Shadow Falls: Badlands

by Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff

  He sensed fear—a confirming fear.

  This couldn’t have come from Altos; it didn’t smell like him. Cyril even questioned Galen’s ability to experience fear—his level of self-awareness. Whatever the second being had been, it had come in haste and left no more than a trace of its presence. Cyril squeezed his eyes tight and tried to get a closer bead on it. He stood silently in the still air, arms outstretched to the sides, and palms facing upward. He willed it to happen, but could not get a clearer image to coalesce in his mind. After several attempts, Cyril gave up and shut the cell door behind him as he left. There was something different about him now. Before he’d been as sensitive to such things as a dry sponge to water, but he felt as if his ability had diminished since he’d left his post at Fort Jones. The incident there had left him—

  “Stop it,” he muttered to himself. Cyril recoiled from the memory—his very body reacting.

  “Get a fucking grip,” he chided himself. But his hands were shaking. Once his work was done with Altos, he promised himself that those back in his old regiment would get the surprise of their lives.

  He looked around the deserted town.

  It was this place, he thought, that was causing this temporary shift from control to a borderline insanity.

  This land was cursed. This town had been done a favor by its annihilation. Of this he was sure.

  Back at the hotel, Cyril refilled his provisions then went about razing the town. With a torch in hand and several rag-stuffed bottles of whiskey liberated from one of Sagebrush's corpse-filled saloons, Cyril began the process of returning the town back to the earth.

  In less than one hour, the deed had been accomplished. Cyril stood outside the burning schoolhouse and watched his work. Feeling the heat of the fire on his face, he fell to his knees. By nightfall, the dozen wooden structures that had made up this small town were little more than embers soon to be swallowed up by the Texas sand.

  Cyril knew the direction Galen was heading. His horse, grateful now that they had left the town, went with a looser gait. There was little doubt the ghosts of Sagebrush lingered heavily in the air, but Cyril knew better than to be afraid of such things. Ghosts, he knew, could not harm you; only trick you into harming yourself.

  He had been taken by the powers he served—there was nothing voluntary about it. He had been killed in the woods and his bones had been left to rot. Cyril himself was a ghost by all manners of definition.

  But that was not true, he thought. He was real. He was flesh and blood. He was.

  He was being followed.

  The trail out of town had been deserted; it was only him, the horse, dirt, and rock for as far as the eye could see. But there seemed to be something else. Another being broke his feeling of solitude. The hairs on the back of Cyril’s hand stood up. There was a sense of something lurking at the very edge of his vision, but when he turned back, there was only the empty trail behind him. His hunter's instinct was being piqued. He stopped looking behind him, so as to not reveal his awareness to whatever was there. There was a pair of eyes on him, cold and dead like slime on a pond. Whatever was following was getting closer—to the point where Cyril started to believe it was almost breathing down his back.

  Slowly he cocked his head, trying to catch any sound. There was only his own breathing. Even the light breeze blew silently past.

  Ghosts, Cyril thought again. Wisps of things unseen that dared not appear before him. The air everywhere you went was full of them—millennia worth of spirits of the dead, hiding in walls and between dark shadows. This plane belonged to those who walked the ether between this world and the next, unaware of their own banishment. Cyril forced his eyes into a squint to see them, like ignored dust floating in the air; the countless dregs of the departed appeared in their indistinct forms as tricks of light or haze. Those just beyond the mortal world could do him no harm, and he was far past being haunted by them or any of the faces of those whose lives he had taken.

  When he looked again, it hit him what he was now seeing.

  Footsteps.

  Fresh ones cut into the dirt between the deep ruts driven long ago into this dusty and infrequently traveled corridor.

  Cyril blinked. Those prints could not be recent. Rain should have erased any footprints, but as far as Cyril reckoned it had been dry here for months.

  Suddenly it seemed the horizon was further away than usual. As if it had been pushed back while he had been watching it.

