by Lukens, Mark
Esmerelda walked up to Billy and David, standing beside Billy with the lantern in her hand.
Jed turned and watched the three of them. They were all staring at the church now.
“You see it, too?” Billy asked Esmerelda.
She just nodded.
“See what?” Moody asked.
Jed and Moody stood next to Esmerelda. Jed looked at the church in the distance for a moment, and then he finally saw it. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed it before.
“What is it?” Moody asked again, an edge of panic in his voice. He looked at Jed for an answer.
“Looks like someone’s hanging above the church doors,” Jed told him.
CHAPTER 15
They hurried down the dirt street to the church. Once they were past the last of the town buildings, Jed saw other small houses and shacks dotting the hills in the distance. Those shacks and homes had been rented to the miners and prospectors when the mines had been active. Now those abandoned buildings were just black shapes along the landscape, which was colored dark blue by the moonlight. Stands of trees stood here and there in the distance, but most of the vegetation was scrub brush. It looked like the land went on forever in every direction.
The closer they got to the church, the more Jed saw the details of the person hanging in front of it.
The “front yard” of the church was a large grassy area planted with small shrubs and flowering plants. A wide gravel pathway cut through the middle of the lawn and led to a large gravel area in front of the wide steps that led up to a landing, and then to the double doors of the church, both doors painted red. Above the doors, hanging upside down by his feet, was a man dressed in a black coat and pants. His arms weren’t bound, they just dangled down. The man’s head was mostly bald, and Jed couldn’t see his face. But the man was wounded somewhere because blood trickled down from underneath his coat sleeves, dripping down his hands and onto the floorboards of the wood platform.
“It’s Pastor Starke,” Esmerelda said in a whisper.
“Who would do this?” Moody asked.
Karl brushed past them with his gun in one hand and the lantern in the other, his face set in grim determination. “We need to look inside. Ingrid and my boys could be in there.”
Jed turned to Billy and Esmerelda. “Let me use that lantern,” he asked Esmerelda, and then he looked at Billy. “You and Esmerelda stay out here with David.”
Billy nodded as Esmerelda handed the lantern to Jed.
Karl had already opened both doors of the church, pushing them all the way open, the light from his lantern only penetrating so far into the darkness. He was about to rush into the darkness, but Moody’s words stopped him.
“Maybe we should let the marshal go inside first.”
Karl waited beside the doorway.
Moody was halfway up the steps with his shotgun aimed at the doorway, skirting the puddle of blood from the pastor.
Jed could already smell the stench of blood and flesh from where he stood. He had the lantern in one hand, his Colt in the other. He already knew what they were going to find. He pulled his bandana up over his mouth and nose as he followed Moody up the steps and to the doorway.
Karl didn’t wait for Jed; he rushed inside the church, plunging into the darkness, murmuring to himself.
Moody waited just to the side of the doorway where Karl had been a moment ago as Jed entered the church next. Jed walked a few steps inside, his boots clomping on the wood floor. “Whoever’s in here, show yourself!” he yelled. “I’m a U.S. Marshal!”
There was no one in here . . . no one alive. The lantern light was weak, but it provided plenty of light to see the horrors that waited just a few feet away where the last row of pews began.
The smell was worse now that he was inside the building, like an invisible wall assaulting him. It was the same smell he’d noticed at David’s house when he had opened the front door—that scent of blood and rotting flesh. But the smell inside the church was much worse.
Forty times worse.
Jed held his lantern out in front of him, his hand trembling, the glass in the metal frame jiggling just a little from his tremors. He crouched down slowly and set the lantern on the floor right beside a large smudge of dried blood. His breaths were rapid and loud in his ears even though his breaths were muffled slightly by his bandana.
In front of him, all over the pews and in the aisle between them, were bodies. At least forty of them. Many of the bodies were naked, but some still had their clothing on, most of the clothing torn to shreds, just tatters and rags hanging down from their pale bodies.
