Strange Dominion

by Lyons, Amanda M.

  “Fiiiine,” Ginny replied reluctantly, glancing at the two of them in turn. “But don’t you go leaving without saying goodbye this time, Mister. I mean it, you hear me?”

  She punched Jack once, playfully in the arm, then left the two men to it while she spent some time with her girlfriends instead. Jack watched her go, and for a second, thought about what could have been if things had happened differently.

  “Good kid,” he said to her father, signalling Sonny for another two fingers of whiskey. At the approach of the Sheriff, he had suddenly found something else to busy himself with at the other end of the bar.

  “I heard tell you were dead,” the Sheriff said.

  Jack raised his glass and knocked it back again in one.

  “I get that a lot,” he said.

  The Sheriff held up his hand to order a drink from Sonny and signalled the barman to pour the same again, but for both of them this time.

  “Also heard tell that trouble follows you around like a bad smell these days,” he said. “Hope you ain’t planning on bringing any of that trouble to Hope Falls during your little visit here now, are you?”

  “You shouldn’t believe everything you hear, Brett,” Jack told him. “It’s all lies, vicious rumours the lot of it. Besides, I won’t be here more than a day or so at any rate. Truth is, I was just passing by and thought I’d stop by and pay the ol’ homestead a little visit is all.”

  “Good,” the Sheriff laughed. “Because I can tell you, Ginny would be mighty pissed with me if you made me have to kill you, you hear?”

  He gave the gunslinger a gentle, playful little punch of his own.

  “Actually, I’m quite glad you showed up,” he said. The Sheriff indicated the corner where a few men were sitting playing cards.

  “Some of the guys get together every other evening to play poker and you turning up tonight means I get a chance to play. Care to join me?” he asked. “It’s about high time there was someone in this town I actually stood a chance of beating…”

  “Yeah, why not?” Jack said. “But you might find I’m a little better than you remember. A lot has changed since the last time you saw me…”

  The pair moved over to the small table where the men were just preparing to deal themselves a new hand.

  “Hey, fellas,” said the Sheriff. “Look who decided to finally crawl back out the woodwork…”

  ***

  They played for a couple of hours.

  True to his word, Jack turned out to be a better player than the Sheriff remembered. As it turned out, Jack lost as man hands as he won, but he still gave his old friend a run for his money.

  After the game had all split up and the others gone their way, Jack and the Sheriff sat drinking one last whiskey as Sonny prepared to start closing up the bar. The two of them were amongst the last few customers in the bar.

  “I met him once, you know,” Jack said, indicating a photograph of Wild Bill Hickok that stood in centre place amongst several other photographs of legendary men of the Wild West behind the bar. Sonny had collected quite an array of photos behind his bar. Every one of them Sonny considered to be either a hero or one of his idols, knowing that the days when he might follow in their footsteps was now well and truly gone.

  “I was there the night he died,” Jack confessed. He raised his glass and took a sip.

  “Every time he walked into a bar or saloon, he always took a seat with his back to a wall so no-one could sneak up on him. This one time, the minute he walked in, he could see all the seats with their backs to the wall were taken, but he sat down anyway. I think he knew then, even as he sat down, that he was walking into a trap, but by then it was too late. I think by that time, he almost believed he was impossible to kill – the amount of things he’d seen and lived through.

  “We fought alongside each other in the War, did I ever tell you that? I never spoke to him back in those days, but he had a reputation for being a crack shot and was one of the best scouts the army ever had. He spent so much time behind enemy lines and caused them so much trouble, they used to call him ‘the Ghost.’

  “Anyway, this one night, the night he died, I was sitting on the far side of the bar when I saw him enter and join a group of men already sitting there, playing cards. I hadn’t been asked over, so I just sat there watching, uninvited. Ol’ Bill, I could see it in his eyes, he knew something was up, kept one hand resting near his gun, ready for trouble, but I don’t think he truly believed any man would ever be as cowardly as to turn around and shoot him in the back. Even though he knew something was up, for some reason he let his guard down that night and he underestimated his enemy.

