A Fistful of Horror - Tales Of Terror From The Old West (15 page)

I glared at him and spoke dully. “You might as well kill me now. I’ll be one of them in a few days and you too.”

It was then I noticed a strange thing. His cuts and wounds were healing. Some had already closed up.”

He saw my astonishment.

“I was attacked when I was a boy. My grandfather was a shaman and taught me how to make medicine that would keep me from turning.”

“The green stuff?”

He nodded.

“Is it a cure?”

“If you take it every day, you won’t become a zombie.”

“You could have saved my mother.”

“She was too far gone. I’m sorry.”

I glanced into the distance. “The Skinwalker is still out there.”

“He’s full of hate. We need to find him and kill him before he makes more zombies.”

“Me and you?”

“You got anything against that?”

I glanced at him surprised. It occurred to me Brannigan must be lonely hunting down the dead and living under a curse he can’t talk about. I was too young to be on my own and even with the nasty green stuff, my future looked bleak. I would never get married, live in a house with a white picket fence and have kids but that was okay. At least I wouldn’t be a zombie.

Brannigan mounted his horse and pulled me up so I sat behind him. One day I’d forgive him and we’d be friends. Just not right away.

My last glimpse of Red Rock was the smoking remains of a once bustling town.

HOWLING MOONSHINE

David Thomas

North Dakota, Forth Berthold, 1908.

The children stood silently in a nervous row as their long shadows from the setting sun behind them reached out to the edge of the wood, they’d been out playing all-day in the hot summer sun, running here there and everywhere, but now they found themselves drawn to the one spot they dare not play.

Dyani, a tall girl, brushed away her long black hair from her face and spoke in a hushed tone as she pointed a crooked stick towards the woods. “I once heard my Uncle say they hung people in there.”

A fat scruffy kid named Chayton looking meekly up towards the evening sky and held his belly. “I’m hungry.”

As long as any of the children could remember no one ever went into that part of the woods; if any of them asked it usually resulted in a whack across the head from their parents, it was the unwritten law of all; you don’t go into that part of the woods, no one really knew why. At best the kids figured it was a forgotten fear that their parents still kept by, the children all belonged to the Hidatsa tribe, it wasn’t unusual to see people on the Indian reservation do odd suspicious things, the culture and customs still lingered in funny ways. For a few more minutes the children whispered about the woods then slowly, one by one, they turned away and headed back down the trail, which lead to the main road and on to home and supper.

Standing alone a shy kid called Billy continued to stare deeply into the woods, his friend Tom called out to him. “Billy your pop will whip you more than good if you’re thinking of going in there.”

Lingering for a moment, the children waited for him to join them, but Billy knew what he had to do, he knew it from the first time he was forbidden to do it.

“If you see my pop,” he called to his friend, “don’t tell him, but if you see my grandfather tell him.”

Billy’s grandfather was the best thing in Billy’s life; he’d understand why he needed to do this. His friend saluted and the children turned away, all whispering how crazy or stupid he was. He watched them until they passed out of sight. He was alone now but that didn’t bother him one bit; his mind was made up.

He watched the sun go down a little more; Billy figured he had about two hours of daylight left – an hour in, an hour back out. It wasn’t much of a plan, but the burning feeling inside him was more than he could stand, he didn’t think he could take another summer without going in there, without knowing what was in there.

Before he left he drew with his finger in the dry earth an arrow pointing into the woods and a simple sketch of a fish below it, the missionaries who preached to Billy and his people said Jesus and his followers would draw this sign so they would know who was good and who was a roman spy, if something bad happened he knew his grandfather would understand and follow it till the ends of the earth. His grandfather had fought the white man as a young man and was an elder back on the reservation, he knew the old ways, knew the secrets of his people and land. He’d come.

For weeks he’d been planning to do this, slowly building up the courage to face what he knew would make him a man, he checked one last time that he still had his knife in his back pocket. He was only 10 but, like his grandfather always said. “Every man is only a boy until he faces his fear down.”

Billy knew this was his time to prove that he could be a man. Since his mom died a few years back, his pop had turned to drink and cruelty. It seemed like nearly every day his grandfather had to stop his pop from whipping him.

Sometimes he thought about running away, but he could never leave his grandfather. So an idea came to him while he’d lay on his bed with the pain and held back tears; if he could face down the woods and whatever was in it, then he could face down his pop and make the pain go away. He also knew in his heart of hearts that his grandfather would leave him one day, just like his mom did. Every morning he would hear him coughing a sick and wheezing cough. He had to do it today no matter the cost. It had to be now; he had to be brave, brave like his people once were. He mumbled a quick prayer and spat on his palm for luck and entered the woods.

The woods themselves, he noticed as he began to get his bearings, reminded him of the bible stories of the Garden of Eden. A small brook ran to the left of him. No one ever came in here; no tracks or junk, just the untouched woods, yet there was one thing that made everything wrong. The whole place was stone silent. It was as if Nature herself was hiding from something within these woods. He pushed on harder and tried not to think about it.

After a few hundred yards of fighting his way through the thick woods and gullies, he decided to stop to catch his breath. He looked up to the sky, all but a purple twilight, now. He’d have to go back soon and his heart sank with the thought. The brook that was to his left had now flowed into a small lake. He could see by the fluttering ripples on the surface that it was full with fish, the first sign of life he’d seen since entering the woods. He scanned the waters intently; with what was in there, he figured he could feed his family for a good while. Looking back up to the sky again, he watched the twilight creep in some more and thought of the long walk back.

