The dream ended.
* * *
Sensation oozed back into my body as I awoke. A deep chill had settled in the meat of my bones. Every breath felt like I was inhaling snow. Maybe I should’ve been thankful for that. I’d been cut open like a Christmas goose, and I imagine the pain might’ve been unbearable if not for the numbing cold.
I opened my eyes …
And a dead man stared back at me.
Frank Cartwright-the cannibal who’d tried to kill me-lay not two feet away. His devil’s eyes were clouded over. His skin was as pallid as a sheet phantom. His bluish lips looked like a pair of frozen slugs, and behind them I spied the sharp tips of his teeth.
I jumped up, and a lance of pain shot through my stomach, almost knocking me right back down. Somehow, I kept from screaming-just barely.
“Easy now.” A firm, steadying hand grasped my shoulder. The stranger’s voice was deep, and his accent betrayed a Southern upbringing. “Most of your cuts weren’t that deep, and I patched you up best I could. I’m no sawbones, though. Wouldn’t take much to tear open that dressing and start you bleeding again.”
I ran my hands under my ripped and bloodied shirt. My belly was wrapped in bandages.
I glanced at Frank Cartwright, who lay still as a coffin nail. It looked like the stranger had searched the dead man’s body-emptied his pockets, removed his gun belt, undone his shirt, even pulled off his boots.
I wondered if his ghoulish pursuits had yielded results.
I didn’t ask what he was searching for, though, and I didn’t ask the stranger’s name. I had a sneaking suspicion I wouldn’t have gotten an answer to either question.
Cartwright’s too-pale eyes followed me. I shivered, partly because of the cold, partly because of the dead man’s fixed stare.
“I wouldn’t worry about him.” The stranger’s words were dry. “He doesn’t have much fight left in him.”
The gunslinger looked the way you might have suspected, the way men of his ilk were portrayed in dime novels-dangerous, menacing. Shadows crawled across his face. His eyes seemed to catch the feeble moonlight and hold onto it like a fly in a spider’s web.
I can’t say how long I was out. An hour, maybe less. I’d been dragged-along with the dead man-up into the hills. Large boulders and outcroppings of jagged stone offered a little protection from the frigid, gusting winds and the sweeping snow. Covered in ice crystals, the rocks glistened. Beneath me, the hard stone ground tried to leech what little body heat I had left. Above me, the sky was a churning stew of thick clouds waiting to dump a pure blizzard.
I struggled to my feet. My legs were unsteady, and my head pounded.
A saddle and bags lay on the ground nearby. From the looks of it, the stranger had been riding for days, and he had supplies aplenty to stay in the wilds for some time. A large stallion stood at the edge of the campsite. Its coat was as pitch as the night itself, and the animal was so still and quiet that it was almost invisible. It was the kind of horse I pictured a ghost riding in a campfire story.
Speaking of campfires, the stranger hadn’t started one. The camp was cold, dark. There wasn’t even a single stick of kindling to be seen.
I started to complain, but all that I could stammer was, “C-c-cold.”
“So you can talk after all.” He smirked. “I was beginning to wonder if Frank hadn’t cut your tongue from your mouth before I killed him. Move around a bit if you’re cold. That’ll get your blood pumping. Afraid I can’t risk a fire. I’d guess Friedricks and his men are keeping a lookout. I’m surprised the gunshots didn’t bring them scurrying out of hiding like rats in high water. They’d spot us for sure if I started a blaze, and they might even have a rifle or two up there. ”
He gazed into the hills, and I looked, too. I didn’t see a thing, but imagining those cannibals staring down on me with their gleaming eyes and chattering fish-teeth didn’t do a thing to make me feel any warmer.
“Why are you tracking them?” I asked at last. “You chasing a bounty?”
“Not exactly.”
One of his pistols near jumped into his hand, and I couldn’t help but stagger back a step. With a flick of his wrist, he snapped the gun open, checked the chamber, and returned the weapon to its holster in the blink of an eye. He repeated the act with his other pistol. Then he looked at me, sizing me up.
