The Lingering (Book 2): Rangers

by Ben Brown

  Callum raised his hands over his head and stared into the woman’s impassive face. He saw someone who accepted pain, and expected little else. He focused his mind on what had to be done, and then said, “We’re Rangers out of Fort Miles. We were patrolling these here mountains when we found a dead woman. It appears somebody—or more likely, multiple somebodies—raped and then murdered her. I don’t suppose you folks know anything about it?”

  The man looked at his companion and smiled broadly, revealing a set of almost completely black teeth. He then looked back to Callum. “What we do with our property ain’t no concern of yours, so get!”

  Callum felt rage threatening to overwhelm him, but he bottled it up. He needed to stay in control. “Afraid we can’t do that … get I mean. You see, we’re going to kill you.”

  The man holding the woman shifted slightly, and Callum made the most of it. With rattlesnake like speed, he whipped his tomahawk out and launched it at the man’s head. Knowing that his aim was true, Callum did not wait to see the results of his handy work. Instead, he bolted for the man holding the baby.

  La Roux read the situation perfectly, and he snatched up his revolver and put a bullet through the baby holder’s knee. Even before the piece of shit collapsed to the ground, Callum had already swept the baby from his arms. Screaming and writhing with pain, the man crashed to the dirt and looked up at the Ranger with complete surprise. Clearly, the fool had never anticipated things ending so badly for him. With babe in arms, Callum stood over him and placed a boot on his throat.

  “Anderson, check on the woman,” La Roux bellowed as he holstered his gun. Anderson complied.

  Whimpering slightly, the woman still stood as if she still had a blade held to her throat. Anderson picked up a dirty blanket that lay near her feet, and covered her with it. This seemed to bring her out of herself, and she collapsed into his arms, sobbing.

  La Roux moved to Callum’s side then bent. The young Ranger took his boot off the filth’s throat, and with one massive hand, the Cajun picked the mewling piece of scum up.

  “Give the child to me.”

  Both Callum and La Roux turned. La Roux still had the man dangling by his collar. The woman looked at them both and then gestured to the baby.

  “The poor mite is hungry, let me nurse him.”

  Callum moved to where she sat, and carefully passed her the baby.

  “I thank ya,” she said, “This poor little fella were my sister’s.”

  Callum suddenly felt a new anger build in him. He turned slowly and looked into the scared eyes of the man in La Roux’s grasp.

  “Tell me,” Callum asked in a low and menacing tone. “Can this piece of dirt tell us anything that you can’t?”

  “Nope,” the woman replied as she offered her breast to the baby.

  Callum move to the corpse near the now nursing woman, and pulled his tomahawk free of its skull. He then turned slowly back to La Roux.

  “I pity you,” La Roux said as he dropped the man to the dirt. “Callum here ain’t too keen on rapists. I think yer in for a world of hurt.”

  The man started to drag himself toward the river, and hopeful salvation. With one leap, Callum landed on him and drove his fist into his face, shattering nose and teeth alike. He then drew the blade of his tomahawk across the man’s throat. A great gush of blood burst forth, and Callum dodged out of its way. He then lowered his lips to the man’s ear, and whispered.

  “Yer going to burn in hell for what you done, but before that, yer going to spend some time as a Lingerer. Normally, I show people like you a kindness, and I put a bullet or a blade through their head. But that’s too good for you. Once you bleed out you’ll die, and then turn into one of the undead. Trouble is…” Callum started filling the man’s pockets with rocks. “…yer going to spend years trapped at the bottom of this here river. As you rot, fish will feed on you. Finally, your flesh will become too waterlogged to stay together, and the river’s currant will rip you apart. I don’t know if the Lingering feel pain, but if they do, I hope you feel everything.”

  Callum stood and the dying man’s eyes followed him. He moved to where the small band of lawbreaker’s had stashed their provisions. Silently, he grabbed up a rope, and a sack of root vegetables. The others watched on as he poured the vegetables onto the ground, and then filled the sack with yet more rocks. Once done, he tied the sack around the man’s midsection. Callum knew the target of his vengeance only had a few more seconds to live, so he move to his ear once more.

  “I’m going to find all your kin, and if they’re like you, I’ll kill ‘em all.”