Jed kept his Colt aimed forward. He looked at the sea of dead bodies in front of him.
Karl darted ahead of Jed, rushing down the aisle between the pews, searching for the bodies of his wife and sons.
The whole town was inside the church: men, women, and children. Their bodies looked like children’s toys thrown about, discarded things. A few bodies and pieces of the bodies were in the aisle that ran down through the middle of the pews towards the other end of the church where the pulpit was. A stained-glass window was built into the wall above the pulpit. Moonlight filtered in from the other stained-glass windows at the sides of the church, the moonlight that came through the window was colorful with hues of yellow, orange, green, and red. To the left of the pulpit was a dark shape that must be a piano.
Esmerelda probably plays that piano during services, Jed thought. He didn’t know why that thought had popped into his head.
He took another step forward.
Jed had seen dead bodies plenty of times in his life, but never anything like this. He’d heard stories from the old-timers about massacres, whole families of settlers found dead, their bodies sprawled out and naked along the prairie grass, bloody, some chopped to pieces as the remnants of their covered wagons smoldered in the background. Everything that the families had taken with them from the east was either dead or burning, all of the horses gone. Jed had never seen a massacre of people before, never could’ve imagined the sight, the smell, the coppery taste of blood on his tongue.
He didn’t want to, but Jed took a few steps closer to the pews. He stared at an older man who had been slung over the last pew, his naked body bent backwards over the back of it, his exposed skin so pale in the darkness. His face looked long and thin, his cheeks and eyes sunken in, eyeballs white and glassy, mouth open. It didn’t look like the man had any teeth—either he’d lost them through the fifty-odd years he’d lived or they had been taken. The man’s ribs stuck up inside his torso from where he had been bent backwards over the pew, the ribs snapped in the violent act, poking up at his flesh like poles inside a tent. His thin arms hung down, one hand nearly touching the floor, the other hand gone, ripped off at the wrist, just the end of two forearm bones sticking out of the shredded mess of flesh there. A strand of skin hung down from the end of his wrist like a loose string. A puddle of dark blood had formed underneath the man like a big oil slick.
There were other sights just like the older man, other people bent violently backwards over the pews. There were pieces of people on the seats, an arm here, a leg there. A woman’s button-up shoe sat by itself in the middle of the aisle with a shard of bone poking out of it like a broken stick—the rest of the foot probably still inside the shoe.
Jed heard the sound of footsteps behind him—Moody approaching slowly, but he didn’t stand beside Jed; he waited right behind him.
“Oh . . . God,” Moody whispered.
Karl gave a muted cry from halfway down the aisle. The cry was something a wounded animal might make, a cry of anguish and fear, a moan of sorrow so hopeless that it made Jed’s soul ache. Jed knew Karl had found Ingrid and his boys . . . what was left of them.
Jed caught a glimpse of Karl’s ghostly-white face as he stared down at Ingrid and his boys. He stood so still, holding the lantern by the wire handle, his mouth open like a sob was stuck in his throat.
Jed pulled his bandana down
from his mouth and nose as he looked back at Moody. “Don’t let David in here.” He was about to add that David had already seen enough horror, but his throat locked up with emotion and he didn’t dare attempt to utter the words.
“They’re still out by the steps,” Moody said.
“Keep an eye on them, but don’t let them come inside,” Jed instructed.
Karl was still moaning, saying something in Swedish that Jed didn’t understand, a mumbling of words mixed with a gut-wrenching sob.
“Who could’ve done something like this?” Moody asked in a whisper, his voice thick, like he was doing his best to hold down the surge of vomit that was surely threatening.
Jed didn’t answer.
“This . . . this is impossible.”
“They’re all dead,” Jed told Moody without turning around, still watching Karl as he bent over the dead bodies of his family with his gun in his hand. “We need to get back to the saloon.”
“The other buildings—” Moody began.
