Free Petrified by Graham Masterton Page A

low angle, too.
    Ed Freiburg stood up. His Tyvek suit was smeared with criss-cross patterns of blood, like an action painting. He lifted his glove in greeting when he saw Jenna and he called out, ‘Come around the edge of the roof – that’s it, over to your right. There’s not too much residue there.’ By ‘residue’ he meant blood and skin and smashed-apart flesh.
    Jenna circled around the roof to the north-east corner, balancing on her toes as delicately as a tightrope walker. Ed Freiburg came over to join her, wiping his nose on the back of his sleeve. Resting in the right angle between the two low retaining walls was a man’s torn-off head. Jenna guessed from his age and appearance that it was William Barrow. He was balding, with gray curly hair, and a bulbous nose. His pale blue eyes were wide open and he was staring upward with a concentrated look on his face as if he were trying to identify the stars.
    His torso had been hit so hard that it had burst into pieces, and his skeleton and all of his internal organs had been scattered from one side of the roof to the other, a distance of more than a hundred feet. His feet were lying in the south-west corner, still wearing a pair of brown sneakers, with his shin bones protruding from them like turkey drumsticks.
    Chet Huntley’s body was spread out diagonally across William Barrow’s, from the north-west corner to the south-east, so that between them they formed a grisly X. Where the remains of their two bodies intersected, there was a bloody confusion of ribs and livers and sloppy heaps of intestine. Ed Freiburg’s assistants were painstakingly trying to separate them, by hand, and heap them into evidence bags.
    â€˜No sign of the unfortunate Mr Huntley’s head,’ said Ed Freiburg. ‘Guess it must have bounced clear off of the roof when he was hit. I sent one of my people down to street level to see if they can locate it.’
    â€˜Ever see anything like this before?’ Jenna asked him. Unexpectedly, a sharp surge of bile rose up in her throat and she had to cover her mouth with her hand. In spite of the breeze, there was a strong smell of human insides up here on the roof.
    â€˜I once saw a guy who was tied to two automobiles, which then drove off in opposite directions. That was in the days when “Little Nicky” Scarfo was in charge. But I never saw anything like this. These two guys are standing here, having a quiet smoke, when something that must have weighed the best part of seven hundred pounds hits them by surprise at – what? – a hundred and twenty-five miles an hour, at least. Probably a whole lot faster. And simultaneously tears them open, too, with a jagged instrument of some sort, like three baling-hooks.’
    â€˜According to Dan, at least one of the eyewitnesses thinks that it was some kind of massive bird.’
    â€˜Yeah, he told me. But, come on. What kind of bird do we know of that could do this? The giant roc, from Sinbad the Sailor ? That’s the only one I can think of. The roc was supposed to be able to pick up elephants and fly away with them. But here? Tonight? A roc? In Philly? I don’t think so.’
    â€˜Two of the witnesses said it had horns and one of them said it had bulging eyes.’
    â€˜Yeah – like that statue we picked up this morning. Dan told me about that, too. He seems to be convinced that there’s a link between them. But you don’t seriously think so, do you? Whatever that was a statue of, it was carved out of solid limestone. Whatever killed these guys, it was living and breathing and it was plenty mean.’
    It was cold and ugly and ill-intentioned . That was what Sister Mary Emmanuelle had told her. I felt its malevolence.

NINE
    Tuesday, 8:57 p.m.
    T heodor Zauber leaned forward and spoke in a low, confidential voice. ‘You know from your own research about the Wasserspeier .’
    â€˜The