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

by David J. West

  Ward shook his head, “Cats or coyotes. Nothing more. Good night, Mr. Rockwell. Remember, bar yer door for the evening.”

  Porter stepped outside and heard the bolt slam down behind him as he took one step from the door. It was full twilight now and a dark blue washed over the town. Most places you would see lanterns and candles blazing in windows but not in Wallaceburg. Instead, shutter and curtains were drawn tight and lamps were extinguished, as if no one wanted anything to know they were awake and inside.

  The streets were deserted and there was no sound as yet. Porter stepped toward the barn and just as he was about to close the door, he thought he saw an unusually tall dark-haired woman in a deep blue gown, walking between the church and general store. She stopped and looked at him, her head almost reaching the hanging sign of the store. He thought to call out to her and ask why she would dare the night when no one else would, but then a gust of wind and an eerie cry from behind had him whipping around with his sawed off Colt.

  He kept his pistol drawn for whatever was out there but spotted nothing. He turned back to look for the tall woman but she had suddenly vanished. He mused that she must have been returning home for the night just as he was.

  He shut and barred the barn door and retired for the night. Sleep was difficult as that eerie crying and calling continued randomly through the night. Just as he would be drifting off to sleep, the crying would come again and tickle the weirdest shiver through him. Porter never could tell what made the awful sounds but he was sure it wasn’t cats.

  Once just before sunrise, he was sure someone tried opening the barn door, but as he roused himself and looked through the crossbeams to the outside he saw nothing but a wisp of black shadow. Sure his eyes had played tricks on him, he fell asleep just as the sun crept over the horizon.

  By late morning Porter was awake enough to get up and stumble into town. He knew better than to expect to find a drink anywhere here but thought it couldn’t hurt to try. His personal flask was almost empty. The general store did sell Valley-Tan whiskey and Porter bought their entire supply of three bottles. Unsure of where to go to investigate further, he stepped outside and into some clues. A couple of older gentlemen were speaking.

  “Good morning, Brother Worby.”

  “G’morning, Brother Henslow.”

  “How’d you sleep last night?”

  “Not well at all I’m afraid. Too much of 2nd Nephi chapter 10 I’m afraid.”

  “What do you mean 2nd Nephi chapter10?” asked Henslow.

  “And you call yourself a scripture-reading Saint? Repent and go look it up,” scolded Worby.

  The older gentleman frowned but nodded and went his way presumably to read.

  Porter despite having been a saint near his whole life was not the scriptorian type and had no idea what was meant by the reference, but he supposed that young Timothy Ward could tell him, so he went to fetch the lad and his scriptures.

  As Porter strode on past the church, he wondered about the tall woman and looked about for where he had seen her standing last night. She had walked past where he stood even now and he noticed the height of the general stores sign and he was woefully shorter than it was. By his estimate the woman must be at least a foot or two taller than himself. That was something quite worth noticing.

  “Excuse me, I mean no disrespect,” Porter asked, a woman passing by, “but who is the big woman in town here?”

  “Big woman? You must be talking about the widow, Eliza Lay. Though I expect that whoever told you that must have been speaking metaphorically.”

  Porter wondered briefly if the twilight had made the woman look larger than she had been or played tricks on his eyes.

  “She lives right there,” said the woman, pointing across the street. “You’ll want to talk with her, she is the prophetess of dreams” said the woman, tugging on his arm. “Come, I’ll introduce you.”

  Inside the widow’s cottage, Porter sat in a small chair hardly big enough for a child. His knees loomed out and upward almost as high as his breastbone. He pulled a flask from his coat and took a quick pull, then sighed contentedly as the forbidden vigor splashed through his veins warming him all over.

  The widow, who was very short, approached from the kitchen carrying a fancy teapot. She looked more like a tiny grey haired child. She was definitely not who Porter had seen last night. There would be no mistaking her for the incredibly tall woman.

  The widow saw Porter’s flask and giving him a curt smile said, “You really should quit your drinking, Brother Rockwell. At your age you can’t afford to be breaking or even bending the Word of Wisdom. Health in the navel and marrow in the bones and all that. Try some of my dandelion tea. It will inspire you.” She poured him a steaming cup.

