Dread Reckoning

by L. T. Phoenix

  “Y-you got it, Mister.” The engineer was almost tearing his cap apart in his nervous hands. “I got me a family in Sundown… you’ll have made them so happy, a-and I’ll only sign up for the passenger trains from now on. Promise.”

  “Me too,” the fireman promised, holding his shovelled leg. “Got me a wife, children.”

  Royce was surprised more than he should have been by the men’s words. The first time he was here, he’d never allowed them to tell – or perhaps he’d never allowed himself to hear – that they both had families…

  Royce had taken these fathers away from their families, each departing this world by an unforgiving pull of the trigger and the merciless bullet that followed. “What had I become…?” They were families that would never know their fathers to be penitent men, better men upon their return if only Royce had chosen differently. Who was he to be their executioner of his own beliefs? “Why was a moment of reckoning rather than execution not something I’d ever dealt before?”

  As the rift between the ways of Red Roy and Royce Falco widened, a church bell rang across the bloodied landscape: a death knell - tolled at the moment a person dies and their soul passes on.

  It was dawn when Royce woke next. He’d managed to sleep through his Last Midnight – well, as far as he understood what had been happening to him.

  Cornelius was still at his feet. After they take him to the gallows at 5 o’clock, Royce didn’t know what would become of his rat friend.

  Mortimer was back in his cell. Royce hadn’t been disturbed by the old murderer’s return. A penitentiary surgeon dressed wounds upon the wrinkled man with the unskilled assistance of McLaren and Reed.

  No… this wasn’t right, Royce thought… He had awoken to the sound of the clanging bell…

  When the guards stood him up, Royce could see that Mortimer’s bare chest and arms had been cut with strange lines that meant nothing to the ordinary observer. But Royce possessed some unwelcomed familiarity with such things.

  The old man’s rib cage and belly had been cut with three concentric circles that were crossed by three horizontal lines and three vertical lines, all as evenly spaced as a blade splitting flesh by hand would allow. Contrary to this symbol, though, whilst those lines were ritualistically perfect, the image was hacked by less precise cuts and gashes, spoiling the perfection of the Aetron symbol. Royce could see a pattern in the apparently random marks, the lines forming a bird of prey, if one were willing to see such a thing.

  Mortimer’s body was also traced with other cuts: bracelets of sliced flesh circled his wrists, monocles dug around each eye and a gash around the top of the skull as though he were to be scalped. Esoteric symbols etched in outwardly random places made no sense but to those that had carved them as art upon their living canvas.

  What had the plague doctors done to Mortimer? To what purpose?

  Royce’s one non-Falco brother had whittled an Aetron symbol from wood to be a small pendant that hung from a leather necklace. He’d gifted his creation to him as a gift years before. The last time he had seen that brother, the man had fallen from the once spiritual grace he had lived by with the Wakoda. Royce didn’t understand or experience Fate as his Wakoda brother had - perhaps a little fearful of such things due to his upbringing - but he gave the pendant back to its creator with the hopes that it may one day rekindle the spark of his sacred connection.

  Mortimer cackled. “They cut me, Roy.” He stood so the other prisoner could see better. Tears fell from his blood-circled eyes, but they were not tears of pain – they were tears of joy. “The plague doctors fugging cut me good. I could see myself in their covered eyes, like mirrors to my soul, their starving beaks and razor claws eager for my flesh.” Tears mixed with the cuts around his recessed eyes, creating diluted scarlet puddles. “It was bliss as I waited for my turn… but then that big bell tolled again.”

  “What did I tell you about going on about that stupid bell?” Reed forced Mortimer to sit back down.

  “You gotta admit,” McLaren ignored Reed’s reminder to the old man, “that’s some spooky shyt with the ghost bell tolling a second time, like we’re at some big cathedral funeral. Next up, I bet we’ll see that black cat again!”

  “Shut the fugg up, Mick!” Reed was incensed. “It was bad enough it set off all the prisoners in the rest of the Hole – you don’t need to stir this one up any more than he already is about it.”