  Must be the heat, he reckoned.

  He had been in the sun for weeks and knew how that kind of exposure took a toll on a man. He opened his canteen and tipped it to his mouth. During the war he'd seen soldiers with heat stroke drop their weapons and run directly into the path of enemy gunfire, thinking themselves indestructible even up to the moment the bullets kissed their flesh and tore it to bloody ribbons.

  Even Galen, Cyril thought. On the night he'd accompanied him into Veracruz, Altos had gone on some murderous tear after spending too much time in the—

  Cyril's thought stopped dead, for as he lowered his canteen, he saw more footsteps.

  These were in front of him, and advanced in his direction.

  Not even a breath escaped him. He was certain they had not been there before. The trail ahead had been—

  Empty, Cyril thought.

  But there they were, fresh and new in the dirt stretching back down this narrow road for as far as the eye could see.

  Yet whoever had owned those boots was nowhere to be found.

  Cyril looked down. The prints went directly under those of his horse. He turned back behind him and frowned.

  How could that be? He wondered, stopping his horse. Getting down from his saddle, he knelt on the ground to see if his eyes had been playing tricks on him. The footsteps coming from behind him were so new that they lay on top of those just made by his horse—as if whoever had come down this road had doubled back following him.

  He quickly drew his pistol and sprang to his feet, spinning to see what he knew what behind him.

  Standing in front of him was a man with two badly burnt wings sticking out of his back.

  From the scorched angel’s mouth came the voice of a Southern gentleman. “I don't suppose you'd shoot someone without first hearing what they had to say to you.” The stranger grinned. “Oh I’m sorry. I forgot who I was talking to.” He laughed in a near mocking tone.

  “Who are you?” Cyril asked.

  “Someone with a bit of information you may find important.”

  “I asked ‘who are you?’” Cyril insisted. But inside, he sensed that part of the answer lay inside the Sagebrush jail cell.

  “Well, if you must ask, mah name is Ghent. Briar Ghent.” His mouth curled upward in a knowing grin. “And your name is Cyril, though you've gone through quite a few surnames, I reckon.”

  “Do not presume to know anything about—” Cyril started before being cut off.

  “I know you were stationed at Fort Jones out there in the California territory when a mysterious letter caused you to leave your post, and that a day later you were captured by members of your own regiment who dragged you back to the commanding officer. That same captain had you lined up against a wall and shot by a firing squad for being a deserter. Isn't that why it took you so long to get to Kansas City, to the man who sent you that alarming letter in the first place?”

  Cyril bristled at hearing his own story told back to him with such blunt detail. Briar Ghent continued.

  “Though waiting a couple of weeks wrapped in a shroud buried in shallow ground out there sure beats the heck out of laying around rotting in the woods for more than a hundred years, waiting to be needed, now don't it?” He finished with a cackle. He reached out and pushed Cyril's gun aside—and as their hands briefly brushed against each other, Cyril saw Briar helplessly plummeting from dizzying heights in the sky, his once majestic wings now aflame.

  “You see, my boy, you and I seek the same thing: a closure that will bring an end to ou
r otherwise interminable wait on this useless world,” Briar explained. “But you killing Altos will get you exactly the opposite of what you seek.”

  Cyril eyed the man before him, confused. He was unsure if he could trust his senses, let alone this apparition. Nevertheless, his intuition was beginning to pique.

  Briar leaned in closer, carefully scanning the surrounding area. He brought his voice down to a whisper and began divulging a truth about Galen—one that caused Cyril to realize that everything Miles had told him from the beginning had most certainly been a lie.

  *****

  PART III

  The Valley of Unrest by Edgar Allan Poe

  Once it smiled a silent dell

  Where the people did not dwell;

  They had gone unto the wars,

  Trusting to the mild-eyed stars,

  Nightly, from their azure towers,

  To keep watch above the flowers,

  In the midst of which all day

  The red sun-light lazily lay.

