Dust

by Chris Miller

  The man was downright scary. But none of this bothered Quentin so much as Dreary’s mad quest. He’d stuck with the man for the plunder and tail, but he had become convinced the man was utterly out of his mind. Always pouring over that goddamned book with all the weird symbols and drawings in it. Always going on and on about the ancient ones, the elder gods, Egyptians and Injuns down south. Or tribesmen, or whatever the hell they were called. Savages with great structures Dreary claimed were built by and for these gods.

  And then there was that one he always seemed to focus in on in particular. That goddamned N’yea’thuul. Quentin could hardly pronounce the damned word, though he’d heard it often enough in his years with Dreary. Some ancient entity lurking just outside their reality, waiting to be loosed back into this world to bring destruction, chaos, and ultimately, order.

  Dreary was mad with search. They’d started way up north, near the top of the Chisolm Trail. Then they’d made their way south, searching out and then torturing and killing anyone with even the slightest amount of information. Always coming ever nearer and nearer to Dust.

  They’d survived a lot. About halfway down the trail they’d heard tell of a massacre in the town of Duncan. Talk of some creature called a Wendigo killing cattle drivers and townsfolk alike. Dreary had seemed wary of this information. He was wary of anything that could potentially stop him from reaching his goal. His prize.

  His destiny.

  Quentin didn’t put much stock in all of Dreary’s ramblings so long as the gold and pussy was kept in constant supply, but here they were, right on the edge of the fabled town of Dust, the place they’d searched for all these years, through fights with Marshals and Sheriffs and Savages and narrowly missing a goddamned cannibal the townsfolk had called a Wendigo. Even managing to keep a step ahead of the gunslinger, James Dee, the man Dreary called The God Hunter.

  Now they were at the finish line of Dreary’s quest, and his God Hunter was here as well, captured by the elusive townsfolk, and Quentin felt himself getting firm in his loins. He always enjoyed the quiet before the storm, when the blood would spill and the women would scream as he thrust himself into them. He especially liked it when their husbands would be forced to watch while Bonham and Avery held knives to their throats and Dreary demanded answers. He hoped he’d have a chance like that here. Today.

  The first droplets of rain began to patter softly through the pines and he saw the red dirt of the street cough up plumes of dust into the air as the ground began to first absorb it, and then moisten, turning it to a thick, viscous mud. Quentin peered up, blinking the still sparse rain from his eyes as he beheld the darkening sky.

  “Seems a storm’s a comin’, Gear,” Quentin said, returning his gaze to the street. “Ain’t nobody out. Where do we start?”

  Dreary was peering through his telescope again, looking through alleyways toward the church at the other end of town with the strange coiling spiral on its steeple. He closed his scope and turned to Quentin and the others.

  “If there’s a Marshal or a Sheriff, we start there. And any deputies. From there, we make our way to the church.”

  Quentin and Avery pulled their revolvers from their holsters and cocked the hammers. Bonham pulled a large bowie knife from a sheath and seemed to admire the blade. That cold, dead look was in his eyes, but there was a flicker of something like a spark somewhere in the black of his pupils. It caused gooseflesh to sprout over Quentin’s arms and all the way up his spine.

  Dreary pulled a small Webley Bull Dog revolver—only slightly larger than his palm—from beneath his shoulder and winked to the rest of them.

  “Time to take the spoils, gentlemen.”

  They crept out of the woods and down the mud caked streets of Dust.

  14

  The light was better now than before, but it was still gloomy inside the church. Or temple, or whatever the skittering thing had called this place. Marlena could hear the rain pattering on the wooden roof, a constant beat of rap-ah-tah-rap-ah-tah that threatened to drive her mad. The skittering thing was gone now. At least she thought it was gone. After it had tied her to the large, black altar—if you could call it that—the thing had slinked back into the darkness and out of sight. That was more than an hour ago now, and she’d not heard it since. Nor anything else, for that matter.

