Boys in the Valley(81)

He releases us, grips his crozier once more, and smiles. It breaks my heart.

“You are God’s instruments now. Be strong. Be compassionate. Be brave. The Lord will give you strength.”

I don’t look at David, but at the ground. I nod, wipe away a lone tear.

I know how this will end.

For his part, David says nothing, but I can feel the answer in his posture; I sense his defeat, his acquiescence to Andrew’s wish.

“Besides,” Andrew says lightly. “Peter’s basically a priest. It was only a matter of his final assessment, and then a brief ceremony. A ceremony that was already being planned, I might add.”

I look up, startled. For the briefest of moments, the danger is forgotten. “What?”

“Peter? A priest?” Byron says, and taps my arm with a fist. “Attaboy, Peter.”

“I’d already spoken to Poole about it,” Andrew says. He speaks to all of us, but I know he’s also speaking directly to me. Likely wondering how I will react. “It was all worked out.”

I stare at him, see the obvious joy in his eyes.

I wonder if he can see the betrayal in mine.

“I was going to tell you in a week or so, Peter, once we’d gotten you better versed on some of the Latin. Now you know why I was pushing you so hard lately.” He laughs.

Even David looks pleasantly astonished. “How about that,” he says, and puts an arm around my shoulders. He’s never done that before. “Saint Peter for real.”

“Only a matter of some pomp and the Ordination. A few simple words,” Andrew says, pride shining on me, a light that exposes my every shadow, my every deceit. “Anyway,” he says. “There will be time for all that. I promise. But right now . . .”

Andrew’s words are cut off. He’s staring past me, toward the far end of the room, suddenly transfixed. Blood drains from his face. His jaw drops open.

I turn, unable to imagine what could cause such a reaction, and see Jonathan standing a few feet behind us. He looks at each of us in turn, a look of shame on his face I don’t quite understand . . . until I do.

He’s holding the cross.

I look past him, to the far end of the room, past the rows of beds, the sleeping boys, the flickering lamps. To the double doors.

Unobstructed.

“I’m sorry,” he says, but I sense humor in his tone. A maliciousness I’ve never heard from his lips.

“Jonathan?” Finnegan, apparently having left his sentinel duties long enough for this to happen, is now catching up. He walks up to stand next to Jonathan, a look of confusion on his face. When he sees the cross, he stares at his friend as if he’s turned bright blue—more confused than afraid. “What are you doing?”

Jonathan looks at Finnegan sadly, but again I see deceit below the surface of his mask. “I’m sorry, Finn, I really am. I love you. You know that, right?”

He smiles. It’s a wicked, foul thing.

And then he turns, and he runs—screaming at the top of his lungs—toward the doors.

“Come in!” he yells, triumphant as a trumpet blast. “Come in! Come in!”

Beds are stirring.

Byron steps in front of me.

David grips my arm. “Oh no,” he says.

Then the doors burst open, and death pours in.





50


FOR A LONG MOMENT, I’M FROZEN.

Unable to move.

To think.

I stand in sickened horror as the doors fly open. I see the other boys in the darkened hallway, a horde of shadows. The first one through is Brother Johnson, striding in front like a vanguard of pure evil.

It comes off him in black waves.

Despite the shock and horror, a cohesive thought works itself into my brain:

What happened to him?

His face is a nightmare. His heavy mop of hair has burned away, revealing a red, bleeding scalp. Some sort of blackened fabric is melted into his face, covering his mouth and nose.

One eye is missing, or burned shut, as the flesh looks to have melted over the socket. The other is open wide, showing the white, roving the room like a mad predator.

He’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. My naked fear keeps me from acting.

When I do, when the spell is broken, it’s too late. Much too late.

Like a swarm of locusts, the others come charging in behind him. They’re screaming, weapons raised, faces distorted with hate and violence. The orange lamplight gives the scene a hellish hue, shadows become red-faced demons as they flood my vision, and still they come.

In a blink the room is chaos.

I watch in shock as three of the others fall on the bed nearest the doors. A sleeping child shrieks in terror and pain, waking to find his body being bludgeoned and stabbed. They tear at him like dogs.

Other boys are doing similar at the other beds. It appears strategic.

They’re going for the sleepers.

In the next heartbeat, those of us who are armed, who are conscious, begin to fight back. James runs directly at one boy, raising a piece of wood I can’t identify, but Johnson reaches out like a viper and snags him by the arm. He lifts him like a doll and hurls him at a nearby wall. Even with all the screaming, I still hear the sharp crackle of breaking bones. James falls to the floor, lifeless, and never moves again.

Byron and Andrew sprint forward, joining the fray. Byron takes a boy down with a mallet to the head, and Andrew is yelling commands to STOP! GO BACK! GO BACK! LEAVE THEM ALONE! while swinging the crozier, beating the others away from defenseless children as one would fight a wild animal mauling an infant.