  Now pumped dry of blood, the raping murderer expired and his eyes closed. With that, Callum stood and grabbed the dead man under the arms. Without another word, he started dragging him into the river. The rocks tethered to the man made the going hard, but Callum gritted his teeth and waded deeper. In less than a minute, the water lapped at Callum’s neck and he released the body.

  The corpse sank to the bottom, and in the clear water, Callum watched as its eyes opened. The blood from Callum’s injured calf flowed into the river’s current, and the reanimated man almost instantly tried to bite his wounded leg. Normally, Rangers feared Lingerer’s blood getting into their wounds, but the rock ladened creature had no more blood to fear. However, Callum took a couple of steps back to avoid its teeth, but he still watched the newly hatched Lingerer. He wanted to make sure the rocks would keep it securely beneath the rivers surface. He watched it for more than five minutes, then waded back to shore.

  “Yer bleeding.” The woman said almost conversationally.

  Callum raised his pant leg, and saw a bullet graze on his calf. “It’ll be fine. As soon as we retrieve our packs, I’ll give it a clean and bandage it. How are you?”

  The woman shrugged. “Those sonsabitches have messed with me and my sister for nigh on a year. They’ve put me through worse.”

  Callum shook his head. “I’m sorry to hear that.”

  “Ain’t your fault. My sister … did they mess her up bad?”

  Callum looked at La Roux and Anderson, and then simply nodded.

  The woman began to sob quietly.

  “Why don’t you and La Roux go get our gear. I’ll stay here with….”

  Anderson looked at the woman and asked a question with his eyes.

  “Me names Tilly … Tilly Maxwell.”

  On hearing the name, Tilly, Callum felt suddenly filled with old memories. Tilly had been his sister’s name, and hearing the word spoken aloud opened old wounds.

  “Are you alright?” La Roux asked as he took Callum’s arm.

  “I’m fine. It’ll be dark soon, so we best go get our gear.”

  La Roux led the way back up the path, and Callum’s gaze drifted back to Tilly as he went.

  Chapter 4

  Night was already falling by the time Callum and La Roux returned with the gear, and they noticed Anderson had not been idle in their absence. A fire now burned in the clearing, and three rabbits roasted in its flames. He had also found time to throw the four dead bodies of the men they killed earlier into the river, thus washing them downstream and clear of the camp.

  “Where did you catch the rabbits?” La Roux asked as he sniffed the air. “They smell right good.”

  “I didn’t catch ‘em,” Anderson replied as he prodded one of the cooking animals. “The fellas we killed caught ‘em. I saw no reason to let them go to waste, so thanks to those disgusting pigs, tonight we eat well.”

  All thoughts of his sore leg left Callum’s mind as his mouth began to water at the smell of the cooking meat. His empty belly let out a loud growl, and as if to pacify an unsettled and hungry child, his hand unconsciously patted it.

  He heard the baby let out a slight whimper and his attention moved briefly to the woman, Tilly. She looked a lot better than when he had seen her last. She had taken the time to wash away a little of the filth that had covered her. In addition, she now wore an old and extremely tattered dress
, but in spite of the dress’s battered state, it offered the poor woman at least a little more dignity than being half-naked. He also noticed how young she was. Earlier, covered in dirt and with the lack of hope etched in her face, she had looked old and almost at the end of her endurance. Now, with the dirt washed away and the protection of a group of Rangers, she seemed to be a different person. He knew he was reading a lot into his glimpse of her, but he was used to absorbing a lot in a short time. He could read more from a single glimpse, than most could ascertain in an hour.

  Callum moved to a log a small distance from both the fire, and the rest of the group. He sat down and finally attended to the bullet graze on his calf.

  With babe in arms, Tilly leaned toward Anderson, who only sat a foot or so from her side. “Is he alright?” she asked as she flicked her head in Callum’s direction.

  Anderson looked toward Callum and nodded. “He’s just a quiet type of a man. He don’t say much, but when he does it pays to listen. Don’t mind him none.”

  She got to her feet and approached the silent Ranger tending to his wounds on the log. Callum looked up at her briefly, and then returned his attention to his wound.

