Mercy had run to the poor man’s side before Cheyenne had even gotten off his stool. He approached everything gingerly these days, after all he’d seen as a soldier and a bandit. Sonny had gone to the window, trying to assess the damage, and the barkeep stood there gawking, as did Mabel, terrified by the blood pooling around the dead man’s gushing neck. The two other whores in the back remained locked in place, breathlessly watching.
“We need to get Doc Wilford over here, right away!” Mercy cried.
“Zeke?” the portly card player called out to his buddy. “Oh no, Zeke!”
They gathered around him and stood there for a moment, staring, lost.
“We should get him outside,” Sonny said, all matter-of-fact.
“Outside?” Mercy said. “Are you crazy, Sonny? He needs medical care, and you want to toss him out in the storm?”
“Look at him!” Sonny said, pointing. “ He’s dead! All he’s gonna do in here now is bleed all over my floor!”
“You cold-hearted bastard!” the card player shouted.
“Hobble your lip, Rufus!” he replied. “I’ve gone through the mill enough to know a corpse when I see one.”
Rufus’ face turned red, and he glowered at Sonny but didn’t reply. He just turned back to Zeke and then crouched by his side with Mercy.
“We should get the doc, Sonny,” she said. “Zeke here might still be alive.”
Cheyenne had made it over to them now, and, looking down at poor Zeke with the frozen stake through his Adam’s apple, he knew that Sonny was right. Zeke was stone dead. But that didn’t detract from Mercy’s Christian intentions. Her true name suited her, he thought.
“Stop fussin’ over him, and fetch the mop,” Sonny barked at her. “I don’t want his blood to stain.”
Cheyenne turned to Sonny, about to tell him to pull in his horns and mind his tone, but he was distracted by what he saw behind Sonny, out there in the darkness behind the broken window. He moved past the others to the sill, feeling the snow biting at his face. He peered into the backyard of the brothel, looking past the storm that tried its best to cloak the movement of the shadowy figures within it. But he saw them anyway, twisting out there in the white banks like circus geeks. They were black, spindly things that sprang from the murk only to peter out of sight, camouflaged by the contrast of the darkness against all that blinding white. It was as if the night sky was coughing up critters, only to inhale them once again, sending the flailing slivers back into the blackness.
But the night sky itself was even stranger. On the horizon, the sky seemed to pulsate and spin, as if the night were made of oil, churning as the storm intensified. It throbbed as if it had its own heartbeat, pumping rapidly and bubbling up. And as he looked closer, he realized that this cyclone was actually inverted and imploding like a dynamited mine. And just as his eyes could adjust to it, they lost focus, and all he could see was starless night and snow. But if he kept looking, it revealed itself again and again before vanishing.
“What are you doing just standing there, McCracken?” Sonny said.
“There’s something out there,” he said.
“I know, the storm of the year. Now move aside so I can board it up!”
Sonny walked over to a small closet and retrieved some planks. He spun back around, holding the nails in his lips and a hammer in his fist. The barkeep came over and helped him.
“He really is dead,” Mercy said, still at Zeke’s side.
Mabel had gone and grabbed the mop for her, and was trying to clean up the mess, while Rufus remained crouched there, thunderstruck. His handlebar moustache quivered as he fought back tears. Cheyenne tried to get a better look at the cyclone and the things he saw slithering in and out of it, but an arctic gust blew in, hitting him with a wall of white. He stumbled back, stunned by the intensity of the cold air. Even up in New England, he had never felt anything so chilling.
“Gosh,” Mabel said, shaking. “It must be 10 below out there!”
She gathered the broken glass with her long fingernails and plopped the pieces into a bucket while Sonny and the barkeep began boarding up the hole. Sonny turned and looked at Zeke’s body with a snarl.
“Somebody had better go fetch the sheriff,” he said. “Better he see that icicle in Zeke’s neck before the evidence melts and we have to convince him that this here wasn’t no knife fight over them cards.”
Sonny turned to the barkeep, hinting with his iron stare.
“Aw, Sonny,” he complained. “The sheriff’s station is at the edge of town!”