  “Did you hear it, Roy?” Mortimer tried, the pain of his tightened wounds being treated showing through his wincing voice.

  “I did,” Royce answered, “it woke me from… something…”

  “You were sleeping like a baby, Falco,” McLaren laughed. “You didn’t wake up until we got this old codger back.”

  “Shut the fugg up. Everybody!” Reed was exasperated. “We don’t need Mortimer being any more difficult.”

  “You don’t understand!” Mortimer screamed. “I was going to have my turn on them, but that bell… that fugging bell!”

  “It won’t matter soon, old timer, it’ll all be over for you.” Reed was looking at the surgeon with a face that was commanding him to hurry the process along.

  McLaren continued to steer the conversation on against Reed’s wishes. “They said they had to do this to you, Mortimer, because you were infested with the diseased impulses of a murderer. Were they wrong?”

  “Isn’t hanging a man enough to stop him murdering?” Royce could see the plague doctors had really cut and beaten Mortimer, even parts of his face where the beard had been torn showed signs of brutalisation. The lunatic had been tortured. “Did they take their masks off; did you see any of them? Did they say anything?”

  To what end? Some ritual? If Kayne was involved, Royce wondered why they didn’t take him instead of Mortimer. Why not eliminate the only other contender from being the Seventh Son of a Seventh Son? Although, it didn’t matter, the gallows would finish the job anyway…

  “Con… Coo… Rah…” Mortimer didn’t chuckle, but his eyes bulged with delight as a grin spread across his face, disrupting some of the wound dressings that the surgeon had administered.

  “What, Mortimer?” Royce was up and holding the bars of his cell, facing the madman. “What did you say, what did they say?”

  “The plague doctors… said he would come… Con-”

  “Qonkura?” Royce saw Mortimer’s head brighten further with recognition. “Did they say, Qo’n’ku’ra?”

  McLaren and Reed looked at Royce with an odd regard, wondering what was just uttered, as Mortimer screamed, “He is coming, he comes forth, he is coming!” Reed hit the old man over the head with his wooden baton in response so the surgeon could finish his work.

  McLaren came to Royce’s cell. “Reed’s right; don’t stir him up, Falco. It’s almost time to go. I suggest you use the bucket if you don’t want it going everywhere when you hang.”

  “Thanks for that lovely picture in my head,” Royce replied, countering with, “What’s for breakfast?”

  “You know you don’t get fed before the execution… just emptied.”

  A priest entered the corridor of the cells. He was adorned in all manner of religious regalia and carrying a thick Bible with a prominent gilded crucifix on the cover.

  Royce’s mouth dropped: the priest was Charles Lafayette.

  Royce wondered if appearing as other people - this time in the waking world - was a common occurrence for the magician.

  McLaren nor Reed recognised the man that had performed card tricks for them the day before - or Clyde Mortimer, for that matter. It was just as it had been at the locomotive cab: only Royce recognised him. But there was no doubt in his mind that this finely-moustached clergyman was Charles Lafayette the magician.

  Mortimer babbled at a rabid speed, going on about how he deserved a prayer, and how Red Roy wouldn’t give him a pagan prayer, but perhaps he deserved a holy prayer instead, and that he should be spared the Void that the plague doctors had
spoken of, and so forth, and on and on, until he was finally out of breath.

  The surgeon was shown out by McLaren, having done as much as he could for Mortimer in the time remaining.

  Reed said to the preacher, “You’ll have to do whatever it is you’re going to do on the way to the courtyard. These two have got to be hanging at the end of a noose by 5 o’clock.”

  The preacher - that to Royce was the exact likeness of Charles Lafayette - performed the Last Rites while walking to the gallows. Just like the magician, he spoke eloquently, but asked no questions and offered no sympathies for the pair to be executed. He never faltered, despite the continued ravings of Clyde Mortimer.

