He ran for his life, blindly firing behind him, and burst through the corn.
“Wait! Don’t shoot! Don’t shoot!” Hughes sprinted toward the wagon and out of the men’s range.
“Now! Shoot!”
They fired into the field. Twenty seconds passed and they stopped to reload. Hughes took up a perch in the wagon bed and saw stalks flicking from side to side.
“It’s still coming!” He looked around and froze. “Oh. My. God!”
“What do you see?!” Diggs, cocking his Derringer, climbed into the bed. He and Hughes, their backs to each other, turned in a circle, and saw spread across the cornfields five more colossal crosses methodically catapulting into place while inexplicably gaining mass. Five more times the ground quaked in succession, signaling the imminent release of vengeance. Diggs didn’t need a telescope to spot spindly figures dropping to the ground. The cornstalks wavered. They approached.
“Franklin, get your ass down here!” Lyle screamed. Franklin lifted his head, shrugged his shoulders and, almost appearing bored, picked up the shotgun and Noah’s Winchester that rested at his feet. He climbed down and joined the circle of confused men facing outward to cover all directions.
“Christ, why don’t we make their jobs easier?” Hughes ran for cover into the barn. Deputy Richard Ellison and Sheriff Clement joined him. The three surviving railroad men made for the house, leaving Lyle, Brendan, Franklin and Diggs by the wagon.
“Where’s Chandler?” It was Brendan.
Lyle aimed his LeMat and fired at the man hobbling toward a tall pine tree closer to the road. Noah, his hands still bound, ducked behind the trunk as the bullets whizzed by him.
“Leave him! If you wish to stay, be my guest.” Diggs scrambled for the horses’ reins. Franklin stood his ground, waiting to catch his first glimpse of the attackers. He kept the guns pointed to the ground. Lyle expressed no interest in fleeing and fired what he perceived to be precise shots into the maize.
“Here, let me.” Brendan disregarded his leg pain, pushed aside Diggs and climbed onto the perch, seized the bridles and released the brake. The crescent-mooned blade of a hand sickle slit through Brendan’s diaphragm. He gasped, slouched forward and grabbed the handle with both hands. A pitchfork skimmed over the horses’ heads and pierced the wooden seatback between Brendan and Diggs.
“To hell with this!” Diggs fled the perch and cowered behind the wheels. Brendan’s injury precluded him from controlling the terrified horses that thundered past the house and into the cornfield, carving a path of trampled stalks into the horizon.
One of the creatures, armed with a long, three-pronged hayfork, scuttled across the path into the stalks, moving closer to the rear yard.
Noah, from his hiding spot, poked his head around the trunk to see Diggs scampering into the house. Lyle, realizing the odds against him, holstered his LeMat and grabbed the white-hot branding iron from the fire. His hands flinched from the heat a few times before he snatched the dry end of a flaming log and joined the lawmen in the barn. Franklin declined to join Diggs and Lyle, and instead, eyed Noah. Rather than aim and fire to keep him pinned, Franklin lumbered toward the tree. Noah, not knowing if moving from his crouch would expose him to any number of sharp blades, stayed, deciding on whether to bowl Franklin over or attempt to reason with him.
Franklin loomed over the huddling Noah and propped both long guns against the spruce.
“Let me see your hands.” His voice carried no hostility, and Noah whirled to do it. Franklin fished a small hunting knife from his belt and cut the ropes. He then let slip the bandolier of Noah’s bullets he’d kept slung over his shoulder.
“I’ve had enough. If they take me, they take me.” Franklin sat similar to Noah, but on the opposite side of the tree so that he could view the show, and his potential demise. He made no move for the two guns leaning against the tree. “I’m so tired. I won’t be a part of killing no woman or baby.”
Noah fitted the bandolier diagonally across his chest and loaded the lever-action rifle to its capacity with thirteen bullets.
“I think it might be best to stay here with you,” he said to Franklin, who embraced his forelegs and propped his head on his knees like a child would.
“Or you could help them.”
“Your boss and the bastard who killed my boss?”
“No. Go help them.” Franklin nodded toward the barn.
