by Brian Hodge
Then it hit the door, knocking a large gap in it. But as it did it screeched and drew back its paw. There was a roar and the sound of something clambering wildly on the landing.
Inside the room, the horse reared and came down hard on the floor with its hooves. Jebidiah feared he had made a mistake bringing the horse up there with them. It could do as much damage to them as the wolves if it became frightened.
Well, maybe not that much.
Mary stood staring at the gap in the door. “What happened?”
“The door is oak. He snagged his arm on it, a sharp piece of wood.”
“Then they can’t come through?”
“I think they can, just not easily.”
“Did I kill the one I shot?”
“I don’t know. I think the bullet still has to strike a vital organ, and if it does, the oak splinter in it should act like poison. But maybe it has got to be solid hit. Not just a leg, a shoulder. But the heart. The brain. Liver. Something like that. Looked to me you had a good shot, right in the head. But it was dark. It happened so fast… I can’t say for sure.”
Jebidiah went over and took his horse’s reins and pulled at them gently and stroked the horse’s nose. Its eyes rolled wildly and it lifted its nose and dropped it back down, repeated the motion numerous times. Slowly the horse calmed.
They stood for a while, then sat on the edge of the bed, facing the door, guns in hand.
Nothing.
The night crawled on.
Mary said, “It couldn’t have been midnight. Not already. My God, did you see those things?”
Jebidiah took out his watch, looked at it in the lantern glow. The hands indicated two A. M.
“I thought it was just after nine,” he said. “Advantage to this limbo time is that it will be day soon, and then time will slow. They don’t come out in the day.”
“You know that for a fact?”
“No,” Jebidiah said. “I don’t.”
They had sat for only a moment when they heard a kind of scratching sound, coming from the street. Jebidiah went to the window to look out, saw nothing. But the sound increased. He leaned against the window glass and looked down. Something was coming up the side of the wall. He opened the window quickly, stuck his head out. A wolf was scratching its way up, moving fast, its head lifted to look up at Jebidiah. It was almost on him.
Jebidiah grabbed up the lantern, flung it out the window and down on the wolf. Flames burst in all directions and rose up on the thing’s head like a dunce hat of flame, whipped about and caught the fur on fire. The beast let go with its front paws, slapped at the flames, held itself out from the side of the building with its back claws, then lost purchase, first one foot came loose, then the other, and it fell. It dropped in a twist of fire, hit the ground on its back, rolled on its belly. The flames licked down and along its spine and it screeched and crawled along the street, then went still in the middle of it. The flames lapped its fur clean and cooked the charred meat and the meat fell off in puddles, then there were only the bones, blackened and smoking. The eye sockets in the thick wolf skull chugged out wafts of dark smoke that rose up to the sky and made little black, dissipating mushroom shapes. The skull shifted and cracked and fell apart. Jebidiah blinked. It was the skeleton of a man now. The wolf bones had twisted and changed.
Jebidiah, trembling slightly, pulled his head in. “They don’t like fire,” he said. “That and oak splinters. Make a note.”
Mary had moved to the window to stand beside him. She looked down at the bones in the street. “Noted,” she said, but the word sounded as if she were clearing her throat.
Jebidiah reloaded his six gun. “If I got one with a shot, and you got one, and now there’s this dead one in the street, we’ve done all right so far.”
“If? So we either have four left, or six,” Mary said.
“That sounds about right,” Jebidiah said. “And we haven’t even seen the big boy, the pack leader. Least not well. He might be a whole different kettle of fish. One thing is for sure, he lets his boys do the dirty work.”
“What time is it?”
Jebidiah looked. “Damn,” he said.
“What?”
“The watch. It’s moving backwards. It’s midnight again.”
Jebidiah thought: If we can last until morning, it won’t matter if we stop them all. Perhaps then I can catch them where they sleep, someplace dark and well hidden most likely. But if I can get them now, I can be sure, I won’t have to search for them. Of course, there’s the problem of time. It moves forward and backward. It could do that until we are hunted down, eaten, shat out brown and greasy on a distant hill.
