by Brant, Jason
“Mike. Please! After everything I’ve been through, I can’t go out like this! This can’t be the end.”
The giant finally raised his eyes to hers, if only briefly, before he leaned in and whispered in her ear. “It’s better this way. They’ll torture you otherwise. Just keep quiet and it’ll all be over soon. Quick and painless.”
Karen couldn’t believe the control those two men had over everyone in the town. It seemed as if no one would question them, let alone stand up to them. How many other victims had gone through this? There was no justice in Sheol, only judgment and punishment. As she looked out over the spectators, she knew there were no heroes here either.
And then she felt sorry for them. A deep compassion welled up inside her. Though they were cowardly and beaten, they were victims as well. They lived in fear and anguish and she thought they dealt with enormous guilt for not fighting back. Their fear and apathy would be their undoing.
“You’re all damned,” Karen said, raising her voice. “The lot of you. You just stand there and watch, refusing to take a stand. Refusing to do what’s right. You’re all damned.”
Gary looped the noose over her head and tightened it around her neck. Her heart raced, thumping inside her chest with such fury that she thought it might explode. All of the saliva disappeared from her mouth. This was it – and she couldn’t do a damn thing about it.
Her final thoughts went to McCall, the man who’d given his life so that she could have hers. His sacrifice had been for nothing. She would die today, not while fighting for survival, or combating the plague that swept the land, but from being hanged by a family of lunatics. She’d failed his memory in the worst way possible.
“I’m sorry, McCall.” She looked to the sky as she spoke, searching it for answers that would never come.
The judge stepped beside her, his malicious grin still covering half his face. “So you admit to being his whore, do you?”
“Fuck you.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? There’s not enough gold in all of Sheol to make me touch a diseased wench like you.”
Karen could smell his foul breath blowing in her face. He reeked of death – like he was rotting on the inside. Blue veins were visible on his cheeks and nose through his thin skin. He cackled at her revulsion as she took in his appearance.
The judge turned around and stepped to the edge of the platform, looking out over the congregation that gathered around. Karen thought there must have been at least a hundred people packed in the courtyard, maybe more. Dozens more came with every passing minute. Gary and Mike sulked down the steps and stood behind Evans, staring at the ground.
“Have I not warned you of the evil that would come here? Look at this filthy, murderous whore beyond me, and know that I speak the truth. Isaiah 26: 19-20: ‘Thy dead men shall live; together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead. Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be over past.”
The old man turned back to her and bore into her eyes with his own. Rays of sunlight flicked from their surfaces like the tips of flames. He lowered his voice and spoke only to her. “Isaiah 28: 18: ‘And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it.’”
Karen’s head rocked back and her mouth fell open in shock at what he had whispered to her. Of all the scripture people had used to explain what had happened with the dead rising, this new one took her completely off guard. Nothing described what she had seen better than the ‘covenant with death shall be disannulled’ bit. What was happening?
“He told you what’s coming across the desert,” she said.
“Of course he did. I can’t wait until they get here.” He didn’t try to hide his glee.
“I only wish I could be here when they flay you and your dumb ass son alive.”
Still smiling, he punched her in the temple. His advanced age had sapped most of his strength and the blow didn’t pack much of a punch. It got a reaction from the crowd however. Karen could hear some of the women gasping at the outburst. She started to say something else when he punched her again. Though she knew her death would be imminent, she got some satisfaction from knowing she’d gotten under his skin a bit.
“Say another word and I’ll cut out your tongue,” the judge said.
A lever ran out of the platform two feet to her right, sticking through the wood planks, with a slot carved out for it to be thrown. The judge stepped over to it and placed both of his hands on it, turning so he faced the crowd but could still see her. He watched her the entire time, savoring the desperation that washed over her.
Her body began to shake violently as he grabbed the lever. She tried to stop it, hating that he saw fear during her last moments, knowing that was what he wanted, but she couldn’t bring her emotions under control. The eager look on his face made it even worse, so she squeezed her eyes shut and held her breath, waiting for the trapdoor to drop from under her feet.
She felt his hot, rank breath on her cheek. “The devil’s coming for you.”
Click.
“I’m already here,” a hoarse voice said.
And then a blast roared in her ear.
Chapter 5
McCall pushed his way through the crowd behind the gallows.
He could see Karen standing on the platform with a noose around her neck. How in the hell she got there, and why, were questions he would have to ask later. The amount of people gathered around, waiting for the hanging, surprised him. The long, sad faces most of them wore struck him as even stranger. In his experiences, people often clamored for blood when an opportunity presented itself.
An old man stood on the platform with her, spewing some gibberish that McCall couldn’t make out. He figured it to be some kind of scripture, as that was the normal procedure for an execution. The old man looked as if he was taunting her and he seemed to be enjoying it. Then he punched her in the face – twice. The speed with which this execution came about had told McCall that this was anything but ordinary, but watching the hangman strike her got him moving. They wanted to murder her, not bring her to some misguided justice.
