As Preacher watched Addie lose consciousness, he had a sudden vision of her death, of Eleazar killing him for his master and then walking over, kneeling and wrapping his fingers around the girl’s neck. Preacher’s hands flew up, catching Eleazar’s, stopping them as they squeezed.
“Wait!” he said.
He held the man’s hands still as he looked at him.
“You’ll not hurt her,” he said. “After it’s done.”
“I have no cause. You’ll have given me what I want.”
“It was not a question,” Preacher said, locking eyes with the man. “You are accustomed to bodies where the soul is long departed. If Rene’s soul still lingers now, then so will mine, for a time. If you hurt the girl . . . I cannot lie and say what I will do, because I do not know what I may do. But I am certain I can do something, and so I will, if she’s harmed.”
“As I said, I’ll have no cause once Rene has his new body. A girl child is no threat to me. As for telling anyone, I’m quite certain that by now, your village has already realized something has gone very, very wrong.”
The village. The other children.
“No,” he said. “You—”
Eleazar’s grip tightened. Preacher tried to stop him, to say more, but the man squeezed with inhuman strength and then—
Darkness.
* * *
Preacher jolted upright. He was lying on the forest floor, Charlie’s body beside him. He scrambled to his feet and looked around, but there was no sign of Eleazar.
Something had gone wrong. He’d been tricked.
Addie.
Preacher whirled, searching for his foster daughter, seeing no sign—
No, there she was, across the clearing, still on the ground. He raced over and dropped beside her. He put his hands to her thin chest and—
His fingers passed through her. He stumbled back, falling on his rear. Then he looked down at his hand, the grass poking through it, undisturbed.
Nothing has gone wrong.
I’m dead.
He gasped, the sudden realization as agonizing as a bullet to the heart.
I’m dead. I’m gone.
Sophia. Dear lord, Sophia. I’ll never see her again. Never see our child. Never see Addie grow up.
Addie.
He hurried to the girl again. She was breathing. He could see that. As he rose from her side, a scream split the night.
The village. The villagers. The resurrected children.
Preacher ran toward Chestnut Hill. At first, he weaved around trees and bushes, then realized there was no need and tore through them. He could hear more now, shouts and screams and cries for God.
Soon he could see the houses in the distant darkness. Lights flickered. Doors slammed. Shots rang out. And the screams. The terrible screams—of shock, of pain, of horror.
He came out of the woods behind a house, following some of the worst cries. A woman lay on the grass, not screaming now, but making horrible gurgling noises. Atop her was a boy covered in blood, his face contorted and wild as he raised a stone, hitting her again and again, smashing her face until she couldn’t scream, until Preacher could only tell she was a woman by her dress.
He ran toward them, shouting for the boy to stop, please stop.
As he drew near, he could see the child under that mask of blood. Jonas Meek. Little Jonas Meek. And the woman below him, gurgling her last? His mother.
“No,” Preacher whispered. “No.”
The boy flickered, as if he were the ghost, beginning to fade. So too did his mother and the blood-soaked grass below them. Something tugged at Preacher. He tried to fight it. Tried to stay, to help, to do whatever he could, but the pull was too great, and as he scrambled for a hold, feeling himself lifting, he caught sight of something moving at the end of the woods.
He saw himself. Standing there, with Eleazar, watching Jonas Meek beat his mother to death and laughing. He was laughing.