Cold Slither: and other horrors of the weird west (Dark Trails Saga)

by David J. West

  “Anyone speak American? Polly view English?” asked Porter, in his most barbaric of French pronunciations.

  Dark eyes flickered though all remained deathly silent.

  “I want to know what Bockkor knows.”

  The emaciated faces turned away.

  Porter lingered, hoping one of them might say something. “I’ll come back.”

  He recalled the sign over the local bordello, Maison Rouge, it was French. Maybe one of the soiled doves could speak it.

  “I’m here for a woman—” growled Porter, as he stepped through the door.

  “Ain’t we all. But you’re gonna wait your turn for the clean ones like everybody else,” said a tall man with crooked teeth. A laugh erupted from the half dozen dirty men sitting about the parlor. Egged on by their approval, Crooked Teeth cast his toothpick at Porter and grinned.

  Like buckshot, Porter grabbed Crooked Teeth by his lapels then slammed his right fist into Crooked’s nose. A swift knee to the groin brought Crooked down and just as quick, Porter threw him out the door.

  “—that can speak French.”

  “He can have mine,” said one, of the six before ducking out the back door.

  The Madame chuckled, “Oh, you’ll like Sabine. Right down that hall honey.”

  “Have her get dressed and meet me outside,” ordered Port, before he too went outside, stepping on Crooked Teeth’s hand as he did so.

  Sabine was the same striking woman Porter had seen when he first rode into town. She was curious and direct. “You’re the first one who has asked if I could speak to the runaways. Do you think they could know anything?”

  “Everyone knows something,” grumbled Porter, holding open the door to the sheriff’s office. The sniffing deputy waved them back. “Just find out if they know where Bockkor is.”

  Sabine rattled away in French and this time the slaves paid attention. One of the men seemed to argue a moment with her over some point that Porter could not follow.

  “They said why should they help us?”

  “Tell them that I swear to God, on my honor to get release for them and call them free, if they will help remove the curse. I ain’t asking for them to harm Bockkor or do anything to him, just help me remove the curse. Fair enough?”

  Sabine repeated Porters sentiments and was met with a stern reply. “They can’t or they won’t. There is no bargaining with them.”

  Porter ran a hand over his beard and contemplated a few moments in silence. “Did Bockkor curse them along with the town?”

  “No.”

  “Then why do I see the beginning of the ringworm spiral on that one’s arm?”

  When Sabine stared at the man who had the affliction, he howled in fear and the others joined in. A chorus of shouts and cries echoed in the tiny jail and the sniffing deputy came running up. “Let’s go,” urged Port, ushering Sabine down the narrow hallway.

  “What’s with the caterwauling? They didn’t do this when we locked ‘em up.”

  Porter shrugged, and led Sabine out the door while the jailed slaves yelling grew louder. “Maybe Bockkor abandoned them or maybe he isn’t behind the curse. Won’t know until I get it outta him myself.”

  Sabine sighed, “This was pointless. You don’t know a thing more on where to find Bockkor or lift the curse.”

  “With every blessing comes a curse. I have to think there’s a blessing after every curse too. I just got to find it.”

  Sabine shook her head and drew a bottle from her coat pocket. She drank two swallows and offered it to Port.

  He disliked the greenish hue of the liquor and asked, “What is that?”

  Sabine giggled, “Its Doctor Silas Worthington’s Nutritional Fantastical Medicinal Soma! I can’t say it as good as he can, he’s got this way of making it exciting. It’s really good, he makes it himself. I almost don’t feel the scabs and aches anymore.”

  “You getting better?”

  “I think so. I hope so. At least I don’t hurt like I did a day ago.”

  Porter nodded, “Small miracles.”

  “Where will you look for Bockkor?”

  Looking up at the gathering stars and fading pink twilight Porter answered, “Don’t know, maybe the woods below salt creek. I still need to talk to this Doctor Silas, or—”

  “—Porter!” interrupted Sabine, tugging on his shoulder.

  Standing not ten feet from them with a crazed grin and near glowing eyes was the man who must surely be Bockkor. A long wide blade dripped in his hand.

