Skinwalkers

by Hill, Bear

  The claw sank back inside Dewayne, and his eyes rolled back in his head as the life went out of him. Maxine screamed in horror as the white-furred skinwalker that was now truly Coyote smashed Dewayne’s body to the earth.

  Coyote flipped Dewayne’s heart into its jaws, the act appearing like a dog snatching a piece of meat tossed to it by its master. Coyote swallowed the organ in one tremendous gulp. Then the beast tore open the corpse’s throat and began lapping the blood that poured from the wound. Coyote was moving its blood-smeared muzzle in the direction of the body’s guts when Maxine turned and ran.

  Despite the heavy weariness that seconds ago had filled her, Maxine moved faster than she ever had in her entire life. The beating of her heart was like a hummingbird in her chest, and the rushing wind created by her sprint chilled tears from her eyes. Her twin personas chanted like frightened girls within her head.

  Idon’twanttodieIdon’twanttodieIdon’twantodie!

  With the fog removed, Maxine was able to make a beeline for town. She closed the distance in seconds. As Maxine reached the ruined fence of the slaughterhouse, she heard Coyote give a shrill howl from its perch on the hill.

  Oh God! He’s coming! He’s coming!

  Maxine climbed through the fence and sprinted across the hog pen to burst through the slaughterhouse’s battered chute. Unable to control her velocity, Maxine tripped and fell, just missing a collision with the gutted hog suspended on one of the many meat hooks that dangled from the slaughterhouse’s ceiling. The animal appeared to have been torn open, rather than sliced.

  Maxine’s momentum sent her crashing into the pile of guts that lay on the floor beneath the hog. She shrieked in horror as she scrambled to free herself of innards. For the most part, all she succeeded in doing was to further smear the stench of death over her body.

  Finally, Maxine kicked her way free. She clumsily ascended the rails of the interior hog pen and dropped to the floor with a hard thud on its other side.

  Coyote burst inside through the slaughterhouse chute, knocking its already-dangling door off its last hinge. The beast collided with the hog. In a fury, Coyote ripped the carcass from the hook and took several, generous bites out of its flesh. Something about the dead hog, perhaps the fur of its skin or its lack of fight, must have displeased Coyote, for the monster tossed it aside. The skinwalker’s bloody muzzle peeled back into a snarl, and its snow-white fur bristled on the back of its hunched shoulders. Coyote growled low in its throat as it sniffed the air in search of its true prey.

  Maxine felt a scream sear up her throat and explode from her mouth. Coyote’s head snapped in her direction. The skinwalker roared as it lunged forward. The beast struck the inside of the hog pen and rebounded. The monster landed on its posterior and shook its head, trying to clear away the daze that had momentarily taken it.

  He ran right into them, Maxine thought. The hog and the pen.

  Those clouded eyes, Max thought. The son of a bitch is blind!

  He seems stupid now, too. Maxine thought in reply. Just like the rest of them were.

  Maxine rolled onto her belly and loped forward on her hands and knees. Behind her, she heard Coyote howl as it vaulted over the hog pen and crashed to the floor. Maxine spared a backward glance and saw that one of Coyote’s massive legs had broken through the floorboards. The beast struggled to free itself.

  Maxine scurried for the other side of the room. She reached a butcher table positioned against the far wall. She crawled beneath and crouched into a fetal ball. Maxine watched as Coyote yanked its foot out of the floor. It roared in triumph and then began sniffing the air.

  God, please don’t let him find me.

  Coyote howled and began making his way toward Maxine’s side of the room. As it advanced, the skinwalker sniffed the blood-drenched floor, overturned butcher tables, dangling meat hooks, and anything else it encountered, methodically going over its surroundings. Maxine began to shudder as Coyote closed in.

  Be still, girl, Max chided. Our life depends on it!

  Maxine obeyed, though it took considerable effort.

  Then Coyote stood over her, a giant silver demon looming above the table under which she huddled. She could smell its musk. Could feel the heat radiating off of it.

  The beast scattered knives and sharpening stones with its muzzle as it sniffed the table top. The skinwalker knocked one of the blades to the floor. Maxine eyed it.