  Porter grimaced at the offering. “Afraid I haven’t been able to resist my drink since I cut my hair for Don Carlos’s widow all those years ago. But thanks’ anyway for your hospitality,” he said, pushing away the urine looking tea.

  “Maybe you are too old to change,” she said, with guilt-trip inducing resign.

  “So what can you tell me about Wallaceburg?”

  She leaned in close, almost whispering like she was telling him a great secret. “I’ve had dreams all my life, Brother Rockwell. I see things. I know the truth as it lies and what is beyond our regular mortal sight. I commune with those forces beyond the senses. Maybe sometimes I don’t understand it right off, but I do eventually.” She nodded with a pleased grin.

  Porter sucked at his teeth, prepared to hear a lot of balderdash, call it good and bid good day to her, but the widow took his hand and squeezed.

  “Brother Rockwell, something sleeping woke up in our little town. Something awful cold that has been resting here for a very long time. The spirits told me and I’ve had visions. Red eyes.”

  “Whad’ya saying? You fashion yourself like the Witch of Endor or something?” He chuckled to himself but she frowned terribly.

  “This is no time for jokes. I’ve seen red eyes in my dreams floating and flying about town at night. Red eyes within a dark formless shape coming from the church at dusk and flitting in through windows and cracks in the walls. People are stared at by those red eyes hungry like and they get sick, they waste away and those red eyes—oh, they only grow all the brighter after a person gets weaker and sicker.”

  “Red eyes, huh? Anything else you can tell me? Any clue about what is really happening here?”

  She slouched back, cross with him. “Brother Rockwell, we are a humble god-fearing people. We ask no one to support us or give us any undue help, but this is beyond what we can do and the Lord saw fit to send you here so I would ask that you conduct yourself appropriately and take of care of this trouble that is sore afflicting us.”

  “But what is it? I’ve seen nothing and you’ve told me even less!”

  “Brother Rockwell, I’ve told you everything I know.”

  His salt and pepper brows furrowed and he stood looking at her. “Something I can understand?”

  “I’m not sure what is a dreamlike metaphor and what is literal but I think you should look in the church for clues. I’ve seen those red eyes flying out of the church at night in my dreams for a reason.”

  “In your dreams. Red eyes. Right, they fly. I should have known.”

  She stood to look up at “You’re awfully belligerent for a Saint, Brother Rockwell, especially considering all the things you’ve seen and done in your lifetime. I’d expect you to be a little more conducive to the strange realities and know to ask the right questions.”

  “All right, Little Sister. These dreams and red eyes—what’s real and what ain’t?”

  Eliza Lay looked shocked. “Well, I don’t know that. I’m merely sharing my visions with you. You’re the one that needs to act upon them.”

  “Well then, earlier today I heard a couple of old gentlemen, a Brother Worby and Henslow discussing 2nd Nephi chapter 10. They seemed to relate it to last night. Any idea what that would be?”
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  She reached for her stack of scriptures and quickly thumbed through them. “It’s right here, Brother Rockwell. 2nd Nephi chapter 10. There is a frightful amount of Isiah 34 repeated in it. ‘And the satyr shall cry to his fellow.’ And comparatively in 2nd Nephi it reads, ‘And the satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses; and her time is near to come, and her day shall not be prolonged.’ I think this must be what Mr. Worby was on about.”

  “Satyr’s?”

  The widow nodded. “Foul things of old times still lurk in forgotten corners of the world, Brother Rockwell and I have no doubt that Wallaceburg is just such a corner.”

  “I guess I need to get some folk together, get some tools and take a look at the chapel and that foundation stone,” he said, tipping his hat as he went out the door.

  Late afternoon light washed over the town and the handful of folk gathered with Porter looked over their shoulders a time or two as the cool breeze licked at their necks and ears. There was Bishop Palmer, Henslow the organist, Thomason the woodworker, Jenson the blacksmith, Worby the bookish old man, and Mr. Ward pulling a block and tackle hoist. The Bishop unlocked the chapel doors and pulled them open with a great creak. A whoosh of stagnant air and dust fled outward, like phantoms escaping a stygian tomb. Inside, beams of sunlight angled down from three high windows toward the rear and shone down upon the pulpit.

