Night Mayer: Legend of the Skinwalker

by Paul W Papa

  “It that really necessary?” he asked. “My man can handle anything that would require firearms.”

  “Really?” asked Mayer. “Does your Bruno carry silver bullets?”

  Pierce furrowed his brow. “Why on earth would a man carry silver bullets?” he asked.

  “Because lead won’t cut it.”

  “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Pierce said.

  Mayer stepped into the large room and took a seat in a black leather chair with studded arms. He crossed one leg over the other, then set the salt down on the end table next to the chair. Pierce’s man moved to a corner of the room behind him.

  “Is your man particular to that corner, or can you have him stand in another?” Mayer asked. “I get jumpy with birds behind me.”

  Pierce motioned for the man to move, which he did begrudgingly. “What happened to your face?” Pierce asked.

  “Cut myself shaving.”

  Pierce formed a disapproving frown. “What have you to tell me?” he asked.

  “Perhaps you ought to go first,” Mayer countered.

  “Vera Krupp came to see me today.”

  “Did she now?”

  “It is her intention to stop the project entirely. She is going to donate her newly inherited portion to the Paiute Tribal Council.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Mayer asked.

  “Of course it’s a bad thing,” Pierce said with a glare. “Not only will it kill the project, it will ruin me. I’ve invested more than a hundred thousand dollars into this project, all to have that idiot Hawthorne screw it up.”

  It was quite a way to speak of the dead, Mayer thought, but then again, he knew that money makes people say foolish things. “It’s not entirely his fault,” Mayer offered.

  “Oh? Isn’t it?” Pierce said sharply. “I warned him. I told him not to get involved with . . .”

  Pierce stopped; his breath, suddenly visible, trailed off in front of him. The sight unsettled him and it showed. The air inside grew cold and the lights began to flicker, catching both Pierce’s and Mayer’s attention. An animal of some kind howled outside, followed by long harrowing scratches along the side of the house and across the glass. Pierce seemed to catch movement out the window.

  “Go check that out,” Pierce ordered his man.

  Mayer jumped from his chair. “Nix that!” he ordered. “Don’t open that door.”

  The hired man pulled his gun from his own shoulder holster and held it up by his head. “I can handle anything stupid enough to be out there,” he said.

  “Don’t be a bunny,” Mayer countered. He picked up the salt and headed to the front door.

  “What are you doing?” Pierce asked.

  “What you hired me for.” Mayer spread a line of salt next to the threshold. “How many doors you got to this place that lead out?” he asked.

  Pierce stumbled on his words. “I don’t know, three or four.”

  The scratching grew louder.

  “Cheese that cannon and get busy spreading this salt in front of each door,” Mayer said and threw the salt to Pierce’s hired man. He caught it clumsily. “Do it just as I did here, end-to-end in one long stream. Don’t leave any breaks.”

  The hired man didn’t move.

  “Do it!” Mayer yelled.

  Pierce motioned for his man to do as told.

  “I don’t understand . . .”

  Mayer cut Pierce off. “I don’t have time to explain,” he said. “Just do as I tell you.”

  “William James Pierce,” a macabre, haunting voice called from outside. “You have betrayed me, William. Now come out and play.”

  Pierce’s face lost all its color. “It can’t be,” he said. “It just can’t be.”

  Mayer was confused. “You know that voice?” he asked.

  “Yes,” Pierce said quickly, his eyes wide as saucers. “But it can’t be. It just can’t be!”

  “Who?” Mayer asked. “Who can’t it be?”

  “Hawthorne,” Pierce said. “That’s R. J. Hawthorne’s voice!”

  He no sooner said it than a vapor of the man appeared directly in front of them. Hawthorne was in death just as he had been in life, at least at the end of his life, with a large portion of the left side of his head missing—a gunshot wound on the right side. His eyes vacant. He seemed to be pointing at Pierce, but it wasn’t a real point because the ghost was missing a forefinger.

  The lights flickered.

  “You betrayed me,” the voice said, but it wasn’t coming from the ghost. It, like the scratching, was coming from outside the house, surrounding it in a ghostly echo. “I know what you did, William, and I know why you did it.”

