As Jerry tried to make sense of the newcomer several more people came into view behind him. More than a half dozen that Jerry could see now, men and women, all dressed differently. Each was traveling down the path in the same direction and each is wearing an expression of slight confusion. The black man spoke again, and the words snapped Jerry back to the men standing before him and the question at hand.
“Do you, perhaps have a light?” the man asked again, this time facing the runner.
“What? Smoking? Oh heavens no, such a disgusting habit!” came the runner’s reply.
The dark skinned man laughed loudly in reply, and his hand reached behind him again and then time returned holding a small pistol. Jerry took another step backward cowering behind his briefcase again and squeezing his eyes shut in terror. The runner didn’t stop moving his legs; his pace just slowed as he continued to run in place. His mouth now wide open and staring down at the gun in obvious shock. A fresh round of laughter peeled out of the would-be robber. Jerry kept his eyes shut and began to plead silently that this bad dream would end. Then the man’s laughter began to fade and was quickly replaced and then entirely drowned out by the sound of galloping hooves.
The rider’s stormed out of the dusty plane and onto the dirt path. Cort was leading them at the center, his saber held high. Oliver and Jamie rode on either side of him and Shinji far out on the left. At their heels rode a wall of dust and caught up in it was the priest riding hard to keep up as he coughed and cursed loudly. As the group of souls came into view, the riders could now clearly see their numbers, and a terrifying cry of joy escaped their lips.
“It’s The Rose tonight!” Jamie shouted with glee.
As the confused souls saw the riders bearing down on them, they panicked. Some froze, most turned to run but one had a more dramatic response. A dark-skinned man in a bright colored shirt raised a gun of some kind up at an odd angle and began to shoot. The first round zipped past Cort’s head, and then another tore through his knee. Cort screamed in pain and was barely able to remain it the saddle. Jamie laughed at the cavalryman’s ill luck and began firing his Schofield with glee.
Cort’s horse continued to race down the path and through gritted teeth he saw one soul, in particular, a man in a blue suit seemingly frozen in terror. Cort growled and shifting his weight slashed out with his saber at the unmoving man. The blade struck home, and with a scream, the man was down, and Cort thundered past.
Oliver guided his horse to the left and barreled down on the only soul trying to fight back. The dark skinned man held his pistol out in front of him sideways and fired again and again at the quickly closing Dragoon. In reply, the charging Brit raised, carefully aimed and then in flash of flame and smoke fired. The heavy lead ball struck the man high in the chest pitching him backward to the earth. But Oliver didn’t slow, the veteran guided his charging warhorse carefully and trampled the fallen man.
On the left, Shinji rode around a derelict looking house; the warrior didn’t even bother holding his horse’s reins, skillfully guiding the animal with his thighs. He fired his recurve bow in with quick, well practiced motions, continually feeding the weapon from a quiver hung from his oddly shaped saddle. His first shot skewered a man in a bright orange shirt through the stomach as he attempted to flee. The Mongolian kept up a steady stream of arrows, dropping several more souls screaming to the ground as they attempted to escape.
Jamie had emptied his first revolver and holstering it drew out his second. Just then he saw her, a woman in a white petticoat running towards him. The young man grinned, not believing what he was seeing. Perplexed the cowboy slowed and just watched her for a moment. The woman turned and leaping over a rotten picket fence stormed into one of the nearby abandoned houses.
“Hey darling, wait up there!” Jamie called after her.
The gunfighter leaped his horse over the fence with ease and then launching himself from the saddle charged in the door after her.
“Jamie, damn it, get back here! We’re not done yet, not by a longshot!” Cort screamed after him and then fired his heavy revolver at another fleeing soul.
Jamie charged up the stairs, ignoring the cavalryman’s shouts. The building seemed wrong; the whole structure leaned awkwardly. Every surface inside was covered with dark rot and stains of corruption. None of that mattered to Jamie though.
“Where are you at darling? No reason to run, old Jamie won’t hurt you none. That is unless of course, you like that sort of thing.”