One creature, wearing a white Klansman’s hood, laid its hayfork at its feet and with catlike grace scurried up the exterior wall to the closed hayloft door. It slid its fingers into a groove and ripped one of the double-doors off its hinges, letting it crash to the ground. It hopped into the loft to be met by gunfire. Noah and Franklin saw holes pop from the back of its tattered brown shirt. It mattered little to the thing. It looked down to one of its companions, a scarecrow similarly attired in ragged clothing but this one wearing a Confederate soldier’s cap. It grabbed the pitchfork and lobbed it to its brethren, who swiped it midair while pulling a sickle from its belt. It then strode into the barn to do its work.
The thing wearing the Confederate cap spotted Franklin, along with Noah popping in and out of view from the tree’s side. It cocked its head long and hard at Franklin and marched toward him.
It held a rusty machete at its side and brought back the blade to swing. Noah chambered a bullet and aimed.
“Don’t.” Franklin handed Noah the shotgun and let his body go limp, extending his legs before him and clasping his hands on his belly. “It ain’t here for you. I’d move along if I was you.”
Noah took the advice of a man preparing to die and ran past the fast-approaching scarecrow that focused on Franklin. Noah charged the barn and glanced a final time over his shoulder, seeing the thing swing the blade at Franklin. He turned away and shuddered when imagining the blood geyser being hacked from that mountain of flesh.
He stood with his back to a closed barn door, with the door next to it creaking open a tad. He braced himself against the frame and kicked the swinging door wide open to let in sunlight.
Noah prepared to turn and scan the interior but oncoming footsteps kept him pinned. Deputy Hughes, revolvers in each of his hands, sprinted out of the barn. He hadn’t seen Noah because Hughes was on fire—his right shirtsleeve ablaze. He dropped both guns and rolled on the ground to suffocate the flames. Hughes retrieved the weapons and stood, pointing the revolvers into the barn. He glanced left to see Noah aiming both the cocked shotgun and Winchester at him. He never had the chance to pivot and fire as Noah blasted the shotgun at Hughes’ chest, laying him dead on his back. Noah tossed the spent shotgun and pulled his Colt from Hughes’s hand. He loaded it with bullets from his gun belt before holstering it.
The blasts continued from within the barn. Noah peeked inside and saw Lyle and Clement hiding behind overturned worktables opposite the seemingly empty stalls. Toby’s wagon served as an added barrier in the middle of the barn. Clement and Lyle shot at one closed stall in particular. Hay fell from above the pen and Noah saw why: Deputy Ellison had snuck up the ladder leading to the loft while Lyle and Clement kept the creature at bay with gunfire. He kicked clumps of hay down and into the stable, and Noah understood the purpose when he saw Lyle holding the flaming log from the fire pit. Straw littered almost every part of the barn, and the enormity of the situation hit Noah as the log’s falling embers gave life to wisps of flame across the floor. Noah, standing outside with his view unobstructed, aimed his Winchester at Ellison and shot him in the gut. The deputy grunted and lost balance, plummeting from the loft into the stall where they’d cornered the thing. Clement turned and fired at Noah, who ducked out of sight. Ellison screamed. Noah turned and fired at Clement and Lyle, and out of the corner of his eye saw a sickle-wielding, clawed hand rising and falling from behind the stall door—relentlessly chopping the life out of Ellison.
Lyle, holding the burning log and b
randing iron, wriggled himself to the side of the table and hid behind one of the barn’s support beams. Clement timed his shots toward the entrance to keep Noah hidden. Lyle charged and unlatched the stall door, which swung both directions, and pushed with all his might to pin the thing against the stall’s side wall. Lyle repeatedly jammed both flaming objects into the trapped creature.
The flames grew and Lyle retreated as the thing shrieked and flailed its arms ablaze with fire.
“Got you, you bastard!” Lyle screamed as he ran for cover next to Clement.
Both rejoiced as the howling conflagration fled the barn, past Hughes’s body, almost making it to the water well before collapsing and burning to cinders.
The men’s smiles turned downward when the scarecrow wearing the Confederate cap appeared in the doorway wielding its machete in one hand and the pitchfork that killed Edward in the other.
