But he wasn't afraid. He was too 
excited to be afraid. He'd had a slug of the scotch-just enough to ward off the 
DTs-but it had done nothing to quell the buzz of the adrenalin humming along 
every nerve in his body.
He spread everything out on the white tablecloth he'd taken from the 
rectory and used to cover the filthy altar. He looked at Carl.
"Ready?"
Carl nodded and stuck the.38 caliber pistol he'd been examining into his belt. 
"Been a while, Fadda. We did it in Latin when I was a kid, but I tink I can 
swing it."
"Just do your best and don't worry about any mistakes."
Some Mass. A defiled altar, a crust for a host, a Pepsi can for a chalice, a 
fifty-year-old, pistol-packing altar boy, and a congregation consisting of a 
lone, shotgun-carrying Orthodox Jew. Joe looked heavenward.

You do understand, don't you, Lord, that this was arranged on short notice?
Time to begin.
He read the Gospel but dispensed with the homily. He tried to	 
remember the Mass as it used to be said, to fit in better with Carl's
outdated responses. As he was starting the Offertory the front doors flew open 
and a group of men entered-ten of them, all with crescent moons dangling from 
their ears. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zev move away from the window 
toward the altar, pointing his shotgun at them.
As soon as they entered the nave and got past the broken pews, the Vichy fanned 
out toward the sides. They began pulling down the Stations of the Cross, ripping 
Carl's makeshift crosses from the walls and tearing them apart. 
Carl looked up at Joe from where he knelt, his eyes questioning, his hand 
reaching for the pistol in his belt.
Joe shook his head and kept up with the Offertory.
When all the little crosses were down, the Vichy swarmed behind the
altar. Joe chanced a quick glance over his shoulder and saw them begin
their attack on the newly repaired crucifix.
"Zev!" Carl said in a low voice, cocking his head toward the Vichy. "Stop 
'em!"
Zev worked the pump on the shotgun. The sound echoed through the 
church. Joe heard the activity behind him come to a sudden halt. He braced 
himself for the shot ....
But it never came..
He looked at Zev. The old man met his gaze and sadly shook his head. He 
couldn't do it. To the accompaniment of the sound of renewed activity and 
derisive laughter behind him, Joe gave Zev a tiny nod of reassurance and 
understanding, then hurried the Mass toward the Consecration. As he held the 
crust of bread aloft, he started at the sound of the life-sized 
crucifix crashing to the floor, cringed as he heard the freshly buttressed arms  
and crosspiece being torn away again.
As he held the wine aloft in the Pepsi can, the swaggering, grinning Vichy 
surrounded the altar and brazenly tore the cross from around his neck. Zev and 
Carl put up a struggle to keep theirs but were overpowered. And then Joe's skin 
began to crawl as a new group entered the nave. There had to be at least forty 
of them, all of them vampires.
And Palmeri was leading them. 

Palmeri hid his hesitancy as he approached the altar. The crucifix and its 
intolerable whiteness were gone, yet something was not right. Something 
repellent here, something that urged him to flee. What?
Perhaps it was just the residual effect of the crucifix and all the crosses they 
had used to line the walls. That had to be it. The unsettling aftertaste would 
fade as the night wore one. Oh, yes. His nightbrothers and sisters from the nest 
would see to that. He focused his attention on the man behind the altar and 
laughed when he realized what he held in his hands.
"Pepsi, Joseph? You're trying to consecrate Pepsi?" He turned to his nest 
siblings. "Do you see this, my brothers and sisters? Is this the man we are to 
fear? And look who he has with him! An old Jew and a parish hanger-on!"
He heard their hissing laughter as they fanned out around him, sweeping 
toward the altar in a wide phalanx. The Jew and Carl-he recognized Carl and 
wondered how he'd avoided capture for so longretreated to the other side of the 
altar where they flanked Joseph. And Joseph . . . Joseph's handsome Irish face 
so pale and drawn, his mouth drawn into such a tight, grim line. He looked 
scared to death. And well he should be.
Palmeri put down his rage at Joseph's audacity. He was glad he had 
returned. He'd always hated the young priest for his easy manner with people, 
for the way the parishioners had flocked to him with their problems despite the 
fact that he had nowhere near the experience of their older and wiser pastor. 
