A Fistful of Horror - Tales Of Terror From The Old West (12 page)

“I don’t suppose you know who you kilt, do you?”

His eyes were steely. He talked like a tobacco chewer. Chris stared at him impassively, then smiled.

“I know he was a damned awful poker player.”

The sheriff stared back, blank-faced.

“I don’t think you git it. I got a lynch mob out there. They want justice. And they want your head. The nearest judge’s in Tombstone and the wire ain’t workin’. That means these people would have to wait another twelve hours before they can even git word of what to do with you. And they ain’t gonna have that. ‘Specially not with you sitting in here with the founder’s son’s blood all over your hands and that goddamned grin on your face.”

He leaned in close and Cain could smell liquor on his breath. He wasn’t drunk; he must’ve had just enough to ready himself for this. Ready himself for murder.

“I came in here hoping you’d try and talk some sense into me, and into them. To tell your side of the story. But the way I hear it, you tried to swindle some honest townsfolk out of their hard-earned money, got yourself caught and then decided to beat one halfway to hell and kill the other one. You’re in a world of hurt, boy, and you don’t seem to give a good goddamn about getting out. What have you got to say for yourself?”

Cain stared back at him thoughtfully. They were going to hang him, he realized, no matter what he said.

“If I were you, I’d get the hell outta town before this lynching happens.”

But the sheriff just grinned.

“Who do you think’s tyin’ the noose?” he said and walked out the door. Cain sighed, ran his hands through his hair and waited.

It turned out he didn’t have to wait very long. The gallows was built overnight and a half an hour later, when the first few fingers of sunlight started peeking through the barred window overhead, the sheriff came back into the room. He was silent and so was Cain, as he wrapped a small cord around the criminal’s hands and tied them behind his back. He dragged the confidence man slowly out of the town hall on to the main street and the sunlight temporarily blinded them both. Cain heard the people before he saw them.

They were roaring and screaming. It must’ve been the entire town, except maybe for one or two who were too drunk, too sick or too old to make it. Women, children, businessmen, ranchers, even the local preacher: all were standing before the gallows and crying havoc at Cain.

They shoved him up onto the platform and unceremoniously pushed him on top of a wide stool. They hadn’t had time to build the trap door. The sheriff, grim-faced now, climbed onto a stepladder and wrapped the noose around Chris’s throat. He tightened it brusquely, grimaced and stepped down. He stood below the grifter, looking up at him and out at the people. He held up his hand and, after a moment, the people were silent.

“State your name,” commanded the sheriff. He really was chewing tobacco, now and he spat on the ground as the con man spoke.

“Christopher Cain,” he said loudly. He blinked as it got brighter.

“Christopher Cain,” echoed the sheriff. “Christopher Cain, you have been found guilty of murder, attempted murder, assault and fraudulence and attempted money laundering.”

The people’s voices rose to raucous buzz, like attendants at the Coliseum.

“Any last words?”

The crowd managed to quiet down, as Cain spoke.

“I’d suggest that the good and innocent people among you get goin’…this is gonna get ugly.”

They all laughed at that. Some called more fervently for his death. He had expected it. He closed his eyes, swallowed, and breathed out. The sheriff stepped over to the stool and now the crowd was utterly silent, every individual breath was audible and, without any ceremony or word, the lawman brought up his foot, pistoned and kicked the stool out from under Cain. The con man plunged downward instantly and there was a loud snap as his neck broke.

It was dirty, small-town justice and there was a bit of guilt in all of them as they watched the body swing like a pendulum, sick and lifeless. But they cheered anyway. They cheered and hollered and mourned their own dead, but none of them left the gallows’ square, though the sheriff stepped down and moved back into the crowd.

And then Cain’s eyes opened and they were silent once more.

In a flash, the razor slid out of his sleeve like a hidden card and he flicked it open and cut his wrists free. He grabbed the rope coming out of the noose with his left hand, and used the razor to slice apart the rope above his head. He sawed at it for a moment, and then it ripped and he crashed to gallows’ stage and the wood splintered slightly. The crowd was staring at him, mouths agape and a man near the edge of the platform reached to his side to pull a gun.

Cain dove at him and slit the man’s throat in fluid motion, taking the gun from his hands without effort. He shoved the would-be-hero’s corpse away and took aim at the nearest person. It was an elderly woman, clutching her face and screaming; he blew her away without a second glance. The noose dangled from around his neck, a totem.

Gunfire erupted from his hand like Zeus’ lightning. Somewhere in the carnage he stopped slicing with the razor and picked up a second gun. He was dual-wielding, firing off rounds left and right, never missing. His eyes shone gold, either with the sun or something more and it was macabre and ethereal and godlike. All around him, the townspeople ran and screamed in terror and guilt, scrambling to get away.

Then a bullet ripped through his head.

Gray matter and red gobbets oozed from the spot in his forehead where the round had gone through and the sheriff held his gun in both hands, shaking, smoking drifting weakly from the barrel. He moved slowly towards Cain, but the body didn’t fall.

Instead, the hole began to close up and Christopher Cain blinked and it was then that the sheriff began to scream along with the rest of the crowd. Cain fired left and right, never missing, but he was walking towards the sheriff, who fired shot after shot into the con man’s chest, but to no avail. The gun clicked dry, and Cain strode up to the lawman, who fell on to the ground, babbling.

“What are you?” he screamed, arms outstretched to protect himself.

Cain cocked back the hammer on one of the pistols and aimed it at the sheriff’s face. “Dead man,” he replied and pulled the trigger. Scarlet stained the hard ground.

“Dead man walking.”