  Don’t you even think about it! Max warned.

  We need a weapon, Maxine thought.

  You’re going to get us killed, is what you’re going to do!

  We need that knife!

  Keeping her eyes glued on Coyote, Maxine slowly snaked her hand toward the butcher knife. She reached it and closed her hand around its handle. She froze that way when, above her, the monster halted its sniffing. Eon-long seconds passed. Coyote began to sniff the table once more and Maxine gave a silent sigh of relief. She lifted the knife from the floor and cradled it against her chest.

  Coyote’s head dropped beneath the table, a snarl on its wrinkled lips.

  Keep still, Max thought. He can’t smell us. Not with us covered in blood and shit. Keep still and keep us alive.

  Maxine clamped a hand over her mouth, stifling the scream trying to sound from her lips. Tears leaked from her eyes, but she held still. Still as death.

  Coyote growled, its muzzle lifting to reveal fangs still crimson with Dewayne’s blood. The skinwalker’s jaws parted and Maxine saw one of Dewayne’s eyeballs stuck in the back of its maw as though the organ was a piece of clinging boiled egg. The sight of this combined with the monster’s fetid breath caused Maxine’s gorge to rise. She caught herself before she wretched in reflex.

  Coyote’s drool coursed from his mouth to splatter onto Maxine’s folded legs. Its veiled eyes seemed to gaze past her physical form into the depths of her soul, examining and judging her every sin, her every act of evil, no matter how large or how small.

  Coyote sniffed Maxine up and down. She was sure the skinwalker could smell the stench of every man she’d lain with for money—the stench of her husband’s blood on her hands—and would kill her for it.

  If we’re going to die, let’s take a piece of this bastard with us! Max thought. Maxine thought no reply. She merely began to raise the butcher knife.

  “Mama.“

  Coyote twisted its head in Pablo’s direction. The boy stood silhouetted by the dawn’s light at the mouth of the chute. He was covered in mud and gore. Coyote howled and loped toward him. Maxine screamed and launched herself from her hiding place, chasing after the skinwalker. She dropped the knife in mid-stride to grab one of the dangling meat hooks. Its chain gave slack as it unwound from the pulley attached to the high slaughterhouse ceiling.

  Maxine roared, the sound that of a she-beast defending her cub. She brought the hook down and impaled it between Coyote’s shoulder blades.

  Coyote howled with pain. The skinwalker whirled and backhanded Maxine. She flew through the air to crash against a butcher table. Coyote turned as Pablo sprinted out of the slaughterhouse. Coyote gave chase. He made it several feet before the chain attached to the meat hook in its back pulled taut, jerking the beast to a halt. The skinwalker barked furiously as it flailed and tugged, still trying to reach its departed prey, its berserker rage making it oblivious to the thought that it should try to free itself of the hook.

  Maxine got to her feet. She spared a glance to make sure the end of the chain restraining Coyote was good and stuck in a pulley overhead. It was.

  Maxine hobbled to the room’s other side, moving in an arc that took her beyond Coyote’s reach. She reached the hog pen and lifted the spike-tipped hammer from where it lay propped against the rail. Maxine held the hammer across her waist as she limped over to stand in front of Coyote.

  Despite its blindness and its inability to smell her, Coyote was aware of her presence. The skinwalker snapped at her, slinging slobber from its fanged jaws as it barked and growled.

&nb
sp; You want me to take over, girl? Max thought.

  Maxine looked at the raging skinwalker, her gaze cold and even. “No. This son of a bitch is all mine.“

  Maxine raised the hammer high above her head and brought it down in a swift arc, moving with speed and skill that would’ve made John Henry envious. The spiked-tip sank into the spot between Coyote’s eyes with surprising ease. Blood erupted from the wound, showering Maxine. The skinwalker yelped like it was nothing more than a kicked dog. It flailed for a moment, then fell still and silent to hang limply at the end of the hook.

  Maxine ripped the hammer out of the skinwalker’s skull and prepared for a second strike. She didn’t feel at ease. There was something in the air—some force, like an electric current, was gathering around the dead monster.

