The Narrow Gate: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom Book 2)

by Scott Nicholson

  The sheriff stretched out his palms facedown on his desk. “Now, that was an open-and-shut case. Single-occupant car accident. She drove off in the gulley there at the farm one night and cut her head clean off.”

  “That night last year, Gordon bragged about killing her. And when a man’s waving a bloody scythe at you, it’s easy to believe such a statement.”

  “I don’t think any of us will ever know what really went down on the Smith farm,” the sheriff said, in a tone of veiled accusation as if he knew Katy hadn’t told the whole story. Or maybe he was just letting her know that he and Solom were just as glad if the real truth were never known.

  “I’ve heard the gossip,” Katy said.

  “Look, if some townies and farmer’s wives want to blame everything on the return of the Horseback Preacher, coming ‘round to reap some souls or whatever, then that’s okay with me. I did my job and in the end, justice was served. Maybe not under the law of the land, but some laws are bigger than a courthouse and a country sheriff.”

  “I just want to honor Rebecca’s memory,” Katy said. “We were both deceived by the same man. I’m sure you can appreciate the kinship there.”

  “Family mess, ma’am. One thing that never changes in Solom, Testers will be Testers, Smiths will be Smiths, and the Blackburn River just keeps sliding on by to the ocean.”

  “So whatever happens behind closed doors is fine as long as you don’t get accused of a cover-up?”

  His cheeks reddened with anger. “I’ve gone the extra mile for you and Mark Draper. Some folks would have been happy to lynch him, and others wanted to give him a medal and elect him mayor. The fact that he stuck around proves he has some pluck, but maybe you should kindly encourage him that it’s time to move on. I can work it out with his probation officer.”

  “Just like that,” she said. “It’s over?”

  “It’s over. If it ever even happened.”

  Katy stood to leave without waiting for him to play the gentleman and escort her out. “I’ll tell Rebecca, next time I see her.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Sarah Jeffers came to her senses in a dimly lighted room. At first, she thought she was in her bed on the second floor of the old family home by the store, because the light through the window projected a late-Sunday-morning quality. Sunday was her sleep-in day, and her headache might have been caused by a couple of tall after-dinner sherries. Her eyelids were heavy, so she listened for the ticking of the antique grandfather clock downstairs. She heard nothing but a faint, irregular beeping.

  And the smell was all wrong. Instead of aged wood, musty quilts, and cats, the room carried the crisp tang of antiseptic. She opened her eyes and blinked her vision into focus. The walls were white, unlike the maple paneling of her bedroom. The pillows were encased in vinyl and the bed was angled up like a lounge chair at the side of a swimming pool.

  “Back among the living,” a young woman said. “How do you feel?”

  “Get me a doctor,” Sarah said.

  The woman smiled. “I am a doctor. Dr. Hyatt. You’re in Tri-Cities Regional Hospital.”

  Sarah closed her eyes. Doctors were supposed to be male and gray-haired. How could this urchin know the least little thing about the workings of the human body? She didn’t look old enough to have ever pulled the legs off a grasshopper, much less gone through medical school.

  “One of your friends found you at your store,” Dr. Hyatt said. “You were unconscious.”

  “And that’s a bad thing, right?”

  “A sense of humor. Good. ‘Laughter is the best medicine’ is not just a section in Reader’s Digest. The claim also has some research backing it up.”

  “Then tell me a good one so I can laugh my way out of this thousand-dollar-an-hour prison cell. Let me out of here.”

  “It’s not that simple, Miss Jeffers. It is ‘Miss,’ isn’t it?”

  “I can’t lay around here during store hours. I got customers to see to.”

  “We ran some tests while you were unconscious. You presented symptoms of a stroke, but your EEG and CAT were fine and your blood pressure is that of somebody thirty years younger.”

  “Tests? Who signed for them? And why are these wires sticking into me?”

  “The gentleman who called 9-1-1 said you have no next of kin. We followed the usual procedures for treating an apparent stroke victim.”

  “But I ain’t been stroked, have I?”