  With an ashen look upon his face, the Bishop said, “After you.”

  Porter arched his brows at him and stepped inside. The others gingerly followed, tools in hand.

  Something flitted in a panic near the ceiling rafters, causing a shower of dust. It was captured by the sunbeams in a cascading vortex. Then all was still.

  “There it is,” said the Bishop, pointing toward the pulpit and foundation stone upon which it rested. “We’ve repaired it a score of times, but always the paneling is knocked away as if something pushed from the inside. But as you can see, tis only a crack an inch or so wide. Nothing could be in there. Could it?”

  The wood paneling was indeed shattered and lay in splinters some few feet away from the pulpit. Exposed beneath the pulpit was what appeared to be a great white granite stone box with curious glyphs running along it. None of which made near the slightest sense to Porter, but then he had never studied anything of the sort.

  Porter bent down to look at the gaping crack along the stone. “Dark as a box of smoke, in there ain’t it,” said Porter. He borrowed a lantern and held it up to the chink but could see nothing as the light did not penetrate the interior gloom.

  “I repaired the paneling just last week,” said Thomason. “Seems I have to do it again every Sunday morning before service.

  “Every Sunday?” asked Porter.

  “Yes. Even on a Saturday afternoon, it will be broken by Sunday morning.”

  The Bishop scowled at him. “True enough. I would have called him out on it except I watched him do the work myself.”

  “Why hasn’t anyone ever opened it before?” asked Porter.

  “Sacrilege, to tear apart our hard work from all those years ago,” said Jenson. A chorus of agreement swelled from behind him.

  Porter scratched at his beard trying not to swear or too terribly chastise them, but shook his head to himself. “Why not look into the matter here more?”

  “We had enough troubles outside the chapel at night, them cries and missing folk, and the sickness too,” said Mr. Ward.

  “Seems connected to me,” said Porter. “Should’a torn into this box long time ago.”

  “You don’t know that. There’s strange history here,” said the Bishop, rubbing his hands and looking for the same support the townsfolk had given Jenson’s comment.

  “Maybe the foundation stone is the center of all your ills. It should’a been opened.”

  Thomason broke in, “No, we simply built around it. We never thought to try and open it. Far too heavy and as you can see until the earthquake and the exposed crack we didn’t even know for sure that it was a box.”

  Porter held back both a chuckle and curse. “That’s funny, cuz over at the Ward’s place they have a similar enough type stone box like this. It’s just missing the lid. So these have to be near enough the same thing. Made by the very same ancients. A tomb maybe.”

  “I suppose so,” said Worby.

  “Well, let’s get after it,” said Porter, as he tore off paneling with his pry bar. The others joined in, moving furnishings and pews to work. It took some time and the dying of the outside sunlight was painfully obvious to all save Porter.

  Just as the last fingers of light fled from the church and the workmen were dependent purely upon their own lanterns, Thomason squawked in an unnatural cry.

  Porter wiped his brow asking, “What is it?”

  “I thought I saw something moving in there,” said Thomason, backing away from the looming crevice.

  “Where?”

  “Inside the box. I saw it through the crack. Something hairy.”

  “Probably just a rat,” muttered Porter, as he helped ease the pulpit from the rostrum. He didn’t want them completely panicked before the investigation was done.

  They drew off the pulpit and the rest of the flooring upon which it sat. From there they could see the exposed skeletal frame of cross beam rafters which had been built around the massive foundation stone, encapsulating it. Worse however was the dozen skeletal bodies moldering beneath all pressed up near the foundation stone. They were all bleached white bone, yet still in suits and ties.

  “Heaven preserve us! Who are they?” gasped Thomason.

  “Looks like all the missing folk. Dentweiller and Wilson. And that one there is Summers, I recognize his coat,” said Mr. Ward.

  “He’s right,” said Bishop Palmer. “It’s everyone who ever went missing.”

  Henslow asked, “But how would they get in there?”