“I noticed a bunch of circled wagons a ways back. That where you’re from?”
“Yes, sir.”
What he’d seen was the final resting place of Newcomb and Judd’s Wild West Extravaganza. Once upon a time, it was the finest congress of cowboys, painted ladies, rough riders, and magicians to ever draw a crowd. That was before Mr. Judd died with consumption, of course, leaving that heartless cur Newcomb as sole owner.
“I reckon you got stuck in the snowstorm.” He nudged Cartwright’s body with the toe of his boot. “Bad luck making camp just in time for this lot to find you. Men like Friedricks, they don’t pass up easy meat. Now that they’ve found you, they’ll hide out in the hills, watching like coyotes or buzzards. They’ll pick every one of you clean to the bone before they’re done.”
I didn’t mention Newcomb’s arrangement with the cannibals.
The stranger had his secret, and I had mine … for the time being.
“You’re going to kill them,” I said, “ain’t you?”
The stranger’s stark eyes peered at me. After a time, he spoke, his words as cold as the deepest winter frost.
“I suppose I am.”
“Let me help you then.” I couldn’t help but feel a rush of sudden excitement. “I don’t even want no part of any reward money. Those bastards killed my friend … killed my brother … and I aim to see them dead. I have a gun-”
My fingers strayed to my belt where Colt McGregor’s pistol should’ve been. The weapon was missing, and I suddenly remembered dropping the revolver in the snow. Had it been left behind? I glanced frantically around the camp.
“Looking for this?”
The stranger drew McGregor’s pistol from his own bullet-studded belt. He turned the gun over in his hand deftly, then tossed it to me. The weapon spun in the air, glinting, and I caught it in both hands. The gun felt heavier than I remembered, and I almost dropped it once again.
“You don’t strike me as someone who goes heeled often,” the stranger said. “Where’d you get the six-shooter, kid?”
I looked down, embarrassed. “I stole it, I reckon.”
“So, you’re a killer and a thief, is that it?”
There was no judgment in his words.
“I may not be a gunfighter.” I gripped McGregor’s pistol tightly. “But this gun once belonged to the deadliest shootist to ever pull a trigger. I figured-”
He sensed where I was head and interrupted me.
“Son, I know a thing or two about magic guns … and that ain’t one of them.”
My gut told me the stranger knew what he was talking about. The gun seemed to gain twenty pounds in my hands. My shoulders sagged.
“Just the same,” I said, “I’m gonna make those men pay.”
“Men …” He nearly spat the word from his mouth. “Let me ask you something, boy. Did you get a good look at Cartwright’s teeth?”
“I saw them up close and personal.”
“And did they look like teeth that belonged in the mouth of a normal man?”
I looked at Cartwright, then back at the stranger. “What is he then, if not a man?”
“There are a lot of stories.” The stranger shrugged. “Most of them don’t hold water. But the bad stories, the really frightening ones … More often than not there’s at least a little truth to them. There’s a legend that says when one man eats the flesh of another, then that man invites an evil spirit to take up in his soul. It’s like a hungry worm, this spirit, wriggling around inside its host, and it wants nothing more than to taste human flesh again. And what the spirit wants, the host wants.”
“And Friedricks and h
is men, they’ve got these things inside them?”
“Maybe so. During the war, they did some awful things, and now it might be catching up with them. They’re changing, becoming less like men and more like the spirits growing inside them.”
“You’re saying they’re …” I didn’t want to speak the word. “… monsters.”
“I’m saying you’ll be walking into a world of trouble if you come with me.”
“I ain’t scared,” I lied.
Maybe the gunfighter knew there was no sense in arguing with me. If he left me behind, I’d just follow him. Or maybe he was just coppering his chances by bringing an extra gun … and an extra body along.
Just then, a strong gust cut between the rocks, and Cartwright’s shirt blew open.