  That fact seemed lost on Pierce who was fixated by his dead partner. “It can’t be you,” Pierce said, incredulously. “You’re dead!”

  “Very,” Hawthorne’s voice said. “Thanks to you.”

  Mayer slipped closer to the fireplace. Though Hawthorne’s voice was ringing through the walls of Pierce’s home, it definitely wasn’t coming from Hawthorne’s ghost, which begged the question, where was it coming from? Mayer wasn’t sure he wanted the answer.

  The spirit stepped closer to Pierce and Pierce closer to Mayer, just as Pierce’s hired man came back into the room. “I’m . . . holy . . .” he blurted out, dropping the salt in front of him. Hawthorne turned, and swiping his hand from right to left, flung the man’s body into the wall by the door.

  Mayer seized upon the moment. He grabbed the iron poker next to the fireplace and attacked the ghost. It disappeared, then reappeared at Mayer’s side, but Mayer expected it and kept swinging the iron, passing it through Hawthorne, until the spirit, weakened by the iron, could no longer manifest. Then he ran to the salt, scooped it up, and returned to Pierce. He made a circle with the salt and instructed Pierce to remain in that circle.

  “Take this,” Mayer said, handing the poker to Pierce. “Ghosts don’t do well with iron.”

  Mayer looked to Pierce ’s man, who was just getting back on his feet. “You better get over here too,” he said.

  At just that moment, something came crashing through the living room window on the left, sending shards of glass in all directions. Something more beast than man, more coyote than human. Something Mayer had just seen that very morning.

  “My god, what is that?” Pierce asked, his eyes saucers.

  “A skinwalker,” Mayer said, his voice rising. “Stay in the circle and don’t look it in the eyes!”

  The skinwalker rose from its crouched position, rising high above both Mayer and Pierce. Pierce stook a step backward. The creature positioned itself, directly in front of the two men and as the light of a nearby lamp caught his eyes, they turned flame red.

  “What the hell is a . . .”

  Before Mayer’s client could finish his sentence, Hawthorne’s ghost reappeared and took hold of Pierce by the shoulders, lifting him high off the ground. Pierce dropped the poker.

  “How the . . .” Mayer said, then noticed the salt circle had been broken, likely when the skinwalker came crashing through the window.

  Pierce’s mouth dropped agape. Dark veins began to appear on his neck and he started making gurgling noises. At the same time, Pierce’s hatchet man rose and, standing behind the creature, took aim with a shaky hand. Mayer called out to stop him, but it was too late, the man began emptying his heater at the creature. Some of the bullets hit the thing, most did not. Mayer ducked as stray pills shot across the room. Some embedded into the wall behind him. Others crashed into chairs and vases, destroying items that cost more than Mayer would make in a year. One cut through Pierce’s shoulder.

  “Stop shooting!” Mayer cried out.

  The creature turned on Pierce’s man. It leapt to him in one swift movement, landing directly on top of his chest. Before he could even cry out, the creature had torn out his throat. While keeping an eye on the skinwalker, Mayer stepped closer to Pierce, who was now firmly in the grip of Hawthorne’s ghost. His
experience in the car and how quickly the creature could move was fresh in his mind. Still, he knew that if he didn’t do something quickly, Pierce would be joining his partner on the other side. His eyes had already rolled into the back of his head and the dark veins on his neck had overtaken his face as well. His body limp.

  Mayer bent down and took hold of the dropped poker. He was about to swing it at the ghost, when the skinwalker turned to Pierce and Mayer. It began a slow but determined walk toward them. Mayer drew the Colt from his holster with is left hand—thankful he’d been taught to shoot with both equally as well. Something drilled into him when he was first learning to shoot. “What if you can’t use your right?” the instructor had asked him. “Then what will you do?” Mayer thought it an inconvenience at the time, but was now thankful he’d listened.

  “Wanna have a go at mine?” he asked.

