Reaper (#1, Duster and a Gun)

by Gregory Blackman

  “Get your hands off me!” he shouted, shoving me away “My family tree harkens back to the day of the great cataclysm… it’s a story that’s been passed down through the generations… from my pappy’s pappy and his pappy’s pappy… ”

  “I get it.” I groaned.

  “I remember what happened!” the old man said with his fingers drilled into his temples. “I remember the oath your people took. You’re a disgrace to their legacy!”

  “Now we’re getting somewhere. We agree on something…”

  “He’s a joker, too!” the old man scowled. “I’ve never met a reaper before… and now I’m glad you’re the first. I don’t think my dried up heart can take another blow like this.”

  “Do you know why we’re called reapers?” I asked with fists clenched. “It’s because nothing but death follows us. You think I’m some kind of savoir? Well, a day under my protection will change your perception of that one. Everyone that’s spent any time with me has come to regret that decision… and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. So, yes, old man, you should be glad that I’m the first reaper you’ve ever met. Let us hope I’m your last, as well.”

  I turned from my unlikely companions and began to walk back towards the ridge where Betsy was tied and waiting desperately for my arrival. An evil aura drenched this land and Betsy looked around nervously, as if she could feel it rising from the ground.

  I didn’t look back. I couldn’t look back. I was on the verge of breaking down and granting them safe passage through the valley, but it would’ve lost me the Abaddon’s trail, my whole reason for being out here in the first place. I felt for the old man and his young friend, but there wasn’t anything I could do to help them.

  I could hear the old man wheezing and panting on his way over. He staggered and he almost fell over several times before he caught up with me. He dropped to his knees and clawed at my duster, begging and pleading for me to have a change of heart.

  “Don’t do it for me, reaper,” the old man began. “God knows I wouldn’t want to be indebted to you anymore, do it for the boy, who’ll surely die out here without your protection.”

  “I’m listening,” I said with regret. “Say what you really mean.”

  “I can feel death’s embrace,” he admitted. “Its hands around my neck, it won’t be long now, reaper, and I’ll leave this boy alone in the world… you’ll leave this boy alone in the world.”

  I wanted to hit the old man, to knock some sense into his feeble mind but he was right. I couldn’t leave a young boy to face certain death alone.

  “Fine,” I relented. “Go get the kid… you two can ride the horse.”

  “Thank you, sir,” the old man said. “You’ve saved this boy’s life.”

  “And be quick about it. We’ve got a long road ahead of us.”

  * * * * * *

  We had been traveling for most of the day and the sun was about to set behind the ridge carved into the distant mountains. The shadows danced along the landscape smothering us in its deathly veil. It wasn’t a good place to be, isolated and alone in the wild, where the unsightly creatures crawled from their caves and stalked the plains of the living.

  The fire burned brightly, a deterrent to the scavengers only served as a beacon to those that preyed on the living. I needed to be careful here, and while Billy Godwin and his old friend lay by the fire, my eyes were open and scanning for shadows that shouldn’t move. Out here, everyone was suspect; even this pair that lay before me.

  “Don’t you ever sleep?” the old man asked, breathing raggedly. “You’ve been looking around for hours now.”

  “You’ve been awake the whole time?”

  “I’m near death, how much sleep do you think I’m really going to get?”

  “True enough,” I said, stoking the fire. “What can you tell me about this town we’re headed to?” I don’t like heading blind into a new place.

  “You fight demons for a living and you’re scared of some townsfolk, that’s rich,” he wheezed a laugh.”

  “I like a man that can laugh in the face of death.”

  “We’re headed to a place called… it’s called… hold on, I’ll get it. Oh, yes there it is… it’s called Jamestown! The boy was picked up on the outskirts of Jamestown.”

  “Jamestown?”

  “No, no, that’s not quite right,” he said with a finger pressed to his lip.

  “Jonestown?”

  “No… no, it’s not that either,” he continued, “I know I had it….”