The cowboy reached the top of the stairs and kicked in a rotted door. On the other side was a single huge room, it seemed to take up the whole interior of the house, it was a bedroom.
“Well that’s convenient,” he said to himself.
The woman stood over the bed and gripped a large butcher knife in both hands. She screamed and drove the blade down, stabbing viciously into a pair of blanket wrapped figures. She stabbed down again, and again. Jamie just stood by and watched her, his mouth was open, and he wore a slightly startled look. But no screams or blood came from the sleeping figures. The woman swore and pulled back the blankets revealing a pile of murdered pillows.
“Dominque! Dominque! Where are you?” she screamed as tears rolled down her face.
“Where are you, you fucking whore?”
The women turned to run from the room and seeing Jamie blocking the doorway stopped dead in her tracks.
“Whoa there darling,” Jamie said in the same tone he used on startled horses.
“Who, who are you?” the woman asked warily.
“I’m Jamie sweetheart, the man of your dreams,” the gunslinger said, giving her his best smile.
“Man of my dreams? Where is Dominique? Have you seen her?” the woman said demanded.
“I’m sorry, I don’t know a Dominique darling, but maybe I can help you find her?” Jamie offered, his grin growing even wider.
“What? No, I don’t need your help. I don’t need any man’s help. You just want to take her for yourself, don’t you?” she demanded angrily.
“Darling, believe me, that was the furthest thing from my mind,” Jamie confessed and then added. “A bird in the hand and all, you understand.”
“You can’t have her, do you hear me? She is mine, and we don’t need any man. Especially not some duded up rhinestone cowboy fagot like you,” she screamed.
Jamie looked at her in obvious confusion and then asked. “What’s a fagat?”
“It’s you, you cock sucker. Now get out of my way before I cut off your favorite toy and feed it to you,” she said and pointed the knife at Jamie.
“Woah darling, calm down now,” Jamie said raising his hands defensively.
“I think you got the wrong idea about me I’m no…. fagat, was it? Now you seem to have got me all wrong darling, and that’s probably my fault, so let me apologize for that. And to make it up to you, how about I show you a trick?”
The woman looked at him warily, but she lowered the knife slightly.
“Now darling, this is a pretty good trick. So don’t blink or you may just miss it,” Jamie said with a smile and held up both of his hands to show her they were empty.
“Are you ready darling?” Jamie asked.
The woman nodded her head slowly, the knife still raised and her eyes still full of suspicion.
“Ok then, watch close now.”
Jamie took half a breath and then faster than the eye could follow he reached for one of his Schofields. He cleared leather and fired from the hip before the woman could even flinch. The bullet struck her just above the right eye and sprayed the wall behind her with black blood and brain matter. Jamie then returned the smoking gun to its holster, a split second before the woman’s body hit the floor with a dull thud.
Jamie laughed loudly. “Hope you caught that darling, it’s not the type of trick I can do twice.”
The gunslinger walked up slowly to stand over the woman’s still form. He cracked his knuckles and then bent down to carefully brush the dark
hair out of her dead eyes. Through a clean dime sized hole just above her right eye, Jamie could see the bloody floor beneath.
“Sorry about that darling. I never was much for pillow talk I’m afraid.”
Jamie removed his hat and set it down just outside of the circle of blood. He licked his lips, and then ever so slowly he reached out and carefully brushed the tip of his finger along her lips. Almost immediately the color from her lips began to fade. It pulled up like a wisp of colored light through the smoke and filled the air. It was absorbed a moment later into Jamie’s outstretched hand. The cowboy quickly drew his finger back.
“Not too much now darling, not to fast, not yet,” Jamie cooed to her softly.
He slid a hand down tracing her neck to find the strap of her petticoat. His finger barely brushed her shoulder as he slipped it beneath the silk strap, his touch pulling up a bit of color there as well. Then with one quick motion, he yanked down her petticoat, spilling out her ample breasts out as he did so.
