Dead for good this time.
“If you kill us, I’m going to haunt your ass until hell turns into a skating rink,” Katy said to the scarecrow.
It chuffed with laughter, bits of straw flying out from between the stitched lips and spraying Jett’s cheek.
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Alex had used up the rounds in the Colt Python, but the goats still circled below him.
A couple had fallen, those whose limbs were clipped by bullets, but none of them died, despite shots that landed between the eyes or dead-on in the heart. Sure, the wounds slowed them down a little, but it also made them angrier, like a hive of bees that had been kicked. The marijuana they’d munched must have made them ornery instead of mellowing them out.
Alex adjusted his position in the branches and fumbled the AKR submachine gun into his lap. He kicked back the lever and surveyed the clearing. Weird Dude Walking and the scarecrow creep had been going at it like a Republican and a Democrat fighting over a defense contract, but now Weird Dude appeared down for the count. The scarecrow cradled the neighbor girl, the Goth with the black bangs, in his grip and Alex couldn’t risk a shot from this distance. The Smith widow stood with them, helpless as the goats churned and bucked around them.
He glanced around to see how the others were faring.
The handyman, Odus, was squaring off with another figure on a horse, like knights preparing for a joust. The gloaming cast by the headlights must have messed with his vision, because he could have sworn the figure astride the big bay horse had no head.
+++
Odus was skirting the groups of goats, looking for a route through them to the flat boulder where Katy and Jett were trapped.
The Scarecrow Man’s appearance had been a shock, but he’d considered the Horseback Preacher the true threat. Now, he wasn’t so sure if trusting Providence to deliver his instrument of conquest was such a smart move.
But when he spied Rebecca’s headless corpse astride Old Saint, galloping hell-bent for leather toward the boulder, he figured she was taking the horse to the preacher. And once mounted, old Harmon might just become too powerful for all of them to deal with, no matter how many guns they brought to bear.
Better head her off at the pass.
Odus couldn’t tell if he’d guided Sister Mary or if the horse propelled itself through some inner command. Either way, the paint pony offered enough giddy-up to break both their necks. As the distance narrowed, he got a good look at the thing riding Old Saint. He’d worked for the Smiths before Rebecca had been killed and always thought her the sweetest of ladies. Plus she cooked up a mean parsnip pie.
But now she looked to be serving up a different kind of meanness, one brought on by the anger of the grave. She seemed barely there, her head fading in and out, her cotton-shift body nearly see-through in the moonlight. But Old Saint looked massive and solid, a stud with rippling muscles and strong flanks. Twice the weight of Sister Mary, the horse was liable to knock them into next week, skipping Sunday on the way.
Odus was close enough to see the steamy breath pluming from Old Saint’s nostrils. Then Rebecca’s head materialized, her eyes like dark holes that ate everything that entered them, long hair fluttering out behind her. The gap in her neck flapped like a second screaming mouth.
He kicked his heels against Sister Mary’s ribs, but she was already at top speed, juddering his bones in their sockets as they thundered toward the unknown.
+++
Bullets flew and the people of Solom screamed.
Sue clambered onto the hood of the Jeep, the pick-ax in her fist. Hearing the thrump of metal, the goats turned again and leaped up onto the vehicle, trying to get a foothold on the dew-slick front bumper.
“About time you came to the rescue,” Sarah said. “I thought I’d hooked up with the wrong spunky sidekick for a second there.”
“I haven’t rescued either of us yet,” she said, digging the point of the pick-ax into the Jeep’s soft-top.
A goat gained enough traction to leap forward and nip her shoe. Sarah stomped on the animal’s head, bouncing it like a coconut and with about as much effect. Sue peeled a long gap into the canvas top.
“Climb in,” she said, and as she helped Sarah work her knobby limbs over the windshield and into the Jeep, a twin shriek of whinnies slit the night.
+++
The scarecrow was so fascinated by the showdown between the horses that he seemed to forget Jett was there.
