Dust

by Chris Miller

  He’d met up with Dreary then, and not only had he found safe passage south with the man, he’d also found a nearly unfettered outlet for his bloodlust. Gear Dreary had little in the way of morals, and even less in the way of qualms against the appetites of others. Dreary was a man of singular focus, and their partnership had proven mutually beneficial through the years. And Bonham was a man who appreciated his benefits.

  Mr. Bonham edged toward the window and unfastened the latch. With a gentle shove of two fingers, the twin panes swung outward gracefully, hardly moaning at all on their old hinges. He peered out into the rainy gray day across the street and to his left at the Sheriff’s office. There was a big, beautiful window right in front, and within he could see several men discussing something together. Their demeanor seemed to say they were speaking in hushed tones, though he could hear nothing from this vantage down the street.

  Then the door opened and some sort of abomination walked out. Mr. Bonham was not a religious man, but neither did he find the appearance of otherworldly creatures something to be awed by. They simply were. They existed. Rare, perhaps, but out there. They’d narrowly avoided a Wendigo—the reports alone had been enough to solidify his belief in the thing—some years back while still further north. He’d actually seen a Bigfoot once when he’d been far up in New England. Seen it and killed it before eating its heart and frying its backstrap into fine golden cutlets.

  And now there was this . . . thing. He wasn’t sure what you’d call it. Some cross between a man and a crab, or maybe a spider. But that wasn’t quite right. It wasn’t a cross, per se, but rather seemed as though the crab or spider were inside of a man’s corpse and it was using him for sustenance. Like a parasite.

  The thing had a giant, gaping wound in its chest with razor teeth which drooled and dripped, and a large, red eye burst forth in the center of its forehead. The spider legs which had torn loose from the flesh up and down either side of the corpse’s spine kept the body afloat above the ground as it skittered away down the street.

  Just before it turned out of sight, he saw yet another abomination join the first. This one was much like the other, but it seemed to have utilized the corpse in a much different way. The tentacles or legs came from the raw stump of the neck and right out the ass of this man, whose arms and legs dangled like limp genitalia beneath. The ribcage was torn open down the length of one side, the jagged bones like teeth, and the skin of the victim’s back—which faced the sky—was bulged and split to reveal a blinking red eye much like the one on the forehead of the other thing.

  Mr. Bonham, a man not unused to seeing strange and horrible things—nor averse to doing them—merely shrugged. He was sure it had something to do with Dreary’s obsession, the N’yea’thuul thing he always spoke about from his book. Mr. Bonham didn’t care. He’d learned enough about it from Dreary to know that whatever rite Dreary wanted to perform here would require blood, and that made things just fine with Mr. Bonham. Mr. Bonham liked blood. Liked the smell of it, the tacky feel of it on his fingers. The taste of it.

  He nearly got an erection thinking about it.

  He shook off the thoughts and focused on the moment. First things first. Take out any lawmen, and let the rest fall into place. They would move on to the abominations after. Those didn’t seem to carry guns, but these lawmen across the way with their heads low in a circle and their darting eyes moving back and forth . . . they did. You took out the guns first, and the rest were easy pickings.

  Mr. Bonham settled to one knee behind the barrel and rested his elbows across its top as he nestled the stock of the rifle into his shoulder. He aimed in the general direction of the window where the men were, then glanced up at the building directly across from him. Quentin was there on the roof, moving into position, aiming down to the side of the Sheriff’s office. No one would escape through that alley. Bonham then leaned out the window just enough to see and glanced up at the building next to the one he occupied. There was Avery atop it, nodding that he was ready to roll.

  Mr. Bonham’s face twitched ever so slightly, the nearly unused laugh-lines on his face tracing his skin ever so shallowly before vanishing entirely. He nodded back to them both. He looked down the street in the opposite direction of the Sheriff’s office and saw Dreary, hunched behind a trough, his Bull Dog in hand. He tipped his bowler’s hat to Bonham and grinned in that deliciously vile way that made Bonham’s heart race, for he knew when he saw it, it meant there would be blood. And a great deal of it.