“Oh, it is just my lucky day,” Jamie smirked, and unable to control himself any longer grabbed a handful of flesh in each of his hands.
He leaned over her, kissing the dead woman across the chest and up along the lines of her neck. Everywhere he touched more wisps of color escaped her skin like smoke. He absorbed the last fleeting remnants of the life that she had carried with her into this hell-scape. Gray lifeless skin was all that was left in its place, shriveled and cracked like a desiccated corpse.
“Oh, darling you are just perfect.”
But then, even as the enamored cowboy spoke the woman’s body was noticeably changing. Her pale skin was now quickly fading to a gray, the breasts that he pawed at were quickly shriveling, her long hair withered and fell to the floor in clumps. Jamie closed his eyes enjoying every last possible moment of pleasure, trying to deny the change that was taking place.
“Jamie, good god man!” Oliver shouted from the doorway behind him.
The young gunslinger jumped up and spun to face the Brit, his hand instinctively reaching for his gun. Oliver didn’t flinch, eyeing the scene he simply laughed.
“Find yourself a bit of strumpet to nibble on I see,” the big man chuckled.
“Well, I…” Jamie tried to find the words but then stopped when he looked back down at the now withered corpse.
“She was a might prettier a moment ago,” he finally mumbled.
“Son, didn’t your mum ever teach you not to play with your food?” Oliver asked still grinning.
As he spoke the hole above the dead woman’s eye began to close slowly. The blood that had soaked the floor in a circle around her head began to shrink as the dark sticky fluid flowed back towards the body. Her closed eyes began to gently flutter as if she were trapped in a dream or more likely a nightmare.
“Come now lad, we all know what happens next,” Oliver said, as he turned and stomped back down the stairs.
Jamie picked up his hat from the floor and turned to follow him out. He didn’t bother to even look back at the corpse. The dead woman’s body began to twitch, her black life less eyes opened, and she struggled to rise.
Cort held the man in the orange shirt down, gripping him around the throat with both hands. He watched as the color drained from the old man’s face as he struggled in vain. The last of his life and with it his fight drained away in a matter of moments. Cort dropped the dried-up soul and stood, immediately feeling recharged, his knee had already healed and with it his uniform pants as well. He turned his neck sharply which let out a sharp crack in response, then rubbed at it absently as he took in the carnage around him. A half a dozen souls lay scattered down the path, all now shriveled and drained of the last remnants of their previous lives. He had lost count of the times he had stood like this, surveying fields of death, both here in this world and in the last.
After these, “feedings,” as the men had started calling them, Cort often found himself feeling melancholy. Hell, it was the only time he could recall feeling anything in this place, except pain and occasionally anger. Everything else, the laughter, even the dark gallows humor always seemed forced. It was during these times that he felt something else, something that made him feel, uneasy. Not as much as something new as, the lack of something, something missing. He often caught himself glancing around fitfully as if always trying to find it hidden just beyond the corner of his vision.
The young priest was doing his part as well, picking his way through the field of dead. Taking a moment to stand over each, reading a few quiet words from his book, before bending down to trace a small cross on each forehead. Then with the niceties out of the way, the priest rifled through the pockets of the dead. He looked for anything of value they may have carried with them into the afterlife, though the value of anything, was often measured differently in this place. Some of the souls were just starting to twitch, the now withered forms coming back to life.
The priest stood and moved on to a pair of souls laying on top of one another. As he approached, they began to twitch and move. The withered corpse on the top rolled off, and a man in a blue suit sat upright clutching a briefcase that had been cut nearly in two. The man looked up at the priest and blinked twice, in shock and confusion.
“F-f-f-father?” Jerry asked, looking up at the approaching priest.
“Hello my child,” the priest replied.
Father Callahan gave the soul the best smile he could muster under the circumstances, as he knelt down in front of the frightened man.
“What, what is going on here? Those men, they, they killed these people,” Jerry blurted.
“Calm now my child, this isn’t as it seems. No one died here,” the priest soothed.