  “Not that we can tell. We thought you might have suffered a blow to the head, maybe by a food can falling from a top shelf. Or a robbery. But the register was untouched and the store appeared to be intact. Your friend called the Sheriff’s Department and they checked it out. And you have no visible marks. My initial diagnosis is a sudden onset of reverse endorphins, a mild form of shock.”

  Sarah struggled to sit up, saw black spots before her eyes, and decided to try again a little later. “I hope somebody locked up. Half the merchandise will walk off otherwise.”

  “The deputies will take care of that. Your job is to get better.”

  The black spots coalesced behind her eyelids, turning into a shadow—a man in a black, wide-brimmed hat. She reached out for the doctor’s arm and clutched it, afraid the image would still be there if she opened her eyes. The beeping accelerated.

  “Are you okay, Miss Jeffers?”

  “I seen him,” she said.

  “Your friend? He said you were unconscious, but you might have been partially aware of what was going on. It’s not unusual during a fainting spell.”

  “No, before that. I seen him.” Suddenly she wasn’t in such a big hurry to leave Titusville and go back to Solom.

  “Just breathe regularly,” Dr. Hyatt said, patting Sarah’s hand until the beep marking her pulse became steady again. “Rest up. You’re not going anywhere for a little while.”

  That sounded good to Sarah. She closed her eyes and tried to block the recurring image of the man tilting up his chin until the wide brim no longer hid his face.

  Or what was left of his face.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Alex Eakins parked his pick-up at the edge of the woods, below an embankment along his property line. He finished the last of his joint and doused the roach. He almost tossed it in the ashtray for later, but if a cop found it there, that would probably constitute grounds for a search warrant. The fucking pigs were just that way, and they’d gotten a lot porkier under the nouveau fascism of the Bushbama regime.

  Fuck them all. Fuck the jug-eared, big-budget president and his totalitarian, snooping ways. Fuck the spineless liberals who curled up in a ball as they were kicked, and fuck even his chosen Libertarian Party for lacking the charm to capture the popular imagination. When it really counted, political action wasn’t broadcast babble and social-media bullshit, it was up close and personal—hands on.

  He retrieved his Pearson Freedom compound bow and arrows from the back seat and wandered to the fence. The Smith goats grazed and browsed among the scrub vegetation, eating blackberry vines, pine trees, locusts, and pokeweed, not caring what entered their mouths as long as it was green or brown. Alex considered having a neighborly talk with Smith’s widow, but that might lead to unexpected visits and nosing around, and then maybe a peek into the little shed behind Alex’s mud house.

  Besides, it was the goats that fucked with his garden, not their owner. So it was the goats that had to pay. Alex notched an arrow and tilted the bow, then pinched and stretched the string back, muscles straining against the taut arc of the bow. It was power, primitive and raw and heady. Or maybe he was stoned.

  The herd of nearly a dozen gave him a speculative appraisal when he’d parked, but the animals now returned to their chewing. The nearest goat was thirty yards away, peeling the bark from a bare sapling. It was tan and white, ears long and funneled, horns curved and short. The age of goats was hard to figure, since they got plump and grew beards before they were a year old, but Alex figured this one for middle age. Probably was bound for the mea
t locker this winter.

  Well, the day of reckoning was coming a little ahead of schedule.

  Goaticide, dude. In mass quantities.

  Alex sighted down the arrow, aiming just a little high to compensate for the natural pull of gravity. He was about to let fly when he sensed movement in a prickly grove of crabapples behind the herd. Somebody was walking toward him. Shit. Must be that redneck goon Odus Hampton, the odd-jobber who hung around down at the general store. Odus did chores around the Smith place in exchange for liquor money and crops, and probably harbored some sort of inbred devotion to his bosses.

  Mountain folk like Odus clung to the ideals their Irish and Scots ancestors brought to the mountains as they fled for the freedom of the Southern Appalachians. They were driven by a rebellious streak, but still measured themselves against the value systems of their oppressive overlords and would do anything for a dollar.

  Or maybe Odus was just drunk and rambling. For his ilk, all the roads led nowhere.