  Porter shoved Sabine away as he reached for his Navy Colt. Bockkor leapt with his blade arcing. The knife knocked Porters gun off target, but this allowed Porter to push inside Bockkor’s overwrought lunge.

  Grasping at the knife wielding hand, Porter sent blow after blow into Bockkor’s face and stomach. The frail-looking opponent threw Porter off as if he were a child. The strength coming from the older man was incredible.

  Porter charged again fists swinging, all in an attempt to reach his Navy Colt that lay in the dust at Bockkor’s feet. After being thrown, Porter was sure he heard the old man’s bones crack, but there was no reaction, no even faint grimace of pain.

  Wheeling into the fray, Porter wondered if Bockkor even felt pain? Perhaps not, but he could still be broken, still be stopped.

  Swinging back, Porter brought his full weight down on Bockkor’s knee. There was a snap and change in Bockkor’s gait but he made no sound and continued attacking, when he finally opened his mouth only a primal scream erupted out.

  Porter heard Sabine screaming and briefly wondered if it was because of Bockkor’s terrifying ignorance of pain, then he realized other bodies moved in the gathering darkness. Someone or something had opened the pestilent cabin that had caged the first victims of the disease.

  Trotting with the same unholy gait Porter had witnessed the crazed ram use, people stumbled, some barely ambulatory toward he and Sabine. He strained in the darkness for the lost pistol.

  Bockkor still attacked, snapping his jaws while he raked the air just in front of Porters face. His heel felt something solid in the dust. Dropping, his hand brushed over the familiar wooden handle. Springing back up, Porter shot Bockkor almost point blank in the chest.

  Bockkor hardly responded, clutching at Porter once again despite thick bile gushing from his chest.

  Porter shot again at what he guessed was the heart only to have Bockkor bat the gun away a second time. Retreating back to the sheriff’s porch as he was surrounded, Porter heard a terrible scream from within.

  Sabine glanced inside then slammed the door shut. “They killed him!”

  Grasping a four-foot piece of timber railing, Porter swung at the oncoming horror to little avail. Bockkor raised his blade when a trumpet blared seconds before shots fired.

  Wave after wave of gunfire birthed light to the darkness only to obscure it again with venomous smoke. Bockkor’s body shook with the terrific violence of multiple shots.

  Porter witnessed the insane ring-wormed victims take more hits than any human could possibly endure. Scrambling for his pistol, he instead dove for cover as shots were inevitably directed at him. Sabine screamed as she held her ears against the thunder of guns. Deciding on the lesser of two evils, Porter pushed Sabine back into the sheriff’s office.

  Three chained men stood over the deputy, who lay dead at their feet. Porter dove and grabbed a shotgun from the wall rack as the three charged. Porter was quicker, but held off pulling the trigger. “Back! Tell them to get back!”

  Sabine repeated Porter’s words in French and the three retreated. One of them protested and Porter understood their intent was freedom, not blood.

  Porter snarled, “Tell them it’s time for truth. The U.S. Cav is out front and Bockkor is dead.”

  Sabine repeated Porters words and the three opened up. “They say they can cure us if they are given the right ingredients.”

  “Out front the only cure is a bullet. They need a better story.”

 
“I believe them,” said Sabine, as one of the three took her Soma bottle away and cast it against the wall. “That was mine!”

  One mixed salt and water in a coffee can as another began offering invocations to his god and lit a small fire. The third took keys from the deputy and unlocked all of their chains. Porter watched the door, dumbfounded at the terrible carnage inflicted upon the town’s formerly sane residents.

  Once the salt water was warm enough to steam, the three men took deep draughts and shared it with Sabine. “How about you?”

  “I’m not sick, but if that works I’ll want some salt water for my horse.”

  “Juma says—”

  Porter interrupted, “Which one is Juma now?”

  “He’s the tallest one. He says you should drink it to be safe.”

  Porter grimaced. “Can’t I just rub some on?”

  “No, Juma says for the salt to work on Zuvembi, it must be eaten. They said something about Napoleon using salt on bayonets in Haiti and that it didn’t work, that the salt must be ingested.”

