I fell back from the obstinate cadaver’s onslaught, and from the realization that my new opponent was the Monarch‘s captain himself. The insignia stood out clearly on his bluecoat.
The fellow had been a bear of a man, and his blood-flecked beard towered over me. Even after death his rallying power was great enough to turn this battle’s tide, lest I could slow him. Instinctively I parried his feints with my insignificant knife and cutlass, but his razor-like claws sliced through skin and nerve and sinew, and soon I was slimy with my own blood. But then my cutlass bit into his rubbery shell and black liquid spurted over my arm and hand. I screamed wordlessly, forcing myself to press the attack now that I had drawn his cursed, foetid blood. Another knife-thrust found his side, skewering it, forcing him off- balance. Then he drew his face to mine, and I thought the stench of the grave would claim me even if I could avoid his clacking jaws.
Our dance of death might have continued, but Hayward had somehow thrown off his assailants and now, having lost the hatchet, swung a plank to the side of the captain’s head. Another inch might have removed it from its perch on those dead shoulders, but the creature was thrust away enough for me to scramble out of his grasping embrace.
Hayward towed me to the dory and we rowed for our lives. I heard the remaining cadavers follow and sink into the cold, murky water, but I knew they would never cease coming. We weighed anchor moments later, and they haunt my every move still!
*
“What of Hayward?”
Forrester sighed. “He went mad, but I saved his soul for the price of a lead ball.”
A fanciful tale, I thought as he stared at me through unfocused, rheumy eyes and knocked back yet another measure of amber liquid fire, a tale evidently grown out of his drink-sotted delusions. Laughter nearly overtook me at the seriousness of his look - the edge in his voice - but I refrained when his many weapons clashed. Forrester was clearly unstable. What vile, irresponsible act had I committed, contributing to the drunkard’s imaginings with yet more drink?
“For your ability to suppress your amusement,” he said, removing the medal from around his neck, “I award you this cursed disk. May it bring you more fortune than it did me.”
He lowered the ribbon, letting the medal slap my chest, where it burned like a red-hot coal. Though I felt the urge to return it, I could not help but wonder - god help me! - what sort of poker stake such an item might purchase. Had I truly listened to his tale, I might have refused it, but in my possession it remains - oh, cursed disk, would that I had never set eyes on thee!
For then, driven by steady whiskey consumption and perhaps poker losses, a half dozen of the local toughs rose menacingly against the Indian he appeared to be and forced him to remove himself into the street, where doubtless they would attempt to tender some half-baked lesson in humility.
“Dirty slimy Injuns ain’t welcome here any longer,” snarled the bearded ringleader.
“Specially them who’s dishonorin’ Confederate medals and shit,” spat another, whose shirt-front sported fresh tobacco-colored stains.
Their mindlessly drunken cronies agreed with eloquent grunts. Fists were made and displayed.
The smile Forrester reserved for me as he lifted his bulk from the stool chilled my insides, so I inhaled a quick shot as the six herded him out the door and onto the plank sidewalk. Their mutters grew into taunting challenges, and I wanted no part of it.
Through the doors I heard the toughs’ insinuating drawls and Forrester’s low, measured near-Oxford speech. I felt shame, letting him face the town bullies alone, even if he was a drunken old Johnny Reb with a load of horse manure to unload on weary travellers such as myself. I fingered the medal. He had given it to me, almost rid himself of it, as if it were both the most painful and joyful act of his life.
Outside the voices outside climaxed into shouts and grunts, and I sent a hand crawling under my finely-trimmed jacket to grasp the pearl-handled Colt’s. Six toughs, six cartridges. I offered a silent toast to the genius of Colonel Colt.
The doors swung open and I realized that the fight had moved to the alley beside the tavern. I arrived in time only to shout at the toughs - “Leave him be, you degenerate saddle tramps!” - before I beheld the most incredible of sights.
Forrester stood quietly amidst four men, but the six muscle-bound inbreds who had rousted him were fleeing down the alley, voices receding.
“What in blazes -”
Forrester snatched the tomahawk from his belt and hurled it, cleaving the nearest of them in the center of the forehead. As the attacker crashed backward and lay still, I noticed his clothes - a ragged blue naval coat, half its buttons missing.
“Uh,” I began, but the other three shuffled toward Forrester with hands like claws, finger bones poking through rotting skin. They turned toward me. Even from where I stood I saw their closed eyes, their slack jaws and distended features.