McCall broke through the first row of people and into the small, circular clearing around the platform. He waited at the edge of the crowd until the old man walked over to the lever and faced forward, turning his back to Mad Dog.
He spotted the large stump of a tree that had been sawed down long ago and sprinted toward it. It rooted into the ground just behind the gallows and he used it to spring himself onto the platform, just behind the old man. Karen had her head down, as if she were trying to remain calm in the most nerve-wracking of moments.
The ancient executioner must have had bad hearing because McCall’s boots scuffed against the wood planks as he landed and stepped forward. He held the shotgun in his left hand and used his right to free his remaining pistol from its leather home. Mad Dog aimed the pistol directly at the temple of the old timer just as the decrepit man leaned in and spoke in Karen’s ear.
“The devil’s coming for you.”
McCall pulled the hammer of his pistol back with his thumb. “I’m already here.”
The old man jerked his head around, crossing his eyes as he looked directly into the barrel. McCall shot him in the forehead. The aged body flew forward, crashing against the lever he’d been holding, pushing it forward in the slot on the floor.
The trapdoor beneath Karen popped open and she fell through it, the rope around her neck tightening as she went. McCall’s arm snapped out, dropping the shotgun down the opening, and looped around Karen’s arm as she fell in front of him. The momentum of her body dragged him forward while she disappeared through the door.
McCall fell to the floor, straining to stop her fall before the rope snap
ped her neck. His body straddled the trapdoor with his shoulder and head on one side of the opening, and his waist and legs on the other. His shoulder almost dislocated as all of Karen’s weight slammed against the joint, nearly jarring her from his grip.
The people surrounding the gallows gasped and screamed at the sudden death of the executioner. McCall could see them fleeing out of the corners of his eyes. The stairs leading to the stage were just outside of his field of vision and he hoped no one bound up them now, as he couldn’t defend himself.
Karen’s head angled up, trying to see what was happening around her. McCall had seen that her eyes were shut when he shot the old man and he knew that she must have been utterly confused as to who could be saving her. The expression on her face when she recognized McCall told him that she felt the same way about him, as he did her.
“McCall?”
“Hi,” he grunted.
“What? How?”
“I’m a little busy right now,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I saw them bite you!”
Doing his best to ignore her questioning, he dropped his pistol and fumbled with the knife tucked into his belt, trying to pull it free before he lost his grip. Her weight pulled his arm further into the trapdoor, pushing the sawed wood around its edges into his neck. Splinters dug into his skin, but the pain felt minor compared to the damage being done to his shoulder.
His fingers wrapped around the knife and pulled it out just as his left arm gave out and Karen fell from his grasp. The rope snapped tight in front of McCall’s face. He could hear her gurgling as she swung from the noose. He clambered out of the door and swung he knife at the taught rope.
Several strands cut free, but the dull blade didn’t go the entire way through. He swung again, slicing the rest of the threads and watching as the frayed end of the rope dropped into the darkness below. Gasping and sputtering travelled up to him as Karen struggled to breathe again.
He quickly looked down and saw her lying on her side, trying to get free of her bindings. “Don’t move,” he said. He tossed the knife to the ground behind her, a few inches from her bound hands. “Use that.”
The crack of a gunshot rang out and he heard the whistle of a bullet as it flew past his left ear. He dove to his right, rolling on his aching shoulder, and grabbed his pistol. Two more rounds splintered the wood by his feet as he stood and aimed in the direction of the gunfire.
There stood Evans, ten feet in front of the stairs, firing off rounds from a six-shooter held by his hip. McCall hesitated for a split-second when he spotted Evans, his body going numb in shock as he stared down at a man he’d presumed dead. If seeing that barbarous lunatic made his head spin like this, he wondered how Karen must have felt when she looked through the trapdoor to see him.
His surprise didn’t last long as a stretch of fire burst from the barrel of Evans’ pistol and a flash of pain ran down McCall’s left arm. Ignoring the burning sensation in his skin, he dropped to a knee and sent a round in Evans’ direction. It went wide right, but it was close enough that the criminal took notice and decided to flee rather than fight.
Parts of the crowd broke away, scattering in different directions as they tried to escape the gunfight. Several of the less intelligent actually ran between the two gunfighters, forcing McCall to stop firing rather than risk wounding one of them. Though he stood in silent judgment over them for attending the hanging of a woman they knew nothing about, he couldn’t bring himself to kill them, whether intentional or not.
Evans didn’t seem to follow that line of reasoning however, as he shot again while he backpedaled, sending a woman to the ground with blood pouring from her chest. He bumped into a mountain of a man with a deputies’ badge on his chest and a pistol in his hand. Evans shouted something at the giant and a smaller man beside him, before he turned and ran around the corner of a building on the far side of the courtyard.
McCall sighted him as he ran away, but he never had a clear shot and cursed at himself for missing with the first bullet. He backed across the platform as the two deputies mounted the stairs, their guns aimed at him. A standoff ensued as they reached the top and stood ten feet away from McCall, shouting for him to drop his gun.
