by Jake Bible
“God works in many ways, Colonel,” The Man said as he walked towards the livery. “I am but one of his servants.”
“Ain’t God you’re a servant of,” Marcus said as he put his rifle to his shoulder and took aim. “We stripped you bare and ate your goddamn skin! That should have put you down. That should have ended the ritual right there. But it didn’t! No, sir, we had to eat your girls and that pretty wife of yours. Did that work? No, it didn’t! You kept coming!” Marcus fired two shots and The Man’s legs buckled as his knee caps were blasted apart. “Not no more.”
The Man With No Face crumpled to the road, his legs literally shot out from under him. The calls of the buzzards above grew louder and several dipped and circled lower for a better look at the meal they had been tracking for so many miles.
“Wish I knew how to kill ya,” Milton said as he led his horse out of the livery. “I’d put you out of your demonic misery.”
“Aint’ too miserable, all considering,” The Man With No Face said as he pushed himself to his feet. “It has its moments.”
“He don’t ever fucking stop, Colonel!” Marcus shouted. “We was supposed to live forever, not him. This ain’t what I signed up for. Running for the rest of my life.”
“Quit your whining, Marcus,” Milton ordered. “He can’t kill us. So even if he does keep tracking us it’ll be just a nuisance.”
“That so?” The Man With No Face said as he stood on wobbly legs. Sure, his kneecaps were gone, but then so was nearly all his flesh and muscle. He’d learned to get by. The Man emptied the six regular cartridges from his cylinder into his palm and slowly replaced them with new ones he pulled from his sleeve. “You see, boys, I’ve met a few people over the years as I followed you across the country. Some folks shared their knowledge willingly, some didn’t. Either way I gathered the knowledge I needed.”
He flipped the cylinder back in place and took aim.
“Now I’m gonna put that knowledge to use,” he chuckled.
Marcus just stood there, his eyes locked on the barrel of The Man’s gun. In a split second he had one less eye as The Man pulled the trigger and the slug tore through Marcus’s ocular cavity and out the back of his head.
Colonel Milton just watched, a look of boredom on his face. “That’ll heal in a minute or so. You’re wasting your time.”
Marcus lay upon the dirt, his dark red blood soaking into the earth. Seconds ticked by then minutes, but the gator-vested man didn’t stir.
Colonel Milton gulped and looked over at The Man With No Face.
“You figured it all out, eh?” Milton asked. “You found the end for us.”
“I did,” The Man said as he pointed the pistol at the Colonel. “For all of us.”
He pulled the trigger and blood sprayed from the Colonel’s mouth as the slug ripped through his throat. He gurgled and gasped and clutched at the hole in his neck. Thick blood poured over his fingers as he fell to his knees. He struggled to say something, but the life left him too quickly and he collapsed face first next to Marcus.
“There,” The Man With No Face shouted up at the buzzards. “You can have them. Now leave me be.”
He watched the scavengers circle and half expected an answer, but wasn’t surprised when none came. None ever did.
The Man holstered his pistol and pushed the left sleeve of his duster up. He dug his fingers into the withered flesh of his forearm and pulled out the last two gold coins. His legs didn’t cooperate as much he would have liked, but he was able to make his way over to the corpses that fed the parched earth with their blood.
“I release you,” The Man said as he laid one coin on the back of the Colonel’s head. “And you.” He placed the second coin on Marcus’s blood smeared forehead.
He took off his hat and placed it against his chest as he bowed his head. The weathered and polished bone of his skull shone like a white beacon in the Arizona sun. He’d lost those leathers quite a few miles back and never had the will to replace them.
After a couple minutes of silent prayer, The Man With No Face donned his hat once more and turned to look over the town of Comely. He knew eyes were watching him from the shadows just inside upstairs windows. He knew the people of Comely observed him through cracks in curtains and peepholes of doors.
A feeling of loss filled him as he realized his hunt was over. He’d spent the years going from town to town in search of those that had killed his family and cursed him. With his task completed, The Man With No face was unsure what to do next.
“Doubt they’d let me stay here,” he mumbled. He squinted up at the cluster of birds that swirled and soared above him. “Doubt they’d let me stay anywhere.”
“Doubt they will,” the Voice said next to him.
The Man With No Face turned, but no one was there.
“Don’t bother,” the Voice said. “I can’t be seen.”
“So what now?” The Man With No Face asked.
“You ever been to California?” the Voice asked.
“Not yet, I haven’t,” The Man answered.
“Well, now that your business is done, it’s time for my business,” the Voice chuckled. “And I do have a lot of business. You sure you’re up for it?”
“That was the deal, wasn’t it?” The Man With No Face asked.
“Yes, yes it was,” the Voice replied. “You just keep walking west and I’ll let you know what I need done along the way.”
“Suits me,” The Man With No Face agreed. “Walking is what I do.”
“And you do it so well!” the Voice exclaimed. “Almost as well as you kill.”
“Well, we all have our God given talents,” The Man responded.
The silence was almost overwhelming.
“Yes, well, I guess we do,” the Voice said finally. “You aren’t going to eat?”
The Man looked back at the corpses of Colonel Milton and Marcus and shook his head.
“No people,” he replied. “Animals only.”
“Oh, I have a feeling that may change,” the Voice chuckled. Then the silence.
“I don’t believe it will,” The Man With No Face insisted. Something about the way he said it sent a chill through the air and even the silence seemed to waver.
“Well, we’ll see about that,” the Voice finally responded. “Care for a friendly wager?”
“I think I’ll decline,” The Man said.
“Suit yourself,” the Voice responded.
The Man With No Face could feel a change and he knew the Voice was gone.
He turned on his heels and carefully walked his way out of Comely, leaving the mess for the buzzards that didn’t quite have the patience to wait for his existence to end. But that was only a few, as most trailed him as they’d done for a thousand miles before.
As the winged carrion eaters kept him company he wondered if that was enough. He thought about the bullets in his pistol and the sigils and runes carved into their casings. One would end it all. But for The Man With No Face that would have been the ultimate sin. Whether God or the Devil gave him eternal life, even as empty and rotten as it was, it wasn’t his to question. He had a role to play in death just as he had played his role in life, just one of the hundreds of thousands of casualties in the War Between the States.
He sighed deeply, resigned to walk the land forever, and looked to the western horizon. The Man With No Face wondered what the Pacific ocean would feel like on his cursed body. He aimed to find out.
He puckered his half-rotted lips and blew hard. To anyone around –not that there was- it would have sounded like the wings of a buzzard as it flapped and fought for position on the carcass of Fate.
But to The Man With No Face it sounded like Dixie.
About The Author:
Jake Bible lives in Asheville, NC with his wife and two kids. He is the author of many published short stories and the creator of a new literary form: the Drabble Novel. DEAD MECH represents the introduction to the world of the Drabble Novel, a novel written 1
00 words at a time. The Americans represents the sidequel to DEAD MECH. Jake really likes making s%#t up, even brand new words and literary forms. He also has many stories available as ebooks, including the collection Bethany And The Zombie Jesus: A Novelette And 11 Other Tales Of Horror And Grotesquery (also available in print) and 31 Days Of Halloween.
Learn more about Jake and his work at http://jakebible.com. Links to his Facebook fan page, Twitter and his forum can be found there, as well as his weekly drabble release, Friday Night Drabble Party, and his weekly free audio fiction podcast.
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