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  Callum looked up again. “Why would I mind?”

  “Well, yonder Mr. Anderson says yer the silent type. Silent types generally like being on their own.”

  Callum straightened. “If that’s what you think, then why are you bothering me?”

  She smiled and said, “Because I wish to thank ya.”

  Callum’s brow furrowed. “For what?”

  Tilly’s face filled with confusion. “Why, for saving me of course.”

  Callum returned to tending his wound. “No need to thank me. I was just doing my job.”

  “That’s as may be, but the man you dragged into the river was my brother, Jacob Junior, and….”

  Callum’s head snapped up. “He was your brother? But he was going to rape and kill you.”

  She nodded sadly. “That he was. Me and my sister, Alice she be … or should I say, she were. Well, this here boy be my brother’s child….”

  Callum stood. “Hold on, you mean your brother fathered a child with his sister?”

  She nodded again. “And with me, but they already killed my baby girl.” She started to weep. “That’s why me and Alice ran. We didn’t want ‘em killing her child. We knowed it were a sin having a child to our brother, but he forced himself on us. The sin be my brother’s, and ‘twere not the baby’s doing. Yet, ‘twere they who paid for the sin. We just wanted her baby to live.”

  La Roux and Anderson now stood at her side. The big Cajun placed a caring hand on her shoulder. Callum could see how much sorrow and pity his companions felt for her, but all he felt was the need to give her justice. He loathed himself for not being able to feel empathy for her, but he knew that part of him was as dead as Tilly’s sister Alice.

  “Alice were only sixteen,” she sobbed.

  “God Damn it,” La Roux growled angrily. “What kinda animal….”

  Anderson looked at La Roux and shook his head, cutting the Cajun short. “Listen,” Anderson said, “Why don’t we all sit down and have something to eat, then you can tell us what’s going on here.”

  ***

  They ate the rabbits in relative silence. La Roux ate one of the three rabbits on his own, while Callum and Anderson shared the other two with Tilly. As they ate, the three Rangers rarely took their eyes off the poor woman now cradling her dead sister’s child. She could clearly tell their eyes were firmly fixed on her, as she never allowed her gaze to meet theirs. Instead, she kept her eyes firmly fixed on her food. Occasionally, she would let out a small sob of grief, but she would quickly choke it down.

  It took them only half an hour to polish off the three rabbits, and as La Roux placed a coffee pot next to the fire to warm, Anderson moved closer to Tilly.

  “You know we only want to help, don’t you?” he said as he placed a hand on the baby’s head. “We just want to prevent what happened to you and your sister from happening to anyone else. To do that, we need to know as much about the people who harmed you as we can. We need to know who, and where, they are. We need to know their numbers and we need to know how well-armed they are. I know it will be hard for you to tell us these things. You will need to tell us things that you would rather forget, but please believe me when I say every detail is important. The more you can tell us, the better the chances we have of stopping them.”

  Tilly looked at Anderson, and then her eyes drifted to Callum and La Roux. Finally, her gaze turned to the baby in her arms.

  “I’ll tell ya all I know, but I warn ya, it ain’t pretty.”

  Now La Roux and Callum edged closer to her, and Tilly began her harrowing tale.

  Chapter 5

  Tilly placed the sleeping baby on the blanket beside her, and then turned back to the Rangers, who had now gathered close to her.

  “My family is right big, even by these here part’s standards. Pa—Jacob Maxwell he be—but everyone just calls him Pa Maxwell, well he has four brothers and three sisters. He’s the oldest of the eight of them. Each has between six to eight kids themselves. Ma gave birth to twelve, but three dun died. When the damned Lingering plague hit our family, we numbered close to seventy. We all lived real close to each other, so things went bad real fast. It were like we all lived in a village, only everyone in the village were kin. We were happy, but the Lingering changed all that.

  “We’d dun heard tales of the Lingering, but for almost a year the curse seemed to just pass us by. But that all changed when my cousin, Billy, came back bit on the leg. He said he’d stumbled across the thing in the woods. It had no legs, so Billy didn’t see it hidden in the undergrowth. It were just lying there, and when he got too close, it grabbed him by the leg and then sunk its teeth into his ankle. He managed to brake free, and came running on home.