“Take this.” Lyle passed the branding iron to Clement. The thing slid around the side of the wagon, compelling Lyle and Clement to slink backward. Both prepared to leap or duck, expecting the thing to hurl its tools. Their rearward progress halted when both backed into the ladder leading to the hayloft. The thing launched the pitchfork at Clement, who rolled sideways to avoid it. Lyle, log still in hand, took that opportunity to climb the ladder. The creature sent the machete circling toward Lyle, whose foot made it over the final rung a second before the machete split it in two. The thing reached behind its back to grasp a second machete it had tucked in his belt.
Clement took refuge behind the ladder and fired his revolver between the slats. The thing turned its attention to the sheriff and marched forward, unaffected by the bullets penetrating its body. Clement coughed and grew wary of the burning straw snaking throughout the barn. It was only a matter of time before they licked the support structures.
“Lyle! Do something!” Clement shuffled backward, conserving his bullets, thinking about how to escape if Lyle didn’t help him.
The tip of Noah’s rifle slid into view from the side of the barn door and pointed up. He rested his finger on the trigger, waiting for Lyle to play groundhog.
Show your face; you can’t hide up there forever.
Shattering glass broke his concentration and he turned to the farmhouse. Max, one of the men who shoved Noah before the branding iron, broke through a top-floor window, dangled by his fingertips from the sill and dropped to the ground. He braced himself so the fall wouldn’t break his legs. He rose and sprinted toward the road, seeing and ignoring both Noah to his right and Franklin’s body slouched against the tree up the path. He glanced back to make certain none of the things chased him, and began panting after hitting the half-mile mark, with only one small hill to go before escaping Toby’s property.
Max thought of Charon, the ferryman of the dead, when the gnarled thing wearing tattered burlap rags blocked his exit to the road. A floppy sombrero hid most of its skeletal face—but not the red eyes beaming underneath the brim that stopped Max cold. The thing had wedged in the ground the butt of a hefty six-foot-long, two-handled scythe, and hunched against it, lazily waiting for its prey to arrive.
Max quick-drew and fired, but the gun was empty. He focused not on the creature but on the long curved blade arching over its head.
You’re not leaving, Noah thought. He ignored the Mexican Grim Reaper and knew it completed its job when Max’s desperate scream cut short. Gunshots and sounds of crashing furniture continued from within the farmhouse. Noah wanted to finish what had started in the barn.
Clement, standing near the ladder, fended off the creature with the branding iron. The thing blocked his view of the sheriff, so Noah blasted his rifle into the loft. Lyle sprang to return fire, and in the process dropped the log on the hayloft floor, spreading flames around him. Noah kept shooting to confine Lyle, who reloaded, stood and fired at Noah while kicking mounds of burning hay from the loft, raining them down on the creature below.
Clement ran shoulder-first and tackled the distracted thing, landing on top of it and a pile of fiery hay. Clement pinned the creature’s arms beneath his knees and mercilessly punched its head while tendrils of flame ensnared the writhing thing. The heat became too much for Clement. His only option was to charge and shoot at Noah’s position while fleeing the barn. Noah spun and targeted Clement as he launched himself off the creature to run for sunlight and fresh air. A single shot rocked Clement onto his back, and his shoes almost made contact with the black-booted feet of the burning creature opposite him. His stomach throbbed and he tasted his own blood. He tried standing but couldn’t bend his legs. He tilted his head forward to see a fully engulfed spectre of fire rise like a vampire from its coffin at dusk. It crawled forward and smothered Clement’s body, wrapping its arms around the sheriff’s sides, allowing the fire to consume itself and the screaming man as one.
Lyle felt relief as the creature’s body disintegrated into itself—the sheriff’s pain be damned.
Way to take one for the team, Clement. Now I just gotta worry about Chandler and the smoke.
It was black and billowing as the fire spread. Lyle surmised Noah was good with the rifle and would pick him off, so the ladder was out of the question. Lyle spotted a rope and pulley near where the first creature had yanked off the loft’s exterior door.
Jenkins must’ve used it to lift hay up here.
