by Lukens, Mark
Jed saw it now. Karl was a thin man. When he’d been out on the walkway this morning, his abdomen had looked sunken in while he held it. But now it looked bloated.
“Help him!” Moody shouted.
Esmerelda walked around the table, joining Jed and David, getting as far away from the moaning man on the blankets. She looked at Billy.
Billy walked past the table and crouched down beside Karl. He laid Moody’s shotgun down on the floor.
Karl was moaning louder, a scream caught in his throat. He thrashed back and forth, his hands clutching at his swollen belly.
As he drew a knife from the sheath on his belt, Billy whispered words in Navajo that sounded like a prayer.
“What the hell are you doing, Injun!” Moody screamed. He looked at Jed. “Get that savage away from Karl!”
For just a moment Jed thought Billy meant to scalp the Swede, even though the Navajo weren’t known for scalping. Besides, Karl didn’t have much hair left to scalp.
“We need to see,” Billy said without turning to any of them. He kept his head down, his eyes on Karl.
Jed started towards Billy and Karl, but then he felt a tug at his waist. He looked down at David who stared up at him—the boy shook his head no slowly.
“You keep away from him!” Moody yelled at Billy as he stood up from his chair, knocking it backwards onto the floor.
Jed was about to tell David that he needed to go and help Karl, but David kept his small hand on Jed’s belt, his fingers curled around it, trying to hold him back.
Billy used his knife to cut Karl’s shirt open, pulling the torn fabric aside to reveal Karl’s distended belly. It looked like Karl was pregnant.
There was something moving around inside of Karl’s belly, things moving around just underneath his skin . . . lots of things.
CHAPTER 27
“You keep your filthy hands off of him!” Moody roared as he stood beside the table, right in front of his tipped-over chair.
Billy continued whispering in his language, but he had backed away from Karl as he slid his knife back into the sheath on his belt.
Karl was still on his back on top of the blankets. He thrashed, but it seemed like it was too painful for him to roll over onto either side anymore. His belly swung back and forth with each movement like it was full of liquid. The pain seemed unbearable to Karl now as he groaned and grunted. Veins and tendons stood out on the sides of his thin neck like cords. His eyes bulged, threatening to pop out of his face. He gritted his teeth, spittle flying out from between his lips. He tried to form words in his groans—they sounded like gibberish, a mixture of English and Swedish.
Jed couldn’t take his eyes off of Karl’s belly—that distended mound of pale flesh. The skin of his belly rippled, sucking in for a moment in some places and then pushing back out, like rats were squirming around under there.
And Jed knew what might be underneath Karl’s skin because he’d seen this before when Red Moon had come to visit him in the desert. He’d seen Red Moon sitting there in the darkness as the beetles moved underneath his skin; he’d watched those beetles bore out through holes, dropping down into his lap, melting together, becoming some other kind of animal, forming into something much bigger.
“Help him!” Moody screamed again, but he backed up a step.
“I don’t know what to do!” Esmerelda yelled back, close to tears.
With a roar, Karl sat straight up, his eyes wide, his mouth open in a scream. Then he flopped back down onto his blankets, his head crashing onto the floor, the blankets barely buffeting the back of his head. The movement inside of his belly was now traveling up to his chest, then up to his neck which bulged like an overfilled sausage casing. Karl’s mouth opened wide again, and even his face seemed fatter now, like pressure was building up inside of his head, pushing against his flesh. His eyeballs were close to popping out. He no longer made a noise, unable to scream because something was blocking his throat. Karl retched, his mouth open so wide it looked like his bottom jaw had come unhinged and was ready to detach from the rest of his face. There were loud popping sounds of snapping joints and bones, a sound like dry chicken bones breaking. A clear, foamy fluid spilled out of Karl’s mouth followed by large dark wriggling shapes in the thick liquid. The shapes unfurled their legs as they escaped his mouth in a torrent, becoming tarantulas as they crawled all over each other in the mucus. Some of the spiders landed on Karl’s chest, others on the blankets, and then they skittered away, leaving trails of shiny ooze behind.
