“I guess that explains all those ghosts rattling chains in your attic.”
“She gets it, even if you don’t,” Jeff said.
KER-chewwww.
The gunshot rolled across the valley. One of the horses whinnied and reared and its rider slumped against the horse’s neck, trying to hold on.
The sheriff glanced around, seeing if any of the soldiers were testing their weapons or holding mock drills.
Jeff rose from his chair, slipping on his hat and giving the crown a tap to paste it against his greasy hair. He glanced at a pocket watch that hung from a silver chain and gave a little nod. “A bit early, but then, who ever expected Kirk’s Raiders to fight fair?”
The captain tugged down his tunic and shrugged his shoulders, squaring his epaulets as his passed between Cindy and Littlefield.
“That’s a man on a mission,” Cindy said after he was gone.
“More like a man jerking off to his own private wet dream,” Littlefield said.
“Is that off the record?”
“It’s just plain off.”
Another shot rang out with its percussive echo. Jeff Davis broke into a jog, headed for the camp and the seated men. The rider clinging to the restless horse pitched forward and fell to the ground, where he lay without moving.
“Man, that looked like it hurt,” Cindy said. “Good acting.”
“That’s nothing. We played dead all the time when I was a kid. Me and my brother—”
Cindy’s eyes flicked to his face so rapidly that her penetrating gaze stopped him before regret had a chance. “What?”
“Nothing,” Littlefield said, brushing past her. “I’m going to see if that guy’s okay.”
The second rider was wheeling his horse around, scouting the woods beyond the creek. Jeff yelled at the men, making dramatic motions with his arms. They were gathering their weapons and adjusting their gear when another shot rang out.
KER-cheww. ZeeeeEEEEEP.
Littlefield heard something whistling past his head. It had accelerated far too fast for an insect and carried a peculiar, violent quality, as if ripping the sky in half.
The rider slapped his horse on the flank and galloped toward camp. Half a dozen horses, tethered under a tall maple, whinnied and tugged against their leather restraints. Jeff reached the tents and stirred the men, rousing them into formation.
“He takes his make-believe seriously,” Cindy said, following Littlefield across the pasture.
The sheriff didn’t answer. He was watching the rider who had fallen to the grass. The man lay as limp as a bag of wet cotton.
Another shot rang out, and one of the women gave a high-pitched yelp.
“Now he’s got everybody following the script,” Cindy said.
A woman in a green dress and white bonnet held her arm, moaning in pain. Blood poured down to her elbow, staining the cloth.
“Somebody’s shooting!” Littlefield shouted. “Stay low.”
He ducked, fishing his Glock from its holster as he ran toward the prone rider. He reached the man and crouched, glancing around at the edge of the woods. Seeing no one, he checked the man’s pulse. Nothing.
He rolled the body over. A blossom of rich blood oozed from the man’s chest, an apparent shot to the heart. There had been no wound in the back, meaning the bullet must have lodged in the flesh and was likely of a low caliber.
Figures that this event would attract some lunatic sniper who never met a war he didn’t like, even a fake one.
He mentally flicked through the roster of potential nutcases in the county–Weejun Li, the Korean peacenik; Laney Curtis, the income-tax protestor and resident rabid libertarian; and Sam Wakeman, the alcoholic Vietnam veteran who had suffered a breakdown in the Walmart one Christmas and slugged the hell out of Santa Claus.
But none of them seemed to possess the type of hair trigger that would kill a man. Besides, Wakeman was in the camp, one hand tugging up his too-large trousers as he scrambled for his equipment.
The camp was in chaos now, despite Jeff’s bellowing attempts to restore order. “In line, soldiers!” he screamed, his face as purple as a plum.
The soldiers, some of them with their gray tunics undone or missing their hats, wrestled with their replica weapons, confused by the commotion. Elmer Eldreth had the butt of his rifle against his shoulder, peering down the barrel as if sighting an unseen enemy. Cindy, who had been startled at the sheriff’s revelation of live fire, was now in full swing, pressing the button on her digital camera as fast as the machinery could process the information.