Here was Forrester’s story, come to life. I realized suddenly that my right hand clutched my chest as if it could help my heart pump and lungs breathe. I felt for my pistol. Before I could grasp its rounded grip, Forrester had drawn the oversize Bowie knife from his boot and closed the distance between himself and the three, rapidly swiping the long blade over their jaws, snapping their heads backward and tossing them like rags onto the ground. As they fell, I realized that he had parted the heads from their bodies with his well-placed blade. The corpses - for that is what they were - twitched on the dusty ground, black matter and ichor squirting from jagged neck slashes.
My limp fingers released the revolver. Somehow I knew that even my fastest draw would not have saved me once caught in their sightless vision. All four attackers wore naval coats in advanced stages of decomposition, exactly as if they’d been buried until the very moment they ambushed Forrester.
I looked into his feverish eyes. He wiped his blade on a threadbare coat, then pulled the hatchet from the corpse’s head. It made a sickening sucking sound, and I felt the gorge rise in my throat. I had seen many a man’s chest torn by gunshot wounds, but never this.
“You are not suffering delirium,” he whispered in that Southern gentleman’s tone so uncharacteristic of a prairie Indian, nodding to himself. “I have made a good choice. You honor me with your intended assistance, Wheeler, requested or necessary though it was not.”
“Your story,” I managed to stammer. “It was …”
“True. Every word. Now you believe?”
“Yes.” There was nothing more to say.
“Take your weapon,” he said. His eyes glowed, and again I couldn’t tell if it was anger or the whiskey in him. “You will need it. Seventy-four remain. Good fortune to you.”
I bent down to retrieve the Colt’s, and when I stood he was gone. I have never been able to find him. Nor to relinquish the medal, which - I soon learned - cannot be wagered, given away, traded, or left behind, and remains a beacon to the Federal dead drawn to its owner, hero or fool.
*
That day I renounced my god and my religion and turned toward the cards as the only trustworthy truth, and my pistol as the only friend. The evil has dogged my trail into every city, town, and village. I have run, and I have searched for Forrester - all to no avail, since they now scrape outside my window while I line up my few remaining cartridges. Alone, the medal a noose around my neck.
“Save one for yourself,” I whisper, mostly to hear the voice of a human.
All thanks to Forrester, I remind myself, inserting the rounds in my pistol with shaking hands. Old man’s hands.
I know now that they will not allow my illnesses to finish me - no, they have come for the disk and for him whom they must kill.
It is nearly morning, and I intend to give a good account of myself. Dying here, in the mountains, is not a bad thing.
I remained a step ahead of them these twenty-four years, and have sent many back to hell, but they are tenacious. Their leader urges them on in my nightmares, his captain’s bars shining in the moonlight
. I hear his voice, now, calling to me from the porch. I know he cannot speak, or see, but his invitation is clear in my head.
I cock the revolver. The pearl-handle is smooth, and fits my hand like a long-lost friend.
The Yankee calls out to me.
“Come out and play! Don’t be a stranger. We’ve been looking forward to this!”
The words are in my head, but I can almost hear them.
My hand on the door, I hear a real voice - a low and painful whisper, a measured speech worthy of Oxford. I smile, for I have missed that voice. Its remembered qualities have stilled the heart during more than one endless night of fear and trembling.
“It has been a long time, captain, and I am happy to make your acquaintance again. Come join us, Wheeler.”
“Why did you curse me?” My voice cracks and the tears threaten. “Why? It was you they wanted, it was you who wronged them! Giselle was your doing!”
Forrester’s chuckle reaches me through the door, freezing my soul. “Giselle was a witch! As for the day you and I met - I was drunk, and I was weak. I had performed a blood ritual, taught to me by a bokor whose lust for gold outstripped religious fervor. I needed someone to take the curse from me. I aimed for one of those derelicts in the saloon, I swear, but you bought me a drink. And listened. You helped me when no one else would. And my time was so limited.” His voice loses some of its edge, then. “You must know, old man, I have followed you all these years and lent a hand. They assume you are Forrester, and they are easy to kill from behind.”
I make a sign of the cross. Maybe backwards, I’m not sure. It’s been a long time.
“This is the last of them, old man. I have killed twenty-six while watching your back.”
By my reckoning, then, there are thirteen maggot-infested bluecoats outside, and only the two of us.
When I open the door, I know well the tableau I will see before me, and in which I will take my place - next to Forrester, late of the Confederate Navy. But my last cartridge I will save for him.