He walked up and down the floor, stopping now and then to soothe the horse that now he wished he had not bothered with. Yet, the thought of leaving a fine animal to the monsters, that wasn’t good, couldn’t do that. Even God, the old sonofabitch, might appreciate a good horse.
He paced and he thought and he felt his nerves twist around inside of him, his feelings and impressions coming fast like rifle shots, jumping from one thought to another. Mary was sitting dead center in the bed, the rifle across her knees, watching the split in the door, turning her head now and then to look behind her, toward the open window, out into the night which seemed to have gone more dark and bleak than before, leaving only thin, silver moonlight.
Jebidiah went to the window and looked out. The bones were still there.
He walked across the room, trying to make himself sit and rest. But he couldn’t do it, felt like he had drank two or three pots of coffee. Shit. Coffee. That would be good right now. Some bacon and eggs. Hell, he was hungry enough to eat the ass out of a menstruating mule.
What was that? A flutter?
A moth beat at the window.
Okay. A moth. No problem there. It moved beneath the window and through the gap where Jebidiah had opened it to drop one of the lanterns. The remaining lantern hung from a hook in the ceiling and bled pollen-yellow light all over the place.
Jebidiah watched the moth. It was a big one and dark of wing and fuzzy. It flew into the room over the bed, up against the ceiling where it flittered about, the lantern light causing its shadow to flick and swell and flap along the wall. Jebidiah turned to look at the shadow and the shadow seemed larger than before. Jebidiah felt something move on the back of his neck, like prickly pear needles. It was his hair, standing on end. He turned to look at the moth again, up there on the ceiling, and it was a wolf; it had shifted shape. It clung upside down over the bed and Mary. Jebidiah wheeled, cross drew pistols and fired rapidly. One. Two. Three.
Mary was moving then, off the bed, running across the floor.
The wolf dropped, hit the bed, blew slats and frame in all directions, tossing fur and flesh, scattering dry bones. Then the door was hit, and Jebidiah caught a glimpse of a big yellow eye through the rent in the wood. He jerked off a shot. Mary wheeled toward the door, fired and cocked the rifle and fired and cocked the rifle and fired again, banging holes through the door. Outside the door came a noise like someone sticking a hot branding iron up a bull’s ass.
The horse ran around the room, nearly knocking Jebidiah and Mary over. The door banged. Another bang, louder this time, and the frame cracked and the door came flying in. Two of the wolves bounded in.
The horse went wild. It reared. It slammed its hooves down on one of the wolves. The beast was driven beneath it. It latched its teeth into the horse’s belly. The horse bolted toward the door, clattered through it, dragging the wolf beneath it as it went. Jebidiah could hear his mount clattering down the stairs, then there was a breaking sound, and Jebidiah knew the horse had lost its step and gone through the railing. He could hear a cracking sound as it fell, the horrible noise of a horse screaming.
He didn’t have time to consider it. The other wolf was there. The revolvers bucked in his hands and the wolf took two shots in the teeth and the teeth flew like piano ivory. Mary, who had dropped to her knees was cocking and firing with
amazing accuracy, hitting the staggering beast with shot after shot in the chest. One went low and took off his balls. The wolf fell backwards, skidded, hit the wall, slammed up against it in a sitting position. Immediately it transformed. Its characteristics changed. The snout dove back into its face. The ears shrunk. Hair dropped off. A moment later where the odd version of a wolf had been was a naked Conquistador. Flesh fell off its frame like greasy bacon and its bones clattered to the floor like a handful of dice.
They waited.
They breathed.
They continued to look toward the gaping doorway.
Nothing.
Just silence.
After a long time Jebidiah picked up the lantern and carried it out on the landing, pistol at the ready. Nothing jumped him.
He walked to the railing and dangled the lantern over it and looked down. His horse lay dead with its back broken across the bar. The wolf was not visible. Without fire or oak splinters, it had survived the fall.
He waved the lantern around, saw the bones of two other wolves. The ones he and Mary had shot on the stairway. All right, he thought, that’s good. One in the street. Two in the room. And two out here. That’s five. Two left. One of them the big guy.
Jebidiah saw movement. Something white. Or gray. It was Dol. He was gliding up the stairs.
“Why are you hiding?” Jebidiah said. “They can’t hurt you now.”