Esmerelda screamed and backed away from Jed and David.
Sanchez shot up to his feet, knocking his chair backwards. He backed away from the table, joining Billy who was near the window now with Moody’s shotgun in his hands.
“Help me!” Moody yelled as the spiders darted across the blankets towards him. He tried to back up, but he tripped over his fallen chair and crashed down to the floor onto his side. He kicked his legs, trying to push himself back as dozens of spiders raced towards him.
For a moment Jed was paralyzed with shock, unable to take his eyes off of Karl. The Swede’s belly was small now, but still a lot bigger than it should have been. There were still more tarantulas inside of him—maybe hundreds more.
Karl had passed out, or maybe even died. His eyes had rolled back, only showing the whites. His head was turned to the side as more mucus and spiders poured out of his wide-open mouth. There was a wet ripping sound as Karl’s belly split open from the waist of his pants almost up to his sternum, like an invisible knife had cut his flesh open from the inside. Through that large slit, hundreds of tarantulas squirmed out, crawling all over each other and dropping down his sides to the blanket, crawling down his pants legs.
“Help me!” Moody cried. He’d given up on trying to stand with his hands cuffed behind his back; he was still trying to push himself away, kicking at the floor as the wave of spiders crawled towards him.
Jed sprang into action. He raced over to Moody and got behind him, grabbing him underneath his armpits and pulling him backwards across the floor away from the quickly advancing spiders.
Moody struggled in Jed’s hands, kicking at the first of the spiders that had reached him. Some of the spiders crawled all over his shoes, and a few of them crawled up underneath his pants legs. Moody kicked his legs, stamping his feet, managing to crush a few of the spiders, but there were too many of them. The spiders seemed to be working together like a hive mind, like ants or bees, all of them with a singular purpose.
The other spiders skittered across the floor towards Esmerelda, Sanchez, and Billy.
“Hold still,” Jed told Moody.
“Help me,” Moody squealed, still kicking his legs at the floor.
Jed had the key to the handcuffs in his hand, trying to unlock one of the cuffs to free Moody’s hands, but the man was thrashing and panicking too much.
“One’s under my pants leg,” Moody screamed. “It’s biting me!”
Jed almost lost the key in his fingers as Moody bucked back against him, but he held on to it. He managed to stick the key into the handcuff on Moody’s right wrist, unlocking it. Moody’s hand sprang away like an uncoiled snake striking.
Esmerelda had backed up towards the doors, stomping on the floor with her low-heeled ankle boots as the first of the tarantulas reached her.
Billy fired his shotgun down at the floor, killing a few of the spiders, but also blasting a huge hole in the floor. The shotgun was out of shells and he dropped it, pulling Karl’s pistol out and shooting a few more of the spiders, creating a few more holes in the floorboards.
Where was David?
Jed was about to yell for David, but then he saw him walk right in front of him and Moody. The boy stood there among the sea of spiders, but that sea of tarantulas suddenly halted, and then all of the spiders backed away from David in all directions at the same time. The spiders were going crazy, many of them curling up immediately into a ball and dying, their hairy bodies shriveling up. Many of t
he spiders raced to the holes that Billy had made in the floor with the shotgun and the pistol, crawling down into the holes and disappearing underneath the floor to escape.
David walked towards the table, then towards the double doors, the wave of spiders staying in front of him, trying to flee from him.
“Open the doors!” Jed yelled.
Billy and Sanchez were at the doors already, the wave of spiders racing towards them. They each grabbed a door handle and opened the doors wide. Sanchez ran back towards the bar where Esmerelda had retreated to, and Billy went to the foot of the stairs.
David walked past the table towards the doors. The wave of spiders in front of him backed up towards the doors, spilling out onto the walkway.