  Mr. Bonham turned back to the Sheriff’s office and aimed down the sites of his repeater, took a deep breath, then let it out slowly.

  He was salivating.

  20

  “Find out what he knows,” The Proprietor said through the gaping, fanged wound in the chest of its host in a sort of whisper, “by any means necessary. Dig his testicles out with a spoon if you have to. The Elder will want to know how they found this place.”

  The Sheriff’s face had gone pale at the order, but he gulped and cleared his throat, shaking off the thought.

  “Y-yessir,” he said, his voice a notch higher than he’d have liked. He cleared his throat again. “We’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “I don’t need to remind you what will become of you and those you care for if you fail him,” The Proprietor said in a low growl.

  The abomination turned then and skittered out of the office on its spidery stalks, the sharp tips clacking against the boards on the floor as it went.

  The Sheriff shuddered as he turned to his deputies, the only color on his face that of his beard, though it was mostly gray. The looks on the other men’s faces mirrored what he expected his must look like, their eyes moist and wide, Adam’s apples bobbing up and down on their throats as they struggled to maintain composure. None of them wanted to be here. None of them had wanted to stay after Reverend Sam Winston, the now dead corpse which The Proprietor inhabited, had discovered the cube and brought it into his church and had somehow unlocked the unholy horrors it held.

  Elder N’yea’thuul sleeps, he had preached that day when the evil had come to Dust, eight years ago now. And we are to prepare the way for when he awakens.

  The memories caused him to shudder anew, and he shook his shoulders animatedly in a poor attempt to disguise his discomfort. No, none of them had wanted to stay, but the things which had come out of that cube, that goddamned thing they worshipped and served, had made it impossible to leave. You served, or you died. It was that simple. At least it was that simple for a single man. Those with families were worse off. For them, you served or your family died. Slowly and badly. He’d seen what had happened to the former Sheriff’s little boy, and being a husband and father, he had no desire to endure the same horror his predecessor had before The Proprietor had finally had mercy on the poor man and eviscerated him.

  “Tommy,” Sheriff Hollis said in a shaky voice, “you and Burt fetch some rope from back yonder. We got a job to do, you heard the ma . . . you heard him.”

  Tommy and Burt exchanged a glace before looking back to Hollis and issuing short, curt nods, the looks of men setting to work on something they wanted no part of but were powerless to distance themselves from.

  Hollis gave his own, singular nod, not looking at them.

  “Get to it.”

  They began moving to the back of the office, past the cell where the strange man and the black fella were situated, and into the closet. They began rummaging around as Hollis approached the cell and made wary eye-contact with the all too calm stranger. The man was staring back at him, not a trace of worry on his face. The Sheriff and his deputies had been speaking low, but surely the man had heard them. He had to. The office just wasn’t that large, and there wasn’t a stitch of rug anywhere in it to absorb even a modicum of sound.

  The man gave him a smile. It wasn’t malicious, defiant, or even scared in the slightest. The expression caused Hollis to pause in his approach, and he quickly reeled his chin back from his throat and clamped
it shut, trying and failing to give off an intimidating demeanor.

  “Calm down, Sheriff,” the stranger said, his smile widening. “Things don’t have to go so poorly for you. You got a choice here.”

  Hollis’s wide eyes narrowed and he nearly blanched.

  “How’s that, stranger?”

  The stranger laughed a soft chuckle as his shoulders rose and fell. The black man was looking at the stranger now with a species of confusion that simply had to be genuine.

  “You and your boys over there,” the stranger said and nodded to Tommy and Burt, “are in my way. I get the feeling none of y’all much care to be part of this, but you’re stuck. I ain’t sure just how, but that’s my take on the situation. All the same, you’re in my way. I’m coming outta this here cell in just a minute, and you can step aside and let me and my friend here go about our business, or you can die. Thing is, it don’t matter much to me either way. I got no beef with none of y’all. But that thing that just walked outta here, him I got beef with. Him and his god.”

  So he had heard what they were saying. There was no doubt of it in Hollis’s mind now. None whatever. He shook his head and gave his own version of an exasperated laugh.

