The Death of 1977 (Book 3)

Officer Zundi sat on the large rock that rested just ten feet away from the church's entrance and watched with surly, red eyes as his subordinates carried one blanketed, dead body after another out of the church and to a truck where they were eventually tossed in the back like sacks of potatoes. The thin, middle-aged Zundi sat uncomfortably upon the rock dressed in his blue short-sleeved shirt and black shorts watching and waiting in anticipation for all of the bodies to be carted out of the church, while in the far off distance he could spot onlookers gawking with binoculars at the scene that he himself should have been involved in more personally.

"Wait a second!" Zundi stood up and went straight for one of his men that were carrying a cadaver.

Zundi paused for a moment before sighing and pulling back the black blanket that had Silas' mutilated body underneath. Just gazing down at the man's torn neck and dazed out stare in his still opened eyes was enough to make Zundi hurriedly place the blanket back onto his body and turn away in repulsion.

"Go on." He waved the officer away.

Zundi looked on and on before he finally gathered enough courage to go back inside the church where he had secluded himself from just two hours earlier. The man stepped ever so lightly through the demolished front doors to find the sanctuary's walls still splattered with blood from one end to the other. The pews were littered with blood as well, along with a few eyeballs and a couple of fingers along the way.

Zundi tried in earnest to keep his eyes focused on the parts that weren't so tortuous to view before seeing the old woman still seated in her pew staring far off away. Zundi spotted another one of his officers trying to coax the woman up.

Instantly, Zundi went over and asked the man, "Why are you not able to get her out of here yet, mon?"

Appearing disgruntled and confused, the officer looked up and said, "Sir, she won't move. Her hands are locked to de pew."

Zundi viewed the old woman's withered hands that looked as if they had made dents in the pews wood. Zundi then attempted to pry her left hand from off the wood only to realize that he was straining himself to the point of giving up.

ones dat got away, some of dem are going around saying dat de devils are back again." The

Zundi stood back up and looked at the man as though his words were ridiculous. "We need to find dem and

know what did

in here to get her out of here, now!" Zundi

Zundi, "with de rest of de church members running around out dere, dere bound to tell what it

whipped him inside the room where Arthur once resided just to get him

to me!" Zundi snarled into his face. "Dose people dat escaped here were lucky! We do not need anyone running around telling ghost

"Commander, dere not ghost stories," the officer pleaded. "We all

that the man fell backwards onto

to me, dis was an animal attack, nuting more!" Zundi threw his

blood from off his lip,

serves dem every day! We have seven children! We need de

feet and skittishly approached his commander. "Sir, it is still out dere. If we do not try and stop it den we will not have any more tourists to

catching a glimpse of black fur lying on the floor before him. The man reached down and picked it up before sniffing