Two shots sounded almost simultaneously, then a third, and Littlefield realized this attack wasn’t the work of a lone nut job. The shots appeared to be coming from the woods near the creek, though he still saw no movement or smoke in that direction.
“Here we go, boys,” Jeff yelled, yanking out his saber and waving it in the air. “Time to give those heathen devils a taste of Confederate steel. Charge!”
The squadron of soldiers—maybe 10 in all—stood in loose formation and moved ahead in unison at Jeff’s command. The civilian attachment hovered around the wounded woman in the camp. Martha Davis had ripped a strip of ruffled cloth from the hem of her dress and was winding it around the wound in a makeshift bandage. If not for the cooling corpse that lay beside him, Littlefield would have thought it was just a well-acted scene, carefully rehearsed and delivered for maximum dramatic effect.
“Sheriff,” Cindy called, waving to get his attention. She pointed toward the creek.
Littlefield blinked, blinked again.
Shapes moved against the trees, flimsy as late fog.
Like the man in the lumber yard . . . .
He didn’t know which was more surreal: the wafting, sinuous shapes or the flesh-and-blood men in replica military uniforms who approached in battle formation, muskets lowered and bayonets fixed.
He had no idea if real bullets would have any affect on ghost soldiers, but there was no doubt supernatural bullets could cut through human meat. The proof was cooling at his feet.
“Keep low,” he yelled at Cindy, knowing she would ignore him and do her best to document the bizarre encounter. He duck-walked after Jeff Davis and his squad, keeping his head down, thighs aching from the unnatural movement.
A shout came from the woods, the voice hollow as if emanating from deep within the Earth. “Commence fire!”
A volley exploded from the forest, slugs zipping through the air. One of Jeff’s men groaned and fell to his knees, and he perched there with his head bowed forward like a penitent in prayer. Littlefield doubted there was any god around to hear the begging, because if God existed, then the dead and living would stay on their respective sides. The line of soldiers pressed on in the face of the unholy fusillade, and Jeff waved his sword and urged the men toward their barely visible enemy.
The ghost soldiers solidified a little more, as if interacting with the material world had given them sustenance and form. They were little more than the suggestion of shapes, but Littlefield pieced together glimpses of Kirk’s Raiders. They were a ragtag bunch, their frayed uniforms a mix of gray and blue, stained cotton showing in the rips.
Littlefield guessed there were a dozen of them, but it was difficult to determine numbers because of their constant shifting. The gun smoke that issued from their rifle barrels was whisked away on the breeze, the muffled sound of their powder charges rumbling under the autumn canopy. Littlefield felt foolish holding his Glock, but it gave him a dose of courage and kept him from turning and running for the safety of his cruiser.
Except why would the cruiser be any safer in a world that allows its dead to rise up and kill?
Jeff ordered his men to fire, and the soldiers put their weapons to their shoulders. They’d be firing blanks, loose paper wadding and a few grains of black powder. Jeff Davis was sending his men into the lion’s den without so much as a thimble of catnip.
The Home Guard fired in a staccato rhythm, the shot peppering the
trees.
Real bullets. Damned if Jeff didn’t defy the terms of the permit after all. Maybe he knew something I didn’t . . . not that I’d have believed him if he told me the war was about to pick up where it had left off a century-and-a-half ago.
One of the otherworldly warriors eased from the cover of a thick maple and took three wobbling steps toward the creek, clutching his neck. Littlefield instinctively lifted his Glock, though the target was at least 50 yards away and beyond range. The ghost soldier dropped his rifle, then pitched forward and began crawling for the water.
Christ, now I’m part of the horror show, he thought, lowering his weapon. Behind him, Cindy was twisting the focus on her camera lens, standing up, legs parted to steady her visual aim. Littlefield continued his stooped, awkward jog until he caught up with Jeff.
A projectile whined past his head as he grabbed Jeff’s arm. “Don’t you know the word ‘retreat,’ you hard-headed son of a bitch?”
Jeff gave him that vacant gaze with eyes as dead as the amorphous men in the forest. “There’s glory waiting,” he said. “And revenge.”