  Alex eased the tension on the string and leaned against the camouflage to wait for Odus to move on. The goats didn’t turn toward Odus’s approach, which didn’t make sense. If Odus was the one who regularly fed them, they should have gone running at the first sniff of his bourbon-sweet stench.

  Alex peeked from his concealment. It wasn’t Odus coming down the dirt path.

  It was a man in a hat and an ill-cut suit that was too short for his arms. He wore a ragged black tie that was cut in the shape of a cross, and his white linen shirt looked like a stained tooth against the grimy topcoat. His bony wrists were exposed, along with a couple of inches of pale forearm. He wore square-toed leather boots and his woolen pants were riddled with tiny rips and moth holes. His face was hidden in the shade of the hat’s oversize brim.

  Whoa. “Twilight Zone” material, weird dude walking.

  Alex debated getting back into his truck and driving away, but the man would probably see him carrying the bow. The stranger wouldn’t know Alex had been about to kill a goat, but he might tell the Smith widow about the encounter. She might report Alex to the sheriff’s department as a trespasser, and they would come with a warrant whether Alex was guilty or not.

  That’s just the way the fucking cops were, they made up a silly reason to investigate you so they could find something serious to bust you over. It was the same whether your broken tail light led to a drunk-driving arrest or a bogus trespassing claim got you nailed for illegal manufacture of a Schedule I narcotic.

  Alex decided to wait it out. Maybe the stranger was trespassing, too, and would walk amid the herd and head to the road. Weird Dude Walking could just walk the hell right on off the stage.

  But the stranger didn’t keep walking. He stopped in the middle of the herd, in a cleared area of trampled goldenrod and tickseed. The man tilted his head forward so that even the shadow of his face was hidden by the battered hat’s brim. He folded his hands in front of him and stood as still as a scarecrow. The goats stopped their ruminating and turned to him, one by one. The only sounds were the October breeze skirling dead leaves and the ticking of the truck’s engine as it cooled. Even the crows fell hushed in the high treetops.

  The goat closest to Alex, the one he planned to murder, took a few steps toward the man in the hat. It emitted a soft bleat. Another of the goats, farther up the hill, echoed the bleat, and then others joined in. It wasn’t the yearning bleat that hungry goats often made. These calls were gentle and almost tender, like the sound a kid would make as it nestled its mother’s teats.

  Weird Dude Walking slowly lifted his arms until they were suspended straight out from the sides of his body. It looked as if he were imitating a giant bird and would at any moment start flapping for takeoff. But his movements were slow and graceful, like those of someone at peace.

  The goats all moved forward at the same time, headed for the stranger. The largest, a fat old billy with a long, filthy beard, reached him first and sniffed at the wool suit. The man remained perfectly still, though his body seemed to relax a little, his limp hands dangling from the ends of his raised arms. Other goats crowded around, their nostrils flaring as they checked the air.

  The nearest goat bumped its nose against the man’s coat, then opened its jaws and took the cloth in its mouth. The man kept his head tilted and made no sign of movement. The goats squeezed closer, and now others poked their snouts against his skin. The big billy tugged on the coat, first gently and then harder, until a lower button popped free. The other goats nipped at the fabric, yanking their heads back with the clothing clenched between their jaws, their bleats growing more frantic.

  Alex wondered if Weird Dude wore worn some sort of scent that attracted the goats. Deer hunters would splash their coveralls with buck urine, hoping to entice does from the woods. Maybe the biotech corporations had invented a special scent to attract goats. Alex fell back on the theory that the man had fed the goats before and they associated his scent with grain or sugar.

  Desperate goat mouths ripped open Weird Dude Walking’s coat, the bone buttons sparkling in the sun as they arced to the ground. The man wore a flannel long john shirt underneath, but it was shredded in places and deathly pale skin showed through the openings. The goats tugged on the man but he kept his balance. Alex wondered why Weird Dude didn’t push the animals away.

  Like he wants it to happen.

