Brother Odd

into nine chrysalises. Or it would then come after us, here in the second truck, and later in the day, the cooling tower would be crowded with eighteen chrysalises.
        Instead of proceeding with its usual mechanical insistence, the thing retreated from the overturned SUV and waited, retaining its basic form but continuously folding in upon itself and blooming out new vaned and petaled patterns.
        With the nerveless aplomb of an experienced getaway driver, Brother Knuckles engaged his safety harness, raised the steel plow off the pavement, shifted gears, and reversed up the driveway.
        "We can't leave them trapped," I said, and the brothers behind me were in vociferous agreement.
        "We ain't leavin' nobody," Knuckles assured me. "I just hope they're scared enough to stay put."
        Like a macabre motorized sculpture crafted by graverobbers, the bone heap stood sentinel by the side of the road, perhaps waiting for the doors on the overturned SUV to open.
        When we had reversed fifty yards, the tipped truck became a blur on the road below, and the sheeting snow almost entirely camouflaged the bony specter.
        I strapped myself into the shoulder harness-and heard the brothers buckling up behind me. Even when God is your co-pilot, it pays to pack a parachute.
        Brother Knuckles slowed to a stop. With one foot on the brake, he shifted into drive.
        Except for the sound of their breathing, the monks had fallen silent.
        Then Brother Alfonse said, "Libera nos a malo."
        Deliver us from evil.
        Knuckles traded the brake pedal for the accelerator. The engine growled, the tire chains rang rhythms from the pavement, and we raced downhill, aiming to sweep past the overturned SUV and take out the fiend.
        Our target seemed oblivious of us until the penultimate moment, or perhaps it had no fear.
        Plow-first we slammed into the thing and instantly lost most of our forward momentum.
        A furious hail crashed down. The windshield crazed, dissolved, fell in upon us, and with it came both loose bones and articulated structures.
        An elaborately jointed array of bones landed in my lap, spasming like a broken crab. My cry was every bit as manly as that of a young schoolgirl surprised by a hairy spider. I knocked the thing off me, onto the floor.
        It felt cold and slick, yet not greasy or wet, had seemed to harbor no warmth of life.
        The castoff scrabbled at my feet, not with intent to harm but as the decapitated body of a snake lashes mindlessly. Nevertheless, I quickly pulled my feet onto the seat and would have gathered my petticoats tightly around me if I had been wearing any.
        After coming to a stop ten yards past the overturned vehicle, we reversed until we were beside it once more, things snapping and crunching loudly under the tires.
        When I got out of the truck, I found the pavement littered with twitching constructs of bones, splintered remnants of the beast's fragmented anatomy. Some were as large as vacuum cleaners, many the size of kitchen appliances-flexing, irising, folding, unfolding as if striving to obey the conjuring call of a sorcerer.
        Thousands of single bones of all shapes and sizes were also scattered on the roadway. These rattled in place as if the ground were shaking under them, but I could not feel any earth tremors through the soles of my ski boots.
        Kicking the debris aside, I cleared a path to the overturned SUV and climbed onto the flank of it. Inside, tumbled brothers looked up at me, wide-eyed and blinking, through the side windows.
        I pulled open a door, and Brother Rupert clambered up to assist. Soon we had pulled the Russian and the monks from the vehicle.
        Some were bruised and all were shaken; but none of them had sustained a serious injury.
        Every tire on the second SUV had been punctured by broken shafts of bone. The vehicle sat on flat rubber. We would have to walk the remaining hundred yards to the school.
        No one needed to express the opinion that if one impossible ambulatory kaleidoscope of bones could exist, others might follow. In fact, whether because of shock or fear, few words were exchanged, and those were spoken in the softest voices.
        Everyone worked urgently to unload all the tools and the other gear that had been brought to defend and fortify the school.
        The rattling skeletal debris