  Porter reluctantly drank the foul brew, he then noticed the gunfire had stopped. Cracking open the door, he gazed upon a horrific scene of crawling broken monstrosities feeding and the retreat of the cavalry in the distance. “I’ll be dipped. The U.S. Cav almost got something right, but they couldn’t handle all of these—whatever you called them.”

  Before Sabine could answer, several thunderclaps announced fires igniting all over town.

  Every direction Porter looked, flames encircled him. Worse, to escape the choking heat, the crawling staggering Zuvembi made their way toward the central sheriff’s office.

  “We gotta bar the door!”

  Pushing all furniture and materials against the doors and windows seemed frightfully inadequate. Scouring the deputy’s pockets and cabinets, Porter found no more than a couple dozen shotgun shells and perhaps fifty shells for the deputy’s revolver.

  “Better tell them to make more salt water,” urged Port.

  “There isn’t any more,” cried Sabine.

  The creaking of the offices floorboards announced the Zuvembi’s presence. All at once the windows and doors were broken and thrown open. A tangle of ring-wormed faces, some missing jaws or arms, others with gaping wounds all writhed together into the sparse room. Porter opened fire at select targets, attempting to slow down the horde. Through the broken windows, he saw the fires taking the town apart. Soon enough everything even half alive would be coming straight at him.

  “Get the keys!” shouted Porter.

  Sabine scooped them up just as the surging horde broke through Porter’s rain of lead. Two of the slave men were taken down as they struggled against the reeking mass.

  Pummeling aside staggering foes, Porter and Juma raced behind Sabine.

  The cell door still hung open in unwelcome embrace. Slamming the door shut, they realized too late that it was not locked. Porter jabbed with the shotgun and fired his last two rounds as Sabine and Juma tried to crank the key without being bitten. It clicked and then the three of them retreated to the back wall as every single space for an arm, leg or face lurched against the bars. Reaching, clawing, straining, the horde never stopped.

  They were safe, yet there was no sleep.

  The night air burned with a putrid choking reek. Within the cell, Porter, Sabine and Juma could hear the crackling fires as the town burned down around them. They wiled away their time breaking a Zuvembi’s arm or leg, anything to fight back so long as they could remain safe themselves.

  “The Cav is out there, I just hope we get a chance to let them know we are here and they don’t burn this place down to get these bastards.”

  Sabine was the go between granting conversation between Porter and Juma and explaining the root of the pestilence. “Juma says that they were bound as partial Zuvembi to the Tonic Doctor. Bockkor was his father, those others his brothers. All of them were taken in a raid off the coast of Haiti. They commanded a fine price between the occultists who knew their value.”

  “Value?” asked Port furrowing his brow.

  “Beyond being slaves, because Bockkor was not his father’s name but occupation. They create Zuvembi.”

  Porter shoved Juma, “You make them?” he shouted, kicking at another straining clawing arm.

  Juma heatedly responded but Sabine intervened. “They were forced beyond measure to comply with the devil man. And they tried to thwart him by not giving the proper ingredients for the Zuvembi formula. But something went wrong, the new ingredient made it worse than usual. Made them uncontrollable.”

  “What ingredient?”

  Juma laughed darkly.

  “The mushrooms that grow in the buffalo dung.”

  “I’ll be dipped.”

  Morning light shone through the haze of smoke and the Zuvembi retreated from the sheriff’s office. Porter waited a good few moments in case it was a trick before he dared open the cell. He signaled Sabine to wait as he and Juma crept soft as shadows to the front room.

  Out front, Porter heard men and horse. Glancing carefully around the corner, he saw the U.S. Cav running down or shooting the last few Zuvembi. They had learned their lesson in the night and shot out the legs of the Zuvembi before finishing them.

  “Hold your fire! We’re friendly’s,” shouted Porter, after he had instructed Juma to gain cover behind a thick oak desk. As Porter had guessed, his shout brought a volley of fire from the troopers. “You done yet? We’re friendly’s!”

  “Who is in there?” came the cold reply.

