The Killer's Game

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Jebidiah struck another match, held it up. The clock had moved a full fifteen minutes. Jebidiah shook out his match.

  “It’s messed up,” Mary said.

  The ghost shook its head.

  Jebidiah said, “The Devil’s time is different from mine and yours.” Jebidiah turned to the ghost. “Do you have some helpful advice for us? I believe we could use any you might possess, and considering your situation, you are bound to have experiences that we do not.”

  “And if you’re lucky,” said the ghost, “you’ll never have them. Let me tell you, this ain’t no dosey-do, being dead, being hung up between here and wherever.”

  The ghost paused for a moment, as if gathering his energies, and in fact, he seemed to become brighter, more solid, and as he did, he leaned forward and told his story.

  “My name was Dolber Gold, but everyone called be Dol when I was alive. Me and all these cowboys and whores once lived in, or worked in, or passed through this town. And this here establishment, which could be called a kind of house of pleasure, a sure enough Gentleman’s hotel, minus the goddamn gentleman, was always packed and full of piano music and dancing, and if you’ll pardon me, ma’am, the riding of asses and the drinking of liquor.”

  “Mine has been ridden plenty,” Mary said. “I’m a working girl. So no begging your pardon is necessary.”

  “I thought as much,” Dol said, “and I mean that with no disrespect. My favorite women were always of the loose nature, and I respect the job they do and the pleasure they give. And if I were able, I’d be glad to lay coins down to buck a bit with you.”

  “Tell your story,” Jebidiah said.

  “The hairy ones,” Dol said. “That’s your problem.”

  Dol nodded at the grandfather clock. “Go outside now you’ll be covered in a kind of sickness, a feeling that will make you weak. It’s them a’comin’. There’s bad things in that shadow in the street, but it ain’t nothing to what’s gonna be here when that clock hits high midnight.“

  “You’ve said as much,” Jebidiah said, throwing a glance at the clock. His eyes had adjusted enough he could make out the fact that the hands had moved again. Another fifteen minutes. There was still time, but it was best to be prepared, and have time to do it. Dol was as chatty as a squirrel, and nowhere near on point.

  “Me and some of the boys got liquored up and rode out to the old graveyard for some fun. I didn’t have no respect, ’cause I was full of rotgut to the gills. We rode out there with bad intentions. Graveyard there is what used to be for all them folks settled here, but there was graves older than that on top of the hill, lost in amongst the trees. And it was said Conquistadors come through here, gave trouble to the Indians. Story went that they come through this part of East Texas, up the Sabine River, searching for gold. Course, wasn’t none. But they searched anyway. These woods, deep as they are now, were deeper then, and there was things in there from times before we know’d about time. Conquistadores began to die out, and the six that was left, they camped here a’bouts, and in the night, a hairy one came. Maybe he was an Indian. Who knows? The Indians tell the story. But he was hairy and he came into the center of them and killed the lot of them, tore them up. Their bones were left to rot on the hill. But Indians said them Conquistadores, ever' full moon, gathered flesh and hair on their bones, and come into camp searching for food and fun killin’. It was said this thing that killed them had passed along a piece of himself to them, making them like him. Wolves that walked like men. Indians finally captured these six and even the original hairy one, who they claimed came from some hole in the ground, came up to plague man and spread evil. But they captured them somehow, and buried them deep and pinned them to the ground.”

  “Pinned them?” Jebidiah said.

  “Comin’ to that,” Dol said. “So me and my buddies, we thought it might be fun to dig up them old graves. We wasn’t worried about no curse, but we figured there might be something inside them graves worth somethin’, if it was no more than just a look. Armor, maybe. Swords. Might even have been something in there worth a few dollars. Truth is, we didn’t figure there really was no Conquistadores buried there. But, you get bottle smart when you’ve drunk enough, and we’d drunk enough, and we rode up there and found some old, unmarked mounds at the top of the hill, trees and vines grown up on and around them. There was a big old stick, like a limb, stuck down in one of the mounds. It looked fresh, like it had just been put there.”

  “What kind of limb?” Jebidiah asked?

  “What?”

  “What sort of wood was it?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. I think it was hickory or something like that.”

  “Oak?”