But that was over now. That world was gone, replaced by a 
nightworld-Palmeri's world. And no one would be flocking to Father Joe for 
anything when Palmeri was through with him. "Father Joe"-how he'd hated it when 
the parishioners had started calling him that. Well, their Father Joe would 
provide superior entertainment tonight. This was going to be fun.
"Joseph, Joseph, Joseph," he said as he stopped and smiled at the young 
priest across the altar. "This futile gesture is so typical of your arrogance.
But Joseph only stared back at him, his expression a mixture of defiance and 
repugnance. And that only fueled Palmeri's rage.
"Do I repel you, Joseph? Does my new form offend your precious 
shanty-Irish sensibilities? Does my undeath disgust you?"

"You managed to do all that while you were still alive, Alberto."
Palmeri allowed himself to smile. Joseph probably thought he was 
putting on a brave front, but the tremor in his voice betrayed his fear.
"Always good with the quick retort, weren't you, Joseph. Always think-
ing you were better than me, always putting yourself above me."
"Not much of a climb where a child molester is concerned."
Palmeri's anger mounted.
"So superior. So self-righteous. What aboutyour appetites, Joseph? The 
secret ones? What are they? Do you always hold them in check? Are you so far 
above the rest of us that you never give in to an improper impulse? I'll bet you 
think that even if we made you one of us you could resist the blood hunger."
He saw by the startled look in Joseph's face that he had struck a nerve. He 
stepped closer, almost touching the altar.
"You do, don't you? You really think you could resist it! Well, we shall see 
about that, Joseph. By dawn you'll be drained-we'll each take a turn at you-and 
when the sun rises you'll have to hide from its light. When the night comes 
you'll be one of us. And then all the rules will be off. The night will be 
yours. You'll be able to do anything and everything you've ever wanted. But the 
blood hunger will be on you too. You won't be sipping your god's blood, as 
you've done so often, but human blood. You'll thirst for hot, human blood, 
Joseph. And you'll have to sate that thirst. There'll be no choice. And I want 
to be there when you do, Joseph. I want to be there to laugh in your face as you 
suck up the crimson nectar, and keep on laughing every night as the red hunger 
lures you into infinity."
And it would happen. Palmeri knew it as sure as he felt his own thirst. 
He hungered for the moment when he could rub dear Joseph's face in the 
muck of his own despair. "I was about to finish saying Mass," Joseph said 
coolly. "Do you mind if I finish?"
Palmeri couldn't help laughing this time.
"Did you really think this charade would work? Did you really think you 
could celebrate Mass on this?"
He reached out and snatched the tablecloth from the altar, sending the 
Missal and the piece of bread to the floor and exposing the fouled surface of 
the marble.

"Did you really think you could effect the Transubstantiation here? Do 
you really believe any of that garbage? That the bread and wine actually take on 
the substance of-" He tried to say the name but it wouldn't form, "-the Son's 
body and blood?"
One of nest brothers, Frederick, stepped forward and leaned over the 
altar, smiling.
"Transubstantiation?" he said in his most unctuous voice, pulling the 
Pepsi can from Joseph's hands. "Does that mean that this is the blood of the 
Son?"
A whisper of warning slithered through Palmeri's mind. Something 
about the can, something about the way he found it difficult to bring its 
outline into focus . . .
"Brother Frederick, maybe you should-"
Frederick's grin broadened. "I've always wanted to sup on the blood of 
a deity."
The nest members hissed their laughter as Frederick raised the can arid 
drank.
Palmeri was jolted by the explosion of intolerable brightness that burst from 
Frederick's mouth. The inside of his skull glowed beneath his scalp and shafts 
of pure white light shot from his ears, nose, eyes-every orifice in his head. 
The glow spread as it flowed down through his throat and chest and into his 
abdominal cavity, silhouetting his ribs before melting through his skin. 
Frederick was liquefying where he stood, his flesh steaming, softening, running 
like glowing molten lava.
No! This couldn't be happening! Not now when he -had Joseph in his 
grasp!
Then the can fell from Frederick's dissolving fingers and landed on the 
altar top. Its contents splashed across the fouled surface releasing another 
detonation of brilliance, this one more devastating than the first. The glare 
spread rapidly, extending over the upper surface and running down the sides, 
moving like a living thing, engulfing the entire altar, making it glow like a 
corpuscle of fire torn from the heart of the sun itself.