  As the skinwalker approached, Mayer took a tentative poke at the ghost with no effect. He stepped closer to Pierce, and as he did, he kicked up a portion of the salt from the floor at the ghost. The act weakened the ghost, causing it to flicker, and as it did, Mayer took a mighty swing with the poker. As he had hoped, the combination of the two broke the specter’s grip on Pierce; his body falling hard to the floor.

  Mayer positioned himself between Pierce and his two opponents—poker in one hand and Colt in the other, the fireplace to his rear. He turned his attention back to the skinwalker. The creature was blocking their only method of escape, and even if they could make it out the door, little good it would do against something that could outrun a car. It was still coming toward him, but taking its time to do so. Its gruesome face formed a smile; almost as if it was enjoying the show.

  Mayer kept his Colt in position and wondered how he was to aim at the creature’s neck without looking into its eyes. As the creature continued its approach, Mayer noticed something he hadn’t seen before. There was already a wound at the creature’s neck. A fresh nick with what looked like a dried yellow liquid.

  Mayer smiled. “Guess I got you last time, didn’t I?” he said.

  The creature stopped and placed a clawed hand at its neck, then looked back at Mayer with raging eyes. Once again moving forward. Mayer made sure not to look into those eyes for too long, keeping the Colt in position. He didn’t think it would work, but he was willing to try what the elder had told Shaman Mahkah. If he could get the creature to talk, he might have a better chance to take it out.

  “Afraid I might be a better shot this time?” he asked. “Or maybe you’re just not as bad as you think you are. You can’t get Pierce and you couldn’t get the shaman.”

  The skinwalker stopped.

  “Oh, you didn’t know?” Mayer asked. “Your little corpse powder trick didn’t work. The shaman is alive and well.”

  The creature’s mouth began to form words, just as Pierce cried out from behind Mayer. “What are you doing? Shoot the thing!”

  The creature glanced quickly down at Pierce and then back at Mayer, who pulled the trigger, but nothing happened. He pulled it two more times with the same result.

  Hawthorne flickered back into the room.

  “Do something!” Pierce yelled.

  Mayer threw the poker down at Pierce, reasoning that if he was alive, then he could darn well help. Then he switched the gun into his right hand, drew the knife from its sheath with his left, and readied himself for battle. He watched the skinwalker from the corner of his eye, until he too heard a voice from his past. A soft voice. A caring voice. A mother’s voice.

  “Prometheus,” it said. “Why are you doing this? Why are you wasting your life chasing ghosts?”

  Mayer turned his full attention to the skinwalker. “Mother?” he asked, unsure, at first, where the voice originated. He watched the as the creature finished its transformation right in front of him. Its fangs receded. Its ears rounded and moved down to the sides of its head. Standing erect on legs now more human than animal, it was somehow smaller, shorter than before, with a distinctly female face—one with the eyes of an animal. The woman in front of him was now naked, except for the coyote skins covering her back and head and the multiple markings and symbols decorating her painted body.

  “Yes, Prometheus,” the witch said. “It’s time to stop this nonsense. Time to come home.”

  Mayer lowered the knife and the Colt as well. “Mother?” he asked a second time.

  “Time to come home, Prometheus.”

  Tears were forming in Mayer’s eyes. He hadn’t read the letters, not wanting to hear his mother’s voice, even in his head. Not wanting to deal with the pain of losing her once again. But her voice had found him and the pain had come anyway.

  “Go ahead, son. Take the gun and move it to your head. Then you can come home.”

  The house and everything in it drifted away. Pierce was gone, Hawthorne had disappeared. All that was left was Mayer and the woman standing in front of him... and the Colt Python he had just purchased. A .357, double-action, magnum revolver, with a full barrel underlug, ventilated rib, and adjustable sights. He’d chosen the six-inch barrel over the four-and-a-quarter-inch to give it better velocity and less recoil, but also for the balance.

  He stared at the gun.

  “That’s right,” his mother said. “Now cock the hammer.”

  Mayer placed his thumb on the hammer and pulled it back until it clicked. The cylinder turned, positioning one silver bullet into the barrel, ready for projection once the hammer was released.

  “Good. Now bring it to your head.”