  Her arms ached and her mind reeled. What she had seen before, the wet, smacking blink of that terrible red eye coming out of the back of what seemed to have once been a man had utterly mortified her. The ragged wound where a head seemed to have been removed or perhaps burst now had a thatch of tentacle-like legs, mirrored out of the anus at the other end of the rotting corpse. The arms and legs of the man hung uselessly beneath as the skittering thing had moved about, swinging and lifeless as though stuffed with straw. But none of this had been the most terrifying part. What had nearly sent her into hysterics and threatened to tear at her sanity had been the mouth.

  That horrible, unnatural mouth.

  The side of the body the thing seemed to be using as a host was opened up from the armpit to the hip, straight through the ribcage. The jagged bones seemed to be some abomination of teeth as the ragged wound opened and closed while the thing spoke its hissing words, roiling organs and intestines within slurping and sliding around with every word.

  She had been certain the thing would kill her then. Certain those terrible teeth or ribs or bones would tear at her flesh and the organs inside would slink out like a nightmare tongue and lap her blood like a dog at a puddle. But none of that had happened. With astonishing grace, the thing had bound her to the altar, the obsidian cube, and skittered away, leaving her for only God knew what.

  Her binds were tight. She’d struggled for a time, but given up when all she’d managed to do was wear her wrists raw and bloody. Her thoughts were on Martin, her boy, somewhere here in all this mess. But they were also on her husband, taken by the very bad men. Only she still couldn’t place his name. As damnable as that was, it was true. She could see his face, hear his voice, remember virtually everything else, but his damned name continued to elude her. The wound on her head had done quite a number.

  It’ll come to ya, Marlena, she thought as she tried to steady her thoughts. It’s in there just like all your other thoughts and memories. Those others came out, that’n will too.

  She hoped it would, anyway. She wanted to call out to him, to cry his name. Not that it would do any good. He’d been taken by the bad white men and was dead now for all she knew. But she wanted to call to him all the same. She just wanted to remember his name. It was a sweet name, she was sure of that. She didn’t know how she could be so sure and still not remember it, but she knew it was true. And her head still ached and where was her son and why couldn’t she remember her husband’s name?!

  Squelching footsteps somewhere outside caused her thoughts to seize in place. Even her breath caught in that moment as the slopping sounds grew louder and closer as someone or something drew closer to the doors of this unholy church. She squinted in the dark, her breaths coming in irregular hitches and she peered hard at the door.

  When it swung open, the gray light outside, dim as it was, shocked her eyes and she was forced to look away, blinking rapidly. As her eyes adjusted, she looked back to the door and saw a blond woman dragging a young person in by the back of their collar. She threw the boy down hard and he coughed and wheezed as he struggled to his hands and knees.

  “Get up there by your momma and stay put!” the woman spat in a harsh tone dripping with accent. “The Proprietor’s on his way to see to the two of ya. If you’re lucky, one of ya will get to join the Legion. Can’t say which it’ll be, though.”

  At this, the woman broke out in a cruel fit of laughter which caused tears to sting Marlena’s eyes.

  “Martin!” she cried, struggling fruitlessly with her binds. “Come here, baby!”

  The woman was still cackling when Martin got to his feet and ran to his mother, clutching at her legs while she strugg
led fruitlessly to put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

  The woman regained her composure and turned to leave. Before she got the doors shut, Marlena pleaded with her.

  “Please, Miss,” she said, tears now streaming her face. “Please let my boy go! I’m begging you, Miss, do you have children of your own?”

  The woman’s glare split into a malicious thing which might have been a distant cousin to a smile.

  “I got lots of kids, lady,” she said and spat to the side. “Least I did. They’re all the children of N’yea’thuul now. Trust me, it’s better that way.”

  Then she was slamming the doors shut and Marlena was screaming and calling out to her, begging her to let Martin go, to let him slip away through the woods, anything but leave them here with those terrible skittering things lurking about.

  But her cries went unanswered, her pleas unheeded. In the end, all she could do was look down on her beloved son, peer into his beautiful brown eyes, and tell him how sorry she was.