  Irrespective of being led to his imminent death at the end of a rope, Royce was impressed by Lafayette’s ability to maintain this charade by never making a visible regard to him at any moment. If it wasn’t for knowing his face, the two would be complete strangers.

  It was difficult to comprehend the Rites due to Mortimer’s mad ranting and suddenly hearing Lafayette’s noble accent enter his head. It was a bizarre experience, like having a conversation with your own mind.

  Your Wakoda brother has passed your Aetron to one of his new allies, a young man from the East.

  “…Hallowed be thy name…”

  Those were the words that stuck with Royce the most, Hallowed be thy name, repeating in his head – much like God be with you had – along with the magician’s dialogue. In moments he would be led to his death, apparently unable to be freed from this outcome by the esoteric tricks of a man that possessed mysterious powers Royce could never understand, or even be sprung by the apparently ever-present forgiving powers of the hallowed name being read about aloud that he understood even less.

  “…For thine is the kingdom…”

  This new ally is a nexus; where past, present, and future strands of Fate entwine.

  “…And the power…”

  This nexus does not yet understand his place within Mysterium, but your good brother does… but, so too will their enemies, the nexus shining like a beacon in the dark.

  Enemies… The Law? Tycoons? The Army? Occultists? Royce hoped his brother hadn’t done anything too stupid in his absence.

  “…and the glory…”

  Fate bound them together around the arrival of this nexus. They are without worldly guidance against the oncoming tide over the West. And I, I could not remain with them.

  “…for ever…”

  You left them?

  Extend your protective vigilance to them, do more for people as well as beasts, become someone beyond what you believe possible.

  A tear fell from Royce’s face. But, I can’t… I am going to die…

  Did Red Roy not already die on that train waiting for his Last Midnight?

  “…Amen…”

  Fugg yeah, Amen to that…

  Thus shall it be.

  Just before entering the courtyard, McLaren bellowed, “It’s that black cat again!”

  Sure enough, Memphis crossed the path of the procession to the gallows, just before the open area where the reflective sheen remained from the previous night’s passing storm.

  And there it was…

  The dawn’s light of 5 o’clock was approaching and it shone upon the gallows, glistening against the soaked wood. There were two poles, both posts set with a hanging noose that waited inevitably for their victims.

  The Warden was nearby, a bored look upon his face as he adjusted his monocle. Royce noticed a number of ravens on the rooves, lining long corridor edges and perched upon the sentry tower of the rear of Hayworth Penitentiary. Matters became grimmer as the three plague doctors arrived, their ominous presence unsettling the gathering.

  The subsequent events were a blur for Royce, his mind racing as his time and his breath drew shorter than ever.

  They were on the platform.

  Mortimer had a black bag put over his head. The old man had become frantic. Breathing in and out rapidly, a wet circle dribbled at the mouth, real fear of his oncoming end manifesting. For the first time in his life, Clyde Mortimer was truly terrified… but offered no signs of repentance; it wasn’t in his nature.

  The last thing Royce saw as a bag was lowered over his eyes was a bunch of black birds and Charles Lafayette dressed like a priest.

  Someone was reading aloud their crimes as ropes were placed around their necks, the nooses checked. The lists were extensive, and no sympathies were offered.

  Warden Harry Linch observed the approaching hour upon his pocket watch as the executioner’s hands went upon the lever that would remove the floor of the gallows beneath those sentenced to be hanged.

  “It’s 5 o’clock,” the Warden told the executioner. “Necks must be broken!” With that simple command, the lever that held lives in balance was pulled and the floor gave way beneath the murderer Clyde Mortimer and outlaw Royce Falco.

  As Royce fell to his Doom, uttering his last definitive words, “Thus it shall be,” the mysterious church bell tolled again across Hayworth Penitentiary.

  When the third bell tolled, panic ensued as two condemned men fell through a parted floor - but they would not hit the ground beneath due to the noose around their necks.

