by Lukens, Mark
“You ready to do this?” Austin asked Hannah.
“I’m ready to try,” she told him.
“You can’t just try. You have to do it. This is a one-time shot.”
Hannah nodded, but she could feel the evil coming from the church. She knew the Pastor was inside and he was waiting for her. He could feel her, he could sense her every move, hear her every thought. It felt like his thin, white fingers were probing her mind.
She pushed the thought away and hurried towards the church.
At the church they pushed the red doors open. They weren’t locked now.
Of course they weren’t, Hannah thought. He wants me to come inside. He wants me to be cornered in here with everyone else.
The interior of the church was lit up with candles in sconces along each wall that ran down to other end of the church. The first thing Hannah noticed was that nearly all of the furniture had been taken out of the church. There were no pews, no seating of any kind, just a sea of concrete that led to the wooden stage at the other end. On the stage there was no pulpit, no area for a choir, no figures of Jesus or crosses, no religious symbols of any kind. The only thing that was there was the Pastor seated in an old recliner—his throne. He was the only symbol in this church now; he was God here.
Hannah hesitated for only a moment, but she walked forward until she was only fifteen feet away from the Pastor. Austin and Cheryl were right behind her.
The Pastor stared at Hannah with his light blue eyes and a look of amusement on his face.
“I could’ve killed Gail,” he said conversationally. “But I wanted her to go and find you. I wanted her to warn you. And I wanted you to see what I can do.”
Hannah didn’t say anything.
Cheryl and Austin turned back to the open double doors of the church. They could hear the townspeople coming.
“She told you the truth,” the Pastor continued. “I am going to sacrifice you. And I’m going to make them do it—everybody here. They’ll tear you apart like a pack of rabid dogs. You’ll scream and beg, but you’ll find no mercy from me.”
“Fight him,” Cheryl hissed at Hannah from behind her.
The Pastor laughed as the townspeople filed in through the double doors. “Fight me? You thought you had a chance of fighting me, little girl?”
The townspeople rushed at them, some of them yelling, they had discarded their weapons and their torches—their only weapons now were their hands and their teeth.
Hannah stared at the Pastor. She knew she had only a few moments to live. She knew she could never get Austin, Nick, and Cheryl out of here now.
But there was something tugging at her mind, she felt the white fingers probing at her mind, but she felt something else there, a rushing panic, a wild fear, the beginning of doubt.
Hannah squeezed her eyes shut and she concentrated with everything she had on the Pastor, on his energy. She imagined entering the darkness of his mind, like the darkness of this church, and she saw him there in his mind, a pale and thin figure sitting on an old chair, just like inside this church. She saw herself rushing towards the figure. The figure tried to get up, tried to run, but Hannah was too quick for him, too strong for him. She grabbed him around his throat and squeezed. He tried to pull her hands away, but her hands were like iron.
“… like iron …” Hannah whispered.
Hannah opened her eyes as the townspeople gathered around them, all of them stopping suddenly and looking around like they had forgotten what it was that they were doing. But Hannah kept her eyes on the Pastor who sat frozen with terror in his chair, his body rigid as he struggled for breath.
“I won’t let you breathe anymore,” Hannah whispered as she kept her eyes on the Pastor, but she saw herself squeezing the life from his throat in her mind.
The Pastor tried to speak, tried to move, tried to command.
“You can take him now!” Hannah screamed at the crowd. “I have control of him! You can kill him! You can take your lives back!”
They didn’t have much time; Hannah couldn’t hold the Pastor forever. Even now, she could feel his strength gathering. She had been able to catch him in a vulnerable moment as he controlled the whole town, but now he was bringing his concentration fully back to Hannah.
And the Pastor began to smile.
“NOW OR NEVER!!” Hannah screamed at the people.
The woman with the bandage covering half of her face let out a blood-curdling scream and ran at the Pastor, her hands raised in claws, murder and revenge in the only eye she had left. The two old men who played cards on their back porch followed her, one of the men limping on his bad leg.