And with the light came blast-furnace heat that drove Palmeri back, 
back, back until he had to turn and follow the rest of his nest in a mad, 
headlong rush from St. Anthony's into the cool, welcoming safety of the outer 
darkness.
	

As the vampires fled into the night, their Vichy toadies behind them, Zev stared 
in horrid fascination at the puddle of putrescence that was all that remained of 
the vampire Palmeri had called Frederick. He glanced at Carl and caught the look 
of dazed wonderment on his face. Zev touched the top of the altar--clean, shiny, 
every whorl of the marble surface clearly visible.
There was fearsome power here. Incalculable power. But instead of 
elating him, the realization only depressed him. How long had this been 
going on? Did it happen at every Mass? Why had he spent his entire life 
ignorant of this?
He turned to Father Joe.
"What happened?"
"I-I don't know."
"A miracle!" Carl said, running his palm over the altar top.
"A miracle and a meltdown," Father Joe said. He picked up the empty 
Pepsi can and looked into it. "You know, you go through the seminary, 
through your ordination, through countless Masses believing in the 
Transubstantiation. But after all these years . . , to actually know. . ."
Zev saw him rub his finger along the inside of the can and taste it. He 
grimaced.
"What's wrong?" Zev asked.
"Still tastes like sour barbarone . . . with a hint of Pepsi."
"Doesn't matter what it tastes like. As far as Palmeri and his friends are 
concerned, it's the real thing."
"No," said the priest with a small smile. "That's Coke."
And then they started laughing. It wasn't that funny, but Zev found 
himself roaring along with the other two. It was more a release of tension than 
anything else. His sides hurt. He had to lean against the altar to support 
himself.
It took the return of the Vichy to cure the laughter. They charged in 
carrying a heavy fire blanket. This time Father Joe did not stand by 
passively as they invaded his church. He stepped around the altar and met them 
head on. He was great and terrible as he confronted them. His giant stature and 
raised fists cowed them for a few heartbeats. But then they must have remembered 
that they outnumbered him twelve to one and charged him. He swung a massive fist 
and caught the lead Vichy square on the jaw.
The blow lifted him off his feet and he landed against another. Both went down. 
Zev dropped to one knee and reached for the shotgun. He would use it this time, 
he would shoot these vermin, he swore it!
But then someone landed on his back and drove him to the floor. As he 
tried to get up he saw Father Joe, surrounded, swinging his fists, laying the 
Vichy out every time he connected. But there were too many. As the priest went 
down under the press of them, a heavy boot thudded against the side of Zev's 
head. He sank into darkness.

A throbbing in his head, stinging pain in his cheek, and a voice, sibilant 
yet harsh . . .
". . . now, Joseph. Come on. Wake up. I don't want you to miss this!"
Palmeri's sallow features swam into view, hovering over him, grinning 
like a skull. Joe tried to move but found his wrists and arms tied. His right 
hand throbbed, felt twice its normal size; he must have broken it on a Vichy 
jaw. He lifted his head and saw that he was tied spread-eagle on the altar, and 
that the altar had been covered with the fire blanket.
"Melodramatic, I admit," Palmeri said, "but fitting, don't you think? I 
mean, you and I used to sacrifice our god symbolically here every weekday and 
multiple times on Sundays, so why shouldn't this serve as your sacrificial 
altar?"
Joe shut his eyes against a wave of nausea. This couldn't be 
happening.
"Thought you'd won, didn't you?" When Joe wouldn't answer him, 
Palmeri went on. "And even if you'd chased me out of here for good, what would 
you have accomplished? The world is ours now, Joseph. Feeders and cattle-that is 
the hierarchy. We are the feeders. And tonight you'll join us. 
But he won't. Yoihi!"
He stepped aside and made a gesture toward the balcony. Joe searched 
the dim, candlelit space of the nave, not sure what he was supposed to see. 
Then he picked out Zev's form and he groaned. The old man's feet were 
lashed to the balcony rail; he hung upside down, his reddened face and 
frightened eyes turned his way. Joe fell back and strained at the ropes but they 
wouldn't budge.
"Let him go!"

"What? And let all that good rich Jewish blood go to waste? Why, these 
people are the Chosen of God! They're a delicacy!"
"Bastard!"
If he could just get his hands on Palmeri, just for a minute.
"Tut-tut, Joseph. Not in the house of the Lord. The Jew should have been smart 
and run away like Carl."
