Hope's End

by Mark Lukens

  “Is there someone named Cole in this town?” Jed asked her. “Or Stella?”

  She shook her head. “No one that I know of.”

  Jed wondered why someone would write these names on a wall. Were they written by the victims? The murderers? But one of the names was a woman’s name—she wouldn’t be one of the murderers, would she? And certainly the skinwalkers wouldn’t have these names. But the names must mean something, yet it wasn’t making sense to him. He stared at the woman’s name a little longer. The letters written in blood were smeared. Maybe it wasn’t Stella, but some other word. He stared at the word for a long moment.

  “I don’t understand how they took everyone out of here,” Moody said as he and Karl entered the dining hall again from the back rooms.

  Jed and Esmerelda turned around and looked at Moody and Karl as they approached in their sphere of light. And then Jed noticed that David wasn’t standing near him anymore.

  “Where’s your boy?” Esmerelda asked. “And Billy.”

  They were gone.

  CHAPTER 14

  They all stared at the open door of the dining hall, the darkness outside the door seemingly impenetrable.

  Panic blanketed Jed immediately, the weight of it heavy on his lungs, making it difficult to draw in a full breath. That tingly feeling of fear danced along his skin. His mind buzzed with panicky thoughts. How had David disappeared? How had he not seen David leave? Or heard him? He wondered for just a second if he had blacked out for a moment while staring at those words written in blood on the wall; he wondered if he had blacked out just long enough for David to walk out the front door.

  Karl was in his own catatonic state of loss now; he stood right behind Moody. Jed wondered if Karl was in the process of blacking out at this very moment. Was Karl standing there with his mouth open, still breathing, his heart still beating, his bodily functions still working . . . but his mind was blank?

  The skinwalkers can get inside a man’s mind, Red Moon had said. They can make a man do things. They can call him, make him walk towards them.

  Were the skinwalkers really witches? Were they casting spells? How much was real, and how much was a hallucination?

  Billy was gone. Had Billy walked away in a trance like David had? Was Billy a living puppet now, controlled by the skinwalkers? Again Jed thought of what Red Moon had said when Jed had asked him what had happened to Roscoe in the middle of the night.

  He walked into the woods, Red Moon had said.

  Had Billy and David just walked away like Roscoe had done? Or was Billy going to hurt David?

  Jed ran for the door. Esmerelda was right behind him. Moody was trying to get Karl moving again. They shouldn’t split up, but Jed wasn’t going to wait for Moody and Karl—he couldn’t leave David outside alone.

  Oh God, I’m supposed to protect him.

  Jed rushed out onto the walkway in front of the dining hall and stopped cold.

  Billy stood in the street ten feet beyond the dining hall’s walkway. And standing a few feet in front of Billy was David. Both of them were facing the same way, both of them staring down the street towards the white church in the distance.

  Jed rushed down the steps. He passed Billy and went right for David. He grabbed the boy’s shoulders, afraid that he would see the milky eyes of a zombie rather than David’s dark eyes. But David was alert. “What’s wrong, David?”

  David stared at Jed with fear in his eyes.

  “What are you doing out here?” Jed snapped at David. “You can’t go off by yourself, you hear?”

  David didn’t respond.

  Jed let David’s shoulders go. He walked the few steps back to Billy, ready to blame Billy for David being outside. “You take him out here?”

  Billy stood with his arms down by his side, his body loose. “No,” he answered simply.

  The others rushed up to them, bringing the light of their lanterns with them.

  “I followed David out here,” Billy said.

  Jed stared at Billy. “Followed him out here?”

  Billy didn’t offer an explanation. Jed looked at David who was staring at the church in the distance again. The walls of the church were ghostly white in the moonlight, its steeple the highest point in town, a cross on top, reaching up into the night sky.

  “What are you two doing out here?” Moody asked Billy, moving closer to him. “We need to search the other buildings. Look for the others.”

  “They are all gone,” Billy said.

  “You don’t know that,” Moody answered, his face scrunched in disgust.

  For just a moment Jed thought Moody was going to strike Billy with the butt of his shotgun.

  “There might be some survivors,” Moody said. “There could still be some people hiding in the buildings. Maybe they’re in one of the abandoned buildings.”

  “They got them all,” Billy said in his deep voice, his eyes back on the church in the distance.

  “No way that’s true.” Moody barked the words out, spittle flying as he yelled. “No way they could have gotten them all.” His voice was rising, his Irish accent even thicker now.

  Billy didn’t answer Moody. He walked forward to stand beside David.

  Jed had his Colt .45 in his hand, his eyes darting around at the buildings, looking for any sign of movement. But he already knew he wasn’t going to see the skinwalkers. A coyote yipped and cried somewhere in the hills outside of town.

  “Don’t you walk away from me, Indian!” Moody yelled at Billy.

  “Moody, wait,” Esmerelda said, trying to grab Moody’s arm, trying to keep him away from Billy.

  Moody brushed her off of him and stomped towards Billy.

  Jed had been standing next to David, and he stepped in between Moody and Billy. “Nobody’s fighting right now,” he told him.

  Moody stopped. He looked ready to explode with rage.

  “We need to be careful,” Jed said. “Whoever did this could be watching us right now. They could start picking us off at any time.”

  The anger melted from Moody almost instantly. He looked at the dark buildings all around them, clutching his shotgun even tighter. “So what do you suggest, marshal?”

  “I think we need to get back to the saloon. It seems to be the only safe place in town so far. We hole up there for the night and wait for daylight, wait until we can see what’s going on.” He looked at Karl. “I know you want to look for your wife and sons, but we need to be cautious right now.”

  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, the only stained-glass window in the church, was built into the wall above the pulpit. Moonlight filtered in from the windows at the sides of the church, but the light that came in through the stained-glass 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.