  “I wish daddy was here!” he said, tears soaking his own face as she looked at him through blurred eyes. “Daddy wouldn’t let them do this!”

  Marlena nodded pitifully, sobbing deeply, snot and tears pouring off her chin.

  “I wish your daddy was here, too, baby boy.”

  She turned and looked out one of the side windows through a slit in the curtain which was drawn mostly across it. She could just make out what seemed to be an alleyway of some sort, the red dirt turned to a viscous muck in the ever-increasing rainfall outside. The familiar suck-slop-suck sound of feet sloshing through the mud came to her ears and see saw something which caused her sobs and breathing to cease at once.

  Two white men with their hands up, another white man with a pair of guns on their backs, and a black man, also holding a revolver. A strange looking, shiny revolver.

  But it wasn’t the revolver that really drew her attention. It was the man holding it. He was familiar. Not just because they shared similar skin tones, but something much deeper than that. And all at once she was filled with joy and terror and galvanizing clarity as the last of her phantom memories came flooding back from the depths of her mind, spilling over the reservoir and flooding her thoughts.

  “Denarius!” she cried.

  Outside, the man’s gaze shifted to the window and his eyes grew wide.

  15

  “Did you hear that?” Denarius asked, his voice choked.

  James had. The men were leading them to the church, the place the Proprietor was supposed to be. Something about fresh meat for the Elder.

  James pressed the barrel of his gun to the side of the asshole who’d had the revolver up on the ridge, the one called Roy.

  “Who’s in there?” he hissed into the man’s ear. “What’s the game here?”

  Denarius had lost his focus. James saw the barrel of his gun wavering and dropping to his side. He didn’t think the man called Mike would do anything. He didn’t have the meanness in him like Roy.

  “I asked you a question!” James said, growling now.

  Roy’s hands were up and James could feel the man trembling.

  “I-I ain’t on the scavenging crew,” he stuttered. “Mike ain’t neither! We just watch the town and keep things from getting out of control is all.”

  James pressed the barrel into the man’s temple hard, the cold steel leaving an impression in the man’s skin. Denarius was beginning to wander away, almost in a trance, toward the church.

  “Stay with me, Denarius,” James said in as even a tone as he could muster. Then to Roy, he said, “Start talking.”

  Roy gulped, shivering.

  “Th-the the Elder is building an army. I-it all started w-with the Pr-Proprietor. He’s the one found the marker. And it changed him. Made him like the Elder.”

  “Like N’yea’thuul?” James asked through gritted teeth.

  “Y-yeah,” Roy muttered, though unsurely. “Least I suppose so. Ain’t no one never seen N’yea’thuul, just the Proprietor and his emissaries. We ain’t got no choice here, mister! We can’t leave or they’ll kill us! Kill our families if we got ‘em! Or worse, they’ll turn us into one of those . . . those things. Oh, God, mister, even your nigger here should understand—”

  James struck the man across the jaw with the butt of his revolver, hard. The man spat blood and teeth in triplicate, his face swelling, the lips split.

  “I’m right sick of hearing that word,” James said flatly. “I hear it again, I’ll open your throat. Are we clear?”

  Hate burned from Roy’s eyes, but he nodded after taking a quick glance toward Denarius, who was still wandering toward the church.

  “Denarius!” the faint shout came again from within the structure, and now Denarius halted.

  “Th-that’s my wife,” he said, his face a rictus of confusion and horror. “I hid my wife and boy before they took me. Ain’t no possible way they got found! Why they here, Mr. James? Why my wife here? Where’s my boy?”

  Tears were collecting in the man’s eyes when another voice, fresher and somehow more terrified came from within the church.

  “Daddy!”

  Denarius’s face seemed to pale three shades as James was certain the man’s guts were twisting into a knot within his belly. His eyes seemed to glaze before he turned, ghost-like, back to face the church.

  “We’re here, Denarius,” James said to him. “We’re here, and we’ll get them out, now don’t do anything rash!”