Katy lunged for the sickle, jamming her hand between the blade and Jett’s flesh. If the Gordon/scarecrow sliced now, he’d take her fingers, but Jett might have a chance.
Fourteen hundred pounds of horse flesh collided and the forest shuddered.
For one long second, the animals merged, Rebecca’s head flying away from the impact. The spotted horse and the giant black horse were a tangle of knotted knees, forelegs, hooves, and stringy hair. They appeared to be one quivering mass of gristle and meat, stirred into a living soup.
Rebecca’s rickety rack of skin and the dry bone that wore her features became part of the orgiastic wad of insane magic, but Odus was thrown clear and rolled to a pained heap in the grass.
Katy forced herself to look away, despite the odd energy that crackled around the showdown. She tugged on the scarecrow’s glove and it slid a few inches away from the ragged shirt sleeve, straw spilling to the ground.
Stuffing. Nothing but stuffing.
There’s no Gordon in here.
Then the burlap face turned to look at her, the stitched lips stretching into a smile, and she realized she was wrong.
CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT
The scarecrow’s grip loosened as Katy clawed at the sickle, and Jett shifted and shoved against the nightmare creature.
Jett heard thundering hooves and thought a goat was charging. She looked away from the stone stage to see Rebecca mounted on a horse and galloping toward them.
She wore her scarecrow garb, the effigy they’d left in the back seat of the Subaru, and the white linen flowed out behind her like a burial shroud.
The monstrous horse grew more solid, his hooves hammering sixty feet away, then fifty, clumps of dirt flying in his wake. But it wasn’t just a horse—it was a roiling, suppurating mass with too many legs and a wild mane that trailed behind it more than ten feet.
“Gordon!” came Rebecca’s voice, and it was a voice that didn’t need a mouth—it seemed to pour from the gash in her neck as if forced up from the blackest depths of hell’s deepest well.
“I’m not Gordon anymore,” the scarecrow bellowed. “You’re as stupid dead as you were before I killed you.”
Jett realized Katy was pulling at the scarecrow’s glove, and Jett understood. She felt weird doing it, but she drove her hand into the gap just above the thing’s jeans, in the gap where the plain shirt met the waistband. She clutched a fistful of straw and raked it out, and the scarecrow roared in either pain or rage.
“I still belong to you,” Rebecca howled, her words rising about the frenzied bleating of goats around them. “After all, I was your first.”
Then Rebecca gripped the horse’s mane in her fists and tugged, urging the animal to leap onto the boulder. Jett barely had time to grab one more fistful of the scarecrow’s innards before Katy pulled her away.
Gordon tried to swing the sickle—either at Jett and Katy, the monster horse, or Rebecca, or maybe all three at once—but the weapon tumbled away, the glove still attached to it.
The horse slammed into the scarecrow, busting the plaid shirt at the seams and sending straw cascading to the ground. The horse stomped and kicked, a hoof mashing the burlap face into a lumpy mess and shredding the straw hat.
Katy hugged Jett and they rolled off the stone into the wet grass. Goat hooves padded around them, and Jett thought for sure they were going to get munched, but the animals tottered past them.
As they got to their feet, they discovered the goats had found a tastier treat: the scarecrow man.
&n
bsp; As Rebecca dismounted, the horse-creature dipped its long snout and sniffed at the straw, then pulled a bit of it between its broad, blunt teeth and began chewing, too.
+++
“Did you see that?” Sarah asked Sue.
“No, and neither did you. I don’t want to spend the rest of my days in the nuthouse.”
“You ain’t crazy. I guess you’ve just been officially welcomed to Solom.”
Sue brought the Jeep to a halt beside Odus, who was woozy but appeared to be in no danger of sudden death. Unless one of those stray bullets caught him. Sarah opened the door and crawled into the back, leaving room for Odus to crawl into the Jeep.
“Where’s my horse?” Odus said, as groggy as if he were on a two-pint drunk.
“I think it headed for greener pastures,” Sarah said.