Carl got away? Good. The poor guy would probably hate himself, call 
himself a coward the rest of his life, but he'd done what he could. Better to 
live on than get strung up like Zev.
We're even, Carl.
"But don't worry about your rabbi. None of us will lay a fang on him. He hasn't 
earned the right to join us. We'll use the razor to bleed him. And when he's 
dead, he'll be dead for keeps. But not you, Joseph. Oh no, not you." His smile 
broadened. "You're mine."
Joe wanted to spit in Palmeri's face-not so much as an act of defiance as to 
hide the waves of terror surging through him-but there was no saliva to be had 
in his parched mouth. The thought of being undead made him weak. To spend 
eternity like . . . he looked at the rapt faces of Palmeri's fellow vampires 
as they clustered under Zev's suspended form . . . like them?
He wouldn't be like them! He would not allow it!
But what if there was no choice? What if becoming undead toppled a 
lifetime's worth of moral constraints, cut all the tethers on his human hungers, 
negated all his mortal concepts of how a life should be lived? Honor, justice, 
integrity, truth, decency, fairness, love-what if they became meaningless words 
instead of the footings for his life?
A thought struck him.
"A deal, Alberto," he said.
"You're hardly in a bargaining position, Joseph."
"I'm not? Answer me this: Do the undead ever kill each other? I mean, has one of 
them ever driven a stake through another's heart?"
"No. Of course not."
"Are you sure? You'd better be sure before you go through with your plans 
tonight. Because if I'm forced to become one of you, I'll be crossing over with 
just one thought in mind: To find you. And when I do I won't stake your heart, 
I'll stake your arms and legs to the pilings of the Point Pleasant boardwalk 
where you can watch the sun rise and feel it slowly crisp your skin to 
charcoal."

Palmeri's smile wavered. "Impossible. You'll be different. You'll want to thank 
me. You'll wonder why you ever resisted."
"You'd better sure of that, Alberto . . . for your sake. Because I'll have all 
eternity to track you down. And I'll find you, Alberto. I swear it on my own 
grave. Think on that."
"Do you think an empty threat is going to cow me?".
"We'll find out how empty it is, won't we? But here's the deal: Let Zev go and 
I'll let you be."
"You care that much for an old Jew?"
"He's something you never knew in life, and never will know: He's a 
friend." And he gave me back my souk Palmeri leaned closer. His foul, nauseous 
breath wafted against Joe's face.
"A friend? How can you be friends with a dead man?" With that he 
straightened and turned toward the balcony. "Do him! Mow!"
As Joe shouted out frantic pleas and protests, one of the vampires climbed up 
the rubble toward Zev. Zev did not struggle. Joe saw him close his eyes, 
waiting. As the vampire reached out with the straight razor, Joe bit back a sob 
of grief and rage and helplessness. He was about to squeeze his own eyes shut 
when he saw a flame arc through the air from one of the windows. It struck the 
floor with a crash of glass and a wooomp! of exploding flame.
Joe had only heard of such things, but he immediately realized that he had just 
seen his first Molotov cocktail in action. The splattering gasoline caught the 
clothes of a nearby vampire who began running in circles, screaming as it beat 
at its flaming clothes.
But its cries were drowned by the roar of other voices, a hundred or more. Joe 
looked around and saw people-men, women, teenagers-climbing in the windows, 
charging through the front doors.
The women held crosses on high while the men wielded long wooden 
pikes-broom, rake, and shovel handles whittled to sharp points. Joe recognized 
most of the faces from the Sunday Masses he had said here for years.
St. Anthony's parishioners were back to reclaim their church.
"Yes!" he shouted, not sure whether to laugh or cry. But when he saw the rage in 
Palmeri's face, he laughed. "Too bad, Alberto!"
Palmeri made a lunge at his throat but cringed away as a woman with
an upheld crucifix and a man with a pike charged the altar-Carl and a woman Joe 
recognized as Mary O'Hare.
"Told ya I wun't letcha down, din't I, Fadda?" Carl said, grinning and pulling 
out a red Swiss Army knife. He began sawing at the rope around Joe's right 
wrist. "Din't I?"
"That you did, Carl. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see anyone in my 
entire life. But how-?"
"I told 'em. I run t'rough da parish, goin' house to house. I told 'em dat Fadda 
Joe was in trouble an' dat we let him down before but we shoun't let him down 
again. He come back fa us, now we gotta go back fa him. Simple as dat. And den 
dey started runnin' house to house, an' afore ya knowed it, we had ourselfs a 
little army. We come to kick ass, Fadda, if you'll excuse da expression."