  “Could have been,” Dol said. “I ain’t for certain, but I sure wish I could remember, and maybe figure on what kind of trees grew around there and the name of all the plants and birds and such. What is wrong with you fella? Who gives a shit?”

  “My guess is it was oak,” Jebidiah said. “Like the tip of Mary’s umbrella.”

  The ghost just looked at him.

  “Never mind,” Jebidiah said. “Go on with your story.”

  “Tim, he’d brought some shovels and he passed them out, and we started digging. I remember we come to this stick in the ground, a stick carved on with symbols and such, and I pulled it out and tossed it, and, well, drunk like we was, we didn’t last too long. But before we passed out, we did make some progress on one of them mounds, enough to open it. But I don’t remember much about that. Next thing I knowed, I was on my back looking up at the full moon shining down through the trees. I got up on one elbow, and that’s when I seen it. It was the grave we had dug into. There was a hairy arm pushing up out of the ground, and then this long snout sheddin’ dirt, and then this thing pulled its way out of the hole and wobbled up there on the edge of the grave. It was about seven feet tall. It was like a wolf, only it had a long snout and ten times the teeth. Them teeth hung out and twisted ever which way, and tall as it was, it was still bent some, and its paws was tipped out with long, shiny claws. But the eyes, that was the worst. They was as yellow as old custard, except when they rolled, cause then they showed a kind of bloody white around them.

  “I tried to get up. But I couldn’t move at first. Drunk and scared like I was, kind of going in and out of being awake. This thing bent over and started digging in the ground, and pretty soon it was tearing at the dirt and tossing it all over the place. It didn’t seem to take no time at all before it had dug into a hole and pulled out another stick like that one I pulled, and then up come another of them things, and he went on to do this time and again, and I tried to get up, tried to shake one of my buddies awake, but he wouldn’t budge. Got my gun out and shot at it, but it ignored me. It just went on getting them others out of the ground until there were six. Well, even drunk like I was, by this time I knew I wasn’t having no dream, and I was scared sober.

  “One of them things picked up one of my buddies by the ankle, held him up high and bit into his head, started slurping at the brain. Well, I’ll tell you, I was up then and running. I heard one of my buddies scream up there on the hill, then after that I was running so fast through the trees, getting hit in the face by limbs and such, I didn’t hear nor notice nothing. It come to me that I might have been better to have grabbed up my horse, but I don’t remember if it was even around no more. Good as it was about being trained to stand, I had either forgotten it, or it had run off first sight of that thing comin’ out of the ground.

  “I ran and I ran, thought I was making pretty good time and doing well, then I seen a shadow moving through the woods, and pretty soon it was everywhere. It made me feel sick and weak, like I’d walked into a cloud of poison. Then there was these other shadows that come out of the darker shadow, and they moved, and they changed, took shape. It was them hairy things, kind of wolf-like they were. I got my brains back for a moment, started firing my six gun, but it wasn’t doing no good. I’d have done about as much good to try and stop
them by peeing on them. But I didn’t even have that kind of ammunition, having already peed all over myself from being so scared. And I guess, since I’ve gone this far, got to say I messed myself too. I was so scared my goose bumps had goose bumps.

  “I ran and ran, then come to a break in the woods, climbed to the top of a hill, and then I heard them growl, and they was on me. It happened faster than you can skin your foreskin back for a soapin’.

  “But they didn’t kill me. Not right off. They slapped me around, bit on me some. Finally one of them threw me over his shoulder like I was a sack of taters, carried me off. I tell you, I was one scared cowpoke. Didn’t know if they was gonna eat me or stick their peckers in my asshole. What they did was carry me to the woods and they brought me back to where we had been, up the top of the graveyard. As they carried me I tried to take note of things, see where I was goin’, thinking maybe I stayed alert I had a chance. But there wasn’t no chance. They got to the graveyard they threw me down and one of them stood there with his big paw on my chest, the claws cutting into me like knives, and the others took to digging. Down on their knees, digging like dogs, or wolves, or whatever they was, and soon they had a big hole dug out and they pulled this big run of bones out of the ground, and yanked a long, carved stick out of its forehead, which wasn’t nothin’ but a skull, and while I’m lookin’, I seen the moonlight come down on that head and I seen that hole in the head seal up, then I seen flesh start to run over them bones, and then I seen it get pink with blood and the chest start to breathe, and then hair started to grow, in patches at first, then finally all over, and when it was thick as wild prairie grass, the thing sat up, and finally stood up. It was a male, that was obvious. Male like all the others, cause the thing that let me know they was all male was hanging out for all to see, long as a razor strap, thick as my ankle. And then it looked right at me.