  “Mister, you must be thick in the head. You ain’t got no idea what you done wandered into here. A man might think you’d get some sort of clue seeing our Proprietor here a moment ago, but you’re too damn stupid to—”

  “I know exactly what the hell I’m up against here,” the stranger cut him off, all traces of smile gone now. “I come a long way over a lotta time to be in this place to put down just what walked outta here and all associated with it. It’s you who don’t know what you’re up against.”

  The stranger was on his feet in an instant and he crossed the cell in two long strides, his hands clenching into fists around the bars of the cell. The explosion of movement caused Hollis to take a step back in spite of himself, and he quickly scrambled to regain his composure, his face etching in indignation and anger.

  “Now, you listen here, mist—”

  “You listen to me!” the stranger hissed. “I’m coming out of here in exactly thirty seconds, my friend and me. You can let us out, or I’m coming through, makes no difference to me. But if I have to come through on my own, I’m taking that as you picking a side. The wrong side. You get me, motherfucker?”

  Hollis’s eyes narrowed at the expression. He’d never heard it before. The black fella seemed likewise perplexed at the term.

  “Mother-what?”

  Tommy and Burt sidled up to the Sheriff then, Tommy holding the rope up.

  “Got it, Sheriff,” he said.

  “Twenty seconds to go, Sheriff,” the stranger said. The look in his eyes told Hollis the man meant to do precisely what he’d said he would, though he didn’t know how the man planned to go about it. Still, a chill snaked up the Sheriff’s spine at the determination in the man’s eyes. Hollis’s lips moved, but no words came. Tommy and Burt were looking between him and the men in the cell and back again, confused awe spreading on their faces like the look of a stupid cow seeing a new gate for the first time.

  “I’d make a decision,” the stranger said. “Fifteen seconds.”

  The black man , his eyes weepy but alert now, joined the stranger at the bars.

  “I recommend you heed the man, Sheriff,” the black man said in a deep baritone. “The things this man can do, I ain’t never seen the like before.”

  The Sheriff glanced from one man to the other. He could feel his deputies next to him, fidgeting, waiting for orders. They were supposed to be tying the men up and dragging information out of them, but now everything seemed out of control. Not that he’d felt in control here in many years, not with The Proprietor and the other things skittering around town and sending out raiding parties for fresh meat and hosts, but this little situation had just turned itself on its ear, all thanks to this crazy stranger and his insane ravings.

  “Tommy, fetch the ke—”

  “Ten seconds!” the stranger roared. The man’s knuckles had turned white on the bars and the air seemed to be shimmering around him, as though looking through waves of rising heat off a hot plain. And there was a sound, too. A weird, wavering sound, something like a . . . a . . .

  A warble?

  “You just hold your goddamn tongue, mister!” the Sheriff bellowed angrily, pointing his finger at the man. “I’m in charge ‘round here!”

  The stranger barked a laugh.

  “HA! Five seconds!”

  The Sheriff’s pointing hand had begun to tremble and he lowered it slowly. The warbling sound was rising and the shimmering heat waves all around the man seemed to intensify. Hollis’s lips were moving again, but like earlier, no sound emerged.

  “Sheriff, what are we doing here?” Burt asked, his voice cracking, no doubt from the insanity they were all witnessing before them.

  “Time’s up!” the stranger growled as the warbling sound reached a crescendo and he and the black man were nearly obscured by the waving tendrils of air around them.

  “Burt, grab the shot—” the Sheriff began, but stopped as two things happened at once.

  Burt’s head exploded as though a stick of dynamite had gone off inside of a watermelon, and the window behind them erupted into a thousand razor-sharp claws.

  Tommy was screaming as the Sheriff hit the floor with a loud grunt and the air whooshed out of him. Gunfire began to erupt from the street outside, shards of glass and wood exploding and ripping through the air all around them. Tommy joined him on the floor, but it was a moment before Hollis saw the angry red wound on his deputy’s forearm, spurting blood by the gallon.

  “I’m hit, Sheriff!” Tommy was screaming like a pubescent girl. “Goddamn, I been shot!”