And then the others followed.
The Pastor’s eyes widened in horror as he watched all of them climb up onto the stage and grab at him. They bit and tore. The scratched and beat. They yelled and howled. They tore the Pastor apart piece by piece as he screamed up at the ceiling of the church.
Hannah nearly collapsed—she was so weak. Cheryl and Austin helped her out of the church, out to the cool night air of the desert.
• • •
The next day their van was back at the gas station with the spark plug wires back in. The keys were in the ignition. Their bags and coolers were back inside. They were ready to go.
Nick sat in the driver’s seat, ready to leave. Cheryl was in the passenger seat.
Hannah stood ten feet away from the van. Austin was waiting for her at the side door of the van.
“You ready to go, Hannah?” Austin asked her.
But Hannah didn’t answer; she hesitated as she looked out at the desert and the fingers of her left hand twitched just a little.
She saw a rattlesnake only twenty feet away in the sand. She had called the snake forth from the desert. She concentrated on the snake for a moment, and then watched as she made the snake bite down on the end of its own tail, swallowing it down …
SEPTEMBER
SKINWALKERS
This is a tale about three bounty hunters transporting a Navajo prisoner back to a town to face his crimes, but along the way something is hunting them. And their prisoner knows what it is.
For those of you who’ve read my book Ancient Enemy, you will see a slight connection between this story and that book, especially right at the end of this tale.
September 26, 1891
Jed knew they were being followed.
They had ridden their horses up into the woods after riding through a stretch of badlands. It was late afternoon now and even darker in the woods.
Jed saw a clearing up ahead and motioned for Roscoe and Dobbs to stop. Their prisoner, Red Moon, a half-breed Navajo who was wanted for twenty murders, and at least as many robberies and horse thefts, sat on a horse with his hands shackled together in front of him. He was a solidly-built man with long dark hair and just a bit of gray beginning to show in the scraggily goatee he had managed to grow. He had barely moved a muscle on the horse, and he hadn’t said a word so far. His eyes looked like two black, shiny river pebbles set deep in his tan face.
Jed studied the endless woods that surrounded them. The clearing they were in had a slight depression in the ground, and along one edge was a ridge about four to five feet high in some places, with the trees beginning again not too far away above the ridge—it looked like a dirt and rock wall holding the trees back from the clearing.
“We’re being followed,” he told them.
Roscoe and Dobbs looked around like they might be able to see their pursuers—but they saw no one in the trees all around them.
Roscoe was in his early forties, a tough and grizzled man who had a lot of experience out on the trails, but Dobbs was in his early twenties and just learning the ropes.
“Who’s following us?” Dobbs asked.
“I don’t know yet,” Jed answered in a low voice. He nodded at the ridge. “We’ll make our camp over yonder by that ridge. Best defense I’ve seen so far. It will have to do for tonight.”
Red Moon watched them.
“There is no defense from them,” he said.
They all stared at Red Moon—these were the first words he had uttered since they’d caught him. He had never pleaded his innocence, never threatened them or tried to bribe them. He’d just let Jed put the shackles on his wrists and help him up onto the horse.
“You know who’s following us, Injun?” Dobbs asked Red Moon with a sneer on his face.
Red Moon stared right at Dobbs, but he didn’t answer him.
• • •
Hours later the three men and their prisoner sat around a low fire that barely put out smoke. The horses were tied up in the trees forty yards away, not too close, but close enough to get to them if they needed to. The horses were very jumpy, another sign to Jed that somebody was following them, watching them.
Red Moon had barely touched his plate of dried meat and beans. He set it back down near the fire and Jed helped him up and led him over to a tree thirty feet away and wrapped a chain around the base of the tree and attached the chain to the shackles on his wrists.
“Sorry I can’t make your accommodations more comfortable,” Jed told him.
Red Moon stared up at Jed with his steely black eyes. But for the first time Jed saw fear in those eyes.