  Mayer didn’t want to bring the gun to his head, but he hadn’t wanted to cock the hammer either and yet he did. He did because his mother told him to, because the voice was all he could hear. Now his mother wanted him to bring the Colt to his head, so he did. He raised his arm and positioned the gun against his temple, his finger firmly on the trigger, and as he did, his sleeve slid back slightly, as sleeves tend to do when arms are raised, revealing his Helm of Awe tattoo.

  The female form in front of Mayer froze, and as it did, the haze occupying Mayer’s mind began to lift. The darkness surrounding him lifted as well and the room came back. Mayer removed the gun from the side of his head and stared at it as if it was some foreign object. He could hear a voice calling out to him—yelling at him. “Shoot!” it said. “Shoot the thing!”

  Mayer turned his head to the source of the voice. It was Pierce, now standing, yelling at him and clutching his shoulder.

  He turned back to the skinwalker. The creature cried out a piercing scream, then transformed a second time, back into the animal it once was. Grey and brown fur covered the body. Pointed ears sat atop an animal’s head. Yellow fangs reappeared where teeth had once been, along with eyes more human than animal. Eyes, that for the first time since Mayer had first seen them, showed fear. The creature took one last look, then leapt back through the same window it had used to come in, just as Mayer raised the Colt and pulled the trigger.

  Twenty-One

  MAYER STOOD STARING at the tattoo on his wrist. He wasn’t quite sure what had happened, but he understood one thing. The tattoo had frightened the creature enough to make it leave. It had also shocked the thing into releasing Mayer from its spell. He took the opportunity to shoot at it on its way out, though he doubt he hit anything. The skinwalker had gone away for now, but there was still one more issue to deal with.

  Hawthorne.

  He was standing there, flashing in and out like a television with bad reception. Mayer holstered the Colt, snatched the poker, stepped over what was left of the salt circle, and began swinging it at Hawthorne. Hawthorne tried once more, but didn’t have enough spiritual energy to fully materialize. Mayer easily dispatched the apparition with a halfhearted swipe.

  He went over to the telephone, dropped the poker on the chair, then picked up the receiver and dialed.

  “Who are you calling?” Pierce questioned.

  “The police,” Mayer said.

  Pierce took a step forward, then stopp
ed when he realized he was at the edge of the circle. “Please,” he pleaded. “No police.”

  Mayer held a palm up toward Pierce. “Don’t worry,” he assured him. “I know who to call.”

  After the line connected, Mayer, once again asked for Detective Fry. When the detective answered, Mayer said, “Found Hawthorne, well, sort of.”

  “Great,” said Fry. “You find a hole in the ground to put him in?”

  “Not quite. But I could use some of that help you offered earlier. I’ve got a bit of a situation here.”

  Fry sighed. “Give me the address.”

  Mayer did as requested and suggested the detective come alone. When he was finished, he hung up and glanced over at Pierce. Concern wrinkled the man’s forehead and embedded itself in the lines around his eyes.

  “You don’t need to stay in that circle now,” Mayer said.

  Pierce remained in position, clutching his arm.

  Mayer went to him. “Let’s get your fancy jacket off and have a look at that arm,” he said.

  Pierce nodded but didn’t move his hand, so Mayer did it for him. He slid the coat from the man’s shoulder, pulling it downward and off. Then he tossed it onto a nearby chair. The sleeve of Pierce’s shirt was stained with his own blood, a small tear at the top. Mayer grabbed hold of the shirt on either side of the tear and pulled, ripping the opening even wider. Pierce winced. The bullet had not entered his shoulder. It had only nicked the skin and the wound had already stopped bleeding.

  But it was clear Pierce was in shock, if not due to the near miss, then to the attack itself. Mayer went to Pierce’s bar and poured him a snort in a short glass. “Here,” he said, handing it to Pierce. “Better nibble one.”

  When Pierce hesitated, Mayer pushed the glass into his hand. “Drink it,” he ordered.

  Pierce looked distantly at the glass, then wrapped his fingers around it, before bringing it to his mouth, and slamming it down in one try.

  “Whoa, there,” Mayer cautioned. “Slow down with that.” He took the glass, refilled it, and handed it back to Pierce.