  “Well now, this is the ugly part, and I start to almost feel humanly sick when I think about it, even though I’m deader than Custer and his whole outfit. Still feel the fear, dead or not, thinking back on it. This thing, it come at me slow and easy, pulled its lips back on that long, old snout and showed me all them teeth, and I went to screamin’, just like a little girl who’s seen a spider. And boy, that thing liked that. It pulled those lips back even more and spit started dripping off its teeth, and then it crouched like, and finally I realized I was screamin’, cause at first I was just doin’ it, not knowing I was, you know, and I heard the quality of it, and I thought, well, ‘You go to hell,’ I ain’t screamin’ another sound. And I shut my mouth and went quiet and made to go like a man… Only, I didn’t. He started to move fast then, a funny kind of move, like some of the moves was left out, and then just before he had me, his pecker got stiff, like he was gonna do some business, and maybe he was I thought, and I screamed again. Big and loud and I couldn’t stop till he stopped me, his teeth in my throat. I don’t remember much after that, but the next thing I knowed I was here in this hotel, and thinkin’ I’d dreamed. But I couldn’t get nobody to see me. And then gradually, there was more spirits like me, cause that cloud come through the street every night, and then them wolves would come. Kind of folded out of the shadows. Caught everyone here eventually. Before they did, they once got trapped in the old hotel across the street. The real hotel. And the folks in the town burned in down. And them things, they come out of there afire, their hair and flesh growing back fast as bullets fly. They went on a rampage, and then there wasn’t no one left in this town but ghosts, like me. They took to eating horses and cats and rats and dogs, whatever stray animal might wander in. After that, there wasn’t nothing. And then they kept coming around. Kept waiting for something. More meat I guess. I don’t know why they didn’t go off somewhere else, but they didn’t. Maybe far as the trees where me and my poor pals found them was as far as they could go, cause I know one night I seen the big one up there on the hill, howling at the moon. I figure it was cause he was so hungry his stomach thought its throat was cut.”

  “They’re confined to this area,” Jebidiah said. “The cloud is part of the evil that came out of the graves. They were held there by the sharp ends of the oak. Some evil can’t stand oak. And this, obviously, is that evil. Unfortunately, you released them.”

  “Unless it’s hickory,” Dol said. “Or some kind of other tree. Ain’t nothing says it’s oak. I didn’t tell you it was oak. I don’t remember.”

  “You have a point,” Jebidiah said, “but from my experience, I’m betting on oak.”

  “It’s your bet,” Dol said.

  “I don’t understand,” Mary said. “He bit you, like he bit them Spaniards so long ago. They become wolves until the Indians killed them… Or held them down with the sticks. But you got bit, the others got bit, why ain’t you and them wolf-things?”

  Dol shook his head. “Ain’t got a nugget on that. Nothin’.”

  “Because,” said Jebidiah, “the leader, he is one, and they are six, and together they are seven.”

  “Well now, that clears it right up,” Dol said.

  “Satan’s minions, that’s what they are. And there is one directly from Satan, and there are six that he made. That allows seven. They can kill others, but they can only make so many, and seven is their number. If they were vampires, or ghouls, they could make more, but the hairy things, they can only make seven.”

  “Who made that rule?” Mary said.

  “My guess is the gentleman in charge,” Jebidiah said.

  “God?” Dol said.

  “He likes his little games,” The Reverend said. “They have no rhyme of reason to us, or perhaps to him, but, they are his games and they are real and they affect us all. Seven. That is the number for the hairy ones.”

  “How do you know that?” Mary asked.

  “I’ve seen more than I would like, read tomes that are not that delightful to read.”

  “So you seen it, or you read about it?” Mary said.