“Ain’t no chance in hell, son,” McCall said to the shorter deputy. “I could drop both of you no problem.”
The massive man took a tentative step forward, raising his pistol higher and pointing it at McCall’s head. “Last warning.”
“We ain’t lying,” the shorter one said. “Drop it now or we’ll kill you.”
McCall looked back and forth from one to the other, trying to find another way out of this that didn’t involve killing two men of the law. He understood what they were trying to do, even if they appeared to be working for Evans’. They might not know who he was, or what he’d done back East. He didn’t know how that could be possible, but nothing else made sense.
Those in the crowd that hadn’t fled now moved closer, shrinking the empty space around the platform. Many of the men had their own guns hanging from their belts, or already in their hands. None of them seemed too eager to join in the fight however, as not even a single barrel was pointed at McCall.
“Drop it, Gary.”
Karen stood at the bottom of the stairs with the shotgun pointed at the back of the short deputy. With the butt of the weapon jammed against her shoulder, she took the steps two at a time until she stood directly behind him. He kept his pistol aimed at McCall but he didn’t move a muscle as she came up behind him, clearly afraid she would shoot.
Neither of the deputies seemed to know what to do then, so they stood there and looked back and forth from one another to McCall. Karen placed the end of the shotgun’s barrel in the middle of the back of the man she’d called Gary and nudged it into his spine.
“I’ll blow you in half if you make me,” she said.
“Take it easy,” Gary said. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Take it easy?” Karen said, incredulity seeping into her voice. “You were about to murder me!”
“We just do what we’re told,” the big man said. His deep, rumbling voice matched his bulky body.
“You saw what happened in that courthouse – I never had a chance,” Karen said. “You were going to hang me without any justification!”
Neither of them replied, but McCall watched as they both looked at the floor in shame. Some of the others in the crowd that gathered around did the same. McCall had never seen anything like it before. Everyone around them seemed to suffer from the same form of apathy, and yet they all felt embarrassed when confronted about it. What had Evans done to these people?
“We don’t like it at all, but the last person who stood up to Evans’ got lashed and hanged,” Gary said. He started to turn around, trying to face Karen, but a nudge in the back from the shotgun made him stand still. “What were we supposed to do?”
“Be a man,” McCall said simply. “That piece of shit Evans is your sheriff? Don’t you know who he is?”
The big man held McCall’s gaze for a moment before looking away again. “He’s been our sheriff for years now. He’s always been quick to punish, but he kept things legal.”
“Legal? He and his father just make up the laws as they go!” Karen looked so furious that McCall wondered if she was about to start shooting.
“He’s one of the most wanted men in the East,” McCall said.
“He’s known for his brutality,” Karen said, taking over. “And you let him get away with murder, right in front of you.” She looked at everyone standing around them. “All of you have stood here in your sullen sloth, watching as they’ve killed how many innocent people? You would have watched me swaying in the wind and not even thought twice about it.”
Though McCall figured that most of the people listening didn’t understand some of the words Karen used, they all seemed to get the gist of what she said. He spotted a few defiant men standing amongst the onlookers, but the majority of them studied the gro
und, standing in silent, emotional defeat.
Gary’s arms dropped to his sides, his pistol falling to the floor. This time he did turn around and look at Karen. “Put it down, Mike,” he said. “They’re right.”
The big man, Mike, did as he was told and holstered his pistol, raising his hands up in a submissive gesture. The dozen or so men with guns drawn in the crowd did the same. McCall couldn’t believe how easily they caved under a few harsh words from a woman they’d never met. He couldn’t understand what it was about this town that seemed so horribly wrong, but it appeared to run deep and true through the heart of its residents.
“Why? Why would you let him lead you down such a terrible path?” Karen asked. “I saw the looks on your faces as they sentenced me – you knew how wrong it was, yet you said nothing.”
None of them responded. They stood in place, stewing in their shame. McCall wondered how long they had been complacent; listening to a man they knew to be rotten to his core. The population of the city seemed to be comprised entirely of followers. He’d never seen anything like it.
“Why?” Karen screamed in Gary’s face.
“I was afraid I would be next,” he said.
Murmurs of agreement came from those surrounding them. McCall had seen fear turn men into sniveling babies before, but never on such a large scale. How Evans had managed to keep so many people obedient amazed him. He’d crossed the desert hoping to find a city that could defend itself from the tidal wave of death that followed him. Now he doubted that Sheol would be capable of that feat.
“Where do you think Evans was going?” McCall asked the big man. “I’ll take care of him.”
Mike shrugged his large shoulders. “I don’t know. I can’t believe he just left his Pa lyin’ there.”
McCall looked down at the body of the old man by his feet. The old bastard was Evans’ father? That explained why he seemed so intent on hanging Karen shortly after she arrived in town. Was Evans really so cold-blooded that he would abandon his own father after watching him get shot?