He saw what he believed to be enough rope, and the intensifying heat prodded him to run. He holstered his gun and hugged the wall to hide from Noah’s view. He jumped and grabbed the rope with both hands, and his body fast descended to the ground, but at a safe-enough speed.
Noah whirled from the barn’s side and aimed into the loft. The pulley’s squeal caused him to look up and see the soles of Lyle’s boots bearing down on him. Noah forward rolled into the barn to avoid Lyle, who landed on both feet and drew his gun, firing it into the haze, hoping Noah would die within.
Noah hid behind a support beam and covered his mouth with his shirtsleeve. He looked to the daylight and saw Lyle running—first to the still-burning fire pit, where he snagged another log, and then toward Toby’s home.
Lyle in one fluid motion grabbed the front door knob, turned it and slid inside as two of Noah’s bullets burrowed into the door as he closed it.
Noah coughed as he fled the barn to take refuge behind its side opposite the farmhouse. The fire continued devouring the building’s guts and it would soon crumble. He loaded the last bullets from his bandolier into his Winchester and did likewise to his Colt. The fact that he had six bullets in the revolver and only one left on his gun belt did not go unnoticed.
He did some quick math in his head. Unless they’re already dead, Diggs is inside with two railroad men and Lyle. The sheriff and his flunkies are gone—well, ’cept for Preston.
Preston.
Noah thought of the name over and over, not knowing why, until it seemed to be echoing in his head. Deputy Drew Preston. Waiting to pounce in Henderson.
At that moment the farmhouse’s front door opened and out shambled a skinny abomination of bones and muscle—the individual fibers visible through a brown membrane that served as the thing’s skin. It wore overalls, a floppy field hat and nothing else, and it made its way along the path to the road. It carried a single hand scythe instead of the massive two-handled job that Deputy Hughes had seen it wield up close.
Preston.
The thing made eye contact with Noah from where he stood by the barn and walked toward him.
Preston.
Noah couldn’t prevent the name from appearing before his eyes—he even saw the letters that spelled it scrolling through his mind to the point where it consumed his vision. He shook his head to clear it and saw the creature standing five feet in front of him.
Noah kept the rifle pointed at the ground. He slowly crouched to lay it at his feet and then rose with his hands raised.
The thing’s eyes
reminded Noah of a blind man’s—glaring straight ahead seeing nothing. Only Noah knew this horror could see with the red eyes that flickered in the dark pits of its skull. It flashed yellowed teeth and moved its jaws, as if chewing or trying to speak, unleashing the pungency of decay. Noah caught sight of a black moldy stump in the back of its throat—where its tongue had gone missing.
Noah didn’t think to plead for his life. He didn’t attempt to explain he’d helped rescue Sarah and Isaac Jenkins. One word passed through his lips. “Preston.”
The creature nodded and sprinted toward the road. It passed the sentry standing guard by the farm’s entrance and ran in the direction of downtown Henderson, keeping off the main road, letting nature conceal it.
Noah followed its shadowy form flitting through the trees until it disappeared. He looked back at the entrance and saw the scarecrow there regarding him—deciding on something, Noah guessed. It made up its mind and pointed at Noah, who froze, nervously looking around to see if it could possibly want somebody else. The guard nodded affirmatively and repeatedly jabbed at Noah. It then withdrew its finger and pointed at itself, and then exaggeratedly to the ground it guarded. Scythe in hand, it pursued its comrade through the forest toward Henderson.
“Goodbye, Preston.”
Noah, realizing the thing tasked him with ensuring nobody escaped the premises, grabbed his rifle, and approached the farmhouse and its chaotic sounds.
He gripped the front doorknob.
Should I just walk in or sneak in?
He had no idea how many of those things invaded the house. Based on the gunfire and sounds of furniture and glassware breaking, Noah reckoned at least two of them must be in there with the four men. Maybe Diggs’s goons found a way to defeat them. Lyle figured out how, but Noah took solace in knowing that creating a fast fire would be difficult—unless they found some matches.
“I found some matches!” Lyle screamed from the ground level.
Sentinels Page 27