  “In this case, I read about it.”

  “So you ain’t had no practical experience on the matter?” Mary said.

  “On this, no. On things like it, yes.”

  “Well, Mary said, “I hope this is some like them other things, or otherwise, we can bend over now and look up between our legs and piss on ourselves.”

  The night grew heavy and the shadow fled through all parts of the town. In the hotel, and in the other buildings, it was nothing more than a dark, cool fog, a malaise that swept over Jebidiah and Mary. Jebidiah removed the barrier from the setting room door, and as he did, the clock ticked eight thirty. Dol and the other ghosts returned to what substituted for lives; the limbo of the hotel; the existence of the not quite gone and the not quite present.

  Jebidiah led his horse out of the sitting room, into the saloon. In there they watched the ghosts for a moment, and then Jebidiah took a candle from one of the tables where it was melted to a saucer, broke the saucer free, and put the candle in his pocket. He found two kerosene lamps with kerosene still in them, and gave those to Mary to carry. He and Mary went up the stairs to the hotel room where Jebidiah’s whisky resided. Jebidiah led his horse up there with him. The animal was reluctant at first, but then made the stairs easily and finally arrived at the landing, snorting in protest.

  When Jebidiah looked down on the hotel, the dark fog had laid down on the floor like a black velvet carpet, slowly seeping out of sight into the wood.

  “You don’t go far without that horse, do you?” Mary said, causing Jebidiah to turn his head and look.

  “I’ll save him if I can. No use leaving him to be eaten. He’s the best horse I ever had. Smart. Brave. Worth more than most humans.”

  “That may be true, but he just shit on the floor. And it smells like a horse stall now.”

  “We’ll live with it.”

  They went into the bedroom, Jebidiah leading his horse. He let go of the animal, took Mary’s umbrella off the bed, pulled out his pocket knife, and began to whittle pieces off of it.


  “I’m glad you got a hobby,” Mary said. “Me, I’m scared shitless.”

  “And so am I. Whittling relaxes me. Especially when it has a purpose.”

  “What purpose?”

  “These little shards of oak. For it to affect the wolves, it has to bear some of the wood’s insides. Oak itself, that doesn’t do it. Shaved oak. Sharpened oak. Anything that takes the husk off and shows the meat of the tree.”

  “What you gonna do, chase them down and poke them with that little stuff? I don’t see you’re doing no good.”

  “I’m going to take these little fragments, and I’m going to make them smaller. Then I’m going to take my bullets, use my pocket knife to noodle a small hole in the tips of the loads. I’m going to put wood fragments in those little holes, then, I’m going to take this—”

  He produced the candle from his pocket. “I’m going to seal the little wood shaving stuffed holes with wax. When I shoot these guns, the oak goes into the wolves along with the bullets.”

  “Ain’t you the smart one?” Mary said, and she took a swig from Jebidiah’s bottle.

  He took it from her. “No more. We had best have our wits about us.”

  Mary said, “You want, you could knock you off a piece. No charge.”

  “I would hardly have my wits about me doing that? Now would I?”

  “Reckon not. Just a friendly offer.”

  “And a fine one. But I fear I’ll have to pass.”

  Jebidiah went back to whittling, but not before he waved a match under the bottom of the candle and stuck it up on the nightstand and lit the wick. When he finished whittling, the wax was soft. He went to work inserting the miniature wood shavings, sealing them with wax. Mary helped.

  Howls came down from the piney hills and filled the streets and filled the Gentleman’s hotel.

  “They’re coming,” Jebidiah said.

  Jebidiah went out on the landing, looked down. The ghosts had gone, except Dol, and he had wandered behind the bar and laid down flat on the floor. The wolves couldn’t hurt him, but Jebidiah assumed he didn’t want to see them. Dead or not, he still knew fear. Jebidiah watched his silent, still, white figure for a while, then returned to the room and closed the door. He hefted the revolvers in their holsters. They were packing his specially prepared bullets. He had done the same for his Winchester ammunition. And he had done it for his gun belt reloads until the wax ran out. The umbrella he had whittled on was little more now than a thin, sharp stick, as Jebidiah had torn off the umbrella itself, and worked on the shaft with his knife.