  Hardly above a whisper, Porter called Sabine to come forward before replying to the troops. “A waylaid Pony Express rider, a local proprietress and her slave.” He mouthed, “You explain it to Juma, just for now.”

  Sabine nodded and Juma accepted the proposal.

  “Hold your fire men, let them come out where I can see them,” commanded a burly captain astride a fine roan mare. “Do any of you have that flux.”

  Porter stepped out first with his hands slightly raised, Sabine and Juma followed. “No we don’t have the flux. As new travelers into the area we hadn’t time to catch anything and holed up in the jail cells to keep those fiends off.”

  The captain looked them over and Juma’s near nakedness convinced him that they were untainted. “My apologies Madame, but I’m afraid the town is a complete loss. But the scourge has been thoroughly eliminated.”

  “You sure?” asked Porter.

  “Absolutely, you have the solemn word of the federal government,” said the captain, as he curled his mustache. Behind him, troopers rummaged and looted what was left of the town. “Madame, if there is anything else I could do for you, you have but to ask.”

  Sabine asked, “How did you get here in the middle of this? Who told you?”

  The captain puffed out his chest, “A traveling tonic doctor apprised us of the terrible maddening flux. Good man, risked his life.”

  “Much obliged then, it’s all over,” said Porter, tipping his hat to the captain. Sabine went to interject as she gazed over the destroyed town. Porter shook his head. “Let’s bust a hump outta town before they want to know anything else.”

  Sabine whispered, “But it’s not over, what about the tonic doctor?”

  “True,” Porter agreed, “but it won’t be a help to have these trigger happy fools involved. Let them think they won and leave it at that. I’ll get the tonic doctor.”

  In a pouring rain, Porter strode through the saloon doors. He shook off the storm and asked the barkeep for a drink. The whiskey was especially sour but it had been an awful week and anything was better than the mud-holes he had been drinking out of the last two days.

  Though it initially had a foul tang, Porter felt better with another. All the ache in his bones was gone and even the sores on his feet went numb.

  Numb. That was the difference. He wasn’t feeling good; he was feeling numb.

  “Put that on my tab friend,” said a voice behind Porter.

 
Swiveling on his stool, Porter looked at the middle-aged, almost paunchy man with a sickening green vest and battered top hat. His face was unremarkable but a vile light burned in his eyes.

  “Have some more, all of it on me.”

  Porter fought the numbness as it turned into a searing pain. “And you are?”

  “Haven’t you guessed yet? I’m Dr. Silas Worthington. And you Mr. Rockwell,” he jabbed Porter in the chest to emphasize, “damaged my operation. I deemed it necessary to start over. But I had to clean up all my loose ends. The army was most helpful in that regard.”

  Porter was a master poker player but drugged as he was his face betrayed his sympathies. “Sabine?”

  “That French whore of yours, and my former slave, yes they’re gone now. Probably been dead since near the time you left them days ago. But you, you stupid gunslinger, you I wanted to know an excruciating pain before you left this world.”

  Porter doubled over in pain as his vision flickered to and fro. The top hat stretched and reached almost to the high ceiling of the saloon. The Tonic Doctors wicked grin spilt until it was almost as wide as the player piano.

  “I prepared a very strong dose, you probably don’t even see me as I am anymore.”

  Porter saw a demon-toad with a score of eyes wearing a top hat that glanced at its pocket watch and laughed. The mirror behind the bar loomed into eternity and black gulfs beyond beckoned like a satanic lover. The toad opened its mouth and a score of lashing violet tentacles grasped a crow-sized fly.

  “You were a famous man in some circles, legendary even. Some tales said you couldn’t be killed, neither bullet nor blade could harm you. Ah, but poison. I’ve given you enough to kill a dozen men,” spoke the demon-toad.

  Porter blinked at the pulsing taunting face and chuckled despite the crushing pain. “You think you got the sand to kill me? I’m blessed like Samson and I still got all my hair.”

  “You’re finished,” spat the demon-toad, through its maw full of teeth and tentacles. Its myriad eyes leered and its flabby slime covered hand slapped Porter. “You’re done. No one in the world could bring you back now.”