"Kick all the ass you can, Carl."
Joe glanced at Mary O'Hare's terror-glazed eyes as she swiveled around, 
looking this way and that;, he saw how the crucifix trembled in her hand. She 
wasn't going to kick too much ass in her state, but she was here, dear God, she 
was here for him and for St. Anthony's despite the terror that so obviously 
filled her. His heart swelled with love for the these people and pride in their 
courage.
As soon as his arms were free, Joe sat up and took the knife from Carl. As he 
sawed at his leg ropes, he looked around the church.
The oldest and youngest members of the parishioner army were stationed at the 
windows and doors where they held crosses aloft, cutting off the vampires' 
escape, while all across the nave-chaos. Screams, cries, and an occasional shot 
echoed through St. Anthony's. The vampires were outnumbered three to one and 
seemed blinded and confused by all the crosses around them. Despite their 
superhuman strength, it appeared that some were indeed getting their asses 
kicked. A number were already writhing on the floor, impaled on pikes. As Joe 
watched, he saw a pair of the women, crucifixes held before them, backing a 
vampire into a corner. As it cowered there with its arms across its face, one of 
the men charged in with a sharpened rake handle held like a lance and ran it 
through.
But a number of parishioners lay in inert, bloody heaps on the floor, proof that 
the vampires and the Vichy were claiming their share of victims too.

Joe freed his feet and hopped off the altar. He looked around for Palmeri-he 
wanted Palmeri-but the vampire priest had lost himself in the melee. Joe glanced 
up at the balcony and saw that Zev was still hanging there, struggling to free 
himself. He started across the nave to help him. Zev hated that he should be 
hung up here like a salami in a deli window. He tried again to pull his upper 
body up far enough to reach his leg ropes but he couldn't get close. He had 
never been one for exercise; doing a sit-up flat on the floor would have been 
difficult, so what made him think he could do the equivalent maneuver hanging 
upside down by his feet?
He dropped back, exhausted, and felt the blood rush to his head again. His 
vision swam, his ears pounded, he felt like his skin of his face was going to 
burst open. Much more of this and he'd have a stroke or worse maybe. He watched 
the upside-down battle below and was glad to see the vampires getting the worst 
of it. These people-seeing Carl among them, Zev assumed they were part of St. 
Anthony's parish-were ferocious, almost savage in their attacks on the vampires. 
Months' worth of pent-up rage and fear was being released upon their tormentors 
in a single burst. It was almost frightening.
Suddenly he felt a hand on his foot. Someone was untying his knots. Thank you, 
Lord. Soon he would be on his feet again. As the cords came loose he decided he 
should at least attempt to participate in his own rescue. Once more Zev thought. 
Once more I'll try.
With a grunt he levered himself up, straining, stretching to grasp something, 
anything. A hand came out of the darkness and he reached for it. But Zev's 
relief turned to horror when he felt the cold clamminess of the thing that 
clutched him, that pulled him up and over the balcony rail with inhuman 
strength. His bowels threatened to evacuate when Palmeri's grinning face loomed 
not six inches from his own.
"It's not over yet, Jew," he said softly, his foul breath clogging Zev's nose 
and throat. "Not by along shot!"
He felt Palmeri's free hand ram into his belly and grip his belt at the buckle, 
then the other hand grab a handful of his shirt at the neck.

Before he could struggle or cry out, he was lifted free of the floor and hoisted 
over the balcony rail.
And the demon's voice was in his ear.
"Joseph called you a friend, Jew. Let's see if he really meant it."
Joe was half way across the floor of the nave when he heard Palmeri's voice echo 
above the madness.
"Stop them, Joseph! Stop them now or I drop your friend!"
Joe looked up and froze.
Palmeri stood at the balcony rail, leaning over it, his eyes averted from the 
nave and all its newly arrived crosses. At the end of his outstretched arms was 
Zev, suspended in mid-air over the splintered remains of the pews, over a 
particularly large and ragged spire of wood that pointed directly at the middle 
of Zev's back. Zev's frightened eyes were flashing between Joe and the giant 
spike below.
Around him Joe heard the sounds of the melee drop a notch, then drop 
another as all eyes were drawn to the tableau on the balcony.