“I don’t care a continental. Now go on, get a wiggle on!”
“But I could freeze to death.”
“You could also starve to death if you lose your job, boy, you and that sickly mother of yours,” Sonny snapped. “Now if you wanna keep on as my barkeep, you’s best do as I tell ya.”
Cheyenne watched the barkeep gulp before walking over to the rack to grab his coat. Mercy stood up, a look of bewilderment on her pale and pretty face.
“Please, you can’t send him out in this, Sonny,” she argued. “We don’t need the sheriff right off. We can fetch him come morning. We have enough witnesses here to explain what happened.”
“Hogwash,” he said. “That lousy sheriff would love to get the upper hand on me, get a few free rides outta you ladies for his deputies and then drink up on my dime. He won’t listen to witnesses like y’all. The word of a gaggle of whores, a drunken gambler, and a shootist ain’t gonna come to much.”
Mercy turned away from him and walked over to the corner where two of the other prostitutes, Eva and Nelly, stood watching in silent obedience. She looked to them, and when they caught her glance they lowered their heads in shame. They weren’t about to back her up. Not to Sonny.
“Why am I not surprised?” Mercy hissed at them.
The barkeep reached the door and Nelly walked over to him. She was a blond girl of only 19, still sweet and gullible, even though her profession had matured her quite a bit over the past 14 months. She grabbed his hat off the hanger at the door and handed it to him, almost as if in apology.
“Stay warm,” she said.
He nodded to her and opened the door. She stepped back, but not enough, having not expected the slender, black arms to come reaching for her. Through the gap in the doorway they came ripping — two slick limbs with long, bony fingers. They grabbed at Nelly with the ferocity of wild dogs, tearing at her dress and tugging her down to the floor by her hair. She fell so quickly that no one had time to reach her before a second pair of tar hands came stretching out of the storm. Together the hands all pulled at her, and she screamed as the exposed skin of her shoulders began to freeze and crack against their touch. One of the hands muted her then by slamming down onto her mouth, and her face began to bubble up with instant frostbite, the blisters popping apart in bursts of blood.
With a single lunge, they pulled her away into the cold night.
The barkeep took a few steps backward before collapsing in a near faint. Eva had turned to Mercy by now, burying her face in her neck. Mercy could only hold her while they both cried out in horror.
Cheyenne was the one to act. He ran to the doorway and went to slam it shut, but before he could, the shock hit him. Outside he saw the blackness that was stretched out before him in a blank eternity. The post office across the street was no longer there. The blacksmith’s shop and the train station were gone. The town of White Willow was no more. There was nothing beyond the front step of the brothel except the raging ice storm and this seemingly endless chasm of black sludge.
“My God,” he muttered.
In the center of the vortex, he saw Nelly’s now-skeletal face as she sank into the nothingness. She reached out to him with an arm that shattered off of her shoulder as she shrieked, the little shadowy things pulling her deeper into their cyclone.
Their laughter sounded almost childlike as he slammed the door.
* * * * *
“What’s going on here?” Ruf
us hollered, his tears now let loose.
“Nelly,” Mabel cried, trembling from what she’d seen. “Oh, dear Nelly.”
Cheyenne had his hand on his belt, itching toward his Colt revolver even though there was nothing to shoot at. He felt Mercy’s presence behind him. She was shaking. He turned to face her, not knowing what to say or do, or even what to think.
“What is it, Cheyenne?” she whispered with panic in her eyes. “What in the name of God is it?”
He thought it over for a second.
“Darkness,” he replied.
He pulled her into the nook of his arm and held her as she cried softly. Cheyenne noticed that the barkeep had gotten to his feet and was staring out the window.
“You see it too, boy?” Cheyenne asked him.
He nodded.
“At least I know I ain’t crazy, then.”
“But what the hell is it?” the barkeep asked.
“Don’t know, but I wouldn’t be standing too close to them windows if I was you.”
He backed up, but not much, hypnotized by the unreal reality outside. Sonny went to his side and glanced out at it. Confusion and fear turned to anger in the saloon owner’s face, and he waved his hand at the murk.