“Nobody’s left,” Jed said as he holstered his Colt .45. He turned around and looked at Moody. “Everyone in your town is in here.”
“But there could be a few of them left. A few still hiding.” Moody’s voice trailed down to a whisper, his face falling into a frown like he couldn’t even convince himself of that.
Jed didn’t want to argue about it.
Karl was still lowing out moan after moan, still mumbling to himself in Swedish. Jed didn’t think it was a good idea for him to have a gun right now.
Light footsteps turned Jed to the doorway where Billy Nez stood, a motionless silhouette with an eagle feather poking up from his hat.
“We need to leave,” Jed told Moody who stared at the display of dead bodies. “Whoever did this is most likely still around. Probably watching us right now. We need to get Karl out of here.”
“There is something you need to see,” Billy said.
Jed’s heart fluttered in his chest. What now? he wondered. His anxiety was bordering on panic now. “Karl,” he barked. “We need to go. Right now.”
“Min Ingrid,” Karl moaned. “Min älskling.”
“What is it?” Moody turned to look at Billy.
“Come outside and see,” Billy said and turned. He walked away, shuffling down the church steps.
“Get Karl out of here,” Jed told Moody, and then he rushed for the door, drawing his Peacemaker again.
Outside, Jed rushed down the steps, skirting around the large puddle of blood from the hanging pastor.
Billy was with David and Esmerelda now, all three of them huddling together on the gravel. Jed should have seen it right away, but he was too concerned with David, not paying enough attention to his surroundings.
All three of them were staring down the street at the town. The whole town was dark now—not even the lanterns in the saloon were shining anymore.
CHAPTER 16
Moody had to practically drag Karl out of the church. “It’s not safe in there,” Moody growled at the Swede as he ushered him down the stairs. Moody was much larger than Karl, but Karl seemed unwilling to be led away from the terrible sight of his wife and children inside the church. Karl struggled with Moody, nearly dropping the lantern he held in the process. As soon as they were outside the church, Karl stopped resisting; his shoulders slumped, his arms hung down by his sides, his gun held loosely in his hand.
Jed turned and watched Moody and Karl approach. “He’s in no shape to hold a gun right now,” he whispered to Moody.
Moody nodded and easily pried the gun out of Karl’s hand. He held it out to Jed.
Jed took Karl’s gun and slipped it down into his holster.
Moody took the lantern from Karl’s other hand and handed it to Billy. Now Esmerelda and Billy each held a lantern, freeing up Moody’s hands to hold his shotgun.
“What did you want us to see?” Moody asked Billy.
Billy pointed at the dark town. “The lanterns in the saloon are out.”
Moody exhaled a wheezy breath. “Good God.”
No more words were exchanged. All of them hurried down the dirt street. Even Karl had snapped out of his mourning, his sense of preservation taking over now as he kept up with them, not wanting to be left behind.
They hurried past the line of buildings on both sides of the street that were swallowed in shadows. Another coyote yipped in the night. Another answered. Jed swore again that the animals were talking to each other somehow in some secret language.
They gathered in front of the saloon.
“Wait over there,” Jed told Esmerelda and David, taking the lantern from her. He pointed at the corner of the saloon. “Get down low in case there’s any shooting.”
Esmerelda took David with her to the corner of the building at the edge of the walkway and crouched down with him.
Jed had the lantern in his left hand, his Colt in his right. He looked at Moody, then at Billy. “You open the doors,” he told Billy. “I’ll go in.” He looked at Moody. “You get ready with your shotgun, but don’t fire unless I tell you to. It’s dark in there and I don’t want to be hit with buckshot.”
Moody nodded.
A moment later they were standing on the saloon’s walkway. Moody waited at the side of the left door with his shotgun while Billy opened the door on the right, pushing it all the way open. He backed out of the way as Jed rushed inside, shining his lantern and aiming his pistol.