“Revenge for what?”
“This time, we get to win.”
Littlefield fought the urge to punch the man in his weak chin and smear blood all over the carefully trimmed mustache. The erstwhile captain was clearly caught up in whatever mass hysteria had taken over Pickett County. Littlefield wished he had a rational explanation, such as contaminated food, a terrorist drugging of the water supply, an Army laboratory leak, or even an old-fashioned alien infection.
He’d prefer any of those over the possibility that his home county and his constituency were beyond the laws of physics and religion. At the moment, he’d even welcome back Rev. Archer McFall and his demented cult of flesh eaters.
Better the devil you know . . . .
The Home Guard was now 30 yards from the edge of the forest, and several of Jeff’s men were reloading their muskets, skinnying long metal poles down the barrels to pack in more shot. Littlefield saw they were cramming hunks of dull gray metal among the paper wadding. Elmer Eldreth had a red ragged tear in his shoulder, but he ignored the wound as he lifted his rifle and squinted into the trees for dead prey.
“You were ready for this,” Littlefield shouted at Jeff, but the captain was intent on waving his men forward.
“A soldier is ready for anything,” Jeff said, breaking into a run and sending a Rebel yell into the sky that turned Littlefield’s blood to ice water.
He realized he wouldn’t be able to dissuade Jeff or rescue the soldiers who were determined to follow their crazed commander to the grave and possibly beyond, so he decided to turn his attention to the women and children who had taken cover in the parking lot, hiding among the trucks and horse trailers. They appeared unaffected by whatever insanity afflicted the menfolk, though they likely didn’t know the “enemy” in the woods had risen from the grave.
Cindy was helping the wounded man up from his knees and Littlefield ran to them, bracing against the murderous projectiles whizzing across the field.
“You should have plugged the Hole while you had a chance,” Cindy said to him when he arrived.
“Like my crystal ball showed a pack of ghosts waiting to come out and play ‘Peek-a-boo’?”
“You knew something was up and you just pretended it would go away,” she said. “Just like the red church.”
The wounded man—Littlefield now recognized him as Chalky Watkins, a member of the Titusville Volunteer Fire Department—moaned and Littlefield checked him for damage. Chalky had taken a shot to the hip, a crease wound from the looks of it.
“Just like them Yanks to pull a sneak attack,” Chalky said, as if he’d have been invincible if the ghosts had only stood eye-to-eye and fought fair.
“You’re going to be okay,” the sheriff said, his words nearly drowned by the reverberation of charged powder. He slid his Glock into its holster so he could drag the man to safety.
“Patch me up and get me back out there,” Chalky said. “Looks like the boys are going to need me.”
Chalky had a point; at least three other men had fallen and the Home Guard’s ranks were visibly thinner. Jeff had moved well ahead of his unit and Littlefield wondered if his frantic recklessness made him a difficult target. Jeff seemed to be almost daring the ghosts to kill him, as if he’d been denied his chance to die in battle and now was making the most of opportunity.
“When they said the South would rise again, I don’t think this is what they had in mind,” the sheriff said.
“It’s not just the South,” Cindy said. “That’s Kirk’s Raiders, men from both sides, which you’d have known if you’d taken your job seriously.”
“Spare me the lecture,” he said, propping Chalky against his hip and dragging him toward the parking lot.
“Looks like you’ve got the situation under control,” she said, relinquishing her share of Chalky’s weight to punctuate her sarcasm. The sheriff nearly lost his balance, but braced himself and continued his mission. Cindy was right. He couldn’t stop this supernatural battle, so he focused on one small act that he could claim was “good.”
And conveniently get myself out of the firing line at the same time . . . .
Yeah, just like old times.
“Sorry, Chalky, you’re just going to have to grin and bear it,” he said, letting the middle-aged man slide to the ground. Chalky grunted and called Littlefield something that sounded like “yellow-bellied traitorous scuppernong,” but the sheriff was already racing after Cindy, the bullets still whizzing overhead but their frequency diminished.