  “Janestown?”

  “That’s it!” the old man clapped his hands. “The town’s called Janestown.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Absolutely,” he replied. “I remember it as clear as day… at least, I think I do.”

  I looked over at the young lad, curled into the saddle blanket for warmth. He hadn’t said a word since being rescued from the feeding den, and while I’d thought the distance would do him some good, it only seemed to further distress the boy. He pawed repeatedly at his matted hair, likely from the traumatic events he’s had to endure, running though his subconscious at a mile a minute. He was young, far too young to have witnessed the things he’s seen. Then again, so was I at his age.

  “What was the child doing on the outskirts of the town?” I asked. “Does he have a home there?”

  “Beats me,” the old man grumbled. “And I doubt you’ll get much more outta him, either. He’s a good lad, but not much in the way of lively discussion. No sir, not like yours truly.”

  “What of the others he was picked up with?”

  “Them?” he asked with astonished eyes. “Oh… yes, them! They were a much more talkative bunch, but mostly about survival.”

  “They mentioned nothing of how they were captured, or what they were doing on the outskirts of town?” I asked.

  “Well, let me see, now,” he mused. “I… I believe that one of the men was grumbling about something… ghouls! Or was that tools?”

  I was getting nowhere fast, and this geezer had long since passed his expiration date. “Get some sleep, old man,” I said, pulling my Stetson over my eyes. “You should really get to sleep.”

  I didn’t care if some fiend crept upon us; this old fool was driving me mad. Perhaps he would be dead in the morning.

  A sudden breath of wind soothed my soul after a long day’s journey. It wasn’t often that I was able to relax and get a good night’s sleep. Who knew, maybe tonight was going to be that one in a million.

  “Get some sleep, Horace,” said a voice in the wind. “You should really get to sleep.”

  Chapter Five

  Duster and a Gun: Reaper

  Gregory Blackman

  Nightmares

  My heart was pounding, matched in ferocity by that of my head, which was filled with mind numbing hallucinations. I couldn’t make sense of where I was, how I got there, or where I had been before. My clothes were ripped to shreds and my body marked with strange symbols and lacerations. All I knew for sure was that something was chasing me, something best left to imagination and nightmares.

  I had traveled through a forest as best as my muddled mind allowed, tumbled over a fallen tree and slid face first down a muddy hill. Yet, whatever path I chose to take, the monster trailed close behind. I could hear the monster in my mind, shrieking at me and urging me onward. It was as if the monster was sharing my thoughts, my fears. I could feel the creature enjoying the chase, almost as much as the inevitable conclusion.

  Its claws shredded the ground behind me as it snarled. It was goading me, pushing me in a direction of its pleasing before finally bringing me to my end. I wasn’t sure of the game the beast was trying to play, but I knew that I wouldn’t want to stick around and find out.

  I wasn’t sure if it was drugs or if my sanity had finally shattered. I suddenly emerged from the forest and into a meadow that overlooked a small village, nothing more than a backwater shanty town. I didn’t want to bring my problems to their door
step, but I had little choice in the matter and continued towards the bright fires in front of me.

  I wasn’t of sound mind, but I could’ve sworn the beast that hunted me was becoming more distant with each passing step as I passed into the village square. It was a good thing, too, because it was at that moment my legs gave out on me and I crashed to the ground my senses dulled.

  “Hey there pal, what ya doing on the ground?” a man asked, standing over me and prodding me with some type of stick. “Ya; ya don’ look so good, do ya?”

  He rolled me over, gave me the once over and helped ease me up. I didn’t know who the man was, but by the looks of him, he was nothing more than a simple villager; a yokel with no thoughts towards the divine, or the demonic.

  “We got to get ya to the doctor,” he grumbled. “Don’ worry… we’ll get ya fixed up real good—.”

  The villager screamed in horror and dropped me to the ground in a hurry at the sight of the fiend that hunted me. There was nothing that could’ve prepared him for this moment or what saving my life entailed. The beast let out a deafening shriek as bile and blood spewed forth.