“What? No one died? What? What in the hell do you call that?” Jerry demanded, as he gestured to the desiccated corpse laying on the ground next to them.
As if on cue the eyes of the withered corpse flickered open, and the body began to rise awkwardly. In response, Jerry let out a screech and desperately crawled away from the corpse on his hands and knees. The priest did the best he could to hide his smile; he too was feeling emotions again so soon after the feeding. Jerry continued his desperate scramble and not even looking forward; he ran directly into Cort’s boots.
Jerry looked up meekly and directly into the barrel of the cavalryman’s heavy revolver. The pair locked eyes across the iron sights. Jerry’s were full of terror, with tears building at the corners. Cort’s were hard, almost dead; he had killed more men, both alive and dead than he could even recall. It was a look that even a man like Jerry, an insurance adjuster from Milwaukee could recognize. He trembled uncontrollably now, chilled to the bone and waiting for the shot that was undoubtedly about to blow apart his skull. The cavalryman’s eye didn’t waiver or look away, then he spoke.
“Padre, you search this one yet?”
The father stepped up beside the cowering soul; Jerry could just see the holy man in his periphery. The priest slowly reached out and laid a hand on the top of Cort’s revolver. Across the path from then, Oliver and Jamie stepped out of a ruined house.
“There’s no need for that Lieutenant, none. I can search him just as easily now,” the priest said softly.
The cavalryman allowed the priest to gently push the barrel of the big gun down.
“Then get it done,” Cort replied flatly and turned to walk away.
The priest turned grabbing Jerry by the front of his suit and pulling him up to his feet.
“There we are my boy; it’s not a thing to worry yourself over. This place unnerves the best of us from time to time. It’s hell after all.”
Jerry took a breath and tried to steady himself, still trying to wrap his head around what was exactly going on here. The priest ran his hands across jerry’s suit, straightening his tie and brushing away the dust. In the process, the man of the cloth patted down his breast pocket and then the pockets of his trousers. Jerry just looked at him blankly again confused.
“The case my child,” the pri
est insisted in a regretful tone.
Jerry looked down at the briefcase in his hand and then instinctively pulled it back.
“No, no this is mine.”
“Is there a problem Padre?” Cort called.
Behind them Jamie, Oliver, and Cort now stood.
“Give me the case. These men are not the type to take no for an answer. You can’t be killed here, but there are things worse than death my son,” the priest whispered.
Jerry lowered his head and held the briefcase out to the priest. Father Callahan accepted it reluctantly and then kneeling, laid it down on the hard ground.
“Combination?” the priest asked.
“I, I never bothered to put one in,” Jerry admitted, suddenly feeling embarrassed, “it’s all zeros.”
The priest entered the digits, and the case came open with a faint click. Inside, he found exactly what one would expect a man like Jerry to carry. Manila file folders filled with various forms; most of which were blank. A stapler and a cheap calculator, both travel sized. An actual pocket protector, filled with a choice of either blue or black ink pens. The priest was about to give up and hand the case back over to Jerry when he found it.
He looked up at Jerry, and his face was filled with regret, knowing this wouldn’t end well for the timid man. Jerry returned his look and just shook his head slowly.
“They’re not mine; I was just holding them…for our temp, she isn’t allowed…,” Jerry trailed off.
“Lieutenant!” the priest shouted.
“What have you got?” Cort demanded, as he strode back up to rejoin the pair.
Father Callahan simply held up the small silver and red package, not much bigger than his palm for Cort to see. The cavalryman looked down at it warily, progress was something that in many ways frightened him, but he would be damned if he would ever admit it.
“What is it?” Cort asked.
In reply, the priest slid the small black plastic lighter out of the package, removed one of the Lucky Strikes and lit the cigarette. He took a long drag, then after a pause blew out a cloud of smoke. He held the cigarette back up to the cavalryman. Cort took it cautiously and then holding it to his lips, slowly inhaled. He gave a quick cough which drew the attention of the rest of the little group.
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