Jed looked over at Karl. His belly was sunken in again, his head turned to the side, his eyes and mouth still wide open. Blood and mucus were dribbling out of his mouth, and even more blood was leaking from the slit in his abdomen. But the spiders were gone. Many of them were curled up and dead on the blankets and floor, but most of the spiders had scurried out through the doorway as David slowly moved towards them.
David was driving the spiders away. They were afraid of him.
Moments later the spiders were gone. David stood a few feet away from the open doorway to the saloon, his eyes glazed over like he was in a trance.
“The doors!” Jed yelled as he pulled Moody up to his feet.
Billy and Sanchez hurried to the saloon doors, slamming them shut. Billy grabbed the table leg from the floor and jammed it up underneath the door handle and kicked it into place, keeping the door shut.
“How the hell did he do that?” Moody asked as he stood next to Jed, breathing hard and staring at David in shock.
CHAPTER 28
“How’d that boy do that?” Moody asked again. He stomped his feet, then he bent over and pulled his pants leg up, checking for spiders.
Jed looked down at Moody’s bare legs—there were two lumps already forming on his shins from spider bites.
David stood between the table and the saloon doors. He looked shocked and confused, like he had just woken up from a dream and he wasn’t sure where he was or what he had been doing.
“How’d he make those spiders go away?” Moody yelled again, letting his pants legs drop back down.
Karl groaned and puked up more clear mucus with globs of dark blood mixed in. He rolled over onto his side and moaned again.
“We need to tend to him,” Esmerelda said and raced over to Karl.
Billy and Sanchez were right behind Esmerelda as she knelt down beside him.
Karl still retched, vomiting up more thick globules of blood mixed in with the slimy mucus. His belly was flat again, but the tear in the middle of it was leaking more blood down onto the blanket . . . too much blood. His breaths were shallow, his skin paler than ever and glistening, his blond-white hair slicked back with sweat. His eyes were closed now, and he was trembling uncontrollably.
“He’s not going to make it,” Jed told them as he walked up to them. Moody was right beside him now. Jed knew this merchant was their friend, but there was no hope for the man now. He was losing too much blood, and God knew what had been done to his insides from those spiders. God knew how many organs were damaged or ruptured.
Billy nodded in agreement.
“We could use him,” Moody said.
They all looked at Moody.
“We could use Karl before he dies,” Moody said. “We could take his tongue out.”
Esmerelda stared at Moody in horror. It looked like she wanted to respond, but she couldn’t seem to get the words out, too shocked for a moment to speak.
“He’s going to die,” Moody said. “Like the marshal just said. But he’s not dead yet. We could still use him while he’s alive.”
“What’s wrong with you?” Esmerelda asked Moody.
“I’m just trying to save us,” Moody snapped at her. He looked at Jed beside him, then at Billy and Sanchez, and then finally at David. He looked back at Esmerelda. “That thing out there can do anything it wants to. We should’ve listened. We should’ve given him the tongue. And we could still do it. I know it’s after noon now, past the deadline, but maybe it will still accept the offering. Maybe it will realize that we’ve learned our lesson.”
“Our lesson?” Esmerelda asked, her face scrunched up in disgust.
“Yes,” Moody said. “We were supposed to give it an offering, or bad things were going to happen.” He glanced down at Karl who moaned softly. Karl seemed too weak to even writhe in pain anymore.
“You don’t understand, do you?” Esmerelda said with pity.
“I understand plenty now.”
“I don’t think you do,” Esmerelda said. “These spiders were already inside Karl since early this morning. Ingrid put them inside of him when she kissed him.”
“You . . . you don’t know that.”
“How do you think they got inside of him?” she asked him. “This bad thing was going to happen to Karl whether we gave that monster a tongue or not.”
“It does not want a tongue,” Billy said. “It will keep trying to frighten us so badly that we will do anything it wants. That is the story of the Ancient Enemy.”
“And you know what it wants,” Jed said to Billy. “Don’t you? You know what it really wants.”
Billy didn’t answer; he just stared right back at Jed.