  “They got my family, suh,” Denarius said as though from a thousand miles away. “I can’t just do nothin’. I gots to do something.”

  “And we will, just—”

  Roy struggled to break free and James heard a schlink sound as a large knife came into view in the man’s hand. It was coming around fast, glinting in the light and slicing through the rain. Roy’s teeth were bared and a rising snarl was coming from the man like a volcanic eruption.

  James had wanted to remain quiet. Wanted to use stealth to get into town and do what needed doing before breaking out the guns and finishing the town.

  But there was no time now. No time to go for his own knife. No time to drop his guns and wrestle with the man. No time to use the force of his will to stop him.

  All there was time for was a squeeze of the trigger.

  Blood fountained from Roy’s face as the man’s lower jaw detached and spun through the air several times before splatting in the mud in a red shower. There was a deep, undulating cry coming from the man’s opened face and his tongue lolled, slapping this way and that like a snake with a mind of its own. His eyes were wide and bulging as the cry rose in pitch and volume.

  But he knife was still in his hand.

  Roy stumbled forward, gouts of blood bubbling in sheets from his face, but he was raising the knife. One shot might not—might not—draw too much attention. But two certainly would. He couldn’t risk it, not when they were this close and Denarius’s family was somehow now in the mix.

  James holstered his pistol and in a fluid motion drew his own blade from his back. Roy had his knife at the apex of reach, his high-pitched shriek an almost comical parody of a scream.

  James brought his knife up and into the man’s brain through the exposed roof of his mouth, pinning his whipping tongue in place as he did. All motor functions stopped at once and the man collapsed a second after his knife slipped from his slackening hands and splatted to the mud. James ripped his own knife free as the man was falling and wiped it on his pants before returning it to its sheath.

  “Mike, you’re going to get us into that church,” James said to the trembling man. He got no response. “You hearing me?”

  The man snapped out of his trance, looked away from the dead and jawless Roy, and blinked at James through the rain. Finally, he nodded.

  “I ain’t in any of this ‘cause I wanna be, sir,” he said. “I ain’t got a choice.”

  James grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him close, bringing the barrel of his gun up
under his chin.

  “And I ain’t giving you one, neither.”

  16

  Denarius found it impossible to pull his jaw closed. His overarching feeling was one of stunned amazement, but there was a dreadful undercurrent of gut-wrenching horror beneath it that was threatening to bubble to the surface.

  His wife. His son. They were here? But how? And why? Had they been taken by the same group which had taken him?

  No, he knew better than that. Whatever was here, Mr. James had told him it was far worse than a pair of white hillbillies looking to sell off negro parts. Something more ancient and visceral. Something . . .

  “Mr. James, I have to get in there,” Denarius was saying from a thousand miles away. “I can’t—”

  “We’re going, Denarius, just wait a moment, we ain’t alone in this town and that shot’s bound to have alerted someone.”

  But Denarius was walking on uneven legs toward the church, staggering this way and that. His mind was reeling. His head was swirling. He looked up and saw the steeple with the coiling spiral and thought madly, what the hell is that?

  Then his ears were ringing and there was a sharp pain in his left arm. His confused eyes darted around a moment, looking about aimlessly. Finally, they fell on the blooming rose-blossom on his upper bicep where blood was pouring from a small gash.

  The ringing continued, but behind it, beneath it, he could hear shouting of some kind. He turned, in a state of shock and awe, and saw Mr. James with the fella Mike pulled tight to his chest, arm around the man’s throat. James was against the side of the building in the alley and he was waving at Denarius with his pistol, up and down and up and down and—

  “Get down!” he made out Mr. James’s words as though they were coming to him from the bottom of a lake.

  Denarius turned and looked up the street in front of the church and saw three men with guns, aimed in his direction. Their faces were snarls and their hands were thumbing hammers on their weapons and everything seemed to be moving through cold molasses and his wife and child were in the church somehow and what the hell was happening?