+++
The goats grazed sedately.
The ones that were outside the pack eating the scarecrow’s straw were content to work the lush autumn grass of the clearing. The dew sparkled under the moon, and the dark bullet wounds in their hides glistened like eyes. The tableau was strangely beautiful, and Katy was sure she’d never see anything so mysterious again.
She wasn’t even sure she’d seen it the first time.
“You okay?” she asked Jett, kissing her daughter’s forehead.
“I…think so. Rebecca?”
“Gone like smoke,” Katy said.
“She got her revenge.”
“Only the dead can kill the dead.”
They picked their way through the remaining goats to check on Odus, Sue, and Sarah. Several corpses lay in the clearing, ravaged by bite marks. The bar light atop the deputy’s car still threw its strobing blue wash across the night.
When they reached the Jeep, Odus said, “You guys okay?”
“A few scrapes and bruises, but we’re still breathing,” Katy said. “As if that makes much difference in Solom.”
“Where’s the Horseback Preacher?” Sarah asked in a weary, old-woman voice.
Katy glanced back at the boulder, assuming he’d been eaten by the animals as well, but not a scrap of black wool remained. “I didn’t see him.”
“Me, neither,” Jett said. “I was kind of occupied there, trying not to get my head cut off.”
“I hope to God Rebecca took him down,” Odus said. “Two birds with one stone.”
“We figured the goats were the Horseback Preacher’s, but we were wrong,” Sarah said. “They were marching for that scarecrow.”
“Maybe so, but I’m not taking any chances.” Sue started the Jeep. “I’m getting out of here while they’re still occupied.”
“Wait,” Katy said. “What about these casualties? What about the police and the rescue squad?”
“Solom,” Odus said.
Katy nodded. She wondered how many times such surreal showdowns had taken place over the years here. She’d never be able to give a rational explanation for what had happened tonight. That one word “Solom” seemed as good a reason as any.
Other vehicle engines roared to life in the night, as if all the people awoke from their nightmares and were ready to return to their sleepless dreams in the valley below. The Jeep jerked forward and headed for the logging road, other vehicles already lining up to head back down the mountain.
“Let’s go home,” Katy said, throwing an exhausted arm over Jett’s shoulders.
“Wait a second,” Jett said. She took off jogging across the grass.
Alarmed, Katy glanced around, wondering if some new threat was afoot. She saw only their reclusive neighbor, Alex Eakins, who emerged from the dark forest and waved. Some sort of gun dangled from a strap around his neck.
“Hello, Mrs. Smith,” he called.
“Logan,” she said. “I never took Gordon’s name.”
“Guess you’re glad of that now.”
“I’m just glad to be alive.” She watched Jett bend over and pick up something, hoping it wasn’t a body part or some sort of talisman that would end up cursing them until the end of time.
“The government put on quite a show this time,” Alex said.
“What’s that?”
“You know. Secret genetic experiments, bullshit Black Ops maneuvers conducted in the name of national security.” He pulled out a cigarette, stuffed it in his mouth, and sparked a lighter. When he touched the flame to its tip, she smelled the smoke.
“Is that marijuana?” she asked.
He exhaled. “Live free or die.”
“Could you please…my daughter…she’s…”
“Oh,” he said. “Right. Morals and shit.”
He tossed the joint to the ground and rubbed it out with his boot. “Well, I better get to work. Plenty of firewood around here, and I figure Lost Ridge could use a controlled burn. If I do the government’s job for them, maybe the cover-up will slide on by without dragging us into it too much.”
“You’re going to start a forest fire?”
He grinned. “You won’t finger me, will you?”
“Good neighbors mind their own business.”
“You got that right,’ he said, turning and heading back to the woods.
“Who was that?” Jett asked, rejoining her mother. She held something round in her hands the size of a small basketball.
“A freedom fighter, I think. What have you got?”
Jett held up the head of the female scarecrow. “I figured we should put this with the rest of her. She’ll probably sleep easier that way.”
So will we, Katy thought.