  Porter snarled, and directed, “Let’s tear out the rest of the flooring and open that stone box and we’ll find out.”

  The demolition of that timber took little enough time and finally the lid of the stone box was free to be moved.

  “I’m still surprised no one did this before,” said Porter, with a grunt as he jammed his pry bar into the lip between box and lid.

  “Something I never told you,” said the Bishop, with cold sweat beading upon his forehead. “The old Indian that told Wallace not to stay in the valley also said we should never disturb the stone. We all swore to leave it alone.”

  Porter grimaced at that but looked to the exposed crack. “If something was trapped in there, it’s already out.”

  “Nothing could fit through there,” objected Henslow. Porter gave him a stern look and Henslow averted his gaze. “Oh, but the bones did somehow didn’t they?”

  “Let’s do this,” shouted Porter, as the mechanical hoist was moved into place. It took some doings to get the edges lifted up for the sake of purchase upon the stone lid, but they gradually managed by sticking pry bars under each corner and several men at a time lifting for all they were worth just to get the straps underneath.

  “It’s amazing what the ancients could accomplish,” said Worby.

  “This is nothing,” countered the Bishop. “The ancients moved mountains, built cities and monuments to last the ages.”

  Henslow pointing at the stone saying, “Well look at the size of this sarcophagus, they must have been ten feet tall!”

  “No one said this was a coffin,” said the Bishop.

  “Porter did,” Henslow retorted.

  “Man the jack,” ordered Porter. “Watch yourselves in case the stone slips.” He wanted them wary but not panicked, he had his suspicions already and unbuttoned the safety strap on his pistol.

  They cranked on the hoist lifting the lid an inch when a raven cawed, startling everyone. The teeth on the hoist’s safety gear slipped and the lid slammed back down.

  Porter cursed aloud. Most of the men looked shocked considering
they were in the chapel, but none dared say anything directly to him. “I’ll work the crank. You two, get that lantern ready. Keep your bars ready.”

  The Bishop held the lantern, while Thomason and Jenson stood ready with pry bars in case the hoist slipped again. Porter and Henslow cranked down on the hoists bar and slowly the lid rose. Rank air splashed into their nostrils in pungent fervor. It smelled like death and Thomason was the first to glance inside. He gasped and staggered back.

  “What is it?” shouted Porter, from behind the crank. The strap on the right end shifted, the raised lid blocked Porter’s view.

  Thomason shrieked, retreating toward the chapel doors. They slammed shut. Was it the wind or something else?

  Jenson tried to swing his pick ax at but was knocked across the room as a throaty dry rasping announced its displeasure.

  Porter let go of the hoists crank, dropping the stone lid. It broke against the stone box with a rumbling crack. Dust flew and two out of three lanterns winked out. The third was swinging wildly from the peg it had been hung on somewhere toward the front of the church.

  Thomason threw himself against the chapel doors with a wail, but did his panic or something else keep him from opening that escape?

  The swinging lantern gave only snatches of the macabre scene, as shadows swirled about in the gloom.

  Bishop Palmer had stepped farther away against the wall, a look of sheer terror on his face. Worby and Jenson were on the floor apparently unconscious. Henslow held a pry bar behind Porter waiting for the old gunfighter to act. Mr. Ward was nowhere to be seen.

  A black lithe form appeared. It was the tall woman Porter had seen the night before. She stepped away silently from the stone box. Any hope Porter had about dropping the lid on this mother of fear vanished. Turning slowly, she took in the scene and the aura of fear expanded greater than it already had. The swinging lantern slowed until it cast an even weaker glow in the murk.

  Thomason still scraped at the doors but they would not budge.

  Porter had to admit the colossal woman was alluringly beautiful despite the fear threatening to engulf them. Her voluptuous figure was contained by a scandalous black gown which revealed more of her ivory skin than the bawdiest of dance hall girls ever showed. The pale skin almost glowed in the lamplight while her lips were the most uncomfortable kind of red. Her long hair, dark as a ravens wing, cascaded down her exposed spine in wavy rivulets. Curious gold adornments wrapped about her wrists and waist while a tiara gleamed upon her frozen brow. Her nails like talons were painted crimson.