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.And there were parts missing.Hearts—and other things.Di hadn't been able to bear more than a single glance.She took one look and buried her face in Mark's shoulder.He held her awkwardly, unable to give her any comfort at all.He attempted to deal with the scene, but he wasn't handling it much better than she was.For that matter, neither was most of the rest of the Homicide team.They were somewhat used to death—but this went beyond their experience and worst nightmares.The Forensics crew was coping, managing to do their job despite the horror that could be seen behind their deadpan expressions, but only with the help of the same emergency crew that had helped sort out the bodies after the last big air disaster at DFW.That lot was familiar with horror, and their steadiness helped to keep the Forensics folk from losing their own grip.After several abortive attempts to face the carnage, all of which ended in her tears and failure, Mark sent Di back to the car; but he felt honor-bound to stay.She wasn't coherent enough for him to make out whether it was just the physical butchery that was getting to her, or something more.She looked on the verge of a breakdown—and he wouldn't let her risk one; he needed her too much.But he also knew he must look like hell, because one of the parameds came over and patted his shoulder with clumsy encouragement."Hang in there, buddy," the stranger said, his own face stiff and his eyes dull, his- blond hair lank with nervous sweat."You get numb after about a half an hour, honest."Something inside Mark winced at the idea.He didn't want to go numb—And yet, at the same time, he did.It would almost be worth losing one's humanity to also lose the frustrated agony, the knife-edged guilt, the sheer revulsion caused by seeing human beings, children, reduced to so much butchered meat—"How many?" he asked, his jaw clenched so hard it ached."Thirty-eight.And no sign that any of them fought, either.It's damned spooky, is all I can tell you.It's like they just laid themselves down for the knife—like another Jim Jones thing, you know?"When Mark forced himself to go nearer to examine the bodies heaped in the center of the clearing behind the shelter, he discovered that the paramed was right.Even though every face he saw was a mask of terror, even though the expressions were distorted with a pain and fear he could only imagine, there were no signs of combat or attempts at flight on the part of any of the victims.And that was more than just "spooky." That was unnatural, and it raised the hair on the back of his neck in a way that almost made him forget the blood and the mutilated bodies.Now he was drawn to the actual sacrificial site by an urgency he could not deny.Behind the cement and wood shelter was a picnic table, the makeshift altarplace.There was thick, dry grass all about it, grass that was showing distinct signs of life after the rain of the night before.He knelt beside Jean in the grass and studied the site, studied the way the grass was trampled flat in places, studied the obvious trail—Unable to believe what he thought he was seeing, he walked around to the opposite side of the site.It looked exactly the same—at least to his eyes—from there.He returned to Jean's side."No," he said flatly to her."There is no way—""Tell me what you see," she replied."I'm trying to decide if I've gone around the bend.""It—no, it's too damned weird.""Cough it out, dammit!" she snapped, a wild look of being near the edge herself stirring in the depths of her hazel eyes."It looks—it looks like they all lined up here—" He pointed to a nearly straight line of flattened grass at the edge of the parking lot."—like they lined up like kids after recess.And then—then they came forward, one at a time—" He indicated the path that was clearly worn into the grass from the beginning of the flattened line, past the shelter, to end at the picnic table that had been used as the sacrificial altar."—of their own free will—and—I can't believe it! Even if whoever it was had these people under guard, and the guards were armed with machine guns, some of them should have tried to break and run! But—""There's not a sign of it," Jean agreed, nodding, not losing a particle of that strange, fey expression as she turned to study the site once again."I don't believe it either—but there isn't one single indication that anything else happened.They could have been zombies or robots—except that—those faces—"She shuddered, and Mark shuddered in sympathy."They knew what was going to happen to them, and they marched up to their deaths anyway," she said."Mark, it doesn't make any sense! Not even drugs or hypnosis could make people do that! It's like they were all under some kind of horrible, evil spell."***"It was a 'spell.' Of control," Di said flatly."They were controlled, from first to last.Like robots—only these robots knew what was going to happen to them."She had managed to come out of the car and face the site once the bodies were all carted off to the morgue.By then nearly everyone had gone except Mark and Ramirez.She passed a trembling hand through her hair, and bit her lip."That's not all, Mark.This time the cult leaders haven't bothered to wipe out the traces of what they did.It's like they've gotten powerful enough to be contemptuous of me [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]