Walk the Sky (8 page)

“Who?”
 

Before Marilyn could respond, the jailhouse door opened and the young jailer stepped inside. He gave her a curious look and said, “Ma’am, you probably shouldn’t be that close.”
 

“I was just praying with these men. Their souls need prayer more than ever.”
 

The jailer nodded. “Yes, ma’am, I reckon they do.”
 

She drifted toward the jailhouse door. She nodded at the jailer, started to leave, but paused and glanced back at Clay and George. She whispered, “May God have mercy on your souls,” and left.

*
 
*
 
*

It wasn’t much longer that the jailhouse door opened again. Only it wasn’t Marilyn who entered this time, but the Reverend, Fred Bolton, Roy, and two men George had never seen before.
 

One big happy family as demonstrated by the grin nearly splitting Bolton’s face.
 

Apparently dinner had gone very well.
 

“Sir,” the young jailer said, standing to attention. “I checked the livery as you requested.”
 

The Reverend gave him a slight frown and said, “Sit back down, boy, and be quiet.”
 

The young jailer did as he was told.
 

“Gentlemen,” the Reverend said in his smooth booming voice. He stepped to the front of the group, his hands clasping the edges of his brown vest. “As I am sure you are aware, sundown is fast approaching. Which means we have some business that needs settling.”
 

Both men sat on the benches in their separate cells, but neither of them spoke.
 

“After much prayer and deliberation,” the Reverend said, “tonight’s sacrifice has been decided.”
 

The grin on Bolton’s face turned ugly.

The Reverend focused on Clay. “Mr. Miller, I am afraid it will be you.”
 

George rose to his feet, wrapped his fingers around the bars.
 

“How exactly was that decided?”
 

“It was not our decision,” the Reverend said simply. “It was God’s.”

13.

Clay sat on the bench and did not move when Roy opened his cell door, nor did he move when Roy told him to get up. He just sat there, staring down at the floor, thinking about his daughter.
 

“I said,
get up!
”
 

Roy grabbed his arm and yanked him to his feet.
 

For the second time in his life, anger began to slowly stir inside Clay Miller. Like the night he had caught the mayor’s boy having his way with Ellie, anger began to stir and it would not stop until he released it.
 

Roy must have seen this on his face, because he said, “Don’t even think about it,” and punched him square in the gut.
 

All the air escaped Clay’s body. He fell to his knees, wheezing, cradling his stomach. He was faintly aware of George calling his name. He was faintly aware of Fred Bolton laughing.
 

Then Roy grabbed his arm and once again yanked him to his feet.
 

“Don’t make me do that again.”
 

Roy pushed him out through the cell door, where the two men had moved forward in front of Bolton and the Reverend. The men took one arm each and began to lead him toward the jailhouse door.
 

Clay let them take him. He knew there was nothing he could do to stop them.
 

“Clay!” George shouted.
 

Clay stopped at the doorway, even pulled back from the men.
 

The men paused, allowing him the few extra seconds he needed to look back at George standing behind the bars of his cell.
 

Clay nodded once to his friend.
 

And then took his first step toward death.

*
 
*
 
*

Outside, the sky had begun to darken, fifteen minutes or so away from slipping into blackness.
 

Clay stepped into the dirt street, each man tightly gripping one of his arms.
 

The Reverend and Bolton and Roy and the young jailer watched from the plank walkway, at the door to the jailhouse, unwilling to venture any farther into the pending night.
 

The post was set in the middle of the street, in the middle of town, standing like a monument to the evil that had taken place there. Dried blood trailed down all four sides to where several dark brown pools had formed in the dirt below.
 

The men said nothing as they backed Clay into the post, tied his hands behind his back, wrapped the excess rope around his waist, and used a clove hitch to secure him.
 

“This isn’t God’s will,” he said.
 

One of the men took a kerchief—perhaps the same one used from yesterday—and put it in Clay’s mouth, tied it around his head so he couldn’t speak.
 

Without a word both men turned and hurried away.
 

Clay watched them retreat back down the street before they disappeared into the black veil of distant shadows.
 

His first instinct was to test the bindings. He could barely move. The men had been doing this for weeks now, having tied most of the townspeople and anyone else who happened to come along to this post, and they had become experienced at it.
 

Still, he tried again to pull himself free of the rope.
 

Again, he was barely able to move.
 

And then Clay remembered what Marilyn had said.
 

Once you’re tied to the post, keep your eyes cast down.

It was getting almost too dark to see the ground right in front of him, and certainly too dark to clearly make out anything in the dirt. So why did she want him to keep his eyes down? Was it something to do with the demons? Something about looking into their eyes?
 

No—she said it would give him a fighting chance.
 

Marilyn wanted him to find something.
 

Clay dragged the heel of his boot across the surface of the dirt in front of him. It left a smooth track. No hiccups, no surprises, just dirt. When he dragged his heel against the grain he had created, the result was the same.
 

He tried the dirt closer to the post.
 

This time his boot stopped against something solid.
 

Something buried in the dirt.
 

Clay raised his leg and dragged his boot heel over it again, coming up against the same stop.
 

Excitement overtaking him, he tugged once more against the rope wrapped around his waist. But that only made things worse. The more he tugged, the more the rope seemed to restrict his movement.
 