CHAPTER FORTY-NINE
Arvel Ward opened his cellar door.
He’d spent a sleepless night downstairs, the bare bulb burning, the air ripe from the earthen floor’s odor, jars of jelly and pickled okra lining the shelves. As morning’s first gray light leaked through the narrow, high-set windows, the warmth of joy replaced the autumnal chill in his heart.
He’d survived.
The Horseback Preacher may have walked up the stairs and taken Betsy, just as the preacher had taken his brother Zeke all those years ago, but Arvel made it. Arvel was safe until the next round of the circuit, and with any luck and by the grace of God he’d find a natural grave before then. There was comfort in the sleep of dirt and worms, but until then he would get along as best he could, living right and keeping his tools clean.
Arvel went into the living room. The air smelled of damp smoke, which was odd because they’d burned no fire in the hearth last night.
When he’d gone into hiding, he’d forgotten his chewing tobacco, and the ache was on him strong. He opened the foil pouch with trembling fingers and stuffed a wad of shredded leaves inside his cheek. The nicotine bit sweet and hard.
He almost swallowed the wad when he turned and saw the Horseback Preacher sitting on the couch. Betsy had draped an oversize knitted doily over the back of it, and somehow the preacher seemed even more of an intrusion, sitting there among the tidy pillows.
“Not expecting company?” the Horseback Preacher said, thumbing the wide brim of his black hat. The preacher smelled of spoiled meat and rotted cloth, and his fingernails were dark with dirt, as if he’d clawed his way up from the grave.
Up close, Arvel could see the holes in the Horseback Preacher’s wool suit. There was no flesh behind them, only an emptiness that stretched as long as every nightmare tunnel ever traveled.
Arvel spat out the tobacco, but his involuntary swallow sent a slug’s length of bitter juice down his throat.
“It ain’t my turn,” Arvel whined. “Tuh-take Betsy. She’s upstairs, helpless as a cut kitten, and she ain’t going to put up much of a struggle.”
“Neither will you.”
“I didn’t mean to lie to you that one time,” Arvel blubbered. “I was just a boy.”
“You said you knew where to find my horse. But I found him without your help.”
Arvel backed away, wondering if he could reach the fireplace poker and if the steel bar would do any good against a creature that
seemed to be built of nothing. “You can’t take me,” Arvel said, nearly giggling in relief. “The sun done come up.”
The Horseback Preacher stood, tall and gangly. “I don’t make the rules, Arvel,” he said, adjusting his hat. “I only serve them.”
“Buh-buh-but you’ve already claimed a soul for this trip around.”
“I’ve claimed nothing yet. Solom has.”
“It ain’t my turrrrrn.” The tears were hot and wet on his cheeks, the living room blurred, and Arvel took in the familiar surroundings of his house, a place that he knew he’d never see again. At least, not from this side of the border between dead and alive.
“Hush, now, or you’ll wake Betsy. She needs her rest.” The Horseback Preacher gave a tired, benevolent smile and reached his long, waxy fingers toward Arvel.
CHAPTER FIFTY
Harmon Smith unhitched Old Saint from the lilac bush.
The horse was a little different, more robust somehow, as if a few of the years had been rolled back. A little rejuvenation by means of sacrifice seemed to do him good.
Harmon considered letting the horse munch on the fading, frost-browned flower bed a little longer, but Betsy had suffered enough already. She’d need the busy work to distract her from the loss of her husband, whose body lay cooling on the kitchen floor, near where the goat attacked Betsy.
If the authorities were summoned once they cleaned up the mess on Lost Ridge, they might rule it a heart attack, or they might say it was an accidental fall. Most likely, they’d say, “Solom.”
Calling them “authorities” was a silly, mortal concept anyway. Only one authority existed, and Its hand set the wheel in motion. But such things didn’t trouble the Horseback Preacher. His duty was given, and he was a good servant.
The Narrow Gate: A Supernatural Thriller (Solom Book 2) Page 20