  Now each visitor shall confess

  The sad valley's restlessness.

  Nothing there is motionless—

  Nothing save the airs that brood

  Over the magic solitude.

  Ah, by no wind are stirred those trees

  That palpitate like the chill seas

  Around the misty Hebrides!

  Ah, by no wind those clouds are driven

  That rustle through the unquiet Heaven

  Uneasily, from morn till even,

  Over the violets there that lie

  In myriad types of the human eye—

  Over the lilies there that wave

  And weep above a nameless grave!

  They wave:—from out their fragrant tops

  Eternal dews come down in drops.

  They weep:—from off their delicate stems

  Perennial tears descend in gems.

  CHAPTER 18

  She was swept up in the air, her body limp. Even in the dead of night, he could see it all perfectly: her bare feet gently swinging back and forth; her toes pointed downward, toward the Majestyk's wooden deck. He kept waiting for her to open her eyes—to see the peril in front of her—but it never happened, as she was lifted higher until the man holding Anne Walsh tipped her over the starboard rail, where she fell wordlessly before being swallowed by the churning black waves of the Atlantic Ocean.

  The deed was done. While her body tumbled lifelessly into the liquid abyss, the man in the frock coat turned, quickly spotting him.

  Galen awoke with the sunrise, which brought with it the sound of birds in flight, taking off toward the sky—on their way to warmer climes. A single black crow had stayed behind and cawed angrily at Galen from the top of a nearby tree. Galen couldn’t tell from where the crow berated him, for this marked his third dawn in the pillory, and he was no longer able to raise his head due to the agonizing strain of his confined posture.

  Galen was certain that this crow was the same that showed up yesterday and sat in the trees, incessantly mocking him and constantly drawing closer. The bird, Galen reckoned, had already identified him as a trapped and tasty morsel, it was sitting back just biding its time until he died and it could sup on his body.

  Or perhaps, if it grew impatient enough, it would realize its prey was powerless to fight back and would swoop down to greedily take Galen’s eyes.

  In a few hours, the boy would arrive with the bucket to splash water in Galen’s face and place a palmful of wet gruel into his open mouth. The bucket boy had no fear of Galen trying to bite off his fingertips; he could tell the captive was too weak to put up any kind of fight.

  If they had intended to squelch his bravado, then they had done so quite effectively. He was currently using whatever physical strength he had left to keep himself on his feet—his leg muscles burning with exhaustion. He had no choice, though; if his legs were to give out, his dead body weight against the wooden stock would surely strangle him. And with the distinct possibility that his subsequent death would only be temporary, such a hellish scenario could indeed repeat itself without foreseeable conclusion.

  While his body fought desperately to remain upright, Galen’s mind battled its own demons. When darkness fell, nightmarish visions would creep in to haunt him. He struggled to keep his eyes open—to overcome the exhaustion of it all—but even then they came as some horrible waking dream he couldn’t escape. His mind vacillated between moments of mental twilight and complete delirium. It was here the scene of the burning church replayed itself again and again—the screams and helpless cries.

  Quickly they moved—the ones still alive. Feet shuffling down the rickety steps, their panicked voices muffled by hands and sleeves over their mouths to block the smoke from their lungs.

  “Hurry!” Galen yelled. They blindly followed his every word, throwing themselves into the dark, round ditch, desperately trying to escape from the fate that awaited in the conflagration upstairs. With terrified voices they screamed—their bodies thudding against each other, the thick wet sounds of flesh on bone and bone on rock as they hit bottom.

  That sound! Galen’s mind cried because his voice could not. That maddening sound!

  Men and women falling down a well became Anne Walsh tumbling into the ocean—and the man in the frock coat, his face completely visible.

  But this time, it seemed as if his gaze lingered on him longer than it had in any of his other visions. This time he stared knowingly back into Galen’s eyes—revealing a very distinct glimmer of recognition before the vision faded into nothingness.