Jed looked at Esmerelda. “And so do you. You and Billy, the two of you have known all along what that thing has wanted.” Jed suddenly saw the answer that he’d been missing the entire time, and maybe he had been trying to avoid the answer because he didn’t want to face the truth—the monster out there wanted David.
Esmerelda nodded slightly at Jed like she knew he had finally seen the truth.
“He’s dead,” Sanchez said, nodding down at Karl.
They all looked down at Karl. His body was still, his eyes half open, a line of bloody drool leaking out of the corner of his mouth.
“We need to get him outside,” Jed said.
Moody stared at Jed. “We shouldn’t open those doors right now.”
“We’ve got two dead people upstairs to deal with,” Jed reminded him. “We don’t need another one right here in the middle of the saloon that can turn against us.”
“He is right,” Billy said as he moved towards Karl.
Esmerelda got up and moved out of the way as Sanchez helped Billy with Karl’s blanket.
“Move back,” Jed told Moody. “Let them get Karl out of here.”
Moody tried to stare Jed down, but he gave in and moved out of the way. “We should say something for him,” he said. “He was a Christian.”
Sanchez pulled out a gold crucifix from under his shirt and held it in his fingers. He began praying in Spanish. Everyone was quiet as Sanchez finished the prayers. He tucked the crucifix back inside his shirt.
“Thank you,” Esmerelda told him.
Billy grabbed one corner of the blanket at the end of it, and Sanchez grabbed the other corner. Jed opened the saloon doors for them so they could drag Karl outside. He had his Colt in his hand, ready to cover them as they dragged Karl’s body down the walkway to the edge of it. Billy folded the rest of the blanket over Karl’s body, covering him up, whispering his own set of prayers as he did so.
Jed looked up and down the street, but he didn’t see the pastor or anyone else around. He didn’t see any of the spiders out here either.
After they went back inside the saloon, Billy helped Jed brace the doors shut again. The table legs braced in front of the doors seemed like a joke; if the Ancient Enemy wanted to get inside of the saloon, then it would.
Esmerelda already had a broom and a bucket of water, cleaning up the dead spiders all over the floor.
“We should get those holes in the floor patched up,” Jed said.
Billy and Sanchez followed Jed to the storeroom to find a few more pieces of wood from the crates that they could use on the floor. After Jed had
handed a few scraps of wood to Billy, he went into Moody’s office and came back out with Sanchez’s guns and gun belt in his hands. He handed them to Sanchez. “Can I trust you with these?”
Sanchez nodded and took his guns and belt.
“You’re giving that criminal his guns back?” Moody asked, shaking his head.
“We’re all in this together now,” Jed told Moody, then he looked back at Sanchez, hoping he wasn’t making a mistake. “We all need to help each other.”
CHAPTER 29
David helped Esmerelda clean up the dead spiders, and then he helped her carry the bucket of water so she could get as much of the blood cleaned up on the floor. Most of Karl’s blood had been soaked in his blanket, but there was still some on the floor. After they had cleaned up as best they could, David helped Esmerelda get some food ready for supper. She heated the leftover pot of stew on top of the stove.
Jed watched David as he helped Esmerelda, and he swore he saw a smile on the boy’s face a few times after she had whispered something to him. David seemed more at ease now that he had a chore to do, something for his mind to focus on besides the horrors that waited outside the saloon doors.
After the stew was warm, Esmerelda and David dished up bowls and brought them to the table along with the rest of the cornbread muffins. David drank another cup of tea while the rest of them sipped on coffee.
Moody declined the food, opting to drink two more shots of whiskey instead. After he had drained the two whiskeys, he cradled the glass in front of him like he usually did, staring down at it.
None of them felt like eating, and only Billy and Sanchez ate half of their meals. Esmerelda barely touched her bowl of stew, but she tried to encourage David to eat his. He slurped down a few bites of stew and nibbled at the muffin.
They were all quiet now for a moment as they sat at the table. Moody was brooding, and Jed watched him for a moment, but Jed was thinking about the Ancient Enemy and what it really wanted—David.