The rest of the residents of Fulton Hollow scrambled and fumbled and tried to run from their guilt, but Cain downed them before his wounds had time to fully heal. The bullets turned to dust in his veins and the sores healed over and did not scar. Death, it seemed, would not have him. But It would have the townspeople.

He had warned them.

He supposed that was the nature of the business. Maybe those highwaymen in medieval England had had it right; maybe the only way to run a con was to get rid of all the witnesses. Clear all the evidence so that no one even knew a con had taken place. Death was messy, sure, but witnesses were messier. So he would clean up this mess and move on. He would find new clothes, and a new town, even if he had to make his way through the desert to get there.

Christopher Cain started walking.

ZOMBIES AT RED ROCK

Roxanne Dent

The rain pelted the windows and turned the streets into rivers of mud. Most of us were barricaded in our homes.

A few of the men were silently downing whiskey or beers in Morgan’s Saloon, hoping to get, as Billy Hanson loved to say, piss eyed drunk before curfew, which was as soon as it got dark.

The town was on edge. Six people were dead and four missing which wasn’t unusual in Red Rock.

The Indian Wars were over but cattle barons and sheep herders were always at each other’s throats. And in any town, there were always a handful of evil men with dead eyes looking to put a bullet in a man just for the love of it.

But the four men and two women prostitutes hadn’t died from bullets or knives. They were murdered by monsters, their limbs torn from their bodies, their flesh ripped off by human teeth.

Even men who shot and killed ranchers living alone on isolated spreads and burned their homes down while their wives and kids watched were shocked. It went against nature.

The victims were mostly cowboys from Ralph Hanson’s ranch looking to drink themselves into a stupor and end up in bed with a woman who had been attacked on their way home.

The prostitutes were snatched when they stepped out for a smoke or a breath of air. One of them left a foot still in her red, high heel shoe. It was enough to make hard men’s guts turn to water.

You never knew when you’d find a kneecap or a finger tangled in the tumbleweed in your back yard or lying in the grass by Crater Lake as if a monster stopped to admire the scenery and have a picnic of human flesh.

Doc Wilson thought it was a new virus that made a man go crazy.

Any mutilated bodies or remains of victims found were quickly buried until the day Andy McManus was seen crawling out of his grave, minus a leg, his guts hanging out and his right eye missing. I was there.

It was eleven o’clock in the morning. Ma sent me to pick up some beef for stewing and come right home. Before stopping at the butcher, I made my way to the cemetery to indulge my addiction.

After Pa was shot in the back leaving church a year ago, I became obsessed with tracing angels, epitaphs and any unusual designs on the tombstones in our graveyard when I heard the screams.

Sixteen year old Lita Monroe, who was sweet on Andy McManus’s son Joe, accompanied him to pay his respects and place a bunch of wild flowers on his father’s recently dug grave.

Andy had been attacked by one of the missing people while he was loading his wagon with supplies and would have died on the spot if the townspeople hadn’t shot the already rotting corpse numerous times and chopped it into a dozen pieces. Andy developed a high fever, went into a coma and died three days later.

The screams jolted me and I dropped the tracing paper and charcoal and looked up.

A filthy hand was sticking up from the earth, pulling on Lita’s skirts. Cursing, Joe struggled to pull the thing off her and then a truly horrible thing happened.

The remains of Andy McManus crawled out of the grave and blinking against the light lunged toward a horrified Joe.

Ripping his Colt out of his holster, Joe fired until his gun clicked empty. His Pa fell but the bullets didn’t stop him. He reached over and bit Joe’s thigh, removing a chuck of bloody flesh along with the material from his pants.

Joe screamed in agony and shock and punched the thing in the face. It staggered and fell. Lita picked up her skirts and ran screaming all the way back to town.

As the decaying corpse, white maggots oozing from a stomach wound reached out to grab Joe he kicked it and took off sobbing.

I ducked behind the white, marble mausoleum that belonged to the Getty sisters, terrified the thing would come after me. After a second or two, I couldn’t stand it and peeked around the corner.

My heart was beating so hard, I could hardly breathe but I couldn’t look away as the thing, unable to balance on one leg, slithered on its hands and elbows along the grass toward the town like some kind of grotesque spider.

Lita’s screams drew a mob of angry, terrified people carrying pitchforks, knives and guns. I watched as the rotting corpse was shot, stabbed and beaten to a pulp by the mob until it lay there quivering.

The remains were covered by a dirty blanket and dragged to the back of the cemetery. I crept out from behind the mausoleum. A weird fascination held me fast.

A fire was lit and when it was red hot, what little remained of Andy McManus was tossed into the flames blanket and all.

No one spoke. I told myself the high pitched wail came from air whooshing through the mess that was once a human body.

I finally ran home without the beef. Ma saw my face.

“What’s wrong?”

“All the shops are closed,” I said trying to stop shaking.

“It’s not a holiday.”

“There’s some commotion at the cemetery.” I didn’t dare tell her what the commotion was. She didn’t ask and let me go but she looked worried.

Andy McManus’ corpse didn’t survive the fire. A few days later, Joe developed a fever and his thigh wound festered and oozed yellow pus. He started gibbering to himself.

That night he attacked his Ma with a hammer, smashing her skull in. A crowd was drawn by her screams and witnessed Billy sitting on the kitchen floor covered in a pool of blood digging his Ma’s brains out with his fingers and eating them.

They shot him full of lead but he stood up and tried to attack them so the sheriff ordered torches lit and set him on fire, burning the house down for good measure to stop the infection from spreading.

Having just turned thirteen and being a girl, I wasn’t supposed to know about any of it but I witnessed firsthand what we were facing. Most everybody knew anyway. It was hard to keep a secret that big in a small town.

People who had a stake in the town stayed. The rest left. Ma and me had no choice. We had to stay.