My hand brushes the latch.
For Jules Verne and Tim Powers
* * * *
AUTHOR BIO
W.D. Gagliani’s Wolf’s Trap was a 2004 finalist for the Bram Stoker Award for Outstanding Achievement in a First Novel. It was followed by the novels Wolf’s Gambit (2009), Wolf’s Bluff (2010), and Wolf’s Edge (2011), all published by Leisure Books and all dealing with Milwaukee homicide detective Dominic “Nick” Lupo. Gagliani is also the author of the thriller Savage Nights and The Great Belzoni and the Gait of Anubis, both available in Amazon Kindle and other ebook formats. His fiction collaborations with David Benton have appeared in the anthologies Dark Passions: Hot Blood XXIII, Malpractice: An Anthology of Bedside Terror, and Masters of Unreality, as well as the ezine Dead Lines. Gagliani’s solo fiction has appeared in a variety of anthologies, including Robert Bloch’s Psychos, The Midnighters Club, Dark Spiral: Twisted Tales of Terror, Wicked Karnival Halloween Horror, Small Bites, More Monsters from Memphis, and numerous others. His nonfiction and book reviews have appeared in Cemetery Dance, Horror World, Chizine, The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, BookPage, The Scream Factory, Bare Bones, and many others. When not reading or writing, Gagliani listens to old and new progressive rock, collects strange weapons, and plays with synthesizers and his Theremin. Visit him at www.williamdgagliani.com, www.myspace.com/wdgagliani, and on Facebook.
HONORS
The story “The Great Belzoni and the Gait of Anubis” was listed as Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (20th ed.), Datlow, Link and Grant, editors. The stories “Port of Call” (from Extremes 3) and “Starbird” (from The Midnighters Club) were listed as Honorable Mentions in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (15th ed.), Datlow & Windling, editors. The story “Lead Me into Temptation,” from Shadowplays, the first edition of W.D. Gagliani’s e-book collection, was listed as an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (14th ed.), Datlow & Windling, editors. The story “Until Hell Calls Our Names,” in the anthology More Monsters From Memphis, won the 1999 Darrell Award of the Memphis Science Fiction Association, and garnered an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (12th ed.), Datlow & Windling, editors. The story “Icewall,” in the anthology Robert Bloch’s Psychos, made the Preliminary Ballot for the Bram Stoker Award and was named an Honorable Mention in The Year’s Best Fantasy & Horror (11th ed.), Datlow & Windling, editors. The two “Ghosts of the IRA” stories also won 2nd Prizes in consecutive Science Fiction Writers of Earth annual contests (Edward Bryant, judge).
* * * *
Copyright Information
“Icewall” ©1998,2000,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in the anthology Robert Bloch’s Psychos, edited by Robert Bloch. Later in Shadowplays (1st ed.).
“Lead Me Into Temptation” ©2000,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Shadowplays (1st ed.) and Wicked Karnival.
“Only Spectres Still Have Pity” ©1999,2000,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in The Grimoire. Later in Shadowplays (1st ed.).
“Kneel at the Shrine” ©1999,2000,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in The Grimoire. Later in Shadowplays (1st ed.), and in a promotional chapbook.
“Motion Purifies” ©2000,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Shadowplays (1st ed.). Later in Horrorfind.
“Make a Stone of Your Heart” ©2002,2010 by W.D. Gagliani.
“In the Shadow of China Mountain” ©1983,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Shadowplays (1st ed.).
“Port of Call” ©2001,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Extremes 3: Terror on the High Seas.
“Starbird” ©2001,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in The Midnighters Club.
“Deep Tunnel” ©1984,2010 by W.D. Gagliani.
“Institution Waltz” ©2003,2010 by W.D. Gagliani.
“In His Blindness To See” ©1998,2010 by W.D. Gagliani.
“Carried on the Wind” ©2005,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Wicked Karnival Halloween Horror.
“The Serpent Said” ©2003,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in The Black Spiral: Twisted Tales of Terror.
“The Great Belzoni and the Gait of Anubis” ©2006,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared as an Amazon Short. Now also available as a Kindle book.
“The Great Belzoni and the Monster of Goa” ©2004,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Small Bites. Now also available in the Great Belzoni Kindle book.
“We Were Like Lions” ©2002,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in Extremes 4: Darkest Africa.
“Until Hell Calls Our Names” ©1998,2010 by W.D. Gagliani. First appeared in More Monsters from Memphis.
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