Jeff’s troops had reached the edge of the woods, and the enemy must have broken ranks and retreated under the suicide charge.
That’s when a man stepped from the woods and stared down the assault, holding his own saber to match Jeff’s. He was bearded, wearing a cavalry hat, and his breast was decorated with medals. “Fall back,” he shouted, his voice echoing out as if from a cold, rocky cave.
Except Littlefield couldn’t have sworn in a court of law that the words had been shouted; they may have merely fallen from the sky or crawled up through the ground from his feet to his skull.
The man looked so solid that Littlefield wondered if he were one of the re-enactors, but then he noticed the man’s dusty boots were several inches off the ground. Littlefield realized the bearded man was the officer of the dead, the Big Cheese of the buried brigade, Kirk himself. Littlefield drew his Glock, thinking that if he somehow killed the leader, the others would dissolve and drift back to whatever netherland they had escaped from.
The Hole…back to the Hole…
He steadied himself, leveled his arm, and fired.
The bullet whizzed through the empty space where the colonel had been standing moments before, not even a thread of mist to mark his passing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
They were on the railroad tracks when the first shot sounded, and Bobby figured somebody down at the camp was popping one off early, probably showing off a new gun. It’s not like the fake soldiers needed target practice, since they were shooting blanks.
When the next few shots up echoed from Aldridge Park, Vernon Ray said, “They weren’t supposed to start until tomorrow.”
“Maybe the other side isn’t playing by the rules,” Bobby said.
“Lame,” Vernon Ray said. “If you’re going to employ gallows humor, at least try to be funny.”
“Should we go down and check it out?”
“Think the reporter’s there?”
“Well, she could either cover the re-enactment or sit around the office waiting for two dorks to walk in with another bizarre tale of occult encounters.”
“I’m not a dork. You’re the dork.”
“Nah, I’m more like a geek,” Vernon Ray said.
Bobby wasn’t sure homosexuals could be geeks. Neither of them had pimples yet, and Vernon Ray was skinny and Bobby was a jock, but they both read comic books.
Maybe the only difference was Vernon Ray hated Star Wars and Bobby had seen all the movies at least twice and owned a busty action figure of Princess Leia.
Except Vernon Ray would rather kiss Han Solo . . . .
They increased their pace, juiced by the adrenaline of the unknown. The staccato volley of shots was louder now, and Bobby guessed there were dozens of guns going off. “Sounds like a war.”
“If Dad has anything to do with it, the sooner, the better.”
“He’s getting his jollies, then.”
“I don’t want to think about Dad’s jollies.”
Bobby was about to blurt out a comeback, but figured it might hit too close to home. Half of all eighth-grade jokes centered on guys giving blowjobs. Bobby wondered if he’d ever be able to tell a “queer joke” again. Even before he’d begun wondering about Vernon Ray, he’d never found them all that funny, but in the locker room, you had to laugh at them just the same.
Something crackled overhead, making a sudden beeline through the treetops. A yellow leaf fluttered down against the dizzying sunshine. Bobby recognized the sound from the incident with the bulldozer man.
“Crap, that was a real bullet,” Bobby said, instinctively hunching.
“Think somebody’s hunting this close to town?”
“No, I think your buddies from the Hole—”
Bobby swallowed the rest of his sentence. On the tracks ahead of them, three soldiers materialized, running at full speed.
Except their boots aren’t touching the ground.
“It’s them,” Vernon Ray said, his voice flat.
They were 50 yards away. Vernon Ray had told Bobby about the inaccuracy of Civil War-era weaponry. Still, the image of the bulldozer man’s shattering skull was vivid, and Bobby wasn’t willing to bet his life that these dudes’ rifles followed rules of any sort.
“Come on,” Bobby said, grabbing Vernon Ray and jerking him toward the woods.
One of the soldiers shouted—except Bobby couldn’t be sure if the noise was audible or just in his head—and the nearest soldier was slowing enough to raise his rifle butt to his shoulder.
And though Bobby stood near Vernon Ray, it was clear the soldier was targeting Bobby alone.
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