  “I-I don’t know what the hell ya are,” the villager said with wavering conviction, “but around these parts, we dun leave one o’ our kind alone. Dun matter what kind o’ beast it is that hunts ‘im—.”

  The man’s defiant and barely understandable speech was cut short and he was thrown to the ground by the monster’s ungodly strength. I could barely see the beast from my prone and motionless body bleeding all over the cobblestones. It was just a looming shadow that would get to me any moment now. For the villager, however, it was almost over.

  I could hear the sound of teeth ripping into flesh and bone. He was being torn asunder, until there was nothing left except a pool of blood and gore.

  The beast’s shadow crept into my vision and threatened to end my life. Thunder crashed inside my head and it was getting darker and darker. I was ready to give up, relinquish my sworn oath and surrender to the inevitable.

  Good thing they weren’t so eager to accept defeat.

  “Get away from ‘im, ya fiend!” another villager shouted. He was rebellious and filled with boldness. There were dozens of them, they carried a wide range of crude weapons, but they stood strong together.

  “One o’ ya against a hundred o’ us!” a woman screamed, raising a pitchfork high above her head. “Go back to Hell and tell yer maker that there’s no place for ‘im here!”

  The mob charged straight towards the beast with little regard for their own safety. I could see only a small fraction of the battle from my position, in the middle of the square, but even that small sample of the carnage was more than I wanted to witness. Bodies were tossed aside one by one, some dead upon impact, and the others left to bleed out on the ground.

  The demon let out a tormented scream and flew off into the sky. I could hear its massive wings flap and see its shadow diminish as it took off into the night. The villagers had won, but at what cost?

  My eyes were getting very heavy. So heavy that I soon gave in and allowed myself the peace oblivion brings

  * * * * * *

  Every fiber of my body ached in pain. I could barely see through the fabric wrapped around my head, but I appeared to be in a log cabin. I remembered the slaughter that brought me here, I may not have been the one to send the dead to the afterlife, but I had played my role in their suffering. Because of me, many men and women didn’t tuck their children into bed that night.

  “Good t’ see ya awake, partner,” a man said from across the room. “Ya gave us all a nasty scare last night.”

  “Ugh…,” I groaned, using a hand to shield my eyes from the painful light in the room. “W-where am I?”

  “Grimsby. T’is a small, remote village on the Louisiana border,” the man replied, stepping into the light. “You’re ‘n Texas, if there was any doubt about that.”

  I could see from the man’s clothes that he was a doctor, but it certainly wasn’t a hospice and he was the textbook definition of a country bumpkin. He saved my life though, and in my books that was more than enough—though I might not be too keen with him taking a blade to me.

  I looked around in search of something familiar that might allow me to remember the course of events that brought me to this village. There was nothing, much like my memories, I was without a single piece of my recent past. There was, however, one item on the dresser of my prior life. It was a cowboy hat, charcoal in color and exactly like the one my father wore. It was a pleasant memory, of which I had very few.

  “Yer eyes ain’t deceiving ya, partner,” the doctor said. “This ain’t no hospital… and I‘m barely a doctor. Fear not, though, yer wounds were well within what’s been passed down ta me from my pa. Yer healing, I’ll say that much, at least… unless you go tearing up ‘em stitches like a raving fool.”

  “I-I… you’re right, of course,” I said, laying my head down upon the bed. “I’m not deserving of your kindness.”

  “Ah, don’t go quittin’ on me like that,” the doctor scolded. “Yer gonna need to fight if you wanna live, besides, you’re one of us.”

  “…One of us?”

  “The good ones,” he said. “Us human’s gotta stick together, ya know.”

  “You’re aware of creatures of the night?”

  “I’m sure big city folk don’t rightly talk much ‘bout it, but it doesn’t take, whatcha call it, book smarts, to know there’s something more ta life than what we’re told.”

  “They died… to protect me… a stranger.”