There was something wrong with the dead man’s stomach. Several large, dark bruises covered his pale flesh. From each of the bruises radiated numerous winding veins, like black rivers across his skin. His belly was distended, like that of a snake that had just raided an overfull chicken nest. Something knobby and boney pressed against the skin from within.
“What is that?” I asked. “What’s wrong with him?”
“I don’t know,” the stranger answered. “Maybe he was sick.”
But that didn’t look like no disease I’d ever heard about.
“Forget about that,” the stranger said. “You’d best get real comfortable with that revolver of yours … and fast. We’re heading up into the hills shortly, and I expect there’ll be … bloodshed.”
I barely heard him. I couldn’t take my eyes off the horrible bruises and protrusions on Cartwright’s flesh.
It looked like something had been trying to force its way out of the dead man’s guts.
* * *
Here’s what I didn’t tell the stranger about Newcomb and the cannibals:
Not long after the second person was taken from camp, Newcomb, who saw himself as a shepherd, came up with a plan he thought would help his flock survive until the thaw. Dressed in one of his finest black suits, he called the camp to meeting, where he stood on one of the barking stages and addressed the crowd.
“We’ve already lost a dear, dear friend in Ezra,” he started.
My blood boiled at that, seeing how Newcomb had never kept his hatred of Old Ezra a secret.
“And now,” he continued, “our sweet–” He paused, searching his memory for the girl’s name. “–Emily has been taken from us as well.”
Cries for action rose from the crowd, but the big boss raised a pudgy hand and waved for silence. He’d been barking since long before I was born, and those old skills came easy to him as he spoke to the carnies gathered before him.
“If we fight back, those men will murder every last one of us. If we try to run, they’ll catch us and gun us down right there in the snow.”
The crowd moaned with despair.
“But all is not lost! We might not be able to slay the dragon, and we might not be able to escape its fiery breath, but we can make offerings to appease the beast lest we all suffer a gruesome fate!”
I didn’t have a clue what he was going on about, and neither did anyone else. That’s the way Newcomb liked it, I figured. He took our confusion and our anger and our fear and worked us up into a frenzy until he had near about everyone agreeing with every word he said… whether they understood it or not.
“I’m not saying this won’t be painful,” he said. “We must all make sacrifices. But at least the camp might thrive, albeit with grief and sorrow in our hearts!”
And so we started the lottery.
Within a few days, a tree trunk post had been raised at the outskirts of camp, and everyone had scrawled their name on a slip of paper gathered in Newcomb’s old top hat. Only Newcomb himself was allowed to draw a name, and he did so every few days.
The lottery was wrong, but no one spoke up against it.
They knew better.
We marched our friends and family out to that post and left them tied out there, waiting to be snatched up and eaten. Sometimes, we left gifts, too–blankets, canned fruit, heirlooms and other valuables–all in hopes the cannibals wouldn’t attack us outright.
Awful as it was, it might’ve worked… up until the point my brother got the idea Newcomb wasn’t drawing names at random at all but was giving up people who crossed him.
Then, of course, Jessie’s name was drawn.
Like I said, Jessie screamed when they dragged him out to the post, and no one lifted a finger to help him, myself included. We wept and we looked away and we prayed we weren’t next. But we didn’t help. Everyone knew Newcomb was up to no good, but nobody did a damn thing.
In that way, we were all in it with him.
* * *
“It’s after midnight,” I realized. “Christmas Eve.”
“Ain’t that something,” the stranger said. “Hush up now.”
We crept along a zig-zagging path leading into the hills. The stranger took the lead, and I followed close behind. The stranger didn’t make a sound as he slipped along the path. He darted from one patch of shadow to the next. If I took my eyes off him for long, I might’ve lost him completely. Me, I shuffled along, trying to be as quiet as could despite my chattering teeth and shivering muscles.
Wind swept down the pass, casting sheets of snow in our faces, trying to buffet us back. I grabbed my coat collar in one hand, pulling it tightly closed. My eyes were dry. My nose ran, and the snot froze to my upper lip.