And then he heard it, faint and distant ...
shuffling
.

Clay looked up into the darkness. He couldn’t see them, but he knew they were there, just as they had been there last night.
 

Demons.
 

They were coming.
 

The thought pushed him into a panic. He tried fighting against the restraints again, realized it was a losing battle, and was finally able to get his feet out far enough in front of him so that the weight of his body slid him down the post. From there, Clay rotated around the base until his fingers found the tip of the object buried in the dirt.
 

Shuffling
.
 

Clay glanced up. The beat of his heart felt as if it might tear a hole in his chest.
 

In the distance, he saw movement.
 

Dark shadows in the night, moving awkwardly and off balance.
 

His fingers dug into the dirt. Brushing away anything and everything that was loose. Finally they hit on a solid object. Not a rock—he could tell that right off. A stick, perhaps.
 

Clay picked at the loose dirt around the edges, uncovering a little piece at a time. It wasn’t a stick. It was too well formed for that. And it felt as if a design had been carved into the side.
 

The sound of movement was louder now, closer.
 

The flesh on his bones rattled with the vibrations.
 

A quick glance up and he realized the darkness had expanded. It seemed as if there were an army of shadows hovering at the edges of the darkest corners, moving ever closer.
 

He wrapped his fingers around the object. Tugged on it. The dirt’s grip began to loosen. Not enough to pull it free, but enough to give Clay hope.
 

His fingers dug deeper around the base of the object ... tugging ... pulling ... until they hit something.
 

A sharp edge.
 

Shuffling
.
 

It was a knife.
 

Clay found the hilt. In the next moment, with what felt like the last of his strength, he gave it a violent yank and the blade slid out of the ground.
 

Shuffling.
 

The blade of the knife found the rope linking his hands, and as he began to slice into the first strand, he did the one thing he knew he shouldn’t do just then: he looked up.
 

An army of black figures that looked more human than demon as they took shape approached.
 

The knife moved faster over the surface of the rope.
 

Through the first strand ... onto the second ... onto the third ...

Until—
snap!
—his hands were suddenly free and the rope around his waist released its death grip, allowing him to let out a breath.
 

Clay madly unraveled the rope until he was able to climb to his feet and step out of the bindings.
 

By then, the demons had appeared out of the shadows under the mercantile across the street, and from the plank walkway behind him. They were naked, lumbering forms, human but not human, their moonlight-reflected gazes hollow and unlike anything Clay had ever seen.
 

With the knife in one hand, tearing the kerchief out of his mouth with the other, he headed away from the godless hordes. Running past several demons that seemed to step out of nowhere. Back down the street in the direction of the jailhouse.
 

The town was deserted now.
 

All the buildings were dark and silent.
 

Clay stopped just before the plank walkway in front of the jailhouse to catch his breath.
 

Behind him, the demons gathered into a huge, lumbering mass that reminded Clay of a colony of ants organizing to bring its prey home. They weren’t as fast as ants, but they scrambled over one another, fighting for position, stumbling and pushing to get to the forefront.
 

He turned from the hordes back to the jailhouse just as a demon stepped out of the shadows less than five feet away. When it reached for him, Clay brushed aside its arm and landed a blow to the side of the demon’s head that sent it toppling over.
 

It was the first time in his life he’d landed a punch—it was a shove that had sent Bolton’s son tripping over his own feet onto that rock—and it hurt like hell.
 

Clay turned away and tried to shake out the pain.
 

As he did, he was met by another demon, this one bigger and stronger. It was nearly on top of him, and Clay’s reaction was instinctive and without thought.
 

He plunged the knife into the demon’s stomach.
 

The creature had no eyes but its crude mouth opened in a soundless roar as the demon fell backwards, black blood oozing from the wound, the body all at once going rigid as it hit the ground.
 

That was as much as Clay saw.
 

The rest of the demons were even closer now, almost on top of him, and he turned and ran.
 

The moon shined down on him as if he had been chosen, providing all the light he needed to slip past the town’s last building. From there, the moonlight took him through the surrounding desert to the rise of a hill less than a mile away.
 

When Clay reached the top, he stopped, bent over, and nearly threw up.

His muscles cramped. His lungs ached. His head pounded.
 

The town was a speck in the distance now, though the darkness appeared to churn with movement.
 

The demons.
 

They would be out all night. Most of them had probably given up hunting him, but a few who were determined would still be coming. He’d have to keep moving. At the moment, he was safe, but he’d have to keep moving.
 

Still breathing heavily, Clay stood up. He looked down at his hands and saw they were empty. Where was the knife? He had a faint memory of stabbing the demon, and then ... had he dropped it back in town?
 

It didn’t matter. What mattered was that he was safe. For now.
 

Feeling some of his strength returning, he turned to run deeper into the desert when a hand reached out from the dark and touched him on the arm.

14.

Reverend Titus Willard was lying in bed, staring at his beautiful sleeping wife, when there was a knock at the door.
 

Marilyn stirred beside him. She murmured, “What is it?”
 

“Stay here.”
 

He slipped out of bed and grabbed his robe and headed out of the bedroom toward the front door where Roy stood on the other side of the glass.