“Bosh!” Sonny said. “It’s just some kind of tornado or something.”
“You ignorant old whip!” Mercy said.
“Watch your tongue, missy!”
“You ever see a tornado made out of black slime?” Cheyenne asked him. “Look out there, Sonny. Everything’s gone. All of White Willow, gone up the flume! Ain’t nothin’ out there but darkness!”
“Well, where did it come from, McCracken? And what the hell does it want with us?”
“What dothey want with us?” Eva said.
Cheyenne turned to her. She was a buxom brunette with sad, dark eyes. She moved out of the corner now, staring right at him as she did so.
“Those things that grabbed Nelly,” she said. “What were they?”
“I ain’t certain. I only saw the arms.”
“But you saw them at the back window, didn’t you? I heard you say there was something out there.”
All eyes fell upon him now.
“Yeah, I thought I saw something out there in the backyard, where the bank rises below that tree.”
Cheyenne noticed the odd way that Eva and Mercy exchanged glances then as he pointed to the yard behind the saloon.
“Out back?” Mabel asked from behind him. “In the yard?”
He turned and saw how her face had fallen so white that even her rouge couldn’t disguise it. Her eyes grew watery and darted about in her little skull.
“Looked like,” he said. “Why? What’s in the yard?”
“Nothing, that’s what,” Sonny said, too quickly.
Cheyenne ignored him and turned to Mercy instead.
“What is it?” he asked. “Why’d y’all get weird on me when I mentioned the backyard?”
“Because …”
“Hobble your lip, Mercy!” Sonny yelled.
Cheyenne moved quickly, slugging Sonny right in his gut. The wind escaped him and he curled over, dropping his remaining boards and the hammer. Cheyenne placed his boot heel on Sonny’s shoulder and knocked him onto his back.
“Don’t interrupt!” Cheyenne told him.
He turned back to Mercy, noting how her eyes had changed and the small curl at the corner of her lips. It was almost how she used to look at him in the deep hours of their shared nights, when she would tell him things she didn’t tell anyone else.
“Go on,” he said.
“Cheyenne,” she said. “Well, we don’t call it the backyard. We call it the bone orchard.”
Sonny didn’t have to interrupt her this time. Mabel did, by screaming.
* * * * *
It was like a geyser of pure molasses.
The boards at Mabel’s feet splintered and cracked, and the sludge shot up all around her in an instant. It had come up through the floor. The tar formed ropes that sprang up her bustle and coiled about her legs. It burned coldly through her stockings and then froze to her skin, securing a solid hold as more climbed the nuances of her flesh. An upward burst of snow decorated her flailing body, and she reached out to the others as she was devoured by the murk.
“Help me!” she sobbed.
Mercy tried to run to her, but Cheyenne scooped her up with one arm and clutched her to him.
“Ain’t nothing you can do for her,” he whispered in her ear. “Don’t let that stuff get on ya, too.”
The others seemed to know it was best to stay back, or else they were paralyzed by fear, especially when the pooling tar began to bulge and change shape, the end of the ropes turning into little hands that began to drag Mabel down. Rising up from between those hands came oil-slicked skulls, followed by shoulders and tiny torsos. It was as if the slime was birthing toddlers to do its horrible bidding. Cheyenne watched them twist into life, hearing their small bones pop into existence as they slithered up Mabel’s body, coating her in black ice. Even as she opened her mouth for a final scream, icicles formed between her lips, burying her final cry.
One of the oily midgets jumped upon her back and sent its claws into her shoulders. Cheyenne saw some of its malformed face now. The slime was slowly falling away from its head, revealing a pink layer of flesh so thin that he could see the thing’s veins pulsing underneath. It was the last thing he saw before Mabel was pulled under the black pool and was gone forever.
The barkeep ran for the door that led to the backyard. Cheyenne threw out a leg and tripped the boy, then kicked him over when he hit the floor. The barkeep tried to get up and lash at him, but he secured his boot over the boy’s throat.
“Don’t go fussin’, son,” he said.
“We must get out of here!”
