On Harrow Hill

A lunch buffet had been set up, along with a coffee urn. Most of the meeting attendees were focused on their sandwiches or salads. Neither Morgan nor Gurney visited the buffet. With an awkward smile, Morgan took a seat facing Aspern. Gurney sat next to Morgan.

“We should get started,” said Aspern with a sour glance around the table. “Since yesterday, the situation has gotten worse. Not only do we still have a throat-slashing lunatic on the loose, we are the target of the most unfair media coverage imaginable.” He looked down the table at Carmody. “Martin, I hope to God you can help us reverse the tide before the world starts thinking ‘Larchfield’ is the name of a horror movie.”

“We’re doing all we can, Chandler. Immediately after this meeting, I want to record Chief Morgan delivering a positive statement about the progress he’s making. I’ve already written a preliminary draft. We want every internet, cable, and network news provider to have the video in hand for the next news cycle. Stern, confident, solid hand on the tiller. That’s our message.”

“Good,” said Aspern. “Now, I want you all to see a god-awful program that ran last night on RAM-TV. By this morning it had spread to YouTube, Facebook, Twitter.” He directed everyone’s attention to a screen set into the conference room wall, a larger version of the one at police headquarters. “It’s called Crimes Beyond Reason. I have our attorney looking into a possible lawsuit.”

Aspern tapped an icon on his phone and the screen on the wall came to life. After a typical RAM sequence of pulsating title graphics, the program began with a doctored video of Tate on the church roof. Eerie music had been added. There were more frequent flashes in the night sky and louder claps of thunder than in the original, and when Tate was struck by the final bolt of lightning, his tumble from the roof was shown in slow motion.

When Tate hit the ground, the scene shifted to Karl Kasak in front of the church, wearing the same safari jacket Gurney remembered from the program promo on RAM News. He was speaking with the intensity of a reporter in a war zone.

“I’m Karl Kasak, here where Billy Tate, a practitioner of witchcraft, plunged to his death—a death certified by the official medical examiner. Tate’s body was taken to a mortuary and placed, at the strange request of his stepmother, in a sealed coffin. Hours later, Billy Tate burst out of that coffin and began the bloody rampage people here are calling ‘the zombie murders.’ Did Tate experience a miraculous revival? Or has he become what investigators of the macabre call ‘one of the walking dead’?”

Kasak paused to let his audience absorb that question before going on in the same dramatic tone.

“I spent today talking to area residents, learning how they feel about the nightmare that’s engulfed their town—as well as to experts on the effects of lightning and to probers of the paranormal. Prepare to be shocked!”

The scene switched to a close-up of a twentysomething man with a thin mustache and big designer-frame glasses. He was identified on-screen as JASON HARKER, LARCHFIELD RESIDENT. From the background, it looked like the scene had been recorded in the village square.

Harker spoke directly to the camera. “I remember Billy from high school. The way he’d look at you sometimes . . . you’d think, whatever’s on his mind, it’s not good. He carried one of those knives, you flick your wrist, blade flips out. That look and that knife made you want to back away. Fast.”

Kasak’s next interviewee was a bullet-headed man with small eyes, a boxer’s flat nose, and a purple birthmark on his shaved head. He was wearing a white tee shirt and a black leather vest. The screen identified him as ROBERT “BOB” STENGEL, PLUMBING CONTRACTOR. He had the hoarse voice of a longtime smoker.

“How do I feel? Like an animal feels before an earthquake. This kid in the coffin, you know what it makes me think of? That horror movie with the hand shooting up out of the grave. That’s what’s happening in the world today, evil coming up around us. Reverend Gant’s got it right. Time to lock and load.”

According to the identifying line at the bottom of the screen, the next interviewee was ARTHUR BUNZMAN, RETIRED EXECUTIVE. He had a narrow face, long nose, and thinning gray hair. He looked to Gurney like he’d just walked out of a photograph of the Nazis at Nuremberg.

As if responding to Robert “Bob” Stengel’s call to arms, he said, “I’m ready. I’ve taken the steps the situation demands for my family’s protection and to set an example. When the days of disorder arrive, woe betide the fool who is unprepared. There’s no spot in my home where I cannot, within the space of three paces, lay my hand on a loaded firearm.”