“It’s a habit,” Dol said, more or less standing on the landing beside Jebidiah. “I still think they can hurt me, even though I know they can’t. There ain’t no reason to it, but that’s the way it is.”
“So why did you come out now?”
“To tell you the big fella’s coming. I can sense it. And he’s mad. He ain’t got but one wolf left. Thing is, he can make five others. That means you and her or two more. Least that’s the way I see it from what you’ve told me. Long as there’s six he can’t make no more. But now for fresh meat. Fresh wolves. Put a gun in your mouth. Don’t let him take you like he did them Conquistadores. You did them a favor. But don’t let the big boy or the last wolf have you, boy. You won’t like it.”
“Thanks for the warning,” Jebidiah said. “So there are just the two? We got the others?”
“Yep.” Dol lifted his ghostly hat, slid past Jebidiah, across the floor and melted into the wall.
Jebidiah turned to see Mary in the doorway with the rifle.
“Dol,” he said.
“I heard,” she said. “Jeb?”
“Yeah,” he said, as the two of them moved back inside the room.
“Looks like I ain’t gonna make it… Shoot me.”
“We’ll make it.”
“Promise. You’ll shoot me.”
“We’ll make it.”
“Promise.”
“It looks bad, you got my word.”
“And if I can, I’ll do the same for you.”
“Well, just do not be in any hurry. I am in no rush. Make damn sure the end is nigh.”
No sooner had they ceased speaking than they heard steps on the stairs. The lantern light gave the room a soft glow. A cool wind came through the open window and blew against their backs. Jebidiah said. “You turn, watch the window. See a moth, a bird, a bat, if you can hit it, shoot it.”
“I can’t hit it,” she said. “I have to be standing right in front of it to hit it.”
“You’ve done well enough tonight.”
“Once with luck, once because no one could miss, not even a blind man.”
“Well, if it’s small, swat it.”
They went silent again. Boards creaked on the landing.
Jebidiah wiped his hand on his coat, took hold of his revolver again. Then he did the same with the other hand. He pointed both revolvers in the direction of the door.
A slat of darkness fell into the room, but Jebidiah couldn’t see its source in the hall. The shadowy slat began to move, a kind of oily thing that took shape, flowed over the floor, rose up large and solid.
It was a wolf thing with barred teeth. Jebidiah had been so amazed, he had done nothing, and now the wolf was on him. It came at him so hard it knocked him across the room, to the window, forcing him through the opening.
He fell. A boot caught on the window frame. The wolf leaned way out and grabbed him, pulled him up by his pants legs. Its mouth opened so wide Jebidiah felt as if he could see all the way to Hell. Its breath was every dead thing and rotten thing that had ever existed. It was about to bite him in the crotch.
Mary’s rifle cracked two times and the wolf let him go. Jebidiah fell, twisting to land on his back with a white puff of dust. He hit so hard the breath was knocked out of him and he was unconscious.
When he awoke, he realized he had only been out for moments. He could hear screaming in the room upstairs. He moved, and it hurt to do so. His back felt as if it were on fire. He eased to a sitting position and tried flexing his legs. They still worked. All of him worked. His head ached as if he had been on a ten-day drunk.
He found his revolvers in the dust. Started back toward the hotel.
The screaming stopped with a loud shot. Jebidiah looked up. The wolf thing was at the window now, its snout dripping blood. It crawled out the window and scuttled down the side of the hotel toward Jebidiah.
Jebidiah opened fire. Hit the beast in the head the moment it dropped to the ground, a good shot just above the left eye.
The thing charged him. Jebidiah dropped the revolvers and grabbed at the wolf’s shoulders, pushing away its head, its snapping teeth. He fell back, placing his boot in the creature’s stomach, kicked up, launching the wolf.
When Jebidiah whirled to his feet and snatched up the revolvers, the wolf lay in the dirt. Not moving. Jebidiah realized his shots had been well placed, if slow in having effect.
The wolf lost fur, changed shape, shifted back to a naked Conquistador. The flesh fell of, and instantly it was nothing but bones scattered in the street.