Up ahead, the cannibals waited.
As we walked along, I kicked something in the snow. There was a strange clattering sound, and for a split second I feared Friedrick had set a booby trap and I had stumbled right into it. But no pit opened up beneath me. No deadfall crashed on top of me. Something gleamed in the shadows.
There along the rock wall lay a small green bottle. I recognized it right away, and I hurried to where I’d kicked it. Scooping it up, I saw the bottle was empty, but the rotten stink of Ezra’s tonic was still on it.
“What is it?” the stranger asked.
“Medicine,” I said. “Or at least it was. My friend, he made the stuff. ‘It’ll cure them what ails ya,’ he used to say. The cannibals must’ve stolen some of it during one of their raids.”
The truth was, we’d more than likely given them the tonic, left it like a Christmas gift at the sacrificial post.
I tucked the bottle into my jacket, and we walked on.
We walked no more than a dozen more yards when an awful smell assaulted my nostrils.
Rotten meat.
The stranger’s hands dropped to the handles of his six-shooters.
“This is it, boy. One more step and there’s no turning back. Remember what I told you. I don’t know how these men got started down their path. A lot of folks did bad things during the war. They’re changing, though, and Boone, he’ll be the worst. He might not die so easily.”
I thought of Jessie and Ezra and all them others who didn’t get to live to see Christmas this year.
“Let’s go,” I said.
And we did.
* * *
There’s a reason the cannibals didn’t come a-looking at the sound of gunfire in the valley.
An awful reason.
Directly, we spotted the cave Boone Friedricks and his men had been using as a hideout. It was a gaping maw in the rock wall, and bits of bone and clothing–cast offs from their victims–littered the ground leading up to the cave. The horrid odor of decay came from within, but I didn’t see sign of a sentry or lookout.
The stranger motioned for me to drop back a step or two. He pulled one of his revolvers and inched closer to the warren. The idea of walking into that pitch-black hole in the ground didn’t appeal to me one bit. The stranger must’ve had the same notion. After peering into the cave for a few seconds, he turned to me.
“Fetch one of those bones and some scraps of cloth,” he whispered. “Make a torch.”
As I set about the grim task, I wondered
just whose clothes… whose bones… would be lighting our way.
“Stay a couple of steps behind me with that fire.” The gunslinger drew his second pistol. “Don’t get close enough to blind me. Hold it off to the side a bit, too. I don’t want to be back-lit. The light’ll make us both easier targets as it is.”
The cave was a lot deeper than I expected. The tunnel wound down and off to the side, like a giant serpent had burrowed its way through the stone. The torch guttered in the wind.
We hadn’t taken more than a dozen steps when a gunshot rang out from somewhere up ahead.
I flinched. The stranger didn’t.
Another gunshot thundered in the dark, and I thought I saw a muzzle flash chase shadows across the tunnel walls.
Time passed slowly as we waited… watching… listening…
A figure staggered into view–tall and bulky with shaggy hair. He held a gun, and he was aiming at something low to the ground behind him. He pulled the trigger, and in the flash I saw his face was a mask of fright. He clutched his stomach with his free hand. Blood covered his lips and chin.
He spotted us, too, and his bloody mouth gaped open in surprise. His teeth were razor sharp.
His gun hand hung limply at this side now, the smoking pistol pointed at the floor. He stumbled towards us, a couple of steps, no more.
“Sinclair,” he muttered. “You–”
The stranger–I reckon his name was Sinclair–snapped his own gun up in the blink of an eye and blew the cannibal to Kingdom Come before he could finish his sentence.
He moved quick now, dropping down next to the dead man and searching the body. Whatever he was looking for, he didn’t find, and he spat out a curse. “Come on,” he said, and he sprang to his feet and plunged into the darkness.
“What do you think he was shooting at?” I asked, but I had my answer soon enough.
I heard something.
Something wet.
Something meaty.
Gift-Wrapped & Toe-Tagged: A Melee of Misc. Holiday Anthology Page 127