  “Within a week of Billy’s bite, we’d lost nearly thirty people to the curse, but not a single one of then turned ornery. All of ‘em just sorter milled about, but that changed when my Ma gave birth to her thirteenth child. We guess they’d dun smelled the blood, and they changed in seconds. They burst into our house and started going crazy. Luckily, only Ma, and my aunty May were inside, but those things ate them both … and of course, the baby.” Tilly dabbed at her eyes with her sleeve, but her eyes were dry. Her action was more one of reflex than necessity. “I wonder if that there coffee is ready yet. I could do with something a might stronger, but coffee will do just fine.”

  La Roux felt the pot and found it hot to the touch. He poured four cups and passed them to each of those gathered around the fire. He then reached into his inside coat pocket and pulled out a small bottle of whiskey. He held it aloft, and all nodded. He poured a nip of the alcohol into each of his companion’s cups, and then did the same to his coffee. He then looked at the bottle, but before he recorked it, he took a sizable swig of its contents.

  Tilly took a sip of her drink and coughed. “My God,” she said in a horse whisper. “Where did you get that stuff?”

  La Roux smiled. “Don’t rightly recall, but it warms the insides real good.”

  Callum took a deep draft of his own drink, and then gestured for Tilly to continue.

  Tilly placed her cup on the ground beside her and once more commenced her harrowing tale. “Pa and the other men of the family managed to kill all the undead, but the whole episode left him changed. He started saying strange things. He thought ‘twere our job to round up all the undead in the area and just keep ‘em corralled. Anyhow, we did as he said, and started rounding up the harmless ones, the rest we killed. Then that new law came in, the one saying the harmless Lingerers had to be shipped off. Would’ve been about six or seven year ago.”

  “Eight,” Callum interjected. “It came into force eight years ago.”

  Tilly nodded. “Could’ve been eight year ago, don’t rightly recall for sure. Pa said that the government were
n’t going to take our Lingerers, and that we should hole up in the mountains. By this time others had joined us, not family, just people who had heard about what Pa and the other men folk were doing … you know, with the Lingerers. These new folks kinda worshiped my Pa, which seemed to make him go even stranger. He would sermonize about how the Lingerers were folks too, and the government had no right taking ‘em away. A few weeks later, he led us all up into these here mountains. There were fifty of us, and thirty Lingerers.”

  “Yer saying he brought the undead as well?” Anderson asked in disbelief.

  “Yep. We just herded ‘em along like sheep. We built a camp, penned up the Lingerers, and set about starting a new life. As the years went by, Pa only got worse. Soon, everyone started thinking he were the voice of God. I knew it weren’t so, but by then, it were too late. He said women were nothing more than baby machines, and that any man had the right to do with ‘em as they pleased. He said that the Maxwell blood line ran all the ways back to The Lord All Mighty, but the bloodline had become corrupted by the women’s sin.” Her voice cracked and she cleared her throat. “It were then that he said it were God’s will for Maxwells to breed with other Maxwells. He said ‘twas the job of all the Maxwell men to punish all women, but especially Maxwell women. After that, any woman folk with Maxwell for a last name really began to know what hell was. Fathers, brothers, and cousins all took their turns. Babies started being born with … defects … limbs missing, or with heads that were misshapen.”

  “Jesus,” La Roux growled as he pulled the bottle of whiskey from his pocket and drained it in one long draft.

  Anderson’s hand went to hers. “Do you need a break? Is this getting too much?”

  Tilly shook her head and bravely plowed on. “I’m fine, just let me finish, then I’ll never speak of my Pa or the family again. My Pa blamed the baby’s defects on the women, and the Devil. He said the mother’s minds weren’t pure, so he ordered each man in the camp to flog the mother of the defective child twice over. This meant the mother would receive as many as sixty lashes. Trouble was, the village had all these ruined babies that no one wanted. He said that God must’ve sent the corrupt children so he could feed the Lingerers. It were then he started feeding the babies to the undead. The babies were still alive when he threw them to the Lingerers. The women tried to stop him, but the men folk just beat us all back. The first baby belonged to my oldest sister, Martha. She went out of her mind with grief and threw herself to the Lingerers too.”