“Ain’t nowhere to go to. You saw outside. If you open that door, you won’t be letting us out, you’ll be letting them in.”
“They’re already getting in!” he cried. “We’re sitting ducks here! If we don’t make a break, we’ll be dead!”
“Nothing’s out there but the ice, the tar, and those things. Best we can do is hunker down.”
“Until what?” Mercy asked.
He stood there, unable to answer her.
“We ain’t safe in here, Cheyenne,” she said.
“Don’t open the door!” Eva said.
She came to Cheyenne’s side and clutched his arm. Her eyes were frantic, and her makeup was running with her tears.
“They’re coming for us,” she told him. “Just like Verdie swore. When she left, she swore she’d get the vex on this place!”
“Who’s Verdie?”
With that, Sonny intervened.
“Enough, Eva!” he said. “Don’t be playing to the gallery now with no tall tales.”
Cheyenne had already given him the fist, so now he drew his coattail back to show Sonny his colt, letting him know that it would be next.
“Look, McCracken,” Sonny said. “Just because you’re heeled don’t give you no authority. I am the proprietor of this here establishment, and I can fetch my shotgun right quick!”
“So fetch it,” Cheyenne challenged.
“A curly wolf like you would just shoot me in the back!”
“No, I’ll wait here like a thoroughbred,” he said. “I wont even fill my hand till you’ve got both of yours wrapped around that peacemaker of yours.”
Sonny just looked at him, debating it for a moment.
“Pony up and fetch it,” Cheyenne told him.
But he didn’t. He moved slowly to a stool and sat, silenced now.
Rufus saw that Cheyenne and Sonny were distracted with each other, and he took this opportunity to take Eva by the throat and put his repeater pistol to her temple. When she tried to scream, he choked her, and she squeaked like a frightened rat. The others turned around then as Rufus dragged her back a few steps, away from the group.
“None of y’all move!” he yelled.
“Let the lady go,” Cheyenne advised him. His coattail still hung back and his fingers wiggled now on his holster.
“They want them!” Rufus said. “Don’t you see? They want the women! They’re the ones they keep coming for, so why don’t we just give them up?”
“You lowly son of a bitch,” Mercy said. It was the first time any of them had ever heard her swear.
“Let her go,” Cheyenne said again.
“They’re just whores!” Rufus said, dragging her closer to the back door. “Why should we all wait around to die when we can just offer up what these things want?”
“You’re gonna die directly if you don’t let her go, hoss.”
Cheyenne’s hand cupped his holster and, seeing it, Rufus panicked. He pulled his pistol away from Eva and spun it toward Cheyenne. It was all the time Cheyenne needed to draw, aim, and fire.
The back of Rufus’s head came apart like a tossed watermelon, and a hot spray splattered the door behind him as he fell toward it. He’d been gripping Eva’s throat so hard that he continued to do so as he rattled into death, dragging her backward with him. The two of them smashed into the back door, knocking it open, letting an ill wind come inside, followed by the small, shadowy forms that leapt like hungry wolverines from the white mounds.
Cheyenne opened fire on the creatures as they went for Eva. Tar encompassed the doorframe as the snow whirled before them in a disorienting haze. But still he fired at them, his bullets swallowed by the swirling gunk of their bodies, seeming not to faze them. In a moment they had entangled Eva in tendrils that had sprung from their bellies. Cheyenne saw that there were more of them now, about nine. Each of them had lost some of their black coating, and their freakish, translucent skin shone pink against the snow. The long worms that grew out of their stomachs had each grabbed a limb of Eva’s body, and the final worm wrapped around her neck.
With the strength of a dozen horses, they quartered her.
Behind him, he heard Mercy scream as she watched her friend be ripped apart. The others watched in shocked disbelief, their horror too great to express. Cheyenne, void of other ideas, ran toward the door, letting his Colt do the talking for him. The bullets ripped through the frigid air and hit their targets with a squish. Even at closer range they seemed to have no effect. He watched them separate Eva’s body and then scatter about the piles of snow, as playful as kittens with yarn; all except the one who held her decapitated head in its hands, lapping at the gushing stump.
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