Petrified by Graham Masterton Read Free Book Online

and rough, the other side was evenly rippled and smooth, as if it had been fashioned to look like a fold of material.
    Jenna took it and examined it. ‘This has definitely been carved,’ she said. ‘Look, you can see that it’s been chiseled, and then filed.’
    â€˜So our vic could have been flattened by a statue?’
    â€˜I don’t know. Let’s see if we can find some more sculpted bits.’
    Ed called out, ‘Can you all take a closer look at these rocks, people, and check if any of them have evidence of carving on them – like this one I’m showing you here!’
    Within a few seconds, one of the police officers held up a triangular fragment of stone and said, ‘Here! This piece has some kind of a wing tip carved on it, by the looks of it.’
    â€˜And there’s a kneecap here! Or maybe it’s an elbow.’
    â€˜I found a couple of fingers!’
    Over the next ten minutes, the officers brought over more and more pieces of stone that bore unmistakable signs of having been carved. Most of the fragments had been smashed so small that at first sight it was impossible to identify what part of a statue they could be, but Jenna knew that once Ed and his team got them back to their laboratory, they would be able to reassemble them and find out what the figure originally looked like. Two years ago they had reconstructed an antique glass vase that had been shattered into more than three thousand pieces.
    â€˜Right,’ said Jenna, checking her watch. ‘I’ll leave you to it. Let me know as soon as you’ve got this baby stuck together again.’
    â€˜Oh, for sure. So long as you give us about three months, minimum.’
    She was returning to the squad car when one of the CSIs shouted out, ‘Detective! Detective Pullet!’
    She turned around. The investigator was standing in the raised flower-bed at the side of the convent, more than forty feet away from the point of impact. He was holding up a large gray piece of limestone that looked like a mask that had been broken in half, diagonally. Jenna walked back so that she could look at it more closely.
    â€˜Scary-looking sucker, don’t you think?’ said the CSI.
    The piece of limestone must have weighed at least fifteen pounds. It was half of a head, with tangled hair and a single curved horn. Its face had one protuberant eye and a snarling mouth. It had a face like a demon, ugly beyond all description .
    Jenna looked across to the convent’s side door, but Sister Mary Emmanuelle had disappeared now, and the door was closed.
    â€˜Shit,’ she said. The very last thing she had wanted to find out was that Sister Mary Emmanuelle might have been telling her the truth.

SIX
    Tuesday, 2:46 p.m.
    B raydon was dreaming that he was trying to find his way through a cemetery, just as the sun was beginning to go down. A bell was tolling to warn visitors that the cemetery gates would soon be closing for the night, but he knew that he couldn’t leave yet because he hadn’t yet done what he had come here to do.
    The trouble was, he had completely forgotten what it was. Was it to visit somebody’s grave, or was it to meet somebody? Was it to find out if somebody he knew was dead?
    The setting sun made it look as if the trees surrounding the cemetery were on fire, and he had to walk with his hand held up in front of his eyes to stop himself from being dazzled. The gravestones cast extravagantly long shadows across the grass, and his own shadow looked like a circus performer on stilts.
    He reached the intersection of two lines of gravestones and stopped. The cemetery was on a hillside and there was a hot wind blowing. In the distance he could see a dark gray lake, with dark gray clouds gathering over it, and lightning flickering. He could hear thunder, too, and he knew that God was angry with him. At least God didn’t know where he was – not yet, anyhow.
    He hurried on. He