  Dozens of ruddy faces peered up at him as he stood above them on the gallows, their voices calling out for his neck. In the moment the noose was being slipped over his head, he saw the man—standing unnoticed among the angry crowd. The remains of two burnt wings protruded from his back, just as Galen remembered—just as he couldn’t help but remember. This man’s lips silently moved, and his dark, piercing eyes entered Galen before drawing the two together. He could see those eyes as he saw them before, in the church as the man cackled “Brother Thomas, do something!”

  “Father?” Galen’s voice croaked out loud, suddenly back on the Majestyk.

  No answer.

  He blinked, back on the gallows with the rope around his neck, the cheering faces of Sagebrush’s poor calling out for his death.

  “Father?” he asked again. When the trapdoor opened under his feet and his head jerked upwards, he was vaulted back into consciousness by someone yanking a handful of his hair.

  Galen wanted to cry out but was silenced, his mind fully stifled by the face of the hooded woman staring directly into his eyes. Nena cocked her head at Galen, trying to read his face. Here in the daylight, he could finally make out her pupils, which appeared like two cut pieces of raw jade.

  “What did you see?” she asked.

  Galen let out no answer, save for a low grunt.

  “I asked, ‘What did you see?’” Nena bellowed.

  Again Galen held his tongue, angering Nena to the point of violence. She yanked hard on the fistful of hair—hard enough to extract some by its roots.

  “Let him out,” she hissed.

  The pockmarked man produced a set of iron keys on a ring. He opened the pillory lock and, with a grunt, lifted the heavy upper half of the stock off its frame. Immediately, Galen fell backward, slipping through the neck and wrist cutouts before collapsing on the ground.

  As he lay there, he could smell his own stench. Nena must have as well, because she turned her head and ordered bucket boy to douse him with water from head to toe. The splash caught Galen; he gasped for air, inhaling the chilled water into his lungs. He began coughing.

  I'm going to drown on bare land, he thought. “The irony.” He laughed and a chortle escaped his mouth.

  “What is so funny?” demanded Nena.

  Galen couldn't help himself; what had started as an unintentional slip had now grown into full gales of laughter.

  “I said, �
��What is so funny?’” Nena roared this time, obviously losing patience.

  Enraged, the man with the pockmarked face grabbed the wooden bucket from the boy's hand and, with one swing, smashed it across Galen’s face. The boy turned his head as to not be hit with flying shrapnel.

  “Shut yer god-damned mouth!” he shouted at Galen, who had been dazed and nearly knocked unconscious by the blow.

  Galen groaned and tried to rub his head, but his arms were so weakened by his confinement that lifting them was near impossible. Although was free, days locked in the pillory made his limbs feel as if they were still imprisoned.

  The pockmarked man threw aside what was left of the bucket, grabbed Galen by one of his arms, and began dragging him across the grass. The force caused Galen to yelp, as he feared his enfeebled arm would be dislocated. When he looked up, he saw he was being dragged into a circle of about two-dozen men. The men parted to allow them inside. Galen immediately spotted the pole, which had been secured in the ground. Galen's eyes widened in horror as he thought of what they had done to Maria; weakly he tried to fight and pull away. He desperately willed for his physical strength to return and, with one swift movement, pulled away from his surprised captor.

  Get up, damnit, his mind screamed. As he felt his legs begin to respond, dozens of hands were already on him. The men from the circle had descended upon Galen and were pulling him upwards toward the pole. In moments he was pinned; one man lashed his hands above his head to the pole while another used a knife to cut his clothes away, stripping him naked.

  “Burn them,” Nena motioned toward Galen’s fetid shirt and pants. They were the clothes that originally belonged to Maria's dead husband; they were now ruined by Galen’s blood, sweat, and waste while being confined in the confines.

  Galen tried to eye Nena, but the blow from the bucket had opened a cut over his left eye, essentially half-blinding him.

  She has something in her hand, he thought. What is it? A torch?