"A human can die impaled on a wooden stake just as well as a vampire!" 
Palmeri cried. "And just as quickly if it goes through his heart. But it can 
take hours of agony if it rips through his gut:"
St. Anthony's grew silent as the fighting stopped and each faction backed away 
to a different side of the church, leaving Joe alone in the middle.
"What do you want, Alberto?"
"First I want all those crosses put away so that I can see!"
Joe looked to his right where his parishioners stood.
"Put them away," he told them. When a murmur of dissent arose, he added, "Don't 
put them down, just out of sight. Please."
Slowly, one by one at first, then in groups, the crosses and crucifixes were 
placed behind backs or tucked out of sight within coats.
To his left, the vampires hissed their relief and the Vichy cheered. The sound 
was like hot needles being forced under Joe's fingernails. Above, Palmeri turned 
his face to Joe and smiled.
"That's better."
"What do you want?" Joe asked, knowing with a sick crawling in his gut 
exactly what the answer would be.
"A trade," Palmeri said.
"Me for him, I suppose?" Joe said.
Palmeri's smile widened. "Of course."
"No, Joe!" Zev cried.
Palmeri shook the old man roughly. Joe heard him say, "Quiet, Jew, or I'll snap 
your spine!" Then he looked down at Joe again. "The other thing is to tell your 
rabble to let my people go." He laughed and shook Zev again. "Hear that, Jew? A 
Biblical reference-Old Testament, no less!" "All right," Joe said without 
hesitation.
The parishioners on his right gasped as one and cries of "No!" and "You 
can't!" filled St. Anthony's. A particularly loud voice nearby shouted, "He's 
only a lousy kike!"
Joe wheeled on the man and recognized Gene Harrington, a carpenter. He 
jerked a thumb back over his shoulder at the vampires and their servants. "You 
sound like you'd be more at home with them, Gene."
Harrington backed up a step and looked at his feet.
"Sorry, Father," he said in a voice that hovered on the verge of a sob. 
"But we just got you back!"
"I'll be all right," Joe said softly.
And he meant it. Deep inside he had a feeling that he would come through this, 
that if he could trade himself for Zev and face Palmeri one-on-one, he could 
come out the victor, or at least battle him to a draw. Now that he was no longer 
tied up like some sacrificial lamb, now that he was free, with full use of his 
arms and legs again, he could not imagine dying at the hands of the likes of 
Palmeri.
Besides, one of the parishioners had given him a tiny crucifix. He had it closed 
in the palm of his hand.
But he had to get Zev out of danger first. That above all else. He looked up at 
Palmeri.
"All right, Alberto. I'm on my way up."
"Wait!" Palmeri said. "Someone search him."
Joe gritted his teeth as one of the Vichy, a blubbery, unwashed slob, came 
forward and searched his pockets. Joe thought he might get away with the 
crucifix but at the last moment he was made to open his hands. The Vichy grinned 
in Joe's face as he snatched the tiny cross from his palm and shoved it into his 
pocket.

"He's clean now!" the slob said and gave Joe a shove toward the vestibule. Joe 
hesitated. He was walking into the snake pit unarmed. A glance at his 
parishioners told him he couldn't very well turn back now. He continued on his 
way, clenching and unclenching his tense, sweaty fists as he walked. He still 
had a chance of coming out of this alive. He was too angry to die. He prayed 
that when he got within reach of the ex-priest the smoldering rage at how he had 
framed him when he'd been pastor, at what he'd done to St. Anthony's since then 
would explode and give him the strength to tear Palmeri to pieces.
"No!" Zev shouted from above. "Forget about me! You've started 
something here and you've got to see it through!"
Joe ignored his friend.
"Coming, Alberto."
FatherJoe's coming Alberto. And he's pissed. Royally pissed.
Zev craned his neck around, watching Father Joe disappear beneath the 
balcony.
"Joe! Come back!"
Palmeri shook him again.
"Give it up, old Jew. Joseph never listened to anyone and he's not listening to 
you. He still believes in faith and virtue and honesty, in the power of goodness 
and truth over what he perceives as evil. He'll come up here ready to sacrifice 
himself for you, yet sure in his heart that he's going to win in the end. 
But he's wrong."
"No!" Zev said.
But in his heart he knew that Palmeri was right. How could Joe stand up 
against a creature with Palmeri's strength, who could hold Zev in the air like 
this for so long? Didn't his arms ever tire?