When Jebidiah had reloaded his revolvers, he walked around to the front door of the hotel, stood for a moment in the street. The door to the hotel was still wide open. He eased inside, pistols at the ready. He thought about Mary, took a deep breath, started up the stairs. Every step he took made a squeak. He thought he saw a shadow move on the landing. He squinted, saw nothing solid. But the wallpaper appeared darkly stained in one spot, and he had a feeling that his huckleberry was there, part of the shadows, part of the wallpaper.
Easing on up, he paused, turned his head like a curious dog. The spot on the wall moved, and as it did it swelled. It was the great wolf, easily eight feet tall. It clacked its claws as it walked. It bent slightly at the waist and stood at the top of the stairs.
“Could not wait, could you?” Jebidiah said. “Too impatient.”
The King Wolf’s ears flicked, its tongue came out of its mouth and licked at the air and lapped across its own snout.
“You are not tasting me yet,” Jebidiah said.
And then the King Wolf bent forward and came down on its front paws in a dive, came down the stairs at a run. Jebidiah’s pistols barked, once each, and then the King Wolf hit him and he went tumbling backwards, step by step, landing at the base of the stairs.
He looked up. Smoke was twisting out of the King Wolf’s body where the bullets had struck and it seemed frozen on the stairs, and he could see the creature better. It was unlike the others. Not only bigger, but there was a peculiar countenance about the horror that made Jebidiah feel as if he were in the presence of Satan himself.
And unlike the others, the bullets had done damage, but the King Wolf had been able to take it. Jebidiah got to his feet in a kind of shuffle, backed toward the door, the pistols held before him, his back aching, his side on fire. So far he had fallen out of a window and been knocked down a flight of stairs and he could still walk, so he felt he was doing well enough. And he hadn’t even added in the werewolves.
When he was in the street, the doorway of the Gentleman’s Hotel filled with th
e King Wolf’s shape. It stood on its hind legs and its cock and balls swung about when it moved as if they were a clockwork mechanism. It bent its head to accommodate the doorway and moved out into the street, its teeth dripped saliva in thick strings.
“Guess it’s you and me, Mr. Wolf. I know your boss. Both of them. One high, one low. I have not got such a great opinion of either.”
The King Wolf charged off the hotel porch and into the street on its hind legs. Jebidiah fired with his revolvers, two shots, and though the shots had effect, they didn’t stop the beast.
Jebidiah bolted and ran. He felt pain in every muscle, but fear of what was about to happen was stronger than pain. He ran. He ran fast. He was nearly to the overturned stagecoach when he looked back to find that the King Wolf was loping along rapidly, closing the gap. He could feel its burning breath on the back of his neck.
Jebidiah jumped up on the stage, dove through the open side window, dropped down inside. The King Wolf’s face dunked into the open space and it let out with a wild howl that shook Jebidiah’s already tormented insides.
Jebidiah let loose with both revolvers. Firing twice.
King Wolf jerked back. Jebidiah quickly began to reload. He had three bullets in one revolver when the thing showed itself again. Jebidiah fired a shot that hit the King Wolf solid in the forehead, made a hole and smoke twisted up from the hole, but the beast took the shot and didn’t pull back. It stuck an arm through, caught Jebidiah by the ankle, jerked him up and out of the stage window, banging his head and causing him to drop one of his revolvers as he was pulled free.
King Wolf held Jebidiah high above the ground with one hand, its face easing closer toward him. Slowly. Making the triumphant moment last. The King Wolf’s mouth opened wide.
Jebidiah jerked up the loaded revolver he still clutched in his fists, and fired his last shots straight into the King Wolf’s open mouth.
King Wolf snapped its mouth shut. Smoke came out of its nostrils. It stepped back a step. It opened its mouth so wide Jebidiah could hear the bones in its jaws pop. And then the King Wolf dropped Jebidiah on his head. The Reverend rolled and came up with the empty revolver. He supported himself on one knee, began reloading, glad he still had some wax and wood-shaving shells left, not happy that it seemed to be taking him forever to fumble the bullets into the gun. He glanced up fearfully as he loaded. The King Wolf was stepping backwards, slowly. Then it paused, its head tilted… and fell off, splatting heavily into the street, rolling over and over, losing hair, showing nothing but a skull, white as purity.