  “He was wrong.

  “He’d upset the wrong people, you see. Made enemies of the wrong people to be messing with. So they shot him. Gunned him down like a rabid dog, then blamed it on some guy who had a grudge with him over the death he’d caused of that man’s brother. The hand he was holding when he died - a pair of eights and a pair of aces – that forever after became known as a ‘Dead Man’s Hand’, but you know what I learnt that day?

  “I learnt two things – one, that you should never underestimate your enemy, and two – that when your numbers up, your numbers up.”

  “Sounds like he was a good man,” sad the Sheriff. “You know, from all the stories I’ve heard told an’ all. But you know what they say, only the good die young.

  “It’s getting late; you need a bed for the night, somewhere to stay? Since Ginny upped and got married, I got a spare room you could have…”

  “It’s okay,” Jack replied. “Sonny said he’d put me up for the night, but thanks anyway.”

  The Sheriff grabbed his coat and hat from off the bar and made to leave. He stopped at the door before he walked out into the night.

  “Be seeing you, Jack,” he said, and tipped his hat at the gunslinger.

  You bet your ass you will…Jack thought.

  ***

  He opened up his eyes and woke up, and immediately knew something was wrong.

  He couldn’t move, and it seemed, he had been tied up sitting on a chair.

  His feet were bound to the legs of the seat he was in, and his wrists tied to the arms.

  He couldn’t move - though he tried valiantly to struggle and free himself, the ropes around him only seemed to get tighter when he did so.

  There was a subtle hiss, and a gas lamp flared into life only a few feet from where he was sitting.

  In the dim light of the lamp, he could just about make out the silhouette and shadowy figure of a gunslinger sitting in his own chair directly opposite him.

  From what he could see, the gunslinger wasn’t tied down.

  He did, however, have his gun drawn and pointing at the Sheriff.

  “Hello, Brett,” came a voice he instantly recognised as Jack’s. “Long time, no see…”

  “What the f…” the Sheriff snarled. “What is all this, Jack? What in darn tarnation is going on? What are you playing at?”

  “The time for playing is long past gone, Brett,” the gunslinger said. He scooted his chair forward a tad so he was closer to the light. There was a wicked look in his eye like a man possessed.

  “We need to have a little talk…”

  “About what?” The Sheriff snarled back. “I don’t got nothing to say to you. Other than you should probably never have come back here to this town. No one wants you here, no one asked you to come back. You’re a stone cold killer, I done heard what you been doing out there. Killing folks that you think deserve it like you’re some kinda Judge, Jury, and Executioner all rolled into one. You think Ginny will still be glad to see you when she hears what it is that you’ve become? I’ve been protecting her, keeping everything I heard under wraps, so to speak, but no more. Not after this.”

  He spat a big wad of phlegm at the gunslinger which landed on the floor in front of him.

  “I want to talk to you about that night,” Jack said.

  “What night? What the hell are you on abou
t?”

  “That night,” Jack replied. “The night my wife and daughter were killed.”

  “I don’t know nothing about that,” the Sheriff insisted. “That was two strangers from outta town. Heard you already caught ‘em and killed them, made ‘em suffer, job done, case closed. That ain’t got nothing to do with me.”

  “LIES!” Jack had gotten up and moved around the bound and tied Sheriff as he was talking. Now, he took a hold of the Sheriff’s right hand and deftly pulled his little finger back until he heard it snap.

  The Sheriff screamed out in pain.

  “You may not have pulled the trigger,” Jack told him, “but you were as much responsible for my family’s deaths as they were. I KNOW, Brett. I know the truth about what happened; I just need to hear you tell me from outta your own mouth ‘n’ lips. I wanna hear you confess…”

  “There ain’t nothing to confess, asshole,” the Sheriff spat out. “I never done nothing…”

  Jack moved forwards and swiftly brought the butt of his six gun down on the other man’s hand, breaking the next one of his fingers.

  The Sheriff screamed again, louder this time.