  The man’s arms were pulled down, and one of the sleeves was yanked free. Two goats played tug-of-war with the wool coat, and then jerked it off the man’s back. The coat settled on a patch of dried-up goldenrod. Weird Dude finally lifted his face and Alex expected either the awe-inspiring expression of a Mushroom God or else a Charlie Sheen smirk. From fifty yards away, all Alex could tell was that Weird Dude looked sick, his skin unhealthy and sallow. But a smile creased his pasty face as he looked at the sky and endured the hircine assault.

  The goats became frantic, their teeth tearing the man’s clothes, and Alex almost left his hidden vantage point and went to the rescue. If Weird Dude acted in any way alarmed, Alex would empty his quiver of arrows into the goats. But his unnatural serenity caused Alex to watch and wait.

  Dude’s making his choice. None of my business.

  The goats ripped until Weird Dude’s flannel underwear gave way, and then one of the goats bit deep into the man’s side. The man should have screamed, but the smile didn’t waver as the goat worked its head back and forth, trying to pull the piece of flesh free. Another goat went for the soft portion of the stomach just below the navel and backed away, a string of meat dangling from its mouth.

  Alex gripped the tree in front of him, the bark scraping his cheek and his breath so loud he was sure the goats could hear it above their own noise. A mantra came to him, in a dull throb that mirrored his accelerated pulse: Not happening, not happening, not happening. And then came the syncopated accent beat: No way in hell happening.

  Instead of blood spilling from Weird Dude’s wounds, a milky substance oozed out, thick as cottage cheese. The goats bit into the man, and one butted him in the left thigh, causing him to lean to one side. A dirty brown goat grabbed the outstretched arm as the man tried to regain his balance. Its teeth clamped on the wrist and dragged the man toward the ground, the black hat flying from the man’s head and landing in the trampled vegetation. Once the man was on his knees, the goats clambered over him, rending the flesh of his neck and back. Not once did the man cry out.

  The goats’ bleats grew muffled as their mouths filled. They fed on the clabbered juice that leaked from the man’s torn flesh.

  Weird Dude Walking ain’t fucking walking anymore.

  Alex broke from the trance that seemed to have fallen over him as he watched the bizarre spectacle. This was no psychedelic vision, this was an ass-end-up slab of reality. He gripped his bow and arrows and stepped from his cover. “Hey,” he shouted.

  The goats kept feeding. Weird Dude was buried beneath the mass of dirty, furry animals that were now in a feeding frenzy. The bearded billy
backed out of the herd with a prize, a swinging slab of meat that looked like the man’s cheek. No blood leaked from the ripped skin, only a few dribbles of moon-white liquid.

  Another goat tottered away, dragging what looked to be the strip of a forearm, complete with gleaming bone. A third dipped its head into the downed man’s belly and came up with a swollen rope of intestines decorating its blunt horns like a Satanic Christmas trimming.

  Alex fought an urge to vomit. The vestiges of the morning’s bong hits faded. No buzz was deep enough to mask the insane scene that played out before him. Fuckers didn’t just crawl out of the weeds and get eaten by goats. Didn’t happen. Maybe in a video game, maybe in a shitty direct-to-video horror movie, but certainly not here on the slopes above Solom, where the Bible thumpers said God was closer than ever and the sky weighed three thousand pounds and the government didn’t meddle too much and NO FUCKING WAY IN THE WORLD WAS WEIRD DUDE GETTING REAMED BY GOATS!!!!

  Alex debated his options. He could charge into the midst of the herd and scatter them, but as much meat as they’d stripped from Weird Dude, Alex didn’t see any way the man could still be alive. He had four arrows, so he could thin the herd a little, except then they might turn their eye to fresh prey.

  And he knew how goats were—once they got a taste for something, they gobbled it until it was extinct. The third option made the most sense: back the hell away, get in the truck, and pretend this was all a hallucination. Forget reporting the incident to the authorities, because authority equaled government equaled search warrants.

  When he started the truck, one of the goats looked up from the corpse and stared in the direction of the noise. A couple of maggot-white fingers protruded between the twisting lips. The goat looked right through the windshield and met his eyes.

  Alex was probably just stoned—yeah, that had to be it—because there was no way the goat could have been grinning. Either he was stoned or else he’d cracked, and he was too rational to crack.