Jed went back to the fire and sat down. They had a metal pot of strong coffee brewing. Roscoe nipped from his bottle of whiskey, but Jed had warned him to slow down a little, they needed to stay alert tonight.
Dobbs stared out at the woods. They could only see so far into the trees even with the bright full moon in the night sky. “Who do you think it is?” Dobbs asked again.
“I don’t know,” Jed answered.
“Somebody trying to jump our claim?” Dobbs suggested. “Take Red Moon out from under us?”
Jed didn’t answer. It was a possibility. Red Moon had a hefty bounty on his head; five hundred dollars dead and a thousand alive. The citizens of Smith Junction wanted him to hang in the town square for a family he’d slaughtered. He’d killed them all and got away with twenty dollars, a gold watch, some food, and a horse.
“We sleep in watches,” Jed told Roscoe and Dobbs. It was something Jed and Roscoe had always done when transporting bounties back to the law, but Dobbs was still new at this. Dobbs seemed capable, but still a little nervous; and he was even more jumpy now that he knew they were being followed.
“Skinwalkers,” Red Moon said from the darkness.
“What are you talking about?” Dobbs said.
“That is what follows you—Skinwalkers.”
“What the hell’s a skinwalker?” Dobbs asked.
For a moment Red Moon didn’t answer, and it seemed like he wasn’t going to say anything else. “Magic men,” he finally said with a slight tremble in his deep voice. “Strong magic. They are no longer men anymore.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Roscoe said and snuck another nip from his bottle. “It’s just an old Navajo legend.”
“What are they?” Dobbs persisted. “Those skinwalkers he’s talking about.”
“Witches,” Roscoe said. “Witches that can transform themselves into any animal they want to. They can put curses on people, too. Black magic.”
“To become a skinwalker, a man must murder his own family,” Red Moon said from the darkness thirty feet away. “He must take a dead body to other skinwalkers and learn to raise the dead back to life.”
“Don’t listen to him,” Jed told Dobbs. “He’s just trying to scare you with ghost stories. Trying to distract you.”
“Maybe it’s some of his people coming to try and free him,” Dobbs suggested and the nervousness was even more pronounced in his voice now.
“Is that what it is?” Roscoe called out to Red Moon with a smile. “Your people coming to get you?”
“No. The skinwalkers are not my people.”
“Sshh,” Jed said and all of them went quiet.
They listened to the silent woods for a moment; everything was quiet, they didn’t even hear the normal night-sounds of the woods.
“What is it?” Dobbs finally asked. “You hear something out there?”
Roscoe had his Remington rifle up and ready, aimed into the darkness.
“Put that fire out,” Jed said in a very low voice, almost too low to hear.
Dobbs scooped up handfuls of dirt and extinguished the fire, plunging them into darkness. After a moment, their eyes adjusted and the full moon’s beams of light shining down through the trees helped a little.
The three men, all of them with their weapons ready, stared into the woods.
Then they heard the noise. It sounded like a wolf howling from far away.
“Just a wolf,” Roscoe whispered, relaxing a little.
Then there was another sound—closer to them: the shaking of a rattlesnake tail.
“Shit,” Dobbs said. He sounded very scared now.
An owl hooted. Another animal grunted in the brush a hundred yards away. Something crashed through the brush and then stopped.
“It is them,” Red Moon whispered, his voice trembling. And then he whispered prayers to himself.
“Just stay ready, boys,” Jed whispered, and he settled back down by the fire, his back against the wall of dirt and rock. “Dobbs, you take the first watch. Wake me up in three hours.”
• • •
Jed woke up suddenly. He had been lying down on the ground, his back to the ridge wall, and now he sat up and looked around. He groped for his rifle and felt for his Colt in his gun belt next to him. His weapons were still there beside him.
He saw Roscoe curled up near him, his rifle still clutched in his hands.
Jed didn’t see Dobbs anywhere—he was gone.
He shook Roscoe awake and ssshhed him as he sat up. He put a hand on the top of Roscoe’s rifle, pushing it down gently so he wouldn’t shoot.