  “You got another eight digits,” Jack told him, sitting back down calmly. “Six more fingers, and two thumbs. And I’ll break every last one of ‘em if I have to. Now talk…

  “You see, the guys that murdered Molly and Kendra – turns out they weren’t working alone. They were put up to it by someone else – someone you may have heard of? He goes by many names – The Tall Man, The Slender man, The Dark One – but the name he seems to fancy using the most seems to be Mr. Skinny Legs. He’s been around a long time, a helluva long time, and me and him have dealings going right back to during the Civil War. Ol’ Bill Hickok, he knew him too – and that’s why he was killed. Because he had information he was supposed to give me about Mr. Skinny Legs, but before I could approach him, they done went and killed him. Would’ve killed me too if they’d known I was the one he was supposed to have been meeting.”

  “There’s no such person as Mr. Skinny Legs,” the Sheriff spat out. “He’s just a myth, an urban legend – a bogeyman to warn kids about at night to help make them go to sleep. He’s not real…”

  Jack moved forward, and pistol whipped his old friend across the face. The Sheriff spat again, and this time there was blood in it, along with a solitary tooth.

  “You see, that’s just what he wants everyone to think,” Jack said. “That he’s not real, some kind of ghost, but that’s not right. You know the greatest trick the Devil ever pulled? Convincing the world he didn’t exist. Same with Mr. Skinny Legs. He likes being ‘not real’. He likes that people don’t believe in him, it gives him all that much more power.

  “I’ve been hunting him a long time now, even gotten close a couple of times, but he always somehow manages to escape me. But I got him on the run, he knows just how close I’ve gotten of late and now he’s running scared.

  “But here’s the thing – I’ve been out there on the trail a long time now and you know what? Being out there on the road gives a man time to think, and I’ve been thinking a lot, Brett; I’ve been thinking a lot about that night – the night my wife and daughter were killed – and you know what I’ve realised?

  “I was a very private man after the war. I came back here, settled down, but I kept my family a secret – kept them separate from the life I’d lived before and the bounty hunting I occasionally undertook when I thought someone who needed punishing might be about to escape the long arm of the law. No one outside of town had any way of knowing about my family – my wife and daughter – unless somebody told them. And out there on the road, I had a lot of time to think about who that might’ve been and you know whose name I came up with every time, Brett? I came up with yours…”

  Jack came around behind the Sheriff again and snapped another finger.

  This time, the Sheriff did not cry out, but instead bit his lip and ground his teeth together in a bid not to give the gunslinger the satisfaction of knowing he was hurting.

  “Goddamnit – I’m going to fucking kill you, you fucking asshole!” The Sheriff yelled out. “I’m. Going. To. Fucking. Kill. You!”

  “What did they offer you, Brett?” Jack asked. “Did he offer to supply you with lots of innocent children for you and your buddies to torture and abuse? Was that it? Or did you not need his help to find your own victims? That’s right, I know all about all your dirty little secrets, Sherriff. You can’t hide them from me anymore. I’ve had a lot of time to find out all about you and your buddies, out there in your lodge that you think nobody knows about. You can’t lie to me anymore.”

  “He promised to help Nancy,” the Sheriff screamed out as Jack went to move towards him once more. Nancy had been the Sheriff’s wife, and had been terminally ill and riddled with the cancer when Jack had left town on his quest for vengeance all those many years ago. “He promised to take away her cancer if I gave up any information about you, and so I did. I told him all about your family and where to find them, and he sent those men to kill them. I saw him cure Nancy – saw him reach in deep inside of her and pull out a tumour as big as her fist, but a few years later, the cancer came back, killed her anyway, so he lied to me - lied to me just like he lied to you when he told you all about my lodge out in the woods. That’s what he does. He tells lies, sows deception, and then reaps all the rewards.”

  “I never said your lodge was in the woods,” Jack said quietly. He cocked his gun.

  “FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, FUCK YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER,” the Sheriff spat out. “Your wife was a whore, your wife and daughter both – they used to put it about town like a pair of filthy sluts. I’m glad he killed them. Glad he arranged to make them suffer – it’s all they deserved, filthy whores. I’m only sorry I never got to have a go on them before they died.”