There was no smell of blood or flesh—a good sign—but the saloon was quiet. And it was so dark, not a single lantern lit. He couldn’t even see the red glow of embers behind the slits in the metal door of the wood stove from where he stood.
“Is someone in here?” Jed called out.
No answer.
“Barkeep! Sanchez!”
As Jed ventured deeper into the darkness, moving towards the bar, a table and a set of chairs materialized from the blackness in the light of the lantern. His mind swam with nightmarish images of skinwalkers transforming themselves into animals, some kind of human/animal hybrid waiting in the dark, breathing silently through an opened, bloodstained mouth of sharp teeth. He imagined that they had eyes that could see in the dark, eyes that were watching him right now. He imagined the things were waiting in the dark until he was close enough for them to reach out with their claws. Jed wasn’t an imaginative man, and these horrors he pictured were just at the edge of his capabilities to conjure up in his mind, unnamable and indescribable beings that floated in the air, defying reality—sights that would drive him mad if he saw them.
Jed’s breaths quickened as he took a few more steps towards the bar that he still couldn’t see. He waited for that first touch of cold flesh against his face. He kept his Colt aimed in front of him, his hand trembling. The weapon felt silly now, a weapon he had always trusted and relied upon, a weapon he had trained himself to be an expert with, and now that weapon felt like a mere toy against these creatures that Red Moon called skinwalkers.
For the last twenty-four hours Jed had tried to convince himself that a lot of what he’d seen in the woods hadn’t been real—they’d been the result of a nervous breakdown, hallucinations brought on by extreme stress. But now, here in the darkness, he was a believer once again, even wondering if Red Moon had been right about the skinwalkers’ ability to cast spells.
The memory of Dobbs and Roscoe waiting for him on the trail in the woods popped into his mind; Dobbs sitting patiently with Roscoe’s head in his lap. Were they waiting for him now by the bar? Would Jed’s lantern shine on Dobbs’ skinless body, the muscles glistening in the lantern light? Would Dobbs be holding Roscoe’s head by his gray hair like a suitcase, Roscoe’s eyes bulging, his mouth pulled up into that severe smile, the strings of gore and knuckles of vertebrae hanging down from the bottom of his raggedly severed neck?
Jed tried to push that image out of his mind.
Even though panic was threatening to take over, Jed moved deeper into the saloon. The others outside the saloon doors were c
ounting on him. Besides, if he ran right now, where would he go? Outside? Into the desert? Into those endless, brush-covered hills? There was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide. Nowhere was safe. Not even this saloon was truly safe.
A few steps farther . . . and then Jed stopped. He looked down at the floor, seeing what he’d been afraid of—blood. Only this wasn’t the splash or smears of blood he’d been expecting; this was just a few dark spots of blood, like someone had cut themselves or had a nosebleed.
But even though there wasn’t much blood, Jed knew the men were gone. The barkeep, whatever his name had been, he was gone. And Sanchez, he was—
Movement from Jed’s left, a rustle of clothing, a grunt.
Jed turned to his left, aiming both his Colt and the lantern in that direction. He was a second away from pulling the trigger and firing blindly into the darkness.
“It’s me,” a voice called from the dark. “It’s Sanchez.”
Jed moved towards the voice, moving past the table he stood near. The next table and chairs materialized out of the dark in the lantern light. Sanchez was at the other end of the table, tied to the chair just where Jed had left him. He was sitting as far up in the chair as his bonds would allow, his arms straining behind him, his eyes wide, his hat on the floor like he had knocked it off while thrashing.
“Where’s the barkeep?” Jed asked.
“Untie me.”
“Where is he? Is he dead?”
“You have to untie me. You can’t leave me in this chair.”
Jed’s heartbeat and breathing were beginning to slow down a little. He could hear the others at the saloon’s doors. A lantern was there now, lighting up the doorway. Moody and Billy were entering the saloon.
“Is there anyone else in here?” Jed asked as he turned back to Sanchez.