  Maxine looked around the room and noticed the dust motes weren’t simply swirling in the dawn’s light. They gravitated toward Coyote from every direction. Maxine blinked, trying to see if her eyes were playing tricks on her. But the scene remained the same when she looked again.

  Butcher knives began to rattle in their housings. Medical supplies clinked and shook along the shelves. Then a butcher table slid across the room of its own accord to ram into the skinwalker. Meat hooks stretched where they hung, reaching toward the dead beast as though it were magnetized. Cabinet doors flew open to reveal medicines boiling inside beakers of glass. Knives and tools began to fly through the air, impaling themselves into the skinwalker’s corpse. The slaughterhouse walls bowed inward, groaning under the strain of whatever supernatural vacuum had been created in the wake of Coyote’s death.

  Maxine decided to get the hell out there. She dropped the hammer and sprinted for the slaughterhouse doors, dodging flying knives, scissors, and countless other projectiles. She exited the building and kept running, fighting the invisible but undeniable pull that filled the air.

  Maxine saw Pablo in the distance beyond town and ran to him. She reached her son and threw her arms around him, turning him so that his back was to the slaughterhouse. Maxine watched in wide-eyed awe as the building collapsed in upon itself. Then Maxine felt the force that had slowly drawn everything inward change direction. The reverse in current was like the release of a giant bow string.

  The slaughterhouse exploded in a shower of wood, metal, and meat; the concussive force leveling most of the surrounding town. Maxine and Pablo were blown backward several yards. They landed hard, but were unhurt.

  Maxine got to her feet. A mushroom cloud of black dust rose from the slaughterhouse’s remains. Maxine’s eyes grew large in her head as the dust shifted shape into a gigantic version of Coyote’s baying skinwalker head. A netherworldly howl echoed across the landscape, one full of rage and the pain of denial. Then it petered out and the dust cloud began to break up, rays of light piercing its eyes and muzzle until the rising sun was left shining in its place.

  Maxine sank to her knees, covered her face with her hands, and began to cry.

  From the song lyrics to David Dodd’s The Ballad of the Coyote …

  The young outlaw he broke out of jail one dark and dreary night

  He shot a man and stole his horse, upon it he took flight

  He rode across the desert, a posse at his heels

  And that’s when he came upon

  The town whom all it kills

  The people there were little more than the walking dead

  Their hearts and souls they’d left behind, they knew only fear and dread

  For close along their borders, a ruthless shaman lived

  He’s old as sin and twice mean

  And to the devil you he’ll give

  Singing hey,

  Oh yo

  His name is Coyote

  And to hell with him you’ll go

  Well old Coyote, he was as sly as his name

  He saw the outlaw coming and his soul he wished to claim

  So he called up angry demons from the depths of hell

  They howled like wolves and barked like dogs

  Fanged with claw and tail

  The demons they attacked the town, killing young and old

  The young outlaw he fought them off, his courage now so bold

  But then Coyote came a howlin’ and stole the outlaw’s soul

  He dragged him down beneath the ground

  To forever sing his tale of woe

  Singing hey,

  Oh yo

  His name is Coyote

  And to hell with him you’ll go

  So listen up and listen good, you outlaws here today

  Pay heed to my story, for when you pass away

  If you don’t change your evil ways and see to your eternal soul

  Coyote will coming a howlin’ and to hell with him you’ll go

  Singing hey,

  Oh yo

  His name is Coyote

  And to hell with him you’ll go

  To hell with him you’ll go

  From Black Bob’s Doom; or The Hounds of Perdition, a dime novel by J.T. Farnsworth…

  “No!“ Anna screamed alarmingly as she threw herself betwixt the noble gunslinger and the bullet heralding his doom. Dan whirled on his feet to see his beloved struck down by a death that otherwise would’ve claimed him. Anna fell limply into his arms with a sigh.