  Every raven lined along the rooves and walls of Hayworth Penitentiary took flight when the bodies dropped and the bell rang, adding to the shock caused by the loud tolling while two people met their deaths.

  A dread sensation shivered down the spines of many.

  The plague doctors’ beaked masks turned to each other, then the guards, anxious for answers.

  “Hells fugging bells,” McLaren called to the other guard, “that’s a lych bell ringing!”

  “Who cares, Mick.” Reed didn’t.

  But McLaren did. “It’s a corpse bell, tolled after someone dies.”

  After Reed continued to ignore him, McLaren inspected the hanging bodies while trying to block one ear, leaning to shake the rope around their necks. “This isn’t Falco…”

  Reed’s face screwed up. “Whaddya mean?”

  “It’s a scarecrow!”

  Reed couldn’t believe his eyes, also seeing the straw stuffing coming from under Falco’s hood. “Are you fugging kidding me?”

  Mortimer was surely dead and hanged, but Royce Falco… gone… his body replaced by some farmyard effigy.

  The preacher signalled back down the hallway toward the death-watch area from whence they had marched. “Gentlemen, I saw the outlaw Red Roy running back into the prison.”

  “It should be his ghost running back inside!” McLaren spat.

  Twirling his moustache, the priest answered, “I wouldn’t know of such things…”

  As a much smaller gallows bell was rung, as an attempt to alert the prison of an escapee among the tolling church bell, the three plague doctors moved swiftly onto the gallows platform for what they had been waiting for.

  The trio inspected the stuffed straw in the prison uniform that was topped with a burlap head - the dummy of Royce Falco a very unconvincing duplicate. They looked at each other through smoky lenses, then moved onto the single body that remained. The three produced tools from under their black robes with gloved hands. Blades, saws, hammers and chisels, among others – the instruments of surgeons.

  The combined commotion of guards and bells caused more confusion than it helped among the overall heightening turmoil the entire prison was already under.

  As the chaos spread, the plague doctors were left to dissect the lifeless remains of the murderous Clyde Mortimer as a manhunt for the escaped Royce Falco inside Hayworth Penitentiary had begun.

  Royce Falco stumbled, suddenly aware that his feet were walking on solid ground. He winced as daylight struck his eyes, as though the executioner’s bag was lifted from his head.

  The intense tolling of the third haunting bell continued from Hayworth Penitentiary, a grim echo signalling that death had taken a soul.

  He im
mediately clutched the noose that should have been at his neck, instead finding no rope or signs that he’d been hanged.

  This wasn’t one of Lafayette’s weird dream trains, surely, because when he turned around his eyes followed the cobbled road leading all the way to the prison entrance. The old sign he’d observed when he first arrived still stood despite the storm, as it probably would continue to stand long after most of the prisoners had served their time or passed Beyond.

  Royce released a dull, “Fugg.” His first word after miraculously escaping the gallows. Shaking his head, he pondered the sign. “Last Road into Hell,” he read out loud. That caused a quiet chuckle. “Well, apparently it’s not…”

  He felt a squirm in the pocket of ordinary everyday clothing – not the black and white striped uniform he’d become accustomed to - and brought forth his rat friend. The creature looked healthier than ever. “Did you have anything to do with this, Cornelius?”

  The rat emitted a short chirp.

  “I didn’t think so, gotta be Laf-

  “Sunnuvafugginbidge-horse!”

  The sudden profanity was cussed alongside the snorting and squeal of a difficult horse, all followed by the sounds of crashing bodies.

  Royce pocketed the rat. He quickly descended the outer rise of the valley that the prison was built in to find an angry rider already on his feet at the side of a road flogging his downed horse with a belt.

  Blood boiling, Royce charged at the rider.

  He caught the next whipping motion inside his hand. The intense shot of pain fuelled Royce’s disarming of the makeshift weapon and his own subsequent returning strike with it.

  The belt’s rusty buckle smashed across the man’s face, his hat flying. Blood spattered as his body flailed further from the road.