  Jack stepped forward, murder now in his eyes. He was seething, fury threatening to boil over him. He wanted nothing more in this moment than to kill the Sheriff there and then – end his life the way that the man deserved - but something deep inside stopped him.

  He wasn’t finished with his old friend yet.

  “I found your buddies,” Jack told him. “Found them all – every last one of them – and killed them all. You’re the last, but I had to hear for myself what you’d done before I finally killed you. Now I’ve heard it, I’ve heard your confession from your own very lips. And now it’s finally time for me to pass judgement down on you…”

  “You can’t kill me,” said the Sheriff. “I’m protected. He promised me. He told me, I’m protected. You’re such a fool – you don’t even know what’s going on, do you? Right beneath your very nose. You have no idea about the bigger picture – all you’re worried about is the death and torture of your family. You are such a fool…an innocent lamb just like all the rest, and just like all the rest, ripe and ready for the slaughter.”

  His eyes glazed over and suddenly became seas of black, his pupils no longer visible. He began to chant in a low voice – nonsense words, gibberish, but words that nonetheless sounded familiar to Jack’s ears.

  “Yog-Sothoth, ylandariiill, cthrangulugh mysageranii. Clgggnyth mesuggaugh clandrythu messugga…” the Sheriff chanted. None of it made any sense and yet, Jack had heard such words before and things had never ended well in such occasions.

  There was a tall, wall length mirror behind the Sheriff. As he chanted, dark mist and fog began to swell inside the mirror glass and slowly start seeping out around the man tied and bound in front of him in the chair.

  Jack’s finger tightened on the trigger of his trusty six gun, but he couldn’t seem to squeeze it any further.

  Something was preventing him from firing his gun into the Sheriff’s face, and ending this all.

  “I told you,” the Sheriff said, not looking up. “I’m protected, you cannot kill me…”

  “Maybe he can’t, but I can…” a voice came from behind them both in the darkness of the room.

 
Ginny stepped forward and raised her own gun at her father.

  “Jack told me everything,” she said, “everything he suspected, but I didn’t believe him. Not until now. Now it’s over. All of it. It ends here, tonight. You have no power over me. Goodbye, father, I don’t even want to know who you are anymore.”

  “Ginny, no, wait…” her father insisted, and for a single moment sounded like his old self again. “I can explain…”

  The dark mist and fog continued to pour out of the mirror glass, now swirling around their feet and ankles as it began to thicken and take form.

  “Fuck you, you’re not my father,” Ginny pulled the trigger and her father’s head exploded, sending blood, gore, and bits of matted brain tissue spraying all across the mirror.

  Instantly the glass inside began to clear, even as the mist and fog gathering all around them likewise began to dissipate.

  “I’m sorry, so, so sorry,” Ginny sobbed, throwing herself into the gunslinger’s arms and dropping her gun. “I’m so, so sorry for what he did to you – sorry I didn’t believe you – sorry for what he helped do to your family. What was that? What just happened? What was that in the mirror?”

  “Better you don’t know,” Jack told her, holding her, comforting her. “Better you never know.”

  He took her in his arms, then held her away from him for a second so he could look into her eyes as he spoke to her.

  “I need to go. Leave. Now. The people I killed before coming here - his buddies – they’re all influential people, powerful people. Their bodies won’t have been discovered yet, but they will be and when they’re found, people are going to come looking for me, hunting me down. You need to get your story straight before then, you hear me?”

  Ginny nodded.

  “You tell them you never found me here tonight. You were worried about your father so you came over and when you got here, I was gone. Your father already dead, tied up here in his chair, you get me? You tell them I must have killed him, not that it was you. And you tell them you have no idea where I’ve gone, where you think I might be headed. Nothing, okay? No more, nor less, than what I have just said. You start adding in anything else, adding extra facts, little details, they’ll know you’re lying. Keep things simple, okay?”