  “Yer damn right they did,” he said, “and their sacrifice will be in vain unless ya man up and fight for yer damned life!”

  The doctor shoved a concoction of herbs in my face and told me to drink up. I didn’t know what was in it, but after all they’d done, I couldn’t exactly refuse. If they had wanted me dead, they could’ve gone about in; less messy ways that didn’t involve dozens of them being torn apart by that frightful beast.

  “Do ya know what yer name is?” the doctor asked.

  “Horace McKidrict.”

  “That’s good,” he said. “Any idea what brought you here? Other than that monster nippin’ at yer heels, I mean. It ain’t like we’re on the map, or anything.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m getting the feeling that answers going to repeat itself more than a few times durin’ this con-ver-sa-tion, partner,” he said with a chortle, “All right, at least tell me the day.”

  “I… I haven’t a clue. Tuesday, does that sound about right?”

  “No, it’s not Tuesday,” he replied, “though yer only four days off.”

  He might not have been the best doctor, but he was humorous, and right now that’s exactly what I needed; .I felt the sharp pain and slow burn of a ruptured lung but it felt good to laugh and escape the despair that had plagued me for far too long now.

  “The year’s 2014,” the doctor said, “the month of October, to be exact—.”

  “No, it can’t be!” I cried, rising in bed despite the agony. “That’s just not possible. Two years… two goddamn years of my life… gone completely from my mind.”

  “You’ve got a nasty case of amnesia there, partner…,” he said unenthusiastically. “Two years is a long time ta not remember.”

  “That’s not possible,” I said my thoughts going to the beast that stalked me. I didn’t have a clue what the demon wanted, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to stay around here and wait for the rest of the village to be sacrificed in my name.

  “What isn’t possible is ya getting’ more than a mile before ya collapse to the ground. Like it or not, partner, yer gonna be here for awhile.”

  I fell back in bed, head pounding and groaned in agony. The doctor was right. I wouldn’t be going anywhere for awhile. I was in his care now.

  I would find the demon. It wanted me; it was going to get me, hopefully at full strength and armed with decades of experience and training. The doct
or may have been keeping me alive, but that single thought was the only thing keeping me sane. I would have my vengeance. I would have theirs, too.

  “So tell me,” the doctor began as he rubbed some alcohol on my exposed cuts. “Do ya have any idea what that demon was? I reckon yer the only feller who might rightly know.”

  “It’s called an Abaddon.”

  “A what?” he asked with eyes wide. “I should’ve specified English partner.”

  “I don’t know what language it was named in,” I said with gritted teeth, “but I doubt it’s a tongue still spoken.”

  “Why is it here?” he asked as he drew a sampling of my blood with some skill, what does it want?”

  “It wants me… for reasons that elude me.”

  “Oh!” the doctor hustled over to the dresser. “This was lying there beside ya… I picked it up and wanted ta give it ta ya.”

  “I didn’t have anything with me,” I said. “It must belong to another.”

  “No, no, it could only have belonged ta one such as yourself,” he said. “The woman in it is far too pretty ta have lived here.”

  The doctor handed a worn out photograph to me. He was right, the woman was much too beautiful to have been born in this backwater, but she was also much too beautiful for one such as me. Whatever the connection was, it cut through me like a dagger, one I would feel for many years to come.

  “I… I don’t know who this is,” I faltered with my finger lingering on the woman’s image. “I’ve never seen her before in my life… and the girl… she’s much older than two.”

  “Aye, that she is,” he said in agreement. “Perhaps more than just a few years have been lost ta ya.”

  “Perhaps.” I echoed.

  I placed the photograph as far away as I possibly could and rolled on my side. The pain was almost unbearable, but I would do just about anything to keep those faces from my mind. Whoever she was, no doubt the monster would have the answers I sought. Right now it only left another wound in my heart.

  “Aye, well I’m sure it’ll come ta ya soon enough,” the doctor said. “Just give it some time.”