His nostrils then gave a sudden twitch; he could smell smoke, wood smoke. Someone up ahead had lit a fire. Making a mental note of how far he’d come he pushed on towards the smell and felt a nervous flutter go through him as he sensed he was getting closer to the answer of what laid in the woods. The sun was almost in front of him now, shimmering between the tree line, somewhere ahead of him as he worked his way through. The sound of a harmonica started to drift towards him as well as the smoke, it sounded like a sad lonesome tune yet, even within the tune, something sounded wrong with it. Like the woods itself, it felt lifeless. He slowed his pace down and began to creep forward, watching where he placed his feet so not to make a sound, just like the cowboys did in this comics when they wanted to ambush someone. It made him feel a little stronger inside thinking that.

For a moment he wasn’t sure what there was to see as the sun flickered in his eyes like gold but, before he knew it, he found himself stood not ten feet away from a group of men sat around a small campfire. The music abruptly stopped as the dozen or so men, one by one, looked towards him. Cautiously one leaned over to another and whispered in his ear; strangely they all grunted an approval.

It happened so fast that Billy didn’t have time to get scared, not really scared. In fact, he was more curious then anything. It was something in the way their clothes were tailored, their funny shaped buttons and high leather boots, the way their strange faces didn’t so much make them look dead as…not alive. A little bit of fear did kick into him with almost a shake of the legs and a piss in the pants, but he kept strong even in the face of the dead.

Then somewhere deep within him, he suddenly remembered why he was there; he was there to face down his fear and to become a man, he decided to speak up.

His voice cracked slightly through his dry mouth. “Who are you?”

Slowly raising a dirty hand the one that’d had been playing the harmonica pointed silently towards a thick under growth nearby. Billy squinted over; he could just make out through the long rays of the evening sun a wooden cross or two, deeper in lay four or five more.

They were all watching him intently as he turned his head back; even with this eerie scene a strange growing sense of wonderment started to come over Billy. They were cowboys, real cowboys. He caught a quick glint of silver from one of their belts. They were all carrying guns and one even carried a sword, a deep rusty red still smeared itself across its blade. The thought of the Wild West danced into his mind like a daydream and he began to smile. They really were cowboys. Billy knew his grandfather would be cross with him for thinking this as he hated the white man an all the bad things they had done to him and his people, but Billy just loved cowboys and their wild adventures. He would read them over and over again in his battered collection of comics, he didn’t know why he loved them he just did.

Then something changed, a shiver jumped across the back of his neck as a dark look crawled across their eyes. One by one, they stood up, pulled out their guns and levelled them towards him. One even gave a cackling, wild hoot as he spun his guns out from his belt. Billy could almost feel where the bullets would hit him on his chest.

A sudden jolt of fear starting to take over him, dragging him down into a deep panic-filled place, as the ghostly reality finally sunk in. His right leg began to feel warm, to feel wet. They all gave out a cruel laugh as his faded pants began to darken.

“Momma isn’t here to help you now boy is she?” giggled one of them as he clicked back his gun and gave a spiteful smile. He could see dead maggots slowly fall out of his mouth like corn from a split sack.

Billy blinked hard a couple of times and tried to swallowed down his revulsion as best he could and found a sense of anger swelling up. How dare they speak about his mother; his blessed dead mother? The anger slapped him awake; he wasn’t scared anymore. He knew what he had to do; he had to face down his fear. He had to be brave.

With grit and determination he stood his ground and raised his proud head and looked the dead square in the eye. “I’m not afraid of you.”

The air between them shivered like heat from a fire as the cowboys rocked uneasily at the standoff. The one who had been playing the harmonica raised his dirty hand again and spoke, it sounded odd like two voices were speaking at the same time from his toothless mouth. “Ain’t you a real brave? Let’s show him boys, show him what we really are. The savage deserves that at least.”

They each gave out a wild cry of agreement and what followed next almost made Billy faint with shock. Their faces and bodies began to morph and twist with phlegm filled screams as they ripped their clothes off like they were on fire. Instead of cowboys, each took on the form of hulking black skinned demons. A stench of rotten meat cut sharp into the air as they all stood in a crooked line spitting and coughing a shameful curse.

Billy swayed with the terror that was engulfing him; he wished with all his heart that his grandfather was here with him now to hold his hand, to take him home. He didn’t know what else to do; all of the courage he’d found had suddenly drained out of him and he felt weak to the bone. Everything around him warped with reality; it was as if he was caught between two worlds. The only light now he could see was from the demon’s hellish camp fire. It glowed bright beneath each of their damned and snivelling faces and Billy never felt so alone in all his life.

A hunchbacked demon limped forward with sickly looking bloodshot eyes. “Look at what we’ve become, what God has blessed upon us.” Its voice had the faint echo of a rattlesnake hiss.

“I’m sorry…” was all Billy could mumble as he felt hot tears roll down his shaking face.

“Don’t be sorry boy, we like it.” It laughed and reached out a filthy twisted hand towards him. “Why don’t you run boy? We like chasing your kind down.”

As the demon gestured for Billy to run, a deafening howl suddenly boomed through the woods. Billy thought his ears would explode as he tried to cover them with his hands. The demons gave out panicked yelps as the howl rose up like a tornado and shook the trees around them. From behind the demons, as they blindly pushed and shoved each other with panic, a full moon broke free from the clouds and everything suddenly fell quiet again.

Billy felt the ringing in his ears begin to fade and thought that maybe this was his chance to run but, instead, something happened that would change everything. From high above between the moon and the moonshine, a huge grey wolf came smashing straight down like a comet onto the confused demons. With a single swipe from the wolf’s human-like hands, Billy saw a head instantly go spinning off into the bush, saw another’s belly fly open in an arch of yellow pus. He watched, awestruck, as the wolf then picked up a raggedy looking demon and crushed its backbone with a single splintering crack, while ripping out a rib cage from another’s chest.