  “Anna!“ Dan cried despairingly as his beloved’s life’s blood poured from her body onto the corpse-riddled street. She looked up at him longingly and smiled dreamily. “Oh, my love,“ Anna whispered quietly, “how ironic it is for me to have braved all these supernatural terrors at your side only to be struck down by a device of man’s own making. But I would have it no other way. If I might give my life to save your own, then it is a price I pay most willingly and with no regrets.“

  “Anna, forgive me, my love!“ Dan exclaimed worriedly.

  “Be not ashamed, my cherished one,“ Anna said reassuringly, “for there is naught to forgive. Nere has a woman loved or been loved such as I by you. None have had such a trustworthy and honorable man conquer so much for her namesake. I die this day a truly happy and blessed woman. If only I might ask this one last request of you?“

  “You need but ask it, my love,“ Dan said most determinedly, “and I shall pledge the remainder of my days to the pursuit of your heart’s desire!“

  “Avenge me, my love,“ Anna said gaspingly. “Avenge me.“ With that final sentiment, Anna slipped quietly from her life and out of our story, dear friends.

  Dan lingered in the street, wishing to hold his beloved the few seconds more that would have to suffice him for all eternity. But the noble gunslinger did not cry. For he was Deadshot Dan, the sultan of six-guns, the prince of pistoliers, and his heart and nerve were things or iron and steel.

  At last, Dan rose steadily to his feet, his beloved in his arms. He carried Anna gently to the porch of Garrett’s orphanage for underprivileged boys and girls, a place that had always been near and dear to his beloved, and then placed his kerchief over her face where it served as a shroud. Then Deadshot Dan turned and walked briskly back out into the street, the fire of righteous indignation burning in his eyes.

  “Black Bob!“ Dan yelled angrily, “It is only you and I now. I know it was your guns that felled my beloved. Come out of your hole and face me like a man or I swear by all that is holy and scared before heaven and earth that I shall find you and cut your rat’s heart from your monkey’s body!“

  Dan had to hurtle little more threats of persecution at the outlaw, for Black Bob knew he must take his chances with Dan in the street or face a slow death at the noble gunslinger’s hands. Soon, Bob emerged from the mercantile, his yellow teeth smiling in his coal-colored face. “Stay your barking, noble gunslinger,“ Bob said sardonically as he stepped over the body of a felled dog-man and into the street, “ere one will think you akin to this miserable breed.“

  “The only barking you’ll hear today, Bob,“ Deadshot Dan said forcefully, “is from the barrels of my trusty revolvers, Death and Doom!“

/>   “So you’ve said without end, gunslinger,“ Black Bob remarked doubtfully as he positioned himself opposite Dan, “and yet here I still stand.“

  “An oversight I shall soon remedy, I assure you,“ Dan said definitively.

  Then the threats and declarations ceased and the men gazed coldly at one another across the corpses of dog-men littered upon the city street. Seconds stretched themselves into geological ages and the ground beneath their feet swelled and contracted, placing miles between the gunfighters before closing in again so that mere inches separated the combatants.

  Neither man gave quarter and neither asked it. Their duel of words had now become a duel of speed and skill. They’d both raised accounts against one another that both men knew could now only be paid, and paid in full, in lead.

  Then, somewhere in the distance, a lone cock crowed to herald the dawn and Black Bob’s hand shot toward his gun belt. But the rogue nere had a chance clear his holster before Death and Doom were thundering their familiar song. Dan’s gunshots boomed nosily throughout the town, echoing off the buildings and then lifting high into the purple sky above.

  Black Bob momentarily gazed at Dan in wide-eyed astonishment until his eyes rolled up in his head and he dropped decidedly to the earth. “You have bested me, Dan,“ Black Bob gasped hoarsely with his final words, “You truly are the greatest!“ Then Bob’s death rattle ended and he spoke no more.

  EPILOGUE

  The midday sun blazed in the empty blue sky as Maxine walked up the side of the hill east of Perdition. She carried a burning torch in her right hand. She was now dressed in man’s chambray shirt and britches. Crisscrossing gun belts housing twin six-shooters rode on her hips. She joined Pablo and Farnsworth on the hilltop and then turned to view the results of her handiwork.