  Hollis had time to see a blur of a man—or was it two?—snatching up the weapons from the desk before there was another nauseating shimmer in the air and the blur of the men was gone.

  Then the door to the office exploded inward in shards.

  PART IV:

  A Shootout

  21

  The first shot from Bonham rang out sooner than Quentin had expected it to, and he jerked in surprise. The glass at the front of the Sheriff’s office was tinkling to the boards beneath it somewhere behind the roar of Bonham’s repeater, and Quentin jerked his gaze across the street, eyes wide, and stared in the open window to the dilapidated general store.

  Blue ribbons of smoke billowed from the barrel of the rifle protruding from the window, and Quentin could just make out the dark figure of Bonham within jacking another round into the repeater with the lever, his movements masked in shadow.

  “Son of a bitch, Bon—”

  But Quentin’s words were drowned out by the roar of the second shot. He heard wood splintering beneath him and leaned over the lip of the roof. Through a window below him, he could see a large man with a gray beard on the floor next to a corpse whose head was little more than a ragged stump of quivering meat. Quentin brought his revolver up and aimed at the fat man on the floor, cocking the hammer back.

  As he squeezed off a round, a third man stepped into the frame of the window, and as the revolver bucked in Quentin’s hand, he saw a splash of meat and blood erupt from the man’s forearm through the scattering shards of glass.

  Another scream as the man hit the floor. Gunshots were booming and popping all over the street now, and Quentin glanced up and saw Avery firing from his perch across the street from him. Blue smoke drifted in a thick cloud, hanging in the rain defiantly as the shots continued. Glass exploded and wood split into splinters in the Sheriff’s office below. Quentin looked again to the window, raising his revolver to finish off the man he’d hit a moment before, but all he could see was the nearly headless corpse Bonham had dispatched.

  “Goddammit!” he cursed as he scrambled to the corner of the roof for a better vantage.

  As he leaned over with his gun before him, readying to fire on anything that moved, he saw something whic
h caused his every motor function to lock in place in awed amazement. The wall to the side of the Sheriff’s office, the one facing the alley above which Quentin was perched, was shimmering as though heat waves were rising through the soaking ground and through the pelting rain. Then two men stumbled through it and splashed into the mud.

  And still, Quentin could not move. He couldn’t react. He was faintly aware his eyes had tripled in diameter, and the scruff on his chin was tickling the top of his chest.

  As the two men struggled frantically to their feet, recognition dawned on Quentin’s face. It was the James Dee fella and the black man he had picked up in the woods outside of town. They had somehow burst through the wall and—and they had weapons.

  How in hell did they—

  His thoughts were cut off as motor function returned to him all at once and a rush of adrenaline flooded his veins. He was swinging the revolver down at the fleeing men, thumbing back the hammer, readying to fire. Dee was in his sights and Quentin’s face split into an unholy smile of triumph a second before reality seemed to tilt off its axis and throw him back into a state of stupefied awe.

  A portion of the wall of the building directly behind the Sheriff’s office further back in the alley took on that same shimmering, heat-wave effect. Through the eruptions of gunfire, he thought he could hear a strange warbling effect in the air, something unlike anything he’d ever heard before.

  Once more, his eyes widened and his jaw loosened as he watched the two men vanish through the wall. A second later, the shimmering effect vanished, leaving only the weathered boards soaked in rain.

  And there was no hole. They hadn’t burst through the wall as he’d first deduced, but rather slipped throughit, leaving it utterly intact.

  “What the fuck?” he muttered to himself as he rose to his feet.

  But there was no time to call his partners’ attention to the miracle. As he spun back to the street, preparing to call out to them, he saw Avery jumping down from the balcony of a building and splashing into the mud as Bonham crossed the street in an easy, confident stride. The man slid the repeater over his shoulder and into a sheath, and a second later, in a fluid motion, he was casting the side of his coat out to reveal a dangling shotgun attached to a string within. The barrels had been sawn short, and Bonham fetched up the weapon in a practiced motion, thumbing back one of the two hammers as he did.