"Yes!" Palmeri hissed. "He's going to lose and we're going to win. We'll win for 
the same reason we'll always win. We don't let anything as silly and transient 
as sentiment stand in our way. If we'd been winning below and situations were 
reversed-if Joseph were holding one of my nest brothers over that wooden spike 
below-do you think I'd pause for a moment? For a second? Never! That's why this 
whole exercise by Joseph and these people is futile."
Futile . . . Zev thought. Like much of his life, it seemed. Like all of his 
future. Joe would die tonight and Zev would live on, a cross-wearing Jew, with 
the traditions of his past sacked and in flames, and nothing in his future but a 
vast, empty, limitless plain to wander alone.There was a sound on the balcony 
stairs, and Palmeri turned his head. "Ah, Joseph," he said.
Zev couldn't see the priest but he shouted anyway.
"Go back Joe! Don't let him trick you!"
"Speaking of tricks," Palmeri said, leaning further over the balcony rail as an 
extra warning to Joe, "I hope you're not going to try anything foolish." "No," 
said Joe's tired voice from somewhere behind Palmeri. "No tricks. 
Pull him in and let him go."
Zev could not let this happen. And suddenly he knew what he had to do.
He twisted his body and grabbed the front of Palmeri's cassock while 
bringing his legs up and bracing his feet against one of the uprights of the 
brass balcony rail.
As Palmeri turned his startled face toward him, Zev put all of his strength into 
his legs for one convulsive backwards push against the railing, pulling Palmeri 
with him. The vampire priest was overbalanced. Even his enormous strength could 
not help him once his feet came free of the floor. Zev saw his undead eyes widen 
with terror as his lower body slipped over the railing. 
As they fell free, Zev wrapped his arms around Palmeri and clutched his 
cold and surprisingly thin body tight against him.
"What goes through this old Jew goes through you!" he shouted into the 
vampire's ear. For an instant he saw Joe's horrified face appear over the 
balcony's receding edge, heard Joe's faraway shout of `No!" mingle with 
Palmeri's nearer scream of the same word, then there was a spine-cracking jar 
and a tearing, wrenching pain beyond all comprehension in his chest. In an 
eyeblink he felt the sharp spire of wood rip through him and into Palmeri.
And then he felt no more.
As roaring blackness closed in he wondered if he'd done it, if this last 
desperate, foolish act had succeeded.
He didn't want to die without finding out.
He wanted to know
But then he knew no more.

Joe shouted incoherently as he hung over the rail and watched Zev's fall, gagged 
as he saw the bloody point of the pew remnant burst through the back of 
Palmeri's cassock directly below him. He saw Palmeri squirm and flop around like 
a speared fish, then go limp atop Zev's already inert form. As cheers mixed with 
cries of horror and the sounds of renewed battle rose from the nave, Joe turned 
away from the balcony rail and dropped to his knees.
"Zev!" he cried aloud. "Good God, Zev!"
Forcing himself to his feet, he stumbled down the back stairs, through the 
vestibule, and into the nave. The vampires and the Vichy were on the run, as 
cowed and demoralized by their leader's death as the parishioners were buoyed by 
it.
Slowly, steadily, they were falling before the relentless onslaught. But Joe 
paid them scant attention.
He fought his way to where Zev lay impaled beneath Palmeri's already 
rotting corpse.
He looked for a sign of life in his old friend's glazing eyes, a hint of a pulse 
in his throat under his beard, but there was nothing.
"Oh, Zev, you shouldn't have. You shouldn't have."
Suddenly he was surrounded by a cheering throng of St. Anthony's 
parishioners.
"We did it, Fadda Joe!" Carl cried, his face and hands splattered with blood. 
"We killed 'em all! We got our church back!"
"Thanks to this man here," Joe said, pointing to Zev.
"No!" someone shouted. "Thanks to you!"
Amid the cheers, Joe shook his head and said nothing.
Let them celebrate.
They deserved it.
They'd reclaimed a small piece of the planet as their own, a toehold and nothing 
more.
A small victory of minimal significance in the war, but a victory 
nonetheless. They had their church back, at least for tonight. And they intended 
to keep it. Good. But there would be one change. If they wanted their Father Joe 
to stick around they were going to have to agree to rename the church. St. 
Zev's. Joe liked the sound of that.