“What is it?” Roscoe whispered.
“I fell asleep,” Jed said. He didn’t even remember falling asleep. He wasn’t sure what time it was, hard to tell the moon’s position in the sky with all the trees around them.
“The horses,” Roscoe said. “I don’t hear ‘em.”
“I don’t see Dobbs,” Jed whispered and then got to his feet. He buckled his gun belt around his waist and grabbed his rifle. He made his way down the wall of the ridge, crouched low. He got to the end of the ridge where the land sloped down to the clearing they were in. He had led their horses up into these trees, but he didn’t see them anywhere. He crept up the embankment, up into the dense trees.
He found pieces of the ropes he’d tied the horses with, but he didn’t see the horses anywhere. Some of the ropes looked like they’d been torn, snapped somehow. He clicked his teeth softly in the darkness, hoping to hear the sound of the horses farther away in the brush, but he heard nothing. He felt exposed out here among the trees and he could feel a tingling on his skin, his nerve-endings buzzing.
Jed hurried back down to Roscoe who was wide awake now, his rifle aimed at the woods on the other side of the clearing.
“Dobbs is gone,” Roscoe whispered. “His guns. Everything.”
“I know,” Jed said.
Jed looked over at the tree that he had chained Red Moon to and he could see the black shape at the base of the tree. “Red Moon,” he hissed into the dark.
Red Moon didn’t answer, and for a moment Jed thought he might’ve been slaughtered. But if these people had come for Red Moon, whether they were his own people or whether they were after the bounty, they wouldn’t have killed him.
Then he heard the whispered prayers from Red Moon as they floated on the darkness.
Jed hurried over to Red Moon and crouched down beside him. “What happened? What did you see?”
“I was asleep,” Red Moon whispered. “The skinwalkers can force a man to sleep when they want to.”
“Enough with the skinwalker talk. Who’s out there?”
Red Moon didn’t answer.
So be it, Jed thought. Red Moon could stay over here on his own chaine
d to the tree. Jed hurried back to Roscoe and crouched down beside him, keeping his back against the ridge wall—he felt a little safer with the wall of dirt and rock behind him, but somebody could come over the top of the ridge at them.
“Dobbs wouldn’t leave with the horses,” Roscoe said.
Jed wasn’t sure if it was a statement or a question. But Jed agreed with him; Dobbs had been nervous as hell before, but he wouldn’t have left in the middle of the night. How in the hell had someone snuck up on them and snatched Dobbs away without a fight—without a sound?
“Cover me,” Jed whispered and he snuck out into the clearing past their dead fire. He used the moonlight that filtered down through the trees to inspect the dirt. He saw footprints in the dirt, barely recognizable, but they looked like boot prints—Dobbs’ boot prints. It looked like he got up from the campfire and walked right into the woods.
But that didn’t make any sense.
Just then they heard a scream from the woods—an ear-splitting scream. A man’s scream.
It was Dobbs—Jed was certain of it.
Jed scampered back to the ridge wall and aimed his rifle at the trees.
There was another long, continuous scream that echoed through the woods. It sounded like Dobbs was trying to say something through the screams but the words couldn’t be understood.
Almost like he doesn’t have a tongue anymore, Jed thought.
He’d heard of the tortures some Indians could do to people and he shuddered.
“Dobbs!!” Jed screamed out at the woods. There was no need to stay quiet anymore; their followers, the ones who were torturing Dobbs right now, knew exactly where they were.
No answer from Dobbs, just another scream; this one was weaker and then it turned into a series of gut-wrenching sobs.
Red Moon had something to do with this, Jed was sure of it.
He raced over to Red Moon and grabbed him by his shirt collar, yanking him halfway up to his feet, as far as the chain around the tree would allow.
“Who’s out there?” Jed growled at Red Moon, now face-to-face with the man. He could see Red Moon’s black eyes reflecting the moon’s light—they looked like tiny, shimmering pools of dark water. And they were wide with fear.